ea f. poreae Tele: bein et a . be Hh erate): eat reyere Fie rf (ae PRT tnt e | Rete ieee se - Atel, SR RO ae - ad ht dr bly bled. ar foam aes vat, as ta Ne ee ate oS ela fens oo. FAP ot a ad Be ol oe ocean ee ; Ses 7 ae Debnonttee Torre sxcaienns byt : os Sree ey bi Ss pate sniem ie i Prey Pon eno © Peat eae Rete “Ze Pe Le 4 y b , i fa ae a ce el re a a a ‘i S74 | A noe te ‘ a pe way RIS a eh Io ag oat eal wn So Ne ae nah sib tobe per ae eA PT ET Sarees BS Ligy | DATE DUE Le] . Carnell Law School Library Cornell University Libra TiN STANDARD WORKS, Religious and Cheological, PUBLISHED BY CHARLES SCRIBNER & CO., 654 BROADWAY, New York. Any of these works sent by mail, post-paid, to any address upon receipt of the price. Special discounts made to Clergymen and Students. Full descriptive Catalogues of CHARLES SCRIBNER & Co.’s publications sent to any address upon application. Gxtemporary Preaching. INCKE.—ExtTemporary Preacuine (The Duty and the Discipline of). By F. BARHAM ZINCKE, Vicar of Wher- stead, and Chaplain in Ordinary to the Queen, Published by ar- rangement with the author. One volume 12mo., cloth. . $1 50 This treatise is plain and practical throughout. It gives the personal experience of the author, and a detailed history of his efforts to accustom himself to extemporary discourse. It tells ina plain and unpretending way the difficulties which he encountered, and how he succeeded in overcom- ing them. Written originally for English readers, the principles which the work develops are equally applicable here, and will be found just as pertinent as they were to those for whom they were originally intended. The author introduces the work with a preface addressed to American readers. The volume is published uniformly with Bautain’s Extempo- rary Speaking, which it very appropriately supplements, ‘Standard eee and Ti aaa Works. ange’ s Gommentarp. ANGE.—A CoMMENTARY ON THE Hoty SCRIPTURES: CRITICAL, DOCTRINAL, AND HoMILETICAL, with special refer- ence to Ministers and Students. By JoHN PETER LANGE, D.D., in conneétion with anumber of eminent European divines. Trans- lated from the German, and edited with Additions, Original and Se- lected, by Philip Schaff, D.D., in conneCtion with American divines of various’ Evangelical Denominations. per Vol .Sheep $6.5° Cloth $5 _ THE GOSPEL, ACCORDING TO MATTHEW, to- gether with a General Theological and Homiiletical Introduction to the New Testament. By JoHN PETER LANGE, D.D., Professor of Theology at the University of Bonn. Translated from the Third German Edition, with Additions, Original and Seleéted, By Philip Schaff, D.D., Bvo, pp. 568. THE GOSPEL, ACCORDING TO Marx. By JouN PETER LANGE, D.D. Revised from the Edinburgh Translation, | with Additions, by William G. T. Shedd, D.D., Professor in Union Theological Seminary, New York.. The Gospel according to Luke. By J. J. VAN OOSTERZEE, D.D., Professor of Theology in the University of Utrecht. Translated from the Second German Edition, with Additions, by Philip Schaff, D.D., and Rev. Charles C, Starbuck. 8vo, pp. 585. Tue Acts oF THE APosTLES, An Exegeti- cal ‘and Doétrinal Commentary. By GoTTHARD VicToR LECHLER, D.D., Professor of Theology at Leipsic,with Homiletical Additions+by Rev. ‘Charles Gero, Superintendent at Stuttgard.’ Translated from the Second German Edition, by Charles F. Schaffer, D.D., Professor ‘in the Theological Seminary of the. Evangelical Lutheran Church at a 8vo, pp. 480. Tue Epistle GENERAL OF JAMES. By Dr. Lance and Dr. OosTERZEE. The Epistles General of Peter. by G. F, C. FRonMULLER, Ph. D., Pastor at Kemnath, Wiirtemberg. The Epistles General of John, by KARL BRAUNE, D.D. The Epistle Gen- eral of Jude, by G. F. C. FRONMULLER. » Translated: from the Revised German Edition, with Additions, by J. Istpor Momsert, D.D., Rector,of St. James’s Church, Lancaster, ‘Pa. 8vo, pp. 531. 1 Tue Book oF GENEsis, with a General In- La —— ns SS : i ‘mamaay 20j50g —,,"PpOf) JO PlOM, es wT pasois einsvon ey) jo. Saqsseesod yeu e& premo} djay [ees & 3 punoy sary am ,, “95170 0g ppMoVN~, é “aan y3931] ‘eorSopoayy 3n0 04 vOnIPPE ajqenfeaur uy,, ~ @ « (unpaahgsadd): mary: yonoj0s4, AL unIAIuE .¢NOLeuTMOUAp. Te ur esn 10; paydepe. mq SURTLEIDES.JOU SII]. “APARZAYSpapury ore syredy [eanepwoy pue yeuLajop ey], .Wwaupsed pur asiouod si siseSaxe sy. ‘suROUT ajdue eS VY WSIOIFWD yenzxXaz 105 - ssuonsanb JHoHTP. 0} dys oy) Surarg jou pue Suysouw ‘eo = yt 304 S yOog, peaidsut UB Se AQUA ays $3894 3] “yYsOM [Nyasn pue ‘xetndod Gasouine hes -Uasse SI EI} [Ie Suistduuoo § ‘puny aq ura yey? UoTIsodxa, a[Surs yseq oy ‘2joym ayy ued 9 ; : : “SHOILON TVOILIND : ‘ gk ot, a “yunsed Tra aourssodpi pur. “apmyuseu swt se Aqprdes pue fqreona81oua se premioy poysnd aq Titty: yIOM OUT, “HW INoyIM ayozduroo aq Tas Axeaqry. s,aewkey 10 8,194STUTWs ON, | ‘PIIOM oy} 0} udATT avy’ ySIhYD oy} Jo Aad pue Suyuesy oy} yf ntiian soimjdig ayy Jo uontsodxe a[8uis ysoq oy} st ‘a8pnf 07 yuajodwioo ysotu asoyy Aq _pepiedar si pur ‘ssejo s}i Jo SyIO ay} Suowe yuer ys1y AIA 9N} woye) Apeoe sey. poystug se rey Os YOM sy T., “YOINYD 94} Jo poos je19 a3. 94} pue SIOJSIUIMT oY} JO osN [eoNPvAd oy JOF o[qQETIeAe Way} Sunpeut pure ‘Wuesoid: ou’ puke’ ysed_ oy" "JS sr0qey ' ‘[eopa8Sx0. oy} Jo siyhsarlefqeny[ea jsour ot) Yoreesar feulsi10 YM Sururquids “ure pue yds up oyouzes pue { Tesaqt] pue uelreyesun yf pur ‘suas TeorjaSueas 2Y} UI punos pur ‘opoyys0 ‘xendod yak ‘paures pue Aprepoyos Ayny Axeyusuruios e—outy yuosaid oy} 3e aonpoid ued eotisawy pue edoing jo drysiejoyps jeorasueaa poyun ay} yory Axeyuaumm0d ysaq A190 oyj—oSe oy} JO YOM JeoT[qIq JUeJIOdu puv saisudyoid -Wl0d ysoul ay} qnop puokag ‘st J] ‘19YVeILYD XOpoOYjsO pue [eatjasuvaa 30K pue UelIEPESUN SzI Sa.1NdeS YOTYA ‘SUOTJEUTWIOUSP [BIT[esURAD SNOTIeA 94} JWUIS -aidai YOM sy} Jo uorjeredaid ayy ul peseSuo asoyy, ‘“uoNIpa yey 0} syadsar [ye ur Jor1adns 31 Suryeut pue ‘uvusay [eulsiio oy} UeN} J9};eUr dA pAly}-auo Ap reau Zurstiduioo ‘suonrippe sjqenyea pur a8iz] YIM “YSIpsuy QJUL Y1OM Yi JO UONE[SUeI OY} UL padesua st ‘stmoyT rsjAey, pue “aygeyog ‘loog ‘saq ‘Aeq “oupuay ‘Woxoey ‘sueuioay ‘ppays siossajoig are woym Suoure ‘soye1g poy 94} UT sxefoYDs usu ysou! oY} Jo TesaAog Aq pojsisse. PeS “aq, ‘oduey “aq jo uoneqosdde 3U} YUNA «“WopUayst1yD jo Arequaut ji st#09 prepurys oy3 31 yeu 0} sured ou pareds oaey oym ‘odoiny jo SOUIATP PUR sivjoyas paysinsunsip pue ajqe sou oy} jo zaquinu Sir] B JO JOqeT, paulq “WOD OY} ST S}USYIE}SAL, MON put PIO ou} uO Agequown0 sasury, 4a Go S¢ ° soroe 8 8 auinjoa red yo[Q' ‘smaiaayl ‘No aa SAA a ‘AHLONI, ‘L ‘SNVINOTVSSAH, TT | ( * * -ard NIM AVMNOD pue “q a ‘x0od ‘mM ‘a 4q uewsay ‘omy wo par ~suery, ‘SNVIHLNIXOD SHLOLGTIsIdq FHT “paqga]asg pur: jeu13u9 ‘SO}ON [EUOMIPPY WIM ‘NVWSOD ‘Iq pue “qvy'] SIMA] UATAV Aq ueuse*) ay} woy pajrsuery, ‘yuawejsey, pio ey} 0} worgnpoay ‘sy4oM yonSopooy, pun snorSyey panpurjs Standard Religious and Theological Works. Apostolic Ghicech. CHAFF—History oF THE APposTOLic CHURCH, with a General Introduétion to Church History. By PHILIP ScuarF, D.D. Translated by Edward D. Yeomans. One volume, 8vo, cloth. Price, °. is ; ‘ é 5 i 5 $3 75 In the Introduétion, which fills 134 pages, the learned author gives the outline of a philosophy of Church History somewhat novel, but which commends itself to the enlightened judgment. A thorough German in his devotion to study and in the patience and thoroughness of his investiga- tions, and at the same time an American in spirit and principle, and rooted and grounded in the truth, Dr. Schaff possesses peculiar qualifications for the important work here undertaken ; and this introductory volume, em- bracing the history of the Apostolical Church, is all that could be expected of such a man,—learned, independent, scientific, exhaustive, full of vigor- ous thought, and a model of historical arrangement and style, showing him to be master of the subjeét. No work certainly in the English lan- guage can compare with it for comprehensiveness, learning, and literary ability, and no student of Church History can afford to be without it. CRITICAL NOTICES. “ This is the first learned theological work, in Germany, composed in the United States, and undoubtedly the best published on that subject in that country. I hail the work in both respects as the harbinger of a great and glorious future. It is worthy of a German scholar, of a disciple of Neander (to whom the work is dedicated), a citizen of the United States, and of a believing and free Christian and Protestant; it stands on German ground, but it is none the less original for that.”—-D7, BUNSEN’S Hyppolytus. “This book is one of the best compendiums extant of Church History. Its spirit is thoroughly Christian, its arrangement clear, its style lively and attractive, and it contains notices of the most recent German and other opinions on every question as it rises.”— Edinburgh Review, for January 1853. (By Dr. ALFORD, the Commentator.) “This book is eminently scholarlike and learned, full of matter, not of crude materials, crammed together for the nonce by labor-saving tricks, but of various and well-digested knowledge, the result of systematic training and long-continued study.”—Princeton Re- view. (By the late ¥OS. ADDISON ALEXANDER, D.D.) “ On the topic of which it treats, it is beyond all question the most valuable work in the English language. I am far from acquiescing in every view and statement which it contains, but it is a book of the first order for scholarship, good taste, and Christian feeling."— Prof. C. E. STOWE, Andover, Mass. “ No work in the English language, with which J am acquainted, covering the same pe- riod, can be compared with it for learning, freshness, and comprehensiveness.”—Zev. HENRY B. SMITH, D.D., Union Theological Seminary, New York. “‘We regard it as a most valuable contribution to our ecclesiastical literature. It is evi- dently the result of much careful study, and the fruit of extensive learning ; and indicates a mind peculiarly fitted for historical labors.’—Mew Vork Observer. “ This work bears upon it the marks of true learning, and independent, vigorous thought, from the first page to the last. It isa model of historical order and clearness.”—B:é/io+ theca Sacra, A COMMENTARY ON THE TOLY.SCRIPTURES: CRITICAL, DOCTRINAL, AND HOMILETICAL, WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO MINISTERS AND STUDENTS. 8 BY JOHN PETER LANGE, D.D., IN CONNECTION WITH A NUMBER OF EMINENT EUROPEAN DIVINES, TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN, AND EDITED, WITH ADDITIONS, BY PHILIP SCHAFF, D.D., IN CONNECTION WITH AMERICAN SCHOLARS OF VARIOUS EVANGELICAL DENOMINATIONS, VOL. I. OF THE OLD TESTAMENT: CONTAINING A GENERAL SPOT AND THE BOOK OF GENESIS. NEW YORE: CHARLES SCRIBNER & CO., 654 BROADWAY. . 1869. a G HN . OR, © Jk ip. . THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES, — I TOGETHER WITH A GENERAL THEOLOGICAL AND HOMILETICAL INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT... BY JOHN PETER LANGE, D.D., -_ PROFESSOR IN ORDINARY OF THEOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF BONN. TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN, WITH ADDITIONS, BY Pror, TAYLER LEWIS, LLD,, SCHENECTADY, N. ¥., A. GOSMAN, D.D,, LAWRENCEVILLE, N, J. THIRD EDITION. NEW YORK: CHARLES SCRIBNER & CO., 654 BROADWAY. f 1869. “ BY2265 Ewrerun, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1868, by CHARLES SCRIBNER & CO., In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York. THE TROW & SMITH BOOK MANUFACTURING COMPANY, 46, 48, 50 Groene Street, N. Y. PREFACE OF THE GENERAL EDITOR.’ Tux favor with which the volumes of the New-Testament division of Dr. Lanen’s ‘‘ Bible- work ” have been received by the American public, has encouraged the editor and publishers to undertake also the preparation of the Old-Testament division, on the same principles of enlargement and adaptation to the wants of the English reader. A good theological and homi- letical commentary on the Hebrew Scriptures is even more needed than on the Greek Testament. Of the German work, the following parts of the Old Testament have so fir appeared, and have been assigned to competent American scholars : Genesis; by Dr. Lance. 1864. Drvrrronomy; by W. J. Sonréprr. 1866. Jupexs and Rutu; by Prof. Pavius Casser. 1865. The Proverss; by Dr. O. ZéoxLzER. 1867. Besides these, . . The Books of Krxas; by Dr. Baur, The Psatms; by Dr. Mout, JEREMIAH; by Dr. NAcELsBAoH, Ecorrstastes and the Sone or Soromon; by Dr. ZécxLER, are in the hands of the printer, and will soon be published. The Commentary on Genesis, which is now presented to the English reader, involves a vast amount of labor both on the part of the author and on the part of the translators, and will, no doubt, command, in no ordinary degree, the respectful attention of biblical scholars. No other book of the Bible stands more in need of an exhaustive commentary just at this time. No one is so much exposed to the attacks of modern science in its temporary conflict with revealed truth. We say, temporary conflict; for there can be no essential or ultimate discord between science and religion, philosophy and theology. The God of reason and the God of revelation is one and the same, and cannot contradict himself. The difficulty lies only in our imperfect knowledge and comprehension of the book of nature, or of the Bible, or of both.* The mighty problems which the interpretation of Grnxsis involves, are here discussed in a manly and earnest spirit; and I venture to assert that no single commentary on this book pre- sents so much original thought and research as the combined labors of the author and the translators of this volume, Professor TaytEr Lewis prepared the Special Introduction and the Commentary on Oh. i-xi., and Oh. xxxvii-l. Dr. Gosman translated the General Introduction and the Commentary on Ch, xii-xxxvi. The original work numbers lxxxii and 460, in all 542 pages. The English edition has 665 pages, or fully one fourth more; the English pages being a little larger than the * “The abnegation of reason is not the evidence of faith, but the confession of despair. Reason and reverence are natural allies, though untoward circumstances may sometimes interpose and divorce them.”’—J. B. Liantroor, D. Diy St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians, 2d ed., London and Cambridge, 1866. Preface, p. xi. vi PREFACE OF THE GENERAL EDITOR. g German. Both translators have embodied the results of their independent study and extracts from works not noticed by Dr. Lanez. Prof. Tayrer Lewts, solong and well known as one of the ablest and most learned classical and biblical scholars of America, has scattered through this volume the fruits of long-continued study, with a freshness and vigor of thought and style that is truly surprising in one whose feeble healtlehas made such a work peculiarly difficult and laborious. For the convenience of the reader I present a list of his principal additions, which touch upon the most interesting and most difficult questions in the interpretation of Gunusis: ‘ . Special Introduction to the First Chapter, consisting of five parts: I. Essential Ideas of Creation. II. The Hexaémeron in its Order, III. Creation in the Psalms, Job, and the Prophets.- IV. Bible Ideas of Nature and the Supernatural. V. How was the Creation-Account Revealed? pp. 125-159. 1. Excursus on the Paradise Rivers, 217-222. ; 2. Excursus on the Flood, its subjective truthfulness, its partial extent, 314-322. 3. Excursus on the Hebrew Chronology. Condition of the Primitive Man. The Rapid Begianings of History, 352-358. ~ 4. Excursus on the Confusion of Languages and the Dispersion—a true supernatural event, 873-880. 5. The Relation of the First Verse in Genesis to the Rest. The Chasm-Theory, 167. 6. The Creation-Sabbath, 196. ‘ 7. The Jehovistic and the Elohistic Distinction, Int. 107. ! 8. Astronomical Objection to the Bible, 182. 9. Scriptural Heavens and Earth, 185. 10, The Creation-Summary, or the Account of the Second Chapter, 201. 11. Time-Successions of the Sixth Day, 210. 12. Idea of Future Life in the Old Testament, 214, 18. Abel’s Blood Crying, 257. "14. Earliest Ideas of Death. Case of Enoch, 273. 15. The Spirit and the Flesh, Ch. vi., 285. 16, Early Announcement of Human Depravity. Psychological Distinctions made in Ch. vi. 5, 287. 17. The Divine Repentings, 288. 18. The Bible Idea of Covenant, 800. 19. The Week and the Seven-Day Observance in the Ark, 311. 20. The Noachian Sacrifice, 324. 21. The Noachian Blessings and Cursings, 835. 22, The Law of Homicide, 882, 23. Arabian and other Oriental Traditions on the Destruction of Sodom, 440-449, 24. The Rainbow and its Appointment as a Sign, 328, 25. Development of the'Idea of Sheol. Jacob’s Language, Ch. xxxvi. 85, 584-587. 26. The Interview between Jacob and Pharaoh. The Patriarchal Theology. The Idea of the Earthly Life as a Pilgrimage, Ch, xlvi., xlvii., 687-640. 27. Jacob’s Blessings, Ch. xlix. ¢ 28. Interpretation of the Words Goel, Malak-Haggoel, Redeemer, Angel-Redeemer, Ch. xlviii. 16, 646, 647, 29, Jacob’s Dying Vision of the Tribes and the Messiah, Ch. xlix. 1-38, 651-654, ‘ : Besides, the translators have added a large vanities of marginal notes, many of which might have been placed in the body of the pages, and copious text-notes on Hebrew words and - phrases, with illustrations from a rich store of oriental and classical learning. I congratulate my esteemed co-laborers on the successful completion of their difficult task, and commit this first volume of the Old-Testament division of the “Biblework” to the blessing of God, and the use of His ministers in the study and application of this most ancient and wonderful book. PHILIP SCHAFF, 5 Bistz-Hovsz, Naw Yorx, March 10, 1868. AUTHOR’S PREFAOE. Taz author has been much longer occupied in the preparation of Genesis for the “Biblework,” than he at first supposed would be necessary; and this, together with the detention in reference to two of the New-Testament books, has seemed to bring the whole work to a end for atime. This delay, however, has only been apparent and transient, since, in the meantime, different well-approved co-workers have carried on the work in the Old- Testament divisions, and will now, right soon, it is hoped, present the public with the long- wished-for results of their labors, while, at the same time, several New-Testament books are again in course of preparation, * * * I was especially detained upon the Introduction. The want of scientific method in the culture of biblical theology which has prevailed until the present time, appeared to me to _ make it imperative that the questions necessarily belonging to the Introduction should be treated under the form of this branch of theological science,—presenting the points, however, for the most part, merely in outline, with a reference to the authorities, but treating more fully and thoroughly the great theological life-questions of the day. * * * In the preparatory introduction, I believed that a proper view and statement of the character of the people of Israel should occupy the very first place in archeology, since an archeology which leaves out of view the one vital, unifying, central point, the life of the people in question, must be a mere lifeless, conglomerate mass of knowledge. Thus, é.g., no one can have a true conception and estimate of the chronology of the people of Israel, who has not first rightly conceived and appreciated the characteristics of the people itself. I was especially anxious to open the question of Old-Testament hermeneutics, since the great and destructive errors, as to the fundamental principles of biblical, and particularly Old-Testament hermeneutics, threaten to make a very Babel of our modern Exegesis. The Sacred Scriptures never. leave a doubt as to the fact that they communicate to us only words of life, and thus facts and doctrines which find their expression in the light of their religious idea; but this key to all exposition of the Scrip- tures is thrust aside by both theological extremes. The letter is not only put under pressure, but even strangled, lest it shotld say something more than it appeared to express according to the most restricted and limited interpretation. In this thought the two extremes rival each other in the effort to make a mere natural astronomical day of twenty-four hours out of the divine days of the creation (Gen. i.). The one side thus seeks to secure the most complete orthodox locus of the creation, the other to make the Bible begin with a fictitious legendary description of the creation, under the form of the Jewish sabbath-institutioy.* * Bishop Colenso represents this antithesis in one theological life ; first serving the letter with an orthodox purpose, and then using it for mere critical ends. viii AUTHOR'S PREFACE, * If I have succeeded merely in giving an impulse towards a proper and satisfactory revision of hermeneutics, I shall hope for a special blessing from this part of my labor. In the preparation of my work I have consulted particularly the commentaries of Dx- Litzson, Km, and Kwozez, and, whenever it appeared necessary, those of Von Bonien and others. I have frequently allowed the authors to speak for themselves; whenever, indeed, the briefest explanation of important remarks, or the peculiar characteristic expresston of the commentators made it proper and best. In this respect, also, the “Biblework’”’ must be many-sided. But in the exposition I have never spared myself the labor necessary to ac- quire and state my own personal views; and unprejudiced readers and critics will find that the work is not without its calling, nor without its influence as one among the independent laborers in this exegetical field. I have not permitted myself to be swayed by the singular and strong prejudice of the moment, which regards the sons of God (Gen. vi.) as angels, and the UMaleach Jehovah as a mere creature-angel. In regard to both these questions I am brought into conflict with the interpretation of Kurtz. * * * In the practical division of the work, as in the theoretical, we have found .it necessary to practise the utmost restraint in the use of helps. In this respect the work of J. SonrépEr upon Genesis (Berlin, 1846) has been of essential service, partly through its well-chosen - extracts, and partly from the judicious remarks of the author; we have often, indeed, been embarrassed by the very richness of its contents, May this “Biblework,” in its Old-Testament division, meet with the same reception, and enter upon the same path of usefulness, which the New-Testament divisions have already found; may this work upon Grnzsis introduce a series of commentaries by ster- ling and valued co-laborers, and stimulate the progress and completion of the joint work, which is faithfully devoted to the service of the Church and the glory of the Lord. Bonn, May 12, 1864. THEOLOGICAL AND HOMILETICAL INTRODUCTION. TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. PRELIMINARY REMARKS. THE RELATION OF THIS INTRODUCTION TO THE INTRODUCTION TO THE NEW TESTAMENT. We prefixed to the Commentary on Matthew a sketch of the General Introduc- tion to the Holy Scripture, since for Christians the New Testament is the key to the Old (Lanex’s Matthew, pp. 1-20, Am.ed.). But it is necessary, in preparing a Special Introduction to the Old Testament, that we should again proceed upon a survey of the whole field of Biblical Science and Biblical Theology. For the Introduction to the Old Testament, necessarily points back to the Introduction to the New. In the Introduction to the New Testament, moreover, particular points were simply alluded to, which must now be more thoroughly discussed. But to explain these points in their systematic order, we shall have to make a general statement of the questions of Introduction; only so far, however, that we shall merely refer to points already explained. The Introduction to the New Testament was modelled upon the definition of Exegetics. For our present purpose it seems better to fol- low the outline of a living Biblical Theology. We shall, however, overstep the ordinary limits of Biblical Theology, and embrace the Sciences of Introduction which Biblical Theology viewed by itself presupposes. For the Literature, the following works may be consulted, in addition to those referred to in Matthew (Lanee’s Matthew, Am. ed. p. 17). 1. Introduction to the Bible.—Scuumann: Praktische Einleitung in’s Alte und Neue Testament ; Sreeiicu: Bibelkunde, Leipzig (1853); Sraupr: Fin- gerzeige in den Inhalt und Zusammenhang der Hei- ligen Schrift, Stuttgart (1854); Wexrze. ; Die Spra- che Luthers in seiner Bibelibersetzung, Stuttgart (1859); The Bible and its History, 11th edition, with a preface by F. W. Krummacuer, Elberfeld (1858); Watson: Apology for the Bible, Letters to Paine, New York; Kircunormr: Leitfaden zur Bi- belkunde, 2d ed., Stuttgart (1860). Similar works by Hacenspacn, Leipsig (1850); Hottznsere, Ber- fin (1854); Scunzrper, Bielefeld (1860); Lisco: Einleitung in die Bibel, Berlin (1861); Bibelweguwei- ser, Hinleitung in die Heilige Schrift, Calw (1861); 1 Burex: Hinleitung in’s Alte und Neue Testament, Berlin (1860-’62); Nasr: Critical and Practical Commentary, Cincinnati (1860); [Havernicr’s In- troduction, Edinburgh Translation (1852); Hornx’s Introduction, New York (1860); Davrpson’s Intro duction ; Jaun’s Introduction, with References by 8. H. Turner.—A. G.] ‘ 2. Directions for Reading the Bible.—W. Horrmann: Ueber den rechten Gebrauch der Bibel, Berlin (1854); OsrertaG: Zilge aus dem Werke der Bibelverbreitung, Stuttgart (1857); SeELBacu: Bibel- segen, Bielefeld (185155); Hottenzera: Hrmun- terung und Anleitung zum Bibellesen, Berlin (1862); [Francxe’s Guide to the Study of the Scriptures; Tazzor’s Bible; Locxx’s Commonplace - Book ; 2 INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. Townsenn’s Arrangement ; the Paragraph Bibles ; Cottyen: The Sacred Interpreter, Oxford (1831); Companion to the Bible, Phila, (1852).—A. G.] 3. General and Special Bibleworks.—Sce Lanou’s Matthew, Am. Ed. pp. 19; Starke: Allge- meines Jeegister iiber die fiinf.Theile seines Bibel- werkes, pp. 1-46; Watcu: Bibliotheca, Theol. iv. pp. 182,379. Danz: Universal- Worterbuch, pp. 126, 134 ff; Wuyer, i. p. 33 sqq. 162, Appendix, po We call special attention to the well-known works of earlier dates. Potus: The Criticr Sacri; Die Bertensurcer Bipen, new ed., Stuttgart (1856); Das Bibelwerk von L. Maistre pe Sacy; Serer: Das grosse biblische Erbawungsbuch, Erlangen (1788- *92), in 17 vols. ; Die Wirtemberger Summarien, Niirn- berg (1859). Die Prediger Bibel by Fiscuer and Wontramnrr, marks the transition to our time. The antagonistic works by Dinrer and Branpr. The Bibleworks of Ricuter, Lisco, Gertacn ; CaLWER Hanpsuca; theunfinished Biblewerk by Bunsen; The Historical and Theological Bibelwerk, by WesER, Schaffhausen (1860); the newly published Wérterbuch of Ortincer; Die Bibel, an article from Erscu’s and GruBer’s Encyclopedia; Lurser’s Explanations of the Holy Scriptures, selected from his Expository Works, Berlin. [Besides the Commentaries of Henry and Scorr, we may refer to those of J. Gitt, ADAM CLAREE, Patrice Lowra and Wuirry, Burper’s Seripture Exposition, Pootn’s Annotations, the Biblical Com- mentary, by Ket and Dexirzscu, now in course of publication and translation in Clarke’s foreign library. D’Oyty and Mant: The Holy Bible, with Notes, crit- ical and explanatory, London (1856).—A. G.] FIRST DIVISION. THEOLOGICAL INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTA- MENT UPON THE PLAN OF BIBLICAL THEOLOGY. Preratory Remarks, 81. Definition and Structure of Biblical Theology. Biblical Theology, embracing the doctrines and ethics of the Holy Scripture, in their unity as the biblical rule of life, is an historical science ; the history, 7. ¢., of the actual and uniform development of Biblical doctrine from its earliest form to its canonical completion. Its sources are the canonical books of the Holy Scriptures ; with which we may connect the Old Testament Apocrypha, as a historical auxiliary, which furnishes us with the knowledge of biblical doctrine during its transition period, from its Old Testament form to its New Testament completion, But to assign it its true worth and. position, we must compare the Bible with its surroundings; @. with the Apo- crypha, 6. with the Apostolical Fathers, c. with the Talmud, and the Old Testament text with the Septyagint. It occupies in Theology the transition ground between Exegesis and Church History. Its last antecedent is Biblical History, result the History of Dogmas. As to its origin and history, it springs out of the total development of The- ology. The way was opened for it through the whole Theology before the Ref- ormation, through the biblical character of the doctrines of the Reformers through the dicta probantia which marked the Dogmatics of the 17th century, and through the effort of the Pietistic school to confine the Chrisvian dogmas to their Scriptural its nearest THE SCRIPTURES IN THEIR DIVINE ASPECT. 3 basis. In the second half of the 18th century it became an independent science, formed at first upon the loci theologici, then regarded as purely historical, finally assumed the form of an historical science, conditioned upon the grand norm or prin- ciple of Christian doctrine and of the Scriptures. [Upon the idea of the God-Man —the Incarnation.—A. G.] Biblical Theology is the history of Biblical doctrine in its unity, and in its particular doctrines. It may be divided therefore into General and Special; but these are united again by the Christological principle, the Incarnation, which is the grand fundamental thought of Holy Scripture. We have the reflection of the God-Man, 7. ¢., the unity of the eternal divine being and its finite human manifestation, of the one and absolute Spirit and the manifold life, in Biblical doc- trine as in Biblical History. It follows, of course, that General Biblical Theology treats 1. of the divine unity of Holy Scripture, 2. of the human diversities of Holy Scripture, 3. of the divine-human, Christological theology of the Holy Scrip- ture, and its course of development. Avcordingly Special Biblical Theology embraces 1. the history of the Biblical doctrine of God, in its Christological form, 2. the history of the Biblical doctrine of Man, 3. the history of the Biblical doctrine of the God-Man, and his redeeming work, 4. the history of the expansion of the life of Christ in his Kingdom; or Theocratology, the doctrine of the Kingdom of God, to its Eschatological completion. For the position of Biblical Theology i in the system of Theological Sciences, see Lance’s Matthew, Am. ed., p.17. It must be observed here, however, that Biblical Theology, with its parallel science, Biblical History, is the result and crowning glory of Exegetical Theology ; and further, that Biblical Theology is no more to be con- founded with systematic biblical Dogmatics (7. ¢., the ground of Ecclesiastical Dog> matics), than Biblical History with the history of the Kingdom of God, which latter embraces the entire history of the Church and the world, to the end of times” We must, therefore, avoid confounding with each other the periods of the history of the Kingdom of God, of Biblical History, and of Biblical religion, which is still often the case. For the literature of Biblical History, see Danz: | Grube: Characterbilder der heiligen Schrift, Leip- Universal-Worterbuch, p. 135. Also the Biblical } zig (1853). Histories of Hupner, Rauscnensuscn, Kontravsca For the History and Literature of Biblical Theol- Zaun. Biblical History is often treated under the | ogy, see Hacensacn: Theol. Encyclopedia, p. name of the History of the Kingdom of Ged. See | 101. FIRST SECTION. THE CANONICAL CHARACTER OR DIVINE ASPECT OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES, ESPECIALLY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT, OR THE UNITY OF BIBLICAL DOCTRINE. 81. THE SACRED WRITINGS AS THE HOLY SCRIPTURE. The records of Revelation, especially of the Old Testament Revelation, or che 4 INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. sacred writings, notwithstanding their endless diversity, as to authors, time, form, language, constitute one Holy Scripture perfectly consistent with itself, and per- fectly distinct from all other writings; yet entering into such a relation and inter- change with them as to manifest as perfect a unity of spirit as if they had been written by one pen, sprung from one fandamental thought, in one year, in a single moment. This unity of the Holy Scripture rests upon the unity of its eternal Spirit, of its eternal norm or principle, its eternal contents, its eternal object. What- ever is eternal forms a living, concrete unity under the diversities of time ; and thus the eternal divine purpose of redemption in Christ—the soul of the Holy Scripture— forms its living unity under the diversities of the sacred writings. § 2 THE ONE PERVADING SUBJECT OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURE IN ITS OBJECTIVE ASPECT. The Holy Scripture in its objective aspect is one only through its one pervading idea of God, or rather through the living revelation of the one personal God of revelation which runs through the Old and New Testaments. "When, therefore, on the one hand the Gnostics make the God of the Old Testament a subordinate deity’ (Marcion : Jeds dixasos), or a God of a lower nature, a Demiurge, or even an Evil Spirit (the Ophites), and the Rationalists distinguish the Old Testament Jehovah, as a Jewish national Deity, from the New Testament God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ ; and on the other hand the Jews in the God of the New Testament, the Ebionites in the God of Paul, could not recognize the Jehovah of the Old Tes- tament, they simply failed to perceive—owing to their spiritual blindness—the -one grand common life, underneath the great objective antithesis between the Old and New Testaments. The God of the Old Testament as well as that of the New is the absolute Spirit, the Creator, Upholder and Ruler of the world, above the world and yet in it, the God of all nations, the God of love, grace, and redemption; although in a peculiar sense the God of Israel, and although omnipotence, holiness, and righteousness are the predominant features in his earlier revelation. The God of the New Testament, on the other hand, is a God viewed in his relations to man, the God of the Elect, primarily of the Elect One, as the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the God of his own people, the Holy One, in his justice a consuming fire (Heb. xii. 29), while love, grace, and mercy predominate in his final and complete revelation. The Jehovah of the Old Covenant is more illustriously revealed in the God Amen of the New Covenant (Rev. iii. 14). As the one biblical idea of God—imparting unity to the Scriptures—is thus en- tirely consistent with itself, so it is clearly distinguished from the heathen idea ot God, from all pure abstract Monotheism, post-Christian J udaism, and Mohammed- anism (see Melanchthon’s loci, the preface). Compare the mythological systems, the Talmud, the Cabbalah, and the Koran. § 6. THE OPPOSITIONS OF SCRIPTURE. | 5 § 3. THE ONE PERVADING SUBJECT OF HOLY SCRIPTURE IN ITS SUBJECTIVE ASPECT. The Holy Scripture in its subjective aspect is animated by one pervading, pecu- liar religious consciousness—Faith, Faith, as here used, is the knowledge of God awakened by the self-revelation of God, and corresponding to it, of God not as exist- ing merely, but as manifesting himself vividly afar off and near at hand; and the con- fidence in him having its root in this knowledge and agreeing with it, a confidence not resting upon him in his general character, but upon him in the promise of salvation in his word. In this confidence, as it leads to the yielding of the will to the will and Providence of God—not to any arbitrary human will—and thus to a living obe- dience to the commands of God, lies the root of love and of all virtue. In this sense the faith of Abraham and Paul arethe same. Indeed, Abraham is the father of be- lievers (Rom. iv. 1); although his faith both in its objective and subjective aspects was merely the living seed which, under the New Covenant, unfolded itself to the perfect fruit of saving faith. As the biblical idea of God is clearly distinguished from all untheocratic concep- tions of the Deity, so this religious consciousness or the faith of the theocratic people, is clearly distinguished from all heathen, Jewish, or Mohammedan forms of this consciousness, 8 4. THE ONE PERVADING THEANTHROPIC SUBJECT OF HOLY SCRIPTURE, CHRIST AND THE KINGDOM OF GOD. Both the personal aspect of the Kingdom of God, the expectation of the Mes- siah, until his appearance, and until the hope of his second coming, and the univer. sal aspect of the Messiah; the old promise of the Messianic Kingdom, confirmed in the covenant of God with Abraham and Israel, and the new promise of his appearing in glory—after bis appearance in the form of the crucified—confirmed in the cove- nant of God with believers, runs throughout the Scriptures as the grand constituent principle, and final aim of Revelation and the Holy Scripture. Still, there is an endless development which lies between the paradisaic destination of man in Genesis (chap. i.), especially in the Protevangelium (chap. iii.) and the completed City of God of the Apocalypse (Rev. chap. xxi. xxii.) The Kingdom of God, as the Kingdom of Christ, as the synthesis of the glory of God and the blessedness of his children (since the glory of God shines in their bles- sedness, and their blessedness consists in the open vision of his glory), is distinct as possible from all the religious conceptions of the future of heathenism, Judaism and Mohammedanism. It rests upon the eternal covenant of God with humanity, which was prefigured in the old covenant, and fulfilled in the new. The Bible, therefore, is the record of this eternal covenant in its twofold form. § 5. THE OPPOSITIONS OF SCRIPTURE. The revealed religion of the Bible stands in the most direct and irreconcilable 6 INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. opposition to the various unscriptural religions, considered in their darker aspect, #. é., 80 far as they are the false religions of false gods (Elilim) ; or dead, lifeless con- ceptions of God; but in a relation of friendship, as to the divine elements or those truths, they may embrace. This will define its relation to the different my- thologies, to the Talmud, and the Koran. The recorded expression of this revelation in the Bible, stands in a specific op- position to all the derived forms, statements, and outgrowths of this revelation. This is the relation which the Old Testament sustains to the Septuagint, and the New Testament to the Apostolical Fathers, leaving out of view in one case the Old Testament Apocrypha, and in the other the New Testament Apocrypha and the tra- ditions of the Church. But by virtue of its inexhaustible riches of life, embracing the whole history of the world and eternity, the Holy Scripture itself is distinguished into the harmo- nious antithesis of the Old and New Testaments: the Old, which points on to the New, into which it passes and finds its fulfilment; the New, which is ever referring to the Old, and in a historical sense is grounded in it. § 6. IMPORT OF THE UNITY OF THE BIBLE IN ITS DIVERSITY. The unity of the Holy Scripture according to its divine, theanthropic origin, rests upon its Inspiration. (Lancn’s Matthew, Am. ed. p. 11.) Recent writers upon Inspiration, e. g., Bunsen, Rothe, and others, have not sufficiently considered the Bible as to its full, harmonious, perfect teleology, through which all its individual utterances are conditioned, and which binds all into one. The perfect adaptation to its design points clearly to a perfect origin. The whole Bible teleologically considered culminates in the New Testament, emphatically in Christ: each particular book in its fundamental idea. To wrest any part out of its connection, for subordinate purposes, is a misconception of the Bible. In its per- fectly definite design and end, agreeably to its sacred origin and contents, it is the Holy Scripture. The unity of the Holy Scripture according to its divine, theanthropic contents constitutes it the Canon. (See Lanen’s Matthew, Am. ed. p. 13.) . The Bible is beyond question the canon, but not merely the canon, not a canon in the sense of a law-book. The canonical, as a rule and direction, always points to that which is above itself, the principle of life, and the life of the principle; to the source of free love, free life, and free blessedness from which it flows. Viewing the Holy Scripture as to its effects, its unity proves it to be the word of God. It exerts a power within and beyond itself; it sheds light upon itself; it radiates its light from its mighty living centre—the world-redeeming Christ—to every part, and reflects it from each part to every other, and back upon the central truth itself. Thus by virtue of the analogy of faith, and the analogy of Scripture the Bible is the one indivisible word of God, in its total impression and operation, more fully the word of God, than in its particular words or utterances, , Hence its eternal efficiency is pure and perfect. Asa body of records it points back from itself to its origin, the living revelation. Asa word of life it points beyond itself, to the living Christ. It is no idol which fetters the hearts of men to itself in a slavish manner. Neither is it a mere canon, a writing of genuine author- § 8 THE RICHES OF THE SCRIPTURES IN THEIR ENDLESS DIVERSITY. q ity, which simply as a law, fixes the rule what we are to believe, and how we should live. As the word of God, it is the book of life, in the authentic form of writing, which gives testimony to the book of life in the hand of God—the purpose of re. demption—to the book of life in the heart of the Church—Christ in us ; and awakens, strengthens and enriches the life from God through Christ. It is not ouly the ground upon which the Cultus of the Church rests, but the book through which it edifies itself, and fulfils its great mission to the world. The unity of the Holy Scripture in the harmony of its great opposition con- stitutes it the one book of the Covenant, or the Eternal Testament, in the opposition of the Old and New Testaments. §7. THE BIBLE AS THE BOOK OF BOOKS. The Bible then, as the Book of Books, is as the sun in the centre of all other re- ligious records; the Kings of the Chinese, the Vedas of India, the Zendavesta of the Persians, the Eddas of the Germans, the Jewish Talmud, and the Mohammedan Koran; judging all that is hostile in them, reconciling and bringing into liberty whatever elements of truth they may contain. It stands also, with a like repelling and attracting force in the centre of all literature, as well as of Theology. In the same power and dignity it exercises its critical authority upon all historical traditions. As the ideal Cosmos of the revelation of Salvation, it forms with the Cosmos of the general revelation of God an organic unity (Ps. viii.; xix.; civ.). It is the key of the World-Cosmos, while this again is the living illustration of the Cosmos of the Scripture. But as that is subordinate to the living God, as an organ of bis manifestation, so is the Bible to the living Christ. It holds the same relation to him as the copy to the original,.and is coérdinate with the eternal word of Christ in the total life of the Church—as a fully accordant testimony. But whoever will utter anything from that mystical writing in the heart of the church, must derive his credentials from the written word. 8 8. THE RICHES OF THE SCRIPTURES IN THEIR ENDLESS DIVERSITY. The grand opposition of the Old and New Testaments, upon a closer view, branches itself into an endless number of oppositions, distinctions, and differences, which meet us not only in the Old Testament generally, but in its particular divisions, and also in the New. In this human aspect the Bible appears as an historical growth, and is open to an historical examination and criticism. In this aspect is is connected with human imperfections. But in this aspect alone, the endless riches of its all-pervading divine fulness unfolds itself to our view. From the reciprocal influence of the divine unity of the Scriptures, and its human diversities, results the living force or movement in the development of Biblical 8 INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. Theology; and thus it comes to be the authentic copy of the advent and life of Christ, flowing out of the connection between the God of revelation and believing humanity. SECOND SECTION. INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES, ISAGOGICS, OR THE DIVERSITIES AND HISTORICAL GROWTH OF BIBLICAL DOCTRINE. a, Biblical Introduction treats of the Scriptures in their historical aspect. If we distinguish between a preparatory (taking that word in its widest sense) and an historical and critical introduction (which regarded as general includes both parts, but as special only the latter), there is no room for the question which has been agitated (Hacunzacn’s Encyclopedia, p. 140), whether the literary history of the Scriptures as a whole and in their individual parts alone, or the scientific aids to Exegesis also, properly belong to such an introduction.” FIRST CHAPTER. Preparatory Introduction. § 2. ITS CONSTITUENT ELEMENTS. The direct auxiliaries to the Explanation of the Scriptures are biblical antiquities, and the sacred languages; and as regards the present form of the text, biblical criticism and hermeneutics. Exegesis presupposes all these Sciences, and they in turn presuppose exegesis. The circle which is involved in this statement is not logical but real, 7. ¢., science must learn to know the particular through the uni- versal, and the universal through the particular. From the central point between ‘the universal and the particular, it oscillates between the two extremes, which intui- ‘tion harmonizes. SECOND CHAPTER. Preparatory Introduction: Its constituent parts so far as the text is concerned, L Taz Orp Testament Arcumzotoey. § 3. BIBLICAL ANTIQUITIES OF. THE OLD TESTAMENT. It is defined mainly by the forming principle which constitutes its unity: here, * For o general survey of the development of the sciences of Old Testament Introduction, see BLZEK, Hinleitung, p. 5 Ds §4. THE ISRAELITISH PEOPLE AND SURROUNDING NATIONS. 9 the character of the Jewish people. Regarding this people in its local relations we have Biblical Geography (especially physical), and in its relations to time, Biblical Chronology; then in its relations to nature, the physical science of the Bible, and in its relation to the race, Biblical Ethnography ; then in its more vital relations, the Theocracy, embracing the history of the Biblical Cultus and Civilization; and lastly in its relations to History, biblical history and international relations. For the literature of the Old Testament Antiquities :|1842; Hacunsacu’s Encyclopedia, p. 186; and in De Werte: Lehrbuch der hebrdisch-jidischen Arch-|Kuit, p. 18. Lanen’s Matthew, Am. ed. p. 14. dologie (1842).—Ewatp: Die Alterthiimer des Volkes| Archeology, [Preston: Student’s Theological Man. Israel, 1848, 1854. [This is a very suggestive work.| ual, London, 1850, Jann’s Biblical Archeology, —A.G.] Kem: Handbuch der biblischen Archdologie, | translated by Upham, New York, 1853.—A. G.] 1858. Burtranau: Zur Geschichte der Isracliten, § 4, THE ISRAELITISH PEOPLE AND SURROUNDING NATIONS. Heathen nations, in their pride and presumption, trace their origin back through various steps to the Gods, or demigods (Tuisko, Brahma, Deucalion, &c.); but the Israelitish people is satisfied to trace its origin from Abraham, the Friend of God. Because it enters into the history of the world as the people of faith, therefore, also as the people marked by humility in its claims. Heathen nations speak of ancient historical glory which is entirely fabulous; the people of Israel with a fartruer historical sense, acknowledges the comparatively recent date of its origin. According to Jewish tradition and history Abraham lived about 2000 years B. C. China and Egypt were then thoroughly developed, well-known historical kingdoms, with the traditions of a thousand years in the past. In their historical name, as they are known in the language of other nations the Israelites are Hebrews (c™2°); according to Ewald, Lengerke and others, from the Patriarch Heber (Gen. x. 25; xi. 16); but according to Hengstenberg, Kurtz (Geschichte des Alten Bundes, p. 132), they were called by this name since they came from the other side, ¢. ¢., across the Euphrates (739 the land upon the other side, here the other side of the Euphrates). It may be urged in favor of this derivation that they were so called by foreign nations, who would naturally be better acquainted with their geographical, than their genealogical origin. They always called themselves after the theocratic honored name of their ancestor Israel. They were a people who wrestled with God in faith and prayer. After the exile, the name Jews passed from the tribe of Judah to the whole people, of whom that tribe was the central point, and they were usually so called by foreign nations. ~ - See Winer: Article Hebrews. Bierx : Hinleitung | Kirchen-lexikon von Werzer und Wettz. Article in’s Alte Testament, p. 72. An article protesting | Hebréer. against the prevailing view, may be found in the The Israelites, as Hebrews, or immigrants into Canaan, may have exchanged their original Aramaic tongue for the Hebrew as their first historical language. (BLEEK’s Hinleitung, p. 61.) This would be only in accordance with what actually occurred under the New Covenant, when the Hebrew Christians exchanged their own language for the classic language of the Greek and Roman world. In both cases, is the appropriated 10 INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. language moulded into an entirely new language, through the power of the religious spirit. We leave it undetermined however how far this question must be regarded as already settled. [There is a very able article in the 2d vol. of the Biblical Repertory in which the author defends the antiquity of the Hebrew language.—A. G.] As to their genealogy, the descent of Israel from Abraham, and more remotely from Shem, forms the very kernel and soul of their authentic traditions; while the relation of other Semitic tribes to their ancestors is involved in uncertainty. See Genealogical table Gen. Ch. 10. Kurtz: History of the Old Covenant. The origin of the Covenant people, i. p. 129. The essential question here is this: what is the fundamental characteristic, the distinguishing feature of the Israelitish people. When God chose this people as his own, although it was a stiffnecked people (Ex. xxxili. 9; xxxill. 8); although it possessed no art, science, political system, like that of the Greeks and Romans (see Introduction to Réhr’s Geography of Palestine) ; it does not follow that the choice was arbitrary, without a reason in the divine mind. Corresponding to the divine choice, there was a human disposition or quality, which God from eternity had designed, for the individual or people of his choice, and which he actually communi- cated in its origin. The striking peculiarity of Israel isthe great prominence of the religious (Semitic) element in reference to God, which is found in its highest and most genial form in this people ; in contrast to the prominence of the Ethical (Japhetic) element in refer- ence to the world. Israel therefore is preéminently a people of religion, not of art and science like the Greeks, nor of politics and law like the Romans. We may say indeed that it is a people of dynamic, not of dead formal forces or principles. As the people of God, which out of a profounder originality, introduces and unfolds among the hoary nations a new life, it places its living religion in opposition to the formal and lifeless Cultus of the heathen; its dynamic poetry, and its science of the one all pervading principle of the world, to the formal poetry and science of the Greeks ; and its warfare and politics, animated and exalted by the great principles which actuate them, to the technical and unmeaning Roman politics and warfare. As it is itsclf'an element of regeneration to the nations, so are its gifts for the gifts and arts of the nations. Hence it follows .that Israel must possess that comprehensive nationality, in which all the peculiarities of the different nations must be mixed. Thus it was destined and prepared to be the maternal breast for the Son of Man. the man from heaven, the Head of all nations. Thus for the Father’s sake, whose pee? foundest peculiarities it represents, and for the Son of Jesse, who is the flower and _ glory of humanity, it is the beloved people, the Elect One, Jeshurun, the favorite of heaven, the Apple of God’s eye, the typical Son of God, the type of the true Son of God to come, who is the fulfilling of its deepest faith and desire. Hence too in its darker aspect, its falls and crimes, it must represent the darkest side of humanity and its worst characters, just as in its peculiarly chosen ones, its patriarchs and prophets, it may claim the noblest and most heroic spirits of the race. (See Lanar’s Verfinsterung der Welt, p. 119.) The most distorted features of the Hebrew Nation- | Jewish State; in Frurrpacn: Tractate upon. the al Character are found in Hirzic: Introduction to | Nature of Christianity. The old heathen utterances Isaiah; in Leo: Prelections on the History of the | of contempt for the Jews are recorded in Ravmen’s § 5. THE LAND OF CANAAN AND ITS POSITION ON THE EARTH. li Palestine, p. 896. Herper, Hecet in his Prelections upon the Philosophy of Religion, 2d part, pp. 42, 57. Ewatp, and others have contributed to a more correct estimate of the Israclitish people. Franxt’s Libanon, the family book of poetry, forms a collec- tion of the poetical glories, and exalted estimate for the Jewish people (1855). The people of Israel must therefore from. its very destination come into contact with the most diverse nations, with the astrological Chaldees from whom the family of Abraham sprang (Ur, Light in Chaldea. Abraham, in the starry night. Gen. xy. 5); with the Babylonians and Syrians, ever oscillating between pleasure and despair (devotees of lust and moloch); with the cultivated but depraved Canaanites (Kurtz: History of the Old Covenant, i, p. 120) ; with the wisdom and lifeless Cultus of the Egyptians; with the excitable and prudent Midianites; with the kindred but still dangerously hostile Edomites, Moabites, Ammonites and Samaritans; with the haughty and contracted Philistines (for whose origin, seq Kurtz, p. 185); with the skilful and ingenious Phenician; with the pride and haughtiness of the Assyrian and Babylonian monarchies; with the moral intuitions, and tolerant spirit of the Persian world-power ; with the culture and reason-worship of the Greek; and at last with the fateful, mighty, and cruel power of Rome. Upon this, as its fatal rock, after it had, under all these interchanges and influences, unfolded its whole character, in both good and evil, it broke to pieces as to its historical form or nationality, in an exter- minating contest between the Judaic religious, legal spirit, and the strong political, and legal spirit of the Roman power. § 5. THE LAND OF CANAAN AND ITS POSITION ON THE EARTH. The land of Canaan, or the lowlands of Syria, in opposition to Aram or the high- lands (Gesenius, Lexicon, }3:3), the promised land, the Holy land, designated by many names (Raumer’s Palestine, p. 32), was appropriated as the chosen home of the chosen people, as the land holding @ central geographical position, connected with the different countries of the civilized world by the Mediterranean sea, and yet insulated from them (C, Rrrrur: Der Jordan und die Beschiffung des Todten Meeres, Berlin, 1850); central also as to climate, lying midway between the debilitating tropical heats, and those colder climates within which life is supported only by hard labor; and central further as to its physical qualities between paradisaic fruitfulness, and sterile wastes. But so much has been written upon this land, in so many respects different from Asia, Africa, Europe, and yet so closely connected with them all, that we need only refer to the literature here. We would call special notice to the article upon Hacensacn: Encyclopedia, p. 135. Von Rav- Palestine in Hurzoc’s Real-Encyclopedia, Kru: mer: Palestine, p.2. The Bible Atlas of WEILAND and Acxerman, 2d ed. (1845). Brrnarz: Album des heiligen Landes (1856). Bible Atlas, by Krzrrrt (1858.) The plates, plans of Jerusalem, alluded to in Raumer’s Palestine. Also the Periodicals upon this subject. The Lands and States of Holy Scripture, in selected engravings with an explanatory text by Frev’x and Orro Srravss (1861). The description of the land in Kurrz’s History of the Old Covenant, i. p. 1038. Zaan: Das Reich Gottes, i. Thl. p. 105. Lance: Life of Christ, ii. i. p. 24. Bible Diction- aries by WINER and ZELLER. Handbuch der Biblischen Archdologie, p.15 ff. The Holy Land, by OC. Tiscnenporr (1862). Lance’s Biblework upon Joshua. [Ropinson: Researches, with the maps. The articles by the same in the Bibliotheca-Sacra. The articles upon Palestine by Tuomson and Porter in the same periodical, Coxz- Man: Biblical Geography, Tezt-book and Atlas. Wall-map by Coreman. Tuomson: The Land and the Book. Article Geography in Ancus’ Hand-Book. Witson: Lands of the Bible. Kirto: ‘History of Palestine. Travels by Onin, Durvin, Bausmann. 12 INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. Barrett: Walks about Jerusalem, Arron: The Lands of the Messiah, London (1854). Bonar: The desert of Sinai, Hacxert: Illustrations of Scrip- | ture. Rour’s Palestine, Edin. (1843). Sranury: Sinai and Palestine.—A. G.] § 6. CHRONOLOGY OF THE HISTORY OF THE OLD COVENANT, OR OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE. See Gartreren’s, Ipever’s, BRINKMEYER’s Chrono- logie. Die Biographien der Bibel (¥858). Horr- Maxn: in), by the ages of the Patriarchs, by the life of Moses, by the reigns of the kings. In addition to this there appear in the history general genealogies. But when all the Christian world reckons time from the birth of Christ, it only raises to its highest power the Old Testament principle of personality ; since the years of redemption are the years of the universal life of Christ; a continuous fulfilment of the word, “who shall declare his generation?” But in this peculiarity the Jewish chronology has been of essential service to the chronology of general history. Just as generally the Old Testament has given the death blow to heathen mythology, so the Old Testament chronology, by fixing the antiquity of the human race to about 4000 years B.C. (for the different computations see the Biblical chronology, Tibingen, 1851, Preface, p. 1), has forever refuted the fabulous chronology of various heathen nations, ¢. g., the Indian, Chinese, Egyptian. The general historical view of the periods of the development of the human race before Christ confirms the correctness of the biblical assumption as to the remoteness of its origin. . In Ewald’s view, the determination of the yearly feasts, which was in the hands of the priests, is of great aid in perfecting the Jewish method of computation. To the determination of particular years, was added the regulation of the periods of years, the Sabbath year (7 years); the year of Jubilee, which probably began with the fiftieth year (see Note 3, Ewald, p. 276). Then the Exodus from Egypt became a starting point for a continuous era, and (1 Kings vi. 1) 480 years were counted from the Exodus to the founding of the temple in the fourth year of the reign of Solomon. So the residence in Egypt was fixed at 430 years (Ex. xii. 40). In establishing these points the Israelites could avail themselves of the guidance of the Egyptian method of computation. According to Ewald, these two periods, the residence in Egypt, and the interval between the Exodus and the building of ' the temple, form the axes about which all the other determinations revolve. But as to the relations of the ancient Israelitish history to the history of other nations, Ewald points to the Egyptian Era of Manethon. To this Egyptian parallel Bun- sen adds that of the Babylonian and Assyrian. After the exile the Jewish era runs in close connection with the Persian, through the reckoning of the reigns of the kings (Ezra iv. 24; vi. 15). Since the Syrian Empire the Jews fall more com- pletely within the era of the Seleucid (1 Mace. i. 10). It is not our purpose to form a new. chronological system of the history of the Old Testament, but rather to vindicate the idea of Old Testament chronology. We throw out here however some brief remarks upon the method of ascertaining some of the general points just alluded to. 1. It is decidedly incorrect for the author of “The Dates of the Bible,” in 14 INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD ‘TESTAMENT. regard to the chronology of the Old Testament, to place the Samaritan text of the Old Testament, and the Septuagint, by the side of the Hebrew text, so that from theit great diversities, he might infer that the biblical chronology was in the same degree unreliable. It is impossible that the Septuagint should rest upon traditions which will bear comparison with those of the Hebrew text. The same is true of ° the Samaritan Pentateuch. The Hebrew text has throughout the priority, and must therefore have the preference in any case in which they may be com- pared. 2. It is incorrect again to attempt to rectify Old Testament declarations by what are supposed to be different declarations of the New Testament, as has been done by Usher, Ludov. Capellus and others, more recently by Becker, in his Chart of biblical chronology. The declaration of Paul (Gal. iii. 17) agrees with that made (Ex. xii. 40), if we take into account that the promise was not only confirmed to Abraham, but to Isaac and Jacob. The 430 years would thus date from the origin of the Israelitish people, after the death of Jacob, to the Exodus. It is more difficult to explain the relation of the 450 years which the Apostle (Acts xiii, 20) defines as the period of the Judges, to the declaration (1 Kings vi. 1), that the period from the Exodus to the erection of the temple was about 480 years. A diversity exists here in the Jewish tradition, since even Josephus (Antiq. viii. 3,1) reckons 592 years from the Exodus to the building of the temple: thus as- signing 443 years as the period of the Judges, while 1 Kings vi. 1 fixes 381 years as the length of that period. Hither the Apostle intimates in the és, that he fell in with the traditional indefinite reckoning, or the declaration reaches back, and includes Moses and Joshua among the Judges, (as they in fact were,) as it reaches forwards, and includes Samuel. In the determination of the bondage in Egypt to. 400 years in the speech of Stephen, it is probable that, according to the promise, (Gen. xv. 13), the round number of 30 years at the beginning of the residence in Egypt, was fixed as the period of the happy existence of the Israelites there, and must be subtracted from the entire period of their residence. 3. It is not our province, nor are we in a position to criticise the assertions which Bunsen makes in regard to the Egyptian, Assyrian and Babylonian chronologies (compare the criticism by Gutschmid). In any case he has performed a great service in bringing the Jewish era in relation with these chronologies ; which he has done at a vast expense of learning and toil. We must, however, bring out more clearly the doubt which a more complete scientific combination has to remove. In the first place, it seems without any adequate foundation that a chronology beyond the influence of the Theocracy should be presented as an infallibie measure for the biblical decla- rations, as much so indeed, as if generally an unquestioned right should be conceded to Josephus against the Old Testament, and Evangelic history. In the second place, the determination upon this ground of the dates of Jewish history seems to us, toa great extent, questionable. In the third place, it is a result which no one should hastily concede, when the 480 years (1 Kings vi. 1), from the Exodus to the founding of the temple are here reduced to less than 352 years. We must leave it to a special investigation, to ascertain these points more certainly. The most certain dates for the determination of Jewish Chronology, are those of Nebuchadnezzar and Cyrus. The conquest of Jerusalem by the former monarch, or the beginning of the Babylonian captivity, is assigned, not only by Bunsen, but by Scheuchzer and Brinkmeyer, to the year 586 (not 588) B.C. The return of the § 6. CHRONOLOGY OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE. 15 Jews from Babylon, according to the ordinary computation, took place 536 B.C. according to Bunsen and Scheuchzer 538. From that time downwards, the Jewish computation is determined by the Era of the Seleucid, which follows the era from the beginning of the Captivity in Babylon, or the destruction of the first temple. It begins with the year 312 B.C. A follow. ing era, reckoning from the deliverance in 143 B. C., gives place again to the com- putation used under the Seleucid, upon which follows the present computation of the Jews, the world era, beginning 3761 B. C., and divided into three great periods, the first reaching to the Babylonian Captivity, the second from that event to the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, the third from that time to the present. From the Babylonian Captivity, going backwards, we reach the first point in the Jewish computation, through the sum of the reigns of the Jewish Kings. It has usually been fixed at 387 years, and the beginning of the reign of Rehoboam placed at 975 B. C. Bunsen places it in 968, and thus, if we follow his method of determinations, agit seems to be confirmed by the Egyptian dates of King Shishak (Sisak, who plundered Jerusalem in the third year of Rehoboam,) we bring out the round number of 882 years for the reigns of the Kings. Solomon reigned forty years, and laid the foundation of the temple in the fourth of his reign (1 Kings vi.) This would give 1004 as the date of the founding of the temple. Gannenting the 480 years, the interval mentioned between the Exodus and the founding of the temple, and the Exodus must, have occurred about 1484 B,C. It is usually placed in round numbers at 1500, but more accurately at 1493. Bunsen, however, places the Exodus between the years 1324-1328, more definitely 1326, (Lepsius 1314.) But the confidence with which this determination is fixed, is based principally upon the fabulous narrative by Man- etho, of the eventsin the reign of the Egyptian King Menéphthah, (Bunsen, p. ccxii.) It is not credible that the simple, sober narratives of the Old Testament, are to be corrected by such a fabulous record as this (see Gutschmid, pp. 2, 10, 11, and 103, also, Knobel, Exodus, 112, 116 ff; upon the more extended argument of Bunsen, 215, see Gutschmid, p. 23). If we add the period of the residence in Egypt (Ex. xii. 40), 430 years, to the number (1 Kings vi. 1), the entrance into Egypt, or the death of Jacob must have happened 1914 B.C. For the residence of the patriarchs in Canaan, according to Knobel’s computation, we may allow 190, or at the most 215 years. Abraham must therefore have entered Canaan about 2129. Knobel is inclined to reduce the 215 years, since in his view, the age of the patriarchs is placed too high, but, with Beer, Koppe, Ewald, and others, defends the 430 years, as the period of the residence in Egypt, against those chronologists, who follow the reckoning of the later Jews, and especially of Josephus, in whose view the residence in Egypt was only 215 years, with this remark, “that in these diverging computations too much stress has been laid upon uncertain genealogies.” The date of the entrance of Abraham into Canaan poiuts to a period still more remote, which may be fixed with considerable accuracy, through the declarations in Genesis as to the lives of the Patriarchs, and which, beyond question, gives a vastly more probable age of the race than 20,000 years, assumed by Bunsen. For the Junar year of the Ancient Israelites, see Winen’s Real-Worterbuch, Article Year. For their months, the article Months. Also Brinxmryer, pp. 43, 44. 16 INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. § 7. THE NATURAL HISTORY OF PALESTINE (PHYSICA SACRA). Upon this subject we refer to the works at hand. | son: Researches ; The Land and the Book, by Tao Von Raver’s Palestine, p. 69; Kxtt, p. 28, and|son, a very interesting and instructive book; Dean other Geographical works. For the literature, see |Stanley’s work. Upon this and all other kindred Hacenpacn’s Encyclopedia, p. 239. subjects, the valuable Bible Dictionary by Smith, 8 Die Calwer Biblische Naturgeschichte may be rec- | vols.; Harris: Natural History of the Bible; Os- ommended for its lively and popular style. [Ropin-| Born: Plants of the Holy Land.—A. G.] § 8. BIBLICAL ETHNOGRAPHY. See above, § 4. Kurrz: History of the Old Covenant. ii. p. 444. Lr1sco: 0. T., p. 206, Vélkershau, § 9, THE THEOCRACY. We cannot comprehend the history of Israelitish civilization, without embracing the history of its worship, which lies at its foundation; nor this again without a prior view of the common root, out of which spring both branches, the history both of the worship and civilization of Israel, 4. ¢., the Theocracy. It is the faith of Abraham, that faith by which he left his home (Gen. xii. 1), not knowing whither he went, which makes him an historical personage. Israel, also, from nameless, unhistorical, servile tribes, became the most glorious people of history through the reception of the legally developed Theocracy at the hands of Moses. The obe- dience of faith was the constituent principle of the people. Hence it is the type of the church, that one people which the gospel has gathered out of all nations. J osephus ascribes the founding of the Theocracy, or the reign of God over Israel, to Moses ( Con- tra Apionem ii. 1, 6, see de Wette’s Archaologie, p. 179). But Moses stands to the Theocracy, or the religious community of the Old Covenant under the immediate guidance and control of Jehovah, just as he does to the Old Covenant itself, 7. ¢., he is not the starting-point or founder, but one who develops it under its legal form: the mediator for the people of the grand theocratic principles, in the form of the fun- damental laws of the Theocracy. The Old Covenant law or right, according to which the Church of God, at its very beginning, recognized its conscious dependence upon the Divine Providence, and entrusted itself with entire confidence to His marvellous care, while it walked in the obedience to His commands which faith prompts and works, began with Abraham, with whom the Old Covenant itself began. The symbols of this supernatural order of things, are the starry heavens over the house of Abra: ham, and circumcision, the religious and profoundly significant rite of his house. Abra- ham was justified by his faith in the word of promise, and in this begins the germ- like organic growth of the Kingdom of God, which hitherto only in sporadic portents, like individual stars in the night,—in the saints of the earlier times—had irradiated the nights of the old world. Hence the term THEOcRACY, as Aristocracy, Democracy, and similar terms, designates the principle of the government, not tts form ,* which is * Comp. Cuapriu’s Del ancient Testa. Lausanne, 1838, p. 79. Lance’ 8 opening address at Zurich treat distinction. eats of the same § 10. RELIGION AND WORSHIP OF ISRAEL AND OF SURROUNDING NATIONS. 17 designated by the terms Monarchy, Hierarchy, Oligarchy. It is not the outward form of a political power or government. We cannot say, therefore, that the Theocracy ceased in Israel with the erection of the Kingdom. The division of Jewish history into the reign of God, the reigns of the Kings, and the reigns of the Priests, rests upon an error, which confounds the distinction between the immutable Old Testament prin- ciple of government, and the mutable political forms under which it appears. The reign of God does not exclude the reign of the Kings, as a form in which it appears 3 on the contrary it blooms and flowers in its representation through the regal power of David and Solomon, as before in its representation through the prophetical and judi- cial power of Moses and Joshua, and in later times in its representation through the priestly dominion of the Maccabean Judas and Simon. The organic principle of the divine dominion branches itself into the three fundamental forms under which Israel was led; the prophetic, kingly and priestly. Hence the Providential leading of Israel, we may say indeed, the consciousness of the dominion and leading of Jehovah, endured in Israel, under the Kings as under the Judges, in the Kingdom of the ten tribes as in Judah, by the rivers of Babylon as in Canaan, however much the prevailing unbelief and apostasy of the many could transiently obscure that consciousness; and it was only when Jerusalem was destroyed by Titus, that despair filled the hearts of the people, in the consciousness that for some long, indefinite period, it had been rejected by Jehovah. But the typical form of the Old Testament theocracy, as it was estab- lished by Moses (Ex. xix. 6), has now passed into the real New Testament Kingdom of God, the Bactrela rév oipavav, which had been already predicted by the prophets, especially by Daniel (chap. ii. and 'yii.), The typical appearance of a people formed by God to the obedience of faith through His revealed word, led and protected by Him, has reached its fulfilment in the people of God, founded by His saving virtue and power, a holy commonwealth; and in truth, by the word of God, united in a hu- man, spiritual life, and led to an eternal glorious Kingdom, which, in its introductory form, is begun here, and has its continuous, efficient organ in the Christian Church. Thus Abraham, in his righteousness of faith, stands as the living type of the King- dom of God, but the type of the whole theocratic culture is its altar, as tte type of the whole theocratic civilization is the shepherd’s tent. ; - bi iis § lo. *, oo RELIGION AND WORSHIP OF ISRAEL AND OF SURROUNDING NATIONS. Abraham appears as an historical personage only through his religion, and the Is- raelitish people takes its origin from religion. Other nations have formed their own human religions in their own way, but here the divine religion, viewed in its relation to general history, makes its own point of departure, the father of the faithfal, and the organ of its growth—the people of Israel. As the Greek tribes were formed into a people through their Hellenic culture, and the Roman tribes through the city of Rome and the Roman State, so ina more marked way has Israel grown to be a his- torical people through its religious calling. Even its natural origin was conditioned through faith (Gen. xv.). It is not our purpose here to dwell particularly upon the faith of Abraham -and Tsaac ; we will only give those periods which are noticeable in an archeological point of view. In the first place faith itself. 2 18 INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. 1. Monotheism and the Apostasy, or Symbolism 4, The Mosaic legal institutions, and their coun- and its heathen form, Mythology. terpart in the Heathen world. ; 2. Calling of Abraham and the heathen, or 5. The development of the Mosaic law, and the Symbolical Typology, and Symbolical Mythology. | idolatrous service of the surrounding nations. os Abraham separated from the people for their sal- 6. The Prophetic elevation of the national spirit vation, and the Apostasy. 8. The Patriarchal faith in its development, and 7. The rending of the common public religious heathenism in its ramifications, spirit, and its true concentration, Then follows the more direct solemn expression of faith, the Cultus: its pre-con- dition circumcision, its central point the sacrifice, its spiritual consecration prayer and instruction. The different stages of the Cultus are marked by the temporary and constantly moving tents of the Patriarchs (simple sacrifice), the tabernacle of Moses (the legal sacrificial system), the temple of Solomon (the fully developed liturgy), the second temple (the martyr sorrows of the people pointing on to the real sacrifice). All these points will be more thoroughly treated in | and 197; for the literature of Biblical Theology, p. their proper places, For the literature of Biblical]200, Also Ker: Archeology, p. 47. History, see Hacznpacn: Encyclopedia, pp. 189, 194, § 11. SACRED ART. We have already designated the sacred art as dynamic. It is clear, therefore, that Poetry must here hold the first place, and after this the Song and Music: and then the Sacred Chorus or religious dances. Symbolical Architecture and Sculpture close the series, as‘fainting seems to have been almost entirely neglected. For a gorrect estimate of Theocratic Art, the following points are of importance : 1. The religious element always outweighs and controls the moral. It is framed for ‘the puilipose of worship, not civilization. 2. The dynamic principle, as in all the theo- oratic relitions of life, is of far greater moment than the formal. 3. All Symbolic Art has a typiteal signification, 2. é., it not only serves the purpose of an esthetic ritual, and of philosophic contemplation, but by virtue of a real efficient principle, of a seed of true spirituaLJife, ever strives to give the beautiful appearance or representation its cor responding reality in life. For the literature of Hebrew Art and Music, see} Geschichte der bildenden Kiinste, i. 241. [The ar- Hacennacn: Eneyclopedia, p.139. Kern: Arche-| ticles Music and Musical Instruments in Kirro: En- ology, 2d vol. p. 182. Compare the articles Music cyclopedia, Smita: Bible Dictionary. Also the Bible and Musical Instruments in Winer. Also the articles | dictionaries of the American Tract Society, Presby- upon the temple, terian Boards and Sunday School Union; Jaun: Ar- For the Hebrew Architecture, sce the article upon cheeology.—A. G.] that subject in Hagenpacu : Hncyclopedia; Scunaase § 12. THEOCRATIC LAW AND JURISPRUDENCE. The fundamental principle of theocratic law and jurisprudence, is that estimate of personal life grounded in the vivid knowledge of a personal God, which leads first to a recognition of the fully developed personal life (personal rights), then to the pro- §14. THE HISTORY OF ISRAELITISH CIVILIZATION. 19 tection and culture of the undeveloped, or as a matter of history, outraged (marriage rights), then to the awakening. of the suppressed (rights of strangers), and lastly to the judgment upon those individuals and tribes who, through their unnatural sins and abominations, have subjected themselves as persons to the curse and destruction. See HaGENBACH, p. 139, under the heading, Staats- | don (1814), Commentaries on the Laws of the An- verfassung (Michaelis, Hiillmann, Saalschutz); J. | cient Hebrews, by E. C. Wines, 2d edition, New ScuneLL: Das israelitische Recht in seinen Grund- | York. The Biblical Encyclopedia and Dictionaries. ztigen dargestellt, Basel (1853). Compare Kui: Jaun: Hebrew Commonwealth, translated by C. Archeeologie, ii. p. 196. [Commentaries on the Laws | BH. Stowe, Andover and London; Lowrie: The He- of Moses, J. D. Micuazxis, English Translation, Lon- | brew Lawgiver,—A. G.] §13. ISRAELITISH WISDOM AND SCIENCE. In no region is it clearer that all the developments of life among the Israelites are preéminently dynamic, than in the intellectual, The wisdom of the Hebrews has upon its theocratic grounds failed to reach the true science, as Greek science, upon “its merely human grounds, has failed to reach the last and highest principles of true wisdom. But the theocratic faith, working in its dynamic direction, has laid the ground for the new birth of the ante-Christian, heathen. science, as it has thoroughly refuted the theory of two eternal principles, of the eternity of matter, or as it has estab- lished that one profound, all-pervading view of the world which rests upon the living synthesis of the ideal and real, upon the assumption of the absolute personality. Since science is the striving after the highest intellectual or ideal unity, it cannot dispense with the Old Testament, if it would attain to its perfect freedom under the New Tes- tament. We must be careful not to confound the relation | science, with each other. For the Jewish science, sce of Theocratic Judaism, and post-Christian Judaism to | Kun: Archeology, ii. p. 162; Hacrnpacu, p. 184, 814, THE HISTORY OF ISRAELITISH CIVILIZATION. Periods.—The Nomadic state—the Bondage—the Conquest—time of the settlement and agriculture —commerce—the dispersion. I. Domestic Lire. 1. Marriage.—Its religious and moral signifi- 4, The work of the family.—Production. cance, The Law of Marriage. The Marriage cere-| Agriculture. Pastoral life. Hunting. Fishing. mony. The Marriage state in its moral influence | Mining, and development, Zhe family. Training of chil- 5. The festivals of the family.— Home dren. Domestics, Slaves. The house. pleasures and joys. Society. Sports. Hospitality. 2. The house as a tent.—The dwelling. The | Household sorrows. Sickness. Death. Burials. Usages village. The market place. The city. of mourning, 3. The care and ornaments of the family.— 6. Food of the family.—Laws relating to Clothing. Jewelry. Luxuries. food. Meal times. * We reserve the subject of Jealousy, and of the sexual offences, as indeed of the assumed difficulties in the Old Testament generally, for a separate Excursus. 20 INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. JL. Isrart as A STATE. The principle-—The Theocracy as above. 1. establishment of law and Jurisprudence. Laws, The organization of a community. a. The organic Judgments, Punishments. The place of judgment. union of the tribes in the land. 8. The organic] The Sanhedrim. Law of the Zealots. [Nazarenes.— division of the Jand among the tribes. ¢. The lawof| A.G.] The Prophetic Judgments. Judgment an inheritance or primogeniture. 2. Zhe establishment | act of worship. of government. The three states or conditions. Priest-| For the literature, see Hacenpacn, p. 138; Ket, ly. Prophetic. Royal. Urim and Thummim. 3. The | ii. p. 1. Ill. Soctan, INTERCOURSE. 1, Commerce.—Its conditions, weights, meas- 2. Personal intercourse.—In the gate, visits, ures, money. Its forms. Barter, caravans, traffic by | jourtieys, modes of travel. land, trade by sea. For the Israelitish measures, 3. Intellectual intercourse.—Writings and BeerHeav, Bunsey, i, vol. literature, theological schools, science, special sciences, cultus. 4. Art.—ASee Cultus. § 15. HISTORY OF ISRAEL. See Hagensacs : Encyclopedia, p. 185. Lance : Matthew, Am, ed., the Introduction and the follow- ing paragraphs upon the theological and homilet- ical literature of the Old Testament. § 16. THE INTERNATIONAL LAW OF THE ISRAELITES. The root of this international law lies in the first promise (Genesis iii. 15), in the blessings of Noah (Gen. ix. 25), especially in the promise to Abraham: “In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed (Gen. xii. 8-7) ; and in its fuller explana- tion (Gen. xxii. 18), all the nations of the earth bless themselves.” The first declara- tion in what form this promise should fulfil itself, viz. through a holy Kingdom, is found in the blessing which Isaac gave to Jacob (Gen. xxvii. 27); the second and more definite declaration in the blessing which Jacob pronounces upon Judah (Gen. xlix. 8). After establishing the pre-conditions (Ex. xix. a legal separation from the nations, and a legal association with them), Moses organized the tribes of Israel into a sacred camp, a warlike host, destined to carry on the sacred wars of the Lord. It enters at first upon the removing, or in a modified sense the uprooting, of a corrupt heathen people, for the purpose of founding a free Israelitish national life. The wider relations of Israel to the nations must be determined through its contact with them—in war and peace, according to the laws of war and treaties of peace. The victories of David awakened in him and in the people, for a time, the thought that he was called, with a theocratic political power, to found a sacred world-power, to which all nations should be in subjection. (2 Sam. xxiv.) But the thought met the severe punishment of Jehovah, who thus turned the mind of the Israelitish people before the declining of its political glory, to a spiritual conquest of the nations. Sol- omon entered this path as a Prince of Peace, and reached great results, but he rashly §17and18. THE OLD TESTAMENT LANGUAGES. Q1 anticipated the New Testament future, the premature individual religious freedom, which produced similar destructive results in Israel, with the later idolatrous intoler- ance. Since then the Jewish public mind has ever oscillated in uncertainty between the two thoughts of a spiritual and political conquest of the world; ever falling more decidedly under the influence of the latter thought—which even prior to the extermi- nating Jewish wars had made them the odium generis humani ;—although the prophets with increasing distinctness and emphasis had made the external world- dominion dependent upon the inward spiritual conquest of the world, and therefore promised it only to the true seed of a spiritual Israel. The strict legal separation of Israel from the nations stands in contrast with its position between the nations, and its blessed intercourse with those who differed most widely from each other, in their whole spirit and tendency. Its Pharisaic and fanatical separation from the nations stands in contrast with its outward geographical connection with them (See Lanen; Geschichte des Apost. Zeitalters, i. p. 208 ff.) and its mingling with heathen nations of the most diverse tend- ency and spirit. It is by pushing its particularism to its utmost limits, that Israel has brought about its own dispersion among the nations. Concerning the Israelitish international law, its warfare, the celebration of its victories, and the treat- ies of peace, see Kutt, ii. p. 289 ff. [The popular works on Biblical antiquities may be consulted, but the information which they give is—perhaps necessarily—imperfect and unsatisfactory.—A. G.] 2. Toe LancuaGEs, § 17. THE PROVINCE OF OLD TESTAMENT LANGUAGES. In determining the province of Old Testament languages, it is essential that we should have a correct idea of the distinction between the genius of the Semitic languages, and that of other languages, especially the Indo-Germanic family. It appears from this, that the Semitic idiom, owing to its directness, heartiness, and so to speak inwardness, possesses in a high degree a fitness to express the religious and moral aspects of doing and suffering, the moral affections and distinctions; while it wants in an important sense, the opposite characteristic of indirectness and reflective- ness. In particular, the Hebrew language, with the Greek, thus the language of the Old ‘Testament, with that of the New, forms the broad contrast of the most complete direct method of expression, with the most perfect vehicle for expressing the results of philosophic thought and reflection. Both peculiarities are however fused into one, in the language of the New Testament, as the higher and new-created form of speech. For the ‘literature, see Hacensacu, p. 122; Buiesx: Zinleitung, pp. 87 and 103 [also HavERNICcE : Introduction to the Old Testament.—A. G.] § 18, THE OLD TESTAMENT LANGUAGES.—LEXICONS. See the list of Hebrew Dictionartes and Con-} 2 vols. Leipzig, 1857. [Second ed., 1863. English cordances ‘in the Commentary on Matthew, p. 17 | translation by Davrpson, London and New York, (Amer. ed.). J. First: Hebrew and Chaldee Dic-| 1867. Fiirst does not supersede Gesenius. Comp. tionary of the Old Testament, with an appendix | also B. Davinson and Bagster’s Analytical and containing a brief history of Hebrew Lexicography, | Chaldee Lexicon. London, 1848.—A, G.] 22 INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. § 19. THE OLD TESTAMENT FORMS OF SPEECH.—GRAMMARS. OtsHausen: Hebrew Grammar. Grammaire | Ewaup, Busu, Sroart, Norpuermer, Conant, TRE Hebraique de J. M. Ravprnowtcz. Paris, 1862. See | Geies, Greev.—A. G.] Laner’s Matthew. Am. ed. page 17. [GESENIUS, 8 20. REMARKS. The development of the Old Testament forms of speech is pervaded throughout by a profound, earnest, moral and religious spirit. Even if the heathen nations of Canaan used this language, and notwithstanding all these moral treasures, have, through their awful corruption, grown ripe for judgment, this does not alter the fact. For these tribes may have put on the Semitic language as a strange garment, or they may have fallen even from the heights of its spirituality, and therefore have fallen so low. -The Scripture itself testifies that their decline was gradual. We must distinguish also between the elementary ground forms of the language, and its reli- gious and moral development in Israel. We call attention here to a few striking exam- ples of the profound spiritual significance of the Hebrew forms of speech. tmp is in Kal, to groan, sigh, be moved by suffering, in Niphalis to have compassion, in Piel to comfort. The spirit of the language thus informs us, that the power to give com: fort depends upon our compassion, and this in turn grows out of our suffering ; pnd is in Kal to eat, to consume, in Niphal mutually to devour, 7. ¢., to carry on war; ‘J72 is in Kal to bow, to bow the knee, to beg, to implore, in the intensive Piel to bless, to secure one’s happiness. The so-called different species have the peculiarity that they bring into view the moral act, in all the distinctions of doing and suffering, and of the reflecting self-determination of the man. And how rich moreover is the Hebrew language in its expressions, fitted to convey the more direct life of the soul and spirit. See Stizr: Neugeordnetes Lehrgebdude der Hebréischen Sprache, Yor the literature of the Philologia sacra, see HaGENnBACcH, p. 122 ff. THIRD CHAPTER. Preparatory Introduction. Its constituent parts, so Sar as the form of the Text is concerned. * Op Trstamenr Hermeneutics. § 21. LITERATURE. See Hacensacn: Encyclopedia, pp. 162 and 165 ff. [The principal English Works are W. Van Mit- pert, An Inquiry into the general principles of Scripture Interpretation (Oxford); T. T, ConyBrarr’s Bampton Lectures; Davipson : Sacred Hermeneutics ; FArrBaren : Hermeneutical Manual 3 ERNEsti: Principles of Biblical Interpretation, translated by C. H. Terrot, Edinburgh (1843); Seer: Biblical Her- meneutics, London (1855).—A. G.] § 22. OLD TESTAMENT HERMENEUTICS. 23 8 22. THE NECESSITY FOR A NEW CONSTRUCTION OF BIBLICAL, ESPECIALLY OF (OLD TESTAMENT, HERMENEUTICS. That there is some reform needed here is clear from the fact that modern critici as the assumed last sound result of the grammatical and historical explanation of thg Scripture, rejects from the sacred records of the anti-heathen concrete monotheism, 1.¢., from the Old and New Testaments, any heathenish idea or representation, or rather brings these same notions and representations into the whole sacred text. As heathen- ism springs directly from this, that the idolatrous mind lays undue stress upon the bare letter in the book of creation; that it separates and individualizes its objects as far as possible ; that it places the sense of the individual part, in opposition to the sense of the whole, to the analogia fidei or spiritus which alone gives its unity to the book of nature, while it dilutes and renders as transitory as possible the sense of the universal or the whole; so precisely modern unbelief rests upon an exegesis which op- poses all analogy of faith, which presses and even strangles the letter until it is re- duced to the most limited sense possible, while it suffers the more universal and his- torical in a great measure to evaporate in empty, general, or ideal notions. As heathenism laid great stress upon the letter in the book of nature, it fell into polytheism. The particular symbol of the divine, or of the Godhead, became a myth of some special deity. A God of the day and the light was opposed to a God of the night ; a God of the blessings of life and of happiness, to a God of calamities and of evil; a God of the waters, to a God of the fire; and finally, the God of one idea to the God of another; the God of one thing to the God of other things; 7. ¢., one Fetisch to‘another. The final goal of Polytheism was Fetischism. On the other hand, the grand unities of the text of nature, and with these of his- tory, the revelations of mercy, truth, peace, and beauty were not embraced in one living concrete unity, in the idea of a personal revelation, but were diluted into the abstract unity of the one pantheistic one ; the one everywhere appearing and then vanishing, formless, impersonal, divine being. Pantheism ends, when pushed to its legitimate consequences, in Atheism. i The two fundamental laws of human thought, a true analysis and syhthesis, were used in a false method, since they place in their room an abstract absglute analysis and synthesis, and then to escape from the intolerable opposition, they mingled all distinctions and combinations into a confused mass, and then separated the mass again in the same fantastical manner. This could only issue on the one hand in a pantheistic polytheism, and on the other in a pantheistic dualism. Modern criticism presses the letter of scripture in a direction ©pposed to Cocceian- ism. If Cocceius transforms all places in the scripture, from the seed to a tree, and forces into it an utterance of the whole developed truth of revelation (¢. g-, the Prot- evangelium), this criticism inverts his whole method, since it circumscribes the letter within the narrowest signification possible. Thus, according to its method, Christ, according to the gospel by Matthew, must have ridden upon two asses at once ; the Apostle Paul must have conceived of Christ as in his being, physical light ; John must have denied him the human soul and spirit, because he says: “the word was made flesh; Jehovah must have in heaven a literal palace ; and the speaking with tongues must have been a mere stammering or jargon. This is the mere logomachy into which 24 INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. this modern Talmudism relapses, like the Jewish Talmud, seeking to interpret the scriptures in a heathen method. On the other hand, this same criticism evaporates the more general truths of sacred adfistare, especially those which are at the same time historical, into mere abstract generalities. Thus, ¢. g., the birth of the Godman, is nothing more than the birth of ‘gic theanthropic consciousness ; the resurrection of Christ only the re-awakening of e idea of Christ; the whole eschatology nothing more than the symbolism of the mmanent and progressing world-judgment. The Alpha and Omega of Christianity, as indeed of all revealed religion, is the living synthesis of spirit and nature, of idea and fact, of the divine and human, finally of the Deity and humanity ; and the central point, the key and measure of all the doc- trines of revelation, and of all true interpretations of scripture is the great watch- word: “The word was made flesh.” The modern pseudological criticism consists in the disruption of this synthesis, The letter is taken as the mere word of man, and the historical fact as a purely human event, while, in truth, in the form of symbolical declarations, the universal religions ideas, the eternal facts of the spirit, are brought into light only through these ever varying human ideas and facts. There is no unity. For both the personality lying at the foundation, the alpha, and the glorified personality, the omega, are wanting ; and instead of this, there is only within the disturbing and blinding influence of the material world, the gradual progress from one ideal unknown to another, lying still further in the region of the unknown. The last result of all spiritual hopes and expectations is the absolute riddle. It must be granted that this exegetical method has its precursor in the poverty and shortcoming of the orthodox exegesis. Even here we find to a great extent, an extreme literal exegesis in a perpetual interchange with a fabulous allegorizing of the scripture. What this literal exegesis makes comprehensible, and to some degree im- pres age sense of the infinite importance of the biblical word, in its definite and individual’form. What, on the other hand, the whole history of the allegoric inter- pretation of the scripture declares is, that conviction, living through all ages of the church, of the divine fulness and symbolical infinitude of the scripture word.’ The four-fold and seven-fold sense of the allegorizers of the middle ages, is the rainbow coloring, into which the pure white light of the symbolical and ideal sense of scripture is resolved, to the medieval longing and faith. But when adherence to the letter becomes so wigid that it denies any room for poetry in the historical statement, because it mistakes the idea, whose clothing is this symbolical poetry ; when, ¢. g., it insists with stiffnecked obstinacy that the six creative days are six ordinary astro- nomical days ; when it sees in the stopping of the sun at the command of Joshua, a new astronomical event: when it makes Lot’s wife to become a real particular pillar of salt, and Balaam’s ass actually to speak in the forms of human speech; then it is justly chargeable with being dead and spiritless, and places weapons in the hands of unbelief. It is only pushing this view to its consequences, when the literal inter- pretation involves itself in absurdity. Moving in its circuit, this same unspiritual criticism changes the allegorical interpretation of particular parts of the solid words of the bible, into an allegorical interpretation of the entire word, and thus spreads over the firm monotheistic ground of the holy scripture, the variegated cloud covering of a pantheistic view of the world and theology. Although the text sounds through- out monotheistic, the idea must be taken in a pantheistic sense, since the text is nothing else than the polytheistic dismembered form of the one pantheistic spirit. The spirit of § 22.. OLD TESTAMENT HERMENEUTICS. 95 this criticism indeed so daringly inverts the true relation, that it transforms an entire historical apostolic letter, like that to Philemon, into an allegorical point of doctrine, while it inversely interprets an entirely allegorical and symbolical book, like the Apocalypse, as if we must understand it literally throughout. But the assumption of the mythical character of the sacred books is the grand means by which this fleeting misty spirit of modern pantheistic ideas is bound in with the rigid crass literal sense. In reference to the Old Testament, many theologians who are firm believers in revelation, have held that the theory of mythical portions could not be erroneous, if they would not be involved in the untenable results of the literal exegesis. The modern interpreter of the scriptures, in his explanation of large portions of the Old Testament, thinks it necessary, as the only solution of difficulties, to choose between the mythical, or purely literal theory. This alternative is accepted, especially as to the creative days, paradise, the marriage of the sons of God with the daughters of men, and points like these. But even this alternative is fundamentally erroneous. It mistakes the A BC for the full understanding of the principle upon which the bible is written, the truth, viz., that the peculiar subject matter of the theanthropic revealed word must have a peculiar form. The bible contains dag Acydueva not only as to its subject matter, the miracles, and as to its form, peculiar forms of expression, but is itself, in whole and in part, an draft Neyouevov as to its contents, and therefore necessarily as to its form. We apply this to the Old Testament. The Old Testament, as containing the records of concrete monotheism, or rather of the concrete monotheistic revealed faith, cannot contain any myths. It can and must indeed contain historical statements, which so far and no farthet, resemble myths as the melon resembles the gourd, or the parsley the hemlock. But no one need be deceived by the most striking resemblances. Is it not true, in the first place, that mythology is the peculiar living garment, the unalterable form of heathenism, especially of heathen polytheism ? Is it not true, secondly, that the Old Testament, with its monotheism, forms the great historical antagonistic contrast to the heathen polytheism ? Is it not true also, thirdly, as Hegel has said, that the true form can never be separated from the contents, but must be determined throughout by them? But then it is inconccivable that the Old Testament should have carried out its antagonistic opposition to the subject matter of heathenism, by using the specific form of heathenism, ¢. ¢., by the use of myths. It is inconceivable because the myth is a religious statement, in which the con- sciousness has lost the distinction between the symbol and the symbolized idea. In other words, the myth as such is never barely a form. In it the idea has lost itself in the image, and is bound there until the day of future redemption. On the other hand, the very nature of the Hebrew view and idiom consists in this, that it first clearly grasps the distinction between God and the world, between his spirit and his signs, and then establishes the distinction firmly. Hence even in all its individual parts as a revelation of faith, it has kept itself ever awake to the consciousness of the distinction between its images and the realities to which they correspond. To such an extent is this true, that to avoid being entangled in any one figure, even when it is purely rhetorical, the Hebrew in some way changes his poetical statements and expressions, a fact which appears strange to one accustomed to the constancy with which figures are used by classical writers, ¢ g., see the 18th and 21st Psalms. 26 INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. Mythology not only elaborates individual figures, but strings one to another until it forms a complete mythical circle. ; Finally, the myth as such has no historical efficiency or results. It is the form of a passive lifeless religion. Religion, having life and activity, must have a form suited to its inward nature. The Old Testament, as the record of the revealed faith, contains no merely literal historical statements, in the same sense in which profane history contains them, which records facts for the sake of the facts, and in its practical instruction goes no further back than to second causes, and oftentimes to those only which are most obvious and familiar. We must distinguish clearly between the religious history of the scriptures and common history. Not of course in the sense that it is less historical, or less a nar- rative of facts, but in the sense that it presents the fact in the light of its highest first cause, its idea, its symbolical import, and therefore in a somewhat poetically elevated style. The biblical fact wears a poetical dress in its presentation, from a threefold point of view; 1. through its relation to the fundamental religious thought or idea, in which the writer comprehends it in the light of divine illumination; 2. through its relation to the fundamental religious thought of the book, ¢. e., its special connection with revelation in which the writer states it ;3. through its relation to the central thought of divine revelation itself, with which the Holy Spirit has connected it, whether the author was conscious of it or not. We take, e. g., the passage which speaks of the Cherubim, who after the expulsion of Adam and Eve, guarded the gate of Paradise, especially the way to the tree of life, with the flaming sword, The fact is this, that the first man as a sinner, was through the terror of God, driven forth from the original place of blessedness which he had polluted by sin. Viewed according to the religious thought or idea of the passage in and by itself, these terrors are angels of the Lord, personal manifestations of the personal and righteous God, who keeps man, guilty and subject to death, from any return to the tree of life (Ps. xviii. and civ.). Viewed in connection with the fundamental thought of Genesis, these Cherubim are destined to keep man from the heathen longings after the old Paradise, and to impel him onward to the new tree of life, the religion of the future as it came to be established in Abra- ham (Gen. xii. 1, Go out of the land of thy fathers). Viewed, finally, in its relation to the general spirit of the scriptures, these Cherubim introduce not only the doctrine of angels generally, but also the doctrine of the fundamental form of the Old Testa ment revelation through the angel of the Lord, and the angel of the divine judgments who is ever impelling humanity, through all history, from the threshold of the old paradise, to the open gate of the new and eternal paradise. As to the relation of a defi- nite fact to the special religious idea, e. g., the expression, Lot’s wife looked behind her and became a pillar of salt, not only records, that through her indecision and turning back she was overtaken by the storm of fire, but also contains the thought that inde- cision as to the way of escape, begins with the first look after the old, forsaken goods of this life ; and that every judgment of death upon those who thus turn back, is erected along the way of escape as a warning to others. As to the relation of the particular expression to the individual book, #. e., the fundamental view or purpose of the aithor, modern criticism would save itself a hundred vexed questions, from an inadequate conception and treatment of the sacred text, if it would proceed from this funda mental thought, and thus understand the arrangement of particular books, what they include and omit, their connections and transitions. These vexatious questions, e.7., —Which of the three evangelists is the original ?—Which of them is correct ?— Which § 22. OLD TESTAMENT HERMENEUTICS. Q7 preserves the true connection and the original expression? would cease in a great measure, if we will only concede to the sacred writer, what we usually concede to other writers and artists, viz.: that he has a fundamental thought—a prevailing principle upon which he constructs his work. That the history of Joseph, ¢. g., is more particularly related than that of Isaac or the patriarchs, is closely connected with the fundamental thought or principle of Genesis, that it should narrate the history of the origin of all things, down to the origin of the holy people in Egypt, as that was brought about through the history of Joseph; and not only the history of the origin of this people, but of its exodus from bondage, which was inwoven with the great crime of Joseph’s brethren, who sold him into bondage. As to its connection with the principle of scripture as a whole, this history is an expressive image of divine Providence, in its relation to human innocence and guilt, as it is destined to be the type of all the subsequent providential leadings of this nature, down to the history of Christ. In every particular fact, the religious idea of the absolute divine causality rises into prominence above all natural second causes. As the heathen is entangled and lost in second causes, so the theocratic believer must ever go back to the sovereignty and providence of God. He does not deny the second cause, since he rejects all one- sided supernaturalism, but clothes it in a new form in the splendor of Divine Provi- dence. The Cherubim with the flaming sword appear later as the symbolic forms of Divine Providence (Ps. civ.), as the Cherubim of the storm upon which Jehovah rides (Ps. xviii.), as the seraphim, the angels of fire, who should consume the temple of hard- ened and obdurate Israel (Isa. vi.). Even moral second causes, human freedom and human guilt, must be placed under the divine causality, and this not according to the assumption of a crushing fatalistic idea of Providence (Wegscheider), but according to the fundamental law of Divine Providence itself. When the Bible records that God hardened the heart of Pharaoh, it informs us also that Pharaoh was a despot and hardened his own heart; and further, that all his guilt was foreseen, and, under the righteous judgment of God, set for the glorifying of his name in the execution of the plan of his kingdom. That is a strong one-sided supernaturalism, which utterly denies not only natural but moral second causes, when they are not made prominent in the statement of Divine Providence, or, perhaps, notwithstanding they are made prominent. For the same reasons, the authors of the books of the Bible have not recorded all the facts of the sacred history remarkable to human view, with the same minuteness, but only the principal points in the development of the king- dom. of God, through a given period of time. They devote themselves more to the pictures of personal life than to the description of their impersonal surroundings ; to the creative epochs, than to the lapse of time between; to the turning-points of a grand crisis, more than to the after progress and development ; rather to the great living picture of individuals illustrating all, than to an external massing together of particular things. The method of writing the sacred history of the Bible is like its chronology, its view of the world, throughout living, personal, dynamic. As to the connection of the particular books of the Bible, it is undeniable that the great pro- found, all-pervading formative element is the ideal fact of the saving selfrevelation of God even to his incarnation, 7. ¢, the soteriological messianic idea.’ As the direction of any given mountain range is determined by a certain concrete law of nature: so, much more is the formation of any individual part of the Canon. But as to its relation to the other parts, its outward connection and articulation, it cannot be 28 INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. denied that in the region of revelation, there must have been not only an inspiration of the records themselves, but of the records in their present form, and that it is just as one-sided to deny the traces of this inspired editing of the sacred records (Luke i. 1), as to enfeeble their testimony, by the supposition of an uncanonical biblical book- making; of a painful and laborious compilation and fusion of diverse elements or parts into one. Biblical hermeneutics cannot well deny that the monotheistic and theocratic tradi- tions are older than the oldest written records. Neither can it deny that even since the art of writing was known, the living discourse, the oral narrative, the revelation through facts, is older, and in some sense more original, than the written word. But it asserts and must assert, that the written word throughout belongs to the region of revelation—to the very acts through which the revelation is made—and forms indeed the acme and the limits of sacred revelation. And as to the sacred tradition, it is not to be confounded with the idea of tradition as it is usually associated with the idea of the myth. The sacred tradition, in its wealth of religious ideas, lies back of the myth ; the popular tradition, in the ordinary sense of the word, lies on this side of the myth, nearer to authentic history. The heathen myth is the heathen dogmatics, as they belong to the earlier age of any given heathen people. The popular traditions are the heathen ethics of the same people, an ethics exemplified in fabulous personages as they were concerned in the chief events of that people. during the transition period, from its mythical to its historical age. We can trace this relation both through the Greek and the German traditionary period. In the blooming period of the ethical traditions the poetic, sceptical, trifling, even ironical transformation of the myth takes its origin. We can now distinguish by certain fixed characteristics the Old Testament sym- bolical statements from the mythical statements. The acute attempt of ScHMIEDER to determine the | minary to the Biblical history, 1837, does not lead to relation between the religious method of writing his- |! satisfactory results. See Lance: Positiv Dogmatik, ‘tory, and the ordinary methods in his essay: Predi- | p. 385. The general distinction :—it is all true but is not all actual,—leaves the relation both as to quantity and quality, between the idcal truth and the historical events, so un- determined, that it will not avail to fix firmly the characteristics of Scripture, in its distinction from all myths, as from all ordinary historical writings in which events are traced to their causes. We have treated hitherto only of the biblical method of writing history, but we must now treat of the biblical method of stating things generally, in order that we may place in contrast the idea of the myth, and the coun-- ter idea of the scripture word, according as they stand connected with, or opposed to, each other. We may distinguish the historical and philosophical (or, more accurately, physical or philosophical) myths, and according to this distinction, we may view the Bible word in contrast to them, as to its facts, and as to its doctrines. The affinity between all mythology and the whole scripture, according to which the scripture and especially the evangelical history, may be viewed as the fulfilling of all myths; is the union of the idea and the fact, or of actual signs, or of words, to a symbol of the eternal, in the language of poetry. But even here the biblical fact is clearly distinguished from the historical myth. The latter has the minimum of reality only, perhaps the mere moral longing or wish, or it may be some facts of the popular or heroic natural life, brought by a poetical . § 22. OLD TESTAMENT HERMENEUTICS. 29 symbolism into union with an idea, and made to be the bearer of that idea; while the biblical fact always has an historical basis, whose greatness and importance is felt throughout the history of the kingdom of God; one particular event, which has reached its peculiar definite expression in the light of its universal significance. The biblical fact through its ideal transparency has been raised from an individual to a general fact, and thus become a biblical doctrine. Its unessential individual form may have disappeared in the splendor of its idea, but the total fact remains. On the contrary, the element of reality which lies at the foundation of the historical myth, is to such an extent transformed by the ideal poetry, and its historical actuality is so far un- susceptible of proof, that it becomes more or less a question whether there is such an element or not. . But as the biblical facts have throughout the splendor of ideal truths, so the biblical doctrines have throughout the energy of facts. They are facts of the active religious consciousness, clothed with so decisive an energy and significance, that we may view them as the eternal deeds of the Spirit, presented in the clear distinct light of particular passages, ¢. g., the Psalms, Proverbs, the Sermon on the Mount. This historical character of the action is wanting in the philosophic myths. We under- stand them first, when we have rescued through Christianity the philosophical and moral doctrines which they contain. The myth itself waits for redemption from its bondage through the idolatrous sense, by the virtue of the scripture word. In its free form it appears as an ancient symbol. As to the chief distinction, we would prefer, for our own part, to distinguish in all myths physical, historical, and religious elements, and hence would class them as preéminently scientific, historical, or religious, as one or the other of these elements might come into prominence. To the style of the historical myth we would oppose the style of the Old Testa- ment histories, to the style of the scientific (philosophical) myth the Old Testament doctrinal writings, to the predominantly religious myth the Old Testament prophetic word. As the preéminently religious myth forms the synthesis of the physical and historical, so the prophetic word forms the higher unity of the historical and didactic word. The science of hermeneutics therefore, as the hermeneutics of the prophetic word, must bring out clearly, that in this region all the historical is in the highest measure ideal and symbolical (e. g., the temple of Ezekiel, the concubine of Hosea) and all the didactic is destined in its eternal actual energy and results to reach beyond the Old Testament limits. We trust that these suggestions for the wider culture of biblical, especially Old Testament hermeneutics, may find useful illustration in our Biblework. But this must be borne in mind: we hold that particular parts of the Old Testament must remain to us in a great measure dark and inexplicable, so long as the distinction between the ordinary style of history, and the higher religious style, is not more firmly established, and consistently carricd out. This holds true in our opinion especially of the books of Chronicles and the book of Esther, and, among the prophet- ical books, of Daniel and Jonah. Finally, as to the well-known distinction between the Semitic and Japhetic modes of speech, there is not only at the foundation, that misconceived and misapplied difference, the opposition between oriental directness. and occidental reflectiveness, and further the opposition between the religious and secular view of the world in a medizval sense, of the old and new time, z.¢, of the spontaneous development of 50 INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. Pagan culture, and the derivative culture of Christian civilization ; but also the opposition between the religious method of presenting history and doctrine, and the more pragmatic view of history, and the dialectic mode of teaching doctrine. It is evident, however, that such a distinction does not destroy the unity of the Spirit, the communion of ideas and faith between the two spheres. By the faith, Abraham must have understood essentially the same truths which any enlightened Christian, whether a theologian or philosopher, understands to-day. (For the promotion of Old Testament Exegesis through more correct hermeneutical principles, sce Appendix.) OLD TESTAMENT CRITICISM. § 23. BIBLICAL CRITICISM AND ITS RELATED LITERATURE. Compare Hacznpacu: Encyclopedia, pp. 145, 150, 151. Hagenbach makes the science of Introduction preliminary to that of Criticism. We hold that this order must be inverted, since Introduction is impossible without Criticism. Biblical Criticism is the ‘scientific examination of the Bible as to its historical and traditional form. It decides according to historical or outward, and according to real or inward, signs, as to the biblical origin of the sacred books, as one whole, and as individual parts, z. ¢., as to their authenticity and integrity. In the course of its procedure it passes from the examination and purging of the text, to its construction, confirmation and its restoration to its original form. It is thus, to follow Hagenbach, according to its sources of determination (or rules) outward and inward, according to its results (decisions) negative and positive, Criticism. We must observe, however, the manifold signification which has been attached to the contrasts between negative and positive Criticism (used now in a historical, and then in a dogmatic sense); between a lower and higher Criticism (now as @ question upon the integrity and authenticity, now as a decision according. to the existing witnesses, manuscripts, translations, or according to scientific com- bination, upon the spirit of various writings and passages). There can be no ques- tion that Criticism belongs to the most essential and vital functions of biblical theology. It is, 1. Necessary; 2. not merely a modern Criticism of recent date, but has existed from early time; and 3. like every theological function, it has been sub- jected to great errors, and requires therefore a criticism upon itself, [There is a large class of English works here, among which those of Hamitron, Jones, Waton ; Prolego- mena; Kennicort: Dissertations; Sruart: Ernesti; Davipson: Criticism; Gerarp: Institutes of Biblical Criticism ; Horsuzx: Biblical Criticism, London, 1810, may be consulted.—A. G.] § 24. DESIRABLENESS OF AN ORGANON OF CRITICISM. It is remarkable that Theology, with an immense activity of the critical processes, is still without any well-formed theory of Criticism. We have on several occasions suggested that such an organon is still wanting. It should aim to establish all the leading principles for the theological and critical process, and then to exclude all § 24. DESIRABLENESS OF AN ORGANON OF CRITICISM. 31 annecessary critical principles. The first fundamental position would be, that there must be an agreement as to the religious and philosophical criticism of Revelation and of Christianity itself, Starting from the modern philosophical assumptions of Deism and Pantheism, some have criticised exegetically and historically the biblical records, 7. ¢., they have mingled in an unscientific manner philosophical and purely infidel prejudices, with real critical principles, in ‘an unfair procedure. And it has occurred that the results of this critical blundering have been set forth and commended as the results of a higher criticism of the historical view (sce Lanez: Apostol Zeitalter, i. p. 9). It is most important therefore to determine first of all, in order to meet satisfactorily the religious and philosophical preliminary questions, whether one recognizes or not the idea and reality of a personal God, of his personal revelation, of his personal presence in the world, and his personal communion with the Elect, ¢. ¢., the souls of men awakened to the consciousness of their eternal per- sonality. The organon of criticism places this recognition, or rather knowledge, at the very summit of its system, and denies to those who reject the living idea of revelation, the right and the power to engage in any scientific exegetical and historical criticism. Then it would be the aim in this first division of the Organon of criticism, to fix firmly the ideas of the originality, especially of the authenticity and integrity of the Bible. The first fundamental characteristic of biblical originality is defined in the Evangelic word, “the Word was made flesh,” ¢. ¢., by the supposition that in the whole region of revelation, we are dealing with an indissoluble synthesis of idea and fact, #. é. with personal life; but never with ideas without historical facts, and never with historical facts without an ideal foundation and significance. This is the very ABC ofa sound criticism, over against which the latest spiritualistic critical fraud, which has spread from Ttibingen through a part of the Evangelical church, must be viewed as a paganistic idealism, modified by its passage through Christiqnity; and according to which also the ultra supernaturalistic interpretation of biblical history, as a mere narration of events in their order from cause to effect, without ideal contents or form, appears a lifeless and unspiritual tradition of a fundamentally worldly Empiricism. The succeeding question as to the authenticity, is determined accord- ingly by this, that in every biblical book we must take into view its peculiar inward form derived from the spirit of the book, as well as its historical declarations. Still further, the different Genera scribendi must be determined as they are ascertained from the actual appearance of the biblical books, and from the spirit of Revelation. It is accordingly critically incorrect to insist that the book Ecclesiastes, according to its declaration, must be regarded as the work of Solomon, since we are here dealing with a poetical book, which may put the experience of the vanity of the world in the mouth of the Son of David. But it is critically incorrect also to deny that the Apocalypse is the work of John, since we are here concerned with prophetic announce- ments, which rest expressly upon the authority of the Apostle. True poetry does not assume a fictitious name, when it puts its words in the mouth of a symbolical and fit personage, but prophecy would, should it resort to the same procedure. Then as to the integrity of the biblical books, criticism must determine, as is evident from the countless variations in the text of the New Testament, and from the free relation of the Septuagint to the Old Testament, that from the earliest time the records of revelation in the sanctuary of the church of God, were not regarded as literal and inviolable documents, but as the leaves and words of the Spirit, and that notwith- 32 INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. standing this freedom the authentic word, as to all essential points, was held sacred. For with all the differences of the Septuagint, it is not possible to bring out of the Old Testament any essentially modified Old Covenant, and amid all the variations of the New Testament, we still discern the same gospel in all its essential features. In reference to both questions, however, it is evident from the relation of Genesis to the original traditions, of the Gospel of Luke to the records he had before him, of the second Epistle of Peter to the Epistle of Jude, from the resemblance as to thought and form in many passages between different authors (¢. g., one between Isaiah and Micah), that we must explain not only the first origin and elements of the biblical records, but also the theocratic and apostolic form in which we now have them, as properly belonging to the region of canonical revelation. With regard to the rules or criteria of biblical criticism, the idea of actual revela- tion, ¢. e., of the effects of the living interchange between the personal God and the personal human spirit, forms the first rule. This involves, first, the recognition of historical facts belonging to true human freedom, as the Pantheist cannot regard them; secondly, the original religious facts, which are entirely foreign to Deism; thirdly, the specific actual revelation as it rends asunder the supposition of Dualism. Without the recognition of the historical, the religious, the theocratic heroism, we have no rule for the critical examination of the contents of the sacred scripture. Then, in the second place, we must fix firmly the idea of human personality awakened and freed through the personality of God, as it involves a complete origin- ality both as to its own views and productions. As the Bible throughout is an original work of the Spirit of God, so each individual book is an original work of the chosen human spirit who wrote it. Innumerable questions which criticism is inade- quate to solve, find their solution here. To ascribe, ¢. g., the production of the second part of Isaiah to the Scribe Baruch, or to Mark the authorship of the original Gospel, after which the other synoptics in a most extraordinary way have copied, or the Epistle to the Ephesians to an imperfect impression taken from that to the Colossians, or the Apocalypse to John Mark as its author, rests upon the failure to estimate properly the originality of the biblical writer, the originality of his works, and the connection between the two. It is clear that, with originality, we con- cede to the writers of the Bible that thorough consistency of Spirit which is peculiar to a living, spiritually free personality. From the originality of Revelation as a whole, in its connection with the original- ity of the writers of the particular books of Revelation, arises the originality of the collection of the biblical books. They are the closely connected products of one peculiar intellectual creative forming principle; and therefore form one complete Canon, as they are one complete Cosmos, i. ¢., the organon of criticism presupposes the analogy of faith. But as it presupposes this analogy, it has at ‘the same time to ascertain its essential elements out of its fundamental thoughts, 4. ¢, the peculiar fundamental truths of biblical theology. With the existence of the analogy of faith, which reveals itself further in the analogy of the Scriptures, is determined the human side of the Holy Scriptures, agreeably to the historical differences and manifold forms, 7. ¢., the germ-like incipi- ence, the historical gradual growth, the regular development, the indissoluble con- nection, finally the perfect completion of its facts and doctrines according to the idea of revelation. § 25. CRITICAL QUESTIONS IN THE TREATMENT OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 33 § 25. THE PRINCIPAL CRITICAL QUESTIONS IN THE TREATMENT OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. In the introduction to the Old Testament the following important critical ques- tions Lold a prominent place: the unity of Genesis, the Mosaic authenticity of the Pentateuch, the authentic historical character of the historical books following the Pentateuch, the age of Job (also as to its historical basis), the limits as to time of the collection of the Psalms, the authenticity of the writings of Solomon (and the import of the Song in particular), the relation between the first and second parts of Isaiah (ch. xl.-Ixvi.), between the Hebrew text of Jeremiah and the text of the Septuagint, between the book of Daniel and Daniel himself, the import of the book of Jonah, and finally the relation of the first part of Zechariah to the second (ch. ix.-xiv.). The ecclesiastical and theological interest in these questions will be essentially met and satisfied, if, in the first place, genuine historical records of revelation, flowing from the time at which the revelation was made, are recognized as the foundation, and to some extent essential component parts, of the writings in question ; and if, in the second place, it is firmly held that the bringing of these records into their present form took place on canonical ground, within the sphere of Old Testament revelation, under the direction and guarantee of the prophetic Spirit. Under the energetic influence of these two positions, the canonical faith in the Bible, and a free critical examination, have approximated each other, and under their more perfect influence they will cele- brate their full reconciliation. And if in the process some prejudgments of the ecclesiastical tradition must be conceded, so criticism in its turn must yield up a mass of thoughtless errors and exaggerations. Traditional theology will come into liberty through a proper estimate of the historical character of the biblical books; and criticism itself will be freed from the mistakes into which it has thoughtlessly fallen through a low estimate of the ideal contents of the sacred writings. Although there is much in Genesis in favor of the distinction of Elohistic and Jehovistic records, yet the fact made prominent. by Hengstenberg and others cannot be denied, viz., that the names Elohim and Jehovah are throughout so distinguished, that the one prevails in those passages which speak of the general relation of God to the world, the other in those in which the theocratic relation of God to his people and kingdom rises into prominence. This contrast, embraced by the unity of the con- sciousness of faith in revelation, not only runs through the Pentateuch, but appears in a marked form in the opposition between the general doctrine of wisdom as viewed by Solomon, and the Davidie theocratic doctrine of the Messiah. It pervades the Old Testament Apocrypha, in the New Testament celebrates its transfiguration in the contrast between the Gospel of John, his doctrine of the logos on the one side, and the synoptical and Petrino-Pauline view on the other; and finally, in the opposition between the Christian and ecclesiastical dogmatism, and the Christian and social human- itarianism, runs through the history of the church, manifesting itself in the Reformation through the twin forms, Luther, and Melanchthon, Calvin and Zwingle. The full . influence of the increasingly perfect view of the great harmonious oppositions or con- trasts in revelation, and the history of revelation, upon the minute analysis of the biblical test, is yet to be experienced. On the present state of the investigation, sce Bunrx: Hinleitung, p. 227 ff. 3 34 INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. As to the Pentateuch, we recognize the following limiting positions of Bleek, while we differ from him in many particulars: 1. That there are in the Pentateuch very important sections which were written by Moses and in his time, in the very form in which we now read them. 2. That Moses did not compose the Pentateuch, as one complete historical work as it lies before us. The clearest instance in favor of the last position is obviously the record of the death and burial of Moses (Deut. xxxiv.). As to the marks in Deuteronomy which point to a later origin, we must bear in mind that Moses was not only the Lawgiver, but the Prophet, and that at the close of his career in life, in the solemn review of his work,.he would have a motive to prophetic- ally explain and glorify the particularism of that economy which he had founded un- ‘der the divine direction, by bringing out into bolder relief its universal aspect, which he does in Deuteronomy. In the essential portions of Deuteronomy, which we ascribe to Moses, he obviates, as far as possible, that pharisaic particularism which might grow up from a barely legal and literal interpretation of the books of the law, Exo- dus, Leviticus, and Numbers. Deuteronomy is the repetition of the law, under the illumination of the prophetic spirit, in the light of the future of prophecy. As to those older records quoted in the Old Tes- tament itself, as a basis for its statements, compare Buzex, p. 148 ff. We refer here to 1. The book of the wars of Jehovah (Numbers xxi. 14, 15, compare v. 17, 18 and 27-80); 2. The book of Jasuzr (Josh. x. 18; 2 Sam. i. 18); 8. The book of the history of Solomon (1 Kings xi. 41) ; 4. 1 Chron. xxix, 29, 30, for the history of David, a. The book of Samuel the seer, b. The book of Nathan the prophet, ec. The book of Gad the seer; 6. For the history of Solomon, 2 Chron. ix. 29, a. The prophecy of Ahijah ‘the Shilonite, b. the book of Iddo the seer against Jeroboam the son of Nebat; 6. For the history of Rehoboam, 2 Chron. xii. 15, the book of Shemaiah the prophet and Iddo the seer; 7. For the history of Abijah, 2 Chron. xiii. 22, the story (commentary) of the prophet Iddo; 8. There are constantly cited in the books of Kings: a. The book of the history of the Kings of Israel; b. The book of the history of the Kings of Judah. The latter seems to be that re- ferred to in the books of Chronicles, as the book of the Kings of Judah and Israel: cited also 2 Chron. xxiv, 27; 9. 2 Chron. xx. 84. The historical book of the prophet Jehu, which is inserted in the book of the Kings of Israel ; 10. 2 Chron. xxxii. 82, a book of Isaiah, upon the Kings of Judah and Israel; 11. For the history of Manasseh, the histories or sayinga of Hosai or seers; and in 1 Chron. xxvii. 24, a book of the Chronicles of David the King, 2 If the post-Mosaic historical books of the Old Testament are rearrangements of ‘original records, which belong to unknown authors, still the supposition of contra- dictions, of mythical portions, of the extremely late dates assigned as the time of their origin, is closely connected with a failure to estimate their more recondite histor- ical relations, and their ideal and symbolical aspect. This is especially true in regard to the judgments formed upon the two books of Chronicles, and the book of Esther. That in the military sections of the book of Joshua he alone is spoken of, while in ‘those which record the geographical divisions of the land, Eleazer acts with him; that in one place the official elders and judges ‘codperate, and in another the natural heads of the tribes; that under the military point of view the tribes are otherwise described than under the geographical,—these are distinctions grounded in actual differences. : 6, Tn the long period which the book of Judges embraces, the orthodox criticism obviously injures its own cause, when it denies the basis of more historical: sources ; ‘since the supposition of such sources, so far from weakening, actually strengthens the trustworthiness of the book. That the point of view of the episode, ch. xvii—xxi., is untheocratic, is entirely untenable. _ The two books of Samuel, which are plainly distinguished by the contrast between § 25. CRITICAL QUESTIONS IN THE TREATMENT OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 935 Saul and David, the rejected King, and the man after God’s own heart, point back through their ingenious and throughout characteristic style, to rich original records lying at their source. The books of Kings and Chronicles refer in various ways to the records upon which their statements rest. The books of Ezra and Nehemiah bear these names especially (as the. books of Samuel), only because they speak of these men. This is obvious, first, because they were originally bound in one whole, and secondly, because in their present form they contain portions which point to a later date. It is equally clear that the original part of these books must belong to the men whose names they bear. The book of Esther, in the regulations for the feast of Purim, refers back to a re- markable historical event. It contains too many historical indications to be regarded with Semler as fiction, and too much which appears literally improbable, to be re- garded as pure history. It is probably the fruit of a fact, represented allegorically for the illustration of the truth, that the true people of God, even in its dispersion, is wonderfully preserved, and made victorious over the most skilful assaults of its enemies.* In this respect the book of Esther forms a contrast with the book of Jo- nah, which also represents allegorically 2 wonderful event, in order to illustrate the mercy of God to the heathen, and in opposition to the narrow-minded exclusiveness of the Jews. Hence we are able to explain the fact that the name of God does not occur in Esther, as indeed it scarcely occurs in the Song. The connection of an allegorical and poetical explanation, with the basis of histor- ical fact on which it rests, is now generally admitted in reference to the book of Job. But here the character of a didactic poem comes into prominence. In the critical examination of this book, doubts in regard to the speech of Elihu will have to yield to any profound insight into its nature, since it obviously forms the transition from the preceding speeches, to the closing manifestation of God. From its universal charac- ter in connection with its theme, the innocent suffering of Job, it is well-nigh certain that its origin belongs to a time when the glory of Israel, culminating in Solomon, was on the decline: the time of the fading glory of the Kingdom. That the Psalter in its original portions belongs to David, as the Proverbs to Sol- omon, is conceded even by the modern criticism. But it is evident from the division into five books, that the collection grew gradually to its present form. The existence of Psalms originating during the Exile is beyond question (Ps. cii., cxxxvii.). But the attempt to place a large part of the Psalms in the time of the Maccabees, has been triumphantly refuted by Ewatp and Bier (Bizex, p. 619). The supposition that the heroic uprising of a people for its faith, must always have as its consequence a corresponding movement of the poetic spirit, is groundless. The Camisards, ¢. g., chave sung the Old Testament Psalms of vengeance. But the Maccabees stand in a similar relation of dependence upon the Old Testament Canon, as the Camisards. Solomon stands beyond question as the original prince of proverbial poetry, as David is the first great master of lyric poetry. They shared in founding the highest glory of the sacred poetry and literature of Israel, just as they shared in the highest [* The internal character of any book must of course have great weight in deciding tho question whether it is to be received as the word of God or not; but having so received it, the mere improbability to us of the events it narrates will not justify us in holding that to be an allegory which claims to be a history. This is certainly dangerous ground on which to stand. For if the mere fact that there is so much that is improbable here, authorizes us to assume that the book -is an allegorical representation of an important and precious truth, it will be easy to reduce large portions of the Biblical History to allegorical representations. Nor is the supposition in any sense necessary here, since the narrative, viewed as literal history, teaches the same truth with equal or greater force.—A. G.] 36 INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. glory of the theocratic and political kingdom—in war and peace. They have indeed through their sacred poetry transferred the typical character of their political power into a prophecy of the true Messianic Kingdom, militant and peaceful. But just as the later Psalms have been grafted on to the original stock of the Davidic Psalms, so later proverbs have been added to the collection of Solomon. (1 Kings v. 12 ff) On this ground the didactic poem—the Preacher of Solomon—in the use of poetical license is represented to be the work of Solomon. That the book is of later origin is clear both from its language ‘and its historical relations (BLeEx, p. 642). That the Song also is not correctly attributed to Solomon as its author may be inferred from its fundamental thought.* The virgin of Israel—the theocracy—will not suffer herself to be included among the heathen wives, religions, as the favorite of Solomon, but ever turns to her true beloved, the Messiah who was yet to come. We hold, therefore, that this poem takes its origin in that theocratic indignation which,the religious freedom of Solomon—going in this before his time—and his numerous mar- riages through which he mingled with heathenism, occasioned. We may trace clearly the expression of a similar sentiment in the nuptial Psalm. (Ps. xlv. 11-13.) Modern criticism doubts less as to the originality and authenticity of the Prophetic writings. But it exercises its analyzing activity especially upon the prince of all Messianic prophets, the Evangelist of the Old Testament, Isaiah. We pass over here the dif- ferent exceptions which have been made in the first part of the book which is re- ognized in the main as belonging to Isaiah (ch. i—xxxix.). Weremark in general that all critical grounds growing out of the prejudice against any prediction are unworthy of notice. The whole first part is throughout organically constructed upon that pro- foundly significant fundamental thought of the prophet, viz., that out of every judg- ment of God there springs to the same extent a corresponding redemption, so that we cannot easily assign the construction of this main part to a stranger. As to the second part of the book (ch. xI.-Ixvi.) we hold that the collected reasons urged against its genuineness will not stand the test. The first reason is this: the prophet would in these prophecies have placed himself upon that, to him, far distant standpoint of the Babylonish captivity as in his historical present, in order from that point to pre- dict events still more distant in the future. This is not the method of the prophets, but it is the method of the Apocalyptics. If we distinguish the definite, artistic form of the apocalyptic vision from the more general form of prophecy, the first distinctive feature, as to form, is clearly the all-prevailing artistic construction, with which a poetical and symbolical expression corresponds. The second distinctive feature, as to form, appears in the regular progress from epoch to epoch in such a way that the seer ever makes the new point of departure in his vision, his ideal present. This latter formal distinction points to the first real, or material distinction between the two. Apocalyptic prophecy, more definitely than general prophecy, looks beyond the first . [* In regard to the authorship of these books there is a wide difference. The name of Solomon appears in the title to tho Song, it does not in that to the Preacher. There he comes into view as Koheleth, a term which, as Hengstenberg argues with great force, shows that he is viewed only in his representative character, as the highest Old Testament re- presentative of divine wisdom, in distinction from mere worldly wisdom. The real author of the book puts these words into his mouth, as one who was well known to hold this position. Those to whom the book came would understand this at once. There is more here than mere ‘poetical license.” Hengstenberg thinks that the book does not profess to be from Solomon. But the Song does. And the title here is confirmed, 1. By the general correctness of the titles ; 2. By the his- torical references in the Song which point to the time of Solomon; 3. By the entire thought of the poem itself. Even Lange’s view as to its fundamental thought does not justify the inferences which he draws from it. For there is nothing “unnatural in the assumption that Solomon himself should have felt tho theocratic indignation ” against his own errors and a or that the Holy Spirit should have used his experiences in giving form and expression to the truths here taught.—A. G.] § 25. CRITICAL QUESTIONS IN THE TREATMENT OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 37 restoration of Israel and the first coming of the Messiah, to the final restoration and completion. But with the more developed Christology, is closely connected a clearer and more definite statement of the great Antichristian power, which enters between the first and second coming of Christ. We regard then the second part of the book of Isaiah (ch. xl—Ixvi.) as the first Old Testament Apocalypse. That peculiar and easily distinguished part of the prophecy of Jeremiah (ch. xlv—i.) is clearly an apocalypse representing especially the typical Antichristian power. The apocalypse of Ezekiel presents in contrast the deep valley of death (and indeed the valley of death of the people of God still lighted by hope, and that of Gog and Magog into which hope sheds no ray of light) and the high mountain of God with its mystical temple thereon (from ch. xxxvii, to the close of the book). The book of Daniel is one peculiar Apocalypse. Among the minor prophets, Obadiah, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah, may be viewed as apocalyptic books, which portray in a peculiar style the judgment of God upon Antichrist, as whose type, the first regards the people of Edom, the second Nineveh, the third Babylon, while the last sees the day of wrath breaking out upon the whole Antichristian power of the Old world. Edom is viewed also as the type of Antichrist in Isaiah (Ixiii. 1-6) and in Jeremiah (xlix. 7-22). The entirely apocalyptic nature of Gog and Magog in Ezekiel (xxxviii., xxxix.) is recognized and fixed in its place in the New Testament Apocalypse (ch. xx. 8), as indeed the stream issuing from the temple (Ez. ch. xlvii.) is then again taken up in its New Testament completion. As to the time which Isaiah in the second part of his book views as present, he has the pro- phecy of the Babylonian exile (ch. xxxix.) as a presupposition. He takes his departure from this. In a similar way we find the future viewed as present in the Apocalypse of John; indeed, in the form in which he introduces the vision, I saw, the whole eschatological future in ideal progress passes before him. The most serious difficulty which meets us, in the second part of Isaiah, is the prediction of Cyrus by name, un- less Cyrus is asymbolical and collective name. As to the differences in style, it would be a matter of some moment if the first part was marked by a soft, flowing expression, while the second was more intense, fiery, violent. But as the reverse is the case, the style of the first part belongs evidently to a young man, that of the second to riper years. Now and then indeed the youthful, ingenious play upon words, which marks the first part, appears in the second. It has been objected, that, upon the supposition of the genuineness of the second part, it is impossible to explain why in the justification of the threatenings of Jeremiah (ch. xxvi. 17, 18), the elders did not refer to Isaiah as well as to Micah. But if according to tradition Isaiah suffered martyrdom in his old age under Manasseh, such a reference would have been out of place, That re- ference to the example of Micah scems to say, pious kings would never allow a bold, true prophet to be executed. The king of Jeremiah still claimed to be a pious king. The example of Manassch therefore (we speak only of the possibility that the tradi- tion was true) could neither be a proper measure, nor a fitting reference in the case. In favor of its genuineness we present the following argument. Men of the in- tellectual heroism of the authors of the second part of Isaiah, and the New Tostament Apocalypse, cannot attribute their werks to a name already renowned, if these works are presented as historical or prophetic testimonies. They must from their greatness stand in their own time as acting persons, who could not conceal themselves if they would, and would not if they could. A city sct on a hill cannot be hid. There is the widest difference between the wretched apocryphal works, and such works of 38 INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. the highest grade in their kind. It is entirely another case also, when a poet intro. duces some historically renowned person as speaking. In his own time he was known generally as an author, and if a later time is not careful to preserve his name, but allows a poetical speaker to take his place, that is a peculiar literary event, from which no general principle can be drawn. As to the case of the poems of Ossian, McPherson owes his best thoughts to the old Celtic popular songs; his mystifying of his contem- poraries was connected with peculiarities of character, of which we find no trace in the canonical apocalyptics. Yor the difference between the Hebrew text of Jeremiah and the text of the Septuagint, compare Buizex, p. 488. Our point of procedure in the decision of this question is the principal difference, viz., that the Septuagint inserts the peculiar Apocalyptic close of Jeremiah (ch. xlvi.— li.) after (ch. xxv. 13), We regard this interpolation as a decided weakening of the peculiar significance and importance of that whole section; and we think that as with this chief point of difference, so all the others must be decided in favor of the Masoretic text. Since the prophecy of Daniel, as a whole, makes the impression of an apocalyptic work, retaining its unity throughout, this circumstance must not be left out of view in the critical examination of the book. It does not however enable us to decide between the original predictions of the prophet, and the casting of them into their present form. Three cases are possible. First, that a later prophet has attached his -visions to the name of the historical Daniel. Against this supposition see the re- marks above upon the second part of Isaiah. Secondly, it may be held that some later person has wrought the original prophetic works coming down from Daniel, into a new apocalyptic form. The perfect unity between the contents and form of the book lies against this supposition. Then it remains that the book must be from Daniel himself. The difficulties which oppose this supposition are the following: 1. Why does the book stand among the Kethubbim and not among the prophets? It seems probable, that at the time of the collection, the highly apocalyptic nature of the book, which connects it closely with sacred poetry, determined those who formed the collection to distinguish it from the prophets in a narrower sense, with their less highly colored apocalyptic works. It may be urged in favor of this, that it has been interpolated by portions,* —most probably at the time of the Maccabees—which in their style are plainly in contrast with the rest of the book. The entire paragraphs (ch. x. 1 to xi. 44, and xii. 5-13) are thus interpolated. Grave circumstances of the time have probably occasioned this interpolation, drawn from actual appearances in history, as also an interpolation in the second Epistle of Peter (ch. i., xx.-iii. 3) from the Epistle of Jude, was occasioned by similar circumstances. It grew out of this interpolation, that the book should have its place among the Kethubbim, if it had not always stood there. 2. Why has Jesus Sirach (ch. xlix.) not even named the book of Daniel ?—This would be decisive certainly, if there were not generally serious de- ficiencies in this author, and if in making his selection he had not in his eye those men who had gained renown, in respect to the external glory of Israel. In his view Daniel had by far a too free—unrestricted by Jewish notions—universal character and tend- ency. 8. Why do we not find some trace of the use of Daniel by the later prophets? In this connection it should be observed that the four horns (Zech. i, 18) and the * [Compare, however, upon this point Henesrenserc: Authentic des Daniel.—A, Gj § 25. CRITICAL QUESTIONS IN THE TREATMENT OF THE OLD TESTAMENT, 939 four opposers of Zion (Zech. vi. 1) appear certainly to presuppose the representation of the four world-monarchies (Dan. ch. ii. and vii), -And so also the more definite revelation of the idea of a suffering Messiah in the second part of Zechariah presup- poses the previous progress of that idea in prophecy (Isaiah liii.; Daniel ix. 26), 4, The difficulties which some have raised from the historical particularity of ch’ x. and xi., are met by the supposition above—that these chapters are a part of the in- terpolation. The intimation of Antiochus Eprphanes, in the little horn (ch. viii.), con- tains certainly a striking prediction, although not a prediction of Antiochus Epiphanes himself, but of that despotic Antichristian power which should arise out of one of the three world monarchies (not out of the last) which was fulfilled in that Antiochus. But it is certainly incorrect to identify the preliminary Antichrist Antiochus (ch. viii. 8) with the Antichrist imaged in ch, vii. 7. This last springs out of the ten horns of the fourth beast. On the contrary the goat (ch. viii), 7. ¢., the Macedonian monarchy, has one horn, out of which come the four horns, the monarchies into which the kingdom of Alexander was divided. Since the number four is the number of the world, this can only mean that the one, third-world power should divide itself into its chief component parts. With this goat of four horns, whose form is clearly de- fined throughout, the fourth animal (ch. vii.), whose form is very indefinite (and in which, in the face of the modern exegesis, we recognize the Roman world power), has no resemblance, but the third animal (ch. vii.), the leopard with his four wings of a bird, and the four heads. The wings of the leopard correspond to the swiftness of the goat, and the number four of his wings and heads with the four horns of the goat ; while the fourth animal (ch. vii.) has ten horns. The image of the Antichrist (in ch. vii.) and of his judgment is much more significant than the image of the typical An- tichrist (ch, viii.) and his judgment—which forms only an episode. Since at the time of Antiochus Epiphanes the Maccabeean family of the tribe of Levi gradually attained regal power, and therefore the announcement of the Messiah out of the tribe of Judah must have been thrown into the background (see the timid clause in favor of the future Messiah, 1 Mace. xiv. 41), it is very bold in the critics to refer a book so full of the Messiah, and in which all hope in any temporal Jewish dynasty disappears, to this very period of the Maccabees. In regard to the controversy as to the authenticity of the second part of Zechariah (ch. ix.-xiv.), it deserves to be considered, that the first suspicions against this section arose out of a purely theological misunderstanding. Since the quotation of the pro- ° phet Jeremiah by Matthew (ch. xxvii. 9, 10) is not found verbally in Jeremiah, but appears to be taken from Zechariah (ch. xi. 12, 18), Mede conceived that the section (Zech. ix.-xi.) was written by Jeremiah. But Matthew actually intended to refer to Jeremiah, since for his purpose the chief thing was the purchase of the potter’s field, of which he found a type in the purchase of the field at Anathoth made by J. eremiah (ch. xxxii.). In this citation he now inserted the allusion to the passage in Zechariah which speaks of the thirty pieces of silver, without any express reference to it (see Lance: Leben Jesu, ii. Bd. 3. Thi. p. 1496). Out of this erroneous supposition that Zech. ix-xi. must have been written by Jeremiah, has arisen the prevailing question as to the second part of this prophet. Later, it was not so much the New Testament citation, as a collection of internal marks, which occasioned the doubt of the critics.. But the criticism is so unfortunate as to undertake to transfer the second part of Zechariah to a much earlier date, and hence comes into collision with an important. principle of biblical hermeneutics. 40 INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. The principle is this : The great biblical idea makes no retrograde movement in the course of its development, «. ¢., no movement from a more to a less developed, or from a more to aless definite, form. But as it would be a retrograde movement of the Messianic idea, if the Servant of the Lord (Isa. liii.) should be taken merely for a col- lective name for the prophets, while already a definite developed announcement of a personal Messiah existed in the first part of Isaiah, so it would be a much more strik- ing retrograde movement of the Messianic idea, if the second part of Zechariah were to be regarded as an earlier composition than the first. For here, in the second part, we have nearly a continuous biographical portraiture of the personal Messiah in typical images. In ch. ix. 9, the Messiah comes to his city Jerusalem as an humble king of peace, riding upon a peaceful animal, the foal of an ass; in x. 11, he goes before his returning people through the sea of sorrow, beating down the waves of the sea; in xi. 12 he is as the shepherd of his people valued at thirty pieces of silver, and the silver pieces were left in the potter’s chest (see Lanau: Leben Jesu, ii. 3, p. 1494); in ch. xii. 10 is the deed done, because one has pierced him, and they begin to mourn for him as one mourns for bis only son; in xiii. 6, 7, he complains: lo! I have been wounded in the house of my friends; the sword has awakened against the shepherd. of God; the flock is scattered, and now he gathers his little ones; in xiv. he appears for judgment upon the Mount of Olives; it is light at the evening time ; a new holy time begins, in which the bells upon the horses bear the same title as that upon the mitre of the High Priest : “Holiness to the Lord.” The critics propose to transfer this fully developed Christology back to the time of Uzziah, when the doctrine of a personal Messiah began to unfold itself If some critics remove the section in question to a later date, or divide it into two ‘parts and two periods, they do not change the case at all. They still deny the above-quoted fundamental principle of hermeneutics. If they turn us to the fact that the symbol- ism, which so clearly marks the first part, is less prominent in the second, we may remark the same receding of the symbolic text in Jeremiah and Hosea. But if ch. x. 6, 7, speaks of the kingdom of Judah and Israel as still in existence, ch. xii. 6 of Jerusalem as still standing, it must be observed, that for the symbolical, not for the purely historical, view of the prophet, these forms are permanent in the kingdom of God. Wecan only refer briefly to the fact, that, with respect to the original mysteri- ous coloring, their obscurity and profoundness of statement, and other similar marks, the first and second parts of Zechariah have the same type and character. § 26. CRITICAL AIDS FOR ASCERTAINING AND CONFIRMING THE INTEGRITY OF THE BIBLICAL BOOKS. Here belong the records which form the internal | the Chaldee paraphrases, the Greek translations, the history of the text of the biblical books: the Hebrew Vulgate, the Masoretic text, and the printed text. text, the Samaritan Pentateuch and the translations, | Compare BLEEK: Hinleitwng, p. 746 ff. § 28. ELEMENTS OF THE HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL SCIENCE OF INTRODUCTION. 4] FOURTH CHAPTER. Historical and Critical Hicegetics in the narrower sense, or the human side of the Holy Scriptures: the Holy Scripture as Sacred Literature. § 27. LITERATURE OF THE HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL SCIENCE OF INTRODUCTION. See Burex : Hinleitung in das Alte Testament, p. | (1856, p. 1); [ Havernicx: Introduction, of which 5; Kut: Hinleitung in das Alte Testament, p. 6; | thereis an English translation ; Horne: Introduction ; Hacensaca : Encyclopedia, p. 189; Harrwie : TZu- | the recent edition. An Introduction by Prof. Stowe bellen zur Hinleitung in die kanonischen und apo- | of Andover.—A. G.] kryphischen Bucher des Alten Testaments, Berlin § 28. ELEMENTS OF THE HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL SCIENCE OF INTRODUCTION. The two essential elements of exegetics, both in reference to the Old Testament and the New, are general Introduction, or the history of the contents of the books in question, of the Old and New Testament Canon, and special Introduction, or the history of particular books. "We now inquire in what order these parts should scien- tifically be placed. De Wette places general Introduction first, and this seems to be systematic. On the other hand it appears more scientific, according to the genesis of the Canon, to treat first of individual books and then of the whole. Hagenbach says the method of Reuss is preferable, but Reuss in his introduction to the New Testament furnishes a general substructure for the literature of individual books. This is undoubtedly the correct method which Bleek and Keil have followed. First we have the fundamental Introduction, which treats of the historical region, origin, character, limits, and means (language and writing) of sacred literature. Upon this, special Introduction proceeds in its work, as it treats of the history of particular books. Finally general Introduction embraces all the results attained, in the history of the form- ation of the Canon, in the history of the preservation of the Canon, in the history of the text, in the history of the spread of the Canon, of translations, in the history of the explanation of the Canon, or of the exposition or interpretation of the scriptures, and in the history of the energy and results of the Canon, for which still the greater part remains to be done. In regard to these different elements we must here limit ourselves to a few sug- gestions. As to the introduction which is fundamental, in that it underlies both special and general, the first question is as to the sphere of revelation, as to the ground and limits within which the sacred literature has grown up; then as to the homogeneous rela- tion of the sacred word, as the word of the Spirit, to the scripture, as the language of the Spirit; then as to the specific character of the sacred writings as such, of their limitations, or of their opposition to apocryphal writings; and then finally of the means used in its formation, of the language itself, and of the art of writing, in their reciprocal influence and development. 42 INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. at The history of the individual book must be introduced by a definition and distinc. tion of the different modes of statement, the historical, poetic, didactic, and prophetic. For the critical part of this history, compare the | ments in den Jahrbiichern fiir Deutsche Theologie, - paragraphs upon criticism above. For the or- | 1858 (iii. Heft, p. 419) ff. 3 Kei, p. 588 ff. ; Bunszn, ganic part, sce the following paragraphs. For the | p. 51. [Lanpnenr’s Credibility, Jones, Worpsworrs, history of the Old Testament Canon, compare Birek: | ALEXANDER, GaussEN, McCixLuanp, on the Canon, Finleitung, p. 662. A. Dutmann: Ueber die Bil- | —A. G.] dung der Sammlung heiliger Schriften Alten Testa- On the history of the text, see Brurx, p. 717; Kz, p. 567, This history for along time runs parallel with the periods of Hebrew literature. We may distinguish a Jewish period of the history of the text, in the behalf of Christians, and a Christian period, in behalf of the Jews. The first period may be divided again into the period in which the canonical text assumed its present form, the period of the formation of the Synagogue manuscripts (Babylonian writings), of the Targumas, of the Talmud (division into Parasha and Haphtora), of the Masora (punctuation), of the Hebrew grammarians, and of the transition in the study of the Hebrew text to the Christians (division into chapters). The latter period falls into the history of the trans- mission of the manuscripts and of the printed editions. For the history of the translations, see BLEEK, p. | or of the Bible in an ecclesiastical and practical point of 1560; Kur, p. 694; Bunsen, p. 72. view, see the references under § 1, and also the para- For the history of the interpretation of the serip- | graphs on the theological and homiletical literature ture, see paragraph hermeneutics; Ket, p. 710; | to the Old Testament. The articles Bible and Bible Bunsen, p. 94; the full list Lanex’s Matthew, Am. ed. | text in Herzog : Realencyklopidie, by Danz and p18 Winer—[which is in course of translation—A. G.]. For the history of the results of the Old Testament ; § 29. THE DATES OF THE ORIGIN OF THE BIBLICAL BOOKS. We must defer the discussion of these dates, to the works upon the particular books, but give here a table of the different dates accepted by De Wette, Keil, Bleek, and add a closing remark, De WETTE. Ken, Bieex. { Genesis. The Elohistic original writings, which reach down: to the possession of Canaan. Revised with Jehovistic interpolations. The first originated probably in the time of Saul. The revision and enlarge- The Elohistic writing lying at the ment before the division of the foundation of the Pentateuch dates kingdom, : after the death of Joshua and the __ the following books were a con- expulsion of the Canaanites. tinuation of the original Elohistic The Jehovistic portions originate Mosaic composition. 4 Writings. Their revision probably during the kings, down to Joram, by thesame writer who made the re- but not to Hezekiah, vision of Genesis. Leviticus as in- Deuteronomy dates after the exile deed Exodus (so far as the giving of the two tribes. J of the law ig concerned) contains much that is originally Mosaic. Deuteronomy belongs to the Jehov- istic revision. Distinction between Deuteronomy and the earlier books. The rearrangement belongs to a later time, but took place before | the Babylonian exile, 1 § 29. THE DATES OF THE ORIGIN OF THE BIBLICAL BOOKS. 43 De Wetrr. The book of Joshua also comes down from the time of Ahab to the time of the origin of Deuter- onomy. lier. The book of Judges doubtful. The original essential portions be- fore Deuteronomy. J Judges. The last form after the composition of Deuteronomy. The books of Samuel later “te} Nai bates the tne of Rélio- The books of Kings during the In the last half of the Babylo- nian captivity. Babylonian exile. The books of Chronicles low down in the Persian period. ‘Book of Ruth a long time after David. Ezra and Nehemiah the work of a late collector. Esther. Very late date. Proba- bly the times of the Ptolemys and Seleucidac. second part of Isaiah during the early times of Cyrus. Isaiah from 759-710, B. C. } From the year of Uzziah’s death (758). Josiah to the subjection of the Jeremiah from the 13th year of The same kingdom (588). Ezekiel. From five years before the destruction of Jerusalem until The 8 same, 16 years after. Hosea presupposes the state of things under Jeroboam II. ' 790-725. Joel. Under Uzziah about the : year 8, ‘ 867-838, Amos, About 790. A few years after Joel. t 810-188. Obadiah. After the captivity of the Jews. After 588. t 889-884, Jonah. One of the later books. Uncertain whether before or after 824-783. the exile. Micah. The first years of Heze- kiah (788). L800. Nahum. After the 14th year of Hezekiah, ‘i i ‘710-699. Habakkuk. A younger contem- 5 porary of Jeremiah. ; Bateoe is Not later than the beginning of the reign of Saul. At the latest at the beginning of the reign of David. boam or Abijam. ; In Ezra’s time. Not before the last years of David’s reign. Ezra, Nehemiah. Not immediately after the sub- jection of the Persian kingdom. down to the 15th year of Hezekiah Buexx. The work of the Elohistic author. Revision in the time of David. Re- edition by the author of Deuter- onomy. Separated from the Pen- tateuch at a later period. Last redaction. After the division of the two king- doms, but not long after. In the last half of the exile, Per- haps by Baruch. Probably the same author, who, made the latest revisionof the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, Centuries after the period of the Jadges. The last revision quite late. after the Persian period. Perhaps much later. The second part during the Bab- ylonian exile. The Alexandrian recension pref- erable to the Masoretic text. After the taking of Jerusalem. Probably in the last time of Je- roboam Ii, During the reign of Uzziah. About 800 B. C. Nearly contemporary with Joel. { Esther. Probably immediately Immediately after the destruction of Jerusalem. Commonly referred to the time {or Jeroboam II. The origin of the book falls at least in the Chaldaic period; perhaps in the beginning of the Persian. ~ In the reign of Hezekiah. The declarations in the title not reliable. Before the year 600, or before the conquest of Nineveh. Probably during the reign of Jehoiakim. INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. 