04. § 2. History of Abraham
§ 2. History of Abraham
We must enter less fully into the history of this period, in order not to encroach on the lectures on Genesis and the later portions of history, for which nothing is done in exegetical lectures. Our method must be conformed to this object. We shall not narrate, but only give remarks on what is related in the source, the knowledge of which we take for granted. We do this the rather, because that which is related in Genesis cannot be properly described except in the form in which it there occurs, and loses by any other form. Why change wine into water?
1. Abraham’s call.—Abraham’s father, Terah, was a rich shepherd-prince who, though he traversed the land with his flocks, had a fixed dwelling in Ur Chasdim. This Ur is probably that which is mentioned by Amm. Marcell. lib. 25, 8, a place in the north of Mesopotamia between the Tigris and Nisibis. Others, recently Bertheau (p. 206) and Ewald, have maintained that Ur is not a place, but a district. Thus the LXX.,
Why was Abraham led just to Canaan? In studying his history and that of the other patriarchs, we find that the sojourn in this land was both a strengthening and a discipline of faith;—a strengthening, for the promised possession in its loveliness lay continually before their eyes—the more indefinite the idea of a hoped-for good, the more difficult is it to hold fast the hope. The favour they received at the present time in this land served as a pledge of the future glorification of God in that very place. It was a discipline of their faith, for they must have been vividly conscious of the contrast between hope and possession. How strange! they who could not call a single foot-breadth of the land their own property—for they had only the use of the pasturage so long as the inhabitants did not require it—should at some future time possess the whole country. They, with their small numbers, should drive out all the nationalities, whose numbers and might were daily before their eyes. But it is necessary that the reference to their posterity should be made still more prominent. The author of Genesis himself draws our attention to this by carefully noting every event by which any place in the country becomes renowned. It is a great blessing for a nation to have a sacred past. Israel was surrounded on all sides by dumb, yet speaking witnesses of the faith of their fathers, especially of the love of God towards them. Abraham’s guidance to Canaan was thus in every respect dependent on God’s determination to give it to his posterity for a possession. But now arises the new question. Why should his descendants have received Canaan in particular? The reasons for this determination, as far as they are given in Scripture itself, are the beauty and fruitfulness of the land, whose bestowal was well adapted to serve as a manifestation of the grace of God, the more since its advantages were brought home to the consciousness by the contrast of the surrounding wilderness which was populated by races kindred to Israel,—in the Pentateuch it is continually termed “a land flowing with milk and honey,” and in Deuteronomy 11:10-12 is represented as in many respects superior even to Egypt,—and again the circumstance that the inhabitants of this land had filled up the measure of sin particularly fast and early, comp. Genesis 15:15-16, so that in the taking and giving of it, justice and mercy could go hand in hand. This union was at the same time of deep significance for the mind of Israel. In the fate of the earlier inhabitants they had before them a constant prediction of their own fate if they should prove guilty of like sin. Already in the Pentateuch Israel is referred to this prophecy. These are the reasons which appear in Scripture. What many have said concerning “the central position of Palestine” is not supported by Scripture. In Ezekiel 5:5, “This is Jerusalem: I have set it in the midst of the nations and countries that are round about her,” Jerusalem is designated only as the moral-religious centre of the world, in order that its guilt and degeneracy might appear in a stronger light, as Ezekiel 5:6 clearly shows, and also Ezekiel 5:7 and Ezekiel 5:11.
Nicolaus Damascenus relates in a fragment of the 4th book of his History, which has been preserved by Josephus, i. 8, that Abraham remained for a long time at Damascus on his way to Canaan, and there conducted the government. Justin, lib. 36, says the same; and Josephus relates that the house is still shown in Damascus where Abraham lived. But we can scarcely understand how Hess, and even Zahn, as also Bertheau, who bases upon this his hypothesis of a wandering of the “Terahitish people,” and subsequently Ewald, who calls Nicolaus Damascenus “a witness of great weight,” could attribute any value to this account. Heidegger, ii. p. 60, has proved that it belongs to the numerous legends respecting Abraham which are current in the East. It has been inferred from the remark in Genesis 15:2, that Abraham’s house-steward belonged to Damascus, and hence the conclusion has been come to that Abraham must have sojourned in that place. But it can be proved on chronological grounds that Abraham continued his journey to Canaan without any pause by the way. And here we may remark, that the same judgment holds good with reference also to all other accounts of heathen authors; such, for example, as we find collected in Buddeus and Hess. Their origin is written on their foreheads. They belong to a period when, owing to the wide dispersion of the Jews, fragments of the narratives contained in their holy writings found their way into all heathendom. They are composed of a true element drawn from this source and increased by some very cheap but false additions. So, for example, when Artapanus in Eusebius speaks of the sojourn of Abraham with the king of Egypt, and maintains that Abraham instructed this king in the art of astrology; an assumption which has its origin merely in the statement of Genesis that Abraham came out of Ur of the Chaldees; for the Chaldaeans were highly renowned among the ancients for astrology; or where Alexander Polyhistor relates that Abraham’s name was famous throughout all Syria, and that he proved to the most learned Egyptian priests the nullity of their doctrines.
We must guard against using accounts of this nature in confirmation of biblical history. Let us rather leave this dealing to the opponents of revelation. Such statements could only have a value if it could be proved that they had their origin in a source independent of Genesis. But, à priori, how is this conceivable? Whence could the knowledge of Abraham come to those who knew nothing but fables concerning their own ancestors, or to those who were totally unable to estimate the importance of that which was really significant in Abraham’s appearance, and to whom he was a man of no interest. Add to this that the oldest historians, those who lived before the time of the dispersion of the Jews and circulated the narratives of Scripture, especially from Alexandria, know nothing of Abraham.
It is noticeable also with respect to chronology, that Abraham was 75 years old when he set out on his journey to Canaan, 366 years after the flood and 2023 after the creation of the world, and that Terah survived his departure for 60 years, although his death is related in Genesis prior to the exodus of Abraham, in order that the narrative may henceforth occupy itself exclusively with Abraham. Shem was still alive at the time of Terah.
2. Abraham in Egypt.—In this narrative our attention is directed almost exclusively to the inquiry into Abraham’s morality; a secondary matter whose proper treatment is dependent upon that view of the true kernel and centre of the narrative which prompts the author to communicate it. The birth of the son who was destined by God to be the ancestor of the chosen race, was the beginning of the realization of all the promises that had been made to Abraham. The rest hung upon this birth, and many years elapsed before it took place. The human conditions must first disappear, and at the same time it must be demonstrated by many providences, that God had a part in the matter. This event forms the beginning of these leadings of providence. Abraham himself by his carnal wisdom does what he can to nullify the promise. But God takes care that the chastity of the ancestress of the chosen race shall be preserved inviolate. And just as this circumstance is a manifestation of the providence of God, it formed also an actual prediction of the importance of His decree, and served to strengthen Abraham’s faith. It is the author’s aim to draw attention to this. The judgment of Abraham’s conduct he leaves as usual to his readers, if they find any interest in it. The author writes not as a moralist but as a theologian. The judgment of readers, who were unable to follow the grand abstraction of the author, has been very various. Luther goes farthest, stating in his Commentary on Genesis that Abraham formed this resolution by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost and in strong faith. Chrysostom too, and Augustine seek to exonerate Abraham from all guilt; Origen, Jerome, and the theologians of the Reformed Church form a severe judgment, and express strong disapprobation of the subterfuge.
It is certain that Abraham, had no intention of committing a sin. It was not a sudden idea. Already in Haran he had pre-arranged it with Sarai. Doubtless he thought he could say with a good conscience that Sarai was his sister, because she really was his sister in a certain sense. She was his near relation, the daughter of his brother Haran. For Sarai is identical with Iscah mentioned in Genesis 11:29. She was first called Sarai, my dominion, on her marriage with Abraham. Augustine says, “Tacuit aliquid veri, non dixit aliquid falsi.” He was so strongly persuaded of the innocence of this precautionary measure, that according to Genesis 20:13, he had determined to adopt it everywhere, and did actually repeat it afterwards; as Isaac did also. But nevertheless Abraham cannot be pronounced guiltless. He is not to be blamed for having acted in accordance with his conviction, but because this conviction was a false one, and had its origin in his own inclination, not in the thing itself. His statement was nothing less than a hidden lie. For in saying that Sarai was his sister his intention was that those towhom he said it should understand him to mean that she was not his wife; and they did actually understand it in this sense. Rambach therefore justly remarks, “The whole thing was the result of a weak faith which suffered itself to be beguiled by carnal wisdom into the use of improper means, viz. an equivocation for the preservation of his life and the chastity of his wife.” It was once said, “Non facienda sunt mala ut eveniant bona.” He would have done better if he had commended the whole matter to God in earnest prayer, and had then repaired thither in reliance on the divine promise to make of him a great nation and to bless him. But because he directed the eyes of his reason too exclusively to danger, he lost sight of the promise of God, and his faith began to waver. But as Christ reached His hand to Peter when he began to sink at the sight of a great wave, so God extended His hand to Abraham lest he should utterly perish in this danger.
