[Page 1]
An Exposition
of
GENESIS
by
R. S. Candlish
SOVEREIGN GRACE
PUBLISHERS
1972
[Page 2]
In order
to make this book more universally useful, not only for
the highly educated or
long-experienced person, but for the young person who
has but little experience
with Elizabethan English, this work has the advantage of
the KING JAMES
II VERSION in all its lead
verses. In
this way all will be able to
absorb immediately what God has actually said, and thus
to quickly perceive the
value of the excellent insights of Mr. Candlish, the
author.
Since Mr. Candlish may not be known to all readers as a
Presbyterian, those who are Baptists, and other
immersionists, among employees
of the publisher, desire to disclaim those remarks that
imply there is a
connective succession between circumcision and baptism,
and other Paedo-baptist
views expressed herein by the author.
Needless to say, all of the staff concurs in
believing this to be
excellent exposition, fitted to make one wise and more
useful to God.
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[Page 3]
PREFACE
The
appendix at the end of the second volume of this
publication contains a brief
statement of some general views regarding the Book of
Genesis, which have impressed
themselves on my mind in the course of study.
Having carefully revised the entire work, I have agreed to an
alteration of the title.
I wish it to be
understood, however, that I still offer these papers
merely as “Contributions
towards the exposition of the Book of Genesis;” - not by any means entitled to the character of a full and
exhaustive exposition.
The change of
title is simply meant to indicate that I offer to the
public a commentary upon
the whole book.
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[Page 4 blank:
Page 5]
TABLE
OF
CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1
CREATION VIEWED AS
MATTER OF FAITH
Page 9
CHAPTER 2
THE CREATION OF THE WORLD
AND MAN VIEWED ON ITS HEAVENLY SIDE
Page 18
CHAPTER 3
THE CREATION OF MAN VIEWED AS ON THE SIDE OF EARTH;
AND HIS EARTHLY ORIGIN AND RELATIONS
Page 28
CHAPTER 4
DEVOTIONAL AND PROPHETIC
VIEW OF THE CREATION,
BEING AN APPENDIX TO THE
TWO PRECEDING PAPERS
Page 35
CHAPTER 5
THE FIRST TEMPTATION -
ITS SUBTLETY AS IMPEACHING
THE GOODNESS, JUSTICE,
AND HOLINESS OF GOD
Page 44
CHAPTER 6
THE FRUIT OF THE FIRST SIN - THE REMEDIAL SENTENCE
Page 51
CHAPTER 7
THE FIRST FORM OF THE NEW DISPENSATION -THE
CONTEST BEGUN BETWEEN GRACE AND NATURE
Page 60
CHAPTER 8
THE APOSTATE SEED - THE GODLY SEED –
THE UNIVERSAL CORRUPTION Page 73
CHAPTER 9
THE END OF
THE OLD WORLD BY WATER –
THE COMMENCEMENT
OF THE NEW
WORLD RESERVED UNTO FIRE …Page
84
CHAPTE R 10
THE
CONSTITUTION OF THE NEW WORLD, IN
ITS THREE DEPARTMENTS
OF NATURE,
- 1. THE LAW
OF NATURE …Page 92
CHAPTER 11
THE
CONSTITUTION OF THE NEW WORLD, IN
ITS THREE DEPARTMENTS
OF NATURE,
- 2.THE
SCHEME OF
CHAPTER 12
THE
CONSTITUTION OF THE NEW WORLD, IN
ITS THREE DEPARTMENTS
OF NATURE,
- 3. THE
ELECTION OF GRACE
Page 101
CHAPTER 13
THE EARTH
GIVEN TO THE CHILDREN OF
MEN,
AND OCCUPIED
BY THEM …Page 108
CHAPTER 14
THE CALL OF
ABRAM - HIS JUSTIFICATION
– THE POWER OF HIS FAITH,
AND ITS
INFIRMITY Page 116
CHAPTER 15
THE
INHERITANCE OF THE LAND PROMISED
TO ABRAM Page
124
[Page 6]
CHAPTER 16
VICTORY OVER
THE INVADERS OF THE LAND
-
INTERVIEW
WITH MELCHIZEDEK
Page 133
CHAPTER 17
JUSTIFICATION
BY FAITH INSIGHT INTO
THINGS TO COME
Page
146
CHAPTER 18
THE TRIAL OF
FAITH - ITS
INFIRMITY Page
160
CHAPTER 19
THE REVIVAL
OF FAITH - THE REPETITION
OF THE CALL
Page
166
CHAPTER 20
THE RENEWAL
OF THE COVENANT
Page 170
CHAPTER 21
THE SEAL OF
THE COVENANT –
THE SACRAMENT
OF CIRCUMCISION
Page 175
CHAPTER 22
ABRAHAM THE
FRIEND OF GOD
Page 183
CHAPTER 23
THE GODLY
SAVED, YET SO AS BY FIRE;
THE WICKED
UTTERLY DESTROYED
Page 196
CHAPTER 24
THE
IMPRESSION OF THE SCENE WHEN ALL
IS OVER Page
206
CHAPTER 25
CARNAL POLICY
DEFEATED - EVIL
OVERRULED FOR GOOD
Page 209
CHAPTER 26
THE
SEPARATION OF THE SEED BORN AFTER
THE FLESH
FROM THE SEED THAT IS BY PROMISE
Page 215
CHAPTER 27
ALLEGORY OF
ISHMAEL AND ISAAC - THE
TWO COVENANTS
Page
220
CHAPTER 28
THE TRIAL, TRIUMPH, AND REWARD OF ABRAHAM’S FAITH
Page 225
CHAPTER 29
TIDINGS FROM HOME - THEIR CONNECTION WITH SARAH’S
DEATH AND ISAAC’S MARRIAGE
Page 236
CHAPTER 30
THE DEATH AND BURIAL OF A PRINCESS
Page 239
CHAPTER 31
A MARRIAGE CONTRACTED IN THE LORD
Page 247
CHAPTER 32
THE DEATH OF ABRAHAM
Page 256
CHAPTER 33
THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF ABRAHAM
Page 259
CHAPTER 34
THE FAMILY OF ISAAC - THE ORACLE RESPECTING JACOB AND
ESAU
Page 267
[Page 7]
CHAPTER 35
PARENTAL FAVORITISM AND FRATERNAL FEUD
Page 270
CHAPTER 36
THE
ADVENTURES IN HIS PILGRIMAGE
Page 276
CHAPTER 37
THE TRANSMISSION OF THE BIRTHRIGHT-BLESSING
Page 279
CHAPTER 38
THE BEGINNING OF JACOB’S PILGRIMAGE - THE VISION
Page 288
CHAPTER 39
THE BEGINNING OF JACOB’S PILGRIMAGE - THE VOW
Page 293
CHAPTER 40
JACOB’S SOJOURN IN
CHAPTER 41
JACOB'S SOJOURN IN
CHAPTER 42
JACOB’S SOJOURN IN
CHAPTER 43
JACOB’S SOJOURN IN
CHAPTER 44
THE PARTING OF LABAN AND JACOB
Page 317
CHAPTER 45
THE TWO ARMIES - THE FEAR OF MAN -
THE FAITH WHICH PREVAILS WITH GOD
Page 323
CHAPTER 46
JACOB’S TRAIL ANALOGOUS TO JOB’S
Page 330
CHAPTER 47
THE MEETING OF JACOB AND ESAU -
BROTHERLY RECONCILIATION Page 336
CHAPTER 48
PERSONAL DECLENSION –
FAMILY SIN AND SHAME Page 341
CHAPTER 49
PERSONAL AND FAMILY
REVIVAL - MINGLED GRACE AND CHASTISEMENT
- AN ERA IN THE
PATRIARCHAL DISPENSATION
Page 347
CHAPTER 50
A NEW ERA - THE BEGINNING OF A NEW PATRIARCHATE
Page 353
CHAPTER 51
THE
CHAPTER 52
SINFUL ANCESTRY OF “THE HOLY SEED” -
GRIEF IN CANAAN - HOPE IN
CHAPTER 53
HUMILIATION AND TEMPTATION YET WITHOUT SIN
Page 367
CHAPTER 54
THE SUFFERING SAVIOR - THE SAVED AND LOST
Page 374
CHAPTER 55
THE END OF HUMILIATION AND BEGINNING OF EXALTATION
Page 381
[Page
8]
CHAPTER 56
EXALTATION - HEADSHIP OVER ALL - FOR THE CHURCH
Page 386
CHAPTER 57
CONVICTION OF SIN - YOUR SIN SHALL FIND YOU OUT
Page 391
CHAPTER 58
THE TRIAL AND TRIUMPH OF FAITH Page 400
CHAPTER 59
THE DISCOVERY - MAN’S EXTREMITY GOD’S
CHAPTER 60
A TRUE BROTHER - A GENEROUS KING - A GLAD FATHER
Page 415
CHAPTER 61
FAITH QUITTING CANAAN FOR
CHAPTER 62
TO BE KEPT THERE TILL THE TIME COMES
Page 428
CHAPTER 63
JOSEPH’S EGYPTIAN POLICY –
CHAPTER 64
THE DYING SAINT’S CARE FOR THE BODY AS WELL AS THE SOUL
Page 438
CHAPTER 65
THE BLESSING ON JOSEPH’S CHILDREN -
JACOB’S DYING FAITH Page 441
CHAPTER 66
JACOB’S DYING PROPHECY -
CHAPTER 67
WAITING FOR THE SALVATION OF THE LORD -
SEEING THE SALVATION OF THE LORD
Page 453
CHAPTER 68
CLOSE OF JACOB'S DYING PROPHECY -
THE BLESSING ON JOSEPH Page 462
CHAPTER 69
THE DEATH OF JACOB HIS CHARACTER AND HISTORY
Page 465
CHAPTER 70
THE BURIAL OF JACOB THE LAST SCENE IN
CHAPTER 71
JOSEPH AND HIS BRETHREN
–
THE FULL ASSURANCE OF
RECONCILIATION Page 478
CHAPTER 72
FAITH AND HOPE IN DEATH –
LOOKING FROM
APPENDIX
OBSERVATIONS ON THE STRUCTURE OF THE BOOK
OF GENESIS AS A WHOLE Page 490
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[Page 9]
CHAPTER 1
CREATION VIEWED
AS MATTER OF FAITH
By faith we understand that the worlds were framed
by the word of God, that the things which are seen were not made of
things
which appear. - Hebrews
11: 3.
The view
taken in this Lecture I hold to be important, not only
in its practical and
spiritual bearings, on which I chiefly dwell, but also
in relation to some of the
scientific questions which have been supposed to be here
involved. It
lifts, as I think, the divine record out
of and above these human entanglements, and presents it,
apart from all
discoveries of successive ages, in the broad and general
aspect which it was
designed from the first and all along to wear, as
unfolding the Creator’s mind
in the orderly subordination of the several parts of His
creation to one
another, with special reference to His intended dealings
with the race of man.
On this account I ask attention to what
otherwise might appear to some to be an irrelevant
metaphysical conceit.
It is proposed, then, to inquire what is implied in our really
believing, as a matter of revelation, the fact of the
creation. This
may seem a very needless inquiry, in
reference to a fact so easily understood.
“In the beginning God created the
heaven and the earth.”
“The worlds were framed by the
word of God.”
Can any thing be easier than to comprehend and
believe this great truth
thus clearly revealed?
Who can be at a
loss to know what is meant by believing it?
It is remarkable, however, that in speaking of
that faith whose power he
celebrates as the most influential of all our principles
of action, the apostle
gives, as his first instance of it, our belief of this
fact of the
creation. “Through faith,” - that
particular energetic faith,
which so vividly realizes its absent object, unseen and
remote, as to invest it
with all the force of a present and sensible impression,
- through this precise
faith, “which is the substance of things
hoped for, the
evidence of things not seen,” “we
understand that the worlds were framed by the word of
God;
so that things which are seen
were not made of things
which do appear.”
Now, this faith is peculiar in several respects, and its
peculiarity is as much to be observed in the belief of
the fact of creation, as
in the belief of the fact of redemption, - including, as
such belief does, a
reliance on the promises connect with that fact and
ratified and sealed by it,
springing out of a reliance on the person promising. It is
especially peculiar in respect of its
source, or of the evidence on which it rests.
The truths which it receives, it receives on the
evidence of testimony,
as truths revealed, declared, and attested, by the
infallible word of the
living God.
This is a point of great importance, as it affects both the
kind of assent which we give to these truths, and the
kind and degree of
influence which they exert over us.
There is the widest possible difference between
our believing certain
truths as the result of reasoning or discovery, and our
believing them on the
direct assertion of a credible witness whom we see and
hear, - especially if
the witness be the very individual to whom the truths
relate, and indeed
himself their author.
The truths
themselves may be [Page
10]
identically the same; but how
essentially different is the state of the mind in
accepting them; and how
different the impression made by them on the mind when
accepted.
1.
The difference may be illustrated by
a simple and familiar example.
In the
deeply interesting and beautiful work of Paley on
Natural Theology - for so it
may still be characterized, in spite of lapse of time
and change of taste - the
author, in stating the argument for the being of a God,
derived from the proofs
of intelligence and design in nature, makes admirable
use of an imaginary case
respecting a watch.
He supposes that,
being previously unacquainted with such a work of art,
you stumble upon it for
the first time, as if by accident, in a desert.
You proceed to exercise your powers of judgment
and inference in regard
to it. You
hold it in your hand, and
after exhausting your first emotions of wonder and
admiration, you begin to
examine its structure, to raise questions in your own
mind, and to form
conjectures. How
did it come there, and
how were its parts so curiously put together?
You at once conclude that it did not grow there,
and that it could not
be fashioned by chance.
You are not
satisfied to be told that it has lain there for a long
period, - from time
immemorial, - forever; that it has always been going on
as it is going on now;
that there is nothing really surprising in its movements
and its mechanism;
that it is just its nature to be what it is, and to do
what it does. You
utterly reject all such explanations as
frivolous and absurd.
You feel assured
that the watch had a maker; and your busy and
inquisitive spirit immediately
sets itself restlessly to work, to form some conception
as to what sort of
person the maker of it must have been.
You gather much of his character from the obvious
character of his
handiwork; you search in that handiwork for traces of
his mind and his heart;
you speculate concerning his plans and purposes; your
fancy represents him to
your eye; you think you understand all about him; you
find the exercise of
reasoning and discovery delightful, and you rejoice in
the new views which it
unfolds.
But now suppose that, while you are thus engaged, with the
watch in your hand and your whole soul wrapt in
meditative contemplation on the
subject of its formation, a living person suddenly
appears before you, and at
once abruptly announces himself, and says, It was I who
made this watch - it
was I who put it there.
Is not your
position instantly and completely changed?
At first, perhaps, you are almost vexed and
disappointed that the thread
of your musing thoughts should be thus broken, and your
airy speculations
interrupted, and you should be told all at once on the
instant, what you would
have liked to find out for yourself, - that the riddle
should be so summarily
solved, and a plain tale substituted for many curious
guesses. But
you are soon reconciled to the change,
and better pleased to have it so.
The
actual presence of the individual gives a new interest -
the interest of a more
vivid and intense reality - to the whole subject of your
previous
thoughts. Nor
does this new impression
depend merely upon the greater amount of information
communicated; for the
individual now before you may explicitly tell you no
more than, in his absence,
the watch itself had virtually told you already.
Neither does it arise altogether from the
greater certainty and [Page
11]
assurance of the revelation which he
makes to you; for in truth your own inferences, in so
plain an instance of
design, may be as infallible as any testimony could be. But there is
something in the direct and
immediate communication of the real person, speaking to
you face to face, and
with his living voice, which affects you very
differently from a process of
reasoning, however clear and unquestionable its results
may be.
Your position, in fact, is now precisely reversed.
Instead of questioning the watch concerning
its maker, you now question the maker concerning his
watch. You
hear, not what the mechanism has to say
of the mechanic, but what the mechanic has to say of the
mechanism. You
receive, perhaps, the same truths as
before. They
come to you, - not
circuitously and at second hand, but straight from the
very being most deeply
concerned in them.
They come home to you
without any of that dim and vague impersonality - that
abstract and ideal
remoteness - which usually characterizes the conclusions
of long argument and
reasoning. They
are now invested with
that sense of reality, and those sensations and
sentiments of personal concern,
which the known face and voice of a living man inspire.
2.
Now, let us apply these remarks to
the matter in hand.
We are all of us
familiar with this idea, that in contemplating the works
of creation, we should
ascend from nature to nature’s God.
Everywhere we discern undoubted proofs of the
unbounded wisdom, power,
and goodness of the great Author of all things.
Everywhere we meet with traces
of just and benevolent design, which should suggest to
us the thought of the
Almighty Creator, and of His righteousness, truth, and
love. It is
most pleasing and useful to cultivate
such a habit as this; much of natural religion depends
upon it, and holy
Scripture fully recognizes its propriety.
“The
heavens
declare the glory of God: the firmament showeth his handiwork.”
“All thy works praise thee,
Lord God Almighty.” “Lift up
your eyes on high, and
behold - Who hath
created these things?” “0
Lord, how manifold are
thy
works! in wisdom hast
thou made them all:
the earth is full of thy riches.”
It is apparent, however, even in these and similar passages,
that created things are mentioned, not as arguments, but
rather as
illustrations; not as suggesting the idea of God, the
Creator, but as unfolding
and expanding that idea, otherwise obtained.
And this is still more manifest in that passage of the Epistle
to the Romans which
particularly appeals to the fact of creation as evidence
of the Creator’s
glory, - evidence sufficient to condemn the ungodly: “For
the
invisible things of him from the creation of the world
are clearly seen,
being understood by the things
that are made, even
his eternal power and Godhead; so
that they are without excuse: because that, when they knew God, they
glorified
him not as God, neither
were thankful;
but became vain in their
imaginations, and
their foolish heart was darkened” (1:
20, 21). Here it is
expressly
said, that from the things that are made might be
understood the invisible
things of God, even his eternal power and Godhead; so
that atheists, idolaters,
and worshipers of the creature, are without excuse. But why are
they without excuse? Not because
they failed to discover God, in this way, from His
works, but because, when
they knew God otherwise, [Page
12]
they did not glorify Him, as these
very works might have continually taught them to do: -
not because they did not
in this way acquire, but because they did not like in
this way to retain, the
knowledge of God.
For the fact of the creation is regarded in the Bible as a
fact revealed; and, as such, it is commended to our
faith. Thus
the scriptural method on this subject is
exactly the reverse of what is called the natural. It is not to
ascend from nature up to
nature’s God, but to descend, if we may so speak, from
God to God’s nature, or
His works of nature; not to hear the creation speaking
of the Creator, but to
hear the Creator speaking of the creation.
We have not in the Bible an examination and
enumeration of the wonders
to be observed among the works of nature, and an
argument founded upon these
that there must be a God, and that He must be of a
certain character, and must
have had certain views in making what He has made. God Himself
appears, and tells us
authoritatively who He is, and what He has done, and why
He did it.
Thus “through faith we understand
that the worlds were made by the word of God;
so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.” We understand and
believe this, not as a deduction of reasoning, but as a
matter of fact,
declared and revealed to us.
For this is
that act of the mind which, in a religious sense, is
called faith. It
involves in its very nature an exercise of
trust or confidence in a living person, - of
acquiescence in his word, - of
reliance on his truth, on himself.
It
implies the committing of ourselves to him, - the
casting of ourselves on him,
- as faithful in what he tells, and in what he promises. We believe on
his testimony. We
believe what he says, and because he says
it. In thus
simply receiving a fact
declared by another, and that other fully credible and
trustworthy, the mind is
in a very different attitude and posture from that which
it assumes when it
reasons out the fact, as it were, by its own resources. There is far
more of dependence and
submission in the one case than in the other, - a more
cordial and implicit
recognition of a Being higher than we are, - a more
unreserved surrender of
ourselves. The
one, in truth, is the act
of a man, the other of a child.
Now, in
the
[Page 13]
But now, God speaks, and I am dumb.
He opens His mouth, and I hold my peace.
I bid my busy, speculative soul be quiet. I am still,
and know that it is God.
I now at once recognize a real and living
Person, beyond and above myself.
I take
my station humbly, submissively at His feet.
I learn of Him.
And what He tells
me now, in the way of direct personal communication from
Himself to me, has a
weight and vivid reality infinitely surpassing all that
any mere deductions
from the closest reasoning could ever have.
Now in very truth my “faith” does become “the substance of things hoped for, the
evidence of things not seen.”
Now at last I am brought into real personal
contact with the Invisible
One. And He
speaks as one having
authority. He
whom now I personally know
and see tells me of the things which He has made; and so
tells me of them, that
now they start forth before my eyes in a new light. The idea of
their being not only His
workmanship, but of His explaining them to me as His
workmanship, assumes a
distinctness - a prominence and power - which cannot
fail to exercise a strong
influence and exert a sovereign command over me, as a
communication directly
from Him to me.
Such is that faith respecting the creation which alone can be
of a really influential character.
Thus
only can we truly and personally know God as the
Creator.
3.
But it may be asked, Are we, then,
not to use our reason on this subject at all?
That cannot be; for the apostle himself enjoins
us, however in
respect of meekness we are to be like
children, still in understanding to be men.
Certainly we do well to search out and collect
together all those
features in creation which reflect the glory of the
Creator. Nay,
we may begin in this way to know
God. It is
true, indeed, that God has
never, in point of fact, left Himself to be thus
discovered. He
has always revealed Himself, as He did at
first, not circuitously by His works, but summarily and
directly by His
word. We
may suppose, however, that you
are suffered to grope your way through creation to the
Creator. In
that case you proceed, in the manner
already described, to deduce or infer from the manifold
plain proofs of design
in nature, the idea of an intelligent author, and to
draw conclusions from what
you see of his works, respecting his character,
purposes, and plans. Still,
even in this method of discovering God, if your faith is
to be of an
influential kind at all, you must proceed, when you have
made the discovery,
exactly to reverse the process by which you made it. Having arrived
at the conception of a Creator,
you must now go back again to the creation, taking the
Creator Himself along
with you, as one with whom you have become personally
acquainted, and hearing
what He has to say concerning His own works.
He may say no more than what you had previously
discovered; still what
He does say, you now receive, not as discovered by you,
but as said by
Him. You
leave the post of discovery and
the chair of reasoning, and take the lowly stool of the
disciple. And
then and not before, even on the
principles of natural religion, do you fully understand
what is the real import
and the momentous bearing of the fact, - that a Being,
infinitely wise and
powerful, and having evidently a certain character, as
holy, just, and good, -
that such a Being made you, - and that He is Himself
telling you that [Page 14] He made you, - and all the things that are around you; “so that
things which are seen were not made of things which do
appear;”
the visible did not come from the
visible; it was not self-made.
God tells
you that.
Much more will this be felt, if we become personally
acquainted with God otherwise than through the medium of
His works. And
so, in fact, we do.
Even apart from revelation, - on natural principles, - the
first notion of a God is suggested in another way. It is
suggested far more promptly and directly
than it can be by a circuitous process of reasoning
respecting the proofs of
intelligence in creation.
It is
conscience within, not nature without, which first
points to and proves a
Deity. It
is the Lawgiver, and not the
Creator, that man first recognizes, - the Governor, the
righteous judge. The
moral sense involves the notion of a
moral Ruler, independently altogether of the argument
from creation. And
the true position and purpose of that
argument is not to infer from His works of creation an
unknown God as creator,
but to prove that the God already known as the moral
Ruler is the Creator of
all things, - or rather to show what, as the moral
Ruler, He has to tell us in
regard to the things which He has created.
The truth is, when we go to the works and
creatures of God, we go, not
to discover Him, but as having already discovered and
known Him. We
must, therefore, go in the spirit of
implicit and submissive faith, not to question them
concerning Him, but to hear
and observe what He has to say to us concerning them, or
to say to us, in them
concerning Himself.
But still further, we go now to the record of creation, not
only recognizing God through the evidence of His works
and the intimations of
the conscience or moral sense, but acquainted with Him
through the testimony of
His own word. In
that word, He reveals
Himself, first as the Lawgiver, and then as the Saviour. The first word
He spoke to man in paradise
was the law, the second was the glorious Gospel; He made
Himself known first as
the Sovereign, and then as the Redeemer.
Now, therefore, it is in the character of the God
thus known that He
speaks to us concerning the creation of all things; and
our faith as to
creation now consists. - not in our believing that all
things were and must
have been made by a God, - but in our believing that
they were made by this
God; and believing it on the ground of His own
infallible assurance, given
personally by Himself to us. This God we are to see in
all things. We
are to hear His voice saying to us, in
reference to every intended; and I am now telling you
that I did so.
Thus, by faith, we are to recognize, instead of a dim remote
abstraction, a real living being; personally present
with us, and speaking to
us of His works, as well as in them and by them.
We are to exercise a personal reliance on
Him, as thus present and thus speaking to us - a
reliance on His faithfulness,
in what He says to us concerning His character and
doings in creation.
Then assuredly our faith will make more
vividly and tangibly intelligible the great fact that He
made each thing and
all things, and will give to that fact more of a real
hold over us, and far
more of intense practical power, than, with our ordinary
vague views of the
subject, we can at all beforehand conceive.
Nor will it hamper or hinder the freest possible
inquiry, on the side of
natural science, if only it confines itself to its [Page 15] legitimate
function of ascertaining
facts before it theorises.
For the facts
it ascertains may modify, and have modified, the
interpretation put on what God
has told us in His word.
And He meant it
to be so. He
did not intend revelation
to supersede inquiry, and anticipate its results.
Of course, His revelation must be consistent
with the results of our inquiry, - as it has always
hitherto, in the long run,
been found to be. But
it was inevitable
that our understanding of His revelation should be open
to progressive
readjustment, as regards the development of scientific
knowledge, while the
revelation itself, as the Creator’s explanation of His
creation for all
mankind, remains ever the same.
4.
Thus, then, in a spiritual view, and
for spiritual purposes, the truth concerning God as the
Creator must be
received, not as a discovery of our own reason,
following a train of thought,
but as a direct communication from a real person, even
from the living and
present God. This
is not a merely
theoretical and artificial distinction.
It is practically most important.
Consider the subject of creation simply in the
light of an argument of
natural philosophy, and all is vague and dim
abstraction. It
may be close and cogent as a demonstration
in mathematics, but it is as cold and unreal; or, if
there be emotion at all,
it is but the emotion of a fine taste, and a sensibility
for the grand or the
lovely in nature and thought.
But
consider the momentous fact in the light of a direct
message from the Creator
Himself to you, - regard Him as standing near to you,
and Himself telling you,
personally and face to face, all that He did on that
wondrous creation-week, [restoration-week better!]
- are you not differently impressed
and affected?
(1) More particularly, - see first of all, what weight this
single idea, once truly and vividly realized, must add
to all the other
communications which He makes to us on other subjects. Does He speak
to us concerning other matters,
intimately touching our present and future weal [welfare]?
Does He tell us of our condition in respect of
Him, and of His purposes
in respect of us? Does
He enforce the
majesty of His law?
Does He press the
overtures of His Gospel?
Does He
threaten, or warn, or exhort, or encourage, or command,
or entreat, or tenderly
expostulate, or straitly and authoritatively charge? Oh! how in
every such case is His appeal enhanced
with tenfold intensity in its solemnity, its pathos, and
its power, if we
regard Him as in the very same breath expressly telling
us, - I who now speak
to you so earnestly and so affectionately, I created all
things, - I created
you. To the
sinner, whom He is seeking
out in his lost estate, whom He is reproving as a holy
lawgiver, and condemning
as a righteous judge, and yet pitying with all a
father’s unquenchable
compassion, how awful and yet how moving is the
consideration, that He who is
speaking to him as a counsellor and a friend, is
speaking to him also as the
Creator! And
while He bids the sinner,
in accents the most gracious, turn and live, He says to
him still always, - It
is thy Maker, and the Maker of all things, who bids
thee, at thy peril,
turn. And
is there any one of you who are His
saints and servants disquieted and cast down?
Is there not comfort in the thought, that thy
Maker is thy husband and
thy redeemer? Is
there not especial
comfort in His telling thee so Himself? Is there any
thing in all the earth to
make thee afraid? Dost
thou not hear Him
saying to thee, - I, [Page
16] thy
Saviour, thy God made thee, made
it, made all things?
It is my creature,
as thou art, and it cannot hurt thee, if I am with thee.
On this principle we may, to a large extent, explain the
importance which believers attach to the glorious fact,
that He who saves them
has revealed Himself to them, and is revealing Himself,
as the Creator. All
must have remarked, in reading the
devotional parts of the Bible, such as the book of
Psalms, how constantly the
psalmist comforts and strengthens himself, and animates
himself in the face of
his enemies, by this consideration, that his help comes
from the Lord, who made
the heavens and the earth, that his God made the
heavens. He
made all things; the very things,
therefore, that are most hostile and perilous, his God
made. This
is his security. The
God whom he knows as his own, made all
things, and is reminding him, whenever any thing alarms
or threatens him, that
He made it. And
if now, my Christian
brother, the God who made all things, evil as well as
good, - sickness, pain,
poverty, distress, - is your Saviour; if He is ever seen
by you, and His voice
is heard telling you, even of that which presently
afflicts you, that He made
it as He made you, - how complete is your confidence.
When God appeared to Job, in such a way that job himself
exclaimed, “I have heard of thee by the hearing
of the ear, but now
mine eye seeth thee;”
it was mainly, if not exclusively, as
the Creator that He revealed Himself.
Coming forth to finish the discussion between Job
and his friends, the
Lord enlarges and expatiates on all His wondrous works,
- on the power and the
majesty of His creation.
On this topic
He dwells, speaking to Job personally concerning it,
conversing with him face
to face as a friend.
And the full
recognition of God as doing so, is enough both to humble
and comfort the
patriarch, - to remove every cloud, - to abase him in
dust and ashes, - and to
exalt him again in all the confidence of prayer.
(2) Again, secondly, - on the other hand, observe what weight
this idea, if fully realized, must have, if we ever
regard the Lord Himself as personally
present, and saying to us, in special reference to each
of the things which He
has made, - I created it, and I am now reminding you,
and testifying to you,
that it was I who made it.
What
sacredness will this thought stamp on every object in
nature, - if only by the
power of the [Holy]
Spirit,
and through the belief of the
truth, we are made really and personally acquainted with
the living God; if we
know Him thus as the Lawgiver, the Saviour, the judge.
We go forth amid the glories and the beauties of this earth
and these heavens, which He has so marvellously framed. We are not
left merely to trace the dead and
empty footsteps which mark that He once was there. He is there
still, telling us even now that
His hand framed all that we see; and telling us why He
did so. Thus,
and thus only, do we walk with God,
amid all that is grand and lovely in the scene of
creation; not by rising, in
our sentimental dream of piety, to the notion of a
remote Creator, dimly seen
in His works, but by taking the Creator along with us,
whenever we enter into
these scenes, and seeing His works in Him.
It is true, there is a tongue in every breeze of
summer, a voice in
every song of the bird, a silent eloquence in every
green field and quiet
grove, which tell of God as the [Page
17]
great maker of them all; but after
all, they tell of Him as a God afar off, and still they
speak of Him as
secondary, merely, and supplementary to themselves, - as
if He were inferred
from them, and not they from Him.
But,
in our habit of mind, let this order be just reversed. Let us
conceive of God as telling us
concerning them as His works.
While they
reveal and interpret Him, let Him reveal and interpret
them. And
whenever we meet with any thing that
pleases our eye, and affects our heart, let us consider
God Himself, our God
and our Father, as informing us respecting that very
thing: I made it, - I made
it what it is, - I made it what it is for you.
And if this vivid impression of reality, in our recognition of
God as the Creator, would be salutary in our communing
with nature’s works,
much more would it be so in our use of nature’s manifold
gifts and bounties. “Every
creature of God is good, and
nothing to be
refused, if it be
received with thanksgiving;
for it is sanctified by the word
of God” (1 Tim.
4: 4,
5).
Still it is to be received and used as the
creature of God, and as
solemnly declared and attested to be so, by God Himself,
in the very moment of
our using it. If
we realized this
consideration; if, on the instant when we were about to
use, as we have been
wont, any of the creatures of God provided for our
accommodation, God Himself
were to appear personally present before us, and were to
say, Son, - Daughter,
- I created this thing which you are about to use, -
this cup of wine which you
are about to drink, this piece of money that you are
about to spend, this
brother or sister with whom you are now conversing, -
and I testify this to
you, at this particular moment, - I, your Lord and your
God, - I created them,
- such as they are, - for those ends which they are
plainly designed to serve;
- would we go on to make the very same use of the
creature that we intended to
make? Or
would not our hand be arrested,
and our mouth shut, and our spirit made to stand in awe,
so that we would not
sin?
Let none imagine that this is an ideal and fanciful state of
feeling. It
is really nothing more than
the true exercise of that faith by which “we understand that the worlds were
made by the word of God; so
that things which
are seen were not made of things which do appear;”
and
it is the preparation for the
scene which John saw in vision, when, being in the
Spirit, he beheld, and lo! a
throne was set in heaven, and one sat on the throne, and
round about the throne
the emblems of redeeming love appeared, with the
representatives of the
redeemed Church giving glory to Him that sat on the
throne, worshiping Him that
liveth forever and ever, casting their crowns before the
throne, and saying, “Thou art
worthy, 0 Lord,
to
receive glory, and
honour, and power;
for thou has
created all things, and
for thy pleasure they
are and were created” (Rev.
4).
My plan does not require me to enter at any length, if indeed
at all, into the vexed questions which have clustered
around the Mosaic cosmogony;
questions as to the relations of science and revelation
which I own myself
incompetent to discuss.
I have tried in
this Lecture to indicate the point of view from which,
as it seems to me, the
narrative in the first two chapters of Genesis ought to
be regarded. It
is God’s own account of the origin of the
present mundane system, given by inspiration, for all
times and for all
men. And it
is His account, specially
adapted by Himself to the [Page
18]
end, not of gratifying speculative
curiosity, but of promoting godly edification.
Therefore, there is purposely excluded from it
whatever might identify
it with any particular stage of advancement and
enlightenment among mankind.
It is this very exclusion, indeed, which
gives to it a breadth and universality fitting it
equally for all systems, as
well as for all ages.
Then again, as on
the one hand it is not the design of God to tell us here
all that we might wish
to have learned from Him respecting this earth’s long
past history, or even
respecting the adjustment of its present order, - so, on
the other hand, it is
His design to present this last topic to us chiefly in
its bearing on the great
scheme of providence, including probation and
redemption, which His revealed
word is meant to unfold.
He tells the
story of our birth only partially.
And
in telling it, He casts it in the mould that best adapts
it to that progressive
development of His moral government which His inspired
Scriptures are about to
trace.
Hence, amid dark obscurity hanging over many things, the
salient prominence given to the Word as the Light of the
world, its light of
life, - to the Spirit moving in the ancient chaos, - to
the satisfaction of the
Eternal at each step in the creative [restoration] work, - to the succession of six days and the rest of the
seventh.
And hence also, as regards man, the twofold account of his
origin, - that in the first chapter bringing out his
high and heavenly relation
to the Supreme, whose image he wears, and that in the
second chapter describing
rather his more earthly relations, and the functions of
his animal nature.
For these two accounts, so far from being
inconsistent with one another, are in reality the
complements of one another.
Both of them are essential to a complete
divinely - drawn portrait of man as at first he stood
forth among the
creatures; spiritually allied to God, in one view, yet
in another view, the
offspring as well as the lord of earth.
Both therefore appropriately culminate, - the one
in the Sabbatic
Institute, the pledge and means of man’s divine life, -
and the other in that
ordinance of marriage, peculiar to him alone, in which
his social earthly life
finds all its pure and holy joy.
These particulars will come up again for consideration. I
notice them now because I would like my first paper to
be studied as having an
important bearing on the subjects to which they relate.
*
*
*
CHAPTER 2
THE
CREATION OF THE WORLD AND MAN
VIEWED ON ITS HEAVENLY SIDE
Genesis 1:
1;
2:
3
This
divine
record of creation, remarkable for the most perfect
simplicity, has been sadly
complicated and embarrassed by the human [Page 19] theories and
speculations with which
it has unhappily become
entangled. To
clear the way, therefore,
at the outset, to get rid of many perplexities, and
leave the narrative
unencumbered for pious and practical uses, let its
limited design be fairly
understood, and let certain explanations be frankly
made.
1.
In the first place, the object of
this inspired cosmogony, or account of the world’s
origin, is not scientific
but religious. Hence
it was to be
expected that, while nothing contained in it could ever
be found really and in
the long run to contradict science, the gradual progress
of discovery might
give occasion for apparent temporary contradictions. The current
interpretation of the Divine
record, in such matters, will naturally, and indeed,
must necessarily,
accommodate itself to the actual state of scientific
knowledge and opinion at
the time; so that, when science takes a step in advance,
revelation may seem to
be left behind. The
remedy here is to be
found in the exercise of caution, forbearance, and
suspense, on the part both
of the student of Scripture and of the student of
science; and, so far as
Scripture is concerned, it is often safer and better to
dismiss or to qualify
old interpretations, than instantly to adopt new ones. Let the
student of science push his inquiries
still further, without too hastily assuming, in the
meantime, that the result
to which he has been brought demands a departure from
the plain sense of
Scripture; and let the student of Scripture give himself
to the exposition of
the narrative in its moral and spiritual application,
without prematurely
committing himself, or it, to the particular details or
principles of any
scientific school.
2.
Then again, in the second place, let
it be observed that the essential facts in this Divine
record are, - the recent
date assigned to the existence of man on the earth, the
previous preparation of
the earth for his habitation, the gradual nature of the
work, and the
distinction and succession of days during its progress. These are not,
and cannot be, impugned by any
scientific discoveries.
What
history of ages previous to that era
this globe may have engraved in its rocky bosom,
revealed or to be revealed by
the explosive force of its central fires, Scripture
does not say.
What
countless generations of
living organisms teemed in the chaotic-waters, or
brooded over the dark abyss,
it is not within the scope of the inspiring [Holy] Spirit to tell.
There is
room and space for whole
volumes of such matter, before the Holy Ghost takes up
the record. Nor is
it necessary to suppose that all continuity of the
animal life which had sprung
into being, in or out of the waters, was broken at the
time when the earth was
finally fashioned [or restored] for man’s abode. It is enough
that then, for the first time,
the animals of sea, and air, and land, with which man
was to be conversant, were
created for his use, - the fish, the fowls, the beasts,
which were to minister
to his enjoyment and to own his dominion.
3.
And finally, in the third place, let
it be borne in mind that the sacred
narrative of the creation is evidently, in its highest
character, moral,
spiritual, and prophetical.
The
original relation of man, as a responsible being, to his
Maker, is directly
taught; his restoration from moral chaos to spiritual
beauty is figuratively
represented; and
as a prophecy, it has an extent of meaning which
will be fully unfolded only when “the
times of the
restitution of all things” (Acts
3: 21)
have arrived.
Until then, we must [Page 20] be contented with a partial and
inadequate view of this, as of other parts of the sacred
volume; for “the sure
word of prophecy,” though a light “whereunto
we do well to take heed,” is still but “as a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawn
and the day-star arise in our hearts” (2
Peter 1: 19). The exact literal sense of much that is now obscure or doubtful, as
well as the bearing and importance of what may seem
insignificant or
irrelevant, will then clearly appear.
The creation [restoration] of this world anew, after its
final baptism of fire, will
be the best
comment on the history of its creation at first,
after the chaos of
water. The manner as well as the design of the earth’s formation of old out of
the water, will be understood at last, when it emerges
once more from the wreck
and ruin of the conflagration which yet awaits it, - “a new
earth, with new
heavens, wherein
righteousness is to dwell” (2
Pet. 3: 13).
Our present concern, therefore, is with the moral and spiritual aspect of this sacred narrative. Our business
is with man, - with
the position originally assigned to
him, by creation, in the primeval kingdom of nature,
and the place to which he
is restored, by redemption, in the remedial kingdom of
grace. Of his
abode in the renewed kingdom of glory, it is but
the shadowy outline which
we can in the meantime trace; but, so far as it goes, it
is interesting and
suggestive.
Thus, then, let us view the scene which the opening section of
Genesis presents to us.
There is a plain
distinction
between the first verse and the subsequent part of
this passage.
The first verse speaks of creation, strictly so
called, and of the
creation of all things, - the formation of the
substance, or matter, of the
heavens and the earth, out of nothing; - “In the beginning God created the
heavens and the earth.” The rest of the passage speaks of creation in the less exact sense of
the term; describing the changes wrought on matter
previously existing; and it
confines itself, apparently, to one part of the
universe - our solar system,
and especially to this one planet - our earth,
concerning which, chiefly, God
sees fit to inform us.
The first verse, then, contains a very general announcement;
in respect of time, without date, - in respect of space,
without limits. The
expression, “in the
beginning,”
fixes
no period; and the expression, “the
heavens and the
earth,” admits of no restriction.
For, though heaven denotes sometimes the
atmosphere, or the visible
starry expanse above, and, at other times, the
dwelling-place of God and of the
blessed; yet, when heaven and earth are joined, as in
this text, all things are
evidently intended (Ps.
131: [1], 2,
etc.)
And the announcement here is, that at an era
indefinitely remote, the
whole matter of the universe was called into being. It is not
eternal, - it had a beginning.
God has not merely, in the long course of
ages, wrought wonderful changes on matter previously
existing. Originally,
and at the first, He made the
matter itself.
At the period referred to in the second verse, the materials
for the fair structure of this world which we inhabit
are in being. But
they are lying waste.
Three things
are wanted to render the earth such as God can approve ‑
order, life, and
light. The
earth is [or ‘became’,
N.I.V.] “without form” -
a shapeless mass.
It is [or became] “void,” - empty, or destitute
of life. It
has “darkness” all [Page
21]
around its deep chaotic “waters.” One
good sign only appears.
There is a movement
on the surface, but deep-searching.
“The Spirit of
God moved on the face of the waters.”
We have here the first
indication in the Bible of a plurality of Persons in
the unity of the Godhead;
and, in the chapter throughout we
trace the same great and glorious doctrine of the
ever-blessed Trinity,
pervading the entire narrative.
This
truth, indeed, is not so much directly stated in the
Scriptures as it is all
along assumed; and we might reasonably expect it to be
so. God is
not, in the written word, introduced
for the first time to men.
He speaks,
and is spoken of, as one previously known, because
previously revealed.
And, if the doctrine of the Trinity be true,
He must have been known, more or less explicitly, as
Father, Son, and Holy
Ghost. An
express and formal
declaration, then, of this mystery of His being, was not
needed, now was it to
be expected. The most natural and convincing proof of
it, in these
circumstances, is to trace it, as from the very first
taken for granted and
recognized, in all that is said of the divine
proceedings. Now,
in this passage, we find precisely such
intimations of it as might have been anticipated.
Not to speak of the form of the word “God,”
which, in the original, is a plural noun joined
to a singular verb, we have the remarkable phrase (ver. 26), “Let
us make;” and, in the
very outset, we have
mention made of God; - of His WORD,
“God said:” - and of His
Spirit, “the Spirit
of God moved.”
So,
also, it is said, in the Psalms (33:
6), “By the word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the hosts of them
by the breath,” or Spirit, “of his mouth.”
The gradual process by which the earth is brought into a right state may be traced according to the
division of days. But
there is another
principle of division, very simple and beautiful,
suggested by the repeated
expression, “God saw that it was good.”
That
expression may be regarded
as marking the successive steps or stages of the
divine work, at which the
Creator pauses, that He may dwell on each finished
portion, as at last He
dwells on the finished whole, with a holy and
benevolent complacency.
The phrase occurs seven times (ver. 4,
10, 12,
18, 21,
25, 31).
It does not divide the work exactly as the days
divide it. On
the second day it does not occur at all;
and on the third
and sixth days it
occurs twice.
The work is divided
among the days,
so that each day has
something definite to be done, - something complete in
itself. 1.
Light, - 2.
Air (the elastic
firmament or sky), - 3.
Earth (dry
land as separated from the sea), - 4.
the Luminaries in heaven as means of light and measures
of time, - 5.
Fish* and Fowl, - 6. Beasts, and Man himself, - these are the works of the successive days.
The relation, however, of the several parts to
the whole, is better seen
by noting the points at which the divine expression of
satisfaction is
inserted: “God
saw that it was good.”
[* Note.
Our Lord’s use of the “two
fishes,” in
feeding the multitude, may well have been a “sign”
= ‘miracle’ -
to point His disciples toward the time of God’s
promised millennial
blessing, after their sojourn in “paradise”
-
(the place of the souls of the dead) - for a further two days. That is,
after two
thousand years, they would be brought back
here to enjoy their inheritance.
This can only be possible after the time of
their Resurrection from
the dead.
See, - Matt. 14:
17, 19;
Luke 22: 29,
30; 23:
43; 2
Pet. 3: 8, 9;
Phil. 3:
11; Rev.
20: 4-6.]
The main design of the whole work is to supply the wants or
defects of the chaotic earth. These
were three: - the want of order, of
life, and of light.
Light is first
provided; then order is given that the earth may be
fitted for the habitation
of living creatures; and finally, living creatures are
placed in it.
[Page 22]
Now, the series
of operations by which
this threefold object is accomplished, is
exactly marked by the
intervals at which it is said, “God
saw that it was
good.”
Thus, 1.
On the introduction of LIGHT,
which is a simple act, the
Creator’s joy is expressed emphatically, but only once (ver 4). 2.
The ORDERING of the world, however, is a more complicated and elaborate
process. In
the first place, there must
be the adjustment of the waters; that is, on the one
hand the separation of the
cloudy vapour constituting the material heavens above,
from the waters on the
earth’s surface below, by the air, or elastic
atmosphere, being interposed; and
on the other hand, the separation on the earth’s surface
of the dry land from
the sea. Secondly,
there must be the
arrangement of the dry land itself, which is to be
clothed with all manner of
vegetation, and stored with all sorts of reproductive
trees and plants. And
thirdly, there must be the establishment
of the right relation which the heavens and the heavenly
bodies are to have to
the earth as the instruments of its light, and the
rulers of its seasons.
Accordingly, at each of these three stages of
this part of the work, - the reducing of the shapeless
mass of earth to ORDER
– the language of divine
approbation is employed (ver.
10, 12,
18).
3.
The formation of LIFE
also, or of the living beings for
whose use the world is made, - admits of a similar
sub-division. First,
the fishes and the fowls are produced;
secondly, the terrestrial beasts; and thirdly, man
himself. And
still, as the glorious work rises higher
and higher, there is at each step the pause of divine
congratulation; as, in
the end and over all, there is the full contentment of
Infinite Wisdom; “rejoicing in
the habitable parts of the earth, his
delights
being with the sons of men” (ver.
21;
25, 31,
and Prov. 8:
31).
The
following scheme will show this division clearly:
God
saw that it was good on the
production of -
1.The
first step in this glorious
process, is the breaking in of LIGHT
on the gloom in which the earth was shrouded (ver.
3-5). In this step
the ETERNAL WORD
comes forth from the bosom of Deity.
He “whose goings forth have been from of
old, from everlasting”
(Mic.
5: 2),
-
“the Word
who was in the beginning with
God and
was God” (Jn.
1: 1-3), -
He is that word which went out from God, when “GOD SAID, Let
there be
light.” For this
is not the utterance of a
dead sentence, but the coming forth of the living
WORD.
In the Word was life, and this
life in the Word, - this LIVING
WORD,
- was the “light.” Immediately, without the intervention of those luminaries in which
afterwards light was stored and centered, the LIVING
WORD Himself going forth was
light, - the
natural light of the earth
then: as afterwards, again coming forth, He became to
men the light of their
salvation.
[Page 23]
In this light God delighted as good; for the light is none
other than that very Eternal Wisdom who says; ‑ “The LORD
possessed me in the beginning of
his way, before his
works of old, and I
was daily,” - from day to day, as the
marvellous
work [of His
restoration] of these six days went on, - “I was daily his
delight, rejoicing
always before him” (Prov.
8: 22,
30). Such
was the mutual ineffable complacency of
the Godhead, when the Word went forth in the creation,
as the light, and when
all things began to be made by Him (Jn.
1: 3,
4).
And in
this first going forth of the Eternal Word, the
distinction of light and darkness,
of day and night, for the new earth, began (Ps.
104: 2). This was the
first day - the first
alternation of evening and morning; - not
perhaps the first revolution
of this globe on its axis, but its first revolution,
after its chaotic darkness, under the
beams of that divine light, which, shining on earth’s
surface as it passed
beneath the glorious brightness, chased, from point to
point, the ancient gloom
away.
2.
To light succeeds ORDER.
Form, or shape, or due arrangement, is given to
the natural economy of
this lower world, and that by three successive
processes.
(1) In the first place, the waters are arranged (ver.
6-10). The
earth is girt round with a firmament, or gaseous
atmosphere; at once pressing
down, by its weight, the waters on the surface, and
supporting, by its
elasticity, the floating clouds and vapours above; and
so forming the visible
heaven, or the azure sky (Ps.
104:
3). This
is the work of the second day.
Then, a bed is made for the waters, which
before covered the earth, but which now, subsiding into
the place prepared for
them, lay bare a surface of dry land (Ps.
104: 6-13).
This
is done on the third day.
And thus, by a
twofold process, the waters are reduced to order.
In the language of Job, “He girdeth up
the waters in his thick clouds; and
the cloud is
not rent under them: he
holdeth back the face of
his throne, and
spreadeth his cloud upon it.”
This
surely must allude to the separating of the waters above
the firmament from the waters under the firmament. And as to
these last, the description
proceeds, “He hath compassed the waters with
bounds, until the day
and night come to an end” (Job
26: 8-10). So, also, in
another
place, the Lord, challenging vain man to answer Him,
asks, “Who shut up
the sea with doors, when
it brake forth as if it
had issued out of the womb; when
I made the
cloud the garment thereof, and
thick darkness a
swaddling band for it?” Here we have plainly the
firmament
dividing the waters. And
I “brake up for
it,”
for the sea
that once covered the earth, “my decreed place, and
set
bars and doors, and
said, Hitherto shalt
thou come, but
no farther; and here
shall thy proud waves be
stayed.” Here we have
with equal plainness the gathering
together of the waters and the appearing of the dry land
(Job 38: 8-11).
The
same twofold process in disposing of the waters is
indicated by the psalmist; -
“0
give thanks therefore to him, that
by his Wisdom
made the heavens, for
his mercy endureth forever”
(Psa. 136:
5, 6); - and by the
Apostle Peter; - “By the word
of the Lord, the
heavens were of old, and
the earth, standing
out of
the water and in the water” (2
Pet. 3: 5).
(3) In the third place, on the fourth day, the heavenly
bodies, in their relation to this earth, are formed or
adjusted. The
light, hitherto supplied by the immediate
presence of the WORD,
which had gone
forth on the first day - the very Glory of the Lord,
which long afterwards
shone in the [Page
24]
wilderness, in the temple, and on the
Mount of Transfiguration, and which may [will] yet again illumine the world - the light, thus originally
provided without created instrumentality, by the LIVING WORD Himself, now that the chaotic mists are cleared away
from
the earth’s surface, is to be henceforward dispensed
through the natural agency
of second causes. A
subordinate fountain
and storehouse of light is found for the earth.
The light is now concentrated in the sun, as its
source, and in the moon
and stars, which reflect the sun’s beams; and these
luminaries, by their fixed
order, are made to rule and regulate all movements here
below (Ps. 104:
19-23). They
are
appointed “for signs,”
- not for tokens
of divination (Isa. 44:
25; Jer.
10: 2),
- but
for marks and indications of the changes that go on in
the natural world; - and
“for seasons,” - for the
distinction of day and
night, of summer and winter, seed-time and harvest (Jer.
31: 35). Again,
therefore, let us “give thanks
to him that made great lights, for
his mercy
endureth forever; the
sun to rule by day,
for his mercy endureth forever;
the moon and stars to rule by
night, for his mercy
endureth forever” (Ps.
86: 7-9).
Thus, all things are ready for living beings to be formed -
those
living beings which belong to the social economy of
which MAN is head.
3.
Accordingly, LIFE - life in abundance - is now produced.
For the Eternal
Word, or Wisdom
(Prov. 8:
22-31),
in the
whole of this work of creation, in which He was
intimately present with the
Father, rejoiced especially in the earth as habitable;
and above all, “his delights
were with the sons of men.” In the first
place, in
the waters, and from the waters, He causes fishes and
fowls to spring: - fishes
to move in the bosom of the sea, and fowls to float in
the liquid air and fly
abroad in the open firmament of heaven.
This He does on the fifth day (ver.
20-33). Secondly, on
the sixth, He causeth all beasts
to be produced from the earth (ver.
24, 25). And, in the
third place, on the sixth day
also, He creates MAN
(ver. 26,
27).
These three orders or classes of living beings are severally
pronounced good, But man is specially blessed (ver.
26, 27). There is
deliberation in heaven respecting
His creation: “Let us
make man.”
He is
created after a high model – “after our
likeness.”
He
is invested with dominion over the
creatures: “Let them have dominion over the fish
of the sea, and over
every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.”
He is formed for
holy matrimony, for dwelling
in families: “male and female” - one male and one female - “created he them.”
Thus, in four particulars, is man exalted above the other
animals. In
the first place, the
counsels of the Godhead have respect to man.
To his creation, as well as to his redemption,
the Father, the Son, and
the Holy Ghost consent.
Then, secondly,
the image of God is reflected in him, - in his capacity
of intelligence, his
uprightness of condition, and his immaculate purity of
character, - in his
knowledge, righteousness, and holiness (Eph.
4: 24;
Col. 3:
10).
A
third distinction is, that the other animals are
subjected to him, - not
to his tyranny as now, but to his mild
and holy rule; - as they shall be when sinners are
consumed out of the earth,
and the wicked are no more (Ps.
54: 35;
8: 6-8; Rom.
8: 20-22).
While his fourth and final [Page
25]
privilege is, that marriage, and all
its attendant blessings of society, are ordained for
him. This
the prophet Malachi testifies, when, sternly rebuking his countrymen for the
prevailing sin of adultery and the light use of divorce,
he appeals against the
man who shall “deal treacherously with the wife of
his youth,” – “his
companion and the wife of his covenant,” - to the
original design and purpose
of God in creation. “Did
not he make one?”
- a
single pair, - “yet had he
the residue of the spirit,” - the excellency or abundance of the breath of life. “Wherefore,
then, did
he make one?”
- limiting Himself to the creation of
a single pair? - “That he might seek a goodly seed,” - or in other
words, that holy
matrimony, - based upon the creation of the one male and
the one female, and
the destination of them to be “one flesh,” - might purify and bless the social state of man (Mal. 2:
14-16).
Such was the primitive constitution of life in this
world. Man
stood forth, godlike and
social, having under him, as in God’s stead, all the
creatures; and for his
life, and for theirs, that food was appointed which the
earth was to bring
forth (ver. 29,
30).
The two previous stages in the creation are
subservient to this
last. Light
and order are means, in
order to life, which is the end.
Life -
animal, intellectual, moral, spiritual, social, divine -
life is the crown and
consummation of all.
The Creator beholds
it, and is satisfied, and rests.
“Thus the heavens and the earth were
finished, and all the
host of them.
And on the seventh
day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And
God blessed the
seventh day,
and sanctified it;
because that in
it
he had rested from all his work which God
created and made” (Gen.
2: 1-3).
The rest of God is not
physical
repose after weariness or fatigue, nor is it absolute
inactivity.
During all the period of His rest, from that
first day of rest downwards
until now, He worketh still (John
5: 17); and
He must continually work for the
continual preservation of His creatures (Ps.
104: 28,
29).
But He
pauses from His work of creation, - from the creation of
new kinds and orders
of beings; though He still carries on His work of
providence. He
rests from all His work which He has
made. He
rests and is “refreshed”
(Exod. 31:
17). And His original
day
of rest is blessed and sanctified.
Into the rest of God, with all its blessedness and sanctity,
man at first might enter; and hence the seventh day, as
the day which was the
beginning of the rest of God, became the “Sabbath made for man” (Exod. 20: 11;
Mark 2: 27).
To the people of God still, in every age, there is a
promise left, that they shall again enter into his
rest.
And the
promise is still
subsisting. For
the rest of
[Page 26]
Such is the
unanswerable reasoning, as it would seem of the inspired
apostle, founded upon
the Lord’s appeal to the Israelites,
when He exhorts
them to hear His voice.
“Harden not your heart,” is the voice of
God, their Maker, “as your fathers
did, who provoked me
in the wilderness, and to whom I sware
in my wrath that they should not enter into my rest.” Harden not your hearts, lest you also come short of that [future] rest. But were not they who were thus
addressed already in possession of that rest into which
God sware that their
fathers should not enter?
Certainly
they were, [with the exception the accountable
generation who perished in the wilderness] if that rest was the rest of
Now this [future] rest has been long prepared. For
“the works were finished from the
foundation of the
world; and he
spake
in a certain place of the seventh day on this wise,
and God did rest on the
seventh day from all his works” (Heb.
4: 3,
4).
Of this original rest it is, and not of any
image
of it afterwards appointed, that God speaks when He
says, “If they shall enter into my rest.” No rest hitherto given on earth, either by Joshua to the Old Testament
Church, or by Jesus to the New, is or can be the rest
of God, into which His
people, if they come not short through unbelief, are
to enter. That
rest remaineth for them, after they have
ceased from their works, as God did from His (Heb.
4: 10). And the type
or pledge of it remaineth also;
- perpetual and unchangeable, as the promise of the rest
itself; - the type and
pledge of it, instituted from the beginning, in the
hallowed rest of the weekly
Sabbath.
Through the help of this Sabbatic Institution, if only we
obtain a spiritual and sympathizing insight into its
significancy, we may enter
into the rest of God by faith, and in the spirit, even
now, as we realize the
blessed complacency of the Creator, rejoicing in his
works.
Pause, therefore, 0 my soul! at every stage of the wondrous
process
here described, and especially at its close; and behold
how good it is! See
how all was fitted for thee; and what a
being art thou, so fearfully and wonderfully made (Ps.
139: 14);
thyself
a little world; and for thy sake this great world made! How marvellous
are God’s works! How
precious also are thy thoughts unto me, 0
God! Let me
see, as God saw, everything
which He has made.
Behold, it is very
good. And
blessed and joyful is the rest
which succeeds.
Man, however, who was [created to wear] the
crown, has become the curse of
this earth.
[Page 27]
The work of God has been destroyed; and He must create
anew. And
it is, first of all, man
himself that He must remodel and reform. The
chaos now is not in matter but in mind,
- not in the substance of this earth, but in the soul of
man. In
that world now there is darkness,
disorder, death. But
“in the WORD
is
life.”
And, in the first place, “the life is
the light of men.”
He shines into
the darkened understanding, and all is light – “For God, who
commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to
give the light of the knowledge
of the glory
of God
in the face of Jesus Christ”
(2 Cor.
4: 6).
The glory of God, the true and living God, is
seen in the Living
Incarnate Word, the man Christ Jesus, the light of life,
the author of
salvation. “I have heard of thee with the
hearing of the ear, but
now mine eyes seeth thee” (Job 42: 5)
- seeth thee in Christ, the Holy One,
the just, the Saviour.
Again, secondly, by the same Living Word, the disorder of the
soul is remedied. Christ,
the Sun of
Righteousness, - God in Christ, - becomes the centre of
attraction. Away
from that centre, all the powers of the
soul move and mingle irregularly.
Restore the balance, by making God supreme, and
all again is adjusted
rightly; things above and things below are separated;
the inconstant waves of
passion retire, and leave the solid ground of principle;
and the glory of
heaven rules and bless the whole man.
Finally, in the third place, the end of all this is life, - the life of the soul, - its life
with Christ in God (Eph.
2: 1;
Col. 3:
3).
Now the
life of the soul is love, - for the soul lives in being
loved, and in loving;
and God is revealed to the darkened soul, and restored
to His supremacy in the
disordered soul, in
order that the dead
soul may be quickened, so as to feel and return
His love.
Such is the new creation of the soul, after the image of God,
in respect of knowledge or light, righteousness or
order, and holiness or life,
which is love. And
this new creation
being finished, a new rest follows; a rest of God; a
rest in God; a rest with God; - as now a
reconciled Father and
all-satisfying portion.
Into this rest
let my weary spirit enter.
It is mine in
Christ, in whom, believing, I am created anew.
“Return unto thy rest, 0
my soul, for the Lord
hath
dealt bountifully with thee” (Ps.
116: 7).
But after
all this, and beyond it
all, there still “remaineth a rest for the people of
God.” For we cherish the sure hope,
that
when this work of new creation in the souls of the
redeemed shall be ended, the
face of the earth itself shall be again renewed for their
habitation; and
the Lord shall again
rest, and rejoice in
all that He has made, blessing and hallowing a new and better Sabbath in our regenerated world (Ps. 104:
30).
Meanwhile, the primitive institution of the Sabbath, - as the
sign of that rest into which spiritually and by faith we
enter now, as well as
the foretaste of the rest which remaineth for us in the
world to come, ‑
is surely a delightful truth; and its observance cannot
but be a precious
privilege. This
world, with all that it
contains, was made for man.
Man himself
was made for God, for entering into God’s rest.
And that he might all the better do so, the
Sabbath was made for
him. “God blessed the [Page 28] Sabbath-day and hallowed it.” The blessing is
not recalled, the consecration is not repealed.
There remaineth a rest unto the people of
God, - and a day of rest. Let us
not
fall short of the rest hereafter.
Let us not despise the [future] day of rest now.
*
*
*
CHAPTER 3
THE
CREATION OF MAN VIEWED AS ON THE
SIDE OF EARTH; AND HIS EARTHLY ORIGIN AND RELATIONS
GENESIS 2: 4-25
This is a
separate and independent account of the origin of man;
quite distinct, and
meant to be distinct, from the former.
The two, when fairly viewed, are not at all
inconsistent with one
another: they are rather supplementary to one another. In the first,
man comes forth in his high
spiritual or heavenly nature, as allied to God and
capable of intercourse with
God; in the second he appears as “of the earth, earthy” (1
Cor. 15: 47); [See “Life
in a Risen Saviour,” where I have
expounded this
passage.] having an earthly origin and earthly
relations. He
is godlike, in respect of the divine
proposal and decree, - “Let us make man in our image,
after
our likeness.” But he is also
“a living soul;” an animal like
his co-occupiers of
the earth; with animal propensities and animal
connections. And
it is that aspect of his nature and
condition which this chapter brings out, to balance the
higher ideal suggested
by the narrative that precedes it.
This may partly explain a puzzle which was once more
troublesome than it is likely to be now.
For it is to be observed, that throughout this
last account, God is
called by a name not used in the preceding section; the
name “Lord,”
or “Jehovah,”
being joined to the name “God.”
The reason may be this.
The
single name “God,”
denoting power or might, is
more suitable while the process of creation, by God’s
mighty power, is
described, as it were, on the side of His sovereign
creative fiat, “Let it be,”
“Let us make.” Now,
however,
in reviewing the work as complete, and entering into its
providential phase,
the additional idea involved in the name “Jehovah”
- that of self-existence and
unchangeable majesty, with special reference to His
providence - becomes
appropriate. All
things are made by Him
as the Almighty God.
They subsist by Him
as being also the everlasting Jehovah, “the same yesterday, today,
and forever.” “I
am Jehovah, I change
not;
therefore ye sons of Jacob are
not consumed” (Mal.
3: 6).
A similar distinction is intimated in the Lord’s first
introduction of Himself to Moses (Exod. 6:
3); “I
appeared unto Abraham, unto
Isaac, and unto Jacob,
by the name of God Almighty,
but
by my name Jehovah was I not known to them.” In
His dealings with Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob, God [Page
29] chiefly
manifested Himself as the
Almighty Creator. In
what He did, and in
what He promised, He asserted His prerogative of
omnipotence. In
His dealings, again, with the Israelites
in
In this chapter, the state of things on the earth at its first
creation is briefly described.
“These are the
generations,”
-
or, as we would say, the following is the account of the
original condition, - “of the heavens
and of the earth when they were created, in the
day that the LORD
God made the earth
and the heavens” (ver.
4). Such is the usual
beginning of a new section in the narrative, - the title
or heading of a new
chapter. Whenever the inspired compiler or historian
opens a fresh fountain in
the stream of his annals, he employs the formula of
genealogical succession or
derivation: “These are the generations.”
In the present instance, this formula introduces a description
of the world, both natural and moral, as it stood
completely adjusted, on the
day of the finished creation.
1.
The economy of the kingdom of
inanimate nature, or of the vegetable world, was fitted
at once to maintain the
sovereignty of God, and to provide for the welfare of
man, viewing man as a
compound being, having both body and soul.
“The LORD
God made
every plant of the field before it was in the earth,
and every herb of the field
before it grew: for
the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth,
and there was not a man to till
the ground.
But there went up a
mist from the earth, and
watered the whole face
of the ground.
And the LORD
God
formed man of the dust of the ground, and
breathed
into his nostrils the breath of life; and
man
became a living soul” (ver.
5-7).
Three things, it is here implied, are ordinarily necessary to
the growth of plants and herbs: - soil, climate, and
culture. The
vital energy of the earth itself, in
which all various seeds are lodged, is the first element
(ver. 5).
The
influence of rain and dew from heaven comes next (ver.
6).
And lastly, there must be superadded the labour
of the hand of man (ver.
7 compared
with ver. 5).
This is the law of nature, or rather of nature’s God.
Originally, only the first of these powers
could be in action; and, therefore, it is probable that,
at the first, God
created the plants and herbs, or caused them to spring
up, in full maturity, so
as to fit the new, or renewed, earth for the immediate
use of the animals, and
also to prepare its soil for the subsequent operations
of heaven’s genial
moisture, and man’s faithful husbandry. Afterwards, the
mist or vapour from the
earth supplied the watery sky.
And
finally, the forming hand and inspiring Spirit of God
brought forth man, - a
corporeal and spiritual being, - having bodily powers
and mental [Page 30] intelligence, - having life, both animal and rational.
He was thus fitted to till the ground; and
the employment was fitted for him.
The
energies of his bodily frame were exercised by labour;
while his spirit was
exercised by the intelligence and the faith which the
particular kind of labour
assigned to him required.
He was placed
in his true position.
He was conscious at once of mastery over the earth which he was to till
- and of dependence on the heaven from whence he was
to expect the influence
that alone could bless his toil.
He had
to work and to wait.
It was a wholesome
discipline; it was a becoming attitude then.
It is so still. Our business now is to
realize that very position in the
kingdom of grace, which man at first held in the
kingdom of nature.
It is the position of working and waiting.
“Be patient, therefore,
brethren, unto
the coming of
the Lord.
Behold the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it,
until he receive the early and latter rain.
Be
ye also patient.
Stablish
your hearts, for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh”
(James 5: 7).
2.
The moral world also, - the
spiritual kingdom, was rightly adjusted.
(1) Man, as a sentient being, was placed in an
earthly paradise (ver.
8-15). (2) As
a rational and religious being, he was subjected to a
divine law (ver. 16, 17). (3) As
a social, or companionable being, he was furnished with
human fellowship (ver.
18-25).
(1) In the first place, provision was made for his wellbeing,
as a sentient creature.
He was placed in
the garden of Eden; and
Many have laboured to ascertain the site of Eden; and so
various and doubtful have been the opinions formed, that
some have regarded the
countries and rivers here named as no longer existing;
the deluge, as is
supposed, having swept away all the ancient landmarks. But although
several of the marks given by
the sacred historian may have been obliterated and lost,
through convulsions of
nature and the hand of man, his description is so
circumstantial that it must
be intended to point out, even since the flood, the
place where
Meanwhile, in a vague and general way, the most learned and
laborious researches seem to fix down the site of Eden
to some part of the
region [Page 31] which the Euphrates and its kindred streams water, as
they fan into the Persian Gulf (Gen.
25: 18;
Dan. 10:
4).
The
Ethiopia, or Cush, spoken of in the thirteenth verse, is
not the region in
Africa known under that name, but a territory in Asia,
embracing the country of
the Midianites and part of Arabia (Numb.
12: 1;
Exod. 2:
21).
Hence it is not impossible, nor by any means unlikely, that in the
latter days the place where Eden was, - bordering on
the limits of the promised
land as the original grant to Abraham extended it
eastward (Gen. 15), - may
be destined yet to come again into note, as sharing
the final fortunes of that
land, whatever these may be (Ps.
72: 8). And for this
end, perhaps, it has pleased God
to give this geography of it beforehand, by which it may
be known when the
history of this earth is to be wound up.
In this garden, then, man was placed, not for idleness; his
animal and sentient constitution does not fit him for
being happy in idleness;
but for an easy charge and for pleasant labour; to dress
and keep a garden,
spontaneously fruitful in trees pleasant to the sight,
and good for food; - “And the Lord
God took the man, and
put him into the garden of
Eden to dress it and to keep it” (ver.
15). Thus, in the
lowest
view of his nature, as an animal being or “living soul,”
man was so situated, that his tastes
and talents, - his powers and susceptibilities, - were
exercised and satisfied
to the very utmost measure of perfection in the
creature.
(2) In respect also, secondly, of the highest as well as the
lowest
part of his frame, man found in paradise his right
place, - the place of free
and accountable subjection to his Maker.
He was made to feel his dependence, and to
recognize his responsibility.
He was under law.
“And out of the ground made the Lord
God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight,
and good for food; the tree of
life also in the midst of the garden, and
the
tree of knowledge of good and evil.
And the Lord God
commanded the man, saying,
Of every tree of the garden
thou mayest freely eat: but
of the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil, thou
shalt not eat
of it: for in the day
that thou eatest thereof,
thou shalt surely die” (ver.
9, 16,
17).
There was a covenant; and there were the sacraments of a
covenant, - the signs and seals of it.
These were two; the tree of life, and the tree of
the knowledge of good
and evil.
Every covenant between God and man has two parts - a promise,
and a requirement or condition.
And
hence every covenant may have two sacraments, - the one,
chiefly a sign and
seal of the thing promised; the other, chiefly a sign
and seal of the thing
required. In
that first transaction, the
tree of life was the sacrament, or the sign and seal, of
the thing promised and
guaranteed by God to man in paradise, - which was life [and fellowship
with God]. The other tree was the
sacrament,
or the sign and seal, of the thing required, - which was
perfect obedience, to
be tested and proved by abstinence from a single
specified act of disobedience.
Thus, also, in regard to the new covenant, - the covenant of
grace and salvation made with Christ, and with His
people in Him - there are
two parts, a promise and a requirement.
The promise is the restoration and support of
life; and the requirement
is union with Christ by faith, or the personal
application and appropriation of
the righteousness wrought out, [Page
32]
and the redemption purchased, by
Him. There
are, accordingly, two
sacraments, alike under the Levitical and under the
Christian form of that
covenant. The
sacrament of the Passover,
or of the Lord’s Supper, is mainly the sign and seal of
the thing promised, - a
new life, and the sustaining of it, by feeding upon the
Lamb that was slain to
procure it. The
sacrament of
Circumcision, or of Baptism, on the other hand, is the
sign and seal of the
thing required, - the cutting off of the corruption, or
the washing away of the
guilt of the flesh.
This is really
effected through faith in Him who has taken away sin by
the sacrifice of
Himself. With
Him, in His death and in
His rising again, the believer is now identified.
And of this identification, Circumcision or
Baptism is the symbolic pledge.
According to this analogy, man had in paradise an outward and
sensible pledge and token, both of the blessing
promised, and of the terms on
which it was promised.
The tree of life evidently typified and represented that
eternal life which was the portion of man at first, and
which has become in
Christ Jesus his portion again.
It is
found, accordingly, both in the [earthly] paradise which was lost, and in the [earthly] paradise which
is [to be] regained. For “saith
the Spirit
to the churches,
To
him that
overcometh
will I give to
eat of
the tree of life which is in the midst of the garden”
(Rev. 2:
7). The
garden
becomes at last a city, for the multitude of the [overcomers]
redeemed
to dwell in; and “in the midst
of the street of it is the tree of life,”
and “blessed are they who have right to
it” (Rev. 22: 2,
14).
By the use of this tree of life in paradise, man
was reminded
continually of his dependence.
He had no
life in himself. He
received life at
every instant anew from Him in whom alone is life. And of this
continual reception of life, his
continual participation of the tree of life was a
standing symbol.
Again, by the other sacramental tree, man is reminded of what
is his part in the covenant, or of the terms on which he
holds the favour of
his God which is his life.
The fatal
tree is to him, even before his fall, in a certain sense
the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil.
It is a
standing memorial of the reality of the distinction. It suggests
the possibility of evil, -
of disobedience, - which otherwise, in the
absence of all lust, might not occur.
And so it is a test and token of his submission
to his Maker’s
will. Hence
the fitness of this
expedient, as a trial of man’s obedience.
If he was to be tried at all, it could scarcely,
in paradise, be
otherwise than by means of a positive precept.
And the more insignificant the matter of that
precept was, the better
was it fitted for being a trial; - the less was the
temptation beforehand; and
the greater, consequently, the sin.
Such
a tree, then, might well serve the purpose intended. It might seal
and ratify man’s compliance
with the will of God, and his enjoyment of the life of
God, Or, on the other
hand, it might occasion his sin and his death. [See
Lectures (the Cunningham
Lectures) on the Fatherhood of God; appendix 4.]
Thus man, in paradise, could not live without God.
He could not but recognize God as placing him
in the garden, giving him work to do, and all the trees
of the garden to
enjoy. He
could not fail to recognize
God also, as dispensing life to him continually and
requiring from him
continually a perfect obedience. Such
is
the true original position of man in respect of [Page 33] his Maker; a
position of grateful and
cheerful dependence.
In this position he
has the fullest scope for delighting in God, admiring
His works, enjoying His gifts,
and partaking of His life.
And yet he
can never fail to recognize, in its utmost extent, the
sovereignty of God;
having the sign of the Divine authority and his own
subjection ever in his eye
and within his grasp.
It was a high position.
But he who is least in the
(3) Lastly, in the third place, man in paradise was a social,
as well as a sentient and religious being: and in
respect of this part also of
his nature, God provided for him.
Among
the lower animals, man could claim subjects, to whom, in
token of his
authority, he gave names (ver.
19, 20). But he could
recognize no fellow; “there was not
found an help meet for him” (ver.
20).
He needed an equal.
And one was
found for him; - “The Lord God said, It
is not
good that the man should be alone; I
will make
him an help meet for him” (ver.
18); not a servant, not an inferior, but a companion - another
self - whom he must love and cherish as his own body (Eph.
5: 28). Out of his
very ribs, accordingly, a spouse
was formed for him; and Adam welcomed her as part and
parcel of himself; - “This is now
bone of my bone, and
flesh of my flesh: she
shall be called Woman, because
she
was taken out of Man” (ver.
23). Hence arose an
intercourse, pure and blessed, without sin and without
shame (ver. 24,
25).
Blameless and fearless, the two walked together
in the sight of Him who
made them for one another, and made both of them for
Himself.
Such were the first parents of our race, in their state of
probation; happy in their outward circumstances - in
their relation to God -
and in their union with one another.
Thus, in the most favourable circumstances, the
experiment was tried, of
the ability of man, in his best estate, to live, and to
retain life, on the
terms of a covenant of works.
Even in
his state of innocency, the law could not save him, in
that “it was weak
through the flesh,” - through his liability to sin (Rom. 8: 3). And if it
would not do for man then, how much
less will it do for us now?
How true
must it be, that a mere legal enactment - the mere
peremptory enforcement of a
law - instead of insuring compliance, will provoke and
stimulate opposition in
our nature? Let us thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord,
that in Him in whom there is to us now no
condemnation, we are placed at once, if
we believe, on a better footing, in
this respect, than Adam himself ever held.
The
second Adam, substituting His
own righteousness for ours, - and the free grace of
God instead of any
prescribed or stipulated condition on our part, -
enables us in a new spirit
and with a new heart, upright and sincere, to serve
God, without fear, in
holiness and righteousness before Him, all the days
of our life.
It is true that, although thus far delivered, - set free from
the sentence of condemnation and blessed with the first
fruits of the Spirit, -
we are
constrained to sympathize with
the groans of creation, which has been [Page 34] made subject to vanity, for man’s sake. The
painful
sweat of the brow and the sad cry of famine among the
weary children of labour,
- hard, precarious, ill-requited labour, - too
frequently present a far
different picture from the scene of peace and plenty
which the young and fresh
world displayed; and even at the best, they who are most
at ease have weariness
of spirit as their portion here below.
Where are the rich plains and golden streams of
paradise? Where
its simple innocence, and the tree in
whose fruit was life ever fresh and new? Would the
beasts and the fowls now
flock at man’s call around him, to rejoice in his
presence and await his
pleasure? The
few who can now be brought
to dwell at home with him, serve but to show how happy
this intercourse might
have been; and even these few fare but miserable at his
hands; while the
greater number fly at his approach, or scowl in defiance
against him. And
how is the social economy deranged and
out of joint! The very love of husband and wife itself
is dishonoured. Even
into holy marriage, and its kindred ties
of family and of brotherhood, the taint or suspicion of
sin’s poison is
insinuated. Every
where corruption is
felt, or feared; and all have learned to be ashamed.
But it shall not be always thus. A new world is to arise. “The earth shall yield her increase,” and “God’s blessing” shall be added, when “he shall judge the
people righteously, and govern the nations upon earth” (Ps. 67:
4, 6). The creatures shall again rejoice under man’s dominion, when
He who was “made a
little lower than the angels, and
then crowned
with glory and honour,” receives “praise out of the mouth of babes and sucklings,” - the little children of whom His kingdom is composed, - and “stills the enemy and the avenger” (Ps.
8; Heb.
2).
And
then also, they who are accounted worthy to receive that world, and the
resurrection [out] from the dead, shall neither marry nor be given in marriage,
neither shall they any more be liable to death, for
they shall be as the angels
of God
(Luke
20:35, 36).
Then shall be realized what some impious dreamers would affect to aim at now;
and plenty, peace, and purity shall reign.
Then may those laws and institutions be safely dispensed with or disparaged,
which at present restrain the lawless passions that
otherwise would make this
earth a hell. But woe to all who would
prematurely touch these safeguards, whether with the
rude hand of violence, or
the more refined and subtle influence of a factitious
sanctity and a spurious
kind of purity, - such as, at the best, is but an
unequal warfare with the
impure. Woe
to those who remove
landmarks, or encourage insubordination, or despise
holy marriage, whether for
the license of unbridled lust, or in vain idolatry of
the virgin state.
The present ordinance of God on this earth enjoins labour,
with its attendant right of property, - dominion. with
its distinction and
gradation of orders, - and matrimony, with its train of
blessed charities.
These are the very bulwarks of the social
fabric. And
however much all of them are
now affected by the character of vanity to which the
whole creation is
subjected, they are the only alleviations of its groans. They are the
remnants of a better order of
things; and, through the grace and blessed hope of the
Gospel, they become the
pledges to the redeemed, of a happier industry, a more
peaceful reign, and a
purer fellowship, when Christ shall [Page 35] have subdued all things to Himself, and the universal song shall be: “0 LORD our Lord, how
excellent
is thy name in all the earth!” (Ps. 8).
*
*
*
CHAPTER 4
DEVOTIONAL
AND
PROPHETIC VIEW OF THE REATION, BEING AN APPENDIX TO THE
TWO PRECEDING
PAPERS
PSALM 104
This
psalm is, as I understand it, a Meditation on the work
of creation, and on the
earth as it
came from its Maker’s
hands, and as it may once again appear, when He renews its face.
It may be used without violence as a devotional
accompaniment to the
historical record in the beginning of Genesis.
It may fill our hearts and mouths with praise, as
we dwell on the
wondrous details of that first manifestation of the
glory of God; while
it carries forward our glowing hopes
to still more illustrious manifestations of the same
glory yet to come.
When and by whom it was composed, is altogether uncertain. Some have
argued, from the entire absence of
any allusion to Jewish rites, or to events in Jewish
history, that it must be a
patriarchal song of praise, indited before
The explanation, probably, is, that God’s discovery of Himself
in the redemption from
In the very first utterance of praise with which this psalm
opens, the devout worshiper hails his triumphant King, -
“Bless the
Lord, 0 my soul. 0
Lord, my God, thou art very great;
thou art clothed with honour and
majesty” (ver.
1).
Have we not here the believer welcoming his
expected Lord? The
loyal subject bursts forth into admiring
strains of joy, as he beholds his Sovereign and Saviour,
long hidden, but now
at last revealed
in his glory.
Especially, if we connect this psalm with
that which precedes it, - as the singular coincidence of
the one in its close,
and the other in its commencement, “Bless the Lord, 0
my soul,” would lead us to do, - we
cannot
fail to recognize the real scene of this magnificent
ode as laid in the
latter days upon the earth.
That psalm - the hundred and third - most pathetically
describes the dispensation of grace under which we are
now placed. In
it the believer gratefully recounts all
the Lord’s benefits of which he is already made a
partaker - the pardon of sin
- the healing of his nature’s disease - his redemption
from wrath - his
possession of the Lord’s crowning favour and love - his
contented satisfaction
with the portion allotted to him - and the renewal of
his youth day by day (Ps.
103: 33).
Further, he expresses his confidence in the
Lord’s providential
government of the world (ver.
6-14). He appeals to
the experience of God’s rule
over Israel (ver. 7);
and he specially describes the nature of the Divine
administration, and the
principles which regulate the present dealings of God
with the children of men;
- these principles being substantially two, - that of
longsuffering patience
toward all (ver. 8,
9), and that of
special and distinguishing
grace towards His people (ver.
10).
This
grace, in its source and manner, is as far above their
desert, or even their
comprehension, as the heaven is above the earth (ver.
11).
In its result or effect it fully and freely
justifies the sinner, -
making as complete a separation between him and his
guilt, as there is between
the rising and the setting sun (ver.
12).
And
moreover, in its continual exercise, it goes forth in
movements of tenderest
sympathy and concern, as the grace of one who is touched
with the feeling of
man’s infirmity (ver.
13, 14). Such grace,
thus tender and sympathizing, is
peculiarly needed; since, even in his best estate, man
is altogether vanity (ver.
15, 16). Even
the believer, calling upon his soul to bless the Lord
for the inestimable
present benefits of grace and salvation, groans under
his subjection to vanity
and death (Rom. 8:
23).
But he comforts himself; first, with the general assurance, that the
Lord is faithful and true, - that He is the same
yesterday, today, and forever
(ver. 17,
18); and then, more particularly, with the anticipation of the
Lord’s future and glorious [millennial]* kingdom (ver.
19).
[*
For, if
we
suffer with Him, we shall also, at that time,
be glorified and
allowed to reign with Him, (Rom.
8: 17b;
Rev. 2:
10.)]
[Page 37]
Here is the salvation by hope, of which Paul speaks (Rom. 8:
24).
The
believer, out of the very depths of his depression, -
groaning within himself
by reason of vanity, - sees the coming glory. “The Lord hath prepared his throne in the heavens.”
Shall we say that, being already prepared in the heavens, that throne
is soon to be revealed as coming down to this earth? It is the
throne of God and of the Lamb.
For it is of the Lamb that it is said, that His “kingdom
ruleth over
all” (ver.
19; see
also Rev. 17:
14, and 22:
3).
And what means
the sudden and abrupt
strain of triumph with which the psalm concludes? (ver.
20-22). Why
are the angels summoned - the hosts of the
Lord - and His ministers that do His pleasure?
What is this solemn and sublime occasion, on
which all His works, in
all
places of His dominion, are so loudly, and
as it were, impatiently called to bless Him?
Whence this hallelujah, this emphatic benediction
of thine, 0
soul! but now lost in the complaint that
we are all dust? - “Bless the Lord, 0 my soul!” What is the event on account of which thou hast summoned the
whole creation of God to join with
thee, in so exultingly praising and blessing the Lord?
Shall we say that it is the renewed earth - the new heavens and the new earth - the earth fresh once more from the Creator’s hand; - as on the day when first the morning stars sang together, and all the
sons of God shouted aloud for joy, “and
the Lord saw all that He had made, and
behold it was very good?”
Let the hundred and fourth psalm be the reply.
Observe how, in its opening doxology, it
takes up the dying strain of its predecessor, - seizes
the very note which
closed the preceding song, - and ere its echo has melted
away in silence,
strikes, on the same key, a new and kindred anthem of
praise! “Bless the Lord, 0
my soul!” - so ends the one
psalm. Yes,
- “Bless the
Lord, 0 my soul!”
- so begins the other.
It is plainly a
continuation, - a renewal,
- a
resuming of the same theme.
It is
the believer welcoming his Lord; the
rapt and meditative saint, in prophetic imagination,
as if already risen,
meeting the returning Saviour.
And
with what wonder and adoring rapture is he filled! “0
Lord,
my God, thou
art very
great; thou art
clothed with honour and majesty!”
He sees the Lord
as He is. He
beholds the King in His glory.
“0 Lord,
how great art thou!”
Such being the opening of this psalm, its whole scheme and
structure is in accordance with its commencement. It is a manifestation of the glory of God in creation; - first, in
that original creation of this earth for which the
Eternal Word came forth from
the bosom of the Father; - and subsequently again, in
that new [restored
(Rom. 8:
19-22)] creation
with
a view to which we look for His coming forth yet once
more [to
rule and reign “hereafter”
(Dan. 2:
45; Isa.
27: 6;
9: 7,
R.V.)].
Hence the
description turns upon
that first work of creating power, as the type and
shadow of the other.
It represents the earth, hitherto without
form, void of being, and shrouded in thick darkness, -
changed into the garden
of the Lord, by the introduction successively of light
and order, as
subservient to life.
1. LIGHT breaks in on
the thick gloom of the
chaotic waters. And here, as in Genesis, it is the
glorious Creator Himself Who
is the LIGHT. “Thou [Page 38] coverest thyself with light as with a garment”
(ver.
2). “God said,”
-
His WORD
went forth; - not a dead
utterance, but his WORD;
- and in
the WORD “was
life,
and the life was the light of
men.”
Hence, when “God said,
let there be light,” -
when His living Word, whose
life is light, went forth, - “there was light.”
It is, therefore, at the first, the Light of life that dispels
the darkness, consisting, not in rays emanating from
material luminaries, which
as yet pierced not the dim vapour that enveloped the
earth, - but in the
presence of the Creator Himself.
It is
such light as is to shine in
that day
of which Isaiah
speaks, when he describes the earth reeling to and fro
like a drunkard, and
being removed like a cottage, and the Lord punishing the
host of the high ones,
- and thereafter adds: - “The moon shall be confounded, and
the sun ashamed, because the lord of Hosts shall
reign in mount Zion,
and
in
Jerusalem, and before
his ancients gloriously”
(Isa. 24:
23; see also Isa. 16:
19; and Rev. 21:
23). Thus, when the
Word
goes forth in creation, there is light; - “Thou coverest thyself with light as
with a garment.”
2.
By the same direct and immediate
agency of the creating Word, ORDER,
as
well as LIGHT,
is introduced. He is
Himself the ORDER,
as He is the LIGHT,
of the world. His
very presence implies a right arrangement
and adjustment of the elements of nature, hitherto
blended and confounded in
one watery mass of vapour.
(1) This watery chaos must be reduced to order.
There must be a separation between the upper
material heaven and this lower earth; and on the earth
itself, between the sea
and the dry land. “The
heaven,
even the heavens, are
the Lord’s, but the
earth hath he given to the
children of men” (Ps.
115: 16).
Hence, at His presence, the heavens must be set
in order, as it were,
for Himself, and the earth for the habitation of man.
The Lord appears in royal state, with a retinue of attendant
angels and ministering spirits innumerable; and He and
His train must have fit
accommodation. A
palace, a temple, or at
least a tabernacle, must be prepared for Him.
For this end, the azure sky, with its
many-coloured drapery of clouds,
is formed above the firmament, hanging upon the
expansive air, by which the
vapours above are divided from the denser waters below. The “heavens,”
- the visible arching canopy dwelt in
the bright pillar of cloud, and in the curtained tent in
the wilderness (ver.
2). He has His “chambers” there, with
their “beams laid in
the waters,”
- the
waters above the firmament, - the cloudy vapours which
seem to hide His glory,
as in the recess of the holy place, within the vail (ver.
3). Nor does He want
the
means and instruments of motion when He would arise, He
and the ark of His
strength. He has “a chariot” in the drifting and swift-driving “clouds;”
and the fleet “winds” are His winged
coursers, on which He “walketh” and flieth all abroad (ver. 3). His attendants also are
provided
for and accommodated in His train.
“His angels”
are in the “spirits,”
or breezes as they blow.
“His ministering servants” are in the
lightning’s winged “fire”
(ver. 4).
Thus the Lord, covering Himself with light as with a garment,
uses the upper firmament or heaven, with all its
constituent parts, as His
own. He [Page 39] retains it in
His own hands, and all
its elements He reserves under His own immediate
control: “fire and hail,
snow and vapour, stormy
wind, fulfilling his
word” (Ps. 148: 8). These are not
given to
man to be controlled or managed by him: the Lord and His
angels are ever in the
midst of them.
Hence the solemn awe with which a devout spirit may well
contemplate
the sublime expanse above.
He need not
be ashamed to tremble when the fierce war of the
elemental storm is
raging. He
sees and feels a present God,
and he may think of the day when, in some way even such
as this, the Lord shall
come with innumerable spirits, to judge, to consume, and yet again to renew the earth.
The heaven above being thus prepared as God’s throne, the
earth is ordered as His footstool: its “foundations”
are “laid, that
it should not be removed forever” (ver.
5).
And it is fashioned as a dwelling-place for His
creatures
(ver.
6-13).
The waters under the heaven are gathered into one
place, and the dry
land appears. “The
deep,”
which covered “the earth as
a garment,”
and
whose “waters stood above the mountains,” hastens, at
God’s “voice of
thunder,”
to its
appointed “place” (ver.
6, 7).
Then is seen the graceful alternation of hill and
dale, - the lofty
mountain and the deep-drawn secluded valley (ver.
8, marginal
reading); and
the sea occupies
its proper bed, its “bounded” channels, leaving the earth free from its “returning”
tide (ver. 9).
This also is the Lord’ doing. It is He alone who can limit
ocean’ wide flow, and keep its proud waves in check. In
vain shall the
conqueror of an earthly kingdom, at the bidding of his
crowd of flatterers,
presume to arrest its swelling flood.
It
is the arm of God alone that controls it.
And to prove that it is so, - to
mock
the scoffers who reckon on the stability of nature,
and say all things
continue as they were from the beginning of the
creation, - to show that by
His word alone the earth is kept standing out of the
water and in the water, -
the world is suddenly, by the Lord’s visitation for sin,
overflowed with water
until it perishes; as, for the same cause, it is once
again to be destroyed by
the fire, - unto which, by the same word, it is kept in
store and reserved (2 Pet.
3: 7).
But not only is the dry land separated from the waters of the
sea, - these waters are now themselves made subservient
to its further
preparation for the habitation of life.
Not now rushing over it in an overflowing flood,
but distilling gently
in “springs,” and rivulets, and streams, amidst the “valleys and
hills” (ver. 10), and
descending softly, in
refreshing dews and fertilizing showers, from the
vapoury “chambers”
of the heavens (ver.
13); they
fit the earth for the abode of the “beasts of the field, and
the wild asses” of the desert, and the winged songsters that make all the air
melodious (ver. 11,
12); so that being now ready to be given to man, “the earth is
satisfied with the fruit of the Lord’s works” (ver.
13). Thus the first
stage
in the introduction of order is completed.
(2) The dry land, however, though now separated from the
waters which once overflowed it, and refreshed by the
streams amid the hills
and the rain from heaven, needs yet a further process of
arrangement. Vegetation
must be imparted to it (Gen.
1: 11,
12).
Accordingly, “grass
and herb, for food”
(ver. 14)
- “wine, oil,
and bread” (ver.
15) - “trees
of the Lord,
full of [Page 40] sap,” - “cedars
of
Lebanon, where the
birds may nestle,”
– “fir-trees for the stork;”
- and even in the “high hills”
and the bare and rugged “rocks,”
some coarse and scanty produce which may suffice
for the adventurous “goat”
and the timid “cony;” -
all the seeds of vegetable nature, whether in
the luxuriance of Carmel’s plain and Lebanon’s forest,
or in the desolation of
the rugged and dreary wilderness, - all are stored in
the bounteous bosom of
mother earth, and all for her children’s nourishment.
Such is the second part
of this process of adjustment.
(3) One other arrangement remains to be made.
The light which burst all abroad, wide-spread
and unconfined, on the first coming forth of the living
and creating WORD,
- while, as yet, no rays from any
luminary in the upper sphere could penetrate the
darkness of the chaotic
waters, - is now stored up in the heavenly bodies, and
ordinarily the earth is
to be indebted to
them for this
blessing (Gen. 1:
14-18). This method of
illumination is turned to
account for the distinction of seasons on the earth, -
and especially, for
perpetuating the grateful vicissitude of day and night,
already instituted by
God Himself, that the period of toil might sweetly
alternate with the welcome
season of balmy sleep (ver.
19-23). And here, by a
marvellous economy, provision
would seem to be made, even for the violence with which,
by reason of sin,
earth for a time is filled.
For while
the “roaring” and
ravenous “beasts” find
night their congenial time for roaming,
and shun the cheerful light of the sun; - “man,”
on
the contrary, “goeth forth unto
his work, and to his
labour, until the
evening.”
Thus the entire ordering of the heavens and the earth is
finished; and the devout soul comes to a solemn pause of
wonder, admiration,
gratitude, and joy, - “0 Lord,
how manifold are thy works!
in
wisdom hast thou made them all; the
earth is
full of thy riches” (ver.
24).
The
earth thus illuminated and arranged, having received
light and order, is full
of God’s riches, - richly furnished for the
dwelling-place of man and of
beast. Nay,
the very sea itself,
although it might seem to have been cast off by the
emerging earth as but a worn-out
covering and burdensome encumbrance, which had been
serviceable in the dark and
cold night of chaos, but of which, as the cheering beams
of heavenly light
broke in, it was glad to get rid - even “this
great and
wide sea,” so far from being thrown aside, at
least in the meanwhile, -
for is there not a time coming when “there
shall be no
more sea?” (Rev.
21: 1)
- is
found to teem with manifold wonders of creating wisdom. “The
earth is full of
thy riches.
So is this great and
wide sea.”
Countless myriads of living creatures,
forming part of man’s system or economy, harbour in its
depths, and swarm amid
its shallows (ver. 25).
Its surface is subservient to the use of man,
as it wafts on its wide bosom the busy agents of
commerce, the eager votaries
of science, discovery and adventure, the ministers of
philanthropy, the
messengers of salvation, heralds to all nations of the
tidings of great joy; -
thus uniting distant lands in one holy brotherhood, and
equalizing God’s
benefits over all the earth - “There
go the ships”
(ver. 26). While in its
vast unfathomed caves, far out
of the reach of man, whom he might destroy, sports that
monster, whatever it
may be, which GOD
hath formed, and
God alone can control - meet type of the great enemy
whom God at last is so
signally and terrible [Page
41]
to punish – “There
is that leviathan whom thou hast made to play therein”
(ver. 26. See Job 41
and Isaiah 27: 1).
3.
The light and the order introduced
into the earth are subservient to the life with which it
is to be stored. The
fishes, accordingly, the fowls, and the
beasts of the field, - all the animals with which man is
conversant, and over
which he has dominion, - with MAN
himself, laborious man, the lord of all, have passed in
review before that
devout soul in this psalm.
The whole
glorious work of creation is at an end.
The Sabbatic rest of God succeeds (ver.
27, 28). He rests from
creating; He rests that He may
bless the creatures which He hath made.
“These all,” the
creatures made by Thee,
now “wait upon thee.” They are still
dependent upon Thee.
The Creator has not withdrawn from the world
He hath formed into the mysterious seclusion of absolute
repose, leaving it as
a machine to go on of itself.
“My Father,”
says the blessed Jesus, “worketh
hitherto,” even during His Sabbath of rest, “and I work.”
There is rest, inasmuch as He ceases from
creating. There
is continual work still, inasmuch as He
never ceases to watch over, and preserve, and bless His
creatures. His
Sabbath, so far from precluding, as the
Jews imagined, even the doing of good, may consist in
that very labour. The
Lord rejoices in the rest of a holy
complacency over the works of His hands.
But He continually works in caring for their
well-being. Such
also, - analogous and corresponding to
the Sabbath of the Creator, - is the Sabbath of the
creature. It
consists in fellowship with the rest of
holy complacency into which the Creator entered; and in
caring, as He does, and
working, if need be, for the saving of life, and the
doing of good (Mark 3:
4; John
5: 17).
And now, what a scene is here presented to the eye of the
worshiper in this psalm!
God is present
before him in His glory, in the glory in which He came
forth to this world,
when light began to be - the glory in which He reposed,
when He saw everything that
He had made, and behold it was very good.
What a bright and glowing picture, - God dwelling
with His creatures, -
all of them waiting upon Him, “gathering”
His
manifold “gifts,” and “filled
with the good” that flows from His “open
hand!”
(ver. 27,
28).
But, alas, a change comes over the landscape.
There is a blight in this seemingly serene
atmosphere - a curse on this smiling earth.
“The creation is made
subject to vanity.
It groaneth and
travaileth together in pain.” There is sin, and
death by sin, and a
character of weary and bitter vanity is stamped on all
things here below (ver.
29. See Rom.
8: 20).
Thus, too often, as one may have felt it, when the eye is
filled with the glory of some gorgeous scene of autumnal
riches, spread out in the
plain beneath our feet; and the ear is charmed with the
exuberant melody of a
thousand blended voices in the surrounding groves, and
in the sky, high
overhead; when all the air, on every side, breathes a
balmy peace, and no
sights anywhere appear save only sights of rural
innocence and beauty, of quiet
life and love; when the soul is wrapt in a silent
ecstasy of unspeakable joy -
ah, may not the memory suddenly come over us of some
recent and kindred
deathbed, or some desolate abode of famine, or some
careworn face of woe!
How, in a moment, is the spell broken - the [Page 42] charm dissolved - the glory and the loveliness all melted away!
Yes, surely the earth is cursed for man’s
sake (Gen. 3:
18); the whole
creation is made subject to
vanity. And
“as
for man, his days are
as grass: as a flower
of the field, so
he flourisheth.
For the wind passeth
over it, and
it is gone, and the
place thereof shall know it
no more” (Ps.
103: 15, 16). Sin
has wrought sad havoc and ruin.
It has
caused the Lord “to hide his
face;” and trouble
and decay, vanity and vexation of spirit, change and
death and the dreary
grave, await all the dwellers on the earth.
“Even they who have
received the first fruits of
the Spirit do still groan within themselves” (Rom.
8: 23).
But they “wait for the
manifestation
of the sons of God” (Rom.
8: 19). They “wait
for the
adoption, to wit,
the redemption of the body” (Rom. 8: 23).
And the subjection of the creature to vanity,
is “in
hope” (Rom.
8: 18,
19);
because “the
creature
itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of
corruption into the glorious
liberty of the sons of God.”
At present the sons of
God are hidden: they are His hidden ones.
High as is their rank and marvellous the love of
which they are the objects,
sealed as they are with the Holy Spirit, the first-fruits of their
inheritance, the world knows them not, even as it
knew Him not (1 John 3: 1). “When
Christ, our life,
shall appear,
then
you also
shall appear with Him in glory” (Col.
3: 4). It is for this manifestation, this public appearance, this open acknowledgment of the sons of God, that the earnest expectation of the creature [creation] waits; and into their glorious liberty the creature itself also shall be delivered.
Is not this that new creation [restoration]
of this lower world, which is to fit it for being the home of the Lord’s
redeemed? The present
groans of creation are the pangs
of its coming regeneration.
It is to
come forth again from the hand of the Great Creator,
fashioned gloriously anew;
- even as the
sons of God, for whose
manifestation it waiteth, and into whose liberty it is
to be delivered, are to
have “their vile bodies fashioned
like unto His glorious body, according
to the
working whereby he is able even to subdue all things
unto himself” (Phil.
3: 21). In
the words of the Psalm
(ver.
30)
“He sendeth forth his
Spirit,” ‑
the Spirit which moved on the waters
of old, - and there is again a new “creation.”
He “reneweth the face of the earth.”
Once more
it is such as He can
pronounce to be very good; for it is the new earth
“wherein
dwelleth righteousness.”
“The glory of the Lord
shall endure forever; the
Lord shall rejoice in his works” (ver.
31).
Such is the certainty of
this renewal of the earth. It is bound up with the Lord’s glory enduring forever, and with
His rejoicing in His works.
As surely as His glory must endure forever,
and He must rejoice in His works,
so
surely must He send forth His Spirit, and renew the
face of the earth.
Nor is the manner of this renewal concealed from us.
The earth is shaken, the hills are set on
fire, at the sight and touch of the Lord coming in
judgment (ver. 32).
There is a repetition of the scene with which
the original creation opened; but with an incalculable
increase of glory, the
glory of redeeming grace and love being superadded to
the glory of creating
power. “The Son of man cometh in the
clouds,” – “Making the
clouds His chariot,”
– “in His own glory,” the glory that
is peculiar to Him, as
the [Page 43] only begotten of the Father, God manifest in the flesh, the
Lamb slain for His people, the King and Head of His redeemed: in this glory, which is His own, He cometh, as
well as “in the glory of his Father, and
of the holy angels” (Luke
9: 26). At His
appearance, “the earth
trembleth, and the
mountains smoke.”
There is a dissolution of the elements of nature. The great
globe itself is convulsed and burnt
up with fire. But
the issue is glorious and
blessed. It
is such as to call forth a
new and more rapturous song of praise (ver.
33, 34);
as the
believing soul, rejoicing in the resurrection of the
body and the renewal of
the face of the earth, finds at last an abode of purity
and peace, where before
it experienced so much of the weariness and vanity of
the flesh, and groaned,
being burdened. “I
will sing
unto the Lord as long as I live: I
will sing
praise to my God while I have my being.
My meditation of him
shall be sweet: I will
be glad in the Lord.”
Then the
meek shall inherit the earth
(Ps. 37:
9, 11),
when
“sinners are consumed out of it,
and the wicked are in it no more”
(ver. 35).
Now, while it is subject to vanity and filled
with violence, the meek
have often no refuge from their groanings but the grave,
where “the wicked
cease from troubling and the weary are at rest.” But
it
shall not be always thus. This earth is too
precious in God’s sight to
be wholly given over as reprobate.
It is
precious as the work of His hands, in which at first He
rejoiced. And
it is precious also as the scene of His
Son’s obedience, sufferings, and death, in which He
delighteth still more.
There is a place prepared for the devil and
his angels, into which the ungodly shall be cast.
But
“the
earth is the Lord’s,” and “the
King of glory
shall at last enter in” to possess it (Ps.
24).
“The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof; the
world, and they that dwell therein” (Ps.
24: 1).
He hath “given it” indeed “to the sons of men” (Ps.
115: 16), and grievously have they abused the gift.
But it is the Lord’s still.
He
made it. He
“founded
it upon the seas, and
established it upon the
floods” (Ps.
24:
2). It is His, and He means to claim it as His. It sympathized in darkness with the agony of His cross; and by the
earthquake and the opening of the graves, acknowledged
His victory. Resuming
it therefore out of the hands of
those who have destroyed it, redeeming it and
purifying it anew, He will himself “establish
the mountain of his house in the top of the
mountains, and exalt
it above the hills”
(Isa. 2:
2).
“His tabernacle is to
be with men” (Rev.
21: 3)
“Who,”
then, “shall ascend into the hill of
the Lord? Or who shall
stand in his holy place?”
(Ps. 24:
3). A pertinent and pointed
question.
It is the one question, above all others, which, in
these circumstances, is
worthy of an answer.
And what can the
answer be? If
the earth is the Lord’s,
and if His hill and His holy place are to be there, who
can enter in or abide
but those that are His - that are His fully, honestly,
unreservedly? Uprightness,
sincerity, truth in the inward
parts, is the test or qualification.
There must
be single-eyed honesty
in dealing with men, and in seeking the face of the
God of Jacob (Ps. 24: 4-6).
He alone can enter in “whose heart
is fixed, who desires
one thing of the Lord and
seeks after it,” with singleness of eye and
unity of aim, “even that he may
dwell in the house of the Lord all the days
of his life, to behold
the beauty of the Lord,
and to inquire in [Page 44] his
temple”
(Ps.
27: 4).
This is he who, being justified freely by the
grace of God, receiving a
perfect righteousness and rejoicing in a perfect
reconciliation - moved by the
Spirit to lay aside all guile, and to enter directly and
immediately into the
favour and the service of God, - walks
as
one whose heart is right with God, and consequently,
as to man, is in its
right place. He
is an Israelite
indeed. He is
one of the “meek,” the “merciful,” the “pure in heart,” who are blessed, because they are to “inherit the earth, to obtain mercy,
and to see God” (Matt.
5: 5-8).
With such a train, the Lord is to claim the earth as His
own. When all is ready, when the face of the earth is renewed, and sinners
are consumed out of it, there is a shout heard as
of a rushing multitude
drawing near - the shout of those who have come with the
Lord or met Him in the
air (1 Thess. 4:
16, 17). The earth is
formally summoned to open “her gates,
even her everlasting doors.”
There is an illustrious conqueror waiting to be
admitted. He
enters with his company of risen and
changed saints (1 Cor. 15:
51) He is “the
King of
Glory!” -
He who
spoils principalities and powers, who subdues all things
to Himself, who wrests
from death his sting, and from the grave his victory. He
takes possession accordingly,
as the King of Glory, of His ransomed and recovered earth.
And the humble believer, who has shared the bitterness of His cross, rejoices in His crown. Exulting in the regeneration of
this
earth, and its consecration anew as the Lord’s, he
exclaims, in an ecstasy of
uncontrollable joy, “Bless thou the Lord, 0
my soul!
Praise ye the the Lord” (Ps. 104: 35).
*
*
*
CHAPTER 5
THE
FIRST
TEMPTATION - ITS SUBTLETY AS IMPEACHING THE GOODNESS,
JUSTICE, AND
HOLINESS OF GOD
GENESIS 3: 1-5
But I fear that by some means, as the
serpent deceived Eve in his cunning,
so your thoughts
might be spoiled from the pureness which is due to
Christ. - 2
Corinthians 11:
3.
The
agent in the temptation is undoubtedly not a mere
serpent, but an evil spirit
under the form of a serpent. He possesses and abuses the
powers of reason and
speech. The
serpent was probably by
nature more subtle than any beast of the field; and on
that account this form
may have been selected by the tempter.
But that there was here present one more subtle
still, is plainly to be
inferred, from the repeated allusions to this history in
other parts of the
Bible. Thus
Job speaks of the “crooked
serpent” being made by God’s hand (chap.
26: 13).
Isaiah foretells the punishment of [Page 45] “leviathan,
the piercing serpent - even
leviathan, that
crooked serpent” (chap.
27: 1). And in the Revelation, we
read of “the great
dragon being cast out, that
old serpent, called
the devil and Satan, which
deceiveth
the whole world;” and again, of “the dragon, that
old serpent which is the devil and Satan, being
bound a thousand years” (Rev.
12: 9,
and 20: 2).
All these expressions plainly indicate, that the
great spiritual
adversary of our race; - the Devil, or the calumniator,
traducer, and libeller;
Satan or the enemy; takes one of his titles at least
from the sad transaction
in which, under the form of a serpent, he had so
memorable a share.
Various questions are here raised.
Had the serpent originally the same reptile
and grovelling form which he has now?
Or
is that form the just result and punishment of his
instrumentality in this,
work of the Devil?
How did he
communicate with Eve, so as to suggest thoughts to her
mind? Why
does Moses give no direct notice of the
real nature of this transaction, so as explicitly to
reveal the actual
character of the tempter?
The same remark applies here which I made in regard to the
doctrine of the Trinity.
The written
word was not the commencement of a revelation concerning
God and the spiritual
world. It
was addressed to men who had
already heard of these things.
We should
expect, therefore, that whatever information the
Scriptures give on the great
primary facts of religion, - such as the existence of
God, and of spirits good
and evil, - would be given rather indirectly, in the way
of taking them for
granted, than directly, in the way of positive
announcement. That
it is so, may be regarded as strong
internal evidence of the divine authority of this book;
while as to the
doctrines themselves, it is the most satisfactory of all
kinds of proof to find
them thus all along and all throughout, incidentally and
undesignedly assumed;
rather than formally, as if for the first time, revealed
and taught.
In the present case, the historian relates the scene of the
temptation just as it might pass before the senses;
leaving us to gather from
it, as if we had ourselves been eye-witnesses, of its
true nature, meaning, and
consequences. That
the transaction,
however, was real, cannot be doubted by any who consider
fairly what Christ
says of the author of it, - “he was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth” (John
8: 44); and how Paul speaks of his victims, as “beguiled by
the serpent, through
his subtlety” (2
Cor. 11: 3).
The art of this temptation is very much the same as that which
still prevails over men in whom there is “an evil heart of unbelief in
departing from the living God” (Heb.
3: 12).
It is by arguments of unbelief that the wily
fiend solicits to sin.
1.
Thus, first, he insinuates doubts
regarding the equity and goodness of God: - “Yea, hath God said, Ye
shall not eat of every tree of the garden?” (ver. 1).
Can it be? Has
He really
subjected you to so unreasonable a restraint?
And the insinuation takes effect.
Suspicion begins to rankle in the woman’s breast. In her very
manner of citing the terms of the
covenant, she shows that she is dwelling more on the
single restriction, than
on all the munificence of the general grant.
In the Lord’s first announcement of it, the main
stress is laid upon the
grant. It
is expressed with a studied
prodigality of emphasis; “of every tree of
the garden thou
[Page 46] mayest freely eat.”
And the single limitation is but slightly,
though solemnly, noted; “but of the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil, thou
shalt not eat of it.”
The woman, however, drinking in the miserable
poison of suspicion which
the serpent has instilled, reverses this mode of
speaking. How
disparagingly does she notice the
fullness and freeness of the gift; - “we may eat of the fruit of the trees
of the garden!” That is all the
acknowledgment she makes; and
there is no cordiality in it.
It is not “every tree,”
nor, “we may freely eat;” but, “we
may eat of the fruit of the trees;” - as if the
permission were
grudgingly given; - and as if it were altogether a
matter of course, and even
less almost than her right.
On the other
hand, she dwells upon the prohibition, amplifying it and
magnifying it as an
intolerable hardship; - “but of the fruit of the tree which
is in the midst of the
garden, God hath said,
Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it” (2:
16, 17;
3: 2,
3).
Is not this the very spirit of Jonah, to whom it was nothing
that Nineveh was given him as the reward of his faithful
preaching, if the
gourd that refreshed him was removed?
Is
it not the temper of Haman, who, amid all the riches and
splendour of court
favour, cried out in bitterness of soul; - “All this availeth me nothing, so long as I see Mordecai the Jew
sitting at the king’s gate?”
2.
Then, again, secondly, the tempter
suggests doubts about the righteousness and truth of God
as lawgiver and judge:
“Ye
shall not surely die.” For this he finds the woman
already
more than half prepared.
She very
faintly and inadequately quotes the threat.
She cites God as saying, not “in
the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die,” but far more vaguely, - “lest ye die” (2:
17; 3:
3).
The same feeling of lust after the forbidden
thing which made her
exaggerate the severity of the prohibition, tempted her
to extenuate the danger
of transgression. Of
this tendency,
Satan knows how to avail himself.
You
are right in your half-formed surmises; you may venture
to take the risk; there
cannot really be much sin and danger in so harmless an
act; “ye shall not
surely die” (ver.
4).
3.
For, thirdly, he has a plausible
reason to justify doubt and unbelief on that point. It cannot be
that ye shall be so harshly
dealt with, “for God doth know that in the day ye eat
thereof, then your eyes
shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good
and evil - (ver. 5).
There is great difficulty in conceiving the exact meaning of
this assurance of the tempter, or the precise
expectation or desire it was
fitted to excite in the minds of our first parents. It may be
observed, however, that the
temptation throughout is well adapted to the two parts
of the constitution of
man, the will and the understanding.
Satan proposes to the will more freedom, and to
the understanding more
knowledge, than God saw fit at first to grant.
Has God imposed a restraint upon your will, or
your freedom of choice? -
that is his first suggestion.
He cannot
surely mean to make the increase of your knowledge
fatal; that is his last.
But what increase of knowledge was the eating of the tree to
give?
In reply, let us ask, what did our first parents previously
know upon this subject of good and evil?
In the first place, they knew good, - both the
doing of good, and the
receiving of good, - both obedience,
and
as the [Page
47] fruit of it, happiness. Again, secondly, - they knew
the
possibility of evil, by the prohibition of an act and
the intimation of a
penalty. But,
thirdly, - evil itself
they did not know, having no personal experience of
either the doing or the
suffering of it. This
additional knowledge
Satan promises; and he argues that it cannot possibly
destroy them, since it is
analogous and similar to that of the living God Himself.
Nor is it Satan alone who represents the matter in this light,
else it might be set down as one of his lies. The
Lord God (ver.
22) speaks in the
same way; “the man is
become as one of us, to
know good and evil.”
Some, indeed, regard these words as spoken in
severe irony or sarcasm;
others consider them as stating, not what man actually
became, but what he sought
to become. In
their plain meaning,
however, they convey a far more serious and awful
impression. Man,
when he would be wise, intruded into the
But how, in respect of this knowledge, should he be as
God? The
utmost caution is needed here,
but a thought may be hazarded.
The
Deity, in respect of His omnipresence and omniscience,
being present everywhere
and knowing everything, is intimately and personally
cognizant of evil.
Wheresoever evil is, there God is.
He knows the evil - knows it by real and
actual presence in the evil - is acquainted with it,
more truly than the very
doer of it, or the sufferer of it.
And
it is the prerogative and perfection of God to be thus
ever present where evil
is, intimately, personally, intelligently present, -
thus to know it, and yet
to be holy and to be blessed; to know evil only to hate
it. His
uncreated infinite nature is not
affected. He
knows good and evil, and He
lives evermore, - for He is the Holy One; of purer eyes
than to behold
iniquity. Man,
a created and imperfect
being, would believe that he, too, might safely and with
impunity know evil, as
the Creator must needs know it, by intimate personal
acquaintance with it; that
he might know evil without loving it, or at least
without loving it too much;
without loving it, in the end, more than the Creator
Himself, knowing it as He
does, must be willing, to allow as excusable, and
perhaps inevitable.
Here lies the subtlety of this argument, - “Ye
shall be
as gods, knowing good
and evil,”
as God does; for you will contrive to
persuade yourselves that He knows good and evil, just as
you will do. You
will be as God, - by making Him out to be
such an one as yourselves.
So Satan,
himself better informed, persuades man to believe; that
his holiness is as
inviolable as his Maker’s, or, which is the same thing,
that his Maker’s is as
flexible as his; that the acquaintance with evil which
uncreated perfection
alone can stand, created imperfection may with [Page 48] impunity
covet.
This, then, was the order of the temptation: first, the
goodness of God must be disbelieved; secondly, His
justice; and lastly, His
holiness. It
begins with a rebellion of
the will, or the heart, against the moral attributes of
God, as the Governor of
His creatures. It
ends in blindness of
the understanding, or the mind, as to His essential
perfections as the infinite
and eternal Creator.
God ceases to be
recognized as good, and just, and
holy. Man,
at the suggestion of Satan, would
himself be as good, as just, as holy as God.
1.
He sets up his own goodness against
that of God. Instead
of feeling as the
psalmist did, when he said, “Thou art my Lord, my
goodness
extendeth not to thee” (Ps.
16: 2), or as the Lord
Jesus intimates that a
creature should feel even if he had fulfilled all
righteousness, - accounting
himself “an
unprofitable
servant,
who had done only that which was
his duty to do.” (Luke
17: 10); instead of
this, - instead of thus
magnifying the goodness of the Lord, - man begins to
presume upon his own.
He suspects the Divine love; and so far from
being willing to receive his Maker’s bounty as a free
and unmerited gift, - he
claims it as a right, questions its liberality, and
resents any restriction
upon it as a wrong.
2.
In justice, also, he would cope with
the Almighty; he would be more righteous than God. He presumes to
sit in judgment on the
sentence which the judge of all the earth denounces
against transgression, - to
arraign its equity, and dispute its truth; and, instead
of standing in awe at
the remembrance of what the Lord actually has said, in
which case he would not
have sinned, he reckons on what, as he thinks, ought to
be the Lord’s rule in
dealing with him, and so practically condemns him that
is most just (Job 34:
17).
3.
Finally, he will not see why God
should be more perfect, more pure, and more holy than
himself; why it should be
more dangerous for him than for his Maker to touch what
is unholy, to know what
is evil; why he should not be as God; or, at all events,
why God should not be
as himself. For
if he cannot rise to the
holiness of God, he will bring down that holiness to his
own level; confident
that amid all his acquaintance with the mystery of
iniquity, he may contrive to
retain at least as much holiness as the Creator, knowing
it himself, can fairly
require or expect in his frail and imperfect creature.
What infatuation is here!
What guilt triple-dyed!
What
ungrateful pride! What
presumption and
profanity! - pride, in man’s overweening estimate of his
own worth, presumption
in his daring defiance of God’s righteous judgments,
profanity in measuring
himself by Jehovah, or Jehovah by himself, as if the
high and holy God were
such an one as he!
Such is the art of the first temptation.
Such also is the art of Satan’s temptation
still.
He begins by insinuating distrust of the Lord’s liberal and
bountiful loving kindness, so that the soul frets and
chafes under the
wholesome restraints of duty, and, insensible to the
free grant of all other
trees, takes it amiss that one should be withheld. The badge of
dependence, however slight in
itself, irritates and provokes.
The
feeling of obligation is irksome.
[Page 49] Man does not like to be reminded of
the Lord’s right over His own gifts; he longs to have
and use them on another
footing, as belonging wholly to himself, without
restriction, and without
control.
In such a mood of mind, Satan easily persuades his victim to
call in question the reasonableness and the reality of
God’s righteous sentence
of wrath: “Ye shall not surely die,” - ye who are
so high in God’s favour and,
on the whole, so exemplary; one offence, or two, will
not be reckoned against
you. “Ye shall not surely
die;”
‑ there may, there must, be
some way of escape at last.
“Ye shall not
surely die:”
at the worst, some milder visitation will be held
sufficient;
it may be necessary, for propriety’s sake and for the
vindication of God’s
consistency, that some slight token of His displeasure
should be inflicted upon
you; but it would be strange and harsh severity were His
terrible threatening
to be executed to the letter, - were you, for such an
offence, to be utterly
destroyed.
To this sophistry, Satan the rather wins consent, because he
has another lie still in reserve.
The
offence itself cannot be so very heinous in God’s sight
as might be inferred from
His strong denunciation of it, nor can He be so very
holy as not at least to
have some indulgence for it.
He who
knows so much evil, and knows it so intimately, cannot
be so utterly intolerant
of it, as in no circumstances, and to no extent, ever to
look on sin, or suffer
iniquity to dwell before Him.
He must be
somewhat more like His creatures than this would imply,
- more nearly such an
one as they are, - having more sympathy with them, or,
at all events, more
allowance to make for them.
He knows evil,
so as at least to seem to connive at it.
And if they know it, so as to go a little
further, and consent to it,
the difference cannot be so very material as to require
that they should be
held altogether without excuse.
Such unutterable blasphemy men, half unconsciously, take in
from the calumnies which Satan scruples not to vent
against the most high
God. Thus,
with his lies, perverting the
whole character of God, - divesting it of all that is
attractive in goodness,
terrible in righteousness, and venerable and awful in
the majesty of holiness;
and infusing into men’s hearts, rankling suspicion,
reckless defiance, and
unshrinking familiarity with evil under the very eye of
purity itself, as if
that eye were nearly as indifferent to it as their own,
- the Devil leads
captive those who listen to his wiles, promising them
liberty: and persuading
them that they may be, not merely subjects and children
of God, but “as gods”
themselves.
And with these arts he continues to deceive them;
and as the god of this
world, he blinds their unbelieving minds,
until the light of the
knowledge of the glory of God, in the face of Jesus Christ, shines into their hearts (2 Cor. 4:
6).
Then, indeed, the truth flashes on the startled
conscience. I
see God now, not as Satan
would represent Him, but as He really is.
I see Him in Christ.
Behold how
He loves sinners, when He gives His only begotten Son to
the death for them,
and with Him also freely gives them all things.
See how He
judges and condemns
the guilty, laying their guilt on the head of His Son,
and exacting of Him the
penalty. Mark
His infinite abhorrence of
sin, - His absolute separation from all evil, - in the
hiding of His face from
His Holy One when He was made sin for us.
Is this the God of whom I [Page
50]
have entertained hard thoughts, as if
He were austere and arbitrary, - with whose authority,
at the same time, I have
taken liberties, as
if He never
could execute
His threatenings, - and to Whom, above all, I have dared
secretly to ascribe a degree of tolerance and
complacency in looking upon evil,
such as one like myself might feel?
I
awake as from a dream. How have I been deluded!
I excused myself, by reflecting on Him and on His
law, - as if that law
might turn out to be less pure, less strict, and less
reasonable, than it
professes to be. But
“the law is
holy, and the
commandment holy, and
just, and good.”
And what am I?
A
miserable sinner, without
apology or excuse - I am undone.
“Woe is unto
me, for I have seen
the King, the Lord of
Hosts.”
“0 wretched man that I am!
who shall deliver me from the
body of this death?”
“But I thank God, through Jesus Christ
our Lord,”
in
Whom, at last, taught by the [Holy] Spirit,
and misled no longer by the Devil, I
see
and feel the free love, the strict
justice, and the perfect
holiness of my God, - reconciling
me
to Himself in righteousness, and causing me, as I enter into the mind of Christ on
the cross, to
know evil,
as Christ then did; and
with
Him, to die unto sin, that I may live unto God
(Rom. 7: 12-25; Is.
6: 5-7).
This is “the simplicity that is in Christ,” of which the
apostle speaks (2 Cor.
11: 3),
when he expresses his fear, lest the minds
even of those espoused to Christ should be corrupted
from that simplicity, “as
the serpent deceived Eve
in his cunning.” It is the
simplicity of faith, as opposed to
the subtlety of unbelief: the
simplicity of a little
child, as opposed to the subtlety of a proud
understanding and a perverse
heart.
And unquestionably
there is continual need of godly jealousy for there is a strong bias or tendency, in the soul of every man, against
simplicity, and in favour of subtlety.
The Gospel itself is often felt to be too
simple - too direct and
straightforward; it must be made more elaborate, more
complicated and
refined. The
plan of reconciliation
which God proposes is too plain, and comes too
immediately to the point.
Men would rather deal more circuitously with
God, and have more ado made about their return to Him,
and a costlier and more
cumbrous apparatus of means and conditions introduced. The simple
truth and love of God, they
pervert into a system of formal, or painful,
self-righteousness.
The doctrine of grace is no longer freely and
unequivocally proclaimed, without embarrassment and
without reserve.
Awkward expedients are adopted to engraft on
it precisely such notions and practices as might be
suitable were God really
such, after all, as Satan represents Him to be, - a
hard master, - and yet a
weak and lenient judge.
His grace is no
longer free; and the result is, that soon a system of
penances and pardons is
made to tamper with His righteousness; and His
holiness itself is found to
admit of indulgence and compromise.
But let us abide by the simplicity that is in
Christ, - the simplicity
which owns a sovereign authority in God’s law, and a
sovereign freeness in His [eternal] salvation;
while, at the same time, it
recognizes the perfection of holiness in His nature, and
rejoices, accordingly,
in the “renewing of the Holy Ghost,” as perfecting
holiness in ours. Let
us, thus saved by the free grace and sanctified by the
free Spirit of God,
stand fast in the holy liberty with which Christ has
made us free; not being
entangled again with the yoke of [Page 51] bondage, nor suffering our minds to be corrupted from the simplicity that
is in Christ, by such subtlety as that through which
the serpent succeeded in
beguiling Eve.
*
*
*
CHAPTER 6
THE
FRUIT
OF THE FIRST SIN - THE REMEDIAL SENTENCE
GENESIS 3: 6-21
He
that practices
sin is of the devil, because the
devil sins from the beginning. For this
the Son of God was revealed,
that He might undo the works of the devil. - 1
John
3: 8.
The lust
of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of
life, make up, in the
estimate of the apostle John
(1 John 2: 16),
“all that is in the world,
- which is not of the Father,
but
of the world.” These three
carnal principles, the tempter
successfully called into action, in the case of our
mother Eve. The
lust of the flesh he excited by the
representation that “the tree was good for food,” and that the
use of it should not
have been withheld.
The lust of the eye
was beguiled by the “pleasant look” of the tree, - under which no danger or death could be
supposed to lurk. The pride of life appeared in the ambition which aspired to an equality
in knowledge or wisdom with God, and the
self-confidence which presumed on the
holiness of the creature being as able to stand the
contact and contamination
of known evil, as that of the Eternal Creator Himself. “When the woman saw that the tree was
good for food, and
that it was pleasant to the
eyes, and a tree to be
desired to make one wise,
she took of the fruit thereof,
and did eat, and
gave also
unto her husband with her; and
he did eat”
(ver. 6).
There is a
question raised here,
regarding the difference between the woman’s temptation
and sin, and the man’s.
It is an idle question.
The only scriptural ground for making any
distinction is supposed to be found in the saying of the
apostle, “Adam was not
deceived, but the
woman being deceived was in
the transgression” (1
Tim. 2: 14).
But the meaning there seems to be merely that the
man was not the first
to be deceived and transgress - that the woman took the
lead in this guilty
act, - not that their guilt ultimately was diverse. The impression
naturally made by reading the
narrative is, that Eve, in giving the fruit to Adam,
repeated substantially the
serpent’s arguments, or at least used similar arguments
herself, and that not
till both had eaten were their eyes simultaneously
opened. Certainly,
in [Page 52] Scripture,
Adam is represented as the
party responsible for himself and his posterity (Rom.
5: 12-21; 1
Cor. 15: 22-45). Hence,
it has been supposed, not improbably, that it was with
her husband’s full
knowledge and concurrence that Eve ate the fruit, - that
they consulted together
before eating, and sinned and fell together.
Certainly they suffered together; and together
they obtained mercy.
The immediate effects of their act of disobedience were a
sense of shame, - “the eyes of them both were opened,
and they knew that they
were naked” (ver.
7); and a dread of judgment, - “Adam and his wife hid themselves,” through fear,
as Adam afterwards
admits – “I was afraid” (ver.
8, 10).
This was the fulfilment of the threatening - “Thou shalt
surely die, - dying,
thou shalt die.” There was present
death felt, and future death feared.
Literally, therefore, on the very day of their
eating they died. Their
own hearts condemned them, - hence
their shame; - God they knew to be greater than their
hearts, - hence their
fear. Both
their shame and their fear
had respect undoubtedly to their bodies.
They were ashamed of their bodily nakedness -
they were afraid of bodily
death. But
the real cause of shame was
not in their bodily members, but in the guilt of their
souls; and the real cause
of fear was not their liability, as creatures of the
dust, to dissolution, but
their liability, as immortal and spiritual beings, to a
far more awful
doom. Their
shame, therefore, and their
fear, prove that they really died; that having sinned,
they in that very day
came under the guilt and the curse of sin, - the guilt
of sin, causing shame, -
the curse of sin, causing fear.
Such is
their instant knowledge of evil.
But this is not all.
Shame and fear cause them to shrink from God, and
to hate His appearance
- for now, “the carnal mind is enmity against
God” (
As shame and fear drive them away from God, so, when they are
brought into His presence, the same feelings still
prevail, and prompt the last
desperate expedient of deceit or guile, marking the
extent of their subjection to
bondage, - the bondage of corruption.
They do not deny, but they palliate, their sin. Ungenerously
and ungratefully, as well as
impiously, Adam seems to charge, as the cause of his
fault, God’s best gift to
him: “The woman gave me of the tree.”
Nay, in an indirect manner, he would even accuse
God Himself: “The woman
whom Thou
gavest me, she gave me
of the tree.”
It was Thou who gavest me this woman, who has
occasioned my fall.
Thus man, when tempted, is ready to say that
he is tempted of God (ver.
12; James
1: 13).
Eve, again, has her apology also.
She would cast the blame on the serpent: “The
serpent
beguiled me, and I did eat” (ver.
13).
But both are without any real or valid excuse.
Their
sin was wilful, [Page
53]
committed
against light and love; in the face, too, of a warning
from the God of truth,
such as might have prepared them for Satan’s lies.
The attempt to extenuate
their sin only proves how helplessly they are debased by
it, as the slaves of a
hard master, who, having them now at a disadvantage,
through their forfeiture
of the free favour of God, presses unrelentingly upon
them, and compels them to
be as false and unscrupulous as himself.
Shame, therefore, fear, and falsehood, are the bitter fruits
of sin. Guilt
is felt; death is dreaded;
guile is practiced.
The consciousness of
crime begets terror; for “the wicked flee when no one pursueth.”
The sinner, no longer erect, bold, and true,
before the open face of his
God, - having that in him and about him which will not
bear the light or stand
in the judgment, - would bury himself out of view in
obscure bypaths, and under
a thick cloud of forest leaves.
How vain the attempt; but how natural, when sin has darkened
the mind! We
fancy that God sees us not,
when it is only we that see not Him; we seek a shade or
screen which may
intercept our view of God, and feel as if it really
intercepted also God’s view
of us; and thus we are as self-confident in our
ignorance or forgetfulness of
God, as if it were He that was ignorant or forgetful of
us. We
resort to the trees of some garden, - the
affairs or amusements of the world, the forms and
ceremonies of religion, or
its wordy technicalities, or its fervours and passions,
or its busy activities;
nay, even the very means of grace themselves, -
whatever, in short, may serve
to fill a certain space, and bulk to a certain size, as
a barrier between God
and the heart that shrinks from too direct an approach
to Him. And
we soothe ourselves with the notion that
this hedge behind which we are sheltered serves the same
purpose on God’s side
as on ours; that He will not come nearer - with any
narrower inspection or
closer appeal - to us, than we are disposed to come to
Him. Then,
when God does find us out, - when He
calls us forth from our concealment, - when, breaking in
upon our refuges of
lies, our well-contrived retreats of worldly
indifference or spiritual
delusion, He summons us at once to meet Him, personally,
face to face; when He
convinces us of sin; how apt are we to evade His charge
and to excuse
ourselves. To
what miserable shifts and
apologies have we recourse, - casting the blame on one
another, - on God’s kind
bounty, - or on the tempter’s urgency of solicitation;
when all the time we are
conscious that the committing of the transgression was
our own free choice, -
that we did evil because we loved the doing of it.
How degrading is the bondage of sin!
How entirely does it destroy all honesty and
honour, as well as purity and peace!
The
sinner, once yielding to the tempter, is at his mercy. And having
lost his hold of the truth of God,
he is but too glad, for his relief from despair, to
believe and to plead the
lies of the devil.
God, however, has a better way.
He has thoughts of love towards the guilty
parents of our race.
For the sentence
which He goes on to pronounce, when He has called them
before Him, is not such
as they might have expected. It is not retributive, but
remedial, and in all
its parts it is fitted exactly to meet their case.
[Page 54]
1.
In the first place, their complaint
against the serpent is instantly attended to.
He is judged and condemned: - “And the Lord God said unto the
serpent, Because thou
hast done this, thou
art cursed above all cattle, and
above every beast of the field; upon
thy belly shalt thou go, and
dust
shalt thou
eat all the days of
thy life: and I will
put enmity between thee and
the woman, and between
thy seed and her seed;
it shall bruise thy head,
and thou shalt bruise his heel”
(ver. 14,
15).
Though the language here employed is applicable literally to
the serpent, as a mere beast of the field, doomed to a
grovelling life, and
destined, from its venomous rancour, to be ever the
object of man’s more
powerful resentment, - the sentence must have been
intended and understood in
another sense also.
Thus, licking or
eating the dust, is uniformly made a sign of the defeat
and degradation or
submission of the adversaries of God and of His people. It
is said of Christ that “His enemies shall lick the dust,” - and of the
nations that they “shall lick
the dust like a serpent,” for fear of Him (Ps. 72: 9;
Micah 7: 17). Of His church
also it is said, that “kings and
their queens, once her
oppressors, shall lick
the dust of her feet” (Is.
49: 23). And of the great
enemy himself, with reference to the period of his final
overthrow, it is said
that “dust shall be the serpent’s meat”
(Is. 65:
25). Then, again,
Satan is
represented as about to be bruised under the feet of
Christ’s believing people,
and that shortly, by the God of peace (Rom.
16: 20). And the whole
description of his desperate
struggle in the last dispensation (Rev.
12: 7-17), is evidently a
comment on the brief
announcement in this passage of Genesis.
The shout of triumph is heard in heaven: - “For
the accuser
of our brethren is cast down, which
accused them
before our God day and night.
And they overcame him by
the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony.”
But not without a bruising of the church’s heel,
is this final bruising
of Satan’s head accomplished.
For it is
added, “Woe to the inhabiters of the earth
and of the sea; for
the devil is come down unto you, having
great anger, because
he
knoweth that he hath but a short time.” There
is a fierce persecution instigated by
Satan, before his time is out.
The
victory, however, is not doubtful;
already his ruin is anticipated in the courts of the
sanctuary above.
Thus, the sentence pronounced upon the serpent, as the
instrument of the temptation, reaches its real author.
Satan, flushed with
victory, is to be discomfited by the very race over
which he has
triumphed. And
their success over him,
it is particularly intimated, is to be the result, not
of artful and insidious
guile, but of open warfare.
The contest
may be long, and he may gain partial conquests; but in
the end the issue is
sure.
How far the phrase, “the seed of the
woman,” as here used, should be limited to the
Messiah personally, is
not very clear. The
prophet Micah
probably refers to this first prediction.
Foretelling that “out of Bethlehem-Ephratah He is to
come forth, Who is to be ruler
in Israel, and
Whose goings forth have been
from of old, from
everlasting,”
he adds, that deliverance is not to
be “until the time that she which travaileth hath
brought forth;” - intimating
that it is of “the seed of the woman” he has been speaking (Micah
5: 2, 3).
And the apostle’s argument would seem to [Page 55] apply here: “He
saith, not seeds,
as if there were many, but one
seed, which is Christ”
(Gal. 3:
16). Undoubtedly it
is
Christ who is principally pointed out; though, at the
same time, as the seed of
the serpent may have a wider signification, denoting all
of his party among men
(Matt. 3:
7; John
8:
41); so, also, the
seed of the woman may be
held to mean all who take part with the Lord, and are
one with Him in His holy
war. At all
events, this condemnation of
their tempter opened a door of hope to our race; his
defeat could scarcely fail
to imply their deliverance.
But, it may be asked, what means this indirect mode of
conveying such an assurance of mercy?
Why does God speak to the serpent, and not to our
first parents
themselves? May
it not be partly to
intimate that the main and chief end of God, in the
dispensation of grace, is
His own glory? “I
do not this
for your sakes,”
else I would address Myself to you; “but for Mine holy name’s sake,
which ye have profaned” (Ezek. 36: 22,
23).
It is not
because they have
deserved any thing at His hands, nor is it merely out
of compassion to them,
that He interferes.
But it concerns His
honour that the adversary should not triumph; for His
own name’s sake He must
needs be glorified in the overthrow of the great
enemy, who has apparently
frustrated the chief end of His creation of the world. And
does
not this view render the assurance of mercy to our
race even more strong
and emphatic than if it were immediately given to
themselves? It
humbles our first parents, and us in them;
and yet it encourages them and us.
They
blamed the serpent, and now the serpent is judged. They even
charged God foolishly; as if it
were His fault that the devil had beguiled them; and
now they see that so far
from God being, in any sense, accessory to their
temptation, His glory is
thereby so assailed that it can be vindicated only in
the instant condemnation,
and final destruction, of the tempter who has
prevailed over them.
All this, however, will
be better understood when it is seen, in the end of
time, what is the purpose of
God in first exposing our nature to trial at Satan’s
hand, and then making that
very nature the instrument of Satan’s more terrible
ruin.
Meantime
it is plain that it is
in part, at least, for the settlement of God’s
controversy with Satan, that our
race and our world are spared; the fall and
recovery of mankind being made
subservient to the completion of God’s purpose of wrath
against a previous host
of rebels, whose malignity was thus to be more fully
brought out, that in their
utter and eternal misery, God’s righteous severity might
be more signally
glorified.
2.
Having disposed of the serpent, the
sentence proceeds, secondly, to deal with his victims
more directly, and
announces to both the woman and the man a period of
prolonged existence on the
earth. Their
fear is, in so far,
postponed. The
woman is still to bear
children, - the man is still to find food.
This prolonged existence is to be to Adam and his partner, as
well as to their posterity, nothing more, in the
meantime, than a dispensation
of long-suffering.
It is to be of the
nature of a respite granted to criminals under sentence
of death. But
such a respite, in the case of sentenced
felons, does not imply their exemption, during the
interval of postponed
retribution, from all tokens of their condemned state. On the
contrary, they [Page 56] are all the time under prison discipline.
And even though, in many instances, the respite
may ultimately end in a
free pardon, there are hardships inseparable from their
intermediate position,
and fitted to prepare them the better for their final
deliverance. Hence
the sentence, suspending generally the
doom of death, has some drawbacks connected with it. (1) The woman
is to live, and to be the
mother of living children, being called Eve on that very
account (ver. 20); - but
she is to bring forth children in sorrow (ver.
16).
(2) She is to be subject to her husband; for such
is the import of the
phrase, “Unto him shall be thy desire,
and
he shall rule over thee” (ver.
16);
it denotes the dependence of
affection or of helplessness on the one hand, and the
assertion of authority
and power on the other.
(3) The man,
also, is to bear the punishment of sin (ver.
18); the earth,
indeed, is not to refuse its
return of food to his labour; but that labour is to be
with sweat of face and
anxiety of heart, not light and joyous as it was before. And, (4) both
he and his are to lie under the
doom of vanity and mortality; “for dust he is, and
unto dust he must return” (ver.
19). This universal
liability
to death, - the constant memento and memorial of guilt,
- planting a thorn in
every pleasure and making love itself a source of pain,
is the standing and too
unquestionable evidence of the real nature of the
sentence which spared mankind
on the earth. It
is a sentence
suspending judgment, indeed, but still plainly
indicating both the bitterness
of sin, and the reality of wrath to come.
But let us thank God that the dispensation of free grace, to
which the dispensation of long-suffering patience is
subordinate and
subservient, - for the sake of which, in fact, it is
appointed, - makes special
provision for alleviating these elements of suffering in
man’s present
state. In
the gospel there are promises
of good, corresponding to the several conditions of
severity under which the
tenure of a prolonged season of mercy is granted; and by
these promises, in the
case of believers, the inevitable ills of life are
soothed.
Thus, in the first place, over against the pain and sorrow of
conception to which the woman is doomed, is to be set
the promise, that, “although she
was first in the transgression, nevertheless
continuing in faith, and
charity, and holiness,
with sobriety, she
shall
be saved in child bearing” (1
Tim. 2: 15).
Again, secondly, to meet her case, as made
subject to the man, she is invested with a new right to
his full and reciprocal
affection; husbands being adjured to love their wives
even as Christ loves the
church, which He has redeemed with His own blood (Eph.
5: 25-33); the real explanation
of this, as I may
observe in passing, of the marvellous influence of the
gospel of Christ in
restoring woman to her
true place in
society, and investing her, as wife and mother, with
her best patent of
nobility. Further,
thirdly, although
the earth is cursed for man’s sake, and in all labour
now there must be sweat
and sorrow, - there is an assurance to believers, that
if they cast their care
on the Lord, He will care for them; and if they “seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, all
those things” about which men are wont to be anxious, “shall be
freely added unto them” (Matt.
6: 33).
And finally, in the fourth place, the doom of
mortality to which
believers are still subjected, is relieved by the
prospect of rest in [Page 57] their departure from this life, and of a glorious resurrection beyond the grave; for “precious in
the sight of the Lord is the
death of
His saints” (Ps.
116: 15); and it is
their privilege to utter
the undaunted challenge, - “0 death, where is
thy sting?
0 grave, where
is thy victory?
The sting of death is
sin, and the power of
sin is the Law.
But thanks be to God,
which giveth us the victory
through our Lord Jesus
Christ” (1 Cor.
15: 55-57).
3.
And now, Satan being put aside, who,
as the father of lies, prompted guile, - and death being
postponed, so as to
give hope instead of fear, - the sentence goes on to
provide for the removal of
the shame which sin had caused: - “Unto Adam also and to his wife did
the Lord God make coats of skins, and
clothed
them” (ver.
21).
The
animals whose skins were made into clothing could not be
slain for food, for animal food was not yet allowed to
man. In all likelihood
they were slain in sacrifice.
If so, it
must have been by God’s appointment. The covering of the
nakedness of our first
parents with the skins of these animals, represented the
way in which sin is
covered, by the imputed worthiness of the great
Sacrifice, - the righteousness
of the Lamb slain for its remission.
