Genesis 12

PART THIRTY-SIX RECAPITULATION: SURVEY OF THE PATRIARCHAL AGE

From A Class-Book of Old Testament History, pp. 73-76

by G. F. Maclear, D.D. Published by Macmillan, London, 1881, now long out of print.

With the death of Joseph the Patriachal Age of Israel’s history may be said to close. The Family had now thrown out many branches and was now on the point of emerging into the Nation. At this juncture, then, it may be well to look back, and review some of the chief features of the Patriarchal Life.

1. And the first of these that claims attention is its Nomadic character. Unlike the founders of Egypt, of Babylon, of Nineveh, the Patriarchs were not the builders of cities and towns, but pilgrims and sojourners, dwellers in tents (Hebrews 11:9). But they were very different from rude hordes, like the Amalekites and other sons of the desert, abhorring any higher mode of life. Abraham was no stranger to the highest form of civilization that his age afforded. He was acquainted with Ur, with Nineveh, with Damascus, with Egypt; he had left his home in one of the chief cities of Mesopotamia, not from choice, but in consequence of a direct personal call from God. Moreover, so far from regarding his present mode of life as an ultimate end, he and Isaac and Jacob were ever looking forward to a time when it would close, when their descendants should be settled in the Land of Promise, and become a great nation, when the portable tent should give way to the city that had foundations (Hebrews 11:10; Hebrews 11:13-16; comp. Genesis 24:7; Genesis 28:4; Genesis 49:4; Genesis 50:24). Hence, from time to time, as opportunity offered, we see the wandering life freely and willingly laid aside. Lot settled in Sodom (Genesis 13:10-12); Abraham in Egypt went direct to Pharaoh’s court (Genesis 12:14); at Hebron he settled and became a prince of God in the midst of the Hittites (Genesis 23:6); Isaac not only lived near the Philistines, but occupied a house opposite the palace (Genesis 26:8), and practised agriculture (Genesis 26:12); and Joseph’s dream of the sheaves points out that this was also continued in the time of Jacob (Genesis 37:7).

2. The Family was the center of the Patriarchal commonwealth. Its head was the source of authority and jurisdiction; he possessed the power of life and death (Genesis 38:24); he united in himself the functions of chief and priest; he offered the burnt-offering; he had his armed retainers (Genesis 14:14; Genesis 48:22; Genesis 34:25; Genesis 33:1); his intercourse with his wives (for polygamy was not forbidden) was free and unrestrained; the wife’s consent was asked before wedlock (Genesis 24:57-58); love hallowed the relations of Abraham with Sarah, of Isaac with Rebekah, of Jacob with Leah and Rachel; woman, indeed, did not occupy the position since conceded to her, but her position was far from degraded, and the sanctity of the marriage-bond was defended by severe laws, which made death the punishment for adultery (Genesis 38:24). Slavery, it is true, existed, but in the tents of Abraham the slave was ever treated with consideration, and not excluded from, but made a partaker of religious privileges (Genesis 17:13). The fidelity and attachment of Eliezer the steward of Abraham’s house, the mourning for Deborah, Rebekah’s nurse (Genesis 35:8), are pleasing proofs of the peace that reigned in the Patriarchal household.

3. Civilization. The life of the Patriarchs was chiefly that of the shepherd, and their wealth consisted in their flocks and their herds. But besides practising agriculture they were not unacquainted with money and the precious metals. Abraham paid for the field of Machpelah with coin (Genesis 23:9-20), and the sons of Jacob took money with them into Egypt (Genesis 42:25; Genesis 42:35); while the gold ring and armlets presented to Rebekah by Eliezer (Genesis 24:22), the bracelet and signet ring of Judah (Genesis 38:18), the ear-rings of Rachel (Genesis 35:4), the many-coloured coat of Joseph, indicate an acquaintance with the luxuries of life.

4. Religion. While other nations were rapidly learning to deify the powers of nature, the Patriarchs believed not only in a God above and beyond nature, but in a God Personal, Omnipotent, and Holy. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was. no mere abstraction, no mere law. He could and did reveal Himself by angelic appearances, by visions, by dreams; He could console, strengthen, encourage; He could punish, rebuke, and on repentance forgive. Abraham, the Friend of God (James 2:23), intercedes with Him in behalf of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 18:23-33); Isaac is warned by Him against going down into Egypt (Genesis 26:2); Jacob is consoled by Him at Bethel when setting out into the land of exile (Genesis 28:13-15), and wrestles with Him by the fords of Jabbok till the break of day (Genesis 32:24); Joseph believes in His invisible but ever-present help in prison and in a strange land, and ascribes to Him all his wisdom in the interpretation of dreams (Genesis 41:16). The Divine Promise of a great future Abraham believed under circumstances of greatest trial, and his faith was counted to him for righteousness (Romans 4:3). Moreover, the God of the Patriarchs was not a mere national or household God. His sphere of operation was not restricted to the Patriarchs and their families; He is the God of all the earth (Genesis 24:3), the God of Righteousness and Holiness. He punishes the people of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19:24-25); He plagues Pharaoh’s house (Genesis 12:17); He is the God of the priest-king Melchizedek (Genesis 14:18), and of the Philistine Abimelech (Genesis 20:3); He protects not only Isaac the child of promise, but the outcast Ishmael the child of the bond-woman (Genesis 21:13); He is with Joseph in prison, but He sends dreams to Pharaoh, and through Joseph He saves Egypt from famine (Genesis 50:20).

5. The Religious Worship of the Patriarchs was in keeping with the simplicity of their creed. The head of the family was also the priest of the family. Whenever Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob, reached any new spot in their pilgrimage, they invariably erected an altar, generally of stone and on a high situation (Genesis 22:9; Genesis 26:25; Genesis 35:7); there they called on the name of Jehovah, there they presented their burnt sacrifice, there they offered up their prayers. Their history also proves the existence of offering covenant-sacrifices, and celebrating covenant-feasts (Genesis 15:9-18); the making and paying of vows (Gen. 28:23); the erection of memorial pillars, and the consecration of them by pouring upon them oil and wine (Genesis 28:18); the rite of circumcision (Genesis 17:10-14); and the paying of tithes (Genesis 14:20).

6. The Character of the Patriarchs is never represented as perfect; their faults are freely exposed; theirs is no ideal history. If we compare the four most eminent amongst them, we seem to trace in (i) Abraham, the faith that can remove mountains in its power and in its fulness, revealing itself in unfaltering trust and unquestioning obedience under the most trying circumstances conceivable; in (ii) Isaac, the faith that can possess itself in patience, and discharge the ordinary duties of life in quietness and waiting; in (iii) Jacob, the violent contest of faith with the flesh, the higher with the lower nature, till by hard discipline the latter is purified, and the Sup-planter becomes the Prince, the Prevailer with God; in (iv) Joseph, the fidelity and perseverance of faith, revealed not only in the patient endurance of the most grievous trials, but in energetic action, and at length crowned with victory. He unites in himself the noble trust and resolution of Abraham, with the quiet perseverance of Isaac, and the careful prudence of Jacob. He is moreover an eminent historic type of Christ, in (1) his persecution and sale by his brethren, (2) his resisting temptation, (3) his humiliation and exaltation, and (4) his dispensing to a famine-stricken people the bread of life, and (5) in the fulness of his forgiving love.

ADDENDA [Volume 3] LANGE: ON THE ANGEL OF JEHOVAH

(CDHCG, 389-390, verbatim)

Between Abram’s connection with Hagar and the next manifestation of Jehovah there are full thirteen years. But then his faith is strengthened again, and Jehovah appears to him (Genesis 17:1). The most prominent and important theophany in the life of Abram is the appearance of the three men (ch. 17). But this appearance wears its prevailing angelic form, because it is a collective appearance for Abram and Lot, and at the same time refers to the judgement upon Sodom. Hence the two angels are related to their central point as the sun-images to the sun itself, and this central point for Abram is Jehovah himself in his manifestation, but not a commissioned Angel of the Lord. Thus also this Angel visits Sarah (Genesis 21:1; compare Genesis 18:10). But the Angel appears in the history of Hagar a second time (Genesis 21:17), and this time as the Angel of God (Maleach Elohim), not as the Maleach Jehovah, for the question is not now about a return to Abram’s house, but about the independent settlement with Ishmael in the wilderness. The person who tempts Abram (Genesis 22:1) is ElohimGod as he manifests himself to the nations and their general ideas or notions, and the revelation is effected purely through the word. Now, also, in the most critical moment for Abram, the Angel of the Lord comes forward, calling down to him from heaven since there was need of a prompt message of relief. In the rest of the narrative this Angel of the Lord identifies himself throughout with Jehovah (Genesis 22:12; Genesis 22:16). To Isaac also Jehovah appears (Genesis 26:2), and the second time in the night (Genesis 26:24). He appears to Jacob in the night in a dream (Genesis 28:12-13). Thus also he appears to him as the Angel of God in a dream (Genesis 31:11), but throughout identified with Jehovah (Genesis 31:13). Jehovah commands him to return home through the word (31:3). Laban receives the word of God in a dream (Genesis 31:24). The greatest event of revelation in the life of Jacob is the grand theophany, in the night, through the vision, but the man who wrestles with him calls himself God and man (men) at the same time. According to the theory of a created angel, Jacob is not a wrestler with God (Israel), but merely a wrestler with the Angel. It is a more purely external circumstance which God uses to warn Jacob through the word to remove from Shechem (Genesis 35:1). In the second-’ peculiar manifestation of God to Jacob after his return from Mesopotamia (Genesis 35:9), we have a clear and distinct reflection of the first (Genesis 32:24). In the night-visions of Joseph, which already appear in the life of Isaac, and occur more frequently with Jacob, the form of revelation during the patriarchal period comes less distinctly into view. But then it enters again, and with new energy, in the life of Moses. The Angel of Jehovah (Exodus 3:2) is connected with the earlier revelation, and here also is identified with Jehovah and Elohim (Exodus 3:4). But he assumes a more definite form and title, as the Angel of his face, since with the Mosaic system the rejection of any deifying of the creature comes into greater prominence, and since it is impossible that the face of God should be esteemed a creature.

The reasons which are urged for the old ecclesiastical view of the Angel of the Lord, are recapitulated by Kurtz in the following order: 1. The Maleach Jehovah identifies himself with Jehovah. 2. Those to whom he appears recognize, name, and worship him as the true God. 3. He receives sacrifice and worship without any protest. 4. The biblical writers constantly speak of him as Jehovah. We add the reasons. 1. The theory of our opponents opens a wide door in the Old Testament for the deifying of the creature, which the Old Testament everywhere condemned; and the Romish worship of angels finds in it a complete justification. 2. The Socinians also gain an important argument for their rejection of the Trinity, if, instead of self-revelation of God, and of the self-distinction included in it in the Old Testament, there is merely a pure revelation through angels. As the fully developed doctrine of the Trinity cannot be found in the Old Testament, so no one can remove from the Old Testament the beginnings of that doctrine, the self-distinction of God, without removing the very substructure on which the New Testament doctrine of the Trinity rests, and without obscuring the Old Testament theology in its very centre and glory. 3. It would break the band of the organic unity between the Old and New Testaments if it could be proved that the central point in the Old Testament revelation is a creature-angel, and that the New Testament revelation passes at one bound from this form to that of the God-man. The theory of the creature-angel in its continuation through a colossal adoration of angels, points downwards to the Rabbinic and Mohammedan doctrine of angels which has established itself in opposition to the New Testament Christology, and is bound together with that exaggerated doctrine of angels in more recent times, which ever corresponds with a veiled and obscure Christology. On the other hand, it removes from the New Testament Christology its Old Testament foundation and preparation which consists in this, that the interchange between God and men is in full operation, and must therefore prefigure itself in the images of the future God-man. 4. The doctrine of angels itself loses its very heart, its justification and interpretation, if we take away from it the symbolic angel-form, which rules it, as its royal centre, i.e. that angelic form which, as a real manifestation of God, as a typical manifestation of Christ, as a manifestation of angels, has the nature and force of a symbol. But with the obliteration of the symbolic element, all the remaining symbolic and angelic images, the cherubim and seraphim, will disappear, and with the key of biblical psychology in its representation of the development of the life of the soul, to an organ of revelation, we shall lose the key to the exposition of the Old Testament itself. 5. Augustin was consistent when, with his interpretation of the Angel of Jehovah as a creature-angel, he decidedly rejects the interpretation which regards the sons of God (ch. 6)as angel-beings; for the assumption of angels who, as such, venture to identify themselves with Jehovah, and notwithstanding they are in peril, abandon themselves to lustful pleasures and a magical transformation of their nature, combines two groundless and intolerable phantoms. We hold, therefore, that Old Testament theology, in its very heart and centre, is in serious danger from these two great prejudices, as the New Testament from the two great prejudices of a mere mechanical structure of the Gospels, and of the unapostolic and yet more than apostolic brothers of the Lord. (See the defence of the old ecclesiastical view in the Commentary by Keil, also with a reference to Kahnis, de Angelo Domini diatribe, 1858. The assertion of the opposite view held by Delitzsch in his Commentary, meets here its refutation).

6. The aspect of all theophanies as visions. It is a general supposition, that divine revelation is partly through visions, or through inward miraculous sights and sounds. We must, however, bring out distinctly the fundamental position, that every theophany is at the same time vision, and every vision a theophany; but that in the one case the objective theophany and in the other the subjective vision, is the prevailing feature. The subjective vision appears in the most definite form in dream-visions, of which Adam’s sleep, and Abram’s night-horror (chs. 2 and 15.), are the first striking portents. It develops itself with great power in the lives of Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, and is of still greater importance in the lives of Samuel and Solomon, as also in the night-visions of Zechariah. We find them in the New Testament in the life of Joseph of Nazareth and in the history of Paul. It needs no proof to show that the manifestations of God or angels in dreams, are not outward manifestations to the natural senses. In the elements of the subjective dream-vision, veils itself, however, the existing divine manifestation. But what the dream introduces in the night-life, the seeing in imagesthat the ecstasy does in the day or ordinary waking life (see Lange: Apostolic Age). The ecstasy, as the removing of the mind into the condition of unconsciousness, or of a different consciousness, is the potential basis of the vision, the vision is the activity or effect of the ecstasy. But since the visions have historical permanence and results, it is evident that they are the intuitions of actual objective manifestations of God. Mere hallucinations of the mind lead into the house of error, spiritual visions build the historical house of God. But in this aspect we may distinguish peculiar dream-visions, night-visions of a higher form and power, momentary day-visions, apocalyptic groups or circles of visions, linked together in prophetic contemplation, and that habitual clear-sightedness as to visions which is the condition of inspiration. But that theophanies which are ever at the same time Angelophanies and Christophanies, and indeed as theophanies of the voice of God, or of the voice from heaven, of the simple appearance of angels, of their more enlarged and complete manifestations of the developed heavenly scenethat these are always conditioned through a disposition of fitness for visions, is clear from numerous passages in the Old and New Testaments (2 Kings 6:17, Daniel 10:7; John 12:28-29; John 20:10-12; Acts 9:8; Acts 12:7-12; Acts 22:9-14).

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THE ABRAHAMIC PROMISE

(by H. Christopher, The Remedial System, pp. 146-150)

The promise that God would bless the whole world through him [Abraham] had reference to Christ, the son of Abraham, through whom God would fulfill his promise of blessing the whole world through the offspring of Abraham. Whilst it was the first and chief promise made to Abraham, it was the last in fulfillment. Nearly two thousand years intervened. It was ratified and covenanted by the blood of Christ, and looked to the possession of the heavenly Canaan, and to a circumcision that cut off the heart from all that is worldly and sensual, and to a seal that became the pledge of the purchased possession, and its settlement in the heavenly Canaan, by the resurrection from the dead, when the spiritual people of God cross the Jordan of death, and take possession of the land of promise, for which even Abraham looked, when he sought a city whose maker and builder is God. This promise and its blessings have no connection with the others made to Abraham. They differ as widely as flesh and spirit, and as earth and heaven. They connect or coalesce no where. The first were but preparatory and necessary to the last. When the last appeared, the first had served their chief, if not all their, purpose. The first had chief reference to man’s body, while the last has chief reference to man’s spirit. And as the spirit of man is superimposed, as it were, upon the body, and is capable of a separate and independent existence, so was the last promise superimposed upon the first, and is capable of existing, and does exist, independently of it. Hence, the promises and the covenants by which they were ratified, connect with each other only as the flesh connects with the spirit. Between them lies an impassable gulf. There is no possible passage from the first to the last. The Jew has no rights and privileges under Christ by virtue of his being the son of Abraham according to the flesh; for the promise was; In Isaac shall thy seed be called, and he was the child of promise and of faith. The Christian is the child of promise and of faith, and hence is reckoned through Isaac as a special creation of God, and is, therefore, himself a new creation. The last creation supersedes all former ones, and by this supersession abrogates them. The adoption of the children of Abraham as the special and peculiar people of God, set aside the adoption by creation, and during the time of their adoption, the natural adoption was set aside, and the rest of mankind ignored, and treated as an uncovenanted people. So when the Christian adoption came in, the Jewish was set aside, and all the rest of mankind, not embraced in the new adoption, were ignored and treated as uncovenanted. Hence, under Christianity there is neither Jew nor Greek; neither circumcision nor uncircumcision; but all the families, nations, and races of mankind are one in Christ, in perfect fulfillment of the promise: In thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed.

All this is necessarily true. The Remedial System is developed by differentiations which mark the boundaries of the development. The patriarch had no privileges, special and peculiar, after the calling of Abraham. By that call God isolated a part from the whole, and made this part his special care. By the new creation through Christ another isolation was made, which placed Jew and Greek on the same plane before God, and abrogated all special and peculiar rights or privileges claimed by the Jews. This is necessarily true from another consideration. The claim of the Jew rested on an explicit covenant. That covenant recognized him as the chosen of God, through a means wholly different from that by which he had recognized the patriarch, and does now recognize the Christian. This consideration or means was his birth. He was the son of Abraham according to the flesh, and entitled, consequently, only to the rights and privileges guaranteed by the covenant ordained to grant and secure these. He could claim only under the stipulated grants of his covenant. Under other and different covenants, and made with other people, he could, of course, have no claim or right whatever. His circumcision effected all it was designed to effect, and meant more than the Jew was willing to accept. It cut him off from all the rest of the world, and also from all other covenants of God, but according to the flesh. His circumcision bound him down to the provisions and obligations of that covenant, and confined him within its prescribed limits. What claim, therefore can a Jew have to the grants and blessings of a covenant that has no special reference to him whatever, and that was not made with him as a Jew? The European had as well claim equal rights with the American under the constitution of the United States. The Jew was the chosen of God only according to the flesh, and entitled only to blessings of his covenant. He is not the chosen of God according to the spirit, or the seed of Isaac according to the promise, and hence he can have no right with those who are.

