Genesis 38

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).

---

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.)

---

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.

---

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).

---

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 38:1-30

**PART FORTY-FIVE

THE INCIDENT OF JUDAH AND TAMAR**

(Genesis 38:1-30)

*The Biblical Account.

1 And it came to pass at that time, that Judah went down from his brethren, and turned in to a certain Adullamite, whose name was Hirah. 2 And Judah saw there a daughter of a certain Canaanite whose name was Shua; and he took her, and went in unto her. 3 And she conceived, and bare a son; and he called his name Er 4 And she conceived again, and bare a son; and she called his name Onan. 5 And she yet again bare a son, and called his name Shelah: and he was at Chezib, when she bare him. 6 And Judah took a wife for Er his first-born, and her name was Tamar. 7 And Er. Judah’s first-born, was wicked in the sight of Jehovah; and Jehovah slew him. 8 And Judah said unto Onan, Go in unto thy brother’s wife, and perform the duty of a husband’s brother unto her, and raise up seed to thy brother. 9 And Onan knew that the seed would not be his; and it came to pass, when he went in unto his brother’s wife, that he spilled it on the ground, lest she should give seed to his brother. 10 And the thing which he did was evil in the sight of Jehovah: and he slew him also. 11 Then said Judah to Tamar his daughter-in-law, Remain a widow in thy father’s house, till Shelah my son be grown up; for he said, Lest he also die, like his brethren. And Tamar went and dwelt in her father’s house.

12 And in process of time Shua’s daughter, the wife of Judah, died; and Judah was comforted, and went up unto his sheep-shearers to Timnah, he and his friend Hirah the Adullamite. 13 And it was told Tamar, saying, Behold, thy father-in-law goeth up to Timnah to shear his sheep. 14 And she put off from her the garments of her widowhood, and covered herself with her veil, and wrapped herself, and sat in the gate of Enaim, which is by the way to Timnah; for she saw that Shelah was grown up, and she was not given unto him to wife. 15 When Judah saw her, he thought her to be a harlot; for she had covered her face, 16 And he turned unto her by the way, and said, Come I pray thee, let me come in unto thee: for he knew not that she was his daughter-in-law. And she said, What wilt thou give me, that thou mayest come in unto me? 17 And he said, I will send thee a kid of the goats from the flock. And she said, Wilt thou give me a pledge, till thou send it? 18 And he said, What pledge shall I give thee? And she said, Thy signet and thy cord, and thy staff that is in thy hand. And he gave them to her, and came in unto her, and she conceived by him. 19 And she arose, and went away, and put off her veil from her, and put on the garments of her widowhood 20 And Judah sent the kid of the goats by the hand of his friend the Adullamite, to receive the pledge from the woman’s hand: but he found her not. 21 Then he asked the men of her place, saying, Where is the prostitute, that was at Enaim by the wayside? And they said, There hath been no prostitute here. 22 And he returned to Judah, and said, I have not found her; and also the men of the place said, There hath been no prostitute here. 23 And Judah said, Let her take it to her, lest we be put to shame: behold, I sent this kid, and thou hast not found her.

24 And it came to pass about three months after, that it was told Judah, saying, Tamar thy daughter-in-law hath played the harlot; and moreover, behold, she is with child by whoredom. And Judah said, Bring her forth, and let her be burnt. 25 When she was brought forth, she sent to her father-in-law, saying, By the man, whose these are, am I with child: and she said, Discern, I pray thee, whose are these, the signet, and the cords, and the staff. 26 And Judah acknowledged them, and said, She is more righteous than I, forasmuch as I gave her not to Shelah my son. And he knew her again no more. 27 And it came to pass in the time of her travail, that, behold, twins were in her womb. 28 And it came to pass, when she travailed, that one put out a hand: and the midwife took and bound upon his hand a scarlet thread, saying, This came out first. 29 And it came to pass, as he drew back his hand, that, behold, his brother came out: and she said, Wherefore hast thou made a breach for thyself? therefore his name was called Perez. 30 And afterward came out his brother, that had the scarlet thread upon his hand: and his name was called Zerah.*

1. The Unity of the Narrative.

The subject-matter of this chapter seems to be an interruption of the continuity of the narrative (Saga) of Joseph. Partly on this account, and partly because the name Jehovah occurs in it (Genesis 38:7; Genesis 38:10), it has been pronounced a later Jehovistic interpolation. Its design has been explained as an attempt to glorify the line of David by representing it as sprung from Judah, or to disclose the origin of the Levirate law of marriage among the Jews; but the incidents here recorded of Judah and his family are fitted to reflect dishonor instead of glory on the ancestry of David; and the custom here mentioned of raising up seed to a dead brother by marrying his widow, though the idea may have originated with Judah, is more likely to have descended from earlier times. Rightly understood, the object of the present portion of the record appears to have been not simply to prepare the way for the subsequent genealogical register (Genesis 46:8-27), or to contrast the wickedness of Judah and his sons with the piety and chastity of Joseph in Egypt, or to recite the private history of one of Christ’s ancestors, or to show that the pre-eminence of Judah in the patriarchal family was due exclusively to grace, but also and chiefly to justify the Divine procedure in the subsequent deportation of Jacob and his sons to Egypt. The special danger to which the theocratic family was exposed was that of intermarrying with the Canaanites (Genesis 24:3, Genesis 28:6). Accordingly, having carried forward his narrative to the point where, in consequence of Joseph’s sale, a way begins to open up for the transference of the patriarchal house to the land of the Pharaohs, the historian makes a pause to introduce a passage from the life of Judah, with the view of proving the necessity of such removal, by showing, as in the case of Judah, the almost certainty that, if left in Canaan, the descendants of Jacob would fall before the temptation of marrying with the daughters of the land, with the result, in the first instance, of a great and rapid moral deterioration in the holy seed, and with the ultimate effect of completely obliterating the line of demarcation between them and the surrounding heathen world. How the purity of the patriarchal family was guarded till it developed into a powerful nation, first by its providential withdrawment in infancy from the sphere of temptation (Genesis 46:5), then by its separate establishment in Goshen beside a people who regarded them with aversion (Genesis 46:34), and latterly by its cruel enslavement under Pharaoh (Exodus 1:10), is a subject which in due course engages the attention of the writer (PCG, 440). Italics mineC.C.) (See again Genesis 15:12-16).