Many here enunciate views by which they are often misled afterwards. Thus Zahn remarks, “It is difficult, nay impossible, from our position to form a correct judgment concerning the life of the ancients. The 19th century before Christ is brought into close comparison with the 19th century after Christ. This will not do.”
If the question were how to excuse Abraham, it would be impossible for us to judge harshly. He stood at the very threshold of the divine leadings, and came from the midst of a degenerate people with whom, though outwardly separate, there was close connection. We cannot expect to find him a saint. Many of his severe judges certainly pronounce judgment on themselves. In the joy of finding an imperfection in the father of the faithful they forget that their whole life is a continuous lie, since they have had far more opportunity of recognising the unconditional obligatory power of the law of truth; and a far stronger inward condition of grace has been offered to them for its fulfilment. But here a justification may rather be attempted, which we must decidedly oppose. It is only possible by making the building power of the divine law dependent on the stage of development, which again demands that the law be regarded as a kind of arbitrary thing, and thus the will of God is separated from His essence, which is highly injurious. If the will of God be only a reflex of His essence, it must be valid for all times; and moral requirements are the same for the rudest period as for the most advanced. Thus there is but one conscience for all times; and it is man’s fault if he do not perceive all its demands. That the narrator himself regarded the matter in this light may, amid all the objective tendency, be clearly proved from the circumstance that he lays the entire stress of the thing upon the agency of God. The very issue of the matter confirms this. Abraham is not rescued by his own carnal wisdom. This rather plunges him into the greatest embarrassment and anxiety, from which God’s intervention alone delivers him. Pharaoh’s conduct when he apprehends the true state of the matter is an additional argument in favour of this view. “Why,” he says, “hast thou done this unto me? “If Pharaoh has the consciousness that wrong has happened him through Abraham, he must the more readily assume that Abraham, by his own free-will, stifled the consciousness of wrong-doing; especially if we compare the still more definite reproaches of the king of the Philistines, Genesis 20:9et seq. But Abraham must be exonerated from another reproach, viz. that of having exposed his wife to the lust of the Egyptians. He only hoped to gain time by his precautionary measure. Before the tedious Egyptian marriage ceremonies were at an end, he hoped to find some way of escape. His faith was not yet strong enough to induce him to surrender himself with absolute trust to God, who had compelled him by circumstances to go down to Egypt. For the moment, therefore, he sought to help himself by his own wisdom; the future he left to God. Here his faith could co-exist with the visible; for the visible did not yet lie before his eyes and fix his attention upon itself. The difficulty of Sarah’s age is also without weight. We have only to remember that the usual duration of life at that time amounted to 130-180 years; and we may add that among the Egyptians the women had a most disagreeable complexion. That it appeared so even to the Egyptians themselves, is evident from the circumstance that upon their monuments the women are painted much fairer than they were in reality, while the men bear their natural colour (comp. Taylor, p. 4), and that everywhere the Egyptian women were exceptionally ugly, as the representations in Wilkinson and Taylor show. But the main point is, that the effort of Oriental princes to fill the harem has its origin less in sensuality than in vanity. The high position of Sarah was the great thing in the eyes of Pharaoh; a certain beauty and stateliness was only the condition. Moreover the mighty help of the Lord, which was exerted in Egypt on behalf of Abraham against Pharaoh, was a type and prelude of that to be vouchsafed to his posterity.
3. Ahraham’s Separation from Lot.—The essence of this narrative is the divine providence by which circumstances occurred to remove from him an element not belonging to the chosen race. Under this providence Lot voluntarily gave up all his claims to the land of promise. He repaired to the plains of Jordan, which were doomed to destruction. That the whole importance of the event in the eyes of the narrator himself turns on this point, appears from Genesis 13:14, where the renewal of the promise of the land of Canaan to Abraham is introduced with the words, “And the Lord said unto Abraham, after that Lot was separated from him.” From this it appears that the renewal is not only in its proper place here, but serves at the same time as a means of development and closer definition. When the land is promised to Abraham’s posterity as an eternal possession, the idea naturally is, that no power from without shall ever deprive him of it. That by Israel’s guilt the possession should be lost at a future time, is frequently foretold in the Pentateuch itself. An assurance to the contrary would have been a licence to sin; but the land was only withdrawn from the true posterity of Abraham that they might be made partakers of a higher inheritance. When the patriarch, in obedience to the divine command, traversed the whole land in its length and breadth, his action was symbolical, indicating that his posterity should become possessors of the territory in which he wandered as a stranger. He takes possession for his descendants, of the whole land in which he himself has not a foot-breadth of property; thus giving evidence of the faith which it was God’s object to nourish and strengthen by this command. Lot, the type of a sojourner and lodger in the kingdom of God in contrast to its citizens, was probably not influenced in his choice of a residence by the consideration of the beauty of the region. He sought the neighbourhood of towns, whose restless life and pursuits constantly offered new excitement to one for whom the simple shepherd-life was too monotonous. He belonged to those who could not exist without hearing
4. Abraham’s warlike expedition.—Melchizedeh.—We have already treated of the campaign of the kings of Central Asia against the kings in the plains of Jordan. In Abraham’s conduct two principal features of his character are exemplified—courage and magnanimity, sanctified by childlike confidence in the goodness of God. But the eye of the narrator is not directed to this. The centre of the narrative is God’s grace respecting His chosen people, by which, in prefiguration of that which was to be imparted to Abraham’s race, He placed him in a position to carry on war with the kings, and gave him the victory over them, bringing kings to meet him after his return—one in respectful recognition, the other in bitter subjection. A casual remark shows us how rich and powerful Abraham had already become through the divine blessing. With him alone there travelled 318 servants born in his house, sons of his slaves, who had grown up under his eye, and of whose fidelity he could be certain. But these formed only the smaller part of his people. They were certainly far outnumbered by the newly-purchased servants, old men, children, and women; and even of those who could carry arms, some were not able to accompany him. A few must remain for the protection of the flocks. Thus it is easily explained how Abraham could mix everywhere with the Canaanitish kings as their equal. He was this by right; and had also power to enforce the recognition of the right. There was scarcely one among theCanaanitish princes who could singly measure his strength with him. The shortness and the obscurity of the narrative has occasioned the most various and strange opinions relative to Melchizedek. Origen held him to be an angel; others believed that he was Christ, who had appeared to Abraham in his later human form, and had presented the supper to him. So also Ambrose and many old theologians. The Chaldee paraphrasts with many Jewish and Christian scholars believed that Melchizedek was Shem, the son of Noah, who was still living then. Others took him for Enoch, who had been sent by God from heaven to earth again, in order to administer the kingly and priestly offices.
All these are but baseless hypotheses. Theodoret’s view is the correct one; he says, “He was probably of those races who inhabited Palestine; for among them he was both king and priest.” The fact that there should have been a servant of the true God in the midst of the heathen, which at first appears strange, has already been explained. Zahn says, “A lovely picture of peace stands before us after the tumult of war; a king of righteousness pronouncing blessing, a king of the city of peace, a priest of God. The mention of Melchizedek shows how much the holy Scripture conceals. How many other priests of God may not his lifted hands have raised up to God the Most High, from the midst of that human race which was ever turning more and more from God.” But the expression “how many” says too much. The reason why the author speaks so fully and emphatically lies just in the solitariness of the phenomenon; it is on this account that the memory of the event was preserved in tradition. Melchizedek places himself in distinct contrast to his surroundings; and, according to the remark in the Epistle to the Hebrews, the author shows how little these are calculated to explain his existence by the fact that he is almost completely silent concerning them (
Melchizedek dwelt at Salem, the Jerusalem of after times, which in antiquity-loving poetry still bears this name in Psalms 76:2 : “In Salem also is His tabernacle, and His dwelling-place in Zion.” No other Salem appears in the New Testament; for in Genesis 33:18
Melchizedek brought out bread and wine to Abraham. Abraham was not in need of the food for his people. He had just conquered his enemies, and had taken rich spoils from them, even food (food is expressly mentioned in Genesis 14:11). But in ancient times presents were a token of esteem and love, as they are still in the East. Melchizedek paid honour to Abraham as a worshipper of one and the same God; he must already have heard of his piety, and rejoiced in finding an opportunity of proving his esteem for him. The bringing forth of bread and wine was therefore a symbolical act, in reality a proof of community of faith, and at the same time a worthy preparation for the impartation of the blessing which had its basis in this community. We have no authority to put more meaning into the offering of the bread and wine, as v. Hofmann does. According to the narrative, it is related to the Last Supper only in one respect, only so far as the latter was a love-feast. In saying “The narrative certainly does not imply that he brought bread and wine only to refresh Abram, or else it would not be added immediately, in the same verse, ‘and he was a priest of the most high God,’” v. Hofmann overlooks the fact that these words are a preparation for what comes after, “and he blessed him.” Melchizedek king of Salem (with kingly hospitality) brought forth bread and wine, and at the same time he blessed him in his capacity of priest. Melchizedek blessed Abram as “a priest of the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth.” Thus Melchizedek himself specifies the God whom he served; for this designation has not previously occurred, and is nowhere else to be found. It cannot therefore belong to the writer. He chose the appellation to indicate that his God was not ruler over a single family or district, or over some star as the neighbours believed their idols to be, but was the omnipotent God of the whole world. Such absolute extension was the necessary condition of his community of faith with the monotheistic Abraham. With the exception of this kingly priest not a trace is to be found in all pre-Mosaic history of a priesthood consecrated to the true God, if we except the uncertain history of Jethro, who probably first got from Moses the most of what we find in him; just as Balaam drew his knowledge of God from an Israelitish source. Although we cannot more nearly define the nature of the priesthood of Melchizedek, we may conclude that it was a public one from the circumstance that Abraham was not called a priest, although he built altars and offered up sacrifices for himself. It is probable that not only the inhabitants of Salem but also the dwellers in the regions round about, so far as they had not yet sunk into idolatry, brought their offerings to him that he might present them to the most high God, and make intercession for the people in prayer. All that was still in existence of the elements of true piety among the Canaanites gathered about him.