There are four things necessary to make a nation the peculiar and chosen people of God, and all these obtained in the case of the descendants of Abraham according to the flesh. These things are, 1. A creation. This we have in the birth of Isaac. His conception was a miracle, and hence a creation. 2. A seal. This we have in circumcision. 3. A purchase. This we have in the deliverance of this people from Egypt. And 4. A covenant. And this we have in the covenant made before Mt. Sinai. All these are peculiar and consistent, and perfectly harmonious with all that God has promised, or has done for, the Jews. They were all equally necessary, and they follow each other as necessary results one of the other. The seal came to ratify the creation, the purchase, in demonstration of the fulfillment of the promise, and the covenant, in order that the people might also pledge themselves by covenant. By this the people became cemented and organized into a nation. As such they needed laws and institutions for their government and welfare as a people; and as the people of God, religious institutions for the various purposes which God had in view with that people. It will be observed that this covenant made with Abraham’s descendants arose under that which covenanted them as the peculiar people of God, and was, consequently, entirely Jewish. The covenant of Mt. Sinai was made with that people, and the institutions subsequently given, were given to that people, and to no other. The Jewish institution, in all its entirety, was as verily circumcised as were the people for whose benefit it was ordained. It was as completely isolated from all other religions and peoples, as were that people. Hence, it had no connection with any other, nor relation, except that of opposition. The covenant stipulated and embraced no more than did the promise under which it was made. It was a ratification, or acceptance on their part, of the stipulations of the promise. It was the covenant by which God renewed his promise to be their God, and by it the people accepted the offer, and covenanted to be the people of God. This covenant bound both parties to their pledgeGod to be their God, and them to be his obedient people. It did not, and could not stipulate and grant more than did the promise; hence, all these were temporal in their nature. This completed all that God had to provide for that people. Henceforth there was naught for either party to do, but to carry out the provisions of the covenant which formulated the promise. But this covenant was not only temporary as respects the rights, privileges, and blessings which it secured to that people; but it was also temporary in its duration. The people broke that covenant: and a covenant broken on one side, is broken on both. It was faulty in that it only contemplated and provided for man’s temporal wants. Indeed, this was the fault of the whole Jewish fabric, from the inception to the close. This was foreseen; and not only foreseen, but the whole structure was but a means to an end; a measure to give time for the preparation and institution of a better. The promise of God under which the whole Jewish structure arose, was not the first and chief promise that God made to Abraham, nor his chief purpose in calling him. This chief and greatest promise was that through him he would bless the whole human family. This promise the apostle interprets as having reference to Christ, and consequently, it was sooner or later, to take precedence of all others. It could not be annulled by any subsequent promise, unless that promise annulled, at the same time, all former ones. But this the subsequent promises did not do, as is affirmed by the people. The promise which had reference to Christ, preceded the ratification of that concerning the land several years, and antedated the covenant of circumcision twenty-four years. The covenant at Mt. Sinai followed the latter four hundred and six thereafter. So that nothing which transpired under the later promises could annul the first. The first and chief promise which contemplated spiritual blessings and a spiritual offspring through Isaac, was not ratified, fulfilled, or covenanted, for nearly two thousand years. All that has grown out of this promise has no connection with what arose under the others. It differs from them in every respect. It differed from them in the beginning. It came into the world through a different line. There were two lines of descendants in Isaac, as two promises were fulfilled in his descendants. The one line was the seed of Abraham according to the flesh, and the other the seed according to the spirit, the latter of which is reckoned the true line under the covenant of the first promise. This excludes the children according to the flesh from all rights and privileges pertaining to the children according to the spirit. As respects, therefore, their nature, rights, and privileges, the Jewish and Christian institutions differ radically and entirely; to that degree as to exclude the one wholly from the other. The creation, the circumcision or seal, the purchase, and the covenant, that made the descendants of Abraham according to the flesh the people of God, have no place nor value under the Christian institution. The latter has its own creation, seal, purchase, and covenant, all of which are spiritual and eternal, and these give the Christian no rights or privileges under the former. Hence, as respects institutions differing so completely and widely, there can be no community of rights and privileges; nor can the one flow out of the other so as to establish any genetic connection between them. As the spiritual and the eternal necessarily supersede the fleshly and temporal, so does the Jewish institution, in whole and in part, give way to the Christian. Under the latter arises a people of God as distinct from the former as spirit is from flesh. The Christian is a new creation, and all that pertains to his creation is new. Before it the Jew and Gentile stand on the same ground. Both must become the subjects of this new creation before they can be regarded as belonging to the people of God. All the claim which the Jew once preferred, goes for naught under the operation of the new creation. A new birth is just as essential for the Jew as for the Gentile. Hence, the Jew’s creation, seal, purchase, and covenant are all naught when he stands before the Christian’S. His birth of the flesh avails nothing, and neither does his circumcision, Nothing is now acceptable to God but the new creation in Christ. These things being true, all that is Jewish has passed away. The Jews are no longer the people of God. Their whole religious service has perished; and what purpose God has now with that people remains to be seen. That he has no further purpose with them in regard to the fulfillment of his promise of blessing the world through them by Christ, is evident from the fact that Christianity has superseded Judaism, and that the whole religious service of that people perished with the total destruction of their temple. Christ is the end of the law, and of all that pertained to it. It was but a pedagogue to lead the Jews to Christ; so that when he came all that was Jewish was set aside, and the pedagogue was dismissed. All now become the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus, in whom there is neither Jew nor Greek; neither bond nor free; neither male nor female; but all are one in Christ Jesus. And all who are Christ’s by virtue of the new creation, the spiritual seal, the eternal purchase, and the everlasting covenant, are the seed of Abraham, and heirs according to the promise: In thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed. (N. B. After hunting several years for a copy of Christopher’s book, I found it in the Dallas Christian College LibraryC. C.)

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THE EXCELLENCE OF FAITH

(Read Romans 5:1-11).

In the study of First Principles the term which first engages our attention is faith. We shall find that it occupies a prominent place in connection not only with conversion, but also with every phase of Christian activity and growth.

Faith is one of the most far-reaching words in the vocabulary of inspiration. Without faith none of the blessings of the spiritual realm would be available to man. Contrariwise, on the ground of faith, such blessings as eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived (1 Corinthians 2:9), are within his power to appropriate and enjoy.

Faith is an oft-recurring word in the New Testament. Jesus had much to say about it, and the word is used repeatedly in the Epistles. Paul states expressly that we are justified by faith (Romans 5 :).

The excellence of faith is indicated in scripture by the following representations:

1. Faith is superior to things and circumstances of this material world.

When given full sway in the human heart it rises above the circumstances of life and controls them. The power of faith is described in such scriptures as Matthew 17:20, Mark 9:23; Mark 11:23, Luke 17:6. Christians of this materialistic age, in bondage as they are to the tyranny of things, are inclined to look on these sayings of the Master with more or less skepticism. The tragedy is that we have never really learned to walk by faith. We cannot testify that these sayings are true for the simple reason that we have never learned to stand on God’s promises. True, we claim to do so, and we sing Standing on the Promises, but always with mental reservations. It is only through the exercise of implicit faith that we can throw off the fetters of anxiety and fear which enslave us to this present evil world. We are willing to obey the Lord in confession and baptism, but we certainly fall far short of His teaching in regard to such everyday matters as fear, worry, forgiveness, humility, and the like. (See Matthew 5:3-12; Matthew 5:21-26; Matthew 5:38-42; Matthew 6:25-33; Matthew 7:1-5; Matthew 7:7-12, etc. Cf. 1 John 4:18) He might well say to us as to His disciples of old, O ye of little faith!

2. Faith is the ground of our justification.

Being therefore justified by faithnot by faith alone, or mere intellectual assent (the theologians have added the word alone)we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Not by faith alone, because faith apart from works (i.e., works of faith) is dead (James 2:26). The faith that is unto the saving of the soul (Hebrews 10:39) expresses itself in works of obedience, sacrifice and service (Romans 12:1-2). To walk by faith is to live by the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-25). God so loved us that He gave His only begotten Son as a propitiation for our sins (John 3:16), but we must appropriate this matchless Gift by faith. By true faith in Him we have access into this grace wherein we stand (Romans 5:2). For by grace ye have been saved through faith, and that (i.e., that salvation) not of yourselves, it is the gift of God (Ephesians 2:8).

3. Faith is the motivating principle of all Christian worship and service.

True worship is (1) communion of the human spirit with the Divine Spirit, (2) on the terms of the truth as revealed in scripture (John 4:24). This can be realized only through faith. Repentance is faith choosing; the confession is faith speaking; baptism is faith obeying; the Lord’s Supper is faith remembering; liberality is faith acknowledging God’s ownership; prayer is faith communing; meditation is faith pondering; and. the whole Christian life is faith serving. Therefore we are justified by faith. From the day of conversion to that of the putting, on of immortality, the actuating principle in the life of every true Christian is faith.

4. Implicit faith, along with obedience, is a necessary, condition to the answer of prayer (John 14:12-15; John 15:5-10, etc.).

(1) Acts 12:1-17. We read here that many of the early disciples were gathered together in the house of Mary, the mother of John Mark, praying for Peter’s deliverance from prison. Yet they were amazed when their prayer was answered and Peter stood in their midst. Most of our praying is of this kind; it has little conviction back of it. (Matthew 21:22).

(2) The prayer of faith, i.e., the petition offered in harmony with the teaching of God’s word, will not go unanswered.

Unanswered yet? The prayer your lips have pleaded

In agony of heart these many years?

Does faith begin to fail? is hope departing?

And thing you all in vain those falling tears?

Say not the Father hath not heard your prayer,

You shall have your desire, sometime, somewhere.

Unanswered yet? Tho-’ when you first presented

This one petition at the Father’s throne,

It seemed you could not wait the time of asking

So urgent was your heart to make it known.

Tho-’ years have passed since then, do not despair;

The Lord will answer you, sometime, somewhere.

Unanswered yet? Nay, do not say -ungranted-';

Perhaps your part is not yet wholly done;

The work began when first your prayer was uttered,

And God will finish what He has begun;

If you will keep the incense burning there,

His glory you shall see, sometime, somewhere.

Unanswered yet? Faith cannot be unanswered;

Her feet are firmly planted on the Rock;

Amid the wildest storms she stands undaunted,

Nor quails before the loudest thunder-shock.

She knows Omnipotence has heard her prayer, And cries, -It shall be done, sometime, somewhere!-’ And cries, -It shall be done, sometime, somewhere!-'

5. The blessings and rewards of the gospel are all received and realized through faith.

Among these are: (1) salvation from the guilt of sin (Mark 16:16, Acts 2:38; Acts 10:43; Acts 16:31; Acts 26:18); (2) spiritual life (John 20:31; John 6:40, John 3:16; John 3:36; 1 John 5:12); (3) spiritual light (John 1:9; John 8:12; John 12:36); (4) heavenly adoption (Galatians 3:26); (5) the indwelling Spirit (John 7:39, Ephesians 1:13, Galatians 3:14); (6) justification (Romans 5:1, Galatians 2:16): (7) true righteousness (Romans 1:16-17; Romans 10:6; Romans 3:22); (8) true worship (John 4:24, Ephesians 3:12); (9) providential oversight (1 Peter 1:5); (10) eternal rest (Hebrews 4:3). In fact the inheritance of all the promises of God is to be realized through faith (Hebrews 6:12).

Conclusion: No wonder then that faith is represented to be the foundation which supports the entire pyramid of Christian virtues that true disciples build, one stone upon the other, and upon which they climb heavenward (2 Peter 1:5-7). True Christians walk by faith, not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7).

Faith, hope and love, according to Paul, constitute the abiding trinity of spiritual virtues (1 Corinthians 13:13). Of these three, love is greatest; because, in the home over there, faith will have given way to spiritual knowledge, and hope to fruition, leaving only love to consummate the blissful intercourse of the redeemed with their heavenly Father (Revelation 21:1-5).

THE NATURE OF FAITH

(Read Hebrews, ch. 11, esp. Hebrews 11:1.)

The eleventh chapter of Hebrews has been called Israel’s Roll of Honor. It is the great faith chapter of the Bible. It is an inspired discourse on the subject of faith. The discourse begins properly with the last three verses of ch. 10, in which the writer speaks of a faith that is unto the saving of the soul. The subject-matter which follows, in ch. 11, is an analysis of that kind of faith, what it is, whence it is obtained, and how it operates unto salvation, as exemplified in the lives of many illustrious believers of olden times. The writer proves to be an excellent sermonizer, as we might expect in view of his having been inspired by the Spirit of God. He states his text in v. 1, and then proceeds to develop it with appropriate illustrations drawn from Old Testament history. His concluding exhortation follows, in ch. 12, Genesis 12:1-2. We shall attempt here to evaluate the teaching of this great chapter on the nature (i.e., the original and essential characteristics) of faith.

Let me repeat that the kind of faith under consideration here is the faith that works unto the saving of the soul. By some this has been called saving faith. Not that faith of itself will save any one, because it will not; but that the right kind of faith will motivate the believer to such intelligent and sincere cooperation with God, on God’s terms and according to His plan, that He may consistently save the one who so believes. It is God who pardons and saves, but always through Jesus Christ (John 14:6).

What is faith? Considering the excellence of faith, it is exceedingly important that we know what faith is. I am profoundly thankful that the Holy Spirit has not left us in darkness regarding this essential matter. Nor has he left it to our finite minds to formulate a definition. We are not compelled to go either to philosophy or to theology for a definition of faithwe have it in clear, unmistakable terms, in the Christian Scriptures.

What, then, are the essential characteristics of faith? This question is fully answered in the words of our text, as follows:

1. Faith is assurance. Assurance is defined as confidence inspired or expressed, that which produces certainty. It connotes positiveness, certainty, even boldness.

2. Faith is assurance of things hoped for. That is, faith is the foundation of hope.

(1) Authorized Version: the substance of things hoped for. The word substance means in our language the stuff, material, or matter of which anything is composed. It is used here, however, in its derivative sense. It is derived from the Latin prefix, sub (under) and the Latin participle stans (standing). Substance, then is that which stands under. Faith is that which stands under hope. Cf. Living Oracles: faith is the confidence of things hoped for. Moffatt: faith means we are confident of what we hope for. Weymouth: faith is a well-grounded assurance of that for which we hope. Goodspeed: faith means the assurance of what we hope for.

(2) Faith is the foundation of hope. This is true in every department of human activity. It is true in the business world. I visited a friend on one occasion to solicit a contribution from him for a worthy cause. Having heard my case, his reply was: I believe in your proposition, and I am sorry that I am not in a position to help just at this time. But I will do something later. I have invested a considerable sum of money in an oil well in Texas, and I am expecting returns from this investment within a few months. If you will come back about a year from this date, I will give you a substantial donation. I thanked him, and departed. About a year later I called at his office a second time, and as soon as I entered he looked at me and exclaimed: I know what you have come for, but I can-’t do anything for you. What is the trouble? I asked, didn-’t the oil well turn out satisfactorily? And in extreme disgust he said: I wish I had the money back that I sank in that hole in the ground. The first time I called he was extremely hopeful, because he believed in the enterprise in which he had invested; the second time I found him with hopes blasted, because he had lost all faith in it. Where there is no faith, there is no hope.

(3) This is also true in the social realm. In the course of time a young couple will fall in love, marry, and establish a home. The success of their undertaking will depend largely on their faith in each other. On this foundation of faith they will erect a structure of dreams and plans and hopes. But let the confidence of one in the other be destroyed and this structure will fall to the ground. Both marriage and home are erected on a foundation of faith.

(4) So, in the realm of spirit, as elsewhere, hope rests upon faith. Every act of worship and service we perform is motivated by faith. Faith underlies the pyramid of Christian virtues (2 Peter 1:5-7). And all our aspirations and hopes respecting the home over there, the inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away (1 Peter 1:4) rest on faith. In everything faith is the foundation of hope.

(5) Illustrations from the chapter (Hebrews 11). (a) Abel’s hope that his offering would be acceptable to God rested on faith, Hebrews 11:4. (1 John 3:12) (b) Enoch’s walk with God was a walk of faith, Hebrews 11:5. (c) Faith was the foundation of Noah’s hope of deliverance from impending judgment, Hebrews 11:7. (d) Abraham’s hope of attaining the far country which he was to receive for an inheritance was founded on faith, Hebrews 11:8. Also, his hope of receiving Isaac back from the dead was inspired by faith, from whence he did also in a figure receive him back, Hebrews 11:17-19. (e) Sarah’s expectation of a son, the child of promise, rested on faith, Hebrews 11:11. (f) Joseph’s hope that the children of Israel would ultimately take possession of the land of promise rested upon his faith, Hebrews 11:22. (g) The aspirations, hopes and plans of Moses for his people, and his matchless efforts in their behalf, were all inspired by his faith, Hebrews 11:24-29. In every example cited, faith is presented as the foundation of hope.

3. Faith is a conviction … A conviction is defined as a strong belief, something firmly believed. The faith which operates unto the saving of the soul is something more than a passive intellectual assent. It is a conviction. It must be a conviction, one that takes hold of the soul and determines the course of one’s life. In the light of this definition, it is obvious that faith is precisely the thing that is lacking in the modern church.

4. Faith is a conviction of things not seen, i.e., a conviction with respect to things not seen.

(1) Authorized Version: the evidence of things not seen. Moffatt: Faith means. we are convicted of what we do not see. Weymouth: a conviction of the reality of things which we do not see. Goodspeed: our conviction about things we cannot see.

(2) Note that faith is a conviction with respect to things not seen. I have never seen Paris, but I have a conviction that there is a city by that name and that it is the capital of France. My conviction is the result of satisfactory evidence. Things which are seen are matters of observation and knowledge, but things that are not seen belong to the realm of faith. God who is a Spirit (John 4:24) cannot be seen, and is therefore to be apprehended only by faith. Angels, spirit, resurrection, immortality, heaven, etc., all these realities of the unseen world are matters of faith. Faith pertains not to the things that are illusive and transitory, but to the things which are abiding. For the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal (2 Corinthians 4:18).

(3) We have never seen God, but we believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of them that seek after Him (Hebrews 11:6). We were not present to see the worlds created, but our conviction is that they were framed by the word of God (Hebrews 11:3). We have never seen Christ, our Elder Brother, but we believe in Him as the One who is abundantly able to save us from sin and mortality. We have never had a glimpse of heaven, but we believe that the Spirit of Him who raised up Jesus from the dead dwelleth in us, He that raised up Christ Jesus from the dead shall give life also to our mortal bodies through His Spirit that dwelleth in us (Romans 8:11). Therefore we are exhorted to live by faith, to walk by faith and to die in the faith.

(4) Illustrations from the chapter (Hebrews 11). (a) Abel brought his offering to the altar with the conviction that the God whom he had never seen, but in whom he believed, would accept it, Hebrews 11:4. (b) In Noah’s heart there was an overwhelming conviction that judgment would come upon the antediluvian world because of its wickedness. Although summer and winter, and seedtime and harvest, continued to come and go as usual for one hundred and twenty years, he never faltered. Through all the trying experiences of this period of grace he retained his conviction. Because that during all these intervening years there was no evidence in nature of the impending catastrophe, it was a conviction with respect to things not seen, Hebrews 11:7. (c) Abraham left home and kindred and friends, and started on a strange journey to a land both unknown to him and unseen by him. He had no idea how far he would have to travel in order to reach it. All that moved him was a conviction with respect to the far country and a conviction that God would give it to him for an inheritance. Hebrews 11:8-12. (d) These fathers of Israel, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, all died in the faith, having never received the literal fulfilment of the promises. So far as we know they all died without possessing a single acre of the land of promise save the few square feet they had purchased for a burial ground. It seems that as they continued in their pilgrimage their faith became clearer, and they began to look beyond the literal to the spiritual fulfilment of the promise, in the city which hath foundations whose builder and maker is God, Hebrews 11:13-16. (e) Joseph’s conviction with respect to the exodus of his people from Egypt pertained to an event far in the future, an event not seen, Hebrews 11:22. (f) Moses, the man who saw an undying flame, chose to share ill treatment with the people of God, above the temporary enjoyment of the pleasures of sin, because he endured as seeing him who is invisible (Hebrews 11:23-29). In all these cases, faith was a conviction with respect to things not seen.