Thus the sentence is complete, as a remedial provision for the
disorder introduced by the fall.
Its
last and crowning blessing depends upon the other two,
and necessarily fits
into them, and follows from them.
Hence
I have the greater confidence in drawing from a very
brief, and apparently
almost incidental intimation, a large spiritual
inference. The
fact of the Lord God clothing our first
parents with coats of skin is shortly enough stated; but
the argument which it
suggests for the divine appointment of animal sacrifices
is strong and cogent.
The very fact that the Lord God Himself “made,”
or ordained, this particular kind of clothing,
is significant. It
would scarcely have
been necessary that He should thus interfere, had it
been merely a contrivance
for decency or comfort that was needed.
In that matter, Adam and his wife might have been
left to their own
resources. When God concerns Himself with the materials
of their dress,
something higher and holier must be intended. Does He
care for the difference
between a covering of fig-leaves and coats of skins? No.
But the skins have a spiritual meaning, arising
out of the sacrificial
use of the beasts to which they belonged.
And as the clothing of skins is thus appointed by
God, so also must be
the sacrificial use of the victims furnishing the skins.
But besides this inference from the verse itself, its
connection with the whole following history - in which
the practice of animal
sacrifices is manifestly taken for granted as having the
sanction of God - suggests
irresistibly the idea that the divine origin of the rite
is here implied. And
it is implied in the very manner in which
we might expect it to be so, - in a writing addressed to
men familiar with the
subject. No
Israelite living under the
dispensation of Moses, when reading the account of God’s
clothing our first
parents with skins, and afterwards accepting Abel’s
offering of a lamb, could
have a moment’s hesitation in concluding that, from the
beginning, the
sacrificial institute formed an essential part of the
service which God
required of fallen man.
It is interesting to observe the correspondence between the
temptation to [Page
58]
this first sin, - the result of it, -
and the remedial sentence pronounced.
This may be exhibited in a tabular form: -
The first element in the temptation was a sense of merit,
disposing man to claim the divine bounty, as if it were
his right, and to
consider himself unfairly treated if any restriction
were imposed upon it.
Corresponding to this, the first consequence
of the sin was a sense of shame - a feeling of
nakedness. When
he was tempted to sin, he disparaged the
goodness of God and exaggerated his own; when he had
actually sinned, he shrank
from God and was ashamed of himself.
The second element in the temptation was a sense of security,
- giving him unwarrantable confidence in braving the
Divine justice. And
as the analogous counterpart, the second
effect of the sin was a sense of danger, - causing him
even to flee when none
was pursuing.
The third element in the temptation was a sense of liberty;
defying control and asserting independence; aspiring to
the freedom of the
Godhead. The
third effect of the sin was
the fitting sequel of that - a sense of bondage.
Man knew evil, but not so as to retain
superiority over it.
He became the slave
of the evil one. His
tempter became his
tyrant, exercised dominion over him, and constrained him
to meet the
accusations of his conscience and his God, by having
recourse to the miserable
shifts of servile cowardice and guile.
For these three melancholy fruits of sin the sentence provides
appropriate remedies; but they are applied in the
reverse order. The
last is first met.
By victory gained over the evil power, his
victims are delivered from his degrading thraldom, and
are at liberty to appear
again un-disguisedly before the Holy One, - to lay aside
all guile, and submit
themselves unreservedly to God.
Thereupon God, dealing with them Himself, apart
from all the claims and
contrivances of Satan, - taking the whole matter of the
sinner’s standing
before Him into His own hands, and [Page
59]
exercising His high and sovereign
prerogative, - grants a respite from death.
And in the third place, to complete His purpose
of love, He provides for
the covering of sin’s nakedness and shame, and for the
sinner’s acceptance in
His sight; clothing him with a perfect righteousness,
the righteousness of a
full and finished work of vicarious obedience and
expiatory blood.
Thus is the sinner rescued from Satan’s wiles, and made free
to meet his God, once more, without fear and without
shame. And
thus also is man, - redeemed man, -
advanced ultimately to a higher point in the scale of
intelligent and moral
being, than un-fallen man could ever have reached; in as
much as victory over
evil transcends mere exemption from it.
He has known evil, as well as good; and through
his very knowledge of
the evil, he now knows the good all the more.
The seed of the woman prevails, - not by
withdrawing from the power of
evil, or consenting to any compromise with it, - but by
conquering it, through
experience of its malignity, and endurance of its worst
and last
infliction. The
seed of the serpent does
his utmost; but the seed of the woman passes through the
fiery trial unhurt, -
save only that his heel is bruised.
This
is all the mischief that the adversary can do, - even
when allowed his fullest
scope, - and he does it at the expense of his own head. For now the
seed of the woman, - the
serpent’s seed being thus thoroughly baffled, - obtains
a new grant of life on
a new footing before God, and is invested with a new
covering, - so that the
shame of his nakedness may appear no more.
Behold here, 0 my soul, the travail of His soul, who is
pre-eminently the Seed of the woman.
He
put Himself in thy place, and encountered thine
adversary. Satan,
the prince of this world, came to Him
- to tempt - to try - to accuse and subdue Him.
But He had nothing in Him (John
14: 30, 31).
He might indeed bruise His heel, but he could
not touch a hair of His head.
He met
more than his match in the Seed of the very woman whom
he had beguiled. Jesus,
in His utmost trial, when He knew evil
as none but He - the HOLY
ONE -
could know it, in its stinging guilt and heavy curse,
still triumphed over its
power. And
this same Seed of the woman
has also won, by His laborious obedience, a new life for
Himself and His [redeemed]
people. By the one
sacrifice of Himself, offered once
for all to the Father, He has brought in an everlasting
righteousness, and
perfected for ever all them that are sanctified.
Thus, to Jesus, the Seed of the woman, thou owest, 0 my guilty
and enslaved soul, God’s true liberty instead of Satan’s
lying bondage -
prolonged life instead of instant death - and instead of
the shame of thine own
nakedness the white raiment of the worthiness of the
Lamb that was slain.
Only be thou united to Jesus as thy Saviour,
- be one with Him, as the Seed of the woman, - and thou
art partaker with Him
in His victory - His life - His beauty.
Here indeed, in this present world, thy salvation
may not be
complete. In
the protracted struggle
with Satan thou mayest receive many a wound.
In thy labour there may be toil and sweat.
The sense of thine infirmity, for thou art a
child of the dust, may cause thee sorrow; and the sense
of thy nakedness, for
thou art prone to sin, may cause thee shame.
Still be
thou in Christ; abiding
in Him as the Seed of the woman and thy Saviour;
and thou shalt have
confidence and good hope through [Page
60]
grace. Satan
may wound thee, but only in thy
heel. His
own head is bruised; and he
has no power over thee, - no power to keep thee under
condemnation, - no power
to keep thee under bondage, - no power to prevail
against thee, either as the
accuser or as the oppressor.
Then, though
thou hast toil and travail, thou hast life too, - life
in Him who liveth and
was dead, and is alive for evermore.
Thou art among the really living, of whom Eve is
now become the mother.
And finally, though the shame of thy
nakedness often troubles thee, thou has always a
covering provided for
thee. Thou
art arrayed in white robes,
washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb (Rev.
8: 13,
14).
*
*
*
CHAPTER 7
THE
FIRST
FORM OF THE NEW DISPENSATION - THE
CONTEST
BEGUN BETWEEN GRACE AND NATURE
GENESIS 3: 22; 4: 15
PART FIRST
By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent
sacrifice than Cain, by which he received witness that he was
righteous, God
testifying of his gifts -
and by it, though
he has died, he
still speaks. - Hebrews
11: 4.
Though
excluded from the garden of Eden, man is not sent to any
great distance from
it, and is not separated from all connection with it. He is indeed
expelled; and a reason is
assigned for his expulsion of a very solemn and
mysterious nature - “The Lord God
said, Behold the man
is become as one of us to
know good and evil: and
now, lest he put forth
his hand, and take also of the tree of life,
and eat, and
live forever;
therefore the Lord God sent him
forth from the garden
of Eden, to till the
ground from whence he was
taken” (chap.
3: 22, 23). The
transaction is represented
according to human usage.
There is, as
it were, deliberation in the heavenly court before the
decree goes forth; and
the ground of it is stated, not ironically, as some
suppose; for the Lord, on
this occasion, is full of pity; but in gravest
seriousness. By
violating the condition of obedience, of
which the one tree was the sacramental symbol, man has
lost all title to the
privilege of life, which the other tree sacramentally
signified and
sealed. His
act of disobedience - with
the knowledge of evil and subjection to evil which it
entailed on him -
deprived him of the power of tasting the pure delights
of the life of which
that tree was the pledge and means.
Not
till sin is expiated, and death swallowed up in victory,
is man again admitted [Page 61] to the tree of life, and he is then entitled and enabled to enjoy it
upon even a higher footing than he did
originally - not as ignorant of evil, but as now really
Godlike, knowing it in
Christ, and in Christ triumphing over it.
But mark the grace of God; and how, in wrath, he
remembers mercy. He
does not break off man’s connection with the blessed
garden altogether.
Even paradise lost is made to appear, in the
eyes of those who worshiped in faith before its gates,
as already virtually
paradise regained.
1.
For it is most probable that the
stated place of worship, under the new order of things,
was the immediate
neighbourhood of the garden:
“So he drove
out the man.
And he placed the
cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden,
and a flaming sword which turned
every way - to keep the
way of the tree of life” (chap
3: 24).
These cherubims are very generally regarded as angels,
appointed to keep back all who might presumptuously dare
to approach the now
forbidden gates. There
is no more
entrance for sinful man by the old path of a direct
personal obedience.
He must enter now, if at all, by the new and
living way of the Saviour’s righteousness.
The Law, with its ministers of flaming fire,
drives men away. It
is the Gospel which sets angels at all the
doors to bid men welcome once more (Rev.
21: 12).
It may be doubted, however, if this name “cherub,”
or “cherubim,”
ever denotes angels.
This is the first
mention of cherubim in the Bible; and in mentioning
them, the sacred writer
speaks of them as familiar and well known to those whom
he addresses. He
gives no description or explanation of
them - he simply says, “God
placed cherubims”
(or more literally, the cherubim) “at
the east of the
garden.” Such
language would
surely be understood as denoting the same kind of
cherubim with which the
Israelites were already acquainted. Now these are
described in the book of
Exodus (Exod. 25:
18).
They were gorgeous golden figures, bending over
the mercy-seat, and
having the glory of God resting upon them, and the voice
of God going forth
from between them.
The same figures were
placed afterwards in the holy place of the temple (1
Kings 6: 23);
and it is most likely
that Solomon increased their number to four, adding two
new ones to the two
formerly in use in the tabernacle. (Exod.
26: 1),
and on
the great veil which divided the holy place and the most
holy (Exod. 26:
31).
They
were also engraved on the walls of the temple (1
Kings 6: 29-35);
where, as if to identify them with the cherubim placed
near the pleasant trees
of the garden, they are described as interspersed with
palms and flowers.
Thus we find that cherubim formed an
essential part of the furniture or apparatus of the holy
place, where the Lord
was understood to manifest Himself in the character in
which He is worshiped by
sacrifice. It
is one of the attributes
of the Lord’s throne, or His seat, or His chariot, that
the cherubim are with
Him. Whether He is represented as at rest, or as in
motion, the glorious symbol
of His presence, in flaming fire, is associated with
these accompaniments (Numb.
7: 89;
Ps. 80:
1 and 99:
1; 18:
10).
But the fullest view of the cherubim is given in the visions
of Ezekiel, where we have a description of their outward
appearance. They
were compound figures, each having the
face of a man, a lion, an ox, and an eagle, with a human
body in the upper
part, but with wings, and with [Page
62]
somewhat of the form of the other
animals beneath (Ezek.
1: 4,
and 10: 2). The pictures
of the cherubim, indeed, are
obscure; in the main, however, they agree in
representing them as emblematic
figures of animals.
Man is prominently their
head; but he appears with the peculiar prerogatives of other animals allied to his own.
And in all the visions of Ezekiel, as well as in
the other passages
already referred to, we recognize them as forming part
of the train or
attendance of Jehovah, in His resting, as well as in His
movements from place
to place.
Finally, these same cherubim, or living creatures - called,
rather unhappily, in our version, “the
four beasts,”
- appear in the Apocalyptic vision of John (Rev.
4: 6,
etc.), as taking a conspicuous share in the worship of
the heavenly sanctuary.
Thus we trace the cherubim, from their first appearance in the
garden of Eden to their manifestation in the glorious
pattern which John saw of
the Redeemer’s triumphal court and throne.
And if we now reverse this process, and retrace
them from the last to
the first book of the Bible, we may form a probable
opinion respecting their
symbolical meaning.
In the Revelation
(5: 6-14, and 7:
11), they
are expressly distinguished from angels, and represented
as, along with the
twenty-four elders, assenting to the strains which the
angels raise. In
answer to the angelic hymn, “Worthy is the
Lamb that was slain,” and in glad accord with the doxology of universal nature, “Blessing and
honour, and glory and power,
be unto Him that
sitteth on the throne, and unto the Lamb, forever and
ever,”
- the four beasts, with the
worshiping elders, are heard saying, “Amen.” Again (14:
3), along with the
twenty-four elders, they
are seen presiding over the vast multitude of the
followers of the Lamb, “on the
Thus in the holy place of the tabernacle and of the temple,
the mercy-seat sprinkled with atoning blood - the
cherubim bending over and
looking upon it - the glory of the Lord, the bright
Shekinah light resting in
the midst - fitly express, in symbol, the redemption,
the redeemed, and the Redeemer.
It is a symbolical representation of
believers, having their steadfast eyes fixed on the
propitiation, whereby God
is brought once more to dwell among them.
It is Jehovah meeting, in infinite complacency,
with the church which
atoning blood has bought and cleansed.
And thus always, when faith beholds God as the
God of salvation, He
appears in state with the same retinue.
Angels, indeed, are in waiting; but it is upon or
over the cherubim that
He rides forth - it is between the cherubim that He
dwells. The
church ever contemplates Him as her own,
and sees Him rejoicing over [Page
63]
her in love.
The cherubim placed at the east of paradise after it was lost,
surely bore the same import.
In
connection with the flaming sword, they marked the place
in which the Lord
manifested Himself, and towards which He was to be
worshiped. That
fiery emblem might represent the terror
of the divine justice - if we are not rather to identify
it with the brightness
of the Shekinah-glory which afterwards shone in the
bush, in the temple, and on
the way to
The worshipers, as they stood, awed, yet hopeful, around the
gate of paradise, felt their exclusion from the
blessedness within.
But they saw a human figure mysteriously
fashioned there - they
saw a pledge of
the restitution.
That there was, in
the primitive worship, a holy place, where the presence
of the Lord was
manifested, is plain from the language used in respect
to the bringing of
offerings – “they brought them unto
the
Lord”
- to
some set or appointed spot (chap.
4: 3,
4); and also from
what is said of the exile of
Cain – “he went out from the
presence
of the Lord” - from the place where
the Lord revealed Himself by symbol and by oracle to
those who worshiped at His
altar (chap. 4:
16).
And it would seem that this primitive holy place
was substantially
identical with the shrine of the Levitical ritual, and
with the heavenly scene
which Ezekiel and John saw.
It was
within the garden, or at its very entrance, and it was distinguished by a visible display of the glory of God, in a
bright shining light, or sword of flame - on the one
hand driving away in just
displeasure a guilty and rebellious race; but on the
other hand shining with a
benignant smile upon the typical emblems or
representations of a world and a
people redeemed.
Thus, near the set of original innocence -which now was by
expressive symbols presented to his view in a new and
still attractive light,
as the seat of the glory of redemption -Adam and his
seed were to worship and
serve God.
A seed accordingly was given to him.
Two
sons were born, probably at one birth, since it is
not said of Eve that she
conceived again and bare Abel (which is the usual
scriptural form in intimating
a second birth), but simply that she bore him after
Cain. “And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and
bare
Cain, and said,
I
have gotten a man from the Lord.
And she again bare his
brother Abel” (chap.
4: 1,
2).
That a difference was from the very first put
between the two by Eve,
and it may be presumed by her husband also, is plain
from the remarkable
language, which she applies to the firstborn, “I have gotten a man from the LORD;” and, indeed,
from the very names
given to the two brothers respectively.
Cain signifies acquisition or gain; Abel, vanity
or loss. Whence
this difference thus early put by
their parents between the two sons, born at the same
time, and in precisely the
same circumstances?
Already, it would
seem, it was understood that the race was to be divided
into two great
sections, of which the one only was to be reckoned as
truly and spiritually the
seed of the woman, - while the other bore the character,
and fell under the
doom, of the seed of the serpent.
Possibly Eve regarded her first-born as the very
[Page 64] individual who was to be the Saviour, and understood at the same time that
this Saviour was to be a divine person.
So some at least interpret her words, - “I have gotten a man,” or the man, “the
LORD,”
the very Jehovah - Him who is God as
well as man. More
probably, however,
taking the words as they stand, “I have gotten a man from
the LORD,” we are to consider her as simply recognizing his birthright, and so
welcoming him as peculiarly the heir of the promise.
At all events, it is plain that in her judgment
Cain was chosen rather
than his brother. But the election of grace is otherwise, as the sequel too clearly
proves.*
[* NOTE. In the age
to come, the last becomes first,
and the first becomes last! (Mark
10: 31,
R.V.).
“The elder shall serve
the younger” (Rom.
9: 12,
R.V.)]
Thus, in the very
beginning of the dispensation of grace, the sovereignty
of God is manifested,
according to the principle, - “Jacob
have I loved, and Esau
have I hated” (Mal.
1: 2,
3; Rom.
9: 11-13). And thus, too, it is seen
that God
“Judgeth not as man judgeth,” and that no privileges of the flesh will avail in his sight.
Cain is the first-born, - the heir.
His parents receive him as a
prize; while his brother is in comparison but
lightly esteemed. How
blind is the wisdom, how false the
confidence of man!
Cain, whose birth was
so welcome, is the lost one.
He whose
very name was “Vanity,” becomes the first inheritor of the blessedness of the redeemed.
Their different occupations have been supposed to mark a
difference of rank and station.
“Abel was a keeper of
sheep, but
Cain was a tiller of the ground” (ver.
2).
Cain, as the first-born, follows his father’s
calling, being lord of the
soil; Abel, as in some degree subordinate, tends the
cattle. The
division of labour, as well as the
difference of ranks, being thus early introduced, may be
regarded as not only
suitable to the condition of man, but agreeable to the
appointment of God.
It is His will that men should differ in
their tastes, talents, and pursuits; and that in
different spheres they should
serve one another.
But all such
differences are of no account in the [millennial] kingdom of His grace and glory.*
[*NOTE. Since all
the redeemed must enter God’s eternal
kingdom in “a new
heaven and a new earth”
(Rev. 21:
1); the inference
here must be placed upon
Christ’s millennial kingdom, which will commence “a
thousand years” beforehand.
Hence the importance of being, -
“Accounted worthy to
attain to that world (or “Age”),
and the resurrection
(out) from
the dead” (Luke 20:
35, R.V.). Compare
with Phil.
3: 11.]
2.
The brothers, representatives of the
two great classes into which, in a religious view, the
family of man is divided,
manifest their difference in this respect, not in the
object, nor in the time,
but in the spirit, of their worship.
“And as time went on, Cain brought to the LORD an offering of the fruit of the ground.
And Abel also brought of the first-born of
his flock and of the fat of it” (ver.3, 4).
They worship the same God, and under the same revelation of
His power and glory. Their seasons of
worship also are the same;
for it is agreed on all hands that the expression, “in
process of time,” or “at
the end of days,”
denotes some stated season, most probably the weekly
Sabbath.
Again, their manner of service was to a large
extent the same. They
presented offerings to God; and these
offerings, being of two kinds, corresponded very
remarkably to the two kinds of
offerings ordained under the Levitical dispensation -
those which were properly
expiatory, and those which were mainly expressive of
duty, gratitude, and
devotion.
Hence it would seem that the service of God, even thus early,
had in it all the elements which we afterwards find in
the Mosaic ritual, - a
holy place, where the symbols of the divine glory and of
human redemption
appeared; stated times or seasons of devotion; in
particular, the weekly
Sabbath; and an appointed manner of worship, consisting
of offerings of [Page 65] different kinds. The religion
of
fallen man has always been the same.
Especially it has been the same in the way of fallen man’s
approach to his offended God; which has always been
through blood, and the same
blood, - the blood of “the Lamb slain from the foundation
of the world” (Rev.
13: 8). With this blood
of THE LAMB,
the blood of Abel’s sacrifice
is expressly associated by the apostle, when he speaks
of “the blood of
sprinkling speaking better things than that of Abel”
(Heb. 12:
24). In that sublime
passage, Paul [the ‘Writer of
Hebrews’ is better] is reminding believers of their peculiar privileges, as living under the
economy of the gospel; and, among the rest, he mentions
“the blood of sprinkling,”
- which more effectually
purges the conscience and gives peace, - than the blood
of mere animal
sacrifices could do.
For “the blood of
Abel”
there
referred to is
not the blood of his
slain body crying for vengeance; - it would not be to
the purpose of the
apostle’s argument to compare or contrast Christ’s
blood with Abel’s, in that
sense of it. It
is the blood which Abel
shed when he offered his sacrifice that is intended, -
the blood of such
sacrifices as he presented, and all the faithful
continued to present, until
Christ died.
Such blood could speak of pardon and reconciliation only symbolically
and typically.
The blood of Christ
speaks of the real blessing really purchased and
bestowed. [See exposition of
the passage in my Lectures on the Fatherhood of God.
Appendix 2.]
Still Abel did well to present the blood of his lamb, - not as
in itself the ground of his acceptance, - but as the
token of his reliance for
acceptance on the better sacrifice which his lamb
prefigured. He
worshiped in faith, - recognizing and
realizing his own fallen state, and beholding both the
glory of the righteous
judge, requiring satisfaction for sin, and the glory of
the gracious Father,
reconciling the sinner to Himself.
Through this faith alone could he acceptably
present an offering to God,
- whether it was such a burnt-offering as he did
present, or such a
meat-offering of thankfulness and peace as Cain chose to
bring. To
present either, in any other spirit, must
be sin. To
trust in the mere animal
sacrifice, - the
mere bodily service, -
would have been superstition. To reject that sacrifice,
in its spiritual and
typical meaning, and to appear before God, with whatever
gifts, without atoning
blood, as Cain did, - was infidelity.
3. The two brothers,
then, worshiped God according to the same ritual; but not with the same
acceptance. How the Lord signified his
complacency in the one, and
his rejection of the other, does not appear.
It may have been by sending fire from heaven to
consume Abel’s offering;
as in this way he acknowledged acceptable offerings, on
different occasions, in
after times (Lev. 9:
24; Judges
6:
21; 1
Kings 18:
38).
Why the Lord put such a distinction between them
is a more important
point, and more easily ascertained.
It
is unequivocally explained by the Apostle Paul (Heb.
11: 4). Abel’s
sacrifice was more excellent than
Cain’s, because he offered it by faith.
Therefore his person was accepted as righteous, -
and his gift as well
pleasing to the Lord.
This agrees with the history, in which it is not said that God had respect to Abel’s sacrifice, and then to
himself; but, first, he had respect to Abel, and then
to his offering.
So it must ever be.
The
acceptance of the [Page
66] person must precede the acceptance of the service; and the acceptance of
the [Page 66] person is by faith.
The sacrifice of Abel had no more efficacy, in
itself, than the offering
of Cain, to recommend him to the favour of God.
He was not accepted on account of his offering;
nor was Cain rejected on
account of his. But
Abel believed; and
through his faith he received a justifying righteousness
in the sight of God,
even God’s own righteousness in which he believed, - the
finished and accepted
righteousness of “the Seed of the woman,” who is no other than the Son of God Himself (Rom.
1: 17,
and 3: 21). And the
sacrifice which he offered as the
expression of his faith, and of his appropriation of the
righteousness which is
by faith, became, on that account, a sacrifice of a
sweet-smelling savour (Gen.
8: 21;
Exod. 29:
18).
Cain, on the other hand, presented an
offering which also, in its own place, and had it been
presented in faith,
would have been accepted by God. Had he first been
reconciled to God, through
the justifying righteousness and atoning blood of the
promised Seed of the
woman, - and had he then, in token of that
reconciliation, and in the exercise
of faith in that righteousness, offered the appointed
typical sacrifice of
expiation, - “he would have
obtained witness that he
was righteous” (Heb.
9: 4),
that he
was accepted as righteous, and that his heart,
submitting to God’s
righteousness, was now right with God.
And thereafter, in the character of one
righteous, - justified,
reconciled, and renewed, he might have come with his
sacrifice of praise and
thanksgiving, presenting the first-fruits of his
substance, in grateful pledge
of his willing dedication of himself, and all that he
had, to God. Such
offerings of a material substance God
Himself ordained under the law, to be typical and
emblematic of the new
obedience which His people must willingly render, after
having made a covenant
with Him by sacrifice of another kind (Ps.
1: 5-15).
And
similar offerings, but of a more spiritual and moral
nature, He still requires,
under the dispensation of the gospel, when He calls upon
believers “to present
their bodies a living sacrifice to Him”
(Rom. 12:
1), “to
offer the
sacrifice of praise continually,
that is, the
fruit of
their lips, giving thanks to His name,”
and “to
do good and to
communicate, since
with such sacrifices He
is well pleased” (Heb.
13: 15,
16).
Such might have been the meaning, and such the acceptance of
Cain’s offering, had he first himself “obtained witness that he was
righteous,”
in
terms of the righteousness of God appropriated by faith. Then, “God would have testified of his gifts.”
But Cain went about to establish a righteousness
of his own. He
brought his offering as one entitled, in
his own name, to present it, - as one seeking, by means
of it, to conciliate or
satisfy his God. His
was not the
guileless simplicity and uprightness of a sinner
receiving a free pardon, and,
in consequence, rendering a free service, - forgiven
much, and therefore loving
much. It
was the cold and calculating homage
of contented self-confidence, paying, more or less
conscientiously, its due to
God, with heart unbroken by any true sense of sin, and
spirit un-subdued by any
melting sight of the riches of redeeming love.
Hence, “unto Cain and to
his offering, the Lord
had not respect” (ver.
5).
-------
[Page 67]
PART
SECOND - UNBELIEF WORKING BY WRATH, MALICE, AND ENVY
CHAPTER 4: 5-15
Not
like Cain,
who was of the wicked one and killed his brother.
And why did he kill
him?
Because
his works were wicked and those of his brother
were righteous. - 1
John 3:12.
1.
The Lord
did not all at once finally reject Cain; on the
contrary, He gave him an
opportunity of finding acceptance still, as Abel had
found it. The
very intimation of his rejection was a
merciful dealing with Cain, and ought to have been so
received by him, and
improved for leading him to humiliation, penitence, and
faith. Instead of being
humbled, however, he is irritated and provoked.
“Cain,” it is
said, “was very angry, and his face
fell” (ver.
5).
Still, the Lord visits him, and graciously
condescends to plead and expostulate with him.
He points out the unreasonableness of such a
state of mind: “And the Lord
said unto Cain, why
art thou wroth, and
why is thy countenance fallen?
If thou doest well,
shalt thou not be accepted?
and if thou doest not well,
sin
lieth at the door and unto thee shall be His desire,
and thou shalt rule over him”
(ver. 6, 7).
If we take “sin” here to mean “a sin-offering,” - as not a
few eminent scholars have
done, - the Lord’s expostulation is very gracious.
Cain has no right to complain, and no reason to despair. He
has no right to complain of his not being favourably
received, as if a wrong
were done to him, - as if he were deprived of his due. He knows, that
“if he does well, he will
certainly be accepted;” and if he stands on the footing of right, this is all that he is entitled
to claim, - that if his obedience be perfect, he shall
be rewarded. But
there is another alternative.
At the worst, be his case ever so bad, he has
no reason to despair.
If he will but
consent to stand on another footing - not of right but
of grace - then, though
he has failed in “doing well,”
or rendering a
perfect obedience to his God, he may still, as one
guilty, find
acceptance. There
is a “sin-offering.”
And it is not far to seek; it is near; it lies at
“his very door.”
Nor is it difficult to obtain possession of it. He does not
need to buy it, or to work for
it; it is already at his disposal, and subject to him;
it may be appropriated
and used by him as his own; it is his for the taking. It is waiting
his pleasure, and as it were
courting his acceptance: “its
desire is to him.”
And he may at once avail himself of it: “he
may rule over it” (4: 7; 3: 16).
[I
hesitate between this interpretation and another one
suggested by a learned
friend; which also makes the Lord’s remonstrance very
gracious.
[“Why art thou angry, and
why is thy face fallen?”
Wilt thou mend matters by thine angry and
sullen gloom? Nay, there is a more excellent way.
Retrace thy steps.
Do as Abel did.
And if like him thou doest well, thou canst
have no doubt of thine acceptance.
Thy
rueful and downcast looks will be changed into the
radiant gladness of a spirit
in which there is no guile.
But, on the
other hand, beware.
If thou rejectest
the only true and effectual remedy, - if thou doest not
well, - think not that
any [Page 68] passionate complaint or moody discontent of thine will avail
for thy relief. Sin
- the sin to which
by complying with its solicitations thou hast given the
mastery over thee, - is
not thus to be got rid of.
Nay, thou
canst not keep it at a distance, or even at arm’s
length. It
lieth at thy door; ever crouching for
thee; ever ready to fawn upon thee for farther
concessions, and then to grasp
thee in its fangs of remorse and shame and terror. One only
manner of dealing with sin can be
either safe or successful.
Treat it as
thy father Adam was empowered to treat his Eve to whom
he had so easily
yielded. He
is not again to be so fond
and facile. He
is to keep her in her
right place. And
whatever influence her
blandishments may have over him as “her
desire is
toward him,” he is to assert his manly
prerogative of reason and conscience
and “rule over her.” Sin is to
thee, Cain, what Eve, alas! was to
Adam. Nor canst thou shake it off, however angry and
gloomy thou mayest be, -
any more than Adam, if he had desired it, could have
shaken off the temptress
with whom for better and for worse he was irrevocably
united. She was part of
himself - his very flesh.
But she need
not on that account be suffered to exert a sway over him
inconsistent with his
manhood or injurious to his godliness.
Let him assert the right that belongs to him, and
wield even over the
wife of his bosom, should he be in danger of becoming
again too compliant, the
power with which for that very end the Lord Himself has
invested him. So,
in like manner, let Cain deal with what
has now become his domestic foe.
Let him
stand upon his right as a man, - especially as a man
acquainted with the great
principle of the economy under which he lives; “the
seed
of the woman shall bruise the serpent’s head, while the serpent again shall bruise
his heel.”
Let him cast himself manfully - believingly -
into the deadly strife here depicted; let him vindicate
the power that belongs
to him if he will but identify himself with that “seed
of the woman;” let him not suffer sin to have
dominion over him, but
rather enter into the great Redeemer’s victory over sin;
and there need be no
more dark thoughts and scowling looks, for all may yet
be well.
[It will be seen that in both of these interpretations, the
latter clause of verse 7
is not applied to Cain’s
relationship to Abel, as many expounders have applied
it. The
allusion which they suppose to be made to
Cain having forfeited the birthright, and having an
opportunity of recovering
it, is not happy. On
the other hand,
whether we take “sin-offering,” or “sin,” to be the word
in the preceding
clause, there is great propriety and point in the
comparison, either of a
sinner’s command over sin, to the husband’s right over
the wife. In
either case, the objection to the feminine
noun “sin offering,” or “sin,” having a masculine pronoun connected with it, is obviated by
the personification “lying at the door” (Deut.
9: 21).
[I do not venture to dogmatize; but I own that after leaning a
good deal to the second interpretation, my preference
for the former has rather
returned upon me.]
The enmity of his carnal mind, however, prevailed.
Cain would not be subject to the law of God;
- nor would he submit himself to the righteousness of
God. He
thought that he did well to be angry.
And as his wrath could not reach the great
Being of whom chiefly he complained, he [Page 69] vented it on
his brother, who was
within his reach. Being
of the wicked
one, he slew his brother.
“And Cain
talked with Abel his brother; and
it came to
pass, when they were
in the field, that
Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him”
(ver. 8).
He had been talking with Abel his brother, whether in
friendship, or in controversy, or partly and
successively in both ways, does
not appear from the narrative.
His talk may
have been a subtle trap to beguile his unwary brother. If, as many
think, Abel is to be viewed as
the type of Him was accounted “vanity”
- a worm
and no man - despised and rejected of men - who, at the
same time, was meek and
lowly of heart - being led as a lamb to the slaughter,
and opening not his
mouth against his persecutors; we may be justified in
applying to the first
martyr the very passages in the Psalms which describe
both the smooth treachery
and the open violence of which Jesus - the faithful
witness - was the object (Ps.
55: 21,
57: 4). At any
rate Cain talked, smoothly or sharply, with Abel; but
not so as seriously to
awaken suspicion or alarm in his brother’s mind.
They were together in the field.
Abel having faith towards God, is ready to
place confidence in his brother also.
Cain adds to his ungodliness the sin of envy and
hatred, and the crime
of murder.
2.
Returning from the field, Cain
scruples not apparently to revisit the sanctuary - the
very “presence of the Lord;”
for it is afterwards said that
upon receiving his sentence, he went out from thence (ver.
16).
He seems to think that he may calmly meet both
his parents and his
God. He
even assumes an air of
defiance. He
feels almost as if he were
the wronged and injured party. When
the
solemn and searching question is put, “Where
is Abel
thy brother?” – “I know
not” is his
impatient and unfeeling reply – “Am
I my brother’s
keeper?” (ver.
9). My brother might
have kept himself.
Or his God, with whom, as it turns out, he
was so great a favourite, might have kept him.
Thus the infidel regards religion, in the persons of its
professors, as insulting and injurious to himself. He is not its
keeper. It
is no concern of his to save its credit or
its character; rather he may be justified in putting it
out of his way as best
he can. So
Cain exults in his success,
in thus easily getting the better of the feeble and
unprotected simplicity of
his righteous brother, and almost upbraids the Lord with
the little care that
He seems to take His own.
But though the righteous is suffered to fall before the
wicked, the wicked is not to be allowed to escape. His boasting
is vain. Abel,
indeed, was the unsuspecting and
unresisting victim of his brother; silently and meekly
he suffered wrong.
But his “blood”
had a “voice” (ver.
10); for “precious
in
the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints”
(Ps. 116:
15, and 72:
14); and “He
seeks for
blood” (Ps.
9:
12).
Abel
is the first of that noble
army of martyrs, “whose
righteous blood” was to
come on the generation that rejected the Lord (Matt.
23: 35);
and whose souls,
under the altar,
still cry with a loud voice against the dwellers on
the earth (Rev. 6: 9,
10). Cain, on the other hand, is doomed to be a castaway.
It is true, the first murderer does not immediately receive
the doom of murder, which is death by the hand of man. On the
contrary, his life is [Page 70] specially preserved. It is to
be
observed, however, that he is apprehensive of that doom. “It
shall come to
pass,” he says, “that
any one that finds me
shall kill me;” any chance passenger,
recognizing me as a murderer, will
feel himself entitled to be my executioner (ver.
14).
So strong, indeed, and so well founded is this
apprehension of Cain’s,
that it needs to be allayed by a token of security given
to himself – “The Lord set a
mark on him, lest
any finding him should kill him.”
Nor is even this enough.
His life
is still farther guarded by a threatening of aggravated
judgment against any
who should venture to inflict upon him that sentence of
death which, but for
this express prohibition, all his fellows might have
felt themselves justified
in inflicting – “Therefore,
whosoever killeth Cain, vengeance
shall be taken on him sevenfold.” (ver.
15).
In all this it is evidently implied that the law, according to
which the murderer is to be slain by his fellows, is the
original law of God
and nature. Cain,
when his conscience is
in part awakened by the dreadful denunciation of divine
wrath, has enough of
feeling to convince him that his fellow-men will
consider themselves entitled,
if not bound, to slay him.
And he does
not - he dares not - quarrel with the justice of such a
proceeding. God,
on the other hand, clearly intimates
that, but for an express prohibition, the murderer’s
fear would infallibly and
justly have been realized.
It is
agreeable to the constitution of man’s moral frame, and
is in itself a
righteous thing, that “who so
sheddeth man’s blood,
by man shall his blood be shed.” This law,
accordingly, God Himself ordained
after the flood (chap.
9: 6),
not as a
part of the Levitical code, which was local and
temporary, but as a part of the
universal patriarchal religion; a standing law - the one only standing law - of capital punishment, for all ages and for
all mankind.
It was by a special act
of grace that that law was in abeyance in the system
which was established
before the flood. God
Himself suspended
it, in the exercise of His own sovereign prerogative. But
ever
since the flood it has been in force; and man has no
discretionary right
to repeal it.
We read that the latter days before the coming of the Son of
man are to resemble the days immediately before the
flood (Matt. 24:
37).
It
will be a singular coincidence if men shall then be
found proposing to bring
back, by their own authority, that suspension of the law
in question, which was
formerly the act of God Himself; if the experiment of
exempting even murder
from the punishment of death shall be tried again, not with God’s sanction, but in man’s perverse wilfulness, setting
God’s prerogative at defiance.
The
trial was made, then, in the long-suffering patience of
God; and miserably was
His patience abused.
The
murderer, in a subsequent generation,
imitating Cain’s example, gloried in his impunity (ver.
24); and soon the
earth was filled with
violence (chap. 6:
11).
What may not be expected, if the trial shall be
made again, in the mere
wantonness of man’s intellectual vanity; - especially
if it shall be made when
lawless infidelity again, as in the age which the
flood surprised, rages
against the truth, and against the scanty remnant of
its witnesses!
3.
But Cain, though thus spared, was
made fully and terribly aware of the divine displeasure. He had
hitherto been a tiller of the ground;
and the [Page 71] ground, thou cursed for man’s sake, yielded a return to his toil.
This employment of a cultivator of the soil
seems originally to have possessed a certain
pre-eminence of rank, and it had
this manifest advantage that it was a stationary
occupation, - a settled line
of life. It
permitted those engaged in
it to remain quietly resident in their hereditary
domains, and to exercise
their hereditary dominion. Above all, it left them in
the neighbourhood of the
place where the Lord manifested His presence, - the seat
and centre of the old
primeval worship. But Cain was henceforth
to
be debarred from the exercise of his original
calling; at least on
the spot where
he had
previously enjoyed his birthright privileges. For not only
is the ground cursed to him, -
he is “cursed from the earth.” It is
forbidden to yield to him even the
hard-earned return which it may still afford to others:
“When you till the ground, it
will not again give its strength
to you.
And you shall be a vagabond and a fugitive in
the earth” (ver.
12).
Thus Cain is compelled to wander.
He must abandon the simple and godly manner
of life which he might have led, and seek his fortunes
abroad, - at a distance
from his early home, and from the presence of his
father’s God. It
would seem that he is contented to do
so. His
anxiety at first, when his
sentence was pronounced, arose chiefly from his selfish
fear of death at the
hands of his justly indignant brethren (ver.
13-15). When that fear
is removed, he thinks little
of his exclusion from the sanctuary of his God and the
society of the
faithful. He
can still turn to account
his natural talents and powers.
He goes
forth (ver. 16,
17), to live without
God in the world, -
building cities and begetting children, - himself and
his seed prospering and
prevailing until the flood comes - to purge the earth of
them all.
Here let us pause and trace the progress of unbelief in the
soul. God
draws near to sinful men, and
proposes terms of free and full reconciliation.
He so draws near to me, showing me the way of
life. He
does not require of me that I should
purchase His favour by any oblation.
He
Himself provides the sacrifice; and He simply asks me to
come on the footing of
His favour being freely bestowed, and to present the
offering of faith, as well
as the offering of thanksgiving.
But I
care not for so close and intimate an intercourse with
the Holy one, as is
implied in this manner of approach to Him.
I am willing enough to render to Him a certain
measure of respectful
homage; - to present as an offering on the altar, such
gifts out of my time and
talents as I can afford; - but I see no necessity for
anything more. I
see, indeed, my neighbour making a far more
serious business of his approach to God than I do - and
laying far more to
heart the whole question of his acceptance with God, and
the state of his
affections toward God.
I see him very
anxious and earnest, as one fleeing from wrath, and
grasping mercy. And
this may be very well for him.
But for myself, I see no occasion for any
such excitement. I
duly go through my
customary religious exercises; - and is not that enough?
It may happen, however, upon an occasion, that I am not
altogether satisfied.
My godly brother
evidently has the advantage of me.
He is
better than I can pretend to be - he is happier.
He is more at home with his God. There is an
air of intense reality about his religion, which puts to
shame my somewhat
meagre and formal routine of duty.
I am
displeased [Page
72]
and discontented - I am angry, I
scarcely know why, or with whom.
I have
a secret feeling that all is not quite as it should be
between my Maker and
myself, - that, in short, there is something wrong in my
spiritual state.
Ah! why do I not give this feeling its full scope and
play? Why
do I not come at once to close
dealing with my soul, and with my God, and bring the matter promptly to an issue?
If I am right - if I really do well - what have I
to fear? And
if I am wrong, if I am the very chief of
sinners, have I not a way of peace with God and victory
over sin at my very
door?
Alas! my pride rebels, - I recoil from the humiliation of
being a simple debtor to grace.
I shrink
from that complete union to God and thorough separation
from sin which I
shrewdly suspect would be the result of a full and fair
settlement of the
controversy between us.
I choose rather
to stand aloof, and to compromise the matter by a kind
of formal understanding.
Still I am not at ease.
I cannot but perceive the vast difference between
the mere decency of my
devout observances, and the evident heartiness of the
man who really has peace
in believing and joy in the Holy Ghost.
I try to relieve myself, by venting my feelings
of irritation against
him. I may
not indeed slay him - but I
find a sort of satisfaction in speaking, or in thinking,
ill of him. His
high principles [and beliefs]
offend
me; and I am interested in
making him out to be no better than his neighbours. I am not the
keeper of his reputation, or of
his character - I am not responsible for his unblemished
name. If he
falls, what is that to me?
Nay, even though the blame should be laid on
me, and I should be the cause or occasion of his
stumbling, - if I but escape
immediate retribution, I can consent that my envious
dislike and unjust
treatment of God’s servant should drive me, as it must
practically do, further
than ever away from God Himself.
Beware, 0 my soul, of the great sin of Cain.
If thy heart is not right with God, thou wilt
assuredly he tempted to hate and harass the godly. The spirit of
ungodliness is essentially the
spirit of murder. It
would if it were
possible, annihilate God, - for He troubles it.
The next best expedient is to annihilate all on
the earth that reflects
His image, and testifies of Him.
Hence
hard thoughts of the truly righteous - suspicions -
cruel surmises - evil
speaking of their good and exaggeration of their evil -
temptations offered to
their principles - a silencing and suppressing of their
testimony - violence
against their persons.
Let me take good
heed lest the seeds of such dispositions be in me. Let me
carefully examine myself.
Do I feel any pleasure when the godly man
stumbles? Do
I join with ready eagerness
in the smile raised at his expense?
Do I
experience relief when I seem to find him less perfect
than he once appeared to
be?
If so, let me be awakened in time.
Let me be convinced that my real quarrel is
not with him, but with his religion and his God.
Let me come at once to the question of my own
personal standing.
I have nothing to do
with my brother - I am not his keeper.
It may be so.
But my own soul is
in peril. I
have a matter personal to
myself to settle. Alone
I have to deal
with my God. If
I am to justify myself,
it is not my brother’s fall, but my own righteousness,
that must save me.
But I am poor and miserable.
I have nothing that I can present to God for
His acceptance.
Then let me end this controversy at once. Let me take the
offered Saviour [Page
73] as
my own. He
is mine, if I will but have Him to be
mine; - mine without money and without price.
I may at once, however unworthy and sinful, with
all my guilt on my
head, whatever that guilt may be, - on terms altogether
gratuitous, - just as I
am, appropriate His sacrifice and avail myself of all
its efficacy. In
so doing, I honour God.
Refusing so to do, I make Him a liar.
Let me no longer resist His Spirit; let me
believe His testimony; let me submit to His
righteousness, and receive
remission, in the only way in which it can be bestowed,
through the shedding of
blood. Then,
instead of seeking to brave
out my continuance in sin by means of anger or sullen
discontent, I may meekly
and resolutely face the struggle against it and enter
into the victory over it
which my Lord has won.
Thus shall I taste true blessedness and peace.
Yes, even though, instead of any longer
persecuting the righteous, I should now be myself
persecuted as Abel was.
Remembering my own past feelings, I may well
expect to be so, and I may well take it patiently; - especially in the view of joining the glorious company in which Abel
was the first to be enrolled. “Arrayed in
white robes,
and having come out of great
tribulation, and
washed their robes and made them white in the blood of
the Lamb, - they are
before the throne of God,
and serve Him day and night in
His temple: and He
that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them;
God shall wipe away all tears
from their eyes” (Rev.
7: 13-17).
*
*
*
CHAPTER 8
THE
APOSTATE
SEED - THE GODLY SEED – THE - UNIVERSAL CORRUPTION
GENESIS 4:16; 6: 8
When the enemy shall come in like a flood,
the Spirit
of the LORD shall lift up a banner against him.
- Isaiah 59: 19.
PART FIRST. ‑ THE APOSTATE AND THE GODLY SEEDS
The stream of the human family is now found to divide itself
into two channels, the one beginning with Cain, and the
other with Seth, who
came into the place of righteous Abel.
Around these two heads, or centers, the growing
population of the world
began more or less formally to range themselves; and in
their distinctive
characters and mutual relations, we trace the progress
of the struggle between
the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent.
1.
It is especially in the line of Cain
that the arts of social and civilized [Page 74] life are
cultivated. The
family of Adam originally settled in a
kind of circle near the eastern gate of paradise.
Cain removed to a greater distance; and
having now no longer the visible holy place as a centre
round which his
household might rally,
he set
himself to find a centre of another kind.
He built a city, not so much for security, as for
the gratification of
his ambition and the aggrandisement of his house (chap.
4: 16,
17).
A
stranger and pilgrim on the earth, he sought not a
heavenly, but an earthly
city - desiring to found a race and perpetuate a name. “He
built a city,
and called the name of the city
after the name of his
son, Enoch” - a
name implying “dedication,”
or “high
destination,” applied to Cain’s son in impious
pride, as afterwards, in
a humbler and holier sense, it
was fitly
given to the patriarch who was translated.
It is the same name which is common to both; but while it is a gracious token in the family of the godly, it is a
profane usurpation in the household of the murderer.
In the sixth generation from Cain, his descendants are noticed
as introducing great improvements and refinements into
the system of
society. Not
only farming and manufactures,
but music and poetry flourished among them.
In farming, Jabal gave a new form to the
occupations of the shepherd and
the herdsman; “he was the father
of those who live in
tents, and of those
who have cattle” (ver.
20).
In manufactures, Tubal Cain promoted the use
of scientific tools, being “the
hammerer of every
engraving tool of bronze and iron” (ver.
22). Jubal, again,
excelled in the science
of melody, standing at the head of the profession of “such
as handle the harp and organ” (ver.
21).
And
Lamech himself, in his address’s to his two wives, gives
the first specimen on
record of primeval poetry, or the art of versification
in measured couplets (ver.
23, 24):
‑
“Adah and
Zillah, hear my voice!
Ye
wives of Lamech,
hearken unto
my speech:
For I
have slain a man to my
wounding,
And (or even)
a young man to my
hurt.
If
Cain shall be avenged
seven fold,
Truly
Lamech,
seventy and
sevenfold.”
Thus, in the apostate race, driven to the use of their utmost
natural ingenuity and full of secular ambition, the pomp
of cities and the
manifold inventions of a flourishing community arose and
prospered. They
increased in power, wealth, and
luxury. In
almost all earthly advantages,
they attained to a superiority over the more simple and
rural family of Seth.
And they afford an instance of the high
cultivation which a people may often possess who are
altogether irreligious and
ungodly, as well as of the progress which they may make
in the arts and
embellishments of life.
But there are dark spots in the picture.
The introduction of polygamy marks the
dissolution of manners which began to prevail.
“Lamech took unto him two
wives: the name of the
one was Adah, and
the name of the other Zillah” (ver.
19).
And
the impunity of which Lamech boasts (ver.
23, 24),
shows
the violence of a lawless age. He confesses the shedding
of blood, and
impiously exults in the solemn threatening by which
Cain’s life had been
guarded; claiming for himself tenfold greater security. On what ground
he rests his preferable claim
does not very clearly appear.
Perhaps [Page 75] he may have received provocation: “I have slain a
man in retaliation for my wound, even
a young
man for my hurt” - so many render his song. Or even if, as
others think, he had a double
murder to
answer for, he might still
regard his crime as venial in comparison with the
fratricide of Cain, and the
fierce impiety which prompted it.
At all
events, he presumed on his exemption from the risk of
death.
Thus the race of Cain, abusing the forbearance of God, began
to deny His providence and to brave His judgment.
And such seems to have been the character of
the first apostasy - a natural following out of Cain’s
sin in refusing the
sin-offering and rejecting the humbling doctrine of
grace. It
was not superstition or idolatry, but
presumptuous scepticism.
Men said, “God hath
forgotten, He hideth
His face; He will
never see.”
Or, “How doth God
know? and is there
knowledge in the Most High?”
(Ps. 10:
11; 73:
11).
This
is very significantly intimated in the book of Job,
where there is a
description of the irreligion that prevailed before the
flood: “Hast thou marked the old
way which wicked men have trodden?
which were cut down out of time;
whose foundation was overthrown
with a flood; which
said unto God, depart
from us; and, what
can the Almighty do for them?” (Job
22:
15-17). The apostate
race perverted and abused that
suspension of the righteous sentence of God, which
prolonged the days of their
father Cain, and even filled his house with good. In the
bold spirit of
atheistic unbelief, they gave a loose rein to their
desire of pleasure and
power. Hence,
unbridled lust and bloody
violence prevailed.
Polygamy introduced the
one, and the presumption of impunity the other.
They became high-handed in vice and crime, and set at nought the
prophetic warnings of the coming of the Lord in
judgment (Jude 14,
15).
In this view, we have another feature of resemblance between
the days before the flood, and the last times when the
Lord is to appear.
In both, we have an apostasy of the same
character - the apostasy of scepticism, and an atheistic
denial of Divine
Providence, and of the day of retribution.
For “there shall come in
the last days scoffers,
walking after their own lusts,
and saying, Where
is the
promise of his coming?” - men as ignorant and
regardless of the
judgments of God on the earth, as if He had not come
forth to execute vengeance
in the judgment of the flood, or were not again to
manifest His wrath in the
judgment of fire (2 Pet.
3: 3-7).
2.
The godly seed was perpetuated in
the family of Seth,
whose name
signifies “appointed, placed,
or firmly founded;”
for on him now
was to rest the hope of
the promised Messiah.
So God
ordained, and so Eve devoutly believed.
She no longer clung to Cain, though the
first-born; nor did she vainly
regret the pious Abel, in whose death she must have
received a sad warning and
a salutary lesson.
She recognized the
will of God respecting Seth.
“She called
his name Seth; for God,
said she, hath
appointed me
another seed, instead
of Abel, whom Cain
slew” (chap.
4: 25).
The posterity of Seth maintained the cause of religion in the
midst of increasing degeneracy.
It is
true they did not always maintain it very successfully -
perhaps they did not
always maintain it very consistently.
Indeed, as if to remind us that this was really
not to be expected, the
historian at the very outset pointedly adverts to the
difference between man [Page 76] as he came originally from his Maker’s hand, and any race that can now
spring from him. He
was created “in the
likeness of God” (chap.
5: 1).
A single blessed pair were thus created, that
there might be a godly
seed (Mal. 2:
15).
But, when he had sinned and fallen, “he
begat a
son in his own likeness” (chap.
5: 3). This is surely
an assertion of the Psalmist’s
doctrine: “I was shapen in
iniquity, and in sin
did my mother conceive me” (Ps.
51: 5). And it
is given as the explanation of the imperfect and
inadequate manner in which
now, at the very best, a godly seed can resist and stem
the tide of ungodliness
upon earth.
Still the race of Seth did testify for God, and in them the
Spirit of God raised up a standard against the rushing
force of prevalent
iniquity. He
did so especially in three successive
eras of the world before the flood.
In the first place, in the days of Enos, the grandson of Adam,
a signal revival took place among those who adhered to
the true faith. For
this is the import of the expression in
the end of the fourth chapter, - whether we adopt the
marginal reading of our
English version, “then began men
to call upon the name
of the Lord,” or, as is on the whole
preferable, adhere to that given in
the text, “then began men to
call upon the name of the LORD”
(chap.
4: 26).
The name “Enos,” signifying
poverty and affliction, seems to intimate the low state
into which the cause
and people of God had about this time fallen; in
consequence perhaps, partly,
of the evil example or the violence of the now powerful
political confederacy
of the house of Cain.
In these straits,
an urgent appeal is made to God, and a spirit of
boldness and union is infused
into God’s people, to counteract the lawless lust and
pride of which the cities
of Cain have become the centers.
A more
marked separation is effected between the followers of
Abel’s faith and the
infidel apostasy. Men
are constrained to
assume more distinctively the religious profession, and
devote themselves more
decidedly to the service of God; avoiding worldly
conformity, and giving
themselves more earnestly to prayer as their only
refuge. It
is a critical season; a time of revival.
Again, secondly, several generations later, contemporary with
Lamech in the house of Cain, lived Enoch in the family
of Seth, the seventh
from Adam. He
was raised up as a
remarkable prophet, and the burden of his prophetic
strains is preserved to us
by the apostle Jude
(ver. 14, 15). “And
Enoch also, the seventh
from Adam, prophesied
of these” apostates and unstable
professors, saying, -
“Behold the Lord cometh,
With ten
thousand of his saints,
To execute
judgment upon all,
And to
convince all that are ungodly among them,
Of all their
ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed.
And of all
their
hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken
against him.”
This true prophecy of Enoch, like the vain-glorious boasting
of his contemporary, Lamech, is in the form and spirit
of poetry. May
not the latter have been a profane
mockery of the other?
Enoch
announces the coming of the
Lord in judgment; - Lamech
sets at nought the warning, [Page
77]
and presumes insolently on the
impunity to be granted to his worst sins, - encouraging
himself in polygamy and murder.
On the other hand, as set over against Lamech’s
insidious poison,
Enoch’s solemn warning is a seasonable antidote.
In Lamech a new height of daring impiety
exhibits itself, and he openly assumes the character of
a prophet of
infidelity. Enoch
again is called to be
a witness to the truth; meeting the infidel in his own
line, with a divine poem
matched against a ribald song.
But more than that. As
the doctrines of the resurrection, the final judgment, and the eternal
state, were probably those which a scoffing
generation most sedulously
corrupted or denied, so Enoch was appointed to be a
witness, in his person as
well as by his ministry, to the truth of these vital
articles of faith. His
translation in the body, by the immediate
and, perhaps, visible, hand of God Himself – “for
God
took him” (chap.
5: 24)
- was a
palpable proof of the reality of what he had been
commissioned to teach to a
gainsaying generation.
The LORD,
whose advent, as judge of all, he
announced, - of whom he spoke as surely coming to lay
hold of the ungodly, -
that same Lord came to lay hold of him; and attested by
an unequivocal sign the
awful fact, that in
the body all must at
last meet and stand before their Sovereign Lawgiver
and King.
This was the great truth which the men of that day set aside;
and by setting it aside, they emboldened themselves in
all iniquity. Believing,
or affecting to
believe, that the body perished utterly, they deemed
it of little or no
consequence what they did in the body; since, if the
soul survived at all, it
would be in a state into which the deeds of the body
could not follow it.
This that “evil
communication” of which the apostle speaks,
as “corrupting good manners”
in his day (1 Cor.
15:
33).
[See this verse explained in “Life in a Risen Saviour.”] To meet it
the servants of God have always
preached the doctrine of the resurrection.
In the body all shall meet the Lord. This truth
Enoch’s translation openly
attested, not only for the terrible warning of the
ungodly, but for the
encouragement of believers, who must have found it
no easy matter to walk with
God, as Enoch did; - not withdrawing himself into
solitary seclusion, but
continuing among his fellow-men, the father of a
family, and a preacher and
prophet of righteousness.
Therefore, he
was publicly acknowledged as faithful.
He received a testimony that he pleased God;
and the signal privilege
was conferred on him of exemption from the
corruption of death, and immediate
entrance, in the body, into the presence of the Lord.
The same, or at least a similar privilege, was afterwards
bestowed on Moses.
His death on
Such was the import of Enoch’s translation, to which Paul
refers (Heb. 11:
6) as an instance of
the power of
faith. He
takes the recorded fact as a proof
that Enoch pleased God, and he argues that Enoch could
please God only by
believing. “By
faith, Enoch was
translated that he should not
see death.”
It must have been by
faith, as Paul proves in a formal syllogism.
“Before his translation he had this
testimony, that he
pleased God.”
But “without faith it is
impossible to please
God.” Therefore
it follows that
Enoch was translated as a believer. The articles of his
faith are few and
simple enough. The
existence of God, and
the acceptance in his sight of those that seek him, are
the truths believed; “he that
cometh to God must believe that he is, and that lie
is a rewarder
of them that
diligently seek him.”
But, in
fact, these are enough, if truly realized by that faith
which is “the substance of
things hoped for, and
the evidence of things not seen,” to account
for
the whole history of a sinner’s conversion and a saint’s
walk with God. Let
me see God as He is.
Let me not merely hear of Him with the
hearing of the ear, but let mine eye see Him (Job
42: 5),
vividly and brightly, as a
present God. And
let me, abhorring
myself and repenting in dust and ashes, be constrained
in downright earnest to
ask, What must I do to be saved?
Let me
then know assuredly that God does reward them that “seek
Him” - that He rewards them by being found of
them in peace - that I
have but to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and I shall
be saved. I
do believe, the Lord helping mine
unbelief. Believing,
I walk with God;
and in me, as in my Surety, God is well pleased.
So Enoch walked, accepted through faith, and
waiting for the Lord’s coming in judgment.
He had present peace with God, and
he rejoiced in hope of the
glory hereafter to be revealed.
Once more, in the third place, still later in this melancholy
period, the Lord raised up Noah; or Noe, as his name is
often written. Either
way, the name signifies “comfort”
or “consolation;”
and certainly at the time the righteous family needed
consolation. The
delay of salvation and the wide
prevalence of evil tried their patience, and embittered
all their toil. Nevertheless
against hope they continued to
believe in hope; and remembering the promise about the
seed of the woman, they
hailed this new heir of it as the harbinger of better
days. In
their expectations, they probably dwelt
upon the time, when the curse being taken away, the face
of the earth would be
renewed (Ps. 104:
30); for they said of
Noah, interpreting his
name as prophetic, “This same
shall comfort us
concerning our work and toil of our hands, because
of the ground which the Lord hath cursed” (ver.
28, 29).
Personally, Noah “found grace in the
eyes of the Lord.”
He was
accepted; and still it was by faith.
“By faith Noah,
being warned of
things not seen as yet, moved
with fear, prepared an
ark to the saving of his house; by
the which he condemned the world, and
became heir of the righteousness which is by faith”
(Heb. 11:
7).
The proof of his faith was his [Page 79] “preparation
of
the ark;”
it was that
which showed his faith to be real; his faith about the “things not seen as yet,” of which he was “warned
by
God.” For
his faith was
influential as well as real; influential because real. It worked, as
was fitting, by fear; he was “moved
with fear.”
He was cautious and provident; and so he prepared
the ark for the saving
of his house. But
his faith worked also
by love - it apprehended and embraced the free grace of
the gospel. For,
by his conduct in preparing the ark,
Noah, renouncing the world, took the Lord alone for his
portion. He
thus constituted himself the sole ancestor
of the promised seed, and served himself “heir
to the
righteousness which is by faith.”
He abandoned all confidence in the seed after
the flesh which was to be destroyed, and consented to
rely on the faithfulness
of the Lord, by whom the true seed was promised.
Officially, Noah, like his predecessors, was a preacher of
righteousness (2 Pet.
2: 5). Through him,
Christ by His Spirit preached to
the spirits in prison (1 Pet.
3: 19)
- to
those who, while the ark was a-preparing, were shut up
as in a prison upon the
earth. These
Noah warned. He
found them “disobedient,”
and doomed to the terrible punishment of disobedience. They were as
criminals in the condemned cell,
waiting the morning of their execution.
There was no door of flight out of the prison in
which the Almighty
Judge held them under confinement - no possibility of
evading the sentence of
righteous retribution that awaited them.
But one way of escape was provided.
A holy man among them was commanded by God to
prepare an ark. The
long-suffering of God was waiting.
The Spirit of Christ was in Noah - the Spirit
by which, afterwards when Christ was put to death in the
flesh, He was
quickened and raised from the grave.
By
that same [Holy]
Spirit,
in the days before the flood,
Christ, through the teaching and testimony of His
servant Noah, went forth and
preached to these miserable spirits* of the
ungodly, imprisoned on the
earth which the flood was to overwhelm.
[*NOTE.
The
word “spirits,” in this
context, may well
have reference to the “Nephilim”
or “Giants” - the
off-spring from “the sons of God” (fallen angelic creatures) - and “the
daughters of men” (Gen.
6: 2-4).
It is the “souls” of the dead,
which are being held in the Underworld of Hades; not
their “spirits”!
Hence
the distinction being made by the use of the word “spirits”
instead of “souls.” This must give
weight to the suggestion made
above!]
Thus, in the name and by the Spirit of the Saviour, hereafter
to be revealed as dying for men’s sins, and rising again
for their
justification, Noah prayed these sinners to be
reconciled to God.
And he pointed to the ark as the sacramental
seal and pledge, both of the certainty of coming
judgment, and of the way of
present deliverance.
The ark then served
the same purpose as the sacrament of baptism now; for
baptism is expressly said
to be a figure like the ark; - of the same kind with it
(1 Pet. 3:
21).
It
saves believers in the same way; not by itself, but by
the death and
[consequent] resurrection
[after
“three days and three nights”] of
Jesus Christ, of which it is the emblem.
For the ark figuratively represented Christ as,
in His death and rising
again, the refuge of those who must otherwise perish. It indicated a
salvation, through a penal and
judicial death for sin and a blessed and gracious
resurrection to eternal
life. The
invitation to enter into the
ark, like the
call to submit to the
water of baptism, was significant of the sinner’s
dying virtually and being
buried with Christ; and so putting away, not only the
filth of the flesh, but
also the guilt of conscious sin and the corruption of
the old nature.
And again, the assurance of his coming forth safely in the ark out of the water
was the token of his being raised in Christ to newness
of life. [Page
80]
In one word, these sinners of the old
world were exhorted, as sinners are still commanded
everywhere, to repent and
to believe. Entering
into the ark, they
would have been saved by water.
Secure
within that refuge, they would have gone down amid the
raging billows of the
flood, only to emerge again in triumph over all its
fury. So
believers now, shut up into Christ, die
with Him by participation in all His penal sufferings
for sin, only to rise
with Him to a participation in His righteousness and its
reward.
Thus, in three successive eras, the Lord remarkably interposed
to arrest the progress of the apostasy.
But apart from these occasional interpositions,
it is to be kept in mind
that the lives and deaths of so many patriarchs were
continual testimonies
against the sins of the times.
1.
It is interesting in this view to
consider the longevity of the patriarchs.
The length of their days well fitted them for
being the depositories of
the revealed will of God, preserving and transmitting it
from age to age; and
since so many of them survived together, not for years
only, but for centuries,
they must have formed a holy and reverend company of
teachers and witnesses in
the world.
The same circumstance, it is true, might tell also on the
other side, and give a similar and corresponding
advantage to the faction of
the ungodly. The
long lives of the
fathers in the line of Cain, might tend to accelerate
the progress of lawless
impiety. Hoary
patriarchs of infidelity,
profligacy, and crime, surviving till the ninth or tenth
generation, might lend
the sanction of their accursed experience to the schemes
of their more
adventurous sons and grandsons.
Still,
upon the whole, the longevity of that ancient race must
have proved a benefit
to the cause of godliness.
In regard to
the wicked, not only would the curse of God, and their
own violence, contribute
to carry many of them off before their days full - the
most eminent in crime
being often the earliest cut down; but even if they were
spared, they were as
likely to meet for mutual strife among themselves, as
for united efforts
against the people of the Lord.
The
godly, again, enjoying the special blessing of Heaven,
and having their peaceful
days prolonged - honouring also the venerable worthies
who could link together
years so remote - Adam, sitting with Enoch and
Methuselah, and Methuselah in
his old age conversing with the men on whom the flood
came - might be knit in
one common faith and fellowship, and present an unbroken
front to the
adversary.
So, at least,
it should have
been. For
surely this longevity of the
fathers was a boon and privilege to the church.
It served, to some extent, the purpose of the
written word. It
transmitted, not a treacherous and
variable tradition passing quickly through many hands,
but a sure record of the
truth of God. It
was fitted to rally
with no uncertain sound - not by the artifice of any
dead and nominal uniformity,
but on a trustworthy principle of living unity - the
whole family of God.
If the effect was otherwise - if the
testimony of the long-lived fathers then, like the
teaching of the abiding word
now, failed to keep the sons of God at one among
themselves and separate from
the world, - their sin was on that account all the
greater. The
instrumentality was sufficient, being the
truth authentically preserved, with as little liability
to error or corruption
as, in the absence of written
[Page 81]
documents, could well be
guaranteed. Nor
was the agency wanting
which alone can give a spiritual discernment of the
truth. The
[Holy] Spirit was throughout these ages continually “striving
with men.”
By the [Holy]
Spirit, and through His long-lived servants, Christ was ever preaching to
the successive generations of that antediluvian world.
2.
But it is not the length of their
lives only that is to be taken into account, when we
would estimate the effect
which the testimony of the godly patriarchs was fitted
to have in stemming the
torrent of ungodliness.
Their deaths
also must have been instructive and significant.
There is still
something striking even
to the most cursory reader, in the perpetual recurrence,
throughout this record
of protracted life (chap.
5), of the inevitable
sentence of death.
How often are these brief words repeated,
after each long life, “and he
died!” How
startling is the reiteration of this
announcement - how solemn its very uniformity!
Little is told of the sayings, or doings, or
sufferings of these men
whose days were so long upon the earth.
They were men of note in their generations -
princes, probably, and
priests, as well as patriarchs - taking a lead in civil
affairs as well as in
the things of God; but as to all their acts, in whatever
spheres they filled,
their memory has perished.
That at a
certain age he had a son, and thereafter lived a certain
time, having many
children - this, and no more, is the history of every
one of them. And
whatever the allotted time of each, and
with whatever stirring events filled up, the end of his
brief biography is the
same yet briefer epitaph - “and
he died!”
Adam lived nine hundred and thirty years, and he died.
Seth, nine hundred and twelve, and he
died. Enos,
nine hundred and five, and
he died. Cainan,
nine hundred and ten,
and he died. Mahalaleel,
eight hundred
and ninety-five, and he died.
Jared,
living longer than his predecessors, attained the age of
nine hundred and
sixty-two, and then he died.
Methuselah,
the oldest of all, was well nigh within reach of a
crowning millennium, but
after living nine hundred and sixty-nine years, he died. The son of
Methuselah, Noah’s father, had
almost seen the flood come; but seven hundred and
seventy-seven years being
meted out to him, he, too, died!
It is the death-watch of that ancient and doomed world - the
steady beat, as of a still small sound, striking at
intervals upon the ear;
marking each footfall of the destroyer, as nearer and
nearer, step by step he
comes on. At each death of a saint, another hour of the
world’s day of grace is
gone. As of
patriarch after patriarch it
is announced that he is dead; there is a new alarm rung;
and a new call given
forth. They
depart one by one from the
scene; each leaving his dying testimony to a guilty
world. And
the single exception in the case of Enoch
- who has this public token of his having pleased God -
that suddenly “he is not,
for God has taken
him” - speaks even more eloquently than all the
rest!
-------
[Page 82]
PART
SECOND
- THE UNIVERSAL CORRUPTION
The fool has said in his heart,
There is no
God! They
are corrupt.
They have done
hateful things.
There is not one
who
does good.
The LORD looked
down from Heaven on the children of men,
to see if there were any who
understood and sought God.
They have all
turned
aside.
They
have together become filthy.
There is none doing
good, no,
not one.
Psalm 14:
1-3
The
seasons of revival from time to time granted to the
people of God, as well as
the long lives and successive deaths of the patriarchal
fathers, might have
been expected to have a wholesome influence on that
early world. But the
depravity of man was to be proved, and the sovereignty
of divine judgment and
divine grace was to be manifested.
1.
The progress of corruption was not
arrested. It
increased as the tide of
population rolled on.
For a time, the people of God, adhering to the house of Seth,
kept themselves unspotted from the world; but even that
barrier was at last
overthrown. The
sons of God, or the
righteous, sought alliances by marriage with the
families of the ungodly.
For “it came to pass,
when men began to multiply on the face of the earth,
and daughters were born unto
them, that the sons of
God saw the daughters of men that they were
fair; and they took
them wives of all which they
chose” (chap.
6: 1, 2). They
followed their own inclination, without regard to the
religious character of
the wives whom they chose; a grievous sin, which in
every age has marred the
religion of many a household, and turned many a fair
promise of revival into a
season of hopeless declension and apostasy.
To this sad error, the godly seed had previously been tempted
by other considerations. There were very plausible
reasons for their
cultivating a good understanding ‑ at least with the
less abandoned of
the ungodly faction.
The useful arts and graceful embellishments of social life
began to flourish, as has been seen, in the house of
Cain (4: 19-24).
Agriculture, commerce, music, and poetry, were
cultivated among his
descendants, and brought to a high pitch of perfection. Were the
children of Seth to forego the
benefit of participating in these improvements and
advantages? Were
they to deny themselves the profit and
pleasure of well-directed industry and well-refined
taste? Was
it not rather their duty to adopt and
prosecute the laudable undertakings set on foot by the
enterprise of the world
- to rescue them out of the hands of God’s enemies, and
so make it manifest
that religion does not frown on any of the lawful
occupations and polite usages
of society, but, on the contrary. ennobles and hallows
them all?
Then, again, the lawless violence of which Lamech’s impious
boast of impunity (chap.
4: 23,
24) was a token and
example, and which soon became
so general as to fill the earth, might seem to warrant,
and indeed require, on
grounds of policy, some kind of dealing between the
persecuted people of God,
and the more moderate of their opponents.
Amid the distractions which must have prevailed
in the ranks of the
ungodly, it might seem a [Page
83]
point of wisdom and duty
that the righteous should avail
themselves of any openings which occurred for an
alliance with their
neighbours, as well as of any advances which these
neighbours chose
to make to them. Might they not
thus lawfully defend themselves with the aid of one
portion of the world
against another? Might they not combine in a common
cause with those who were
not altogether at one with them in religion? Nay, might
they not thus detach
their allies from the world, and by their friendly
intercourse win them to God?
Such plausible experiments, in the line of worldly conformity,
naturally brought in a third kind of compliance. The
intercourse of business
almost insensibly led to a closer union in private life. The sons of
God and the daughters of men were
thrown much together.
Other motives than a regard for the glory of God and the salvation of
the soul were allowed to regulate the choice of
companions and associates.
The godly were “unequally
yoked together with unbelievers.” Marriages were contracted
according to the dictates of policy, or the fondness
of passion, and not “in the Lord.” It was no longer deemed essential that husband and wife should
be “heirs together of the
grace of life, that
their prayers might not be hindered.” The
children of God “took them
wives of all which they
chose,” looking more to a fair countenance than to a pious heart.
The church and the world intermarried and intermingled.
And with what result?
There ceased to be a separate and peculiar
people, testifying for God
and reproving sin.
And ere long a race of giants [or “Nephilim” R.V.], powerful and lawless men, overspread the whole earth (chap.
6:4).
2.
At last, the patience of the Lord is represented
as worn out. The
end of His
long-suffering has arrived, and the day of His wrath is
at hand. His
Spirit having been so long grieved, is to
be withdrawn - as if any further contending with man’s
desperate depravity must
needs be unavailing - and judgment is to be executed. “The
Lord said,
My Spirit shall not always
strive with man, for
that he also is flesh” (chap.
6: 3). He is flesh
and flesh only. It
is needless to prolong the use of means
and opportunities, which only serve to harden his heart,
to deepen his guilt
and aggravate his doom.
He must be
suffered to show himself to be what he really is; mere
flesh; corruption and
carnality.
The decree, indeed, is not instantly executed; the Spirit of
God is not suddenly withdrawn.
A respite
is granted. “Yet,”
even yet, “his days shall be an
hundred and twenty
years” (chap.
6: 3).
Corrupt as it is, the race is to be spared
for a season. But
it is only for a
season. For
the race is incurably
corrupt; not Cain’s seed only, but Seth’s also, is
become “flesh;” carnal
instead of spiritual, living after the
flesh and not after the Spirit (Rom.
8).
It is
all ripe and ready for destruction.
Destruction, however, is the Lord’s “strange
work.” He
is represented as going
about it reluctantly and with regret; repenting of the
very creation of a race
on which He is under the righteous necessity of
inflicting so terrible a
doom. “It
repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth,
and it grieved him at his heart”
(chap. 6:
6).
The expression here employed to describe the Lord’s feeling
towards the impenitent is in accordance with such
language as that of the
prophet – [Page 84] “How shall I give thee up,
Ephraim? how
shall I
deliver thee,
Such is now the state of the world, lately so blessed.
It is abandoned by the Creator, as unfit for
the purposes for which it was created.
He who saw everything that He had made, and
behold it was very good (chap.
1: 31),
now repents, as it were, of His having made the very
chiefest and crowning part
of all - man, who was to be His image and glory on the
earth. He
changes, therefore, His work into a work
of desolation. One
man alone believes,
to the saving of his house, and becomes heir of the
righteousness that is by faith.
“Noah finds grace in
the eyes of the Lord.”
And his
thus finding grace in the eyes of the Lord is a gracious
encouragement to all
the faithful in all generations.
“For this is as the
waters of Noah unto me: for
as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more
go
over the earth; so
have I sworn that I would not
he wroth with thee, nor
rebuke thee. For the
mountains shall depart, and
the hills be removed; but
my
kindness shall not depart from thee, neither
shall
the covenant of my peace be removed, saith
the
Lord that hath mercy on thee” (Is.
54: 9,
10).
*
*
*
CHAPTER 9
THE END OF THE OLD WORLD BY WATER - THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE NEW WORLD
RESERVED UNTO FIRE
GEN. 6: 9; 8:
22; 2 Pet. 3:
5-7
The
demoralization of the infidel world was now complete;
the corruption had now
become universal; “God looked
upon the earth, and,
[Page
85]
behold,
it was corrupt; for
all
flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth” (ver.
12).
The measure of the world’s iniquity was filled
up, and the season of
God’s forbearance exhausted.
“The end of all flesh
is come before me” (ver.
13).
It is come in a terrible sense and with a
terrible significancy. [See Ezekiel
9: 2-6, and Amos
8: 2]
The Lord’s resolution is irrevocable; “I will destroy them with the earth,” or “from
the
earth.” Orders
accordingly are
given to prepare the ark wherein a few, that is, eight
souls, are to be saved:
“Make thee an ark, of
gopher-wood: rooms
shalt thou make in the ark,
and shalt pitch it within and
without with pitch”
(ver. 14).
Of the form and size of the ark (ver.
15-21),
it
is enough to remark that it had the shape of a chest or
coffin - or, in
other words, of a vessel blunt in the front and stern,
and flat below; and
that, as almost all now confess who make the calculation
on the common rules of
Jewish measurement, it was large enough for the
temporary accommodation of the
motley crew and cargo that were to occupy it.
That due provision was made for their health and
comfort, in respect of
light, air, and cleanliness, may surely be assumed, even
although in this brief
account the particular manner in which this was done is
not stated. There
were rooms and different stories, as
well as what is called a window, which perhaps was a
sloping roof rising a
cubit above the sides, and made of some transparent
substance. [The
word rendered window, in a subsequent
place, when the sending forth of the raven out of the
ark is mentioned (chap.
8: 6),
is different from that used when it is said,
in the orders given for the building of the ark – “a
window shalt thou make to it” (chap.
4: 1-6).
In that
other passage, the word may denote a window on the side,
while here, in all
likelihood, it is the roof that is spoken of.]
There were probably also other openings in the
sides. There
were the means, at all events, of
suitably distributing the inmates of the ark, and
preserving order and comfort
among them.
When Noah received orders to make the ark, the Lord revealed
to him the precise manner and extent of the coming
judgment. He
had before been generally warned; but now
he is more particularly informed; “Behold,
I, even
I, do bring a flood of
waters upon the earth, to
destroy all flesh, wherein
is
the breath of life, from
under heaven;
and every thing that is in the
earth shall die”
(ver. 17).
It was an appalling announcement; how solemn and how
stern! “I,
even I.” The repetition
has in it an awful
emphasis and force – “I,
even
[Page 86]
Then, again, as to its extent, how sweeping is the sentence -
“I do bring a flood of waters
upon the earth, to
destroy all flesh, all
wherein is the breath of life; every
thing that
is in the earth shall die.”
This
heaping up of words is full of terror.
Surely there is, there must be an infinite evil
in sin - it is indeed
exceeding sinful. One
single offence
opened by a small and solitary chink the flood-gate. The tide
rushed in. And
now the whole race of man - and not they
only, but countless multitudes of unconscious and
unoffending living beings
made subject to vanity for man’s sin - and the very
earth itself, cursed at
first with thorns and thistles, and now again doubly
cursed with desolation on
man’s account - all are swept along in the impetuous
torrent. It
might, indeed, seem as if the Lord had
forgotten to be gracious - as if in this unbounded and
intolerable provocation,
His mercy were clean gone forever (Ps.
77: 8,
9).
It is not so, however.
God remembers His covenant: “But
with thee will
I establish my covenant; and
thou shalt come
into the ark, thou,
and thy sons, and
thy wife,
and thy sons’ wives with thee”
(ver. 18). He is faithful
and true; and though terrible in
His righteous vengeance, He keeps covenant and mercy. And He has
always some with whom He may
establish His covenant; if not seven thousand who have
not bowed the knee to
Baal, at least one who finds favour in His sight.
His purpose of love according to the election
of grace stands sure, and all the unbelief of a world of
apostates cannot make
it void. The
gracious covenant, into
which at first, when all seemed lost, He admitted Adam
as a partner, He will
now again, in this desperate crisis, establish with
Noah. And
with
excellent reason.
For it is neither
with Adam, nor with Noah, that the covenant is made,
else with Adam at the
fall, and with Noah at the flood, it must have been
forever ended. What
righteousness or what power had either Adam or Noah in
himself to save him from
the general wreck and crash of a ruined world, and
sustain him erect and
fearless before the Righteous One?
But
the covenant is with His own beloved Son; and with
Adam and Noah only in Him.
Hence it stands sure, being eternal and
unchangeable. While
the earth is moved,
and the mountains shake with the swelling of the seas,
the faith which God
works by His Spirit in His chosen, enables Noah calmly
to lay hold of the
promise, that the Seed of the woman shall assuredly, in
spite of all, bruise
the head of the serpent.
In
Christ the Son - whose day, even amid the waste of
waters, he sees, however dimly, afar off - he may
appropriate the Father’s
covenanted love as his portion; and so doing he may be
glad.
Thus God revealed His mind to Noah, when he was to begin the
preparation of the ark.
And Noah, “warned of
God of
things not seen as yet, moved
with fear,”
or being wary, proceeded to prepare the ark accordingly
“for the saving of his house”
(Heb.
11: 7). He believed
God. His
faith realized future and unseen things,
and according as he believed, so he did.
“Thus did Noah; according
to all that God commanded him, so
did he”
(ver. 22).
How long the ark was a-preparing is not said.
But whatever was the date of its commencement,
it is evident that it was completed seven days before
the flood was to
come. At
that precise time, Noah
received the order to [Page
87]
take possession of it; - “And
the Lord said unto Noah, Come
thou, and all thy
house into the ark, for
thee have I seen righteous before me in this
generation.
Of every clean beast
thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the
male and
his female: and of
beasts that are not clean by
two, the male and his
female. Of fowls also of the
air by sevens, the
male and the female: to
keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth.
For yet seven days, and I will
cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty
nights; and every
living substance that I have made will 1 destroy
from off the face of the earth” (chap.
7: 14).
These directions are more minute than those formerly given; in
particular with reference to the animals.
He had previously been told to take them in
pairs. Now
he is instructed to divide them into two
classes, the clean and the unclean.
Of
the unclean he is to take single pairs; of the clean he
is to take by sevens,
three pairs and a half of each kind.
This is plainly not the first appointment of a difference
between clean and unclean beasts; for the distinction is
spoken of as
familiarly known and recognized.
And
what was the ground of it?
Not certainly
any thing in the nature of the beasts themselves, for we
now regard them all
indiscriminately as on the same footing, and we have
undoubted divine warrant
for doing so; nor any thing in their fitness for being
used as food, for animal
food was not yet allowed.
The
distinction could have respect only to the rite of
sacrifice. Hence
arises another irresistible argument
for the divine origin and authority of that rite, and a
proof also of the
substantial identity of the Patriarchal and the Mosaic
institutions. The
same standing ordinance of animal
sacrifice, - and the same separation of certain sorts of
animals as proper for
that use, - prevailed in both.
The
religion, in fact, in its faith and worship, was exactly
the same.
Seven days, then before the tremendous catastrophe, the signal
was given to Noah.
With all that were to
be saved, he was now on board.
And “the Lord shut him
in” (ver.
16).
In what a position did Noah now find himself!
And in what a position did he leave his
contemporaries!
Three successive eras may be noted in the years before the
flood; three trials of the faith of Noah, - three signs
and warnings to the
world.
When the Lord first fixed the period of His long-suffering
patience,
and resolved to spare man on the earth for one hundred
and twenty years, and no
longer, - he doubtless intimated this purpose in some
way; announcing the
destruction coming on all flesh, and giving some public
pledge of the grace
which Noah found in His eyes. This would be a new call
to Noah to labour in his
vocation of a teacher of righteousness, as well as a
loud alarm to the world at
large. Noah
obeyed the call - the world
set at naught the alarm.
To Noah
it was indeed a trying office that
was assigned, - to testify for God in the midst of
such a generation, to whose
hatred and jealousy the very token of approbation with
which God had honoured
him, tended the more to expose him.
He
became a marked man, the object of scorn and
contumely, of injury and
insult. The
people watched for his
halting, and waylaid his path with subtle snares. It was a
difficult part he had in these
circumstances to perform, - a dangerous duty he had to
discharge, [Page 88] as he walked
humbly with his God and
went about warning the ungodly.
But the second era was far more critical than the first.
The order reaches Noah to prepare the ark,
and to gather food for the support of its destined
inmates. The
predicted judgment now assumes a more
distinct form. Not
only is it intimated
that the world is to be destroyed, but the kind of destruction is specified.
There is to be a flood.
To a
gainsaying and perverse generation, this makes the
threatening appear even more
improbable than before.
Not considering
how precariously their earth is poised, “standing
out
of the water and in the water” (2
Pet.
3: 5),
-
being wilfully ignorant of the facts of the creation,
which doubtless had been
revealed, - they laugh to scorn the notion of an
overflowing deluge, as a
chimera and a dream.
They rely securely
on nature’s uniformity; as if the account of the
primeval watery chaos and the
division of the waters above and under the firmament,
were an idle tale; - as
if there were no store of rain above and no great deep
beneath. Hence
Noah, with his endless reiteration and
denunciation of terror, seems as one made.
And when they see him gravely setting to work on
his huge unwieldy
vessel, and gathering provisions for the motley crowd
with which he means to
stow her, - what are they to think?
Can
the man be serious and in earnest?
Is it
to be endured that he should so flagrantly outrage
common sense, and so rudely
offend his fellows, by his hoarse prophecy of evil, and
the clank of his
incessant hammer echoing his ominous and hollow voice of
woe?
But now his
task is done. One
brief week is yet to elapse, and then -
Shall we say it is the
eve before the Sabbath? The day has been spent in
getting
all into the ark, - his wife, his sons, his
daughters-in-law, and the whole
crowd of living creatures following.
Noah himself enters, and “the
Lord shuts him in.”
Thus the Sabbath of that old world.
Within
the ark there is Sabbatic rest, the quiet
assurance of faith, chastened by
solemn dread and awful expectance.
Without, on the earth, there are mingled
sentiments of wonder, contempt,
and bitter triumph; - sometimes a lurking fear, again a
feeling of glad relief.
Men have got rid at last of the preacher of
righteousness. And
if we assume, as is not improbable, that
during this very week the aged Methuselah was taken from
the evil to come, - it
might seem to be the very jubilee of unrestricted and
un-reproved lawlessness
that had now arrived.
True, it had been said, “Yet seven
days and I will bring the flood.”
But how can this be?
The heaven
is serene; the earth is smiling; all nature is gay and
joyous, - it being, as
some reckon, the first breaking forth of spring.
Now is the season of mirth, eating and
drinking, marrying and giving in marriage.
And Noah, the gloomy censor of the world’s
harmless joys, where is he
now? Immured
in a vast dungeon; buried
alive; self-immolated; as good as dead; and at any rate
well out of the way!
What a contrast, during that awful week; - that mysterious
pause;
- while the elements are gathering their strength for
the sudden crash!
Look within the ark.
There are prisoners there; and to the eye of
sense, they are apparently
shut up to die. But
they are prisoners
of hope; - they have fled to a stronghold; - they have
that all around them
through which no floods of wrath can penetrate; - their
refuge is “pitched within and
[Page 89] without
with
pitch” (chap.
6: 14).
It is well protected against the worst
weather. And
what an emblem is the
pitch; - the very word meaning propitiation or the
covering of sins by
sacrifice; - of their complete security from every kind
of terror, whether
temporal or eternal, - from
all risk of
perishing either here or hereafter!
They have pitch on all sides of their new
dwelling; pitch within and
without, - pitch, making it effectually a covert from
the storm and a
hiding-place from the tempest - even such as A MAN is to the sinner, - the man Christ Jesus (Is.
32: 2).
Look again without the ark. There are prisoners there, too, “spirits in prison;” condemned
criminals, confined in
the lowest vaults of that frail fortress on which the
waves of wrath are about
to burst. Do
you see them, these
prisoners, all alive and joyous, and affecting to pity
the small company buried
within the ark? Do
you see them making
merry, - or trying, by desperate gambling, to make gain?
Look once more and listen.
There is a lightning flash, a rushing mighty
noise. The
flood comes. - In which of the two
prisons would you have your spirit to be?
Thus, by the ark which he prepared, Noah “condemned
the world.”
The warning which might have saved them, turned
to their greater
condemnation. But
“he delivered his own soul”
(Ezek.
33: 9);
and
he prepared the ark to “the
saving also of his
house” (Heb.
11:
7).
I pass over the catastrophe itself, without discussing the
various questions which have been raised concerning it. The Apostle
Peter, referring to the inspired
account of the creation, has given the only explanation
we have in scripture of
the immediate cause and manner of the flood; - “By
the
word of God the heavens were of old, and
the
earth standing out of the water and in the water:
whereby the world that then was,
being overflowed with water,
perished”
(2 Pet. 3:
5, 6). So he connects
the two miracles. In
creation, [restoration]
the earth arose out of the waters;
they partly retired into the deep places of the earth,
and partly were gathered
above in vapoury clouds, so as to leave the dry land. Convulsions
from beneath, and incessant rain
from above, conspired to bring back the waters, so that
again they “stood above the
mountains” (Ps.
104: 6).
The forty days of unceasing rain are now past, and the work of
destruction is accomplished.
The flood
having risen to its utmost height becomes nearly
stationary (ver. 17).
These forty days form part of the hundred and
fifty, - twice mentioned as the entire time of the
flood’s duration, - from the
first day of rain to the day of the ark’s resting on the
mountains of Ararat.
They were the days of the flood’s increase;
during which the ark was lifted up and floated safely on
the surface of the
rising tide of waters (ver.
18).
About
the end of the forty days, or perhaps nearer the middle
of the hundred and
fifty, the ark had reached its highest elevation.
In sad and solitary majesty it rode sublime;
- the only moving and living thing over the boundless
ocean of death.
It is a time for the exercise of faith.
Far
down, in the unfathomable depths below, lies a dead
and buried world.
Noah, shut up in his narrow prison, seems to
be abandoned to his fate.
He cannot help
himself. And
in this universal
visitation of sin - this terrible reckoning with sinners
- why [Page 90] should he obtain mercy? What
is he,
that when all else are taken, he should be left?
May he not be righteously suffered to perish
after all? Is
he not a sinner, like the
rest? Does
he not feel himself to be “the
chief of sinners?”
But the Lord, who “shut him in,”
has not forgotten him.
With Noah, God
has established His covenant; and for His own name’s
sake His covenant must
stand. Therefore
the Lord remembers
Noah, and in His own good time brings the ship to land. The earth is
again prepared for the
habitation of man and beast.
Once more
it emerges out of the water; - never again to perish by
the same means.
As the waters gradually subsided, Noah waited patiently where
God had placed him; only sending forth, at intervals, as
the earliest visitors to
the new world, the wandering raven and the domestic dove
(chap. 8:
7-12).
The
raven was the first to find himself at home; amid the
remains, it has been
supposed, of earth’s former tenants.
Upon the carcasses lying on the mountains or
floating on the waves, -
after his long abstinence from such food in the ark, -
he might now greedily
prey. Sad
omen for the still cursed
ground! But there is room also for the gentle dove; and there is an emblem of
peace which she may bear back to the ark, as the
pledge of a better destiny
awaiting this world after all.
In the successive intervals of seven days, marked by the
sending of these winged messengers, we recognize, as we
have had occasion to
recognize already, the division of time by weeks.
In the earliest worship after the fall, there
is probable evidence of the continued observance of the
weekly Sabbath. The
entrance into the ark is
measured by a single week from the beginning of the
flood. The
incidents that make the subsiding of the
flood so interesting, are separated from one another
by the same number of
days. We
can
scarcely therefore fairly resist the conclusion that
the Sabbath, as dividing
time by weeks, was then known as a primitive
institution; and that the sanctification
of the Sabbath formed a part of the divine service
observed even in the
ark. On
the Sabbath, the dove brings to
the weary prisoners of hope the olive branch, which
is to give them assurance
of rest (ver. 11).
And accordingly Noah, seeing the face of
the
ground to be dry, after waiting another week, goes
forth with his companions,
by God’s commandment, to resume possession of the earth (verses 13-19).
The patriarch’s first business is to erect an altar, and offer
sacrifices (ver. 20).
Each kind of animal proper for sacrifice
successively furnished a victim; for of each kind there
was one individual,
over and above the three pairs, provided probably for
this very end. Thus
the new earth was cleansed and
consecrated for man’s dwelling-place.
“The Lord smelled a
sweet savour” (ver.
21).
He was propitiated, reconciled, well pleased:
- having
respect, undoubtedly, not to
the hecatombs then slain, - the blood of beasts and
birds, - but to the more
precious blood which theirs prefigured, the better
sacrifice of which the new
earth was to be the scene.
It is that
great sacrifice alone which suspends the doom to which
the world is otherwise
every instant liable.
It is in virtue of
that sacrifice that God purposes, in His heart, not
again to curse the ground
any more for man’s sake.
If the Lord
were to act according to man’s deserving, there would be
no interval, and no
end, of His judgments.
“The imagination of
man’s heart being evil [Page 91] from his youth” (ver. 21),
- no threatenings, no terrors, no floods of
wrath, can purge away his guilt, or change and amend his
nature. But
where judgment is impotent, grace may
prevail. There
is to be blood shed which
shall cleanse from all sin, and a word of reconciliation
preached, effectually
to save the chief of sinners.
For the
shedding of that precious blood, -
for the preaching of that blessed word, - the world is
to be spared until the
end come. There
is to be no more any
violent shock of nature, or universal destruction of
life. The
earth is to stand secure during all the
remainder of its appointed days; and the seasons are not
to cease.
But though its course is to be no more broken in the middle,
it is to have a sudden and terrible termination at the
last. The
judgment
of flood is but the type of the still more awful
judgment of fire. The
earth, saved from water, is reserved for
fire. By
both elements, - by the baptism
both of water and of fire, - it must be purged, before
it can be fitted for the
habitation of the Lord and His redeemed. Meanwhile,
the Lord is preparing a stronghold,
an ark of safety. It
is the ark of His
everlasting covenant, to which all that will believe may
flee. In
this ark, or in other words, in Christ, -
they are now dead and buried; though still they have a
hidden life, - a life
hid with Christ in God (Col.
3: 3). To the world,
they may seem as fond and
foolish as did Noah when he entered into his ark, and “the
Lord shut him in.”
The men of the
world, living at ease because all things continue as
they were, may marvel and
rage, when they see any of us, who once were of the
world, moved by a wary fear
of coming wrath, seriously betaking ourselves to the
only hiding-place.
But let us hear the word of the Lord: “Come
my people, enter thou
into thy chambers,” the chambers prepared, made
ready and set wide open,
in the Lord’s ark, which is His Christ, His anointed
one, - “enter into thy chambers,
and
shut thy doors about thee: hide
thyself as it
were for a little moment, until
the indignation
be overpast.
For behold, the Lord cometh
out of His place to punish the inhabitants of the
earth” (Is.
26: 20). And
who then may stand? Where shall the ungodly appear? Shut in,
imprisoned, with no door of escape,
while fire is devouring the earth!
But
let the Lord hide us now.
Let Him shut
us up into Christ’s blessed gospel of reconciliation: -
let Him shut us up into
Christ Himself. Then,
although the
elements should melt with fervent heat, and this earth
and these heavens should
be dissolved, we, in Christ, shall be hidden in
security, floating in air above
the fiery storm (2 Thess. 4:
16, 17). And,
finally, as the
judgment passes away, an
olive branch will be brought to us from the renovated world; - and in the new heavens and
the new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness, we shall
dwell forever with the
Lord, and offer the sacrifices of praise continually.*
[* NOTE.
There is an implication in the above paragraph
that the destruction of
this earth by fire, will occur immediately after
“the Lord cometh out of His
place.” This,
however, cannot be until all the
unfulfilled prophecies concerning Christ’s Messianic
Kingdom upon this earth
are literally fulfilled during “the
thousand years”.
Furthermore, “the
new heavens and new earth,” have reference to a
“renovated” creation; and not after “a new
heaven and a new earth,” which will replace
this present earth; destined
by God to be destroyed “by fire”
after “the first heaven and
first earth passed away.”
That is, after this earth is wiped out of
existence, and a separate “new”
creation will
replace it; in which “the sea is
no more” (Rev.
21: 1,
R.V.).]
*
*
*
[Page 92]
CHAPTER 10
THE
NEW
WORLD IN ITS THREE DEPARTMENTS OF NATURE,
1.
THE
LAW OF NATURE (CHAP.
9: 1-7)
For everything created by God is good.
And nothing is to be
refused, but to be
received with thanksgiving. For
it is made holy by the word of God and by prayer.
- 1 Tim. 4:
4, 5.
The law
of nature is the rule which God has appointed for the
preservation of life on
the earth. It
embraces all the
arrangements, whether physical or moral, which are
necessary for that end.
At first that law was very simple.
It was materially affected, however, by the
fall and it was subjected to still further modifications
after the flood.
In its original simplicity, the law of nature provided for the
increase of the earth’s inhabitants, for man’s dominion
over the other animals,
and for the supply of food; and these three objects it
attained by the most
suitable and effectual means, -
the
distinction of the sexes, the native superiority of
mind, and the spontaneous
fertility of the ground (chap.
1: 28-30).
The
form of expression, in the first announcement of this
law at the creation,
remarkably corresponds with what is said on the renewal
of it after the
flood. In
both instances it is ushered
in by a benediction: - “The Lord
blessed them” (chap.
1: 28). “The
Lord blessed Noah” (chap.
9: 1).
Then,
having thus generally given His blessing; - thereby
consecrating as His
own the law or rule which He is about to institute; -
the Lord proceeds to lay
down more particularly the details of His plan.
The plan is, I repeat, very simple.
It provides first for the propagation of
life; and appoints the same rule, in the same terms, for
the inferior animals (chap.
1: 22)
and for man (chap.
1: 28),
“Be fruitful, and
multiply,
and fill the earth.” Afterwards
that rule, as applicable to man,
is more precisely and particularly explained, and takes
the form of the
ordinance of marriage (chap.
2: 23,
24).
Next,
for the protection of life and the safety of the earth’s
increasing population,
the plan had in it a rule of order and subordination. Man, bearing
the image of God, was to reign,
as in God’s stead, over all things here below, by the
native superiority of
intelligent mind, and by the influence of benefits
conferred. While
he restrained and commanded the
creatures, he was to love, protect, and caress them. This was all
the government that the yet
un-fallen world needed - God supreme over man - man
supreme over the other
animals. Lastly,
for the support of
life, and the sustenance of earth’s teeming tribes, the
Lord appointed the
simple food which, as the God of nature, He bounteously
furnished. The
ground, as yet un-cursed, grudged not the
supplies which the creatures needed.
With un-stinted and spontaneous prodigality, the
mother earth was to
nourish from her own bosom all her children.
After the fall, the law of nature, in all its parts, is very
considerably modified.
The ordinance of
marriage is still holy; but the sorrow of the woman,
greatly multiplied, is the
token that, while human life is to be thus propagated,
it is not now propagated
in innocency, but in hereditary guilt and woe.
For the safety and protection of life a new
element of [Page 93] government and order is introduced.
It is the subordination of the woman to her
husband, and the consequent
establishment of domestic rule.
Law
becomes indispensable, and power to enforce law.
The husband and father becomes a head and
lord. Formerly,
the dominion of man over
the creatures sufficed for every purpose of social
harmony and security.
Now, there must be the dominion of man over
his fellows; and that dominion begins in the family. The husband is
the first king. Finally,
as to the sustentation of life, the
earth now yields her produce reluctantly; and hard toil
becomes the lot of
man. The
decree goes forth: “In the sweat
of thy face shalt thou eat bread.”
The law of nature, or of the preservation of life, as renewed
after the flood, receives several new modifications. In
its first branch,
indeed, it is identical with what it was before.
Life is to be propagated, and living
creatures are to fill the earth; the mode of increase,
in each several kind,
remains: and the ordinance of marriage stands in all
respects unchanged.
But there is a considerable alteration in
reference to the second.
Man receives a
new power over the other animals, and has a new power
set up over himself.
The power, in both instances, is based on
terror: but it is terror necessary and salutary.
Man’s dominion over the creatures is henceforward to rest
mainly on fear and dread: - “The
fear of you, and the
dread of you, shall be
upon every beast of the earth” (ver.
2, 3). Originally, as
it would seem, man’s dominion
was of a milder character; - he ruled more by an
influence of love; - a good
understanding, as it were prevailing between him and his
harmless subjects.
By his kind demeanour, and his erect and
noble bearing, he could sufficiently control them. But when sin
marred the impress of his mental
and moral majesty, and disturbed his friendship with the
creatures under his sway
- the very familiarity to which they were accustomed may
have tended to
introduce danger and disorder.
His
authority, based on love, being shaken - who shall say
what part his once
willing and obedient subjects may have had, in the
violence with which the
earth was filled? Something like that is, perhaps,
referred to in this very
passage, when God, announcing what is henceforth to be
the doom of murder,
speaks as if beasts as well as men had been implicated
in the antediluvian
bloodshed; - “Surely your blood
of your lives will I
require; at the hand
of every beast will I
require it,” as well as “at
the hand of man”
(ver. 5). After the
flood, at any rate, man’s command
over the creatures is not simply restored, but placed on
a firmer footing. God
inspires them with a dread of man.
This instinctive fear has ever since
characterized all nature’s tribes - not the weak and
timid only, but the savage
and ferocious also.
Occasionally,
indeed, it is changed by circumstances into the rage of
hunger, or revenge, or
despair; but still it easily regains its habitual sway,
and subjects them, in
spite of all their strength and cunning, to their
appointed master, either as
servants or as victims, either to be tamed or to be
conquered, to do his work
or be put out of his way.
Such is now man’s dominion over the creatures; - a dominion
painful in itself and apt to be abused; bearing but too
plain marks of that
vanity under which, for man’s sin, “the
whole creation
groaneth and travaileth [Page
94]
together.”
Still, it is in mercy that God has rendered man
thus formidable to the
other dwellers on this earth.
It is no
enviable power, when rightly viewed, which he wields;
but, such as it is, it is
the gift of God. It
is the pledge,
moreover, of His great plan of ultimate redemption. That man is
still lord of this lower world,
in any sense, and under whatever disadvantages, is the
result of the covenant
of grace and the mediation of Christ (Ps.
8; Heb.
2). And
the fact that he is so even
now, gives assurance of the day when, in the terms
of that covenant, the meek
shall inherit the earth and all the creatures shall
be at peace (Is.
11: 1-9).
But not only is there new power given to man over the
creatures;- there is new power set up over man himself.
The power of the sword
is instituted, and it is given into the hand of the
magistrate. This
is implied in the announcement which God
makes of His determination to suppress violence, and to
do so by the agency of
a human arm: - “At the hand of
every man’s brother will
I require the life of man.
Whoso sheddeth man’s
blood, by
man shall his blood be shed: for
in the image of
God made he man” (ver.
5, 6). Thus, “the
powers
that be are ordained of God” (
The government which was appointed after the fall, and vested
in
the husband, or the head of each house or family, bore
the character of
domestic discipline, or of that mild authority which is
exercised in laying
down rules for the order of a household, and inflicting
occasional correction
for the good of its offending members.
It had nothing in it of a punitive or penal
jurisdiction, properly so
called; and apparently it comprehended no power of life
and death. On
the contrary, we have seen (chap.
3: 15)
that the punishment of death, even for the
crime of murder, was suspended, or kept in abeyance, by
the express command of
God, in the world before the flood.
The
experiment, as it were, was then tried of subjecting
mankind to the least
possible amount of coercion and restraint.
And, alas! it miserably failed.
“The earth was
filled with violence.”
Now,
therefore, a new kind of
government is to be introduced; there must be a sterner
rule than the mere
discipline of home. Society must be more thoroughly
organized and compacted;
law must speak with a more peremptory voice, and power
must enforce with a
higher hand the sanctions of law.
Especially, and by all means, life must be
preserved. The
sentence of death for death must be
recorded, and the sword must be unsparingly used against
the murderer.
Such is the divine warrant for capital punishment; very
express and clear, but at the same time very limited. It is indeed
true, that this announcement in
the verse before us, is to be understood as virtually
embodying the great charter
of all civil magistracy, and sanctioning generally the
exercise of that kind of
power, of which capital punishment is the extreme
infliction. It
is to this charter doubtless, among
others, that the Apostle Paul appeals, when he lays down
the Christian doctrine
respecting the power of civil rulers and [Page 95] the subjection due to them; especially when he speaks of them as “bearing the sword,” and as
being “God’s ministers, to execute
wrath, as avengers
upon him that doeth evil”
(Rom. 13:
1-4). But it is to
be observed that the case of murder
is here very particularly specified, and the case of
murder alone, as the only
crime for which that particular punishment of death is
actually
prescribed. The
murderer, to the
exclusion of all other offenders, is marked out for
execution. By
fair analogy, this may be held to warrant
the visiting of all sorts of offences, not merely with
salutary chastisement
and corrective discipline, but with penal severities. But this
precise kind of severity, the taking
away of life, is of such a nature that it can scarcely
be extended beyond the
explicit declaration of God Himself, the only Lord of
life. The
magistrate may not inflict death on any
criminal without the command of God; but having God’s
command, he may not suffer
the criminal to live.
Here, therefore,
we have the divine statute of capital punishments for
the world at large, - a
statute altogether distinct from the provisions of the
Jewish law, in which
God, as Himself the immediate sovereign of that people,
in the exercise of His
absolute prerogative, subjected other crimes to the same
doom. This
original
statute remains in force, independently of any
special and
temporary enactments, as binding upon all governments
ordained by God. The
murderer must die by the hand of the
magistrate, and except the murderer, none else.
This view is confirmed by what precedes, and what follows the
ordinance in question.
In what goes before, God intimates His fixed determination to
make inquisition for blood (ver.
5).
He
resolves, as it were, Himself to look more strictly
after the commission of
this crime, and to see that it shall be visited more
promptly than had been the
case before. The
murderer is no longer
to experience so much of His forbearance as in time
past; for life, human life,
is very precious in His sight.
Even a
beast that slays a man is not excused.
The violence which filled the old world must be
effectually
restrained. God,
therefore, will not let
the murderer go; he must be taken and unhesitatingly put
to death. Such
is the divine purpose.
And in fulfilment of that purpose, God
demands the co-operation of human governments.
He Himself undertakes, as it were, for the
discovery of the murderer;
and then He gives him over to the civil magistrate to be
slain.
That is the arrangement which the God of heaven makes with the
powers which He has ordained on earth.
He fails not in doing His part; for is it not
notorious and proverbial
that “murder will out?” Divine
justice, in the dealings of
providence, dogs the heels of the shedder of blood, and
hunts him down, - until
his crime is brought to light, and either some “damning
proof,” or confession wrung out of the agony of
remorse, discloses the
criminal. Woe
be to man if he abuses his
trust when God has done His part; - if either not
inflicting death at all, or
inflicting it too frequently and indiscriminately for
crimes of every dye, he
makes void that stem and unrelenting ordinance of God,
which, isolating from
all others this one enormity of bloodshed, devotes and
consecrates to it alone,
and to it without fail, the doom of the accursed tree, -
the malefactor’s death
of shame.
[Page 96]
In what follows, also, God still, further explains and
enforces this ordinance, by the reason which He assigns
for it. The
life of man is to be thus guarded by so
terrible a sanction, because God made him in His own
image (ver. 6). It is true
that the image is marred; but it
is not marred beyond remedy.
In every
living individual it either is already or may be
restored. Therefore
every living individual is of
inestimable value; and his life, viewed in the light of
heaven and eternity, is
beyond all calculation important.
How precious, when thus regarded, is man, simply as man!
How undeniable his claim, not only to
protection at the hand of his fellows, but to all good
offices! Here
is one, - a unit in the mighty mass of
this world’s crowded throng, - one of many millions. What is he,
that his fellows should go out of
their way to notice him? Of what account is he, that all
mankind should be
obliged to give heed to him?
If he were
lost, what matters it?
A single grain of
sand on the sea-shore is displaced, - a drop of water
from the ocean is
a-missing. Such
is the measure which
infidelity would take of man, of the individual man. And so
measuring him, what wonder if, instead
of avenging slaughter, it slays men by thousands?
What have conquerors, monarchs, and statesmen
to do with individuals?
Their movements
are on a great scale.
Why should they
turn aside when I meet them, or pause to raise me when I
fall? This
single sentence, - what a change it
makes! “In the
image of God created He man?” - this man; -
this particular man; -
myself for instance, or my outcast brother.
This is man’s indefeasible charter, making the
person of the meanest as
sacred as any king’s; - challenging for him, be he poor
as Lazarus, respect,
reverence, regard.
Let Christian
magistrates and Christian people look to him; - not
merely to require his blood
if he be slain; but to do him good while he is alive. At any rate,
let them see to it that whoso
sheddeth his blood, shall have his own blood shed, in
righteous retribution.
There yet remains the third branch of this law of nature to be
considered, the provision made for the support of life. In this
article, a very important change
takes place at the flood; animal food being then, for
the first time, granted
for the use of man; - “Every
moving thing that liveth
shall be meat for you;
even as the green herb
have I given you all things” (ver.
3).
The grant of animal food has a restriction imposed upon it; -
“flesh with the life thereof,
which is the blood thereof,
shall
ye not eat” (ver.
4).
This
prohibition was probably intended to guard against
certain horrors which
prevailed when the earth was filled with violence, as
well as to prevent wanton
cruelty in slaying animals for food, and ensure that,
previously to their being
used, they shall not be tortured or mangled, but put to
death in the same
orderly way as when their life was taken for an
atonement for sin.
A similar, but more precise injunction against the eating of
blood, was subsequently enacted in the Jewish law; and
it was enforced by the
Jews on their Gentile proselytes among some other
precepts ascribed by them to
Noah, and considered to be binding, apart from their
national and ceremonial
institutions. These
last, it would seem,
- they did not require all [Page
97] converts
from heathenism to observe;
but abstinence from the eating of blood was understood
to be binding upon
all. This
may partly explain the
sanction which the Jerusalem Council gave to the rule,
in their judgment on the
question submitted to them by the Gentile Church at
Antioch (Acts 15: 29).
How far any such precept is applicable to Christians of
subsequent
ages, we need not now inquire.
The
prohibition, in the Levitical code, was undoubtedly
connected with the rite of
sacrifice; - the blood being reserved exclusively for
the purpose of expiation.
That reason will not apply now, when blood is
no longer shed for that end.
And it is
by no means clear that this Noetic rule is the same as
that afterwards enacted
in the Mosaic ritual.
It does not appear
to have any religious meaning; on the contrary, it seems
intended merely for
the prevention of cannibal ferocity and wanton cruelty. And this view
of it is made nearly certain,
if we consider the relation which it bears to the
general denunciation of
blood-shedding. God
speaks as the
preserver of man and beast; He gives the beasts into the
hands of man, but it
is with a limitation of his power over their lives to
the strict necessity of
finding food; just as He gives man into the hands of his
fellows, with a
corresponding limitation of their power over his life to
the single case of
murder. If
life is to be taken, - the
life of a beast or the life of a man, - it must be
exclusively for the end
which God ordains; with no aggravation of needless
severity, and no
accompaniments of rude or wild barbarity.
Such is the law of nature, or economy of life, as appointed by
God for the world after the flood.
It
is, in part, a discipline of severity; but it is to be
viewed chiefly as a
provision of mercy.
It does not touch
any of the endearments or refinements of social
intercourse, as based upon the
pure and peaceful affections of home.
Men are still to dwell in families, and in
families they are to fill and
occupy the earth. But
the dangers to
which human society was exposed from the fearless
familiarity of the subject
animals and the growing anarchy of mere domestic rule,
are to be remedied by
the dread of man being forced upon the beasts; and by
the sword of magisterial
authority being raised in terror against evil doers. And to meet
the accumulating difficulty of obtaining
supplies from the earth alone, the use of animal food is
allowed. Then,
to guard against the abuse of these
beneficent arrangements, the sword of the magistrate is
ordained to be used
always for the protection of the life of man, and with a
reverential respect to
the image of God which man bears.
And
even the beasts given to man for food are to be the
objects of a certain
scrupulous care. They
are not to furnish
a bloody meal. They
are to be so treated
as to preclude the infliction of needless pain, and
prevent any harm which the
sanguinary use of them might cause.
How admirable is the wisdom of God, how great His goodness, in
ordering the constitution even of a fallen world!
How manifold are the provisions of His care
and kindness for alleviating the ills which sin has
caused! Far from leaving us
to spend at random the season of His forbearance, as
instinct or passion might
blindly prompt, - God establishes a rule or system,
whose salutary operation,
even those who continue to set [Page
98]
at naught its gracious design, are
compelled practically to feel.
It is
that system - based on the principles of holy marriage,
of lawful magistracy,
and of laborious mastery over the soil that is to be
cultivated, and the
animals that may be slain, for food, - which alone
hinders this globe from
becoming a scene such as devils, and none but devils,
could delight to
witness. It
is true that no mere
external arrangements can of themselves secure the
present or final welfare of
any of Noah’s children; and all such arrangements are
liable to perversion and
abuse. Still, without their due observance, life is but
a compound of license,
disorder, and precarious subsistence or pining famine! Purity, peace,
and plenty flourish in any
community, mainly in proportion as these ordinances are
honoured and obeyed.
And they place each individual man in the
best possible position for escaping, through grace, the
corruption that is in
the world through lust, and laying hold on the blessed
hope of everlasting
life, to which, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from
the dead, believers
are begotten again.
*
*
*
CHAPTER 11
THE
CONSTITUTION OF THE NEW WORLD, IN
ITS THREE DEPARTMENTS OF NATURE,
2.
THE
SCHEME OF
For
this is as the waters of
Noah to Me; for as I have sworn that the waters of Noah
should no more go over the earth, so I have sworn
that I would not be angry
with you or rebuke you. - Isaiah
54: 9.
The
scheme
of providence, in the world after the flood, is a
dispensation of forbearance,
subservient to a dispensation of grace, and preparatory
to a dispensation of
judgment. Of
this forbearance, on the
part of God, Noah receives a promise and a pledge. The
promise is given in the
form of a covenant (ver.
9-11),
while
the pledge, as usual, is a seal of the covenant (ver.
12-17);
and
the covenant thus sealed is the counterpart of the
decree or determination
previously recorded, in connection with the acceptance
of Noah’s sacrifice (chap.
8: 21,
22).
The purpose which the Lord on that occasion
formed, is now openly announced (chap.
9: 8-17).
Then,
“He said in His heart;” -
now He speaks out, and
binds Himself by word and sign.
It was
then a secret intention: now it is a publicly ratified
and sealed
covenant. To
Noah and his sons it is
probable that the covenant alone, with its seal, was
made public; - to us, the
secret purpose also is disclosed.
We [Page 99] are admitted, as it were, into the counsels of God, in order that,
interpreting the covenant established with Noah by what
we are told of the
previous mind of God, we may the better understand the
nature and end, as well
as the grounds and reasons of that covenant.
1.
Looking, then, to the original purpose, of which
we read as existing in
the mind of God (chap.
8: 21,
22), His
determination to spare the earth is
explained on two principles, which it is important to
observe. The
first of these is the inveterate and
desperate depravity of man: “I
will not again curse the
ground any more for man’s sake; for
the
imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth”
(chap. 8:
21).
But how should that be a reason for the exercise of
forbearance and long-suffering?
Or are
we to adopt the marginal reading – “though,”
instead
of “for,” - and conceive
of God as
resolving to spare the earth from another flood, not on
account of man’s
corruption, but in spite of it?
It may
be so; - and indeed it matters little which of these two
ways of rendering the
phrase we prefer. At
the same time,
there is a peculiar force and significancy in the
expression as it stands.
“Why should ye be
stricken any more?” is the indignant voice of
God to
Thus this divine reasoning presents on one side a dark and
ominous aspect. But
on the other side
it reflects a blessed gleam of light.
It indicates the purpose of God, in His
treatment of the world during the remainder of its
allotted time, not to
deal with its inhabitants according to their sins, nor
to reward them after
their iniquities. His
providence is to
be conducted, not on the principle of penal or judicial
retribution, but on
another principle altogether, irrespective of the merits
or the works of
man. What
that is, appears from the
relation which the Lord’s decree bears to the sacrifices
by which He is said to
be propitiated (chap.
8: 20,
21). These
undoubtedly derive their efficacy from
the all-sufficient sacrifice of atonement which they
prefigured. And it is that
sacrifice which alone satisfactorily explains the Lord’s
determination to spare
the earth. It
does so in two ways.
In the first place, the interposition of that
sacrifice vindicates and justifies the righteous God in
passing by the sins of
men (Rom. 3:
25), - in exercising
forbearance and
suspending judgment; it renders His long-suffering
consistent with His justice;
- otherwise, as the righteous judge, He could not spare
the guilty for a single
hour. But,
secondly, that sacrifice of
Christ reaches beyond mere forbearance, and is effectual
to save. Its
direct and proper object is, not merely
to provide that the barren tree may be let alone, but
[Page 100] to secure that it shall be cultured
and revived, so as to become fruitful.
Therefore God spares the earth on account of
the sacrifice of Christ,
that, in the innumerable company of His believing
people, Christ may see of the
travail of His soul, and be satisfied.
Thus the Lord’s purpose in regard to the sparing of the earth
is explained by these two principles: - the first,
negative, that He is not to
deal with men according to their works; the second,
positive, that He is to
deal with them according to His own grace and mercy, as
embodied in the great
sacrifice of atonement.
And as by these two principles the Lord’s purpose of
forbearance is explained and justified, so by them also
it is restricted and
defined. The
first, while securing that
the earth shall not again be visited with any universal
retributive infliction,
such as the general deluge, involves partial, temporary,
and local
judgments. These
are by no means
precluded. For it is of the very essence of a dispensation of forbearance, that
while judgment, on the whole, is in suspense and in
abeyance, significant hints
and tokens of it shall frequently occur.
The second again implies a limit to that
forbearance. Connected
as it is with an atoning sacrifice,
it has a distinct purpose, and therefore also a
definite period.
There
is an allotted time during which the earth is to
remain; -
it has a certain season of grace. Already
God has given one awful proof of the decision with
which He inflicts judgment;
and if now He suspends judgment, it cannot be in mere
indulgence. But
seeing that judgment alone will not
reclaim the evil heart of man, and having a plan of
grace and reconciliation to
accomplish, He grants an interval of respite.
Still, it is only an interval, and an interval
of limited and fixed
extent. For
the very provision of
present mercy implies coming wrath; and the days of
the earth are numbered.
Such is the decree or purpose of God, for the continued
preservation of the earth; and such is its connection
with His acceptance of
Noah’s sacrifice.
2.
In its publication to the human
family (chap. 9),
this decree is embodied in the form of a covenant, and
ratified by a
significant seal.
In the first place, the Lord establishes a covenant on the
earth. He might have kept His decree secret.
He might have left men to learn from the result
what His purpose was;
and they might have lived in continual apprehension of
another desolating
flood. But
He dealt more graciously with
them, and condescended to give, not merely an
intimation, but an assurance, of
His design of mercy.
He bound Himself by
an oath, as He did when He announced the flood: “I,
behold I, establish
my
covenant with you, and
with your seed after you;
and
with every
living creature that is with you” (chap.
9: 9-11).
Thus
it is in the form of a covenant, and with the solemn
ratification of an oath,
that God intimates His purpose to spare the earth. And what
covenant can be meant but only the
covenant of grace?
That and that alone,
is pre-eminently His covenant – “my
covenant;” -
always the same in its character and terms, whatever may
be the kind of
salvation meant. In
the present
instance, it is exemption from the temporal judgment of
a flood. But
that is secured by the very same covenant
in which the higher blessings of life eternal are
comprehended. It
[Page
101] is
God’s own covenant, - the covenant
of free and sovereign grace, as opposed to any covenant
of works, or merit, or
express and stimulated condition, - it is that covenant
which gives security
against another flood; - an irrevocable covenant,
standing sure, whatever may
be man’s doings and deservings, to the very end of
earth’s numbered days.
Then again, secondly, the covenant, as usual, has a seal or
pledge; designed, as it were, to put the Lord in
remembrance of His promise,
and to settle and confirm the confidence of men: - “This
is the token of the covenant: I
do set my bow in
the cloud, and it
shall be for a
token of a covenant between me and the
earth” (ver.
12-17). It is not
necessary to understand that the rainbow
appeared now for the first time; but only that it was
now, for the first time,
assumed and adopted
as a sign of the
covenant of forbearance and grace.
That end it might fully serve, although it
existed before; for it is not
any quality or virtue in itself, but the mere word of
God alone, which gives to
this, or any other token, its significancy and force. There is,
however, an obvious propriety and
beauty in the selection of such a token as this, for
such a purpose. From
amid the lowering and vapoury clouds, there suddenly
emerges the fairest of all
nature’s sights, the many-coloured arch, spanning the
dark earth, and
reflecting the beams of the glorious sun.
It is God’s proof of His faithfulness to the
children of men, - the
pledge that He is keeping, and will keep, His
covenant. He
looks on the bow, that He may remember the
covenant. And
as the covenant, being
made by sacrifice, not only secures a season of
forbearance, but
contemplates an end
infinitely more important; so the rainbow
becomes the seal of the
covenant in this higher view of it also, - and is the
token and pledge of its
spiritual and eternal [millennial] blessings. Hence, among
the ensigns and emblems of
redeeming glory, the rainbow holds a conspicuous place (Ezek. 1: 28;
Rev. 4:
3; 10:
1); and
hence, moreover, the covenant which it seals, gives to
God’s faithful people an
argument of confidence, not for time only, but for [the “Age”
yet to come and for] eternity. He is true to His covenant, in sparing the [this] world.
Will
He not much more be true to
the same covenant, in saving those for whose sake
the world is spared? (Is.
54: [3], [6] 9,
10; Jer.
33: 20-25).
*
*
*
CHAPTER 12
THE
CONSTITUTION
OF
THE
NEW WORLD, IN ITS THREE
DEPARTMENTS OF NATURE,
3.
THE ELECTION OF GRACE (CHAP.
9: 18-29).
Love
does not rejoice in
unrighteousness, but rejoices in the truth. 1
Cor. 13:
6.
For
salvation is of the Jews.
- John 4:
22.
[Page 102]
The
narrative
which closes the history of the flood, introduces the
long history of grace
contending with nature; the seed of the woman and the
seed of the serpent,
drawing off again to their respective sides.
The enmity remains and the warfare is resumed. A single
incident is selected to illustrate
its recommencement; an isolated picture is presented to
us, - a picture,
however, most affecting and full of meaning, - as much
so as was the scene
which began the struggle in the world before the flood. In either
case, it is a domestic scene, a
family picture, that is exhibited.
In
the one case, two brothers, - in the other, a father and
his three sons, - open
the grand drama of which the wide earth is to be the
stage, - and of which the
issues are to be eternal. Noah, with Shem, Ham, and
Japheth, and perhaps also
Canaan, the son of Ham, - such is the little household
group, among whom we are
to recognize all the features of grace and nature
respectively, - of the church
and the world, - as they mutually oppose, and at the
same time influence, one
another. How
they usually lived
together, is not said; how they acted on one memorable
day, is all that we are
told. But
that is enough. It
reveals both Satan’s malice and the power
of the Spirit of God.
Noah is overtaken in a fault; he “began
to be an husbandman, and
planted a vineyard,
and drank of the wine, and
was drunken” (ver.
20, 21). It is an
unwonted offence; the very use which
Ham makes of it proves it to be so.
But
that such a blot should fall, even once only, on the
character of such a man,
is grief enough, and far more than enough.
What can we say?
What can we
think? How
could Noah be so left to
himself, even in one solitary instance; and why, when
nothing else in the
history of his latter days is left on record, should
this most painful
narrative be preserved?
Alas! is it not
needed? Has
wine ceased to be a mocker?
or strong drink to be raging? or have men, even wise
men, ceased to be deceived
thereby? Are
the servants of God, -
heirs though they be of the righteousness that is by
faith, - preachers of
righteousness too, - never tempted now to tarry at the
wine - to go to seek the
mixed wine? (Prov. 20:
1; 23:
29-32).
But it is the conduct of Ham and Canaan on this sad occasion,
that is emphatically stigmatized; for it would seem that
The temptation presented to them by their younger brother, to
join with him in his ribald mockery, the elder sons of
Noah resisted; and in
doing so, they proved, not only the depth of their
filial respect and duty, but
the strength also of their religious convictions.
They dared to be true and faithful to the
cause of God, which they had espoused, in the most
trying circumstances in
which any man can well be called to maintain it.
For how did they deal with the scandal which
their unfeeling brother so recklessly exposed?
Did they treat it lightly? Did they affect to get
rid of it by some
plausible excuse? No. They do not
give Ham the advantage which he
would have had over them, if they had manifested
indifference to their father’s
conduct, or had begun to palliate and defend it.
They evidently show that they are alive to
the full baseness and guilt of the offence. What they
do, is their testimony
and protest against the sin; - the manner in which they
do it, is the token of
their continued attachment to him who has sinned, as
well as to the faith
which, notwithstanding this sin, they still believe that
he truly holds. They
treated Noah as one who had grievously
fallen; but, at the same time, they treated him as one
who, before his fall,
had been the upholder and representative of the cause of
God, and who
would still, by God’s grace, be
raised again and restored.
And now, when Noah awakes out of his wine, and knows what his
younger son has done unto him, what may his feelings be
expected to be? If
we read the verses in succession without a
break or pause, - connecting the curse which Noah
pronounced with his awaking
to a knowledge of the manner in which he had been
treated, - (ver. 24, 25),
the narrative would suggest the idea of
personal resentment and indignation; and, doubtless, in
the circumstances, such
an emotion on the part of the father and the patriarch
would be both natural
and righteous. It
is to be observed,
however, that no such emotion is ascribed to Noah by the
sacred history itself.
It is not said that he uttered the prophecy which
follows under the impulse of
provocation or of passion.
And the
entire omission of the very name of Ham would seem
intended for the very
purpose of proving the absence of all personally
vindictive feeling.
These two parts, indeed, of this narrative, are to be kept
clear and distinct from one another.
The
fall of Noah is not at all connected with his prophecy;
except, perhaps, that
it served to bring out the real character of his
children, and so to reconcile
him to the different destinies which he was to announce
as awaiting their
respective races. For
it would seem that
he had not previously discerned with sufficient
clearness the antagonist
principles of faith and unbelief, of godliness and
worldliness, as they were at
work in his own household, and were soon to divide the
world.
Noah, we are told, awoke; and immediately after, we find that
he [Page 104] prophesied. This
is
all the account given us of his recovery from his
grievous fall. But
that he was humbled in the dust, as David
was in the like case, who can doubt?
Of
David’s repentance, the notice in the history is very
nearly as brief as what
is here taken of Noah’s - it is from the mournful
strains of his psalms that we
learn the secret experience of his soul. Noah, also, we
may be sure, passed
through a similar experience.
His sin
was now ever before him.
And certainly
if anything could aggravate his bitter sense of guilt
and shame, as he thought
of the just offence he had given to his God, it must
have been the discovery
which he made respecting the conduct of his sons.
That one of them, the youngest, and perhaps the best beloved,
should have treated him so rudely, was sufficiently
mortifying to his parental
feelings; but that was as nothing in comparison with the
reflection, that it
was his own father who had put a stumbling-block in his
way, and proved the guilty
cause of the profane outbreak which at last stamped the
character and sealed
the doom of his child.
Nor could he fail
to consider the very different conduct of the two elder
brethren. To
what a trial had he exposed their
principles! They
had indeed stood the
test; - but how little could this have been anticipated;
how easily might it
have been otherwise!
The very reverence
and awe, moreover, with which they executed their
painful task, must have
conveyed to Noah, when made aware of it, a terrible
rebuke. Truly
it could be no light matter thus to
minister to the evil passion of him who sinned, and thus
to wound also and
lacerate the best principles and affections of those who
did so well.
As the incident recorded respecting Noah and his family gives
a picture of the church in its beginning, so the
prophecy which follows (ver.
25-27)
reveals to us the church in its progress.
The unequal struggle has commenced again
between the church and the world; and ominous enough has
the commencement
been. The
ungodly son has gained an
advantage; - the faithful are scandalized and
discouraged. But
He who “maketh
the wrath of man to praise him,” turns the
worst actions to account for
vindicating His honour and accomplishing His purposes. Thus, in this
instance, He interposed to rebuke the proud and raise the lowly; and He did so by
the instrumentality of the restored patriarch himself.
Canaan is judicially condemned, and sentenced to a degrading
servitude: “Cursed be
The punishment to which he is sentenced is servitude or
bondage; a double bondage to both his father’s brethren. It is thrice
specified, and forms, indeed,
the melancholy burden of this brief prophetic song. For the
prophecy is in the form of a poem;
and consists of three stanzas, in which the first line
varies, while the last
sadly reiterates the same solemn note of woe: -
“Cursed
be
A
servant of servants shall
he be unto his brethren.
Blessed
be Jehovah,
the God of
Shem;
And
God
shall enlarge,
Japheth,
and he shall dwell in the tents
of Shem;
And
In the first of these couplets,
In this view, a special reason may be suggested, both for the
selection of
1. In the case of
Shem, the blessing is indirect and reflex; but on that
very account it is the
more precious; - “Blessed be
Jehovah, the God of
Shem.”
The prophetic father, beholding afar off the
highly-favoured [Page 106] descendants of his highly-honoured son, fixes his devout eye,
not on their prosperous and happy state, but on the
glory of that great and
holy name, with whose honour their welfare is to be
inseparably blended.
What prerogative can equal that which this
form of salutation implies?
I hail as
blessed - not my son, but Him Who condescends to be his
God; - it is not, “Blessed be Shem,” but,
“Blessed be Jehovah, the
God of Shem.” Jehovah, the God of Shem, is the
blessed One; how blessed,
then, he whose God Jehovah is!
“Blessed is that people
whose God is the Lord.”
Evidently the blessing refers, in the first
instance, to the line of Eber, who is singled out from
all the other descendants
of Shem (chap. 10:
21); and ultimately
to the family of
Abraham, with whom the covenant was established (chap.
12).
But when the time came for the fulfilment of this prediction;
when the race of Shem, in the line of Eber and the
family of Abraham, were to
inherit the blessing [in the Promised Land (Gen. 13:
14-17)]; when Israel was to possess the
Lord’s land and assume his position as the Lord’s
people, - who stood in the way?
Who but
2. Again, as to
Japheth, what is the prophetic announcement?
“God shall enlarge
Japheth, and he shall
dwell in the tents of Shem.”
He is to be “enlarged;”
-
or, as the word may be rendered, “persuaded;”
and
he is to “dwell in the tents of
Shem;” - to
partake of his privileges and be adopted into his
communion; - in a word, to
become one with Shem, in respect of that religious
blessedness which is implied
in Jehovah being his God.
For “to dwell in the
tents of Shem,” is to have a common
lot with the people whose God is the Lord, and amid
whose habitations the Lord
has His tabernacle.
With a view to this,
Japheth is to be “enlarged,”
or
“persuaded.” He is to be “enlarged” - invested with
universal empire; or, he is
to be “persuaded,” -
plied with influences
fitted to open the way for the progress and
diffusion of sound doctrine.
And this is to be preliminary to his “dwelling in the tents of Shem,”
and having the God of
Shem, the blessed Jehovah, as his portion.
Who can fail to recognize in this prediction the calling of
the Gentiles, who spring from Japheth, and the
preparation of the world for the
first preaching of the gospel?
When the Gentiles
were invited to be fellow-heirs with the Jews of the
grace of life, Japheth
began to dwell in the tents of Shem; and when, previous
to Christ’s coming and
the preaching of His gospel, the Roman power was
peacefully established
throughout the whole earth, and amplest means of
communication and communion
were thus afforded, and men’s minds, in all Gentile
nations, as well as among
the Jews, were hushed into a state of strange
expectance, - then might be
recognized that enlargement or persuasion of Japheth,
which was foretold as
appointed to precede and usher in his dwelling in the
tents of Shem.
But it is especially remarkable, that in the course of this
enlargement, or persuasion, on the part of Japheth, the
main obstruction with
which he met arose from
Such is the meaning of the curse denounced against
The world after the flood is now launched on the stream of
time, having received its constitution. in its three
departments or kingdoms,
of nature, providence, and grace.
In the
kingdom of nature, wise laws are ordained, conducive to
the purity, peace, and
prosperity of social life, and to the best interests of
each individual
soul. In
the kingdom of providence,
again, a dispensation of forbearance is established, and
the Lord waits to be
gracious. And,
finally, as regards the
kingdom of grace itself, - the precarious and perilous
standing of the church
in an evil world is brought out in the dark commencement
of the struggle, whose
brighter issue, however, prophecy begins to unfold. That prophecy
has already been partially
fulfilled; but the end has not yet come.
Jehovah is once more to be blessed as the God of Shem,
for He has not cast off Israel; Japheth, still
further enlarged, is to dwell in
Shem’s tents, when Israel’s return shall be to the
Gentiles as life from the
dead; and if Canaan is again to offer opposition, it
can only be in order that
the full meaning of that early curse may be seen, in
all its terror, in the
latter days.
* *
*
[Page 108]
CHAPTER 13
THE
EARTH
GIVEN TO THE CHILDREN OF MEN, AND OCCUPIED BY THEM
GENESIS 10, 11
The heavens, even the heavens, are the Lord’s; but
the earth He has given to the children of men.
- Psalm 115: 16.
These
chapters might be expected to throw a flood of light on
the geography and
chronology of the early history of the world.
The tenth is very full and precise in its account
of the colonies and
settlements into which the first families of Noah’s race
spread themselves;
while the eleventh is no less exact in marking the
periods of the successive generations
between Noah and Abraham.
Nothing,
however, can be more perplexing and embarrassing than
the study of these
chapters, with a view to these very particulars.
Innumerable questions arise respecting the
nations and countries described in the one chapter, and
the dates indicated in
the other; and innumerable opinions are held on the
subjects to which these
questions relate, supported by various arguments, upon
whose comparative
strength we have scarcely the means of deciding.
In regard, indeed, to the geography, something like a general
outline may be given, with something like a general
consent of interpreters,
although the filling in of the details is often little
better than matter of
conjecture, founded on remote and doubtful analogies of
words and names. But
the chronology is a more serious
stumbling-block to the historical inquirer, who would
digest these brief hints
of the inspired narrative into full and formal annals. Not only are
there occasional differences
among our manuscripts and versions in minor and
subordinate points of detail; -
such as slight variations of a few years in some of the
incidental dates, in
which perfect accuracy might not be material.
We have distinct and unequivocal traces in the
old copies and
translations of this book, of two different modes of
computation, varying from
one another by whole centuries. And what is worse, the
variations seem to be
the result, not of accident, but of design, on one side
or on the other; for
there are, in fact, two systems, and the difference
between them is itself very
systematic.
To give an idea of this; - the dates, both before and after
the flood, are determined by the age of each patriarch
at the birth of his
first son. Thus,
before the flood, we
have the succession of the patriarchs noted in the fifth
chapter; and we may
easily see how a very slight alteration in the reckoning
of their years may
effect a considerable variation in the entire
antediluvian chronology.
For instance, Adam, it is said (ver.
3), was
130 years old when he begat Seth; and he lived after he
had begotten Seth 800
years. Add
100 years to Adam’s life
before the birth of Seth, and take away 100 from his
life after that event, you
make him 230 when Seth was born, and you allow him only
700 years for the remainder
of his life. This
leaves his whole life
precisely the same, 930 years; - but it lengthens the
chronology, adding 100
years to the time between the creation and the birth of
Seth. This
is the plan on which the longer
chronology is formed; for the same [Page
109]
thing is done with the notices of the
other patriarchs. Thus
Seth (ver. 6),
instead
of 105, is made 205 at the birth of Enos, and instead of
807, lives
only 707 years after.
So also Enos (ver.
9),
instead of 90, is made 190 at the birth of
Such, in general, is the system opposed to that which is found
in our present Bibles.
And the
difference is very much of the same kind in the
genealogies after the flood, as
these are given in the eleventh chapter; Arphaxad (ver.
12), being made 135,
not 35 years old at the
birth of his son; and so on throughout the list, down to
the birth of Abram,
Terah, and Nahor (ver.
26).
It is clear that there is an intentional and methodical
difference
between these two schemes; but which is the original and
true one, it is by no
means easy to say.
The arguments in
favour of the prolonged chronology are drawn both from
ancient versions,
confirmed by Josephus and some of the fathers, and also
from the nature of the
case; the lengthened periods enabling us better to
explain the early increase
of the earth’s population, and the early rise of cities
and empires. On
the other hand, all the Hebrew copies,
which have come down to us, agree in giving the shorter
dates; and unless this
very concurrence, which is even more exact than is usual
where the Hebrew
manuscripts contain numerals or figures, be regarded as
itself a suspicious
circumstance, it ought to have great weight.
It is upon this system that the chronology of our
common English Bibles
is reckoned; in regard to which it may be observed, that
while it is sufficient
for all useful purposes, when we come down to the events
of later times, it
would be unsafe, to say the least, to accept it as quite
certain and
trustworthy in the times between the creation and the
flood, and between the
flood and the calling of Abraham. In fact, so far as the
practical benefit of
chronology is concerned, which is mainly valuable as it
serves to unite and
harmonize different streams of history, it matters
comparatively little which
of the two systems of dates we assign to events which
happened while the stream
was as yet single and unbroken.
If we
have a common point of measurement, it is enough; and
this is furnished by the
chronology of our English Bibles, which is that in
common use. Nor
is there any thing in the doubt in which
this unessential question is involved, which should at
all shake our reliance
on the genuine and authentic character, or on the verbal
accuracy and
inspiration, of this first book of Moses.
It has been handed down to us in many manuscripts
and a great variety of
versions; all of which, on the most searching scrutiny
and collation, have been
found, in every important particular, most thoroughly
supporting and
corroborating one another.
There are two considerations besides, which may partly
reconcile us to our present uncertainty in regard to
many of the names and
dates which occur in these first chapters of the book of
Genesis.
The first is, that they were probably better understood and
ascertained once. These
things were
written for those who lived before us, as well as [Page 110] for us; and
the places and times
specified in the history may have been well and
certainly known to readers of
this book in days of old, when the correct knowledge of
them would be of more
practical importance than it can possibly be to us now. The other is
this, - that they may come again to be better understood and ascertained
hereafter. They
may have some bearing on
the latter days, and may receive new explanations as
these days draw near.
It is not impossible that this ancient
history may be found, before all is done, to have had
a prophetic character, or
at least to have had a prospective reference to events
which prophecy foretells.
The prophecies relating to the end of the
world have their dates, and their names of places and
nations, at least as
obscure to us now, as are the delineations and
computations of these early
chapters of the Bible. The event, as the
time of the restitution
of all things approaches, will throw light on the
dates and names of prophecy;
and it may also throw light on the delineations and
computations of Genesis.
The map sketched in the tenth chapter may be
found useful, as a chart or plan, when some of the names
noted there; - such as
Gomer, Togarmah, Magog, Meshech, Tubal, become again
prominent; - as prophecy
seems to intimate that they shall (Ezek.
38, 39;
Rev. 20).
And the chronological genealogies of the
eleventh, - confessedly of
doubtful interpretation now, - may then help to show on
what terms, and
according to what arrangement, the Lord, who retains “the
heaven, even the
heavens, as His own,”
hath “given the
earth to the children of men;” - in ideal, from
the first, and in full
realization at last.
Thus, as a general principle, it may be observed, that if
there are some few things in the Bible which do not
appear to be very
intelligible or very applicable to us now, they may have
served a more useful
purpose in time past, and may do so again in time to
come. Meanwhile,
let us look at the early division
of the earth, and the dispersion of mankind; as to its
manner and its results.
1.
In regard to the progress of events connected
with the occupation of the
earth, we may mark four successive steps: (1) The
exploits of Nimrod (chap.
10: 8);
(2) The division of the earth in the days of
Peleg (10: 25);
(3)
The confusion of tongues at Babel (11:
1-7);
and (4)
The consequent dispersion of the tribes and families of
mankind (11: 8,
9).
(1) Nimrod, who “began to be a mighty
one upon the earth” (10:
8), is the third from
Noah, being the grandson of
Ham, and the son of
In that view, we may understand the expressions about Nimrod
literally. He
was powerful as a hunter
of wild beasts; bent on clearing the fields and forests
for the more enlarged
habitation of man; - a lawful, and even laudable
undertaking. The
increasing numbers of mankind required
room and space. They
must break through
the narrow limits within which they have been confined;
and for this purpose,
the lawless tenants of the [Page
111]
adjoining territories must be
dispossessed. In
the bold undertaking,
Nimrod leads the way.
(2) At this precise stage; - omitting, in the meantime, what
is said of Nimrod’s kingdom in the tenth verse; - I am
inclined to bring in the
transaction alluded to in the twenty-fifth, respecting
the division of the
earth. When
men were about to emerge
from what had hitherto been their home, God interfered
to direct them. It
was not His purpose, either that they
should issue forth in disorder, or that they should
follow their own devices in
their future settlements.
He had a plan
of His own for the division of the earth among the
families of men; and it was
probably at this crisis that in some way or other He
gave intimation of His
plan to the dispersing emigrants for whom Nimrod was
opening the way.
He did so, as I suppose, by the instrumentality of Eber: “Unto Eber were born two sons:
the
name of one was Peleg; for
in his days was the
earth divided” (ver.
25).
This
patriarch, Eber, the fourth from Noah, is specially
distinguished in the line
of descent from Shem, and of ancestry to Abraham; for we
find Shem called “the father of
all the children of Eber” (ver.
21).
He may have been, and probably was,
contemporary,
or nearly so, with Nimrod.
Thus, at the very time when the swarm, if we may so speak, is
about to hive, and is on the wing - when, led by Nimrod,
and inspired by him
with a new spirit of enterprise, men are bursting the
bounds of their former habitation
- Eber receives a commission from God to divide the
earth among them - to
announce to the several tribes and families their
appointed homes, and to lay
down, as on a map, their different routes and
destinations. This charge he
executes, and in memory of so remarkable a transaction,
he gives the name of
Peleg, signifying “division,”
to his son, born
about the time when it took place.
In
some such way the earth is allocated, by the command of
God, as by a solemn act
or deed, to which reference is more than once made in
other parts of
Scripture. It
is of this transaction
that Moses speaks in his memorable song, when, expressly
appealing to “the days of old,”
he describes “the Most High as
dividing to the nations their inheritance,
separating the sons of Adam,
and setting the bounds of the
people,” with an eye,
especially, “to the number of
the children of Israel”
(Deut. 32:
8).