44 De WErrs. Ker. BLEEK. Zephaniah. In the first years of ; 640-625. { The time of Josiah, 642-611. Josiah (639). Haggai. At the time of at 519. { Pc second year of Darius Hys- babel and Joshua (536). pes. Zechariah. Some months later than Haggai. The second half of Zechariah probably belongs to the time after the exile. From 519 on, The second half (ch. 9) proba- bly earlier than Joel. The oldest part of written prophecy? Time of the king Uzziah!! Ch.10. Time of Ahaz. Ch. xi. 1, and 2, later | than the foregoing and following. Ch, xi. 4, 17, same as ch. ix. and = With a full misconception of i memammcaanaty symbolical representations. . The collection at the time of Malachi. Probably in the time ' 438-424, Nehemiah. A somewhat earlier of Nehemiah (444). ont, Probably not long after the . - ; 2 erection of the altar of burnt offer- Daniel. At the time of Anh ; At the time of the exile. ing in the temple of Jerusalem for chus Epiphanes, the worship of Jupiter. The Mac- cabeean age. ee ao gg Fae From David to the time after{ Against the reception of Mac- = ane Provany Ateh: the exile, but not after Nehemiah. { cabeean Psalms. Maccabeean period. Lamentations by Jeremiah (588). t The same. The Song. The time of Solomon. Solomon. of Solomon. Time of Hezekiah. Last chapter probably three years later. Proverbs of Solomon. The time J Hezekiah. unhappy, but in religious and lite- rary culture, advanced, age. miah. The book of Job. The time of the decline of the kingdom of Ecclesiastes. Belongs to a ine Judah, near to the Chaldaic period. Concluding Remarks.—In the investigation of the dates of the biblical books, the history of the development of the biblical ideas has not been allowed sufficient weight. This is true emphatically of the idea of a personal Messiah. In its more de- finite form it enters with the prophets Isaiah and ‘Micah, i. ¢., about the middle of the eighth century, B.C. It is perhaps credible that the idea of the Messiah should not appear in a later historical book. But it is incredible that the Messianic idea in a later book should recede again to the idea of a typical Messiah, which meets us in 2 Sam. vii. Indeed, since the idea of the typical Messiah first appears here, and From the time of Solomon to The times of Ezra and Nehe- The time of Solomon. The same. The time of Solomon. Not by Solomon. ( t The oldest collection. Many genuine proverbs of Solomon. Still the collection not by Selomon. Collection at the time of Hezekiah. The rest probably later. It falls perhaps in the last time of the Persian dominion ; but per- haps still later in the time of the Syrian dominion. Probably between the Assyrian and Babylonian captivity. The speech of Elihu a later interpola- tion. a whole period lies between the appearance of the typical Messianic image, and the ideal Messianic image, the origin of the 2d book of Samuel must be this whole period earlier than that of Isaiah and Micah. Generally the prophets form the strongest bulwarks against the excesses of the critics, Hengstenberg, Delitzch, and others, show how frequently they use the historical books, especially the Pentateuch, in- cluding Deuteronomy, and how therefore they pre- suppose the existence of these books. But what long periods must have elapsed between the founding of the legal theocracy, between its culminating point under David and Solomon; and the prophetic doubts § 30. PERIODS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT BOOKS. 45 and despondency as to its eternal and legal appear- ance !—Let us take the idea of personal repentance as the measure. If, on good grounds, we view the 51st Psalm as the penitential Psalm of David, is there any similar development of the idea of personal re- pentance in Deuteronomy? So likewise there is no similar statement of a personal experience of grace. Criticism rightly uses the citations of the prophets, but it should use also with greater care the history of religious ideas, § 30. THE PERIODS WHICH THE CLD TESTAMENT BOOKS EMBRACE. 1. Genesis. The time of primary history from the beginning of the human race, to the death of Jacob. 2. Exodus to Deuteronomy. The interval between Jacob and Moses. (See above, § 6, Chronology.) Then 40 years. (Numbers with a space of 37 years.) 8. Joshua. A period of about 17 years. 4. The books of Judges and Ruth. Various estimations. See the § 6. Chronolo- gy. Das Calwer Handbuch, 320 years. 5. The two books of Samuel. About 100 years. 6. The two books of Kings. About 380 years. 7. The two books of Chronicles. From the beginning of the world to the end of the Babylonian exile. 8. Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther. Omitting the period of the Babylonian captivity (70 years, or deducting the 14 years of the removal before the destruction of Jerusalem, 56 years), a period of about-180 years. § 31. THE ORGANIC STRUCTURE OF THE BIBLICAL BOOKS. See the IV. Division. THIRD SECTION. THE THEANTHROPIC CHARACTER OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURE AS TOITS FORM AND CONTENTS, OR THE BIBLICAL CHRISTOLOGI- CAL THEOLOGY, ESPECIALLY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. GeneraL BisticaL THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. § 32. CONTENTS. It treats: 1. Of the nature of the revealed salvation, its fundamental forms, and its foundation ; 2. Its development, and the steps in that development; 3. Of its aim and tendency. 46 INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. A. The revealed Salvation, its fundamental forms and its foundation. § 33. THE REVELATION OF GOD IN THE WIDEST SENSE. The revelation of God is both objective and subjective, ¢. ¢., the God of revela- tion, in revealing the knowledge of himself, stands over against the minds fitted to receive the revelation. God cannot reveal himself, without placing over against him- self the glass upon which the rays of light fall, viz., angels and men. No created mind can know God, unless he reveal himself to him. But in the mutual action and influence between the spiritual and human world, the revelation of God progresses through different stadia. 1. The most general revelation of God; objec- tive: The creation. Rom. i. 2. General revelation of God; objective: The history of the world. Rom. ix.-xi. 8. Special revelation of God, or the revelation of salvation in its progress; objective: The old covenant, 4, The most special revelation of God, or the revelation of salvation, in its introductory perfec- tion: God in Christ reconciling the world. 1, The most general revelation of God; subjec. tive: The mind and conscience. Rom. ii. 2. General revelation of God; subjective: Lives of individuals. 3. Special revelation of God, or the revelation of salvation in its progress; subjective: The faith in the promise. 4. The most special revelation of God in its in- troductory or first consummation ; subjective: Jus- tifying and saving faith. 5. The final, complete, introductory perfection of the revelation of God in Christ; objective: The great epiphany. God all inall. The consummation and transfiguration of the general revelation through the special. 5. The final, complete consummation of the subjective revelation of God in Christ. The in- tuition of God in Christ, and in the whole city of God. Through the sin of man the most general revelation of God is veiled and hidden (Isa. xxv. 7). Even the more definite, moral revelation of God in history, and his own destiny, becomes to man a further obscuration of the Deity (Ps. xviii. 26). This blindness or darkness appears in the views of man concerning the enigma in history, and in man’s evil destiny. Through the objective side of the special revelation this darkening of the minds through unbelief often completes itself in hardness. The world is hell, viewed from the stand-point of hellish spirits. On the contrary, all the subjective and objective circles of revelation meet in ever increasing splendor, in the special sphere of revela- tion, in faith. But the special revelation, in its ‘objective and subjective aspects, not only facilitates the knowledge of the general revelation, but carries on the gen- eral revelation to its consummation and glory. 8 34, OPPOSITION AND DISTINCTION BETWEEN GENERAL AND SPECIAL REVELATION. . General revelation is the foundation on which the special rests; the special is the reproduction and realization of the general. - Within the historical circle of the general revelation there arises, in consequence of the fall, the obscuration of the revelation of God, through nature and conscience, since the primeval religion of man was thus changed into a mere capacity for religion. § 35. THE SUBJECT OF REVELATION. 47 But-within the same circle are formed the sources of special revelation, since the primeval religion of the chosen becomes an active, practical exercise of their religious nature. General revelation as a natural revelation, looking to the past, is an unveiling of the foundations of the world and life; of the original divine institutions. Special revelation, looking to the future, is a revelation of salvation, and therefore always both an ideal revelation and an actual redemption. General revelation uses as its instruments symbolical signs and events,- whose bloom and flower in the life of the spirit is the divine word. Special revelation makes use of the divine word, whose bloom and seal is the sacramental symbol and acts. There the symbol is prominent, here the word. § 35. THE SUBJECT OF REVELATION. In the most general sense, the subject of revelation is the relation of God to man, as 2 foundation for religion, which is the relation of man to God. God reveals him- self to man according to his living relations to him, according to his will in reference to him, hence in his purpose of salvation, the actual salvation, the promise of salvation ; but also according to his claims upon man, in his law and in his judgment. He makes plain to man his peculiar destiny, his sinful nature, his guilt, since he plainly reveals his own will to man in order to prepare him to receive his salvation. This salvation is thus the central theme of revelation, and indeed as a fact, as a personal life, as an eternal inheritance, is destined to extend from the chosen until it becomes the com- mon good of humanity. The subject of revelation is, therefore, redemption. § 36. THE INTERCHANGE BETWEEN REVELATION AND REDEMPTION. As the eternal living spirit, God communicates himself, his life, when he com- municates the living knowledge of himself. Man, as a spiritual being allied to God, cannot rightly know God without receiving into himself the divine life. But as man is sinful, he is blinded as to his intelligence, to the same extent that he is perverted and enslaved in his will. Hence there cannot be a revelation of salvation to him with- out redemption, nor redemption without revelation. It follows also that the intro- duction of this revelation must be very gradual. With the spiritual eye the heart must be purified, with the heart, the eye. Revelation is the ideal redemption, re- demption the actual revelation. In this interchange between revelation and redemption, in general, revelation precedes redemption, but at the same time it must, through its preliminary redenip- tion, prepare the way for every new stage in its development. And just as in the chosen spirits, the channels of the revelation of saving truth, revelation precedes re- demption, so with the great mass of those who are the subjects of redemption, the redemption precedes, as a preparatory discipline, the illumination through revelation. 48 INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. § 37. THE OBJECTIVE FORM OF THE REVELATION OF SALVATION. The objective form of this revelation is throughout the Theophany, as it rises from the form of the ideal, dynamic theophanies, to the grand real Theophany of God in Christ. It manifests itself in the elements of human faith, strengthened to open vision or sight. Its first form is the miraculous report, the divine voice, the word, whose dull echo—the Bath Kol—meets us only in the region of the Apocrypha. Its second more developed form is in the miraculous vision, in a narrower sense, angelic appearances, as an ideal dynamic Christophany, surrounded and even represented by wider encircling angelophanies and symbolical signs. Its third and perfect form is the incarnation of God in Christ, Its effect throughout is prophecy; the miracle of prophecy. But the Urim and Thummim is the theocratic, legal enlargement of prophecy ; in which it was made permanent, and accessible to the people whenever it might be needed. § 38. THE SUBJECTIVE FORM OF REVELATION. This is throughout the vision, whose basis or real aspect is ecstasy, the sudden transposition of the mind from the stand-point of faith to that of sight. The vision generally appears as a day-vision, during which the usual consciousness of sense is shadowed or suspended as inthe night. But it appears in children, in common la- borers, or men sunken in fatigue, as a dream of the night, in whom, however, the moral consciousness shines as clear as inthe day. Its pre-condition is the higher in- tuition possessed by chosen religious minds, by the spirit of God made fruitful in some great historical moment, which indeed contains the seeds of the future, which the seer filled by the Theophany prophetically explains. There is no conceivable theophany without a corresponding disposition for the re- ception of visions; no vision without the energy and effect of a theophany. But the one form may prevail at one time, the other at another. In general, revelation advances from the Old to the New Testament, from the prevailing objective form, or theophany, to the prevailing subjective form, or the vision. Hence the succession in the names of the prophets: Roeh, Nabi, Chozeh. § 39. THE OBJECTIVE FORM OF REDEMPTION. The objective form of redemption appears in a series of saving judgments, intro- duced through revelation by means of theophanies, Its fundamental form is the miracle. § 40. THE SUBJECTIVE FORM OF REDEMPTION, It manifests itself in a heroic, divine act of faith, whose symbol is the sacrifice, whose result is conversion. §41. THE HISTORICAL GRADUAL PROGRESS AND FORM OF REVELATION. 49 , § 41. THE HISTORICAL GRADUAL PROGRESS AND FORM OF REVELATION. The realization in history of the revelation of salvation is gradual, fundamentally the same with the gradual growth of history itself. This gradual progress is con- ditioned: 1. Through the fundamental law of all human growth, into which the divine revelation as a revelation of salvation necessarily enters. In this point of view revelation is the grandest nature, the crown and glory of nature; for the regular unfolding of the Old Testament advent of Christ, of the personal life of Christ, and of that kingdom of heaven founded by him, reaches from the beginning to the end of the world, and transcends all the limits of the events of natural history. 2. This gradual growth is conditioned through the necessary interchange between a holy God and unholy men, in whom the grace of God first gradually forms according to the law of freedom for itself a point of union and a point of departure for its wider progress, 7. é., it is conditioned through the constant interchange between revelation in a narrower sense and redemption, we may say even between prophecy and miracle, between the vision and the sacrifice. 3. Then it is conditioned through the slow process of the interchange between the chosen as the starting-point of revelation, and the popular life, or the interchange between the apocalypse and the manifestation (phanerosis). Generally, however, its history is embraced in two periods. 1. From the beginning of the introductory revelation to its completion, 7. ¢., to the completion of the personal life of Christ, ¢. ¢., to the introductory or first end of the world. This is the special history of revelation in the narrower sense. 2. From the beginning of the final complete revelation, or the historically introduced revelation, ¢. ¢., from the beginning of the church to its completion, the second advent of Christ, 7. ¢., the final end of the world. We now speak only of the periods of revelation in the narrower sense. 1. The period of that in one aspect symbolical, in the other mythical, primary reli- gion: from Adam to Abraham, 2000 years B.C. The lighter aspect of this period is the symbolical religion, the knowledge of God in the light of nature and history, with sporadic lights of revelation through the word. ms 2. The period of the patriarchal religion of promise in its genealogical descent, introduced and established through the word of God and human faith: from Abra- ham to Moses, 1500 B. C. In the first period the symbol is prominent, the word subordinate; in this the word holds the first place, the symbol the second. In the first period faith was sporadic; in Abraham and his seed it becomes genealogical. 8. The period of the Mosaic legal religion: from Moses to Elijah, or to the de- cline of the glory of the Israelitish kingdom. The symbol preponderates above the word. The internal character of the religion of promise at the beginning, is now surrounded by the external forms of the law, for the purpose of bringing 2 whole people to share in the Abrahamic faith, and at the same time secure its wider develop- ment. Elijah turns himself to the past, as the last restorer of the law through the miraculous judgment by fire. . 4, The period of propheey, or in which the law began to be viewed in its internal character, in which the word preponderates, not the symbol: from the miracles of Elisha, marked by their design to save, pointing, to the future, and from the Messi- anic prophecies of Isaiah (Hosea, Joel, Amos) to Malachi. 4 50 INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. 5. The period of national piety, or of the national realization of the prophetic faith, introduced in a historical manner, under the disappearance of canonical inspira. tion, but also under the appearance of the idea of martyrdom: from Malachi to the time of Christ. : 6. The period of the concentration of the Messianic longing of Israel, or the seed- like formation of that state of mind which was fitted to receive the Messiah, whose very heart or central point is the Virgin, and around her the truly pious, especially the Baptist, enveloped, as in a shell, by Pharisaism, Sadduceeism, Essenism, Sama. ritanism, Alexandrianism, and Hellenism, which in a general sense may be viewed as springing from one another. The history previous to the New Testament. 4. The period of the life of Christ to its completion in his ascension, and to the great seal of its completion in the founding of the Christian church, through the out- pouring of the Holy Spirit. § 42. THE CONTRASTS BETWEEN THE ANNOUNCEMENT AND THE FULFILMENT OF SALVATION. As nature found its goal in the first man, and the primeval time in Abraham and the Old Covenant, so the Old Covenant itself, as the preannouncement of the salvation in Christ, has found its goal in Christ. Christ is the end of the law, the preliminary goal or end of all things. But the introductory revelation of Christ in the time of the New Testament, must reach again its comprehensive final goal in the eternity of the New Testament, the eternal gospel, the second coming and epiphany of Christ with its eternal results. The Old Testament is the religion of the future. As to the word of promise, it finds its fulfilment in the word of the New Testament ; as to its types, the shadowy images of good things to come, in the facts of the New Testament salvation. Hence it follows that the Old Covenant, as to its national, legal, external value, is abrogated through the New Covenant, but that the Old Testament, as the word of God, is exalted through the New Testament, to be a constituent part of the eter- nal revelation, as it furnishes the foundation, introduction, and illustration of the New Testament. if As the gospel itself is a provisional law for the unbeliever, so the Old Testament law was a provisional gospel for the believer. § 43. THE FUNDAMENTAL FORMS OF THE PREFIGURATION OF SALVATION. These forms, in words, are the original traditions, the promise, the law, prophecy, the testimony of martyrs. These forms, in facts, are the allegories, symbols, types, 7. ¢., the dawn, the repre- sentations, and the germ-like preparations for the New Covenant. Typology commences with the personal types (Adam, Melchizedec, Abraham, &c.), passes on to the historical types (the sacrifice of Isaac, the exodus from Egypt), finds its central point in the types of the law (the Mosaic cultus), and completes § 45. THE DEVELOPMENT OF BIBLICAL THEOLOGY. 51 itself in the mental type, and types in disposition, the preannouncements in the in- ward state and feeling, of New Testament states (Ps. xxii.; Isa. vii, &c.). The types and the word stand in relations to each other, similar to those between redemption and revelation. § 44. THE FULFILLING OF SALVATION. The fulfilling of salvation is the completion of the theanthropic life of Christ, in its world-atoning, world-redeeming, and world-glorifying power and result. It may be divided into the introductory fulfilling and the final completion, 4. ¢., into the time of the first and of the second advent of Christ. The first period embraces the history of the one peculiar completion of the life of Jesus, and its development in the four fundamental forms of the four gospels, and the varied doctrinal fundamental forms in the different apostolical types of doctrine, especially of James, Peter, Paul, the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews and of John, to which, however, we must add, in their historical significance, the doctrinal types of the other apostles. The wider and final completion of the life of Christ extends through the different periods of the New Testament kingdom of heaven. (See Lance: Matthew, Am. ed., pages 3, 4, 5. B. Revelation of Salvation ; its Development and iis Goal. 8 45. a THE DEVELOPMENT OF BIBLICAL THEOLOGY. Biblical theology develops itself in essentially the same way with biblical reli- gion. But it develops itself according to its nature after the following fundamental principles : ; 1. Biblical doctrine proceeds in its essential development, as in its chronological divisions, from a fundamental Christological principle : Man destined to the image of God, or to the perfection of his life in the revelation of the God-man. 2. The essential development of biblical doctrines, e. g., the doctrines of the name of God, of his attributes, of man, of sin, é&c., advances in the same measure with the chronological development of biblical doctrine in different periods of time. 3. Every biblical doctrine in its germ-form existed already in the earliest period -of revelation, e. g., the doctrine of immortality. 4. No biblical doctrine reaches its perfect form until the latest period of revela- tion, 4. ¢., the New Testament fulfilment ; and this fully developed form is reached in the apostolical period, ¢. g., the doctrine of the Trinity. . 5, Every biblical doctrine in its course of development presents a marked, distinct continuity; although one doctrine may now rise into prominence, and then another. Hence a break and opposition between the Old and New Testament would be a monstrous supposition, if, e. g., the central part of the revelation of God in the Old Testament (the angel of the Lord), should be regarded as a created angel, and not as Christ: himself in the preparatory stages of his incarnation, while the central figure in the New Testament revelation is the God-man. 52 INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. 6. Heterogeneous, not, strictly speaking, theocratic doctrines, may prepare the way for the development of revelation, and promote Its progress. They have served this purpose from the beginning onwards (Chaldean, Syrian, Palestinian, Egyptian, Persian), but the grand forming principle of revelation would never allow any in- trusion of foreign elements. It is only in the apocrypha that we find any traces of such an intrusion. 7. The development of biblical doctrine is ever in the direction of an onward - progress, an unfolding, from the germ, of a growing spirituality, of a rejection of temporary forms, but never the form of a progress and growth through opposition. All the antitheses of sacred scripture, even that between the Old and New Testa- ments, are harmonious, not antagonistic or contradictory oppositions. 8, Within the period of any individual biblical doctrine, there is an opposition and a progressive movement, and between the most diverse periods there exists every- where the unity of the spirit, and hence an indissoluble connection. 9. The word of God, or the principle of revelation, rules and shapes the books of scripture, as a strong, active, moulding principle. But in the relations of that word to humanity, it is ever in its unfolding, breaking through the bonds of human error, and in its spirituality proceeds from one stage of revelation to another, to realize its divine fulness, in a more complete, transparent human perfection. 10. The word of God in its development never destroys human nature, while it dissolves the shadows within which it lies. It rather sets free, in the measure of its development, the original powers of the human nature. Hence these marks of origi- nality, as they were already evident in the characters of the patriarchs, appear in their most striking forms in the lives of the prophets. It isan absurd and monstrous supposition, therefore, of which they are guilty who, denying the perfect originality of the four gospels, view the gospels of Matthew and Luke as copies from the original of Mark. 11. The doctrine of Jesus passes through well-defined periods of development. We can distinguish: 1. The explanation of the law in its inward all-prevailing sig- nificance. 2. The explanation of the Old Testament idea of the kingdom of heaven. 3. The explanation of the Old Testament types of circumcision, and the Passover. 4. The explanation of the Old Testament cultus. 5. The explanation of the entire Old Testament symbolism, and of the whole symbolism of creation. These chronolo- gical stages of the development of the doctrine of Christ are made the essential fundamental forms of the doctrine of Christ, in the doctrinal types of the apostles, James, Peter, Paul, the Epistle to the Hebrews, John. These types of doctrine sup- plement and complete each other, but they are as far removed as possible, in their harmonious agreement, from correcting each other. 12. In the book of Genesis biblical doctrine is a union of the word of God with the purest expression of human artlessness; in the Apocalypse, it is the union of the same word with a conscious, and, as to the Hebrew form, perfected, sacred art. Remark.—The fundamental laws of the develop- | the introduction of this revelation into humanity, in ment of the introductory revelation in the sacred | the course of the development of the Christian scriptures, are also the fundamental laws controlling | Church, §46. BIBLICAL DOCTRINE OF GOD, OR THEOLOGY IN THE NARROWER SENSE. 53 SPECIAL BIBLICAL THEOLOGY IN OUTLINE. § 46. BIBLICAL DOCTRINE OF GOD, OR THEOLOGY IN THE NARROWER SENSE. Biblical theology in the narrower sense, or the doctrine of God, may be divided into the doctrine of the knowledge of God founded upon his revelation of himself; of the name of God, which has its ground and reasons in his nature; of the demonstra- tion of the being of God, resting upon the evidence of his universal existence, perfec- tion, and power; * of the method of his providence, and of the attributes of God, or the fundamental form of his vital relations to the world and man, grounded ultimately in his peculiar personality, or the threefold personal distinction in his essence. Remarks.—1. The revelation of God is the ground upon which all our knowledge of God rests. 2. The name of God is not the nature of God, but designates objectively the entire revelation, and subjectively the whole of religion. 8. The nature of God is designated by the fundamental distinctions : The Lord, Love, Spir- it. 4. The name of God, proceeding from the uni- versal to the particular, passes through the names Elohim, Eloha, El Eljon, El Schadai, Elohim Zeba- oth, to the name Father in heaven; and proceeding from the theocratic to the universal, it passes from the names Jehovah, Adonai, Jehovah Zebaoth, to the name God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. 5. The Holy Scriptures recognize and distinguish defi- nite fundamental forms of the revelation of the di- vine Providence, which lay the foundation for the proofs of the divine existence. The general relation of God to the world may be divided into creation and providence. The creation may be viewed as the original creation and as the new formation of that which was originally created. Providence may be regarded as the supporting, ruling, co-working; and the co-working as judgment, redemption, and glori- fication. 6. With the unfolding of providence, the definition of the divine being according to his attri- butes comes clearly into view, in which, however, we must carefully distinguish between the essential and merely nominal marks or designations, In every period there prevails a peculiar definition, determined according to the divine attributes. In the primitive period God is designated as the exalted one (El El- jon). In the period of the promise as the Almighty (El Schadai). ‘In that of the law as the Holy one. In the transition to the prophetic as the righteous, wise, good. In the period of the prophets as the most glorious, the Majesty.” In the national period ag the condescending ; and in the New Testament as the gracious and merciful. 7. The distinctions in the divine nature or essence pass through different stages : God and his Angel; the Angel of the Lord (Gen. xvi. 7 ff.) ; of his countenance (Exodus xxiii. 14 ff.) ; of the covenant (Malachi); God and his own Son; God and his threefold name. § 47. BIBLICAL DOCTRINE OF MAN, OR ANTHROPOLOGY. The world as the basis and birthplace of man comes first into view here, and the world as Creation, as Nature, as the Cosmos, as the Aeon, or as the natural world defined through the spiritual. Then man in his normal state, in his nature (Biblical Anthro- pology and Psychology), in his destination, his paradisaic origin and condition, and his fitness for trial. Then further, man in his sin, his fall, his sinfulness, and his original sin ; and corresponding to this, on the one hand, the guilt, judgment, death, condemna- bility, and on the other his inward discord and strife, his fitness as a subject of re- demption, his outlook into the spiritual world, both as one of wretchedness and bliss, _ his codperation with divine grace, or his preparation for the Advent of Christ. [* This is a very inadequate rendering of the expressive terms which Dr. Lange uses: Daseins, Soseins, Hierseins, in which he includes the whole field from which we draw the arguments for the being of God: not merely his existence, but his existence such as he is, the concrete idea of God given us in the Bible.—A. G.] 54 INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. Remarks.—1. The creation is a. a single act, b. acts, works, c. a continuous energy or work, d. it marks the world as conditioned in the highest sense. 2. Nature is the relative independence of the world. Its first feature calling for notice is the principle of nature. Its second, the law of nature. Its third, the stages in the development of nature. Its fourth, the goal of nature: the sphere of freedom in which the grand nature of the kingdom of God is. developed. 8. The Cosmos is the beautiful harmony of the world. It holds its celebration in its ideal perfection. The sacred reflection ‘of the Cosmos is the Sabbath—the sacred human festivals. 4. In the Aeon the living spiritual principles of the world are represented. We must distinguish first the spiritual and human world, and then further the Ontology of the spiritual world from the experience of man in regard to it, as it first enters with the fall. 5. Biblical Anthropology is both dualistic and w system of trichotomy. As to its dualism man belongs in one aspect to the ma- terial, in the other to the spiritual, world. Accord- ing to the trichotomy man is, as to his divine quality or nature, spirit, as to his heavenly or superearthly form, soul, and as to his earthly organism, body. 6. In the destination of man to the image and like- ness of God, we must maintain, that man, as the image of God, is destined to his self-realization in communion with God; and that particularly, as to his man, and as to his soul, to his social self-realization in the kingdom of God. 7. With the paradisaic state of man comes into consideration the pure beginning of his life, which is both potential and actual, 2, ¢, in one aspect innocence, in another righteousness ; then his need of being tested, and finally his fitness for the test. 8. In the doctrine of sin we must dis tinguish the ideas of sin, of evil in the wide sense, and strict moral evil. Then the nature of sin, its genesis, and its development. 9. The consequences of sin may be viewed as natural and positive, or as death and as judgment in the following stages: Guilt and its imputation. This again branches it- self a. into the continuation of sin: 1. Sinfulness, or the status corrwptionis, and pun- ishment ; 2. original sin, and the curse of sin; 8. the hardening (stage of unbelief) and the ro. jection, fitness for condemnation; 4, The second death or condemnation, d. into the reaction against sin; the natural reaction, or the consciousness of guilt on the part of man, the positive reaction, or the preparative grace of God: 1, the desire after the lost Paradise and the Cher- ubim 5 2, the desire after a new and higher salvation aiid the Protevangelium ; 3. faith and the promise ; bodily nature, he is destined to a generic self-realiza- 4, the stages of faith and the stages of the advent tion in the spread of humanity from one pair, and as to of Christ, his spirituality, to his ideal self-realization in the God- § 48. BIBLICAL CHRISTOLOGY, AND SOTERIOLOGY. ' Christology may naturally be divided into the typical and prophetic Old Testament messianic Christology, the evangelical Christology, or the history of the conscious being and revelation of Christ in his life, and the apostolic Christology, or the biblically com- pleted doctrine of his person. Soteriology embraces the doctrine of the three Messianic offices of Christ, of the historical unity of the work of Christ, and of his eternal theanthropic work, in which he descends into the abyss of human judgments through his compassion, and raises believing humanity to the inheritance of his Sonship and blessedness. Remarks.—1. The Old Testament Christology flows from the fact, that from every judgment of God there springs a divine promise, and that thus the re- of the higher nature are in opposition to the forms of the lower nature, and thus represent the opposi- tion of¢he kingdom of God to the kingdom of dark- ligion of the past is transformed into a religion of the future. This religion of the future, under the providence of God, ever moves onward to the future in acts and in consciousness: in the oue through the miracles, or in the allegorical, symbolic, and typical history of salvation; in the other through prophecy in its different stages. As to the allegory, the forms ness. In the symbolical acts and works, the human civilization becomes the image of the divine cultus, In the region of the types, 4. e., of the germlike pre- figuration of that which is to be completed in the fu- ture, we must distinguish the typology of the Covenant (Covenant or Testament), the typology of the kingdom, and the typology of the Messiah. Messianic prophecy § 49. THE DOCTRINE OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 55 proceeds from the prophecy of the human conflict, the semitic reverence for God, the blessing upon Abraham, the warlike and peaceful sceptre of Judah, the typical Messiah in the genealogy of David, to the prophecy of the ideal personal Messiah ; and again from the one prevailing form of the Messiah, it advances to the distinction of the lowly and suffering, and the exalted glorious Messiah. But with the idea of a suffering Christ there appears the idea of Antichrist and his typical signs or marks. With the prophecy of the Messiah there is unfolded also a prophecy of the redemption and transfiguration of the world through a series of saving judgments proceeding from those which are introductory, to those which are uni- versal and complete. 2. In the Evangelical Christo- logy, or the Christology of the life of Christ, we may view the Christology of the stages of his personal life (his miraculous birth, baptism, transfiguration, resurrection, ascension), and of his self-consciousness in his teachings, of his Christological acts, his miracles, and his redeeming work. 3. In the biblical-Soteri- ology we must distinguish the unity of the work of Christ, from its division into his three offices. The one entire Work of Christ has been profoundly de- scribed by Luther and others as an exchange of re- lations, Christ has taken our sin, 7. e., the conscious- ness of condemnation, upon himself, in order that he might make us sharers in his righteousness; 7. ¢., in his great compassion he has entered into our con- sciousness of guilt, as a consciousness of judgment, that he might take us into the consciousness of his righteousness. As to the offices, we must distinguish his prophetic redemption or world-atonement, his priestly expiation, and his kingly redemption in a narrower sense, (See Lance: Positiv Dogmatik, p. 798 ff.) § 49. BIBLICAL PNEUMATOLOGY AND THEOCRATOLOGY, OR THE DOCTRINE OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD. “The doctrine of the Spirit of God, and his operations, treats of the Old Testament typical kingdom of God, based upon his universal and absolute kingdom over the world, in its friendly and hostile relations to the kingdoms of the world (Daniel, ch. ii, vii.); of the New Testament kingdom of heaven established by Christ, in its opposition to the kingdom of Satan, and of the final appearance of the perfected king- dom of God, in the glorified world, and in its complete triumph over the kingdom of darkness. The doctrine of the Old Testament kingdom of God treats of the historical signifi- cance and importance-of the opposition between Judaism and Heathenism. The doctrine of the New Testament kingdom of God branches into the doctrine of the particular definite method of salvation, the definite founding and saving insti- tutions of the Church, and of the application and spread of this completed salvation to the utmost boundaries of the world. Its stages are the following: 1, a, individual death ; 6, intermediate state ; ¢. the individual progressive re- surrection ; 2. a. social death, or the fall of 6, Anti-Christendom ; c, the appearance of Christ and Babel ; the millennial kingdom ; 8. a. death of the old world. End of the world; ¢. the eternal energy and result of the city of God, and its glory to the honor of God. (Rev. xxii.) 6. the final completed resurrec- tion, and the separation in the judgment ; The doctrine of the completed kingdom of God rests upon the biblical disclosure of the Aeon of the blessed, and the Aeon of the condemned, over which rules, im- parting to them unity, the absolute fulfilment of the divine purposes, of the end of the world, and the glory of God. 56 Remarks.—1. Pneumatology is more widely de- veloped through the doctrine of the Spirit, for which theology has as yet done comparatively little (see Lance: Theol. Dogmatik, p. 926), [see also OwEN: Work on the Spirit. G.]. 2. The doctrines of the absolute dominion of God, of the kingdom of the grace of God, and the kingdom of glory, must be more accurately distinguished than has been done hitherto. 8, The interchange between the progress of the kingdom of God and the kingdom of darkness, how they serve to facilitate each other’s progress, how in critical moments they reject and exclude each other, how the apparent subjection of the first is al- ways the real subjection of the last, how the victory of the kingdom of God, through the cross of Christ, is as a preliminary victory decided, how the two kingdoms move on side by side to their widest com- pletion, and how the last apparent triumph of the INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. kingdom of darkness, in the revelation of Antichrist, introduces his final judgment under the triumph of the kingdom of God; all this needs 2 more adequate estimation, explanation, and statement. 4. The sig- nificance of the historical opposition between Juda- igm and Heathenism, Hebraism and Hellenism, re- quires a clearer and more detailed statement, Above the hostile opposition between Shem and Ham, there may be seen also the friendly opposition between Shem and Japhet, tending to supplement each other, 5. For the organism of the individual method of sal- vation, which generally lies still in great confusion (sce Lance: Positiv Dogmatik, p. 950). [This is less true perhaps in England and in this country, than in Germany.—A. G.] For the Christological structure of the church in its various stages—the same, p. 1107, and finally for its organism during its eschatological stages, p. 1225. SECOND DIVISION. PRACTICAL EXPLANATION, AND HOMILETICAL USH OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. é In the apostolic communities, and through the entire apostolic age, the reading of the Old Testament was confessedly an essential foundation for the public solemn edification of Christians. Hence we find, in the New Testament writings, the first fundamental outlines of the practical explanation of the Old Testament. We may go still farther back, and say, that just as the New Testament gives a doctrinal and practical explanation of the Old, so the later writings in the Old Testament serve to explain the earlier and more fundamental portions. But as Christ enters, or is intro- duced, in the New Testament, as the absolute interpreter (Matt. v. 17), so his Apos- tles carry on his work as interpreters of the Old Testament. We call special atten- tion, in this view, to the Gospels by Matthew and John, the Acts, the Epistle to the Galatians and that to the Hebrews. The apostolic Fathers also have proved in a large measure interpreters of the Old Testament, Besides some allegorical fancies in the epistle of Barnabas, we re- cognize some very valuable and profound suggestions. Clement of Rome, in his first letter to the Corinthians, after he has exhorted the Corinthians to repentance, quotes testimonies and examples from the Old Testament, from ch. viii—xiii. and passing over other citations, even in reference to the life of Christ, ch. xvii.—xix. and still further on, he constantly mingles quotations from the Old Testament with those from the New. ‘This is true also in some measure of the second epistle bearing the same name. The Ignatian epistles are in this respect remarkably reserved, perhaps out of regard to the Judaizers. In Polycarp also the citations from the New Testament are very prominent. The anonymous letter to Diognetus represents still more strikingly PRACTICAL EXPLANATION AND HOMILETICAL USE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 57 in this respect, an anti-judaistic stand-point, although there is no necessity for im- puting to its author a Gnostic antagonism to the Old Testament. In the Pastor of Hermas there are not wanting Old Testament allusions, still he is more closely related to the Old Testament, in his imitation of the prophetic forms, and in his legal view, than in that living appropriation of it which characterizes the New Testament. The book of Hermas points to the great Christian apocryphal literature, in which the Jewish Apocrypha perpetuates itself, and in which indeed the most diverse imitations of the Old Testament writings are continued. (The Sybellines, the 4th book of Ezra, the book of Enoch, and others.) Among the Apologists, Justin Martyr, about the middle of the second century, appears as a Christian philosopher who was familiar with the Old Testament. This is clear from his dialogue with Trypho. But also in his Cohortatio ad Graecos he, as also others of the Fathers, not recognizing the better peculiarities of heathenism, traces back the monotheism and wisdom of Plato to Moses and the prophets. In his apologies, which were directed to heathens, he makes use of Old Testament prophe- cies. Tatian, notwithstanding his Gnosticism, refers to the Old Testament. Theophi- lus of Antioch (ad Autolycum) contrasts the Old Testament account of the creation, with that of Hesiod (ii. 18), in which, although an Antiochian, and before that school, he explains the historical facts symbolically, while retaining at the same time the historical sense. He continues the history of Genesis, and of the Mosaic system, with constant reference to heathenism, Generally speaking, his representation moves upon the line of the sacred scriptures from the Old to the New Testament. Besides the general free use of the Old Testament in the Fathers, which even becomes exces- sive, in so far as the Old Testament conception of the cultus, its hierarchical and sacrificial ideas, and certain legal precepts, have been adopted in a more or less ex- ternal way into the New Testament doctrine, order of worship, and constitution ; there are special portions made prominent, in which the Old Testament continues its life in the New Testament theology, and in the cultus of the church. The first of these is the manifold exposition and explanation of the work of creation, especially of the six days’ work, by which we oppose both the heathen dualistic view of the world and Polytheism. The second is the Christian development of the doctrine of the kingdom of God, especially of the Messianic prophecies. The third is the Christian, human, pastoral, and catechetical development of the decalogue. The fourth is the transmission of the Old Testament Psalmody in the New Testament Hymnology and Cultus of the Church. To these we must add that allegorical method of exposition, which culminated in the Alexandrian school, by means of which the Christian consciousness appropriates to itself and reproduces in a Christian way the whole contents of the Old Testament. Finally the culture of the biblical method and style of preaching, under the influence of the Old Testament, in connection with the Greek and Roman rhetoric. As to the first point, Clemens of Alexandria had in view a commentary upon Genesis. There was a work of Tertullian, now lost, upon Paradise. About the year 196 Candidus wrote upon the hexewmeron. Besides a work upon Genesis, Hippolytus published several works upon the Old Testament scriptures. Origen prepared a commentary upon Genesis, and also a series of mystical homilies upon the same book, as also upon a large number of other biblical books. Cyprian published a song upon Genesis. Victorinus, about 290, wrote a Tractatus de Fabrica mundi. Methodius, about the same time, Commentarii in Genesin. Hie- racus (the heretic), in 302, Lucubrationes in Hexeemeron. Eustathius, 325, Com- 58 INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. mentarius in Hexcemeron. James of Edessa, about the same time, Heawmeron ad Constantinum. Basil the Great, about 370, nine Homilies upon the six days. His brother Gregory of Nyssa also wrote upon the six days’ work, About 374, Ambrose wrote six books upon the same theme. Jerome, towards the end of the 4th century, prepared questions upon Genesis. Chrysostom wrote 67 Homilies upon Genesis, Augustine wrote upon Genesis in many of his works. These works show clearly how important Genesis, the doctrine of the creation, the statement of the six days’ work, appeared to the Fathers, in their controversies with heathenism. That the explanation of the ten commandments was in like manner, next to the gradually perfected apostles’ creed, one of the oldest branches of Christian catechet- ical instruction, needs scarcely any proof. The idea of one prevailing view of the Old and New Testament kingdom of God appears already in the apology of Theophilus of Antioch. _The Chronography of Julius Africanus, the Chronicon of Eusebius of Cesarea, as well as his arrangement and demonstration of the gospel, lay a wider foundation for the same idea. The great work of Augustine, De Civitate Dei, belongs here, as also the sacred history by Sulpi-. tius Severus, and generally the prevailing character of the historical statements or chronicles of the West, running down through the middle ages, since they all go back to the Old Testament and even to Adam. As to the importance of the Old Testament Psal- | pare Orto Srraus: Zhe Psalter as a Song and ter, and its history in the Christian Church, com- | Prayer Book. .A historical tractate. Berlin, 1859, Through the allegorical explanation of the scripture in the Alexandrian School, and still more in the middle ages, the entire Old Testament assumed a New Testa- ment form and meaning, as to the inner Christian life and spiritual experience, while at the same time, as to the organization of the church and the cultus, the New Testa- ment became simply a new publication of the old. On the Medizval exposition of the scriptures, compare The Allegorical Explanation of the Bible, especially in Preaching, by Von MocEtin (1844). Euster: The Hxegetical Theology of the Middle Ages (1855). Txotvck: The Old Testament in the New, 4th edition (1864). J. G. Rosenmttier: History of Interpretation in the Christian Church (1798- 1814). Meyer: Geschichte der Schrifterklérung, 5 vol.. 1802-1809. Scnuner: Geschichte der Ver- dnderung des Geschmackes in Predigen,-1792. For the critical and theological exposition of the Old Testament generally, consult M. Baumearten: Com- mentary upon the Old Testament, the General Intro- duction to the Old Testament. [See also upon the use of the Old Testament in the New. Farrpairn: Typology, 2d edition, and Hermeneutical Manual. Azxanper, W.L.: Connection and Harmony of the Old and New Testament. London (1853). Pri- DEAUx: Connection, new ed. London (1886).— A. G.] The mediaval mystics especially gave the widest. limits to the letter of the Old Testament, and brought out into the light the multiplicity of the ideas lying at its root, as they rightly conjectured, through the theory of the fourfold sense of scrip- ture. Littera gesta docet, quid credas allegoria, Moralis quid agas, quo tendas anagogia. The Song of Solomon was a favorite book for spiritual exposition, even in the time of the Fathers. It was still more so during the middle ages, and has retained its position in the field of homiletical and ascetic literature to this day. The cata- logue of the literature of this book alone would make a small volume. PRACTICAL EXPLANATION AND HOMILETICAL USE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 59 There has lately been republished: The words of St. BeRNaRD upon the Song; German, by Fern- bacher, 1862. The exposition of the Bible was generally, during the middle ages, to a great ex- tent practical, or designed for edification, and this indeed for the most part in a mys- tical way. This was true even with the expositions of the scholastics. This is in accordance with the practical direction of the middle ages, with the ignorance of the original languages, with the prevalence of dogmatics and church institutions and laws, and with that throughout, repressed respect for the Holy Scriptures. Gregory the Great, in this point of view, opens the middle ages, when, after the canon of Origen as to the threefold sense of scripture, he composed his Moralia in Jobum, after hav- ing provided in a collection of excerpts (Procopius of Gaza about 520; Primasius of Adrymettum about 550; Aurelius Cassiodorus after 562), the so-called Catene for a necessary aid to the learned exposition of the scripture. Isidorus of Hispalis, the venerable Bede, and others, follow later. A certain peculiarity attaches itself to the British method of exposition, as it was founded by the Archbishop Theodore of Canterbury ; to the German exposition as it, ¢. g., is represented in the Saxon Evan- gelical poetry of Heliand; and later to the French and German mystics, who take their origin from the mystical writings of the Pseudo-Dionysius. The clear reference of the Holy Scriptures to the inner life, especially as a contemplative life, may be re- garded as the great acquisition of the middle ages. This practical exposition of the Scriptures, it is true, as practised by Claudius of Turin, Alcuin, Paul Warnefried, Rabanus Maurus, Christian Druthmar, Peter Lombard, Cardinal Hugo, Abelard, John of Salisbury, Thomas Aquinas, Albertus Magnus, but especially by the mystics Bernard of Clairveaux and his followers, was used for the advantage of priestly and monkish classes. Meanwhile the reformation of the exposition of the Scriptures was prepared dur- ing the middle ages. It must first of all be brought back to the original languages and the grammatical sense. The learned Jews of the middle ages, with their lin- guistic studies and expositions of the Old Testament, provided for this return (Aben Esra, Jarchi, Kimchi, and others). As.to the New Testament, whose learned expo- sition in the spirit of Chrysostom, Cicumenius, Theophylact, and Euthymius Ziga- benus, had prosecuted, that human learning, transplanted from Greece to the West, and awakened and cultivated in the West itself, served the same purpose which the labors of the Jews did for the Old Testament. Thus there was prepared, since Nicholas of Lyra (who died about 1340), Wicliffe, Huss, with Laurentius Valla, Reuchlin, Erasmus, a scientific exposition of the Scriptures, which began at once by its critical process to free itself from medizeval traditions. But the exposition of the Scriptures must at the same time be made popular, and, in the form of Bible readings, sermons, catechisms, household instructions and training, be introduced among the people. Besides a few great popular preachers (Berthold, the Franciscan, 1272, John Tauler, 1361, Vincentius Ferreri, 1419, Leonard of Utino, 1470, and others), the pious sects of the middle ages, especially the Waldenses, and the well-known forerunners of the Reformation, labored to secure this result. The last-mentioned class prepared that introductory, profound, and scientific exposition of Scripture in which the Reformation arose, and through which alone it could successfully assert that full, new unveiling and revelation of the Holy Scrip- ture as it lived in the heart, the word of justification by faith, and thus established its sole authority in matters of faith. 60 INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. With the great reformers, that introductory exposition of the Bible, purified through its critical processes, brought back to the grammatical and historical sense, while at the same time mystical and inward, on one side learned, on the other popular, first entered into the popular life, however the fetters of ecclesiastical exegetical tradition may have restrained the freedom of individuals. This exposition in its scientific aspect led to a new construction of the entire theology, in its ecclesiastical aspect to the laying anew all the foundations of church institutions and order, in its popular aspect to the production of countless sermons and hymns. Flaccus Iilyr- icus reduced these acquisitions to their rules in the first protestant Hermeneutics in his Clavis Scripturce Sacre, 1567. From this time onward the history of the exposition of the Scriptures is so com- prehensive that we can only describe it after its periods. To the period of the Re formation, in which the prevailing principle was the Analogia jidei, and during which the Lutheran Exegesis struck into a synthetical and critical direction, and the Re- formed into an analytical and practical, succeeded at first the period of interpreta- tion according to the Orthodox symbols, and in which the different confessions shaped and determined the exegesis. This period extends through the ultra-critical exegesis of the Unitarians, and partially also that of the Arminians, and through the allegorical exposition both of the Catholic and of the Protestant mystics (Madame Guion, Antoinette Bourignon, Jacob Boehme), which here again, as in the middle ages, forms the side-stream to the new scholastic main current. This last tendency passed over partially into the subjectively practical pietistic school, whose principle of interpretation was the word of God, the word of personal salvation, as the seed of personal regeneration. The Lutheran interpretation, as it was pre-eminently dog- matic, was ever seeking to find the New Testament dogmas in the Old Testament, z. é., it distinguished less accurately the times. The Reformed, with a more correct estimate of the historical, distinguished definitely times and economies, and found, therefore, in the Old Testament the typical prefigurations of the New, but fell also, in the Cocceian school, into a typology which knew no rules, or into allegorical fan- cies and excesses. This distinction was reversed in their views of the law. Luther made the opposition between Moses and Christ too great, while Calvin suffered him- self to be influenced by the Mosaic system even in questions of ecclesiastical law. For the orthodox the Bible was a mine of dicta probantia, for the mystics it was a record of a visionary, inspired, mysterious, all-pervading view of the world. Pietism strove to unite these in its method of interpretation. That Rationalism, in its period, has both corrupted and promoted criticism, has made exegesis more shallow and superficial, while it has made it more pure and simple, has both falsified and uprooted scripture doctrine in its reference to life, as it has developed it practically and morally, is now confessed, 7. ¢., it is confessed that it forms in one total representation a revolution of unbelief, and a reform of the believ- ing consciousness. But if it advances from that grammatical historical principle, illy understood (since the biblical letter was not seen in its peculiar depth, the biblical facts or persons in their complete originality), to the last destructive results of the pseudo-criticism, so also it has in its interchange with supernaturalism from the same principle, correctly understood, wrought a more profound exposition of the scripture, according to the fundamental principle of scripture. It has introduced the Christolog- ical explanation of the scripture, which forms the living centre of the present exposi- tion of the Bible. However, it has not interrupted the flow of biblical investigation PRACTICAL EXPLANATION AND HOMILETICAL USE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 6] and exposition, but urged it on more rapidly, since it was animated by the idea, that the doctrine of the Bible would prove the most efficient means of overthrowing the churchly dogmatics. A striking testimony for the extraordinary activity in the inter- pretation of the Scriptures, from the Reformation until our own time, is found in the commentaries, the collections of sermons, concordances, systems of biblical theology, and especially the Bibleworks, which are now appearing so rapidly. Catalogues of collected Bibleworks, exegetical and homiletical, may be seen in Watcu: Bibliotheca theol. vol. iv. p. 181, W1xer: Handbuch der theologischen Literatur, i. p. 186. The Supplement, p. 77. Danz, p. 184. In Srarxe: Biblework we find named as his predecessors the Bibleworks (Lutheran) of Binz- many, Cramer, Dizrricn Vert, Nicotavs Hasivs, Joacuim Lanes, Horcn (Mystical Bible, Marburgh), Oxearrvs, the two Os1anpers, ZELTNER (Reformed), CasrELLio, TREMELLIUS, Piscator, Tossanus (Cath- olic), Wauarriep Srraso, Lyra, Pavius a Sancta Mania. Further, the Ernestine Bible, theWiirtemburg Summarien, Die Tiibingische Bibel, under the direc- tion of Matthew Pfaff (Lutheran).—Reformed works : Die Berleburgische Bibel, the English, Belgic, Ge- nevan (with notes by Maregstus) Bibles. Das Deut- sche oder Herborn’sche Bibelwerk.—Besides these, Hai: Practical Applications, Freibergische Parallel- bibel, Ikenii thesawrus. Also a series of special Bibleworks upon the New Testament, Hxpinezr, Masus, Miter, Quesnen, Zersius. Of modern Bibleworks we name: Von Herzex (10 Theile, 1780 -1791), with 2 Theile iiber die Apokryphen (von FURRMANN in seinem Handbuch der theolog. Literatur ungiinstig beurtheilt). Altenburger Bibel Commen- tar fiir Prediger, 1799 (von einem Verein von Pre- digern). Those of OrrrEt, Fiscuer, and Wout- raurt. Dinter and Branpr. Also the list in Lancs: Biblework, Matthew, Am. ed. p.19. For the great number of works, preparatory to the Holy Scriptures, Lexicons, Concordances, and similar aids, see Danz and Winer. Lance: Matthew, Am. ed. pp. 18, 19, English Bibleworks: Nxrtson: Antideistic Bible. Burnet: New Testament. Henry: Exposition [in England, the general commentaries, by Poouz, Gru, the two CLarxes, Samuel and Adam, Parrick Lowru, and Wut.y, Scott, Burper, and others of less note. In this country the literature is rich in ‘special com- mentaries, while there are no general commentaries, unless we include in the term popular works, like that published by the American Tract Society.—A. G.] The practical exposition of the Scriptures was limited, in the Lutheran church by the order in which they were read in the church service, in the Reformed by its stronger dogmatic tradition. But in the end the more profound view of the Analogia jidet there, and of the Analogia scripturae here, led to the great reform in biblical criticism, exposition, theology, preaching, and catechetical instruction, which places us to-day on the very threshold of a new epoch, (See Remarks, § 1.) Recently the study of the Old Testament centres again upon Genesis, the Mosaic records of the creation, the six days; since the conflict with modern unbelief, for the defence of these principles of the kingdom of God, which are here laid down in the beginning of the Scriptures, must be met and settled here. For the literature: see Lupwic: Ueber die prak- tische Auslegung der heiligen Schrift, Frankfurt, 1859. Dickinson: Physica vetus et vera, sive tractatus de na- turali teritate Hemaemeri mosaici, London, 1702. [The works of Hircucocx, Hueu Mituer, Dana, J. Pye Suita. The Bridgewater treatises, Lorp, the articles in the Bibliotheca sacra, urging the view of Prof. Guyot. Zhe Commentary on Genesis, by Ja- cosus. Wiseman: Lectures. Tayier Lewis: Six Days of Creation, and The Bible and Science. Murpuy: Bible and Geology. Pattison: The Earth and the Word, Kurtz: Bible and Astronomy. Sumner: The Records of the Creation. Birxs: On the Creation. Hancock: On the Deluge. The con- troversy, started by Colenso, has already been fruitful in its literary results. See Maan: the spiritual point of view. Green: Zhe Pentateuch vindicated (against Colenso).—A. G.] 62 INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. THIRD DIVISION. THEOLOGICAL AND HOMILETICAL LITERATURE UPON THE OLD TESTAMENT. See Lance: Matthew, Am. ed. pp. 17, 18, For the older literature consult the catalogue in SrarKe: Biblework, the appendix to the fifth part, entitled General register, &c., pp. 1-46. ‘Also Hemweacer: Ein- chiridion, pp. 15, 16. Watcu: Bibliotheca theolog. vol. iv. p. 205. Fonruann: Handbuch der theolog. Literatur, ii. p. 8. Daxz: Wérterbuch, p. 988, Supple- ment, p.10. Winer: i. p. 67, Supplement, p. 31. Hacennacn: Encyclopédie, p. 176, to which is added the literature of biblical Philology, p. 122. Compare also a sketch of a history of Old Testament exegesis in Buzex: Finleitung, p. 129. Kurtz: History of the Old Testament, p. 62. De Werte: Hinleitung, p. 159. [See also the comparatively full lists of the older literature, given in Horne: Introduction, and the partial lists in Kirro: Cyclopedia, and Smirn: Bible Dictionary, Davivson: Hermeneutics, the his- torical part.—A. G.] 1. Introduction.—Dz Werrz, HazvERvicx, Buzex, SrarHeLin (1862).—Special critical works. Srarnein: Kritische Untersuchungen iiber den Pen- tateuch, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings (1843). Koz- nig: Alttestamentliche Studien, 1. Heft: Authentie des Buches Josua (1836); 2. Heft: Das Deuterono- mium und der Prophet Jeremias (1839). Also G, A. Haorr, Rream, Caspari: Contributions to the intro- duction to Isaiah. HENGSTENBERG : Beitrdge. GEIGER (Jew): Urschrift und Uebersetzungen der Bibel, &e. (1857). [Davinson: Introduction. McDonatp: In- troduction to the Pentateuch. The Introduction to Baumearren: Commentary—in the 1st vol. Hamit- ton: The friend of Moses.—A. G.] 2. General examination of the Old Testa- ment.—Cuarpuis, Lausanne (1838). KoaLsrurGes, Elberfeld (1853). Borner, Ziirich (1859), Frrep- rich, Gumpacn, WesrerMeyEer, Schaffhausen (1860). 3. More general Commentaries. — Kurzge- fasstes exegetisches Handbuch, by Hirzia, Hirzet, OxsHausen, THentus, Kwyoset, Bzrrnzav, &. (Leipzig, 1841, ff, embraces also the Apocrypha). The Commentary now in progress by Kem and Detitzscn. For special commentaries: see Lance: Matthew, Am. ed. p. 19. [Besides those referred to, there may be consulted: On the Old Testament, on Genesis, and the Pentateuch: Bonar, Cum- MINGS, Graves, Hamitton, JACOBUS, JAMIESON, Mourrny, Worpswortn.—Also ApporT: On Jonah, Birpces: On Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. Rev. J. Bourroucus: On Hosea, Burrows: On the Song. Ca- RYL: On Job. Davipson: On Esther. Draxe: On Jo- nah and Hosea. GREENHILL and Gurarie: On Ex. kiel. Horstey: On the Psalms. Moore: On the Pro- phets of the Restoration, TrecELtes: On Daniel, Young: On Ecclesiastes.—A. G.] 4. Bibleworks.—Buruann: The sive books of Moses down to Esther (1783). Micuszxis: Zransla- tion of the Old and New Testament, with explanations, Bercer and Aueusti: Praktische Einleit. in’s Alte Testament (1799). Bueckert: Das Gesetz und die Verheissung (1852). Pur.uipson : Die heilige Schrift in deutscher Uebersetzung, &c. 3d ed. (1862). The- saurus biblicus, 1 Dan., SuEssKIND (1856). General Bibleworks, Lanez: Matthew, Am. ed. p. 19. 5. Works embracing the principal points in question.—a. The kingdom of God ; Jewish History: Josr (1859). Dzssaver (1852). Da Cosra (1855). Car. Hormann. Koarrz: Sacred History of the Old Covenant. Hormann: Weissagung und Erfiillung. BuEHRING (1862). [Epwarps: History of Redemp- tion, ALEXANDER: History of the Israclitish Nation. Buaxie: Bible History. Coz: Sacred History and Biography, London, 1850. Fiextwoop: History of the Bible. Kirro, Jounston : Israel in the World. G. Suira: Hebrew People, Stantuy: History of the Jew- ish Church.—A. G.] 6. The History of the kingdom of God.— Waatety: Kingdom of Christ. Histories of the king- dom of God, by Hess, Zaun, Brarm, and others. Structure of General History, by Wertprecut, En- RENFEUCHTER, Era, and others. ApsL: Die Hpochen der Geschichte der Menschheit. (The Gospel of the Kingdom, Leipzig.) Enrica: Leitfaden fiir Vor- lesungen iiber die Offenbarung Gottes (1860). ‘Lisco (1880). Kargar (1838). Kirower (1845), APEL (1860). Carrpand Lourz (1858). Tusurer(1862).—b. Christology. NarcEesBace: Der Gottmensch, thefun- damental idea of Revelation in its unity and historical development (1853). Trips: Die Theophanien in the historical books of the Old Téstament (1858). Bavk: Christologie des Alten Testaments, Scnoiz: Hand- buch der Theologie des Alten Bundes (1861). Theo- logicee dogmaticee Judworum brevis Hzxpositio, by Rorru. Bertuoupr: Christologia Judeorum. Ew- ALD, Henesrensenc, Hormann, Cogurret, Lory, Sreupet, OfHLER, HaEVERNIOK, Mayer: Die patri- THEOLOGICAL AND HOMILETICAL LITERATURE UPON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 63 archalischen Verheissungen und Messianischen Psal- men. Hitzia: Die prophetischen Biicher des Alten Testaments (1854). Scuzac; Die kleinen Propheten (1854).—c. Messianic types. Kanne: Christus im Al- ten Testament. Hituer: Die Reihe der Vorbilder Jesu Christi im Alten Testament, new ed. by A. Knapp. Lisco: Das Ceremonialgesete des Alten Testaments (1842). Bazur: Symbolik (1837). Barur. Salo- monische Tempel,—also Kurtz, Frieprica, Sarro- Rivs, Kem, Kirerors, and others.—A more partic. ular reference will be made in the Biblework upon Leviticus, [Farrbairn: Typology. Marsa: Lectures, and works of less note and importance. Matrnews, Keaca, J. Taytor, Goutp.—A. G.J—d. Messianic pro- phecies, Newton: Lecture on the Prophecies. Kester, Koper, Ewatp, THoLUCK. STaEHELIN: Die Messia- nischen Weissagungen, &. (1847). MEINERTZHAGEN : Vorlesungen iiber die Christologie des Alten Testa- ments (1843). Reinke: Die Messianischen Psalmen (1857).——Die Weissagungen (1862).—HENGSTENBERG : Christology, 2d ed. Baur: History of the Old Tes- tament Prophecy (1861). [Suira: Scripture testimony to the Messiah ; Macre: On the Atonement ; Fanrr: On the Prophecies ; Warsurton: Divine Legation ; Hurp: Introduction to the Study of the Prophets ; Jones: Lectures; Graves: Lectures on the Penta- teuch; McEwrn: Essay ; Samven Matners: On the Sigures and types of the Old Testament ; Kipp: Chris- tophany; Stewarp: Mediatorial Sovereignty ; Turn- BULL: Theophany.—A. G.] ", Principal writers of recent times.—J. D. Micwacis, RosenMULLER, DatHe, Meurer, J. J. Hess: Of the kingdom of God (1774-1791). Hrne- STENBERG: Christology; Beitrdge ; Authenticity of the Pentateuch ; of Daniel ; Books of Moses and Egypt ; History of Balaam and his prophecy ; on the Psalms ; work upon the sacrifices ; on Job; Ecclesiastes ; the Song of Solomon; and a work upon the Apocrypha. Ewaxp: History of the people of Israel ; Poetical book ; Prophets ; Jahrbicher der biblischen Wissen- schaft, 11 vols. Umpretr: Praktischer Commentar zu den Propheten. Hurretp: Die Genesis ; die Psal- men. DxgitzscH: Genesis; Psalms; Song of Solo- mon, BAUMGARTEN: Commentary upon Pentateuch and Zachariah. [On Genesis: Buss, Hackerr, Jaco- BUS, —on Psalms: J. A. ALEXANDER, —on Job: Barnes, Conant,—on Proverbs: M. Sruarr, Bripexs, —-on theSong: Burrovess,—-on Ecclesiastes : Youne, —on Isaiah: Barnrs, Henperson, DrecusLer, ALEX- ANDER,—on Ezekiel: Harvernicx, FarrBarrn,—the minor Prophets: HenpERson, Percy, Moorr.—A. G.] 8. Sermons upon Old Testament Books.—. Fonrmann: Handbuch, p. 263. Hounsaum: Predig- ten, 2 vols, (1788-1789). Beyer: Die Geschichte der Urwelt in Predigten, 2 vols. (1795). The History of Israel in Sermons (1811). Predigten, von Srurm (1785). [Graves: Lectures on Pentateuch. Fu.- LER: Discourses on Genesis. Lauson: Lectures on Ruth and Esther. Scorr: Lectures on Daniel. Mc- Durr: On Elijah. Norton and Cuanpier: On David. Buunt: On Abraham; and a very wide literature of this kind in the works of the older English divines. —A. GJ : 9. Homiletical and practical writings on the Old Testament.—Brver: Predigten, an attempt to guard the unlearned against the attacks of enemies and scoffers. Brnper: Old Testament examples in Sermons, 3 vols. (1857~1858). Gotimarp: Outlines of sermons upon the historical books of the Old Tes- tament (1854). W. Hormann: Predigten, vols. 4 and 5. F. W. Krumwacner: Neue Predigten, book of the advent (1847). H. Arnot: Christus im Alten Bunde (1861). G. D. Krumaacuer: Predigten. Emm. Krummacuer: Gideon, der Richter Israels (1861). Natorp: Predigten iber das Buch Ruth (1808). Arnot: Der Mann nach dem Herzen Gottes (1836). DisseLuor (1859): Upon Saul and David. Baum- Garten: David der Konig (1862); Introduction to the book of Kings, Halle (1861). Pauius Casse,: Ké- nig Jeroboam (1857). F.W. Krummacuer: Homilies upon Elijah and Elisha [published by Tract Society, N. Y.—A.G.]. Dizprica: Das Buch Hiob (1858). Eprarp: The same. The Psalms, by J. D. Friscu, new ed. (1857). Burk: Gnomon Psalmorum (1760). OzrinceR: Die Psalmen Davids, newly revised (1860). VeitLopter: Predigten (1820). Inun: Trostbibel fur Kranke, in einem passenden Auszug aus den Psalmen (1835). Psalmen von Tuatnorer [Catholic] (1860). Taupe and GuentHER: On the Psalms. Hammer: Die Psalmen des Alten Testaments ; The words of St. Ber- nard upon the Song (1862). F. W. Krummacuer, Jann, Mayporn: Das Hohe Lied. W. Hormann: Die grossen Propheten, explained by the writings of the Reformers. ScuRoepER: Die Propheten Hosea, Joel, Amos, iibersetet und erldutert, Dizpricu: Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, briefly explained (1861). J. Scuurer :. Upon the Minor Prophets, Lavater: Pre- digten iitber das Buch Jonas. Briecer: The 53d Ch. of Isaiah (1858). Rick: Der Prophet Haggai (1857). [Cuanpier: Life of David; Haut: Contemplations ; Faser: Horae Mosaicae; Ryper: Family Bible; Buunt: Coincidences of the Old and New Testament, The Royal Preacher. Hamizron. One of the volumes in Epwarps’ works contains suggestive notes upon various passages. GuTuRIE: Gospel in Ezekiel. Brown: Evenings with the Prophets. Burt: Redemp- tion’s Dawn. CaLpweELL: Lectures on the Psalms. Cuatmers: Daily Readings. Cummines, Kirro, Huy- TER: Sacred Biography. Maurice: Prophets and Kings. Patriarchs and Laugivers.—A. G.] 64 INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. Remarlk.—The literature upon Genesis, and in a great measure for the Pentateuch, will be found in the special Introductions. 10, Apocrypha.—Brcxnavs: Bemerkungen | same Henestenserc. Fiir Beibehaltung der Apo- tiber den Gebrauch der apokryphischen Biicher. | kryphen (1853). Strzr (1858). Scuertz (1855), Das Exegetische Handbuch von FRrtscHE and | and others. [Jones: On the Canon, ALEXANDER: Griame,—(Vorsmar: Handbuch, 1, Theil.) Against On the Canon. WorpswortH: On the Canon, the Apocrypha by Mann (1853). Keer (1855). THORNWELL : On the Apocrypha. Pripgaux: Con- Wixp (1854). Oscuwanp, and others. For the | nection.—A. G.] FOURTH DIVISION. THE ORGANISM, OR THE ARRANGEMENT OF THE BIBLICAL BOOKS. a. Names or THE BiBie. The Old Testament; the Law, Josh. i. 8; Matt. | law, prophets, and other writings, the prologue of xxii, 86; Ps. cxix. 92; Matt. v. 18; Luke xvi. 17; | Jesus Sirach. The law, prophets, and the Psalms: John x. 34; xii, 84. The Scripture, or Holy Scrip- | Luke xxiv. 44. . The book of the law: Jos. viii. 34, ture, John v. 39; Rom. xv. 4; Gal. iii. 22.—The | &. The law in many cases designates the giving word of God.—The law and the prophets: Matt. v. | of the law in the narrower sense. 17. Moses and the prophets: Luke xvi. 29, 31. The 6. Tar Dirrerent Brsies. When we speak of the Bible it is presupposed that we are treating of one definite fixed object. But this is not the case. In reference to the Old Testament, we must distinguish the Bible of the Jews in Palestine, the Bible of the Alexandrine Hellenists, the Septuagint, and that Christian arrangement of the Bible already introduced by Josephus. © We apprehend the Bible first preéminently as the book of the Religion of the future. Hence upon the basis of the Thorah, law (the five books of Moses), there is laid the great group of the prophets,Nebiim. The earlier or former prophets follow upon the earlier historical books, Joshua, Judges, the two books of Samuel, and the two books of Kings, not only because these books were written by the prophets, but much more because the Israelitish history was recognized as typical and prophetic. Then follow the later prophets—our minor and greater prophets—with the exception of Daniel. The third division includes the Kethubbim, 7. ¢., the writings regarded purely as writings, not so named merely as the latest collection, writings i ina general — sense, but destined from the very beginning to work as writings in a higher rank. To the later historical books, Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, are added the poetical books: Psalms, Job, Proverbs, then the prophet Daniel, si the Megilloth (rolls), the Song, Ecclesiastes, Ruth, Lamentations, Esther. The introduction of the theocratic life, the unfolding of that life to the New Covenant, the bloom and flower of the theocratic life, this is unquestionably the ideal ground and source of the arrangement. That the Alexandrine Bible rests upon a theory of inspiration, more free and wider than the canonical limits, is evident from its embracing the Old Testament Apocrypha ORGANISM OF THE BIBLICAL BOOKS. 65 with the canonical books, which the Septuagint could never have done, had it held fast the pure Hebrew idea of the Canon. From the circumstance that the Seventy have not made the canonicity of the apocryphal books of special importance, some have drawn the groundless inference that they held the same position as to the Canon with the Hebrew Jews. They were kept from asserting the canonicity of the Apoc- rypba by their ecclesiastical prudence, just as the Sadducees were prevented by the same prudence from denying the canonicity of the Old Testament books beyond the law. The Christian arrangement of the Old Testament into historical books (from Genesis to Esther), didactiv books (from Job to the Song), and prophetic books (from Isaiah to Malachi), corresponds better with the Christian point of view, since a paral- lel is thereby secured to the arrangement of the New Testament. The term, didactic books, answers better to this parallel, than the expression poetical books. But even as to the Hebrew Jews, and their judgment upon the Hebrew Bible, the Pharisees had a different Bible from the Sadducees, and these again from the Essenes. The first enlarged and obscured the Old Testament through their tradi- tions. Their direction ended legitimately in the Talmud. The second emptied the law of its deeper living contents, since they expounded it as exclusively a moral, and in that sense only a religious, law-book. They were the forerunners of the modern deistic Judaism. The third allegorized the Old Testament and divided it, with thorough rationalistic arbitrariness, into canonical and uncanonical portions. In their dualistic theosophy, as the Alexandrine philosophy of religion, they were the fore- runners of the Cabbalah. That the Bible of the post-Christian Jews, 4. ¢., the Old Testament obscured and enlarged by their traditions, is an entirely different Bible from the Old Testament which unfolds and glorifies itself in the New Testament, is as clear as day. The injurious effects of the Catholic tradition upon the Holy Scripture, which is obscured by the attempt to place the Apocrypha upon a level with the Old Testa- ment, is confessed. The Greek church at the synod at Jerusalem, 1672, emphatically adopted the same view of the Bible, as the way had been prepared for this, through its traditional development. It cannot be denied, indeed, that the evangelical Protestant Bible may be and has often been obscured, e. g., when it is explained in accordance with a one-sided view ofthe Lutheran doctrine of Justification, or the Reformed doctrine of Predestination. The manifold sufferings, obscurations, disfigurations, and crucifixions of Christ in his church, are reflected in the entirely homogeneous sufferings of the Bible. In the evangelic sects of the middle ages and the forerunners of the Reformation, the buried Bible was unearthed from its tomb. With the profound development, spiritual quick- ening, and culture of the church, will it first be recognized in all its glory. c. THE Otp anp New TrsTaMeENTs. . The one word of God, or Holy Scripture, falls into. the records of the Old and New Covenants, into the Old and New Testaments. The unity of the two as the word of God is conditioned upon the nisus of the Old Testament towards the New (the promise, the prophecy of the Messiah, Jer. xxxi. 31, &c.) and upon the reference of the New Testament to the Old (Matt. i. 1; ii. 5, &e.; Isa, vi. 39, and similar places). ; In this way the absolute superiority of the New Testament to the Old is as cer- 5 66 - INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. tainly preannounced in the Old (Ps. li.; Jer. xxxi, 31; Isa. Ixvi. 3 ff; Dan. vii), as it is expressly declared in the New Testament (Matt. xi. 11; xii.41, 42; Jobni. 17, 18; Acts xv. 10, 11; 2 Cor. iii. 6; the Epistles of James and the Hebrews). With this it is taught, on the one hand, that the value of the Old Testament as. to its external aspect and for itself, in reference to the Jewish national and exclusive religion, is abolished. (Gal. ili. 19 ; iv. 5; Ephes. ii. 15; Col. ii. 44 5 Heb. viii. 13.) But it is taught also, on the other hand, and with the same distinctness, that the New Testament firmly establishes the Old in its eternal value, ‘as the foundation, the preparation, the introductory revelation, on which it rests. (Matt. v.17 ff; John v, 39; Rom. iii. 31.) d. Tue ORGANISM OF THE New TESTAMENT. See Lance: Matthew, Am. ed. p. 24. e. Toe ORGANISM oF THE OLD TESTAMENT. The book of the Old Covenant as the prefiguration of the New Covenant, or of the Advent of Christ. 1) The Announcement of the New Covenant in the Old. The Thorah (the law). a. Genesis, or the universal foundation of the theocratic particularism, and of the particularism in its universal destination or aim and tendency. d. Exodus, or the prophetic and moral form of the law of the Old Covenant (the tabernacle in Exodus is regarded chiefly as the place for the law, and the law-givers. It is the place of the human cultus only in a secondary point of view. Hence the tabernacle appears here, and not first in Leviticus). ¢. Leviticus, or the priestly and ritual form of the law of the Old Covenant. d. Numbers, or the kingly and political form of the law of the Old Covenant (the martial host of God and its march. Typical imperfection). e. Deuteronomy, as the reproduction of the law in the solemn light of the pro- phetic spirit. 2) The actual typical development of the Old Covenant until the decline of its typical glory and the preparation for its ideal glory. Historical books. a. The book of Joshua. The introduction of the theocratic people into the typical inheritance of the people of God. The conquest. The division. 4. The book of Judges. The independent expansion of the Israelitish tribes in the land of promise. The stages of apostasy, and the appearance of the theocratic heroes, judges, in the different tribes. The tribes after their dark side. As an appendix, a gleam of light, the little book of Ruth. ec. The books of Samuel, or the collection of the tribes and the introduction of the kingdom by Samuel, the last of the judges (the desecration of the priest- hood, the introduction of the kingdom, the preparation for the prophets in the stricter sense, through the schools of the prophets). The first book, Saul the rejected king, The second book, David the king called of God. d. The two books of Kings. The theocratic kingdom from its highest glory to its decay. The first of Solomon, the type of the Prince of Peace, and of the kingdom of peace, until Elijah, the type of the judgment by fire; the second from the ascension of Elijah, or the apotheosis of the law, to the decline of the kingdom, of the people of the law. ORGANISM OF THE BIBLICAL BOOKS. 67 e. The two books of Chronicles. The Old Testament history of the kingdom of God, in a theocratic point of view, from Adam until the order for the re- turn of Israel from the Babylonian captivity. J. The book of Ezra. The priestly and ritual restoration of the holy people and the temple. g. Nehemiah. The theocratic and political restoration of the people and the holy city. h. Esther. The wonderful salvation and change in the history of the people of God, during the exile, dispersion, and persecution. 3) The preliminary New Testament bloom of Old Testament life in its course of development. ; 1. The theocratic and Messianic Lyrics. The Psalms. 2. The didactics of Solomon in their universal scope and tendency. a. Job. The inscrutableness and vindication of the divine wisdom and righteousness, especially in the trials of the pious. 6. The trilogy of Solomon. a, The foundation and regulation of the natural and moral world in the wisdom of God. Proverbs of Solomon. 8. The vanity of the world in the folly of human designs, which do not recognize the eternity, in the (every) divine moment. Ecclesiastes. y. The transfiguration of the world through love (as the Old Testament church was turned away from Solomon and his polygamy and mixed religion, to its New Testament friend). 4) The prophetic images or representations of the New Testament in the Old. a. The four great prophets, or the fundamental relations of the Messianic gael 1. Isaiah. The personal Christ as prophet, priest, and king. The Apocalypse of Isaiah (ch. xl.-Ixvi.). 2. Jeremiah. The prophetic Messianic kingdom (ch. xxx.-xxxiii.). The prophetic Martyrdom. The Apocalypse of Jeremiah (ch. xlv.li.). The Lamentations, . Ezekiel. The priestly Messianic kingdom. The Apocalypse of Ezekiel. The death-valley of Israel, and that of Gog. The glorious life of Israel. The new temple, and the living stream issuing from it for the heathen world. 4 Daniel. Throughout Apocalyptic. The royal Messianic kingdom. The world-monarchies in the light side (ch. ii.), and in the dark side (ch. vii.). Christ and the typical and final Antichrist. The present and future age. b. Tie twelve minor prophets, or the special relations of the future of the Mes- sianic kingdom. 1. The portal of the prophetic period. The book of Jonah, or the raising of the universalism above the particularism. 4. The oppositions of the old sins and the new salvation. a, Hosea, or the marriage covenant broken by the people, and the new marriage between Jehovah and his people. B. Joel. The locust-march as an image of the march of the hosts of the Lord for the destruction of all the glory of flesh. The new eee of the world through the outpouring of the Spirit of God. 68 INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT, y. Amos. The completed sins and the completed punishment upon the old world, even upon the glory of the old temple, and the redemption and collecting of all the remnants from the Heathen and Jews, into the plain tabernacle of David. . Micah. The judgment of God upon the mountains, and all the high places and things of the earth, and the appearance of the new Saviour and salvation out of little Bethlehem, for the exaltation of the lowly. 8. The visions of judgments. a. Obadiah. The judgment upon Edom—as the type of Antichrist—filled with envious joy over his fallen brother. 8. Nahum. The judgment upon Nineveh as the type of the fleshly Anti- christ, the apostate world-power. y. Habakkuk. The judgment upon Babylon, as the type of the demoniac, self-deifying Antichrist. 8. Zephaniah. The day of anger upon the whole old world. The judg- ment of Judah, introducing the dawn of salvation. 4, The three prophets of the second temple, as the clearest revealers of the advent of the Messiah. a, Haggai. The glory of the second temple in contrast with that of the first. The coming of the Lord to his temple. The polluted people. The necessity for purification. . Zechariah, The future of the Messiah in contrast with the duration of the world-kingdoms. 1. The Messianic kingdom in opposition to the kingdom of the world (ch. i—viii. 2). The Messiah in his progress from his humiliation to his exaltation, ch. ix.—xiv. . Malachi. The coming day of the Lord. The forerunner of the Mes. siah. The Messiah. His day a fiery oven for the godless. A sun of righteousness for the pious. The turning of Fathers to the Children, of Children to the Fathers; the connection between the Old and New Covenant. APPENDIX. THE OLD TESTAMENT AP OCRYPHA, 1) In relation to the canonical books of the Old Testament. Additions to the books of Chronicles: the book Judith, Tobiah, Baruch, the prayer of Manasseh. Additions to the book of Esther. Additions to the writings of Solomon: the wisdom of Solomon. Additions to Jeremiah : the book Baruch. Additions to Daniel: history of Susannah, of the Bel at Babylon, of the Dra- gon at Babylon, the prayer of Azariah, the song of the three men in the furnace. Viewed as original writings through the claims of the Septuagint : the books of Maccabees, the wisdom of Jesus Sirach. 2) In the opposition of Hebraism and Alexandrianism. Hebraic: Judith. Hellenistic: The wisdom of Solomon. The book Tobiah. The 2d book of Maccabees. Jesus Sirach. APPENDIX—THE SO-CALLED DIFFICULT PLACES IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. 69 The 1st book of Maccabees. Additions to Esther. Additions to Daniel. Additions to the prayer of Manasseh. 3) In the division: historical books, didactic books, prophetic books. a. Historical books: the books of Maccabees. b. Poetical or didactic books: the book Judith, wisdom of Solomon, Tobiah, Jesus Sirach. Additions to Esther, to Daniel, the prayer of Manasseh. c. Prophetic books: elementary parts of Tobiah, the book Baruch. There was a complete disappearance of prophecy ‘until its last point, John the Baptist. The repression of Messianic hopes was due to the eminence of the Macca- bean house of the tribe of Levi, in consequence of which the expectation of a Messiah out of the tribe of Judah was only a secret hope of the pious in the land. See the timid clause 1 Macc. xiv. 41, Compare the Introduction to the Old Testament, by RicuTer, Lisco, GERLACH, in the Calwer Handbook. : FIFTH DIVISION. AN APPENDIX ON THE SO-CALLED DIFFICULT PLACES IN THE OLD TESTAMENT, AS THE CEN- TRAL POINTS OF THE GLORY OF THE OLD TES- TAMENT RELIGION.* To the paragraph Archeology (see § 14). The so-called difficulties in the Old Testament have been brought out with special distinctness in modern times by the Freethinkers and kindred opposers of the doctrine of revelation: these, namely, the acquisition of the Egyptian jewels, Balaam’s ass, and the arresting of the sun by Joshua. Although the most renowned attacks upon these and similar places bear upon their face the character, partly of careless malevolence, partly of childish absurdity, still it cannot be denied that these difficulties lie as hindrances in the way of faith, to many cultivated persons, and even to many honest and scientific thinkers of our day. But these honest sceptics find themselves in a truly critical position. For, while on one side they are driven over into unbelief by hypercritics and witlings, there is offered them from the other side the helping hand of an apologetic exegesis which has created in many cases the very misconceptions from which it would free doubting spirits. Thus, on the one side, stand the sceptical investigator of nature, who brings the nebule of the heavens and the strata of the earth as witnesses for the boundless antiquity of the world, in order that he may charge the Bible, even in its first line, with error in its computation of time ; the pan- theistic worldling, who finds in the human-like tongue of the biblical God the characteristic mark of childish tradition; the deistic moralist, who, in the history of the marriages of the patriarchs, and in the supposed robbery of the Egyptian treasures at the command of God, detects with boasting the original conflict of the Bible with * Taken from the author's article in the German Journal for Christian Science and Christian Life for 1857. 70 INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. pure morals; the infidel, who from of old has always taken his most cheerful ride upon Balaam’s ass; the swaggering skirmisher, who uses the arresting of the sun by J oshua in order that he may put the host of the Lord to flight. But, on the other side, the apologetic exegesis seeks in nearly all cases to rescue the assaulted positions only by the most modest defensive, while it brings into view now the incorrect exegetical understanding of the word, then the figurative allegorical expressions of the writer, then the natural side of the extraordinary events, and lastly the wonderful power of God. It cannot be denied indeed that in this way very important aid has been gained to the clearing and justification of the Old Testament text. But neither can it be denied that these isolated processes leave the difficulties in their totality essentially un- removed, while in many ways they contribute to them, and confirm them. We are very far from demanding that the Apologetics in this field should make the darkest secrets unobjectionable to the unbeliever, or plain and comprehensible to the sceptic. The offence of the cross of Christ will have its eternal significance for the ungodly world, even in these questionable places. But this isolated, disconnected method of defence can never bring into clear view, that it is the divine understanding of revelation itself which brings forward these very facts, at which the human understanding in its worldly direction must take offence. The generic, that which is common in all these difficulties, and the divine reason and wisdom which appear distinctly in them—in a word, the positive glory of revelation is not sufficiently insisted upon. The studied way in which they (the apologists) only defend, but do not glorify them as the great proof of the work of God, the hurried joy with which they pass from them, the em- ‘barrassment with which they gladly avoid the dark riddles, in that they rest in general upon the almighty miraculous strength of God, neither meets the necessities of inquir- ing spirits, nor the requirements of faith in the church, nor the necessities of knowledge in theology. It is only when the central point of the offence at the Old Testament in our day, has been proved to be the central part of the glory of revelation, that we can satisfy the honest doubt, or answer the very end of the Old Testament. A glance at the most considerable difficulties in the New Testament will illustrate what has been said. Here truly we meet, first of all, the miracles of Christ, his super- natural birth, his resurrection, in a word the chief facts of his life, and the doctrines connected with them of his deity, the trinity, the atonement, and his coming to judg- ment, 4. @., all the great mysteries which appear to the sceptic as pre-eminently an offence and foolishness. The old apologists have limited themselves here generally to a discursive defence; they have taken refuge even here on one side in evasions and mere attempts to invalidate objections, and on the other side in the direct support of God, and for the most part passed as rapidly as possible, and at any price, by the great riddles which they should have solved. But the modern churchly theology has long since risen above this miserable defensive. It brings out the mysteries and those things full of mystery, at which men stumble, as the very heart of the history and doctrine of Christ; it shows that the very glory of the New Testament reveals itself in them. The same must be altogether true of the difficulties of the Old Testament. By how much more remarkable the phenomenon, darker the riddle, stronger the objection, by so much greater must be the significance of the fact in question, so much richer its révealed contents, so much more glorious its divine fulness of the spirit. The difficulties in the Old Testament are the central points of the glory of the Old Testament religion. Each difficulty marks a peculiar rejection of false heathen APPENDIX—THE SO-CALLED DIFFICULT PLACES IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. 17] views of the world, through the very point of the difficulty, in which the true revealed view of the world is disclosed. "We will endeavor, from this point of view, to sketch the chief stages in the development of the Old Testament religion. I. The Account of the Creation. The Records of the pure idea of the Creation, of the pure idea of God, of the ideas of Nature and the World in opposition to the heathen view of the World, especially to the Theo- gonistic, Cosmogonistic, Deistic, Naturalistic, Pantheistic, and Dualistic Assumptions (Gen. i.). The Pantheist takes offence here, because the record speaks of an eternally present God, and, in opposition to his view, of a temporal world which the eternal God has called into being through his word ; the dualist stumbles at the assumption that even matter itself, the original substance of the world, has sprung from the creative power of God; the deist, on the contrary, finds in the assumption that God, after the days’ works were completed, had then rested, a childish dream, which ignores the idea of omnipotence ; the naturalist believes that with the co-working of omnipotence from moment to moment the idea of the natural orderly development of things is destroyed; philosophy generally thinks that it is here dealing with a myth, which is arranged partly through its orthodox positiveness, and partly through its sensuous pictures or images; the modern sceptical natural philosoper makes it a matter of ridicule that the sun, moon, and stars should first be formed in the fourth creative day, and indeed that the whole universe is viewed as rendering a service to this little world; that the heavenly light should have existed before the heavenly lights, but especially that the original world should have arisen only 6000 years ago, and that its present form, for which millions of years are requisite, should have been attained in the brief period of six ordinary days, But the opponents who differ most widely. agree in this, that it is fabulous, that the Bible should make an entirely new report of pre-historical things, with the most perfect assurance. We shall not enumerate the insufficient replies made from the stand-point of the earlier apologetics. It is worthy of remark, however, that the theology of the schools has here occasioned a circle of misconceptions, which the latest theology of the church has in great measure removed. The deciding word as to this first doctrinal portion of the Holy Scriptures has already been uttered long since in the epistle to the Hebrews. By faith we under- stand that the world was made (prepared) by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.* The record of creation is therefore a record of the very first act of faith, and then of the very first act of rev- elation, which, as such, lies at the foundation of all the following, and in its result reproduces itself in the region of faith, from the beginning on to the end of days. It is the monotheistic Christian creative word, the special watchword of the pure believ- ing view of the world. Ze ungue leonem. The first leaf of scripture goes at a. single step across the great abyss of materialism into which the entire heathen view of the world had fallen, and which no philosophic system has known how to avoid, until * When Delitzsch (Gen. p. 42) opposes to tho view of Kurtz, that the account of the creation is the result of a circle of visions, looking backwards, the assertion, that it is an historical tradition, flowing from divine instruction, the ques- tian still remains open, by what means that instruction was made available to man. We, with Delitzsch, are here opposed to the vision, For in the vision there is a voluntary subjective state, wishing to see, when there should be- only a subjectivity or possibility of sight. 72 INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. perfected by this. Pantheism here meets its refutation in the word of the eternal personal God of creation, who established the world by his almighty word; abstract theism, in the production of the world out of the living word of God; dualism, in the doctrine that God has created matter itself; naturalism, in the clear evidence of the positive divine foundation of the world, in the origin of every new step in nature. With the pure idea of God, we win at the same time the pure idea of the world, and with the pure idea of creation, the pure idea of nature. Creation goes through all nature, in so far as God, from one step in nature to another, ever produces in a crea- tive way the new and higher; at last man, after his bodily organic manifestation. On the other hand also the idea of nature runs through the whole idea of creation, in so far as God has endowed every creative principle which he has placed in the world with its own law of development, and with a conditioned independence; to plants, to animals, and to man. The creation reaches its perfection and glory in the human spir- ituality, since in this it is prepared for the revelation of the divine life; in his freedom nature is glorified, since its relative independence is here raised to the free blessed life of men in God. Just as the biblical idea of God is free from the heathen element of a passive deity, who:suffers the world to flow out from himself, so the biblical idea of the world is free from the heathen assumption that the world is some magical transforma- tion of existing material, or even of a positive nonentity. And as the biblical idea will not tolerate the absolutist’s assumption of an abstract deified omnipotence, which neither limits nor communicates itself, so the biblical idea of nature cannot be recon- ciled with the naturalistic assumption, which derives all the forms in nature out of one general creative act, and holds that one step in nature produces another. We will not dwell upon the objections which the most illustrious and popular natural philosophers have raised against the work of the fourth creative day. That the light was before the light-bearers; that the appearance of the firmament to the earth was first manifested in the same day in which the earth was discovered to the firmament; that for man, from his stand-point, the earth formed an important contrast with the vastness of the heavens; this does not require many words. But the day- works and the age of the world? The Mosaic computation, it is said, allows about 6000 years for the history of man. For the entire universe there is then the higher antiquity of—an added week—the six creative days. But these six days, the most recent scientific churchly exegesis * says, are symbolical days, ¢. ¢., six periods of the development of creation. The evenings, it is said further, mark the epochs of destruction, the revolutions of the world in its progress; on the other hand, the mornings mark the epochs of the new and higher structure of the world. The fact that, in the Hebrew designation, day often denotes a period of time, and that these days are here spoken of before the cosmical organization of the world into the planetary system, favors this view. To this we must add the prophetic biblical style of the nar- rative. Bearing this in mind, the defender of the pure sense of scripture can hear these natural philosophers speak of the thousands and millions of years of the earth’s development with a serene smile, as an investigator of the Bible, namely : but whether as an investigator of nature is another question. For the recent natural philosophy ap- * Baumgarten indeed still holds to the ordinary days (Com. upon the Pentateuch i. 14). “The word day ait) is primarily day and not period, and here this word is used for the first timo.” But we say that just for this very reason the word day must here designate a period. The ordinary day of the earth is not the original form of the day, but the day of God, the day of heaven. Thus even the light precedes the light-bearers, How endlessly diversified are the days in the universe! But the original form is the day of God. Compare also Deuirzscn, Genesis, p. 61.— {But also Kriz, in his Commentary upon Genesis,—A. G.] APPENDIX—THE SO-CALLED DIFFICULT PLACES IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. 73. pears extremely rash in surrounding itself with its millions of years, not in the spirit of nature, nor in accordance with its formation. The defender of the biblical text, as the friend of nature, may be allowed the word: We grant you willingly your thou- sands of years for the formation of the earth and the world. But bethink yourselves well. According to the laws of present nature, it develops itself very rapidly in all the first effusions and stages of its life; on the contrary, you require for the first glow- ing seeds of life and living structures an endlessly slow lapse of time. In nature we see all subordinate things arise and disappear quickly ; you require ons for the first rudest fundamental forms of creation. Ifthe spirit of scripture absolve you in this lavish use of millions of years for the cooling of the globes of gas, and the formation of primitive monsters, ask yourselves whether the spirit of nature will grant you absolution! But, from the records of creation, you can learn that nature rests upon the prin- ciples of creation, unfolds itself in living contrasts, completes itself in ascending lines, and is glorified in man and his divine destination, 7. ¢., in other words, that nature springs out from the miracle, through miraculous stages (new principles of creation), ascends from step to step, and in the miracle of the perfect image of God reaches its new birth. Il. Paradise, or the Records of the original ideal state of the Earth and the Human Race. (Gen. ii.) Paradise, i is a beautiful myth, growing out of mythical ideas of the earth which the dldest geographers entertained. Thus also the tree of knowledge of good and evil; the tree of life, and the serpent are regarded as mythical traditions. Thus the gréat theocratic element; which lies in the account of Paradise, is entirely lost. Of the first great historical type we have oniy left a fantastic philosophic hypothesis concerning the commencement ofthe race, and the origin of evil. The theology of the sthools, which views the account of Paradise not only as throughout historical, but as barely historical, in opposition to its symbolical import, has here pre-eminently prepared the way for misconceptions and misinterpretation. As the fourth stream of Paradise, the Euphrates and its source cannot be a myth, so neither can the four streams generally. And as the first man is not a myth, so neither is his first residence. But on the other side also the streams and trees of Paradise are just as little to be regarded as barely natural, or belonging to the nat- ural history of Paradise, or the mere individual forms, particularities, of the pre-histor- ical world. The significance of Paradise is this, that it declares the original ideal state of the earth and the human race, the unity of the particular and the general, the unity of spirit and nature, the unity of spiritual innocence and the physical harmony of nature, thé unity of the fall and the disturbance of nature—lastly, the unity of facts and their symbolical meaning, which both the barely literal and mythical explanations of the record rend asunder. : There was a paradise and it was local, but it was at the same time the symbol of the paradisiac earth. The same thing is true of the four streams. Whether the. original source of the four streams is not marked by the stream in the midst of the garden may be left undecided; it is enough that it was actually one, and at the same time the symbol of all the fountains ‘of blessing upon the earth. Whether the tree of life was one physical plant, or rather the glorification of nature, in the determinate 14 INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. form of the manifestation of God in the garden, is a matter of question; as a symbol it designates the total healing and living strength of nature under the revelation of the Spirit, The tree of knowledge of good and evil existed in some one form, but with it all nature is in some measure designated as atest. But the serpent as the organ of that temptation is not only the type of temptation and of sin, but, as orig- inally a worm, the type of its brutality, its degradation, and its subjection. As the account of the creation declares the opposition and harmony between God and the world, so the account of Paradise declares the opposition and the harmony between the spiritand nature, Here you have the connection between the actual primitive man and the ideal man, between man and the earth, between the fact and the idea: the consecrated bodily nature, the consecrated senses, the consecrated, indeed sacramental, pleasure, and on the other side human talent, freedom, and responsibility. Break this golden band between spirit and nature, between the actual fact and the symbol, and you fall back into that old accursed opposition between spiritualism and materialism, which burdened the heathen world and will run through all your moral esthetic and philosophic ideas as a fatal cleft. Ti. The First Human Pair: the Records of the ideal and actual Unity of the Human Race, and of the male and female Nature in the true Marriage (Gen. ii.), With a stroke or two of the pen, the biblical view of the world places itself above - the aboriginal doctrines of every heathen people, and all national pride and haughti- ness, with the barbarism and hatred which are connected with it. In a few lines it records the equality by birth of the male and female sexes, the mystical nature of true marriage; the sanctity ofthe married and domestic life, and condemns the hea- then degradation of woman, the sexual lawlessness or lust, as also the theosophic and monkish contempt of the sexualnature. Weighed in this balance, Aristotle, Gregory ‘VII. and Jacob Boehm have been found wanting. Strauss asserts that the generic varieties of the human race, as the foundation of the old aboriginal traditions, has now become anew the common doctrine of the natural philosopher, and philosophy. Then it would follow that Blumenbach, Cuvier, Shubert, Karl Von Raumer, John Muller (the anatomist), and Alexander oii Humboldt, who have taught the generic unity of the human race, are not natural philosophers. Iv. The Fall and Judgment, or the Records of the historical character of the Sin of the Creature, opposed to both Idea and Nature; of the Holiness of the Divine Judgment, and of the connection and opposition between Sin and Evil (Gen. iii,). The record of the actual fall stands there as an eternal judgment upon the the- oretical fall, the human view of moral evil, especially upon the errors of Dualism and Manicheism, Pelagianism and Pantheism. Hence arise the numerous and strong objections which the most diverse systems in old and modern times have raised against this record. The earthly origin of evil out of the abuse of freedom offends Dualism, which derives it from an evil deity, from dark matter, or from the suprem- « APPENDIX—THE SO-CALLED DIFFICULT PLACES IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. 15 acy of sense. Although the serpent sustains the doctrine that, prior to the fall of man, sin had existed in a sphere on the other side, working through demoniac agency upon this (for the serpent was not created evil, Gen. i. 25, generally not even fitted for evil, and can only be regarded therefore as the organ of a far different evil power), yet the visible picture of the fall in this sphere, is a certain sign that the fall in that could only have risen through the abuse of the freedom of the creature. But, if we observe the progress of sin from the first sin of Eve to the fratricide of Cain; if we view the opposition between Cain and Abel, and the intimation of the moral freedom of Cain himself, so the Augustinian view, raising original sin to absolute original death, receives its illumination and its just limits). But how every Pelagian view of life falls before this record, as it brings into prominence the causal connection between the sin of the spirit world and that of man, between the sin of the woman and the man, between the sin of our first parents and their own sinfulness and the sinfulness of their posterity! Ifwe take into view the stages of the development of evil in the genesis of the first sin, how limited and vapid appears the modern view, which re- gards the senses as the prime starting point of evil! But when Pantheism asserts the necessity of sin, or rather of the fall, as the necessary transition of men from the state of pure innocence to that of conscious freedom, the simple remark, that the ingenuousness of Adam would have been carried directly on in the proper way, if he had stood the test, just as Christ through his sinlessness has reached the knowl- edge of the true distinction between good and evil, and has actually shown that sin, notwithstanding its inweaving with human nature, does not belong to its very being, clearly refutes the assertion. But how clear is the explanation of evil, of punish- ment and of judgment, as it meets us in this account! that the natural evil does not belong to the moral, but, notwithstanding its inward connection with it, is still the divine counteracting force against it; that punishment is to redeem and purify; that from the very acme of the judgment breaks forth the promise and salvation. These truths, which are far above every high anti-christian view of the world, make it apparent that the first judgment of God, as a type of the world-redeeming judgment of God, has found its completion in the death of Christ upon the cross. Vv. The Macrobioi, or the long-lived Fathers and Enoch, or the Revelation of the Difference between the ideal and historical Human Death. The long lives of the Fathers, the years of Methuselah, the translation of Enoch, are difficult riddles to the common view of the world, which recognizes no distinction between the ideal death (i. ¢., the original form, resembling a metamorphism, of the transition from the first to the second human life), and the historical death. But this difference is here clearly made known in these facts. Originally, there was grant- ed to man a form of transition from the first to the second life, which is closed through the historical death, until it appears again in the glorification of the risen Christ and the declaration of the Apostles (1 Cor. xv.; 2 Cor. v.). With sin the historical death makes its inroads upon humanity. But it can only, slowly creeping from within outward, break through the strong resistance of the original physical human nature; hence the long lives of the primitive fathers. Here the spiritual power of death has first gradually penctrated the physical nature; this is the sig- 76 INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. nificance of the long lives of the antediluvians. The spiritual power of the life of Christ, as it runs parallel with the old death in its progress from within outward, will at the last permeate the physical nature again ; and then will the long lives appear again. But, as the last Macrobioi shall attain the original form of the ideal death, the trans. lation, so in an exceptive way Enoch through his piety obtained it of old. Therefore he stands also as the citadel of immortality, of the victory over death, and of the ideal form of translation, in the midst of the death periods of the primitive fathers ; in him- self alone a sufficient voucher, that the Old Testament in its very first pages is stamped with this idea. In these leaves also we possess the records of that idea of death by which the faith of revelation strides victoriously away from all the ordinary ideas of death in ancient or modern times. VI. The Flood, and the Ark, or the Glorification of all the great Judgments of God upon the World; and of: all the counter-working forms of Salvation, as they begin with the Ark and are completed in the Church (Gen. vi.—viii.). The great water-flood is established, through the concurrent testimony of ancient people, as the great event of traditionary antiquity. But the deluge and the ark! Let it be observed here, however, that just as the idea of punishment explains the undeniably existing natural evil, so the light of the deluge illuminates the wild waves of the great water-flood. And just as out of the first curse sprang the blessing of the promise, so salvation, the saving ark, was borne upon the waves of the first final judgment. In this light the deluge is the great type of all the judgments of God upon the earth, and therefore especially of baptism, which introduces the Christian into the communion of the completed redeeming judgment of God, the death of Christ upon the cross. The first general world judgment was introduced through the universal dominion,: and the unshaken establishment, of human corruption. But this was brought about through the ungodly marriages, the misalliances between the sons of God and the daughters of men, 7. ¢., the posterity of Seth and of Cain. It is evident, indeed, that the Alexandrian Exegesis and that of the earliest Church Fathers have introduced the difficulty into the text, that the sons of God were angels. Kurtz still asserts. that the Bni Elohim are elsewhere only used of angels. But if the vicegerents of God on the earth (Ps. lxxxii. 6) are called Elohim, and Bni Eljon, they may even much more be called Bni Elohim, in a position in which they should have defended the di- vine upon the earth, but rather betrayed it. The connection, according to which the fourth chapter treats of the descendants of Cain, and the fifth of those of Seth, author- izes us to expect that here both genealogies are united. After the history has shown how the curse of sin has spread itself with the human arts, in the line of Cain namely, even polygamy and murder glorified through the abuse of poetry, how yon the contrary the blessing of the Lord advanced for a long time in the line of Seth, and with it the hope of redemption, it now shows how, through the misalliances referred to, the corruption became not only prevalent but giant-like and incurable. These false unions, based upon a principle of apostasy, and which made evident the profound connection between idolatry and whoredom, produced a race of spiritual bastards, who turned the very spirituality inherited from their fathers into APPENDIX—THE SO-CALLED DIFFICULT PLACES IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. 7 sin. To look away from the fabulous in the assumption of a marriage connection be- tween angels and men, it is inconceivable that the deception of the daughters of men through heavenly angelic forms, should be stated as a phenomenon of obduraey, and a cause of the flood. Here also the idea of apostasy, the yielding of the kingdom of God to the ungodly world, and the judgment springing therefrom, was intro- duced in the first great historical type; a significant portent, for the history of Israel as for the history of the Christian Church, to the end of the world. But that, in the very moment of the breaking forth of the judgment upon the world, an election from all creatures should enter into the ark, furnishes an example of the fact, that with the election of humanity a pure kernel of the creature world should be carried through the last final judgment, into a higher order of things. It should be observed by the way, that the three birds, the raven and two doves, must be regarded as the symbols of the three different exodes from the external church, so soon as we view the ark itself as the symbol of the church of salvation. This significance is not far-fetched. In the Roman Catholic view only ravens flee from the Church, in the assurance of antichristian spirits only doves, or the children of the Spirit. VIL. The Tower of Babel, the Confusion of Tongues, and the Teleology of Heathenism (Gen. xi.). The monotonous Augustinian view of the hereditary relations of humanity finds already its correction in the opposition between Cain and Abel, and still more in that between the line of Seth and the line of Cain. We see, indeed, how death - reigns through sin, in the line of Seth, and how at last corruption, working in the line of Cain, brought it to destruction. While, however, the typical saviour of the race and of the earth, Noah, came from the line of Seth, and out of its ruins, and while before him there was opposed only a line of blessing and of the curse (both moreover only in a relative degree), there is formed in the sons of Noah a threefold spiritual genealogy: the line ofthe curse, of which Ham or more definitely Canaan is the representative, stands opposed not only to a genealogy of divine blessing in Shem, but also of worldly blessings in Japheth. Still, both are girt around by the circle of sin and death. And as in the primitive race the earliest development. appears in the line of Cain, so now in the new race in the line of Ham. Nimrod founds the old Babylonian kingdom. But the people assemble at Babel in order to found, in the tower reaching to heaven, the symbol of an all-embracing human world mon- archy.* pratt lust, anarchy, brought the first race to destruction; an enthusiastic civili- zation, lust of empire, glory, desire for display, and despotism threaten to destroy the second. And now Shem and Japheth are in danger of losing their blessing in the earliest development of the power of Ham, in the Hamitic phantom of human glory. Hence the dispersion of the people, which as truly springs out of the deep spiritual errors of the people, as it was positively sent from above. Now Shem and Japheth could each in their own direction cultivate the blessing of spiritual piety which was * Delitzsch says of Nimrod (p. 223), “ through his name 973 (from 3°, to rise up, disturb), he represents the revolution, in his dominion the despotism. These two extremes, the monarchical state has never been able to remove, from its impure beginning onwards.” What he says, however, avails only in its full sense of the great world monarchies, 78 INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. their inheritance. And even within the race of Ham the curse of impiety was inter- rupted through the mutual relations and influence in which it was placed with Shem and Japheth. Scattered around the tower, the people spread themselves into the world, according to their peculiarities, after the outline of the table (Gen. x.). The great value of this table has been recognized again in recent times. But this also must be kept in view, that in the dispersion of the people we have revealed the pecu- liar teleology of heathenism. It has a prevailingly admonitory, and yet preserving character. The people should not lose their peculiar character under the. despotism of imperial uniformity. They should develop themselves according to all their peculiarities, in their different languages. Above all, the way was prepared for the development of Shem. VO. The Separation of Abraham, and of the Israelitish People in him ; the Teleology of Judaism (Gen. xii, ff), The mere worldly culture, down to the most recent times, has found great difficulty with the biblical doctrine that God had chosen Abraham from among the people, and in him chosen the people of Israel to be an elect people, above all the most cultivated nations. Critics, who usually find no difficulties in the diversities of the nations, and praise beyond measure the peculiar prerogatives of the Greeks and Romans, will not see in these facts, that Israel was in Abraham the chosen people, in areligious point of view. But even here historical facts correspond to the divine purpose, and bear practical testimony to it. Israel has realized the blessing of its peculiar religious disposition in its revealed religion. But in this blessing the good pleasure of God to Abraham and his seed has been made known. The later Jews have indeed preverted their election into the caricature of phar- isaic particularism. And, in many cases, unbelief and doubt have been contending with this caricature, while they supposed that they were contending with the scripture doctrine itself But the word of the scripture runs thus: “In thee (Abraham) and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.” (Ch. xii. 6.) That this pas- sage does not say: “In thee shall all the nations of the earth bless themselves, or wish themselves blessed,” is evident from the preceding words: “I will bless them, that bless thee” (Ch. xii. 3*), This then is the teleology of Judaism. As the heathen are scattered into all the world, in order, through their peculiar forms of culture, to prepare the vessels for the salvation of the Lord in Israel, so Israel is separated from among the nations, to be a peculiar people of faith, in order to become the organ of salvation for all nations. IX. The Offering of Isaac, or the Sanctification of the Israelitish Sacrifice, and the Rejection of the Abomina- tion of the Heathen. We have here the most striking instance, in which the orthodox school theology, through its insufficient, narrow, literal explanation, has brought into the Bible difficul- ties at| which even the noblest spirits have stumbled. The actual history of the offering of Isaac forms the peculiar starting point of the Israelitish religion, the glorious portal of the theocracy, the division between the sanctified J. ewish sacrifices * The here rejected expfanation may certainly be reccived where the Hithpael of ‘JTS is used, (Ch. xxii. 183 xxvi. 4.) e APPENDIX—THE SO-CALLED DIFFICULT PLACES IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. 79 in their nature Messianic, and fulfilled in the atoning death of Christ, and the abomination of the human sacrificial worship of the heathen. "What has the school theology made of this glorious history, the type of the whole Old Testament cultus? It has changed this in the highest sense isolated peculiar remarkable fact, into a dark and frightful riddle, which indeed appears like the heathen sacrifices, and through which already more than one hag been betrayed into the path of fanatical sacri- fices. The author here refers to the exegetical treatise of Hengstenberg, who has the merit of establishing the correct interpretation of this passage in his explanation of Jephthah’s vow.* Hengstenberg has in our view proved clearly that Jephthah did not kill his daughter, when he sacrificed her to the Lord, but devoted her entirely, under the usual consecration of a sacrifice, to perpetual temple service as a virgin, and he illustrates his method of proof through a reference to the sacrifice of Isaac.t The special proof lies in a reference to the fact, that the Hebrew cultus distinguishes between the spiritual consecration of man as a sacrifice, and the visible slaughter of an animal, Thus, e.g., according to 1 Sam, i. 24, 25, the boy Samuel was brought by his parents to Eli the priest, and consecrated at the tabernacle, since the three bullocks were slain there as burnt offerings. The special grounds for the correct understanding of the sacrifice of Isaac are these: the root of the sacrifice, as to its nature, is the concession of the human will to the will of God (Ps. xl. 7-9); fallen man cannot make this pure concession, therefore he represents it in a symbolical and typical way in the outward sacrifice. He brings at first to the deity fruits and animals. But a vague feeling assures him that Jehovah has claims upon the life of man itself. Meanwhile, however, he has lost the spiritual idea of sacrifice. The no- tion of sacrifice, or consecration, has become one to him with that of to slay and burn. Hence he falls upon the literal human sacrifice which he must offer the deity as a personal substitute. But the Old Testament rejects this Mteral human sacrifice throughout as an abomination. The Canaanites were punished especially for this abomination. This is not, as Ghillany thinks, that they themselves were offered to God as human sacrifices, as a punishment, because they had slain human sacrifices. The devotion of such idolaters to the curse and destruction, proves that the human sacrifice was the greatest abomination. Thus also the law treats this heathen cor- ruption. But this corruption is thus unquestionably great, because it is the demoniac distortion of that thought of light, that God requires the sacrifice of the human heart, and in default of this the spiritual sacrifice of the substituted life of the atoning priest, or of the first-born in Israel, at last the absolute atonement of the con- cession of a pure man for sinful humanity. Hence this thought of light must be rescued from its distortion, and through the sacred care for its fulfilment, be pre- served. The sacrifice of Isaac was destined to this end. God commanded Abraham: “ Sacrifice to me thy son.” Abraham, as to the kernel of his faith, is the first Israel- ite, but, as to his inherited religious ideas, he is still a heathen Chaldee, who knows nothing else than that to offer, is to slay. But as he already, by his germ of faith, has distinguished the spiritual sacrifice from the abomination of the heathen, so in the critical moment he received the second revelation, which enlarges the first, since * Henastenserc : Betirdge, 3d vol. The moral and religious life of the period of the judges, especially on Jeph- thah’s vow, p. 127 ff. ; on, + Delitzsch follows the traditionary view of the schools, and is not inclined to fall in with the modern churchly correction of that view (p. 300). The objection of Kurtz is answered in the places quoted below. 80 INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. it prohibits the bodily killing of his son, with the declaration that he had already completed his spiritual sacrifice (Ch. xxii, 12). Nothing remains for him now, to meet his fullest religious necessities, than that he should enlarge and complete sym- bolically the spiritual sacrifice of his son through the corporeal sacrifice of the ram which the foresight of God had provided at hand (without commanding him to take its life). Now, the distinction and connection between the ideas of to sacrifice and to kill, which forms the peculiar consecration of the Israelitish sacrificial death, is made perfect. In this sense the human sacrifice of Abraham runs through the whole Israclitish economy, down to the New Testament (Luke ii. 23, 24). And the distinc. tion between the holy sacrifice of the people of God, and the sacrificial abominations of the heathen, is completed. In the crucifixion, these two sacrifices outwardly come together, while really and spiritually they are separated as widely as heaven and hell. Christ yields himself in perfect obedience to the will of the Father, in the judgment of the world. That is the fulfilling of the Israelitish sacrifice. Caiaphas will suffer the innocent to die for the good of the people (John xi. 50), and even Pilate yields him to the will of men (Luke xxiii. 25); this is the completion of the Moloch- sacrifice.* xX. The Sexual Difficulties in the History of the Patriarchs, as they arise out of the Israclitish striving after the true ideal Marriage, and after the consecrated Theocratic Birth; in Revolt against the cruel service of Lust, and the unsanctified Sexual Unions and Conceptions in the Heathen World. In the review of the known sexual difficulties also, it is the Israelitish rejection again of the heathen nature, on which one sits in judgment, with the modern devel- oped view of intellectual heathenism. But here the Apologists believe that they have fully met the demands of the case, when they remark, that we must not measure the life of the ancient saints by the standard of Christian morals. But that the germina- ting seeds of the Christian ideal life and morals occasion these very difficulties, that we are thus here also dealing with the phenomena of Old Testament glory (which stands indeed far below the spiritual glory of the New Testament), this is evident from the very contrasts in which these facts are brought before us. The spirit of the Old Testament places the natural sexual desire in opposition to the unnatural; the object of the sexual desire, procreation, in opposition to the pas- sion for its own sake; the true marriage—based upon the mind’s choice, to the com- mon or even barely external union of the sexes ; the consecrated holy birth, in oppo- sition to the birth or conception “after the will of the flesh.” In other words, it seeks the true sacred marriage, perfected indeed through its destination, the conception of the consecrated child of promise. It sanctifi¢s the traditional marriage through the true sacred character of the higher union of soul, and the sexual desire through spiritual and conjugal consecration. Thus the espousal of Hagar into the life of Abraham, which indeed Sarah, the wife of Abraham, suggests, is explained by the unlimited desire for the heir promised by Jehovah, The fruitless marriage falls into an ideal error which is far above faithless- ness or lust, subordinated to the end of the union of the sexes, the attainment of the heir, In this cthical thought we must understand the error of Sarah and Abraham. * For the untenableness of the ordinary view I refer to HenastENnBERG: Beitrdge; Lance: Positive Dogmatik, Pp, $18. Compare also the legal Catholic Church, p. 60. APPENDIX—THE §S0-CALLED DIFFICULT PLACES IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. 8] But then the Lord brings the true sacred marriage of Abraham with Sarah into op- position with the transient sexual union of Abraham with Hagar, when he opposes the consecrated spiritual fruit of the first union, to the wild genial fruit of the last, Isaac to Ishmael, It is remarkable how Jacob under the dialectic form of the Israelitish principles obtains his four wives. He seeks the bride after the choice of his heart. Then was Leah put into the place of his beloved Rachel. Now he wins in Rachel his second wife, his first peculiar elected bride. The idea of the bridal marriage leads him to his second wife. But now enters the still stronger idea of obtaining children. Leah is fruitful, Rachel unfruitful, therefore she will establish her higher claims. upon Jacob with the jewels of children. She imitates the example of Sarah and brings to him her own maid Bilhah. Then Leah appeals to the sense of justice in Jacob, and strengthens her side in that she enlarges it through Zilpah. The sin, the error, is here abundantly clear. But we must not overlook the fact that Jacob obtains his four wives under the impelling dialectic force of noble Israelitish motives misunder- stood. ‘The first is the pure sacred marriage, the second the theocratic blessing of children. If now, we view the most serious difficulties, the incest of Lot with his daughters, of Judah with his daughter-in-law Tamar, we name as the first explana- tory principle element the overlooked facts, that in both cases the morally proscribed union of sexes stands opposed to the most unnatural and revolting crimes. The op- position to the sin of Lot was sodomy, which he shunned with holy horror; in this respect he escaped the judgment, and is a saint. Thus also the act of Judah stands in opposition to the sin of his son Onan (Gen. xxxviii. 9). He was punished with death for his, even in a natural sense, abominable misdeed, just as in a similar way the people of Sodom were destroyed. But Judah and Lot live. And even in their error they defend the judgment of the Israelitish spirit over the sodomy and onanism and the like abominable lusts of the heathen world. Moreover, they were ignorant in both cases of the incest which they committed, although the one in drunkenness, and the other in the joyful exultation of the feast of shearing, fell into lewdness. But the fe- males, who in both cases knew of the incest and come into view as the chief figures, did not act from lust, but from fanatical error, under which lay the moral motive of the theocratic desire for children. Lot’s daughters, after the destruction of their home, fell under the delusion that the world, at all events the theocratic race, was in danger of perishing. Tamar plainly fanatically seeks, under the noblest impulse, as a heatheness, the house of Judah, and the promises which were given to him. Hence the unwearied perseverance with which she repeatedly, at last in the boldest form, pushes herself into this family. Finally, we may notice here still the well-known writ- ing of divorcement of Moses. According to the way in which the Romish church, or even the latest legal spirit in the evangelic church, identifies the churchly or conse- crated union of the sexes, with the perfect marriage, Moses, in the permission of divorce, comes very nearly into conflict with his own law, “Thou shalt not commit adultery”? They say this law, minus the writing of divorce, constitutes marriage. The Bible on the other hand teaches that the theocratic marriage institution rests upon the seventh command, plus the ordinance for writings of divorce, under the permission of separation. That is, Moses knew a higher perfection of marriage than the barely legal and literal, and this he strove to attain, just as the whole Old Testament, with the higher spiritual marriage, strove also after a higher spiritual procreation. Under this spirit and its moral motives, the patriarchal families in succession fell into fanatical errors; but in these errors, the ethical spirit of the whole sexual life is re- 82 INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. flected, which corrects the heathen disorderly sexual life, and its low view of the nature of conception. XI. The Mosaic System, the Giving of the Law, the Threatening of the Curse, or the Glorification of all the Di. vine Education of Men, through the Teaching and Leading Power of the Free Religion of the Covenant, A very wide-spread prejudice, since the days of Marcion, confounds the Old Testa- ment religion of faith with the Mosaic giving of the Jaw, and then caricatures this law-giving itself, since it regards it as a despotic or dictatorial bending of an unwilling people under absolute statutes, which were strengthened by intolerable curses which should pass over to children and children’s children (see Huan: Philosophie der Re- ligion, ii. pp. 70 and 74). History and the scripture teach on the contrary: 1. that it is not the Mosaic giv- ing of the law, but the covenant of faith of Abraham with God, which is the founda- tion of the Old Testament religion (Gal. iii. 19); 2. the Mosaic law is not the first thing in the Mosaic system (viewing it as a stage of development of the Abrahamic religion, in its transition as a system of instruction and training to a neglected people), but the Mosaic typical redemption, the miraculous deliverance of Israel out of Egypt (Ex. xx. 2); 3. the Mosaic law-giving itself rests upon repeated free communications between Jehovah and his people (Exodus xix. 8; xxiv. 3); 4. the Mosaic commands are not immediate abstract and positive statutes, but are mediate, as religious funda- mental commands, through the religious spirit, as moral, through the conscience; 5. transgressions were not visited immediately with the curse, but so far as they were not bold and obstinate, were taken away through an atonement; 6. to the curse which was spoken against the obstinate persistence in sin, stands opposed the super- abundant blessings which were promised to the well-behaved Israelite; 7. the Mosaic system, with its own peculiar stages of development, proclaims its own goal, in the prophetic continuation and Messianic completion, and forms in its impelling strength the direct opposition to alllaws of an absolute nature. ‘Moses wrote of Christ.” As to tife addition to the second command, which visits the misdeeds of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me (Ex. xx. 5), this threatening is opposed by the promise which extends the blessing of the pious to the thousandth of his successors. But in their violent passion over the threaten- ing, these ungracious humanists have overlooked that it is the same law of tragical connection between guilt and the curse, which the tragic poets of Greece, in a much more cruel form, have poetically glorified. Let them first come to an arrangement with the idea of the tragedists, they will then find, that even here the partially fatal- istic element of heathen tragedy, is laid aside, while its sad features are glorified. But the Mosaic system generally stands as the system of instruction and prepara- tion for the religion of promise, as it trains an uninstructed people to the culture of Christendom, and hence also as the glorification of all divine systems of preparatory instruction and training. XII. The Egyptian Miracles and Plagues, or the Typical Revelation of the Fact, that all the Visitations of God upon the Nations are for the Good of the People and Kingdom of God. Hengstenberg has shown in his thorough and learned work (Egypt and the books APPENDIX—THE 80-CALLED DIFFICULT PLACES IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. 83 of Moses, pp. 98-129) that the Egyptian plagues and miracles are not to be regarded as absolute miraculous decrees of God, but as extraordinary divine leadings and judg- ments, conditioned and introduced through the nature of the land of Egypt. There was a natural foundation for the miracles, for the blood-red color of the Nile, the ap- pearance of the frogs, the plagues of flies, murrain, sores, the hail and thunderstorm, the locusts, the Egyptian darkness (the darkening of the air through the sandstorm), and the death of the first-born (the plague). This connection of natural events in an extraordinary succession, form, and extent, is not obscured but strengthened through their reference to the providence of Je- hovah; and the redemption of his people. Rather the dark events of the earth are explained and glorified in the idea of punishments, and the judicial punishment glori- fies itself in its purpose and goal to awaken and save. But in this form, the visitations of God upon Israel serve to bring out clearly the final end of all his judicial providence over the individual kingdoms of the world, in their opposition to his church. XIII. The Egyptian Treasures, or the Inheritance of the Goods of this World by the Kingdom of God, at the culminating Points of the Redemption of his People. In the first place,'as to the text, it does not say that the Israelites borrowed the gold and silver jewels of the Egyptians, but that they demanded or by entreaties ob- tained them.* In favor of this may be urged first the expression Schaal (ox), which retains the same sense throughout the passage in question (Ex. iil. 22; xi. 2; xii. 35). The signification: to ask, demand, entreat, is the prevailing sense of the word. The signification: to borrow, is scarcely ever used. In the usual acceptation, indeed, the Hiphil of the word (nsx), in the sense, they lend to them, would seem to require the corresponding meaning of the Kal: they borrowed the jewels. And Baumgarten in this view calls (i. p. 473) Hengstenberg’s explanation (Authentie, ii. p. 524) very arti- ficial.| The word in question, in the mouth of Hannah (1 Sam. i. 28), cannot well mean: I lend him (the son prayed for) to the Lord for the whole of his life. The Hiphil, in its correspondence with the Kal, to entreat, must still mean to give richly or freely, to grant, especially to encourage the prayer. Moses, moreover, if he had been speaking of borrowing or of theft, would not have announced it so long before- hand, as a prominent event in the freeing of the people (ch. iii. 22); and the attain- ing of the desire would scarcely be explained by the fact that the people found or should find favor in the eyes of the Egyptians (ch. iii. 21; xi. 3; xii. 86). Thus it can only be an entirely extraordinary asking which is here spoken of, and the expres- sion which records the result can consequently hardly be to steal. The term (52 points in its various forms rather to a strong and violent snatching than to a stealthy theft.{ And since in this case it cannot be violence which is spoken of, so the term must express the intellectual ascendency of those who gained the inheritance, a mighty appropriation to themselves. * Compare HencstenserG : Authenticity of the Pentateuch, 2 vol. p. 507. t The verb (NU), to desire, can only be in Hiphil to cause another to desire. It designates then a freely of- fered gift, in opposition to one which is given only from outward constraint, or only from shameless begging. Who- ever freely gives thereby invites the other to ask; he cannot ask too much, not enough indeed.” This is surely in perfect accordance with the spirit of the language, if the Hiphil is explained according to the Kal. Baumgarten and the traditional exposition explain the Kal after an hypothetical Hiphil ¢ Hengastenberg, p. 525. , 84 INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. The situation itself is not in favor of lending. The first demand of Moses for Israel was only for a brief journey into the wilderness, for the purpose of holding a feast (Ex. ch. v. 1); but afterward the demand increased in the same measure in which Pharaoh was hardened (ch. viii. 1; ix.1; x. 24). But after the judgment upon the first-born there is no need of any supposition that they would return, as indeed it had not been promised before. The Egyptians drove the Israelites out, because they, under the protection of their God, had become a terror to them. The reservation which Pharaoh could perhaps have made, he abandons immediately after- wards, since he pursues the Israelites, makes war upon them, and perishes. We pass in review the different explanations of this passage. The older, ex- tremely positive and favorite explanation, proceeds from the assumption that God suspended in that case the prohibition of theft and deceit. The Apologists do not spend much labor here in the defensive. They have a greater work; they have the glory of this fearful moment to show, in which the despised slaves, the Jews, in the eyes of their proud oppressors, now humbled by God, pass into a people of God, or sons of God, who only need. to ask, whether as a favor, or as a loan, or as a demand, for the gold and silver treasures, and they are cast before them as an acknowledg- ment of homage, a tribute of reverence and fear. Their sons and daughters are loaded and burdened with them. That Moses so long foresaw this moment marks the great prophet; that Israel uses it shows not only his human prudence, but even his sacred right; but that God brings about this result, reveals him as the protector of his people, who will provide for him, after his long sorrows and deprivations, the richest compensation, and at the very foundation of his kingdom appropriates with majesty the gold and silver of the world. Thus before this time Abraham had been blessed among the heathen, thus Jacob by Laban, and thus since the church of Christ, at the time of Constantine, after its victory over the Roman empire; and in like manner the church of the middle ages, after the irruption of the barbarians. But at the end of days all the treasures of the world shall become serviceable to the kingdom of God, and civilization shall be absorbed in worship. XIV. Moses the Prophet, and the Prophetic People of God in opposition to the Magicians of Egypt and Balaam, or the Spirit of Magic, and the Prophecy of Heathenism, as it involuntarily does homage to the Spirit of the Kingdom of God. Balaam’s speaking Ass. We believe there is good ground for placing the magicians of Egypt in relation with the Aramaic seer Balaam. Just as the history of the magicians (Ex. vii. 11 ff) records the victory of the theocratic prophets over the antagonistic position of real- istic wisdom and magic, so the history of Balaam (Num. xxii.) proclaims the triumph of the theocratic people over the hostile position of that idealistic wisdom of the world, the worldly prophecy and poesy represented by Balaam. It would be dif- ficult to distinguish accurately between the symbolic and the purely actual elements in the account of the contest of Moses with the Egyptian conjurers. Moses was endowed with miraculous power for this contest, whose sign, in any case, wore & symbolical coloring. Hengstenberg regards it as the central point in this endow- ment, that he could thus meet and defeat the Egyptian serpent-charmers upon their own field, in the region of their most cultivated magical art, and with higher means ‘ APPENDIX—THE §0-CALLED DIFFICULT PLACES IN THE OLD. TESTAMENT. 85 at his command.* Moses, with his miraculous rod, or staff, works in the three re- gions of life miracles of punishment and salvation; in the region of elementary nature (changing water into blood, bitter water into sweet) ; in the region of organic nature (making the rod to become a serpent, and the serpent a rod); in the region of human life (calling forth the leprosy and healing it). He can do this truly only in the service of the Lord, and therefore only in decisive preordained moments. But then he can do this with an evidence which puts to- shame all magical art and worldly culture. Thus gradually, and step by step, the Egyptian conjurers were put to naught before him. The first distinction is, that they could only imitate what Moses did before them; the second, that they could only do upon a small scale what Moses did upon a large; the third, that they could imitate in the destructive miracles, not in those which delivered and saved; the fourth, that they could not imitate the great destructive miracles; the last, that they themselves perished in the destructive miracles of Moses. At the very beginning, their rods were devoured by the terrible rod of Moses, and at the end they stand there without power, they themselves filled with sores, and their first-born given to death. Balaam undoubtedly represents the ideal character of the art and culture of the world; as it places and defines itself, in its common or ordinary life, as in the sphere of its conscious thought or purpose, it opposes the people of God and his kingdom, and especially, by the device of lustful and drinking banquets, it could work great injury to the church of God; and yet must ever, in the sphere of its con- scious feeling, in the impetus of its inspiration through the Spirit of the Lord, be car- ried beyond itself, bless the people of the kingdom, and testify of its salvation and victory. This opposition between the purpose and the inspiration in the spheres of worldly genius and culture is world-historical, not less so than the fact that even the worldly genius in its philosophic systems, with its poetical and artistic culture, prophesies of Christ and blesses his kingdom. ‘But Balaam’s ass is destined to portray the fact, that the ass itself must become a prophet, when the worldly prophet, who rides him, will become an ass. This grand irony, according to which Genius in its fallen state is more blind and dumb than the ass which it rides, according to which the prophet who rides the ass is changed into an ass who rides the prophet, does not stand there as a perplexity to the believer and a sport to the unbeliever. And it is truly the guilt of the apologetic school theology if it falls into distress about the ass of Balaam, when the free-thinkers lustily ride upon it. That the species of the horse, to which the ass, especially the oriental ass, be- longs, is inclined to be timid, and through its fright can draw attention to hidden dangerous circumstances—indeed, that it has an inexplicable power to recognize ghost-like appearances, or even in its way to see spirits, all this is confirmed through the strangest things. More than once has the stumbling of a horse been an evil omen to his rider, and Napoleon played the part of Balaam on the other side of the Niemen. That the voice of an act or event, thus even of the mighty utterance of the animal soul, may become, in the plastic forming impulse of a visionary genius, a miracle of vision, and most easily the Bath Kol, the voice, this needs no detailed explanation. * The books of Moses, p.7L t Especially the wisdom of the Chaldees upon the Euphrates, see BAUMGARTEN, ii, p. 349. t¢ We may not here think of a barely inward event. The way, however, in which BavmGrTEN, ii. p. 359, defends 86 ' INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. But that, finally, repeated terrors of conscience may awaken the inward life of the spirit and preserve it watchful, for the reception of the higher and clearer manifest- ations of the Spirit, thus in the prophetic region, even for angelic appearances, this experience teaches, Balaam’s ass is no subject for ridicule; least of all in a time when the nobler animals have a sensorium more open to te signs of the invisible world than materialistic geniuses, whom the hostility to Christianity has raised to temporary honor. The Spirit of God has made this ass to be a standing irony upon the thought- lessness (to speak euphemistically) of the knights of free-thought, as they go upon the expedition to destroy Christianity.* XV. The Arresting of the Sun by Joshua (Joshua x.). - We will not speak here of the great exegetical history of this place. The papal chair, which esteems fish not to be flesh, and once rejected the doctrine of the anti- podes (according to which all the Jesuit missions in America rested upon a flagrant heresy), compelled, it is well known, the philosopher Galileo to forswear the theory, that the earth rolls round the sun. Modern Catholic theologians hold a modifica- tion of the old view, that Joshua arrested the earth in its course. The spiritual primate of Ireland (Cullen), however, has returned to the orthodox view, and quite recently some Protestant voices are heard, which even in this point will recall “ the good old time.” + The presupposition of the established exegesis is the hermeneutical principle that the Bible throughout uses language in the same way only, in which it is used in ordinary records. In that case the symbolical contents of the record will be denied. It will be emptied of its true religious, indeed historical character. Thus here the peculiar triumphant feeling of Joshua will be entirely mistaken, since in that case they only find the thought that he, through an unheard-of astronomical and mechani- cal miracle, had arrested the rolling sun (or the rolling earth, as the case may be) for about a day (v.13). They thus gain perhaps what they cannot use, indeed wherewith they are in the deepest trouble; while on the contrary they lose the glorious typical event, which brings out into bold relief the fact, that all nature, the outward speaking of the ass against HENGSTENBERG, appears to us without weight or importance, If itis allowed to the prophet to speak in his own dialect, then surely it may be to the ass. {* Hengstenberg holds that there is 2 real miracle, but that it is inward in the mind or vision of the prophet, not outward in the ass. He defends his view—which is connected with a general theory as to the nature of propheey or the state of the prophets—with great ingenuity and ability, But there are serious and insuperable objections to it. But evon this view is preferable to that given above. Dr. Lange comes down here from the high vantage ground from which he has discussed so ably the previously stated difficulties, and stands very nearly upon a level with those who merely seek to explain the miracle. If there is nothing more here than the naturally timid disposition of the animal, and the working of a plastic fancy or genius upon the braying of the frightened and refractory ass, leading the pro- phet to imagine that he sees spirits or angels, and awakening his mora] and spiritual powers, then the whole narrative is easily explained, but then the miracle is lost, It is vastly better to hold that the record narrates the fact literally, Nor is there anything improbable in such a miracle, that the ass should really use the words of men, if we regard the circumstances of the case, and the ends which were designed to bo reached. It is a fitting way to rebuke this prophet» who had yielded himself to the blindness and brutality of his sin, that the tgnorant brute should reprove him, And tho event thus viewed, stands, as Lange shows, only with fur greater significance and force than it can have upon his theory, as a perpetual rebuke to those who, with like hatred to the people of God, and with similar blindness, undcr the brutalizing power of sin, carry on their warfare against Ohristianity. Those who would see this record vindicated, and its real significance brought out fully, may consult BaumearTEN : Commentary.—A. G.] t For the different explanations compare WINER, Article Joshua. APPENDIX—THE SO-CALLED DIFFICULT PLACES IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. 87 heaven, and earth, are in covenant with the people of God, and ever aid them to victory in the wars of his kingdom. Although we do not share the view of those interpreters who think that we are only dealing here with a poétical and symbolical style of expression (which the papal exegesis could not use), which, in the sun of Gibeon and the moon of Ajalon, glorifies the sunniest and through midnight protracted, brightest day of victory, we would not deny the relation of the text to a song of victory. It has been overlooked perhaps, that in our history the storm of hail which terrifies and follows the hostile Amorites, i is placed significantly over against the sun and moon of Joshua, which give light to the people of Israel. When the theocratic hero and conqueror, in the view of such a terrible storm of hail, on the part of heaven, utters the prophecy : we shall have the clearest sunshine upon our line of battle, and at the evening the light of the moon, that is a peculiar miracle, which is closely joined as to its stamp and character with the great Mosaic miracles of victory.* XVI. The Old Testament Theocratic Miracles of Salvation, as parallel Miracles, or as extraordinary Phenomena of Nature, which the Spirit of Prophecy recognizes, announces and uses as Saving Ordinances of God, and in which it proclaims the Truth, that the miraculous points in the Earth’s Development, from the Flood on to the Final Grand Catastrophe at the End of the World, runs parallel with the Development of the Kingdom of God in its Great Eventful Moments, and promotes its Salvation and Glorification. That I may not unduly enlarge this essay, I remark that the above paragraph, while it may be regarded as clearly intelligible in the outline given, finds its de ~ tailed explanation in the work of the author upon miracles (Leben Jesu, 2 Bd.). In some particular Old Testament miraculous deeds, the signs of the New Testament miracles appear, ¢. ¢., the signs of the absolute victory of the theanthropic spirit over the human, natural world. XVII. The Destruction of the Canaanitish People. This must be viewed as the symbol of the continuous destruction of malefactors in the Christian state. They were destroyed so far as they, as Canaanites, that is here as the servants of Moloch, claimed the holy land, and would live under the establishment, or in defiance of the establishment of Israel. Two ways of escape were opened to them: the way of flight from the land, or the way of conversion to the Faith of Israel. The cunning of the Gibeonites found a third way (Josh. ix.). s (* The great Mosaic miracles were wrought indeed in connection with natural agencies or forces, but were none the less real miracles. The fact, that the storm was miraculous, does not meet the demands of the narrative of the arrest- ing of thesun and moon. Theve are great difficulties, unquestionably, involved in such a miracle as this, but difficul- ties are not a matter of great weight, to any one who admits the miracle at all, and when therefore the question is merely one of the power of God. Keil, who holds strongly that if the passage in question is to be taken as a part of the historical narrative, we are not to be troubled by the difficulties supposed, contends with great ability, and as a mere exegetical question, that the passage must be regarded as a quotation from the poetical book of Jasher, which is introduced into the narrative, not as a historical statement, but as a poetical description of the great victory. See ‘Kein: The book of Joshua. If, however, we may take the passage as historical, and then of course hold to the literal miracle, that the earth was stayed in its course by the hand of God, how grandly it brings ont the fact, ag Lange states it, “that heaven and earth are in connection with tho people of God, and ever help them to victory in the wars of his. Kingdom.”—A. @.] 88 INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. XVUI. The Ascension of Elijah in a Chariot of Fire, as the culminating Point of the consistent Development of the Mosaic Law. The consistent unfolding of the Mosaic law, in its judicial punitive righteous- ness, is completed in the form of the prophet Elijah. Hence the punitive miracle is the prevailing type of his work. He punishes the people of Israel for its apostasy, with a three-years’ drought and famine, he slays the priests of Baal, announces to the house of Ahab its destruction, and calls down fire from heaven upon the two captains of Ahaziah with their companies. In this consistent unfolding of the pro- phetic judicial procedure, he is on the way to the final calling of the fires of the judgment upon the corrupt of the world. The third captain of fifty, sent by the king of Israel to bring the prophet, weeps and clings to his knees praying for merey, and Elijah feels that he must arrest the judgment. But therewith he has the pre- sentiment that he is about to leave the earth. He can no more endure the earth, nor the earth bear him, and the fiery spirit is borne to heaven in a storm of fire. The first persecution by Ahab drove him into the loneliness of the heathen world ; the second by Jezebel, when she threatened him with death, drove him to‘Horeb, the cradle of the Jaw, where he would willingly have died. In his fiery triumph ’ over the officers of the third persgcution, he appears already as a lofty Cherub with a flaming sword, who sends down from the mountain the fiery judgments of heaven, And still this is only the consistent fulfilling of his true Mosaic office. He has a tolerant heart, otherwise he could not have dwelt with a heathen widow and among a people that had given to his land the corrupt princess Jezebel as queen; a loving heart, as is shown in his miraculous raising of the dead, a heart opened for the presentiments of the gospel, which appears in his trembling and awe at the still small voice, in the feeling that Jehovah was now to appear, which he had not experienced in the storm, and earthquake, and fire; a merciful heart, and therefore he pauses in the midst of his fiery judgments and takes his departure from the earth. But the Lord prepares for him a worthy end, when he permits him to vanish from the earth in a fiery sign from heaven. We cannot so paint this history for ourselves as that school which speaks even of the hoofs of these fiery horses, Had the friends of Elijah seen the hoofs of the horses, they would surely not have sent fifty men for three days to search for the vanished prophet. But just as little are we to understand the nar- rative as a mere description of a disappearance in some peculiar storm. If we see, in this grand moment, a kind of end of the world, we shall also recognize in this chariot of fire the mystery of a primitive original phenomenon.* The opposition between Elijah and Elisha marks the turning point in the history of Israel, with which the judicial office and rank of the law retires into the back ground,-and the providence of mercy comes into relief, out of which the prophecy of salvation unfolds itself. Elisha inherits a double portion of the spirit of Elijah, and this appears clearly, since he with his miracles of healing and salvation (in oppo- sition to the punitive miracles of Elijah) forms the type of the coming gospel. The punitive miracle indeed still appears in his life, but the essential and determining char acter of his work, forms a circle of helping, healing, and delivering miracles. Elijah enters the history as a glorified Moses, Elisha as the type of the Christ to eome. {* That is, perhaps, the mystery of the ideal death or of the mode of transition to the higher life, See pp. 75; 76 ~A. GJ APPENDIX—THE SO-CALLED DIFFICULT PLACES IN THE CLD TESTAMENT. 89 XIX, The Types of the New Testament Miracles, and of the Victory of the New Testament Spirit. Book of Daniel. There appears very early in the Old Testament a definite kind of helping and saving miracles, which grows more distinct in the life of Elisha, and reaches its highest culture and perfection in the book of Daniel. Elisha appears as one who raises from the dead, in a greatly higher measure than Elijah; even his grave restores the corpse to life. He heals the fountains of bitter waters with salt, and the poisonous meal in the pot, makes the waters of Jordan a healing bath to Naaman the Syrian, raises the lost axe from the bottom of Jordan in a miraculous way, proves himself a spiritual reprover and saviour of Israel, triumphs over the hostile hosts who were besieging him,by the help of the hieetes of the Lord, and sends away his enemies who fell into his hands, with mercy, to their homes. In the miracles of the book of Daniel, which bear more distinctly the character of the New Testament miracles, because they are the victorious miracles of suffering, the New Testament time, the victory of the kingdom of Christ over the monarchies of the world, is clearly announced. The three men in the fiery furnace, especially, pro- claim with the greatest clearness, and in the grandest symbolism, the victory of the Christian martyrdom. I GENESIS (rewezre, ruin); THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. INTRODUCTION. _——— §1. GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO GENESIS. Grnusis is the record of the creation of the material world, of the founding of the spiritual world, or kingdom of God, and of general and special revelation; as such it stands at the head of all Scripture as the authentic basis of the whole Bible. It is consequently, in the first place, the basis for all the books of the Old and the New Testament in general, a root whose trunk extends through all Scripture, and whose crown appears in the Apocalypse, the now Genesis, or the prophetic record of the completed new, spiritual world and city of God. In the special sense, then, it is the basis of the whole Old Testament; in the most special sense it is the basis of the Pentateuch. The Introduction to the Sacred Scriptures in general, we have already given in the “‘Commentary on Matthew.” The Introduction to the Old Testament precedes the present exposition. We have yet to treat of the Introduction to the Pentateuch, or the Five Books of Moses. OxzsERvATIon.—Compare the beginning and the end of the Introduction of the ‘‘ Commen- tary” of Dstirzson. The author has said many valuable things of the deep significance of Genesis. For example: “Genesis and Apocalypse, the Alpha and Omega of the canonical writings, correspond to each other. To the creation of the present heaven and the present earth corresponds the creation of the new heaven and the new earth on the last pages of the Apocalypse. To the first creation, which has as its object the first man Adam, corresponds the new creation which has its outgoing from the second Adam. Thus the Holy Scriptures form a rounded, completed whole; a proof that not merely this or that book, but also the Canon, is a work of the Holy Spirit.” “ ae But Delitzsch confounds here and elsewhere (as also Kurtz) the significance of the biblical book of Genesis, with the significance of the living Divine Revelation that throughout precedes the biblical books themselves and their historical covenant institutions. It might be going too far to say: “The edifice of our salvation reaching into eternity, rests accordingly on the pillars of this book.” : This edifice rests, indeed, on the living, personal Christ, although the faith in Him is effected and ruled by the Holy Writ. In a similar manner it must appear one-sided, when the Pentateuch, as a book, is made the basis of the Old Covenant, or even of the New; although it is, on the other hand, quite as wrong if we do not count the records of divine revelation within the sphere of revelation. F ‘ Lrrezary SuprLeMENnTs To THE Bier Iv GENERAL.—/See Literary Catalogue in Hrrrwio’s Tabellen ; Kurrz: “History of the Old Oovenant,” Introduction ; K1rcHHOFER: Bibelkunde, pp. 1, 2, 19 ff.; Wnver, i. p. 75. Works on this subject by Griesinger, Cellerier, Kleuker.— Korrry: “The Bible, a Book of Divine Wisdom.” Prideaux, Stockhouse, Lilienthal, etc. Brim: “Surveys of Universal History,” Strasburg, 1885; Berrscn: History of the Old Cove- nant and its People,” Stuttgart, 1857. 