In the suitableness of Rebekah to a man of Isaac’s nature, you see the suitableness of all such gifts of God as are really waited for at His hand. God may keep you longer waiting than the world does, but He gives you never the wrong thing. Isaac had no idea of Rebekah’s character; he could only yield himself to God’s knowledge of what he needed; and so there came to him, from a country he had never seen, a helpmeet singularly adapted to his own character. One cannot read of her lively, bustling, almost forward, but obliging and generous conduct at the well, nor of her prompt, impulsive departure to an unknown land, without seeing, as no doubt Eliezer very quickly saw, that this was exactly the woman for Isaac. In this eager, ardent, active, enterprising spirit, his own retiring and contemplative, if not sombre disposition found its appropriate relief and stimulus. Dods.

His father’s goodness he retained, though not his greatness. Slow and infirm in action, shunning strife with his whole heart, he appeared to best advantage when called to suffer wrong. It is significant of the same disposition, that his spiritual life should have reposed on religious awe. The God of Abraham was also known as “the Fear of Isaac.” At the same time there was in him, as often in such men, a clinging to stronger natures, especially of the other sex; with much tenderness, therefore, and inwardness in the domestic affections, as well as a vein of quiet sentiment, such as one hardly expects to find in the earlier or ruder ages of society. For this reason, probably, Isaac strikes us as a more modern men than any other of the Hebrew fathers. His physique can scarcely have been robust, although he lingered to a greater age than either his father or his son. Fifty years before his death, he is represented as already a blind, bedridden invalid, in daily apprehension of his end. And though he lived to see his sons old men, and his grandson Joseph sold into Egypt, yet during the whole of that last half century of his life, he disappears entirely from the family annals. Dykes.

God would have us recognize in our lives what He shows us in this chapter, that He has made provision for our wants, and that if we wait upon Him He will bring us into the enjoyment of all we really need. So that if we are to make any advance in appropriating to ourselves God’s salvation, it can only be by submitting ourselves implicitly to His providence, and taking care that in the commonest and most secular actions of our lives we are having respect to His will with us, and that in those actions in which our own feelings and desires seem sufficient to guide us, we are having regard to His controlling wisdom and goodness. We are to find room for God everywhere in our lives, not feeling embarrassed by the thought of His claims even in our least constrained hours, but subordinating to His highest and holiest ends everything that our life contains, and acknowledging as His gift what may seem to be our own most proper conquest or earning. Dods.

KETURAH’S SONS. BIRTH OF ESAU AND JACOB. BIRTHRIGHT DESPISED. DEATH OF ABRAHAM. ISHMAEL’S DEATH. CHARACTER OF ABRAHAM.

1. AND Abraham took another wife, and her name was Keturah. And she bare him Zimran, 2 and Jokshan, and Medan, and Midian, and Ishbak, and Shuah. And Jokshan begat Sheba, 3 and Dedan. And the sons of Dedan were Asshurim, and Letushim, and Leummim. And the 4 sons of Midian; Ephah, and Epher, and Hanoch, and Abida, and Eldaah. All these were 5 the children of Keturah. And Abraham gave all that he had unto Isaac. But unto the sons 6 of the concubines, which Abraham had, Abraham gave gifts; and he sent them away from Isaac his son, while he yet lived, eastward, unto the east country.

19. And these are the generations of Isaac, Abraham’s son: Abraham begat Isaac: and Isaac 20 was forty years old when he took Rebekah, the daughter of Bethuel the Syrian of Paddan-

21 aram, the sister of Laban the Syrian, to be his wife. And Isaac intreated the LORD for his wife, because she was barren; and the LORD was intreated of him, and Rebekah his wife con- 22 ceived. And the children struggled together within her; and she said, If it be so, wherefore 23 do I live? And she went to inquire of the LORD. And the LORD said unto her, Two nations are in thy womb,—And two peoples shall be separated even from thy bowels:—And the one 24 people shall be stronger than the other people;—And the elder shall serve the younger.—And 25 when her days to be delivered were fulfilled, behold, there were twins in her womb. And the 26 first came forth red, all over like an hairy garment; and they called his name Esau. And after that came forth his brother, and his hand had hold on Esau’s heel; and his name was 27 called Jacob; and Isaac was threescore years old when she bare them. And the boys grew; and Esau was a cunning hunter, a man of the field; and Jacob was a plain man, dwelling in 28 tents. Now Isaac loved Esau, because he did eat of his venison; and Rebekah loved Jacob. 29 And Jacob sold pottage; and Esau came in from the field, and he was faint; and Esau said to 30 Jacob, Feed me, I pray thee, with that same red pottage; for I am faint; therefore was his 31 name called Edom. And Jacob said, Sell me this day thy birthright. And Esau said, Behold, 32 I am at the point to die; and what profit shall the birthright do to me? And Jacob said, 33 Swear to me this day; and he swore unto him; and he sold his birthright unto Jacob. And 34 Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of lentils; and he did eat and drink, and rose up, and went his way; so Esau despised his birthright. 7 And these are the days of the years of Abraham’s life which he lived, an hundred threescore 8 and fifteen years. And Abraham gave up the ghost, and died in a good old age, an old man, 9 and full of years; and was gathered to his people. And Isaac and Ishmael his sons buried him in the cave of Machpelah, in the field of Ephron the son of Zohar the Hittite, which is 10 before Mamre; the field which Abraham purchased of the children of Heth; there was Abra- 11 ham buried, and Sarah his wife. And it came to pass after the death of Abraham, that God blessed Isaac his son; and Isaac dwelt by Beer-lahai-roi. 12 Now these are the generations of Ishmael, Abraham’s son, whom Hagar the Egyptian, Sarah’s 13 handmaid, bare unto Abraham; and these are the names of the sons of Ishmael, by their 14 names, according to their generations: the firstborn of Ishmael, Nebaioth; and Kedar, and 15 Adbeel, and Mibsam, and Mishma, and Dumah, and Massa; Hadad, and Tema, Jetur, Na- 16 phish, and Kedemah; these are the sons of Ishmael, and these are their names, by their vil- 17 lages, and by their encampments; twelve princes according to their nations. And these are the years of the life of Ishmael, an hundred and thirty and seven years; and he gave up the 18 ghost and died; and was gathered unto his people. And they dwelt from Havilah unto Shur that is before Egypt, as thou goest toward Assyria; he abode in the presence of all his brethren.

