Genesis 16

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 16:1-16

PART TWENTY-NINE THE STORY OF ABRAHAM: THE SON OF THE BONDWOMAN

(Genesis 16:1-16)

1. *The Biblical Account.

1 Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, bare him no children; and she had a handmaid, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar. 2 And Sarai said unto Abram, Behold now, Jehovah hath restrained me from bearing; go in, I pray thee, unto my handmaid; it may be that I shall obtain children by her. And Abram hearkened to the voice of Sarai. 3 And Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her handmaid, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to Abram her husband to be his wife. 4 And he went in unto Hagar, and she conceived; and when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress was despised in her eyes. 5 And Sarai said unto Abram, My wrong be upon thee: I gave my handmaid into thy bosom; and when she saw that she had conceived, I was despised in her eyes; Jehovah judge between me and thee. 6 But Abram said unto Sarai, Behold, thy maid is in thy hand; do to her that which is good in thine eyes. And Sarai dealt hardly with her, and she fled from her face. 7 And the angel of Jehovah found her by a fountain of water in the wilderness, by the fountain in the way to Shur. 8 And he said, Hagar, Sarai’s handmaid, whence camest thou? and whither goest thou? And she said, I am fleeing from the face of my mistress Sarai. 9 And the angel of Jehovah said unto her, Return to thy mistress, and submit thyself under her hands. 10 And the angel of Jehovah said unto her, I will greatly multiply thy seed, that it shall not be numbered for multitude. 11 And the angel of Jehovah said unto her, Behold, thou art with child, and shalt bear a son; and thou shalt call his name Ishmael, because Jehovah hath heard thy affliction. 12 And he shall be as a wild ass among men; his hand shall be against every man, and every man’s hand against him; and he shall dwell over against all his brethren. 13 And she called the name of Jehovah that spake unto her, Thou art a God that seeth: for she said, Have I even here looked after him that seeth me? 14 Wherefore the well was called Beer-lahai-roi; behold, it is between Kadesh and Bered.*

15 *And Hagar bare Abram a son: and Abram called the name of his son, whom Hagar bare, Ishmael. 16 And Abram was fourscore and six years old, when Hagar bare Ishmael to Abram.

2. The Domestic Drama in Abram’s Household* (Genesis 16:1-6).

The story of Hagar and Ishmael has real value for the believer. It conveys a lesson both profound and practical. Abram, it will be recalled, was seventy-five years old when he left Haran on receiving God’s covenantal Promise (Genesis 12:4) in which the promise of seed was inherent. Now Abram had reached the age of eighty-five (Genesis 16:3) and the promise of seed had not been fulfilled and indeed seemed impossible of fulfillment in view of the fact that Sarai had passed the normal age of childbearing. Of course, as far as we can know, it had not been explicitly stated that Sarai was the destined mother of the long-promised and anxiously-awaited son; it seems unreasonable, however, to assume anything to the contrary. Therefore, as the prospect of her contributing to the fulfillment of the Promise became more and more remote, she seems to have reached the conclusion that this honor was not reserved for her, and proceeded to take matters into her own hands. She persuaded her husband to take her handmaid, Hagar, an Egyptian, as a kind of secondary wife (concubine), that by her he might obtain what had been denied her (Sarai). Abram evidently was not averse to the arrangement: he consorted with Hagar, and the Egyptian conceived.

The consequences of this unfortunate eventunfortunate because both ill-conceived and ill-timed (because the persons involved were not willing to await God’s own time to fulfill the Promise) seem to be never-ending. After all, it was God’s own Promise that was involved: they needed only to await His will in the matter. Instead of so doing, however, they proceeded to take the situation in hand themselves. In spite of the many instances cited us of Abraham’s faith, and in spite of the high evaluation of his faith in the New Testament writings, the fact remains that in this instance his faith was wanting in integrity, else he should have rebuked Sarai for her impatience. (But how many professing Christians in our day (or in any other day, for that matter) would have the faith to hold out for God’s time in a similar situation? We are inclined to think, Very, very few! After all, Abram and Sarai were human, and we have here one of the most far-reaching of human interest stories in literature, and also another proof of the realism of the Biblical record. It is a record in which life is portrayed exactly as men and women lived it, with their frailties as well as their virtues, and their sorrows and disillusionment as well as their joys. The sum and substance of the matter is that the consequences of Sarai’s rash act failed to bring happiness to any of the persons directly involved (not to mention the innocent victim, Ishmael). In a moment of elation which begat a false pride, Hagar mocked her mistress, who in turn was outraged (she had lost face in the eyes of the Egyptian) and vented her spleen on both Abram and Hagar despite the fact they had done only what she herself had persuaded them to do. The net result was a domestic mess in which Hagar and her son, both indirectly involved, suffered the greater injustices; a situation which is having repercussions in world history even in our own time, the twentieth century.

Archeological discoveries have fully substantiated the details of this incident which occurred some eighteen or twenty centuries prior to the beginning of the Christian era. The practice of a slave woman bearing a child for a childless wife is strange indeed from the point of view of the Western world. But that this was a common practice in the patriarchal world is evident from two sources especially, namely, the Code of Hammurabi and the Nuzi tablets. Excavations at Nuzi (or Nuzu), an ancient city of northern Mesopotamia east of the Tigristhe site is now near Kirkuk in Iraqhave uncovered thousands of clay tablets in cuneiform script most of which date back to the 15th and 16th centuries before Christ, at the time when the town was under Hurrian (Horite) domination. From Par. 146 of the Code of Hammurabi we learn that a priestess of certain rank who was free to marry but not to bear children, gave her husband a slave girl in order to provide him with a son. We learn that if the concubine should then have tried to arrogate unto herself a social status of equality with her mistress, the wife should have downgraded her to her former standing as a slave. The wife, however, did not have the right to sell her to others. Speiser (ABG, 120): This law is applicable to the case before us in that (a) the childless wife must herself provide a concubine, (b) the successful substitute must not forget her place. But these provisions are restricted to certain priestesses for whom motherhood was ruled out. No such limitations applied to Sarah. Her case is covered fully, however, in one of the published texts from Nuzi. Here we have an account of a socially prominent family (of no special religious commitments) in which the wife who is childless is required to provide a slave girl as concubine in order that the husband may have an heir. The wife, however, will have legal rights to the offspring. Moreover, if the formerly childless couple should later have a child of their own, they could not thrust out the child of the secondary wife. The other provisions of the Nuzi case are likewise paralleled in our narrative: Sarah is childless, and it is she herself who has pressed a concubine on Abraham (Genesis 16:5). What Sarai did, then, was not so much in obedience to an impulse as in conformance with the family law of the Hurrians, a society whose customs the patriarchs knew intimately and followed often (ABG, 121). (HSB, 27): Archeological evidence of Nuzi customs indicate that in some marriage contracts a childless wife was required to furnish a substitute for her husband. In oriental eyes, childlessness was the greatest of tragedies. Nuzu custom stipulated further that the slave wife and her children could not be sent away. Thus the action of Sarah and Abraham was undoubtedly consonant with the customs of that day. (JB, 31): According to Mesopotamian law a barren wife could present one of her female slaves to the husband and acknowledge the issue as her son. The same is to happen in Rachel’s case, Genesis 30:1-6, and in Leah’S, Genesis 30:9-13.