And Paul, also, preaching at Athens, testifies of
God, not merely as
having “made of one blood,
all nations of men for to dwell
on the face of the earth”
- but also as having “determined
the times before
appointed, and the
bounds of their habitation”
(Acts 17: 26).
(3) The plan of God, however, did not tally with the
presumptuous projects of ungodly man.
If
Nimrod, after clearing, in his character of a mighty
hunter, the regions around
man’s early home, chose to lead forth his fellows on an
enterprise of discovery
and high daring, were they to be immediately scattered
to the four winds, so as
to lose the advantage which a compact union gave them? No.
They must march in a body as a united band. So the
emigrants thought and, felt as they
eagerly followed their powerful leader, who himself, by
this time, has tasted
the cup of ambition; - which, whoso touches it, must
drain to the dregs.
[Page 112]
Here, then, we have a vast host or army, journeying “from
the east,” or “toward
the
east” - for the expression (chap.
11: 2)
is now
ambiguous - moving probably along the course of the
river Euphrates, eastward and
southward, until they come to the vast plain of Shinar,
where the famous
Babylon afterwards stood.
That this
expedition, or emigration, is identical with the
beginning of Nimrod’s kingdom
(chap. 10:
10), may be certainly
concluded from the
circumstance, that the same spot is named, in both
cases, as the seat of the
enterprise -
Such was “the beginning of Nimrod’s
kingdom;” - such was the building of
The language used to denote the interference of God in this
emergency is very peculiar, and strongly marks the
importance of the whole
transaction. There
is first special
notice taken of this enormous wickedness of man, and
special inquiry made
respecting it; - “The Lord came
down to see the city
and the tower, which
the children of men builded”
(chap. 11:
5).
Then there is, as it were, deliberation in the
counsels of the Godhead;
- “The Lord said, Behold,
the people is one, and
they have all one language; and
this they begin
to do: and now nothing
will be restrained from
them, which they have
imagined to do” (ver.
6).
And thereupon a [Page 113] solemn
resolution is accorded; ‑
“Go to, let
us go down,
and there confound their
language, that they
may not understand one another’s speech” (ver. 7). Immediately
thereafter comes the swift
execution of the decree; - “The
Lord scattered them
abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth;
and they left off to build the
city” (ver.
8).
A physical obstacle is interposed in the way
of their design. It
is not merely a
confounding of their plans, but it is so through a
confounding of their
tongues; - “The Lord did there
confound the language of
all the earth: and
from thence did the Lord
scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth”
(ver. 9).
(4) Thus the followers of Nimrod and builders of
2.
The result of the dispersion, if it were to be
minutely examined, would
require a very elaborate and intricate discussion. Let a single
observation suffice; it is one
which, if well followed out, may lead to a clearer
understanding of the
geography of the tenth chapter, at least in its leading
and general features,
than ordinary readers are apt to gather from the
apparently inextricable
catalogue of names.
Let two lines be drawn; the one from the northern, the other
from the southern extremity of
[Page 114]
Japheth is mentioned first, as being the elder brother.
His portion embraces a considerable district
or trace of northern Asia, - the original seats of the
Medes and Persians, -
together with Asia Minor and the adjacent parts of
Europe, called by the Jews “the
Isles of the Gentiles,” as they gave that name
to
all lands to which they were wont to go by sea (ver.
2-5). Next comes
Ham, whose lot is cast to the
south of the Mediterranean sea, both in Asia and in
But there are two remarkable exceptions.
The expressions used respecting Nimrod, that “he
went forth,” and respecting the families of the
Canaanites, that “they were
spread abroad,” seem
to mark a roving disposition, and a transgression of the
allotted limits. And
both of them occur in the line of Ham, encroaching on
the portion of Shem.
(1) Nimrod holds on in his ambitious career, “Out
of that land,” namely
Both enterprises are
encroachments
on the portion of Shem; to whose race has been assigned the plain of Shinar, and indeed the whole
of the region watered by the rivers of Paradise, - the
great streams that empty
themselves into the Persian Gulf.
[That
this was properly the inheritance of Shem, is inferred
from various
considerations. Thus,
it is believed
that the primeval language was preserved in the line of
Arphaxad, the son of
Shem and ancestor of Abraham; and that his family,
accordingly, were appointed
to continue in the original seat where Noah, after the
flood, had settled.
More particularly, the description given (ver.
30) of the
region assigned to Shem’s posterity, as reaching from
Mesha, a mountain in the
west of Mesopotamia, to mount Sephar, far eastward, in
Susia, including the
whole land in question, - and the circumstance of
Abraham, when he was called,
being found settled on that very spot, in Ur of Chaldea,
evidently near the
vale of Shinar itself, ‑ make it nearly certain that the
countries in
which the empires of Babylon and Assyria took their
rise, formed part of what
was assigned, in the Lord’s division of the earth, to
Shem; and that Nimrod,
therefore, laid the foundation of these empires in acts
of unwarrantable
aggression on territories which were not his own.]
But his ill-omened ambition has had signal mockery put on it
by God. For
many ages, indeed, the
empires thus founded were allowed to flourish; and their
founder received
divine honours in both his capitals.
But
long since then they have been swept from the face of
the earth; and of the
trophies of Nimrod’s greatness, the towers and cities
which he built, to
overtop the [Page
115]
heavens and to outlast the world,
scarce a vestige remains; except in the monuments only
now brought to light -
monuments which may well suggest the possibility of the
ultimate realization of
the divine plan, in favour of the race of Shem.
(2) Another son of Ham intrudes into the lot of Shem, and into
that part of it, too, which is most sacredly his, where
Jehovah was to be
blessed as the God of Shem.
It is the
spot to which, in His scheme of division, God has
special respect (Deut.
32: 8,
9).
This very corner of Shem’s allotted
possession we find
This subject is somewhat speculative; but it may admit of
reflections for practical improvement.
1. How vain and disastrous is it for men to contend against
God! They
cannot effectually resist Him;
they can only destroy themselves.
Especially, if their contention is against any of
the plans and
arrangements connected with His eternal covenant, how
madly do they kick
against the pricks!
For a season they
may usurp what is His, or His people’s.
But when their iniquity is full, they must be
removed out of the way, in
answer to the prayer of faith; they shall be cut down,
or cursed, as cumberers
of the ground.
2.
How wise is it to acquiesce in God’s
allotment of good! and in His manner of bringing His
purposes of good to
pass. The
Lord is the God of Shem.
But Shem suffers wrong, and has to exercise
long patience before deliverance comes.
Still it is enough that Jehovah is his God; let
him not be careful or
anxious.
3.
As regards the duty and destiny of
nations, the purpose of God is here revealed.
On the one hand, schemes of conquest, and of
concentrated dominion, are
not of God. He
may make them subservient
to His own purposes; but He will always, in the end,
pour contempt on the proud
ambition of man. On
the other hand -
orderly dispersion and wise colonization are of God;
especially in the line of
Japheth. From
the first, Japheth was so
situated as to have the best facilities and strongest
inducements to colonize;
and accordingly, in the early ages, even before he dwelt
in the tents of Shem,
he was thus enlarged.
Colonies from
Finally, the division of languages, though an obstacle to
schemes of human ambition, will not be suffered to be an
obstacle to the
triumph of the cause of God.
Of this,
God Himself gave a proof and pledge, in the miracle
wrought on the day of
Pentecost, - the counterpart of the miracle at
*
*
*
CHAPTER 14
THE
CALL
OF ABRAM - HIS JUSTIFICATION - THE POWER OF HIS FAITH,
AND ITS INFIRMITY
GENESIS 11:27,.12
You are the Lord, the God who chose Abraham and
brought him forth out of
The
stream of history now flows from a new fountainhead; as
before from Adam, and
then from Noah; so now from Abraham, the father of the
faithful, and the friend
of God.
The nations descending from Shem, Ham, and Japheth, are in a
general way disposed of in the tenth chapter.
In the eleventh, one of the lines from Shem is
more particularly traced,
and is brought down to Terah.
He becomes
the beginning of a new set of generations, being the
ancestor of [Page 117] the race with which
almost exclusively the narrative is now connected. By
and
by, as the thread is drawn out, it becomes more and
more slender, as, one by
one, successive branches are struck off.
Thus, of Terah’s sons, Lot and his posterity
are soon set aside, and
Abraham himself takes the lead; - from among the
children of Abraham, all of
whom are noticed as the ancestors of great nations,
Isaac is singled out; - of
Isaac’s sons, Jacob is preferred; - and from him the
line of Judah is
especially traced, and in the line of Judah, the house
of David. Thus,
by a process, the reverse of what
occurs in the flowing of a river, the current of the
stream of salvation, -
instead of receiving as tributaries, - gives off as
superfluous, successive
streams or branches; - becoming more and more limited as
it rolls on, until it
ends in the MAN
CHRIST JESUS; from whom again it begins to expand, until at last it covers the whole
earth, and sweeps all nations in its mighty tide.
Terah, then,
stands forth as the head
of the chosen family, in that new section of the history
on which we are now
entering. “These
are the generations of Terah” (ver.
27).
[In
adjusting the household of Terah, two difficulties
occur. 1.
Were his three sons born about the same period of his
life, and was Abram the
oldest, as he is the first named?
So we
might at once conclude as we read; - “Terah
begat Abram,
Nahor, and
[These are barren speculations, ‑ somewhat akin, as Luther
hints, to the endless
discussions about genealogies against which Paul warns
Timothy; and I pass from
them with this remark, that as marriage was then
necessarily allowed within the
degrees afterwards prohibited, so, in the family of
Shem, and in the line of
Eber, such domestic alliances may have been the rather
kept up, as the means of
preserving a holy seed, uncontaminated by the
surrounding contagion of
universal idolatry and crime.]
But Terah soon disappears from the scene: all that is said of
him being that he took Abram, his son, and Lot, and
Sarai, and went forth with
them from
[Page 119]
1.
He is called by the Lord; and the call is very
peremptory,
authoritative, and commanding; it is very painful also,
- hard for flesh and
blood to obey. But
along with the call,
there is a very precious promise, a promise of good
things manifold and
marvellous; - a great nation; a great name; [the “land”
as an “inheritance” (Acts
7: 5)] the blessing of God on himself
personally,
making him a blessing to others; so intimate a
fellowship with God, that all
his friends are to be God’s friends, and all his foes
are to be God’s foes;
and, above all, the
possession of what is to bless all the families of the
earth (ver. 2, 3).
Let us picture to ourselves our father Abraham receiving this
call and this promise.
(1) The whole world around him is lying in wickedness; as Joshua
reminds the Israelites.
“Your fathers dwelt
on the other side of the flood,” or the great
river, “in old time, even Terah,
the father of Abraham, and
the father of Nahor: and they served other
gods” (Josh. 24:
2).
By this
time idolatry had overspread the whole earth.
What was its original form, it is extremely
difficult to determine.
Joshua refers to it as polytheism, or the
service of other gods; Job
indicates
the worship of the heavenly bodies as common in his day
(Job 31: 26,
28); and in the
question which Eliphaz
puts – “To which of the saints wilt thou turn?” (Job
5: 1) ‑
there is, perhaps, an
allusion to another fruitful source of [apostacy and] superstition, - the reverence paid to departed worthies, and
the notion of their interceding as mediators, or giving
help as gods. These
two kinds of heathenism indeed, - the
worship of dead men and the worship of the hosts of
heaven, - are intimately
connected with one another; they both rise out of very
natural feelings in the
corrupt heart of man, and they are easily harmonized and
fitted together. Very
probably they began to prevail simultaneously,
as parts of the one great system of apostasy which came
to a height at
(2) Suddenly, after the silence of generations, the Lord
speaks out. Instead
of vague and
uncertain tradition, His WORD
is
again on the earth.
That LIVING
WORD comes to Abram, and like
the Lord’s appearance to Saul of Tarsus, it takes him by
surprise. For
when “God chose
Abram” (Neh.
9:
7), it was an act of
free and sovereign
grace. He
did not choose Melchizedek,
who was already in the holy land, and was faithfully
maintaining there the good
cause. The
Lord is found of those who
seek Him not. He
comes to Abram,
dwelling afar off; and if not hostile, at least
indifferent, to the truth.
To him He reveals Himself, him He chooses -
him He calls. To
Abram, while yet
ungodly, God, intending “to
justify the heathen through
faith, preaches the
gospel, saying,
In thee shall
all
nations be blessed”* (Gal.
3: 8). Such is the
Apostle Paul’s inspired
commentary on this first call of Abram; and thus he
explains the meaning of the
word “blessed,” as it
occurs so often in the
promise given to the patriarch.
The
blessedness is that of justification; - the free,
gratuitous justification of
the sinner, without any works or righteousness of his
own, through faith alone
in the appointed and accepted substitute,
sacrifice, and surety.
That is what the
promise gives to the patriarch; what it conveys to him
as the free gift of God;
what it at once and summarily makes him.
It makes him “blessed,” ‑ blessed, in the sense
of being
“justified through faith.”
And it makes
him henceforth the depositary of this gospel blessing, -
this free gift of
justification through faith, - for all the families of
the earth. Abram
believed the promise; and on the faith
of it, “when he was called to go
out into a
place which he should after receive for an inheritance,
he obeyed;
and he went out, not
knowing
whither he went” (Heb.
11: 8).
[* NOTE. This clause
also points toward
Messiah’s reign of righteousness and peace amongst “all nations”! It points us to the
time of Abraham’s Resurrection, when he will receive the
Divine blessing
promised to him; which, says Stephen,
- God “removed him into this LAND, wherein ye now dwell: and he gave him none inheritance IN IT” (Acts
7: 4, 5, R.V.).]
(3) Such is the calling
or conversion of Abraham.
What a change
does it work in his position, his character, and his
destiny! Before
it, what was he? An
obscure and all but solitary man: -
married indeed, but childless and hopeless of issue; -
living very much like
his neighbours, in an evil world and an evil age. But
God has appeared to him -
Jehovah, the God of
glory; and the
whole course of his life is changed.
A
word has been spoken to him, - a word of sovereign
authority and sovereign
grace. He
has stood before the Eternal
Word. And
what has he learned?
That
there is a blessing for him, and through him for
others. And
what a blessing! justification without
works, through a perfect righteousness freely imputed, - the
righteousness of the Redeemer promised
from the beginning, - the Seed of the woman, by whom the
serpent’s head is to
be bruised [and a “crown”
in the “Age” to come,
because of his
obedience, (2
Tim. 2: 5. cf.
Rev. 3:
21; Luke
20: 35; Gen. 26:
16)].
Surely he does well to obey such a call, peremptory and
painful
as it is, when he receives in it such a blessing! And yet,
after all, his believing all this,
so unhesitatingly, and so manifestly with all his
heart; - his taking God so
simply at His word, asking no questions and raising
no difficulties - is a wonder.
He might have started objections and made
inquiries. How
can these things be?
How can he, whose wife is barren, be the
father of a great nation?
How can he, a
poor sinner, a guilty man, be at once so graciously
received into favour?
And
how is he to become so awful
a sign of trial, and so fruitful a source of good,
to his brethren, and to all
men?
But he does not stand
upon any such scruples.
He takes the
plain testimony of the God of glory; - “I will
bless thee;” - I, who alone can bless, and whose high prerogative and
right to bless none may question; ‑ I will
bless thee. And
if I justify [and reward you
for your obedience],
who is he that condemneth?
It is enough.
He believes, and is blessed in believing;
blessed, - as having his iniquity forgiven, his transgression covered, his sin
imputed no more, and his spirit freed from guile.
And
being thus blessed himself,
he becomes a public and representative man;
all-important issues depend on
him. Not
only has he a great nation and a
great name now pledged to him, but a blessing and a
curse are in him.
Like the Saviour in whom he believes (Luke 2: 34),
he
is set for a sign, - a test, or touch-stone, to try
the spirits of men, and
bring out their enmity against God.
Everywhere
he will be spoken against; and
speaking against him is braving the wrath of Heaven;
- “I will curse him [Page 121] that curseth thee.” But many also
will
rise up and call him blessed; and these God will bless
with the same blessing
with which he is blessed Himself.
2.
In this attitude, and in this
character, Abram commences his pilgrimage.
He does so amid many trials.
(1) The
barrenness of his wife is a
stumbling-block in the way of his trust in God,
hard to be got over; - it
troubles him often afterwards, and tempts him to
grievous and aggravated
sin. (2) He knows not whither he is going.
No doubt, it is said (chap.
11: 31)
that
the company went forth to go into the
Truly “many are the afflictions of the
righteous,” and in various points is he
wounded, as he passes on through
his earthly pilgrimage.
Disappointed
hope, - ill-requited faithfulness and love, - the loss
of dear friends, - the
delay of promised good, - the uncongenial companionship
of the wicked and the
worldly, amid whose cold contempt and cruel hatred it is
no easy exercise of
faith to erect the family altar and make an open avowal
of godliness, - the
hard and biting pains of destitution and anxiety when
bread and water seem to
fail, - these are the allotted trials of him who, at
God’s command, goes forth
as a stranger upon earth, seeking a better country. What
wonder can it be, if,
in such circumstances, his high principle should seem
for once to give way,
through Satan’s subtlety, and his own evil heart of
unbelief?
3.
In
(1) The temptation was a severe one.
(2) In these circumstances, it occurred to the patriarch that
she might pass for his sister; -
and so
he might not only save his own life, but even do
something to preserve
her. He
would then be in a condition to
treat with Pharaoh as to terms of marriage, - and he
might hope to prolong the
negotiation, till, the famine in Canaan being over, he
found means to escape [Page 123] with her out of
(3) His scheme, accordingly, availed him little.
He was not indeed killed; but his wife was at
once taken from him, without the ceremony of a previous
treaty. She
is already in Pharaoh’s house; and though
he loads her supposed brother with gifts, apparently
that he may win his
consent in due form (ver.
16), yet if he will
not be satisfied, can it be
supposed that the monarch will wait long for that
consent, when he has the
power in his own hands, and the bride already at his
mercy? Thus
Abram’s policy overreaches itself.
(4) But God, whom he had better have trusted from the first,
interferes to deliver him at last; not dealing with him
according to his
sin. He
averts the evil, and even turns
it to account for good.
He takes
occasion, from this occurrence, to administer a just
rebuke to this heathen
king, whose lust and violence certainly deserved the
chastisement which he
received (ver. 17);
and making known to him, by some special revelation, the
cause of the plague
which was sent, He teaches Pharaoh to respect Abram as a
professor of the true
faith, and as plainly enjoying the favour of heaven. At the same
time, the very manner of the
deliverance is a rebuke to Abram himself.
The man of whom he thought so ill has fairly the
advantage of him, both
in reproving and in requiting him.
The
dignified remonstrance of Pharaoh, speaking as one
wronged, - and in this
particular instance, whatever might be his own sin, he
was wronged, - is fitted
deeply to humble the patriarch.
There is
no reason to suspect Pharaoh of insincerity here, as if
he were merely
pretending to be offended, and affecting a dread he did
not feel of the offence
he had been so near committing; although even if it were
so, still Abram must
have stood rebuked before him.
And when
he saw the king so reasonable now; - nay, when he even
learned that if he had
been told the truth at first he would have been as
reasonable then; - well
might the patriarch be ashamed of his unnecessary and
unprofitable falsehood, -
his weak and well-nigh fatal act of unbelief.
Had he trusted God, and dealt justly by Pharaoh,
at the beginning, it
might have fared better both with him and with his
spouse; they might have been
spared what must have been to them an interval of
intense anxiety; and, as it
now appears, an honest testimony might have told even
upon one whom they
regarded as beyond the reach of truth and righteousness. Still, as it
was, God made the fall of His
servant an occasion of good.
He
glorified Himself in the eyes of Pharaoh and his court. A salutary
impression was left on the king’s
mind; and the Lord showed, that, notwithstanding the
errors and infirmities of
His people, for His own name’s sake He would deliver
them as “they went from one
nation to another, from
one kingdom to another people;” that He would “suffer no man to do them wrong,”
but would “reprove kings for
their sakes” (Ps.
105: 13,
14).
Thus, in the very beginning of [Page 124] Abram’s walk
of faith, the infirmity
of that faith, as well as its power, is. practically
brought out. And
may not this be done for the express
purpose of thus early proving, - both that the continued
exercise as well as
the first production of faith must be the gift of God, -
and also that it is
not faith itself that really has in it any merit or any
efficacy to save, but
only that grace and strength of which faith lays hold? Abram
is
justified by faith; but the faith by which he is
justified is as little to
be trusted as any of his other virtues.
It cannot, therefore, be on account of its own
worth that it justifies
or saves, but because, by its very nature, it looks to
a worthiness or
righteousness beyond itself, and rests on that alone
for [eternal] salvation.
It was in the promise of God, and not in his
own faith, that Abram trusted; and it was this alone
which ensured his recovery
from his sad fall; otherwise, when his faith failed, his
only ground of safety must
have been fairly and finally driven from beneath his
feet. But
the anchor of his soul was in God.
Therefore, though cast down, he was raised up again; -
and the salutary lesson which he learned was that of distrust in his own
faith as well as his own wisdom, and reliance on the
Lord alone. He had
been tempted to presume upon his position, as chosen
and called by God, and to
think that he might himself take measures for averting
evil, and securing the
fulfilment of the divine promise.
He is
taught that he must leave all to God, and commit
himself, as a little child,
entirely to His guidance, who saves His people in a
way altogether His own.
But
though thus weak when he followed his own wisdom, how
strong is Abram in the
Lord! In
*
*
*
CHAPTER 15
THE
INHERITANCE OF
THE LAND PROMISED TO ABRAM
GEN. 13; HEB.
11:
8-16.
On his
return from
Like Paul and Barnabas, the uncle and nephew ended the
contention by an amicable separation; and in the
parting, Abram manifests at
once his faith and his forbearance.
He
is not careful to choose for himself; but is ready to
defer to
[* NOTE.
Always keep in mind: - Abram’s eternal
inheritance, (resting
upon Christ’s imputed righteousness, and being “justified
by
faith”), will be in “a
new heaven and a
new earth” (Rev.
21: 1),
- after
this earth is destroyed by
fire: and Abram’s millennial inheritance, (based upon his
righteousness),
and being “justified by works”), will be
enjoyed upon this
earth in the “Age”
yet to come - after the time of his
resurrection. Rom.
4: 3;
Matt. 5:
20; Jas.
2: 21.]
Being now left alone at the head of his domestic band, Abram
stood
in need of special encouragement; and special
encouragement was afforded to
him. The Lord appears
to him, and makes him expressly the heir of the land
(ver.
14-17). This is now
the third occasion of the Lord’s
appearing to Abram; but it is the first time we find
explicit mention made of
what he himself is ultimately to possess.
In his first interview with the Lord, before
leaving the country of his
fathers, he is assured generally (chap.
12: 1-3) of a signal blessing
to be enjoyed by him, and
to be dispensed through him to others.
That blessing, as we have seen, is the Gospel
privilege of free
justification; - on the faith of
which blessing, Abram goes forth a pilgrim to an unknown
land. On
his arrival in
[* NOTE. The “seed” here, refers
primarily to the
Nation of
Here is a truth of great importance; and one which all
A-Millennialists deny by their mode of Scriptural
Interpretation and
disbelief. But
more importantly; all who
are content to continue their rejection of millennial
truths, must also reject
and deprive their Lord Jesus Christ – God’s promised
“Seed”
- of His messianic
inheritance! (Matt.
2: 6;
Lk. 1:
68-75;
Isa. 11:
1-12;
Rev. 20:
4, 6).
What a fearful position all Anti-millennialists are in!
They are content to teach others to ignore - as
something of non-importance - what they themselves, in
their ignorance, are
dogmatically content to disbelieve
and reject!
“I will tell of the
decree: The Lord said
unto me, Thou art my
son; This day I
have begotten thee.
Ask of me, and I will give thee
the NATIONS for thine
INHERITANCE, And the uttermost parts
of the EARTH
for thy
possession” (Psa.
2: 7,
8, R.V.).
“For I would not,
brethren,
have you ignorant of this
mystery, lest ye be
wise in your own conceits, that
a hardening in part hath befallen Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be
come in; and so all Israel shall be saved: even
as it is written, There
shall
come out of Zion the Deliverer; He
shall
turn away ungodliness (or un-godliness’s)
from Jacob: And
this is
my covenant unto them, When I shall take away
their sins” (Rom.
11: 25-27, R.V.).
How fearful a position to be in, are all whose
ignorance and disbelief,
makes God to be One unable to bring to pass what He has
promised to the
Jews! “Salvation
is from
the Jews”
(John 4: 22,
R.V.).]
It can scarcely be doubted that there is something more here
than the promise of the earthly
1.
In the first place, that the hope of
an inheritance for himself, individually, did actually
form a part of the faith
of Abraham, as also of the faith of Isaac and Jacob, the
Apostle Paul most
expressly testifies; - “He
looked for a city which hath
foundations, whose
builder and maker is God;”
and this was “the promise of
which he was the heir.”
And the same is said of Isaac and Jacob, of
Sara, and of all the “strangers
and pilgrims” of
that olden time (Heb.
11: 10,
13-16). They not
merely expected a country and a city
for their posterity; - they expected a country and a
city for themselves.
To prove this, the apostle uses a very strong
expression – “Wherefore,
God is not ashamed to be called their God; for
he
hath prepared for them a city” (ver.
16),
- as if God would have been ashamed to be called their
God, - as if it would
have been unworthy of Him to assume that title and that
relation, - if He had
not provided for them, - not for their posterity, but
for them individually, -
a country and a city.
And what kind of
country - what kind of city?
A country,
with reference to which they shall not have to confess,
as they did in those former
days with reference to the earthly Canaan, that they are
merely strangers and
pilgrims in it; - but “a better
country, that is an
heavenly,” - and a “city which hath foundations, whose builder
and maker is God.”
Such a city,
and such a country, the Apostle Paul distinctly assures
us, Abraham looked for
and desired, at a time when, as Stephen
says (Acts 7: 5),
“God gave him none inheritance
in
It is plain, therefore, that Abraham had promises given to him
of a country and a city, since he died in the faith of
them. But
no promises to that effect are on record in
the Old Testament, unless we hold such an assurance as
that now before us to be
one.
Nowhere does Abraham receive any promise
whatever of future good, or of
a future inheritance, for himself, if it be not in the
announcement – “I will give
thee this land.”
2.
Then, secondly, that this
announcement does convey such a promise, may be further
argued from an
expression used by the apostle (Heb.
11: 8),
when,
speaking of Abraham’s call, he says that “he
was to go
out into a
place which he should after receive
for an inheritance.” It is to be
remarked that the apostle makes
no reference, in this whole passage, to Abraham’s
posterity, as inheriting the
land; he speaks throughout of
Abraham as
an individual.
He cannot, therefore,
mean that the place in question was one which Abraham was to receive for an inheritance, in a kind of virtual sense merely, and in respect of his seed
receiving it.
He describes it as a
place which, though unknown to him at the time, he
should yet himself after
receive for an inheritance.
And it is on
this description of the place into which Abraham was
called to go out, as a
place which he was really, afterwards, to possess as his
own, that Paul goes on
to build what he has to say respecting the patriarch’s
hope. Upon
any other interpretation we can scarcely
see how the apostle’s reasoning can have any force or
meaning at all. Abraham
“sojourned,”
he says, “in the land of promise, as in a
strange country,
dwelling in tabernacles,
as did Isaac and Jacob;” but it was the land of promise still, and the land of promise to him, - to
himself personally.
He had been
called to go out into a place which he
should
after receive for an inheritance; and this was that place.
He knew
and recognized it as such
- as the place into which he had been called to go
out, and which, therefore,
he was hereafter to receive for an inheritance.
On this ground alone he had to rest his
personal and individual hope [after
his resurrection] for eternity;
this was his warrant for expecting and “looking
for a city
which hath foundations,
whose builder and maker
is God” (Heb.
11: 8-10).
Thus we learn to connect the promise of a heavenly city and a
heavenly country, which Abraham undoubtedly had, with
the declaration
respecting the place into which he was called to go out,
that it was the very
place which he should afterwards receive for an
inheritance. And
with this inspired commentary before us,
we can scarcely hesitate to understand the words, “I
will give thee this land,” as conveying to himself, personally, the promise of a
country and a city.
3.
Still further, in the third place,
the apostle’s reasoning would lead us to postpone the
fulfilment of the promise
now in question till after the resurrection.
Let us mark well his argument as it bears on this
point (Heb. 11:
14-16).
Abraham,
and all the early pilgrim fathers, confessing that they
were “strangers and pilgrims on the earth,” still sought
“a country” (ver. 14). Nor would any kind of country satisfy them; for, failing to obtain personal possession of the land of promise, they might have returned to “the country from
whence they came out” (ver. 15).
This,
however, they declined to do; and their declinature the
apostle construes into
a proof, not merely that they acquiesced in the
arrangement by which their
seed, and not themselves, were to own the earthly
Canaan, but that their hearts
were set upon an entirely different portion; - “they
desire
a better
country, that is
an heavenly”
(ver. 16). Then, following up this
exposition of their state of mind
upon this subject, the apostle brings in the remarkable
inference concerning
God to which I have already referred; - “Wherefore
God
is not ashamed to be called their God: for
he
hath prepared for them a
city”
(ver. 16). The conclusion
thus drawn is most precise and
unequivocal. Nothing
short of His “having prepared
for them a city” could make it
suitable on the part of God to take so peculiar a title,
or to stand to them in
so peculiar and intimate a relation.
When He
consents so condescendingly [Page 128] to call
Himself their God, it is
because He has some great thing in store for them -
something worthy of Himself
to bestow, something corresponding to so near a
connection as is implied in His
being their God, and their being His people; - and what can
that be but the “better
country, that is the
heavenly,” which they “desire?”
Thus, according to the apostle, the title, “God
of Abraham, of Isaac,
and of Jacob,” involves
a
promise of the continuing city, and the better country.
But, according to our Lord, this same title, “God
of Abraham, of Isaac,
and of Jacob,” involves also a promise of the
resurrection; for in His argument with the
Sadducees, He emphatically
appeals to it as proving the doctrine of the
resurrection: “But as touching
the resurrection of the dead, have
ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God,
saying, I
am the God of
Abraham, and the God
of Isaac, and the God
of Jacob?
God is not the God of the
dead, but of the
living” (Matt.
22: 31,
32).
This
reasoning of our Lord, though not at first obvious to a
modern reader, is very
beautiful and conclusive.
It rests upon
the use of the present, as opposed to the past tense, in
the discovery which
God made of Himself on the occasion referred to, when He
sent His message to
the Jews, by Moses (Exod.
3: 6). God at that
time announced Himself, not as
having been the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob -
but as being their God
still, at the very time of His making the announcement. He did not say
“I
was their God while they were on earth,” but “I
am their God now.” But what was
it that made or constituted Him
their God while they were on earth?
Let
the apostle answer.
It was “his having
prepared for them a city.”
It was in respect of this preparation of a
city for them that He called Himself their God; and He
continues to be their
God still, even after their departure from earth: “I am
the God of Abraham, of
Isaac, and of Jacob.”
It is only, however, of Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob, as not dead but
living, that He is, or can be the God. The promise or
preparation of a city, in
respect of which alone He assumes that title, was
secured to them, not as disembodied spirits [or souls], but as living men in the body.
If God, therefore, is still their God, even
since their removal from this world - and if His being
their God is connected
with the preparation of a city for them - it plainly
follows that God has still
a city prepared for them, and that He has it prepared
for them, in the view of their being again in precisely the same state in which they were, when first, on their very ground, He “was not ashamed to be called
their God.”
Otherwise God would
not be faithful.
They must be
identically the same persons, in body as well as in
soul, to whom He places
Himself in this intimate relation.
In plain terms, if God once becomes the God of
Abraham, then, so long as
He continues to be his God, he must have respect to Him,
as he was when the
relation between them was first established.
But Abraham was then in the body.
It was with Abraham in the body, that God dealt
so graciously as not to
be ashamed to be called his God.
Whatever privilege or promise that relation
implies belongs to Abraham in the body, and must have reference to his living again in the body [in
the “land
of promise”].
“God is not the God of the dead.” He never assumed this title, or gave any of its pledges, in relation to
the dead, or to disembodied spirits [or souls]. “He
is the God of the
living.”*
It is with the living - with
men alive in the body - that He has to
do, in all that His being called their God can be held
to imply.
[*NOTE.
What Death separates, Resurrection
will one day reunite. At the
time of
Death, the animating “spirit”
returns to God;
the “soul” descends into
“Hades” - the place of
the dead “in the heath of the
earth;” and the “body”
returns to “dust,”
- in the grave or tomb.
The whole
man - not a part of him
only - is what God will redeem (i.e.,
set free) from the sting of death.]
[Page 129]
Such is the import of our Lord’s argument.
God not merely was the God of Abraham while
he sojourned as a pilgrim on the earth; He is his God
still, ages
afterwards. But
this cannot mean that He
is the God of Abraham’s disembodied spirit [or soul] only, for He
never constituted Himself the God of Abraham in that
sense. It
was of Abraham in the body [and soul] that He
condescended to become the
God; it is of Abraham in the body that He is the God
still; and it is to
Abraham in the body that He is pledged to make good all
that that relation
denotes. Abraham
therefore must
yet live in the body, to receive
the fulfilment of the promise which God gave him in the
body, and in respect of
which, God says, not I was, but “I
am, the God of Abraham.”
Thus this reasoning of
our Lord, to which the Sadducees
could make no reply, evidently connects
with
the title, “God of Abraham,”
the promise of
the resurrection.
And Paul, as we have seen, connects
with
the same title the promise of the inheritance - the country and the city - for which Abraham looked. Plainly, therefore, beyond all doubt, the faith and hope of Abraham had reference to what
he was to receive after the resurrection; and accordingly the promise, “I will give thee this land,” must be understood as having
reference to the inheritance then to be enjoyed.
On
these grounds, we are surely justified in regarding the
communication made to Abraham,
after his separation from Lot, as conveying to him
personally the promise of an
eternal [and
millennial]
inheritance. And
there is a special propriety in his
receiving such a promise at this particular time.
He has already been told (chap.
12: 7)
that his seed are to have the land; and he
seems to have made up his mind to be himself a stranger
and a pilgrim in it all
his days. In
the true spirit of one who
feels that he is but a stranger and pilgrim, he is ready
to defer to his
kinsman
But there are still two points, connected with this promise,
which may seem to require explanation.
1. It may be admitted that it is to this,
and other such
promises, that the
Apostle Paul refers as
the ground of
Abraham’s hope, in looking for a heavenly city. And, indeed,
if this is not admitted, there
is really no promise of the kind recorded in the Old
Testament at all; - a
conclusion very improbable; - for how then should Paul,
in writing to the
Hebrews, refer to this matter so confidently, if it had
not a place in their
Scriptures? But
still it may be asked,
how would the language employed by God on this occasion
convey such an
idea? He
speaks of giving to Abraham “this land,”
-
the identical land in which he is at the time a
sojourner.
Is it by inference that this is to be understood as
indicating, in a figure, the heavenly country, of which
the
If any lean to this
last interpretation, it may be safely said that
there
is nothing very strange or improbable in it; nothing
that does violence
to right views respecting the future world, or the
ultimate and eternal habitation
of the redeemed.
There is
nothing unreasonable, or at all
inconsistent with Scripture, in the idea that this material earth, itself redeemed and purified, may be fitted, after the great change which
it is at last to undergo, for becoming their final and
blessed abode. On
the contrary, not a
few passages in the word of God seem to favour that
notion. The 104th
Psalm, for instance, holds out
some such prospect of the earth being renewed; and the
37th Psalm,
in several of its promises, may be most simply and
suitably explained,
according to the letter, on this same principle (ver.
11, 22,
etc.); the
precise recompense promised
to the righteous and the meek being over and over
again said to be their inheriting the earth on which now
they suffer wrong. This,
also,
is consistent with what Job says of the resurrection
to which he looked
forward (chap. 19:
25, 26).
And, once more, the final judgment of fire is compared (2
Pet. 3) to
the judgment of the flood, from which the earth emerged,
anew prepared for
man’s habitation; and so, accordingly, we read of there
being new heavens and a
new earth, - the earth still subsisting, only purified
by fire and made
new. Other
expressions, no doubt, may be
cited, which at first sight may seem to be at variance
with this view; but
these, on a closer inspection, will generally be found
to be irrelevant and
indecisive as to the real question at issue.
Certainly there is nothing contrary to analogy or to sound doctrine in the opinion, that the risen and glorified saints of God
are finally to occupy this planet of ours [Page 131] - this spot, which of all creation is become the most remarkable, -
“The
holy fields, Over whose
acres walked those blessed feet,
Which
eighteen hundred
years ago were nailed,
For
our advantage, on the
bitter cross.”
According to this view, respecting the ultimate seat of the
heavenly blessedness, it is easy to see how Abraham
might understand the
promise, “To thee will I give
the land.”
Having been previously told that it was to be
given to his seed, exclusive of himself, and now
learning that it is to be
given specially to himself and his seed, how can he
reconcile these
intimations? How but by concluding that they refer to two distinct eras, - the
one, to the life that now is, the other, to that which
is to come? In
the present life, his natural posterity
are to possess the land; in the future life, “in
the
regeneration,” or “in
the resurrection,”
he himself, and his spiritual seed, are to occupy it. The
soil which then he trode as
a stranger, and where, almost by mere sufferance,
his bones were to be allowed
to lie, is to be part, and possibly the chief part,
of the new earth, in which
righteousness is to dwell; and he and all the
faithful, raised in glory, are to
find there “the better, that is
the heavenly country” which they “desired,” and the “city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.”
2.
Another observation remains to be
made. The
apostolic commentary, on which
we have built so much, cannot
possibly
refer to any thing short of the final and eternal inheritance of glory. The heaven which Abraham
looked
for, may, as to its site, be on earth; but at all
events, it was what we mean
by heaven that he did look for - the final and eternal
state of the risen saints
of God. For,
mark again the apostle’s
argument. The whole force of it depends on the contrast which he draws between
what was Abraham’s condition when he got the promise
and what is to be his
condition [after the time of resurrection] when he gets the fulfilment of it. When he dwelt in
the
land, he confessed that he was a stranger and pilgrim on
the earth; so also did
his sons, Isaac and Jacob.
Their
descendants, too, the Israelites, when they came to
inhabit
[* It would
appear that this “eternal and enduring
rest,” as “the
final gift to His
redeemed,” will be upon the “new
earth”
and under the “new heaven,”
after “the first heaven and the
first earth are passed away”
(Rev. 21:1).]
Such is the hope set before Abraham.
And now, to close this discussion, the
following remarks be weighed.
[Page 132]
1.
Some may think, that although we may
gather all that we have been endeavouring to establish
out of such a promise as
that before us, it might not suggest so much to Abraham
himself. The
reverse rather is probable.
It is to be remembered always, that the
communications made by God to the patriarchs were not
the beginning of His
revelation; they all proceed upon previous discoveries. Hence much is
taken for granted as already
known; the knowledge of it needing only to be revived,
corrected, and
enlarged. The
great leading truths of
religion, - the being of God, the manner of His
existence, the plan of
salvation, the efficacy of sacrifice, the resurrection
of the body, and the
life everlasting, - these, having been made known from
the beginning, are
rather assumed than expressly taught in the subsequent
intercourse of God with
man. Hence,
in all probability the
patriarchs, with their previous knowledge and the views
already familiar to
them, would have a better apprehension of the full
meaning of what God said to
them, than, but for the New Testament commentary, we
could have. In
fact, the clear discoveries of the New Testament
may substantially serve to us this very purpose of
placing us more nearly in
the same position in which the patriarchs were when the
successive
communications of the divine will reached them, and so
enabling us to
understand these communications more nearly as they
would do. The
idea of a resurrection and of a heavenly
inheritance was not new to Abraham: it formed a part of
the primeval religion
which, amid all its corruptions, might still survive so
far as to suggest the
light in which he should regard this new promise.
And above all, let it be considered that the [Holy] Spirit who
searcheth all things, yea
the deep things of God, was as free to give a spiritual
discernment of these
things to the holy patriarch himself, as to any
prophets, or apostles, or
saints of all succeeding generations.
2.
But further, however this may be,
and whatever may be thought of the argument we have been
pursuing, let it be
carefully observed, that the main and all-important fact
concerning Abraham’s
hope, rests, not on any reasoning of ours, but on the
explicit testimony of an
inspired apostle. We
have endeavoured to
explain how the promise of God might suggest the hope of
Abraham. But
that this was his hope, however
suggested, is the express assurance of the Holy Ghost in
the New
Testament. He
“looked
for a city which hath foundations, whose
builder
and maker is God.”
He declared
plainly that he sought “a better
country, that is,
an heavenly.”
3.
Now, therefore, believers, behold
your father Abraham.
In virtue of the
two promises he has received, - the first, conveying to
him the Gospel blessing
of a free justification, - the second, the Gospel
expectation of an eternal
inheritance, - see him furnished at all points, and
equipped from head to foot,
for his pilgrimage and warfare now, and
for his rest and triumph hereafter.
He has his “feet shod
with the preparation of
the Gospel of peace, and
for an helmet the hope
of salvation.”
Ye, therefore, who
are his children, assume your father Abraham’s garb. Put ye on his
greaves and his headpiece.
The gospel of peace, - the gospel which gives
peace, even peace with God through Jesus Christ your
Lord, - that blessed
Gospel will prepare your feet, as well as Abraham’s for
walking as strangers,
for warring as soldiers, and
for suffering as pilgrims
here on earth.
The hope of [Page 133] salvation, - the good hope of everlasting life, - will guard and adorn
your head. Raised
erect above the smoke
and din of this earthly scene, you will fix your
steadfast, and ever-brightening
and kindling eye, as heirs of God and
joint heirs with Christ, on
the glory to be revealed at the Lord's second coming;
- being in the
meanwhile “changed into the same
image, from glory to
glory, even as
by the Spirit of the Lord.”
4.
Nor let it be overlooked, as a
practical improvement of the doctrine which would
identify the eternal
inheritance of the saints with the renovated earth, -
and even Abram’s peculiar
portion of it, with the Holy Land, - that if, on the one
hand, it may seem to attach
something of the character of earth to the future
heaven, it surely tends, on the other hand, to impart something of the holy
elevation of heaven to this present earth.
There may be a risk of making the eternal state,
in our conceptions of
it, too gross and material; but there
is danger also, in the
dreamy and ideal spiritualizing, which would refine
away all matter, and which
ultimately comes very near the notion of absorption
into the Infinite Mind.
The
personal reality of hope, as
well as the personal sense of responsibility, is
thus turned into a dim
abstraction.
But the resurrection of the body and the renewal of the earth, realized as
events still to come, stamp a present value and
importance upon both; and the
reflection, that the very body which I now wear is to
rise again, and the very
earth on which I tread is to be my habitation
hereafter, arrests me when I am tempted to
make my body the instrument, or this earth the scene,
of aught that would but
ill accord with the glorious fashion of the one, or
the renewed face of the
other (Phil. 3:
21; Ps.
104: 30).
*
*
*
CHAPTER 16
VICTORY
OVER
THE INVADERS OF THE LAND
INTERVIEW
WITH
MELCHIZEDEK
GENESIS 14
He teaches my hands to war. - Ps. 18:
34.
The lesser is
blessed
by the greater. - Heb.
7: 7.
This
fourteenth chapter has the air and aspect of an episode
in the History; - it
stands out, singular and unique. The warlike character
which Abram assumes is a
solitary exception to the usual tenor of this life; and
his subsequent
interview with the Royal Priest is altogether peculiar.
1.
Abram, for the most part a man of
peace, quietly sojourning as a stranger in the land,
suddenly appears at the
head of an army, and [Page
134] signalizes
his martial prowess in the
battle-field.
(1) The occasion of his taking arms is the danger of his
kinsman
It would seem that, before this time, the land of the
Canaanites had been the scene of conquests and
revolutions. In
particular, the remarkable fertility of
the plain of the
Who this Chedarlaomer was, must now be almost entirely a
matter of conjecture.
It is in the
briefest and slightest possible way, and only in so far
as it incidentally
touches his main subject, that the inspired writer
notices the contemporary
history of the Gentile world.
In the
present instance, however, something may be fairly
gathered from the
designation given to the potentate in question.
He is described as king of
That he was a conqueror, aiming at extensive empire, is very
plain;
and he seems also to have obtained an ascendancy over
the oldest and most
powerful monarchies of the east.
Among
his three allies we find Amraphel, king of
It may be presumed that the state of luxury and extreme
dissoluteness of manners into which they had fallen, but
ill fitted the
effeminate inhabitants for resisting the army before
which their neighbours had
fallen. The
kings of the five principal
cities did, indeed, muster their forces; but, in a
pitched battle with the four
invading princes, they sustained a total defeat (ver.
8-10). The nature of
the country, full of slime
pits, dug for the supply of pitch or mortar for
building, rendered retreat
difficult, so that nearly the whole of the vanquished
were cut off, a few only
escaping to the mountains.
Thus the
cities were left defenceless, and fell an easy prey to
the conquerors. Accordingly,
having satiated their lust for
plunder by the spoiling of the houses, they departed,
carrying with them goods
and victuals, as well as the women and others of the
inhabitants (ver. 11 and 16).
In this calamity
So it will most commonly
happen when a man of God, for worldly ends, joins
affinity or makes alliances
with the ungodly. Those with
whom he immediately connects
himself may at first seem to spare him, having some
advantage to gain by his
countenance or his help - and feeling that his presence
among them is a kind of
shelter to themselves.
They may show him
some deference, and exempt him from the necessity of
cooperating in some of
their most indefensible schemes.
But he
is in a false and suspicious position, and he cannot
long escape. In
the eyes of indifferent spectators, -
still more in the eyes of inveterate opponents, -
he is confounded indiscriminately with his
associates. Their
enemies become his;
and searching out the faults, and resenting the
injuries, of those with whom he
keeps company, they involve him alike in the blame and
in the revenge. Nor
can he with any decency complain; - he
suffers but what he might expect.
[Page 136] Finding him among the rebels, will the conquerors be apt to hear or to
believe that he is innocent of the rebellion?
Having been so unjust to himself, can he look for
justice from them?
(2) Such is the occasion on which Abram takes arms.
But that he does so on the mere impulse of
natural affection, however amiable, we can scarcely
believe. He
surely has divine warrant for what he
does. He
fights once, as he walks always
- by faith. If
it be to this affair that
Isaiah refers (41: 2,
3), his testimony is
explicit as to the
divine sanction given to Abram’s enterprise.
And even if the application of that passage in
Isaiah be doubtful, we
may safely judge that Abram would not have resolved
beforehand on so unusual a
step, and would not have received so remarkable a
blessing afterwards, if it
had been simply his own feelings, and not the express
will of God, that he was
obeying. For
what right had Abram to
wage this war? And
what power had he to
wage it successfully?
Neither the right
nor the power belonged to him naturally; - both were of
faith. Both the right
and the power flowed from Him in Whom he believed.
Thus as to the right, - what is Abram, viewing his position
with the eye of sense, and apart from his peculiar
character as the friend of
God and the heir of the promise?
He is
merely a private individual, and a stranger too, in the
land, - wealthy indeed,
but invested with no public or official authority. What title has
he to levy arms? His
kinsman’s capture may be very grievous
and offensive to him; he may be moved with compassion,
and stirred up to anger;
but is he at liberty, on that account, to put himself at
the head of an army of
his own, and to act as an independent captain or prince?
Besides, even if he should be so inclined, what power has he
to give him any chance of success?
What
forces can he lead into the field?
The
males of his own household - three hundred and eighteen
men - hastily prepared
and armed; - for though three confederates are mentioned
(ver. 13
and 24), it does not
appear that they furnished any
men for this enterprise.
And with these
he is to pursue a numerous army, flushed with victory,
and headed by four
valiant monarchs. The
exploit of Gideon
was scarcely, to all outward appearance more desperate.
But Abram believed, and in faith he went forth to battle. It is the
promise of God which gives him both
the right and the power.
It is as the
lord of the country, made so by the promise of God, - it
is as the real owner
and legitimate ruler of it, that Abram, on this
occasion, exercises the royal
prerogative of making war.
This one
passing glimpse God saw fit to give of the true
character of him, who to the
eye of sense seemed to be nothing more than a private
man, a pilgrim and
sojourner, comparatively obscure and unknown, just as in
the days of the
Saviour’s humiliation, it pleased the Father to show Him
once in the glory in
which He is at last to reign.
And as
then, on the Mount of Transfiguration, there were three
companions,
eye-witnesses of Christ’s glory, so it would almost seem
as if the same number
were purposely selected to be with Abram on the occasion
of this unwonted
manifestation of his high dignity.
We
read of three men, whether independent princes, or
merely influential
neighbours, does not appear, - though the last seems
more probable, - who were [Page 137] confederate with Abram, who cultivated his friendship, and were disposed to make
common cause with him;
recognizing in him something more than met the eye -
some mark of his actual
position as blessed, and made heir of the land by God.
For that there were a few among those with whom the patriarch
met, who had some idea of what he really was, and of
what he had a right to be,
this very chapter testifies, in the instance of
Melchizedek. Possibly
also the messenger who brought Abram
tidings of
Not, therefore,
as a private person,
not as a stranger and pilgrim, which character he
usually bore, - but as the
heir, did Abram on this occasion take the sword, and
wage war against the
invaders of the kingdom which was his own; and thus for
himself he received,
and to all who had a spiritual discernment he gave, a
pledge and earnest of
things to come. It
was an anticipation
of the promise; even
as the
transfiguration of Christ was a foretaste or
foreshowing of the reward set
before him, and the glory to be revealed in him.
(3) Thus Abram for a brief space appears as a warrior-prince,
and a conqueror. As
a warrior, how just
and. generous is the cause of conflict!
As
a conqueror, how noble and disinterested is his use of
victory!
To rescue a lost kinsman is his single aim, - a kinsman, too,
deserving [Page 138] of no such kindness at his hands. The separation which
had taken place, not, as it would seem, very reluctantly
on the side of Lot, -
his selfish choice of the fairest portion of the land, -
his rashly-formed
connection with the wicked, for the sake of gain, - and
his consequent distance
and estrangement from his best and truest friend, -
these things might almost
have justified Abram in leaving him to his fate.
But all past unkindness is forgotten, in pity
for his present woeful plight.
Abram
makes haste to help him; nor does he fear, on his
behalf, to encounter with a
mere handful a mighty host.
Such was the
end of this war on the part of Abram - the deliverance
of one of his own
kinsmen and brethren out of the hands of the invading
foe. That
the men of
In all this, who can fail to see a typical representation of
the warfare of Christ Himself?
He comes
to bruise the serpent’s head, - to destroy the works of
the devil, - to spoil
principalities and powers, - to bind the strong man
armed. One
result of His interposition is the
respite granted to the impenitent and unbelieving, - who
are rescued from
immediate destruction and spared for a time on the
earth. But,
alas! it is only, like the men of these
doomed cities of the plain, to “treasure
up unto
themselves wrath against the day of wrath, and
revelation of the righteous judgment of God.” Christ,
however, has a people of His own,
whose deliverance is the real end of His enterprise. For their
sakes He came single-handed to
encounter the foe, whose name is Legion; for their sakes
He will not desist
till, having followed up His conquest to the uttermost,
He subdues even the last enemy, which is Death.
Like Abram, He loves and will deliver those
whom, in the face of ingratitude and estrangement, “having
loved from the first, he
loves to the last”
as His own.
As the cause of war was just and generous, so the use which
Abram made of victory was worthy of himself. Returning
from this great exploit,
he becomes at once a man of renown; he has acquired a
name and power which
nothing in the land can resist; great kings have fled
before him, and have been
destroyed. To
the farthest corner of the
land, even to Dan, he has pursued them with his little
army of three hundred
and eighteen men. Nay,
beyond the
borders of the land, he has penetrated even into Syria,
- to the neighbourhood
of Damascus itself (ver.
15); and he has
struck a blow in which, although
he does avail himself of the arts of war, - having
recourse to a night attack,
made simultaneously at different points (ver.
15), - still,
considering his comparatively
feeble force, the hand of God is conspicuously apparent. Thus powerful
and mighty in battle, why may
he not instantly take possession of the land?
It is at his feet; why may he not occupy its
throne? Surely it is
because he believes God; he is not impatient or
ambitious; he seeks not an
earthly, but a heavenly country.
Having [Page 139] accomplished the single purpose for which he took this unusual
step; and having on that one occasion asserted and
manifested his true
character, as lord and heir of the land; he at once
becomes a private man
again. He
is a stranger and pilgrim once
more.
So scrupulous indeed is he, in his care to avoid the suspicion
of a selfish or interested aim, that he refuses all
share of the spoil.
His companions, the three friends who
accompanied him, he will not defraud of their portions;
but for himself he will
take nothing; nor will he suffer his young men to
receive any recompense beyond
the food they have eaten.
Least of all,
will he consent to receive hire from the king of Sodom,
as though he were
taking wages for the restoration of the persons or
souls, by making the goods
his own. “I have
lift up,” he says, “my
hand unto the Lord,
the most high God, the
possessor of heaven and earth, that
I will not
take from a thread even to a shoe-latchet, and
that I will not take any thing that is thine, lest
thou shouldest say, I
have made Abram rich:
save only that which the young
men have eaten, and
the portion of the men which went with me, Aner, Eschol,
and Mamre; let
them take their
portion” (vers.
22-24). Nor is it in
the mere affectation of a
romantic and chivalrous independence that Abram thus
rejects the king’s
well-meant proposal. His resolution had been formed
before he undertook the
expedition, and specially under the eye of Him by whose
authority he undertook
it. From
first to last the whole is of
God and unto God alone.
He is not the
mercenary captain of a free company, to lend out his
services to whoever will
pay for them. It
is as the independent
head of a great nation, and the real owner of this whole
territory, that he
lays aside, as it were, for a few days, his disguise, or
his incognito, and
vindicates the title which belongs to him, as the heir
of the divine promises,
to the praise of the glory of divine sovereignty and
grace.
Such is this memorable expedition.
In its main and leading aspect, - the levying
of war or the taking up of arms, - the conduct of Abram
here is not a precedent
for us. Still
in its accompanying
features this history is exemplary in a high degree. The
brotherly-kindness of the patriarch, his
disinterestedness, and his heavenly-mindedness, - are
exhibited in this
transaction for a pattern to us.
Whatever
power we have, let it be used for
our brother’s deliverance; for doing good to all,
especially to such as are of
the household of faith.
Let all
suspicion of covetousness or of selfish ends be
carefully excluded in all our
undertakings; and in the height of earthly triumph,
let it be seen that we can
forego the tempting prize, and live still as strangers
and pilgrims, seeking a
better, that is a heavenly country.
But it is chiefly in a spiritual and prophetical light that
the affair is to be viewed.
Spiritually, it may well be held to represent the victory of
the Lord Jesus, and His triumph over principalities and
powers in His
cross. He
then rescued the captives of
Satan, and recovered the prey from the mighty.
As His atoning blood shed for the remission of
sins has satisfied divine
justice, and opened the way to the Father, - so, “through
His death, He hath
destroyed him that had the
power of death, that
is, the devil,
and delivered those
who, through fear of
death, were all their
lifetime subject to [Page 140] bondage” (Heb. 2:
14, 15). His people,
therefore, are no longer under
any necessity of making terms of precarious peace or
compromise with “the father of
lies” and “accuser
of the brethren;” nor have they to wage with
the “prince of this world”
an unequal warfare, in which
they are sure to be discomfited.
Satan
has lost his advantage over them; and, being no longer
at his mercy, but
standing on a firm footing in the free favour and
almighty strength of their
God, they may defy his malice, and make good their
escape from his toils.
But
let none presume upon the victory which Christ has
gained, as giving them
warrant to live at ease.
How many of
those who were indirectly partakers in the fruits of
Abraham’s triumph, abusing
the respite granted to them, perished miserably in the
avenging fire which
destroyed the cities of the plain.
Let
the impenitent and unbelieving, who continue in sin
because grace abounds,
beware lest, in the end, a worse thing come upon them. And
let
His own people be careful to improve the victory which
Christ has gained on
their behalf, to stand fast in the liberty with which
He has made them free,
and not again be entangled in any yoke of bondage. Let them not
sleep, as do others, while the
fire is kindling which is to consume the wicked; but
let them watch and be
sober.
Again, viewed
prophetically, this
incident presents to us the father of the faithful
most vividly apprehending
things to come.
While as yet he has not
a foot of ground that he can call his own, he
assumes with all the calmness of
undoubted sovereignty the right to act as the heir
of the land.
For a brief space, he exercises the functions
of its lawful owner and
ruler; thus truly living by the power of the world to
come. It is
a pledge of the glory to be revealed which is here
given, - a passing glimpse
of the scene which is to be realized, when the
promise made to Abram shall be
fully accomplished, and he shall be put in
possession of his long-deferred
inheritance.
Like the heavenly
brightness which overwhelmed the three apostles on the
Mount of
Transfiguration, this unwonted adventure in the lowly
life of the pilgrim, points
to another order of things, and
serves to give substance and evidence to what is
still hoped for and
unseen. We
do not therefore follow
cunningly devised fables, when we anticipate the “power
and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ,” and
of His saints with Him.
We are here, as it were, made “eye-witnesses”
of the coming “majesty”
of both. And
we have the surer word of
prophecy, unfolding to us the prospect of “many
coming
from the east and west, to
sit down forever with
Abraham, Isaac,
and
Jacob, in the
kingdom of heaven.”
2.
The interview with Melchizedek
throws additional light on the faith of Abram.
The endless questions which have been discussed
respecting Melchizedek’s
person, as well as the fancies of some of the early
Christian fathers
respecting the bread and wine, may be left altogether
unnoticed. They
have all arisen out of the vague
impression which the Epistle to the Hebrews gives of
there being a kind of
mystery about the man.
And so there is,
in the scriptural sense of the word mystery; there is a
spiritual and
figurative meaning in his history; he is a
typical personage.
But the evil is,
that the mystery has been supposed to lie in particulars
where Paul gives no
hint of it; as in the mere personal identity of
Melchizedek, or in his
selection of bread and wine as a refreshment for Abram. The whole real
[Page 141] mystery of
Melchizedek, the
commentator himself clears up.
It lies,
not in his person at all, but exclusively
in
his office. It
is as a priest
and prince that he is a mysterious,
or rather, simply a
typical, personage.
And he is so, chiefly in respect of these two
particulars, ‑ first the significant appellations which
he bears as king
(Heb.
7: 2);
and,
secondly, the
singular and isolated
order of his priesthood (Heb.
7: 3).
As king, he bore the personal appellation of Melchizedek, or “king of righteousness;” and
the seat of his kingdom
being
Again, as priest, Melchizedek
stood
apart from all other priests, isolated and alone;
and Abram availed
himself of his sacred offices in that character.
Melchizedek accordingly, on the one hand,
blessed Abram on God’s behalf, ‑ “Blessed
be
Abram of the most high God, possessor
of heaven
and earth” (ver. 19);
and again, on the other hand, he blessed God
on Abram’s behalf, - “And
blessed be the most high God,
which hath delivered thine enemies into thy hands”
(ver. 20).
This brief and comprehensive form of benediction is, in truth,
a summary of the entire priestly function; and it brings
out, as comprised in
one single and simple act, the whole ministry proper to
the priest, as
interposing or mediating between the great God in
heaven, and the servant or
worshiper of God on earth.
What is a
priest, but one through whose effectual offerings and
intercession the blessing
of God comes down upon man; and through whom, again,
from man’s deliverance,
blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, redound to
God “in the highest?”
In a very inferior and subordinate sense, men may bless one
another, and may bless God on behalf of one another; but
in the one case, it is
merely the utterance of a desire or prayer; and in the
other, a becoming
expression of reverence and gratitude.
But the act of Melchizedek evidently implies
something more; it is
authoritative and efficacious; he blesses as one having
right to bless - as one
whose ministry really and actually does bring good to
man, on the one hand, and
praise to God, on the other.
What good
does it bring to man?
Is it not all the
fulness of God? What
praise does it
bring to God? Is
it not all the praise
of man’s salvation?
How marvellous; how full of meaning, is this alternation or
reciprocation, this intercommunion between God and man,
of which the priest
becomes the minister!
Between the two
parties, a transference or blessed exchange takes place,
the highest property
of each being imparted or ascribed to the other.
For who, in this case, are the parties?
God, on the one side, “the
most high God, possessor
of
heaven and earth;” and Abram, on the other,
saved in battle, and
victorious over all his enemies.
And
what is this double blessing?
What does
it imply? What
but this; that
the Lord’s prerogative, as possessor
of heaven and earth, becomes virtually Abram’s; and
Abram’s [Page 142] glory, as
victorious over all his
enemies, becomes truly the Lord’s?
Oh, most blessed traffic, most profitable exchange!
Who can hesitate about closing with so
advantageous a treaty?
Abram has the
benefit of God being the possessor of heaven and earth;
God has the glory of
Abram’s victory over his enemies.
How
gracious the arrangement!
How
reasonable, equitable, and righteous!
What can faithful Abram say to it?
Can he demur to the terms proposed; holding fast
the praise of his
victory as his own, and saying, - my own right hand has
got it? Can
he be for taking the credit of it to
himself, and reckoning on the like success, as always at
his command? That
would be miserable policy, - poor
economy indeed! Better
far, even in a
prudential point of view, to give it all over to God;
and to receive instead of
it a vested interest, if one may venture so to speak, -
a right of property, -
in God Himself, the Lord, Jehovah, as “the
most high
God, the possessor of
heaven and earth.”
Besides
thus blessing Abram, Melchizedek received tithes at his
hand, - “tithes of all” (ver.
20) - whether tithes
of all the spoil of his
enemies, or tithes of all his own property, is not said;
- probably it was the
tenth of both. How the custom of paying tithes
originated, and by what
authority it was sanctioned in these early days, we stay
not now to
inquire. One
thing, however, may be
clearly gathered from the traces which we find of this
usage, whether in the
Bible or in other ancient writings, that it was
intimately associated with the
institution of the priesthood, and the offering of
sacrifices. In
his character of mediator, the priest
received tithes. He
received them as the
pledge and token of the whole of what was tithed being
the Lord’s - of its
belonging to God, and being freely dedicated and
consecrated to Him.
For as the ordained and appointed medium or
channel of communication between God and man, the priest
not merely conveyed
the gift of God to man, but conveyed also man’s gifts to
God. The
blessing bestowed on the part of God
passed through his hands, and so also did the offices
and services rendered on
the part of man. Such
is the priestly
function, as discharged by Melchizedek and acknowledged
by Abram.
But who or what is this Melchizedek, that he should be
competent for such a function?
He is, it
is true, a king and priest together; but so were many
heads of families and
tribes in these days; and so, virtually, was Abram
himself. Abram
officiated as a priest when he built an
altar - wherever he went - to the Lord; and on this one
occasion, at least, the
occasion on which he came in contact with Melchizedek,
he acted as a king,
going forth to battle and returning in triumph.
In this respect, therefore, and in so far as the
mere union of the two
dignities of royalty and priesthood in one person was
concerned, there was
nothing very peculiar in Melchizedek’s position; Abram
himself stood almost on
the same footing. What,
then, does this
transaction mean?
(1) Melchizedek was undoubtedly an eminently holy man, a
believer in the true God and in the promised Messiah;
and accordingly the interview
between him and Abram, considered merely as the meeting
of two heaven-owned
saints and patriarchs, is full of interest.
The one is a remarkable example of the grace of
God - preserving, amid
the dregs of a general apostasy, an elect remnant; the
other is an instance no
less striking of that divine and sovereign grace
bringing in, from without, a
new seed. And
the two, meeting thus as
debtors to the same grace, cannot but rejoice in
mutually recognizing and
acknowledging each other.
It is as if the
torch were here visibly handed over from the last of the
former band, to the
first of that which is to succeed.
The
church is transferred to a new stock or stem; the cause
receives a new impulse,
and is to have a fresh start; and this singular
transaction between Melchizedek
and Abram, is the connecting link between the two
systems, or orders, or
dispensations, of which the one is now waxing old, and
the other is but just
beginning to appear.
The general and unrestricted
dispensation of religious faith and worship, transmitted
indiscriminately by
tradition among all the descendants of Noah, is about to
give place to a
dispensation limited to a particular family or race, to
whom ultimately are to
be committed the oracles of God.
One
form of the primitive order is to be superseded by
another; - the patriarchal
institute is to be succeeded by the Levitical and legal
ordinances which are to
be established in Abram’s house.
And the
substantial identity of the two, the Patriarchal and the
Levitical, is indicated
by the meeting of their respective representatives. It is like
aged Simeon, embracing in his arms
the infant Saviour; - the last patriarch and prophet of
the law not departing
till he sees and hails the new-born hope of the Gospel;
the lingering twilight
of declining day mingling with the dawn of a better
moen.
(2) But a higher view still is to be taken of this
transaction. This
is plain from the use
which the apostle makes of it, and the importance which
he attaches to it (Heb.
7).
Melchizedek
officiated
as the type of the Messiah, who
was
to be a priest after the same order with himself; and
Abram undoubtedly had
respect to him in that character.
It
was not the mediation of a mere man that he
acknowledged; it was not the
ministry of an earthly priest in which he trusted. Melchizedek,
king and priest as he was, could
not really and effectually convey to Abram the blessing
of the most high God,
the possessor of heaven and of earth; nor was it through
him that the glory of
Abram’s victory, and the tithes of his spoil and of his
goods, could be
acceptably transmitted to God.
But a
greater than Melchizedek is here;
present, surely, not indeed to the senses, but to the
minds of both.
In His name, Melchizedek acts, and to Him, in
Melchizedek’s person, Abram does homage.
The two patriarchs understand one another.
Melchizedek, as the last preserver, as it
were, of the primitive patriarchal hope, hands over his
function to one more
highly favoured than himself, in the very spirit of the
Baptist – “He must increase,
but I must
decrease” (John 3:
30).
His
own occupation, as a witness and standing type of the
Messiah, is over; one
newly called out of heathenism is to succeed and to take
his place. Melchizedek
is content. He hails in Abram the promised seed, and blesses him accordingly; while
again, in Melchizedek, Abram sees, however dimly, the
day of Christ, and Christ
Himself. Thus
the Patriarchal, the
Abrahamic, and the Levitical dispensations appear, all
of them, in their true
character, as subordinate and shadowy; and in the eye of
faith Christ is all in
all.
(3) Let it be noted also that it is especially in contrast
with the Levitical priesthood in the house of Aaron,
that the apostle exalts
and magnifies the priesthood after the order of
Melchizedek. His
object is to satisfy the [Page 144] Hebrew Christians as to the reality of Christ’s priesthood, and to
instruct them as to its nature.
For this
purpose he cites the deed or decree of nomination or
appointment: “Jehovah hath sworn,
and will
not repent, Thou art a
priest forever after the
order of Melchizedek” (Ps.
110: 4);
appealing
to this irrevocable oath as the warrant for regarding
the Messiah as
invested in perpetuity with the priestly office (Heb.
7).
Nor could exception be taken to His being held to
be a priest, because
He was not of the house of Aaron.
This
might have been an insuperable bar to His claim, had He
sought to minister in
the earthly sanctuary, and to be the mediator of the
Levitical covenant.
But as our forerunner, He has entered for us
within the veil, into the true sanctuary, the heavenly
place itself; and His
ministry is connected with another
dispensation altogether, and with another covenant. Neither,
again, could it be objected that
this was an after-thought - a theory devised by the
followers of Jesus to serve
a purpose and make the old Scriptures tally with the new
faith of a crucified
Messiah. For
the very charter of the
Messiah’s priesthood, from the first announcement of it,
- the very word of the
oath by which it was solemnly declared that He was to be
a priest, - intimated
that His priesthood was to be entirely distinct from
that of Levi’s house, and
of another order altogether.
It was not
necessary that He should be of the Levitical order: it
was expressly foretold
that He was to be of the order of Melchizedek.
(4) But even this does not satisfy the apostle, or exhaust the
meaning of that marvellous oath of God on which he is
authoritatively
commenting. It
is not enough to make out
that it establishes, against all objections that might
be taken to it, the
unquestionable reality and validity of Christ’s
priesthood, as having undoubted
divine sanction. It
does that, but it
does a great deal more.
It opens up a
glorious spiritual view of the nature of His priesthood;
and it suggests
various particulars in respect of which His priesthood,
being the one only
Messianic priesthood, is pre-eminent in itself, and
fruitful of all rich and
heavenly blessings to His believing people.
Thus, in the first place, it
is
a royal priesthood, which that of Aaron’s house and of
the Levitical order
was not, and could not be.
Christ is “a priest
upon his throne” (Zech.
6: 13);
and
as His priesthood effectually establishes “the
counsel
of peace” between God and man, so His kingdom
is a kingdom of
righteousness and peace (Ps.
72).
Again, secondly, as a priest, He has no pedigree
or genealogy; He has
none going before or coming after Him in the priestly
office; He is
alone in His priesthood during all
its time; He continueth a priest forever.
Then, in the third place, the order of His
priesthood is prior in point
of date, and superior in point of dignity, to that of
Aaron’s or Levi’s
priesthood; for when Levi, in the person of his ancestor
Abraham, paid tithes
to Melchizedek and received his blessing, he virtually
acknowledged a higher
priesthood than his own.
And, fourthly,
this acknowledgment of another priesthood, of a
different order, - proved to be
superior by the double test of blessing accepted and
tithes given - evidently
implies a certain imperfection in the Levitical
priesthood, and therefore in
the dispensation with which it was connected.
The Levitical priesthood was not intended to be
perpetual and permanent;
it served a temporary purpose, until that other Priest
of another order should [Page 145] arise.
From all this it follows, that when that other Priest of
another order has come, His priesthood supersedes all
that went before it; and being
in the hands of one who continueth ever; and being
ratified, moreover, by the
divine oath; it cannot be changed.
The
Levitical priesthood was held by a succession of mortal
men, infirm, and liable
to death; and it was instituted without the solemnity of
an oath. This
last circumstance indicated the
character of the economy to which that priesthood
belonged, as being of the
nature of a provisional, or as it were, parenthetical,
arrangement. It
was not confirmed by an appeal to the two
immutable things - the divine word and the divine
nature, which enter into the
idea of the divine oath.
In other words,
the Levitical dispensation and its priesthood did not
form an essential part of
that plan or system, to which the honour of God is
committed, and with which
His glory is inseparably blended and identified, -
which, therefore, must be as
irrevocably unchangeable as God Himself is.
The Levitical law was given, and the Levitical
order of priests
ordained, to serve a temporary purpose; and,
accordingly, the formality of an
oath was omitted. But
the priesthood
after the order of Melchizedek, enters into the very
essence of the everlasting
covenant. Hence,
“not without an oath is Christ
made an high priest;”
and hence, also, as a high priest, He is the mediator,
not of a shadowy and
burdensome legal ritual, which was to wax old and vanish
away, but of that
grace and truth which came by Him, and which in Him
endure forever.
Such, in substance, is the reasoning of the apostle, in the
seventh chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews; and such
is the exalted view
which he gives of the priesthood of Melchizedek, as
distinct from that of Levi,
and identical, in its order, with that of Christ. Such
is the High Priest,
suited to the necessity of man's case; one who is not
only touched with the
feeling of our infirmities, bu able also “to save them
to the uttermost that
come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make
intercession for them”
(ver. 25).
In the person of Melchizedek, therefore, let us hail a present
Saviour; and in what passed between Him and our father
Abraham, let us
recognize the reality and fullness of His ministry of
love toward us. Receiving
in Him and through His mediation,
the blessing of “the most high
God, possessor of
heaven and earth,” we are filled with all
the fullness of God; - “All
things are ours; whether
Paul, or Apollos,
or Cephas, or
the world,
or life, or
death,
or things present, or
things to come; all
are ours.”
Then, again, in Christ, having “redemption
through his blood, even
the
forgiveness of sins, according
to the riches
of the free grace of God,” we are appointed to
be “to the praise of his glory.” In us, and on
our behalf, Christ glorifies
the Father. Our
escape from guilt, and
our consequent victory over all our enemies, form the
theme of the new song of
praise. With
the whole multitude of the
redeemed, we ascribe salvation to our God, who sitteth
on the throne, and unto
the Lamb; and we present the first fruits of our
deliverance, in the dedication
of ourselves to the service of God forever.
“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by
the mercies of
God, that ye present
your bodies a living
sacrifice, holy and
acceptable unto him, which
[Page
146]
is your reasonable service”
(Rom.
12: 1). “By
him also, let us offer
the sacrifice of praise to God continually,
that is, the
fruit of
our lips, giving
thanks to his name.
And to do good and to
communicate let us forget not; since
with such
sacrifices God is well pleased” (Heb.
13: 15,
16).
*
*
*
CHAPTER 17
JUSTIFICATION
BY
FAITH -
INSIGHT
INTO
THINGS TO COME
GENESIS
15
The
revelation recorded in this chapter closely followed the
victory over the
kings, and the interview with Melchizedek.
It seems designed to bring out the patriarch in a
new character; - that
of a prophet, or an authorized and accredited depositary
of the will and the
counsels of God.
The announcement of the communication which God now makes to
Abram is in peculiar language: “The
word of the Lord
came to Abram in a vision” (ver.
1).
It is
the first time this expression occurs, although
afterwards it is extremely
common in the Bible.
In the use of it,
there is generally, if not always, a special reference
to the prophetic office.
There are examples of this in the historical
books (1 Sam. 3:
7; 1
Kings 13);
and instances from the writings of the prophets
themselves might be multiplied
indefinitely. Their
usual form of
speech, indeed, is this, “The
word of the Lord came;”
and of their “visions” we
read continually. In
fact, so continually is the phrase in
question, - “The word of the
Lord came,” or “spake,”
or was “revealed,”
- identified with prophetic inspiration, that we may
partly see in it an
explanation of the significant appellation given to the
Son, “The WORD.”
He
is so called as the revealer of the Father (John
1:
18).
His Spirit was in the prophets, and He spake by
them. And
it may be with reference to His immediate
personal agency, as connected with all revelation, that
this came to be the
standing mode of announcing a prophetic oracle, - “The WORD
of the LORD came.”
Viewing, then, Abram as presented to us in this chapter in a
new light - that of a prophet, properly so called - we
are to observe, in the first
place, his inauguration into that office as one
personally accepted in the
sight of God; and secondly, the first prophetic
disclosure, in circumstantial
detail, of the future fortunes of the people of God.
1. That he may be qualified for receiving the prophetic
communication, he must first be himself owned as on a
right footing personally
with God. And
he is so owned very
emphatically and unequivocally.
“After these things,” that is,
after the events of the previous chapter, [Page 147] and very
shortly after them, the
vision of this chapter took place.
It
was a vision of great compass and importance, and it
occupied a considerable
space of time; reaching from midnight, or at least from
before the earliest
dawn of morning, till the darkness of another evening
closed in. For
it was surely a real scene that Abram,
though rapt in prophetic ecstasy, beheld, when God led
him forth, and bade him
look at the starry heavens (ver.
5).
This
must have been before the sun arose.
As
the sun is going down, we find the seer still watching
beside the sacrifice he
has prepared, and falling exhausted into the awful
trance which is to be the
means of giving him an insight into the sealed book of
the providence of God (ver.
12).
An entire day, then, is spent in this
vision. Was
it the Sabbath? Was
Abram, like John, “in the Spirit
on the Lord’s day?” (Rev.
1: 10). This
first prophecy, beginning to unfold the peculiar history
of the Old Testament
Church, is in some sort parallel to that last Revelation
of John the Divine, in
which all the vicissitudes of the New Testament Church
are opened up. It
is not, therefore, altogether a fanciful
analogy which would connect the day here spent by Abram
with that on which John
records that he was in the Spirit.
(1) In either case, the interview begins with the same
gracious words of encouragement addressed personally to
the prophet. “Fear not,”
says “one like unto the Son of
man” to the
apostle (Rev. 1:
17) - “Fear
not,
Abram,” is the
corresponding salutation of the WORD
of the LORD - to the patriarch.
John, indeed, mentions a loud voice previously
heard by him, and a
wondrous sight seen (Rev.
1: 10-17); and, in doing so,
does he not supply what is
left to be inferred in this narrative respecting Abram? He accounts
for the fear which, in his own
case, the Lord made it His first business to remove. And may not
the same explanation be
understood to be intended in the case of Abraham?
When it is said, “the
Word of the Lord came unto him in vision” (ver.
1), must not this
imply, not only an audible
sound, but also a visible manifestation?
And may we not with great probability suppose
that Abram, like John, “heard
behind him a great voice as of a trumpet;” and
“turning, saw
a glorious person;”
and seeing him, “fell at his
feet as dead?” (Rev.
1: 10-17).
Most certainly, whatever was the occasion of
it, he must have been overwhelmed with amazement and
terror, when the Lord
found it necessary, in kindness and condescension, to
say to him, as to John, “Fear
not, Abram.”
And the argument for the removal of fear is the same in both
instances, being simply the gracious manner in which the
person speaking
discovers himself, and makes himself known: “Fear
not,
for it is I” - it is I, “thy shield and thy exceeding great reward” (ver. 1) - “it
is I, the first and
the
last, the living one”
(Rev. 1:
17, 18).
In both cases, also, there is probably an appeal to the
past. Thus,
when the Word of the Lord
says to Abram, “I am thy shield,
and thy exceeding great reward,”
there is surely a
reference to the battle and to the victory - to the
fight and to the
triumph. Dost
thou now know me,
Abram? It
was I who shielded thee in the
recent battle; it was I who rewarded thee in the
victory. Didst
not thou forego an other recompense for
Me? Didst
thou not renounce all the
spoils of conquest, and take Me as thine only portion? And have not I
been thy reward? And
is it not a reward exceeding great?
[Page
148] Then,
“fear
not,” since it is I who speak to thee.
“Fear not,” though
the voice be as a
trumpet, and the vision terrible in its glory:
“Be of good cheer,
it is I, be
not afraid.”
It is I, whom thou has found to be not only
able to save, but all-sufficient to bless.
“It is I,” thy
shield in war, and thy
reward in victory - thy Saviour and Redeemer, “thy
God
and thy portion for forever.”
The simple discovery of himself on the part of the Lord is
enough for John. But,
in the
circumstances in which Abram is placed, there is a
special difficulty to be got
over. When
the “Word
of the Lord came in vision” to John, the great
battle was already
actually fought, and the great victory won, of which
Abram, in his successful
encounter with the kings, had received but a remote and
shadowy type. In
particular, in the case of Abram, the very
Being by whom the great salvation is to be accomplished,
that mysterious
person, of old announced as the Seed of the woman, and
more recently, as
destined to be of his own race, is still to come, and
His coming has been made
to depend upon a condition, growing daily, as it would
seem, more
hopeless. “I go
childless” (ver. 2). I am childless
now; childless I have passed
through life hitherto; and childless, it would almost
appear, I am to pass
away. My
time is running on, my years
are drawing to a close, and still, alas! still “I
go
childless.”
Is there impatience in this complaint?
What wonder if there be?
Abram begins to fear, lest his present
earthly portion may turn out to be his all.
He has become rich and prosperous notwithstanding
the disinterestedness
which he twice so remarkably practiced - first, in
ceding to Lot the best of
the land, and then in refusing all the spoils of the war
waged on
Such is Abram’s expostulation; thus he opens his whole heart
to God. He
does not keep silence when
his sorrow is stirred, - painfully or sullenly musing
when the fire burns (Ps.
39).
He may be obliged to restrain himself in the
presence of the weak or the wicked among his fellow-men,
who might have no
sympathy with his anxiety and grief; but before his God
he may lay bare his
inmost soul, and make all his thoughts and feelings
known. And
even if they be thoughts of unbelief and
feelings bordering on sin, - the suggestions of sense
and sight contending
against faith, - the groanings of the flesh lusting
against the [Holy] Spirit, better
far that they be,
spread fairly out in the gracious eye of the blessed
Lord, than that they be
nursed and pent up in his own bosom to breed distrust
and estrangement there.
Come, thou timid, shrinking, doubtful soul, - come forth and
frankly, freely, fearlessly meet thy God.
“Fear not.”
Speak,
as His own Spirit moves thee, for His Spirit helpeth
thy infirmities.
But thou knowest not what to say.
Then, with thy groanings which cannot be
uttered, the [Holy] Spirit will
make intercession for
thee, and the Searcher of hearts will know the mind of
the Spirit in thee, as
He takes thy secret sighs and tears, and lays them out
as thy pleadings with
thy God. Only
“fear
not.” Let thy difficulty, thine objection, thy doubt, whatever it is, be
imparted to the Lord, as Abram’s was.
What though it be thine infirmity?
Will He not pity it?
Will He not
teach thee to remember the years of the right hand of
the Most High? (Ps. 77: 10).
(2) So He teaches Abram.
From his tent, where first he met with Him, -
from his bed, perhaps,
which he has been watering with his tears, - the Lord
raises the patriarch, and
leads him out, and places him beneath the glorious
midnight sky (ver. 4, 5). Seest
thou these hosts of heaven?
Canst thou
reckon them? No. But He who
speaks to thee can.
He can count them.
He telleth the number of the stars; He
calleth them all by their names; and to thee He saith, “So shall thy seed be.” Here
is
the perfection of science - the highest sublimity of the
most sublime of all
the sciences the most glorious lesson in astronomy the
world ever learned.
In the still and solemn silence of earth’s
unbroken slumber - under the deep azure arch of heaven -
not a breath stirring
- not a cloud passing, - then and there, to stand alone
with God, - to stand
with open eye, and behold His works, - to stand with
open ear, and hear His
word - His word to thee!
These stars; -
canst thou number them?
Look now toward
heaven and tell them; these all I ordained, and even
such a seed have I
ordained to Abram!
Thus, in the undimmed glory of their multitudinous hosts, shining
still, as they shone, when He talked with Abram, the Lord calls thee, on each returning night, to hail the
renewed assurance of that promise on which all thy
hope, as well as Abram’s,
must hang.
So shall the seed
of Abram - his seed, embracing Christ, and all that are
His - and therefore not
excluding thee - so shall the seed of Abram be.
The promise thus made Abram at once believed, - on the mere
word of Him who rules the starry host, and who “calls
the
things that are not as though they were.” He believes,
and “God
counts it unto him for righteousness” (ver.
6).
Such is the testimony here borne concerning Abram, - that
testimony of which Paul makes so much use in his two
epistles to the Romans and
the Galatians, when he is establishing the blessed
doctrine, so glorifying to
God - so gracious to the sinner, on which it is his
delight to dwell, - the
doctrine of justification by faith alone without works. He quotes the
verse before us repeatedly as
the scriptural evidence and assurance of the way in
which the patriarch was justified
before God. “Abraham
believed God, and he
counted it to him,”
or it was counted to him for “righteousness;”
or
still more indefinitely, he believed God, and
righteousness was counted or
imputed to him. He
believed, and was
reckoned or accounted righteous.
For
such, in substance, is the force of this important
testimony. It
is a testimony to the sole and exclusive
efficacy of faith, as the act by which a [Page 150] justifying
righteousness is
apprehended and appropriated.
It is in
this light that Paul regards the testimony here recorded
and it is for this
purpose that he uses it; - as speaking not of the ground
of a sinner’s
justification, but only of the instrument of it.
The ground of justification is not expressly
mentioned in this record at all, which is simply an
attestation of Abram’s
faith, and of the sufficiency of his faith alone, as the
instrument of his
justification. But
the power or efficacy
of faith to justify, cannot be in itself; for, by its
very nature, faith ever
looks beyond itself, and borrows all from without; if it
rely on itself, - on
any worth, or value, or virtue, in itself, - it ceases
to be faith, - it
becomes quite another act or exercise of mind.
It is no longer faith in God, but faith itself,
and not in what my faith
should grasp. But
it is expressly said,
“Abram believed God,” and
that - namely, his
simply believing God - that alone justifies him.
As to the origin and character, moreover, of the faith which
justified Abram, it is important to remark that we have
not here any explicit
testimony. We
gather indeed conclusively
from the frame of mind which its exercise must have
implied; - from the entire
subordination of the carnal to the spiritual and the
seen to the unseen; above
all, from the simplicity of personal reliance upon God
and the cordiality of
personal submission to God, which may be traced in this
marvellous act of
believing such a promise in such circumstances; - that
it could be no mere
effort of human volition or bare conviction of the human
understanding. Beyond
all question, the faith called forth
on this occasion is above all human capacity; no
reasoning or persuasive
influence can command it; no power of human thought or
will can reach it.
It is of divine workmanship, - created in the
renewal of the whole nature by the immediate agency of
the Holy Ghost. And
it is divine in its character as well as
in its origin; uniting the soul to God; assimilating the
soul to God; making it
partaker of the divine fellowship and the divine
holiness.
Being thus the work of God, - and a work so precious and
heavenly, - such faith as Abram’s might well be singled
out as having an
efficacy to place him on a right footing before God, and
inspire him with a
right heart towards God.
Still let it be
remembered that it is not this divine excellency of
faith that forms the
subject of the historian’s testimony and the apostle’s
application of it; - but
the one only point of its being absolutely and entirely
alone, without works of
any kind, in this transaction of the patriarch’s free
justification through his
simple trust in the bare and naked word of the living
God. He had
no thought on that night of his own
faith at all, - or of any virtue, divine or human, that
his faith might
possess. But
“he
believed in the Lord, and
he counted it to him
for righteousness.”
Precisely the same phrase here used respecting Abram, is
repeated, but repeated once only, in the Old Testament,
and is applied to
Phinehas, in reference to the terrible vengeance which
he inflicted on his
guilty countryman; - “Then stood
up Phinehas, and
executed judgment; and
so
the plague was stayed, and
that was counted unto
him for righteousness unto all generations for
evermore” (Ps.
106: 30,
31).
The act which Phinehas performed on that
occasion, was performed in faith.
He
executed judgment, because he believed in the Lord; and
it was exclusively on
account of the [Page
151]
faith in which he acted that it was
counted unto him for righteousness, or, in other words,
that he was personally
justified, and that his service, consequently, was
accepted also. But
observe the difference between the two
cases. It
is the same faith; but in
Phinehas it wrought with his works,
while in Abram, in this instance, it was alone. In other
instances, this faith of Abram was
not alone. His
faith, as well as that of
Phinehas, wrought with his works; as when “by
faith he
went out, not knowing whither he went,” and
when “by faith he offered up his
son Isaac.”
On
these occasions, Abram, like Phinehas, had to work as
well as to believe.
But here he has simply and solely to believe.
Hence the selection of this particular instance as that
on the ground of which
emphatic testimony is to be borne to the sole and
exclusive efficacy of faith,
in the justifying of the sinner.
And mark
how appropriate the selection is.
Generally,
faith is exhibited to us in
active operation, prompting good works or acts of
obedience; and these may seem
to have some share in procuring the benefit.
Here, on the other hand, from the very
necessity of the case, all
working, all acting, is out of the question. There can be
positively nothing, on Abram’s
part, but only faith - faith alone.
On
that starry night he has nothing whatever to do, -
nothing whatever to suffer,
- nothing whatever to sacrifice, - nothing whatever to
undertake or promise.
He simply believes the Lord, - takes God at
His word, - and closes with Him in His free promise. That is all,
and it is enough.
Doubtless, when occasion offers, this faith is found to be
accompanied by works; and then Abram is as truly
justified by faith thus
working, or by these works of faith, as Phinehas was by
his act of faithful
obedience. But, even then, though it is faith working,
or faith doing good
works, that may be rightly said to justify him, his
justification after all
depends on his faith alone.
So the
Apostle James teaches, when dealing with these very
cases. For
the practical purpose of his epistle, he
takes examples of faith as it ordinarily exists and
appears, not solitary and
separate, but having in its train good works and holy
graces; his object being
to show, that justifying faith must ever have such a
train; and must ever, as
opportunity occurs, be alive and alert for action. But still, in
the view of the [Holy] Spirit, even
when these works and graces
most abound, it is in respect of the faith round which
they cluster, that Abram
is justified; and in respect of that alone.
From first to last, Abram believed in the Lord,
and through his faith
alone, the divine righteousness on which it laid hold
being imputed to him, he
was accepted as righteous.
But
generally, he was called simultaneously to believe and
to act; his faith and
his obedience were, as it were, combined and mixed up
together; and even to
himself, the warrant of his peace and hope might not be
always quite
clear. It
was fitting, therefore, that
once, at least, he should be brought into a position in
which all ambiguity
must necessarily be cleared away, and the simple and
glorious truth made plain
and palpable to his soul.
Such an era,
such a crisis was this precious night, on which he stood
alone with God, under
the azure sky, - with no possible condition to fulfil,
and no work at all to
do. God speaks; - Abram believes; - and all is settled,
all is sure.
A similar crisis, once, or it may be oftener, every believer
must, in his [Page
152]
own experience, know; - a time when
he is, as it were, shut up to the necessity of taking
God simply at His word; -
believing what God testifies, and merely because He
testifies it; - without
any, even the least respect, to any thing in or about
himself, to any grace he
may be exercising or any duty he may be doing or any
purpose he may be forming.
Blessed is such an era - doubly blessed, - whether you
consider the past or the
future. From
how many dark thoughts and
perplexing questions of unbelief, does it give instant
and glad relief! What
a preparation is it for whatever
prospect may be opening before you!
Groping in vain for some tangible ground on which
to rest, - seeking to
reconcile sense and faith, - walking still by sight, you
cannot perceive how,
on your behalf the promises of God can possibly be made
good. Palpable
contradictions, such as that in the
case of Abram between his own childless state and the
blessing centered in his
seed, shake and stagger you.
You see not
how such sin as yours can be forgiven; you see not any
thing in you to explain
the marvel of its forgiveness; you are as unfruitful and
barren as was Abram;
and how, then, can you be blessed?
Oh, happy day, or night, when, after much weary toil, and many
a device and expedient tried, you are led forth by the
Lord Himself; - you
alone meeting with Him alone; and are made to rest on
His mere word; not asking
how it may be, but believing that so it must be;
believing this, because -
simply because - HE
says it, - HE,
who calls the things that are not
as though they were, and telleth all the stars!
Then, the tossed soul returns unto its rest; and
then, whether the
future be shrouded in darkness or revealed in sadness,
the mind, stayed on God,
is kept in peace. Strengthened,
settled,
comforted and established by grace, it can stand any
shock, trusting in the
Lord.
2.
Abram needs all the assurance implied
in his being thus justified by faith, to nerve him for
the insight into the
future which, as a prophet, he is to receive.
What is now to be revealed to him is not for
himself or his household,
but for remote posterity; that he may minister
instruction and hope to the
church of an age yet to come.
For the sake of
At the very outset, however, God renews the promise of the
heavenly inheritance. “I am the Lord,” I am JEHOVAH, “that brought thee out of
Certainly God does seem here to lay weight and emphasis on His
name, Jehovah, notwithstanding what is said afterwards;
- “I appeared unto Abraham,
unto
Isaac, and unto Jacob,
by the name of God Almighty,
but
by my name Jehovah was I not known to them” (Exod.
6: 3). Nor is there
any real inconsistency
here. It
cannot be meant in that passage
that the name Jehovah was literally unknown to the
Patriarchs, or that God, in
His intercourse with them, never appealed to it.
The idea rather is, that as God appeared in
their days chiefly in the attitude of giving promises,
whereas in the time of
Moses He appeared to fulfil them.
His
attribute of power was principally concerned in the
former case, and His
attribute of faithfulness and unchangeableness in the
latter. The
patriarchs had to look to Him as [Page 153] God Almighty; able, in due time, to accomplish all the promises which He
was then giving them.
Moses and the
Israelites were to know Him as Jehovah, unalterably true
after the lapse of
ages; truly fulfilling His promises given long before. But it does
not follow from this general rule
that the view of God implied in His name Jehovah was
altogether concealed from
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; or that it was never used to
impart to their souls
strong consolation and good hope through grace.
On the contrary, the apostle, writing to the
Hebrews, expressly tells
us, that to Abraham God “sware
by himself;” or,
as he explains it, in support of His unchangeable word,
appealed to His
unchangeable nature or name (6:
13-18). And if on any
occasion His name of
immutability could be seasonably and suitably used, it
was at the opening of
such a revelation as this.
Referring,
accordingly, to His first dealing with Abram, while yet
in the midst of
heathenism, and to the ultimate design of all His
dealing with him, God assures
him of the immutability of His counsel, by pledging the
immutability of His
name. “I am the LORD
JEHOVAH,” who called thee
and promised to bless thee.
And whatever
may be the darkness of the troubled scene now to be set
before thee, it is thy
privilege still to know that He Who has brought thee out
of
The transaction which follows still further encourages Abram
personally, amid the clouds which are soon to gather
over the fortunes of his
race. It is
the ratifying of a solemn
covenant, by which he may know that he is to possess the
land. That
is the point on which Abram desires to
have his faith confirmed; “Lord
God, whereby shall I
know that I shall inherit it?” (ver.
8).
This is not the question of doubt or of
unbelief,
asked in the spirit of “an evil
and adulterous
generation seeking a sign;” on the contrary, it
is asked immediately
after that exercise of faith concerning which such
explicit testimony has been
borne. And
that makes all the
difference. To ask or require a sign before believing,
in order to believing
and as the condition of believing, is unbelief and sin. But if I first
believe the Lord, on His mere
word, I may thereafter humbly hope to have some pledge
of His promises. “Lord, I
believe, help thou
mine
unbelief,” is the fitting frame of mind for all
of us. I
believe in God now, for present pardon and
acceptance in His sight.
But the future
is dark, and 1 am compassed about with infirmities; - “Whereby
shall I
know that I shall inherit
the land?”
In reply, Abram receives an assurance, substantially the same
as that to which the Apostle Peter refers as the
assurance of his own hope of
glory, and the hope of all like-minded with himself (2
Peter 1: 16-21).
1.
Like Peter and his companions “on
the holy mount,”
Abram is an “eye-witness of the
heavenly majesty.”
He beholds the “excellent
glory” of the Lord; and by this he knows that
it is no “cunningly-devised
fable” that he “follows,”
but a glorious and blessed reality.
The Lord shows him His g1ory, in token of the
inheritance in store for him.
And the
manifestation of that glory is through death; through “an
horror of great darkness falling upon him.” It is through
a propitiatory offering.
For a sacrifice is prepared, consisting of
the very victims, and
what is remarkable
enough, of all
the victims
subsequently used in the typical sacrifices of the
Levitical [Page 154] dispensation.
The animals are slain, and set in order, whether
immediately by the hand
of the Lord Himself, or by Abram acting under His
directions, does not very
clearly appear; - though the latter is, on the whole,
the most probable
supposition (ver. 9,
10).
In either view, the animals are slain; and the
sacrifice is prepared and
laid out. There
is death, - the death of
ordained and appointed victims.
And what
then? - what follows hereafter?
Silence
and suspense. Abram
sits beside the dead
limbs, - the divided fragments; - he sits and watches,
scarcely saving them
from the assaults of the devouring birds of the air; - “When the fowls came down upon the carcasses, Abram drove them away” (ver. 11).
All
through the live-long day he waits and keeps guard,
warding off these ravenous
invaders; and when the setting sun admonishes them to
seek their nests, he too
is weary, and a heavy slumber or trance falls strangely
and dreamily upon him (ver.
12).
It is, as it were, “their
hour
and the power of darkness;” - of darkness as of
the shadow of
death. But
out of the darkness light
shines forth, and in the death there is life (ver.
17).
“Between the pieces” of the
slaughtered victims, “a smoking
furnace and a burning
lamp” are seen to pass. These are surely the
visible emblems of the
great God; corresponding to what was afterwards known as
the Shekinah, or the GLORY
OF THE LORD.
In passing through, they probably consumed
the pieces, as was usual on other similar occasions (Judges
6: 21; 13:
19, 20). In the
acceptance of the sacrifice, the glory
of God is seen; and the heart of him who is thus an
eye-witness of His majesty
is reassured respecting “the power and coming of the Lord.”
So it was in the case of Peter and his two companions on the
Mount. In
stating the ground of his
confidence respecting the future [millennial] glory, he appeals to his past personal experience; - to
what he had already seen of that very glory at the scene
of the
Transfiguration. Then
and there he
beheld the glory of the Lord - “the
glory as of the
only begotten of the Father” - that glory of
which, even when he dwelt
on earth, Christ was thus once at least seen to be
possessed, and in which,
therefore, it might well be believed that He would come
at the latter day.
And it is to be particularly observed, that
on the mount that glory was revealed in immediate
connection with sacrifice -
the sacrifice of the Lord Himself; “the
decease which
he was to accomplish at
2.
In connection with this sign, Abram. receives “a
more sure word of [Page
155]
prophecy” (2 Peter 1: 19)
- more sure, or more clear and plain - more explicit and
unequivocal.
The actual sight of the divine glory, illustriously displayed
in the acceptance of the divinely-appointed sacrifice,
confirms the believer’s hope of the glory hereafter to be revealed.
But it does so merely in the way of argument
or inference. From
the glory which he
has seen already manifested, he concludes that a fuller
manifestation of the
same glory may be fairly anticipated - not
as
a fable or a dream, but as what has already been
proved to be a reality.
The word of prophecy, however, is more
express. It
not merely furnishes a
presumption that so it well may be, or that so it
probably must be - it gives
positive information that so it
shall be. Hence
the apostle calls it a more sure word
of prophecy. Such
word of prophecy,
accordingly, Abram. on this occasion received.
It was a word that spoke to him of hope deferred;
but not of that “hope deferred”
which “maketh
the heart sick;” for it was none other than the hope which maketh not ashamed; - the hope that is full of
immortality.
Observe the sure word of prophecy in this connection; as it
affects the church or people of God generally, and as it
affects Abraham
himself individually.
Mark how the hope
is deferred, but yet not so as to make the heart sick.
(1) In
reference to his seed after the
flesh, and the great nation of which he is destined to
be the father, Abram’s
hope is deferred (ver.
13, 14). The patriarch
is warned against cherishing the expectation of an immediate settlement
of his children in the land; and in so far as his
expectation might be
supposed to be of a temporal and earthly kind, this
could not fail to strike
his heart as a hard and cruel disappointment.
Even the first instalment, as it were, of his
allotted portion or recompense
of reward, is not to be
bestowed so soon or so easily as he thought.
A period
of exile, captivity, and
oppression, is to intervene before the earliest
possession of the land by any
people bearing his name.
Four
hundred years of affliction must pass away before he or
his seed can claim any
property in the soil, beyond
the grave
in which his bones are, almost by mere sufferance, to
lie.
This is the first instance which the Bible records of
chronological
prophecy, and considerable difficulty is found in
determining the exact epoch
intended. Thus
there is a question
whether the four hundred years should be reckoned from
the days of Abram, or
from the actual commencement of the Egyptian oppression,
out of which the
Israelites were rescued by the hand of Moses.
And even if we adhere to the commonly received
opinion, and consider
these four hundred years as including the whole interval
which was to elapse between
Abram, and Moses, there is still some doubt remaining as
to the precise stage
in the life of Abram from which we are to begin to
count; a doubt increased by
the circumstance of this interval being apparently
referred to in other parts
of Scripture, sometimes as four hundred years, and
sometimes also as four
hundred and thirty (Exod.
12: 40;
Acts 7: 6;
Gal. 3:
17).
It is unnecessary to enter into these inquiries; but there is
one general remark which it may be useful to make. The
matter may not have been
by [Page 156] any means so uncertain in that early age, as the perplexities
and obscurities of chronological science have since made
it; although even then
there might be room for considerable latitude of
interpretation beforehand, and
it might have been unsafe for any expounder of it,
before its actual
accomplishment, to undertake to say, within a year, or
even several years, at
what precise date the deliverance from Egypt might be
expected to take
place. It
was enough that those who
groaned under the tyranny of the Pharaoh “who
knew not
Joseph” - those who continued to wait for the
promised [future] salvation -
taking this prophecy as
their guide, would clearly conclude that the four
hundred years were nearly
expired when their fiery trial was at the hottest; and
would therefore begin “to lift
up their heads, seeing
that their redemption was drawing nigh.”
It must have been some such conviction which led
to that exercise of
faith “by which Moses, when
he was born, was hid
three months of his parents,
because they saw he was a proper
child; and they were
not afraid of the king’s commandment” (Heb.
11: 23). They
saw that he was “a proper”
or “goodly” child (Exod.
2: 2)
-
that he was “exceeding fair,”
or “fair to God” (Acts
7:
20); and knowing, by
a probable calculation
of the four hundred years, that “the
time to favour
Israel, even the set
time, was come,”
they believed that this goodly child was,
or might be, the appointed instrument of deliverance,
and by this faith they
were encouraged to brave the anger of the king. A
similar faith, in regard to the expiry of
the appointed period of oppression, might be cheering
the heart of many a
devout Israelite in that dark and dreary day of trouble. And cherishing
this “sure
word of prophecy,” given to their father
Abraham, they might still
persevere “against hope,
believing in hope.”
It was thus that, in a subsequent age, Daniel drew a similar
conclusion from, a calculation of the times marked out
in preceding prophecy (Dan.
9: 1,
2).
It does not appear that he could fix,
beforehand, on the very hour, or day, or year, of the
predicted restoration of
So also, in reference to the prophecy given to Abram, it was
sufficient to put the church, and all its faithful
members, into a posture of
expectation and prayer, when the time foretold actually
came near. But
beyond such a general intimation, it may
not have been the design of God to enable any one
previously to say at what
precise hour the deliverer was to appear.
[A similar observation may be applied to the
prophecies which predicted
the era of Christ’s first advent, as well as to those
which announce events
connected with His second coming.
Devout
men, among our Lord’s contemporaries, were found “waiting
for the consolation of
(2) But while there is hope for his posterity at no very
distant period, it might seem that the patriarch himself
is excluded from all
participation in it; - “Thou
shalt go to thy fathers in
peace; thou shalt be
buried in a good old age,”
(ver. 15). Undoubtedly
this is a blessed promise, so far
as the circumstances and the manner of Abram’s decease
are concerned. His
death is to be a release from trouble,
and an entrance into rest, - the rest of God, into which
the godly of ages past
have entered; for such seems to be the import of this
touching expression, by
which, as if to avoid the raising of a single painful
image connected with the
coldness and corruption of the tomb, it was customary to
indicate the removal
of pious friends. They
are
“Gone
to the
resting-place of man,
The
universal home;
Where
ages past have gone
before,
And
ages still must come.”
Abram’s departure is to be peaceful; nor is he to depart until
he is satisfied with length of days.
What more can the righteous man ask?
If he must die before the accomplishment of the
Lord’s gracious promises
respecting the
inheritance of the land,
what can be more soothing than this assurance?
But that he is to die at all, before that happy
consummation might be a
disappointment, or at least a deferring, of his hope; and had he looked for a portion in the world that now is, it must have been so.
Rightly viewed, however, this announcement of
his death is a confirmation of his exalted expectations. It
shuts him out indeed from all participation in that possession of the land which his descendants, after four
hundred years, are to enjoy. Whatever is implied in
the promise, “I will give thee this land,” it is clearly not to be realized by him on this side of the grave.
It
stands
over as a deed still unexecuted, - a pledge still unredeemed, - a promise still unfulfilled, - a debt still due, when he is buried in a good old age.
It cannot be said of him that he
has had his reward, or that he has, in
his lifetime, received his good things.
Much as he has tasted of the Lord’s kindness, and
seen of the Lord’s
salvation, he
has not got all that he is
entitled to claim.
The chief and crowning
blessing to which God in His
sovereign grace has given him a right, still stands
over. He
has
still [Page
158] something more
to look for.
He may well therefore be reconciled to the
prospect of his removal from this
earth,* which is soon to be burned up [restored], before he has received in it any
inheritance. He may be content
that
his portion should remain to be given to him in the new
and better world which
is to endure forever.
[*NOTE.
It
would appear that here, the author has failed to
distinguish “this earth”
from the “new earth” to
be created after “the thousand
years should be finished” (Rev.
20: 3,
R.V.).
The burning up of this present earth cannot take
place until “a thousand years”
after
it will be restored
back into the condition in
which we are told it was in, before the curse of God was
placed upon it,
because of the fall in the Garden of Eden, (Rom.
8: 19-22; Gen.
3: 17,
18.).
All
the unfulfilled
prophecies
concerning Christ/Messiah, must be literally fulfilled
during the “Age” yet to
come: and when “Death
and Hades” are cast into “the
lake of fire”
- the eternal place of the lost after their
resurrection, (Rev. 20: 13,
14) - the
destruction of this earth will then, in all probability,
take place.]
(3) Nor, even as regards the occupation of the land by his
posterity
in this present life, if that is an object of desire to
him, has the patriarch
any cause to complain of the delay which God intimates. In the end,
their triumph is on that very
account to be the more signal; they are to see their
tyrants and taskmasters
terribly overthrown, and they are to be themselves
greatly enriched (ver.
14); and
if there is to be delay, there is a reason stated, which
is sufficient at least
to satisfy a man of faith; - “The
iniquity of the
Amorites is
not yet full” (ver.
16).
The settlement of his descendants in
Such, then, is the substance of the word of prophecy which
accompanies
the manifestation of the divine glory to Abram on this
memorable occasion.
And the whole, transaction, in the end, takes
the form of a most solemn ratification of an irrevocable
covenant. For
that
is the principal import of the movement made by the
symbol of the divine
presence between the portions of the slaughtered
victims (ver. 17, 18).
To this manner of confirming a covenant, the Lord, by the
mouth of the Prophet Jeremiah, alludes when He
indignantly reproves the men who
had “transgressed his covenant,
and had not performed the words
of the covenant, which
they had made before him, when
they cut the calf in twain, and
passed between the parts thereof, the princes of
Judah,
and the princes of Jerusalem, the eunuchs, and the
priests, and all the people
of the land, which
passed between the parts of
the calf” (Jer.
34: 18,
19).
It was
customary thus to “make a
covenant by sacrifice,”
the parties in the covenant passing between the limbs of
the animals which had
been slain and divided; and hence, in the present
instance, the Lord Himself
condescends to adopt this significant method of
conveying assurance to
Abram. He
gives a pledge of His favour
and His faithfulness in immediate connection with the
shedding of blood and the
offering of a propitiation for sin.
And
Abram, as the sun goes down, sees the sacrifice which he
has saved from the
devouring birds of prey, graciously accepted by the
great God of heaven, and
made the seal of his own heavenly hope, and of the [earthly] inheritance to
be bestowed upon his
seed.
*
*
*
[Page 160]
CHAPTER 8
THE
TRIAL OF FAITH - ITS INFIRMITY
GENESIS 16
Are you so foolish?
Having begun
in the Spirit, are
you now made perfect by flesh?
- Galatians 3: 3.
And David said to Gad,
I am in much
distress. Let
us fall now into the hand of the LORD,
for His mercies are great. And
do not let me
fall into the hand of man. - 2
Samuel 24:14.
The
incidents recorded in this chapter form but a melancholy
sequel to the
preceding. The
juxtaposition is one
which an uninspired historian would probably have
disguised, and which a mere
fabulist would certainly have avoided.
It seems strange and sad, that immediately after
that remarkable scene
in which the warrant of Abram’s faith, and the
sufficiency of it, are so
expressly recorded, - in which we find the patriarch so
unreservedly reposing
in simple and honourable reliance on the divine word,
and the Lord, on the
other hand, condescending to give to him so explicit and
assurance of his
acceptance, and such sure and infallible tokens for
good, - the very first
circumstance related of him should be his falling into
sin, - and that the sin
of unbelief. But
obnoxious as it may be
to the cavils of the unreflecting and the ill-disposed,
- and abused, as
perhaps it has been, by not a few of the unlearned and
unstable who wrest this,
as they do the other Scriptures, to their own
destruction, - the narrative is
full of profit. In
its origin, nature,
and results, this sin of Abram may read us many salutary
lessons.
1.
It originated at such a time and in
such a manner as may well enforce the solemn warning, “let
him that thinketh he standeth, take
heed lest he
fall;” - while it painfully illustrates that
other affecting saying,
that “a man’s worst foes may be
those of his own
household.”
The patriarch’s wife was undoubtedly a godly woman.
She is commended as such by the Apostle Peter
(1 Pet. 3:
6), who makes her an
example to all
Christian matrons; they are her daughters as long as
they do well. She
“obeyed Abraham,
calling him lord.”
With him, she came out from among her
kindred, and was willing to lead the life of a stranger
and pilgrim. During
all the time they had spent in the
Strange and sad, that at such a season, and from such a
quarter, temptation, should arise; that after a ten
years’ walk with God, in
the very height of privilege, in the full assurance of
faith, the faithful
companion of his pilgrimage and helper of his joy,
should beguile and betray
him! After
such an instance, who can be
secure? - in what circumstances, or on what side,
secure? Well
may we lay to heart the warning, “Let
him who thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.”
2.
The temptation itself is a very
plausible one. It
bears all the marks of
that subtlety which, from of old, has been the
characteristic of that old
serpent, the devil.
Observe the spirit
and manner in which the proposal is made by Sarai, and
received by Abram.
It is plainly such as altogether to preclude
the idea of this step being at all analogous to an
ordinary instance of sin
committed in the indulgence of sensual passion.
Most unjustifiable as was the patriarch’s
conduct, it is not for a
moment to be confounded with that of David, for example,
whose melancholy fall
was caused by the mere unbridled violence of an unlawful
appetite. There
is no room for the introduction of such
an element as this on the occasion of Abram’s connection
with Hagar. It
originated in the suggestion of his
faithful wife, and had, for its single object, the
fulfilment of the divine
promise, whose accomplishment otherwise seemed to be
growing every day more
manifestly and hopelessly impossible (ver.
1, 2).
The ungodly, indeed, who know but one kind of temptation, and
that the lowest, may affect here to indulge in an
incredulous smile or
sneer. It
suits their purpose better to
give the narrative an interpretation as gross as their
own tastes. Nevertheless,
there are temptations of which
they have no conception; - there are more things in the
experience of a
spiritual man than are dreamed of in their carnal
wisdom. They
know not, as he knows them, the wiles of
the devil. Upon
them Satan finds it
enough to bring the coarser and more common inducements
of his kingdom to bear;
- and hence they can but ill imagine the rage to which
he is provoked, and the
arts to which he is obliged to have recourse, against
those who have escaped,
or are escaping, from his nets, and who now serve, or
are striving with all
their might to serve, another Master.
To
these last especially, he is compelled to assume the
form of an angel of light,
and his seduction of them may be expected to be
peculiarly artful and refined.
So it was in the case of Abram.
The patriarch is assailed on the very ground
of his spiritual privilege and hope. As one accepted in
the sight of God,
accounted righteous, pardoned, and justified; - as one
also made an heir of God,
declared to be personally invested with a title to a
glorious inheritance; -
and finally, as one sustaining a public character,
ordained to be the father of
a great nation, the source of blessing to all the
families of the earth; in all
these particulars, Abram is peculiarly and eminently
distinguished; and in
respect of them all, he is specially tempted.
They are all dependent, let it be remembered, on
“one who is to come forth out of
his own bowels” - such
is the Lord’s express assurance - and still he goes
childless. His
wife, as she herself represents the
matter to him, is barren; and it would seem that she is
contented to
acknowledge her barrenness as [Page
162] hopeless,
and to acquiesce in it as a
dispensation of God.
She does not speak
angrily or impatiently, as Rachel did to Jacob, - but
meekly and submissively
she says, “The Lord hath
restrained me from bearing.”
It is His will; and His will be done.
But surely God can never intend that my
barrenness should frustrate His purpose, and make void
His promise. There
must be some way of getting over this
difficulty, and reconciling this apparent inconsistency
between the promise
that to thee a child is to be born, - in whom, as the
great reconciler, thou,
and thy posterity, and all the kindreds of men, are to
be blessed, - and the providence
which allots to thee a barren, and now aged, spouse. There must be
some new expedient to be
adopted; some other plan to be tried.
It
may be that Sarai is to be a mother, as it were, by
substitute and by proxy,
and is to obtain children by her maid; according to the
custom already common,
of which we have sad enough examples afterward in the
family of Jacob. This
will accomplish the divine word.
And if there be any hesitation about the
propriety of the course recommended, - may it not be
justified by the manners
of the age and country sanctioning the usage; by the
entire absence of every
grosser motive; and by the necessity of the case
shutting him up to some such
plan? Such
was Abram’s temptation.
Such also, - of a similar nature, and indeed
so far as regards the difficulty of reconciling sense
and faith, substantially
identical, - was the temptation of Abram’s son and Lord. Jesus, in the
lonely wilderness, was tempted
as the Son of God, with direct and immediate reference
throughout, on the part
of the tempter, to what the voice of heaven, at His
baptism, had declared.
“If thou be the Son
of God” - is the insidious insinuation of the
devil, as if he would
provoke Him by reproach, or persuade Him by flattery. “If
thou be,”
or since Thou art, “the Son of
God.” It
is an insolent taunt, or a smooth and
fawning hint. If
Thou be, or since Thou
art, as the voice declared, the Son of God, use Thy
power for Thine own
preservation, - appear in Thy glory, as advancing in the
clouds of heaven, -
assume Thy universal empire over all the earth.
Make the stones into bread, lest Thou perish. Cast Thyself
from the pinnacle of the temple,
as coming gloriously in the air, lest the people despise
Thee as coming humbly
on the earth. Take
possession of the world’s
throne, lest the world give Thee nothing but the cross. Thus the Lord
was tempted in all points, like
as Abram was, yet without Abram’s sin.
To the Lord, therefore, let us look as our
example and our strength,
that we may be saved.
To Abram let us look
as, in this instance, a beacon set before us by God for
our warning, lest we
perish.
Especially let us be warned against the two sins which are apt
to beset us, in the view of our privilege and our hope
as believers;
presumption and distrust, which, however opposite, are
often found
together. For
there may be a lurking
tendency to practical antinomianism in the heart of him
who has tasted and seen
that the Lord is good; a sort of feeling as if he were a
privileged person,
raised above ordinary rules and restrictions, and, in
difficult emergencies at
least, entitled to judge for himself, to exercise a
certain kind of discretion,
and to take the matter at issue into his own hands. And along with
this there may be a degree of
impatience and distrust; a weariness of waiting for the
salvation of the Lord;
an undue [Page 163] anxiety, even on the part of him who should be always
walking by faith, to “see his
signs,” and to
have every stumbling-block removed.
He
is in straits; troubled and perplexed; and he casts
about for some way of
escape. He
sees some kind of relief at
which he may grasp, - some scheme for retrieving the
loss he has sustained, -
some decent form of self-indulgence which may dissipate
his despondency and
minister to his quiet.
May he not avail
himself of it? Instead
of looking for
the deliverance or the good which he needs, as coming at
some time still
future, he knows not when, - and by some means still to
be provided, he knows
not how, - may he not arrive at his end by a shorter and
more obvious
road? Instead
of reckoning, for
instance, on the long-deferred fruit of a barren womb,
may he not be warranted
at last in seeking the desired result by a more natural
and usual course? Then
comes the insidious thought, that, as a
child of God peculiarly situated, he may take some
slight liberty, and claim a
certain exemption and immunity from the strict rule of
an exemplary walk.
So he begins to walk after the flesh; and too
soon he loses the freedom and enlargement of heart which
a calm and clear
reliance upon heaven inspires, and feels the bitter
subjection and enthralment
of a renewed dependence upon earthly resources, and a
renewed entanglement in
earthly policy.
3. Accordingly, the sequel of this part of Abram’s history is
sufficiently sad. Viewed
merely as a
domestic scene which might be realized in any ordinary
household, how true is
it to nature! And
how emphatic is the
warning which it holds out!
The jealousies, the heart-burnings and mutual reproaches which
we now find disturbing the peace of this pious family,
are such as might have
been anticipated from the course unhappily pursued. That a woman
so strangely and suddenly
honoured, taken out of her due place and station, and
admitted to the rank and
privileges of a spouse, should forget herself and become
high-minded, - was
precisely such conduct as might have been expected on
the part of a slave
treated as Hagar was, and having a temper un-subdued and
a mind uninstructed as
Hagar’s probably were.
She could not
enter into the plan which the heads of the house had
formed; or into the
reasons and motives which led them to form it.
To their servant, if not to themselves, it must
have been fraught with a
most corrupting tendency; and it is no wonder that it
proved to her a
temptation to insolence and insubordination, stronger
than she could
withstand. Hence
Abram and Sarai had the
greater sin. Even
if they felt that they
were at liberty, so far as they themselves were
concerned, to do it, - and that
they were safe in doing it, - were they not bound to ask
how it might affect
their dependant, whom they made a party in the
transaction? Was
there not, now that the evil was done and
its consequences were beginning to appear, too good
cause of regret and
repentance?
And what of the effect on the godly pair themselves of the
error into which they have fallen?
Sarai, provoked by the forwardness of Hagar,
thought that she did well
to be angry. She
was loud in her
reproaches, and spoke indignantly; - “My
wrong be upon
thee: - I have given
my maid into thy bosom;
and when she saw that she had
conceived, I was
despised in her eyes: the
Lord
judge between me and thee” (ver.
5).
Alas! had she [Page
164]
forgotten that all that she complained
of was but the fruit of her own device; and that as she
had sowed, so she
reaped? And what is Abram’s predicament in so painful a
family feud? Has
he, too, in part, and for a time,
forgotten what is due to the partner of his pilgrimage
and the wife of his
youth? Is
he tempted to carry too far
his indulgence towards one who is apparently to realize
his anxious
longing? And
under that natural feeling,
has he become less sensitive than otherwise he would
have been, in regard to
her whom he was bound to honour, and more tolerant of
insult shown to her?
We may almost gather something like this from
Sarai’s complaint.
If it was so, how sad an instance have we here of the
difficulty of stopping short when a single doubtful step
is once taken? Abram,
when he consented to the specious
proposal made to him, thought that he was acting
disinterestedly and for the
best. But
other and less worthy motives
began to mingle with his better purposes; and at all
events he is now entangled
in a net of his own making.
He is no
longer free: he is the slave of circumstances; and he is
compelled to make the
best he can of a painful perplexity and hard necessity;
to do violence to his
feelings, perhaps even to his convictions of duty; and
to consent to the
degradation and disgrace of one whom, after what has
passed, he is surely bound
to consider as having strong claims upon his regard.
In this view, the treatment which Hagar received is all the
more unjustifiable.
The expressions,
indeed, used in our translation, give a somewhat
exaggerated idea of what she
suffered (ver. 6).
Strictly interpreted, they denote nothing
more than that by Abram’s command Hagar was again
placed, as a servant, under
Sarai’s rule, and made to render to her obedience such
as might be enforced by
just discipline. Still,
in all the
circumstances, a milder and more generous way of dealing
with Hagar might have
been expected on the part of those who had themselves
occasioned her offence,
and might have prevented her from incurring greater
guilt. Her flight is not
excusable in her; but surely it is a sad reproach to the
godly family from
which she is provoked to fly.
4.
In the wilderness the fugitive meets with a
better friend. She
wanders on in her solitary way, weary of
the heat and toil of travel, and half repenting of the
hasty step she has
taken. At
last she sits down beside one
of those fountains of water which, with their little
spots of freshness around
them, form the grateful resting-places for the worn and
fainting traveller in the
desert, as the burning sun beats on his aching head, or
the shades of evening
invite his exhausted limbs to rest.
There, as she meditates at leisure, and alone,
the excitement of angry
strife having passed away, many bitter thoughts crowd
upon her mind. The
pride which sustained her is gone, and
her spirit is mortified and tamed.
She
cannot now find support in justifying herself and
blaming others; her sin has
found her out; and her heart is beginning to yearn
towards the home in which
she has dwelt so long in peace, and which, for all that
had passed, might
still, through God’s mercy, and the mutual forgiveness
and forbearance of his
erring servants, have proved to her a refuge of holy
tranquillity and repose.
While feelings like these, perhaps, are swelling her
bosom and dimming her eye,
a heavenly stranger unexpectedly stands beside her, and
a heavenly voice
reaches her [Page
165]
ear.
Trained in the household of one familiar with
such divine fellowship,
Hagar easily recognizes the Angel of the Lord; the Being
of whose visits she
has heard her master speak.
Hence she is
not dismayed, although the appeal is one that seems
only, in the first place,
to convince her of her sin; - “Hagar,
Sarai’s maid, whence
camest
thou?” and then, secondly, to point out to her
the utter helplessness of
her state; - “and whither wilt
thou go?” (ver.
8).
Thus the Angel remonstrates with her as to
the unwarrantable nature of her conduct, reminding her
of her duty, as Sarai’s
maid, and causing her to feel how thoroughly she is now
at a loss. Nor
does Hagar resent the charge, or disguise
the straits to which she is reduced.
“I flee from the face
of my mistress Sarai” is her
frank acknowledgment, without one plea of
self-justification, or any complaint
even about her forlorn condition.
And it
moves the compassion of her heavenly friend; - it is the
very frame of mind
with which He sympathizes, and for which He delights to
provide relief. “Return,” He
says, “to thy mistress, and
submit thyself under her hands” (ver.
9);
- virtually assuring her of a kind and gracious
reception, or at least, of His
own support and favour, should it unhappily be
otherwise. And
to give her still greater encouragement,
He opens up to her the prospect of enlargement and
prosperity awaiting the race
of which she is to be the mother; the singular race
that, with their wild and
warlike spirit of jealous independence, standing aloof
from the other families
of man, are yet to keep their footing among them all, -
to survive many a
convulsion and outride many a sweeping storm, - still
roaming the same vast
plains, fresh and untamed as ever, - their fleet steeds
scouring the Arabian
sands, and their hands grasping the ready spear and
flashing sword, -
un-subdued, unsettled, unchanged, - and unchangeable, as
it would seem, till
the end come.
But the prophetical intimation which is connected with this
transaction, as well as the allegorical or figurative
meaning which the apostle
Paul attaches to Hagar’s history, are brought out more
fully in the subsequent
narrative, and may at present be passed over.
Meanwhile, the moral and spiritual lesson with
which this incident ends
is striking and affecting.
Hagar gratefully acknowledges the interposition of God, as a
very present help in trouble.
“She calls the name of
the Lord that spake unto her, Thou,
God, seest me,”
-
“thou regardest the low estate
of thy handmaiden.”
And she dwells on the seasonable and unlooked for
promptness of the help
afforded, - “Have I also here
looked after him that
seeth me?” (ver.
13).
Was I
looking out for Him?
Or did His gracious
providence surprise me, and His gracious eye almost
startle me, when He sought
out one, alas! too far gone in hardness of heart ever to
have thought of
seeking Him? Truly
may the well be
called “the well of him that
liveth and seeth me,”
- of the living God, who looks on my affliction; and
justly may the child be
named “Ishmael,” as the
token that “the Lord will hear”
the cry of the oppressed, and
deliver the fainting soul (ver.
11).
Nor is the relenting offender slow in obeying the heavenly
command. She
has been led out into the
wilderness, that the Lord might speak comfortably to
her. Fleeing
from the face of her fellow-sinners,
who could but rudely aggravate, or, at the best, very
slightly heal, the hurt
they had [Page 166] themselves inflicted, she fell into the hands of one
who could better treat her case.
That
she was here savingly converted, may be considered
doubtful; although it is a
great thing for her to speak of “Him
that liveth,
and seeth her.”
At all events, she is to abide a little longer in
the household of
faith, and to have an interest in the promise and the
seal of the
covenant. She
returns, therefore, to the
home she had forsaken, herself softened, and with an
experience to tell that
may soften her bitterest enemy.
But her
mistress is not her enemy, although misunderstanding may
have arisen, and,
alas! may arise again.
The meeting may be
supposed to be happy; and over the reconciled household,
in which the wounds of
sin are for the present closed, we may allow the mantle
of hope and charity to
drop.
*
*
*
CHAPTER 19
THE
REVIVAL OF FAITH -
THE
REPETITION OF THE CALL
GEN. 17: 1
The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD;
and He delights
in his way.
Though he fall,
he shall not
be completely cast down; for
the LORD upholds
his hand.
- Psalm 37: 23,
24.
A new
scene here opens before us - a new era in the
patriarch’s life. An
interval of thirteen years is passed over in
silence; but, alas! the silence is only too significant. Thirteen years
ago Abram is seen to fall from
his steadfastness; and now, for the first time, does he
seem to be completely
restored and revived.
That he was
altogether abandoned, during so long a period, it would
be unreasonable to
believe; the painful narrative of his sin and sorrow
does not close without, at
least, a partial glimpse of better things.
The Lord has marked, with His un-slumbering eye,
the whole transaction;
He has arrested the flight of Hagar; and in the
restoration of comparative
peace to this troubled household, in the preservation to
the patriarch of the
child for whom he longed so impatiently, and in the
prospects held out
respecting that child, - the Lord's hand bringing good
out of evil, and
graciously turning away from His servants the natural
consequences of their own
sins, is signally apparent.
Still, the
issue of that sad story is unsatisfactory.
The patriarch, it would seem, is left very much
to himself. No
signal judgments, indeed, overtake him;
but neither is he visited with any remarkable mercy, or
any special instance of
the divine favour.
In this
doubtful calm, what is the
patriarch’s spiritual condition?
How [Page 167] fares it with his soul? Is it
prospering and in health?
Or, is he
saying, - Soul, take thine case?
Possibly the renewed enjoyment of domestic
tranquillity, the increase of
his worldly substance, his growing influence and
reputation among the
chieftains of the land, and, above all, the happiness
that he now felt as a
father, - in the supposed fulfilment of his
long-deferred hope, and in the
fresh light and love with which childhood’s unconscious
gladness ever fills a
home, - all together might tend to lull his watchfulness
asleep on the lap of a
certain languid and luxurious repose, such as even piety
itself might be
tempted not to disown.
He had got, as it
has been well said, if not the very thing promised, at
least something very
like it; and he almost ceased to look or long very
earnestly for more.
In such a state, how great the need of such a
revival as Abram now experiences; receiving, as he does,
a repetition of his
original call, as preparatory to a renewal of the
covenant.
1.
He saw the Lord again, and heard His voice
calling him, as it were anew.
“The Lord appeared unto Abram,
and said unto him, I am the
Almighty God” (ver.
1).
In this way the sinner is awakened at first.
He is going to Damascus on some errand of his
own, or of his master’s, the prince of this world; -
unconsciously, perhaps,
walking contrary to God and opposing the Lord Jesus;
dishonouring His name and
persecuting His people.
Suddenly a great
light shines around him, and a loud voice reaches his
ear; a light great - not
outwardly, perhaps, but within, God shining into the
heart, and giving the
light of the knowledge of His own glory in the face of
Jesus Christ; - a voice loud - not in the ear of sense,
but in that of
conscience, on which it strikes as a knell, breaking the
very slumber of the
grave – “Awake, thou
that
sleepest, and arise
from the dead, and
Christ shall give thee light.”
The sinner sees for the first time the real
character of the God with whom he has to do, as the Holy
One and the just, the
great and terrible God, as well as also the God whose
name is love. He
hears, uttered in thunder, the inexorable
threatenings of the law; while in accents of tenderest
persuasion, the gracious
but peremptory call of the Gospel moves and melts his
inmost soul. He
falls on his face, and when he rises he is
a new man. “Who
art thou, Lord?” is his eager question. ”I am He
which thou persecutest” - “I
am the Almighty God,”
is the reply that goes to his heart.
Precisely similar is the process of revival in the soul on
which sin and the world have been exerting their
blighting and benumbing
influence. The
[Holy] Spirit opens
the eye anew to behold
God in His glory standing very near.
He opens
the ear to hear God speaking home to the conscience, as
one having authority; -
“I am the Almighty God; walk
before me, and be thou
perfect.”
2.
Abram is called to be “perfect.” Now, this word
“perfect,”
or “upright,” when
applied to man, in the Bible,
is not absolute, but relative.
It
relates, for the most part, not to the whole character
of a man, but to some
one. particular feature of his character, some
individual grace or virtue
specified, in respect of which he is said to be complete
or entire, consistent
and sincere. [Instances
of this use of
the word are frequent in the Psalms.
[Page 168] Thus, in the 32nd Psalm, the
righteousness or uprightness mentioned, has reference to
the single duty of
confessing sin to God (ver.
1-5);
and
denotes freedom from guile, or the unreserved openness
of a heart unburdening
itself, in the full and frank confidence of faith, to
God. In the
64th Psalm,
the particular in respect of which perfection is
ascribed to the man of God (ver.
5), is his
inoffensive demeanour towards his enemies, - the same
particular which is
referred to likewise in the 7th
Psalm; where
also the Psalmist appeals to his integrity in the same
connection (ver. 4, 5,
8).
So again in the 139th
Psalm, the Psalmist challenges to himself
perfection, as a hater of
those who hate God (ver.
22), hating them as
God hates them, not
personally, but for their wickedness’ sake; and hating
them, in that sense,
perfectly, with no secret reserve in favour of what may
be agreeable or amiable
in their sins, - no complacency in their company, nor
any love of their
conversation. In
the same manner, in the
101st Psalm, where
the Psalmist speaks of
walking in a perfect way and with a perfect heart, he
simply avows his
determination, with unsparing and uncompromising
impartiality, to discourage
vice and countenance holiness, in the ordering of his
household and the ruling
of his court and kingdom.
(See also Ps.
75).
And finally, in the preparation for the
building of the temple (1
Chron. 29:
9), David and
the people are said to offer gifts to the Lord “with
perfect
heart,” that is, with a heart perfect, in
regard to this act of
liberality, as an act springing from no unworthy
motives, but done with a
single eye to the glory of God.
(So also
in Matt. 5:
48).]
In the instance before us, it is the duty of “walking
before God,” in respect of which Abram is
exhorted to be perfect; - “Walk
before me, and be thou
perfect.”
To walk before God, is to walk or live as in His sight, and
under His special inspection: to feel His open and
un-slumbering eye ever upon
us. To walk
thus before God is
impossible, if there be not redeeming love on His part,
apprehended by faith on
our part; and to be perfect, guileless, and upright, in
thus walking before
God, is the great duty of the [regenerate] believer. He alone can
discharge
that duty. Others
do not like to retain
God in their knowledge; they have comfort only when all
serious thought of God
is got rid of, and put aside; and so they hide
themselves from God amid secular
vanities or sacred formalities.
Their
walk is not, and cannot be, in good faith, a walk before
God, or with God,
under His eye and subject to His control.
But as to His own people, - why should they not
walk before God? Why
should they not, with entire openness and
uprightness, so walk?
Why should they
shrink from so close a fellowship with God as such a
walk implies? Having
peace with Him, and making it their
single aim to be like Him - why should they not be
perfect in such a walk?
Alas! for the un-steadfastness of faith, and the deceitfulness
of sin! The
believer becomes involved in
some device of worldly wisdom; or he casts his eye along
some forbidden path,
on which he would venture but a few exploring steps; or
he is tempted to take
the measuring of his duty and the ordering of his lot
into his own hands; or he
falls under the spell of and indolent self-sufficiency. In some
particular or other he compromises
his integrity; and in the state of his affections or the
habit of his life,
there is [Page 169] something as to which he has not come to a clear and
open understanding with God as his Father and his
Friend. Then
the hidden life of the soul begins to be
disordered and deranged; the walk before God becomes
unsteady and uncertain;
the consciousness of something lying unadjusted between
the conscience and its
only Lord, creates uneasiness, suspicion, and reserve;
there is guile in the
spirit; and the fruit of guile is distance and distrust. The heart
ceasing to be right with God, the
walk is no longer upright before Him.
So was it probably with Abram, when the loud call again
aroused him, “Walk before me,
and be thou perfect.” Be
thyself again; - return and
do thy first works.
Be perfect, -
perfect in thy walk before Me; - perfect as in the day
when, with entire and
unsuspecting confidence, thou camest forth out of thy
father-land, not knowing,
nor even asking, whither I was bringing thee; - perfect
as in the night when I
led thee forth under the starry heavens, and when upon
My bare word, “So shall thy seed
be,” thou didst believe, and wast
justified in believing.
Be perfect, -
not in any high or strange accomplishment, but in that
in which a little child
is the best specimen of perfection - in simply
believing, trusting,
confiding. Be
perfect in walking before
Me, as a child may walk under the eye of parental
watchfulness and love.
That is perfection, - the perfection of
walking before a father.
No unbelief is
there, - no selfishness, no reserve, no feeling of a
separate interest, no
secret consciousness of a double mind, or a divided
heart, or an evil eye.
Be thou thus perfect in thy walk before Me.
3.
Abram has a sufficient reason given
to him for compliance with the command.
It is a reason founded on the nature of God
Himself. God
appeals to His omnipotence, as warranting
His expectation that His servant’s walk before Him
should be perfect; - “I am the
Almighty God.”
This is thine encouragement to act with
entire frankness and un-reserve in all thy dealings with
Me, and to let all be
open and undisguised between us.
I have
all power and all sufficiency; and all that concerns
thee may be safely left to
Me. There
is no need of any underhand or
circuitous procedure, nor any occasion to resort to any
doubtful walk of thine
own for the accomplishment of all that thy heart
desires. I
am the Almighty God; walk before Me.
Commit thy way to Me, and I will bring it to
pass. What
is it that troubles thee, and
would tempt thee to try some device of thine own for
relief? Is
it sin?
Go not in any path of deceitful compromise,
making a false truce with
thine own conscience; walk before Me, and be perfect. Let thy sin,
in all its blackness, be laid
bare before Me; for I am the Almighty God; I have a
provision such as no
resources but Mine could furnish - a provision of
infinite wisdom, power, and
love, by which I freely cleanse thee from it all.
Or is it that thy hope is deferred, and thy
way is hid from the Lord? “Hast
thou not known, hast
thou not heard, that
the
everlasting God, the
Lord, the Creator of
the ends of the earth, fainteth
not, neither is weary?
There is no searching of His
understanding.”
He is the Almighty God; walk before Him with
perfect simplicity in thyself, and perfect reliance upon
Him. Take
nothing into thine own management; leave
all to Him. Nor
be discouraged, or
tempted to grow weary because of the way.
“He giveth power to the
faint; and to them
that have no might he [Page 170] increaseth strength. Even
the youths shall faint and be weary, and
the young men shall utterly fall: But they that wait
upon the Lord shall renew their strength;
they
shall mount up with wings as eagles; they
shall
run, and not be weary;
and they shall walk, and not
faint” (Isa.
40:
29-31).
Thus did God appear to Abram, by the name of God Almighty; -
the name, as we have seen, most appropriate when He
claims the confidence of
His people, in giving exceeding great and precious
promises, as the name
Jehovah is the more significant when He is about to
fulfil them (Exod. 6: 3). In
promising, He appeals to His omnipotence; in fulfilling,
to His
unchangeableness. As
God Almighty, able
to do whatsoever He says, He calls to a perfect walk
before Him. As
Jehovah, the same yesterday, today, and
forever, He gives warrant for a patient waiting upon
Him, till all be
accomplished. In
the one character, God
summons you to begin, or to begin anew, your course. In
the other, He
encourages you to hold on unto the end.
Thus the patriarch is called to be himself again, - seeing the
Lord by faith as He really is, - emancipating himself
from all guile in his
spirit, - entering into the favour and fellowship of the
Holy One, - and
relying, as before, with implicit, unquestioning, and
childlike confidence, on
the almighty arm of Him who can make all things work
together for good, and
bring the wanderer at last, after all the trials of
sense and sin, into His own
everlasting kingdom and glory.
*
*
*
CHAPTER 20
THE
RENEWAL OF THE COVENANT
GEN. 17: 2-8
The
repetition
of the call leads to a renewal of the covenant; and this
accordingly is the
fitting sequel of Abram’s revival from the state of
carnal peace and security
into which he had been falling.
For ascertaining the import of the covenant as here renewed,
the Apostle Paul is to be consulted.
He
is the best expounder of it; and he has given us no
doubtful interpretation.
Thus, in the first place, in his Epistle to the Galatians,
Paul refers to the seventh verse of this chapter of
Genesis; - “And I will establish
my covenant between me and thee and thy
seed after thee in their generations for an
everlasting covenant, to
be a God unto thee, and
to
thy seed after thee” (ver.
7).
The
seed here spoken of, Paul expressly and very pointedly
identifies with Christ,
and with Christ alone; “to
Abraham and his seed were
the promises made;” to his seed; for special
notice is taken by the [Page 171] apostle of the word being in the singular number, and much
stress is laid on that circumstance; “He
saith not,
And to seeds, as
of many;
but as of one, And
to
thy seed, which is
Christ.” The
covenant, therefore, is not with many,
but with one, even with Christ.
It
embraces others, besides Christ, only as they are
identified with Him.
On this footing Abraham himself is accepted,
as being one with his seed, which is Christ.
Christ, and all who, like Abraham, believe in
Him, are accounted one,
being in the Spirit really one.
To
Christ, then, as the seed of Abraham, are the promises
of this covenant made;
to Christ alone; to none but Christ (Gal.
3: 16).
Again, secondly, in regard to the assurance, - “Thou
shalt be a father of many nations,” - which is
repeated there several times in this renewal of the
covenant (ver. 4, 5,
6), and is connected
with the significant change of the patriarch’s name,
from “Abram,” or “exalted
father,”
to “Abraham,” or “father
of
a multitude” (ver.
5) - the apostle,
writing to the Romans,
unequivocally interprets this promise, as referring, not
to the natural
posterity of Abraham, but to his spiritual family - to
those, who, being of
faith, are the children of faithful Abraham. Over and
over again, he speaks of
the promise which was confirmed by the seal of
circumcision - that is, this
very promise before us - as being a promise that Abraham
“was to be the father of all
them that believe;”
even of those “who
walk in the steps of that faith which he had,”
before his
circumcision. And
still more
particularly, he founds upon this very view of the
promise, an argument to
prove that it cannot be a promise of the legal covenant,
for then it would be
limited to his posterity who were under that covenant. “Therefore,”
he
concludes, it is not of the law, but “of
faith,
that it might be by grace;
to the end the promise might be
sure to all the seed; not
to that only which is of the law, but
to that also which is of the faith of Abraham,
who is the father of us all”
- of all who believe,
whether of the law, or not, - “as
it is written,
I have made thee a father of
many nations.”
Now this, it is added, was what Abraham
believed, on the word of Him “who
quickeneth the dead,
and calleth those things which
be not as though they
were.” He
did so on that
memorable night when, as he looked to the stars to which
God pointed, “against hope he
believed in hope, that
so,” even as these stars, “was
his seed to be;” as well as on this subsequent
occasion also, when he was expressly told that he was to
become “the father of many
nations.”
Most plainly, therefore, the [Holy]
Spirit
testifies, that both of these
assurances, - that which the starry heavens were
summoned by God to attest, and
that of which the sign of circumcision was appointed to
be the seal, both the
promise – “so shall thy seed be,”
- and that
other promise “thou shalt be a
father of many nations,”
- were received. Understood, and believed by Abraham, as
referring to the
multitude of his spiritual children the innumerable
company of believers of
whom he is the father (Rom.
4: 11-18).
Once more, in the third place, Paul cites and explains the
promise in this renewal of the covenant as to the
inheritance of the land, or
the world (ver. 8);
and says of it exactly what he says of the promise
respecting the number of the
seed, - that it “was not through
the law, but through
the righteousness of faith.”
Now this excludes the possibility of the
promise [Page 172] having reference to the possession of
Now, taking together the three principles of interpretation
suggested by the Apostle Paul, we may safely conclude
that the promises of the
covenant, as here renewed to Abraham, are not temporal
and worldly, but wholly
spiritual and eternal; having respect to Christ, the
true spiritual seed of
Abraham, and to the spiritual offspring or family of
Abraham, the faithful of
many nations who are all one in Christ, though they are
as the stars of heaven
for multitude, and who are all in Christ called to the
hope of an everlasting
inheritance. So
these promises are
understood by Paul; and so they must have been
understood by Abraham, taught as
he was by the same
[Holy] Spirit.
How comprehensive, then, is this covenant?
With what admirable fulness does it open up
to us the number, the privilege, and the hope of
believers!
First, the number or extent of the true
Secondly, the privilege of the patriarch’s believing children
is precious and peculiar, and throughout all ages it is
one and the same. He
who appeared to Abraham is to be their
God; for he says: - “I will
establish my covenant
between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their
generations for an
everlasting covenant, to
be a God unto thee,
and to thy seed after thee”
(ver. 7). God is to
stand to them in a peculiar
relation - the very relation in which He stands to Him
who is pre-eminently the
Seed of Abraham. For
it is in respect of
their being one with that ONE
SEED
that they all enjoy this privilege.
There may be many nations of them, and many
generations; but still the
seed is one; Christ is one, and they all are one in Him
alone. Hence
the emphasis of this blessed promise,
as applicable to all the faithful, in all ages, and of
every clime. Its
whole value lies in its primary
application to Christ; - “I will
be a God to him who is
truly thy seed.”
Thence, by
necessary inference, it follows, that to all who through
grace are made one
with Him, and so become thy seed in spirit and in truth,
- and to thee also as
one with Him, - I will be a God; in precisely the same
sense in which I am to
be a God to Him who is my beloved Son, and in whom I am
ever well pleased.