KETURAH AND HER SONS (vs. 1-6).

1-6. We read that Abraham “took another wife,” Keturah, and that she bore him six sons, but we are not sure of the time when this occurred. At any rate, the history of these sons is in nowise mixed up with that of the promised seed. A. E.—According to the laws of Hebrew composition, this event may have taken place before that recorded in the close of the previous chapter. Of this law we have several examples in this very chapter. And there is nothing contrary to the customs of that period in adding wife to wife. We cannot say that Abraham was hindered from taking Keturah in the lifetime of Sarah by any moral feeling which would not also have hindered him from taking Hagar. It has been also noticed that Keturah is called a concubine (1 Chron. 1:32), which is thought to imply that the proper wife was still living. M.

This whole passage is probably placed out of its chronological order so as not to break in upon the main narrative before. And the very statement that Abraham settled the sons of his secondary wives by deed of gift during his life indicates that this marriage had occurred long before. It may seem strange that Abraham, the father of the faithful, should thus be found setting aside the original law of marriage—the union of twain—and only between twain—as one flesh, established at creation, re-established by the example of Noah and his sons, and afterward so expressly declared to be the law of God by our Saviour and his apostles. We must bear in mind, however, that we are unable now to fully comprehend the reasons for these exceptionable cases in the patriarchal age. S. R.

The origin or nationality of Keturah is unknown. Unlike his former marriages, this connection lay entirely outside the history of revelation, and for that reason is dismissed with the briefest possible notice. In all likelihood she was slave-born, in which case she would become a wife of the second rank, like Hagar. A marriage of this class constituted a perfectly legal and valid union. It formed a permanent conjugal relationship, to the duties of which both parties were bound to be faithful, and which could only be dissolved by divorce or death. The principal points in which it differed from marriage of the first degree were two: it conferred upon the wife a lower social status, and the issue of it, though legitimate, possessed no legal claim upon the inheritance. The only mode, therefore, in which provision could be made for the children of secondary marriages, was for the parent to endow them during his own lifetime with a portion of his property. This is accordingly what Abraham did with his second family. Since he survived Sarah his wife no fewer than forty years, there was time enough for the six boys of Keturah to grow up to manhood, and receive before his death flocks and herds sufficient to set them up on their own account. In order to avoid all risk of future unpleasantness, and to leave the original settlement in Isaac’s unencumbered occupation, Abraham prudently sent these young sons into unoccupied territory to the eastward of his own pasture-lands. There they became the founders of Arab tribes, which in subsequent ages extended from the Elanitic gulf of the Red Sea through Arabia Felix into the plateau which stretches on the further side of Moab. Thus, through the numerous offshoots of the Keturah line, as well as through Hagar’s son, there was abundantly fulfilled that portion of the covenant promise which predicted for the patriarch a multitudinous and enduring posterity: “Thy name shall be Abraham: for a father of many nations have I made thee.” Dykes.

The marriage of Abraham to Keturah probably took place in the lifetime of Sarah; and of this union were born six sons—Zimram, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak, and Shuah—all of whom probably became heads of separate tribes. Of these tribes, excepting the Midianites, we hardly know anything. The whole of them seem to have been portioned by Abraham, and sent forth in the lifetime of their father to seek their fortunes in “the east country”—a phrase variously understood as signifying the Arabian desert east of Palestine, or the whole territory of Arabia. But in regard to the Midianites our information is comparatively complete. The Midianites occupied a prominent position in the history of Moses, who, when he fled from Egypt, took up his residence in their territories and married the daughter of one of their chiefs; in the history of the conquest of the trans Jordanic provinces (Num. 22:4; 25:17; 31:2); and in the history of the Judges, but especially of Gideon (Jud. 6, 7, 8), by whom their power, as one of the most active and bitter of the early enemies of Israel, was finally broken. Israel, it may be noted, suffered not more from their open acts of hostility than from their too successful attempts (Numb. 25:18) to lead them astray from the injunctions of the law of Moses, in which direction it is supposed their influence was the more powerful and effectual in consequence of the blood relationship between the two peoples, through their common descent from Abraham. Lee.—Allusion is probably made to these descendants of Abraham under the title of “children of the East” (Judg. 6:3); and also Job 1:3, where Job himself, who may have descended from this stock, is called “the greatest of the people of the East.” Bush.

BIRTH AND BOTHOOD OF ESAU AND JACOB (vs. 19-28).

19,20. Abraham seems to have spent the latter years of his life in peaceful retirement, having settled along the southern borders of Palestine. There, by the well Lahairoi, we also find Isaac. This quiet, solitary district, far from the busy haunts of the Canaanites, is adapted to his retiring disposition. As formerly Abraham, so is Isaac now called upon to hope and to wait. For twenty years his wife is barren, and during this lengthened period he has sufficient occasion to exercise his faith in the promise. K.