Abraham paid the highest honour to Melchizedek. To show that he recognised his dignity he gave him the tenth part of the spoil, and that too of the whole spoil, even of what had originally belonged to the inhabitants of the plain of Jordan. For in accordance with the rights of war at that time this belonged to whoever had taken it from the robbers; and only Abraham’s generosity made him renounce all personal claim to it. He had no power to dispose of the part which belonged to God and that which belonged to his associates. In his address to the king of Sodom he uses the same designation of God which Melchizedek had employed immediately before, thus to acknowledge in the face of the idolaters that their mutual faith rested upon the same foundation. But at the same time he intimates by the name of Jehovah which he puts to this designation, tenderly and softly, at the head of it, that he has more part in the common basis than Melchizedek; that his religious consciousness, though not purer than that of the royal priest, is yet richer and fuller. God appeared as Jehovah only to Abraham, by means of a divine revelation made specially to him. It is this in particular which secures the continuance among Abraham’s descendants of what was common to him with Melchizedek. The most high God, etc., could only be permanently recognised where He revealed Himself as Jehovah. This narrative shows clearly the groundlessness of the reproach of particularism so often made against the Old Testament. Whenever the heathen world offered anything worthy of recognition, it was lovingly and ungrudgingly recognised. The reason why this recognition afterwards fell more into the background is to be found in the fact that there was always less and less to be recognised; that the heathen-world became darker and darker. Thus the narrative alone suffices to refute those who, like Ewald (p. 370 et seq.), would willingly turn the monotheism of the patriarchs into a monolatry, and represent them as worshippers of a single domestic God whom they kept solely for themselves, and’ exalted above all those worshipped by others. They maintain this only in order to escape the disagreeable necessity of having to accept a supernatural source of the patriarchs’ faith. That which these critics deny to Abraham was possessed even by Melchizedek; Abraham had in common with him the very thing upon whose foundation the higher and peculiar prerogative was raised up. There is not even the semblance of a proof that the God of the patriarchs was a mere house god, along with whom they allowed scope for other deities. It appears from history, and indeed is self-evident, that their neighbours could not at once raise themselves to this height; which proves all the more clearly how little the faith of the patriarchs can itself be explained by purely natural causes.
5. God’s covenant with Abraham.—The essence of this narrative is God’s condescending love to His chosen, by virtue of which He not only vouchsafed to them the blessing of the covenant, but also strengthened their weakness by a sign. We may remark, a priori, that the whole substance of Genesis 15, although it is to be regarded as having actually occurred, is yet, according to the express statement in Genesis 15:1, not an objective but a subjective thing. Abraham is already, in Genesis 20:7, called prophet,
6. Abraham and Hagar.—God’s covenant-truth soon found an opportunity for manifestation. Abraham himself did what he could to nullify the promise. This is the principal point of view from which the narrative is to be looked at. It has often been maintained that Abraham did not commit sin in this matter. God did not tell him that he should beget the promised son by Sarai. But if his eyes had been quite pure, he would have known that it could not be otherwise. Sarai was his lawful wife. The narrative itself points to this, for Sarai is expressly and repeatedly called the wife of Abraham, and in this designation we find the writer’s judgment on Abraham’s action. Polygamy was at variance with the divine institution of marriage; and though it might last for a period owing to the divine forbearance, yet it was never allowed as lawful. How then could Abraham think that the birth of the son of promise should be brought about by a violation of the divine order? But he did not make this reflection, because it appeared quite too improbable to him and still more so to Sarai, that the promise should find its longed-for fulfilment in the ordinary way. He thought it necessary therefore to help God, instead of waiting quietly till He should bring the matter to its conclusion; but the violation of divine order soon avenged itself, as the author relates with visible purpose. The unnatural relation in which the slave was placed to her mistress, by the consent of the latter, prepared sore trouble for her. The care manifested by the angel of the Lord for a runaway slave only appears in its right light if we regard it as an emanation of God’s love to Abram. The main object of the narrative is to make this apparent, and so to attract his posterity into love towards such a God. Any other object is doubtful. Many say, we must look upon Hagar as the ancestress of one of the most numerous peoples of the whole earth. If Ishmael had been born and educated in idolatrous Egypt, then the nation springing from him would have been poisoned in its very origin. Growing up in the house of Abram, he must at least have imbibed some good qualities. And so it actually was. The pre-Mohammedan religion of the Arabs is the purest of all heathen religions. Even the Mohammedism founded on it contains a multitude of fragments and germs of truth which give it the preference over all heathen religions. On the other hand, it may be objected that the assumption of a continuance of the original tradition among the posterity of Ishmael is untenable, that Mohammedism is only superior to heathenism in one respect, in every other it is decidedly worse. But it is enough to note that Scripture does not give the slightest indication of such a point of view. It is necessary to be on our guard against the confidence with which so many in the present day impose their own ideas on Scripture. What Scripture wishes to tell us it does tell clearly and definitely.
7. The promise of Isaac.—Abraham thought that by the birth of Ishmael the divine promise would be fulfilled. This is evident from Genesis 17:18. It was indeed a mere supposition, and we must not regard it as an absolute certainty. His posterity, he thought, would participate in the promised divine blessings; and in mercy to his weakness God left him for a considerable period in this delusion. It was not till thirteen years later, a year before Isaac’s birth, that he was undeceived; when God promised him another son, whom Sarai should bear, and who should be the inheritor of the covenant and of the promises. Abraham, already ninety-nine years of age, found it difficult to reconcile himself to this new idea. For thirteen years he had fancied himself in the region of the visible; and all at once he was transported back to the region of faith. God showed him the earnestness of His purpose by altering his name and Sarah’s in reference to the renewal of the promise. The name in ancient times was not so distinct from the thing as it is with us. It was therefore much more moveable: a new position and a new name were closely connected. These new names were a constant reminder of the promises; a God-given guarantee for their fulfilment. Abram, the high father, the honoured head of a race, receives the name Abraham, composed of
8. The appearance of the Lord at Mamre.—There can be no doubt that the three men who turned in to Abraham were in the writer’s view the Angel of the Lord in company with two inferior angels. Neither can it be disputed that from the beginning Abraham regarded them as something more than mere men. His very first speech is addressed to the Lord. But from the first he was uncertain in what manner the Lord was here present, whether personally, or only in the person of His messengers and servants. A dim presentiment of something superhuman and divine was awakened in his soul by the majesty which beamed especially from the countenance of one of his guests. To Him, therefore, he addressed his requests and speeches. The presentiment which had been awakened by the spirit of God became clear consciousness when the stranger manifested a knowledge of his relations, which could not have been gained by human means, and foretold things which no man could foreknow; which was changed to certainty when the Angel of the Lord revealed what He was, and predicted the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrha which immediately took place.