The story related in ch. 38 of the involvement of Judah with Canaanite neighbors is, according to K-D (338-339), intended to point out the origin of the three leading families of the future princely tribe in Israel, and at the same time to show in what danger the sons of Jacob would have been of forgetting the sacred vocation of their race, through marriages with the Canaanitish women, and of perishing in the sin of Canaan, if the mercy of God had not interposed, and by leading Joseph into Egypt prepared the way for the removal of the whole house of Jacob into that land, and thus protected the family, just as it was expanding into a nation, from the corrupting influence of the manners and customs of Canaan. This being the intention of the narrative, it is no episode or interpolation, but an integral part of the early history of Israel, which is woven here into the history of Jacob, because the events occurred subsequently to the sale of Joseph.

We must never overlook the connection between the revelation to Abraham in Genesis 15:12-16 and that part of the patriarchal story which is now beginning to unfold in the last days of Israel’s life. It should be noted that, following Genesis 37:1-2, we are still dealing with the generations of Jacob, even though the content of most of the latter part of Genesis has to do with the experiences of Joseph. It is with the forming of the Israelite nation that we are dealing here, the nation which by galling bondage and a subsequent glorious deliverance, prepared the way for the Messianic Reign, of which the early Theocracy was in so many respects a pattern. Thus God used person, prophecy, type, and institution to point forward to, and thus to identify, in minute detail, the Messiah Himself at His appearance in the world, and to validate the institutions of the Christian System which were established by Him per se, and by Him also through the Apostles whom He chose and trained to act as the executors of His Last Will and Testament.

Again quoting K-D: The disappearance of the name Jehovah, therefore, is to be explained, partly from the fact that previous revelations and acts of grace had given rise to other phrases expressive of the idea of Jehovah, which not only served as substitutes for this name of the covenant God, but in certain circumstances were much more appropriate; and partly from the fact that the sons of Jacob, including Joseph, did not so distinctly recognize in their course the saving guidance of the covenant God, as to be able to describe it as the work of Jehovah. This imperfect insight, however, is intimately connected with the fact that the direct revelations of God had ceased; and that Joseph, although chosen by God to be the preserver of the house of Israel and the instrument in accomplishing His plans of salvation, was separated at a very early period from the fellowship of his father’s house, and formally naturalized in Egypt, and though endowed with the supernatural power to interpret dreams, was not favored, as Daniel afterwards was in the Chaldean court, with visions or revelations of God. Consequently we cannot place Joseph on a level with the three patriarchs, nor assent to the statement, that -as the noblest blossom of the patriarchal life is seen in Joseph, as in him the whole meaning of the patriarchal life is summed up and fulfilled, so in Christ we see the perfect blossom and sole fulfilment of the whole of the Old Covenant dispensation-’ (Kurtz), as being either correct or scriptural, so far as the first portion is concerned. For Joseph was not a medium of salvation in the same way as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He was indeed a benefactor, not only to his brethren and the whole house of Israel, but also to the Egyptians; but salvation, i.e., spiritual help and culture, he neither brought to the Gentiles nor to the house of Israel. In Jacob’s blessing he is endowed with the richest inheritance of the firstborn in earthly things; but salvation is to reach the nations through Judah. We may therefore without hesitation look upon the history of Joseph as a -type of the pathway of the Church, not of Jehovah only, but also of Christ, from lowliness to exaltation, from slavery to liberty, from suffering to glory-’ (Delitzsch); we may also, so far as the history of Israel is a type of the history of Christ and His Church, regard the life of Joseph, as believing commentators of all centuries have done, as a type of the life of Christ, and use these typical traits as aids to progress in the knowledge of salvation; but that we may not be seduced into typological trifling, we must not overlook the fact, that neither Joseph nor his career is represented, either by the prophets or by Christ and His apostles, as typical of Christin anything like the same way, for example, as the guidance of Israel into and out of Egypt (Hosea 11:1, cf. Matthew 2:15), and other events and persons in the history of Israel (BCOTP, 333-334). (Nevertheless, the analogies between the life of Joseph and the life of Christ are several, and very significant, as outlined infra in our section on material for sermonizing). (Cf. also Heb., chs. 8, 9, 10). Again: The very fact that the author of Genesis, who wrote in the light of the further development and fuller revelation of the ways of the Lord with Joseph and the whole house of Jacob, represents the career of Joseph as a gracious interposition of Jehovah (ch. 39), and yet makes Joseph himself speak of Elohim as arranging the whole, is by no means an unimportant testimony to the historical fidelity and truth of the narrative; of which further proofs are to be found in the faithful and exact representation of the circumstances, manners, and customs of Egypt, as Hengstenberg has proved in his Egypt and the Books of Moses, from a comparison of these accounts of Joseph’s life with ancient documents and monuments connected with this land (K-D, ibid., 333).

The history (tholedoth) of Isaac commenced with the founding of his house by the birth of his sons; but Jacob was abroad when his sons were born, and had not yet entered into undisputed possession of his inheritance. Hence his tholedoth only commence with his return to his father’s tent and his entrance upon the family possessions, and merely embrace the history of his life as patriarch of the house which he founded [cf. Genesis 37:2]. In this period of his life, indeed, his sons, especially Joseph and Judah, stand in the foreground, so that -Joseph might be described as the moving principle of the following history.-’ But for all that, Jacob remains the head of the house, and the centre around whom the whole revolves. This section is divided by the removal of Jacob to Egypt, into the period of his residence in Canaan (chs. 37-45), and the close of his life in Goshen (chs. 46-50). The first period is occupied with the events which prepared the way for, and eventually occasioned, his migration into Egypt, The way was prepared, directly by the sale of Joseph (ch. 37), indirectly by the alliance of Judah with the Canaanites (ch. 38), which endangered the divine call of Israel, inasmuch as this showed the necessity for a temporary removal of the sons of Israel from Canaan. The way was opened by the wonderful career of Joseph in Egypt, his elevation from slavery and imprisonment to be ruler over the whole of Egypt (chs. 39-41). And lastly the migration was occasioned by the famine in Canaan, which rendered it necessary for Jacob’s sons to travel to Egypt to buy corn, and, whilst it led to Jacob’s recovery of the son he had mourned for as dead, furnished an opportunity of Joseph to welcome his family into Egypt (chs. 42-45). The second period commences with the migration of Jacob into Egypt, and his settlement in the land of Goshen (chs. Genesis 46:1 to Genesis 47:27). It embraces the patriarch’s closing years, his last instructions respecting his burial in Canaan (ch. Genesis 47:28-31), his adoption of Joseph’s sons, and the blessing given to his twelve sons (ch. 49), and extends to his burial and Joseph’s death (ch. 50) (BCOTP, 329). It should be noted, in this connection, that in the various Scripture references to the fathers of the Jewish nationthe patriarchsthree, and only three, are mentioned, and the same three in the same order, viz., Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. (Cf. Exodus 3:6; Exodus 3:15-16; Exodus 4:5; Matthew 8:11-12; Matthew 22:32; Mark 12:26, Luke 20:37, Acts 3:13; Acts 7:32). In Acts 7:8-9, the term patriarch is extended to include the twelve sons of Jacob, founders of the twelve tribes who were constituted a nation at Sinai.