(5) As in the various cases cited from Old Testament history, so it is with respect to faith in the present dispensation and under the new covenant: (a) our faith must be something more than mere assent; (b) it must be genuine conviction in order to work unto the saving of the soul; (c) it must be conviction with respect to things not seen, viz., God, the Son of God, the Spirit of God, the future life, heaven, etc.; (d) this faith undergirds all our spiritual blessings, aspirations and hopes (1 Corinthians 2:6-10).

Conclusion: 1. This inspired definition of faith is perfect and complete. Nothing can be taken from it without weakening its import. Nothing can be added to it that would give it greater force.

2. Christian faith takes in all those convictions with respect to God, the Son of God, the Word of God, the Spirit of God, immortality, heaven, and the like; all of which are eternal realities above and beyond the realm of time and space. Like Moses, we endure as seeing him who is invisible, looking unto Jesus the author and perfecter of our faith (Hebrews 12:2). Like Abraham, we realize that we are pilgrims and strangers upon this earth, that our present dwelling places are but the tabernacles of a night-time; and, like him, we anticipate a more glorious fulfilment of the promises than would be possible in this world of places and things (1 Corinthians 2:9-10). Our ultimate goal is that heavenly country towards which he made his pilgrimage. In the words of Emily Dickinson:

I never saw a moor, I never saw the sea, Yet know I how the heather looks, And what a wave must be. I never spoke with God, Nor visited in heaven; Yet certain am I of the spot As if the chart were given.

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THE SOURCE OF FAITH

(Read Romans 10:1-17).

Having ascertained the essential nature of faith (1) the assurance of things hoped for, and (2) a conviction with respect to things not seen, we shall now turn our attention to the source of faith. Whence is the faith obtained that is unto the saving of the soul? We may find the answer to this important question by turning again to the cases cited in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews:

1. Abel, Hebrews 11:4. Whence did Abel obtain his conviction that the offering of a sacrifice of blood would be pleasing to God and would bring him God’s blessing? Evidently from the word of God. It seems obvious that God laid down the law of sacrifice as soon as man fell, in order to establish the principle that apart from shedding of blood there is no remission (Hebrews 9:22). Abel, in bringing an offering in which blood was shed, obeyed the law; Cain, in bringing the fruit of the ground, disobeyed it (1 John 3:12). This explains why Abel’s offering was accepted and Cain’s rejected.

That this institution was of divine origin is evident from several considerations: I. We learn from Hebrews 11:4, that Abel offered his sacrifice in faith. But in Romans 10:17, we are told that -faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.-’ And hence it follows that Abel could not have offered in faith without a command from God. II. It could not have been a human invention, because Reason can perceive no connection between the means and the end. It is evidently a positive and not a moral or natural institution. III. Its universality is another proof of its divine origin. Mr. Faber says that -throughout the whole world there is a notion prevalent that the gods can be appeased only by bloody sacrifices. There is no heathen people,-’ he adds, -that can specify a time when they were without sacrifice. All have had it from a time which is not reached by their genuine records. Tradition alone can be brought forward to account for its origin.-’ IV. The distinction between clean and unclean beasts even in the time of Noah (Genesis 7:2) proves also the divine origin of sacrifice. This is a distinction which is altogether positive, and which has no foundation in either reason or philosophy (Milligan, SR, 67).

2. Enoch, Hebrews 11:5.Enoch’s walk of faith was evidently inspired and directed by the word of God (Genesis 5:24).

3. Noah, Hebrews 11:7. How did Noah obtain his conviction that an overwhelming deluge would come upon the antediluvian world? How did he obtain the conviction that in the building of the ark a means of deliverance would be provided him and his family? Evidently from the word of God. God told him the flood would come in due time. God told him to build the ark and how to build it. God gave him the plans for it. God promised him deliverance through the instrumentality of the ark. And Noah believed God. His conviction was inspired not by any manifestation in nature, but solely by the word of God. See Genesis 6:13-22; Genesis 7:1-5; Genesis 8:15-17.

4. Abraham, Hebrews 11:8-19. Whence did Abraham obtain his conviction regarding the land to which he journeyed? Whence did he obtain his belief that this land would be given him for an inheritance? From the word of God. See Genesis 12:1-4; Genesis 13:14-18, etc. It was God who told him about the far country and promised it to him for an inheritance. Whence did Abraham and Sarah obtain their conviction regarding the birth of the child of promise? From the word of God (Genesis 17:15-21). Whence did Abraham obtain his conviction that God would not allow Isaac to suffer an untimely end (Hebrews 11:19)? From the word of God. Had not Isaac been miraculously conceived and born? Were not the details of the Abrahamic promise to be worked out through him? (Genesis 12:3; Genesis 13:16; Genesis 17:19, Hebrews 11:18). Cf. Genesis 15:6, Romans 4:3, Galatians 3:6, James 2:23.

5. Joseph, Hebrews 11:22. Whence did Joseph obtain his conviction that his people would leave Egypt and repossess Canaan? Evidently from God’s promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Genesis 12:1-4; Genesis 13:14-18; Genesis 17:15-21; Genesis 26:2-5; Genesis 28:12-17).

6. Moses, Hebrews 11:22-29. From whom did Moses receive his commission to lead his people out of bondage? From whom did he receive the Law ordained through angels by the hand of a mediator (Galatians 3:19)? From God Himself. See Exodus 3:1 to Exodus 4:17, Exodus 20:1-26, Deuteronomy 5:1-33, etc. Who was his constant Guide and Protector through all those terrible marches in the wilderness? Who rained manna from heaven upon the starving people? Who guided them by means of a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night? Moses constantly endured, as seeing him who is invisible.

7. Joshua, Hebrews 11:29. Whence did Joshua obtain his confidence that the walls of Jericho would fall? From Jehovah’s word. He went to God for a war program, in his extremity, and God supplied it (Joshua 6:1-20).

8. Rahab, Hebrews 11:30. Whence did Rahab obtain her belief that she should give aid and succor to the men of Joshua’s army? Evidently from her knowledge of God’s promises and judgments (John 2:9-21; John 6:22-25, James 2:25).

9. The creation, Hebrews 11:3. Whence do we obtain our belief that our physical universe was the materialization of God’s word? Our conviction that what is seen hath not been made out of things which appear (i.e., that this universe was not fashioned out of pre-existing materials, as the evolutionists and materialists contend)? From the word of God. (See Psalms 33:6; Psalms 33:9; Psalms 148:5, etc. Note that the expression, God said, is found ten consecutive times in Genesis 1. Cf. also John 1:1-3, Hebrews 1:1-3, 2 Peter 3:5-8, etc.).

10. Other great heroes and heroines of faith, Hebrews 11:32-39. All received their inspiration to deeds of heroism from the attractions and impulsions of God’s word. So, then, belief cometh of hearing the divine word, as our text says. Believers in all ages endure as seeing Him who is invisible.

Conclusion: So much for the examples from Old Testament history. But what about the faith that operates unto the salvation of the soul, in the present dispensation, under the new covenant?

1. From what source do we obtain our belief that God is, and that He is a rewarder of them that seek after Him (Hebrews 11:6)? From the testimony about Him as revealed and recorded in Scripture. From the complete and perfect revelation of Him afforded us in the person and work of Jesus Christ, whom to know aright is eternal life. John 15:9-11, 1 Corinthians 2:6-16, Hebrews 1:1-3, 1 Peter 1:3-12, etc.

2. From what source do we obtain our conviction that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God? From the testimony presented in the Scriptures, particularly that of the gospel records. This is our only source of accurate information about Him, See John 17:20, John 20:30-31, Acts 15:7, Acts 17:11-12, etc. Why should me reject the testimony of these competent eye-witnesses, these men who walked and talked and supped with Him, and listen to the quibblings of half-baked professors removed from Him by a span of twenty centuries?

3. Whence do we obtain our convictions respecting the future life and its rewards and retributions? From the testimony of Scripture? From the great and exceeding precious promises of God.

4. Romans 10:17. Hear the conclusion of the whole matter. Faith does not come by feeling, nor by a direct operation of the Spirit, nor in answer to prayer, but faith does come by hearing the word of God (Romans 10:6-8, 1 Thessalonians 2:13).

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THE PILGRIMAGE OF FAITH

(Hebrews 11:1-19, esp. Hebrews 11:13)

One of the most illustrious characters of ancient times to whom our attention is called by the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, is Abraham, the father of the Hebrew people.

Abraham’s life and walk were so eminently motivated by faith, that his name has gone down in sacred history as the Father of the Faithful, and as the Friend of God (Romans 4:17, Galatians 3:29, Isaiah 41:8, 2 Chronicles 20:7, James 2:23).

1. Note, in the first place, that Abraham’s whole life was a pilgrimage of faith.

(1) It was by faith that he first went out from his native home, Ur of the Chaldees. As faith comes from hearing the word of God (Romans 10:17), so he went out in response to God’s command (cf. Genesis 12:1-3). He did not go out in consequence of any urge within himself, but solely in obedience to God. By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed to go out unto a place which he was to receive for an inheritance (Hebrews 11:8).

(2)* By faith he made his initial pilgrimage from Ur of Chaldea to the land of promise.* As faith is a conviction with respect to things not seen (Hebrews 11:1), he therefore went out not knowing whither he went (Hebrews 11:8). Commenting on this verse, Milligan says: Here we have given the fact that Abraham received a call from God; that by his call he was required to leave his home and kindred in Ur of Chaldea, and go out into a strange land; that this land, though promised to his posterity, was wholly unknown to him at the time; and that he nevertheless obeyed God, and went out of his own country, not knowing whither he went (Milligan, NTCH, in loco.)

(3) By faith he became a sojourner in the land of promise, as in a land not his own, etc. It would seem from this that Abraham never regarded Canaan as his home. He knew of course, by faith, that when the Canaanites should have filled up the cup of their iniquity to the full, in the fourth generation, the land would be given to his posterity for an everlasting possession, as indeed it was in the time of Joshua (Genesis 15:12-21). But until that time neither he nor his seed, he realized, had any rights or privileges there beyond what might have been accorded other strangers under like circumstances. (Cf. Acts 7:5). Hence Abraham died without owning a foot of the land other than the cave of Machpelah, which he purchased from Ephron the Hittite for a burying-ground (Genesis 23:3-20); and hence, also, neither he, nor Isaac, nor Jacob, ever established a permanent residence in the country. They were satisfied to live in movable tents, feeling assured that according to the promise, they were to fall heir to a better inheritance than any that is to be found on this earth.

(4) By faith he looked beyond the literal to the spiritual fulfilment of the promise. For he looked for the city which hath the foundations, etc. (Hebrews 11:9-10). From this and other like passages we are constrained to think that God had given the patriarchs information with regard to the heavenly country, far beyond what is now recorded in Genesis or any other part of the Old Testament. What we find there at present was written for our instruction, as well as for the benefit of the ancients (Romans 15:4). But much may have been said to them which would in no way benefit us; and which was, therefore, excluded from the Canon by Moses, Ezra and other inspired writers. The origin of sacrifice, for instance, is nowhere expressly mentioned in the Old Testament; nor is there anything said in it respecting the origin of the Patriarchal priesthood. Information, clear, full, and explicit, on all such matters, was of course needed by the ancients; but for us the more general instructions of the Bible are quite sufficient. And so, also, we think it was with respect to the heavenly country. The Patriarchs seem to have received revelations concerning it which have never been transmitted to us; for it is obvious that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, lived in constant expectation of entering it at the close of their earthly pilgrimage. They were satisfied to live here as strangers and pilgrims, knowing that they had in heaven a city having permanent foundations whose Architect and Framer is God. This city is manifestly the heavenly Jerusalem (Galatians 4:28, Hebrews 12:22; Hebrews 13:14), which for the present is located in heaven, but which will hereafter descend to the earth after the latter shall have been renovated by fire (Revelation 21). Then will be fulfilled in its full and proper sense the promise made to Abraham, that he and his seed should be the heirs of the world (Romans 4:13) (Milligan, ibid.).

In the land of fadeless day,

Lies -the city four-square-';

It shall never pass away,

And there is -no night there.-'

God shall -wipe away all tears,-'

There’s no death, no pain nor fears,

And they count not time by years,

For there is -no night there.-'

(5) By faith he anticipated the birth of the child of promise (Hebrews 11:11-12, Galatians 4:23, Genesis 17:15-21; Genesis 18:9-15; Genesis 21:1-7). The miraculous conception and birth of Isaac, typical in respect to its supernaturalness of that of Jesus, were direct fulfilments of the promise of Jehovah which Abraham believed. In this respect Abraham’s faith was even greater than Sarah’S, who, on being told, at ninety years of age and long after she had passed the age of child-bearing, that she should give birth to a son, received the announcement at first with considerable incredulity (Genesis 18:9-15).

(6) By faith he offered up Isaac on Mount Moriah, accounting that God is able to raise up, even from the dead; from whence he did also in a figure receive him back (Hebrews 11:17-19). Abraham’s faith was such that he knew that the promise of God (Genesis 17:21; Genesis 21:12) could not and would not fail, and as he could not anticipate that God would interfere, as He did, so as to prevent the immolation of his son, there was really left for him no alternative other than simply to conclude that God would restore Isaac to life. This conviction seems to be implied in the remark which he made to his servants, -Abide ye here with the ass, and I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again.-’ The word rendered come again (we will return) is in the plural number, and seems to indicate a belief on the part of Abraham, that God would immediately raise Isaac up again from the dead (Milligan, ibid.) The account of this, the severest trial and consequently the supreme manifestation of Abraham’s faith, is related in Genesis 22:1-14).

(7) Having walked in faith, he likewise died in faith, not having received the promises but having seen them and greeted them from afar, etc. What were the promises? (a) That Abraham should have a, numerous offspring (Genesis 13:16; Genesis 15:3-5; Genesis 17:2-4; Genesis 22:16); (b) that God would be a God to him and to his seed after him (Genesis 17:1-8); (c) that He would give to him and his seed an everlasting inheritance (Genesis 12:7; Genesis 13:15; Genesis 15:18-21; Genesis 17:8); (d) that through him and his seed, all the nations of the earth should be blessed (Genesis 2:3; Genesis 22:18). With respect to these four details, Abraham looked beyond their literal to their spiritual fulfilment. To each of these God attached a double significance.. They each consisted, so to speak, of two elements, one of which had reference to the carnal side of the covenant, and the other to the spiritual side; one to the type, and the other to the antitype. Thus Abraham was made the honored father of two families: to each of which an inheritance was promised, and through each of which the world was to be blessed (Milligan, ibid.). Abraham, it would seem, understood all this, understood by faith that the spiritual side of the promise would be realized through his seed, the Messiah, and consequently rejoiced to see his day, and he saw it, and was glad (John 8:56). (Cf. Galatians 4:21-31; Galatians 3:6-13, etc.) Hence, he died in faith, knowing that the promise in its various details would be worked out according to God’s eternal purpose and plan. Hence, too, by his constant life and walk of faith, he admitted that he did not seek a home on this earth, that here he considered himself merely a stranger and sojourner, that he did not expect to enter into possession of his true home until he should have reached the end of his pilgrimage and been received into a better country than this, i.e., heaven itself. Wherefore God approved and rewarded the faith of Abraham, and of Isaac and Jacob as well, by preparing for their inhabitation, and for all the redeemed of all ages, a city whose foundations had, even in their day, been laid prospectively in the blood of Jesus Christ (cf. Hebrews 12:22-24).

2. Note, in the second place, that Abraham’s pilgrimage of faith was designed to be typical of the believer’s journey.

(1) A voyage to a distant landsuch is the life of every Christian believer.

Our life is like the hurrying on the eve Before we start on some long journey bound, When fit preparing to the last we leave, Then run to every room the dwelling round, And sigh that nothing needed can be found; Yet go we must, and soon as day shall break; We snatch an hour’s repose; when loud the sound For our departure calls; we rise and take A quick and sad farewell, and go ere well awake.

(2) Here we walk by faith, and not by sight, if we are true Christians. Though in the world, we are not of the world. The worldly spirit deals with things present, but the spirit of faith anticipates the more glorious things to come. The worldly spirit is neither far-reaching nor far-sighted. Its range is bounded by the horizon of time and sense. It has no wings with which to soar into realms invisible. It is of the earth, earthly. Whence comes the manna? why gushes the water from the rock? whither guides the pillar of cloud and fire?these are questions it never asks. It knows not how to soar, how to anticipate and trust and wait, how to endure as seeing Him who is invisible, how to repose under the shadow of His wings, unmindful of the dangers of the wilderness and unalarmed by foes. But the heavenly-minded man walks by faiththat faith which is the substance of things hoped for, and a conviction with respect to things not seen. And, among all the great verities which possess his soul there is none greater, none nobler, none surer, than his conviction with respect to the saints-’ everlasting home. All the circumstances of his present journey, all the remembrances, all his reasonings, all his aspirations, point to a Better Land. By faith he sings:

There is a land of pure delight,

Where saints immortal reign,

Infinite day excludes the night,

And pleasures banish pain.

There everlasting spring abides

And never-withering flowers;

Death, like a narrow sea, divides

This heavenly land from ours.

(3) We realize that as far as this present life is concerned we are but strangers and sojourners on the earth. We dwell in tents, as did Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; in the tabernacles of a night-time. We are here today, and gone tomorrow. There is nothing that we possess here that we can really call our own. All that we shall have in the end is a few square feet of earth in which our mortal remains will be laid away to mingle with the dust. This is not sentimentaityit is plain fact. We can-’t take anything material with us into the next world, for the simple reason that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. No matter how diligently we may toil and strive to accumulate houses and lands and worldly goods, of what value will these things be when we reach the end of the road? We are pilgrims, nothing more, walking by faith in the direction of the heavenly country which we expect to reach beyond the swelling of the Jordan, the country that will truly be, Home, Sweet Home. The true Christian philosophy is expressed by Phoebe Carey in these lines:

One sweetly solemn thought

Comes to me o-’er and o-’er:

I am nearer my home today

Than I have ever been before.

Nearer my Father’s house

Where the many mansions be;

Nearer the great white throne,

Nearer the crystal sea.

Nearer the bound of life,

Where we lay our burdens down;

Nearer leaving the cross,

Nearer gaining the crown.