92 INTRODUCTION TO GENESIS. A. THE PENTATEUCH. § 2. THE PENTATEUCH, OR THE FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES—THE THORAH. ORGANIC UNITY AND ARRANGEMENT. The Hebrew Thorah (i. ¢, doctrine, especially doctrine of the law,—law), or the record of ' the covenant religion of the Old Testament () madatd diaOjxn, 2 Cor. iit, 145 Siadqxn = n73),. has its real principle not so much in the Mosaic law as in the Abrahamic covenant of faith as effected by the first preparation of the kingdom of God in the creation of the world and of man (see Rom. iv. 1, ff.; Gal. iii, 17). Genesis is, therefore, not the introduction to the five books of Moses, especially to the law- giving portion, as Kurz supposes (‘‘Compendium of sacred history,” p. 94; it is true, with the restriction: ‘For the Israelitish standpoint the first book has only the import of an historical introduction”), for this would correspond to a specific and Judaistic view of the Old Testament; but it is the universal foundation for it ; 7. ¢., for the temporary economic particularity of the patriarchal state and of the law-giving. Genesis is the special root of the Thorah, and the gen- eral root of the Holy Writ. Hence the Pentateuch, including this basis, is developed in five books; (Hebraice: mind swan nvion, the five fifths of the law in rabbinical notation, Grece: 4 mevrarevyds se. BiBdos. | Latin: liber Pentateuchus). The number five is the half number ten. Ten is the number of the perfect moral or historical development; five is the number of the hand, of action, of freedom, and so then also of their legal standard. The founding of the law in Genesis unfolds itself in the triple form of legislation. Exodus (liber Exodi ; 4 £030; Hebrew: mints) presents the prophetic side of the law throughout, Even the Tabernacle, whose construction is described from ch. xxxv.-xl., belongs not mainly on the side of the priestly service, but on that of the prophetic legislation of God, as the place of the living presence of the lawgiver, and of the law itself (in the ark of the Covenant; hence: Ohel moed, Ohel haeduth, tent of meeting, tent of testimony). Leviticus (Heb.: nope; Gr.: Aeverexdy) embraces the priestly side of the law, the holy order of service for the Hergelitish people, according to its symbolical and universal significance in its most comprehensive sense, The book of Numbers (Heb.: sataa, Gr.: dp:3uof) is ruled throughout by the idea of the princely or royal encampment of the people of Israel as an army of divine warriors, in which are presented its preconditionings and its typically significant characteristics, revealing, as they do, by mauifold disorder, that this people is not the actual people of God, but only the type of that people. These three fundamental Gard of the symbolical Messianic law, namely the prophetic, the priestly, and the royal, are embraced in Deuteronomy (Heb.: 735, Gr.: Sevrepovopiov), or in the solemn free reproduction of the whole law again as a unity, in snde to point from the sphere of the legal letter into the sphere of the inner prophetic force of the law (compare Deut, iv. 25; ch. y. 15, 21—the ordering of house and wife; ch. vi. 5; x. 18-19; xi. 1; xiv. 1; xviii. 15; at, xxviii. ff. xxx. 6; xxx. 2-14; ch. xxxiii. 2-3), As in Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, the historical period of Israel is opened, so Deuter- onomy points forward to the prophétic period. From the foregoing it appears that we can divide the Pentateuch into three main divisions. ynamely, into Genesis as the universal foundation of the law, next into the particular law that ‘shows, with its Messianic, significant, triple division, the symbolical background of its whole appearance (i. ¢., into the divisions Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers), and finally into Deuteronomy, in which, along ogi the intrinsic character, the universal import of the law again prophet. ically appears. Opservation 1. For the more general category, Historical books of the Old Testament, seé the division in the general Introduction. In respect to the literature, see Literary Catalogue. § 2. THE PENTATEUCH, OR THE FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES, 93 OssERVATION 2. The present division into five books is considered by some (Berthold) as original and peculiar to the Hebrew collection of the Canon. According to others (Hivernick, Lengerke) it proceeds from the Alexandrians. In favor of the first view is the fact that Josephus, who retained the Hebrew canon, was acquainted with this division (contra Apion. i. 8, also Philo). De Wette seems also to incline to this opinion. Michaelis considered this division older than the Septuagint, but not original. According to Vaihinger (sce the article Pentateuch in Hrrzoe’s Real-Lewxicon), the division of the Pentateuch into five books was made before the captivity. But the same learned authority supposes it not to have been made until after the division of the Proverbs of Solomon into four parts, because the conscious influence of symbol- ical numbers had not favored the number five until after that period, as with the division of the Psalms into five books, and the presentation of the five Megilloth. We do not consider this argument conclusive against the earlier division of Moses into five books. The Jew could distinguish a significant number four, and a significant number five, even according to this numerical symbolism. In the Pentateuch the number five seems to have been indicated from the beginning by the variety of the originals. That Genesis is actually in contrast with the following books, and that Deuteronomy is quite as specific, is evident. The fundamental ideas of the three middle books, do not contrast less specifically with each other, as appears from our division, It serves even to a better appreciation of the import of the Tabernacle, when we consider that it is an annex of the Decalogue, and of the whole fundamental lawgiving connected there- ° with, and that, in accordance with this, it is represented in the second book as the place where- in Jehovah, as lawgiver, is present to his people. The contents of the fourth, again, are in strong contrast with Leviticus (as the book of the tribes). The ethical prophetical book of Exodus is especially the hook of God and his prophet. Leviticus, or the book of the divine office, refers especially to the priests. Numbers, or the book of the tribes, more especially con- cerns the people in a theocratic, political sense. OzssErvation 8. If we mark the number ten as the number of perfection, or completion, and consequently the number five as the number of half completion (Vaihinger), such classifica- tion seems much too general and indefinite, since the numbers three, seven, and twelve, are also numbers of perfection, or completion, each in its kind. It will be our duty to treat of symbol- ical numbers in Exodus, Here we will simply anticipate that clearly “the ten words” * indicate moral completion, or perfect development, and so also the ten virgins in the gospel parable. When, however, there appear five as foolish and five as prudent or wise, the number five may indeed mark the number of the freely chosen religious and moral development of life. Five books of Psalms indicate the moral and religious life-prime of the Old Testament, just as the five Megilloth indicate five periods of the development of Israelitish life. The five fingers of the hand are the symbol of moral action, as the five senses symbolize the number of the moral reciprocity of man with nature.—Vaihinger rightly concludes from the significancy of the num- ber five, that the Decalogue should not be divided into_three and seven, but into five and five. OnsErvation 4. Our theological naming of the five books (Genesis, &c.) is the Alexandrian naming of the Septuagint, followed by the vulgate (only that the gender of Pentateuch and Exodus in Greek is feminine on account of Bi@Aos and 6dds, in Latin masculine on account of liber). The five books, which were comprised by the Jews under the above names: the five fifths of the law, were individually designated by them, according to the initial words: Breschith, &c., as this naming has passed into the Masoretic Bibles. But the Jews had also a designation for the five books, according to the contents, 7. ¢., Genesis was called the book of the creation (see VarnIncEr in Herzoe’s Encyclopedia, Art. Pentateuch, p. 293). Oxsservation 5. Vaihinger seeks for the five books of Moses a second half, and finds it in the prophets (law and the prophets, Matt. xxii. 40). This division is interfered with by the inter- vention of the Kethubim. Then he finds the second half in the additional idea of the law as promise in the New Testament, Without doubt, the New Testament is the converse of the Old; that, however, the number five, as such, requires a complement, becomes doubtful by the num- ‘ber of the books of the Psalms, unless we are to consider the writings of Solomon as the comple- ment of these five books of Psalms. It is true, a complement follows the five historical books, in the Apostolic writings of the New Testament. : OxsERvATION 6, It has been maintained by Ewald, Bleek, Knobel, and others, that the basis of the Pentateuch was originally connected with the book of Joshua, and that the work was in six parts (see VaminexR, p. 293; Kurt, Introduction, § 42, p. 148). It is curious that the same criticism which on the one hand considers these books of Moses too large to have been original, on the other hand again thinks them dismembered out of larger, and comparatively modern, historical writings. * [The Hebrew phrase for the ten commandments, 9727/1 mies, , Exodus xxxiv. 28,—T. L.] 94 INTRODUCTION TO GENESIS. § 3. ORIGIN AND COMPOSITION OF THE PENTATEUCH. In the introductory paragraphs on the Old Testament criticism, it has been said, that in treating the point in question, we neither feel dependent on tradition and the orthodox rule, that it is necessary for the belief of the canonical word of God to attribute to Moses all the five books of Moses in the present form (except the report of his death), nor on the critical con- jectures which in various ways, through their false suppositions, their want of intelligence of the more profound relations of the word, and their great divergence from each other, prove themselves unripe efforts. That one must adopt a canonical recension of the originals of Moses (7. ¢., a recension falling within the prophetic sphere of the Old Covenant), appears from the manifold indications of criticism. To these indications belongs, above all, the account of the death of Moses; the judg- ments on Moses, however, as of a third person, which is the object of the statement Ex. xi. 8; Num. xii. 8, seem to us to decide nothing. Then there is the great chasm of 38 years in the history of the wanderings of Israel through the desert (Num. xx.), as also other enigmatical. obscurities (see Vaihinger). Farther, the manifold indications of the combination of various originals in initial and concluding formulas; the marks of a later period (Gen. xii. 6; xiii. 7; xiv. 14; xxiii. 2, at that time the Canaanites were in the land; Dan, Hebron, seem no conclusive characteristics) ; the presumption of a book of the wars of Jehovah (Num. xxi. 14); the great development of the genealogy of Edom carried even to the appearance of its kings (Gen, xxxv. 11). The ambiguity of the expression “wnto this day” (Gen. xix. 87; xxii. 14, ff), is also noticed by Vaihinger. From many false presumptions of criticism on the other hand, it is clear that we cannot yield to its past views. Here place especially the rationalistic starting-point of most critics, and their dogmatic prejudices. This is 1. the prejudice against supernatural revelation in general; con- sequently 2. against miracles; and 8. against prophecies; through these many are impelled to deny to the Pentateuch not only authenticity, but also its historical character. On this point see Dexirzson, p. 46. Here belongs also the ignoring of the great contrast between the names . Elohim and Jehovah, which in its essential significance extends not only through the whole Old Testament (the Solomonic universalism, the Davidic theocratic Messianism), and through the whole New Testament (the Johannean doctrine of the Logos, the Petrine doctrine of the Messiah), but also through the whole Christian church to the contests in the immediate present (ecclesias- tical confession and Christian humanism). At a later period we may speak of some valuable references of Sack and Hengstenberg, to the contrast between Elohim and Jehovah. We also reckon here the supposition, that Moses, the lawgiver, on account of this his peculiar office, could not also, at the end of his career, and in his prophetic spirit, have given a deeper meaning to the law, as he looked out from the legal sphere and over into the prophetic, even as from the mountain Nebo he looked over into the promised land (see the quoted article of VaratneEr, p. 815 ff.). The office of John the Baptist was to preach repentance in the name of the coming Messiah; before his death, however, he became the prophet of the atonement with reference to Christ: Behold the Lamb of God which bears the sins of the world. It is everywhere wrong to assume that a lawgiver has known nothing higher than what he finds within his calling to announce in form of law, according to the degree of culture to which his people have advanced, After these remarks we give a survey of the various views of the origin and the composition of the Pentateuch, with reference to Brenx (p. 161 ff). 1. The older supposition among Jews and Christians, that Moses was the author of the entire Pentateuch. This is also the judgment of Philo and Josephus. Thus the Talmud: “Moses wrote his book, the Pentateuch, with the exception of eight Pesukim, the last eight, which were indited by Joshua. Philo and Josephus even assume that Moses wrote the section concerning his death in the spirit of prophecy. 2. The views of the Essenes, according to which the original theocratic revelation was falsi- § 5. ORIGIN AND COMPOSITION OF THE PENTATEUCH. 95 fied by later interpolations, passed naturally over to the gnostic writings of the Jews, and the Alexandrian gnostics. From this we may explain a similar account of Bleek, relative to the gnostic Valentinus, the Nusorwans (as given by Epiphanius and Damascenus), the Clementines and Bogomiles. The source of these views is everywhere the same gentile, dualistic representa- tion. They also coincide with those judgments of the gnostics, which in their various grades are so inclined to throw away the Old Testament. 8. Doubts of certain Jewish authorities of the middle ages about the authorship of the whole Pentateuch by Moses, Isaac, Ben Jasos, and Aben Esra. The commencement of a genuine crit. icism is seen with them. They accepted, however, only later additions in certain passages, 7. e., Gen. xxxvi. 81. 4, The first critical doubts after the reformation, 16th century: Caristapr: De canonicis eripturis, Moses non suisse scriptorem guingue librorum. Anpreas Mastus: ‘The Pentateuch in its present form is the work of Ezra or another inspired man.”—17th century: Hoszes in his Leviathan: “The Pentateuch a work about Moses, not by Moses, yet based on originals by the hand of Moses.” So also Isaao Pryrenrivs, at first a reformed divine, then Roman and Jesuit: Systema theologicum ex Praadimitorum hypothesi, 1655. Sprvoza in his Tractatus theologico- politicus: ‘Ezra is the author of the Pentateuch and of the remaining historical books in their present form.” Rionarp Srvow: “ Critical History of the Old Testament”: ‘Moses wrote the laws; the history of his time he had written by annalists, from which followed the later com- position of the Pentateuch.” Cxznicvs, in his Sentimens, went still further, though in his “‘ Com- mentary on Genesis” he took it mostly back, holding that only a few additions are Post Mosaic. Anton Van Dale, Menonite: “The Pentateuch was written by Ezra on the basis of the Mosaic book of the law, and other historical documents.”—18th century: At first a long-continued reaction in favor of genuineness: Carpzov, Michaelis, Eichhorn (Introduction, 1-3). Then fol- lowed renewed attacks: Hassz, Professor at Kénigsberg: ‘‘ Prospects of Future Solutions of the Old Testament,”.1785; at the time of the exile the Pentateuch was composed from old rec- ords.” Later retractations (following the example of Clericus), according to which he accepted only additions to the documentary Pentateuch. Fulda, whose conjectures are like Bleck’s; Corrodi, Nachtigall (pseudonym, Otmar), whose sweeping assertions were modified by Ecker- man, Bauer, aud others.—19th century: To great lengths now went Severin the father, and De Wette; these then were variously opposed under the confession of additions and interpolations by Kelle, Fritzsche, Jahn, Rosenmiiller, Pustkuchen, Kanne, Hug, Sack, and others. Reconcil- ing or medium views were presented by Herbst, Bertholdt, Volney, and Eichhorn, 4th Edition. Wethen have the investigations of Bleck: “‘ A few aphoristic supplements to the investigations of the Pentateuch” (in Roszenmitrur’s Repertorium, 1822). Later: “Supplements to the investigations of the Pentateuch ” (Studies and Criticisms, 1831). The proof that a great number of the laws, songs, and similar pieces, were originally Mosaic, was not recognized by Hartman, von Bohlen, Vatke, and George. Bleek wrote against von Bohlen: De libri Geneseos Origine, &e., Bonn, 1836. The complete Mosaic composition of the Pentateuch was on the contrary again maintained by Ranke, Hengstenberg, Drechsler, Hivernick, Wette, Keil, and Ludwig Konig. Movers and Bertheau here follow with peculiar investigations and views. Tuch, in his com- mentary on Genesis, follows in all material respects the views of Bleek, who also designates the labors of Stihelin, De Wette, Ewald, and von Lengerke, as the latest investigations of the Pen- tateuch. The latter is eclectic, leaning on Bleek, Tuch, Stahelin, Ewald, and de Wette, Stihelin passes over the authorship of Moses himself, and makes as the basis of the Pen- tateuch and the following books an older writing, which extends from the creation to the occupa- tion of the land of Canaan. The recension of the day falls in the time of king Sanl, and may have been by Samuel or one of his pupils. De Wette, in the edition of his Introduction, 5 and 6, supposes 2 threefold recension of the ; whole work, at the same time with the book of Joshua, 1. the Elohistic, 2. the Jehovistic, 3. Deuteronomistic. The latter made at the time of Isaiah. The sources of the first treatise could have been partly Mosaic, though it is questionable ifin the present form. Ewald (History of the People of Israel): “by Moses, originally, there was but little—merely 96 INTRODUCTION TO GENESIS. the tables of the law and a few other short utterances.” Bases of the present form of the Pen- tateuch : four or five books involved in each other. See below the treatises on Genesis. Kor, in the ‘History of the Old Covenant,” in the supplement to Delitzsch, has taken the view that Moses did not write the Pentateuch, but only the passages in the middle books where something is expressly given as written by him, and besides that, Deuteronomy, ch. i.-xxxii,; the Pentateuch, however, was written partly under Moses, and partly under Joshua, or not long after Joshua.* Buirex (pp. 188 ff.) has given very interesting and evident proof of genuine Mosaic originals, in Leviticus, Numbers, and Exodus. At first it is shown of the sacrificial law, Leviticus i-vii., that it comports in its literal acceptance only with the relations in the wilderness, as appears from the contrast expressed in such phrases as “in camp and outside the camp,” ‘Aaron and his sons,” “heads of their fathers’ houses” (Ex. vi. 14), &c. In Leviticus xvi. it is commanded that one of the goats shall be sent into the wilderness. Similar indications of originality are found Lev. xiii., xiv., &c. Bleek judges in the same way concerning the relations of the camp in Num- bers, ch. i. ff. Here may be added single songs, viz., the three songs, Num. xxi.—Then are quoted, however, many signs as traces of the later composition of the whole: Gen. xii. 6: “and the Canaanite was then in the land” (comp. Gen. xiii. 7). Gen. xxxvi. 31: “‘and these are the kings that reigned in the land of Edom, before there reigned any king over the children of Israel.” Gen. xl..15, Joseph says: “I was stolen away out of the land of the Hebrews.” In Gen. xiii. 18, the city of Hebron is mentioned. According to Joshua xiv. 15; xv. 13, the city was formerly called Kirjath Arba (comp. Gen. xxii. 2; xxxv. 7; see also the note on Hengsten- berg’s declaration, according to which it is possible that Hebron was the oldest name of the city). In Gen. xiv. 14, the city is called Dan, on the contrary we read Judges xviii. 29: “The Danites gave to the city of Laish the name Dan.” Ex. xvi. 35; Num. xv. 82, 36; Deut. i. 1; it- 12; iii, 2, &c. Bleek counts here also the law respecting the king, Deut. xvii. 14-20. Again, laws in Deuteronomy, which seem to anticipate the sojourn in Canaan: Deut. xix. 14; ch, 20. Besides these the repetitions: Ex. xxxiv. 17-26; comp. ch. 21-23; Ex. xvi. 12, comp. Num. xi- &c. Then there are apparent disagreements, such as Num. iv.: “ Period of service of the Levites from the 30th year to the 50th; —again, ch. viii. 23-26: “From the 25th to the 50th year.” Still further: ‘‘ unnatural position of separate sections,” ¢ g., Ex. vi. 14-27. Also the chasm in the account from Num. xx. 1-20, where a space of 87-88 years is omitted. Finally, the im- probability that Moses would leave behind an historical work of such extent. We have already, in the General Introduction, given the results of Bleek’s investigations, which we cite as fruit of the untiring diligence of an honest, acute, and pious investigator, without considering them absolutely evident (namely, what concerns those parts where the force of the prophetic predic- tion seems ignored, or where the acceptance of repetitions and contradictions might be the result of a want of insight into the construction of the books). The article Pentateuch, by Var- HInGER, in Herzoe’s Real-Encyclopedia, appears to us very noteworthy in a critical point of view, With respect to the present condition of the discussions in question, we refer to the aforesaid labors of Bleek in his Introduction, to the article by Vaihinger, to the supplements by Hengsten- berg, to the Introduction to the Old Testament by Keil, and to the Introduction to Genesis by Delitzsch. A carefully prepared tabular presentation of the various views, may be found in Hertwig’s “ Tables to the Introduction to the Old Testament,” p. 26 ff. After the above general remarks, we might, for the present, here come to a close, since we have again to treat of the separate books of the Pentateuch in the proper place. One consider- ation, however, which seems to us of special importance, and which might not receive its full attention, is the internal truth of the religious periods of development, as ecclesiastical theology has long shown it in the outlines. That the Jewish religion does not begin with the Mosaic legislation, but with the Abrahamitic promise, is presupposed in the New Testament, and is also based upon the nature of the case. The patriarchal religion is characterized as the original * We make cursory mention of the criticism of Sérensen, who, with his Commentary on Genesis, forms a parallel to the assertions of Bruno Bauer on the gospels of the New Testament. See Kuntz: History of the Old Covenant, pp. 48 and 53. § 8. ORIGIN AND COMPOSITION OF THE PENTATEUCH. 97 of an inner life of revelation and faith, according to its beginnings in the sphere of life, as devel- oped in chosen heads of families. It is clear that this theocratic religion of promise must be distinguished again from the earlier universalistic religion, which it presupposes. It must also present itself objectively in a form of law, externally commanding for a whole nation grown up in slavish oppression and moral desolation. Since this rested, however, on the basis of an inner character in the chosen ones of the people, it was necessary that there be a transition period, (by means of the impulse of the inner life of faith), from the legal stage to the period of a new and more general internal feeling, 7. ¢., to the prophetic period. When finally the spiritual life of this prophetic period became more general, according to the popular measure among the pious of the nation, then it was necessary to make the records of it, in their entirety, effective for the canonical guidance of the national life. The course of the development of the Christian church forms throughout a parallel to this legal development of the Old Testament economy, and it lies in the slow manner of this development, that its separate stages must be indeed last- ing historical periods. But what follows from this, in reference to the literature of the individual periods? It is clear that Genesis, in its essential character, does not point, in the least, beyond the patriarchal standpoint. It consists of originals, which partly represent the universalistic view of the primitive religion, partly the theocratic view of the religion of promise, Though these originals may not have been conceived until the age, of Moses as fixed and lasting traditions in the house of Abraham, it appears settled that a Genesis could not have been invented in the prophetic period, nor even in the transition period (from Samuel to Elijah), nor, indeed, in the legal period. The intercourse of the Abrahamites with the Canaanites, the relations of race, the religious forms, everything speaks against it. The book of Job, it is true, transfers its rep- regentations from a later period into an earlier one, or into what is still a universalistic relig- ious faith-view; but with all the art of representation, how openly appears the more developed religious stage which points to the period after Solomon. In view of the sacredness of the originals of Genesis it is not probable that their compilation into one work should have fallen beyond the age of Samuel, or even that of Moses. As regards further the three books of the law (Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers), they bear in: their entire contents so decidedly the impress of the stern legal standpoint, that only the com- pilation of them (not, however, the collection of their material parts) could fall beyond the Mosaic age. Finally, as above shown, it is not all inconsistent with, but corresponding to, the spiritual life, if we suppose that towards the end of his days, and in his prophetic character, Moses may have prepared the way, through a series of original writings, for the mediation of his legislation: with the future period of prophetic subjectiveness, and thus laid the foundation of the transi- tion period beginning with Samuel. The moulding of these originals then belonged to a later period. Should, however, Deuteronomy have been made in the prophetic period, it must have unfailingly betrayed itself through Messianic traits, if not in reference to the personal Messiah, at least in reference to the Messianic kingdom, which is not in the least, the case. The frequent quotation of Mosaic passages in the prophets (see Delitzsch, p. 11 ff.) may cer- tainly prove the existence of such written originals, not, however, the existence of the respective books in their present form (Vaihinger, p. 318). The fulness of these quotations ever remains: a proof that the written sources in question had such a degree of sacredness and respect, that we: cannot easily assume that at a period, later as compared with the quotations, they had been dis- membered in the most various manner, and then again, as new material, been worked up into new books. That the service in High Places was not completely abolished until the time of Hezekiah, is no proof that Deuteronomy, with its prohibition of this service, did not appear until his time (Vaihinger). In the same manner the manifold apostasy of the people from Jehovah would speak against the authenticity of the legislation from Sinai itself.* It must be taken into. consideration, that the legal nature of the Mosaic faith would urge, in the most decided manner, * The silence about Korah, Deut. xi. 6, is explained as forbearance towards the remaining children of Korah,, the deyout Korahites, who afterwards appear so prominently as psalm-singers, » 98 INTRODUCTION TO GENESIS. to the putting in writing and settlement of all definitions and explanations of the law. But from this it does not follow, as Delitzsch maintains, p. 6, that the Post-Mosaic history shows no traces of developments of law. The sacerdotal regulations of David, and many other things, contra- dict this. It is perhaps also taken too little into consideration, that the contact of the Israclitish ~ traditions with Egyptian refinement and the art of writing must have exerted an immense influence. The periods of Joseph and Moses were certainly, therefore, more given to writing than many a later one. According to the degree of its religious development, its marks of inward depth, and its indications of universality (as it appears, notwithstanding the great theocratic severity of the book), according too to its stately, poetic, and sententious style, has Deuteronomy, as it seems to us, an unmistakable affinity with the literature of Solomon in its wider sense, ag it, together with the three works of Solomon, comprises also the book of Job (comp. also the Prayer of Solomon, 1 Kings viii. 22). We must, therefore, suppose that the recension of it belongs to the transition period from, the legal to the prophetic era, which extends from Samuel to Elisha. The stern vindication of the unity of the place of worship, ch. 12, appears even to presuppose the founding of Solo- mon’s temple; as the regal law, ch. 17, certainly appears in its coloring to point to the errors of Solomon. The same is true of the strong and zealous words against those who mislead to apostasy. If we adhered to this point of view we might set Deuteronomy beside the Song of Solomon and the 45th Psalm (v.11). On the other hand, it is hardly credible that a Jewish ‘author, after the apostasy of the ten tribes, should have invented such a superabundant blessing on Joseph as we find pronounced in Deut. xxxiii. 18.* Moreover, it is also not easily credible that a theocratic spirit which, toward the end of the period of the Judges, compiled the originals of the lawgiver Moses, should not also have compiled the Deuteronomic originals of his later days. On the ancient character and Egyptian recollections of Deuteronomy, see Delitzsch, pp. 23 ff At the time of Jesus Sirach (180-180 3. 0.) the Old Testament was extant in its tripartite form as a closed canon (Preface, ch. 7). At the time of Nehemiah (444 3. 0.) Deuteronomy -was already compiled, also the constituent parts of the Pentateuch (Neh. xiii. 1; 2 Mace. ii. 13, ‘speak only of a collection of holy books on the part of Nehemiah). At the time of Ezra (458 -B. 0.) there was developed a documentary learning, which extended to the law, 7. ¢., to the legal writings of Moses (Ezra vii. 6-10). For this reason tradition has placed the closing of the canon in the time of Ezra and Nehemiah. At the time of Josiah (639-609 3B. 0.) Deuteronomy was again found in the temple as a law- ‘book of an older period (2 Kings xxii. 8; 2 Chron. xxxiv. 14). It is not at all improbable that just this book, with its emphatic curses of idolatry, was the one that was forgotten or concealed ‘in tho depths of the temple at the time of the idolatrous king Manasseh (comp. ch. xxxiii. 7), The various conjectures which modern criticism has connected with this circumstance proceed from the mpérov yetdos that the Old Testament theocrats were at that time hierarchs in the medieval sense, and might have permitted a piu fraus. And so, ‘according to Vatke, ‘aust the law have been made about this time. At the time of the king Hezekiah (725 ff.) “his men” collected the addenda to the proverbs of Solomon (ch. xxv. 1); this, however, ‘was not its beginning. Such a collection of the proverbs of Solomon presupposes far earlier ai - * [This remark, and the thought with which it is pregnant, are abundantly sufficient to do away all the reasons pre- sented just above for assigning the book of Deuteronomy to the literature of the Solomonic period. What is said about ‘the connection of Deut. 12th with the founding of Solomon’s temple, and of Deut. 17th with the law respecting the royal office, and other things of a similar kind, would, if true, show something more than a mere recension with oc- casional scholia. The remark of Lange, that Moses towards the close of his life wrote and spoke in the prophetic spirit, ‘which, whethgr real or imagined, is most cvident from the style of the last part of Deuteronomy, fully accounts for all ‘this to one who receives the Bible as containing the prophetic and supernatural, What is said, too (p. 97), of the absence of Messianic allusions in Deuteronomy, though intended to prove, as it does most conclusively, that the writing of it could not have been as late as the express prophetic period, would also exclude it from the Davidic or Solomonic, That the Messianic idea had then come in is evident from.sych passages as 2 Sam. vii. 13-16, the last words of David, 2 Sam. xxiii, 5, together with 1 Kings ii. 4, 23. It was, at least, the idea of a Messianic kingdom and of a never-ending royal succes- sion. Ifthe book of Deuteronomy had been written, or even compiled and corrected, in the time of Solomon, or later, such an idea would never have been omitted, or left without any trace.—T. L.] § 4, THE PENTATEUCH OF THE SAMARITANS, 99 collections with respect to the Psalms and the books of the law. Hence Isaiah can about this time go back with his prophecy to the predictions of Deuteronomy, With the wonderful dis- appearance of Elijah (896 8. ¢.) is in reality the purely legal period closed. His shower of fire, prefiguring the end of the world, is followed by the prophetic period, which the vision of Elijah on Horeb, and much more the labors of Elisha in his healing miracles, had presignalled. Elijah looks backwards as the final landmark of the death-bringing and destroying influence of the law; Elisha looks forwards with evangelical omens which the evangelizing words of the Messi- anic prophets must soon follow. When David was departing this life (1015 B. 0.), he could already lay-to the heart of his son Solomon, the law of Moses as a written one (1 Kings ii. 8). The promise of the typical Messiah-king (2 Sam. vii.) presupposes already the promise of the typ- ical Messiah-prophet (Deut. xviii. 15), and the promise of the Messiah-priest (Deut, xxxiii. 8 ff.), i. ¢., determinate originals of Deuteronomy; since the prophets and priests are present in Israel before the kings. ~° Oxszrvation. It is not with entire justice that Kurtz remarks (History of the Old Covenant, 1, p. 46): “It is an historical fact that stands more firmly than any other fact of antiquity that the Pentateuch is the living foundation, and the necessary presumption, of the whole Old Testa- ment history, not less than of the entire Old Testament literature. Both of these, and with them Christendom, as their fruit and completion, would resemble a tree without roots, if the composi- tion of the Pentateuch were transferred to a later period of Israelitish history.” * Does the Old Testament theocracy rest then on the completed compilation of scriptural books, or, indeed, on writings at all, or does it not rather rest on the living, actual revelation of God, which pre- ceded all writings? And now all Christendom! The church also rests, indeed, not on the authenticity of the New Testament books, but on the living revelation of God in Christ, although it is regulated by the canon of the New Testament. Moreover, it is well verified that the Pen- tateuch, as the earlier foundation, is attested by all the following scriptural books. The inter- nal testimony of the Pentateuch to the written compositions of Moses, to which Kurz, after Delitzsch, refers, is also of great import. He has also justly remarked that the canonical charac- ter of the scriptural books would stand firmly, even if Ezra were to be regarded as their com- ier. : The whole of the present question is largely influenced by the distinction between the rec- ords of Elohim and Jehovah, to which we must return in the introduction to Genesis. § 4, THE PENTATEUCH OF THE SAMARITANS, It is a fact that the Samaritans (sce article in question in Herzog, Winer, d&c.) distinguished themselves from the Jews by having a Pentateuch different from theirs in many particulars, * [The importance of this remark cannot be overrated. The Old Testament is 2 unity of designed falsehood through- out, or it is a unity of historical truth. The patched-up legendary view of mingled traditions, subjective fancies, pure errors, and later compilations made from them, cannot account for it. The idea of an entire and continued forgery might theoretically explain its existence, were it not for one thing, namely, its utter incredibility beyond any of the marvellous contained init. I would require a superhuman power of inventive falsehood. The supposition of a forged Pentateuch, at whatever time made, demands a forged history following it, a forged representation of a consistent national life growing out of it, a forged poetry commemorative of it and deriving from it its most constant and vivid imagery, a forged ethics grounded upon it, a forged series of ‘prophecy continually referring to it, and making it thg basis of its most solemn warn-- ings. There must have been a specific forgery of an incredible number of minute events, episodes, incidental occurrences, having every appearance of historical truth, of countiess proper names of men and places, far too many to be carried down by any tradition,—a forgery of proverbs, national songs, memorials, apothegms, oath-forms, judicial and religious observ- ances, &c., &c., all made to suit. Itisincredible. No human mind, or minds, were ever capable of this. There is no place for it to begin or end, unless we come square up to an admitted time of an existing, historical, well-known people, for whom all this is forged, and who are expected to receive it, and who do receive it, as their own true, veritable history, antiquity, and national life-development, although they had never before known or heard of it. : 5 The idea of compilations from the legendary and the mythical explains well those early fabulous, indefinite, and unchronological accounts of other nations, which are sometimes spoken of as parallel to what is called the mythical, of the Hebrews. Nothing, however, could show a greater overlooking of what is most peculiar in the Hebrew Scriptures. The statistical and strictly chronological character of the Old Testament utterly forbids the parallel. It shuts us up to the conclusion of its entire forgery, or its entire truthfulness and authenticity. Ifthe first is incredible, as even the Rational- ists are compelled to acknowledge, the second must be true. There may be points, here and there, where such a general view may be supposed to be assailable, but the mind that once fairly receives it in its most general aspect, must find in it a power of conviction that cannot easily be disturbed. It compels uséo receive what may be called the natural facts of the Bible history, and then the supernatural cannot be kept out. Such a people and such a book lying in the very heart of history, and regarded in its pure human aspect, or simply in its natural and historical-marvellous, demands the super- natural as its most fitting, and we may even say, its most natural, accompaniment and explanation.—T. L.] 100 INTRODUCTION TO GENESIS. and that they possessed, and still possess this, regar¢ ng it as the only Holy Writ (other separate writings, ¢. g., 2 Samaritan book of Joshua, differeny from the canonical, are of no special im- vortance). This is to be mentioned here for the reason that the existence of this Pentateuch might, on tbe one hand, support the authority of our canonical Pentateuch, and on the other hand might also create a prejudice against it. The earlier composition of the Pentateuch has been ‘inferred from the circumstance that the Samaritans had a Pentateuch in common with the Jews. The Samaritans, it was supposed, received their Holy ‘Writ asarelic of the Israelites of the ten tribes, whose remains mingled with theirs; this explains why they possess only the Pentateuch. The Israelites, as separated from the kingdom of Judah, accepted from the Jews no other sacred writings, in consequence of their national hatred. Therefore the Pentateuch must have been extant before the separation of the two kingdoms (Jahn). If now Vaihinger is of opinion that this demonstration is contradicted by the proof of Hengstenberg that the Samaritans pro- . ceeded solely from heathen colonists, and not from-a mixture of Jews and heathen, the argument itself is not duly established ; for this matter compare the article “Samaritans” in Winer. Again the circumstance that the Samaritan Pentateuch contains elements which are intended for the glorification of their mountain Garizim, does not oblige us, with Petermann (see article “ Sama- ria” in Herzoe’s Real-Encyclopedie), to transfer the whole present compilation of the Pentateuch to the time of the separation of the Samaritans from the Jews, that is, between Nehemiah and Alexander. If we presuppose among the Samaritans a far earlier existence of the Pentateuch, according to its present entirety, nevertheless the paganizing character of the people, which vacillated between overstrained judaistic institutions and a heathen fondness for fables, would prefér the interpolations which are peculiar to their versions. On the other hand, it is not easy to per- ceive why the ten tribes, on the separation from Judah, should have been in possession only of the Pentateuch. Moreover, the great harmony of the Samaritan Pentateuch with the Septuagint, permits the inference of earlier Jewish revisions, which would make the old text more pleasant to the pagan culture of the period, by avoiding anthropomorphisms and anthropopathisms. Therefore Vaihinger assumes that the Samaritans first received their Pentateuch through Ma- nasseh, son of the high-priest, as Josephus calls him (Archeology xi. 7,2; comp. xiii. 9,1), who fled to them and drew many Jews with him to apostasy. Welte also assumes (see the article “Samaritan Pentateuch” in the Church-Lexicon of Catholic Theology, by Wetzer and Wutrz), that the Samaritans first received their Pentateuch through that Jewish priest, who (according to the account of Nehemiah), went over to them as the son of the high-priest Jehoiada, and be- came the first high-priest of their newly-erected worship on the mountain of Garizim. At the time of this priest, or later, a more acceptable, falsified compilation of the Pentateuch might easily have crowded out a purer and more ancient one; for it is neither historical that the Samaritans until then had been pagans, nor probable that they, as worshippers of Jehovah, had remained without a book of the law. The Israelitish priest, sent to instruct them in the religion of the land, might also have taken charge of the Hebrew service under the form of image and calf- worship. So much, however, is certainly clear, that the careful perseverance of the Samaritans in the legal stage, even after the coming in of an imperfect hope of the Messiah, their want of a living development under the influence of a prophetic spiritual life and prophetic writings, with their careful reverence for the Pentateuch, is very significant testimony that the Pentateuch belongs essentially to a legal period that far preceded the prophetic one. That the deviations of the Samaritan Pentateuch cannot injure the authority of the Jewish masoretic one, appears from their manifold harmony with the Septuagint, from their moderniz- ing character, as well as, finally, from the manifest falsifications, which have not spared even the Decalogue. For further particulars in reference to this subject, see the articles in the Real- Encyclopedias of Herzoa, and of Wxrzzr and Wetre; also the article “ Samaritans” by Winzr, which latter refers especially to Grsuntus: De Pentateuchi Samaritani origine, indole et aucto- ritate, Halle, 1845. : § 6. THE CHARACTER OF GENESIS. §5, THEOLOGICAL AND HOMILETICAL LITERATURE ON THE PENTATEUCH. See Warton, Biblioth. theol. iv. p. 444 ff. The Universal Worterbuch, by Danz, under the article ‘‘ Pentateuch,” p. 754; also the supple- ment, p. 81.—Winer, Theol. Literature i. p. 196 ff.; Supplement, p. 81 fi._—Kunrz, History of the Old Covenant, pp. 22 and 58. A survey of the writings on the Old Testament in Keil’s In- troduction (p. 61) to the Pentateuch, p. 64.—Separate works: Clerict Commentarius in Mosis Prophete libros v., Tiibingen, 1733. Motpennaver, Translation and Explanations of the Books of Moses, Quedlinburg, 1774 to 1775. Jerusalem, “ Letters on the Mosaic writings and Philoso- phy,” 8d ed., Braunschweig, 1783. Huss, “History of the Israelites, and Moses in particular,” see Danz, p. 675. Vater, ‘‘ Commentary” (1802-1805), 8 vols. Ranke, ‘Investigations of the Pentateuch,” 2 vols., 1834-1840. Hrnesrznsure, ‘‘ Authenticity of the Pentateuch,” 1886-1839. The same: “The most important and difficult sections of the Pentateuch explained,” 1 vol. “History of Balaam and his Prophecy,” Berlin, 1888. The same: “The Books of Moses and Egypt,” with supplement ; ‘“‘ Manetho and the Hyksos,” Berlin, 1841. E. Berruzav, “The seven Groups of Mosaic Laws in the three middle books of the Pentateuch,” Gétiingen, 1840 (the writings of George, Bruno Bauer, The Religion of the Old Testament, Vatke), Baumearren, “Theolog. Commentary on the Old Testament,” 2 vols., Kiel, 1848. Kurz, “History of the Old Covenant,” 1 and 2 vols., 2d Ed., Berlin, 1858. Biur, ‘“‘Symbolik of the Mosaic worship,” Heidelberg, 1837. Also other works to be hereafter named, referring to the Mosaic worship. Knoszt, “Genesis, Exodus, and Leviticus;” also “‘ Numbers, Deuteronomy, and Joshua;” “ Con- cise Manual,” Leipzig, 1861. Drxirzsom and Krit, “ Biblical Commentary on the Old Testa- ment,” Ist vol. “‘Genesis and Exodus,” Leipzig, 1861; 2d vol. ‘ Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuter- onomy,” Mecklenburg. Scriptura ac Traditio, Commentarius perpetuus in Pentateuchum, Leip- zig, 1839. Schuschan Eduth, 7. e., ‘Exposition of the five books of Moses,” Heb. and German, with notes by ArNuerM.—Herzheimer, 1853-1854. Thorath Emeth, “The five books of Moses,” by Hernemany, Berlin, 1853. The works on “Church History,” by Nararis ALEXANDER, and many other older theologians, especially of the reformed church; also Lutheran, Buddeus, &c. ; Catholic, Stolfberg, &e.—Homiletical, see Winer, ii. p. 115 ff. “Sermons,” by Hounsauu, Bat- DAUF, SarLer, &e. ZrnzenDorF, Extracts from his ‘‘ Discourses on the five books of Moses and the four Evangelists.” Published by Clemens, 9 vols., 1763. Bryzr, “ History of the Israelites in Sermons,” 2 vols. Erfurt, 1811. G.D. Krummaouer, “The Wanderings of Israel through the Wilderness,” Elberfeld, 1828. Mrvrur, “ Moses, the servant of God. Spiritual Discourses,” ~ Leipzig, 1886. Appuun, ‘Moses, the servant of God,” Magdeburg, 1845. Oosrzrzzn, ‘‘ Moses, 12 Sermons,” Bielefeld, 1860. Treatises on the Doctrine of Immortality of the Old Testament, especially that of Moses, and on the separate books, will be mentioned in their respective places. B. A SPECIAL VIEW OF GENESIS. § 6. THE CHARACTER OF GENESIS. If we can regard as the conclusive mark of the genuine canonicity of the scriptural books, - the fact that the spirit of divine revelation (which in the historical sphere has gradually entered into human nature until the perfect union of the Godhead and humanity) has appeared, and that this spirit, consistently progressing, has entered into human writing belonging to revelation, then it appears quite in accordance with nature that such a spirit of revelation has, in Genesis, united with the very earliest and most childlike form of human authorship, and that it does not manifest itself as a completed sacred work of art of theocratic Christian authorship, until the end of the whole biblical literature in the Apocalypse. The accounts of Genesis, taken in their human aspect, seem like loosely arranged and simple narratives of childlike speech, in con- trast with that perfect symbolical composition of the Apocalypse, whose deep significance surpasses the comprehension of the most celebrated judges. But though Genesis forms a self- 102 INTRODUCTION TO GENESIS. inclusive and connected whole, which sheds a bright, divine, infallible light over all beginnings of primitive time (see § 1), we nevertheless see therein the fact that here the living God has, in the most emphatic sense, prepared his praise “out of the mouth of babes and sucklings.” At the same time this fact gives us a satisfactory solution of the character of inspiration; how at every period it is perfect in the sense, that on the divine side it is continually the voice of the same divine spirit (and in truth of a spirit which completely commanded, in their respective tasks, those human minds that were apprehended and held by its influence), whilst, on the human side, it was to proceed from the imperfection of childlike, pious utterance and story, through a series of degrees, until it had reached the full adult age in the new covenant; and all this the more so, as on the line of its chosen ones it had continually to break through the opposi- tion of human sinfulness, which ever surrounded its nucleus of light with colored borders and shadows. With respect to what is centrally fundamental in the Old Testament books, it may be said, that one Godlike thought, or thought of God, ranges itself on the other, in proportion to the degree of divine revelation, or to that of human development. As regards the outer circle of these writings, we may find them burdened with all kinds of human imperfections, if we will judge them according to the New Testament, or draw them on the model of practical historical writing, or of natural science, &c. We must then, however, at the same time, well understand that those supposed imperfections are controlled by the principle of revelation in the books, and that, in our criticism of the style of revelation, we toil towards heterogeneous points of view. Such a process has a relative justification only in presence of an orthodoxy which emphasizes the said literal meanings in order to make from them abstract history, geography, natural science, &c., for the authoritative belief. Genesis corresponds now to its design, according to which it is the revelation of God con- cerning the origin of the world, of mankind, of the fall, of the judgment, and the redemption. Not only that it presents these origins purely in their ethical idea and physical development, in accordance with the monotheistic principle, but also that whilst on the one side it clearly brings out the periods in the economy of the preparatory redemption (Adam, Seth, Enoch, Noah, Shem, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph), and connects these periods with persons, wholly in ac- cordance with the principle of personality in the kingdom of God (according to which each par- ticular form of religion is the form of a covenant between the personal God and the personal man); it also presents practically, on the other side, the great contrast between universalism, according to which God is Elohim for all the world and all mankind, and theocratic particular- ism, according to which He is Jehovah for His chosen ones, His covenant people, and His king- dom of salvation, in its full redemptory historical significance. Thus the history of Genesis passes through a series of contrasts, in which that particularism, which in the second book of Moses becomes legal, appears ever more defined, whilst, at the same time, there is seen more clearly the mutuality of this economic particularity and of the teleological universalism as it rests on principial universalism (Genesis, i—iii.). Thus the promised seed of woman, ch. iii. confronts the fall of the human race, Then the line of Cain with its God-forsaken, worldly culture (ch. iv.) is confronted by the line of Seth with its sacred worship, elevating the duration of life (ch. v.). The line of Seth was to become a salvation to the line of Cain, but the former conduces to the perdition of the latter through its overhasty carnal and spiritual intercourse (ch. vi.). The house of Noah in the ark forms then a contrast to the mass of mankind sinking in the flood; but even to these the saving of the ideal humanity in Noah’s house was to be of advantage, according to 1 Peter, iil. 19, 20. A new and twofold contrast is then formed among the sons of Noah; to the contrast of piety, and pious culture, and barbarism (Shem and Japheth as opposed to Ham), is presented now the contrast of a one-sided worship (Shem) blest of God, and of a one-sided culture, also blest of God (Japheth). The culture of Japheth is no longer accursed, as that of Cain; after its propagation in the world, it is to return to the tents of Shem and be brought into unity with the perfected faith of revelation (ch. ix.). Thus is the forma- tion of the contrast between theocracy and heathendom introduced, as it is unfolded on the basis of the universal genealogical table (ch. x.). With the development of heathendom (ch. xi.) is contrasted the founding of theocracy (ch. xii.). That, however, the contrast thus opened § 6. THE CHARACTER OF GENESIS. 103 is no absolutely hostile one, appears not merely from the preventive thought of the dispersion of nations (Gen. xi. 6-7), but rather from the whole series of antitheses against heathendom, or heathenish characteristics, which now runs through the life of Abraham., The first antithesis is formed between Abraham and his father’s house, with its heathenish indecision in respect to the true faith (ch. xii.), His father, Terah, was already on the way to Canaan; but he let him- self be detained by the fertile Mesopotamia. The second antithesis of Abraham is Pharaoh in Egypt and heathen despotic caprice (ch. xii.). The third antithesis is Lot and heathen selfish- ness and worldliness (ch. xiii.). In the fourth, Abraham meets the heathenish, robber-like war- fare, with the liberating holy war of freedom, and, in consequence of this, is greeted by the prince of heathen piety, Melchisedek, as the prince of the theocratic faith (ch. xiv.), Then the antithesis enters into the very house of Abraham himself. Not the son of his faithful servant Eleazer shall be his heir (ch. xv.), not the son of his body begotten of Hagar the maid (ch. xvi.), not even his posterity itself in unconsecrated birth ; no,—circumcision must distinguish between the consecrated and the unconsecrated in his own life and race (ch. xvii.). So far the contrast be- tween Abraham and the heathen world is clearly softened through the light of peace, as he, in . decd, has been separated from the heathen world, in order that in his seed all races of the earth may be blest (ch. xii.). Pharaoh and Loft, and the men allied to him in war, were no godless heathen ; Melchisedek could even surpass him in certain respects. But now the contrast opens between Abraham and a Sodom ripe for judgment. Abraham, the highly favored confidant and friend of God, pleads for Sodom in an extremely persistent manner. His intercession shows in what sense he is chosen, and at least profits Lot and his daughters (ch. xix. xx.). The position of Abraham in respect to Abimelech of Gerar is again no contrast between bright day and dark night; the weakness of Abraham in the duty of protecting his wife, is contrasted with the ar- bitrariness of Abimelech in matters of sex (ch. xx.). In what a mild light, however, appear Tshmael and Abimelech (ch. xxi.), and Hagar, to whom also the angel of the Lord as such ap- peared at an earlier period in her great necessity (ch. xvi.)! And later, Abraham must distinguish between the human sacrifice, as offered in the heathenish spirit, and the theocratic devotion of the soul (ch. xxii.), as he was previously obliged to distinguish between unconsecrated and con- secrated connection of sex, generation, and birth. The manner in which Abraham buries Sarah _ is not the heathen manner of interment; and so also his seeking a wife for his son has its the- ocratic traits (ch. xxiii. xxiv.). The antipathy against heathendom, together with a friendly relation to the heathen themselves, runs throughout the life of Abraham, as this meets us finally in the children of his second marriage. Here follows now the great contrast between Isaac and. Ishmael. Ishmael cannot be the theocratic heir; he has his inheritance, however, and also his blessing. The same may be said of the contrast betweén Jacob and Esau. The latter is only rejected under the point of view of the theocratic hereditary power ; he also has his blessing. Finally, a contrast is even formed between Joseph and his brethren. And then also between Joseph and Judah ; and Judah becomes inferior to Joseph the very moment he gives himself up as security for Benjamin (ch. xliv. 18 ff). Thus in Genesis throughout there is presented the relation between theocratic particularism and heathendom. The heathen element is rejected, ~ what is noble and pious in the heathen is acknowledged. The bond of humanity in relation to the heathen ‘is retained in illustration of real sympathy, just reception, and kindly treatment. But where the economic particularism, ordered by God, tends to become a human or inhuman, pharasaical fanaticism (as in the crime of the brothers Simeon and Levi at Shechem), there the. spirit of revelation pronounces through the mouth of the patriarch a verdict of decided con- demnation (ch. xxxiv. 80; xlix. 5-7). Already, therefore, does Genesis constitute an economic and conditional contrast between Judaism and Heathendom, and consequently also a religion which is at the same time theocratic: in its particularism and human in its universalism, resting, as it does, on a self-revelation of" God, according to which he is, on the one hand, the God of the whole world and all nations; on the other hand, the God of the chosen ones, the God of Israel, of his covenant people, of his. kingdom. The simplicity with which Genesis presents the whole history of antiquity in biographical: 104 INTRODUCTION TO GENESIS. forms, is, at the same time, its sublimity. Its God is a personal God, and its world and history do not consist of persons who are puppet images of impersonal things, but of personalities from whose reciprocal action with God are developed the real relations. Thus is unfolded that his- tory of the heroic acts of faith, with which the old heroes of the faith introduce the revelation, piece by piece, into the world, according to Heb. xi. The faith of Adam and of all primeval mankind in the creation, is followed by Abel’s faith in sacrifice, Enoch’s faith in immortality, Noah’s faith in judgment and deliverance, Abraham and Sarah’s faith in promise, the faith of Abraham in a resurrection, and the faith in hope and blessing of the patriarchs in general. Abraham, however, is especially the father of the faithful, because he not only believed for him- self, as Melchisedek did, but also for his race (Rom. iv.). He is, consequently, at the same time the man of active obedience to the faith, the man of deed or doing. Isaac, on the contrary, is the type of all sufferers or waiters in faith. In the life of Jacob finally, acting and suffering in the faith alternate in the most manifold style, 7. ¢., he is preéminently the faith fighter, or one who fights the fight of faith; his name Israel implies this. In the wonderful story of providence which expresses itself in the history of Joseph, we meet, more decidedly than in the life of Jacob, the type of humiliation and exaltation, which hereafter continues to be the basis of the conduct of the faithful, and which finds, therefore, its last and highest fulfilment in Obrist. The characters of the twelve sons of Jacob are individually presented to us in such firm and practical features, that we receive the decided impression that we have everywhere to do with persons, not with personifications. Those critics who will transfer the personifications of heathen mythology to patriarchal history (Nork, Redslob, &c.), overlook the great world-histor- ical contrast, according to which the heathen consciousness has lost itself in the impersonal, the material, the worldly; whilst the history of theocratic consciousness is the history of the religious spirit raising itself above nature, or of the self-comprehension of significant personalities in the communion of the personal God. For this consciousness, the remembrance of great per- sons was more indelible than that of great masses of people ; the remembrance of great personal experience of faith, and of deeds of faith, more important than that of great events. As the mono- theistic faith was peculiar, so also was the monotheistic memory. The faith of the patriarchs could not have become the religion of the future, had it not struck correspondingly strong roots in the past. Their faith in the future went beyond the end of the world; their faith-remindings - were, therefore, obliged to go back beyond the beginning of the world. ‘ We must not forget that the illumination of God corresponded, throughout, to the inquiries and efforts of the religious spirit of man. Therefore visions were seen backwards as well as forwards, and the power of personal interest explains the gradually retroceding prophetic significance of many names, Supplement. The nomenclature of Genesis, see in the translation itself. § 7, SOURCES AND COMPOSITION OF GENESIS. A. ParTRIARCHAL TRADITION. Genesis, which in its age surpasses all monuments of old religious literature, although the oldest manuscripts of it do not go back of the ninth century after Christ (see Duxrrzson, p. 5), comprises a space of more than 2,000 years (according to Derirzson, p. 4, comp. p. 15, 2,306 years). In its contents it touches only the beginnings of the art of writing; * its real basis can therefore be no other than tradition, or sacred legend, and even this is not sufficient, in so far ‘it goes back beyond the origin of the human race to the beginning of the creation. Genesis has, therefore, in the first place a basis, which precedes all human tradition. This ‘basis rests without doubt on divine communication; the only question is through what human “mediation. These communications of the earliest chapters of Genesis, which precede all prime- * For the art of writing among the Hebrews, compare Hencstznzrne: “ Authenticity of the Pentateuch,” i. p. 415; “Winer: “ Article: the Art of Writing ;”? Dexirzscu, pp. 20, 21 (especially against Von Bohlen and Vatke). The Egyp- itians had at that time already a priestly and secular literature. « § 7 SOURCES AND COMPOSITION OF GENESIS. 105 val traditions, Kurz has referred to a prophecy looking backwards. Delitzsch does not contest the prophetic, but the vision conception (609). This contrast does not rest on a good prophetic psychology, for it appears from many passages of the scripture that the human side of the facts of revelation is always the vision,—the vision, as in so far the human mediation of all prophecy. See Introduction, § 88. Sacred legends are ranged beside the visions of the past; legends, not in the sense of the mythological system (in which legends follow myths, as a concrete heathen morality follows a conercte heathen dogmatics), but narratives of the patriarchs in a religious symbolical form. The process of this tradition would in the highest degree be placed in doubt, if we were to sup- pose a series of ordinary generations through 2,000 years. But we are here speaking of long- lived men who continued through centuries (concerning the subsequent abbreviation of the line of generations, that communicated the ancient sacred legends, see Zann, ‘‘the kingdom of God,” p. 38, and the precious words of Luther and Hamann, p. 24), of patriarchs, whose favorite think- ing was religious contemplation, hope, and recollection, of heirs of the faith, whose most sacred inheritance was the religious legacy of their ancestors, of sober anti-mythological spirits, by whom, with the fable-matter of heathendom the fable-form also was hated in their very soul. It lies, however, in the nature of the case, that for the beginnings of the art of writing there could be known no more pressing use than the fixing of the sacred legends in sacred memora- bilia. B. Tse DIrreReNce BETWEEN THE SECTIONS OF ELOHIM AND THOSE OF JEHOVAL. The character of Genesis itself seems to refer to the difference of said memorabilia in con- nection with the fact that in it the name Elohim (God) alternates in a very remarkable manner with the name Jehovah (to which neither the translation: the Lord, nor the Eternal, clearly corresponds). It is the same in Exodus to ch. xiv. 6. We have first concisely to present.the fact, then the critical endeavors to explain it. With respect to the fact itself, Delitzsch distinguishes from three to four classes of sections, p. 68. Comp. also the supplement to his commentary. 1. Sections in which the name Elohim either pre- dominates or is exclusively used. % 2. Sections in which the name Jehovah either pre- dominates or is exclusively used. Exouistic Sections. JEHOVISTIC SECTIONS. Ch. ich. ii. 8. The world and man under the universal cosmo-genetic point of view. Ch, ii. 4-ch. iii. 24, Man, the Paradise world, the loss of Paradise, and the beginning of the economy of salvation. Theocratic point of view. Ch. iv. Eve’s theocratic hope. Abel’s theocratic sacrifice. Cain’s banishment and the Cainites under the ban of sin. At the conclusion (ver. 25) Eve thanks Elohim for her son Seth, because her theocratic hope seems darkened. The calling upon Jehovah revives with Enos, son of Seth, ver. 26. Ch. vy. Tholedoth of Adam. The Sethites. The religious men of the universal religion of the first era. Verse 29. Glance at the judgments of Jehovah. Ch. vi. 9-22. Tholedoth of Noah. He with his three sons and their posterity are to be saved. Therefore universalistic. Ch. vii. 10-24. The beginning of the flood. The _entrance of Noah with the pairs of all flesh is ordered by Elohim, but Jehovah, the deliverer of the theocracy, shuts him in, as God of the Covenant. Ver. 66. Ch. viii. 1-19. The egress of Noah from the ark as egress of mankind and of the beasts ; universalistic. Chap. ix. 1-17. Blessing on Noah and the new race ofman. Universal right of man. Universal covenant of divine mercy with men. Universal sign of peace, the rainbow. Universalistic. Ch, vi. 1-8. The destruction of the first race of man. The Lord rejects the old race, but Noah finds favor with him. . Ch, vii. 1-9. The deliverance of Noah, through en- trance into the ark, guaranteed on account of his up- rightness. The special command, that the clean ani- mals shall enter the ark by seven pairs, with reference to the theocratic covenant of sacrifice. Ch. viii. 20-22. The thank-offering of Noah and the resolution of Jehovah to have mercy on mer. The order of nature now theocratic. Ch, x.-ch. xi. 81. The genealogical table. Jehovah only twice mentioned, ch. x.; with reference to Nim- rod, ch. x. 9; and twice, ch. xi., with reference to the confusion of languages at Babel. Theocratic. 106 INTRODUCTION TO GENESIS. Ch. xvii. 9-27. The order of circumcision on the part of Elohim. The founding of the covenant of cir- cumcision for all the posterity of Sarah (¢. g. Esau) and also for Ishmael. Universalistic. Ch. xix. 29-88, A glance at the destruction of Sod- om, with reference to the deliverance of Lot, and the incest with his daughters. Moab. Ammon, Univer- salistic. Ch. xxi. 1-21. Ishmael’s expulsion. Jehovah. Mostly universalistic. Only ver. 1, Ch. xxi. 22-24. Abraham’s covenant with Abime- lech. Only ver. 83, Jehovah. Ch. xxv. 1-18. Sons of Keturah. Abraham’s death. Tholedoth of Ishmael. Ver. 11, Elohim blesses Isaac. Also with reference to Esau. Therefore universalistic. Ch. xxvii. 46-xxvili. 9. Jacob’s wandering. Esau’s marriage. Once Elohim, once El Schadai. Ch, xxx. Rachel. See the mixed Sections. Ch. xxxi. Jacob’s departure from Laban. Only ver. 3 and 49, Jehovah. Ch, xxxiii. Jacob’s return. Ch. xxxv.11. God blesses Isaac. with reference to Esau. Ch. xli-l. History of Joseph in Egypt. (Only ch. xlix. 18, Jehovah.) Exodus, i. and ii. Israel’s oppression in Egypt. Universalistic. Universalistic, “With Elobim alternate in these sections El Scha- dai, and El in combinations, as El Elohe Israel, ch. xxxiii, 20 and El Beth-Hl, ch. xxxv. 7 (comp. Jehovah El Olam, ch. xxi. 33), or El by itself, ch. xxxv. 1, 8; only one single time Adonai, ch. xx. 4.” Ch. xii. 1-ch. xvii. 8. Abraham’s call, ch, xii. 1-8, The protection of Sarah in Egypt, ver. 10-20. Abra- ham’s settlement in Bethel and separation from Lot, ch. xiii, The deliverance of Lot, ch. xiv. It does not alter the character of the section that Melchisedek calls on El Elion. Abraham praises Jehovah as El Schadai (a name which forms the transition to the name of Jehovah, according to Ex. vi. 8). The cov- enant of Jehovah with Abraham, its condition, the righteousness of faith, ch. xv. Sarah and Hagar, with reference to the heir of promise, ch. xvi. The Lord as the Almighty God, ch. xvii. 8. Throughout theo- cratic. - Ch. xviii-xix. 28. The appearance of Jehovah to Abraham in the plains of Mamre. Jehovah’s judg- ment on Sodom. Theocratic. Ch. xxiv. Isaac’s marriage. Ch. xxv. 19-26. The twins. Ch. xxvi. 2, 12, 24,25. Theocratic testimonies and promises. Ch. xxix. 81-35. Jehovah takes Leah into favor, The covenant God in reference to the covenant sons. See the mixed sections. Ch. xxx. 25-48. New treaty between Jacob and Laban. Ch. xxxviii. Jehovah punishes the sons of Judah. Ch. xxxix. Jehovah with Joseph in Egypt. Once Elohim. See the mixed sections. Exodus iv. 15-81. Return of Moses to Egypt. Theo- cratic, : Exodus v. Pharaoh’s scornful treatment of the messengers of Jehovah. Theocratic. “« Among these sections, Gen. ii. 4 till ch. iii, is dis- tinguished by the predominance of the name Jehovah Elohim, which in the whole Pentateuch only again oc- curs in Ex. ix. 30. The name of Elohim is found in that section only in the mouth of the serpent and of the woman. There are very few exceptions to the pre- vailing use of Jehovah in the remaining sections, and these are partly necessary, or of easy explanation. Adonai alternates most frequently with Jehovah (al- ways in the address), ch. xviii. 8, 27; 80-88; ch. xix. 18. Both combined, Adonai Jehovah, is Jehovistic Deuteronomic, Gen. xv. 2, 8; Deut. iii, 24; ix. 26, and nowhere else in the Pentateuch. The two sections are also distinguished by the alternation of the Elohistic with El as the Jehovistic with Adonai (comp. however, Adonai in the mouth of Abimelech, ch. xx. 4).’—Dz- LITZSCH. 3. Mixed sections, in which there is the use of Jehovah and Elohim as equally divided. Ch. ix. 18-27. enlarge Japheth.” Important passage: ‘“ Blessed be Jehovah, the Elohim of Shem. May Elohim § 7 SOURCES AND COMPOSITION OF GENESIS. 107 Ch. xiv. Melchisedek is a priest of El Elion, and blesses Abraham in this name. But Abra- ham speaks in the name of Jehovah El Elion. Ch. xx. £lohim punishes Abimelech. The latter addresses him as Adonai. Ch, xx. 1-19. Also Abraham speaks of the fear of God (Elohim). He prays to Elohim for Abimelech’s house; for Jehovah, the protecting God of Abraham, has closed up the wombs of the mothers. Ch. xxvii. The words of Isaac as reported by Rebecca: to bless before Jehovah. Jacob: Jehovah, thy God. Ver. 27 and 28 remarkable. Jacob is already theocratically blessed by Jehovah, Isaac gives him universalistically the blessing of Elohim. Ch. xxviii. 10-22. The angels of God. Iam Jehovah, the Elohim of Abraham and the Elohim of Isaac. Jacob: Jehovah is in this place. Here is Elohim’s house. Further on: So God will be with me. Ch. xxix, 81-xxx. 24. Jehovah takes Leah into favor with reference to the theocratic sons. And thus she gives the honor to Jehovah. The blessing of fruitfulness in itself is the concern of Elohim. Ch. xxx. 2. Rachel speaks of the blessing of Elohim (comp. ch. xxxi. 34). Elohim gives ear to Leah in reference to the birth of the fifth and sixth son. Rachel thanks Elohim for Joseph, but she pleads for another son from Jehovah. Ch, xxxii. Elohim of my father Abraham, Jehovah.—Thou hast wrestled with God and with man. He named the place Peniel, for I have seen Elohim face to face. Ch. xxxix. Jehovah is with Joseph in Egypt. Joseph says to the wife of Potiphar: How should I sin against Elohim ?—Jehovah is also with Joseph in prison. Ver. 21. 4, Latent sections, in which no name of God appears, Ch. xi. 10-32; xxii. 20-24; xxiii. (exception ver. 6: Thou art a prince of God [Elohim] among us, Ch. xxv. 1-10: God blesses Isaac. Universalistic with respect to Isaac’s entire pos- terity). Ver. 12-20; 21-24; 27-84; ch. xxvii. 41-46; xxix. 1-30; xxxiv.; xxxvi.; xxxvii.; xl. ; Ex. ii. 1-22. ‘The name of Elohim as characteristic of entire large sections disappears from Exodus vi. 2 to ch. vi. 2 (the preparation of Moses and Aaron for their calling). Nevertheless a few allusions are still found, among which is prominent the small Elohistic section Ex. xiii. 17-20 (beginning of the wanderings of Israel).”—Drzirzsou. According to the foregoing, the name of Jehovah appears so entirely in a theocratic relation, and the name of Elohim so entirely in an Elohistic one, that we might easily assume these various relations to be there intended where their Hebrew and canonical subtility escape the eye of the critic. [This exegetical distinction in the divine name is quite old, but it is only of late that it has been made to assume much importance in interpretation. It has been favored in Germany by two widely different schools. Those who set the least value on the idea of inspiration find here a fancied support, not only of what is called the documentary theory of Genesis, but also of their favorite notion of earlier and later periods in the composition of the whole, and even of particular parts. The other school, denying this inference, at least in the extent to which it is carried, are still fond of the distinction as favoring the notion, or rather, we may say, the precious doctrine, of a twofold ‘aspect in the divine relation to the world, or universe at large, in contrast with that which is borne to a divine people chosen out of the world from the very beginning, and continued in its subsequent history, as a means of the ultimate regeneration of the world, and of nature regarded as disordered, or under the curse. Hence the terms universalistic and theocratic. Elohim has regard to the first aspect; Jehovah, or Jahveh, to the second. Admitting the distinction, we may still doubt whether it has not been carried, on both sides, to an unwarranted extent. The first view is already curing itself by its ultra rationalistic extray- agance. It reduces the Old Scriptures not only to fragments, but to fragments of fragments in most ill-assorted and jumbled confusion. Its supporters find themselves at last in direct opposition to their favorite maxim that the Bible must be interpreted as though written like other books. For surely no other book was ever so composed or so compiled. In the same portion, presenting every appearance of narrative unity, they find the strangest juxtapositions 108 INTRODUCTION TO GENESIS. of passages from different authors, and written at different times, according as the one name or the other is found in it. There are the most sudden transitions even in small paragraphs having not only a logical but a grammatical connection. One verse, and even one clause of a verse, is written by the Elohist, and another inimediately following by the Jehovist, with nothing besides this difference of names to mark any difference in purpose or in authorship. Calling it a com- pilation will not help the absurdity, for no other compilation was ever made in this way. To make the confusion worse, there is brought in, occasionally, a third or a fourth writer, an editor, or reviewer, and all this without any of those actual proofs or tests which are applied to other ancient writings, and in tho use of which this “higher criticism,” as it calls itself, is so much inclined to vaunt. : The other school is more sober, but some of the places presented by them as evidence of such intended distinction will not stand the test of examination. What first called attention to this point was the difference between the first and second chapters of Genesis, In the first, Elohim is used throughout; in the second, there seems to be a sudden transition to the name Jehovah- Elohim, which is maintained for some distance. This is striking; but even here the matier has been overstated. In the first chapter, we are told, the name Elohim occurs thirty times, with- out a single interruption; but it should be borne in mind that it is each time so exactly in tho same connection, that they all may be regarded as but a repetition of that one with which the account commences. We should have been surprised at any variation. In this view they hardly amount to more than one example, or one use of the name, carried through by the repetition of the conjunctive particle. Thus regarded, the transition in the second passage is not so very striking. It is not well to say that anything in the composition of the scriptures is accidental or capricious, yet, as far as ‘“‘the Bible is written like other books,” we may suppose a great variety of causes that led to it as well as the one assigned. It might have been for the sake of avi euphonic variety, or to avoid a seeming tautology. It might have been some subjective feel- ing which the writer would have found it difficult to explain, and that, whether there was one writer or two. Again, it might have been that the single name suggested itself in. the first as more simple and sublime standing alone, and, in this way, more universalistic, as it is styled ; whilst in the second general résumé the thought of the national name comes in, and the writer, whether the same or another, takes a holy pride in saying that it was the national God, our God, our Jehovah-Elohim, that did all this, and not some great causa causarum, or power separate from him. There might be a feeling of nearness in respect to the one.name that led to its use under such circumstances. So in the New Testament, Christ is a wider name than Jesus, less near, less tender and per- sonal ; and this difference may have led to the almost unconscious, yet still real though subjective, choice of the one rather than the other under varying circumstances. Something made Paul especially fond of the name Jesus, though he generally attaches it to Christ. So this name occurs alone more frequently in John than in the other Gospels. It is found more in some parts of one Gospel than in others, and yet this would be very poor evidence that such parts were by different authors. The cases may not be perfectly parallel, yet they present sufficient resemblance to show how insecure is any argument for or against authenticity that is based on such a distinction. In the parallelism of passages presented by Lange, some are quite striking, and it would seem rational to suppose that the more general or the more national feeling, as it predominated in one or the other, may have occasioned the difference in the suggestion and the use of the names. Again, there are other cases given, in which it is not easy to discover this, and even some where the reasons assigned would seem capable of a direct reversal. Thus, in Gen. x., the genealogical table of the nations has the name Jehovah and is pronounced theocratic. Of itself it would seem to be just the other way. So the mention of Nimrod becomes theocratic, and yet what name more remote from the idea of the people of God. Equally inconsistent would be that view, or that argument, which ranks the ordinance of circumcision in Abraham’s family as universalistic. Surely if there is any one thing preéminently theocratic, it is this, and yet the name here used is Elohim. Another example: the blessing of Isaac by Jacob is put in the uni- versalistic or Elohistic column. The inconsistency of this, with any rigid theory of the names, § 7. SOURCES AND COMPOSITION OF GENESIS. 109 is attempted to be explained by saying that it was with relation to Esau. This only shows, however, if it has any weight at all, that the same event may stand in relation to either aspect, according as it is viewed from this or that standpoint—a concession that would destroy the exegetical value of a large number of these references, although enough might remain to show that there was some good ground for the distinction. —T. L.] C. Tue Orv Testament Names or Gov. The diversities of the name of God presented in the preceding paragraphs, induce us to pref- ace the further discussion with a short treatise on the names of God in the Old Testament. We divide them into three classes. 1. Universalistic: E.ontm, Ex Exoau, Ex Enron, Ex Sonapai, Exonm Zepaoru. In respect to p»q>y , see below. x, very old Semitic name of the Godhead. A name of Jehovah, Num, xii. 18 ff., &c. Also of the gods or idols of the heathen, Isa, xliv. 10, 15, &e. For Jehovah, usually Ha-el bx (Gen. xxxi. 18), or El Elohim. Jehovah El Elohim. El Elim. Dan. xi. 86. Or El with epithets: yisby, snui, pbiv, &c., on account of the universality of the name itself. Thence also El Israel, El Jeshurun. Usual derivation from 44x to be strong. According to First 54x, a primitive. It occurs in many proper names. iby, is predominantly poetical, instead of the plural Elohim; namely, in the Psalms, Job, Isaiah, Habakkuk, as also in later writings: Daniel, Nehemiah, Chronicles, Additional formation from 4x mainly occurs with secondary attributes: God of Jacob, God of strong-holds, strange God, &c. Most frequently in the plural, ovndy, 1. It is used of the true God, especially with the article. It is construed with the singular of the verb, though also with the plural, Gen. xx. 18. Afterwards this con- struction with the plural was avoided as sounding polytheistic. 2. As protecting God or covenant God, referring to Abraham, Israel, &c., with other epithets, indicating the absolutism and universality of God: God of the heavens and the earth, God Zebaoth, &c.—In such relations it was also used adjectively, in order to indicate the highest, e. g., mountain of God. 38. Of heathen gods, when more closely defined by the context. So also, 4, though only conditionally, of vicegerents of God; kings, judges, angels; such examples very doubtful. In these cases there is, however, an adjective, symbolical signification. Concerning the derivation, Delitzsch says, p. 80: “ Elohim is plural from Eloah, customary only in the higher poetic style, and this is not from the verb mR, to be strong, formed from 54x, but is an infinitive noun from mbx in the signification of the Arabic aliha, to fear.” * We decidedly prefer the objective derivation to this subjective one (from the fear of God); since all other names of God have an objective derivation; this is especially so with the prefix * [The subjective derivation of p*nbx, which connects it with the ideas of fear, or terror, has an interest for some interpreters, becauso it reduces the old Hebrew feeling to the level of the heathenish SecovSatpovia, or superstition, which is so different a thing from the M13" MN, the loving reverence, or “fear of the Lord,” of the Old Testament. The connection with the Arabic aliha is far-fetched. It is the same root, doubtless, but worship, or religious service, in alaha, and terror in aleha, are later and secondary senses; just as that of swearing is a later or derived meaning both in the Hebrew and the Arabic usage. The idea of creative power is most fundamental in the word : a great being dwelling in the Heavens above, and who made and rules the world. With this are easily associated adoration and awe, but the idea of terror is foreign to every conception that Genesis gives us of the Sethitic and patriarchal life. Enoch’s “walking with God,” the calm, hély communion of Abraham and Jacob! nothing could be more opposed to the idea and the feeling of the Greek SerriSatpovia. ’ Power, greatness, vastness, height, according as they are represented by the conceptions of the day, carried to the farthest extent allowed by the /nowledge of the day ; this is the idea of El and Elohim, as scen in the etymological congtuity of the epithets joined to them in Genesis. There are three especially that Lange has mentioned and which thus denote power or greatness in its three conceivable dimensions of space, time, and sublimity (or rank) : ss oR Cl Shaddai), Deus omnipotens, or Deus sufficiens, DO1Y DX (El Olam), Deus eternitatis, ye bs Gl Elion), Deus allissimus—m avroKpartp —xpérioros, aidvios, Syuoros. Our terms infinite, absolute, &c., add nothing to these in tdea, though modern science may be said (and yet even that may be doubted) to have enlarged the attending conceptions of the sense or the imagination. For the derivations of Allah by Arabic writers and philologists, see SPRENGER: ‘‘ Leben und Lehro des Mohammed,” vol. i. p. 286.—T. L.] 110 INTRODUCTION TO GENESIS. El.—E]l Elion yinby, superior, supremus, toros ; E] Schadai, »yui potentissimus. Plur. Excell. aww, rad. 1, Septuaginta, mavroxpdrwp. Vulgate, omnipotens. Elohim Zebaoth, ny ND. . Singular x2. 1. The host of heaven, the angels, 1 Kings xxii. 19; 2. Sun, moon, sat stars, Deut. iv. 19 &.; 8. generally all beings, Gen, ii. 1; Neh. ix. 2. God can make all things his hosts. Elohim Zebaoth is in so far the most universal designation of God.’ 2. Theocratic: Jenovan, Jan, Ex Sonapar, Apowar (Matuacn Jznovan), 737". a, The pronouncing the name: the very sacred name of God as the covenant God of Israel. Through superstitious fear, the Jews early began to avoid pronouncing this name, Such a motive seems to be the ground of the translation of the Septuagint («ipsos for Jehovah). | Subsequently a prohibition of the utterance of this name was, by false exposition, supposed to be found in the Commandments, Ex. xx. 7, and Lev. xxiv. 11 (Philo, Vita Mosis, tom. iii.). Thence they designated this name as Tetragrammaton, as uj simply, or as winbsn pw, and read in place of it »24x , Hence also the Masorites punctuated the text-name pin* with the vowels of Adonai, whereby the compounded Schewa became, according to the rules of Hebréw gram- mar, a simple Schewa. On the combination, however, of the word with prefixes, the A-sound again appeared. Instead of Jehovah the Samaritans said Schimah, that is Schem (name). But where Adonai Jebovah occurs in the text, there they read Adonai Elohim. In consequence of thus avoiding the utterance of this name, the original pronunciation of it has been called in question. On this point compare the lexicons (Diodorus on the word Jao; the Samaritans, ac- cording to Theodoret, Jade; Jao in Clemens Alex. ; in Michaelis and Hélemann Jehovah, Reland Jahve) and Delitzsch, p. 68. According to Caspari (on Micha the Morathite) one has the choice between M15 (M317) M57 (4575). Delitzsch decides for Jahavah. b. Origin of the name. For its derivations from foreign religious names, compare Gesenius, Delitzsch, but especially Tholuck: “ Miscellaneous Writings,” 1-vol. p. 37'7.—Here the deriva- tion of the name from foreign names of gods is distinctly denied. But the origin of the name, as the full development of its significance, coincides clearly with the origin of the theocratic consciousness. 8. Etymological signification of the name. The verb lying at the bottom of it is an ancient one, but subsequently became prominent again, nin = 45h, Delitzsch asserts that his word does not signify éwva: but yiyvec%at, Jehovah, therefore, him‘ whose Ego is an ever self-continuing one.” Is then this the signification of yiyyeo%a? And-might not a future of yiyveo3at contain the progressive idea of an ever becoming God? But the future of min cannot exactly indicate the existing one (Hengstenberg). It indicates one who is ever to be or to live; who is ever going to be or live. With the future, in effect, its present is at the same time fixed, as in Ebjeh ascher Ehjeh (Ex. iii. 14). And this then also refers back to a. Gonrespanding past. Hence the true realistic interpretation of Revelation i. 4, 8: 6 dv kal 6 fv Kal 6 Sextnedioy (a cor- respondence with the inscription of the temple at Sais: ey elus 7d yeyovds kal dv Kal éodpevov). In earlier times some were disposed to find the three tenses in the form of the word itself; but this was an ignoring of the grammar. 4. Theocratic signification of the word. We have already observed above, that the name Jahavah expresses the theocratic relation of God (as the God of revelation and the covenant) to his people, in contrast with the universalistic designation of the name Elohim. Jor more on this head, sce below.—m» abridged from myn, or proceeding from an older, or abridged pronunciation of the word smn. It occurs especially in the poetic and solemn style, hence Hallelu-Jah. Besides, Jah, like El, is found in many proper names. "IR Lord. In this form it is used only of God, whilo the human possessor or lord is called wy (from yx allied to 44), The form Adouall is explained by many as Pluralis majestatis, by 5 ee as a suffix of the plural: my lords = my lord, and farther lord absolutely, which explana- tion Gesenius prefers, for weighty reasons. The word especially occurs 1. in addresses of God, 2. in self-presentations of God, 8. in treating of God generally, and, indeed, frequently with the addition of Jahavah or Elohim.—About the phrase 7 yb sce the proper place. 8. Theocratic universalistic designations. JmnovaH ee JEHOVAH ZEBAoTH, FATHER. Jehovah Elohim indicates the covenant God of Israel as God of all the world (1 Kings xviii. 21). From the signification of Jehovah it is plainly evident that Elohim is also Jehovah. Oomp. § 7. SOURCES AND COMPOSITION OF GENESIS. 111 Ex. vi. 8, Jehovah Zebaoth. When the God of the kingdom of salvation summons the hosts of heaven and of earth to realize his judgments and the aims of redemption, he is called Jehovah Zebaoth.—nx Isa. xiii. 16; xiv. 7, &e., God as the source of the spiritual existence of Israel, especially of its spiritual life. D. Etoum axp JEHOVAL. The scholastics of the middle ages were mainly of opinion that the Trinity was indicated in the name of Elohim, 7. ¢., the idea of the God of revelation (Petrus Lombardus, especially). The Jewish author of the book “ Cosri Rabbi Jehuda Hallev,” of the twelfth century, taught, on the contrary, that the name Elohim had a relation antithetical to the heathen plurality of Gods (which had arisen because the heathen made a God of every appearance of godlike power in the world). The name Elohim was thus the most general name of the Godhead; Jehovah, on the contrary, the covenant God. This distinction has been brought back again in our time by K. H. Sack: De usu nominum dei wrmbs et mim in libro Geneseos, in his Commentationes ad theologicam historicam, Bonn, 1821.—To this may be added the treatise of Hengstenberg in his work: ‘ Contributions to the Introduction to the Old Testament,” vol. 2d, entitled: “ The Names of God in the Pentateuch,” p. 181. Hengstenberg makes the word Jehovah, as future form, Jahve from the Hebrew min=n"n, But that this future shall have only the signification “‘ the Being,” does not appear from the examples connected with it, Jacob, Israel, Jabin.* Rather do these examples give to the future here the significance of the being which is continually realiz- ing itself, consequently of the being who is going to be, and thus also the passage, Rev. i. 4, interprets the name. Jehovah is the God who becomes man in his covenant-faith- fulness, or that which is, and which was, and which is to be. Accordingly then es the name Elohim (not as plural, but as denoting intense fulness) expresses the truth that is * found in heathendom, or the concrete primeval monotheism, whilst Jehovah, on the contrary, expresses the peculiarity of the Jewish religion, whose God, in the power of his being ever re- maining the same with itself (that is his truthfulness) enters into the absolute future form in the becoming man, so again does the name Jehovah Elohim embrace in its higher unity both Judaism and heathenism, whilst it so far represents Christianity as already budding in the Old Testament (Lance: “ Positive Dogmatics,” p. 56). The pluralt Elohim has been variously explained. 1. Baum@arreN (Richers): It is numerical * [The names to which Dr. Lange here refers are all Hebrew futures in form, 3P3%, Saws, 73", butitis not easy to see how any inference could be drawn from them in respect to the divine name. The letter " in some of them may be merely prosthetic—in others it may merely indicate something hopeful or prophetic in the naming.—T. L.] t [There may be a question whether it is strictly a plural at alJ, as thus frequently used, and not a very early euphonic abbreviation of the construct phrase mambr-ds a8 We find it occurring in all its emphatic fulness, Ps. 1. mn DorbN bs God of Gods Jehovah (El-Elohim Jehovah) God of all superhuman powers, or of all that may be called Gods. The easy doubling of the 4 of which the Hebrew furnishes such plain examples, and its being, from its peculiar liquidity, pro- nounced as one, would be im favor of such an idea. It is thus in the word mevbbn, which is pronounced hallelujah, if we give to the 5 its double sound, though it is written menabbn, as though it were to be pronounced ha-lelu-jah. The regular piel-form would be bn hal-le-lu. An analogous case is furnished by the manner in which the divine name has come to be written and pronounced in the Arabic. It is in full aS ST Al-elah or Al-alah, with the article, and so it is un- derstood etymologically, whilst it is not only pronounced, but written, x { Allah. So pubs by El-Elohim, by vowel changes easily explained, might come to be pronounced rapidly pinbby El-llo-him, then El-lo-him, and finally Elohim, so as to become identical in appearance with the simple plural form of mx . We are reminded here of that unusually solemn invocation Josh. xxii. 22, twice repeated, MN? OTbN bx, El Elohim Jehovah—El Elohim Jehovah. The question is whether the two first are to be taken as separate, or to be read together as one name, Deus deorum. Raschi and Kimchi take the latter view, though Michaelis thinks it is forbidden by the accent pisik, which is very slightly disjunctive. We need not, however, pay much attention to it when it is thus disregarded by the best Jewish commentators. This was the solemn pronunciation, resorted to on very solemn occasions}; but this does not forbid (it rather favors) the idea, that the ordinary pronunciation was but a rapid abridgment of the formula. The name yds dx El-Elion might have suffered the same abridgment, but for two reasons: it is much less common, and the more indelible guttural 2 stands in the way. There is something like it in the joining of " with M°s3" or M151", so as to make it Jah-jah-vah, as we find it in a few places of more solemn and emphatic import. The fact that plural verbs or plural adjectives, as in Josh. xxiv. 19, are in a few cases joined with pds, where it undoubtedly denotes the One God, does not militate seriously against this view. The phrase by such abbreviation hay- 112 INTRODUCTION TO GENESIS. or collective, and denotes originally God, including the angels, or God in as far as he reveals himself and works through a plurality of spiritual beings. The first definition has a sense dif- ferent from the second and sounds almost polytheistic. 2. Horman, partly opposed and partly agreeing: The plural is abstractive, neutral ; it is the Godhead including a spiritual plurality as the media of an immundane efficacy. 3. ABeN Ezra: An original designation of the angels, then Plur. majestaticus as a designation of God. 4, Original designations of the Gods, then designa- tion of God (Herper). 5. Drxitzson: Plural of intensity. God as he who in his one person unites all the fulness divided among the Gods of the heathen. Finally, Detrrzscu again approaches Petrus Lombardus: One cannot say, without effacing the distinction of both Testa- ments, that ninbds is Pluralis trinitatis ; but it may be said with perfect correctness, “the 7ri- nitas is the plurality of Elohim which becomes manifest in the New Testament” (see Detrrzscu: Genesis, p. 66 ff.). We assume, on the contrary, that Elohim relates to the circumferential rev- elation of God in the world and its powers (Isa. xl. 28), as Jehovah relates to the central rev- elation of God in Christ.—Concerning the name Jehovah, Delitzsch declares: “I am, notwith- standing Hengstenberg (Revelation, i. p. 86) and Hélemann (Bible Studies, vol. i. p. 59), still of the opinion, that minn indicates not so much the becoming as the being (this should read: not so much the being as the becoming), or naturally not him whose existence, but whose revelation of existence, is still in the process of becoming.” According to Baumgarten and Kurtz, Elohim designates the God of the beginning and the end, Jehovah the God of the middle, 4. e., of the development moving from the beginning to the end. Delitzsch coincides: “‘ The creation is the beginning and the completion of everything created, according to its idea, is the end. The kingdom of power is to become the kingdom of glory. In the midst lies the kingdom of grace, whose essential content is the redemption. fim» is the God who mediates between middle and end in the course of this history, in one word, the Redeemer.” And yet the name moreover of the unfolded trinitas ? How then could Jehovah, he who was, is, and is to be, be analogous to Jesus Christ, yesterday, to-day, and in eternity? Jehovah is also in the beginning of things and from eternity (sce Ev. John, i. 1), as also at the end of days (Ehje ascher Ebje, Ex. 3); Elohim reigns also through the whole course of universal history. We repeat it: the pure and harmoni- ous contrast of Elohim and Jehovah will be recognized only in the contrast of the universalistic and the theocratic revelation of God and idea of religion,—only in the combination of Melchise- dek and Abraham, of human culture and theocracy, civilization and churchdom (not civilization and Christianity, because Christianity embraces both, just as the religious consciousness of faith in the Old Covenant). Therefore it is worth the while to follow the change of the two names through the Old Testament beyond Exodus, vi. 8. We can only give hints for this. It is to be expected, accord- ing to our distinction, that the universalistic books, Koheleth, Daniel, Jonah, have Elohim almost exclusively. And also that the strong theocratic historical books, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, have mainly Jehovah. In the Proverbs of Solomon the wisdom of God is represented as tending from the founding of the world to theocracy (sce ch. ix.) and to the founding of a right theocratic deportment; hence we find Jehovah. Also the book of Job, in its prosaic introduction, proceeds from the basis of the Jehovah faith; it becomes, however, in its poetic element universalistic with the name El Eloah. The change in the Psalms is remarkable. De- litzsch remarks on this point, p. 83 (comp. also Gesenius, Thesaurus): ‘‘ We meet in the Psalter with a similar appearance as discussed in my Symbola ad Psalmos illustrandos (1846). The Psalter is divided into two halves, into Elohim-Psalms (Ps. 42-84), which mainly, and almost exclusively, use the name pmb, and besides are fond of compound names of God, and into Je- hovah-Psalms, which include these, and with few exeptions use the name Jehovah. To infer ing got the form and sound of a plural, grammatical euphony might, in a few cases, produce its syntactical connection with a plural verb or adjective. The idea of there being anything polytheistic in this common use of Elohim, even if we regard it as a plural, is not only at war with the whole spirit of Genesis, but also with the inference to be derived from all the Shemitic languages. Allah in the Arabic, Eloha in the Syriac, are singular, like the Hebrew Eloah, and there is to be found, neither in their earlier or their later usage, any trace of a plural as thus used. Surely the religion of Abraham, os given through the Arabic by Mohammed, is not more monotheistic than as given through the Hebrew by the author of Genesis.—T. L.] § 7. SOURCES AND COMPOSITION OF GENESIS. 113 different authors from the use of Elohim or Jehovah, would here be an error; for though the Asaph-Psalms are all Elohim-Psalms, we have from David and the Korahites Psalms of Jeho- vah as well as of Elohim. One and the same author at one time (?) pleased himself in the use of the divine name Elohim and at another time in the use of the divine name Jehovah. This cannot be explained from any inner grounds lying in the contents of the Psalms. Hengsten- berg explains the use of Elohim in the Psalms from this, namely, that in the Davidical-Solo- ‘monian times, when the honoring of Jehovah was predominent in Israel, the absoluteness of Jehovah was made prominent as against the heathen; whereas in a later time (when even in Israel itself the honoring of the heathen Elohim was pressing in), even the divine name Elohim became distasteful to the worshippers of Jehovah. But this does not explain how just such and such psalms have the name Elohim.” The Elohistic Psalms extend from the beginning of the second book of Psalms (xlii.) till towards the end of the third book (Ps. lxxxiv.; the end is lxxxix.). If we examine the Elohistic Psalms more closely, the universalistic feature of them soon meets us in manifold ways. Longing for the living God, Ps. xlii.; xliii. The contrast of the people’s God with the heathen, Ps. xliv.; xlv.; xlvi. The calling of the heathen, Ps. xlvii., and the victory over their resistance, Ps. xlviii.; xlix. A lesson for all nations in the ‘fall of the godless, &c. That the love of both sacred’ names has induced the writers alternately to honor God under both, and to adorn themselves with both, as Delitzsch maintains, is not confirmed by the pas- sages quoted by him. For example: Gen. vii. 16: They went in (into the ark) as Elohim (the God of prominent natural events) had commanded him, and Jehovah (the God of the covenant faithfulness, or of the yet to be delivered kingdom of God) shut him in. Genesis, xxvii. 27: “The smell of my son is as the smell of a field which Jehovah (the God of the theocratic inheritance) has blessed.” Therefore “Elohim” (the God of every universal blessing of heaven and the world) “ give thee of the dew of heaven, and the fatness of earth,” &c. “‘ Nations must serve thee.” Ex. iii. 4: “Then Jehovah (the covenant God founding the holy awe in Israel) saw that he turned aside to see, and Elohim (the God of the world-fire'in the bush Israel) called unto him out of the midst of the bush.” Still more clear is the distinction between the protect- ing Jehovah and Elohim as ruling in the dispensations of nature. The temple is Jehovah’s, the’ ark of the covenant Elohim’s (the moral law embracing all mankind). 1 Kings, iii.5: The Lord appeared to Solomon; and God said, “Ask what I shall give thee;” because it is permitted him to ask for worldly things. The passage Ps. xlvii. 6 is explained by Ps. xlvii. 7. We would observe as especially significant, that Eve in her enthusiastic hope on the birth of Cain names Jehovah, but in her depression at the birth of Seth, Elohim, the God of the universal yhuman blessing. In this spirit also Rachel speaks, ch. xxx:, of Elohim’s blessing the birth, while it ia Jehovah, the God of the theocratic blessing, who gives Leah her first theocratic sons. At Bethel, however, Jacob exclaims: Jehovah is in this place, meaning he who appears as the covenant God; here is the house of God (Beth-El), and the gate of heaven. With the consciousness and significance of the distinction between the two names, is then also naturally connected the consciousness and significance of their combinations as they sc frequently occur in the Psalms and the Prophets. Moreover it must be remarked that the distinction of a twofold record in Genesis favors the originality of the Mosaic tradition rather than the supposition of a direct composition of it, in which naturally, along with the other indices of later additions, the records lying ‘at the base are also removed from their original sphere. But the question also arises on the distinction of the records, or in how far the same author at a later period of his life can have assumed modifica- - tions of style which were not found in him at an earlier date. This transition of style to new dra€é deydueva in the process of composition, is mainly to be noticed in the letters of Paul. A relation similar with that which exists between Isa. i. ff. and Isa. x1. ff. could obtain between the Mosaic records before and after those appearings of Jehovah which form a turning-point in the life of Moses. In their respective places we will treat of the pindx "2a (1 MoS. vi.) and the 4x50 mins (ch. xvi. 7). 8 114 INTRODUCTION TO GENESIS. E. Tue Critica TREATISES ON THE ELOHIM AND JEHOVAH SECTIONS IN GENESIS AND AT THE BEGINNING oF Exopvs, The Composition of Genesis. Various hypotheses: 1. The documentary hypothesis. Astruo, physician of Louis XIV., published in Brussels, 1758, an article entitled: Conjectures sur les mémoires originaux dont il parait que Moise s'est servi pour composer le livre Génese. He sought to prove that Moses formed Genesis from an Elohim record and a Jehovah record, with the aid of ten smaller memoirs, Representatives of this view, under various modifications, were Eichhorn, Jigen, Gramberg, Stihelin (‘Critical Investigations of Genesis,” Basle, 1830), Hupfeld, Bohmer. 2. The fragmentary hypothesis. The basis of Genesis was nothing but single, small frag- “mentary pieces. Michaelis, Jahn, Vater, Hartmann, Griinde. Various superscriptions, conclud- ing formulas, repetitions, and varieties of style. 8. The complementary hypothesis. The author of the Pentateuch, the Jehovist, had before him an older document, extending from the creation of the world to the death of Joshua, that of the Elohist, and remodeled and extended it. Ewald, de Wette (later view), Bleek, von Boh- len, Stahelin (later view), Tuch, d&c. 4, Ewatp’s developed hypothesis. Designated by Delitzsch, as the crystallization hypothesis. Four constituent parts form mainly the basis of the Pentateuch: 1. the book of the covenant, written at the time of Samson; 2. the book of the origins (Tholedoth), composed at the time of Solomon; 3. a prophetic narrator of the earliest histories, a citizen of the kingdom of Israel at the time of Elias or Joel; 4. a second prophetic narrator from the period between 800 and 750. Ewald distinguishes two Elohists and two Jehovists. The fourth narrator divides him- self again into a fourth and fifth, and his compilation of the earlier books receives yet material additions at the time of the Jewish king Manasseh, and of the Jewish exile. It must be ob- served, that in comparison with these the critical hypotheses on the New Testament are always quite simple in their appearance, and that this has decidedly the character of a book-making * hypothesis. 5. The hypothesis of original unity of Genesis (and of the books of the Pentateuch in com- mon). The Rabbins and the older theologians (with exception of Vitringa, Clericus, Richard ‘Simpn). Ewarp: “The composition of Genesis,” Braunschweig, 1823. Retracted since 1831 (see Bleek, p. 232). Sack, in the work previously quoted. Hznestenpera: “The Authenticity of the Pentateuch,” 1836 to 1889. Havernick, Ranke, Drechsler, Baumgarten, Welte, Kurtz (at an earlier date), Keil. 6. Modified complementary hypothesis. A middle standpoint between the older complementary hypothesis and the unity hypothesis has been taken by Delitzsch, and after him by Kurtz (Vol. ii. of the history of the Old Covenant, p. 1855), According to the view of Delitzsch, the author of the Elo- histic sections composed these first, and avoided, or at least seldom used, the name of Jehovah, until the passage Exodus vi. 2, where Jehovah declares that he was known to the fathers under the name of El Schadai, not under the name Jehovah. The name El Schadai formed in these sections a con- necting link between the name Elohim and Jehovah. The Elohistic parts are distinguished, however, from the later appearing Jehovistic ones, not merely by the diversity of their names of God, but also through a series of otherwise peculiar expressions (see Delitzsch, p. 87). Ac- cording to this there is formed the following presentation: The nucleus of the Pentateuch is the scroll of the covenant, Exodus, xix.-xxiv., written by Moses himself. The remaining laws of the wilderness Moses gave orally, but they were written down by priests in whose calling it lay (Deut. xvii. 11; xxiv. 8; xxxiii. 10; Lev. x. 11; xv. 81). These parts were codified soon after the possession of the Holy Land. A man like Eleazer, the son of Aaron, (Num. xxvi. 1; xxi. 21), wrote the great work beginning with xia mwa, in which he took up the scroll of the covenant, and perhaps made but a short report of the last speeches of Moses, because Moses had written them with his own hand. A second, as Joshua (Deut. xxxii. 44; Jos. xxiv. 26; comp. 1 Sam. x. 25), or one of those Elders on whom rested the spirit of Moses, completed this work § 8 THEOLOGICAL AND HOMILETICAL LITERATURE OF GENESIS, 115 and embodied in it the whole of Deuteronomy, which Moses had mainly written himself, and indeed a Jehovistic recension of the whole (p. 23), p. 38. The adherents of the complementary hypothesis lie under manifold imputations of having abandoned the presumption of Mosaic originals; the adherents of the unity hypothesis are chargeable with permitting the canonical authorship to commence at the beginning without the originals forming the basis. The hypothesis of Delitzsch is injured by the improbable assump- tion that Deuteronomy is to be attributed to Moses in great part, and much more early and literally than the preceding books. On the contrary, we can by no means set aside the supposi- tion of the representatives of the unity hypothesis, that the names Elohim and Jehovah alter- nate with each other in consequence of their internal significance. We believe rather that this significance will receive new importance when we more clearly appreciate the contrast between the universalistic and the theocratic designation of the Old Testament covenant God, of the covenant and the spirit. Without this contrast, the significant names yet want their substruc- tion. Delitzsch distinguishes thus: ‘‘ This only is true, that the two narrators bring out diverse, yet equally authorized sides of the one truth of revelation. The Jehovist seizes with preference whatever brings out the world-historical position and destiny of Israel, its mediating calling in the midst of the nations of the world, and the universalistic (1!) tendency of revelation. He notes just those patriarchal promises of God, which extend beyond the possession of Canaan, and pronounce the blessing of all nations through the mediation of the patriarchs and their seed (ch. xii. 2, &c.). On the contrary all the promises of God, that kings will descend from the patriarchs, belong to the report of the Elohist (ch. xvii, 6, &c.). He has more to do with the priestly rogal glory, which Israel has in itself, &.” This appears to us to be just about the opposite of the real state of the case. The universalistic relation is the relation of God to the Logos in the whole world, to the Sophia, to the godlike in the foundation of humanity and the creation, the circumferential form of revelation. The theocratic relation is the central form of revelation, its relation to the covenants, the theocracy, the historical appearance of the kingdom of God. We leave it undecided, how far this contrast here also, separately taken, might give an insight into the difference between the Elohistic and the Jehovistic Psalms, If Moses, as a learned man, according to the Egyptian cultivation of his time, and familiar with the art of writing, could write down the basis of his legislation, or could cause it.to be written down (according to Bleek), then we may confidently distinguish two periods in- the writing of Moses, the composition of Elohistic memorabilia before the new period of revelation (Gen. vi. 8), and Jehovistic memorabilia and laws after it. By considering the effect of Egyptian " culture, we can easily explain how (apart from its great significance in itself) the memorabilia of the life of Joseph, on whose life-history reposed the origin of the nation in Egypt, and all right and title of Israel in Egypt, have received so wide an extension. The settlement of the Israelites in Egypt may have also been an inducement to gradually fixing the sacred Jegends of the people. We permit ourselves therefore to assume a fourfold group of memorabilia (not of complete books), as the foundation for the first four books of the Pentateuch. First, primitive legends reduced to writing; secondly, memorabilia of the life of Joseph; thirdly, Mosaic records from the Elohim or El Schadai period of Gen. vi. 8; fourthly, Mosaic records from the Jehovah period. The last group is continued in a fifth, namely, in the Deuteronomic prophesies of Moses. The recension of these parts in the form of the Pentateuch would fall, then, at the latest, into the time of the prophets of the school of Samuel, 7, ¢., into the last days of the era of the Judges; and the recension of Deuteronomy, perhaps, into the period of the development of the Solomonic mode of view. § 8 THEOLOGICAL AND HOMILETICAL LITERATURE OF GENESIS. See the General Commentaries preceding. Then, Watcm: “Biblioth. Theol.” iv. p. 452 ff. Winkz: “Theol. Literature,” i. p. 199. Supplement, p. 81. Danz: “Dictionary,” p. 312, Supplement, p. 38. Brzex: “Introduction,” p. 110 ff. Kur: “Introduction,” p. 64. Kurz: 116 INTRODUCTION TO GENESIS. “History of the Old Covenant.” “Introduction,” p. 87 ff. “Especially Duritzson: Genesis, p. 71. The Patristic literature ; mainly Irenaeus, Origen, Eusebius, Cyrillus, Alexandrinus, Hieronymus, Augustinus, &c., p. 73. The Rabbinic literature: Solomon Isaac (Raschi, under the erroneous name Jarchi), Aben Ezra, David Kimschi, &c. P.57, more general view. Tho Patristic period and the middle ages. The era of the Reformation, &c.—Here Luther and Cal- vin precede all (newly published by Hengstenberg, Berlin, 1831). We name Calvinus and Ger- ~ hard of the Lutherans, and the Reformed, Mercerus, Grotius, Spencer, Olericus, &c. We miss especially Zwingli, Coccejus, Venema, Dissertationes ad Genesin, 1747. Specially quoted and justly biamed; Jacos Béume: Mysterium magnum (an accompaniment, SomWEDENBORG, Arcana celestia. Mainly what is found in Genesis. German by Tart, 1855).—Recently: Michaelis, Severin Father, von Bohlen, Rosenmiller’s Comments, Schuman, and then the more weighty commentaries of Tuch and Knobel. With respect to the deeper investigation of Old Testament Exegesis are named: Herder (“The oldest Record of the Human Race,” Riga, 1774), Hamann, Dr. Leidemit by. Moser, F. A. Krummacher’s “Paragraphs on Sacred History” (1818), the unfinished Commentary of Tiele (Erlangen, 1836), the Theol. Commentary on the ‘Pentateugh by Michael Baumgarten (Kiel, 1843 and 1844), Hofmann, Prophecy and Fulfilment. Bible lessons on Genesis by Heim (Stuttgart, 1845). Exposition of Genesis by F. W. J. Schréder (Berlin, 1846), ‘‘.A collection in which all remarkable things ever said of Genesis are arranged on the thread of the author’s peculiar and fundamental understanding.” ‘Less prominent names are numerous, viz., in respect to criticism and isolated articles; for instance, modern: Giesebrecht, Ridiger, Ilgen, Larsow, Berlin, 18438. Pustkuchen, the Primal History of Mankind, Lemgo, 1821. The same, Historical Critical Investigations, Halle, 1823.—Critical Investjgations: Heng- stenberg, Supplements, Ranke, Drechsler, Kurtz, 1846. (Sdrenson, profane, ecceutric.) Hup- feld, 1853.—Béhmer, liber Genesis, Halle, 1860. The same, the first book of the Thorah, Halle, 1862. Rahmer, Quaestiones in Genesin, Breslau, 18638. Also von Schrank, Commentarius in Genesin, 1835. Delitzsch, Commentary on Genesis, 8d ed. Leipzig, Franke, 1860. Delitzsch and Keil (see Pentateuch). Wright, the book of Genesis, London, Williams and Norgate, 1859. Leipzig, Hartmann. THEORETICAL PRACTICAL LITERATURE. See Winer, Theological Literature, p. 115 ff —Val. Herberger, Beyer, History of the Primal world in Sermons. Leop. Schmid, Explanations of the sacred writings, 8 numbers to Genesis xxv. 18, Munster, 1834. Heim, Bible lessons (Stuttgart, 1845; sce above). Wimnsche, Bible .essons, Ist and 2d part (Ist part: Genesis, 2d part: Job), Berlin, 1858. Schwenke, Bible -essons on Genesis, 2 vols. Erfurt, 1860. (Dietrich, Old Testament Bible lessons.) Taube, 43 sermons on runing texts of Genesis, Breslau, Diilfer, 1858. See Literature of the Qld Tes- tament and the Pentateuch. = : [To this list of special works on Genesis add the following: English; The Holy Bible, Genesis and Exodus, by Cuartes Worpsworts, D.D., Canon of Westminster, London, 1864, A critical and exegetical commentary on the book of Genesis, by Jamzs Murpry, Professor of Hebrew, Belfast, Edinburg, 1868. American: Questions and notes on Genesis, by Gzorar Busu, 1882. Notes, critical and explanatory on the book of Genesis, from the creation to the covenant, by Mrtanouton W. Jacozpus, New York, 1865. Exegetical Commentary on Genesis, by SasvzL H. Torver, D.D., Professor of Biblical Learning, Columbia College, New York.—T. L] THE FIRST CHAPTER OF GENESIS. THE OREATION. THE SCRIPTURAL VIEW OF THE WORLD, AND NATURAL SCIENCE. THE SIX DAYS’ WORK. See the paragraphs of the Introduction on the practical Exposition, of the Old Testament. Also “Matthew,” p. 11, Danrz, p. 818. Winer, i. p.200. Joh. Philoponys, in caput t. Geneseos, § 8. THEOLOGICAL AND HOMILETICAL LITERATURE OF GENESIS. 117 edit. Corderius, Vienna, 1680. Eichhorn: Primeval History, 2 vols. Altorf, 1790. Hasse: Discover: ies in the Field of the Oldest History of Earth and Man, 2 pts. Halle and Leipzig, 1801. Wer- ner, Historical Comprehension of the first three chapters of Genesis; with a Supplement on the Genuineness of Deuteronomy, Tiibingen, 1829. Hua: De opere sex dierum, Freiburg, 1827. Beke: Origenes biblicae, or Researches in Primeval History, London, 1834, Buckland: Geology and Mineralogy, considered with reference to Natural Theology, London, 18386. Hitchcock: The Religion of Geology, &c., Glasgow, 1857. Hugh Miller: The Testimony of the Rocks on Geology, Edinburgh, 1857. Reginald Stuart Poole: The Genesis of the Earth and of Man, &., London, 1860 (see the notice of .Zéckler: Periodical of Theol. Literature, N. 5 and 6, 1861). Kalisch: Tlistorical and Critical Commentary of the Old Testament Genesis, London, 1858. Godefroy: La Cosmogonie de Révélation, Paris, 1861. Marcel de Senes: The Cosmogonie of Moses, in Ger- man, Tiibingen, 1841. Waterkeyn: Kosmos hieros. Quoted by Delitzsch (p. 609): American writings of Hitchcock, Smith, Crofton; especially the Treatise by Means: The Narrative of the Creation in Genesis, in the American Bibliotheca Sacra, with special reference to Guyot’s Lec- tures on the Harmony of the Mosaic account of the Creation with modern Science, delivered in New York, 1852. Tholuck: What is the result of Science in reference to the primeval world? At the same time a catalogue of the most important writings on this subject. In his miscella- neous writings, 2d part, p. 148 ff Lange’s Miscellaneous Writings, vol. i. p. 49 ff.; p. 74 ff. Lange: The Land of Glory, with reference to Pfaff: Man and the Stars. Kurtz: The Bible and Astronomy. (Schaden: Theodicy, Karlsruhe, 1842.) Keil: Apologia Mosaicae Traditionis, &., Dorpat, 1839. O. Heer: Harmony of the Creation, Zurich, 1847. Fred. de Rougemont (see “Matthew,” p. v.): Fragmens d'une Histoire de la terre, daprés la Bible, Neufchatel, 1811. The same: Du monde dans ses rapports avec Dieu, Neufchatel, 1841, Histoire de la terre, 1856, Ger- man, by Fabarius Mutzl: The Primeval History of the Earth, Landshut, 1848. Hugo Reinsch : The Oreation, 1856. Euen: The History of the Creation, according to the Researches of Mod- ern Science in its Connection with the Faith and the Church, Referat, Stettin, 1855. Flasbar: Whether the astronomical contradicts the Ohristian View of the World, Berlin, 1857. Ebrard: The Faith in the Holy Writ and the Result of Researches into Nature, Kénigsberg, 1861. (The writings on this subject by Richers. Wolf: Primeval History of Genesis, ch. i. ver. 6-8.) Jahn: Nature in the Light of Divine Revelation, and the Revelation of God in Nature, Berlin, Schulze. Nature and Revelation, organ for the mediation between natural researches and faith (a period- ical), Miinster, Aschendorf, 1855 ff. Bohner: 1. The Freely Inquiring Bible Theology and its Opponents, Ziirich, Orell, Fiissli. 2. Researches of Nature and Civilized Life. 8. Kosmos, Bible of Nature, Hanover, Rimpler, 1862. Zéckler: Theologia naturalis. Plan of a systematic natural Theology, Frankfort on the Main and Erlangen, 1860. Méller: History of the Cosmology in the Grecian Church until Origen, with Special Investigations of the Gnostic Systems, Halle, 1860, Keerl: Man the Image of God. His relation to Christ and the world. An Essay on Primeval History, Basle, 1861. Wisemann: On the Connection between the Results of scientific Investiga- tion and Religion. Pianciani (of the Collegium Romanum): Elucidations of the Mosaic History of the Creation. Von Schrank: Heaaemeron, Augsburg, 1888. Gfrorer: The Primeval History of the Human Race, Schaffhausen, 1855. Reinke: The Creation of the World, 1859. Reusch: Lectures on the Mosaic History and its Relation to the Results of Investigations in Nature, Bonn, Freiburg, 1862. Works on the Creation from the scientific stand-point, by Andreas Wagner (Neptunism), and others. See Delitzsch, p. 110, Schubert: The Structure of the World. Quen- stedt: Epochs of Nature, Tiibingen, 1860. Pfaff: History of the Creation, Frankfort on the Main, 1855. (Hudson Tuttle: History and Laws of the Process of Creation, German, Erlangen, 1860. A flood of kindred popular writings and periodical articles.) Treatises, see Kurtz, p. 55. Of great merit is the recension of the work of Buckland, Geology aud Mineralogy, considered with reference to Natural Theology, by W. Hoffmann in Tholuck’s Literary Advertiser, 1838, Nr. 44 ff, Baer: Which comprehension of animated nature is the just one? Berlin, 1862. 118 INTRODUCTION TO GENESIS. WORKS CONCERNING MATERIALISM. Materialistic: Moleschott, Bichner, Vogt, Czolbe, é&c. * Mayer in Mentz, Materialism and Spiritualism, Giessen, 1861. Periodicals, Treatises, Articles. Counter-publications: R. Wagner: Creation of Man and Substance of the Soul. A. Wagner, Liebig, Fabri: Letters against Materialism. Schellwien: Criticism of Materialism. Woysch: Materialism and the Christian View of the World. Ewen, Berlin, 1856. Schaller, Weber: Ma- terialism and the People’s School, Stendal, 1856. Alb. von Gloss (especially against Buchner andVogt). Michelis: Materialism and Implicit Faith. ‘“ Circular to the Representatives of Mod- ern Materialism in Germany. Cotta, Burmeister, Rosmissler, Miller, Uhle, Czolbe.” Baltzer: The new Fatalists of Materialism. Froschamer: Walhalla of German Materialists, Munster, 1861. Bona Meyer: Critical View of materialistic controversial Literature, Evangelical Church Gazette, 1856, June, &c. . Homiletics: Harms: On the Creation, 9 sermons, Kiel, 1884. (Free discursive texts. The treatment of the subject occasionally extravagant.) See the more general collections to Genesis, Deuteronomy, and the General Introduction. SECOND CHAPTER OF GENESIS. PARADISE. See “Matthew.” The article Eden in Winer’s Reul-Lexicon. Monographs by Huetius, Hopkinson, Schulthess, &. Bertheau: The Fundamental Geographical Conceptions in the Description of Paradise, Géttingen, 1848. Comp. Kurtz: History of the Old Covenant, p. 57 ff. K. von Raumer: Palestine. Maydorn: The Gospel of Paradise. Eight Lent-Sermons, Breslau, Dilfer. Male and female sex. Anthropological Works. Works on marriage. _ Unity of the Human Race. See “Matthew.” Liicken: Unity of the Human Race, Han- over, 1845. See A Catalogue of the Opponents and Defenders of the Unity of Descent, Kurtz, p- 61. Lange’s Positive Dogmatices, p. 330. Anthropology and Psychology. Wug: The Mosaic History of Man, Frankfort and Leipzig, 1793. Outlines of the Doctrine of the Soul from the Sacred Writ, by Roos. From the Latins Stuttgardt, 1857. Hausmann. Beck: Scriptural Doctrine of the Soul, 2d ed. Zeller: Concise Psychology, 3d ed., Calw, 1857. Delitzsch: Scriptural Psychology, 2d ed} Von Rudloff: The Doctrine of Man, founded on Divine Revelation. Anthropology of Steffens, by J. H. Fichtey Leipzig, 1858. Schubert: History of the Soul. H. A. Hahn: Commentatio Veteris Testamenti de natura hominis exposita. ; Language. Fr. Schlegel: Philosophy of History, p. 44 ff. Schmitthenner: Primitive Gram- mar. Herder, Hamann, W. von Humboldt: On the Kavi-Language. Introduction. Jacob Grimm: The Origin of Language, Berlin, 1852. Stévesand: The Mystery of the Language of God in Man, Gotha, Perthes. Immortality. See Danrz: articles Immortality, Sleep of the Soul, Migration of Souls, Add Supplement, p. 108. Ocehler: Veteris Testamenti sententia de rebus post mortem futuris, Stutt- gardt, 1846, A. Schumann: The Doctrine of Immortality of the Old and New Testament. Béttcher. Brecher: The Doctrine of Immortality as held by the Jewish People, Leipzig, 1857. Engelbert: The Negative Merit of the Old Testament in Relation to the Doctrine of Immortality, Berlin, 1857. A. Fichte: The Idea of Personality and continued Individual Existence, Elber- feld, 1884. Lange's Philosophical Dogmatics, p. 248. Weisse: The Philosophical Mystery of Immortality, Dresden, Kori.: H. Ritter: Immortality. First volume of Entertaining Instruction, Leipzig, Brockhaus, 1851. Gumposch: The Soul and its Future, St. Gallen, 1849, Schultz. Splittgerber: Death, Life after Death, and Resurrection. A biblical apologetical Essay, Halle, 1862. Religion. See Winer: Theological Literature, i. p. 28, Supplement, p. 45, &e. § 8. THEOLOGICAL AND HOMILETICAL LITERATURE OF GENESIS. 113 THIRD CHAPTER OF GENESIS. THE FALL. LOST PARADISE. DEATU. Nysa: Philosophic-historical Treatise on Genesis 2d and 8d. Eleutheropolis, 1790. Schel- ling: Antiquissimi de prima malorum humanorum origine Philosophematis Gen. 8 eaplicatio, Tubingen, 1792. Writings on the Sin of Man, Krabbe, J. Muller. See also the catalogue in Kurtz: History of the Old Covenant, p. 61. Umbreit: Sin. Supplement to the Theology of the Old Testament, Hamburg, 1853. Brim: The Fall. Llustration of the 3d chapter of Genesis, -Barmen, 1857. Griber: Sermons on the Lost Paradise. - FOURTH OHAPTER OF GENESIS. ON SACRIFICE. See Literature, Kurtz, p. 7 1. On the extension of the Human Race. FIFTH CHAPTER OF GENESIS. On the Macrobians, See Kurtz, p. 78 ff. SIXTH CHAPTER OF GENESIS. Fr. de Rougemont: Le Peuple primitif, Several volumes, Paris and Geneva. H. Kurtz: The Marriages of the Sons of God with the Daughters of Men, Berlin, 1857. The same: The Sons of God, in Genesis vi. 1, 4, and the Sinning Angels, in 2 Pet, ii. 4, 5, and Jude, ver. 6 and 7. Polemic treatise against Hengstenberg, Mitau, 1858. See also Kurtz: History of the Old Covenant, pp. 76 and 77. SIXTH TO NINTH CHAPTER OF GENESIS. ! THE FLOOD. Buttmann: On the Myth of the Flood, Berlin, 1812 (°19). Stollberg: History of Religion and the Church, 1 vol. Further literature: Kurtz, p. 80 ff. Créner: 18 Sermons from the History. of the Flood, Erfurt, 1568. Gessner: Noah, Five Addresses to Christians, Basle, 1823. TENTH OHAPTER OF GENESIS. THE GENEALOGICAL TABLE, See Kurtz: History of the Old Covenant, p. 88 ff. A. Feldhoff: The Line of Epochs of the Holy Writ, from Adam to the Pentecost, Frankfort on the Main, 1831. The Genealogical Table of Genesis in its Universal Historical Significance, Elberfeld, 1837. Kricke: Illustrations ‘of~the Genealogical Table, Bonn, 1887. Knobel: The Genealogy of Genesis, Giessen, Ricker, 1850. Breiteneicher: Nineveh and Nahum. With reference to the latest discoveries, Munich, 1861. Layard: Popular Report on the Excavations at Nineveh, German by Meissner, Leip- sic, Dyk, 1852. ELEVENTH CHAPTER OF GENESIS. BUILDING OF THE TOWER OF BABEL, GENEALOGY. OONFUSION OF TONGUES. Kurtz, p. 86 ff. Kaulen: Confusion of Tongues at Babel, Mainz, 1861. Niebuhr: Babylon. 120 INTRODUCTION TO GENESIS. Heathendom, Déllinger: Heathendom. Stiefelhagen. Writings of Lasaulx, Nagelsbach, Wuttke, Mohler, and others. See Kurtz, p. 91. Fabri: The Rise of Heathendom and the Problem of Heathen Missions, Barmen, 1859. Libker: Lectures on Civilization and Christian- ity, Hamburg, 1863. TWELFTH TO THIRTY-SIXTH CHAPTER OF GENESIS. THE HISTORY OF THE PATRIARCHS. See Kurtz, pp. 104 and 116, especially 119 and 129. Heidegger: De historia sacra Patriar- charum, Exercitationes selectae, Amsterdam, 1667. J.J. Hess: History of the Patriarchs, with maps, 2 vols, Zitrich, 1776. Mel: The Life of the Patriarchs, 2 parts, Frankfort, 1714 (on the last Chapters of Genesis). A. Abraham. See Danz: Abraham, p.14, Winer: Scriptural Real-levicon. Biblical Dictionary, by Zel- ler. Herzog: Theological Encyclopedia. So also the following names. Roos: Footsteps of the Faith of Abraham in the Descriptions of the Life of the Patriarcls and the Prophets. Newly published, Tibingen, 1887. Bachmann: Sermons on the History of Abraham. Passavant: “Abraham and Abraham’s Children. By the author of Naeman, 2d ed. Basle, 1861. W. Heu- ser: Abraham’s Doings, in 12 sermons. 8th Section. -Reuben’s transgression. Jacob’s sons. His return to Isaac at Hebron. (Rebecca no more among the living.) Isaac’s death. Burial of him by Esau and Jacob, ch. xxxv. 22-29, 9th Section, Esau's family record and the Horites, ch. xxxvi. THIRD PERIOD. The Genesis of the people of Israel in Egypt from the twelve tribes of Israel, or the history of Joseph and his brothers. Joseph, the patriarch of the faith-guidance, through humiliation to exaltation, ch, xxxvii—l. 1st Section. Jacob's error in respect to Joseph. Joseph’s dreams. The envy of the brothers. Joseph sold into Egypt, ch. xxxvii. 2d Section. Judah's transient separation from his brothers (probably in dissatisfaction at their deed). His sons. Tamar, ch. xxxviii. : 3d Section. , Joseph in the house of Potiphar and in prison, ch. xxxix. Ath Section. Joseph as interpreter of the dreams of his fellow-prisoners, ch. xl. 5th Section. Joseph as interpreter of the dreams of Pharaoh. He is advanced and cared for, ch. xli. : 6th Section. The famine, and the first journey of the sons of Jacob to Egypt, ch. xlii. 7th Section. Second journey. With Benjamin. Joseph makes himself known to his brethren. ‘Their return. Jacob’s joy, ch, xliiii—xlv. ‘ , 8th Section. Israel goes with his house to Egypt. He settles in the land of Goshen, Jacob before Pharaoh. Joseph’s political economy. Jacob’s arrangement for his burial in Ca- naan, ch. xlvi. and xlvii. 9th Section. Jacob's sickness, his blessing of his grandchildren, Joseph’s sons, ch, xtviii. 10th Section, Jacob’s blessing on his sons. Judah and his brethren. Jacob’s last charge. His burial in Canaan. His end, ch. xlix. 11th Section. Joseph’s mourning. Jacob’s funeral in Canaan. The fear of Joseph’s brethren and his word of peace and faith concerning them and his history. J oseph’s last charge; provision for his return to Canaan in death, similar to the provision of his father, ch. 1. SPECIAL INTRODUCTION “ TO TUE Ke FIRST CHAPTER OF GENESIS By tut American Eprror. As there is no chapter in the Bible more important than the First of Genesis, so also may it be said that there is no one whose interpretation is more likely to be affected by the prejudg- ments, popular, scientific, or philosophical, which the reader brings with him, Dr. Lange is remarkably full and clear on this portion of Holy Writ, but as its great subject has given rise to much discussion in this country, the American Editor has deemed it no disparagement to the learned author of this commentary to present a few general and fundamental ideas by way of special introduction to the American reader. , It has been found convenient to divide it into five parts. PART I. Essential Ideas of Creation. Creation as the origin of matter. As the giving form to mat- ter. Relative importance of the two ideas. Question in relation to the principium mentioned in Genesis. Whether to be regarded as the absolute or a particular beginning. Opinions of Jewish interpreters. Is the creation mentioned in the first verse éntra sex dies ? PART II, The Hexaémeron. Nature and duration of the days. The distinction of Augustine. The account self-interpreting. The Light, the Darkness. The word Day. The Morning and the Evening. Each Day an Appearing. Each Day a Beginning, but its work continuing in those that follow. Ps. cxxxix. 15, 16. PART III. Helps in the interpretation of the First of Genesis to be derived from other portions of scripture. The Fourth Commandment. Proverbs viii. Micah v. 1. Psalm civ. Job xxxviii., xxviii, &e. PART IV. The Ideas of Law, of Nature, and the Supernatural, as found in the Bible. Distinction betwéen the Idea of a Law and its Science. Distinction between the Supernatural and the Miraculous. “The Finger of God.” The Great Natural. 126 SPECIAL INTRODUCTION TO THE FIRST CHAPTER OF GENESIS. PART V. How was the creative account revealed? Its Grandeur and Simplicity. Other Cosmogonies copies. This an Original Picture. The Vision theory. Internal Evidence. Compared with the Apocalypse. Objective and Subjective Revelation. Vision of the Past analogous to Proph- ecy, or Vision of the Future. PART 1 ESSENTIAL IDEAS OF CREATION. He who made one world in space, made all worlds in space. He who made one world in time, made all worlds in time. He who gave matter its forms, gave it its origination, or that which is the ground of all its forms. These truths are so inseparably linked together by the laws of our thinking, that the revela- tion of one is the revelation of the rest; since we cannot believe one speculatively without believing all the rest, or deny one logically without losing our faith in all the rest. Whatever view, then, a true exegesis may most favor,—whether the account in Genesis be found to have in view, mainly or solely, a universal or a partial creation, whether the principium there men- tioned be the particular beginning of the special work there described, or the principium prin- cipiorum, the beginning of all beginnings,—the Bible is, in either case, a protest againt the dogma, of the eternity of the world, or of the eternity of matter. In the fact clearly revealed and believed that a personal divine power was concerned in the creation, even of-a plant, we have the essential faith. As a dogma merely, the great truth might have been here expressed in a single sentence: ‘God ‘made all things to be, and without him there was nothing made that is”—even as it is given to us in Johni. 2. Why then this most graphic and detailed account of the creative work? It is the same design, we answer, that appears in the other historical rev- elations that are made to us in the Scripture. It is to impress us with the glory of the creator, to make the thought something more than a speculative belief, to give it strength and vividness so as to become a living power in our souls. Whatever exegesis has the greatest tendency to do this, is most likely to be true in itself, and is the most favorable to the absolute verity. The best Jewish commentators, such as Aben Ezra and Rabbi Schelomo, attach much im- portance to the fact that muss , Gen. i. 1, is grammatically in the construct state, and there- - fore limited by something of which it is the beginning. It really is so in form here, and in actual regithen everywhere else, except in Deut. xxxili. 21, which Lange cites. Even there, however, the construct form has its limiting meaning: 15 mywen xi “and he provided the chief part for himself ”—that is, the chief part of the territory. It was no poverty of language that compelled the choice of m»yx5, A word used absolutely, and of the undoubted absolute form, such as mawRn or mwa, might have been employed to denote an absolute principium, unlimited, ante omnes ves alias, unconditioned by any other things or times,—first, and first of all. The construct form (since there is nothing arbitrary in language) must denote, or would best denote, the beginning of a creation, or of some creation, or some assumed point of commence- ment in it, which is determined by the context. Thus these learned Jewish commentators here, although of all theists the most free from any tinge of pantheism, or belief in the eternity of mat- ter, interpret this account as setting forth simply the creation of our world and heaven, regarded too as commencing with them in a certain unformed condition. So that by these writers creation (the Mosaic creation) is regarded as formation rather than as primal origination of * matter. In accordance with this view of n»wx., Rabbi Schelomo (Raschi) interprets the whole pas- sage: 1A) PART oaw maa n wes, “In the beginning of the creation of the heavens and the PART I.—ESSENTIAL IDEAS OF CREATION. 127 earth, when the earth was tohu and bohu, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the spirit was brooding over the waters, then God said, Let there be light,” &c. Or, ‘In the begin- ning when God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was, &c., God said;” that, according to them, was the beginning with which we here have to do. All before is descriptive and determinative of it. Rabbi Schelomo compares it to Hosea i. 2, mins zt mbmn, “In the beginning of God’s speaking by Hosea,” or literally (for sa3 is the preterit and not the infin- itive), “‘ The beginning God spake,” that is, which he spake, or when he spake.* So also Exodus vi, 28, Hin’ sat ores, “in the day when the Lord spake,” where the construct state of the noun may be regarded as in like manner put in regimen with the verb. Aben Ezra supports the same view of muwxn being grammatically in regimen with the verb x43, or rather with the whole following context, by the example of Isaiah xxix. 1, 477 mm mp, where the construct map seems to stand in precisely the same relation to the verb mam as mMexn to ana, But the word x13, it is maintained, denotes primal origination, and some would even con- tend, in defiance of etymology, that such is its primary and radical idea. It is certain, however, that everywhere else in this account it must mean something quite different. It is constantly afterwards used of divine acts or works which could only have been the giving form to matter that already is. In all the dividings, the gatherings, the evolutions of the plants and animals, the ordaining and disposing of the heavenly lights, the firmament, and even the making of the human body, there is no new matter. This is well represented by Aben Ezra in his ‘comment on the word xm. “There are those,” he says, “who maintain that mx12, creation, is (ety- mologically) the bringing out of nothing, and they refer to Numb. xvi. 30, mint gna men RN, ‘if the Lord make a new thing’ (literally create a creation, d&c.), but they forget how it is said here that God created the great monsters (Ang. whales), and how it is said three times in one verse (27), God created man, and how also it is said, He creates the darkness (Isai xlv. 7, x"13 4pm), though the darkness is only the negation of light, which is the real existing thing.” Com- mentary on Gen. 1. All these are constructions, formations, dispositions of matter ; and this is certainly creation, whilst there is no evidence, except an assumption (not exegetical but rationalizing), of its mean- ing something else quite different in the first verse. It does indeed denote, as its most usual sense, a divine supernatural act, such as man, or any nature of itself, could not do,—although in the distinct piel form, and in its primary sense of cutting, it is sometimes applied to human works, as in Joshua xvii. 15. It is the divine supernatural making of something new, and which did not exist before. But new forms, especially as divinely established, are new things; and this, in fact, is the only proper sense in which they become things, res, realities, manifestations of something, vehicles of ideas, by which alone any material object becomes an object of thought, that is, a thing. The opposite notion is born of the prejudice which would make the forms of matter lower things than the formless matter itself,—if that can be called a thing instead of a substratum, power, or capacity for receiving forms, and thus becoming things. ‘ Besides, this idea of primal origination of matter could have been otherwise well expressed in Hebrew. Such’language as we have, Psalms xxxiii. 9, “He commanded and it was” (though that also may be used of formal creation), would have been better adapted to such a purpose. By contrast, at least, with the decided structural or formative style that succeeds, it might have made it less doubtful whether the creation mentioned in the first verse was really and essentially different from that’ of the verses following. So also the language, Isaiah xlviii. 13, “I call to them, they stand up,” which probably was intended to express this very idea of primal origina- tion; though in the context it may be taken as simply a reference to these Mosaic formations : “ They stand up together” (11m or at once, dua as the LXX. render it, Vulgate simut), or it may mean the whole creation, from first to last, as brought into being by the divine command, represented as one and instantaneous, though running through a vast chain of sequences. Just * In the same way the Judaico-Arabian translator, Arabs Erpenianus, as he is commonly called, gle lo d ,t Ue Sf 19 > Lad t, “The beginning of God’s creating the heavens and the earth” —or the first creating of the heavens e and the earth which God created. 128 SPECIAL INTRODUCTION TO THE FIRST CHAPTER OF GENESIS. before this, however, the prophet’s language is in the highest degree formative and structural: “ My hand laid the foundations of the earth, my right hand spanned the heavens.” It may be admitted that the author of the account in Genesis probably regarded himself as describing the creation of the all, since to his knowledge our immediate earth and heaven, with the phenomenal luminaries appearing as fixed in it, and belonging to it, were the all; but that he meant to tell us of. the first matter, even of this, or of its coming out of nothing, cannot be certainly determined by any etymology of words, or by any infallible exegesis of the passage, There are certainly some things that look the other way. The implication, however, of the great fact is enough for us, even though the bare words of Moses might be thought to confine themselves to a more limited sphere. So Lange holds to the creation in the Bible being the absolute first origination, yet, from some things he has said, he seems to be content with the idea last mentioned as answering the theological inquiry, without enlarging the words in Genesis by any exegetical strain which they may not be able to bear. This is shown particularly in what he says, p. 165, about ‘‘ the earth-light, or the earth becoming light,” as being the analogue wherein is presented the primal origination of light, just as in the creation of man there is sym- bolized the creation of a spirit-world collectively. The argument or implication is: He who made light to be at one place or time, made it to be at all times, even at that time which was the absolute beginning of its existence; He who made the human spirit must have made all spirit, whether coeval with or ‘omessemsbly more ancient than man. Since then it is very. difficult to make the fair verbal exegesis speak decidedly either way, may we not infer from this that we overrate the importance of one aspect of the question as compared with the other. Besides the clear implication ‘aforesaid, which would make the recognition of a stractural creation at some particular time inseparable from the recognition of an absolute first origination of matter in its own time or times, there may be a question as to which is really the greater work, or more worthy of revelation, or which ought to have the greatest place in our minds,—this bare origination of the first matter, or the giving form to that matter. The first, many would say, unhesitatingly ; the second, they would regard as the lower, the less important, the less manifestive of the divine power and glory, or, in a word, as the easier work. Our philosophical thinking, in which we so much pride ourselves, and which we would fain ascribe to God, whose “ ways are so far above our ways and his thoughts above our thoughts,” leads to this. It is favored by certain metaphysical notions which are not recognized, or but little recognized, in the usual style of the Scriptures. This first matter, hyle, force, heat, nebular fluid, world-dust, call it what we will, goes beyond all our sense conceptions, and, therefore, we think it must be something greater, more important, more difficult, requiring more of power and wisdom, and therefore higher in the divine estimation, than that informing, structural, architectural, idealizing, systematizing, developing work which builds up, and builds out, this first matter, force, &c., into glorious forms for the contemplation, and magnificent worlds for ’ the indwelling, of rational, spiritual beings. If we do not greatly mistake, both the style and the manifested interest of the Scriptures are the other way. The Bible does not talk to us, like Plato, of the hyle, the mother of matter, the substance that has none of the properties of mat- ter yet is capable of receiving them all, or of matter itself as something distinct from body; it does not speak to us in the language of Aristotle about the first motion, the first mover, and the first moved, nor does it, after the more modern manner, have much to say of the first cause and the first causation, throwing all causality after it into the inferior place, or burying it in a godless nature. On the other hand, its high design is to impress us with the superior greatness of this latter outbuilding («rifew, Eph. iii. 9, xarnpricsa, Heb. xi. 8) as the peculiar work of the Logos, or Word, which gives form and life, and, in this sense, its higher or more real being, to this conceptionless first matter, or first force. This was the great work, if we may judge by the importance the Scripture attaches to it; this was pre-eminently the work of creation as carried on by the artistic Wisdom, Prov. viii. 22-82; and to this well corresponds what is said, John i. 8, 4, according to the old patris- tic division and interpretation of the passage, 8 yéyovey ev aire Coy qv, “that which was made (or originated) in Him was life”»—became life in Him. It is easy to see what is prominent in the Bible. It is not God the first motion, or the first force, or the first cause, or even as the origin- PART I—ESSENTIAL IDEAS OF CREATION. 129 ator of force and matter, but God the Great Architect; this is the idea which the Scripture language aims to impress so as to make it a living and controlling power in the soul, giving life and value to the other ideas, and preventing them from becoming mere, scientific abstractions on the one hand, or dead naturalistic or pantheistic notions on the other. The abstract notion is ever assumed in the Bible as included in its creative representations, whilst it makes vivid the other and greater thought as the quickening power of all personal theistic conceptions, The only notion we can form of matter in its lowest or primal entity is that of resistance i space, or the furnishing bare sensation to a supposed sentiency, without anything beyond it, either as form for the intellect, or as qualifying variety for the sense. The manner of putting this forth, we may not know, but that does not give it the higher rank. Taken as a fact it is the lowest thing in the scale of the divine works, if we may be allowed to make any relative com- parisons among them. It is simply an exercise of the divine strength. On the other hand, the giving form to matter, which is so clearly and sublimely revealed as the true creative stage, is the work of the Divine Wisdom, and might be supposed worthy of God, as an exercise of his infinite intelligence, even if it had no other than an artistic end. The carrying these forms into the region of the moral, or the impressing moral designs upon them—in other words, building the world as the abode of life and the residence of moral and spiritual beings capable of witness- ing and declaring the glory of the Creator—is the work of the divine Love. In reversing this scale of dignities, the actually lower work comes to be regarded as the higher and the greater merely because it is the more remote from us. Nothing but some such feeling as this could have led to the strong desire, in modern times, of finding here a revelation of the metaphysical, as though this alone were creation proper, or as though the divine power and wisdom were not even more sublimely manifested in the creative evolution and formation of the physical. The painting is a much greater and higher creation than the canvas, even though the making of both were admitted as belonging to the same artist. Tn discussing these questions exegetically much also depends on the correct interpretation of the substantive verb mmm (and was) in the second verse. Does it denote a time cotemporaneous with the verb x42 in the first verse, or does it denote something succeeding, either as state or event,—namely, that the earth and heaven which had been created by a distinct and separate act there related, was afterwards (whether as having been left so, or as having become so by some cause or causes not mentioned) tohu and bohu? Or does it mean (as the Jewish authorities maintain) that this condition, whose time is denoted by nn=n, was the beginning of the creation described, or the chronological date when this creation (called the Mosaic) began? In other words, can the expression mmsn pyran denote, grammatically, a succeeding instead of a cotemporaneous event? Certainly the far more usual form, if an after event, or an after state, lad been intended, would have been "Hm, with 1 conversive, as in ail the steps following, each distinctly marking succession, or one event coming out of and after another, as "M"%—>s3a%— NAPM——_NIM—VI"— aN, and so throughout, The usage in this very chapter is sufficient to establish the rule, even if it were not so common everywhere else when a series of successive acts are thus laid down. Another question arises. Was all the creation that Moses intends to describe intra sex dies, within six days, or was that part mentioned in the first verse extra dies, as it must be if the six days chronologically began in the evening, that is, in the tohu and bohu, or when darkness was upon the face of the deep? But such exclusion would seem to be in the face of the express declaration in the fourth commandment: “in six days (within six days) God created the heavens and the earth.” If, then, there was anything extra dies, or before the chronological beginning of the first day, which is so distinctly marked by its evening, it could not be intended here as part of this account ; for, from the time God began this creative work (whatever it might include) until he rested in the evening after the sixth, there were six days, be they Jong or short, and no more. The reasoning is plain. The six days began with the evening of the tohu, followed by the “%", or command for the shining of the light, which was the first act in the formation of the heavens and the earth afterwards described. If, then, the first verse denotes a beginning before this, it must have been extra sea dies. If we would bring it within, then it must be 9 ~ 130 SPECIAL INTRODUCTION TO THE FIRST CHAPTER OF GENESIS. regarded as caption to the whole account, or as a summary of the process afterwards in detail set forth. If it is without, then what is meant by the heavens and the earth (especially the earth) therein mentioned? Or it might be asked (and it would be very difficult to answer the question) what part of the first day, or how are we to get any part of the first day, or first night, between the sna of the first verse and the mmr of the second? Again—in the expression hmv PANT, it is to be noted that the subject stands before the verb, which makes it emphatic, or is designed to call attention to it as being the very same earth mentioned before, and whose creation is now going to be more particularly described: and as for the earth (or, but as for the earth, as there is abundant authority for rendering the particle +), it was so and so,—in such a condition, as though to separate it from the heavens (the earth heavens) which is not created, that is, divided from the general mass, until the second day, when God first named it historically by calling the firmament heaven. But can we conclusively rest on such a grammatical exegesis? Oertainly not. The usual law of the Hebrew tenses, though strongly favoring it (aided as it is by the other considerations mentioned), is not sufficiently fixed and without exceptions, seeming or rea], to warrant any inter- preter in speaking positively from such data alone; but certainly this applies with still greater force to those who would be dogmatically positive in maintaining the other view. Grammatical exegesis, even when most thoroughly pursued, may fail of reaching the absolute truth, for that truth may be in itself ineffable. It is, however, the true way, and the only way, of getting at the order of the conceptions as they existed, or as they arose, in the mind of the writer; and this is of the utmost value, even though it may have to be determined by the bare collocation of a word ora particle. Still, the conception is itself but a species of language representing the _ idea even as it is itself represented by the words. It is the last thing in language to which we can reach, and we must take it as standing most immediately, if not most infallibly, for the truth that lies still behind it. “And darkness was upon the face of the deep,” the mimn, or formless waste. Darkness is nothing of itself, yet still it denotes something more than a mere negation, or a mere absence. It indicates rather the obstruction of something that already is. As its Hebrew name implies (with the slightest etymological variation qm for yin), it is a holding back, like the Latin tene- bre from teneo (the m in. umbre, embrea, being phonetically lost in its kindred labial b, as in lambda, labda), and the Greek oxéros with the same ultimate radix (sk=uskK). This darkness was chronologically the first or commencing night of the Hexaémeron, just as the light that follows is, beyond all question, the first morning of the first day. It was even then the shadow of some- thing coming (its skadus, Gothic, or shade, same as Greek sk, cxéros). During all this night it was the obstruction of a power, or the sign of such obstruction, until the brooding spirit loosed its cepas Copou, or “chains of darkness” (2 Pet. ii. 4), and the voice of the Word was heard com- manding that power to comeforth. Nothing is more certain than that in the Mosaic account the light there mentioned comes phenomenally, and historically, after the darkness, and even after the water of the tehom, whether we regard it as gas-form or liquid-form, that is, water proper, according to Lange’s distinction. What a mest serious difficulty is this for those who say that the Mosaic account in its first mention of light has respect to its primal original, or first being,—whether it be the material or dynamical entity merely, or that glorious form of power which is called God’s garment (Ps. civ. 2), and in which he is said to dwell (1 Tim. vi. 16) as in an element most real yet unapproachable by human vision! Can we doubt that light was even then a latent power in the tehom before it was commanded “to shine out of darkness,” é« oxd- tovs (2 Corinth. iv. 6), and upon the darkness, and that it had existed before this earthly morn- ing, and that, too, not as a formless hyle merely, or first matter, but in forms ineffably bright and glorious,—not as a mere force or dynamical entity which never before had had visibility, but as recognized by the angels and sons of God who shouted for joy (Job xxxviii. 7) at this its new Jorm, and that first appearance upon the earth which God called day? PART IL—THE HEXAEMERON, OR THE CREATIVE DAYS. 131 PART IL THE HEXAEMERON, OR THE OREATIVE DAYS. What mean these days, says the great father Augustine, long before geology was born—these strange sunless days: quid volunt dics transacti sine luminaribus? An ista dierum enumeratio ad distinctionem valet inter illam naturam que non facta est, et eas que facte sunt, ut mane nominarentur propter speciem, vespera vero propter privationem : “ does the enumeration of days and nights avail for a distinction between the nature that is not yet made (not yet formed or brought into form) and those which are made, so that they should be called morning, propter speciem (4. ¢., in reference to manifestation, coming out, receiving form, or species) and evening propter privationem (i. ¢., their want of form, or formlessness, total or comparative).” De Genest ad Literam, Lib. ii. ch. 14. Hence he does not hesitate to call them nature, natures, births or growths, also more, delays, or solemn pauses, in the divine work. They are dies ineffubiles ; their true nature cannot be told,—dies cujusmodi sunt, aut perdifficile nobis aut etiam impossidile est cogitare, quanto magis dicere. Hence they are called days as the best symbol by which the idea could be expressed. They are God-divided days and nights, inter gue divisit Deus, in distinction from the sun-divided, inter gue dixit ut dividarit luminaria. Oommon solar days, he says, are mere vicissitudines celi, mere changes in the positions of the heavenly bodies, and not spatia morarum or evolutions in nature belonging to a higher chronology, and marking their epochs by alaw of inward change instead of incidental outward measurements. As to how long or how short they were he gives no opinion, but contents himself with maintaining that day is not a name of duration; the evenings and the mornings are to be regarded not so much in respect to the passing of time (temporis prateritionem), as to their marking the boundaries of a period- ical work or evolution, per guendam terminum quo intelligitur quousque sit nature: proprius modus, et unde sit nature alterius exordium. This is not a metaphorical, but the real and proper sense of the word day—the most real and proper sense, the original sense, in fact, inasmuch as it contains the essential idea of cyclicity or rounded periodicity, or self-completed time, without any of the mere accidents that belong to the outwardly measured solar or planetary epochs, be they longer or shorter: ac sic unus est dies (one day, a day by itself) non istorum dierum intel- ligendus quos videmus circuitu solis determinari atque numerari, sed alio guodam modo. It is sometimes said, if Moses did not intend the common solar day here, why did he not give us some intimation to that effect? The devout, scripture-loving and scripture-revering Augustine saw such intimations in abundance, saw them on the very face of the account. There was no doubt-raising science then, nor anything in philosophy, that drove this most profound yet most humble and truth-seeking mind to such conclusions. He could not read the first of Genesis and think of ordinary days. It was the: wondrous style of the narrative that affected him, the wondrous nature of the events and times narrated; it was the impression of strangeness, of vast- ness, a8 coming directly from the account itself, but which so escapes the notice of unthinking, ordinary readers. Wonderful things are told out of the common use of language, and therefore common terms are to be taken in their widest. compass, and in their essential instead of their accidental idea. It is the same feeling that affects us when we contemplate the language of prophecy, or that which is applied to the closing period, or great day of the world’s eschatology. No better term could be used for the creative mora, pauses, or successive natures, as Augustine styles them; and so no better words than evening and morning could be used for the antithetical vicissitudes through which these successions were introduced. See Augustine wherever the subject comes up, in his books De Genesi ad Literam, Contra Manichaos, and De Civitate Dei. Carrying along with us these thoughts of the great father, we get a mode of exegesis which is most satisfactory in itself, and which need not fear the assaults of any science. It transcends science; it cannot possibly have any collision with it, and can, therefore, never have any need of what is called reconciliation. It treats of origins or beginnings in nature,—things to which science can never reach. It is a mode of exegesis most satisfactory as being most exclusive,—that is, & 132 SPECIAL INTRODUCTION TO THE FIRST CHAPTER OF GENESIS. from the very nature of the things related, based directly on the account itself as mainly and necessarily self-interpreting. Notions in science, notions in philosophy or in theology, that stand outside of it, and even etymologies or modes of naming that become fixed in language at later periods, may suggest ideas, but they are not to control the interpretation of a document so isolated from all other writings and of such exceeding antiquity. As with the account as a whole, so is it, in great measure, with each part. It interprets itself. Thus in the first day: each name is so connected with the others as to present little or no difficulty in determining their general meaning in such relation, though on a scale which, of itself, separates them from their ordinary use in other applications. Keep within the account and there is light; the obscurity and the difficulty increase when we resort to helps outside of it. If we seek for the meanings of yom, ereb, boger, day, evening, and morning, we find them in the very order, and mutually interpreting significance, of the facts presented. These are clear as facts, however ineffable in their comparative magnitude and evolving causalities, “ And the earth was tohu and bohu.” What was that? It was the opposite of the form- assuming conditions and evolutions immediately afterwards described. sm occurs, besides this, eighteen times in the Old Testament, but the general idea, to which we are led by the context and contrasts here, furnishes the best exposition of their special applications elsewhere. It is a striking illustration of what may seem a paradox to some minds, but which is, nevertheless, a fundamental law of language, that the general precedes the particular in the naming of things. The word is applied to a desolate city, Isai. xxiv. 10; xxxiv. 11, to a desert in which the waters evaporate and disappear, Job vi. 18, to a wilderness in which there 73 no way, tae xd inn, Job xii, 24, Psalms cvii. 40, to the earth and heavens going back to ruin, as seen in the prophetic vision, Jerem. iv. 23: “I saw the mountains, and they were trembling, and all the hills were moving fast; I looked and behold there was no man, and all the birds of the heavens were gone ; I beheld the earth, it was tohu and bohu; I looked to the heavens, there was no light.” Hence its moral applications, Isaiah xli. 29; xxix. 21; and especially Isaiah xliv. 9; idolatry is moral con- fusion, an obliteration of all moral forms and distinctions. These places, instead of being necessary to explain Gen. i. 2, get their meaning from it. The first is lexically the key passage. The words, however, that immediately follow are, to some extent, an exegesis of these names. And dark- ness was upon the face of the deep. It was formlessness in its two modes of invisibility and indivisibleness, It was an undistinguishable wasteness. There was no light whereby to see, and there was a want of that division and separation into distinct objects, without which there is no true visibility, even if the light were present. Hence the LXX. well renders may Mn ddparos kat dxarackevacros, invisible and unformed. Next,we have the first mention of the separating, form- giving power.