It should be emphasized at the outset that the story of Joseph is essentially a study in, and revelation of the ways of, Divine Providence: hence, it lacks the kind of problems (geographical, sociological, scientific, ethical and spiritual) that have required our attention in the first thirty-six Chapter s of Genesis. The narrative that engages our attention in the last fourteen Chapter s of the book is a simple story in many respects simply told. It is from beginning to end, from every point of view, a human interest story.

2. The Birth of Er and His Marriage to Tamar (Genesis 38:1-11).

At that time, i.e., about the time that Joseph was sold into slavery in Egypt, Judah went down from Hebron (37-14) or the mountains of Judah, toward the south, specifically to Adullam, in the lowland (Joshua 15:35), into the neighborhood of a certain Adullamite, a man named Hirah. Adullam was a town in the Hebron valley; in the period of the Conquest it was the seat of a Canaanite king (Joshua 12:15); afterward, it was celebrated for its connection with the history of David (1 Samuel 22:1-2; 2 Samuel 23:13), and is subsequently mentioned in Scripture (2 Chronicles 11:7, Nehemiah 11:3, Micah 1:15). Judah, it would seem, deliberately separated himself from his brothers, and entered into an alliance, at least into friendly relations, with this Canaanite. It would not be surprising if it turned out some day that Hirah was the name of an actual king of this Canaanite city, which lay in the Shephelah, or hill country, bordering the Philistaean plain. The name of Adullam survives to this day in an Arabicised form.. The Adullam of antiquity did not lie exactly at that village, but rather to the south of it on a site situated on a near-by hill, where sherds of the Middle Bronze Age confirm the existence of a city of patriarchal times. Travelers going from Hebron to Jaffa, or from Jerusalem to Gaza, would be attracted to it. King Rehoboam later found it worth while to fortify this city (2 Chronicles 11:7) (Kraeling, BA, 90). (Incidentally this writer explains: We hear little in the narratives preceding the Joseph-cycle concerning the various sons of Jacob. And that little is not very much to the credit of the individuals thus singled out. In Genesis 34, Simeon and Levi came in for attention in connection with the role they are held to have played in the Shechem area. In Genesis 35:21-22 there was some notice of Reuben. Genesis 38 now gives us information about Judah. The strange position of this narrative after the first installment of the Joseph stories is due to the fact that in chapter 37 [Genesis 38:26] Judah is with his brethren; hence the compiler was not able to introduce it sooner. We shall take it up first before turning to Joseph (ibid., p. 90). We follow the same procedure in the present text.

The question that arises here is surely pertinent, viz., what prompted Judah to go away from his brothers? That is, to set up a separate and independent establishment apart from them? Not only immediately after Joseph was sold, but also on account of it, in a fit of impenitent anger (Kurtz)? in a spirit of remorse (Lange)? How can we know?no definite information is given us as regards his motivation. However, as noted already in considering Genesis 34, such alliances between nomads and city dwellers always resulted in intermarriage, and so it was in this case. Like Esau, this son of Jacob probably cast off the restraints of religion and married into a Canaanite family, and it is not surprising that the family which sprung from such an unsuitable connection should be infamous for bold and unblushing wickedness (Jamieson). At any rate, Judah married the daughter of Shuah, a Canaanite, and had three sons by her, respectively, Er, Onan, and Shelah. It strikes the present writer that Judah’s motive for separating from his paternal household may well have been an infatuation for this daughter of Shuah. Although it would appear that the tribe of Judah had an early history independent of the other tribes of Israel, the fact remains that Judah himself was back with his brothers in their various appearances in Egypt after Joseph became the vizier there under Pharaoh. As a matter of fact Scripture represents Judah as having taken subsequently a decided lead in all the affairs of Israel’s family. When it became necessary to go into Egypt for food a second time, Judah remonstrated with Jacob against his detention of Benjamin and undertook to be responsible for the safety of the lad (Genesis 43:3-10). When the telltale cup was found in Benjamin’s sack, and punishment by Joseph seemed imminent, Judah’s earnest petition for his father and brothers and his offer of himself as a slave so moved his princely brother that the latter could no longer retain the secret of his identity (Genesis 44:14-34). Soon after, also, it was Judah who was sent by Jacob to act as guide (show the way) for the migration of the latter and his house into the land of Goshen (Genesis 46:28). We read no more of him until we find him receiving, along with his brothers, his father’s final blessing (Genesis 49:8-12). We now understand what the inspired writer means when he tells us that Judah, though not the firstborn of Israel’s progeny, still and all prevailed above his brethren (1 Chronicles 5:2).

As stated above, Judah married the daughter of Shuah, a Canaanite, (Genesis 38:2Shua was not the name of Judah’s wife, but that of her father, cf. Genesis 38:12). The woman bore a son, and Judah named him Er. When Er was grown up, according to ancient custom (cf. Genesis 21:21, Genesis 34:4), his father gave him a wife, named Tamar (Genesis 38:6), probably a Canaanite, of unknown parentage. But Er proved to be too wicked for Yahweh even to tolerate his continued existence, and so He slew him (i.e., caused him to die). The son-in-law, no doubt, was addicted to all the abominable vices of Canaan (cf. Romans 1:20-32). The wickedness involved elicited the heaviest divine disapproval; the wickednessin all likelihood, some form of sex perversionmade Er guilty in a special sense, and so Yahweh let him die. We find here a positive evidence of the truth, the soul that sinneth, it shall die (cf. Genesis 2:17, Psalms 90:7 ff., Proverbs 10:27, Ezekiel 18:20, Galatians 6:7-8, etc.)an echo that rings throughout the entire Bible.