19. The well-known formula, “These are the generations,” introduces a new portion of the history, which now resumes the main line of the patriarchal descent. The repetition of the fact of Isaac’s birth is in the manner of these resumptions. Of a like kind is the recapitulation in ver. 20 of Isaac’s marriage. It would seem as if these portions were intended to be used separately, and each to carry completeness in itself. Kalisch remarks, “These reiterations, natural in themselves, far from causing difficulty, are in harmony not only with the style of the Bible, but of ancient historiography in general, and are in this instance not without a positive gain, for they add the valuable chronological fact, that Isaac was 40 years old when he married Rebekah, a statement of decided importance for the exact understanding of several circumstances connected with Isaac’s history.” Alf.

The ninth document here begins with the usual phrase, and continues to the end of the thirty-fifth chapter. It contains the history of the generations of Isaac; that is, of his son Jacob. Isaac himself makes little figure in the sacred history. Born when his mother was ninety, and his father a hundred years of age, he is of a sedate, contemplative, and yielding disposition. Consenting to be laid on the altar as a sacrifice to God, he had the stamp of submission early and deeply impressed on his soul. His life corresponds with these antecedents. Hence, in the spiritual aspect of his character he was the man of patience, of acquiescence, of susceptibility, of obedience. His qualities were those of the son, as Abraham’s were those of the father. He carried out, but did not initiate; he followed, but did not lead; he continued, but did not commence. Accordingly, the docile and patient side of the saintly character is presented to our view. M.

Though he had been now united to Rebekah for twenty years, yet the child of promise continues to be denied. In this manner God had before tried his father Abraham; and if he be heir to his blessings, he must expect to inherit a portion of his trials. Yet we do not find that in this emergency he had recourse like Abraham in similar circumstances, to any crooked policy, to any doubtful expedient. He looks for relief to that source only where he was accustomed to seek and to find the cure or the solace of all his ills. “He entreated the Lord for his wife;” or rather as the Hebrew expresses it, before his wife: i.e. in her presence; united with her in joint supplication. Bush.—For twenty years the union of Isaac and Rebekah had remained unblessed with children, to indicate that here also the heir to the promises must be a gift from God granted to expectant faith. At last Jehovah listened to Isaac’s “entreaty,” “for his wife,” or rather, literally, “over against his wife,” for, as Luther strikingly remarks: “When I pray for any one, I place him right in view of my heart, and neither see nor think of anything else, but look at him alone with my soul;” and this is true of all intercessory prayer. A. E.

The prayer with which Isaac “intreated” the Lord for his wife was a prayer of deeper intensity than he could have uttered had he merely remembered the story that had been told him of his own birth. God must be recognized again and again and throughout as the Giver of life to the promised line. We are all apt to suppose that when once we have got a thing in train and working we can get on without God. How often do we pray for the bestowal of a blessing, and forget to pray for its continuance? How often do we count it enough that God has conferred some gift, and, not inviting Him to continue His agency, but trusting to ourselves, we mar His gift in the use? On His own means you must reinvite His blessing, for without the continuance of His aid you will make nothing of the most beautiful and appropriate helps He has given you. Dods.

23. It has been much discussed where or to whom Rebekah could go to inquire of Jehovah. In our ignorance of so much which regards patriarchal religion, it is out of the question to speak dogmatically. But with a prophet like Abraham still at the head of her family, there seems little need to imagine other channels of intercourse with the Deity. Dykes.

23. Two nations are in thy womb. We have ample proof that these prophecies were not meant so much of single persons, as of whole nations descended from them; for what was predicted concerning Esau and Jacob was not verified in themselves, but in their posterity. The Edomites were the offspring of Esau, as the Israelites were of Jacob. And who but the author and giver of life could foresee that two children in the womb would multiply into two nations? Jacob had twelve sons, and their descendants were all united and incorporated into one nation; and what an overruling providence was it that two nations should arise from the two sons only of Isaac? And that they should be two such different nations. The Edomites and Israelites have been from the beginning two such different people in their manners, customs and religion, as to be at perpetual variance among themselves. The children struggled together in the womb, which was an omen of their future disagreement: and when they grew up to manhood, they manifested very different inclinations. Esau was a cunning hunter, and delighted in the sports of the field: Jacob was a plain man dwelling in tents—minding his sheep and his cattle (ver. 27). The religion of the Jews is well known; but whatever the Edomites were at first, in process of time they became idolaters. When Amaziah king of Judah overthrew them, he brought their gods and set them up to be his gods. The king of Edom having refused a passage to the Israelites through his territories on their return from Egypt, the history of the Edomites afterward is little more than the history of their wars with the Jews.

The one people shall be stronger than the other people. For some time the family of Esau was the more powerful of the two; there having been dukes and kings in

Edom, before there was any king in Israel (Gen. 36 : 31), but David and his captains made an entire conquest of the Edomites, slew several thousands of them (1 Kings 11 : 16 ; 1 Chron. 18 : 12), and compelled the rest to become tributaries, and planted garrisons among them to secure their obedience (2 Sam. 8 : 14). In this state of servitude, they continued about one hundred and fifty years, without a king of their own : being governed by deputies or viceroys appointed by the kings of Judah, but in the days of Jehoram they revoked, recovered their liberties and set up a king of their own (1 Kings 22 : 47). Afterward Amaziah king of Judah gave them a total overthrow in the valley of salt (2 Kings 14 : 7). And Azariah took Elah a commodious harbor on the Red Sea from them (2 Kings 14 : 22). Judas Maccabeus also attacked and defeated them with the loss of more than twenty thousand at two different times, and took their chief city Hebron (1 Macc. 5 : 2 ; 2 Macc. 10). At last, Hyrcaeus his nephew took other cities from them, and reduced them to the necessity of leaving their country or embracing the Jewish religion : on which they submitted to be circumcised and became proselytes to the Jewish religion, and were ever after incorporated into the Jewish church and nation. Bp. Newton.