—“ The Ruah Elohim, the Spirit of God, was brooding upon the waters.” Then comes the Word, and morning breaks. Light is the first separation. It is divided from the darkness, which shows that it had before existed in the tohu, and in combination with it, And God calls it day whilst the former state he calls night. It is his own naming, and we must take it as our guide in the interpretation of the words. It is not any duration, but the phenomenon, the appearing itself, that is first called day. Then the term is used for a period, to denote the whole event, or the whole first cycle of events, with its two great antithetical parts. And there was an evening and there was a morning, one day. We look into the account to see what corresponds to this naming. What was the night? Certainly the darkness on the face of the waters. What was the morning? Certainly the light that followed the brooding spirit and the commanding word. How long was the day? How long the night, or the darkness? The account tells us nothing about it. There is something on its face which seems to repel any such question. The whole spirit and style of the account are at war with the narrowness and arbitrariness of any such computation. Where are we to get twelve hours for this first night? Where is the point of commencement, when darkness began to be on the face of the waters? All is vast, sublime, immeasurable, The time is as formless as the material. It has indeed a chronology, but on another scale than that which was afterwards appointed (v. 14) to regulate the history of a completed world with its sky-gazing human inhabitant. One who thinks seriously on the diffi- culty of accommodating this first great day to twenty-four hours, as we now measure them, needs PART Il—THE HEXAEMERON, OR THE CREATIVE DAYS. 133 no other argument. And yet the decision here settles the whole question. This first day is the model, in this respect, for all the rest. There is certainly no determined time here, unless we assume that a fixed duration, as now measured by the sun, is not merely an incident, but the essential and unchangeable idea of the word day, never departing from it, whatever may be the condition and circumstances to which it is applied. And for this, neither the essential laws of language, nor the usages of language, give us any authority, whilst everything looks the other way. All is indefinite except the fact of the great separation accomplished, with its two con- trasted states and one completed period, to which the names ereb, boger, yom, evening, morning, day, are respectively given. Our English translation of the closing formula is deficient. It fails to present the reason of its own introduction, and the relation it bears to what preceded: ‘And the evening and the morning were,”—there is no article to justify this; there is no mention of evening and morning before to which it might be supposed to refer. The evening and the morning may indeed be said to have made the day quantitively, but that is not what is here expressed; otherwise the verb should have ‘been plural, as in ch. if. 24, smx “wad isn, “ they shall be one flesh.” Neither is day the predicate after sh, but stands by itself as the time when. The Hebrew, to correspond to the English as given in our version, would be Sox pw span avn wns, The true rendering is: “and there was an evening, and there was a morning, the first day.” So the Syriac and the Septuagint: kat éyévero éomépa kai éyévero mpwl. In like manner Maimonides: ‘and there was an evening and there was a morning of the first day.” But why is the assertion made here, and what is its force? It is not a mere tautology, such as our English version would seem to make it. It is exegetical; it is designed to give us an intimation of something strange and peculiar in the language, and to explain its application. This ante-solar day, marked by no sunrising or sunsetting, or any astronomical measurement, and without any computed-duration, had still an evening and a morning‘ of its own, and might, therefore, be justly called a day. What this evening and morning were, is left for the reader to discover in the account itself. As applied to a supposed ordinary day, the assertion, especially as it reads in our version, would have little or no discoverable force. On the other supposition, it has a most emphatic meaning, and this we may regard as the reason of its formal utterance, and its solemn repetition at the close of each similar period. In a similar manner they all had an evening and a morning, however strange it might seem, without a shining sun. Each is marked by the same great antithetical distinction; each has a new appearing; but as this is somewhat different in each creative stage, so is there a demand in each for the same essential announce- ment, And there was an evening, and there was a morning, second day,—third day,—fourth day, and so on. The clear apprehension of the first day opens up all the rest. The same exegesis would bear repetition in every one. ‘And God said: ‘Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and led it be a dividing between the waters and the waters, &c.;’ and it was so; and God called the firmament heaven; and there was an evening, and there was a morning, day second.” We look back to find them. Where was the morning here? It was this second dividing and the appearing of this new glory as its result. It is the sky, the atmosphere, with its auroral light. It is the causality represented in this purely phenomenal language by which Moses describes it, according to the conceptions he had of it, and which no more guarantees any vulgar notion, than it does any science or philosophy, perfect or imperfect, that might be brought to explain it. The more clear determines that which is less so. The new appearing of the firmament being the morning, that from which it had been divided, or that preceding state in which the earth had been left after the separation of the light, andi in which the fluid masses of air and water yet remained in their chaotic formations, is the night. And so, as the formula seems to imply, each time it is repeated ; in this way there was also an evening and there was a morning, second day,—in this way, or the only way that exegesis will allow; for there was no visible sunrising or sunsetting, no astronomical measurements to make a morning and an evening of any other kind. The appearing of the dry land as it rose out of the waters, and the quick growth of bloom- ing vegetation that covered it, was the third morning. And then that scene of glory, the first appearing of the sun, moon, and stars in the firmament, now prepared for their revelation, — this 1384 SPECIAL INTRODUCTION TO THE FIRST CHAPTER OF GENESIS. was the fourth great morning to which the name is given, and not to any particular rising of the sun in the east as the beginning of a common day. As there had been a commencement of light, of life, so now there is a commencement of astronomical time with its subordinate periods of sun-divided days, not to be confounded, as Augustine says, with the_great God-divided days of which the fourth was one as well as the rest. Life moving in the waters, and soaring in the air, this was the fifth appearing; and so, according to the ever-preserved analogy, the fifth great morning of the world. Again a solemn pause, with nature left to its repose, how long or short is not revealed, and the sixth morning breaks. It is the latter portion of the sixth day. Now man appears, whether in its earlier or later stage. He is surrounded by the animal world, over which he is to exercise his more immediate dominion. The seventh is the morning of the divine rest. The evening that precedes is not named in the first chapter, but perhaps we may find it in the supplementary account of the second, where there are mentioned two remarkable evolutions that seem to have no other period to which they can be assigned. They are the naming of things, or the divine aiding the human in the development of language, and that mysterious sleep of humanity (was it long or short?) in which by a process most concisely symbolized, but utterly ineffable in respect to the manner, the female human is brought out as the closing work, and man awakes complete in the likeness of God. “In the image of God created he him ; male and female created he them.” It may be said that such a representation seems to make the days run into each other. This may be admitted without regarding it as any valid objection. The darkness still left is the remains, gradually diminishing, of the primeval chaos. Each night is a daughter of the ancient Nox, whilst each new morning is a rising into a higher light. In other words, the evening to each day, though still a'disorder and a darkness, is a diminution of the darkness that went before, whilst the positive light of each new morning continues on, adding its glory to the mornings that follow, and “shining more and more unto the nin y159, the perfect day,” or perfection of the day (Prov. iv. 18), the finished and finishing day—the all-including day, mentioned Gen. ii. 4, as the day when God made the heavens and the earth. And so, as Lange observes (and it is a most important remark, both for the scientific and scriptural view), each is “a glory that ex- celleth,” but still a building on, and a carrying on, the energies that preceded. Each is a new swell of the mighty organ, combining all the former tones, and raising them to a higher and still higher chorus, until The diapason closes full on man. Each day is a new beginning, bringing out a new state of things to be blessed, or called good, but it is not necessarily a finishing of that work until the ‘heavens and earth are finished with all their hosts,” and there is pronounced that closing benediction (4x yw, all good, “very good”) which ushers in the sabbath. Each day, as a beginning by itself, contains the incipient powers and elements of its peculiar work, but does not exhaust those energies. The light is still evolving in the second day; the fluids are still parting in the third; the firmament, though having its auroral light before, is becoming still brighter in the fourth; vegetable and animal life are coming to still greater’ perfection in the fifth and sixth. May not the same be said of man? On the sixth day, his “bringing into the kosmos” be- comes complete; the divine allocution, “Let us make man,” receives its accomplishment, and the process by which his material and physical structure is educed from the earth is finished; but may we not suppose that the preparation for this last and crowning work, and so the work itself, runs through all the previous cycles? “ Thine eyes did see my substance yet unfinished, and in thy book all my (members) were written, the days they were fashioned, when there was not one in them,” Ps, cxxxix. 16. This remarkable passage may apply primarily to the individual genera- tion ; it doubtless includes it; and yet there is something about it which seems to indicate a wider and a deeper application to the origin of our generic physical humanity, and to its first germ or material, as it lay in the formlessness of the chaos. The Septuagint has rendered 4d5 (Ps. cxxxix. 16) by a word very similar to that by which it PART TI.—ALLUSIONS TO THE SIX DAYS IN OTHER PARTS OF THE BIBLE. 135 describes the tohu, dxarépyacrdv pov, my unformed or unwrought—Vulgate: imperfectum meum, my unmade. But the most striking resemblance is suggested by the prvas, the days, which our translators have rendered “in continuance,” thereby greatly impairing the force and significance of the language. “‘ Thine eyes saw it then unfinished,” during all the days in which it was receiv- ing formation, y;x1 pas, when they were being formed, or written down in thy book, cna ams xd These last words have puzzled all the commentators. Ifthe passage may be referred to the primal formation of humanity, then it would be, not only a fair view, but even the most legitimate one, grammatically, to refer amy, as also the pronoun in pra to ovr just preceding—“ during the days they were formed, and even when there was no one (no first day) among them.” ‘Even before the day” (compare Isaiah xliii. 18) God was writing or preparing this book of the human record; it dates from the very foundation of the world—Eph. i. 4, Heb. iy. 8, Rev. xiii. 8. The fall formation of man in the sixth day does not oppose the idea that the powers and evolutions of matter that were finally sublimated into the imperishable germ of the human body, aud the types from lower forms that finally went into the human physical constitution, were being prepared during all the days. This was his being formed owt of the earth, that is, out of nature in its evolving series. Here, too, it may be said (though with the diffidence that becomes every exegetical attempt to penetrate these creative mysteries), we have some light upon that dark and puzzling. language, ‘‘when-I was made in secret and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth,” Ps. exxxix. 15—in inferioribus terra,—in profundissimis nature. The common explanation that refers this language to the maternal womb does not satisfy, and it has no exegetical authority in any similar use of such a metaphor in the Bible Hebrew. It becomes more easy, if we regard it as the womb of nature, the earth out of which the Lord God formed man. In the language, too, of the thirteenth verse "20h (compare Ezek. xxviii. 14, 16—ams qpion—émondoet, Luke i. 35), “thou didst overshadow me in my mother’s womb,” there is a striking resemblance to the image of the spirit brooding or hovering over the formless tehom. It is not strange that the author of this most sublime Psalm should have had in view, either primarily or suggestively, this remoter generation. Man, generically, in his appointment to dominion, is clearly the subject of Psalm viii. 4, 5,6; why should his generic origination be thought too remote an idea for the profound and contemplative cxxxixth? PART III. ALLUSIONS TO THE SIX DAYS IN OTHER PARTS OF THE BIBLE, The most clear and direct is found in the Fourth Commandment, Exod, xx. 11: “Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work, for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth.” This language is held to be conclusive evidence of the latter having been ordinary days. They are of the same kind, it is said, or they would not have been put in such immediate connection. There could not be such a sudden change or rise in the meaning. This looks plausible, but a careful study shows that there is something more than first strikes us. It might be replied that there is no difference of radical idea—which is essentially preserved, and without any metaphor in both uses—but a vast difference in the scale. There is, however, a more definite answer furnished specially by the text itself, and suggested immediately by the objectors’ own method of reasoning. God’s days of working, it is said, must be the same with man’s days of working, because they are mentioned in such close connection. Then God’s work and man’s work must also be the same, or on the same grade for a similar reason. The Hebrew word is the same for both: ‘In six days shalt thou labor and do (nowy) all thy work; for in six days the Lord made (mez, made, wrought) heaven and earth.” Is there no transition here to a higher idea? And so of the resting : “ The seventh shall be to thee a sabbath (maw, a rest), for the Lord thy God rested (ma) on the seventh day,”—words of the same general import, but the less solemn or more human term here applied to Deity. What a difference there must have been between God’s 136 SPECIAL INTRODUCTION TO THE FIRST CHAPTER OF GENESIS. work and man’s work,—above all, between God’s ineffable repose and the rest demanded for human weariness. Must we not carry the same difference into the times, and make o similar ineffable distinction between the divine working-days and the human working-days,—the God- divided days, as Augustine calls them, and “the sun-divided days,” afterwards appointed to us for “signs, and for seasons, and for days, and for years,” of our lower chronology? Such a point- ing to a higher scale is also represented in the septennial sabbath, and in the great jubilee period of seven times seven. They expand upwards and outwards like a series of concentric circles, but the greatest of them is still a sign of something greater; and how would they all collapse, and lose their sublime import, if we regard their antitype as less than themselves, or, in fact, no greater than their least! The other analogy, instead of being forced, has in it the highest reason. It is the true and effective order of contemplation. The lower, or earthly, day is made a memorial of the higher. We are called to remember by it. In six (human) days do all thy work; for in six (divine) days the Lord made heaven and earth, The juxtaposition of the words, and the graduated correspondence which the mind is compelled to make, aid the reminiscence of the higher idea. An arc of a degree on the small earthly circle represents a vastly wider are as measured on the celestial sphere. A sign of our swiftly passing times corresponds to one ineffably greater in the higher chronology of world-movements, where one day is a thousand years, and the years are reckoned from Olam to Olam (Ps. xc. 2), whilst the Olams themselves become units of measurement (alaves réy aldvav) to the Malcuth col Olamim,* or “kingdom of all eternities,” Psalm cxlv. 18, and 1 Tim.i.17. There is a harmony in this which is not only sublimely rational, but truly Biblical. It is the manner of the Scriptures thus to make times and things on earth representatives, or under-types, of things in the heavens,—imodetypara rav év rois dupavois, Heb. ix. 28. Viewed from such a standpoint these parallelisms in the language of the Fourth Commandment suggest of themselves a vast difference between the divine and the human days, even if it were the only argument the Bible furnished for that purpose. As the work to the work, as the rest to the rest, so are the times to the times. But what was the impression on the ancient Jewish mind? It is important to understand this, if we can. Had the Jews commonly conceived of these creative days as being of the ordinary kind, could the fact have been so utterly unnoticed in the frequent references we find to the account of creation, and the frequent use of its imagery, in the Hebrew poetry. Almost all the other wonders of the narrative are alluded to in Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Isaiah, Amos, and such passages in the historical books as Nehemiah ix. 6. Every other striking feature of the account is dwelt upon but this wondrous brevity, the greatest marvel of them all, as it would impress itself upon the mere human imagination picturing it on its sense-scale. All creation begun and finished in six solar days! The earth, the air and seas, with all their swarming spheres of life, the hosts of heaven, sun, moon, and stars, angels and men, all called from non-existence, from nothingness we may say, and their evolution completed in one week, such weeks as those that are now so rapidly passing away!—a week measured, as to extent, by our present time-scale, though the index of that scale—and this adds still to the wonder—had not yet been set in its commencing stages. It is hard to believe this. Not the fact itself, we mean, of such a creation, —for there is nothing repugnant to reason either in its shortness or its instantaneousness, if God had so willed it—but the utter silence respecting such a wonder in every other part of the Bible. There must have been something in the most ancient conceptions of time, especially of sonic or world-times, that led to this, It is shown by their use of the great Olamic plurals before referred to, and the transfer of the same usage to the wons of the New Testament. Our most modern thought of eternity is that of blank, undivided duration, ante-mundane and post-mundane, with only a short week (measured, too, on the scale of the thing yet uncreated), and the brief secular human history intervening like a narrow isthmus between two unmeasured and immeasur- able oceans. Without our saying which is the true view, it may with great confidence be main- tained that a mode of thinking and conceiving, so blank in the one aspect, and so narrow in the *orabs b> msdn, Ps. czly, 18. Our translators have rendered this, everlasting kingdom. It is a specimen of the manner in whick these mighty Hebrew pluralities are covered up, and their vast significance obscured, by vague and con= ecptionless terms. PART IIL—ALLUSIONS TO THE SIX DAYS IN OTHER PARTS OF THE BIBLE. 137 other, would never have given rise to such an Olamic language (if we may call it so) as we actually find in our Hebrew Bible, even in its most ancient parts. The very fact that our modern translation everywhere avoids expressing, or covers up these Olamic and xonic plurals, shows the change in the modern conception. Our authorized version is more defective here than the old Wickliffe, which being made from the Vulgate, resembles more in this the old versions, The Jewish mind, prophetical, contemplative, and poetical, seems always to have conceived of creation as vast, indefinite, and most ancient. We see this especially in that sublime passage Prov. viii. 22: ‘The Lord possessed me,” says the eternal Logos, or Wisdom, yrs voupa “from the antiquities of the earth,”—as though that, instead of being about three thousand years and one week over, were the remotest conception to which the human mind could reach. I was with Him, o»>—n,—day—day—day after day, even with “the Ancient of days,” before each of his “works of old.” Before the tehom, before the springing of the fountains, before the mountains were settled, before the hills arose, before the ban minpy wn, or primeval dust of the world,—when he was preparing the heavens, when he was setting a compass upon the face of the deep, when he made the rakia, or established the clouds to stand above, when he made strong the fountains of the deep, and put his law upon the sea; during all this time I was there, yom, yom; I was the Architect (the Mediator, 6 xarapricrip, as jvax should be rendered, see Heb. xi. 3), rejoicing always before Him. But the greatest joy of the Logos was in the human creation, ‘‘My delight was in the Sons of Adam,”—he “loved us before the foundations of the world.” How it fills the mind to overflowing with its ever-ascending, ever-expanding climaxes, its mighty preparations, and preparations for preparations! How it goes continually back to the more and more remote! How it seems to tax language to convey a conception of vast and ineffable antiquities! What a chain of sequences! If we would fix it still more impressively on the mind, in one all-embracing declaration, turn to Hebrews xi. 8: “ By faith we understand that the worlds were formed (carnpric%at rods aiavas) by the Word of God.” How has it escaped so many commentators here, that the word for worlds is not «écpous, worlds of space, and never used thus in the plural, but alévas, corresponding to the Hebrew p»a>¥, and presenting an idea unknown to its classical usage, or worlds in time? ‘By faith we understand that the ages, tle eternities, the sascula, or great world-times, were mediated (karnpricSa:), or put in order, by the Word of God.” There is an allusion to the creative days in Micah v. 1, although it is unnecessarily obscured in our Engtish version: ‘“‘ And thou Bethlehem Ephratah,—out of thee shall He come forth whose goings forth have been of old, from the days of eternity "—or “from the days of the world”: mdiy “a0, da” dpyis é& jpepdy aidvos, Vulg.: egressus ejus ab initio, a diebus eternitatis, Both of these expressions, nspva and-nbiy “ava, may denote an ancient time generally in the history of the earth, or of the chosen people, as in Isaiah ]xiii. 9, 11, Micah vii. 20; but here, if the passage refers to the Logos, as it is understood by all Christian commentators, the reference to the still greater antiquity of the creative times, or the creative days, is unmistakable. It is the contrast between the humble going forth at Bethlehem, and those ancient outgoings of the Word, which are recorded each day in the First of Genesis, from the first emphatic sax of ver. 8, until the crowning one, ver. 26, where the plural is used in the solemn allocution DIN mys: mds san, “ and God ssid, Let us make man.” Thus regarded, ‘the parallelism between it and Prov. vith and Hebrews xi. 8, seems very clear. We need. only revert to the well-known fact, that the ancient Taramniats or paraphrasts explain these declarations by the xa (Mimra), or Verbum Dei, which is doubtless the same with what is intended by the Logos in John i. 1,2. The language of Prov. viti. 22 ff. and the da’ dpyijs of the LXX. in Micah v. 1, are sufficient to explain the origin of the phraseology in John i. 1, Heb. xi. 8, and Oolossians i. 16, without the aid of any Platonic or Philonic suggestion. So Rabbi Schelomo (Rashi) interprets Micah v. 2, of the Messiah, and explains pup», and nbyy ann, by a reference to Psalm Ixxii. 17, yaw 73" Waw “bd, which the Chaldaic interpreter renders, "before the sun his name was preordained.” psy som “from the days of eternity ; from everlasting was I anointed (*nab3 see the same word Ps. ii. 6), from the beginning, or ever the earth was.” 138 SPECIAL INTRODUCTION TO THE FIRST CHAPTER OF GENESIS. The manner in which the creative days appear in the civ. Psalm has drawn the attention of commentators ancient and modern. It is noticed by Steir, Hengstenberg, and Ewald. It is dwelt upon by Geier and Kimchi. It is expressly admitted by Hupfeld, one of the most rational- izing of German interpreters. The author of the Psalm seems to have had it in mind throughout, though he does not present the days in the formal methodical order, but gives much more prom- inence to some parts than to others. It colors his conceptions, and give much of its sublimity to his pictorial language. Here are the creative days in all the greatness of their evolutions, but no mention of the brevity, no hint of any such impression on the mind of the writer, nothing to suggest anything of the kind to the mind of the reader. There is the feeling of vastness, power, immensity. We recognize great works and great processes, but without any signs of measurement or computation, such as could hardly have been kept out by one who carried with him all along the limited time-conception of one ordinary week, or of six ordinary solar days. There is no wonder expressed, no sense of the difficulties that we experience in the attempt to reduce the first great movements to such a scale,—i. ¢, to think of measurement without a measure, or of solar days without a sun. From the Psalm itself, certainly, if we carried nothing else into the interpretation, no such impression of brevity would be obtained. All is the other way. There is the formless abyss, the light taking the place of darkness upon the face of the waters, the building of the upper chambers, the separation of the air, the spreading out of the sky, the establishment of the firmament* with the clouds therein, the calling into ministerial agency of the new forces of nature, the making the winds his messengers, his servant the flam- ing fire. There is the going forth again of the mighty Word, ‘‘the thunder of his power,” in the dividing and gathering of the waters that before had stood above the mountains, or the places where they afterwards appeared. The abyss had covered them as a garment, but now the hills emerge, the valleys sink, the process goes on until they reach the “places formed for them.” t Then comes the era of life, and it should be remembered that they are not Promethean plastic formations here ce!ebrated, but life in its long-settled habits and locations; the beasts of the fields are drinking of the waters that run in the valleys, the wild asses are roaming the desert, the birds are flying in the air and singing between the branches. It is a most vivid picture of the luxuriant growth of the early species, both animal and vegetable, with the rich provisions for its support, ver. 13-18. Again, there is the appointment of the moon for seasons, the giving to the sun his law for rising and setting (ver. 19), and at last man going forth to the work and labor of humanity. Throughout it all there is the one animating life, the Ruah Elohim, from whose quickening power proceed ‘all these lower orders of vitality, and at whose withdrawal. they gasp (732335), and return again to their dust, ver. 29. The creative doxology too i is not omitted: “ How great are thy works, O Lord! in Wisdom (or by Wisdom masna, through the eternal Logos) hast thou made them all.” (See John i, 2, Cologs, 1.17, ra maura év aire ovvéornke.) It is but the repetition of the ax0 a1 min, the Boned. lo, very good,” of Gen. i, 81: “The glory of the Lord is forever, the Lord rejoices in his works.” $ There is no mistaking here the outline of the creative picture, and of the creative times, yet * All this, it is true, is expressed in optical language in respect to space, but there is no conceptual limit in regard to time. The reason of this may be inferred from the very position of the ancient mind. Their want of outward science limited their space conceptions, but time belonging mainly to the inner sense, there was not only no conceptual hindrance, but an actual freedom of thought leading on to those vast Olamic ideas which are a characteristic of the Hebrew language. And thus it is that the space conceptions of the Bible fall greatly behind those of science, whilst its time ideas went so far beyond them. This was the case, at least until quite lately, or since certain discoveries of the world’s antiquities have given us a new impression of the Olams and AZons, the ages and ages of ages, or the aidves rav atdvwv, of the Scriptures. t Nothing can more clearly denote a process extending far beyond a solar day than this kind of language: M70" nnd, the very places they now occupy, and which were of old appointed for them. There is the samo significance in the ae settling of the mountains,” Prov. viii. 25, I9AVT BAM DAI. Ascendunt montes, descendunt campi. Our version, which is the opposite of all the ancient, and directly opposed to the Hebrew (mips ss Ban 193"), could only have come from an erroneous prejudgment that this language referred to the flood. Even in that case it would have been false to the optical conception. t It might not do to rely upon it alone, but after such a clear reference to oreation and the creative days in other parts of the Psalm, it does not seem forced if we regard ver. 33, 34 as suggested by the thought of the creation-sabbath, and filled with the emotion it would naturally inspire :_ “I will sing unto the Lord ; I will rejoice in the Lord ; and my medita- tion shall be sweet,”—359 5, it shall be like the evening time, the hour of calm yet joyous feeling. PART III.—ALLUSIONS TO THE SIX DAYS IN OTHER PARTS OF THE BIBLE. 139 the impression is not one of brevity. There is order here, succession and evolution on a vast scale; but no intimation of a crowding into times out of harmony with the conception of the works, or the scale of duration which the conceptual truthfulness of the picture demands. If we had nothing but this passage, no one would think of solar days in connection with its great transitions. Nowywhat we want to get at is the thought of the writer, the subjective state out of which arose such language and such a mode of conceiving. We study him as a very old interpreter of Gen. i., who is the best witness to us of the ancient feeling. Rationalizing com- mentators recognize here the creative days, but they somehow fail to see that the writer’s con- ception of the work, and his manner of setting forth the vastness and sublimity of its successions, are not easily reconciled with the notion of common solar days,—a meaning these commentators are determined to fasten on Gen. i., for the obvious reason that it discredits the account, and seems to give them some ground for calling it amyth. It was a similar blindness that led Rosen- miiller to derive the Bible cosmogony from the Persians, whilst at the same time contending for the interpretation of short 24-hour days. According to his own showing the Persians (Zen- davesta) held that the world was generated in six periods (sex temporibus), or times, left altogether - indefinite. If the Mosaic account must be traced to a Persian paternity, let it at least have the Persian width. There is the same grandeur of power and causality in the creation-pictures we find in the latter part of Job; and if we had nothing ab extra to give us a different thought there would be the same impression of vastness in the times. How utterly different this early style from the later Talmudic and Mohammedan trifling about the times and imagined incidents of creation! The old impression had been lost, and there took its place the petty wonder which grows out of the narrow conception; just as in modern times every kind of fanciful hypothesis has been resorted to to account for the first three days, and their morning and evening phenomena, so puzzling, so inexplicable, it may be said, on the supposition of their being ordinary solar days, There is nothing of this trifling in Job. Ina style of highest poetry it gives us ideas and sug- gestions that yet transcend any discoveries in science: “‘ Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? Who appointed its measures, and stretched the line upon it? Upon what are its pillars settled, and who laid the corner-stone thereof? when the stars of the morn- ing sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy. Or who shut up the sea with doors in its gushing forth, when it issued from the womb? when I made the darkness its robe, and thick darkness its swaddling-band; when I drake* upon it my law, and set bars and doors, and said, Here shalt thou come, and no farther, and here shalt thou stop in the swelling of thy waves. Hast thou given command to the morning? hast thou caused the dawn to know its place? Knowest thou the way where light dwelleth? Understandest thou the path to its house? Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow or the hail? Hath the rain a father? and who hath begotten the drops of the dew?” Job xxxviii, Ancient as these challenges are, science has not yet answered them, probably never will fully answer them. Congelation is not yet understood in its essential mystery; there is a store of unrevealed science in the snow-drop, and as for light, though it has been shining on us for 6000 years, we do not yet “know the path to its house.” We stand in awe of such language; we recognize it as superhuman speaking. There are no narrow computations here, no petty fancies, or ingenious hypotheses. Neither is there any filling up of what is left blank in the great outline given by Moses, except that we have occa- sionally the intimation of a law or process when the other gives us only the bare fact expressed in the plainest phenomenal language which was adapted to be the vehicle of its conception. Thus also in another passage, Job xxviii. 25, 26, God is represented as determining the quantity and * Some would give “duin here the sense of appointment or decision merely, as that idea, in most languages, is secondary to that of cutting. But “aw is neyer so used in Hebrew, although such general idea suits the passage. The strength of the word, and the vividness of the imagery, are lost in what is after all but a smooth tautology. There is in- dicated a conflict of forces. There was a terrible disturbance in the old nature of the tehom before the sea became obedient, and the waters quietly settled to their established bound. ‘There is something hard about it,” says Umbreit, “if we give it the usual Hebrew sense ;? but this is the very reason for preferring the literal image. The word is emphatic, and there is an importance in its choice as showing the real conception in the mind of the writer. 140 SPECIAL INTRODUCTION TO THE FIRST CHAPTER. OF GENESIS. force of the elemental powers, and appointing the method of their physical action. It is another of the Scriptural allusions to the Oreative Wisdom: ‘‘ God knew the place thereof when he made for the winds their weight, and fixed for the waters their measure, when he made a Jaw for the rain, and a way for the thunder flames: Vulgate: viam procellis sonantibus, a passage for the sounding storms. In this connection no portion of Scripture is more worthy of attention than Psalm xc, It is especially important as being, on the best authority, ascribed to that same Moses who gives us, whether through direct authorship or tradition, the account of creation: “O Lord, thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations.” The words -71 "73 here evidently refer to old his- torical times upon the earth, but it is equally clear that what follows carries us back to the creative or ante-creative periods. He was “his people’s dwelling-place,” they were “ chosen in Him before the foundations of the world.” ‘Before the mountains were born, before the earth and the tebel were brought forth bx mx bby 3941 pda, from Olam to Olam, from world * to world, thou art God,” or “thou art, O God.” 454mm here is wrongly rendered by the second per- son. Jt is the third feminine, and has for its collective subject bam 77s, earth and the world, or earth and the orbis terrarum. Both yd" and d5inm denote a generative process—both words, as remarked in another place, presenting the same radical etymological conceptions of birth, growth, parturition, with the Latin natus, natura, and the Greek gue, hicis, yervaw, yivo- pat, yéverts.t For this parturitive sense of bbymm see such passages as Isaiah li. 2, Job xv. 7, Prov. viii, 25, Ps. li. 7, Isaiah Ixvi. 8, where this word (in Hophal) and 555 come together, Moy Ove Na Th OR IMs DY pay brn, numguid parturiet terra, the Vulgate renders it; but it is passive, ‘shall earth be brought forth in a day, shall a nation be born at one time?” It is used of one of the common generative processes of nature, as Prov. xxv. 28, “the north- wind generates (ssinn) rain” (verb in the active conjugation), It is applied to Deity, Deut. xxxii. 18, and in connection again with tb»; “‘ Wilt thou forget, a six, the Rock that begat thee” (Deum qui te genuit. Vulg.) s>>1na bx, who bore thee, literally who travailed with thee in birth. The expression may seem a harsh one, but it denotes the tender love and care mani- fested in the formation and culture of the divine people. So when applied, in its more literal sense to natural or creative movements, it denotes a travailing in nature, strong processes, indic- ative of convulsions, violence, and opposition, in passing from one form of matter, or from one stage of life, to another. We dwell upon this, because the power and significance of such words have been so slighted in our translation, and are, therefore, so overlooked by the reader. It amounts to nothing to say that they are figures, even if this were true. They are certainly not fancy figures or rhetorical figures merely, but used because no other language could so well convey their vast and tremendous import, When the Scriptures use poetry,it is not for the sake of ornament, but from necessity; it is because all other language fails. But it may be said that the poetry here is in the style and in the collocation of ideas. The words themselves meet us in their most literal etymological conceptions; just as such words, and such primitive concep- tions have formed the roots of all philosophical and scientific language, as it has been developed in other tongues. * The sense world, given to this word nbdiy, it is said, belongs to the later Hebrew, but there are quite a number of passages in the Old Testament, besides Eccles. iii. 11, where this sense is the most apposite (see Ps. cxlv. 18, cvi. 48), and the later usage (if it may be so called, for itis undoubtedly most ancient in the Syriac bess) grows directly out of the primitive conception. The Rabbinical usage differs in this, that it is employed for space-worlds (xégmos) and thus per- verted from that original idea of a time-world which it has given to the New Testament aidy. + Hence, from 35" the noun Mi754M, used in Gen. ii. 4, of “the generations (yevecets, naturae) of the heavens and the earth.”? The idea of the earth as a growth, birth, or generation, did not shock either the Jewish or Patristic feeling, as is shown by the reception of the LXX. word Genesis as a name for the first book of Moses. Gen. i. abounds in this kind of generation language. The earth brings forth (821n), the waters breed (1271) (swarm with life), the grass germinates (swan), and the trees and plants seminate (seat , each after its genus or speciés (77), which is the result of the generative law or process. Nature is everywhere, but God over all, the Logos in all, commencing a new nature, changing, modifying, or elevating an old one. The Hebrew writers employ such terms without scruple, and without any dread of naturalism. The natural and supernatural were not so sharply drawn as in modern times, Nature had its supet- natural, and the supernatural showed itself in nature. These are the /iteral meanings; but they would have been the germs of a philosophical and scientific language had the Hebrew been ever so developed. PART III. ALLUSIONS TO THE SIX DAYS IN OTHER PARTS OF THE BIBLE. 141 “Before the mountains were born, and the earth brought forth,”—before creation was fin- ished, and brought to its full birth,—ndiy 4395 ndiga “from Olam to Olam, from world to world, dé Tov aidvos Kat as Tov aldvos (a swculo et usgue in seculum), thou art, O Mighty El.” »s5x in the first verse is the name of administration; 5x is the older name of power and causality. ‘*From everlasting unto everlasting,” says our translation, as though both expressions made merely a general phrase for eternal duration, regarded as blank continuity, to the entire neglect of the plurality and the transition. Some might fancy it the idea of a past and a future eternity, but this past had its divisions. It was before the creation, or before the completion of the creation, that El existed thus from Olam to Olam, from won to mon, @ seculo in seculum, from world to world; just as our word world is used as a time-word in the oldest.English. See Wickliffe’s translation of 1 Tim. i. 17 “kynge of worldis, Bacwebs rav aidvev.” It is intended here to mark most emphatically the contrast between God’s times and our times, the brevity of which is so affectingly set forth in verses 9 and 10 below: “The days of our years are three- score years and ten.” We live from year to year; God lives from Olam to Olam.* The times of our history are reckoned as annual, centennial, millennial ; God’s times are Olamic or xonian, —aidmos being an adjective whose unit of measurement is aidv (Z. e., time measured by sons), just as annual is time measured by years. The divine life-time (not in itself, but as given to our conceptions) is reckoned by worlds, and worlds of worlds, until, through their mighty reduplications, rather than by any conceptionless abstract or negative terms, we approach, as near as the human irhaging faculty can approach, to the thought of an absolute eternity. All this is confirmed, as sober and rational exegesis, by that remarkable declaration in this Psalm (ver. 4), which farnishes the key of interpretation for all passages that speak of the greater chronology, whether it be the immense past as intimated in the pluralities of the Old Testament, or the unknown periods of the Olamic eschatology as referred to in the New (see 2 Pet. iii. 8, 2 Thess. ii, 2, Heb. x. 37): “For a thousand years in thine eyes are as a day (mn), as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.”t How slow to us, and yet how sublimely the faith of this o»ndx ws, or man of God, waits and watches for the day (ver. 14): ‘‘O satisfy us (~p23) in the morning with thy mercy.” ‘px here may very easily mean an ordinary morning, if one is contented with it, or chooses to render it adverbially (as our translation does: “O satisfy us early,”) but certainly there is much in this wonderful Psalm, and in the general scale of its language, that points to the higher idea and to the higher day. The most careless reader can hardly fail to see that it abounds in great contrasts: “We spend our years as asigh,” ¢ but thou art from Olam to Olam.” ‘Our life is as a watch in the night compared with thy millennial day.” “We are as a sleep.” “O satisfy us in the morning with thy mercy;” then “make us glad according to the days wherein thou hast afflicted us, the years wherein we have seen evil.” So in another place, Ps. xxx. 6: “ Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy (min a shout of jubilee) cometh in the morning.” ‘I shall behold thy face in righteousness, I shall be satisfied when I awake, with thy likeness,” Ps. xvii. 15. The rationalist may interpret all these on the lower acale and give consistent reasons for his philology. Let him be content with it, but there is * Whether such language is used of mundane, ante-mundane, or post-mundane ages, or of all together, must be deter- mined by the context ; the word abiy being in itself wholly indefinite. It is distinguished simply from ordinary astro- nomically computed time. Here, in Ps. xc. 2, it can have no other than a creative or ante-creative reference. In Ps. ciii. 17, however, the primary thought would be Olams of this present Olam, or what would be called mundane ages: pay sy) pb. aim ‘OM, “the mercy of Jehovah is from Olam to Olam upon them that fear him.” Though even here it will be according to the reader’s faith. ‘This precious promise may take in the alavas Tay aidvey, the ages of the ages, the eternities of the eternities, to come. There is the same contrast in Ps. ciii. 17, as in Ps. xc. 2—our fleeting days and the duration of Him who liveth from Olam to Olam. See the verses above. is t The idea is found in the Koran, and is applied to creation. Sve Surat xxxii. 4, ‘the day whose length is a thousand years such as ye reckon.” Compare also Surat lxx. 3, 4, “the degrees by which the angels and the Spirit ascend to Him, cach a day in which there is 50,000 years. They are the intervals between the going forth of the word (the ruah or spirit, ag it is called) in creation.” There is no reason for supposing that Mohammed got this notion from the Scriptures.’ It belonged to the ancient oriental thinking, and seems to have come down, in its own way, from the earliest ages, when men had little science or knowledge of worlds in space, but vast conceptions of times. . : ; : + man 425, Like a low murmuring sound,—like a long-drawn sigh, commencing with the first inhalation and at ing with the last gasp of the departing breath. So the Syriac, heey, yoy] 98 it should be pointed atk gu-wo-go, like a groan, like a murmur. 142 SPECIAL INTRODUCTION TO THE FIRST CHAPTER OF GENESIS. nothing to prevent, there is much to favor, that higher and wider view which the ever-ascend- ing style of Scripture (even when it seems to speak of temporal things) and the ever-expanding power of Hebrew words, offer to the spiritual mind, Again, there is “the morning (Ps, xlix. 15) in which the righteous shall have the dominion.” How frigid is the comment of the rational- ist here! and how far it falls short of all the ideas suggested by the context! “4pab, mox subito,” says Rosenmiiller; and then he refers to Ps. xlvi. 6 (God shall help her, the Church, the civitas Dei, pa mised, at the turning of the morning), which he has in like manner to diminish froin the higher scale before it will answer his purpose. So Hupfeld: “ Superstites sunt.” Accord- ing to him, all this striking imagery, and this strong word ‘177, mean no more than that good men shall survive the wicked; they shall visit their graves the morning after they have been buried. The morning, in Ps. xlix. 15, when “the rigliteous shall reign,” is the great dies retributionis, so prominent in Scripture, and acknowledged too (like the conception of great times) in the earliest language and thinking of the race.* Such an interpretation may seem forced to one who looks at it from the lowest stand-point, and feels the need of nothing higher. It was other- wise with the early, musing, meditative mind. The more dim and indefinite their faith in another world, the more vast their conception of its times and its parallelisms (in these respects) with the present vicissitudes of our being. To such minds, even without revelation, the idea rose naturally out of the most obviously suggested contrasts. The brevities of our present state gave birth to the idea of the eternities. From this there grew a corresponding language which in modern times we have failed justly to interpret. The shortness of the human life was more thought of in the earliest days than it is now, although men then lived longer. Hence that wailing language respecting it, we find in Job and in the Psalms. Away back in the patriarchal times, when, as some say, this world was all they knew,-men confessed more readily and more feelingly than they do now, that they were pilgrims and sojourners on earth. Nothing, therefore, was more natural for such souls than the attempt to transfer these brevities and the language that represented them, to the higher scale, ‘Their very despondency in respect to their having any share themselves in this higher chronology, would the more strongly suggest to the mind its vast durations. Hence the maby mii, “the years of the eternities,” Psalm Ixxvii. 6, the yimd yas mw, “the years of the right hand of the most High,” Psalm xxvii. 11. Hence the thought of ‘the won, or higher world-time, of a greater day, of a more glorious morning. * The use of the word morning for the great day of light and retribution is very marked in the early Arabian poets, before the time of Mohammed and the Koran. It has no appearance of having been invented by them, but carries the evidence of long-established usage,—a mode of speech which no one thought of explaining because of any obscurity or novelty in it. There is no reason why we may not suppose it as ancient as any phrase in the language, and to have gone back fo the days of Job, as well as many other Arabic expressions, which the Neologists always find in abundance for that time when it suits other purposes they may have in view. Thus Lokman, as quoted in the Kitab ul-agany: ‘0 my son, despise not small things; for they shall be great in the morning.” So also the old poet and orator Koss, as given by Sharastani 437 (Cureton’s Ed.) [KE LST xt, soul dlef haf. all atl «cor is one; He began (life); He causes it to come back om death) ; i Him is the returning in the morning.” See also Sprenger’s «‘ Leben des Mohammed,” vol. i. p. 97. For examples in the Koran, see Surat lix. 18: “0 believers, fear God, and let every soul see to it what it sends bofore it for the morning”? (or the morrow, in posterum diem). It is used as an ancient and settled phrase for “the day of judg- ment,” according to that frequent Koranic idea that a man’s sins are sent on before him, and that they will be all there to meet him in the morning of retribution, or the dies ire. See also the commentary of Al-zamakhshari on the passage: “It is the day of the resurrection,” he says, ‘called the morning, to impress us with a sense of its nearness.”” Hariri uses the same ancient form of speech, not merely as a chance poetical phrase, but as having place among the settled idioms of the language. The vagrant Abu Zeid is represented as saying of the man who will give him a robe to cover his nakedness, that in return for it he shall be well clad in the morning,—that is, both in this world and in the day of retribution that is to come. . M1 cee eevee sis cl pall ae 309 Bee? “He shall be covered to-day (that is, in this world) with pie praise, and in the morning (or the morrow) shall he be enrobed with the silk of paradise.” Hariri Séance, xxv. p. 300, ed. of De Sacy. The idiom, traced in this way from the earliest Arabian poets, shows the antiquity of the language and of the idea. PART IV.—IDEAS OF NATURE AND THE SUPERNATURAL, 143 Messiah’s throne is to be nya arn, “like the days of Heaven,” Psalm Ixxxix. 30, “ his kingdom,” prabs b5 rhoba, “a kingdom of all Olams.” Hence, too, the ancient cyclical ideas of great times when all things should come round again, and that belief in a future renovation of the earth and heavens that Pareau has shown to have belonged to the early Arabians and Egyp- tians,* and which, though in another form, is not obscurely alluded to and sanctioned in the Scriptures themselves, This latter idea is plainly enough presented by the Prophet: “ Behold, I create new heavens,” .or rather “‘T create the heavens new, n»win eaw aaa, and the earth anew;” wan denoting rather the idea of renewalf than that of an origination de novo. We find it elsewhere, all the stronger because it comes in incidentally, as a thing firmly believed. Thus Ps. cii. 26, which Paul, it should be noted, applies to the creative Logos, Heb. i. 10: “Of old didst thou lay the foundation of the earth, and the heavens (the atmosphere, the rakia, the sky,) are the work of thy hands. They perish (it is not a prediction, but a description in the present),” they jlow or change; there is no stability in nature, whatever science may say; it is necessarily finite in time as well as in space. “But thou standest (sayn, permanes, abidest through); yea, all of them wax old as doth a garment, and as a garment thou shalt renew them, and they shail be renewed,” mrbnn ; it is ever in such connection the change of renewal, of regermination, of reviviscence. Passing, or succession, is the radical idea of the root in all the Shemitic tongues; it is one thing, or one state, taking the place of another, but it is ever a passing from death to life, from loss to gain, froin decay to vigor, from torpor to activity. See such passages as Psalm xc. 5: spaa pom. asymp, “in the morning like grass ¢¢ groweth up,” Jobxiv, pbm w194 mass ox, “if it be cut down it shall sprout again,” and Job xiv. 14, where the noun from the same verb, just before applied to the regerminating plant, is used by Job to denote his own renewal: ‘‘O that thou wouldst lay me up in Hades; ” “‘all the days of my set time would I wait until my halipah come.” Compare also Isaiah ix. 9, and the places where it is used of the renewal or change of raiment, Gen. xli. 14, xxxv. 2, and others,—also of moral or spiritual renovation, as Isai. x]. 81-xli. 1. There is no mistaking these Scriptural analogies of the past and the fature. Earth shall be rehabilitated; nature shall put on her new robe; there shall be anew creative day, a new light, & new atmosphere, a new firmament, a new glory in the sun and stars, 2a new Adam, Prince of a new life, a new human kind over whom death shall reign no more, a new Eden-world, “ wherein dwelleth righteousness.” PART IV. THE IDEAS OF NATURE AND THE SUPERNATURAL AS PRESENTED IN THE SORIPTURES. Tur idea of law in nature is given in the Bible in its own peculiar language, but it is as distinctly to be found there as in Newton’s “Principia.” The details were unknown, as they are yet in their vast extent unknown to our best science, but both the idea and the fact were none the less firmly held. ‘For ever, O Lord, thy Word is settled in the heavens” (Psalm cxix. 89), that is, in the remotest or highest space ; “from age to age is thy truth” (thy truthfulness), z. ¢., throughout all time. That the language has reference to natural things may be seen by comparing it with Psalm xxxiii. 6, “ By the Word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all their host by the breath of his mouth” (195 mm), the utterance of his month, that is, the origin- ating Word, and its going forth or prolonged sounding in the nature originated, the Adyos mpo- opixés of Ooloss. i. 17, ev 8 ra mdvra ovvéoryxe, “in whom all things consist,” or stand together, So here, Psalms cxix. 89, sn is the word of God, giving law, as it gave origin, to nature; mavox * Johannis Henrici Pareau, theol. Doct. et Ling. Orient. in Acad. Harderv. Commentatio de Immortalitatis ac Vite Sulura notitiis ab antiquissimo Jobi Seriptore. Daventrie MDCCCVII, A most rare yet valuable work. t This is the piel sense almost exclusively (the word not occurring in Kal). Hence it furnishes a name for the moon -and the month, the renewal. It is almost wholly in this sense that it is used by the Rabbinical writers. Creation is renewal, though, when the necessities of the reasoning require, it is used for absolute origination. 144 SPECIAL INTRODUCTION TO THE FIRST CHAPTER OF GENESIS. is the divine faithfulness in the preservation of that law, and the constant execution of that word. The numerical ratios of this hok olam, or cosmical ordinance, were undetermined by the early mind; it was not known whether its energizings were according to the squares or the cubes of the distances, but of such a harmony existing in the heavens there was no doubt, “Their line had gone out into all the world;” the author of the 19th Psalm was as sure of this as Kepler, who derived his scientific inspiration from it. A mighty law, a universal law, was there. That was known to David as well as to Newton. The same idea appears in what fol- lows: ‘Thou also hast founded the earth,” mana s¢atuisti ; thou hast given it an order, a genesis, an establishment. Hence, from this same root, the Syriac Liu (he-yo-no) natura, conditio na- turalis, Again, in the verse following (Psalm cxix. 91), ‘‘they stand (that is, things stand) accord- ing to thine ordinances; for are they not all thy servants?” This is not a mere figure to denote a mere mechanical forcing; there is a real law, and a real natural obedience. ‘He constituteth the wind his minister, the flaming fire (the lightning) his servants,” Ps. civ. 4. “Thou sendest them forth ; they go and return to thee, saying, Behold us, here we are.” Job xxxviii. 85. Poetical as the language may be, there is something more than a fact represented, or a phenomenon. There is an abiding nature, an obedience to law, a command and a response,—not a capricious move- ment, but an invariable doing. ‘He appointeth the moon for seasons, the sun knoweth his going down.” Our modern science has discovered much in respect to the manner, but has revealed nothing new in respect to the essence of the idea. We have similar language, Job xxviii. 25: ‘“‘He made a weight for the winds” (fecit ventis pondus),—he determined the gravity of the most seemingly imponderable substances,—“he established (jm, regulated) the waters in their measure,” their proportions, their relations, their quality, as well as their quantity. ‘‘ When he made a law for the rain, s2ab pn (quando ponebat pluviis legem) and a way (3"4 a constant course, an immutable rule) for the lightning and its voice.” It is the same idea in that most sublime declaration, Job xxv. 2, ain. pby mwy, ‘He maketh peace in his high places,” concordiam in sublimibus suis, he hath established a harmony in the heavens. Compare Ps. xix. 5; Hos, ii. 22, 28. It was this style of thought and language that led to nature’s being called a covenant, whether such covenant or law was regarded as made with nature, or with man, and for man’s sake. See Jeremish xxxiii. 20. It is God's “ covenant of the day and night;” they are expressly called AR) ovaw mph, the statutes, “the laws of the heaven and earth,” in their relations to each other, as compared with the higher covenant of the Messiah. One of the most invariable things in the physical world is the rainbow, ever appearing when the sun shines forth after a storm; and it is this beautiful phenomenon that is made the symbol of nature’s constancy,—not as a new thing, when pointed out to Noah, but chosen, from the very fact of its invariableness, as the best representative of the great idea thus grounded on the eternal promise. There is a twofold idea in creation which the mind cannot separate, and which the Bible does not separate. It is the giving form by the immediate operation of the Word, and then the infixing that form as a permanent principle working on until the whole is finished, and afterward remaining as an unchanging Jaw. The rudimentary expression for this we find in that repeated formula of Gen. i. ya->n™, rendered, “and it was so.” That would simply denote the fact; but it is more than this. The particle j> (or the adjective rather) never loses the primary idea of fixedness, establishment, order, that is everywhere prominent in the verb 73, from which, as before remarked, comes the earliest Shemitic word for nature, unless we may regard it as rep- resented by the Hebrew mabin, “And it was so,”—rather, “and it became firm, fixed, established.” Another germ of the same thought we find in the mbwaa of Gen. i. 16, the rule or law of the heavenly bodies in the regulation of the seasons, and their general influence upon the earth. It appears still more clearly in Job xxxviii. 88: “ Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven ; canst thou set the dominion thereof in the earth.” Here we have again the maw mipn, the statutes or laws of the heavens (Vulgate, ordinem cali, LXX. rpords odpavod, the turnings or tropics of the heavens). sown is a still more significant word than mbwara, It denotes a canon, a rule, a marked series or ordo, Taken in connection with what is said above of the influence (or bands) of Plei- PART IV.—IDEAS OF NATURE AND THE SUPERNATURAL. 145 ades, it might seem to refer to the old belief in astrology; but this had in it nothing of the magical. Whatever scientific errors it involved, it was precious as containing the idea of the unity of the Kosmos, or of a whole, in which each part had an influence upon the whole and upon every other part. This faith in nature which the old Shemitic mind possessed, was all the stronger, it may be said, in proportion to the want of exact knowledge. David, and Isaiah, and Moses, had a belief in the constancy of nature, founded on better grounds than that of the sceptical naturalist. It wag, too, more truly a recognition of daw than that generalization of mere inductive science which can only regard nature as simply that which is, or appears, and law as nothing more than a state of present facts, or relative sequences, that might have been any other state of facts, or any other order of sequences, and which would still have been nature, still have been law, from the mere fact of its being so. The natural law of the Bible, on the other hand, was a real causative power, a real ruling or dominion in itself, though inseparable from the will and wis- dom of a lawgiver. The true notion of the natural cannot be held without the complementary idea of the super- natural, since nature can have no beginning in itself (the thought involving a contradiction), and, therefore, demands a power older than itself, beyond and above itself. It is thus that the Scripture not only gives, but necessitates, the idea of the supernatural, although there is no parade of philosophical language in setting it forth. There are also to be found therein the specific diversities of the idea. The supernatural, as origin, is described as the Word going forth. It is thus all through creation acting pari passu with the natures it originates. When it is referred to among post-creative acts it is characterized as “making something new upon the earth” (MBA); see Numb. xvi. 80; Jerem. xxxi. 22; though this, as before remarked, denotes a new event, a new form of things, rather than new matter. Asa change, interruption, or metamor- phosis in nature, in distinction from a permanent new power introduced into it, it becomes simply the idea of the miraculous, For this there isa peculiar expression. It is called “the finger of God,” intimating that the merest touch of Deity can cause a deflection in nature, though nothing in nature is really broken or destroyed. See Exodus, viii, 15, the language of the baffled magicians, who thereby confessed that their art, whatever it might be, was not the finger of God,—that is, had nothing of the supernatural about it. See also Exod. xxxi. 18; Deut. ix. 10. Sometimes the figure contained in the expression is applied to some great natural event of the more sudden and stupendous kind, as to the voleano, Psalms, civ. 82: ‘He touches the moun- tains and they smoke,”—the lightness of the effort implying the mightiness of the power. The single term, however, for the miraculous, or wonderful, is x9, whose primary idea is that of a thing, or an act, separate and standing by itself, out of the chain of causation, though the term is sometimes applied rhetorically to a stupendous natural event.* And this leads us to the main thing we wish here to remark, that though, in idea, the Scriptural distinction between the natural and the supernatural is clear, there is not, in practical speech, that sharp line drawn between them that distinguishes our modern thinking. In celebrating the praises of God xdbp mw, “who doeth wonders” (Ex. xv. 11), the Bible writers are as apt to take one class of acts as another, though one or the other may predominate in certain books in conse- quence of the peculiar connections. In the Law, and in the Prophets, the supernatural is more dwelt upon; it is the passage of the Red Sea, the fire and voice from Sinai, the smiting of the rock in the Wilderness, &c.; in Job, it is the great natural as exhibited in the elements, the storm, the thunder, and the marvellous productions of the animal world. So also often in the Psalms— see especially Ps, xxix. One class of events is regarded as much the work of God as the other. In both representations, moreover, is there a mingling of the two ideas. In the supernatural * There is another Hebrew term, of a very peculiar kind, used to denote the bringing about an event, special and. remarkable, by a series of causes strictly natural or moral, or mainly such, yet continually deflected, or turned rownd, to. the production of a certain result. There has been nothing startling, or sudden, but the finger of God has been upon the: series all the way. It is called FBO (Sibbah), the etymology itself being its clearest definition, It is a bringing about or around (from a30) a causality, yet with a constant deviation produced by other causes, physical and moral. For. examples, see the story of Rehoboam, 1 King, xii. 25, also 2 Chron. x. 15, and other passages. In Arabic the primary sense: of 15D is lost, and the secondary idea of causation, thus derived, becomes predominant. 10 146 SPECIAL INTRODUCTION TO THE FIRST CHAPTER OF GENESIS. displays, such as that of the flood, the crossing of the Red Sea, the Egyptian plagues, the pro- viding food in the Wilderness, there is more or less of natural intervention linked in and dis- tinctly mentioned as forming a part, at least, of the process. And then again the great natural is so described in Job and the Psalms, that the awe of the supernatural is upon us, and we receive the impression of a divine presence as distinctly as though it had been all miracle. But it is in the creative account that this blending becomes most remarkable. The young nature, though strictly a nature, seems as near to God as the supernatural. Still are they clearly distinguishable. Two false notions have warped our thinking here. It may be said, too, that they are as anti-biblical as they are false. All in creation we have been accustomed to regard as supernatural; all since creation as the uninterrupted natural, with the exception, here and there, of a few interspersed miraculous events. An excessive naturalism on the one hand has been the counterpart to an excessive supernaturalism on the other. Now the more thoroughly we study Gen. i. the more it will be found that the strictly supernatural is in the beginnings, or rather in the mornings, of each day, whilst the carrying on, or the completion of each process, is strictly nature, the mora, as St. Augustine calls it, the pause, quiescence, or evening in creation. There is in each of these days, or these mornings, whether we regard them as following or preceding the repose, a word going forth, and then a process of obedience to anew law. Thus each word is a new power dropped into the stream of a previous nature which had, in like man- ner, a word for its beginning. Hence creation is a succession of growths, generations, mit>n. This word is derived from 4», to give birth, just as natura from nascor, picts from die, or genesis (yéveois) from yiyvoua. Had the old Hebrew become a philosophical language this would have been the order of development.. Lange intimates that toledoth, as applied to the generations of the earth and heavens, was taken retroactively from the human genealogies after mentioned. We cannot think so. It would seem to be a starting or model name for all generative successions. First the genesis of the heavens and earth, then of the human race, as involving ever in their reproductions the same mingling of the natural and the supernatural. We find a nature in the very beginnings of life. It is all prepared and waiting for the word, but it is nature when it moves. “Let the earth bring forth”—“let the waters bring forth.” The first plants grow, whether slowly or suddenly. They are a production from the earth. They are brought forth according to their species, with their order or law in them. As madin corresponds to dicis and natura, so does the Hebrew 37 to the Greek efdos, idéa, and the Latin species. This is etymologically clear in the derivative matan, It is the outward form, as representative of and produced by the inward form which is the real idea, or species. Thus it is law from the start, producing organization, and not law as a mere name for, and life as a mere result of, an outward mechanically formed organic structure. That would be sheer materialism. The process presented in the Scriptures, however difficult to be understood conceptually, is the opposite of the idea of mechanical formation. As Oudworth forcibly though quaintly expresses it in his distinction between human and divine art, God does not stand on the outside like a human artist, and moliminously, by-means of shaping tools and processes, introduce his idea into the work. It is the word and the idea working from within. The outward material organiza- tion is its product instead of its cause. It matters not that this is in another place spoken of as a making, That is merely a summary of the manner of making as here set forth in the more detailed account. God’s making a thing intends every step in its production. Thus the whole creation of the heavens and earth is set forth as a making (Gen. ii, 4), and a making in one day; yet the whole of the first chapter is occupied with the six great days, or successions, that intervene between the darkness and the chaos on the one side, and man and paradise on the other. Again, there are cases which might seem the reverse of this, where God is represented as mak- ing, forming, &., in processes which are not only natural—so supposed to be—but ordinary. Thus not only the generic production of humanity, but the individual generation is ascribed to him, just as though it were a creative process; and in fact we do not see how the idea of their ‘being the creative or the supernatural somewhere in each individual human generation can be denied by those who condemn traducianism. “Before I formed thee in the womb,” Jer. i. 5; PART V.—HOW WAS THE CREATIVE HISTORY REVEALED? 147 it is that same word \z" which has been regarded as peculiarly employed of direct outward or mechanical formation, as the artist forms a statue or a picture. It is so only when applied to human works, where the artist, as Cudworth says, stands on the outside, but as used of God it is ever the inward formation, the eSes, or idea, of which the outward shape is but the image or ei8@Xov, the mere representative of the unseen. Sce also Isaiah xliv. 2, 24; Isaiah xliii. 1, where it is used as synonymous with xxs, See especially Ps. exxxix. 16: x4 pas, “the days they were formed when there was not one in them,” which carries the same idea, whether it refers to the generic or the individual formation. Had there been no other place in the Bible where the | human generation is spoken of than the one cited from Jerem. i. 5, it might have been thought (if we follow the mode of interpretation which some will insist upon applying to Genesis) that the prophet was directly and mechanically created. Hence the idea as well as the interpretation is capable of reversal. If it means a process, as it undoubtedly does when thus used of the individual gestation, it may denote, and probably does denote, an analogous process in the creative account, where it is used of man, just as pwy and x43, with no more of the outward or mechan- ical in the one case than in the other. Only let us keep to the old Hebrew modes of thinking and speaking, and we need not be afraid of naturalism. It is God’s nature that we read of in Genesis. If life is said to come from the waters, let us remember that it was upon these same waters the Spirit brooded in the first mysterious night of creation. If it is naturalism, it is the naturalism of the Bible; and the wonder is that such plain declarations of birth, growth, succession, law, generation—one thing coming out of another—should have been so much overlooked. It is because the Scripture doctrine of the Word, or Logos, in nature, has so fallen out of our theology, that we dread so much the appearance of naturalism. In proportion as we have lost that true Scriptural idea of supernaturalism, which sees no inconsistency in such blendings, are we driven to the dogmatic or arbitrary supernaturalism to defend our religious ideas from the equally dogmatic and arbitrary naturalism of modern science. We have endeavored to be brief, but the reader is requested to compare the hints here given, with the unmistakable language of the Scripture. Instantaneous creations there might have been, for anything our reason could say to the contrary; but the actual creation in the Bible is set forth as a succession. It is a series of mibn, or generations, each one revealing those unseen things of God from which are made the things that do appear. The other mode would have been to us the revelation of a fact or facts alone. As we have it given unto us, it is a revelation of something more and higher,—of law, of process,—of artistic beauty,—of architectural wisdom. It is not the power alone, but the very mind of God, that is shown to us, The one would have been a creation simply in space; God has seen fit to reveal to us a creation in ¢éme, as well as in space, and this is inseparable from the ideas of succession, series, causation—in a word, of natwre, beginning in the supernatural, yet having its law given to it, and capable of yielding obedience to that law. PART VY. HOW WAS THE OREATIVE HISTORY REVEALED? Homes, sublimity, truthfulness,—these are the impressions left upon the mind of the thoughtful reader of the First of Genesis, There is meant by this its subjective truthfulness, It is no invention. The one who first wrote it down, or first spoke it to human ears, had a per- fect conscious conviction of the presence to his mind of the scenes so vividly described,—whether given to him in vision or otherwise,—and a firm belief in @ great objective reality represented by them. It is equally evident, too, that it is the offspring of one conceiving mind. It never » grew like a myth or legend. It is one total conception, perfect and consistent in all its parts. : It bears no evidence of being-a story artificially made to represent an idea, or a system of ideas. There is, in truth, nothing ideal about it. It presents on its very face the serious impression of fact belicved, and given forth as thus believed, however the original representation may have 148 SPECIAL INTRODUCTION TO THE FIRST CHAPTER OF GENESIS. been made to the first human soul that received it. Myths and legends are the products of time; they have a growth; we can, in general, tell how and whence they came, and after what manner they have received their mythical form. Thus, other ancient cosmogonies, though bear- ing evidence of derivation from the one in Genesis, have had their successive accretions and deposits of physical, legendary, and mythological strata. This stands alone in the world, like the primeval granite of the Himalaya among the later geological formations. It has nothing national about it. It is no more Jewish than it is Assyrian, Ohaldean, Indian, Persian, or Egyptian. It is found among the preserved Jewish writings, but there is nothing, except its pure monotheistic aspect, which would assign it to that people rather than to any other. If the Jews derived it from others, as is often affirmed, then is it something very wonderful, something utterly the reverse of the usual process, that they should have so stripped it of all national or sect features, and given it such a sublime aspect of universalism, so transcending, apparently, all local or partial history. It is no imitation. Copies may have been made from it, more or less deformed, but this is an original painting. The evidence is found in its simplicity, unity, and perfect consistency ; whilst in all others the marks of the traditional derivation are to be detected. Overloaded additions, incongruous mixtures, inharmonious touches, all prove that the execution and the original design, the outline and the deformed or crowded filling up, are from different and very dissimilar sources. Take the Scriptural representation of the original formlessness, the primeval darkness, the brooding spirit, the going forth of the light, or the first morning, the uprising of the firmament, the emerging of the land from the waters, and compare it with the Greek fables derived from the Egyptian, and which Hesiod has given as the traditional cosmogony. How is all this sublime imagery transformed and deformed in the mythical genealogy that tells us how from Chaos (the yawning abyss) were born Night and Erebus, and how from them arose the ARther and the Day, and how afterwards Earth was born, from whom, and “like to itself on all sides surrounding,” came “starry Ouranos!” There is enough to show that the Greek or Egyptian cosmogony had its origin in this ante-historical, ante-mythical account, but no Jess clear is it that the pure, the holy, the consistent, the sublimely monotheistic narrative was the most ancient, and that these deformities grew out of the nature-worship, whether pantheistic or polytheistic, which, in the course of human depravity, succeeded the earlier, more grandly simple, and less assumingly philosophic idea of the world and its one creator. It is greatly in favor of the Bible account that it has no philosophy, and no appearance of any philosophy, either in the abstract form, or in that earlier poetical form which the first philosophy assumed. Its statements of grand facts have no appearance of bias in favor of any class of ideas. Its great antiquity is beyond dispute; it is older, certainly, than history or * philosophy. It was before the dawning of anything called science, as is shown by the fact that everything is denoted by its simplest phenomenal or optical name. There is no assigning of non- apparent causations, except the continual going forth of the mighty Word. It is impossible to discover any connection between it and any mythical poetry. The holy sublimity that per- vades it is at war with the idea of direct and conscious forgery, designed to impose on others, and the thought of it as a mere work of genius, having its interest in a display of inventive and descriptive talent, is inconsistent with every notion we can form of the thinking and aims of that early youth of the human race. It was not the age then, nor till long after, of literary forgeries or fancy-tales. We are shut up to the conclusion of its subjective truthfulness, and its subjective authenticity. At avery early day, to which no profane history or chronology reaches, some man who was nota philosopher, not a poet, not a fable-maker, but one who “ walked with God,” and was possessed of a most devout and reverent spirit—some such man, having a power of conception surpassing the ordinary human, or else inspired from above, had present to his soul in some way, and first wrote down, or uttered in words, this most wonderful and sublime account of the origin of the world and man. He believed, too, what he wrote or uttered. He wes conscious of some source, whether by words or vision, whence he had received it, and he had no doubt of its relation to an outward objective truth which it purported to set forth. Even as a mere subjective reality, such a picture, in such a soul, and at such an early day PART V.—HOW WAS THE CREATIVE HISTORY REVEALED? 149 presents a question of deepest interest. But whence came it? Not simply, who first wrote it? but who or what first put into the human mind the wondrous ideas cuntained in that early writing YING MN Daw MS onde xia mw, ‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth?” To ascribe it to tradition amounts to nothing. It is only going back upon our steps, to come at last to one who first gave it as a whole; for, as before remarked, there is no appearance of growth about it. No knowledge of it could have come from tradition. Other parts of Scripture either fall within historical times, or they narrate events whose story might have come down fromm eyewitnesses. This could have had no witnesses, and could appeal to none. It relates to things transcending all human experience, all possible human knowledge. The very assuming to narrate is a claim to inspiration, or of knowledge believed to have been obtained in some divine or praternatural way. As something thought out by the human soul alone, even in the highest exercise of its highest genius, it could have commanded no respect. It would immediately have been met by the challenge, Job xxxviii. 4: “‘ Where wast thou when God laid the foundations of the earth? Knowest thou it because thou wast then born, or because the number of thy days is great?” We are driven then to the same supposition that is indulged in respect to prophecy. If that is vision in the future, this is vision in the past. It was an impression made upon the soul, whether regarded as wholly subjective, or as connected with some outward vocal causality. Viewing it as a revelation, there comes strongly to us the conviction that it must have been something more than a message in bare words. Without the vision conceptions which they call up, words are powerless, and, though necessary in the ordinary transmission to other minds, would have been an inferior medium for the first conveyance of the ideas or images to the first conceiving human soul. We are always to remember, too, that the image or conception is itself a language representing the remoter fact, or the remoter idea, even as it is itself represented to others by understood words. In ordinary historical revelation, words, articulated or suggested, may be first, since the conceptions linked with them are familiar and easily follow; though in this case it would still be revelation, still entitled to the name inspiration, even if the higher divine author employed merely the truthful memory of holy truthful men. In considering, how- ever, the case of the original presentation of facts utterly unknown, and of which the human mind had previously no types or conceptions, the question assumes a new aspect. It comes to us in this form: Will revealing words, merely, call up the most vivid picture (for in either method it is only a picture that the mind has), or will revealing pictures, on the other hand, necessarily suggest the best words as the only medium of transmission to other minds? Will word-painting give the most. distinct conceptions of this terra incognita, or will vision-painting call out the best language wherewith to describe it? Ifthe latter view seems the most rational, as well as more in analogy with the style of the prophetic Scriptures, then may we believe that creation was thus presented to this prophet of the past, this srzr of the unknown, or rather of the utterly unknowable, ante-creative history. We may go farther than this. It may well be doubted whether, without vision in the first place, or as dependent solely on naked words, it would not have given the dimmest images to the first imaging mind, if it had not, rather, failed to impart any conception. Behind this picture, or this vision representation, lay the ineffable ideas ; and, therefore, the bare facts in their grand outline, or the bare succession, are thus vividly limned, as best repre- senting what words, without such successive scenes, would have much less adequately conveyed. Or we may suppose it presented subjectively to both senses. There were vision voices as well as vision sights. Certain awful words were heard, and the callings and the namings, about which there has been so much speculation, and which, when regarded as actual parts of creation, have given rise to so much difficulty, were as subjectively real (that is, real parts of the vision), as the gatherings and the dividings. They were heard as John ‘“‘heard a great voice out of heaven,” or as Daniel heard “the speaking between the banks of Ulai,” or as Ezekiel heard “the noise of the cherubic wings, like the noise of great waters, as the voice of speech, the voice of the Almighty.” So Balaam “heard the words of God and saw the visions of El Shaddai;” he “beheld that which was not nigh, and saw that which was not now.” Remote time and 150 SPECIAL INTRODUCTION TO THE FIRST CHAPTER OF GENESIS. remote space were brought together upon the canvas. May we not believe this of the greater and holier prophet of creation, in his vision of the ineffable past? ; If the theory may be indulged, then may we also reverently endeavor to imagine something of the process in this creative representation, as we may gather it from the language in which it hag been described. The vision opens with what the szzr can only paint in words as a thohu wabhohu, a void and formless earth. The terms themselves, though well translated, show the imperfection of language, and yet they are, doubtless, the best that could have been employed, They are inspired language, too, because most directly suggested by the inspired vision. The SEER was in that state of initial contemplation to which the prophet Jeremiah is carried back in the reversed picture, where he sees the earth returning again to the primeval desolation: “T beheld the earth, and lo, it was without form and void, 1m; tnn; and I looked to the heavens, and they had no light,” Jerem. iv. 23. This is the beginning. | It is a vision of darkness resting on a formless abyss. There is something, whether sound or vision, or both combined, that gives the impression of a Spirit hovering over the waters, or breathing upon their vast surface, or commencing the pulsations of life in their deep interior. It is the beginning of nature. And now he hears a mighty voice saying: ‘‘Let there be light.” Obedient to the Word the light comes forth (é« oxdrous, says the Apostle in his interpretation of this pictorial language, 2 Cor. iv. 6) out of the darkness. The first elemental division is seen taking place. It is a.dividing of the light from the darkness. ; Again, a voice that calls it good, and is heard giving the names ms, md»d, yom, la-y-la, Day, Night, to this first creative contrast. A solemn pause succeeds. One creative period, one great time succession, is past, and again goes forth the Word. And now a sky, a heaven, presents itself, though all is fluid still. It is a phenomenon as strange as it is beautiful and sublime. There is an appearance of waters above and waters below, with an optical firmament, like the Revelation sea of glass, seeming to divide them from each other. We may regard it as a phe- nomenal, or optical, representation of the atmosphere with the clouds sailing in it, and the rain mysteriously suspended in the upper spaces,—a matter which even now science finds it difficult to understand.* Or, with Lange and others, we may interpret it as denoting the separation between the lower waters proper and the upper ethereal fluid. In either case, that which is beheld is the actual appearance, or the optical word representing the fact, or state in pature, lying back of it, conceived according to the science, real or supposed, of the sreR, and expressed in articulate or written words according to such conception. Thus we may take “waters above and waters below” as simply the expression of such conception, the grand fact revealed being the production, on the second day, or period, of that natural state of things which is actually repre- sented by the sky and atmosphere. Or we may take it without such explanation as denoting a nature or state of things long gone, and which has little or nothing corresponding to it in any present aspect of the world. The “ waters above and waters below” may have been an actual condition, an actual stage in the creative process thus revealed in vision, as no science could ever have revealed it—an “old heavens,” in fact, that passed away at or before the introduction of the “new heavens” and new firmament of the fourth day. For it seems clear that in the srzr’s view, and according to the very consistency of the account itself, this vision of “ watets above” would not be in harmony with the firmamental phenomena of that later period. Should any one, in the name of science, declare this to be impossible, or deny that there could ever have been any reality in nature, or in the history of our planet, represented by such a conception, let him take’ one of the largest telescopes and turn it to the rings of Saturn. Why might not such a phenomenon have been exhibited by our “ earth and heavens” in that early semi-chaotic state to which Saturn, according to our best science, now bears so close a resemblance? How are these rings supported, whether liquid or aérial? If liquid, the state of things would correspond * «“Understandest thou the balancings of the clouds?” Job xxxvii. 16,—the law of gravity in the clouds, AY swbpn, Librationes nubium, the weighings or suspensions of the clouds,—how they are supported in the air, and how their contents are condensed and poured upon the earth? See Umbreit; also ch. xxxvi. 27: ‘When he maketh small the drops of water, and for vapor they distil rain.” There is something yet to be learned before this ancient challenge is fully apswered. * PART V.—HOW WAS THE CREATIVE HISTORY REVEALED? 151 exactly to the language of the text, and, if so, the possibility of our earth having once presented a similar appearance would not be unworthy the attention either of the Biblical student or the man of science. But to return to the creative scene; at this stage again there comes in the ¢mago vocis.— “ And God called the firmament heaven” (naw, heights). There is another naming, another voice of benediction, another solemn pause; the second vision closes, and thus “there is an evening and a morning, day second.” And now a third command is heard, like the voices that attest the opening of the Revelation seals, and a new earth appears emerging from the waters. It should be remarked that there is no time here,—time, we mean, as estimated or measured duration; for there is nothing whereby to measure it outside of the events themselves. There is no fixed index of movement, whether constant or changing, or of any constant or varying rate of change. It is time only as succession, or rather the successions are themselves the times,—the great dividings, the solemn pauses, the new appearings, making the evenings and the mornings of the numbered days. It is “from Olam to Olam” (Ps. xc. 2), from age to age. The unit of measurement is the change in nature produced by the Word, and the number and order of these changes and successions is the great matter of revelation. ‘Not how long,” as Delitzsch well says, “but how many times God created,” is the essential idea intended to be set forth. There is no absolute standard either of time or space. An hour, regarded as blank duration, has no more reality than an unrelated inch or foot. Since, then, an outside measured time is one of the things created, it cannot be the measure of creation itself. But again the vision changes, and lo, a new heavens and a new earth. The old rakia has passed away, and a new firmament appears, with its sun, moon, and stars. They are lights in the heavens (main). So the srr calls them,—lights of greater and of lesser splendor. He does not speak of them as globes, or solid bodies, according to the ideas derived from our modern astronomy, of which he had no knowledge, no conception, and, if we may trust the simplicity and silence of the account, no revelation. They were to him simply lights in the firmament, and nothing more; even as to us, with all our science, they are still but images in our near heavens,—optical appearances comparatively close by us, though made by a far-off causality. Such a statement may not seem easy or natural to some minds affected by certain scientific pre- judgments; but that does not prevent its being literal fact. The sun we see is simply an appear- ance. These heavenly lights, as they are reflected and refracted in our near atmospherical sky, or rakia, are just as much images as the spectrum that is artifically cast in the astronomer’s observ- atory. Their ruling or dominion, as mentioned Gen. i. 16, is not, primarily, a physical or dy- namical power (though this may be included in the language when science discovers it), but a time-regulating, and, in this way, a life-regulating dominion. As lights to this earth, the only point of view in which they are earliest regarded, the onic date of their appearance is all that is given in this creative vision, whilst their antecedent materiality in time, as well as their remote causality in space, are left to the inference of human reason, and the discoveries of human science. The one of these ideas, namely, that the material origin of the sun and stars dates from the earliest creative period, antecedent, remotely antecedent, perhaps, to their appearance in our terrene firmament, is commonly received without difficulty, and seems to be demanded by the literal consistency of the account itself. It has never been maintained that the matter of the sun was created, or even organized, on the fourth day. This being so held in respect to the remote time origin of this firmamental light, there is really no more difficulty in regarding in a. gimilar manner that distant power, or entity, in space with which the phenomenon is connected. Both are extra visionem ; both lay equally on the outside in this account of the fourth day hay- ing relation only to the phenomenal changes which took place in our earth or its near surround- ing atmospherical heavens, The connection between this light in the celestial mirror, and a vast body 95,000,000 miles distant, was left to the progress in knowledge to be made by the human faculties which God meant should be exercised in such discoveries. We see in this a reason, it may be reverently said, why the time element, especially as order of succession, enters so much more into the creative account than any revelation in space. The relative distances and magni- 152 SPECIAL INTRODUCTION TO THE FIRST CHAPTER OF GENESIS. tudes of the worlds lie more within the range of human knowledge; the ages or periods of the kosmos, involving as they do the supernatural, are almost wholly beyond it. ‘ By faith we under- stand that the worlds (the aiéves or time worlds) were framed (put in order, xarnpric%at) by the Word of God,” Heb. xi. 8. Science can never get out of the natural as a fixed course of things once established and now continuing, of which it may be said 43 sm, “and it was so,” or became firm. She can never attain to the supernatural, and therefore it is that she has ever had more to do with the space than with the time process, with things as they are, than as they came to be. The ten times repeated way-yomer (and God said), the mighty utterances of “Him whose outgoings are of old, from the days of eternity” (Mic. v. 1), the six great evolutions in the earth’s genesis, no science could ever determine, or hope to determine; although, “from the things that are yet seen,” or from footprints that are left of those “ outgoings,” she might infer, in general, that the earth had a vast antiquity, immeasurable by any computations drawn from present astronomical arrangements. And so we might proceed through all the subsequent pictorial stages in the supposed vision process, but reverence would require us to stop with what is sufficient to give an intimation of the probable method of revealing. It closes with the appearance of man, the divine presence in the contemplation of the completed work, and the solemn benediction, as it is now heard ris- ing to the superlative in the utterance: “all good,” 4x siz, “exceeding good.” Thus “the Heavens and the Earth are finished, with all their hosts,” as these appeared in the optical firm- ament that bounded the szzr’s view, as it does, in strictness, all human vision. Science claims to have pierced beyond it,—to have thrown back the flammantia mania mundi, and to have brought the far-off nigh. All that she has yet discovered, however, is relative distance, magnitude, motions, dynamical laws, and mathematical ratios. She has constructed a splendid orrery in the heavens; but in all that relates to life, and rationality, and spiritual being, the ‘skies are as silent as of old. They still shut us in—our earth and near surrounding optical heavens. Of their real hosts we know no more than God has seen fit to reveal to us in other ways. Of anything above man, or beyond man, we have, from science, no greater facilities of ‘conception than belonged to David, or Daniel, or Pythagoras. Number, motion, space relations, optical changes, serving as diagrams for the exposition of mathematical ideas,—theso are all we see in the heavens, all we know. It is indeed much, scientifically, but it adds little or nothing to our knowledge of substantial being. For this, in all beyond our earth, we are as much dependent on revelation, or on the imagination, as the first recipients of the creative vision. It is generally admitted that the language used in reference to the fourth day is phenomenal, but a careful study, we think, will discover that this feature exists, more or less, throughout, making it all the more easy to receive the vision theory of its inspiration. It is ‘‘ by faith in the things wnscen,” as defined in a later Scripture (Heb. xi. 1, 3), or faith in the vootpeva, as distin- guished from: the daiwédpeva, “that we understand (vooduer, perceive intellectually) that the worlds (the aiéves) were put in order by the Word of God, so that the things that are seen (phenomena) were made from things that do not appear” (ex invisibilibus visibilia fierent). But the earlier revelation in Genesis is made through the sense, and to the sense, primarily, leaving to the later faith, and to science as employed by it, to divine @ priori, or to discover by induction, the more interior causalities, or the more remotely distant powers which these primary universal phen- ‘omena represent. With the science, however, of this old narrator we have little to do. For the purposes of ‘interpretation all that is necessary to be maintained is the subjective truthfulness and consistency of the picture. It was not a theory, not a fancy, or a guess,—much less a designed forgery. Such sights were seen, such voices were heard, by some one in the early time, and he has most faithfully and graphically narrated them to us. The style bears the strongest testimony to this. It carries the internal evidence that it.ia a telling from the eye, whether the outward or the inward eye, rather than from the ear. Calling it a dream, or a vision, does not detract from its significance or its glory. But we are not concerned ah that here. The view taken of the probable subjective process is simply in aid of interpretation, which is nothing more nor less than getting at the true conception of the writer from the language employed, whether that PART V.—HOW WAS THE CREATIVE HISTORY REVEALED? 153 language was the effect or the cause of such conception. The absolute truthfulness of the account, or of that which it represents, presents another question. This is connected with the absolute verity of the Holy Scripture in general, as grounded upon its whole external and internal evidence. We have already alluded to the analogy of prophecy. If the vision theory is in harmony with the best view of prophetical inspiration, as sanctioned by so many passages of Scripture, it is still more demanded in the. present case ; since the future is not so sharply divided from the present, as the present and the future both ‘from’ the ante-creative past. In both the prophetic and the creative representation words may form a part of the vision, as ves geste, whilst the general narrating language is that which is prompted by the vision. In such case, though called the writer’s own language, it is none the less the language of revelation, and none the less may the Scripture that records it be said to be verbally inspired. The sights seen, the voices heard, the emotions aroused, are just those adapted to bring out the very words the sEER actually uses, and, in both cases, the very best words that could have been used for such a purpose. Hence wo may truly say it is the language of the divine inspirer as well as that of the human narrator. The description being given from the bare optical, rather than from any reflexive scientific stand- point more or less advanced, becomes, on this very account, the more vivid as well as the more universal. It is a language read and understood by all. What lies behind it will be conceived according to the state of knowledge, true or false. We may confess the inadequacy of such language, not because better could have been employed, or other words could have done as well, but because the best words which the inspired mind can use, or the uninspired mind receive, necessarily fall short even of the vividness of the vision reality, and still farther short of the ineffable truth which that vision represents. Any use of scientific language, whether the Ptol- emaic, or the Newtonian, or that of a thousand years hence, would be still remote from this ineffable truth, whilst it would be a seeming endorsement of its absolute accuracy. Indeed, the language may be rightly said to be inspired, though no words at all are used, or even when the inspiration itself may be pure vision, or even pure emotion elevating the thoughts and concep- tions. In either case, the words which are the result are God’s words, the last best product of the inspiring power, all the more vivid and emotional in the reader from the very fact of their having come through such a process of spiritual chemistry (as we may call it) in the real human life and human emotion of the inspired medium. In this way all the words of the Holy Scripture are inspired words,—“ pure words, as silver tried, purified seven times,” Ps. xii. 7. Whatever be the human faculty employed as the medium, whether it be the understanding elevated and purified by a divine emotion, or a vivid imaging power supernaturally aroused in a state of trance or ecstasis, or simply a holy and truthful human memory, the words resulting have passed through a refining process in which they carry with them the divine truth, not as a mere mechanical message, but in all the vividness and fulness of the human conception. Thus they are divine words, although at the same time, most human. We may therefore study them with confidence, They are not arbitrary, and open to disparaging criticism, except as to their textual accuracy. Human as the language of the Bible is, it is still God’s medium, and we can never exhaust its meaning. The process of learning from it, therefore, must be the reverse of that by which it is communicated. It is a going back, up the stream, and towards the fountain- head. Through the words of the inspired writer we get at his images, from these we ascend to his thoughts and their inspiring emotions, and in these, again, the soul draws nigh to that higher life and verity of which the inspired conception is the best human representative. Words suggesting images, or images suggesting words: the first would be called the objective method (whether such words were miraculously articulated to the ear, or whispered to the mind), and yet it is not easy to see why it would not be, to a certain extent, as subjec- tive as the other,—since in both cases, the imperfect human conception, whether of words or things, or of words or images, must make a necessary part of the revealing process. In this objective view there remains, in all its force, the great difficulty arising from those passages in which God is represented as speaking, calling, naming, &c. We are compelled to take it asa interal articulate speaking, in the Hebrew, or in some other language, or else to hold that there 154 SPECIAL INTRODUCTION TO THE FIRST CHAPTER OF GENESIS. is in the account a mixture of the figurative and the literal style. In the subjective, or vision view, the difficulty vanishes; and this is a great argument in its favor, In vision, one part is as real, that is, as much seen and heard by the ster, as the other. A great power dividing, a great voice speaking, a great presence surveying the effects produced and pronouncing it good, are all represented to his ecstatic consciousness, and he relates it just as it was beheld and heard. Thus, too, there vanishes all that difficulty which so much perplexes Delitasch (sce p. 86) in respect to the particular language employed. It was the srzn’s own language, whether the Hebrew, or any older tongue. If it be said that speech or Word, as thus used, denotes something more than mere articulate language, it may readily be admitted. This is, in fact, the substance of the distinction made by Pareus (Comment. Gen. p. 91) and many others, ancient and modern, between the verbwm essen- tiale, and the sonus evanidus ex ore Det non procedens. It is, however, something more real than acomparison. Nature as a motion, a pulsation, a continued throbbing energy in time and space, may well be called an utterance, and the primal power by which it is commenced and prolonged, a Word going forth. Without any figure, it is an articulating voice in the great cosmical medium, even as our human voice sounds through the prolonged undulations of the terrestrial atmosphere. It may be conceived as spoken, and at the same time as continually responding to the primal utterer, thus constituting the verbum essentiale of which the vision voice (imago vocis, Heb. bp ma), as uttered in human language,* may be regarded as the representative. It is like the essential day, or cycle, of which the phenomenal solar cycle is the type. If such a mode of interpretation is good for the one case, what right has any one to deny its fitness in the other? Whatever be the smaller scale of representation, there must be harmony and analogy in the things represented. There must not be a transcending vastness in the one direction, and a narrowness out of all proportion in the other. The ineffable voice, the ineffable work, the ineffable rest, demand as their fitting accompaniment the ineffable evening and morning, making the ineffable day. Thus regarded, Gen. i. is an apocalypse of th'e great past, even as the revelation to John in Patmos is an apocalypse of the great future. Had the latter not used the first person in stating what he saw and heard, we should none the less have regarded it as a vision. It has the vision * Metaphors in other writings are for ornaments or for rhetorical impression. Such language in Scripture has a higher use. It is to express ineffable truths (or vivid emotions in view of such truths), for which other modes of speech are inade- quate. “Their line hath gone out to the ends of the world,” Ps. xix. 5. Oi—the LXX. have rendered it their voice, (POdyyos) their sound, whether reading pbip » or regarding "> here as equivalent to it in the expression of prolonged utter- ance. Symmachus, jxos; Vulgate, sonus. Tt suggests the old idea set forth in the Orphic or Pythagorean myths of the music of the spheres, and which appears in the Hieronomian or Vulgate Version of Job xxxviii. 87, concentum cali (the song or harmony of heaven), where 29 is taken in its other and more usual sense of cithara or harp. ‘>, in Ps. xix. 6, may be also rendered a measuring line, or even a writing (Linien = Schriftziige), according to Calvin and Cocceius (see Hupfeld). This would correspond to the opening language of the Psalm, B""DO72 DW, “the heavens are telling,” which may also be rendered picturing, describing ("BO » primary sense, scalpsit, scripsit), ‘and the firmament declareth (‘771972) his handy worl,’ literally the work of his fingers. What follows is in exquisite harmony with the same idea: “Day unto Day (we think of the great days) utiereth speech (poureth it out), and night unto night showeth knowledge,”— 140" , primary sense, eflavit—whence the sense pronuntiavit, fortasse proprie, as Gesenius says, de rebus arcanis—that is, ‘breathes Forth knowledge, whispers knowledge, (compare “3% yaw, Job xxvi. 14), and hence the sense of the cognate Arabic (s? to reveal mysteries. It is a transcending or ineffable voice: “Wo speech—no voice (that is, no audible voice)—and yet their line has gone out to the ends of the world.” It vibrates through all space. Compare also Hosea ii. 22, where there are the same thoughts and images. Nature, through all her departments, is represented as listening for the divine voice, and responding to it, whilst God is represented as listening to its petitions: «J will hear, saith the Lord, I will hear the heavens (the skies or clouds), and the heavens shall hear the earth, and the earth shall hear the corn, and the wine, and the oil, and they shall hear Jezreel.””_ It describes the ordinary course of his providence as one continuous chain of utterances and responses. God listens to the heavens petitioning for the rain, that they may send it down upon the petitioning earth, that the earth may transmit its influence to the petitioning corn and oil, that they, in turn, may supply the wants of Jezreel. So the Chaldee Targum, with Rashi and the Jewish commentators generally: ‘I will hear and command the heavens,” &c. It is not a breach of nature, like the miracle used as a sign or attestation, but the divine proceeding in the general providence made up of all particular providences. It is the constant living Word, ‘O Adyos gv xai évepys, ‘‘ the quick and powerful word,” penetrating all the recesses of nature, yet breaking no law, passing over no link, It is all law, all nature still, through all the length of the mighty chain, and yet the Word of God, as distinct and sovereign as when it first went forth in creation. Science is atheistical until she acknowledges this doctrine of the Logos in nature, not as a metaphor merely, but as the most vital and most important of all physical truths. PART V.—HOW WAS THE CREATIVE HISTORY REVEALED? 155 style in its mystic numbers, its solemn repetitions, its regular successions of voices, seals, and vials. There is not so much of this in Genesis, but there is a great deal that reminds us of it in the regular dividings and namings, in the sublime enunciaticns, in the parallelism of day and night successions so constantly given in the same language, in that rhythmical movement which ever seems more or less an accompaniment of the ecstatic condition,* in the heraldic announce- ment of an established order (j>-"n"), like a responsive amen succeeding each new going forth of the Word, and in the solemn benediction at each close, until the great finale, where it is all declared good,—“ very good.” Another resemblance is in the time aspect. In Genesis as in Revelation there is the same impression of a strange chronology that cannot be measured by any historical or scientific scale out of its own movement. It is like distance in a picture. It is there, but we cannot bring it either into miles or inches. It has succession; height appears beyond height, but there is no estimating the valleys, the immense valleys, it may be, that lie between. In view of all this, it might be said, on the other hand, that had the author of Gen. i. used, like John, the first person directly, it would have made little or no difference in the style of the narrative, or in the pictorial effect produced by it. This analogy between the opening and closing portions of Scripture may be carried through- out, As the scenic or.vision view in the prophetic picture does not warrant us in regarding it as scene merely, or do away with the idea of a great reality lying behind, so neither does such a vision theory of the creative account detract, in the least, from a like reality in the great past, and of which such vision was the most fitting representative to our limited powers of conception as well as to our ever imperfect science regarded as ever falling short of the ultimate facts of origin, whether called creative or purely physical. We may suppose it, therefore, chosen on this very account, as not merely the best, but the only way in which the ineffable facts might be made shadowly conceptual to the human soul. Still, the fact, whether we rightly conceive it or not, is én the representation, and he who takes the two as in all respects identical, or reduces them to the same measurement, has the essential faith, only he should not condemn as heretical or unscriptural the one who preserves the same ultimate facts but interprets the representation of them on the vaster and remoter scale. In most cases, however, it is not difficult to separate between what we have called the mode of representation and the ineffable truth (believed, though in a great degree unknown,) that lies back of it. We read, for example, in Genesis, that God “ formed man in his own image.” Now, none but the grossest gnosticizing heretics have regarded this as a plastic formation of clay into an outward molded likeness. So also when we are told that “God breathed into man’s nostrils - the breath of life,” the representation is most clear and perfect; we have a distinct image of a divine mouth breathing into the as yet inanimate human nostril; there is something very tender in it, denoting, as Lange poetically says, the Father of Spirits awaking man to existence with a kiss of love; but, after all, the mind goes back of the representation in both these cases. The mere language is transcended even by the mystery of the human physical life as expressed in the one instance, much more so by that of the rational or spiritual life as set forth in the other. Now there is nothing to forbid—in fact, there is everything to require—a similar mode of inter- pretation when it is said “‘God formed man from the earth,” or out of the dust of the earth. The image is similar to that employed in the other cases, and we may suppose that the skER beheld, even as the reader conceives, a plastic formation, a mold, shaped but inanimate, beginning to move under a pneumatic inspiration; but the thoughtful mind, again, goes back to something beyond it. It is helped by this picture, but it does not rest in it. It finds little or no difficulty in taking this coming “from the earth,” or this being “formed from the earth,” as denoting a divine process in nature, resembling the other processes similarly represented in this wonderful account (see Remarks, p. 185 on Ps, cxxxix. 15). It is a mode of setting forth the contrast between soul and body, between the physical and the rational, the animal and the pneumatical,—one from the divine life and the divine spirit, the other from nature,—“ trom the. earth earthy ” (e« ys * Sce this exemplified in the Visions of Balaam, Numb. xxiii., xxiv., and in the prophetical Scriptures generally. It may not be easy to explain, but it is a fact of deep significance, that, in all high or ecstatic states of soul, there is this tend- ency to rhythmical motion and utterance. 156 SPECIAL INTRODUCTION TO THE FIRST CHAPTER OF GENESIS. xoixss, 1 Cor. xv. 47), even as the plants and the animals came originally from the earth and the waters. Time is not given us here, whether long or short. All that we have is the fact that by some process (necessarily involving some idea of cauaality, succession, and duration,) the human body was brought from the earth,—or that thus the human physical, coming from the lower physical (from the lowest parts of the earth, Ps. cxxxix. 15), and through the connecting links, types, or molds, as carried upwards by the divine formations, was at last brought into the state in which it was prepared to receive that divine inspiration which alone constitutes the species, and makes it man. Thus the true creation of man, as man, was an inspiration. The primus homo was the first man thus inspired, and who became the progenitor of the species. The first Adam was made by the divine life raising the physical or animal into the rational. The second Adam represents a higher inspiration, elevating the rational human to a closer union with the divine. Such is the analogy of the Apostle. Christ elevates the human, even as the first human, “ by the inspiration of the Almighty,” is the uplifting of the merely animal or physical that lay below. The second mystery is the greatest, and our belief in it should take away any wonder or difficulty that may attend the first. Again, in that mysterious account, Gen. ii. 21, had it been said: ‘And I saw the man cast into a deep sleep, and lo, the Lord God took from him a rib,” &c., we would have recognized the vision style, and separated immediately between the representation and the ineffable fact involving the ineffable process through which the female nature was originally divided from the one generic humanity. All this is intimated in that mysterious language of the first chapter (ver. 27) of which this may be regarded as the scenic representation, or filling out of the picture: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him, male and female created he them.” The him and the them, the in& and the nnk, are one generic being, one creation. This is given to us in the first language. There is, however, necessarily a derivation in the process, not mentioned in the first, but represented to us in the second and more graphic picture. Here, too, if any one is inclined, or feels himself compelled to take the fact and the scenic representation of it as identical, he has the essential faith, and the essential dogma, woman derived from man; but why should we find difficulty in adopting, in this case, a mode of inter- pretation which we not only find easy but even regard as demanded in the two first-mentioned cases of the image and the inbreathing? Again—let us take Gen. ii. 19: “And out of the ground God formed every beast of the field, &c., and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them, &c.; and Adam gave names to all cattle, and to every fowl, and to every beast of the field.” This has nothing of the myth- ical in its style. As literal narration it has a difficulty, but this consists chiefly in its strangeness, which is wholly a matter of sense conception, whilst there is nothing in it, even as thus taken, to offend the reason or a rational faith. That God should thus teach the first man by bringing suggestive objects before him, even as a father teaches his child the letters of the alphabet, is in perfect harmony with the best view we can form of the providential and the supernatural, if these ideas are to be admitted at all, When the account, however, is regarded as a vision, or a picture, all difficulties vanish, whether in regard to the style or the matter. As an objective narration, it would seem to represent a second creation of animals for this special purpose; as something given in vision, it sets itself wholly free from the necessity of any such inference. It becomes similar to the trance vision of the animals as seen by Peter, Acts, xi. 5, 6. It is the method of revealing to us that there is an ineffable mystery in language, that man was led into it by the divine guidance, or that the superhuman is demanded to account for its origin as the significant naming of things and ideas in distinction from those mere animal cries of the sense from which some would derive it. Language is required for the invention of language, if regarded as merely human, and that involves a paradox. Some divine or supernatural power, therefore, must have helped man in his first namings and classifyings. Such is the conclusion of the profoundest philological science, and such is the teaching of the Scriptures. How far this is to be carried must be determined by intrinsic evidence. We are not to resort to it merely to escape difficulties. The sober question is, whether the scenic representation, or the vision theory, is in harmony with the style of Scripture as employed in other cases where PART V.—HOW WAS THE CREATIVE HISTORY REVEALED? 157 transcendent facts are set forth, and whether there is that in the very thought and aspect of the passage which favors the idea. We know that the great future transition from the present world, aiay or Olam, to the aiéy or world to come, is thus set forth, and it may be deemed in accordance with the analogy of Scripture, that the origines or great beginnings of the present Olam, as it proceeds from those that are past (dé rév aidvav, Eph. iti. 9; Col. i. 26; 1 Cor. ii. 7), should be given to us in a similar apocalyptic form. GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. FIRST PERLOD. Tas Genesis of the World and of the Primitive Time of the Human Race, as the Genesis of the Primitive Religion until the Development of Heathendom, and of its Antithesis in the Germinating Patriarchalism. Cu, I—XI. FIRST PART. THE GENESIS OF THE WORLD, OF THE ANTITHESIS OF HEAVEN AND EARTH, AND OF THE PRIMITIVE MEN.. Cu. I. anp II. FIRST SECTION. 7 The Heaven, the Earth, and Man. The Creation and the World in an Upward Series of Physical and ; Generic Development. Universalistic. —_—+— Cuapter I.-IL. 3. A—The Antithesis of Heaven and Earth, the Symbol of all Religion. 1 In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Harth. B.—The Three First Creative Days. The Great Divisions (by means of Light, Heat, and Chemical Affinity), . or the Three Living Contrasts: Light and Darkness (or the Dark Spherical Material); the Aitherial ‘Waters (or the Vapor-Form) and the Earthly Waters (or the Fluid Precipitate); the Water Proper and the Land. The nearest Limit of these Divisions: the Vegetable World as a Symbolic of Commencing Life analogous to the Result of the Three Last Creative Days in the Appearing of Man. 2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. 8 And the Spirit of God moved [hovered, brooded]' upon the face of the waters, And God 4 said: Let there be light, and there was light. And God saw the light [the beauty of the light] that it was good [Riu, good and fair; as the Greck caddy, fair and good]; and God divided 5 the light from the darkness [made » division between the luminous and the dark element]. And God called the light Day and the darkness he called Night [source of day, source of night], And 160 GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. the evening and the morning were the first day [i.., by this division is measured one divine day, 6 or day of God—one day here is for first day|. And God said : Let there be a firmament [extension, expansion] in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters, 7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament 8 from the waters which were above the firmament; and it was so.? And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day. 9 And God said: Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together into one place, 10 and let the dry land appear; and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering together [combining] of the waters [as water proper] called he Seas; 11 and God saw that it was good [second pause of contemplation J, And God said: Let the earth bring forth grass [erow grass], the herb yielding seed, and the fruit-tree yielding 12 fruit after its kind, whose seed is in itself upon the earth; and it wasso. And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit whose seed was in itself after his kind. And God saw that it was good. [thira 13 pause of contemplation]. And the evening and the morning were the third day. C.—The Three Last Creative Days. The Three Great Combinings: 1. The Heavenly Luminaries and the Earth generally; 2. the Heavenly Luminaries and Water and Air; 3. the Heavenly Ltfminaries and the Earth-Soil as a Pre-Conditioning of Individual Formations. Or the Three Parallelisms of the Three First Creative Days. . Ist day, The Light; 4th day, The Luminaries ; 2d day, The Waters under and above the Firma- 65th day, The Fishes in the Seas and the Birds of the ment ; Heavens; 8d day, The Liberated Earth-Soil, and the Plants 6th day, The Land-Animals, and over them Man. upon it; 14 And God said: Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven, to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and for 15 years. And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven, to give light upon 16 the earth, And it wasso. And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule 17 the day, and the lesser light to rule the night; he made the stars also. And God set 18 them in the firmament of the heaven, to give light upon the earth; And to rule over the day, and over the night, and to. divide the light from the darkness, And God saw 19 that it was good [fourth pause of contemplation]. And the evening and the morning were 20 the fourth day. And God said: Let the waters bring forth abundantly [Lenge: Let the waters swarm] the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may. fly [Zange and English marg. rendering: Let fowl fy] above the earth in the open firmament of 21 heaven. And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly after their kind, and every winged fowl after his 22 kind. And God saw that it was good [fifth pause of contemplation]. And God blessed them, saying: Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas; and let fowl 23 multiply in the earth, And the evening and the morning were the fifth day. 24 And God said: Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and 25 creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind. And it was so. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind. And God saw that it was good [sixth pause of contemplation |. D,—The Limit, Aim, of all the Creative Days (especially of the three last), the Antitype of the Vegetable Creation at the End of the Third Day: which Antitype is Man, the Likeness of God, and the Sabbath, in which God rests from His Work. 26 And God said: Let us make man in our image after® our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowls of the air, and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the 27 earth. So God created man in his own image; in the image of God created he him; 28 male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, : CHAP. IL—II. 3. 161 Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that 29 moveth upon the earth. And God said: Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree in the which is the fruit 30 ofa tree yielding seed; to you shall it be for meat; And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein 31 there is life, [ have given every green herb for meat. And it was so. And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good [seventh pause of contemplation | And the evening and the morning were the sixth day. Cu. II. 1, 2 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 3 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 [had begun to rest] from all his work which [he as] God created and made [Zange: um os zu machen; English ‘marg.: created to male | a (' Ver. 2.—Brooded (EM). Lange has here in brackets belebend, vivifying; though he afterwards rejects the meta- phor of incubation.—T. L.] {? Ver. 7.—And it was 80. Lange: Und es ward also, rather better than our translation, since also differs from our so as denoting more of reason and consequence. Both, however, fail of the full force of the Hebrew 2. This, to be sure, is most commonly a particle, ita, otws, etc., but it never loses the other or adjective sense of firmness, rightness, soundness (integer), as more allied to the primary sense of the verb ]1> which becomes the Arabic verb for being. And it was firm; the word was accomplished ; the firmament stood just as commanded. It was the beginning of a nature. Compare Ps. xxxiii. 9: ‘He commanded and it was, he spake and it stood.” So Maimonides on the passage: “‘ And why does he add: {277031 It- is equivalent to saying that it was to be so continually all the days of the world as cohering with that which comes after it.’ It takes its fized place in the system. So also the verb ])> itself, in the Pilel form, is used as a word of creation. See Deut. xxxii. 6: 73227) FWY NAM, He made thee and established thee.—T. L.] * [8 Ver. 26.—Lange renders here, als unser Gleichniss, as our likeness, and in a sentence in brackets denies the correct- ness of the other rendering, after our likeness. The Hebrew 3 in, 13m172D may give either shade of meaning. The dif- ference may seem slight; and yet it ‘may bea question of some theological importance, whether man is the image of God, primarily, or made after that image—the word image per se being reserved for Him who is called, Heb. i. 8, the express image, Xapaxrhp tis trootdcews, the image of the substance; Col. i. 15, the eikon, or image of the invisible God, eixav too @eov Tov aopdrov (compare 1 Cor. xi. 7; d x Cor. iv. 4), and who is styled, John i. 9, the light that lighteth every man. If we regard Him as pre-eminently the image, or eikon, in this high and perfect sense, as i i g with it the very substance or being of that which was imaged, then it would be more reverent as well as more in accordance with the text, we think, to say (with our English version) man was made after that image; his light is a reflection from that eternal mirror, or the arav: 4Ch. ii. 3.—Th yaopa Tis Sdéys, the Brightness of Glory,” tho “ Outbeaming of Glory,” as it is called, Heb. i. 3.—T. L. i ‘he farther words: these are the genealogies [Ang., generations] of the heavens and the earth, are not the e conclusion of the first piece (as held by Delitzsch, Bunsen, etc.), but the commencement of the one that follows, as is alse shown by the use of the name Jehovah Elohim. EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL. 1. See on the Introduction to Genesis, and under the head of Literature, the catalogue of cosmological works that belong here. Compare, especially, the Literature Catalogue given by Knobel and Delitzsch. 2, The passages of Scripture that have a special connection: Job; Ps. viii., xix., and civ.; Prov. viii.; Is. xl.; John i.1; Col.ii16; Heb. i. 2; xi. 8; Rev. xxi. 1. 8. This account of the world’s creation evidently forms, an ascending line, a series of generations whose highest point and utmost limit is reached in man. The six days’ works arrange themselves in orderly contrast; and in correspondence to this are the sections as they have been distinguished by us: a. The creation of heaven and earth in general, and which may also be regarded as the first constituting of the symbolical opposition of the two; b. the three first creative days, or the three great divisions which constitute the great elementary oppositions or polari- ties of the world, and whichsare the conditioning of all creature-life: 1. The element of light and the dark shadow-casting magses, or the concrete dark- ness, and which we must not confound with the eve- ning and the morning; 2. thé gaseous form of the ether, especially of the atmosphere, and the fluid form of the earth-sphere; 3. the opposition between 11 the water and the firm land. In respect to this it must be observed that the waters, of ver. 2, are a different thing from the waters of vers. 6 and 9, since it still encloses the light and the matter of the earth. Moreover, “the waters” of ver. 6 is not yet properly water ; since it encloses still the earth ma- terial. The first mention of elementary water in the proper sense, is at ver. 9. c. The three last creative days, wherein the above parallel is to be observed ; d. the limit or aim of creation—man—the sabbath of God. . 4, Vers. 1 and 2, the ground-laying for the crea- tion of the heaven and the earth. Considered cos- mologieally and geologically.—In the beginning.— The construction ‘maintained by Bunsen and others (Raschi, Ewald, Aben Ezra) is as follows: In the beginning when God created heaven and earth, and when the earth was waste and desolate, and darkness was over the primeval flood, and the breath of God moved upon the waters, then God said, Let there be light, and there was light. This construction is, in the first place, opposed throughout to the language of Genesis, as in its brief yet grand declarations it proceeds from one concluded sentence to another. Secondly, it contradicts the context, in which the creation of light is a significant, yet still an isolated, moment. If we were to follow Bunsen, it would be the introduction of the Persian light-religion rather than the religion of the Old Testament. And, final- b 162 GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. ly, in the third place, it obliterates that distinguish- ing ground-idea of the theocratic monotheism with which, in the very start, the word of revelation con- fronts all pagan dualism,—in other words, the truth, that in regard to the manner of creation, God is the sole causality of heaven and earth in an absolute sense. The view of Aben Ezra that MON is ever in the construct state, and that it means here, “in the beginning of the creation of the heavens and the earth,” etc., is contradicted by the occurrence of the word in the absolute state, Deut. xxxili. 21.— mona (from WX = wN7). The substantive without the article. It is true, this cannot be ren- dered in the beginning, taken absolutely, so that the beginning should have a significance, or an existence for itself. It would be, moreover, a tautology to say in the beginning of things when God created them, . ete., that is, when there was the beginning of things; or else we must take bereshith mystically: in prin- cipio, that is, in filio, as Basil, Ambrose, and others (see Leop. Schmid, Explanation of the Holy Scrip- tures, p. 4), which is not allowable, although it is true that the New Testament doctrine advances at once to the determination that God created all things through the Son (Johni. 3,11; Heb. i.2; comp. Ps. xxxili. 6). It is not easy to take the word ad- verbially: originally, or in the first. place (Knobel) ; for the immediately following enumeration of the, creative days shows that the author would have time begin with the creation of the world. According to Delitzsch the author does not mean “to express the doctrinal proposition that the world had its beginning in time, and is not eternal, but only that the creation of the heavens and the earth was the beginning of ali history.” This interpretation seems arbitrary. Bereshith relates especially to time, or to the old, the first time (Is. xlvi.10; Job xlii. 12). It may be further said that 3 can mean with or through. It is, therefore, the most obvious way to interpret it: in a beginning, and that, too, the first, or the beginning ‘of time, God created the heavens and the earth (with the time the space; the latter denoted through the antitheses of heaven and earth). From that first beginning must be distinguished the six new begin- nings of the six days’ works; for the creating goes on through the six days. In a beginning of time, therefore, that lies back of the six days’ works, must that first foundation-plan of the world have been made, along with the creation of the heaven and the earth in their opposition. The first verse is there- fore not a superscription for the representation that follows, but the completed ouranology despatched in pne general declaration, although the cosmical gene- ration, which is described ver. 8 and ver. 14, is again denoted along with if. That the sun, moon, and stars are perfected for the earth on the fourth day, is an indication that God's creating still goes on in the heavens, even as the creating of the periods of devel- opment in the earth, after its first condition as waste and desolate, when it went forth from the hand of God as a spherical form without any distinct inward configuration.—X"14 , in Piel to cut, hew, form; but in Kal it is usually employed of divine productions new, or not previously existing in the “sphere of nature or history (Ex. xxxiv. 10; Num. xyi. 30, and frequently in the ee of spirit (Ps. li, 12, and the frequent «ri(ew in the N. T.); but never denoting ‘human productions, and never used with the accusa- ‘tive of the material.” Delitzsch, And thus the conception of creating is akin to that of the miracu- lous, in so far that the former would mean a creating in respect to initial form, the latter in respect to nov- elty of production. (On the kindred expressions in the Zendavesta, see Delitzsch.) It is to be noted how N12 differs from TWF and 1%" (ch. ii. 2 and ver. 7). That in this creating there is not meant, at all, any demiurgical forming out of pre-existing material, appears from the fact that the kind of material, as something then or just created, is strongly signified in the first condition of the earth, ver. 2, and in the creation of light. This shows itself, in like mammer, in the general unconditioned declaration that God is the creative author, or original, of heaven and earth_— Elohim, see the Divine Names in the Introduction.— D2. According to the Arabic it would denote the antithesis of the High (or the height) to the Lower—that is, the earth. The plural form is signifi cant, denoting the abundance and the variety of the upper spaces.* This appears still more in the ex- * [There must have been something more definite in the early conception that gave rise to this form of the word. It looks like a dual, and this would suggest that the thought of the heavens, out of which it arose, may have-bgen that of a hemi-sphere, and of the whole mundus as having a spheri- cal form. The phenomenal shape of the sky would give the idea of a counterpart. ‘lhe roundness of the mundus, and, as a necessary inierence, the roundness, or two-sidedness of the earth, must have been a conception much more ancient than we imagine. It must have occurred to a thoughtful mind every time there was witnessed the phenomena of the sun setting (the sun going under) and the sun rising (its coming up from the world or sky below the earth). Comp. Ps. xix.5; Eccles. i.4; Job xxvi.7. Stich a notion, how- ever, would be more for the reflexive thought than for the sense; but its early existence is perfectly consistent with other language drawn from the more direct and near appearance of the earth as an extended plane. A dual idca may, also have been suggested by that of the waters above and waters below (Gen. i. 7), thus giving the notion ot a double heavens divided by the rakia. The word; however, is more probably a plural. This appears from some of its connections, and from a compari- son of its form in all the other Shemitic languages. The 7 is in the place of the 1’ as it appears in the root MOY . to be high. Since there is nothing arbitrary in language, especially in early language, this plural form must represent the notion that would very early arise, of something above the Pi, or that the rakia itself was merely an optical appearance in which were shown the forms of things that were really at vast and vastly varying distances beyond it. Such a thought was earlier in the Hebrew mind than in the Greek, though the latter, as usual, when they came to enter- tain it, made much more of the idea in the way of definite- ness, number, and locality,—treating it with less reverence, and giving it up more to the license of the imagination. So was it with the idea of a spirit-world. It was older in the Shemitic than in the Javanic mind; but the Greeks gave it more of topography and scenery, whilst upon the Hebrew thought there seems to have been ever thrown a holy re- serve, or rather, a providential restraint upon the imagina- tion, until the coming of Him who was the Resurrection and the Life. In both cases the latter were content with the general thought, namely, another life, especially for the eople of God who “is not the God of the dead but of the iving” (Matt. xxii, 82; Exod. iii. 15), and other heavens beyond that which primarily presents itself to the sense. _ We may, therefore, ascribe this early plural form to that vivida vis animi which first pierces through the scen into the unseen. From the one appearing rakia, or expats above, came the thought of a heaven over that, and of a ‘heaven of heavens” higher still, from which God leoks down. to ‘behold the things that are in heaven (tho uear heavens) and the earth.” Ps. cxiii. 5: Who dwelleth so high (MW M5372), who stoopeth so low (re-8e*), : pth, even to look down into these lower earth heavens (F “3B pyawa), as though immensely remote as reen trom 60 superlative 2 height. The very anthropopathism adds to the grandeur of the eqnception. He “stooyeth down to look,” as though not only the earth and mix, but the heavens that surround them, were so far cf, or so tar below, as to be hardly visible to the divine eye. From such a germ the conception grew in the Tebrew CHAP. I.—II. 3. 163 pression, the heaven of heavens (Deut. x. 14, and Ps. Ixviii. 34), 5. Vers. 2~5. cosmological description of the days’ works, Preparation of the geologico- First mind, until there came out of it a number of other words denoting different supposed department of the great spaces above. Still later the Jewish Rabbins got from these their notion of the Gilgallim, or seven heavens (regarded as wheels, Ezek. i. 16, or spheres), and to which they give distinct names having, most of them, some philological and conceptual ground in the old scriptures. They are thus reckoned by them: 41372, D1=1, BIPM, Y7ps, 7144, Miay3, 7127, Vilon, Rakia, Shehakim, Zebul, Maon, Makon, Ariboth. The first of these is the only one not found in the Bible. lt is a Rabbinical word from the Latin velum. It is used for the very lowest heavens, or the sup- posed sphere below the rakia. It is the veil, or sky of clouds which intercepts the light but permits the heat to pass through, and in this sense Jarchi alludes to it in his inter-~ pretation of Ps. xix. 7: ‘‘there is nothing hid from the heat thereof.” So also Rabbi Jehoshuah says, Berach 58,1: “the you is that space or sphere through which, when broken and rolled away, there appears the light of the open expanse.” All the rest of these names belong to the old Hebrew, and are found in the Old Testament Scriptures in such connec- tions as to justify the Rabbins in regarding them as denoting different regions, to say the least, in the upper spaces or heavens. See Ps, lvii.11; xxxvi.6; Job xxxviil, 37; xxxvii. 18; Ps. lxxxix. 7; Hab. iii, 11; Ps. xxxiii. 13, 14; Isaiah viii. 15; Ps. lxvili. 6; Deut. xxvi.15; 2 Chron. xxx. 27; Ps. xc. 1; Isaiah lxiii. 15. The word many , Ps. lsviii. 5, is rendered heavens in our version: To Him who ridcth wpon Araboth in his name Jah, Jehovah; rideth upon the highest or outer heaven, according to the Jewish scale. Almost all the modern commentators give it a different sense here, and with apparently fair reasons. Our English translation, however, is countenanced by the old versions, besides being fully sustained by the traditional rendering of all the Jewish commentators and translators, ancient and modern. Accord- iag to them, it is the highest sphere corresponding to the dedcundvyn of the Greeks, or the fixed sphere, where all is immovable, whilst everything below is: undergoing change. It is where God specially dwells, 19 \3WD, inhabiting eter- nity, sedens in perpetuum, Is. lvii. 15. Hence they render it, not riding, though that would give a most sublime image if we regarded this great sphere as rolling, but sitting, like one throned, and that corresponds well to the primary sense of 33% in all the Shemitic tongues, which is not motion, a meaning which it never has, unless demanded by something else in the context, but super-position. Comp. with Is, =]. 22, vus sanmby AW5n, “He that sitteth upon the orb of the earth,” though so high that ‘‘the inhabitants ‘thereof are as grasshoppers.” The other words are also used to denote the divine throne or the divine dwelling. This Rab- binical astronomy may be said to have its germ in the Scriptures, though its expansion anfl arrangement are to be ascribed to the later imagination. It was the natural out- growth of that mode of thinking and conceiving that first gave rise to the plural O77‘ , Comp. also the word mibra 5 2 Kings xxiii. 5, as used for the heavenly spheres or houses (from 513 with its Arabic sense of dwelling), and mini, Mazzaroth (which is the same word etymologicaliy), Job mexviii. 32. See also the Arabian tradition of the seven heavens as given in the Koran, Surat xvii. 46; more fully, Surat xli. 11; also xxiii. 17, with Alzamakshari’s comment on the upper stories or gradations of the heavens. These Arabian traditions have every appearance of being ancient, and of having aided the Rabbinical echeme, rather than of having been derived from it. ‘he Shemitic languages are certainly peculiar in these plural words for heaven. ‘ne New Testament oipavoi is a pure Hebraism. ‘The Shemitic word excels also in its radical significance. Ovpavos (Spos ovpos) has simply the idea of limit. It is the vertical hori- zon, or the horizon above. The Latin celum is simply con- cavity (7d KotAov); so is the Saxon heaven (heave ). In the Hebrew, the natural image is height, and this reduplicated and carried upward by the plural form. In this respect the Ilebrew words for the great spaces are like the great time pluralities to which we have referred in the Introduction to the First Chapter of Gonesis. The heavens and heavens of heavens, the DV2W and BOW WW, are like the ES57 and the ow2by , the ofam, and olam of olams, so frequent in the Old Testament, yet so obscured in the translations. There is another Shemitic plural equally suggestive, and Creative Day—inai nm. The earth was. This is spoken of its unarranged original or fundamental state, or of heaven and earth in general. Thohu Vabohu, alliteratives and at the same time rhymes, or like sounding; similar alliterativés occurring thus in all the Pentateuch as signs of very old and popu- lar forms of expression (Gen. iv. 12; Exod. xxiii. 1, 5; Numb. v. 18; Deut. ii. 15). We find them also in Isaiah and elsewhere as characteristic features of a poetical, artistic, keen, and soaring spirit. They are at the same time pictorial and significant of the earth’s condition. For, according to Hupfeld and Delitzsch, 447M passes over from the primitive sense of roaring to that of desolateness and confusion. The last becomes the common sense, or that which characterizes the natural waste (Deut. xxxii. 10) as a positive desolation, as, for example, of a city (Is. xxxiv. 11). It is through the conception of voidness, nothingness, that Thohu and Bohu are connected. Delitzsch regards the latter word as related to BNx, which means Zo be brutal. Both seem doubtful, but the more usual reference to 113 in the sense of void or emptiness is to be preferred. We have aimed at giving the rhyming or similarity of the sounds in our translation (German: dden-wiist and wiisten-éd). The desert is waste, that is, a confused mass without order; the waste is desert, that ig, void, without dis- tinction of object. The first word denotes rather the lack of form, the second the lack of content in the earliest condition of the earth. It might, therefore, be translated form-less, matter-less, ‘“Rudis indi- gestaque moles, in a word, a chaos,” says Delitzsch. It would be odd if in this the biblical view should so cleanly coincide with the mythological. Chaos de- notes the void space (as in a similar manner the old Northern Ginnun-gagap, gaping of yawnings, the gaping abyss, which also implies present existing material), and in the next place the rude unorganized mass of the world-material. There is, however, al- ready here the world-form, heaven and earth, and along with this a universal heaven-and-earth-form is presupposed. It is not said that in the beginning the condition of the heavens was thohu and bohu,— at least of the heavens of the: earth-world, as De- litzsch maintains ; at all events, the earth goes neither out of chaos, nor out of “the same chaos” as the heavens. It is clean against the text to say that the chaos, as something that is primarily the earth, em- braces, at the same time, the heaven that exists with and for the earth. For it is very clear that the lan- guage relates to the original condition of the earth, although the genesis of the earth may serve, by way of analogy, for the genesis of the universe. jam, the first condition of the earth was DINM (from DI, to roar, be in commotion), wave, storm-flood, ocean, abyss. The first state of the earth was itself the Thehom, and over this roaring flood lay the darkness spread abroad, {t is whuily anticipatory when we say that “this undulating mass of waters wa not the earth itself in the condition of thohu and bohu, but that it enclosed it; for on the third day the firm which is not found in other families of languages. It is the word for life (D741, lives), denoting a plurality in this idea as well as in the words for heaven and eternity. Instead of being despatched as a mere usus loquendi, this, and other Pe of the earliest tongues are well worthy our eepest attention. The plurality of life, of the great spaces, nd the great times, seem all to have come from a way of viewing the works of God which has no parallel in the rep- resentations of other human languages,—T. L.] 164 GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. land (778) goes forth from the waters’” Delitzsch.. Further on, Ps, civ. 6 is cited to show that, original- ly, water proper surrounded the firm earth-kernel, and Job xxxviii. 8, according to which the sea breaks forth out of the mother’s womb (the earth)—poetical representations that are true enough, if one does not take them according to the letter; in which case they are in direct contradiction to each other. The waters, of ver. 2, is quite another thing than the water proper of the third creative day; it is the fluid (or gaseous) form of the earth itself in its first condi- tion. 2 Pet. iii. 5 is not opposed to this; for as the water takes form, the earth breaks out of the water, just as the water comes forth from the earth in con- sequence of the creative division, The darkness is just the absence of the phenomenal, or the absence of light (for the vision view) in the condition of the earth itself—in other words, night.—mivi, But the spirit of God hovered over (Ang., moved upon). The breath of man, the wind of the earth, and the spirit, especially the spirit of God, are sym- bolical analogies. The breath is the life-unity and life-motion of the physical creature, the wind is the unity and life-motion of the earth, the spirit is the unity and life-motion of the life proper tp which it belongs; the spirit of God is the unity and life-mo- tion of the creative divine activity. Igis not @ wind of God to which the language here primarily relates (Theodoret, Saadia, Herder, and others), but the spirit of God truly (wherefore the word AN, De- litzsch ; comp. Ps, xxxiii. 6). From this place on- ward, and throughout the whole Scripture, the spirit of God is the single formative principle evermore presenting itself with personal attributes in all the divine creative constitutions, whether of the earth, of nature, of the theocracy, of the Tabernacle, of the | church, of the new life, or of the new man. The Grecian analogue is that of Eros (or Love) in its reciprocal action with the Chaos, and to this purpose have the later Targums explained it: the spirit of love. It was mri (hovering) over the waters. The conception of brooding cannot be obtained out ‘of Deut. xxxii. 11 (Delitzsch), for the eagle does not’ brood over the living young, but wakes them, draws them out (educates), makes them lively.* The mytho- logical world-egg of the Persians has no place here. Should we adopt any view of this formative energy of the spirit of God (which may have worked upon * [Still the conception of brooding, cherishing (fovens), is fundamental in the word |)". Its primary sense is a vi- brating, throbbing motion, most emblematic of the peat bing of life—especially as traced in the egg-form—the first deginning of heat and pulsation. Its primary significance is onpmatopical—rahap, to flutter (regular pulsatile mo- tion). Hence it becomes very early one of the verbs of loy- ing, being closely allied, both in sound and sense, to the Hebrew OM". In Syriac it is the common word for loving, warming, cherishing. In the Arabic the maldole guttural has softened down to aleph, and we have ty, denoting intense and cherishing love. No word could have been bet- ter adapted to the idea, intended in this place, of an inward, life-giving power, rather than a mere mechanical outward | motion, such as is given by the translation “blew” or ‘‘moved upon.’ Nowhere else in all the usage of the He- brew or Syriac is (}M" ever employed in the sense of blow- tng. The Piel form here makes the inward sense of throb- bing the more intensive. We sec no harm to the Scriptures from the supposition that this idea of the cherishing spirit was the origin of the fable of Eros, or of the mythological world-egg, whether regarded as Persian or Greek. Sec Aristophanes, Aves, 694.—T. L.] the unorganized mass through the medium of a great wind of God) it would consist in this, that by its inflowing it differentiated this mass, that is, con- formably to its being, called out points of unity, and divisions which fashioned the mass to multiplicity in the contrasts that follow. It separated the hetero- genous, and bound together the homogenous, and so prepared the way for the dividing the light from the darkness. It cannot be said, however, that “all the co-energizing powers in the formation of the world were the emanations or determinations of this spirit of God.” For we must distinguish the creative words with 813 from "7, or the forming by the spirit of God.* "The object, however, of this forming is not * [The word "X° is more formative than NJ, but not less creative. The latter is used more of the pri divi- sions, if not of the primary matter itself. The former de- notes generally the more artistic or architectural work, the handy work, 7" MWY, Ps. xix. 2, or muUp0 FMI , Ps. viii. 4, “the work of thy fingers.” It is, according to one view we may take of creation (see Introd. to Gen. i. p. 128), the higher work, the greater work of the divine artistic wisdom as distinguished from the mere divine power, In its most outward primary applications, 99 denotes the elaborate shaping formations, such as that of a statue, or idol, Hab. ii. 18; Is. xliv. 9, 10. Hence it becomes the appropriate word to express inward formation—/form in the more interior sense—law, structure, constituting state—in a word, ideo, in distinction from idolon. As a word of physical creative constitution, it is variedly and impressively used to denote the appointed arrangements in the seasons, as Ps. Inxiv. 17, DAIS" MN HIT YIP, “summer and win- ter thou hast formed them *—Is, xlv. 7, NUISA VIN AT yen, “who férmed the light and created darkness” (the. light the more ideal or artistic creation). ‘Ile made the sea, MWY, and his hands formed, 11%", the dry 1and,”— gave it its greater variety and beauty of form. So Amos ir. 13, “who created the wind, or air (X24), who formed the mountains’? Csi». It is used to denote the formation of a people by law and providential guidance: Is. xiii. 21, mb “MIE AITCY, ‘this people that I have formed for myself.” Is. xlv. 18, R72 is used of the heavens, and 13" of the earth. This might secm epponed to the distinction we bave made, but the context that follows shows why the more ideal or formative word is thus used of the earth— SFIN-RD m7i2—“who formed the carth and made it, who established it (gave it a nature, Syr. N22) that it might not be a tohu (a formless waste), who made it to be inhab- ited.” It is used of theshuman body, or rather of the whole human physical constitution. Gen. ii.7: ‘And the Lord God formed man,” (ver. 8) ‘and he put the man whom he had formed.” It is, in like manner, most impressively applied to the most exquisite and divine processes in the human structure. Ps. xciv.9: UID Nd PANO, “He that formed the eye, shall ie not see?” Hence, ina more interior sense still, 1¢ is used of the very constitution of the soul: Zach. xii. 1, “‘who stretcheth out the heavens, and foundeth the earth, and /formeth the spirit of man within him,” JAPA, in interioribus ejus. Deeper still, it is used of the heart, or the moral constitution : Ps. xxxiii. 15, pab ‘3 “i751, “that forms their heart alike.” It carries the same idea as a noun, and this gives rise to its use as denoting the forming or imaging faculty of the soul, as in the striking passage, Gen. vi. 5: Misra ays“ b3) jn, “and every imaging of the thoughts of his heart.” "5 is the form of the thought, as the thought is the form of the emotion, or of the deep heart that lies below all. One of the most noteworthy uses of the verb IX" is its application to the human generative process; it 1s also to be observed how this is ascribed directly to God, as though, every case of the individual gestation in the womb, there was something of a creative power and process: see Jer.i. 5; WORD FINN OWA, «before T térmed thee in the womb.” Compare Eccles. xi. 5, where this formative pence is pre- sented as one of the decp mysterious things known only to CHAP. I—II. 3. 165 the primitive matter, but the flowing earth-sphere. Just as little can one say that the six days’ works have their beginning in ver. 3; for the result of the first day is not the light merely, but also the dark- ness (see Is. xlv. 7). Concerning the theosophic - interpretation of thohu vabohu as a world in ruins which had come from God’s judgment on the Fall of the Angels (see ver. 8).—Ver. 3. Let there be light.—Here begin the geologico-cosmical creative periods. This new beginning, therefore, must be distinguished from that first creation of the heavens and the earth which is to be regarded as having no creative beginning before it. Henceforth the treat- ment is that of a sacred‘ geology, yet regarded in its biblical sense ss geologico-cosmological. Hence, in ver. 8, the creation of the light-heaven; ver. 8, the creation of the air-heaven; ver. 14, the creation of the star-heaven; ver, 26, the creation of the heaven- ly core of the earth itself*—And God said.—“ Ten times is this word, “79X51, repeated in the history of the seven days.” The omnipotence of the creative word, Ps, xxxiii. 9: He spake and it was done, he commanded and it stood (Rom. iv. 17). The creative- word in its deeper significance: Ps. xxxiii. 6; Is. xl. 26; John i, 1-3; Heb. i.2; xi. 3; Col. i. 16. The light, the first distinct creative formation, and, therefore, the formation-principle, or the pre-condi- tioning for all further formations. Of this formative dividing power of light, physical science teaches us. It is now tolerably well understood, that the light is not conditioned by perfected luminous bodies, but, on the contrary, that light bodies are conditioned by a preceding luminous element. Thus there is set aside the objection taken by Celsus, by the -Mani- cheans, and by rationalism generally, namely, the supposed inversion of order in having first the light and afterwards the luminous body. And yet the light without any substratum is just as little con- ceivable as the darkness. The question arises, how the author conceived the going forth of the light, whether out of the dark bosom of the earth-flood, or out of the dark bosom of the forming heaven? As the view of the heavenly lights (light bodies) ver. 14, is geocentric, s0 may the same view prevail here of the heaven-light itself. By this is meant that in the fact of the first illumination of the earth the author presents the fact of the birth of light generally in the world, without declaring thereby that the date of the genesis of the earth’s light is also the date of the genesis of light universally. But we may well take the birth of light in the earth (or the earth becoming light) as the analogue whereon is presented the birth of light in the heaven, just as in the creation of man there is symbolized the creation of the spirit-world collectively. We let alone here the question whether the light is an emanation (an outflowing) of a lumi- God, and especially Ps. cxxxix. 13-16, whether the language there denotes the individual or gencric formation, or both— “when I was curtously wrought,” etc.; “and in thy book all my members were written, 12" 0737, the days they — being formed” (sce remarks in Introd. to Genesis, p. 1D )« ) If the Ifebrew had developed itsclf into a philosophical language, from this root would have come their name for formal causc, causa formalis, that which gives idea to any- thing, or makes tt what zt is, in distinction from the causa JAnalis, or causa eficiens. In fact, it is in this very way that such a term has been formed in Arabic, and in the Rabbinical Llebrew, only they have employed for this pur- pose the kindred “i¥, which connects the idca of formation with that of binding or inward unity.—T. L.] * [Man is thus called by Lange as the causa jinalis of all the other carth formations.—T. L.] nous element, or an undulation from a luminous body; only it may be remarked that sound goes on all sides, and may, therefore, be supposed to undu- late in sonorous waves, whilst the ray of light, on the other hand, goes directly, for which reason the appli- cation to it of such an undulation of sonorous waves would seem unsuitable. The idea of an etherial vibration may make a medium between emanatich and undulation. Without doubt, however, the mean- ing here is not merely a light-appearing which goes forth out of the heaven-ground,* and breaks through the dark vapor of the earth, or from heavenly clouds of light (such as the primary form of the creation may have appeared to be), but an immediate lighting up of the luminous elément in the earth itself, some- thing like what the Polar night gives rise to in the northern aurora; enough that it is said of the contrast presented between the illuminating and the shade-producing element. The light goes, how- ever, in the first place, out of the dark world-forms (not the mere world material) after that*the spirit of God, as formative principle, has energized in them. The spirit of God is the spiritual light that goes out from God; therefore its working goes before the creation of the outer light; and therefore, too, it is that this light is the symbol, and its operation simi- lar to the operation, of the spirit—that is, the forma- tion and the revelation of beauty.—And there was light.—The famed sublimity of this expression as given by Longinus (in a somewhat doubtful text) and others, is predicated on the pure simplicity and confidence with which it sets forth the omnipotence of the creative word—And God saw the light that it was good.—tThe first beauty is the light itself. For the Hebrew 31% denotes the beautiful along with the good, even as the Greek xaddy de- notes the good along with the beautiful. The sense: that it was good, does not seem easy; and therefore Tertullian (and more lately Neumann) have accepted the guia of the Itala. On the other hand, Delitzsch remarks: ‘The conclusion is that to God each sin- gle work of creation appears good.” The conclusion’ lies, perhaps, in the pause of solemn contemplation, out of which, at the end, goes forth the perfect sab- bath. It is because the religious human soul recog- nizes the fair and the good in the event of the ap- pearing, that there is therein reflected to it the foun- tain of this spiritual ethical satisfaction, namely the- contemplation of God Himself, Still the contempla- tion of God does not regard the object as though captivated by it because it is fair, but it rejoices therein that it is fair; or we may say that, in a cer- tain manner, it is the very efficacy of this contempla- tion that it becomes fair—And God divided between the light and the darlxness.—Although it is farther said that God named the light day and the darkness night, still it must not be supposed that here there is meant only the interchange between day and night as the ordaining of the points of divi- sion betiveen hoth, namely morning and evening. Although light and darkness, day and night, are called after their appearing, yet are they still, all the more, very day and night, in other words, the very causalities themselves. The light denotes all that is simply illuminating in its efficacy, all the luminous element; the darkness denotes all that is untrans- * [Himmelsgrunde. We fail in translating this to get any better word to represent the frequent German Grund Gi composition) than our word ground. Foundation pre- sents an incongruity of figure which is less in the more gen- eral term ground. Plane would be too indefinite.—T. L.] 166 GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. parent, dark, shadow-casting; both together denote the polarity of the created world, as it exists between the light-formations and the night-formations—the constitution of the day and night. ‘‘One sees,” says Delitzsch, “how false is the current and purely pri- vative conception of darkness; as when, for exam- ple, a medizval interpreter (Maxima Bibl. Lugd. vi. p. 868) says: sicut stlentium nihil est, sed ubi vox non est silentium dicitur, sic tenebree abhil sunt, sed ubi lux non est tenebre dieuntur.” It is true, there must be presupposed for the daylight an illuminating source or fountain of light, and so for the darkness a shadow-casting causality (Jas. i. 16); but it would be quite wrong to say that light and darkness are two principles (according to the course of the earlier theosophists: Jacob Bohm, and a later school: Baumgarten and others). If it is farther said that the darkness has not the witness 242 (good), it may be replied that it certainly has it mediately, ch. i. 31. It is indeed said still earlier: ‘We do not read that the zohu and bohu, that the tehom with the darkness lying over it originated in the divine call into being (fiat), therefore they had their origin in some other way.” This is a very unwarranted conclusion; so also, then, must the heavens have originated in some other way. The heaven, however, has its origin in the word of the Lord (Ps. xxxiii.), and so also the night and the darkness (Is. xlv. 7) as well as the abyss (Ps. civ. 8). It is, therefore, a hard inconsequence when Delitzsch, following the mythological views, | regards the thohu wabhohu as the chaos’ enclosing even the heaven in its birth (p. 93), and still farther regards it theosophically as the ruined habitation of condemned demons. In the historical derivation of the last opinion (p. 105) Delitzsch appears to have confounded two distinct views: the scholastic, that God had formed the human world for the purpose of filling up the void that arose in heaven after the fall of the angels, and the theosophic, that the terrestrial region of the world was, in the earlier time, the abode ot Lucifer and his companions, which afterwards, through their guilt, became a thohu vabhohu out of which God laid the foundation of a new world. In this view the thohu vabhohu is ‘‘the glowing mate- tial mass into which the power of God’s wrath had melted the original world after it had become cor- rupted by the fall of the spirits (pp. 105 and 114 ‘ below),—or it was the rudis indigestaque moles into which God had compressed and precipitated that spiritual but now ungodly world condemned to the flames in consequence of its materializing, and this for the purpose of making it the substratum of a new creation which had its beginning in the fact that God had placed the chags of this old fire-invaded world wholly under water.” One might well ask: shall the fire-brand itself (the old burnt-up earth) be the chaos, or the divine reaction through the quenching in water? Was the fire-brand the work of the demons, or did it come through God’s judgment and counteraction? All such resolutions of the difficulty are in a state of mutual confusion. And this is no wonder, for a certain theosophic hankering after dualism with its two principles can only veil itself in dark and fantastic phrases. In opposition to these gnosticising representations of matter, the demands of a pure monotheism require of us an acquiescence in the idea that matter too is good, because it is from God,—in so far, indeed, as we can speak of pure matter in general terms. The more particular foun- tain of this view—after certain older preludes and popular representations (Delitzsch, p. 106) derived from Gnostic traditions—is Jacob Bohm (Myst, Magn. p. 67) and the Gnostic teachers that arose after him, Friedrich von Meyer, Baumgarten (Gene. sis), and others. With peculiar zeal hath Kurtz also taken part in these theosophic phantasies, as also in those other of the miscegenations or sexual confu- sions between the angels of heaven and the daugh- ters of earth (Gen. vi.). The grounds presented by Delitzsch, in opposition to his earlier contrary view (as given in the first two editions of his Commentary), are the following: 1. In the interpretation aforesaid one would, to be sure, expect "1M instead of nm, but the conscious connectipn need not lie precisely in the consciousness of the writer; he relates simply a matter of fact. And yet he must have been more enlightened in respect to the nature of things than our scientific man. A blind narration of facts would here be as inconsistent as a pure indication of a theosophie sense in thohu vabhohu. 2. Thohu has, indeed, a predominating privative character; it arises, however (Is. xxxiv. 11; xxiv. 10; Jer. iv. 23), from a positive destruction. But how natural was it * to apply the pictorial thohu vabhohu to such a condi- tion. What more purely privative than the word nothing? and yet we say it of positive states of de- struction. According to Delitzsch, in the methods of its construction (world-brand, quenching-water) must Plutonism and Neptunism have reached their deepest grounding. The grounds that follow are in no respects better (p. 104). What have rendered the hypothesis suspicious from its beginning hitherto are its apocryphal or popular origin (Delitzsch, p. 105), its Gnostic coloring, and its affinity to that other. scholastic phantasma that God had created men to fill up the vacuum in the fallen angel-world. It must, however, become very evident that the representation of an “‘ overcoming of the darkness,” in the physical sense in which it here presents itself, is utterly foreign to the holy text; it is like the mingling of conceptions, namely of a physical and an ethical darkness. The representation, then, of ver. 2 will be clearly a picturing of the primitive condition of the earth, as it became in consequence of the first general creation, ver. 1. Besides, this hypothesis obliterates that line which everywhere else appears between the angelic and human regions and natures. Finally, ver. 2, as a representation of the flowing, form-receptive condition of the earth- mass gives the bases for all farther ascending forma- tions. Add to this that, in such case, the region of Lucifer would have been visited by the fire-judgment earlier than Lucifer himself—a representation which runs counter to the usual order of things—not to say, that, on such a supposition, Lucifer himself . should have been rightly banished from the whole | extent of the earth-region. Or, can it be that God has built the new house of humanity upon the foul beams of a demoniac power? But it is not worth our while to dwell more fully upon a representation which is so characterized by its own sharp contradic- tions.—And there was evening and there was morning.—Here, in the first place, we must not suppose that the evening and the morning were merely the sequence of the preceding darkness and of the light that followed it, notwithstanding that the first evening and morning so fittingly append them- selves to such a contrast. Still less are we to think of the usual evening and morning, since the earth had not yet been astronomically arranged. Evening and morning denote rather the interval of a creative day, and this is evidently after the Hebrew mode of CHAP. III. 3. 