The personal element in this story is interwoven with the societal and legal: the basic conflict is between certain specific legal rights and natural human feelings. Genesis 16:2Note that Sarai ascribes her failure to bear children to Yahweh’s not having given them to her. Said she, Yahweh has shut up my womb, i.e., restrained me from bearing. Does Sarah’s action in this case stem from her lack of specific knowledge that she was to be the mother of Abram’s child? Or, did she take matters into her own hands and proceed to resolve the problem on her own authority, motivated to some extent by her impatience with God? Certainly her manner of speech indicates a certain measure of petulance. Said she to Abram, Suppose you go in unto my handmaid (i.e., cohabit with her) that perhaps I may be built up by her, i.e., that I may have children by her. And Abram hearkened to his wife’s voice, that is, he showed no hesitancy in approving her suggestion. Genesis 16:3Sarah then took Hagar and gave her (i.e., gave her in marriage) to her husband. This happened after ten years of dwelling in the Promised Land, when Abram was eighty-five years old and his wife seventy-five. Truly they had been awaiting God’s fulfillment of the Promise a long, long time, but, as we see it today in the light of the Christian revelation, God could hardly have made known to them His design to produce a birth out of the natural order of such events which would prefigure the Supreme Begetting and Birth of Messiah (Luke 1:34-35). Still and all, should not their faith have remained steadfast that God would keep His commitment to them? Genesis 16:4When Hagar knew she had conceived, her mistress was lessened in her eyes, that is, Sarah lost caste in the eyes of the Egyptian. Genesis 16:5that Hagar’s superciliousness irritated Sarai was perfectly natural: what other reaction might have been expected? The Code of Hammurabi states expressly that a slave girl who was elevated to the status of concubine could not claim equality with her mistress (par. 146). After all, a genuine privilege had been granted Hagar, one which she might well have appreciated. Of course the whole transaction was not in accord with the will of God: The Child of Promise could hardly have been the offspring of an Egyptian. Moreover, as we have noted above, Sarah had acted in accord with prevailing Mesopotamian law. Hence we are not surprised to read that she complained to Abram about the contempt which she had received from her maid, saying, Let this injustice come upon thee: now Yahweh must judge between us (that is, between Sarai and Abram. (Cf. Genesis 27:13, Jeremiah 51:35, Judges 11:27, 1 Samuel 24:15). I myself put my maid in your lap, said Sarai; not just a fanciful expression, but recognized legal phraseology (ABG, 118). Certainly this was a very imprudent act, even had it not been actually sinful. In calling on Yahweh to referee the case, commentators generally agree that this was an irreverent use of the Divine Name and that Sarah’s speech was a tirade which exhibited great passion. Abram replied, The maid is in your hands: deal with her as you see fit. In holding her husband responsible Sarai was well within her legal rights, we are told, as indicated by patriarchal law; Abram, in turn gave her full power to act as mistress toward the maid without elevating the slave, who had been made a concubine, above her original status. In the attitude of the patriarch do we detect an evidence of his peaceful disposition, or his recognition of the fact that he had already discovered his mistake in expecting the promised seed through Hagar, or an attitude of weakness in yielding to Sarai’s invective, or an unjustifiable wrong inflicted on the future mother of his child? (Cf. PCG, 226). Sarah, despite the undertaking that Hagar’s sons would be counted as hers (Genesis 16:2) and thus have a claim to the inheritance, sought to drive Hagar away (Genesis 21:10). Abraham acted against the contemporary custom only when given a special assurance from God that he should do so (Genesis 16:12) (NBD, 69).At any rate Sarah dealt harshly with Hagar, we are told; literally applied force to her, threatened her with violence (ABG, 118). Obviously the treatment was severe enough to cause the Egyptian maid to flee from the face of her mistress (Genesis 16:8).

In evaluating the actions and reactions of the dramatis personae of this humanexceedingly humaninterest story, commentators find themselves hard pressed to try to justify the conduct of the three involved. Some, of course, are inclined to be more lenient than others, as will be noted from the following excerpts. (HSB, 27): When Abraham was eighty-six years of age Hagar gave birth to Ishmael (Genesis 16:16). This incident reveals how two genuine believers may seek to fulfill God’s will by normally acceptable methods but spiritually carnal ones. The promise of God was not to Hagar but to Sarah. Sarah suggested the use of Hagar, and Abraham consented to the arrangement. Both were guilty. The birth of Ishmael introduced a people (the nucleus of the later Mohammedans) which has been a challenge both to the Jews and the Christian Church. It was not until Abraham was a hundred years old that Isaac was born (Genesis 21:5). From the length of time between the promise and the fulfillment we can draw the lessons that God’s ways are not our ways and His thoughts are higher than our thoughts (Isaiah 55:8-9). Patient waiting would have produced the desired results without the additional problems created by impatience and lack of faith. God always rewards those who have faith to believe His promises. Speiser (ABG, 119): At the personal level, from which the author starts out, the basic conflict is between certain specific legal rights and natural human feelings. We know now the pertinent legal measures as illustrated by the Laws of Hammurabi and the Nuzi documents. The juridical background of the issue before us is as complex as it is authentic, a circumstance that makes the unfolding drama at once more poignant and intelligible. All three principals in the case have some things in their favor and other things against them. Sarah is thus not altogether out of order when she bitterly complains to Abraham that her rights have not been honored (5). Beyond all the legal niceties, however are the tangled emotions of the characters in the drama: Sarah, frustrated and enraged; Hagar, spirited but tactless; and Abraham, who must know that, whatever his personal sentiments, he may not dissuade Sarah from following the letter of the law. The custom of a barren wife giving her handmaid to her husband in order that she might obtain children by her is further attested by Genesis 30:3, according to which the childless Rachel gave her maid Bilhah to Jacob, and by Genesis 30:9, where Leah, who had ceased bearing, gave him Zilpah. The children born of such a union were thus reckoned as the children not of the handmaid, but of the wife, by adoption, the slave girl being delivered on the knees of her mistress (cf. Genesis 30:3). Sarah, however, is unable to go through with the arrangement. Hagar’s contempt for her childlessness (Genesis 16:4), being more than she can stand. Unreasonably she blames Abraham. The verse throws a significant light upon the tensions inevitable in a polygamous household. (IBG, 605). Lange (CDHCG, 418): The moral motive or impulse of seeking the heir of blessing, made availing to an erroneous and selfish degree, is here torn away from its connection with the love impulse or motive, and exalted above its importance. The substitution of the maid for the mistress, however, must be distinguished from polygamy in its peculiar sense. Hagar, on the contrary, regards herselfin the sense of polygamy, as standing with Sarai, and as the favored, fruitful wife, exalts herself above her. The shadow of polygamy resting on the patriarchal monogamy. Isaac’s marriage is free from this. It has the purest New Testament form. Rebecca appears, indeed, to have exercised a certain predominant influence, as the wife often does in the Christian marriage of modern times. Jamieson (CECG, 149): Abram being a man of peace, as well as affectionately disposed towards his wife, left her to settle these broils in her own way. In all households where concubinage exists, the principal wife retains her supreme authority over the inferior ones; and in cases where a slave is brought into the relation with her master that Hagar held to Abram, the maid-servant remains in her former position unchanged, or although some more attentions may be paid to her, she is as much subject to the absolute control of her mistress as before. Sarai, left by Abram to act at discretion, exerted her full authority. Keil and Delitzsch (BCOTP, 219): But as soon as Sarai made her feel her power, Hagar fled. Thus, instead of securing the fulfillment of their wishes, Sarai and Abram had reaped nothing but grief and vexation, and apparently had lost the maid through their self-concerted scheme. But the faithful covenant-God turned the whole into a blessing.