(4) Observation teaches us that much in this life is inequality and injustice. As far as this world alone is concerned, honesty is not always the best policy, Judas fares about as well as John, and Nero quaffs more of the wine of living than Paul. The voice of experience speaks to us that if this life is all, it is scarcely worth the living. In the words of Robert Browning:

Truly there needs be another life to come! If this be all And another life await us not for one, I say, -Tis a poor cheat, a stupid bungle, A wretched failure, I for one protest Against, and I hurl it back with scorn.

(5) Life as we live it here is largely illusion. (See F. W. Robertson, Sermons, The Illusiveness of Life). Our senses deceive us. They deceive us with respect to distance, shape, and color. That which, afar off, seems to be oval, turns out to be circular when modified by the perspective of distance; that which appears to be a speck, becomes a vast body, on nearer approach. Stand in the middle of a railroad track, and look in either direction, and the rails appear to converge; but they do not actually do so. Look at what we call the horizon and it seems that the earth and sky meet, but they do not actually, meet. The beautiful berry turns out to be bitter and poisonous; that which apparently moves is in reality at rest; that which seems to be stationary is in perpetual motion; the earth moves, but the sun, which appears to be moving, stands still. All experience here is but a correction of life’s illusionsa modification or reversal of the judgment of the senses. Our natural anticipations deceive us. Every human life starts out bright with hopes that will never be realized. These hopes may be different in nature: finer spirits may look on life as an arena for good deeds, while the more selfish regard it as a place only for personal enjoyment; but the results are usually the same. Regardless of the nature of these hopes, the majority will fail of fruition. It would seem almost a satire on life to compare the youth in the outset of his career, flushed and sanguine, with the aspect of the same man when he is nearly done, worn, sobered, covered with the dust of life, confessing that its days have been few and evil. Where is the land flowing with milk and honey? Not on this earth. With our affections it is even worse. Man’s affections are but tabernacles of Canaan, the tents of a nighttime, never the same, always changing. Where are the charms of character, the perfection and purity and truthfulness which seemed so resplendent in our friend? Association has rendered them sordid. They were only our conceptions and they proved false; hence we outgrow friendships. Life as we live it here is an unenjoyable Canaan with nothing real or substantial about it. Our expectations, resting on divine revelation, deceive us. For example, the attitude of the church with respect to the second coming of Christ. The apostles expected Him to return while they were yet here, and the early churches were vitalized by this hope of seeing the great and notable day of the Lord. John, in penning the last words of the New Testament, expressed this hope, Come, Lord Jesus. The church, throughout the centuries of the Christian era, has revived and revitalized this hope many times; in fact it has never died away. And even today, if it should turn out that we who are alive shall remain unto the coming of the Lord, we would consider ourselves fortunate indeed. However, He has not come. He will comebut not as yet. The promise, This Jesus shall so come in like manner as ye beheld him going into heaven, remains unfulfilled. What is the meaning of all this illusiveness of earthly life? Faith replies that it is not delusion, but illusion; that the non-fulfilment of the promises literally, is a pledge of their spiritual fulfilment later; that God, by their very non-realization, lures us onward and upward to nobler things. Suppose, for instance, that the spiritual side of the Abrahamic promise had been revealed to ancient Israel at first; suppose they had been informed at the outset that God’s rest is inward, that the land of promise is to be found only in the Jerusalem which is above; not material, but immaterial; not visible, but invisible. That rude, gross people, yearning after the flesh-pots of Egypt, willing to go back into slavery so only they might have enough to eat and drinkwould they have quitted Egypt on such terms? Would they have taken one step on that pilgrimage which was to find its meaning in the discipline of the ages? Nothey had to be lured on by something visible, something tangible. So we are lured on through life as upon a journey. Could man see the route before hima flat, straight road, unbroken by tree or eminence, with the sun’s heat burning down upon it, stretching out in dreamy monotonyhe could scarcely find either the inclination or the energy with which to begin his journey. It is the very uncertainty of that which is not seen, that which lies just around the bend, that keeps expectation alive. The view we think we may get from yonder summit, the landscape that may be glimpsed as the road winds around yonder knoll, hopes like these beguile the weary traveler on. So our heavenly Father leads us on, educating us day by day, and hour by hour, to walk in faith, ever holding up the seen as an incentive to the unseen. So He deals with us, luring us on by means of life’s unsatisfactory and illusive rewards, ever schooling us in the art of waiting, of enduring as seeing Him who is invisible. Canaan first; then the hope of a Redeemer; and finally the Better Land. It was in this manner that the ancient saints interpreted this mystery of the illusiveness of life. They did not regard life as a dream, nor as a bubble, nor as a delusion. Though they no doubt felt as keenly as any moralist could feel; the brokenness of its promises, yet by faith they pressed on, confessing that they were pilgrims and strangers here, that they had no continuing city, never mournfully moralizing about it, but admitting it cheerfully and even rejoicing that it was so. They felt that all was right; they knew that the promise had a deeper than material significance; so they looked for the city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. They even died in faith, not having received the promises, not expecting to receive them here, but hereafter. Now observe the glorious result that comes from the indestructible power of believing and continuing on, in spite of apparent failure. The primitive Christians, for instance, believed in their day that the millennium was at hand. They had heard the apostolic warning, brief and clear, to watch. Now suppose, instead of this, they had been able to look into the future and see all the dreary pages of church history unfolded, with its heresies, its apostasy and divisions; suppose they could have known that even after two thousand years the world would scarcely know the alphabet of the Christian religion; knowing all these things, what would have become of their gigantic and heroic efforts, their sacrifices, their persecutions and their martyrdoms? With such knowledge of the future, do you suppose there ever would have been what we consider the heroism, the sacrifice, the passionate zeal of primitive Christianity? It is in this way that God leads His children on, on to realization and achievement through the illusiveness of the past; as a father educates his child, holding up the seen, all the while nurturing the thought of the unseen. Thus we shall continue to the endto that day when the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our God and His Christ. Thus the non-fulfilment of God’s promises becomes to the man of faith an earnest of their deeper and nobler fulfilment.

(6) Finally, as in Abraham’s case, heaven is the goal of our pilgrimage. We expect to find illusion here, and we expect to find reality hereafter. We know that things here are seen and temporal, and we know, too, that the things we shall enjoy hereafter, the things that are now unseen, will be eternal. Interpreted, then, in the light of faith, life’s illusions are not disappointing; in fact nothing is disappointment if spiritually discerned. Wherefore God is not ashamed to be called our God; for he hath prepared for us a city (Hebrews 11:16).

There’s a land that is fairer than day,

And by faith we can see it afar,

For the Father waits over the way,

To prepare us a dwelling-place there.

Just recently Dr. F. B. Meyer, one of England’s greatest preachers, entered into rest. Writing to a friend just three days before his death, this is what he said: Dear Friend: I have just been told, to my surprise, that my days on earth are numbered. It may be that before you receive this letter, I shall have passed within the Palace of the King. Do not trouble to write. I will meet you in the morning. Yours, with much love, F. B. Meyer. I will meet you in the morningwithin the palace of the King. This is Christian faith. This is conviction. Death isn-’t the end, it is the beginning, the beginning of greater growth, greater progress, greater service, and greater joy. As Louise Chandler Moulton has written:

At the end of Love, at the end of Life, At the end of Hope, at the end of Strife, At the end of all that we cling to so The sun is settingmust we go?

At dawn of Love, at Dawn of Life, At dawn of Peace that follows Strife, At dawn of all we long for so The sun is rising*let us go!

Conclusion:* Wherefore God is not ashamed of them, to be called their God; for he hath prepared for them a city. This is the promise! And God keeps His promises!

How beautiful to be with God,

When earth is fading like a dream,

And from this mist-encircled shore

To launch upon the unknown stream!

No doubt, no fear, no anxious care,

But, comforted by staff and rod,

In the faith-brightened hour of death,

How beautiful to be with God.

Beyond the partings and the pains,

Beyond the sighing and the tears,

Oh, beautiful to be with God

Through all the endless, blessed years

To see His face, to hear His voice,

To know Him better day by day,

And love Him as the flowers love light,

And serve Him as immortals may.

My sinner friend, will you not turn now, and start upon your pilgrimage of faith?

Genesis 12:1-20

PART TWENTY-SIX THE STORY OF ABRAHAM: THE PILGRIMAGE OF FAITH

(Genesis, ch. 12; cf. Hebrews 11:8-19)

1. The Biblical Account 1 Now Jehovah said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto the land that I will show thee: 2 and I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and be thou a blessing: 3 and I will bless them that bless thee, and him that curseth thee will I curse: and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed, 5. So Abram went, as Jehovah had spoken unto him; and Lot went with him: and Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran. 5 And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran; and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan; and into the land of Canaan they came. 6 And Abram passed through the land unto the place of Shechem, unto the oak of Moreh. And the Canaanite was then in the land. 7 And Jehovah appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land: and there builded he an altar unto Jehovah, who appeared unto him. 8 And he removed from thence unto the mountain on the east of Beth-el, and pitched his tent, having Beth-el on the west, and Ai on the east: and there he builded an altar unto Jehovah, and called upon the name of Jehovah. 9 And Abram journeyed, going on still toward the South. 10 And there was a famine in the land: and Abram went down into Egypt to sojourn there; for the famine was sore in the land. 11 And it came to pass, when he was come near to enter into Egypt, that he said unto Sarai his wife, Behold now, I know that thou art a fair woman to look upon: 12 and it will come to pass, when the Egyptians shall see thee, that they will say, This is his wife: and they will kill me, but they will save thee alive. 13 Say, I pray thee, thou art my sister; that it may be well with me for thy sake, and that my soul may live became of thee. 14 And it came to pass, that, when Abram was come into Egypt, the Egyptians beheld the woman that she was very fair. 15 And the princes of Pharaoh saw her, and praised her to Pharaoh: and the woman was taken into Pharaoh’s house. 16 And he dealt well with Abram for her sake: and he had sheep, and oxen, and he-asses, and men-servants, and maid-servants, and she-asses, and camels. 17 And Jehovah plagued Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai, Abram’s wife. 18 And Pharaoh called Abram, and said, What is this that thou hast done unto me? why didst thou not tell me that she was thy wife? 19 why saidst thou, She is my sister, so that I took her to be my wife? now therefore behold thy wife, take her, and go thy way. 20 And Pharaoh gave men charge concerning him: and they brought him on the way, and his wife, and all that he had. 2. Ur of the Chaldees

It should be noted that the earliest civilizationsthose with which the actual history of man beginsflourished, as a rule, in relation geographically to the great river systems. This location was due to the fact that the various peoples learned to provide for a more abundant (temporal) life by the development of irrigation to enhance the fertility of the soil. Moreover, with the early invention of the sailboat water became the chief means of transportation. Most of the big cities of the ancient world were built on these waterways, e.g., the Nile, the Tigris-Euphrates, the Indus, and (probably) the Hwang-Ho and Wei, Those which were established later on large bodies of water (gulfs and seas) were, according to Thucydides, the Greek historian, built some thirty to fifty miles inland for protection against pirates. Each of these inland cities, therefore, had its harbor port, e.g., Rome and Ostia, Athens and the Piraeus, and Miletus, which served as a harbor port for several inland cities (cf. Acts 20:17).

Early in the history of the Near East the Tigris-Euphrates valley was made a very fertile area by irrigation. This area is commonly known in history by the name of Mesopotamia, a word meaning between the rivers. In Egypt, of course, the annual inundations of the Nile provided the necessary ingredients for fertilization on both sides of the river.

When the curtain first goes up on the stage of human history we find wave after wave of nomadic peoples pouring into the Near East both from the western desert and from the northern area around the Caspian Sea. As far back as the fourth millennium before Christ the central area of Mesopotamia was known as Akkad or Accad (cf. Genesis 10:10, the land of Shinar; Isaiah 11:11, Daniel 1:2), and the southern part, just above the Persian Gulf, as Sumer: hence the Accadians and Sumerians. From the first the peoples who occupied the territory now known generally as the Near East were of Semitic origin. Beyond the Mesopotamian area, that is, to the east of it, Indo-European (Aryan) peoples began to take over; among these were the Medes and the Elamites, some of whom evidently pushed into the Indus Valley; these were followed later by the Kassites. The earliest prevailing language among these peoples was the Sanskrit.

Inscriptions indicate that an early Semitic dynasty flourished, founded by Sargon, who built a new capital, Akade, the exact location of which is unknown today, Sargon established his hegemony over Akkad, Sumer, Elam, Syria and Anatolia (the early name for what is known today as Asia Minor). After an interval of some twenty-five years, Sargon’s grandson, Naramsin, succeeded to the hegemony and proved himself to be another very strong ruler. This Empire came to be known as the Akkadian Empire and survived for about two centuries (c. 2350-2150 B.C.).

Later, when Babylon rose to pre-eminence in the area, the name Akkad came to be used to designate the whole of northern Babylonia. Prior to the Early Dynastic Period initiated by Sargon’s conquests, Lower Mesopotamia had been only a cluster of city-states constantly at war among themselvesUr, Eridu, Babylon (Babel), Larsa, Erech, Kish, Lagash, Nippur, etc. (cf. again Genesis 10:10). Later, toward the end of the third millenium, the Amurr (westerners)the Biblical Amorites, Genesis 15:16; Genesis 48:22; Deuteronomy 20:17, etc.a new wave of Semites began pouring into Mesopotamia from the West. Included in this folk movement, apparently of several closely related ethnic groups, must have been the early Arameans. It seems evident that these western Semites also occupied Palestine about the beginning of the second millennium. Some of these peoples who occupied the Palestinian area took over northern Canaan (note archaeological discoveries at Ugarit) and Syria as far, as its southern coast. These people entrenched themselves at Mari on the Euphrates in Upper Mesopotamia (see archaeological discoveries there also). The zenith of Amorite political power was reached in the First Dynasty of Babylon in the days of the great king and. lawgiver, Hammurabi (c. 1728-1686 B.C.). (It is intriguing to note that various records at Mari and elsewhere in Mesopotamia, mention another troublesome group, the Apiru or Habirua name that is thought by many scholars to be equivalent to the name Hebrews.)

Following the strong Semitic Dynasty of Agade (2350-2150 B.C.), the Second Dynasty Ur (of which little seems to be known), and a subsequent cultural eclipse under the Gutians (2150-2070), the Third Dynasty of Ur (2070-1960) was ushered in, in which a succession of strong rulers led in a Sumerian renaissance. The population of Ur is estimated to have been more than half a million souls during this period. The mightiest building project of the time was the great ziggurat erected by Ur-Nammu and his son, Shulgi. This powerful Dynasty came to an end when the Amorites of Mari and the Elamites from the east took over southern Mesopotamia. The city was later brought under the control of Hammurabi and was destroyed by his son, when it rebelled against Amorite power. The whole area was further ravished by the barbarian Kassites, and the city of Ur went into total eclipse until the rebuilding of it was undertaken by the Chaldeans Nebuchadnezzar II and Nabonidus. Further improvements were made later by the Persians under Cyrus.

Folk movements became more numerous in the early part of the second millennium before Christ. Other ethnic peoples came into the picture. Among these were the Hittites of Asia Minor, the partially Semitic Hyksos who had imposed their rule on Egypt from about 1700 to 1570 B.C., and the most puzzling of all, the Hurrians.

The Hurrians (Biblical Horites: cf. Genesis 14:6; Genesis 36:30; Deuteronomy 2:12) poured into the Fertile Crescent in a steady stream: as Cornfeld puts it, and into the political vacuum created by the downfall of the Sumerian (Third) Dynasty of Ur. They evidently originated from the Caucasian and Armenian mountains and infiltrated the whole Tigris-Euphrates area. They were not strictly a warlike people: hence they penetrated every section of Western Asia, including Syria and Palestine. They seem to have been under the leadership of an Aryan upper class. They gave much attention to horse-breeding, and in battle they used the horse and the chariot. They attained their greatest prominence in the kingdom of the Mitanni (1470-1350) which extended from east of the upper Tigris valley to the north Syrian coast. One of the best known Hurrian sites is Nuzi (or Nuzu), where thousands of documents were discovered by a Harvard University expedition from 1925 to 1931 under the direction of Edward Chiera. More than 20,000 cuneiform tablets from the second millenium, brought to light at Nuzi, constitute a primary source of information concerning life in northern Mesopotamia, the district (Haran) where the Biblical patriarchs lived for a time and to which they sent to find suitable wives for their sons.

By 2000 B.C. various groups of Indo-European origin had infiltrated Asia Minor. These were organized into a complex of city-states. The most influential of these groups became known as the Hittites. The capital of the ancient Hittite Empire was Hattusas (modern Boghazkoy), ninety miles east of modern Ankara, on the great bend of the Halys River. Excavations began at this site in 1906, and have brought to light the story of a once powerful empire, as evidenced by the fact that one of their kings, Mursilis, captured Aleppo in 1530, then thrust across Hurrian territories, raided northern Mesopotamia, and sacked Babylon. A peace treaty between the Hittite king, Hattusilis III (c. 1275-1250), and the Egyptian Pharaoh Rameses II is the oldest such treaty known to students of ancient history, and indicates that the Hittites were powerful enough to stop the Egyptian army in its tracks in a battle at Kadesh (c. 1296 B.C.) Beleaguered, however, by Hurrian aggressiveness and inner political conflicts, the Hittites finally withdrew into Asia Minor where their influences are felt even down to our own time. The Hittite kingdom came to an end when overrun by the so-called Sea peoples from the eastern Mediterranean, many of whom seem to have been of Cretan origin (e.g., the Philistines). The Hittites flourished at about the dawn of the Iron Age. (Iron was discovered about 1500 B.C. somewhere, in the area around the Black Sea.) The Hittite monopoly on iron gave them formidable power for a time, but this power declined as other peoples began to make use of iron weapons. Outposts of Hittite culture survived in northern Syria: these Hittite principalities were those to which the Old Testament continued to refer for several centuries. (Cf. Genesis 15:20, Numbers 13:29, Joshua 3:10, 1 Kings 11:1, 2 Kings 7:6, 2 Chronicles 1:17).

The Hyksos have been described as a motley horde bent solely on conquest and looting. They invaded Egypt about 1800 (or 1700?) B.C. and kept control of the country until about 1570 B.C., when they were driven out and chased into Palestine by the Pharaohs of the 18 th Dynasty. Several of the Palestinian cities were destroyed during the sixteenth century, and the Hyksos type of fortifications which have been excavated at Megiddo, Shechem, and Lachish, furnish evidence of the savage intensity of these campaigns. The last great empires of the Fertile Crescent were, of course, those which followed the migrations described in the foreging paragraphs; hence, their history does not have too much relevance to that of the Patriarchal Age. These were, in the order named, the Assyrian, Chaldean (late Babylonian), Persian, and Macedonian (the shortlived empire of Alexander the Great). The Roman Empire was the last and most extensive and most powerful, having extended its rule over the entire Fertile Crescent, including North Africa, Egypt, and the whole of the Near East and Mesopotamia. The departure of Abram from Ur is correlated in time with the Third Dynasty (the most powerful) of that city. The exact location of the original site has long been a matter of debate. The Moslems traditionally have identified it with Urfa, a city in Upper Mesopotamia near Haran (the Greeks called it Edessa). The location which commonly has been identified with Abram’s Ur is in Southern Mesopotamia some 160 miles from the present head of the Persian Gulf. This identification originated in the late nineteenth century when so many references to Ur were found in the inscriptions which were numerous and widespread throughout the Mesopotamian area. The discoveries made by the joint expedition of the British Museum and the Museum of the University of Pennsylvania, under Charles Leonard Woolley (1922-1934), set forth voluminously in official reports, seem to verify the Southern Mesopotamian identification. However, the debate has been revived in recent years by C. H. Gordon and other archaeologists who conclude that the original Ur was not Urffa, but Ura, another town near Haran, which was under the control of the Hittites. DBA, 602: Gordon treats Abraham as a merchant-prince or Tamkarum from the realm of the Hittites. His three main arguments are: (1) There is strong tradition connecting Ur of the Chaldees with Northern Mesopotamia. (2) The picture of the patriarchs as city-merchants fits known facts. (3) The term -Chaldees-’ can be adequately applied to Northern Mesopotamia. The consensus of archeblogical scholarship, however, still runs preponderantly in favor of the traditional Sumerian Ur as Abram’s point of departure on his pilgrimage to the Land of Promise.