It follows from this representation that Abraham’s conduct towards the strangers on their arrival, was something more thanordinary hospitality. It was rather a proof of that fear of God which has a mind exercised to discern the divine and can recognise it even through the thickest veil; it was the lively expression of joy which every pure and pious spirit feels when it sees God, comes into close relation to Him and the divine. Abraham did not at first clearly recognise what degree of directness belonged to this view of God; and therefore his offering to his high guests is not at variance with this opinion; the fact that they eat does not contradict the declaration respecting their nature. Only the necessity to eat is opposed to this; the power to eat is given at the same time with the human form, and the fact that the possibility here became a reality had its cause in the divine condescension to Abraham’s childlike standpoint. What love presented, love accepted. The eating of Christ after His resurrection is analogous, and the glorification connected with it, Luke 24 and John 21. The meaning of this appearance of the Lord to Abraham is only rightly apprehended when its immediate connection with the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrha is kept in view. The mere repetition of the promise which has just been renewed, cannot be the sole aim. The judgment on Sodom and Gomorrha was deeply significant for the future. It taught God’s punitive justice more clearly and impressively than could be done by words, which cannot lay claim to significance unless they are able to make good their reality as interpretations of the acts of God; then, indeed, they are of the greatest importance, since human weakness finds it difficult rightly to interpret the text of the works without such a commentary. In that awful picture of the destruction, Israel saw in its own country the type of its own fate, if by like apostasy it should call forth the retributive justice of God. And the event is continually represented by the prophets in this light, not as a history long past, but as one continually recurring under similar circumstances; comp., for example, Deuteronomy 29:23, Amos 4:11, Isaiah 1:9, and many other passages, even to the Apocalypse, where in Revelation 11:8, the degenerate church, given up to the judgment of the Lord, is termed spiritual Sodom. But the event could only reach this its lofty aim by the revelation of its significance to Abraham, and through him to his posterity. Only in this way did it leave the region of the accidental, of the purely natural. Only thus did it receive its reference to the divine essence, and become a real prophecy. The intercession of Abraham called forth by the communication, and the answers which God gave to it, are detailed so amply, first of all to bring to light the justice of God, a knowledge of which formed the necessary condition of the moral influence of the past. God states expressly that neither arbitrary caprice nor yet severity, but only the entire moral depravity of the city shall provoke His arm to punish. But at the same time Abraham’s fruitless intercession for Israel contains the lesson, that the faith of another can never take away the curse of one’s own unbelief; and that even the closest relation between God and the patriarchs cannot protect from destruction the posterity who are unlike them; comp. Jeremiah 15:1, where that which is here exemplified in deeds is thus expressed in words, “Then said the Lord unto me. Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my mind could not be toward this people; cast them out of my sight, and let them go forth.” The
9. The Destruction of Sodom.—We shall first say a few words respecting the scene of the occurrence. Josephus, De bell. jud. 4:8, 2, says, “Above Jericho lies a very barren mountain of great length. It extends northward as far as the boundaries of Scythopolis, towards the south as far as the country of Sodom to the limits of the lake Asphaltitis. There is an opposite mountain that is situated on the other side of Jordan, which begins at Julias in the north, and extends southward as far as Gomorrha, a town in the neighbourhood of Arabia Petra. The region that lies between these ridges of mountains is called the Great Plain, and reaches from the village Ginnabris as far as the lake Asphaltitis. Its length is 230 stadia, and its breadth 120 stadia, and it is intersected by the Jordan.” An extension of this plain, called the Ghor, in olden times formed the plain now occupied by the Dead Sea. Formerly this plain was abundantly watered. It was watered not only by the Jordan, but also by many smaller rivers which now empty themselves into the Dead Sea—the brook Kedron, the spring Callirrhoe, the Arnon, and the Zered. Moses therefore compares the region with Paradise, which was watered by four streams, Genesis 13:10, and with Lower Egypt, which was exceedingly fruitful, and was watered by the branches of the Nile. Moreover the district was at that time full of bitumen, as we infer from Genesis 14:10, where it is related that the people of the kings of Sodom and Gomorrha, who were conquered by Chedorlaomer, had fallen into the pits of bitumen. Bitumen, therefore, was already buried there; or rather there were natural pits, sources of bitumen, before the sea was there. In harmony with this statement is the fact that even yet masses of asphalt often appear suddenly floating on the sea—Robinson, part iii. p. 164; Ritter, Palestine, i. pp. 752, 757—as this account would naturally lead us to expect, since the masses from the asphalt mines which are covered by the sea, must necessarily come up from time to time. The natural condition of the district has received a remarkable elucidation, as it appears, by a recent discovery. The English editor of Burckhardt’s Travels made the conjecture that before the destruction of Sodom the Jordan had its efflux in the Arabian Gulf. This conjecture was confidently laid hold of by others. The former bed of the Jordan, whose waters now lose themselves in the Dead Sea, they asserted was still in existence; and Burckhardt followed it from that place to the Arabian Gulf (comp. v. Raumer, March of the Israelites from Egypt to Canaan, Leipzig 1837, p. 7). But later researches, especially those of Schubert and Robinson, have completely overthrown this result. What speaks most strongly against it is that according to these researches the Jordan and the Dead Sea lie considerably below the water-mark of the Mediterranean—Schubert’s Travels, part iii. p. 87; Robinson, part ii. p. 455. The Jordan must therefore have flowed uphill if it had emptied itself into the Arabian Gulf; comp. finally, Ritter’s Palestine, i. p. 749. To this is added, that later observation has established the fact that the waters of the Wady Arabah in the rainy season all flow towards the north—Robinson, part iii. p. 34. Even Ritter, who defended this hypothesis in the first edition of his Geography, remarks in the second, Palestine, i. p. 770, “At present it would certainly be impossible that the water of the Jordan could run uphill above the watershed height which rises between the south end of the Dead Sea and the north end of the Gulf of Ailah.” We cannot follow him in his conjecture that the ground between the two may have become gradually elevated in the course of centuries. The most probable hypothesis now seems to be that which Robinson seeks to establish in his treatise, The Dead Sea and the Destruction of Sodom, viz. that already before that great catastrophe there was in the valley of Jordan a sea into which the waters of the river poured themselves, and which was spread over the whole valley by means of that catastrophe. The wealth of the cities in the plain of Jordan had produced the greatest luxury; and this had given rise to so fearful a moral degeneracy that the inhabitants were ripe for the judgment of extermination more than four hundred years before the other Canaanites. The mutual connection of the two judgments must not be overlooked. Just as the judgment on Sodom and Gomorrha was a most explicit warning to the neighbouring Canaanites, so it allowed that which was impending over themselves to appear in its right light, by drawing away the attention from the human instruments to the divine Author, who here accomplishes indirectly what He had there done directly.