Leupold would be more lenient in dealing with the principals in this narrative. (EG, 494): As is evident from Genesis 16:16, Abram had been in the land about ten years. If we consider the advanced age of both Abram and Sarai, they had surely waited a long time.. To Sarai the thought comes that perhaps customary devices may be resorted to. Women of standing like Sarai had their personal maids, who were their own in a special sense. They were the personal property of the wife and were appointed specially to wait upon her. The maid under consideration here happened to be an Egyptian, having been acquired, no doubt, during the brief stay in Egypt (Genesis 12:10 ff.). The custom of those days allowed in a case of this sort that the wife give her maid to her husband as a secondary wife in the hope that the new union would be blessed with offspring, which offspring would then promptly be claimed and adopted by the mistress. No stigma was attached to the position of the maid: she was a wife, though not, indeed, of the same social standing as the first wife. For Sarai to take such a step certainly involved self-sacrifice, even a kind of self-effacement. It was this rather noble mode of procedure on Sarai’s part that may in part have blinded the patriarch’s eyes so that he failed to discern the actual issues involved. Then, also, if we consider the chief servant, Eliezer, and the excellent faith he later displays we may well suppose that the chief maid may have been a woman who was indeed imbued with the faith that reigned in the household and may modestly have been desirous of having a part in the achievement of the high purpose to which this household was destined. Yet, in spite of all that may be said by way of extenuating the fault of the parties involved, it was still a double fault and sin. First, it clashed with the true conception of monogamous marriage, which alone is acceptable with God. Secondly, it involved the employment of human devices seemingly to bolster up a divine purpose which was in any case destined to be achieved as God had originally ordained. In so far the fault involved was unbelief. Concerning Genesis 16:3, the same writer says, It must be quite apparent that -to give as a wife-’ must mean -to give in marriage.-’ Here was no concubinage but a formal marital union, though Hagar was but the second wife (ibid., p. 496). Again in Genesis 16:4 (ibid., 497): Now at this point the evils of polygamy begin to rear their ugly head. It is always bound to be the fruitful mother of envy, jealousy, and strife. The baser elements in man are unleashed by it. Each of the three characters now appears to disadvantage. Yet we are not compelled now to suppose that such extremes resulted as Jamieson suggests-bursts of temper, or blows.-’ The fine praise that Peter bestows upon Sarai (1 Peter 3:6) hardly allows us to think of her as degenerating into a shrew. When it is remarked of Hagar that -her mistress was lightly esteemed in her eyes,-’ that need involve nothing more than that she thought that God had bestowed upon her what He had denied Sarai, and so she thought herself superior to her mistress and showed her disdain in certain ways. This attitude was bound to pain Sarai, who was, no doubt, a woman of high position, while Hagar was only an Egyptian slave. Again, on Genesis 16:5 (ibid., 497): Now Sarai’s judgment becomes impaired by the bitter feelings roused in her. Hagar’s wrong leads Sarai to do further wrong. Sin grows more involved. Sarai blames Abram for doing what in reality she had suggested. At least, so it seems. Luther attempts to avoid so crude a charge on her part by supposing that she rather charges Abram with showing certain preferences and honors to Hagar and so becoming the cause of her arrogance. Then her charge would be correct: -The wrong done to me is your fault.-’ But the explanation that follows does not interpret the wrong thus. So we shall do better to call hers an unreasonable charge growing out of her wounded pride.. The injustice of the charge made by Sarai might well have roused Abram to a heated reply. Indeed with excellent self-control he replies moderately. Finally, on Genesis 16:6* (ibid.,* 489-499): Some charge Abram at this point with being -strangely unchivalrous.-’ He is not suggesting cruelty to Sarai nor condoning it. He is merely suggesting the natural solution of the problem. In reality, Sarai is still Hagar’s mistress. That relation has not really been cancelled. Abram suggests that she use her right as mistress. He does not, however, suggest the use of cruelty or injustice. It is not really said that Sarai did what is unjustifiable. Nor should it be forgotten that Hagar had begun to do wrong and required correction. Apparently also, according to the custom of the times, Abram had no jurisdiction over Hagar directly, for she was esteemed Sarai’s maid. The Hebrew idiom, -do what is good in thine eyes,-’ is our, -do what pleases thee.-’ Here, we believe, Sarai is usually wronged.. Luther may well be followed, -wanted to humble her.-’ When the problem is approached, Sarai is merely regarded as having taken steps to bring Hagar to realize that she had begun to be somewhat presumptuous, such as making her to live with the servants and perform more menial tasks. But, of course, we must allow for sinful excesses on her part. Sarai may not have proceeded with due tact and consideration. In suggesting such a course Abram may too have failed to counsel due caution. Every actor in this domestic drama may have given evidence of shortcomings in one way or another. Hagar, on her part, being somewhat self-willed and independent, refused to accept correction and -fled from her.-’ (The present writer cannot help feeling that the foregoing evaluation of the emotions of the three characters in this drama is a somewhat watered down version. The student will have to decide these matters for himself. It is well to have, or course, the various presentations of this domestic drama so that it may be studied from all points of view.)

Does the legal background reflected here conform to actual chronology? The Nuzi archives, we are told, give us some of the most intimate pictures of life in an ancient Mesopotamian community. Note well the following (NBD, 69): The remarkable parallels between the customs and social conditions of these peoples and the patriarchal narratives in Genesis have led some scholars to argue from this for a similar 15th-century date for Abraham and his sons; but there is evidence that many of these customs had been observed for some centuries, and that the Hurrians were already a virile part of the population of N. Mesopotamia and Syria by the 18th century B.C. These parallels provide useful background information to the patriarchal age, and are one of the external factors supporting the historicity of this part of Genesis.

The stories of Ishmael and Isaac also have to do, of course, with the law of inheritance. Indeed this is at the very root of the entire narrative, one might well say, of all the patriarchal narratives. The problems also involves, as we have already learned, the status of Abraham’s steward, Eliezer of Damascus. Fortunately, the Nuzi archives make clear the legal aspects of this matter which is stated as follows (NBD, 69): Normally the estate passed to the eldest son, who received a -double portion-’ compared with the younger. Should a man (or woman) have no sons, he could adopt as a son a person from outside the family, even if he was a slave. Such an adopted son was expected to care for the man in his old age, to provide proper burial and the maintenance of religious rites (including the pouring of libations), and to continue the family name in return for the property. This may explain Abram’s adoption of Eliezer as heir prior to the birth of Isaac (Genesis 15:2-4). Such agreements were legally void if the adopter subsequently had a son of his own; the adoptee then took second place. At Nuzi this process of adoption was extended to become a fiction by which property, legally inalienable, might be sold. A further way of ensuring an heir was the custom, known also from earlier Babylonian texts, whereby a childless wife would give her husband a substitute slave-wife to bear sons.. Sarah, despite the undertaking that Hagar’s sons would be counted as hers (Genesis 16:2) and thus have a claim to the inheritance, sought to drive Hagar away (Genesis 21:10). Abraham acted against the contemporary custom only when given a special assurance from God that he should do so (Genesis 16:12). A survey of Mesopotamian legal procedures will necessarily arise again in our study of the careers of Isaac, Jacob, Esau, etc.

3. The Flight of Hagar (Genesis 16:6). It is difficult to avoid the realistic conclusion, from the language that is used here, that Sarai did actually deal hardly (i.e., harshly) with the pregnant Egyptian maiden, so much so that the latter fled from the presence of her mistress and did not stop until she had gone a long way on the road to Shur. (1) The name Hagar means flight or something similar; cf. the Arab hegira. The name is Semitic, not Egyptian, and perhaps was given to the woman by Abram himself, either when he left Egypt or after her actual flight into the desert. (2) The way to Shur was probably the ancient transport route to Egypt from Beersheba. Shur itself was a locality near the Egyptian border. The land was dry and parched, and Hagar evidently did not waste any time getting to the fountain (oasis) on this route. It seems obvious that the Egyptian was on her way back to her home country; having reached this spot, she had come far enough from Abram’s tents to allow herself time to settle her thoughts and feelings, and to look back upon her experience with more soberness and justness than she could have had at the beginning of her flight. The time was fitting for the Angel of the Lord to put in appearance.