Well, therefore, might that holy and elect
One, with whom the covenant was really made, appeal to
its promise in His last
prayer; and, in terms of it, at least virtually, plead
for all His believing
people, as everywhere and always one in Him.
Well might He speak of the Father as loving them
with the very same
fullness of everlasting love with which He loves Him. Most wondrous
measure of the Father’s love to
you who believe! Hear
these blessed
words of the seed of Abraham: “Thou
has loved them as
thou has loved me.”
Who shall
tell what love that is which the Father has to His own
Son? Who
shall estimate, - who shall exhaust it?
And yet in respect of it all, they are one with Him! How close,
then, must be the union between
those who, being of faith, are the children of Abraham,
and that one Seed of
Abraham in whom they all believe! - how complete their
identity in respect of
their joint relation to God, “as
his Father and their
Father, his God and
their God!”
Still further, thirdly, the hope set before the spiritual seed
of Abram is high and heavenly; it is none other than the
hope of glory. It
is true, the promise might seem literally
to point to an earthly inheritance; - “I
will give unto
thee, and to thy seed
after thee, the land
wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for
an everlasting possession; and I will be their God” (ver. 8).
But
that it has a reference to something beyond, is plain
from the very terms in
which it is conveyed.
Abraham himself,
let it be observed, has an interest in the promise, - he
has personally a
vested right in the inheritance, whatever it may be. “I
will give it to
thee” - is the unambiguous and unequivocal
phraseology of the
grant. Then,
again, the land is said to
be given “for an everlasting
possession,” not
for a temporary occupation merely.
And,
above all, the crown and consummation of the whole
promise would indicate
something far higher and greater than ever was realized
during the sojourn of
the Jews in the land; - “I will
be their God.”
For we must never overlook the inference
which our Lord has taught [Page
174]
us to draw from this expression, when
addressed to men living in the body; ‑ “I
will be
their God” - their God, as they are now, in the body. They may
individually
die, generation after generation may depart, and their
bodies may moulder in
the dust. But
the promise stands sure,
as belonging, not to their disembodied spirits [and souls],
but to themselves as they were when they received it, in their compound nature, body and
soul united; - it is due, not to the dead, but to
the living [or resurrected].
And the apostle, it is to be remembered, has
put the matter beyond a doubt.
He
interprets the promise as comprehensive
of the world generally, or as a promise that “Abraham
should
be the heir of the world;” - not of the land,
but of the world, -
for the original term here used is unambiguous (Rom.
4: 13);
-
and he places it on a footing that will not at all
agree with any mere
settlement of Israel in Canaan.
Moreover, in the same passage, and in immediate
connection with this
very promise, he seems to make a most remarkable
allusion to Abraham’s faith in
God as raising
the dead (Rom.
4: 17). He
specifies two instances of divine power, both of which
Abraham believed, and
the belief of which would seem to be essential to his
embracing the promise
made to him of a numerous offspring, and an everlasting
inheritance. He
believed that “God
could quicken the dead,” and that he could “call
into being things which, as
yet, were not.” The
latter power God must put forth, in order to Abraham’s
having a numerous
offspring; both naturally, through the child of promise,
as yet unborn, and his
children after the flesh; and spiritually, through his
seed, which is Christ,
to whom a people are to be given by the Father.
What need
of the former, or the
power to quicken the dead, being so pointedly referred
to, unless the
resurrection be an event involved in the grant of the
inheritance?
And if so, it must needs be the inheritance
of heaven, - the only inheritance which lies beyond
death and the grave.*
[* NOTE. Here, the
author has assumed that resurrected saints cannot be
upon earth! This
is not so. Was
Christ not here for 40 days after His resurrection?
and why not those, like Abraham, who must be resurrected
from the dead in order
to come into their inheritance in “the
land of promise”?]
Taking these considerations together, we may conclude that the
hope set before Abraham in this covenant is the very
hope of the [out] resurrection
for which, ages after,
Paul was called in question.
That, for
himself, Abraham looked forward to a better land than
the land whose soil he
trod as a stranger, - that he looked for a heavenly
country, - is beyond all
question. He
must, therefore, have
understood the promise of the
Compared with this inheritance to be possessed forever by
himself
and by all like‑minded with himself; and to be possessed
by them all as
one [Page 175] with the true seed, “heirs of God and joint-heirs
with Christ; -
compared with this, how poor the prospect of
the occupation of
Such were the promises given for the revival of Abraham’s
faith. And
what could be better fitted
for that end? What objects of holy contemplation are
here presented to
Abraham! The
countless multitude of his
believing children, and their unity in him who is the
true seed; the near
relation in which God stands to this true seed, and to
all that are one in Him;
and the glorious [millennial] and eternal inheritance, of which, through the resurrection from the dead,
a lively hope is given; - these are the elements of that
spiritual food, that
heavenly manna, by which the soul of believing Abraham
is fed and
refreshed. Such
truths as these brought
home to his heart anew, must recall his affections from
earth, and fix them
once more on God. His
spirit is
refreshed and quickened; his faith is reanimated; his
hope is brightened; his
first love bums again.
And when the Lord
“leaves off talking with him and
goes up from him,”
- it is with a fresh and glad appropriation of the
opening assurance “I am the
Almighty God,” that Abraham sets himself, in
all singleness of eye and earnestness of soul, to a
hearty compliance with the
command, “Walk
before me and be
thou
perfect.”
*
*
*
CHAPTER 21
THE
SEAL OF THE COVENANT -
THE
SACRAMENT OF CIRCUMCISION
GENESIS 17
And he received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the
righteousness of the faith which he had in
uncircumcision.
- Romans
4: 11.
The call
and the covenant renewed, as has been seen, most
graciously to Abraham, are
ratified on this occasion by the additional confirmation
of a sacramental
pledge.
The nature of a sacrament in general, and of this sacrament in
particular, [Page
176]
is carefully defined by the Apostle
Paul (
The righteousness is that which is all throughout Scripture
called “the righteousness of God”
(Isaiah 46: 12,
13; 51:
5; Rom.
1: 17;
10: 3). It is that
perfect and all-sufficient
righteousness, which consists of the voluntary obedience
and atoning sufferings
of His own beloved son; - or, rather, of the very person
of the Son Himself, as
manifested in our nature, and satisfying on our behalf
the righteous claims of
the law, being the Lamb of God and the propitiation for
the sins of the
world. It
is the righteousness which God
has provided in His Son, - and of which He is pleased to
accept, - as the
exclusive ground of a sinner’s justification in His
sight.
The faith, again, is that “believing
with the heart unto righteousness” (Rom.
10: 10),
or
that cordial appropriation of this very righteousness of
God, which brings
the sinner near, and places him on a right footing with
God.
The seal, which comes last, is something different from
both. It is
added as a token or pledge,
a confirmation and assurance of the covenant-transaction
with which it is
associated. It
does not itself
constitute or make the covenant on the part of God. Nor is it that
which, on my part, gives me an
interest in the covenant.
What makes the
covenant, as the ground or reason of it, is the
righteousness of God.
What gives me an interest, or a personal
right and concern in the covenant, is my faith - my
simple acceptance of its
blessings, or rather of Him in Whom, as being Himself
the righteousness of God,
its blessings are all treasured up and stored.
The affixing of the seal is an after-deed.
It assumes, or takes for granted, the
validity of the previous transaction.
It
proceeds upon the supposition, first, of the covenant
being itself made and
ratified, exclusively on the footing of the perfect
righteousness of God; and,
secondly, of its being made over to me, and made
practically and personally
mine, exclusively through faith.
Then
comes in the seal, closing, and, if we may so say,
crowning and consummating
the whole procedure, - the entire negotiation of my
peace and my fellowship
with God.
According to this view, the expression (Gen.
17: 10) “This
is my covenant” must be understood as
elliptical,
and interpreted by the explanation which the Apostle
Paul suggests. It
cannot be taken absolutely and literally
as it stands; for, in that case, not only is it at
variance with all the
teaching of Scripture upon the subject, but it has no
clear or distinct meaning
at all. It
is evidently, therefore, a
compressed and imperfect phrase, which the intelligent
reader is to fill
up. For
circumcision is not itself the
covenant, although in some sense it may be said to be “the
keeping” of the covenant.
“Thou shalt keep my
covenant” says the Lord to Abraham
in the preceding verse (ver.
9).
And “this is my
covenant which ye shall keep between me and you”
- this is the keeping of it, or the way in which you are
to keep it - “every man-child
among you shall be circumcised.” [It
is the same phrase which is used with reference to the
New Testament sacrament
of the Lord’s Supper; - “This
cup is the New Testament,”
or the new covenant, “in my
blood” (1 Cor.
11: 25). And it
is satisfactory to trace so exact a resemblance between
the words of
institution in the case [Page
117]
of these two sacraments.
It proves the substantial identity of all the
sacraments, as seals of the same covenant, - the
covenant of grace.
It was that covenant which God confirmed with
Abraham; and to it the sacrament of circumcision stood
in the same relation in
which the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper
stand to it now. “This is my covenant.”
Who does not see here the precise agreement
of this mode of expression with the similar phrases – “This
is my body,” – “this is
my blood,” –“this is my
blood of the New Testament,” or covenant –
“this is the New Testament,”
or covenant, “in my blood?”
These are, as it now appears, the customary and
stated terms of a
sacramental institution.
How
unreasonable to torture them into any more mysterious
meaning; since they
denote, and really can denote, nothing more than the
virtual identity which
there is always understood to be between the seal and
the substance of any
solemn deed.]
Many questions of detail, relating to circumcision as the
keeping of the covenant, might here be raised, which the
brief narrative before
us does not enable us, with any certainty, to settle. A few points,
however, may be simply noted.
1.
As to the time of the appointment of this
ordinance, it is important to
observe that a visible Church is now to be constituted;
a society is to be
formed, which is to be separated from the world,
consecrated to God, and destined,
under different varieties of form and of economy, more
or less spiritual, to
continue to the end of time.
That Church
is now to stand out as authoritatively and sacramentally
distinct from the
world.
Before the flood, a similar distinction began to prevail in
the days of Enos; - spontaneously, as it would seem, on
the part of men
themselves (chap. 4:
26).
As the world grew more and more corrupt, the true
sons of God drew off
from the rest of mankind, and by a peculiar profession
and a peculiar walk,
were marked out as His. The line of distinction, indeed,
separating the visible
Church from the ungodly world, was but too precarious
and uncertain. In
course of time, fellowship was resumed,
with most disastrous issue.
After the
flood, there was at first no visible society distinct
from the general mass of
men. The
worship of God was in every
house. And, although, even in the family of Noah
himself, the elements of a
division between the pious and the profane may be
traced, no palpable selection
of the one from among the other seems to have taken
place. But
as corruption again became general, God
appointed a new centre, or rallying point, for those
whom He would keep from
the contagion of idolatry.
The call of
Abraham was the initial step towards the formation of a
visible Church.
Now, to a visible Church, sacramental distinctions and pledges
are appropriate. Hence
the fitness of
the time at which circumcision was instituted.
And if we suppose, as we have ventured to do - no
intimation of a divine
appointment being given - that the association formed in
the time of Enos was
the act of the godly themselves, we see the reason why a
sacrament should be
instituted now, rather than then.
For
now, God Himself, by His own express authority, - not
man by His voluntary
choice, - is laying the foundation of a divine society. And,
accordingly, He sets [Page 178] His own seal upon it.
2.
The rite itself now instituted is not an
unmeaning form or
ceremony. It
is significant of the great
leading fact in the covenant of which it is the seal -
the extraordinary and
miraculous birth of Him who is pre-eminently and
emphatically the seed of
Abraham, the holy child Jesus.
It has
obvious reference to Abraham’s approaching paternity,
his having a son, not
after the flesh but by promise; and it is the sign and
symbol of something
peculiar and remarkable in the manner of the birth, as
well as of some special
purity and holiness in what is to be born.
It has respect to the seed about to be begotten. It points to
the Messiah, the Saviour about
to be manifested as the righteousness of God - Himself
personally the very
righteousness of God, - not less in His conception and
birth than in His
obedience unto death.
It prefigures His
assumption of humanity, in a way securing His exemption
from the sinfulness of
humanity. For
of His miraculous birth as
securing the sinlessness of His humanity, its being
unstained by any
participation in the hereditary guilt and corruption of
man, the circumcision
of the patriarch, and his house, - especially the
circumcision of Isaac, in the
view of whose birth the ordinance is instituted, is a
fitting type and token.
Hence, perhaps, one reason for circumcision, as the initial or
introductory seal of the covenant, being superseded, and
another sacrament
coming in its place.
Circumcision
pointed to the future birth of Christ, - His assumption
of our nature, pure and
perfect. That
birth being accomplished,
the propriety of circumcision as a sacrament ceases. Any
corresponding rite now must be not
prospective, but retrospective; not looking forward to
the beginning of the
Messiah’s work as the righteousness of God, when in His
birth He was shown to
be His Holy One, and His Son, by His miraculous
conception in the virgin’s womb
- but looking back to the end of His work, in His
burial, when He was declared
to be the Son of God with power, by His resurrection
from the grave [dead].
Such a rite, accordingly, is Baptism; as
explained by the apostle when
he says, “We are buried with him
by baptism into death:
that like as Christ was raised
up from the dead by the
glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in
newness of life” (Rom.
6: 4). Our
baptism signifies our ingrafting into Christ, as not
merely born, but buried
and risen again. It
refers not to His
entrance into the world, but to His leaving it.
It is the symbol, not of His pure and holy birth
merely, but of the
purifying and cleansing efficacy of His precious blood
shed upon the cross, and
the power of His resurrection to life and glory.
Abraham and the faithful of old were
circumcised into His birth, the redemption being yet
future; we are baptized
into His death, the redemption being now past.
The one sacrament was an emblem of purity
connected with a Saviour to be
born; the other is an emblem of purity connected with a
Saviour who “liveth, and was dead, and
behold! is alive
forevermore!”
Both circumcision
and baptism denote the purging of the conscience from
dead works, or from the
condemnation and corruption of the old nature, through
the real and living
union of the believer with Christ - with Christ about to
come in the flesh, in
the one case; - with Christ already come, in the other. [If this view
is admitted, it sufficiently [Page 179] explains the language used concerning baptism in connection with Christ’s
burial and resurrection; and therefore
cuts
away the argument for dipping founded on that language;
as if plunging into a watery
bath and coming out of it were a fitting imitation of
the lying in the new tomb
and the glorious rising after three days.]
3.
Hence it appears that it is strictly and properly
to the covenant of
grace that circumcision, as instituted on this occasion,
has respect. It
is true that under the Mosaic economy it
served a farther purpose.
It became a
national badge or mark of distinction - the pledge of
the national covenant in
terms of which God governed the nation of
For the reasoning of Paul, in his Epistle to the Galatians,
will apply as strongly to the seal, as to the substance,
of the covenant made
with Abraham (Gal. 3:
15-17). Whatever
modification the divine manner of
dealing with his people might undergo in the days of
Moses - whatever
additional stringency of legal restraint might be
rendered necessary “because of
transgressions,” and whatever additional
reference circumcision might consequently come to have
to the national
Levitical institute - this could not affect its bearing
upon the transaction
with which alone it stands originally associated.
And if that transaction is represented by the
apostle as being substantially the covenant of grace “confirmed
of God in Christ,” - which the law given four
hundred years after could
not disannul, - then it follows that the rite of
circumcision, which is
identified with it, must partake of the same character,
and must be viewed as
the seal of “the promises made
to Abraham and his seed,”
which no subsequent economy could ever “make
of none
effect.”
As the seal, therefore, of the covenant of grace, or of the
righteousness that is by faith, - and in that view of it
alone, - circumcision
is on this occasion ordained.
Hence, it
must be in the same view of it that it is appointed to
be administered to
infants (ver. 12),
and is made of indispensable obligation (ver.
14).
Both of these observations are important in
reference to the analogy
between circumcision and baptism.
4.
The child, eight days old, was to be
circumcised (ver. 12).
Why then, we are accustomed to ask, should
not children be baptized?
To this question the opponents of infant baptism, among other
things, reply, that circumcision was appointed for the
Jews as a nation, and
was the sign of their peculiar privileges as a nation,
which, in consistency
with sound principle, might be hereditary, and in fact
were so. But
grace, they [Page 180] say, is not
hereditary; and baptism
is the pledge of grace. The
answer would
be conclusive, so far as to set aside the argument from
analogy, were it well
founded in point of fact - were circumcision a mere
national distinction, and
not, like baptism itself, the seal of a spiritual
covenant, and of the very
same covenant. But
if, on the other
hand, whatever national application of it may have been
subsequently made,
circumcision, as given originally to Abraham, had
exclusively a spiritual
meaning; if it was to Abraham precisely what baptism is
to us, the seal of his
engrafting into Christ, and as such, was administered to
the infants of his
house; - why, we may well ask, are the children of God’s
people now to be
placed on a worse footing than in the days of old? Is
there any evidence of a
change in this respect?
On the contrary,
did not the Lord specially distinguish little children
as the objects of His
love, taking them into His arms, and affectionately
blessing them? And
do not the apostles proceed all along on
the principle, that the visible Church is to embrace not
only all the faithful,
but their children also?
Thus Peter (Acts 3:
39)
speaks of the promise being to believers and to their
children. Paul
also (1 Cor.
7: 14)
founds an argument on the assumption that the children
of a believing parent
are not unclean or common, but holy.
And
we read in the book of Acts (chap.
16: 33,
etc.)
of entire households being baptized; the expressions
used being such as to
render it very unlikely that the little children were
excluded. Why,
indeed, should they be excluded?
Without an express intimation to the
contrary, the practice of administering the initiatory
seal of the covenant to
infants would be kept up, as a matter of course, under
the gospel. It
required no formal injunction to warrant
its continuance; but very explicit authority must be
produced to entitle the
Church to set it aside.
[We may use this
argument concerning other ordinances of divine
appointment, - as, for instance,
the Sabbath. The
whole burden of the
proof lies with those who contend that the Sabbatic
ordinance is done away, or
that the Lord’s day is not the Sabbath.
And so is it also in the instance of infant
baptism.]
But farther, the principle on which the circumcision of
infants proceeded is equally applicable to their
baptism; - that principle
being substantially the principle of a visible Church. For the
permanent continuance as well as for
the first formation of such a society, provision must be
made. And
what provision can be more effectual,
than that the children of those who compose it, should,
from their very birth,
be assumed into its fellowship - reckoned, accounted,
treated, and trained as
its members - served heirs, if we may so speak, to the
privileges and
responsibilities of their parents?
What
can be more thoroughly in accordance with the whole
analogy of the providence
of God? Does
not His ordinary providence
exemplify the hereditary transmission, - not indeed of
good or evil, - but of
the opportunities and probabilities of good and evil? Our
obligations, physical, social, and
domestic, are largely made and determined for us by our
birth; and so also, to
a great extent, are the means of fulfilling our
obligations. All
this must be acknowledged, apart from
religion - as affecting, perhaps, and modifying, yet not
at all superseding,
our personal and individual accountability.
And on the very same analogy, a religious
brotherhood, [Page 181] destined to be perpetuated from age to age, is divinely formed.
I say divinely formed. For
if
the visible Church were a mere voluntary association - a
union formed by men
of their own accord - the idea of a transmitted right,
or a transmitted duty,
might seem unreasonable and unfair. To make me a member
of such a body in my
infancy and without my consent, might be held to be an
unwarrantable
infringement on my freedom of choice.
But if the visible Church is God’s ordinance
there is no absurdity or
injustice in the arrangement.
If, while
yet unconscious, and incapable of consenting, I am
enrolled and registered,
stamped, and sealed, as one of the household of God,
visible on earth; if, with
His sanction, and by His authority, I am marked out from
the womb as peculiarly
His - His, in the same sense in which the Christian
profession of my parents
makes them His - His, by privilege, by promise, and by
obligation; - no wrong
is done to me, nor is any restriction put on me, more
than by the circumstance
of my being born in a home of piety and peace, rather
than in a haunt of
profligacy and crime.
If God makes me,
by birth, the scion of a noble stock, the child and heir
of an illustrious
house, then by my birth I am necessarily invested with
certain rights and bound
to certain duties, in regard to which I have no
discretion. When
I am old enough to understand my
position in society, I find it in a great degree made
for me, and not left for
me to make. I
may refuse to take the
place assigned to me; I may never avail myself of its
advantages; I may never
realize my rank, or imbibe the spirit and enter into the
high aims of my
honourable calling.
Still, if I do not
live according to my birth, the fault is my own, and my
responsibility is
great. And
still, whether I take advantage
of it or not, my birth, as ordered in God’s providence,
has a meaning which
might stand me in good stead, if I so chose and so
willed it. So
also in regard to circumcision or
baptism. If
God owns me, by such an
initiatory rite, as a member of the society on earth
which bears His name, I
may never be in reality what that rite signifies me to
be; but not the less on
that account has the right a solemn significancy.
And if afterwards I wilfully disown it, I do
so with aggravated guilt, and at my own increased peril;
whereas, on the other
hand, owning it, I obtain an ever fresh confirmation of
my faith and good hope
through grace.
5.
On much the same principle on which
this initiatory rite is administered to the children of
God’s people, it is
declared to be of indispensable obligation (ver.
14).
It is of course the wilful neglect of the
ordinance that is here
condemned; and it is condemned as doubly sinful;
implying contempt, both of the
authority by which the rite was ordained, and of the
grace of which it was the
seal. It
involved the twofold guilt of
disobedience to God’s commandment and disregard of God’s
covenant. “He hath broken,”
or made void, “my covenant”
(ver. 14). He who thus
offended necessarily excluded
himself from the society of God’s people, and must be
held as joining the ranks
of the aliens and enemies.
He was justly
to be “cut off.”
What that sentence meant, and how it was to be executed, is
not very distinctly said.
It would seem
to indicate something more than excommunication, to
which some have restricted
it. The
expression is a strong one, and
in the Mosaic law it is certainly used to denote the
punishment of death (Exod.
31: 14). It is
possible, however, that before that [Page
182]
law, as the national law of
Such, then, is the institution of circumcision, as the seal of
the covenant which God made when He gave the promises to
Abraham.
The patriarch’s compliance with the divine command is recorded
in the remaining portion of the chapter. And the
narrative brings out the
forbearance and abundant grace of God on the one hand,
as well as the struggles
of lingering unbelief on the other; - while, in the
issue, the triumph of faith
appears, as made perfect by works. For it is no easy
exercise of obedience that
is required of Abraham, to prove and perfect his faith. A revelation
awaits him, in the very act of
complying with the injunction of God, that may well
stagger his spiritual
confidence, as it shocks his natural affection.
Hitherto, in this renewal of the covenant,
nothing has been said as to
the line of descent in which it is to be established. Hagar’s child
is not formally set aside; the
covenant, as yet, is merely established generally in the
seed of Abraham; and
the father’s affections, despairing of any other son,
may still be set on
Ishmael. But
he must be completely
stripped of all confidence in the flesh, and made to
live by faith alone.
It is not to a son born after the flesh, but
to a son by promise, that he is to look. Sarai herself
is to receive strength;
and her name accordingly is changed.
She
is no longer “Sarai,” my
princess, as if she
stood in that honourable relation to her husband alone;
but “Sarah,” without
limitation, - a princess, or the
princess, - the princely mother of those of whom, in
Christ, Abraham is the
father (ver. 15,
16). The patriarch
laughs, and of the
laughter Isaac’s name is a memorial (ver.
17).
Still there is a momentary revulsion of natural feeling.
His heart clings to [Page 183] Ishmael. The strange
announcement
of a child yet to be born he can scarcely comprehend or
realize. But
here is Ishmael? May
not he suffice? Why
look for another? “0 that Ishmael might
live before thee” (ver.
18).
It is the last lingering look of sense, - the fond
expostulation of the flesh still striving against the
spirit. Is
not Ishmael here alive before thee?
What better can come of Sarah?
There is a moment’s hesitation; but
immediately there is an unreserved acquiescence in the
Lord’s will and
way. Let
Him save me, let Him bless me;
not as I would, but as He will; not in my way, but in
His own.
Behold here the marvellous condescension of God.
He is not offended by the outpouring of
Abraham’s natural longings and desires.
He hears them, and, as far as may be, He meets
and answers them. Ishmael
is to be blessed, though Isaac still
must be the heir; - “As for
Ishmael, I have heard
thee: I have
blessed him, and will
make him fruitful, and
will multiply him exceedingly.
But my covenant will
I establish with Isaac” (ver.
20, 21).
What encouragement have we, in this example, to lay aside all
reserve in our intercourse with God.
Freely and frankly we may unburden our hearts to
Him, and unbosom all
our grief. We
may tell Him, as if in
confidence, all that we feel and all that we desire. If only there
be submission to His will, He
is not offended. For
He is patient and
pitiful. If
it be possible, He will let
the cup pass; if not, He will mingle some drop of
soothing comfort in it; as He
did in the case of Abraham.
*
*
*
CHAPTER 22
ABRAHAM
THE FRIEND OF GOD
1.
THE FRIENDLY VISIT
And he was called, Friend of God. - James
2: 23.
Behold! I
stand at the door and knock.
If anyone hears My
voice
and opens the door, I
will come in to him and
will dine with him, and
he with
GENESIS
18: 1-8
The
opening scene, in this chapter, is full of beauty, -
having that peculiar charm
which attaches to Eastern nature, and to the olden time. There is a new
appearance of the Lord to
Abraham, in the place of his [Page
184]
ordinary abode, the plains of Mamre,
- the plains which belonged to Mamre the Amorite, one of
Abraham’s allies in
the war against the kings (chap.
14: 13),
and which
probably on this account bore the original proprietor’s
name (chap. 13:
18).
Here
are pitched the tents of Abraham’s household and
attendants, the colony or
company, by this time pretty numerous, over which he
presides as chief.
His own tent occupies a distinguished place
among the rest, - standing near the path by which the
casual wayfarer may be
expected to pass. It
is noon; and
Abraham is on the watch for any weary pilgrim, to whom
its sultry and scorching
heat may make rest and refreshment welcome.
This, it may be believed, is his usual practice. The hour of
noon, in that hot clime, suspends
labour, and compels the exhausted frame to seek repose. Abraham and
his people repair severally to
their tents, and make ready the homely meal.
But, first, the patriarch takes his place at his
tent door, where
usually is his seat of authority; and there he waits to
see if any stranger is
coming whom it may be his duty and privilege to
entertain. Perhaps
some of the remnant of the godly,
still holding fast their faith amid the abounding
iniquity and universal
idolatry of the land, - not protected and blessed, as
Abraham once was himself,
by any pious Melchizedek, but persecuted and cast out by
those among whom they
dwelt, - may be going about without a home, and may be
glad of a day’s shelter
and a day’s food. These
the patriarch
will delight to honour; and the recollection of his own
early wanderings, as
well as his love to them as brethren in the Lord, will
open his heart towards
them. Thus
he sits for a little in the
heat of the day in his tent door, not idle, but intent
on hospitable thoughts,
“not forgetful to entertain
strangers.”
On this day he is well rewarded for his hospitality.
“He entertains angels
unawares” (Heb.
13: 2).
And not all
of them created angels, even of
the highest order.
One, in the progress
of this interview, discovers himself to be the Angel of
the Covenant - the Lord
Himself.
While the strangers are yet unknown - having the aspect merely
of ordinary travellers - Abraham manifests towards them,
not only the somewhat
elaborate homage of Eastern courtesy, but the sympathy
also of a godly
mind. He
presses upon them his
hospitality, as if their acceptance of it were a
personal favour to
himself. Water
for their way-worn feet -
a pleasant shade under which to rest - and a morsel of
bread to comfort their
hearts, - such are the kindnesses placed at their
service. And
still further to remove any feeling they
might have on the score of encroaching on his
liberality, or incurring irksome
obligation, the devout patriarch puts his benevolence on
the footing of its
being not so much his own doing as the Lord’s (ver.
5).
Nothing, he would say, is due to me; you need not
consider yourselves to
be indebted to me; all is of God.
He has
so ordered it that you should chance to come here, and
that I should be waiting
to help you; “Therefore are ye come to your servant.”
Can finer or truer delicacy in the conferring of a benefit be
imagined? Ah!
it is godliness, after all,
that is the best politeness; it is the saint who knows
best how to be
courteous. Other
benefactors may be
liberal, condescending, familiar.
They
may try to put the objects of their charity at [Page 185] their ease. Still there is
ever something in their
bountifulness which pains and depresses, and if it does
not offend or degrade,
at least inspires a certain sense of humiliation.
But the servant of God has the real tact and
taste which the work of doing good requires.
And the secret is, that he does good as the
servant of God. Like
Abraham, he feels himself, - and he
makes those whom he obliges feel, - that it is truly not
a transaction between
man and man, implying some greatness or merit on the one
side, of which the
want may be painfully realized on the other, - but that
all is of God, to whom
giver and receiver are equally subject, and in whom both
are one.
The offer thus frankly made is frankly accepted.
There is no empty form or idle ceremony on
either
side; - for God’s saints and servants quickly understand
one another. At
a word, in God’s name, they come together
and are at home with one another.
What
is given in good faith is at once taken in good part. There are no
affected declinatures or multiplied
apologies - no exaggerated professions of humility or
gratitude; but only
simple acquiescence; “So do as
thou hast said.”
The hasty preparation which follows is exactly after the
oriental fashion. The
repast provided
for the family will not suffice for these new guests;
but the requisite
addition is easily and quickly made.
In
the true primitive style, all in the house, - the heads
as well as the servants
of the household, - bestir themselves.
Sarah prepares cakes.
Abraham
himself fetches a calf, which one of his young men
hastens to dress. Butter
and milk complete the entertainment,
to which the three seeming travellers sit down; Abraham,
meanwhile, doing the
part of an attentive host, and courteously standing by
them, while they eat
under the tree (ver.
6-8).
At first he knows not who or what they are whom he is
entertaining. But
be they who they may,
in showing them this kindness, a glow of satisfaction
fills his soul. And
ere long he begins to discern under their
homely appearance, some traces of their heavenly
character. They
are not of the common class whom
business or pleasure brings across his path; they are
not like the ordinary
inhabitants of the land.
Their holy air
and holy demeanour cannot be mistaken.
One in particular seems to stand out from the other two, as
commanding greater reverence.
To him as
the chief among them, Abraham had addressed his
invitation: - “My Lord, if now I have found
favour in thy sight, pass
not away, I pray thee,
from thy servant”
(ver. 3). And soon, as
the interview goes on, this Holy
One reveals His real rank.
From the
first He conducts the conversation; and He speaks, not
as any inferior or
subordinate messenger, but as Himself, in His own proper
person, God. As
God He makes a promise which God alone can
fulfil (ver. 10,
14).
Then again He is expressly called Jehovah (ver.
13); and in His
detection of Sarah’s secret
sin - her unuttered thought of unbelief - He manifests
the divine attribute of
omniscience. He
convinces and reproves,
as the Searcher of hearts.
Towards the
end of the chapter also (ver.
16), it plainly
appears, that of the three, who
seemed to be men, only two go on to Sodom - the two
angels who reach that city
at even (chap. 19:
1).
The
third remains behind with Abraham, and speaks to him as
the Lord Jehovah, - “face to
face,” - [Page 186] “as
a man
speaketh to his friend” (Exod.
33: 11).
The three strangers, therefore, whom Abraham entertains, are
none other than Jehovah Himself, and two attendant
angels. The
Second Person in the Trinity, - who bears
the double character of God, or the Lord, and of the
Messenger of the Covenant,
or the Angel of the Lord, - condescends on this occasion
to be Abraham’s guest,
and becomes “known to him in the
breaking of bread”
(Luke 24: 30,
31).
It is a singular instance of condescension - the only recorded
instance of the kind before the incarnation.
On other occasions, this same illustrious being
appeared to the fathers
and conversed with them; and meat and drink were brought
out to him. But
in these cases, He turned the offered
banquet into a sacrifice, in the smoke of which He
ascended heavenward (Judges
6: 18-24; 13:
15-21). Here He
personally accepts the patriarch’s
hospitality, and partakes of his fare, - a greater
wonder than the other;
implying more intimate and gracious friendship, - more
unreserved
familiarity. He
sits under his tree, and
shares his common meal.
-------
2.
THE FRIENDLY FELLOWSHIP
The secret of the LORD is with those who fear Him; and
He will
show them His covenant. - Psalm
3: 14.
(VERSES 9-17)
In the
progress of the interview, as well as in its
commencement, the Lord treats
Abraham as a friend.
He converses with
him familiarly, putting to him a question which a mere
stranger in the east
would scarcely reckon himself entitled to put.
He inquires into his household matters, and asks
after Sarah, his wife (ver.
9). Then,
in the pains He takes, by reiterated assurances, to
confirm the faith of
Abraham and overcome the unbelief of Sarah, - in the
tone of His simple appeal
to divine omnipotence as an answer to every doubt, “Is
any thing too hard for the Lord?” - and in His
mild but searching
reproof of the dissimulation to which the fear of
detection led Sarah, - “Nay,
but thou didst laugh,”
- in all this, does it not almost seem as if by
anticipation we saw Jesus in
the midst of His disciples, stretching forth His hand to
catch the trembling
Peter on the waters, - “0 thou
of little faith, wherefore
didst thou doubt?” - or, after the denial,
turning to look on Peter, and melt his soul to penitence
and love!
Nor is it unworthy of remark, as an instance of divine grace
and condescension, that from this very incident in
Sarah’s life, the Holy Ghost
takes occasion to record her praise.
Speaking of “the holy
women” who, “in the old
time” “trusted in
God, adorned
themselves with the ornament of a
meek and quiet spirit, which
is in the sight of
God of great price, and
were in subjection unto
their own husbands,” - the Apostle Peter adds,
by way of example, - “Even as
Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling
him
lord; whose daughters
ye are as long as ye
do well, and are not
afraid with any amazement”
(1 Pet. 3:
6).
He warns Christian matrons, indeed, against [Page 187] Sarah’s great
fault, - her “fear of amazement,”
- or, in other words, her
consternation at the discovery of what was passing in
her mind when she “laughed
within herself” in the tent-door.
For it was that which tempted her to dissemble. The sudden
searching of her heart by this
mysterious stranger’s all-seeing eye disconcerted and
alarmed her. She
lost her presence of mind, - her
guileless integrity - and instead of a frank
acknowledgment of the truth, which
would have led to her being completely reassured, she
had recourse, in her
confusion, to an evasion and a lie (ver.
15).
But
with this exception, she is commended as “doing
well;”
and she is held up as a model of matronly simplicity and
subjection. She
found favour in His sight who is not
easily provoked; - who does not break the bruised reed,
or quench the smoking
flax; - who reproves sin, indeed, even in His own
people, but at the same time
raises up them that fall.
It is chiefly, however, in the close of this interview, that
Abraham is treated by God as His friend, being, as it
were, admitted into His
deliberations, and consulted in regard to what He is
about to do.
The repast being over, the three divine guests arise to
depart; and Abraham bears them company, for a little
way, as they turn their
faces toward
Near the door of his tent, however, he overhears a strange
consultation among the seeming travellers.
One, who has already spoken as the Lord, and
manifested the attributes
and prerogatives of supreme divinity - detecting,
rebuking, and pardoning
secret sin - speaks, as it would appear, to the other
two. He
intimates that while they are to go on -
for the purpose, as we shall presently see, of doing His
errand to Lot in
Perhaps these verses (20, 21)
are to
be taken as retrospective; as being a parenthetical
explanation of this whole
scene, which might have been given at the outset, but is
now incidentally
thrown in: - “The Lord had said,
I will go down now and see;”
- speaking after the
manner of men, to mark the perfect equity of His
procedure, as not condemning
hastily, or without inquiry.
This had
been His purpose in coming down to earth at all on this
occasion. In
the execution of this purpose He had
visited Abraham. And
now sending on to
Thus Abraham stands alone before the Lord. And that marvellous
colloquy ensues, in which the Lord communicates His
purpose respecting
-------
3.
THE FRIENDLY AND CONFIDENTIAL
CONSULTATION
Surely
the Lord GOD will do nothing
unless He reveals His secret to His servants the
prophets. - Amos 3: 7.
(VERSES 17-19)
In
announcing His intention to communicate His purpose
respecting Sodom to Abraham
His friend, how strange and singular is the Lord’s
language (verses 17-19):
- “Shall I hide from Abraham
that thing which I do?”
as if Abraham were entitled to know it - as if he had a
right to be
consulted. What
condescension! That
the sovereign Lord of all, who “giveth
not account of any of his matters” - to whom
none may say, What doest thou? - should feel Himself, as
it were, obliged to
open His mind to Abraham!
“Shall I hide from
Abraham that thing which I do?”
He speaks as if such concealment would be a
wrong not to be thought of - as if it would be unworthy
of the relation in
which Abraham stands to Him; - unworthy of it as a
relation of high honour as
well as great responsibility.
(1) The Lord refers to the honour or privilege already granted
to Abraham as a reason for having no concealment from
him now – “Seeing that Abraham
shall surely become a great and mighty
nation, and all the
nations of the earth shall
be blessed in him” (ver.
18).
The
rank to which the patriarch has been raised, the
prospect of his increasing greatness,
and the blessing which in him all nations of the earth
are to receive, combine
to warrant and explain his admission into the divine
confidence and
counsels. He
is in a position to be
trusted. He
is not a stranger or an
enemy, who must be kept at a distance, and treated with
stem and suspicious
reserve. He
stands high in the favour
and fellowship of God, and it is not unreasonable that
God should impart to him
an intimate knowledge of His words and His ways.
“The secret of the
Lord is with them that fear him, and
he will
show them his covenant” (Ps.
25: 14). Hence the Lord
speaks of His prophets as
those who should stand in His counsel, or His secret (Jer.
23: 18-22); and again, he says,
“Surely
the Lord [Page
189]
God will do nothing,
but he revealeth
his secret to his servants, the
prophets”
(Amos 3: 7). And it is
worthy of observation that it is
especially with reference to His judgments to be
executed on the earth that the
Lord thus speaks - such judgments as He is about to
bring on Sodom. It
is indeed a very peculiar and precious
privilege of this divine friendship, thus to understand,
from his own previous
explanation of them, the terrible visitations of the
Lord. To
the friend of God, these visitations of
vengeance are not, as they appear to other men, mere
accidents of fortune, or
sudden outbreaks of capricious wrath.
To
him they have a clear meaning - distinct and
well-defined end. And
hence, while others are distracted and
overwhelmed, he stands fearless amid the ruin.
What a privilege is this!
See the ungodly, the worldly, overtaken with
swift destruction.
Sudden calamity comes upon them; they are
stupified, they stand aghast; not knowing what to make
of the dispensation; not
knowing where to turn.
It is a
mysterious, an inscrutable providence - is their only
cry. What
means it? What
shall we do? But
the friend of God is not thus, even in
the worst storms, all at sea and unprepared.
He can form some idea of the meaning of such
visitations; he can put
upon them a right construction, and turn them to a right
account. He
can glorify God, and kiss the rod; he can
stand in awe, and not sin.
So, when the
judgments of God are abroad in the earth, and men’s
hearts begin to fail them
for fear, the friend of God, understanding that these
things must be - and
understanding also why they must be - to prove and to
avenge His own elect ‑
can “make his refuge in the
shadow of God’s wings,
until the calamities be overpast”
(Ps. 57:
1).
He is
not alarmed, or offended, or shaken in his loyalty, by
all that he sees God
doing on the earth - most unaccountable though many of
His doings may be.
He has been taken into the divine confidence,
so that now he “dwelleth in the
secret place of the
Most High” (Ps.
91: 1). And “when
the Lord
cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of
the earth for their
iniquity,” they who are His friends hear His
gracious call, “Come my people,
enter thou
into thy chambers, and
shut thy doors about thee.
Hide thyself, as it were, for
a little
moment, until the
indignation be overpast”
(Isa. 26:
20).
(2) The Lord, in communicating His purpose to Abraham His
friend, refers not only to the high honour and privilege
which that relation
implies, but also to its great responsibility – “For
I
know him, that he will
command his children and
his household after him, and
they shall keep the
way of the Lord, to do
justice and judgment;
that the Lord may bring upon
Abraham that which he hath
spoken of him” (ver.
19).
The
same consideration is largely dwelt upon in the seventy-eighth
Psalm, as a reason for the recital of the
Lord’s mercies and judgments
which that Psalm contains (ver.
1-8). For the
transmission from generation to
generation of the true knowledge and worship of God, it
is essential that they
who are to command and teach their children after them,
should themselves
understand the scheme of God’s providence, so as to be
well acquainted with
what He has done, and is yet to do, on the earth.
Abraham is highly commended by God, as one
who will assuredly be faithful in this work of the godly
training and godly
discipline of his household.
As the head
of a family - as [Page
190]
a witness for God to the generation
to come - as a teacher of righteousness, he is intrusted
with a most important
office, and he will not betray His trust.
And that he may the better and more effectually
fulfil His trust, the
Lord hides not from him that thing which He is doing. He explains to
him the coming judgment upon
“I will sing of judgment as well as
mercy,” says the Psalmist.
And if
any one be indeed the friend of God, he will enter with
holy sympathy into the Lord’s
hatred of sin, and not shrink from steadily
contemplating and solemnly
declaring His judgments to be executed on the workers of
iniquity. For
to be the friend of God is to stand by
Him against all His enemies - to resent with a holy
indignation all insults and
injuries offered to Him, and to approve of His purposes
of wrath as well as of
His plans and promises of love.
Other
men may abuse or misinterpret the Lord’s forbearance;
putting a false
construction on it, as if it implied either connivance
at the guilt of sin, or
want of resolution to punish it.
But you
who, as the children of Abraham are, like him, the
friends of God, are admitted
into His councils.
You understand the
principle of His providential rule - the reason of that
long patience which He
has with the workers of iniquity; and you know that
vengeance postpones but not
averted must be all the more terrible in the end.
Having yourselves scarcely escaped from the
wrath to come, by fleeing for refuge to the hope set
before you in the gospel,
you look forward with trembling awe to the desolation to
be wrought on the
earth. For
the Lord does not hide from
you that thing which He does.
You see
Him coming down to inquire into the great wickedness of
which the loud cry has
entered into His ears.
He shows you His
arm bared and uplifted to smite terribly the earth. And He does
so, that you may command your
children and your household after you; that “knowing
the
terror of the Lord you may persuade men.”
-------
4.
THE
Then
the LORD said to me,
Do not pray
for this people, for
their good. - Jer. 14:
11.
[Page 191]
(VERSES 23-33)
This
pleading with God is the last and highest privilege of
that divine friendship which
is exemplified in the case of Abraham.
He manifests, in the whole of it, the most
profound deference and
humility, as if deprecating the divine displeasure; “Oh
let not the Lord be angry, and
I will speak;”
“Oh let not the Lord be angry,
and I will speak, yet but this
once” (ver.
30-32);
and as if he were himself astonished at the
liberty he has been emboldened to take, “Behold,
now I have taken upon me to
speak unto the Lord,
which am but dust and ashes”
(ver. 27-31).
But he
uses, at the same time, extraordinary freedom of speech,
and an importunity
that will scarcely take a denial.
Nor is
it for himself and for his own house that he pleads with
the Lord. That
would be much. But
it is for a city, the cry of whose
wickedness has brought the Lord down from heaven to
search it out, and to visit
it; which is more, greatly more, to be wondered at. That, on the
strength of the friendship to
which he was so specially admitted, the patriarch should
have all boldness in
asking favours on his own behalf and on behalf of all
that were his, - might
not be so very surprising.
But that he
should venture to come between the great and terrible
God and the doomed
objects of His righteous indignation; that with no
personal interest at stake -
nothing that could give him, as it were, a title to
interfere - he should dare
to arrest the uplifted arm of vengeance, and deprecate
the descending blow; as
if he affected almost to be more reasonable and more
merciful than the very God
of love Himself; - what intimate, unbounded, most
artless and fearless
confidence of friendship does this imply!
Surely it is the perfection of that love which
casteth out fear!
Let it be observed, however, first, that there is no intrusive
forwardness in this intercessory pleading; no attempt to
pry into the secret
things which belong to the Lord our God (Deut.
29: 29);
no
thought of meddling with the purposes or decrees of
election, which the Lord
reserves exclusively to Himself.
The
patriarch does not aspire to any acquaintance with these
high and hidden
mysteries; nor does he consider that to be necessary in
order to his offering
such sort of prayer.
Why, indeed, should
it be thought necessary?
Why should any of
you ever feel yourselves hindered or restrained in
praying for the unconverted,
- for the unconverted world, - for unconverted cities, -
for unconverted
individuals, - because you are ignorant of God’s purpose
of election respecting
them? Does
that ignorance prevent you
from labouring for their good?
Not
unless your mind is wholly perverted by unprofitable
speculation. You
have no embarrassment about addressing
yourself to the task of doing all you can for the
conversion of one, respecting
whom you are sure there is a pre-determinate purpose of
God, while yet you know
not, and cannot know, what that purpose is.
You set yourself to the work, because what you do
know of the nature of
the danger and the method of deliverance is sufficient
to warrant reasonable
hope, and to make exertion on His behalf, and the use of
means, an anxious
labour indeed, but far from desperate.
And what more is needed in order to your praying
for him? You
cannot but desire His salvation, and [Page 192] assuredly, so long as he is spared, you are not forbidden to desire
it. And
what is that very desire itself
but prayer? Your “heart’s desire,”
and therefore
“your prayer” for him, is
that he may be saved (Rom.
10: 1).
Certainly Abraham stood on no other ground than
you may occupy, when he
pleaded with God for the cities of the plain.
He was as ignorant as you are of the Lord’s
eternal decrees. But
he laid hold of the things revealed, as
belonging to men and to their children; and therefore he
longed, and, longing,
he prayed that to each and all of the sojourners in the
plain the long-suffering
of God might yet in the end prove to be salvation (2
Pet. 3: 15).
Nor, secondly, does Abraham in this pleading arrogate any
thing to himself. It
is not an
intercession on the ground of any merit of his own, or
any title he may have to
obtain favours for others.
He does not
ask the Lord, as for his sake, to spare or bless those
for whom he prays.
There is one intercessor alone to whom this
is competent, the one only mediator between God and man,
Jesus Christ the
righteous. It
is in a very different
character, and in a very subordinate capacity, that
Abraham ventures to plead
for his fellow-sinners.
“His goodness extendeth
not to the Lord;” “he
is but dust and ashes.”
Nay, so far as he is himself personally
concerned, he is lost and condemned.
It
is by grace alone, and through a righteousness not his
own, that he has any
footing at all in the favour and friendship of God. But the
footing which he thus has is a very
sure as well as a very exalted footing.
He has “boldness and
access, with
confidence;” he has liberty to converse with
God
familiarly as a friend; and not for himself only, but
for others, and indeed
for all, to invoke the name of Him whose “memorial
to
all generations” is this: - “The
Lord, the Lord God
merciful and gracious, long-suffering,
and abundant
in goodness and truth; keeping
mercy for
thousands, forgiving
iniquity, transgression,
and sin,
and that will by no means clear
the guilty” (Exod.
34: 6,
7).
For, in the third place, Abraham’s expostulation proceeds upon
this name of the Lord; - or in other words, upon the
known character of God,
and the known principles of His administration.
Aspiring to no acquaintance with the secret
decrees of God; - and
standing upon no claim of merit in himself; - he has
warrant enough for the
earnestness of his intercessory pleading, in the broad
general aspect of the
nature and moral government of God, to which he
pointedly refers. He
knows God as the just God and the Saviour;
and on that twofold knowledge of God he builds his
argument.
(1) “Is God unrighteous in taking
vengeance?”
Far be that thought
from the devout and humble heart of believing Abraham. He does not
cherish the vain and presumptuous
notion on the strength of which not a few are inclined
to build their hope of an
undefined measure of indulgence being extended to the
ungodly. They
would oppose the infliction of judgment
altogether, as implying extreme severity and
unreasonable harshness. Even
(2) What, then, precisely is his plea?
On what is it that he rests his hope in these
plaintive intercessory petitions? – “Wilt
thou also
destroy the righteous with the wicked?
Peradventure there be
fifty righteous within the
city: wilt thou also
destroy and not spare the place
for the fifty righteous that are therein? That
be far from thee
to do after this manner, to
slay the righteous
with the wicked: and
that the righteous should
be as the wicked, that
be far from thee”
(ver. 23-25).
What
is it that he is so anxious about in this earnest
pleading? Is it merely the
temporal destruction of the righteous who may be in
Sodom that Abraham
deprecates so pathetically - their being involved in the
judgment of fire which
was to overtake the devoted city?
Doubtless that is an evil against which, on
behalf of his godly
neighbours, the friend of God does well to pray.
The desolating march of God’s ministers of
wrath here below, - the devouring fire and the raging
storm, - war, pestilence,
and famine, cannot but affect most grievously the
faithful people of God, who
may be dwelling among the objects of His just
indignation. And
on that ground alone may one interceding
for them desire and ask the suspension or removal of
such wide-sweeping calamities
impending over the cities of their habitation. But the
righteous, after all,
whatever may come upon the wicked, and however they may
suffer along with them
for a season, are safe in the end.
It is
not for their sakes chiefly that delay of the threatened
doom, and a lengthened
season of gracious forbearance, are to be sought.
At any rate, Abraham’s petition goes far
beyond the mere exemption of the righteous from
temporary suffering and
trial. That
might have been accomplished
in another way than the one which he points out; - as
ultimately it was
accomplished by the deliverance of
For he has got hold of that grand principle of the moral
administration of God, as applicable to this fallen, but
not irrecoverably
fallen, world, that the righteous “are
the salt of the
earth.” He
has learned the lesson
which the parable of the tares was intended to teach. So long as God
may have a single stalk of
wheat in the field, which might be lost and confounded
among the tares in their
premature destruction - so long as he may have a single
little one not yet
gathered to Himself from among the crowd of the ungodly
- so long as the mass
is not so hopelessly corrupt and putrid, but that the
savour of one holy man’s
zeal and love may yet keep some small portion of it from
decay - so long God
will spare the most abandoned city, and will not sweep
the earth with His besom
of destruction. On
this assurance
Abraham plants his foot.
From this high
ground he makes his assault, as it were, knocking at the
door of Heaven’s
mercy, and importunately besieging the throne of Him who
“would have all men
every where to be saved.”
Spare
Such is the principle of Abraham’s intercession for
And now, the Lord having communed with Abraham as His friend,
and “gone his way,”
Abraham “returns unto his place”
(ver.
33).
With so many tokens of the divine friendship, he
may well return in
peace. He
may well use the language of
gratitude, “Return unto thy rest,
0 my soul, for
the Lord hath
dealt bountifully with thee” (Ps.
116: 7). Yes.
For he has been enabled virtually, in faith, to
use the language of
submission – “Father, if
it is possible, let
the cup pass.
Nevertheless, Father, not
my will but thine
be done.”
Altogether this divine friendship has in it passages of most
wonderful grace. (1)
The Lord has
condescended to visit Abraham on terms of very intimate
familiarity, -
accepting a common office of kindness, and sharing his
simple and homely
noonday meal. (2)
He has blessed, by His
presence, Abraham’s heart and home; searching out,
indeed, hidden unbelief, as
well as timid, faithless guile; - but yet speaking a
word in season; - speaking
comfortable, speaking peace.
(3) He has
not hid from Abraham the thing He is doing.
He has made him acquainted with His judgments,
that in the day of
calamity his own soul may not be overwhelmed, - and
that, knowing the terror of
the Lord, he may persuade men.
And (4)
He has permitted the patriarch to unburden his soul, by
pouring out his desires
on behalf of the godly remnant in the midst of an
ungodly city, as well as on
behalf of the ungodly city itself.
Are not these the very privileges of that friendship in which
we may rest and rejoice, - friendship with the same Lord
who thus treated
Abraham as His friend?
Let us hear His
own word: - “Ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever I command you.”
We are His friends, on the very same ground
on which Abraham was called His friend, and to the very
same effect. “Henceforth, I
call you not servants; for
the
servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but
I have called you friends; for
all things that I
have heard [Page
196] of
my father I have made
known unto you”
(John 15: 15).
*
*
*
CHAPTER 23
THE
GODLY
SAVED, YET SO AS BY FIRE; THE WICKED UTTERLY DESTROYED
GENESIS
19
And if the righteous is saved with difficulty, where
shall
the ungodly and the sinner appear? - 1 Peter
4:18.
The
catastrophe recorded in this chapter is typical of the
final judgment of the
world; while at the same time it illustrates the
principles of the divine
administration, as connected with that solemn procedure. In both views,
the narrative is referred to
and commented upon, not only by our Lord in His
discourse upon the downfall of
The expression, “the Lord knoweth how
to deliver the godly out of temptations” is
very emphatical and
comprehensive. He
can, and He will
deliver them; He is sure to deliver them; and His
deliverance of them will be
in a way of His own, - by mingled mercies and judgments,
“by terrible things in
righteousness.”
But while He is delivering them, He keeps the
wicked in reserve for final condemnation.
So the Lord “delivered just
1.
Among the preliminaries of the deliverance I
notice first, what is
implied in the very name given to
When
How has he escaped the contamination?
What is the sure sign that he has escaped it,
as well as the explanation of his escape?
What is the testimony of the Holy Ghost?
He was “vexed with the
filthy conversation of
the wicked: for that
righteous man dwelling
among them, in seeing
and hearing, vexed his
righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful
deeds” (2 Pet.
2: 7,
8).
That
was his security; he
retained his
spiritual discernment, his spiritual taste.
He loved not them that hated the Lord; he had no
sympathy with their
ungodliness. He
did not learn to
palliate or excuse, either their unholy opinions or
their unlawful deeds, - to
call them by smooth names, affect a soft and serene
charity, and hope the best
even of the world lying in wickedness.
He was vexed, - he vexed himself.
The English word here is too weak by far.
He was wearied, worn out, worn down, by the
impieties with which the lawless were conversant.
They were an intolerable burden to him.
Thus the Lord knew how to deliver him, by
keeping alive in his soul, amid
abounding iniquity, an undiminished zeal for truth and
righteousness, and an
uncompromising hatred of all evil.
2.
Secondly, That on the eve of this
dread catastrophe,
When the two angels came to
Nor was this an easy exercise of godly charity, or one
implying little personal risk.
He made
his house a mark for the assaults of “the
men of the
city,” who could scarce endure that so godly a
man should dwell among
them, - far less that he should reprove or restrain
their sins. That
fearful night tried both them and Lot. “The
wicked plot against the just.”
Doubtless they have an old grudge to
gratify. And
now they seize the opportunity
of at once indulging their passions, and wreaking their
vengeance on one whose
faithful testimony and consistent life they have found
to be an intolerable
offence and provocation (ver.
4-6). The man of
God, meanwhile, all unconscious of
the gathering storm, is enjoying the rich reward of his
seasonable hospitality.
He has made a feast for his unknown guests.
To his surprise and delight, he discovers their
holy character, perhaps
also their heavenly rank.
An hour is
spent in quiet and blessed fellowship; the evening
service of devotion is over;
the family of the godly are preparing to lie down in
peace. But
there is no peace to the wicked; they are
as the troubled sea that cannot rest.
Thus the wild tumult rages all around, while the
house of the man of God
is as a little ark of safety.
Once,
indeed, even that sanctuary is almost violated.
“Just
Are the ungodly then to triumph?
Is
Suddenly
3.
In the third place, that
As yet the night is calm; - no sign is there of the fiery
storm. The
unbroken earth is reposing
under the serene and starlit sky.
What does this dreamer mean with his dismal cry of woe?
Our fathers lived and died in these cities, and
all things continue as they were in their days.
So might the scoffers say; forgetting already, in their wilful
ignorance, the watery foundation, and the watery fate,
of that old world, which
the flood swept away; and not considering what magazines
of explosive fuel
their sulphurous soil even now concealed, ready, on the
touch of a single bolt
of heavenly fire, to burst forth and devour them.
So
will the scoffers of all ages say, losing sight alike
of the recorded instances
of God’s past judgments in history, and of the
appalling signs and symptoms
with which even the present economy of the world
abounds, ominous of more
terrible judgments yet to come.
For in
the elements of nature the Lord has
instruments and materials of His vengeance, whether
through flood or flame,
always prepared; “fire and
hail, snow and
vapours, stormy wind
fulfilling his word” (Ps.
148: 8). And in the
bowels of this globe, as in a deep
and vast storehouse, there is matter in abundance,
with volcanic agency enough,
to involve the whole, at any moment, in one burning
ruin.
But, as it will be in the end of the world [or “Age”], so was it in that catastrophe by which the end of the world was
foreshadowed. The
crowded thousands in
these cities, all unconscious of the charged mine on
which they stood, laughed
to scorn the voice of warning.
But the
godly man who uttered it lost
not his reward.
“Their blood was on
their own heads; they
died in their iniquities.”
But “he delivered his
own soul.”
4.
Coming now from the preliminaries of the
deliverance to the actual
deliverance itself, I remark, - in the fourth place,
that the haste, the
friendly violence, the stern command with which Lot was
hurried out of the
city, and on to the mountain, are unequivocal marks of
this deliverance being
the Lord’s (ver. 15-17). For
there is scarcely any surer or more characteristic sign
of the Lord’s manner of
delivering the godly out of temptation than this.
He uses a constraining force, and teaches
them to use it. The
kingdom of heaven is
taken by violence.
For, first, He rouses them betimes, and hastens them to
depart, on pain of instant destruction (ver.
15).
Again, when they loiter and linger, loath to
leave all the world behind,
He constrains, and, as it were, compels them (ver.
16).
Nor will He suffer them so much as to look back
or to pause; onwards,
still onwards, for your lives, is His word (ver.
17).
Thus decisive and peremptory is the Lord’s
dealing with those whom He
would save. But it is not more peremptory than the case
requires.
(1) To snatch a brand from the burning - to apprehend a soul
just about to be consumed with the wicked - to get Lot
out of Sodom - to bring
you, brother, out of Babylon - demands not a soft and
gentle touch, but a
prompt, powerful, and commanding grasp.
“When the morning arose,
the angels hastened
Are you in danger of perishing in the midst of those on whom
the [Page 200] wrath of God lies? Are
you
entangled in the world’s friendship, and is the world
swiftly to be
judged? Is
the morning almost already
risen - the morning of the judgment day?
And are you still to be delivered?
Is “the harvest past,
- the summer ended, - and you
not saved?”
What time is this for
delicacy and dalliance - that your couch should be very
cautiously approached,
and your rest very softly and smoothly broken, lest some
pleasing dream should
be too rudely interrupted, and the shock of an abrupt
awakening should ruffle
and discompose you!
And, when you open
your drowsy eyes, and listlessly catch the hasty summons
to arise, - will you
still complain that it is too soon to be up, murmuring
your sluggish wish – “yet a
little sleep, a little
slumber?”
Bless the Lord, if in such a crisis He has not taken you at
your word, and let you alone, as you desired Him to do;
if He leaves you not to
repose, but cuts short your half-waking and dreamy
musing; if He “hastens you.”
“Awake! Arise! Lest
thou be consumed in the iniquity of the city!”
(2) But, when all is ready, and you are now at the very point
to flee, do you linger still?
Is there a
moment’s halting - a moment’s hesitation?
Are you wavering?
Are you
undecided? It
is Satan’s golden
opportunity. Another instant of doubt or of
deliberation, and you are lost.
Bless the Lord again, - who, being merciful to you, seizes you
by the hand, and, scarce allowing you time to think,
brings you quickly forth,
and sets you without the city!
“While he lingered,
the men
laid hold upon his hand; the
Lord being merciful
unto him; and they
brought him forth, and
set him without the City” (ver. 16). Oh, how many of
God’s people have found and felt, - in the very act of
their turning their back
on an evil world, and quitting its snares forever, - a
kind of infatuation or
spell coming over them; - like that fatal torpor, which,
creeping upon the
frozen limbs of the wanderer amid the snows, tempts him
to lie down for a
seductive rest! Were
there but a
companion near, to take him at that critical moment by
the hand, the doomed man
might be made to move on; his lethargic apathy would be
shaken off. Let
but a few paces be briskly traversed, and
he would be safe. So
God apprehends the
fugitives from
(3) Is there, after all this, danger still?
Have the fugitives not escaped?
May they not conclude that all is safe? Alas,
no! They
have escaped indeed, but how
narrowly! - by what a hair’s-breadth!
And they must make good their escape; they must “make their calling and election sure.” Moved and led
by heavenly power, they have
been brought forth, and set without the city.
But the command still is, “Escape
for thy life;”
and the warning is, “Look not
behind thee, neither
stay thou in all the plain” (ver.
17).
But may not the exile, now that he is fairly out of the city,
relax his speed, and proceed a little more leisurely?
May he not cast his eye
once more on the scene he is forsaking, and indulge one
last, lingering,
farewell look? At his peril be it if he do.
One who should have shared his flight to [Page 201] the last has
tried the
experiment. She
cleaves to her
old home; she loves
the
world, and in the world’s swift judgment she is
miserably
engulfed. “His
wife looked back from behind him, and
she became
a pillar of salt” (ver.
26). One
look behind is fatal; to pause is ruin.
[“Wherefore let us cease to speak of
the first principles of Christ, and press on unto
perfection …, “To lay hold of the
hope
set before us”
(Heb. 6:
1, 18,
R.V.).]
Who is there who has been persuaded and enabled to come out
from among the ungodly, - escaping the corruption that
is in the world through
lust?
“Remember
5.
In the last place, one other feature of this
deliverance, and of the
manner of it, is to be noticed, as specially marking it
to be of the Lord.
Not only is the sovereignty of the Lord
manifest in the very peremptory tone of authority, as
well as in the
constraining hand of power, which, in a manner, force
Lot out of Sodom; - the
grace of the Lord also remarkably appears in the
seasonable personal interview
vouchsafed to him, and the tender and paternal
solicitude evinced for his
immediate comfort, not less than for his final safety. For the Lord
manifests Himself to Lot in
another way than He does unto the world, - in a way of
peculiar favour, -
listening to his remonstrance and conceding his request
(ver. 18-21).
That it is the Lord Himself who now confers with Lot, may be
fairly gathered from the use of the singular pronoun
instead of the plural,
indicating the presence of one distinct from the “two
men,” or angels, who at first ministered to
him, - as well as also from
the style of Lot’s address, and of this divine person’s
reply. Lot
speaks to Him as to the Supreme God, and
in that character also He speaks to Lot; taking upon
Himself the divine prerogatives
of accepting the person of the godly, hearing his
prayer, and determining the
time of judgment on the wicked.
Thus it
would seem that He who had remained behind with Abraham,
while His two
attendants went on to
(1)
(2) Nor is this all.
His Saviour is one who is touched with a feeling
of his infirmities, and
will not refuse his prayer.
“Lord, I
believe, help thou
mine unbelief,” is, after all, the best
profession for a feeble soul to make. The faith of
[* NOTE. Keep in mind: A “mountain,” in
scripture, is typical of a “Kingdom”!
See, Dan. 2:
35; Isa.
2: 2;
Matt. 16:
28; 17:
1.
The Lord often gives His redeemed people what they
want! “See,
I have accepted thee concerning
this thing also.” However,
their choice may not always be for
the best!
Hence the importance of being: “Accounted
worthy
to attain to that age” - [i.e.,
the
kingdom “age”] “and
the
resurrection [out] from
the dead” (Luke 20:
35. cf.
Phil. 3:
11, R.V.): That is,
being included in the “Better
Resurrection,”
(Heb. 11:
35b.).]
The boon, indeed, though
granted, would, as the
Lord knew well, stand
Thus always, in little as well as greater matters, we may see
the Lord’s goodness in the land of the living.
Even at the worst, the world is not all barren. In the most
sweeping desolation, levelling
the houses and cities of our habitation to the ground, -
in the wide waste
beneath which all things bright and fair seem buried, -
some little Zoar is
left, some haven of rest in which the weary spirit may
recruit its
strength. Such
earthly refreshment the
redeemed child of God, who has turned his back on Sodom,
may lawfully ask, -
such green spot in the desert, - such little city of
refuge amid the storm; in
the bosom of domestic peace, and the endearments of a
quiet home; that he may
not be tried above measure.
Only let his
request be moderate; “See now it
is a little one,
- is it not a little one?”
Let it also be a
request offered in faith, as to a friend and father,
with submission to his
wisdom and trust in his love.
And if the
request be granted, - if the object of his fond regard,
for which he speaks, be
spared to him, - if he get a little Zoar to flee to, -
let him not set his
heart on it too much.
For a brief space
he may rejoice in it; but let him be ready to quit it
soon, as
(3) For yet, once more, the Lord has a sad lesson to teach the
patriarch, ‑ that it is not merely deliverance from
Let not him who is a fugitive from
Strange and startling issue of so wonderful an interposition
on the part of God!
And yet it is the
very issue fitted to crown the whole deliverance, and
prove it to have been the
Lord’s. “By
terrible things in righteousness” God answers
the prayers of His
people. And
especially when the risk
they run is of their own seeking, - as it was in the
case of
The whole history of Lot
is a precious lesson to the humble believer, whatever ground of triumph it may give to the proud
scoffer. And
it is a lesson to the one,
in the very particulars in which it is a cause of
boasting to the other.
That a godly man should have volunteered to
be a resident in
-------
THE
SEQUEL
OF THE DELIVERANCE
The end
of
this whole transaction is the destruction of the
ungodly. During
the process of delivering just
The sun, indeed, rose on the morrow.
But he was just “risen
on the earth when
Then comes the end; the judgment for which the wicked have
been reserved; inevitable and inexorable.
For this is the manner of God.
Long time His hand seems to tremble, as if He
were reluctant to
strike. But
He is waiting for the day -
the fixed and appointed day.
So soon as
that day’s sun is risen on the earth, the stroke
descends. And,
when it does descend, it is with
terrible decision.
There is no relenting
then; no apparent hesitation; no more tender reasoning
with Himself - “How shall I give
thee up, Ephraim? How
shall I deliver
thee,
For He is the Lord; - He changes not.
He changes not, either in His purpose of
saving love, or in His purpose of righteous retribution. Not in mere
weak and fond compassion does He
spare the guilty - but on a set plan of righteousness -
for a set end - during
a set time. And
not in sudden anger, -
but in the terrible calmness of deliberate judgment, -
He awards the punishment
to which they are reserved.
Up to the
very moment when the day of grace is expired, all things
continue as they were;
it would seem as if neither earth nor heaven were ever
to be shaken. “But the sun is risen
on the earth, when
Into the details of the catastrophe, it is not my purpose to
enter. It
may have been brought about in
a great measure by the agency of natural causes - by the
electric flash,
perhaps, and sulphurous and volcanic explosions.
The miracle of wrath lay in the foresight and
adaptation of all the physical as well as the moral
circumstances of the scene,
for the accomplishment of the will of God.
It is a scene to be repeated, on a vastly enlarged scale, at
the end of the world [i.e., the end
of this “evil age”].
For, “as it was in the
days of Lot, they did
eat, they drank,
they bought, they
sold,
they planted, they
builded; but the same
day that Lot went out of
Sodom, it rained fire
and brimstone from heaven,
and destroyed them all; even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed”
(Luke 17:
28-30). And what will
all their vain expedients for
dissipating thought and pacifying conscience avail the
unjust then? They
have “lived in
pleasure on the earth, and
been wanton; they have
nourished their hearts as in the day of slaughter.” They have been
reserved unto that day; shut
up, so that none can escape.
Viewed thus, what a spectacle does the ungodly world
present! A pen in which sheep are making themselves fat for the slaughter - a
place of confinement - a condemned cell - in which
sentenced prisoners are shut
up - sinners held fast in the hands of an angry God!
In that final catastrophe also, as in this type of it, a
refuge is provided for the godly.
The
Lord Himself comes, and the dead in Christ rise,
and the living are changed. Together they
are “caught
up to meet him in the air.” And then, but not before,*
“the heavens
shall pass away with a great noise,
and the elements shall melt with
fervent heat; the
earth also, and the
works
that are therein, shall
be burned up.”
[*
NOTE. A
comma, when used in prophetical scripture,
can separate an end-time destruction by “a
thousand
years!”]
But not as with the cities of the plain is it to be with the
world then. The
desolation is not
perpetual. No
[Page 206]
*
*
*
CHAPTER 24
THE
IMPRESSION
OF THE SCENE
WHEN
ALL
IS OVER
GENESIS
19: 27-29.
You shall not be afraid because of the terror by
night; or because of the arrow that flies by day; nor
for the plague
that walks in darkness; nor
for the destruction
that lays waste at noonday.
A thousand shall
fall at your side, and
ten thousand at your right hand; but
it shall not come near you.
Only
with your eyes you
shall look and see the reward of the wicked. Psalm 91: 5-8.
The
deliverance of Lot, amid the ruins of Sodom, is
specially connected with the
favour God had for Abraham; “And
it came to pass,
when God destroyed the cities of
the plain, that God
remembered Abraham, and
sent
Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when
he
over threw the cities in the which Lot dwelt” (ver. 29).
The patriarch, let it be remembered, was at this time living
within a few hours’ distance of the devoted cities; -
probably within sight of
them. Of
the three divine guests who
rested with him at noon, two were at the gate of
What desolation has the Lord wrought on the earth!
The fertile and smiling fields are as one
vast furnace; a noxious sulphurous vapour clouds all the
sky. Of the
cities which but yester night were
thronged with countless thousands of thoughtless
sinners, not a trace
remains. So
sure, so sudden, so terrible,
is this judgment of the Lord.
Has
Abraham been indulging some vague and uncertain hope -
as if the threatened
doom might yet be averted - as if, when the hour came,
the Lord might relent?
One glance in the early morning puts to
flight the imagination.
It is hard, even for God’s faithful people, to realize the
certainty and the terror of His coming wrath on the
children of disobedience;
it demands a certain unquestioning and uncompromising
loyalty, to which it is
difficult indeed to attain.
To sympathize
with God in His purpose of judgment; - to recognize the
righteousness of the
doom He inflicts, with feelings free from all alloy of
vindictive satisfaction
or personal revenge; - is no easy exercise of faith. Even they who,
on their own account, have no
longer any interest in deceiving themselves on this
point, are too prone to do
so on account of others.
For it is a
coarse and senseless imputation which is sometimes cast
on the people of God,
when it is alleged that the comfortable sense of their
being themselves safe
may make them look with great complacency or
indifference on the doom of their
neighbours who are [Page
207]
lost.
The real tendency of their hearts - the actual
temptation to which they
are liable - is precisely the reverse.
In their own experience, - taught by a quickened
conscience - and the [Holy] Spirit
convincing them of sin, of
righteousness, and of judgment, in their own
apprehension, they know the terror
of the Lord so well, so vividly do they realize His
terrible indignation
against all iniquity, - that they almost shrink from the
thought of any one of
their fellow-creatures enduring even the convictions to
which they have
themselves been subjected.
Much more do
they recoil from the idea of his suffering what these
convictions foreshadow
and foretell - the gnawing of the worm that never dies,
and the burning of the
fire that never can be quenched.
Little do the scoffers know of the deep movements of a
believer’s soul, when they would represent him as
exulting over the world that
knows not God, or feeling anything in the least like a
zest or relish in the
anticipation of its fate.
In point of
fact, he is in nothing more apt to yield to his evil
heart of unbelief than in
the cherishing of a kind of latent incredulity
respecting the punishment of the
ungodly. He
can scarcely think so very
badly of them, - adorned as they may be with many
amiable and friendly
qualities, - as to be quite satisfied that they must
inevitably perish.
He would fain persuade himself that judgment
will not be so inexorable and severe.
He
cannot bring himself to conceive of their being all - in
one common ruin -
swept remorselessly away.
Thus even the
friend of God, in the tenderness of his heart, may be
tempted to feel; and this
lurking feeling tends to lower the tone of his piety, as
well as to enfeeble
the voice of his testimony against the world’s sin, and
his pleading for the
salvation of the sinner’s soul. [See Exposition
of
the First Epistle of John, Lecture 13]
It is good for him, therefore, to gaze on the desolation of
that smoking plain.
How many fond
surmises - how many indistinct and half-unconscious
presumptions respecting
God’s indiscriminate clemency - how many relenting
emotions of false pity and
false hope - what deceitful pleadings for ungodliness -
what inclinations
towards the palliating or justifying of evil - what
notions of sin’s possible
impunity and the relaxing of judgment at the last hour -
notions most dangerous
alike to the cultivation of personal holiness and the
discharge of the public
duty of rebuke and persuasion, - does that one glance
dissipate and dispel
forever!
Does Abraham retire to rest at night, tempted, in spite of all
that he has heard of Sodom’s intolerable wickedness and
the Lord’s stem purpose
of wrath, still to entertain the fancy that the case of
these sinners may not
be, after all, so very bad, and judgment may not be so
very terrible and so
very near? Does
he go out in the morning
to the spot where, on the previous day, the Lord had
communed with him on this
very subject, almost expecting to see the green valleys
smiling and the lofty
turrets shining, as of old, in the sun’s rising
splendour? A single look is
enough. Too
surely does he see that the
Lord’s word is true; that judgment is certain; that “it
is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the
living God.”
There is a spectacle in this view more solemn still.
It is the cross of our Lord and Saviour Jesus
Christ. The
judgment which took effect
and was [Page 208] executed upon Him is the most affecting of all proofs
of the severity of God; - the only proof that will
silence every misgiving, and
awe into submission every lax and rebellious thought of
the evil heart of
unbelief. If
ever the friend of God is
conscious of an inclination to yield to the insidious
suggestion of a
sentimental pietism and spurious charity - to think
that, after all, there may
be no such wide separation between the godly and the
unjust - between the
Lord’s people and the world from which they have come
out - and that possibly,
in the end, there may be no necessity for the actual
infliction, on all who
will not come to Christ that they may be saved, of so
terrible a sentence as
that of eternal death; - if ever any follower of Jesus
detects himself thus
falling into the vague reasonings of carnal wisdom, and
beginning to confound
the essential distinctions alike of the law and the
gospel, - to become the
apologist of them that hate God, and to question even
the word of the Most
High, which dooms the wicked to hell [“Gehenna” or “the
lake of fire”]; - let him go
out betimes in the
morning. Let
him take his stand on an
eminence - apart, by himself alone. Let him behold and
see, - not a smoking
plain, filling the air with unwholesome vapour, - but
darkness on the face of
the earth, and amid the darkness, One who knows no sin
pouring out His soul
unto the death for sin - the well-beloved Son of God
enduring the wrath of
heaven! Then
and there let him learn a
humbler, a sounder faith.
What must that
judgment be from which the blood of Jesus alone could
redeem! What
that aggravated doom which must
inevitably await those who crucify the Son of God
afresh, and put Him to open
shame! “If these things were
done in the green tree,
what must be done in the dry?”
(Luke 23: 31).
But in the midst of wrath the Lord remembers mercy.
The prayer of His friend and servant Abraham
is not forgotten; it proves not to be unavailing.
At first, indeed, it might seem as if the
only answer he was to receive was the sight of this
universal desolation.
But let him look more narrowly, and he may
see one little city exempted for a time from the fiery
storm. Let
him wait a little, and tidings will reach
him of his friend’s marvellous escape.
For
But “by terrible things in
righteousness” the Lord answers prayer.
Abraham’s kind interest in
* *
*
[Page 209]
CHAPTER 25
CARNAL
POLICY
DEFEATED -
EVIL
OVERRULED
FOR GOOD
GENESIS 20; 21: 22-33.
A
man’s heart plans his way;
but the LORD
directs his steps.
Proverbs
16: 9.
For
the rod of the wicked shall
not rest on the lot of the righteous; lest the righteous put forth their
hands to iniquity. - Psalm
125: 3.
The
curtain has closed upon the tragical catastrophe of one
act in the divine
drama; commencing with the first arrival of Abraham and
Lot within the borders
of Canaan, and ending with the fatal storm that turned a
smiling valley into
the
The transition is marked by a removal, on the part of Abraham,
from the place where he had hitherto pitched his tents;
he “journeyed from thence toward
the south country, and
dwelt between Kadesh and Shur,
and sojourned in Gerar” (Gen.
20: 1). His change of
residence was probably
connected with the terrible disaster which he had
witnessed. It
was high time to move from the accursed
neighbourhood, and it was good for him to be reminded
that he was but a pilgrim
in the land. He
had now sojourned for
many years in the plains of Mamre (13:
18; 18:
1), and he had seen
much of the Lord’s goodness,
as well as of the Lord’s terror, there.
But still greater things await him ere his
pilgrimage finally
closes. The
last stage of his earthly
journey is to be the most signally blessed and the most
remarkably tried of
all.
Over its commencement indeed there hangs a dark cloud, into
which it would be painful, as well as unprofitable, to
search too
carefully. It
is a repetition of the
patriarch’s previous sin, in connection with his wife (chap.
12); and it is,
therefore, all the more
inexcusable. To
account for his conduct,
without at all extenuating it, some probable explanation
may be gathered from
the narrative.
1.
In the progress of religious
apostasy and corruption, a frightful dissolution of
manners seems to have
extensively overrun the nations; and, in particular, the
inhabitants of
2.
In accordance with this general
impression as to the nations with whom his wandering
life was to bring him into
contact, the patriarch had adopted at the outset a
general rule, which he
explains to Abimelech: "I thought, Surely the fear of
God is not in this
place; and they will slay me for my wife's sake;"
therefore, "when
God caused me to wander from my father's house, I said
unto her, This is thy
kindness which thou shalt show unto me; at every place
whither we shall come,
say of me, He is my brother" (ver. 11‑13). This does not
justify his
evasive policy; it rather aggravates it, as showing it
to have been systematic
and deliberate. But it explains the repetition of the
incident, and the reason
why a single cheek did not suffice to prevent it.
On the former occasion, the Lord did not expressly condemn
Abraham, or explicitly forbid the offence of which he
had been guilty. That
he was virtually reproved, and in a way
fitted to humble him to the dust, is plain enough; but
the reproof was indirect
and inferential. For
God does not rule
believers by mere precepts and prohibitions, precisely
and literally laid
down. He “guides
them with his eye.”
They are not
“like the horse or the mule,”
who can be turned
or restrained only by positive coercion – “by
bit and
bridle.” They
are expected to
watch the very look of the Lord; the eye with which He
guides them; any
indication of His will which conscience, exercised in
prayer upon the leadings
of His providence, may give.
Such is
God’s discipline of His people.
It is a
discipline which hypocrites and formalists cannot
understand; a hint,
therefore, is lost on them.
And even on
true believers, a hint is apt to be lost.
They might often gather from circumstances what
the Lord would have them
to do; as Abraham might have learned, from that previous
incident, the lesson
of straightforward and single-eyed simplicity in serving
God. But it
was an old pre-concerted plan which
would have been thus broken through; and there was no
specific injunction given.
The patriarch was not alive and alert enough
to note and be guided by the Lord’s eye.
In consequence, he was led to persevere in a
practice evidently reproved
by God, and to repeat conduct which the Lord had marked
with His displeasure; -
conduct which all the rather should have been abandoned
because the displeasure
was [Page 211] indicated indirectly in a way so full of grace and
kindness. This
want of discernment, this
failure in the watchful docility and tact which ought to
characterize the walk
of a justified sinner and reconciled child with a
gracious God and father,
brought sin a second time upon Abraham himself; and
formed the double precedent
which, it is to be feared, occasioned subsequently
Isaac’s similar offence.
3.
The poor evasion which the patriarch
tries to plead in excuse of his conduct might be less
discreditable, according
to the usages of that age, than when tried by the
standard of an entirely
different state of society and of the social relations. “And
yet indeed she
is my sister; she is
the daughter of my father,
but not the daughter of my
mother; and she became
my wife” (ver.
12).
Marriage was then lawful within degrees since
forbidden; and the term
sister was commonly applied to any female as nearly
related by birth as Sarah
was to Abraham. So
far, he is warranted
in what he says. His
real fault was his
concealment of his marriage; a point on which he might
consider himself at
liberty to exercise his discretion.
That
he did wrong in resorting to this expedient of
concealment is certain; nor does
it appear that he means to justify himself in the
explanation which he gives to
Abimelech. He
may rather be regarded as
merely wishing to show what it was that suggested to him
the policy he had
adopted, and made it possible for him to follow it. But for the
relationship which actually
subsisted, he could not have thought of this mode of
hiding what he did not
think it safe to avow.
4.
The root of bitterness, however, in
this melancholy instance, was an evil heart of unbelief. His faith
failed him exactly where the faith
of many a believer fails; - not in any fundamental
article of the Lord’s
covenant, nor in the main and essential characteristics
of his walk with God; -
but in the practical application of the promises of that
covenant and the
principles of that walk to some one or other of the
details or the difficulties
of his ordinary worldly condition.
He
forgets that he is to bring the high principles of his
loyalty to heaven to
bear upon the minutest incidents of his state on earth. He begins to
consult and act for himself,
instead of leaving all to God.
It is
this infirmity of faith which occasions so many
inconsistencies in his daily
walk - which entangles him so often in unworthy schemes
of compromise and
evasion - which mars his peace, and makes him, as a
double-minded man, unstable
in his ways. And
it puts him too often
at the mercy of those to whom his disingenuous reserve
gives an advantage over
him. Like
Abimelech, they may have cause
to reproach him for the want of that manly and open
frankness which it had been
better for all parties if Abraham in this emergency had
shown.
Still it was good for Abimelech, on the whole and in the end,
that a servant and prophet of the Lord was brought into
his neighbourhood.
God made even the infirmity of the patriarch
the occasion of a blessing to the king.
1.
It procured for Abimelech the
advantage of an immediate visit from God Himself.
That visit was partly in severity, and partly
also in kindness. The
king, in this
matter, though not aware of the actual state of the
case, was by no means free
from blame. The
judgment, therefore,
which the [Page 212] Lord sent on his house (ver.
18) was not
undeserved. But
it was mainly with a merciful design that
God interposed to warn him.
He
acknowledges Abimelech’s plea of ignorance and innocence
in regard to the
heinous crime which he was in danger of committing;
while He orders him to
redress the wrong which he had undoubtedly done (ver.
5-7).
2.
This untoward occurrence was in
another way overruled for good.
It procured
for Abimelech the friendship and the intercessory prayer
of one of the chosen
servants of God. This
was to him a
signal benefit, and he was evidently taught gratefully
to avail himself of it.
When these two distinguished persons the prince and the
patriarch, mutually both sinned against and sinning met
after the incidents of
that memorable day and night, there was much in what had
passed to knit them
closely together; and in the frank explanation which
ensued between them, there
is much that is honourable to both.
The
king, indeed, has some cause of complaint, and he does
complain. He
asks what offence he had given to Abraham,
or what wickedness Abraham had seen in him, to provoke
or warrant the course of
conduct he had thought fit to adopt towards him?
And he puts forcibly to Abraham the evil of
that conduct, as not only insulting to himself
personally, but fitted to “bring
on him, and on his
kingdom, a great sin”
(ver. 9,
10).
This
honest expostulation must have humbled the patriarch;
and both he and his
partner must have felt some shame under the well-merited
and delicate hint
implied in the gift of the veil.
[Such a
hint seems to be intended in the somewhat obscure
language – “And unto Sarah he
said, Behold,
I have given thy brother a
thousand pieces of silver:
behold, he
is to thee a
covering of the eyes, unto
all that are with
thee, and with all
other. Thus she was reproved”
(ver. 16). The king
intimates, by way of gentle reproof,
that he has made a present to her brother, or husband,
of a sum of money for
the purchase of coverings for the head, for herself and
for her attendants, to
be worn in token of their being under Abraham’s
protection and authority;
whence, it has been thought, we are to trace the custom
to which the apostle
Paul refers, as sanctioned by the proprieties of nature,
and therefore comely
in the church of God (1 Cor.
11: 3-15).]
But
they do not recriminate.
On the
contrary, Abraham seems to acquiesce in the king’s
censure, simply venturing to
offer an explanation, rather than an apology, for his
conduct. And
the king must have condemned himself -
all the more because the patriarch abstained from
retaliating his accusation.
He could not but be touched by the thought of
the difficult and dangerous pilgrimage to which Abraham
was called, and the sad
and peculiar hardship of his position, which seemed to
render necessary such an
expedient as he had adopted.
He could
not fail to sympathize with the perplexities and
embarrassments which led so
holy a man to have recourse to such arts.
Thus Abimelech might be prepared to make a friend
of this prophet of the
Lord, whom he had unwittingly proposed to injure in so
tender a point. He deals
with him on terms of princely liberality; loading him
with favours; and he
reaps a rich reward.
He obtains an interest in the prophet’s prayers.
This was the inducement held out to him by
God: “Restore the man his wife,
for he is a prophet, and he
shall pray for thee, and
thou shalt live”
(ver. 7). Accordingly
the [Page 213] patriarch “did
pray unto God, and God
healed Abimelech and his
house” (ver.
17).
Abraham thus redresses his share of the
wrong. Of
the two parties who have offended,
each, according to his station and office, seeks to
requite the other.
The prince bestows his royal bounty, the
prophet gives his prayers.
The friendship thus begun is at a subsequent period matured:
and on that occasion it still more signally turns to
Abimelech’s account (21: 22-34).
This incident is chiefly remarkable as illustrating the
progress of Abimelech’s faith, and the consummation of
his union with
Abraham. It
occurred after the birth of
Isaac; when Abraham, having dismissed the son of the
bondmaid born after the
flesh, has now centered all his hope in the son whom he
had received by
promise. In
these circumstances,
Abimelech pays him a visit in state, and proposes to
make with him a hereditary
alliance. In this proposal he has respect to Abraham’s
near relation to
God. He recognizes him as a prince; and evidently anticipates his future
possession of the land.
He assumes that
Abraham and his seed after him are to have an
inheritance in
First, however, he tests the sincerity of Abimelech, by
appealing to him on a point of ordinary justice about a
disputed right of
property in what was then and there of great consequence
(ver. 25-26).
It
relates to the possession and use of the well named
Then, this little preliminary being happily adjusted, Abraham
proceeds to ratify the covenant of friendly alliance by
a transaction which
seems to partake of the nature of a sacrificial offering
(ver. 27-31).
For
the seven lambs set apart by Abraham, to be “taken
of
his hand” by Abimelech that quantity being too
small for a mere present,
and being the well-understood sacred and sacrificial
number - were probably
designed to be victims.
The patriarch
and the king, therefore, by engaging jointly in [Page 214] that solemn
rite, confirmed their
compact, as not a civil and political treaty merely, but
one that was religious
and spiritual also.
It would even appear
that provision was made for their continuing afterwards
to join in occasional
acts of worship. The
grove planted in
Thus Abraham blessed Abimelech: not merely giving him, as a
prophet, an interest in his prayers, but, as
the
heir of the land and the father of the promised
seed, admitting
him into a participation of the
privileges and prospects of his faith.
It is truly, in all views of it, a signal
instance of evil overruled for
good; it is a remarkable illustration of the Psalmist’s
devout utterance, “Surely the
wrath of man shall praise thee; the
remainder of wrath shalt thou restrain” (Ps. 76:
10).
And not merely in its bearing upon the individual interests of
the parties principally concerned is the issue of this
transaction significant
and important. It
is to be considered
also in a larger and wider point of view.
It is an
early example of the
fulfilment of the assurance, that in Abraham and in
his seed all the families
of the earth were to be blessed.
It
is not for himself alone that Abraham has found favour
in the eyes of God, and
has become the father of the one seed to whom all the promises are made (Gal. 3: 16);
but for others
also, not of his natural
lineage, if only they are willing to receive all
covenant blessings on the same
footing with himself.
For this end
he is brought in contact with Abimelech; for this end
the incidents of their
intercourse, so painful and yet so blessed, are placed
on record; that the
comprehensive character of the dispensation of God
towards the patriarch may
receive an early illustration, and that the one spirit
animating the church
from the beginning may be seen to be what is expressed
in the glorious
missionary psalm: - “God be
merciful unto us, and
bless us; and cause
his
face to shine upon us; that thy way may be known upon
earth, thy saving health among all nations. Let
the people praise thee, 0
God; let all the people praise thee. 0 let the nations be glad and sing for joy:
for
thou shalt judge the people righteously,
and
govern
the nations upon
earth. Let
the people praise
thee, 0 God; let all the people praise thee. Then shall the earth yield her increase;
and God,
even our own God, shall
bless us.
God shall bless us; and
all the ends of the earth shall fear him”
(Ps. 67).
*
*
*
[Page 215]
CHAPTER 26
THE
SEPARATION
OF THE SEED BORN AFTER THE FLESH FROM THE SEED THAT IS
BY PROMISE
GENESIS
21
Of the
three pictures which this chapter brings before us,
especially in the first
twenty verses, the last is by far the most interesting
and attractive to the
eye of natural taste, and the sympathy of the natural
heart.
The festivities attendant upon the birth, the circumcision,
and the weaning of Isaac, are contemplated with a
feeling of decent and
respectful acquiescence, such as seems due to the
venerable character of the
parties chiefly concerned (ver.
1-8). The strife,
again, which some time after
ensues in the household, irritates and offends the
onlooker; - recalling, as it
does, to his mind that former most unseemly female brawl
(chap. 16),
whose
smothered embers seem to be now breaking out afresh into
a still more
outrageous heat (ver.
9-14). But the scene
of the poor wanderer, with her
helpless boy, in the wilderness of
Thus, as to the first, if there be an occasion on earth fitted
to call forth the songs of heaven, next to the birth of
Jesus, and not second
to the birth of His forerunner John, it is the birth of
Isaac. Upon
no event, between the fall and the
incarnation, did the salvation of men more conspicuously
depend. And
yet few verses of the Bible are more
commonplace, and less awakening - at least in our modern
view of them - than
those that describe the entertainment with which the
child of promise [Page 216] was welcomed (ver. 3-8).
Nevertheless, Sarah’s song, “God
has made me to laugh, so
that
all that hear will laugh with me,” is the brief
model, first of
Hannah’s (1 Sam. 2:
1-19),
and
then of Mary’s (Luke 1:
46-56). And the
whole
ceremonial here briefly indicated has its antitype and
accomplishment in
the advent of the Messiah.
As it stands in the history, and as it would appear at the
time to the contemporary dwellers in the land, the
incident that stirred
Abraham’s household was insignificant enough.
It was a wonder, no doubt, fitted to awaken some
attention, that the pilgrim
pair should, after so long a childless sojourn together,
be blessed with
unexpected offspring.
But it was a
wonder that might soon pass into forgetfulness.
Little notice, after all, would be attracted by
it then beyond the lowly
tent of the patriarch; and little heed may be given by
superficial readers now
to the summary record of it in the Scriptures; so
analogous are the methods of
the divine procedure, in providence and in revelation. Let us enter,
however, by faith into the mind
of the faithful patriarch, as it must have glowed with
holy gratitude on the
three successive holidays of his son’s birth, his
circumcision, and his being
weaned from his mother’s breast; - let us feel as
Abraham on these occasions
must have felt. And
let us seek to catch
the spirit of the hymn then virtually anticipated in
Sarah’s exulting note of
joy - the hymn of the heavenly hosts rejoicing in the
assurance of salvation to
a lost world, “Glory to God in
the highest, and on
earth peace, good will
toward men” (Luke 2:
14).
It is the central incident, however, the expulsion of Ishmael,
which chiefly staggers our natural judgment, while it is
that very incident of
which the most emphatic use is made in other parts of
Scripture for the
purposes of the spiritual life.
Beyond all question, the thing here done is felt, at first
sight, to be harsh; and the manner of doing it perhaps
even harsher still: “Sarah saw
the son of Hagar the Egyptian, which
she had born unto Abraham, mocking.
Wherefore she said
unto Abraham, Cast out
this bondwoman and her
son: for the son of
this bondwoman shall not be
heir with my son, even
with Isaac” (ver.
9, 10).
Surely never was slight offence more spitefully avenged!
An unmannerly boy vents some ill-timed and
ill-judged
jest; - and his mother as well as himself must be cast
helpless on the wide
world on account of it!
It looks like
the very wantonness of female jealousy and passion. No wonder that
the proposal vexed and shocked
the patriarch. No
wonder that he needed
a divine communication to make him recognize in his
irritated partner’s
unrelenting demand – “Cast out
the bondwoman and her
son” - the very mind and will of God Himself; -
“God said unto Abraham, Let it not be
grievous in thy sight because of the lad, and
because of thy bondwoman; in
all that Sarah hath
said unto thee, hearken
unto her voice; for in
Isaac shall thy seed be called” (ver.
12, 13).
Now, it is not necessary to acquit Sarah of all personal
vindictiveness, or to consider her as acting from the
best and highest motives,
merely because God commanded Abraham to “hearken
unto
her voice.”
It may have been in
utter unconsciousness of its being a heaven-directed and
heaven-inspired [Page 217] voice, that Sarah, yielding to an impetuous temper, called for the removal
of a rival out of the way of her son’s succession and
title to the
inheritance. At
the same time, even if
it was so, there are certain circumstances which should
be taken into account,
not for the vindication of Sarah’s conduct, but for the
better understanding of
the divine procedure.
1. Thus, in the first Place, let the actual offence of
Ishmael, now no longer a child, but a lad of at least
some fourteen years of
age, be fairly understood and estimated.
The apostle Paul represents it in a strong light
- “He that was born after the
flesh, persecuted him
that was born after the Spirit;” - and
he points to it as the type and model of the
cruel
envy with which the “children
of promise”
are in every age pursued, for he adds, “even
so it is
now” (Gal.
4: 28,
29).
From the history itself in fact, it is plain enough that
Ishmael’s “mocking” had a
deeper meaning than a
mere wild and wanton jest.
The “children,”
the lads or young men, who “mocked”
Elisha after the translation of his master in
a chariot of fire, “saying unto
him, Go up, thou bald-head; go
up thou bald-head,” - knew what they were about
better than we are apt to think (2
Kings 2: 23,
24).
It was no boyish frolic - no senseless
insolence
to Elisha personally - no idle mockery of his grey and
scanty locks - that was
so promptly and terribly punished;
but a
profane and ribald outburst of blasphemy against the
stupendous miracle which
had just taken place.
They mocked,
not the prophet, but his God; when scoffing at Elijah’s
glorious ascension into
heaven, they taunted his venerable follower with impious
scorn; - Thou, too, “thou
bald-head, go up,”
as
he did! The
mockery of Ishmael was
probably of a similar kind.
That it
had respect to the birthright is evident, both from Sarah’s reasoning, and from the
Lord’s. She assigns,
as the cause of her anxiety to
have Ishmael cast out, her apprehension lest
he
should claim a joint-interest with Isaac in the
inheritance. And
the Lord sanctions her proposal on this
very ground, when He says to Abraham, “In
Isaac shall
thy seed be called.”
It was a quarrel, therefore, about the birthright, that the mockery of Ishmael indicated or
occasioned. And
if we suppose him, as is
all but certain from the whole tenor of the scriptural
references to this
transaction, to have been instigated and encouraged by
his mother, - considering
the prize
at stake,
and the impetuous blood that boils
in the dark veins of Africa’s daughters, - we can assign
no limits to the
extremities her desperate maternal ambition might
prompt. It
may have been little more than an act of
self-defence on the part of Sarah, when she seized the
first opportunity of
overt injury or insult, to
put an end to
a competition of claims that threatened consequences
so disastrous.
2.
Again, secondly, it is to be remembered that the
competition in question
admitted of no compromise; and that, whatever might be
her motives, Sarah did,
in point of fact, stand with God in the controversy. She believed
God, when in accordance, not
more with her own natural feelings than with the known
will of God, she
determined to resist every attempt to interfere with the
prerogative of the
child of promise. Her
determination also
would be the more decided, and her announcement of it
the more [Page 218] peremptory, if she saw any indication of hesitancy in the mind even of the
patriarch himself.
For Abraham may have
been swayed by his affection for his first-born child,
as well as Sarah by her
fondness for the son of her old age.
In
point of fact, Abraham felt great reluctance to give up
his hope of Ishmael
being his heir and successor in the covenant.
Before the birth of Isaac, he clung to that hope
with great tenacity,
and pleaded hard with God on behalf of Ishmael that he might have the birthright blessing (chap. 17: 18). And
even after that event, he seems still to have had a
leaning towards
Ishmael. He
can scarcely persuade
himself to hazard all on so precarious a risk as the
puny life of an infant who
has so strangely come and may as strangely pass away. He would fain
keep Ishmael still in reserve,
and not altogether lose his hold of that other line of
descent. He
would be for combining, in some way, their
joint claims, and so doubling his security for the
fulfilment of the promises.
That this may have been partly Abraham’s state of mind is not
at all improbable; nay, it receives countenance from the
pains which the Lord
takes to remove the last scruple of lingering unbelief;
- to reconcile him to the
destiny of Ishmael, and persuade him to acquiesce in the
purpose of sovereign
election – “In Isaac: shall
thy seed be called” (ver.
12, 13).
If
it was so, not only may the knowledge or suspicion of
such a leaning in their
favour have made Ishmael and Hagar more presumptuous in
their insolence; but
some light is thus thrown on the circumstances of very
peculiar difficulty in
which Sarah was placed, and the very trying part she had
to act towards
Abraham. She
was wont “to obey him, calling him Lord.”
But now, a regard to her own rights, - and
still more a regard to the will of God and the wellbeing
of her husband’s soul,
- constrain her, however affectionately, yet
uncompromisingly, to remonstrate
with him and to resist.
3.
In the third place, it should not be
overlooked that the severity of the measure resorted to
is apt to be greatly
exaggerated if it is looked at in the light of the
social usages and
arrangements of modern domestic life.
It was no unusual step for the head of a household, in these
primitive times, to make an early separation between the
heir, who was to be
retained at home in the chief settlement of the tribe,
and other members of the
family, who must be sent to push their way elsewhere. [Abraham
himself adopted this course with
reference to his other sons whom he had besides Ishmael. He “gave
all that he
had unto Isaac; but
unto the sons of the
concubines, which
Abraham had, Abraham
gave gifts, and sent
them away from Isaac: his
son (while he yet lived),
eastward,
unto the east country” (chap.
25: 5,
6).
This
statement occurs in the general summary of Abraham’s
history that ushers in the
account of his death.
It can scarcely be
doubted that the persons referred to as the mothers of
his sons, are simply
Hagar and Keturah; for with none else is there the least
hint of his having
lived in marriage.
They are both called
by the name commonly given to women occupying a
subordinate place in a man’s
household, as if to mark the unquestionable pre-eminence
of Sarah, the one
gracious spouse of the patriarch, with whom neither any
partner while she
survives, nor any successor after she is gone, is to be
for a moment put upon a
level. The
sons of both Abraham is represented
as treating exactly in the same way; [Page 219] his conduct
towards Ishmael did not
differ at all from what his conduct afterwards was
towards the children of
Keturah. But
there is no question as to
his just and liberal treatment of them; “he
gave them
gifts.” He
made provision for their
settlement, under his own eye, being both comfortable
and reputable; furnishing
them with the means of well-doing.
The
presumption surely is, that he meant to deal upon the
same terms with Ishmael
when he and his mother were cast out, and that this is
intended to be indicated
in the brief description subsequently given of his
manner of disposing of his
children generally.]
It would appear,
indeed, that the expulsion was in this instance hurried
and abrupt, at least at
first. The
case being urgent, Abraham
sends the young man and his mother somewhat hastily
away. But
it does not follow that they were sent
away cruelly or carelessly.
Nor are they
sent away to a far country.
They are to
wait for further orders on the very borders of the place
where Abraham himself
is dwelling. The
wilderness of
By some mistake or mischance, however, it would seem that it
unfortunately happened otherwise.
Were a
conjecture here warranted, it might be surmised as not
improbable that the proud
spirit of the Egyptian, stung by disappointment, may
have become reckless and
regardless, both of any provision her master may have
promised to make for her,
and of any directions he may have given as to the course
she was to follow.
After roaming thus heedlessly and aimlessly
for a time, she may have begun to suffer from the
reaction of high excitement;
losing her way and her presence of mind, and so bringing
upon herself an
unnecessary aggravation of her trial.
It
is some confirmation of the view now suggested, that
when Hagar’s tears and the
lad’s cries are heard on high, and the angel comes to
administer relief, the
manner of that relief is so very simple; “God
opened
her eyes, and she saw
a well of water; and
she went and filled the bottle [or skin,
N.I.V.] with water, and gave the lad drink” (ver.
19).
4.
Once more, in the fourth place, a
presumptive proof, at least, of the patriarch’s
continued interest in Ishmael
is to be found in the account given of his interview
with Abimilech, king of
Gerar. That
interview must surely have
had some connection with the immediately preceding
incident. And
the precise link of connection may be
found in what gave occasion to Abraham’s remonstrance;
he “reproved Abimelech because
of a well of water, which
Abimelech’s servants had violently taken away”
(ver. 25).
It appears from Abimelech’s reply that he was not aware of
this cause of complaint (ver.
26); - a circumstance
not a little remarkable, if
the well in question was upon the ground occupied by
Abraham’s own household.
But if it was a well that had belonged to Ishmael; -
especially if it was the
well which God caused Hagar in her distress to see, and
around which her son
might naturally form his earliest settlement,
Abimelech’s ignorance and
Abraham’s anxiety are simply and naturally explained.
For we may assume some little time to have elapsed before this
visit was paid by Abimelech to Abraham.
And indeed but very little time would be [Page 220] needed to give
Ishmael a position
among the companies that roamed the desert.
“God was with the lad;
and he grew, and
dwelt in the
wilderness, and became
an archer.
And he dwelt in the
wilderness of Paran; and
his mother took him a
wife out of the
The King’s servants have taken forcible possession of a well
that has been frequented by a small tribe of
adventurers. That
is an affair in itself too insignificant
to attract notice; nor, in ignorance of the relation of
the new tribe to
Abraham, could Abimelech be expected to know or care
much about the
matter. But
when Abraham explains that
relation; and, taking advantage of Abimelech’s friendly
visit, asks redress for
the wrong that had been inadvertently done, he gains
more for Ishmael than the
mere recovery of the contested well.
He
secures to him a footing of acknowledged independence
among the princes of the
land.
For the ratification of the treaty by sacrifice has special
reference to the well which Abraham claims as having
been dug by himself; and
which Abimelech accordingly cedes to him forever (ver.
27-30). The well
itself is called Beer-sheba - the
well of the oath; and it gives its name to the
wilderness in which it is
situated. It
is not therefore carrying
conjecture too far to suppose, if our previous
supposition as to the ownership
of the well be allowed, that the Ishmaelites may have
had a share, not only in
the covenant which was made at Beer-sheba, for the
securing of the right of
property that had been in dispute, but in the common
worship also which was set
up there, - for calling “on the
name of the Lord,
the everlasting God” (ver.
32, 33).
*
*
*
CHAPTER 27
ALLEGORY
OF
ISHMAEL AND ISAAC –
THE
TWO
COVENANTS
GEN. 21: 9-12; JOHN
8: 33-42; GAL.
4: 21-31.
“These
things are an allegory,”
says the apostle Paul, referring to
the two sons that Abraham had - Ishmael and Isaac - and
to the difference that
there was between them, first in
their
respective births, and afterwards in
the
positions which they held in the family of the
patriarch. “It is [Page 221] written that Abraham had two sons;
the one by a
bondmaid, the other by
a freewoman.
But he who was of the
bondwoman was born after the flesh; but
he of
the freewoman was by promise.
Which things are an
allegory” (Gal. 4: 22-24).
And the “allegory”
is continued down to the expulsion of Ishmael.
For the apostle adds, “Now
we, brethren, as Isaac was,
are the
children
of promise.
But as then he that was
born after the flesh persecuted him
that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now. Nevertheless,
what saith the Scripture?
Cast out the bond woman and her
son: for the son of
the bond woman shall not be heir
with the son of the free woman.
So then, brethren,
we are not children of the bond
woman, but of the free”
(Gal.
4: 28-31).
This history, then, is allegorical; it was written with a view
to its being allegorically interpreted and applied; and
the facts which it
registers were ordained and ordered with that view.
And yet the facts themselves are real; and they have a real
and literal importance apart from all allegory.
As incidents illustrative of human nature and
life generally - as
incidents, in particular, bringing out the actual
experience of believers in
the circumstances in which the church was placed at the
time - they are
significant and valuable.
Their
significance and value, in that view, have been already
opened up. They
are not a mere allegory; far from it;
they are the real actions of living men.
Still they are an allegory.
And they are so, not because an inspired apostle
has said it, but
because that is their real character.
Nor is it a character which belongs to them in
common with all events
that have happened or are happening upon earth.
All things may be said, in one sense, to be
allegorical; all objects and
all events. Not a blade of grass grows - not a sparrow
falls to the ground -
but an allegory may be made of it.
But
the peculiarity here is that the facts recorded have a
spiritual meaning in
themselves - substantially the same with the application
which they
suggest. Ishmael
and Isaac - Mount Sinai
and Mount Zion - Jerusalem which now is and Jerusalem
which is above - are all
of them contrasted pairs; not artificially but
naturally. The
principle of antagonism or contrast is
the same throughout; and it is exemplified completely at
each stage. In
Abraham’s twofold seed - the one after the
flesh, the other by special promise - we have the germ
of the whole gospel as a
system of free and sovereign grace.
And
the germ is only expanded and unfolded in the subsequent
revelations of Sinai,
and
Thus this transaction of the expulsion of Ishmael and Hagar is
an allegory; not merely because Paul has used it
allegorically, but because, in
its very nature, it is evidently designed and fitted to
be allegorical. “For these are the
two covenants;” they are allegorically or
spiritually the two covenants
- Ishmael and his mother Hagar representing the one -
Isaac, again, typifying
the other.
The contrast turns upon the distinction between Ishmael’s
footing and Isaac’s in
the house or
family of Abraham; a distinction real and
significant in itself, and
therefore capable of being selected to represent,
spiritually and by allegory,
an equally real and significant distinction in the
dealings of God with men
under the two contrasted covenants.
[Page 222]
For, in point of fact, the position of Ishmael in the
household did differ widely from that of Isaac.
It differed, especially, in two particulars; in
respect of the liberty
enjoyed, and in respect of the permanency secured. The son of the
bond woman had no such right
of freedom, and no such sure standing, as belonged to
the son of the free
woman. His
position was both servile
in its character, and precarious
in its tenure of duration.
Still farther, this twofold difference
between them is traced up to
the manner
of their respective births.
The one
was born according to the ordinary course of nature, the
other by special promise.
Whatever claim Ishmael had to be acknowledged
as a member of Abraham’s household rested merely on the
ordinary laws of human
nature and society.
Isaac’s claim, on
the other hand, flowing from the terms of the divine
promise, was very directly
and immediately of God (Gal.
4: 22,
23).
Now all this is exactly analogous to what constitutes the
characteristic difference between “the
two covenants.”
For what are the two covenants?
They are
the law and the gospel; the method of salvation by works
and the method of
salvation by grace; the one which says, Do this and
live, and the other which
says, Believe and live. And how are men connected with
these two covenants
respectively? By
birth; in the one case
natural; in the other, spiritual, or by promise.
Under the first covenant, men are naturally,
by their very coming into the world, placed.
Under the second covenant, they have no standing
by nature, but only
through grace alone.
But, still further, how do these two covenants tell upon the
position which men occupy in the house or family of God? That is the
main and vital question.
What position can men have under the first or legal
covenant? At
the best, a position
partaking much of the nature of a servitude, and
precarious, moreover, being
contingent on the issue of a probation or trial that
cannot be indefinitely
prolonged. For
the legal covenant “gendereth to
bondage” (Gal.
4: 24). It puts us and
keeps us in the position of servants,
- exacting high service under a heavy penalty, - and
chafing the earnest soul
with an increasing feeling of helpless subjection; and
that too in very
proportion to the spiritual insight it obtains into the
excellency of the
divine commandments, and the inevitable certainty and
righteousness of divine
judgment. Nor is that all.
Servile as
our footing is and must be under that covenant, it is
precarious also. We
abide in the house, in terms of it, only
by sufferance and for a brief season.
Any shortcoming in the fulfilment of the
conditions of our continuance
may at any moment be fatal to us; the time given to test
our character and
conduct may come to a swift and sudden end.
And then the impending sentence may be deferred
no longer; we must be cast
out.
But now, suppose that we are in the house upon another
footing; born, not after the flesh but by promise; and
placed, therefore, under
the evangelical covenant, saved by grace through faith.
Then, in the first place, we are in the house, as not bond but
free. We
have the rights of freedom and
the feelings of freedom.
We have not to
work for our liberty; we are already free.
For the gospel-covenant giving us life, not
conditionally upon certain
terms prescribed, but gratuitously - for [Page 224] the taking, as
men say - emancipates
us on the instant from legal bondage; breaks the yoke of
servile obligation,
and severs the fetters of conscious guilt.
The despairing worker under the law, the
condemned criminal vainly
toiling to win his release, is now pardoned freely; nay,
more than pardoned;
accepted and justified.
At once, and
once for all, he is placed upon a footing of free favour
in the household which
none can ever challenge or question.
For
“if God be for us, who
can be against us?
It is God that
justifieth, who
is he that condemneth?”
A second privilege, accordingly, of our birthright under the
gospel-covenant, is the security of our position [relative to our eternal salvation] in the house. We are no
longer in it as being merely tolerated,
or put upon trial; we are in it as already and once for
all approved. Our
standing, upon the terms of the legal
covenant of works, must always be precarious,
contingent, and conditional.
Even beings capable of fulfilling exactly all
the terms of that covenant could never divest themselves
altogether of the
feeling that they might yet be cast out; they could
never attain to the
assurance of their “abiding ever.” The un-fallen
angels themselves, who stood
firm and faithful when their companions were lost, could
not realize their own
security, had they continued still to be placed upon
probation. Some
change must have taken place in their
tenure of the divine favour after that sad catastrophe. They were
elevated, doubtless, to a higher
rank than had previously belonged to them, and brought
into such a relationship
of filial love to the Most High, as would carry with it
a sense of safety they
never otherwise could have enjoyed.
[See
Lectures on the Fatherhood of God -
Appendix 1 and 5.]
But if even sinless creatures must feel their footing in the
house insecure under the covenant of works, how much
more the guilty! Any
period of probation allowed to us for
trying the experiment again of our ability to win [eternal] life by our
own obedience to the law,
must be precarious indeed!
What thanks,
then, are due to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, who receives us
into His house, and takes us home to His bosom, on very
different terms indeed!
What praise for His free and sovereign grace,
in the exercise of which, “of
his own free-will he
begetteth us by the word of his truth, that
we should be a
kind of first-fruits of
his creatures;”
- placing us upon a rock which
neither earth nor hell can shake, and surrounding us
with the shield of His
everlasting favour, so that we are His forever - never
to be cast out!
Such, then, are the two covenants allegorically represented in
the family of Abraham.
Hagar, in the apostle’s view, typified, first Mount Sinai in
Arabia, and, secondly,
Over against that condition and channel of life the apostle
sets one higher, freer, and incorruptible.
And it is remarkable that in doing so, he partly
loses sight of the
symbol. He
speaks not of Sarah, the
proper antithesis to Hagar, in his ascending series of
contrasts. But,
reaching at once the summit, he brings
the
For it is not any personal pre-eminence on the part of Sarah
that
entitles her son to a preference over Ishmael; it is
simply his being the child
by promise. It
is as the child by
promise that he is no servant, but emphatically the son,
and therefore free.
It is as the child by promise that he
continues in the house, when the bondwoman and her son
are cast out. So
they whose mother is the Jerusalem which
is above, - who hold their spiritual life and standing
before God, not by
derivation from any visible earthly church, but by
fellowship with the
spiritual economy of the unseen world above, - are born,
not after the flesh,
but by promise. Hence
their title to a
free footing in the house.
That economy
which is their spiritual mother is itself free; and it
is the source of
freedom. It
is the system of free and
sovereign grace; and, as such, it ushers into life a
vast family of new-born
and free-born souls.
“It is the mother of us
all.”
Barren as it may seem in the eye of sense; incapable of
forming and preserving a collective or organized body of
worshipers; greatly
less efficacious for that end than “the
Jerusalem that
now is,” the apparatus of an earthly church,
with its baptismal unity
and outward pomp of service; - still the gospel plan of
salvation by free
grace, carried home by the Holy Spirit, and laying hold
of the conscience, the
mind, the will, the heart, - the whole inner man, in
short, - gives new life to
multitudes of the lost race of mankind, and heralds into
[eternal] glory such a
company of the redeemed,
as no family, or tribe, or nation, could ever count as
its own. “For it is written,
Rejoice, thou
barren
that bearest not; break
forth and cry, thou
that travailest not; for
the
desolate hath many more children than she which hath
an husband” (Gal.
4: 27).
These are the countless throng described as meeting around the
throne, and singing the song of Moses and the Lamb: “A
great multitude,
which no man could number, of all nations, and
kindreds,
and people, and
tongues,
stood before the throne,
and before the Lamb, clothed with white
robes, and palms in
their hands; and cried
with a loud voice, saying,
Salvation to our God which
sitteth upon the throne,
and unto the Lamb” (Rev.
7: 9,
10).
For
they all disown any earthly
* *
*
CHAPTER 28
THE
TRIAL,
TRIUMPH, AND REWARD
OF
ABRAHAM’S
FAITH
GENESIS 22
By
faith Abraham,
when he was
tested, offered up
Isaac.
Hebrews 9:
17-19.
Was
not our father Abraham declared
just by works when he had offered his son Isaac on
the altar?
- James
2: 21-23.
Your
father Abraham greatly
rejoiced that he might see My day, and He
saw
and was glad.
- John 8:
56.
The
temptation of our Lord in the wilderness occurred
immediately after His being
declared to be the Son of God by the voice from heaven
at His baptism (Matt.
3: 17). And
all throughout, the temptation turns upon the privilege
and prerogative which
His being the Son of God implies.
The tempter
would fain persuade Him to stand upon His right, as the
Son of God, - to avail
Himself of the power belonging to Him, in that
character, for His own relief
and His own aggrandisement, - and to snatch the
inheritance to which He is
entitled, as the Son whom God hath appointed heir of all
things, without
waiting the Father’s time and fulfilling the Father’s
terms.
It is not Satan, but God, who “tempts
Abraham,” or puts him to the proof.
So far there is a difference between the
patriarch and the Saviour.
The trial of the one is gracious and
paternal; the other has to stand a more fiery ordeal. Abraham has to
listen to God, and obey; Jesus
has to encounter Satan, and resist.
In other respects, however, there is a remarkable analogy
between the two events.
The father of
Isaac is tried concerning his son, at the very time when
that son has been
emphatically owned from above as the heir.
The Son of God is tempted upon the precise point
of His sonship, just
when it [Page 226] has been most signally and unequivocally acknowledged
by the voice from heaven.
Jesus is
solicited to grasp impatiently the inheritance of His
birthright, without
passing through the preliminary stage of His deep
humiliation and painful death.
Abraham, again, is expected to acquiesce patiently in
the putting off of the
promises, even though the sacrifice of his beloved
child, and the darkness of
that child’s tomb, he brought in between his hope and
its fulfilment. In the
one case, the question is, - Will the Lord Jesus
anticipate prematurely the
immunities and glories of the heritage ultimately
designed for Him? In
the other case, the question is, - Will
Abraham, on the part of his son, and as bound up with
his son, consent to their
being indefinitely postponed?
In this connection, the trial of the patriarch’s faith may be
viewed in two lights, as bringing out, first, the
general principle of his
faith, and, secondly, its more specific character and
reward.
1.
Let the general principle of Abraham’s faith, as
here exercised, be
considered.
If we look at the bare fact of a father offering up his son in
sacrifice, we can see little to distinguish the conduct
of the patriarch from
that of too many unhappy men who, in the dismal
infatuation of superstitious
fear, have “given their
first-born for their
transgressions - the
fruit of their body for the
sin of their souls.”
We search in
vain in such a work of delusion for real faith; - that
meek and holy trust
which alone can be either honourable to God, or saving
in its influence on the
soul of man. A
faith indeed of a certain
kind we may discover - a faith in the existence and the
power of God - a faith
also in the terror of His unknown judgment.
But it is such a faith as the devils have, who “believe
and tremble.”
We discover no
sense of the divine love, no enlightened and manly
confidence, in the father’s
severe and gloomy resolution.
All in his
soul must be doubt and darkness; doubt inexplicable,
darkness impenetrable.
And in the horrid deed of blood at which we
shudder, - by which the frantic parent would appease the
wrath of an inexorable
and implacable Deity, - we see no hopeful reliance on an
unseen benefactor, but
only abject and servile fear, grasping at a lie!
We must look, therefore, beyond the naked
fact that “Abraham offered up
Isaac,” if we
would rightly understand his faith.
Let us look, accordingly, to the occasion of the deed; - “Abraham, when
he was tried,
offered up Isaac.”
He made this sacrifice of parental affection
at the express command of God, and sought, perhaps, to
conciliate the favour of
God, not indeed by the costliness of his offering, but
by his ready and
implicit submission to the divine will.
Perhaps that may be a full account of Abraham’s
views and feelings in
this act, as well as of the motives from which he acted. So far it may
be so. He
certainly did well to submit to the
declared will of his Creator, however mysterious that
will might be. We
see in such obedience plain evidence of
faith; and of faith more enlightened in its nature than
what we formerly
observed in this sacrifice; - faith in the righteous
authority and moral
government of God, who commands, and requires obedience
to His commandments,
however inexplicable they may be.
But we
do not see faith confiding, clinging, living; for we
might conceive of the
heart of the forlorn parent inwardly [Page 227] rebelling,
while his trembling and
reluctant hand was stretched out to execute the stern
decree. Again,
therefore, we must take into account
some other circumstances of the case, if we would truly
estimate either the
intense severity of Abraham’s trial, or the
unconquerable energy of his faith.
It was “he that had received the
promises” who did all this.
In
full and faithful reliance on these promises, while as
yet he was childless,
Abraham left the land of his fathers, and went out, not
knowing whither he
went. By faith in these promises, he sojourned as a
stranger in the land which
his descendants were to possess.
On the
birth of Hagar’s son, despairing of any other child, he
cries, “0 that Ishmael might
live before thee;” but when the
long-expected heir is born at last, God, renewing the
promises, expressly
confines them to Isaac: - “In
Isaac shall thy seed be
called;” and as if to cut off all room for
doubt, Ishmael is expelled
altogether from the patriarch’s house.
All his hope now is centered exclusively in
Isaac. Thus
the promises which Abraham had received
were all closely and necessarily bound up in the life of
Isaac. And
it was that “only
begotten son” - in whom “his seed was to be
called” - on whom the
promises depended - whom, nevertheless, by faith in
these very promises, he was
ready at the command of God to offer up!
In the light of all these past proceedings on the part of God,
we can now better understand the trial and the faith of
Abraham, as they are
recorded with such affecting simplicity; - “And
it came
to pass that God did tempt Abraham, and
said
unto him, Take now
they son, thine only
son, Isaac, whom thou lovest.
And get thee into the
Was this, then, to be the end of all the patriarch’s hopes? -
this the fate of that son - the heir of so
many
promises, the child of such persevering faith, the
destined father of a
mighty people - in
whom all the families
of the earth were to be blessed?
Was
it thus that the old man, who had given up to God his
youth, his friends, his
home, his country, was to give up even Isaac, the child
of his old age, the son
of his love and his tears, his last and only stay? - to
give him up, too, to
the God in the fond faith of whose promises he had
already sacrificed so much,
and sacrificed all so vainly?
Were all
his long-cherished expectations to be thus cruelly
mocked, at the very time when
they seemed to be at last realized?
Yet we read of no hesitation - no natural regret - no murmur -
no thought even of remonstrance.
The
patriarch did not delay or deliberate an instant.
He rose up early in the morning, and took
Isaac his son, and went unto the place of which God had
told him. Then,
leaving his attendants behind, and
going on with Isaac alone, he “built
an altar there,
and laid the wood in order,
and bound Isaac: his
son,
and laid him on the altar upon
the wood” - and
these arrangements being deliberately made, “Abraham
stretched
forth his hand and took the knife to slay his son”
(ver. 3-10).
Here let us pause to contemplate the patriarch at this
tremendous moment.
Let us observe the
conflict between sense and faith.
In the eye of sense, he was by one rash act casting recklessly
away the tardy fruit of a long life of obedience, and
sternly sacrificing on
the altar [Page 228] of his God the very hope which that God had taught him
to cherish. Visions of grace and glory which had fed his
soul during the years
of his weary exile were fast vanishing from his view,
and his high prospects
were by his own hand now dashed forever to the ground. Henceforth he
was to linger out his days,
childless and hopeless; his faith turned into despair,
his joy into heaviness;
since, in the excess of his self-denying devotion, he
was obeying God, and yet,
by the very act of obedience, putting utterly beyond his
reach all
the blessing which he had been so
fully warranted by God Himself to expect.
But, in the eye of faith, the venerable patriarch was still,
even in this hour of terror, looking up to God, and
reposing with unshaken
confidence on that goodness which, during a long and
harassed life, had never
deceived or forsaken him.
The same
humble and holy trust in God, as his benefactor and his
friend, which had thus
far led him in safety, still triumphed over every doubt. Harsh as the
decree might appear, he knew by
much experience that God had never yet commanded him to
his hurt; and he felt
that the faithfulness of God must be as secure in the
time to come as he had
ever found it in time past.
The cloud,
indeed, might be dark which veiled the divine
proceedings from his view; but it
was not so dark as to cast a single shadow over his
heart. He
still trusted in the Lord as implicitly as
when first he abandoned his father’s house, casting
himself on the Lord’s
protection. It
mattered not to Abraham
that by sacrificing his only son, he was, to all
appearance, sacrificing his
hope of a future people and a future Saviour to spring
from him through that
son. It
mattered not that what God
commanded seemed most inconsistent with what God had
promised; and that,
according to human judgment, by obeying the command, he
was making utterly void
the promises. He
presumed not to
question the wisdom or truth of God.
He
simply confided in His faithfulness and love; being well
assured that God would
reconcile all difficulties in the end, and justify His
own ways, and accomplish
His own word.
Thus, “against hope he believed in
hope.” The
language of his
obedience was the language of Job: “Though
he slay me,
yet will I trust in him.”
Such was the spirit in which Abraham, on this occasion,
unreservedly obeyed God; such the principle of that
faith by which he was rendered
willing to offer up Isaac.
He did not
offer up Isaac in order that by so costly a sacrifice,
he might purchase or
propitiate the love of God; nor in order that by so
signal an instance of
obedience to the divine will, he might merit the divine
favour. He had already
received from God “exceeding
great and precious
promises” which, from the first, he implicitly
believed, and which, from
the first, warranted him in placing full reliance on the
love of God as already
his. He did
not seek to make out, by his
obedience, a claim to the favour of God, for the
promises of God had already
given him a claim sufficiently clear and sure. From the
first and all along,
his faith was altogether independent of his obedience,
resting simply and
solely on the promises of God; it was not the
consequence but the cause, not
the result but the motive, of his obedience. It was not
because he obeyed God
that he felt himself entitled to trust in God; but
because he trusted in God,
therefore he obeyed Him.
And his trust
rested not on any thing he had [Page
229]
done, or was willing to do, but
exclusively on the promises he had received.
That was the faith which made him cheerfully
consent to leave the land
of his birth, and carried him safely through all his
trials - even the present
trial as by fire; not a vague, doubtful, contingent
faith, timidly venturing to
deprecate wrath, and hoping, by good behaviour, to find
acceptance at last; but
a strong assurance of God’s faithfulness, and a blessed
sense of acceptance in
His sight, springing out of the simple credit which he
gave to the free and
gracious promises made to him.
Had he
not had such faith in God, he never would have taken a
single step in the
pilgrimage of toil and trouble which God prescribed. But God
promised, and Abraham believed; God
commanded, and Abraham obeyed.
Long
before this crowning instance of his obedience, Abraham
believed; “He believed God,
and it was
counted unto him for righteousness;” a
justifying righteousness was
imputed to him. It
could not, at that
time, be on the ground of his own obedience that he felt
himself warranted to
believe, but simply on the ground of the promises. And still, to
the last, even after this
crowning instance of his obedience, his faith was of the
same simple kind; resting
not on any service of his own, as if that were the
condition of his peace and
hope, but on the promises he had long before received,
and still continued to
hold fast.
Such is the explanation generally of Abraham’s faith, as
exemplified in the most memorable instance of its trial
and its triumph. It
is reliance, confidence, consent; taking
God at His word; closing with His proposals; resting
upon His known character
and revealed will; laying hold of Himself.
Thus viewed, it has a double efficacy, as a bond
of union and a motive
of action. It
unites him who exercises
it to the Being upon whom he exercises it; they are one;
and the oneness
implies justification, reconciliation, peace.
So far faith is receptive, appropriating,
acquiescing. But
it is an active and moving force, as well
as an acquiescent uniting embrace.
It
not only clings closely to the stem in which it finds
its inner life; it works
powerfully upward and outward, bringing forth fruit. Hence, while
in one view, it justifies by
apprehending a righteousness not its own, in another, it
justifies by verifying
and vindicating itself.
It justifies, as
resting upon God and receiving the promises; it
justifies, also, as proving
itself to be genuine, by obeying the command.
By faith alone Abraham was justified as a sinner
before God; by faith
alone he obtained acceptance in God’s sight; he
believed, and he was accounted
righteous. But
his faith wrought by
works; believing the promises, he obeyed the
commandment. And
by
this obedience, he was justified as a believer; nor
without it could he be
justified in that character.
By
words, his faith was verified and completed; and his
acceptance, as the result
of that faith, sealed and secured forever.
Thus we may understand the question of the
apostle James – “Seest thou how
his faith wrought by works, and
by works was
his
faith made perfect?” - in harmony with
what he immediately adds - “And
the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was
imputed unto him for righteousness” (Jas.
2: 22,
23).
That
very Scripture was fulfilled when “by
faith Abraham,
when he was tried, offered
up Isaac: and he that
had received the promises
offered up his only begotten son, of
[Page 230] whom it was said, That in Isaac shall, thy
seed be called.”
2.
Let the specific character and
reward of Abraham’s faith be now considered.
Its simplicity, viewed generally as a habit of
reliance on the promises
of God, and its power, as a motive of implicit
obedience, are sufficiently
brought out in the mere narrative itself of his trial
relative to the offering
up of Isaac. But
we seem to obtain a
deeper insight into its exercise and reward on this
occasion, when we look at
it in the light of allusions made to it in other parts
of Scripture. In
particular, both the apostle Paul (Heb.
11: 19),
and our blessed Lord (John 8:
5, 6),
lead us
to an understanding of the precise truths which Abraham
believed, more definite
than a perusal of the history, without the benefit of
their commentaries, might
of itself suggest.
They speak to the
question of the What? as well as the How?
It is not now merely - How did Abraham believe?
how strongly, unhesitatingly,
unreservedly? but, What did Abraham believe? what facts
and doctrines had such
a hold over his convictions as to make him willing “against
hope to believe in hope,” and to slay his only
son - the very son “of whom it
was said that in Isaac shall thy seed be called?”
One article of his creed is not obscurely indicated as having
some bearing on this act of faith.
He
did it, - “accounting that God
was able to raise him up,
even [out ‘ek’] from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure”
(Heb. 11:
19).
What gave him courage for the offering up of
Isaac, was his “accounting that
God was able to raise him up, even
from the
dead.”
But a question arises.
Was it a return to this present life that Abraham
had in his view, or a
resurrection to life in the world [age] to come?
Did he contemplate the possibility of a miracle
similar to that performed long after by our Lord in the
case of Lazarus? Or,
was he thinking of his lost child as
Martha thought of her departed brother, when, in reply
to the assurance of
Jesus, “thy brother shall rise
again,” she said,
so simply - “I know that he
shall rise again, on
the resurrection, at
the
last day.”
It may have been upon some such event as the raising of
Lazarus that Abraham reckoned.
The God
who commanded him, at one instant, to slay his son, was
able the very next to
restore him again to his arms. Abraham could not doubt
that. So
far, this may appear at first sight a
credible and consistent enough account of his conduct.
But on farther
consideration, it will
probably be felt by most men to savour somewhat of
refinement; it makes the
apostle’s explanation of the patriarch’s faith somewhat
farfetched and
artificial. Such
a raising of Isaac to
life again, was not a natural idea to enter into the
mind of Abraham; if it
had, it would have been fitted to give rather an
unmeaning character to the
whole scene in his eyes.
The intense
reality of it is upon this supposition gone; and a sort
of theatrical stroke,
or piece of stage effect, is substituted in its stead. We have the
impression that God is not acting
in His usual manner, or in a way altogether worthy of
Himself, in thus
commanding a deed to be done, on the implied
understanding that He is instantly
to undo it. And
Abraham putting his son
to death upon the faith of God being able to restore him
again to life, is
subjected to a physical rather than a moral trial - to
the mere instinctive
pain of imbruing his hands in kindred blood, rather than
to any exercise of the
higher and more [Page
231]
spiritual faculties or affections of
his soul. Surely, when
having built the altar and laid
the wood in order, and having bound Isaac his son, and
laid him on the altar
upon the wood, the venerable father stretches forth his
hand, and takes the
knife to slay his son - it
is with no
expectation of ever seeing him in this world again; it is a long last look of love that he
casts upon that dear face, and a fond and final farewell
that he sadly whispers
in that ear, as he nerves his hand for the fatal, the
irrevocable stroke!
And then, on the other hand, the idea of a resurrection to life
in a future state was as familiar to Abraham, as that of
a return from death in
this
world must have been strange and
inconceivable.
Had any one sought to encourage him
concerning his son, by telling him that it
was
not impossible for God to reanimate the mangled body,
and recall the
departed spirit; had some Eliphaz, or Bildad, or
Zophar been schooling him
to patience by some such discourse on the divine
omnipotence, and the abstract
possibility of a dead man being restored to life;
Abraham, like Job, might have
winced under the commonplaces of his miserable
comforters; but as to the notion
they would insinuate into his imagination, - he must
have rejected it as a
temptation, not from God, but from Satan; he must have
felt it to be a fond
delusion and a dream.
But it could not “be thought”
by him “a thing incredible that
God should raise the
dead” (Acts 26:
8).
On the
contrary, that is “the very hope
of the promise made of
God unto the Fathers,” as Paul speaks in his
defence before Agrippa; - “unto
which promise,” he adds, “our twelve tribes, instantly serving God
day and night, hope to come” (Acts
26:
7).
In the very passage, moreover, in which his
reference to the sacrifice
of Isaac occurs, he celebrates the faith of the
patriarchs generally, and
especially the faith of Abraham, as a faith which made
them feel that they were
strangers and pilgrims in the land, looking
for
a more permanent order of things beyond the tomb (Heb. 11:
9-16). And it is in
immediate connection with this
explanation of
the hope which
animated Abraham, as well as all that went before him in
the heavenly race,
that the apostle introduces, as a specimen and choice
example of it, the
incident of the offering up of Isaac.
Surely, therefore, we
may conclude, on all these
grounds, that what Abraham in this instance relied
on, was not generally the
power of God to raise the dead, but specially His
power to fulfil His promise
about the [out] resurrection and the inheritance of the world [or age] to come. It was no vague notion of the
divine omnipotence, - or of God being able to do
anything, however strange, -
that sustained the patriarch; but a hope
far more express and unequivocal; a
hope
having respect unequivocally to the world [or “age” (Lk.
20: 35)] to come.
Thus viewed, the trial of Abraham’s faith receives a meaning not perceived before.
He had been warned, that with respect to himself personally,
the promise of “the land which
God was to show him”
(Gen. 12:
1); - “the place which he should after receive as an inheritance” (Heb. 11:
8); - the very
promise on the faith of which
he left the country of his birth and the home of his
fathers; - was
to have its fulfilment in the resurrection state, [Page 232] or in the world to come. He had
been
told that he should “go to his
fathers in peace,
and be buried in a good old age,”
and that
several generations must elapse before the
land was to be taken from its present possessors
and vacated for his
posterity (Gen. 15:
15, 16). Thus
far
he had been taught to abandon the prospect of his
being himself put in
possession of the promised inheritance on this side of
time, and had been led
to regard it as a hope for eternity.
But he
might still be clinging to
the present - the seen and temporal - in reference to
his seed. Contented
to die himself before receiving the
promised inheritance, he
might still be
dwelling on the bright future that stretched itself
out before his children in
the land. And
now that Isaac was born,
he might be willing to say, as Simeon said, “Now
lettest
thou thy servant depart in peace,” - not from any spiritual apprehension of eternal things, but because he
could now leave behind him one who, even in a temporal point of view, might elevate his name and lineage among the families of men.
The command to offer up Isaac is the test of his faith upon
this very point. Is
he willing, not
merely to have his own inheritance postponed till after
the resurrection, but
the inheritance of his seed also?
Can he
bear to have, not only his own expectation, but that of
Isaac, deferred to the
future state?
He can; for he believes in the resurrection.
He “accounts that God
is able to raise him up, even
from the
dead” He can forego,
therefore, all his fond imagination of being the founder
of a family and father
of a great nation, in this present world [evil age]. He can
consent
to the arrangement that after his decease there is to be
no farther trace of
him excepting only in the line of Ishmael that has been
so unequivocally
disowned. He
is to die in a good old
age; and it may be that he is to survive the son of whom
it has been said, “In Isaac
shall thy seed be called.”
After his decease, there may be no genuine
representative of his house left behind; and to the end
of time it may be
matter of wonder and reproach that neither he, nor any
child of his, has ever
actually got possession of the inheritance, on the faith
of which he went out,
“not knowing whither he went.” But none of
these things move Abraham.
He looks not to the things which are seen and
temporal, but to the things which are unseen and
eternal; being well assured
that “if our earthly house of
this tabernacle were
dissolved, we have a
building of God, an
house not made with hands, eternal
in
the heavens” (2 Cor.
4: 18;
5: 1).
Great indeed, in this view, is the faith of Abraham - great
almost beyond our power of sympathy or insight. And yet
we may partly measure
it by the universal instinct which prompts men to aim at
leaving a name, or
building a house, that shall survive their own removal. One of the
most painful thoughts connected
with death is that “the place
which once knew us shall
know us no more;” and one of the strongest
natural desires in a parent’s
bosom is to live again in his children.
Not a few of us can make up our minds to our own
obscurity; but we yearn
after distinction in the race we are to leave behind. It is often
the last weakness even of a spiritual
man to cherish such prospects of posthumous renown; and
it is no trifling trial
of his spirituality when he must submit to his not
having, either in his [Page 233] own person, or in his posterity, a high position in the
world. But
if this is trying to a man
having only ordinary expectations in this life, what
must it have been to
Abraham? No
common parent is he; nor is it any common hope that is bound up with the son for whose birth
he has waited so long.
The child of
promise is the heir of no common birthright. A
glory coextensive with the blessing of
all the families of the earth is in store for his
seed; a mighty nation is to
hail him as their honoured sire; and the whole world
is to own him as the
source or channel of its regeneration.
And are the whole of these bright anticipations to stand over
till time gives place to eternity?
Is
the patriarch, after having been taught to see glorious
visions of temporal
greatness and spiritual good
hovering over the head of his dear child, visions
reaching to long ages and
embracing the entire family of man, not only to depart
himself ere they are
realized, but to have the realization of them made impossible in
the present world, and possible only in the world to
come?
Then so be it. “Lord, not my will but thine be done.” Abraham
believes that God is able to raise
the dead; and therefore he is willing to have the entire
inheritance of himself
and of his seed laid up in that unseen and eternal
heavenly state to which the faithful
dead are to be raised.
His faith in the resurrection reconciles him
to the loss of all his possessions and prospects in the
life that now is, and
enables him to lay hold of the treasure that is in
heaven.
Such, then, is the precise and specific character of Abraham’s
faith, as brought out in the greatest trial it had to
undergo. It embraces the
doctrine of the resurrection.
And it
embraces that doctrine with a cordial preference of the
state that is beyond
the resurrection over the state that is on this side of
it. There
is thus plain evidence in it of that
transference of the affections from earth to heaven,
which a divine agency
alone can effect. It obtains accordingly a suitable as
well as signal
reward. Being made perfect by works having its consummation in the act of
obedience
which it prompted it has its appropriate and congenial
recompense also in that
very act itself.
He “received”
Isaac “from the dead,
in a figure” (Heb.
11: 19).
He
“saw
the day of Christ, and was
glad”
(John 8: 56).
In the first place, “he received Isaac
from the dead, in a
figure.” In
the signal and seasonable deliverance of
his son he had a vivid representation of the
resurrection which he had believed
that God was able to effect.
To all
intents and purposes, Isaac had been dead, and was now
alive from the
dead. It
was an emphatic rehearsal of
the real and literal resurrection [of Christ]; nor could the patriarch, having been thus brought to
feel the power of the world to come, ever afterwards
lose the vivid sight and
sense he had got of its eternal realities.
Isaac has been spared to him; and, in
acknowledgment of his obedient
faith, the promises are renewed to him of a numerous
family through Isaac, as
well as of the Saviour in whom all the
nations of the earth are to be blessed (ver.
15-18). But the
blessings thus graciously secured to
him in time, must have a peculiar meaning now in his
eyes, when viewed in the
light of the resurrection and of eternity.
For the lesson he has been taught is really this;
- that the
promises reach beyond this present
life, and have their chief fulfilment in the life to
come; that, even [Page 234] if he should see no fulfilment of them here, this need not surprise or
grieve him, since there is a greater and better
fulfilment of them in reserve hereafter; and
that any
fulfilment of them he may see on earth
is altogether subordinate to the
fulfilment awaiting him in heaven. The birthright of
which Isaac is the heir, is now seen to have its
principal seat - not in this
world, where all is change, and where, in a moment, the
child of promise may be
suddenly cut off - but in the world to come, where there
is no more sorrow or
separation, because there is in it no more sin.
Thus, in the second place, “Abraham
saw the day of
Christ” in this
transaction, “and was glad.” For we can
scarcely doubt that it is to this
transaction that the Lord refers in His controversy with
the Jews on the
subject of their boast of liberty, and their standing in
the house or family of
God (John 8: 34-59).
[See
Lectures on the Fatherhood
of God, Appendix
5.]
It is an animated controversy.
The Lord drives them back from one point of
defence to another.
He proves that they are the servants of sin;
so that they can have no footing but that of servants in
relation to God. He
meets their proud boast of descent from
Abraham, by an appeal to their entire want of sympathy
with Abraham. He
meets their still prouder boast of having
God as their father, by the exposure of their
family-likeness, not to God, but
to Satan. And
at last, in answer to
their challenge – “Art thou
greater than our father
Abraham, which is dead?”
- He announces
Himself as the object of Abraham’s faith: “Your
father
Abraham rejoiced to
see my day;
and he
saw it,
and was
glad” (John
8: 56).
Now, the day of Christ which Abraham “rejoiced” - or earnestly
desired - to see, must be the day of which He Himself
speaks; “I must work the work of
him that sent me while it is day.”
It
is the day of His sojourn on
earth;
when He
glorified His Father, and finished the work given Him
to do. More
particularly, it is the day on which His work was finished, and He was Himself
acknowledged, accepted, and glorified by the Father;
according to the prophecy
of the second psalm - “Thou
art my Son; this day
have I begotten thee.” [“Ask of me, and I will give thee the nations for thine inheritance,
And the uttermost
parts of the earth for thy possession.”] For “this day,” as the apostle Paul
expressly explains it, is the day on which God “raised
up
Jesus again” (Acts
13: 33). That
is the day of Christ which Abraham desired, and was
permitted, to see.
But the sight which he longed to have of it must have been
something more than was ordinarily granted to the saints
and patriarchs of
old. They,
indeed, living by faith in a
Saviour yet to come, looked forward to His day, and
anticipated the time when
the Seed of the woman should bruise the head of the
serpent. But
what the Lord refers to would seem to
have been the peculiar privilege of Abraham; for Abraham
is very specially
represented as desiring to see “the
day of Christ;”
and as on some special occasion seeing it, and being
fully gratified with the
sight.
But what occasion in the history of Abraham can we fix upon
more probably than the occasion now before us? And does
it not give a very
beautiful significancy to that most mysterious
transaction, if we regard it as
the appointed means of affording to Abraham that glad
sight of “the day of Christ”
for which he had longed and
prayed? Regarded
in no other light than
as a trial of Abraham’s faith, the narrative of the
offering up of his [Page 235] son Isaac is abundantly interesting and affecting.
But it becomes still more so, if we look at
it in the light of our blessed Lord’s commentary.
Abraham had desired to see “the day of
Christ;” and a sight of it, more full and
distinct than believers of
that time ordinarily had, is to be granted to him. He is to see
in vivid reality the details of
that event, the general outline of which alone was then
communicated to
others. For
this end, he is to stand on
He beholds it in a threefold figure.
First of all, when he takes the knife, and
stretches forth his hand to slay his son, he is made to
realize the intensity
of the love of Him who spared not His own Son, but gave
Him up even to the
death. Again,
secondly, in the ram
provided for Isaac’s release, there is a vivid
representation of the great
principle of the sacrifice of Christ - the principle of
substitution. A
ransom is found for the doomed and
condemned - an acceptable victim is put in their place. But, thirdly
and especially, in the reception
of Isaac again by Abraham virtually from the dead, and
his welcome restoration
to his father’s embrace; - not, however, without a
sacrifice, not without
blood; - the [out] resurrection
of the Son of God, and
His return to the bosom of the Father - after really
undergoing that death
which Isaac underwent only in a figure - might be
clearly and strikingly
discerned. And
in Christ’s [select] resurrection,
his own resurrection
also was involved, as well as the resurrection of all
his true children, to the
inheritance of
[both millennial and]
eternal
glory.