It was by design that an opportunity was given to the Sodomites beforehand to reveal the depth of their corruption, which Ezekiel, Ezekiel 16:49, so graphically describes in the words, “Her iniquity was pride, fulness of bread; neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. And they were haughty, and committed abomination before the Lord.” In this way the thought of an accidental result was the more effectually excluded. It was not necessary to look for the cause of the event; it lay before their eyes. It was this also which clearly manifested the absolute justice of the divine judgment, of which man, owing to his innate Pelagianism, is so difficult to persuade. The prophetic signification of the occurrence was dependent on a perception of its absolute righteousness. God did not require the revelation of the sinful corruption of the inhabitants of Sodom; but for man it was necessary, if the judgment were to serve as a warning example; and therefore with condescending love God caused it to become manifest. It witnesses to the highest degree of corruption that a whole city should have united to participate in a crime which only a few could outwardly perpetrate. Thus and thus alone did the fact become an express warning to the people of God, who, according to Jeremiah 25:29, were the more in danger of God’s punitive justice if they surrendered themselves to sin, just because they were the people of God: “For, lo, I begin to bring evil on the city which is called by my name.” We find an exact parallel to the occasion given to Sodom to reveal their sin, in the temptation of Abraham, by which he had an opportunity to reveal his heart full of love toward God and man. And the manifestation of grace follows in a way which places the divine justice in a clear light, showing that the love of God is not blind, but rests upon an ethical foundation. In judging Lot, many have been led astray by the passage in 2 Peter 2:7. This passage takes cognizance rather of his ideal than of his historical character. It refers less to Lot as an individual than as a type, as a representative of those who are preserved by God amid judgments on a sinful world; a mode of explanation which must also be applied to what is said of Esau in the Epistle to the Hebrews. To be both type and representative, he must bear in himself essential characteristics of his counterpart. This is shown by the fact of his being saved. If there had been no good germ in him, if he had stood quite on the same level with the Sodomites, his personal relation to Abraham alone would not have availed to save him. His conduct distinguished him from the Sodomites; his noble hospitality, the sacrifice to protect his guests, his obedience to the angels, while his sons-in-law mocked the announcement of the divine judgment. What the Sodomites say of Lot, Genesis 19:9, “He must needs be a judge,” leads to the inference that formerly he had frequently testified against the prevailing corruption. But near the light there is also great shadow. We have already seen how the choice of his abode showed that he did not possess a proper horror of sin, and was therefore himself strongly infected by it. And the fact that we find him sitting in the gate tells against him; it was the place where the whole city life was concentrated, and where much that was new was to be heard and seen, but at the same time much that was bad. He also appears to disadvantage in having betrothed his two daughters to inhabitants of the town of Sodom. We cannot agree with Chrysostom, Homil. 43 in Gen., and with Ambrose, i. 1, De Ahr., in praising him for having offered to give up his daughters instead of the strangers; yet we may give him the benefit of Augustine’s excuse, that the sight of the great danger had put him so beside himself that he did not know what he was doing. Doubtless he hoped that the Sodomites would not accept his offer, on account of the relation in which he stood to the most distinguished among them. But his tarrying in the city doomed to destruction shows how his heart clung to it and to his earthly possessions; his foolish fear, notwithstanding the guidance of God, proves that his faith was very small; and that later event showed him in the worst light of all. The disposition of his household also tells against him; his wife, perhaps a Sodomite by birth, so absorbed in earthly things that even danger to life could not withdraw her heart from them for a moment; his daughters so coarse that they do not scruple to employ incest as means to an end; his sons-in-law resembling the rest of the Sodomites. With reference now to the process of destruction, many have sought to explain it in a naturalistic way by assuming that brimstone and fire are in the Hebrew tongue a designation of lightning (vide Clericus and J. D. Michaelis—the latter in his Dissertatio de origine maris mortui, in his Commentt.; the former in his treatise, De Sodomae suhversione). But this assumption has no certain foundation, and is contradicted by the words, “The Lord caused it to rain,” which never occurs of lightning. And in Job 18:15, where brimstone is mentioned without fire, there cannot be a reference to lightning. The hypothesis of a proper sulphurous rain is the less unlikely since something similar has occurred on a small scale up to very recent times; and sulphurous fogs are only to be expected from the nature of the district, which has already been specified. In the neighbourhood of the Dead Sea are even now a multitude of sulphurous springs; fetid, sulphurous gases are evolved from the morasses on the shore, abundantly penetrating the whole atmosphere of the sea in a very unpleasant way; and on the coastland sulphur is to be found everywhere in fragments varying from the size of a walnut to that of an egg—Ritter, Pal. i. p. 760. The nature of the country serves to explain the origin of the Dead Sea. The fallen sulphur afforded a first material for the fire. It soon kindled the sulphurous masses and veins in the earth, and the whole crust of the latter was consumed. We learn the power of such fire from the account of Pliny, 1. ii. c. 106; the Hephaestian mountains in Lycia burn if they are only touched with a torch, and so violently, that even the stones and sand of the brook become red hot. The waters of the rivers which had formerly watered the district now collected in the exhausted crater. Thus the Dead Sea arose. The conjecture of Michaelis that there had formerly been a subterranean sea seemed to be rendered unnecessary by that supposed discovery in reference to the Jordan; but now again it assumes its right place, which, however, can only be that of an hypothesis. With it we may compare the already mentioned hypothesis of Robinson, that there was formerly a smaller sea which was extended by the consuming of the earth’s surface. In Genesis 19:24 only the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrha is mentioned. But it appears from chap. 18:that the ruin was to extend over the whole valley of the Jordan. In Genesis 14:2, Deuteronomy 29:23, Hosea 11:8, Admah and Zeboim are expressly mentioned. The conjecture of Kurtz that the destroyed cities are not themselves covered by the sea, but that their sites are to be found in the neighbourhood, rests only on a misapprehension of Deuteronomy 29:23 and Zephaniah 2:9, where the point of resemblance to Sodom and Gomorrha is only the destruction in general, not the special manner of it. A French traveller, De Saulcy, thought he had discovered the ruins of Sodom and Gomorrha, and blazoned this discovery with great emphasis in the description of his travels. But not long after a cool Dutchman, the engineer, v. d. Velde, visited the same place, and at once perceived that the supposed ruins were natural rocks, and that vanity had blinded the eyes of the Frenchman. The memory of the event has also been preserved in heathen authors, but it is uncertain whether they are independent of the account in Genesis; the contrary is far more probable; almost certain if we take into consideration the time of the authors; comp. especially Strabo, i, 16, p. 256; Tacitus, Hist. i. 5, 6, 7; Plin. i. 5, 16. The most remarkable confirmation of the biblical account is afforded by the nature of the sea itself, even at the present day. Comp. the excellent description in the first edition of Ritter’s Geography; the second gives no description embracing details. It has so terrible a symbolical character that even if we knew nothing historically of that catastrophe, we must have guessed at some such event. “The desert,” Ritter says, “which surrounds it formerly gave it the name of the Dead Sea, since, in the opinion of all ages, a curse rests both upon the sea and the desert so far as it extends, which has been strangely fulfilled. No living being, not even a plant, grows in it. Above it are sulphurous mists and pillars of smoke. Diodorus Siculus and afterwards the Arabs called it the Mephitic. Marcus Sanuto, who visited the Dead Sea about 1300, remarks, ‘est autem hoc mare semper fumans et tenebrosum sicut caminus inferni.’ The natives speak only with fear of the wildness of its shores, of the fruit in its district full of dust and bitter ashes, of the Bedouin hordes on the sea, who are said to be more greedy of spoil and of blood than anywhere else.” “As the Jordan is no river, so the sea is not a sea resembling others on the earth. It is reckoned among them only on account of the outward appearance of a body of water, and of its mathematical dimensions—its nature is entirely different. It is wanting in all the charms which make the Alpine seas and so many others points of attraction; and in all properties by which activity, mobility, and the dissolving power of its element give a manifold character to the atmosphere—qualities which put the world of plants, animals, and men into increased activity, which make new transformations possible, and favour the life of nature and the intercourse of men. This sea-water is undrinkable either by man or beast; it nourishes neither plants nor animals; according to Hasselquist, the country round it is deficient in all vegetation, reeds do not even grow in the sea. The air of the district has not the softness and coolness of sea-air; and round about to a large extent there is no habitation of peaceful men, in the garden which once resembled the land of Egypt.” With this description we may compare the prosaic one of Robinson, which serves to confirm it in every essential particular, part ii. p. 448 et seq. He also says, ‘‘ In accordance with the testimony of antiquity and of most travellers, no living thing is to be found in the waters of the Dead Sea—not even a trace of animal or vegetable life. Our own experience, as far as we had opportunity of observation, serves to confirm the truth of this testimony. We saw no sign of life in the water.” Robinson, however, denies that foul mists rise from the Dead Sea. But an experience of five days is not sufficient foundation for this denial. The sea certainly presents different phenomena at different times. Comp. Ritter, Pal. i. p. 764. Parthei says, “Above the Dead Sea there is a permanent layer of vapour like an immovable wall, essentially different from the morning and evening vapours which are wont to form on the sea or inland lakes.” But even Robinson finds complete barrenness and deathlike stillness of nature round about the shores. The impression of the symbol is strengthened by its counterpart, the Sea of Gennesareth. Comp. the charming description in Ritter. In these two seas Israel had an earthly image of paradise and hell constantly before their eyes. It was not accidental that the Lord, who came not to destroy but to save the souls of men, chose the latter for the scene of his activity; neither can it be accidental that in the Old Testament there is express mention of the Dead Sea alone; the Sea of Gennesareth is only mentioned in passing; while the Dead Sea is not named at all in the New Testament. The symbolical character of the Dead Sea strikes us very forcibly in the passage of Ezekiel 47:1-12 : a spring there arises from the new sanctuary, and soon becomes a great stream, which flowing to the Dead Sea, meets its waters and fills them with living things. The Dead Sea appears there as a symbol of the world lying under the curse, from which it is to be freed by the blessings of the kingdom of God in its future glorious development. The narrative of the changing of Lot’s wife into a pillar of salt has less difficulty in itself than has been introduced into it. A lingering was connected with the looking behind. Disobedient to the divine command from blind love to earthly possessions, she remained standing in the place doomed to destruction. The ground gave way beneath her; and she perished in the bursting fire, or was stifled by the vapour. She took the semblance of salt, for the whole district where it was not covered by the sea, was covered by a layer and great blocks of salt. Even now the water has a very powerful encrusting power. “My boots,” says Chateaubriand, “were scarcely dry before they were covered over with salt; our clothes, hats, hands, and faces were in less than two hours saturated with this mineral water.” In the neighbourhood of Kerek Burckhardt saw from a mountain the southern point of the Dead Sea, which appeared like a sea full of islands and sandbanks covered over with a white layer of salt. According to Seetzen, the stones in the neighbourhood of the Dead Sea showed incrustations like the brine-drops on salt; comp. Ritter, Pal. i. 649, 688; Robinson, part ii. p. 435, 440. In Luke 17:32 the Lord holds up Lot’s wife as a warning example for those who, after having been called, become entangled in the judgments impending on the world, by their love of earthly possessions. The transaction between Lot and his two daughters is excused by many of the church fathers—Irenaeus, lib. 4:51; Origen, H. 5 in Gen.; Chrysostom, H. 44; Ambrose, de Abr. 1, 6. To a certain extent even by Luther, whose observation, “Thou mightest, if God were to withdraw His hand, fall into like grievous sin,” certainly deserves consideration. Here we see clearly how a false principle once accepted may mislead. Even granting that Lot was perfectly unconscious in the matter, which is not conceivable; his drunkenness, after what he had just experienced, is inexcusable. The daughters could not think that all men had perished; though this has frequently been asserted, owing to a misapprehension of Genesis 19:31, where, however, they only say that in their loneliness they had no prospect of a suitable union; they had shortly before left the city of Zoar, which was not involved in the destruction. The reproach of an evil fabrication made by rationalism against the author of Genesis in reference to this narrative shows how little the biblical department has been investigated, and may be recognised as a calumny if we remember that the offences of the ancestors of the Israelites are recounted with the same openness. We have only to remember the way in which Joseph was treated by his brethren; to recall the like carnal transgression in the family of Judah, Genesis 38; and the odium against the Sichemites, so severely reprimanded by Jacob on his deathbed. And moreover, we have to take into consideration that the supposed hatred which is said to have begotten this narrative, is to be found nowhere else in the Pentateuch. On the contrary, the Israelites are earnestly exhorted to keep sacred the ties of blood by which they were connected with the Moabites, Ammonites, and Edomites; to treat them as their brethren; to wrest not a foot-breadth of land from them; comp. Deuteronomy 2:3et seq., Deuteronomy 2:9et seq. Even the wickedness which the Moabites practised on the Israelites in bribing Balaam to curse them, and in leading them to idolatry and prostitution by his advice, is left unpunished on account of the bond of relationship: the avenging war is directed only against the participators in their guilt, the Midianites. It is just this interest of relationship which gives rise to the communication of the story.