4. The Angel of the Lord: the Theophany at the Well (Genesis 16:7-14). The scene is the fountain of water (as yet nameless) in the desert. on the way to Shur. The Angel of Yahwe (of Jehovah, of the Lord) found the young woman (by design, of course) at this spot. The Angel of Yahwe is here introduced for the first time as the medium of the theophany.. -Yahwe Himself in self-manifestation,-’ or, in other words, a personification of the theophany. This somewhat subtle definition is founded on the fact that in very many instances the Angel is at once identified with God and differentiated from Him (cf. Genesis 16:10; Genesis 16:13 with Genesis 16:11) (Skinner, ICCG, 286). Cf. also And the word was with God, and the Word was God, John 1:1). Certainly the Angel’s identity with Yahweh is fully confirmed in Genesis 16:13. We present here Whitelaw’s five arguments (PCG, 228) for the view that The Angel of the Lord here is not a created being (hence not one member of the innumerable hosts of ministering spirits, who figure repeatedly in the story of the unfolding of the Plan of Redemption, Hebrews 1:14; Hebrews 12:22; Colossians 1:16, Psalms 148:2; Psalms 148:5, etc.), but the Divine Being Himself, as follows: (1) He explicitly identifies Himself with Yahweh on various occasions, (cf. Genesis 16:13) and with Elohim (Genesis 22:12). (2) Those to whom He makes His presence known recognize Him as divine (Genesis 16:13; Genesis 18:23-33; Genesis 28:16-22; Exodus 3:6; Judges 6:11-24; Judges 13:21-22). (3) Biblical writers constantly speak of him as divine, calling him Jehovah without the least reserve (Genesis 16:13; Genesis 18:1; Genesis 22:16; Exodus 3:2, Judges 6:12). (4) The doctrine here implied of a plurality of persons in the Godhead is in complete accordance with earlier foreshadowings (Genesis 1:26; Genesis 11:7). (5) The organic unity of Scripture would be broken if it could be proved that the central point in the Old Testament revelation was a creature angel, while that of the New is the incarnation of the Godhead (cf. Colossians 1:16-19, John 1:1-3; John 1:14). Certainly by the Old Testament writers the Angel of the Lord is recognized as a superior being in a class by Himself: a fact which raises the question, Is the Yahweh of the Old Testament, the Covenant God, identical with the Incarnate Logos (cf. Micah 5:2, John 10:17-18, 1 Corinthians 10:1-4)? Gosman (CDHCG, 416): The expression [Angel of Jehovah] appears here for the first time. While the Angel of Jehovah is Jehovah himself, it is remarkable, that in the very meaning of the name, as messenger, or one who is sent, there is implied a distinction of persons in the Godhead. There must be one who sends, whose message he bears. Lange (ibid., 416): That this Angel is identical with Jehovah, is placed beyond question in Genesis 16:13-14. The disposition of Hagar, helpless, forsaken, with all her pride, still believing in God, warned by her own conscience, makes it altogether fitting that the Angel of Jehovah should appear to her, i.e., Jehovah himself, in his condescensionmanifesting himself as the Angel. Note the following comment also (JB, 33): In the most ancient texts the angel of Yahweh, Genesis 22:11, Exodus 3:2, Judges 2:1, or the angel of God, Genesis 21:17, Genesis 31:11, Exodus 14:19, etc., is not a created being distinct from God, Exodus 23:20, but God himself in a form visible to man. Genesis 16:13 identifies the angel with Yahweh. In other texts the angel of Yahweh is the one who executes God’s avenging sentence: see Exodus 12:23 ff. Note the following summarization (ST, 319): (1) The Angel of Yahweh identifies Himself with Yahweh (Jehovah) or Elohim (Genesis 22:11; Genesis 22:16; Genesis 31:11; Genesis 31:13). (2) The Angel of Yahweh is identified with Yahweh or with Elohim by others (Genesis 16:9; Genesis 16:13; Genesis 48:15-16). (3) The Angel of Yahweh accepts worship due only to God (Exodus 3:2; Exodus 3:4-5; Judges 13:20-22. The angel of the Lord appears to be a human messenger in Haggai 1:13, a created angel in Matthew 1:20, Acts 8:26; Acts 12:7. Again, Strong (ST, 319): But commonly, in the O.T., the -angel of Jehovah-’ is a theophany, a self-manifestation of God. The only distinction is that between Jehovah in Himself and Jehovah in manifestation. The appearances of the angel of Jehovah seem to be preliminary manifestations of the divine Logos, as in Genesis 18:2; Genesis 18:13, in Daniel 3:25; Daniel 3:28. The N.T. -angel of the Lord-’ does not permit, the O.T. -angel of the Lord-’ requires, worship (Revelation 22:8-9; cf. Exodus 3:8). Again, ibid., Though the phrase -angel of Jehovah-’ is sometimes used in the later Scriptures to denote a merely human messenger or created angel, it seems in the Old Testament, with hardly more than a single exception, to designate the pre-incarnate Logos, whose manifestations in angelic or human form foreshadowed His final coming in the flesh. (Cf. also John 5:13-15, Genesis 15:18-20, Micah 5:2; Exodus 14:19; Exodus 23:23; Exodus 32:34; Exodus 33:2, cf. 1 Corinthians 10:1-3; 2 Samuel 24:15-17, John 17:5, Revelation 19:11-16, etc.). We must recall here our fundamental thesis that the name Elohim is used in the Old Testament to designate God the Creator, and the name Yahweh (Yahwe, Jehovah) is used to designate the Covenant God. There is but one God, of course: hence the former name pictures Him in His omnipotence especially (Isaiah 57:15), and the latter portrays Him in His benevolence, goodness, etc., with respect to His creatures, especially man. (Ephesians 4:6, 1 Timothy 2:5).

The most thoroughgoing exposition of this title, the Angel of Yahweh, or the Angel of the Lord, the Angel of God, etc., is presented by Jamieson (CECG, 149) as follows: Angel means messenger, and the term is frequently used in Scripture to denote some natural phenomenon, or visible symbol, betokening the presence and agency of the Divine Majesty (Exodus 14:19, 2 Kings 19:35, Psalms 104:4). That the whole tenor of this narrative [Genesis 16:7-14], however, indicates living personal being, is allowed on all hands; but a variety of opinions are entertained respecting the essential standing of the messenger of Jehovah. Some think that he was a created angel, one of those celestial spirits who were frequently delegated under the ancient economies to execute the purposes of God’s grace to his chosen; while others convinced that things are predicated of this angel involving the possession of attributes and powers superior to those of the most exalted creatures, maintain that this must be considered a real theophany, a visible manifestation of God, without reference to any distinction of persons. To each of these hypotheses insuperable objections have been urged: against the latter, on the ground that -no man hath seen God at any time-’ (John 1:18, Colossians 1:15); and against the former, founded on the historical circumstances of this narrative in which -the angel of the Lord-’ promises to do what was manifestly beyond the capabilities of any created being (Genesis 16:10), and also did himself what he afterward ascribed to the Lord (cf. Genesis 16:7-8 with Genesis 16:11, last clause). The conclusion, therefore, to which, on a full consideration of the facts, the most eminent Biblical critics and divines have come is, that this was an appearance of the Logos, or Divine person of the Messiah, prelusive, as in many subsequent instances, to his actually incarnate manifestation in the fullness of time (cf. Micah 5:2). Such was -the angel of the Lord,-’ the Revealer of the invisible God to the Church, usually designated by this and the analogous titles of -the messenger of the covenant-’ and -the angel of his presence.-’ This is the first occasion on which the name occurs; and it has been pronounced a myth, or at least a traditional legend, intended to throw a halo of dignity and mysterious interest on the origin of the Arabs, by recording the special interposition of heaven in behalf of a poor, destitute Egyptian bondwoman, their humble ancestress. But the objection is groundless: the divine manifestation will appear in keeping with the occasion, when it is borne in mind that -the angel of the Lord,-’ in guiding and encouraging Hagar, was taking care about the seed of Abraham.