ESAU SELLS HIS BIRTHRIGHT (vs. 29-34).

29. 30. At Beersheba Jacob was cooking for himself a very savory mess of red lentils. Just as it is ready, Esau returns from a long day’s unsuccessful hunting, faint with fatigue, famishing with hunger. We are told of the Arab by those who know him well that his hunger is madness. This madness is now upon Esau. As he looks at the pottage and scents its exciting fragrance, he exclaims, “Feed me, I pray thee, with that red—that red!” He knows not what to call it. His wily brother, perceiving how passionately impatient he is, at once seizes the opportunity, and guarding the food so coveted, says to him, “Sell me this day thy birthright.” He knew that this birthright belonged to his brother as the firstborn. Besides a double portion of the household estate, and headship over the family and tribe, in the case of Abraham and his descendants this birthright carried with it the entail of the higher spiritual blessings of the covenant. W. H.

30. Edom.** Which signifies red. Whence the city which he built and the country which his posterity inhabited were called by the same name ; and by the Greeks, Idamaea : bordering toward the south on Judea, Arabia, and Egypt. Bp. Patrick.

31. Sell me this day thy birthright.** The birthright, or right of primogeniture, had many privileges annexed to it. The firstborn was consecrated to the Lord (Exod. 22 : 29) ; had a double portion of the estate allotted him (Deut. 21 : 17) ; had a dignity and authority over his brethren (Gen. 49 : 5) ; succeeded in the government of the family or kingdom (2 Chron. 21 : 3) ; and, as some with good reason imagine, succeeded to the priesthood or chief government in matters ecclesiastical. He had a right to challenge the particular blessing of his dying parent ; he had the covenant which God made with Abraham, that from his loins Christ should come, consigned to him : and what is more, these prerogatives were not confined to his person only but descended to his latest posterity, in case they comported themselves so as to deserve them. Stackhouse.

32. Esau came from the hunting-field worn and hungry ; the only means of procuring the tempting mess of his brother’s pottage was the sacrifice of his father’s blessing, which in those ages carried with it a substantial advantage ; but that birthright could be enjoyed only after years—the pottage was present, near and certain ; therefore he sacrificed a future and higher blessing for a present and lower pleasure. For this reason Esau is the Bible type of worldliness : he is called in Scripture a profane, that is, not a distinctly vicious, but a secular or worldly person—an overgrown child ; impetuous, inconsistent, not without gleams of generosity and kindness, but ever accustomed to immediate gratification. In this worldliness, moreover, is to be remarked the gamester’s desperate play. There is a gambling spirit in human nature. Esau distinctly expresses this : “Behold I am at the point to die, and what shall my birthright profit me?” He might never live to enjoy his birthright ; but the pottage was before him, present, certain, there. F. W. R.—Just this trait, the exaggeration of the value of a low and present impulse and the belittling of the high and distant, marks the most fatal defect of human nature. Every sinful, mean, and base act ever committed comes of just this, that the present appetite or wish seems a great matter. We are ready to die without it, while God and holiness, honor, the future, which are the birthright of every man as son of God, seem an uninteresting or distant good. Mercer.—The man who has fallen under the power of appetite must have his appetite satisfied. No consideration of consequences can be listened to or thought of; the man is helpless in the hands of his appetite—it rules and drives him on, and he is utterly without self-control; nothing but physical compulsion can restrain him. Dods.

33. Swear to me this day. Moses, who records this conduct of Jacob, does not commend him for it. God, indeed, before he was born designed and promised this privilege to him: but then he should have waited till the Divine Wisdom had found out the means of executing his promise in his own way, as David did till God gave him possession of Saul’s kingdom: and not have anticipated God, and snatched it by an irregular act of his own. In the whole affair Jacob acted with a subtilty not at all becoming an honest man. He knew that delays were dangerous and that his brother’s consideration might possibly spoil his bargain; and therefore he required haste both in the sale and in his oath; and thereby incurred another sin by hurrying his brother into an oath by precipitation, which neither he should have taken nor Jacob have advised him to take, without mature advice and deliberation. Esau, for this mess of pottage, yielding to the temptation of the moment, renounced, both for himself and his descendants, all the privileges of primogeniture, and the covenant which God made with Abraham, that from him the Messiah should descend. Stackhouse.—There was never any meat, except the forbidden fruit, so dear bought as this broth of Jacob; in both the receiver and the eater is accursed: every true son of Israel will be content to purchase spiritual favors with earthly; and that man hath in him too much of the blood of Esau, who will not rather die than forego his birthright. Bp. II.

The character of Jacob is easily understood. It has frequently been remarked of him that he is thoroughly a Jew, that in him you find the good and bad features of the Jewish character very prominent and conspicuous. He has that mingling of craft and endurance which has enabled his descendants to use for their own ends those who have wronged and persecuted them. Yet, while one recoils from this craftiness and management, one cannot but admire the quiet force of character, the indomitable tenacity, and, above all, the capacity for warm affection and lasting attachments, that he showed throughout. Dods.

Jacob’s value of the birthright marked him as fit for it. This did not justify his fraud and injustice in reaching the good; but, in some degree at least, the light which led astray was light from heaven. And it was an age when there were but low ideas of justice in the earth, and when the chosen family, though somewhat enlightened, yet shared in the general morals of the time. That you must always keep in view, and not transfer to that rude period the Christian feelings and ideas of to-day. Mercer.

This unbrotherly, ungenerous, ignoble attempt to filch the birthright out of Esau’s hands, is the one solitary incident recorded in the first seventy-seven years of Jacob’s life. He got no benefit by it. It did not alter his position for the better in the least. It was not upon Esau’s having voluntarily bartered away the birthright that his deprival of it by Isaac rested; nor did Jacob himself ever venture to make that barter the basis of his claim. The fifty years or more that intervened between this and the next recorded incident in Jacob’s history, do not seem to have much changed his character. W. H.