After the death of Er, Judah wished Onan, as the brother-in-law, to marry the childless widow of his deceased brother, and thus to raise up seed, i.e., a family, for him. But Onan knew, of course, that the firstborn son would not be the founder of his own family, but would perpetuate the family of the deceased and receive his inheritance, and therefore prevented conception when consummating the marriage by spilling the semen, letting it fall on the ground. This act not only betrayed a want of affection to his brother, combined with a despicable covetousness for his possession and inheritance, but was also a sin against the divine institution of marriage and its object, and was therefore punished by Jehovah with sudden death. The custom of levitate marriage, which is first mentioned here, and is found in different forms among Indians, Persians, and other nations of Asia and Africa, was not founded upon a divine command, but upon an ancient tradition, originating probably in Chaldea. It was not abolished, however, by the Mosaic law (Deuteronomy 25:5 ff.), but only so far restricted as not to allow it to interfere with the sanctity of marriage; and with this limitation it was enjoined as a duty of affection to build up the brother’s house, and to preserve his family and name (K-D, 340). (Cf. also Matthew 22:23-33). The custom of levirate marriage seems to have prevailed quite universally at the time, as it is known to have been customary among many nations ancient and modern. Judah does not appear as an innovator in this instance. Levirate marriage implied that if a man had died without leaving a son, the next brother of the deceased, if unmarried, would take the widow to wife with the understanding that the first son born would carry on the line of the deceased, but all other children would be accounted his own.. Onan knew of this provision and intentionally prevented its realization. Selfishness may have prompted him: he did not care to preserve his brother’s family. Greed may have been a concurrent motive: he desired to prevent the division of the patrimony into smaller units. But in addition to these two faults there was palpably involved the sin of a complete perversion of the purpose of marriage, that divine institution. What he did is described as -taking preventive measures.-’ The original says: -he destroyed [i.e., the semen] to the ground.-’ From him the extreme sexual perversion called onanism has its name. The case is revolting enough. But plain speech in this case serves as a healthy warning. Yahweh let him die even as his brother (EG, 980-981). In the science of medicine, masturbation (commonly called self-abuse) is erroneously designated onanism. Onan’s act was an offense against the theocratic family, not an act indulged for erotic gratification, an act which, if allowed to become habitual, undoubtedly contributes to sexual impotence in later life. It is interesting to note that Er and Onan disappear from the sacred narrative never to be heard of again, except as statistics (Genesis 46:12, Numbers 26:19, 1 Chronicles 2:3-4).

The sudden death of his two sons, in each instance soon after marriage with Tamar, must have made Judah hesitate to give her the third son as a husband also, thinking, it would seem, according to a superstition which we find in the apocryphal book of Tobit (ch. 3), that either she herself, or marriage with her, had been the cause of her husbands-’ deaths. He therefore sent her back to her father’s house, telling her to remain there as a widow, with the promise that he would give her his youngest son Shelah to wed her as soon as Shelah had grown up. It is generally conceded that Judah never meant this seriously, for he thought lest (i.e., he was afraid that) he [Shelah] also might die like his brethren. Judah sends Tamar home to her family, on the pretext that his third son Shelah is too young to marry her. His real motive is fear lest his only surviving son should share the fate of Er and Onan, which he plainly attributes to Tamar herself (ICCG, 452). Her return to her father’s house was in accordance with the law for a childless widow (Leviticus 22:13, Rth 1:8): so Tamar went and dwelt in her father’s house (Genesis 38:11).

3. Tamar’s Stratagem (Genesis 38:12-19).

Skinner calls it Tamar’s daring stratagem, and indeed it was just that. Tamar, after waiting a long time, saw that Shelah had grown up and was not yet given to her as a husband; she therefore determined to procure children from Judah himself who had become a widower in the meantime. Judah, having comforted himself (i.e., ceased to mourn for his deceased wife) went to the sheep-shearing at Timnath. The sheep-shearing was kept with great feasting by shepherds. Judah therefore took his friend Hirah with him, a fact noted in Genesis 38:12 in relation to what follows. When Tamar heard that Judah was on his way to the feast, she took off the garments of widowhood, put on a veil, and sat down, disguised as a prostitute, by the gate of Enaim, by which Judah would be sure to pass on his return from Timnath. (Enaim no doubt was the same as Enam in the lowland of Judah, Joshua 15:34). (The veil was the sign of the harlot, here the term is kedeshah, that is, a cult prostitute, a woman dedicated to impure heathen worship, cf. Deuteronomy 23:17, Hosea 4:14). Tamar’s veil, her wrapping herself and sitting by the wayside (at the crossroads) set her apart as one who plied this iniquitous trade. (There are two evils that man, in his entire history on earth, has never been able to eliminate or even to control: one is drunkenness, and the other is prostitution). When Judah saw her, naturally he took her for what she expected him to: her design actually was realized. Judah does not appear to a very good advantage in this account. He seems to know altogether too well how to carry on a transaction of this sort. Since the veil seems to be the customary device to give herself the appearance of coyness, such as persons of this sort may use, it effectually served the purpose of disguising Tamar. When, besides, it is indicated that Judah did not know that she was his daughter-in-law [for she had covered her face], we see that Judah surely would not have consciously made himself guilty of incest (EG, 984). Of course they entered into negotiations. The price agreed upon was a kid of the goats. This is indeed suggestive in view of the fact that the goat, because of its prolificness, played a rather prominent role in the ancient Fertility Cult, and hence was sacred to Astarte. The present of a kid on these occasions may be due to the fact that (as in classical antiquity) the goat was sacred to the goddess of life (ICCG, 453). (Cf. Pausanias,, VI, 25, 2; Tacitus, Hist., 2, 3; Lucian, Dial, meretr. 7, 1). Tamar’s master-stroke, however, was the obtaining of a pledge which made the identification of the owner absolutely certain. The pledge was Judah’s seal, cord, and staff. This was his signet ring, with the band by which it was hung around his neck, and his staff: these served as a pledge of the young buck-goat which he offered her. These were objects of value and were regarded as ornaments in the East (cf. Herodotus, i, 195). The cord may have been regarded as having magical powers like those occasionally worn by Arab men (ICCG, 454). Judah then lay with Tamar, and she became pregnant by him. She then put off her veil and put on her garments of widowhood.