Excavations at Sumerian Ur indicate that a highly advanced culture flourished there at a very early age. It is the Ur of Abram’s time, however, in which we are particularly interested here. Like all these cities of Mesopotamia, Ur had its sacred enclosure with its complex of temples and shrines. The ruins of the great temple-tower (ziggurat, which, we are told, once rose from the plain along the Euphrates to a height of seventy feet), built by Ur-Nammu, founder of the prosperous and powerful Third Dynasty, still dominate the site. Throughout the history of Babylonia down to the middle of the first millenium B.C., this sacred area with its ziggurat was the most important temple area in Mesopotamia: indeed, it was the place to which the devout made pilgrimages and which they sought for a place of burial. Openings in the outer city walls which were oval in shape allowed boats to enter the city itself. It could be said of the people of Ur, as said later by the Apostle on the Hill of Ares, of the Athenian people and their philosophers, that they were indeed very religious (or superstitious, Acts 17:22). The ruling deity at Ur was Nanna (known among the Semites as Sin). The city abounded in many other temples and shrines dedicated to other gods. There were also many public chapels, wayside shrines, household chapels, and other evidences that idolatry flourished throughout the city, including terra cotta figurines indicative of the Cult of the Earth-Mother, which was often the most debased form of pagan religious ritual. The following note (HSB, 21) is important: Abraham has often been conceived of as an ignorant nomad, an illiterate and uneducated ancient. This is not so. Archaeological discoveries have shown that Ur of the Chaldees was a center of advanced culture. There were libraries in the schools and temples. The people used grammars, dictionaries, encyclopedias, and reference works along with textbooks on mathematics, religion, and politics. What was true for Babylonia was also true for Egypt where more than a thousand years before Abraham’s time, writing was well established. It is quite possible, therefore, that Abraham left written records which were incorporated in the Pentateuch. (For a study of the archeological discoveries relevant to the Patriarchal Age, at Ugarit, Hattusas, Mari, Nuzi, Larsa, Nippur, Lagash, Uruk (Erech), etc., The Biblical World, edited by Pfeiffer, published by Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, is highly recommended.)

3. The Call of Abram (Genesis 12:1-3)

(CECG, 129) in re Genesis 12:1-5, as follows: An attentive consideration will suffice to show, from the close resemblance of the phraseology in this passage and in Acts 7:2-3, that Moses refers to one and the same call with Stephen; and that he now only resumes, in his characteristic manner, the subject of Abram’s departure from his native land, which had been briefly related in ch. Genesis 11:31, in order to furnish some important details. In fact the narrative in the first five verses of this chapter is merely an expansion of the short notice in the preceding one; and therefore our translators have properly rendered the verb in the Pluperfect tense, -had said.-’ This revelation is not to be accounted for by representing it, as one writer has recently done, to be only -the newly increased light of his inner consciousness,-’ or by saying, with another, that the -Lord-’ of Abram -was as much a creature of human imagination as a Jupiter or an Apollo.-’ In whatever way it was made to himwhether in a dream, by a vision, or by a visible manifestation (the language of Stephen, Acts 7:2, implies that it was some glorious theophany, perhaps like the supernatural light and words that suddenly converted Paula miracle well adapted to the conceptions of a Zabian idolater)Abram was thoroughly persuaded that it was a divine communication; and it was probably accompanied by such special instructions as to the being and character of -the Most High God, the possessor of heaven and earth,-’ as carried conviction to his understanding and heart. (It is impossible for me to accept the view that Abram had drifted away from the knowledge of the true God so far as to share the idolatry of some of the members of his family: the Scripture story does not intimate such a notion, and surely Abram’s subsequent walk of faith invalidates it. C.C.).

Whitelaw (PCG, 117) writes: Designed to trace the outward development of God’s kingdom on the earth, the narrative now concentrates its attention on one of the foregoing Terachites, whose remarkable career it sketches with considerable minuteness of detail, from the period of his emigration from Chaldea to his death at Hebron in the land of Canaan. Distinguished as a man of undoubted superiority both of character and mind, the head at least of two powerful and important races, and standing, as one might say, on the threshold of the historical era, it is yet chiefly as his life and fortunes connect with the Divine purpose of salvation that they find a place in the inspired record. The progress of infidelity during the four centuries that had elapsed since the Flood, the almost universal corruption of even the Shemite portion of the human family, had conclusively demonstrated the necessity of a second Divine interposition, if the knowledge of salvation were not to be completely banished from the earth. Accordingly, the son of Terah was selected to be the founder of a new nation, in which the light of gospel truth might be deposited for preservation until the fulness of the times, and through which the promise of the Gospel might be conducted forward to its ultimate realization in the manifestation of the woman’s seed. Partly to prepare him for the high destiny of being the progenitor of the chosen nation, and partly to illustrate the character of that gospel with which he was to be entrusted, he was summoned to renounce his native country and kinsmen in Chaldea, and venture forth upon an untried journey in obedience to the call of heaven, to a land which he should afterward receive for an inheritance. In a series of successive theophanies or Divine manifestations, around which the various incidents of his life are groupedin Ur of the Chaldees (Acts 7:2), at Moreh in Canaan (Genesis 12:7), near Bethel (ibid. 13), at Mamre (ibid. 15, 17); and on Moriah (ibid. 22)he is distinctly promised three thingsa land, a seed, and a blessingas the reward of his compliance with the heavenly invitation; and the confident persuasion both of the reality of these gracious promises and of the Divine ability and willingness to fulfill them forms the animating spirit and guiding principle of his being, in every situation of life, whether of trial or of difficulty, in which he is subsequently placed.

Murphy (MG, 261) writes to the point, in these statements: The narrative now takes leave of the rest of the Shemites, as well as the other branches of the human family, and confines itself to Abram. It is no part of the design of Scripture to trace the development of worldiness. It marks its source, and indicates the law of its downward tendency; but then it turns away from the dark detail, to devote its attention to the way by which light from heaven may again pierce the gloom of the fallen heart. Here, then, we have the starting of a new spring of spiritual life in the human race.

Note the following also (SIBG, 230): V. 1. While Abram was in Ur of the Chaldees, God appeared to him, probably in human shape, Acts 7:2, as He did at least eight times afterward (Genesis 12:6-7; Genesis 13:3-4; Genesis 15:1; Genesis 17:1; Genesis 18:1; Genesis 21:12; Genesis 22:1; Genesis 22:15), and called him to leave his country and his father’s house, which, for some time past, had been infected with idolatry (Joshua 24:2, 2 Corinthians 6:17, Revelation 18:4, Isaiah 41:2, Nehemiah 9:7).He, readily surrendering all for the sake of Christ, (Psalms 45:10-11, Luke 14:26), in obedience to the divine command, and relying on His direction and protection, went forth, not knowing whither the Lord intended to lead him (Hebrews 11:8). But as they had stopped too long in Haran, I suppose the call here mentioned was one which he received anew after the death of his father. (This last view, of course, has always been a matter of controversy.) Payne (OHH, 36): Abraham grew up in Ur just before the rise of Dyn. III and the Sumerian renaissance. Here, in a center for the worship of the moon god Sin, God called Abraham to a life of pilgrimage to the celestial city (Hebrews 11:13-16). Genesis 15:7 (cf. Nehemiah 9:7)notes that God was responsible for Abram’s movement from Ur; but there is no information in the O.T. on the precise form of the call. Acts 7:2-4 reveals, however, that God appeared to him there and told him to move out. It was by faith (Hebrews 11:8), the destination not yet given. (This verse must apply to the call in Ur, for by Haran he knew where he was going, Genesis 12:5); and Abram obeyed. He seems to have persuaded his father, for Terah led the party (Genesis 11:31), which included Terah, Abram, Sarai, and Lot; Nahor’s family stayed but followed to Haran later (Genesis 24:10, Genesis 27:43).

Note the Call and the Fulfillment. Genesis 12:2Abraham was made a great nation. His posterity by Ishmael, by the sons of Keturah, and by Esau, were exceedingly numerous (Genesis 16:10, Genesis 17:20, Genesis 21:13, Genesis 25:1-18; ch. 36; Num., ch. 31; Judg., chs. 6, 7).His seed of promise, by Jacob, were as the stars of heaven and the dust of the earth in multitude (Genesis 13:16, Genesis 15:5,* Genesis 22:17*, Genesis 28:3; Genesis 28:14; Genesis 32:12; Num., ch. 1, also Genesis 23:10; Hebrews 11:12; 1 Chron., ch. 21; 1 Kings 4:20; 2 Chron., ch. 17; Jeremiah 33:22). His spiritual seed, followers of his faith and obedience, are still more numerous, a multitude which no man can number (Psalms 2:8-9; Psalms 22:27-30; also Psalms 62, 88; Isa., chs. 52, 59, 60; Revelation 7:4-9; Revelation 11:15). All the spiritual children of Jesus, his eminent seed, are included herein (Isaiah 53:10-12, Galatians 3:26-29). God blessed Abram (1) with the numerous seed mentioned, (2) with Canaan, as the future property of part of them, (3) with Christ, as his eminent seed (Galatians 3:16), with all spiritual blessings in Christ (Galatians 3:14, Ephesians 1:3). Abram was a blessing (1) to his friends and servants, who were instructed by him (Genesis 14:14; Genesis 18:19), (2) to his posterity, who were blessed for his sake (Exodus 3:6-8, Leviticus 26:42, Genesis 17:20), (3) to the world, as an eminent pattern of faith and holiness (Rom., ch. 4), and as the progenitor of Christ the Savior (Galatians 3:13; Galatians 3:16). God did and will remarkably befriend and prosper the friends of Abram and his natural seed, but especially of Jesus Christ and his spiritual seed; and did and will remarkably punish their enemies (Joshua 2:9, Genesis 15:13-14, Exodus 17:8-16; Matthew 10:42; Matthew 25:41-46). All the families of the earth are blessed in Abram. He was of great service to the Canaanites, in imparting revelation to some of them, or in setting before them all an engaging example of virtue. His seed of promise, and especially his spiritual seed, are useful on that account, and have been and are still the means of the prosperity or protection of nations (Isaiah 6:13; Isaiah 10:24-25, Matthew 24:22). But it is properly in his seed (Christ) that men are blessed. Multitudes of nations receive much outward happiness, and the dispensation of gospel ordinances, in consequence of his undertaking for his people (Matthew 24:24, Isa., chs. 35, 49, 50, also Genesis 6:13). And believers, gathered out of all nations, are blessed in him with temporal, spiritual and eternal blessings (Galatians 3:16, Acts 3:25-26, Ephesians 1:3, Psalms 72:17-19, Isaiah 45:17-25). It is easy to see, that the subsequent promises and threatenings, nay, the doctrines and laws, mentioned in Scripture, are but an enlarged exposition of these two verses; and the whole fate of the Jewish and gospel church, nay, of the saints in heaven and the lost in hell, are but one continued fulfillment thereof. *Genesis 12:3*The command given to Abraham involved great personal sacrificescountry, kindred, and home; and also great faithhe knew not where he was going. But the blessing promised was most cheering and comprehensive. It embraced himself, all who favored and honored him, the whole nation that was to spring from him, and all the families of the earth. Abraham by faith saw in this last promise the most glorious and blessed of all truthsthe atoning work of the Messiah (Acts 3:25, Galatians 3:8). (See SIBG, p. 230). Note that in calling the fleshly seed of Abram, God did not abandon the other families of the earth, but was in fact making provision for their future spiritual welfare also.

Murphy (MG, 263): In all God’s teachings the near and the sensible come before the far and the conceivable, the present and the earthly before the eternal and the heavenly. Thus Abram’s immediate acts of self-denial are his leaving his country, his birthplace, his home. The promise to him is to be made a great nation, be blessed, and have a great name in the new land which the Lord would show him. This is unspeakably enhanced by his being made a blessing to all nations. God pursues this mode of teaching for several important reasons. First, the sensible and the present are intelligible to those who are taught. The Great Teacher begins with the known, and leads the mind forward to the unknown. If he had begun with things too high, too deep, or too far from the range of Abram’s mental vision, he would not have come into relation with Abram’s mind. It is superfluous to say that he might have enlarged Abram’s view in proportion to the grandeur of the conceptions to be revealed. On the same principle he might have made Abram cognizant of all present and all developed truth. On the same principle he might have developed all things in an instant of time, and so have had done with creation and providence at once. Secondly, the present and the sensible are the types of the future and the conceivable; the land is the type of the better land; the nation of the spiritual nation; the temporal blessing of the eternal blessing; the earthly greatness of the name of the heavenly. And let us not suppose that we are arrived at the end of all knowledge. We pique ourselves on our advance in spiritual knowledge beyond the age of Abram. But even we may be in the very infancy of mental development. There may be a land, a nation, a blessing, a great name, of which our present realizations or conceptions are but the types. Any other supposition would be a large abatement from the sweetness of hope’s overflowing cup. Thirdly, those things which God now promises are the immediate form of his bounty, the very gifts he begins at the moment to bestow. God has his gift to Abram ready in his hand in a tangible form. He points to it and says, This is what thou presently needest; this I give thee, with my blessing and favor. But, fourthly, these are the earnest and the germ of all temporal and eternal blessing. Man is a growing thing, whether as an individual or a race. God graduates his benefits according to the condition and capacity of the recipients. In the first boon of his good-will is the earnest of what he will continue to bestow on those who continue to walk in his ways. And as the present is the womb of the future, so is the external the symbol of the internal, the material the shadow of the spiritual, in the order of the divine blessing. And as events unfold themselves in the history of man and conceptions in his soul within, so are doctrines gradually opened up in the Word of God, and progressively revealed to the soul by the Spirit of God. (Cf. Isaiah 28:9-10, Mark 4:28, 1 Corinthians 15:42-49, Hebrews 10:1, Ephesians 1:13-14, Colossians 1:12; 2 Peter 1:5-11; 2 Peter 3:18).

The Abrahamic Covenant, which is mentioned several times in Genesis (cf. Genesis 12:2-3; Genesis 12:7; Genesis 13:14-17; chs. 15, 17; ch. 18; Genesis 21:12-13; Genesis 22:9-18) was essentially a covenant of promise; the only requirement was that Abram should respond in faith and trust to God’s calling him away from his land and his family. And, although subsequent ramifications of the covenant occur in Genesis, the two basic features remain constant throughout. These are the land and the descendants. The progeny of Abraham was to be a blessing to all and Abraham was guaranteed a son through whom his line would be perpetuated. This son, Isaac, therefore, came to be known as the child of promise, and the land to which Abram journeyed became designated the land of promise (Exodus 12:25, Deuteronomy 19:8-10, Joshua 23:5, Acts 7:4-5, Galatians 4:22-31; Genesis 17:15-19; Hebrews 11:9-12; Hebrews 11:17-19, etc.). Green (UBG, 163): In the original promise and in the renewal of it upon two occasions of unusual solemnity, one when the Lord signified his approval of Abraham’s unfaltering faith by coming as his guest in human form, and again as a reward of his most signal act of obedience, the blessing is set before him in its most ample sweep. But during all the intervening period of long expectancy of his promised child the divine communications made to him from time to time were designed to keep alive his faith in that particular promise, whose fulfillment was so long delayed; hence, mention is merely made of his numerous seed, and of the land which they were to occupy, alike in Genesis 13:14-17, Genesis 15:5-7; Genesis 15:18, which the critics assign to J, and in Genesis 17:4-8, which they give to P. There is no occasion here for the assumption of different sources.

Note, in this connection, JB (29): As a result of God’s call and promise of posterity Abraham cuts off all earthly ties and with his childless wife, Genesis 11:30, sets out for an unknown land. It is Abraham’s first act of faith; it will be renewed when the promise is repeated, Genesis 15:5-6, and put to the test when God asks for the surrender of Isaac who was the fruit of that promise, ch. 22. To Abraham’s unquestioning acts of faith the chosen people owes its existence and destiny, Hebrews 11:8-19. Not only Abraham’s physical descendants, but all who, in virtue of the same faith, become his sons, will have their share in that destiny, as the Apostle shows, Romans 4, Galatians 3:7.

Although the emphasis in the Abrahamic promise is on the land and the seed, in its fullness the promise is a sevenfold one, as follows: (1) I will make of thee a great nation. The phrase, great nation, of course, implies infinitely more than great in number. Since the greatness is of God’s making, it involves true greatness in every sense. If ever there was a great nation, it was Israel. Israel achieved true greatness in her preservation of the knowledge of the living and true God, and Israel was great, inconceivably great, in her presentation to the world of the Messiah, the world’s Redeemer. (2) I will bless thee, This statement refers to Abram himself. A man is blessed when due to the gracious working of God all goes well with him (cf. Genesis 39:5); the things that he undertakes thrives; and true success crowns all his endeavors. (3) I will make thy name great. Note the various names given to him: the father of a multitude (Genesis 17:5), a prince of God (Genesis 23:6); the man in God’s confidence (Genesis 18:17-19); a prophet (Genesis 20:7); the servant of God (Psalms 105:6); and the friend of God (James 2:23). (4) And be thou a blessing. This expresses something that God does. God is the one who in the last analysis makes Abram to be a true blessing unto others. But at the same time, a moral responsibility of Abram’s is involved: He should do his part that he may become a blessing to others. Consequently the imperative, -be thou a blessing.-’ (5) I will bless them that bless thee, So intimately is God concerned in having men take the proper attitude toward this prophet and servant of His that whoever wishes Abram well, to him will God do good. (6) And him that curseth thee will I curse. The deeper reason behind all this is that Abram will be so closely identified with the good work of God, that to curse him comes to be almost the equivalent of cursing God. (7) And in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed. This word reaches back to the divided -families-’ (Genesis 10:5; Genesis 10:20; Genesis 10:31) of the earth, divided by their sins, as well as to the curse of Gen 3:17 which is now to be replaced by a blessing. A blessing so great that its effect shall extend to -all the families of the earth-’ can be thought of only in connection with the promised Savior. The word, therefore, is definitely Messianic and determines that the Messiah is to emerge from the line of Abram. Quotes from Leupold (EG, I, 411, 412). (Note the parallels of this sevenfold promise in Genesis 18:18; Genesis 22:18; Genesis 26:4; Genesis 28:14).