The Angel’s question, Genesis 16:8, reveals a mysterious knowledge of Hagar’s experiences, designed, it would seem, to impress the fugitive with a full conviction of the supernatural, the divine character of the speaker, and a lively sense of her sin in abandoning the station in which His providence had placed her.

The Angel’s Command: Hagar must return to her mistress, that is, she must correct the existing wrong she has done, her self-willed departure from her regular status in life; for Sarai is still mistress, by the Egyptian’s own admission (Genesis 16:8). The accomplishment of her son’s great destiny must depend on her maintaining proper connections with Abram’s family. She must put duty first, and retrace her steps to Hebron. Plain, dutiful submission. is sufficient for Hagar; nor would Sarai, after this experience with the Angel became known, have asked any more.

The Angel’s Revelations were three: (1) she must return and submit herself to her mistress, Genesis 16:9; (2) she will be the ancestress of countless offspring, Genesis 16:10; (3) She shall bear a son and this son shall bear a name that shall always be a reminder to all concerned that God in a very signal way heard the cry of this woman in her hour of great distress, Genesis 16:11. Ishmael means literally God hears. Yahweh hath heard thy affliction: the inference is unavoidable that Hagar in her distress had cried out to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It should be noted that the three consecutive verses here, 9, 10, 11, begin with the same statement, And the Angel of Yahweh said unto her.

5. The Prophecy Concerning Ishmael and His Seed (Genesis 16:11-12).

(1) By disposition Ishmael shall be a wild ass of a man: a fine image of the free intractable Bedouin character which is to be manifested in Ishmael’s descendants (Skinner, ICCG, 287). Ishmael will be among human families what the wild ass is among animals (cf. Job 39:5-8, Jeremiah 2:24). Ishmael descendants are the desert Arabs who are as intractable and vagrant as the wild ass (JB, 33). (2) His hand shall be against every man, and every man’s hand against him, thus descriptive of the rude, turbulent, and plundering character of the Arabs (Jamieson, CECG, 150). This describes most truly the incessant state of feud, in which the Ishmaelites live with one another or with their neighbors (Keil and Delitzsch, (BCOTP, 220). (3) And he shall dwell over against all his brethren (over against means to the east, cf. Genesis 25:18). The geographical meaning is included here, but much greater significance is to be attached to this statement. Ishmael and his progeny shall live in defiance or disregard of their own kinsmen (cf. Deuteronomy 21:16, to the disregard of the older son of the unloved wife). This passage indicates also that Ishmael would maintain an independent standing before (in the presence of) all the descendants of Abraham. History has confirmed this promise. The Ishmaelites have continued to this day in free and undiminished possession of the extensive peninsula between the Euphrates, the Straits of Suez, and the Red Sea, from which they have overspread both Northern Africa and Southern Asia (Keil-Delitzsch, ibid., p. 221).

Genesis 16:13-14. Hitherto Hagar’s position had been growing increasingly difficult, but now she knew that Yahweh cares, that He was looking after her, that He is a God who sees. She aptly invents the name for Yahweh, El Roi. El Roi means -God of vision.-’ Lahai Roi may mean, the well -of the Living One who sees me-’; to this place Isaac was to come, Genesis 24:62, Genesis 25:11 (JB, 33). (To Hagar, Yahweh was the God who sees in the sense of being the God who cares. Leupold (EG, 506): No mortal to whom God appeared ventured to look directly into or upon the glorious countenance of the Lord. Even Moses in answer to his special request could not venture to take such a step (Exodus 33:23). So here very tersely Hagar described what happened in her case. When Yahweh appeared, she indeed conversed with Him; but only as He departed did she -look after Him.-’ So at least she appears to have understood that no sinful mortal can see God’s countenance directly and live (see Exodus 33:20). So she did not even attempt so rash a thing. But to her God now is a God -who sees me,-’ i.e., -cares for me.-‘Hagar’s experiences became known, and as a result of what she said, the well came to bear the name descriptive of her experience. God is called the Living One. Quite properly so, because the fact that He has regard for the needs of those who call upon Him, stamps Him as truly a Living God and not a dead conception. The Location of the well: between Kadesh and Bered (Genesis 16:14). Bered has never been located. Kadesh is the site commonly designated Kadesh Barnea (cf. Joshua 15:3, Numbers 13:3-26, Deuteronomy 9:23, etc.), forty miles due south and a little to the west of Beersheba. Skinner (ICCG, 228): In Arab tradition the well of Hagar is plausibly enough identified with -Ain-Muweilih, a caravan station about 12 miles to the W. of Kadesh. The well must have been a chief sanctuary of the Ishmaelites; hence the later Jews, to whom Ishmael was a name for all Arabs, identified it with the sacred well Zemzem at Mecca. Leupold (EG, 503): So it comes to pass that two vast nations, the Jews and the Ishmaelites, are descended from Abraham. No further spiritual advantage is attached to the advantage of numbers (cf. Genesis 16:10).

The Birth of Ishmael (Genesis 16:15-16). Certainly there can be no doubt that Hagar did as the Angel of Yahweh told her to do, and having returned to Abram’s household at Hebron, she bore him a son in his 86th year. He gave the child the name Ishmael. It appears that he may have regarded Ishmael as the promised seed, until, thirteen years later, the counsel of God was more clearly unfolded to him (cf. KD, COTP, 222).

6. The Historical Fulfillment of the Prophecy.

The fulfillment in history of the oracle (Genesis 16:12) concerning the future of Ishmael’s seed is precise in every detail, and unqualifiedly stamps the prediction a prophetic revelation from God. The details of this fulfillment are presented so authentically by Dr. Henry Cooke (Self-Interpreting Bible, Vol. I, The Pentateuch, pp. 238-239) that we feel justified in reproducing it here verbatim, as follows:

Ver. 10-12. Here it is foretold that Ishmael and his seed should be wild free men, like wild asses: mischievous to all around them, and extremely numerous. For almost four thousand years the fulfillment has been amazingly remarkable. Ishmael had twelve sons, who gave rise to as many tribes or nations, called by their names, and who dwelt southward in Arabia, before the face or in the presence of their near relations, the Ammonites, Moabites, descendants of Keturah, Edomites, and Jews (Genesis 17:20; Genesis 21:13; Genesis 21:18; Genesis 25:11-18). All along they have been a nuisance and plague to the nations around them; infamous for theft, robbery, revenge, pillage, and murder. It has therefore been the continued and common interest of mankind to extirpate them from the earth. But though almost every noted conqueror who has appeared in the world, whether Hebrew, Egyptian, Assyrian, Chaldean, Persian, Grecian, Roman, Tartar, or Turkish, has pushed his conquest to their borders, or even beyond them into Egypt or Arabia Felix, not one has ever been able to subdue these Ishmaelites, or deprive them of their freedom. The mighty Shishak, King of Egypt, was obliged to draw a line along their frontiers for the protection of his kingdom from their ravaging inroads. The Assyrians under Shalmaneser and Sennacherib, and the Chaldeans under Nebuchadnezzar, greatly harassed them, and almost extirpated some of their tribes (Isaiah 2:11-17, Numbers 24:22; Jeremiah 25:23-24; Jeremiah 49:28-33).

Provoked with their contempt, Alexander the Great made vast preparations for their utter destruction; but death cut short his purpose. Antigonus, one of his valiant captains and successors, provoked with their depredations, more than once, but to his repeated dishonor, attempted to subdue them. Flushed with his eastern victories, Pompey, the famed Roman general, attempted to reduce them; but his army being recalled when they had hopes of gaining their purpose, these wild Arabs pursued them, almost at their heels, and dreadfully harassed the Roman subjects in Syria. Augustus, the renowned emperor, made one or more fruitless attempts to subdue them. About A.D. 110, Trajan, one of the most powerful emperors and valiant generals that ever filled the Roman throne, with a mighty army, determined if possible to subdue them, and laid siege to their capital. But storms of hail, which are scarcely ever seen in this country, thunder, lightning, whirlwind, swarms of flies, and dreadful apparitions in the air, terrified or repulsed his troops as often as they repeated their attacks. About eighty years after, Severus, another warlike emperor, determined to punish their siding with Niger, his rival, by an utter reduction of them. But, after he had made a breach on the wall of their principal city, an unaccountable difference between him and his faithful European troops obliged him to raise the siege, and leave the country.