167 ng; the day is reckoned from sunsct. The z that follows stands for the second half of proper. In the same manner was the day 1d by the Arabians, the Athenians (vuxd4- the Germans, and the Gauls. It is against t for Delitzsch to put as the ground here the nish reckoning of the day, namely from the g of the morning, The earlier theological notation, that by the creative periods were to erstood the usual astronomical days, is now ld by individuals (Baumgarten, Calwer Hand- Ceil’s Genesis). It is opposed to this, in the ace, that the creative days are already num- before the determination of the astronomical 1 of the earth to the sun, although on other 8 must we hold that the days from the fourth | were not astronomical; there are in the way, ly, the idea of the first day whose evening had ‘inning in that dark thohu vabhohu which had ning before it, as well as the idea of the sev- ty, the day of God’s rest, which is not defined »vening and 4 morning, but runs on through ined course of the world; there is, thirdly, a of the day of God as it is given to us in the salm, which is traditionally ascribed to Moses ) That this time-determination of a thousand oes not denote an exactly measured chrono- period, but still a period defined by essential of time, appears from the converse of Ps. xe. t, iii. 8 (a thousand years as one day, and one a thousand years), and also from the thousand f the judgment-time as the transition -period 1e present state of the world to that which lies . (Rev. xx.). This comprehensive significance 2 divine day (God’s day) or the judgment-day inently in the Old Testament (Is. ii..12; Joel Ezek. xiii. 5). Delitzsch, who also holds that xative days are periods, reckons, as another mt, that in Gen. ii. 4 the six days are denoted day. Add to this the very usual mode of , according to which, day in the Old Testa- ften denotes a longer duration of time, for e, in the formula even to this day. We are wever, to conceive of the evening and morn- the single creative days as merely symbolic ls of the day of God. According to the of the first day, the evening is the time of a ¢ chaotic fermentation of things, whilst the g is the time of that new, fair, solemn world- zx that corresponds to it. With each evening : also indicated a new birth-travail of things, arth-revolution which elevates the old forma- at went before it—a seeming darkening, a : sunset or going down of the world; and so th this same appearance came on the flood; , loo, in Zach. xiv. 7, the day of the com- x judgment is, with the highest significance, -an evening. No less significant is it in the logical words of our Lord: and the sun shall w its light, Matt. xxiv. 29. With each morn- the contrary, there is a new, a higher, a fairer, icher state of the world. In this way do the ‘and morning in the creative periods have chest significance for an agreement of the seology with the results of the scientific geol- ‘he meaning would seem to be incorrectly y Delitzsch when he says: “ With each effort livine creating is it morning, with each remis- is evening” (p. 106). “God, we may rather say, would appear to be those stormy revolutions, in which the spirit The most peculiar | of God hovers like an eagle over the chaotic fernien- tations; in the creative mornings, on the contrary, come in the holy rests when God surveys the new work and sees how good it is. (Comp. Von Rovas- mont, History of the Earth, p. 7: “Evening: a dark return of chaos.” Doubtless the designation lacks propriety in all respects, and yet it may lead to the right.) : [Nore on, THE ReLaTion or THE First VERSE or Gey. I. ro THe Rest or tae CHaprer.—Among all the interpretations of Gen. i., the most difficult as well as the most unsatisfactory is that which regards the first verse as referring to a period indefinitely remote, and all that follows as comprised in six solar days. It is barely hinted at by some of the patris- tic writers, but has become a favorite with certain modern commentators, as furnishing them with a method of keeping the ordinary days, and yet avoid- ing the geological difficulty, or seeming to avoid it, by throwing all its signs of the earth’s antiquity into this chasm that intervenes between the first and se ond verses. The objections to it may be thus stated: (1) Besides the peculiar difficulties that attend any view of ordinary solar days, such as a morning and evening without a sun, or the language of succession, of growth, and of a seeming nature, without any con- sistent corresponding reality, there is another and greater incongruity in connecting this with a former , and very different state of things, or mode of pro- ceeding, with which, after all, it has no real connec- tion either in the realm of nature or of divine provi- dence. (2) It is a building of this world on the ruins of a former, without any natural or moral reasons there- for. The states preceding, as understood by this hypothesis, were in no sense preparatory. The catastrophe which makes way for it seems entirely arbitrary, and in no sense resembles the pauses described in Genesis, each one of which is in the upward order, and anticipatory of the work that follows. ' (3) It is evidently brought in as a possible escape from the difficulties of geology, and would never oe been seriously maintained had it not been for . them. (4) It has to make the heavens of the first verse a different heavens from that of the eighth, without any exegetical warrant therefor. This is a rational- izing interpretation, carrying with it a conception of our modern astronomy, and almost wholly unknown to the Scriptures, which everywhere speaks of the heavens and the earth therein mentioned as one sys- tem. It is the heavens of our earth, built upon it as described in Gen. i. 6, 8; Ps. civ.; 1 Sam. ii. 8, etc., and always taken in connection with it; not a far‘off astronomical heavens, though the rudiments of such an idea come afterwards into the Hebrew. Thus in predictions, whether of destruction or of renovation, the heavens and the earth go together. ‘‘I create new heavens and a new earth,” Is. xvi. 22; Ps. cii. 27, and other passages. The language is exactly parallel to that of Gen. i. 1, and yet we cannot sup- pose that there is included here the astronomical heaven of stars and planets, at least according to the conceptions of our modern astronomy. It is a re- newal of the earth, in some way, together with those celestial or sky phenomena that are in connection with it, as parts, in fact, of the tellurian system. It is the same language, the same mode of conceiving, as late down in Scripture as the 2d Epistle of Peter 168 iii, 5-7—the “earth and heavens” that were of old before the flood are put in contrast with “the earth and heavens that are now,” and which are to be changed for ‘‘a new earth and heavens” “ according to the promise (ver. 13) to which we look.” It is the same language that occurs repeatedly in the Revelations (xxi. 1), and which, whatever we may think of its prophetic meaning, shows the fixedness of the conception down to the latest times of the scriptural canon. \ (6) It violates the principles of a rational and grammatical exegesis, in making a separation between the first and second verses, of which there is no trace or reason in the language itself. If used in the same way in narrating historical events, in any other part of the Bible, no one would have thought of the verb N72, in the first, and mn%n, in the second verse, otherwise than as cotemporaneous or, én direct con- tinuation at least, with no chasm of time between them long or short. It would have been interpreted like the precisely similar sentence, Job i."1: “There was a man in the land of Uz, and the man was, etc., (NA HT PASI. ee A. Who would think of separating the second nit here from the first, or sundering the evident continuity? If it be said that the context in Job controls, and the very nature of the subject, so should it also in Genesis, -unless we make a new context after our own imagi- nations, especially as there are clear ways in Hebrew of expressing such a parting of the terms, had it been designed to do so. Besides this, it is opposed to the usual force of the conjunction 1. Taken even as a mere copulative, it would not allow of such a sharp and remote sever- ance. But ‘ is much more than this in Hebrew. It is seldom without a time sense, or an inferential sense, showing a connection, not only of mere event, but also of reason and causality. So here it shows the reason for the use of 893 in the preceding verse. “Tn the beginning God created,” formed, fashioned, the earth; for it was formless and void, or when*it was formless and void, etc. Let one talte Noldius’ Concordance of the Hebrew Particles, and see how often (in the great majority of cases, we may say) the conjunction wax has this close-joining inferential sense. It is much more usual than its bare copula- tive force, but even this is out of harmony with the hypothesis of severance as commonly presented. See also Introd. to Gen. i. pp. 129, 130.—T. L.] 6. Vers. 6—8. Second Créative Day.—Let there be a firmament.—Rakia (from ¥p1, to stretch, spread out, beat out) an extension or ex- pansion, rendered in the LXX and by others, orepé- wpa, and in the Vulgate jirmamentum,—names which are more material than 3"p". Kwyopen: “ The heaven was to the Hebrews a material substance (Exod. xxiv. 10), a fixed vault established upon the waters that surrounded the circle of the earth (Prov. * viii. 27), firm as a molten mirror (Job xxxvii. 18), and borne up by the highest hills, which are there: fore called the pillars and foundations of the heaven (2Sam. xxii. 8; Job xxvi, 11); openings or doors are ascribed to it (ch. vii. 11; xxviii. 17; Ps. lxxviii. 23). There are the same representations elsewhere.” But we must not forget that Hebrew modes of ex- pression for objects that have a religious bearing, do ever contain a symbolical element which disdains the literal pressure. Therefore the stars which in Gen. GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. i, 17 are fixed in the heaven, can nevertheless, accord- ing to Isaiah xl. 26, set themselves in motion ag a host of God; and hence it is that the one heaven ex- pands itself into a heaven of heavens. And thus the heavens bends down to the éarth (Ps. xviii. 10), or is spread out like tapestry (Ps. civ. 2), or its beams are waters (ver. 3), whilst the same heaven again is called the footstool of God.—In the midst of the waters. —We must beware here of thinking of a mass of elementary water; quite as little could a fluid mass which is yet identified with the light be elementary, and just as little can it be a flood, or collection of water, which consists of the three factors air, earth, and water. At this point then is completed the second division. The true standpoint of contempla- tion would seem to be the view, that in the azure welkin of the sky the clouds appear to give out their evaporation, and to withdraw themselves behind the blue expanse like a supercelestial gathering of water (Ps. civ. 8, 18). It follows from this, however, that the visible clouds and the rain may be assigned to the lower collection of waters, and that there is meant here the gaseous water as it forms a unity with the air, and so makes an ethereal atmosphere (not ‘ the water-masses that hover over the air-strata of the atmosphere”). Delitzsch here mistakes the symbol- ical element. “ Itmust be admitted,” he says, “that in this the Old Testament is chargeable with a defect, for a physical connection between the descending rain-waters and the heavenly waters, which is also indicated in the New Testament (Rev. iv. 6) cannot be maintained.” Indeed, it is with the actual physical connection between the invisible collection of water (the gas-formed) and the visible, that the contrast is established; it is the polaric tension which even the phenomenological extension brings to view. But why should the Septuagint correct the text here with the addition, ver. 8 : And God saw, whilst the Hebrew text bas it not? Had the prophetic author some anticipation that the blue vault of heaven was merely an appearance, whilst the savans of the Septuagint had no such anticipation, and, therefore, proceeded to doctor the passage? There may, indeed, be an exaggeration of this conception of the upper waters, since Philoponus and the other church fathers under- stand by the same the ether that is beyond the earth’s atmosphere ; nevertheless, their viéw would seem to be more correct than that which refers the expression to a proper cloud-formed atmospheric water.—And God named the firmament heaven, pv;W. See ver. 1. Delitzsch: Here is meant the heaven of the earth-world; ver. 1, on the contrary, refers to the heaven and the heaven of heavens, But if the firma- mentis “ the immeasurable far-reaching height,” there is a failure, or falling short, in the limiting of the conception. A main point appears to be, that the rakia is presented to view as the symbolic dividing of the super-earthly heaven, a phenomenal appear- ance of that house of God to which all who pray to God look up. For the later cosmological interpreta- tions of the upper waters, see Delitasch, p. 108. 47. Vers. 9-18. Third Creative Day.—Ver. 9. Let the waters be gathered together.—The bringin the earth into form and the creation of the cage world.—That the physical dividing of the earth-mass and of the water-mass is here presented, is clear. There would appear, however, to be signified a pre- ceding chemical separation of both elements, which had withdrawn themselves from the inner or under core of the earth. The expression mwan 4p" CHAP. I—II. 3. 168 de.otes properly not merely an outward assembling, but an intensive close combining (see Gesenius, mp). Upon the formation of the water proper, as it is now introduced, is conditioned, the firm underlying of the earth. The completing of this division, however, has for its consequence that flowing together of the water into its peculiar place, with which immediately the self-forming earth-soil now comes into visibility. It is thereby implied that the elevations and depres- sions of the earth’s surface—the hills and vales, the highlands and the ocearn-depths—are here formed, just as it is so precisely set forth, Ps. civ. 6-8 (with which compare Prov. viii. 24). And so, too, the crea- tion of the hills is here only indicated, or rather pre- sented, as a consequence of the creation of the sea (see Ps. xc. 2; Deut. xxxiii. 15; Habak. iii. 3), Thus much is clear; as long as the water and the earth-mass are not divided, there can be no mention of any origination of the hills, With the sea-life, however, must begin also the earth-life, that is, the working of the inner earth-fire that causes the up- heavings. It is a wrong apprehension of the waters of ver. 2 and ver. 6, when one takes the story of cre- tion as favoring a one-sided Neptunism (Wagner). The volcanic action of the earth in the formation of the earth, is not expressed, indeed, but it is through- out freely implied; it would appear to be indicated, Ps. civ. 8. There is truly no difficulty in supposing that the formation of the hills kept on through the succeeding creative days. In respect to this, De- litzsch expresses himself better than Hofmann: “Generally,” says he, ‘the works of the single crea- tive days consist only in laying foundations; the birth-process that is introduced in each, extends its efficacy beyond it, and, in this sense we say with Hofmann (i. p. 278): ‘Not how long, but how many times, God created is the thing intended to be set forth.’” Much more have we to distinguish between the distinct creative acts and the creative evolutions. Even after the creative division of the first day the evolving of light may still go on, and the same thought holds good of the efficacy of the succeeding acts of each of the other days. The act itself means the introduction of a new principle out of the word of God, which, as such, has the form of an epoch- creating event.—Ver, 10. And God named the dry earth land, that is, earth-soil in the narrower sense, and, therefore, it is that y"4& has no article — And the water named he sea.—Properly seas, “or rather ocean; for it is more intensive than a numerical plural, and is therefore (as in Ps, xlvi. 4) construed in the singular.” Delitzsch. On the other band, Knobel would make prominent the singleness of the seas in the rendering Weltmeer, or world-sea, main sea, or ocean.—And God saw.—Now has the earth-formation come into visibility, though only in its first outlines, or, according to the idea of the naturalist, as an insular appearing of the land-region as it unfolds itself 10 view.—Let the earth bring forth (sprout, germinate).—It is agreeable to the nature of the earth as well as of the plant that both are together as soon as possible. The earth has an inclination to germinate, the plant to appear. In truth, its origination is a new creative act. In the proper place is this creation narrated; for the plant denotes the transformation of the elementary mate- rials, earth, air, water, which are now present in organic life through the inward working of the light. It forms the preconditioning, as the sien or prognos- tic, of the awaiting animal creation. And though it ‘| then this seed placed in the has need of the light too in some measure, it does not yet want the sunshine in its first subordinate kinds. The question now arises, whether we must distinguish three kinds of plants: NW}, tender green ; 332, herbs and shrubs, vegetables and grain (or the smaller growths generally), and “2 79, fruit- tree, according to the view of Knobel, embracing all trees inasmuch as they all bear seed. Delitzsch, as well as Knobel, assumes this threefold division. Farther on, however, we see that the more general kinds precede (lights, water-swarmings), in order that they may become miore or less specific. And here XW5 may present the universal conception of all vegetable life in its first germination (although including along with it the more particular kinds of cryptogamic and the grasses), whilst in this way the contrast between the herbaceous plants and the trees becomes more prominent (Umbreit, Ewald). Thence, too, it appears that the sign of seed-formation, of propagation, and of particular specification, is ascrib- ed to all plants. Closer observations in respect to single particulars may be found in Knobel. We must protest against the exposition of Delitzsch: “Tts origination follows in that way which is un- avoidable to a creative beginning, and which is to it essentially what is called a generatio equivoca; that is, it does this in measure as the earth, through the word of the divine power, receives: strength to generate the vegetable germ.” The sentence con- tains a contradiction in so far as the question still relates to the divine word of power; but this divine word of power creates not merely a strength, or force, in general; * each new and distinct creative * (The argument from exegesis here would depend very much upon the view taken of the words VAT D772. They are rendered by the LXX. oreipov omdpyna. The Vulgate, Facienssemen, and our translation, yielding seed, are better, since the Hiphil form seems to demand a causative of pro- ducing sense. The rendering of the LXX. would do for the other form 7 YIViT, which occurs ver. 29, representing the plant, after it was made, as casting its seed upon the earth. If we take it in the causative or seminative sense, there is still the question, whether it is merely descriptive of the plant in general as distinguished from other created things, or whether it sets forth something in the very crea- tive or first generative process. If it were the former, it would scem to demand the article, ya » the plant that bears or seminates seed. As it stands, however, the whole force of the word (as emphatic) and of the context, would favor the latter idea: “Let the earth bring forth the plant as seminating,” or in its semination, that is, as growing from a seminal power in the very beginning. It may not be easy to understand, conceptually, how this can be without a previous material seed (seed-vessel) or a previous plant from which the seed came, but still, as a fact, it may be clear, and clearly stated. The opposite notion is, that the pane was outwardly and mechanically formed with its stem, eaves, limbs, seed-vessel, etc., all perfect, and then, in some way, connected with the ground, which, after all, has noth- ing to do with its first production. Or it might be thought that merely the seed (seed-vessel) was thus mechani y made (that is, by 2 force acting on the outside of it), an ground to grow. | Either of these latter views is attended with great difficultics, increas- ing ever the more they are contemplated, though as a mere conceptual view it might seem at first the easiest. It may be said, too, that they are not favored by the language which assigns to the earth an important part in the process, and seems to make the very semination an original act. We gain nothing by regarding it as the mechanical creation of the seed-vessel, since that is not, in itself, the eoruineting, power, any more than the entire plant, but only the seat o. its nearer residence, or its more interior wrapper as it may be called. Every plant that now grows springs from an immaterial power (and that not a blank force, but condition~ ed by an idea) brought in certain relations to the earth. This power is not the seed as seed-vessel, for that dies (dis- solves) in the process (see John xii. 24), and by such diseo- 170 word introduces a new and distinct principle into the already existing sphere of nature—a principle which hitherto had not been present in it. Along lution sets free the immaterial life to work again, as at first, in gathering from the flowing outward conditions the mate- rial for its new manifestation, and arranging such flowing material in the fixed order commanded and demanded by its unchanging 77'2 , species, eldos, law, or idea. In the begin- ning the command of the Logos places it in immediate con- nection with such outward conditions. There is no need of protoplast whether in the form of plant or seed. The tree, regarded materially, or as patydpevov, is as much a flowing thing as a river, although it flows much more slow- ly. It is, therefore, alike irrational to think of God’s mak- ing either of them outwardly, or immediately, instead of the causation from which they respectively proceed. In the case of things that are intended to reproduce themselves, this primitive seminal power is afterwards deposited in a seed- vessel from whence to come forth for all future manifesta- tions; but it is the same power—the same that was first ereated—the same species (unum in multis)in the myriad manifestations outwardly existing at the same time, and in all succeeding times as long as the power lasts, or is able to find the conditions under which it appears. It may be re- garded too, with all reverence, as the same process, except that at each intermediate beginning it starts with its libera- tion from the holding seed-vessel to work anew in building itself a new house, but in the same manner, after such lib- eration, as when it first issued from the divine fiat. Fora moment, too, may this immaterial power be said to become disembodied, as in the instant of passing from the old per- ishing organization into the commencing new—each bei successively its work, deriving from it structure, form, an: outward species. It is not made by the organization—for then chemistry might find it. It is before the organization, thus making the latter a real organism produced, as at first, by @ force and a law working from within, and building around itself, instead of an artificial semblance having its idea outwardly or mechanically introduced into the matter after the way of human art. We may say, therefore, that it is the same original life, the going forth of the same mnepeny energy, the prolonged utterance of the same Word sounding on in nature, and obeyed now, each time, with the same alacrity as when it first felt the pulsations of the voice that said: VIS NwW1M, “Let the earth germinate,” let the earth bring forth. It is mother-earth that gives the plant its body, its outward manifestation, so far as that alone may be called the plant, but not its idea, its law, or even its im- material power. And it is this which makes it something quite different from the generatio equivoca of some natural- ists, and to which Delitasch fortunately compares it. The v term implies a blank, blind, and doub force that might produce one thing as well as another. But here there is a conditioning power bringing out the plant am according to its species. It is God’s word appearing (speak- ing) through the earth ; it is ‘the Lord hearing the heavens, and the heavens hearing the earth, and the earth hearing the corn, the wine, and the oil,’? Hosea ii. 22, 23. Hence the exceeding significance as well as beauty of one of the Hebrew names for plants. They called them M4"4N , lights, manifestations, see Is. xxvi. 19, MIMIN 5D, the “dew of herbs,” to which is compared the resurrection-power (or “ryesurrection-rain” as the Jewish Rabbins call it), which shall revive the bodies ‘“‘sown”? in the earth. Whatever difficulty there may be in such views of the original growth, it is far less than that which attends the taechanical notion, if we push it to all its consequences. It would follow that the earth did not really bring forth the first plants (as Scripture expressly says it did), unless we take it in some mere magical sense, or think of some sudden starting out of the earth independent of any nexus of physi- cal causation. We must also, in that case, give up the idea of the species determining,-the construction instead of the construction the species. But the Strongest argument for the commentator is that the exegesis will not bear it. In such an outward mechanical view the words Room er. lose all their causative force, and thus become merely re- dundant cyphers in the account. The language of causation where there is in reality no causative process is simply magical and unmeaning. Had )""172 here meant nothing more than casting or sowing seed, as the LXX. interpret it, there would only have been need of the present Kal parti- ciple 9711 , as in ver. 29, where the plant is spoken of after its creation, and as carrying on its processes of reproduction. Had “yielding seed’? been the sense intended, there are other words that would have better expressed it, i GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. with the various species and seeds, along with the determinate propagation of plants, each after its kind, there clearly and distinctly comes in that con- ception of nature which is already announced in the great contrasts. The words: upon the earth, VIN by (ver. 11), are interpreted by Knobel of the high growth of the trees (over the earth) in con- trast with the plants which cleave closer to the ground, and which are regarded by Delitzsch as a present clothing of the earth. With respect to ver. 20, we may assume that Knobel is right. In the contemplation of the young world, this majestic rising above the earth in the case of the tall trees, as in that of the birds, has a peculiar excitement for the imagi- nation. With the plants there appears the first thing that is distinctly symbolic of life as well as of their individual beauty. — 8. Vers, 14-19. fourth Creative Day. Begin- ning of the second triad.—The preconditions of the now expectant animal and human life, are the lights of heaven, the stars, or Heavenly bodies, partly as physical quickening powers, and partly as signs of the division of time for the human culture-world. It is theirs, in the first place, to make the distinction between day and night, between light and darkness, and to rule over the day and night—to make that great contrast upon which the human developments, as well as the animal nature-life, are essentially con- ditioned, such as sleep, waking, generation, diversi- ties in the animal world—animals of the day and animals of the night, ete. It agrees well with the text, that again, whilst it makes a more special men- tion of the ordinance of the heavenly bodies, it gives the chief prominence to their spiritual or humane appointment: let them be for signs and for festivals, and for. days, and for years. The question arises here, whether these appointments are to be taken as four (Luther, Calvin, Delitzsch, Knobel); or that three are meant: namely, for signs of times, for days, and for years (Rosenmiiller, Eichhorn, De Wette, Baumgarten); or only two: for signs, for times, including in the latter both days and years (Schumann; Maurer), For the first view, indeed, there speaks the simple series of the appointments, but there is, too, the consideration that the spiritual (or ecclesiastical) appointments of the heavenly bodies are not exhausted, in the chronological. The sign MIX has oftentimes in the Old Testament a relig- ious significance. Thus the rainbow is established for the sign (Mix) of the covenant between Jehovah and Noah, together with’ his sons (Gen. ix. 12). Later, Abraham receives in the starry heaven a sign of the divine promise. But when it is said (Jer. x. 2): Ye must not be afraid of the signs of heaven, there is not reprobated therein the meaning of the sigus of heaven in their right significance, but only the heathenish misconception of them. The primi- tive religion was throughout symbolic; it was a con- templation of the invisible deity through syrabolic signs, and the most universal of them were su, moon, and stars. It was thus tbat the primitive symbolic religion became heathenish; the religious symbolic degenerated into an irreligious mythical; the glory of God was suffered to pass away in the Hiphil form occurs only in one other place in the Hebrew Scriptures, namely Lev. xii. 2, where it evidently bears exclusively the conceptive or seminating sense. Its choice here, therefore, shows that the writer had something else in view than an outward construction, either of the plant as a whole, or of the seed-vessel whether regarded as separate from, or as contained in, the plant.—T. L.] CHAP, L—IT. 3. 171 form of transitory signs; it became identified with them, whilst men utterly lost the consciousness of the difference. The true representatives of the primitive religion on its light-side held fast this consciousness, as in the example of Melchizedek; but they reve- -renced dod as such under the name El Elion (God Most High). It is an improper inference when Knobel here would refer this to the unusual phenom- ena of the heaven, such as the darkening or eclipse of the sun and moon, the red aspect of the latter (in an eclipse), the comets, the fiery appearances, etc. Moreover, we cannot find indicated here, as Delitzsch does, an astrological importance of the heavenly bodies, on which he remarks: “This ancient univer- sally accepted influence is undeniable, a thing not to be called in question in itself considered, but only in its extent.” The question refers to the signs of the‘ theocratic belief, such as are celebrated Ps. viii. and Ps. xix., from which the culture-signs of agriculture, navigation, and travel, must not be excluded. Thence, by right consequence, must be added the festival signs, O73. Moed, it is true, denotes, in general, an appointed time, but it comes in close connection with the word Jehovah before the festival seasons. The significant time-sections of the Israel- ites were, moreover, religious sabbaths, new moons (Ps. civ. 19), and yearly festivals which were likewise regulated by the moon. Upon the two religious appointments of the heavenly bodies (signs of belief, signs of worship) follow the two ethical and humane: the determination of the days and therewith of the days-works—the determination of the years and therewith the regulation of life and its duration. Hereupon follows the more common determination of the heavenly lights for the animal life in general.y —To give light upon the earth.—With the light -f the sun there is also determined its vital warmth. ‘hus the text speaks first of the appointment of the heavenly bodies for the earth-world (vers. 14, 15), and then of the creation of the luminaries in their variety and distinct appointments, in which the stars form a special class, ver. 16. After this there is mention of their location and their efficacy; their place is the firmament; their primary operation is to give light; next follows their government, that is, that peculiar determination of the day and night that is necessary for the preservation of life. The third thing is the division between light and darkness, the instituting of the vicissitude of day and night. For here must the dividing of light from darkness denote something quite different from that of ver. 4; it is not the division of the luminous and the shadowy, but of the day-light and the night-shadow them- selves. . But now arises the question: How comes it that the first mention of the creation of the heavenly bodies is on the fourth day? It follows from the fundamental cosmical laws that the earth, before the sun, was not prepared for bringing forth the plants. It is saying too little to affirm that this place must only be understood phenomenally, or that the earlier created heavenly bodies make their first appearance on the fourth day along with the clearing-up of the atmosphere. But, on the other hand, surely, it is saying too much, when we assume that the formation of the starry world, or even of our own solar and planetary system, had its beginning in the fourth creative period. This representation is inorganic, abnormal. It is just as little supported by any sound cosmogony as demanded by the scriptural text. As little as the text requires that in general the first light of the universe should have its origination cotemporaneous with the light out of the thohu vabhohu of the earth, just as little does the place before us demand that we should date the absolutely first formation of the heavenly bodies from the fourth creative day. This, however, agrees well with our text, that both the appearing of the starry world, and the development and operation of the solar sys- tem, were first made ready for the earth on that same day in which the earth became ready for the sun. ‘On the fourth creative day, therefore, there is completed the cosmical regulation of the world for the earth, and of the earth for the world. See more under the Theological and Ethical. 9. Vers, 20-23. Fifth Creative Day.—Corre- sponding then to the second day (of the first triad) we have here (on the second day of the second triad) the animation of the water and the air in the marine and winged creatures. The creation of the marine animals begins first. It is not only because they are the most imperfect creatures, but because the water is a more quickening and a more primitive condition- ing of life than the earth. The like holds true of the air. It is clear, moreover, that the land-animals in their organization stand nearer to men than the birds; nevertheless they are not, in all respects, more per- fect than the birds; and of these latter, as of the trees, it is emphatically said that they hover high over the earth. Indeed, as birds of the heaven, they are assigned to the heaven, as the fish to the water, as the land-animals to the earth, and so far correctly, since they not merely soar above the earth, and have their proper life in the air, but also because they are in part water-fowl and not merely land-birds. This graphic nature-limning is, moreover, to be noticed here in the formation of the fishes and the birds, as at an earlier stage in the formation of the plants. The first animals are now more carefully denoted as living souls, M21 5) (soul of life). On this De- litzsch remarks: ‘The animal does not merely have soul, it ¢s soul; since the soul is its proper being, and ‘the body is only its appearing.” That might hold in respect to men, but it could hardly be said of the animal (see Ps. civ. 29, 30). It is true, the beast is animated; it has an animal principle of sen- sation and of motion which is the ground of its appearing, but as soul it is inseparably connected with all animal soul-life,* that is, the life of nature. Knobel translates: Let the waters swarm a swarm. This conception is still more lively and pictorial than that of our translation (es sollen wimmeln. die Wasser vom Gewimmel, let the water swarm with or from a swarm); nevertheless we hold the latter to be more correct, since the causality of the swarm cannot lie in the water itself} but in the creative word.— And * [Thierseelenleben, ‘Lange evidently forms this Ger- man word with reference to the peculiar Hebrew phrase mor wp), nephesh hayya, or soul of life, rendered in our ae << *, 7 English Version living soul. We use the word animal, in translating, from an aversion to the English word beast, which has fallen much below the German Phier.—T. L.] t [This reasoning seems doubtful. There is no more need of such an argument to avoid naturalism here than in interpreting the similar language yun RUIN, Let the earth bring, ver. 11. The causality here, as there, is dou- ble, but there is certainly a secondary causality in the earth which justifies us in giving its obvious active transitive meaning to the denominative verb PW: Let the waters swarm a swarm. The verbis evidently made from the noun 720)» reptilia, the lowest and most prolific kind of animals. So’ the Jewish-Arabic translator renders it by a similar 172 GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. let birds fly and fly (fly about).—The strong sense of the Hebrew conjugation Pilel (qEi27) cannot be expressed by the simple words let fly. The element of the formation, the air,.is not here given; for it is clear that they are not referred to the water in their origin.* One might think here in some way of the’ upper waters; but the birds are wnder the firma- ment. Their element is the very firmament of hea- ven, just where the two waters are divided. On its underside, or that which is turned towards the earth (72875Y), must the birds fly. They belong just as much to the earth as to the water and the air; there- fore are they assigned to no special district, yer. 21. The great water-animals (j"2, long-extended), a word which is elsewhere used of the serpent, the crocodile, the marine monsters, but not specially of fishes. ‘These, with the insects that live in the water, worms, etc., are all here to be understood under M71 w) (soul of life)’ Knobel. That the animal creation had iis beginning mainly with the water-animals we learn from natural science; but whether with the vertebrated animals? (Delitzsch.) All birds of wing, translates Knobel. We would rather take $22 as a more general designation: winged, which would also include the insects. De- litzsch correctly rejects the old view, which is re- stored by Knobel, namely that the author meant to represent God as having always created each species of animals in pne pair; for one pair cannot swarm, “and with a swarm the animal creation begins. With good ground, however, does Delitzsch maintain that for the animals there were determined central points of creation, p. 117. None the more, however, can we approve what he says of the generatio agquivoca of the water and air-animals out of water and earth; et = ‘ denominative verb made from KAsO, a lizard, AALS rAd cL Jt, Let the water bring forth lizards, or swarm with lizards.—T. L.] * [This is not so clear as Dr. Lange may think, although he has on his side most of the modern commentators. The Hebrew words }D199 F)1S'4, as they stand connected, can- not, we think, be properly rendered in any other way than as we find it in our English Version: and birds that fly, and in all the ancient Versions; LXX.: merewa mreréueva; Vul- gate: producant aque reptile et volatile; the Syriac is exact- ly like the Hebrew in its construction, and can have but one possible sense, birds that fly. So Luther: es errege sich das Wasser mit Thieren und mit Gevogel das fliege. The valuable translation, Arabs Erpenianus, has it { » which can only be rendered, in the connection, birds that fly. The idiom of the Hebrew seems fixed, requir- ing us in such a case to regard the future as descriptive, like ' participle or an adjective. In the Arabic the correspond- -ng usage is so established as to put any other translation out of the question. It occurs frequently in the Koran with the same subject, and in just such a connection as we have it here. The other rendering, and let birds fly, would re- quire a different order of the words, 90 pein, as just before DYVATT ASN let the waters swarm. The more mod- ern rendering has come from the fear of what would scem gross naturalism, namely the eduction of the birds from the water; but we know nothing here except as we are tdught. There is nothing more incredible in such an eduction than there would be in affirming it of any other form of that unknown and wonderful thing we call life. It may bo very far back, this coming of the bird-nature out of the be but the naturalist finds the fish-type in the birds, all o: which may have been originally water-fowl, and this would seem to be in harmony with the declaration of the text, strange as it may sound tous. Dr. Conant, we find, trans- jates as Lange does; but with all our respect for that excel- lent Hebrew scholar, we are come to think him wrong. So Bush, Jacobus, and others.—T. L.] ° since we must throughout acquiesce in the opinion that the creative word establishes something new— new life-principles, and here also the respective ani- mal-principles, in. water and air.—Ver. 22. And God blessed them, and said. We must hold ag scholastic the question started and debated by Cha- teaubriand and others, whether God blessed also the animals that were buried in the hills, The special consecration to fertility, in the case of the fishes and birds, carries back a fact’ of the nature-life to the divine causality ; we refer to their infinitely abundant multiplication. Besides, it suits well the fifth day, or the number five, that the symbols of mightiest life-motion, the fishes and the birds, are created on this day. ‘The animals of lesser physical motion, but of more intensive individual sensation, come after them. 10, Vers. 24, 25. Siath Creative Day. First half.—The creation of the land-animals stands in parallelism with the creation of the firm land on the third day. On the third day, remarks Delitzsch, TENT (and he said) is repeated only twice, but on the sixth day four times. “Truly is this day there- by denoted as the crown of the others (the crown of all is the sabbath). The sixth day’s work has its eye on man. In advancing nearness to him are the ani- mals created.” The general creation of O51 WE} (soul of life, or living soul) divides itself here, 1. into cattle ("3713 from 0/73), the tame Jand-animals (not utterly dull or stupid; for the horse is less dull than the sloth) to whom in their intercourse with men speech appears wanting; 2. into the reptile that crawls upon the soil (whether it be the footless or the thousand-footed) and the other animals that move about upon the earth as the birds fly about in the heaven; 3. beasts of the earth, or the wild beasts that roam everywhere through the earth_—Let the earth bring forth: That is, in the formative mate- rial of the earth, in the awakened life of the earth, the creative word of God brings forth the land-ani- mals. According to the older opinions (see Knobel) it was the greater power of the sun that woke up this new animal life; according to Ebrard it’was the volcanic revolutions of the earth. Delitzsch disputes this, p. 119. We must distinguish, however, be- tween a volcanic commotion of the earth’s crust and its partial eruptions. At all events, the land-animals presuppose a warm birth-place. And yet the Vulcan- ism, or volcanic power, must have been, already active at a far earlier period, on the third day at least, and as long as the water was not water (proper) must the creative power of fire have been in the water itself. : 11, Vers. 26-31. Sixth Creative Day. Second half. The Creation of Man.—Wherefore does the creation of man and of the Jand-animals fall on one and the same creative day? It is because man, as to his bodily appearance, has his being from the earth in common with the animals, and because the formations of the sixth day correspond to that forma- tion of the earth which took place on the third day From this it follows that on the third day the forma- tion of the earth was the main thing rather than that of the sea. At all events, there comes here between the two creative acts a solemn pause resembling 2 creative evening. God, as it were, stays his hand, and holds a special counsel before he gocs on with the work; whereas he had always, until now, imme- diately uttered the creative word. The idea of man becomes the clear decree for lus creation—We CHAP, I.—IL 3. 1%3 would (or, We will) make man.—It must not be read as though it were a rousing of Himself: Let us make man. But why the plural? There are various explanations: 1. The plural is without meaning (Rosenmiiller, and others); 2. it is a self-challenging (Tuch); 8. the three persons of the Trinity (church- fathers, Paschasius, and others in the middle ages; Calvin, Gerhard, etc.). That the Old Testament knows nothing of a divine tri-unity, as Knobel will have it, is not true; yet the trinitarian idea only un- folds itself germinally in the Old Testament, and here -it had not yet come to its development. 4. God’s taking counsel with the angels (Targum of Jonathan, the Jewish interpreters ;* Delitzsch, with reference to the Babylonian and Persian myths; yet the passage must not be so understogd that the angels take part in the creation except by way of communication; God communicates to them his resolution). Of. an- gels, however, the text has no trace, and the places cited by Delitzsch, Ps. viii.; Heb. ii. 7; Luke xx. 36, prove nothing. Although the angels are called spirits and sons of God, yet the Scriptures accurately distinguish between the angelic and the human nature, and there seems to'be an impropriety in the mingling of the divine and the angelic image. More- over, from this human creation it is that we have the first disclosure of the existence of any spirit-world in general. 6. Pluralis majestaticus, or pluralis inten- sivus (Grotius, Gesenius, Neumann, Knobel). It must be noted that the plural is carried into the word * (Among the Jewish interpreters the view of Maimoni- des is peculiar and noteworthy, though it may aé first strike us as strange and irreverent, It is God, he thinks, speaking to the earth, or rather, to the nature already brought into being by the previous utterances of the word, and which, in the commands preceding, had been addressed in the impera- tive third person: ‘ Let the earth bring forth,” etc. Now, when man is to be made, there is a change to the first person imperative, that is, nature is addressed more as ociate than as a servant: “Let us make man,” the higher work in which both co-operate—God directly and sovereignly, nature mediately and obediently through the divine word. From the one comes his body, his physical, from the other his diviner life and’image. ‘In regard to the lower animal and vegetable life,’ says this great critic, philosopher, and theologian, “the language ("72N2F1 , the word) was NXP) “NPI, let the earth bring forth; but in respect to man it is changed to MWY), ‘let us make man,’ that is to say, ‘I and the earth,’—let the latter bring forth his body from the earthly elements, even as it did in the case of the lower things that preceded him. Tor this is the meaning of that which is written (ch. ii 7): ‘Jehovah Elohim formed man aan, see note, p. 164) from the dust of the earth, but he gave him a spirit from the mouth of the Most High ;’ as it is written, ‘He breathed into man,’ etc., and said, moreover, ‘in our image, according to our likeness,’ meaning that he -should be like to both, that is, in the composition of his body a likeness of earth (or nature) from which he was taken, and in his spirit like to the higher order of being in that it is incorporeal and immortal. And so in what follows, he says, in the tmage of God (alone or unassociated).created he him, to set forth the wonderful distinction cabs, the miracle) by which man is distinguished from the rest of the creatures; and this is also the interpretation that I have found given by Rabbi Joseph Kimchi.” Maimon. Comm. in locum. Of all these views the pluralis majestaticus has the least support. It is foreign to the usus loguendi of the earliest Tenguees it is degrading instead of honoring to Deity, and Aben a, shows that the few seeming examples brought from the Hebrew Scriptures, such as Num. xxii. 6; Dan. ii. 86, do not bear it out—the latter, moreover, being an Ara- maic mode of speech. If we depart at all from the patristic view of an allusion to a plurality of idea in the Deity, the next best is that of Maimonides. In fact, if we regard nature as the expression of the divine Word from which it derives its power and life, the pun of the Jewish Doctor approaches the patristic, or the Christian, as near as it could come from the Jewish stand-point.—T. L.] 42545 (in our image), ete, This appears to go be yond the pluralis majestaticus, and to point to the germinal view of a distinction in the divine personali- ty, directly in favor of which is the distinction of Elohim and Ruah Elohim, or that of God and his Wisdom, as this distinction is made, Prov. viii., with reference to the creation. Although 0>% and mint, as well as the particles 2 and 3, are used promiscu-: ously (Knobel, Delitzsch), yet still the double designa- tion does not serve merely to give a stronger emphasis to the thought (Knobel). In that case the stronger expression &>¥ ought to come last. pdx is the shadow of the figure, the shadow-outlins, the copy, and therefore also the idol. m1 is the resem- blance, the comparison, the example, the appearance. And whilst 3 denotes the near presence of an object, as in, or within, close to or in it, into, whether in a friendly or a hostile sense, near by, etc., D expresses the relation of similarity or likeness, as as, in some degree, like as, instead of, etc. The former preposi- tion denotes the norm, the form, mass, number, and kind of a thing; the latter its relation, similarity, equality, proportion, in reference to some other thing. According to this, in our image means, after the principle, or the norm of our image; but as our like- ness means, so that it be our likeness. The image denotes the ideal, and therefore also the disposition, the being, the definition; the likeness denotes the actuality, the appearing. As the likeness of God, man is set (placed, appointed); but the image of God he is made to become (fit, factus est) through his most interior assimilation, his ideal formative impulse (or that tendency that forms him to the idea).* For * [We have found it difficult to express the thought of Lange here, and especially to give the force intended in the German werden. ‘The image,” he says, “is the ideal, die Anlage, das Wesen.”? So Maimonides here calls obs the specific form, MWATI OIY, the species determining form, or that which makes a thing inwardly what it is, in distinction from MIAINN ASN, the architectural form. The manner in which the two words are used would warrant the interpretation that G2% (image) is to man what 9 is to the vegetable and animal species, or rather, that in man, as created after this higher idea, the D2% (image) is the 97) (species). This is most important in respect to the question: in what consists the unity of the human race? Oneness of physical origin and physical life Cj un- doubtedly belongs to the idea of species, but in a much higher sense is this unity conserved by the pbx » the higher species, the one spiritual humanity in all men. It is on proofs of this, and not on facial angles or length of heels that the argument should be built. Of the animals it is said, amgsad , each one according to his kind. This is never said of man, but instead of it, it is aabya , in our image. In the next verse it is said God created man ‘inbxa » “in Avs image”—that is, God’s image, though some of the Jewish interpreters, as referred to by Aben Ezra, would make the pronoun in 472 2X relate to man (his image, man’s image), but still that which God had specifi- cally given as his divinely distinguishing idea. So also in the nde » our image, they interpret it, the image that we have given, as*in Gen. vi. 8, "MAT, my spirit, is the spirit or life that I have given. So in Ps. civ. 29, 80: “Thou gatherest in, CIN, thety, spirit”—again: “Thou sendest forth, T]T117, thy spirit,” the life that thou hast given. It is the same spirit in both verses. There is in 7972, also, the tadical sense of image, as wa see in the derivative 3472P), Ps. xvii. 15, joined, too, with @ pronoun réferring to God, NON), “thy image? «7 174 GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. the dogmatic treatment of this, see farther below. Knobel and Delitzsch, following the Syriac Version, are of opinion that M5! (beast) has fallen out before YV'2N7 (the earth); but wherefore should the domin- ion of man be limited merely to the animal-world? Through his lordship can man domesticate the wild. beast; he may also rule over the plant-world, and over the earth absolutely, This, in its widest accep- tation, is set forth, ver. 28. ‘In this divine viceroy- ship must his possession of the image first reveal itself; it must be the likeness of his higher and more intense conformity.—Ver. 27. Very explicitly is this divine-imaged nature of man presented in a two- fold manner along with his creation.—As man and ‘woman.—Properly, as male and female created he, them. Rightly does Umbreit remark: “The lan- guage here soars to a most concise song of tri- umph, and we meet, for the first time, with the parallelism of members.” In three parallel mem- bers, and therefore in the highest poetical form, does the narrative celebrate the creation of man. Con- cerning the derivation of men from one pair, see be- shall be satisfied when I awake, thy likeness.” So in a fearful passage directly the reverse of this, nbs seems to be used for the bad image; or the stamp of the Evil One in wicked men, as in Ps. lxxiii. 20: ‘‘As a dream when one awaketh, so, O Lord, in the awaking (not “thy awaking,” for which there is no pronoun and no warrant whatever), in the great awaking "32, in the arousing (the dies retri- butions), thou wilt reject their image,”’ nish nabs ‘ In what this image consists, and whether lost, or to what extent lost, by the fall, are mainly questions of theology instead of interpretation, but that there is still in man what in a most important and specific, or constituting, sense, is called ‘the image of God,” most clearl appears from Gen. ix. 6, where it is made the ground in the divine denounce- ment of the atrocity of murder. The reasons are strong for interpreting “man from the earth,” as we interpret, the fish and the reptile from the waters. Ifthe formative word ax" is used in the one case, so is x2 » Which some regard as the more directly creative, employed in the other: ‘And God created the great whales, ond. the moving shins: which the waters swarmed,” that is, all the marine animals from the greatest to the least. The one language is no more inconsistent with the idea of a pro- cess than the other. here is nothing then to shock us as anti-scriptural in the thought that man, too, as to his phys- ical and material, is a product of nature. As such physical being he has his "7 (physical species), and may be said to be anya , as well as the other animals. But he is also a metaphysical, a supernatural, a spiritual being, and here it may be questioned whether he can be said to be ama 3 To describe him in this respect.there is used the higher word nbz , the image, the image of God, in distinction from his male and female conformations which belong wholly to the pe sical. We are expressly taught that this latter does not elong to angels, or any purely spiritual beings. They have no sex, and it may be doubted whether they can properly be said to have species, unless it may be a: ed. of bad spirits who are greatly mingled with the physical, and whose deformed image God despises or rejects, Ps. lxxiii. 20. That there is specific variety, or species, among such may: be inferred from our Saviour’s language, Matt. xvii. 21: “This kind (1d yévos) goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.” : The image of God the distinguishing type of man: Hold fast to this in all its spirituality as the mirror of the eternal ideas, and we need not fear naturalism. Many in the church are shivering with alarm at the theories, which are con- stantly coming from the scientific world, about the origin of species, and the production of man, or rather the physical that may have become man, through the lower types. The uieting remedy is a higher psychology, such as the fair interpretation of the Bible warrants, when it tells us that the primus homo became such through the inspiration (the inbreathing) and the image of God lifting him out of nature, and making him and all his descendants a peculiar ya, species, by the possession of the nbs, or image of the supernatural.—T. L.] ——. low.—Ver. 28, And God blessed them (nnix, them, not iMi®, him, according to the Septuagint) and said to them.—“God blesses, too, the new created man but with two blessings. For besides the power of propagation which they have in com. mon with the beasts (ver. 22), they hold moreover the dominion over them. The same is eblarged after the flood.” Knobel. ‘The striving after the rhyth- mical-poetical parallelism presents itself in these words: and Elohim blessed them, and Elohim said unto them.”” Delitgsch. Yet the blessing sounds hardly “like a summons to the subjection of hostile powers.” The relation of the soul to the outer world, especially “ the feature of self-hood in all creature-life,” was not originally adverse, as is held by Bellarmin, or even by Zwingli. And thus is man first pictured to us, and then. his calling, to which it belongs that he must rule his own proper sensual nature, as he rules all living, or all that is animal in the earth—the word being taken here in its most universal sense. The laborer is worthy of his reward. The ruler of the earth is himself condition- ed. He needs nourishment, and, therefore (ver. ai there is pointed out to him his sustenance.—Behold, I have given you (Lange’s translation: I have appointed for you).—Together with the nourishment of man (ver. 29) there is appointed the nourishment of the beasts (ver. 30), What is common to both is the appointment of the use of vegetable food; the distinction is that man shall have the use of the herb with its seed, that is in. itself, and of the fruit-tree, whilst the beast, on the other hand, has the green of the herb. The meaning of this is, that for man there is the corn (or core) of nature, for the beast the shell or husk. ‘‘ According to the Hebrew view, therefore, mey, at first, lived only upon vegetables, and at aplater time there first came in the use of flesh (ch, ix. 8). The rest of antiquity agreed with this.” Knobel. Tor the citations from Plato, Plu- tarch, etc., that belong here, see p. 20. According to Delitzsch, this is not a mere view of antiquity, but farther, he says, “God did not originally will the violent breaking up of the life of one living thing by another for the purpose of enjoying its flesh, since that would be utterly against his clearly expressed will in their creation.” Oerstedt (in his “Spirit in Nature”) avers “that we have clear proofs that cor- poreal evil, ruin, sickness, and death, were older than the fall.” Delitzsch characterizes this ‘as a shout of triumph which ever becomes clearer in favoring the grossest materializing atheism.” And so also he says, with A. Wagner (in his “Primitive World”), that as the body of man after his fall underwent an essential alteration in its material ground, gb like- wise there must have gone before an analogous change and transformation in the animal-world. We see not how a naturalist can think of such 4 transformation of organic nature; still less how we can call in question the fact of a death that had come upon all species of animals before the fall of Adam, without taking along with it the theosophic interpretation of the thohu vabhohu as a Golgotha of the Devil’s kingdom. On this supposition, too, it 3s not easy to explain the difference of the cattle and the wild creature in our chapter—just as little, too, , the fact that immediately after the fall the skins of animals are at hand for the clothing of man; or that it. is the pious Abel who brings the animal sacrifice to the altar, and not Cain, Again, it will help us very little to call in aid, as Delitzach does, the Brab- CHAP. I.—II. 3, 175 manic and the Buddistic laws, and the Pythagorean doctrines (p. 125). In truth, there is still a great chasm between the tenable supposition that the para- disaical man put to death no animal, or could do so, and the arbitrary inference that even within the ani- mal-world itself everything was so disposed that no beast even ate another. Moreover, in this view, the representation of death itself is not wholly freed from the fear of death. The consequence of this same theory would be, that even an insect that had once lived could never die. But shall a natural death, so called, as when an old hind expires from want of air, or from hunger, be regarded as any more natural than the death which takes place under the jaws of the lion? In this all too gentle repre- sentation there lacks the heroic power—the spirit of sacrifice. May one suppose that the first speci- mens of the beasts had not been disorganized like the later animal, and that they did not experience any important transformations, still a literal change of a grass-eating into a flesh-eating lion must be re- garded as a radical transformation. As for the rest, our text denotes only the basis of the law of nourish- ment for the animal existence, and this basis is for man the fruit, the herb, the grain, for the cattle the pasturage and the fodder. In indulging our idealiz- ing view of the primitive world, that it was wholly without death, we should not overlook the fact that it was an ill habit of the old heathenism, in its view of the world, to confound sin with death, or even with the natural unfolding of life. Thus the poems that Knobel too makes mention of, and according to which even the ravenous beasts originally lived upon vegetable food.—Ver. 31. And, behold, it was very good.—At the seventh time it is said not merely good, but very good, because in man the key- stone of creation is reached. The possibilities of the ruin of man and of the world are for the pure para- . disaical state cure posteriores, just as the destinies of manhood are for the thinking of the child. For the theosophic view, the undivine lay only bound under the new order of things. That in general the demoniac evil was already in the world is not denied, but the six days’ work, taken as the world in gen- eral, or as God had made it, was very good, that is, perfect; «déauos, eédAAorov (Thales).* = [IN Di: “Good exceedingly.” It would seem to be not merely a benediction, but an expression of admira- tion, as we may say without any fear of the anthropopa- thism—euge, bene, preclare! It suggests a declaration in the ‘Timzus of Plato so remarkable that it is no wonder that some should have regarded it as a traditional echo of this old account. At the completion of the eee cosmical gaov, the animated universe, with its body and soul (its ae both of which Plato represents as the work of God, He (God) beholds it moving on in its beautiful constancy, an image of the eternal powers, or ideas. At the sight of this the everlasting Father (6 aidtos manjp) is filled with joy and admiration, eigpaveis 7ydcGn—the ee term to express such an emotion tbat could be found in the Greek language, ayapat, aydouat, There seems, too, to be implied in both expressions, the Hebrew and the Greek, the emotion of love, and this, as it were, reciprocal—the kosmos responding and moving on through a principle of attraction rather than of projection, or outward mechanical force. Kuvet ds épdpevor, he moves tt (or, tf moves tt) as being loved ; such are the words of Aristotle (Metaph. xi. (xii.) c. 7), describing the first pet le of motion-in the heavens as it proceeds from the irst Mover. This language is truly wonderful in itself, and all the more so when we consider its author, the and rigid Aristotle, the lumen siccwm, or pure abstract intel- lect, as he has becn called. Nature, the kosmos, moving on through love of the Hirst Fair and the First Good—drawn, rather than impelled—it has a Platonic richness of concep- tion which secms strange in the more pomely logical writer. Of both, however, 1t may be said that they produce less im- pression upon us than the pure grandeur and simplicity of 12. Ch. ii, 1-8. The Divine Sabbath. Ver. 1. Thus the heavens and the earth were finished. —A solemn retrospect introducing the sabbath 'of God.—And all their host.—A concrete denoting of the universe from the predominant terrestrial stand-point. The host has reference to the heaven, so far,’at all events, as the stars are meant. As the host of the earth, however, denotes its inhabitants (Is. xxxiv. 2), so the thought, moreover, gives an intimation of the inhabitants of the heaven, “The passage in the book of Nehemiah (ch. ix. 6) that treats of the creation supposes correctly that in the host of heaven (§2¥) the angels are included.” Delitzsch. When he says farther: ‘‘ The stars, ac- cording to the more ancient representation (Babylo- nian, Assyrian, Persian) are set forth as a host for battle, or that together with the angels they are as- signed a portion in the conflict of light with darkness whose theatre is the earth created within the sur- rounding sphere of the luminous heavenly bodies,” — all such remarks may be taken as Parsic rather than purely Biblical.*—Ver. 2, And on the seventh day God ended His work.—The difficulty that arises from the mention here of a completion of God’s work on the seventh day, as before it seemed to have been on the sixth, has given occasion to the Septuagint, the Syriac, and many exegetes to put the sixth day in place of the seventh. Others (Cal- vin, Drusius, etc.) have read 53°" as pluperfect (had finished) contrary to the grammar. Knobel explains the word with Tuch and others: God let it come to an end on that day. Delitzsch in a similar manner. Richers wrongly places a completion of the creation on the seventh day. Kurtz speaks of a heptameron. the Bible language: “And God beheld everything that He had made, and, lo, it was good, exceeding good.” With ail the splendor of Plato’s language in the Timeus, there is still lurking about it his besetting inconsistency—the thought of something evil, eternal in itself, and inseparable trom matter and from nature. It may be said, too, that this great problem of evil seems to haunt some of our best commentators in their exegesis of this passage. They find here an implied reference to future evil. All is yet good, they would have it to mean, and so they regard it as a Verwahrung, or defence of God against the authorship of evil. See Delitzsch, p. 126. But this mars the glory of the passage. It is simply a burst of ad- miiration and benediction called out by the Creator’s sure veying Tis works. The anthropopathism is for us its power and its beauty, which are lessened by any such supposed hint or protestation.—T. L.] * [We get the best order of senses in the root NQY and its cognate MAX, by regarding, as the primary, the idea of splendor, or glory, as it remains in the noun "2¥. See its use, Is. iv. 2, where it seems synonymous with wine - Is. xiii, 19, and a number of other places. The secondary sense of host, orderly military array (comp. Canticles vi. 10), comes very easily and naturally from it. Or we may say that along with the idea of hosts, as in the frequent Mixay an » Jehovah of hosts, it never loses the primary conception. ‘Thus the earth and the heavens were finish- ed and all their glory,” or their glorious array. Compare the Syriac po » decus, ornamentum, where the servile tau has become radical. The LXX. and Vulgate transla~ tors seem to have had something of this idea: mas 0 Kécpos avrav—omnis ornatus eorum. There is a grand significance in the Greek xéowos and Latin mundus as thus used for the world or the array (artistic unity) of the worlds. Ras is the Hebrew for xéopos, and thus there is a most sublime parallelism presented by its two expressions: 11 xay mins and 07259 7{>%)—Lord of the worlds in space, King of tha worlds in'time : BactAcds rap aidvey, Ps, cxlv. 13; Is. xxvie 4;1Tim.i.17. The Hebrew far transcends the Greek.— 176: GENESIS, OR THE It seems to us, however, that the rest of God does ‘not denote a remaining inactive merely, or a doing nothing. The perfécting of the work on the seventh is likewise something positive: namely, that God celebrated His work (kept a holy day of solemn tri- umph over it) and blessed the sabbath. To cele- brate, to bless, to consecrate, is the finishing sabbath- work—a living, active, priestly doing, and not merely a laying aside of action. “The Father worketh hitherto,” says Christ in relation to His healings on the sabbath (John v. 17). The doing of God in respect to the completed creation is of a festive kind (solemn, stately, holy), a directing of motion and of an unfolding of things now governed by law, in con- trast with that work of God which was reflected in the: pressure of a stormy development, and in the great revolutions and epochs of the earth’s formation. “ His manba (His work) was the completion of a task which He had proposed.” rests * now and triumphs in that last finish of His _* [The Scriptures,” says Delitasch in his comment on Maw, p. 129, “do not hesitate to speak anthropopathi- cally of God’s entrance into rest.” As far as the word naw is concerned, there is no anthropathism here except as all human language, and all human conception, in respect to Deity, is necessarily such—that is, necessarily representing him in ‘space and time. The primary sense of the word naw is simply to cease, cease doing—as the LXX. render it, xaréravoe—not avéwavoe which carries the idea of recrea~ tion or refreshment after fatigue, like avayvxw, or the He- brew Niphal Wp9". When joined with this latter verb, as in Exod. xxxi. 17, the whole language may be called anthro- opathic, but the added word shows that the idea expressed By it is not in the first. If ceasing from creation, wholly or partially, implies mutability, it is no less implied inthe emanation-theory, unless we suppose an emanation, or mecessary creation, of every possible thing, everywhere, alwoys, and of the highest degree—in other words, an unceasing and unvaried filling of infinite space and infi- nite time with infinite perfection of manifestation. But waiving all such inconceivable subtleties, it may be truly said that rest, of itself, is a higher and more perfect state than outward action—if we may speak of anything as higher and lower in respect to God. Rest is not inertia. Rest in physics is the equilibrium of power, and so the maximum of power (re-sto, re-sisto). Motion is the yielding, or letting out, of power, necessary, indeed, for its manifesta- tion or patent effect, yet still a dispersing or spending of that static energy which was in the quiescence. Absolute rest in the kosmos (the bringing it into, or keeping it in, that state) would be the highest exercise of the divine might; but as it would preclude all sensation, and all sen- tiency, both of which are inseparable from change or motion of some kind, it would be an absence of all outward mani- festaiion; that is, it would be non-phenomenal or non- appear:ng. So also rest is the highest power (activity) of mind or spirit, and thus its highest state. This is Aristofle’s dictum, Kthic. Nichomach. x. 8, 7: reAcia evSatpovia OcwpyTixy tis coTiv evépyera, “the porfect blessedness is a contemplative energy ;”’ ‘so that (sec. 8) that energy of God which excels all in blessedness must be contemplative (or theoretical), and, of human things, that which is most akin to this‘must be most blessed” (evdatnovtxwrdry), In this way, too, may we strive to obtain a conception of the sab- bath or “rest of the saints.” The Scripture thought of this would seem to be as much opposed to torpor or incrtia, on the one hand, as it is, on the other, to that busy doing which enters so much into some modern oe of the future life. They that believe have entered into. rest. There can be no doubt, too, that the idea of holy contem- plation, or sabbath-keeping in the festal sense of the word, on which Lange so much insists, enters into the idea of nag here in Genesis, although derived, perhaps, from its subse- quent use. In this sense, there is something of a sabbath whenever there come the words: and God saw (surveyed, contemplated), “‘saw that it was good.” It is a solemn pausing to behold the divine ideas in their outward appear- ing—not as a change in Deity, as though with him this took place at intervals, but as a presentation, for the time, of that constant, immutable aspect of the divine character as it comes forth at intervals for us. This eternal rest of God is the sun ever Sat calmly above the clouds, yet now and then revealing itself through thom as they break away over Delitzsch. God FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. work, the paradisaical man; God’s great festival ig reflected in Adam’s holy-day. In accordance with his supposition that the creatiye days were not num- bered from evening to morning, but in the contrary order (which is opposed to the text), Delitzsch holds that not the evening of the sixth day, but the morn- ing of the seventh, was the real beginning of the sabbath (p. 127). But the evening of the sixth day lies back before the sixth day, whilst of an evening and a morning of the seventh day there is no men- tion at all. Had we taken the creative days as peri. ods generally, or the evenings as merely remissions of the creative activity, the question about the even- ing and the morning of the seventh day would have had no right sénse. If we truly take the evenings as denoting creative crises, then may it be asked: did not a crisis follow upon the creation of Adam? and this may we find intimated (ch. ii. 21) in the deep sleep of Adam. Still must we suppose that the completion of Adam’s creation took place towards the evening or decline of the sixth day.—Ver. 3. And God blessed the seventh day.—The bless- ing of the seventh day may of itself denote primarily that it was appointed for rest and re-creation, “ which is a blessing for the laboring man and beast (Exod, xx. 10; Deut. v. 14).” But the eérlier blessings say: Be ye fruitful and multiply, and ¢o bess means to wish for, and to promise one infinite multiplica- tions in the course of life, as to curse means to wish for one an infinite multiplication -of evil—that is, to imprecate, or pray against him. The blessing of the sabbath must consist in this, that it gives birth to all the festivals (or rests) of God, and all the festivals of men—that it endlessly propagates itself as a heavenly nature above the self-propagating earthly nature, until it has become an everlasting sabbath,. Its most distinct birth is the New Testament Sunday. But this Sunday must mediate the heavenly Sunday. “Tt makes it to be an inexhaustible fountain of re-creation” (or new life). Delitzsch—And_hal- lowed it.—To hallow is to take an object out of its worldly relation, and to devote it to God. There is, indeed, nothing before us here of a worldly relation in a profane sense, and so far can the negative force here have no place in the hallowing, Without doubt, however, the contrast is this: he withdraws it from labor for the sake of the world, and estab- lishes it as the festival for God. In six days’ work had God condescended and given Himself up to live for the world; on the sabbath, He ordains that the world must live for God. He blessed and hallowed it, because He rested therein—that is, He appointed His own rest, as a ground and rule for the rest of man, and of the ht on the seventh day (see Exod, xx. 11; xxxi. 17), “According to the author God made this appointment at the creation, but He leaves its execution to a time after Moses, when, in the desert of Sin, He practically leads Israel to the festival of the seventh day, and thereupon makes publication of the law of the sabbath on Sinai (Exod. xxxi 12; xxxv. 1). There is nothing known of any observation of the sabbath before the time of Moses.” our changing world of nature and of time. It is such a time- Jess sabbath that is intended by Rabbi Simeon, as quoted by Boschi in his comment. on the words seventh day, Gen. i. 2” Flesh and blood has need to add the common to the holy time (to reckon them by passing intervals) but to the Holy One, blessed be He, it is as the thread that binds the hair, and all days appear as one.”? Compare it with the Dwi MATS, “the bundle of life,” or lives, 1 Sam. xxv. 29, and which ‘is so often referred to by the Rabbinical wri ters.—T. L.] CHAP. I.—IL. 8. 177 Knobel. This holds good only of the legal establish- ment of the sabbath, for the custom of keeping a day of rest was not confined to the Jews only. Con- cerning the name nag , which the creative account does not contain, see DrLirzsca, p. 130. Deriva- tions: 1. From "m5v3,an old name of Saturn; 2, from nzavti (MP3), the seventh day (Lactantius); 3. contracted from MmaW, the time of holy rest, which is the most likely —Which He had created and made (marginal reading in English Bible: created to make). Grammatically the infinitive construct Miwy> is rendered by the Latin faciendo. Still the explanation: which God being active (that is, by doing, or by an effort) had created, would be quite idle, were it not that one would find in the language the recognition of an antithesis to the doctrines of emanation, or generally, to the supposed heathenish pathological and fatalistic modes of creation. De- litzsch thus modifies the faciendo (or miW3>): the creating is fundamental, whilst the making, or the forming, is consequential. Then there would be de- noted thereby the continuing of the divine activity beyond the time of the creative wurk.* In respect to the four verses that follow, which Delitzsch, too, as well as Ewald and others, would make the sub- scription of the previous section, not the superscrip- tion of the one that follows (as Tuch, De Wette, and others), compare Dztitzscu, p. 133. Knobel says (p. 7): ‘The Elohist has a superscription before every principal section in Genesis, and so much the more must he have had such a superscription placed before his first narration.” Ilgen, Pott, and Schu- mann have rightly found the same (ch. ii, 4) in the words: “these are the origines of the heaven and the earth,” etc. The word tholedoth, then, must have suffered a misplacement. According to De- litzsch it is a closing formula. We hold it to be the superscription to what follows, because the word tholedoth must otherwise have regularly preceded, and because our text regards the tholedoth, or gen- erations of the heavens and the earth, as conditioned in its principles through the creation of the earth and the heavens—that is, the earth, and especially Adam as the principial+ point of view for the whole. DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL.} 1. The contrast which is at once drawn between heaven and earth, and whose symbolical significance cannot be ignored, proves, in the first place, that the whole period before us, from ch. i-xti., is to be con- * [The simplest rendering of the Hebrew here would give iis easiest and the plainest sense. It is that presented in our marginal reading, taking MiWP>, not as a gerund £ faciendo), but literally, as an infinitive of purpose: which God had created to make. It suggests nearly the distinction iven by Delitasch between the fundamental and that which ‘ollows—the groan eye and the finishing, the material- gathering and the architectural arrangement of the struc- ture. So the Vulgate: Quod Deus creavit ut faceret, and Onkelos: Tay AW NAD STL] t [This word is not to be found in any English dictiona- ry, but we are compelled to Latinize here, and form a word, from principium principia, to correspond to Lange’s word prinzipielle. Our “principal” is too vague, and used in too many senses, to answer the purpose.—T. L.J } With respect to dogmatical literature on the account of the Creation, examine BrerscHNEIDER: ‘‘ Systematical Development of Dogmatic Ideas,” p. 450. 12 sidered under the point of view of the history of pri- meval religion. Secondly, the constitution of man in the image of God, the history of Adam, of Abel, of the Sethites, etc.; and, further, the contrast openly appearing at the close of this section between the uniting and separating of the peoples on the one hand, and the budding theocracy on the other. Thirdly, all periods lying in the middle between these two extreme points. Within this section, which presents the contrast between the primeval religion and the patriarchal religion of Abraham, now appear individ- ual contrasts: 1, The contrast between the para- dise-world and thesin-world; 2. the contrast between the anomism of the human race before the flood, and the heathenism of man after the flood. And to these add the more special contrasts which are to be brought out by the separate sections. The primitive religion is to be distinguished from the religion of Abraham by the following points: 1. In the primitive religion, the symbolical sign is first, and the word second ; in the patriarchal religion, the word of God is first, and the symbolical sign is second. (See Gen. xii. 1, 7.) 2. In the primitive religion the continuance of the living faith in God is sporadic. This, it is true, is in connection with genealogical relations (Seth, Noah, Shem), as the appearance of Melchisedek especially proves (comp. Heb. vii. 3); and, as a gradually fading twilight, it goes on through the times until the days of Abra- ham, forming continually, as natural religion, the background of all the heathenism of humanity. The faith of Abraham, on the contrary, forms with the patriarchal religion a genealogical and historical se- quence. The aurora of the morning in Abraham contrasts with the twilight of the evening in Melchis- edek. Melchisedek looks, with the faithful of the heathen world, back to the lost Paradise; Abraham looks forward to the future city of God—his religion is the religion of the future. 8. Thesymbolical prim- itive religion is yet, in its exterior, overgrown with mythological heathendom, While it forms the bright - side of the primal religious world, its dark side arises from the mythologizing of the symbols (Rom. i, 19-23), With the patriarchal religion, however, the contrast between the theocratic faith and hea- thendom has become fixed. 4. With the historic form of this contrast, it is at the same time conclu- sive that heathendom maintains its relative light side in the history of humanism, and the theocratic popu- lar history its relative dark side, which increases to the rejection of the Messiah and the death on the cross. The material development of salvation among the Jews, and the formal development of the human form of salvation among the heathen (Greeks and Romans), are for each other, just as the evil tendencies of heathendom and Judaism unite with each other in the crucifying of Christ. . 2. Within our division appears the beautiful con- trast that the creation of the world is once represent- ed in the genetic order as an ascending development of life, so that man seems the aim (réAos) of all things; then, from chs. ii., iii., onward, in principial order, according to which man, as a divine idea, is the principle with which, and for which, the world, and especially Paradise, was created. The first view is universalistic, and hence Hiohistic ; the latter is the- ocratic, and hence Jehovistic. 8. The form of the account of the creation: re- ligious symbolical chronicle; its source: a revealed word or image effected by the vision of a prophecy looking backwards (see Introduction). The objections 178 of Delitzsch against the mediation of the knowledge of creation to men through divine revelation in hu- man vision (see 79 sqq.), rest on a want of apprecia- tion of the scriptural idea of vision, as already indi- cated. Delitzsch, with the more ancient catholic supernaturalism, explains our account from a divine teaching, which is defined as the interposing voice of the Spirit of God, and the guidance, through it, of man’s own spirit. To this ultra-supernaturalistic view of Delitzsch and Keil is opposed the rationalistic one of Hofmann, namely, that the account of the cre- ation is the transposed impression in history which the world made on the first-created man reflecting on its origin. To the purely historical conception’ of a wonderfully preserved or regenerated (Delitzsch) tra- dition of revelation or legend, is contrasted the myth- ical conception in various forms, effected through the allegorical interpretation of Philo; which is fol- lowed by many church Fathers, and by Herder in his adoption of a parabolic hieroglyphic. a. Moral myth as a ground for the commandment of the sabbath (Paulus). 0. Philosophical myth, especially the nat- ural philosophical (Eichhorn and others). We have already shown in the Introduction why we cannot join in either the purely historical or the mythical view, but must insist on the specific of a religious symbolical history. The vision might be designated as intuition, in so far as we carry back the respective | knowledge to the unfallen man. 4. Tn our section the world is represented accord- ing to its four different relations: 1. As creation; 2. as nature; 3.as cosmos; 4, as’ won (see Lancu’s “‘Dogmatics,” p. 222 sqq.). The idea of creation is ex- | pressed by the word 843, as well as by the going forth ten times of the Omnific Word of God. God said, ‘‘Let there be, and there was.” The ac- count of nature, 1. through the great contrasts, separations, and combinations: heaven and earth, darkness and light, atmospheric waters and terres- trial waters, firmament and terra firma, land and water, sky and earth. 2. Through the designation of plants, that they should bear seed, each according to its kind. 8. Through the blessing on animals: ‘be fruitful and multiply, and the distinction of vari- ous kinds of animals, as also finally the blessing on men, 4, Through the relation of the various crea- tures to the sphere of birth or life corresponding to them (especially water and earth), through their coming forth from these spheres at the creating word, Especially belong here the picturesque ex- pressions: Thohu, Vabhohu.—N81 PIN Non Sy a Ty Nhs ye— yy ore sxnt—ypie pissy 4a—tbadn W270. 5. The six days’ work itself—The idea of the cosmos. It appears distinctly in all the solemn pauses of the creative work, as they are marked with the sevenfold repetition of the words: and God saw that it was good. The celebration of the sabbath also belongs here, as it points back to the beautiful completion ofthe universe.—But the idea of the exon appears with the fact that man is made the end and aim of all days of creation, by which it is clearly pro- nounced that he is the real principle in which the world and its origin is comprehended. The history of the earth is thus made the lifetime of humanity, Its profoundest principle of development and meas- ‘ure of time is the support of man. 5. The Creation—On the dogmatic doctrine of the creation, sce Hase, Hutter, Hany: “Doctrine GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. of Faith,” and Langz’s “Positive Dogmatics.” Here comes especially into consideration 1. the relation of the doctrine of the creation to the Logos, John i. 1-3, The first verse of Genesis clearly forms the ground presupposed in that passage, God spake ; through His word He created the world, says Genesis; His word is a personal divine life, says John, and the New Testament in general, especially Col. i. 15-19; ch, ii. 83-9. According to Genesis everything is created through the idea of man in the image of God with a view to this man; according to the New Testament it is through the idea of Christ, who is the principal of humanity, with a view to Christ, As Adam was the principle of the creation, so is Christ the principle of humanity. Therefore it reads: “God hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world” (Eph. i. 4; comp. John xvii, 5). The creation is, in its most essential ‘point, the production of the eternal God-Man in the eternal to-day. In man nature has passed beyond itself, from the relative, symbolical independence, to the perfected and real, to freedom ; it has in him the mediator of its redemp- tion, of its glorification. The beautiful cosmos, this unity of all varieties, which combines in it an endless complex of unities, to the production of external harmony and beauty, has, in Christ, the most beau- tiful of the children of men, its middle point, the centre of its ideal beauty. Finally, the first xon, which is fixed by the life of Adam, has for its core, its root, and its aim, the second zon fixed by Christ. 2. The relation to the Holy Ghost. The spirit is the living, self-impelling unity of spiritual life, the breath of the soul, as the wind forms the spirit of the earth, the vital, ever-active unity of its varieties, The Spirit of God hovering over the waters, is the divine, creative, living unity, which rules over the ferment- ing process of the Thohu Vabhohu; hence, as the peripheral principle of formation (at one with the central principle of formation, the Logos), it effectu- ates the separations and the combinations by which the formation of the earth is determined. In the New Testament, however, it appears in its personal strength,.as the unity of all works of revelation of * the Father and.the Son, and as the absolute, spiritual principle of formation which effects the glorification of the world through the separation of the ungodly and the godly, and through the combination of every- thing godly in the church and the kingdom of God. 3. The relation of the creation to the Divine Be- ing. In the creation, God appears as the creator, who calls forth things as out of nothing. But from the genesis out of the pure nothing, are distinguished the creative things as proceeding from the life or breath of the creator’s word, with which they come forth into existence (Ps. civ. 80); and finally man stands complete with the features of divine affinity, proceeding from the thought of His heart, from His counsel, as created in His image, and intended to be His visible administrator on earth. In the New Testament, however, the paternal feature of the Divine Being has unvailed itself as a paternity, from which all paternity in heaven and on earth proceeds, but which, in the most special sense, refers to Christ, the image of the Divine Being. By the relation of the work of creation to the coming Christ, the whole creation becomes an advance representation, a syll- bol of Christ in a series of symbolical degrees, of which each represents in advance the next following one. Through the relation of Christ to the Father, the whole creation receives the mark of the human, especially of revelation, or of the wonderful (as de CHAP. IL—IL 3. - 179 noted by the lion), of resignation, or of sacrifice (as denoted by the ox), and of the reflection of light, _ that is, the idea (as denoted by the eagle).* But the spirit, as the unitary life of the revelation of the ather and of the Son, is reflected as creative wis- dom in all creative movements of the world, and, indeed, in the fundamental forms of separation and combination, of centrifugal and centripetal force, of repelling and attracting operations.—The account of the creation, Gen. ch. i, is not a dogma of the trinity of God; the completed creation, how- ever, as a work of God and revelation, is a mirror of the trinity, and a prophecy of the revelation of its future (see Lanax’s ‘Positive Dogmatics,” p. 206 ff. 4. The relation of the creation to revelation. The most general sphere of the revelation of God, that which forms the basis of all future revelations, is the creation of heaven and earth as the objec- tive revelation of God, which corresponds with the subjective revelation of God in his image, man. 5. The relation of the doctrine of the creation to the heathen and post-heathen view of the world. tt denies polytheism, for the creator of all things appears as the only one, and if his name stands in the plural (Elohim), the element of truth in polytheism (in contrast to Judaism) is therewith recognized, namely, the variety of the revelation of the one God in the variety of his strength; works, and signs, and the variety of the impressions which he thereby pro- duces. dt denies pantheism, for God distinguishes himself by his creation of the world; he creates the world through his conscious word, consequently freely, and stands in personal completion before his work and over it, so that the world is neither to be regarded as an emanation of his divine being, nor especially as a metamorphosis of the divine being, (the second form of it,) or, vice versa, God as the emanation of the world. But it emphasizes also the true in pan- theism (in contrast to deism): the animating omni- presence and revelation of God in the world, with his creating word, with his spirit hovering over the form- ation of the world, with his image in the dispositions and destination of man. It denies dualism, for God appears as the creator of all things directly. He is also the originator of the Thohu Vabhohu of fermenting ele- ments; he finds in the creation no blame, and, at the end of the sixth day, everything is very good. The true in dualism is, however, also retained (against fatalism), namely, the contrast between the materials and the formative power, between the natural degrees * (For this thought of Lange, which some might regard as pure fancy, there is an etymological ground in the He- brew language. The words tor light, and for the motions of light, have a close affinity to those for flying, compare RID, volare, DIY, vibrare, AHY rendered tenedbre, but which strictly moans the earliest twilight or twinkling of the morning, and that beautiful word, “MW "DYED , palpebre aurore, Job iii 9; xli. 10—ijudpas BAcpapoy, Soph. Antig. 103, ‘‘the eye-lids,” the opening wing “of the morning.” Compare also NX, volavit, Jer. xlviii. 9, and 72 > Splen-" dutt, micavit, shone, glistened, glimmered, Y2>a Hower, etc. It is something more than a mero poetical image when we speak of light as having wixgs, especially as the conception is applied to the faint gleaming, glimmering, fluttering, we may say, just waving up out of the darkness. “How natural the order of the images: to fly, flutter, palpitate, vibrate, quiver, twinkle, glimmer, gleam, shine. Comp. Engl.: fly, are, flash; Latin: volo (volite), flo, flare, FLAMMA. 3 iritually, idea and reflection support the same analogy. $ may be the piercing eye of the eagle that represents fhe siping the other view has the best philological grounds. and the natural principles, between nature and spirit. But the doctrine of creation denies much more the antichristian polytheism, that is, atomism, even to its most modern form of materialism, as such mate- rialism rejects not only the truth of the spirit, of personal life, of the Godhead, of the immortality of the soul, and of liberty, consequently all ethical prin- ciples, but also the physical principia of crystal form- ation, of the formation of plants and animals. It does this by making matter regarded as devoid of all visibility, and in so far thoroughly hypothetical and abstract, or rather the infinity of feigned abstract substances (with which the Zhohu Vabhohu, as a living fermentation of appearing elements, is not to be confounded), the sole God-resembling factor of all phenomena of life, such phenomena consisting of two classes, of which the physical and abstract spiritual is to be in accordance with the play of matter, the ethical, on the contrary, a bare appearance, having no conceivable or comprehensible reality. The living God here stands in contrast with the multitude of these dark idols of a feigned deity, and he places opposite the subordinate elements of life the super- ordinate vital principles, which give the elements their cosmical form, whilst over all he places the ruler man, with his godlike, spiritual nature. The only thing that endures as an element of truth in materialism is the infinite and subile con- formity to law that is found in material things, a fact which spiritualism nowadays far too much disre- gards. The doctrine of creation also denies with increased emphasis the intensified pantheism, i. e., the most modern pantheism as opposed to personal- ity—the pantheism which makes everything proceed from an impersonal thought, in order to let every- thing again disappear through continual metamor- phoses (morphologism) in impersonal thoughts ; for the scriptural doctrine makes all thoughts of crea- tion proceed from an unconditioned personality, pass through fixed forms, and culminate in a conditioned personality. The truth that lies in such self-deifica- tion is recognized in this, that all works of the abso- lute thinking are themselves thoughts. He has spoken thoughts which have become works of crea- tion, Finally, it denies the dynamical dualism (or the dualism of power), i. e., that hierarchical abso- lutism which holds a¥-evil not. only the material world, but still more the entire realm of spirit and spiritual life regarded as something to be controlled with infinite care, and with the infinite art and power of an abstract authority; for it testifies for the word of God as immanent in the world, and thereby holds fast the element of truth in that hierarchism, accord- ing to which the spirit of God hovers over the waters, and man as the administrator of God is commanded, with reference to all animal life in the world: Rule over them, and make them subject to yau. At the very first verse and word of Genesis, it clearly steps over that impure sink of dualism beyond which the entire heathen and philosophical view of the world could never go. It does this, by contrast- ing God in his eternal self-perfection to the creation which arose with time. The doctrine of the creation. is the first act of revelation and of faith in the history of the kingdom of God. It would lead too far, should we attempt to show how the threc heathen errors of religion are ever present with each other, although at one time polytheism, at one time pantheism, and at another time dualism, prevails. We make this observ- ation, however, to indicate thereby that we do not ignore the pantheistic basis of Gnosticism, even when 180 GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. it plays with polytheism, since we present it accord- ing to its prevailing characteristic as dualism. But not only are the coarse ground-forms of the ancient and modern darkening of the doctrine of the creation to be judged by the first chapter of Genesis, but also the more subtle, Christianly modified forms, as, on the one hand, they present themselves in Gnosticism, (with which we also reckon Manichzism and its later shoots, extending to our time: Priscillianism, Paul- icianism, Bogomiles, Albigenses, dualistic theosophs of Jacob Bohm), and, on the other hand, in Ebion- itism, as it has found its continuation in the later Monarchianism, and still more modern deism. The Gnostics ground their opposition to the Old Testament on a paganistic misinterpretation of the New, and thus they may be ranged according to their more or less hostile attitude to the Old Testament, and as representing various heathenish views of the world which, after the manner of old Palimpsests, placed one upon the other, appear through the overlying Chris- tianity. Among such Palimpsests, on which a form of Christianity has been overwritten, may be reckoned the Samaritan (Simon Magus), Syrian (Saturninus, ete. ), Alexandrian (Basilides), old-Egyptian (Ophiten), Hellenic (Karpocrates), Ponto-Asiatic (Marcion), and Persian Gnostics (Manes). Finally, in Mohammed, the Arabian Gnosticism and Ebionitism ran together, as the again broken forms of Subordinatianism and Monarchianism ran together in Arianism. Through the manifold modifications which Christian dualism experienced immediately, and especially in the course of time, one must not be led astray in respect to the ‘unity of the genus. Just so, pure Ebionitism, whose naked image is Jewish Talmudism (as it is to be rec- ognized throughout by its oblique position to the New Testament and the New Testament elements in the Old), has passed through various mutations whose ground-thought remains the same: namely, a fatal- istic, eternalized, ontological divorcement between God and the world, through the law of religion or nature, whether the form of the change be called deism, naturalism, or rationalism. And, finally, the mixed form of gnostic Ebionitism, which was prepared through the Alexandrian system of Philo, and whose naked image is the Jewish Kabbala, has remained unchanged, through all mutations, in its ground- thoughts, whether they appear as Montanism, Donat- ism, or pseudo-Dionysian, medieval and modern ultra- supernaturalism, as inflexible baptismism, or yielding spiritualism. Together with the true difference be- tween God and the world, the doctrine of creation expresses also the true combination between both, and finds the living mediation of this contrast in the man created in the image of God; whereas, dualism makes the difference a separation, while pantheism makes the combination a mixture, and the still ob- servable, polytheistic reminiscence in Christendom vacillates, in its love of fables, between creature deification and creature demonizing, 6. The relation of the temporal creation to the eternity of God. It is quite as wrong to transfer guostically the origin of the real world to the eternity of God, to fix the existence of God according to theogony by speaking of a becoming of God, or of an obscure basis in God (Bohm), or of an origin of the material contemporary with the self-affirmation of God (Rothe), as it is to declare, with scholastic super- naturalism, that God indeed might have left the world uncreated. Against the first view, there is the declaration that the world had a beginning, which, a little farther on, is fixed ag the beginning of time. Against the latter, there is the declaration that God chose believing humanity from eternity in Christ, as it is also indicated in our text, by the decree of God at the creation of man, and by the image of God. The world rests therefore, as an actual and temporal world, on an eternal ideal ground.* Its ideal prepa- ration is eternal, but its genesis is temporal, for it is conditioned by the gradual growing, and the beauti- ful rhythm of growth is time. : 4. In the significant number ten, the number of actual historical completion, the account is repeated: God said, Let there be, and there was. The speak- ing of God now certainly indicates the thinking of God, and it thence follows that all works of creation sare thoughts of God (idealism). But it indicates also a will, making himself externally knowa, an active operation of God, and thence it follows that‘all the works of creation are deeds of God (realism). Both, however, thinking and operating, are one in the di- vine speaking, the primal source of all language, his personally making himself known, although we can- not bring up the thought of this speaking to the con- ception (personalism). Through creating, speaking, making, forming, the world is ever again and again denoted as the free deed of God. 8. Theological definitions of the creation. The ereatio is distinguished as a single act and as a per- manent fact. A third period is, however, at the same time pointed out, namely, the continuance of the doing in the deed, so that the world would not only fall to pieces, but would pass away, if God with- drew himself from it. The thought that he cannot withdraw from it in his love, should not be confound- ed with the untenable thought that he might not be able to withdraw from it in his omnipotence. The absolute dependence of the world on God is at all times the same (see Ps. civ. 80; Col. i. 17; Heb. i. 8). On the relation of the. creation to the trinity, compare Hase, Hurrer, p. 149, and Laner’s “Pos- itive Dogmatics,” p. 206 ff.—The expression, crea- tion from nothing, is borrowed from the apocryphical word, 2 Mace. vii. 28: é& ob« dyrwy 3 comp. Heb. xi. 3. It denies that an eternal material, or indeed that anything, was present as a (material) substratum of the creation. One can, however, misinterpret the expression by making the act of creation one of ab- stract will, absolved from any divine breath of life (Giintherianism). On determining the ereatio ex ni- hilo we distinguish the nihil negativum, by denying. the eternity of matter as substratum of the creation, and the nihil privativum, by assuming that God at first created matter as nihil privativum, then the forms in the hexaémeron. This the modus creationis: first, matter; then, the form. This idea of a matter as something before form, does not correspond, how- ever, to the idea of a quickening or life-giving ac- tivity in creation. With the beginning of crea- tion there is immediately established the contrast of heaven and earth, i. e., different spheres, which as such are not mere matter; and with the Thohu Va- bhohu of the first earth-form there is immediately established the constructive activity of the spirit of * [We have placed this sentence in italics as containing a truth of vast importance, transcending all science on the one hand, and all theology that places itself in antagonism to science on the other. If it contains truth in respect to the world, then, @ fortiori, is it true in respect to man, who is the final cause, or “the spiritual core of the world,” a8 Lange elsewhere styles him. ‘There is an eternal ‘ground for the world; much more is there an eternal ground for humanity (Adam-ity) ; beyond all, is there an eternal ground for the new humanity (Christ-ianity). “Chosen in Hir before the foundation of the world.”’—f. L.] CHAP, L—IL 3. 18. . v God. The denture conception presupposes an eter- nal world-matter, whether regarded according to the Persian idea as evil, or according to the Greek as blind, heterogeneous, and antagonistic, or according to the Indian idea as magically mutable, which eternal world-matter must, in all cases, make the demiurgic formation a thing of mere arbitrary sport. The true idea of the work of creation lies between this and the theurgo-magical, according to which God had made the universe, in abstract positiveness, a pure mate- rial contrast of His divine being. This is a concep- tion in which the creating word, the spirit of God hovering over the waters, the image of God, or even the omnipresence of God in the world, do not receive their just due. As the aim of the creation finally ( inis creationis), there have been distinguished the highest or last aim, God’s glorification, and the inter- mediate aim, the welfare of his creatures and the happiness of man. But it must be observed that God glorifies himself in the happiness of men, and that the latter should find their happiness in contem- plating the glory of God. 9. The Relation of the Mosaic Account of the Creation to the Mythological Legends of the Creation. —The cosmogonies of the heathen are confounded with their theogonies, as their gods with primeval man. See Litcxen: “The Traditions of the Human Race, or the Primitive Revelation of God among the- Heathen,” Minster, 1856. “These cosmogonies are all very similar to each other. At first chaos is placed at the head as a disordered mass (chaos alone?). This chaos develops or forms itself into the world-egg. This egg, which plays a certain ‘part in the cosmogonies, is only a conception called forth by the apparent form of the earth,* so that the sky presents itself as the shell and the earth as the yolk of this great egg. With this shaping of chaos into a world-egg, or earth-sphere, arises then, according to the representation of these cosmogonies, the first being, the ‘first-born,’ or the oe man. This first man originating with (out of) the world-egg, the father and founder of all life, is now, according to the popular conception, a giant-like being. As the * [This conception seems to be sanctioned by Lange, but there is no proof of it. Instead of being suggested by the figure of the mundus (which is not like an egg, or the earth like its yolk, unless we make very ancient the knowledge, or notion, of the earth’s sphericity), this so common feature of the old cosmogonies came most probably from the idea of a brooding, cherishing, life-producing power, represented in Genesis by the MM MW, the throbbing, pulsating, moving spirit—from 5/519 , primary sense in Piel, palpitare, secondary sense, yet very ancient in the Syriac, to love warmly, or with the strongest affection. Hence in the Greek cosmogony the first thing born of this egg was épws, the primitive love, which shows that the egg had sob a bee do with the figure of the earth, either real or supposed, jee the Birds of Aristophanes, 697, where the poet calls it danvé- seov, the egg produced without natural impregnation : ; "EE of meptreAAopevats Gpats EBAaorer "Epws 6 modeuvds, From which sprang Love the all desired, — only the Greeks, as usual, inverted the primitive idea, and ‘ le the eee cause itself the effect. Eros then pro- duced the human race, etc. In other respects the heathen cosmogonies are very fairly given here by Liicken ; but what a, contrast do these monstrosities present to the pure, har- monious, monotheistic grandeur of the Bible account! If the Mosaic cosmogony was derived from the heathen, as is contended, how very strange it is, and counter to what takes place in all similar derivations, that the Hebrew mind (a very gross mind, they say) should have taken it in this im- pure and monstrously confused state, and refined it back to that chaste and sublime consiste: which the Bible narra- tive, whatever my. be thought of its absolute truth, may so justly claim.—T. L.] ‘ present man, according to primitive conception, is a microcosm, so is that first being, in heathen concep- tion, the macrocosm itself, originating all life in nature by developing from himself the various parts of the world-organism, heaven and earth, sun and moon, mountains and rivers. Now by dividing or killing this macrocosmic being, or by mingling its generating parts with earthly things (especially fer- tilizing water, as in the story of Chronos), the lower life of nature begins, and things can multiply in sex- ual division and separation, This is the whole nucleus of all cosmogonies. And we would here observe, how frequent it is in heathen conceptions that all primitive generating being is imagined under the form of a great world-animal (as an immense. ox or goat, for example), and as such worshipped. Thus the first being of the Persians is the ox Abu- dad, and the Egyptians worshipped it as a goat under the name of Mendes.” Here, however, the following is to be observed: 1. Behind, beside, or over the chaos, or the disordered matter, usually stands a mysterious form of the highest divinity: Brahma among the Indians, Fimbultyr among the Teutons, Ormuzd among the Persians, 2. With the Hesiodic Gaia, which proceeds from chaos (i. e, from boundless empty space), there is also Eros; so‘in the Chinese legend the first macrocosmic man or giant (Panku) is formed with the earth. In like manner Brahma with the Indians, and Ymer with the Teutons, become, by the division of their limbs, the foundation of the world. 8. Matter is always fixed with the divinity, or the divinity with matter. But matter is coherent with God in the predominant- ly pantheistic systems of emanation. According to the Indo-Brahmie, Platonic, and Alexandrian system of emanation, matter emanates with the world from divinity; according to the Egyptian and mythologi- co-Grecian system, divinity emanates from the world, from chaos, or the ocean. According to the pre- dominantly dualistic systems, the world arises from a mixture in the conflict between the emanations of the predominantly spiritual, light, good God, and the emanations of the predominantly material, dark, wicked God—sometimes in a decidedly hostile posi- tion of the two powers, as in the Persian mythology, sometimes in a more peaceful parallelism, as in the Slavonian. For the various cosmologies, compare the quoted work of Licxen, p. 83; Drtirzscu, pp. 81, 83, and 609; Haun: Compendium, p. 374, with reference to Wurrxe: “The Cosmogonies of the Heathen Nations before the Time of Jesus and the Apostles,” Hague, 1850. The Chaldean myth of the creation, as given by Berosus, is found in EusEBivs: “Chronicles,” i. p. 22; Syncenzus, i. p. 25; the Phenician myth as given by Sanchoniaton in Euss- Bius; Preparatio Evangelica, i. p.10; the Egyptian myth in Dioporvs SictLus, i. 7 and 10; a Grecian myth in Hrsiop’s Theogony, ver. 116 sqq.; the In- dian myths in P, von Bosien: ‘Ancient India,” i, p. 158; Lassen: “Indian Antiquities,” iii, p. 387 (at the beginning of the code of Manu); the Zend myth in Avesta, the Etrurian myth in Surpas under Tyrrhenia (see the “Commentary” of Kz and De.itzscu, p. 8); the Scandinavian myth in thé Edda, ete. According to the older conceptions of the days of creation as combined with biblical chronology, one could speak of a date of the creation. Starke is satisfied with the correctness of the date: 23d of October, 4004 before Christ. Schréder makes the date the ist or 17th of September, 4201, but adds: ° 182 “The Son of Man knew not the day nor the hour when heaven and éarth should pass away, but the child of man would know the year and the day when heaven and earth arose.” The autumn seems to have been chosen on account of the ripe fruits, without reflecting that on the entire earth it must ever be autumn somewhere. 5 ‘ 10. The World as Nature. a. The Ancient View of the World, that of the Bible and of Modern Times. —The world-view of the ancients was based on appearance, according to which the earth formed u centre reposing under the moving, rolling starry world; this geocentric view received a scientific expression’ in the well-known Ptolemaic system. This system was abandoned in the time of the Refor- mation for the helio-centrie system of Copernicus. But because the Bible, with respect to astronomical matters, speaks the language of common life, which is yet authorized in accordance with appearances (the sun rises, sets, etc.), it, was supposed that the Coper- nican system contradicted the teaching of Holy Writ, and not only the papal council imagined that in its treatment of Galileo, but even Melancthon was of the same opinion, and to the present day such pro- tests, even on the Protestant side, have not entirely died away (see the attacks on Dr. Franz in Sanger- hausen in Dizsterwee’s “ Astronomy,” p. 104; also p- 20, especially p. 825). These prove how often a contracted Bible belief can injure more than profit the faith. The Copernican theory was especially supposed to be in contradiction with the passage in Jos, x. 12, 18. While men were torturing them- selves with this difficulty springing from a blind adherence to the literal rendering, a much greater one was gradually stepping forth out of the back- ground. The consequences of the Copernican system were developed, according to the discoveries of Her- schel, in this wise: the sun among its planets is only a single star of heaven, and the earth is one of its smallest planets. Since now the fixed stars of hea- ven are nothing but suns, and these suns are all, according to the analogy of ours, surrounded by planetary groups, there appear to be countless num- bers of planets, of which very many are larger than our earth. How shall we now retain the thought, that the earth is the sole scene of the revelation of God, as Holy Writ declares: the scene of the incar- nation of God, and the centre of a reconciliation, dissolution, and glorification of the world, embracing heaven and earth, The Hegelian philosophy sought at first to meet this difficulty in its own interest. In order to make the earth the sole arena of the evolutions of mind, which was to reach the full glory of its self-con- sciousness in the Hegelian system, the whole starry world was declared fo be destitute of spirits ahd in the main spiritless—mere films of light, etc. (see Lancr’s “ Positive Dogmatics,” p. 279). The effort was made to render this barren view agreeable to theology with the pretence that it was in accordance with the Bible, and favored the faith (“Land of Glory,” p. 12 ff.), Against this insinuation the author wrote the articles which are collected in the work; ‘The Land of Glory” (Meurs), Bielefeld, 1888, with reference to the work of Prarr: “Man and the Stars.” The results of modern astronomy (according to Struve, Midler, Schubert, etc.), viz., that the other planets of our solar system have not, in the first place, the same plastic consistency nor the same planetary relations as our earth, and sec- ondly, that the stellar world is divided into a solar GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. planetary region like our solar system, and a solar astral region (the world of double stars, of eternal sunshine), were applied to the biblical Christian view of the world as recognizing (in its conception of various places of discipline and punishment) a place beneath the world on the one hand, and a place above it on the other; consequently the contrast of a region of growing and a region of perfected life, of the church militant and the church triumphant, of the earthly and the heavenly, of the earthly-human and the angelic life. Above all, it was observed that with the doctrine of the ascension of Christ the exist- ence of a land of glory, in contradistinction to the earthly sphere of day and night, birth and death, or the sphere of the creative, was settled. This work was followed by the work of Kurrz: “Bible and Astronomy,” Ist ed. 1842, In the meanwhile there sprung up a third representation of cosmology, which was again to fix the geocentric stand-point in a spiritual respect. This was mainly induced by A, von Schaden, but diligently prosecuted by Dr. Exrarp, recently in his work: “The Results of Natural Sci- ence,” Kénigsberg, 1861. With respect to our plan- etary system, the said work endeavors to prove that the earth is its teleological centre, and to that end, farther, that the other planets could be either not at all or only partly inhabitable; that they are only ac- cretions to the planetary nature, having their places - there simply on account of the earth; and that con- sidered under any other point of view they could only appear as caricatures of the planetary nature. . Delitzsch (p. 614) is in general inclined to this view. He permits, however, a natural philosopher by profession (Prof. Franz Pfaff), to speak for him, who nevertheless acknowledges (after a severe criti- cism of the plant-family) that there may be imagined elsewhere such beings as are organized in correspon- dence to the prevailing relations on other heavenly bodies. But one cannot see how the conceptions in question can be called “creatures of fantasy.” | We consider the view of the pure unreality of the extra-earthly planetary world as neither cosmologi- cally grounded, nor of wholesome tendency in aid of a biblical view of the world. As respects the first point, one must clearly distinguish between an in- habitability of the planets of our solar system for beings of our earthly organization, and a similar in- habitability for spiritual beings in general. If the earthly organization of man is to fix the measure for the habitableness of supra-terrene bodies, then must we also apply the analogy to the most beautiful and brilliant stellar-world. And what must become of the departed human souls, separated from their bodies? How shall there be found a native region for angelic spirits? But it would redound little to the glorification of the living God of Holy Writ to consider the whole planetary group of our sun, the earth alone excepted, as spiritless wastes. What- ever in this respect is true of the Hegelian system in general, in its relation to the stellar-woold, is true of the said view in special reference to our planetary system. {Nore\on THE AsTronomicaL OsgEcTION 10 ReyELation.—The question of the’ planets’ inhabita- bility, especially in its religious and biblical bearings, has been very ably and scientifically discussed in a work entitled “‘The Plurality of Worlds” by Prof. Wuewet of Oxford. The author maintains a view similar to that of Dr. Ebrard, that the earth is the advanced planet of the system, and that the most scientific evidence goes to show that the others CHAP, I—IL 3. 183 (especially the largest, or those of least density) are in a rudimentary or inchoate state. The same may be true of all the visible bodies of the stellar spaces. The only reasoning against it is simply the question, why not, pourquoi non, as Montaigne employs it, without any inductive evidence. This author employs also the modern view in geology with great perti- nence and force: Immense times without life or with only the lowest forms of life! If this is not incon- sistent with the divine wisdom and goodness, then immense spaces without life, or with only the lowest forms of life, for a certain time, is no more incon- sistent. So far, however, as this presents a difficulty to revelation and Christianity, it is not due to modern science alone, or- even mainly. The inhabitability of the planets, and the “plurality of worlds,” are as much a priori thoughts, that is, rising of themselves to the musing meditative mind, as they are the results of any scientific or inductive reasoning. In both cases, imagination is the chief power of the mind employed, though modern science has furnished it with its stronger stimulants, As such @ priori or independent thought, the notion of a plurality, or even an infinity, of worlds, was very ancient. It was, however, larger than the modern notion, being rather a plurality of «ocpol, or mundi (that is, total visible universes) than of worlds used, as the name is now used, of planetary or stellar bodies. , It was ‘the old question of the. soul demanding a sufficient reason for the non-existence, the absence of which reason seemed to be itself a proof of the actual exist- ence. Why not? If one world, why not two— three—more—numberless? See Piurarcu: De Placitis Philosophorum, vol. v. p. 239, Leip. ed., where among other statements and arguments he quotes the saying of Metrodorus: &romwov elva év peydAw medi Eva ordxuy yernSivat, Kad éva néopov év r@ dareipw, “it is absurd (incredibly strange) that there should be but one head of wheat in a great plain, and no less so, that there should be but one cosmos in infinite space.” The other idea of the planets’ inhabitability appears also in the Greek poetry. See especially the fragment given by Pro- clus: GAAnv yaiay arelparov iyre ceAhvny GSdvarat KAyCovarw, emxSdvior BE Te whyny h TOAN otpe exet, WOAA’ Korea TOAAG MEAGS PO Another land of vast extent, Immortals call Selene, men, the moon, A land of mountains, cities, palaces. The Bible is charged with narrowness in its space conceptions, but how narrow is that science, or that philosophy, which while vaunting itself, perhaps, on its superior range of view, has no idea of any higher‘ being than man, and sometimes would seem to reject any other conception of deity than that of a devel- oped humanity, slowly becoming a god, an étre su- préme, to the nature still below, How glorious the Scripture doctrine appears in the contrast, as start- ing with an all-perfect personal being: Jehovah Tzebaoth, Jehovah of Hosts, with cherubim and seraphim, épxai, xupidryres, living principles, ruling energies, angels, archangels, thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers. If not in space concep- tions, yet how sublimely in the higher idea of ascend- ing ranks of being do the Scriptures surpass the low and narrow views of Herbert, Comte, and Darwin. After a past eternity of progress, nature and the cosmos have just struggled up to man! This is the highest limit yet reached after a movement so im- measurably long, yea, endless in one direction; and that, too, not man as the Scripture represents him,. a primus homo, an exalted being, so constituted by the inspiration that gave him birth, and signed him with the image of the eternal God, but man just rising above the ape, just emerging from that last growth of nature that preceded him in this intermina- ble series of chance selections at last falling into some seeming order, and of random developments that never came from any preceding idea. Man as he now appears on earth, and whom Scripture pro- nounces a fallen being, the highest product of an endless time! Such is “the positive philosophy,” so boastful of its discoveries in width and space, but so exceedingly low and narrow in respect to the other and grander dimension! It discards theology and metaphysics as belonging to a still lower stage of this late-born child of nature, but alas for man if all the glory of his being, all his higher thinking, has already thus passed away! We may thank the Liv- ing God for giving to us an ideal world, as in itself a proof of something above nature, and of a higher actual even now in nature than our sense and our science ever have drawn, or may ever expect to draw, from it. The objection to revelation to which Lange here alludes as drawn from the modern astronomy is itself simply anthropopathic. They who make it imagine Deity to be just such a one as themselves. - If He has two worlds to take care of, it is incredible that His providence should be as particular, and His interest as near, as though He had but one to govern. Such a mode of thinking makes worth, too, and rank, wholly quantitative and numerical, banishing, in fact, all intrinsic quality, and intrinsic value, from the world of things and ideas. The bigger the universe. in space, the less the worth in each part, as a part, and this without any distinction between the purely physical or material to which such a quantitative rule of inverse proportion might apply, and the moral and spiritual, which can never be measured by it, The force of this objection comes from the fact of the imagination overpowering the reason. The lower though more vivid faculty impedes or silences for a time the higher. Reason teaches intuitively, or as derived from the very idea of God, that His care and providence towards any one rational and moral agent cannot be diminished by the number of other rational and moral agents, or be any less than it would be if such agent had been alone with Deity in the universe. The light and heat of the sun are the same whether the recipients are few or many. The case, therefore, may be thus stated: If a‘certain manifestation of the divine care for, and interest in, our world and race (namely, such as is revealed in the Bible) would not be incredible on the supposition of their being but one such world or race, then such credibility isnot at all diminished by the discovery that there are others, few or many, to any extent conceivable. We must hold firmly to this as a pure rational judgment against the swaying imagination invading the reason, and even assuming to take its place. If the interest revealed by Christianity could be pronounced credible before the discoveries of astronomy (and this is assumed as the ground of the argument), then such measure is equally credible now, or we are convicted of judging God anthropo. pathically, however we may dignify the feeling 184 with the name of an enlarged and liberal philos- ophy. S 8 Besides, there is no end to the argument until it banishes all providence, all government, all divine interest conceivable in the cosmos—everything, in short, which distinguishes the divine idea from that of a wholly impersonal nature. On a certain scale of the universe the Old Testament becomes incredible. On a wider sweep Christianity, the old Christianity of the Church, can no longer be believed. The in- carnation and the atonement must be thrown out; God could not have cared to that extent for this petty world. Turn the telescope, so as to enlarge the field, or, through its inverted lenses, behold the objects still farther off, and “liberal Christianity ” disappears. Even that has too much of divine inter- est for the new view. Draw out the slide still farther, and the very latest and faintest ‘phase of faith” departs. Everything resembling a providence or care of any kind for the individual becomes incre- dible in this time and space ratio. Prayer is gone, and hope, and all remains of any fear or love of God. Farther on, and races are thrown out of the scale as well as individuals; even a general providence of any kind becomes an obsolete idea. Not only the earth but solar and stellar systems become infinitesi- mals, or quantities that may be neglected in the cal- culus that sums the series. There is no end to this. We have no right to limit it by the present size or power of our telescopes. The present visible worlds - of astronomy may be no more—they probably are no more—to the whole, than a single leaf to the forests of the Orinoco. The false idea must be carried on until every conception of every relation of a personal deity to finite beings, of any rank, utterly disappears, and a view no better than blank atheism—yea, worse than atheism, for that does not mock us with any pretense of theism—takes the place of all moral fear as well as of all religion. And this raises the farther question: If such be the diminishing effect on the religion, what must it be on the science and the philosophy? If human sins and human salvation become such small things when seen through this inverted glass, what becomes of all human knowledge, human genius, and human boasting of it? Wedo not find that the men who make these objections, as drawn from the magnitude of the universe, are more humble than others; but surely they ought to be so, after having thus shown their own moral and physical nothingness, and, along with it, the utter insignificance of their science. In one aspect, his mere physical aspect, man is indeed insignificant. The Scripture does not hesitate to call him a worm. It pronounces all nations “vanity "—“the small dust of the balance,” unap- preciable physically in the great cosmical scales— “less than nothing and emptiness.” Such is its view of man in one direction, whilst in the other his value is to be estimated by the incarnation of Christ, and the very fact that the Infinite One condescends ie make a revelation of Himself to such a being.— WL. the cosmology, of the Bible is geocosmic in its practical point of view. After it has presented to us the creation of the heavens and the earth, it lets us conclude from the development of the earth the development of the heavens, namely in respect to the creation of light and of man. From the spirit- world of earth we are to conclude a spirit-world of heaven. But it superabundantly indicates a develop- GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. ment of the earthly solar system parallel with the development of the earth (ch. i. 14). That heaven is an inhabited region, appears from many passages, e. g., Gen. xxviii. 12; and also that this region is divided into a rich multitude of various departments. And the question is not only of heaven, but also of the heaven of heavens (1 Kings viii. 27). Christ teaches us too: In My father’s house are many man- sions (John xiv. 2). But finally the Holy Writ in- forms us clearly, that notwithstanding the changea- bility, and necessity for rejuvenation, of the entire universe (Ps. cii. 27; Is. li. 6), there is yet a contrast between the regions of growth on this side, and of perfection on the other (Ezek. i. 21; 1 Pet.i4; 2 Pet, iii. 18, etc.). In this respect the newest and purest astronomical view of the world corresponds entirely to this biblical distinction between the regions of growth here, and of perfection beyond. But the Bible also promises for the form of the world, even on this side, a new structure and perfec. tion. Once all was night; but in the present order of things day and night alternate; in the future the new world shall be raised beyond the contrast of day and night (Rev. xxi.). Formerly all was sea; the present order consists in the contrast of land and sea; in the new world the sea shall be no more. b. The Idea of Nature in the Bible. The Bible and the Investigation of Nature.—We have shown in passing that the Scriptures fully recognize the idea of nature, i. e., of the conditioned going forth of the fixed life of nature from a fundamental principle peculiarly belonging to it. Every creative word be- comes the ideal dynamical basis of a real principle. At first appear the principles of the separation. The separation of heaven and earth has the more general signification of universe on the one side, and of a special world-sphere on the other as represented by the earth, of which we now speak, At the second separation (light and darkness) the co-operation of the spirit of God is brought out, i. e., of the creative formative activity of God; at the third separation (water and land) the co-operation of light is presup- posed, The natural law set up by Harvey (see Lanez’s “ Positive Dogmatics,” p. 259): omne vivwm ex ovo, has been again brilliantly restored in modern times by the exact investigation of nature in opposi- tion to the theory of generatio equivoca, which nat- ural philosophy had taught (see Sopernnerm: ‘‘Ele- ments of General Physiology,” Berlin, 1844). In Delitzsch also the conception of the generatio equi voca plays a part in the account of the creation (p. 111), because he has not sufficiently considered that the creative words, in the ideal they carry, form the foundation of the actual principles of nature. From the last-quoted principle it appears as fol- lows: 1. Every grade of nature ia fixed by a correspond- ing principle of nature, the natural principle of the plant, ete. . 2. By its unfolding, this principle brings to light the standard of its development as the natural law of its grade, The natural principle is the first, the natural law is the second. 3. By the new principle of the higher grade of nature, the natural law of the preceding grade is modified in accordance with the new and higher life. The plant modifies the natural law of gravity, the animal modifies the local attachment of the plant; in man the animal instinct is effaced. 4, With each new life-principle God creates 4 new thing, The creation of the new is however the CHAP. I—II. 3. 185 most general idea of the miracle, as the announce- ment of what is new is the most general idea of prophecy. Consequently, each new natural principle is to the preceding surpassed grade of nature as a miracle, “The animal is a miracle for the vegetable world” (Hegel). From this relation of the new nat- ural principles, as they form the new degrees of nature, it follows that all nature is a symbolical sup- “port and prophecy of the ethical miracle of the king- dom of God. For as the first man, Adam, miracu- lously changes the natural law of the animal world, that is, changes instingt into human freedom, thus does Christ, as the new man from heaven, as the completed life-principle and miracle, change the Adamiec laws of life into fundamental laws of the kingdom of God. It is in accordance with his nature to perform miracles within the Adamic sphere (1 Cor. xv.). 5. But what is true of the laws of nature, is also true of the matter of nature. Principle is the first thing in nature, law is the second, matter, as we know it, is the third. For through the intervention of a new and higher natural principle in the world by means of the creative word supporting it, the life of the preceding grade is reduced to the grade of matter. Thus by the appearance of the vegetable principle, the elementary world becomes matter for new formations; so, too, the animal reduces the vegetable world to the grade of material, and in like manner does man change the grade of the animal world, But the man from heaven makes from the elements of the Adamic world the matter for a new world. The materialists of our day have ridiculed the idea of a life-power which should be different from the supposed fundamental matter of the world. Instead of the life-power, there should have been opposed to them something more real: the life-prin- ciple. The life-principle is fundamentally distin- guished in the contrast of plastic formative power and material substratum. They are both mutually established each with the other, but above them stands the principle. he materialist, therefore, as he explains everything from a force of matter, which no man has ever yet seen (see Lanex’s “ Miscel- laneous Writings,” 1st vol. p. 54), does not only deny the existence of the human soul and its ethical nature and highest causality, the Godhead, but he is also the antagonist of the genuine zoologist who be- lieves in the reality of the animal principle, as he is of the genuine botanist who does not consider the vegetable formations a shadowy play of matter on the wall, and of the ecrystallographer who connects imponderable forces and polarity—yea, of the genuine chemist too, who has perceived that the relations of elective affinity in substances extend beyond the atomistic conceptions. May it not possibly be explain- ed, that as the material side of the natural principle is formed by the creating word, so is the reference of the origin of matter to a pure thought of God something else than the reference to the difficult enigma of a crea- tive matter ;.and experience proves that the coarser matter everywhere, as outside or precipitate, pro- ceeds from finer formations. It is a radical contra- diction that matter should generate spirit, and, never- theless, be everywhere subjected to spirit, even to the disappearance of its original nature. 6, The ascending line of natural principles is an ascending line of acts of creation, with which the principles always the more strengthen, deepen, gen- eralize, and individualize themselves, and with which, at the same time, new forms of the nat- ural law and new combinations of substances ap- ear, . 7, The finished lower sphere of nature does not produce the newly appearing principle of the higher sphere, but it is, however, its maternal birth-place. And because the lower sphere prepares for the higher, in order to serve as its basis, it is full of indi- cations of it, and becomes throughout 4 symbol which represents in advance the coming new world- form. 8. With respect to the development of the nature- principles into the realization of the conditioned self- generation of nature, we must distinguish the follow- ing kinds of development: a. The development of the world-creation in general; 6. the development of our solar system; ¢. the spherical development of the earth; d. the gradual development of the indi- vidual life on earth; e. the natural development of the individuals themselves; f. the development of nature in the narrower and the broader sense, or 1. apart from human life, and 2. in connection with it. a. The Development of the Creation of the World in general.—Through the analogy of the development of the earth, the Scripture permits us to infer also a development of heaven. The heavens are created (Gen. i. 1; 1 Chron, xvii. 26; Neh. ix. 6; Ps, xxxiii. 6; cxxxvi. 5; Prov. iii, 19); the heavens grow old and pass away (Ps. cii. 27; Is. li. 6); the heavens are renewed (2 Pet. iii, 13; Rev. xxi. 5). Astronomy also teaches a continuous growth, and in the same way recognizes indications of passing away in the stellar world. But there is a difference between the various celestial regions. The old Jewish and Ma- hommedan tradition, and the Christian Apocryphas know seven heavens (the Koran, the Kabbala, the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs). But the He- brews admitted in general three heavens as in accord- ance with the Scripture (Paul also 2 Cor. xii. 2-4; the third heaven the paradise): 1. The heaven of the air (the clouds, birds, changes of the atmosphere); 2. the heaven of the stellar world, the firmament ; 8. the heaven in which God dwells with His angels, paradise. Of the latter heaven it must be observed that it is a symbolico-religious idea, and by no means excludes the stellar world (see Laner’s work: ‘The Land of Glory”). The Scripture recognizes also the distinction between an earlier heavenly stellar world and the system to which this earth belongs, as we find it indicated in the fourth day’s work. When the earth was founded the morning-stars sang to- gether, and all the sons of God shouted for joy (Job xxxviil. 7). Consequently before the foundations of the earth those morning-stars were there. Also the “Heaven of heavens,” as well as the ascension of Christ, point to a heavenly region which lies beyond the cosmical sphere of the world, to a region “of eternal sunshine.” See the above quotations. b. The Development of our Solar System.—aAl- though on the fourth day of the creation the whole stellar world is introduced into the circle of vision of the earth, nevertheless the cosmical completion of the system belonging to the earth is especially indi- . cated. Special allusion is made to this system when - the New Testament biblical eschatology treats of the end of the heavens and the earth, and their renewal (Joel iii. 4; Matt. xxiv. 29; 2 Pet, iii, 10). [Nore on THE ScrrpruRaL HEAVENS anD Harr. —We think Dr. Lange carries too far what may be called the cosmological view of the Mosaic account. Jt either gives the writer too much science, or, in order to get a ground of interpretation independent 186 of his conceptions, makes him to be a mere automa- tic medium—thus taking away the human, or that subjective truthfulness which is so precious in any view we may take of this narrative. Hence the ten- dency to regard the Bible heavens as the astronomi- cal heavens of modern science, instead of the heavens of the earth, nearly connected with the earth, and in which the sun, moon, and stars appear as lights, whatever may be the near or remote causes of those appearances. See remarks in note on the Hebrew plural ovavi, pp. 162, 163, The symbolic contrast of the heavens and the earth, with which Dr. Lange starts in the interpretation, has all the value he attaches to it; but it is not at all lost in what he might regard as the narrower view. The optical heavens, with the appearances in it, was all the writer knew, or was inspired to know, or describe. It was to him the cosmos. As this enlarges, by science, or otherwise, the conception of the heavens enlarges with it, but only as a conception. The idea remains as in the beginning. In keeping up this contrast, however, we are not to regard the scientific bodies discovered in the remoter spaces, as the heavens in distinction from our own home, as though the heavens were simply all that is off, and away from, the earth. The planet Mars is no more a heaven, or heavens, to us than we are a heavens toit. As knowledge lifts up the everlasting gates, the conception of the mun- dus enlarges to take in other earth-like bodies in space; but the old idea travels forth unchanged. The great symbolic contrast yet remains. The hea- vens, too, enlarge their scale, and the peculiar divine residence, once thought to be in the near sky just above us, is carried farther off, beyond the sky of clouds, beyond the sphere of the moon, the sun, the planets, the solar system. Science adds the stellar bodies; the heavens, the great symbolic, or rather symbolized, heavens, are still beyond, high over all, embracing ail. “Who hast. set Thy glory above the heavens,” 22h bY (compare dy as used Gen. i, 20; xix, 23, pyNnn>y wow); “Who stoopeth down to behold the things that are in the heavens (the lower heavens) and the earth,” Ps, cxiii. 6. Solomon’s language, ‘The heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain Thee,” may, or may not, be surpassed in its local conception, but no science, it may be repeated, will ever transcend it in idea. Whatever the number of spheres, real or imaginary, the O40W "2U), the heaven of heavens, is still the great heaven above them all.—T. L.] c. The Spherical Development of the Earth, or the Six Days’ Work.—As was above indicated, the six days’ work have been represented in the sequence of a twofold ternary, in which is mirrored the signifi- cance of the number three. We construct these ternaries in the following manner: 1. Light and the lights; 2. water and air, and the animals of water and air; 8. the solid land and over it the vegetable world; the land-animals and over them man. As to the strict consistency of these days’ works, the most celebrated naturalists, as Cuvier, have expressly acknowledged it. Now we find these days’ works construed in the most manifold way; in part purely according to the Scriptures, in part purely according to natural science, and partly in distinct comparison, whereby the harmony between the Bible and natural science is contested or maintained.—Scriptural repre- sentations of the six days’ work. Here the 104th Psalm exceeds all. First day, vers. 1, 2; second day, vers. 8,4; third day, vers. 6-18; fourth day, vers. GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. 19, 20. The fifth day and the first half of the sixth are freely inlaid into the picture from the fourteenth verse. The sixth day also from ver. 14; but in ver, 28 man appears more distinctly in his rule. Here follows an accurate picture of the whole creation: from ver. 24. The creation of the new world, which is the aim of the Apocalypse, passes also through a sevenfold stage. Here an accord in the order of: the. six days’ work is not to be misunderstood. 1. The seven congregations as the seven candlesticks of the earth, Christ in a figure of light in their midst, with seven stars in His hands—an allusion to the creation of light of the first day (ch. i—ii.). 2. The seven seals. The council in heaven and the seven sealg or decrees of sorrow on earth—an allusion to the crea- tion of the firmament between the waters above (ch. iv. 6, the “sea of glass”; comp. vii. 17) and the waters beneath (the blood of the lamb,* ch. vii. 14), ch. iv.vii. The seven trumpets. Decrees of judg- ment on the earth preaching repentance (ch, viii. 7) and on the sea (ver. 8)—allusion to the separation - of land and sea (see also ch, x, 2), ch. viii—x. 2, The seven thunders (voices of awaking whose speech had been sealed), The angel who had awakened the seven thunders, raises his hand to heaven and swears that hereafter time shall be no more} Epi- sodes from the stage of the seven thunders: the swallowed scroll, the measuring of the temple of God, the two olive trees, the woman in heaven clothed with the sun, the moon under her feet, and a crown of twelve stars on her head—an allusion to the - lights created to mark the seasons (ch. x. 8 to ch. xii. 2). 6. The seven heads of the dragon. The (flying) dragon in heaven, the woman with eagles’ wings, and the beast out of the sea with seven heads, the earthly anti-Christ representative of the seven heads of the dragon—allusion to the birds of the heavens and the beasts of the sea (ch. xii, 8—xiii. 10). 6. The seven last plagues or vials of wrath. Intro- duction: the animal out of the earth, the number 666 (with reference to the significance of the number 6; perhaps also the sixth day); the lamb on Mount Sion, the image of God with the 144,000 virgins who bear on their foreheads the name of the lamb and the name of the father, i. e., are images of God; the announcement of the judgment, of the seven last plagues; the judgment on the earth; the whore, her counterpart the bride and her bridegroom, heroes and deliverers, judges of spirits and associates in the apostasy—allusion to the animals of the earth and to man created in the image of God, with the com- mand: Rule over them and make them subject to you, ch, xiii, 11-xix, 21).¢ * (Dr. Lange’s oe | here seems altogether too exuberant. The parallelism with the Mosaic account in the 104th Psalm is too striking to be mistaken. It was doubtless, too, in the mind of the writer of the Apocalypse, as it is also evident in the begaernang of the Gospel of John, but many of the ur ene a “ge traced by Dr. Lange altogether fail to satisfy.—T. L. + [Dr. Lange’s rendering here is that of Luther, and is the same with our English translation. But there can be hardly a doubt of its being erroneous. It should be, ‘that there shall be no more delay ?—that is, in what is to follow. See Bloomfield.—T. L.] + [It may seem strange that Dr. Lange, while laying 80 much stress on these remoter, if not alteepbier fanciful, parallelisms with the creative account which he finds in the Apocalypse, should have overlooked the much more distinct reference in the beginning of the Gospel of John. Whether the principium there is the same with that in Genesis, may admit of discussion, but there can be no doubt of the aral- lelism, and the mention of light and life immediate ry fol- lowing makes it unmistakable. It is a higher light, indeed, for ‘the darkness overtakes it not,’ as it should be ren- CHAP, IL—IL. 3. 187 7. The great Sabbath of God (ch. xx. and xxi.), It is, of course, understood that so original a crea- tion as the Apocalypse could not be an allegorical copy of the six days’ work. In the Epistle of Bar- nabas (among the writings of the Patres apostolici) we find ch. xv. the incorrect literal interpretation of the passages Ps. xc. 4 and 2 Pet. iii. 8 (according to which a thousand years of earth should make one day of God, consequently six thousand years of his- tory the great spiritual week of God which is to pre- cede the divine millennium sabbath). This became later a standing presumption of the chiliastic com- putations. One of the first patristic representations of the hexaémeron with polemical references to the heathen view of the world, we find in the apology of THEOPHILUS or AntIoca: Ad Autolycum, lib. ii. cap. 12 sqq. Many others have followed these (see Intro- duction). Among the modern biblio-theological representations of the six days’ work, that of Hrrprr (“Oldest Record of the Human Race”) occupies a prominent place. It rejects all combinations of the scriptural text with natural science. It traces back the account to the teaching of God; but it arose by means of human observation of the rising sun, as in this the picture of creation is ever unrolled to the eyes of the observer. The representation itself he calls a hieroglyphe for the instruction of man in,the great pictures of creation, a3 presented to his con- templation in the order of life, first work, then rest (the sabbath-law), and in the numbering of days (with reference to the week) as given to him in lan- guage, etc. He finds in the account the symbols of the first religion, natural science, morality, politics, chronology, writing, and language. In his poetie diction there is much that is beautiful; but the pic- ture he gives us of the terror of the Orientals in respect to darkness and labor is very partial and exaggerated. The same may be said of many other things in his book. The ignoring of the reality of the six days’ work is rationalistic. The construction is as follows: I. Light. If. Firmament. III. Terra firma. IV. Lights, hot heaven. VI. Creatures of earth. VIL. Sabbath. In the spirit of Herder, but independent in its view, and determination of the individual parts, is the representation in F. A. Krummacuer’s “ Paragraphs on Sacred History” (p. 22 ff:). The six days, as such, and in themselves understood, are to him divine days. Zaun also falls back on Herder in animated representation (“ History of the Kingdom of God,” p. 1 f). Gnopz’s delineation of the six days’ work is very comprehensive and full of meaning (‘‘ Features from Sacred History,” p. 11 ff.—WScieritific represent- ation of the six days’ work. On the historical devel- opment of the doctrine of the cosmos, see ALEX. VON Hompoupt, iii, p. 8 ff Srerrens: “ Polemical Sheets for the Advancement of Speculative Physics,” Second number, on Geology, Berlin, 1885 (here are quoted, p. 6, the respective geological works of Cuvier, Boué, Brogniart, Elie de Beaumont, De la Beche, and Von Leonhard), Meruzxrr: “Cos- Water v. Air dered. There is no night following that new and eternal day, and so there are no mornings and evenings to succeed. It is a new creation, and a new chronology, but this idea only makes more clear the reference to the old Mosaic crea- tion and the Mosaic days.—T. L.] , mography,” Leipzig, 1848, p. 8. There is also the his- torical part of LyEty’s “Principles of Geology,” and Voer’s “Compendium of: Geology” (Braunschweig, 1854, 2 vols.); Reusca: “ Bible and Nature,” p. 71. —Here belong Quexstepr: “Then and Now.” A popular treatise : Hartine: ‘The Antemundane Crea- tions compared with the Present.” " From the Dutch, Leipzig, Engelmann, 1859. See, moreover, the prelim- inary literature. We must distinguish those treatises which regard the Hexaémeron of Moses, and those which do not. And further, we must distinguish the systems which assume the formation of the earth by radical revolutions in a steady sequence of new crea- tions (Cuvier), and those which assume a gradual transformation with partial revolutions, Harting be- longs to the latter. We must, however, certainly maintain that a seed or germ‘of creation (for the transformation) must have passed through the ca- tastrophes out of the earlier stage into the later, analogous to the process at the flood, but transform- ed in a creative way during the metamorphosis of the earth. But the doctrine of the great catastrophes is not therewith excluded. In respect to those who deny the existence of any harmony between the Bible and natural science, it may be said, that a few the- ologians in Germany, with shallow scientific acquire- ments, have undertaken the work; such as Ba.en- SHEDT (in the notorious book: ‘The Primitive World”’), Bretschneider, and Strauss. In England recently Goopwin (in the Essays and Reviews). ScHLEIERMACHER has also in this respect expressed anxieties which prove that he was not well posted on the point (“Studies and Criticisms,” 1829, p. 489). Most recently has this assumed opposition become a special dogma of the Hegelian school of Tiibingen, which has its main altar in Eastern Swit- zerland. On the side of natural science the harmony has been mainly contested by French authors; in Germany, by Vogt and Burmeister. On the side of the naturalists, who at the same time were scientific- ally learned and Bible-believing men, stand Coperni- cus, Kepler, Newton, Pascal, Haller, and Euler; at a later period the Frenchmen Cuvier, Brogniart, De- luc, Biot, Ampére; in Germany, Steffins, H. von Schubert, A. Wagner, and others. (See Rzuscn, p. 63 ff.) To these add also the Bible-believing cos- mologists—the Frenchmen Marcel de Serres, de Blain- ville, the Belgian Waterkeyn, and especially many Englishmen and North Americans (Revscs, p. 67 ; see especially also Detitzscn, p. 609), A significant position is taken by the already quoted work of Bucxianp: “Geology and Mineralogy,” etc., as given by Werner, in the German edition of the well-known “Bridgewater Treatises,” vol. v., with which com- pare the valuable criticism of it by W. Horrmann, in “ Tholuck’s Literary Advertiser,” 1888, Number 44. “The conditions on which the great geologist treats with his timid brothers in the theological world are (according to W. Hoffmann) the following: 1. Ge- ology has evidently proved that the surface of our planet has not been from eternity in its present con- dition, but has passed through a series of creative operations, which followed each other in long, fixed periods of time. 2. There is an exposition of natural phenomena which stands so little in contrast with the Mosaic history that it even throws light on dark parts of it, and thereby confirms it, 3. The authen- ticity of the Scriptural text must remain unscathed, but the exposition demands concessions from the literal expositor; the reader must make this, and indemnify himself therefor by the accession which . 188 geology supplies to natural theology. 4. The Bible does not aim to give solutions of geological and other questions of natural science. Else, God would have found it necessary to endow man with omniscience, because he was obliged, at the same time, to impart to him all degrees and kinds of human Imowledge, if the revelation were not to remain an insufficient one.” In several points Hoffmann has corrected the author with a free and large survey, namely, in the endeavor of Buckland to transfer all the periods of the geolog- | ically determined earth-formation into the undefinable beginning before the first day of the creation, although to those geological periods the long biblical day-peri- ods are still to be added. Hoffmann, on the contrary, alleges that then the eyes of the trilobites, for exam- ple, must have existed before the creation of light. The same is true of the first vegetable and animal world throughout. The same untenable view, how- ever, that will transfer the geological periods, with their relation to each other, into the time of the Thohu Vabhohu, meets us also now in various forms. It is represented by Andreas Wagner and Kurtz (see, on the contrary, DexirzscH, p. 112). The more de- fined combination of geological results and the bib- lical account appears in a form sometimes mainly scientific, and again mainly theological ; but the two series cannot be strictly separated from each other. Reusch places here Marcel de Serres, Waterkeyn, An- dreas Wagner, Wiseman, Laois “ Philosophical ‘Studies of Christendom,” Soricnet (Za Cosmogonie de la Bible devant les sciences perfectionées, Paris, 1854), Pianciani, Kurtz: “Bible and Astronomy,” Keerl and Westermeyer, whose work, in his view, is without scientific value. So also Mutzl, Michelis, Ebrard, and a series of Essays in the Periodicals: “Nature and Revelation” (Minster, 1855 ff.), and “The Catholic’ (Mentz, 1858 sqq.). We also enu- merate here, Cosmogonie de la Révélation, par Godefoy, Paris, 1841, the previously quoted works of O. Reinsch, Fr. von Rougement, and Bohner (with respect to the cosmogonal theory of Kant and La Place). The newest commentary on Genesis, by Keil, shows no progress. Keil insists on regarding the account of creation as an historical record in the strictest sense; he opposes the division of the six days’ work according to ternaries, he sets the act of creation in excluding contrast with the idea of the natural process, boldly questions the evidence of the various periods of the creation, and @ontends that the days of the creation are simple earth-days, With this continued darkening of the present view of the state of the case, it is a small merit that the theosophic view of the Thohu Vabhohu seems sets aside (p. 16), The six days’ works are above all things to he comprehended as six consecutive acts of creation, in which, every time, a new creation is placed as a new appearance of the cosmos. For the world is to be regarded throughout as being, in respect to its founda- tion, the act of God, or creation (in the stricter sense); according to its development, nature, whilst, accord- ing to its appearance, cosmos, and, according to the plastic life-principle lying at its base (the future of man and the God-Man), it is won. The creation is, in the first place, and in general, represented as cre- ation of heaven and earth; then the history of the earth is specially brought out with reference to its relation to heaven, and also to give an idea of the cosmical creation beyond -the earth in’ our planetary system. The characteristic traits are the following: The First Day.—The separation of darkness and GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. light, i. e., of dark and light matter. We must here preserve the text from the terrifying pictures of dark- ness in Herder, and the conceptions of darkness, approaching dualism, of certain theologians of the present day. The Scripture speaks also of a “ smiting of the sun” (Ps. cxxi. 6; Jonah iv. 8), and of a ga ered obscurity, also of a beneficent shade, as Chris. tendom recognizes w holy night ; it knows alsua higher unity of day and night (Revelation xx, 21; see “The Land of Glory,” p.150; Novauis; “Hymns to the Night”). Nothing is more dangerous to life than the commingling of physical and ethical dark- ness (see Isaiah xlyv.). God did not make physical darkness in so far only as it is privative, mere ab- sence of light, but he made it in so far as he made the earth, the darkness in general, and the order of life:‘day and night. With respect to light and its effects, comp. ScuuBERT: ‘‘ Mirror of Nature,” p. 457’ ff.; also F. A. Krummacuer’s poem: “The Light,” and Mrtron’s “Salutation to Light.” The light is in the Scripture as an image of the Godhead, or of its indwelling (1 Tim. vi. 16). It is God’s garment (Ps. civ. 2), an image of the being and life of Christ and of its.efficacy. Not without reason have some designated light as the first creature of God, and dis- tinguished between latent light material darkness, and free light-matter. Comp. what Hoffmann has ob- served, in his quoted criticism, about the visible cre- ation proceeding from the invisible sphere of the creative powers, the imponderable substances dynam- ically regarded. (Comp. Heb. xi. 3.) The unity of the contrast of centripetal and centrifugal power (sympathy and antipathy), attraction (gravity) and repulsion (motion), warmth and light, appears to lie in something beyond the relative contrast of elec- tricity, where warmth predominates, and that of magnetism, where light predominates (although in both one is set with the other); which remoter prin- ciple we may designate as a breath of life, whose mate- rial product is an inconceivably minute, fundamental form of the luminous world-body which is to spring from it, as the cell or the fundamental form of organic life, in an element of growing light, that is, which becomes light, or an ether, which as earth-matter has attractive power, and, as a medium of light, repul- sive power. With respect to the evenings and the mornings, it is to be observed that Kurtz has also effaced their optical reality. By the evenings is meant the going out or departure of the separate visions. The gfermanent reproduction of the word, “Let there be light,” is not so much the rising of the sun, according to Herder, as rather the electric spark, the lightning proceeding from the dark thun- der-cloud, the northern light of the long polar night, just as every meteoric revelation of the light-nature of the earth. For this is clearly intimated, that the earth, until its arrangement into cosmical dependence on the sun, found itself in a condition of self-illumi- nation, like that towards which it ever strives to rise in the polar night. Physical darkness is undoubtedly made by the Scriptures an image of ethical darkness, for it is the comparatively imperfect. But we again distinguish the black night, which may be in measure illuminated by every spark; the gray night of mist, which is in positive opposition to the light, and the white night, or blinding light, by which the light is corrupted into the worst darkness, or the most evil night. Second Day.—About the upper waters, see the Exegesis. The allusion they contain to the matter of the distant world-space, the space of heaven, 8 CHAP, L—IT. 4. found also in mythology (see DEnitzscn, p. 614). But it is questionable whether, along with the upper waters, there is also presupposed here a world-mat- ter out of which the lights are formed on the fourth day of creation (A. Guyot, with the addition of the mist theory of La Place; Fr. de Rougement, trans- lated from Fabarius, p. 61, with distinct reference to our planetary system; Bohner, p. 158, a clear and instructive representation). But it is to be observed that the lights of the fourth day clearly refer to the light of the first day, consequently not to the upper waters of the second, The rakia, as firmament, indicates the boundary line behind which water, air, and ether, flow together. Consequently, this firma- ment indicates, at the same time, the boundary line between the centripetal and centrifugal force of mgt- ter, between its impulse to become earth, and its impulse to become light. But this is just what makes the rakia a symbol of the real heaven: it is the equator which spirits pass in their passage to the home in light. The second day is therefore the sep- aration of the atmosphere and the element of liquid earth (dividing the substance of light and the sub- stance of darkness), and probably still glowing hot. With the firmament, between the coldness of the ether and the warmth of the earth, as between light and gravity, are built the first formations of the earth as the vessel of its liquid nucleus; neither Plutonic nor Neptunian, because fire and water are not yet separated. For the contest between Pluto- nism and Neptunism, see Detirzscu, p. 609. The con- trast of both systems does not begin till the third day of the creation, with the separation of water and land. The beginning of the third day of creation (the evening) probably marks the period of the ac- tual water-formation from the precipitates of the recent atmosphere, with which the entire new sur- face of the earth is overflowed. In the transition from light days, and rain-storms, and hurricanes, is mirrored the creation of the second day. The crys- tals and precious stones children of night. ‘On the second day God made nothing,” says Rougemont, ‘he only caused a separation.” But such a separation was a creation. Third Day.—Separation between land and water. Tn accordance with this, the development of fire, which brings forth the earth, and combines with water, to continue the formation of the earth. The first ap- pearance of plants on points of earth in insular dis- persion. Remains of the general flood: deserts, sandbanks. (Question, whether the plants through- out were created before coal, or whether coal is not mainly to be considered as pre-existing as a formative substance of the plants.) Fourth Day.—The cosmical combination of the lights of heaven and the earth. Cosmico-atmospheric and chemical completion of the earth for the condi- tions of a higher life. Hcliptic. Beginning of the relations of the zones. Continued operation: the zones, the seasons, the periods. Zhe metals children of light. Fifth Day.—Animals of the water—birds. The conclusion of this period and the first half of the following ;. the main period of the ‘strata-formation and the petrifactions, although this period begins with the end of the third day. Siath Day—The catastrophe introducing this ‘closes, with its completion not manifest before the appearance of man, or the cycle of the great general revolutions,and introduces the world which is intended to be Adam’s home. The natural law, in its central 189 4 effect as a law of necessity, is abolished in the destina. tion and freedom of man. Seventh Day.—God reposes ‘and rests in man. Man reposes and rests in God. God’s sabbath is reflected in the sabbath of the world. Just as the geology of the first day represents the cosmogony through the universality of light, so the firmament of the second day represents the heaven above and the earth beneath. Then the fourth day, in contrast to the third, points up again to the cosmos. On the fifth day of creation the birds of heaven must at least indicate the cosmical relation; on the sixth day man, the special representative of the spirit- world. d. The Gradual Development of the Individual Life on Earth.—The idea of the natural life is the idea of a relative independence communicated by God to the world, which passes through the stages of symbolical independence to actual independence, or that freedom of man in which nature is abolished. We distinguish, accordingly, the following degrees of independence in an ascending line: 1. The ele- ment: or dependent self-existence to be annulled (through chemistry); 2. the chemical combination: or the mutual relation of the one element to the other, i. e., to its related opposite; 3. crystals: self- formation in forms and colors; 4. plants: self- production, reproduction ; 5. animals: self-motion inwardly (self-perception), outwardly (motion in the narrower sense); 6. man: self-consciousness and power of self-control; 7. the power denoted points to the man from heaven, the God-man: or complete self-control in complete self-comprehension in the unity with God, nature, and humanity (see Laner’s ‘Positive Dogmatics,” p. 247). In respect to the classification, we remark, 1. That every lower grade reappears in all higher grades in a continually modified form; 2. that it is the coming grade as a symbol and actual prophecy ; and 3. that it takes the lower place of a serving and supporting substance for the higher grade. In man all grades are combined and subordinated to spirit. As he ‘is an image of God, so also is he an image of the earth; so also of the universe. Microcosm. The idea of the lower grade is not so to be understood as if the stamp of divine authority were wanting to it. 5. Every grade comprises again lower and higher formations ; with the lowest it reverts to-the pre- ceding grade, but with the highest it presents, in its solemn pauses of formation, a preliminary or provi- sional completion which becomes the symbol of the completion of life in general.. Through those relaps- ing or bastard-like formations arise the poisons, according to H. von Schubert and K, Snell (see Lan- ax’s “ Dogmaties,” p. 266), which are an allegory of moral discord and relapse into sin. The completed types of a fixed grade of nature are, on the contrary, the ‘precious stone, the palm, the rose, the eagle, the dove, the lamb, ete., becoming with their tran- sient completion symbols of the highest life. The period which is peculiar to each grade, appears with it in full power; hence in the element, the obscure, enigmatical, apparently isolated existence; in chemis- try, the whole irresistible power of physical elective affinities; in the crystal, the stately play of the sternest forms and the most beautiful colors; in the plant, the whole power of reproduction (through root, seed, and branch), and of growth high into space, and far into time; in the animal, the motion in all kinds and in all grades; in man, finally, the self-consciousness in that perfected intensity which makes it the most 190 GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. peculiar characteristic of his being. 