And there came one that had escaped, and told Abram the Hebrew; for he dwelt in the plain of Mamre the Amorite, brother of Eshcol, and brother of Aner: and these were confederate with Abram.
There came one that had escaped, [Hebrew, hapaaliyT (H6412), the escaped] - used collectively for fugitives from the vale of Siddim (cf. Ezekiel 24:26; Ezekiel 33:21-22). Abram might have excused himself from taking any active concern in his "brother," i:e., nephew, who little deserved that he should incur trouble or danger on his account. But Abram, far from rendering evil for evil, resolved to take immediate measures for the rescue of Lot.
And told Abram the Hebrew - Septuagint [peratee, transitori], the 'crosser over;' namely, the Euphrates. [Those translators derived the original term either from `aabar (H5674), to pass; or from the preposition, `eeber (H5676) beyond, on the other side; so that, as applied to Abram, in such a sense, it was equivalent to transfluvialis, a dweller on the other side of the Euphrates]. The first was the view of Jerome and several of the Christian fathers; while the second is adopted by Gesenius, De Wette, Winer, etc. But it could scarcely be a distinctive appellation for Abram, that he had made the passage of the Euphrates, as many of the early tribes which emigrated southward must have crossed that river from Shinar, as did Chedorlaomer and his allies at that very time; and it could with as little propriety be said that he was an Eberite, an inhabitant of a trans-Euphratean country, when he had migrated to Canaan. Besides, it has been recently objected to this view, that, 'whether Abram previously resided at Mugheir or Warka, it would have been unnecessary for him to pass over the great river; if in his time it flowed, as some suppose, considerably eastward of these places, and joined the Tigris, as before stated, at Kut-el-Amara' ('Loftus,' Chaldea).
Sir H. Rawlinson has suggested an entirely new explanation of the term. He says that one particular district of Mugheir, the Biblical Ur, was called Ibra, from which he supposes Abram to have set out on his journey to Canaan, and from whence originated the word Hebrew ('Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society,' vol.
i., p. 47). But this is a mere fanciful conjecture. The true view of the word is, that it is a patronymic, being derived from Eber, 'the last of the patriarchs descended from Shem previous to the division of the peoples and the beginning of new lines, which, in the midst of the mass of peoples that diverged into manifold branches, founded and propagated a special chosen race' (Havernick).
Hence, Abram is called a Hebrew-i.e, a descendant of Eber (the name Hebrew having the same radical elements as Eber, besides being spelled Ebrew in early English versions) - and his descendants called themselves (Genesis 40:15), and were called (Genesis 39:14; Genesis 39:17; Genesis 41:12), Hebrews. Gesenius, indeed, pronounces this derivation-namely, of Hebrew from Eber-to be purely mythical, and of no more historical value than the Greek derivaties of Aeolians from Aeolus, etc. But admit the truth and authenticity of this history, and there is distinct evidence that, at the period of the general dispersion, a large branch of the Shemites remained in Shinar, who regarded Eber as their direct ancestor; and from this branch Abram was sprung. It seems a confirmation of the view here given that the word "Hebrew" appears with special propriety applied to Abram as a patronymic, in contradistinction from his allies, who are called Amorites (see the note at Genesis 13:18).