Similarly the story of the expulsion of Hagar, it is thought, aims primarily to explain the origin of Israel's foes, the nomadic Ishmaelites, who lived south of Canaan. In the inscriptions of the Assyrian king Sennacherib, Hargaranu is the name of an Aramean tribe. A tribe bearing a similar name is also mentioned in the south Arabian inscriptions. The Hagar of the story is a typical daughter of the desert. When she became the mother of a child, the highest honor that could come to a Semitic woman, she could not resist the temptation to taunt Sarah. In keeping with early Semitic customs Sarah had full authority to demand the expulsion of Hagar, for in the eye of the law the slave wife was her property. The tradition of the revelation to Hagar also represented the popular explanation of the sanctity of the famous desert shrine Beer-lahal-roi. Like most of the prophetic stories, this narrative teaches deeper moral lessons. Chief among these is the broad truth that the sphere of God's care and blessing was by no means limited to Israel. To the outcast and needy he ever comes with his message of counsel and promise. Was Abraham right or wrong in yielding to Sarah's wish? Was Sarah right or wrong in her attitude toward Hagar? Was Hagar's triumphal attitude toward Sarah natural? Was it right? In the story of the destruction of Sodom Lot appears as the central figure. His choice of the fertile plain of the Jordan had brought him into close contact with its inhabitants, the Canaanites. Abandoning his nomadic life, he had become a citizen, of the corrupt city of Sodom. When at last Jehovah had determined to destroy the city because of its wickedness, Abraham persistently interceded that it be spared. Its wickedness proved, however, too great for pardon. Lot, who, true to his nomad training, hospitably received the divine messengers, was finally persuaded to flee from the city and thus escaped the overwhelming destruction that felt upon it. What was the possible origin of this story? (_Hist. Bible_ I, 87.) What are the important religious teachings of this story? Were great calamities in the past usually the result of wickedness? Are they to-day? Do people so interpret the destruction of San Francisco and Messina? The great epidemic of cholera in Hamburg in 1892 was clearly the result of a gross neglect of sanitary precautions in regard to the water supply. At that date the cholera germ had not been clearly identified and there was some doubt regarding the means by which the disease was spread. Was sanitary neglect then as much of a sin as it would be now? May we properly say that the pestilence was a calamity visited on that city as a punishment for its sin of neglect? Why did the prophets preserve the story of the sacrifices of Isaac? Compare the parallel teaching in Micah 6:6-8.