4. The Promised Land

Genesis 12:1unto the land that I will show thee. (Cf. Genesis 11:31, Genesis 12:5). Haley (ADB, 364): At first the name of the country was not revealed to him. It is designated simply as a -land that I will show thee-’ (Genesis 12:1). Even if the name -Canaan-’ had been mentioned to Abraham at the outset, it might still be true that he went forth -not knowing whither he went.-’ For, in those days of slow transit, imperfect intercommunication, and meager geographical knowledge, the mere name of a country several hundred miles distant would convey almost no idea of the country itself. In our own time, even, of how many an emigrant on his way to America it might well be said, -He knows not whither he is going.-’ (Cf. Hebrews 11:8). Again: Genesis 11:31 merely shows that Abraham’s destination was known to Moses writing at a later date. The same is true of Gen 12:5.

McClear (COTH, 28:31): This country, the future home of the great nation destined to spring from Abram’s loins, was in many respects eminently adapted for its special mission in the history of the world. In extent, indeed, it was but a narrow strip of country, but a little larger than the six northern counties of England, being nearly 180 miles in length, and 75 miles in breadth, and having an area of about 13,600 English square miles. Bounded on the west by the Mediterranean Sea, on the north by the mountains of Lebanon, on the east by the Syrian desert, on the south by the wilderness of Arabia, it was situated at the meeting-point of the two continents of Asia and Africa, -on the very outpost, on the extremest western edge of the East.-’ It was a secluded land. A wilderness encompassed it on the east and south, mountains shut it in on the north, and the -Great Sea-’ which washed its western shore was the terror rather than the thoroughfare of ancient nations. Unlike the coast of Europe, and especially of Greece, it had no indentations, no winding creeks, no deep havens, but one small portthat of Joppawith which to tempt the mariner from the west. But while thus eminently adapted to be the -silent and retired nursery of the Kingdom of God,-’ it was in the very centre of the activity of the ancient world, in the midst of the nations, and the countries that were round about it (Ezekiel 5:5). On the south was the great empire of Egypt, on the northeast the rising kingdom of Assyria. Neither of these great nations could communicate with the other without passing through Palestine, and so learning something of its peculiar institutions and religion; and when the fullness of time was come no country was better suited, from its position at the extremest verge of the Eastern World, to be the starting-point whence the glad tidings of Redemption might be proclaimed to all nations. Moreover, narrow as were its limits, and secluded as was its position, it yet presented a greater variety of surface, scenery and temperature than is to be found in any other part of the world, and needed not to depend on other countries for anything that either the luxuries or actual wants of its inhabitants required. Four broadly marked longitudinal regions divided its surface. (1) First, there was the low plain of the western seacoast, broad toward the south, and gradually narrowing toward the north, famous for the Shephelah (the low country) with its waving grain-fields, and the vale of Sharon (level country), the garden of Palestine. From this was an ascent to (2) a strip of tableland, every part of which was more or less undulating, but increasing in elevation from north to south, and broken only by the plain of Jezreel or Esdraelon. To this succeeded a rapid descent into (3) a deep fissure or valley, through which the Jordan (the descender), the only river of importance in the country, rushes from its source at the base of Hermon into the Dead Sea, the surface of which is no less than 1316 feet below that of the Mediterranean. Hence was a second ascent to (4) a strip of tableland on the east similar to that on the west, and seeming with its range of purple-tinted mountains to overhang Jerusalem itself. Crowned by the forests and upland pastures of Gilead and Bashan, this eastern table-land gradually melted into the desert which rolled between it and Mesopotamia. Thus within a very small space were crowded the most diverse features of natural scenery, and the most varied products. It was a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills, a land flowing with milk and honey (Exodus 3:8; Exodus 3:17; Exodus 13:5; Deuteronomy 8:7-9; Deuteronomy 11:8-12; Joshua 5:6, Jeremiah 11:5, Ezekiel 20:6; Ezekiel 15; Numbers 13:27). The low plains yielded luxuriant crops of wheat and barley, of rye and millet; on the table-lands with their equable and moderate climate grew the vine, the olive, the fig, the almond, the pomegranate; in the tropical neighborhood of Jericho flourished the palm-tree and the balsam; while the noble cedar waved on the mountains of Lebanon. What a role this land has played in the history of the world! and what a role it is still playing in our day!

5. Abram’s Response to God’s Call (Genesis 12:1-6).

Genesis 12:4-So Abram went, as Jehovah had spoken unto him. This statement gives us the key to Abram’s motivation throughout his entire life. When God spoke, Abram acted accordingly (cf. Paul, Acts 22:10; Acts 26:19). This complete dedication to the will of God in all things, as manifested by Abraham throughout his life, surely negates the notion that he had become contaminated by the idolatrous tendencies of his kinsmen. It was this very commitment that caused his name to go down in the sacred records as the Friend of God and the Father of the Faithful (Isaiah 41:8, 2 Chronicles 20:7, James 2:21-24, John 8:39-40; Romans 4:4; Romans 4:16-17; Galatians 3:5-9, Hebrews 11:8-10, esp. John 15:14). This fact also tends to negate the view of some commentators that two divine calls were necessary to move Abram toward his ultimate destination. The record of Abram’s life surely proves that it was not his custom to delay obedience when God called, any longer than circumstances might necessitate. The Scripture record clearly indicates that the place of his nativity was Ur, where he lived with his father Terah, his brothers Nahor and Haran, and where he married Sarai; that on the death of Haran, he migrated with his father, his wife, and his nephew Lot (son of Haran) to the geographical Haran in Upper Mesopotamia (Genesis 11:26-32); and that on the death of his father he (Abram, now 75 years old) left Haran with Sarai and Lot and moved by stages via Shechem and Bethel into the land of Canaan (Genesis 12:1-9). We might compare the language of Stephen (Acts 7:2-4): here we read that the call from the God of glory came to Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Haran; that he came out of the land of the Chaldeans, and dwelt in Haran; and from thence, when his father was dead, God removed him into this land, wherein ye, now dwell. This language would seem to indicate that he was under God’s direction from the very first, and continued to be under this Divine direction throughout his entire pilgrimage. Murphy (MG, 264, 265): Abram took. He is now the leader of the little colony, as Terah was before his death. Sarai, as well as Lot, is now named. The gaining they had gained during the five years of residence in Haran. If Jacob became comparatively rich in six years (Genesis 30:43), so might Abram, with the divine blessing, in five. The souls they had gottenthe bondservants they had acquired. Where there is a large stock of cattle, there must be a corresponding number of servants to attend to them. Abram and Lot entered the land of promise as men of substance. They are in a position of independence. The Lord is realizing to Abram the blessing promised. They start for the land of Kenaan, and at length arrive there. This event is made as important as it ought to be in our minds by the mode in which it is stated.

However, it would be well, I think, for the student to be acquainted with A. Gosman’s theory of the two divine calls (CDHCG, 392, n.) as follows: -There is no discrepancy between Moses and St. Stephen. Stephen’s design was, when he pleaded before the Jewish Sanhedrin, to show that God’s revelations were not limited to Jerusalem and Judea, but that He had first spoken to the father of Abram in an idolatrous land, Ur of the Chaldees. But Moses dwells specially on Abram’s call from Haran, because Abram’s obedience to that call was the proof of his faith (Wordsworth).-’ There is no improbability in the supposition that the call was repeated. And this supposition would not only reconcile the words of Stephen and Moses, but may explain the fifth verse: -And they went forth to go into the land of Canaan, and into the land of Canaan they came.-’ Abram had left his home in obedience to the original call of God, but had not reached the land in which he was to dwell. Now, upon the second call, he not only sets forth, but continues in his migrations until he reaches Canaan, to which he was directed.

The fact that stands out here, the one especially to be remembered, is that Abram went first from Ur to Haran, and thence to Canaan. Special mention is made of the fact that in both departures (first from Ur, and then from Haran) Abram was accompanied by his wife Sarai and his nephew Lot. In mentioning Sarai the foundation is laid for the fulfillment of the Abrahamic Promise (Covenant) in the progressive revelation of the Messianic genealogy and its ultimate consummation in Christ Jesus, Messiah Himself, and (2) for other subsequent events of secular history, as, for example, the never-ending conflict between the progeny of Isaac and that of Ishmael (Genesis 16:7-14), a conflict that still rages today. In mentioning Lot, the foundation is laid for the subsequent accounts of (1) the theophany vouchsafed Abraham in the vicinity of Hebron, (2) the subsequent destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (chs. 18, 19), and (3) the incestuous origin of the Moabites and Ammonites (Genesis 19:30-38).

We are told that men bound from Ur to Haran would set out before the coming of the nine dry months which would strip every blade of grass from the land. The distance was some 600 miles. Some writers think that Terah and his clan followed the west bank of the Euphrates. Hence when they passed through Central Mesopotamia, they would have seen the walls and towers of Babylon on the other side of the river, including the famous eight-storied ziggurat (cf. Genesis 10:10; Genesis 11:1-9). Other writers think they followed the Tigris ratherthan the Euphrates. Thus Kraeling writes (BA, 57): Terah is said to have started his renewed trek with a more distant objective in mindto go to the land of Canaan.. But since he goes to Haran, we may imagine him as taking the familiar migration route back to the home area. Perhaps his herds had not crossed the Euphrates at all to the southern shore of which Ur lay, for the river was certainly a formidable obstacle. In returning he would have gone up the west side of the Tigris. We may imagine him as passing mighty Asshur, the capital of Assyria, and eighty miles beyond he would have seen Nineveh across the river, a city of yet lesser consequence, but destined to become the seat of an empire that was to trample his descendants under its feet. Leaving the Tigris, Terah would have taken the westward track to Nisibis, and crossing the headwaters of the Khabur River would soon have come to Haran on the upper Balikh River, another tributary of the Euphrates. Significant archeological discoveries were made at Haran in the nineteen-fifties under the direction of D. S. Rice. From these discoveries it seems evident that the moon-temple of Haran lay at the site occupied by the later great mosque. Kraeling (ibid.): We here stand on the spot to which Joshua refers when he says to the assembled tribes that their fathers lived of old beyond the river and served other gods (Joshua 24:2). First among these gods was Sin of Haran. It was near here that the divine revelation calling Abraham to a land of promise was given. Truly at Haran one stands at the source of the River of Life.

Payne (OHH, 36, 37): Haran, Genesis 11:31 to Genesis 12:4. Terah knew the destination was Canaan, Genesis 11:31; but he settled in Haran, which was likewise a center for the worship of Sin, and permeated with Hurrian customs, where he died. This was a tragedy: lost faith? Relapse into idolatry? God then called Abram again, this time to leave the father’s house-’ as well, Genesis 12:1. It was to -the land I will show thee (in detail)-’; he knew it was Canaan (Genesis 12:5). With this call came promises: (1) personal election, divine discrimination, for -salvation is of the Jews,-’ John 4:22. God had previously associated Himself with groups, Noah, and Shem (Genesis 9:26), but with antecedent ethical distinction; Abram’s only plea was faith, Hebrews 11:6. Election proves God’s control of history and keeps the recipient in humility. He promised Abram posterity, blessing, and fame; and Abram’s whole subsequent life demonstrated divine monergism; in his own power he had no seed, no land, no property, Genesis 14:23. (2) universality, Genesis 12:3, for all nations were to be blessed in him. He was an example of faith, Galatians 3:8; and the Gentiles are blessed with faithful Abraham, for Genesis 12:3 is not strictly as Messianic a prophecy as Genesis 22:18, where his -seed-’ is specified, cf. Acts 3:25. (1) The student will again note the disagreement among eminent authorities as to whether Abram was the recipient of one or two divine calls. There seems to be no way of resolving this problem conclusively. Note however, our own conclusion, and the reasons for it, in preceding paragraphs. (2) The student must also keep in mind that the history of the cities of Asshur and Nineveh extends far back into that of Mesopotamia, as far back indeed as the fourth millennium B.C. (Genesis 10:10-12). This great antiquity is well confirmed by archaeology. These cities did not attain pre-eminence, however, until the rise of the Assyrian Empire. The First or Old Assyrian kingdom had its beginning about 1750 B.C., soon after the fall of the Third Dynasty of Ur.)

Lange (CDHCG, 393): The calling of Abram: 1. In its requisitions; 2. in its promises; 3. in its motives. (a) The grace of God. The election of Abram. The choice of God reflects itself in the dispositions of men, the gifts of believers. As every people has its peculiar disposition, so the race of Abram, and especially the father of it, had the religious disposition in the highest measure. (b) The great necessity of the world. It appeared about to sink into heathenism; the faith must be saved in Abram. Faith should proceed from one believer to all, just as salvation should proceed from one Savior to all. The whole messianic prophecy was not embraced in Abram. A. Gosman (CDHCG, 396):The promise receives its first fulfillment in Abram, then in the Jews, more perfectly when the Son of God became incarnate, the seed of Abram, then further in the church and the preaching of the gospel, but finally and fully when Christ shall complete his church, and come to take her unto himself. Again (ibid.): The object of the writer is not Abram’s glorification, but the glorification of Jehovah. Again (ibid.): Abram is also an illustrious example to all who hear the call of God. His obedience is prompt and submissive. He neither delays nor questions, but went out not knowing whither he went, Hebrews 11:8.

Speiser (ABG, 88: Abraham’s journey to the Promised Land was thus no routine expedition of several hundred miles. Instead, it was the start of an epic voyage in search of spiritual truths, a quest that was to constitute the cenral theme of all biblical history.

6. Through the Land of Promise (Genesis 12:5-9).

Leaving Mesopotamia, Abram and his retinue crossed the Great River, the Euphrates (Joshua 24:2). Smith-Fields (OTH, 68): This separated him entirely from his old home, and possibly accounts for the title Hebrew which he came to wear (Genesis 14:13). While some think that the name Hebrew came from the patriarch Eber (Genesis 11:16), it may come from the Hebrew verb meaning to -cross over.-’ Evidently the caravan then made its way across the great Syrian desert. Although the route is not specifically indicated in the Biblical account, tradition has it that Abram tarried at Damascus. (Josephus, for example, informs us that the patriarch remained there for some time, being come with an army from the land of the Chaldeans (Antiq. I, 1). It should be noted, too, that Damascus was the native place of Eliezer, Abram’s household steward, Genesis 15:2). No doubt the caravan then crossed the Jordan, where the first stopping-place was Shechem, in the valley of the same name, lying between Mounts Ebal and Gerizim.

Genesis 12:5. And into the land of Canaan they came. (No doubt a prolepsis, as in Genesis 11:31). This was a distance of some 300 miles from Haran. Cf. Genesis 12:6And the Canaanite was then in the land. The territory originally occupied by the Canaanites as a separate ethnic group is clearly described in Genesis 10:19. A wider use of the term is also encountered in Scripture and in early external sources as including the inhabitants generally of the Syro-Palestianian area. In its wider use also the terms Canaanite and Amorite tend to overlap directly. Thus Abram was promised Canaan (Genesis 12:5; Genesis 12:7) but this occupancy was delayedin fact was never realized by Abraham personallybecause the inquity of the Amorites was not yet full. Several inscriptions indicate clearly the contiguous use of Amorites and Canaanites in Moses-’ time; hence, the use of these terms as the distinguishing marks of different literary hands is erroneous (NBD, 184). It should be noted, too, that Shechem was a Canaanite principality under a Hivite ruler (Genesis 12:5-6; Genesis 34:2; Genesis 34:30), but could be called Amorite (Genesis 48:22). It seems that at the time of the conquest of Abram’s descendants, the mountainous land in the center, including the place of Shechem, was occupied by the Amorites and other tribes, while the coast of the Mediterranean and the west bank of the Jordan was held by the Canaanites proper (cf. Joshua 5:1; Joshua 11:3). The statement in Genesis 12:6 has been fastened upon as a proof of the late composition of this history, as implying that though in Abram’s time the Canaanite was in the land, he had ceased to have a place there in the writer’s days. The objection is not founded in historic truth; for it appears from Genesis 34:30, 1 Kings 9:20-21, Ezekiel 16:3, that the Canaanite continued to a certain extent in after ages to occupy the land (CECG, 131). Murphy suggests three possible interpretations of this passage (MG, 265-266): This simply implies that the land was not open for Abram to enter upon immediate possession of it without challenge: another was in possession; the sons of Kenaan had already arrived and preoccupied the country. It also intimates, or admits of, the supposition that there had been previous inhabitants who may have been subjugated by the invading Kenaanites.. It admits also of the supposition that the Kenaanites afterward ceased to be its inhabitants. Hence some have inferred that this could not have been penned by Moses, as they were expelled after his death. If this supposition were the necessary or the only one implied in the form of expression, we should acquiesce in the conclusion that this sentence came from one of the prophets to whom the conservation, revision, and continuation of the living oracles were committed. But we have seen that two other presuppositions may be made that satisfy the import of the passage. Moreover, the first of the three accounts for the fact that Abram does not instantly enter on possession, as there was an occupying tenant. And, finally, the third supposition may fairly be, not that the Kenaanites afterwards ceased, but that they should afterward cease to be in the land. This, then, as well as the others, admits of Moses being the writer of this interesting sentence. To the present writer the best explanation of this sentence is the simplest one: namely, that the writer intends us to know that the Canaanite was already in the land. Why try to give it some mysterious significance when the simplest interpretation makes the most sense? The implication could well be also that the Canaanite had driven out the earlier inhabitants.

The Place of Shechem, The Oak of Moreh

This was Abram’s first stopping-place. The phrase is perhaps a prolepsis, for the place where the city Shechem, either built by or named after the Hivite prince (Genesis 34:2) was afterward situated, between Ebal and Gerizim. This has been described as the only very beautiful spot in Central Palestine. The oak of Moreh: probably not the oak literally, but rather the terebinth or turpentine tree; however, the oak was a kind of generic name given to various kinds of trees. Cf. Deuteronomy 11:30in all likelihood, the oak-grove or terebinth-grove of Moreh. (Moreh, like Mamre, was probably the name of the owner: cf. Genesis 13:18; Genesis 14:13). It has been assumed by the critics that there was a sacred grove here where pagan rites had been practised, probably some aspect of the Cult of Fertility which prevailed generally among the inhabitants of the land. The phrase, place of Shechem, is assumed to have been a holy place. Moreh means literally teacher or instructor: hence, it may be conceded that oaks of instruction were in the category of oaks of divination (Judges 9:37). The notion that sacred trees and groves were inhabited by divinities and hence possessed oracular powers was widespread in the cults of ancient pagan peoples. To this day, we are told, the venerable cedars of Lebanon are tended by Maronite priests. From these facts it is further assumed by the critics that since this was the first place where Abram built an altar unto Jehovah (Genesis 12:7), he selected this particular holy place to worship his particular cult deity. This, of course, is conjecture. Lange (CDHCG, 391): It is not probable that Abram would have fixed his abode precisely in a grove, which according to heathen notions had a sacred character as the residence of divining priests. The religious significance of the place may have arisen from the fact that Jacob buried the images brought with him in his family, under the oak of Shechem (Genesis 35:4). The idols, indeed, must not be thrown into sacred but into profane places (Isaiah 2:20). But, perhaps, Jacob had regard to the feelings of his family, and prepared for the images, which, indeed, were not images belonging to any system of idolatry, an honorable burial. At the time of Joshua the place had a sacred character, and Joshua, therefore, erected here the monumental stone, commemorating the solemn renewal of the law (Josh., ch. 24). Thus they became the oaks of the pillar at which the Shechemites made Abimelech king (Judges 19:6). Leupold (EG, 419): But all suppositions, such as that the words ought to be rendered -oracle-terebinth,-’ or that we have here indications of an animistic religion on the part of the patriarchs, are guesses. It is just as possible that in days of old some worshiper of Yahweh had under this oak admonished and instructed the people. The sum and substance of the whole matter is clear, namely, that Abram encamped by an ancient landmark, and there received a second communication from God, and there built his first altar in the Land of Promise to the God who had called him to undertake this pilgrimage of faith.