Thus the very transaction which so severely tried the faith of
Abraham showed him all that his faith longed so much to
see. He saw
the day of Christ - the day of His
humiliation and triumph - not darkly and dimly as others
then saw it, but
clearly, distinctly, vividly.
He saw the
very way in which the salvation of man was to be
accomplished, and the blessing
purchased for all the families of the earth, by the
atoning death and glorious
resurrection of the beloved Son of God.
And seeing thus gladly the day of Christ, he saw
Christ Himself as the
Living One; - dead indeed, and sacrificed once for all,
yet still living, and
by His very death enabled to be the Author of life to
the “many sons whom he bringeth unto glory”
(Heb. 2:
10).
These, then, are the gracious fruits of this trial of
Abraham’s faith. They
are such as the
trial of our faith also may yield.
For
we are tried in the very same way with him.
We are called to give up to God the desire of our
eyes - the beloved of
our hearts - some dear partner, or child, or friend,
around whose brow, in our
fond esteem, the halo of many a bright anticipation
shone. It
is a bitter parting; and it is hard to
acquiesce in it, - to consent to it.
But
it is God’s will; and we submit.
And
what sustains us, but our accounting that God is able to
raise him from the
dead? Yes;
let him depart to be with
Christ - and let the once beauteous body rot in the
silent tomb to which my own
hand consigns it. I
know he is not lost
after all - My own inheritance now is not on earth but
in heaven; and in heaven
he will rejoin me again.
For myself and
for him, I place all my hope beyond the grave.
It is but a little while.
“This corruptible must
put on [Page 236] incorruption.” “The
Lord
shall appear, and all
that are his shall appear
with him in glory.”
Is my heart wrung with the anguish of that parting hour?
Is the bitterness of death felt in my
desolate home, and my still more desolate heart?
Ah! do I not now enter as I never did before
- with a new insight and new sympathy - into the agony
of the death endured by
Him who bore my sins in His own body on the tree?
And as I lift my thoughts from this shadowy
scene to the region of realities, how does my bosom burn
with adoring gratitude
and love to that Saviour who has spoiled death of its
sting, and the grave of
its victory, - who has abolished death, and brought life
and immortality to
light!
He calls me to
suffer with Him now, that we
may be “glorified
together” hereafter. He would have me to be partaker of His cross, that He may make me partaker of His crown.
Through His own day of suffering and shame,
issuing in His return to the Father’s bosom, He summons
me to the hope of that heaven
where He dwells. Am
I contented to have
all my hope there - and there only?
Can
I bear to have my portion postponed - my expectation
deferred - till the hour
when time gives place to eternity?
Can I
resign myself to the surrender of every thing dearest to
me here below -
friendship, love, happiness, - honour, wealth, - a
husband’s or a wife’s
embrace, - a child’s fond smile, - a friend’s sweet
counsel, - not in gloomy
submission to fate; - not in stoical and stubborn pride;
- not in heartless worldly
unconcern; - but in firm reliance upon that blessed
Redeemer, who has Himself
passed through much tribulation, and gone to prepare a
place for me among the
many mansions of His Father’s house?
And
He cometh again, - His risen saints all with Him, - to
receive me to Himself,
that I may be with Him forever!
Even so,
come, Lord Jesus.
*
*
*
CHAPTER 29
TIDINGS
FROM
HOME - THEIR CONNECTION WITH SARAH’S DEATH AND ISAAC’S
MARRIAGE
GENESIS
22: 20-24;
23; 24
The
three events recorded in the end of the 22nd, in the
23rd, and in the 24th
chapters respectively, are more nearly connected than
might at first sight
appear; they have all a common bearing on the settlement
of Abraham’s family in
the line of Isaac.
They form the last
chain that binds the race from which the father of the
faithful sprung, with
the race that is to spring from him.
First, the patriarch hears news of his kindred
whom he left behind when
he began to be a pilgrim (22:
20-24). Secondly, the
tent [Page 237] of Sarah is made sadly vacant (23). And
thirdly, as the issue of both events, a wife is found
for Isaac (24). It is
a kind of historical syllogism, with its two suggestive
premises and its
legitimate conclusion; not that there is any thing
formal or artificial in the
arrangement; on the contrary, the story is told so
naturally, and as it were
unconsciously, that it requires a clue to trace the
undercurrent of connection
throughout.
The mention, for instance, of Abraham’s relatives, at the
close of the 22nd chapter,
seems to ordinary
readers unmeaning and abrupt.
It has
nothing at all to do with the preceding narrative; -
although the chance of
chapters has bound it to that narrative in modern
editions and translations.
The previous act in the divine drama is
complete; the incident on
1. The tidings from the old home are briefly narrated (chap.
22: 20-24): - “And
it came to pass after these things, that
it was told Abraham, saying,
Behold, Milcah,
she hath also born children unto
thy brother Nahor; Huz
his first born, and
Buz
his brother, and
Kemuel the father of Aram,
and Chesed, and
Hazo,
and Pildash, and
Jidlaph,
and Bethuel.
And Bethuel begat Rebekah:
these eight Milcah did bear to
Nahor, Abraham’s
brother.
And his concubine,
whose name was Reumah, she
bare also Tebah, and
Gaham, and Thahash,
and Maachah.”
It is a catalogue of strange and hard names that we have
here. But
it is introduced for a
particular purpose, and that no unimportant one.
For the information thus brought to Abraham,
respecting the friends he had so long ago left behind in
the country from which
he migrated, has more in it than a mere matter of
ordinary domestic
intelligence might seem to imply.
It has
reference to the transaction afterwards recorded; - the
approaching marriage
of Isaac.
Doubtless, in itself, simply as reminding him of those from
whom he had now been parted for more than
half-a-century, the tidings could not
fail to be welcome to his affectionate heart.
In the wandering and unsettled life which he led,
so far from his
father’s house, - with the rare and difficult means of
communication which then
existed, - he seldom, or more probably never, during all
this interval, had
heard any certain report of his father’s household - his
kinsmen according to
the flesh. The
yearnings of that natural
affection which he had been willing to subordinate to
the command of Him in
whom he believed, but which had never been extinguished
or diminished, must
have been gratified by hearing of his brother’s welfare;
- for, “as cold waters to a
thirsty soul, so is
good news from a far country.”
But the particular juncture at which this message came, must
have made it to him and to his partner peculiarly
seasonable.
[Page 238]
Isaac was now growing to man’s estate; and his parents were
very naturally beginning to be anxious about his
permanent establishment in
life. They
felt the necessity of the
sacred family, the chosen seed, being kept separate and
distinct from the
surrounding worldly tribes.
They shrank
from connecting their son with even the best of the
households among whom they
dwelt. They
dreaded the contagious
influence of the growing impiety and corruption of the
nations; and they
believed that it was God’s purpose and desire that they
should not intermingle
or intermarry with the people of the land.
But, at the same time, what could they do?
Here they were, isolated and secluded; and it
might seem that, in the circumstances, neither they nor
their son had any
choice.
Considerations like these must have cost the believing parents
of Isaac imny an uneasy thought. And as they could not
but know that they must
themselves ere long be removed, the situation of their
son, so soon to be left
alone in the world, must have been the frequent subject
of their earnest
communings and their united prayers.
At the right time, the apparently casual intelligence reaches
them; - “And it came to pass
after these things,
that it was told Abraham,
saying, Behold,
Milcah, she
hath also born
children unto thy brother Nahor;” (22:
20) - among the rest,
“Bethuel,” who has become
the father of “Rebekah” (ver. 23).
Is this not a hint from heaven - to relieve their anxiety and
direct their conduct?
To Sarah, in particular, now about to depart, how gracious is
this kindness of the Lord!
Her last and
only care is removed.
She owns the
Lord’s hand - leading her and her household by a way
that she knew not.
She may commit all to God - to Him who “will
provide” (Gen.
22: 14)
-
whether it be a lamb for a burnt-offering, or a chosen
handmaid to be a mother
in
Thus we trace a connection between the short genealogy of
Nahor’s family in Mesopotamia, and the eventful history
of Abraham and his
household in
Surely, therefore, it is the part of wisdom as well as of
devotion, if we believe in the exercise of a particular
providence on the part
of God over human affairs, not hastily to conclude
concerning any thing that
befalls us, or any thing that we happen to learn -
however trivial and
accidental it may seem to be - that it is unworthy of
remark or of
remembrance. Let
us rather be on the
watch “to regard the works of
the Lord and the
operation of his hands,” - to notice the minute
evidences of design
which even the details of His dealings with us afford.
For we may be sure that
every thing which He does, or which He would have us to
know that He has done,
has a meaning; which we “may not
know now, but which we shall
know hereafter” (John
13: 7). “Whoso
is wise, and will
observe these things, even
they shall understand
the loving-kindness of the Lord” (Ps.
107: 43).
*
*
*
CHAPTER 30
THE
DEATH
AND BURIAL OF A PRINCESS
GENESIS
28
In the
announcement
of Sarah’s age at her death, the minute and literal
criticism of the Jewish
expositors takes notice of a peculiarity of expression. Exactly
rendered, the text speaks, not of the
life, but of the lives of Sarah: “Sarah
was an hundred
and seven and twenty years old: these
were the
years of the life” or lives “of
Sarah” (ver.
1).
To these fanciful and ingenious fabulists,
the slightest hint is enough: and accordingly they tell
us of three lives, or
stages of life, in Sarah’s career, distinguished
according to the numbers
employed in summing up the whole; - “a
hundred; and seven;
and twenty.”
The conceit is childish, if not profane.
There is, however, some reason to suppose that in the latter
years of her pilgrimage, she renewed miraculously her
youthful beauty, as well
as her youthful capacity of conceiving seed, when the
time for the birth of
Isaac drew near; - what passed in Abimelech’s land may
be some confirmation of
that idea. Nor
is it unimportant to
observe that it is not said of Sarah at her death, as it
is usually said of the
other patriarchs, and as it is said at a former period
of herself, that she was
“well stricken in age.” Moses, we are
told, retained the freshness of
manhood to the close of his extreme old age – “his
eye
was not dim, nor his
natural force abated”
(Deut. 34:
7). Sarah, in her old
age, “received strength”
(Hebrews
11: 11);
and it may be that she
continued in the enjoyment of that strength, and in her
restored [Page 240] prime of life, to the last.
That her end was blessed, we cannot doubt.
She was, indeed, highly favoured among women;
second only to the mother of our Lord - of whom, indeed,
in the extraordinary
birth of Isaac, she was an evident type, as Isaac
himself prefigured the
favoured virgin’s Son.
Her name was
insignificant of her character and fame.
To Abraham, from the beginning of his pilgrimage,
she was “Sarai, - my princess;”
so he delighted affectionately to honour her.
To the church at large, the vast multitude of
Abraham’s believing
children, she is “Sarah -
the princess;” - to whom,
as to a princess, they are
gratefully to look, and whom in all generations they are
to call blessed (chap.
17: 16,
17).
Yet the tenor of Sarah’s life was very private,
unostentatious, and unassuming.
She tarried
at home. The
leading features of her
character which the word of inspiration commends are
these: - her holy and
unadorned simplicity; her meek and quiet spirit - an
ornament in the sight of
God of great price; and her believing and loving
subjection to a believing and
loving husband (1 Pet.
3: 1-6).
She was
devoted to Abraham; not in the mere blindness of natural
and fond affection,
but with an intelligent apprehension and appreciation of
his high standing, as
the friend of God and the heir of the covenant.
She did not indeed always act wisely.
Her false step in giving Hagar to Abraham,
through despair of the
fulfilment of God’s promise - her harshness in resenting
the frowardness of her
maid - her incredulous laughter at the announcement of
the Angel - her attempt,
in the confusion occasioned by the Angel’s sudden
discovery of her offence, to
prevaricate and to deny it, - these are blemishes over
which we may breathe a
sigh. Let
devout women by all means be
warned against such sins, and against the unbelief which
is their source. In
his very commendation of Sarah, the
apostle points to what her daughters are to avoid, as
well as to what they are
to imitate, in her example.
He makes
mention of that “amazement of
fear” which led
her to conceal by a falsehood the deviation from “well-doing”
into which she had been betrayed, and so to add sin to
sin (1 Pet. 3:
6).
Still,
these errors need not detract altogether from the
sincerity of her faith, and
her meek devotedness to her husband, - or rather to Him
in whom both she and
her husband believed.
For she walked by faith, having favour with God, and waiting
for His salvation.
In faith, being like-minded with Abraham, she
left her early home and her father’s house.
In faith, she bore him company through the long
years of his exile,
cheering him amid many troubles, and upholding him under
many
disappointments. Through
faith she
received strength to conceive seed; and afterwards, when
even Abraham himself
was perhaps too much divided between the child after the
flesh and the child by
promise - between his own righteousness and that of God
- between the covenant
of legal bondage and the covenant of grace and liberty,
- she seems to have had
a more spiritual discernment than he had.
She
believed salvation to be in
the line of Isaac alone; and her counsel, to “cast
out the bondwoman and her son,” obtained the
sanction of God
Himself. Finally,
she stands enrolled
among those “of whom the world
was not worthy;”
and it is in immediate connection with her, and with “the
strength she received to bear [Page 241] seed
because she judged him
faithful who had promised,” that the apostle introduces his comprehensive testimony to the
humble walk and high hope of all the
patriarchs; - “These all
died in faith, not
having received the
promises,
but having
seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced
them, and confessed
that
they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.
For they that say such things
declare plainly that they
seek a country” (Heb. 11:
11-14).
Such was Sarah, living in faith and dying in faith; whose
daughters the matrons of
Thus “Sarah died in Kirjath-arba;
the same is
From the expression in this second verse, “Abraham
came to mourn for Sarah, and
to weep for her,” it has been supposed by some
that he was absent at the time of his wife’s death. At this
period, in consequence of the size of
his household, the multitude of his cattle, and the
difficulty of removing them
all at once, he very probably had two establishments;
the one at Beersheba and
the other at Hebron; both on the borders of the
territory of the Philistines,
and the country of Abimelech, king of Gerar; and both
within the limits of the
promised land. His affairs having called him away from
Hebron, he found, on his
return, - recalled by the tidings of his beloved
partner’s illness, - that all
was already over; and that his house being turned into a
house of mourning,
nothing now remained for him but to weep!
To watch beside the bed where parting life is laid - to cool
the throbbing brow and smooth the restless pillow - to
whisper soothing words
of consolation and catch the latest breath of expiring
love - to press the cold
hand, and close the eye now bright no more, - such
offices of tenderness even
the breaking heart would not forego.
It
is a sacred privilege to render them.
It
is a sad aggravation of the pain of separation to be
away when they fall to be
paid.
Whether Abraham was called to endure this additional
bitterness of sorrow or not, we cannot tell.
The phrase, “he came,”
is not
conclusive. It
may mean merely that he
left his own tent, or private chamber, and betook
himself to that of his
deceased wife, to mourn, - or generally, that he set
himself to discharge the
usual functions of a mourner.
But at all
events, it is clear that he gave himself to this
exercise of mourning; - and
that he did so of deliberate purpose and systematically.
There is much to be learned from this.
Mourning for the dead is natural.
When the tie of mutual affection is severed
by the rude hand of the destroyer, tears spontaneously
flow. It is
a relief, it is an indulgence to weep -
to weep for the dead!
But on what
footing does this mourning for the dead stand, according
to the estimate of
faith and the rule of godliness?
[Page 242] Is it merely permitted - tolerated and allowed - as an infirmity?
That would be much.
The assurance that he may sorrow without
sinning, is an unspeakable consolation to the believer
in his bereavement.
The fact that Abraham “came
to mourn for Sarah, and to weep
for her,” - still more
the fact that “Jesus wept,”
- is as oil poured
into the wounds of the heart’s lacerated and torn
affections. But that is not
all. Still
more complete - still more wonderful
- is the adaptation of the Gospel to man’s nature and
man’s trials. The
patriarch evidently made conscience of
his mourning. He
gave himself to the
exercise, not merely as to a privilege but as to a duty. His sighs and
tears were not simply regarded
by him as lawful, for the relief of his overcharged and
overburdened soul; -
even into this department of his experience he carried
his sense of
obligation. In
a religious and spiritual
sense, he made a business of his grief.
He went about the indulgence of it as a work of
faith; he allotted to it
a fixed and definite time; he came to Sarah’s tent for
the express purpose; he
gave up for this work his other avocations and his other
employments. His
occupation was “to
mourn for Sarah and to weep for her.”
There is therefore a time to weep; there is a time to
mourn. There
is a season during which to
mourn and weep is not merely the allowed license, or
tolerated weakness, of the
believer, but his proper business - the very exercise to
which he is called.
This instance of Abraham is not only a
warrant and precedent, but a binding and authoritative
example. It
not merely sanctions a liberty; it imposes
an obligation.
The custom, indeed, of all ages and nations has borne
testimony to the obligation.
At all
times and in all places, the usage of society - ancient
as well as modem -
eastern and western alike - has prescribed a certain
period and certain forms
of mourning. The
mourner is expected to
seclude himself for a while from the tumult and gaiety
of life, and to be
conversant with symbols significant of sorrow.
To transgress these rules is accounted unseemly
and unfeeling. To
rush from a domestic deathbed to the public
gaze of the garish world, whether in the way of
business, or in pursuit of pleasure
and excitement, is confessedly an outrage on the common
decencies of society,
as well as on all the sympathies of our social nature. Doubtless, the
usage may become a form - a
mockery - a farce.
The rueful look - the
managed tears - the ostentatious solitude and elaborate
retirement - the weeks
and trappings - the sighs and sentiments, - all may be
mere ceremony - as
repulsive to true delicacy of taste and feeling, as were
the cuttings and
howlings of the hired mourners of heathen funerals of
old. Still,
the practice has its foundation, not
only in the natural sense and sensibility of mankind,
but in reason and in
faith. It
is in itself right.
It is fitted to serve a spiritual and sacred
end; if only in a becoming spirit we consider in
connection with it, first the
past, and secondly the future.
Thus as to the past, - in looking back along the vista of
years, there is pregnant matter for most profitable
meditation. One
natural thought may perhaps be suffered for
a moment - the thought that had it been possible, we
would have had the event
itself, or some of its circumstances, differently
ordered. But
in this, let there be no sinful
reproaching, either of [Page 243] the decree of Heaven, or of second causes and subordinate accidents on
earth. Let
us look on the past - not in
discontent or melancholy musing merely - but in deep
self-abasement and lowly
gratitude.
Ah! what questions, reaching far back in life’s varied
history, does the breaking of a fond tie of brotherhood
force on the startled
memory? How
old is that now broken
tie? When
and how was it first
recognized as a tie of nature, or formed as a tie of
love? When
and how did it become a tie closer
still, - a tie of grace?
For how many
years, - for what portion of a century, - a quarter, or
a half, or more, - has
the tie subsisted?
And during all that
period how have you lived and walked together, - you and
the loved one now gone
to return no more? You thought that you dwelt together
in unity; that you had
enough of mutual esteem and love; that you had few
occasions of difference or
dissension, and little or no unkindness with which to
reproach one
another. The
current of your natural
affection, your wedded happiness - your parental
tenderness - your social joy
flowed smoothly and equably along.
There
might be occasional waves and eddies; but there was no
serious obstacle to
trouble or to break the stream.
Do you
think so now? Do
no bitter regrets and
recollections haunt you?
Is there no
painful handwriting on the wall?
Especially in regard to your spiritual fellowship
together, have you no
uneasy misgivings?
It is a humbling lesson which this mourning may teach, -
pricking the conscience with a new sense of sin, -
touching the heart with a
profounder feeling of the vanity of all earthly things. But it is not
all dreariness and woe.
Think
of the way by which God has led you and your partner
together, and trace His
fatherly hand in His manifold dealings with you. Review and
revive, in your saddened memory,
scenes of tenderness long past and gone; hours, perhaps,
of holy and blessed
communion in the Lord; days when you and your beloved
went up to God’s house,
taking sweet counsel together; times of refreshing, when
“your souls prospered and were
in health,” and you knit
one to another, as by a new bond of heaven’s own love! Instead of
dwelling only on what is dark and
gloomy in the lines which recollection sadly traces, allow the brighter spots to refresh your eye.
Recall
the Lord’s goodness towards those whom you have lost;
- the gifts with
which they were endowed, the
services they were enabled to render to the
commonwealth or the church, the
long lives of usefulness they were permitted to lead
on earth, and the
indications their last days may have afforded of
mellow ripeness for heaven.
So you will be stirred up to new aspirations of faith and prayer, that you may be “followers of them who, through
faith and patience, have
inherited the promises”
(Heb. 6:
12); and that
you may meet them at last, when
“the
Lord shall
appear,” and all that are His “shall appear with him in glory”
(Col. 3:
4).
The future, however, as well as the past, is to occupy the
thoughts in the season of mourning.
We
are to look forward, as Abraham was fain to do.
His happiness on earth was now well nigh at an end.
The delight of his eyes, the beloved of his
heart, is no longer fair and pleasant to look upon. She can no
more share his dwelling.
The green earth must cover what else [Page 244] would be offensive; - “Let me bury my dead out of my sight” (ver.
4).
And is this, then, all?
Is this the close of that long and endearing
fellowship of Abraham and
Sarah in the Lord?
Has it passed away “as a
tale that is told?”
Is Abraham to put away his dead forever?
Is he to have done with this severed tie of
sanctified love as with a broken potsherd, or with water
spilt on the ground?
That can scarcely be.
For, in the first place, he is very careful of
the lifeless body; he is
much concerned about its being decently disposed of. Why should he
be so, unless that [same] body is to live again?
Why is he so anxious for the comely interment
of what, to the eye of sense, is but a mass of clay? Why is the
very dust of his beloved so dear
to him? - her body so sacred, and to be sacredly
handled? It
is not mere sentiment and fancy, but
rather strong and hopeful faith.
This
thy sister, thy spouse, shall
rise again. Her
remains, therefore, may well be precious
in thy esteem.
Such, probably, is the origin of that care for the burial of
the dead which has prevailed so universally from the
earliest ages among all
men. It is
to be traced to the primeval
and traditionary revelation of a resurrection.
The practice, no doubt, degenerated into a
superstition; - as witness
the ceremonies connected with the burning and embalming
of the lifeless remains
of departed friends, - the reverence paid to their
relics and their ashes, - as
well as the multitude of sepulchral rites, alike
frivolous and abominable, to which
blind fanaticism has everywhere and always had recourse. Nevertheless,
there is a foundation of divine truth, not less than of human
affection, for the universal concern of survivors as
to the disposal of their
dead. It
is a testimony to the doctrine
of the resurrection of the dead.
But this is not all.
For, in the second place, Abraham is not merely
anxious about the decent
and comely interment of his beloved Sarah; he
is
concerned also about the place where she is to be
buried, and especially
about having it as his own.
He is
smitten suddenly and strangely with
the desire of being a proprietor in the [promised] land (ver.
3, 4). How is this, at
such a
time? Hitherto he has
been contented to be a stranger and pilgrim, not [during his lifetime here] owning a foot of ground in the country which God had promised to give to himself
personally, as well as to his seed, for an inheritance.
Now he must have some possession in it that,
by the strictest and fullest right, he can call his own. He covets,
indeed, no very wide domain; - no
large and productive estate.
A barren
rock, a hollow cave, is all he cares for; not fields
whose rich harvests may
fill his barns, but a solitary sepulchre to receive the
dust of his dead. Still
such as it is, he must have it as his own.
He insists on that with not a little pertinacity
in his conference with
the people of the land; and he
must be
supposed to have some good reason for insisting on it.
The narrative of this remarkable conference (ver.
3-20) is
singularly graphic and picturesque. Abraham appears in a
peculiarly interesting
light. It
is pleasing to see the esteem
in which he is evidently held, as well as the sympathy
which his domestic
misfortune awakens.
And the somewhat
stately and elaborate, yet graceful interchange of
courtesy between him and the
sons of Heth, is in the finest style of oriental
manners. It
is a vividly [Page 245] painted scene
of the olden time.
We see the whole negotiation going on before
our eyes; and as we listen to the formal compliments
that pass between the
parties, - with such studied dignity, yet withal such
real cordiality and
kindness, - we feel as if we actually witnessed the
solemn gravity of
countenance with which they mutually saluted one
another, - and as if, for all
that solemnity, we could yet clasp them in a genuine
embrace of brotherhood.
But the spiritual
meaning of the transaction, and its bearing upon
Abraham’s faith and hope, should
interest us, as believers, even more than its simple
and natural beauty.
Why does Abraham refuse the proposal of the children of Heth,
that he should make use of one of their sepulchres? (ver.
6-9). And why does
he decline the second proposal
made to him by “Ephron the
Hittite, the son of
Zoar,” - who, finding that the patriarch
has set his heart on a particular cave which he wishes
to purchase, offers
frankly and heartily to make it over, with the field in
which it is situated,
as a free gift forever? (ver.
10-13). But no! nothing
will
satisfy him but his being allowed to make the property
his own by right of
purchase. Accordingly
the bargain is
struck; the money is paid; the transference is made in
due form of law, and in
presence of a sufficient number of witnesses.
Abraham weighs to Ephron the silver, and receives
a sure right to the
field (ver. 14-20).
There is something very singular in all this.
It is more than a mere contest of politeness
between persons unwilling to be outdone by one another
in the exchange of
mutual courtesies.
Might not these men
of Heth, and this Ephron the Hittite, have with some
reason charged Abraham
with something like churlishness in thus refusing so
peremptorily to let them
show him any kindness?
It was as if he
was determined to misunderstand and distrust them; and
it really argued, one
would say, almost as high a tone of generous feeling on
their part that they
did not take Abraham’s refusal amiss, as that they made
to him the proposals
which he so obstinately declined.
Abraham could not mean to offend these kind and friendly
neighbours. Nor
could he have any silly
scruple about being under obligation to an honourable
man for a slight token of
respect - a natural and simple office of good will.
The explanation of his conduct must be found in the light in
which he regarded the land in which he was a
sojourner. For let it be remembered, as I have already explained, that the only hope
connected with the future world which Abraham had, was
bound up in the promise
that he was himself personally to inherit that land. There is no trace,
in all the patriarch’s
history, - of any other promise whatever, relating to
the life to come. What Abraham was taught to expect was the inheritance of the very soil
on which he trod, all the long years of pilgrimage. It was to be his at last; his personally.
Does not this hope give
a peculiar and very precious meaning to Abraham’s
determination that Sarah
shall not be buried in a strange, or in a hired, or even
in a lent or gifted
tomb, but in a
sepulchre most
strictly and absolutely his own?
He is
taking investment in his inheritance.
It belongs
[Page 246] not to him living; but it belongs
to him, and to his, when dead. Living,
he can but use it as the strange
country of his pilgrimage; but
dying in the sure prospect of rising
again, he claims a proprietor’s right in it; and his kindred dust is entitled
to repose in it as a home.
True, - the patriarch may almost be imagined to say to the
friendly children of Heth, - True it is, that while I
and my household pitch
our tents among you, we are for the present, as it were,
your guests; we are in
the position of casual visitors, accidental sojourners. You are the
proprietors of the country.
You are our hosts, and we thankfully accept
of your hospitality in all that relates to our present
residence within your
borders. But
death makes a mighty
difference. Living, I dispute not with you the possession of the land.
But dying, I claim it as my own; and this
lifeless body of my spouse has a better right to it
ultimately and in the long
run, than you or any others can ever have so long as
time endures.
True, it is a right that will not be asserted
until time gives place [after
resurrection] to eternity. Not
till
then will she, and I, and all our faithful seed, stand
on our feet again to
receive our final inheritance of [millennial] glory.
But nevertheless, the right to it belongs by
divine covenant to that clay-cold corpse; and so far as
regards its needful
accommodation till that day comes, - it
shall have a
place really
its own to rest in.*
[* See Psa.
95: 11;
Heb. 4:
1, 11;
Psa. 96;
and 97: 1-6, etc.]
Such might be Abraham’s feelings, though not, of course,
expressed in words, in reference to the proposals which
his kind and courteous
neighbours made to him.
And such,
probably, were the views with which, sad and sorrowing,
yet not despairing, he
consigned his beloved one to the tomb.
I would not dogmatize upon a subject so very obscure as that
of the future habitation of the blessed; the final abode
of the risen saints of
God. That their
inheritance is to be material as well as spiritual, is expressly revealed; and indeed follows almost as a
necessary consequence from the doctrine of the
resurrection of the body. Nor are there wanting indications that seem to point to this very material creation that is now their temporary dwelling-place, becoming in the end their [age-lasting inheritance, before
their] everlasting home. Be that, however,
as
it may, this instance of Abraham’s faith and hope, in connection with Sarah’s burial, may be profitable to all believers.
It is a strong faith that he exercises; it is an animating
hope that he cherishes.
In laying Sarah
where she is to lie till the last trumpet sounds,
Abraham anticipates the
raising of her buried frame, in glorious beauty, once
more to share his
love. And
for himself and for her he
claims investiture in the promised inheritance of the “better
country - even the
heavenly,” - which
they both alike earnestly longed for.
And is not this the very exercise of faith and hope, to which
I am called when I bury a dear friend in the Lord? I
sorrow not as those who
have no hope. True,
my departed brother
has now no portion in all that is under the sun; nothing
of all this fair and
goodly earth can he claim as his own, save only the
narrow cell that I have
purchased for his sepulchre.
But what
living man really possesses such an inheritance as his
lifeless clay may
claim? What
ruler over a hundred
kingdoms - what owner of thousands of acres - has an
estate or property like
that which belongs to his mouldering dust?
These proprietors are but tenants for a day; at
any moment they may [Page 247] receive notice to quit. But
the
dead body of a saint of God, destined to rise again, has
an indefeasible right
to an everlasting inheritance.
Ah! it is the dead - the dead in Christ - who are [after the “First Resurrection”] the only legitimate possessors of this whole creation of God.
To [the “accounted worthy” of] the redeemed dead belongs the entire property of the redeemed world.
The rich man, clothed in purple and faring
sumptuously every day, must
be content with six feet of soil at last; and even that
is not his own; the
earth is to cast him out.
But Lazarus,
as angels carry his soul to Abraham’s bosom - the beggar
Lazarus, with his
sores that the dogs were wont to lick - tossed
carelessly into a reeking
charnel-pit, where all vile things are contemptuously
cast aside, - takes quiet
possession bodily, by anticipation and in part, of what
ultimately and in full
is to belong to him forever.
[* See Rev.
20:
4-6; Luke 20: 35;
1 Thess. 2:
10-12; Rom.
13: 11-14; Lk.
12: 43,
44; 2
Tim. 2: 4-7].
*
*
*
CHAPTER 31
A
MARRIAGE CONTRACTED IN THE LORD
GENESIS
24
Whoever
findeth a wife
findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour from the LORD.
-
Proverbs 18:
22, R.V.
Wealth
makes many friends;
but the poor
is separated from his neighbour. - Proverbs
19: 14.
The
incidents recorded in this chapter are in themselves,
viewed simply in the
light of a story of human life, full of interest.
The scene is one of homely and primitive
simplicity; its romance fills the imagination; its
pathetic beauty affects the
heart. As a
picture of manners, it has
the blended charm of classical and oriental grace; as a
domestic tale, it
carries our best and purest sympathies along with it.
The solicitude of the venerable father, and the affecting
solemnity of his charge to a long tried and trusted
servant - the oath so
sacredly imposed, and with such scrupulous
conscientiousness accepted - the
departure of the messenger on his singular errand - his
honest devotedness to
his master - his unbounded reliance on his master’s God
and his own - these
preliminaries of this transaction are conceived and
described in the simplest
and most touching style of pious faith (ver.
1-9). Nor does the
interest of the narrative diminish
as we follow the old man - or rather go along with him -
in his strange
embassy. All
throughout, this chosen
servant of the chosen friend of God manifests his
unbounded reliance on the
divine goodness and grace; and we delight to connect his
tenderness of
conscience in undertaking the mission beside Abraham’s
bed at first, with his [Page 248] committal of himself and it to the special providence of God,
in that prayer at the well, so bold and at the same time
so humble, in which he
almost ventures to prescribe how his errand is to be
accomplished - leaving the
matter, however, unreservedly in His hands whose wisdom
is as unerring as it is
unsearchable. Thereafter,
in quick
succession, we mark, as if we saw them, the meeting at
the well - the courtesy
of the opening interview - the frank exchange of kindly
greetings and good
offices - the admirable delicacy of the servant’s
introduction of himself to
the daughter of his master’s kinsman - and his pious
acknowledgment of the hand
of the Lord in ordering the whole affair.
Then passing on, we enter the brother’s house. And we are
touched by the servant’s
impatience to discharge his trust, and his simple
recital of what the Lord had
done for him, as affording, without argument or remark,
or any pleading at all
of his own, sufficient warrant of his suit.
The promptness with which all is arranged, and
the consent of all
parties obtained - with no questioning or debate, but
with a single eye to the
manifest leadings of the divine providence, and a
believing acquiescence in the
divine will - this also forms a striking feature in the
scene, and prepares us
for the hasty departure of the maiden, with her faithful
nurse as her single
attendant. She
willingly leaves her father’s
house - recognizing the call of the same Lord who had
called Abraham, and
casting herself on him alone, with a noble confidence,
worth of one who is to
be Abraham’s daughter.
Last of all, we
trace the homeward journey - the approach of Isaac in
his meditative evening
walk - the vail modestly taken for a covering by his
betrothed - the servant’s
recital to Isaac of all that he had done - and the
cordiality with which Isaac
welcomes the wife so evidently sent by God, and receives
her into the tent of
his lamented mother – “loving”
her, as the
history with touching simplicity concludes, and “being
comforted.”
All these circumstances combine to make this portion of the
sacred record peculiarly attractive.
In
reading it, we feel at home amid these patriarchal
incidents and descriptions,
realizing them as if they were familiar.
The stately pomp and ceremony - the reserve and
coldness and suspicion
of a more artificial social state - pass away.
The freshness of nature’s early truth and
tenderness returns - artless,
guileless, fearless.
We breathe a purer
and freer air. We
are touched with a
deeper sense, at once of a special providence in heaven,
and of a real and true
sympathy on earth.
We feel that there
can be such a thing as the exercise of a frank and
generous trust, relying both
upon God and upon man; and that it is possible to act
upon the belief, both of
God’s superintendence, and of man’s sincerity.
A narrative like this is marred rather than illustrated by
minute exposition.
A few leading points
may be selected as indicating its moral and spiritual
bearings. Faith,
and the prayer of faith, are here
signally honoured.
1.
Abraham in this matter is evidently
guided by a higher wisdom than his own; although he is
left apparently to
consult and act for himself.
There is no
direct and immediate revelation of the divine will given
for his guidance, as
in many former instances of his difficult pilgrimage; he
must exercise his own
judgment. He
is not, however, on that
account, abandoned [Page
249]
by God. He
has signs enough to direct him; and using
his best endeavour to discover and ascertain what the
Lord would have him to
do, he may, without anxiety, commit to Him all his way.
He finds himself in circumstances which call for some step
being taken. The
mourning for Sarah is
over; but sadness and desolation still reign in the
patriarch’s household.
Her tent is still empty, and the grief of
Isaac is still un-soothed.
He is
reminded also of his own approaching dissolution; his
course on earth is
drawing to a close; he is “old
and well stricken in age;”
but his cup is full, - “the Lord
has blessed him in all
things” (ver.
1). There is only one care remaining - one duty to be
discharged, ere he depart in peace.
Isaac’s union with a suitable partner must if
possible be secured; “an help
meet for him,” as the son and successor of the
patriarch, must be found.
It is a subject that may well perplex him.
For it is not merely a private matter of
personal and family arrangement, involving Isaac’s
individual happiness and the
honour of his father’s house.
It is a
public concern, intimately affecting the covenant of
which Abraham is the
earthly head, and the countless millions who are to be
blessed in his seed.
Isaac: sustains a peculiar, an almost sacred
character. It
is his to inherit and
transmit, not worldly possessions merely, but the hope and promise of [a future] salvation.
Hence his marriage has an importance reaching far
beyond himself; and,
in arranging it, there is a difficulty or dilemma.
For the conditions of the problem might seem to be
irreconcilable. On
the one hand, Isaac
must contract no alliance with the daughters of the
land; and, on the other
hand, he must not leave the land to seek a bride
elsewhere. The
former condition is essential to the
preservation of the holy seed pure and uncontaminated by
any intermixture with
strange and idolatrous nations.
The latter is indispensable to his sharing with his faithful father,
not only the future inheritance, but the present
pilgrimage as well.
For
Isaac is to share his
father’s trial as well as his reward; he is to walk by faith in an inheritance to come; - living and dying in the land destined to be his, but without a portion
in it [until after the time of his
resurrection] that he can call his own, - except his grave.
Hence he must continue among the people from whom
he is not at liberty
to select a wife; he may not go in search of one to the
ancient seat of his
race. Here
is a perplexity and a hard
question; - what is to be done?
Abraham had, indeed, received intelligence from his early
home, which he might well regard as a seasonable hint
from God; and had he been
younger, he might himself have managed the affair. Now, he must
leave it in other hands.
But happily he has one in his household whom
he can fully trust, an old and confidential servant; -
the steward, as we may
probably conjecture, who has been already noticed in
this history, - Eliezer of
Damascus (ver. 2-4). He,
too, however, when the commission is first proposed to
him, sees the
difficulty. He
is not to marry his
master’s son to any daughter of the Canaanites; neither
will he be allowed to
take Isaac back to the land from whence Abraham came. And yet he may
be unable to persuade any
woman of the country and kindred to which Abraham limits
him, - any daughter of
Terah’s family, - to leave her home; to [Page 250] commit herself
to the care of a
stranger, and share the fortunes of an unknown husband. In these
circumstances, he will not bind
himself by an absolute and unconditional oath (ver.
5); nor is it until
he is not only
encouraged by Abraham’s strong expression of his faith
in the guidance of
Jehovah, or the Angel of Jehovah, - but relieved also by
the arrangement that,
in the contingency he apprehended, he is to be free from
his vow, - that he
consents to undertake, under so solemn a sanction, so
responsible a mission (ver.
5-8). [The
manner of the oath is singular, having respect probably
to the covenant of
which Abraham had received the sign and seal; - the
covenant ratified by the
rite of circumcision, “And the
servant put his hand
under the thigh of Abraham his master, and
sware
to him concerning that matter” (ver.
9).
Both
Abraham and his servant regard the transaction in which
they are now engaged as
essentially connected with the covenant of which Isaac,
or rather Isaac’s seed,
was to be the heir; and hence, by an appeal to the
covenant, and to its seal,
they hallow it. Or
it may be that the
party thus taking oath swears by Him who is to spring
out of Abraham’s loins, -
the promised Saviour of the world; - if indeed the
ceremony be not rather, as
some think, a mere token of legal and loyal subjection,
without any such
peculiar spiritual significancy.
At all
events, this is manifestly a transaction of great and
solemn import: and the
pledge is to be regarded as one of no ordinary force.]
2.
Such being the spirit in which this
commission is given by the aged patriarch, and
undertaken by his confidential
servant, - the execution of it is in entire harmony with
its commencement.
The preparation for the journey being simply made, and the
journey itself being well and happily accomplished (ver.
10), Abraham’s
ambassador and
plenipotentiary sets himself to consider how the
extraordinary treaty of
marriage he has on hand may be most hopefully opened;
and after a somewhat
strange manner does he proceed to open it.
He follows a course in which we may discern,
perhaps, some traces of
shrewd practical wisdom, as well as still more certain
evidence of simple
reliance on the providence of God - a course, as it
turns out, proved to be as
prudent as it is primitive and pious.
The well beside which he has halted now that he
knows himself to be near
the country of his destination may afford a test of
character as well as an
occasion of prayer.
For the token which he asks of God is not wholly arbitrary (ver. 11-13); there is more in his
appeal than the mere
demand of a sign. It
is not a parallel
case to that of Gideon with his fleece (Judges
6:
37); still less is it
like the haphazard
venture of the Philistines, as to the disposal of the
Ark of God (1 Sam. 6: 9). It
resembles rather the arrangement Jonathan made with his
solitary attendant, in
his assault on the garrison of the Philistines: - “If
they say thus unto us, Tarry
until we come unto
you; then we will
stand still in our place,
and will not go up unto them. But
if they say thus,
Come up unto us; then
we
will go up: for the
Lord hath delivered them
into our hand; and
this shall be a sign unto us”
(1 Sam. 14:
9, 10). For in both
instances we may trace a reason
for the token fixed upon.
That which
Jonathan proposed to his armour-bearer was fitted to
indicate the actual state
of the army to be assailed; - whether so alert as to
repel [Page 251] invasion, or so secure and careless as to encourage it.
And the wise old ruler of Abraham’s house,
with admirable sagacity, adopted a measure calculated to
prove the kindly
nature of the woman whom he sought, as well as to secure
the guidance of that
God in the faith of whose providence he sought her.
But, after all, it is to be observed that Abraham’s servant,
in this entreaty for a sign, is by no means either
peremptory or
presumptuous. He
does not arbitrarily
stipulate for a miracle; he does not even suspend his
own procedure on a
previous assurance being given of the interposition
which he desires. He
forms a plan of conduct, - the most
expedient and most likely to be successful that could
well be devised. He
spreads it out before God; and humbly seeks divine
countenance and cooperation.
3.
It is a striking and singular scene
that now presents itself.
Wearied with
his journey, a stranger stands by the well; and his
camels at a little distance
kneel down exhausted.
There is nothing
in his own appearance, or in his retinue, to distinguish
him from an ordinary
traveller. A
solitary woman draws near (ver.
15-16).
Suddenly she hears the wayfarer, - whom probably
she has scarcely, if at
all, observed before, - addressing to her a simple
petition: - “Let me, I pray thee, drink
a little water of thy pitcher” (ver.
17).
Ah! little thinks that fair young damsel of the issues that
depend upon her reply!
How is it, she might
have answered, that thou, being a foreigner, - and for
anything I know, a foe,
- askest drink of me, a native of this country, - a
daughter much honoured in
my father’s home, - a lady entitled to be waited upon by
my father’s menials?
What am I, that I should minister to
thee? Or
what art thou to me, that thou
shouldest expect this favour at my hands?
It was good for Rebekah that she did not answer thus.
No other opportunity would probably have been
given to her; no second appeal would have been made to
her; no farther parley
or pleading would have ensued.
Yes! And it was
good
for another woman, who, long after, met another
stranger, “wearied with his
journey,” at another well, - that
when she met his request, “Give
me to drink,” with
the churlish question, “How is
it that thou, being a
Jew, askest drink of
me, which am a woman
of Samaria?” she had a different
person from Abraham’s servant to deal with.
A rude reception of that sort might have ended at
once and forever the
negotiation for a marriage-treaty which this messenger
from
The maiden, in the present instance, manifests that very
bountifulness of spirit which the woman of
No wonder the good man marvelled!
Such alacrity of attention to a poor way-worn
traveller did indeed betoken a gracious disposition. And the
circumstance fitted in so aptly to his
previous train of holy meditation, that he could not
fail to recognize in it an
answer to his prayer.
Accordingly, “the man,
wondering at her,
held his peace, to
wit
whether the Lord had made his journey prosperous or
not” (ver. 21).
Encouraged, however, by so plain a sign -
using also his privilege of age, and accepting frankly
the damsel’s frank
cordiality of welcome, - the servant of Abraham presents
the gifts which the
usages of the times warranted (ver.
22).
Availing himself, moreover, of the introduction
so graciously arranged
and ordered by his master’s God, he asks and obtains the
customary rites of
hospitality (ver. 23).
And finally, overcome with the emotions which
the Lord’s marvellous guidance of him awakened, the old
man unreservedly pours
out his soul in the utterance of grateful praise: ‑ “Blessed be the Lord God of my master
Abraham, who hath not
left destitute my master of his mercy and his
truth! I being in the
way, the Lord led me
to the house of my master’s brethren!”
(ver. 26,
27).
Such a sight is fitted to move deeply the soul of the
guileless maiden. The
venerable aspect
of the stranger, surprised into a sudden act of most
profound devotion, could
not but strike her heart: and the mention of the name of
Abraham, of whom
doubtless she had often heard in her father’s house -
and with whose migration,
narrated as a household tale, she had been taught to
associate something of the
mysterious and the supernatural, - could not fail to
call forth in her breast
feelings of wonder, expectance, and awe.
Who is this to whom she has been rendering what appears to be
received as so remarkable a service!
It
is but a little cold water that she has been giving; a
boon that she would not
withhold from the poorest pilgrim she might chance to
meet with at any
well. But
what a burst of pious
gratitude does it cause!
And what a
discovery does it occasion!
The old man
who is the object of her apparently trifling courtesy
and kindness, as if bent
under the weight of an insupportable obligation, “bows
down his head and worships God.”
And the words he utters in his ecstasy of
thankfulness, bring home to
her as a present reality all that from her childhood she
has doubtless been
wont to hear, of what was probably the most remarkable
event in the family
history, - the strange adventure of the ancestral
patriarch called so
mysteriously away long ago into a distant and a sort of
dreamy land. Well
may she be in haste to communicate the
surprising intelligence she has so unexpectedly
obtained. And
well may her brother Laban, scarcely
pausing to hear her rapid account of the strange
interview, hasten forth to
welcome the man who has thus wonderfully introduced
himself: - “Come in, thou blessed of the
Lord” (ver.
28-32).
4.
The preliminaries of this affair
having passed off so auspiciously, the negotiation
proceeds happily to its
issue. The
faithful servant, true to his
[Page 253] master’s interest and his own oath, refuses even to take the
refreshment that he needs until he has delivered his
message and received his
answer. He
acts upon the principle laid
down by our Lord for the guidance of His ambassadors (Luke
10: 8-11).
For Abraham’s ambassador, also, has in a
sense the gospel to preach; he has to speak of the
And how simply does he go about the execution of it!
He does little more than narrate the Lord’s
dealings with Abraham in
The effect of his appeal is not merely an instance of the
confiding hospitality of these times, but a proof that
the same divine
interposition in which this whole procedure originated
was continued down to
its close. The
brother and father; the
latter in all probability being now, in his old age,
represented to a large extent
by his son; the relatives, in short, of the woman thus
strangely courted as the
bride of a Prince Royal, whose person [Page 254] and whose
kingly heritage are alike
unknown, - cannot withstand the evidence of a divine
warrant which the whole
transaction bears.
They frankly own
their conviction. It
is the Lord, what
can we say or do? (ver.
50, 51). Again, the old
man is overpowered in spirit
by the marvellous goodness of God: “When
he heard their
words, he worshiped
the Lord, bowing
himself to the earth” (ver.
52).
Then follows on the part of the overjoyed messenger, a display
of the rich presents which he had been authorized to
distribute, if his message
was crowned with success.
He had
already, on the first opening of his conversation with
Rebekah, used the
oriental liberty of enforcing his address by adding a
slight but substantial
token of respect; “a golden
earring of half a shekel
weight, and two
bracelets for her hands of ten
shekels weight of gold” (ver.
22).
Now
that his overtures have been so well received, he has no
occasion for reserve,
but may freely disclose all his ample stores, and endow
the destined bride of
his master’s son with the whole princely presents that
he has had in
keeping. Accordingly,
he “brought forth jewels of
silver, and jewels of
gold, and
raiment, and gave them
to Rebekah: he gave
also to her brother and to her mother precious things”
(ver. 53).
5.
Thus, as to all that is essential to
it, the treaty of marriage is fully ratified, according
to the usages of eastern
hospitality; and in a sense, too, with the munificence
of princely state.
It is now merely a question of time and
circumstance; - as to when and how the treaty is to be
carried out to its
consummation.
Very natural is the remonstrance which the brother and the
mother of the bride addressed to the impatient servant
of Abraham (ver. 54, 55).
Whether it be a delay of ten days, or as some
say, of ten months, or
even years, that the mother joins with her son in
soliciting, before her
daughter bids her a last adieu, - it is a touch of
genuine tenderness such as
we would not willingly lose in this narrative.
Nor in such circumstances is it a trifling
evidence of the chosen
virgin’s faith, that she is herself enabled to withstand
this pleading (ver. 57, 58).
She has taken the decisive step when she has
resolved to peril her all upon the truth of the singular
embassy that has come
to her. And
now, when it is left to her
to say how soon the step shall become irrevocable, her
reply is prompt. She
balances the fond reluctance of her
family to part with her - a reluctance which, however
grateful to her feelings,
has no force at all as an argument addressed to her
faith - against the clear
appeal which the holy man who has called her makes; “Hinder
me not, seeing the
Lord hath prospered my way;
send me away that I may go to my
master” (ver.
56).
And she cannot hesitate for a moment.
Having made up her mind to a painful
sacrifice and serious rise, she feels that “now
is the
accepted time; now is
the day of salvation.”
What is to be done, had best be done quickly; - no
halting between two
opinions; - no hesitancy; - no yielding to the
temptation that would gain time
and prompt dangerous postponement and procrastination. Having
put
her hand to the plough, she will not draw back. She hears a
voice powerfully speaking to her,
and saying, “Go forward”
-
- And she is gone; gone forever from her father’s dwelling,
and from the love and sympathy of her mother and her
brother!
[Page 255]
With an ample benediction do her friends dismiss her (ver.
59, 60);
and with entire resignation and hearty
goodwill, in simple faith - really not knowing whither
she goes - she turns her
back on the home of her childhood and the land of her
birth (ver. 61). Truly it is a
wife worthy of Abraham’s son
that the good providence of Abraham’s God has selected. It is a faith
not unlike that of Abraham
himself which animates and sustains the appointed wife
of Isaac, the destined
mother of the promised seed.
6.
And now, the strange embassy is well
ended. The
journey back to
It is a calm summer evening.
The oxen have been lodged in their stalls, and
the implements of
husbandry are at rest in the furrows of the field. Not a breath
of wind rustles in the noiseless
leaves. Not
a stray sheep wanders in the
dark shadow of the hills.
It is a time
of profound repose.
One solitary figure
is seen slowly pacing the sweet-scented meadow path. Unconscious of
nature’s charms, although his
soul is melted into sweet harmony with the peace that
reigns all around, - he
is rapt in holy fellowship with the God of his
salvation. Suddenly,
as it happens, he lifts his eyes;
and what a sight meets his view!
Can he fail to guess what cavalcade it is that is crossing the
plain towards his father’s tents?
Are
his meditations rudely interrupted?
Nay rather, his prayer is now graciously answered.
The aged servant of the household is
evidently not returning alone.
He has
not been unsuccessful in his suit.
Again
Isaac is to have an illustrious instance of the truth of
that blessed word: ‑
“Jehovah-jireh - The
Lord will provide.”
What a meeting on that serene summer night!
It is faith meeting faith; - faith venturous
and bold, meeting faith meditative and meek!
On the one hand, there is the faith that not all
the perils of a long
journey and an unknown issue can daunt; on the other
hand, there is the faith
that seeks quiet rest in communing with the God of
nature, as the God also of
covenanted grace. Rebekah,
dropping thy
modest veil, as if half-afraid or half-ashamed, of thine
adventurous spirit, -
and thou, Isaac, lifting thine eyes, as if awakened out
of a trance, - ye two
are now one in the Lord!
Your different
characters, - already perhaps slightly indicated in the
different actings of
your common faith, - may cause, alas! some dispeace and
sin in your future
course, when they come to be more fully unfolded and
brought into collision
with one another, amid the cares and trials of your
common pilgrimage.
But in the main; ye are congenial souls.
And the marriage thus arranged by divine
wisdom and grace and love, has its fair share of the
happiness which that
blessed estate is fitted to yield to those [Page 256] who “marry
in
the Lord.”
At all events, the commencement of this matrimonial alliance
is auspiciously announced, when the narrative,
connecting the declining shadow
of the past with the opening dawn of the future,
intimates with all simplicity
that “Isaac brought her into his
mother Sarah’s tent,
and took Rebekah, and
she became his wife; and
he loved her: and Isaac
was comforted after his mother’s death” (ver.
67).
*
*
*
CHAPTER 32
THE
DEATH
OF ABRAHAM
GENESIS
25: 1-10
Precious
in the sight of the
LORD is the death of His saints. Psalm 116:15.
The
eventful
career of Abraham is drawing to a close.
The purposes being now fulfilled for which God
raised him up, - and
another being ready to take his place, - he passes from
this stirring scene,
and is permitted to depart in peace.
The
circumstances connected with his departure are very
briefly noticed; but they
are suggestive of some profitable thoughts.
1.
Of the last few years of his life little is
recorded, excepting only
that, after Sarah’s death, he contracted a second
marriage, and had, as the issue
of it, a new and considerable family (ver.
1-4).
It does not appear that in Abraham’s second marriage there was
anything discreditable or sinful.
[It is
a groundless notion which some rash expositors have
invented, that this Keturah
was none other than Hagar. Abraham, it is imagined, took
Hagar back to his
home, after her temporary flight from Sarah, and had by
her the children here
named; - and that, too, before the birth of Isaac. Any necessity
for such a theory as this that
might be supposed to arise out of Abraham’s age, and the
improbability of his
having a family after Sarah’s death, is met by the
consideration already
suggested in connection with the birth of Isaac.
Nor is there a single other argument of the
least force upon this point.
For we
cannot have any sympathy with the delicacy of those
morbid ecclesiastics who,
condemning in every case a second marriage as unholy,
would acquit the
patriarch of that factitious sin, by charging him with
the real guilt, either
of systematic polygamy, or of continued and deliberate
adultery. Certainly
Keturah was not Hagar.
The sacred history is not here resuming a
dropped thread, and introducing out of its place what
should have been
mentioned before, as these interpreters [Page 257] allege.
They would read the first verse of the
chapter thus: - “Abraham had
taken a wife” - and
so forth. But
the history is not thus
retrospective in this instance.
It is
evidently carrying on the narrative in its simple and
natural order, and
mentioning what occurred after Sarah was dead.
It was after her death that Abraham lawfully
entered into a second
matrimonial alliance.]
Living as he did
for years after the loss of Sarah, - and seeing his sons
Ishmael and Isaac
settled in households of their own, - it was not
unnatural, nor in the
circumstances unjustifiable, that he should seek another
partner. That
the promise might be fulfilled literally
as well as spiritually, he became the “father
of many
nations” after the flesh; - even as in Isaac,
and his seed through
Isaac, - the seed which is, “not
many, but one,
that is Christ,”
- he was destined to be the “father
of many nations,”
spiritually and by faith.
Nor is it
unimportant to observe, in the near prospect of
Abraham’s decease, how
pointedly the sacred history adverts to the timely
settlement which he made of
his earthly affairs before his end came (ver.
5, 6). The
particulars of the settlement are not
indeed detailed. But
while the divine
decree constituted Isaac his principal heir, the other
parties having claims
upon him were by no means overlooked.
The patriarch was careful, not only to make
suitable provision for them
during his lifetime, but also to leave such instructions
as might prevent
disputes after he was gone.
Thus Abraham passed the latter stage of his troubled journey,
- in privacy, apparently, and in peace, - waiting till
his change came.
2.
In peace also he departed, his eyes
having seen the salvation of God (ver.
7-8). The pilgrim’s
journey is over; the wanderer
has found repose; the stranger has reached his home. There is no
more trial of faith, - no anxious
feeling with the hand if by any means it may grasp “the
substance of things hoped for,” - no straining
of the eye to catch “the
evidence of things not seen.”
The difficulty of laying hold of the
intangible and realizing the invisible is now forever at
an end. The
eternal economy is at last
un-vailed. Shadows
and phantoms are
gone; and this
material world, as well
as the bodily frame which connected him with it, are
for a season left behind.
So Abraham, as to his soul or spirit, “gave
up the ghost and died,” - departing to be with
the Lord. And
as to his body or flesh,
he went the way of all living, to the “long
home”
to which “man goeth,”
while “the mourners go about the
streets” (Eccles.
12: 6). The
patriarch was “gathered to his
people,” until
that day when the dust shall live again at the sound of the last trumpet, and all the buried dead, ‑
Abraham and his people to whom he is gathered, - shall
hear the voice of the
Son of Man, and shall come forth.
“Precious in the sight of the Lord is
the death of his saints” (Ps.
116: 15). It was so in
the case of Abraham. His death
was matter of concern to the God in whom he believed. The Lord
specially looked to it, and made it
on one special occasion the subject of a special
promise. His
death, as he is then assured, is to be
full of calmness and contentment.
He is
to die, indeed, as his fathers have died, and to be
buried. But
he is to “die in
peace, and be buried in a good old age.”
For even his death and burial are cared for by
his covenant-God; and all
the circumstances are [Page
258] ordered
by Him, so that the patriarch,
departing, enters into rest.
3.
The departure of Abraham, thus calm
and peaceful in itself, was not premature or untimely in
its date. He
did not die too soon.
He died “in a good
old age” – “an old man,
and full of years.”
“He was satisfied with
length of days, for
his eyes had seen the salvation of God” (Ps. 91:
16).
He had
experienced enough of the Lord’s loving-kindness in the
land of the living.
For it is not by the ordinary measures of the successive
seasons as they roll on, that this fulness of years is,
in a spiritual point of
view, to be estimated; - nor even by those public or
domestic events which men
often set up as landmarks beside the stream of time or
the beaten path of life;
- but by what the faithful and patient pilgrim has seen
of the salvation of
God, and what he has tasted of the divine goodness
during his sojourn on the
earth.
Is he full? Is the
pilgrim satisfied?
Is he ready to
depart? It
is not because he can reckon
some threescore and ten revolutions of the sun; or it
may be fourscore; or even
like Abraham, “an hundred,
threescore, and
fifteen”
(ver. 7). Nor is it
because he can say of the various
sources of interest and pleasure upon earth, - I have
drunk of them all.
But it is because he has eaten the bread of
heaven and drawn water out of the wells of salvation;
because he has been
filled with the fulness of God; because he has been
partaker of the
unsearchable riches of Christ.
He has
lived long in the earth - his days have been many in the
land; - not in
proportion to the anniversaries of his birth that he has
celebrated; or to the
varied casualties of infancy, childhood, manhood, and
old age, that he has
experienced; or to the changes all around him, that make
him feel as if it were
a new world in which he is now dwelling.
No! It is by the tokens of the divine love that
he has received, the
gracious dealings of God with his soul that he has
noted, and the wonders of
grace and mercy that he has witnessed in the church of
the redeemed that the
believer reckons himself to have lived long on the
earth!
Has he but this very moment acquainted himself with God, and
found peace? Has
he only now for the
first time tasted and seen that the Lord is gracious? Then already,
let him be ever so young in the
estimate of time, he is old enough, by the measure of
eternity, to depart in
peace to his heavenly [“Hades”
or “
[*
See Luke 16: 22-31;
23: 43.]
Is he, on the other hand, doomed to a long sojourn on the
earth? Is
he spared to grow grey in the
service of his Lord?
Is he worn and
wasted with the burden and heat of a lengthened
pilgrimage? Has
he length of days reaching to the extreme
limit of life, and surviving all contemporary sympathies
and friendships? And
is he left alone among strangers, like a
stranded vessel when the tide has ebbed?
Even with such length of days he is satisfied,
for “his eyes have seen”
- and continue still to the last
to see - “the salvation of God.” “To
him to live is
Christ” (Phil.
1: 21). And when at
last the hour of his departure
comes, it is not as if he were laying down the burden of
years of vanity, but
as thankfully owning a well-furnished table and a full
cup, that he utters the
language of faith and [Page
259]
hope: - “Surely
goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my
life: And I will dwell
in the house of the Lord forever” (Ps.
23: 16).
*
*
*
CHAPTER 33
THE
LIFE
AND CHARACTER OF ABRAHAM
GENESIS
25
So that those who are of faith are being blessed with the
believing Abraham. - Galatians 3: 9.
The
notice of the death of a distinguished man is usually
regarded as incomplete
without at least an attempt to sum up his history and
delineate his character.
In the instance of Abraham, this is no easy task.
The recorded life of the patriarch might almost seem to be
left to the church as an exercise and trial of the very
faith upon which he
himself was called to act.
In every view
he is a test, as well as an example, of believing
loyalty to God; - both in
what he did and dared, and in what he sacrificed and
suffered, during his
eventful career. The
outward aspect of
his course is exhibited in a few of its most striking
particulars; but we have
scarcely any key to its inward interpretation.
We have little or no insight into his private and
personal
experience. He
is presented to us as a
public character; and the incidents of his pilgrimage
are narrated with an
obvious reference rather to the general information of
the church than to the
prolonged remembrance of the individual.
The notes and explanations are rare.
No private diary remains to open up the secret
springs of thought and
action; nor has any intimate friend withdrawn the
curtain of confidential intercourse,
and unfolded to us the mysteries of the closet, the
study, and the unbent hour
of familiarity. There
is no access
behind the scenes; no unfolding of those hidden
movements of soul which have
their external types, and nothing more, in the
vicissitudes of a
strangely-chequered history.
One
advantage, however, we have; - and it is a great and
most important one.
It is the authoritative announcement of the
general principle or category under which the whole is
to be classed. Abraham
lived and walked by faith; and
therefore what is required in a brief recapitulation of
the leading events of
his life is simply to trace the working of that
believing reliance upon God
which furnishes the solution and explanation of them
all.
Consider then, this “FAITHFUL ABRAHAM” in
the successive eras of his
history, as these may be grouped under two comprehensive
heads; - the one
reaching from his first call to the remarkable crisis of
his full and formal
justification (chap.11:
27-15:
21); and the other,
from his [Page 260] unstedfastness in the matter of Hagar to the final trial and triumph of
his faith in the sacrifice first, and then in the
marriage, of his son Isaac
(chap. 16: 1-24: 67). During the
first of these periods, his faith
is chiefly exercised upon the bare promise itself made
to him by God. During
the second, it has to do mainly with
the manner in which the promise is to be fulfilled.
PART FIRST. - (CHAP. 11:
27; 15:
21)
In this first period, we have a deeply interesting and almost
dramatic
series of events, - beginning with a very commonplace
transaction, but ending
in what elevates the patriarch to a high rank in the
sight both of God and of
man.
1.
Abraham comes before us as an
emigrant, but an emigrant in very peculiar
circumstances; - an emigrant, not of
his own accord, but at the call of God (chap.
11: 31-12: 5). The first
stage of the migration, from
2.
As a stranger, accordingly, we find
him entering
3.
The shifting scene next presents to
us the patriarch in an aspect of bright moral beauty (chap.
13: 5-18); - for never,
perhaps, does Abraham appear in
a more attractive light than in his courteous and kindly
dealing with his
kinsman
4.
The plot of that moral drama, if we
may so call it, which opens with Abraham’s offer and
[Page 262]
5.
The transition from the most
palpable and almost obtrusive publicity to the deepest
privacy - which forms
the next era in Abraham’s life - is also eminently
fitted to bring out the
spirituality of his faith (chap.
15).
In any case to combine these two - public action for the Lord
and private communion with Him - is no easy exercise. But in the
case of Abraham, the combination
is peculiarly trying.
Look at him, and
mark the contrast.
On the one side you see
a brave general at the head of a conquering army,
risking all for the recovery
of a kinsman’s household goods, and playing a right
royal part among this
world’s potentates and princes.
On the
other hand, you seem to see a melancholy recluse,
wandering alone at midnight,
a star-gazer, imagining
ideal glories in
some visionary world [or age] to come.
The transition is most startling, from the
hostile din of tumultuous strife to
the serene solitude of
a colloquy with
God beneath the silent eloquence of the starry heavens! But Abraham is
at home in either scene.
After his brief experience of worldly renown,
he is found in secret and most confidential communion
with his God.
It is the hour of universal slumber; every eye is closed;
every busy foot is at rest.
But near
that silent tent two figures may be seen; one like unto
the Son of God - the
other a venerable form, bending low in adoration of his
divine companion. It
is the hero who but yesterday on the field
of successful battle might have reared a throne to defy
all the pride of
eastern empire. But
he has another and a
far different calling.
Not the garish
pomp of military triumph, but the secrecy of midnight
fellowship with heaven,
has charms for him.
And as we listen and
overhear the strange colloquy that ensues - in which,
apart altogether from any
corroborative sign on which he might lean, the patriarch
simply believes the
divine assurance that, childless and aged as he is, a
progeny as numerous as
the stars awaits him - we cannot but own that it is
indeed a mere and simple
exercise of faith alone, without works or services of
any kind whatever, that
is the instrument of his salvation, and the means of his
finding favour with
God. And we
cannot but acquiesce in the
divine testimony respecting his justification - so
frequently repeated with
reference to this single and solitary incident in his
history: - “Abraham believed in
the Lord, and
he counted it to him for righteousness” (chap.
15: 6;
Rom. 4:
3, 9,
22; Gal.
3: 6).
But though faith alone is the hand by which Abraham on this
occasion appropriates the justifying righteousness
pledged to him, in the
person and work of the yet unborn Saviour who is to
spring from him, - it is
not a faith that is content indolently to acquiesce in
the darkness of entire
ignorance respecting the ways of that God upon whose
mere word it so implicitly
relies. On
the contrary, as the Lord
follows up His assurance respecting Abraham’s posterity
- “so shall thy seed be,”
with the repetition of the
promise more immediately affecting Abraham in his own
person, “I am the Lord that
brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees,
to
give thee this land to inherit it;” - so the patriarch on his part follows up his believing submission with
the earnest inquiry, “Lord God,
whereby shall I know that I
shall inherit it?” In
reply, he has the covenant of his peace ratified
by
a very special sacrifice; and he obtains a gracious
insight both into the
future fortunes of his seed, and into the destiny awaiting himself.
As to his seed, [Page
263]
he is informed that though the delay
of four centuries is to intervene, through the
long-suffering of God, until “the
iniquity of the Amorites is full” - they are at
last to possess the whole land; while as to himself, he
is to understand that his inheritance is to be postponed to the future [“thousand
years”] and eternal state, and that the utmost he has to look for in this [cursed] world is a
quiet departure when his
pilgrimage is over.
Thus, justified by
faith, the patriarch is
made willing to subordinate
all the earthly prospects of his race to the will of
Him in whom he has
believed; - and as for himself, to live by the power
of the world to come.
I look upon the midnight scene, with the remarkable covenant
transaction which closes it, as the climax of what we
may call the first part
of Abraham’s walk of faith; in which he is led onward
and upward to the highest
pitch of expectation, while as yet not a hint is given
of the way in which his
expectation is to be realized.
Thus far
the Lord has been training him to the exercise of
implicit faith in the
promises of [a future] salvation,
altogether irrespective of
any clear information as to the means of their
fulfilment. And
it is the triumph of Abraham’s faith at
this crisis of his history that he acquiesces with
unhesitating confidence in
these promises, though not the slightest ray of light is
cast upon the
momentous and most difficult question, how it is
possible, in his case, old and
childless as he is, to have them ever made good.
PART SECOND -
(CHAP. 16: 1;
24: 67)
But now, in the
next stage of his pilgrimage, it is upon that very point
that the faith of
Abraham is to be tested and proved.
The
trial is to turn upon the manner in which the promises
previously announced are
to be accomplished.
1.
In this new trial, the patriarch’s
faith appears at first to fail.
Impatient of the Lord’s delay, he listens to the
plausible suggestion of
his partner, and suffers himself to be betrayed into
that sin in the matter of
Hagar, which brought ere long so much domestic dispense
in its train, and
proved even at the time so sad a root of bitterness to
his soul; marring the
pure joy and interrupting the even tenor of his holy
walking in covenant with
his God (chap. 16).
For the offence, though not in his case prompted by carnal
appetite, bore nevertheless the fruit which the like
offence always bears; -
blunting the conscience, hardening the heart, and
unfitting the whole inner man
for the divine fellowship and communion.
In the dreary blank, accordingly, of the long
interval between the birth
of Ishmael and the next recorded communication from on
high, - a period of no
less than thirteen years (chap.
16: 16;
17: 1),
during
which a dark cloud seems to rest upon the patriarch,
such as nothing short of a
fresh call and new revival can dispel, - we trace the
miserable fruit of his
backsliding. The
Lord thus signalizes
His holy jealousy of the purity of the nuptial tie, by
the hiding of His countenance
for a time from the man whom He had chosen to be His
friend, and the suspension
of that intimate intercourse into which, as His friend,
He had so graciously
admitted him.
[Page 264]
2.
But “the
steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord; and
he delighteth in his way.
Though he fall,
he shall not
be utterly cast down: for
the Lord upholdeth him
with his hand” (Psalm
37: 23, 24).
The revival is eminently gracious. There is a mild rebuke of
his former unbelief and guile, in the announcement, “I
am the Almighty God,” and in the invitation, “Walk before me and be thou perfect;”
but there is relenting tenderness in the assurance - “I
will make my covenant between me and thee” (ver.
2).
It is as if the Lord were weary of the restraint
which He had put upon
Himself, and could no longer refrain from returning to
visit and bless His
faithful servant. Yes! In spite of
all that has passed, “I will
make my covenant between me and thee.”
This
unwonted estrangement has been long enough continued;
we must be friends again.
The interview that follows is one of the spiritual epochs of
Abraham’s life. Viewed
in connection
with the renewal of the covenant, and the institution of
the sacramental seal,
- it was fitted to recover Abraham out of the depths
into which he had been falling
through his attempt to realize the divine purposes in a
way of his own; and to
bring him back to the safe and simple attitude of waiting patiently for the Lord’s own fulfilment of them, and
meanwhile addressing himself, in all humility, to the
keeping of the Lord’s
commandments.
3.
The culminating point of Abraham’s
exaltation, during the second period of his pilgrimage,
is again to be found,
as in the former, in connection with his conduct towards
4.
But, alas! the next “varying”
scene of this “changeful
life” presents the patriarch in another light. The
catastrophe of Sodom having led to the
breaking up of his establishment in that neighbourhood,
he is cast abroad as a
wanderer again; and in another part of the land of his
pilgrimage, he is
brought into contact with the people and the princes
from whose lawless
corruption of manners he has so much to apprehend. The new “strength”
which “through faith”
Sarah is at this time
receiving “to bear seed,”
implying probably the
return of somewhat of her former attractiveness, is an
additional embarrassment
to the wanderer. His
old expedient
unhappily suggests itself to him again; and though the
same overruling hand
that had brought good out of evil before, interposes now
to avert a calamity
that [Page 265] might have marred the whole design of the covenant as
established in the promised seed, still the patriarch
himself is sufficiently
rebuked.
5.
The actual fulfilment of the
promise, in the birth of Isaac, might seem to be the
fitting occasion for
ending all strife between the flesh and the spirit, -
between sense and
faith. It
is not so, however; - at least
not entirely. The joyous festivities at the birth and
circumcision of Isaac are
strangely blended with a sad domestic misunderstanding. The patriarch
is seen halting between two
opinions, and manifesting a sort of lurking preference
for “the son of the bond-woman
born after the flesh,” over
“the son of the free-woman,
born after the Spirit.” But at last he
makes a final surrender of the
confidence he has been tempted to build upon Ishmael. He
acquiesces in the
arrangement, - so characteristic of the divine
sovereignty, but so contrary to
nature, - that the elder shall be postponed to the
younger. He
is made willing to commit the
entire hope of his own inheritance, and of the
world’s salvation, solely and
exclusively to the frail ark of that precarious life
which has just begun to
flicker in the feeble frame of one “born
out of due
time.”
6.
The scene on
7.
The closing incidents of Abraham’s
eventful history - his grief for Sarah’s death and care
for her burial, - the
blessedness of securing a suitable wife for Isaac, - his
own entrance a second
time into the marriage-state, and becoming thus
literally as well as
spiritually the father of many nations, - his timely
settlement of his worldly
affairs, - his quiet death in a good old age, and his
burial, at which both his
sons, Ishmael and Isaac, took part, - these several
particulars might all admit
of separate notices; but a single general remark may
suffice.
It is the sunset of a hot day of trial, - the heat and burden
of which have been spent in the searching furnace of
divine light and
love. The
quiet domestic chronicle comes
in with a sad yet soothing charm, to wind up the
wanderer’s agitated
career. The
crisis is now over.
The power of faith has been tested to the
uttermost. The
patriarch has been
enabled to “overcome [Page 266] when
he is tempted.”
And now he calmly makes preparation for his
departure, and for the
accomplishment of the Lord’s win when he is gone.
It is a peaceful twilight, coming after a
long troubled day, - ushering in the repose of a serene
night - that
awaits a brighter dawn.
I pass from this summary of the life and character of “the
father of the faithful” reluctantly, and with a
feeling of utter inadequacy to do justice to the theme. Running the
eye again over the successive
vicissitudes of his history, - all minute criticism and
special pleading apart,
- we must note faults and failings for which we ought
not to apologize; but we
must also close the survey with a deeper impression than
ever of the majesty
with which, in the hands of a spiritual and poetic
word-painter, this great
example of faith might be invested.
Of
the original and natural temperament of Abraham,
independently of his call as a
believer, but few traces can be discerned.
He was already an old man when he received the
summons to forsake all
for the Lord’s sake; and of what he was and what he did,
before that era,
Scripture says not a word, beyond the bare intimation
that he was beginning, at
least, to be involved in the growing idolatry of the
age. I am
persuaded, however, that if the devout
students of God’s word and ways would throw themselves
into this history of
Abraham’s pilgrimage, with more of human sympathy than
they sometimes do, - and
with less of that captious spirit which a cold
infidelity has engendered, -
they would see more and more of the patriarch’s warmth
and tenderness of heart,
as well as of his loyalty to that God whose call and
covenant he so
unreservedly embraced.
One more word in conclusion as to the faith of Abraham, viewed
in its objective, and not merely in its subjective
aspect. The
truths on which his believing confidence laid
hold are plain enough.
A present
justifying righteousness, and a future [earthly and] heavenly inheritance - these were the objects which his faith
grasped, with a tenacity all his own.
As
a sinner, he apprehended a divinely-provided
righteousness on the ground of
which he had pardon and peace.
As a
child of God, he looked for a city that hath
foundations, whose builder and
maker is God; he
walked as an heir of
unseen glory.
And in both particulars,
he is an example to all believers.
Nor
is it of any material consequence to speculate on the
amount of knowledge which
Abraham may have had, with regard either to the
righteousness which by faith he
appropriated, or to the inheritance which in hope he
anticipated. How
far he had a clear and definite view of
the great principle of substitution upon which the
believer’s acceptance,
through the blood of an atoning sacrifice, depends -
still more, how far he had
any adequate conception of
the person and
work of the Substitute Who was, in the fullness of
time, to live on the earth,
and die, and rise again - may be matter of
doubtful disputation.
And it may be impossible to determine with
absolute certainty whether
he identified
the inheritance promised to him with the land in which
he sojourned, or merely
looked in a general way for a portion in the
resurrection-state, or in the
world to come, that might fairly be regarded as an
equivalent. The
main facts as to his faith and hope are
these two: - first, that Abraham trusted
in
a righteousness not his own for his justification in
the sight of God -
and secondly, that he
sought his [Page 267] rest and
reward in a heritage of
glory beyond the grave.
We may have clearer light on both of these points; if
so, then so much the greater is our
responsibility.
And it
will be good for us if, by the grace of God, we are
enabled to
live up to our clearer light, as conscientiously as
Abraham lived up to his
more imperfect illumination - walking before God in
uprightness, as he did ‑
and as strangers and pilgrims on the earth declaring
plainly that “we seek a better
country, even
a heavenly.”
*
*
*
CHAPTER 34
THE
FAMILY
OF ISAAC - THE ORACLE RESPECTING JABOB AND ESAU
GENESIS
25: 19-28.
After
noticing
the death of Abraham, the sacred narrative proceeds to
trace the two principal
lines of succession in which his name and memory are to
be perpetuated. These
lines are at the very outset found
widely diverging. The
patriarch’s two
sons, Isaac and Ishmael, met indeed at the funeral of
their aged parent, and
united in paying the last tribute of filial respect to
his remains (ver. 9, 10). But
thereafter, as it would seem, they finally separated
from one another.
To Ishmael and his “generations,”
the
sacred history devotes but a brief space (25:
12-18). It simply
notices the first steps towards the
actual fulfilment of the prophecies that had been given
respecting him to
sustain the drooping spirits of his mother (16:
10-12;
21: 18);
and to
reconcile Abraham to the “casting
out” of his
first-born (17: 20;
21: 13). In two
particulars, especially, these
prophecies began to be accomplished to the very letter
in Ishmael’s own
day. In the
first place, he became the
father of “twelve princes”
(ver. 16). And, secondly,
he “fell,”
or in other words, his lot fell “in
the presence of all
his brethren.”
He was put into
secure possession of that independent footing - on the
very frontiers of the
territory occupied by “his
brethren,” and as if
in defiance of their power - which his descendants, the
roving tribes of
Arabia, have ever since continued to maintain.
[I prefer the marginal reading “fell”
to
that of the text “died.” The passage is
obscure; but it seems to
indicate the beginning of Ishmael’s occupancy of the
position assigned to him
in the prophecy.]
The inspired narrative, however, is chiefly occupied with the
transmission of the covenant birthright; and
accordingly, after this brief
glance at “the generations of
Ishmael,” it returns
to the more congenial task of tracing the line of Isaac.
The period during which that patriarch was the head of the
chosen [Page 268] family is comparatively one of repose; it come in as a
sort of quiet calm between the manifold trials of his
father Abraham’s life,
and the still more agitating career that awaited his son
Jacob. The
course of Isaac’s life appears to run
smooth; his own character is tranquil; and so also is
his history. Whatever
disturbance vexes that tranquillity,
belongs rather to the opening of Jacob’s troubled
experience than to the placid
routine of his father Isaac’s pilgrimage.
The key to this portion of the history is to be found in the
divine purpose respecting the birth of Isaac’s sons; and
in dealing with the
matter historically, it is with the oracular
promulgation of that purpose that
we are chiefly concerned.
The reason
moving the divine mind to prefer the younger to the
elder, - or justifying and
accounting for the preference, - is not within the scope
of any inquiry
suggested by the narrative.
It is not
with the prophet Malachi’s use, or the apostle Paul’s
use, of this divine
decree that we have now to concern ourselves, - but
solely and exclusively with
its publications, and the result of its publication, as
given to us by the
inspired historian.
For the decree was embodied in an oracle to the house of
Isaac, and so became one of those “things
that are
revealed” which “belong
to us and to our
children;” although still the reason of the
decree, continuing to be unrevealed,
is one of the “secret things
belonging to the Lord our
God,” which we can but reverently adore (Deut.
29: 29).
[This distinction between the announcement of the decree in the
history, and the use made of it in the prophecy of
Malachi and the epistle of
Paul, it is most important to observe throughout.
The announcement in the history is
prospective; the reference to it in the prophecy and
epistle is
retrospective. In
the history, it takes
its place among the things at the time revealed, which
belong to God’s people
and to their children; in the prophecy and epistle, it
is considered as ranking
among the secret things which belong to the Lord their
God. Doubtless, it is the
same divine decree in both instances.
But in the one case, it is the decree, as it was
made known beforehand
to the actors in the scenes or incidents to which it
relates; in the other, it
is the decree, as it existed from all eternity in the
divine mind, brought
forward, as it were, by way of an after-statement, to
vindicate the divine
procedure and silence cavilling objectors, long after
these actors are all off
the stage. In
the one case, it is the
commandment issued in good time to the parties
personally interested, - to be
obeyed; in the other, it is the comment or reflection,
suggested subsequently
to their successors, - to be improved.]
An anxious wife, who, with her husband, has waited long and
prayed for the blessing, is about to become the mother
of the promised
seed. Moved
by signs that seem to
betoken either personal danger to herself, or something
strange respecting her
offspring, she hastens to consult and inquire of the
Lord (ver. 21,
22).
In
reply, she is told that she is to be the mother of two
nations, that are to
differ widely from one another in “strength,”
or
in other words, in spiritual privileges and secular
power. And
farther, she is warned that in the
transmission of the birthright the order of nature is to
be reversed: - “The elder shall
serve the younger” (ver.
23).
[Page 269]
This announcement to Rebekah was surely intended to be made
known. The
pious mother was not, like
Mary, to ponder all these things in her heart; she was
to speak of them to all
her house. And, accordingly, the subsequent history,
with its sad indications
of human infirmity, sufficiently shows that this divine
oracle was no secret in
the family; the whole interest of it, painful as it is,
turns on that fact.
And the knowledge of the decree was really, to all the parties
concerned, a proclamation of the gospel.
It directed them to the quarter from whence the
Saviour was to
come. It
pointed out Jacob as virtually
for the time the representative of the Redeemer; and in
him, the
far-reaching eye of faith might have
seen, with more or less distinctness, the day of Christ afar off. By that faith, accordingly,
the
household might have been regulated.
If
it had been so, all would have been benefited.
Jacob himself, had he rightly and spiritually apprehended the
prerogative conveyed to him, would have been humbled,
rather than elated, by
the distinction. He
would have counted
all the other privileges of his birthright as loss, for
the excellency of the
knowledge of that Saviour who was to spring from him. Esau, again,
would neither have envied nor
despised the blessing centered in his brother Jacob. Acquiescing in
the sovereignty of God, he
would have been contented to acknowledge his dependence,
for all spiritual and saving
benefits, not on Jacob, as personally his superior, but
on that promised “Seed of the
woman,” of whom it now appeared that Jacob
was to be the father.
And the parents,
understanding and submitting to the will of God, would
have agreed together in
assigning to Jacob his proper place, as not in himself,
or on his own account,
to be preferred to his brother, but only in respect of
his being the root of
that elect “Branch,” in
Whom, with the whole
multitude of the redeemed of every age and clime, they
are all one. Favouritism,
partiality, rivalry, deceit,
strife, - all might have been averted from this house,
if only the declared and
revealed counsel of God had been believed and acted
upon.
Alas for the infirmity of faith and the deceitfulness of man’s
desperately wicked heart!
The very word
of God, which should have been a bond of union, became a
root of bitterness and
an element of unholy contention.
In
Jacob, a selfish and self-righteous spirit appropriated
the covenant-blessing
as a matter, not of grace, but of right.
It became, in his eyes, a personal distinction,
to be vindicated by the
usual methods of worldly force or fraud.
The fitful mind of Esau alternated between moody
and sullen discontent
on the one hand, and those softer relentings on the
other - those gushes of
childlike tenderness - those outbursts of passionate
grief - to which the most
rugged nature is often most easily moved and melted. A mother’s
fond partiality made Rebekah turn
the oracle, given as a ground of spiritual faith and
hope, into a warrant for
gratifying her own natural affections; - and tempted her
to believe that in
accomplishing God’s ends by her own craft, she was doing
God service. While
in regard to the patriarch Isaac
himself - a man of God from his youth - a man of prayer
- what shall we say?
Would that this pious man had understood aright the footing on
which the oracle placed both Jacob and Esau, and indeed
all the household!
[Page
270]
Would that he had used his influence,
and exerted his parental authority, to enforce
compliance with the oracle in
its true spiritual meaning?
Then he
might have removed all occasion of self-righteous
complacency on the part of
Jacob, as well as of dark jealousy on the part of Esau. Then he would
have superseded, by a timely
and equitable settlement, the whole wretched train of
plots, stratagems, and
wiles that make his household history so sad.
From the first he might have taught Jacob to
regard the birthright so
specially given to him by divine decree, as chiefly
valuable, not only on
account of the spiritual blessings which it bestowed,
but also on account of
its bestowing them all so freely as to embrace his
brother Esau, if Esau will
consent to have them.
No occasion would
have been given for Rebekah’s crooked policy; for she
would have been satisfied
to fall in with his faithful teaching.
And at last, in his old age, he might have had
something better than a
remnant of earthly good to give, in answer to Esau’s
pathetic pleading, “Bless me,
even me also,
0 my father!”
True, he had but “one
blessing,” - one
real blessing worthy of the name, - the blessing of
Abraham with which he had
just blessed Jacob.
But the salvation
that was to come through Abraham’s seed, though it was
to be of Jacob, was yet
to be for all that would believe.
And in
Jacob’s blessing, - as the patriarch might have taught
his weeping and groaning
son, - even he need not despair of having a share, if he
will but believe. For
“it is a faithful
saying, and worthy of
all acceptation, that
Jesus Christ cometh into the world to save sinners,”
and
thee, too, Esau, if thou canst but bring thyself to add,
“of whom I am chief” (1 Tim.
1: 15).
The true secret of family peace is to be found in setting up
Christ, and Christ alone, as all in all.
Let father, mother, sisters, brothers, all submit
themselves to Christ;
and they will be ready in Christ to submit themselves to
one another. Members
of Christ’s body, and members one of
another, they will together, as a household, “keep
the
unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”
*
*
*
CHAPTER 35
PARENTAL
FAVORITISM
AND FRATERNAL FEUD
GENESIS
25: 27-34.
“The
boys grew”
(ver.
27); and it would seem that, as they grew they
were suffered very much to follow the bent of their own
inclinations in the
choice of their respective occupations.
Their natures were different; and the difference,
apparent in their very
birth, was significantly indicated in their names. The rough and
ruddy aspect of the first-born
led to his being called [Page
271]
by a name denoting rugged strength;
while the seemingly accidental circumstance attending
his brother’s entrance
into the world – “his hand
taking hold of the other’s
heel” - suggested the name to which Esau
afterwards so bitterly alludes
(chap. 27:
36): “Is
not he
rightly named Jacob,” or supplanter; one who
takes his brother by the
heel.
With these names the brothers, as they grew up, soon began to
show that their natures remarkably corresponded.
Esau’s bold spirit found its fitting sphere of
exercise in the excitement of the chase and the wild
sports of the field.
Jacob, again, being of a milder disposition,
addicted himself to more domestic pursuits.
He was disposed to lead a quiet pastoral life. He dwelt in
tents, following the profession
of a shepherd-farmer, tending his flocks and herds, and
tilling the soil (ver.
27-28).
But the difference between them was probably one of rank as
well as taste. Esau’s
manner of life was
not only the result of his own inclination, but the
indication also of his
being accounted the elder son and heir.
The pursuits to which he was devoted were of that
noble character which
the first-born of the earth have always affected; while
Jacob, on the other
hand, appears to have had the drudgery of a more servile
and menial toil
imposed upon him. He
was thus early
familiarized to such service as that which he afterwards
rendered for his two
wives to his kinsman Laban.
In fact, before his father’s death, Jacob did not derive any
temporal advantage from the privilege of the prior title
to the birthright,
which the oracle had conveyed to him.
So
far as his position can be gathered from the brief
notices of the history, he
is seen from the first occupying a subordinate place in
the household, -
engaged in the offices and duties of domestic service;
while Esau assumes the
air of a prince, and addicts himself to princely sports. Thus “the
boys grew.”
How their parents discharged towards them the parental duties
is not told; one thing only is revealed - that “Isaac
loved
Esau, but Rebekah
loved Jacob” (ver.
28).
The silence of the Holy Spirit respecting all
except this single fact is a solemn and emphatic
warning. It
is as if the [Holy] Spirit meant to
indicate that all the
good of the godly rearing which these parents gave to
their children was marred
by the indulgence of their favouritism.
Let the real fault, however, which Isaac and Rebekah committed
in the rearing of their sons, be quite understood. Let it be
considered once again what their
conduct would have been, had they rightly apprehended
and acted upon the oracle
which pointed out to them the line of the future
Saviour.
They were taught to see in their younger son Jacob the father
of the Messiah - of Him who was to bruise the serpent’s
head and bless all the
families of the earth; and doubtless this would have
warranted a certain kind
and measure of preference for Jacob.
But
it would not have been after the flesh.
On the contrary, as they looked in faith on the
fair child who was
constituted to them, as it were, the representative of
Christ - Jacob would
have faded away from before their eyes; and a greater
than Jacob would have
appeared. And
calling to, mind the scene
on Mount Moriah, in which he himself bore so great a
part, Isaac might have directed
Rebekah, and the rude Esau, and plain Jacob also, to fix
their spiritual
contemplation [Page
272]
on the one Redeemer, the one
propitiation for sin, whose day his father Abraham
rejoiced to see afar off.
For who then is Jacob? - or who is Esau? - that might have
been the humble exclamation of the united household. Jacob may be
honoured on account of the
Saviour who is in his loins.
But
personally, what is Jacob the better for that
distinction, or what is Esau the
worse for wanting it?
To be the ancestor
of the Messiah is to be indeed great.
But to be “least in the
kingdom of heaven”
is to be greater still.
And that
distinction might have been reached by Esau!
Thus, in this family - in which there was too much disputing “who should be the greatest,”
it had been good for all
parties if a little child had been set in the midst of
them, and it had been
said to one and all of them - Be as this little child. And how good
beyond all calculation would it
have been for them, if the little child so set in the
midst had been none other
than the “holy child Jesus;”
the very Saviour of
whom Jacob was to be the sire!
Then it
might have been seen “how
pleasant a thing it is for
brethren to dwell together in unity;” in the
unity which is like “the
precious ointment” flowing over the whole body
of
the high priest, from the head to the lowest members,
making all one; the unity
which the Spirit, poured out from heaven inspires, as “the
dew of Hermon descends on the mountains of Zion,”
enriching all with one
common blessing - the unity, in a word, of faith and
love.
Set up, ye Christian parents, in the midst of your children,
Christ and Christ alone.
Set not up one
child above another, but set up Christ above all.
Let not Isaac love Esau because he “eats
of his venison,” - sympathizing in his
venturous
trade, and enjoying the fruit of it.
Let
not Rebekah love the more peaceful Jacob, because,
dwelling in tents, he gives
her more of his company and companionship.
But let both learn to love their children in the
Lord. Isaac
need not withdraw his affection from
Esau, nor need Rebekah greatly moderate her attachment
to Jacob. But
let Isaac direct Esau, as a poor sinner,
to the salvation which is to be of Jacob.
And let Rebekah commend that same salvation to
Jacob, as standing
equally in need of it with his brother Esau.
So shall they all - husband, wife, and children -
be truly one - one in
their sense of their own great poverty and sinfulness -
one in their apprehension
of the righteousness and the unsearchable riches of
Christ. Alas!
that it should turn out otherwise, and
with such disastrous results.
The first evil issue of the opposite course pursued is the
transaction of the sale of the birthright (29-34); a
melancholy instance of the manner in which trifles may
bring out deep-seated
springs of action, and may lead to serious
consequences.
For what could be apparently more trifling
than the occasion here described?
A weary and hungry hunter, returning home from the exploits of
the field, finds a savoury mess prepared, as if
seasonably to meet his
wants. It
is the very food which he most
relishes at any time; and at this time it is doubly
welcome. It
is provided also by his own brother’s
hand; and certainly his brother stands in no such need
of it as he does. What
more natural than that a brother should
ask food of a brother?
What need of [Page 273] any terms of purchase, or any driving of a hard bargain?
“Sell me this day thy birthright.” What a
proposal! How
unkind, ungenerous, un-brotherly!
What has this pottage, - this same red
pottage of thine, brother Jacob, - to do with the
privilege of succeeding, as
the first-born, to our father’s inheritance?
Especially if, as thou sayest, thou hast that
envied distinction already
by decree of the oracle at our birth, - and if thou
valuest it, as thou
professest to do, not as a temporal and earthly, but as
a spiritual and eternal
blessing, - wilt thou make it a commodity exchangeable
for a morsel of
perishable meat?
Most justly might Jacob have been thus answered; and if thus
answered, he must have been silenced.
For he had put himself in a false position. Doubtless, in
this negotiation with his
brother, he considered himself, not as purchasing what
did not previously
belong to him, but as barring a claim which Esau
wrongfully set up, and in the
setting up of which he had the countenance of a too
partial parent. The
birthright was Jacob’s already; - by the
divine decree, solemnly promulgated.
That in spite of this decree Esau was allowed to
enjoy the privileges of
the first-born, Jacob might truly regard as a
usurpation. And
now he might think an opportunity offered
itself for putting an end to Esau’s claim forever, by
his own consent, and by
express stipulation.
Nor was it really
taking any unfair advantage of Esau’s peculiar straits;
since, even if the
concession were extorted from him by sheer physical
necessity, it was a
concession strictly due.
Vain apology! Does Jacob really believe that the birthright is
his, by the express destination of God?
Then, may he not leave it to God Himself to make
good His own word?
Is it not the most presumptuous and offensive
form of unbelief to adopt expedients of our own for
bringing to pass the
counsels of the Most High? Yes; it is unbelief; Jacob
sinned through
unbelief. He
did not simply trust in
God, and leave it to God to effect His own designs in
His own way. Heir
as he was of the birthright, he would
make assurance doubly sure, and would have the decree of
Jehovah countersigned
and sealed by the covenant of a frail brother of the
dust; - a covenant, too,
extorted by a scheme most revolting to natural
affection, as well as to
spiritual uprightness and truth.
Can it indeed be a spiritual blessing which Jacob thinks, by
such a carnal and worldly policy, to secure?
It may be so.
And indeed it does
not appear that Jacob here assumed or possessed the
right primogeniture, in a
temporal sense. It
would really seem
that he valued the birthright chiefly as a spiritual
privilege and
prerogative. But
if so, surely his sin
in this instance is all the greater.
Does he think to purchase the Holy Ghost with
money, - the heavenly [or
double
share in the] inheritance with a mess of pottage?
Or, viewing the transaction in the least
offensive light, - as a bargain, not for the possession
of a blessing already
his, but for the setting aside of an unwarranted claim
to it by another party,
- what a poor spirit of compromise does it display! Let it be even
persecution that Jacob
suffered at the hands of Esau, - is persecution to be
bought off by a mess of
pottage? Is
the antagonist of our
spiritual principles, or the enemy of our spiritual
peace, when he applies to
us for help and we have the means of doing him a
service, to be refused, or be
kept waiting, until we adjust with him the terms of a
conventional [Page 274] truce, and bargain with him at least for neutrality?
Is that the spirit of Christian brotherhood
or of Christian charity?
Were it not
better that Jacob, wronged and injured by having his
birthright withheld,
should “heap coals of fire on
the head” of the
usurper? Might
he not thus have “overcome evil
with good,” and so gained his brother?
As it was, what did he gain?
The bargain is concluded, - the price is paid. Is the
blessing more securely his now than it
was before? On
the contrary, does not
the very sinfulness of the expedient resorted to, - the
wretchedness of the
device by which he sought to make the blessing his own
forever, - only serve to
show that if it ever actually become his at all, it is not by his might or merit or wisdom, but altogether and
exclusively by the sovereign decree, the free grace,
and the free Spirit of God
alone.
But Jacob’s fault will not make Esau guiltless.
His great sin stands condemned in both
Testaments. “He despised his birthright,” says
the historian (ver. 34).
As “a profane person,
he for one morsel of meat sold
his birthright,”
says the [Writer of the] epistle to the Hebrews (Heb. 12:
16).
“He despised his birthright;” -
selling it for a mess of pottage, - “that
same red
pottage,” - as he himself describes it, with
all the emphasis of genuine
epicurean longing, “that red
- that very red pottage”
- so tempting in its appearance
of which the hunter was so fond that its very name stuck
to him as a
distinction, and he was called Edom,
or “the red,” from this
very incident (ver. 30).
Feed me, he says, abandoning himself to the delights of
appetite, - as the keen sportsman will crown his day
of hard exercise in the
field with an evening of indulgence at the table; -
feed me with that same red
pottage, whose savoury odour already overcomes me. And then, when he hears the
condition so artfully proposed to him, - instead
of
resisting the tempter and seeking relief elsewhere,
how contemptuously does
he speak! “The
birthright!” he exclaims.
What
good will the birthright do to me, if in the meantime
I starve and die?
Will it feed me?
Will it gratify my taste and satisfy my
hunger? Nay,
rather let me have that
same red pottage, - which is a present and substantial
good. And
take thou, if thou choosest, that
birthright, whose shadowy and remote advantages it
seems thou prizest so
highly!
That it was in some such way, and in some such spirit, that
Esau “despised his birthright,”
may appear, not
only from the inspired testimony, but from the very
circumstances of the
case. For,
in the first place, Esau
could scarcely, on this occasion, be really in very
great straits for
food. He
was not a prodigal perishing
with hunger, - but an elder son, treated as such,
returning from a day’s
sport. Had
he been actuated by a right
spirit, - had he even felt that high sense of honour of
which men of the world,
like himself, make so much boast, - would he not have
spurned the pitiful
proposal of his brother Jacob, and preferred a dry crust
of bread and cup of
water to all the dainties with which this “plain
man”
would seduce or bribe him?
Then again,
secondly, it was evidently the spiritual [and millennial] blessing implied in the birthright that Esau held in such light esteem; there is no
appearance of his
meaning to resign any of its temporal advantages.
Had it been merely a secular or worldly
distinction
that he bartered for the [Page
275]
gratification of his appetite, there
might have been folly in the transaction, - and sin
also, - but not
the sin of profanity with which he
is unequivocally charged.
The
presumption is, that both
the brothers
understood the bargain to relate to the much coveted
honour of being the
ancestor of the Messiah, and sharing in [all] the blessings which the Messiah was to bestow.
That privilege Esau despises; using the argument of
profane unbelief; - Who or What is the
promised seed that I should wait
for Him [and His Kingdom]*
at the expense and sacrifice of this red pottage?
What profit
shall I have of this spiritual faith and hope? What gain
will this godliness be to me?
[* NOTE. Messiah’s kingdom upon
this
earth, for “the
thousand years,” is the “Inheritance”
which Christians can lose! 1 Cor. 6:
9; Gal.
5: 21;
Eph. 5:
5: 5,
6. cf.
Rev. 20:
4-6;
Rev. 2:
10, 11;
3: 21.)
In this view, what a solemn lesson may we learn from Jacob’s
conduct; especially in its bearing upon his brother
Esau’s character and fate!
Jacob was probably even now professedly a more spiritual man
than his brother Esau; apprehending in some measure his
need of spiritual
blessings, and the value of these blessings, as they
were to flow from the
Messiah destined to spring out of his loins.
But what then?
By what means did
he seek to secure these blessings to himself?
And what pains did he take to commend them to his
brother? Ah!
if he had simply trusted in the sure word
of God, and left to God Himself the fulfilment of it, -
how little did it
really matter whether Esau recognized his character and
claims or not? If
Christ were indeed “formed in
him, the hope
of glory,” - was it for him to be careful about the esteem in
which
his brother might hold Him?
Rather,
might he not present to that brother the same Christ in
whom he himself
believed? And
instead of the language
which he virtually used to Esau: - Take thou this
earthly portion and leave me
the better birthright; - his invitation might have been
to him to share with
him freely and fully in both.
In
pursuing a very different course, he cannot be held
guiltless of a
participation in his brother' sin; he is in fact his
tempter. He uses means,
and adopts a line of conduct fitted to bring out his
brother’s contempt of
spiritual things. And
whatever he may
say as to its being merely for the purpose of securing
what is already his by
divine right, - he cannot be acquitted of cruelty and
crime, in seeking to
profit by his brother’s straits, and turn his brother’s
fleshly desire to his
own account.
But after all, every man must bear his own burden; and Esau
must not escape censure, even though it may have been a
brother’s infirmity of
faith, or defect of love, that proved the occasion of
his apostasy. It
was in his heart to “despise the
birthright,” when he sold it.
And the
deed, alas! admitted of no recall; for “he
found no
place of repentance, - [from
his father Isaac] - though he sought it
carefully with tears” (Heb.
12: 17).
What may be the full meaning of that ominous and appalling
statement, I do not now inquire; but one thing it
unequivocally attests.
Whatever may have been Jacob’s sin in the
matter, the Lord intended, through his instrumentality,
to bring the question
of Esau’s spiritual state to a prompt and peremptory
decision. The
alternative is plainly proposed to
him. He has
to choose between the
birthright blessing - in which he still might have found
an interest, if he had
been willing to own Jacob in the character that the
oracle assigned to him -
and the carnal indulgence on which his heart is set. It is a
decisive choice he has to make; he is
shut up to an instant and final determination, one way
or other. He
does determine. And
it is [Page 276] without the
possibility of any
recall..
Is there no such crisis in the experience of a sinner
now? May
not one who has long been
hesitating between God and Mammon be brought at some
anxious moment to a point
at which the irrevocable choice must be made?
Can any one be sure that his very next choice may
not be that
irrevocable one? Dare
any one,
considering this, trifle with such scriptural
exhortations as these? - “Choose
ye this day whom
ye
will serve,” “How
long
halt ye between two opinions: if
the Lord be God,
follow
him;
but if Baal, follow
him;”
“Today, if
ye will
hear his voice, harden
not your hearts,”
lest the sentence go forth against
you, “I
sware in my wrath that they should not enter into my rest.”
* *
*
CHAPTER 36
THE
GENESIS
26
I pass
hastily over the incidents of Isaac’s pilgrimage
recorded in this twenty-sixth
chapter, - not because they are void of practical
interest, - but partly because
they are so similar to corresponding events in Abraham’s
career as to be almost
literal repetitions of them, - and partly also for
another reason; - to
concentrate attention on the special peculiarity of the
believing household’s
history during this period, as we have the key to it in
the oracle accompanying
the birth of the twin brothers.
The resemblance of Isaac’s experience, during the brief space
of time which he spent as a pilgrim, to the previous
experience of his father
Abraham in similar circumstances, is not a little
striking.
We have a famine, breaking up the establishment at Lahai-roi,
where, after the death of Abraham, Isaac dwelt (25:11).
And
this circumstance leads to a temporary sojourn at Gerar
among the Philistines (25:
1).
There the Lord appears to him, to arrest him
in the purpose he seems to have formed of going down for
greater plenty to
In the very place in which, on the second occasion, Abraham had
recourse to the expedient of an evasive policy, through
fear of the corrupt
manners of the age, Isaac is tempted to equivocate
respecting his wife, in the
very same way, and with the very same result too;
scarcely escaping [Page 277] death, or dishonour worse than death; and exposing himself to the
humiliating and indignant reproof of the prince whom he
so unjustly distrusted
(ver. 7-11).
Thereafter, we have an account of Isaac’s growing
prosperity, and of the
increase of his wealth in flocks and herds (ver.
12-14);
and
increase which leads to the usual consequences that were
wont to follow in
these days. We
read of jealous heart
burnings on the part of the people of the land; - “The
Philistines envied him.” Then we trace the
fruit of this envy in proposals
of separation, for the sake of peace, on the part of
their prince; frequent
removals in search of room; and interminable
misunderstandings and strifes
among the herdsmen about wells (ver.
12-22). And there is
this aggravation, - that besides
the ordinary disputes apt to arise between parties
feeding large quantities of
cattle near one another, - questions of hereditary right
are raised, and
complaints have to be made on behalf of Isaac, as to the
wrong done by the
Philistines, in stopping the wells which his father
Abraham’s servants had
digged (ver. 18).
At last, after a vexatious, though not lengthened course of
wandering and contention, Isaac returns to the vicinity
of his former
dwelling-place; and at
And, to complete the parallel, the narrative closes with the
transaction between Isaac and the ruler of the country
where he had been
sojourning. That
prince, with the chief
captain of his army, hastens, evidently in some alarm,
to appease the
patriarch’s resentment and conciliate his favour, by a
friendly overture: - “Let there
be now an oath betwixt us, even
betwixt us and thee, and
let
us make a covenant with thee; that
thou wilt
do us no hurt, as we
have not touched thee,
and as we have done unto thee
nothing but good, and
have sent thee away in peace” (ver.
26-29).
Whereupon Isaac enters once more into a treaty, -
identical with that to
which his father Abraham had consented to swear, - on
the same precise spot,
and beside the same precise well, - which thus a second
time merits and regains
its appellation of “Beer-sheba” - the well of the oath (ver.
30-33).
So exact a similarity, even down to minute particulars,
between the story of the son’s pilgrimage and that of
the father, may very
possibly create difficulty in certain minds.
And at this distance of time, both from the
occurrence of the events and
from the recording of them it may be beyond our power to
account for it
altogether satisfactorily.
That the king
of Gerar and his prime minister, or commander-in-chief,
should bear the same
names that the corresponding personages bore in
Abraham’s time, - Abimelech and
Phichol, - may be easily enough explained, according to
eastern usage, upon the
supposition of these being hereditary titles of
hereditary offices.
But it does seem somewhat strange that the
very details of the adventures which the father and the
son respectively
underwent, should be to so great an extent identically
the same. Let
it be observed, however, that the
picturesque and graphic annals of that older time are
apt to cast into the same
type or mould analogous events, and successions of
events. They
seize upon the features that are
identical, without dwelling upon circumstantial
differences; and thus they give
to the whole narrative a somewhat artificial [Page 278] appearance of
even literal
repetition. Then,
again, let it be
remembered, that the domestic manners of the East have
always been far less
liable to change from generation to generation, and have
always had far more of
a sort of stereotyped character, than the manners of
other countries and later
ages with which we are more familiar.
And, above all, let it be considered that there
was a wise purpose to be
served by the plain and palpable identification of
Isaac, as the heir, with
Abraham, whose successor and representative he was. It was
important that he should be recognized
and acknowledged by the nations and kings - with whom
Abraham had been called
to mingle. And
it may well be ascribed
to the immediate and special ordering of the providence
of God, that the
younger patriarch was appointed or allowed to retrace
and revive the footsteps
of his predecessor’s pilgrimage; - as well as to re-open
the wells which, under
his father’s auspices, had been dug.
One thing, however, distinguishes the experience of
Isaac. His
career as a wanderer is a
kind of episode in his history; for the most part, his
life is settled and
sedentary. Sixty
years at least, and
probably more than sixty, had passed over his head
before he was called to
remove from the place where Abraham had latterly pitched
his tent; for we may
safely conclude that Isaac did not go to Gerar until
after the birth of his two
sons, and the transaction between them respecting the
sale of the
birthright. Then
we must certainly
suppose him to have been settled again at Beer-sheba
before Esau’s unhappy
marriage with two daughters of the proscribed race. Thus
the years of Isaac’s
wandering must be reduced to some eight or ten at the
utmost. And
we find him restored, in his eightieth
year, to that comparatively quiet course of life which
for nearly a century
thereafter he continued to follow, - until he died
peacefully at the age of an
hundred and fourscore years (chap.
35: 28,
29).
How that long period of an entire century was spent - what was
Isaac’s habitual occupation, and what vicissitudes were
apt to vary the
uniformity of its routine - we have no means of even
conjecturing. All
that we learn with respect to it, in so
far as Isaac himself is concerned, is comprised in the
memorable incident of
his final and decisive bestowal of the blessing (chap.
37).
Nor is it easy to fix exactly the date of that
incident, so as to adjust
it to the prolonged continuance of Isaac’s life and
sojourn in the land.
That he lived some considerable time after the
scene of the benediction, is evident from the fact that
Jacob found him still
alive when he returned from his residence in Laban’s
family; for he joined with
Esau in rendering the last offices of filial love (35:
29).
But at the same time it is equally evident that
it was upon his
deathbed, at least in his own opinion, that Isaac
transacted the affair which
led to Jacob’s exile.
It was as a dying
man that he meant to dispose of the birthright-blessing. And however
long he may have lingered
afterwards on the earth, we are to consider the
twenty-seventh chapter, the
chapter with which we have next to deal, as virtually
recording his dying
bequest - his final and irrevocable legacy.
*
*
*
[Page 279]
CHAPTER 37
THE
TRANSMISSION OF
THE BIRTHRIGHT
- BLESSING
GENESIS 27
We now enter upon the most pathetic of all the narratives in
this book - if we except, perhaps, that of Joseph’s
discovery of himself to his
brethren. And
we enter upon it, not to
mar it by any periphrastic commentary, but merely to
apply to it the key
furnished by the oracle of God; - “The
elder shall
serve the younger.”
In the light
of that oracle let us review the history.
The struggle between sense and faith is nowhere in all the
Bible more painfully brought out than here; it might
almost seem, indeed, as if
the scene were meant to be as much a trial of those who
are mere spectators of
it, through the perusal of the inspired narrative, as it
was of those who were
originally and personally engaged in it.
In general, it may be observed that the sacred history,
especially in the Old Testament, often makes a strong
demand upon the faith of
readers; at least it makes a demand on that peculiar
exercise of faith which
consists in obedience to the peremptory injunction - “Be
still and know that I am God.”
The sovereignty of God, as the direct and
immediate cause of whatsoever
comes to pass, - together with the absolute vanity of
all subordinate agents, -
fills the mind with awe; - while the open and
undisguised, nay, as it would
seem, minute and elaborate exposure of human weakness
and sin, would almost
make one echo in sad earnest what the Psalmist said in
his haste, “All men are liars”
(Ps.
116: 11). It happens
too, here, as in other instances
in which the divine and human elements are combined,
that the balance, in the
comparison of
character and conduct,
is often felt to be in favour rather of those who are
opposing, than of those
who are carrying out, the divine will.
The
blessing reaches him for whom it is intended, in a way
that is apt to connect
it, in our esteem, with the idea of ill-gotten gain; and
sympathy is enlisted
on the side of the real usurper.
His
impiety in aspiring to that rank which, by the divine
declaration as well as by
his own consent, now belonged to another, is lost sight
of in the generous
indignation with which we resent the fraud put upon him,
and the deep
compassion with which we listen to the plaintive
pleadings of his despair.
Hence, in estimating aright the moral and spiritual bearing of
such a narrative as this, we have to guard against a
double danger. On
the one hand, we may be tempted to
extenuate or excuse the sins of those who are taking
part with God, and seeking
to fulfil His purpose; and, in so doing, we may run the
risk of compromising
God’s holy law, and lowering our own sense of truth and
right. Or
again, on the other hand, we may allow our
just indignation against the faults into which we see
the professing people of
God betrayed, to carry us too far in the direction of an
unjust and
uncharitable judgment of their whole profession.
We may thus strengthen in ourselves and
others a prejudice, not only against the godly, but
against their godliness
itself, such as may be any thing but conducive to the
spiritual prosperity
either of our own souls or of theirs.
The last error [Page
280]
is the most natural of the two to the
natural mind; and it is an error which the perusal of
this story, under the
influence of merely natural feelings, is very apt to
foster. A
generous heart revolts from the meanness of
Jacob’s poor trick - and lavishes all its sympathy on
Esau’s bitter
disappointment.
There is a lesson in all this of much practical
importance. To
those who would be
accounted the people of God, it says emphatically:
Consider in what light your
conduct will appear to the world of onlookers around
you. At the
very best, they are not apt to be
prepossessed in your favour; and if they do not actually
watch for your halting,
you need not at any rate expect them either to break
your fall, or to cover
your nakedness. Nor
are they to be
altogether blamed.
Not only are the sins
that may be found in you more offensive to a correct
natural taste, than the
same sins in others who do not make your profession; but
the kind of sins to
which religious men are tempted, are often such as the
natural conscience more
instinctively condemns, than it does the open excesses
of the thoughtless
children of pleasure.
The virtues of
nature - although for the most part merely
constitutional - the frankness,
bravery, light heartedness, and good humour that spring
from an easy temper,
and a large flow of animal spirits, command universal
sympathy. Even
the vices of nature, unbroken and
untamed - its honest outbursts of passion - its
frailties leaning to virtue’s
side - are frequently such as to attract rather than
repel the lover of what is
generous, manly, and sincere.
On the
other hand, the meek and lowly graces which religion
cultivates have but little
comeliness in the sight of eyes dazzled with more gaudy
colours. The
deep exercises of soul, again, that
religion occasions, are not always favourable to that
equanimity which it is so
easy for one believing neither in heaven nor in hell to
assume. And
it must be confessed, also, that the
vices which a religious profession admits of, or
tolerates, as not flagrantly
inconsistent with itself, are apt to be such as a man of
worldly honour most
indignantly repudiates.
The mere name of
godliness is at variance with the more splendid follies
which the world
conspires to idolize; while alas! that name, and even
the reality, is sometimes
found to be but too compatible with other violations of
the strict rule of
honourable conduct, such as the world itself is foremost
to disown.
What a motive is thus presented to watchfulness over their
whole conduct on the part of the people of God!
But for the ungodly, it will be but poor
consolation that in their
resentment of Jacob’s inexcusable fault, they exclude
themselves from the
covenant of Jacob’s God.
In my brief review of this affecting narrative, I mean to
notice the persons interested in it, in the order in
which they come upon the
stage, after the purpose of Isaac is formed in his own
mind, intimated to his
son Esau, and by some means or other reported to his
wife Rebekah. According
to this arrangement, Rebekah
herself is the first to claim attention; then, secondly,
her favourite Jacob;
in the third place, the patriarch Isaac himself; and
lastly, the unhappy Esau.
1.
Of all the parties concerned, Rebekah is the one
most easily given over,
by ordinary readers, to summary and condign
condemnation; nor [Page 281] would it be safe to call in question the all but unanimous verdict of the
church, as well as the world, against her conduct in
this case. But
it is important that the real nature of
her offence should be ascertained and recognized.
It is not merely the indulgence of a fond
mother’s doting and unreasonable partiality that we have
here to deal
with. It is
a sore trial of spiritual
faith that this mother in
The divine oracle is, to all human appearance, on the point of
being frustrated and made void - Isaac is about to
thwart the revealed purpose
of God. The
known will of her God, and
the known intention of her husband, are irreconcilably
at variance. God
has destined the Abrahamic promise to the
line of Jacob; Isaac is about to vest it in the lineage
of Esau. And
the crisis is urgent.
The transaction for which Isaac is preparing
himself is understood to be decisive.
It
is no ordinary or everyday occurrence.
The head of the chosen household is, or imagines
himself to be, on his
deathbed; and what he may say or do now, especially with
reference to the
transmission of the birthright, is believed to have the
force of an infallible
and irrevocable bequest.
What, in these
circumstances, is the believing wife to do?
To remonstrate either with Esau or with his father would be,
as she may well imagine, altogether in vain.
They had gone too far, and committed themselves
too deeply, to be now
arrested by the warning of one whom they might suspect -
perhaps with some
justice - if not of malice, at least of partial counsel. The weakened
mind of the old man, and the
wilful mind of the young man, might seem alike to
preclude any hope of success,
if Rebekah had been inclined to try her influence with
either. The
case then seems desperate.
It is true that she may safely leave it in
the hands of Him whose oracle is in danger, and rely
upon His wisdom and power
to baffle all attempts that may be made to turn His
purpose aside. But
it is difficult to remain inactive when a
great evil is about to happen, and the means of
preventing or averting it seem
to be at hand. Shall
I see the declared
mind of God thwarted before my eyes, when a little
ingenuity can suggest a way
of turning the very endeavour to thwart it into the
means of its
accomplishment! Is
not any device
justifiable for such an end! May not fraud itself, in
such a crisis, be
regarded as almost pious?
Such is the probable and fair explanation of the mother’s part
in this miserably complex family sin.
2.
The conduct of Jacob is little else than an
aggravated repetition of his
cold-blooded negotiation with his brother Esau about the
sale of the
birthright. He
hesitates, indeed, when
he is first asked by Rebekah to become a partner with
her in her fraud; not,
however, from any righteous abhorrence of the crime, but
from doubt of its
practicability (ver.
11, 12).
Accordingly, when he is reassured by the urgency of the
tempter’s solicitation - alas! that he should have had
such a tempter! - he
goes about the work of guile with a deliberation that
shocks our sense of
decency as well as of virtue (ver.
13).
He
suffers himself without remonstrance to be arrayed in
the skin borrowed from a
senseless animal, and the robes stolen from an unwitting
brother. And
led by the false fondness of a mother
into the chamber which the seeming approach of [Page 282] death, as well
as the solemn
transaction then on hand, should have hallowed with an
awful reverence of truth
and righteousness, - he heaps lie upon lie with
unscrupulous effrontery; abuses
the simple confidence of the blind old man; and almost,
if we may so speak,
betraying his father with a kiss, - steals from him the
birthright-blessing, -
and then hastens out of his sight, as if he were not
only afraid to meet his
brother, but impatient to exult in secret over the
success with which his
daring stratagem has been crowned (ver.
14-30).
Nor is it any palliation of his offence that he is leading his
father in this matter to act according to the will and
purpose of God. My
father, he might say within himself, is infirm of
purpose, - he is in his
dotage. He
has all along had a wrong
bias with regard to the disposal of the birthright;
and now in the failure of
his mental as well as bodily powers, he is scarcely to
be held accountable for
what he does. He
must be managed for his
own good as one manages a froward child in its days of
unintelligent infancy.
Miserable excuse! as idle with respect to
God, as it is cruel with respect to Isaac!
The oracle of God - the dotage of Isaac, - are
these valid reasons for
this crooked policy?
Nay, should not the
very fact of God’s purpose having been so unequivocally
announced, supersede
the necessity of all human plotting and contrivance? Will the wit,
any more than the wrath of man,
work the righteousness of God? - Let us stand still and
see the salvation of
God.
And then as to Isaac’s imbecility, and the necessity of
keeping him right by craft if not by reason, - does the
interference of his
wife and son really mend the matter?
Will Isaac’s sin be the less, if by mere mistake
he does one thing when
he means to do another?
Is there no
other method that may be tried?
Where is
the use of prayer?
The patriarch is about to convey the blessing by a deed
implying a divine sanction and divine inspiration. May not God be
asked to interpose, and the
issue thereafter left to Him?
On whatever side we view it, the crime into which Rebekah
hurries her favourite child Jacob is a very sad one; and
deeply have they both
occasion, all their life long, to rue the day when they
were tempted to take
into their own hands the execution of the plans and
purposes of the Most High.
3.
Of Isaac himself, as his conduct on this
memorable occasion illustrates
his general character, there is but little to be said. An important
inquiry, however, suggests
itself on the subject of the faith which he is expressly
said to have
exercised. For
it is with special
reference to the transaction which we are now
considering, that he is enrolled
in the catalogue of the men “of
whom the world was not
worthy,” the “great
cloud of witnesses;”
this emphatic testimony being borne of him; - “By
faith
Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning
things to come”
(Heb.
11: 20). What, one may
ask, does the testimony mean?
1.
Let it be remembered in the first place, that in
this whole transaction,
Isaac understood himself to be the depositary and
transmitter of the great
covenant-promise which his father Abraham had received. It was in that
character that he blessed
Jacob and Esau, and to realize that character implied an
act and exercise of
faith. In
that faith, Isaac never
wavered. [Page 283] Very early in
his lifetime he was
initiated into the most sublime and spiritual of the
articles of its creed; for
the part he bore in the scene on
It may be a question indeed whether or not he chose the right
time and adopted the right method.
Misled by the failure of his sight, and other
growing infirmities, he
may have proceeded to the discharge of what should have
been the last duty of
his life, before he had any indication from God of his
end being near, or any
legitimate warrant to expect that divine inspiration
which was wont to prompt
the dying utterances of the prophetic patriarchs of old. In the manner
also of pronouncing the
decisive benediction, Isaac may have been, and probably
was, in fault. That
something like a feast should be
associated with the solemn act of conveying the
birthright-blessing; and that
on such an occasion the pontifical robes belonging in
hereditary succession to
the first-born should be worn - we may be prepared to
admit. But
surely the feast should have been of a
religious character, and the investiture of the
first-born in his robes should
have been a public and solemn religious act.
A mere savoury mess of venison, the fruit of a
day’s hunting in the
field, could have no appropriate relation to the
prophetic act which the dying
head of the household had to perform.
And as to the investiture of the priestly and
royal robes, for such the
“goodly raiment” of the
elder son is with great
probability supposed to be, surely it should have been
arranged beforehand with
such open formality as would have rendered the
assumption of them by stealth
impossible. The
entire ceremony, in
short, in all its three parts, - in the eating of meat,
the putting on of the
garment of primogeniture, and the pronouncing of the
solemn covenant-blessing,
- should have been a devotional service in the presence
of the household; and
not the pitiful stealing of a march on the part of one
parent against the
other.
It is on both sides a deplorable game of craft.
If Rebekah is blamed, and justly blamed, for
her cunning plot in favour of Jacob, - let Isaac’s
procedure also be duly
scanned. Is
the patriarch called to
execute, as he believes, the last solemn deed of his
earthly career? And
is he to do so, not merely in the
character of an ordinary parent, but in the official
capacity of a priest and
prophet, entitled to look for special divine inspiration
in [Page 284] this closing act of his life? Then
how
does he set about it?
Not openly, in
the face of all his family, and with the customary
observance of all the
appropriate sacrificial rites; but clandestinely,
without so much as
communicating his purpose to the wife of his bosom. Certainly the
conduct of Isaac, in seeking
furtively, by an underhand manoeuvre, to secure the
envied and sorely-contested
prerogative for Esau, does not indicate much more of
truth and integrity than
we are accustomed to ascribe to the plan of Jacob and
Rebekah.
Nevertheless, it was by faith that Isaac was moved to dispose
of the blessing.
For, in the second place, it is chiefly in the sequel of the
scene that the faith of Isaac appears.
When first he discovers the imposition that has
been practiced upon him,
the patriarch is altogether overwhelmed.
And no wonder!
His whole plan has
miscarried. All
the pains he has been
taking to get the business done quietly, without the
knowledge of the rival
claimant and his partisan, have been thrown away.
He has hurried it on in the hope that all
would be over, and all securely settled on behalf of
Esau, before Rebekah or
Jacob could hear any surmise of what was on foot.
No wonder, therefore, that when he finds
himself so signally and shamefully foiled, he “trembles
very
exceedingly.”
But through
this trembling his faith manifests its power; first in
the broken accents of
his passionate exclamation, -“Who?
where is he that hath”
surreptitiously got the
blessing? - and next, almost before the outburst is
over, in the calm language of
acquiescence, “yea, and
he shall
be blessed” (ver. 33).
It is the very agony of faith, sorely shaken, but yet
recovering itself.
The patriarch’s eyes
are opened; it is as if a long dream were dispelled. All at once,
and all around him, a new light flashes;
showing the past, the present, the
future,
in new colours.
He has been
trying to overreach; but he is himself overreached. Above all, he
has been “kicking against the
pricks;” and he finds that to be “hard.” But now
his faith signally triumphs.
If he has
given way to natural feeling, anger must have filled his
bosom. If
he had looked merely to second causes, he
must have revoked his blessing on the instant, and
turned it into a curse; for
he could not be held bound by anything he had uttered
under a mistake or
misapprehension, as to the party to whom he uttered it. What has
passed, he might have said, between
me and Jacob is essentially null and void.
He got the birthright-blessing under a false
pretence. I
did not really mean to convey it to him.
Isaac: maintains no such plea; he owns the blessing as beyond recall.
And on what ground? Simply on the
ground of its being
manifestly of God.
Here is the faith of Isaac; the faith by which he “blessed
Jacob and Esau.”
“Let God be true,
and every man a liar,” is
the principle upon
which now at last he acts.
There has been falsehood among all the parties concerned in
the transaction; they have all been trying to forestall
and overreach one
another. On
all hands it is a miserable
confusion and complexity of deceit; and instead of the
calm and holy beauty of
a saint’s departing hour, - a venerable patriarch in the
presence of all
belonging to him, and under the [Page
285]
guidance and inspiration of his God,
sealing with his latest voice the covenant and counsel
of heaven, - the
household is scandalized by a spectacle of domestic feud
fitted to shake all
confidence in human truthfulness, and make God’s chosen
family a very by-word
for disunion and dispeace, among all the dwellers upon
the earth. But
for His own name’s sake, God overrules
the evil for good, and on the ruins of man’s manifold
lies establishes His own
truth. Signally
does He visit upon the
guilty parties, in their after-life, the plot in which
they have been
concerned. But
in the first instance He
disconcerts the plot itself.
The
well-devised scheme of the stealthy hunting, the hasty
meal, and the secret
blessing, is frustrated; and Isaac, awaking as from a
dream, owns that it is
the doing of the Lord!
With fear and
trembling he acknowledges at last the divine
sovereignty, and acquiesces in the
righteousness and salvation of God.
He
no longer resists God; he believes, the Lord helping his
unbelief; and by faith
he confirms [the double portion of the inheritance] the
birthright-blessing anew to
Jacob. He
consoles, indeed, as best he
can, the passionate grief of Esau; but he does not now
question the divine
purpose in favour of his younger son.
He
recognizes in him the heir of the promise made to his
father Abraham, and the ancestor
of the expected Messiah.
He sets to his
seal that God is true.
It was thus that
“by faith Isaac blessed Jacob
and Esau concerning
things to come” (Heb.
11: 20).
4.
The saddest of all the pictures in
this dismal domestic tragedy is that of Esau.
There is nothing extant in the whole range of
literature, sacred or
profane, more heart-rending than the wild and passionate
outburst of his
sorrow; his cry, his “exceeding
bitter cry,” – “Bless
me, even me also,
0 my father!” (ver.
34).
His keen complaint against his brother; - “Is
not he rightly named Jacob? for
he hath
supplanted me these two times: he
took away my
birthright; and,
behold,
now he hath taken away my
blessing” (ver.
36); his
pathetic pleading with his father “Hast
thou not reserved
a blessing for me?” (ver.
36); and finally the
uncontrollable vehemence of
his despair, when replying to the feeble question of the
agitated old man; - “What shall
I do now unto thee, my son?” (ver. 37)
- he abandons himself to the utmost agony of
woe, crying, “Hast thou but one
blessing, my father?
bless me, even
me also, 0 my father!”
-
and then “lifting up his voice,
and weeping” (ver.
38); - the whole
constitutes a more melting scene
by far than poet ever fancied or painter ever drew. And if we
isolate it from all consideration
of the spiritual relations in which the parties stood to
one another, our
sympathy is carried along in full flood with the whole
swelling torrent of the
injured man’s wrath and grief.
But it
will not be wise to suffer our sympathy with him, or our
resentment of the
pitiful trick that baffled him, to blind our minds to
the real character of
Esau, and of the course of conduct in which he was
defeated.
Tried even by the standard of worldly honour, Esau is on this
occasion found grievously wanting. If Jacob succeeded in
circumventing him, did
not he, in the first instance, seek to steal a march
upon Jacob? Setting
the oracle of God aside, - was there
not enough in his own compact and covenant with Jacob to
preclude the idea of
this underhand procedure in the mind of an upright and
conscientious man?
Even if he thought that he had been hardly
used in that negotiation, - and that he [Page 286] ought to
recall the foolish bargain
by which he sold his birthright for a mess of pottage, -
he might have
remonstrated with his brother instead of seeking to
outwit him by a secret
stratagem. Surely
that is not exactly
the behaviour that might be expected from a frank and
manly spirit; it is not
quite the conduct of one who “sweareth
to his own hurt,
and changeth not” (Ps.
24: 4).
But it is chiefly in a spiritual view that his conduct is here
again to be regarded, - in the light of the inspired
commentary of the Epistle
to the Hebrews, in which the writer speaks of Esau as “a
profane person, who
for one morsel of meat sold
his birthright;” and who “afterward,
when he would have inherited the
blessing, was rejected;
for he found no
place of repentance, though
he sought it
carefully with tears” (Heb.
22: 14-17).
So the
apostle testifies with reference evidently to the
passionate pleading of Esau
with his father Isaac.
Esau really did seek a place of repentance.
Not merely did he seek to change his
father’s
mind, as some understand the expression; he sought
to recall and reverse his own
rash act in consenting to the sale of what now at
last he had learned in some
measure adequately to value. The apostle
manifestly alludes to Esau’s own change of mind, to
which the wretched man sought
to give effect; not to any change he needed or tried
to work in the mind of
Isaac. For he had indeed changed his mind upon the subject, and he would have
made good that change of mind now, if he had been
able. How
far he was in earnest desirous of the
spiritual blessings of grace and [the future] salvation
involved in the birthright, - is another question; at
all events he
was so far awakened as to be alive to
the preciousness and importance of that which he had
once despised, - the
birthright-legacy which he had consented to sell,
and which now at last he sought in vain to recover. Yes! it was, alas!
in vain. He had taken a decided step. The
issue
was beyond recall.
Neither toil,
nor craft, nor importunity, nor tears could revoke the
deed.
Nor could he take refuge in the oracular decree.
That decree made the sale unmeaning as
regards the purpose and will of God; but it did not make
it unmeaning as
regards the intention of Esau.
His
consent to sell the birthright, and his desperate
attempt to recover its
blessing, were alike irrespective of the oracle.
If he
had owned at first that revelation in the exercise of
a true faith, he never
would have negotiated the sale at all; he would
have made common cause with
Jacob, upon a different footing altogether; upon the
footing of a common
interest in the Messiah - [God’s
anointed King and Ruler over ALL creation:
this
present one, and the one that is to come - “a
new
heaven and a new earth” (Rev.
21: 1).], of whom Jacob was to be the father.
Or, if he
had really come now to
recognize and believe the revelation in its real
significancy, he would
have sought to recall and review the past transaction,
with all its sin and
shame, in a very different spirit, and to a very
different effect. He
would have sought for a place of repentance with even
deeper and bitterer
sorrow than he did; but it would have been with
sorrow “after a godly sort;”
and he would have sought for it
in the way of fulfilling the very terms of the oracle. He
would
have looked to Jacob, or rather to the Messiah of whom
Jacob was to be
the ancestor, for any interest in the birthright or
its blessing to which he
might yet hope to aspire.
If he had
thus sought for a place of repentance, or an opportunity
of effectually
changing his mind, he would [Page
287]
not have sought for it in vain.
It was not, however, this, but something far short of this,
that Esau after all desired.
He was
awakened, indeed, so far as to see and bitterly lament the folly he had committed in consenting to barter all that was
precious in his hope for the future in exchange for a
present morsel of meat. Fain
would he have repented now of that
folly. And
if a very agony of
carefulness and floods of tears could have availed, he
would have recalled the
past. But
that was all. To
the last, there was no real acquiescence
in the divine method of [that
future] salvation, - no real seeking of the blessing in the only
direction in which it could be found, and through the
only name in which it was
treasured up.
And is not this the very awakening that often haunts the dying
hour, or the dreary solitude, of the unhappy child of
earth, when he is startled to find that he has made a miserable bargain in
consenting to gain the whole world and lose his own
soul?* Remorse,
- rage, - revenge, - madden his breast and fire his
brain! He
has committed a fearful mistake in living
for the world, and bartering for the world’s mess of
pottage all that might
have brightened his immortal hope!
What
energy, even of despair, agitates his frame!
If cries and tears could suffice, he would yet
recall, and cancel, and
undo the past. But
in all this, there is
no real bringing of his soul into subjection to the
sovereign will of God, or
the saving righteousness of Christ, or the sanctifying
work of the Spirit.
He is stung to the quick as a disappointed,
befooled, and outwitted man; - not converted to the
meekness of a little child.
There is no acquiescence in the appointed way
of mercy; no seeking of a Saviour for his lost and
guilty soul. But
poignant regret of the past, and blank
terror of the future, extort the cry of expiring agony;
and extort that cry in
vain.
[* For the future
“the salvation of souls,”
see (1 Pet. 1:
9, R.V.) cf. Heb.
10: 39;
James 1: 21.).]
It is the appointed nemesis of the despised voice of wisdom -
the slighted gospel call; - “Because
I have called,
and ye refused; I
have
stretched out my hand, and
no man regarded;
but ye have set at nought all my
counsel, and would
none of my reproof: I
also will laugh at your calamity; I
will mock
when your fear cometh; when
your fear cometh as
desolation, and your
destruction cometh as a
whirlwind; when
distress and anguish cometh upon
you. Then
shall they call upon me, but
I will not answer;
they shall seek me early,
but they shall not find me:
for that they hated knowledge, and did not choose
the fear of the Lord: they would none of my counsel;
they
despised all
my reproof: therefore
shall they eat of the
fruit of their own way, and
be filled with their
own devices.” (Prov.
1: 24-31).
*
*
*
[Page
288]
CHAPTER 38
THE
BEGINNING
OF JACOB’ PILGRIMAGE -
THE
VISION
GENESIS
27: 41-46;
28: 1-15.
Where shall I go from Your Spirit?
Or where shall I flee
from Your presence?
- If I should count them,
they are more in number than
the sand, when I
awake, I am still
with
You. -
Psalm
139: 7,
18.
Are they not all ministering spirits sent out in
order
to serve those who are going to be heirs of
salvation?
- Hebrews
1: 14.
The
divine testimony concerning Esau’s state of mind towards
his brother Jacob -
his bitter hatred and bloody purpose - is the most
authentic commentary upon
his previous conduct; - “Esau
hated Jacob, because
of the blessing wherewith his father blessed him:
and Esau said in his heart,
The days of mourning for my
father are at hand; then
will I slay my brother Jacob” (ver.
41)?
Surely if Esau had really been seeking either
true repentance, or any spiritual blessing which the
godly sorrow of true
repentance can command, he would have been humbled for
his own sin before God,
and anxious to have a share in the covenant-blessing on
any terms that God
might appoint. And
towards his brother,
he would have cherished such a sentiment as the oracle
from the first should
have awakened; and now much more after even his too
partial father had
acquiesced in it. Certainly, it is conclusive proof
against the genuineness of
that “repentance” for
which Esau “sought a place,
and found none,”
that he harbored so deadly a hatred against Jacob, and
formed so deliberate a
plan of fratricide. But as in other instances, so here,
persecution is
overruled by God for good; it leads to a more decided
separation of the church
from the surrounding idolatrous world.
The violent threatening of Esau is the means of
preserving Jacob from
such alliance with the ungodly as that into which Esau
himself has unhappily
fallen. First
of all, it brings Jacob
into nearer and more confidential fellowship with God
than he had ever before
enjoyed; shutting him up in the bonds of a gracious and
holy covenant. And
then it puts him in the way of forming a
connection somewhat better than the marriages which Esau
had contracted with
the daughters of Heth (26:
34-35;
27: 46).
The movement towards Jacob’s departure from the paternal roof,
originates with his mother.
A twofold
motive animates her; she acts partly under the impulse
of natural affection,
and partly also under the guidance of religious belief
or spiritual faith.
She would save Jacob from falling a victim to
his brother’s anger; she would save him at the same time
from falling into his
brother’s sin. The
two motives are by no
means incompatible. Rebekah dreads the double
bereavement she must experience
if Jacob should die by Esau’s hand, and Esau also should
die as a murderer, by
the hand of the avenger of blood, or of the Lord Himself
making “inquisition for blood.” “Why
should I be
deprived also of you both in one day?” (ver.
42-45). But besides,
she perceives the necessity of
the chosen family being kept holy and uncontaminated by
heathen admixture: and
she [Page 289] feels that the time has come for a wife being found for Jacob,
to be the mother of the promised seed, not from among
the daughters of the
land, but from the kindred out of whom the Lord had so
evidently selected
herself as a spouse to Isaac.
Hence her
suggestion to her husband; - “I
am weary of my life
because of the daughters of Heth: if
Jacob take
a wife of the daughters of Heth, such
as these
which are of the daughters of the land, what
good shall my life do me?” (ver.
46).
And
hence Isaac’s charge to his younger son; - “Thou
shalt
not take a wife of the daughters of
Stung by the implied reproach cast on him by his parents, Esau
vainly tries to repair his error, and only succeeds in
adding sin to sin by the
connection which he forms with the rejected race of
Ishmael; - “Seeing that the
daughters of Canaan pleased not Isaac his
father; he went unto
Ishmael, and took unto
the wives which he had Mahalath the daughter of
Ishmael to be his wife” (ver.
6-9). Under better
auspices, blessed by his aged
parent, and led by God Himself, Jacob goes forth on his
lonely journey. Surely
he goes forth in faith.
The outward circumstances, indeed, of his departure from home
and his entrance on his solitary pilgrimage, are by no
means such as to
indicate or prove the high rank he holds in the estimate
of heaven. Alone
and unattended, - flying from the
resentment of his brother, - he finds himself, as
darkness closes in, without
house or hut to shelter his weary head.
No dwelling is near; - no hospitable hand is
ready to open the willing
door and spread the welcome couch.
Under the broad roof of the heavenly vault, and
on the bare earth, he is
fain to lie down; the wide expanse his chamber, and the
rough stone his pillow
(ver. 10,
11).
But that night is to be a crisis in his history.
“God found him at
The manner, as well as the matter, of this communication from
God to Jacob, is remarkable; indeed, the manner is even
more so than the
matter.
The key to it is to be found in a transaction long subsequent,
- connected with the opening of our Lord’s ministry on
the earth. There
can be little or no doubt that it is
Jacob’s dream which the Lord has in view when He makes
the otherwise strange
and inexplicable announcement to Nathanael; - “Hereafter ye shall see heaven open,
and the angels of God
ascending and descending upon the Son of man” (John 1: 50,
51).
Let the circumstances of that memorable interview be
considered. Nathanael
is told by Philip
that he and some others have “found
him of whom Moses
in the law, and the prophets, did write, Jesus
of Nazareth,
the son of Joseph” (ver.
45).
Upon this he first interposes the objection, “Can
[Page 290] there any good thing come out of
What, we may well ask, - what is there in this brief colloquy,
- to convince Nathanael so quickly, so effectually, so
enthusiastically and
joyously?
To say merely that Jesus gave a proof of His omniscience by
referring to the fact of Nathanael having been recently
under his fig-tree, -
is by no means satisfactory.
It is not
to the accidental circumstance of an ordinary visit to a
fig-tree that the Lord
alludes; in that case, His allusion could scarcely have
told so promptly and
powerfully as it did upon Nathanael’s mind.
There was more in the hint, as Nathanael himself
evidently caught it
up. It was
a swift electric and
telegraphic interchange of intelligence between Jesus
and this new
inquirer. Not
to the place where
Nathanael happened at a particular time to be, - but to what was then and there passing in his mind, - does the
Searcher of hearts appeal.
And therefore
the appeal comes home with point and efficicy to the
conscience.
Let it be remembered that “under the
fig-tree,” was the oratory or place of prayer,
- the “closet,” - for a
pious Jew in the middle rank of life;
- whence the sort of proverbial expression employed to
denote a state of
tranquillity and religious freedom: “They
shall sit
every man under his vine, and
under his fig-tree;
and none shall make them afraid”
(Mic. 4:
4).
In that
genial climate, and with the scanty accommodation
furnished in their ordinary
dwellings, the grateful shade of the vine or the
fig-tree in the garden might
be resorted to, as was also the enclosed house-top, for
the purposes of secret
prayer and meditation; and we can scarcely doubt that it
is to an exercise of
that sort that our Lord alludes, when His allusion
carries such swift
conviction to Nathanael’s soul: - “When
thou wast under
the figmtree, I saw
thee.” I
saw what thou wast doing; I
saw what was passing in thy mind.
And it is upon the ground and warrant of what
then and there I saw in thee, that upon thy very first
coming to Me I pronounce
the sentence which not unnaturally surprises thee so
much: - “Behold an Israelite
indeed, in
whom is no guile!”
But there must have been something special in Nathanael’s
exercise of soul under the fig-tree, to which the Lord
so significantly points;
and there is one hypothesis which seems to possess no
inconsiderable amount of
inherent probability.
Let it be supposed that it was the thirty-second
psalm that had been engaging Nathanael’s devout
thoughts. He
has been passing through some [Page 291] such experience as the psalmist in that psalm describes.
There has been previously a season of decline
in his spiritual life; there has been more or less of
reserve in his
intercourse with God.
Especially in
regard to sin, - either the general sin of his heart and
life, or some specific
sin in particular, - he has been restraining confession
and prayer; excusing
perhaps and justifying himself. “Going
about to
establish a righteousness of his own,” he has
been dealing unfairly and
deceitfully with the holy law of his God, as well as
with his own guilt and
corruption; trying to soothe his soul by means of
palliatives, - to pacify his
conscience with the usual opiates that lull worldly men
asleep. But
he has not succeeded; in very mercy, God
has not suffered him to find rest.
He
has been harassed by misgivings and fears, until he has
been constrained to try
“a more excellent way;”
the way of an unreserved
unburthening of his whole heart to God. He has been
driven to confession, and
the simple, child-like, utterance of all his wants and
all his griefs.
Such had been David’s experience. “When
I kept silence, my
bones waxed old, through
my roaring all the day long.
For day and night thy
hand was heavy upon me: my
moisture is turned
into the drought of summer.” Then I changed my
plan. “I acknowledged my
sin unto thee, and
mine iniquity have I not hid.
I said, I
will confess my transgressions unto the Lord; and thou forgavest the iniquity of
my sin.”
It is in the fullness of that instant and glad relief which he
found in unbosoming his whole soul to God, that David
pours out the burst of
grateful joy with which the psalm begins, - connecting
the assured pardon of
sin with the entire abandonment of all reserve, - “Bessed
is he whose
transgession is forgiven,
whose
sin is
covered.
Blessed
is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth
not iniquity, and in
whose spirit there is no guile”
(ver.
1, 2).