We may supply in the background, from the intimation of his mother’s favoritism, that the promises attaching to the birthright, unheeded by the free-rover Esau, were thoroughly understood and valued by Rebekah and her son. That such a consideration has two sides to it, one looking toward good, the other toward evil, is an inconsistency found in history because it is found in man. Alf.

There is in Esau’s conduct and after-experience so much to stir serious thought, that one always feels as if much more ought to be made of it. It reflects so many features of our own conduct, and so clearly shows us what we are from day to day liable to, that we would wish to take it with us through life as a perpetual admonition. Who does not know of those moments of weakness, when we are fagged with work, and with our physical energy our moral tone has become relaxed? Who does not know how, in hours of reaction from keen and exciting engagements, sensual appetite asserts itself, and with what petulance we inwardly cry, We shall die if we do not get this or that paltry gratification? We are, for the most part, inconstant as Esau, full of good resolves to-day, and to-morrow throwing them to the winds—to-day proud of the arduousness of our calling, and girding ourselves to self-control and self-denial, to-morrow sinking back to softness and self-indulgence. Not once, as Esau, but again and again we barter peace of conscience and fellowship with God and the hope of holiness, for what is, in simple fact, no more than a bowl of pottage. Even after recognizing our weakness and the lowness of our tastes, and after repenting with self-loathing and misery, some slight pleasure is enough to upset our steadfast mind, and make us as plastic as clay in the hand of circumstances. It is with positive dismay one considers the weakness and blindness of our hours of appetite and passion; how one goes then like an ox to the slaughter, all unconscious of the pitfalls that betray and destroy men, and how at any moment we ourselves may truly sell our birthright. Dosis.

DEATH AND BURIAL OF ABRAHAM (vs. 7-12).

Dates and ages are carefully noted by the true student, who derives from them much interesting information. See how this applies here. Abraham survived Sarah thirty-eight years. Isaac was thirty-seven years old when his mother died; and as he was forty years old when he married Rebekah, we learn that the camp of Abraham remained for three years without a mistress. Again, Isaac was sixty years of age before his sons Esau and Jacob were born. Thus, for more than twenty years, the heir of the promises remained childless; and Abraham, but for his faith, must have been sorely tried by this second long protraction of the hope he most cherished. This is among the trials of his faith not recorded, and only discoverable by the comparison of dates. Again, by looking at his age when he died, and comparing it with the age of Isaac when his sons entered the world, we see that Abraham not only waited twenty years before his grandsons were born, but actually lived to see them fifteen years old; so that Jacob and Esau might have had much intercourse with their venerable grandfather. Whether the elder of the two profited much by this advantage does not appear; but it is probable that Jacob owed much of his strong faith in the Lord’s providence to the example and instructions of the patriarch. Kit.

7. These are the days of the years.

There is a fitness in this mode of expression, which is not sufficiently regarded. Good men do not live by centuries, though many such have lived several hundred years; nor do they count their lives even by years, but by days, living as if they were the creatures only of a BAY, having no more time that they can with any propriety call their own; and living that day in reference to eternity. A. C.

8. Abraham gave up the ghost and died. The English word “ghost” is supposed to be derived from the Anglo-Saxon “gast,” an inmate, inhabitant, guest, and also spirit; but in popular use it is now restricted to the latter meaning. But the primitive idea seems to be that of dismissing the soul or spirit as the guest of the body. It is almost always rendered in our translation by “expire,” but the present version,

“giving up the ghost,” i.e. yielding up the spirit, is liable to no serious objection. — In a good old age. Hebrew, in a good hoary age; the idea of grey-headed age being prominent in the original term. This was according to promise. Upward of four-score years before this, the Lord addressed Abraham in vision (Gen. 15:15), saying, “Thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace; thou shalt be buried in a good old age.” In everything, even in death, the promises were fulfilled to Abraham. Thus died this venerable patriarch, the father of the faithful, after having sojourned as a stranger and a pilgrim in the land of promise one hundred years. From a comparison of dates, it appears that he survived Shem twenty-five years; his father Terah, one hundred years; and his wife Sarah, thirty-eight years; that he lived after Isaac’s marriage, thirty-five years. It was a life checkered with uncommon trials, and marked with blessings no less extraordinary; a life distinguished by the most signal virtues, yet not exempted from frailties and infirmities. His chiefest happiness consisted not in his being favored with a remarkable degree of worldly prosperity, and an unusual term of years to enjoy it, but in the high distinction of being called “the friend of God,” and made the depositary of a promise in which the whole world was to be blessed. Bush.

Abraham’s case shows that God may have fulfilled a promise when he has apparently broken it; and that God’s promises are not to be measured by the narrowness and poverty of the letter. God promised Abraham and his seed a place or land called Canaan, and yet Abraham and his seed never held the land; Abraham “sojourned in the land of promise as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise;” he had “none inheritance in it, no, not so much as to set his foot on; yet God promised that he would give it to him for a possession, and to his seed after him, when as yet he had no child” (Acts 7:5). Now, this brings us, so to speak, into close quarters with God’s providence, and Abraham’s character becomes a medium through which we learn divine lessons. Abraham suffered for us. It is beautiful beyond expression to see how the true idea dawned upon the mind of the man of faith, that is to say, how he got from the letter to the spirit, and saw God’s meaning at last. When he came out of the land of the Chaldeans he had a very small notion of his future; but as he went on and on, from Charran, building his altar and pitching his tent, his eyes pierced beyond the little land of Canaan, and “he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.” J. P.