The Theophany and the Altar, Genesis 12:7. The patriarch had left Ur of the Chaldees to set out on a trek, the destination of which God had not specified. The divine injunction was simply unto the land that I will show thee (Genesis 12:1, cf. Hebrews 11:8, he went out, not knowing whither he went). Now God appears to him and identifies this Land of Promise specifically: unto thy seed will I give this land. Note that God did not declare He would give it to Abram himself: as a matter of fact, Abraham died without owning a foot of it, except the small spot he purchased for a burial-place (Genesis 23:17-20; Genesis 25:9-10; Genesis 49:28-33). Lange (CDHCG, 391, 392): Abram’s faith had developed itself thus far since he had entered Canaan, and now the promise is given to him of the land of Canaan, as. the possession of the promised seed.. Abram’s grateful acknowledgment: the erection of an altar, and the founding of an outward service of Jehovah, which as to its first feature consisted in the calling upon his name (cultus), and as to its second in the profession and acknowledgement of his name. Thus also Jacob acted (Genesis 33:20, Joshua 24:1; Joshua 24:26). Bethel, Jerusalem, Hebron, Beersheba are places of the same character (i.e., places which were consecrated by the patriarchs, and not as Knobel thinks, whose consecration took place in later times, and then was dated back to the period of the patriarchs). Abram’s altars stood in the oaks of Moreh, and Mamre, in Bethel, and upon Moriah. Abram, and the patriarchs generally, served also the important purpose of preaching through their lives repentance to the Canaanites, as Noah was such a preacher for his time. For God leaves no race to perish unwarned. Sodom had even a constant warning in the life of Lot. The divine deed to the Holy Land was here made over to the seed of Abraham. Abram himself was to possess only a burial ground. Faith had to accept -things not seen.-'

Let us not forget that the three elements of Biblical religion are the altar, the sacrifice, and the priesthood. Hence Abram did here, precisely what Noah had done on coming out of the ark (Genesis 8:20), what undoubtedly the patriarchs of the Messianic Line had done from the time of Abel (Hebrews 11:4; Genesis 4:1-5). Throughout the Patriarchal Dispensation, the patriarch himself fulfilled the three divine offices of prophet (revealer of the will of God to his household), priest (mediator between his household and God), and king (the one who had complete authority over his household). This threefold office was expressed in the titles, Messiah, Christos, Christ, meaning The Anointed One. In Old Testament times those leaders inducted into these three ministries were formally set aside for their service by the ceremony of anointing (Judges 9:8, 2 Samuel 2:4, 1 Kings 1:34; Exodus 28:41; 1 Kings 19:16). The holy anointing oil used in these ceremonies of induction was typical of the gifts and graces of the Holy Spirit (Matthew 3:16-17; Acts 10:38; Acts 4:26; Luke 4:18; Hebrews 1:9, etc.). We see no reason for assuming that Abraham had not maintained this indispensable institution of sacrifice throughout his entire previous life; indispensable, that is, in the fact that from the beginning of revealed religion every lamb slain on the Patriarchal and Jewish altars was by divine ordination designed to point forward in type to the Lamb of God, our Passover, who would be offered up for the redemption of mankind (John 1:29, 1 Corinthians 5:7, Isaiah 53:7, Acts 8:32, 1 Peter 1:19, Revelation 5:4-14)

Note the Abram built his altar unto Yahweh (Jehovah) and called upon the name of Yahweh, Genesis 12:7. Advocates of the Documentary Theory have built up a mass of conjecture based on the assumption of different sources or codes. The name Elohim, they contend, is characteristic of the Elohistic Code (E) and the Priestly Code (P), whereas the name Jehovah characterizes the Jahvistic or Yahwistic Code (J). (This will be treated again infra in connection with Genesis 22:14 as related to Exodus 6:2). Suffices it here to quote from Green on this point (UBG, 167, 168): It is said that J and P differ in their conception of God; J’s representation is anthropomorphic, that of P is more exalted and spiritual. But the two aspects of God’s being, his supreme exaltation and his gracious condescension, are not mutually exclusive or conflicting, but mutually supplementary. Both must be combined in any correct apprehension of his nature and his relation to man. These are not to be sundered, as though they were distinct conceptions of separate minds. They are found together throughout the Bible. Since Elohim is used of God as the creator and in his relation to the world at large, while Jehovah is the name by which he made himself known to his chosen people, his chief acts of condescending grace naturally appear in connection with the latter. Leupold (EG, 420): A word from God requires a response on the part of man. Abram felt impelled to give personal public testimony to God’s mercy displayed in this appearance. So he built an altar. This statement is misconstrued by criticism in its attempt to find as many distinctions as possible between so-called sources. This passage, ascribed to J, is said to mean that J never records instances of actual sacrifices by the patriarchs. This is the argument from silence, and it is inconclusive because the word for altar is mizbeach, meaning -a place for slaughter.-’ The manifest intention of the author must be that -a place for slaughter-’ was made in order to slaughter a victim. Altars became altars when the victim is slain. A mere altar of stones would have been a formalistic gesture on Abram’s parta gesture like falling on one’s knees to pray but omitting the prayer. The soul of the patriarchal religion was sacrifice, The critics find matters, which no one before their time dreamed of. The altar is said to be built -unto Yahweh-’ to emphasize the undeserved mercy of His promise. (Italics oursC. The fact seems to be that the critics are for the most part motivated by zeal to destroy the integrity of the Bible and so to destroy its influence on mankind.) (HSB, 22): Abraham’s altar at Shechem implies animal sacrifice which was common to all Semites.

On to Bethel. From the oak of Moreh Abram now moved to the hill east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east (localities that are still recognizedthe former as Beiten, the latter as Teller-Rigmeh, the mount of the heap). Obviously Abram was still predominantly nomadic and apparently was still seeking better pasture land. It could well be also that the Canaanites did not view with too kindly eyes the appearance of this patriarch’s tents and flocks and herds; that Abram had neither the power nor the inclination to resort, like Jacob, to his sword and his bow (Genesis 48:22, Smith-Fields, OTH, 99).Abram was now on the heights which skirt the Jordan, on the northern border of what was later the kingdom of Judah, between Bethel and Ai, Bethel was a place, adjacent to which was the town called Luz at the first (Genesis 28:19). (Jacob gave this name to the place twice (Genesis 28:19; Genesis 35:15). Archaeology confirms the fact that the city was established early in the Bronze Age; hence we meet the name as existing as such in Abram’s time. Bethel continued afterward to be a place hallowed by the presence of God, to which the people resorted for counsel in the war with Benjamin (Judges 20:18; Judges 20:26; Judges 20:31; xxi. 2), and in which Jeroboam, 1 Kings 12:29, set up one of the golden calves). Ai meant literally a heap of stones (cf. Josh., chs. 7, 8). Here Abram pitched his tent. This was his second stopping-place in the Promised Land. (Tent: used for dwelling, Genesis 4:20; Genesis 9:21; Genesis 12:8; Genesis 13:18; Genesis 18:1; Genesis 13:5; Exodus 18:7; Numbers 24:5-6; 2 Samuel 20:1; Isaiah 13:20; Isaiah 38:12; Jeremiah 6:3. Women had tents apart from men, Genesis 24:67; Genesis 31:33. Used for cattle, 2 Chronicles 14:15. Manufacture of, Acts 18:3.) Abram called upon the name of Yabweh. Murphy (MG, 267): On the hill east of this sacred ground [Bethel] Abram built another altar, and called upon the name of the Lord. Here we have the reappearance of an ancient custom, instituted in the family of Adam after the birth of Enok (Genesis 4:26). Abram addresses God by his proper name, Jehovah, with an audible voice, in his assembled household. This, then, was a continuation of the worship of Adam, with additional light according to the progressive development of the moral nature of man. But Abram has not yet any settled abode in the land. He is only surveying its several regions, and feeding his flocks as he finds an opening. Hence he continues his journey southward. Leupold on Genesis 4:26 (EG, 227): The -name-’ here, as usual, means the whole truth that God had revealed about Himself. Since the name -Yahweh-’ is attached to -name,-’ this means that from days of old God was known in the capacity of Yahweh, or in the character of Yahweh, whether that word as such was known at this early date or not. The thing that the name stood for was known. Men do not first in the age of Abraham or Moses begin to comprehend God’s faithfulness, unchangeableness, and mercy. Since this calling out by the use of the name definitely implies public worship, we have here the first record of regular public worship. Private worship is presupposed as preceding. The great importance of public worship, both as a matter of personal necessity as well as a matter of public confession, is beautifully set forth by this brief record. This act bears eloquent testimony to the courage of this group, who wanted to be known as such whose hope was placed only in Yahweh. It is not enough to say that -Yahweh’s religion began with Enosh.-’ It began with Adam and developed into regular public worship in three generations. The significance of the statement here, Genesis 12:8, is the fact of the use of the Name Yahweh in worship, that is, to call out by the use of the Name. (SIBG, 239): Abram called on God, i.e., worshiped him by prayer, by preaching to his family, and by offering sacrifices for himself and them, ch. Genesis 18:19, Genesis 21:13.. It is not uncommon for men to speak and act religiously in one company or place, where religion is prevalent, or, if it may be so called, fashionable, who yet totally lay it aside in another place or company, where religion is less regarded, or perhaps altogether despised. Abram testifies for God wherever he goes. Again: That Abram, before this time, knew and worshiped God, there can be no doubt; but this [Shechem] is the first altar erected by him; that is, the first decided and public establishment of the worship of Jehovah in his family. It is well known, that young Christians, who worship God in private, often find considerable difficulty in commencing family worship. Let them remember Abram’s faith, Abram’s altar, and Abram’s blessing, and take courage.

7. The Round Trip to Egypt (Genesis 12:10-20)

Literally, Abraham pulled up stakes and kept on moving toward the south, that is toward the Negeb. Evidently the hill area adjacent to Bethel, though it may have protected him somewhat from the animosity of his neighbors (who surely did not look with too friendly an eye on this nomadic intruder) furnished scanty pasturage for his cattle. He therefore went on southward, that is, toward the Negeb (dry land). The Negeb is the Palestinian region which extends south from Hebron. It is a more or less arid region in parts of which isolated flocks may be tended, as far south at least as Beersheba. The terrain and character of the Negeb was such that Judea was almost never invaded from the South through this area. When Israel sought to enter the Promised Land the procession was repulsed by this formidable barrier and its inhabitants (Deuteronomy 1:42-46). Of course it may have been less desiccated in the days of the patriarchs. Frequently in Scripture the word is used merely to indicate direction, south. (The reference to the Negeb here and elsewhere in Genesis takes on great significance since Dr. Nelson Glueck’s archaeological discoveries which make it clear that the region was occupied from 2100-1800 B.C., the period of Abraham. Incidentally, it is now believed by some archaeologists that Abraham and the Babylonian king Hammurabi were relatively contemporary. See Glueck’s fascinating book, Rivers in the Desert, RD in our Bibliographical Abbreviations.) The route taken, from the Beersheba region was probably by the way of Shur, an area in the northwest part of the isthmus of Sinai, south of the Mediterranean coastline and the way of the land of the Philistines (Genesis 16:7; Genesis 25:18; Exodus 13:17-18; Exodus 15:22; 1 Samuel 15:7; 1 Samuel 27:8).

There arose a famine in the Land of Promise, so Abram pressed on to the south. The Land of Promise, we are told, is watered by rain periodically, but seasons of drought occur in which the growth of vegetation is arrested and thus famine is brought on. Because the fertility of her soil was guaranteed by the annual inundation of the Nile, Egypt as a rule enjoyed protection from drought; hence it was customary for peoples of Syria and Palestine to seek refuge there in times of famine in their own lands, as did Jacob later. Thus it will be noted that insofar as the Promised Land is considered, it was literally true that Abram simply passed through the land (Genesis 12:6). The first journey was apparently one of exploration and it seems to have been rapidly consummated and then terminated in a brief sojourn in Egypt.

Abram in Egypt: The Problem of Sarai’s Age

Abram’s wife, Sarai, is now thrust forward into what was an unenviable situation, and surely not one of her own making. Abram testified to her attractiveness: thou art a fair woman to look upon (Genesis 12:11) and the princes of Pharaoh on seeing her beauty praised her to Pharaoh (Genesis 12:14-15). The statement Sarai was so fair as to attract the attention of Pharaoh, even to the peril of her husband’s life (Genesis 12:11; Genesis 12:15) is said by the critics to be incompatible with Genesis 12:4 (cf. Genesis 17:17), according to which she was at that time upward of sixty-five years old. It is said to be still more incongruous that she should have attracted Abimelech when she was more than ninety years old (Genesis 20:2-7, Genesis 7:17). Green (UBG, 167): The only point of any consequence in this discussion is not what modern critics may think of the probability or possibility of what is here narrated, but whether the sacred historian credited it. On the hypothesis of the critics R (redactor) believed it and recorded it. What possible ground can they have for assuming that J and E had less faith than R in what is here told of the marvelous beauty and attractiveness of the ancestress of the nation? If the entire narrative could be put together by R, and related by him with no suspicion of discord, the same thing could just as well have been done by one original writer. It may be added, if it will in any measure relieve the minds of doubting critics, that Abimelech is not said to have been taken with Sarah’s beauty. He may have thought an alliance with -a mighty prince-’ like Abraham (Genesis 23:6) desirable, even if Sarah’s personal charms were not what they had once been. And when Abraham lived to an age of one hundred and seventy-five, who can say how well a lady of ninety may have borne her years? It has been suggested that Sarai’s complexion, coming from a mountainous country, was no doubt fresh and fair as compared with the faces of Egyptian women, which, as the monuments show, were dark-brown or copper-colored (CECG, 132). This suggestion surely has merit.

Abram in Egypt: His Attempted Deception (Genesis 12:10-20).

Leupold (EG, 421, 422): Now follows an episode that is less attractive. Abram does not appear to good advantage in it. With impartial truth Moses records what Abram did. If the account remains entirely objective without the addition of a subjective opinion or estimate of the ethical value of Abram’s conduct, this can readily be seen to be offset by the fact that the narrative as such in its unvarnished truth so plainly sets forth the unworthy sentiments that animated the patriarch, that the sympathetic reader is almost made to blush for the thing done by the man of God. The charge of the critics is decidely unfair when they say: -There is no suggestion that either the untruthfulness or the selfish cowardice of the request [of Abram] was severely reprobated by the ethical code to which the narrative appealed.-’ Prochsch sees the situation more nearly as it actually is when he asserts: -It is quite impossible here not to notice the narrator’s sarcasm,-’ and adds that this step that Abram took -is most sharply condemned-’ by the writer. Comparing Chapter s twenty and twenty-six, we find two situations that constitute a close parallel to the one under consideration. Strange as such recurrences may strike us, it should be remembered that life often brings us into situations that are practically duplicates of what transpired at an earlier date; and he that marvels that a patriarch sinned a second time after a definite rebuke, let him remember how often he himself may repeat a sin for which a stern admonition had been addressed to him. To say this must have been -a very popular story in ancient Israel-’ hardly does justice to the facts of the case. Why should Israel have deemed the failings of its patriarchs material for -popular-’ stories? The recording of three such instances is explicable only on the score of the strict impartiality of the author. See the parallel stories of Abram and Abimelech (ch. 20) and of Isaac and Abimelech (ch. 26). It must be understood that the Bible is a very realistic book: it pictures life just as men lived it; it does not turn away from the truth to cover up the weaknesses of the heroes of the faith. It deals with them realistically as it deals with all men realistically, in the fact that it finds them in sin (as they know they are if they will but be honest with themselves and with God), but at the same time offers the only possible remedy, the Atonement, God’s Covering of Grace (John 1:29, 1 John 1:7-10, Romans 3:24, Ephesians 1:7, Hebrews 9:12). Divine Justice required the Atonement, and Divine Love provided it (John 3:16). It should be noted that the severe reproof which God administered to those practising deception, on all these occasions, was administered through the instrumentality of those who had been made the victims of their deception. In each case, too, the reproof was accompanied with manifestations of great mercy and benevolence.

According to a previous understanding with Sarai, Abram palmed her off on the king of Egypt as his sister. This, of course, was a half-truth and a half-lie (Genesis 20:12), which makes the incident more interesting and more complex ethically. Some authors have tried to minimize the deception by appeals to customs. Speiser, for example, would have us know that, according to the inscriptions, in the Hurrian culture of the time men were accustomed to confer special status on their wives by adopting them as sisters. This, we are told, would have made Sarai eligible for sistership status in Haran which was predominantly a Hurrian city; and because this relationship was for Sarai a matter of prestige, Abram would have stressed it in introducing her to Pharaoh (ABG, 91-94). This notion is surely out of tune completely with the Genesis account: it is completely contrary to the motive explicitly attributed to Abram and Sarai in that account. Speiser’s attempted explanation of the motives involved in Abram’s deception makes it to be no deception at all. He writes: Why was tradition so interested in the matter, enough to dwell on it repeatedly. We know now that the wife-sister position was a mark of cherished social standing. This kind of background would be an implicit guarantee of the purity of the wife’s descendants. The ultimate purpose of the biblical genealogies was to establish the superior strain of the line through which the biblical way of life was transmitted from generation to generation. In other words, the integrity of the mission was to be safeguarded in transmission, the purity of the content protected by the quality of the container. This is why the antecedents of the wifethe mother of the next generationin the formative early stages were of particular significance. Hence, too, all such notices would be obligatory entries in the pertinent records (ibid., 94). In opposition to this view, we may ask two questions: (1) What evidence have we that this special sister-wife status over in Haran was recognized, or even known, down in Egypt? (2) If the Old Testament writers were seeking to protect the moral integrity of the mothers of each succeeding generation, why do they present the deception practised by Abram and Sarai as a deception pure and simple, and as motivated by selfishness. It strikes this writer that from the viewpoint taken by Dr. Speiser, the Genesis accounts of these deceptions would have been omitted from the history.

See JB (p. 29, n.): Here we have another attempt to explain away Abram’s defection, and this is equally without any positive evidence to support it. We read: The purpose of this narrative (the same theme recurs in ch. 20 where Sarai figures again, and in Genesis 26:1-11, where the story is told of Rebekah) is to commemorate the beauty of the ancestress of the race, the astuteness of its patriarch, the protection that God afforded them. The story reflects a stage of moral development when a lie was still considered lawful under certain circumstances and when the husband’s life meant more than his wife’s honor. God was leading man to an appreciation of the moral law but this appreciation was gradual. It will be noted that this writer puts the emphasis on the importance of the father, whereas Speiser puts it on the moral integrity of the mother. These views are hardly reconcilable.