Let us say that in the soul-exercise under the fig-tree of
which our Lord shows Himself to have been cognizant,
Nathanael had just been
brought to the precise point to which the psalmist came;
that self-convicted
and self-condemned he had come to the conclusion, - “I
will confess my transgressions unto the Lord;”
- seeing nothing for it
but a frank and full casting of himself on the mercy of
his God. Then,
what an adaptation to his case, - what a word in
season, what a message of peace
directed personally and pointedly to himself, might
his broken and contrite
spirit recognize in the testimony of Jesus, - “Behold
an
Israelite indeed, in
whom is no guile”
- applied as it was to a scene which none but the Searcher of hearts could know!
And calling instantly to mind the connection
in which the emphatic condition of guilelessness stood,
in that experimental
psalm, with the full and free forgiveness of all
iniquity, - how must he have
exulted in the assurance thus indirectly, but only on
that account the more
effectually, conveyed to him of pardon, acceptance, and
peace! “Be of good cheer,
Nathanael,
thy sins are forgiven thee!” With what
unutterable emotions of relief,
gratitude, and joy, must he have hailed this Omniscient
One, so evidently
having power on earth to forgive sins; -“Rabbi,
thou art
the Son of
God; thou
art the King of
Israel”
(John 1: 49).
Now, it is to Nathanael, thus convinced and thus quickened,
that Jesus [Page
292]
addresses the stimulating appeal: “Because
I said unto thee, I
saw thee under the fig-tree, believest
thou?
thou
shalt see
greater things than these” (ver.
50).
And it
is as a sequel to this blessed negotiation of
forgiveness and peace that He introduces
the promise so plainly borrowed from the record of
Jacob’s vision; - “Verily,
verily, I
say unto you, Hereafter ye
shall see heaven open,
and the
angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of
man” (ver. 51).
Here, therefore, we have the interpretation of the
vision. The
angels ascending and
descending upon the Son of man represent
the [time of]
restored intercourse
between heaven and earth which His mediation secures.
The guileless believer not merely obtains the
forgiveness of sin, - tasting “the
blessedness of the
man to whom the Lord imputeth righteousness without
works” (
But not only may we interpret Jacob’s vision by the Lord’s
allusion to it in the promise given by Him to Nathanael. We may not
unreasonably carry back with us
what we have gathered as to Nathanael’s previous
exercise of soul that it may throw
light on Jacob’s state of mind, during the night he
passed on the bare ground
and stony pillow at
It is something more, as I cannot but think, than a plausible
conjecture - that Jacob may have been undergoing an
experience very similar to
that of David and Nathanael, when he beheld what the
Lord intimates that it
would be the high privilege of Nathanael also to see. He leaves his
home, as we may but too truly
assume, not only with guilt on his conscience, but also
with guile in his
spirit. His
sin has not yet found him
out. He has
been justifying himself and
blaming others. Standing
upon his divine
title to the birthright-blessing in a self-righteous
frame of mind, he has been
insensible to the evil of that sad train of cruelty and
craft which has made
his father’s household so unhappy, and in which, from
first to last, he has
himself had so great a share.
And so
long as he has been buoyed up by his mother’s sympathy
and his own repeated
successes in his schemes, he has felt little sorrow and
little shame for all
that has taken place.
But it is
altogether otherwise now.
He is alone;
and the hand of God is heavy upon him.
His dream of self-confidence and self-complacency
is at an end. His
sin is now “ever
before him.”
He can restrain his
voice no longer from confession and prayer.
He can no longer “keep
silence.”
He can but say; -“I
will confess my transgressions unto the Lord!” And may it not
be that, through the gracious
interposition of the blessed [Holy] Spirit applying to his now opened wounds the healing balm of the gospel of
peace, he has cause immediately to add: - “And
thou
forgavest the iniquity of my sin?” May not this
have been the manner of
the Lord’s dealing with him, and the course of his own
experience, as
preliminary and preparatory to the vision [Page 293] on which the
promise to Nathanael is
based: “Hereafter ye shall
see heaven open;”
- not opened
occasionally, now and then, but
open always; - so open always that, not at any
particular Bethel, but anywhere
and everywhere, “ye may see
the angels of God ascending
and descending upon the Son of man.”
*
*
*
CHAPTER 39
THE
BEGINNING
OF JACOBS PILGRIMAGE –
THE
VOW.
GENESIS
28: 16-22.
Vow,
and
pay to the LORD your God; let all that are around Him bring presents to
the Fearful One. - Ps. 76: 11.
It would
seem that this was the first occasion on which Jacob was
recognized, directly
and personally from heaven, as the successor of Abraham
and the representative
of the chosen seed.
His mother had
received an oracular intimation at his birth; and his
father had been led at
last to bestow upon him the patriarchal blessing. But
this midnight transaction
is Jacob’s formal inauguration, by God Himself, into the
high and holy position
of the child of the promise.
Henceforth
Isaac is as one virtually dead; the entire rights and
responsibilities bound up
in the Abrahamic line of descent being transferred to
Jacob.
There is a growing clearness in the divine utterances
concerning Jacob which is worthy of a passing notice.
The oracular announcement
to Rebekah is vague enough; and even the two
benedictions pronounced upon him
by his father Isaac are by no means very explicit. The
distinctive promise in the one is simply
that of superiority over his brother (27:
19); with the
accompanying assurance that to bless
or to curse him is to be a test of men’s minds, such as
the Lord’s own advent
afterwards was declared to be (Luke
2: 34, 35).
In the other benediction, again, the point of
the promise turns upon these few and general words: “God
Almighty give thee the blessing of Abraham” (28:
4).
Now, however, the Lord Himself renews with him
the Abrahamic covenant in
all its breadth and fulness (ver.
13-15). Favored in
such circumstances with such a
vision, and receiving so gracious a renewal of the
covenant, Jacob might well
awake with a vivid sense of the divine presence; ‑ “Surely the Lord
is in
this
place, and I
knew it not.
How dreadful is this
place! this is none
other but the house of God,
and this is the gate of heaven”
(ver. 16,
17).
And he
might well accompany his awakening not only with a
solemn act of dedication,
turning his stony pillow into a sacred memorial, and
calling the place
1.
This vow, or covenant, is a strong
confirmation of the opinion already indicated, that the
night of Jacob’s
sojourn at
2.
But the vow must be made in faith;
and this faith must characterize equally the motive, the
matter, and the object
of the vow. Thus,
as to the motive, - to
be either lawful or expedient, the vow must be an
expression, not of future,
contingent, and conditional compliance, but of present
trust, absolute and
unreserved. Vows
made in a spirit of
superstition or self-righteousness, - as if man might
stipulate or make terms
with the Sovereign Lord of all, are impious and vain. Again, the
matter of the vow, - the thing
vowed, - that which I bind myself by covenant to render
to my God, - must be of
His own selection, not mine.
To think
that I may go beyond what God Himself requires in my
voluntary vow, is to
assume the attitude, not of a debtor to grace and a
dependent upon grace, - but
of one in a position to lay God Himself under
obligation, and almost gain an
advantage over Him.
Nor must it be any
selfish end that I seek in my vow; not mere relief from
some impending calamity
or exemption from some unwelcome service; far less any
compromise of the
spiritual affection and hearty loyalty and love which I
owe to my God.
The vow of Jacob will stand these tests; especially when
considered in connection with the position in which he
was when he made
it. To some
readers, it is true, it may
seem as if the language used by him indicated doubt, and
some disposition to
make terms with God - rather than faith, [Page 295] and an
acquiescence in the terms
already made by God with him.
The
apparently conditional form of the vow, and the apparent
postponement of what
is vowed, may occasion to their minds some little
difficulty. But
in reality there is no ground for it.
As to the first point, the form of expression - “God
will be with me, and
will”
do so and so - does not necessarily imply contingency or
suspense; on the
contrary, it denotes the absolute certainty of the
conviction upon the faith of
which the vow proceeds.
The particle “if”
often bears the sense of “since,”
or
“forasmuch as;”
instances in proof might be
multiplied indefinitely (Rom.
8: 17;
Gal. 4:
7;* Phil.
2: 1;
Col. 2:
20; 3:
1, etc.) In the case
before us, we may confidently
gather from the correspondence between the Lord’s
promise (ver. 15),
and Jacob’s recital of it (ver.
20), that the
meaning of his vow is not, “it
shall turn out that God
is with me,” as if Jacob considered that
blessing to be still uncertain;
but “if it be so,” or “since
it is so,” that “God
will be with me.”
It is not the language of scepticism but of
faith; faith echoing and appropriating the pledge which
God had given. Yea!
hath God said that He “will be
with me, and will keep
me in this way that I go, and
will give me bread
to eat, and raiment to
put on, so that I come
again to my father’s house in peace!” (ver.
20, 21).
Can it be?
Is this, in truth, His communication to me? Then, if so -
that being the case - however
beyond all expectation and all belief such goodness
manifested to such an one
as I am may be - I hesitate, I doubt no more.
I take thee, 0 Lord, at Thy word.
And as Thou givest Thyself in covenant to Thy
servant, so in the bonds
of the same covenant I venture to give myself to Thee!
[*
NOTE. Is the second “if”
(in Rom. 8:
17b) not conditional?
Does the “if”
in Gal. 4:
7 not refer to sonship: “That
we
might receive
the adoption of sons” (verse 5,
R.V.)? Is
our “adoption”
and sonship not here shown to something conditional?
Does the Word of God not make a clear distinction between God’s
“children” and His “Sons”?
“The Spirit himself
beareth witness with our spirit, that
we are
children of God: and
If
children then
heirs: heirs of GOD…”
No condition here for any of the redeemed “children of God”:
and His promised heirship is eternal,
- in “a new heaven and a new
earth” (Rev. 21: 1). But look
at the second “if” – “joint
heirs
with Christ; if
so be that we suffer with him, that
we may
be glorified with him.”
Is this last clause not conditional upon
suffering with Him; and is it not our hope for
rulership with Him during
the “Age” to come! Rev.
2: 10;
3:11? All Christians
have a personal responsibility
before God to fulfil His conditions: “… but ye
yourselves do wrong, and
defraud, and that your
brethren.
Or know ye not
that the unrighteous shall not interit
the
Then again, as to the other point, affecting the matter as
well as the manner of the vow, it is unquestionably a
prospective engagement
under which Jacob binds himself.
He is
anticipating - not however doubtfully but in lively hope
- the actual accomplishment of what God had been pleased
to promise. And
he
is simply owning beforehand what will then be his
duty, and pledging himself to
its discharge.
When the Lord shall
have fulfilled all that He has said, as to His care of
me in the way that I go,
and as to my return to my father’s house in peace, what
will be the fitting
return of gratitude for me then and in these
circumstances to offer?
What the peculiar obligation under which I
must then feel myself to lie? Am I then to be wanting in
a suitable
acknowledgment? Nay, then more than ever “the
Lord
shall be my God.” And in token rather of His
faithfulness to me, than of
my loyalty and love to Him, “this
stone, which I have
set for a pillar, shall be God’s house: and of all that thou
shalt give me, I will
surely give the tenth unto
thee” (ver.
22).
Such is the real import of this transaction between Jacob and
his God corresponding and fitly answering to the
previous transaction between
his God and him. The
two are connected
as cause and effect: they stand in the relation of
antecedent and consequent to
one another. Jacob’s
act is the response
of faith to the divine promise. Because
Thou,
Lord, dealest graciously, and hast dealt graciously,
and dost promise to
deal graciously in all time to come, with Thy most
undeserving servant,
therefore, with Thy help, I also will deal truly and
faithfully with Thee.
Thy covenant with me [Page296] is sure: let my vow to Thee also
stand. Surely
a better model of a
spiritual and evangelical vow is nowhere to be found
than that which the rude
pillar was to attest and commemorate at
3.
The service which Jacob here
performed had its accompanying external rites.
A hastily-constructed altar was made of the stone
on which he had laid
his head; and, in default of other sacrifice, - for he
who erelong was to pass
again that way with flocks and herds enough and to
spare, had not a kid or a
lamb that he could call his own, - oil was poured upon
the stone (ver. 18).
A new name also was given to the spot, to
make it ever memorable in after years -
These external and formal accompaniments this vow had.
And it may be noted that, being better
remembered and understood than the covenant itself, they
became afterwards a
snare. The
stone set up, with the oil poured
on it, was probably one occasion, among others, of that
aggravated kind of
idolatrous worship which consisted in adoring, with
abominable rites, anointed
pillars like that of Jacob.
And the
superstitious regard paid in after years to the mere
name and locality of
Bethel, so moved the indignation of the holy prophet
that he gave it - instead
of Bethel, or house of God - the ignominious and
contemptuous nickname of
Beth-aven, or house of vanity (Hos.
4: 15;
Amos 5: 5). But apart from
the formalities of Jacob’s
simple ritual, - so simple that one might have thought
it scarcely possible
ever to misunderstand or pervert it, - the essence of
this transaction is not
ceremonial, but altogether spiritual
and moral;
and its spirit is not
legal, but on the contrary highly evangelical.
It is in fact the very type and model of the believer’s
consecration of himself, - with all that he now has, all that he ultimately hopes for, and all that he may receive by
the way, - to the Lord.
His
person, as accepted in the Beloved,
is to be the
Lord’s. His final
inheritance is to be to the praise
of the glory of God.
The very
stone that upheld his weary head when the Lord first
visited him in mercy upon
earth, will be ever freshly anointed for praising God
continually when he
reaches his home [“hereafter”
and] in
heaven. Every
cross he has borne, as well as every deliverance he
has experienced, will have
its own song to be sung in it as in a consecrated
temple. And
the whole will be one everlasting
hallelujah to the Lamb that was slain.
Meanwhile, between his
present acceptance and the coming rest, he casts
himself on the providence of
his God; and whatever may be the amount of the
Lord’s liberality, he offers
a pledge and proof of his accounting all that is given
to him by the Lord to
belong to the giver alone, by freely devoting to holy
purposes such a portion
of his time, his talents, and his substance, as may
afford evidence of his
holding the whole from God and for God
-
evidence which shall
be at least
equally conclusive with the with the literal tithing of
all that he has.
*
*
*
[Page 297]
CHAPTER 40
JACOB’S
SOJOURN
IN
GENESIS
29:
31.
And
Jacob fled into the
country of Syria, and
The
exact meaning and object of Hosea’s reference to Jacob’s
flight from Canaan,
and his sojourn and service in
Such is the connection in which the prophet’s allusion to
Jacob’s Syrian experience stands; and such its fitness,
taken along with the
accompanying allusion to the Exodus, at once to humble
the people under a sense
of their degradation, and to lead them anew to
repentance.
Before going into a detailed examination of the incidents of
Jacob’s sojourn in
1.
In the view of the romantic
adventures which Jacob met with, and the spirit and
manner in which he met with
them, in the country of his exile, it is important to
bear in mind his
singularly strange position as he [Page
298]
left his paternal home.
Compare Jacob’s lot with that of his father Isaac.
There was no question in Abraham’s house as
to the title of Isaac to inherit the birthright; there
was no misunderstanding
on that point between Isaac’s parents.
Abraham and Sarah were at one in owning him as
the child and heir of the
[first-born’s]
promise. And
when it was needful to find a wife for
Isaac, that the covenanted line might be prolonged,
there was no proposal made
to send him away. He
was not destined to
be an adventurer, taking his chance of success in life,
as well as of a partner
for better and for worse to share it.
His piety, which was both of early growth and of
mature strength, had no
family jars or jealousies to contend with; and the even
tenor of his quiet
domestic life was for the most part unbroken.
Very different is his son Jacob’s entrance into the world, and
the world’s busy strife.
He goes from
home a fugitive, with a wide commission to push his
fortune and seek a wife, in
what had been once indeed the country of his fathers,
but was now to him a
strange land. And
he goes with a home
experience and home life but little calculated to keep
alive the home feeling
abroad.
In the home which he is leaving, there ought to have been no
room
for misunderstanding; the oracle of God which preceded
and announced the birth
of Isaac’s two sons, should have made strife impossible. The
recognition of Jacob, as the [first-born]
heir, in terms of that oracle, and on
the ground of that submission to the sovereign decree of
God which it demanded,
would have obviated all risk of domestic rivalry and
partisanship, and ensured
peace and order in the household.
But
Isaac’s favoritism, for Esau, which blinded him to the
divine purpose
preferring Jacob, - and Rebekah’s favoritism, for Jacob,
which was too much of
the same carnal or merely natural sort, - led Jacob to
use subtlety in the
purchase of the birthright [belonging
to
the first-born], and issued in
the last melancholy
plot. Isaac’s unbelief, disregarding the divine oracle, and in spite of it
treating Esau as the heir; and Rebekah’s unbelief,
aiming at the fulfillment of
the oracle by means of her own policy, are alike
fitted to have an evil effect
on Jacob’s moral nature.
From first to
last, it was a poor training that the chosen son and
heir had in the house of
his parents.
And now, suddenly, we find him far away from home.
He carries with him, no doubt, his father’s
blessing, twice repeated; the first time pronounced
unwittingly - his father
intending it for Esau - the second time given expressly
and unequivocally.
But this late recognition of him as the heir,
wrung so reluctantly from his father, and given, too, in
immediate connection
with his mother’s trembling haste to get him out of the
reach of his brother’s
vengeance, could not undo the mischief of an education
under influences and
association very different from those which, in holy and
happy homes, minister
to the growth of a manly character, and the due
development of truth and love.
Certainly, the school in which he has been
brought up has had in it too much of the world’s craft
and jealousy, and too
little of honorable, not to say heavenly, singleness of
eye and generous warmth
of heart. And
his own natural
disposition being originally, as we may suppose,
inclined rather to a quiet
than an active life, - inclined [Page
299] consequently
to diplomacy rather than
to daring and adventure, - he has had a home-training
but too congenial to his
constitutional temperament, and too well fitted to nurse
and foster his
tendency to aim at success in his enterprises, - by art
rather than by arms, -
by cunning stratagem, rather than by manly openness and
boldness.
2. Thus born and bred he is thrown upon the world; experienced
enough, - alas! more than enough, - in domestic
intrigues and broils; but as
regards the world’s ways, rude and raw as any of those “home keeping youths” who, as the poet says, “have
ever homely wits.”
And the world on which he is thrown is more
than a match for him:
Laban, its representative and type, is the impersonation of
worldly shrewdness and unscrupulousness.
In the family of such an uncle, Jacob is tempted,
by the very craftiness
and cold selfishness of the kinsman with whom he has to
deal, to try a game of
policy. From
first to last, as we may
say, it is diamond cut diamond - Greek meeting Greek; a
trial of skill - a keen
encounter of wits.
The record of it is not pleasant; it is a painful narrative of
subtlety and sin. The
elder of the two
players has for a long time, as it would seem, the best
of the game. The
veteran man of the world out-maneuvers
more than once his less experienced relative.
In the end the tables are turned.
Jacob rights himself, and he is, as I think the
history indicates,
divinely taught and authorized to do so.
But it is not a satisfactory issue; it is too
much like the extrication
of an overreached man out of an ugly scrape, - the
rescuing of him, not too
creditably, out of the hands of a partner or customer,
whose cool cunning has
proved too much for him.
Can we doubt that it would have been better for Jacob if he
had dealt with Laban throughout more frankly and more
boldly? He
might have entered his kinsman’s house,
not as one needing to be hired and to receive wages, but
as the heir of the
promise, on the faith of which his great ancestor
Abraham had left these parts
for a better portion in
More than that, he had warrant and witness from above.
A
vision and a voice from heaven had owned him as
proprietor of the promised land
and father of the promised seed.
Fresh from the scene at
Surely if Jacob had behaved thus, in keeping and consistency
with his position, as it was attested by the Lord at
Bethel, and accepted by
himself in the vow which he so solemnly made, - things
might have turned out
far otherwise than they did.
Even worldly
Laban might have been so awed or won, as to respect the
man whom God honored,
and who honored God.
He might never have
thought of proposing meanly to barter for hired service
a hospitality which, on
such a footing, Jacob would have refused to accept at
the hands even of his
mother’s brother. The
unworthy trick of
substituting Leah for Rachel; the guilt of the double
marriage, with its
consequent polygamy and domestic profligacy; the thrice
repeated change of
wages; the plan for redressing the wrong by securing the
strongest of the
flock; the furtive flight; the pursuit; the
discreditable incidents of the
meeting when Laban overtook Jacob; and the questionable
truce or compromise
which ended their connection; all, perhaps, might have
been avoided; and a very
different course of mutual confidence and esteem might
have marked the history;
- if Jacob, in his intercourse with his uncle and his
uncle’s house, had acted
less as the timid and temporizing man of expedients, -
the politic man of the
world, - and more as the acknowledged friend of God, -
the believing child of
believing Abraham, - the heir of the covenant that is by
faith.
The whole history of Jacob’s sojourn in Laban’s country, is an
illustration of the mischief and misery resulting from
an opposite line of
conduct. He
certainly but ill sustains
the character of one favoured with such heavenly
communications as had so
recently been granted to him.
His solemn
vow is too little in his mind.
He
accommodates himself far too easily to the world in
which he lives, learns too
well its lessons, and becomes too familiar with its
ways. A
second gracious vision, and a long night of
severe wrestling with the Lord (32),
as well
as also a fresh visit to
3.
The redeeming feature in the picture
of Jacob’s life at Padan-aram, otherwise far from
pleasing, is his love for
Rachel. It
was of quick growth; but it
was strong, and it lasted long.
When he
serves for her, the seven years seem to him but a few
days for the love he has
to her. When
she dies in childbed, his
affection touchingly appears.
He will
not give her child a name of grief, but one almost of
joy; not Benoni, son of
my sorrow, but Benjamin, son of my strength.
He would have associated with his beloved, when
she is gone, no word of
evil omen, but rather a token for good.
And how he cherished her memory is evident from
what might seem a
trifling circumstance in his parting interview with
Joseph (48).
The old man is sick and dying.
He strengthens himself, however, to welcome his
favorite child once
more. He
sits up on his bed to bless
Joseph and Joseph’s sons.
As he proceeds
in blessing them, the image of Joseph’s mother, his
much-loved Rachel, is
before him. He
interrupts his speech to
tell how, “when he came from
Padan, Rachel died by
him in the land of [Page 301] Canaan in the way, and how he buried her at
What has that to do with the matter in hand? Rachel’s
death and burial have no bearing on
the blessing which Jacob is conveying to Joseph, and
Ephraim, and Manasseh.
But the old man’s heart is full.
Something in Joseph’s look, - some trace or
lineament of his mother’s pale fair face as he last saw
her, travailing and
expiring, - brings back the sad scene to the patriarch’s
dim eye. Simply,
as if almost unconsciously, he gives
utterance to his recollection.
And
having paid this last tribute to one he loved so dearly,
he calmly resumes the
interrupted thread of his benediction.
There is something, to my mind, irresistibly affecting in this
proof, so natural and incidental, so true and tender, of
the hold which Rachel
had of Jacob’s heart.
It constrains one
to exclaim - Behold how he loved her.
0h! that this love had been allowed to reign alone in Jacob’s
home, pure from the contamination of polygamy and
concubinage! So
one is apt to wish.
And one is apt to think that if Jacob had
been left to himself, to take his own way, it might
possibly have been so.
Jacob might have been happy with Rachel
alone, as Isaac was with Rebekah.
His
household might have been a pattern of wedded
faithfulness and affection, and
his seed might have been all holy.
It
was not his own choice, but Laban’s craft, that imposed
upon him Leah. It
was sad sisterly jealousy, the natural
fruit of so melancholy a partnership, that introduced to
him his concubines.
But it is vain to speculate on what might have been
Jacob’s family history, if
he had been more fairly treated by others, or had done
more justice to
himself. The
history, as it actually
unfolded itself, is before us; and it is written for our
learning. It
is a history of error and sin on every
side. All
parties are culpable.
And the emphatic moral of the whole is surely
this; that any deviation at all, upon any plea, from the
primeval law of
marriage, ordaining the union of one man with one woman
only, is fatal to
domestic purity and domestic peace; that there can be
neither holiness nor
happiness in the house in which that law is set at
nought; and that the word of
the Lord, by the mouth of the Prophet Malachi,
denouncing the man who violates
the marriage ordinance of God, stands irrevocable and
sure; “Did not he make one?”
one single pair, in Eden, one
woman for one man.
“Yet had he the residue
of the Spirit” - the spirit of
life. Had
it so pleased Him, He might
have made more. But
He made only
one. “And
wherefore one?” and one only.
“That he might seek a
godly seed.” “Therefore
take heed to your spirit, and let none deal
treacherously against the wife of his youth”
(2: 14,
15).
Some practical lessons may be suggested here.
(1) The influence of home training, home habits, home
associations, - how deep and lasting is it!
If that influence is unfavorable to the
cultivation of honorable
principles and kindly affections, - if it fosters the
development of evil
passions and low arts of deceit, - how may it, in after
life, eat as a canker
into the very heart even of a sincere Christian
profession! Conversion
itself may not undo the evil.
The child whom you send out from home may be
a child of God when you send him; or he may become a
child of God at some
(2) How needful is it for Christians to know and vindicate
their true position in all their intercourse with the
world and with worldly
men; to live always fully up to their Bethel
experiences, their Bethel
privileges, their
(3) “Hail
wedded
love,” sings our divine poet; and his strain is
in highest
accordance with the mind and heart of God.
“Rejoice with the wife of
thy youth.
Let her be as the
loving hind and pleasant roe.
Be thou ravished always
with her love.”
Yes, it is a holy ordinance, a blessed
institution, which makes man and wife no more twain but
one flesh. Oh!
then, what vile ingratitude is there, - what foul shame, - in all that tends
to make that ordinance void, -
the
ordinance on which all the charities of life hang, -
around which all its best
blessings cluster.
Who art thou, who
under whatever pretence, or for whatever end, darest,
most unthankful as thou
art, to treat this ordinance with contempt, to set it
aside, to turn it into an
affair of traffic instead of a bond of love, or to
countenance practices with
which it is incompatible?
Hast
thou no fear of the vengeance of that
God whose best earthly gift thou art abusing?
Wilt thou not hear His word? “Marriage
is
honorable in all, and
the bed undefiled; but
whoremongers and [Page 303] adulterers” - whatever
men may think or say of
them – “God will judge”
(Heb. 13: 4).
*
*
*
CHAPTER 41
JACOB’S
SOJOURN
IN
GENESIS
29
And Jacob fled into the country of Syria, and
The
transition,
or descent, is a great one, from
like the brief scene of grace and glory which prepares him for
it. One
cold dreary night, when a stone
was his only pillow, sufficed for the testimony from
above. Years,
not fewer than a score, were needed to
exhaust the toil and trial of his humiliation.
Leaving his father’s house, in lowly guise, he is
once, and once for
all, declared by a vision and a voice from heaven, to be
the son and heir. It
is the act of a few moments.
It is as a vivid flash of lightning across
the starless gloom; and then all is dark once more. Thereafter, in
the dark, nearly a quarter of
a century is to pass before the son and heir again
emerges out of
obscurity. And
all the while he is to be
suffering wrong; and he is to be suffering wrong, that
he may see his seed ‑
the seed in which the foundation of the family and
Church that is to be called
after him is to be laid.
In his
humiliation, he purchases for himself a spouse, and a
seed to bear his name.
It would be unwise to run the risk of pushing fanciful
analogies and types so far as some of the older
interpreters of the Old
Testament Scriptures, patristic and mediaeval, were
accustomed to do. The
story of Jacob’s sojourn in
It is well to be on our guard against such refinements upon
the plain and homely, - the intensely real and personal,
- narratives of the
Old Testament, as would emasculate them of all manly
sense and spirit, and turn
them into the senile drivelings of a morbid, and
sometimes prurient
sentimentalism. At
the same time there
are certain broad analogies or resemblances not to be
overlooked. Even
in creation, as the volume of nature is
more and more clearly read, it appears that God reveals Himself upon a plan of typical forms.
It would be strange if we had not everywhere
traces of the same method in that providential history
of redemption which it
is the object of the Bible to record.
If the
forms of creation are cast in
typical moulds, why not also the events of providence?
‑ especially those
events of providence which form part of that onward
march of the gracious plan
of salvation to which both creation and providence are
subordinate and
subservient.
In a general way,
surely, and without undue merging of the real in the
ideal, or losing the plain
and useful practical history in recondite and
far-fetched spiritual figure, -
it is right to notice such coincidences between the
experience of the
Patriarchs and that of Him who sprung out of their
loins, as are fitted to
throw light on the principles of the divine procedure in
the great economy of
redemption.
1.
“
All throughout the history of the chosen people, it is made
manifest that they, - the nation
Thus
Can we stop short of the conclusion that - whether exemplified
in the people
“The man Christ Jesus” is the
true Israel of God.
He was hailed in
that character in the waters of
Have we not here the root, the ground, and reason, of that
rule of the divine procedure which we find exemplified
in the history of the
nation
Thus far, guided by the Prophet Hosea, we can scarcely go
wrong in taking a large and comprehensive spiritual view
of Jacob’s banishment
to Syria and service there, as involving a principle in
the divine
administration which is exemplified in other dealings of
God with Jacob’s race;
in Egypt, for example, and at Babylon; but of which we
have the full
development, as well as the real explanation in the
humiliation, obedience,
sufferings, and death of Christ - and of all who are
Christ’s - His for them,
theirs in Him.
2.
Is it pressing unduly the analogy
suggested, as I think, by the Prophet - or overstraining
it - to go one step farther,
and observe that, as in his low estate in
For here, this marriage, divine and heavenly, shines forth in
bright contrast with these Syrian nuptials, alas! too
earthly and impure.
Jacob, fleeing into the country of
Yes! in that day of the full and final consummation of our divine
Israel’s espousals - when
the wife for
whom He served in His humiliation is to be revealed as
one with Him in His
glory - when He shall appear and all His hidden
ones with Him; ah! in that
day there will be no dark deceit, no fraud, no guile -
no plot that needs the
cloud of thickest night to cover it.
Before all intelligences, in the eyes of an
assembled universe; Lo, a
great sight! New
heavens and a new
earth; the first heavens and the first earth passed
away. And
what do I see, as the rapt apostle saw it
in his lonely isle of
*
*
*
CHAPTER 42
JACOB’S
SOJOURN
IN
GENESIS
29
- 30: 26.
The
interval between Jacob’s leaving
It may be convenient to fix upon a sort of central point, -
such as that between Jacob’s first two seven-years’ services, and his third and last; - his first two services, almost
enforced, for his wives, and his last, more spontaneous,
for his fortune. From
this central point, a retrospective
glance may be cast on the fourteen preceding years,
before proceeding to the
remaining seven. Such
a retrospective
glance, from some central point, it is often very useful
to cast on the bygone
part of life. How
does it look now? An
occasion arises for a kind of count and
reckoning as to the past, - with ourselves, or with some
one with whom we have
had dealings, - a friend, a relative, with whom we have
been living familiarly.
It is time that we should part, or come to an
understanding. Old
scores are to be
inquired into and disposed of.
A new
footing is to be adjusted.
So Jacob at this crisis feels.
He must be off.
It is high time
for him to go home.
He has tarried long enough
in Padan-aram; longer far than he at first intended; as
long certainly as was
good for himself; as long as his grasping relative had
any shadow of right to
keep him. His
heart yearns to embrace
his parents once more.
His duty calls
him to make the land of promise his abode.
It will not do to have the chosen family all
bred, as well as born, in
It has been a service on which the two men may look back with
very mingled feelings.
1.
Jacob’s first introduction to
Laban’s family must be fresh in the memory of both. It was not of
such a sort as would have led
either of them at the time to anticipate the nature of
the connection that was
to subsist between them, or the manner in which it was
to be developed.
That first meeting with Rachel how vividly is it before Jacob’s
eye! He is
a weary pilgrim once more,
way-worn, foot-sore, and thirsty.
He
sees three flocks and their keepers gathered round a
well. He
hails them courteously as brethren.
He gathers from them that he is at his
journey’s end. They
are of
How strange, after fourteen such years as he had spent with
Laban, to recall, as if it were yesterday, that first
interview with Laban’s
daughter, and those first gushings of love!
Could it ever have entered into his mind then to
fancy it possible that
so tender a scene was to be so followed up; that a
moment of such simple faith
and pure joy was to usher in so long a train of
humiliation? And
Laban too, has he no recollection of that
day? Does he not again see his daughter running to him
with the eager tidings
that his sister’s son has come?
Does he
not remember how the tidings then affected him? - how “he
ran to meet Jacob, and
embraced him, and
kissed him, and
brought
him to his house,” and made much of him,
because - so he said, “Surely
thou art my bone and my flesh.”
There was no thought in Laban’s heart that
day of the frauds he was to practice on his kinsman, or
the service he was to
extort from him. For
the time, he was as
truly and deeply moved as Jacob was himself.
Who that saw the family group round Laban’s board
that evening, and listened
to their talk of home memories and home ties, could have
anticipated such a
domestic history as that which Jacob is looking back
upon, when he says to
Laban, “Thou knowest my service
which I have done thee?”
(29: 12-14).
2.
The double marriage, and the manner
of it, - what are father-in-law and son-in-law thinking
of that whole matter
now? “I have
served for my wives,” says Jacob, as thou didst
stipulate; - our bargain
is fulfilled. It
was a strange bargain;
and now that, on the eve of a proposed parting, they
recall all the
circumstances of it, - not very creditable to either. How came they
to fall into it? Surely
Laban, when he so affectionately
embraced Jacob, had no idea of treating him as he did. He is at first
sincere in his kindness to his
kinsman, his sister’s son, when he invites him to abide
with him as a guest for
“the space of a month.” But as the
month rolls on, He begins to be
disappointed. He
had expected, perhaps,
that Jacob, being Abraham’s grandson, and claiming to be
his heir, would
produce some evidence of his birthright-title to the
temporal wealth of that
patriarch, as well as to the spiritual blessing.
True; Jacob does not come with that rich and
imposing retinue which formerly made Abraham’s servant
welcome in that worldly
house. Still
he may have some more
private means of attesting his rank and riches.
No. Jacob
confesses he has
none. He
came away in haste
and by stealth; - leaving his
elder brother, as Laban would naturally think, in
possession of the [temporary]
worldly privilege, at least, of which
he accused Jacob of having defrauded him.
Laban is no believer in divine oracles, or in
deathbed patriarchal
benedictions; he would have something more tangible. Jacob may turn
out to be the son and heir;
made the son [Page
310]
and heir by some sort of spiritual
covenant or arrangement of which Laban has no evidence,
and can form no
idea. Meanwhile,
by his own
acknowledgment, he has been a deceiver or supplanter,
and is now little better
than a runaway and a beggar.
The least
that can be expected, therefore, if he is to remain in
his uncle’s house, is
that he should be willing to work as his uncle’s
servant. It
does not, after all, seem very
unreasonable that a man like Laban should assign to him
that position. Nay,
Laban may even consider himself to be
deserving of some credit for generosity, when he
proposes to recompense Jacob
for his service. I
will not take
advantage of your relationship to me, as if it entitled
me, while, you are an
inmate of my house, to set you to such offices as the
other members of my
family, and even my own daughters, gratuitously
discharge. “Because thou art my
brother (my kinsman),
shouldest thou, therefore,
serve
me for nought? tell me,
what shall thy wages be?”
(ver.
15).
So far this Laban, as it might seem, is not much
to blame. And when,
still farther, upon learning that Jacob sought, as the
only wages he then cared
for, his younger daughter in marriage, Laban accepted,
in lieu of the dowry
which it was customary for a suitor to offer for his
bride, a term of service
proffered by the suitor himself, - he cannot well be
considered seriously
censurable. It
was not wonderful that as
a careful, if not tender, father, he should, for his
daughter’s own sake,
acquiesce in Jacob’s proposal to serve for her seven
years; - that during that
time of probation he might know more of one who, though
allied to him by blood,
had reached his house as a stranger, and a stranger not
free from circumstances
of suspicion. Even
this part of the
transaction, therefore, is not by any means unnatural or
unjustifiable. Laban
might reflect on it afterwards without
much regret or self-reproach.
Would that
he had nothing worse to reflect upon! (29:
14-20).
But, first, the false nuptials, and fraud practiced on the
marriage night; - how practiced, we cannot tell - by
what fell tyranny over the
affections of the one daughter - by what threats forcing
to her dishonor the
other - by what vile arts practiced on the outraged
husband; the remorseless
and unscrupulous plotter himself alone could reveal the
secrets of that dark
deed of shame; - then, secondly, the cool effrontery of
his vamped-up excuse,
when he is challenged for the base trick; - and, lastly,
what is almost worse
than all, the infamous offer of redress, - the proposal
to repair the wrong by
a new iniquity; making true love, unjustly and most
scandalously baulked,
minister to that incestuous bigamy in which alone it can
now find its
gratification; bartering both his children for the
service of a man whose chief
recommendation in his eyes manifestly was, that he was
making him rich; - what
complication of cruelty and crime, of low cunning,
sordid avarice, gross
impurity, and unfeeling oppression!
And
what has come of it?
Laban has got a
double seven years’ lease of a most valuable servant, in
whose diligent and
faithful hands his affairs have prospered as they never
prospered before. But
has he no misgivings?
Ah! might he not have some, now that Jacob
talks of leaving him - as he thinks on the sort of home
he has made for his
son-in-law; the jealous rivalry of the sisters,
unnaturally associated as
wives; with all the unseemly strifes and unholy devices
to which that rivalry
gave inevitable occasion?
[Page 311] And Jacob - what of him? How
does
he feel in looking back to the short week within which
his double marriage was
consummated? After
one seven years’
service, he found himself suddenly, and against his
will, committed to another;
with the wife he loved, indeed, in his bosom, - but
under a sad drawback upon
his anticipated domestic joy.
He sought
none other than Rachel.
Left to himself,
he would have been content with her alone, and what pure
happiness might have
been his, but for that outrageous stratagem of Laban of
which he was the
victim! The
first term of his service
for Rachel seemed to him but a few days for the love he
had to her. And
if, at its close, he had been allowed, as
he intended, honorably to espouse the object of his
chaste choice, - he might
have walked in the steps of his father Isaac; and
whether remaining in Syria,
or returning to Canaan, waited until it pleased God to
crown the union with the
promised issue. It
is vain, however, to
wish to recall or undo the past.
The
second seven years’ term of service is over.
[I adopt the opinion of those who place the
marriage of Jacob and Rachel
at the beginning of the second seven years’ term of
service. It
seems all but impossible otherwise to
harmonize the narrative.]
It has not
gone so smoothly as the first; there have been family
feuds and family
faults. The
sisters, in their jealously
of one another, have led their husband into still
grosser conformity to the
loose manners of the age and country then he would
himself have dreamt of.
At the end of it he finds himself rich in
children; he has a household large enough.
But there is something significant in the close
connection between
Rachel’s bringing forth, after years of barrenness, her
first-born son, Joseph,
and Jacob’s instantly proposing to return to
Yes! the full enormity of Laban’s treatment of him is now
apparent for a long time, while Rachel’s womb is closed,
Jacob may have been
tempted to congratulate himself on his having been
tricked into a previous
marriage with her sister Leah.
He
evidently has satisfaction in Leah’s fruitfulness; and
while piously reproving
Rachel’s impatient demand, “Give
me children or I die,”
he seems to acquiesce in her conclusion, that she is not
likely to be a mother,
- “Am I in God’s stead, who
hath withheld from thee the fruit of the womb”
(30:
1, 2). So hopeless is
he of issue by her, that he
consents to take her handmaid as her substitute; that,
according to the views
then prevalent, he may lighten Rachel’s reproach and
abate Leah’s triumph.
Still, by herself or by her handmaid as her
proxy, Leah has the best of it in this most sad and
unseemly emulation.
Rachel continues, as it would seem,
hopelessly barren.
Jacob is more and
more inclined to count it a happy circumstance that he
has got other wives to
be the mothers of his children.
His
indignant sense of the wrong which he sustained, when
that [Page 312] arrangement was at first so fraudulently forced on him, is
abated; so also is his sense of his own sin in
consenting to it
afterwards. He
begins to feel as if he could
not have trusted the promised seed to Rachel alone; and
as if he had done well
to make sure of it by accepting Leah, for whom he had to
thank the cunning of
her father; - and the handmaids whom he owed to the evil
passions of the
sisters. They
were not of his seeking, -
these other spouses, - Leah, Bilhah, and Zilpah; they
have been in a manner
imposed upon him; and Rachel’s continued childlessness
seems to explain the
reason. At
last, however, Rachel’s womb
is opened; quite as soon after her marriage as either
Sarah’s or Rebekah’s; -
nay, sooner. Jacob
is rebuked. He
sees that the flattering unction he has
been laying to his conscience is vain.
However he may be justified or excused for his
polygamy, his defense or
apology cannot rest on the ground on which Rachel’s
prolonged barrenness has
been tempting him to place it.
With her
alone, as his only spouse, his faith would not have been
tried so much as was
the faith of his father Isaac; - the trial of it would
have been as nothing in
comparison with the trial of his grandfather Abraham’s. It is
altogether according to the manner of
God thus to open Jacob’s eyes, if in some such way as
has been indicated, he
has been tempted to deceive himself, and to think well,
or at least not so ill,
of those miserable matrimonial expedients on which he
has been beginning,
perhaps, to look with some measure of complacency.
Nor is it Jacob’s eyes only that this event, the birth of
Joseph, is fitted to open.
The whole household,
including Laban himself, might be the better for the
lesson, if they could but
lay it to heart. If,
from the beginning
of these transactions, faith had been allowed to
regulate the counsels and
proceedings of all the parties concerned, - if when
Jacob sought a wife in
faith, with a view to the promised seed, Laban, in the
same faith, had given
him the wife manifestly appointed for him by the Lord, -
Rachel would have been
to him what Rebekah was to Isaac, and Sarah to Abraham. Faith would
have waited patiently in their
case, as it did in the case of these other holy pairs,
for the promised
issue. And
as it now turns out, faith
would in due time have received its reward.
Who are these poor worms of the dust, Laban, Leah, Rachel,
Jacob himself, and all the rest of them, that they
should go about plotting and
planning, after so vile a fashion, for the building of
the house or family in
which the God of Abraham is to record His name, and out
of which the Son and
Lord of Abraham is to spring, for the saving of the
nations? What
mean these wretched bickerings and
jarrings in that ill-assorted home?
To
what purpose is this indecent haste of these women? Why all this
miserable game of rivalry,
defiling honorable marriage, - this pitiable trade and
traffic of mandrakes, -
and all the other incidents which so offend us; -
enacted beneath the roof of a
professed man of God?
Does the Lord
stand in need of such devices and doings as these for
the raising up of a seed
for Abraham? - the Lord, who is able “out
of these
stones to raise up children unto Abraham?” Nay, let
Isaac’s birth in Abraham’s house,
and Jacob’s in that of Isaac, - and now the opening of
Rachel’s womb in the
birth of Joseph, - give the emphatic reply.
[Page 313]
Yes! the Lord might have been trusted to work out His own ends
in His own good way.
He may be pleased,
now that the thing is done, to turn to account the issue
of these unholy
devices, as “he makes the wrath
of man to
praise him.”
He may use Jacob’s sons, however Jacob has got
them, for the founding of His church in
“Fret not thyself because of
evil-doers, neither be
thou envious against the
workers of iniquity. For they
shall soon be cut down like the
grass, and wither as
the green herb.
Trust in the Lord,
and do good; so shalt
thou
dwell in the land, and
verily thou shalt be fed. Delight
thyself also
in the Lord; and he
shall give thee the desires
of thine heart.
Commit thy way unto the Lord;
trust also
in him, and he shall bring it to pass.
And he shall bring forth thy righteousness as
the light, and thy
judgment as the noon-day. Rest in the
Lord, and wait
patiently for him: fret
not
thyself because of him who prospereth in his way, because of the man who bringeth
wicked devices to pass. Cease from
anger, and
forsake wrath: fret not
thyself in anywise to do
evil” (Ps. 37:
1-8).
*
*
*
CHAPTER 43
JACOB’S SOJOURN
IN
GENESIS
30: 27-43.
And the man increased exceedingly. And he had many flocks, and maidservants,
and
manservants,
and
camels,
and
asses.
- Genesis
30:
43.
This is
a summary of Jacob’s manner of life during the third and
last term of his
service in the household of Laban.
Some
six or seven years have passed away since he consented
to renew his engagement
with his father-in-law; and the close of it finds him
prosperous, thriving,
wealthy. He
has been “providing for his own
house,” as he intimated at the
time his intention of doing (ver.
30), and God has
blessed his provision.
He has got more than he covenanted for in his
vow at
Into the terms of that bargain and its issue, we need not
inquire very particularly; it is not made very clear by
the narrative, not at
least to us, at our distance of time and place.
From our point of view, the reason and propriety
of it are not very
apparent; according to our modern and western notions,
the whole affair appears
strange, not to say fantastic.
Possibly
those who lived nearer the date of this history, being
familiar with primitive
patriarchal habits and the manners of nomadic tribes,
may have been better able
to enter into the meaning of the transaction.
It may have had lessons to teach them, which we
can but imperfectly
learn. For
though all Scripture is
written for our learning, it is not all equally so. Nor is it any
disparagement of the perfection
of the Bible, but rather the reverse, that being given
for the use of successive
generations, it should contain waymarks of these
generations which the foot of
time partially obliterates.
In all
essential matters, in all things pertaining to life and
godliness, - to grace
and glory, - the light shines more brightly as, from age
to age, revelation
rises from its dim and morning dawn to its meridian
fullness, - so that its
latest beams shed luster on its earliest discoveries. But in what
relates to times, and seasons,
and circumstances, - the incidents and outer garments,
rather than the essence
and inner spirit, of the truth which it has to disclose,
- the Bible, being all
throughout human as well as divine - and that is its
perfection - may be
expected to contain passages in its history, and
paintings in its poetry, which
distance makes comparatively obscure to us, though to
the men of the day they
may have been interesting and edifying.
It would be well if this consideration were kept
in view, as in common
fairness it ought to be, by those who hunt for
difficulties in these old sacred
records, or who stumble at them.
It
would be well also if it were kept in view by those who
study or expound these
records for the purposes of moral instruction and the
spiritual life. It
might lead the former to be more modest
and diffident in their criticism; and the latter to be
more reserved sometimes
in their moralizing and spiritualizing.
But to return. There
is
one thing about the bargain now in question that cannot
fail to strike an
attentive observer.
It was singularly
disinterested and unselfish on the part of Jacob.
He himself makes it a test of his “righteousness”
(30:
31-33).
It must be allowed, indeed, that that is not the notion which,
on a cursory reading of the history, we are apt to take
up. The
whole thing looks like trick; Jacob
defeating Laban on his own ground, and with his own
weapon; plot against plot;
stratagem against stratagem.
But it is
not really so. The
appearance of craft
is on the surface.
If we look a little
below the surface, what have we?
At the
best, or at the worst, Jacob offers to lay a bet, or
make a wager, with
Laban. And
he gives his father-in-law
most extraordinary advantage - such advantage as no
speculator would give
now. I do
not say that Jacob’s affair
with Laban was of that character; all I say is, that in
that view of the
matter, he gave Laban all the chance, - all the
advantage, - of the trial as to
the different kinds of sheep and [Page
315]
goats. The
whole transaction is so arranged that
Laban cannot well lose, while the probability of Jacob
gaining is extremely
small.
But is it Jacob’s craft that so arranges it?
Or is it so arranged according to the will of
God? What
was the bargain? its occasion?
its character?
(1) As to its occasion, - Jacob, having gained his end, and
being all but complete as the ancestor of the twelve
tribes, proposes to Laban
that he should be suffered to go home to his father
Isaac’s house, and to the
land of his inheritance.
Surely it is a
reasonable proposal, and one in which Laban should in
all fairness have been
willing to acquiesce.
If he hesitates,
it certainly does not appear to be from any reluctance
to lose the society of
his son-in-law, his daughters, and their children. There is not
much evidence of friendly
feeling or natural affection in Laban’s dealings with
them. Nor,
indeed, to do him justice, does he make
much profession of any thing of the sort.
He frankly owns his motive for wishing to keep
Jacob in his employment
to be a selfish one; - “I pray
thee, if I have found
favour in thine eyes, tarry;
for I have learned by
experience that the Lord hath blessed me for thy sake”
(ver. 27). He knows the
value of a faithful servant, and
plainly avows his love of gain.
Jacob,
on the other hand, when his conduct on this occasion is
fairly judged, appears
in a comparatively favorable light.
Evidently he has not been covetous of wealth; at
the close of a fourteen
years’ service, he is as poor as he was at the
beginning: and in that condition
of poverty, he is willing to quit the service (ver.
26).
No
doubt there had been opportunities within his reach of
bettering his
circumstances, - such opportunities as many in his place
would not have
scrupled to take advantage of.
And,
indeed, considering how he was situated, and how he had
been used, I am apt to
feel as if I could scarcely have blamed Jacob much, if I
had seen him bent, not
merely on enriching Laban, but on laying up something
for himself. Without
anything like what the world
stigmatizes as dishonesty, - if he had been disposed to
do what many another
man in his position would have had no hesitation in
doing, and would have been
held entitled to do, - Jacob must have had it frequently
in his power to
transact a little business on his own account.
For can we doubt that the chief herdsman of a
powerful and wealthy Sheik
like Laban must have come in contact with parties ready
to oblige him, that he
might have had capital advanced to him on which to
commence trading for
himself, - and that without prejudice, as it might have
been represented, to his
master’s interests, he might have had his own private
stock of cattle meanwhile
accumulating and thriving on his hands?
But Jacob acts otherwise.
Faithful to his trust, - not as an eye-servant,
but as one fearing God,
- he conscientiously devotes himself to Laban’s work. He uses no
arts or methods of
self-aggrandizement; nor does he make any complaint
about the poor state in
which his father-in-law, growing wealthy by his means,
so ungenerously keeps
him. Quietly
he pursues the even tenor
of his way; and when at last he proposes to leave his
greedy kinsman, it is
without one word of upbraiding about the past, and with
no demand upon him now
for more than his wives and his children for whom alone
he has thus faithfully
served during these long fourteen years.
Surely that does not look like the conduct of one
making haste to be
rich, and not very [Page
316]
particular as to the way.
And surely it affords some ground for
thinking that in making his new bargain with Laban, and
in carrying it into
effect, Jacob is not the party lightly to be suspected
of underhand policy or
fraud.
(2) The bargain itself, so far as its tenor can be gathered
from the somewhat obscure account which we have got of
it, would seem to have
been briefly this.
All the purely white,
or all that are of one uniform color, among the cattle,
the sheep, and the
goats, are henceforth to belong to Laban; Jacob is to
have as his hire the
partly-colored among the goats, and the brown among the
sheep. Under
the bargain, a division is immediately
made, - certainly most favorable to Laban, and scarcely
equitable or fair to
Jacob. All
the cattle of the kind for
which Jacob had stipulated are removed from under his
care and consigned to
Laban’s sons. Jacob
is left in charge
exclusively of those that are of the sort Laban is to
claim. And
a space of three days’ journey being
interposed, every possible precaution is taken to
prevent the two separate
portions of the cattle from mixing and breeding
together. For
as yet the whole stock belongs exclusively
to Laban. Jacob
has not a single sheep,
- not a solitary goat.
The bargain
applies only to the offspring of the existing generation
of these animals; and
so far as appears, only to the offspring of those of
them left with Jacob - to
the exclusion of the others carried away by Laban and
his sons.
Here then, is Jacob left with a handful of sheep and goats,
not one of which is of the color that is to distinguish
the cattle that are to
belong to him. And
from among the lambs
and kids that may be born of them, he is to pay himself
his hire as best he
may.
Who has the best, humanly speaking, of this novel sort of
engagement?
One can fancy the grasping household of Laban chuckling as they
led away the only portion of the flock or herd that
could have afforded Jacob
any chance, as it might be thought, of making anything
by his bargain, and
exulting in the prospect of the whole property
continuing to belong to them.
For surely the cattle left with Jacob will
produce offspring like themselves.
Our
simple kinsman will soon find that he has notably
miscalculated, and is finely
taken in.
How far this procedure on the part of Laban and his sons, -
the removal from under Jacob’s care of all that were of
the sort that he was
ultimately to have as his, - was part of the bargain as
intended by Jacob, or
was consistent with it, is not very clear.
It is by no means improbable, when the character
of Laban is kept in
view, that it was an after-thought.
It
may be one of the instances to which Jacob refers when
he says to Leah and
Rachel. – “Your father hath
deceived me and changed my
wages ten times;” an exaggeration, doubtless,
but not unnatural in the
circumstances (31: 7).
If so, then we can see a special reason for
that interposition of God on his behalf of which he
tells his wives (31:
8-12). It was
upon the suggestion of God, - such virtually is Jacob’s
protest, - it was at
His instance and in compliance with His directions, -
that I adopted the
expedient which He has so greatly blessed.
In fact, how he should have thought of such a
device without some
impulse or instruction from above, it is extremely
difficult to imagine.
It is true that much learned and ingenious
speculation has been expended on making it out that he
adroitly [Page 317] availed himself of a natural law of the animal economy; but the result of
all such attempts has been anything but satisfactory. The success
which the scheme met with cannot
well be explained upon any principle of nature’s
ordinary operations; it seems
both wiser and safer therefore to refer it at once to
divine agency and
superintendence; and to regard it as a case analogous to
that of the blind man
whose cure the Lord chose to effect by means equally
unlikely to succeed (John 9).
What Jacob did he did by faith.
Why his faith was tried in this particular way, -
why God chose to
interfere on behalf of his servant in a manner so
strange, and as it might seem,
so out of all accordance with natural sense or reason, -
we cannot of course
tell, any more then we can tell why Jesus cured the
blind man as He did; we can
only acquiesce in God’s sovereignty, working when and
where and how He pleases;
and recognize His purpose to test and prove, with a view
to strengthen, the
trust which a believer puts in Him.
We
can well imagine, however, Laban and his sons, watching
with supreme contempt,
and the supercilious smile of calm and complacent
incredulity, the fond and
foolish experiment Jacob was trying.
Jacob too, might sometimes be out of countenance,
as he heard their
sneers and felt the ridicule of his situation.
But patience for a little.
The
scoffers are put to shame, and simple faith is owned and
requited. For
“the man
increased exceedingly, and
had much cattle,
and maidservants, and
menservants, and
camels, and asses”
(30: 43).
* *
*
CHAPTER 44
THE
PARTING
OF LABAN AND JACOB
GENESIS
31
When a man’s ways please the LORD, He makes
even
his enemies to be at peace with him. -
Proverbs 16: 7.
The
parting between Jacob and Laban is better than, in the
view of all the previous
intercourse between them, might have been anticipated. In so far as
it is so, it is very manifestly the
Lord’s doing. Little
or nothing of what
is decorous and peaceful, not to say friendly, in the
closing scene, is to be
ascribed to the goodwill or the good sense of those
engaged in it. Jacob’s
stealthy and felon-like flight was
fitted to awaken Laban’s wrath. Laban’s pursuit, again,
was the sort of last
offense that makes the trodden worm turn round and show
fight, as Jacob does in
his angry chiding.
But for the special
interposition of God, disastrous consequences must have
marked the meeting of
the fugitive son-in-law and the incensed father of his
wives. That
interposition, however, made the meeting
safe, and the farewell [Page
318]
in which it issued decent, if not
amicable.
1.
Jacob’s resolution to return to
Canaart is of the Lord.
He says so
himself expressly, when he tells his wives of what the
Angel of God had said to
him: ‑ “I am the God of Bethel,
where thou anointedst the pillar,
and where thou vowedst a vow
unto me: now arise,
get thee out from
this land, and return
unto the land of thy
kindred” (31:
13). [There is a
difficulty, though not a serious one, in clearing up the
vision, or visions,
which Jacob relates to his wives, when he is persuading
them to quit their
father’s house, and accompany him to his own home (ver.
11-13). He appeals to
God as having given him two
distinct and separate revelations.
They
seem to be one, as he cites them to his wives; but if we
look closely into
them, it is manifest that they are really two.
They are joined as one, because they are the
beginning and the end of
the Lord’s communication of His will to Jacob, with
reference to the
supplementary period of his sojourn with Laban, after he
had served fourteen
years for his wives and children.
Now
that after another seven years’ term of service he
again, for the second time,
proposes to leave Syria, it is reasonable that he should
satisfy his household
as to the divine warrant which he had both for remaining
seven years before,
when he had meant to go, and for going now, when there
was much that might have
induced him to stay.
He intimates to his
family that it is the same divine authority which
sanctioned his renewed
bargain with Laban for other seven years after the first
two periods were
ended, that now indicates the path of duty, as lying in
the direction of
He is bent on reconciling his wives to his purpose of leaving
The order, as Jacob cites it, is given with great
solemnity. An
appeal is made to the
memorable scene at
[Page 319]
It is possible that he may have been inclined to forget
it. During
the fourteen years of his
poverty, when “he served for a
wife, and for a wife
kept sheep,” he was not in
circumstances to redeem his pledge; - God, the God of Bethel, gave him food and raiment, but nothing more.
It is but yesterday, as it were, that he has
begun to acquire the means of carrying his devout and
liberal purpose into
effect; he is only now becoming wealthy.
The sudden change may be apt to operate
injurously; reconciling him,
perhaps, to his sojourn far off from
If it be so with Jacob, as alas! it too often is even with men
of God similarly situated, - if thus the world is
getting hold of his heart,
and causing him to be content in Syria, and unmindful of
Canaan, - how
graciously is his case met!
The very
murmuring of Laban’s sons, and the change of Laban’s
countenance towards him,
are in this view special mercies.
They
make him feel how precarious his position is, and how
uncertain is his tenure
of all that he has got.
They reawaken
his sense of the bitterness of his exile, and set him
upon thinking of his
home, and his father, and his father’s God.
And when, at that precise crisis, just as his
soul is becoming weary
under the feeling of the utter vanity of the very
success he has attained, God
once more comes specially to deal with him, - what can
be more fitted to drive
home the blow which has been already struck, - what more
likely to give a
gracious turn to the disappointment and resentment
naturally rankling in his
bosom, - what more certain to touch a tender chord, and
revive in him the
freshness of his first love - than so affecting a
reference as the Lord is
pleased to make to that old fellowship between Himself
and His broken-hearted
servant; “I am the God of Bethel,
where thou anointedst the pillar,
and where thou vowedst a vow
unto me: now arise,
get thee out from
this land, and return
unto the land of thy
kindred” (ver.
13).
2. The manner of Jacob’s departure is not, as it would seem,
of the Lord. It
savours too much of
Jacob’s own disposition towards guile.
In the first place, there was no reason for his having
recourse to the stratagem of a secret movement, or
clandestine flight.
Laban had no claim upon him, - he was not
Laban’s bondsman. As
an independent man,
who had certainly got nothing from Laban as a favour, -
nothing for which he
had not paid full value, - Jacob might have stood up
manfully for his right to
go where he pleased, and to manage his household in his
own way. If
he retained any sense of his high position
as the representative of believing Abraham, - the heir
of the promise., - he
ought to have taken a firmer and more worthy stand with
his worldly
father-in-law. And
having express divine
warrant for the step, he was inexcusable in not acting
upon that [Page 320] warrant, openly and boldly. He
might thus have left behind him such an impression of
God being with him as
could not fail to lead to good in many ways, beyond all
that his calculations
of expediency could forecast.
But alas!
he is radically and essentially a schemer; maneuvering
is his forte and his
fate. He
must needs play the part of a
cowardly fugitive, - escaping as a thief under the cloud
of night. As
it turns out, his plot is both unnecessary
and unavailing. It
is made evident that
God would have interfered, at any rate, to help him; and
it is made equally
evident, that without God’s interference, his plan for
helping himself was
vain. Nor
is this all.
For, secondly, his plan proved itself to be full of
mischief. Not
only did it tend so to
lessen him in the eyes of Laban as to make it impossible
for him to exert any
wholesome influence on that churlish man, - which he
might have done, if he had
gone forth boldly, at the Lord’s call; - it wrought sore
evil in himself and in
his household. For
himself, it made him
too much what he had been before, when he won the
blessing by a stratagem; and
it works disastrously in his family.
Would his beloved Rachel have cut so poor a
figure in this world-wide
and world-lasting history as she does when her father
questions her about the
secreted gods (ver. 34,
35), - would there
have been idols in the
chambers of his wives and children, hindering afterwards
his payment of his
Bethel vow (35: 24),
- if Jacob had not stolen away so slyly, but had
insisted on his liberty to go
forth in face of day, as a worshiper and servant of the
most high God alone?
Certainly the manner of Jacob’s departure from
3.
The peaceful end, however, of what
threatened to become a violent and warlike collision, is
of the Lord.
The clandestine flight of his son-in-law naturally provokes
Laban. Considering
indeed his past
treatment of Jacob, and what we may with great
probability conjecture to be his
present intentions with regard to him, - now that his
sons have awakened his
covetous jealousy, and his countenance is not towards
Jacob as it was before, -
one would be disposed to say that he has no great reason
to be surprised and no
right to be displeased. Nor, whatever he may afterwards
affect, can we give him
much credit for being moved by fatherly affection. But
he has lost a valuable
servant. And
with no misgivings of
conscience as to the way in which he has dealt with him,
feeling himself to be
deceived and defrauded, he thinks that he does well to
be angry. For
none are more apt to be resentful of
wrong then the sharper outwitted, or the biter bit.
What the meeting would have been, if the parties had been left
to themselves, may in some faint measure be gathered
from what, even under the
restraint which the Lord’s command to Laban imposed, it
actually was. Certainly
it was at one time passionate and stormy enough.
It begins indeed with tolerable decency and
smoothness. The
wily and plausible man
of the world assumes a bland countenance and uses fair
words. It
is his honour, as it seems, that is
touched! His
tender feelings as a parent
are wounded! He
is hurt because Jacob
has suspected and distrusted him; and he resents his
having had no opportunity
of handsonlely dismissing him, if he was [Page 321] determined to
go, loaded with
benefits, - and carrying with him the daughters he had got for wives, not as poor captives taken with the sword, but as
women
of rank suitably attended and attired.
Above all, it is hard that a loving father should
not be suffered to
imprint a last kiss on the lips of children whom it is
not likely that he is to
see on earth again.
Truly the good Laban
is a sorely injured man (ver.
26-28).
But the specious dissembler cannot be consistent with
himself. As
if to let out the cloven
foot, he must needs make a boast of what he might have
done; and that in such a
manner as to indicate pretty clearly that but for a
divine arrest laid on him,
he would have actually done it; - “It
is in the power
of my hand to do you hurt: but
the God of your
father spake unto me yesternight saying, Take
thou heed that thou speak not to Jacob either good or
bad” (ver. 29).
Jacob shrewdly and rightly gathers his worthy
father-in-law’s real meaning (ver.
42). Laban has
unconsciously dropped the
mask. He
had been bent on mischief.
But, as he says, “the
God of your father spake unto me.”
The God of your father!
For Laban
will not own and worship Him as his God, although he is
constrained to stand in
awe and obey. It
is not true faith but
slavish dread that stays his hand. He is at heart a
persecutor, - restrained
neither by a conscientious reverence for God, nor by a
kindly feeling towards
man, but only by a sort of servile and superstitious
apprehension of some evil
coming upon himself from the wrath of that Being whom
his intended victim
worships. So
he betrays his real
purpose; giving a hint, at the same time, of the ground
he might have alleged
that he had for picking a new quarrel if he chose; “though
thou wouldest needs be gone, because
thou sore
longedst after thy father’s house, yet
wherefore
hast thou stolen my gods” (ver.
30)?
Jacob’s reply is, in the circumstances, as calm and dignified
as it well could be.
For his flight he
has no occasion to apologize; at least not to Laban. He had too
good reason to be apprehensive of
wrong at his hands, not to be justified in taking the
step he took, so far as
his father-in-law might think he had any cause of
complaint. He
avows his fear, as a fear for which he had
too good ground; “I said,
Peradventure thou wouldest take
by force thy daughters from
me” (ver. 31).
He is not to be taken in by a hypocritical
show of friendship.
As to the other charge about the theft of the gods, Jacob
treats it with a sort of summary contempt.
He may well regard it as an accusation got up by
Laban to be the
occasion of a fresh act of treachery and wrong.
The unscrupulous Syrian, while pretending to obey
the divine voice, -
that he should not, either by flattery or by threats,
attempt to stay Jacob as
a fugitive servant, - is trying to get round him another
way. I have
nothing to say, good or bad, as to the
manner of your quitting my service.
Your
God, it seems, the God of your fathers, forbids me to
reckon with you, as
otherwise I might have a good right to reckon with you,
for that. But
the impunity thus secured to you for your
flight cannot be meant to cover theft or sacrilege. Why hast thou
stolen my gods? (ver.
30).
This looks at least very like a subterfuge or an after-thought
on the part of Laban; and Jacob so regarded it, -
putting upon it, naturally
enough, a construction fully warranted by his knowledge
of the man, and his [Page 321] experience of his consummate skill, as a master in the school of
cunning. Hence
his bold reply. First,
he simply defends himself, and
challenges his accuser to the proof - “with
whomsoever
thou findest thy gods, let
him not live”
(ver. 31,
32).
And then, ‑ Rachel’s device (ver.
32-35)
keeping him as well as her father in the dark, - he
vehemently speaks out his
mind in the honest indignation of injured innocence;
giving vent at last in one
burst of invective to his pent-up feelings.
“Jacob was wroth, and
chode with Laban,” saying to him, “What
is my trespass? what
is
my sin, that thou hast
so hotly pursued after me?”
The hunted victim stands at bay.
He rehearses his wrongs; he taunts the
wrong-doer; he will own no obligation to him or to his
forbearance; the Lord
alone has been his helper.
“Except the God of my
father, the
God of Abraham, and
the fear of Isaac, had
been with me, surely
thou
hadst sent me away now empty. God
hath seen mine
affliction and the labour of my hands, and
rebuked
thee yesternight” (ver.
36-42).
True to his character to the last, the wily Laban receives
Jacob’s torrent of invective with affected meekness.
Assuming an air of
moderation, making allowance for his son-in-law’s
vehemence, he professes
himself willing to waive his rights.
These wives of thine and their children are
indeed all mine; I might
claim them as mine.
And the cattle are
all mine. But
what then? What
can I do now? Far
be it from me to proceed to
extremity. Come,
let us be friends.
If we must part, let us part in peace, and
let us ratify a parting covenant of peace (ver.
43, 44).
The ratification of the covenant is effected by a succession
of solemn ceremonies (ver.
45-55).
First, on Jacob’s suggestion, he himself setting up the first
stone for the central pillar, a monumental or memorial
heap is raised. Both
parties acknowledge the pile, - each in
his own tongue giving it a name significant of its
object, - “the heap of witness,”
- the “beacon
or watch-tower.”
It marks a
locality which, under the name of Mizpah, and as some
think also, Ramoth in
Gilead, became afterwards, in the days of the Judges and
the Kings, a place of
no mean importance, - a kind of frontier town, serving
even then a similar
purpose to that with a view to which it is here
signalized (Josh. 13: 26;
1 Kings 22;
2 Kings 8: 28,
29, etc.). Next, “this
heap of witness,” this “pillar
of witness,”
is constituted by Laban in a very solemn manner the seal
or symbol of an appeal
to the Most High: “The Lord
watch between me and thee,
when we are absent one from
another” (ver.
49).
God is to be witness, if Jacob afflict or
wrong the daughters of Laban (ver. 50).
And
He is to judge between them if either party pass this
limit for hurt or harm to
the other (ver.
51). The
oath is taken by each
according to his faith.
Laban’s
adjuration is, “The God of
Abraham, and the God
of Nahor, and the
God of their father judge betwixt us; while
Jacob
sware by the fear of his father Isaac” (ver.
52). Some
common ground they
have. Each
of them believed that the God
he worshiped was the God of Abraham.
But
Laban knew Him only as the God of Abraham’s father;
Jacob knew Him as the God
of Abraham’s son. Laban
recognized Him
as He was wont to be traditionally recognized in the
family to which Abraham
originally belonged.
Jacob acknowledged
Him in the character [Page
323] which
He had assumed, by
a new revelation, as the God of
Abraham’s seed, - “the Fear,”
therefore “of his father Isaac.”
Thus they understood one another, as mutually
binding themselves, by the
most solemn vow that each could take.
The transaction is completed by a sacrifice on
Jacob’s part, and a sort
of sacrificial feast: “Then
Jacob offered sacrifice
upon the mount, and
called his brethren to eat
bread: and they did
eat bread, and tarried
all night in the mount” (ver.
54).
And now nothing remains but the bidding of a long and last
farewell:- “Early in the morning
Laban rose up and
kissed his sons and his daughters, and
blessed
them: and Laban
departed, and returned
unto his place” (ver.
55).
It is a quiet ending of a troubled history. The curtain
falls on the Syrian act of the
drama. And
the last we see of it is the
kiss of charity and the blessing of peace.
*
*
*
CHAPTER 45
THE
TWO
ARMIES - THE FEAR OF MAN - THE FAITH WHICH PREVAILS WITH
GOD
GENESIS
32
The company of two armies. - Song of Solomon 6:13.
As Jacob
had been dismissed from the land of promise by a vision
of angels, so a troop
of angels are in waiting to welcome his return.
“The angels of God met
him. And when Jacob saw
them, he said,
This
is God’s host: and he
called the name of that
place Mahanaim;” that is, “two
hosts, or camps”
(ver. 2).
Why a name signifying “two hosts,”
or
“two camps,” or “a
double army” (mahanaim), is used to denote what
Jacob saw - for he meant
evidently to call the place from the event, - is a
doubtful matter of
inquiry. That
the angelic company
divided themselves into two bands, so as to cover the
patriarch’s train in
front and rear, or on either flank, is a view suggested
by such expressions as
that of the Psalmist, “The angel
of the Lord encampeth
round about them that fear him, and
delivereth
them” (Ps. 34:
7), and that of the
prophet, “I will encamp about
mine house because of the enemy” (Zech.
9: 8). On the
other hand, Jacob seems to regard the angels as one
single body, when he says,
“This is God’s host;” and
it is at least as
probable a supposition as the other, that the
duplication of this host, or its branching
into two, indicated in the name he gives the spot, may
arise from his
associating with the heavenly attendants visible from
above, his own array of
pilgrims treading the earth below.
“We are two camps,
- two hosts!”
- he may be regarded as gladly and gratefully [Page 324] exclaiming,
for the encouragement of
his followers and himself.
We are not a
mere feeble and defenseless handful of women, children,
and cattle, but two
armies! This
retinue of angels is God’s
host; and it is on our side.
And they
and we together form a double encampment, and a double
line of battle. How
great then is our security!
How invincible are we!
How strong may we be!
The only other instance in Scripture of the use of the term
here employed is to be found in the Song of Solomon; and
the two uses of it,
there and here,
may throw light on
its meaning, and on the meaning of the passages in which
it occurs. Referring
to the spouse, an appeal is made; “Return,
return, 0 Shulamite;
return, return,
that we may look upon thee. What
will ye see in
the Shulamite?
As it were the company
of two armies” ‑ or
“Mahanaim” (Song of Sol.
6: 13).
The image in that passage is undoubtedly a strange one; the
spouse compares herself to an army.
Or
rather, perhaps, she is compared to an army by the
bridegroom and his
associates; ‑ “Who is she that
looketh forth as
the morning, fair as
the moon, clear as the
sun, and terrible
as an army with banners?” (ver.
10).
So
they hail her as an army; and she is content to be
viewed in that character.
But it must be a double army that she
consents to personate; - she cannot otherwise be
terrible to any adversary, be
he human, or satanic, or divine; she cannot otherwise,
as an army, display her
banners in successful battle or triumphant victory. Her being
saluted thus, as an army, is a plain
enough indication to her that she has a warfare to wage,
- a fight to sustain.
It may be to meet the onset of an angry brother; it may
even be to bear the
brunt of an assault on the part of the Lord Himself, to
chasten or to prove
her. But
whether it is man’s violence
that she is to withstand, or the close onset of the
Angel Jehovah wrestling
with her vehemently, she can make head only as a double
army. Alone,
she is too feeble to stand in battle
array; but when the angels of God meet her, she is two
hosts. And
it is only as two hosts that she can
prevail. Therefore
if the spouse is to
be an army at all, she must be a double army, - having,
as it were, a heavenly
duplicate of herself associated with her.
Only thus can she face a hostile Esau. Only thus
can she stand the
encounter of her loving Lord.
But the heavenly fellowship of angels, in so far as it is
matter of sense and sight, is rare and brief; their
visits are few and far
between. The
patriarch is still in the
flesh; and “the life which he
has to live in the flesh,
he has to live by faith,”
- and the prayer of
faith. Once,
in some fourteen, or twice
fourteen, years, the believer may be “caught
up into
the third heavens,” to behold inconceivable
glories and overhear
unspeakable words (2 Cor.
12: 4). On some
critical occasions the heavenly hosts
may meet the weary wanderer.
But he must
be made to feel that earth is still the scene of his
pilgrimage and probation,
and that earthly work and warfare must be attended to. The
business
on hand is the earthly walk and the earthly struggle. The land of promise is to be reached.
And [brother] Esau is in the way.
Into the feelings of Jacob with reference to his brother, it
may
be difficult for us to penetrate; for on the surface of
the narrative, little
appears that can throw light on them.
That he was honestly anxious to [Page 325] adopt measures
of conciliation, is
plain from the embassy he sent, and from the words he
put into the mouths of
his ambassadors: “Thus shall ye
speak unto my
lord Esau; Thy
servant Jacob saith
thus, I have sojourned
with Laban, and
stayed there until now: and
I have oxen, and asses,
flocks, and
menservants, and
womenservants: and I
have sent to tell my
lord, that I may
find grace in thy sight”
(ver. 3,
4, 5). The message in
itself, and particularly as
explained by the subsequent interview, amounted
virtually
to a concession to Esau of all the temporal benefits of the disputed birthright. Jacob
was
in haste to give up to him the title of superiority,
and the higher rank
belonging to the first-born, - and to intimate that he
neither needed nor
sought any part of the hereditary patrimony. He had enough
of his own, through the kind
providence of God, and had no wish to interfere with
anything that Esau cared
to claim; - for as
to the spiritual
privileges of
the birthright, Esau had made it too plain that he
felt but little concern.
On the other hand, we cannot but gather from the report brought
back to Jacob, that Esau’s approach was of a hostile
character; - such at least
was the impression conveyed to Jacob; - “The
messengers
returned to Jacob, saying,
We came to thy brother Esau,
and
also he cometh to meet thee, and
four hundred
men with him.
Then Jacob was
greatly afraid and distressed” (ver.
6, 7). Notwithstanding
what we cannot but admire in
his reception of his brother when they actually met,
there is no meaning in the
inspired account, if it is not to be understood as
implying that Esau did at
first intend measures of hostility and revenge.
No doubt, - as an evil conscience makes cowards
of us all, - Jacob’s
sense of the offense he had formerly given to Esau may
have rendered him
suspicious and apprehensive; that may be true.
But he must have had more to go upon when his
fears prevailed so
much. And
unless we suppose Esau to have
dissembled for the purpose of surprising his brother by
unexpected kindness -
and there is not a trace of any such refinement in the
record, nor does it agree
with the impetuous character of the man - he must be
viewed as hastily
rejecting Jacob’s proposals of friendship, and
continuing his adverse march
towards him.
No wonder, then, that in the circumstances Jacob experienced a
bitter feeling of disappointment, and was put into
serious alarm. He
was unaccustomed to battle.
He was familiar only with pastoral and
peaceful occupations.
And now he was
about to encounter one who had been a man of stern
action, involved in the
strife of war, or of the chase, from his earliest youth. Nor was he
provided with an armed convoy, or
any sufficient means of resistance.
One
part of the army he had around him might consist of the
invisible hosts of
heaven; but the other was composed of “the
mother with
the children” (ver.
11).
In
these straits, what does Jacob do?
First, he takes measures for securing the safety of at least a
portion of his company; - “He
divided the people that
was with him, and the
flocks, and herds,
and the camels,
into two bands; and
said,
if Esau come to the one company,
and smite it, then
the other
company which is left shall escape” (ver.
7, 8). His plan is in
accordance, as we are told by
some [Page 326] writers, with Eastern usages; it would be considered a wise
and proper precaution in a similar emergency even now. But it does
seem to savour somewhat of
Jacob’s natural disposition to calculate and scheme for
himself, instead of
simply doing his duty, and trusting implicitly in the
Lord. The
separation of his household, especially
in the view of the reason assigned for it, does not
commend itself to our ideas
of what is chivalrous and brave.
We
would rather that all should have run the same risk
together. But
we cannot well judge, at so great a
distance of time, and at a still greater distance of
manners, how far Jacob’s
policy might be justified.
His second expedient we can better estimate.
He has recourse to prayer.
And his prayer has several evident marks of
its being really the prayer of genuine faith.
In the first place, he lays hold of the covenant; - “0
God of my father Abraham, and
God
of my father Isaac, the
Lord which saidst
unto me, Return unto
thy country, and to
thy kindred, and I
will
deal well with thee” (ver.
9).
He thus
appeals to God as in covenant with his fathers and
himself. He
relies on the promise made to Abraham and
to Isaac; and he appropriates it as his own.
Secondly, he confesses his unworthiness, and his
obligation to free and
sovereign grace alone; - “I am
not worthy of the least
of all the mercies, and
of all the truth,
which thou hast showed unto thy
servant; for with my
staff I passed over this Jordan; and
now I am become two bands” (ver.
10).
Thirdly, he looks to the Lord, and none else,
for deliverance out of his brother’s hand; - “Deliver
me, I pray thee,
from
the hand of my brother, from
the hand of Esau:
for I fear him, lest
he
will come and smite me, and
the mother with the
children” (ver.
11).
And in
the fourth place, he takes his stand on the sure word of
God; - putting the
Lord in mind of His own express assurance with reference
to the future fortune [and inheritance] of his
race; - “Thou saidst, I
will surely do thee good, and
make thy seed as
the sand of the sea, which
cannot be numbered
for multitude” (ver.
12).
If anything amiss is to be noted in the prayer, it is the
tendency which it indicates, on the one hand, to regard
the opposition of Esau as
the only obstacle in his way to Canaan, and on the other
hand, to reckon, -
somewhat too much in the spirit of self-righteousness, -
on a sort of
hereditary and personal title to the favour and help of
God. It is
Esau who has a controversy with him; and
in that controversy the Lord must needs be on his side.
He is soon to be
taught, by a very sharp lesson, how inadequate a view
this is of his true
position in the sight of God.
For the present, however, he is thinking only of Esau as his
adversary; and he carries out his plan of operation upon
that assumption. He
sends on successive droves, - to be
offered one after another, as propitiatory presents to
his brother. That
was his scheme; - “For he said,
I will appease
him with the present that goeth before me, and
afterward I will see his face; peradventure
he
will accept of me” (ver.
20).
So the
day was spent. “The
present went over before him: and
he himself
lodged that night in the company” (ver.
21).
Under cloud of darkness, he effected the passage
of his family; and he
was “left alone” (ver.
24).
But the Lord has a controversy with Jacob; he is to be made to
feel [Page 327] that Esau is not his most formidable adversary.
The Lord is to deal with him as an adversary;
- first turning his strength into weakness; - and then
causing him to know by
experience that “when he is weak then he is strong” (2
Cor. 12: 10).
Hence the scene of the wrestling.
When Christ says that “the kingdom of
heaven suffereth violence, and
the violent
take it by force,” -
He may be referring, in part at least, to this
transaction. He is
describing the ministry of His forerunner; and He is
describing it as a crisis,
not only in the history of the church, but in its
bearing also on the duty and
destiny of individuals.
“What went ye out into the wilderness
to see?” What
did your going out
into the wilderness mean?
Was it an idle
jest? Did
you go to be befooled by a
reed shaken with the wind?
Or was it a
holiday excursion?
Did you go to have
your eyes dazzled by a man clothed in soft raiment? Was it as
light an affair as the taking of a
careless ramble in the common?
Or was it
as mere a matter of form as the paying of a stately
visit at court, where
gorgeous ceremony dwells?
No! You knew that
you had
more serious work on hand; you felt that the hour and
the man were come; it was
indeed a critical time.
A new and fresh
era had arrived. It
was to be now or
never. The old routine of a mere passive yielding to impulse, or devotion to
etiquette, would suffice no longer.
Listless,
half-wake, childish curiosity,
pleased with every shaken reed, will not do. Vacant
wondering
after a sumptuous or solemn dress, such as piety may
wear in kings’
houses, will not do.
Both
must give place to something sterner
and more real. Religion, as John’s preaching forces it on our
regard, is neither sport nor show, but close
conflict and strife.
That is the lesson which Jacob is now taught.
Left alone, and preparing to follow his
family and goods across the brook, he is suddenly and
forcibly stopped. An
unexpected antagonist meets him, and a
sort of death-struggle ensues.
Who his
assailant is, Jacob cannot at first even guess; but the
force of the onset is
felt. The
two parties grapple in right
earnest; and there
is wrestling, as
between man and man, till the breaking of the day.
Jacob makes a stout
resistance; he
is not to be intercepted
on his way to
But all at once, upon a single touch from the hand of this
mysterious combatant, there is a shrinking of Jacob’s
sinews, a halting upon
his thigh, a trembling of his knees, - a “piercing,”
as
it were, “even to the dividing
asunder of the joints
and marrow” (Heb.
4: 12). Helpless,
lame, and ready to
fall, he can but cling with desperate tenacity to
the very Being who has so
sorely smitten him.
Not to prolong the conflict, however, does he cling to this strong
adversary, now discovered to be divine; - no, nor even
to beg for his mere
life, though now so evidently at the mercy of his
seeming foe; but oh wondrous
importunity in such a case! -
to
deprecate His departure, to
insist on detaining Him when He would be gone, - to
crave His blessing!
Surely, 0 Jacob, “great
is thy faith!”
Might it not be
enough for thee to escape death at the hands of this
formidable “man of war,”
as He with whom thou hast to do proves
Himself to be? (Exod.
15: 3). Thou mightest
be too thankful to be left by
Him prostrate on the ground, and to get rid, on any
terms, of His contending
with thee. But
no. Jacob
has discovered who this “man of
war” is, and
he will not let Him go until
he get His blessing.
The opposition which God offers to Jacob, and Jacob’s
resistance, ‑ the sudden weakening of his strength, and
his subsequent
importunity, ‑ are all spiritually significant.
[Page 328]
God takes the attitude and aspect of an adversary, fighting
against Jacob; and Jacob stoutly resists and maintains
his ground. There
is vehement wrestling all the night;
and there is this peculiarity in the wrestling, that it
is the heavenly combatant
who acts the part of the assailant; Jacob stands on the
defensive. At
first he might be inclined to regard the
interruption as rather vexatious and impertinent than
serious. It
must be some idle fellow bent on mere
annoyance or a frolic; it will cost but a moment to
chastise his insolence and
be rid of him. But
he finds that this
is more than a mere holiday
wrestling-match, and that it is not to be so soon or
so easily ended.
Who then can this mysterious adversary be, coming between me
and the work I have to do?
Can it be a
secret emissary of Esau’s ‑ a hired bravo or assassin,
or one of his
followers bent on carrying that old threat into
execution - “I will slay my
brother Jacob?”
No. That is not Esau’s
mode of warfare.
Is it Esau’s guardian angel interposing to
prevent any injury being done to him?
So the later Jews have fabled; but no such belief
belonged to the age or
the faith of Jacob.
Is it, then, the
great adversary of God’s people, who would fain prevent
the entrance of the
patriarch into the promised land?
Even
if it be, Jacob will not give way.
No! Not even when he finds out that it is the very “Angel
of the Covenant Himself,” - the “Fear
of his father Isaac,” - the God who had twice
appeared to him in Bethel, who is now stopping the way,
and, as a mighty man,
seeking to overthrow him, - not even then will he give
way.
When he makes that discovery, he may have many misgivings; and
were his desire less intense, and his faith less strong,
in
reference to the country he seeks and the promises
he has received, he might be
inclined to call back his family and flock, and wend
his way again to the
luxurious pastures and the sumptuous dwelling of his
kinsman Laban; - or to
some new home among earth’s many vacant places,
where he might hope to win ease
and honour. If he wanted
an excuse, he had it now.
It was
not Esau only who threatened him; God Himself was
against him. After
a decent show of reluctance and
pretence of resistance, he might have submitted to
necessity, as it might have
appeared, and turned his back on
But he would not.
His
longing for
[Page 329]
Again I say - 0 Jacob! great is thy faith!
It is like the faith of one who, though not
thy child after the flesh, was yet like-minded with
thee, in the days when that
divine Saviour who wrestled with thee dwelt on the
earth, and went about doing
good. The
woman, who was “a Greek,
a Syrophenician by
nation” (Mark
7: 26), coming to Christ on
behalf of her poor daughter, met with much the same
treatment with thyself; and
like thee, she was not to be overcome.
Jesus
wrestled with her, - dealt with
her
harshly, - spurned her, it might almost seem with His
foot, - and called her
dog. But
she stood her ground.
The divine Wrestler saw that He prevailed not
against her; He was as it were forced to give in; the kingdom of heaven suffered violence, and this violent assailant took it by force; - “0
woman, great is thy
faith;
be
it unto thee
even as thou wilt” (Mat.
15: 28).
This wrestling of God their Saviour with those who seek His
salvation, is not uncommon in the experience of His
saints. Nor
is it, as they can testify but too sadly,
a mere show or feint on His part.
It is
not that He makes as if He fought; - as it is said when
He was with the
disciples on the way to Emmaus that “he
made as if he
would have passed on.”
It is not
what we might call a make-believe fight, got up for the
mere trial of their
spirits. No.
It is a real
antagonism and opposition that they have to encounter. The
Lord
has a controversy with them, and does really set
Himself against them.
Is any sinner, for instance, moved to quit the land where he
has been dwelling too long, and to take the staff of a
pilgrim, and set out on
the path to [the kingdom of]
heaven? He
has every encouragement in doing so – “exceeding
great and precious promises, whereby
he is made partaker of the divine nature.” Still he must
lay his account with
difficulties. He
may be hotly pursued by
those who fancy themselves injured by his going away,
persecuted by old
companions, - harassed by old claims, and outstanding
engagements and
entanglements. Before
him, also, he may
anticipate coming evil; and reaping the fruit of former
offenses, he may have
fears and misgivings as to enen‑des to whom his
conscience tells him he
has given an advantage. All this he may be prepared for.
But on some dreary night of watching and anxiety, I have to
encounter a higher foe.
God, the very
God who has moved and encouraged me to take the decisive
step, comes out as
wrestling with me.
He, too, is felt to
be turning against me; and it seems as if it were all
over with my chance of
ever reaching heaven.
I may as well give
up the unavailing struggle and return to my worldly ease
and unconcern
again. So
Satan and the world would have
me resolve; so also does my own heart tempt me to
resolve; and if my sense of
eternal realities be faint, and my care for the
salvation of my soul slight, -
so unhappily I may resolve.
But far be such a thought from the man who is in earnest. God may buffet
me, if it so please Him; yes,
He may slay me. But
I
cannot do
without
the [future] salvation of my soul.*
Nay, now that God has put it into my heart to
care for the salvation of
my soul, not God Himself, even when He meets me in His
wrath, shall make me
willingly give in.
[* See 1
Pet.
1:
5, 9-11. cf.
James 1: 21,
22; Heb.
9:
28; 10:
39, R.V.]
*
*
*
[Page 330]
CHAPTER 46
JACOB’S
TRIAL ANALOGOUS TO JOB’S
GENESIS
32:
24-32.
This
mysterious duel or single combat, - this marvelous
wrestling-match, may be viewed
as having two stages.
In the first,
Jacob is put by his divine adversary upon his defense. In the second,
he appears as the assailant.
The scene opens with a violent and prolonged assault upon
Jacob, on the part of an antagonist in human form, at
first unknown. He
turns out to be no other than the Angel of
the Covenant, the Lord Himself.
And it
is that discovery which gives its peculiar point and
interest to the incident.
It is an instance, in its first stage, not of man wrestling
with God, but of God wrestling with man; the Lord
striving, in an attitude of
opposition, - not feigned but real, - and striving
vehemently, in a protracted
encounter, with a poor child of the dust, - who yet, so
far from yielding, even
under the onset of so mighty an antagonist, stoutly
resists and stands up to
Him manfully. This,
Jacob felt, was the
fight in which he was engaged.
And others also have felt the same thing.
In particular, more than one or two of the
Old Testament saints describe a certain crisis of their
experience in such
language; borrowed, perhaps, from this very record of
Jacob’s memorable duel;
as plainly indicates that they regarded God as dealing
with them precisely as
He dealt with Jacob.
No doubt, it may be
a spiritual combat to which they refer, and not one that
is merely physical and
bodily. But
surely, in Jacob’s case,
there must have been an apprehension of some spiritual
meaning being connected
with the bodily wrestling; and in the case of the
others, there is often some
affection of the body associated with their spiritual
frame.
The language of Hezekiah,
for instance, as to the sickness from which he got a
temporary respite, is
remarkable in this view.
He describes
the dealings of the Lord with him under this very image
of a violent onset; - “He will
cut me off with pining sickness: from
day even to night wilt thou make an end of me. I
reckoned till
morning, that as a
lion, so will he break
all my bones: from day even to night wilt thou make an end of me.”
Thus he complains; while at the same time he
cries, “0 Lord, I
am
oppressed; undertake
for me” (Isa.
38: 12-14).
So also Jeremiah
speaks; -“Surely against me is
he turned; he turneth
his hand against me all the day.
My flesh and my skin
hath he made old; he
hath broken my bones.
He was unto me as a
bear lying in wait, and
as a lion in secret
places” (Lam.
3: 3-10).
But it is chiefly Job’s
experience that is here relevant.
For perhaps the closest parallel, in a spiritual
point of view, to the
Angel’s wrestling with Jacob and its gracious issue, is
to be found in the
sharp trial which Job had to undergo as he describes it
graphically and most
pathetically in one of his sorest experiences; - “Thou
huntest me as a fierce lion: and
again thou
shewest thyself marvelous upon me.
Thou renewest thy
witnesses against me, and
increasest thine indignation upon me; changes
and war are [Page 331]
against me.”
“Are not my days few?
cease then, and
let me alone”
(Job 10: 16-20).
Consider, in this view; the case of Job.
There was a terrible onset made on him at the instigation of
Satan. “Doth Job fear God for
nought?” is
Satan’s challenge to Jehovah; - “Put
forth thy hand,
and touch all that he hath,
and he will curse thee to thy
face.” In
answer to this challenge, Satan is allowed
to have his own way; he is to see the Lord putting forth
His hand against
Job. All
that Job has is touched;
messenger after messenger pours into the patriarch’s ear
the tidings of oxen,
asses, sheep, servants, sons, daughters, - all, as by
one fell stroke and sweep
of doom, gone! In
the twinkling of an
eye, the rich householder, the fond father, is a begger,
and childless! Whose
doing is that? Satan’s, in one view; -
for it is done on his suggestion; and therefore it may
be said, - as the Lord
says, - that “Job is in Satan’s
power.” But
strictly and truly, it must be held to be
the Lord’s own doing.
It is the Lord
Himself who smites; - otherwise Satan’s challenge is not
met. He
meant the trial to be that the Lord - not
he, but the Lord - should put forth His hand and touch
all Job’s
possessions. That
must be the character
and aspect of the procedure against Job.
And in that light, accordingly, Job regarded it
when he said; - “The Lord gave,
and the Lord
hath taken away; blessed
be the name of the Lord”
(1: 21).
This is true also of the still closer onset on Job’s person
which the malignant spirit is permitted to suggest, and
in which he is
permitted to have some part (2:
1-10).
The Lord says indeed to Satan: - “Behold
he
is in thine hand; only
save his life.”
The patriarch is in Satan’s hand, - inasmuch
as it is upon his motion, as it were, that this second
part of the trial, like
the first, is appointed.
And in it, as
in the former, Satan is active and busy.
But, if it
is to answer his
purpose, it is as an infliction of God that he must
use it; - the trial must be
felt by the poor sufferer to come immediately from the
Lord.
Doth Job fear God for nought?
Will he fear God, when God is not for him but
against him? So
Satan, this second time, moves the Lord
against Job. And
Job, when he is smitten
from head to foot, understands it to be the Lord’s
doing. What!
he says, in answer to what he calls the
foolish speech of his wife, - “Shall
we receive good at
the hand of God, and
shall we not receive evil?”
Thus all throughout it is the Lord who is dealing with Job,
and Job apprehends it to be so.
Now observe Job’s bearing under this fierce onset of the Lord
against him; - instigated by Satan, and embittered by
Satan’s interference in
the fray; - but still felt to be the Lord’s.
Observe it in connection with the advice given
him by his wife on the
one hand, and his three friends on the other.
1.
The wife of his bosom entices Job to
one sort of bearing under this onset; “Dost
thou still
retain thine. integrity? curse
God and die”
(2: 9). That is what
Satan said Job would do; and
that is what his own wife would have him to do.
He whom thou hast been accustomed to reverence [Page 332] and love is against thee now. Of
what
avail is thine integrity?
Plainly
thou art no more a favorite with Him; He could not treat
thee worse if thou
wert His worst enemy.
Thou must perish
after all, it seems, in spite of all thy fear of Him,
and all His seeming
goodness to thee hitherto.
Be it
so. Let
there be an end of this fond
dotage of thinking thou canst gain anything by holding
on by One who so uses thee.
Accept thy fate; cursing, for thou canst not
help cursing, as thou acceptest it, the Being who has
led thee thus far, on the
faith of assurances thou never couldst doubt, - and Who
now, as thou must feel,
is so unrelentingly destroying thee.
That is one way of meeting the Lord’s wrestling with me to
which I may be tempted; but it was not the way of Job. He met God in
the erect and upright port of a
manly faith. He
is resolved not to take
amiss anything that God permits or does.
He will hold on and stand firm, even when, as it
might seem, the Lord is
most against him. And
he fortifies his
courage by that argument which so well becomes the lips
of a dependent
creature, - undeserving of any good, - deserving of all
evil - “Shall we receive good at
the hands of the Lord, and
shall we not receive evil?”
“In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly” (1:
22).
“In all this did not Job
sin with his lips”
(2: 10).
2.
The same testimony is not recorded
as to Job’s bearing up against the onset of the Lord
against him, under the advice
given him by his friends.
They would
have him to meet the divine wrestler in a different
frame of mind from that
which his wife has been recommending.
Their reasoning is all in the line, not of
despair and defiance, but of
abject prostration.
They start from the principle that great suffering is a proof
of great sin (John 9:
2; Luke
13: 1-5); their
whole object being to make it palpable to Job, that
because he is a great
sufferer, he must be a great sinner.
They urge him to confess some great crime.
They insist upon his acknowledging that the
Lord’s present mode of dealing with him, - His wrestling
with him so terribly,
- is a proof that all his previous walk with God has
been hypocrisy, and all
his experience of God’s favour a delusion and a dream. All their
lengthened and elaborate
dissertations on the providence of God, with which they
wearied the afflicted
patriarch, - “talking to the
grief of him whom God was
wounding,” - turned upon the one strain, in
which they would have their
suffering friend to acquiesce, that because he was a
sufferer more than other
men, therefore he was more than other men a sinner. It was not
that he should say, irrespectively
of this wrestling of the Lord with him, what might be
equivalent to the saying,
long after, of one nearly as sorely tried as he was, and
proved by trial to be
as true: - “This is a faithful
saying, and worthy of
all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.” No. It was not
that. They
would have him to interpret this
wrestling of the Lord with him as in itself a sure
evidence and mark of his
having no standing at all before God as a righteous man,
‑ a man
justified and accepted in His sight.
This Job refuses to do.
He combats the arguments of his friends, by
calling in question their
fundamental principle, according to which they would
square the manifold and
varied aspects of the providence of God to their own
rigid notion of what we
have learned to call poetic justice, - [Page 333] that every man
must be held to be
treated by God, even in this life, exactly as he
deserves. As
a general principle, the patriarch
controverts it. And in reference to its application to
himself, he stoutly and
indignantly refuses to let go his consciousness of his
uprightness. He
would not listen to the impious suggestion
of his wife that he should let go his integrity, and
renounce the fear and
service of One who seems to be so dead-set against him. Neither will
he listen to the poor
special-pleading of his friends, who would have him to
own that he has no
integrity to let go, - that all his fear and service of
God has been false and
hollow, - and that it is proved to be so by his present
trouble.
The controversy is long; the contrast striking.
See these three men, Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophar.
They “come to mourn
with Job and to comfort him.”
They weep and rend their clothes and sprinkle
dust upon their
heads. They
sit with him seven long days
and nights in silence.
Surely they
sympathize with him.
It may be so; but
they must search him also.
Sleek they
are themselves, and smooth; having a comfortable opinion
of their own
righteousness and their right standing with God.
In their personal experience, godliness is
literally gain; virtue is its own reward; they are
religious and prosperous
citizens; prosperous, perhaps, because religious.
And here is one who has been more prosperous
than any of them, and who has had the character and
reputation of being more
religious also. And
how do they find him
now?
Ah! we must be faithful to him. We must tell him plainly that
the Lord’s present wrestling with him is sure evidence
that all along, as
regards his relation to God and his acceptance in God’s
sight, there has been
something radically wrong.
It must be
so. To
account for so formidable an
assault of God upon him, we must assume that there is
some dark criminality
lying at the bottom of our friend’s religion, and
vitiating it all. For
some hidden fault or falsehood, God is thus
setting Himself against him, and it must be our task to
bring him to
confession. While
we comfort him, we
must deal truly with him.
He must be
made to see and feel what this wrestling of God with him
means; - how it should
smite him, as a deceiver of others and of himself, to
the ground, and make him
own that his whole walk with God hitherto has been a
dream or a lie. That
is the end which the friends have in
view, in all their conversations.
For
that end, they enlarge on the common-places of the
doctrine of providence.
Their speeches have in them many sound and
valuable thoughts and observations on the subject of
man’s subjection to a
righteous government, and the certainty of good and evil
being ultimately
extricated from the complications in which they are now
involved. There
is truth, and important truth, of a
general sort, in their reasonings.
That
indeed was what fitted them for being the apt ministers
of Satan, in causing
the Lord’s sharp wrestling with him to bear so heavily
as it did on Job. They
were so sound in the faith as to God’s
government being a government under which the
distinction between good and evil
never can be lost sight of; they said so many admirable
things in praise of
virtue and uprightness, as being always honored and
rewarded, and in
conderrination of vice and hypocrisy, as sure to be
detected and exposed; -
that it must have been very hard indeed for [Page 334] the unhappy
victim of their
consolation to bear up against their reiterated
assertion or insinuation, that
the Lord, in wrestling with him, was rejecting him as
false-hearted, and
condemning him as still a guilty and guileful sinner.
But he does bear up; he stands upon the consciousness of his
integrity. He will not allow the Lord’s present dealing with him, however painful
and however humbling, to overthrow his confidence. He
will
not, to please his friends, confess himself a
hypocrite or self-deceiver;
he cannot believe that that is what the Lord, who is
wrestling with him, would
have him to do. He
knows both the
faithfulness of his God and the honesty of his own heart
too well, to put such
a construction on the treatment which he is now
receiving, however adverse and
hostile a look it may have.
He will
not so stultify himself and make
void his faith.
Even when God is
rushing upon him as an antagonist, he will maintain his
ground, and make good
his cause. He will not be beaten down; he will not give way or give in.
It is this high-spirited assertion of his uprightness, -
running through all his speeches, mingling itself with
all his woeful lamentations,
his sad and bitter complaints and cries, - it is this
that imparts so deep a
pathos to the plaintive utterances of this sorely
afflicted man. We
see him sitting alone, desolate and
bereaved, covered all over with a loathsome malady,
writhing under intolerable
pain of body, tortured in spirit, the wife of his bosom
turned against him to
tempt him, his familiar friends pouring dreary
platitudes into his vexed and
aching ears. Most touching are his melancholy wailings,
expressive of present
unutterable grief, as well as his tender reminiscences
of better and brighter
days. But
more touching still is his
stern determination to refuse for one
moment to abandon the footing he has got for himself,
as a true and upright
servant of the living God. Plied to utter
weariness with all satanic
temptations, - solicited on religious grounds to admit
that God is casting him
away as a false professor, - pressed by the endlessly
reiterated common-places
of his three “miserable
comforters” to
acknowledge himself to be one whom for some great sin
God is justly punishing
and rejecting; - they would make him out to be a
murderer, or secret criminal,
whom, though he had escaped man’s notice and judgment,
God’s vengeance would
not suffer to live; - still the smitten patriarch stands
up for himself and for
his God. He
knows that his [personal]
righteousness
is not a
lie. He has
not been false in serving
God; he repudiates the imputation.
Even
when God is moved to be against him, he will not admit
so foul a charge.
So far it is a noble as well as an affecting spectacle; - like
what the heathen poets said was a sight worthy of the
gods, a good man
suffering adversity.
So far also it is
acceptable to God; - more acceptable at all events than
if Job had assumed the
other attitude which his friends urged him to assume, -
and, false alike to God
and to himself, had consented to count himself a
castaway.
But yet the lesson of this wrestling is not fully learned - its
object is not fully gained - until, rescuing him out of
the toils of the three
messengers of Satan who were so vehemently buffeting
him, - first a true
apostle of the Lord, Elihu, - and then the Lord Himself
in person, - open [Page 335] up to him the meaning of this
whole procedure; causing him to
see the
glory of Him who is smiting him, and in
the
light of that glory to see himself.
For Job needs to be
humbled; - not as his false friends would have had
him humbled, - in false
and unbelieving abjectness of soul; - but as the Lord
alone can humble. Elihu’s
testimony to this effect is
true. Job,
in the eagerness of his
self-vindication against the cruel surmises of his
persecutors, has been
justifying himself rather than God.
He
has indeed done well in refusing to write such bitter
things against himself as
these men would have had him to write; - to put the
interpretation they would
have had him to put on the Lord’s wrestling with him; -
as if it meant that the
Lord was condemning him utterly as a hypocrite.
Still the Lord has something to say to him. His wrestling
with him is designed and
destined to leave behind it upon the soul of Job as deep
and lasting a mark of
God’s majesty and the creature’s weakness, as His
wrestling with Jacob left on
Jacob’s body. The
Lord will not indeed
cast off, or cast down, His servant Job.
But neither will He let him go, or cease from
wrestling with him, until
He brings him, in the view of the [coming]
glory of the divine majesty, and under the apprehension of his own weakness and
vileness, to cry out, - justifying himself no longer but
justifying God, - “I have heard
of thee by the hearing of the ear; but
now mine eye seeth thee; wherefore I abhor myself,
and repent in dust and ashes”
(42: 5,
6).
Thus spiritually the Lord touches the hollow of Job’s thigh,
as literally He did in the case of Jacob; and Job, like
Jacob, halts on his
thigh, - his bones being out of joint.
And to Job, as to Jacob, that
penetrating
touch, - overmastering, overpowering, prostrating him
altogether, -
is the beginning of his power with God.
It is the crisis of the conflict; “when
he is
weak, then is he
strong.” Subdued,
smitten, helpless, lost, - at that
very moment, his defense against God being beaten down,
he assumes the offensive, taking the kingdom by storm.
It is not now any longer God wrestling with
Job; it is Job who wrestles with God; ‑ “Hear,
I beseech thee, and
I
will speak: I will
demand of thee, and
declare thou unto me;” for “I
have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee;
wherefore
I abhor myself, and
repent in dust and ashes”
(ver. 4-6).
It is the very experience of David.
When he is thoroughly worsted, he waxes
valiant in this fight; ‑“I
acknowledge my
transgressions: and my
sin is ever before me.
Behold, I was shapen
in iniquity; and in
sin did my mother conceive
me” (Ps. 51:
3, 5). So he cries,
in his distress. He
is at his last extremity, unclean,
undone! But
that is God’s opportunity;
and David knows it to be so when he becomes importunate
in prayer: - “Purge me with
hyssop, and I
shall be clean: wash
me, and I shall be
whiter than snow.
Make me to hear joy
and gladness; that the
bones which thou hast
broken may rejoice” (Ps.
51:7,
8).
*
*
*
[Page 336]
CHAPTER 47
THE
MEETING OF JACOB, AND ESAU -
BROTHERLY RECONCILIATION
GENESIS
33
When Jacob got the name of
That Jacob is now prepared to meet Esau in a very different
frame of mind from what he felt but yesterday, may be
gathered from a slight
circumstance in the narrative.
He does
not arrange his household as he had proposed to do.
In his first consternation on receiving the tidings of his
brother’s advance, he thought of adopting an expedient,
savoring too much of
that tendency to cowardice, and craft as the weapon of
cowardice, which formed
an evil element in Jacob’s natural character, and had
been aggravated by his
early training (32: 7,
8).
There may be wisdom in it, but it is the wisdom
of carnal and selfish
prudence. The
division of his company
into two bands, with his reason for it, we cannot
reconcile either with the
simplicity of faith in God, or with the affection which
would have moved a
right-hearted husband, and father, and householder, to
keep the objects of his
love and care together, in the time of danger, -
gathering them as, when the
storm is brewing, a hen gathereth her chickens under her
wings. But
now there is a change.
He marshals his family, not upon the miserable
principle of risking one half for the chance of saving
the other; but altogether;
in the order of his customary mode of arrangement (33:
1, 2). And instead of
keeping in the rear himself,
as apparently he had meant to do, he takes his proper
position at their head (ver.
3).
At all events, whether we are justified or not in supposing
him to have thus changed his plan, and in putting this
construction upon the
change, Jacob approaches Esau, not “greatly
afraid and
distressed,” but with confidence and courage. He approaches
him, indeed, with gestures significant
of deepest courtesy, after the usual oriental fashion. But there is
nothing [Page 337] abject or degrading in the salutations which he offers. He
is simply carrying out the purpose which, by his first
embassy, he had
intimated to his brother (32:
4, 5);
the
purpose of acknowledging him, in all temporal respects,
as the first-born;
leaving him in possession of the civil rights and
prerogatives of
primogeniture; asking no surrender of the patrimonial
inheritance; but simply
desiring, as a younger brother, to be allowed to render
to him the tribute of
an acceptable compliment or service.
His
manner now is in entire accordance with his intention
then. Holding
fast whatever spiritual benefit the
conveyance of the birthright to him and his seed may
imply, - and about that
there was no likelihood of any quarrel, - Jacob is
careful to show in act, as
he had said virtually in words, that as regards all
else, he waives and
foregoes his claim.
Hence he humbles himself
before Esau. And
surely we may give him
credit for doing so sincerely - not to serve a purpose,
but in good faith.
Fresh from that wondrous midnight wrestling,
- “bearing in his body the mark
of the Lord” (Gal.
6: 17),
- Jacob was in the very mood to be truly
humble in any human presence; to cede anything, to cede
all things, except the
divine favour and the promise of the covenant; and not
in fear, but in faith,
to take anywhere contentedly the lowest place.
Thus, not in fear but in faith, - all selfish
pride and policy apart, -
he “bowed himself to the ground
seven times, until he
came near to his brother” (ver. 3).
The conduct of Esau is irresistibly affecting; and the simple,
artless manner in which it is narrated adds exceedingly
to the charm. The
man breaks down under the impulse of
fraternal emotion; “Esau ran to
meet him, and embraced
him, and fell on
his neck, and kissed
him” (ver. 4).
After a separation of more than twenty years,
during which few, if any, messages could be
interchanged, he sees his
long-estranged and long-lost twin-brother again.
He sees him drawing near, in an attitude of
confidence and friendship, soliciting his favorable
regard; not presuming on
any right which past events, - the divine oracle and the
paternal benediction,
- may be supposed to have given him; nor on the other
hand shrinking and
hanging back as if he were afraid or ashamed; - but
coming, as brother to
brother, younger brother to elder brother, seeking only
reconciliation and
peace. The
generous soul of Esau is
touched. All
the wrong he thinks he has
received, - all the wrath he has been nursing, - all is
on the instant
forgotten. An
unarmed man, at the head
of a number of unarmed men, and women, and children, and
flocks, and herds, is
casting himself on his pity and honour.
The brother with whom his days of pleasant
childhood were spent, is at
his feet. Long
years have passed since
offense was given and taken between them.
Far older recollections rush in upon the memory. The brothers
are twin children once more; ‑
“and they wept” (ver.
3).
One fears to mar the pathos of a scene like this by raising
any questions as to Esau’s state of mind; but something
must be said in the way
of explanation.
That his intentions were hostile up to the very time, or about
the very time of the meeting it is scarcely possible to
doubt. He meditated
revenge. He
had heard of Jacob’s
proposed return to
Such, if we fairly interpret all the circumstances of his
position, together with the unmistakable indications of
the narrative, - such
was Esau’s state of mind when, rejecting Jacob’s embassy
of conciliation, he
came to meet him with his army of four hundred men.
But the first sight of his brother, casting himself on his
kindness, is too much for Esau; a man, at all events, of
most true and tender
nobility of natural character, - whatever else might be
wrong about him. Doubtless
He who has the hearts of all men in
His hands has been preparing Esau’s soul for this
softening influence and
impression. The same divine wrestler who thoroughly humbled Jacob, has been
beginning to humble Esau too.
Jacob’s
power to prevail with men, like his power to prevail
with God, is
to be proved to consist in
his own weakness; and to make that clear, the
relenting of his adversary is to
be manifestly the Lord’s doing; the result, not of
any measure of policy or
persuasion on the part of Jacob, but of the Lord’s
immediate interposition to
change the mind of Esau.
Still the occasion and manner of the change, when
it becomes manifest,
are characteristic.
For it cannot be denied that of the two brothers, Esau seems in
this interview to act the better part, and to present
himself in the better
light. Generosity
is on his side, and
magnanimity; and above all, nature.
Yes! Esau is natural; - so far as appears hitherto, merely
natural;
- a natural man; - yet also natural in the best sense of
that term. All
throughout this whole transaction his
conduct is natural; it is all an affair of impulse.
There is no planning
beforehand, no forecasting and pre-arranging, as there
was on the part of
Jacob. The
apparently studied
obsequiousness of the one brother brings out in pleasing
relief or contrast the
spontaneous and Impulsive warmth of the other.
Esau prevents and outdoes Jacob in the
reconciliation. It
seems to be nature against art; it might
almost seem to be nature against grace; - nature acting
naturally [Page 339] against grace apparently artificial and even artful.
The natural acting out of nature is always sure of sympathy; -
hence the charm of such characters as Esau.
It is impossible, and it would not be right, to
be insensible to that
charm. Our Lord Himself
was moved with love to the young man in whom He
perceived many amiable and
admirable qualities, although unhappily the love of
riches caused him, when
told what he lacked, to go away grieved. Let full
justice then be done to the conduct
and character of Esau, and let the touching and tender
interest of this scene
be thoroughly relished and enjoyed.
Whatever memory of old grievances may have been
rankling in his mind, -
whatever temptation he may have felt to execute his old
threat, - whatever
purpose of violence he may have been meditating, - one
glance at his brother’s
form and face, altered by years of trying toil, yet
still the same, - is enough
to chase them all away.
The strong,
stern man of war is a child again.
He
cannot, he will not, restrain himself.
He suffers himself to be overcome.
His tears flow fresh as he falls on his brother’s
neck and kisses
him. And in
the mutual embrace of
long-forgotten kindness, the breach of years is healed,
and the renewed
brotherly friendship is complete.
What the future course of this renewed brotherly friendship
was, the inspired history does not say.
The progress of the conversation would seem to
indicate, on Esau’s part,
a strong desire to prolong the fellowship so
auspiciously resumed.
After receiving the homage of Jacob’s family and attendants,
Esau is for declining the present, which Jacob had sent
on before (ver. 8, 9),
and is only induced to accept it by the apprehension
that his refusal may be considered ungracious.
For Jacob urges him on that score.
The present is no longer needed to propitiate
Esau’s favour. That
was the original design of it, - but for
that design it is now superfluous.
Jacob
thankfully acknowledges this: “I
have seen thy face as
I saw the face of God, and
thou wast pleased
with me” (ver.
10); - so the
original expression may best be
understood. I
have already,
independently of any gift of mine, found grace and favor
in your sight; your
face I have now seen friendly to me, even as I saw the
face of God friendly to
me, when my importunity extorted the benediction.
For Jacob
connects
the present scene with that of the wrestling.
It was before the wrestling that he sent on
the present, when he was greatly afraid and
distressed; - probably, after the
wrestling, he would not have sent it. He would have
dispensed with so poor an
attempt to bribe his brother into forbearance, and
left all to God, whose face
he had seen in peace; not doubting, but believing that
He would bring him to
see his brother’s face also in peace.
And so it has turned out. Your face, my
brother, I have seen, as I saw
the face of God.
I ask you not now to
take my gift if it were to pacify you towards me. But it may
serve to seal the peace which God
has established between us.
On that
footing Esau takes it (ver.
11).
But he is not inclined to take it as a parting
gift; he is not willing
to let his brother away from him again; he assumes, as
it would seem, that they
are to continue together, and at least for a time travel
together; - “Let us take our
journey, and
let us go, and I will
go before thee” (ver.
12).
What does this proposal mean?
Has some faint notion of revisiting, along [Page 340] with Jacob,
their aged father’s
dwelling, flashed across Esau’s mind?
Is
his heart drawn towards
It may be so; who can tell?
But if it was so, it was in all probability, a
mere passing emotion, -
the natural effect of the meeting which had so melted
him; it could not be
relied on as likely to be lasting.
Jacob, therefore, acted wisely, and doubtless
under divine direction,
when he courteously declined Esau’s invitation, -
calling his brother’s
attention, as if in explanation of his doing so, to the
difference of their
modes of life, as indicated in the very difference of
their modes of travel (ver.
13, 14). Still
the proposal surely indicated good feeling; - as did
also the modified form of
it, the offer of an armed convoy to see Jacob safely
through the disturbed
territory that lay before him on his way home: “Let
me
now leave with thee some of the folk that are with me”
(ver. 15). That offer
also, Jacob feels himself
precluded from accepting: “What
needeth it? let me
find grace in the sight of my lord” (ver.
15).
He is not to be indebted even to his brother
for
his safety. Thankful for the revival of friendly feeling
between them, and
desiring Esau also to be satisfied with that, he thinks
it best that they
should pursue their different paths in life apart.
And so the brothers part in peace.
Whether or not they often met again does not appear.
Jacob seems to point to his visiting his
brother Esau at some future time, when he speaks of “coming
unto my lord, unto
Seir” (ver.
14).
He may have fulfilled his intention, and the
friendly relations, now auspiciously re-established, may
have been confirmed
and made closer by occasional intercourse from year to
year. Or it
may have been otherwise.
They may have continued to live apart, with
little or no interchange of communication, either
personally or by message.
Perhaps it was best that it should be
so. The
tender meeting may have told
upon Esau, - reflection deepening the impression of it
on his mind. He
may have been led, after Jacob was gone,
to think over the circumstances of the scene, - to
recognize the finger and the
Spirit of the Lord, rather than any merit of his own, as
the true cause of the
good feeling which prevailed, - and to ponder his
brother’s saying, “I saw the
face of God.”
If any salutary effect was wrought by the
interview, on either side, it may have been all the
deeper and more lasting for
the separation that followed.
Had the
brothers continued long in one another’s company, or
come much in contact
afterwards, their differences of taste and temperament
might have led to
disagreements again, - old grudges might have been
revived in new causes of
offense, - their mutual influence on one another might
not have been for
good. We
may be reconciled, therefore,
to the thought of their living still apart, until we
find them once more together,
as they should be, at their father’s funeral.
In all likelihood, they must have met at Isaac’s
deathbed, and jointly
closed his eyes. At
all events, it is a
not unpleasing close of a painful family story, to read
how “Isaac gave up the ghost,
and
died, and was gathered
unto his people, being
old and full of days, - and
his
sons Esau and Jacob buried him” (35:
29).
*
*
*
[Page 341]
CHAPTER 48
PERSONAL
DECLENSION - FAMILY SIN AND
SHAME
GENESIS
33: 17; 34:
31.
For their heart was not right with Him, neither
were they faithful in His covenant. -
Psalm 78: 37.
On
parting with Esau, Jacob resumed his march - “journeying
to
Succoth.”
There he was within
the border of the promised land once more; so far he had
obeyed the voice of
the Angel who had spoken to him in a dream, enjoining
his departure from
1.
The Angel who had spoken to him had announced
Himself in these words: “I am
the God of Bethel, where
thou
anointedst the pillar, and
where thou
vowedst a vow unto me.”
That was
the preface to the command; “Get
thee out from this
land, and return unto
the land of thy kindred.”
Fairly interpreted in the light of the
preface, the command pointed to
There may have been plausible reasons for the delay.
Perhaps he thought that, by-and-by, he and
his house might be better prepared for meeting the Lord
in his own appointed place
and way, - that the taint or leaven of idolatry, of
whose working Rachel’s
conduct about the images gave too convincing a proof,
might be gradually purged
out, - and that it would be time enough, after they had
got settled in their
new abode, and Syrian recollections and associations had
been got rid of, to
carry his family up to the spot of which he had himself
been constrained to
say, “How dreadful is this place!
this is none other but the house
of God, this is the
gate of heaven.”
But such special pleading could ill disguise the indifference
or estrangement of his own heart.
What
he had to do at last he might have done at first (35:
23); he might have
been as decided now as
then, in purifying and preparing his household for
[Page 342]
For the world has taken, and is still keeping, too strong a
hold of the patriarch’s affections.
He
is rich in flocks and herds; and he is delighted with
the ample accommodation
which Succoth offers.
It is the very
place in which to set up stalls for his cattle; it
deserves the name of “Booths.”
Here then he will dwell in the commodious
house he builds for himself, - surrounded on every side
by the hard-earned
trophies of his painful and protracted Syrian service. But even
Succoth does not content him long.
It is not enough that he finds there
abundance of vacant room, in which he may lodge himself
and his cattle, for as
many days or years as he may choose to remain.
He must be not a sojourner merely, as his fathers
were, but a proprietor;
he must needs purchase a permanent habitation for
himself. Hence
he removes a little way and comes to “Shalem,
a city of
This last
act may seem to be an act of pious faith; and it is
doubtless meant to be
so. But may
it not also be a means of
self-deception, tending to reconcile him to his neglect
of duty, - his
unsteadfastness in God’s covenant?
Was
it here that he should have erected an altar?
Was there not still waiting for him at
2. This decline of Jacob’s own personal religion, of which we
seem to have but too conclusive evidence, must be viewed
as having an immediate
and very close connection with the dismal family history
that follows.
Beginning himself to fall away, he cannot be ruling well
his household. The
traces of this want of rule thus
occasioned are not far to seek; - they lie on the
surface of the melancholy
narrative (34).
(1) Dinah’s fall is explained in one emphatic statement, - “She went out to see the daughters of
the land” (ver.
1).
For it is not a solitary incident that is
thus indicated, but a customary course of conduct. Instead of
being a “keeper
at home,” as a “discreet
and chaste”
maiden would have done well to be, especially in the
neighborhood of seducing
worldly society, at once ungodly and impure, - this fair
and frail child of a
pious parent is suffered to be on terms of familiarity
with the giddy throng
frequenting the haunts of heathen pomp and pleasure. Surely Jacob
is to be blamed. It
is one of the untoward consequences of his
halting on the border of Canaan and stopping short of
(2) Jacob’s way of receiving the tidings of his daughter’s
dishonor is not creditable to him as the head of a
family professing godliness;
at least it does not commend itself to our notions. For one thing,
he seems afraid or unwilling
to judge and act for himself.
He is
inclined to defer too entirely to his sons; he will say
nothing and do nothing
without consulting them.
They were away
upon their usual occupation “with
his cattle in the
field; and Jacob held
his peace until they were
come” (ver. 5). This may have
been a proper and necessary
measure of precaution; to strengthen himself, by means
of their support, before
treating with the man who had so grievously wounded him
in so tender a
point. Or
it may have been according to
the usage of the patriarchal polity, that such an
offense should be regarded as
a wrong done to the community, and in that view, should
be considered only in a
common council of the tribe.
Still we
cannot but regret that there should be so little of the
grave authority and
ripe wisdom of venerable age, and so much of the heady
rashness of impetuous
and unbridled youth, in the management, on
(3) Hence partly, or rather chiefly, the sad contrast which
here once [Page 344] more appears, between the goodness of mere nature, in
its kindlier mood, and the evil of grace, - or gracious
privilege and gracious
profession, - perverted and abused.
For,
as between the two parties brought together in this
transaction, - the Hivites
and the Israelites, the prince and people of the land,
and the prince and
people of the Lord, who can hesitate to say on which
side the preponderance of
right and amiable feeling lies?
If only
such allowance as the manners of the world ask is made
for the young man’s sin
at first, what is there in the narrative that does not
redound to his credit?
Instead of despising and hating his victim, -
as is too often the case in such circumstances as his, -
he continues to be
attached to her more than ever.
It is
simply and touchingly told that “his
soul clave to
Dinah the daughter of Jacob, and
he loved the
damsel, and spake
kindly unto the damsel”
(ver. 3). He is most
anxious to repair the injury he
has done to her; nothing will content him but honorable
marriage. In
spite of the fault in which he has been
overtaken, - and which he is so willing, as far as
possible, to undo, - all our
sympathy now is with the generous and faithful lover. His father too
we cannot but admire.
His frank consent to his son’s proposal, when
he says, “Get me this damsel to
wife” (ver.
4), and
his earnest appeal on his son’s behalf to Jacob and his
household, “The soul of my son
Shechem longeth for your daughter: I
pray you to give her him to wife” (ver.
8), bring
this Hivite king before us in an aspect very pleasing. Nor can we put
any other than an honest and
generous construction on the larger overtures which he
goes on to make, for a
permanent friendly union between the two houses (ver.
9, 10). Let this
matrimonial treaty, - this union of
my son with your daughter, - be the auspicious
inauguration of prosperous and
peaceful times for both our tribes.
It is
in good faith, we cannot doubt, and with all his heart,
that the chief holds
out thus frankly the right hand of fellowship.
And it is a conclusive proof of his own and his
father’s earnestness
that Shechem gives, when he hastens to add, - speaking “unto her father and unto her brethren,” - “Let
me
find grace in your eyes, and
what ye shall
say unto me I will give.
Ask me never so much
dowry and gift, and I
will give according as ye shall say unto me: but give me the damsel to wife”
(ver. 11,
12).
We need have no scruple in allowing ourselves to be charmed
with so artless and touching a picture of love and
honour. It
is good to mar the traces of high-minded
and amiable feeling among those who are still children
of nature merely. We
cannot but be drawn towards such
characters, although they may be nothing more than
earthly and worldly after
all; and we cannot but on that account be all the more
grieved that
dispositions so genial and upright as those manifested
by these Hivite princes,
were not met far otherwise than they were on the part of
the family that should
have proved itself to be the Church of the living God. Surely the
advances so honorably made by
these mere men of the world should have been differently
received by men who
were professedly the Lord’s people.
Either they should have been courteously
declined, and the reasons for
declining them faithfully and kindly stated, so as to
impress the heathen with
a sense of the sacredness of the chosen family, and the
blessing that was
ultimately [Page
345]
to come to all nations through its
being kept separate, in the meantime, and apart.
Or else, if it had been considered lawful to
entertain these advances
favorably,
the terms of alliance might have been deliberately
adjusted, and its pledges
ought to have been scrupulously kept. If one or other of
these courses had been
adopted in good feeling and good faith, who shall say
what impression might
have been made on these noble-minded chiefs and on their
nation, - and what an
influence for good might have been exerted on the whole
of the ungodly world,
in the midst of which the chosen ones were sojourning? Alas! that so
precious an occasion should
have been lost, - so favorable an opportunity thrown
away! The
very opposite effect must have been produced
by what was seen and experienced of
(4) That Jacob was privy, or was consenting, to the horrid
plot by which her brothers avenged Dinah’s fall, cannot
for a moment be
imagined. The
idea is contradicted by all
we know of Jacob’s general character, as well as by the
express terms of the
narrative. But
he erred greatly in
leaving the matter too much in the hands of his sons, -
committing the whole
negotiation to them, and allowing them to have their own
way. He
might have known them better than to trust
them so implicitly.
He ought to have
transacted the business himself; if he had, the foul
crime could not have been
committed. But
he has let go the reins
of government in his own house; - his sons have
evidently got the upper
hand. Hence
they are in a position to
concoct their vile stratagem without his knowledge, and
to carry it into bloody
execution without his being able to prevent them.
Their device is very base; doubly so because it is in the name
of religion that it is practiced.
Religion! Much
wronged, deeply
insulted, religion!
What frauds, what
foul abominations, what unutterable cruelties, art thou
not invoked to
cover! And
the true religion too! the
religion of the one only living and true God!
With what smooth hypocrisy do these villains
propound their nice scruple
of conscience! Most
anxious are they to
have their sister married to so generous a prince, and
to be “one people” with
such worthy neighbors (ver.
14-16).
There is but one small obstacle, not however,
insurmountable. They
cannot waive the
objection, but their friends can easily remove it. A little
bodily suffering, a few days’ delay,
that is all. And
then the holy rite of
circumcision makes us all one.
That is
our condition, say these religious men - comply with it
or not as you
please. If
you see your way to comply,
you are ours and we are yours, in a sacred covenant,
forever. If
not, “we take our
daughter and are gone” (ver.
17).
No
farther harm is done; you and we part in peace.
So the trap is laid.
And the
honest, unsuspecting parties on the other side simply
walk into it. The
princes warmly recommend the alliance to
their people, the men are so “peaceable
with us”
(ver. 21)
– “honourable men” surely
and peaceable - not
resenting violently an affront that might have provoked
them greatly, but
rather inclined to overlook it and be friends with us. And then
commerce with them will be so
profitable, and dwelling together with them so pleasant. The condition,
moreover, is so simple - it
indicates such a sense of religion in them, and may be
so great a religious
benefit to us! There
ought to be no
hesitation. And
there is none. The
men are all [Page 346] circumcised,
and for the time
therefore rendered helpless.
Suddenly, as at a St. Bartholomew signal, “on
the third day,” holy mother church lets loose
her
dogs of war. The righteous avengers, - for is it not a
righteous crusade? -
with bloody swords in their hands, make the night
hideous indeed. Ere
morning dawns, the massacre is complete,
and the spoil is gleaned (ver.
24-29).
(5) And how does Jacob feel when the terrible fact bursts upon
his knowledge? He
is deeply moved, no
doubt. The discovery of the atrocity is to him both a
shock and a surprise -
and he does not hesitate to express his mind to the two
who had been the
ringleaders in the exploit, Simeon
and Levi (ver.
30).
But even here, the traces of the lowered moral
and spiritual tone of his
own mind come out.
The remonstrance, after
all, is but a feeble one; it indicates no high principle
- no holy indignation
- no righteous wrath; it turns mainly on considerations
of selfish policy and
prudence. It
is a false step that has
been taken - a step false in point of expediency.
A blunder, rather than a crime, has been
committed; and it may lead to unpleasant consequences.
It may rouse the
resentment of the neighbors and allies of the suffering
tribe - and so endanger
the fortunes, and even the lives, of himself and his
family. Surely
this is a kind of expostulation far
below the occasion - not such as one who “feared
God
and regarded man” would have been apt to utter. And he seems
but too ready to accept the lame
apology of the culprits – “Should
he deal with our
sister as with an harlot” (ver.
31). For
it was a lame apology, and false as well
as lame. It
was an apology exaggerating
the original offense, and suppressing all that was so
honorable to his heart in
the subsequent conduct of the offender.
It was, in truth, a shameless justification of
the foul deed, in all its
foulness. And
Jacob, by his silence,
appears to make himself almost a party to the deed - a
sort of accomplice after
the fact.
Long afterwords, Jacob spoke very differently concerning this
transaction. On
his deathbed, looking at
it in the near prospect of eternity, he stigmatized it
with somewhat more
severity; - “Simeon and Levi are
brethren; instruments
of cruelty are in their habitations.
0 my soul, come not thou into their secret;
unto their assembly, mine honour,
be not thou united! for in
their anger they slew a man, and
in their
self-will they digged down a wall.
Cursed be their anger,
for it was fierce; and their
wrath, for it was
cruel!” (44:
5-7). By that
time the patriarch had come to view the matter more in
the light of God’s holy
law, and less in the light of human policy and passion. But alas! for
the close of the present
chapter of his history.
It leaves him a
dishonoured and degraded parent, - reaping the bitter
fruit of unsteadfastness
in ruling his own household, and giving sad evidence of
that unsteadfastness
being the result, in large measure, of his own heart not
being right with God.
*
*
*
[Page 347]
CHAPTER 49
PERSONAL
AND FAMILY REVIVAL - MINGLED
GRACE AND CHASTISEMENT - AN ERA IN THE PATRIARCHAL
DISPENSATION
GENESIS
35
But I have this against you, that you
left your first love.
Remember then where
you have fallen from and repent, and do the first works - and if not,
I
will come to
you quickly
and will move your lampstand out of its place - unless
you repent.
- Revelation 2: 4, 5.
The
scene here changes for the better.
The
patriarch experiences a revival; a new crisis of his
spiritual life
occurs. His
heart is graciously made
right with God once more, evidently in the prospect of
his being called, upon
the death of his father Isaac, to assume formally the
position of the head of
the chosen family in Canaan.
The first step in this quickening movement, is a sovereign and
effectual interposition on the part of God (ver.
1).
So it must ever be.
Left to himself, the sleeper will sleep the sleep
of death. But
the Lord in great mercy awakens him; - “God
said unto Jacob, Arise.” It
is
a startling call, as addressed to the Church, or to
any of the people of God,
in any circumstances, in any mood of mind.
“Arise ye and depart,
for
this
is not your rest;
because it is polluted; it shall
destroy you with a sore destruction!” -
such is the Lord’s warning
voice by the mouth of the prophet Micah. And through
Isaiah He gives the word of
comfort; -“Shake thyself from
the dust, arise and
sit down, 0
For it is a call to
What can be conceived more condescending and kind, - more
touching and tender, - than this summons to Jacob, - in
all the circumstances?
It is in fact virtually an act of amnesty and
oblivion, as regards all that has passed since the night
of his flight from
home. It obliterates the intervening period, and blots out all its sins. It is almost
like the Lord’s question to
Peter, - “Simon, son
of
Jonas, lovest thou me?” That question
must have been felt by the
fallen disciple to carry in it a sentence of full and
free pardon, - for it
proceeded upon the principle, with which his Master had
made him familiar, - “To whom
much is forgiven, the
same loveth much.”
Lovest thou
me? I am
the Lord who called thee from
being a fisher of fish, to be a fisher of men.
I am the Lord who said, “Blessed
art thou Simon
Barjona.”
I am the Lord who
promised that “on this rock I
would build my Church.”
Thou hast denied Me.
But here am I, asking thee, “Lovest
thou me?”
Could I ask thee such a question, except on the
footing of all that has
come in between us being to Me as if it had never been? I ask thee to
be all to Me that thou wast before
thy backsliding, - all that and more, - all that thou
wast when thou saidst
that I was “the Christ, the
Son of the living God.”
Substantially like this, is the Lord’s call to
Jacob. It
annihilates the recent past, and goes back
to the more remote.
And it does so on
the strength of a present act of grace, - forgiving all,
forgetting all, - and
proposing to have all again adjusted as at the first,
when the first fresh
gleam of the light of God’s reconciled countenance broke
the gloom of midnight,
- and the worse gloom of a moody spirit, - as the exile
lay forlorn on his
stony pillow. It
is indeed a call to him
to be as he then was, - in spite of all that he has
since been, - “to remember from
whence he has fallen, and
repent, and do the
first
works.”
Jacob’s response to the call is prompt and decided.
He takes immediate measures for complying
with it, - and for complying with it in the spirit, and
not merely in the
letter. As
the head of the family, and
the prince and priest of the community, he issues
suitable orders and enjoins
special preparation, with a view avowedly to a very
solemn act of worship.
The preparation is twofold.
It consists first of what is moral and
spiritual, the purging out of the old leaven of idolatry
from among them; and
secondly of what may seem to be more of a ceremonial and
ritual character, the
special cleansing of their persons, and the changing or
washing of their
garments (ver. 2).
So Jacob would present his household before
the Lord at
The appeal of Jacob is effectual.
The “strange gods
that are among them are put away” (ver.
4).
These were probably idols or teraphim,
instruments of some sort of modified
idolatry; - the true God not being altogether disowned,
but false deities
associated with Him, or false [doctrines
and] methods of worship practiced, - for that seems to have been
the sort of religion prevalent in Syria, in Laban’s
house. But
whatever they were, they are all,
together with the ornaments of jewelry that were more or
less identified with
the use of them, unreservedly given up to Jacob, and
buried by him in the
earth, under an oak at Shechem; - not surely to be
afterwards brought to light,
and made the occasion of heathenism in the kingdom of
the ten tribes, - as some
have feigned; - but rather to be hidden and lost forever
(ver. 4).
Thus, the preliminary steps being all rightly taken, the
journey towards
It is accomplished in safety.
That it should be so, is almost more than could
have been anticipated as
possible. It was, humanly speaking, far more likely that
what Jacob feared
would be realized (34:
30), - that, roused
by the atrocity of the Sychem
massacre, all the neighboring tribes of “the
Canaanites
and the Perizzites,” outnumbering many times
over the little band amid
which Jacob presided, would combine to follow after and
destroy them. That
it fell out otherwise, was wholly of the
Lord. “The
terror of God was upon the cities that were round
about them, and they
did not pursue after the sons of Jacob.
So Jacob came to Luz,
which is in the
Yes! It is “El-bethel” now, - not as
before (30: 20)
“El-eloi-Israel.”
It is God, the God of
Of the three incidents that follow (ver.
8-20),
-
the death of Deborah, the appearance of God to Jacob,
and the death of Rachel,
in giving birth to Benjamin, - the central one is of
course the chief. It
is God’s gracious [Page 350] act owning His servant’s revived and quickened faith, and it is the
conclusion of the series of personal divine
communications to the patriarchs.
Viewed in the former of these two lights, it is a significant
circumstance that it is preceeded and followed by a note
of domestic woe. The
return to
In the visit itself there is not much that is specially
remarkable. It
is announced in the usual
simple and solemn form: “God
appeared unto Jacob again,
when he came out of Padan-aram,
and blessed him” (ver.
9).
The change of Jacob’s name to
The only very notable circumstance is, that this is the last
of what we may call the personal interviews with which
God honored the
patriarchs. Henceforward
that mode of
communication between heaven and earth ceases.
The next we read of is that by dreams, and the
interpretation of
dreams. Of
the “appearing”
of God to the party visited; His “talking
with him;”
His “going up from him;”
of that direct, face to
face, mouth to mouth, kind of intercourse, which these
descriptions must be
understood to signify, - we do not discover any traces
in any of the subsequent
revelations of which Old Testament Scripture speaks. The nearest
approach to it is to be found in
the case of Moses, concerning whom, on the occasion of
the murmuring of Miriam
and Aaron against him, the Lord bears emphatic testimony
“If there be a prophet among you,
I the Lord will make myself
known unto him in a vision,
and will speak unto him in a
dream - my servant
Moses is not so, who is faithful in all my house,
with
him will I
speak mouth to mouth, even
apparently and
not in dark speeches; and
the similitude
of the Lord shall he behold” (Numbers
12: 6, 7, 8). But what Moses
enjoyed of this direct communication
with the Most High would seem to have been, not so much
in the way of the Lord
visiting him on the earth, as in the way of the Lord
calling him up, as it
were, into heaven, on the mount to commune with Him
there. And
at all events, the Lord’s way of making
known His mind to Moses is declared to be exceptional;
and the ordinary manner
of divine revelation is represented as being altogether
different. Revelation
by a personal visit, - as when Jehovah, assuming the
appearance of a man, sat
with Abraham in his tent, eating meat with him - and
talked with him as a man
talks with his friend, - came to an end with this second
interview between the
Lord and Jacob at Bethel; which indeed was, more clearly
than the first, of the
same sort with those which his fathers had had with God. Here,
therefore, is a critical change in the
administration of the covenant on the part of God, - and
here accordingly it
may with not a little probability be contended that,
strictly speaking, the
patriarchal dispensation, in so far as it is of the
nature of a revelation,
comes to a close. The
patriarchal
religion may now be said to be complete, - the last
contribution to it being
now made in the Lord’s renewed ratification of the
covenant with Jacob.
Whatever intimation of His will God may be
pleased to make for the guidance of His servants by
visions and dreams; - and
whatever prophetic insight into the future may be
vouchsafed to gifted seers
and dying saints; - all that is rather in the way of
applying in detail to
persons and circumstances, a
revelation
already given as for the time final, than in the way
of adding to it, or
repeating [Page
352] and confirming it. Henceforth the family of
Jacob and
their descendants are to live under the patriarchal
dispensation, as a finished
religious code, - very much as the Israelites lived
under the Mosaic
dispensation after the death of Moses, and as we live
under the Christian
dispensation, since the death of Christ and His inspired
apostles and
evangelists.
We seem, therefore, to be about to turn over a leaf at this
stage of the history.
The
signal for doing so is the death of
Isaac, - with which event the present chapter
ends. It
has all the appearance, especially towards
its close, of what may be called a winding up; making
even, as it were, the odd
ends and remnants of the preceding narrative, - and
clearing the stage for a
new act of the drama, to be inaugurated when Jacob, on
his father’s death, becomes
the patriarchal head of the chosen tribe.
Hence, probably, there is introduced at this
stage, the account of
Reuben’s crime (ver.
22), as well as the catalogue of Jacob’s now completed family (ver. 22-26).
The
church visible, as its development is about to be traced
from a new starting
point, or fountain source, is now before us, in its
heads, complete, - Jacob or
Thus then, in the circumstances which are here brought
together in this chapter, - experiencing a gracious
revival, - chastened and
afflicted in his dearest affections, - honoured, with a
last visit of God to
renew and ratify His covenant, - with his family of
twelve sons now complete, -
but alas! completed at the cost of Rachel’s loss; - and
with Reuben’s incest
now superadded to the cruelty of Simeon and Levi; - thus
does Jacob find
himself once more in his father’s house.
There he is soon, along with Esau, to close his
father’s eyes, and
consign his last remains to the silent tomb.
And thereafter he is to take his father’s place
as the heir of promise,
and to fulfill, as best he may, with such materials as
he has, the functions which
that high character involves.
*
*
*
[Page
353]
CHAPTER 50
A NEW ERA - THE BEGINNING OF A NEW PATRIARCHATE
GENESIS
37:
1-11.
Now these are the generations of Esau. - Gen.
36:
.1.
These are the generations of Jacob: Joseph.
- Gen.
37:
2.
“These
are the generations of;”
- such is the formula - the title
or heading - that ushers in each new branch, whether
lineal and descending, or
collateral and diverging, of the great genealogical
chart or tree, which the
Book of Genesis unfolds.
It is the sign
which marks, at successive stages, the gradual
contraction of the narrative
into a few, and ultimately into one alone of the
innumerable streams in which
the flood of human life rolls on.
Thus, first, it heads the record of the original destination
of our world and our race (2:
4).
The
creation of the heavens and the earth, - of all the
earth’s living tribes, and especially of Him who is to have dominion over it and them, -
having been previously narrated in the first chapter;
- history proper
begins in the second.
And it begins
comprehensively enough; with the all-embracing phrase; “These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth.”
Again, secondly, after notices of the fall
and its first fruits, applicable to all mankind; when
the genealogical history
of the fallen race is to be traced in the one line of
Adam through Seth; the
same formula is used, - “This is
the book of the
generations of Adam” (5:
1).
So
also, thirdly, when a new start is to be made, and amid
universal defection, a
fresh fountain-head of life is to be selected, it is
announced in the same way,
- “These are the generations of
Noah” (6: 9).
After the flood, the genealogical tree springs again from one
parent stem, in a threefold ramification; “These
are
the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem,
Ham, and
Japheth”
(10: 1). But Ham and
Japheth being suffered to drop
aside, the interest is fixed in the lineage of Shem; “These
are the generations of Shem” (11:
10).
Soon the choice is still farther narrowed, - and the name of
Abraham’s father, as representing his son, becomes the
starting-point of the
new branch in which the progress of the tree is to be
traced; “These are the
generations of Terah: Terah
begat Abram” (11:
27).
Of Abraham’s two sons, Ishmael’s line is first briefly
sketched; “These are the
generations of Ishmael,
Abraham’s son” (25:
12).
And then, in Isaac the history of the election of
grace starts afresh, -
“These are
the generations of Isaac, Abraham’s
son”
(25: 19).
Upon the death of Isaac, the same principle of elimination out
of the sacred historic stream on the one hand, and selection for it on the other hand, comes to be applied.
Each of his two sons, Esau and Jacob, has his
place in the genealogical tree.
The genealogy in the line of Esau is very briefly and
summarily traced; “These are the
generations of Esau
who is
Look along the advancing course of Esau’s posterity.
See him in his families, multiplied and
enriched; these families rapidly becoming dukedoms or
principalities; these
dukedoms, again, gathered up into a kingdom; and that
kingdom reaching its
culminating point, long before the kingdom for which
Moses made provision in
his law was even looming in the distance for Israel; for
the history speaks of
“kings reigning in the land of
Edom, before there
reigned any king over the children of Israel”
(ver. 31). Such is the
general outline of the rise and
progress of the Idumean power which this brief and bare
list of Esau’s
generations may suggest; and it is enough for any
practical use. The
minute discussion of its details, in a
genealogical or ethnological point of view, is
unnecessary, and would be out of
place.