4. Tamar’s Vindication, (Genesis 38:20-26).

When Judah sent the young buck-goat to the supposed harlot, by his friend Hirah, for the purpose of redeeming his pledges, the latter could not find her, and was told, on inquiring of the people of Enaim, that there was no prostitute there (literally no consecrated one). -The consecrated,-’ i.e., the hierodule, a woman sacred to Astarte, a goddess of the Canaanites, the deification of the generative and productive principle of nature; one who served the goddess by prostitution: cf. Deuteronomy 23:17-18). This was no doubt regarded as the most respectable designation for public prostitutes in Canaan (K-D, 341), Ritual prostitution was an essential element of the Cult of Fertility which flourished throughout the entire ancient pagan world. Kedeshah here, Genesis 38:21, strictly -sacred prostitute-‘one -dedicated-’ for this purpose to Ishtar-Astarte, or some other deity, Deuteronomy 23:18, Hosea 4:14, ICCG, 454).

When Judah’s friend returned with the kid and reported that he had had no success in finding the woman, Judah decided to leave his pledges with the girl, lest he might expose himself to popular ridicule by any further inquiries, since he had done his part toward keeping his promise, It is significant that Judah employs his fidus Achates Hirah in this discreditable affair, and will rather lose his seal, etc., than run the risk of publicity, Genesis 38:23.

In due time, however, it was made known to Judah that his daughter-in-law had played the harlot and was certainly with child. Hence it fell to Judah as the head of the family to bring her to justice. This meant that she should be brought out and burned. Death by burning is the punishment imposed in Hammurabi, sect. 157, for incest with a mother, and was doubtless the common punishment for adultery on the part of a woman in ancient Israel. In later times the milder penalty of stoning was substituted (Leviticus 20:10, Deuteronomy 22:23 ff., Ezekiel 16:40, John 8:5), the more cruel death being reserved for the prostitution of a priest’s daughter (Leviticus 21:9, cf. Hammurabi, Sect. 110). Judah ordered the burning, whereupon Tamar, on being brought forth for the infliction of the penalty, by thus waiting till the last moment, made her justification as public and dramatically complete as possible. Producing the things which Judah had given her as a pledge, she addressed the crowd, saying, By the man to whom these belong I am with child. Judah recognized the seal, the cord, and the staff as his own, and frankly confessed that her conduct was justified by the graver wrong which he had done her in not giving her his son Shelah as a husband. In passing sentence on Tamar, Judah had condemned himself. His sin, however, did not consist merely in having given way to his lusts so far as to lie with a supposed public prostitute of Canaan, but still more in the fact, that by breaking his promise to give her his son Shelah as her husband, he had caused his daughter-in-law to practise this deception upon him, just because in his heart he blamed her for the early and sudden deaths of his elder sons, whereas the real cause of the deaths which had so grieved his paternal heart was the wickedness of the sons themselves, the mainspring of which was to be found in his own marriage with a Canaanite in violation of the patriarchal call. And even if the sons of Jacob were not unconditionally prohibited from marrying the daughters of Canaanites, Judah’s marriage at any rate had borne such fruit in his sons Er and Onan, as Jehovah the covenant God was compelled to reject. But if Judah, instead of recognizing the hand of the Lord in the sudden death of his sons, traced the cause to Tamar, and determined to keep her a childless widow all her life long, not only in opposition to the traditional custom, but also in opposition to the will of God as expressed in His promises of a numerous increase of the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; Tamar had by no means acted rightly in the stratagem by which she frustrated his plan, and sought to procure from Judah himself the seed of which he was unjustly depriving her, though her act might be less critical than Judah’S. For it is evident from the whole account, that she was not driven to her sin by lust, but by the innate desire for children; and for that reason she was more in the right than Judah, Judah himself, however, not only saw his guilt, but he confessed it also; and showed both by his confession, and also by the fact that he had no further conjugal intercourse with Tamar, an earnest endeavor to conquer the lusts of the flesh, and to guard against the sin into which he had fallen. And because he thus humbled himself, God gave him grace, and not only exalted him to be the chief of the house of Israel, but blessed the children that were begotten in sin (K-D, 342-343). It follows that the episode is not meant to reflect discredit on the tribe of Judah. It presents Judah’s behavior in as favorable light as possible, suggesting extenuating circumstances for what could not be altogether excused; and regards that of Tamar as a glory to the tribe; cf. Rth 4:12 (ICCG, 455). To suppose that incidents like that recorded in Genesis 38:12-26 were of frequent occurrence in ancient Israel, or that it was the duty of the father-in-law under any circumstances to marry his son’s widow, is to miss entirely the point of the narative. On the contrary, it is just the exceptional nature of the circumstances that explains the writer’s obvious admiration for Tamar’s heroic conduct. -Tamar shows her fortitude by her disregard of conventional prejudice, and her determination by any means in her power to secure her wifely rights within her husband’s family. To obtain this right the intrepid woman dares the utmost that womanly honor could endurestoops to the level of an unfortunate girl, and does that which in ordinary cases would lead to the most cruel and shameful death, bravely risking honor and life on the issue. At the same time, like a true mother in Judah, she manages her part so cleverly that the dangerous path conducts her to a happy goal (ibid., 455).

5. Birth of Perez and Zerah, (Genesis 38:27-30).

Tamar brought forth twins, and a circumstance occurred at the birth, which does happen occasionally when the children lie in an abnormal position. Moreover, it always impedes delivery, and this fact was regarded in this instance as so significant that the names of the two children were founded on it. At the birth, a hand came out first, around which the midwife tied a scarlet thread to mark this as the firstborn (Genesis 38:20). We then read that when the child drew back its hand behold, his brother came out. Then the midwife said, wherefore hast thou made a breach for thyself? (Marginal, How hast thou made a breach? a breach be upon thee!). That is, Thou bearest the blame of the breach, i.e., by breaking through by pressing forward. From this fact he received the name Perez (breach, breaker through). Rashi renders it: -Why hast thou acted with such strength-’ to force thy way out before thy brother (SC, 241). Then the other child, the one with the scarlet thread around his arm, came into the world, and was named Zerah (exit, rising, or according to Rashi, shining, because of the bright color of the crimson thread, SC, 241). Zerah sought to appear first, whereas in fact Perez was the firstborn, and is therefore placed before Zerah in the genealogical tables (Genesis 46:12, Numbers 26:20. Perez was the ancestor of the tribe-prince Nahshon (Numbers 2:3), and of King David also (Rth 4:18-22, 1 Chronicles 2:3-17). Through Perez, it should be especially noted, Tamar has her place as one of the female ancestors of Christ. Perez himself carried on the chosen line that culminated in Messiah (Matthew 1:3). The grace of God is vividly demonstrated by His use of these abominable events to accomplish His own purposes. The Divine Potter, undoubtedly for reasons of His own, has often worked with very inferior clay (cf. Jeremiah 18:1-12). Again we must be impressed with the fact that the Bible is a very realistic book: it pictures life as men and women have lived it, and continue to live it. It is preeminently the Book of Life.