10. Isaac’s birth and Ishmael’s expulsion.—Five and twenty years after the giving of the first promise, when Abraham was a hundred years old and Sarah ninety, Isaac was born. His name, laughter, he who is laughed at, the laughable, on account of the contrast between the reality and the idea, is very significant for him as the son of promise; whose birth, looked at from natural causes, could not possibly have been expected. In him the name belongs to the people of God at all times, for they are represented by him. Among them life everywhere proceeds from death; everywhere there is occasion for holy laughter; everywhere things turn out quite otherwise than could have been expected. A few years later, human sin was to become the means in the hand of God of separating the son of Abraham in a lower sense, and his posterity, from the chosen race which alone could call him father in the full sense, and of excluding them from participation in the promised inheritance. This was a type of the separation between the false and the true children of Abraham, which rested upon the same principle, and which, in accordance with repeated predictions of the Pentateuch, was destined afterwards to take place in Israel itself; a direct refutation of all claims having their basis in the flesh, even within the Christian church; comp. Galatians 4:22et seq. The conduct of Sarah is unjustifiable. Her hardness probably arose partly from jealousy, and partly from apprehension lest her son should at a future time be called upon to share the inheritance with Ishmael. For the sons of a slave were not in themselves excluded from the inheritance. Jacob’s inheritance was shared by the sons of slaves as well as by others. Yet the author passes no judgment on the motives of Sarah. His object is rather to draw attention to God’s part and design in the matter. This, God’s care for the chosen race, in keeping it pure from every false mixture, is the point of the narrative. Abraham here appears in the best light. What he refused to concede to Sarah from weak love, he did with joy when God commanded it, showing him that Sarah was only an instrument in His hand, that her subjective, sinful desire was in objective harmony with His will, that what she desired must happen if the divine plans were to be realized, making obedience easier to him by explaining that Isaac alone was in a full sense his son, and those who descended from him in a full sense his posterity. It was not cruelty in Abraham to allow Ishmael and his mother to depart so destitute of guidance and protection; but rather a firm conviction that the God whose faithfulness he had learnt to know in so many ways, would fulfil His promise here also, and protect the forsaken. Moreover, the hard form of the expulsion has a symbolical signification. It is intended to show distinctly the inadequacy of those claims to the kingdom of God, which have their foundation in the flesh, to set forth the necessity of subduing the natural inclinations, and to bring into clear light the distinction between the son of nature and the son of grace. After this object had been attained, the natural relation again acquired its rights; which, however, were but limited. Ishmael, along with the sons of Keturah by Abraham, receives a gift, comp. Genesis 25:6; and we find him beside Isaac at the burial of Abraham, Genesis 25:9.
11. The temptation of Abraham.—The time at which this occurred cannot be determined. Those who have sought to fix the date accurately, have only followed their own fancies, or at most very uncertain combinations; those, for example, who assume that Isaac was thirty-three years of age at that time, in order to make the type more conformable to its antitype. The task which God imposed upon Abraham is designated as a temptation at the very beginning, a circumstance which has raised doubt in many minds. James says, “God tempts no man,” and the Lord Himself declares the same, for He teaches us to ask that God may not lead us into temptation. But all the Lord’s Prayer contains only inverted promises in the form of requests. The petitions are all in accordance with the will of God; and if He were in the habit of leading into temptation, we durst not pray thus. It would be equivalent to desiring Him not to do what is in conformity with His being and conducive to our good. But this difficulty is easily obviated. It disappears in the simple distinction between the two different meanings of. temptation. In the first place, it denotes inner allurement to sin; in which sense it is used in the words of our Lord, “Pray that ye enter not into temptation.” Then in the words of Paul, “But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts,” 1 Timothy 6:9. Here the falling into temptation appears a thing unconditionally evil, a state sinful in itself; in the wake of temptation are many lusts. Calvin says, “Pravi omnes motus, qui nos ad peccandum sollicitant, sub tentationis nomine comprehenduntur; “and in the same sense James also says, “No man can say that he is tempted of God.” But temptation may likewise occur in a good sense, in which case it proceeds from God. He does not spare His own a battle with sin, but rather leads them into it by design; not wishing, however, to kill them, but only to further their advancement. He strictly proportions the trials to their progress; and far from inwardly urging them to sin, offers them power to withstand it victoriously. In this sense God’s whole guidance of His people is a continuous temptation—He constantly places them in circumstances in which their inner state must manifest itself—which is the very highest proof of His love towards them. Without temptation man becomes stagnant; only in being tempted do we learn rightly to know ourselves. Trial eradicates all unconscious hypocrisy, does away with all pretence; by it we learn to know our natural weakness, and the strength we have already attained in God; by it, therefore, we acquire humility and courage, and are preserved from the two dangerous enemies of progress, pride and despondency. It is by trial we attain to a true knowledge of God; we are not really conscious of what we have in Him until we come to want it. And again, it is by trial that all our powers are set in motion; and the single victories which it enables us to gain gradually establish a firm position. Of temptation in this sense Jesus Sirach says, in Sir 2:1, “My son, if thou come to serve the Lord, prepare thy soul for temptation, for gold is tried in the fire, and acceptable men in the furnace of adversity; “and James, “Count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; knowing this, that the trial of your faith worketh patience,” James 1:2; and in James 1:12 he calls the man who endures temptation in this sense blessed, for he says, “when he is tried he shall receive the crown of life which the Lord hath promised to them that love Him.” There can be no doubt that the temptation of Abraham was of the latter kind. He was not tempted beyond what he was able to bear; this is clear from the fact that he withstood it. He does not encounter this most difficult of all his trials until he has first been exercised and purified by a whole succession of previous temptations, beginning with the command to go forth from his father’s house.
