Then again Abraham took a wife,.... Three years after the death of Sarah, and when his son Isaac was married, and he alone, and now one hundred and forty years of age:

and her name [was] Keturah; who she was, or of what family, is not said. An Arabic writer z says she was a daughter of the king of the Turks; another a of them calls her the daughter of King Rama; and another b the daughter of Pactor, king of Rabbah; but there were then no such people in being. Very probably she was one of Abraham's handmaids born in his house, or bought with his money, perhaps the chief and principal of them. The Targums of Jonathan and Jerusalem say she is the same with Hagar, and so, Jarchi; but this is rejected by Aben Ezra, since mention is made of Abraham's concubines, Genesis 25:6; whereas it does not appear he ever had any other than Hagar and Keturah, and therefore could not be the same; and besides, the children of Hagar and Keturah are in this chapter reckoned as distinct. Cleodemus c, a Heathen writer, makes mention of Keturah as a wife of Abraham's, by whom he had many children, and names three of them. Sir Walter Raleigh d thinks, that the Kenites, of whom Jethro, the father- in-law of Moses, was, had their name from Keturah, being a nation of the Midianites that descended from her.

z Abul. Pharag. Hist. Dynast. p. 14. a Elmacinus, p. 34. apud Hottinger. Smegma, p. 309. b Patricides, p. 19. in ib. c Apud Euseb. Praepar. Evangel. l. 9. c. 20. p. 422. d History of the World, l. 2. c. 4. sect. 2. p. 157.

Continues after advertising
Continues after advertising