The twin-birth of Rebecca is once more reflected. We see how important the question of the firstborn remains to the Israelitish mother and midwife. In the case of the twins there appears more manifestly the marks of a striving for the birthright. Pharez, however, did not obtain the birthright, as Jacob sought it, by holding on the heel, but by a violent breach, In this he was to represent Judah’s lion-like manner within the milder nature of Jacob. According to Knobel, the midwife is supposed to have said to Pharez; a breach upon thee, i.e., a breach happen to thee; and this is said to have been fulfilled when the Israelitish tribes tore themselves away from the house of David, as a punishment, because the Davidian family of the Pharezites had violently got the supremacy over its brethren (Lange, 593). (Cf. 1 Chronicles 11:11; 1 Chronicles 27:2-3; Nehemiah 11:4-6). Later references to the progeny of Judah’s third son, Shelah, are found in Genesis 46:12; Numbers 26:20; 1 Chronicles 2:3; 1 Chronicles 4:21-23). These references to the line of Shelah are, as will be noted, mostly statistical.

We probably should mention here the matter of the sequence of time between Chapter s 37 and 38. At that time, Genesis 38:1, ch. 37, must surely mean, just after, or soon after, Joseph had been sold into Egypt, at the age of seventeen (Genesis 37:2). He was elevated to the position of prime minister of the land at the age of thirty (Genesis 41:46). It will thus be evident that some twenty-two years intervened between the sale of Joseph and the settlement in Egypt (13 years until Joseph’s promotion plus 7 years of plenty plus 2years of famine). On this basis Judah had time to marry, to have a son whom he gave in marriage in his seventeenth year; to have a second son whom in his eighteenth year he gave to the same wife; allowing an additional two years for the rest of the events narrated in ch. 38. Judah departed from his brethren in vexation over their treatment of their brother Joseph and over their hypocrisy in the sight of their father. At least some such reason for his going -away from his brethren-’ is possible.. Judah does approach more closely to a Canaanite man, who appears to have been friendly and welcomed the approach.. A further contact with the Canaanites follows. A man by the name of Shua (a name meaning perhaps -opulence-’) has a daughter whom Judah takes to wife. Whether resentment against his brethren had anything to do with this, or whether easygoing friendship with Canaanites lay at the bottom of it all, is had to say (EG, 977). (It is interesting to note that Leupold differs from authorities quoted above on the matter of Judah’s motivation in pitching his tent toward Canaanites). Again, on the chronological problem we note the following: The 23 years which intervened between the taking of Joseph into Egypt and the migration of Jacob thither, furnish space enough for all the events recorded in this chapter (38). If we suppose that Judah, who was 20 years old when Joseph was sold, went to Adullam soon afterwards and married there, his three sons might have been born four or five years after Joseph’s captivity. And if his eldest son was born about a year and a half after the sale of Joseph, and he married him to Tamar when he was 15 years old, and gave her to the second son a year after that, Onan’s death would occur at least five years before Jacob’s removal to Egypt; time enough, therefore, both for the generation and birth of the twin-sons of Judah by Tamar, and for Judah’s two journeys into Egypt with his brethren to buy corn (K-D, 339).

The Tribe of Judah, together with that of Benjamin, retained its identity down to New Testament times, we might well say to the Fall of Jerusalem and the subsequent Dispersion, A.D. 70. The history of this tribe is of considerable importance, in view of the fact that Messiah was of the seed of Abraham, of the royal lineage of David, and of the tribal lineage of Judah (although a high priest after the order of Melchizedek) (Galatians 3:16; Galatians 3:29-29; 2 Samuel 7:12; Matthew 21-9; John 7:42; Romans 1:3; Revelation 5:5,etc.; Heb., ch. 7, also Genesis 6:20).

Judah early in life took a prominent role among his brothers, as is shown by the story of Joseph (Genesis 37:26-27; Genesis 43:3-10; Genesis 44:16-34; Genesis 46:28). Genesis, ch. 38, though throwing light on the beginnings of the tribe of Judah, probably stands where it does for the purpose of contrasting Judah’s character with that of Joseph. Genesis 49:8-12, though not strictly a promise of kingship to Judah, but rather of leadership and tribal stability, the promise of Shiloh does involve kingship ultimately. (Note the blessings of Moses on Judah; Deuteronomy 33:7). The genealogies of Judah’s descendants are given us in 1 Chron., chs. 2-4. When Judah went into Egypt he had three sons, but so rapidly did his family increase that at the time of the first census it numbered 74,600 (Numbers 1:26-27) and was first in population of all the tribes. At the second census, it numbered 76,500, still retaining its rank (Numbers 26:22). Its representative among the spies, and also among those appointed to partition the land, was the great leader Caleb, the son of Jephunneh (Numbers 13:6). According to rabbinical authority, Judah’s standard was green, with the symbol of a lion (Keil) (UBG, s.v.). Throughout the Exodus and the Wanderings, the tribe of Judah was at the forefront of the procession (Numbers 2:3; Numbers 2:9). Judah was the first tribe which received its allotted territory (inheritance) west of the Jordan, which included fully one-third of the entire land. When a survey was made later, at the completion of the Conquest, an adjustment was made by which a part of Judah’s territory was given to Simeon (Joshua 15:20-63; Joshua 18:1-10; Judges 1:3). The boundaries and cities of the region allotted to Judah are given at great length (Joshua 15:20-63). Judah and Simeon led the military expedition which resulted in the defeat of the Canaanites, including the capture of Jerusalem (Judges 1:10); whereupon they extended their conquest by overrunning most of the coastal plain (Judges 1:16-21). During the rule of the judges, Judah maintained an independent spirit toward the other tribes; and while they acquiesced in the Benjamite (Saul’S) appointment as king, it could hardly have been with a very good grace, as may be inferred from the very small contingent they supplied to that monarch’s army against Amalek (1 Samuel 15:4). When Judah established David as king, and removed the sanctuary to Jerusalem, the Ephraimites were dissatisfied, and seized the first opportunity of setting up an independent kingdom. Then the history of Judah as a tribe lapsed into that of Judah as a kingdom (UBD, 614). Then followed a long history of wars, vassalage and occasional prosperity. Against Judah were arrayed Israel, Egypt, Syria, and finally the country was ravaged by the king of Babylon, Jerusalem was burned with fire, the holy temple laid in ashes, the people taken away into captivity, and Judah was no more (ibid., p. 615). (Cf. 2 Kings, chs. 24, 25; Jer. chs. 39-41).