What made Abraham’s temptation so difficult was not only the natural love of the father for the son, but that in him were bound up all the glorious promises of God, which appeared to perish with his death. God’s present command seemed to make void His former word, so often repeated, so solemnly ratified. How many specious pretexts were there for doubting unbelief and disobedience! It was because he cast aside all these pretexts, and raised himself above all visible things, “accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead,” Hebrews 11:17-19; this made his victory so glorious. As a means of obviating some of the existing difficulties which arise from prevalent conceptions of the divine command, “Thou shalt offer him there for a burnt-offering,” the following remarks may be made:—(1.) It is certain that God commanded Abraham to offer up his son only as a trial, while he hindered the fulfilment. Hence it appears inappropriate to class this with the human sacrifices of the heathen. That there must be an immensely wide difference between them is evident from the fact that in the same book where Abraham’s act is told as a glorification of his faith, the offering up of children is forbidden as a fearful abomination; comp. Leviticus 18:21, Leviticus 20:2, and other passages. Such a combination appears unsuitable even if we regard this transaction as purely subjective. Bertheau remarks (p. 225) from his standpoint, “We see in the narrative how Abraham already recognised the sinfulness of offering up children; and in this respect also he stands as the forerunner of Moses and the Israelitish prophets.” Ewald, “The highest trial of faith ends with the attainment of an exalted truth, viz. this, that Jehovah does not desire human sacrifices. It is certain that the contrary was at one time conceivable, and therefore to be attempted; but even in that primitive time it was refuted by the experience of the greatest hero of the faith.” And it is not to be forgotten that Abraham must have been unerringly certain of the command of God, otherwise his obedience would have been an abomination before God. (2.) We must also consider the relation of the command to the whole spiritual condition of Abraham. The command cannot be regarded as one which might still be repeated under certain circumstances. It presupposes a state of childlike simplicity. God does not prove the man who, from God’s own revelation in His word, has attained a clear and firm insight into His will and law, by commanding something at variance with that law. It is impossible, however, to shut our eyes to the fact that these remarks do not entirely remove the difficulties. It is hard to understand how God, the unchangeable, can first issue a command and afterwards prohibit its fulfilment; it can scarcely be justified, even if Abraham’s undeveloped condition be taken into consideration, that God should, as a trial, command something which, according to His law, is excessively godless. But these difficulties disappear if the command of God be understood in a spiritual sense; if we understand it of the spiritual sacrifice of Isaac; a conception which is the more justifiable because the use of the expressions employed of sacrifice in a spiritual sense, which rests upon the fact that sacrifice in the Old Testament has throughout a symbolical signification, was a foreshadowing of spiritual relations, and runs through all Scripture; comp., for example, Hosea 14:3; Ps. 3:19, Psalms 141:2. Lange in his Life of Jesus (i. p. 120) appropriately remarks, “Jehovah commanded Abraham to offer up Isaac. Abraham was ready to make this sacrifice, but at the decisive moment understood it as if Moloch had said to him, thou shalt slay Isaac.” It was by design, however, that the manner of sacrifice was not more clearly defined. The misunderstanding, though originating in Abraham and to be set down to his account, was still in accordance with God’swill. Whether Abraham could really make the spiritual sacrifice of Isaac demanded by God, would appear from the position which he took towards the outwardly-understood command, where all self-deception was impossible. When this result was attained, when the spiritual sacrifice was accomplished in the bodily, then God removed the misunderstanding, and explained that His command had already been fully satisfied. Genesis 22:12; thus indicating to His people at all times the sense in which alone He desires human sacrifices. We cannot object to this, that “go to the land of Moriah” pointed to a bodily offering. For even a purely spiritual act, a purely internal battle, may belong to a definite time and place; and the fixing of this particular place for the spiritual battle, had special reasons which we shall discuss later on. The objection that Abraham’s false interpretation of the command must in that case have been expressly rectified, is also without weight. The rectification is given in preventing the slaying. If it be asked what then would have happened if Abraham had understood the command rightly from the beginning? we answer that this is supposing a case which would have been impossible. It was just because God foresaw the misunderstanding that He gave the command, that the correct understanding might be established for all ages. But the main thing is to keep distinctly in view the practical kernel of the transaction; its reference first of all to the covenant-nation, and then to the church of all ages. Only by this means we attain the proper standpoint for judging the external phenomena. God demands from His people the most complete self-renunciation, the sacrifice even of the dearest; and withal the most unconditional obedience. The father of the faithful fulfilled this demand, so justifying God’s choice, and at the same time showing by what means His true children—even now each has his Isaac to offer—must prove themselves such. The covenant nation is a nation of sacrifice. According to Leviticus 6 fire must burn upon the altar and never be extinguished. And the burnt-offering must continually burn upon the altar, the burnt-offering of the evening till the morning, and the burnt-offering of the morning till the evening. By this means the people were reminded that their being consisted in absolute surrender to the Lord; their destination in being ready to serve Him. We have here the historical foundation of this Mosaic, legal prescription. In Isaac, Abraham himself was demanded, for his heart was bound up in Isaac; and in the heart of Abraham the ancestor, was demanded the heart of all his true descendants. This is the practical meaning of the narrative, which is told with an affecting simplicity, vividness, and truth; so that the history, if it is to remain such, can only be narrated in the biblical words. Nothing is more touching, yet without any apparent design to touch; the representation is throughout entirely objective. Take, for example, the dialogue between Abraham and his son when they were ascending the mount together. By the way Isaac spake unto Abraham, his father, and said, “My father; “and he said, “Here am I, my son; “and Isaac said, “Behold the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for an offering? “and Abraham said, “My son, God will provide Himself a lamb for a burnt-offering.” These last words are very significant; they show that there was a presentiment in Abraham’s mind that God could and would bring about another solution of the matter than that which appeared imminent. Without this presentiment he would simply have answered, “Thou art the offering, my son.” The typical reference of the event is already indicated by the apostle in Romans 8:32, in the words, “He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all;” which are a verbal allusion to Genesis 22:16. Abraham’s love to God, which moved him to the complete surrender of what was dearest to him on earth, in and with which he gives God all the rest, is the earthly type of the love of God to us, who gives us in reality what He demanded from Abraham only in intention, not in accomplishment. The command contains an actual prophecy; for the God of Scripture desires nothing which He does not give; every demand is at the same time a promise; He says continually, “I did this for thee, what doest thou for me? “If He demand our dearest from us, it is only because He gives us His dearest. Abraham is desired to undertake the three days’ journey from the land of the Philistines where he then resided, to the land of Moriah, the region about Mount Moriah; and to offer up his son on this mountain. This direction stands in the closest connection with the inner meaning of the transaction. Mount Moriah was destined at a future time to become the most holy place of the land, the place where God’s honour dwelt, where He made Himself known to His people when they appeared before Him and did homage to Him by sacrifice. The primary object of the command was to give this place a primitive-historic consecration. The memories connected with the spot proclaimed aloud to every one who went to Moriah, “Offer up thy Isaac. It is not enough to give me what is external to thee, give me thy dearest.” And the same place was to see the fulfilment of the promise contained in the command of God. The identity of place serves as a finger-post to the inner connection—pointing to the fact that both stand related as prophecy and fulfilment. Revelation loves to point to an inner agreement by means of outward conformities. Abraham’s history here reaches its culminating point. Higher cannot follow. The object of earthly existence is that we present ourselves to the Lord as a burnt-offering; and Abraham had reached this highest step.
12. Sarah’s death.—The most important thing in this event is the expression of Abraham’s faith to which it gave rise. It is not without an object that Moses relates the purchase of the hereditary burying-place, so carefully and copiously. It was faith in the promise which guided Abraham in the whole transaction; and this cannot be better shown than in the words of Calvin, “He was not anxious to have a foot-breadth of land for the building of a tent, he cared only for a sepulchre; he wished to have a burying-place of his own in the land which was promised him for an inheritance, in order to testify to his posterity that the promise was not made void either by his death or by that of his people, but that it rather came into full force then.” If Abraham had not been certain of the future possession of the land, it would have been a matter of indifference to him whether he and his were buried there or in the land of the Philistines; and certainly he would have shown no such anxiety for the burying-place. This anxiety presupposes that he had the certainty of not remaining always among strangers.
Abraham’s solicitude for the sepulchre proceeds from the same reason as Jacob’s express command to his sons, that they should take his corpse to Canaan; and Joseph’s desire that the children of Israel should carry his bones with them in their exodus. The purchase was important for Israel also, as bearing witness to the living faith of Abraham; and further because by this means notoriety was given to a place in the promised land, an occurrence which is never overlooked in the histories of Genesis, that the Israelites might always be accompanied by outward memorials of those in whose footsteps they ought to walk. Moreover, the cave of Machpelah is still in existence, built over by a mosque with mighty walls, whose entrance is strictly prohibited to every one not a Mohammedan. Yet in late years the Archduke Constantine of Russia succeeded in gaining entrance to it. The style of architecture points to a Jewish origin. Josephus relates that Abraham and his descendants erected monuments above the graves; and that the graves of marble, elegantly wrought, are still to be seen at Hebron.