In the seventh century of the Christian era, these Ishmaelites, under Mahomet, their famed impostor, and his successors, furiously extended their empire, and their new and false religion, through a great part of Asia and Africa, and even some countries of Europe (Revelation 9:1-11). Since the fall of their empire, the Turks have made repeated attempts to subdue them; but instead of succeeding, they have been obliged, for near three hundred years past, to pay them a yearly tribute of forty thousand crowns, for procuring a safe passage for their pilgrims to Mecca, the holy city, where Mahomet was born. If, to fulfill his promise, God has done so much for protecting the temporal liberty of miscreants, what will he not do for the salvation of his people!

Ver. 12The -wild ass-’ (pere, the Hebrew word here translated -wild-’) was the emblem of wild, rude, uncontrollable freedomtotal disregard of the law and social restraint (Job 24:5; Job 11:12). Such has ever been, and still is, the character of the Arab. He roams free through his native desert. No power has been able to control his movements, or to induce or compel him to accept the settled habits of civilized life. His hand has been, and is, against every man who, without his protection, enters his country; and the hand of every surrounding ruler has been and is against him. Yet he dwells to this day, as he has done for nearly forty centuries, in the presence of all his brethren. He meets them on the east, west, north, and south; and none can extirpate or subdue him.. Against every man and every man’s hand against him. The descendants of Ishmael were divided into tribes, after the manner of the Jews, differing to a certain extent in dispositions, habits, character, and government. Many of them made great advances in civilization and learning; and exhibited the ordinary aspect of powerful, settled, and regular communities. Still there has been a vast number, of whom the Bedouins are most generally known, who have, in all ages, practically and literally realized this prediction, and lived, as they still do, in a state of uninterrupted hostility with all men, seeking no home but the desert, submitting to no law but their will, and acknowledging no right but their sword; -their hand against every man, and every man’s hand against them.-’-And he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren.-’ To ascertain the meaning of this sentence, we must recollect that one peculiarity in the prophecies concerning the Jewsanother branch of the Abrahamic treewas, Deuteronomy 28:64,-And the Lord shall scatter thee among all people, from the one end of the earth even unto the other.-’ Now this was foretold of the child of the promise, the descendants of Isaac; but of Ishmael, the son of the bondwoman, it is said, He shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren, that is, while Israel shall be scattered, dispersed, and outcast, Isaiah 11:12, from the land promised to Abram, Ishmael shall abide in the land promised to Hagar. The event has verified the prediction, and proved that it proceeded from him who -determined the bounds of their habitation.-’ Israel is scattered in judgment as chaff of the thrashing-flour; Ishmael abides immovable as Sinai. (Cf. Luke 21:24, Acts 17:26). (Explanatory: the name Arabia Felix, as used above, has reference to Yemen and surrounding area; Arabia Petraea was the name by which the northern part of the Arabian world was known, that which bordered on the Negeb and the adjacent Sinaitic peninsula. The latter derived its name from the capital city, Petra, of the Aramaic-speaking Nabataean Arabs. Petra was some fifty miles south of the Dead Sea. The Nabataeans derived from Nebaioth, son of Ishmael and brother-in-law of Edom (Esau): cf. Genesis 25:13; Genesis 28:9, etc. It should be noted here that the Apostle Paul (Galatians 4:25) identifies Agar as the Arabian name of Sinai. It is not clear where Paul thought Sinai lay; but Strabo speaks of drawing a line from Petra to Babylon which would bisect the regions of the Nabateans, Chauloteans (Havilah), and Agreans. The last-named people, who appear as Hagrites in 1 Chronicles 5:19, may well have furnished the name for Hagar. Indeed, El Hejar, an important Arabian road junction, may preserve the name of the Hagrites. Their earlier habitat may have been more westerly. That Hagar is -Egyptian-’ suggests residence in the north Sinaitic area (Kraeling, BA, 69). It would be well for the student to familiarize himself with the archaeological discoveries at Petra: it is one of the most important historical centers of the ancient Near East.

We cannot close this phase of our study without remarking that the age-long conflict between the sons of Isaac and the sons of Ishmael has reached fever heat in our own time, following the establishment of the Jewish state of Israeli, and threatens to plunge the world into another global war. One of the anomalies of the present situation is the collusion of the Arab world under Nasser the Egyptian dictator, a Mohammedan, with the atheistic totalitarian state of the Russian Leninists, particularly in view of the fact that Islamism is the most rigidly monotheistic religion in the world. Even in our day, moreover, the Arab political regimes are despotisms in the true sense of the term: they have none of the characteristics of a democracy. It is interesting too that the Turks, although Mohammedans also, are of Mongolian extraction and hence do not aline themselves with the Arab world. These various facts call for an examination of the term anti-Semitic, which is bandied about so loosely, as meaning only anti-Jew. But the Arabs are also Semitic, as are the Egyptians, the Ethiopians, and other peoples of the same part of the world. The languages usually classified as Semitic are the Phoenician, Hebrew, Aramaic, Ethiopic, and Arabic. Thus it will be seen that anti-Semitism is a term which cannot be used rightly to designate only those who are opposed to Jews. It is time for these weighted terms, phrases, and cliches, to be stripped of their overtones and used in their true signification.

FOR MEDITATION AND SERMONIZING

The Friend of God

Isaiah 41:8; 2 Chronicles 20:7; cf. James 2:23.

Many eminent philosophers, essayists, poets, etc., have written eloquently on the subject of friendship. Aristotle, for example, in Books Eight and Nine of his Nicomachean Ethics, tells us that there are three kinds of friendship, corresponding in number to the objects worthy of affection. These objects (objectives) are usefulness, pleasure, and virtue. Virtue, in Aristotle’s thought, means an excellence. He writes: The perfect form of friendship is that between good men who are alike in excellence or virtue. For these friends wish alike for one another’s good because they are good men, and they are good per se, that is, their friendship is something intrinsic, not incidental. Those who wish for their friends-’ good for their friends-’ sake are friends in the truest sense, since their attitude is determined by what their friends are and not by incidental considerations. To sum up: True friendship is that kind of affection from which all selfish ends are eliminated. This Aristotelian concept is indicated in Greek by the word philia (brotherly love), as distinct from eros (passion, desire, lust) and from agape (reverential love). Cicero, in his famous essay On Friendship (De Amicitia) writes in similar fashion: It is love (amor), from which the word -friendship-’ (amicitia) is derived, that leads to the establishing of goodwill.. in friendship there is nothing false, nothing pretended; whatever there is is genuine and comes of its own accord. Wherefore it seems to me that friendship springs rather from nature than from need, and from an inclination of the soul joined with a feeling of love rather than from calculation of how much profit the friendship is likely to afford. One is reminded here of Augustine’s doctrine of pure love for God: Whosoever seeketh of God any thing besides God, doth not love God purely. If a wife loveth her husband because he is rich, she is not pure, for she loveth not her husband, but the gold of her husband. Who seeks from God any other reward but God, and for it would serve God, esteems what he wishes to receive, more than Him from whom he would receive it (See Everyman’s Library, The Confessions, p. 52, n.). That is to say, the noblest motivation to the Spiritual Life is neither the fear of punishment nor the hope of reward, but love for God simply because He is God (cf. John 3:16, 1 John 4:7-21).