7. The individual formation appears in every grade in greater power. Hence the elements have mostly lost themselves in chemical combinations, and these again submit to the most manifold separations. Hence crystals are mostly altered, arrested, or distorted through disturb- ing influences or checks, and seldom appear pure. Hence plants are capable of greater degeneracy in their kinds than animals, and the metamorphoses of the subordinate animals greater than those of the higher. This disposition to degeneracy and to variety has lately become an inducement to dispute the idea of fixed species, as we see it in the work of the English naturalist Darwin, on the origin of species in the animal and vegetable world by natural genera- tion, translated into German by Bronn, Stuttgart, 1860. This work, doubtless, will only be able to induce more exact formulas as to the grade of the individuality of the species and the susceptibility of modification in their pure ground-types through antagonistic or favoring influences. e. The Natural Development of the Individuals themselves.—It_ passes through a regular series of stages or metamorphoses in which the metamorphoses of growth to maturity, of the transition from one ground-form into another (analogous in the insect- world to the passing through various natural grades) are to be distinguished from a higher state of perfec- tion. It has indeed been doubted whether from the beginning our nobler grains have not been distin- guished from the wild species, and also the tame domestic animals from the wild. The Scripture seems to speak in this tone in the distinction appear- ing in the very beginning between cattle and wild animals, and farther on in the distinction of certain plants of Paradise (see Dexirzscu, p. 622 and ch. ii,). f. The Development of Nature at large.—1. Apart from man, That nature waits patiently for man appears from the fact that left to itself it grows wild, and in boundless-luxuriance threatens to overwhelm and smother itself, as is proved by the primitive for- ests, the marshes, and the miasmas. 2. In reference to man. Nature is intended to develop itself in accord with man. It therefore sympathizes in his fall (Gen. iit. 17 ff.; xix. 28; Deut. xxviii, 15 ff; Is, xiii. 6 ff; Rom. viii. 19 ff.), and in his resurrec- tion (Deut. xxviii. 8; Ps. lxxil.; Is, xxxv.; lxv. 66; Rom. viii. 21; 1 Cor. xv. 45 ffi; 2 Pet, iii, 13; Rev. xx. 21). See Dz Rouaemonz, pp. 2 and 3. Therefore also has man in his individual form, and man in his totality, his natural side; and there- fore it is that the most sublime idea of nature (for the idea of nature, see the quotation from Aristotle in Lanen’s ‘‘ Dogmatics,” p. 258), or the idea of an inceptive founding, of a gradual development, and a final completion of animal life, does, for that very reason, present itself to us in the history of the king- dom of God, as the miraculous tree, which continues to grow from the beginning to the end of the world, with its crown reaching into eternity. And especially in the history of the God-Man, does it thus appear as a tree whose roots go back into the foundation of creation, and whose boughs, branches, blossoms, and fruits spread throughout the new humanity. The natural sciences have not yet attained to the great- ness of the scriptural idea of nature. Of the Relation of the Account of the Creation and of the Holy Writ in general to the Natural Seiences—In this relation a fourfold collision may be conceived: 1. An incorrect exegesis of the Scrip- ture may clash with an incorrect exegesis of nature Ss (the investigation of nature is indeed only exegesis, and its teachings are to be distinguished from the objective facts themselves). 2. An incorrect scrip- tural exegesis can contradict the ground-text of the life of nature. 3. A false exegesis of nature can come in conflict with the text of the Scripture, _ The fourth case, that the sense of the Scripture itself, or the text of nature itself, might be in contradiction with each other, could only be imagined on the ground that Scripture and nature were not, both of them, books of revelation of the sanie God. The thorough, scientific, and theological investigation confirms more and more their harmony.—Pretended incongruities in the account of creation itself are: 1, Light before the lights or illuminating bodies. , This is thoroughly removed (see Exegesis). 2. The earth proceeding from the water in contrast to Plutonism, This objection reposes on the misunderstanding of the waters ver. 2 and ver. 6, and exaggeration of the demands of Plutonism. 3. The firmament on the fourth day. See the Exegesis and the fundamental thoughts. 4, The days of creation: Also removed by the correct exposition which makes them pecu- liar days of God. When, however, naturalists fill their mouths with millions of years as a necessity for the formation of the earth, they fall into contradic- tion with the spirit and the laws of nature itself. It is a law of nature that the subordinate formations arise more rapidly than the higher ones. And fur- ther, that life in the glowing, warm moments of its origin, moves more rapidly than in its development, If man continued to grow in the same proportion as in the maternal womb, he would increase beyond the highest trees. 5, The relation between the heliocen- tric and the geocentric view, see above.—Pretended collisions between the scriptural miracles and nature, See .“Bible-Work,” Matthew; “Life of Jesus,” ii, p. 258; ‘‘ Philosophical Dogmatics,” p. 467. On the prophetic-symbolical parallel-miracles, see more particularly in the “ Bible-Work,” Exodus. 11. Zhe World as Cosmos.—The idea of the cosmos, i. e. of the regulated, unitary, beautiful appearance of the world, makes itself known, at first, through the sevenfold verdict: ‘God saw that it was good.” In this we must bear in mind that, with the good, the adjective 31% means also the appro- priate, the agreeable, the beautiful. But when it is said for the seventh time, after the creation of man, and with enhanced emphasis: Behold everything was very good, theré lies therein a reference to the fact that the great world, the macrocosmos, has reached in man, as the microcosmos, its living point of unity. A variety, however, which with its appearance rises into an ideal unity, forms the very idea of the beau- tiful. But here this idea is, at the same time, in its completeness, the idea of the good; for in man the finite world has reached its unending eternal aim. And then there is what may be called the poetical account of man affirming his appearance in that parallelism of phrases, ver. 27, of which it has been observed, it is the first example of religious poetry, as the song of Lamech, ch. iv, 28, "is the first exam- ple of secular. The solemnity of the cosmical ap- pearance of the world is then again specially-expressed in the delineation of the rest of God on the seventh day. The sabbath of God is the primitive picture of the human days of rest and festivity, in which the adorning of the world appears in ‘the reflection of human adornment, and human worship endeavors to unite in itself all forms of the beautiful, of art, as it also unites with the most beautiful periods of the CHAP, L—II. 8. ‘ 192 life of nature in the course of the year. The Holy Writ retains also this view of the world especially in the appreciation of the beautiful, even of female beauty, and in the reverence of the sublime and beautiful nature (Ps. viii. 19 and civ.; Is. xl, etc.), in the glorifying of the beautiful service of Jehovah (who Himself is adorned with light, Ps. civ.), and in its own festal robes of beauty. It may be observed, in passing, that theeJewish Rabbinism has discov- ered strange reasons why, in the account of the sec- ond day, there does not also stand the expression: “He saw that it was good;” it was because, say they, on that day the apostate angels fell, because on it God created hell, or because the waters brought the flood over the world. It is generally assumed that the sentence of approbation of the firmament on the second day is comprised with that pronounced on the formation of the land on the third day, and on the firmament on the fourth. {his is pursued farther in the preceding exegetical illustration.—It is known that the Grecian idea of beauty and of the cosmos is elevated far above that of the Chinese, satisfied as it is only with the delicately formed, the variegated, and the cheerful, and whilst it detests the shadows in the picture. Certain representations respecting the darkness and night in the treatment of the six days’ work remind us of the Chinese or Persian views; for instance, in Herder, Delitzsch, Roveemonr (p. 11), and in Curisrianvs (“ Gospel of the Kingdom,” p. 5). In one respect, again, is there presented a similar difference between the Grecian and the scriptural idea of the cosmical. The former throws the obscure into the background, because it cannot resolve it into higher unities. For the Hebrew, that which is the ugly in a smaller unity is only the picturesque shadow in a general higher unity (see Ps, civ. 20; cxlviii. 7, 8). The obscurity of the cosmos, originating with sib, is quite as well to be regarded subjectively, according to which the world meets the sinner in an uneasy threatening form (Ecclesiastes i. 8), as objectively, according to which the creature, as suffering, must,.in reality, with fallen man, sigh for redemption (Rom. viii. 19). 12. The World as A’on.—That the world also in its truest and most inward principle of life and devel- opment is comprised in man, appears already from the strong emphasis with which man is introduced in the first chapter of Genesis as end or aim of the creation, but still more from his principial position at the head of things, which is given to him in the second chapter. The idea of the zon is a develop- ment and a developing period of life placed with the power of life in the principle of life. The world as zon has also the principle of its life-power, its dura- tion, form, and development in man. And thus is it explained that with the distinction of universal his- tory into the history of the first and second man, or Adam and the Messiah, there is also distinguished a twofold eon. But it is in accordance with the idea of the son, that the new zon of Christ can have principially begun with His appearance and redemp- tory act, whilst the old zon still externally continues. The life-development of the eon starts from the be- ginning and appears, at first, gradually, but not per- fectly, until the close. Just so it is explained that the world in the course of its development depends on the bearing of man, and that the history of man is the history of the earthly cosmos. The sinless man and Paradise, Adam and the field burdened with the curse, the rzin of the first race and the flood, Noah’s generation -and the rainbow, the people of promise and the promised land, the renewal of humanity, through Christ, and the renewal of the earth, the judgment, and the end of the world, these are only the principal epochs of a chain of events which are expressed in the most manifold separate pictures and traits (see Lanax’s “ Life of Jesus:” the Baptism of Jesus, the natural events at His death and ascen- sion). te, That the Scriptures neither know nor will know of pre-Adamites (see Hann: “Compendium of Faith,” ii. p. 24), nor of various primitive aboriginal races, appears not only from Genesis i. and ii., but also from the consistent presumption and assertion of the entire Holy Writ; for example, Matt. xix. 4; Acts xvii. 26; 1 Cor. xv. 47. Here we can bring out only the following points: 1. The original unity of the human race coincides with the doctrine of the unity of the fall of man in Adam, and the unity of the redemption in Christ. It also accords with the biblical and Christian idea of the unitary destination of the earth. 2. The autochthonic doctrine of the ancients stands in intimate connection with their polytheism; the special race of any certain land cor- responds with the special gods of said land, as the speech of Paul in Athens clearly shows (Acts xvii. 25, 26). 3. The greatest naturalists have mostly de- clared themselves against the originality of different human races, see Lanen’s “ Dogmatics,” p. 830; the greater part of the earlier defenders of said view belonged to the department of natural philosophy. With the distinction of the various ground-types, which are formed from the one human species, the most serious difficulti¢S are banished, though not solely by reference to climatic relations; and so in regard to the alleged fruitfulness of sexual combina- tions among the various races, the proof of such fruitfulness is justly pronounced one of the strongest . proofs of unity. 5. The autochthonic theory has never been able to harmonize itself in relation to the ground-forms to be presented; and it can also, 6. not deny the fact that, the origin of the various types of men points back to a common home in Asia, 14. As to the doctrine of the original image, compare the dogmatic works. The following dis- tinctions need special attention: 1. bx and mia4, image and likeness. The Greck expositors referred the first to the dispositions of man, and the latter to his normal development; thus also the scholastics referred the former to the sum-total of the natural powers of man (reason, liberty), and the latter to his pious and moral nature. This distinction appears again in another form in the older Protestant dogma- tics, when it distinguishes between an image that man has not lost by sin (Gen. ix. 6; James iii. 9), and such a one as he, in fact, has lost, although this Protestant distinction does not refer itself back to those words image and likeness. Image has already been made to refer to the similitude to God in man (the so-called pixpédeos), likeness to man as microcosm in so far as he unites the whole world in himself and presents it in a reduced scale, because the world is a likeness of God on a grand scale (A. FeLpHorr: “Our Immortality,” Kempten, 1836). We maintain rather that the image designates the principle in accordance with, and with a view to which, man has been created—consequently, the dynamic-plastic idea of the God-Man (which view is supported by the fact that man, according to Gen. iii, wished arbitrarily to realize this idea)... We maintain, therefore, that the image denotes the primitive image, as in Christ 192 alone is it plainly so called,* and comes in Him to its realized appearance. Therefore is it said in the image, that is, the determinable similitude of man in proportion to the image of Christ. The likeness, on the contrary, is the real appearance of the copied similitude, as it was peculiar to the first man in the condition of innocence from the beginning. The older Protestant dogmatics distinguished, as said (without reference to the words image and likeness), the substantial human affinity, to God, especially in spiritual powers, reason, etc., and the image in the narrower sense, the justitia originalis, the status integritatis with its separate attributes (especially impassibility, immortality). They laid the emphasis on the fact that the image in this stricter sense was lost. ‘Thereby has this opinion, for its part, represented the glory of the first man in various ways as too much developed, whilst the Socinians, contrary to the nature of the spirit, would consider it as a mere abstract power (see Lanax’s “ Positive Dog- matics,” p. 804). 2. To say nothing now of the Encratites and Severians, who denied to the female sex a share in the similitude, there may be farther noted the strange contrast between such as would find the image merely in the bodily appearance of man (The Audians, and lately Hofmann), or merely in his spiritual nature (Alexandrians, Augustine, Zwin- gli), since here the simple observation suffices, that the body of man is above all an image of his pecu- liar spiritual nature. In accordance with this the similitude.can najurally be understood only of man in his totality. Its root is the spiritual nature or the divine affinity, its appearance is the bodily form in which man effects his dominion over nature, and although this does not fulfil the idea of his simili- tude, it certainly appears as the first and most com- mon realization of it. Man is the administrator of God on earth. The similitude, i. e., the disposition and designation of man to the image, has remained to him; the image in its integrity (ddfa) he has lost. Still, an obscure outline of it, especially of the like- ness, has remained to him, as is proved by the re- mains of the manifoldly evil administration ‘of men on earth. The distorted image of the divine assumes various forms in sinful’ man, even to the image of evil spirits. One must make the distinction between the primitive image, Christ, and the copy, human nature, but not so as if the primitive image were the exclusive Godhead, or the copy pure creature. See also the article “Image” in Herzoa’s ‘Real-Lexicon. 15. Man (0°98) indicates here collectively human- ity according to its origin in the first human pair, or in the one man in general, who was certainly the universal primitive man and the individual Adam in one person. Adam, referring to Adamah; the red one, from the red earth taken. Or is it, in fact, as Starke maintains, the beautiful, the brilliant? It is true, O38 in Arabic may also mean to be beautiful, to shine, and Gesenius remarks: solent Arabes duplex genus hominum distinguere, alterum rubrum, quod nos album appelamus, alterun nigrum. If the earth had the name of Adam, Adamah, as might be inferred from the first appearance of the word in ch. ii, 7, the conception of Adam had a good sense, as brilliant, beautiful, analogous to the commendatory appellations of man in other nations, But it is clear __™ [Compare Heb. i. 8, whore Christ is called “the express imago,’”’ which is a poor translation of the Greek xapaxthp Tis Unoctécews, the impression, stamp, or image of the substance. Compare, also, Coloss. i. 15: elxdy Tov @eod Tot aopatov—‘* image of the invisible God.”"—T. L.] GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. that Adam is named according to Adamah, ch, ii. 4, and so Paul has comprehended him as the xoixés (1 Cor. xv. 47). On the word Adam, comp. Dexirzscu, pp. 141 and 619. The Scripture indicates by this name that it is in unity with the wonderful fact, that man was created by. God, though he went forth from the earth in the form of a natural growth under an “inspiration of the earth,” as Steffens expresses him- self. " e 16. The Sabbath. The view set up by Schréder and Gerlach of the late origin of the sabbath in the giving of the law, finds a contrast in the exaggerated importance of the significance of the word sabbath in Drirzscx (p. 181 ff.), where he says, “Sunday has a churchly solemnization, but the sabbath remains the blessed and hallowed day of days,” etc. The sense of these and similar words is not entirely clear, especially when one considers that under the days of creation Deljizsch does not understand real days but periods. so the beautifully expressed parallel, in Delitzsch, of the creative Friday when everything was finished, and the Friday of the redemption, when Christ died with the words: “i is finished ;” that is, the sabbath of creation and the day of rest of Christ in the grave, as bringing up with the resurrec- tion of Christ the now prominent and deep signifi- cance of that first Sunday, when God said: “ Let there be light.” For historical particulars, see Winrr, article “Sabbath;” Hznestenpere: “The Day of the Lord.” See especially the article ‘‘ Sabbath”, by Ozuter in Herzoe’s “ Real-Encyclopzdia,” where’ the existence of a clearly marked pre-Mosaic solem- nization of the sabbath among the Jews, and the analogous existence of a heathen, that is, an Egyp- tian weekly festival, is decidedly questioned. That the heathen nevertheless, from time immemorial, have known certain festive periods, appears from their mythological systems. 17. As significant figures, as signs of a future sacred symbol of numbers already appearing in our section, are to be observed the number two, appear- ing in the various contrasts (heaven and earth, etc.) as the number of nature or of life; the number three in the contrast of the.two ternaries; the number four as number of the world in so far, as on the fourth day the cosmos in the whole was completed; the number six as the number of labor, and seven as the sacred number of the divine labor concluded and perfected in the solemn rest of God. The num- ber seven appears besides in the sevenfold, solemn expression: God saw that it was good, But the number ten also ig seen in the tenfold introduction of the creative word: “God spake: Let there be.” 18. The so-called anthropomorphisms of the present chapter: God spake, God saw, God made, God rested, form the foundation of the whole anthro- pomorphic and anthropopathic style of delineation in Sacred Writ. We must here observe that the anthro- popathic expression may not be understood as literal. dogmatic (anthropopathists) neither as mythical (spiritualists), but as religio-symbolical, representing the divine ideal-doing under the figure of human action, not, however, in the sense as if human life, action, and image were the original that shadows itself in the similarities of divine action, but in the sense that the divine speaking, working, and resting form the foundation for the analogous, comparative doings of man (see ‘ Bible-Work,” John); just a5 God’s day is the original image for the day of man, but not vice-versa. : 19. The first chapter of Genesis clearly contains CHAP. I.—II. 3. : 193 the germs of all fundamental doctrines of theology in the stricter sense, as well as of anthropology; that is, it is the basis for the doctrine of God (the first article of the apostolic Confession of Faith), of His attributes and His personality, of the world, of the religious and earthly-real side of the world; fi- nally of man, his nature, dignity, and destiny. With the image of God, in which man is created, is also expressed the future of Christ, as it lay in its ideal destination in the divine counsel from eternity (see Lanoe’s “Dogmatics,” p. 211). The possibility of sin is, moreover, alluded to in the words: Rule over them and make them subject to thee. It ap- pears, however, more clearly in the second chapter, HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL, (Kierst; “Hymn to God;” Gutiert: “God is my Song;” Kroprstocx’s “Odes to Creation;” Fr. Ap. Krummacuzr: “The Days of Creation”).— Homily on the six days’ work from ch, i-ii, 3. Point of view: The creation as a revelation of God: 1. His omnipotence (Let there be!); 2. His wisdom (means and end, the grades of nature and the image of God); 38. His goodness (the living beings and their movement and nourishment); His love (man). -—The creation as a future of man (the preparation | of the house of God for man and man for the house of God).—The creation as the advent of the God- Man: 1. The days’ works of God a prophecy of man; 2. the perfected man on the sabbath of God a proph- | ecy of the God-Man.—The first creation a prefigura- tion of the second creation or the redemption.—The week of God: 1. God’s work in nature; 2. God’s rest in man.—The sabbath of God a prophecy of the di- vine Sunday.—The week of God in the history of | the world.—The appointment of the whole course of the world as a work of God: 1. The Chiliastic error therein: the chronological computation, etc.; 2. the | truth therein: the expectation of the divine period of rest (Rev. xx.).—The world according to its various | forms: 1. As creation; 2. as nature; 3. as cosmos; | 4. a8 #0n.—The work of God and the work of man. | What is different, and what is common to both: a. | The order; 6. the constancy ; ¢. the gradual progres- | sion; @. the aim.—The account of the creation con- | trasted with ancient and modern errors (see Doctrinal and Ethical).—The account of: the creation in its truth and sublimity.—The basis of all the days’ works: Heaven and earth.—The contrast of heaven and earth running through the entire Holy Writ as a symbol of religion.—Heaven as the home of man whilst on the earth: 1. The sign of his origin; 2. the: direction of his prayer; 3. the goal of his hope.— The first three days’ work as the preparation of the last three.—The word of God as the word of power in the creation.—The spirit of God as the formative strength of all God’s works.—Creation as a mirror of the Trinity.—The creation a revelation of life from God: 1. The foundations of life in the elementary world; 2. the symbolical phenomena of life in the animal world; 3. the reality and truth of life in the human world.—The glory of the Lord in the work of creation: 1. The co-operation of all His qualities (omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience, etc.); 2.. the unity of all His attributes.—Separate Sections and Verses. Ver.1: In the beginning. The birth of the world also the birth of time. 1. The fact that the world and time are inseparable; 2. the application: @. the operations in the world are 13 bound to the order of time, }. time is given for labor, To-day, to-day!—The relation of worldly time to the eternity of God (Ps. xc, 1).—The begin- ning of the Scriptures goes back to the beginning of the world, as the end of the Scriptures extends to the end of the world.—The outline of creation: Hea- ven and earth: 1, Heaven and earth in pnion; 2. earth for heaven; 3. heaven for earth.—The primary form of the earth and the creation of light a picture of the redemption; 1. The redemption of mankind in general, 2. of the individual man.—Waste and void the first form of the world—Laying the foundations of the world (Eph. i. 4, and other passages).—The spirit of God the sculptor of all forms of life—The word of God: Let there be: 1. How the growth of the world points back to the eternal existence of the word; 2. how the eternal word is the foundation for the growth of the world—The word—let there be— in its echo through time as the word of the creation, of the redemption and gloritication.—The first clear- ly defined creation: the light—The significance of light; its physical and religious significance.—God’s survey of light.—Light a source of life: 1. Its good as existing in its ground; 2. its beauty as disclosed in its appearing.—The creation of light at the same time the creation of physical darkuess (see Is. xlv.), —How carefully we must guard against the commin- gling of natural and spiritual darkness.—The natural darkness as it were a picture of the spiritual.—But also a picture of the “shadow of His wings.”—Even- ing and morning, or the great daily phenomenon of the alternation of time.—The creation of light a day’s work of God: 1. The first day’s work; 2. a whole day’s work; 3. a continuous day’s work; 4. a. day’s work rich in its consequences.—The first day, Vers. 6-8: The second day’s work, or the firmament. of heaven.—The firmament in its changing phenome- | na a visible image of the invisible heaven.—Vers. 9 and 10: Land and sea. The beauty of the land, the- sublimity of the sea. The symbolical significance of” the land: the firm institutions of God; of the sea: the wave-like life of nations.—The second day of God. Vers. 9-13: The earth and the vegetable- world. The green earth a child of hope.—The plant. the prelude and symbol of all life (of animal, human,. and spiritual)—The providence of God in the crea- tion of the vegetable world before the creation of animals and man.—This providence a picture of the- same providence with which he thought and com- manded our salvation from eternity,—The store- houses of the earth supplied before the appearance- of man, according to the Scriptures and natural sci- ence (coal, minerals,’ salts, ete.)—The third day.. Vers. 14-19: The creation of the heavenly lights for the earth—The sun. The moon. Sun and moon (Ps. viii. 19). The stellar world.—A glance of faith into the stellar world.—The office of the stars for the earth: 1. God’s sign for faith; 2. sacred signs. for the festive periods of the solemnization of the faith ; 3. spiritual watchers and guides for the spirit- ual life of man; 4. homes of life for creature-life.-— The fourth day. Vers. 20-23: The life of the fishes in the sea and the birds under the heaven a sign of the possibility of an endlessly diversified existence: of spiritual beings.—The blessing of God on the animal world {in every climate and sea).—The fifth day. Vers. 24 and 25: The animals of the earth as the forerunners of man: 1. The first signs and pictures of human life; 2. its most intimate assistants; 3. its first conditions.—Vers, 26-31: The creation of man: 1, A decree of God; 2, an announcement of the 194 GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES, image of God; 8. the last work of God.—The office of. man: 1. God’s image in his power and perfection; 2. God’s likeness in his appearance.—The perfect fulfilment of this destiny.—The one divine similitude in the contrast of man and woman.—The blessing of God on man: 1. His future; 2. his calling; 3. his possessions and his sustenance.—The institution of marriage (see ch. ii.).—The calling of man, through- out, a call to dominion: 1. In representing God; 2. in ruling over the beasts; 3. in the free self-control. —The purity of the first creation—The verdict of God: Very good.—Vers. 24-81. The sixth day.— The completion of the world, the sabbath of God.— The significance of the rest of God on the seventh day.—The sabbath of God, the sabbath of man: 1. Man a sabbath of God; 2. God the sabbath of man. —The contrast between struggling creation and joy- ful labor, also in the life of man.—The blessing of God on the sabbath.—The sabbath in its significance : 1. Its source in the heart of God, like the life of man (the bliss of God); 2. its signs: the solemn pauses (God saw that it was good), like the evening-rest, preludes of the Sunday; 3. its fruitfulness: the festi- vals of the Old Covenant, the Sunday of the New Covenant, the eternal sabbath-rest, and celebration of the Sunday in eternity.—The festal demeanor according to the pattern of God: 1. Reposing; 2. blessing; 3. hallowing.—The first completion of the world a presage of its final completion. Srarge, ver. 1: The question what God did be- fore the creation, He chose us (Eph. i. 4), He pre- pared for us the kingdom (Matt. xxv. 384), He gave us grace in Christ (2 Tim. i. 9), He made the decree of the creation.—Some understand by the beginning the Son of God (Col. i. 16; Rev. i. 8), at which also the Chaldaic translation aims by rendering it: in wisdom (comp. Wisdom of Solomon ix. 4; Ps. civ. 24; Prov. viii. 22); but because the Son of God is nowhere * absolutely called the beginning (see, how- ever, Col. i, apx4), and Moses, besides, intends to describe the origin of the world, the first explanation is reasonably preferred to the second (namely, from the beginning of the creation).—Moses, with these words: in the beginning, overthrows all the reasons of the heathen philosophers and atheists with which they maintain the eternity of the world, or that it perchance has arisen from numberless atoms (see Rom. i. 19 and 20).—That the world is not eternal may be seen from the following passages: Ps. xc. 2; Prov. viii. 22, 24, 25; Is. xlv. 11, 12; comp, ver. 13; Matt. xiii. 85; xxiv. 21; xxv. 34; Mark x. 6; 2 Tim, i. 9; 2 Pet. iii.4; John xvii, 24; Eph. i. 4; 1 Pet. i. 20.—The spirit of God (Ps. xxxiii. 6)— Ver. 3: Of the speaking of God. Although God did not speak as we do, nevertheless the speaking of God was a real genuine speech, in a higher but also more appropriate sense than speaking is said of man, For as God really and properly, although not in a natural manner, generates like man, so also is it with divine speech.—Ver. 5: God created light on a Sunday, and on that day the children of Israel passed through the Red Sea, etc.—God is a father of lights * [Unless it be Prov. viii. 22, {253 MWR "2p na , ‘which can only be rendered ‘Jehovah possessed me, or begat me, the beginning of his way.” This probably was the ground of the translation in the Jerusalem Targum, and there would seem to be something in it, if we would in any way conuect the creation of the world with the eternal ‘beginning, as Lange does in respect to the creation of the church—chosen in Him, created in Him, The expressions seem parallel.—T, L.j (James i. 17), of the external light, of the internal, natural light of reason, of the spiritual light of grace, and the eternal light in yonder world of glory,—Ver, 11: The herbs not only a house of supply, but also a store for healing.—To this third day belong also the subterranean treasures, as precious stones, metals, and other minerals.—Ver. 29: We cannot say that they had not the liberty of eating flesh. Whether they really used this or preferred to eat fruits and herbs, we can reasonably refer to its proper place.-- (Ver. 81: Since God could have created everything in a moment, no reasonable cause can be given why He preferred six days, unless we reflect that it had perhaps a reference to the six great changes in the church, to which will finally succeed the sabbath of the saints, Thus the first day is a prefiguration of the time from Adam to Noah, etc.)—A Christian can use the creatures, but he must not misuse them (1 Cor. vii. 31) that they groan not against him (Rom. viii. 19).—Ch. ii. 8: Discussion whether the first men were bound to respect the sabbath. On- the contra- ry: 1, Every service of God connected with certain times and places had a view to man after the fall; 2, man ina state of innocence has served God at all. times and in all places; the sabbath was first insti- tuted in the wilderness: God gave the sabbath only to the Jews. Reasons for it: Appeal to the contents of our passage, ete.—The sabbath-day a favor of God. Scaréper to ver. 3; Then spake God, says Chry- sostom, ‘let there be light,” and there was light, but now He has not spoken it, but Himself has be- come our light.—From Valerius Herberger: But it is much more that the Lord Jesus will finally trans- port us, after this temporal light, into the eternal light of heaven, where we shall see God in His light face to face, and praise Him in the everlasting hea- venly light and glory.—From Luther: He utters not grammatical words, but veal and material things. Thus sun, moon, heaven, earth, Peter, Paul, I and thou are scarcely to be reckoned words of God, yea, hardly a syllable and letter (?) in comparison to the entire creation—From Michaelis: Moses endeavors in the whole history of the creation to present God not merely as almighty, but at the same time as per- fect, wise, and good, Who considers all His works and has created the best world.—Vers. 6-8: The conclusion of the first day’s work was an actual prophecy of the work of the second day of creation, Jt was on the basis of the light shining into and sep- arating the moist chaos of the world, that God made the division.—From Calvin: We well know that torr rents of rain arise in a natural manner, but the flood sufficiently proves how soon we can be overwhelmed by the violence of the clouds, if the cataracts of hea- ven are not stayed by the hand of God.—G@od named, The subsequent naming on the part of man is only the prophetic fulfilment of the naming of God here and elsewhere.—Vers, 9-13: The first (rather the second) division (vers. 6-8) is followed by a secoud, both closely and intimately clinging to and antithet- ically conditioning each other, for which reason some would even reckon vers, 9 and 10 to the pre- ceding’ day.—Vaentin Herperczr: Is it not, a miracle? We take a handful of seed and strew them on one earth and soil, where they have the same food, sap, and care, nevertheless they do not commingle, but each produces its kind: the one white, the other yellow, the fruit sweet and sour, brown and black, red and green, fragrant and offensive, high and low. Thus we, though, like the seeds, buried CHAP. L—II. 3. 195 in one consecrated ground (Sirach xl. 1), will never- theless at the day of judgment not be confounded with each other, but each will go forth in his flesh, yet incorruptible (1 Cor. xv. 88),—Vers. 14-19. From Lurner: He maintains the same order as in the three preceding days, in that He jirst adorns the heavens with lights and stars, and afterwards the earth, Even the heathen philosopher Plato says, that eyes are especially given to men that, by the observation of the heavenly bodies and ‘their move- ments, they may be to them as guides to the know- ledge of God. It is by the heavenly bodies that men judge of the weather; by their help they find their way on the water and on the land. So, too, a star led the wise men to the manger, etc.—MicHacLts: They (the stars) are the great and almost infallible clock of the world, ever moving at the same rate.— From Luraer: Hereby is developed and shown to us the immortality of the soul, from the fact that, with the exception of man, no creature can understand the movement of ‘the heavens, nor measure the heavenly bodies. The hog, the cow, and the dog cannot mea- sure the water that they drink, but man measures the heavens and all their hosts. Thercfore there shows itself here a spark of eternal life—From Cat- vin: ‘Moses paid more attention to us than to the stars, precisely as became a theologian.””—The true morning-star is Christ (Rev. xxii, 16), the sun of righteousness (Mal. iv. 2).—The animals of the water are’ in marked contrast with the animals of the air. Water and air, The latter is as it were the embodied liquid light, the former embodied darkness; in its depths there is neither summer nor winter, it is the heavy melancholy element, whilst the air, light and cheerful, gives life and breath everywhere. The in- habitants of the former are opposed to those of the latter, the fish to the birds, as water and air, dark- ness and light. The fish is cold, stiff, mute; the bird warm, free, and full of melody. Yet not with- out reason were both created on one and the same day. They have many things in common, and are in structure and movement closely and intimately allied; the variegated scaly mail of the fish points to the colored feathery coat of the bird, and what the wings are to the latter, the fins are to the former. Water and air once lived together, and do so now; as the air descends into sea and earth, and vivifying- ly penetrates the water, the latter, for its part, rises into the air, and mingles with the atmosphere to its remotest border.—That God blesses the animals, ex- presses the thought, that God creatively endows ani- mals with the power of propagating their kind, and also points to the work of preserving the world. ‘Here we see what a blessing really means, namely, a powerful increase. When we bless we do nothing more than to wish good; but in God’s blessing there is a sound of increase, and it is immediately efficacious ; so again, His curse is a withering, and its effect in like manner immediately consuming.” Luther.— Only the largest water-animals are introduced, be- cause from them the greatness, omnipotence, and glory of the creator most clearly shine forth, The land-animals a product of the earth—with heads bent downwards.—Various views as to the time of the creation of the angels (p. 20).—The Redeemer rests also through the seventh day in the grave.— In divinely solemn stillness lay the young world, a mirror of the Godhead, before the eyes of the still unfallen first human pair, as with Him they kept holy day, representing in their divine similitude the sabbath of God in the creation, and the sabbath of the creation in God, harmoniously joined in one. —Of a sabbath-law, there is nothing said in the text. Israel's later sabbaths (as the whole law was to awaken a sense of sin) were reminding copies of this sabbath of God after the creation, and unfulfilled prophecies not only of the completion of the theocra- ey of the Old in the Christocracy of the New Cove- nant, but also of the final consummation of the pres- ent order of things, especially on the last great sabbath, etc.—The ancient allegorizing of the days of creation according to the periods of the kingdom of God (p, 28).—“*Six days,” says Calvin, “the Lord occupied in the structure of the world, not as if He needed these periods, before whom a moment is a thousand years, but because He will bind us to the observing of each one of His works. He had the same object in His repose on the seventh day.” (Augustine had already expressed himself in the same way. There lies at the base of this an abstract comprehension of the divine omnipotence, and a great ignoring of the idea of nature. Luther's con- jecture: The fall occurred on the first,day of crea- tion, about noon.) Lisco: Death is nothing in the creation. Every- thing lives, but in very manifold modification Man is created in the image of God, i. e., so that all divine glory shines forth in him in a reduced scale. He has a nature allied to God, and therein lies the pos- sibility and capability of becoming ever more like God.—The whole human race is one great family. All are blood-relations.—The dominion of man over nature obtains, in progressive development and ex- tension, by the arts and sciences, by investigation of nature’s laws, and by using its powers (of course, under the conditioning of life in the spirit through community with God). i Gertacn: The whole subsequent history is writ- ten only for men (i.e. according to the human stand-point); therefore sun, moon, and stars, the host of heaven (ch. ii, 1), appear merely as lights in the firmament of heaven, and nothing is told us of the inhabitants of heaven, although even in this book the angels frequently appear, and the fall of some is already in ch. iii, presupposed, ete.—All things have had a beginning.—The world was to develop itself in the contrast of heaven and earth, which repeats itself on a small scale—on earth, in spirit and nature, and in man, in spirit and flesh.—It is self-evident, there- fore, that God’s speaking is not the production of an audible sound, but the realization of His thoughts through an act of His will—The “naming” is equi- valent to determining something in accordance with its nature or its appearance. There is thereby indi- cated the power of God as ruling and thinking all things. (The naming here is not meant as a creative calling, but as an expression of the divine adaptation.) —The upper firmament from which descend light and warmth and fertilizing moisture, casting blessings on the earth, attracting with its wonderful moving and fixed lights the observation of the rudest man, and drawing forth the anticipation of, and longing for, a higher home than this earthly one, is the visible pledge, yes, perhaps the distant gleam, of a heavenly world of light. It bears with it, therefore, a name which is the same with the kingdom, where in un- dimmed light “ our Father in heaven” reveals Him- self—As originally everything was sea, thus in the glorified earth there will be no more sea.—It is ab- surd to suppose, because fruit-trees only are here spoken of, that the others, as thorns and thistles, did not appear until after the fall of man, (Only the fact 196 that they at a later period burdened the field, is al- luded to by Augustine as a punishment.) A very fitting distinction of a similitude of man, which can- not be lost, and of such a one as has been lost.—The reader must carefully guard against the Jewish fables which have also found their way among Christians, namely, that man was at first created as man and woman in one person, and afterwards both sexes were separated from it.—God rested, etc. Perfect rest and the greatest activity are one in Him (see John v. 17).—Whether a fixed observance of the seventh day was ordered with the revelation of the history of creation, or whether this was first given to the people of the law with the other laws, presents an obscure question, but the latter view is the more probable; in Genesis, at least, there is found no trace of the observance of the sabbath, and still less among heathen nations; the division of weeks, as found among some, might have been made according to the quarters of the moon. (The knowledge of the week, and the religious consecration of this know- ledge, forms, indeed, the patriarchal religious basis of the sabbath-law, which no more came into the world abruptly than any other religious institution.) Calwer Bible Exposition: The number seven, important through the whole Old Testament, reminds one of the year of jubilee and the rest of the sabbath which is allotted to the people of God above, whither Jesus has gone before to prepare » place for His own.—Bunsen: The days of creation go from light to light, from one (outstreaming) of light to another. Man as the real creature of light is the last progres- sive step.—Fruits of trees ‘above the earth” in con- trast with bulbous plants, which are included in the herbs (?).—Signs. Sun, moon, and stars; especially sun and moon are to be signs for three important points: for festive periods (new moons and sabbaths), for days of the month, and for the new year (begin- ning of the solar and lunar year).—The week has its natural basis in the approximate duration of the four phases or appearances of the moon’s disk, whose unity forms the first measure of time, or the month, according to the general view of all Shemites, Astronomically the number seven has in the ancient world, and especially among the Shemites, its repre- sentation in the seven planets, or wandering stars, according to the view of the senses (?): the moon, Mercury, Venus, the sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. Thence comes also the series of our week-days.— Arnpt (Christ in the Old Covenant): As long as there is a world there is an advent.—The birth of the world is the great moment of which it is declar- ed: God said: Let there be light, and there was light. [Nore on tHE Creation-SapBaTs.—The question of the sabbath in all its aspects stands wholly clear from any difficulty as to the length of the creative days. We have already shown that there is not only a bare consistency but a beautiful scriptural harmony in the less being made a memorial of the greater. See Introd. to Gen. i. pp. 135, 186. God’s great rest, or ceasing from His work of creation, commences with the first human consciousness following the inspiration that makes the primus homo. Then the heavens and the earth are finished. Nature and the world are complete in this crowning work, and the divine sabbath begins. This is blessed and hallowed. Time, as a part of nature, is now proceeding in its regular sun-divided order, and from this time a sev- enth returning part is also blessed and hallowed for man, as a season in which he is to rest from his GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. works, and contemplate that now unceasing sabbath of God, which, from the very nature of the case, can have no such shorter recurring intervals. Hence the force of our Saviour’s words that the sabbath, the weekly solar sabbath, was made for man. They who contend that the divine sabbath is simply the first twenty-four hours after creation is finished, make it unmeaning, as predicated of God and His works, Ip this sense God no more rested on that solar day than on every one that follows until a new creative xo; or a new creative day, arises in the eternal counsels, Such a view destroys the beautiful analogy pervading the Scripture, by which the less is made the type of the greater, the earthly of the heavenly, the temporal of the eternal. It makes the earthly human sabbath a memorial of something just like itself, of one long. past solar day, of one singlé transient event, instead of being the constantly recurring witness of an eonian state, an eternal rest, ever present to God, and re- served for man in the unchanging timeless heavens, But the question with which we are most con- cerned is in regard to the sabbath as established for man. Does this seventh day, or this seventh portion of time, which God blessed and hallowed, have thus an eternal and universal ground as a memorial of the creative work with its sevenfold division, or does it derive its sanction from a particular law made leng after for a particular and peculiar people? The questiun must be determined by exegesis, and for this we have clear and decisive, if not extensive, grounds. It demands the close consideration of two short passages, and of a word or two in each, “ And God blessed the seventh day,” Gen. ii. 3. Which seventh day? one might ask, the greater or the less, the divine or the human, the xonian or the astro- nomical? Both, is the easy answer; both, as com- mencing at the same time, so far as the one connects with astronomical time; both, as the greater includ. ing the less; both, as being (the one as represented, | the other as typically representing) the same in essence and idea, The attempt to make them one in scale, or in measure, as well as in idea, does in fact destroy that universality of aspect which comes from the recurring, moving type as representing the stand- ing antitype. Take away this, and all that we can make out of the words, as they stand in Gen. ii. 8, is that God blessed that one seventh day (be it long or short), or, on the narrower hypothesis, that one day of twenty-four hours which first followed His ceasing to create, and left it standing, sacred and alone, away back in the flow of time. But blessing the day means blessing it for some purpose: it is the expres- sion of God’s love to it as a holy and beneficent thing among the things of time, as carrying ever with it something of God, some idea of the Blesser, and of the love and reverence due to Him as the fountain of all blessedness and of all blessed things. So the blessing upon man looks down through all the generations of man. No narrower idea of the bless- ing of the sabbath can be held without taking from the word all meaning. “ And hallowed it, iM& BIZ", and made it holy. This also is a very plain Hebrew word, especially in its Piel form, as any one may 8¢@ by examining it with a concordance. We haye given to the word unholy (the etymological opposite) too much the vague sense of wickedness in general, to allow of its fairly representing the opposite in idea. The holy throughout the Old Testament is opposed to the common, however lawful in itself it may be. To hallow is to make uncommon. To hallow a time is to make it a time when things which are common CHAP. I,—II. 8. 197 at other times, and peculiar to other times, should not be done, but the time so hallowed should be de- voted to other and uncommon uses. Of course, things essential and necessary at all times are not included, or excluded, in such distinction. Neither will it hold of days or times that mere human author- ity thus devotes to any separate uses. Such devotion may be as partial, or as indefinite, as the authority chooses to make it. But when God hallows a time it is for Himself. Not simply whatever man does, but whatever he does for himself, or for his indi- vidual worldly interest, at other times, thaf must he not do on the times that God has hallowed for His own special remembrance; but he must, on the con- trary, do other things which are more immediately connected with that special remembrance. Anything less than this as a general principle leaves the word to hallow or make holy, as used by God, and of God (unless specially limited to some partial application), an unmeaning utterance. It is the portion of time which the Creator of time keeps for Himself, out of the time He has given to man. It is elevating a por- tion of the human time to the standard, or in the direction at least, of God’s own eternal sabbath. There can be no hallowed time to God alone; there can be no hallowed time in itself irrespective of any agents in time. Therefore, the expression, He hallowed it, must be for men, for all men who were to be on the earth, or it is a mere blank. It is God’s day in which men should live specially for Him. It is sometimes said, we should live every day for God. If it be meant that there should be no special times in which we live to God as we do not, and cannot, at all times (when God permits us, in living for Him, to live also for ourselves), then is it a hyper-piety which becomes profanity in claiming to be above the need of a provision instituted by the divine wisdom and grace. Like to this is the plea, that, if there be a sabbath at all, it should be spent, not in religious acts, so called, but in the study and the contemplation of nature. This cavil has a high sound, but it would soon be abandoned, perhaps, by many that use it, if the contemplation of nature spoken of were what it ought to be, a contemplation of the very sabbath of God—nature itself being that holy pause in which God rests from His creative energies, that ineffable repose in which, though superintending and preserving, He provides for man through law that he can comprehend, and an execut- ing Word that he can devoutly study. If we had no other passage than this of Gen. ii, 3, there would be no difficulty in deducing from it a precept for the universal observance of a sabbath, or seventh day, to be devoted to God, as holy time, by all of that race for whom the earth and its nature were specially prepared. The first men must have known it. The words “He hallowed it,” can have no meaning otherwise. They would be a blank unless in reference to some who were required to keep it holy. After the fall, the evil race of Cain, doubtless, soon utterly lost the Imowledge. In the line of Seth it may have become greatly dimmed. Enoch, we cannot hesitate to believe, kept holy sab- bath, or holy seventh day (whether the exact chrono- logical seventh or not), until God took him to the holy rest above. It lingered with Noah and his fam- ily, if we may judge from the seven-day periods ob- served in the ark. Of the other patriarchs, in this respect, nothing is directly told us. They were devout men, unworldly men, confessing themselves pilgrims on earth, seeking a rest. Nothing is more probable, prima facie, than that such men, as we read of them in Genesis, and as the Apostle has described them to us, should have cherished an idea so in harmony with their unearthly pilgrim-life, even though coming to them from the faintest tradition. To object that the Bible, in its few brief memoranda of their lives, says nothing about their sabbath- keeping, any more than it tells us of their forms of prayer and modes of worship, is a worthless argu- ment. The Holy Scripture never anticipates cavils; it never shows distrust of its own truthfulness by providing against objections—objections we may say that it could have avoided, and most certainly would have avoided, had it been an untruthful book made either by earlier or later compilers. The patriarchs may have lost the tradition of the sabbath; it may not have come to them over the great catastrophe of the flood; or they may have lost the chronological reckoning of it; but, in either case, it would not affect the verity of the great facts and announcements in Gen. i. and ii., however, or by whatever species of inspiration, the first author of that account obtained his knowledge. For all who believe the Old Scrip- tures, as sanctioned by Christ and supported by the general biblical evidence, there it stands unimpaired by anything given or omitted in the subsequent history. But there is another passage which shows con- clusively that, through whatever channel it may have come, such a knowledge of the sabbath was in the world after the time of the patriarchs. The language of the fourth commandment (Exod. xx. 8), to say nothing of Exod. xvi. 22-27, cannot be interpreted in any other way. Remember the sabbath-day, maw oi mx ci5t. The force of the article is there, though omitted, in the Hebrew syntax, because of the specifying word that follows. It is just as though we should say in English: Remember sab- bath-day. Take the precisely similar language, Mal. iii, 22, ya maim 21: Remember the law of Moses, or, Remember Moses’ law. As well might one contend that this was the first promulgation of the Pentateuch, as that Exod. xx. 8 was the first setting forth of the sabbatical institution. There was no call for such language had that been the case. It would have been in the style of. the other com- mands: ‘Thou shalt have no other gods; Thou shalt not take the name, etc.; Thou shalt keep a sabbath, or rest,’ etc. We dwell not upon the distinct refer- ence that follows to the creation-sabbath, and the perfect similarity of reason and of language. The artless introduction is enough to show that those to whom it was addressed are supposed to have known something of the ancient institution, however much its observance may have been neglected, or its reck- oning, perhaps, been forgotten. The use of the word “'idt (remember) would seem to point to some such danger of misreckoning, as though the Lawgiver meant to connect it back chronologically, by septen- nial successions, with the first sabbath, or the first day of the conscious human existence. Or he may have had in view future reckonings. The old law of a seventh day, or @ seventh of time, being preserved as an immutable principle, there might have been a peculiar memorial reckoning for the Jewish people, as there afterwards was for the Christian church when the resurrection of Christ was taken for the initial day of reckoning, as being, in a most solemn sense, to the church, what the creative finishing had been to the world, So that, in this respect, the 198 Christian seventh day may have been no more a sub- stitution than the Jewish. A seventh part of time is holy for man. God blessed it and hallowed it. Such is the deduction from the language of Gen. ii. 8. There are other questions relating to the sabbath, its adaptation to the human physical constitution, and the change of reckoning as between the Jewish and Christian dis- pensations, but they would come more in place in commenting on some other parts of the sacred vol- ume, to which they may be, therefore, referred. The religious aspect appears more in the universal hallowing in Genesis than in the more national estab- lishment among the Jews, where mere rest from labor seems more prominent than religious worship, or that holy contemplation of the divine which is the living thought in the creative account, and which comes out again so emphatically in the Christian institution as more suggestive, than the Jewish, of the eternal rest. It is a great, though very common, mistake, that the Jewish aspect of the sabbath is the more severely religious, as compared with the Chris- tian, which is sometimes claimed to be more free in this respect. Strict as the Jewish institution was, in its prohibitions of labor, it was in fact the less reli- gious; it had less of holy contemplation; it had no worship prescribed to it; it was, in a word, more secular than the primitive or the Christian, as being enjoined more for secular ends, namely bodily rest GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. and restoration for man and beast, ard even for the land. These, indeed, are important ends still remain- ing. The connections between the sabbath aud, the physical constitution of man form a most valuable part of the general argument, but as they bear upon the biblical view as collateral confirmation rather than as connected with its direct sanctions, we would simply refer the reader to some of the more instruc tive works that have been written on this branch of the subject. James Ava. Hzssry: ‘Sunday, its Origin, His- tory, and Present Obligation” (Bampton Lectures preached before the University of Oxford), London. 1860; Jamzs Gitrittan: “The Sabbath viewed in the Light of Reason, Revelation, and History, with Sketches of its Literature,” Edinburgh, 1862, repub- lished by the N. Y. Sabbath Committee and the American Tract Society, New York, 1862; Pruup Scuarr: “The Anglo-American Sabbath (an Essay read before the National Sabbath Convention, Sara- toga, Aug. 11, 1868), New York, 1863 (republished in English and in German by the American Tract Society); Mark Hopxins: “The Sabbath and Free Institutions” (read before the same Convention), New York, 1863; Rosert Cox: “The Literature on the Sabbath-Question,” Edinburgh, 1865, 2 vols, | On the practical aspects of the sabbath-question, |‘ comp. the Documents prepared and published by the N. Y. Sabbath Committee from 1857 to 1867.—T. L.] ID 10 SECOND SECTION. Man—Paradise—the Paradisaical Pair and the Paradisaical Institutions,—Theocratic—Jehovistic. a Cuarrter IT. 4-25, A.—The Earth waiting for Man. These are the generations [genealogies]! of the heavens and of the earth when, they were created, in the day [here the six days are one day] that the Lord God [not God Jchovah, much less God the Eternal. Israel’s God as God of all the would | made the earth and the heavens [the theo- cratic heavens are completed from the earth |, And 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 [Adam] to till the ground [adamab]. B.—The Creation of the Paradisaical Man. But there wen#up a mist from the earth [including the sea] and watered the whole face of the earth [the adamah orthe lana]. 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. C.—The Creation of Paradise. And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Hden [tand of aclight], and there he put the man whom he had formed: 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 a river went out of Hiden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted and became into CHAP. II. 4-25. 199 1i four heads. The name of the first is Pison [spreading]; that is it which compasseth 12 eee the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. And the gold of that 13 land is good [fine]; there is bdellium and the onyx stone. And the name of the second river is Gihon [gushing], the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia [Cush]. And the name of the third river is Hiddekel [swift-fowing]; that-is it which goeth toward the Hast of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates, 14 D.—The Paradise Life. 15 And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden, to dress it and to keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat [baxm d=x]. But of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die [nian mia]. 17 E.—Paradisaical Development and Institutions, ‘And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a help meet for him [17535 , his contrast, reflected image, his other I]. And out of the ground the Lord God, formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air, and brought them unto Adam to see* what he would call them; and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found a help meet for him. And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept; and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof. And the rib which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh ; ‘ she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man [tschah, man-ess, because taken 24 from isoh, man]. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave 25 unto his wile; and they shall be one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed, 18 19 21 22 23 {! Ver. 4—ny1bn. Rendered by Lange genealogies. More properly generations in the primary sense, and without any reference to time, like "4, or yeved. Births, Greek : yevéoeis, whence the name of the book in the Septuagint. It is directly applied to births, or successions (one thing, or event, proceeding from another), in nature, and this may be regarded as primary. For example, sce Ps. xc. 2, nibs pM, before the mountains were born, generated.—T. L.] (? Ver. 7.—Lange renders: “und so ward der Mensch eine lebendige Secle.” Luther has alfo. The Hebrew has simply "77", which we render: and man became, like the Vulgate and LXX.; but the verb seems to have an emphasis, which Lange rightly aims to give, and so man became, etc.: in this special manner, namely by the divine inspiration directly ; since the animals also are called N° WHI, kving soul, though their life comes mediately through the general life of nature or the D"7PN Mi, as mentioned ch.i. 2. See Ps. civ. 29.—T. L.] [! Ver. 19.—minsd to see. Lange: “um zu sehen.” Some of the Jewish commentators raise the question whether this has for its subject God or Adam. - If the latter, then mind has the sense of judging, determining, which it will well bear.—T. L.] sections: a. Of the primitive condition of man in. Paradise (ch. ii. 5-25); 0. of the fall (ch. iii.); ¢. of the breaking, up of the one human race into two dis- EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL. o 1, The present section, ch. ii. 4-25, is connected with the one that follows to the end of ch. iii., by the peculiar divine designation of Jehovah Elohim. It has also a still closer connection with ch. iv., inas- much as the next toledoth, or generations, begin with ch, v. 1. That, however, ch. ii. 25 is really a separate portion, appears from the strong contrast in which the history of the fall, ch. iii., stands to the history of Paradise, ch. ii. Keil denotes the whole division, even to the next toledoth (ch. v. 1), a3 the history of the heavens and the earth. Upon the completing of the creative work, ch. i., there follows the commencing historical development of the world, with the history of the heavens and the earth in three tinct and separately disposed races (ch. iv.). It must be remarked, however, in the first place, that in ch. ii, there is not yet any proper beginning of historical development in the strict sense, and, sec- ondly, that chs. iv.—vi. 1-7 do evidently cohere in a definite unity presenting, as consequence of the his- tory of the fall, 1. the unfolding of the line of Cain, 2. the unfolding of the line of Seth, and 8. the inter- folding of both lines to their mutual corruption. So far, therefore, does the history of the first world pro- ceed under the religious ‘point of view. But the generations of the heavens and the earth go on from the beginning of our present section to ch.'v. In. respect to this, Keil rightly maintains that the phrase: 200 GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK. OF MOSES. eleh tholedoth (these the generations) must be the superscription to what follows (ver. 33). The ques- tion arises: in what sense? On good ground does Keil insist that toledoth (a noun derived from the Hiphil 375°, in the construct plural, and denoting properly the generations, or the posterity of any one) means not the historical origin of the one named in the genitive, but ever the history of the generations and the life that proceeds from him—or his series of descendants (we may add) as his own genesis still going on in his race. This word, therefore, in its relation to heaven and earth, cannot denote the origi- nal beginning of the heaven and the earth (Delitzsch thinks otherwise), but only the historical development of heaven and earth after they are finished. For the toledoth or “generations of Noah,” for example, do not denote his own birth and begetting, but his his- tory and the begetting of his sons. From what has been said it follows, therefore, that the human history, from ch. ii. to the end of ch. iv., is not to be regarded as a history of the earth only, but also of the hea- rens. And in a mystical sense, truly, Paradise is neaven and earth together. Let us now keep special- y in view the section of Jehovah Elohim, chs. ii. and ili, When we bear in mind that the name Jehovah Elohim oceurs twenty times in this section in place of Elohim that had been used hitherto (the excep- tions, ch. iii, 1, 3, 5, are very ee and that, besides this, it is found only once in the Penta- teuch (Exod. ix. 30), the significance of this connec- tion becomes very clear. When once, however, the documentary unity of the Elohim and Jehovah sec- tions is clearly entertained, this section becomes im- mediately a declaration that the Covenant-God of Israel, originally the Covenant-God of Adam in Para- dise, is one with Elohim the God of all the world. Immediately, too, is there established the central stand-point of the theocratic spirit, according to which Jehovah is the God of all the world, and Adam, with his Paradise, is the microcosmic centre of all the world (in respect to the names Jehovah and Elohim, see Kein, p. 35). As far as specially con- cerns our section, ch. ii., Knobel gives it, the super- scription: ‘‘The Creation, Narration Second.” It must be remarked, however, that here the genesis of. the earth, in contrast with the generative series that follows, is presented according to the principle that determines the ordering of things; so that Adam, as such principle, stands at the head. (It is according to Aristotle’s proposition: the posterior in appear- ance, the prior in idea.) The representation must, indeed, give him a basis in an already existing earth; yet still for the paradisaical earth is it true that the earth is first through man. The paradisaical earth with its institutions, uniting as they do the contrast of heaven and earth, or rather of earth and heaven, is the fundamental idea of the second chapter. For an apprehension of this contrast, in part akin to and partly variant, see Dexirzscn, p. 1388. From the very supposition of the earth as existing, it appears that the author presupposes still another representa- tion of the creation, and that the present is only meant to give a supplement froth another side. It is incorrect to say here, as Knobel does, that the origin of plants in general goes before the origin of man, 2. Ver. 4. The construction of De Wette is to this effect: “At the time when God Jehovah made earth and heaven, there was no shrub of the field,” etc. Still harsher and more difficult is the construc- tion of Bunsen: “At the time when God the Ever lasting made heaven and earth, and there was not yet any shrub of the field upon the earth, and nc herb of the field had yet sprouted (for Jehovah God had not yet made it to rain upon the earth, ete.) then did God the Everlasting form man,” ete, Both of these are untenable and opposed to the simple ex- pression of the text. (See also Delitzsch and Keil.) Ver. 4 is indeed not altogether easy. On the day in which the Lord made the earth and the heavens, that is, on the one great day, in which here the hexaéme- ron is included (with special reference, indeed, to-its closing period), there commenced the history of the heavens and the earth in their becoming created-— that is, in the same period in which they became created. Out of the paradisaical history: Earth and heaven, arose the converse history: Heaven and earth, in a religious sense, just as in a genetic sense there was the same order from the beginning. ' 8. Vers. 5 and 6. And every plant of the field.—The word 55 with the negative particle is equivalent to the German gar nichts, not at all. The Hebrew conjunction 1 leaves it at first view unde. cided, whether the superscription goes on so as to take in the words, and every herb, etc. And yet, on that view, there would be a failure of any concluding sense. The most probable view, therefore, is that which regards the conjunction as merely a transition particle, and passes it over in the translation, Acy cording to Knobel and others this narration is actual- ly at variance with that of ch. i, as, for example, in its view of the dryness of the earth before the intro- duction of the plants, ete. (see ver. 22), and, there- fore, we must conclude that it belongs to another narrator. In regard to this assumption of different documents, we may refer to the Introduction (for the modes of representation in the Jehovistic portions, see KnosEL, p. 23; likewise the head Literature, p. - 24). The designed unity of both representations’ .. appears from the manner and way in which, even” according to Knobel, the second of these narrations, in many of its references, presupposes the first. The full explanation of this unity becomes obvious from the harmonie contrast which arises when the univer sal creation of the world is regarded from the idesl stand-point of the Jehovah belief (see John xvii. 5} Eph. i. 4). The author carries us back to the time of the hexaémeron, when no herb of the field had yet grown. Nevertheless there is not meant by this the beginning of the third creative day, but the time of the sixth. The apparent contradiction, however, disappears, when we lay the emphasis upon the ex pression ‘‘ of the field,” and by the herbs and plants of the field that are here meant, understand the nobler ' species of herbs that are the growth of culture. In opposition to Delitzsch, Keil correctly distinguishes between M4 and yas. Delitzsch has not sufi- ciently removed the difficulty that arises when we carry back the date of this to the time before vegeta- tion existed. There would be (apparent) contradic tion (he admits) between the two narratives, but not an inexplicable one—then it is no contradiction at all. It is the paradisaical plants, therefore; these did not yet exist; for they presuppose man. See other interpretations in Lanex’s “ Positive Dogmat- ic,” p. 242. Keil connects our interpretation with that of Baumgarten: “By the leing of the plant 18 denoted its growth and germination.” This is ever wont to follow very soon after the planting of the germ. By assuming, indeed, .a certain emphasis oa CHAP. IT. 4-25. 201 the verbs "7" and MX", we may get the sense: the herbs of the field were not yet rightly grown, the plant was not yet come to its perfection of form or feature, because the conditions of culture were as yet wanting. ' But this thought connects itself more or less with that of plants produced by cultivation, which, as such, presuppose the existence of man,— Had not caused it to rain.—To the human culti- vation of the world belong two distinct things: first the rain from heaven together with sunshine, and secondly the labor and care of man. Both condi- tions fail as yet, but now, for the first time, comes in the first mode of nurture. The fog-vapor that arose from the earth (ha-aretz, including the sea) waters the earth-soil (the adamah), It is rightly inferred from ver. 6 that the vapor which arose from the earth indicates the first rain, If it means that the mist then first arose from the earth, there would seem to be indicated thereby the form of rain, or, at all events, of some extraordinary fall of the dew. From this place, and from the history of the flood (especially ‘the appearance of the rainbow), it was formerly inferred that until the time of the deluge no rain had actually fallen. But from the fact that the rainbow was first made a sign of the covenant for Noah, it does not at all follow that it had not actually existed before; just as little as it follows from the sign of the starry night which Abraham re- ceived (Gen. xv.), that there had been no starry night before, or from the institution of the covenant- sign of circumcision, that circumcision had not ear- lier existed as a popular usage (two points which the Epistle of Barnabas has well distinguished, al- though the critics have partially failed in understand- ing it. Epistle of Barnabas ix.). A similar view must be taken of the previous natural history of the paschal lamb, of the dove, and of the eucharistic supper; they were ever earlier than the sacramental appointment. In fact, there is in this place no ex- press mention made of rain proper, and it may well suggest here one of those heavy falls of dew that take place in the warmer climates. Our text may fairly mean, not that the rain was a mere elementary phenomenon, but that it belonged to the divinely ordered economy of human cultivation in its inter- change with the labor of man. The most we can say is, that the watering of the soil was a precondi- tion to the creation of man himself. Just as cultiva- tion after this, so must also, primarily, the ‘cultiva- tor of the soil come into existence under the dew of heaven. Moreover, the earthly organization of man consists, in good part, of water. The words Adam and adamah are used here, as we may well believe, to denote a close relationship of kin. As Adam, how- ever, is not simply from the earth (ha-aretz), so the adamah is not simply the theocratic earth-soil pre- pared by the God who created man. Adam is the man in his relation to the earth, and so is adamah the earth in its relation to man. [Norx on tHe Summary or THE First CREATIVE Account IN THE Seconp.—Knobel has to admit the internal evidence showing that this second account recognizes the first and is grounded upon it, thereby disproving the probability of a contrariety either in- tended or unseen. The attempt, however, of Lange, and of others cited, to reconcile the seeming difficul- ties, can hardly be regarded as giving full satisfac- tion. Another method, therefore, may be proposed, which we think is the one that would most obvious- ly commend itself to the ordinary reader who believed ‘heavens.” . position of the words “ earth and heavens,” would be in the absolute truthfulness of the account, and knew nothing of any documentary theory. The two narra- tives are a continuation of the same story. The sec- ond is by the same author as the first, or by one in perfect harmony with him, and evidently referring to all that had been previously said as the ground-work of what is now to be more particularly added respect- ing man, and which may be called the special sub- ject of this second part. Hence the preparatory | recapitulation, just as Xenophon in each book of the Anabasis presents a brief summary of the one pre- ceding. This reference to the previous account thus commences: “These are the generations of the hea- vens and the earth”—that is, as has been already told. That mitbm refers to the creative growths, births, evolutions, or whatever else we might call them, would be the first and most obvious thought. When told that they mean the generations of Adam, as subsequently given, and this because ‘‘ Paradise is heaven and earth together,” or “Adam with his Paradise is the microcosmic centre of the world,” we admit the justness and beauty of the thoughts, but find it difficult to be satisfied with the exposition. Again, whoever will examine the uses of nbs: (these) in Notnius’ “Concordance,” will find that it refers as often, and perhaps oftener, to what precedes than to what follows. The context alone determines, and here it decidedly points to the first chapter. There is, however, no difficulty in taking it both ways, as a subscription to the first passage, or as a superscrip- tion to the second, at the same time. That “the generations of the heavens and the earth” means the previous creative account, and not that which comes after, would seem to be decided by the words immediately added, ER73M43, “in their being creat- ed”—“in the day (that is, the time or period taken as a whole) of the Lord God’s making the earth and To seek for mysteries here in the trans- like a similar search by the Jewish Masorites of . something occult in the little m (R7"¥t ‘m) of the word SN"3M3. Either the whole previous time is referred to, or, as is more probable, the earliest part of it, before not only man but vegetation also. Or, in the day, may mean, as some have thought, the first day, when the material of the earth and heavens had been created, but all was yet unformed. Now this seems to be very much what is meant by what follows in vers, 5 and 6. In the day when God made the earth and heavens; here the writer might have stopped, so far as his main design was concerned, and gone on immediately to give the intended more | particular account of man; but he is led to enlarge his recapitulating summary by an addition that may ‘be regarded either as parenthetical or exegetical— “the earth and heavens, and every shrub of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb before it grew,” etc. He puts the greatest and the smallest things together to denote totality. All was made before man. And then, to make the language more emphatic in the assertion of its being a divine work, and that it was before man, who is excluded from all agency in its production, it is further declared that this first appearance of the vegetable world was not, in its origin, an ordindry production of nature (such as growth produced by rain), and was wholly inde- pendent of human cultivation, It had not yet rained in the ordinary way, that is, the regular production and reproduction of the seasons had not yet taken 202 GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. place, and there was no man to till the ground. It was after this first supernatural vegetation that the irrigating processes commenced, when God made “a law for the rain ("we FH, legem pluviis, Job xxviii. 26), and caused the mist to go up (the evapora- tion and condensation) that watered the whole face of the mo7N, the earth’s soil, This assertion of supernatural growths being premised as antecedent summary, the writer immediately proceeds to the main and direct subject of this second section: "X""5, and after this (as is demanded by the ‘ conversive denoting sequence of event) the Lord God formed man.” The language is irregular and parenthetical, but artless and clear, at least in its general design. The terms employed are those that a writer with those primitive conceptions would use in impressing the idea of the supernatural. The first plants were made to grow without that help of rain and of human cul- tivation which they now require. | Layard and Botta, namely, Nebi-Junus and Kujund- the ‘sons of Cush were Nimrod, and Seba, and Havilah.’” That is, Nimrod does not come in the ethnological register of peoples, though he is mentioned afterwards as a histori- sal person.’ He applies the same principle of interpretation to other similar cases. —-T. L.) |eveh after its most southern part. his companions, the chase was a training for war, as we are told by Xenopnon (Hunegete, C. i.), the old heroes were pupils of Chiron, and so, waSytal Kkvvn- yeoiwy, disciples of the chase.” Delitzsch—And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel.— Kwoset: “His first kingdom in contrast with his second.” This, however, is not necessarily involved in the expression, “the beginning.” It denotes rather the basis. In thus playing the hero, Nimrod established, in the first place, a kingdom that em- braced Babel, that is, Babylon, Erech, or Orech, in the southwest of Babylonia, Akkad (in respect to situation *AxxjTy), in a northern direction, and in the Northeast, Calneh, in respect to territory corre- sponding to Chalonitis, or Ktisiphon, on the east shore of the Tigris. This establishment of an em- pire transforming the patriarchal clan-governments into one monarchy is not to be thought of as hap- pening without force.. The hunter becomes a subju- gator of men, in other words, a conqueror.—Out of that land went forth Asshur. [Lange translates: Out of that land went he forth towards Asshur.] —The Septuagint, Vulgate, and many interpreters (Luther, Calvin) regard Asshur as the grammatical subject, and give it the sense: Asshur went forth from Shinar. On the contrary, the Targum of Onke- los, Targum of Jonathan, and many other authorities, (Baumgarten, Delitzsch, Knobel) have rightly recog- nized Nimrod as the subject. Still, it does not seem clear, when Knobel supposes that Nimrod had left his first kingdom for the sake of founding a sec- ond. Moreover, it is not to be supposed that he barely extended his rule over an uninhabited terri- tory for the purpose of colonizing it. It was rather characteristic of Nimrod, that he should seek still more strongly to appropriate to himself the occupied district of Assyria by the establishment of cities. . The first city was Nineveh (at this day the ruin- district called Nimrud), above the place where the Lycus flows into the Tigris; the second was Reho- -both, probably east of Nineveh; the third Calah, northward in the district of Kalachan, in which ‘there is found the place of ruins called Khorsabad ; the fourth was Resen, between Nineveh and Calah. —The same is a great city:—The first suggested sense would seem to denote Resen as the great city, or as the greater city in relation to the others named with it. On the contrary, remarks Knobel: Resen is nowhere else mentioned as known to antiquity, and could not possibly have been so distinguished, as to be called in this short way the great city. Rath- er does the expression denote the four cities taken together, as making Nineveh in the wider sense, and which, both by Hebrews and Assyrians, was thus briefly called the great city.” According to Ktesias, it had a circumference of four hundred and eighty | stadia (twenty-four leagues), with which there well agrees the three days’ journey of Jonah iii. 3; it em- braced the quarter founded by Nimrod, out of which it grew in the times that followed Nimrod, when the Assyrian kings gradually combined the four places into one whole; thus the whole city was named Nin- The ancient assertions respecting the circuit of the city are con- firmed by the excavations. ‘These four cities cor- respond, probably, to the extensive ruins on the east of the Tigris, that have lately been made known by schik, opposite Mosul, Khorsabad, five leagues north, and Nimrud, eight leagues north of Mosul.” Keil. See also the note (p. 112) on the agreement of Raw- 350 linson, Grote, Niebuhr, and others, as opposed by the conjectures of Hitzig and Bunsen—The sons of Mizraim: 1. Ludim. As distinguished from the Shemitie Ludim, ver. 22; Movers regards it as the old Berber race of Levatah that settled by the Syrtis,—so called after the manner of other collect- ’ ive names of the Mauritanian races. According to Knobel it was the Shemitic Ludim, who, after the Egyptian invasion, were called Hyksos. This is in’ the face of the text. 2. Anamim, This is referred by Knobel to the Egyptian Delta. 3. Lehabim. igyptian Libyans, not to be confounded with 05D, the Libyans proper. 4. Naphtuhim. According to Knobel, the peoplé of Phthah, the god of Mem- phis, in Middle Egypt; according to Bochart, it agrees with NépSus, that connects with the northern coast-line of Egypt. 5. Pathrusim. Inhabitants of Pathros, Meridian land, equivalent to Upper Egypt, or Thebais. 6. Casluhim. The Colchians, “‘ who, according to Herop., ii. c. 105, had their descent from the Egyptians.” This may probably be held of one branch of Mizraim; whereas the origin of the Cushites themselves would seem to point back to Colchis (see Gen. ii.).—Out of whom came Philis- tim.—The name is explained as meaning emigrants, from the Athiopian word fallasa. According to Amos ix. 7; Jer. xlvii, 4, the Philistines went forth from Caphtor. We may reconcile both these decla- rations, by supposing that the beginning of the set- tlement of the Philistines on the coast-line of Canaan, had been a Casluhian colony, but that this was after- wards strengthened by an immigration from Caphtor, and then their territory enlarged by the dispossession of the Avim, Deut. ii. 23.—And Caphtorim.—By old Jewish interpreters these are described as Cap- padocians; they are regarded by Ewald as Cretans. Both suppositions may agree in denoting the course of migration taken by the Caphtorim.—The sons of Canaan :— Notwithstanding the Shemitic lan- guage, the Pheenician Canaanites are here reckoned among the Hamitic nations, and must, therefore, have had their origin from the South. In fact, an- cient writers affirm that they came from the Ery- threan Sea, that is, from the Persian Gulf, to the Mediterranean. And with this agrees the mythology which makes the Phoenician ancestors, Agenor and Phoenix, akin, partly to Belus in Babylonia, and partly with Egyptus (Danaus the Zthiopian).” Kno- bel. 1. Zidon. Although originally the name of a person, this does not exclude its relation to the fa- mous city so called, 3%, primarily, to lay nets; it appears, however, to denote fishing as well as hunt- ing proper. Sidon was the oldest city of the Phceni- cians, 2. Heth. This also stands as the name of a person, whereas the designations of the Canaanites that follow have the form of national appellations, In this position of Heth, together with Sidon the first-born, they would appear to be denoted as the peculiar point of departure of the Canaanitish life, The Hittites (Hethites) on the hill-land of Judah, and especially in the neighborhood of Hebron, were only a branch of the great original Hittite family (1 Kings x. 29; 2 Kings vii. 6), The Kittim also, and the Tyrians, are, according to Knobel, compre- hended in this name. 38, The Jebusites. Distin- guished as the inhabitants of the old Jebus, Jerusa- lem. 4. The Amorites. On the hill-land of Judah, and on the other side of Jordan, the mightiest family of the Canaanites; therefore may their name em- brace all Canaanites (chs. xv. 16; xlviii. 22.) 5. The GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. Girgasites. (ch. xv. 21; Deut. vii. 1; Josh. xxiv. 11); their relation to the Gergesenes (Matt. viii. 28) is very uncertain. 6. Hivites (or Hevites) in Sichem (ch. xxxiv. 2), at Gibeon (Josh. ix. 7), and at the foot of Hermon (Josh. xi. 3). ‘‘The five last sons of Canaan dwelt northward in Phoenicia.” Kno- bel. The Arkites. Denoted from the city Arka, north of Sidon. The Sinites, named from the city Sina, mentioned by Hieronymus, still farther north, More northern still the Zemarites, named from the city Simyra (Simrah, by the moderns). Farthest north the Arvadites (also on the island Aradus) ; on the northeast, the Hamathites, name from the city Hamath, still existing —And afterwards were spread abroad.—This spreading extends from the Pheenician district along the coast. The Kenites, mentioned ch. xv. 19-21, the Kenezites, and the Kadmonites, are regarded by Delifzsch as people of Hamitic descent. So also the Rephaim, besides whom there are still farther named the Perezites. The same thing may probably be said of the Geshu- rim, mentioned 1 Sam. xxvii. 8. The Susim and Emim, ch. xiv., he (Delitzsch) holds to be not Ca- naanites, but a people of a later introduction (p. 800). An immigration of Shemites must, in truth, have preceded that of the Hamites into Canaan.—The sons of Shem (vers. 21-31). The father (ances- tor) of all the children of Eber.—This declara- tion calls attention beforehand to the fact, that in the sons of Eber the Shemitic line of the descend- ants of Abraham separates again in Peleg, namely, from Joktan or his Arabian descendants. 1. Blam. Elamites, the most easterly Shemites who dwelt from the Persian Gulf to the Caspian Sea; at a later day they are lost, together with their language, in the Persians. 2. Asshur. Assyrians to the east of the Tigris, from thence extending towards Syria and Asia Minor. Their mother-country was a plain; hence the name (from "X). Their Shemitic language also underwent a change, and became foreign to the He- brew. 8. Arphaxad. Their dwelling-place was in Arrapachitis, on the east side of the Tigris, from which they spread out; by Ewald and Knobel it is interpreted as referring to the Chaldeans, which Keil, however, regards as uncertain. 4, Lud. The Lydians of Asia Minor, related to the Assyrians (see Kem, p. 114;. by Knope they are referred to the Canaanite and Arabian races). 5. Aram, Arame- ans, in Syria and Mesopotamia—The sons of Aram: Uz and Gether, probably Arabians; Hul and Mash, probably Syrians.—The sons of Ar- phaxad:—The names Salah and Bber (sending forth and passing over) denote the already com- mencing emigration of the Abrahamic race. The two sons of Eber are called Peleg (division) and Jok- tan (diminished, small). With them there is a divi- sion of the Abrahamic and the Arabian lines. Peleg is the ancestor of the first. ‘This is the explanation: in this manner was it that ‘in his day the earth was divided.” Fabri interprets this expression of a catas- trophe that took place in the body of the earth, whose form was then violently divided into the later continental -relations (in his treatise on the “ Origin of Heathenism,” 1859), Delitzsch interprets it as referring, in general, to the division of the earlier population ; Keil explains it of the division that took place in consequence of the building of the tower of Babel.* Knobel refers the language of the separa- * [This would seem to be the interpretation which must readily commends itself to the plain reader. The division of the earth is referred to as something easily known from afd CHAP, X. 1-32, 351 tion of the two brothers, Peleg and Joktan, in which Joktan and his sons took their way to the south. We find here indicated the germ of the facts by which the earth, that is, the population.of the earth, became divided into Judaism and Heathenism. For the separation of Abraham is no immediate or sud- den event. The interrupted emigration of Terah had been previously prepared in Salah and Eber; fully so in Peleg. Therefore is Peleg’s son called 13%, friend of God. In contrast with Salah (the sent), Eber (the passing over), and Peleg (the separating, division), Serug denotes again the complicated or en- tangled, Nahor, the panting, possibly the ineffectual striving, and, finally, Tera, the loitering, the one who tarries on the way. Then comes Abram, the high father, with whom the race of the promise de- cidedly begins. We have no hesitation in taking these names as at the same time historical and sym- bolical—_The sons of Joktan: In their multiplicity they-present a remarkably clear figure of the Arabian tribes. “Thirteen names, some of which can still be pointed out in places and districts of Arabia, whilst others have not, as yet, been discovered, or have been wholly extinguished.” Knobel. Concern- ing their strife, and perhaps, too, their merging in the Hamites, who were in Arabia before them, com- pare Knoxsr, p. 128 —The beni Kahtan, sons of Joktan, or Joktanide, form their leading point of view in Northern Yeman. 1. Almodad. Thename El Mohdad is found among the princes of the Djor- homites, first in Yemen, and then in Hedjez. 2. She- leph, the same as Salif, the Salapenians in a district of Yemen. 38. Hazarmaveth, the same as Hadra- maut (court of death), in Southeastern Arabia, by the Indian Ocean; so named because of the un- healthy climate. 4. Jereh. Sons of the moon, wor- shippers of the moon; south from Chaulan. 5, Has +-doram. The Adramites, on the south coast of Ara- bia. 6. Uzal, One with Sanaa, a city of Yemen. 4, Diklah, meaning the palm ; probably cultivator of the palm-tree; they may be placed conjecturally in the Wady Nadjran, abounding in dates. 8. Obal. Placed by Knobel with Gebal and the Gebanites, 9, Abimael. Father of Mael;* undetermined. 10. Sheba. The Sabezans, a trading people whose capital city is Mariaba. 11. Ophir. Placed by Knobel to the southwest of Arabia, the land-of the Himyarites. Lassen, Ritter, and Delitzsch, remove Ophir to the mouths of the Indus. For the differ- ent views, see Gesenius. It would appear, how- ever, that the point of departure for Ophir must still be sought in Arabia. 12. Havilah. District of Chaulan, in Northern Yemen; probably also colo- nized in India (see Dettrzscu, p. 808). 18. Jobab.— And their dwelling was from Mesha.—Con- what is contained in the narrative, or is soon to be men- tioned. Had there not been such a division so prominently put forth in the xith chapter, there might be some room for speculation. But the obvious connection seems to shut out every other view: He was called Peleg (division), for in his day did that Sree event take place that is soon to be men- tioned, and which is the eesmnd of all these genealogical divisions, See Bocuarr: Phaleg.—T. L.} * [DRBAN, Abi-macl—a kind of naming similar to that by which Ham was designated, [329 "3X, minum, Gen. vi. 5)— thus introducing confusion, madness,+ and discord, into their camp—but also of their ordinary thinkings and conceivings, tév évSuuhoewy Kad évvoidv Kapdias, Heb. iv. 12, “reaching to the dividing line of sou/ and spirit,” yuxijs te kal wvebuaros, holding back the divine gift of reason, and thus introducing disorder into the sense and the utterance through a prior con- fusion in the spirit. It deranged their word-forma- tions by a previous derangement of their thoughts. The difficulty attending the mere outer view, here, arises from a fundamental error which may be found even in acute treatises of philology. Words do not represent things, as outer existences merely, according to the common notion, but rather what we think about things. They are in truth symbols of our own inner world as affected by the outer world of things around us. They translate to us our own thoughts as well as help us to make them known to others. The animal has no such inner world, and therefore it is that he cannot use speech to represent it to himself or to other animals. This would be * [DW 72; for there. It may denote fact or circum- stance as well as place. For there—in that event, or in that confusion. Compare Ps. cxxxiii. 3, where this particle, ow, is used in just the same way to denote the opposite condition of brotherly love, and the opposite effect: ma my BW 4D, ‘for there Jehovah commanded the plessing, even life forever more; ” not in “Mount Her- mon,” or “the mountains of Zion,” merely, but as ‘belong- ing to this holy affection of brotherly love. Compare 1 John iii. 14.-T. L.] t [For a notable example of this, see 2 Chron. xx. 23, where the hosts of Ammon, of Moab, and of Mount Seir, who rose up against Jehoshaphat, are suddenly turned against each other. Profane history records such events as taking place, now and then, in great armies; cases of sud- den thd irretrievable confusion, giving rise to hostility as well as flight. They are called panics, whether the term means simply universal disorder, or what was sometimes called “the wrath of Pan” (Ilavis dpyj, see Evrir. “ Me- dea,” 1169), bringing madness upon an individual or a mul~ titude; it denotes something inexplicable, even if we refuse to call it supernatural. See Potyznvus: De Strateg., ch. 1; also a very striking passage in the ‘‘ Odyssey,” xx. 346, which shows, at all events, the common belief in such sud- den madness falling upon multitudes of men, whatever may be the explanation of it: punoripor 5&8 laAAds "AGivy doBeorov yédw Gpae mapémAayéev 68 venta. Among the suitors Pallas roused Wild laughter irrepressible, and made Their mind to wander far. Even where there is nothing startling to the sense, how many examples are there—they can be cited ever from ve modern times—where the minds of assemblies, compose sometimes of those who claim to be most shrewd and intel- ligent, seem strangely confounded, and, without reason, and against all apparent motive, they do the very thing which is the destruction of all their schemes. They seem seized with a sudden fatuity, and act in a manner which is after- wards unaccountable to themselves.: We may explain it as we will; but so strong is the conviction of an ab extra ower somehow operating in such cases, that it has passed into one of the most common of proverbs, quos Deus vult erdcre prius dementat— those whem God would destroy, fe first makes mad.”-—T. L.] -phorical wor readily admitted in respect to words representative of thought alone; but it is true also of that large class that seem to stand directly for outward sensible things per se. Here, too, the word called the name represents only remotely the thing named, but nearly and primarily, some thinking, conceiving, or emotion, in our souls, connected with the thing, and giving rise to its name.* As proper names are last of all, « [rhe first thing denoted in outward language must have been something purely inward; aconscious state of soul, a thought or an emotion, which demanded an outward sign in some articulated sound representing it, not arbitra- rily, nor accidentally, but by a conscious fitness for it, such as other sounds do not possess, and of which there can no more be given an explanation than of the correspondence between a thought, or an emotion, and an outward look. It is as real, and, at the same time, as inexplicable, as the har- mony which is felt to have place between a feeling, or an idea, and a musical modulation. From the ae roots representing these most interior states, and which must be comparatively few in number, comes the next order of names, namely, those of qualities and actions of outward things regarded as affecting us. From these, in the third pice, come the names of outward things themselves, as aving such qualities or actions, and as denoted by them. Later, indeed, though still very early, there arise meta- , or words derived from the second and third classes, with secondary tropical senses intended to represent mental states as pictured in some outward thing, scene, or act ; but these do not belong to the prime elements of speech, which must begin with radical sounds supposed to represent something inward by areal or imagined fitness. That there is some such primary fitness seems to be assumed by some of the best philological writers, as by Kaulen in his Sprach- verwirrung, and William Von Humboldt, in his work on the Kawi language, although they are unable to explain it. It is not likely that philology will ever penetrate the mys- tery. The great argument, however, for the reality of such a. correspondence between articulated sound and thought, is, that, on the reverse theory, language is arbitra: throughout, which we cannot believe it to be. The denial brings more difficulty than the assumption, however inex- plicable the latter may be. ° _, On this deeper psychology of language we have a hint, it may be reverently said, in what is told us, 1 Cor. xiv., concerning the mysterious “gift of tongues.” It teaches us an important fact, though revealing nothing of its nature or mode, Although miraculous, it must be founded on something in the essential human spiritual constitution. There was a real language here. It is a profane trifling with a most sacred matter to treat it asa mere thaumaturgic babble, designed only to astonish or confound the unbelicv- ing beholders. It was the true outward expression of an elevated inward state. The words uttered must have been not only articulate (that is, formod of vowels and conso- nants) but truly representative, They were none of them Gpwvor (ver. 10), or mere POoyyot, sounds, or noises. They had a real dvvayis tis dwvas (ver. 11), a true “ power of voice,” and this could be nothing else than an inherent fit- ness in the utterance to represent the entranced state, not generally, merely, but in its diversities of ecstatic idea or emotion. They were not understood by the hearers, be- cause, in their ordinary state, there was nothing within them corresponding to it. Even the utterers could not translate it into the common logical language of the vois (ver. 14), or understanding. They were spoken év rvevuart, in the spirit, and only in the spirit could they be under- stood, like the words that Paul heard in his entranced state, “whether in the body, or out of the body, he could not tell.” Paul certainly does not mean to deny, or disparage, the greatness of the spiritual gift in what he says, ver. 19, but only to set forth the greater outward usefulness of the prophetic charisma. “I thank God,” he says (ver. 18) “T speak with tongues more than you all.” He was often in the state that demanded this language to express itself to itself. In respect to the connection of this peculiar case with the general argument, the analogy holds thus far, namely, that these ecstatic utterances were real representa- tive words. They represented an inward spiritual state of thought, or emotion, or both, from a real inherent fitness to doso. We may, therefore, rationally conclude that a simi- lar correspondence between words and ideas was at the be- praning of all human speech. Had man remained spiritual, this connection would have continued as something intui- tively perceived, and leading ever to a right application of articulate sounds to the things or acts signified, as it seems to have guided the first humanity in the naming of animals from some spiritual effect their appearance produced. This primitive gift or faculty of intuition became darkened by 378 so these names of outward objects must have come after words denoting action or quality, and from which their own naming, unless supposed to be purely arbitrary, could alone have been derived, : Originally they must have been-ell descriptive, that is, they had a meaning beyond their mere sign significance. In proportion as such primary meanings have faded out in modern languages, have words lost vividness and emotive power, though still remaining as a convenient classifying notation. Thus in early speech the names of animals, for example, were all descriptive. We find it so even now, as far as we can trace them in the significance of their roots. They invariably de- note something which the animal does, or suffers, or is, or is supposed to do, to suffer, or to be—thus ever implying some judgment of the human mind respecting it; and this corresponds to what is said in the Scripture of the animals being brought before Adam to see (MIN for Adam to see, judge, decide) what name should be given to each one. This name is ever taken from something more general, and the name of that from something more general still, and so back from the concrete to the more and more ab- stract, until we are lost in the mystery, and compelled to admit that there is something in ourselves, and in language, which it is not easy to understand. We may be sure, however, that in all these primary names of animals there was something descriptive, though in many it may have been long lost. In some cases it still shines dimly through the wear of time and usage, enabling us to infer it universally. Thus bird, we may be certain, means something more than bird, and dog than dog, even as fowl, fugel, vogel, still car- ries with it some faint image of flying, and chien, hund, xiwv, canis (cano, canorus, 03"P), suggests the clear, ringing, houndlike sound that denoted the animal in the earliest Arian speech.* Connected with this there is another thought that bas impor- tance here. The first impression is that nouns, or the names of things, must be older in language than verbs. Examination, however, shows just the con- trary as a fact, and then we see that it must be so, if names are not arbitrary, but ever imply some ac- tion or quality of the thing, and so an antecedent naming of that action or passion. But not to pur- sue this farther, it is enough to show that the spring sin, sensuality, and earthliness turning the mind outward, and thus tending, more and more, to make words mere ar- bitrary signs. With all this, there is evidence that in the earliest speech of men there was more of vividness, more of a conscious living connection between words and that which they signified, than afterwards existed when lan- guages became more copious and more mixed. In this way may we suppose that the early roots, though comparatively few in number, had more of a self-interpreting power, and that, in proportion as this continued, there was the greater security against the changes and diversities which a lower spiritual state must necessarily bring into language. A total loss of it among this rebellious Hamitic host may have led to a more rapi confounding, of words and forms, and, of consequence, a greater ruin of language than ever came from any other event in human history. There are exam- ples enough to show how soon the best language becomes a jargon in a community of very bad men, such as thieves and evil adventurers, ‘ere was a Similar case, as We may conceive it, only on a vastly larger scale.—T. L.J * (The name given to an animal could never, of course, be a full description. It ig the selection of some predomi- nant trait, action, or habit, as the distinguishing or naming feature. This may vary among different people. In one tongue the same animal may be denoted by his color, if it has something: peculiar, in another by his manner of move- ment, in another by a burrowing property, or by his method of scizing his prey. These different conceivings may give rise to different names; and yet if the actions so. repre- sented by these names have the same or similar verbal roots they may bo indicative of a remoter unity.—T. L.] GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. of language is in the thought, the conceiving, the affection, as the source of names for things, and for the relations-of things. Confusion here is confusion throughout, and this would be much more operative in a multitude thus affected than in an individual, Break up the community of thought and the com- munity of language is broken up, or begins to break up along with it. It affects not only the matter but the form, the soul, the grammatical structure.* Go- ing still deeper, it changes the mode of lexical deri- vation, or the process through which secondary senses (as they exist in almost all abstract words) come from the primary—the inward etymologies, as they may be called, which are of more importance in determin- ing the affinities of languages than the outward pho- netic etymologies on which some philologists almost exclusively insist, and which are so easily lost—all the more easily and rapidly when the more spiritual bonds are loosed. So, on the other hand, the main- taining secure against mutation the higher ideas that dwell in a language, especially its religious ideas, is most conservative both of its matter and form. Thus may we account, in some degree, for the way in which the Shemitic endured the shock that left all around it those masses of fragments which philolo- gists call the Hamitic or Turanian. The great name of God was in it in fulfilment of the promise. Those other remarkable appellations of Deity, El, Allah, Eloah, Elohim, Adonai, El Shaddai, El Elion, El Olam, raytoxparwp, ticros, didvios, have been to it like a rock of ages, giving security to its other re- ligious ideas, whilst these again have entered exten- * (If our modes of conceiving individual sensible objects have such an effect upon language, much more important, in this respect, are the more abstract conceptions, such as those of time, relative or absolute. The conserving power thus arising may receive an illustration from the scanty, yet most tenacious, Shemitic tenses, as compared with the Greek. In the Hebrew, time is conceived of as reckoned from a moving present, making all that comes after it, future, al- though it may be past to the absolute present of the narra- tor or describer, and all before it, past. It need not be said how much more of a subjective character this imparts to the language, especially in its poetry. It has had, besides. the effect of giving a peculiar form to the two tenses, and of making these, deficient as they may seem in number, de- note all the varieties of time that are expressed in other languages, but in a more graphic manner. Whilst dispens- ing with an absolute present form, which would make it fixed and rigid, it has a flowing presence which may become absolute whenever the narration or description demands it. In the Indo-Germanic tongues, on the other hand, there is a fixed present and a fixed form for it, which will not allow a departure from the absolute time, except as sometimes implied in the assumption of a poetical style. Hence a much greater number of tense forms are demanded, not only for the past, present, and future, simply, but for a past and future to the past and future respectively, besides an indefinite or aorist form, Thus there is a wide machine erforming these offices—accurately, indeed, though wit. ittle more precision than is found in the Shemitic—whilst there is a loss of pictorial and dramatic power. There is no time, relative or absolute, denoted by the Greek tense forms, that may not, in some way, be expressed in the Arabic; whilst the manner in which the latter shifts its present, as we may say, by hanging it on a particle, or making it de- pend upon its plage before or after, gives a greater vividness of narration. It is astonishing how such scantiness of mode and tense escapes confusion and ambiguity ; and yet there is a comparative test_of this which is conclusive. ‘Tho Arabic is written and read without anything like capital letters or italics, without any grammatical or logical pune- tuation, of any kind, making any division of paragraphs, sentences, or clauses. From the beginning of a book to the end, there are none of these helps to relieve deficiencies of expression, whether the result of carelessness, or coming from unavoidable looseness in the language. In English this could not be done. Without such outward helps, the most accurate writer, take he ever so much pains, would be ull of grammatical egnstructions that might be taken in Cen re and not a few unsolvable logical ambigui- CHAP, XI. 10-82. 379 sively into its proper names, its common nouns and verbs, conserving it against the corruption and de- generacy of those who spoke it, and giving even to its Arabic and Syriac branches a holy and religious aspect beyond anything presented in any ancient or modern tongue. Well and worthily have the Jewish Rabbis called it wnpn jw>, the holy tongue. Truly it is so, whether we regard it as the original Noachian speech, or something later preserved entire from the wreck of the Babel confusion.* How this extraordinary breaking up of language took place we may not easily know, though main- taining its possibility, and its strong probability, as a fact, aside from the express Scriptural declaration. There is no department of human inquiry in which We so soon come to the mysterious and inexplicable as in that of language. Some have maintained its onomatopic origin, as has been lately done in a very clear and able treatise by Prof. Whitney. If this, however, is confined to vocal resemblances in the names of sounds themselves, it accounts for only an exceedingly small number of words; if carried far- ther, to supposed analogies between the names of certain acts, or efforts, and the effort of the organs in pronouncing them, it takes in a very few more; beyond this it would be that idea of some inherent fitness in sounds which has been already considered in the note, p. 877, and to which the name onoma- topic may be given in its widest sense; though then, instead of being the easiest, it would be the least explicable of all. So the philologist may endeavor to find the beginning of speech, especially in the names of animals, in the imitation of animal sounds; or he may absurdly trace it to a conventional nam- ing, overlooking the truth that for the initiation of such a proceeding language itself is required—or he may deduce it from accident, or, give him time enough —and a past eternity is very long—he may fancy it coming out of inarticulate or merely interjectional sounds, making its random ‘natural selections,” until, after ages of chaos, a light inexplicable begins to gleam, an intelligence somehow enters into the process, and thus, at last, language comes into form, as a vehicle of rational, that is, of logical + thought. But for human minds, Aéyos, speech, and logos, reason, * [This is on the supposition that the Shemitic (for any difference here between the earliest Hebrew, Arabic, and- Syriac, is of little consequence) was the primitive Noachian speech that came out of the ark. The best argument for it is that there is no good argument to the contrary.. If no other has any better claim on inward philological grounds, the Bible history greatly favors the idea, to say the least, that this language of the ark continued the purest in the line of Shem. aulen, however, in his Sprachverwirrung zu Babel, presents a philological argument that certainly seems to have weight, though, initeell it may not be deemed conclusive. He insists upon the fact that throughout this family, the most important modifications of the verbal idea are made by vowel changes in the root itself, and not merely by additions more or less loosely made to a fixed root, grow- ing only by agglutination. Thus from one root, k-t-l (as written without vowels), we have katal, katel, kotel, katol, katul, kittel, kattel, uttal, ktal, ktel, ktol, etc., all presenting distinct though varying ideas, The modification of the idea is in the root, not attached to it, as in the Indo-Germanic languages, by a modal or tense letter or syllable, taken from something without. The author connects this with a view he maintains, that the vowels, as distinct from the consonants, represcnt the more spiritual element in lan- guage. For the argument in its detail the reader is referred to the very able work above named, p. 73.—T. L.] e t [See the distinction that Plato makes in the Dialogue de Legibus, p. 895, D, between the thing, its spiritual word or Aéyos (which is, in fact, the reason of the thing, or that which makes it what it is for the mind, its constituting idea), and the évoua, the vocal name represéntative of the spirit- ual word itself—T. L.] are one; and the serious thinker, who cannot sepa- rate them, takes but a few steps in this mysterious search before he is forced, either to acknowledge something superhuman, or to admit that in the birth and growth of language, the instrument of all rea- soning, there must be some strange generic intelli- gence, if such a thing can be conceived, that we utterly fail to discover in the individual logic. In other words, men as a race, or races, do what the individual singly never does, something of which he is wholly unconscious, and which he cannot under- stand. The thought of divine intervention is the less strange; it presents the less difficulty, and is, therefore, the more rational. We are not to be un- necessarily introducing a divine agency into the world’s drama, but here, surely, it is a nodus vindice dignus, a knot which a divine intelligence can alone unbind. There is not in all nature anything like that spiritual mystery which meets us on the very threshold of an inquiry into the origin and develop- ment of human speech. Leaving these more abstruse regions, and de- scending again to the clearer field of inductive obser- vation, there still meet us those geographical difficul- ties to which some attention has already been given. as inexplicable on any theory of gradual or mutual development. Allusion was before made to the appearances presented by those broken allophylic tongues to which has been given the common name Turanian—showing themselves among the other families, sometimes in contiguous beds, and then again as lying far away and far apart in space, even as they indicate a remote location in time. In such cases everything indicates the sudden projection of an early people, and of an early speech, entire. Suc- ceeding waves of migration have pressed upon their shores, but changed no feature of their language. That seems to have had its form fixed in the begin- ning, and to defy mutation. Its isolated state, though surrounded by hostile elements, has only ren- dered it more unyielding in this respect. It will perish rather than change into anything else. There may be pointed out another geographical anomaly on a larger scale, and only explicable, too, on the ground of some early intervention to change the course of what might otherwise have been the ordi- nary historical development. A little less than a century ago, the learned began to perceive a striking resemblance between the Greek and the ancient lan- guage of India; a resemblance both in matter and form. They are both of the Arian or Indo-Ger- manic family, and yet we have no right to say that one has been derived from the other. From a period transcending all history they have been widely part- ed, territorially, from each other. They stood in the days of Alexander as distinctly separate as at any time before or after. In all the antecedent period there is no record or tradition of any colonizing on either side, of any military expedition, of any com- mercial or literary intercourse, that could have pro- duced any assimilating effect. All this time, and for long after, there lay directly between them a territory and a people, or peoples, having nothing, socially or politically, in common with either, and speaking a language, of all others, the most directly foreign to both, or to any common language of which they both could be considered as branches. From Southern Arabia to Northern Syria, or the head waters of the Euphrates nearly, there was the con- tinuous strip of the Shemitic, unbroken and unaf- fected during all that time. This, as has before been 380 remarked, was, and is, the most tenacious and en- during of all linguistic families, It is still a wide living speech, although Greek and Sanscrit have both died, and been embalmed in their common and ‘sacred literature, and although this parting language, until comparatively modern times, had no literature except the scanty and most secluded Biblical writ- ings. A branch of the Shemitic, if we may not rather call it the Shemitic itself, continuous and un- changed, is still living, strong and copious. Not- withstanding the addition of many new words, and many new senses that have attached themselves to the old, the Bedouin still talks in a manner that would have been recognized as familiar in the days of Abraham. Could we suppose the patriarch now? listening to it, he would hear some strange words mingled with the great body of its earliest roots, and some few later forms, but in its pronouns, its prepo- | sitions, its tenses, its conjugations, its logical and rhetorical particles, in the nerves and sinews as well as in the bones of the language, it would strike him as substantially the same kind of talk that had passed between him and his sons Isaac and Ishmael.* This most enduring ancient speech has suffered no- thing that could be called development from any- thing on either side of it; and there has been no development across it from one parted shore to the other. Such theories as that of Bunsen, by which he gets Khamism out of Sinism, and Semism out of Khamism, and so on, would never explain this. The difficulty clears up somewhat if we bring in the ex- traordinary, and suppose some early supernatural cleaving and transformation, leaving one primitive type standing in its place, another, greatly changed, to be carried east and west by one people suddenly parted, and meeting again historically after ages of separation, whilst another type, broken into frag- * [This would especially be the caso in respect to sub- jects falling into the Scriptural or Koranic style. In Reck- endorf’s Hebrew translation of the Koran (Leip., 1857), there are, sometimes, whole verses in which the Arabic and Hebrew are almost wholly identical, both in the roots and in the forms.—T.L.] GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. ments, is dispersed far and wide to remote portions of the earth. This may be called cutting or break- ing the knot, rather than untying, but even if the Bible had been silent, it is better than any hypothe- sis called natural, yet found to be wholly inadequate to explain the extraordinary phenomena to which it is applied. It is true, give a theorist time enough, and hypothetical conditions enough, and he may seem to develop almost anything out of anything ° else. Grant him enough of “natural selections,’ and he may show us how fo make worlds and lan- guages by producing, at last, seeming congruities, falling into place after infinite incongruities. But then, such a method of proceeding, supposed to be inherent in the nature of things, cannot stop (if it goes right on without cycles) until it has abolished all things seemingly incongruous or extraordinary, and introduced a perfect level of congruity every- where, in the physical, social, and_ philological world. Only take time enough, or rather suppose, as some do, a past eternity of such working, and the only conceivable result is a perfect sameness; all disorders must long since have been gone, all species must have become one, and that the highest or the lowest, all languages must have become one, and that the best or the poorest—something rising in its linguistic architecture far above the Greek and San- scrit, or sinking in its looseness below anything called Turanian or Sinitic. The extraordinary, now and then, would be not only the easier conception, but an actual relief from the weariness of such a physi- cal monotony. But we have a more sure word of testimony. The great Bible-fact for the believer is, that, in order to prevent a very evil development of humanity, at a very early day, God interfered with men and con- founded their language. There is nothing irrational in this if we believe in a God at all, The manner of doing it is not told us. What is said in Gen. xi. may not wholly explain the linguistic phenomena so early presented, and even now so remarkable; but it may be safely affirmed that far greater difficulties oppose themselves to any other solution that has been, or may yet be offered.—T. L.] -CHAP. XII. 1-20. 381 SECOND PERIOD. Tue Genesis of the patriarchal faith in the promise and of the covenant religion ; of the antagonistic relation, between the faith in the promise and heathenism ; of the harmonious oppositions between the patriarchs and the human civiliza- tion of the heathen world. Patriarchal religion and patriarchal customs.— Cu, XII. 1.-XXXVI. 43. A. ABRAHAM, THE FRIEND OF GOD, AND HIS ACTS OF FAITH. Cu, XII. 1.-XXV. 10. FIRST SECTION. The call of Abram. The emigration to Canaan. The first promise of God. His companionship with wb oa 10 11 12 13 Lot, The first manifestation of God in Canaan, and the first homeless alienage in the land of promise, Abram in Egypt and Pharaoh. ——— Cuaprer XII. 1-20. ‘Now the Lord had said [rather, said] to Abram, Get thee [for thyself, 79 ] out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will show thee [through arevelation], And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed [not bless themselves, which is expressed by the use of the Hithpael, ch. xxii. 1s]. So Abram departed ive forth] as the Lord had spoken unto him, and Lot went with him: and Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran. And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their substance [gains] that they had gathered, and the souls [all the living| that they had gotten in Haran; and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan, and into the land of Canaan they came. And Abram passed through the land unto the place of Sichem [shoulder, ridge or watershed] unto the plain [grove] of Moreh [teacher, owner]. And [Although] the Canaanite was then [already] in the land, And the Lord appeared unto Abram and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land; and there builded he an altar unto the Lord who appeared unto him. And he removed from thence unto a mountain on the east of Bethel [house of Goa] and pitched his tent, having Bethel [now Beitin] on the west [scawards], and Hai [heaps] on the east; and there he builded an altar unto the Lord, and called upon the name of the Lord. And Abram journeyed, going on still [gradually further and further] toward the south. And there was a famine in the land: and Abram went down into Egypt to sojourn there; for the famine was grievous in the land. And it came to pass, when he was come near to enter into Egypt, that he said unto Sarai his wife, Behold now I know that thou art,a fair woman to look upon [or of fair appearance] ; Therefore it shall come to pass, when the Egyptians shall see thee, that they shall say, This is his wife: and they will kill me, but they will save thee alive. Say, I pray thee, thou art my sister, that it may be well with me for thy sake; and my soul shall live because of thee. 382 GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. 14 15 beheld the woman that she was very fair. And it came to pass, that when Abram was come into Egypt, the Egyptians The princes also of Pharach saw her, and commended her before Pharaoh [¥arat, »92 ]: and the woman was taken into Pharaoh's 16 house. oxen, 17 18 19 And he entreated Abram well for her sake: and he had sheep [small cattle] and and he-asses, and men-servants, and maid-servants, and she-asses and camels, And the Lord plagued Pharaoh and his house because of Sarai, Abram’s wife. ‘And Pharaoh called Abram and said, What is this that thou hast done unto me? Why didst thou not tell me that she was thy wife? Why saidst thou, She is my sister? so I might have taken her to me to wife; now, therefore, behold thy wife, take her 20 and go thy way. And Pharaoh commanded his men concerning him: and they sent him away, and his wife, and all that he had. GENERAL PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 1, The-age and state of the world at the patriarch- al period. A multitude of nations who were to share in the salvation, through the faith of Abram, were not yet born into the world, especially the Roman and English people. The Germanic tribes lay still in the bosom of the Scythian nomadic life. A thou- sand years must roll away before the development of the Greek life, and a much longer period before the historical appearance of Rome. The foundation of the patriarchal family, out of whose fuller develop- ment into the twelve tribes the Jewish people sprang, begins with Abram. Patriarchalism appears still as the fundamental form under which the popular life exists and works. But out of this constitution a multitude of small kingdoms have grown up in Canaan and Syria. The first feeble attempt at founding a grand world-monarchy was made by Nimrod at Babel and Nineveh. In Egypt the king- dom of the Pharaohs already existed. The forma- tion of national divisions began with the migrations of the people, and to these we may probably trace the rise of castes. The mechanical resemblance of the kingdom of heaven in the dynasty Hia in China appears to have been complete in its outline and characteristic features, before the definite. foundation of the organic and living kingdom of heaven was begun in Abram. 2. The Biblework will treat more fully of the land of Canaan in the division, “Book of Joshua.” We refer in passing to the Bible-dictionaries, the geographies, and journals of travellers. See also Zann: “The Kingdom of God,” i. p. 105. In this section we notice especially Sichem, Bethel, Ai, and the central part of Palestine; the South, especially the vicinity of Hebron and Sichem (now Nablous) lying between Gerizim and Ebal, about eighteen hours from Jerusalem and sixteen from Nazareth, marks the northern principal residence of the patri- archs. Hebron (also Kirjath-Arba, from the giant Arba, now El Kalil, 7. ¢., friend, beloved, in honor of Abram), southerly about eight hours from Jeru- salem, a very old city, the city of Abram and David, lying in a blooming and beautiful region, was their principal dwelling-place in the south. Their cen- tral residence is the region of Bethel (the name is here anticipated—originally Luz, ch, xxviii. 19, now the ruins of Beitin), and Ai (the old Canaanitish royal city, Josh. vii. 2, two hours easterly from RBeitin, northerly from Jerusalem, now Medineh), an elevated rich pasture-ground. 8. The nomadic life forms the natural basis of the patriarchal society. The Greek term nomad (vouds from vouds, pasture-ground) designates the herdsman in a specific sense, as one who roams with his herds over uncultivated tracts, which as commons are in one aspect wastes, in another pasture-grounds, The nomads are thus pastoral tribes and nations which have no fixed dwelling-place. According to the Conversations-lexicon, “ they stand higher.in the scale of human society than the tribes who live by hunting and fishing, and lower than those who follow agriculture and trade, and belong essentially to the grade of barbarians.” But as an original form of human life, and indeed as the form of the most quiet and retired life, the nomadic state is the basis upon which both the highest human culture and the most extreme savage wildness rest. Original thought- ful minds grew up to be the spiritual princes of hu- manity in the quietude of the nomadic life; mere common natures grew wild and savage under the same influences. The nomadic state still covers large portions of the race, “In Europe we find only weak nomadic tribes on the great steppes skirt- ing the Black sea, and in the high uncultivated northern latitudes, there Tartar and Turkish, here Finnish tribes. Asia and Africa are the congenial homes of the nomadic life. Nearly all the Finnish, Mongolian, and Turkish tribes, and the mixed tribes which have sprung from them, in the steppes and wastes in the northern, central, and border Asia are nomads; so, also the Kurds and Bedouin Arabs of border Asia and North Africa, and nearly all the tribes of Southern Africa, Caffres, Betschuanas, Koranas, and the Hottentots. In South America the Gauchos, and in many respects some Indian tribes, are to be regarded as nomads,” For the nomadic tribes of the East see ScurépeEr, p. 278, KonLrauscH, a description of the Caravan March, p. 282. For the shepherd, herdsman, wilderness, tents, see the ae a Winer [Kirro, Surra, Bible dictionaries. 4. Lhe Period of the Patriarchal Religion, and Form of Religion. “In the New Testament the term mrarpidpxns is applied to Abraham, Heb. vii. 4, to the twelve sons of Jacob, Acts vii, 8 f., and to David, Acts ii, 29, Generally it designates the sacred an- cestors of the early periods of the Israelites (Tob. vi. 21, Vulgate) whom Paul, Rom. ix. 6, xi. 28, calls oi warépes. Hence it has become customary even in historical language to call all the fathers of the early human races, and especially of the Israelitish people (including the twelve sons of Jacob), who are refer- red to and distinguished in biblical history, Patriarchs (German Ereater). ts history, from the old theo- logical point of view, is given by J. H. Herracer, ewercitat, select. de historia sacra patriarchar, (Am- sterdam, 1667-8, Ziirich, 1729), and is, perhaps, more critically treated by J, Jax. Hzss: “History of the CHAP, XIf. 1-20. 383 Patriarchs” (Ziirich, 1776). Winer. The patriarch is the beginner or founder of a race or family (the word is formed from épxw and warpid). The Hebrew designation Mi3% Wx4, which the Septuagint trans- lates &pxovres tay marpidy (1 Chron. ix. 9; xxiv. 81), but in 1 Chron, xxvii. 22, where the Hebrew term is Dx nt “yaw “, and 2 Chron. xix. 8, 4 watpidpyns, does not refer to our patriarchs (which Bretschneider labors in his lexicon to authorize), but to the heads of individual branches of the tribes of Israel. Even in the New Testament, as is clear from Acts ii, 29, the word has a more comprehensive meaning. In Herzog’s Real-Encyclopedia, article Patriarchs, there is a threefold distinction drawn between the biblical and theological, the Jewish usage as to the synagogue officers, and the churchly and official idea of the word. - The Jews, e. g., even after the destruction of Jerusalem, call the presidents of the two schools at Tiberias and Babylon, patriarchs. In the Christian Church all bishops were originally termed patriarchs, but the council of Chalecdon limited the name to those renowned bishops who had raised themselves above bishops, and metro- politans. Here we are dealing only with the biblical and theological meaning of the term. In this relation we must distinguish the general, the narrow- er, and the most restricted idea of the word. In the general and widest sense, all the theocratic ancestors are included in the term, since the patriarchal faith, as the faith of salvation, forms the highest unity running through the Old and New Testaments. In the wider, earlier usual acceptation, the patriarchal period is viewed as including the pious ancestors of biblical history, from Adam to the twelve sons of Jacob, or to the Mosaic era. See Winer, the article in question, the work of Heidegger above referred to, and Hass’s Hutterus redivivus (Religio patriarchalis antediluviana et postdiluviana). Still, Hess, in his history of the patriarchs, has correctly placed the patriarchs before Abram in an introductory history, and begins the history itself with Abram. The earlier division of the Old Testament revelation into patriarchal, Mosaic, and prophetic religion (¢. ¢., form of religion) is not now at all satisfactory. This divi- sion must be completed in one direction through the period of the national Israelitish piety or religious- ness (from Malachi to Christ), and in the other through the period of the symbolic original mono- theism from Adam to Abram, which may be again divided into the two halves of the antediluvian and postdiluvian primitive history. The symbolic mono- theism is distinguished from the patriarchal period both as to form and essence. As to the form of the revelation, the symbol has there the first place, the explanatory word the second (paradise and the para- disaic word, the rainbow and the covenant with Noah) ; but in the history of the patriarchs the word of revelation holds the first rank, and the signs of the theophany enter in a second line, as its confirmation. Thus also the patriarchal religion stands in a relation of opposition and coherence with the Mosaic system. “The Mosaic system is a remould- ing of the patriarchal religion so far as Israel, grown into a people in Egypt, may require a prepa- ratory, and thus a legal and symbolic instruction as to the nature of the faith of Abram and to receive that faith; it is a lower form of that religion so far as the religious life, which already in the patriarchs began to be viewed as an inward life, is here set be- fore the people, who are strangers to it, as an exter- nal Jaw; butis also a higher form of that religion so far as the ideas of the religion of promise are unfold- ed in the.law, and in this explicit form ure introduc- ed into the life of the people. The law, however, is not the fundamental type of the Old Testament, but the faith of Abram. In the patriarchal religion the word of God is prominent, the symbol is subor- dinate; the Mosaic system, as also the primitive re- ligion, brings the symbol into prominence (although the symbol as an institution). In Abram the di- vine promise occupies the foreground, the divine command rests upon it; in the legal period, as to the outward appearance the relation is just the reverse. Evidently the patriarchal religion, as also the pro- phetic period succeeding to the Mosaic system, re- garded in a narrower sense, bears a marked resem- blance to Protestantism, while the Mosaic system ap- pears as the primitive type of the Mediawval Catholic Church.” (See Herzoe’s Encyclopedia, article Pa- triarchs.) As to its nature, the faith of Abram is distin- guished from the faith of the pious ancestors in this, that he obtains and holds the promise of salvation, not only for himself, but for his family; and from the Mosaic system, by the fact that it expressly holds the promised blessing, in the seed of Abram, as a blessing for all people. In reference to the first, there were carlier lines of the promise: the line of Seth in contrast to that of Cain, the line of Shem in opposition to those of Japheth and Ham. But the line of Seth, through its corruption, is gradually lost in the line of Cain, and the line of Shem forms no well-defined opposition to the one all-prevailing heathenism. It is gradually infected with the taint of heathenism, while on the other hand pious be- lieving lives appear in the descendants of Japheth and Ham. Melchisedec, with his eminent piety, be- longs to the Canaanitish people, and thus to the family of Ham. During the whole period of the symbolic primitive religion, the theocratic and hea- then elements are mingled together. The dark aspect of this religion is a mythological, ever-grow- ing heathenism ; its light side the symbolical, ever- waning, primeval monotheism. Heathenism gathers gradually, as a general twilight, through which glim- mer the men of God, as individual stars. Thus Mel- chisedec stands in the surrounding heathenism. In a religious point of view he is ardrwp, duntwp, adye- veadéynros. And he is so far greater than Abram, as he stands as the last shining representative in the Old Testament of the primitive religion looking backwards to the lost paradise (which, however, did not entirely cease in the whole Old Testament pe- riod, and is not absolutely extinguished even in later periods of the world); while Abram stands as the first representative of the decided religion of the future, who, as such, has already the promise, that in his seed all the families of the earth should be blessed, who is neither ayeveaddynros nor andrwp, since the beginning of his calling appears already in his father, Terah. But the old religion develops itself more definitely into the religion of the future at every step, when the corruption for the time has reached such a degree, that faith, looking out beyond the present and the judgment resting upon it, must fix in its eye a new beginning of salvation. Thus it was in Noah, thus also later in the Messianic proph- ets.. But while Noah out of the flood of waters saved a new race of men, Abram has, through the overflowing flood of heathenism, to found a new particular people of faith, who should be a blessing 384 GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. for all. The blessing is already a very advanced idea of the salvation. For Eve the salvation as- sumes the idea of victory, for Lamech, rest, for Noah, the preservation of the divine name and the human race; for Abram, it forms the opposition to the curse. For as the curse is the endless, mys- terious, progressive destruction of life, so the bless- ing is the endless, mysterious, progressive enriching and conservation of life. As the condition, indeed, Abram must go out from the heathen world. It is only as in opposition to it, that he can introduce the blessing which is promised in his seed. The pious forefathers had indeed already taken the first step of faith (Heb. xi). They have, by faith in the creation of the world, uttered the denial of the in- dependence of matter, the fundamental dogma of heathenism (Heb. xi. 3). Abel has taken the second step of faith; he has introduced the sacrifice of faith into the world, and on account of it sacrificed his own lite. Enoch has taken the third; he sealed the faith in the new life and rewards beyond the present. Noah carried faith on to the salvation of God in the divine judgments. Abram, through the required re- nunciation of the world, introduced the Israelitish faith of the future, the hope for the eternal inherit- ance of God, and its introduction through the inher- itance of his blessing. It was the legitimate result of his renunciation of the world that he sealed it through the sacrifice of Isaac. The succeeding patriarchs have developed this faith more fully, each in his own way. Isaac learned to prefer the first- born of the spirit before the first-born of blood; Jacob pointed out Judah as the central line of bless- ing within the blessings of his sons; Joseph proved his fidelity to the promise until his death. Thus was prepared the renunciation and the calling of Moses. (Taken from Lange’s article in Herzog’s Encyclo- pedia.) With the introduction of the Abrahamic religion (see the foregoing section) correspond its mild na- ture and form, and its rich development. As to the first, it must be observed that Abram, notwith- standing the decisive character of his. separation from heathenism, still opposes himself to the hea- then without any fanaticism, Hence it is said in- deed, “‘ Get thee out!” but the second word follows immediately: “thou shalt be a blessing, and in thee shall be blessed, or shall bless themselves, all the families of the earth.” Hence the patriarchs stand upon a friendly footing with the princes of Canaan. In the point of marriage alone, warned by the his- tory of the Sethites, they dreaded theocratic mis- alliances (Gen. xxiv. 3; xxvii. 46). In the fourth generation the first historical characteristic type of fanaticism appears in the deed of Simeon and Levi (Gen. xxxiv.), The judicial and solemn disapproval of this deed by Jacob (Gen. xlix. 5) marks the true spirit of the Israelitish religion ; the bold commenda- tion of this deed in the book Judith (ch. ix. 2) re- veals the later pharisaic Judaism. Even the mixed marriage is legal except in the case of the proscribed Canaanites; and to the questionable and unhappy connections, e. g. of Esau, there are opposed the blessed connections of Joseph and Moses. The only matter of question is whether there is such a certainty of faith that the believing party may raise the unbelieving into the sphere of faith. This was precisely that which modified the crime of Thamar; her fanatical attachment to the house of Jacob, or the tribe of Judah. Mild as was this patriarchal spirit of separation (because it was actually spirit) it was just as strict in the other aspect. Hence there are relative distinctions of the elect from those who are less strictly the chosen, running down through the family of Abram, first in the opposition be- tween Isaac and Ishmael, then in that between Jacob and Esau, finally in the sharp distinctions in the blessings of Jacob. (From the same article.) As to the development of faith in the patriarchal period, it proceeds from the acts of faith in the life of Abram, through the endwrance (or patience) of faith in the life of Isaac, to the conflicts of faith in the life of Jacob; but in the lite of Joseph the opposition between the sufferings and the glory on account of faith, comes into clear and distinct re- lief. The promise also unfolds itself more and more widely. The blessing of the descendants of Abram, who should inherit Palestine, divides itself already in the blessing of Isade upon Jacob, into a blessing of the heavens and the earth, and Jacob’s authority to rule announces more definitely the theocratic kingdom. But in the blessing of Jacob upon Judah, the Shiloh is designated, as the prince of war and peace, to whom the people should be gathered (a further extract from the article in question, p. 199). For the periods of the history of the covenant, see Kunz, p. 135. For the nature of the patriarchal history, Detirzscu, p. 241-249 ; [also Bavuearren, neq p. 165-168; Kain, p. 123-125— A. G. [Kurtz arranges the history of the covenant un- der the following periods or stages: the period of the family, including the triad of patriarchs with the twelve sons of Jacob; the period of the people, having its starting point in the twelve sons of Jacob, and running through the Judges; the period of the kingdom ; the period of the exile and restoration; the period of expectancy; and the period of the Sulfilment.—A. G.] [Delitzsch holds, as we may abridge and condense his views, that the patriarchal history is introductory to the history of Israel, and is completed in three parts—the histories of the three patriarchs, The personal history of the patriarchs revolves around the promise as to Israel, and Canaan its inheritance. The characteristic trait of the patriarchs is faith. This faith shows itself in the whole mighty fulness of its particular elements in Abram ; ceaselessly strugeling, resolutely patient and enduring, . over- coming the world. He is the type of the conflicts, obedience, and victory of faith—rarhp mdvrey tev morevdvrwy. His loving endurance repeats itself in Isaac, his hopeful wrestlings in Jacob. °Ew eamld: map’ édnida is their motto. The promise and faith are the two correlated factors of the people of God. Renouncing the present, and in the midst of trials, its life passes in hope. Hope is its true life, impulse, and affection. Desire is Israel’s element, _ Viewing the patriarchal history from the central point of that history, the incarnation of. God in the fulness of time, its position in the history of salva- tion may be thus defined. There are seven stages in this history: 1. The antediluvian time, both para- disaic and after paradise, during which God was per- sonally and visibly present with men, closing with the flood, when he retires into the heavens and#from thence exercises his judicial and sovereign provi- dence. The goal of history is thenceforward the restoration of this dwelling of God with men. The history has ever tended towards this goal. 2, The patriarchal time during which God manifested him- self personally and even visibly upon the earth, but CHAP. XII, 1-20. 385 only at times and only to a few holy men, the patri- archs, at important points in the history of salvation ; and even these revelations cease from Jacob to Mo- ses. The revelation of God in the name Min", i.e, as the one coming down into history, and revealing himself in it, belongs to this time of the completed creation, of the opening redemption of Israel, His pecu- liar people, 3. The Israelitish period prior to the ex- ile, during which God did not reveal himself personally and visibly as in the patriarchal period to a few, and to these only at times, but to a whole people and perma- nently, but still only to a people and not to mankind. There are two distinguishable epochs in this period. In the first Israel is led by the Angel of Jehovah in the pillar of cloud and fire—the glorious and gra- cious presence of God, visible for the whole people. The second is that of the presence of God in the temple and in the word; in the temple for Israel, but only through the mediation of priests, in the word, but only through the mediation of prophets. But even this lower, less accessible temple-presence ceases when Israel filled up the measure of its ini- quities, The glory of Jehovah departed from the temple. As God at first withdrew his manifested presence from the race and destroyed it with the flood, so now from the Jewish people, and abandons Jerusalem to destruction. As the first stage of the history closes with a judgment from the ascended God, and the second in the long profound silence from Jacob to Moses, so the third again ends like the first. 4. The time succeeding the exile, at its com- mencement not essentially different from the close of the third period. God was present in the word, but the ark of the covenant, the covering, the cher- ubim, the Urim and Thummin, and, more than all, the Shechinah, the visible symbol of the presence of Jehovah, were wanting in the temple. But prophecy itself grew speechless with Malachi and Daniel. The people complain, We see not our signs, there is no more any prophet (Ps. lxxiv. 9). They named Simon the brother of the Maccabeean Jona- than the jyyodmevos kal apxsepeds eis Toy aidva, but it was ws rod dvacriiva: mpophrny morév. Thus forsaken of God, and conscious of its forsaken state, the true Israel passed through this fourth stage of the history, a school of desire for believers waiting | and longing for the new unveiling of the divine countenance. Then at last the dawn broke, Jeho- vah visited his people, and in the mystery now un- veiling itself Seds epavepdon ev capri completes in far-surpassing glory the antitype of Paradise. 65. The time of the life of Christin the flesh. Itis now true in the most literal and real sense, éoxhywoer év fpiv. But at first Israel alone saw him. The rays of his glorious grace reach the heathen only as an exception. But his own received him not. They nailed the manifested in the flesh to the cross, But he who é doSeveias died, rose, ex duvduews Sod, and ascended into heaven. He withdrew himself from the people who had despised him. But as Jehovah, after he had seated himself upon his heavenly throne, sent down at the close of the first stage the judgment of the flood, at the close of the third works the destruction of Jerusalem, so now the God-man ascended into heaven abandons Jeru- salem to destruction and Judah to an exile which still endures. For Israel he will come again, but in the fire of judgment; and for believers he will also come again, but not visibly nor in the fire of judg- ment, but in the fire of the Spirit. 6. The still- enduring present, the time of the spiritual presence of the incarnate God in his church. This presence is both more than the visible presence of Christ in the days of his flesh, and less than the visible pres- ence of the exalted one in which it reaches its en- largement and completion. We must not forget that the Spirit sent upon us from the glorified Son of Man is so far the wapdxAnros as he comforts us on account of his absence; that all the desire of the Christian is to be at home with Christ; and that the hope of the whole church is embraced in the hope for the revelation of Christ. Without sharing in the exaggerated estimate of the miraculous gifts by the Irvingites, it cannot be denied that our time resem- bles the second part of the post-exile period, and that the church now, as believers then, desires the return of the wonderful intensity and gracious ful- ness of the spiritual presence in the primitive church. This desire will receive its fulfilment in the glorious time of the church upon the earth. 7. But the seventh stage of the history of salvation, which endures through the Hons of ons, will first give full satisfaction to all the desires of all believers, and bring that glorious, transcendent restoration of the paradisaical communion with God in the incarnation, to its final perfection. The new Jerusalem (Rev. xxi. 8) is the antitype of Paradise. The communion of God with the first man to be redeemed, has now become his communion with the finglly redeemed humanity. His presence is no longer a transitory alternating, now appearing then vanishing, but en-- during, ever the same, and endless; not limited to individuals nor bound to localities, but to all, and all-pervading ; pot merely divine, but divine and human; not invisible, but visible; not in the form of a servant, butin unveiled glory. God ascends no more, for sin is for ever judged and the earth has become as heaven. He descends no more, for the work of redemption is complete, the whole creation keeps its solemn sabbath, God rests in it, and it rests in God; Jehovah has finished his work, and Elohim is now all in all, mdvra év waow. See De- LITZSCH, p. 239-249.—A. G.] 5. The fundamental form of divine revelation, par- ticularly of the revelation of the old covenant, and still more particularly of the patriarchal period (see p. 48, Introd.). The historically-completed fundamen- tal form of the divine revelation of salvation, is the revelation of God in Christ, the God-man, i. e. in one distinct, unique life, wherein the divine self-commu- nication and revelation, and the human intuition of God, are perfectly united in one, while yet as ele- ments of life they are clearly distinguished from each other. The progressive revelation must correspond in its outline and characteristic features to this goal to which it tends. In its objective aspect it must be through theophanies, in its subjective the vision of the revelation of God, in its plan, tendency, and de- velopment, Christophanies; the chief points in the interchange between God manifesting himself per- sonally and the receptive human spirits in the pre- figurations of the future advent of Christ. The individual phases ‘in the development of this form of revelation are these: (1) The revelation of God through the symbolism of heaven and earth; visibly for the paradisaic spiritual and natural clear-sighted vision; and coming out in particular words and representations of God, addressed to the ear and eye, promptly, according to the necessities of human development, and according to the energy of the Spirit of God, who translates the signs into words, The form of the primitive religion. (2) The self- 386 revelation of God in the form of an angelic appear- ance, distinct from his being ; the pre-announcement of the future Christ, or the Angel of Jehovah in re- ciprocal relation and action with the unconscious see- ing, as in vision, resting upon the unconscious ecsta- sies of believers, manifesting himself first through the miraculous report or voice, then through miraculous vision, i. e. first through the word, then through the figurative appearance. The form of the patriarchal religion, (3) The revelation of God, distinguishing his face, i. e, his gradual incarnation, from his being, or nature, or the angel of his presence in réciprocal relation and action, with the conscious visions, based upon unconscious ecstasies. The Angel of his face, or the face. The fundamental form of the Mosaic sys- tem. (4) The appearance of Jehovah himself in his glory, in the brightness of his glory, surrounded by angelic forms, in reciprocal relation with the con- scious visions, resting upon the conscious ecstasy of the prophets, or Jehovah appearing in his divine Archangel and with his angel-bands over against the prophets overwhelmed and trembling, drawing grad- ually nearer to the incarnate angel of the covenant (Mal. iii, 1). The fundamental form of the prophetic period. (5) The hidden preparation for the advent | of the angel of the covenant, in the period of na- tional religiousness; his work in the depths of hu- man nature. * (6) Christ the Angel of the Covenant, the unity of the divine revelation and the human intuition of God, and therefore also upon the divine side the unity of God and his Angel, and upon the human side the unity of the spiritual intuitions and the natural vision of Christ. We have already, in what we have thus said, as indeed elsewhere (Leben Jesu, p. 46; Dogmatik, p. 586; Henzoe, “Encyclopedia,” The Patriarchs of the Old Testament), stated our view of the Angel of the Lord; but we must here repeat that in our conviction the exegetical prejudice, ever coming into greater prominence, that the Angel of the Lord isa creature-angel, as also the prejudice in reference to the supposed angels (ch. vi.), burdens, obscures, and confuses ina fatal way, Old Testament theology, and leaves no room for a clear psychology of the faith of revelation, an intuitive Christology, or an organic unity of biblical theology. In regard to this point, Kurtz has undertaken with great zeal the defence of the erroneous interpreta- tion, although he had earlier defended the true one, “ History of the Old Covenant,” p. 144, 2d ed. We introduce here his reference to the state of the ques- tion before we enter upon its discussion. ‘‘ The views of interpreters, as to the nature and being of the Angel of the Lord (nim N20, also called pnbsan xb) who appears first in the patriarchal history, have been divided into two elasses. The one sees in hima representation of the deity, entering perceptibly the world of sense, in a human form, and thus is to be regarded as the prefiguration of the incarnation of ‘God in Christ; the other sees in him an angel, like other angels, but who, because he ap- pears in name and mission as-a representative of Je- hovah, is even introduced and spoken of as Jehovah ; indeed, himself speaks and acts as Jehovah. The first view has already made a beaten path for itself in the oldest theology of the synagogue, and in the theological doctrine of the Metatron, of that, from God emanating, godlike revealer of the divine na- ture, has assumed a definite shape and form, although embracing foreign elements (comp. HENGSTENBERG: GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. ‘Christology,’ iii. 2. pp. 81-86). It was adhered to by most of the Fathers (HENGsTENBERG, as piore) and with these must be counted the old churchly Protestant theologians. In recent times it has been defended most decidedly and fully by Henesvensera (i. pp. 125-142, 2d ed.; and iii, 2. pp. 31-86), who, with the Fathers and the old Protestant theologians, recognizes in the angel of the Lord the manifested God, the Zogos of the Christian doctrine of the Trin- ity, and holds this view to be so widely developed in the history of the Old Testament revelation, that it lays the foundation for the doctrine of the /ogos in the Gospel by John (compare his ‘Commentary on the book of Revelation,’ i. p. 613). Sacx (Comment. theol., Bonn, 1821), had already discussed the ques- tion, and reached the conclusion, that the angel of the Lord is identical with Jehovah, but that the term does not designate a person distinct from him, but merely a form of manifestation, on which account he prefers to render aba ‘the commission’ rather than ‘the sent’ (comp. his Apologetié, 2d ed. p. 172). In the footsteps of these two last-named persons, the writer of this [Kurtz] sought to prove, in THotucx’s Anzeiger, 1846, No. 11-14, that the Maleach Jeho- vah is God, as presented in the authors of the Old Testament; appearing, revealed, entering into the limitations of space and time, as perceptible by the senses, distinguished from the invisible God, in his exalted and therefore imperceptible existence, above the world of sense, and removed from all the limita- tions ef space and time; still without bringing it to a full, distinct consciousness, whether this distinction was merely ideal or essential, whether it was to be regarded as supposed for the moment, or grounded in the very nature of God. The most important parts of this essay were included in the first edition of this work. Dx.irzscn: ‘ Biblical and Prophetical Theology, p. 289 ; Nirzscu: ‘System;’ T. Bzcz: ‘Christian Science of Doctrine;’ Kuru: ‘ Book of Joshua,’ p. 87; Hivzrnicx: ‘Old Testament The- ology, p. 78; Eprarp: ‘Christian Dogmatics,’ vol.i.; J. P. Lanaz: ‘Positive Dogmatics,’ p. 586; Stizr: ‘Isaiah, not Pseudo Isaiah,’ p. 758, and others, all agree in the same exhibition of this theo- logical question. “The other view has found a defender in Aveus- vin: De Trinitate, 11. 8, and meets the approval of the Catholic theologians under the influence of their view of the adoration of angels; and of the Socinians, Ar- minians, and Rationalists, from their opposition to the ecclesiastical doctrine of the Trinity. In more recent times, however, some eminent persons, who are entirely free from these interested motives, have adopted this view, viz., SreuprL, in his Pfingstpro- gramme for 1830, and in his ‘Old Testament Theol- ogy,’ p. 252 ff. ; Hormann: Weissagung und Erfill- ung, i. p. 127, and Schriftbeweis, pp. 154-159 and 821-340; Baunearten: ‘Com.’ p. 195; THoLuck: ‘Gospel by John,’ 6th ed. p. 52; Perr: ‘Theo- logical Encyclopedia,’ p. 241; and still more recent- ly, Dexirzscn, renouncing his earlier view, and adopting that of Hofmann: ‘Com. on Genesis,’ p. 249. Between Steudel and Hofmann there is, how- ever, this difference, that the former sees in the Maleach Jehovah an angel especially commissioned by God for each particular case—it being left unde- termined whether it is one and the same or not, while, in Hofmann’s view, it is one and the same angel-prince, who here, as the Maleach Jehovah, later as the captain of the hosts of the Lord (Josh. CHAP. XII. 1--20. 387 v. 14), as the angel of his face (Is. lxiii. 9), under “the personal name of Michael (Dan. x. 18, 21; xii. 1), as the representative of Jehovah, controls the com- monwealth and history of Israel (Weissagung und Erfillung, pp. 131, 132).- In his later work, how- ever, Hofmann has modified his view so far, that the angel who performs this or that work is ever a defi- nite angel, but the same one is not destined for all time, while it is still true that Israel has his prince, his special angel, who is named Michael (Schriftbe- weis, p. 157). “ Barra has ina most peculiar way attempted to unite the views of Hengstenberg and Hofmann: ‘The Angel of the Covenant. A Contribution to Christology. A Letter to Schelling.’ Leipzig, 1845. He holds, with Hengstenberg, the divine personality, and with Hofmann, the angelic created nature of the Maleach Jehovah, and unites the two views through the assertion of a past assumption of the angelic nature of the logos, analogous to his later incarnation. We leave this view unexamined, as utterly baseless,” Kurtz closes his reference (in the 2d ed.) with the explanation, that he finds himself in the same posi- tion as Delitzsch, constrained by his conviction to adopt the view of Hofmann. According to the view of the old ecclesiastical theology, the (Zérst) argument in favor of the self- revelation of God, in the Angel of the Lord, is the personal and real identity in which this Angel-name always appears. If Maleach Jehovah, Maleach Elo- him, may designate some one angel of the Lord, ina peculiar appearance, still it must be kept in view here, that from ch. xvi. onwards this name, with slight and easily explained modifications, is a stand- ing, permanent figure. Hofmann replies: Maleach Hamelech is not the king himself, but the king’s messenger. So also Maleach Jehovah is not Jehovah himself. Certainly! so also the king’s son is not the king himself. According to Hofmann’s view, therefore, it must follow that the Son of God is not God. The nature.of God in his self-distinction is exalted far above that of earthly kings. Secondly, The Angel of Jehovah identifies him- self with Jehovah. He ascribes to himself divine honors, divine determinations (Gen. xvi. 10, 11; xviii. 10, 18, 14, 20, 86; xxii. 12, 15, 16, etc., ete.). Some one objects: The prophets also identify them- selves in a similar way with Jehovah. This is sim- ply an incorrect assertion. There is no authentic passage in which the prophet, in the immediate an- nouncement of the word of God, does not in some way make a clear distinction between his person and the person of Jehovah. The examples which De- litzsch quotes, that ambassadors have identified themselves with their kings, rest upon the political rights and style of ambassadors, and are as little applicable to the style of a creature-angel as to that of apostles and prophets. Thirdly. The writers of the history, and the biblical persons, use promiscuously the names Angel of Jehovah, and Jehovah, and render to this angel divine honor, in worship and sacrifice (Gen. xvi. 13; xviii. 1, 2; xxi. 17-19; xxii. 14; xlviil. 15, 16, ete.), Our opponents answer: It is not high treason when an officer, in the name and commission of the king, as the representative of the person of the king, re- ceives the homage of the subjects. It is not his own person, but the person of the king, whom in this case he represents, which comes into strong relief. With this halting, limping-comparison, they seek to justify the conduct of the men of faith in the Old Testament, who, in their view, rendered freely and without re- proof divine honor toa creature-angel, and did this con- stantly, whenever this angel appears, notwithstanding the Old Testament abhors and condemns the deifying of the creature, and that here the express divine watchword is: “ My glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images” (Is. xlii. 8). The following reasons are urged in favor of the supposition of a creature-angel : a, The name angel designates, throughout, a certain class of spiritual beings. Kurtz formerly replied to this that the name angel is not one of na- ture but of office (Mal. ii. 7; Hag. i 18). Although the name angel now indeed points in many cases to a certain class of spiritual beings, still the fact that there are symbolic angel-forms is a sufficient proof that the Angel of the Lord need not necessarily be regarded as a being of that class of spirits. 6. Hofmann urges that since the advent of Christ the New Testament speaks of the a&yyeAos xupiov (Matt. i. 20; Luke ii. 9; Acts xii. 7), Kurtz has answered that in the places quoted the expression designates a different person from the Maleach Jeho- vah of the Old Testament, or even of the speech of Stephen (Acts vii, 80). He recalls this reply, how- ever, with the remark that if Matthew and Luke had even had a suspicion that the &yyeAos xuplou in the Old Testament always designated the Son of God, who has since become man in Christ, they would never have used this expression even once in refer- ence to a creature-angel. With this conception of angelic appearances the transition to Hofmann’s view was surely possible and easy. To his objection (p. 120) we reply, that the incarnate Christ at Beth- lehem could just as well be made by God to assume an angelic form, near at hand and remote, as the Logos of God in the preparatory steps to his incar- nation. To Kurtz this wonderful manifestation of the “ubiquity” of Christ is only a “‘ pure idea” or fancy. But just as (Gen. xviii. 