13. Isaac’s marriage.—What first attracts our attention here is the two-fold anxiety of Abraham, that Isaac should not marry a Canaanite, and that he should not be led back to Mesopotamia, the abode of his family, by marriage with a countrywoman. Both rest upon the same foundation, Abraham’s faith in the promise. He charges his faithful steward to guard against these two contingencies. It is generally inferred from Genesis 15:2 that it was Eliezer to whom he entrusted the carrying out of his design; but this is uncertain. The former of these anxieties is usually attributed to the corruption prevalent at that time among the Canaanites. But this was certainly not the principal motive of Abraham. Since the iniquity of the Amorites was not yet full, it is probable that a family might have been found among them, comparatively pure from the prevailing corruption, just as pure as the family of Nahor where idolatry was practised; and in which there was already a Laban to whom the gold ornaments and bracelets were the most important things in the matter. Abraham’s aversion to a Canaanitish marriage for his son is much more readily explained on the ground of his faith in the promise. Seeing the invisible as though it were already visible, he endeavours to prevent every intermixture of the chosen and rejected races, from which at a future time unnatural relations would inevitably result. In the same way we may explain his prohibition to take Isaac back to Mesopotamia. He will not leave the post which God has assigned to him and to his race. He knows from God’s previous revelation that a long period still lies between promise and possession, during which his posterity will be strangers in a foreign land; but he knows also that the determination of the beginning of this period, and of the strange land lies not in his but in God’s hand; that he and his race have only to wait quietly in the land of promise till the God who led them thither again give the command to remove. Again, we recognise Abraham’s faith in his words to his servant, “The God which spake unto me, and sware unto me, saying, ‘Unto thy seed will I give this land;’ He shall send His angel before thee.” He is firmly convinced that he and his race are chosen; and to this consciousness we may attribute his unshaken faith in God’s special providence in a matter so closely connected with this election. To give glorious proof of this faith, and thus to awaken in Israel the consciousness of being chosen, and the consequent zeal to walk worthy of their calling, is the object of the great diffuseness pervading this narrative. God’s providence toward His people is here so strikingly demonstrated, that even for us the history contains a rich treasure of edification. It is certainly not apprehended in its true light if it be merely placed in the universal rubric, providence and the destiny of man.
14. Abraham’s death.—”The narrative of the pilgrimage of this great and devout man, the friend of God,” says Stolberg, “goes out like a candle, and the latter years of his earthly life are lost in sacred obscurity.” This need not appear strange to us, if we keep in mind the object of the historical representation in Genesis. We must expect à priori that after the culminating point in Abraham’s life had been reached, after the temptation on Moriah, his life would become more like a calm-flowing brook which empties itself silently into the stream of eternity. There is a kind of conclusion in the words of God to Abraham after he had withstood this greatest temptation. The ratification and renewal of the promise which is now based upon a because, after God Himself had made Abraham worthy of it, stands in sharp contrast to the first giving of the promise at the going out from Haran, where it was only connected with a therewith. After the phenomenon in Genesis 18 the words, “They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength,” received actual confirmation in Abraham; and after Sarah’s death, as a solace to his old age, he took another wife of inferior rank, Keturah, who did not enjoy like privileges with Sarah, and whose children were not to be considered to the disadvantage of the heir of the promise, who had a rightful claim to everything which God had given to Abraham as the ancestor of the chosen race. By Keturah Abraham became the ancestor of many Arabic races, yet many of those named derived only a single element from them. For the usual idea that all these races are derived entirely from Abraham is quite false; as may be best proved by the Assyrians, Genesis 25:3, whose origin is in the main differently given in Genesis 10. The relation to Keturah is mentioned only in connection with this descent from Abraham, else the author would have been totally silent respecting it; for it does not belong to the father of the faithful as such, with whom alone he has to do. But the interest in this descent has its root only in this, that according to the flesh they were allied to the covenant-people. Theologically it is a matter of perfect indifference. Kurtz is quite wrong when he says, “The descendants of Abraham by Keturah serve to realize the promise that Abraham should be a father of many nations.” Those born after the flesh cannot be an object of the promise. It is expressly said, “In Isaac shall thy seed be called.” Among these nations the Midianites are best known. The greater number of them lies between Mount Horeb and the Arabian Gulf, and it was here that Abraham lived; others dwelt east of Moab, in Arabia Deserta, and according to Numbers 22 these were the people who combined with the Moabites in hiring Balaam against Israel.
Abraham is a very important personage, even if he be looked at from a completely external point of view. He is not only the ancestor of the Israelites, that is of their germ—for the descendants of Abraham’s concubines are only to be regarded as supplementary—but also of a great portion of the Arabs and Idumaeans; of the latter, with the same immaterial limitation which we have already made with regard to the Israelites: Esau, the ancestor of the Idumaeans, took no inconsiderable number of servants from the household of his father. These limitations are the only true element in Bertheau’s hypothesis, which is otherwise baseless, seeking to make Abraham in some measure from a person into a personificationof one of the Terahite nationalities who immigrated to the south-west of Asia, dominated by the modern effort to divide the property of prominent persons among the masses, the same historical communion which distributed the property of Christ among the church, as also the spiritual productions of a David, a Solomon, and an Isaiah. Moreover, all the three monotheistic religions derive their origin from Abraham. Even Mohammed showed great reverence for Abraham, maintaining that his own religion was nothing further than a restoration of that which the Arabs received from Abraham. But his life receives quite another meaning if we regard him as the father of the faithful, according to Romans 4:11. And if this be the most important point of view, faith must form the essence of it. So much so, that those who are not able to understand this kernel and centre of his life must be mistaken in his historic personality;—for them the whole manifestation must dissolve into a mere vapour. Thus v. Bohlen represents the story of Abraham as a Semitic version of the Indian myth of Brahma; and Bertheau thinks that no accurate idea, no definite image of his exalted personality can be drawn from the traditions respecting him, which have only recently been put into writing. To him, on the other hand, who understands the faith, because he walks in the footsteps of Abraham, this story carries the proof of its truth in itself. It is remarkable how Abraham’s faith rises from step to step—how the divine trials are always exactly proportioned to these steps of faith. God tries him by taking away, and also by giving. Under the former he is obedient, resigned, yet not cast down; the latter does not make him proud and overbearing. God takes from him his fatherland and his relatives. Abraham leaves his present possession rejoicing in the prospect of the promised inheritance; he leaves the future possession of the country of which he cannot call a foot-breadth his own, to the posterity of whom humanly-speaking he had no prospect. God takes away Ishmael, and Abraham obeys, comforting himself that the son of promise still remained to him. But even this comfort is taken away from him when he is more advanced, in order that he may henceforth have as if he had not. After having withstood this temptation he is in a position to bear the loss of his dearly loved wife with quiet resignation: to one loosed from the earth the prospect of the end of his own pilgrimage was pleasant. God tries him by giving. Rich possessions accrue to him. Kings are conquered by him; kings solicit his friendship. And what is more than all, the King of kings condescends to him as He had never previously condescended to any mortal. He converses with him in his tent as friend with friend, a foreshadowing and adumbration of the
Faith, the sun which warmed and illumined the life of Abraham, was not thoroughly developed into a firm and universal perception. But so much the richer and clearer was his direct knowledge. The more imperfect his apprehension, the more lively was his intention. In Psalms 105:15, he receives, together with Isaac and Jacob, the name anointed, the possessors of the Spirit of God and His gifts, the name of prophet, of the men who understood divine inspirations in the depth of their souls. The series of these men was begun by Abraham, who bears this name even in Genesis, Genesis 20:7. In Genesis 15 we have a remarkable proof how his spirit apprehended divine things by immediate contact with them; both the forms peculiar to prophecy, viz. visions and dreams, are here mentioned. The mode of his knowledge stands nearer to prophecy than ours. He pressed on from one degree of clearness to another, according as the gradual leadings and trials of God purified the mirror of his soul more and more. The same divine utterance of the blessing on all nations, in his posterity, had quite a different meaning for him when he first heard it at Haran, and when he heard it again on Moriah. He understood it in proportion as he himself had become partaker of the divine blessing. With Abraham concludes a great section in the history of divine revelations. Schubert in his Views of the Night-side of the Physical Sciences, p. 156, says very beautifully, “When a great work is imposed on future generations, the Lord is accustomed to give a rapid survey of the plan and limits of the whole, in individual great men.” In the revelations to Abraham are contained in germ all that follow—his descendants, God’s chosen people, the land of Canaan their future possession after long and severe oppression, and finally the end of the whole, the blessing on all nations, the multitude of nations calling him father, the King of nations proceeding from him. And what is of still more importance than these single apprehensions, in the leadings of Abraham the Lord has come forth from the concealment in which He had remained since the fall; He is no longer an abstract but a living God, no longer Elohim but Jehovah. In the beginning we have the fulfilment in germ. Everything which God did to Abraham is a prophecy of what should happen to every believer in Him; what He did for the chosen race is a prophecy of that which should befall the multitude of nations to be received into their community. Here nothing is dead. Every act of God is like every word of His, spirit and life. This actual prophecy is still daily fulfilled. If we had not the express promise of the Lord, He must still enter our hearts because He entered Abraham’s tent. The history of Abraham not only reveals God’s personality to us, but presents us also with the first type of a believer, in vivid colours. And from types we learn more than from commands and ideals; they show us that the divine life in this troubled world is not an empty idea which it is impossible to realize. The contemplation of reality in the past impels us to realization in the present.
It is very significant that the new principle did not enter into life through a single individual in the midst of a nation which was already formed, but became personal in the individual who was destined to be the ancestor of the chosen race. By this means it received an absolutely sacred primitive foundation, and at the same time became one of the most powerful incentives to walk in the way of the Lord, one of the most effectual means of reformation when the way has been departed from. The men of God might at all times say to the degenerate race, “Look at Abraham your father.”