Esau being thus withdrawn, Jacob remains (37:
2); and
along the line of Jacob’s seed, the entire subsequent
stream of sacred history
is to flow. No
more branches are to be
given off, - and the branches already given off are to
be noticed only in so far
as they come across the current of Israel’s wondrous
course. The
formula, as now used, “These are
the generations of Jacob,” - stands
henceforth alone; being the title or heading of the
whole accumulating mass of
inspired narrative, prophecy, proverb, and song, in
which Israel’s varied
fortunes are embodied; till the time comes when once
more the old formula is to
be used to usher in a new branch of the family tree; - “The book of the generation of Jesus
Christ, the son of David, the son
of Abraham” (Matt.
1: 1).
Jacob is now the acknowledged head of the chosen family.
Isaac is dead, and Esau has removed from
Alas! no. The
trial of
his faith is not yet complete.
The old
man’s heart is to be pierced with fresh and bitter
pangs. “These are the
generations of Jacob.
Joseph” - (ver. 2).
Joseph! So this
new
section begins, - this new stream of the genealogical
history, - having its new
fountain in Jacob.
Joseph! With
the alarm of that name is the new
patriarcate or headship of the chosen family, in the
person of Jacob, rung in;
- even as with the alarm of the same name, after a
romance of history
unparalleled before or since, it is to be rung out. Joseph! The first
and last, the alpha and omega, the
beginning and the end, of Jacob’s whole patriarchal
reign!
For the interest of that patriarchal reign, (1) as a story of
human character and life, giving insight and calling
forth sympathy, as no
other story, either real or feigned, ever did; - (2) as
embracing a world-wide
revolution, attested to be so by world-wide footprints,
lasting till this day;
(3) as determining the condition of Israel’s national
development as a people
sold into bondage and redeemed; (4) as all bearing on
what really fulfilled the
prophecy - “out of Egypt have I
called my son;”
the interest I say in all these views of it, of the
patriarchal reign of Jacob,
is all centered in Joseph.
“These are the
generations of Jacob.
Joseph”
-
But in the first instance, the history of Joseph is to be
viewed
in its bearing personally on his father Jacob.
Let the state of the patriarch’s household
therefore be, as far as
possible, realized.
1. Before Joseph’s dreams, there is a root of bitterness in
the family. Two
reasons are assigned for
the jealousy that sprung up.
Joseph was
dreaded by his brethren as a tale-bearer; and he was
envied by them as a
favorite. This double cause of offense did the stripling
of seventeen give to
his brothers, now grown to manhood.
He was a tale-bearer; “Joseph brought
unto his father their evil report” (ver.
2).
Rather he was a truth-teller.
As one who was always “in
simplicity a child,” he naturally told his
father
the incidents of each passing day.
If
his brethren, - old enough, some of them, to be his
father, - were accustomed,
while away from home, ostensibly on the business of
tending their flocks, not
only to familiarize themselves, but to attempt to
familiarize their youthful
brother, with scenes and doings which they cared not to
submit to the scrutiny
of the parental eye; so much the worse for them; his mouth however
cannot be shut.
But he was a favorite; “
Very evidently, however, as the whole narrative shows, it is
not as a tale-bearer, nor as a favorite, that Joseph is
hated by his
brethren. The real ground of
their dislike is that he will not be one of them,
and go along with them in
ways which they know that their father condemns. Their quarrel
with him is that his truth and simplicity, his piety and worth, commend him to their
father’s special confidence and regard.
At all events, “when his
brethren saw that their father loved him more
than all his brethren, they
hated him, and could
not
speak peaceably unto him” (ver.
4).
Possibly Jacob may have manifested his warm esteem for his
beloved son in an injudicious way.
To
listen to his reports of the evil he witnessed, instead
of at once withdrawing
him from its contagion, and from the temptation to
become a mere spy and
informer, - that may have been Jacob’s weakness or
mistake. And
it was a poor conceit that led him to
express his affection by a costly garment (ver.
3); - if indeed it
was not something worse,
- conferring on the youthful object of his fondness a [Page 356] foolish mark of rank and distinction, that could not fail to
expose him to the ridicule or rage of his older
brothers. Still,
there lies at the bottom of the
rankling sore in Jacob’s household, as its chief cause,
the evil conduct of his sons; which Joseph could not tolerate or
conceal; and which Jacob himself perhaps did not, or
could not, control.
2.
The two dreams which Joseph had
introduced a new element of disquiet into the family. What weight
Joseph himself attached to them, when
he first told them, does not appear; - but his very
openness in telling them
shows that he could mean no harm.
He
might have kept them to himself, and watched for
opportunities of realizing
what they seemed to foreshadow.
He might
have made a confidant of some shrewd adviser or crafty
tool, who, being
entrusted with his secret, might be a safe accomplice in
any ambitious scheme
his dream-heated brain might devise.
But
Joseph has no
reserve. His
brethren, whom alone it can concern, are
to know all about the first dream (ver.
5-7). And as the
second dream, if it means
anything, points to the heads as well as the members of
the family, it is
dutifully communicated to his father also (ver.
9, 10).
Such fraternal and filial frankness should have disarmed
suspicion and hostility.
Whatever there
may be in these dreams, beyond midnight fancy’s fairy
and fantastic tricks, -
whatever of supernatural significancy, and anticipation
of the future, - Joseph
surely is not to be blamed.
He could not
help having the dreams; - and he does all that could be
asked or expected of
him, when he
hastens to put all the
household in possession of them.
That Joseph did right in communicating his dreams, - seeing
that they were
meant not only for
himself but for the whole household, - can
scarcely be doubted.
The
communication of them, however, was not welcome; it
gave dire offense to his
brethren (ver.
8).
His father also was at first displeased, or
rather perhaps only surprised.
For, one
is inclined to ask, was it really in anger, or was it by
way of dissembling,
under colour of irritation, a secret satisfaction at the
high prospect opening
up before his favorite son, that the patriarch so mildly
“rebuked” the lad’s
seemingly insolent aspirations - “What
is this dream that thou hast dreamed?
Shall I, and thy mother, and
thy
brethren, indeed come
to bow down ourselves to
thee to the earth?” (ver.
10).
At all
events, while “his brethren”
simply “envied him,” “his father
observed the saying” (ver.
11). Jacob kept it in
his mind, treasured it in
his memory, - pondered what might come of it, and
whereto it might grow; - as
Daniel did with reference to the vision of the four
beasts, and as Mary did
with reference to the visit of the shepherds at the
birth of Jesus, and the saying
of Jesus Himself, when He was twelve years old, in the
temple. Evidently,
therefore, he attached importance
to the intimation given in the dreams as
to
things to come.
And the
reflection is apt to arise, - If he and his other sons
had received the intimation
in faith, as coming from the Lord, and so
far
acted upon it as to wait in humble patience for the
issue - what sin
and suffering might have been averted from the chosen
family! But,
alas! unbelief prevailed.
Jacob may perhaps have been prepared to bow
to the will of God; but the brethren of the good and
godly youth, so evidently
favoured of the Lord, [Page
257]
envied him and hated him the
more. For
these great divine lessons
were still to be taught by the eventful history of
Joseph, - that the heart is
deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, -
that they who will live
godly in Christ Jesus must suffer persecution, - that
the righteous must through much tribulation enter
into glory.
*
*
*
CHAPTER 51
THE
GENESIS
37:
12-36.
He
came to that which was
His own, but His own did not receive Him.
John
1: 11.
In the
history of Joseph’s strange career the particular
providence of God is most
signally illustrated.
There is, indeed,
evidence enough in the previous narrative of a wise and
holy providence
watching over the actions and affairs of men, - and
carrying forward, by means
of human agency and instrumentality, a vast and
comprehensive plan for undoing
the mischief of the fall, and bringing about the
predicted result, that “the seed
of the woman is to bruise the serpent’s head.” But the march
of that providence has hitherto
been, as it were, along the highway of that great
general divine purpose and
promise, - individual and family interests being
manifestly subordinate.
Now, however, in the life of Joseph, what is
personal carries it over what is public. The march of
providence is, as it
might seem, through a by-way.
The varied
fortunes of one man, Joseph, as unfolded, not in the
inheritance, nor in any
movement connected with it, but in a region remote and
in events remote, not in
Canaan but in Egypt; - the vicissitudes of his chequered
course; his biography;
- that is now the groove in which the church’s history
is to run. Hence
it is a biography doubly
important. It
constrains us to observe
the footprints of God’s providence, as very specially
exercised in the case of
Joseph himself. And
by analogy it points
to an era when once again biography prevailed to usher
in and mould a new
church-development.
In the manner of Joseph’s descent into
1.
Take, first, the mission of Joseph,
on his father’s behalf, to his brethren (ver.
12-14). That Jacob
should send Joseph on an errand of
inquiry about his other sons, and that Joseph should be
so ready to go, might
seem natural enough, did
we not remember
the relations in which the members of this uneasy
household stood to one
another. But
has Jacob forgotten the
evil report which, in his honest and childlike
simplicity, [Page 358] Joseph had brought of his brethren, and the offense which that had
given? The
robe of honour, also, with
which his partiality had adorned his favourite son, and
the jealousy and envy
which that mark of distinction, however well deserved,
had occasioned, - and
the dreams, so artlessly told and so angrily listened to
- is all that
overlooked? Has
the previous conduct of
these men been such as to warrant Jacob in relying on
their generosity and
forbearance, when he commits to their tender mercies and
object of his own love
and of their hatred?
But perhaps he thinks to melt them by this proof of his
interest in them, and of his beloved son’s interest in
them. They
have been away from home - possibly for
a considerable time.
It would appear,
too, that they have been in trying circumstances.
The necessity of going farther than they
intended, and the dryness of the pit into which they let
down Joseph, point to
drought, or scarcity of some kind, as having forced them
to move on and seek
food for their cattle.
They had thus
been, in a sense, exiles from the parental roof, and
they had encountered
difficulties. The
father’s heart yearns
towards them. Their
hard and stubborn
nature may have been melted by what they have had to
undergo. A
visit of their young and amiable brother,
charged with a message of tender fatherly affection, may
be the very thing to
put an end to all misunderstanding and animosity, and to
effect a cordial and
complete reconciliation.
So Jacob
proposes, and Joseph accepts, this mission of family
peace. So “he came unto his
own, and his own
received him not.”
2.
There is a special providence also
in the fact or circumstances of Joseph’s brethren having
gone away beyond the
place where he first expected to find them (ver.
15-17). Possibly, if
they had remained at Shechem,
they would not have ventured on the crime which they
committed. They
could not have so easily concealed it
from their father.
He was a proprietor
there; and in spite of the horrid cause of offense given
in the case of Dinah,
he must by this time have so far accommodated matters
with prince and people,
as to have his right of occupancy in the land which he
had bought acknowledged
and respected. Considering
the means of
communication which their father must have had open with
Shechem, the brethren
of Joseph, if it had been there that he had fallen into
their hands, could
scarcely have hoped to keep their cruel treatment of him
secret. But it was so
ordered that they had to move farther off.
Had they jacob’s sanction for the movement?
Apparently not. Whatever
reason they might have for quitting
Shechem, they should surely have either returned home,
or sought instructions
from home, before resolving on a journey beyond it. They were not
found where their father had a
right to expect that they would be found, when he sent
their younger brother on
his errand of affectionate inquiry about their welfare. And if he had
been his father-s unwilling
messenger, or if he had been indifferent about his
brethren to whom he was
sent, he might have stopped short at Shechem; he might
have been justified in
going back from thence to his father, and simply
reporting his having failed to
find his brethren there.
But no. He
acts not merely according to the letter,
but in the spirit, of the commission which he has
received. He
longs to carry to his brethren, however
far away, [Page 359] the tidings and tokens of a father’s loving care for
them. He
will not desist from his
undertaking, or give up his errand, to whatever destiny
it may lead him. He
must go to his brethren wherever they may
be, and cheer them with a voice from home.
He wanders up and down in search of them; and
hearing, as it were, by
chance, to what place they talked of removing when they
quitted Shechem, the
tenderly nurtured youth, fresh from his father’s bosom,
and with the fond
pledge of his father’s affection upon his shoulders,
hesitates not a moment: -
“Joseph went after his brethren,
and found them in Dothan”
(ver.
17).
3.
It is noticeable that
4.
The manner in which he came to be
actually delivered into the hands of the Gentiles, is,
in all its details,
specially providential (ver.
18-20).
(1) The conspiracy against him, before he joins them, is in
this view to be noted.
It is very
emphatically put - “And when
they saw him afar off,
even before he came near unto
them, they conspired
against him to slay him” (ver.
18-20). They
would not wait to learn what he had to say; they would
not give him a
hearing. And
yet they could not but know
and feel that it was in no unfriendly, or unkindly, or
unbrotherly spirit, that
he was coming to them.
A mere stripling,
unarmed and unattended, he commits himself to them,
without suspicion and
without fear. The
very simplicity of his
having on him the much-grudged robe of honour, the badge
of his father’s love,
might make his brothers sure that it is on an errand of
love his father has
sent him. Why
is he here, so far from
home? Can
it be for any other than a
purpose of love? But
these dreams! This
dreamer!
He to be our Lord!
He to be King
of the Jews! Away
with Him! Crucify
Him!
So there is a conspiracy.
And it
is of the Lord’s special providence that there is a
conspiracy. His
typical purpose, if one may so call it,
is thus accomplished.
For it might have been otherwise; the rage of Joseph’s brethren
might have broken out suddenly in an outburst of
violence after he had come
among them. Joseph’s
peaceful approach
might have disarmed for the moment their hostility; and
the movement against
him might have been the result of a subsequent storm of
passion.
But that was not to be the manner of Joseph’s being delivered
into the [Page 360] hands of the Gentiles; there must be deliberation,
contrivance, treachery; a plot; a sale.
It is neither by being cast from the brow of the
hill on which
(2) The stratagem of Reuben is also of the Lord (ver.
21-25);
- not of course in the sense of its being
suggested or inspired by the Lord, but in the sense of
its being providentially
ordered and overruled by the Lord.
It
serves the purpose of gaining time.
He
deprecates the shedding of blood, and suggests the
casting into the pit;
intending, though of course he concealed his intention,
“to deliver Joseph to his father
again.”
That it should have been Reuben who in this instance showed
such consideration for his father is not a little
remarkable. The
last thing we read of him is his
commission of his horrid sin; the
sin which lost him his
birthright prerogative, and brought upon him, long
after, his dying father’s
sad prophetic denunciation (chap.
49: 3,
4).
It may have been the recollection of that very
wrong; - and something
perhaps in the way his father took it, - for the
narrative of the crirne,
though very brief, has a certain strange significancy, -
“And Israel heard it” -
betokening the agony of
silence, shame, and sorrow; -
it may
have been this that occasioned the relenting of Reuben’s
heart now. He
will not inflict a new stab in his
father’s tortured bosom.
He will not do
him a second wrong, - more cruel, in some aspects of it,
than the first. He
will be no party to the child’s
murder. He
will deliver him out of the
hands of those who thirsted for his blood.
But how? Remonstrance,
he
well knows, will be vain.
No appeal
to their brotherly affection, their human pity, their
filial duty, will
avail. But
their prudence may be called
into exercise; their fear may be aroused.
By all means let this dreamer of dreams die;
surely it is meet that he
should perish rather
than dream himself
into domination and us into bondage.
Yes! Let
him die. But
not after the coarse and clumsy fashion
you propose. You
would slay him with
your own hands, and so stain them with blood which may
betray you. Nay,
rather, let his death be such as may
pass for accidental.
Here is a pit, or
well - dry, for it is summer, and there has been
drought. What
more likely than that the boy, wandering
about in search of us, should have stumbled unawares
upon it and fallen into
it? When we
are gone from the place, no
marks of violence will remain to witness against us. Possibly none
may ever discover the body but
the birds that are to prey upon it. Or if any passer-by
should hear a faint
dying moan, and, looking down, should see a fair child
breathing his last in
solitary anguish, - he will but lament his inability to
help him, and with a
sigh of sorrow over his sad and untimely fate, go on his
way musing on the
vicissitudes of human life.
The suggestion of Reuben pleases the brothers and is promptly
acted upon. Joseph,
amid what tears and
entreaties on his part, it is left to imagination to
conceive, - enough to melt
a heart of stone, any hearts but those that should have
been the most open to
embrace him, - Joseph lies deep down, along the cold and
slimy bed, on which he
is to experience the [Page
361]
lingering torment of thirst and
hunger, till nature sinks and death relieves him.
The brothers at the pit’s mouth sit down to
their repast with what appetite they may.
“Woe to them that drink wine in bowls,
and anoint themselves with the
chief ointment; but
they are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph”
(Amos 6: 6). Such is the
indignant utterance of the
prophet, referring, ages after, to this old historical
scene, as the type of
the worst kind of spiritual insensibility, and carnal,
selfish, devilish
hardness of heart.
(3) The arrival of the caravan of traveling merchants is
clearly of the Lord (ver.
25-28). They come in
good time. The
heartless and unfeeling murderers, - for
they were so in intent, and virtually, even in act, -
are beginning to have
some misgivings.
So the sin of man-selling is palliated.
The men take credit for not slaying, but merely
selling Joseph, - because, forsooth, “he
is our brother
and our flesh!”
And so, in after
years, Judas and the Jews may have tried to satisfy or
silence conscience; -
Judas, when he sold his Master for thirty pieces of
silver; - and the Jews,
when they first made themselves parties to the sale, and
then gave Jesus over
into the hands of Pilate!
*
*
*
CHAPTER 52
SINFUL
ANCESTRY OF “THE HOLY SEED”
- GRIEF IN CANAAN - HOPE IN
GENESIS
38
(AND 37: 25-36, 39: 1.)
Let it not be!
But let God be true and every
man a liar. ‑ Rom.
3:
4.
The
narrative of sin and shame in the thirty-eighth chapter
comes in as a somewhat
strange parenthesis, or interruption, in the history of
Jacob’s patriarchate,
or patriarchal reign, as it unfolds itself in the
adventures of Joseph.
There is, however, a break at the stage at
which this sad story about
The account of this affair of
The story told in the thirty-eighth chapter very probably had
its beginning before the events recorded in the
thirty-seventh; for we cannot
interpret very strictly the phrase “at
that time,”
or about that time (ver.
1); - unless, indeed,
we hold it to intimate, what
we may regard as true, that the consummation of the
story occurred
cotemporaneously, or nearly so, with the sale of Joseph.
Reuben, Simeon, and Levi, the three elder brothers of Judah,
having
justly incurred the forfeiture of their privileges, -
Reuben by his invasion of
his father’s bed, - Simeon and Levi, by their cruel
treachery in avenging
Dinah’s fall, - Judah stands now, naturally, first in
the order of hereditary
preference among the sons of Jacob. The pre-eminence,
judging after the flesh,
belongs to him. But,
as if to make it
conclusively and clearly evident that the flesh must
give place to the spirit,
and nature to grace,
How he was led astray at first, being induced to quit the
company of his brethren, by his fond and rash preference
for one of the people
of the land (ver. 1);
how that unwise and unwarrantable friendship issued in
his marriage with the
daughter of a Canaanite (ver.
2-5);
how the
fruit of that marriage was foul and loathsome sin,
bringing two sons in
succession to an untimely end (ver.
6-10);
how his
breach of engagement as to his third son moved his
widowed daughter-in-law to
have recourse to so scandalous a stratagem as to be
almost unparalleled, for
redressing the wrong done to her (ver.
11-16);
how
Judah’s unbridled lust, he being now a widower, and no
longer young, laid him
open to the woman’s wiles (ver.
15-23);
how he
was compelled to own his sad fault, and if not to
justify his partner in guilt,
at least to condemn himself more than her (ver.
24-26);
and
how ultimately he seems to have so far repented as to
avoid any repetition
of his iniquity (ver.
26); - all these
things are written for our
learning; being fitted to suggest practical lessons of
private and personal
morality as important as [Page
363]
they are obvious. But
there are two points of interest to be
noted as regards the more public bearing of this
narrative on the divine plan
of providence and grace.
(1) The practice afterwards sanctioned in the Mosaic economy,
by what is called the law of the Levirate (Deut.
25: 5),
is
recognized as already in use in the chosen family; - and
the reason of it is
not obscurely indicated.
It would seem
that it was not a practice that commended itself as
suitable or welcome to the
natural man, - to a mind imbued with merely natural
notions, and without faith
in the Messianic promise which Abraham and his house had
to grasp.
Nor is it difficult to see what that was.
Every true-hearted son of Abraham cherished
the eager hope that he might be the ancestor of the
promised Messiah - the seed
of the woman that was to bruise the head of the serpent. To die
childless, therefore, was not merely
the disappointment of a natural desire and expectation,
- it was a cause of
regret in a far higher point of view.
Hence the suitableness of the younger brother
being commanded to repair
the defect, by taking his elder brother’s widow to wife,
and raising up seed to
him by her. It was an appropriate office of brotherly
love, inasmuch as it
substantially secured to one prematurely taken away, his
name and standing
among the fathers of the families of
In the present instance, the reason comes out very
clearly. The
family in which the
practice was to be observed, was that of Judah, of whom
Christ was actually to
be born; so that, over and above the sin, in the sight
of God, of the pollution
done to himself, the offense of Judah’s second son, as
against his deceased
brother, was very highly aggravated.
It
went to rob him of the honour, which he might otherwise
have had, of being held
in law to be the progenitor of the promised Saviour, - even of Him in
whom all the families of the earth were to be
blessed.
To make this still clearer -
(2) As it turned out in point of fact, it was through this
very woman, the widow of
Strange! That from
such
an incestuous connection, to which she knowingly tempted
her father-in-law, and
into which he unwittingly fell, there should spring – “such
an high priest as became us, holy,
harmless, undefiled,
and separate from sinners!” Is it not
strange indeed?
Strange! Nay, not more strange than that He should have
compassion on that other woman of
And now, look, on the one hand, at the closing scene of one
act of the drama in Canaan; and on the other, at the
opening of the next in
1.
(37:
29-36),
Joseph
is gone. The
feast at the pit’s
mouth is over. The
bargain is struck and
the money paid. The captive boy, - with what tears and
struggles on his part!
with what specious apologies on the part of his
brothers! - is carried
away. He
may be thankful that it is no worse;
that instead of being left miserably to perish amid
slime and filth, he is only
sold into bondage in
But their task is not over.
They must devise some cunning tale, - some
plausible lie, - to account
for Joseph’s disappearance.
First, Rcuben must in some way be satisfied.
For he, as it would seem, had withdrawn from
their company, after he had succeeded in persuading them
to use the pit, rather
than the knife; and in all probability without waiting
to see them act on his
advice. For,
even though he means to
rescue his young brother (ver.
21, 22),
he
shrinks from witnessing the cruel treatment he is to
receive. He
cannot stand by while these strong men so
roughly seize and strip the lad, and cast him helpless
into so loathsome a
dungeon. On
some plea or other, he
excuses himself from joining in their plot and their
repast, and retires into
some secret place, intending to return [Page 365] when they are
gone, - to save the
lad’s life and restore him to his father.
He does return, after allowing them, as he
supposes, time enough to
finish their feast.
He comes upon them
still where he had left them, - their business with the
merchants having
detained them. Perhaps
they are in the
very act of counting or concealing their gains.
He expects to discover Joseph in the pit; and
when he finds the pit
empty, it is a cry of real and bitter anguish that burst
from his lips, as, “rending his
clothes, he
returns unto his brethren and says, The
child is
not; and I, whither
shall I go?” (ver.
30).
How is this cry to be met?
How are these murderers in heart, man-sellers in
act, to evade the keen
questioning, and face the righteous wrath, of their
elder brother? - now,
especially, when his vehement grief confirms, what from
his absence they may
have begun to suspect before, - that he meant to assume
the office of Joseph’s
protector and deliverer?
Do they make
him privy to the transaction of the sale?
Do they tell him that Joseph lives, and is on his
way to push his
fortune in
Thus with the intent of blood upon their consciences, - the
price of blood in their hands, - and a cruel lie in
their lips, these
patriarchs and heads of houses in Israel return home to
their father.
Their story is at once believed: “It
is my son’s coat; an
evil beast hath devoured
him; Joseph is without
doubt rent in pieces”
(ver. 33). Such an
accident is but too probable, - considering
the wild country into which Joseph, in pursuit of his
brethren, had
wandered. The
bereaved parent is utterly
cast down: “Jacob rent his
clothes, and put
sackcloth upon his loins,
and mourned for his son many days” (ver.
34).
In vain his family gather round him to suggest the ordinary
topics of consolation, - some of them hypocritically
perhaps at first, - but
soon even the worst of them, after a sort, sincerely (ver.
35).
For they are [Page
366]
scarcely prepared, these hard and
cold men, for the deep and lasting grief into which they
have plunged their
father; they had not anticipated that the blow would
fall so heavily. It
was, as they represented it, a
providential dispensation; a sad enough affliction, no
doubt, but one “common to man,”
- the loss of a darling child, by a
calamity that could not have been prevented or helped by
any human foresight,
skill, or strength.
So, they imagined,
the event must have looked in their father’s eyes; and
they might have expected
therefore that he would manifest the meek patience and
submission of faith, and
say, “It is the Lord, let
him do what seemeth good.”
And
then it is but one of a large family that is gone. His house is
still firmly established for
generations to come.
He has even one
pledge left of his lost Rachel’s love, - her Benoni, -
his Benjamin. And
the promised seed continues to be safe.
But the bereaved father “refuses to be
comforted;” the hurt is not lightly healed. The wound
inflicted on his tenderest
affections is incurable on this side the tomb: “And
he
said, For I will go
down into the grave [“Sheol”
– i.e., the
place of the souls of the
dead in the Underworld] unto
my son mourning.
Thus his father wept for
him” (ver. 35).
Ah! have his sons no misgivings now - no relentings?
Would they have done what they did, if they
had foreseen all this agony of a parent’s soul?
But the deed is beyond recall.
They cannot bring Joseph back; they
dare
not even hint that he may be yet alive; they will not
retract their lie.
Could they hope to be believed if they
did? Joseph,
at all events is as much
lost to his old father as if he were “without
doubt
rent in pieces.”
It would be no
kindness to undeceive Jacob, and so substitute for a
painful sense of
irretrievable loss, a still more painful suspense, never
to be either satisfied
or ended. Therefore
they may think that
they do well to keep silence.
Even
So, in spite of sons and daughters rising up to comfort him,
the bereaved father continues to weep for Joseph.
For
One only sign of good is there in it, and that is as yet
secret. The
ancestor of the Messiah is born; alas!
under no promising auspices, judging after the flesh. The, holy seed
is still the substance of the
smitten and ravaged tree (Isaiah
6: 13).
Thus the curtain falls on the last scene of the drama for the
present in
2.
It rises, - and another scene, or
succession of scenes, opens to view.
Lo!
a company of merchants marching through the wilderness;
and in the midst of
them a young lad, with bleeding feet and streaming eyes,
bound, [Page 367] footsore, weary, a servant, a slave (37:
36).
And lo! again, a youth of promise, in a lordly
mansion, on the road to
preferment and the highest honour (39:
1-6).
But first, once more, behold a prisoner, falsely charged with
crime, - wearing out long days in
a prison-house,
and yet even there seen and known to be without fault.
And finally, behold this wronged and afflicted One, -
justified, exalted, raised to reign over all the land,
to wield all royal
sovereignty and power, - to be “a
light to
lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of his
own people Israel.”
* *
*
CHAPTER 53
HUMILIATION
AND
TEMPTATION YET WITHOUT SIN
GENESIS
39
He sent a man before them, even
Joseph, who was sold for a servant,
whose feet they hurt with chains (he
was laid in iron).
- Psalm
105:
17,
18.
The
lessons to be learned from the life and adventures of
Joseph, considered simply
as a matter of human history, or of a divine history of
human experiences, lie
on the very surface of the narrative; so much so that
the business of drawing
them out, and setting them in formal didactic array, is
apt to become trite and
tedious. For the most part, indeed, comment serves
rather to weaken than to
enforce the teaching of the [Holy] Spirit in this
matchless biography.
It really tells its own tale, and suggests
its own moral throughout, so clearly and so
pathetically, that it might seem
best to leave it to make its own impression, undiluted
and unadulterated by the
reflections, however sound, of ordinary exposition.
But Joseph can scarcely be considered simply in his individual
character or capacity.
He must be viewed
as standing in a very peculiar relation to the
Hence, it is almost impossible not to regard Joseph as
sustaining, more than any of the other patriarchs, a
sort of Messianic
character, executing Messianic offices, and passing
through Messianic
experiences.
[Page 368]
It is not merely that ingenuity may trace in what befell
Joseph much that may be represented as analogous to what
we find recorded in
the gospels concerning Christ.
Resemblances of a more or less typical character
cannot fail to be
observed between him and Christ, and between his varied
life and Christ’s, by
the most literal and unimaginative commentator.
I cannot but think, however, that we have to
recognize a closer bond of
union than that which such incidental coincidences might
establish between
Joseph and Jesus. Beforehand,
we might
anticipate, I apprehend, a parallelism between the two
biographies, because the
two subjects of them are themselves closely parallel,
and intimately associated
with one another. In
this view, it might
almost be said, with literal truth, that Joseph is the
Jesus of the Old
Testament church’s history.
In him, as
in Jesus, the church is represented and developed.
The full truth and meaning of this virtual identification of
the two may come out more clearly as the examination of
the sacred narrative
proceeds. I
advert to the subject now,
as explaining the method which I adopt in opening up the
record which the
chapter under review contains - 1.
of Joseph’s first appearance in
Thus the humiliation of Joseph in
1.
Joseph first appears in
2.
In his humiliation as a servant, his nobility of
nature early and
conspicuously shone forth (ver.
2-6). The grace of
God, a certain divine
gracefulness, - was upon him.
A certain
glory also, a certain air of distinction, - bespeaking a
higher origin and
rank, distinguished the young Hebrew from the beginning. He grew in
favour with God and man.
“The Lord was with
Joseph, and he was a
prosperous man.”
In
person and accomplishments, in mind and body, he
excelled. In
whatever he undertook he prospered.
In the pursuits and exercises of the youth
about him, - in the discipline and learning of the
Egyptians, - in the tasks
imposed upon him and the trusts committed to him, - he
proved himself eminently
successful. Evidently
he was one on whom
fortune smiled propitious.
He won men’s
hearts too. He
found grace in his
master’s sight, as he served him, and was subject to
him, in all dutifulness
and respectful obedience.
So, in the
years of ripening boyhood and opening manhood, his
character unfolded
itself. Through
the disguise of his low
servile state, glimpses of what he really was appeared. It was no
ordinary personage who had come
from afar to take his place among Egypt’s swarthy
children, - but one fairer
than any of them, - one, moreover, whose very presence
brought a blessing with
it, in house and field, - one to whom all things that
his lord had, at home and
abroad, might be safely left, - one high in the esteem
of heaven, - “a goodly person”
also, “and
well-favoured.”
3.
Joseph is exposed to solitary temptation, - led,
as it were, by the [Holy]
Spirit
into the wilderness, into
solitude, to be tempted, - and tempted truly of a devil
(ver. 7-9).
The temptation is, in the first aspect of it, an appeal to
appetite, - to carnal or bodily desire, - to the hunger
of youthful lust. Strong
in itself, it is strengthened by its
being an insidious compliment to his high birth and
concealed nobility.
It is as one who, although in form a servant,
is really something more, - as it were, a son of God, -
that he is asked to
take this course, - a course ordinarily unlawful, but in
the case of one such
as he is, and situated as he is situated, surely not
unwarrantable, - not too
great a liberty. Why
should not this son
of God, if needful, turn stones into bread?
So the terms of the trial might virtually run. It was not
every one, or any one, of the
servants in the house that would have received such an
invitation from such a
quarter. The
proposal is a flattering
acknowledgment of his superiority; it is a challenge to
him to take advantage
of the position which his acknowledged superiority
entitles him [Page
370]
to assume; to avail himself - so the
matter might be plausibly represented - of the privilege
which it brings within
his reach. Thus
subtle is the temptation
as it deals with natural appetite, or the lust of the
flesh.
But in another view, it is even more subtle still.
Compliance might have set him on a pinnacle
of luxury and pomp, from which, when he chose to
condescend, or cast himself
down, he would have been received by his old familiars
almost as one coming
from a higher sphere.
The prospect
doubtless was held out to him, of some exalted and
brilliant position to be
reached through the influence which, if he had
consented, would have been at
his command. Nor
is it difficult to see,
- if those acquainted with the ways of Eastern courts,
from of old till now,
tell us true, - how whatever we would think disgraceful
to either party in the
transaction might have been cautiously covered, or
ingeniously got over, and a
lavish grant of honourable place and title might have
come through the
tempter’s wily ascendency over the very man who, as a
husband, would have been
so cruelly wronged by her.
Nor is even this all.
If the spirit of ambition as well as the love of
pleasure and of show
has place in Joseph’s heart, - if the possession of “all
the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them”
is a prize worth the
having, in his esteem, - if such pre-eminence of power
and influence over the civilized
earth as he afterwards reached through a very different
experience, - although
he could not in his wildest dreams imagine it possible
then, - yet if that, or
more than that, in the line of universal empire, would
gratify him, - what
limit can be set to his tempter’s ability to place him,
- if only he will take
counsel of her, and can keep it, - on the ladder of
promotion to the right hand
of what was then the throne of all thrones among
mankind?
I am persuaded that I do not greatly err, in ascribing to the
temptation of Joseph this complex, threefold character,
- making it turn on
these three principles or elements of the world’s
antagonism to God, - “the lust
of the flesh, the
lust of the eyes, and
the pride of life.”
In the view of the relative position of the
parties, and the whole circumstances of the case, it may
be regarded as all but
certain that such prizes as I have indicated were held
out to the Jewish
captive as the rewards of compliance, and held out by
one who might well be
believed to have the power of making even so great
promises good.
On the other hand, it is equally obvious that the too probable
consequences of declinature must have been present to
Joseph’s mind. He
was too clear-sighted not to perceive that
such blandishment, if withstood, might, or rather must,
turn to resentment and
revenge. Satan,
the prince of this
world, having tried the wiles of flattery in vain, will
have recourse to
threats and violence.
The short and easy
road of pleasure, pomp, and power, being in faith and
godly fear
conscientiously declined, it is but too obvious, as the
only other side of the
alternative, that Joseph must lay his account with
meeting wrath to the
uttermost. And
if ever the promise of
those early dreams of his which he so simply told, and
which his father counted
so worthy of observation, is to be realized, it can only
be through even deeper
shame and sorrow than he has yet endured.
It can only be [Page 371] through much tribulation that he is to enter into his glory. He is to be
tried and perfected by suffering.
4.
The narrative of Joseph’s disgrace (ver.
17-20)
is
not to be discredited because similar narratives occur
in profane or uninspired
literature, whether poetical or historical, - legendary
or authentic. That
only shows how true, alas! to nature, -
to female nature, corrupted, abandoned, and debased, -
is the conduct ascribed
to the foiled and disappointed agent in this crafty plot
of Satan against the
righteous.
Charged with odious and heinous iniquity; laden with the
accusation of a crime against the God whom he professed
to serve, and an
offense against the ruler in whose he was; condemned,
not justly, - for “this man has
done nothing amiss,” - but on false
testimony, Joseph has to bear the doom of the sin
imputed to him, and to
expiate its guilt, by enduring a sentence almost worse
than death. For
to his pure mind and tender heart, - to a
soul so sensitively alive as his was to the honour of
Jehovah and the sanctity
of his law, and so prompt in its recoil from the very
idea of disaffection or
disloyalty to the master under whom he lived, - the
disgrace of such an
infamous imprisonment, - the reproach of such a cross, -
must have been little
short of prolonged agony and torture of the cruelest
kind.
Whether or not the abridgment of his liberty was accompanied
with any of those aggravating circumstances of cruel
barbarity which are but
too common, in such instances, under tyrannical power,
subordinate or supreme, would
be comparatively a small matter for him.
The history speaks of his being put in a part of
the prison “where the
king’s
prisoners were bound;” - and again, of
his being in “the dungeon”
(40: 15;
41: 14). The
Psalmist represents him as having “his
feet hurt with
fetters,” and as “being
bound in iron.”
And what sort of punishment confinement in
the dungeon of a king’s prison was, may be learned from
the experience of
Jeremiah (Jer. 38:
6-13). In every view
of it, Joseph’s fate is, at
this crisis, hard and sad enough.
He is
brought very low. Not
only are his fair
and warrantable hopes of an honourable extrication, by
the well-won favour of
his patron, from the state of servitude into which he
had come, nipped and
blighted: but there he lies, prostrate, helpless, -
plunged in the mire of a
loathsome call, and the still more intolerable mire of a
vile reproach which
his whole soul abhors, - himself loaded with unmerited
obloquy, and the name of
that God whom he sought to honour in the heathen’s
sight, wickedly blasphemed
on his account. He
is indeed, as it
might seem, forsaken of all, abandoned by earth and
heaven alike, and left all
alone in his anguish and agony.
The arm
of the ruler, which ought to have shielded him from
injustice, is by a lying
witness turned against him.
Home
memories rushing in upon his heart only madden him with
the thought that by
this time, where he had been so fondly cherished, so
favourite, so well-beloved
a son, his name is probably never heard.
All evil mouths are open, and all evil tongues
are busy, against
him. Lovers
and friends have gone from
him. The
iron is entering into his flesh
and into his spirit.
The earth is shaken
beneath him. The
heavens are darkened
over him. “My God,” he
may cry, “my God, why hast thou forsaken
me?” (Ps. 22:
1).
[Page 372]
5.
But even in the utmost depths of his humiliation,
his glory is seen (ver.
21-23). In the
midst of all his sufferings as a reputed sinner,
something of the essential glory
and beauty of his nature, something of his exalted
character and rank,
appears. “Certainly
this was a righteous man;” – “Truly
this was the
son of God;” (Luke
23: 47; Matt. 27:
54) - such,
in substance, is the impression made on the keeper, in
whose sight the Lord
gives Joseph favour.
For “the Lord was with
him, and
showed him mercy.”
He was not to
be left without some witness from on high of his being
indeed, in spite of all
outward appearances, the Lord’s chosen servant. He has
the witness in himself;
the [Holy] Spirit witnessing with his spirit that he is a child of God, and enabling him, in the strength of conscious innocence and integrity,
and in the still greater strength of the divine
approval and support
consciously enjoyed, - “the
love of God shed abroad in
his heart by the Holy Ghost being given to him,”
- to resist almost “unto blood,
striving against
sin,” and to “endure
the cross, despising
the shame.”
And out of himself, in his being recognized
and acknowledged by one and
another, given to him by the Lord to
be
the first-fruits of his pain, - won over to him in
his affliction and by
his affliction, - he
has a testimony
that, however he may be despised and rejected of men
generally, he is owned by
some as accepted of God.
His
trial, and
his manner of bearing it, tell upon a few, at least,
among the onlookers.
From the very officer appointed to guard him,
- as if it were from the Roman centurion beside the
cross, - this admirable
sufferer wins sympathy and approval.
And
soon it is to appear that his fellow-sufferers in the
same condemnation are not
all to prove insensible to his claims.
Joseph in prison, like Jesus on the cross, is
still beloved by God.
And his
very imprisonment, his very
cross, is the occasion of his being seen and felt
and owned to be so.
These, surely, are sufficiently significant indications of
parallelism between the humiliation of Joseph and that
of Jesus; - enough to
warrant us in viewing the events in
But the narrative, considered simply as a narrative of life
and character, must not be dismissed without some notice
of the double lesson
which it is fitted powerfully to enforce.
(1) See, young man, where your strength must lie in resisting
tempation; - “How can I do this
great wickedness and
sin against God?”
Joseph’s previous remonstrance seems intended to influence the
weak or wicked woman who is soliciting him; - “Behold,
my master wotteth not what is
with me in the house,
and he hath committed all that
he hath to my hand;
there is none greater in this
house than I; neither
hath he kept back anything from me but thee, because thou are his wife” (ver.
8, 9). He suggests
considerations which, even apart
from the motives of pure religion, might have been
expected to tell on an
uninstructed heathen mind.
The rights of
his master, sacred in his eyes, ought to have been
sacred in the eyes of his
tempter also, - all the more because that master
evidently reposed such
honourable confidence in both.
But his defense for himself lies in God; - in a prompt,
abrupt, instant, and, as it were, instinctive appeal to
God, as in his law
forbidding this sin, [Page
373]
and all sin, peremptorily and without
room for evasion, or exception, or compromise.
It is that which puts all casuistry and sophistical special
pleading aside. Joseph
does not
deliberate, or parley, or debate.
He
takes the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. His reply
virtually is, “It is written.”
I dare not take into my own hands the gratifying
or pleasing of
myself. I dare not presume to tempt the Lord my God by venturing on unwarranted
pleasure or promotion, and challenging Him to keep me. I
worship the Lord alone, and Him only do I serve. “How
shall I do this
great wickedness, and sin agamst God?”
Ah! let me beseech you, brother, in this spirit, to “flee
youthful lusts, which
war
against the soul.”
Flee, as this
tempted Israelitish youth did. Stand
not
to argue, or even to contend.
Flee for
your life. And
that you may flee, at once, resolutely,
with fear and trembling, - with haste and horror, - put
the matter plainly, as
Joseph did - “How shall I do
this great wickedness,
and sin against God?”
This swift word is your only safety in any temptation.
Beware of going beyond it.
Beware of beginning to question and to
reason. Beware
of raising specious
arguments of expediency, or of possible lawfulness or
excuseableness. Be
decided.
Be firm. And
be sure that “whatsoever is not
of faith is sin.”
Enter into no doubtful disputations.
“He that doubteth is
condemned if he eat.”
Stand fast
in the only stronghold of integrity, - the abrupt,
strong, honest outburst of
holy zeal and indignation, - “How
shall I do this great
wickedness, and sin
against God?”
(2) Learn
to endure and hope,
however dark the dungeon may be in which, through no
fault of your own, perhaps
for your faithfulness to God, and His law, and His
truth, you may be plunged.
Be sure
that occasions and
opportunities for glorifying God in your tribulation
will open up before
you. Be
patient, be meek, be
submissive. And
wait, and watch; - “Weeping
may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.”
Praise the Lord then, “even in the
fires;” in prison, a large room may be opened. From the
cross, which you share with Jesus, a
word, or voice, or influence in season, may go forth to
win souls to Jesus, as
well as to win friends to yourself.
Be
not then slow of heart to believe such gracious
assurances as these; - “Ye have
not received the spirit of bondage again to fear;
but ye have received the Spirit
of adoption, whereby
we cry, Abba, Father.
The Spirit itself
beareth witness with our spirit, that
we are the children of God: and
if children, then
heirs;
heirs of God, and
joint-heirs
with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him,
that
we may be also glorified together.
For I reckon that
the
sufferings
of this present time are not worthy to be compared
with the glory which shall
be revealed in us”
(Rom. 8:
15-18). And think for
what end it may please the Lord
that you should be brought low; what good may come to
men, and what glory to
God, through your being brought low.
“Look not every man on
his own things, but
every man also on the things of others.
Let this mind be in
you, which was also in
Christ Jesus: who,
being in the form of God,
thought it not robbery to be
equal with God: but
made himself of no reputation, and
took upon him the form of a servant, and
was made in the [Page 374] likeness
of
men: and being found
in fashion as a man,
he humbled himself, and
became obedient unto death, even
the death of
the cross.
Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him,
and given him
a name which is above every name: that
at the
name of Jesus every knee should bow, of
things
in heaven and things in earth, and things under the earth;
and that every tongue should
confess that Jesus Christ is
Lord, to the glory of
God the Father” (Phil.
2: 4-11).
*
*
*
CHAPTER 54
THE
SUFFERING
SAVIOR - THE SAVED AND LOST
GENESIS
40
Behold! This One is set for the fall and rising up of
many in
of many hearts may be revealed. - Luke
2: 34,
35.
Then two thieves were crucified with Him, one at His
right hand and one at His left. - Matthew 27: 28.
The
successive steps or stages of Joseph’s humiliation may
be briefly recapitulated.
(1) He is sent by his father on an errand of
kindness to his brethren - and with his whole heart he
goes on that errand,
determined to seek and find them, however far they may
have wandered from home.
(2) He comes to his own, and his own do not
receive him. A
plot is formed against
him the moment he appears in sight.
The
dreamer must be got rid of.
“This is the
heir;
come let
us kill
him.”
(3) They will kill him,
if needful, themselves.
But they think
it better to deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles. It is a shrewd
device - like that of the Jews
long after - to make Pilate do their work - to get Him
who came to visit them
in love disposed of, not by them, but by the men of
another nation. (4)
Joseph is valued and sold - cheaply
valued, treacherously sold.
(5) As a
servant he is found in Egypt, dwelling among Pharaoh’s
servants - and yet so
dwelling among them as to give evidence of his being a
child of heaven,
gracious, true, and fair; and to give promise, also, of
some high destiny in
store for him. (6)
He is led into
solitary temptation, assailed with solicitations
appealing to three of the
strongest principles in our human nature - appetite,
ostentation, ambition; -
the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the
pride of life. He
is virtually offered all that can gratify
his utmost wishes for pleasure, pomp, and power - if he
will only worship a
devil. (7)
His tempter, foiled in
flattery, tries persecution.
A liar,
like him who is “a liar from the
beginning, and the
father of it,” Joseph’s assailant prevails [Page 375] against him by false testimony,
and
so succeeds in having him condemned.
(8) Brought under condemnation, having guilt
imputed to him, laden with
obloquy, doomed to a servile punishment, Joseph is still
so marked as God’s own
child, that amid all the darkness of his unmerited
suffering, he is recognized,
by the very officer appointed to carry out his sentence,
as a righteous man.
Thus, with mingled evidences of grace and degradation - of a
high character and a lowly state - Joseph comes to sound
the depths of his
appointed humiliation.
And now we find
him, even in the lowest of these depths - as it were, on
the cross itself -
still owned and honored by God; appointed to be an
arbiter of destiny, if I may
so speak, to those between whom his cross stands; and
that in such a manner as
evidently to prepare the way for his own approaching
exaltation.
It is the close of his humiliation, therefore, that is now to
be considered.
Joseph in prison, at the
extreme point of his humiliation, appears as the
dispenser of life and death
among his fellow-prisoners. He is the instrument or
occasion of
a decisive separation between the two whom he finds
involved in the same
condemnation with himself.
He fixes
authoritatively and conclusively their opposite
destinations.
From the first, he is not altogether under a cloud; what he
really is in himself, shines out from beneath his
prison-garb, in spite of the
drawbacks of his prison-state (ver.
1-4). Not only does
he find favour, - the Lord
being with him and showing him mercy, - in the sight of
the keeper of the
prison, - but even the captain of the guard, Potophar
himself, seems to have
relented.
For it must be Potiphar who, receiving from the king the two
officers with whom he is wroth, puts them where Joseph
is confined, and charges
Joseph with the care of them.
As
commanding the king’s body-guard, he had charge of the
state prison, - which
was indeed part of his own house, - with a subordinate
keeper under him; - a
common arrangement in old eastern despotisms.
That being his position, it was easy for him to
consign Joseph to
imprisonment without trial, or with such trial as he
might choose to count
sufficient. And
it was equally easy for
him to have other state prisoners associated with
Joseph, and placed under his
superintendence, if he so chose.
That he
should have so chosen in this instance, need not appear
strange or surprising.
Perhaps he doubted all along the truth of the
accusation against Joseph, and suspected its unworthy
motive, although he felt
himself constrained to yield to influence and
importunity that he dared not
withstand, and sacrifice to the malice of disappointed
desire, one in whom he
had no fault to find.
Or if at first credulous,
and naturally inflamed with sudden wrath; he may have
begun, on cooler
reflection and better information, to change his mind. Or he may have
received such reports of
Joseph’s demeanor in prison, from his subordinate
officer, as to cause a revulsion
of feeling, - and his old confidence may thus be
beginning to return.
At all events, it is by his order and with
his consent that Joseph is placed, - as it was by
Pilate’s order that Jesus was
placed, - between the two malefactors.
In that position he was “charged with
them and served them” (ver.
4).
[Page 376] It was a double function. He
waited
upon them and was their attendant, - responsible
doubtless in that capacity for
their safe custody, - but not authorized to act as their
superior, - only
entitled to officiate as their servant.
For they were evidently persons of some rank and
consideration in
Pharaoh’s court, - although the precise position of each
is about as hard to be
ascertained as his offense; - and as unimportant and
irrelevant, for any
practical purpose, if it could be ascertained.
They were chiefs in their respective departments. They may have
been guilty of fraud, - of what
in meaner men would be called theft.
Under some such accusation probably they were
suffering, having Joseph
between them, ready to serve and be of use to them. Thus “they
continued
a season in ward.”
The day, however, now dawns that is to decide their respective
fates. In
the morning, Joseph visits them,
as usual; and finding them discomposed, he naturally
asks the reason, “wherefore look
ye so sadly today?” Carelessly perhaps,
and as a mere matter of civility, they inform him, - “We
have dreamed a dream, and
there is no
interpreter of it.”
And they are
somewhat startled, we may be sure, by Joseph’s reply: -
“Do not interpretations belong
to God? tell me them,
I pray you”
(ver. 6-8).
For it might well be deemed a strange reply from such a one as
Joseph must have appeared to them to be.
Who was he that he should dare to speak in so
high a tone, and undertake
so confidently what he avows to be a divine office? A servant, one
who ministered to them in
humble guise, - a prisoner, - a convict, one whom they
may have been disposed
to treat with supercilious indifference or despiteful
indignity, - a poor
degraded Israelite, - in their proud eyes contemptible. What wonder if
both of these more reputable
victims of the frowns of power should have laughed to
scorn the lofty
pretentions of one who was more a victim than
themselves?
They may have done so, both of them, at first.
But if so, one of them at least speedily
relents. For
we begin here to recognize
a distinction between them.
And the
distinction is vital and fatal.
1.
The chief butler, at once and
unhesitatingly, told his dream (ver.
9-15). His doing so,
and the result of his doing so,
are in several views not a little remarkable.
(1) He acted in faith.
He believed Joseph’s own assurance, - for it was
virtually an assurance
on Joseph’s part, - of his having a commission from God
to interpret the
dream. And
it was this faith that made
him tell it. It
was no child’s play, or
holiday-sport, between Joseph and these men - no mere
trick of ingenious
riddle-reading and guess-work.
It was
not an affair of magic, or legerdemain, or vulgar
fortune-telling a conjuror
practicing his sleight-of-hand maneuvers and
manipulations an oneiromantist, or
dream-prophet, with his jargon of symbols and occult
senses, affecting to weave
the idle thoughts of a tossing bed into a plausible web
of fate. Joseph
at least is in earnest.
His trumpet gives no uncertain sound.
He assumes the prophetic character, as
decidedly as Daniel did when he stood before
Nebuchadnezzar - or Christ when He
comforted the dying thief.
He undertakes
to speak for God - to speak as the oracle of God.
It is avowedly on that footing that he
invites his companions to tell him their [Page 377] dreams; he
would not on any other
footing encourage them to expect any satisfaction from
him. And
therefore, when the chief butler
proceeded to act upon the invitation, it must have been
from a decided
persuasion, on his part, of the reality of Joseph’s
claim. But
for some such conviction, we cannot
imagine that he would have received Joseph’s proposal
otherwise then with
ridicule and abuse.
There was that,
however, about Joseph which inspired confidence in his
divine mission. “He spake as one
having authority,” and not as the soothsayers –
“not as the scribes.”
(2) The faith thus exercised meets with an immediate
recompense; as well it may, for it is of no ordinary
sort. In opening his mind
to Joseph, the
chief butler
virtually acknowledges him as a chosen servant of God,
entitled to declare His
will, and on His behalf to show things to come.
He does so, in spite of outward appearances and
outward
circumstances. He sees through the veil of suffering and shame a divine grace and
glory shining forth in this seeming culprit. The truth
being its own witness - the divine
Spirit in Joseph’s soul making His presence there even
outwardly manifest - the
man perceives that he is a prophet, one whom God has
sent and sealed. And
he makes known to him his dream
accordingly.
(3) The dream and its interpretation are both of God; being
God’s method of revelation - the method of revelation
which He saw fit on this,
as on other occasions, to adopt.
It is
idle to be speculating about the principles and laws of
this sort of divine
communication; estimating the probability of the dream
beforehand, or laying
down the supposed rules of its subsequent explanation. To dream about
a vine, with its buds, and
blossoms, and clusters, and ripe grapes, and to connect
all the particulars of
the dream with a scene in Pharaoh’s palace - the dreamer
himself doing his
office as cup-bearer, pressing the grapes into the cup,
and giving the cup into
the monarch’s hands - all that may seem natural enough,
and well fitted to
suggest sage remarks as to the working of the mind in
sleep. Any
shrewd deceiver, we may be apt to think,
might take the hint and gratify the credulous dupe
consulting him, with a
flattering prediction in the line of what was obviously
running in his
head. But
nothing of that sort will suit
the parties here, or fit into their relation to one
another. There
is no room for the supposition of this
being anything like an ordinary case of dream-telling
and dream-interpreting,
after the fashion of what has sometimes been reduced
almost to a system or a
science - the art of turning to account man-s inveterate
superstitious
proneness to pry into futurity.
The
whole must be accepted as altogether the Lord’s doing.
(4) It is so accepted by the chief butler himself.
If it was in faith, believing Joseph to be
what he professed to be, that he told him his dream at
first, much more now, in
faith, he must have received the interpretation of his dream as from heaven.
Joseph had not said, Tell me the dream, and I
will see if I can find a
possible or likely meaning in it.
He had
appealed to God, and announced himself as able and
authorized to put God’s own
infallible meaning on it.
It was on that
understanding that the man had placed his case in
Joseph’s hands. Clearly,
therefore, Joseph’s word must have been to him as God’s. “Within three days” thou
shalt be, as it were, “in
paradise,”* - taken from the prison to the king’s palace and the king’s [Page 378] presence -
no longer languishing in
the torture of condemnation, but safe from wrath and
high in favour. Such
salvation does Joseph announce to his
fellow-sufferer.
[* See 1
Pet. 3: 19.
cf. Psa. 139:
8b; Luke
16: 22, 23;
Rev. 6:
9-11,
R.V.]
(5) Is it too much for Joseph to couple with the announcement
of this salvation, so simple and touching a request as
this: - “But think on me when it
shall be well with thee, and
show kindness, I pray
thee,
unto me, and
make
mention of me unto Pharaoh, and
bring me out of
this house: for indeed
I was stolen away out of
the land of the Hebrews: and
here also have I done
nothing that they should put me into the dungeon?” Can, anything
be more reasonable?
Can anything be more pathetic?
It is not here, as it
was in the instance of one greater than Joseph, when He
spoke peace to the poor
criminal hanging on a cross beside Him.
Then the
petition to be remembered in the
kingdom came from the malefactor to the Savior; here
it comes from the saviour
to the malefactor.
The situation is
simply reversed. It
is His
fellow-sufferer who says to Jesus, “Lord,
remember me when
thou cometh unto thy kingdom;” - it is Joseph who for himself
makes virtually this same request of his
fellow-sufferer, - “Think
on me when it shall be well with thee.”
There
is no risk whatever, in the case of the one petition,
of its being forgotten or
overlooked. Alas!
there is but too much risk in the
case of the other. When it is the
deliverer, the savior - for such, to all intents and
purposes was Joseph’s
position here - who begs a favour of the party
delivered, there is but too
great a likelihood of his finding that he has begged it
in vain. What
ground for thankfulness is ours when we
reflect, that the party needing deliverance, when he
begs a favour of his
deliverer, can never incur the hazard of any such sad
disappointment!
Joseph might doubt whether the man who owed so much to him
would indeed think of him when he was once himself out
of the fellowship of
suffering which had made them so much akin.
We may be very sure that Jesus in His exaltation
will remember us. It
is not that we can make out a better case,
or show more cause why we should be remembered.
Joseph’s plea is stronger far, upon the merits,
than any plea of ours
can possibly be. He can appeal to his blameless
innocency, his spotless
righteousness. He
has done nothing to
deserve the dungeon; he is well worthy of a better
destiny. And
the man to whom he appeals is surely
bound to him by most affecting ties, of communion in
disgrace and sorrow, and
communion also in sympathy and kindness, given and
received. What,
in comparison, is our plea?
We have well merited the worst that can
befall us. And
the Man to whom we appeal
is He whom we have pierced!
But He will
not neglect our appeal to Him as we, like Joseph’s
friend the butler, might be
found but too apt to neglect His appeal to us.
Did it depend on our remembering Him - had it depended even on
that penitent and pardoned thief remembering Him - to
fix and determine how
soon Jesus should come to His kingdom, - who can tell
but that he might have
been left dying, or dead, - as Joseph was left
languishing in the prison, -
aye! to this very hour. Thanks be to God, it
was
the Father’s remembrance of him, and not ours, that
was to bring our Joseph
out of his dungeon to his royal court; - to bring Jesus from His cross to His crown.
[Page 379]
It is ours to ask Him to remember us in His [coming] kingdom.
Nor will He ever fail to do so.
He will not forget His having shared our imprisonment, our
condemnation, our guilt and doom.
All
that He endured with us and for us, when He took His
place beside us, and
accepted as His own our criminality and our curse, must
ever be fresh in His
mind and heart. Joseph’s
fellow-sufferer
might cease to think, in his prosperity, of the pains of
their common distress;
but our fellow-sufferer is ever mindful of the agony of
the time when He made
common cause with us, and bore instead of us our sin and
sorrow. Therefore
we may ask our Fellow-sufferer to
remember us with somewhat more of confidence than Joseph
may have felt when he
asked his fellow-sufferer to remember him.
For have we not His own gracious words, - “Can a
woman forget her sucking child, that
she should
not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea,
they may forget, yet
will
I not forget thee.
Behold, I
have graven thee
upon the palms of my hands; thy
walls are
continually before me” (Isa.
49: 15,
16).
2.
The case of the chief baker stands
out in sad contrast to that of his companion in
tribulation (ver. 16-19). He had
not been so ready to place his trust in Joseph, and to
own him as entitled to
speak for God. Rather,
as we may too
probably gather from the whole scope of the narrative,
he had continued
incredulous, perhaps contemptuous.
When
Joseph spoke so simply, - “Do
not interpretations
belong to God? tell me
the dreams I pray you,”
- he may have been inclined to rail at him, saying: If
thou be such a favourite
of heaven, save thyself.
Wouldst thou be
where thou art, if God were so with thee as to warrant
thine assumption of
being His mouthpiece?
So this unbeliever
may have derided Joseph’s claim at first.
But now his comrade’s good fortune, as he perhaps
accounts it, tempts
and encourages him to try his chance.
He
may have the luck to get as favorable a response from
the oracle; and, at all
events, it can do no harm to make the experiment.
He, too, will not tell his dream, and abide
the issue.
Alas! it is only ominous of evil.
The servant of the Lord can speak
of nothing but judgment.
And if the doomed man should still affect to
be sceptical, and set coming wrath at defiance, three
short days are enough to
dispel his miserable delusion, and prove Joseph a true prophet, alike of death and of deliverance.
“It came to pass the
third day,*
which was
Pharaoh’s birthday, that he
made
a feast unto all his servants: and
he lifted
up the head of the chief butler and of the chief baker
among his servants.
And he restored
the chief butler to his
butlership again; and
he gave the cup into
Pharaoh’s hand; but he
hanged the chief baker,
as Joseph had interpreted to
them” (ver.
20-22).
[*
See Hosea 6: 2.]
(1) Thus “one
is taken and another left.”
For
that, in the first place, is a lesson to be learned from
this
prison-scene. It
is as it was in the days
of Noah; and as it shall be also in the days of the Son
of Man: “I tell you, in that night
there shall be two men in one bed; the
one shall
be taken and the other shall be left.
Two women shall be
grinding together; the
one shall be taken, and
the
other left.
Two men shall be in the
field; the one shall be taken, and the other left”
(Luke 17: 34-36).
Even
so it seems good in God’s sight.
Any two
of us may be together in the same prison or in the [Page 380] same palace, ‑
in the same
trial o ' r in the same triumph, - in the same sorrow or
in the same joy,
sleeping together in the same bed, - grinding together
at the same mill,
working or walking together in the same field; both
apparently alike good, -
both destined surely to be alike safe.
But how long can we reckon on our companionship
lasting? How
soon and how suddenly may
that saying come true; “One
shall be taken,
the other left?”
How does it concern every one of us, in the view
of that separating and
sifting day, to be looking out for himself individually. Whoever I may
be with in bed, at the mill, in
the field, my being with him then will avail me nothing. Let me give
earnest heed myself to the
things, which belong to my peace, before they be forever
hid from my eyes. And
let me remember the Lord’s own solemn and
emphatic warning: “Whosoever
shall seek to save his
life shall lose it; and
whosoever shall lose his
life shall preserve it” (Luke
17: 33).
(2) If Joseph was “set for the fall”
of one and “the rising again” of another, and “for a sign that should be spoken against
that the thoughts” - if not of many yet of some
– “hearts should be revealed”
(Luke
2: 34, 35),
- behold a greater than Joseph is here.
Jesus is still set forth before our eyes,
crucified between two
malefactors. His cross draws the line sharply between
them. Both
alike are sinners, breakers of the
law. Both
alike are guilty, justly
condemned. Both
alike are utterly
helpless in their condemnation.
But that
central cross discriminates between them!
It sets them, near as they are, at infinite
distance apart!
On one side is the man of broken spirit, of contrite heart,
accepting the punishment of his sin, consenting to lose
his life that he may
preserve it, ‑to have no life of his own, that he may
owe all his life to
Christ. On the other side is he who still seeks to save
his life, ‑ who
even in the jaws of inevitable death will not give in, ‑
who will not
renounce his own poor conceit of innocence, goodness,
and security, and agree
to accept life in Christ, as the free gift of God.
On which of these sides art thou my brother?
To which of these two crosses, on the right
and on the left of Christ’s cross, art thou willing to
be nailed? Wilt
thou be crucified with Christ, -
trusting in Him, praying to Him, looking to Him, believing His sure word, “Today shalt thou
be with me in
paradise?”
Or wilt thou be crucified without Christ, -
near Him, but yet without Him, - setting Him at naught,
and thyself alone braving
the terror of the Lord, of which His crucifixion is so
sure and sad a presage
and pledge?
(3) If Joseph said to the man whose sentence of release he had
pronounced, Think of me - and if he had some good ground
for thinking that his
friend ought to think of him, and would think of him -
how much more may He who
is greater than Joseph, and who procures for us - not by
the interpretation of
a dream merely but by what costs Him something more than
that - a sentence of
release from doom and restoration to favour infinitely
more valuable than the
butler got - how much more may He, I say, prefer such a
request to us -
Remember me. Surely it is a sad thing if our hearts have
not a better memory
for Jesus than this man had for Joseph.
And yet what need of constant watchfulness [Page 381] and prayer that
such ingratitude may
not be ours! And
what reason to bless
God have we in the fact, that so many means and
appliances are provided for
helping us always to remember Him - His blessed word
ever in our hands; His
gracious gospel preached to us; the holy sacrament of
communion; His Spirit
taking of what is His and showing it to us.
(4) If it had been Joseph who had been asked to remember his
fellow-sufferer, that asking would not have been in
vain. Jesus
at all events will not suffer any one
of us to say to Him in vain, “Lord,
remember me, now
that thou art
come [“When
thou
comest in”, R.V.] to thy kingdom!” “We have not an
high priest who cannot be touched with the feeling of
our infirmities.”
When we appeal to Him, by His remembrance of all His own
sufferings to remember us in our sufferings, the appeal
touches His heart.
Remember, Lord, Thy loving-kindnesses.
Call to mind all Thy dealings with the sick,
the sorrowful, the poor, in the days of thy flesh. Call to mind
all Thine own trials and
afflictions manifold.
Remember us, Lord;
and show in Thy remembrance of us that thou art “the
same yesterday, today, and
forever.”
*
*
*
CHAPTER 55
THE
END OF HUMILIATION AND BEGINNING
OF EXALTATION
GENESIS
41: 1-37.
“Then spake
the
chief butler unto Pharaoh, saying,
I do remember my faults this day”
(ver. 9). It was the day
of Pharaoh’s two dreams (ver.
1-8). The
chief butler’s remembrance of his faults that day was
seasonable and providential.
One would say also that his previous
forgetfulness was seasonable and providential too. If his memory
had been prompter and his
gratitude warmer he might have spoken too soon. The
story of the prison dreams,
with their opposite interpretations, if he had told it
immediately upon his
escape from punishment and restoration to favour, would
probably have been
laughed to scorn by Pharaoh and his courtiers, or
listened to with
indifference, as an idle fancy that had beguiled the
weary hours of captivity.
It is otherwise received when, at
the right time, it comes naturally
out.
The king is greatly alarmed; and the alarm is evidently from
the Lord. “His
spirit is troubled;” and the trouble visits him
in a tangible shape; it
takes the form of a well-defined dream.
And there is a reduplication of the dream, for
the sake of
emphasis. It
was in this way that the
king’s mind could be most directly and most deeply
impressed. For
he is, we may suppose, like his servants,
susceptible and excitable on the subject of night
visions; apt to give shape
and significancy in the morning to the vagaries of [Page 382] fancy haunting
him in his nocturnal
slumbers. And
he has not usually found
any difficulty in getting the professed diviners or
soothsayers who frequent
his court to suggest a plausible interpretation, in
accordance with his own
known or suspected leanings.
For the
most part, this game doubtless has been played between
him and his wise men
very safely - with reference to the trifles of the
passing day - its
comparatively insignificant incidents and affairs. The monarch
might regulate his employment of
his hours of business and recreation - He might settle
how long he was to sit
in council, what causes he was to try, or where he was
to hunt,
or how he was to beguile his vacant leisure - by what
they shrewdly told him
was the meaning of “his thoughts
upon his bed.”
But now, through his own
favourite and familiar method of attempting to pry into
God’s secrets, the
Spirit of God does actually reveal to him these secrets;
and in a way fitted to
move his own spirit to its utmost depths.
He seizes upon what the king and all his court
and kingdom would
acknowledge to be a trustworthy means of divine
communication. He
takes into his own hands, and works for
his own ends, the telegraph then and there supposed to
be in use for conveying
heaven’s messages to earth.
He turns it
to account for the conveyance of a true telegraphic
message. And
he does so in such a manner as to
authenticate unmistakably the message, and secure for it
prompt belief.
1. The effect produced on Pharaoh’s mind is such as to show
that his dreams are from the Lord, - that the Spirit of
God is dealing with his
spirit through their instrumentality.
He
must have had abundance of various sorts of dreams
before; many of them strange
enough. He
must often therefore have
been bewildered and perplexed, until he got some cunning
counsellor to put
skilful sense, or skilful nonsense, on the riddle. But he has
never been so moved before as now.
The dreams are so clear, distinct, and
precise, - and the coincidence between them is so
marked, - as to stamp upon
them a peculiar character.
They are
unlike the usual tangled web that imagination weaves for
the slumbering soul, or the
wild chimerical plots that it sometimes, with a
sort of strange consistency, works out to a sort of
probable issue. The
double visitation, the second coming
after the first with a definite waking interval between,
is quite out of the
ordinary course. The
king cannot get rid
of the idea that something very special is intended; and
in the circumstances,
the idea is natural and reasonable.
He
is not in the position of those who have the written
divine word, or even
authentic divine tradition, to be their guide to a
knowledge of God’s will; he
has, as yet, neither inspired prophet nor inspired book
to be his teacher. In
the case of any who have either of these sure
depositories of divine revelation
to appeal to, the giving heed to dreamy portents and
presages of good or evil
is fond dotage. But
it is otherwise with
this Egyptian prince. He is to be all the better thought
of for his lying open
to such discoveries and lessons as it may please heaven
in any way to send.
In the present instance, at all events, it is
impossible not to recognize a divine work in him, as
well as a divine warning
to him, in his dreams, and in the trouble of his spirit
which they occasioned.
The same [Holy] Spirit
inspires or suggests the
dreams, and opens the heart to receive them in the
manner in which he would
have [Page 383] them to be received.
2.
The impression on Pharaoh’s mind is
deepened by the utter helplessness of his ordinary
advisers; the magicians and
all the wise men are at fault.
It is not
merely that they find this to be a case which so baffles
the usual arts of
dream-reading that they must simply give it up as an
insoluble problem, a
riddle that they cannot guess the answer to.
I suppose they may have sometimes failed before
in this game, and
acknowledged their failure; - or if they always
contrived to get up some
interpretation, according to some mystic science of
divination, or skilful
system of hieroglyphics, why did they break down now? Why not put a
bold face on their ignorance,
as they must have known very well how to do, and try to
satisfy the king with
some plausible cast of fortune-telling?
They were not in such straits as Nebuchadnezzar’s
counsellors were
reduced to; they were not asked to divine both the dream
and the interpretation
of it together; they had the dreams given them. Were
they so poor of invention,
such bunglers in their trade, so bankrupt in ingenuity,
as not to be able among
them to get up some oracle in seeming accordance with
the dreams, that might be
specious enough to amuse their master for the passing
time, - and safe enough
for their credit, whatever the passing time might in the
end bring forth? Ah!
they felt that
it was not to the passing time merely that the dreams
related; more than that;
they saw in them something altogether beyond their
craft. They
neither attempted to put a meaning on
the dreams, - nor to persuade the dreamer that it was
not worth his while to
seek a meaning. They
were very much in
the predicament of a future
Pharaoh’s magicians, when
they found that they could not do miracles with their
enchantments. They
were constrained to own the finger of
the Lord. Here
is something which, with
all our wisdom, we cannot aspire to touch.
Here is wisdom beyond ours; wisdom really divine. That there is
a divine significancy in these
night visions they cannot deny, though what it is they
cannot say. They
are reduced to silence.
And their silence increases Pharaoh’s
uneasiness; - he longs for light from above.
3.
At this stage, Joseph’s name is mentioned to the
king (ver. 9-13).
There
comes into the royal presence one who has a fault to
confess, a debt of
gratitude to discharge, and good news to tell.
Two years
have passed since
the memorable prison scene, when he and his companion
had their opposite
destinations announced to them by Joseph.
For two
years he
has been basking in the sunshine of
royal favour, all unmindful, alas! of
him whom he once
hailed as his deliverer, and who was still, in spite
of his pathetic petition,
left to languish unheeded in disgrace and sorrow. The perplexity
at court awakens this
forgetful man. His
royal master’s spirit
is troubled, and they who usually minister to his peace
are at fault. It
is the very occasion for Joseph’s
interference. And
why is not Joseph
here? Why
have I not introduced him to
the king’s notice long ago?
For anything
I can guess, if I had remembered him, Joseph might have
had already a place
near the king, entitling him to do the same office to
him that he so happily
did to me. At
all events, the time has
fully come now. In
the attitude of a
penitent, - not taking credit to himself for what he has
to say to the king
about Joseph, but only lamenting bitterly that he has
not [Page 384] said it long before, - he comes now to bear his late, but yet seasonable,
testimony. It
is the testimony of a
believer, - of one believing in Joseph, and in Joseph’s
God, - so far at least
as to own Joseph as a prophet.
It was in
the name of God, - it was as one acting on behalf of
God, and by the authority
and inspiration of God, - that Joseph announced to the
chief butler the message
that had relieved and refreshed his soul.
It is as one who claims, and is competent, to
speak for God, that the
chief butler now introduces Joseph to the notice of
Pharaoh. His
frank confession, his simple statement,
tells upon the king.
Better than
eloquence or rhetoric is such speech for Joseph; - the
speech of a man
repenting of his fault in not “thinking
of” his
deliverer before, but ready now to testify of him, - to
“testify for him before kings.”
4.
Upon a hasty summons, and after brief
preparation, Joseph is brought
into royal presence and stands before Pharaoh (ver.
14-16). And he stands
before Pharaoh in the same
character in which he conferred in the prison with his
fellow-prisoners. He
speaks as one having authority - as one
having authority to speak peace.
Meek he
is, and lowly in heart.
He gives himself
no airs, as those were wont to do who affected, by dint
of their superior
wisdom, or in virtue of their superior sanctity, to
scale heaven’s heights and
pry into heaven’s mysteries.
But yet
there is no sycophancy or hesitancy about him; - no look
or attitude as of one
seeking to please his great hearer, or as of one drawing
his bow at a
venture. He
is simply speaking as the Holy
Ghost moves him. He
is declaring the
counsel of God, - delivering God’s message, - announcing
God’s will. He
is, one might almost say, by anticipation,
acting upon the Lord’s injunction; - “When
they bring
you unto the synagogues, and
unto magistrates,
and powers, take
ye no
thought how or what thing ye shall answer, or
what ye shall say: for
the Holy Ghost shall teach you in the same hour what ye ought to say”
(Luke 12: 11,
12).
5.
It would seem to be in the character which he
himself assumes, that
Joseph is acknowledged by Pharaoh. The king apparently
believes what Joseph
says; - “It is not in me;
God shall give Pharaoh an answer
of peace.” This may
be fairly inferred from his proceeding at once to tell
his dreams (ver. 19-24),
as well as from the ready acceptance which he
gives to the interpretation of them (ver.
28-32). It
is
as a witness for God that Joseph speaks; and it is God
who opens Pharaoh’s
heart to receive the things spoken by Joseph in that
capacity. It
is idle, and worse than idle, to be
seeking other explanations of this great fact.
There were no predisposing causes; - there was no
concurrence of
favourable circumstances.
The dreams
could not suggest their own solution.
The stated and accredited functionaries, whose
business it was to solve
them, and whose training was all in that line, adepts as
they were in the
trade, were struck dumb.
An Israelitish
captive, who had been bought and sold for a slave, - a
convict charged but
lately with a foul crime, - a poor, weary prisoner,
scarcely out of the dungeon
pit, - scarcely rid of his felon dress, - hastily
cleansed and attired that he
may make a decent appearance in the royal presence, - it
is he who is hailed as
the revealer of heaven’s secrets and the arbiter of a
kingdom’s destiny.
Upon the bare uncorroborated testimony of one
who [Page 385] had been in jail along with him, on the warrant of a single
instance of successful prognostication, which might have
been held to be a
shrewd guess or a lucky hit, - this youth of thirty
years, setting aside all
the grey-haired sages
round the
throne, wields “the sword of the
Spirit which is the
word of God,” and by means
of it, sways the rod of empire.
For
Pharaoh is not disobedient, or unbelieving.
There is that in Joseph’s look and voice which
carries in it the
unmistakable impress both of divine truth and of divine
authority; and there is
that in the plain prophecy he utters which flashes
conviction on the
heart. The
monarch at once gives
in. And so,
as it would seem, does the
whole court. Not
a mouth is opened, not
a hand is raised, against the motion or proposal of
Joseph (ver. 33-36).
On the
contrary, it is unanimously approved of; - “The
thing
was good in the eyes of Pharaoh, and
in the eyes
of all his servants” (ver.
37).
It is no trifling motion, no ordinary proposal.
It is not as if it were meant to regulate, by
the omen of a dream, a day’s diversion or a point of
courtly etiquette.
It is not even as if some question of a
battle or a retreat, of peace or war, were made to turn
on what a night vision
might be construed to portend.
Here the
contemplated measures must stretch over a period of
twice seven years; and not
Does he foresee the issue as regards himself?
Is he already, in his own mind, anticipating
the
king’s purpose of advancing him to the high office which
he recommends to be
instituted? Is
it a secret impulse of
ambition throbbing in his bosom that prompts the
recommendation, - as if he saw
now within his grasp the elevation above his brethren
that those early dreams
of his had prefigured, - those dreams which had wrought
him hitherto nothing
but much woe?
I cannot think so. Such
an
idea was most unlikely to
enter into his mind
spontaneously; nor is it at all according to the analogy
of the divine
procedure in like cases that God should have put it into
his mind. Enough of
inspiration was communicated to him by the [Holy] Spirit to serve the purpose of his office as a prophet, but
no more. His
own future was as dark as ever
to himself, however clear he was commissioned to make
One can imagine Joseph’s doubt as to the reception his bold
and free speech is to have.
It may
irritate and provoke; or it may move only contempt. The man is a
deceiver, or he is mad; - this
whole story about famine eating up plenty is got up to
serve a purpose. He
is suborned by some parties who have an
interest in the trades likely to be affected if his
advice is followed; or he
is simply a wild schemer.
Let him not be
suffered [Page 386] to mix with the king’s counsellors.
Potiphar’s house, or the prison adjoining it,
is a fitter place for him.
Joseph could
not have been surprised if some such murmurs had met his
ear, when, after his
bold address, he stood silent and calm in that royal and
courtly presence. Even
if his reading of the dreams should be
believed, and the course he indicated should in
consequence be followed, were
there not hundreds of “discreet
and wise men”
within call, on any one of whom this vast responsibility
might be laid? Who
among the many thousands in Egypt at that
moment was less likely, in the eyes of men, to sit at
the king’s right hand, on
the throne of absolute dominion, than the man, - “not
yet fifty years old,” - who has just been
undergoing a penal sentence of
suffering and shame?
In the case of this, as of another
exaltation, is not that saying true? – “The
stone
which the builders refused is become the head stone of
the corner.
This is the Lord’s
doing; it is
marvellous in our eyes” (Ps.
118: 22,
23). Have
we not here a very pregnant and significant type of what
Peter proclaimed to
the “rulers of the people and
elders of Israel,”
when he said, “Be it known unto
you all, and to all
the people of Israel, that
by the name of
Jesus
Christ of Nazareth, whom
ye crucified,
whom God raised from the dead,
even by him doth this man stand
here before you whole.
This is the stone
which was set at nought of you builders, which
is become the head of the corner.
Neither
is
there salvation in any other: for
there
is none other name under heaven given among men,
whereby we must be saved.”
*
*
*
CHAPTER 56
EXALTATION
-
HEADSHIP OVER ALL - FOR THE CHURCH
GENESIS
41:
37-57.
The
king sent and set him
free; even the ruler of the people,
and let him go free.
He made him lord of his house,
and ruler of all he owned; to chain
his princes at his
pleasure and teach his elders wisdom.
Psalm 105: 20-22.
A
Prince and a Saviour whom
God has exalted by His right hand in order to give repentance to
The
elevation of Joseph in
1.
Pharaoh’s sudden resolution, carrying as it seems
to have done, the
approval and concurrence of all his counsellors and
courtiers, is utterly inexplicable,
on any other supposition than simply its being
the Lord’s doing (ver.
37, 38). Daniel’s
advancement by Darius, Mordecai’s
advancement by Ahasuerus, wonderful as they are, may be
more easily accounted
for than this preferment of Joseph.
They
had, both of them, got a certain position in the eyes of
the heathen princes
and people with whom they were connected, before they
were so signally
promoted. But
this Joseph, who was
he? A
Hebrew slave,
alleged to have betrayed a kind master’s confidence and
sought to injure him in
the tenderest point; - a poor prisoner, friendless and
forsaken, - who has just
hastily exchanged his sordid jail costume for a somewhat
more decent
attire. Is
he to be raised over the
heads of all the wise and noble of the land, and set on
a pinnacle of
advancement to which none of them could ever have
dreamed of aspiring?
The freaks and whims of oriental despotism are indeed endless,
and many strange stories are told about them. But even
Arabian imagination, in
its wildest and most capricious flights, has given us
scarcely anything so
romantic as this abrupt transition in the case of
Joseph, from the dungeon to the throne - from a criminal’s doom to a royal
favourite’s renown and
glory.
And yet it does not read like romance.
The whole thing is told so simply, - the
account is so naturally given, - the entire narrative is
so plain, so homely,
so unostentatious, that no mind or heart, open to the
fair impression of what
is genuine and artless, can fail to see in it and feel
in it the stamp of
truth. It
is not gorgeous and fantastic
fiction, but the most simple and unsophisticated telling
of a true tale. It
is no got-up fable, but a real, old-world,
matter-of-fact story; having a life-like air about it
not to be mistaken.
The king speaks and acts with calm dignity
and good sense, and with thorough self-possession. His appeal to
his servants is rational and
sober. And
the entire affair is carried
through with such a measure of serious thought as well
as prompt decision, as
to indicate that not any rash impulse, but a deep and
settled conviction, is
the source and regulating principle of Pharaoh’s purpose
and proceedings all
throughout.
Surely there is evidence in all this of what is done being
done in faith. And
it must have been,
one would say, considering all the circumstances, faith
having a divine origin
as well as a divine warrant; faith in God’s word, [Page 388] wrought by
God’s Spirit; like
that faith through which, by
grace, we are saved, - it must have been “the
gift of
God” (Eph. 2:
8).
2.
The manner of Joseph’s investiture
with the insignia of office is worthy of notice.
(1) He is thoroughly acquitted and justified, - declared to be
free from all blame, and justly entitled to favour (ver.
39).
No doubt Pharaoh’s commendation of him turns
chiefly on his discernment and
intelligence, - on his discretion and wisdom; but it
must be held to cover his
whole character. It
recognizes his
standing as righteous and worthy.
All
stain of the criminality that had been imputed to him is
gone. He
has suffered enough on that account, and
is now free. He
in whom the Spirit of
God so manifestly is, - he to whom God has showed such
things, - may for a time
be under a cloud; bearing a load of guilt not his own. But he cannot
be long held in
humiliation. The
divine insight and foresight,
which, even in his humiliation, he manifests, as regards
the plans and purposes
of God, - especially in their bearing upon others whose
safety and welfare may
be mixed up with his own destiny, - must soon issue in
his being advanced, for
their sakes and on their account, if not even by their
instrumentality, to the
position in which he can do them good.
And the first step would seem to be his personal
vindication, - his
being acknowledged as one in whom no fault is found, and
exalted as one of whom
it may be said, in a sense, that in him “are
hid all
the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col.
2: 3).
(2) He is addressed in terms inviting him to highest
pre-eminence (ver. 40).
“Sit thou on my right
hand,” is virtually the word, - sit beside me
and preside over all my
realm. His
place is still, of course, to be subordinate; he wields
a delegated
authority. But
save his own seat on the
throne, there is nothing which this great king reserves
to himself, or exempts
from the command that he is giving to the mediatorial
prince whom he is setting
up. All
things in
(3) He is proclaimed as one before whom all are to bow the
knee, - having visible honour put upon him, and even a
new name given to him,
for this very end, that before him every knee may bow (ver.
41-45). The ring,
the vestures of
fine linen, the gold chain about his neck, appear
conspicuously as
badges of the favour he has, and the power he wields,
when he “rides forth
prosperously in his majesty.”
The name which he receives, and which was
doubtless proclaimed before him, - Revealer of secrets,
or as some say, Saviour
of the world, - announces his
merit. It
is fitting that before such a
chariot, and at such a name, every knee should bow. It is the
chariot of grace; - it is the name
of salvation.
(4) He is to be known as having his home in high [Page 389] places; - in the high places into which his deep humiliation, followed by
his wondrous elevation, introduces him.
He is to be seen familiarly established and
happily domesticated there; receiving
a noble spouse (ver.
45).
Pharaoh’s arrangement of this marriage for his favourite Prime
Minister is according to the common usage of Eastern
courts. It
is meant to confirm Joseph’s allegiance,
and be a pledge of his fidelity; - while at the same
time it encourages his
loyal zeal, and adds weight to his delegated authority. On that
footing Joseph accepts the
proposal. Nor
can his acceptance of it
be criticized or judged according to the ordinary rules
applicable to the
children of Abraham, which were undoubtedly meant to
tell against all
matrimonial alliances with the heathen.
The position of Joseph is manifestly peculiar. If he is to
have a home at all, he has no
choice as to whom he may have to share it with him.
It is well, moreover, that Joseph should thus unequivocally
assume the princely rank which his espousing, by the
king’s command, the
daughter of one who was a priest, or a prince, or both,
secured to him. He
is in that way manifested as no intruder
in the palaces and lordly halls of
Thus
inaugurated in his high office, “Joseph
went out over all the
3.
Joseph is exalted for a special purpose, - and to
the accomplishment of
that purpose he makes all his power subservient (ver.
47-49). His rule is a
rule of far-seeing providence; he
rules, in a sense, as seeing the end
from the beginning.
Coming evil is
anticipated and provided for.
The rich
and precious abundance of the early years of his reign
is not suffered to be
lost or wasted. It
is stored for future
use, - when in a season of want and destitution it may
be available, if not for
the full relief, at least for the partial alleviation of
the distress. The
government is upon the shoulders of one
[Page 390] who will lay up, as in
a storehouse, the fruits of the large outpouring of
heaven’s blessing that is
to characterize the beginning of the dispensation over
which he has to preside
and watch,
- so that
in the worst of times that may be at hand, some food may
still be
forthcoming. Granaries
are filled for
evil days.
4.
Before these evil days come, two names of good
omen have become “household
words” to all who watch the signs of the
times, and the ways of him who, having been exalted to
be a prince and a
saviour, is himself a sign, and does nothing without a
meaning (ver. 50-52). The
glad father welcomes the children whom God gives him, -
in whom he sees the
pledges of toil and travail over and fruitfulness to
come, - of labour and
sorrow now to be forgotten and a prosperous issue of it
all before him. He
sees his seed and is satisfied.
And what satisfies him may satisfy all who
can sympathize with him.
Whatever may be
coming on the land and on the world; however the heavens
may be as brass, and
the earth as iron, and the river of Egypt may be dry,
and there may be a great
cry for bread, and much perishing for lack of it; still
he is at the helm, he
is at the head of all, - who, in the full knowledge of
all that may be
impending, can yet give forth cheerful tokens for the
upholding of men’s hearts;
naming one son Manasseh,
or “miserable toil forgotten;”
and the other Ephraim,
or “God
makes fruitful”.
5.
And now the evil days are near; “The
seven years of dearth began to come, according
as Joseph had said: and
the
dearth was in all lands” (ver.
53, 54). It is a
growing distress. At
first, while dearth is in all the
surrounding countries,
Thus far, Joseph’s rise from obscure and unjust oppression to
the highest place which any one could hold by delegation
in the world of that day, is
a personal triumph to himself and a public benefit
to
*
*
*
CHAPTER 57
CONVICTION
OF
SIN - YOUR SIN SHALL
FIND
YOU
OUT
GENESIS
42:
1-24.
A Prince and a Saviour whom God has exalted by His
tight hand in order to
give
repentance to
Joseph
in his elevation, like Jesus in His exaltation, is in
the first instance a
light to lighten the Gentiles.
He has
been rejected by the house of
[*
Anti-millennialists take note. No
millennium;
then no Inheritance “in the
land” for Messiah
Jesus; or for “all
The chosen family in
Along with many similar cavalcades or caravans, the men of
Now here let us once for all fix it in our minds that Joseph
had a part to play, - and he must needs play it out, and
play it out correctly
and consistently. He
has to enact and
sustain the character of an Egyptian nobleman or prince
- the Egyptian king’s
prime minister or vizier.
It is idle and
frivolous to be raising minute questions, and discussing
captious criticisms,
about some petty details of his conduct and demeanour in
that character; - as about
his using the current off-hand formula of asseveration (ver. 16); - or about his
giving himself, on a subsequent occasion (44:
15), in a
half-serious, half-light sort of
way, the air and manner of an Eastern sage or
soothsayer, - familiar with magic
arts. Once
admit that Joseph has for a
little while to keep up his disguise, to personate
Pharaoh’s viceroy, without
letting his home-yearnings betray him - and all the rest
follows as a matter of
course. If
the personification is to be
probable and complete, he must of necessity speak and
act “according to the card,”
or trick. The
only point of difficulty really is the
question that may be raised as to the propriety of his
thus acting a part at
all.
It will scarcely do to maintain the abstract and absolute
unlawfulness of such a procedure, - to say that it is
positively and in all
circumstances wrong. Jesus Himself on one occasion, in
His interview with the
Syrophenician woman, assumed the lordly port of a
Pharisee, - and doubtless
looked the Pharisee thoroughly well, when He used the
Pharisee’s characteristic
and contemptuous language about giving the children’s
meat to [Page 393] “dogs.”
And again, when on the resurrection morn, He was
walking with the
disciples, and they stopped in the village, He “made
as
if he would have gone farther.”
So when Joseph made himself strange to his
brethren, at first, - and
continued thereafter for a considerable time, and during
several interviews, to
make himself strange, - it is not necessarily involved
in his doing so, that
his temporary concealment, or stratagem, if you will, -
was unjustifiable.
It may have been so, - it may have been a
mistake, - a fault, - a sin.
If it was a
measure adopted merely at his own hand, it was probably
all that; - in which
case, we must be content with explaining how Joseph
might have reasons of his
own for acting as he did.
For, without
altogether vindicating him, we might hold him partly
excused by his remembrance
of former injury, and by the necessity, as he might
suppose, of observing great
precaution now, and testing his brethren rather sharply. And we might
on that theory trace the manner
in which the Lord overruled Joseph’s scarcely
warrantable policy for good to
all the parties concerned.
I cannot, however, I confess, bring myself to believe that
Joseph was left to himself in this matter; I feel
persuaded that we must regard
him as all along acting by inspiration.
He surely has some intimation of the mind and
will of God to guide him.
He has been honoured already, more than once,
as a prophet of the Lord. He has plainly spoken and
acted by inspiration as a
prophet, first, in his dealings with his
fellow-prisoners, and thereafter in
his delivery of his message to Pharaoh, and his
assumption, at Pharaoh’s call,
of the high post to which, on the faith of his message
being authentic, he is
raised. Surely
now, at this crisis of
his exercise of authority - when the very exigency for
which he has come to his
all but kingly power has arrived, - in the matter of his
treatment of the
family for whose preservation he is where he is, -
Joseph is not left to his
own unaided discretion.
He is a prophet
still as well as a prince.
He has divine
warrant for what he does.
Something of that sort, I think, may be intended to be
intimated,
when it is said (ver.
9), that he “remembered
the
dreams which he dreamed.”
It
was the Lord that brought them to his remembrance, and
Joseph, I am persuaded,
recognized the Lord in this.
At once he
perceives that this affair of his brethren coming to him
is of the Lord. It
is not a common occurrence; it is not mere
casual coincidence.
The Lord is here, -
in this place and in this business; and therefore the
Lord must regulate the
whole, and fix the time and manner of discovery. If he
had been left to
himself, Joseph would not have hesitated a moment; his
is not a cold or crafty
temperament; he is no maneuverer; he would have had all
over within the first
few minutes. But
the Lord restrains him.
He is, I cannot doubt, consciously in the
Lord’s hand, - doing violence to his own nature to serve
the Lord’s
purposes. And
much of the interest and
pathos of these scenes will be found to lie in the
strong working of that
nature under the control and guidance of the Lord.
(1) Do we not see the inward struggle in the very first
reception of his brothers by Joseph? (ver. 7).
Not only did he “make
himself strange” to them; in order that he
might do so more effectually,
“he spake roughly [Page 394] unto
them;”
asking vehemently the abrupt and
almost rude question: “Whence
came ye?”
Surely that was not his way of receiving
strangers generally when they came from other countries
to buy corn; his
ordinary manner could not be so un-courteous.
In the king’s place, he was himself “every
inch
a king;” filling the seat of power, and
wielding its sceptre with
graceful dignity and condescension.
But
when he saw his brethren he knew them; his heart yearned
towards them, and the
early home, and the fond father, of whom they put him in
mind. It
costs him an effort to keep silence.
But something seals his lips; the time is not
yet come. He
must keep down therefore
the rising tide of feeling.
And so, - as
is not uncommon in such a case, - he hides, under a
gruff exterior, the deep
inward movement of his heart.
(2) As the interview proceeds, the struggle in Joseph’s bosom
grows more intense (ver.
8, 9). The
simple reply of his
brothers to his question, “Whence
come ye?”
– “From the
(3) Their next explanation and remonstrance, so meek and
humble, must have still farther moved Joseph’s bowels of
relenting pity; “Nay, my
lord, but to buy
food are thy
servants come.
We are all one man’s
sons; we are true men,
thy
servants are no
spies” (ver.
10, 11). How
are
these brethren changed!
Where
now is all their proud contempt and bitter wrath: “Behold
this dreamer cometh, away
with him?”
How crest-fallen are they!
Even the charge of being spies elicits not a
spark of the old fire of passion; nor have they the
heart to meet it with any
strong or emphatic indignation.
Their
disclaimer is sufficiently dejected, - for they are poor
and needy. Is
it a gratification to Joseph to see them
brought so low? Nay,
it cuts him to the
heart. That
these men, the
men who used to envy him, and to lord
it so cruelly over him, are now so abased at his feet
- prostrate before the
brother they would have slain - it is a sight he
can scarcely stand!
And then, when in answer to his still more
violent demeanour, assumed to cover [Page
295]
his still growing weakness; “Nay,
but to see the nakedness
of the land ye are come” (ver.
12), - they enter
with such simplicity into that
sad family story of which he himself formed so great a
part; “Thy servants are twelve
brethren, the sons of
one man in the land of Canaan; and,
behold, the
youngest is this day with our father, and
one is not” (ver.
13) - one can imagine
the force which Joseph
puts upon himself when, as if giving way to a transport
of blind suspicious
fury that will listen to neither reasoning nor
remonstrance, - in the truest
style of oriental and despotic passion, - he breaks out
into the language of
unmeasured reproach and threatening (ver.
14-16).
(4) Such a storm of wordy rage was quite in character, -
especially when followed, as it was, by a corresponding
deed, - the actual
consignment of these unoffending men to prison (ver.
17).
Strange
as the scene would seem to us, if we could fancy it
enacted by a judge, or any
one in authority among us, it would excite little
surprise among the
counsellors and courtiers of
(5) Joseph’s policy is successful, - his acting is
perfect. The
terms he proposes to these
suspected spies, are such as befit the furious mood
which it suits him to
affect. Let
one of your number fetch
that youngest brother you speak of so pathetically, -
and thus verify, at least
in part, your not very probable account of yourselves.
For it needs
verification. If
the state of the
household you belong to is such as you describe it, why
should that old father
of yours have risked so many
of you on this
embassy? Or if he was
willing to risk so many, why not one more? And what is
this about [Page 396] another being missing - another of this suspicious round dozen of
sons? Let
us have proof, at all events,
that you are telling the truth about the twelfth, if you
cannot account for the
eleventh. Let
a messenger go and bring
him. Send
one of your number
on that errand and let the other nine stay here in
prison and await his return;
the governor will be responsible for their safe custody;
and the term of their
confinement need not be long.
But grievously as these men were abased, they were not brought
quite so low as to be willing at once to acquiesce in so
cruel an arrangement
as this; for so it must have appeared to them, whatever
Joseph might mean by
it. They
felt, for themselves, how
oppressive and unjust it was.
They felt,
for their father, what a blow it must be to him.
They might well therefore hesitate, and
rather suffer themselves to be all imprisoned together
than agree to the
seeming tyrant’s intolerable terms.
So they
lie in ward three days.
(6) On the third day Joseph sees them again (ver.
18), and
resumes his intercourse with them.
Is it
another public audience that is meant here, or a private
visit paid to them in
prison? Are
they brought again before
the governor for another hearing, and for the final
decision of their cause?
Or does the governor, in a less official
capacity, condescend to have a conference with them in
their confinement?
This last is the more probable view, though
the point is not very clear - nor indeed very material. Joseph cannot
bear to have his brothers left
long to languish in the suspense and gloom of the dreary
captivity to which he
has himself consigned them.
He must have
further dealing with them.
And it is
quite in accordance with Eastern manners, that he should
seek to have such
farther dealing with them, in a more easy and familiar
way than the etiquette
of state formality allowed.
He has a
modified proposal to submit to them; and, in submitting
it, he has an avowal to
make on his own part, which must have not a little
surprised them. “This do and live;
for I fear God” (ver.
18); I am of the same
faith with you. Though
governor in
Joseph is all but betrayed.
He fears God as they do; and for the common fear
they have, he and they,
of the true God, he relents in his harsh treatment of
them. He
speaks to them with comparative
kindness. Fain
would he embrace them,
and kneel with them, as in the olden time, when they all
used to join together
in the unbroken family circle, as their father led the
worship of the one living
and true God, in the midst of abounding idolatry.
“I fear God”
as ye do, and cannot suffer you to [Page
397]
perish: “Ye shall not die.”
He is on the point of breaking down and
discovering himself.
If he would keep up
his assumed state and air of authority, he has need
to
retire apart, and be alone.
(7) As he stands aside, his brethren are left in strange
bewilderment and dismay.
They have
agreed generally to the governor’s modified proposition;
for that would seem to
be implied in its being said, “and
they did so” (ver.
20).
But they have to fix among themselves who shall
be the one to remain
bound. The
governor withdraws, and lets
them deliberate and decide at their discretion.
It is a cruel question of debate.
Evil as they have shown themselves in too many
respects to be, these men
are still brothers; and in the extremity in which they
now are, their brotherly
affection is stirred to its utmost
depths. A
terrible decimation is
demanded of them; one of the ten must run the risk of
almost hopeless
imprisonment, if not even of a worse fate, in the hands
of this arbitrary
Egyptian ruler. Which
of them is to
volunteer? Or
shall they cast lots?
Or commit the issue to the blind hazard of
the dice? They
gaze on one another.
Blank consternation is upon every
countenance. Who
dare make a
proposal? Who
dare suggest a name?
It is a time for conscience to work.
The scourges which their vices have made for
them begin, at that dark hour, to lash and sting them. Individually
and separately, they have black
sins enough to play the part of scorpions.
Reuben has his foul outrage on his father’s bed;
As
with one accord, they recall the scene at
Is
it, can it be, that some
strange dreamy resemblance
between this dark-browed Egyptian vizier and the fair
face of that little
child, has been haunting these men, as he has been
talking with them?
Is it nature’s mysterious spell working in
them a sort of half-recognition of the brother whom they
so remorselessly made
away with? Is
there a dim foreshadowing
of what is to be realized fully by-and-by, when they are
to see face to face
their acknowledged victim, and literally, one would
almost say, look on him [Page 398] whom they have pierced? It may
be
so. At any
rate, their sin is terribly
finding them out: nor have they a word to say to excuse
or comfort one another.
Joseph would fain interfere, if he could, to pour soothing
balm into their wounded spirits, as he afterwards
delighted to do. But
that may not yet be.
He is compelled to listen in silence to their
keen and bitter self-upbraidings.
His
time for speaking a word in season to their weary souls,
- their time for
receiving it aright, - is not yet come.
The only one in that gloomy company
who
ventures to open his mouth, does but add, however
unintentionally, vinegar and
gall to the smarting wound: “Reuben
answered them,
saying, Spake
I not unto
you, saying, Do
not sin against the child? and
ye would not hear; therefore,
behold, also
his blood
is required” (ver.
22).
I cannot think that Reuben says this in the mere spirit of
self-justification.
It is not as exulting
in his superiority over them, - for he is really sharing
their punishment, as
by his silence heretofore he has become an accomplice in
their crime, - it is
not as claiming for himself any peculiar immunity or
exemption, but as
circumstantially aggravating and enhancing the common
guilt, - that Reuben
urges home the deliberation with which the deed was
done. It
was no sudden impulse, he reminds himself
and them. We
talked the matter over. I
remonstrated; - would that I had done so more decidedly!
You went on
against warning and entreaty to
consummate the wickedness.
It was a
black business for you, for all of us.
Therefore is this distress come upon us.
His blood is required at our hands.
(8) Joseph can hold out no longer; he must cut short this
distressing scene.
He understands all
that they say, as having withdrawn a little aside, he
overhears it all. They
are not aware of this; - for, as a
matter of course, his conversation with them, in order
to the keeping up of his
character, is carried on through an interpreter (ver.
23).
But not a syllable of that sad,
conscience-stricken, communing of theirs
escapes his ear; not a syllable of it fails to reach his
heart. He
is compelled to exercise patience,
self-denial, and self-restraint.
It is a
sort of self-crucifixion for him to be obliged to stand
by and witness such
anguish. A
word from him would assuage
it; but that word he may not utter.
He must needs be
obedient to the unseen influence under which
his prophetic soul is acting.
It is obedience
that costs him, if not “strong
crying,” yet “tears:” “He
turned himself about from them and wept” (ver. 24). And then, to
end the miserable suspense, and
bring this most painful negotiation to a close; - since
they will not, or
cannot, settle among themselves, which of them is to
remain as a prisoner and
hostage; - Joseph, “returning to
them again, and
communing with them,” summarily cuts the knot
himself by another rough act of authority.
Passing by Reuben, whom, in the circumstances, he
could not find it in
his heart to punish, he lays his hand on the next in
order of age, Simeon.
“Binding him before
their eyes,” he bids the rest depart homeward,
as best they may, in
safety and in peace (ver.
24).
The liberal provision which Joseph caused his servants to make
for these departing strangers, - the purchase-money of
the corn being returned
along [Page 399] with the corn, in every man’s sack (ver.
25, 26);
the surprise occasioned by the discovery of
this circumstance in one instance on the journey (ver.
27); and the alarm felt, when on their arrival at home it was found to be the
same with all (ver. 35);
- these particulars, - as well as Jacob’s bitter grief
on hearing of the
governor’s detention of Simeon and demand for Benjamin (ver. 36); - may properly
fall to be considered, so far as it is necessary to
dwell on them, in
connection with the second visit of the patriarchs to
Egypt.
Meanwhile, this first
visit is instructive.
It furnishes a
lesson, or more than one, as to the special providence
of God, and the working
of conscience in men.
In particular, it
exhibits Joseph in his exaltation, set for the trial of
men’s hearts, - to
prove and humble as well as to relieve and save.
For it is not by a sovereign and summary
exercise of authority or power, - that he is to effect
the purpose for which he
is raised on high, and to deliver and bless his
brethren. It
is through a process of conviction that he
is to bring to them salvation.
He is as
one who hides himself until he has broken the hard
heart, and wrought in them
something of that “godly sorrow
which worketh
repentance unto salvation, not
to be repented of”
(2 Cor. 7:
10).
In this respect he fitly represents a greater than himself,
one raised to a higher glory, for a wider purpose of
grace. Jesus
is “exalted,
a prince
and
a Saviour,
to
give repentance
unto
I know not, brother, how it may be the purpose of our Joseph,
who is Jesus, to deal with thine inquiring and anxious
soul; He is sovereign in
dispensing His gifts of pardon and peace, assurance and
joy. It may
be His gracious pleasure that thou
shouldest have them now, - or for anything I can tell,
not till by-and-by.
In either case, thou art called to deep and
salutary exercises of penitential sorrow.
If instant relief for thy burdened conscience is
granted, and He whom
thou hast pierced utters at once the words, “Be
of good
cheer, it is I,
thy
sins be forgiven thee;” - with what a flood of
tears shouldest thou be
graciously mourning for these very
forgiven sins! And
if it should be otherwise with thee, - if
it should seem as if this assured forgiveness were long
of coming, and the
prince, the Saviour, were long of showing Himself, -
surely thou canst not
pretend that thou hast any right to complain.
Thou canst no more take it amiss than Joseph’s
brothers could, that thou
shouldest have bitter days and nights to spend in
thinking over all thy heinous
guilt. Only
make conscience of thinking
over it with broken spirit and contrite heart; - not
murmuring, not rebelling,
not even feeling it to be hard, but accepting the
punishment of thy sins; - and
hold on, not despairing, but hoping
against hope, - [Page
400] waiting on the Lord. For in the end it will be no
matter
of regret to thee that thou hast been led to lay the
foundation of thy faith
very deep. The joy of morning will be all the sweeter for the weeping that has
endured for a night.
Let us
therefore exhort one another to penitence and patience,
in the spirit of the
prophet’s call: “Come, and
let us return unto the Lord: for
he hath torn,
and he will heal us; he hath
smitten, and he will
bind us up.
After two days will he revive us; in the third day he will
raise us up, and we shall live in his sight. Then shall we know, if we follow on to know
the Lord:
his going forth is prepared as
the morning: and he
shall come unto us as the rain, as
the latter and former rain unto the earth” (Hosea 6: 1-3).
* * *
CHAPTER 58
THE
TRIAL
AND TRIUMPH OF FAITH
GENESIS
42:
25;
43:
14.
Why do you say, 0 Jacob, and speak, 0
He
gives power to the weary; and to
those
who have no might He increase strength.
- Isaiah 40: 29.
The
issue of the first visit of
1. The homeward journey of these stricken men might well be
sad and dreary. The
strange conduct of
Joseph, in his personated character of Egyptian ruler,
must have been very
perplexing; it must have seemed to them the more so, the
more they thought and
talked of it, - and what else could they think or talk
of by the way? They
could scarcely look upon it as an
ordinary instance of official severity and caprice, even
according to the
usages of tyranny in that olden time.
There is something inexplicable about this
naturalized Canaanite in
Egypt; this man who came to Egypt as a slave, like what
Joseph must have been
after they had sold him; a slave “stolen away,” according to
his own account, to the
chief butler, “out of the land
of the Hebrews;”
who now, in so
remarkable a manner, has
got promotion to the right hand of Pharaoh, and wields
all his power. For
they must have heard some rumours of his
antecedents while [Page
401]
they were so near him; and therefore
they are the more perplexed
by his
treatment of them.
The extraordinary
curiosity and interest which he manifests about their
family concerns, even in
the midst of his seeming vehemence and passion, cannot
but strike their minds.
The fact of his pitiless treatment of them,
so vividly recalling their pitiless treatment of Joseph,
must still farther
impress them. The man is harsh. But yet there is a
certain tender pathos in his
harshness to which they cannot be insensible.
There is a kind of fascination about him, even
when he calls them spies;
- something that keeps them submissive, and gives him an
influence over them,
even when he appears to be casting them off.
He is of a relenting mood also; he does not
insist on his first cruel
proposition; he is content to retain a single hostage. He honourably
pledges his faith, not only for
the safe custody, but for the good treatment of this one
brother, till the
others come again; and he gives liberal and hospitable
instructions as to their
departure in peace and plenty: “Then
Joseph commanded
to fill their sacks with corn, and
to restore
every man’s money into his sack, and
to give
them provision for the way” (ver.
25).
These instructions, indeed, and the effects of them, are only
partially known to the travellers at starting.
The restoration of their money is managed
secretly. But
“the provision
for the way” they could not but be aware of;
and it must have appeared
to them to be a special instance of God’s providence
over them, that after
undergoing such humiliation and alarm, they should be
thus handsomely dismissed
and forwarded on their homeward journey.
Soon, however, a startling circumstance agitates their minds
by the way. “As
one of them opened his sack to give his ass provender
in the inn, he espied
his money: for,
behold, it
was in his
sack’s mouth.
And he said unto his
brethren, My money is restored;
and, lo,
it is even in my sack: and
their heart failed them, and
they were afraid,
saying one to another, What
is this that God hath done unto us?” (ver. 26-28).
They are greatly at a loss. What can this mean? it
can scarcely be accident or chance.
Is it then a device to entrap and ensnare
them? Are
they already pursued by
emissaries of the Egyptian lord, commissioned to arrest
them, and bring them
back on a pretended charge of fraud or theft?
That can scarcely be, - for if he had intended to
lay hold of them, why
should he not rather have kept them, as he at first
proposed, on the charge of
their being spies?
The thing is
unaccountable. But
be the explanation
what it may, these men feel that it is the Lord who is
dealing with them in so
singular a manner.
It is still their sin
that is finding them out.
All this dark
and strange turn of affairs is the Lord’s visitation,
moving them to
repentance. And
whatever gleams of light
and hope break in upon them, through the variable mood
of this mysterious
governor, - so incongruously compounded of fury and of
tenderness, - that too
is of the Lord. It
is the Lord who is
causing them to “sing of mercy
and of judgment,”
in the exercise of that long-suffering of His which is
to them salvation.
2. The scene
on
their return home is deeply affecting.
First, they simply narrate to their father Jacob all that had
passed in
For it is the
representation of Jacob’s
deep dejection that chiefly fills the eye and the
heart in this picture of
family grief. How affecting
is his first burst of complaint
and expostulation!
“Me have ye bereaved of
my children: Joseph is
not, and Simeon is
not, and ye will take
Benjamin away: all
these things axe against me” (ver. 36).
You have lost me two sons already.
Will you insist on my losing a third?
Did you really give in to that cruel man’s
cruel terms, and not only consent to let him keep Simeon
from me, but promise
that he should have Benjamin, my Rachel’s Benjamin,
also? Would
nothing content that ravenous Egyptian
vulture but that he must make a prey of two more of my
brood of loved sons,
over and above that one of whose fatal loss you so
simply, yet so touchingly,
told him? And
could you bring yourselves
to acquiesce? Then
am I forlorn
indeed! Who,
or what, is favourable or
propitious to me? “All these things are against me.”
It is a sad and bitter cry.
Sinful, no doubt, it is, or tends to be, at least
if the feeling is
persisted in and indulged.
But the
utterance of sorrow, as nature prompts, is not to be
restrained; it is not
forbidden by the Lord, but rather encouraged.
Jacob soon gives evidence enough of his mind and
heart being schooled
into an attitude of meek submission; and the schooling
may have been none the
worse for his giving vent freely at first to the
irrepressible anguish of his
soul. At
all events, he carries our pity
and sympathy in his distrust of his sons, and his
disposition to lay the blame
of this miserable state of things on them.
We enter into his feelings when, looking back to
their un-brotherly
treatment of Joseph, even as he knew it - and he did not
know the worst - and
considering all their conduct since - he gives himself
up to a sense of utter
desolation. Will
you leave me
nothing? Will
you take from me all?
It is too much!
“All these things are
against me!”
Even his settled
obstinacy of purpose, as he sets himself against what
his sons would have him
to do, we are scarcely
inclined very seriously to
blame.
Reuben is undoubtedly in earnest in the pledge which he is
willing to give of his confidence that no harm will in
the end come to
Benjamin; [Page 403] “Slay my two sons, if I bring him not to thee; deliver
him into my hand, and I will bring him to thee again”
(ver. 37). Doubtless he
would be as anxious to keep
Benjamin safe as he was to keep Joseph safe.
And he has evidently good hope concerning the
issue of this affair -
having shrewdly observed, we may suppose, something of
that relenting softness
in the Egyptian ruler’s nature that cropped out in the
midst of his rough and
rugged manner - and being persuaded that compliance with
his whim of having
Benjamin sent as one of them, would conciliate his
favour and remove his
suspicions, whether real or feigned. Hence
probably his
readiness to offer such a guarantee as the placing of
his own sons in his
father’s hand.
His language,
perhaps, is not to be understood quite literally; he
could scarcely suppose
that even if he failed to bring back Benjamin, his
father would actually take
him at his word, and put the two youths assigned as
hostages to death.
But it is a strong and anxious way of
expressing, on the one hand, his solicitude to carry out
what the ruler in
Egypt had required, and on the other hand, his
conviction that it was quite
safe to do so - that the ruler would be found true to
his part of the
engagement - that Simeon would be restored, food in
plenty secured, and
Benjamin brought home again unharmed.
Jacob, however, is not persuaded or convinced by his eldest
son’s confident importunity.
He knows
nothing of Reuben’s former care for the preservation of
Joseph; it cannot
therefore be expected that he should now be more willing
to commit Benjamin to
him than to the others.
At any rate, the
old man is firm in his determination not to run any risk
of losing Joseph’s
only brother, - Rachel’s only child.
I
could not stand it, he plaintively exclaims.
Urge me no more.
My mind is made
up. “My son
shall not go down with you; for
his brother is
dead, and he is left
alone: if mischief
befall him by the way in which ye go, then
shall ye bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the
grave*”
(ver.
38).
[NOTE. * Heb. ‘Sheol’=
Gk. ‘Hades.’ Cf. Gen.
37: 35,
R.V. That
is, the place divinely
appointed “in the heart of the
earth,” for the
disembodied souls of the dead, where they
are waiting for the “redemption”
of their “body” at the time
of Resurrection, (Psa.
16: 10;
Acts 2: 27,
31; Rom.
8: 23;
1 Cor. 15:
37, 47-49. cf. Lk.
16: 31;
John 3: 13;
14: 3,
R.V.]
3. But Jacob undergoes a change of mind (43:
1-14).
At first sight it might seem to be a change wrought under the
pressure of mere physical necessity.
As
long as the supply of food brought from
It is for the sons now to object, and to remind Jacob of the
governor’s solemn protest: “We
shall not see my face,
except your brother be with [Page
404]
you”
(ver.
3-5). They have
reason on their side.
They know, as their father cannot fully know,
how the case actually stands.
They
cannot but insist upon it, as the condition of their
complying with their
father’s command to return to
Such considerations they urge upon their father, not, as it
would seem, un-dutifully or unfeelingly.
On the contrary, they are evidently affected by
the old man’s burst of
sorrowful passion: “Wherefore
dealt ye
so ill with me, as to tell the man whether ye had yet
a brother?” (ver.
6).
There is a deep pathos in the simplicity of
this question; and scarcely less in the earnestness of
their reply; - “The man asked us
straitly of our state, and
of our kindred, saying,
Is your father yet alive? have ye another brother?
and,
we told him according to the
tenor of these words: could
we certainly know that he would say, Bring
your brother down?” (ver. 7).
We could not help it, is their apology; that strange man
pressed us so closely that there was no resisting him.
And how could we
anticipate that he would make so cruel a use of the
information, - the sad
family tale, - which, under the rack of an accusation of
treachery, he
remorselessly extracted from our lips!
The subdued tone of this defence, and explanation on the part
of his sons, may have gone far to overcome their
father’s scruples.
He must have seen now that they were in real
earnest, and that they were acting under the pressure of
stern necessity. At
first, when immediately on their return
home, they made the proposal,
Jacob may have been slow
to admit this. He
may have been apt to
suspect some sinister design, - or at least to hope that
in the long run his
sons would depart from so grievous a condition, and
admit that a second embassy
for food might be undertaken without regard to it. Now, however,
when in such straits as the
household are reduced to, these fathers of families
persist in their averment
that they dare not go to Egypt without Benjamin, - and
when they give so
simple, full, and touching a detail of the way in which
it all came about, -
the old man is not only satisfied as to the truthfulness
of his sons, but made
to see also that the Lord’s hand is in the matter.
The patriarch recovers his calm trust in God, his dignified
composure. He resumes once again the firm and manly attitude which one who has
known the Lord as his covenant-God ought always to
maintain in adversity.
There [Page 405] is no more any
querulous complaining,
any universal despondency, - “all
these things are
against me!”
With a feeling of
glad relief we see him erect and strong; - taking his
proper place at the head
of this whole affair; issuing in unfaltering terms his
directions as to the
conduct of the enterprise.
“Their father
I scarcely know if any position in Jacob’s eventful experience
is more noble, in a
spiritual point of view, than that
which is here described.
The closing
declaration, “If I be bereaved
of my children, I am
bereaved,” is, in the view of all the
circumstances, an instance of acquiescence in the will
of God, all but
unparalleled. Jacob
is now in extreme
old age, and he is about to be left alone, so far as the
companionship of his
sons is concerned. When, long ago, the ten brothers went
from home to feed
their flocks, Joseph was the comfort of his father’s
heart, - Benjamin being but
a child. In
his love to the ten, Jacob
sends Joseph to Shechem, - and Joseph goes on to
Let any one imagine the state of Jacob after he has thus sent
all his sons away.
It is the very
triumph of that faith which is “the
substance of
things hoped for, the evidence of things
not seen.”
Weeks or months must elapse before any tidings
can reach him of the good
or ill success of this expedition.
The
vessel that carries such a venture in its bosom may not
be heard of till his
grey hairs, through weary watching, have become greyer
still. His
fond eye, dimmed with the bitter tears of
age, sees them - scarcely sees them - leaving him
perhaps forever on this
earth. He
may look on them,
he may look on Benjamin, no more on this side of the [Page 406] grave. He has no express
promise
that he shall. What
probable presumption
is there that he shall?
It is indeed a
dark and doubtful prospect.
But, by
God’s grace, the very extremity of the emergency rouses
the old believer to a
new venture of faith.
He has trusted God
before; he will trust Him still.
“I will trust and not
be afraid,” is his language; “Though
he slay me, yet will I trust him.”
And this is the man whom but yesterday we saw thoroughly
unmanned, and indulging almost in a childish burst of
passionate upbraiding
against his God, as well as against his sons – “All
these
things are against me?” He is like one sunk in
the mingled
imbecility and obstinacy of helpless dotage.
Where is his manly reason? Where his religious
resignation - his shrewd
sense - his strong faith?
What a change
now!
Jacob is himself; he is
Thus, a second time, “when he is weak,
then is he strong;” -
strong in faith, seeing an
unseen Lord, leaning on an unseen powerful arm, looking
up into an unseen
loving face, looking out for an unseen glorious home - [a millennial
as well as an eternal, God-given “inheritance”
(Prov. 3:
35; 17:
2; 22:
4; 24:
14, R.V.)]. Strong in such faith, he can
attend to what is urgent in the occasion on hand, going
into even its minute
business details. He
can order his
household gravely but cheerfully, in a crisis that makes
the hearts of the
other inmates fail.
He can bid what may
be a final farewell to these stalwart and goodly young
men, who, in spite of
all their faults, are his sons still.
He
can take what may be his last look of the Benoni, - the
Benjamin, - his dying
Rachel left him. And
calmly committing
himself and his way to the God who blessed him at
Bethel, and led him to Syria,
and brought him back to Canaan, - the God who has guided
and guarded him all
his life hitherto, - the God of whom he can say, “I
know in whom I have believed,” - he will walk
on for the rest of his
earthly sojourn, - not wearily, not grudgingly, - but
rejoicingly, hopefully, -
not weeping always, as if all
things were
against him, - but praising
God who
makes all things work
together for his good.
He
will walk,
and work, and suffer, and wait,
as “a stranger and pilgrim on the
earth, declaring
plainly that he seeks a
better country, even
a
heavenly.”*
[* Note the use of the preposition and the adjectives used here; and meditate
upon God’s unfulfilled prophecies.
This restored “earth”
- will one “day” (2
Pet.
3: 8),
be
a “better” and “heavenly”
country - when the rightful King and Saviour is bodily
present “on” it!
Is this not what His Father has promised: “I
will give thee
the nations
for thine
inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy
possession” (Psa.
2: 8)?
For
it is written: “I create
Search the Scriptures and see; for, (says our Lord): “All
things
must needs be fulfilled,
which are written concerning
me!”
Yes, “All things!”
All
Second Advent prophecies, “and
the glories that should
follow” will literally “be fulfilled” upon this
sin-cursed earth. Then,
and not before the resurrection of the
righteous dead, can “all things
be fulfilled.” Only
after the righteous are separated from the wicked; and
Satan is imprisoned for
“a thousand years,” can
the “better country, even a
heavenly,” appear!]
*
*
*
[Page 407]
CHAPTER 59
THE DISCOVERY -
MAN’S EXTREMITY GOD’S
GENESIS
43: 15 - 45: 3.
And
they shall look on Me
whom they have pierced. - Zech. 12: 10.
And
they were afraid. But He said to them, I AM!
Do not be afraid. - John 6: 19, 20.
“Joseph made
haste”
(43:
30); that may be said
to be the explanation of
Joseph’s whole conduct on the occasion of his brethren’s
second visit to
1.
There is an audience at the public
levee: “The men stood before
Joseph” (43:
15).
The first sight of his returning brethren is
almost more than he can stand; he makes haste to cut
short the interview.
The appearance of Benjamin is evidently too
much for him (ver. 16);
it is his presence that overpowers him, and makes him
fain to turn from his
brethren without venturing to open his lips to them. He speaks
hastily to the ruler of his house,
- barely summoning courage to
give these
Hebrew strangers in charge to him, that he may carry
them from the place of
public audience to his own private residence in the
palace, and prepare for
their sitting at meat with him at noon.
Allowing no time for explanations, he is glad
thus hastily to dismiss
them, even rudely as it might seem, from his presence,
lest on the very seat of
authority, his self-possession should give way.
For the dismissal is very summary, - and is felt by the
brethren to be so: “The men were
afraid” (ver.
17).
No wonder, one would say, that the men were
afraid. They
apprehended evil from their
being brought into Joseph’s house.
The
governor must have some private and personal cause of
offence, about which he
wishes to reckon with them more closely, than he could
do in an open
levee. They
at once conjecture what it
is; it must be about “the money
that was returned in
their sacks:” it must be “that
he may seek
occasion against us, and
take us for bondmen,
and our asses” (ver.
18).
They shrink from entering the house, until they
have entreated their
conductor to hear their explanation, ending with the
protestation: - “We cannot tell
who put our money in our sacks” (ver.
19-22). The
ruler of Joseph’s house takes pains kindly to reassure
them; “He said, Peace
be [Page 408] to you, fear not;
your God, and
the God of
your father, hath
given you treasure in your
sacks; I had your
money. And he brought Simeon
out unto them” (ver.
23).
His
manner of reassuring them is very remarkable; he uses
the language, not of
respect only, but even of sympathy.
If
he does not himself fear the true God, he reverences
those who do. He
is Joseph’s confidential servant, - near
his person, - high in his esteem.
His
master has not disguised or dissembled his religion; the
man has seen and noted
his avoiding all participation in Egyptian idolatry, and
his devout consistent
worship of one Supreme Being.
He has
gathered that these strangers are of the same sort of
faith with his master;
and that this probably is the explanation of their
having been so liberally
treated formerly, as well as of their being about to be
so hospitably
entertained now. They
come from the same
part of the world to which the ruler traces his origin.
and
own the same God as he does.
So the man
accounts to himself for what has taken place, - and so
he comforts them. It
is your God, your hereditary God, who has
done this; therefore have peace and fear not.
See, here is your brother Simeon, whom you left a
prisoner and hostage,
safe and well. There
is no treachery or
harsh treatment intended; Simeon’s restoration to you is
surely a sufficient
pledge of the governor’s good faith.
Thus they are set at ease.
So “the
man brought the men into Joseph’s
house, and gave them
water, and they
washed their feet, and
he
gave their asses provender.
And they made ready the
present against Joseph
came at noon: for they
heard that they should
eat bread there” (ver.
24, 25).
2.
The scene at the banquet in the
governor’s house, it is almost an offence to touch, in
the way either of
criticism or of comment.
Joseph’s
demeanour is still hurried and agitated; - he is more
than ever put to it to
keep up his incognito and suppress his vehement emotion,
by the assumption of
an abrupt and hasty manner.
The reception, as it were, in the withdrawing-room, opens in
the
usual style of oriental courtesy.
The
strangers, introduced as guests, offer their presents in
the customary form,
and make the prescribed obeisance (ver.
26).
The
great man, acting the part of a princely host or
entertainer, is gracious and
condescending in his polite enquires (ver.
27).
And,
as it would seem, he receives with that air of civil and
courtly satisfaction
which it becomes him to show, their grateful and
deferential reply, and their
repeated prostration of themselves (ver.
28).
So far
the conversation proceeds decorously and with dignity. It may be
noticed, however, that the governor
has his eyes cast down, and keeps them fixed on the
ground. He
does not look his invited guests in the
face. Is it
contempt? or
indifference? or mere
absence of mind? Or
is it that he fears he may break down and
betray himself? - But now he looks up.
His eager gaze is fastened again, as in the
former brief interview, on
Benjamin, - “his mother’s son,”
as the narrative
with touching simplicity remarks.
He
cannot stand it. Scarcely has he contrived to ask, with
seeming unconcern, the
obvious question that might be expected of him in the
circumstances, when his
self command gives way; - and fairly unmanned, with a
broken benediction
hastily muttered over the lad’s head, he rushes out to
vent his full heart
alone! It
is a touch of nature, - such
as throughout all time, and all the
world over, [Page 409] makes men kin. “He
lifted up his eyes, and
saw
his brother Benjamin,
his mother’s son, and
said, Is this your younger brother, of
whom ye spake unto
me? And he said, God
be gracious unto thee, my
son. And
Joseph made haste: for
his bowels did yearn upon
his brother: and he
sought where to weep;
and he entered into his chamber,
and wept there” (ver.
29, 30).
How, after all, he got through the trying ordeal of the feast,
we may, according to our several temperaments,
conjecture. He
“makes haste.”
That is his only safety.
Without pause or interruption he hurries on
the ceremonial. All,
indeed, is ordered in
due form, and according to strict etiquette.
There is no breach of decorum, no cause of
offence to any. The
governor has so completely recovered his
composure that, “refraining
himself,” he can attend
even to the minute points and punctilios of the
entertainment. He
takes his place, and gives his orders, as
if nothing had occurred to disconcert him (ver.
31).
All traces of recent tears are wiped away.
He leaves his chamber outwardly serene and
calm, - and gives directions for the meal to be served. He takes care
that the proper distinction is
kept up between himself and
his guests, as well as
between the Egyptian courtiers and these Hebrew
strangers; separate tables
being prepared, in deference to a prejudice of which it
would be irrelevant
here to inquire the cause, (ver.
32).
Nay,
he carries his careful discrimination still farther. With an
exactness that strikes them with
strange surprise, he arranges the eleven according to
seniority, - so well does
he remember them, individually as well as collectively (ver. 33).
And paying very special attention and a very
marked compliment to them all, he gratifies his feelings
by singling out, in a
way that might not awaken suspicion, the youngest and
most interesting of their
number, and loading him, probably according to the
custom of the court, with
peculiar tokens of his kindness: “He
took and sent
messes unto them from before him: but
Benjamin’s
mess was five times so much as any of theirs. And
they drank, and were merry with him” (ver.
34).
Thus, as we may suppose, he hurries over the
banquet; allowing himself
no time to think or feel, - promoting the general
hilarity, - and carrying off
his own intensity of suppressed emotion under an air of
busy and, as it might
seem, even officious hospitality.
3. The ingenious device which Joseph adopted for securing
Benjamin alone, - on the evening of the day on which he
entertained his
brethren, and in the view of their departure homeward
early next morning, - is
in keeping with his assumed character of an Egyptian
vizier. It
is such a trick as one might imagine to be
keenly relished by some of those capricious potentates
of whose whims we read
in oriental fable.
Why Joseph should
have chosen to resort to an expedient of that sort,
unless it were simply that
he meant to play out his part well and consistently to
the last, it is really
idle to ask. Perhaps
it was a hasty
thought. He
is not quite prepared to
discover himself; and yet he can scarcely bear to let
them all, - or in
particular, to let Benjamin away.
It
will not do to repeat the old stratagem of affecting
still to believe them
spies, demanding still more specific proof of their
being true men, and keeping
one of them in security till they bring the proof
demanded. He
must try a new stroke of policy.
And this device [Page 410] of the
pretended divining cup may
answer as well as any.
It will not
awaken suspicion or surprise among his ordinary Egyptian
attendances; it is the
kind of clever child’s-play with which they are
familiar.
The steward of Joseph’s house hears with all gravity the order
given, and prepares to obey it (ver.
1, 2). With equal
gravity, when the men have
departed next morning, he hears and obeys the order to
pursue them and recover
the cup (ver. 3-5). He
shrewdly guesses his master’s design, - and sets himself
coolly to carry it
out.
The men are suddenly arrested in their journey (ver.
6).
They hear with consternation this new charge
of theft, and with solemn emphasis disclaim it (ver.
7).
They appeal to the proof of honesty they have
given in bringing back the
money they had found in the mouth of their sacks, on the
occasion of their
former visit (ver. 8).
And they challenge investigation, with all
the confidence of conscious innocency.
If there be a thief among us, you may punish, not
only him, but all of
us, - for we vouch for one another; “With
whomsoever of
thy servants the cup be found, both
let him die,
and we also will be my lord’s
bondmen” (ver.
9).
With the utmost mildness and moderation, as
it would appear to them, their captor accepts, but with
a just modification,
their challenge. It is enough that the guilty one of
your number should himself
suffer, not death, but bondage, - while all the rest of
you go free (ver. 10).
So the search proceeds, -
the imperturbable steward calmly superintending it, as
if he knew nothing of
what was coming.
Deliberately
taking the eldest first, and, one after another,
exhausting all who are
scatheless, he comes at last to the seeming culprit; “The
cup was found in Benjamin’s sack” (ver.
11, 12).
Briefly, but how pathetically, is the effect of this exposure
told! The
brothers are startled and
stunned. What
can all this mean?
What new and overwhelming evidence is this of
their old sin finding them out?
Is it a
reality that has befallen them, or a horrid dream that
haunts them? It
cannot be that Benjamin, their best and
fairest, has committed such a crime, - that he has
requited the singular favour
the strange governor showed him by such ingratitude, -
that he has stained his
young hands with sudden baseness.
There
is some dark mystery about the matter; God is dealing
with them terribly in His
wrath. And
now, what is to be done?
Is Benjamin to be surrendered, and are they
to go? That,
very likely, is what Joseph
really wants. His
heart, when he is
alone after the banquet, yearns for Benjamin; - somehow,
anyhow, let the others
be off as they may, he must have “his
mother’s son.”
And the scheme he hits upon may serve his
purpose to detach Benjamin from the rest, and restore
him to his embrace.
He may even now be preparing a glad surprise
for the affrighted youth who, when he is brought back
alone, is to find in him,
instead of an unjust and angry tyrant, a loving brother,
and a powerful patron
and friend. If
so, he is to be so far
disappointed. The
brothers will not
consent to part company with the accused; whatever
danger there may be, or whatever
disgrace, they will share it
with him. They are
changed from what they were when they could so cruelly,
and without a cause,
sell their father’s favourite child.
Not
even when there seems to be a cause, will they give up
their father’s last
comfort now; “They rent their
cloths, and laded every [Page 411] man his ass, and returned to the city”
(ver. 13).
4. Thus the whole
company return together: “And
Judah and his brethren,”
- Judah taking the lead now, for he had taken the lead
in persuading Jacob to
part with Benjamin, and had come under the most solemn
obligations for his
safety, - “Judah and his
brethren came to Joseph’s
house (for he was yet
there); and they fell
before him to the ground” (ver.
14).
This return of all his brethren together may
have taken Joseph by surprise.
It was
still early morning.
Joseph had not left
his home to transact business in his public court; they
found him in
comparative privacy, in his palace.
Their coming back in a body was fitted, perhaps,
at first to disconcert,
and yet afterwards it served to facilitate his plan. It was more
than he had expected or
desired. And
it seemed to stand in the
way of his special design to obtain possession of
Benjamin. But
at the same time, he could scarcely
resent it; for it indicated a more gracious frame of
mind than he may have been
giving them credit for. And along with their subdued and
humble deportment, all
throughout, it may have had something to do with the
impulse to discover himself,
which, as the conversation went on, soon proved too
strong for him.
At first, indeed, he keeps up his assumed sternness and
gruffness of manner.
He speaks as one
justly offended by the secret meanness and villany, thus
by supernatural or
magical means discovered: “What
deed is this that ye
have done?
Wot ye not that such a
man as I can certainly divine”
(ver. 15). He makes an
attempt, also, to accomplish the
object upon which his heart is set, - to separate
Benjamin from the rest, and
keep him with him while the others may go.
This appears as the colloquy proceeds.
The reply made to his first angry accusation is
not very coherent: “
Not so is Joseph’s rejoinder, in the character of ruler and
judge. He
takes high ground in justice
and equity. It
is Benjamin, “his mother’s son,”
that he longs to have.
It is Benjamin that he would fain contrive to
keep, under all this affectation of fair and impartial
dealing. It
is Benjamin, and [Page 412] Benjamin alone that he wants: “God forbid that I
should do so; but the
man in whose hand the cup
is found, he shall be
my servant; and as for
you, get you up in peace unto your father”
(ver. 17).
5.
The speech of
Joseph may mean it for a kindness.
Very soon, if Benjamin is anyhow kept and the
rest are suffered to go, he will relieve his young
brother’s anxiety, and make
him a sharer in all his own prosperity.
It
will be his fond delight to advance Benjamin to
Pharaoh’s favour and
First, he adjures the governor, in most melting strains, to
give him a favourable hearing: “0
my lord, let thy
servant, I pray thee,
speak a word in my lord’s ears;
and let not thine anger bum
against thy servant; for
thou art even as Pharaoh” (ver. 18).
It is a courtly opening; but it is quite
artless and sincere; as much so as the opening of Paul’s
noble appeal to King
Agrippa. The
speaker is in earnest; in
the earnestness almost of despair.
Next,
he reminds the governor of the way in which he had wrung
from them the
information about their domestic circumstances, of which
he is now making so
cruel a use (ver. 19-23). He
paints now, in a few graphic strokes, the scene between
them and their father,
when the old man’s consent to risk Benjamin was
obtained, at the cost almost of
a broken heart (ver.
24-29).
Unwittingly he sends a shaft into Joseph’s
bosom, as he represents his father bewailing his beloved
Rachel and her two
sons, - one already lost, and the other about to be torn
away. The
old man, says
The whole pleading most thrillingly touches the right chord in
Joseph’s soul. Instead
of Egypt’s
splendour, to be shared with Benjamin when he has
entrapped him, as it were, by
guile, - there rises before his eyes the image of a
forlorn and desolate old
man, whose fond caresses are yet fresh in his
remembrance.
Over the scene of the discovery a veil of reserve is cast;
Joseph is alone with his brethren.
No
strangers witness his emotion; but the loud burst of his
weeping is overheard
without. His
brethren cannot speak for
trouble and terror; but he invites them to draw near,
and addresses to them
words of peace; “Be not
grieved nor
angry with yourselves that ye sold me hither: for
God did send me before you to preserve life” (ver.
3-5). It is as in
the day when that prophecy shall
be fulfilled, “I
will pour upon
the house
of David, and
upon
the
inhabitants of
Two observations on this scene may be allowed.
1.
The precise moment of Joseph’s
making himself known to his brethren, - whether we
regard it as chosen by himself,
or as chosen for him by God through the working of
his natural feelings, is highly significant. Certainly,
it looks as if it was a
sudden thought, an abrupt change of mind; - as if up to
this time Joseph had
really been intending to keep Benjamin, ostensibly for a
slave, and to send the
rest sorrowing and despairing away, - but now, moved by
Judah’s pathetic
pleading, found himself unable to persist in his purpose
any longer. If
so, it is a circumstance surely very
suggestive. Jesus,
I suppose, put on an
air of stern and frowning severity, when He made as if
He would spurn away from
Him, like a dog, the woman of Canaan, - and He kept up
that aspect till the
instant of His being constrained by the woman’s
importunity to say, “0 woman,
great is thy faith.” What a sudden
change, and how seasonable! [Page 414] Instantly that face beams with
its
wonted halo of love, - that eye is dim with its wonted
tear of pity, - that
mouth utters its wonted words, - such as never man spake
but this man! There,
it was great faith that seemingly
wrought the change, - here, it is great need.
Nay rather, there and here alike, it is great
need; - great need,
prompting great earnestness and urgency - great boldness
and perseverance. It
was great need that furnished the woman
with that keen and witty logic of hers; - “Truth,
Lord, but
the dogs eat
of the crumbs of the children’s table.”
It was great need that gave
Lo! He smiles, - He weeps.
That dark brow unbends.
Those
withdrawn arms are stretched out.
Thou
art in His embrace.
He cannot refrain
Himself. He
makes Himself known to thee,
- to thee, the chief of sinners - to whom He rejoices
affectionately to say, - I
am Jesus, thy Saviour, thy friend, thy brother.
2.
The manner of this disclosure is as
significant as the time of it.
All is
unmingled tenderness and love.
Not a
word of upbraiding, - not a look of reproach, - not a
sigh of regret or
complaint. All
is peace. If
their old sin, - then freshly, oh! how
freshly and poignantly remembered by them, - is
mentioned by him at all, it is only that he may assure
them of its being
thoroughly forgiven.
He would even seem
almost to excuse it, or to excuse them, - showing how
their conduct wrought out
the gracious saving purpose of God.
At
all events, he will have them to think of that gracious
saving purpose now, as
giving them a pledge of there being mercy enough with
God for the very worst of
them, and for the very worst deed that any of them has
done.
So the apostles preached Christ to His betrayers and
murderers, - telling them that the blood which they so
cruelly shed, and which
they so madly imprecated upon their own heads, was
flowing as a fountain to
cleanse them from all sin, - the sin even of crucifying
the Lord of glory.
So Christ discovers Himself to you, 0 ye men
of broken spirits and contrite hearts, when the Holy
Spirit is showing you how
you have been piercing Him.
“I am Jesus whom thou
persecutest;” “Saul!
Saul! why
persecutest thou me?” - that
is the utmost of
His reproof. Or rather, it is His affectionate, most
touching, altogether
irresistible expostulation.
Could the brothers withstand that appeal, - I am Joseph your
brother whom ye sold into
*
*
*
CHAPTER 60
A
TRUE BROTHER - A GENEROUS KING - A GLAD FATHER
GENESIS
45
I give you a new commandment, that you
should love one another.
Even as I loved
you, so you also should love one another.
- John 13: 34.
And
kings shall be your
nursing fathers. - Isaiah 49: 23.
A
wise son makes a glad
father. - Proverbs 10: 1.
Joseph,
Pharaoh, Jacob, stand out conspicuous in this chapter, -
Joseph’s brotherly and
filial love (ver. 4-15),
- Pharaoh’s grateful and generous hospitality
(ver. 16-20), - Jacob’s piety (ver.
21-28).
1.
The address of Joseph to his brethren,
is singular for its rare mixture of authority and
tenderness. There
is in it the calm and
conscious air of the prince and prophet, tempered with
all a son’s reverence,
and all a brother’s fond familiarity.
It
is worthy of Joseph, - of his simple character, and of
his exalted rank (ver.
4-15).
The first outburst of irrepressible feeling being over, Joseph
sets himself to encourage his troubled and terrified
brethren, - too troubled
and too terrified to be able to answer his plain
question, “Doth my father yet
live” (ver.
3).
He kindly bids them draw near - “Come
near to
me, I pray you.”
And as they come
near, he repeats his intimation, “I
am Joseph,”
- adding to it these two particulars, - “your
brother,
whom ye sold into
Thus reassured, Joseph’s brethren are prepared to await his
orders. It
cannot surprise them to find
that his first concern is about his father.
Once and again has Joseph, even when keeping
himself unknown, inquired
about the old man’s life and health, with an earnestness
and particularity that
might seem to them unaccountable on the part of a mere
stranger, and one so
high in rank at a foreign court.
Now the
mystery is solved.
That Joseph should be
thus thoughtful about the fond parent whose favourite
child he had been, is
only natural. But
surely, in the
circumstances, it must have cut these men to the heart
to think of the long
estrangement of which they had been the cause!
Could they listen unmoved to their brother’s
eager and impetuous
urgency? “Haste
ye” (ver. 9);
- and again: “ye shall haste”
(ver. 13). It is all hot
haste, to relieve the aged
Patriarch’s anxiety, and cheer his long darkened soul
with tidings of great
joy, - to tell
him of his long lost
son’s greatness and glory, - and above all, to
bring him to that son’s
embrace, and place him in peace and plenty under his
fostering care; “Haste ye,
and go up to my
father, and say unto
him, Thus saith thy
son Joseph, God
hath made me lord of all Egypt: come
down unto
me, tarry not.”
“I
will nourish thee.” “And
behold your eyes see,
and the eyes of my brother
Benjamin, that it is
my mouth that speaketh unto you.
And ye shall tell my
father of all
my glory in
Surely this is a message which it may well cost these men
tears of penitential sorrow to receive, as it must cost
them tears of shame to
deliver it. Such
love as Jacob’s for his
son, and Joseph’s for his father, it has not hitherto
entered into their minds
to conceive. And
it is such love that
they have been so deeply and cruelly wounding.
It is a new measure they now get, by which to
estimate their crime.
It is somewhat of the nature of that insight
which, through the [Holy] Spirit’s teaching, the smitten soul gets into the mutual love of the
Father and the Son; and insight that gives hitherto
unimagined significancy to
the dread transaction between them which guilt made
necessary, and into the
exceeding sinfulness of sin as causing that state of
things between the Father
and the Son, of which the cry upon the cross is the
expression – “My God, my God, why
hast thou forsaken me!” - making it needful for
the Son to become “an outcast
from his God, and
needful for the Father to say, “Awake,
0 sword, against
my Shepherd!” - and
all in love, 0 my soul, to thee!
And then, what a message for these men to deliver!
To look their injured father in the face and
tell him of the long lie by which they have made his old
age miserable; to
recant the mean and cruel falsehood; to confess all
their dark deed of villany;
thus to disclose and undo the past - what a humiliation! They had need to be
furnished with a gospel of the best sort, - glad tidings
of great joy, - to
overcome their abashed [Page
417]
embarrassment in speaking to Joseph’s
father concerning Joseph.
Joseph himself seems to feel this.
And, accordingly, he is at great pains
to encourage them.
Again and again he resumes the task.
He would have them to turn their eyes away
from themselves to him, - from their own sin and shame,
to his glorious saving
power. You
see me, he cries; “your eyes see.”
It is no delusion; I am
not a spirit, or a ghost; I
am your own brother, raised up by God to this height
of princely dignity on
very purpose to be your saviour.