The title Friend of God undoubtedly comes from the passages cited above from Isaiah and Second Chronicles. It is given to Abraham also by Clement of Rome (Ad Cor. chs. 10, 17). It was Abraham’s special privilege to be known by this title among the Jews, and to our own day he is known also among the Arabs as El Khalil, equivalent to the Friend. We recall here what God had to say in praise of His servant Job (Job 1-8), and when His praise was challenged by the Adversary (1 Peter 5:8), God accepted the challenge and proved Job’s uprightness by his stedfastness under the pressure of the most terrible calamities. We may rest assured that when God speaks approvingly of one of His great servants, He speaks the truth as always. So it was in Abraham’s case: when God called Abraham His Friend, we may sure that the patriarch was His Friend with all that this term means to God Himself.

A man may have all the silver and gold in the world, but if he has not friends, he is poor. He may operate factories and mills, live in mansions of brick or stone; he may possess acres of real estate, vast rolling plains and valleys; he may have oil wells scattered about, everywhere; indeed he may be a billionaire, but if he has not friends, he is nothing. The most priceless possession in this world is a true friend. It is a wonderful thing to have in one’s heart true friendship for others. It is a sanctifying sentiment that ennobles the soul and enhances one’s conviction of the dignity and worth of the person. But if to be a friend of man is wonderful, how much more wonderful it is to be a friend of God! Remember the definition of a friend by a woman in mourning: A friend is one who comes in when the world goes out. I believe that the business of Heaven must have stopped for just a moment when God pronounced above the bier of Abraham the words, My Friend. What an epitaph! What was it in Abraham’s career that made the patriarch worthy of being called the Friend of God?

1. Abraham believed God. The faith of Abraham was of such quality that the patriarch has gone down in history as the father of the faithful (Romans 4:11; Romans 4:16; Galatians 3:9; Galatians 3:23-29). Abram was seventy-five years old when the Call came to him. The Call was specific and the Divine promises were definite. He was to establish a family and father a great nation; his name was to be great; and through him all the peoples of earth were to be blessed. That was what God said. Faith is taking God at His word, and, nothing doubting, Abram gathered his substance together and all the family, including Lot, his brother’s son, and left Ur of the Chaldees. At Haran they left the rest of their immediate kin behind and they themselves pushed on to an unknown destination. They went by faith, not knowing whither they went or where the end of their journey would be. Theirs was in every sense of the word the pilgrimage of faith. (Romans 10:8-17, Hebrews 11:8-12). Faith is the substance of things hoped for (that which stands under hope) and a conviction with respect to things not seen. So it was in Abram’s case: he went out, not knowing whither he went (Hebrews 11:1; Hebrews 11:8; cf. 2 Corinthians 4:16-18). Note Genesis 12:1-4. God said to Abram, etc., etc., and Abram went, as Jehovah had spoken unto him. Where else can we find so great a communication so simply expressed? And where an answer expressing so much in so few words that mean so much to the human race? *That Call to Abram and Abram’s response changed the entire course of human history.

2.* Abram heard the Call, and Abram obeyed. (1) His faith led to works of faith. We hear a great deal about faith only as equivalent to conversion. There is no such thing as faith only: the Bible does not teach salvation by faith only any more than it teaches salvation by baptism only (1 Peter 3:21). What would faith only be? What could it be but a pseudo-intellectual acquiescence that lacks any kind of real commitment? But Christian faith includes not only belief and confession that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God (Matthew 16:16; Matthew 10:32-33; Romans 10:9-10), but also the commitment of the whole manin spirit and soul and body (1 Thessalonians 5:23; cf. Romans 12:1-2)to the authority and example of Christ (Colossians 3:17). (2) Hence, the testimony of James that as the body apart from the spirit is dead, even so faith apart from works is dead (James 2:14-26). James-’ argument is twofold: (a) Faith that does not manifest itself in works (acts) of faith is dead, because it is only profession without practice; (b) even the devils believe and tremble: how worthless, then, must be faith alone! But does not this contradict what the Apostle Paul says in Romans 3:20, By works of law shall no flesh be justified (accounted righteous) in God’s sight. At first glance this statement from James appears to be diametrically opposed to Paul’s teaching: for (1) Paul says, Romans 3:28, We reckon that a man is justified by faith apart from works of law, whereas James asserts that faith without works is dead, and that man is justified by works and not only by faith (James 2:26; James 2:24). (2) Paul speaks of Abraham as justified by faith (Romans 4, Galatians 3:6 ff.), James says that he was justified by works (James 2:21). (3) Paul, or the writer of Hebrews, appeals to the case of Rahab as an example of faith (Hebrews 11:31), but James cites her as an example of justification by works (James 2:25). Gibson (PC, James, in loco): The opposition, however, is only apparent: for (1) The two apostles use the word erga in different senses. In St. Paul it always has a deprecatory sense, unless qualified by the adjective kala or agatha. The works which he denies to have any share in justification are -legal works,-’ not those which he elsewhere denominates the -fruit of the Spirit-’ (Galatians 5:22), which are the works of which St. James speaks. (2) The word pistis is also used in different senses. In St. Paul it is pistis di-’ agapes energoumene (Galatians 5:6)[i.e., faith working through reverential love]; in St. James it is simply an orthodox creed, -even the devils pisteuousi-’ (James 2:19);it may, therefore, be barren of works of charity. (3) The Apostles are writing against different errors and tendencies: St. Paul against those who would impose the Jewish law and the rite of circumcision upon Gentile believers; St. James against -the self-complacent orthodoxy of the Pharisaic Christian, who, satisfied with the possession of a pure monotheism and vaunting his descent from Abraham, needed to be reminded not to neglect the still weightier matters of self-denying love.-’. (4) The Apostles regarded the new dispensation from different standpoints. With St. Paul it is the negation of the law: -Ye are not under Law, but under grace-’ (Romans 6:14). With St. James it is the perfection of Law. The term works has come to indicate different categories of human acts. (1) By works of the Law the Apostle Paul surely has reference to human acts included in the keeping of the Mosaic Law, both the Decalogue and the ritualistic aspect of it. Obviously, no human being does or even can keep the Ten Commandments perfectly: the sad fact is that all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). One must obey the requirements of the Decalogue to be considered a moral man: unfortunately in the view of the commonality morality is usually identified with respectability. Christianity demands infinitely more than obedience to the Law of Moses: it requires total commitment to the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:2), the royal law, the perfect law of liberty (James 2:8, Matthew 22:34-40, James 1:25, 2 Corinthians 3:17), of which Love is essentially the fulfillment (Romans 13:10). Law is designed to distinguish right from wrong, and to protect the weak from the strong, but Law is powerless to save a single human soul. Salvation is by grace, through faith (Ephesians 2:8): Grace overtures and states the conditions, and man by faith accepts and obeys, and so receives the fulfillment of the Divine promises. (2) Again, in the gobbledygook of medieval pseudo-Christianity, such practices as indulgences, penance, counting beads, bowing before images, keeping feasts and fasts and solemn processions, sprinkling holy water as a feature of ritualistic priestly blessings, extreme unction, praying souls out of purgatory, etc., etc., were often categorized as works by the Protestant reformers, beginning, of course, with Luther. But in our time Protestantism has ceased to protest: it too has drifted into a crass legalism and spiritless ritual (when not superseded entirely by the much-vaunted social gospel), a form of religion lacking the spirit thereof (hence, lacking the Holy Spirit), a state of the inner man which Jesus thoroughly despised. The two sins which He anathematized above all others were formalism and hypocrisy. (Cf. Matt., chs. 5, 6, 7, 23). (3) The works which James writes about are of a different kind altogether. They are works which proceed inevitably from the truly regenerated heart, from a living and active faith, the faith that leads to just such works of faith, without which religion is nothing but an empty shell, a sounding brass or a clanging cymbal (Cff. Matthew 3:7-9; Matthew 25:31-46; Luke 13:3; Luke 3:7-14; Galatians 5:22-24; James 1:27; James 2:14-26, etc.). James is simply reiterating here the universal principle laid down by Jesus, and confirmed by human experience, that a tree is known by its fruit (Matthew 7:16-20). (4) Baptism, the Communion, the tithes and offerings, almsgiving, worship, praise, meditation, prayer: by no stretch of the imagination can these acts be designated works; first, last, and always, they are acts of faith. They proceed only and inevitably from faith, and only from faith that is far more than mere intellectual assent, that is, from faith that is as living and active as the Word itself (Hebrews 4:12). When God commands, faith raises no questions, but proceeds to take God at His word and to do what God commands to be done. Genuine faith will never start an argument at the baptismal pool. (5) Of course, the motivating principle of the Spiritual Life from beginning to end is faith, Repentance is faith deciding, choosing, willing; confession is faith declaring itself; baptism is faith witnessing to the facts of the Gospel (Romans 6:17-18); the Communion is faith memorializing; worship is faith praising, thanking, adoring; the assembly of the saints is faith fellowshipping, etc. Any act that is Christian must be an act of faith. From the cradle to the grave the true Christian lives and acts, to the best of his knowledge and ability, by faith (Romans 5:1), and by a faith that is full commitment.