It is pleasant to remember that Esau and Jacob were brought up on the knees of their venerable grandfather. From his own lips might the second heir of promise learn as a boy the marvellous story, with all the glorious hopes which were to descend to him along with the birthright. The twins were growing lads of fifteen, old enough to indicate already what strong contrasts marked their disposition, when at last the weary hero of faith was called to his rest. Grandly sets the sun of such a life. An old age spent in domestic privacy with the young hopes of his line about his feet; old age dwelling still with growing thankfulness upon the splendid revelations which had glorified its manhood and telling with unabated ardor the ever memorable tale,—surely this was a fitting and a beautiful close to the toils and trials of the noblest lifetime men had yet seen. With his character grown ripe, and his work done, with his name filling the lands, his family spreading on every side, and the sacred line of the covenant budding into another generation, nothing seemed wanting to fill up his cup, who to the end of time was destined to wear the name that is of all earth’s names the purest: The Friend of God. Well may the page which records his end say, with touching and simple words, that he died in his hoary age, full and satisfied with life! Dykes.

Was gathered to his people. This cannot mean that he was buried where his fathers had been buried, for he had been a hundred years a pilgrim in the land of Israel, far from the home of his ancestors, and he was buried in the cave of Machpelah. The place therefore seems to indicate the belief of the patriarchal ages in a place of departed spirits, to which the souls of the dead were gathered. Thus Jacob expected to “go down into the grave (to Sheol) unto his son,” though he did not believe his son to have been buried, but to have been devoured by wild beasts. E. H. B.

—To be gathered is not to cease to exist, but to continue existing in another sphere. His peoples, the departed families, from whom he is descended, are still in being in another not less real world. This, and the like expression in the passage quoted, give the first fact in the history of the soul after death, as the burial is the first step in that of the body. M.

Were we to leave out of view the spiritual and eternal blessings conferred upon Abraham, how humble would be the conclusion of so grand a career. Vision upon vision, covenant upon covenant, promise upon promise, conducting only to a little cave in Hebron! But from the divine declaration uttered three hundred and thirty years after this event, “I am the God of Abraham,” it appears that his relation to God was as entire at that time, as at any former period in his whole life. “God is not the God of the dead, but of the living;” and the faithful of all past ages live with God, and their dust is precious in his eyes, in whatever cavern of the earth or recess of the ocean it may be deposited. Bush.

The doctrine of Immortality runs through the Bible. It is latent in the history of the creation and of the fall of man. It is involved in the statement that man was created originally in the image of God. The penalty which was the consequence of the fall—“Thou shalt surely die”—implies that the being to whom it was addressed had been before, in body as in soul, immortal. When it is said of Enoch that “God took him,” this cannot mean that Enoch ceased to exist, any more than the same expression can have such a meaning when it is afterward used with reference to Elijah. The desire for nothing less than a heavenly country is the true key note to the lives of the patriarchs. Immortality is the charm of the first great promise to Abraham; immortality is the idea which underlies Jacob’s description of this life as a pilgrimage. The patriarchs speak and act as men who sit loosely to all that makes this life dear; and as each is gathered to his people, it might seem that the dogma of immortality is traced upon their sepulchres. H. P. L.

9. When Abraham died Ishmael was a man of nearly ninety and had long been a great desert chief. He reappears for a moment, and only once, at the patriarch’s burial, at which Isaac and he met once more. It must have been a striking scene when the two brothers, so long separated, united to pay the last honors to one dear to both, and showed in their doing so their high sense of his worth. Isaac, with his hundreds of household slaves; Ishmael, with his troops of wild retainers and half-savage allies, gathered before the cave of Machpelah, in the midst of the men of Heth, to pay the last duties to the Father of the Faithful, would make a notable subject for an artist. Geikie.—These are beautiful words as showing one side of Abraham’s character; “And his sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah.” Those names are not united in any other transaction. Abraham never ceased to care for Ishmael, the son of the bondwoman, the wanderer; and Ishmael showed how he valued his father’s care by thus uniting with Isaac in the last act of filial love. J. P.

10. There was Abraham buried. At Hebron our thoughts are of him who at the call of God came forth from his own country and home, not knowing whither he went; of him who received in implicit confidence the assurance of a countless progeny, when as yet he had no child; of him who hesitated not to lay on the altar of sacrifice the son of his old age, the very child of promise; of him, the friend of God, who solemnly covenanted with God in behalf of his posterity, trusting the beneficent promise that in his seed all the families of the earth should be blessed; of him who, looking down the long vista of the future, rejoiced supremely in seeing the day of Christ; of him who was contented to possess but a burying-place in the land which had been promised him and to live an exile upon earth, in prospect of “a better country even a heavenly.” No wonder that the Hebrew hope of heaven was that of resting in Abraham’s bosom. And who that takes in the full story of Abraham’s life of loyal devotion to Jehovah, his Supreme Friend and Portion, but joyfully accepts the assurance of the Saviour in behalf of the spiritual descendants of Abraham, and prays that it may be made to include himself: “And many shall come from the east and the west, and shall sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.” N. C. B.

12. These are the generations of Ishmael. The object of the inspired writer seems to be, to show how the promises of God were fulfilled to both the branches of Abraham’s family Isaac God blessed according to the promise. He had also promised to multiply Ishmael; and an account of his generations is introduced, to show how exactly the promise had also been fulfilled to him. 14. These three names have passed into a proverb among the Hebrews, because of their signification. Mishmâ signifies HEARING; dumah, SILENCE; and mus-a, PATIENCE. Hence, “Hear much, say little, and bear much.” A. C.