“Your eyes see, and
the eyes of my brother Benjamin.” He believes
me; why should not
you? True,
you may feel that you have
wronged me, and sinned against me, as Benjamin never
did; you have that to
answer for with which his conscience is not burdened. But
what of that?
I make no distinction now between him and
you. I do
not place you at a
disadvantage. “Your
eyes see,” as well as “the
eyes of my brother
Benjamin, that it is
my mouth that speaketh unto
you” (ver. 12);
- not to him only, - but to you as well, - and speaketh
to you peace. It
is I who speak to you, - not now through
an interpreter, as if I could address you only in a
strange tongue; - but
plainly, - face to face, - mouth to mouth.
And I speak to you, not to upbraid you with the
past, but to send you on
what, in spite of all the past, should be a pleasant
errand now. Return
home, to your own house, and tell what
great things God has wrought.
Be not
disconcerted or dismayed.
Let your
faltering tongue, overcoming all your natural
misgivings, give forth its
errand: “Ye shall tell my father
of all my glory in
But not even yet is Joseph satisfied that he has done
enough. Still fresh
tokens of his heart’s love are lavished on Benjamin
and on them all, - kisses
and tears: “He fell upon his
brother Benjamin’s neck,
and wept; and
Benjamin
wept upon his neck.
Moreover he kissed all
his brethren, and wept
upon them” (ver.
14, 15). Nor will he
leave off kissing them all and
weeping with them, pouring out his soul in a flood of
sympathy, until he has
fairly vanquished all their fear, and brought them to
converse freely, boldly,
familiarly: “after that,
his brethren talked with him” (ver.
15).
Ah! truly, Joseph is the model of
what a brother ought to be, “a
brother born for adversity!”
He is the sort of brother you need in your
deep grief, ye sin-sick, sin-laden, sorrow-laden
children - the fitting type of
the brother you have in the well-beloved Son of the
Father! He
is never weary of speaking peace to you, -
assuring you that He remembers not any wrong of yours
against Him; that the
blood which your sin shed cleanseth that sin away; that
He whom you crucified
is at God’s right hand, mighty to save!
How is He ever striving, by His word and Spirit,
to reveal Himself to
you, and to get you to see Him!
How does
He raise you from the dust and set you on a rock that
you may sound His
praise! How
does He plead with you and
expostulate with you, that you may lay aside all [Page 418] your doubts
and hesitancy, and
believe Him when He talks with you, and bids you go on
your way to the Father
rejoicing! How
does He kiss you and weep
with you, - loading you with tenderest caresses, -
refusing to be content until
you, His brethren, take heart, and summon courage, - to
“talk with him.”
“To
talk with
him!” Yes!
For that is what He wants - what alone can prove
that all at last is
right between Him and you - that there is no more
dislike, or jealousy, or
suspicion, or servile dread - that you do indeed now
know Him, and trust Him, and
love Him, as a brother.
He would not merely talk affectionately with
you - He would have you to talk confidingly and
confidentially with Him.
That is what alone could satisfy Joseph.
It is what alone will satisfy your Joseph,
your Jesus. Receive
then His kindly
advances. Believe
His gracious
words. Let
Him show Himself to you, and
embrace you and sympathize with you.
“And after that,”
as “his
brethren,” “talk with
him.” Frankly,
unreservedly, in the confidence of brotherly
familiarity, talk
with Him; of His Father and
your Father, of the house with many mansions, of the
coming joy of the
re-united family’s home-meeting there; or of His
past experience in His
humiliation; or of your own present experience in
your sin and sorrow; or of
His kingdom; or of your own grief; or of duty; or of
trial; or of death; or of
His church; or of your own household and friends. Only talk
with Him, ye brethren of His, of
all, of anything, that may interest Him and you. He refuses
to let you go until you “talk
with him.”
2.
On this occasion, the conduct of
Pharaoh is princely and truly noble.
It
is in keeping with all that we read of this illustrious
monarch - surely no
ordinary specimen of the race of oriental kings, as we
are apt to conceive of
them. The
grace and generosity of his
cordial congratulation is at once a pleasing proof of
the high place which
Joseph’s wise fidelity has won for him in his royal
master’s esteem, and a
refreshing instance of the king’s own goodness of heart
- his kindly nature -
his grateful appreciation of true and honest service; “And
the fame thereof was heard in Pharaoh’s house,
saying,
Joseph’s brethren are come:
and it pleased Pharaoh well,
and his servants” (ver.
16).
The discovery of his vizier’s lineage and family connections
might
have been distasteful to a sovereign of narrow mind. The melting
scene of kissing and tears might
have awakened, in the stem bosom of a tyrant, no other
emotion than contempt
for such womanish weakness.
The liberty
which Joseph took in disposing, as it would seem, upon
his own authority, of
It must have been with deeply gratified feelings that Joseph
came forth from his interview with so kind a master, and
proceeded to give his
final instructions to his departing brethren.
Such confidence as is reposed in him, such
sympathy as is shown with
him, such royal bountifulness, may well repay years of
suffering and toil.
Frankly he acknowledges and accepts Pharaoh’s
liberality, and faithfully he
executes his commands.
His brethren are
now thoroughly furnished and equipped with all
necessaries for their journey
and return (ver. 21-23).
Thereafter, with one parting word of admonition,
Joseph dismisses them
in peace; “So he sent his
brethren away, and
they departed: and he
said
unto them, See that ye
fall not out by the way”
(ver. 24).
Is there a quaint dash of humour in this significant hint: “See that ye fall not out by the way?”
- a touch of sly, sarcastic,
good-natured irony?
Nay, it is no time, - and Joseph has no
heart, - for that.
There is a graver,
deeper, better, meaning in what he says.
These brethren of his have been getting a new
lesson in the school of
love, - in the divine faculty of holy charity.
They have just come to the knowledge of a kind
and degree of love, of
which they had no conception before.
For
in truth love like Joseph’s to his father and his
brethren is a new thing to
them. The
very idea of it is new.
Hence they are so slow to take it in, to
understand it, - to believe that it can be real.
But they have been got to see it and to feel
it. They
have now some insight into
Joseph’s open heart.
He has given them
such discoveries of what is in it that they can stand
out incredulous no
longer. Love
so tender and so true; so
prodigal of self; so mindful of all but self; so
self-sacrificing and
self-forgetting; so meek, so merciful, so mild, so
melting; love that can so
forgive, and pity, and embrace, and weep; love that will
take no denial and
suffer no repulse, but will have the loved ones, almost
in their own despite,
in its embrace; Joseph’s love; the love of Joseph’s
heart; has found entrance
into their long frozen hearts, and opened the warm
fountains of tears and
gladness there. Forgiven
much, they love
much. Joseph
they love as they never
thought to have loved a living being before; and they
love one another as they
never loved one another before.
But it
is a new affection.
They are novices and
raw recruits in this [Page
420]
discipline of charity.
The old nature in them may still be apt to
get the better of the new creation.
They
may well therefore be grateful for that deep,
love-thrilling, voice of
admonition, “See that ye fall
not out by the way.”
“A new commandment,” says the
Lord, “I give unto you, That
ye love one another; as
I have loved you,
that ye also love one another”
(John 13: 34). Like Joseph’s
brethren, if you have been
moved to believe in Jesus, you have been taking a new
lesson in the way of
loving. You
have become acquainted with
a style and manner of love far transcending even
Joseph’s. The
love of Jesus! Who
can know it? But
something of it you know. Experimentally
you know it. For
have you not bathed His
feet with your tears, and wiped them with the hairs of
your head? Have
you not heard His voice, “Neither
do I condemn thee”?
Have you not looked to Him lifted up on the
cross, laying down His life for you?
Yes. It is a new
commandment, - to love as He loves.
And
its observance among yourselves, and towards all men, is
with you the growth of
a new nature. Take
therefore always in
good part every warning against the risk of this
new-born grace of love or
charity giving way, under the irksome annoyances of the
road you have to
travel, and the infirmities of the brethren with whom
you have to travel
it. See
that ye “walk in love, as Christ also loved you,
and gave himself for you an
offering and a sacrifice to
God for a sweet smelling savour” (Eph.
5: 2). “See
that ye fall not
out by the way.”
3.
The arrival of the brethren at their
father’s house in Canaan, closes this touching scene –
“They went up out of
Egypt, and came into the land of Canaan unto Jacob their
father, and told him,
saying, Joseph is yet alive, and he
is
governor over all the land of Egypt” (ver.
25, 26).
The patriarch’s reception of their news is simply told; - “Jacob’s heart fainted, for he
believed them not” (ver.
26).
He
believed them not.
Is it for very joy -
as it is said of the assembled disciples, when they saw
the risen Lord, and His
pierced hands and feet, that
they yet believed not for
joy? Or is
it that he cannot trust their
truthfulness? And
yet the fact that they
are all there, - Simeon and Benjamin and all of them, -
may attest what they
tell. However
they may have deceived him
before, can he fail to see evidence in their whole
manner now that they are
giving him a true report?
Nay, it is
enough to say that under this new excess of emotion the
old man’s heart
fainted. For
a time he could not take
the tidings in; they quite overwhelmed and overmastered
him. And no marvel.
He has to undo the past of years.
He has to turn back the whole tide and
current of his feelings, from the dismal day when he
accepted as a fact
Joseph’s death, and began to make up his mind to a stern
and sad submission.
For the rest of acquiescence in a fixed and
certain doom, is now to be suddenly exchanged for the
restless agitation of
reviving hope. At
once everything is
unsettled again and in suspense. The very idea of its
being possible that
Joseph may be yet alive, is more than the old man’s
shattered nerves can stand;
“His heart fainted.”
But he rallies, and can listen to their detailed account of
the whole wondrous providence they have to report; “And
they told him all
the [Page 421] words of Joseph, which he had said unto them”
(ver.
27).
Gradually his mind is strengthened to take it all
in. Piecemeal,
as it were, or bit by bit, the
reality of the strange transactions of which he hears
becomes more and more palpable.
The actual sight of the conveyances provided
for carrying him and his house bodily to
Thus the patriarch again approves himself to be worthy of the
name of
*
*
*
[Page 422]
CHAPTER 61
FAITH
QUITTING
CANAAN FOR
GENESIS
46:
1-27.
Israel
also came into Egypt, and Jacob
stayed in the
You
did not know the time of
your visitation. - Luke 19: 44.
Egypt is now to be for a long period, measured by centuries, the home or refuge
of God’s chosen Israel, in order that, in the fullness
of time, a signal
historical event may become a significant Messianic
prophecy.
To Moses, the Lord said: “Thou
shalt say unto
Pharaoh, thus saith
the Lord, Israel is my
son, even my
first-born;
and I say unto thee, Let
my son go that he may serve me” (Exod.
4: 22,
23).
By the
mouth of Hosea,
the Lord
says: “When
[* See Rev.
2: 10;
Matt. 10:
22; Mark
13: 13. cf.
1
Pet. 1: 11.]
Jacob yields to the solicitation of Joseph, and the invitation
of Pharaoh. He
makes up his mind to
leave Canaan; and that, not for a short personal visit
merely to his son in
This is made palpable by the transaction between him and his
covenant-God which marks his departure from the land of
promise, and his
committal of himself and his house to a strange country
(ver. 1-4).
The
scene of the transaction is fitly chosen; it is
He pauses there. The
place
reminds him of his father Isaac, and of his father’s
habitual fear and
worship of God. If
he has been moved to
undertake the journey on Joseph’s invitation and at the
entreaty of his other
sons, relying on Pharaoh’s royal honour, - and as yet
with too little
consultation and prayer for ascertaining the will and
seeking the countenance
of the Lord, - he feels his need of this at
The burden of the
divine communication is, “Fear not to go down into
Especially he might be apt to fear, as he called to mind the
dark prophecy with which he must have been familiar,
which held suspended over
his house the doom of a long and bitter subjection to a
foreign foe. He
could not but have fresh in his memory and
before his eye, at
But the Lord says, “Fear not.”
(1) Fear not, for “I am God,
the God of thy father.” I
am God the Almighty, having
all power; and I am thy father’s God, pledged in
covenant to make all things
work together for good to his seed and thine.
(2) Fear not, for “I will
there make of thee a
great nation;” not here, but there; in
Reassured by so gracious and seasonable a vision - now strong
in faith as the Israel of God - the patriarch pursues
his journey (ver. 5-7). Nothing
occurs by the way deserving notice - no incident or
adventure of any
interest. “All
his seed brought he with
him into
Thus the descent into
The list or
catalogue given of
[For more particular satisfaction, the following additional
remarks may be useful. (1) Nowhere is there a greater
likelihood of errors
having crept into the sacred text, through careless or
ignorant copying of
manuscripts, than in lists of proper names and such like
- and nowhere is it
less easy to discover or correct the errors by sound
criticism. (2)
The principles upon which these
genealogical trees or tables were constructed among the
Israelites,
can be only very imperfectly known or conjectured. For
generations before the writing of the
books of Moses, they must have been traditionally
preserved by being handed
down in the chosen family - perhaps embodied in current
song or poetry - some
of them even committed, in a rude fragmentary way, to
public or domestic
registers, or records of some sort.
They
were probably not meant to be exhaustive, or to
comprehend all the individuals
concerned. A
selection was apparently
made of heads, or chiefs, or leading persons - and so
made, for the most part,
as, for the sake of easy memory, to give a round number
rather than a
fractional or broken one.
(3) Here, for
instance, in particular, it is not conceivable that
there were only two women
in
1. It is very obvious that in a book like the Bible, composed
and compiled at sundry times and in diverse manners, and
containing varied and
minute chronologies and genealogies, there must be many
things that would be
better understood, and could be more easily explained
long ago, at the time,
than they can be now; just as we believe, from its
prophetic character, that
there may be some of these very things that will come to
be more clear, in
themselves and in their use, as the end of all draws
near. Meanwhile
we need not be greatly troubled if
we have to confess that not a few knotty questions of
the sort indicated defy
satisfactory solution.
2. We must allow to men writing under the inspiration of the
Spirit the same liberty of using current popular
phraseology, and stating
matters of notoriety in the customary way, that we would
concede to any honest
author in the like circumstances.
Such
an author does not scruple to give the round numbers,
and broad, brief summaries,
artificially framed as helps [Page
426]
to memory, or as making a neat scheme
or system in the story or the genealogy, - when these
are the familiar modes of
reckoning among his readers, and when, as they stand,
they sufficiently answer
the purpose he has in view.
If he were
not to do so, if he were not to be thus far
accommodating to prevalent usage,
if he were to affect a minute, martinet, and punctilious
accuracy, even down to
trifling details of that sort; - altering when there was
no real occasion for
it, and as if for mere alteration’s sake, commonly
received versions of
familiar records and traditions; - not only would he be
justly chargeable with
a certain prudish pedantry, but he would fatally damage
his chance of
acceptance and usefulness among the people.
The liberty which any honest writer would
exercise in such particulars,
ought not to be denied to one writing by
inspiration. The
[Holy] Spirit,
superintending what is
written, and making Himself
responsible for every word
of it, is not bound to make the author whom He inspires
more of a pedant in
point of accuracy than you or I would choose to be, in
alluding to old
histories, quoting old books, and using old registers
and recollections.
The essential element in the narrative here is, that a mere
handful of men and women was all
Did any such idea occur to Pharaoh, when he sanctioned and
enforced so warmly his prime
minister Joseph’s invitation?
Was it a permanent settlement of Joseph’s
kinsmen in his dominions that he had in view?
Did he contemplate their growing into a distinct
people, preserving
their nationality, and becoming formidable for their
numbers? Or
did he mean that their sojourn in his
realm should be short, - limited to the duration of the
famine which occasioned
it? Or, if
he wished them to stay
longer, did he anticipate their getting merged and lost
in the general mass of
[Page 427
Has Jacob, or have his sons, or any one of them, - Joseph for
instance, - any clearer insight?
Or are
they all led like the blind by a way that they know not? Joseph
probably has as yet no suspicion that
he is bringing the family down to
But Jacob was a believer in regard to it.
He had in view the fulfilment in Egypt of
that prophecy of mingled weal and woe which Abraham
received; - about his seed
growing into a great nation; and about their doing so
under oppression calling
ultimately for the signal vengeance of the Most High
against their oppressors.
It needed a strong faith to sustain aged
And now
What traces, what memories, what influences have the Israel of
God bequeathed, now that the time of their sojourn is
for the present
over? Alas!
how
much is there to humble and sadden them, if they will
but pause and think, as
they cast their last look on the plains and on the
people they are leaving
behind them! Crimes
and sins of heinous
dye, - instances of unbelief in God and conformity to an
ungodly world, -
un-brotherly dissensions, - un-neighbourly revenges, -
scandals,
stumbling-blocks, which their evil lusts and passions
have put in the way of
those whom a consistent walk, and holy example, and pure
and warm charity,
might have won; - such recollections may well overwhelm
them with bitter shame
and sorrow, as they bid a final adieu to the scenes of
their long sojourn in
the land of their pilgrimage.
Some
recollections of piety and love will doubtless linger,
when they are gone,
among the people who have been the witnesses of their
walk. But
ah! how dimly
has their light been shining!
How
uncertain a sound has their trumpet been giving!
It would have been good for them, during the
years of their witness-bearing [Page
428]
for God among ungodly men, had they
been anticipating the day when that witness-bearing must
cease, and had they
asked themselves beforehand how then, at its close, they
would be able to stand
the retrospect!
Surely, for every church, for every believer, there is a
lesson here. I
must soon quit the place
that now knows me, and quit it forever.
What savour, of death unto death, or of life unto
life, will my
occupancy of it leave when it is over, when I am gone, -
and the place that now
knows me knows me no more?
* *
*
CHAPTER 62
GENESIS
46: 28 - 47:
10.
And the LORD shall be known to Egypt. - Isaiah
19:21.
Taking
together the end of one chapter and the beginning of
another, we have an incident
complete in itself, and of great significancy, as
regards the purpose of God in
the development of His church’s history.
The chosen seed, like “a
corn of wheat,”
is to “fall into the ground and
die,” in order
that after many days it may “bring
forth much fruit”
(John 12: 24). The
long underground
concealment of the Egyptian sojourn and captivity,
preparatory to the great
resurrection of the nation at the time of the Exodus, is
now about to begin.
And the manner of its commencement is to be clearly
marked. It
is to be no obscure and stealthy midnight
movement, but an honourable transaction, signalized in
high places, - as was
the burial of Jesus, when Joseph of Arimathaea got
Pilate’s consent to pay all
respect, along with Nicodemus, to the body of the
crucified. Thus
Jacob is received, on his arrival in
Joseph’s reception of his father and brethren is both
affectionate and politic.
There is in it
the warm, gushing affection of a loving son and brother;
but there is in it
also the sagacious policy of a prince and ruler, who has
to manage the affair
on hand, as one of government and diplomacy, with a
sound and wise discretion.
Jacob makes his entry, as it would seem, with
some measure of state.
Either by way of
precaution, or to show that he comes as an independent
patriarchal chief, he
abstains from going at once direct to his son.
He is to make it manifest from the first, before
the eyes of all the Egyptians,
that while he comes on Joseph’s invitation, he does not
come to occupy a
subordinate position; - as if he and his household were
to be mere hangers on,
as it were, in Joseph’s [Page
429]
palace, to swell the number of his
attendants, and be simply pensioners at his table. That is not
Joseph’s own desire or
design. He
wishes his father to take his
proper place, as the acknowledged and honoured head of a
distinct patriarchal
community. Accordingly
a suitable
residence has been prepared and set apart for him in
From thence, in due form, he sends
All policy, however, is forgotten when son and father meet: “He fell on his neck, and
wept
on his neck a good while” (ver.
29).
It is
all nature now; and it is nature, as is nature’s wont,
with much matter in
little bulk; - a whole scene compressed into a few
words, - and these the
simplest.
To enlarge here would be presumptuous.
No weeping like that of Joseph,
lasting “a good while,” -
if we take in all the
circumstances; the early fondness, the long, long
separation, the wondrous
re-union; - no such weeping anytime or anywhere else,
except when “Jesus wept!”
And only once again is the resistless pathos of
Jacob’s plaintive word
of acquiescence paralleled; - “Now
let me die, since I
have seen thy face, because
thou
art yet alive!” - once
and once only, - in
the “Nunc Dimittis;” “Lord,
now lettest thou thy servant
depart in peace, according
to thy word; for
mine eyes have seen thy salvation.”
But Joseph is a ruler, as well as a son and brother; in the
capacity
of ruler he must make due provision for the emergency
that has occurred.
Nor is that so easy
as might at first appear.
If it were
only the hospitable entertainment of his kindred that he
had to look to, it
would be no difficult task to provide for that.
He stands
so well with the king,
and has such absolute command over all the resources
of the kingdom, that he
can at once secure for his kinsmen all honourable
accommodation in the house
and court of Pharaoh.
But that is
not enough for him; it is not what he wants.
He is willing that his father’s family should
cast in their lot with him
in
[Page 429]
What special reason there was for this antipathy is not
said. It
may have been the recollection
of some recent invasion of a shepherd tribe from the
desert. Or
it may have been the result of Egypt’s
high civilization, causing settled trades or
manufactures to be of chief
repute, and casting discredit on the old modes of life
which roving hordes,
with no property but their flocks and herds, were
accustomed to pursue.
Be that as it may, it is a shrewd device of
policy on the part of Joseph, - if it be not rather the
inspiration of divine
wisdom, - to make the very lowliness of the calling of
his brethren the means
at once of their security and of their isolation.
It is not by claiming for them a high public
rank, and pushing them forward as entitled to honourable
consideration for
their relationship to him, that he wins for them the
place which he deems it
best and safest for them to occupy.
No. It
is rather in the position of the outcast
of the world, - the despised and rejected of
It is the same now.
The
world’s hatred is safer for the friends of Jesus than
the world’s smiles. “Blessed
are ye, when men shall
hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and
shall reproach you, and
cast
out your name as evil, for the Son of man’s sake”
(Luke 6: 22).
Joseph’s introduction or presentation of his kindred to
Pharaoh is evidently an affair of some little delicacy. He manages it
with his usual tact; or rather
with that mixture of sagacious policy and strong feeling
which seems to have
been natural to his character.
We have
seen how he has prepared his brethren, “his
father’s
house,” beforehand, and primed them, as it
were, for the royal audience
awaiting them. He
has come to an
understanding with them as to what he is to say about
them in introducing them
to the king, and what they, when introduced, are to say
to the king about
themselves. And
now he goes about the
business, as arranged, with a certain elaborate
observance of form that agrees
well with ancient oriental manners.
There is also, however, on the part of Joseph an
evident design to
maintain the independent standing and dignity of his
father’s house, and to
give to their settlement in
1.
Joseph enters the royal presence alone, and makes
his report to Pharaoh
(ver. 1). He tells the
king of the arrival of his
father and brethren, and also that he has taken it upon
himself to settle them
at
Two remarks here suggest themselves, - the first applicable to
Joseph’s part in this arrangement; the second applicable
to the overruling hand
of God which may be seen in it.
First, as to Joseph, - is it not noticeable that he does not
push the fortunes of his family at court?
Who else in his place would have failed to do so? The ball is at
his foot; the kingdom’s resources
are at his disposal.
His relatives could
not be refused preferment if he asked it for them. Offices in his
own household, and in the
king’s, await their acceptance, if Joseph will but give
the word. Provincial
appointments, all over the country
and its dependencies, may be theirs.
Unbounded wealth and honour may come to all of
them, if Joseph chooses
to use his opportunity on their behalf.
And why does he not?
Why banish
them to distant obscurity in
For it seems all but certain, from the narrative, - and it is
exceedingly remarkable. - that from the moment of his
bringing down his father
and [Page 432] brethren from Canaan, Joseph took the place, as far as
possible, and acted the part, not of the vizier and
prime minister of Pharaoh,
but of a child of Israel.
We read,
indeed, of his completing the operation which the famine
had suggested, and
effecting a great change in the tenure of property all
over
Secondly, in the whole of this matter, the over-ruling
providence of the Lord is conspicuous.
He brings
2. Having himself
prepared the way, by reporting to Pharaoh what he has
done, Joseph now solicits
and obtains for a select number of his brethren an
audience of the king (ver.
2).
This also is an affair of state, like the
formal reception of an embassy.
Joseph
would not have his people to appear before Pharaoh as a
miscellaneous crowd of
suppliants, or a company of needy adventurers.
They approach the throne by a deputation; the “five
men” act as representatives of an orderly
community, prepared to
negotiate a treaty with
[Page 433]
Thus these brethren of Joseph claim at Pharaoh’s hands the
humble portion
of the good things of
The gift is princely, and the manner of giving is princely;
there is in it an air of courtesy and liberality worthy
of a king; of one who
was then the highest of earth’s kings.
He gives simply and freely.
And,
by a refinement of kind graciousness, as if to lesson
the burden of the
obligation, he adds the suggestion that their services
may be turned to
account. The
benefit is not all on one
side; there is an honourable way of requiting Pharaoh’s
goodness; “If thou knowest any
men of activity among them, then
make them rulers over my cattle” (ver.
6).
3.
The personal interview between the
king and Jacob is one more of the scenes in this most
affecting history on
which few would choose or venture to expatiate (ver.
7-10). The simple
pathos of the narrative is only
marred by anything like lengthened comment or
exposition.
The meeting begins and ends with benediction.
When “Joseph brought
in his father Jacob and set him before Pharaoh,”
“Jacob blessed Pharaoh.” When “he
went out
from before Pharaoh,” “Jacob
blessed Pharaoh”
(ver. 7,
10).
“Without all contradiction, the
less is blessed
of the better” (Heb.
7: 7);
that is
the construction divinely placed on Melchizedek’s
blessing Abraham. May
not the same construction be placed on
Jacob’s blessing Pharaoh?
Pharaoh’s intermediate question indeed, coming in between the
two benedictions, may seem to savour of an assumption of
superiority (ver. 8).
He plays the king, - does he not? - according
to the customary kingly fashion of condescension,
when he asks “How old art thou?”
and yet it was
a natural enough question, and it might be put in all
simplicity. Jacob’s
countenance and gait betokened
extreme old age. Sin
and sorrow, anxiety
and care, had left their deep traces on a face furrowed
by many a tear; his
frame tottered under the load of griefs as well as
years. But
he had the calm look of faith, - his dim
eye caught a beam of heavenly light, - and there was
authority in his voice, -
when “he blessed Pharaoh!” His reply to
Pharaoh’s kind inquiry is very
touching; it must have deepened the impression made by
his grey hairs and
venerable mien. It
is a reply which,
familiar as it is from long past reading and
recollection, one cannot recall to
memory, even now, without a thrilling sense of reality;
as the scene represents
itself almost visibly before the mind’s eye.
There is Pharaoh, - at first, as I suppose, seated in state on
the throne, [Page
434]
- prepared, first by Joseph’s
explanation, then by the audience granted to the five
brethren, for the formal
reception of Jacob, the head and chief of the family. What sort of
approach to him, on the
patriarch’s side, the monarch may have anticipated, who
can tell? He
did not probably look for prostration, or
anything like abject and servile obeisance.
But was he prepared, - was even Joseph prepared,
- for the majesty, - it
must have been something majestic, - of Jacob’s act? Lifting-up his
hands, at the full height of
his stature, without one preliminary word of salutation
or gesture of
compliment to the king, the old man pours out his soul
in prayer; - asking
God’s best blessing on the royal
head; - and in God’s name,
pronouncing the customary blessing of Abraham’s
house and seed!
We have no more trace in history of this Pharaoh; he passes
from the stage with Jacob’s blessing on him.
May we not say that he passes from it with the
blessing upon him of
Jacob’s God? He
has had a strange
experience, for the king of a heathen land.
He has had
not a little personal
knowledge of the true God, Jehovah, the
God of
If he intended to receive the patriarch, as chief of the new
tribe he is inviting to a settlement in his dominions,
formally and in state,
as from the throne, - the patriarch’s first appearance,
as he entered the royal
presence, must have changed his purpose.
The tables, as it were, are turned.
Jacob, - with heart full of grateful feeling as
all the king’s kindness
rushes fresh upon him, - and conscious of his power, as
Israel, to prevail as a
prince with God in invoking a worthy recompense, - “Jacob
blesses Pharaoh.”
Shall we say
that the king feels himself to be blessed, - the less by
the better, - a
monarch of earth by a servant of the monarch of heaven? He quits the
throne accordingly and accepts
the patriarch’s benediction.
It is the
benediction of an old man.
How old, he
asks? The
answer moves him all the more:
“And Jacob said unto Pharaoh,
The days of the years of my
pilgrimage are an hundred and
thirty years: few
and evil have the
days of the years of my life been, and
have not
attained unto the days of the years of
the life of my fathers, in the days of their pilgrimage. And
Jacob blessed
Pharaoh, and went out from before Pharaoh.” It is the
benediction of a much tried and
much exercised old man.
He invites and
welcomes its repetition; for he has heard from Joseph
something of
And from all these particulars connected with the settlement
of the chosen family in the land in which they were to “dree a weary weird,” to work out a sad period of bondage, let us
learn such lessons as these: - (1)
How the Lord makes place and time suitable
for any crisis which He has appointed to happen, in the
history of His people
collectively, and of every one of them apart.
If
*
*
*
CHAPTER 63
JOSEPH’S
EGYPTIAN
POLICY -
GENESIS
47:
11-28.
Teach his elders wisdom. - Psalm 105: 22.
And
my people shall live in a
peaceable home. - Isaiah 32: 18.
Two
topics occur in this passage for consideration, the
policy of Joseph as ruler
in
1.
The Egyptian policy of Joseph is
very briefly noticed; and in the most incidental way;
some fourteen verses
comprise the whole.
Evidently it is not
a full account of the transaction that is given; and
evidently also, it is an
account of it simply in an Israelitish point of view. It is not
narrated as a part of the universal
history of the world, - nor even as a part of the
history of
Joseph, after obtaining the sanction of Pharaoh, proceeded to
carry out his plan and settle the chosen family, as a
peculiar people, in a
territory, which they could call their own.
And having so placed them, he nourished them; not
as if they were mere
mendicants receiving alms, - but in an orderly manner,
and with a full
recognition of their separate standing, as a tribe or
patriarchal community,
welcomed as such, in a friendly manner, by [Page 436] Egypt and its
prince (ver. 11,
12).
With
this account of the beginning of their settlement, the
account of their
progress fitly joins in (ver.
27).
The
intermediate narrative is quite parenthetical.
The account of Joseph’s conduct, as ruler in
But looking at it in itself, what are the facts of the
case? For
there would seem to have been
from of old, and to be still, not a little
misapprehension in many quarters in
regard to this matter.
The facts are few
and simple. At
the beginning of the
years of famine, Joseph sold the grain, stored up during
the seven years of
plenty, for money (ver.
14).
It is
not insinuated that he acted the part of an extortioner,
but only that he did,
in point of fact, obtain possession of the money, and
hand it over to
Pharaoh. The
grain market followed the
natural course of trade.
Joseph had corn,
- the people had money; but Joseph’s corn outlasted the
people’s money. Then
when “money failed,”
Joseph took cattle (ver.
15-17). How
long the money lasted is not said; but the cattle
lasted, as payment for corn,
only for a year. The
next year, probably
the last, or last but one, of the famine, the people had
nothing to give for
corn but their lands and their persons (ver.
18, 19). Joseph took
their land (ver. 20); and
as to their persons, he enforced a general removal from
the country into towns
(ver. 21). The priests
alone were exempted (ver.
22); it
would seem that their land had been already surrendered
to the crown, and that
they had become pensioners dependent on the king.
The ordinary population ceased to be
landowners, and came under a system which implied their
being, as a general
rule, settled in cities, rather than living a rural
life. They
were still, however, to have an interest
in the soil. The
cultivation of it,
after it became the king’s, was offered to them on easy
terms (ver. 23-26).
Leases
might be had, for anything we know, for any number of
years; or there might be
no need of leases.
The annual rent to be
paid by the people for liberty to till the ground was
fixed. It
was to be always and everywhere a fifth
part of the produce.
Four parts of it
were absolutely their own.
These are the plain facts here recorded, - without comment or
explanation. They
surely afford far too
scanty materials for determining whether Joseph, at this
crisis, acted a wise
and patriotic part for
But it is chiefly important to observe the bearing of Joseph’s
Egyptian policy upon the condition and prospects of
2.
And now the people of
It is a goodly and pleasant scene to look upon.
All the past is forgotten; its trials and
temptations, its sins and sorrows, - its dark passages
of deceit and envy, of
malice, lust, and blood, - its cruel separations, - its
anxious [Page
438] suspense,
- its trembling hope, - its
whole tragic interest of pity and terror.
All is over.
The intricate plot
is for the present unravelled, - the strange wild
romance is ended. And
now there is a pause; all is quiet.
There, in
* *
*
CHAPTER 64
THE
DYING
SAINT’S CARE FOR THE BODY AS WELL AS THE SOUL
GENESIS
47:
29-31.
A
hope and resurrection of
the dead - The hope of
“Jacob
lived in the land of
It was a short time, not only in itself, but even as compared
with the patriarch’s entire life.
For “so,”
- taking these seventeen
years into account, - “the
whole age of Jacob was an
hundred forty and seven years” (ver.
18). It was
not much more than a tenth of
his allotted earthly span, that Jacob was permitted thus
to spend in
It is a time that is drawing near to every happy home, to
every loving household; the fondest home-circle must be
thus invaded, the most
loving home-fellowship must be thus broken up.
A few short years of holy and peaceful sojourning
together may be
granted to you. But
the years are
numbered, - and the time draws near when one of you must
die.
How solemn is the parting-knell!
It has a voice to every house, every home,
every band of brothers, every
circle of
companions. What
are you about
together? How
are you living together?
Are you encouraging one another in sin; forgetting God,
and following pleasure?
Are you striving with another, envying one another,
injuring one another?
The time draws near when one of you must
die! Are
you, on the contrary, walking
together in the good way of the Lord, - seeking the Lord
together, - working
together for the Lord, - communing much together, oh! how
lovingly, in the Lord!
Still the time draws
near when one of you must die!
Have you in the midst of you a venerable patriarch, a brother,
or a father, much beloved in the Lord, - a parent, a
counsellor, a friend, a
pastor, who is to you as a sort of head, - whose words
of wisdom should be your
guide, - whose ever ready arm is your stay, - whose ever
ready smile or tear of
sympathy is your consolation?
Ah! if at
any time you are tempted, on the one hand, to make too
much of him, - to reckon
on him as your help for years to come, - to lean on him,
it may be, instead of
looking to God, - to idolize him, - or count him a
necessity of your
well-being; - or if at any time you are tempted, on the
other hand, to make too
little of him, to put away his counsels and warnings
till a more convenient season;
- may it not be good in either case to be realizing the
solemn fact, - that the
time draws near when your Israel must die.
For
This last is his first concern; he gives commandment about the
disposal of his body.
The future of his soul [into the underworld ‘
The old man is now content. His
soul
is to be with God [in “Sheol”
(Psa. 139:
8b; Psa.
16: 10.
cf.
Acts
2: 34; Rev.
6: 9-11.)], his body is to rest in
What does all this mean? Why
this extreme concern as to where his body is to lie? Is it mere
natural feeling, - the fond
imagination of a sort of pleasure in being laid near
kindred dust, - sharing
the narrow bed and the long home of loved ones lost and
mourned? It
may be so m part. Something
of that ineradicable instinct of
human nature would seem to be indicated, when the dying
patriarch afterwards
repeats the same request: “Bury
me with my fathers in
the cave that is in the field of Ephron. There
they buried
Abraham and Sarah his wife; there
they buried
Isaac and Rebekah his wife; and
there I buried
Leah” (49: 29-31).
There
is a touch of tenderness in this
last
remembrance, - “There I buried
Leah,” that cannot
but affect the heart.
Partly, then, it may have been natural feeling that moved
Jacob;
- and partly also wise policy and true patriotism. That the remains
of the last of their
patriarchal chiefs should be carried up by his people,
and with much state
deposited in the family vault, was an arrangement well
fitted to prevent their
settling down in
But there must have been something more than mere natural
feeling wise patriotism in this extreme urgency of
Jacob. These
and the like motives might incline him
to give a hint, to indicate a wish, to leave behind him
an order. But
the deep solemnity of the oath evidently
betokens something far more serious; - more spiritual; -
more intimately
connected with his own personal religious experience,
and his hope for [the Promised
Land and] eternity.
“I believe in the resurrection of
the body,” - that is the only
true and full interpretation of this remarkable
procedure of the departing
patriarch. “I know that my Redeemer liveth,
and that he
shall
stand at the latter day upon the earth. And
though after my skin worms destroy this body,
yet in
my flesh shall I see God.” That was Job’s creed; and it
was
Jacob’s. Job,
trusting in a living
Redeemer, looked
hopefully through the
loathsomeness of the tomb to a bright resurrection
morning. So
also did Jacob. He
too knew that he had a Redeemer who liveth,
- that he had for his Redeemer the Living One. He
therefore looked through death to life, - through
dying in the body to his
living again in the body. He believed
assuredly that the promises [of inheriting the land] made to him living in the body must be fulfilled to him living again in
the body, - since they were the promises of Him “who
is the God, not of the dead, but of the living." Therefore his body must rise
again, that in his risen body he may receive the
promised inheritance. That promised
inheritance is identified with the land within whose
borders he desires his
body to be laid. His being buried
there is his taking investment
in it with the very body in which, when it is raised
in glory, he is to receive
the promised “recompense of
reward.”
In this assurance Jacob
was willing to close his pilgrimage,
as not only a stranger and sojourner in Canaan, but an
exile in
Is not his faith
mine? And his hope? When the
time
draws near that I must die, - believing, I may commit my
soul to God. And my body [and
spirit] too.
I need not,
it is true, be so
anxious as Jacob was about the place or manner of my
body’s interment. I
have not the same occasion. I
am not called [in the same circumstances] to teach the same prophetic
lesson. I
may sit very loose to the
question where my lifeless frame is to lie, - in ocean’s
deep bed, - or on
earth’s wildest waste. But
it is not
because I hold the body cheap. No.
It
is
because I know that He to whom it is still united will
see to its safe keeping,
wherever it may rest, - and will restore it to me
soon, invested with His own
glory, - and [hopefully], will bestow upon me [at the “First Resurrection”], when it is restored to me, the promised [“thousand
years” and] everlasting inheritance in “the new heavens and the new earth,
wherein dwelleth righteousness.”
*
*
*
CHAPTER 65
THE
BLESSING ON JOSEPH’S CHILDREN –
JACOB’S DYING FAITH
GENESIS
48
By faith Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of the
sons of Joseph, and he worshiped, leaning on the
top of his staff.
- Hebrews
11:
21.
This
scene, or transaction, is partly natural and partly
supernatural; or rather it
is both throughout. It
is faith
prevailing against sense, and triumphing over it. But the triumph
appears in its being an affair
of sense, or of nature, which grace turns into an affair
of faith. Grace
reigns in it by faith; and it does so
all the more conspicuously because there is in it so
much of nature.
Besides the usual symptoms of age and approaching death, Jacob
has a special warning in an attack of illness. He is
sick; and the sickness is
the occasion of a second parting interview, as it were,
between him and Joseph
(ver. 1).
Possibly the
former interview may have
been supposed on both sides to be the last. Warned
by marks and signs of growing weakness,
that the time draws near that he must die,
But Jacob lives on. He
has
not fulfilled all his task;
he has not done all
his death-bed work. For
himself, he has
made full provision; his
soul is to be [in “Sheol” (Gen.
37: 35;
Psa. 139:
8b. cf.
Lk.
16: 22,
23, 30,
31, R.V.)] with God, and his body is to rest in
He comes on the impulse of natural affection. He
will visit his old and failing father once
more; and he will take with him his two sons,
that
their grandfather may give them a parting blessing. It is all
natural, and simply natural. Faith,
no doubt, moved Jacob, on that first
occasion of his becoming sensible of his approaching
dissolution, to call his
son Joseph, and give him directions as to his funeral. But here, at the
outset, there is no sending
in faith, or coming in faith; but only what might seem a
becoming expression of
the love which Joseph felt for his dying parent, and the
esteem in which he
held him, and would have his sons to hold him.
Very soon, however, faith begins to manifest itself, and to
give a turn to the interview far transcending the range
of sense or of nature: “
Thus it is “
So it is here. It
is “Jacob” - sick and
prostrate - who is told, “Behold
thy son Joseph cometh unto thee.” But
it is “
[Page 443]
His speech is all of faith and by faith. The
visit of Joseph and his two sons cannot
but be soothing and gratifying to his natural affection;
but that is not what
breathes in the old man’s words. He
is
divinely moved within to accept the incident as a divine
hint from above. It is
not as giving vent to his own feelings that he speaks
- but as having a
commission to execute, which God has put into his
mind, and for which God makes
him see and feel that the opportunity has now
providentially come.
1.
At once and
abruptly he begins a recital of
the Lord’s dealings with him from the beginning. And it is fitly
said that it is “Jacob”
who does so. The
whole of his first speech (ver.
3-7)
is specially
appropriate to “Jacob.”
It begins with a devout
acknowledgment of his obligation to grace; he recalls
the appearance of God
Almighty to him at
[Did Jacob intend thus
to transfer to Joseph the right of primogeniture? It may be so. For we read
elsewhere concerning Reuben, the
first-born of
It warms the old man’s
heart to be made, in his last days, the channel of
conveying to his son Joseph
so emphatic a token of the divine favour as his being
represented, in two
lines, in the chosen household. It
brings
back tender memories and reawakens buried love (ver.
7). Hence his reference to Rachel; and
irrelevant reference, but all
the more touching on that account. It is Rachel’s child who stands beside his bed; to Rachel’s child it is
his last joy on earth to communicate the divine
decree. It
is Rachel’s child whom he is permitted thus
to crown with double honour.
2.
But it is the religious faith, rather
than the natural affection, indicated in this
transaction, that is chiefly to
be noticed. At
first, apparently, Jacob’s
dim eyes had not recognized his two grandchildren
separately. But
now they are brought forward with formal
courtesy, and some sort of ceremony, to receive Jacob’s
embrace and blessing. The
old man kisses and embraces them; and then
simply expresses his gratification and gratitude: “I had not thought to see thy face; and lo, God hath showed me also thy seed”
(ver. 8-11). Then
comes the solemn patriarchal,
or rather prophetic act. With
his hands upon their heads the aged seer
announces the will of the Lord. “Israel stretched
out his
right hand, and laid it upon Ephraim’s head, who was the younger, and
his left upon Manasseh’s head, guiding his hands
wittingly; for Manasseh was the first-born” (ver.
12-14).
This strange act receives a twofold explanation.
(1) Generally, as applicable to both of Joseph’s sons alike,
the
divine purpose is declared.
“He blessed Joseph,
and said,
God, before
whom my
fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk, the
God
which fed me all my life long unto this day, the
Angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless
the
lads; and let my name
be named on them, and
the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac; and let them grow into a multitude
in the midst of the earth”
(ver. 15,
16). It
is
“
[*
NOTE. Here
is scriptural proof that, (1)
the
souls of the holy dead are presently in “Hades”
awaiting
their Lord’s return to earth, and the “First”
or “Better Resurrection”
(Luke 16: 22-31, Rev.
6: 9-11, Acts
2: 34, 1 Thess. 4:
16; Rev.
20: 4-6,
Heb. 11:
35b); (2)
that they “hope” to enjoy “the
thousand years” on this restored earth and in “the Land of Promise” (Dan.
12: 10-13, Jer.
29: 11,
Isa. 65:
19-25,
Rom. 8:
19-25,
Rev. 20:
4, Rev.
3: 21);
and (3) that
the inheritance and blessing
belonging to the “first-born”
can be forfeited
by the behaviour of regenerate believers, (Heb.
12: 14-17, 1
Cor. 5: 9-13,
6: 9,
Gal. 5:
19-21;
Eph. 5:
5, 6.)!]
(2) “
But the blessing, though with a distinction thus made, in the
exercise of sovereignty, between the lads, - as if to
show that it is the
blessing of the same God who gave the oracle, “The
elder
shall serve the younger,” - is still
comprehensive enough to
embrace both. And
as embracing both, it
is so rich and full, that nothing beyond it can be
imagined as desirable for
any one: “He blessed them that
day, saying, In thee shall Israel
bless, saying,
God
make thee as Ephraim and as Manasseh” (ver.
20).
That surely must be a blessing, inclusive of “the
promise which godliness has, both of the life that now is, and of the life
that is to come” (1
Tim. 4: 8). No
other blessing could dying
“
3.
And now the patriarch closes the
affecting interview with one more declaration of his
faith: “Behold I die, but God shall be
with you, and bring you again unto the land of your fathers” (ver.
21). As to himself, he dies in sure and certain hope of the [“better”] resurrection and of an [earthly] inheritance beyond the grave.* For
Joseph, and for all his family
whom he leaves behind, he gives his dying confirmation
to the assurance that the earthly inheritance is certain to the family of Abraham
at last. And
in testimony of his faith
to that effect, he leaves a final and very peculiar
bequest [Page 446] to Joseph: “Moreover, I
have given to thee one portion above thy brethren,
which I took out of the hand of
the Amorite with my sword and
with my bow” (ver.
22).
[* NOTE. The two
adjectives are necessary here
because, (1) all (who have lived and died upon this
earth) - will be
resurrected, sooner or later
– either before or after
“the thousand years” (Rev.
20: 13):
and
(2) not all of those saved by grace through faith, will
“be accounted worthy to attain to that age, and
the resurrection from the dead” (Luke
30: 35,
R.V.). cf. See Paul’s hope,
- Phil. 3:
11-14;
Acts 26: 6-8.]
It is a bequest of special significancy. It
is like the transaction into which Jeremiah
entered, on the eve of the captivity at
So now, at Jacob’s deathbed, - and long after, when the memory of that
deathbed, traditionally preserved in song or story,
shed a ray of dim light on
the darkness of the Egyptian oppression, - this act of
the patriarch, disposing
of property in Canaan in favour of his beloved son, as
unhesitatingly as if he
were the actual owner of the whole country, must have
served to keep alive the
steadfast belief in which Jacob died, that “God
would
bring them again unto the land of their fathers.”
In this view of the bequest, the precise locality of the “portion” bequeathed, - and
the precise manner in which
Jacob acquired it, - need not occasion much inquiry. It may have been
the identical spot which he
purchased at Sychem, and which he may have been forced
afterwards to vindicate
by arms, against some unjust attempt to dispute his
title. But
be that as it may, the portion was
now, and for ages would continue to be, out of the
reach of himself and his
seed. He
foresees the long sojourn in
Thus, “by faith Jacob, when
he was a dying, blessed
both
the sons of Joseph; and
worshiped, leaning
upon the top of his staff” (Heb.
11: 21).
The
blessing which he pronounced on his grandsons was an act
of worship as well as
an exercise of faith; it
was a believing
acknowledgment of the Redeeming Angel, in whose name
it ran. There
worship more express and formal. But
the material point is that
the worship, whether virtual or explicit, was
pilgrim*-worship.
Jacob “worshiped
upon the top of
his staff.” It
may have been for support to his feeble
frame that he did so; his worshiping upon the top of his
staff may be thus
sufficiently accounted for. In
leaning
on it, however, he must have been reminded, by the very
sense of his frailty
that made him lean on it, that he
was a pilgrim on the earth,
and that his pilgrimage was very near its close. It is as one
going on a journey - [holding
on
to God’s promise of an earthly inheritance in “the
land” after his resurrection]
- that he worships, when he blesses
the sons [Page 447] of Joseph. Staff in hand, he
worships and blesses, - as, long afterwards, his
descendants were commanded to
do when they kept the Passover (Exod.
12: 11).
He is
going hence. His
worship and his blessing have respect to a
hereafter, - to the resurrection state in which he himself, and Joseph’s
sons, and all his true seed, are to receive the [millennial and] everlasting inheritance.
[* “
And what shall we say of Joseph’s faith in all this strange
procedure? What
is he doing here? He
is giving up his two sons to
Jacob. He
is consenting virtually to
their being disinherited as regards their position and prospects in
It does not appear that Joseph left, through any other son, a
name to be ranked among the nobles of the Egyptian
court; there is no trace of
his having founded a family. No
explanation
can be given of that fact, especially in the view of his
bringing
his sons to be blessed by Jacob, - except that he did
all by faith. It
was with him as with Moses.
“By faith Moses,
when he was come to years,
refused to be called the son of
Pharaoh’s daughter; choosing rather to
suffer affliction with the people of God,
than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season;
esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the
treasures in Egypt:
for
he had respect unto the
recompence of the reward” (Heb.
11: 24-26).
Joseph
made the same choice; and he made it in the exercise
of the same faith.
*
*
*
CHAPTER 66
JACOB’S
DYING PROPHECY -
GENESIS
49:
1-12.
My
Beloved is white and rudy, He
stands out among ten thousands.
- Song
of Solomon 5:
10.
He
brought me to the
banqueting house, and His banner over me was love.
-
Song of
Solomon 2: 4.
There is
a solemn assembly in the patriarch’s dying chamber, -
around his dying bed: “Jacob
called unto his sons, and said, Gather yourselves
together” (ver.
1).
“Gather yourselves
together,” is his summons, - all of
you, - not one cut off. This
is Jacob’s
privilege, above what his grandfather and his father
had. They
had to submit to a pruning process, - painfully
losing natural branches, - that the promise might be
seen to be of grace, and
of the election of grace. Abraham
had to
give up Ishmael, born after the flesh, - and to consent
to his seed being
called in Isaac, the [Page
448]
son by promise. Isaac
had to let Esau go, and confirm the
covenant in Jacob. But in Jacob the family is one; the
heads of the chosen race
are complete. Expansion,
not
contraction, is henceforth to be the rule. The
stream is to be widened, and not narrowed
any more. All
his sons are “gathered”
round Jacob. They
are to learn what is to befall them in
after time (ver. 1);
they are to listen to a far-reaching prophecy. It
is no “Lochiel’s
warning” of “coming
events casting their shadows
before,” - no dreamy oracle of gifted,
second-sight diviner, - that they
are to hear. Nor
is it the utterance of
such almost preternatural sagacity of insight and
foresight as has sometimes
been supposed to be the dying privilege of peculiarly
saintly men. The
patriarch speaks under the inspiration of
the Omniscient [Holy] Spirit. He has really before
him
what is to befall his sons, in their offspring, “in
the
last days.”
These last days are the Messianic times. Jacob’s
eye of
faith and hope is fixed upon the advent of the promised
Saviour when he sees
and sketches the nearer or remoter fortunes of his
descendants. On
that background the different destinies of
the tribes of
“Hear,”
he
cries, with voice divinely strengthened and divinely
moved, to pour out in a
rapt divine song what he saw in rapt divine vision, - “gather
yourselves together, and
hear, ye sons of Jacob;
and hearken
unto Israel your father” (ver.
2). Hear,
ye
sons of “Jacob.” Ye
are Jacob’s sons, - sons of “the
worm Jacob,” - in yourselves worms, as he is, -
weak, unworthy, vile. But
your father is
not “Jacob” merely; he is
“
The minute exposition of it I do not mean to undertake; a very
cursory survey is all that I can attempt.
Two things may
be noticed at the
outset. First,
it is partly
retrospective as well as prospective. It
proceeds
upon a review of the past, as well as upon foreknowledge
of the
future. Jacob
reads off the fortunes of
his sons, in their respective races, under the light of
what they had shown
themselves to be. This
does not detract
from the prophetic character of the poem; for its
predictions are not such mere
conjectures as observation might suggest. But
an important principle in the divine administration
is thus brought out. It
is that of
transmitted character; - and,
within certain limits, transmitted
destiny too. What
his sons were, and
what they did, must tell powerfully, for weal or for
woe, on what the tribes
that spring from them are to enjoy or suffer. Secondly,
the chief interest of
the prophecy centers in two of its utterances, - that
about
Judah
and Ephraim, - which is Joseph, - are representative or leading tribes
along the whole line of the eventful history of the
Jewish people. And
therefore they fitly occupy the prominent
places in the two parts of Jacob’s dying oracle
respectively.
Keeping these preliminary remarks in view, I now briefly
sketch the patriarch’s successive oracles concerning the
tribes of
1.
Reuben
comes first (ver. 3,
4). He
should
have been strong; he proved himself to be “unstable
as
water.” The contrast is emphatic and affecting,
as it brings out what the old man would have had his eldest son to be, and what he turned
out to be. My
might, - the prime
of my strength, - all
that
I had of excellency, in
respect of dignity or power, -
all might have been his. But
he lost it
all by his instability; he wanted self-control. Impatient
and impetuous, he was like an unruly
stream, soon spending its force, and then becoming
languid. He
had manifested this temperament in the
commission of a horrible crime. It
was
great wickedness; but it was great weakness too. His father
fastens on the weakness of it; the
entire want of self-command which it too plainly
showed. And
he foresees that, if this is to be the
character of his tribe, it must mar all prospect of
high fame or fortune.
Did it not really do so when, upon the first success of Moses,
after the long wandering in the wilderness, Reuben grasped at the earliest chance of repose and self-indulgence, -
and sought a settlement on the east of the Jordan, in
the first country
conquered, before Canaan proper was reached?
But besides
his natural vice of
instability, transmitted as a hereditary taint to
his tribe, we must recognize
here also, as affecting them as well as him, the
judgment of God upon his sin. The
guilt he had contracted lost him his
birthright, as the inspired historian testifies (1
Chron. 5:
1,
2). He was still indeed to retain his place, in the
reckoning of the genealogy, as the first-born: but the rights and privileges of primogeniture were to pass from him.
2.
Simeon
and Levi, as
next in order, have a
joint oracle given forth concerning them (ver.
5-7).
Their father
speaks very plainly. He
denounces unsparingly their sin, in the matter of
their sister Dinah. Their
vile treachery and bloody cruelty had troubled him at
the time; and now, on his
deathbed, he looks back upon it with unabated, or
rather with enhanced, horror.
He
solemnly
anathematizes their fierce anger and cruel wrath; in
fact, their share
in their father’s last blessing is very like a curse.
He
does not indeed altogether cast them
out. They are still to be reckoned among his sons, - and
the tribes springing
from them are to be numbered among the people. But it
is to be in a way marking them out as the objects of
retributive judgment. They
are to be “in Jacob,” “in
3.
Reuben, Simeon, and Levi
being disposed of and set aside,
Who is this
(1) What a “gathering together in one
of all things in him!” (Ephes.
1: 10). “Unto
him shall the gathering of the people be”
(ver. 10). Nations
are
flowing to Him, - multitudes of all tongues and
kindreds. Well
they may. For He is giving peace, - He
is speaking peace; - peace from heaven; - peace on
[this]
earth.
(2) And
with what plenty of all
richest and choicest blessings do I see Him loaded! – “Binding
his foal unto the vine, and
his ass’s colt unto
the choice vine; he
washed his garments in wine,
and his clothes in the blood
of grapes” (ver.
11). He
comes - a prince, - “thy
king,” 0
(3) And then how fair is this glorious peacemaker, this
bountiful and blessed prince, as I see Him coming! – “His
eyes shall be red with wine, and
his teeth white
with milk” (ver.
12).
I need not stay to show how the history of the tribe of
But I must offer a word of explanation as to the view which I
have ventured to give of the closing portion of the
oracle concerning him.
I assume, as all but universally admitted,
that the Messiah
is the party indicated
by the name
Now this application of these verses is open to some remarks. First, it is by
no means clear that
Taken thus, the sublime utterance of
How much, or how little, the patriarch knew of a previous
coming of that illustrious one, - to obey, and suffer,
and die, - we cannot
tell. He
knew at least that “without
shedding of blood there is no remission,” and
that “through
much
tribulation lies
the entrance
into the kingdom of heaven.”
We who live
now, under the partial
realization of Jacob’s great vision, know all that
better than he could do. We
know “Christ and
him crucified.” We
know Jesus,
who was once crucified, as now exalted at the right hand
of God. But
do we fix our eye as
steadfastly as Jacob did on what is our hope now; - the fuller realization of this vision at the glorious appearing of the Lord
from heaven? Do
the words – “till
*
*
*
CHAPTER 67
WAITING
FOR THE SALVATION OF THE LORD
- SEEING THE SALVATION OF THE LORD
GENESIS
49:
18
I have waited for Your salvation, 0 LORD.
This is
a remarkable ejaculation in the circumstances. What
can it mean? Is
it a part of the oracle about Dan, at the
close of which it comes in? Is
it Dan
who is to be understood as using these words? Does
Jacob put them into the mouth of that
tribe as expressive of their future character? Or
is it the old man speaking for himself -
breaking out, in the midst of what he feels to be his
somewhat weary work, into
a pathetic appeal to God for rest?
Whatever may be its import, I cannot but take it to be the
utterance of his own emotion; the irrepressible sighing
of his own heart. Perhaps
it indicates some little
disappointment. The
picture of the
prospective fortunes of his house which the [Holy] Spirit is setting before him is not all bright. On
the contrary, it has in it too many
features of resemblance to what he has already met with
in his actual family
history. The
future is to be too like
the past; what his sons have been their several
posterities are to be. Reuben,
Simeon, Levi, have passed in review
before his divinely opened [Page
454] eyes,
with little to give him
comfortable hope. In
Judah, indeed, he
has seen a glorious sight - Shiloh coming and gathering
to Him all nations - the
King, meek, and riding upon an ass - setting
up
a kingdom of peace and plenty - resting
and
giving rest amid overflowing abundance of wine of the
choicest grapes -
Himself all fair - “the chiefest
among ten thousand,
and altogether lovely.” But the very
glimpse he has thus got of
Messiah’s royal beauty causes a kind of reaction. It is brief and
evanescent, like a flash of
light across the dark and lowering sky. He
has
instantly to change his hand and check his pride. The strain has
risen for a moment to heaven’s
holy harmony of joy and glory; it comes down again at
once to earth’s broken
music. The
burden may not be quite so
heavy as before. Elements
of
material prosperity are in the busy scenes which its
glowing language
depicts. There
is Zebulun along the sea-coast,
almost rivalling great Zidon in its commerce (ver.
13). Issachar
also
is seen stretching his lazy length in his rich inland
valleys, un-ambitious
of distinction in policy or war - content with the
alternate animal rest and
servile toil of a rude life of rural safety and
abundance (ver. 14, 15).
And
Dan rises conspicuous -
giving rulers and judges to
all
What it was that Jacob waited for may be made matter of
doubtful
disputation. Any
signal deliverance
wrought by God may be called, in Scripture language, “his
salvation.” The
miracle of the
When thus used absolutely. without any particular event being
specified, it may denote simply the Lord’s saving power
and grace generally;
and thus understood, it includes much that is fitted to
awaken interest and
call forth desire. That
God saves, - and
how God saves, - are the two parts of it; - both of
them, if we look at them in
the right light, not a little wonderful. In
the first place, that God saves at all, -
that He can save, being such as He is, and men being
such as they are, is not
quite so much a matter of course as we are apt to fancy.
For, let us remember,
it is such salvation as can be called His, emphatically
His, - that is now in
question; - such salvation as may be fitly and worthily
ascribed to Him. And
therefore, [Page 455] secondly, the
manner of it is
all-important, - how He saves. An
insight
into that is indispensable.
“Thy salvation, 0
LORD,” - Thy manner of saying! How
it is possible for Thee to save at all, -
upon what principles, after what fashion, Thou art
minded to save, - what may
make it possible for Thee to save, if 1 may so say,
safely, - without
derogating from Thine infinite perfections, - without
prejudice to Thyself, 0
LORD, and to the glorious majesty of Thy throne and law,
- that to me is a
marvel! It
is a mystery,
- the knowledge of it is too wonderful for me.
“It is high, I
cannot attain unto it.”
Thou hast indeed been a Saviour to me, 0 Lord! Thou
hast been so on many an occasion, in many
a danger, in many a trying hour. Thou
hast
been continually “delivering my
soul from death,
mine eyes from tears, and
my feet from falling” (Ps.
116: 8).
Surely Thy dealings with me personally prove that Thou savest,
- that it is Thy delight, Thy very nature, to save. And they teach
something also as to the manner
of Thy salvation; - how much there is in it of
long-suffering patience, generous
forbearance, tender pity; - how much there is in it also
of utterly undeserved
and gratuitous loving-kindness; - how much of wisdom and
kind consideration; -
how much of what is fitted to touch the conscience and
win the heart.
Still there is darkness. That
Thy salvation should be of such a sort in
my case, - that Thou shouldst have so saved, so
often,
such an one as I am, - is to my mind only an aggravation
of the darkness.
Nor is the darkness dispelled when I look away from my own
personal history to other instances of Thy power to
save. These
have been very terrible in many of their
accompaniments, - so terrible, that in spite of all that
I have tasted of Thy
saving goodness, I may well doubt if I am really saved
after all, - I who have
so abused Thy goodness that even it may all the more
condemn me. I
cannot but ask if the deluge of wrath must
not at last be my portion, rather than the ark of
safety, - the fire of
Nay, even the sacrificial rite which I have been accustomed to
observe, the plunging of the knife into the innocent
victim slain in my stead,
- can only very partially chase the gloom away. The
awful truth it proclaims, that “without
shedding of blood there is no remission,” does
but suggest the anxious question, - Can this blood
suffice?
Ah! it might well be with deep and poignant grief that the
dying Israel, feeling himself to be still, - to be at
that dread moment more
than ever, - the poor, weak, sinful worm, Jacob, -
uttered this plaintive
voice, in the midst of his prophesying, - “I
have waited
for thy salvation, 0
LORD.”
He had thought he was now at last to obtain full satisfaction.
He would
gladly have laid an arrest on
the bright and beauteous form that flitted past him, as
he saw for a moment the
coming
May not something of the same spirit be traced in other Old
Testament references, - especially in the Psalms and in
Isaiah, - to the [future] salvation of the Lord; and in the attitude of the church, or of the [regenerate] believer, towards that salvation?
Thus in the 35th
Psalm, we have such
supplications as these: “Plead
my cause, 0 Lord,
with
them that strive against me; - Say
unto my soul,
I am thy salvation.” “My
soul shall be joyful in the Lord,
it
shall rejoice
in his salvation” (ver.
1, 3,
9). Here there is waiting for the salvation [“of souls”
(1 Pet. 1:
9, R.V.)] of the Lord, - waiting in
confident expectation. It is waiting
under a cloud. It
is waiting under the cloud occasioned by
the triumph of the ungodly, in their persecution of
the righteous;
- “For
without cause have they hid for me their net in a pit,
which without cause they have
digged for my soul” (ver.
7). The
problem, the question, is still virtually
the same. How
is the riddle of God’s
providence to be read?
I cannot be at rest while I see violence and wrong prevailing,
- and the meek ready to perish. But
I
know that the Lord reigneth in righteousness. There
must be a time, not only of righteous deliverance for
His poor and oppressed
ones [“the salvation of souls”], but of righteous
reckoning with their oppressors. I
confidently
anticipate such a time. Therefore
I say
that “my soul
shall be joyful in the Lord;” – “It
shall rejoice in thy salvation,” - for which “I
have waited,
0 LORD.” It is no malignant joy in human misery; it is the joy of seeing God’s
character [as a righteous Judge] vindicated, and His rule upheld,
by His own righteous method of deliverance being at
last realized and
fulfilled.
Then, again,
the 50th. Psalm closes emphatically thus: - “Whoso offereth praise
glorifieth me: and to him that ordereth his conversation aright will I show the salvation
of God” (ver.
23). That
is
God’s own promise. He will show to the upright the
divine salvation, - the
only sort of salvation that is worthy of Himself. Let us remember
the argument of that fiftieth
Psalm. After
a tender expostulation with
those who are really His own among the people, for not
trusting, loving, and
praying to Him enough, - and a terrible denunciation of
those who are merely
hypocrites and self-deceivers, - who take God’s covenant
in their mouth and yet
conform to the world and its wicked ways, - the Lord
finds the source, at once
of the weak un-steadfastness of the godly, and of the
reckless presumption of
the worldly, in the “silence”
which in His
providence He is now “keeping,”
and the too
common and natural misinterpretation and abuse of that
silence on the part of
both sorts or classes of men. It
is the
silence of forbearance, and of the delay of judgment,
which encourages the
profane and is apt to perplex the pious. But
both will soon have light enough on the
only way of salvation that is consistent with
righteousness. “These things hast thou
done, and I kept
silence, - thou
thoughtest I was altogether such an
one as thyself, - but I will reprove thee,
and set them in order before thine eyes.”
There is to
be a speaking out, [at His Judgment
Seat] on the part of [Page
457]
Him who is now “keeping silence.”
And it is in connection with that
prospect that it is said; - “To
him that
ordereth his
conversation
[or “doctrine”
(1 Tim. 4:
16)]* aright, will I
show the salvation of God.” I will show him
the
salvation that alone can be of God; - the salvation that
is righteous as well
as gracious. Therefore
such a one may
confidently and humbly reply, - “I wait,” - I
have waited, and will still wait, - “for
thy
salvation, 0 LORD.”
[* See 1
Tim.
1: 10,
11: “…
sound doctrine;
according to the gospel of
the glory of the blessed God,
which was committed to my trust” R.V. also, 6:
3, - “If
any man teacheth
a different doctrine, and
consenteth not to sound words, even
the words of
our Lord
Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which
is
according to godliness…”]
But it is in the 119th Psalm
pre-eminently that this
great thought of the Lord’s salvation is made matter of
devout meditation and
prayer. “Quicken
me in thy righteousness. Let thy mercies come also unto me,
0 Lord; even
thy salvation,
according to thy word” (ver.
40, 41).
“Let
my heart be sound
in thy precepts, that
I be not ashamed; my
soul fainteth for thy salvation; but
I hope in thy word” (ver.
80, 81).
“Mine
eyes fail for
thy salvation,
and for the word of thy
righteousness” (ver.
123).
“Lord, I
have hoped for thy salvation, and
done thy commandments” (ver.
166).
“I have longed for thy
salvation, 0 Lord,
and thy law is my
delight” (ver.
174).
Surely all
this is indeed “waiting for
the salvation of the Lord!” And
it is the waiting of one who is thoroughly
on the side and in the interests of God; of His “righteousness,”
His
“precepts,” His “word;”
“the word of his righteousness,”
His “commandments,”
His “law.”
In every instance in which he speaks of the salvation of the
Lord, the Psalmist speaks of it in
connection
with a prior and paramount recognition of the Lord’s
own character
and claims. (1)
“Let thy salvation come to me;”
(2) “my soul fainteth for thy
salvation;” (3) “mine
eyes fail for thy salvation;” (4) “I
have hoped for thy salvation;” (5) “I
have longed for thy salvation;” these are
strong,
earnest, and emphatic breathings of devout desire. But as to the
first, the salvation must come “according
to thy word;” as to the second, “my
heart must be sound in thy precepts;” as to the
third, Thy salvation must be identical with “the
word
of thy righteousness;” while the fourth and
fifth stand connected with
the devout profession: - “I have
done thy commandments,”
- “Thy law is my delight.”
No [future] salvation could content me that is
not in harmony with these high and holy principles;
- these deep
convictions of my soul. No
[future]
salvation
could approve
itself as Thine that
did not meet this
inexorable condition.
But the Psalmist feels that in none of the salvations with
which he is familiar, whether personal, or domestic, or
national, is it met
adequately and sufficiently. Much
there
is in all of them to manifest both the goodness and the
severity of God; for
there are always tokens of His displeasure against sin,
in the midst of all His
loving-kindness to the sinner. But
in
none of them can either retributive justice or saving
mercy be seen to be
complete, and to have its perfect work. Both
the
righteousness and the grace halt, and fail of their full
accomplishment. The
onlooker is still staggered by the seeming
impunity of evil; only a partial and doubtful victory
being secured on the side
of good. If
he is of one mind with the
Psalmist, - if he is of one mind with the Psalmist’s
Lord, - he waits
for what, as being more thoroughly
according to His law, may more worthily be called “his
salvation.”
In a remarkable
series of prophecies
in Isaiah (46-56), the Lord speaks of [Page 458] “his salvation.” And
He speaks of it. as no longer to be waited
for, at least not much longer, but as now at hand and
within reach. “I bring near my
righteousness; it
shall not be far off, and
my salvation shall not tarry; and
I will place
salvation in
This [future] salvation of the Lord is brought near in the train of righteousness - His
own righteousness. What
righteousness
that is, the description of the Messiah which stands in
the very heart of this
glorious evangelical prophecy,
indicates beyond all possibility of doubt.
For, in the fifty-third chapter, not only is the fact of the
Lord’s salvation being near confirmed, but the manner of
it also is declared; -
and in so far as that can be done beforehand, it is
declared clearly and fully.
The
righteousness of God: - a righteousness
that is in every view His, - provided by Him, wrought
out by Him, accepted by
Him, applied by Him; a righteousness infinitely worthy
of Him, and therefore
worthy of being called His; - commensurate with His own
perfect righteousness
of nature; - corresponding perfectly to the
righteousness of His government and
law; - a righteousness having in it both precious blood
to expiate deadly guilt
and sinless obedience to win eternal life; - such a
righteousness, in the holy
person and atoning work of Him whom the prophet
describes as “wounded for our
transgressions,” - goes
before, and opens up the way for, the
Lord’s [coming] salvation; - a
salvation as worthy of
Him, and of being called His, as is the righteousness
which is its pioneer; -
such a salvation as the Psalmist had before his eyes; -
such a salvation as
Jacob would fain have seen, when he said; “I
have waited
for thy salvation, 0
LORD.”
Need I trace this thought running through the Old Testament,
any farther? Let
me simply bring it down
to Gospel times.
The aged Simeon here sufficiently shows the way. He
was one who could say with Jacob; “I
have waited for thy salvation, 0 LORD.” But
he had not to say it exactly as Jacob had
to say it. The
patriarch must be content
to depart with the language, so far, of ungratified
curiosity, or rather, of unsatisfied
desire, on his lips – “I have
waited.” Not
so this “just and devout”
man. He “waited for the consolation of
Simeon’s attitude, rather than Jacob’s, may be said to be
ours. And
yet may not the two be
combined? May we not enter all the more into Jacob’s “waiting,”
the
more we enter into Simeon’s “seeing?”
We should be
able to say, with a fullness of
meaning which even Simeon could not grasp, that our eyes
have seen the
salvation of the Lord. Not
the infant
Jesus in the temple has been disclosed to us, - but
besides, the man Christ
Jesus, - in His life, and death, and resurrection;
teaching, doing good,
obeying and suffering. Christ
crucified,
Christ glorified, it is ours to see; to see in the
light of inspired apostolic revelation; to see with
eye opened and purged by
the same [Holy] Spirit who inspired that revelation. Truly, we see the
salvation of the Lord as Simeon could scarcely be said
to see it!
What then? Is there to be no more waiting for it? Nay,
if we see it as Simeon could scarcely see
it, we will say with more intensity than Jacob could
say: “I have waited, - I wait,
- for thy salvation, 0
LORD.” For this
surely is a case in which it must hold true “that
increase
of appetite grows by what it feeds on.”
The more we
see of the [future] salvation, the
more we wait for
something more of it still to be seen. In
fact,
there can be no
real waiting
without some seeing. Jacob
must have
been able, in some measure, to enter into Simeon’s
grateful acknowledgment, - “Mine
eyes have seen thy salvation;” else he never
would
have felt his own longing, - “I
have waited for thy
salvation, 0 LORD.”
And Simeon,
when he found what had been
revealed to him fulfilled, and could say, “Mine
eyes
have seen thy salvation,” did
not
cease to wait, - nay rather he waited all the
more, - “for thy salvation,
0 LORD.”
For the salvation of the Lord; - what it is; of what sort, and
in what way effected; how the Lord saves, and all that
is implied in His
saving; - is as immense and inexhaustible as is His own
infinite fullness, -
the “fullness of the Godhead”
that “dwells bodily in Christ.”
Therefore,
for deeper insight into it and for
larger enjoyment of it, there must always be waiting, -
waiting evermore. Even
in eternity there is waiting for it. The
dying saint, - the dying sinner scarcely
daring to own the name of saint, weary and way-worn,
conscious of little in
himself but ignorance, infirmity, and unbelief, yet
still holding on, - may be
apt almost to complain - “I have
waited for thy salvation,
0 LORD;” and alas! I seem
to have been waiting
all but in vain! What
of its light and
joy is mine? What
of its sensible
comfort? What
of its full assurance? What
of its beatific vision? its rapture? its
triumph? What
of
the outburst - “I know, I
see, I mount, I
fly?” Depressed
and doubting, or
at the best, “faint yet pursuing,”
- he asks, Is
this then, after all, the salvation that I have been
waiting for, 0 Lord? Is
this indeed Thy salvation? Nay it
is not. It is not, at least, the whole of it. Be thankful for
the earnest of it, which is “waiting
for it.” Thou
hast been waiting for it; and thou mayst
have to wait for it still. Waiting
for
it is thy security now; waiting for it will be thine
eternal joy in [the messianic
kingdom and in] heaven.
Let no one therefore ever say, dying or living, in any other
spirit than that in which Jacob said it - “I
have waited
for thy salvation, 0
LORD.” For,
with whatever sense of the vanity of
earthly things, and the unsatisfactory nature of even
the best earthly
prospects, for himself and his, [Page
460]
he said it, - of one thing we may be
sure, he did not say it in the spirit of unbelief. On
the
contrary, if I am right in my impression of what he
meant, he was moved to say
it by the very sight his faith had just got of
How is this salvation to be waited for? What
is implied in waiting for it? Let
one or two texts give the answer.
1.
“Surely his
salvation is nigh them that fear him” (Ps.
85: 9).
Do we “fear him?”
Do we
deprecate the Lord’s wrath, as
that Psalm does? - “Cause thine
anger against us to
cease;” “Wilt thou be
angry with us forever?”
“Wilt thou draw out thine anger
to all generations?”
Are we as
much in earnest as the
Psalmist is about God’s favour toward us, and our
revival toward Him?
“Thou hast been
favourable;”
“Thou hast forgiven;” “Wilt
thou not revive
us again, that thy
people may rejoice in thee?”
Do we thus
wait for His salvation? - “Show
us thy mercy, 0 Lord, and grant us thy salvation.”
Do we
moreover wait in the attitude of
obedient faith, - “I will hear what God the Lord will
speak;” and of believing
hope, - “for
he
will speak peace to his people, and to his saints;” and
of thorough separation
from evil and an evil world, - “let
them not turn again
to folly”? Then,
surely, His
salvation is nigh to us, as “to
them that fear him.”
All the more
it is so, if we make what
follows your own special and personal prayer; “That glory may dwell in our land, mercy
and truth
meeting together, righteousness and peace kissing
each other.”
2.
For, as another Psalm puts it (96: 2),
if like Simeon, we see - and like Jacob, we
wait for - the Lord’s salvation; let us “sing
unto the
Lord and bless his name, and
show forth his
salvation from day to day.”
Yes! let us show forth His
salvation;
let us tell all men that He saves, and how He saves; let
us make known the way
of saving grace. The more we do so the more shall we have of insight and experience - of
hope and expectation - with regard to it. Both
Simeon and Jacob tried that method;
let us try it also. The
more we try it,
the more shall we have cause to say with Simeon, “Mine
eyes have seen thy salvation;” - and with
Jacob, “I have waited for thy
salvation, 0 LORD.”
3.
The actual result or issue, present
or prospective, of this “showing of the Lord’s
salvation,” is a great help to
us in our own experience, as “seeing
it,” and
yet “waiting for it.” The Psalmist
celebrates, in anticipation, a
glorious time, “0 sing
unto the Lord a new song; for
he hath done marvellous things: his
right hand and his holy arm, hath
gotten him the victory. The Lord hath made
known his salvation; his
righteousness hath he
openly showed in the sight of the heathen. He hath remembered his mercy and
his truth toward the house
of
4.
Let the saying in Lamentations
(3:
26) be kept in mind:
“It is good for a man both to
hope, and quietly to
wait for the salvation of God.” Let
no man object to a waiting posture, - even
though it should continue to be a waiting posture to the
end; - even though he
should feel as if it is all waiting, and only waiting,
that he has to acknowledge
as his experience; -“I have
waited for thy salvation,
0 LORD.” For
this waiting posture is very becoming and
very blessed. It
is good to wait; - not
to wait in indolence, or idleness, or indifference; -
not to wait with the
sluggard’s folded hands, or the fatalist’s dark, stem,
moody apathy of soul;
but to wait intelligently; - with desire and hope; - to
wait, because we know
something of the blessedness of what we wait for: - to
wait in patience,
because what we have already tasted of what we wait for
is so rich a boon, and
so thoroughly undeserved, that we may well be content to
wait, ever so long,
for ever so little more of it.
As regards the Lord’s
first coming, and its immediate fruit, there
should be on our part, as on
Simeon’s, the
actual, present seeing of
the salvation of the Lord. The
righteousness
in the train of which it comes is not to be waited for.
That is
near; Christ is near, “Jehovah
our righteousness.”
“Moses describeth the
righteousness which is of the law, That
the man which
doeth those things shall live by them. But the righteousness
which is of faith speaketh on this wise, Say not
in thine heart, Who shall ascend into heaven? (that is, to
bring Christ down from above) or,
Who shall descend into the
deep? (that is, to
bring up Christ again
from the dead). But what saith it? The word is nigh thee,
even in thy mouth, and
in thy heart: that is,
the word of faith which we
preach; that if thou
shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus,
and shalt believe in thine heart
that God hath raised
him from the dead, thou
shalt be saved. For with the heart man
believeth unto righteousness; and
with the mouth
confession is made unto salvation. For the scripture
saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be
ashamed” (
Not waiting therefore, - but looking, seeing, embracing, - is
our duty and privilege, when Christ is set forth as
come, already come, - crucified,
already crucified, - risen, already risen; - “delivered
for
our offenses, and
raised again for our
justification.”
[Page 462]
But He cometh again. “Unto
them
that look for him shall he appear the second time,
without
sin,
unto salvation” (Heb. 9: 28). And
looking for Him now is waiting for Him,
with “loins
girt
and lamps burning.” It
is
watching also, as not knowing at what hour the Master
may come; but yet “knowing the
time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep, for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed”
(Rom.
13: 11).
*
*
*
CHAPTER 68
CLOSE
OF JACOB’S DYING PROPHECY - THE BLESSING
ON JOSEPH
GENESIS
49:
19-32
Now I have come to make you understand what shall happen to
your people in the latter days. For
the vision is yet for many days.
Daniel 10: 14.
Let
blessing come upon the
head of Joseph, and upon the top of the head of
him who was separated from
his brothers. - Deut. 33: 16.
Of the
twelve tribes, as represented by his twelve sons, in
this last oracular
vaticination of “Jacob who is
Israel,” three are
connected, as it would seem, with Judah - namely,
Reuben, Simeon, and Levi, -
the other seven belong more properly to Joseph.
These last are called in order. Zebulun,
Issachar, and Dan come first. At
Dan, the patriarch pauses for a moment. Under
the somewhat disappointing impression of
a descent from the glorious vision of the Messiah,
vouchsafed to him in
connection with
The utterances regarding them indeed are so
brief and enigmatical as to defy, at this distance of
time, anything like a
really discriminating application of them, or a
trustworthy historical
verification of them. They
doubtless
suggested marks and badges, of which a college of
heralds might have made good
use in emblazoning the escutcheons and banners of the
tribes. Gad
is represented as a multitudinous host, with signs in
its ranks both of defeat
and of victory, - but ending in victory; “Gad,
a troop shall overcome him;
but he shall overcome at the last” (ver. 19).
Asher
is a giver, or receiver, of rich and princely banquets;
“Out of Asher his bread shall be
fat, and he shall
yield royal dainties” (ver.
20). Naphtali
is an animal of speed and beauty running at large,
and uttering pleasant
voices; [Page 463] “Naphtali is a hind let loose:
he giveth goodly words” (ver. 21). And
Benjamin
is an animal sly and predatory, prowling secretly in the
dark for victims; “Benjamin
shall ravin as a wolf: in
the morning he shall devour the prey, and
at night he shall divide the spoil” (ver.
27).
These are all significant enough delineations; they may have
served as watchwords among the tribes when their
fortunes came to be developed.
And it is
not difficult to trace points
of correspondence between the curt hints thus addressed
to his sons, and the
actual circumstances of their families to such an extent
as sufficiently to
vindicate the inspiration of the dying patriarch. At the same
time, it must not be forgotten
that these hints are very curt, and that much modesty
and forbearance ought to
be exhibited by any who would interpret them
particularly; - still more by any
who would take exception to them as incapable of
explanation. They
may well be left in some obscurity, - at
least for the present, - for we cannot say what light
the future may yet shed
on these early archives.
Even the oracle about Joseph
is to be cautiously handled. It
is fuller
than the rest. The
old man’s heart is in
it. It is like the swan’s fabled strain in dying. He pours it out
with a richness and
copiousness of expression, altogether unlike the summary
conciseness with which
he dispatches the others (ver.
22-26).
First, growth and fertility, - exuberant growth, luxuriant
fertility, - are ascribed to this “rod
out of the stem”
of
Again, secondly, he appears as an archer. He
is beset for a time by other archers,
vexing and wounding him in their envy. But
his weapon is unhurt, and his strength is
unimpaired. One
mightier than himself
shields him from harm, and nerves him for endurance and
triumph; “The archers have
sorely grieved him, and
shot at him, and hated
him:
but his bow abode in strength,
and the arms of his hands were
made strong by the hands of
the mighty God of Jacob; (from
thence is the
shepherd, the stone of Israel:) even by the God of
thy father, who shall
help thee; and by the
Almighty, who shall
bless thee” (ver.
23-25).
Then, thirdly, the varied abundance of the good things provided
for him is indicated; He “shall
bless thee with
blessings of heaven above, blessings
of the deep
that lieth under, blessings
of the breasts,
and of the womb” (ver.
25).
And finally, in the fourth place, as if he would exhaust his
whole soul in one last loving embrace of his favourite
son, - the son so worthy
of his favour, - the dying patriarch intimates that,
signal as were the
blessings he had himself got heaped upon his head by his
pious and believing
forefathers, he would have them surpassed and excelled
by the blessings he
invokes on Joseph, - as much as the great, old, far-off
hills, that are ever
the same, surpass and excel in grandeur the little
fields of ever-changing
tint, on which the passing seasons, year by year, leave
their evanescent hues;
- “The blessings of thy father
have prevailed above the
blessings of [Page
464] my
progenitors unto the
utmost bound of the everlasting hills: they shall be on
the head of Joseph”
(ver.
26).
Such is to be
Joseph’s happy portion;
- a portion in respect of which he is to be as much
distinguished from the
other sons of Israel in prosperity, as he was in trial;
- for all these
blessings are “on
the crown of the head of him that was separate from
his brethren” (ver.
26).
There is, it must be owned, a good deal of vagueness in all this benediction, - at least
to our apprehension now.
Considered as a prophecy, it is general rather than
specific, - indefinite
rather than precise; - furnishing few, if any, points of
minute identification
between its foreshadowings and the subsequent history. Nor is much
additional light thrown upon it by
what looks almost like an explanation or amplification
of it, in the dying
speech of Moses (Deut.
33: 13-17).
It is unquestionable that in after time Joseph, as represented
principally by the tribe of Ephraim, - for the division
of Manasseh into two
parts necessarily weakened the influence of his tribe, -
held a most
conspicuous place in Israel’s territory, and played a
most conspicuous part in
Israel’s history. All
that Jacob said of
him was fulfilled in large measure, before the sad
revolt of the tribes among
which he took the lead from the throne of the house of
David, and the temple-worship
of the Lord in
One clause in the benediction is peculiar, - the parenthetical
clause; “From thence is the
shepherd, the stone of
Thus the dying patriarch reads off the histories of his
descendants. Thus
he divides the several
families that are afterwards to constitute the
Having discharged this last office, his mind returns to his
own situation and his own prospects. He
reiterates
his earnest and anxious entreaty as to the disposal of
his body; - “And he charged them,
and said
unto them, I am to be
gathered unto my people:
bury me with my fathers”
(ver. 29).
He is
particular, - after the garrulous manner
of old age shall I say? - nay rather, for it is the true
explanation, in the
intensity of his believing hope; [Page
465]
he is minutely particular in pointing
out the identical spot where he wishes his [bodily] remains to be laid; - “In the cave
that is in the field of Ephron the
Hittite,
in the cave that is in the field
of Machpelah, which is
before Mamre, in the
land of Canaan, which
Abraham bought with the
field of Ephron the Hittite for a possession of a
burying-place” (ver.
29-30).
He
indicates the reason of his anxiety, and the longing
desire which he has to
serve himself heir, in his burial, to his father and
grandfather. They,
with their wives, reposed in that tomb
in which he has already laid his Leah. He
would
fain lie there himself; - “There they buried Abraham and Sarah
his wife; there they
buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife; and
there I buried Leah” (ver.
31). And,
as
if to obviate all objections, and vindicate, with his
dying breath, his
unquestionable right to the place of sepulchre in which
he so solemnly adjures
his sons to lay him, he adverts to the original
acquisition of the property by
Abraham, for the burial of Sarah; - thus justifying his
grandsire’s far-seeing
prophetic wisdom in refusing to take it as a gift, and
insisting on having it
by purchase; - “The purchase of
the field and of the
cave that is therein was from the children of Heth”
(ver. 32).
So ends this closing interview of Jacob with his sons. They
have for themselves his last solemn
warnings and blessings, - and his last orders as to his
own remains.
*
*
*
CHAPTER 69
THE
DEATH OF JACOB - HIS CHARACTER AND
HISTORY
GENESIS
49:
33; 50: 1.
Watch the perfect man, and behold the upright, for the
end of that man is peace.
-
Psalm
37: 37
Do
not fear, worm Jacob.
- Isaiah
41:
14
Hear
this, 0 house of
Jacob, who are called by the name of
The
strangely chequered course of Jacob’s earthly history is
run. His
end is peace; and according to God’s
promise (46: 4),
Joseph
closes his eyes; -“When Jacob
had made an end of
commanding his sons, he
gathered up his feet
into the bed, and
yielded up the ghost, and
was gathered unto his people. And
Joseph fell upon his father’s face, and
wept
upon him, and kissed
him” (49:
33; 50:
1).
The manner of his death is simply told. First,
he composes himself to rest, and as it
were, to sleep; he calmly assumes the attitude of
repose. He
[Page
466]
has done with life; - its business is
all ended. When
“the time drew near that Israel must die” (47:
29), he at once
proceeded, with wonderful
self-possession, to set his house in order, - to give
directions, “by faith,”
concerning his burial, - to bless, “by
faith,” the two sons of Joseph, - to pronounce,
“by faith,” the inspired
oracles that told what was to
befall his children in the latter days, - and to charge
them once more solemnly
with the obligation to lay his body in the grave of his
fathers Abraham and
Isaac, - in the
land which his seed were
to receive for an inheritance. And
now,
his deathbed work being over, he lies down exhausted,
quietly to await the
summons to his long home. It
comes. He
resigns his spirit to Him who gave it; he
commends his soul to God. And
he has
gone home, - gone to be one of the kindred multitude
that have gone before.
It might be unsafe to make much of these expressions in
themselves -“he yielded
up
the ghost, and
was gathered unto his
people,” - or to put on them a very strict
literal interpretation. They
are expressions used generally to denote
death, in almost any circumstances. One
cannot
help imagining, however, that as used originally in
early times, and
with reference to their verbal derivation and
significancy, they may have meant
more than they were understood afterwards to mean, when
they became the
hackneyed familiarities of common speech. They
certainly seem to indicate two ideas of
death, not unlikely to occur to primitive thought; - the
one, that of a sort of
acquiescence or contented surrender; - the other, that
of being involved in a
sweeping and comprehensive cast of the fatal net, which
draws into a common
receptacle or reservoir the successive swarms of the
human race. The
one is a kind of voluntary parting with
life; the other is being swallowed up in the mysterious,
unseen realm which
collects in its capacious bosom, one after another, the
busy generations that,
one after another, people this changing world. Be
that, however, as it may, there can be no
doubt that these words denote a calm and peaceful close
of the patriarch’s
troubled career.
It had indeed been a troubled career. From
first to last it was a sore, sad struggle
of the flesh against the spirit, and the spirit against
the flesh. Let
us recall some of its stages.
1.
There was misunderstanding from the
beginning - misunderstanding and unbelief. The
oracle which accompanied his birth should
have ensured order and peace; it turned out, on the
contrary, to be the
occasion of confusion and strife. It
was
no secret in the household. The
two
brothers, while yet boys, or lads, evidently knew all
about it, and made it a
ground of quarrel and bone of contention. The
parents were divided in regard to it. The
mother and her favourite younger son were
in favour of what it foretold; the father and his
first-born, on the other
hand, would rather stand out for the natural right of
primogeniture, and set
the oracle at defiance, or let it fulfil itself as it
best could. Hence
the unseemly and un-brotherly scene of
the birthright sold for a mess of pottage; - Jacob
seizing his opportunity - Esau
despising his privilege. Hence the still more melancholy scene of
the wretched struggle for
the blessing; - the father trying to go against the
Lord’s decree - the mother
seeking to accomplish it by fraud. It
was the oracle that set them all at variance,
through their unbelief. They
all sinned [Page 467] and were sinned against; - with
what proportions of wrong sustained and guilt
contracted, it is vain to
inquire.
But certainly, of all the
household,
Jacob was in the worst and most difficult position. Had the oracle
been believed and obeyed, he
might have taken the place assigned to him, with such
wise and loving counsel,
on the part of father and mother alike, as would have
prevented all family
heart-burnings, and united parents and children together
in looking to the
promised Seed and Saviour, with a view to whom it was
that the younger son was
chosen. His
being thus chosen, with this
view, would not then have stirred in him either pride,
or envy, or deceit. But
he found himself an occasion of strife. He
sought to end it by a sort of compromise
with his brother - for the transaction of the mess of
pottage seems, on his
part, to have been of the nature of a compromise - the
symbol of his
surrendering the temporal inheritance for the
spiritualities of the birthright.
But the
miserable jealousy of favouritism
grows. And
between the one parent bent
on what must frustrate the oracle, and the other
devising carnal means for its
accomplishment, Jacob, not yet himself strong in faith,
falls a ready victim to
the policy which, instead of trusting God with the
bringing to pass of His own
purposes in His own time and way, will insist on taking
what is altogether God’s
matter into its own control, and planning and acting at
its own hand on God’s
behalf.
2.
A brighter scene opens at
On that night, as his head leans on his pillow of stone, he is
alone with God. He
is very near heaven -
heaven is very near him. It
is open to
him. God
from heaven, God in heaven,
deals with him. A
covenant is ratified -
a personal covenant. The
two parties
mutually give themselves to one another.
Jacob is now a new man; old things are passed
away - all things are
become new. So
he begins his lonely
pilgrimage in
For it is to be to him spiritually a lonely pilgrimage, in
which, with much in his outward lot to harass and
distract him, he may have
enough of difficulty in walking with Him whose covenant
he has embraced. He
falls into very worldly society, and
becomes familiar with worldly ways. The
kindness
he meets with among his mother’s kindred is sadly marred
by
covetousness and cruel craft. He
is hurt
and wounded in his tenderest and purest affections. His domestic
comfort is blighted in the very
bud. He is
entangled by human guile in a
breach of the holy and honourable law of marriage
ordained by God - and one
breach leads on to more. A
happy
household, a godly seed, can scarcely be looked for. What prosperity
he meets with is embittered by
the unscrupulous artifices against which he has
continually to guard. At
home, in his family - abroad, in his
business - it is an uneasy life he has to lead. Certainly
there is not much in it that is
congenial to the spirit of the solemn and significant
transaction at
3.
But it is
not change of scene only that will
arrest a tendency to backsliding, or heal
backsliding
begun, and restore the soul. Jacob
is
recalled from the land of his exile, and is to sojourn
again in the land where
God personally met him, and dealt graciously with him. But he is not to
re-enter
it without a fresh awakening. A
new
personal meeting, a new gracious dealing, on the part of
the Lord, awaits him
ere he re-crosses, now become two bands, the
So, as a prince, by his strength he has power with God. Seeing God face
to face, and having his life
preserved, he becomes
4.
Still,
Jacob’s revival is not complete. The
Lord needs yet again to visit him, for he
is tempted to take his ease.
Forgetful apparently of his old vow at
5.
It is when
thus awakened, chastened, and
comforted, that Jacob receives, upon his father Isaac’s
death, the
patriarchate, or patriarchal headship. His
brother
Esau having been led, as it would seem, of his own
accord, though of
course under special providential guidance, to migrate,
with his whole
establishment, already growing into tribes or dukedoms,
into the wide regions
ever since occupied by his posterity, - Jacob quietly
succeeds his father, and
takes his place as the representative and chief of the
chosen race. Together
the two brothers, friends at last,
bury their father Isaac. And
it is graciously
so ordered that when Jacob comes, in terms of the oracle
to serve himself heir,
he does so, on the one hand, with no objection or
opposition on the part of his
brother Esau, but on the contrary, as it would seem,
with his acquiescence, if
not even with his consent; and he does so, on the other
hand, in connection with
such fresh and recent dealings of the Lord with him,
both by His word and by
His providence, as are evidently blessed by the [Holy]
Spirit for his personal quickening
and revival. It
is with mingled feelings
that after all his trials he now takes the place of
Abraham and of Isaac.
6.
In
that capacity he
has still sharp discipline to endure. Not
to
speak of the sins of Reuben and Judah, he has to pass
through the whole
trial connected with Joseph.
Here too,
as in former instances, the root of much, if not all, of
the evil is to be
found in unbelief; - in an unbelieving disregard of the
mind and purpose of
God, sufficiently revealed, and in sufficient time. If the
manifestly inspired dreams with which
the young lad was twice visited had been duly observed
and turned to account, -
if pains had been taken to make them the ground of
patient expectation on the
part of all the family, instead of their being allowed
to become the occasion
of jealousy and suspicion, - how much domestic sin and
sorrow might have been
avoided! But
his father rebuked him, and
his brethren envied him. And
though his
father’s rebuke might be slight and passing, since he
was, and was deservedly,
a favourite child, his brethren’s envy remained and
rankled. Instead
of faith leaving it to God to bring to
pass His own end by His own means, there is the sin of
unbelief which we have
so often had occasion to point out. Man’s
fond
folly and fierce passion must come in. God
is not acknowledged; His salvation is not
waited for. Hence
misery at home; - and
abroad, cruel “plotting against
the righteous.” The
dreamer is still, in spite of his dreams,
the favoured, if not petted child, - and his brothers [Page 470] must somehow get rid of him. Thus
long
years of grief are brought upon Jacob. His
patriarchal reign is, alas! no
reign of righteousness, and peace, and joy. He
has to mourn for Joseph as lost, - lost by
a horrid fate, - torn, as he is made to think, by savage
beasts. And
with all their anxiety to comfort him, his
remaining sons, conscious of hypocrisy and the cruellest
lie men ever told, -
can only very partially succeed. Wild
also,
and lawless, they too often are in their own lives. Benjamin, his
Rachel’s Benjamin, - the last
pledge of her dying love, - is almost the only earthly
consolation of his fast
declining years. But
now comes the
famine, - and even Benjamin must go. Yet
once
more Jacob is to be thoroughly bereaved. A
strange, inscrutable, stern necessity, shuts
him up, and hedges in his way. There
is
no outlet, - no escape; any where; any how. He
must part with all; yes! all;
to please an Egyptian tyrant, - to satisfy his jealousy
and gratify his
caprice; - or else he and his must starve. The
nest is bare! The
last and dearest fledgling is rudely torn
away, to glut the insatiate maw of the all-devouring
monster that the
7.
At last
there begins to dawn upon him some
glimpse of light - some insight into the meaning of what
has been so dark in
the divine providence towards him.
But even here, what the light, as it dawns, reveals, is not
all bright and clear. In
the tidings
that Joseph is alive in Egypt, and has prepared in Egypt
a home for his father
and all his house, - in the importunate message which
Joseph sends, in his own
name, and the king’s, - in the wagons, and carriages,
and provisions, all ready
at his door for the journey, - Jacob’s slowly opening
mind begins to recognize
a hint, or solemn intimation, that the time has come for
the fulfilment of the
Lord’s prediction to Abraham; “Know
of a surety that
thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not
theirs, and shall
serve them; and they
shall afflict them four hundred years; and
also
that nation, whom they
shall serve, will I
judge: and afterward
shall they come out with great substance” (15:
13, 14).
It is not simply a visit he is about to pay. It
is not even merely a temporary sojourn of a
few years he is to make, till the calamity of the famine
is overpast. Jacob’s
eyes are opened to the truth. The
summons from
And now this Jacob
is dead. “After life’s
fitful fever he sleeps well,” commending his
soul to God, and his body to be buried in
His character may not be great perhaps as men count greatness;
not exalted; not noble; not fit for high achievements;
but weak, rather, if you
will, and inclined to the arts of weakness; not always
amiable, any more than
admirable; apt to suffer by contrast with some of the
finer natural qualities
which such a man as his brother Esau occasionally
exhibits. Yet
surely, on the whole, it is a character
worthy of study, and not without attractions. At
any rate, it is all before us; the worst
and the best. We
see what materials
grace and faith had to work with. And
we
see what, in the actual result, grace and faith made of
these materials. We
see grace making a weak man strong; for
surely to the last he was strong in faith. It
made “the worm Jacob”
“the
prince
His varied, chequered, troubled experience, - is it not full
of instruction and comfort to the spiritually exercised
soul? It is
almost, - next to David’s, - the most so
of any left on record in the Old Testament. There
is scarcely a mood of mind into which
sin or sorrow can cast a believer that may not find a
type, or parallel, or
example, in Jacob. Weakness
in himself,
as well as weakness caused by his suffering wrong at the
hands of others, - and
these others familiar friends as well as foes, - foes of
his own household, - Jacob
certainly exhibits. Much
of his history
is written for our warning; in much of it he is a beacon
rather than a pattern.
But
much also is written for our
encouragement and guidance. In
running
the race [for the prize]* set before us, “faint yet pursuing,” amid
many cares and fears, many faults and infirmities, we
may learn not a little
from Jacob, while we seek to walk as strangers and
pilgrims on the earth, - “waiting
for thy salvation, 0
LORD.”
[* See, 1
Cor.
9: 24;
2 Tim. 4:
7, 8.]
*
*
*
[Page 472]
CHAPTER 70
THE
BURIAL
OF JACOB THE LAST SCENE IN
GENESIS
50:
1-13.
And Jacob went down into Egypt and died, he and our
fathers. And they were carried over to Shechem and were
laid in the tomb which Abraham bought for a sum of
money from the
sons
of Emmor of Shechem. Acts
7:
15,
16.
The
burial of Jacob was an affair of state. It
was
a public ceremony conducted with national pomp. This
must surely have been Pharaoh’s
doing. Jacob
himself never could have
dreamed of it; and it does not seem to have entered into
the mind of Joseph to
solicit or expect it. He
assumes indeed
at once, as a matter of right, or a matter of course,
the position of head of
the family; - and it is evidently conceded to him,
without dispute or
hesitation, by his brethren. He
takes
the charge and oversight of the whole business, and
adopts measures for
carrying his father’s last wishes into effect, and
having his body carried to
And this, probably, is the simple explanation of a
circumstance for which many frivolous and conjectural
reasons have been
imagined, - his communicating with Pharaoh on this
occasion, not himself
personally, but by a message sent through third parties
(ver. 4).
He has, for
the time, withdrawn from the
court; and is in deep seclusion, either in his own
apartments, or more
probably, in the bosom of his father’s house. He
had already made it manifest enough, that
in the height of his Egyptian glory and prosperity, he
was so far from being
ashamed of his connection with a wandering horde of
shepherds from
Plainly, during Jacob’s
lifetime, Joseph counted it better to be Jacob’s son
than to be the nearest to Pharaoh’s
throne.
And now that
Jacob is dead, [Page 473] his feeling and his faith are unchanged.
He has closed his father’s eyes, - and given vent to a burst
of uncontrollable grief; - “Joseph
fell upon his father’s
face, and wept upon him, and kissed him” (ver. 1).
He looks
back from that aged deathbed, through
the vista of more than half-a-century of troubled life,
and recalls the days
when, as a child, he got that “coat
of many colours,”
- the last gift of fond fatherly love, before it was so
rudely rent and so
cruelly crushed. He
proceeds to execute
the task that now remains. Though
shut
up in the retirement of mourning, whether at
These seventy days of mourning being past, and all now being
ready, Joseph prepares to start on his melancholy
journey towards
Being Pharaoh’s servant, he has to obtain Pharaoh’s leave; “When the days of his mourning were
past, Joseph spake
unto the house of Pharaoh, saying,
If now I have found
grace in your eyes, speak
I pray you, in the
ears of Pharaoh” (ver.
4). He
does
not go to ask it himself. This
is
not certainly, - it could not be, - from any distrust of
the king. Perhaps
the etiquette of court excluded from
the royal presence one whose appearance in the attire of
first mourning might
cast a gloom over the royal household. Perhaps
he felt that he could scarcely venture
to face his master and friend, who had shown such
kindness to himself and his
lost father, without the risk of being too much
overcome. Or
perhaps he deemed it more becoming, when he
was acting, not as Pharaoh’s favourite minister, but as
the head and
representative of another race, to approach the king
thus humbly, through the
officers of the household; - the customary channel for
conveying addresses and
petitions to the throne.
Be this as it may, what Joseph asks his Egyptian friends to
say on his behalf to his beloved and loving sovereign,
is very simple and
touching; “My father made me
swear, saying,
Lo, I
die; in my grave which
I
have digged for me in the land of Canaan, there
shalt thou bury me. Now therefore
let me go up, I pray
thee, and bury my
father, and I will
come again” (ver.
5).
They are
simply to tell how Jacob laid
Joseph under a vow, - and that in a manner more than
ordinarily solemn and
affecting. My
father was old before he
left
Such brief leave of absence, for such a sacred duty, Joseph
asks his friends to solicit on his behalf.
There is no hint of his
desiring a pompous funeral; he has no thought of
anything of the sort.
His one wish
is simply to do his father’s
bidding. It
is Pharaoh himself,
evidently, who makes a national affair of what
might otherwise have been nothing more than a family
arrangement.
The king grants his favourite minister’s request after a
kingly fashion; -“Pharaoh said,
Go up and bury thy father,
according
as he made thee swear” (ver.
6). The
father
of the man who has laid him and his kingdom under such
obligations, -
carrying them so well through the crisis of such a
famine, and making it the
occasion of consolidating the empire and confirming its
supremacy among the
nations, - is not to be buried as a common man. Joseph
is by all means to accomplish his
promise, and carry the loved remains to
It was a goodly cavalcade, - a “very
great company.” It
was Pharaoh’s
way of signalizing the man whom he delighted to honour.
And it was a
tribute of regard, that would
probably more exalt Joseph in the eyes of all Egypt, -
and that would
certainly, as we may well believe, come more home to
Joseph’s own heart - than
his first investiture with the fine linen and the gold
chain when he was
proclaimed ruler over all the land. It
must
have been to Joseph almost as if his royal master had,
with his own hands,
carried his father’s head to the grave. The
Egyptians
saw how Pharaoh loved Joseph; and they fully sympathized
with both.
The procession thus formed moved towards
[Page 475]
It was a goodly cavalcade, - a “very
great company.” It
was Pharaoh’s
way of signalizing the man whom he delighted to honour.
And it was a
tribute of regard, that would
probably more exalt Joseph in the eyes of all Egypt, -
and that would
certainly, as we may well believe, come more home to
Joseph’s own heart - than
his first investiture with the fine linen and the gold
chain when he was
proclaimed ruler over all the land. It
must
have been to Joseph almost as if his royal master had,
with his own hands,
carried his father’s head to the grave. The
Egyptians
saw how Pharaoh loved Joseph; and they fully sympathized
with both.
The procession thus formed moved towards
So “they
came
to the thrashing-floor of Atad” (ver.
10). That
spot where the funeral cavalcade
halted, was, as is commonly supposed, on the east side
of the
But before they separate, there is an entire week spent by the
whole host together in a great and very sore
lamentation. The
mourning, according to old eastern usage,
is loud and clamorous. And
it is
universal. Not
the Hebrews
alone give way to their emotions; their Egyptian
companions also join in the
vociferous wailing. In fact, it would seem as if they
played the first part,
and took the lead. It
was their parting
burst of grief as they suffered the Hebrews to go on
alone from the thrashing-floor
of Atad to the burial-place in
The Egyptian convoy
having thus halted on the confines or borders of
Canaan;
- either because their having come
thus far was deemed a sufficient token of respect, or
perhaps because their
farther advance might have been misconstrued as a
hostile demonstration; - the
family of Jacob proceed, by themselves,
across the Jordan into the land of Canaan proper, and
accomplish their purpose
peaceably, without difficulty or disturbance: “His
sons did unto him according as he commanded them:
for his sons carried him into
the land of Canaan, and
buried him in the cave of the field of Machpelah,
which Abraham bought with the
field for a possession of a
burying-place of Ephron the Hittite, before
Mamre”
(ver. 12,
13). Then,
leaving
the buried body of the patriarch in the cave of the
field of [Page 476] Machpelah, they slowly and sadly retrace their steps; - “Joseph
returned into Egypt, he
and
his brethren, and all
that went up with him to
bury his father, after
he had buried his father”
(ver. 14).
It is their last look at
the inheritance promised to their fathers. They
themselves are to return to it [in this
life] no more; and ages of oppression are to roll on before [some of] their children
see it. Joseph
in particular must have had feelings
peculiar to himself on the occasion. He
had
not been in
It is almost like a second selling to the Midianites, - a
second going down to captivity. It
is as
if he were a second time exchanging Canaan’s
bright
promise for
But, strong in faith, he
is prepared for present duty. He must keep his
word
to Pharaoh.
How far, or in what way, this incident of Jacob’s funeral may
have
affected the relations between the Egyptians and the Canaanites,
it is altogether vain and idle to speculate. Conjectures
may be formed as to the effect, in
after-times, of what the Canaanites witnessed at the
thrashing-floor of Atad,
and of the way in which they thought it worth while to
preserve the memory of
it. It is
just possible that they may
have conceived the idea of the Egyptians having some
purpose of helping the
Israelites, at a future convenient season, to obtain
possession of the
territory in which they took such formal internment by
the burial within its
borders of their great father Jacob. The rumour
of the prophecy about Abraham’s
seed may, at an earlier period, have aroused their
suspicion and alarm, - and
it may have been some relief to them to see Jacob and
his whole house migrating
into
[Page 477]
So the Canaanites may have reasoned. And
their reasoning in this way may have led,
by-and-by, to a reaction among the Egyptians. As
the memory of Joseph and his services
became faint, and a different dynasty of Pharaohs
occupied the throne, and the
Israelites multiplied and became formidable for their
numbers, it might become
the policy of
Be this, however, as it may, and it is no more than a
conjecture,
however plausible or probable, the state-funeral of
Jacob, with all Egyptian as
well as Hebrew honours, marks the culminating point of
Israel’s favour and
prosperity in the land that was to witness their long
bondage. After
that signal mark of distinction, the
chosen family begin, as it would seem, to fall out of
public view; - to become
isolated and detached; - gradually ceasing to attract
notice; - left very much
to themselves, to tend their flocks and occupy the
territory assigned to them,
- and to increase and multiply till they grow into a
people numerous and strong
and compact enough for invading and possessing Canaan. This in fact is
to be their safety. They
are to be let alone. Not
until a much later period is the vast
Hebrew population in and around Goshen to force itself,
as a matter of
surprise, on the attention of the Egyptian rulers, and
to awaken jealousy and
alarm. Meanwhile they
are, in a sense, hidden by the Lord in a secure
place, until the time comes for
His displaying the power of His outstretched arm in
signal judgment on their
oppressors, and a glorious deliverance [and earthly inheritance] wrought out for them.
*
*
*
[Page 478]
CHAPTER 71
JOSEPH
AND
HIS BRETHREN - THE FULL ASSURANCE OF RECONCILIATION
GENESIS
50:
14-21.
And now, brothers, I know that you did this without knowing what
you did, as is also true of your rulers.
But what God had before
proclaimed by the mouth of all His
prophets, that Christ should suffer,
He fulfilled in this way. Then
repent and be converted, for the
blotting
out of your sins, so that
the times of refreshing from the presence of the
Lord may come
Acts
3: 17-19.
The
funeral obsequies in Canaan being over, the entire
cavalcade return to Egypt: “Joseph
returned into Egypt, he
and
his brethren, and all
that went up with him
to bury his father, after
he had buried his
father” (ver.
14); and it might seem that things would now fall, as a matter
of course, into the usual quiet routine. Surely
by this time there should be a complete
understanding among all the parties in the agitating
scenes that have been
enacted, as to the footing on which they are to be
towards one another.
Joseph has finished his good work of settling
his father’s household in “quiet
habitations;”
and they have nothing to do but peaceably pursue their
ordinary occupations,
grateful to Joseph and Pharaoh, above all, grateful to
God. But
this assured state of things is not to be
immediately realized. There
is to be
still farther explanation, - a still more express and
formal adjustment, as it
were, of all outstanding claims and liabilities. The covenant of
peace is to be again renewed,
and ratified even more solemnly and affectionately than
before.
Once more, therefore, let us look at Joseph and his brethren,
as they are seen confronted with one another, after
their father’s death has
left them to themselves.
The brothers are agitated by a fear not unnatural. Conscience
again makes cowards of them. In
spite of all the kindness they have
experienced at Joseph’s hand, they have the idea that he
may have been
dissembling his purpose of retaliation, and under the
mask of smiles, really
all the while only “nursing his
wrath to keep it warm.”
Like Esau in
his rage against his brother,
they think perhaps that Joseph may have been restrained
by the awe in which he
held their father, and so may have postponed his revenge
till after his
decease: “When Joseph’s brethren
saw that their father
was dead, they said,
Joseph will peradventure hate us,
and will certainly requite us
all the evil which we did unto
him” (ver. 15).
To avert this danger, they have recourse to two expedients. They first send
a message to Joseph, professing
to embody a commandment of Jacob: “Thy
father did
command before he died, saying,
So shall ye say unto Joseph,
Forgive,
I pray thee now, the
trespass
of thy brethren, and
their sin; for they
did unto thee evil; and
now, we pray thee,
forgive the trespass of the
servants of the God of thy father”
(ver. 16,
17). And
then
they [Page 479] follow up the message with a personal appeal: they “went
and fell down before his face; and
they said, Behold,
we be thy servants” (ver.
18).
It has been supposed that the commandment which they put into
the mouth of their father after his death may have been
a fabrication of their
own to serve their purpose; but one scarcely likes to
imagine that it was so. It
is at least as probable that they may have
mentioned to Jacob, while he was yet alive, the
apprehension which they
entertained. And
to soothe and satisfy
them, - though he could not deem it necessary so far as
Joseph was concerned, -
he may have authorized them to make some such use of his
name as they did make.
In fact, it
may have been his way of
intimating his own full and thorough forgiveness of
their sin. And
at all events it could do no harm to endorse,
as it were, with his paternal sanction, what he knew to
be his beloved son’s
brotherly feeling towards these conscience-stricken men.
The message, with its mention of his father’s mind and will,
touches Joseph’s heart to the quick. His
brethren
also, who seem to have followed close at the heels of
their messenger,
spoke doubtless to the same effect.
“And Joseph wept when
they spake unto him” (ver.
17).
Was it for
their fancying such an
interposition of their father’s authority to be
necessary in order to pacify
him that Joseph wept? Or
was it because he
could not but be moved by such an instance of his
father’s common love to all
his children? It
may have been a mixture
of both emotions. Why
this distrust of
me, as if in so solemn a manner, and by an authority so
sacred, I must be
commanded to forgive? - I who, as your own hearts might
have told you, had
forgiven you long before? But
be it so. My
father’s command makes my forgiveness of
you all the sweeter to me, as well as all the surer to
you. Gladly,
in his name, as well as from myself,
do I forgive you now anew. It is his act
now as well as mine. Let
my warm gushing tears attest at once my
deep reverence for him, and my tender love to you. Is not that the
meaning of these gracious
drops? Is
it any wonder, in the
circumstances, that “Joseph wept
when they spake unto
him?”
The submissive language of these men, following upon their
citation of their father’s command, is striking and
significant at this late
stage of the history. It
carries us back
to those early dreams which gave so much offence. The very parties who
took umbrage then, now bear witness, in their own
demeanour, to the literal
fulfilment of the augury which the dreams contained. In spite of all
the unbelief and opposition of
men, the counsel of the Lord stands sure. The
lesson, as to the special and particular
providence of God, which this whole divine drama of
Joseph’s life is fitted and
designed to teach, is now at last complete; the end
explains and vindicates the
beginning. The
complicated plot unravels
and exhausts itself; and there is simplicity at the
close. It
is seen that “the
Lord reigneth.”
So Joseph himself reads the divine lesson, and explains the
divine plot, if one may so call it, - using dramatic
language in reference to
so dramatic a series of incidents. That
he
does so is implied in his reply to the somewhat abject
prostration of his
brethren; - “Fear not; for
am I in the place of God? But as for you, ye
thought
evil against me; but
God meant it unto good,
to bring to pass, as it
is this day, to save much people alive”
[Page 480] (ver. 19,
20). He
might
have been gratified by their homage. It
might have pleased him to see them thus
compelled to own the superiority on his part which his
dreams foretold, - and
the very idea of which they so murderously resented, -
if he had regarded the
matter in a selfish light, or from a selfish point of
view. But
it is not himself that he considers at
all; he forgets self. It
is the Lord’s
hand that he sees in the whole wondrous history. It is the Lord’s
sovereignty, wisdom, and
grace, that he recognizes, and would have his brethren
to recognize throughout
it all. Think
not of me; look not to me.
Who am I, that
you should bow so humbly to me? Am
I in
the place of God, that I
should take it upon me to
judge you? What,
after all, have you
done to me? You
meant evil; but God has
over-ruled it for good. It
is not with
me that you have to deal; nor am I to deal with you. Let us, all of
us, cease from taking so narrow
a view, and one so merely human. Do
not
make me your judge; do not prostrate yourselves before
me, as if I had any
right or inclination to punish or revenge. I
do not count you to have injured me. You were
but the instruments in God’s hands of accomplishing
His purpose, which for
you and me alike has turned out to be so gracious. Let us together
own His providence in all that
has fallen out. Surely
to you His
longsuffering is and must be salvation, - His goodness
may well indeed move you
to repentance. And
for me, seeing that
all you did to me has turned out so well, so well for
you, as well as for me,
and so well for him that is gone, let me acknowledge in
it all, not your hand,
but the Lord’s. If
I am to be now, as
your homage implies, your chief and head, - by your own
consent and choice, as
well as by the Lord’s design and doing, - let my
patriarchal reign and headship
over you be one of mutual confidence and love on both
sides. Let
all the past, your sin and my suffering,
be swallowed up in our common owning of God’s wondrous
working in His ways
toward the children of men. He
does all
things well. He
has made me, through
your treatment of me, the means of saying much people
alive; it is the Lord’s doing,
let it be marvellous in our eyes. So Joseph reassures
his brethren; “Now therefore
fear ye
not: I will nourish
you, and your little
ones. And he comforted them,
and spake kindly unto them”
(ver. 21).
It is a noble instance of forgiveness, - a signal exhibition
of the spirit of faith and love, - the very “meekness
and
gentleness of Christ.” But
does
it not point to something higher? Is
not
a greater than Joseph here? Have
we
not here Christ Himself, of whom Joseph in all this is
so fitting a type?
See then now Jesus, - the true Joseph, - our Joseph. He
too suffered at the hands of His brethren. They
all conspired against Him; - you,
brother, and I, among the rest. We
nailed
Him to the accursed tree. We
caused
His blood to flow, and the cry of agony to be wrung from
His lips, “My God, my God, why
hast thou forsaken me?”
Is “the Spirit of grace and of
supplications
poured out upon us” now? Are
we “looking on him whom we have
pierced, and mourning
as one mourneth for an only son?” Do
we feel as if such wrong as we have done to
Him, in distrusting, persecuting, crucifying Him, never
could be overlooked? -
as if He must needs, in spite of all His patience and
all His pity, resent at
last our unworthy treatment of Him? He
addresses
us almost [Page
481]
in the very words of Joseph, - “Fear
not; for am I in the
place of God?” Have
I come to
judge and condemn? Nay!
It is mine
to save. And
does He not add, as did His apostles, when
preaching to His actual betrayers and murderers, - Lay
not too much to heart
what you have done to Me; however you meant it, has it
not turned out for good?
So God
intended it, - to bring to pass,
through your means, the saving of much people, the
saving of you this day. Me
ye have not really injured. Lo!
The
cross on which you lifted Me
up has become a
throne - a throne on which I am exalted, to be a
Prince and a Saviour. It
is my Father’s doing; my Father’s will. You
could “do nothing
against me, except it
were given to you from
above” (John 19:
11).
“The prince of this
world,” though he “cometh
to me, hath nothing in
me” (John 14:
30). It is neither
your
purpose, nor His, that is fulfilled in me. But “I love the Father, and as he has given me
commandment, so I do”
(John 14: 31).
Yes! You may remind Me, as his
brethren reminded Joseph, of My Father’s commandment. I had His
commandment to die for you. I
have His commandment to save you, - to
pardon and to bless.
“All that the Father
giveth me shall come to me: and
him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out.
For I came down from heaven,
not
to do my own will, but
the will of him that sent
me. And this is the Father’s will which
hath sent me, that of
all which he hath given me, I
should lose nothing, but
should
raise it up at the last day. And this is the will
of him that sent me, that
every one which seeth
the Son, and believeth on him, may have
everlasting
life: and I will raise
him up at
the last day” (John 6: 37-40).
It might have seemed something very like an insult or an
impertinence,
on the part of Joseph’s brethren, to bring to bear upon
him, as if he needed
it, the pressure of parental authority; - “Thy
father
did command:” - not our father, they say,
gratifying us, - but thy
father constraining thee. And
yet, after
all, can we wonder? The
more they knew
of Joseph, since they had come to live on friendly terms
with him, - the more
they saw of his beautiful character, - the more they
experienced of his
bountiful generosity, - the more must their former
grudge against him, and the
horrid deed of treachery and cruelty which it prompted,
have appeared in their
eyes utterly inexcusable and unpardonable. Every
day’s new insight into Joseph’s heart,
as they looked on him whom they had pierced, must have
pierced their hearts
with new and fresh poignancy of grief and fear. Is
it surprising that their consciences
misgave them? Is
it surprising that they
should have felt Joseph’s kindness to them to be too
much to last, - the
assurance of his perfect and unchanging forgiveness to
be too good news to be
true? Need
we wonder that they should
have tried to enlist, their father on their side, - and
get him to enforce, by
a dying charge to Joseph, that loving and beloved son’s
own purpose of mercy,
if it should begin to falter? So
Joseph
may have felt. He
is not, therefore,
offended. He
willingly accepts his
father’s commandment, as even a better reason for
forgiving his brethren than
his own spontaneous inclination.
Is not this the very mind of Jesus? Is
not this the security which He gives to us?
Is He not
ever anxious to assure us that
what He does for us and to us, is all done in obedience
to His Father’s
commandment? Nor
[Page 482] does He wait till we quote that commandment of His Father to Him; He
testifies of it to us. He is beforehand with us. He Himself
interposes this great guarantee, -
this sure warrant of faith. It
is not My doing, He seems to
say of that [eternal]
salvation
which He works
out for us. My
laying down My life for you,
- My forgiving your sins on the earth, - My
receiving you when you come to Me, - My raising
you
up at the last day; - all that is not really My
doing. No.
Not
My doing: “I came not to do my
own will, but the will
of him that sent me.” It is His will; it
is His commandment; for you and Me
alike. It
is He who commands you to look to Me,
and believe in Me. It
is He who commands Me
not to cast you out in any wise, but to receive you, and
give you everlasting life, and raise
you
up at the last day. Yes!
it is My Father’s
commandment; and “as
he giveth me commandment so I do.” For I love
the Father; I and the
Father are one. Therefore
you are safe
in casting yourselves into My
arms; safe as the sheep
of My pasture. “My
sheep hear my voice, and
I know them, and they
follow me: and I
give unto them eternal life; and
they shall never perish, neither
shall
any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which
gave them me, is
greater
than all; and no man
is able to pluck them out
of my Father’s hand.
I and my Father are one”
(John
10: 27-30).
* *
*
CHAPTER 72
FAITH
AND
HOPE IN DEATH -
LOOKING FROM
GENESIS
50: 22-26.
By faith Joseph, when he died, talked
about the departing of the children of
This is
entirely a Hebrew ending of the life of Joseph. Not
a trace of his Egyptian connection is in
it; nothing of what pertains to his position as
Pharaoh’s favourite minister,
and ruler over all the
How is it so? Has
he
forfeited or lost the king’s regard? Has
he
experienced the vicissitudes of royal caprice and
courtly life? Is
he in disgrace? or
in compulsory retirement? - the
victim of conspiracy
or of jealousy - awakened, perhaps, by his open leanings
towards
The observation, indeed, as has been already seen, may be
extended more widely. From
the moment of
the Hebrew family coming on the stage, the Egyptian
element in the drama
becomes subordinate, and occupies the background. It appears,
indeed - and now and then appears
prominently enough - as for instance in the princely
arrangements made first
for Jacob’s removal to
Now why is it so? It
is
not enough to allege the merely natural partiality of a
Hebrew historian,
smitten with the spirit of national prejudice or pride -
counting
Between his father’s death and his own, upwards of
half-a-century
intervened; and the whole period is passed over in all
but entire silence. Not
a hint is given of the way in which these
years were spent. All
that we learn is
that the two elements or conditions of prosperity,
usually held of much account
among men - and especially among the Israelites - and
reckoned to be the reward
or acknowledgment of righteousness, were found realized
in the case of Joseph. Length
of days was his - and the privilege of
seeing his race perpetuated: “Joseph
dwelt in
He died, believing. For
“by faith Joseph, when
he died, made mention
of the departing of the
children of
But it may be asked, why did he not follow his father’s
example, in the order he gave as to his remains? He exercised and
manifested the same faith
that Jacob did when he “gave
commandment concerning his
bones;” but he did not give the same
commandment; he did not ask to be at once buried in
1.
It is very obvious that Joseph’s
commandment concerning his bones had far more distinct
and pointed reference to
the future than Jacob’s had. In
fact,
Jacob’s dying requests (47:
28-31;
49: 29-32) have no explicit
reference to the future at
all. He
dwells only on the past. We
know indeed that his faith did embrace the
future. He
went down to
This was natural and right. He
had but recently left
In Joseph’s commandment concerning his bones, on the other
hand, the past is not mentioned; it
is
the future alone that he contemplates. And
this also is natural and right.
Jacob belongs to the generations that have lived and died in
The two different commandments given by Jacob and by Joseph respectively, are thus seen to be
appropriate. That of Joseph,
however, would seem to indicate the stronger and higher
faith. And
accordingly it is Joseph’s commandment,
and not Jacob’s, that the apostle, in writing to the
Hebrews signalizes. He
does full justice, it is true, to Jacob’s
blessing of both the sons of Joseph (Heb.
11: 21).
But in the
matter of “the
commandment he gave concerning his bones” (Heb.
11: 22),
Joseph
stands out as a more conspicuous example of faith than
Jacob. Mere
natural affection, and the touching
memory of the olden time, may, to a large extent,
explain what Jacob said on
the subject. Joseph,
on the other hand,
has his eye exclusively fixed on what is “hoped for” and “unseen.”
The orders issued, the directions given, correspond with these
two different states of mind.
Take my body back to Canaan, - away at once from
Joseph, on the other hand, prefers rather to cast in his lot. so
far as the
disposal of his corporeal frame is concerned, with the
present and coming races
of
Keep me among you, - my unburied bones, - my embalmed
body. I
desire not to be separated from
you. Even
after death, I would, as far
as possible, be one of you. I have no doubt of
your return to Canaan;
and my dying wish is to
return, so far as my bones can
represent me, along with you. I
do not
choose that any part of me should reach
2.
The possession of Joseph’s bones, -
the custody of them under so solemn a charge, -
must
have been a signal benefit to the
Israelites in
To have laid up the body of Jacob, - swathed and embalmed, -
in the form of a mummy, according to Egyptian usage, -
to be kept for some
thirty or forty generations, - as an heirloom in their
tribes, - would have
been palpably unnatural and unsuitable. Such a mode of
dealing with the Hebrew patriarch’s
remains, - he being a mere stranger in Egypt, - but [Page 486] yesterday come
down into the land,
while all his ties were elsewhere, would have been
incongruous. His
burial in
It is otherwise with Joseph, - himself almost a naturalized
Egyptian, - and as an Israelite, associated far more
with
And then, the difference of the times and circumstances is to
be noted.
When Jacob died,
When Joseph
died, a change was near at
hand. Already,
there may have been
ominous signs of approaching trouble. The
prophetic
warning which Abraham got was about to be accomplished.
They
needed
to be reconciled to
Both of these needs are suitably met by the dying commandments
of Jacob and of Joseph respectively, “concerning
their
bones.”
Jacob virtually says: - You are now in the enjoyment of all
worldly ease and plenty. The
famine is
past, - and with the famine, other sore miseries
besides. You
have abundance of the good things of this
life, - and the evil consequences of former sins and
errors are put right.
Joseph again, in an altered state of things, may be held to say: - Egypt,
which is the world to you, is about to become a
house of bondage, - a furnace
of affliction. Its
smiles are to give place to frowns, - its
joys to bitter grief. There
is to be
little more of bright sunshine in this world for you,
but only ever-deepening
gloom. But
courage! Be
of good cheer. Be
not dismayed. The
darkness will not last forever. This
weary
I am as intensely bent
as he was on having
How far Joseph’s purpose may have been accomplished, - how far
the preservation of his body, in a state of constant
preparation for being
carried up out of Egypt to Canaan, may have contributed
to keep up, among the
Israelites, during the years of their affliction, the
memory of the Abrahamic
covenant and the expectation of the promised
deliverance, - it is impossible to
say. The
history here is almost a complete
blank, an utter void. Beyond the briefest possible
notices, we have no account
of the rise and progress of the Egyptian persecution of
the Israelites. And
we have no account
whatever of the religious state of the Israelites during
the persecution. But
we know that when the time of the Exodus
came, the commandment of Joseph concerning his bones was
freshly remembered and
faithfully obeyed (Exod.
13: 19;
Josh. 24:
32). And
we
can scarcely doubt that the sacred deposit had the
effect of keeping alive, at
least among the more thoughtful and spiritually
enlightened of the people, that
trust in the God of their fathers, and in His promises,
which enabled, as we
may well believe, others besides the parents of Moses,
to brave the wrath of
the king, and
hold fast the hope of a
Saviour. Certainly,
Joseph’s dying
act had a strong tendency to effect
such a result. As
a manifestation of his own faith, it was
fitted to confirm the faith of the people in his
assurance, “God will surely
visit you.”
“So
Joseph
died, being an
hundred and ten years old;
and they embalmed him,
and
he was put in a coffin in
The two stand out alone, - the life of Joseph and the life of
Jesus, - parallel at least in many important aspects, if
not intended to stand
in a closer relation to one another.
The parallelism is of itself suggestive. To
one living before the coming of Christ, if
he was at all spiritually minded, it was fitted to
suggest thoughts connected
with the Saviour yet to come. Taken
in
connection with the rite of sacrifice, and other
evidently anticipative usages
and ordinances, it could scarcely fail to afford some
insight into the
necessary conditions which the Saviour must fulfil, as
well as also into the
manner of His fulfilment of them. To
us
now, under the guidance of the same [Holy] Spirit who inspired the two great biographies, their
parallelism may furnish the means of a not unprofitable
comparison between the
two deliverers and their respective deliverances.
1.
The character of Joseph fits him
pre-eminently for being a type of Christ. The
two qualities most conspicuous in Joseph,
apart from his personal innocence and blamelessness, are
on the one hand, his
meekness and gentleness, and on the other hand, his
commanding and
authoritative wisdom and benevolence. His personal
purity, his spotless and
stainless integrity, - the result conspicuously in him
of renewing grace, tried
and tested by temptation, - made him a fitting pattern
of Him who was “holy, harmless, undefiled,
and separate from
sinners.” And
then, when we add
to that, first, his unresisting and uncomplaining
endurance of wrong, - and
[Page
488] secondly, his capacity of rule and government,
- we have the very features or
attributes of personal worth or excellency, - in kind
though not of in degree,
that constitute the beauty and the strength of “the
course
man Christ Jesus;” the suffering
and reigning
Jesus.
2.
The personal history of Joseph is
eminently typical, both in the deep humiliation to which
he was subjected, and in
the glory which followed. He suffers, not
for any sins of his own, but
through the sins of those to whom he would do good.
He bears, in
a sense, the blame and the doom
which others had deserved. Strict
and
proper substitution, indeed, there is not, and could not
be, in his case. Of
that peculiar characteristic of the
sufferings of Christ the only exact type is to be found
in the animal sacrifices
of the old economy, - the slain lamb, - the blood of
bulls and of goats; and
even that is imperfect, as representing Him, who “through
the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God.”
But short of
that, in the load of sorrow and
shame which Joseph in his innocency and tried holiness
had to bear, weighing
him down to the very gates of death, - in the cup which
he had to drink, and
which he took, not as at the hands of men only, but
immediately from the hand
of God, - the cup filled to overflowing with the pressed
fruit of other men’s sins,
- we have what assimilates in no ordinary degree Joseph
- betrayed, sold,
condemned, and as good as dead in his hopeless dungeon,
- to Jesus, amid the
circumstances of His life-long grief, and His last
agony. And
then the bright side of the picture, in
Joseph’s case as in that of Jesus, is his elevation to
the right hand of the
great king; his
investiture with full
authority and command over all the king’s resources in
all his
realms; his receiving power over all
that he may give life to many; His
being exalted a Prince and a Saviour.
3.
The actual salvation wrought is of a
typical sort. It
is so in itself; for it
is the giving of life; - “to
save much people alive.”
It is
deliverance from death, - certain
and inevitable death. It
is “the filling of the hungry
with good things, while
the rich are sent empty away.” And
then, as to the manner of it, - the extent
to which it reaches, and the way in which its blessings
are diffused, - is not
Joseph, like Jesus, “a light to
lighten the Gentiles,
and
the glory of
God’s people
Is it not so in the dispensation of the gospel salvation? Will it not be
seen to be so, more and more,
as the end draws near? Now
are the times
of the Gentiles. Now
is Jesus the light
of the Gentiles. But the Lord hath not cast off
Israel. “Blindness”
indeed “in part is
happened to
4.
The death of Joseph, - or rather “the commandment
which he gave concerning his bones,” -
may also be regarded as in
some sense typical. It
has something
like a counterpart in the confidence with which the
Messiah speaks of His own
resurrection in that Messianic Psalm: “Therefore
my
heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth;
my
flesh also shall rest in hope. For thou wilt not leave my soul in
hell [i.e., Sheol]; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy
One to see corruption.
Thou
wilt show
me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy;
at thy right hand there are
pleasures forevermore” (Psa.
16: 9-11).
In a higher sense, and with a
deeper meaning than Joseph could reach, Jesus, when He
spoke of His death,
pointed to the inheritance* which His risen saints are to share with Him, their risen Saviour.
[* That is, both a millennial
“inheritance,”
in the “age” to come, (Luke
20: 35; Rev.
20: 4-6; Rev.
3: 21; 2 Pet.
3: 8. cf. 2
Tim. 2: 1-10);
and also an eternal inheritance, -
after
this creation is destroyed by fire, - in “a
new heaven
and a new earth” (Rev.
21: 1.)]
But, laying its typical meaning
aside, let us once more think of Joseph’s dying charge,
as distinguished from
that of Jacob, - or rather let us take them both
together. They
had their separate voices to utter, -
their separate lessons to teach.
Dying Jacob would carry his children’s minds and hearts away
from
Dying Joseph would reconcile his brethren to the toil and woe
of Egypt’s long bondage, by the animating consideration
that they still have
him, in a sense, among them, - his body committed to
their charge, - in
the full assurance of its being carried
by them to Canaan, when they go thither in triumph at
last.
May it not be said of us, if we believe in Jesus, that in the
death of every saint who falls asleep before our eyes,
we have the two views,
the two lessons, combined?
A father in
What is he saying to us? Cleave
not to
[*
See Psa. 95:
8-11;
Heb. 4:
1, 8-11.]
Again, what else is he saying to us? Weary
not in
[* See Gen. 3: 17-19. cf.
*
*
*
APPENDIX
OBSERVATIONS
ON
THE STRUCTURE OF THE BOOK OF GENESIS AS A WHOLE
I put into the form of a postscript what some may think might
perhaps be more properly placed as a preface or
introduction; and I do so
because it gives some general, and sufficiently
desultory views that have been
suggested to me in a review of the entire book, rather
than an explanation of
the method of my exposition of it. These views, in
short, partake more of the
nature and character of afterthought than of the nature
and character of
forethought.
1. Moses, as it seems to me, has fared very much as Homer has
fared, at the hands of minute critics. In
particular, the Book of Genesis has
undergone the same sort of treatment as the Iliad. Both
have been
disintegrated, and tom into shreds and fragments;
parcelled out among a motley
and miscellaneous crowd of unknown documents and
imaginary authors; and
resolved into a mere medley of traditionary hymns or
songs, strung together, ‑
if not at random, by some fortuitous concourse of atoms;
- by some marvel or
miracle giving un-designed concinnity and completeness
to the whole.
For that is
the phenomenon which is to
be accounted for in both cases alike. And in both cases
alike
it is the answer to the objection urged against the
historical tradition of a
single authorship.
The force of the answer lies in its being an appeal from
word-catching and hair-splitting analysis, to the broad,
general impression
which a large-minded and large-hearted earnest reader
cannot fail to receive. No
one who throws his own soul into the Iliad,
if he is at all capable of doing so, can have the
slightest doubt as to its
being a single soul with whom he has communion. He
desiderates and demands a Homer; not a lot
of song-writers but a solitary seer; a “vates
sacer;” a
genius creating unity
because it is itself one.
I believe it
to be the same with Genesis. I
think it
has the stamp [Page
491] and
impress of an undivided
authorship. There
is a completeness about
it, - an epic roundness, with beginning, middle, and
end, - and with a marvellous
adaptation and subordination of seeming episodes to the
onward march of the
plot, - that I confess I would rather question the unity
of the Aenead, on the
score of such interludes as that of Nisus and Euryales,
- or the unity of Hamlet,
on the score of the grave-digging scene, - than I would
deny to this Book of
Genesis the unity of a sole and single authorship - not
to speak of a sole and
single divine inspiration.
2. Having this conviction, I am not much troubled with
questions raised as to the pre-existing materials of
which the author may have
made use, or the subsequent emendations, interpolations,
and alterations, which
the book may have undergone from age to age, until its
final revision was
adjusted, perhaps in the time of Ezra, when the canon of
the Old Testament
Scriptures is supposed by many to have been finally
fixed.
I have no faith, I confess, in the imaginary library of such a
visionary as Ewald. I
do not suppose
that scholars will allow him, with impunity, to “call”
books, like “spirits, from the
vasty deep;” -
as if he could recover the burnt Sybilline leaves, and
read them off to us as
clearly as Tarquin, if he had chosen, might have heard
them read.
At the same time, in maintaining the unity of Genesis and of
its authorship, it is important to explain that this is
quite consistent with
there being many traces in the book, both of earlier
documents or traditions,
and of later editings and revisions. In
fact,
from the very nature of the case, it must be so. When the book
was written, there must have been
a literature of some sort - lyrical, legendary,
monumental - of which the
writer could not fail to take advantage. And
it is absurd to suppose that the learned
men who had to deal with the book, - imperfectly
preserved from age to age till
the canon was complete, would deny themselves the
liberty, - especially if they
were under divine inspiration, - of making such
corrections and explanations
as, in the circumstances, the lapse of time required.
3.
But I must add that, while fully
admitting these obvious considerations, - and indeed
relying on them as
accounting for, if they do not explain, not a few
textual difficulties, - I
cannot see my way to concur in the theory that distinct
documents, such as may
be separately and systematically characterized, are to
be found recognizable in
this book.
I am unable, for instance, to see the necessity for assuming
the two annalists, the “Jehovist”
and the “Elohist,” -
into whose double thread our critical
friends are so fond of resolving the Mosaic cord. I very much
doubt the possibility of a clear
and consistent “redding of the
marches” between
the two, if it is to be carried out all through; and I
think there is “a more excellent
way” of meeting the difficulty.
I have adverted to this in my exposition of the first two
chapters of Genesis, and elsewhere in these volumes;
borrowing light from the
Lord’s statement to Moses, “And
I appeared unto Abraham,
unto Isaac, and
unto Jacob,
by the name of God Almighty,
but by my name Jehovah was I not
known to them” (Exodus
6: 3).
That statement, I apprehend, can scarcely be taken literally
to mean that [Page
492]
the name - “Jehovah”
- by which the Supreme Being announced Himself to Moses
and the Israelites in
Considering the importance attached in these days and among
that people to the import and bearing of names, I prefer
some such explanation
of this passage in Exodus to one which would make it the
assertion of a mere
historical fact as to the dates of the two names being
in use; - and a fact
too, which, if it is to be understood strictly according
to the letter, must be
regarded as of doubtful probability. And
I
am persuaded that in the passages in Genesis in which
either name occurs, a
reason can for the most part be found for its being
employed rather than the
other, founded on the nature of the subject treated of,
or the view which the
writer desires to give of the events or incidents he may
be recording, without
its being necessary to postulate distinct fragments with
distinct authorships.
I believe, as I have attempted to show, that we have a
parallel and illustrative instance in the manner of
using the two names, Jacob
and
4.
There are some other points relative
to the mode of interpreting such a book as Genesis, upon
which questions might
be raised and explanations given; and there are several
principles of
exposition, to which reference is incidentally made in
these pages, and which
might admit of fuller illustration and vindication. One, for
example, is the extent to which we
may avail ourselves of the undoubted fact of an oral
revelation having preceded
the written word, as affecting the manner in which that
word would probably be
composed, and the kind of evidence it might be expected
to afford of the
leading truths of religion. Another
is
the amount of acquaintance with the doctrines of the
Gospel which may be
presumed in the early world, as rather alluded to and
taken for granted, than
communicated for the first time, in God’s successive
discoveries of Himself to
the fathers. Then
a third question might
turn upon the value of incidental quotations from the
Old Testament in the New,
as warranting the application of hints thus given
considerably beyond the
particular passages quoted, as well as upon the
legitimate use of resemblances,
parallelisms, and analogies, occurring in the comparison
of incidents and
predictions, under different and far distant
dispensations. While
a fourth, and a very interesting
problem, might be to fix the limit between a sound and
safe discretion and a
fanciful license, in filling up the brief sketches and
outlines of the inspired
record, and drawing inferences from them; - presuming
upon a certain spiritual
tact, or taste, or apprehension, a feeling of
probability, a sense of
concinnity, or congruity, which, even apart from such
precise and palpable
evidence as can be critically or logically stated, will
often give to a rightly
constituted and rightly exercised understanding, a
prompt and full assurance of
the mind of the Spirit.
But I do not feel myself called upon, even if I were
competent, to discuss such matters critically and
abstractly: I think it enough
to indicate, that in preparing these papers, I have had
them in my view. How
far I have succeeded in practically
applying the rules and methods indicated within due
bounds, it is not for me to
judge. In one particular, perhaps, I may be censured for
going too far,
although not, as I am of opinion, justly. I
refer to the amount of knowledge on the
fundamental articles of revealed religion, and
especially on the remedial plan
of the Gospel, which I have assumed to have existed
among men before the
written word came into being. That written word, as it
seems to me, takes for granted
such knowledge
to a considerable
extent, and proceeds upon the faith of it -
supplementing it and correcting it
often by allusions and hints, rather than formally
teaching or communicating
it, as if for the first time. I
refer to
such heads of doctrine as the being and attributes of
God; the unity of the
divine nature, with perhaps some intimation of the
plurality of persons in that
unity; the guilt or condemnation of sin; the manner of
its remission through a
propitiatory sacrifice; the calling and conversion of
sinners; the promised
Saviour; the resurrection and final judgment; the
eternal state. I
do not of course mean that the knowledge on
these subjects which the written [Page
494]
word might assume, and to which it
might appeal, was at all so full and accurate what
revelation gives; and in
revelation itself I trace a growing clearness of
development. I
admit also that, depending on oral
tradition alone for its transmission from age to age,
the knowledge must have
deteriorated in its character, and become corrupt and
imperfect, when the
written word began its teaching, as compared with what
it was at first, as
given by God originally. All that I contend for is, that
we may fairly regard
the written word as in such particulars reviving and
ratifying the primeval
creed, not yet wholly lost, and may interpret therefore
upon the principle of
its assuming and appealing to a measure of intelligence
in those to whom it was
given, that would enable them, under the guidance of the
Spirit, to understand
its suggestions and intimations better, and draw the
right inferential
conclusions better, than we sometimes give them credit
for.
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