The territory of Judah extended east and west from the northern end of the Dead Sea to the Mediterranean, and north and south from this line to the region of Kadesh-Barnea. It included the cities which figure pre-eminently in the Biblical story, and with great significance especially in New Testament times. It is interesting to keep in mind that from the tribe of Judah came the Son of Mary by the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:35), the Lord Jesus Christ Himself; and that from the tribe of Benjamin came Paul, the great Apostle to the Gentiles (Romans 11:1, Philippians 3:5, 2 Corinthians 11:22).

The following comment on ch. 38 by Dr. Speiser is important: Because of the eventual pre-eminence of the tribe of Judah, the personalized history of that branch was of obvious interest to tradition. Through the period of Judges and down to the time of David, Judah expanded by absorbing various Canaanite elements, This beginning of that composite history is here intimated by Judah’s settlement among the Canaanites and his acquisition of a Canaanite wife, His line, however, is in danger of extinction; but a daughter-in-law by the name of Tamar, apparently another Canaanite, takes heroic measures and triumphs in the end. In resolutely following the intent of the law, by unorthodox and hazardous means, Tamar thus takes her place alongside Rachel (Genesis 31:19). She had the stuff, it was felt, to be the mother of a virile clan, which is clearly the main theme of the story. What brings this theme into bold relief is the institution of the levirate marriage, that is, marriage with the wife of a deceased brother (or another relative in special circumstances). The objective was to maintain the family line in a society that set great store by blood ties, and consequently had little use for adoption. Biblical law upholds this obligation and frowns on any attempt to circumvent it (cf. Deuteronomy 25:5 ff., Ruth, ch. 3f.). Judah sought to live up to this practice, yet shrank from risking the life of his last surviving son. When Tamar became convinced that her father-in-law was temporizing, she tricked him into leaving her with child, by waylaying him in the disguise of a harlot. But she had the presence of mind to secure positive proof of her mate’s identity. Here J adds a subtle human touch. Judah mistakes Tamar for a common harlot, Heb. zanah, Genesis 38:15, just as he was meant to do. But when his friend Hirah seeks to redeem the pledge, he asks for the local kedeshah (votary, hierodule, cult prostitute), in order to place the affair on a higher social level. At the critical moment, Judah finds out that Tamar was no wanton, and absolves her of any guilt in the matter. She rewards him for his candor and understanding by presenting him with twins. An aetiological notice about the boys-’ names brings the unique tale to a close (ABG, 300).

FOR MEDITATION AND SERMONIZING

The Book of Life

The Bible pictures life just as it is lived by men and women in all ages. There is no false modesty in the Book of Books. The Old Testament pictures life as it was lived in ancient timesin all its sensuality, debauchery, and vice. This, unfortunately, seems to be the way men are living in our day: apart from the influence of Biblical religion and morality, theyseem not to have changed very much, if at all. The charge of vulgarity has been hurled against the Bible. Some have said that it is bestial. No, it is not the Bible that is vulgar, bestial: it is men and women who choose to live life on the level of the brute, indulging their animal passions to the full. The Bible portrays life exactly as human beings live it. It pictures their vices as truly as their virtues. It is pre-eminently the Book of Life. The content of the Bible is essentially realistic, from every point of view.

This is not true of ordinary writers of fiction. Their villains are too villainous and their heroes too heroic. I recall some of the works of fiction which I read as a boy, especially a novel by the name of St. Elmo. The leading man of the story was the meanest villain I had ever read of, and the heroine was simply too good for this world. Characterizations were so overdrawn as to be absurd. And the cheaper the fiction, the greater the exaggeration in character portrayal. I recall other books, Ishmael, Self Raised, Lena Rivers, etc. Nick Carter was the most unrealistic character in the time of Victorian fiction, with the possible exception of Rollo or Little Lord Fauntleroy. And of all the tear-jerkers that ever appeared in print, what shall we say of East Lynne?

But the characters of the Bible are true to life. The more one studies them, the more one realizes that they were the same kinds and classes of men and women as those with whom one rubs elbows day by day. Their modern parallels are living down the street from our home or across the hall from our apartment. First, there was gentle, peace-loving Abel, and there was wild, reckless, daring Caintwo boys of completely different temperaments and aspirations such as are often found in the same family. There was old patient Noah, a righteous man in the midst of an ungodly generation, but his righteousness did not prevent his falling a prey to the wine-cask. Some are inclined to exonerate Noah on the ground that he was the first to cultivate the vineyard and did not know that the product was intoxicating if taken in excess. They may be right.

There was patriarchal Abraham, with flowing beard and spiritual miengrand, solitary, sublime, in his walk with God, a friend of God and the father of all the faithful. But he did not always tell the whole truth. On two occasions, when a half-lie seemed to serve his purpose better, he told the half-lie and was caught in it both times.