17. This account of Ishmael’s death, as well as that of Abraham’s above, is inserted by anticipation, in order that the subsequent history of Isaac might not be interrupted. In point of fact, though the circumstance of his death is stated before the birth of Jacob and Esau, yet it did not happen till some years afterward. Abraham lived till they were fifteen years old, and Ishmael till they were sixty-three His death occurred 48 years after the death of Abraham, and when Isaac was 123. Bush.

18. They dwelt from Havilah unto Shar. The descendants of Ishmael possessed all that country which extends from east to west, from Havilah on the Euphrates, near its junction with the Tigris, to the desert of Shar, eastward of Egypt; and which extends along the Isthmus of Suez which separates the Red Sea from the Mediterranean. A. C.—His descendants adopted that wandering or nomadic life which shepherds and hunters require to follow in a region where but little food is produced either for man or beast. They appear to have been joined by the sons of Keturah, one of whom was Midian, the ancestor of the Midianites. While most of them followed the wild, roaming life, still familiar to the Arabs of the desert, others engaged in mercantile pursuits; and it is a proof that the Ishmaelites and Midianites had virtually become one people, that those merchants to whom Joseph was afterward sold are called, in different verses, by each of these names. W. G. B.

Abraham’s obedience to the call of God and faith in his promises stand supereminent. Without disputing with his Maker or doubting in his heart, he credited everything that God had spoken: hence he always walked in a plain way. The authority of God was always sufficient for Abraham; he did not seek to find reasons for any line of conduct which he knew God had prescribed: it was his duty to obey; the success and the event he left with God. His obedience was as prompt as it was complete. As soon as he hears the voice of God, he girds himself to his work! To what a state of moral excellence the grace of God can exalt a character, when there is simple implicit faith and prompt obedience! Abraham walked before God, and Abraham was perfect. As a son, as a husband, as a father, as a neighbor, as a sovereign, and above all as a man of God, he stands unrivalled; so that under the most exalted and perfect of all dispensations, the gospel of Jesus Christ, he is proposed and recommended as the model and pattern of faith, obedience, and perseverance. A. C.—In these days, in the bosom of Christian civilization, obedience to God and confidence in God are the first precepts, the first virtues of Christianity. They were also the virtues of Abraham, and the precepts inculcated by Abraham’s history in the Bible. And the God of Abraham, the God of the Bible, is the same who is the object of adoration to the Christian of the present day. Thousands of years have changed nothing as to the biblical notion of God in the human soul, nor as to the essential laws regulating the relation of man with God. Guizot.

Abraham is the Emir of a pastoral tribe, migrating from place to place, his stations marked with geographical accuracy, and with a picturesque simplicity of local description; here he pitches his tent by some old and celebrated tree, there on the brink of a well-known fountain. He is in no respect superior to his age or country, excepting in the sublime purity of his religion. He is neither demi-god nor mighty conqueror, nor even sage, nor inventor of useful arts. His distinction is the worship of One Great God, and the intercourse which he is permitted to hold with this mysterious Being. This is the great patrimonial glory which he bequeathed to his descendants; their title to be considered the chosen people of the Almighty, was their inalienable hereditary possession. This is the key to their whole history, the basis of their political institutions, the vital principle of their national character. Milman.

The character of Abraham is one of the finest and noblest in all history, sacred or profane. He seems to have had a remarkably full acquaintance with the perfections of God; to have often surveyed them with love and admiration; and to have been profoundly impressed by them in his own conduct and feelings. Reverence, confidence, love and submission toward the Most High, appear through all his life, in colossal proportions. Along with this there was evidently in his character great shrewdness and common-sense; he had large knowledge of the world, and much skill in the orderly management of its business; great self-possession, good temper, meekness, and patience; warm domestic affections, and an expansive, genial heart, that looked much to the welfare of others, and was ever ready, for their sakes, to sacrifice his own. There never was a more striking combination of great power and great gentleness than in Abraham. His generosity and nobility of disposition gave an elevation to his character which has never been surpassed in any mere man. Of his personal appearance we know nothing; but we can readily fancy it marked by an imposing massiveness and symmetry, corresponding to the remarkable structure of his mind. There could not have been a man more fitted to fulfil the duties and sustain the honors that devolved on the Father of a nation and the Patriarch of a Church. W. G. B.

In how many varied and striking attitudes, each worthy of the artist’s pencil, does Abraham present himself in the course of his eventful life—leading out the migration from Haran—crossing the Euphrates—pitching his tent at Sichem—kneeling before the altar at Bethel—standing silent before Pharaoh—heading the midnight assault—prostrate before God, moaning out his prayer for Ishmael—waiting on his three mysterious guests, at the tent-door, under the oak of Mamre—putting at early morn the bottle of water on Hagar’s shoulder—bowing to the Hittites in the gate—bending with knife in hand over Isaac! Looking at him among all the greatest characters of Old Testament history, does he not appear, walking among his shadowy peers, the very stateliest in form, the most finished in proportion, the most benignant in aspect, the most graceful in movement, of them all? About his piety there is something singularly attractive—so simple, so domestic—the age, the country, the tent-life throwing over it the light as of an early Eastern morning, the freshness as of a breeze from the wilderness. Holding his own peculiar faith with a grasp of unrelaxing firmness, there is not a tinge in him of narrowness, moroseness, or fanaticism; all is broad, open, and humane. By prospects of a name so great, a seed so numerous, an influence so wide upon this earth, pride might have been inflated, desires confined, and hopes concentrated on earthly blessings. But the greatest triumph of his faith (greater even than the one on Mount Moriah) was this—that he sojourned in the land of promise as in a strange country—confessed and felt continually that he was a stranger and pilgrim on the earth—lived and died desiring another country, even an heavenly. Thus it is that he hath obtained so good a report; and that so wide over the earth, and down through all its generations, he has been, and shall be called, “The father of the faithful,” “The friend of God.” W. H.

