The genealogies which take up so much space in the Bible show clearly the importance which the tribes of Israel attached to the descent from Abraham and Jacob. Nevertheless they were far from being a race of pure blood. Before their sojourn in Egypt they had allied themselves with the women of the country, as their own legends testify; of the sons of Jacob four are the issue of female slaves of whose descent we know nothing. Joseph weds the daughter of an Egyptian priest, Moses a Midianitess and an Ethiopian woman, and when his sister Miriam upbraids him for this _mésalliance_, Jehovah smites her with leprosy. On their departure from Egypt the Children of Israel are accompanied by “a mixed multitude,” who must have been incorporated into the tribes, for there is no subsequent mention of them. During the half-century which lies between the going forth out of Egypt and the conquest of Canaan there must have been unions with Edomites, Ammonites, and Moabites. At the time of the invasion, wandering hordes of Arabs, too weak to make their way into Palestine by themselves, may have taken advantage of this opportunity to join the Israelite tribes; such were the children of Keni, the father-in-law of Moses, who accompanied the Children of Judah as far as the city of palm trees (Jericho). These Kenites or Kenizzites settled among the men of Judah and were ultimately merged in them; it was impossible to hold aloof from allies who had contributed their share towards victory. After the conquest, unions with the indigenous peoples became very numerous. “The Children of Israel,” says the Book of Judges, “dwelt among the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites: and they took their daughters to be their wives, and gave their own daughters to their sons, and served their gods. And the Children of Israel did that which was evil in the sight of Jehovah, and forgot Jehovah their God, and served the Baalim and the Ashtaroth.” It was not the first time that they had been unfaithful to Jehovah; in the wilderness, for forty years, according to the prophet Amos, they had borne before them the image of Moloch and the star of their idols.