There was self-seeking Lot. Lot always looked out for number one. There was Isaac, the hen-pecked man, who seemed unable to realize that his wife was taking advantage of him repeatedly. There was shrewd, property-loving Jacob, a man who could take a small investment and build it into a fortune. There was strong-willed Joseph: one instance in which the dreamer proved to be the most practical man of his time. We are compelled to admire Joseph. There was the meek Moses who endured as seeing Him who is invisible (Hebrews 11:27). Moses could not make a speech (so he said), and so God sent Aaron along to do the persuading. Aaron was a typical politician: the words ran out of his mouth like oil, and he always kept his ear to the ground to gauge the direction of the winds of public sentiment, and when the people wanted to set up the golden bull and worship it, he allowed it to be done. We suppose he thought he could get away with it, but Moses returned at the wrong time and caught him red-handed in the act of sanctioning idolatry. There is persistent, plodding Joshua, the U.S. Grant of the Bible who proposed to fight it out on his line if it took all summer or longer. And there was Saul, powerful and handsome in physique, but small in spirit, jealous, revengeful, and mean. Saul hit the bottom rung of the ladder when he drifted into the witch of Endor’s den. And there was David! The man who could fight and sing, and sing and fight. Never could man sin more heinously and repent more genuinely than could David. There was Daniel the courageous, who could say No to despots, who, like Luther and Knox, defied the powers that be in order to be true to their God. There was hopeful, optimistic Isaiah, melancholy, pessimistic Jeremiah. There was Hosea, the man with a broken heart, who, out of this domestic experience, could give us a deeper picture of God’s love than did any other man of Old Testament times. There was John the Immerser, the iconoclast, the smasher of images, who overturned precedents, who could call his audience a generation of vipers, who cared not one whit what people thought of him but sought only to call them to repentance. There was impulsive, boastful, yet withal lovable Simon Peter. Peter was always out-and-out just what he was: he was adept at opening his mouth and putting his foot in it. One may not have agreed with Peter all the time but one always knew just where he stood! There was Paul, the lawyer, the intellectual giant, a product of Gamaliel’s rabbinical school in Jerusalem. Paul was so shrewd in dealing with audiences or in pleading the cause of Christ before kings and emperors. When the Jews were about to kill him in Jerusalem, he hurled a question at them about the Resurrection. It so happened that the mob was made up of both Pharisees (who believed in the resurrection of the dead) and the Sadducees (who did not, Acts 23:6-8). The shrewd Apostle cried out that he was being opposed because he believed in the resurrection of the body, whereupon the Pharisees and Sadducees went to arguing among themselves, and while they argued, Paul slipped away unharmed. There was James, the practical man, who paid his respects to backbiters and gossips, and who had much to say about the danger of riches, the brevity of life, the nastiness of the tongue, the real meaning of faith, and pure and undefiled religion. And there was the beloved John, who reclined on the Master’s bosom at the Last Supper, whose vision penetrated eternity and heaven itself to let us know that in the beginning there was the Word, and that the Word was with God, and that the Word is God, that is, deity as truly as Father and Son are deity.

Two women, one named Mary, the other Martha, are mentioned by two New Testament writers. Luke writes five verses about them, and John writes fourteen. Yet these two women live in our own day and their names are household words among people who read the Bible, despite the fact that all we know about them is to be found in nineteen New Testament passages. The characters of the Bible are genuine. They are true to life. They are portrayed just as they lived, thought and acted. No book in all the world is as true to life in its portrayal of all shades of human character as is the Bible. It is a realistic book. It deals with mankind honestly. It tells him that he is in sin, and it shows him the way out. To fail to read and meditate upon the Word that is in the Bible is to miss the pearl of great price. C.C.C.

REVIEW QUESTIONS ON PART FORTY-FIVE

1. What reasons are suggested by various writers for the insertion of this story about Judah and Tamar at this point in the patriarchal narratives?

2. Are we still following the account of the toledoth of Jacob? How does the story of Joseph fit into this background?

3. What are the two periods of Jacob’s life following his entrance into full possession of the patriarchal inheritance? When did that event occur?

4. What is the motif that pervades the entire narrative of Joseph’s career?

5. What reasons are suggested for Judah’s separating himself from his brothers?

6. What problem did his consorting with Canaanites raise? Why is this story of Judah and Tamar inserted into the story of Joseph at this point?

7. Whom did Judah marry? What were the names of his three sons? Which of the three did God allow to die?

8. In what passages does Judah appear again in the story of Joseph in Egypt?

9. What particular sin did Onan commit? What was his purpose in doing what he did? What is known as onanism today? Is this designation strictly relevant? Explain.

10. What was the custom of levirate marriage? To what extent did it prevail in the ancient world? What was the purpose of it?

11. What was Judah’s reaction to the deaths of his first two sons by Tamar?

12. What did he do with Tamar? What did he promise her, and why did he fail to fulfil his promise to her?

13. What deception did Tamar perpetrate on Judah? What was her purpose?

14. Distinguish between the zanah and the kedeshah in the Canaanite culture.

15. What was the price agreed upon between Tamar and Judah? What was the significance of this price?

16. What threefold pledge did Judah give Tamar to bind the bargain?

17. Explain what ritual prostitution was in the ancient pagan world? With what cult was it associated?

18. Why did Judah decide to leave his threefold pledge with Tamar?

19. How did Tamar dramaticallyand publiclyprove Judah’s guilt in this transaction?

20. How did Judah react? On what ground did he justify Tamar’s act? What did he admit to be his own motive in failing to keep his original promise concerning Shelah?

21. On what basis may we justifyat least partiallyTamar’s role in this incident?

22. What aspect of nobility does Judah finally manifest in this incident?

23. How would you evaluate this incident morally and spiritually in the light of the motives of the two persons involved? How are we justified in speaking of this as a human interest story?

24. What two sons did Tamar bear to Judah? What was significant about the manner of their birth? In what respects was this a sort of repetition of the story of the birth of Rebekah’s sons?

25. How explain the sequence of the time element between chs. 37 and 38? (That is, between the story of young Joseph and the story of the sons of Judah).

26. What two tribes retained their identity down to the Fall of Jerusalem? Who was the great Personage who hailed from the tribe of Judah? What important person came from the tribe of Benjamin?

27. Trace briefly the history of the tribe of Judah as it is pieced together out of the Old Testament record. What gave it its special significance?

28. Summarize Dr. Speiser’s presentation of the significance of this story of Judah and Tamar, also his evaluation of Tamar’s character, and of Judah’s role in the affair.

29. How does Dr. Leupold differ from other commentators in his theory of Judah’s motivation in this case?

30. Why do we say that the Bible is the Book of Life? Show how this story of Judah and Tamar proves this to be true. What do we mean when we say that it is a realistic book?

31. What son and what grandson of Jacob became members of the Line that brought forth Messiah?

32. Explain the metaphor, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah. What does this metaphor suggest?