Why, then, do we not allow the Bible to say what it means and to mean what it says? Let us get away from the nit-picking propensities of the intellectual who frequently cannot see the forest for the trees. Let us take a look at the other sidethe realistic sideof the problem. For example (HSB, 22, n.): God’s will, done God’s way, never lacks for God’s blessing. Say you are my sister, Here Abraham did not tell the truth. Selfishness overtook this man of faith. Fear for his own life made him forget what consequences his deceit would bring for Sarah and others. Although Abraham was a man of faith he was not a perfect man. This incident serves to illustrate the fact that the end does not justify the means. The means and the end must both be right. (SIB, 232): Sarai was his sister in some sense. but it was not in that sense, but in the common acceptation of the words, sister and brother, they sinfully wished the Egyptians to understand them. Jamieson (CECG, 132): On reaching the confines of Egypt, which was the greatest primeval kingdom in the world, Abram began to feel uneasy. Increasing signs of civilization, grandeur, and power, met his eye on every side; and as the immigration of so numerous a tribe as his from the neighboring desert would certainly arrest public attention, the prospect of encountering the authorities of Egypt, so different from the simple nomads of Asia, to whom his experience had hitherto been limited, filled him with awe. But all other anxieties were forgotten and absorbed in one cause of alarm.. He entertained a bad opinion of the morals and manners of the country; and anticipating that Sarai, whose style of beauty was far superior to that of the Egyptian women, might captivate some proud noble, who would try by any means to obtain possession of her, Abram became apprehensive of his life. The idea so completely unnerved him that his fortitude and faith alike gave way; and he formed an artful plan, which, while it would retain his wife beside him, would, he hoped, by leading to betrothal and other negotiations connected with the dowry, put off the evil day. The counsel of Abram to Sarai was true in words: but it was a deception, intended to give an impression that she was no more than his sister. His conduct was culpable and inconsistent with his character as a servant of God; it showed a reliance on worldly policy more than a trust in the promise; and he not only sinned himself, but tempted Sarah to sin also. Leupold (EG, 424): Abram knows how little the rights of foreigners were respected in olden times. He also knows how beautiful women would be sought out when they came to a foreign land. He also understands that marriage was respected sufficiently that men felt they must dispose of the husband before they could take his wife. Egyptian parallels prove that men had no hesitation about committing murder in order to secure their object. There was nothing beside the point in the estimate that he makes of the situation except the morals of the patriarch. Though Genesis 20:12 indicates that the literal truth was being told, there is yet the possibility of telling it with the intent to deceive; and so it becomes a lie. In addition, there is something cowardly and mean about expecting Sarai to encounter the hazards in order that Abram might avoid danger. The heroic is notably absent in this request. In reply to the question as to how Sarai could be deemed beautiful at the age of sixty-five, this author writes-’ (ibid., 424): It must be remembered that according to the limits of longevity of those times she was only middle-aged. Middle-aged women may have retained their beauty, especially if they have not borne many children. On Pharaoh’s part the taking of a woman into his harem may be largely a political expedient to enhance his own influence. Lange (CDHCG, 392): It must be observed that by the side of the Hamitic women in Egypt and Canaan, Semitic women, even when advanced in years, would be admired as beautiful. Abram desired that Sarah should say that she was his sister, lest he should be killed. If she was regarded as his wife, an Egyptian could only obtain her when he had murdered her husband and possessor; but if she was his sister, then there was a hope that she might be won from her brother by kindly means. The declaration was not false (Genesis 20:12), but it was not the whole truth. Lange goes on to say, trying to justify what Abram did in this case, that the patriarch’s policy to report that Sarai was his sister was determined at an early period in their migrations, but was first brought into use in his dealing with Pharaoh. (To the present writer, this seems to be an unjustified assumption and wholly contrary to the tenor of Gen 12:11.) He continues as follows: Abram’s venture was not from laxity as to the sanctity of marriage, or as to his duty to protect his wife; it was from a presumptuous confidence in the wonderful assistance of God. It was excused through the great necessity of the time, his defenceless state among strangers, the customary lawlessness of those in power, and as to the relations of the sexes. Therefore Jehovah preserved him from disgrace, although he did not spare him personal anxiety, and the moral rebuke from a heathen. It is only in Christ, that with the broad view of faith, the knowledge of its moral human measures and limitations is from the beginning perfect. In the yet imperfect, but growing faith, the word is true, -The children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light.-’ As a mere matter of prudence, Abram appeared to act prudently. He told no untruth, although he did not tell the whole truth. His word was, at all events, of doubtful import, and therefore, through his anxious forecast, was morally hazardous. But the necessity of the time, the difficulty of his position, and his confidence that God would make his relations clear at the proper time, serve to excuse it. It was intended to effect a final deception: his God would unloose the knot. In his faith Abram was a blameless type of believers, but not in his application of his faith to the moral problems of life. Still, even in this regard, he unfolds more and more his heroic greatness. We must distinguish clearly between a momentary, fanatical, exaggerated confidence in God, and the tempting of God with a selfish purpose. It strikes the present writer that there is much in the foregoing apologetic that is not in harmony with the Genesis account. Is it not the plain fact that Abram, in concealing the whole truth, did actuallyby implication which cannot be ignoredtell an untruth? Oftentimes the most destructive lies are perpetrated by concealing that part of the truth which has the most bearing on the moral situation involved. We are reminded of the well-known couplet:

A lie that is wholly a lie

Can be met and fought outright,

But a lie that is half a lie

Is a harder matter to fight.

There are situations in which a person can lie simply by keeping silent. Cf. Smith-Fields (OTH, 99): It is enough here to observe that the mighty kingdom of the Pharaohs had already been long established in Lower Egypt. In this crisis the faith of Abram failed. To protect his wife from the license of a despot, he stooped to that mean form of deceit, which is true in word but false in fact. The trick defeated itself. Sarai, as an unmarried woman, was taken to the harem of the king, who heaped wealth and honors upon Abram. Whitelaw (PCG, 188) comments on Abram’s introduction of Sarai to Pharaoh as his -sister-’ as follows: A half truth (Genesis 20:12) but a whole falsehood. The usual apologies, that he did not fabricate but did -cautiously conceal the truth,-’ that perhaps he was acting in obedience to a Divine impulse, that he dissembled in order to protect his wife’s chastity, are not satisfactory. On the other hand, Abram must not be judged by the light of New Testament revelation. It is not necessary for a Christian in every situation of life to tell all the truth, especially when its part suppression involves no deception, and is indispensable for self-preservation; and Abram may have deemed it legitimate as a means of securing both his own life and Sarah’s honor, though how he was to shield his wife in the peculiar circumstances it is difficult to see, Rosenmuller suggests that he knew the preliminary ceremonies to marriage required a considerable time, and counted upon being able to leave Egypt before any injury was done to Sarah. The only objection to this is that the historian represents him as being less solicitous about the preservation of his wife’s chastity than about the conservation of his own life.. -No defence can be offered for a man who, merely through dread of danger to himself, tells a lie, risks his wife’s chastity, puts temptation in the way of his neighbors, and betrays the charge to which the Divine favor had summoned him-’ (Dykes). The plain fact is that should anyone take Sarah into his harem on the supposition that she was his sister, Abram as the honored brother would be given most respectful treatment. Hence, as Leupold puts it (EG, 425):Fully aware of the fact that such a course may involve the sacrifice of Sarai’s honor in order that he himself might fare well, he nevertheless asks Sarai to make the sacrifice. Abram never sank lower, as far as we know, than when he made this request. Sarai’s acquiescence, however, seems to grow out of the idea that there actually is no other safe course to follow. She was as sadly deficient in faith as he himself on this occasion, We repeat:

The Bible is the most realistic book ever given to mankind. It never turns away from the truth to cover up the faults of the heroes of the faith. It deals with man as he is, and as he knows that he is, if he will but be honest with himself and with God. It finds him in sin, and proffers the only remedy for it.

As A, Gosman puts it (CDHCG, 394, n.): We are not to be harsh or censorious in our judgments upon the acts of these eminent saints. But neither are we called upon to defend their acts. it is well to bear in mind that the Scripture records, these acts without expressing distinctly any moral judgment upon them. It impliedly condemns. The Scripture, however, contains the great principles of moral truth and duty, and then oftentimes leaves the reader to draw the inference as to the moral quality of the act which it records. And its faithfulness in not concealing what may be of questionable morality, -in the lives of the greatest saints shows the honesty and accuracy of the historian.-’ Wordsworth says well: -The weaknesses of the patriarchs strengthen our faith in the Pentateuch.-'

Did Pharaoh enter into marital relations with Sarai? There is nothing in the records to indicate that he did; as a matter of fact, the customary prerequisites to any kind of royal marriage in the ancient world involved considerable time. As Simpson writes (IBG, 581): Had the author intended such a representation he would have stated the fact explicitly by saying, e.g., at the end of Gen 12:15, that Pharaoh lay with her. We may surely conclude that precisely what happened in the case of Rebekah (Genesis 26:8-11) happened in the similar instances in which Abram and Sarai were involved, namely, that the woman was divinely protected against physical coition. It is interesting to note, too, that in each case the royal victim of patriarchal duplicity protested in almost the same language, What is this than thou hast done unto me? (Genesis 12:18, Genesis 20:9, Genesis 26:10). In a word, the man of God was rebuked, and that rightly, by the man of the world. Cf. Bowie (IBG, 581): In this unvarnished story there are several points that are significant. Conspicuousto begin withis the fact that here, as elsewhere, the O.T. is written with an unhesitating realism. The faults even of its greatest figures are not disguised. What Abraham is described as having done when he went into Egypt would throw discredit on any man. Being afraid that the Egyptians would covet Sarah, and thinking that if they knew she was tied to him as her husband they would kill him to get possession of her, he persuaded Sarah to pose as his unmarried sister; and as such she was taken to the house of Pharaoh. In the climax of the story the Egyptian stands in a much better light than Abraham, the man of the covenant; for he denounced indignantly the lie that Abraham had told him, gave Sarah back to him, and let him go out of the country with the rich possessions which had been bestowed upon him when Sarah was taken.

What is this that thou hast done unto me? he demanded of Abram when he learned of the latter’s deception. Thus, as F. W. Robertson has written (NG, 53): The man of God was rebuked by the man of the world: a thing singularly humiliating. It is common to find men of the world whose honor and integrity are a shame to every Christian; and common enough to find men of religious feeling and aspiration, of whom that same world is compelled to say that whenever they are tried in business there is always a something found wanting.. Morality is not religion; but unless religion is grafted on morality, religion is worth nothing.

Be sure your sin will find you out is the solemn warning of Scripture as voiced by Moses in the days of old. If it does not find you out here, it will surely do so in the Great Judgment (1 Timothy 5:24-25, Matthew 16:27, Acts 17:30-31, Romans 2:4-6, Revelation 20:12). God saw to it that Abram’s sin found him out, and that through the instrumentality of his victim (precisely as in the two other similar incidents). And Jehovah plagued Pharaoh and his house. Murphy (MG, 271, 272): The mode of divine interference is suited to have the desired effect on the parties concerned. As Pharaoh is punished, we conclude he was guilty in the eye of heaven in this matter. He committed a breach of hospitality by invading the private abode of the stranger. He further infringed the law of equity between man and man in the most tender point, by abstracting, if not with violence, at least with a show of arbitrary power which could not be resisted, a female, whether sister or wife, from the home of her natural guardian without the consent of either. A deed of ruthless self-will, also, is often rendered more heinous by a blamable inattention to the character or position of him who is wronged. So it was with Pharaoh. Abram was a man of blameless life and inoffensive manners. He was, moreover, the chosen and special servant of the Most High God. Pharaoh, however, does not condescend to inquire who the stranger is whom he is about to wrong; and is thus unwittingly involved in an aggravated crime. But the hand of the Almighty brings even tyrants to their senses.. The princes of Pharaoh were accomplices in his crime (Genesis 12:15), and his domestics were concurring with him in carrying it into effect, But even apart from any positive consent or connivance in a particular act, men, otherwise culpable, are brought into trouble in this world by the faults of those with whom they are associated. On account of Sarai: Pharaoh was made aware of the cause of the plagues or strokes with which he was now visited.

Fully cognizant now of the fact that the plagues he and his household were suffering were divine visitations for a wrong he had committed, we can well suppose, I think, that this Egyptian king was motivated in large part by sheer superstitious fear of the gods or god whose will he had violated; hence, he was willing to do most anything he could to get this foreigner and his caravan out of Egypt posthaste, even providing him with an escort to see that he left the country unharmed. He actually sent Abram out with all the wealth the latter had acquired, some of it probably as the king’s own purchase price for the projected admission of Sarai into his harem. (Bride purchase is a custom as old as the history of the race itself.) Pharaoh consoled himself with upbraiding Abram for the latter’s deceit, and so permitted the incident to be terminated without any further unpleasantness. Abram, we are told, left Egypt, now very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold (Genesis 13:2). Traveling back through the south of Palestine (the Negeb) Abram finally reached his old camping-ground between Bethel and Ai, unto the place of the altar, which he had made there at the first. And there Abram called on the name of Jehovah, that is, re-established the worship of the living and true God. Murphy suggests that by this experience in Egypt, the patriarch, thus reproved through the mouth of Pharaoh, will be less hasty in abandoning the land of promise, and betaking himself to carnal resources (MG, 272).

Recapitulation: Leaving Haran, Abram journeyed through Shechem (Genesis 12:6), Bethel (Genesis 12:8), southward (Genesis 12:9), Egypt (Genesis 12:10), back to the Negeb (Genesis 13:1), and to Bethel (Genesis 13:3); but he seems not to have settled down until he reached Hebron (Genesis 13:18). Here he remained (Genesis 13:18, Genesis 14:13, Genesis 18:1), through the birth of Ishmael at 86 (Genesis 16:16), and the conception of Isaac at 99 (Genesis 17:1). The most significant event of this period, and indeed of his whole life, was the revelation of the Abrahamic covenant (ch. 15) and its confirmation (ch. 17), the means by which he and his fleshly seed were reconciled to God.

REVIEW QUESTIONS ON PART TWENTY-SIX

Where were the earliest civilizations located and why?

What does the word Mesopotamia mean?

What especially enhanced the development of civilization in Mesopotamia?

Where did Semitic and Indo-European cultures flourish respectively?

Where did the Akkadians and Sumerians flourish geographically?

What was the Akkadian Empire and who established it?

Who were the Amorites? In what city especially have archaeologists discovered their cultural remains?

Who was their greatest king and in what city did he reign?

State the chief facts of the early history of Ur.

State the main facts of the later history of Ur.

Who were the Hurrians? What is the best known site of their cultural remains?

What was the kingdom of the Mitanni?

Who were the-’ Hittites? Where did they establish themselves in the Near East? What was their chief city and where was it located?

What economic development enhanced the power and prosperity of the Hittites?

Who were the Hyksos? When did they enter Palestine and why?

State the important facts about the Third Dynasty of Ur.

Name the centers of archaeological excavation the remains of which are relevant to the culture of the Patriarchal Age.

What light does Stephen’s account in Acts 7:2-3 throw on the Call of Abram?

For what purpose in particular are the generations of Terah introduced in Genesis?

In what sense was the Call of Abram a turning-point in human history?

In what sense was it a turning-point in Messianic history?

Why do we take the view that Abram was not Terah’s eldest son?

What two basic features of the Abrahamic Promise occur in all the statements of it in Genesis?

In what three ways was the Divine Promise in re Abram’s seed fulfilled? Who was his eminent seed?

Summarize Murphy’s eloquent treatment of the sequence of the earthly and the heavenly.

How was this sequence fulfilled in the life of Abraham?

Why do we say that the Abrahamic Covenant was the Covenant of Promise?

Who was the Child of Promise and why so called?

Why do many commentators assume that two divine calls were made to Abram?

Is it possible to harmonize Abram’s many manifestations of faith in God with the notion that he had yielded to the religious apostasy which seems to have characterized his kinsmen?

What was the first lap of Abram’s pilgrimage of faith?

How does Gosman reconcile the apparent discrepancy between Moses and Stephen concerning the Call of Abram?

Why are Sarai and Lot both mentioned in the accounts of Abram’s departure from Ur and his departure from Haran?

What was the distance from Ur to Haran? How was Haran associated in Biblical history with Abram’s various kinsmen? Where did Terah die?

State again the three fulfillments of the Abrahamic Promise concerning Abraham’s seed.

Trace Abram’s route from Haran to his first stopping-place at Shechem. What was the distance involved? How old was Abram when he left Haran?

How does the ancient city of Damascus figure in the story of the life of Abraham?

Explain the different uses of the word Canaanite in the Old Testament.

What suggested interpretations have we of the statement, And the Canaanite was then in the land?

What is the simplest explanation of this statement?

Why is it assumed that the place of Shechem is descriptive of a pagan holy place? Have we any reason for assuming that Abram himself participated in pagan rites?

Are we justified in assuming that we have in the oak of Moreh indications of primitive animism?

What is the significance of God’s word to Abram in Genesis 12:7?

What was Abram’s second stopping-place?

At what places were Abram’s altars erected?

What are the three elements of Biblical religion?

Explain the statement that altars become altars only when a victim is slain.

What institution was the very soul of Patriarchal religion?

What typical meaning did sacrifice have under the Patriarchal and Jewish Dispensations?

Name in their proper sequence the three Dispensations of divine grace. What was the extent of each?

What specific changes determined the changes of Dispensations also?

In what other instances does Bethel figure in Old Testament history?

Explain the full meaning of the statement that Abram called upon the name of Jehovah.

What was the Negeb? The Way of Shur?

What caused Abram to journey into Egypt?

What fact made Egypt a breadbasket in times of famine in Syria and Palestine?

In the light of Gen 17:17 how old was Sarai when Abram entered Egypt?

How harmonize Sarah’s age with her alleged attractiveness?

What deception did Abram perpetrate on Pharaoh?

What was the actual relationship of Sarai to Abram?

What according to the Genesis account motivated Abram’s attempted deception in this case?

What explanation of Abram’s deception is suggested by Speiser?

What explanation is suggested in the Jerusalem Bible?

How does Jamieson explain it ?

What other cases of the same kind of deception are related in Genesis?

In what sense was Abram’s introduction of Sarai to Pharaoh a half-truth but a whole lie at the same time?

In what sense is the Bible completely realistic? How is this illustrated by the report of Abram’s behavior toward Pharaoh?

What evidence do we have that Pharaoh did not enter into marital relations with Sarai?

Discuss F. W. Robertson’s statement that in this case the man of God was rebuked by the man of the world, and the parallels he draws from the incident.

Through whose instrumentality did God cause Abram’s sin to find him out?

In what ways did God deal out justice to Pharaoh also?

How did Pharaoh deal with Abram?

To what place in Palestine did Abram return?

Give the recap of Abram’s journey from Ur to Egypt and back into the Land of Promise.

What statement in the Abrahamic Promise shows that God did not abandon the other families of the earth when he called out Abram’s seed, but was in fact making provision ultimately for their spiritual welfare also?