19). the two angels who went to Sodom are distinguished from the An- gel of Jehovah before whom Abraham stood with his intercessory’ prayer, and as Paul (Gal. ili. 19) suggests the distinction between the angel giving the law at Sinai and the Angel of his face, who was the Christ of the Old Testament (1 Cor. x. 4), so we can distinguish in the New Testament between the two men or the two angels at the grave of the risen one (Luke xxiv. 4; John xx. 12), or the two men upon the Mount of Olives (Acts i. 10) on the one side, and the angel who announces. the birth of Christ on the other. Only Matthew, in bis solemn and festive expression, has embraced these two angels in one symbolic form of the Angel of the Lord, and this indeed upon good grounds, since in the resurrection or the second birth of Christ the Logos was active, as in his birth at Bethlehem. ce. Baumgarten urges: Why should the Angel of the Lord first appear to the Egyptian bondwoman, «Gen. xvi.? Kurtz and Delitzsch have, in their earlier works, given various replies to this question, We answer with another question: Why should the risen Christ first appear to Mary Magdalene, and not to his mother or John? We think, according to the simple law, that the Lord reveals himself first to the poorest, most distressed and receptive hearts. It is, besides, a mere supposition that the Angel of the Lord has first appeared here, where he is first named with this name, as we shall see further below. d. Kurtz urges again; Jt lies against the idea of a continuous development of the knowledge of 388 the historical salvation, in the Holy Scriptures, if there is actually in the very beginning of the Old- Testament history so clear a consciousness of the distinction between the unrevealed and revealed God, and this consciousness is ever becoming more obscure in the progress of the Old Testament, but has vanished entirely and forever in the New Testa- ment. But this is all as manifestly a pure supposi- tion as when Hofmann thinks the Old Testament cannot speak of the self-distinction of God because in that case it would anticipate the doctrine of the Trinity. That indeed is the organic development of revelation from the Old to the New Testament, that the revelation of the Trinity in the divine being was introduced through the revelation of the duality, But when the form’ of the Angel of the Lord in Genesis, passes to the Angel of his face, or the per- sonified face of Jehovah himself in Exodus, then to the prince over the armies of God in Joshua, and finally to the Archangel, the Angel of the Covenant of the later prophets, the organic development of the doctrine in question is manifest, e. Kurtz remarks again the fact that in the New Testament the law is said to be ordained by angels or spoken by the angel (Acts vii. 68; Gal. iii, 19; Heb. ii, 2), as in favor of the doctrine of the created angel. Here he plainly refutes himself. For Paul (Gal. iii. 19) clearly refers to this feature of the law, that it was ordained by the angel, in order to show that the law was subordinate to the promise given to Abram. But if the mediation through angels is a mark of the imperfection of the law, it follows that Abram could not have received the promise through such a mediation of a created angel. To this end he presses especially the appeal to (Heb. ii. 2) “the great superiority of’ the promise to the law is derived from this, that the law was announced 3: &yyéAwy but the gospel 5:2 rod xvplov.” For the answer see Rom. iv. where the promise to which the law is subordinated appears as the yet undeveloped gospel of the old covenant. J. Heb. xiii, 2 refers to the three men who ap- peared to Abram in the plains of Mamre (Gen. xviii). But why not to the two angels whom Lot received (Gen. xix.)? The words can refer only to a peculiar kind of hospitality, Abram knew, how- ever, that the men who were his guests were of a higher order, while Lot appears not to have known it at the beginning, g. The angel-prince Michael (Dan. x. 18, 21; xii. 1) has the same position which the Maleach Je. hovah has in the historical books. But that Michael cannot be the Logos is clear, since he is not the only dina -w. Gabriel appears as a second archangel (Dan. viii. 16; ix. 21), (Tob. xii. 15), adds Raphael and (4 Ezra iv. 1) still further Uriel. When I now, from the identity of Gabriel or Michael with the appearing figure in Rev. i., draw the conclusion, — Gabriel or Michael are symbolical manifested images of Christ (as the old Jewish theology saw in Michael the manifested image of Ji ehovah), and thus the one symbolical angel-form of the Angel of the Lord or angel-prince has branched itself into the seven archangel forms of the coming Christ. Kurtz finds in these forms “ pure ideas” or fancies, But I call them the veiled angelic modes of the revelation and energy of Christ, in the foundation, limits, and life of humanity and history. But Michael had need of’ help (Dan. xi. 1). Indeed! that can in no case be said of the Logos (Luke xxii. 48), h, Zach. i, 12, the Angel of the Lord was subor- GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES, dinated to Jehovah. The Angel of Jehovah as the intercessor for Israel prays to Jehovah of hosts (compare the high-priestly prayer John xvii.). i. Mal. iii. 1, the Messiah was named the Angel of the Covenant. “ But,” Kurtz argues, “ if Mala- chi had ‘intended by the Angel of the Covenant the Angel of Jehovah, he would certainly so have named him.” Then Moses could not have meant the Angel of the Lord when he speaks of the Angel of his face. Certainly it is true that in the Angel of the Covenant the union of the divine form of the Angel of Jehovah and of the human Son of David, as the divine-human founder of the New Testament, is prophetically consummated. k, The Angel of his face (Exod. xxiii, 20), of whom Jehovah says, My name is in him (Exod. xxxii. 84; xxxiii.15; Is. Ixiii. 9), is according to Kurtz the same with the Angel of Jehovah in Gene- sis. But now (Exod. xxxii. 34) Jehovah appears 60 to distinguish this angel from himself that we can- not think of him as one with Jehovah. We can- not indeed freely use the ingenious answer to this difficulty by Hengstenberg,* which Kurtz contests (see p. 154). But the opposition here is not this, that either a created angel goes with Israel, or the Logos-angel, but this, that he would not longer him- self be present in the camp of Israel (Exod. xxxiii. 5), but beyond it (ver. 7), that thus a stricter dis- tinction and separation should be made between the impure people and his sanctuary. In the history of the three angels who visit Abram in the plains (the oaks) of Mamre (Gen. xviii. 19), not only the one angel who remains with Abram enters as Jehovah, but tbe two others, So soon as they were recognized by Lot in their super-earthly being, were addressed by him with the names of God, Adonai, ete. Kurtz overlooks here the change of persons which appears in the narra- tive (ch. xix. 17-19). The peculiar work of the two angels continues until ver. 16. They lead Lot out of the city and set him without (before) the city. The angels now retire to the background, and Je- hovah comes into view and says, “Escape for thy life.” That Jehovah had gone up from Abram into heaven, and here again stands before Lot, can only be a source of error to the literal conception, which attributes to Jehovah a gross corporeal form, and in the same measure the local changes in space. We do not wonder now that Lot clings to the vanishing angel-forms with the ery, Adonai, Now the one unique appearance presents itself clearly before him (ver, 21). Then ts 24) Jehovah rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from Jeho- vah out of heaven. Without a perception of the change of different voices and visions, and the cor- responding change of different revelations, any one will have great difficulty in finding his way through this statement of the struggles of Lot. We now bring into view the gradual develop- ment of the specific revelation of God, which begins with the call of Abram. Hofmann asks: Ought we not to expect that the manifestations of God, so far as they form a preparation for the coming of Christ, should from the very beginning of the history of salvation, and not first from Abram, be de- scribed as manifestations of the Maleach Jehovah? ing Flengstenberg holds that after the sin with the golden calf, God threatened the People that the Maleach Jehovah, the uncreated angel, should no longer go with them, but a lower, subordinate, created angel; but that in answer to the prayer of Moses he a, ain permits the uncreated angel to accompany them.—A, ei CHAP. XII. 1-20. 389 The whole distinction between the primitive and patriarchal religion is thus overlooked. The faith of salvation first takes on the form of a definite religion of the future and becomes a more definite preparation for the incarnation of Christ, in the faith of Abram. Hofmann himself, as he in other places admits that the Maleach Jehovah is the one only form of theophany in the history of the old cove- nant, notwithstanding the numerous changes in the designation of the revelation: e.g. “Jehovah ap- peared,” etc., deprives the implied objection in the above question of any force. Indeed, the appearance of the Maleach Jehovah is announced with the patri- archal revelation. It is recorded (Gen. xii. 1), And Jehovah said to Abram. Starke holds, agreeing with the older theologians, that the Angel of the Lord (see Gal. iii. 16) is the Son of God himself. But Stephen (Acts vii. 2) says the God of glory (Séta) appeared.to our father Abram when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Haran. The ques- tion meets us here therefore: In what relation does the Maleach Jehovah stand to the dia or 13D of Jehovah? In Luke ii. 9 there is a very significant parallelism—tyyedos xuplou éréarn abrois, kal ddta xuptov mepidAauwev avrots, i. e. both ideas are bound together in the closest manner and by an inward tie. In Exod. xxiv. 16, ch. xl. 84, the Sét@ of Jehovah is in the same way intimately connected with Jeho- vah, But in ch. xxxiii. the Séfa of Jehovah, ver. 18, is fully identified with the face of Jehovah, ver. 20. According to ver. 14 (compared with ver. 2 and Is. Ixiii. 9), the face of Jehovah is identical with the Angel of his face. The Angel of Jehovah is thus the manifested figure of Jehovah, in the same way as his dda. The glory fills the holy of holies, and Jehovah appears in the holy of holies (Exod. xl. 84 and other passages). According to Isaiah vi. 8 the revelation of the df of Jehovah-shall fill the whole earth (compare Ezek. i. 28; iii. 12, etc.). In Titus ii, 18 Christ who comes to judgment is de- scribed as the ddéa (glorious) appearing of the great God, and in Heb. i. 8 he is styled amatyaoua rijs Sdéns Seod. It is certain that the word ddfa has a manifold signification, and that when used to desig- nate the theophany it points rather to the manifested splendor of the Spirit, than to the spirit of this glorious appearance. (Hence it is closely connected with the pillar of cloud and of fire.) But so much is clearly proved, that the déf of Jehovah can properly be personally united with Jehovah himself, with Christ, but-not with any creature-angel. It is now in accordance with the course of development, as it is with the character of the patriarchal theo- phany, that it should begin with the miraculous report or voice, the word (Gen. xii. 1), and advance to the miraculous vision or manifestation (ver. 7). For the word of Jehovah is in the first place the primary form of revelation in the time of the patriarchs, and in regard to the vision, it is the more interior (sub- jective) event, which appears already in a lower stage or grade of the development in the line of visions. After the separation of Abram from Lot (ch. xiii. 14) he receives again the word of Jehovah, which bless- es him for his generous course, and in a way corre- sponding with it. So also after his expedition (ch. xy. 1). The blessings in both cases correspond to his well-doing: to his renunciation of the better portions of the land, the promise of the whole land is given, and to the pious man of war, God gives himself as a shield and reward. In the important act of the justification of Abram (ch. xv.), the mi- raculous appearance enters with the word of Jeho- vah. The word of the Lord came to him in vision. If now the Angel of the Lord first appears under this name in the history of Hagar (xvi. 9), we have the reason clearly given. Hagar had learned faith in the house of Abram, and its power to behold as an organ of vision was developed in accordance with her necessities, But the Angel of Jehovah, as the Christ who was to come through Isaac, had a pecu- liar reason for assisting Hagar, since she for the sake of the future Christ is involved in this sorrow. Be sides, there is no increase of the divine revelation in this appearance; Abram saw Jehovah himself in the Angel of Jehovah, and Sarah also in the manifesta- tion of Jehovah sees above all the Angel. Between Abram’s connection with Hagar and the next manifestation of Jehovah there are full thirteen years. But then his faith is strengthened again, and Jehovah appears to him (xvii. 1). The most prominent and important theophany in the life of Abram is the appearance of the three men (ch. xviii.). But this appearance wears its prevailing angelic form, because it is a collective appearance for Abram and Lot, and at the same time refers to the judgment upon Sodom. Hence the two angels are related to their central point as sun-images to the sun itself, and this central point for Abram is Jehovah himself in his manifestation, but not a com- missioned Angel of the Lord. Thus also this Angel visits Sarah (ch. xxi. 1; compare xviii. 10). But the Angel appears in the history of Hagar a second time (xxi. 17), and this time as the Angel of God (Maleach Elohim), not as the Maleach Jehovah, for the question is not now about a return to Abram’s house, but about the independent settlement with Ishmael in the wilderness. The person who tempts Abram (ch. xxii, 1) is Elohim—God as he mani- fests himself to the nations and their general ideas or notions, and the revelation is effected purely through the word. Now also, in the most critical moment for Abram, the Angel of the Lord comes forward, calling down to him from heaven since there was need of a prompt message of relief. In the rest of the narrative this Angel. identifies him- self throughout with Jehovah (vers. 12, 16). To Isaac also Jehovah appears (ch. xxvi. 2), and the second time in the night (ver. 24). He appears to Jacob in the night in a dream (ch. xxviii. 12, 18). Thus also he appears to him as the Angel of God in a dream (ch, xxxi. 11), but throughout identified with Jehovah (ver. 13). Jehovah commands him to return home through the word (ch. xxxi. 3). Laban receives the word of God ina dream (xxxi. 24). The greatest event of revelation in the life of Jacob is the grand theophany, in the night, through the vision, but the man who wrestles with him calls himself God and man (men) at the same time. According to the theory of a created angel, Jacob is not a wrestler with God (Israel), but merely a wrestler with the Angel. It is a more purely ex- ternal circumstance which God uses to warn Jacob through the word to remove from Shechem (xxxv. 1). In the second peculiar manifestation of God to Jacob after his return from Mesopotamia (xxxv. 9), we have a clear and distinct reflection of the first (xxxii. 24). In the night-visions of Joseph, which already appear in the life of Isaac, and occur more frequently with Jacob, the form of revelation during the patriarchal period comes less distinctly into view. But then it enters again, and with new energy, in the life of Moses. The Angel of Jehovah (Ex. iii. 2) is 390 connected with the earlier revelation, and here also is identified with Jehovah and Elohim (ver. 4). But he assumes a more definite form and title, as the Angel of his face, since with the Mosaic system the rejection of any deifying of the creature comes into greater prominence, and since it is impossible that the face of God should be esteemed a creature. The reasons which are urged for the old ecclesi- astical view of the Angel of the Lord, are recapitu- lated by Kurtz in the following order: 1. The Maleach Jehovah identifies himself with Jehovah. 2. Those to whom he appears recognize, name, and worship him as the true God. 8. He receives sacrifice and worship without any protest. 4. The biblical writers constantly speak of him as Jehovah. We add the following reasons: 1, The theory of our opponents opens a wide door in the Old Testament for the dei- fying of the creature, which the Old Testament every- where condemns; and the Romish worship of angels finds in it acomplete justification. 2. The Socinians also gain an important argument for their rejection of the Trinity, if, instead of the self-revelation of God, and of the self-distinction included in it in the Old Testament, there is merely a pure revelation through angels. As the fully developed doctrine of the Trinity cannot be found in the Old Testament, so no one can remove from the Old Testament the be- ginnings of that doctrine, the self-distinction of God, without removing the very substructure on which the New Testament doctrine of the Trinity rests, and without obscuring the Old Testament theology in its very centre and glory. 8. It would break the band of the organic unity between the Old and New Tes- taments, if it could be proved that the central point in the Old Testament revelation is a creature-angel, and that the New Testament revelation passes at one pound from this form to that of the God-man. The theory of the creature-angel in its continuation through a colossal adoration of angels, points down- wards to the Rabbinic and Mohammedan doctrine of angels which has established itself in opposition to the New Testament Christology, and is bound to- gether with that exaggerated doctrine of angels in more recent times, which ever corresponds with a veiled and obscure Christology. . On the other hand, it removes from the New Testament Christology its Old Testament foundation and preparation, which consists in this, that the interchange between God and men is in full operation, and must therefore pre- figure itself in the images of the future God-man. 4, The doctrine of angels itself loses its very heart, its justification and interpretation, if we take away from it the symbolic angel-form which rules it, as its royal centre, i. e. that angelic form which, as a real manifestation of God, as a typical manifestation of Christ, as a manifestation of angels, has the nature and force of a symbol. But with the obliteration of the symbolic element, all the remaining symbolic and angelic images, the cherubim and seraphim, will dis- appear, and with the key of biblical psychology in its representation of the development of the life of the soul, to an organ of revelation, we shall lose the key to the exposition of the Old Testament itself. 5. Augustin was consistent when, with his interpreta- tion of the Angel of Jehovah as a creature-angel, he decidedly rejects the interpretation which regards the sons of God (ch. vi.) as angel-beings ; for the assump- tion of angels who, as such, venture to identify them- selves with Jehovah, notwithstanding they are in peril, and abandon themselves to lustful pleasures with the daughters of men until it issues in apostasy GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. and a magical transformation of their nature, com- bines two groundless and intolerable phantoms. We hold, therefore, that Old Testament theology, in its very heart and centre, is in serious danger from these two great prejudices, as the New Testament from the two great prejudices of a mere mechanical structure of the Gospels, and of the unapostolic and yet more than apostolic brothers of the Lord. (See the defence of the old ecclesiastical view in the Commentary by Kuit,* also with a reference to Kannis, de Angelo Domini diatribe, 1858. The as- sertion of the opposite view held by Delitzsch in his Commentary, meets here its refutation). 6. The aspect of all theophanies as visions. It is a general supposition, that divine revelation is partly through visions, or through inward miraculous sights and sounds. We must, however, bring out distinctly the fundamental position, that every theophany is at the same time vision, and every vision a theophany; but that in the one case the objective theophany, | and in the other the subjective vision, is the prevail- ing feature. The subjective vision appears in the most definite form in dream-visions, of which Adam’s sleep, and Abram’s night-horror (chs. ii. and xv.), are the first striking portents. It develops itself with great power in the lives of Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, and is of still greater importance in the lives of Samuel and Solomon, as also in the night-visions of Zechariah. We find them in the New Testament in the life of Joseph of Nazareth and in the history of Paul. It needs no proof to show that the mani- festations of God or angels in dreams, are not out- ward manifestations to the natural senses. In the elements of the subjective dream-vision, veils itself, however, the existing divine manifestation. But what the dream introduces in the night-life, the see- ing in images—that the ecstasy does in the day or ordinary waking life (see Lance: “ Apostolic Age”). The ecstasy, as the removing of the mind into the condition of unconsciousness, or of a different con- sciousness, is the potential basis of the vision, the vision is the activity or effect of the ecstasy. But since the visions have historical permanence and re- sults, it is evident that they are the intuitions of actual objective manifestations of God. Mere hallu- cinations of the mind lead into the house of error, spiritual visions build the historical house of God. But in this aspect we may distinguish peculiar dream- visions, night-visions of a higher form and power, momentary day-visions, apocalyptic groups or circles of visions, linked together in prophetic contempla- tion, and that habitual clear-sightedness as to visions which is the condition of inspiration. But that theo- phanies, which are ever at the same time Angelopha- nies and Christophanies, and indeed as theophanies of the voice of God, or of the voice from heaven, of the simple appearance of angels, of their more en- larged and complete manifestations of the developed heavenly scene—that these are always conditioned through a disposition or fitness for visions, is clear from numerous passages in the Old and New Testa ments. (2 Kings vi. 17; Dan. x.'7; John xii. 28, 29; xx. 10-12; Acts ix. 8; xii, 7-12; xxii. 9-14. ’ In theology the psychological aspect of revelation has been hitherto very much neglected. All possibla * (The statement and defence, by Keil, of the ordinary view bela by the Church, is aaa. and completely sat- isfactory. As it is now within the reach of the English reader, it is not necessary to quote it here. Those who would see this subject thoroughly and exhaustively treated, may consult Henesrennene’s “ Christology,’ 2d ed., pp. 124-143 of vol. i. and 31-86 of the 2d part of vol. iii—A. rea CHAP. XII. 1-20. 391 forms of revelation have been placed side by side without any connection. Starke says, the Son of God has appeared to believers under six forms or ways: 1. through a voice and words; 2.in an assumed form either of an angel, at least under that name, or in the form of » man, prefiguring his future incar- nation; 8. in a vision; 4. in dreams; 5. in a pillar of cloud and fire; 6. especially to Paul, in a light from heaven. EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL, 1. The call of Abram and his migration to Ca- naan until he reaches Sichem (ch. xii. 1-7), The call of Abram demands from him a threefold re- nunciation, increasing in intensity from one to the other: 1. Out of thy country.—The fatherland. The land of Mesopotamia as it embraced both Ur of the Chaldees and Haran.—2. And from thy kind- red.—The Chaldaic descendants of Shem.—3. From thy father’s house.—Terah and his family (ch. xi. 81, 82). With the threefold demand it connects a threefold promise: 1. Of the special providence of God, leading him, indeed, to a new land (see Heb. xi.); 2. of the natural blessing of a numerous seed (ch. xiii. 16; xv. 5; xvii. 2, 6, 16; xviii. 18; xxi. 18; xxii. 17); 3. of a spiritual blessing for himself, and in its wide extension to all the families of the earth, making his name glorious, and constituting about his person in its spiritual import and relations the great contrast between the subjects of the bless- ing and the curse—And will make thy name great.—That is, as the divinely blessed ancestor and father of a renowned people (Knobel). The name of the father of believers should shed its light and wield its influence through the world’s history.— Thou shalt be a blessing.—Lit: Be thou a bless- i It is a superficial view of this word which in- terprets it, thy name shall become a formula of blessing (Kimchi, Knobel: so that those who desire the greatest happiness shall wish themselves as happy as Abram). It is through the union of men with him (in that they pronounce and wish him blessed), that the mercy and blessing of God passes over to them, and through their enmity to him, which only reveals itself in calumnies and blasphemies* they draw upon themselves the curse of God. The pre- lude to the blessing and the curse flowing through and from the Church, The curse: (Gen. iii, 14 and 17: iv. 11; v. 29; ix. 25; xxvii, 29),—In thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed.+} —The rendering it as reflexive is arbitrary, since we have the special form of the hithpael to express this, and the interpretation all families shall desire that their prosperity may be as thine, is shallow and in- correct (Jarchi, Clericus and others). The reflexive rendering is not necessary, indeed, in ch. xlviii. 20,— = pep the reproaches—blasphemous curses of men—in distinction from “IN the judicial curse of God. Keil.— A. G.] t+ [We must not miss here the fundamental meaning of the 1 in, while we include its instrumental sense, through. Abram is oot only the channel but the source of blessing for ull. Keil.—A.G.] [The families refers to the division of the one human family into a number of families or races. (See x.5; xx. $1). The blessing of Abram will bind into unity the now dissevered parts of the race, and transform that curse which now rests ae all the carth on account of sin, into a blessing for the wholo human race. Keil.—A, G.] [The Old Testament is as broad and catholic in its spirit as the New Testament. Murray, pp. 262, 263.—A. G.] V. 4. The obedience of Abram. He left what he was required to leave, and took with him what it was in his power to take, Lot, although Lot was a burden to him rather than a source of strength (see article Lot, in the Bible Dictionaries”). The emigration was the more heroic, since he was 75 years old, and his father was still living* (ch. 11). He probably went by Damascus (see xv. 2).—V. 5. The souls that they had gotten.—Strictly, made, descriptive of the gain in slaves, male and female.t—Sichem. —the first resting-place of Abram, who came to the place Sichem, + and, indeed, to the oaks of Moreh (Deut. xi. 30), the oak-grove of Moreh.—IMoreh.— Probably the name of the owner. Knobel: the oaks of instruction, which appear to ‘be the same with the oaks of divination (Judges ix. 37). It is not probable that Abram would have fixed his abode precisely (as Knobel thinks) in a grove, which according to heathen notions had a sacred character as the residence of divining priests. The religious significance of the place may have arisen from the fact that Jacob buried the images brought with him in his family, under the oak of Shechem (xxxv. 4). The idols, indeed, must not be thrown into sacred but profane places (Isa. ii. 20). But, perhaps, Jacob had regard to the feelings of his family, and prepared for the images, which, indeed,, were not images belonging to any system of idolatry, an honorable burial. At the time of Joshua the place had a sacred character, and Joshua, therefore, erected here the monumental stone, commemorating the sol- emn renewal of the law. Thus they became the oaks of the pillar at which the Shechemites made Abimelech king (Judges ix. 6).—Then also the Canaanite was in the land.—This explains why in his migra- tions he must pass through the land to Sichem, to find a place suitable for his residence.§ It does not follow from this statement, either that the narrative originated at a time when the Canaanite was no longer in the land, or that the term here designates only a single tribe of this name, which in the time of Moses dwelt upon the sea-coast, and in the valley of the Jordan (as Knobel thinks), comp. ch. xiii. 7; xxxiv. 30. It is a tradition of the Jews, that Noah had assigned Africa as the home of the children of Ham, but that the Canaanites had remained in Canaan against his command, and that therefore Abram, the true heir, was called thither. Ver. 7. The first appearance of Jehovah in vision. Abram’s life of faith had developed itself thus far since he had entered Canaan, and now the promise is given to him of the land of Canaan, as the possession of the promised seed. The second progressive promise|| comp. ch. xiii.#lb, 17; xv. 18; xvii. 8; xxvi. 3; xxviii. 4, 18; xxxv. 12. Abram’s grateful acknowl- * (But according to Acts vii. 4, his father was dead. Terah died when he was 205 years old, and as Abram left Haran when he was 75 years old, he must have been born when Terah was 130 years old, and thus have been the younger son of Terah.—A. G. = t [Not only gotten as secular property but had made obedient to the law of the true God. Wordsworth.—A. G.] 7 (gee Jacozus: “ Notes on Genesis,” vol. i. pp. 227, 228, —szl. GO, § [The author of Genesis evinces in this clause a knowl- edge of the Canaanites, and presupposes their character to bo known in such a way as a late writer could not do. Jacozvus, p. 228.—A, G.] | [Abram is the first person to whom the Lord is said to have appeared, and this is the first place at which the Lord is said to have appeared to Abram, and at this place Christ, the Lord of glory, tirst revealed himself as the Mes- siah (John iv. 26) to the Samaritan woman (the type of the Gentile Church). WorpswortH, p. 6€—A. G.] 392 GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. edgment: the erection of an altar, and the founding of an outward service of Jehovah, which as to its first feature consisted in the calling upon his name (cultus), and as to its second, in the profession and acknowledgment of his name.* Thus also Jacob acted (ch. xxxiii. 20; Josh. xxiv. 1, 26). Bethel, Jerusalem, Hebron, Beersheba are places of the same character (i. ¢., places which were consecrated by the patriarchs, and not as Knobel thinks, whose consecration took place in later times, and then was dated back to the period of the patriarchs). Abram’s altars stood in the oaks of Moreh, and Mamre, in Bethel, and upon Moriab. Abram, and the patri- archs generally, served also the important purpose of preaching through their lives repentance to the Canaanites, as Noah was such a preacher for his time. For God leaves no race to perish unwarned. Sodom had even a constant warning in the life of Lot, 9, Abram’s migration through Canaan from Sichem to Bethel and still further southwards (vers. 8 and 9). The want of pasture for his herds, the presentiments of piety, the yielding of the patriarch to the divine guidance, led him further southwards to a new residence east of Bethel. He pitched his tent between Bethel and Ai. ‘In the time of the Judges there was a sanctuary of Jehovah at Bethel (1. Sam. x. 8), and at one time also it was the abode of the ark of the covenant (Judges xx. 18, 26), In later times it was the chief seat of the illegal worship (cultus) established by Jeroboam (1 Kings xii. 29; Amos vii. 10), and hence its name Bethel in the ‘place of the old name Luz (ch. xxviii. 19; Josh. xviii. 13; Judges i. 23). In Genesis it bears this name already in the time of the patriarchs, who here re- . ceived manifestations of God and offered sacrifices to “him (ch. xiii. 4; xxviii. 22; xxxv. 7). Thus Kno- bel explains the name as if there was an internal necessity for denying the fact of the consecration of Bethel through the dream and vision of Jacob. But that Bethel should be geographically known as Luz by the Canaanites, long after the patriarchs had made it theocratically Bethel, involves no real diffi- culty.;—Abram journeyed (broke up his en- campment and went).—The whole statement ‘brings to view and illustrates the nomadic life, as also the allusion to his dwelling in tents.{— Going on still toward the South.—The southern part of Canaan toward the wilderness, a rich pasture- Jand. A particular definite residence in Hebron is spoken of in ch. xiii. 18. 8. Abram’s journey to Egypt (vers. 10-20).— There was a famine in the land.—The frequent famines are a peculiar characteristic of early times and of uncivilized lands. Egypt as a*rich and fruitful land was even then a refuge from famine, as it was in the history of Jacob (Joseru., Antig. xv. 9, 2).— Say, I pray thee (or now, still), thou art my sister.—The women at that time went unveiled, and * [He thus also took possession of the land in the name of hiscovenant God, Sce Busx, 364; Jacozus, 229.—A, G.] t [Jacob gave his name to the place twice (Gen. xxviii. 19; xxxy. 15). As the name was not first given in the second instance, so it may not bave been in the first. Accordingly we meet with it as an existing name in Abram’s time, without being constrained to account for it by supposing the resent narrative to have been composed in 1 present ‘orm after the time of Jacob’s visit. On the other hand, we may regard it as an interesting trace of eels ey having Le Present in the land even before the arrival of Abram.” lurphy.—A. G. + [“ He had left his house at Haran, and now dwelt in seus ee a strange country’ (Heb. xi. 9), Wordsworth, this receives confirmation from the Egyptian monu- ments. The custom was changed after the conquest of the land by the Persians. Sarah was ten years younger than Abram (ch. xvii. 17), and, therefore, about 65 years of age. In the patriarchal manner of life, her age would not make so deep a mark ; and there is no real ground for questioning the continu- ance of her youthful bloom and beauty. It is more remarkable that Abram should adopt the same course again (ch, 20), and that Isaac should once have imitated his example (ch. xxvi. 7). Modern criticism in this case, as often in other cases, chooses rather to admit, that there is a remarkable confusion in the narrative, than that there should have been a remarkable repetition of the same act. ‘It is held with good reason,” says Knobel, “that one and the same event lies at the foundation of these three nar- ratives.” But the result of the first act of Abram did not necessarily restrain him from the second, and Isaac, especially in moments of anxiety, may have easily yielded himself to a slavish imitation of his father’s conduct. The name Abimelech lays no real ground for the identity of the second and third narrative, sinve this was a standing title of the kings of Philistia, as Pharaoh* was of the kings of Egypt. According to (ch. xx. 13) Abram had al- ready in his migration from Haran arranged with Sarah the expression referred to for bis protection while among strangers, and this explains the repeti- tion of the act, the prominent point in the moral problem (see below). ‘‘ The Hebrew consciousness,” says Knobel, ‘‘ pleased itself with the thought that on different occasions the ‘mothers’ were objects of admiration for their beauty, while they were kept from insult, and their husbands protected in their rights by God.” Since the “‘ Israclitish consciousness ” has not concealed by silence that Leah, the mother of the larger part of the Jews, was not beautiful, we may trust its account of the beauty of Sarah, Re- bekah and Rachel, and the more so since the beauty of that type appears still in Jewish women. It must be observed also that by the side of the Hamitic wo- men in Egypt and Canaan, Semitic women, even when advanced in years, would be admired as beau- ties. Abram desired that Sarah should say that she was his sister, lest he should be killed. If she was regarded as his wife, an Egyptian could only obtain her, when he had murdered her husband and pos- sessor; but if she was his sister, then there was a hope that she might be won from her brother by kindly means. The declaration was not false (ch. xx. 12), but it was not the whole truth. Knobel. Ver. 15. And commended her before Pharaoh. —“ Modern travellers speak in a similar way of ori- ental kings, who incorporate into their harem the beautiful women of their land in perfectly arbitrary way.” Knobel. ‘The recognition of Sarah’s beauty is more easily explained, if we take into view that the Egyptian women, although not of so dark a com- plexion as the Nubians or Ethiopians, were yet of a darker shade than the Asiatics. The women of high rank were usually represented upon the monuments in lighter shades for the purpose of flattery.” Hengstenberg. ‘According to older records the * (“M93D from the Coptic Ouro with the masculine article pi or p, Powro, king. The dynasty and residence of the king cannot be certainly determined. But it is worthy of notice that there isno trace here of the later Egyptian eee for the nomadic life and occey ation ; a fact which eaks decidedly for the antiquity and historical character of the narrative.” Kurtz.—A. G.] CHAP. XI, 1-20, 393 Egyptian court consisted of the sons of the most illustrious priests—Into Pharaoh’s house, i. ¢., harem.” Schréder.—Ver. 16. The possessions of the nomadic chief. ‘According to Burkhardt and Robinson all the Arabic Bedouin hordes do not own horses. Strabo already relates this as true of the Nabatewans (p. 16).” Knobel. The horse does not appear with the patriarchs, and as a costly, proud animal, both as a war-horse and in ordinary use, was generally in the theocratic view regarded as a symbol of worldly splendor.—Ver. 17. The Lord plagued Pharaoh with great plagues [blows].—They were such plagues of sickness as to guard Sarai from injury (ch. xx. 4, 6)—Ver. 18. This Pharaoh is not hardened like the later king of that name. He concludes that he is punished for the sake of Sarai. Whence he draws this conclusion we are not told.* —V. 20. Now follows the dismissal of Abram, but still a dismissal full of honorable accompaniments. “Pharaoh’s conduct moreover shows how under all that idolatry which then held the Egyptians in its embrace, there was still existing a certain faith in the supreme God, and a kind of reverential fear before him.” DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL. 1. Ker: “The history of the life of Abram from his calling to his death unfolds itself in four stages, whose beginnings are marked by divine revelations of special significance. The first stage (chs. xti—xiv.) begins with his calling and emigration to Canaan; the second (chs. xv. xvi.) with the promise of an heir and the formation of the covenant; the third (chs. xvii—xxi.) with the establishment of the covenant through the change of name and the introduction of the covenant-sign of circumcision ; the fourth (chs. xxii.-xxv. 11) with the trial or temptation of Abram for the preservation and perfecting of his faith. All the divine revelations to him proceed from Jehovah, and the name Jehovah prevails through the whole life of the father of the faithful, the name Elohim appearing only where Jehovah, according to its sig- nificance, would have been entirely out of place, or less appropriate.” Viewing his life with respect to his faith, the first Section (chs. xii—xiv.) marks pecu- liarly the calling of Abraham ; the second states his justification, confirmed through his reception into the covenant of Jehovah—obscured, but not weak- ened, through the erroneous workings of his faith in his connection with Hagar (chs. xv, xvi.); the third states his consecration to be the father of the faithful, and therewith the legal separation of his house, and the establishment of his mild and yet strictly marked relations to the heathen (ch. xvii. xxi.); the fourth treats of the sealing or confirmation of his faith. (From these we must distinguish as a fifth Section the time of the solemn festive rest of his cn or the evening of life (chs. xxiii-—xxv. 10). ‘or the nature of the patriarchal history, compare De.itscH, above. 2. The translation of Stier (xii. 1), the Lord had said, is based upon an incorrect interpretation of the *[V. 19. So I might have taken, Heb. And I took. The construction of the Hebrew does not require the sup- position that she actually became his wife. Our version, though not literal, gives no doubt the corrett sense. If the present narrative admitted of any doubt, the doubt is Here ha by a reference to the parallel case, ch. xx, 6. —A. G. passage, in accordance with a misunderstanding of the words of Stephen (Acts vii. 8). As the first call of Abram in Ur is by no means excluded here by the second call in Haran, so in Acts, the second call- ing in Haran is not excluded by the first in Ur. The first calling was plainly to Abram and his father’s house. In the call before us he was told to go out JSrom his father's house, while his father with the rest should remain in Haran. Starke also fails to distinguish these two callings correctly.* 8. The particularism entering with the calling of Abram must be viewed as the divine method of securing universal results. “In the particular we see the general, in the individual the whole, in the small the great; Abram’s calling is the seed out of which springs the great tree under whose shade many nations rest; all indeed shall one day rest.” Lisco.—There is no mere external preference for Israel in the Old Testament. God has, in his word, threatenings and judgments, dealt as strictly with Israel as with any people» with peculiar strictness, indeed, according to the peculiar gifts and graces which Israel had received. But the proper restric- tion is the truest universality. ‘In the example of the Jewish people God declares, that which was con- cealed, the method and law of his wisdom, and authorizes us to apply it for direction in our own lives, and to other subjects, people, and events.” A quotation in Lisco.— The elements of Abram’s char- acter: heroic faith, humility, and self-sacrifice, en- ergy, benevolence, and gentleness. His call in the East : Christians, Jews, and Mohammedans trace their origin back to him. The purer elements of Islamism come from him. 4, The calling of Abram: 1. In its requisitions; 2. in its promises (see the Exegesis); 3. in its mo- tives. a, The grace of God. The election of Abram. The choice of God reflects itself in the dispositions of men, the gifts of believers. As every people has its peculiar disposition, so the race of Abram, and especially the father of it, had the religious disposi- tion in the highest measure. 6, The great necessity of the world. It appeared about to sink into hea- thenism; the faith must be saved in Abram. c, The destination of Abram. Faith should proceed from one believer to all, just as salvation should proceed from one Saviour to all. The whole Messianic proph- ecy was now embraced in Abram.} * [“ There is no discrepancy between Moses and St. Ste- Bhee St. Stephen’s design was, when he pleaded before the jewish Sanhedrim, to show that God’s revelations were not limited to Jerusalem and Judea, but that he had first spoken. & Bi father of Abram in an idolatrous land, Ur of the ees.’ ‘But Moses dwells specially on Abram’s call from Ha- ran, because Abram’s obedience to that call was the proof of his faith.” Wordsworth. There is no improbability in the supposition that the call was repeated. And this supposition would not only recon- cile the words of Stephen and of Moses, but may explain the fifth verse: ‘And they went forth to go into the land of Canaan, and into the land of Canaan they came.” Abram had left his home in obedience to the original call of God, but had not reached the land in which he was to dwell. Now, upon the second call, he not only sets forth, but con- tinues in his migrations until he reaches Canaan, to which he was directed.—A. G.] t[‘* With the closing word of the promse, ‘in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed,’ the final goal of all oy is ae for there is nothing beyond the bless- ing of all the families of the earth, Thus the whole fulness of the divine purpose in reference to the salvation, is stated in the call of Abram, and connected with him in the closest manner, For the 2 does not designate any relation what- ever of Abram to the general blessing, but designates him 894 5. The calling of Abram to the pilgrimage of faith (Heb. xi. 8). His migration: 1. into Canaan; 2. through Canaan; 8. to Egypt; 4. his return. His calling and migrating an example of the calling and pilgrimage of his race—A type of the calling and pilgrimage of all believers. 6. The character of the life of faith: a, The ex- perience of faith,. Personal revelation of God, the personal providence of God. 6. The work or conces- sion of faith. Personal trust and personal obedience. 4, The word of God to Abraham, sealed through the manifestation of God in Canaan, as the word of the gospel is sealed to the believer through the sacra- ment. Kriz: “The promise was raised from its temporal form to its real nature through Christ, through him the whole earth becomes a Canaan.” 8. Abram and the companions of his faith. Sarai, Lot. The blessings and perils of the companionship of the faithful. ‘‘ The father of believers and his suc- cessors appear constantly in the Bible as one whole: hence it is said so often, ‘To thee will I give this land (ch. xv. 17, ete.)’” Gerlach. 9. The solitude of the nomadic life of the patri- archs, a source of the life of prayer and illumination— a prérequisite for the higher revelation. The solitude. of Moses, the prophets (‘‘ by the rivers of Babylon,” “in the desert,”) of John the Baptist, of Christ the Lord, of the Christians in deserts, of the mystics in the cloisters of the middle ages, of Luther (Jacob Bohme, Fox, etc.). In tranquil retirement, “ Abram was arich, independent herdsman, just as the Be- douin chiefs are still in the deserts and the broad pasture-grounds of Syria, Arabia, and Palestine.” Gerlach, There were already a variety of pursuits; buntsmen, husbandmen, and shepherds. Their sepa- rations and variances (ch. xliii, 32; xlvi. 84). For the tents, deserts, pasturages (uncultivated regions), see Bible Dictionaries. 10. The consecration of Canaan, through the manifestations of God, and the altars of Abram (as well as of the other patriarchs). The heavenly signs of the Church of Christ; the setting apart of the old earth, to a new. The chosen land a type of the Christian earth and of Paradise. ‘“ Abram takes his church with him.” Calwer Handbuch. 11. Abram’s altars, or his calling upon the name of Jehovah, is at the same time a testimony to his name. The true worship is a source of the true mis- sionary—the cultus itself a mission. 12. Abram’s maxim or rule, to report that Sarah was his sister.* Jt was determined upon in the early period of his migrations (ch. xx. 13), but was here first brought into use, and from its ‘successful issue was repeated once by himself, and once imi- tated by Isaac. It was with respect to his faith a fearful hazard. Faith is at the beginning uncertain as to the moral questions and complications of life. Every broad view of the general is at first an uncer- tain view as to the particular. Thus it is in the broad synthetic view in science; itis at first want- ing in reference to the critical and analytical knowl- edge as to the particular. Still the scientific Syn- as the organic means or instrument through which blessing should come.” Baumgarten.—A. G.] (“The Apostle Paul expounds the promise (Gal. iii, 16), showing: 1. that by its express terms, it was made to ex- tend to the Genti es; and, 2, that by the term ‘ seed’ is meant Christ Jesus, ‘he promise looks to the world-wide benefits of redemption which should come through Christ, the seed of Abram.” Jaconus, p. 225.—A. G.] * [See HencstenbERe’s Bettrdge, iii. p. 526 fL—A. G.] GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. thesis is the source of all true science. And thus faith, the great synthesis of heaven, is at first uncer- tain as to the moral problems of the earthly life. The history of all the great beginnings of faith furnishes the, ‘proof, . But still, the great life of faith is the source of all pure and high morality in the world. Abram’s venture was not from laxity as to the sanctity of marriage, or as to his duty to protect his wife; it was from a presumptuous confidence in the wonder- ful assistance of God. It was excused through the great necessity of the time, his defenceless state among strangers, the customary lawlessness of those in power, and as to the relation of the sexes. There- fore Jehovah preserved him from disgrace, although he did not spare him personal anxiety, and the, moral rebuke from a heathen, It is only in Christ, that with the broad view of faith, the knowledge of its moral human measures and limitations is from the beginning perfect. In the yet imperfect, but growing faith, the word is true, “ The children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light.” As a mere matter of prudence, Abram appeared to ‘act prudently. He told no untruth, although he did not tell the whole truth. His word was, at all events, of doubtful import, and therefore, through his anx- ious forecast, was morally hazardous. But the ne- cessity of the time, the difficulty of his position, and his confidence that God would make his relations clear at the proper time, serve to excuse it. It was not intended to effect a final deception: his God would unloose the knot. In his faith Abram was a blameless type of believers, but not in bis applica- tion of his faith to the moral problems of life. Still, even in this regard, he unfolds more and more his heroic greatness. We must distinguish clearly be- tween a momentary, fanatical, exaggerated conf- dence in God, and the tempting of God with a selfish purpose (see the history of Thamar, Rahab). Baum- garten is not correct when he says: “ Abram aban- dons his wife, but not so Jehovah.” The modern stand-point is too prominent even in Delitzsch: ‘He thus thinks that he will give the marriage-honor of his wife a sacrifice for his self-preservation; at all events, he is prepared to do this.” Abram knew from the first, that the promise of blessing from Je- hovah was connected with his person. Hence the instinct of self-preservation is lost in the higher im- pulse for the preservation of the blessing, And if, in relation to this impulse, he placed his marriage in a subordinate position, this occurred certainly from his confidence in the wonderful protection of Jeho- vah, and the heroic conduct of Sarai. His syllogism was doubtless morally incorrect, but it rested upon an exaggeration of his faith, and not’ upon moral cowardice.* Upon any opposing interpretation, the same conduct of the patriarchs could not possibly have been repeated a second and third time. Jeho- vah himself could not have recognized any tempting of God, nor any moral baseness, in his conduct; but * [We are not to be harsh or censorious in our judgments upon the acts of theso eminent saints. But neither are we called upon to defend their acts 3 and if the view of Lange does not satisfy every one, it is well to bear in mind that the Scripture records these acts without expressing distinctly any moral judgment upon them. It impliedly condemns. . The Scripture, however, contains clearly the great princi- ples of moral truth and duty, and then ghontiniss leaves the reader to draw the inference as to the moral quality of the acts which it records. , And its faithfulness in not concealing what may be'of questionable moralit: , “in the lives of the sreatest saints shows the honesty an accuracy of the histo- rion.” Wordsworth says well: “the weaknesses of the patriarchs strengthen our faith in the Pentateuch.”—A. G. CHAP. XII. 1-20, 395 indeed concerns himself in the leading of Abram’s faith (as in the life of Stilling), while he prepares for the presumptuous and erroneous syllogism of his faith its deserved rebuke. In a similar way Calvin recog- nizes the good end of Abram, but at the same time remarks that he failed in the choice of his means. 13. That the Bible speaks in this frank and sim- ple way of the female beauty, as it does generally of beauty in life, and the world, shows how free it is from the gloomy, morose, monkish asceticism, while, however, it does not conceal the perils of beauty. 14, The Pharaoh of this early period, and more simple life, had already his courtiers, flatterers, and harem. How soon the misuse of princely power has been developed with the power itself! In this case, too, a8 it often occurs, the prince is better than his céurt. Pharaoh treats the patriarch with honor, humanity, and a magnanimity which must have put him to shame. 15. As we find recorded in Genesis the begin- ning of polygamy, of despotism, of the harem, and even of unnatural sexual crimes, so also we have here the first corporeal punishment of these sexual sins in the house of Pharaoh. We are not told, indeed, what was the particular kind of punishment, but it is represented as sent for these sins of Pharaoh. 16. Delitzsch holds, that the silence of Abram under the reproof of Pharaoh, is a confession: of his guilt. “Ashamed and penitent, he condemns him- self.” Jy would be very difficult, on this interpreta- tion, to explain the twofold repetition of this act in the life of Abram and of Isaac. We may not trans- fer our judgment of the case to the stage of the moral development of Abram. 17. The history of Sarai, in whose person God guards the future mother of Israel from profanation, is at the same time a sign of the fact, that God pre- serves the sacred marriage in the midst of the cor- ruption of the world. 18. Among the rich possessions which fell to Abram in Egypt, more through the protection and blessing of God, than his own prudence, was most probably the Egyptian maid, Hagar, who afterwards exerted so important an influence upon his course of life. Eliezer, of Damascus, and Hagar, from Egypt, are undesigned testimonies to the genuine historical character of the account of his migration from Meso- potamia to Canaan, and from Canaan to Egypt. 19, Abram’s return from Egypt at this time, was already in some sense a return home, and a type of the Exodus of his descendants from Egypt.* 20. The significance of the wonderful land of Egypt for the history of the kingdom of God. Its connection with Canaan, and its opposition. How often it moves down to Egypt (Egypt lay lower than Canaan), and from thence moves back again! There the Hamitie spirit blooms, here the Semitic (Ziegler) ; there are enigmas, here mysteries; there miracles of death, here of life; there the Pharaohs, here spiritual princes. HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL. See the Doctrinal and Ethical paragraphs.—Jeho- vah, 1, The profound significance of the name; * [The same necessity conducts both him and his de- scendants to Egypt. They both encounter similar dangers in that land—the same mighty arm delivers both, and leads them back enriched with the treasures of that wealthy country.” Kurtz.—A. G.] 2. its eternal value and importance.—Calling of Abram.—Three first proofs of his faith: 1. He must go out from his country and his father’s house, into a strange land; 2. he finds in Palestine “no continuing city,” and soon suffers from famine ; 3. he must go further to Egypt, in danger of his life, marriage, and hope.*—Abram at his altars a preach- er of repentance for the Canaanites.—His pilgrimage. —The companions of his faith The providence of God over the lives‘of believers.—The infallible faith of Abram, and his errors in the applications of his faith, or of his life: 1. That infallibility does not prevent these errors; 2, but it prevents their dan- gerous consequences, and at last removes them.— The consecration of Canaan.—The blessings of faith. Srarce: Wurtemberg Bible: Ver. 1. The call from the condition of sin, or true conversion, springs not from one’s own strength, etc., but only from the grace of God.—Cramer: Whoever will be a follower of God, must separate himself from the world and its wickedness, must leave all consolation and help in the creature, and place his confidence only and alone in the Lord.—If we follow the call of God, we are always in the right way.—The promises of God are yea and amen.—Ver. 3. Whoever wishes and does “good to the saints, will receive good again, but who- ever wishes and does them injury, must meet with calamity.—Vers. 4, 5. The strength of faith can do away with time, and present future things as if pres- ent.t—Upon ver. 13. Since Abram was continually dependent upon the grace of God, he must feel his weakness, which betrays him into manifold acts of insincerity and sins. For, 1. he acted from fear, when he should still have looked to God; 2. he gave out that Sarai was his sister, when she was his wife; 8. he had great guilt in the sin of Pharaoh; 4. he thought to secure his own safety, while he placed Sarai and her chastity in the greatest peril.—Even in the greatest saints, there are many and vari- ous defects and transgressions,—God leads his own out of temptation, even when they have fallen.— OstanpER: God avenges the injustice and disgrace, which are inflicted upon his elect.—Lisco: Abram obeyed because he trusted God; the two together constitute his Cee Abram comes, in his nomadic life and wanderings, he works for the honor of God.—Ver. 13. The failures of this chosen man of God appear, upon a closer survey, as sins of weakness, which, on the one hand, do not destroy his gracious standing with God, but on the other render necessary in him a purifying, providential training. The providence of God watches over his elect.—Grrtacu: In the simple, vivid narrative of the life of Abram, every step is full of importance.— . Ver. 3 is the expression of the more perfect covenant- relationship and communion. His friends are the friends of God, his enemies the enemies of God. God will himself reward every kindness shown to * [There does not seem to be sufficient ground for the conjecture of Murphy, that Abram was now pur his own course, and venturing beyond the limits of the land of promise, without waiting patiently for the divine counsel ; and that he went with a vague suspicion that he was doing wrong. There is reason to believe, that all the movements of the patriarch were not only under divine control, but were a part of God’s plan for the testing and developing of his faith. It was a sore trial to leave the land promised to him, so soon after he had entered it. See also paragraph 20, above.—A. G.] t [Ver. 7. “Wherever he had a tent, God had an altar, and an altar sanctified by prayer.” poe G.j e a ae receives the promise, and leads to obedience.— 396 GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. him, and avenge every injury (in word and deed), Ps. cv. 18-15.—Ver. 13. In the deception which Abram uses, as in the later instances of Jacob and Moses, we see a weakness and impurity of faith which did not yet rely perfectly upon the help of God in his own way and time, but selfishly and eagerly grasped after it. It is not without re- roof. : Calwer Handbuch: The command of God follows the promise (ch. xii. 8). This advances upwards through six steps, until, at the most advanced, the Messiah appears, who should spring from the de- scendants of Abram. I will make thee a great na- tion, natural and spiritual—and still his wife was unfruitful—will bless thee—and still he did not pos- sess a footbreadth of land—will make thy name great—and yet he must be a stranger in a strange land.—ZJn thee shall be blessed,* etc. This promise was repeated to him seven times: the third promise of the Messiah.—The word of God never excuses the imperfections of believers—Bunsen: Abram is the eternal model of all exiles, and the true father of the pilgrim-fathers of the seventeenth century (of the pilgrims of faith of all times, Heb. xi.).—And make thy name great. The Arabians, after Isa. xli. 8, call Abram the friend of God.—ScurépzR: For a long time, as is evident from examples in the family of Abram, God had permitted the truth and its mar- red image to stand side by side. There must come at the last a moment of perfect separation, a moment of declared distinction between truth and falsehood. This moment also actually came—Lurazr: It is cheering, therefore, and full of consolation, when we thus consider how the church began and has in- creased.— With him it is so arranged that he cannot remove his foot from his native ground, without planting it upon an entirely distinct region—the re- * [The promise receives its first fulfilment in Abram, then in the Jews, more perfectly when the Son of God be- came incarnate, ihe seed of Abram, then further in the church eae ane poping ct wag Sopnel, bik ee and fully when rist shall complete church, and come to take h himself —A, G.] i pene gion of faith—Krommacuer: The East still re- sounds with the name of Abram.—Ver. 8. Abram becomes to many a savor of death unto death (2 Cor. ii. 16), although he himself should not curse, That is the prerogative of God, he should only be a blessing.—Blessing and making blessed is the desti- nation of all the elect—BaumcarTEn: Ver. 10, Famine in the land of promise is a severe test for Abram. For the land is promised to him as a good which should compensate all his self-denial.—Ver. 18. In fact, there are found in the oldest histories frequently, here and there, the seeds of the later more developed boasted cunning and prudence.— Passavant: (Abram and his children), Abram was great before God. Howso? Through faith. Faith does it. Go out of thy land.’ The father-land is dear tous. But now it avails, etc—He went out with his God.—Scuwenxe: “ Hours with the Bible.” Does not the call come to thee also: Go out ?—And go in faith? A life in faith is a continual proy- ing—a permanent test.—Heuser: (The Leadings of Abram.) Abram in his pilgrimage: 1. The goal for which he strove; 2. the promises which secured its attainment; 3. the dangers under which he stood; 4, the divine service which he rendered.—Tavsze: The calling of Abram, a type of our calling to the kingdom of God: 1. As to its demands; 2. as to its gracious promises.*—W. Hormann: It is through Abram that we receive all the sacred knowledge until we reach back to paradise ; all that afterwards was preserved for us by Moses came through his mind and heart.—It was the believing look to the past, which fitted Abram to look on into the future. Dexitzscn: The facts (Abram in Egypt) are related to us, not so much for the dishonor of Abram, as for the honor of Jehovah. * [Abram also is an illustrious example to all who hear the call of God. His obedience is prompt and submissive, He neither le be nor questions, but went out not knowing whither he went, Heb. xi. 8.—A, G.] t [Hengstenberg be The object of the writer is not oa glorification, but the glorification of Jehovah.— SECOND SECTION. Abram as a witness for God in Canaan, and his self-denying separation from Lot, The New Promise of God. His altar in Hain (oaks) Mamre. + Cuapter XIII, 1-18. 1 And Abram went up out of Egypt, he and his wife, and all that he had, and Lot 2 with him, into the south [ofCanaan], And Abram was very rich, in cattle [possessions], in 3 silver, and in gold. And he went on his journeys [nomadic departures, stations] from the south, even to Bethel, unto the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between 4 Bethel and Hai; Unto the place of the altar which he had made there at the first: and 5 there Abram called upon the name of the Lord. And Lot also, which went with Abram, 6 had flocks [ema cattle |, and herds [large cattle], and tents. And the land was not able to bear [support] them, that they might dwell together: for their substance was great, so that 7 they could not dwell together. And there was a strife between the herdmen of Abram’s cattle, and the herdmen of Lot's cattle: and the Canaanite and the Perizzite dwelled CHAP. XIII. 1-18. 397 10 11 12 13 14 15 18 then [as owners, settlers, 5ui"] in the land. And Abram said unto Lot, Let there be no strife, I pray thée, between me and thee, and between my herdmen and thy herdmen; for we be bréthren [men, brethren]. Is not the whole land before thee [open to thy choice] ? Separate thyself, I pray thee, from me. If thou wilt take the left hand [lana], then I will go to the right; or if thou depart to the right hand, then I will go to the left. And Lot lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the plain [literally circle] of Jordan [the down- flowing, descending = Rhein], that it was well watered everywhere, before the Lord destroyed Sodom [burning] and Gomorrah [submersion], even as the garden of the Lord [paradise, in Eden with its stream], like the land of Egypt, as [until] thou comest to Zoar [smallness, the little one]. Then Lot chose him all the plain of Jordan; and Lot journeyed east [03p%, from the east, Septuagint and Vulgate incorrect]: and they separated themselves the one from the other. Abram dwelled in the land [province] of Canaan, and Lot dwelled in the cities of the plain [thecircle], and pitched his tent toward Sodom [until it stood at Sodom]. But the men [people] of Sodom were wicked, and sinners before the Lord exceedingly. ‘And the Jord said unto Abram, after that Lot was separated from him, Lift up now thine eyes and look [out] from the place where thou art northward [to Lebanon], and southward [the desert], and eastward [to Perea], and westwards [thesea]. Jor all the land which thou ae seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever [to eternity], And I will make [have determinea] thy seed as the dust of the earth; so that if'a man can num- ber the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered. Arise, walk through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it; for I will give it unto thee. Then Abram removed his tent, and came and dwelt in the plain of Mamre [ fatness, strength : name of the owner], which is in Hebron [connection, confederacy], and built there an altar unto 16 17 the Lord. EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL. 1. The Return of Abram from Egypt, and the introduction of the Separation from Lot (vers. 1-9). Into the south.—Abram returned with Lot, whose migration with him to Egypt is thus presupposed, to Canaan, not as in Luther’s version, to the south, but northwards to the southern part of Palestine, to the region of Hebron and Bethlehem, from which he had gone to Egypt. The 233 is a term which had obvi- ously attained geographically a fixed usage among the Israelites, and points out the southern region of Palestine. But the pasture-ground in this region seems to have been insufficient for Lot and himself at the same time. Besides his treasures in gold and silver he had grown rich in the possession of herds, especially through the large presents of Pharaoh.* Hence he removes further, by slow and easy stages, to the earlier pasture-grounds between Bethel and Hai. Here, where he had earlier built an altar, he again sets up the worship of Jehovah with his fam- ily. This worship is itself also a preaching of Jeho- vah for the heathen. But even here the pasture-land was not broad enough, since Lot also was rich in herds, and the Canaanite and Perizzite then held the greater part of that region in their possession. These Perizzites are referred to, because they were those with whom Abram and Lot came most frequently into contact, and were their rivals. ‘“ The Perizzites, who do not appear in the genealogical lists of the Canaanitish tribes, but only in the geographical enum- eration of the inhabitants of the land (ch. xv. 20; Ex. iii. 8; Deut. vii. 1; Josh. xi, 3), and whom we find in different parts of Canaan, are inhabitants of the lowlands, who devote themselves to agriculture and grazing (Ezek. xxxviii. 11; Zech. ii. 4; Deut. *[Ver. 5. To Lot also there were flocks, The blessing upon Abram overran and flowed over upon Lot. Jacosus, p. 237.—A. G.] ° iii, 5; 1 Sam. vi. 18). The Perizzites, as the author intimates, were in possession of the best pastures; those only remained to Lot and Abram, which they had despised.” Hengstenberg. Schréder conjectures that the Canaanites here designate the inhabitants of the cities in contrast with the Perizzites who dwelt in the open, country. But the name designates, be- yond question, not only a mode of life, but a pecu- liar people, and they are brought into notice here, because they were thickly crowded in the region of Bethel, with Abram. Geriacn: “ Perizzites, prob- ably- dwellers in perazoth, open courts, or villages, inhabitants of the country, in distinction from those who dwelt in cities.” But then the greater portion of the Canaanites would have been Perizzites, from whom still Gerlach distinguishes the Canaanites. They appear to have been nomads. In Gen. xxxiv. 30, they appear in Sichem; in Josh. xi. 3, between the Jebusites and Hittites, upon the mountains. Against the interpretation, inhabitants of the open country, see Kriz, p. 137, who distinguishes the form “TBs and "178 (Deut. iii. 5), inhabitants of the low or flatlands.*—Let there be no strife be- tween me and thee.—The strife between the herdsmen, would soon issue in a strife between their masters, if these should quietly or willingly permit the disorder. It is possible that Lot’s restless, un- easy temper, had already betrayed itself in the open strife of his servants. The position of the words of Abram, between me and thee, standing before the al- lusion to the herdsmen, would seem to intimate something of this kind.—We are brethren (brother men). The law controversies, which, although sometimes allowable between strangers, are yet in all ways to be avoided, ought not to have place between * [Keil adds, as of still greater force, the use of the name, now with the Canaanites, and now with the other tribes of Canaan, who obviously derive their names from their ancestors, or the head of their tribe.—A. G.] 398 brethren. Here kindred, piety, and affection, should make the utmost concessions easy. In his humility Abram places himself on an equality with Lot, calls him brother, although he was his nephew, and owed to him the duty ofa son. Indeed, he so far takes the subordinate place, that he yields to him the choice of the best portions of the land.—If thou wilt take the left hand.—The word of Abram has passed into a proverbial watchword of the peace- loving and yielding temper, in all such cases when a distinction and separation in the circumstances be- comes necessary. 2, Lot's Choice, and the Separation (vers. 10-1 3). The bold, unblushing, self-seeking features in Lot’s character come clearly into view here. He raises his eyes, and with unrestrained greediness chooses what seems to him the best. The circuit of the Jor- dan, ¢. e. the region of the Jordan (named simply "22i7), includes the deep valley of the Jordan (the Ghor), from the Sea of Tiberias to the Dead Sea. The whole valley, until we reach the Red Sea, is the Arabah, which takes its name from the region here mentioned. It is the vale of Siddim (ch. xiv. 8), the present region of the Dead Sea, which is here in- tended. That the lower valley of the Jordan was peculiarly well-watered, and a rich pasture-region, is expressed by a twofold comparison ; it was as Para- dise, and as the land of Egypt. The lower plain of the Jordan was glorious as the vanished glory of Paradise, or as the rich plains of the Nile in Egypt, which were still fresh in the memory of Lot. For the Jordan and its valley, compare the Bible Dic- tionories, geographical works, and books of travels.* —As thou comest to Zoar.—At the southeast of the Dead Sea (Ghor el Szaphia).— And they sepa- rated themselves, the one (a brother) from the other.—The separation was brotherly in a good and , evil sense; good in the mind and thought of Abrath, and as to its peaceful form, but evil in so far as the nephew acts as a privileged brother, and chooses the best_of the land—And Abram dwelled in the land of Canaan.—The opposition here is not, as Knobel thinks, between Canaan and the lower val- ley of the Jordan, but between the land of Canaan in which Abram remained, and the plain rich in cities—(V8 must be emphasized in opposition to "79 ). This also forms a distinct feature in Lot's character. Abram remained in the retirement of his oaks, from which Lot removed further and further toward the cities of the valley, and indeed to those most renowned; he soon has his pastures in the neighborhood of Sodom, and his dwelling in Sodom itself. In Sodom, even, we find him in the most frequented place—at the gate. While there is no doubt that he left Mesopotamia in the characteristic faith of Abram, yet the prominence of the worldly thought and inclination is revealed in him, through these facts, although he on the whole preserves in the very heart of his disposition and thought, the essential features of faith and reverence for God. “Sodom must have lain at the southwesterly end of the Dead Sea. The allusion to the pillar of salt points to this location (ch. xix. 26), and its name is still preserved there in the present Usdum. The near vicinity of Zoar (ch. xix. 20), which must be sought in the Ghor el Szaphia (see ch. xix. 22) and the general nature of the southern part of the Dead * . + 3 7 . 4 . ciate ‘ “Sinai and Palestine;’? Jacozus: GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. Sea, are in favor of this location.” Knobel. It ig true, that the kindred of the-Israelitish tribes left Palestine (ch, xxi. 14; xxv. 6, 18; xxxvi. 6), but it by no means follows, as Knobel holds, that the writer brings this into prominence from special and inter- ested motives, for the same writer records also the journeyings of the Israelites into Egypt.—But the men of Sodom.—We shall learn more fully the wickedness of the Sodomites in the xixth ch. It is referred to here, in order to show that Lot had chosen foolishly when he thought that he was choosing the best portion, and in order to make way for the history of the punishment which came upon Sodom, in which Lot also must suffer for his foXy.* 3. The Renewal and Enlargement of the Promise of the Land of Canaan, with which Abram’s new act of self-denial was rewarded, and his settlement in the groves (oaks) of Mamre, in Hebron (vers: 14-18), —Lift up now thine eyes and look.—After the departure of Lot, Jehovah commanded Abram now also to lift up his eyes, in pious faith, as Lot had raised his eyes in impious and shameless self-seeking. Since Bethel was about central in the land, and lay high upon @ mountain (ch. xii. 8; xxxv. 1, etc.), this direction is evidently historical; + probably Abram could look far and wide over the land in all direc. tions from this place.—Northwards (towards the midnight), etc.—The designation of the four quarters of the heavens (com. ch. xxviii. 14).—And I will make thy seed.{ As the land should be great for the people, thy posterity, so thy people shall be numerous, or innumerable for the land. The seed of Abram are compared with the dust of the earth, with reference to its being innumerable. At a later point, the one hyperbole falls into two: “as the stars of heaven, and as the sand upon the sea-shore” (ch. xv. 5; xxii. 17)—Arise, ete. “The free pas- sage through the land, should serve to animate his faith, and be a sign for his descendants of the sym- bolic seizure and possession of the land. The com- mand is not to be understood as a literal direction; Abram could view the land promised to him, at his pleasure."—Then Abram removed his tent.§ “The oak-grove of Mamre lay in Hebron, and ig often mentioned as the residence of the patriarchs (ch. xiv. 18,18; xxxv. 27), It had its name from the Amorite Mamre, a confederate with Abram (ch. xiv. 13, 24), as the valley northerly from Hebron holds its name, Eschol, from a brother of Mamre” (Num. xiii. 28). Knobel. According to Knobel, the later custom of sacrificing to Jehovah at Hebron * [This is one of the numerous passages which prove the unity of Genesis.—A. G.] __t [Stanley describes the hill as the highest of a success sion of eminences, from which Abram and Lot could take the wide survey of the land on the right hand ond on the left, such as can be enjoyed from no other point in the neighborhood.—A, G.] + [“* The promise of the land for a possession is pbiy . The divine promise is unchangeable. As the seed of Abram should have an eternal existence before God, so also Canaan is the eternal possession of this seed. But this does not avail for the natural descendants of Abram as such, or his seed ee, to the flesh, but for the true spiritual seed, who receive the promise by faith, and hold it in believing hearts. This promise, therefore, neither prevents the exclusion of the unbelieving seed from the land of Canaan, nor secures to the Jews a return to the earthiy Palestine, after their conversion. Through Christ the promise is raised from its temporal form to its real nature; through him the whcle earth becomes a Canaan.” Keil.—* Quum terra in seculum promltstiugy non simpliciter notatur perpetuitas; sed que em accepit Christi adventu.” Calvin.—A G.] § [“ Dwelt, settled down, made it the central point of his subsequent abode in Canaan.” Wordsworth.—A. G.) CHAP. XIII. 1-18. 399 (2 Sam. xv. 7), is dated back to the times in Gene- sis, Still, he can neither deny the migrations, nor the piety of Abram. As to the circumstance that, according to Josh. xv. 13, Hebron at an earlier date was called Kirjath-arba,* see the Introduction. For the founding of Hebron, see Numb. xiii, 23. Bun- sen: ‘This remarkable narrative bears upon its face every evidence of historical truth, and is most fitly assigned to a time soon after 2900 years before Christ.” DOOTRINAL AND ETHICAL, 1, In the history of Abram we must distinguish throughout the providence of God, and the conduct of the patriarch. In the previous chapter the provi- dence of God preserves in safety the promise to Abram, since it preserves Sarah inviolate, In this a new confirmation of the promise appears in the separation from Lot. The conduct of Abram is in both-cases marked by a renunciation of self, grounded in faith. As the previous chapter portrays the self- renunciation of Abram in reference to his country, and his father’s house, in regard to a fixed settlement in Canaan, and to his connubial blessedness, so here we meet a like renunciation as to the relative posi- tion of Lot, and as to the best parts of Palestine itself. For this new act of self-denial is twofold. With the separation of Lot, leaving out of view now the society and assistance which Abram might have had in him, and which was renounced, his former patriarchal dependence upon Abram ceases, and with the residence of Lot and his family in the best of the land, there might arise a serious prejudice to the claims of the descendants of Abram to the land. But in regard to this also he trusts God, and in this case, without any exaggerated or over-hasty confi- dence, such as appeared in the exposure of Sarah. + 2. Abram returns to the place of his altar in Bethel. In like manner Christian settlements, towns, and villages, cluster around their churches. 3. The wealth of Abram is referred to by the early writers ag an example that even rich people may be pious, and also that the pious may be rich, And indeed, without any contradiction to the word of Christ (Matt. xix. 24), for Christ himself explains that word more fully in the 26th verse, by the thought, that through the grace of God, one could be freed from the influence of his wealth, and ena- bled in humility to use it as a moral good for the glory of God. The writing of Clemens Alex., Tis 6 cw(suevos sAovctos, is in place here. Moreover, the danger of riches appears prominently here, in the very first case in which riches, as such, are men- tioned. His riches were, in some measure, a tax to * [Its earliest name was Hebron, but it was later called Kirjath-arba by the sons of Anak. When the Israelites came into the poreeerion of the land, they restored the orig- inal patriarcha] name.”? BAUMGARTEN, p.178. Also, Hunc- STENBERG’S Beitrdge, ii. P 187 f£; and Kurrz: “History of the Old Covenant,” p. 169.— A. G. 7 t [“Abram went up out of E . In the history of Abram, the father of Isaac, the type and pattern of the true Israelites, we see prophetic glimpses of the history of his posterity. Abram went out of Egypt very rich in cattle, silver, and gold. Abram had his Exodus from Egypt into Canaan, and it was a prefiguration of theirs, Ex. xii. 35, 38, which in time prefigures the pilgrimage of the church through the world to the heavenly Canaan. Is not the life of Abram, as presented in the Pentateuch, so wonderfully readjusted to the circumstances and necessities of all the Terad of God, a silent proof of its genuineness and inspira- tion?” Wordsworth.—A. G.] Abram, since he could not find room for his herds, and his possessions threatened to involve him in hos- tility with his nephew. It is here also, as always, tainted with a want; the want in this case of suffi- cient pasturage, and the necessity for the separation of Abram and Lot. But for Lot, indeed, his wealth becomes a temptation, which he does not resist in any creditable way. 4. The germinal divisions of masters ofttimes re- veal themselves clearly in the strifes of their serv- ants and dependents. Even the wives are often in open hostility while their husbands are still at peace. Abram teaches us how to observe these symptoms in the right way. His proposal to separate arises from his love of peace, not from any selfish regard to his own interests.* 5. A law-suit is always doubtful or hazardous, although often necessary. Law-suits between breth- ren are to be avoided with double care and earnest- ness, How beautiful it is for brethren to dwell together in unity (Ps. cxxxiii. 1); but a peaceful separation is also beautiful, if it prevents a dwelling together in strife and hatred. This holds true also in spiritual things. Abram must avoid with special watchfulness giving an offence to the Canaanites.+ 6. ‘‘ Wilt thou to the left hand,” ete. An eter- nal shining example, and a watchword of the peace- loving, magnanimous, self-denying character which is the fruit of faith.t 4. The character of Lot. Its light side must not be overlooked. He had left Mesopotamia and his father’s house, cleaving to Abram and his faith, and up to this time had remained true to him in all his march through the land, to Egypt and back, Still, the return from the rich land of Egypt may have awakened in him thoughts similar to those which wrought with many of the Israelites, who murmured against Moses. At all events, the lower valley of the Jordan appears to him specially desirable, because it bears such a resemblance to Egypt. And in the way and manner, violating both modesty and picty, in which he chose, this province, and regardless of re- ligious prudence, yielded himself to the attractions of Sodom; the shaded and darker features of his character, the want of sincerity, delicacy, and that freedom from the world which became a pilgrim, are clearly seen. He is still, however, a man who can perceive the angels, and protect them as his guests. In comparison with the Sodomites he is righteous. 8. Lot makes the worst choice, while he thinks that he has chosen well. For bis worldly-minded- ness, the sin in his choice,§ he was first punished * [The heavenly principle of forbearance evidently holds the supremacy in Abram’s breast. He walks in the moral atmosphere of the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. vi. 28-42). Murphy.—A. G.] . “The practical nature of Abram’s religion was most strilcingly developed here. His conduct was marked by huniility, condescension, and generosity.” Bush: the natu- ral fruits of his faith.—aA,. G.] t [The presence of those powerful tribes is mentioned to show why Abram and Lot were so straitened as to pastur- age, to si; e the impropriety and danger of their quar- relling among themselves, and fo show that Abram felt that the eyes of these idolaters were upon him, and that any misstep on his part, as the representative of uo ehovah, would be an occasion of stumbling to them.—A. G.] t (“Abram could have claimed the exclusive possession on. the higher ground of the Divine promise and plan. But this exclusiveness is not the spirit of our holy religion.” JAcOBUS, P. 239.—A. G.] : § Pe hy suggests that he was a single man when he parted from Abram, and therefore that be married a woman of Sodom, and thus involved himself in the sin of the Ante- diluvians, Gen. vi. 1-7.—A. G.] 400 GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. through the plundering of his house, and his captivity in the war of the kings, which followed soon after his choice, and then through his fearful flight from Sodom, and the losses, misfortunes and crimes which were connected with it. Thus, the want of regard to true piety, the selfishness, the carelessness as to the snares of the world, must ever be punished. And indeed, it is just when one thinks, that in his own wilful and sinful ways, he has attained his highest wishes, he finds himself ensnared in the retributions of divine righteousness, which rules over him and works with solemn irony. 9. We must distinguish clearly the times of the revelation and manifestation of Jehovah in the life of Abram, from the times in which he conceals himself from view, which may be regarded as the times of the elevation and sinking of the faith of Abram. He enjoys the first manifestation of God after the first proof of his faith, his migration to Ca- naan. On the contrary, there is no intimation of any revelation of God on his return from Egypt. But after Abram’s noble act of faith towards Lot, he again receives a new promise in a new word of the Lord. Then again, after his march for the rescue of Lot (ch. xv. 1), From his connection with Hagar, thirteen years elapse without any mention of a divine revelation, and the revelation which then follows (ch, xvii. 1 ff) wears the form of a renewal of the covenant (ch. xv.) But now, after Abram had obeyed the command as to circumcision, he enjoys the fullest manifestation of God, with the most ex- press and definite promise (ch. xviii. 1 ff.). Thus after his intercessory prayer for Sodom, he is re- warded by the appearance of the angels for Lot, and Lot’s salvation (ch. xix. 29). After the events at Gerar, and his deportment there (ch. xx.), the quiet and ordinary course of life is only broken by the birth of Isaac, and then follows the great trial of his faith, which he heroically endured, and receives the seal of his faith, From this introductory completion of his life, it unfolds itself in the calm coming and going of the evening of his days. But the promises of God always correspond to the acts and conduct of faith which Abram had shown. 10. Lift up thine eyes and look (v.14). A glo- rious antithesis to the word: And Lot lifted up his eyes. The selfish choice brings disgrace and de- struction, the choice according to the counsel and wisdom of God secures blessing and salvation.* 11. “This is the third theocratic promise, in- cluding both the first (ch. xii. 1-3) and the second (ch, xii. 7).”” Knobel. But it has also, like the pre- ceding, its own specific character. The first promise relates to the person of Abram; in him and in his name are embraced all promised blessings. In the second a seed was more definitely promised to Abram, and also the land of Canaan for the seed. But here, in opposition to the narrow limits in which he is with his herds, and to the pre-occupation of the best parts of the land by Lot, there is promised to him the whole land in its extension towards the four quarters of heaven, and to the boundless territory, an innu- merable seed. It should be observed that the whole fulness of the divine promise, is first unreservedly declared to Abram, after the separation from Lot.+ * [‘‘ Thus he who sought this world lost it; and he who was willing to give mp suysning for the honor of God and religion found it.’ Fuller; see Busx, p. 219.—A. G.] . “Abram has now obtained a permanent resting-place in the land, but not a foot-breadth belongs to him. His household is smaller in number than at first. He is old Lot has taken beforehand his part of the good things, His choice appears as a mild or partial example of the choice of Esau (the choice of the lentile-pottage), 12. The Holy land: an allegory of Paradise, a symbol of heaven, a type (germ) of the sanctified and glorified earth. : 13. For the primitive, consecrated Hebron; and the oak-grove Mamre, see the dictionaries, geograph- ical hand-books, and books of travels, and also the Bible-work, Book of Joshua. 14. Starke (the Freiberg Bible): ‘This is the first time that silver and gold are mentioned since, the flood, and we may infer, therefore, that mining for these metals must have been practised.” (Re-. flections upon Tubal-Cain). 15. The declaration that the Canaanites and Perizzites were then in the land, like the allusion to the Canaanites, ch. xii. 6, furnishes no ground for the inference, according to Spinoza, that the passages were first written when there were no longer any Canaanites and Perizzites in the land. For the first passage says plainly, that it was on account of the Canaanites that Abram felt it necessary to go through the land to Sichem; and here again, that owing to their presence, he and Lot found themselves strait- ened for pasture-ground, and were compelled to separate. HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL. See Doctrinal and Ethical paragraphs. The hap- py exodus of Abram from Egypt, a prophecy or type of the glorious Exodus of the children of Israel— Abram’s return to the altar in Bethel.—The house of God the consecration of the home.—Abram and Lot.—The love of peace characteristic of the be- liever.—The scandal of kindred and family strifes.— The eager watchfulness of servants.—The true sepa- ration for the sake of peace.—The watchword of Abram in its typical significance.—The blessing of a spirit of concession.—The character of Lot in its lighter and darker aspects.—Lot’s choice: 1. In its fair promise; 2. in its evil results.—The third prom- ise of God to Abram.—The peril of the worldly life, and the blessing of retirement: Lot in the gate of Sodom, Abram in the oak-grove of Mamre.—How quickly the paradise of Lot’s choice lay in the terri- ble depths of the Dead Sea.—How firm the promise of the eternal possession of the Holy land to Abram’s seed: 1. The conditional character of the promise with reference to his natural descendants (the Ara- bians in Palestine are still his natural sons); 2. its unconditional character for his believing children (Matt. v. 5). Srarke; Abram and Lot feared God; they were related, and fellow-travellers. Poverty, hunger, and toilsome journeys to and fro, could not bring about any strifes, but the abundance of temporal posses sions had nearly accomplished it, when Abram saw and marked the cunning of the devil. If this could happen to holy men like these, we may easily see how far Satan may carry those whose hearts cling to this world’s goods.—Lanex, ver. 2: It is one thing to be rich, and quite another to desire riches, and bend all one’s energies and efforts to that end. Tt is not the former, but the latter, which is in oppo- and childless, and yet his seed shall be as the dust of the earth. All around him is his, and he is only one among the thousands—but én’ éAmié: wap’ éAmiéa.” Delitzsch.—A. G.] CHAP. XIV. 1-24. 401 sition to true faith, and the divine blessing (Sir. xxxi. 1),—Ver. 7. The devil is wont to sow tares, misunderstandings, and divisions, even between pious men and believers (Ps. exxxiii. 1).—Vers. 8, 9, What a beautiful example of humility and the love of peace! The elder yields to the younger.—Whoever will be a son of Abram, must strive to win his neighbor by love, but never seek to prevail by violence.—Ver. 13. It is commonly (often) true, that the people are more depraved in those parts of the land which are more rich and fruitful (Ps. cvi. 24-29).—A good land seldom bears pious people, and we cannot en- dure prosperous days with safety (Ezek. xvi. 49),— OsranvER, upon ver. 18; Religious worship at the first and last.—Lisco: In this history, the principal thing is the grace of God towards the chosen race, the divine providence, through which circumstances are so arranged as to separate from this race one who was not a constituent portion of it. Under this providence Lot freely concedes all his claims to the land of promise, to which the plain of Jordan no longer belonged (certainly not the plain of Sodom, after its submersion). This interpretation is mani- festly correct from the account vers. 14 and 15, that the new promise of the land of Canaan was given to Abram after the departure of Lot.—Ver. 16. In- cludes not barely the natural but also the spiritual descendants—the children of Abram by faith (Jer. xxxiii, 22).*—Ver. 17. This journey should be a * [See also in confirmation the Epistle to the Hebrews, ch, xi. 10, 16, where the apostle points to the true and high- est sense of the land promised. The spiritual seed require a heavenly inheritance, and the heavenly inheritance implies a spiritual seed.—A. G.] THIRD Abram and his War with the Heathen robber-bands for the rescue of Lot. type of the possession which took place much later under Joshua.—GeErLacH upon ver. 2. The outward earthly blessing was, to this man of faith, a pledge of the spiritual and invisible-—Passavant: 1 John ii. 15; Matt. v. 5, 9; vi. 38.—Indeed, if we only assert our just right and possessions, harshly and Jirmly, there is no praise nor reward from God, no promise—no pleasant bow of peace; we have our reward, blessing and peace therein.—Scuréper : From all these notices in reference to Canaan, it is clear that everything in this chapter bears upon the land of eomine= Cebit : If no Canaanites sur- round us, we still live in the midst of enemies, while we live in this world.—Luther: To the service of God, and the preaching of religion, and faith to- wards God (ver. 4), there is added now a most beau- tiful and glorious example of love to our neighbor, and of patience.—Abram’s generous and magnani- mous spirit comes out all the more clearly, through the directly opposite conduct of Lot (ver. 10).—Be- cause Lot had in eye only the beauty of the land, he had no eye for the far higher, inward beauty of Abram’s character.—ScuweEnxeE : In his faith, Abram had placed a low estimate upon the world and its good things, and found a much richer blessing.— Hevser: Abram in his disturbed relation with Lot: 1. The disturbance; 2. the way in which Abram re- moved it; 3. the thought which gave him strength for his work.* * (The whole chapter remarkable, as it presents to us the workings of faith in the domestic and ordinary life, in the common transactions between man and man, and affords us an opportunity of observing how far his daily life was in. unison with that higher character with which the inspired. writers have invested him. BusH, 210.—A, G.] SECTION. The victorious Champion: of Faith and his greeting to Melchizedec, the prince of peace. His conduct towards the King of Sodom, and his associates in the War. —_——_ Caarter XIV. 1-24. 1 And it came to pass in the days’ of Amraph el [Gesenius : it seems to be Sanscrit Amrapilla, keeper’ of the gods; Maurer: perhaps, robbers; First: = Arphaxad| king of Shinar [region of Babylon], Arioch® Gesenius, after Bohlen, Sanscrit Avjaka, venerated; First: the Arian, embracing Persian, Median, and Assyrian | king of Ellasar,° [Symmachus and Vulgate: Pontus; Gesenius: probably the region between Babylon and Elymais Chedorlaomer‘* [Maurer: band of the sheaf; First: probably from the ancient Persian] king of Elam Elymais |, and Tidal [Gesenius : fear, veneration | king of nations [Clericus : Galilean heathen | ; 2 That these made war with Bera [Gesenius=57ya] king of Sodom, and with Birsha [Gesenins = 9ti9773] king of Gomorrah, Shinab [Gesenius: father’s tooth] king of Admak First: fruit region, city in the district of Sodom, farm-city|, and Shemeber [Gesenius: soaring aloft glory of the eagle? | king of Zeboiim [Gesenius: place of hyenas} and the king of Bela [aevourea, 3 destroyed], which is Zoar [thesmall], All these were joined together in the vale of Siddim Aquila? valley of fields; Gesenius: depressed land, Wady; First: plain], which is [now] the salt sea 4 [aea of asphalt, Dead sea]. Twelve years they served Chedorlaomer [2s vassals], and in the 5 thirteenth year they rebelled. And in the fourteenth year came hedorlaomer, and the kings that were with him, and smote the Rephaims [giants; Ewald: long-drawn, tall] in Ashte- 26 402 GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. ; ae tarte; from Astarte-worship, city in Batanwa, Deut. i, 4; Josh, xiii. 12], and the Bie ee Nata from the fertility of the country ; Septuagint we en ty ioxvpé | In Ham [ treasures; probably an Ammonite region], and the Emins [terrors ;° Emer, thie : Be and. of Moab] in Shaveh [plain] Kirlathaim [twin cities in the tribe of Reuben, Num. xxxii. 87; later in Moab, Jer 6 xlvii.1]. And the Horites [dwellers in caves] in their Mount Seir [rugged 5 Gesenius : wooded ; First: hairy}, unto El- [oak terebinth] Paran [probably, cave-region J, which is by the wilderness, And they returned, and came to En-mishpat [well of Judgment], which is Kadesh et and smote all the country [felds] of the Amalekites [between Palestine, Taumea, and Egypt, and also the Amorites [mountaineers?] that dwelt in Hazezon-tamar [palm-pruning, a city in the 8 wilderness of Judea; later, Engedi, fountain of the kia]. And there went out the king of Sodom, and the king of Gomorrah, and the king of Admah, and the king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela (the same is Zoar;) and they joined battle with them in the vale of Sid. 9 dim; With Chedorlaomer the king of Elam, and with Tidal king of nations, and Amraphel king of Shinar, and Arioch king of -Hllasar; which] four kings with five, And the vale of Siddim was full of slime-pits [pits upon pits]; and the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, and fell there [the warriors]; and they that remained fled to the mountain, And they [thevictors] took all the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah, and all: their victuals, and went their way. And they took Lot, Abram’s brother's: son, who [for be] dwelt in Sodom, and his goods, and departed, And there came one that had escaped ceed and told Abram the Hebrew [immigrant]; for he [who]. dwelt in the plain [oak-grove] of Mamre [richness, strength] the Amorite, brother of Eschol [vine-braneh], and brother of Aner [i.e. "ED, anjp?]: and these were confederate with Abram. And when Abram heard that his brother was taken captive, he armed [led out to war] his trained servants [initiatea, triea], born in his own house, three hundred and eighteen, and pursued them unto Dan. And he divided him- self against them, he and his servants, hy night, and smote them; and pursued them unto Hobah [hiding-place], which is on the left hand [northerly] of Damascus [restless activity]. And he brought back all the goods, and also brought again his brother Lot, and his goods, and the women also, and the people. And the king of Sodom went out to meet him (after his return from the slaughter of Chedorlaomer, and of the kings that were with him [confederates]), at the valley of Shaveh [the plain northward of Jerusalem, 2 Sam, xviii, 18], which is the king’s dale. And [But] Melchizedec [king of righteousness] king of Salem [schalem = pidui ] brought forth bread and wine: and he was the priest of the most high God [of E1-Fijon], And he blessed him, and said, Blessed be Abram of the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth: And blessed be the most high God, which hath delivered thine enemies into thy hand. And he [Septuagint "Agpéu; compare Heb. vii. 4] gave him tithes of all. And the king of Sodom said unto Abram, Give me the persons [souls], and take [xetain] the. goods to thyself. And Abram said to the king of Sodom, I have lifted up my hand unto the ‘Lord, the most high God, the possessor of heaven and earth, That I [the form of an oath: if] will not take from a thread even to a shoe-latchet [the least], and that I will not take anything that is thine, lest thou shouldest say, Ihave 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. ~ 10 ll 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 ag ea renders this first clause as independent, ‘And it came to pass after days, or, in the lapse of ys."—A, G.]: ‘ 2 [Ver. 1.—Wordsworth and Murphy, lionine, or lion-like,—A, G.] 5 [Ver, 1.—‘ Some identify it with ‘Telassar ; others more probably regard it as Larsa, now Simkarah, about fifteen miles aacae of Warka. Rawlinson, Worpsworrn, p. 69. A, G. y e a ‘ 4 [Yer 1— Rawlinson pomiperes it with Kudur-Mapula, or Haluk, whose name is found on the bricks of Chaldea, and whose title is Apda Martu, Ravager of the West.””—Mourrnry, p. 278,—A, G.) of faith (ch. xv.), and the special and temporary cov- GENERAL REMARKS, ; nae 7 * enant of circumcision * (ch, xvii.), which rests upon 1. The Modern Criticism.—Kyonen (p. 148) as- signs the Section (with ch. xv.) to the Jehovistic enlargement, since the Elohistic author narrates the founding of the theocratic covenant elsewhere (ch. xvii), We must carefully distinguish, in a theologi- ' eal point of view, between the permanent covenant it (see Rom. iv.). d ‘The idea that the character of Abram and the narrative of Melchizedee are drawn * [Temporary however, only as to its external form, and the sign or seal of the covenant. The covenant itself is one and permanent.—A. G.} CHAP. XIV. 1-24. 405 traditionally from interested motives of the Hebrews, is without foundation.* 2. For special literature upon ch, xiv. see KNoseL, p. 134, 8. Lhe War-making Powers.— According to Knobel, who here agrees with Josern., Antig. i. 9, the Assyrian must be viewed as the ruling power, which leads all the individual attacking kings, as subject princes or monarchs; for there is no trace of evidence in history, that the elsewhere unimport- ant Elymais (Susiane) has ever exercised a sort of world-dominion. Josephus calls the Assyriaff the leading power, Syncellus the Syrian, which in this case is just equivalent; but according to Ktesias and others, the Assyrians were the first to establish a world-dominion (see p. 142, ff.). Keil, on the other hand, holds that the kingdom of Amraphel of Shi- nar which Nimrod founded, had now sunken to a mere dominion over Shinar, and that Elam now ex- ercised the hegemony in inner Asia. The beginning of the Assyrian power falls in a later period, and Berosus speaks of an earlier Median dominion in Babylon, which reached down to the times of the patriarchs. (He refers to Niesunr’s ‘History of Assyria,” p. 271). There is clearly a middle view. At the date, ver. 1, Amraphel, king of Shinar, stands at the head of the alliance of Eastern princes; but the war was waged especially in the interest of Chedorlaomer of Elam. Amraphel appears as the nominal leader; Chedorlaomer the victorious cham- pion of an Eastern kingdom, involved to some extent in decay. The palestinian kings, or kings of Sid- dim, opposed to them, are described as previously vassals of Chedorlaomer, because the narrative here treats of the history of Siddim, pre-eminently of the history of Sodom and Lot; but this does not exclude the supposition, that the princes or tribes named in vers. 5 and 6, were also at least partly dependents of Chedorlaomer. For in order to subject the lower Jordan valley, he must have somewhere forced a passage for himself into the land. Kerr: ‘It seems. significant that at that time the Asiatic world-power had advanced to Canaan, and brought the_yallcy of the Jordan into subjection, with the purpose, doubt- less, to hold, with the valley of the Jordan, the way to Egypt. We have, in this-history, an example of the later pressure of the world-power against the king- dom of God established in Canaan; and the signifi- eance of these events with reference to the historical salvation, lies in the fact, that the kings of the Jor- dan valley and surrounding region are subject to the world-power. Abram, on the contrary, with his home-born servants, slays the victor and takes away his spoil—a prophetic sign, that in its contests with the world-power, the seed of Abram shall not only not be brought into subjection, but be able to res- cue those seeking its help. 4, Ancient Damascus, also, first appears here in the dim distance. EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL. 1. The Kings at War.—(Vers. 1-3). ‘ The kings named here never appear again.” Keil.t— * [The connection of this chapter with what precetcs and follows is close and natural. It shows that Lot’s choice, while apparently wise, was attended with bitter fruits; it Jays the ground, in Abram’s conduct, for the promise and transactions of the xvth chapter. There would bea serious break in the history were this wanting.—A. G.] . t [Chedorlaomer. Upon the bricks recently found in Shinar and Elam (see ch. 10). Ellasar, probably Artemita, which is called also Chalasar, lying in Southern Assyria. (Goiim*) Nations is here of special significance (see translation of the text, also upon ver. 2; compare Josh. x. 3, 5, 23),—AU these; namely, the last-named five kings.—In the vale of Siddim + (see the text). ‘‘The five named cities described (Wis. x. 6) a8 a mevrTdmoAts, ap- pear to have formed w confederacy. The four first (connected together; also ch. x. 19) perished afterwards (Deut. xxix. 22; comp. Hos. xi. 8). On the contrary, Bela, i.e., Zoar, was not over- taken in the ruin. The most important are Sodom and Gomorrah, which are elsewhere exclusively named, even here, vers. 10 and 11.” Knobel. There is no ground for his conjecture that they “were not Canaanites, drawn from a misunderstanding of ch. xii. 12, that this region did not belong to the land of Canaan. Keil: “That there were five kings of the five cities, is in accordance with the custom of the Canaanites, among whom, still later, every city had its king.” 2. The War (vers. 4-12). a. Its cause (ver. 4), b. The course of the Eastern Kings in their March.— “They came, doubtless, in the usual way, through the region of the Euphrates to Syria (Strabo, xvi.) ; from here, as they afterwards directed their return march to this region, advancing southwards, they attacked those who had revolted; at first, namely, the Re- phaim in Bashan, i.e. the northerly part of the country, east of the Jordan (Numb. xxxii. 39), then the Zuzims, dwelling farther to the south, and after- wards the still more southern Emims.” Knobel.— The Rephaim.—“ A iribe of giants of great stat- ure, spread throughout Perwa; also found westward from Jerusalem, upon Mount Ephraim, and in Phi- listia. They were gradually exterminated through the Amorites, Ammonites, Moabites, and Israelites.” Keil holds that they were of Semitic origin (p. 140). Ashteroth Karnaim, or simply Ashteroth, a chief city of Bashan, the residence of Og, the king (Deut. i. 4). The details may be found in Keil and Knobel. —Zuzims (an Ammonitish province), probably the same with Zamsummims (Deut. ii, 20.)—Ham. Identified (Deut. iii, 11) with Rabbah of the Ammon- ites (ruins of Ammon).—Emims, terrors. The older inhabitants of the country of Moab, like the Zuzims, included with the Rephaim.—Kirjathaim. Incorrectly located by Eusebius and Jerome; the ruins el Teym, or el Tueme.—The Horites. The original inhabitants of the country of the Edomites. They drove the Horites to Elath, upon the east side of the wilderness of Paran. The mount Seir be- Chaldea there occurs the name of a king—Kudurmapula— which Rawlinson thinks may be the same, especially since he is further Geepactied as the Ravager of the West. Jacoses, p. 247.—A. G.] ‘ * (Delitzsch suggests perhaps an earlier name for “Galilee of the Gentiles.” Comp. Josh. xii. 23; Judg. iv. 2; and Isa. viii. 23.—A. G.] + [Which is the Salt sea, i.e., into which this valley was changed = : overthrow of the cities (xix. 24), Kerr, p. 139.—A. G. } [The five kings belonged prohably to the family of Ham, which had Pamied its way northward, but had been here checked and held under the sway of the Shemitic king for ce but had now revolted. Worpsworru, p. 69.—A. G. § [Ritter findsitinthe Tell Ashareh. J.G, Wetstein identifies it with Bosra, for which he urges the central posi- tion of this city in Perwa, and the similarity of the names Bostra and mn uv “Porter suggests: Afineh, eight ‘miles from Bosra, as the Samaritan version. has *Aphinet for ’Ashtaroth.”—A. G.] 404 tween the Red and Dead seas.*—Ver. 8. They now turned from the south to the north (see KerL, p. 141). The victory of the Amalekites was gained in what was later the southern territory of the Hebrews. Keil and Hengstenberg hold that it is not the Ama- lekites themselves, but the inhabitants of the land which later belonged to the Amalekites. It says, indeed, the country of the Amalekites, + and (Gen. xxxvi. 12, 16) Amalek descended from Esau. But then we should expect some account of that original people. And the Amalekitish descendants of Hsau may have mingled with the earlier constituent por- tions of the people, as the Ishmaelites with the ear- lier inhabitants of Arabia. Lastly, even the Amor- ites, upon the west side of the Dead Sea, were involved in the slaughter. Knobel denies that Hazezon-tamar can be identified with Engedi, for which, however, 2 Chron. xx. 2, bears its testimony. A rapid march made it possible that these tribes should be attacked and overcome one by one. It is not said that they had all been tributary. Mean- while, however, the five kings in the vale of Siddim had time to arm themselves. c. Zhe Battle in the vale of Siddim. The five feeble kings of the penta- polis could not resist the four mightier kings—And they fell there. The valley, we are told, was full of pits of bitumen, or asphalt. This account is con- firmed by the mass of asphalt in the Dead Sea. For these masses of asphalt, see the condensed notices in Kwoset, p. 136.{ This remark, however, does not explain why the five kings were defeated, but why they found the flight through that region so destruc- tive. They fell here, partly hindered by the pits, partly plunging into them; only a few escaped into the mountains of Moab. The obvious sense appears to be, that the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah were themselves slain. Knobel thinks the troops or forces are intended, and holds it as certain that the king of Sodom escaped (ver. 17). But it may be his suc- cessor in the government who is here mentioned. Whatever of spoil, in goods or men, was found by the conquerors in the city, was taken away; and, what is the main thing in the narrative, Lot with them. It is most significant: for he dwelt in Sodom. § 8. Abram's March and Victory (vers. 13-16),— One that had escaped. The article marks the race or lineage. A fugitive who sought Abram in Hebron, must doubtless have stood in close relations with Lot,~—Abram the Hebrew, the immigrant. | Abram, as Lot also, was viewed by the escaped, who was born in the Jand, as an immigrant, and because Lot the Hebrew was a captive, he sought Abram the Hebrew. The Amorite Mamre, and his two brothers, were named as confederates with Abram, because * (El Param, terebinth, or rather wood of Paran, is with- out doubt the later Elath, at the head of the Ailanitic gulf; the present Akaba. Ket, p. 141.—A. G.] t [Kadesh, probably at Ain-el Waibeh; though Keil and Wordsworth favor the location at Ain Kades, in the east of the highest pert of Jebel Halal, about five hours E.S.E. from Morla&hi.—A. G.] % ‘lp Rozinson’s ‘ Researches,” vol. ii. pp. 228-230.— § [The passage is so constructed in the Hebrew as to bring out this significance. And they took Lot, and his goods, Abram’s brother’s son, and departed; and (for) he was dwelling in Sodom.—A. G.] __! [The one from the other side, who has come across the river. But Murphy urges in favor of taking Hebrew asa patronymic; “that every other tribe in the country had originally migrated across the Euphrates, and that the word here distinguishes Abram asthe Hebrew, just as his confed- erate, Mamre, is distinguished as the Amorite.”—A, G.] GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. they assisted him now in the war (ver. 24), Their confederation shows his overwhelming infuence— Abram heard that his brother was a-captive. The expression is significant. Instantly he arms his trained,* i. c., his hired servants, and practised in the use of arms; especially those born in his own house. “That the patriarchs carried weapons is clear from chs. xxxiv. 25; xlix. 5.” Knobel—Unto Dan. Keil shows that the Dan alluded to cannot be the (Laish) Dan (Judg. xviii. 29). situated in the midst of the sources of the Jordan, since it does not lie @pon either of the ways leading from the valley of the Jordan to Damascus; but Dan in Gilead (Deut. xxxiv. 1; 2 Sam. xxiv. 6). In Dan, Abram divides his little army into bands, and falls upon the enemy from different quarters by night, and pursues him unto Hobah, “probably preserved in. the village Hoba, which Troilo found a quarter of a mile northerly from Damascus.” Keil. The Hebrews de- fined the quarters of the heavens with their faces to the Hast; hence the left hand is northward. Victorious, he brought back the whole spoil of the enemy, both in men and goods.— And also Lot his brother. . * 4. Abram’s Triumphant Return ‘(vers. 17-24), The kings who welcome him.—At the valley of Shaveh, i.e. the (later) king’s dale. The valley probably takes its name from this event. Absalom erected his pillar here, 2 Sam. xviii. 18 (afterwards | remodelled in the Greek style). According to Jo- SEPHUS, Antig. vii. 10, 8, it lay about two stadia from Jerusalem. Melchizedec went northwards to meet him, thus in the upper valley of the Kidron (see Dictionaries). Melchizedee appears to have anticipated the king of Sodom; at all events he has the precedence. Under his royal city, Salem, we must understand Jerusalem (Ps. Ixxvi. 3), and not the distant Salim in whose vicinity John baptized (John iii, 23). Comp. Kez, p. 148. In favor of Jerusalem (973 = "49", founding, or wins, posses- sion; the name pbusas is either the founding or the possession of peace; the first is preferable,) are Josrrpaus: Antig. i. 10, 2; the Targums, Aben Ezra, Kimchi, etc., Knobel, Delitzsch, and Keil; Krahmer, Ewald: “ History of Israel, ii. p. 410,” are in favor of the Salim of Jerome. That at the time of Jerome, the palace of Melchizedee was usually pointed out in the ruins of Salumias, lying about eight Roman miles from Scythopolis, of which Rob- inson and Smith found no trace, proves nothing, Salumias lay too far to the north, for the statement in the narrative. Melchizedec (king of righteous- ness—the language of the Canaanites was Hebraic) is described as a priest of El Eljon. According to Sanchiniaton (Evsesris: Prep. i..10), the Pheni- cians called God ’EAody, and Hanno the Carthaginian, in Plautus Peenulus, names the gods and goddesses Elonim or Elonoth ; but the term here used is differ- ent, and its signification is monotheistic, “not God as the highest among many, but in a monotheistic sense, the one most high God.” (Delitzsch). He brings from his city bread and- wine to refresh Abram and his followers, “The papists explain it with ref- erence to the sacrifice of the mass, but the reference is fatal to their own case, since Melchizedec gave _ * (These tried, proved, thus trained servants, were born in his house, Prov. xxii. 6. “ Abram had trained them ia spiritual things in the service of God, as well as in fidelity to himself; sce oat xvili. 19, and xxiv, 12-49."7 Worps- Worrts, p. 71.—A. G.] CHAP. XIV. 1-24. 405 the wine also. He brought forth, not he brought before God.” Schréder. Melchizedec’s prayer for prosperity and blessing is translated by Delitzsch rhythmically as a double blessing.* The term m:> denotes the ruler, but may also be used to denote the creator and possessor—And he gave him tithes. As Melchizedec was a priest of the true God, the gift of the tithe of the spoil was a sanctifi- cation of the war and victory, as in the later history of Israel the tithe belonged to the priest (Lev. xxvii. 80), and the payment of the gift of consecration, out of the spoils of war, to the priestly tribe, was -se- cured by law (Numb. xxxi. 28 ff ; 2 Sam. viii, 11; 1 Chron. xxvi. 27). Compare Heb. vii. 4.—The king of Sodom does not speak in a formal, solemn way, but with obvious prudence, encouraged by the gene- rosity of Abram, to whom, by the laws of war, the captives belonged as slaves.—Give me the per- sons (souls). Then follows the noble declaration of Abram, which is both a recognition of the God of Melchizedec, or of the community of faith, between Abram and Melchizedec, since it joins together the names Jehovah and El Eljon, and at the same time a noble expression of his unselfishness. He would not retain anything from a thread to a shoe-latchet, i. v., not the least thing, so that the king of Sodom could never say, I have made Abram rich. As he declares his intimate communion with Melchizedec, and introduces it into the very forms of expression of his religion, so he utterly refuses any community of goods with the king of Sodom. He reserves only what his servants had already consumed in the neces- sities of war, and that part of the spoil which fell to his three confederates, Aner, Eschol, and Mamre (Numb. xxxi. 26; 1 Sam. xxx. 26). DOOTRINAL AND ETHICAL. 1. The first well-defined appearance of war in its different aspects. A war of the world against the world—the kings—the alliances—the conquests —the rulers and their revolted vassals—the promi- nent leader (Chedorlaomer)—the attack—the victory and defeat—the plunder, and service of captives— of the hard destiny of those who dwelt quietly in the land (Lot)—of the wide-spread terror, and the rebuke of that terror, before the true heroism with which the true hero of faith opposes a defensive and necessary war, to the attacks of the confident and haughty prince. The children of God find themselves unexpectedly involved in the wars of the world, as the history of Abram, Lot, and Melchizedec proves. The destructive nature of war, so far as it is the fruit of human passions, and the providential overruling of it unto salvation. 2. The fearful overthrow of the Sodomite pentap- olis in the vale of Siddim, and the wonderful rescue by Abram the man of faith, wrought no repentance in the people of that valley, although they were al- ready weakened and enervated by their luxury, nor even any gratitude towards Lot, for whose sake they were rescued (ch. xix. 9). Hence the lost battle, and * « Gebenedeit sci Abram Gott, dem Allerhabenen, Dem Erschaffer Himmels und der Erde Und gebenedeit sei Gott, der Allerhabene Der geliefert deine Driinger in deine Hand.’ [Keil also refers to the poetical forms 77% and 430. G.] ; —A. the terrors of war in the vale of Siddim, became a portent and sign of their later overthrow. ! 8. In the misfortunes which came upon him, Lot must suffer the retribution for his misdeeds towards Abram. But Abram rewards his ingratitude with self-sacrificing magnanimity. 4. The terrors of war in its desolating and para. lyzing power. How it may be interrupted, and is usually checked and brought to an end, through the heroic faith and courage of some single hero, or it may be, band of heroes. 6. Abram, the man of peace of the previous chapter, the yielding child of peace, is instantly cbanged into a lion when the report comes to him, that Lot, his brother, is a captive. One citizen of the kingdom of God is of so great importance in his esteem, that he will attack a whole victorious army with his little band, and venture his own life, and the lives of his servants upon the issue. Thus enter in opposition to the gloomy heroism of the earth in Chedorlaomer and his followers, the light and cheer- ful heroism of heaven, to the war for oppression and bondage in its dark form, the light form and aspect of the war of salvation and liberty, to the power of godlessness, inhumanity, and desperation, in union with demoniac powers, the power of faith, and love, and hope, in covenant with Jehovah. 6. It did not enter the thought of Abram, that the princes against whom he went out to war were for the most part descendants of Shem, and indeed the people of his former home, and that those whom he rescued, and with whom he connects himself, are the descendants of Ham. The motive for the war was to save Lot,* and the alliance for the right, against the alliance for wrong, was decisive for him. The love to his brother, the Hebrew, has special power. Brotherly love. Every Hebrew, in the best and highest sense, must help others as his brethren. But in “the Hebrew” here the important thing is, that he “comes from across the river,” not as De- litzsch holds, that he is descended from Heber. 7. Abram has not only, in his faith, a heroism and self-sacrifice which overcomes the world, he has also the heroic strength and spirit. His servants are men trained to arms. He knew that, in an evil world, one needs defence and weapons, and must be armed. In his war with the world, he does not de- spise an honorable alliance with those who, in a, reli- gious point of view, may have different ways of thinking from himself. Indeed, he acts throughout in the true hero-spirit. The rapid, instantaneous onset, the well-ordered and irresistible charge, the outmarching and flanking of the enemy, the falling upon him by night, the fierce pursuit to the very utmost, to the completed result, these are the orig- inal, fundamental laws of all intelligent warfare. And it does not admit of question, that Cromwell * (“But his march and victory have another and a higher reference in the object of the history. Even here it is not to glorify Abram, but rather the wonderful prov- idence of God over bis chosen, through which all here enters in immediate connection with the divine plan. Abram is the designated pon renee of the land; it is his concern, therefore, to guard the land from all assaults, and to avenge its at it is the part of God, who has desig- nated him to this end, to give him the victory.” Kurrz: “ History of the Old Covenant,” p, 171.—A. G.] (His title to the land involves him in the war. He must defend that which has been given to him. ‘ He is no sooner confirmed in his title, than the land is invaded by a confed- eracy of hostile kings. Thus the kingdom of God is no sooner set up anywhere, than there is a rallying of the world kingdoms against it.” Jacosus, p. 247.—A, G.] 406 learned these fundamental Joe of warfare from Abram and other Old Testament heroes, and at is probable that Napoleon, in these, as in many, other points, was an imitator of Cromwell ; as it is certain that Gneisenau and Blticher have learned from the method of Napoleon. In the spirit of prayer Cromwell, the invincible, was greatly in ad- vance of hin» (Napoleon); the heroes of the times when freedom triumphs place victoriously the joyful longing for deliverance of the people over against the demoniac lust of conquest of the murderers of the people. 8. Abram is assured of the good-will and help of Jehovah through the Spirit of God inspiring hira with believing and sacrificing courage; and therefore joins his might, in the feeling of his individual weak- ness, with omnipotence, and makes himself and his forces, to whom he communicates his own spirit, invincible against the hosts of the enemy, whose power, as demoniac and magical, cannot stand before the terrors of God, but passes at once from haughty confidence to trembling and despair. The germ-like oriental world-power surges and breaks itself upon the heroic heart of the father of the faithful, as all the succeeding forms of the world-power, must break into pieces upon the believing power of the kingdom of God; and for this reason, because, in the very centre of the world’s history, all the powers of the world and of hell broke and went to pieces against the divine stability of the heart of Christ. 9. In warfare, as in all the forms of civilization and life, im political government, in poetry, the Hebrew principle is dynamic, living, while the prin- ciple of the world, especially of the Greek and Romish civilization, is lifeless, formal, or ¢echnical. Here the living fountain of original, direct divine in- spiration is prominent, while the ordinary cosmical forming principles are throughout kept in the back ground. But the dynamic principle is also the prin- ciple of regeneration for the technical and artistic system—even for science itself. Thus, in our his- tory also, the technical is sufficiently apparent.* ‘It is remarkable, moreover, that corresponding to this original mode of warfare, the almost exclusive order of battle in later times, is the division of the army into three parts, that the enemy may be attacked in the centre and upon both flanks at the same time (Judg. vil, 16; 1 Sam, xi. 11; 1 Mace. v. 38)” Schroder. 10. Melchizedee as priest and king in one per- son, without genealogy in his priesthood, which he executed for his people by virtue of a sovercign in- dividual call, isa type of the Messiah, and is repre- | sented as such, Ps. cx. 4, but especially in the Epistle to the Hebrews (ch. v. 6; ch. vii. 17), From the circumstance that Melchizedec was not a worshipper of the Canaanitish Baal, but was a monotheist, or as Knobel thinks, a worshipper of the Semitic principal deity, El, Knobel concludes that he belonged to the Semitic tribe, Lud, to which also the trives at war belonged. The supposition of a Semitic chief deity is in an erroneous manner transferred from the re- lations of a later time, to the times of the primitive religion. It is the characteristic of the primitive re- ligion, that in it throughout Heathenism and Mono- _* {The things of chief importance here are Abram’s faith and the help of God; but we should not overloo k, that his force may have reached a thousand men, including his confederates, and further, the effect of the security of the hostile forces, the sudden terror, the darkness of the night, their confusion among themselvos, and the strategic skill of Abram.” Kurvz, p. 170.—A. G.] GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. theism cleave together and go asunder. Melchize- dec might, therefore, well belong to the Hamitic race.* He is not a Christ of the heavenly world, as perhaps the Gnostics would make him, nor Shem, nor Enoch, as the Rabbins and the Church fathers have thought; he is a type of Christ, because he is king and priest at the same time, because his priesthood rests upon his individual personality (4rdrwp, ete,, Heb. vii. 8), and because Abram, the ancestor of the Levitical priesthood, gave tithes tohim. He is not “perhaps the last witness and confessor of the prim- itive revelation out of the night of heatbenism,” for that is the splendor of an evening sky which reaches through all time; but he is the last representative of the period of the primitive religion, and therefore he blesses Abram in a similar sense to that in which the Baptist must baptize Christ the Lord, in Jordan. He, in his way, stands as the last of the first world- period; Abram is one who belongs to the future,} and therefore he blesses Abram, and Abram does him homage. ‘That he is Melchizedee, is in the first place significant (‘tit may be concluded from Josh. x. 1, 8, where a later king of Jerusalem, Adoni- Zedek, i. e., lord of righteousness, is mentioned, that this was a standing naine of the old ‘kings of Sa- lem.” Keil); then, the name of his residence, Salem ; further, that he is priest and king at the same time (‘tin the old Pheenician custom.” Delitzsch) ; finally, that he represents no legal and genealogical priesthood, but shines singly and alone as a clear, bright star, in the night of Canaan : all these consti- tute him a mysterious, renowned type of Christ (see Deuirzscu, p. 863; Kein, p. 144; AvBERLEN upon “ Melchizedec,” in the Studien und Aritiken, 18517, p- 158).{ As he is the priest of El Eljon, that can only mean, that he intercedes for his people before the most high God with prayer and sacrifice, that he sought either to lead back the Jebusites at Sa- lem to a living monotheism, or to preserve them in it. * (The name, however, is Semitic. It is probable that he was a Semitic chieftain, having bis royal seat at Jerusu- lem. The locality, as everything else in connection with this person, so brieily referred to here, and then dismissed, is important. This is clear from the use which is made of this history in the Epistle to the Hebrews. He was a per- sonal type of Christ: 1. As he was both priest and king; 2. asking of righteousness and peace; 38. as he was con- structively, so far as the history goes, without father and without mother; 4, as he held his priesthood probably by a special divine warrant. He acts as a priest: 1. In brin; the bread and wine, here probably connected with a sacrifice and sacramental, refreshing this wearied warrior of the faith, and welcoming him to the communion of saints; 2. in bless- ing Abram—which is here the solemn, priestly benediction ; 8. in receiving tithes from Abram—through which Abram recognizes his typical popper one in which the whole Levitical priesthood, yet in the loins of Abram, recognizes the superiority of that Priesthood of which he was the type. It thus becomes ee as the Apostle shows, that the Le- vitical priesthood, and the whole Mosaic institution, were intermediate and temporary, and pointed to ihe higber Priest to come—who is both Priest and King, and who holds his priesthood not by descent, but by the express ap- pointment and oath of God.—A. G.] t German, Ein Werdender. t [See also Kurrz: “ History of the Old Covenant,” pp. 178-176, whose remarks here are very suggostive, and Ja- conus: * Notes,” pp. 256-260.—A. G:] “ Melchizedec brought forth bread and wine as the priest of the most high God. ‘There seems to be an intimation that this was a priestly act, and accordingly the crowning part of a sacred feast. It was probably connected with the offering of a sacrifice, ‘This view of his acts is confirmed hy the blessing which he pronounces as the priest of the most high God.” Murray, p. 288, 289.—A. G. [Melehinedee stands as the personal type of Christ, and at the same time in his acts and relations here, seems lo t Bly woes Christ, as our Priest, is ever doing for his peo- ple.—A. CHAP. XIV. 1-24. 407 11, It is in the highest degree significant that Abram honors Melchizedec with the tithes,* and that he introduces El Eljon, in the oath, or the reli- gious expression of it, while he will not take from the king of Sodom anything from a thread to a shoe- latchet. (Knosru: “ Abraham is perhaps sensitive,” etc.) This is the position of the religion of faith to the world both in its godly and ungodly aspects, the whole connection and concern of faith in the forms of its higher culture, the entire strength of its repel- ling attitude and tendency towards its ungodly nature. 12, “If it is certain that the repetition by Mel- chizedec of the familiar title of God which he uses was intended, then the name Jehovah, which Abram adds to this title, and which, indeed, he places in the greatest prominence, is not without a purpose. It must serve the purpose to announce that Abram, in the common foundation on which they stand, has still more than Melchizedec. Melchizedec, in the most high God, recognizes the Lord of heaven and earth, but not Jehovah.” Hengstenberg. This agrees with the idea that Jehovah is the God of the cove- nant. In the measure of this faith, a new period of religion begins with Abram. God, as the Most High, does. not designate the Highest in distinction from lower gods, but in his exaltation above all the sytnbols of his being, which the heathen began to reverence aS gods; thus it stands in opposition to polytheism, and also to pantheism and dualism, the true expression of the primitive religion. Hofmann finds hereagain an intimation of the ascension of God from the earth before the flood. We have al- luded to this in the previous part of this work. 13, The oath of Abram is the first example of an oath with the uplifted hand, in solemn appeal to God. But Abram swears in his own method, and at the same time in the devout, customary mode of Mel- chizedec, For other examples, see chaps. xxi. 23; xxvi. 28, ete. 14. In the elevated character of Abram, it is worthy of particular notice and praise, that with his entire renunciation of any advantage to himself, he preserves the rights of his confederates, Mamre, etc., according to both usage and equity. 15. It is remarkable, that this one chapter shows us how the father of believers enters into these va- * “The bringing of the tithes was an actual recognition of the priestly dignity of Melchizedec. For, in general usage, the tenth is the sacred portion, which belongs to God, and to his representatives.’ BaumGaRrteEN, p. 182; Baur: Symbolik i, p. 179.—A. G. Bee (“ Abram, the blessed of Jehovah, and the mediator of blessings for all the people, allows himself to be blessed by this royal priest, who stands beyond the line and circle of the promise. Abram, the ancestor of Israel, of Aaron, and Levi, of the people and the priesthood of the law, allows himself.to be blessed by this royal priest, who shows no title through descent or the law. And not only s0; Abram, in whom was the priestly race which should receive the tithes, ve to this royal priest the tithes of all the spoil. There is, therefore, an nie , royal Foot and priestly kingdom, which this history typically prophesies, to whom even Abram and his seed should bow, to whom even the Levitical priesthood should render homage ; for, just where Abram stands in incomparably-the most striking typical character, there Melchizedec enteys and towers above him. Melchizedec is the setting sun of the primitive revelation, which sheds its last rays upon the patriarchs, from whom the true light of the world is to arise. The sun sets, that when the preparatory time of the patriarchs, the prepara- tory time of Israel, have passed away, it may rise again in Jesus Christ, the antitype.” Delitzsch.—A. G.] t [There is here no indistinct allusion to the creation of ‘heaven and earth’ mentioned in the opening of the book of Géd. This isa manifest identification of the God of Melchizedec with the one creator and upholder of all things.” Murpuy, p. 289.—A. G.]} ried forms of life, of war, of union with those who differed from himself in their modes of thought, of tithes, and of the oath, as his intercourse with the world demanded. He uses the oath with the king of Sodom, a man of the world, who appears to have doubted his unselfishness and magnanimity. 16. We have here, also, the first stratagem, the first celebration of victory, and the first priest. 17. The first conflict of the hosts of faith with the first appearance of the world-power. The his- torical example of the Maccabees, Waldenses, etc. HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL. See the Doctrinal and Ethical portions.—Texts for sermons on war, victory, deliverances, public calls, and demands to duty, and upon the oath, ete. War in a threefold form: 1. War of violence; 2. war of a faint-hearted defence; 3. the rescuing war of divine inspiration.—Alliances in a threefold form: 1. Alliance for robbery; 2. the faint-hearted alli- ance for defence; 8. alliance for life and death.— Abram as a warlike prince-—Love of our brother as a motive in war.—Abram’s war and victory.—Cele- bration of Abram’s victory.—Melchizedee as a type of Christ.—Christ also does not enter into worldly “wars, but he refreshes pious heroes with bread and wine.—Bread and wine the refreshment of the king of peace, for those who.contend for God.—To every one his own, particularly to faithful confederates. Starke; This the first war which the Scripture commemorates, and its cause was the lust of domin- ion. (Let it be granted that Chedorlaomer had sub- jugated the cities mentioned in ver. 2, in an unright- eous way, still they were in the wrong, since they began to rebel, and in this way would regain their freedom,* etc.—How can Abram help these rebels ?) —God used the four kings as rods to punish others. Wurtemb. Bible: War and rebellion are evils above all other evils; indeed, a condensed epitome, as it were, of all calamities and sorrows,—OstanpER: If the saints dwell with the godless, they must often be brought down and punished with them.—(Query: Whether Abram, with a -good conscience, could enter into a covenant with the Canaanites? He might make different excuses; e. g., it is not proven that they were heathen; finally, he could say cor- rectly, one niust discern and distinguish the times.— Citation of Jewish fables: “In Abram’s contest, alk the dust (every staff?) became swords, and every straw an arrow.”) Ver. 15, An instance of strata- gem, Josh. viii. 2; Judg. xx. 29; 1 Sam. xv. 5.— Cramer: God remembers even the poor captive. —Covenants, even with persons not of our reli- gion and faith, if made in a correct way, and with a right purpose, are not wrong; still, we must not rely upon them (Deut. xx. 1),—Legitimate war.— Against rash undertakings.—OstanpEr: No external power, but faith in God, gives the victory.—Ver. 18 Here, for the first time, a priest is spoken of — Cramer: Honor is the reward of virtue—The tithes: of Abram.—Osianper: A Christian must even make. his possessions of service to the officers of the Church. —Kings and princes, if God grants them victory over their enemies, must not only give him public: * i is not said in the narrative that they were wrong ; and it is by no means cleat that they were, Rebellion may be right, It is so, if the government is unjust and oppres-. sive, and there is good reason to believe that success will at- tend their efforts to shake off the yoke of bondage.—A. G.} 408 thanks, but present to him of the spoil they have taken.—Teachers and princes must proffer assistance to each other, and exchange temporal goods for spiritual (1 Cor. ix. 11.—Finally, upon the legitimate oath; renunciation of his own rights, the compe- tency, the equitable wages or rewards of war. Lisco: Abram’s magnanimity overlooks all the unbecoming deportment’ of Lot towards him; he veutures his life for him.—The central point in this rarrative is the grace of God towards his chosen, through which he places him in a condition to wage victorious war with kings, and after the assured vic- tory, the same grace brings kings to meet him, the one in a thoughtful recognition, the other fawns in subjection and begs.—Abram’s freedom from sel- fishness.—CaLwer, Handbuch: The humble man of faith, a victorious warrior and hero.—The strength of the Lord is mighty in the weak.—Scurdper: No greeting of blessing, no word of God falls from the lips of this king of Sodom; he is only thinking of the earthly—(Catvin): It is worthy of praise, that he is thankful to men if he is not ungrateful to God. It is possible, of course, that this poor man, stript of his goods, through a servile, hypocritical pretence of modesty, might obtain from Abram, at least, the captives and the free city for himself. (Calvin saw, correctly, that Abram, as possessor of the people of Sodom, and the conqueror of the rulers of Sodom, won for himself essentially a legitimate dominion over Sodom, over which the king of Sodom would pass as lightly as possible)—Abram bows himself before Melchizedec, but before the king of Sodom he lifts his hand.—Thus Abram recognizes and ac- GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. knowledges Melchizedec, while he penetrates to its depth the nature of the king of Sodom. As he ig clearly conscious of his own high position, he con- descends to the lower standpoint of the Sodomites (out of which condescension the oath which he swears proceeds), in order thereby to recognize and own the higher religious standpoint of Melchizedec,, The oath an act of worship. He testifies, thereby, that he had not undertaken the war from any lust of gain, and cuts off the roots of all the solicitation to covetousness (even all suspicion of the same) through the name of God.—Passavant: Pa, xci.; Rom. viii. 31.—Covenants for mutual defence against such ex. peditions for plunder and life were necessary, and God permitted his servants among the Canaanites, to use such means of help and defence.—There is some- thing greater than bread and wine, mightier than victory and the power of the victor, stronger than death, and it overcomes, indeed, it inherits the world. Whatis it? Every child of Abram can tell.—Tavzg: We see in Abram’s victory and blessing, the victory and blessing of every one who is a soldier for God.— The sacred history transplants us at once into the midst of the turmoil of worldly affairs; from the quiet, peaceful tents of Abram, we are transferred to the tumults of war of heathen nations.—Hevser: The meeting of Melchizedec, the royal priest, with Abram: a, The historical event itself; b. the typical elements in it; ¢. their realization; d, the importance of these truths. [This history must be placed in its New Testa- ment light (Heb. vii.) if we would see its meaning and importance.—A, G.] FOURTH SECTION. Abram the approved Warrior of Faith, and God his Shield and his Reward. His longing for an Heir, and his thought of Adoption anticipating any exigency in the case. The great Promise of God. Abram’s Faith under the Starry Heavens. The Symbol of the Starry Heavens. The righteousness of Faith. The Covenant of Faith, and the repeated Promise, Caapren XV. 1-21. 1 After these things [events of the war | the word of the Lord came [renewed itself ] unto. Abram in vision, saying, Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield [in war even], and thy ex- 2 ceeding great reward [reward of the champion]. And Abram said, Lord God, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go [continuanty] childless, and the steward [the future possessor} of my house 3 1s this Eliezer [the help of God, God is my help] of Damascus? And Abram said, Behold to me thou hast given no seed [bodily heir]: and, lo, one born in my house is mine heir: 4 [on the way to become my heir], And, behold, the word of the Lord came unto him, saying, This shall not be thine heir; but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels 5 [thine own nature] shall be thine heir. And he brought him forth abroad [open air], and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them, And he said unto him, So shall thy seed be. And he believed in the Lord; and he counted it to him for righteousness, And he said unto him, I am the Lord that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it, And he said, Lord God, whereby [by what sign] shall I know that I shall inherit it? And he said unto him, Take. me [bring = sacrifice to me] a heifer of three years old, and a she-goat of three years old, anda ram of three years old, and a turtle-dove, and a young pigeon. And he took unto him [sacrificed] all these, and divided them [the animal sacrifice] in the midst, and laid each piece oot SD 10 409 CHAP. XV. 1-21. Vy 12 13 4 16 17 18 19 20 21 one against another: but the birds divided he not. And when the fowls came down upon the carcasses [not carrion], Abram drove them away. And when the sun was going down, a deep sleep [Mmastm, chap. ii 21; Jobiv.18] fell upon Abram ; and, lo, a horror of great darkness fell upon him. And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs [es descendants], 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. And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace; thou shalt be buried in a good old age. But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again; for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full [to the measure of judgment], And it came to pass, that, when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace, and a burning Jamp [fame offre] that passed between those pieces [ofthe sacrifice]. In that same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given [now in covenant] this land, from the river of Egypt [Wady el Arisch] unto the great river, the river Huphrates : The [land of | Kenites [workers in iron, Judg. iv. 11, 17], and the Kenizzites [huntsmen], and the Kadmonites [ofthe East], And the Hittites [fear, terror, in Hebron], and the Perizzites [rusties], and the Rephaim [giants], And the Amorites [mountaineers, uplanders], and the Canaanites, [lowlanders], and the Gir- gashites [dwellers upon the clayey soil], and the Jebusites [osm ) 4 Place trodden as a threshing-floor |, GENERAL PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 1, The connection of this Section with the pre- ceding events must be carefully observed. The two chapters form essentially one history. Abram had in faith waged war against a fearful and superior power ; hence the announcement to him: J (Jehovah) am thy shield. He had renounced all claims upon the spoil of war; therefore he has the promise: Iam thy exceeding great reward, i. e., reward to the war- rior. He had, through the fresh, living, healthy in- terchange between his faith and the world, which was wanting in the hermit-like Melchizedec, kept himself asa man of faith, to whom it belongs, to beget a race of believers, who should stand in the midst of the world, against the world and for the world. 2. The form of the present revelation of God to Abram gives trouble to interpreters. Knobel thinks that the communication, vers. 12-16, belongs to a night-vision; on the other hand, the next suc- ceeding utterances to the waking moments. Accord- ing to Keil, the word of Jehovah comes to him in visible forms, neither through internal, immediate converse, nor through dreams, but in an ecstacy through an inward, spiritual beholding, and indeed, in the day, and not in a night-vision, as ch. xlvi. 2. “The Mga, ver. 1, rules the whole chapter.” Against the first, it may be said, that the narrative speaks of a vision from the ‘very beginning ; against the last, that Abram is led out to number the stars; against both, that they do not involve and bring out any recognition of the psychological form of the past revelation. To us, it appears entirely in accordance. with the course of development of preceding revela- tions, that Abram should first have received the word of Jehovah, and then should have seen a mani- festation of Jehovah, and that it is now said, the word of Jehovah comes to him in vision. Abram, truly, at this time, could not have received the reve- lation from God without a disposition for visions; but in the case before us, which treata of a revela- tion of Jehovah by night, the visionary fitness of Abram comes into special prominence. This dispo- sition for the vision, and the prominence in which it appears, does not exclude the reality of the following acts, which, also, Keil regards as only inward occur- rences, But as to the phrase: “He spake to him in visions ;”” he accompanies the word in question with the corresponding image: Abram saw the divine shield and the divine treasures (KEIL, p. 145). EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL. 1. The promise of Jehovah, the starry heavens and the righteousness of faith (vers, 1-6).*—Fear not. The coward fears before the danger, heroic Spirits after. Abram had now an experience of the world in its wicked violence, as he had victoriously resisted its defiant challenge, and the beaten kings might easily visit him with vengeance. Therefore he receives the consoling promise, that Jehovah him- self would be his shield, his defence in all conflicts (Ps. iii. 8; xviii. 2).—Thy exceeding great re- ward.+ Not, perhaps, for thy general piety, but the reward for thy heroic conflict—Abram received the promise of God with the same feeling of weari- ness of his natural life, with which Moses at eighty years received the divine call to go to Egypt and free the people. He wished to’establish his family. Is Jehovah his exceeding great reward, then there naturally follows some one application of. the prom- ise to his personal relations; but he sees no other application, than that God himself would be his ex- clusive reward, that thus, as to this world, this Elie- zer of Damascus,t his steward (ch. xxiv. 2), must be his heir. The thought is painful to him, but he acquiesces in the purpose of God, and desires only light as to the meaning of the promise, whether it is to be understood only of an heir by adoption, in * [The word of the Lord came or was. “ This is the first lace in the Bible where this phrase occurs, and it intro- uces & penpals vision and promise of Abram’s posterity in Christ—the incarnate word.”? Wordsworth.—A. G.J [The "338 is emphatic —A. G.] . t [The rendering “thy reward is exceeding great,” al- though ‘consistent with the original, and yielding a good’ sense, fails to bring out clearly the prominent thought in the promise. It is notthe great things which Jehovah would give, but Jehovah himself, to which the mind of Abram is turned as his reward.—A.@.]_ ~ ¢ t (There is an obvious paranomasia, here—ben-meshek— Dammesek. Wordsworth, after Lightfoot and others, calls attention to the fact, that the name Eliezer is the same as Lazarus in our Lord’s parable (Luke xvi. 20), and to the analogy between that parable and this history. These- ‘ssilent analogies between the Old and New Testaments” are striking and important.—A. G.] 410 GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. which case this Eliezer appears to him the most worthy. He desires most of all a decisive sentence, therefore his proposition of the thing by anticipation. Upon this allusion depends the marvellous tradition that Abram had been king of Damascus (Josrrn., Antiq. i. 7, 2; Jusvin., xxxvi, 2)—To me thou hast given no seed. The pious complaint of hu- man weakness before God must be distinguished from the impious murmurs against God (Exod. v. 92% xxxiii, 12-15; Numb. xi. 11, 21; Josh. vii. 4; Job; the prophets)—One born in my house (son of my house).* It is not synonymous with house- born. It has a deeper meaning; it designates the most esteemed servant of his house.—Eliezer, he says, is already upon the way to become my heir. It is a complaining thought, which forms itself into a resigned proposition, but a proposition which veils a question. Upon this follows the divine decision (ver. 4). Jehovah leads him out of his tent, under the heavens as seen by night. His disposition, pre- paredness for the vision, does not exclude the reality of these events.| He had promised him at first one natural heir. But now the countless stars which he sees, should both represent the innumerable seed which should spring from this one heir, and at the same time be the warrant for his faith. Jehovah shows him the image of his descendants, in the stars of heaven. We recognize here the orientalist from Ur of the Chaldees, for whom the lights of heaven have a religious significance, but at the same time the free monotheist, who no longer seeks in the stars his gods, but the image of his children. That God who speaks to him, can give to him a seed, count- less as the stars in heaven, is truly presupposed ; the represcutation of the countlessness of his de- scendants is the main thought, to which cleave the thoughts of their shining glory and their heavenly character (see chap. xxii. 17; xxvi. 4; Exod. xxxii. 13).—And he believed in the Lord. This can- not be either an element of a dream, or the frame of mind prepared peculiarly for visions, for it is an act of faith on the part of Abram, which was counted to him for righteousness by Jehovah. Knobel re- marks: “ Abram did not laugh, incredulously, as in the Elohistic section, xvii. 17,” as if a believer, in the long delay of the promise, could never fall into doubt, (although there is no mention of any incredu- lity in the passage referred to). Keil asks: ‘‘ How did. Moses know that Abram believed? and that Je- hovah counted it to him for righteousness?” He answers: “He proves his faith, because, according to the following directions, he brought the sacrifices, and because what Jehovah did with the animals was areal declaration on his part, that he counted to _ Abram his faith for righteousness.” We must dis- tinguish, however, the inward events from these sacramental signs, in which they are visibly mani- fested and sealed. The faith of Abram in the prom- ise of a bodily heir was the central point in the de- velopment of his faith; with this faith he enjoyed the consciousness that Jehovah counted it to him for righteousness. Justification by faith, as an experi- ence of the inner life, manifests itself in the peace * (Baumgarten suggests that Eliezer was born at Damas- cus; then the "M"2 3 is not Eliezer, but his son, p. 185, —A, G.J {Heb. Son of my house is inheriting me; so also in the 4th verse, there shall not inherit thee this one.—A. G.] } [There is no impassable cleft or abyss between the spheres of vision and of sense, or between the supersensi- | ble and the sensible.—A. G.] of God; and Abram could have given testimony ag to this to his children, if nothing had occurred as to the sacrificial animals and their consumption by fire. The explanation of Knobel, ‘‘a right disposition of heart is of just as much avail to him as integrity in acts,” is both tame and shallow. [This is confessedly an important passage. We have here, and in the promise (ver. 1), the germ of the great doctrine of the Lord our righteousness, We may not attach to the words here used the ideas in all their definiteness,, which have been derived from the use which the Apostle makes of them in his discussion of the question, how a sinner can be justified (Rom. iv. 4, 5, 10, 18-25); but neither may we overlook his inspired exposition, and strive to interpret the words, as if they stood entirely by themselves. Leaving this out of view, however, it is clear “that Abram had no righteousness of his own, that righteousness was imputed‘to him, that it was faith in Jehovah in him which was counted for righteousness ;” and further, that this faith is viewed here, not merely as the root of all true obedience to the will of God, and thus the sum of righteousness or personal holiness, but as embracing and stead- fastly resting upon (as the word rendered believed, here means) God, as the God of grace and salvation, It is the act by which he goes out from himself, and relies upon God, for righteousness and grace. The history clearly shows that there was this entire re- moval from the natural ground upon which he had stood, and this entire, hearty, steadfast resting upon Jehovah, “who is just and having salvation. The promise which Abram’s faith embraced was the promise of salvation through the covenant seed, aud he so regarded it. His faith, therefore, was essen- tially the same with that specific faith in Christ which is said to justify (see Rom. iv. 18). The Notes of Kurtz, Baumgarten, Murphy, are suggestive and valuable; and the exposition of Calvin is admirable,— 30M, to think, desire, purpose; then to esteem, reck- on, impute, set to one’s account, 2 Sam. xix. 19; Ps. xxxii, 2; Lev. ‘vii. 18; xvii. 2; Num. xviii, 27.—A,G.] 2. The Covenant Sacrifice and the Covenant in reference to Canaan (vers, 7-17). Jehovah gave to Abram the starry heavens as a sign of the promise of an heir. Now he promises to Abram the land of Canaan for his possession (ver. 7). Abram asks a sign for this.* Jehovah appoints the covenant which he would conclude with him over his sacrifices, for a sign, He determines, also, at first, the sacrifice which Abram should bring. The animals named here, are the sacrificial animals of the Levitical cultus. The future possession of Canaan was repre- sented beforehand in the sacrifices of Canaan. The sacrificial animals were all divided(hence, M7713 M">, to hew, cut a covenant), except the birds, and the dissevered parts laid over against each other. _ “The ceremonial of the covenant of old consisted in the contracting parties passing between the dead animals, with the imprecation, that in case of a breach .in the covenant, it might be done to them as to these animals.” Against which Keil (who, how- * [Not, however, as expressing any doubt, but as the natural working and fruit of his faith.—A. G.] [Ver. 7.—I am the Lord that brought thee, ete. See the i Preface to the Ten Commandments,” Jacosvs, p. 268.— G.] aon ‘arten says that as this sacrifice was a covenant sacrifice, and lay at the foundation of all the sacrifices of the covenant, all the animals used in those sacrifices were hero required.—A, G.] CHAP, XV. 1-21. 4il ever, without sufficient ground, denies that this act had the peculiar nature of a sacrifice), remarks: “‘ This interpretation of ancient usage is not support- ed by Jer. xxxiv. 18.” “The interpretation which the prophet here gives to the symbolic usage, can only be a fuller explanation, which does not exclude another original idea of the symbol. The division of the sacrificial animals probably only typified the twofold character of the covenant; and the passage of the two contracting parties between the parts of the one sacrifice, typified their reconciliation to a unity.” This would be in accordance with the anal- ogy of the symbol of the ancients, the tessera hospi- ta.ts, which was also divided into two parts in order to represent the alliance or union of the two posses- sors of the divided little table. Jehovah himself does not, indeed, appear as sharing in the offering of the sacrifice, but as asharer in the sacrificial feast, which was signalized in the later thank-offering, in the show-bread, and essentially in all sacrifices. If the man who presents the sacrifice gives himself away to God, so Jehovah gives himself into commu- nion with that man; forms a covenant with him. The individual specimens of the collective sacrificial animals, designate, in Calvin's view, all Israel in all its parts, as one sacrifice. In the three years age, Theodoret finds an intimation of the three genera- tions of bondage in Egypt; which Keil approves, with a reference to Judg. vi. 25 (seven years’ bond- age, a seven year old bullock). he further intima- tions of numbers in the passage, to wit, a number seven, five, and eight, Keil rejects—And when the ‘fowls came down. The pieces lay for some time, unconsumed by the fire, and attracted the birds of prey, which would have polluted and preyed upon them, had not Abram driven them away. These are the heathen, the enemies of Israel, who would corrupt and destroy it, like the birds of prey (the sacrifice), which were held as unclean by. the Jews. The hawk was sacred to the Egyptians, but the later Jews represented the opposition between Jews and heathen, through the dove and sparrow-hawk (see Knobel). But Abram, in his faith, remained the guardian-spirit of Israel, who secured its sacred des- tination (Ps. cv. 42).—Ver. 12. And when the sun was going down.* From this reference to the time, we may judge what was the marvellous attention and watchfulness of Abram. The great scene of the revelation began on the previous night; he had stood under the starry heavens as holding a solemnity; the victims were slain, and the pieces distributed, and then the watch over them was held until the setting of the sun. His physical strength . sinks with it, a deep sleep ([77"N) overcomes him. But the disposition for visions preserves itself in the sleep, and so much the more, since it is even the deep, prophetic sleep. Abram sees himself over- taken by a great horror of darkness, which the word of Jehovah explains to him. It was the anticipation of the terror of darkness, which, with the Egyptian bondage, should rest upon the people. This bond- age itself is pointed out to him, under three or four circumstances: 1. They would be oppressed and. tor- mented in this service; 2. it would endure four hun- dred years; 8. the oppressing people should be judged; 4. they should come out. of the bondage with great substance. It is to be distinctly observed, that the name of this people, and the land of this servitude, is concealed. Moreover, there are further * (Heb., was about to go down.—A, G.] disclosures which concern the relation of the patri- arch to this sorrow of his descendants. He himself should go to his fathers in peace in a good, that is, great age. But his people should reach Canaan in the fourth generation after its oppression, from which we may infer that a hundred years are reckoned as a generation.*—F'or the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full. The Amorites, as the most power- ful tribe of the Canaanites, stand here for tle whole people (Josh. xxiv. 15). Israel’s inheritance of Ca- naan is limited by the judgment upon the Canaanites; but this judgment itself is limited and conditioned by righteousness, according to which the measure of iniquity must first be full—Ver. 17. Behold a smoking furnace. This new manifestation must not be regarded as belonging to the dream vision, but as the intuition of the waking consciousness, under the form of a vision. For the divine accept- ance of the sacrifice cannot be fulfilled in a dream, any more than the faith of Abram, than his sacrifice, or the making of the covenant itself—The smoking furnace is analogous to the burning bush, and pillar of fire of Moses. That it here designates the anger of God (Keil) is not supported by Ps. xviii. 9.4 The fire-symbols are not always symbols of the consuming anger of God (as perhaps the seraphim), but also signs of purifying and saving judgments, as the pillar of fire, and pre-eminently the fire upon the altar of burnt-offering. And beyond doubt, in the sense of this passage, Jehovah goes with the sacrificial fire between the pieces of the animals. That the pieces were not laid upon the altar, arises from the mode of forming a covenant, according to which the con- tracting parties must pass between them, Abram had gone between them long before the evening. Now Jehovah goes through in the sacrificial flame. The image of the sacrifice signifies that the sacrificial fire should never be extinguished in Israel; this is visibly represented, moreover, under the flame of the altar. We must recognize clearly, that it is incredi- ble that the flame should pass between the pieces of the sacrifice without consuming them. But the flame cannot designate the judgments of God upon the oppressors of Israel (Keil), since the pieces indeed designate Israel. But neither the judgments upon Israel, since the pieces which signify Israel were already divided, i. e., offered and dedicated to God. The sacrificial fire, as an efficient element of change, changes the flesh into a sweet savor for Jehovah, and the judgment of an carthly dissolution into an act of deliverance, into a new, heavenly existence. 8. The founding of the Covenant and its signifi- cance (vers, 17-21).—Unto thy seed have I given this land. The covenant which Jehovah makes with Abram relates especially to the grant of the land of Canaan to his descendants. Hence, also, it is sealed with the offering of the sacrificial animals usual in the land.—F'rom the river of Egypt. Keil holds that it is the Nile, because it is "m3, not dma (Numb. xxxiv. 5). Knobel, on the other hand, remarks correctly: ‘‘The Nile cannot be intended, since the Euphrates would not have been described as the great river in opposition to it.” It is thus * (Ver. 13. Know of asuroty. Know, know thou. Know certainly, This responds to Abram’s question, Whereby shall I know? ver. 8. Munrpny, p. 218.—A. G.J + [Kurtz regards this as the first appearance of the Schechinah, andsays: ‘It is the symbol of the gracious presence of God: the splendor of his glory, the consuming tire of his holiness, which no mere human eye can bear, be- fore which no sinful child of man can stand, is veiled bencath his grace,’’ p. 180.—A. G.] 412 GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. the Wady el Arisch, brook of Egypt, otherwise called Rhinocolura, lying at the southern limits of Israel (Numb. xxxiv. 5; Josh. xv.4; Is. xxvii. 12); not the Nile, because an oratorical hyperbole would not agree with the exact bounding of the land. [Henesrenere, Beitrdge, vol. iii. p. 265, urges in favor of the Nile not only the term which is used, "m2, and which is not interchangeable with the term for a stall stream or brook, >Mm2, but also that the passage is rhetorical, as is clear from the fact that the tribes which the Israelites were to dispossess were purely Canaanitish, and no more extended to the Euphrates than to the Nile. Kurtz adds, that these two streams are here used as representative of the two great world-powers between which Israel should dwell. It is thus a prediction that the de- scendants of Abram should have an independent ex- istence by the side of these two great empires, and that no nation should have any permanent sway be- tween them and these two empires. So that their dominion may be said to reach from the Euphrates to the Nile-—These two rivers are, moreover, con- stantly referred to in the later Scriptures, as the ex- treme boundaries of Israel. See.Is. xxvii. 12; Jer. ii. 18. In its best days too, the Israelitish dominion reached, to all intents, to Egypt, since all, or nearly all the intervening powers were subject to David and Solomon. Wilkinson holds that the word "8°, river, a form of which is here used, is the Hebrew form of the Egyptian word Jaro, river, applied to the Nile; see Busn, Notes, p. 255.—A. G.] The Israelitish dominion should reach to the Eu- phrates, and did actually “in its best days” reach to it, but there is no record of its extension to the Nile. Weare not dealing here with a prophetic and spiritual word, but with the definite bounds of the land, for the race of Abram, as is clear also from the follow- ing enumeration. “Ten tribes are enumerated going from the southern border to the north, in order to fix and deepen the impression of universality and com- pleteness, of which the number ten is the symbol— no tribes are excepted or spared (Delitzsch), In other passages, sometimes seven (Deut. vii. 1; Josh. iii, 10), six (Ex. iii. 8, 17; xxiii, 23; Deut xx. 17), five (Ex. xiii. 5), or even two (Gen. xiii. 7), are named; or finally, all are embraced under the com- mon name, Canaanites.” Keil. The number ten is not, however, the number of completeness (that is twelve), but the number of a completed develop- ment; here of the completed development of the Canaanites for judgment. The Hivites (ch. x. 147) are here omitted. The Hivites at Hermon, in the region of Lebanon, were afterwards driven out, but the Hivites at Gibeon were graciously spared (Judg. iii..8; Josh. xi. 19). “The Kenites were an Ama- lekitish—originally Arabian tribe, southerly from Canaan (Numb. xxiv. 21; 1 Sam. xv. 6; xxvii. 10; xxx. 29), of whom a part afterwards removed to Ca- naan -(Judg. i, 163: iv. 11, 17). Knobel.—The Kenizzites. There is a reference to Kenaz, an Edomite (chap. xxxvi. 15, 42), with which: Knobel joins the passage -before us, but Keil objects, be- cause he correctly assumes that Kenaz must have descended from Edom, without bringing into account the mingling of the Edomites with the original in- habitants of the Jand. The Kadmonites, also, are never anywhere more clearly determined.* * [they seem to have been the more eastern, and to have held the other extreme boundary of the promised land, towards the Euphrates, Murray. p. 300.—A. G. DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL. 1. For the vision, see the Exegétical remarks, The vision of a shield and of a vast treasure, brings to remembrance the numerous revelations of God through images in the prophets, especially in Jere- miah and Zechariah. We must distinguish here the threefold form of the one revelation made through visions: 1. Revelation through images; 2. through the word; 8. through the vision in deep sleep, upon which there follows still a revelation to the waking consciousness ‘through the word. The prophetic frame of mind on the part of Abram is very extra- ordinary, since it continued through a whole night and day, and into the following night. 2. The stages of the promise which Abram re- ceived, viewed, as to its genealogical sequence, may be regarded in this order: 1. Thou shalt be a man of blessing, and shalt become a great people (ch. xii. 1); 2. to thy.seed will I give this land (ch. xii. 7); 8. to thy seed the land, to thy land thy seed (ch. xii... 14). Here (ch. xv. 18), the promise of the seed and the land was sealed in the form of a covenant. 4. The promise of a seed advances in the form of a covenant to the assurance that God’ would be ‘the God of his seed (ch. xvii. 7).' 5. The promise jis more definite, that not Ishmael but the son of Sarah should be his heir (ch. xvii. 15 ff.), 6, The heir was promised in the next year (ch. xviii. 10). 7 The whole promise in its richest fulness was sealed by the oath of Jehovah (ch. xxii.). ; 8. The grand thought: God is our shield, or de- fence against all evil; God himself is our greatest reward or highest good; is the introductory com- pletion of all religious desires and hopes. “But man can remain upon this high standpoint only with the greatest difficulty. This is manifest from the appli- cation to practical uses and gains which Abram makes: Lord, what wilt thou give me? Although this application to his own advantage, carried out in a childlike spirit, is perfectly consistent with his faith. 4, Abram under the starry heavens, and his righteousuess of faith. The peculiar determination of the character ot’ the patriarchal religion. Here first, the full importance of faith comes into view. Here also, first, the reckoning of righteousness cor- responding therewith. From this point onward, both fundamental thoughts run through the holy scrip- ture (see Rom. iv; James ii.).* The future of the Evangelical church was prepared on that night. It was the one peculiar blooming hour of all salvation by faith, But we must not, therefore, so weaken and lower the idea of righteousness, that we should explain it as equivalent with integrity, ‘or in similar ways. Righteousness is the guiltless position’ or standing in the forum of right, of justice. The * [ghteonness must be had, or there is no salvation. Men have lost righteousness, and the. power to gain it. ‘How can it be secured? It is by faith. -It is counted to believers; see for illustration Ley. vii. 18; xvii. 4; 2 Sam. xix, 19, and Rom. 4.