3. This principle of obedient faith runs throughout the Spiritual Life, indeed it motivates it and controls it. God recognized Abraham as His Friend on the ground that Abraham did what He commanded him to do. This does not mean that he was perfect, but that his disposition, as in the case of Noah (Genesis 7:1; Genesis 6:22), was to obey God in all things. Of course, as we all know, Abraham did slip a little from the plumb line at times (cf. Amos 7:7-8), but admittedly the temptation was great. Abraham, like all of us, even the most devoted Christian, was a creature with all the weaknesses of his kind. It is difficult for any of us to attain a state of complete trust either in God or in our fellows, and many times we are compelled to cry out, as did the Apostles of old, Lord, increase our faith (Luke 17:5). But we have the assurance that like as a father pitieth his children, so Jehovah pitieth them that fear him; for he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust (Psalms 103:13), and we have His promise that His grace is sufficient for our support if we will but call on Him for spiritual strength that we may need (2 Corinthians 12:9, Romans 8:26-28, 1 Corinthians 10:13, 2 Peter 2:9, etc.).

Conclusion: God requiresand expectsthe same obedient faith on the part of His saints in all Dispensations, in ours as well as in those preceding it. Jesus makes this so clear that no one can misunderstand or claim ignorance as an alibi. If ye love me, said He, ye will keep my commandments (John 14:15). Again, Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends (John 15:13). But our Lord hath greater love than this, in that He laid down His life even for His enemies, for the sin of the whole world (John 1:29). Again: Ye are my friends, if ye do the things which I command you (John 15:14). The obedience of faith is the ultimate proof of friendship. Thisour Lord Himself declaresis the essence of His teaching in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 7:24-27). Practice, He tells us, rather than profession, is the ultimate evidence of one’s faith (Matthew 7:21-23). He is the Author of salvation to one class onlyunto all them that obey him (Hebrews 5:9).

Ye are my friends, if ye do the things which I command you. It would be blind faith, to be sure, to do what a man commands just because he commands it. But it is intelligent faith to do what our Lord commands just because He commands it. It is always intelligent faith to do what is commanded by Perfect Wisdom, Perfect Justice and Perfect Love, as incarnate in the Logos, God’s Only Begotten. This is true, simply because Perfect Wisdom and Justice and Love would command only that which contributes to the good of His saints. Surely, then, Abraham deserved the title, Friend of God. Genesis 15:6And he [Abraham] believed in Jehovah; and he reckoned it to him for righteousness. Abraham’s belief manifested itself in obedience: when God called, Abraham heard, believed, and obeyed: this is what faith always does, if it is truly faith. Hence, when the ultimate proof came on Moriah (Genesis 22:2), the patriarch did not question, quail, or fail. He met the test in a sublime manifestation of the obedience of faith (Genesis 22:9-14).Trust and obey, for there’s no other way, To be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.

Would you be a friend of God? Then believe as Abraham believed, obey as Abraham obeyed, trust as Abraham trusted, walk as Abraham walked, give as Abraham gave (Genesis 14:18-20), sacrifice as Abraham sacrificed (Matthew 12:46-50; Matthew 10:37), die in faith as Abraham died in faith, anticipating that City which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God (Hebrews 11:10). Will you not come now and start on that same glorious pilgrimage of faith that leads the faithful to that same City, New Jerusalem (Revelation 21:2)?

REVIEW QUESTIONS ON PART TWENTY-NINE

What important lessons are to be obtained from the story of Sarah, Hagar and Ishmael?

What, probably, was Sarai’s motive in proposing that Abram take Hagar as his secondary wife?

What are some of the apparently never-ending consequences of this event?

What was the status of a concubine under Mesopotamian law?

Why do we say that this event was ill-conceived and ill-timed?

Do you thinks that the Apostle’s statement in Acts 17:30 has relevance in respect to this event? Explain your answer.

On what grounds are we justified in criticizing Sarai and Abram for their hasty action?

How does this story point up the realism of the Bible?

What was Hagar’s sin following the awareness of her pregnancy? How did Sarai and Abram react to Hagar’s attitude?

Explain how archeological discoveries have substantiated the details of this story. What do we learn from the Code of Hammurabi that is relevant to it? What do we learn from the Nuzi tablets?

What was Sarai’s attitude toward Abram at this time? What was Abram’s reply?

Why do we say that Sarai used the Divine Name irreverently (Genesis 16:5)?

How is Sarai’s treatment of Hagar variously interpreted (Genesis 16:6) ?

Is it conceivable that Abram might have been prepared to accept Ishmael as the Child of Promise? Explain your answer.

What does this incident teach us about the quality of genuine faith?

Was not the sin of Abram and Sarai their failure to await God’s own pleasure as to the fulfillment of His promise? Explain.

What always happens when men presume to take matters of Divine ordination into their own hands?

Explain how Leupold deals more leniently with the principals in this story.

How was childlessness regarded in patriarchal times?

Explain the special far-reaching significance of the childlessness of Abram and Sarai.

How does the legal background reflected in this story conform to the actual time element?

Explain how the stories of Ishmael and Isaac have to do with the law of inheritance in the Patriarchal Age.

What caused Hagar to flee from Sarai’s presence?

What is indicated by the direction of Hagar’s flight? Explain what was meant by the way to Shur. What and where is the Negeb?

Describe the theophany which occurred at the fountain of water.

Discuss fully the problem of the true identity of the Angel of Jehovah (Yahwe).

What interpretation of this title is in greatest accord with Biblical teaching as a whole?

Cite other Scriptures in which this Personage is pictured as taking a prominent role.

What reasons have we for not thinking of Him as a created being?

What reasons have we for thinking of Him as a preincarnate manifestation of the Eternal Logos?

What was the threefold revelation of the Angel to Hagar? Explain the Angel’s question, command, and promise, respectively.

State the details of the prophetic statement concerning Ishmael and his seed.

What did Hagar learn from this visit of the Angel of the Lord?

34. What did Hagar name this famous well? Explain what the name means? What is its probable location?

Where did Hagar go, following the Angel’s visit?

Show how the Angel’s statement regarding the destiny of Ishmael’s seed is fulfilled throughout history and even in our own time.

What is occurring today between the seed of Ishmael and Isaac’s seed?

Explain the full meaning of the term anti-Semitic How is it being used erroneously today.

On what grounds are we justified in accepting Abraham as the Friend of God?

What is the norm by which our Lord Jesus distinguishes His friends from followers afar off? (Matthew 26:58).