What fed the faith wherein his great strength lay? Challenging comparison with any, and excelling all, in that grace, we may justly apply to him the glowing terms and bold figures of the prophet—“He was a cedar in Lebanon, with high stature and fair branches, and shadowing shroud—the cedars of God could not hide him—the fir-trees were not like his boughs, and the chestnut-trees were not like his branches, nor was any tree in the garden of God like unto him for beauty—his root,” he adds, explaining how this cedar towered above the loftiest trees, giant monarch of the forest, “his root was by the great waters.” And what that root found in streams which, fed by the snows and seaming the sides of Lebanon, hottest summers never dried and coldest winters never froze, the unequalled faith of Abraham found in close and constant communion with God. Like Enoch he walked with God. Each important transaction of life was entered on in a pious spirit, and hallowed by religious exercises. His tent was a moving temple. His household was a pilgrim church. Wherever he rested, whether by the venerable oak of Mamre, or on the olive slopes of Hebron, or on the lofty, forest-crowned ridge of Bethel, an altar rose; and his prayers went up with its smoke to heaven. Such daily, intimate, and loving communion did this grand saint maintain with heaven, that God calls him “his friend;” and honoring his faith with a higher than any earthly title, the Church has crowned him “Father of the Faithful.” He lived on terms of fellowship with God such as had not been seen since the days of Eden. Voices addressed him from the skies; angels paid visits to his tent; and visions of celestial glory hallowed his lowly couch and mingled with his nightly dreams. He was a man of prayer, and therefore he was a man of power. Setting us an example that we should follow his steps,—thus, to revert to language borrowed from the stateliest of Lebanon’s cedar, thus was he “fair in his greatness and in the length of his branches, for his root was by the great waters.” Yet the patriarch had his failings—as who has not?—and they are written to warn “him who thinketh he standeth, to take heed lest he fall.” Guthrie.

No man ever won for himself an equally honorable place among men by qualities so imitable and within the reach of all. Wherever his foot trod or his fame spread, the homage of numberless generations has elevated the Hebrew exile of Ur almost into a divinity. And this unexampled honor has been won in a way equally without example, through the elevation of his religious character. Not as a leader of emigration; not as a prosperous emir; not as a captain of fighting men; not even as an ancestor of nations; neither as a witness to new truths; nor as the confessor of an ancient faith. All these capacities he sustained, yet it was through none of these that he achieved his far-spread and lasting reputation. It was simply the purity and nobility of his personal piety which made him what he is. The simple, unworldly elevation on which through a long life he walked with God; the entire self-abnegation with which he surrendered everything at the divine call; the childlike confidence with which he received the words of his celestial Friend; above all, the absolute trust he was enabled to repose in the character and promise of Jehovah, under temptations to distrust the most fierce and frequent,—these things it was which made Abraham great.

What lay, therefore, at the base of this man’s strength and majesty of character was the virtue of devout faith. He struck the roots of his being deeper than other men into the unseen and the abiding. He realized the person of God as one Who is real, near, accessible, friendly, and trustworthy. In a word, “he believed God.” It was this which made him strong. If he was a hero, it was simply because he trusted. This calm reliance on one Who is lifted far above the vicissitudes and the fears of time, lent to the whole character of Abraham a circumspection, a sense of safety and of power, a large and poised repose, which are most impressive. Next to his trust in God, his most eminent characteristic was perhaps his kindly and generous sympathy with men. That he was hospitable came as a matter of course. But how unselfish was he, to Lot, for example, or to the king of Sodom! How nobly his open-handedness contrasts with the craft and meanness so often found in his kindred and descendants! Save in the single matter of his wife’s safety, he ever discovered a straightforwardness in speech and deed such as Orientals have rarely attained. From discord he shrank with almost as much sensitiveness as his son Isaac; yet, when occasion required, how gallant he could show himself! how prompt to move, how strong to strike! At the same time, every excellence of character which his history enables us to trace will be found to have its real root and secret of power in the religious trust which held him to his God. It was the force and clearness with which he grasped the promises of Jehovah’s covenant and found in God Himself and in God’s friendship the strength, the reward, and the inheritance of his life, which made him of earthly goods so prodigal, so tolerant of present trial, and to other men so princely and so generous. Dykes.

Abraham is our father, too, if we believe, for he is “the father of the faithful.” If we blame him for aught of shortcoming or misdeed, we blame ourselves, for we are more to be reproached than he. Abraham lived in the twilight, we live in the full noon; Abraham stood alone, we are members of the general assembly and Church of the firstborn, with throngs of friends around us, and blessed memories and inspirations. Let us cultivate the pilgrim spirit. Let us “declare plainly that we seek a country.” Here we have no continuing city, but we seek one to come. Bind the sandals, grasp the staff, tarry briefly everywhere, and though faint, be evermore pursuing, content with nothing less than heaven. J. P.

“So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham.” Much as has been added or altered since his early day, the road to peace with God and heavenly blessings is the same he trod. Fulfilled at last in the Seed of promise, which is Christ, and sealed anew with His costly blood, the covenant of friendship stands to this hour where it stood when first Jehovah contracted with His servant under the oak-grove of Mamre. The virtues which made

Abraham great are virtues we all may follow. Surrender of everything to obey the voice of duty; trust, simple but solid, in the mere word of the Almighty’s grace; loyal adhesion against all appearances, both to what God promises and to what He commands; with a steadfast, quiet strength to wait and hope for His salvation: what but these are the conditions under which any of us in gospel times, as in patriarchal, can reach the high title which Abraham wore, or the still higher title to which Jesus has advanced His disciples? He was God’s friend. Henceforth the Son of God has called us not friends only, but brethren; his Father’s children; sons of God, and joint heirs with Christ. Dykes.