—A. G.] Jaconus, Notes, p.. 267. 1, Abram had no righteousness for justification. 2. Faith is not imputed to him as a work, as a 1acritorious ground of justification, but only as instru- mental, laying hold on a perfect righteousness, 3. The law could not claim any other than a perfect righteousness— his own or another’s imputed to him—set to his account. And this is the gospel plan of salvation—to reckon the per- fect righteousness received by faith, as our righteousness for justification.—A. G.] : i (Kurrz: He is righteous who, through the freedom of his will, conforms to the divine idea and end of his being. Woxpswonrn is better: Righteousness is that state in whic CHAP. XV. 1-21. 413 forum in which Abram stands here, is the forum of the inward life before God. In this he was, on the ground of his faith, declared righteous, through the word and the Spirit of God. Hence we read here, also, first of his peace, ver. 15. 5. The difference between the four hundred years, ver. 18, and Acts vii. 6, and the four hundred and thirty years, Ex. xii. 40, is explained, not only by the use of round, prophetic numbers here, but also from the fact, that we must distinguish between the time when the Israelites generally dwelt in Egypt, and the period when they became enslaved and oppressed. Paul counts (Gal. iii. 17) the time’ be- tween the promise and the law, as four hundred and thirty years, in the thought that the closing date of the time of the promise was the death of Jacob (Gen. xlix.). See the Introduction; and for the difference in question, Dg.itzscn, p. 371. (Note Upon THE FOUR HUNDRED YEARS AFFLIC- TION AND SERVITUDE oF IsrRAEL.—It is confessedly a matter of dispute how these four hundred years are to be computed. Some fix the birth of Isaac as the starting-point, others the entrance of Jacob into Egypt. The, difficulty does not lie in reconciling the different statements of the Scripture, but in bringing any conclusion formed upon these statements, into harmony with a general system of Chronology. Baumgarten says: The principal thing in the threat- ening, the first word in the description of the sor- row, is an announcement of their condition as strangers, 72,7 MI A. The description, there- fore, in his view, covers the period of their sojourn in Canaan, during which they were strangers. He urges, in favor of this, the words of the Apostle (Gal. iii, 17), and the fact that the Israelites were to come out in the fourth generation; a generation obviously falling far short of a hundred years, They were to be there, but three generations. The genealogical table, Exod, vi. 16 ff. favors a much shorter residence than four hundred years ; since the combined ages of the persons there mentioned, Levi, Kohath, Amram, in- cluding the years of Moses at the time of the exo- dus, amount to only four hundred and eighty-four years, from which we must take, of course, the age of Levi, at the entrance of Jacob into Egypt, and the ages of the different fathers at the birth of their sons. It is better, therefore, with Wordsworth, Murphy, Jacobus, and many of the earlier commenta- tors, to make the four hundred years begin with the birth of Isaac, and the four hundred and thirty of the apostle to date from the call of Abram.—A. G.] 6. The demand for a sign relates to the promise of the land, not the promise of a seed. The starry heavens was the sign of the latter promise to him. Compare the similar demand of Gideon (Judg. vi. 17), and of Hezekiah (2 Kings xx. 8), The. pious and believing desire for a sign points toa divine assurance, the impious to an unsanctified knowledge, or, indeed, a doubt. The constant form of the pious desire for a sign, is the believing enjoyment af the sacraments. 4. The sacrificial animals. See Leviticus. 8. The birds of prey. Compare Matthew xiii. 18, 19. "9. The profound sleep. Compare ch, ii. 21; Biblework, p. 209. Thow shalt go to thy fathers in peace. With faith in the grace of God, the future is man’s will is conformed to God’s will—that state in which Adam was created, but from which he fe!l by sin, p. 74.— A. G.] | not only made clear and glorified (John viii. 56), but the present also is illuminated. 10. The iniquities of the Amorites. See Ex. xxxiv, 11,14; Lev. xviii. 24; xx. 23; Numb. xxxiii. 52, 55; Josh. xxifi. 12.—No people is destroyed whose iniquity is not full.* 11. Both Detrrzscx (p. 873) end Ker (p. 151), assert that there is no account here of a peculiar sacrifice of a covenant, nor of a peculiar covenant. Against the sacrifice of the covenant, it is said that Abram did not pass between the pieces of the sacri- fice; but this isa pure supposition. Against the idea of a covenant, that there is no account of a pactio, but simply of a sponsio, a solemn promise of God to men. Let it be observed, however, that upon this interpre- tation the moral force in the doctrine of the covenant relation of God to the believer is fatally ignored, and that this interpretation also threatens to change the covenant blessing of the Christian sacraments from a moral to 4 magical blessing. The subject of the promise, Delitzsch remarks, excludes the idea of reciprocity. ‘In the covenant,” says Keil, “which God concludes with man, the man does not stand as upon mutual and equal terms with God, but God grounds the relation of communion, through his promise, and his gracious condescension, to man, whereby he is first prepared to receive, and then, through the reception of the gifts of grace, is pre- pared to discharge the duties flowing out of the covenant, and thus made obligatory upon him.” Although the covenant of God with believing hu- manity, is not a contract between equals, but God founds the covenant, it does not follow, that his founding it is a simple promise, although, even a simple promise, without some moral motive giving rise to it, would be absurd. But now, according to Rom. iv. the foundation of the gracious covenant of God with Abram, was not laid in the covenant of circumcision (Gen. xvii.), but in the covenant of faith (ch. xv.) Hence the Jewish Targums, and after them, Christian theologians, have found in this chapter the forming of a covenant according to the explicit declaration, ver. 17. Dgxirzscu himself, upon ch, xvii., says first: “‘God sealed his covenant with Abram,” but then further, ‘God founded his cove- nant with Abram.” But Kurt, p. 155, remarks: “Long before, at least, long years before, God had established his covenant with Abram.” We make the following distinction: in ch. xv., the eternal, valid covenant of faith was concluded; in ch. xvii. the specific, old covenant of circumcision, the pro- visional sealing of the covenant of faith, of which, under the New Testament, baptism and the Lord’s Supper are the seals. If we recall, that the relation between the Lord and his church is that of the bridegroom and the bride, we shall truly dismiss the assumption of a magical working and efficacy of the covenant, and return to the high estimate of moral relations in the kingdom of personal life, in which also the passive position, which the Formula Cone, recognizes and holds in conversion is to be conceived as a moral state—in which the soul is held in the * [The Lord administers the affairs of nations on the principle of moral rectitude. Muzrny, p. 299. Wonps- WworrTH calls attention to this sentence in its relation to the destruction of the Canaanites by Israel, p. 76.—A. G.] t het holds that Abram did not now pass between the pieces; that this is but one side of the covenant, in which God, but not Abram, brings himself under covenant obligation; and that the covenant is completed and ratified by Abram in the transactions. Ch. xvii. p. 179.—A. G.j 414 GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES, attitude of waiting, and does not grasp beforehand— produced in the strength of the gratia preveniens, and not as a pure creaturely and unconcerned yield- ing of one’s self to the pleasure of another. HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL, See the Doctrinal and Ethical paragraphs.—The great thought: God himself is our God: 1. Our shield; 2. our great reward (comp. Rom. viii.),—It is allowed the saints, to ask: Lord, Lord, what wilt thou give me?—We learn from Abram to consult with God—as to‘ our affairs;—to deliberate with Jehovah as to our future—Ver. 4. If the lesser is denied us, that itself intimates a grant of the higher. ~—In submission we are near the highest promises and gifts—Abram, the childless, shall become the father of nations.—Abram in the starry night.—The word of God in the starry night.—The faith of Abram: 1. Abram a believer; 2. a father of believers (Rom. iv.); 8. a father of all believers, especially of be- lievers from the circumcision.—Abram’s righteous- ness of faith.—The key-note of his righteousness of faith: 1. The blessing has overcome the curse in his heart and life; 2. he will overcome it in the world through his seed ; his children shall be as the stars of heaven.—The high antiquity of Evangelical faith. —The covenant of God with Abram.—Abram’s pro- phetic sleep.—The holy land: 1. In the literal sense; 2. as a type of the promised fatherland of believers. —The certainty of the promises of God.—The first mention of the grave cheerful and friendly.—The | grave already illuminated and glorified with the glimpse of the life beyond. Starke: Lance: Fear and discouragement may sometimes assail the strongest heroes of faith; it is well, however, when they are not allowed to reign’ (Ps. Ixxxiv. 12; Rom. viii. 17; Ps. lsxiii, 25, 26; exlii. 6)—[When some astronomers have attempted to specify the number of stars, and one asserts that there are 1892, another 1709, and still another, 7000, these are pure conjectures, upon which they cannot agree among themselves. Then, too, there are the thousands of sturs, so remote in space, that they-are not visible through the best telescopes. It would have been a small consolation to Abram, if his seed should only equal the small number of stars specified.]—Rom. iv. 3; Gal. iii. 6; James ii, 23.— Ver. 3. a prudent householder !—Cramer: If we will be counsellors of God, we will do it to our injury.— God places before the reason, incomprehensible (and incredible) things; for, what we can comprehend, there is no necessity that we should believe.*—God foreknows all things.—Ver. 15. This is a pleasant description of death—In what a good age consists. ~The burial of the dead is a primitive custom, of which this is the first notice. We never find, in the Holy Scriptures, any mention of the burning of the dead, customary among the heathen; or of any cther : way than of burial (Judg. ii. 9)—God exercises a constant foresight, even over the seed of believers. Lisco: The war with the kings, although victo- riously ended, might provoke retaliation afterwards ; thus the present state of Abram’s mind is connected with his previous state. Ver. 2, God is here for the * [This obviously needs modification. —A. G.) hat a great thing, is it not, to be near | first time called Adonaii—Ver. 6. Abram is under ‘the trial or test—Although Abram possessed s0 many beautiful and noble qualities of heart, and in his walk manifests so many virtues, yet he is not, . through all these, righteous before God, not in the possession of the divine favor, for there is also sin in him, ete. This defect his faith, his living confi- dence in God (more precisely, the word of God which he grasps in his faith), supplies—The justification of the sinner by faith, is the only way of righteous- ness, before, during or after the giving of the law.— Ver. 15. Go to thy fathers. They must then still live upon the other side of death, in another state and life; the continued existence after death is here evi- dent, and, indeed, as the word in peace, intimates, a blessed existence for the pious.—Ver. 16. All na- tions hold their land, likewise, in fee from God, and will be deprived of it when their rebellion against the Lord their God has reached its full height. Thus the Amorites, and thus the Israelites at the exile, and the second destruction of Jerusalem.—Ver. 17. The flame of fire is the sign of the gracious presence of God, and of his pleasure in the sacrifice (Lev. ix. 24).—GzrRLacs: Abram confesses his pain and grief. —Without the least apparent human probability, he trusts unconditionally upon the divine and gracious promise. The word “believed” is here exact, or precise; he cleaves to the Lord (precisely: he stays, supports, rests himself upon the Lord).—The three years old animals, because fully grown; faultless animals must be chosen for sacrifice—Ver. 15. To go to hig fathers(ch. xxv. 83; xxxv. 29; xlix. 29, 33; Deut. xxxii. 60; 2 Kings xxii. 20). The beauti- ful expression for the life after death, testifies that even in the highest antiquity, the outlook into the life on the other side of the grave, was neither dark nor gloomy.—(Ver. 17. Description of the oriental fur- nace; a great, cylindrical-shaped fire-pot).—CaLWER, Handbuch: Abyram’s doubt, and newly strengthened faith. He believed without the sight.—Bunsen: [a marvellous translation: The Son of. Mesek, posses- sion, is my house, Eliezer a Damascene].—ScHRODER: The present and future of Abram—God anticipates, prevents (with the Eliezer). Ch. xvi. states another project, springing out of the weakness of his faith. Abram sees not, he believes.—Here appears for the first time the word, whose nature and strength we have recognized from the first promise onward, and especially in the previous history of: Abram.—Hxss: Ver. 13. To prevent Egypt’s becoming hateful to him, the land was not named (this concealment is rather a trait which attests and authenticates the gen- uine prophecy).—The flame of fire is typical of the divine presence and majesty.—Scuwrnge: Ver. 6. We agree with Luther, this is the great word in this book.—Tausr: The temptation of the believer: 1, What is the highest necessity? 2. the highest consolation? 3. How can one pass out from the high- est necessity into the greatest consolation ?—Hor- MANN: It was the review of faith which fitted Abram to look out info the future. We looked onward to the blessed rest of the people of God, but he could not do this, except as he secognized in God, the re- storer of that life of man—his own life, the life of his seed, and of the race—perverted and fallen by sin, and burdened with the curse. Dark and troubled it may well be, were the thoughts of the father of the faithful, but the experience of his heart and life were sure, @ CHAP. XVI. 1-16. 415 Abram’s Concession to Sarai’s Impatience. Abram and Hagar. Hagar's Flight. Ne 13 14 15 16 FIFTH SECTION. The Angel of the Lord. Hagar's Return, and Ishmael’s Birth. —_— Cuaprer XVI. 1-16. Now Sarai, Abram’s wife [in the face of the previous promise], bare him no children: and she had an handmaid, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar [fight, fugitive]. And Sarai said unto Abram, Behold now, the Lord hath restrained me from bearing; I pray thee, goin unto my maid; it may be that I may obtain [be buildea] children by her, And Abram hearkened to the voice of Sarai. And Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar her maid the Egyptian, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife. And he went in unto Hagar, and she conceived: and when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress was despised in her eyes. And Sarai said unto Abram, 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. But Abram said unto Sarai, Behold thy maid is in thy hand; do to her as it pleaseth thee [is good in thine eyes]. And when Sarai dealt hardly with her, she fled from her face. And the angel of the Lord found her by a fountain of water in the wilderness, by the fountain in the way to Shur [rocky. Josephus: Pelusium. Gesenius: Suez. Keil: Dschifar |. And he said, Hagar, Sarai’s maid, whence camest thou? and whither wilt thou go? And she said, I flee from the face of my mistress, Sarai. And the angel of the Lord said unto her, Return to thy mistress, and submit [bow] thyself under her hands. And the angel of the Lord said unto her, I will multiply thy seed exceedingly, that it shall not be [cannot be] numbered for multitude. And the angel of the Lord said unto her, Behold, thou art with child, and shalt bear a son, and shalt-call. his name Ishmael [God will hear]; because the Lord hath heard thy affliction [distress]. And he will be a wild man; his hand wil! be against every man, and every man’s hand against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren—[far and wide ina freecountry]. And she called the name of the Lord that spake unto her, Thou God seest me [of true seoing]: for she said, Have I also here looked after him that [peculiarly] seeth me? Wherefore the well was called, Beer-lahai-roi [well of the life of seeing, or vision]; behold, it is between Kadesh [consecrated | and Bered [nail, gravel-like hail 1. And Hagar bare Abram a son: and.Abram called his son’s name, which Hagar bare, Ishmael. And Abram was fourscore and six years old, when Hagar bare Ishmael to Abram. PRELIMINARY REMARK. For the difficulties growing out of the sexual relations in the history of the Patriarchs, see the Introduction, p. 80. e EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL, 1, According to Knobel, this section is a Jeho- vistic enlargement of a brief Elohistic original narrative. But the narrative bears upon its face a complete and living unity. é ‘ 2. Sarai’s Fanatical Self-denial (vers. 1-4). Bare him no children. Not even yet, although he had already received (ch. 15) the solemn assur- ance of the great promise. She was barren in ch. xi, 80, and remained so after ch. xv. 2, The child- less state of Abram’s house was its great sorrow, and the more 50, since it was in perpetual. opposition to the calling, destination, and faith of Abram, and was a constant trial of his faith. Sarai herself, more- over, the consort of Abram, came gradually more and more to. appear as a hindrance to the fulfilment of the divine promise, and as Abram, according to ch, xv., had fixed his eye upon his head servant, Eliezer of Damascus, so now, Sarai fixes her eye upon her head maiden,* Hagar the Egyptian. Ha- gar was probably added to the household of Abram during his residence in Egypt (ch. xii. 10). She manifestly possessed a prominent place in his house- hold, and appears to have brought to that position, not only mental gifts, but also an inward participa- tion in the faith of the houschold.—The Lord hath * (Here, of course, her slave, bond-woman,—A. G.] 416 restrained me from bearing.* (The mother’s womb closed—a figurative description of the ap- pointed barrenness), The barrenness, also, is traced back to the highest causality, the purpose of Je- hovah (ch. xxix. 81; xxx. 32; Ps. cxxvil. 3; Is, Ixvi. 9). The sexual relations, and the declarations in regard to them, are sanctified by their ultimate end, their spiritual reference. The dejection, at least, the sorrow, breaks out in the words of Sarai, also, as they had in the utterance of Abram, ch. xv. 3.— Goin unto. Euphemistic explanation of the sexual connection.—It may be that I may obtain (be builded) by her. As to the connection between moa, 42, M3, see the lexicons. To be built, is to become a house; to become a house, is to obtain children, a family. Hagar should enlarge Sarai: Hagar’s child should be her child (see ch. xxx. 3), The concubine, viewed in the light of this reason, for which she is chosen, is not so much the concubine of the husband, as supplementary concubine of the wife. The moral idea of monogamy shines clearly through this obscurity in its manifestation, and so |- far this, “‘ possession of concubines” (as Knobel ex- presses it) must be distinguished from the later polygamy, which appeared among the Jews. Sarai practises an act of heroic self-denial, but still, in her womanly and fanatical excitement, anticipates her destiny as Eve had done, and carries even the patri- arch away with her alluring hope. The writer inti- mates how nobly generous she was in her error. This greatness clouded even the clear-sightedness of Abram.+ The narrator brings also into promi- nence the extenuating fact, that they had been already ten years in Canaan, waiting in vain for the heir of Canaan.—When she saw that she had conceived. ‘‘The unfruitful Hannah received the like treatment with Sarai, from the second wife of her husband (1 Sam. i. 6). It is still thus, to-day, in eastern lands (see Lang: ‘Manners and Customs,’ i p. 198). The Hebrew regards barrenness as a great evil and a divine punishment (ch. xix. 31; xxx. 1, 23; Lev. xx. 20), and fruitfulness as a great Si and a divine blessing (ch. xxi.6; xxiv. 60; x. Xxili, 26; Deut. vii, i The orientals regard these things in the same light still (see VouNry: ‘Travels,’ ii. p. 859; Ma.coxm’s ‘ History of Persia ;’ and Winer: Real-wérterbuch, art. Kinder). Knobel. Hagar, however, had not. the position of’ a second wife, and erred, when in her disposition she assumed this position, instead of recognizing her subordina- tion to her mistress. This subordination was as- sumed by Abram, and therefore he does not seem to have noticed her haughtiness and pride.t 3. Sarai’s Displeasure and Hagar’s Flight (vers. 5 and 6).—Mly wrong be upon thee. Precisely, wrong in an objective sense, wrong which I suffer. Sarai, in her indignation against the pride and inso- lence of Hagar, believed that Abram looked with approbation upon it, and therefore expresses herself as if offended.§ The overbent bow flies back with violence. This is the back-stroke of her own eager, * [Heb., shut me up.—A. G.] t [Abram yields to the sueseetlon of Sarai without oppo- sition, because, as the prophet Malachi says, ii. 15, he sought the seed promised by God. Kertt, p. 152,—A, Gl parent indifference which probably . She was led from usband were trans- t (ang it was this aj was the source of Sarai’s sense of inju: it to suapect that the affections of her ferred.—A. G.] § (She felt that Abram ought to have redressed her wrong—ought to have seen and rebuked the insolence of the bond-woman.—A. G.] GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. overstrained course. Still, her words are against Abram ; the consequences of her wrong should fall upon him; she would leave his conduct to the judg. ment of Jehovah, more as an appeal to his con- science, than as a decided condemnation.*—Behold thy maid is in thy hand. Abram adheres firmly to the original standpoint. He regards Hagar still as the servant, and the one who fulfils the part of Sarai, and so far justifies himself against Sarai, But this justification is turned now into the severe cen- sure and affliction of Hagar, and this is the result of ' the wrong position into which he has allowed him- self to be drawn.—Sarai dealt hardly with her. How, precisely, we are not told. Doubtless, through the harsh thrusting her back into the mere position and service ofa slave. Hagar believed that she had grown | above such a position, and flees. The proud, unyield- ing passion of the Ishmaelite for freedom, shows its characteristic feature in their ancestress. Some have ventured so far, as to suppose that Abram must have hastened after her, and brought her back, full of honor. 4. The intervention on the part of the Angel of Jehovah, and Hagar’s return (vers. 7-14).—The Angel of Jehovah. See the preliminary remarks to ch. xii, [The expression 07 Nba appears here for the first time. While the Angel of Jeho- vah is Jehovah himself, it is remarkable, that in the very meaning of the name, as messenger, or one who is sent, there is implied a distinction of persons in the Godhead. There must be one who sends, whose message he bears.—A. G.]}+ That this Angel is iden- tical with Jehovah, is placed beyond question in vers. '18and14. The disposition of Hagar, helpless, for- saken, with all her pride, still believing in God, warned by her own conscience, makes it altogether fitting that the Angel of Jehovah should appear to her, 7. ¢., Jeho- vah himself, in his condescension—manifesting him- self as the Angel.—She had found rest, by a fountain in the wilderness; and here, in her helplessness, self-reflection, and repentance, she gains the disposi- tion or fitness for the vision. It was by the fount- ain in the way to Shur. “Shur, now Dschifar, is the northwestern part of the desert of Arabia, bor- dering upon Egypt (comp. Ex, xv. 22; and Tuc: ‘in der deutschen morgenlénd. Zeitschrift, i. p. 175).” Keil. (Ch. xxv. 18; 1 Sam. xv. 7; xxvii. 8), A waste stretch of land, of five or six days’ journey, lying between Palestine and Egypt (see Knonst, p. 158). Her location was thus upon the old, worn path, leading from Hebron by Beersheba to Egypt. The respect which she enjoyed agrees with her per- sonal, inward worth, as to her character and faith, but at the same time tends to the proper estimate of Ishmael, who, as the child of Abram, could not be left, undistinguishable among the heathen, The Angel of the incarnation, even, could not permit that Hagar, in an erroneous zeal to become his future mother, should go on his own account into helpless sorrow. His first address sounds as the voice of her own awakened conscience: Hagaf, Sarai’s maid, whence camest thou? Truly, out of a wilfully sundercd relation of duty and piety, and out of the house of blessing. [The-angel brings her to a sense of her true relation: Sarai’s maid, not * (The appeal is bee and passionate—springing from 8 mind smarting under the sense of injury—and not calm and reverential.—A. G.] t (The phraseology indicates to us a certain inherent plurality within the essence of the one only God, of which we have had previous indications, ch i, 1, 26; iii, 22. Ja- COBUS, p. a7 CHAP. XVI. 1-16. 417 Abram’s wife.—A. G.]|—And whither goest thou? indeed, wilfully into guilt, disgrace, and sorrow. Her answer testifies to the oppression which she had ex- perienced, but also to the voice of her own con- science.—-F'rom the face of my mistress, Sarai. —Return to thy mistress, and submit thyself. [Submit, humble thyself ; the same word as that by which Sarai’s harsh-dealing is described.—A.. G.] The command to return to duty comes first, then the promise. It carries the joyous sound of an innumer- able progeny—the tribes of Ishmael.—Ishmael, be- cause the Lord hath heard. Misery sighs ;- the sighs ascend to God; hence misery itself, if not sent as a curse, is a voiceless prayer to God. But this is true especially of the misery of Hagar, who had learned to pray in the house of Abram. ‘ According to the later writers, it was the custom that the mother should name the cbild (ch. iv. 1, 25; xix. 87 fh; xxix. 82 ff; xxx. 6 ff.; xxxviii. 3 ff); but the Elohist allows the child to be named only by the father (ch. v. 8; xvi. 15; xvii. 19; xxi. 3; comp. ch, xv. 18)’ Knobel. This distinction is obviously far-fetched. It is only on special occasions that the mother is referred to as giving the name to the child. In ch. xxxviii. 8, 4, the father and mother are alternately concerned in giving the name. Abram himself afterwards appropriates the maternal nam- ing of Ishmael.--And he will be a wild man (wild-ass man). The limitation of the promise is connected with the promise itself. Hagar must be cured of the proud delusion, that she is destined to become the mother of the believing people of Abram, and that therefore the hope of Abram depends upon her personal self-destination; a supposition which doubtless had taken firm possession of her mind, through the presupposition of Sarai herself. The image of the wild ass is not chosen in a contemptu- ous sense. “ The figure of the 879, onager, in the desert, free, wild-roving and untamable animal, poetically described in Job xxxix. 5-8, designates, in a striking manner, the Bedouin Arabs with their unrestrained love of freedom, as upon camel (Delfil) or horse, with spear in hand, they ride over the desert, noisy, hardy, frugal, delighting in the varied beauties of nature, and despising life in towns and cities :” and the words, his hand will be against every man, and every man’s hand against him, describe the ceaseless feuds among themselves and with their neighbors, in which the Ishmaelites live.” Keil. Compare the characteristics of Esau, ch. xxvii. 40. For the description of the Arabs in the books of travels, see KnopeL, p. 158.* Knobel thinks that here also the prophetic image is drawn after the descendants (the free sons of the desert), and finds besides that the promises (ch. xvii. 20; xxi. 20,) “have a more favorable sound.” If this were true, it would be only ‘the other side of the same figure. Hagar must know, above all other things, that Ishmael could not appropriate to him- self the inheritance of blessing. This is intimated in the words, In the presence of all his brethren. He will thus have brethren, but shall dwell in the presence of all, a free man.* Keil remarks, that srp7>> signifies primarily, eastward, according to ch. xxv. 9, but that there is more in the terms than a mere geographical notice, to wit, that Ish- mael shall dwell independently, in the presence of all the descendants of Abram. But history has * [All the modern travellers speak of these same quali- ties as still existing among the Arabs.—A. G.] 27 abundantly confirmed this promise, “Until to-day the Ishmaelites are in unimpaired, free possession of the great peninsula lying between the Euphrates, the isthmus of Suez, and the Red Sea, from whence they have spread over wide districts in North Africa and Southern Asia” (comp. Dexrrzscu, p. 377 ff.) * —And she called the name of the Lord (Jeho. vah). The naming of God by Hagar ("Nn7>N) has been variously interpreted. « Hengstenberg, with Tuch, finds the explanation in the farther named well, ‘well of the life of seeing,” or ‘ vision,” i. e. where a person has seen the face of God, and re- mains alive. Delitzsch holds this to be a verbal im- possibility. We add, that the supposition as to the reality in this explanation, which appears also in Keil, is incorrect. We must distinguish between the patriarchal and legal periods. Of the legal period it is said; thou canst hot see my face, for no man shalt see me and live (Ex. xxxiii, 20); that was true of Moses, so far as he was the mediator of his sinful people (see Ex, xxxiii, 13), The prejudice in Israel, ‘that no one could see the revelation of God and live (Judg. xiii, 22), took its origin from these words. But the sense of the words was, that the manifesta- tion of God in the midst of the sinful people of Israel, and even for Moses, so far as he was the representative of the people, would be fatal. Hence the regulation requiring “darkness in the holy of holies. But of Moses, viewed in and for himself, it is said: The Lord spake with him face to face (Ex. xxxili. 11), Moses, in and for himself, stood upon the patriarchal ground, but as the mediator of the people, he stood upon the ground of the law, and oust first, through the sight of the grace of the Lord, be prepared for the sight of his glory (Ex:. xxxiii. 19). It is an error to confuse the two econ-~ omies, patriarchal and legal. Here the Angel of” the Lord reveals himself, there the law is ordained: through the Angel. Here, those wearied of life, go. in peace to their fathers, there death is the wages. of sin. Here one sees God in the reality of true vision, there God retires into the darkness of the- Holy of Holies. It is still a question, however, whether "8" should mean, the one seeing my person: (the participle from MN", with the suffix of the first person) as Hofmann, Baumgarten, and Delitzsch ex plain after the Chaldee: “thou art a God of sight; whose all-seeing eye will not overlook the helpless and forsaken, even in the most remote corner of the desert.” The meaning of the name Moriah (ch. xxii. 2, 8, 14) appears to be in favor of this reference of the seeing, to God. But here, also, the seeing of Je-~ hovah, was perceived from the appearance of Jeho- vah, i.e. from his becoming seen (or visible). Keil quotes against the interpretation of Hofmann the expression 338" (Is. xxix. 15) and “5 (Is. xlvii. 10), as a designation of the one seeing—who sees me. Thus: "N87 én pause "85 is a substantive, and: designates the sight, the vision. Gesenius, Keil}, and. *(Kalisch remarks in substance: “Every addition to. our knowledge of Arabia and its inhabitants, coufirms more strongly the biblical statements. While they have car- ried their arms beyond thein native tracts, and ascended more than a hundred thrones, they were never subjected to the Persian Empire. The ian and Babylonian kings had oe ne, power over small portions of their tribes, Here the ambition of Alexander the Great and his successors received an insuperable check, and a Roman expedition, in the time of Augustus, totally failed. The Bedouins have remained essentially unaltered sincg the time of the Hebrews and the Greeks.”—A. G.] 418 others: ‘“‘God has manifested himself to her as a God of vision, who can be seen of the actual, most perfect sight, in his angel.”—F'or she said, Have I also looked after him. DoJ see him still. This is not said in the sense of the popular judgment of the legal period: Am I actually still seeing, i. e. in the land of the living, after I have seen Jehovah? (Kiel, Knobel, ete.) ; but, what I now see in this wretched desert, is that still to be regarded as see.ng, after I have seen the Angel of the Lord? (= the glory of the Lord?)* This is a true, and in: the highest degree, real characterizing of the glorious seeing in the condition of the vision (“I have seen thy throne, O Lord, from afar’). It is at the same time, in the highest degree natural, as Hagar express- es the contrast between the two conditions, that of the ordinary seeing and that of the highest seeing (vision).—Wherefore the well was called. Thus not the well of the life of seeing or life of vision (Hengstenberg, Keil), but where the life = the life- giver—quickener, manifests himself, who grants the vision. —Between Kadesh and Bered. ‘Al- though Bered is not mentioned elsewhere, Rowland has still, with great probability, pointed out the well of Hagar, mentioned again (ch. xxiv. 62; 25, 11), in the fountain Ain Kadesh, lying in the camping- ground of the caravans moving from Syria to Sinai southward from Beersheba, Moyle, or Moilchi, Mu- weilch (Rozmnson: Palestine), which the Arabians call Moilahhi (or Mai-lahhi) Hadjar; who show there also a rocky dwelling, Beit-Hadjar (see Rowxanp, in Rirrsr’s Hrdkunde, xiv. p. 1086), Bered must lie to the west of this.” Keil. 5. Hagar’s Return (vers. 15, 16). There are two points which must still be noticed here. First, that Abram receives the name Ishmael, with which, of course, the re-reception of Hagar is expressed; and secondly, the age of Abram, which is of importance in view of the next recurring revelation of Jehovah, as showing the lapse of time between them. DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL. See the Exegetical paragraphs. sl. Sarai’s character: . noble generosity, self- denial, the female friend still more than the sister or wife of Abram, but woman-like, and in a fanatical way anticipating the patience of faith (see 1 Pet, iii, 6). : The moral motive or impulse of seeking the heir of blessing, made availing to an erroneous and selfish degree, is here torn away from its connection with the love impulse or motive, and exalted above it in importance (see the Introduction, p. 81). * [Amidst the variety of versions of these phrases, the | general sense is obvious, There is a recognition of the gra- cious and quickening presence of God revealed to her, and a devout wonder that she should have been favored with such a vision. If we render the name which Hagar gives to Jehovah, as the Hebrew seems to demand, “Thou art a God of vision, or visibility,” i. e. who hast revealed thyself, then the reason for this name is given in the fact, that she had enjoyed this vision. This would be true, whether the surprise she expresses was because she survived the sight (vision), or because she here enjoyed such a vision at all. | This fact also gives the name to the well—not the well of |: the living one seeing me, but of the living—and of course, life-giving, who-here revealed himself.—It is true, that the Heb. "8% takes a different pointing in the 14th verse, from that which it bears in the phrase rendered, ‘‘ Thou God seest me ;”? but the sense given above seems, on the whole, ae ee and is one which the words will bear.— GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. 3. This substitution of the maid for the mistress must, however, be distinguished from polygamy in its peculiar sense. Hagar, on the contrary, regards herself—in the sense of polygamy, as standing with Sarai, and as the favored, fruitful wife, exalts herself above her. The shadow of polygamy resting upon patriarchal monogamy. Isaac’s marriage free from this. It has the purest New Testament form. Re- becca appears, indeed, to have exercised a certain predominant influence, as the wife often does this in the Christian marriage of modern times. 4. Abram’s wrong position between Sarai and Hagar—the result of his yielding to the fanaticism of Sarai.* 5. The Angel of the Lord (ch. xii). The voice of the Angel and the voice of the awakened con- science one, and yet distinct. 6. The words of the Angel leading to conver- sion: 1. Clear description: Hagar, Sarai’s maid; 2. Whence camest thou? 8. Whither wilt thou go? The beginning of conversion itself: simple, pure, clear knowledge. : 7. Obligation and promises are not to be sepa- rated in the kingdom of God, for it is throughout a moral region, But the form changes according to the circumstances—now the higher (evangelical) prom- ises and obligations, now the lower (preparatory) obligations and promises.—Ver. 10. GerLach: A blessing in its external form greater even than that promised to Abram, ch. xv. 5. Still, even in the feebler splendor, we should recognize the great: promised blessing of the father of believers. ‘ Ara- bia, whose population consists to a large extent of Ishmaelites, is a living fountain of men whose streams for thousands of years have poured them- selves far and wide to the east and west. Before Mobammed, its tribes were found in all border-Asia, in the East Indies as early as the middle ages; and in all Northern Africa it is the cradle of all the wan- dering hordes. Along the whole Indian Ocean, down to Molucca, they had their settlements in the middle ages; they spread along the coast to Mozam- bique; their caravans crossed India to China; and in Europe they peopled Southern Spain, and ruled it for seven hundred years,” Ritter. . 8, Hagar’s satisfaction with the future of her son, a sign of her humiliation.t The picture of Ishmael here the image of a scion of Abram and the maid (Goethe: ‘‘From my father comes the bodily stat- ure, the bearing of the higher life; from my mother the joyful disposition and love of pleasure.” See Lanes: Vermischte Schriften, i, p. 166.) The re- lation between ancestors and their descendants, The law of life which lies at the ground of the contrast between the son of the maid and the son of the free (John i. 18). The discord in the offspring of misal- liances. Ep. Popping: ‘Travels in Chili, Peru, etc.” p. 189. On the color, These mixed progenies re- ward the dark mother with contempt, the white father,with aversion. ‘A large part of the Bedouins still lead a robber-life. They justify themselves in it, upon the ground of the hard treatment of Ishmael, their father, who, driven out of his paternal inherit- * [A thousand volumes written against polygamy, would not lead to a clearer, fuller conviction, of the evils of that pees than the story under review, Busu, Notes, p. 259. t [This appears, too, in th the question of the angel : camest thou? And she said, mistress, Sarai.—A. G.) answer which she makes to agar, Sarat’s matg, whence T flee from the face of my CHAP. XVI. 1-16. 419 ance, received the desert for his possession, with the permission to take wherever he could find.” Gerlach. “The Arabian’s land, according to their assumed right, reaches as far as they are free to go.” Ritter, 9. The importance of the Arabs in history. Ishmael. God hears. The strong, world-historical ‘“‘wild-ass,” springs out of the mercy of God towards the misery of Hagar. His hand against every man: this is true of the spiritual Ishmael, Mohammedan- ism, in its relation to other religions. It stands ina fanatical polemic relation.—The Arabians have never been overcome by any of the great world-conquer- ors, while they have made great and world-wide con- quests. 10, Hagar’s expression in regard to her vision. The divine vision a look into the eternal world. Actual sight in the world of sense is no more sight, when compared with this. 11. The living God is a God of human vision, be- cause he is a God of divine revelation. 12. The well of the living God, in which he makes men to see (the true seeing) a symbol of the gospel of the kingdom of God, of the Church in the desert of the world. 18. Hagar’s return laid the foundation for the world-historical dignity and honor of her son Ish- mael.—Ishmael, also, must return to Abram’s house. HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL, Vers. 1-4. The fanatical anticipation of men, grasping after their destination, and its results, a judgment in favor of the more patient waiting and expectation: 1, In the history of Sarai; 2. the his- tory of Eve; 8. in the history of the Church (the medieval anticipation of the kingdom of glory).— The perils of the husband in his'relations to the wife: 1. Her fanaticism (Sarai); 2. her sensuality (Hagar). —Sarai’s indignation: the reaction from fanatical, over-strained zeal.—Ver. 4. Hagar’s pride: the ex- altation which we experience, is easily destroyed if we are so disposed, through self-glorying.—The wrong position of Abram the result of his conduct not originating in himself.—Ver. 7. The Angel of the Lord; or the most wretched in the kingdom of God, enjoy the highest revelations of his mercy.— The Angel of the Lord as an angel of conversion: 1. His address; 2. his question, Whence; 3. his question, Whither; 4. his instruction; 5. his prom- ises; 6. the extent and order in his promises.—Ha- gar’s experience, that sight, is no more sight after the vision.—Man beholds by faith, because God looks upon him in grace.—At the wells in the desert.— Hagar’s return.—The perpetuation of the experience of Hagar, in the name Ishmael.—Abram eighty-six years old.—Age no security against folly—God turns the follies of believers to their good.—Ish- mael’s importance in history (field for missions in the East). Starke: Ver. 2. That was an abuse of the rul- ing power over her maid, and of the power of mar- riage which Sarai had over the body of her husband (1 Cor. vii. 8). Sarai, as well as Abram, was con- cerned in the sin, hence the defenders of concubin- age and polygamy have no ground upon which to stand here—(Foreign, and especially unbelieving servants of strange religions, may often work great injury to a master or a government).—We must not do evil that good may come (Rom. iii, 8).—A]though aman may counsel with his wife, and follow her counsel, it must not be done to go into evil.— Lance: See, fellow-christian, what one’s own will and choice will do for a man! It enjoins often a greater denial than God requires of him.—CraMER : Ver. 4. It is a common fault, that the morals of many are changed by their elevation to honor, and that prosperity brings pride (Prov. xxx. 21-23).— Kindness is quite generally rewarded by ingratitude. Ver. 7. A proof that the Angel of the Lord was the Son of God.—Ver. 5. It is a common course with men to roll their guilt upon others.—Lanez: Noth- ing is more injurious to the quiet comfort of mar- riage, and of the whole household, and to the training of children, than polygamy: it is impossible, there- fore, that it should be in accordance with the law of nature.—Tue Same: Ishmael is the first of those, to whom God has assigned their name before their birth. After him there are five others: Isaac (ch. xvii. 19), Solomon (1 Chron. xxii. 9), Josiah (1 Kings xiii. 2), Cyrus (Is. xlv. 1)? and John (Luke i. 13). Lastly, Jesus, the Saviour, is the seventh (Matt, i. 21). —Lurnrr: The positions in life are very unlike. Therefore we should remember and hold to this con- solation, which the Angel shows: lo, thou art a ser- vant, 2 maid, poor, ete. Let this be for thy com- fort, that thy God looks alike upon masters and servants, rich and poor, sinners and saints,—Cra- MER: It is according to the ordinance of God, that one should be lord, another servant, etc. (1 Cor. vii. 10).—Bidl. Tub. : Thou hast sinned, humble thyself, take cheerfully the chastisement; nothing is more wholesome than that which will bow our proud spir- its into humility (2 Sam. xxiv. 10, 14).—Ver. 14. He who not only holds Hagar in life, but is also the life itself (John xi. 25; Deut. xxxii. 46), the living God (Deut. v. 26; Ps. xlii. 3, ete.).—In this God we shall find the true living springs of all good and mercy (Ps. xxxvi. 9; Jer. ii. 13; xvii. 13; Is. lv. 1). Lisco: Sinful helping of ourselves—Man must not only leave the end to God, but also the means (Rom. xi. 36).—Ver. 7. The (not one) Angel of the Lord, the uncreated Angel of the Covenant (Mal. iii. 1),—-Ver. 13. These words designate the reality of that revelation made to her and for her good.— The breach of the divine ordinance soon avenges itself, for the unnatural relation in which the slave had been placed by her mistress herself, prepared for the mistress the most vexatious griet.—GrrLacH: The Angel of the Lord, is the divine revealer of God, the leader of the patriarchs (ch, xlviii, 16); the one who calls and animates Moses (Ex. iii. 2); the leader of the people through the wilderness (Ex. xiv. 19, ete.; Is. Ixiii. 9); the champion of the Israelites in Canaan (Josh. v. 18); and still farther, the leader and ruler of the covenant-people (Judg. ii. 1 ff.; vi. 11; xiii. 13); then he who in Isaiah is the Angel of his face or presence (ch. Ixiii. 9); in Daniel, Michael (and by whom Gabriel was sent to the prophet, Dan. x. 13?) in Zechariah, measures the new building of Jerusalem (ch. ii. 1); and in Mala- chi is the Angel of the Covenant (ch. iii. 1).—Cat- wer, Handbuch: Mohammed is a son of Ishmaél, and Abram is thus, according to the flesh, the ances- tor of Islam.—The Arabian, even now, grounds upon this passage, in his pride and delusion, a claim that the rights of primogeniture belong to Ishmael in- stead of Isaac, and asserts his own right to lands and goods, so far as it pleases him.—Vengeance for blood rules in him, and in many cases, also, the work of the robber is seen all along his path—vVer. 12. 420 In the presence of all his brethren: the Israelites, Midianites, Edomites, and the Moabites and Ammon- ites, who were descended from Lot.—Scuréper: Ver. 7. The Angel of the Lord finds Hagar; that presupposes he had sought her (Deut. xxxil. 10).— God meets thee in thy desert; he comes to thee in thy conscience; he kindles in thee the sparks into a flame, and comes to thy help in his grace (Berleb. Bibel),—Islamism occupies incontestably the place of a middle link between revelation and heathenism ; as even the Koran calls the Ishmaelites, an interme- diate nation (Z1ecLER: it names it thus in another sense, however).—God tries us in such changes:. comfort follows sorrow; hope succeeds to despond- ency; and life to death. (Portraiture of the Ara- bian, of the wild-ass. The Arabian = son of the morning—Judg. vi. 8, 83; viii. 10).—Ver. 16. Mo- ses records the age of Abram, that we might know how long he had to wait for Isaac the promised son, whom Sarai should bear (Calvin).—Passavant: Im- patience.—Vers. 1-6. Ah, should God grant us our own way, permit us to order our present, to arrange our future, to adorn our houses, without consulting GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. with him, it would -be no good and joyful thing to us, Whoever has, as to his way, separated himself from him, and sought afar from him, without his wisdom, happiness, salvation, life, acts unwisely, wickedly. His light is obscure, his step uncertain, the ground trembles beneath him, and his lights (lamps) are soon extinguished in darkness.—The woman has learned, in Abram’s house, to recognize the God over all gods.—ScuweEnxe: Ver..7. She be- lieves that her departure from the house of Abram would determine him to hasten after her and bring her back, etc. She sits down by the fountain, vainly waiting, until Abram should come to lead her home. Her pride is broken.—The call of the Angel. —That was the call of the good shepherd, who would bring back the wandering sheep. Thus even now the two peoples who received the promise, the descendants of Ishmael and Israel, stand as the monument of the divine veracity, as peculiar and even singular instances ; guarding with the greatest care their nationality, practising their old customs and usages, and preserving, in their exclusiveness, their spiritual strength (destination ?) SIXTH SECTION. Abram and the repeated Promise of God. The name Abram changed to Abraham. The personal Covenant of Faith, now a Covenant Institution for him, his Household and his Seed. Cireumeision, The name Sarai changed to Sarah, The new Names. The promised one not Ishmael, but Isaac, Cu. XVII. 1-27. And when [after the lapse of a long period] Abram was ninety years old and nine, the Lord appeared to Abram, and said unto him. Iam the Almighty God [Bl Shaddai] ; 2 walk before me, and be thou perfect. AndI will make my covenant between me and 3 thee, and will multiply thee exceedingly. And Abram fell on his face: and God 4 [Elohim] talked with him, saying, As for me [in the covenant promise], behold, my covenant 5 is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many [multitude of] nations. Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram [high father], but thy name shall be' Abraham [father of a multitude of nations ; of a people of peoples | ; for a father of many nations [a people of peoples | have I made thee. And I will make thee exceeding fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee. 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 [Elohim] unto thee, and to thy seed after thee. And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger [thou hast settled], all the ao NO 9 land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God | Elohim]. 9 And God [Goa Elohim, as Elohim | said to Abraham [fzstafter his new namo], Thou shalt 10 keep my covenant therefore, thou, and thy seed after thee in their generations, This is my covenant, which ye shall keep, between me and you and thy seed after thee; Every man child among you shall be circumcised. And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be a token [sign] of the covenant betwixt me and you. And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every man child in your gene- rations, he that is born in the house, or bought with money of any stranger, which is not of thy seed. He that is born in thy house, and he that is bought with thy money, must needs be circumcised [>ia? >in]: and my covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant. And the uncircumcised man child, whose flesh of his foreskin ll 12 13 14 CHAP. XVII. 1-24. 421 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 is not circumcised [who will not suffer himself to be ciroumeised, or avoids ciroumeision], that [same] soul shall be cut off from his people; he hath broken my covenant. And God [Elohim] said unto Abraham, As for Sarai thy wife, thou shalt not call her name Sarai [heroine], but Sarah [princess] shall her name be. And I will bless her, and give thee a son also of her: yea, I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of people [m3] shall be of her. Then Abraham fell npon his face and laughed, and said in his heart, Shall a child be born unto him that is one hundred years old? and shall Sarah, that is nmety years old, bear? And Abraham said unto God, O that Ishmael might [even yet] live before thee. And God said, Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son indeed; and thou shalt call his name Isaac [he or one will laugh]: and I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him. And as for Ishmael [God hears], I have heard thee: Behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly [evermore]; twelve princes shall he beget, and I will make him a great nation. But my covenant will I establish with Isaac, which Sarah shall bear unto thee at this set time in the next year. And he left off talking with him, and God [Hlchim] went up from Abraham. And Abraham took Ishmael his son,'and all that were born in his house, and all that were bought with his money, every male among the men of Abraham’s house ; and circumcised the flesh of their foreskin in the selfsame day, as God [Elohim] had said unto him. And Abraham was ninety years old and nine, when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin. circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin. 25 26 27 And Ishmael his son was thirteen years old, when he was In the selfsame day was Abraham circumcised and Ishmael his son; And all the men of his house, born in his house, and bought with money of the stranger, were circumcised with him, ’ GENERAL REMARKS. 1, This Section is described by the pseudo- critical exegesis as Elohistic (KNopeL, p. 161). But here, also, the internal reasons for the use of the name Elohim, are obvious. The sealing or ratifying of the covenant of God with Abram, whose foundation (not something holding a mere connection with it, its side- piece) we recognize in ch. xv., embraces not only the immediate bearer and mediator of the covenant, in “the narrower sense, Isaac and his seed, but all those who, in a wider sense, are sharers in the covenant, Ishmael and his descendants. If we do not distin- guish these two conceptions of the covenant in this chapter, we shall not thread our way through the apparent confusion, to a correct understanding of it. It is‘entirely incorrect when Ket. (p. 157), says, Ishmael was excluded from the salvation of the cov- enant, the grace of the covenant was promised only to Isaac. ‘ Upou this supposition what does the cir- cumcision of Ishmael mean?. We must distinguish the relations of the different parties to the covenant as stated above; and since here the covenant em- braces all who share in it, God appears and acts as Elohim, although under a new title: HZ! Shaddat. 2. That thirteen years should have rolled away between the birth of Ishmael and this new revela- tion, appears to us very important.. Abram had an- ticipated the purpose of God in his connection with Hagar, and must now, therefore, pass through a long time of discipline, of expectation, and of temptation. [‘ That which could not be reached by nature was to be secured by promise, in the miraculous seed, thus pointing forward to Jesus of Nazareth. There- fore the time has come when, after having first al- lowed the unbelieving spirit to make proof of human expedients (1 Cor. i, 20), God will show Himself again, and place the fulfilment on the basis: of the promise alone (Gal. iii. 18), The covenant, there- fore, must now be solemnly and formally sealed.” Jacosus: “Notes,” vol. i, p. 281—A.G.] Thus, indeed, Moses must wait fifty long years after his premature attempt to reach his destination. The di- vine decree over Adam and Eve mirrors itself in these facts. - They anticipated their destination, to be as God; and therefore a waiting time of thousands of years was decreed for the people, until the Messiah, the image of God, should appear. 8. Zhe new Names. The ground upon which the new names are given to Abram and Sarai, lies in the fact, that God reveals himself to Abram under anew name, Bt Shaddai. For he is Hi Shaddai as the omnipotent God, <. e., God of power to do wonders, to create new things in the old world, and the very centre of his wondrous deeds is the new birth, in which man receives a new name, and of which cir- cumcision is here set apart to be the typical sign. The titles, A? Shaddai, Abraham, Sarah, and circum- cision, are connected by the closest inward tie; they lie upon one line of thought. The name El Shaddai may have been known to Abram before, as the name . Jehovah, and even circumcision; but now it became to him the specific name of the Covenant God, for the patriarchal history, as circumcision was, now consecrated to be the sacred sign of the covenant, and as later in the history, Jehovah was made the specific designation of the God of covenant truth, (Ex, vi. 3). The names Elohim and El Eljon (Gen. xiv. 18) have not lost their meaning and value un- der the new economy of El Shaddai, and thus also the name El Shaddai preserves its meaning and value under the economy of Jehovah, which is modified in the prophetic times into the economy of Jehovah- Zebaoth. The wonders of El Shaddai run through the whole kingdom of grace; but the great wonder lying at the foundation of all that follow, is the birth of Isaac, in the near future from his dead parents (dead in this respect, Rom, iv. 18-21: Heb. xi. 11- 422 - 19), in connection with the marvellous faith corre- sponding with it, and with circumcision the seal of the covenant, the type.of the great, eternal, central miracle of the kingdom of God, the new birth of Christ from heaven, and that new birth of Christians which is grounded and confirmed in his. EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL. A. The Covenant of God with Abram in the wider sense. Zhe sharers in the Covenant (vers. 1-14). : The Covenant in the wider sense on the part of God (vers. 1-8). When Abram was ninety years old and nine. [Lit., a son of ninety and nine years.—A. G.] The long interval between this age and that given ch. xvi. 16, must be closely ob- served. Jt marks a great delay of the promise, a tarrying on the part of God, but which indeed cor- responds with the over-haste of Abram (see 2 Pet. iii. 9)—I am God the Almighty [El Shaddai; ch. xxvii, 3; xxxv. 11; xliii. 14; xlviii, 3; Exod. vi. 3]. “"0W formed from 77W, to be strong, to practise violence, with the nominal termination "— as "3M festive, 1070)" the old, "2°9 thorn-covered, and other nouns are formed.” Keil, The idea of omnipotence is inwoven through the whole Scripture, with the idea of his miraculous works, the creation of the new, or the new creation (Ps. xxxiii. 9; Rom. iv. 17; Numb. xvi. 30; Is. xlii. 9; lxii, 6; Jer. xxxi. 22; the new covenant; the new man; the new chiid; Rev. xxi. 1, 5). Delitzsch has raised this idea to a supposition of violence done to nature, which corresponds well with the idea of a miracle held in the seventeenth century (“that which is con- trary to nature.”) “ Elohim is the God who makes nature, causes it to be, and preserves it—causes it to endure ; El Shaddai the God who constrains nature, so that it does what is against itself, and subdues it, so that it bows and yields itself to the service of grace. [“‘It designates Jehovah the Covenant God, as one who has the power to fulfil his promises although the order of nature may appear against them. It is a pledge to Abram that notwithstanding ‘his own body already dead, and the deadness of Sarah’s wonb’ (Rom. iv. 19), the numerous seed promised could and would be given to him.” Keil.—A. G.] Jehovah is the God who, in the midst of nature, causes grace to penetrate and break through the forces of nature, and at last, in the place of nature, establishes an entirely new creation of grace” (p. 381). A sad dualistic conception of nature and grace lies at the bottom of this supposition. The creature is against its will subject to vanity (Rom. viii. 20); on the con- trary, it sighs after the liberty of the children of God. We can only speak of an element of opposi- tion to nature, in the miracle, so far as the lower nature is penetrated by the higher, and must of course give way to it. The play upon the letter m by Delitasch (p, 382), appears to us cabalistic, and the more so, since the names Abraham and Sarah, into which the * enters, are not grounded in the name Jehovah with its 7, but upon El Shaddai.— ‘Walk before me (see ch. v. 22; xxiv. 40; xlviii. 15; Is. xxxviii. 3), The great elements of Abram’s faith must be permanent; he must walk continually before the eye of the Almighty, in the consciousness of his presence who is mighty to work miracles, He GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. —_- was still wanting in the development of this wonder- working faith, and therefore, also, was not blameless. —And be thou perfect *—/free from blame or guiltless. This is not, indeed, a new command, but the result of the command: walk before me. He will be guiltless, free from blame, if he remains in the -presence of the God who works wonders; that, indeed, will make him guiltless, free, purify his con- sciousness.—And I will make my covenant.— The M72 jm2 must be understood here after the analogy of ch. ix. 12, where the previously formed covenant (ch. vi. 18) with Noah, was presupposed, as here the covenant with Abram (ch. xv.) is pre- supposed. “It does not signify to conclude a cove- nant (= 373), but to give, settle, arrange,” etc. Keil. [‘ At the former period (Gen. xv.) God form- ally entered into covenant with Abram, here he takes the first step in the fulfilment of the covenant, seals it with a token and a perpetual ordinance.” Mur- puy, p. 307.—A. G.] It thus denotes the establish- ing of the covenant, or the giving ita traditional force for his seed, the arrangement of a permanent order or institution of the covenant (comp. Numb. xxv. 12).—And Abram fell on his face. An ex- pression of deep humility and trustful confidence, and indeed also of the joy which overpowered him ; + hence he repeats (ver. 17) the same act in the most emphatic way.— And God talked with him.— We must notice here the expression Hlohim, and the “273. God, as the God of the universe, begins a conversation with Abram, when he should become Abraham the father of a multitude of nations.—As forme. I for my part. The "38 evidently empha- sizes the opposition of the two parties in the cove- nant (what concerns me or my part). It answers to MAN of ver. 9. Just as in the ninth chapter the “2377 "281 of ver. 9 stands in opposition to the TPS FN?) of verses 4 and 5 (comp. Exod.-xix.; ch, xxiv).—And thou shalt be a father. The 4 an-. nounces the subjects of the covenant. For it is not simply the individual covenant of faith of Abram, but the entire general covenant of blessing in him which is here spoken of. Knobel thinks that the name Abraham was first formed after Abraham had become the father of many nations. This is the . well-known denial of the prophetic element. His own quotation, however, refutes him. ‘The He- brews connected the giving of names with circumei- sion (ch. xxi. 3 ff.; Luke i. 59; ii, 21). The Per- sians likewise, according to TavERNIER: ‘ Travels,’ i. p. 240, and Crarpin: ‘Voyages,’ x. p. 76.” The connection of the giving of names, and circumeision, effects a mutual explanation, The name announces a definite human character, the new name a new character (the new name, Rev. ii. 17, the perfect stamp of individual character), circumcision, a new or renewed, and more noble nature.t “‘ Moreover,” Knobel remarks: ‘‘ we hear only in the Elohist.the promise of a multitude of nations (vers. 16, 20; ch. xxxv. 11; xlviii. 4); the Jehovist uses only the sin- * pet sincere merely, unless in the primitive sense of duty, but complete, upright, hol 3 not only in walk, but in heart.” Murpuy, p. 308A. qj _t [Calvin and Keil recognize in this prostration of the patriarch his appropriation and reception of the promise, and his recognition of the command.—A. G.] t [“‘For the significance of names, and the change of ae see HENGSTENBERG’S Beitrdge ii. p.270 f£.;" Kerrz. Ae CHAP, XVII. 1-27. gular (ch. xii, 2; xvii. 18; xlvi. 8). So likewise the promise of kings and princes among the succes- sors of the patriarch is peculiar to the Elohist (ver. 20; ch. xxv. 16; xxxv. 11; xxxvi. 81).” This dis- tinction corresponds entirely with the fact, that Je- hovah, out of the (Goim) nations, which he rules as Elohim, forms one peculiar people (29) of faith, as he at first changed the natural Israel to a spiritual. As to this promise of blessing from God, the name Abraham, father of a mass, noise, tumult of nations, embraces the whole promise in its widest circum- ference. 1. People and kings [‘' Kings. David, Solomon, Christ, whose royal genealogy is given Matt. i. 1-16." Worpsworrta, p. 79. Especially in Christ and the spiritual seed of Abraham, who are kings and priests unto God, Rev. i.6. Jaconus: ““Notes."—A. G.]; even rich kings should come from him; 2. the covenant of blessing from God with him and his seed should be eternal; 3. the whole land of Canaan should belong to his seed for an eternal possession. It should be observed here, that Canaan has fallen in the very same measure to the Arabians as descendants of Abraham (Gal. iv. 25), in which it has actually been rent from the peo- ple of Israel for indefinitely long periods of time ; it has thus remained permanently in the possession of the descendants of Abraham in the wider sense; 4, Jehovah will remain (be) the God (Elohim) of the seed of Abraham. This promise, also, notwithstand- ing all the transient obscurations, has been fulfilled in the patriarchal monotheism in Palestine and Arabia. The stipulated, imprescriptible, peculiar right of the peeple of Israel to Canaan is included in this general promise. [Literally to the lineal seed and the earthly Canaan, but the everlasting covenant and the everlast- ing possession, show that the covenant and the prom- ised inheritance included the spiritual seed, and the heavenly Canaan.—A.G.] ‘‘In this new name, God gave to him a real pledge for the establishment of his covenant, since the name which God gave to him, could not be, or remain an empty sound, but must be viewed as the expression of the reality it con- veys.” Keil. ‘A numerous posterity was regarded by the Hebrews as a divine blessing, which was the portion of those well-pleasing to him (ch. xxiv. 60; xiviii. 16, 19; Ps. exxviii; Ecc. vi. 3).” Knobel. 2. The covenant of Abraham (on his part) with God, in the wider sense (vers. 9-14). And God (Elohim) said unto Abraham. The covenant of circumcision in the wider sense is a covenant of Zilohim. In his new destination Abraham was called to introduce this sign of the covenant for himself and his seed. He came under obligation at the first for himself with his seed to keep the covenant with Elo- him. But circumcision is the characteristic sign and seal of this covenant, as a statute and a type, i. e., with the included idea of its spiritual import. In this sense it is said: This is my covenant, ... shall be circumcised. Upon circumcision compare WINER: Real-Wérterbuch, and similar works. 1. The act of circumcision: the removal of the foreskin; 2. the destination: the sign of the covenant; 3. the time: eight days after the birth (see ch. xxi. 4; Lev. xii. 83; Luke i. 59; ii. 21; John vii. 22; Phil. iii. 5; Josepx.: ‘ Antiq.” i. 12, 2); 4. the extent of its efficacy: not only the children, but slaves born in the house [and those also bought with his money.— A. G.] were to be circumcised; 5. its inviolability: those who were not circumcised should be cut off, uprooted.—Circumcision, as a sign of the patriarchal covenant, appears to presuppose its earlier existence 423 as a religious rite. According to Herodotus, circum- cision was practised among the Colchi, Egyptians [It has been urged, however, against the idea that the Egyptians practised this rite generally; 1. That Abraham circumcised all his male servants—among them probably those who were presented by Pha- raoh; 2. that Pharaoh’s daughter knew that Moses was a Hebrew child—(Heb., and behold a male-child); —8. Ezek. xxxi. 18; see Busn: “ Notes,” p. 273.— A. G.] and Ethiopians; and the Syrians of Palestine and Phoenicians might have learned it from the Egyptians. In Ewald’s view, its original home was the valley of the Nile; .and it still exists as a national usage among the Ethiopian Christians, and among the Congos. With regard to the circumcision of the Egyytians, we remark, that while Herodotus and Philo regard it as a general custom, Origen ascribes it simply to the priests. [Worpsworta, p. 81, urges in favor of this view, that circumcision was not prac- tised by the other sons of Ham; that Ishmael, the son of an Egyptian mother, was not circumcised until after this institution of the covenant; and that Joshua is said to have rolled away the reproach of Egypt when he circumcised the Israelites at Gilgal.— A. G.] . According to Ezek. xxxi. 18; xxxii. 19, the Egyptians seem to be included among the uncircum- cised. We need not, however, insist too strictly upon a prophetic word, which may possibly have a higher symbolical sense (comp. Rom. ‘ii. 28). And Origen informs us of a later time, in which the Coptic element was mingled with Hellenic elements in Egypt. Some have viewed Egyptian circumcision as an idolizing of the generative power. The bloody act points rather to purification. Delitzsch remarks : that circumcision, as some think, has been found in America, upon the South Sea Islands, e. g. in a mode resembling that in use among the Jews, in the Feegee Islands, and among the southeastern Negro tribes, e.g. among the Damaras in tropical South Africa. And here we cannot assume any connection with the Abrahamic, nor with the Egyptian circumcision. But the customs prevailing in the valley of the Nile, might spread themselves widely over Africa, as those of the Pheenicians over the ocean. The Epistle of Barnabas, in a passage which has not been suffi- ciently regarded (ch. ix.), brings into prominence the idea, that we must distinguish circumcision, as an original custom of different nations, from that which receives the patriarchal and theocratic sanc- tion. “The heathen circumcision,” as Delitzsch re- marks, “leaving out of view the Ishmaelites, Arabians, and the tribes connected with them both by blood and in history, is thus very analogous to the heathen sacrifice. As the sacrifice sprang from the feeling of the necessity for an atonement, so circumcision from the consciousness of the impurity of human na- ture.” But that the spread of circumcision among the ancient nations is analogous to the general prev- alence of sacrifice, has not yet been proved. It re-- mains to be investigated, whether the national origin of circumcision stands rather in some relation to religious sacrifice; whether it may possibly form an opposition to the custom of human sacrifices (for it is just as absurd to view it with some, as a remnant of human sacrifice, as to regard it with others, asa modification of eunuchism); whether it may have prevailed from sanitary motives, the obligation of bodily purity and soundness, (see WINER, i. p. 159); or whether it has not rather from the first had its ground and source in the idea of the consecration of the generative nature, and of the propagation of 424 the race (Detirzscn, p. 385). At all events, circum. cision did not come to Abraham as a custom of his ancestors; he was circumcised when ninety-nine years of age. This bears with decisive weight against the generalizing of the custom by Delitzsch. As to the destination of circumcision to be the sign of the covenant, its patriarchal origin is beyond question. [As the rainbow was chosen to be the sign of the covenant with Noah, so the prior existence of cir- cumcision does not render it lexs fit to be the sign of the covenant with Abraham, nor less significant. “Tt was the fit symbol of that removal of the old man, and that renewal of nature which qualified Abraham to be the parent of the holy seed.”” Mur- phy. See also Kurtz and Baumgarten.—A. G.] (See John vii, 22). Still it was placed upon a new legal basis by Moses (Exod. iv. 24, 25; Lev. xii. 3), and was brought into regular observance by Joshua (Josh. v. 2). That it should be the symbol of the new birth, i. e., of the sanctification of human nature, from its very source and origin, is shown both by the passages which speak of the circumcision of the heart (Lev. xxvi. 41; Deut. x. 16; xxx. 6; Jer. iv. 4; ix. 25; Ezek. xliv. 7), and from the manner of speech in use among the Israelites, in which Jewish proselytes were described as new-born. As to the terminus of eight days, which was so strictly ob- served, that even the law of the Sabbath was held subordinate to the law of Circumcision, Delitzsch ex- plains the prescription of this period, from the fact that the child was not separated and purified from the sustenance of its embryonic state until this period. It is better to regard the week of birth as a terminus for the close of the first throes and labor, and at the same time, as the term fixed for the out- ward purification. Keil explains: ‘because this day was viewed as the beginning of the independent life, as we may infer from the analogous prescription as to the age of the young animals used in sacrifice (Lev. xxii. 27; Exod. xxii. 30).* He remarks also, “that the Arabians circumcise at a late period, usually between five and thirteen years, often during the thirteenth year, because Ishmael was thirteen years old when he was circumcised.” For more de- tailed observations, see KwnoxeL, p. 164.—The threatening that the uncircumcised should be cut off—uprooted, can refer only to the conscious, wick- ed contempt of the command, as the same threaten- ing must be understood in regard to other offences. Clericus and, others explain the “cutting-off” as a removal from the people and its privileges. But the theocratic death-penalty (which was indeed the form of a final, complete excommunication from the peo- ple) can alone be understood here, as it naturally could alone meet the case of the despiser of the covenant-sign, and of the covenant itself. [But it is the covenant between Jehovah and the seed of Abra- ham which is here before us, and exclusion from the “people of the covenant would be, as Baumgarten urges, exclusion from all blessings and salvation. That this was connected with the death-penalty in other passages (as Exod. xxxi. 14), would seem to show that the phrase itself did not necessarily imply such a penalty.—A. G.] (see Knozen, p. 163). The reference by Delitzsch, to an immediate divine judg- * [A son of eight days. It was after a week’s round, when a new period was begun, and thus it was indicative of starting anew upon a new life. The seventh day was a sacred day. And this period of seven days was a sacred. period, so that with the eighth day a new cycle was com- menced. Jacosus, p. 287.—A. G,} GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. ment, or to the premature, childless death of the un circumcised, who had reached full age, implies an extraordinary introduction or enlargement of the theocratic regulation, which belougs to the Israel- itish tradition. Keil strives to unite both views (p. 156). But here also we must distinguish the legal and typical elements. In the typical sense, the “cutting-off” denotes the endless destruction, the total ruin of the man who despises the covenant of God. [And it is worthy of observation, that to despise and reject the sign, was to despise and reject the covenant itself. He who neglects or refuses the sign, hath broken my covenant.—A. G.] B.—8. The establishment of the covenant in a nar- rower sense with Isaac—the more direct bearer and mediator of the covenant (ver. 15-22), And God (Elohim) said. God establishes the covenant in this form also as Elohim, not .as Jehovah, since not only Israel, but Edom, should spring from Isaac, the son of Sarah.—Sarah thy wife. ‘“ As the ances- tress of nations and kings, she should be called nyu (princess), not "7 (heroine).” Knobel. Delitzsch explains ""w the princely, but this does not distin- guish sufficiently the old name from the new. (Je- rome distinguishes: my princess, my dominion and princess generally). Even in this case the name de- clares the subject of the following promise, and its security. Now it was definitely promised to Abra- ham, that he should have a son from Sarah; and it was also intimated that the descendants from this son should branch themselves into (Goim) nations.— Then Abraham fell upon his face, and laughed. The explanation of Knobel is absurd; “ Abrahain doubted the possibility, since he was an hundred, and Sarah was ninety years old, and laughs, there- fore, but falls upon his face, lest God should notice it” (1). ‘In the other writer, the patriarch, as the man of God, believes (ch. xv. 6), and only the less eminent wife, doubts and laughs (ch. xviii. 12), But here as there, the laughter, in the name of the prom- ised seed (PM), passes into the history of Abra- ham.” That the interpreter, from this standpoint, knows nothing of a laugh of astonishment, in connec- tion with full faith, indeed, in the immediate experi- ence of the promise (Ps. exxvi. 1, 2), is evident. Deuitzsca: The promise was so very great, that he sank reverently upon the ground, and so very para- doxical, that he involuntarily laughs (see also the quotation from Calvin, by Keil, p. 151). [The laughter of Abraham was the exultation of joy, not the smile of unbelief.” Ava.: de Civ. Dei. xvi, 26, Wordsworth, who also urges that this interpretation is sustained by our Lord, John viii. 56.—A.'G.] We may confidently infer from the different judg- ments of Abraham’s laughter here, and that of Sa- rah, which is recorded afterward, that there was an important distinction in the states of mind from which they sprang. The charactcristic feature in the narration here is, that Abraham fell upon his face, as at first, after the promise, ver. 2.—Shall there be born unto him that is an hundred years old?* The apparent impossibility is twofold (see * (“These questions are not addressed to God; they merely agitate the breast of the astonished patriarch. Murray, p. 311. “Can this be? This that was only too good to be thought of, and too blessed a consummation of all his ancient hopes, to be now, at this late day, so distinctly assured to him by God himself.” Jacosus, p. 289.—A, G. CHAP. XVII. 1-27. ° 425 the quotations, Rom. iv. and Heb. xi.).—O that Ishmael might (still) live. The sense of the prayer is ambiguous. ‘ Abraham,” says Knobel, “turns aside, and only wishes that the son he al- ready had should live and prosper.” Calvin, and others, also interpret the prayer. in the sense, that Abraham would be contented if Ishmael should pros- per. Keil, on the contrary, regards the prayer of Abraham as arising out of his anxiety, lest Ishmael should not have any part in the blessings of the cov- enant. The fact, that the answer of God contains no denial of the prayer of Abraham, is in favor of this interpretation. But in the prayer, Abraham ex- presses his anticipation of an indefinite neglect of | Ishmael, which was painful to his parental heart. Ue asks for him, therefore, a life from God in the highest sense. Since Abraham, according to ch. xvi., actually fell into the erroneous expectation, that the promise of God to him would be fulfilled in Ishmael, and since there is no record of any divine correction of his error in the mean time, the new revelation from God could only so be introduced when he be- gins to be in trouble about Ishmael.(see ch. xxi. 9), and to doubt, as to the truth and certainty of his self-formed expectation, both because Jehovah had left him for a long time without a new revelation, and because Hagar had communicated to him the revelation granted to her, as to the character of her son—a prophecy which did not agree with the heir of the promise. In this state of uncertainty and doubt [Calvin, however, holds, that Abraham was, all this time, contented with the supposition, that Ishmael was the child of promise, and that the new revelation startled him from his error.—A. G.] the promise of the heir of blessing was renewed to him. But then he receives the new revelation from God, that Sarah shall bear to him the true heir. It puts an end to the old, sad doubt, in regard to Ishmael, since it starts a new and transient doubt in reference to the promise of Isaac ; therefore there is mingling with his faith, not yet perfect on account of the joy (Luke xxiv. 41), a beautiful paternal feeling for the still beloved Ishmael, and his future of faith. Hence the intercession for Ishmael, the characteristic feat- ure of which is, a question of love, whether the son of the long-delayed hope, should also -hold his share of the blessing. b3y may, indeed, include so far the granting of the prayer of Abram; it may mean, s¢id/, nevertheless. [Better, as Jacobus, indeed, as ad- dressed to the transient doubt as to Isaac, which may lie in Abraham’s prayer for Ishmael. Indeed, on the contrary, Sarah is bearing thee a son.—A. G.] But the nineteenth verse distinctly declares that the son of Sarah should be the chief heir, the peculiar bearer of the covenant. Closer and more definite distinctions are drawn in ver. 20.—T'welve princes shall he beget (see ch. xxv. 12-16).—At this set time. The promise is now clearly revealed even in regard to time; and with this the revelation of God for this time ceases, 4, The compliance with the prescribed rite of circumcision (vers. 23-27). The prompt obedience of Abraham [This prompt obedience of Abraham re- veals his faith in the promise, and that this laughter was joyful and not unbelieving.—A. G.] is seen in his circumcising himself and his household, i. e. the male members of his household, as he was com manded, in the same day. According to the expres- sion of the text, Abraham appears to have performed the rite upon himself with his own hands. DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL. 1, See the General Remarks, and the Critical Notes upon the double circle of the covenant, and circumcision. 2, Hl Shaddai. We do not comprehend the whole of this name, if we identify it with Elohim. We make it too comprehensive if we represent it as including the idea of all the divine attributes, or as an expression of the majesty of God. It is the name of the Almighty, and stands here at the very be- ginning of the announcement of theocratic miracles, for the same reason, that in the Apostles’ Creed, it designates the nature of God the Father, for the Christian faith, The Almighty God (rayroxpdtwp) is the God of the Theocracy, and of all the miracles, He makes the highest revelation of his miraculous power in the resurrection of Christ (Eph. i. 19 if). 8. Before my face. The anthropomorphisms of the Scripture. The soul, head, eves, arm of God, are mentioned in the Bible. The Concordances give all the information any one needs. It is not difficult to ascertain the meaning of the particular descrip- tions. His face is his presence in the definiteness and certainty of the personal consciousness (Ps. exxxix.), 4, Keil brings the narrower circle of the cove- nant into conflict with the wider, as was above re marked. (Keil puts his argument in this form: Since the grace of the covenant was promised alone to Isaac, and Abraham was to become the father of amass of nations by Sarah (ver. 16), we cannot in- clude the Ishmaelites nor the sons of Keturah in this mass of nations. Since, further, Esau had no part in the promise of the covenant, the promised de- scendants must come alone through Jacob. But the sons of Jacob formed only one people or nation; Abraham is thus only the father of one people. It follows, necessarily, that the mass of nations must embrace the spiritual descendants of Abrahan, all who are ex misrews "ABpadu (comp. Rom. iv. 11, 16). He urges also, in favor of this view, the fact, that the seal of the covenant was applied to those who were not natural descendants of Abraham, to those born in his house and bought with his money. He holds, also, that the promise of the land of Canaan to this seed for a possession is not exhausted by the fact, that this land was given to the literal Israel, but that as the "Iopa}jA xar& odpxa are enlarged to the "IopayA xar& mvedua, so the idea and limits of the earthly Canaan must be enlarged to the limits of the spiritual Canaan, that in truth, Abraham has received the promise xAnpovéuov abrdy elvat xdopov, Rom. iv. 13, p. 188—A.G.] Under the seed promised to Abraham of a “ multitude of nations,” the descendants of Esau should not be understood ; on the contrary, the spiritual descendants of Abra- ham must have been intended, and reckoned with the people of Israel, which constitutes, indeed, but one nation. But still, we must always clearly dis- tinguish between the promise, “in thee shall be blessed all the families of the earth,” and the prom- ise, “from thee shall spring a mass of vations,” through Ishmael and Isaac, and these shall all be embraced in the covenant of circumcision, the one as bearer of the covenant, the others as associates and sharers in the covenant. Otherwise, indeed, even the spiritual seed of Abraham must be circum cised. But as circumcision is the type of the new birth, so the mass of nations which should spring from Abraham, is the type of his spiritual descend- ' 426 ants, and in the typical sense, truly, he is here the father of all believers. In the typical sense, also, the promise of Canaan, and the promise of the eter- nity of the covenant, have a higher meaning and importance. The remarks of Keil, as to the estima- uon of this spiritual significance of the Abrahamic promise, against Auberlen and others, who sink the reference of the promise to the spiritual Israel to a “mere application,” are well founded [and are most important and suggestive—A.G.] 5. Circumcision (as also baptism still more effect- ually, Rom. vi.), as the type of the renewing through natural suffering, evidently forms an opposition be- tween the old and sinful human nature, and the new life. It is therefore a testimony to human corrup- tion on the one hand, and to the calling of men through divine grace to a new life, on the other. [The ground of the choice of circumcision as the sign and seal of the covenant may be thus stated. It lies in the nature of the blessing promised, i. ce, a seed of blessing. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, but the promised seed were to be holy, and thus channels of blessing. The seed of Abraham were thus to be distinguished from other races. As corruption descended by ordinary generation, the seed of grace were to be marked and symbolically purified from that corruption. It thus denoted the purifying of that by which the promise. was to be se- cured.—A. G.] But as a sign placed upon the fore- skin, it designates still more definitely on the one side, that the corruption is one which has especially fallen upon or centres in the propagation of the race, and has an essential source’ of support in it, as on the other side, it is a sign and seal, that man is called to a new life, and also, that for this new life the con- ception and procreation should be consecrated and sanctified (see John i. 13, 14). The male portion of the people only, were subjected to this ordinance. This rests first of all upon natural causes. Luther finds a compensation in the birth-throes and expos- ure to death on the part of the females. The pains of birth were truly translated to the male sex through circumcision. But then this one-sidedness of the sacrament of circumcision declares the complete de- ‘ pendence of the wife upon her husband under the old covenant. [Kurrz: The dependent position of the woman, by virtue of which, not without the man, but in and with the man, rot as woman, but as the bride, and mother, she has her importance in the people and life of the covenant, does not allow her to come into the same prominence here as the man, p. 188. Jacosus says: “Under the Old Covenant, as everything pointed forward to Christ the God- Man—Son of Man—so every offering was to bea male, and every covenant rite was properly enough confined to the males. The females were regarded as acting in them, and represented by them. Under the New Testament this distinction is not appropri- ate. It is not male and female, Gal. iii, 28; Col. iii. 11, That the rite was applied so expressly to those born in the house, and those bought with his money—the son of the stranger—was intended to point to the universal aspect of the covenant, the ex- tension of its blessings to all nations—A,G.] But it was enlarged, or completed, in fact, through the law of purification, to which the mother was sub- jected. Its spiritual significance is finally, that it is not birth itself, but the sexual generation, as such, which is the tradux peceati. In the New Covenant,. the wife has an equally direct share in baptism as the husband. And this was typified in the Old Coy- GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. x enant through the giving of the name.. Sarah pos- sesses a new name as well as Abraham. 6. It scarcely follows from Exod. iv. 25, as De. litzsch thinks, that circumcision proclaimed to the circumcised man, that he had Jehovah for a bride- groom; although Jews, Ishmaelites, and Moslems generally name the day of circumcision the wedding- feast of circumcision. The Scripture constitutes a bridal relation between Christ and his Church, viewed in its totality. ; 7. If Delitzsch in this, as in other passages, gives to circumcision too great an importance, he does not esteem sufficiently its importance when he remarks, that it is no peculiar rite of initiation, like baptism, “Ft is net eircumeision which makes the Israelites what they are as such, i. e., members of the Israel- itish church. It is through its birth [While itis true that the Iszaelite by his birth was so far a mem- ber of the congregation or church, that he had a title to its rites and ordinances, it is true that circumei- sion was the recognition of that membership, and that if he neglected it, he was exscinded from the people.—A. G.]; for people and church are cotermi- nous in the Old Testament.” This is totally incor- rect, just as incorrect as if one should say, Christen- dom and the Church are coterminous. [It lies, too, in the face of the whole New Testament, which places circumcision and baptism in the closest rela- tions to each other, and makes the one to come in the place of the other. The differences between them upon which Delitzsch dwells are just those which we should ‘expect under the two economies—A G. As one must distinguish between Jacob and Israel, so one must distinguish between Israel as the natur- ally increased ("4a) and Israel as the called people of God (BY). Israel is, in a qualified sense, the peo- ple of God; viz., as it, through circumcision, purifi- cation, and sacrifice, was consecrated a congregation of God (577). And thus we must distinguish cir- cumcision as to its old national, its patriarchal, and its theocratic and legal power and efficacy. In the last meaning alone, it belonged to the people of Israel as the Church of God, and was so far an initiatory rite, that by means of it an Edomite or Moabite could be incorporated into the people of God, while genu- ine Jews, even the sons of Aaron, might be exscind- ed, if it were neglected. The Old Testament people of God, has thus definitely the characteristic traits of the spiritual New Testament Israel, a people of God, gathered from all the nations of the earth. It was precisely the fault of the Edomite Jews, that they failed to distinguish between circumcision in this higher senge, as it passed over into baptism, and circumcision as a national custom. And this is the fallacy of the Baptists, through which they, to this day, commonly attempt to rend away from the de- fenders of infant baptism the argument which they draw from circumcision. They say, “ cireumcision was no sacrament of the Jews; it was a mere na- tional custom.” But it was just as truly a sacra- ment of the Jews, as the passover, from which we must distinguish likewise, the eating of a roasted lamb in the feasts of the ancients, We refer again to the well-known distinction in the Epistle of Bar- nabas (ch. ix.), 8. The moral nature of the divine covenant ap- pears in this chapter, as in the earlier formation of the covenant ; and here still more definitely through the opposition: I on my part (ver. 4), but thou on thy part (ver. 9), Circumcision, according to this CHAP, XVII. 1-27. 427 antithesis, must be regarded by Abraham especially as a duty, which declares comprehensively all his duties in the rendering of obedience, in the self- denying, subduing, and sanctifying of his nature; while the giving of the name is the act of God, which is comprehensive of all his promises. There is no conflict between this first and nearest significance of circumcision, and the fact, that it is a gift, a sign and seal, and type of the truth of the covenant of God. The application to the passover-meal, and in- deed to the Christian sacraments, will be obvious. [‘‘ As a sign, circumcision was intended to set forth such truths as these: of repentance and flesh- mortifying, and sanctification and devotement to God; and also the higher truth of the seed of prom- ise which Israel was to become, and the miraculous seed, which was Christ. Asa seal, it was to authen- ticate God’s signature, and confirm his word and covenant promise, and execute the covenant on God's part, making a conveyance of the blessings to those who set their hand to this seal by faith. Un- der the New Testament economy of the same cove- nant of grace, after “the seed” had come, the seal is adapted to the more spiritual dispensation, though it is of the same general import. Jacosvus, ‘“ Notes,” vol. i. p. 286.—A. G.] 9. The first laughter mentioned in the Bible is that of Abraham, ver. 17. A proof that there is nothing evil in the laugh itself. The first weeping which is mentioned is the weeping of Hagar in the desert (ch. xxi. 16). Both expressions of human feeling thus appear at first, in a consecrated and pious form. 10. The Jews declare that the law of circumci- sion is as great as the whole law. The.idea is, that circumcision is the kernel, and therefore, also, that which comprehends the whole law: a. as a separa- tion from au impure world; b. as a consecration to God. When they say, it is only on account of cir- cumcision that God hears prayer, and no circumcised man can sink to hell, it is just as true, and just as false, as the extra ecclesiam nulla salus, according as itis inwardly or outwardly understood. 11. We have here the first allusion to slaves who were bought with money (ver. 27). Srarke: “Thus it seems, alas! true, that at this time slavery pre- vailed, which, indeed, to all appearance, must have begun from the Nimrodic dominion. For when men have begun to treat their fellow-men as wild beasts, after the manner of hunters, they will easily enslave those who are thus overcome; and this custom, though against the rights of nature, soon became general, When, now, Abraham found this custom in existence before his time, he used the same for the good of many of these wretched people; he bought them, but brought them to the knowledge of the true God, ete. To buy and sell men for evil is sin, and opposed both to the natural and divine law (Ex. xxi, 2); but to buy in order to bring them to the knowledge of the true God is permitted (Lev. xxv. 44, 45).”—To buy them in order to give them bodily and spiritual freedom is Christ-like. 12. Starke: ‘‘ The question arises here, whether a foreign servant could be constrained to be circum- cised. Some (Clericus, e. g.) favor, and others op- pose this opinion. The Rabbins say: If any one should buy a grown servant of the Cuthites, and he refused to be circumcised, he should sell him again.” Maimonides. 18. Asin the ark of Noah, so in the fact that Abraham should circumcise all the male members of his household, the full biblical signiticance and importance of the household appears in a striking way; of the household in its spiritual unity, which the theory of the Baptists in its abstract individual- ity, dissolves. . 14. The promise of blessing which Abraham re- ‘ceives, repeats itself relatively to every believer. His life will be rich in fruits of blessing, reaching on into eternity. In the abstract sense this avails only of Christ (Isa. lili. 10), but therefore in some meas- ure of every believer (Mark x. 80). 15.’ The word ver. 14 in a typical expression contains a fearful and solemn warning against the contempt of the sacraments. The signs and seals of communion with the Lord and his people are not exposed to the arbitrary treatment of individuals. With the proud contempt of the signs of communion, the heart and life are separated from the communion itself, and its blessings and salvation. 16. The New Testament fulfilment of circumci- sion (Rom. ii. 29). If circumcision is the type of the new birth, its essential fulfilment lies in the birth of Christ. The sanctification of birth has reached its personal goal in his birth, which is a new birth. But Christ must -be appropriated by humanity through his sufferings. Therefore he was made subject to the legal circumcision (Gal. iv. 4), and the perfect result of this communion with his brethren, was his death upon the cross (Rom. vi. 6; Col. ii, 11, 12). In the communion with this death, into which Chris- tians enter with baptism, they become the people of the real circumcision, over against which bodily circumcision, in a religious sense, becomes ua cruel mangling of the body (Phil. iii. 3). 17. We must distinguish the typical significance of our chapter from its historical basis, and bind both sides together without confounding them. This avails of the twofold circle of the covenant; of the name Abraham; of the blessing for his seed; of the eternity of the covenant; of his sojourn in Canaan, and the gift of the land to him for an eternal pos- session; of circumcision, and of the threatening of excision. In all these points we distinguish the his- torical greatness and spiritual glory of the covenant of promise. HLOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL. See the Doctrinal paragraphs.—The visitation of Abraham after his long trial and waiting. —God’s de- lay no actual delay (2 Pet. ii. 9).—The establish- ment of the covenant between God and Abraham: I, The precondition of the establishment of the cov- enant (see ch. xv.—ch, xvii. 1); 2. the contents of the covenant of promise: the name Abraham; a. in the natural sense; 5. in the typical sense; 3. the covenant in the wider and narrower sense: 4. the covenant-sign.—The new covenant of God in his name (El-Shaddai, God of wonders), the basis of the new name of believers.—Faith in the miracle is faith in that which is divinely new.—The renewed call of Abraham: 1. As a confirmation of his calling; 2. ag the enlargement and strengthening of it.—The con- tents of the call: Walk before me and be perfect, i.e, walk before me (in the faith and vision of my presence, in grace and miraculous power), 1, so art thou blameless (pious, righteous, perfect); 2. so wilt thou be blameless ; 3 so prove it through thy pious conduct.—The particular promises of God, which are contained in the name Abraham: 1, According 428 to its natural greatness; 2. according to its typical glory.—The promises of God conditioned through the covenant of God.—The two sides in the covenant of God.—In the covenant of circumcision.—Circum- cision agatype: 1. Of the new birth; 2. of baptism ; 8. of infant baptism.—Abraham’s laughter.—Abra- ham’s intercession for Ishmael.—For missions among the Mohammedans.—He will laugh.—Isaac’s name henceforth a name of promise.—The significance of this name for the children of God (Ps. exxvi. 2; Luke vi. 21)—Abraham’s obedience the spiritual side of circumcision. Srarke: [derivations of El-Shaddai. More par- ticularly upon the biblical anthropomorphisms]. The change of names. There is here a glorious proof that even the heathen shall come to Christ, and become the children of Abraham.—Upon ver. 6. But above all, the King of kings, Christ, is to de- scend from him (Luke i, 32; Rom. ix. 5).—Upon ver. 7. As to the earthly prosperity which God promised to the natural seed of Abranam, namely, the possession of the land of Canaan, the word Eter- nal is here used to denote a very long time, which, however, has still an end (vers. 8, 13, 19; Exod. xxi. 6; Deut. xv. 17; Jer. xviii. 16). But as to the spiritual good which he promised to the spiritual seed of Abraham, to all true belicvers, namely, the grace of God, forgiveness of sins, protection and blessing in this life, and heavenly glory in the life to come, it is surely an eternal, perpetual covenant. (Thus also Wordsworth, essentially, and Murphy: “ The phrase, perpetual possession, has here two ele- ments of meaning—first, that the possession in its _coming form of a certain land, shall last as long as the co-existing relations of things are continued ; and secondly, that the said possession in all the va- riety of its ever grander phases, will last absolutely forever, p. 309.”—A. G.].—Cramer: The covenant of grace of God is eternal, and one with the new cov- enant in Christ( Jer. xxxi. 33; Isa. liv. 10)—Ostan- per: Even the children of Christian parents, born dead, or taken away before the reception of baptism, are not to be esteemed lost, but blessed.—He intro- duces a sacrament which,: viewed in itself alone, might be regarded as involving disgrace. But on this very account it typifies, 1. the deep depravity of men, in which they are involved from the corruption of original sin, since not only some of the members, but the whole man, is poisoned, and the member here affected in particular as the chief instrument in the propagation of the human race. 2. For the same reason, it confirms the promise of the increase of the race of Abraham. 38, Through this sign God intends to distinguish the people of his possession from all other nations. 4. He represents in it, the spiritual circumcision of the heart—the new birth.— Upon ver. 14.. Cramer: Whoever despises the word ot God and the sacraments, will not be left unpun- ished by God (Isa. vii. 12; Luke vii, 30; 1 Cor. xi. 80.—Muscutus: Sarah, although appointed to be the royal mother of nations and kings, does not bear them to herself, but to Abraham, her own husband ; thus the Church of Christ, espoused’ to Christ, al- though the true royal mother of nations and kings, i, e., of all believers, bears them not to herself, but to Christ.—Cramer: Although women in the Old Testament had no sacrament of circumcision, they share in ity virtue, through the reception of the names,. by which they voluntarily subscribe to the covenant of God (Isa. xliv. 5).—God is an Almighty God, who is not bound to nature.—Ver. 23. As to GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. the readiness with which all the servants of Abraham suffer themselves to be circumcised, we see at once that they must have had already, through the in- struction of Abraham, some correct knowledge of God, since otherwise they could not have understood an act which, to mere reason, appears so preposter- ous, foolish, and disgraceful.—OstanpzR: Believing householders, who yield themselves in obedience to the divine will, shall have also, through the divine blessing, yielding and docile domestics.—CraMEr As circumcision was applied to all the members of Abraham’s household, so all, great and small, should be baptized (Mark x. 14; John iii. 5, 6; Acts xvi. 15; xviii, 8; 1 Cor. i. 16—As Abraham used no delay in the sacrament of circumcision, even s0 we also should not long defer the baptism of infants. Lisco: The essential element of the covenant on the part of God is grace; on man’s part, faith (still, the grace here receives a concrete expression in a definite, gracious promise, and faith likewise in obe- dience, and in a definite, significant rendering of obe- dience),—Grrtacu: ver. 19. Isaac (“he laughs,” or ‘‘one laughs”), the child of joyful surprise is now announced as soon to appear.—Ver. 8. The eternal possession stands in striking contrast to the tran- sient, ever-changing place of sojourn, which Canaan was, at that time, for Abraham. This land, how- ever, which God promises to Abraham and his seed for an inheritance, is still at the same time a visible pledge, the enclosing shell of the still delicate seed or kernel, therefore the prophetic type of the new- world, which belongs to the Church of the Lord; therefore it is pre-eminently an eternal possession. This is true, also, of all divine ordinances, as circum- cision, the passover, the priesthood, ete., which, established in the Old Testament as eternal, are, a3 to the literal sense, abolished in the New Testament, but are in the truest sense spiritually fulfilled— Catwer (Handbuch) upon ver. 1: Walk before me, ete. The law and the gospei, faith and works, are brought together in this one brief word or sentence. Ver. 7. Eternal covenant. Truly, in so far as the spir- itual seed of Abraham take the place. of the natu- ral Israel, and the earthly Canaan is the type of the heavenly, which remains the eternal possession of all believers.—The female sex, without any external sign of the covenant, were yet included in the cove- nant, and shared its grace, so far as through descent or marriage they belonged to the covenant people (ch. xxxiv. 14 ff; Exod. xii. 8; Joel ii. 15, 16).— Scuréper: Ver. 1. This manifestation was given to Abraham, when he had now grown old and gray in faith, for the hope of the fulfilment of the divine promise. How he rebukes and shames us who are so easily stumbled and offended, if we do not see at once the fulfilment of the divine promises! (Ram- bach).—Upon the name Elohim. The same epoch which (ch. xvii.) introduces the particular view of that economy (Rom. iv. 11, 12), opens also its uni- versal tendencies and features. What profound di- vine wisdom and counsel shine in these paradoxes! (The foundation, however, of this opposition is laid already in ch. xii. 1, and first appears in its decisive, complete form in the Mosaic institution of the law). —vVer. 1. We need to mark more carefully the “Tam” of ver 1, because, so many false gods pre- sent themselves to our hearts, and steal ‘away our love (Berleb, Bibel).—Before Abraham was command- ed to circumcise himself, the righteousness of faith was counted to him, through which he was already righteous (Luther)—Although he utters no word, a CHAPS. XVII, XIX. 429 his silence speaks louder than if he had cried in the clearest and loudest tones, that he would surely obey the word of God (Calvin).—The significance and im- portance of names, among the Hebrews, especially in Genesis,—Ver. 5. Abraham is not called the father of many nations, because his seed should. be sepa- rated into different nations, but rather because the dif- ferent nations should be united in him (Rom. iv. ; Cal- vip).—Ver, 8. The land wherein thou art a stranger. The foreigner shall: become the possessor.—Upon Ver. 14. The connection shows that the reference is to the conscious contempt of the sacraments, not to those children who, through the guilt of their parents, were not circumcised upon the eighth day (Exod. iv. 24, f£.)—Ver. 17. Abraham laughed. In the region of unbelief the doubt is of no moment. It has its importance in the life of believers, where it pre- supposes faith, and leads as a transition step toa SEVENTH Abraham in the Oak-Grove of Mamre, and the three Heavenly Men. Saral’s Doubt. The announcement of the judgmens definite announcement of the birth of a Son. firmer faith. (There is, however, a twofold kind of doubt, without considering what is still a question, whether there is any reference to doubt in the text). Luther thinks that Christ points to this text (in John viii. 56). Then the laughing also is an intimation of the overflowing joy which filled his heart, and be- longs to his spiritual experiences.—Ver. 19. Isaac. The name teaches that those who tread inthe foot- steps of Abraham’s faith, will at times find: cause for laughter in the unexpected, sudden, and great bless- ings they receive. There is reason in God, both for weeping and, laughter (Roos).—Ver. 28. We see how well his house was ordered, since even those who were bought with money cheerfully submitted to circumcision (Calvin).—Passavant: (Abraham). The Almighty God, the God who can do all, sees all, knows all, he was, is, and will be all, to his servants, SECTION. Hospitality of Abraham. The upon Sodom connected with the Promise of the Heir of blessing. The Angel of the Lord, or the Friend of Abraham and the two angels of deliverance for Sodom. Abraham's intercession for Sodom. The destruction of Sodom. Lot's rescue. Lot and his Daughters. Moab and Ammon. Cus. XVIII. anp XIX. 1 ‘And the Lord appeared unto him in the plains of Mamre; and he sat in the tent- 2 door in the heat of the day; And he lifted up his eyes and looked, and, lo, three men stood by him: and when he saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent-door, and 3 bowed himself toward the ground, And said, My Lord [7:5% not %35x],’ if now I have TO: 4 found favor in thy sight, pass not away, I pray thee, from thy servant: Let a little water, I pray you, be fetched, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree 5 [enjoy the noonday rest] : And I will fetch a morsel of bread, and comfort [stay, strengthen | ye your hearts; after that ye shall pass on: for therefore are ye [even] come to your 6 servant. And they said, So do, as thou hast said. And Abraham hastened into the tent unto Sarah, and said, Make ready [hasten] quickly three measures of fine meal, 7 knead zt, and make cakes upon the hearth. And Abraham ran unto the herd, and fetched a calf tender and good, and gave 7 unto a young man [aservant]; and he hasted 8 to dress it. And he? took butter, and milk, and the calf which he had dressed [caused to be dressed ], and set 2# before them; and he stood* by them under the tree, and they did eat. 9 And they said unto him, Where ¢s Sarah thy wife? And he said, Behold, in the 10 tent. And he said, I will. certainly return unto thee according to the time of life * [return when this time of the next year shall be reached] ; and lo, Sarah thy wife shall [then] have a son. And Sarah heard [was hearing] 7éin [behind] the tent-door, which [door] was behind 11 12 ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women. him [Jehovah]. Now Abraham and Sarah were old and well stricken in age; and it Therefore Sarah laughed within herself, saying, After I am waxed old shall I have pleasure, my lord being old [gray] 18 14 also? And the Lord said unto Abraham, Wherefore did Sarah laugh saying, Shall I of a surety bear a child, which am [endIam] old? Is any thing too hard® [an exception] for the Lord? At the time appointed I will return unto thee, according to the time of* 15 life [this time in the next year], and Sarah shall have a son. Then Sarah denied, saying, I laughed not; for she was afraid. And he said, Nay; but thou didst laugh. 430 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 80 31 32 33 GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. And the men rose up from thence, and looked toward Sodom: and Abraham went with them to bring them on the way. And the Lord® said, Shall I hide from Abra- ham that thing which I do [wil do] ;” Seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? For I know [have chosen] him, that he will [shat] 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. And the Lord said, Because the cry [of the sins, ch. iv. 10] of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous, I will go down now, and see whether they have done [until a decision | altogether ® according to the cry of it, which is come unto me; and if not, I will know. And the men turned their faces from thence, and went toward Sodom: but Abraham stood yet before the Lord. : ; And Abraham drew near [bowing, praying], and said, Wilt thou also destroy the right- eous with the wicked? Peradventure there be fifty righteous within the city [concealed in the mass]: 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 it is all one both to the right. eons and the wicked], that be far from thee: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? And the Lord said, If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes. And Abraham answered and said, Behold now [once] I have taken upon me to speak [tosay] unto the Lord, which am but dust and ashes. Peradventure there shall lack five of the fifty righteous: wilt thou destroy all the city for lack of five? And he said, if I find there forty and five, I will not destroy it. And he spake unto him yet again, and said, Peradventure there shall be forty found there [if one should search for them ]. And he said, I will not do [win leave off to do] at for forty’s sake. And he said unto him, Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak; Per- adventure there shall thirty be found there. And he said, I will not doc if I find thirty there. And he said, Behold nowI have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord: Peradventure there shall be twenty found there. And he said, I will not destroy at for twenty’s sake. And he said, Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak yet but this once: Peradventure there shall be ten found there. And he said, I will not destroy ¢ for ten’s sake. And the Lord went his way, as soon as he had left commun- ing with Abraham: and Abraham returned unto his place. Cu. XIX. 1 And there came two’ angels to Sodom at even; and Lot sat [was sitting] in 2 ESS antauw 10 12 the gate of Sodom: and Lot seeing them, rose up to meet them; and he bowed himself with his face toward the ground; And he said, Behold now, my lords,” turn in, I pray you, into your servant’s house, and tarry all night, and wash your feet, and ye shall rise up early, and go on your ways. And they said, Nay; but we will abide in the street all night. And he pressed upon them greatly; and they turned in unto him, and entered into his house; and he made them a feast [literally, a banquet], and did bake unleavened bread, and they did eat. But before they lay down, the men of the city, even the men of Sodom, compassed the house round, both old and young, all the people, from every quarter [all collected] : And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, Where are the men which came in to thee this night? bring them out unto us, that we'may know them. And Lot went out at the door unto them, and shut the door after him, And said, I pray you, brethren, do not so wickedly. Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes: only unto these men do nothing; for therefore came they under the shadow [and protection] of my roof [the cross-beams or rafters of the house]. And they said, Stand back. And they said again, This one fellow came in to sojourn, and he will needs be a judge :* now will we deal worse with thee, than with them. And they pressed sore upon the man, even Lot, and came near to break the door. But the men put forth their. hand, and pulled Lot into the house to them, and shut to the door. And they smote the men that were at the door of the house with blindness [dazzling blindnesses], both small and great; so that they wearied themselves to find the door. And the men said unto Lot, Hast thou here [in the city] any besides? son-in-law, and thy sons, and thy daughters, and whatsoever thou hast in the city, bring them out CHAPS. XVIII, XIX. 431 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 o1 22 23, 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 of this place: For we will destroy‘ this place, because the cry of them [the outery of their sins] is waxen great before the face of the Lord; and the Lord hath sent us to destroy it. And Lot went out and spake unto his sons-in-law, which married his daughters,° and said, Up, get you out of this place; for the Lord will destroy [asa destroyer| this city. But he seemed as one that mocked ° unto his sons-in-law [Litther : he was ridiculous in their eyes. And when the morning arose, then the angels hastened Lot, saying, Arise, take thy wife, and thy two daughters, which are here [are found and reeeued]; lest thou be con- sumed in the iniquity [the visitation for the iniquity] of the city. And while he lingered,’ the men laid hold upon his hand, and upon the hand of his wife, and upon the hand of his two daughters; the Lord being merciful unto him: and they brought him forth, and set him without the city. And it-came to pass, when they had brought them forth abroad [into the open country], that he said, Escape for thy life [thy sow]; look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain [valley-region] ; escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed. And Lot said unto them [the two passing from him; between whom Jehovah had revealed himeelf |, Oh, not SO, my Lord!* Behold now, thy servant hath found grace in thy sight, and thou hast magnified thy mercy, which thou hast showed unto me, in saving my life; and I cannot escape to the mountain, lest some [the] evil take me, and I die: Behold now this city as near to flee unto, and it ¢s a little one: Oh let me escape thither! (ds it not a little one?) and my soul [through its exemption] shall live. And he said unto him, See, I have accepted® thee concerning this thing also, that I will not overthrow this city, for the which thou -hast spoken. Haste thee, escape thither; for I cannot do anything till thou be come thither; therefore the name of the city was called Zoar [smaltness]. 24 The sun was risen upon the earth when Lot entered’® into Zoar. Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven; And he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities,. and that which grew upon the ground. ; But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt. And Abraham gat up early in the morning to the place where he stood before the Lord: And he looked toward ("29753) Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and beheld, and, lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace []ime-kilns or metal-furnaces. The earth itself burned as an oven]. And it came to pass when God [Zichim] 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. And Lot went up out of Zoar, and dwelt in the mountain, and his two daughters with him; for he feared to dwell in Zoar: and he dwelt in a cave, he and his two daughters. And the firstborn said. unto the younger [smaller], Our father is old, and there is not a man [besides] in the earth to come in unto us, after the manner of all the earth: Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father. And'they made their father drink wine that night: and . the firstborn went in and Jay with her-father; and he perceived not [was not ina conscious 34 35 36 37 38 state] when she lay down, nor when she arose. And it came to pass on the morrow, that the firstborn said unto the younger, Behold, I lay yesternight [nights] with my father: let us make him drink wine this night also; and go thou in, and lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father. And they made their father drink wine that. night also: and the younger arose and lay with him; and he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose. Thus were both the daughters of Lot with child by their father. And the firstborn bare a son, and called his name Moab [from the father; or seed of the father; son of my father ; brother and son]; the same és the father of the Moabites unto this day. And the younger, she also bare a son, and called his name Ben-ammi [son of tay people, son and brother]: the same ¢s the father of the children of Ammon [= Ben-ammon] unto this day. [ Ch. XVIII. ver. 3.—The, versions vary, some reading one form and some the other. The Septuagint has Kvpee, Vulg. Domine. So also the Syriac and ‘Onkelos. The Masoretic text, therefore, is preferable to that used in our ver- sion.—A. G.] (? Ver. 8.—He, i. e. Abrabam.—A. G.] (3 Ver. 8.—was standing.—A. G.} [4 Ver. 10.—Heb., according to the living time.—A. G.] . 432 GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. (5 Ver. 14.—Heb., difficult, wonderful, Sept. wh addvvarjce mapa 7 Ged piua? see Luke i, 37.—A. G.] 6 Ver, 17.—Jehovah.—A. G.] tr Ver. 18.—Lit., Iam doing, am about to do.—A. G.] [8 Ver. z1.—Heb. whether they have made completeness, or to & consummation,—A. G.] [2 Ver. 25,—nbbr , abominable.—A. G.] (! Ch. XIX, ver. 1.—two of the angels.—A. G.] (? Ver. (8 Ver. 9— (* Ver. (5 Ver. [& Ver. [7 Ver. 13.—Lit., are destroying.—A. G.] 1L Lit. The takers of his daughters.—A. G.] 14.—as a jester.—-A. G.] 16.—Heb. delayed himself.—A. G.] [2 Ver. 18.—"27%. O Lord.—A. G.] 9 Ver, 21.—have lifted up thy face.—A. G.] fio Ver. Lee Lot came unto.—A. G.] i GENERAL PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 1. It is evident: that these two chapters form but one section: the first verse of the xixth chapter forms the direct continuation of the previous narrative. [The connection of this chapter with the preceding is twofold, and very close. This forms the more complete unfolding of the promise, cb. xvii. 21, and the friendly intercourse which Jehovah here holds with the patriarch is the direct fruit of the symboli- cal purification of himself and his house through the rite of circumcision, ch. xvii. 23-27. Thus purified, the way was open for this friendly appearance and fellowship.—A. G.] The modern criticism attributes this section to the Jehovistic enlargement, and finds it necessary, therefore, to regard xix. 29, as an Elo- -histic interpolation, which, in the original writing must have immediately followed ch. xvii. (KNOBEL, p. 166). But there are the same strong intcrnal rea- sons why the name Elohim should appear in ch. xix. 29, as there are that ch. xvii. 1, should speak of Jehovah, and afterwards of Elohim. In this section, however, Jelovah appears in all other passages. The complete theophany of God corresponds to the com- pleted promise of Isaac, the bearer of the covenant; and in this completed form of revelation he is Jeho- vah. But the announcement of the judgment upon Sodom and Gomorrah is essentially connected with the promise of the heir of blessing. The judgment itself, also, is a judgment of Jehovah; for, 1. The overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, through a fiery judgment, is an end of the world upon a small scale, with which the necessity, for that constant revelation of salvation, for the rescue of the world, whose founda- tion was now being laid, is clearly apparent. 2. With the firm confirmation of the father of the faithful in the future of his believing race, his relations to the world must also be actually and clearly defined, i. e., Abraham must prove his faith in his love, mercy, and his intercessions for Sodom also. 38. In the founding of this believing race, the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, as a judgment of Jehovah, stands as a solemn warning for Abraham and his children, and through them for the world in all ages. The Dead sea could not remain without significance for the dwellersin Canaan. 4. Even the issue of the history of Lot belongs to the history of the com- pleted promise; not only the position of Lot, inter- mediate between Abraham and Sodom, nor even his exemption and safety, which he owes to Abraham’s intercession, and his once better conduct, nor; on the other hand, the danger, terrors, losses, want, and moral disgrace: into which he was betrayed through his worldly mind and his unbelief; but the issue of the history of Lot, his full separation from the theo- cratic obligations and privileges, and the descent 9,—35% . Not the same form which Abraham uses.—A. G.] EApw obit, will he always be judging.—A. G.] from him of the Moabites and Ammonites, who were related to the Jews, and yet alien to them, belong also to the full presentation of the antithesis between the house of Abraham and the people of Sodom. 5. The abominations of Sodom, moreover, not only find a bright contrast in the consecrated marriage of Abraham and Sarah, but even a contrast in the incest with which the household of Lot was stained (see Introduction).—Knobel finds contradictions here which have no existence; e. g., between ch. xviii, 12 and xvii. 17; between the recapitulation, ch. xix. 29, and the whole narrative of the overthrow of Sodom. He remarks upon the narrative, that the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah is not, in his view, a natural event, but a divine judgment, like the flood. He explains the narrative of the impure origin of the Moabites and Ammonites by a reference to the odious Jewish motives. In answer to this Keil refers to Deut. ii. 9, 19, according to which Israel should not possess the land of these two na- tions on the ground of their descent from Lot, and remarks, they were first excluded from a position among the Lord’s people, on account of their un- brotherly conduct towards Israel (Deut. xxiii, 4 ff.). Knobel here fails to recollect, that so far as the race of the chosen Judah is concerned, it was derived from an impure connection of Judah with his daughter-in- law, Thamar, just as in the remark, that the Jews gloried in the beauty of their ancestress, he failed to remember that Leah is especially described as not beautiful. He'holds, that this narrative has an his- torical support, in the terrible fate of the vale of Siddim ; but as to the rest, it is a pure mythical statement. [Aside from the fact that this supposi- tion of the mythological character of the narrative overlooks the opposition referred to in the following sentence, it overlooks, also, the historical basis for this narrative in ch. xiii. 18, the close connection with the subsequent history, and the whole moral bearing and use of this history in both the Old and New Testaments.—A. G.] Of the two sides or aspects of the history, the prominent side, viz., the opposition between the manifestation of God to Abraham, and the judgment upon Sodom, is thus not properly estimated. 2. This Section may be divided into the follow- ing parts: 1. The appearance of Jehovah in the oak-grove of Mamre, and the promise of the birth of Isaac (ch. xviii. 1-15); 2. the revelation of the approaching judgment upon Sodom and Gomorrah to Abraham, and Abraham’s intercessory prayer (vers. 16-33); 8. the entrance of the two angels into Sodom, and the complete manifestation of the cor- ruption of the Sodomites, in opposition to the better conduct of Lot (ch. xix. 1-11); 4. the comparative unfitness of Lot for salvation, his salvation with diffi- CHAP. XVIII, 1.—XIX. 38. 433 culty, and the entrance of the judgment (vers. 12- 29); 5. the departure of Lot, and his descendants (ver. 80-38). EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL, 1. The completed manifestation and promise o God in the oak-grove of Mamre (ch. xviii. 1-15). —The Lord appeared unto him.*—Both the reality of the manifestation, on the one ‘hand, and the seeing in vision on the other, appear in the clear- est and most distinct form in the history. The ele- ments which belong to the vision appear first at the very beginning: he lifted up his eyes and looked; then, further, in the departure of Jehovah from Abraham (ch. xviii. 33); and in his reappear- ance to Lot (ch. xix. 17), The objective element is seen especially in the threefold character of the manifestation, in‘ the transaction between Jehovah and Sarah, and in the history of the two angels in Sodom; especially in the assaults of the Sodomites upon them. But the peculiarities serving to in- troduce these wonderful objective facts, lie partly in the peculiar character of the history, as the narra- tive of a vision, partly in its symbolic statements, and partly in its peculiar ghostly form. The de- struction of Sodom and Gomorrah is near; for them the evening of the world has come. It is a prelude of the last day, in which the angelic appearance is entirely natural, and is introduced through an inner and spiritual anticipation of the judgment itself, in those who seek to resist its influence, by indulgence in wicked, or, as in the case of the Sodomites, in abominable, courses. Delitzsch thinks that Abra- ham recognized the unity of the God. of revelation, in the appearance of the three men. As to this, see the remarks upon the Angel of the Lord, ch. xii. He adds: “One should compare the imitations of this original history among the heathen. Jupiter, Mercury, and Neptune, visit an old man, by name Hyricus, in the Boeotian city Tanagra; he prepares them a feast, and, though childless hitherto, receives a son in answer to his prayer (Ovid's ‘ Fast.,’ v. 494, etc.).” And then, further, the heathen accompani- ment to ch, xix.: “Jupiter and Mercury are jour- neying as men; only Philemon and Baucis, an aged, childless wedded pair, receive them, and these, therefore, the gods rescue, bearing them away with themselves, while they turn the inhospitable region lying around the hospitable hut into a pool of water, and the hut itself into a temple (Ovid’s Metam., viii. 611 ff.).” But the essential distinction between our ideal facts and these myths, lies in this, that while the first lie in the centre of history as causal facts or forces, having the most sacred and real historical re- sults, these latter lie simply on the border ground of mythology. [How completely and thoroughly these -words dispose of the whole mythical supposition in this as in other cases.—A, G.]J—In the heat of the day.—“‘The dinner hour,* when they took their principal meal (ch, xliii. 16, 25; 1 Kings, xx. 16) and their accustomed rest (2 Sam. iv. 56) Vounry (Travels, I. p. 314) says the Arab, when he takes his meal, sits at the door of his tent, in order to observe and invite those who are passing; and Burkgarpr * [The Lord appeared, but the appearance was in the form of three men or angels. There may be, as Words- worth suggests, here a declaration of the divine unity, and an intimation of the plurality of persons; perhaps of the doctrine of the Trinity.—A. G.] 28 (Arabian Proverbs, p. 331 f.),.it is a custom ,in the East to eat before the door and to invite to a share in the meal every passing stranger of respect‘ able appearance.” Knobel.—And bowed himself to the ground.—Abratiam instantly recognizes among the three, the one whom he addresses as the Lord in a religious sense, who afterwards appears as Jehovah, and was clearly distinguished from the a accompanying angels, ch. xix. 1. [The original He- brew word is used to denote both civil and religious homage, The word itself, therefore, cannot deter- mine whether Abraham intended by his bowing to express religious homage, though it is probable that he did—A, G.] “They are three,” Delitzsch says, “because of the threefold object of their mission, which had not only a promising, but also a punitive, and saving character.” Against this interpretation, however, there is the fact that Jehovah not only speaks the promise, but sends the judgment also upon Sodom, and that not one, but both angels con- ducted the rescue of Lot. “If there lies,” says De- litzsch, further, “in the fact that God appears in the three angels, a trinitarian reference, which the old painters were accustomed ta express, by giving to each of the three the glory which is the characteris- tic sign of the divine nature, still the idea that the Trinity is represented in the three is in every point of view untenable.?? The germ of the’ doctrine of the Trinity lies, indeed, not in the three forms, but truly in the opposition between the heavenly nature of Jehovah and his form of manifestation upon the earth in the midst of the two angels, i. e., in this well-defined, clearly-appearing duality.—If now I have found favor.—Knobel and Delitzsch differ in the explanation of the N)"ON, etc. (Knobel: “If have still found favor,” 7. ¢., may it still be the case.) We agree with the supposition that Abraham uses the expression in his prayer, out of the consciousness that he had already found favor, 7. ¢., that his ex- pression presupposes:a covenant-relation between himself and Jehovah. The cordial invitation is in this case far more than oriental hospitality, but still Abraham uses the human greeting, as the heavenly forms wear the appearance of human travellers— And wash your feet.—This is the first concern of the pilgrim in the East, when he enters the house after treading the sandy, dusty ways, with nothing but sandals. They were to rest themselves under the tree, leaning upon the hand in the oriental man- ner.*—A morsel of bread.—A modest description of the sumptuous meal which he had prepared for them. His humble and pressing invitation, his modest description of the meal, his zeal in its prepa- ration, his standing by to serve those who were eat- ing, are picturesque traits of the life of faith as it here reveals itself, in an exemplary hospitality. “ According to the custom still in use among the Bedouin sheiks (comp. Lanz, ‘‘ Manners and Cus- toms,” II. p. 116), Abraham prepared, as soon as possible, from the cakes made by his wife from three seahs [About three pecks. A seah was about the third part of an ephah; the ephah was equal to ten omers, and the omer about five pints. Murphy.— A. G.] of fine meal, and baked under the ashes (nisy, unleavened cakes, baked upon hot, round * (“For therefore are ye come—to give me occasion to offer you my hospitality.” Kerr, p. 166.—A, G.] (“Their oe of God. He recognized ‘in ita di- a ao Dy 2 his hospitality.” Jacosvus, ** Notes,” vol. i. Pp. 9—A. G. 434 stones), and a tender calf,* with butter and milk, or eurdled milk (Knosxn: Cream), a very rich and pleasant-tasting meal.” Keil—And he stood by them.—[Wordsworth here calls attention to the points of. resemblance between this history and that of Zaccheus, Luke, xix. 4, 6, 8,9, and then says with great beauty and force: “ This seems to be one of the countless instances where, in the tissue of the Holy Scriptures, the golden threads of the Old Tes- tament are interwoven with those of the New, and form, as it were, one whole. p.84.—A.G.] “This is the custom still in the Eastern countries. The Aral sheik, if he bas respected guests, does not sit in order to eat with them, but stands in order to wait upon them.” (Saw, “Travels,” p. 208; Buck- rvenam, “ Mesopotamia,” p, 23; and Srerzen, ‘ Trav- cls,” I. p. 400, etc.) Knoble-—And they did eat. —In Judges, xiii. 16. the Angel of Jehovah refuses to eat.’ Knobel regards it as a mark of distinction to Abraham, that these heavenly messengers should eat, Since the two angels were entertained by Lot in Sodom, it would appear that the peculiar reception of the meal should be ascribed in a special sense to them. This, however, does not remove the difficulty, in the fact, that those coming from heaven should eat earthly food. The supposition of Neumann, that it is all a dream up to ver. 16, is refuted by the whole tenor of the narrative, but especially by the history of the entertainment of the two angels by Lot. Josrruus, “ Antiq.,” i. 11, 2, Philo, the Tar- gums, ond the Talmud, explain the eating as a mere appearance. TrRTULLI4N, on the contrary (“ Adv. Mare.,” iii. 9), holds to a temporary incarnation. Delitzsch and Keil [So also Jacobus, after Kurtz, re- ferring to John i. 14; Phil. ii, 7; Luke, xxiv. 44.— A. G.] agree with him, and both refer to the eating of the risen Saviour with his disciples. But the idea of a temporary incarnation in a peculiar sense, is an extremely anthropomorphic, and not well- grounded, assumption; and the bodily nature of the glorified Christ, of whom Augustin says: “that he ate is a fruit of his power, not of his necessity,” quod manducavit, potestatis fuit non egestatis, is not to be identified with the form of the manifestation of the angels, But Delitzsch gives still another explanation. “The human form in which they-ap- peared, was a representation of their invisible nature, and thus they ate, as we say of the fire, it consumes (or eats) all (Justin, Dial. cwm Tryph., ch. 84).” There may be here an intimation of the mysterious fact, that the spiritual world is mighty in its mani- festations, and overcomes the material, according to the figurative expression of Augustin: The thirst- ing earth absorbs the water in one way, the burning rays of the sun in another ; that from want, this by power. [‘* Aliter absorbet terra aquam siliens, aliter solis radius candens: illa indigentia, iste potentia.” Thus BaumearTen: That the angels could eat lies in their pneumatic nature, for the spirit has power over matter; that they did eat here is the very high- est act of this divine sojourn or rest in the home of Abraham, p, 206.—A, G.]—Which was behind him.—The Angel of the Lord was placed with his back towards the door of the tent. But it greatly ‘strengthens the real objective character of the mani- festation,: that Sarah also hears, and indeed hears ‘doubting, the promise of the Angel—According * (Flesh-meat was not ordinary fare. Sce Pict. Bibl sae Notes, vol. i. p. 288-4, GT’ Tm Bibles GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. to the time of life.*—“The time of returning to life,” is the return of the same time in the next year, Time returns to life again apparently in the similar appearances of nature. Thus one form of time in nature expires after another, and becomes living again in the next year.—Wherefore did Sarah laugh.— Although Sarah only laughed within herself, and behind Jehovah and the tent door, yet Jehovah observed it, Her later denial (although, indeed, she had not laughed aloud) and her fear, prove that her laugh proceeded from a bitter and doubting heart, Keil, however, is too severe when he says “ that her laugh must be viewed as the laugh of unbelief,” and Delitzsch, when he describes it as the scoff of doubt. It is sufficient that there is a distinction between her laughing and that of Abraham. The Scripture says (Heb. xi. 11) that she was a believer in the promise, and the fact of her conception is the evidence of her faith. [It thus becomes evident that one object in this manifestation, the drawing out and completing the faith of Sarah, has been accomplished. The question, Is anything too hard for the Lord? is the same which the angel Gabriel used when announcing to Mary the birth of Jesus. Mary bowed in faith, while Sarah laughs in doubt. But the words here used, with the reproof administered to her. laugh, seem to have called out and strengthened her faith, See Worpswortn, p. 84; BaumGarren, p. 207.— A. G.] [Delitzsch closes his exposition of this pas- sage with the suggestive words: “This confidential fellowship of Jehovah with the patriarch corresponds to that of the risen Lord with his disciples. The patriarchal time is more evangelic than the time of the law. As the time before the law, it is the type of the time after the law,” p. 285.—A. G.] 2. The announcement of the judgment upon Sodom and Gomorrah, and Abraham's intercessory prayer (vers, 16-32)—And the men rose up from thence.{—The travellers depart from Hebron in the direction of Sodom, é.¢., over the mountain to the valley of the Jordan. Abraham accompanies them, There is a wonderful union of the state of visions and of the actual outward life. We do not forget that this condition wag habitual in the life of our Lord, and that it is reflected in the history of Peter (Acts, xii. 11, 12) as it is also in that of Paul. According to tradition, Abraham accompanied them as far as ‘the place Caphar-Barucha, from whence Paula looked through a deep ravine to the Dead Sea,” “the solitude and lands of Sodom.” Robin- son thinks this is probably the present village Bui Na‘im, about one and a half hours easterly from Hebron [‘‘ Bib. Researches,” vol. ii. p. 189,—A. G.] (Von Ravuer, “Palestine,” p. 188).—Shall I hide from Abraham.—The reason why God would an- nounce to Abraham, beforehand, the judgment upon Sodom, is given in the following words, There is at first great regard to the excellence of Abraham, but connected with this, however, a reference to his destination as the father of the people of promise; he must understand the judgments of God in the __™ (Literally, living time. Munreny: “Seemingly the time of Ee when the child comes to manifest life,’’ p. t [Jacobus has a. striking note here upon the conneciion of what follows with what precedes. “These are only the right and left hand movements. Therccords are in their proper antithesis, as ae forth the divine character and counsel. The right and left hand of the Judge are for the opposite parties. Life eternal is for the one, and everlast- a unishment for the other,” Matt, xxy. 46. All history is full of this antithesis.—A, G.] CHAP. XVIII. 1—XIX. 38. world, because he must understand the redemption. [All the principles of the divine providence in its relations to the sins of men appear here; his for- bearance and patience, his constant notice, the deciding test, and the strictness and righteousness of the judgment, and hence Abraham is told here, that these same principles might operate upon the minds of the people of God in all ages,—A. G.] For the judgment cannot be understood without the redemption, nor the redemption without the judg- ment. The “natural event” of Knobel thus be- comes to Abraham and his children, a divinely-com- prehended event, and cannot remain a dark mystery ; it presupposes its spiritual and moral significance. But on this account especially, the event, as a judg- ment, is of peculiar importance, in order that, like every following judgment, it may prove a monitory example to the house of Abraham—the people of God.—For I have known him.—Luther, follow- ing the Vulgate, J know that he, ete. Thus the good behavior of Abraham is (in an Arminian way) made the cause of the divine knowledge. But the 27> is opposed to this. The knowledge of Jeho- vah ig fore-determined, like rpoywécxer, Rom. viii. 29, and thus one with the éxAdyeoSa:, Ep. i. 4. Keit: “In preventing love he sees (3'3"), as in Amos, iii. 2; Hosea, xiii. 5,” which, however, can- not be ‘included in the mere acknowledgment: of Abraham. [The word includes knowledge and love. See Ps. i. 63 xxxi.8; 1 Cor. viii.3; xiii. 12. Bavm- GARTEN, p. 208.—A. G.] Kurtz explains this pas- sage strangely. God has given the possession of the land to Abraham, therefore he would be sure of his consent in this arrangement as to a part of the land. Keri: “The destruction of Sodom and the neigh- boring cities should serve as an enduring monument of the divine punitive righteousness, in which Israel should have constantly before its eyes the destruc- tion of the godless. Finally,“ Jehovah unveils to Abraham, in the clearest manner, the cause of this destruction, that he might not only have a clear and “perfect conviction of the justice of the divine pro- cedure, but also the cledr view that when the meas- ure of iniquity was full, no intercession could. avert the judgment. It’is both for the instruction and warning of his descendants.” But still more cer- tainly, ‘also, at first, to give occasion to the prayer of Abraham, and thus show to his children what position they must take in regard to all the threaten- ing judgments of God upon the world.—The cry of Sodom.—It is right to refer to ch. iv. 10 for the explanation of these words, and hence the cry which is meant is the cry of sins for vengeance or punish- ment. Outbreaking offences against the moral na- ture, as murder and lusts, especially unnatural lusts, abuse and pain nature, and so to speak, force from it a ery of necessity, which sounds throughout the world and ascends to heaven. The infamy of Sodom and Gomorrah in the world, is not excluded ‘from this tendency and result, but forms only the reflex, or one element of the ery. The "> gives the strongest emphasis to the utterance. [Baumgarten and Keil render it indeed. The cry of Sodom, in- deed it is great—their sin, indeed it is very grievous. But the usual force of the "2, for, because, gives a good sense. It is for or because the cry is such, that the Lord comes down to test and punish.—A. G.} * [Itis the moral demand which sin makes for punish- ment. Busu: ‘ Notes,” vol. i. p. 297.—A, G.] 435 —I will go down now.—The anthropomorphic expression includes also a divine thought or purpose. Jehovah could not be uncertain whether the ery of Sodom and Gomorrah contained the truth, but it was still a question whether Sodom, by its conduct against the last deciding visitation otf God, would show that its corruption placed it beyond any help or salvation. The translation of Luther, ‘‘ whether it has done according to the cry,” does not meet the demands of the text. It must become evident through its last trial, whether it has reached the limit of the long-suffering patience of God. Thus it is not specially to convince himself, but to introduce the final decision. According to Delitzsch and Keil, the nbd must be taken as a noun, as in Isa, x. 28, not as an adverb, ag Exod. xi. 1, “Mb> MWY, to bring to an end, here to denote the most extreme corruption, in other passages used to express the utmost severity of punishment (Nah. i. 8 f.; Jer. iv. 27; v. 10).” Keil—I will know.—A sublime, fearful expression of the fact, that Jehovah will at last introduce for the godless a decisive test, which according to their situation is a temptation, the judgment which in their case hardens, and the judg- ment for the hardening. It will issue at the last, as they themselves have decided. Patience and anger both have definite, sharp limits—And the men.— The two angels who accompanied Jehovah in the form of men. It is observable that here it is the men simply, and then in ch. xix. 1 it is the two an- gels. This order.presupposes a very clear conscious- ness as to the distinction between the one chief person and his two companions ; a distinction which Delitzsch misses, according to his view of the Angel of the Lord. Here, also (ver. 22), the two angels disappear, as they go farther, while Jehovah remains at the place, in the Angel of the Lord; in (ch. xix. 17) on the contrary, the two angels receive an in- crease through an undefined, but evident, new appearance of Jehovah. It is with reference to the later assault of the Sodomites, that the angels are here described as men. Their departure to Sodom is in fulfilment of the word of Jehovah: I will know. They depart to introduce the final decision. They depart, but Abraham remains standing before Jeho- vah, upon that height whence the vale of Sodom could be seen (ch. xix. 17), and addresses himself to prayer. The Jewish conjecture, that Jehovah remains standing before Abraham, is a wretched way of bettering the connection, which presupposes the distinction between the one Jehovah and the two angels before Jehovah—And Abraham drew near.—The &5" designates especially the nearness to Jehovah, and more especially the venturesome [Rather the bold. Heb. iv. 16; x. 22.—A. G.], me- diating nearness in the priestly and believing dispo- sition which the prayer implies and contains (Jer. xxx. 21). That Abraham in his prayer thought especially of Lot, is evideut, but that he interceded for Lot only, is an assumption which wrongs not only the divine thought of this prayer but the text itself. Abraham would not then have ceased with the number ten, and his prayer also would have taken the form of an ambiguous circumlocution. Keil is correct in his remark against Kurtz, Abra- ham appeals in his prayer, not to the grace of the covenant, but to the righteousness of Jehovah. But he is incorrect when he rejects thé position of Cal- vin: ‘Common mercy towards the five nations” impels Abraham to his prayer, and on the contrary 2 436 brings into prominence the love springing from faith; for the one of these does not exclude the other. Luther admirably explains his heartfelt de- sire: “He asks six times, and with so great ardor and affection, so urgently, that in the very great and breathless interest with which he pleads for the miserable cities, he seems as if speaking foolishly.” Tn the transactions of Abraham with God, the press- ing earnestness on the part of Abraham, and the forbearance on the part of Jehovah, stand out in clear relief. Abraham goes on from step to step, Jehovah grants him step by step, without once going before bis requests. He thus draws out from Abra- ham the measure and intensity of his priestly spirit, while Abraham, on his side, ever wins a clearer insight as to the judgment of God upon Sodom, and as to the condition of Sodom itself—TZhe jirst prayer or petition. Foolish, apparently presuming in form, sacred as to its matter! God, as he has known him as the righteous one, must remain the same in his righteousness, and cannot, in any exercise of his punitive providence, separate his almighty power from his righteousness. The prayer isa pious syllo- gism. Major proposition: Jehovah cannot sweep away the righteous with the wicked. (The emphasis lies upon the sweeping away. The prayer itself proves that the righteous suffer through the wicked, indeed, with him and for him.) The minor premise: there might be fifty righteous ones in Sodom, i. ¢., righteous, guiltless in reference to this destructive judgment. Innocent children are indeed not intend- ed here, but guiltless adults, who might form some proportionate counterpoise to the rest. Zhe conclu- sion: If it should be thus, the judge of the world could not destroy the citics, for righteousness is not the non plus ultra of strength, but power conditions and limits itself through right. Fifty righteous, five - [twice five ?] in each city (the singular is used here because Sodom represents all the five cities, or the pentapolis appears as one city, whose character and destiny is decided in the conduct of Sodom) of the peer would be sufficient salt to save the city. five is the number of freedom, of moral develop- ment.—Second petition. The lowly, humble form of the second prayer, corrésponds with the bold form of the first, for Abraham has now heard that Jeho- vah will spare it for the sake of fifty.—I have taken upon me (ventured) to speal unto tlie Lord.—This is not merely to pray unto the Lord. He has ventured the undertaking, to exert a definite influence upon Jehovah, ¢.¢., on the supposition of a moral and free relation, boldly he has ventured to speak to him, although uncalled.—Which am but dust and ashes.—Denirzscu: “In his origin dust, and ashes at the end.” Notwithstanding this crea- ture nature, he has still ventured to place himself in- his personality over against the personality of Jeho- vah. He has taken the step of faith across the Rubicon, from the blind, creaturely subjection to Jehovah, into the free kingdom of his love—Per- adventure there shall lack five——He does not say: Peradventure there are five and forty righteous, but clings to the divine concession. If it is as thou hast said, then the want of five cannot be decisive. The forty-five will compensate for the want of five. —Third petition. Since he knew now that Jehovah would not insist upon the five, he descends at once to the forty, and urges still that the righteous ven- Geance should be-restrained for their sakes until perhaps they might be found. Still from this point on he ventures only to make the supposition, per- GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. adventure there are so many righteous there, with out expressly joining to it the inference: wilt thou not spare, etc.?—Fourth petition. But now, after the number forty is allowed, Abraham feels that he can take a bolder step, before which, however, he prays that Jehovah would not be angry. Jehovah had twice yielded the five; he now comes to thirty, and prays that he would at once yield the ten— Fifth petition. The compliance of Jehovah with his requests emboldens him. Thus he excuses his boldness this time by the mere consistency of his words, as he comes down to twenty.—Stath petition. He would venture only one more request, and that not without the deprecatory prayer: Oh, let not the Lord be angry.—He ceases with ‘the ten, since less than two men to each city could not avail to turn away the destructive judgment. But great as the interceding Abraham appears in his bold, per- sistent progress in his petitions, he appears equally great in ceasing when he did, although the human motive to bring into the account Lot, his wife, his two daughters, and his sons-in-law, and thus to go on to the number five, was obvious and strong. And thus there is still a distinction between the mere begging, which knows no limit, and the prayer which is conscious that it is limited through the moral nature or spirit, and, indeed, by the Holy Spirit. When Delitzsch says “that apparent commercial kind of entreaty is the essence of true prayer—is the sacred avaiSe:a of which our Lord speaks, Luke xi. 8, the importunity (shamelessness) of faith, etc.,” we would underscore and emphasize the apparent, and appeal rather to the repeated asking than to the bargaining nature, and recollect that the importu- nity, Luke xi. 8, has its full authorization only in the figure, but cannot he identified without explana- tion, with what is analogous to it, the full joyfulness of prayer.—And the Lord went his way: not to avoid (as Delitzsclt conjectures) further entreaties on the part of Abraham, for Jehovah's remaining where he was, and the joyfulness of Abraham’s prayer, stand in a harmonious relation. ‘ The judg- ment, which now follows, ujson the five cities, shows that not ten B°P"4S, i.e, not sinless, holy persons, but upright, who, through the fear of God and the power of conscience, had kept themselves free from the prevailing sins and crimes of those cities, could be found in Sodom.” Keil. Dxxrrzscu: “ His” prayer, however, has not fallen to the ground.” He refers to the rescuing of Lot and his family. 3. The entrance and sojourn of the two angels in Sodom, and the completed manifestation of its cor- ruption in opposition to the better conduct of Lot (ch xix, 1-11)—And there came two angels.— STIER: pax without the article; the peculiar personal angels who here first appear definitely in the history of the kingdom of God, although the idea of the angel, in its wider sense, had been in existence since ch. iii, They arrive at Sodom at evening, having left Hebron after midday. The idea of an actual human journey from place to place is thus complete; but the inmost central points of the narrative are the two great manifestations, of which the first was given to Abraham about midday, and now Lot shares the second at evening. But here the objective character of the manifestation is far more prominent than the possession and extent of the power to perceive the vision, for Lot did not recognize them at first as angels, and they appear to have been seen by the Sodomites, unless we prefet \ CHAP. XVIII. 1—XIX. 38, 437 the supposition that they had learned from Lot’s household of the two shining youthful forms who had turned in there for the night, [The term which Lot uses in his address, “20% , shows that he regard- ed them as men.—A. G.]—And Lot sat in the gate of Sodom.—Knobel well says: ‘Jehovah, as the most holy, will not enter the unholy city,” while Delitzsch asserts “that Jehovah came in them to Sodom.” That Lot sat in the gate of Sodom, is mentioned rather to his reproach than to praise his hospitality. [It isa reproach to him‘that he is in Sodom at all, but his sitting in the gate is not men- tioned here as his reproach.—A. G.] He sits at the ‘pate in order to invite approaching travellers to a lodging for the night, and is thus hospitable like his uncle. Knobel remarks, ch. xix. 1: “This polite . hospitality is still practised among the Arabians ; they count it an honor to entertain the approaching stranger, and often contend with each other who shall have the honor. Tavernier, ‘Travels,’ i. p. 125; Burcxuarpt, ‘Bedouins,’ p. 280, and ‘ Trav- ela in Syria,’ p. 641 ff. ; Bucxinenay, ‘ Syria,’ i. p. 285 ; Swerzen, ‘ Travels,’ i. p. 400.” “The gate in the East ig usually an arched entrance, with deep ‘recesses upon both sides, which furnish an undis- turbed seat for the observer; here below and at the gate they gather, to transact business, as there are usually also stands’ for merchandise in these re- cesses, and to address narrower or wider circles upon the affairs of the city (ch. xxxiv. 20; Deut. xxi. 19).” Delitzsch.— Behold now, my lords ("24%).—He docs not recognize them immediately as angels, which is the less remarkable since the doctrine of angels must first make its way into the world through such experiences, and which is not excluded by the disposition or fitness to perceive visions (comp. Heb. xiii, 2).—Nay, but we will abide in the street [?. ¢., the open, wide place in the gate-— A. G.] (comp. Luke xxiv. 29).—It appears to have been the object of the angels to ascertain the state of the city from the street; but Lot’s hospitable conduct seems, on the other hand, to them a favor- able sign for the city, which they will follow.—But before they lay down.—The wickedness of the city immediately develops itself in all its greatness. That the old and young should come; that they should come from every quarter of the city [literal- ly the end; see Jer. li. 31. Kern: ‘As we say, to the very last man.”—A. G.]; that they assault the house, notwithstanding the sacred rights of guests; ‘that they so shamelessly avow their pederastic pur- pose; that they will not even be appeased by Lot, to whom they once owed their salvation (ch. xiv.), and (as one may say, preferred their demonic, raging, unnatural lusts, to natural offences) that they did not cease to grope for the door, after they were stricken with blindness; this is the complete por- traiture of a people ripe for the fiery judgment.— That we may know them.—A well-known eu- phemism, but, therefore, here an expression of shame- less effrontery. Jt is the mark of their depravity that they seek pleasure in the violation of nature, and have their vile passions excited by the look or thought of heavenly beauty (see Gérue’s ‘ Faust,” ii, division, at the close). “The lustful abomina- tion, according to Rom. i. 27 the curse of heathen- ism, according to Judg. vii. a edpy of demonic er- ror, according to the Mosaic law (Lev. xviii. 22; xx. 13) an abomination punishable with death, here had no mask, not even the esthetic glory with which it was surrounded in Greece.” Delitzsch. The vice of pederasty was reckoned among the abominations of Canaan, and even the Israelites were sometimes stained with it (Judg. xix. 22)—Behold now, I have two daughters.—“The Arab holds his guest who lodges with him as sacred and inviolable, and if necessary defends him with his life (see Rus- sEL, ‘Natural History of Aleppo,’ i. p. 334, etc.).” Knobel. ‘He commits sin, seeking to prevent sin through sin.” Delitzsch, Keil remarks, ‘bis duty as a father should have been held more sacred.” But it may be questioned whether there is not to be brought into account in Lot an element of cunning —a kind of irony—since he could reckon with cer- tainty upon the taste for unnatural lust in the Sodomites (he so speaks because he knew his peo- ple); or whether, rather, the important thing is not found in the supposition that he acted in the confu- sion of the greatest amazement and anxiety. [Which would naturally be increased if he had dis- covered by this time that they were heavenly visitors. —A.G.] We must take into account, in this whole history, that a premonitory feeling of the destruction of Sodom rested upon their minds, which had re- leased in Lot the spiritually awakened disposition or preparedness for desperate acts of virtue, as it had in the Sodomites the demonic rage in wickedness ; as the same influence has elsewhere appeared during earthquakes and similar events. In any case Lot could not have miscalculated in the thought of a stratagem in which he relied not only upon the op- position of his sons-in-law, but much more upon the unnatural lusts of the Sodomites.*—He will needs be a Judge (Judge and Judge).—See the orig- inal text. ‘We may thus see that there is a sting in the words of Lot, because he would now reprove their unnatural passions, as he had indeed done before (see 2 Pet. ii. 7).4—We will deal worse with thee than with them.— They would smite and kill him, but abuse his guests.” Knobel. In the words, they pressed sore upon the man, the narrator intimates more than lies upon the face of the words. They at the same time attempt to break through the door. The angels interfered, and the Sodomites were stricken with blindness. It is, not natural blindness which is meant, but the blinding in which the spiritual power of the angels: works together with the demonic fury of the Sodomites. [o°7"20, a blindness produced by dazzling light, probably combining total privation of sight and a confusion or wandering of mind.—A. G.] It marks the excess of their wickedness, the continuance of their abom- ination until the very midst of the judgment, that they do not, even in this condition, cease from seck- ing the door. : 4, Lows comparative unfitness for salvation, his salvation with difficulty, and the entrance of the judgment (vers. 12-29).—And the men said unto Lot.—They reveal themselves now as heavenly messengers ; and no less distinctly their calling to destroy the city and their mission to save him and his household (any one related by marriage—son-in- * [Only to these men do nothing. The form of the pro- noun used, NT, is archaic, and is used also in ver. 25; ch, xxvi. 3, 4; Lev. xviii. 27; Deut. iv. 42; vii. 22; xix. 11. Kz, p. 163. Therefore came they under my roof; viz., for the purpose of security.—A. G.] ; t [Baumgarten.urges that myn W4 should berendered “ come hither,” instead of “stand back,” on the ground that this is the usual meaning of the verb, and that it gives an equally good sense. p. 211—A. G.] 438 law). We regard the usual construction, hast thou. here any besides? son-in-law and thy sons, and thy daughters, and whatsoever thou hast, etc., as incorrect. 1. Because then son-in-law would precede the sons and daughters, and is used in the singular. 2. Because in the words “ whatsoever thou hast,” sons-in-law, as well as’ sons and daugh- ters are included. [The probable reference is to those in the city and not in the house—any one re- lated to him.—A. G.J—And the Lord hath sent us.—Zhe Angel of the Lord never speaks in this way.—And Lot went out and spake, etc.—There are two explanations: 1. Those taking his daugh- ters, i. e., who had taken his daughters to wife. Thus the Septuagint, the Targums, Jonathan, Jewish in- terpreters, Schumann, Knobel, Delitzsch. Accord- ing to this explanation, Lot had, besides his married daughters in the city, two unmarried daughters. 2. nonp>, those about to accept or take, bridegrooms. Thus Josephus, the Vulgate, Clericus, Ewald, Keil, and others. Knobel quotes (M&¥02") ver. 15 in favor of the first explanatién; but Keil remarks that this does not designate an opposition between the unmarried and married daughters, but between these and the sons-in-law who remained behind. We may add, moreover, that there is no intimation that Lot had warned married daughters to rise up. —The angels hastened Lot.*—Since they were sent to execute the destruction, there does not seem any occasion for the haste, as if it proceeded from some fate—from an agency beyond themselves. But there is a threefold reason for their haste: 1. The zeal of the righteousness of God, since the measure of the iniquity of Sodom was full; 2. their own holy affection; 3. the connection of their mis- sion with the preparation of the judgment in the natural relations of Sodom.—And while he lin- gered.—lIt is clear in every way that Lot, from his spiritless, half-hearted nature, which made it difficult to part from his location and possessions, was res- cued with the greatest difficulty. |The Lord being merciful to him, literally, by the mercy of Jehovah upon. him, 2. ¢,, which was exercised towards him.— A. G.]—And set him down.—This completes the work of the two angels in saving Lot, and their work of destruction now begins.—That he said (see the remarks upon the Angel of the Lord, ch. xii.)—It is “‘ Jehovah speaking through the angel,” says De- ‘litzsch. But why then does this form occur first here? Before, the angels had said, Jehovah has sent us. Because the approach of Jehovah is not expressly mentioned, Keil also admits here .“ that the angel speaking, speaks, as the messenger of Je- hovah, in the name of God.” Upon the ground of the miraculois help given to him, Jehovah calls him now to personal activity in his own salvation. But Lot, on the contrary, clings to the receding forms of the two angels, and it cannot surprise us, that in his agitation he should confound their appearance and the voice of Jehovah—For thy life.—Life and soul are here one, not merely according to the verbal expression, but in the very idea of the situation 3 it includes the thought: “Save thy soul.”—Look not behind thee.—The cause is given in Lot’s wife. ‘It is the religious expression for the desire to return, | as if one could easily | the hesitation, the lingering, hasten from the divine judgment (see Luke ix. 62). Knobel draws analogies from the sphere of heathen * [At the morning. ‘The dawn, since the sun rose as Lot entered Zoar. Jaconus: “ Notes,” vol. ii. p, 23,--A. G.] GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. religions. ‘In order not to see the divine provi- dence, or working, which is not permitted the eye of mortals. For similar reasons the ancients in completing certain religious usages did not look around them (p. 173).” Certainly the Lord might take into account the holy horror in Lot at the spectacle of the fiery judgment. Still the first word is explained by the second: Neither stay thou in all the plain; and the second by the third: Es- cape to the mountain.—It is the mountains of Moab, on the other side of the Dead Sea, which are intended.— And Lot said unto them: Oh, not so, my Lord.—He could not distinguish the mi- raculous vision of the appearance of the angels and the miraculous report of the voice of Jehovah which now came to him. He pleads in excuse for his want of energy that fear presses heavily upon him; and fear weighs upon him because, while he was free from the abominations of Sodom, he was not free from its worldly mind. [Zhe evil, 7. e., the destruction which was, to come upon Sodom. He feared that he could not reach the mountain.—A. G.] Lot also now becomes, in his own interest, an inter- cessor for others. He points to the little Bela, the smallest of the cities of the pentapolis, and: thinks it is a small matter for the Lord to grant him this aa a place of refuge, because it is so small, and there- fore exempt it from destruction. The name Zoar was derived from these events. ‘Zoar is not to be sought in the Ghor el Mezraah, 2. ¢., upon the penin- sula which here stretches into the Dead Sea (sce Is. xv. 5), but rather in the Ghor el Szaphia, at the south-eastern end of the Sea, in the outlet of the Wady el Ahhsa. This locality is well watered and covered with shrubs and trees at the present time, but is unhealthy. It is inhabited and well cultivated by the Bedouins, who have here a permanent settle- ment; and in the winter it is the gathering place for more than ten tribes, Thus Seetzen, Burckhardt, Robinson.” Knobel. For further references to Zoar, see in Knoset, p. 174; Kuiz, p. 165; and the Bible-Dictionaries. [Roxrnson, ‘‘ Researches,” ii, p. 480, 648, 661.—A, G.]—The sun was risen upon the earth.—According to Keil, Lot was now just on the way, but the text says expressly, that he had entered Zoar. For the distances in the vale of Sid- dim see Knozzt, p. 175,—Then the Lord rained [Heb. caused it to rain.—A. G.] fire from the Lord. —The antithesis which lies in this expression, be- tween the manifestation of Jehovah upon-the earth, and the being and providence of Jehovah in heaven, is opposed by Keil. The mins Hye is according to Calvin an emphatic repetition. This does not agree with Keil’s explanation of the Angel of the Lord. Delitzsch remarks here: There is certainly in all such passages a distinction between the historically revealed, and the concealed, or unrevealed God (comp. Hos. i. 7), and thus a support to the position of the Council of Sirmium: “the Son of God rains it down from God the Father,” The decisive execu- tion of the judgment proceeds from the manifesta- tion of Jehovah upon the earth, in company with the two angels; but the source of the decree of judgment lies in Jehovah in heaven, The moral stages of the development of the kingdom of God upon the earth, correspond with the providence of the Almighty in the heavens, and from the heavens reaching down into the depths of cosmical.nature.— Brimstone and fire.—Keil, in the interest of the literal interpretation, misses here the religious and symbolical expression. ‘The rain of brimstone CHAP. XVIII. 1.—XIX. 38. 439 and fire was no mere thunder-storm, which kindled into a fire the ground already saturated with naphtha. [Whatever may be the explanation of this catastro- phe, whether we suppose, as seems most probable, that God used natural agencies, or make more prom- inent and exclusive the storm from heaven, it is clear on either supposition that the event was miraculous, the result of the direct interposition of God. Upon the Dead Sea, the ‘Notes’ of Bush and. Jacobus; the ‘ Dictionaries’ of Smith and Kitto; Rosrnson: ‘Researches’; Srantey on ‘Palestine’; and the numerous books of travels may be consulted.—A. G.] For it cannot be proved from such passages as Ps. xi. 6 and Ezek. xxxviii, 22 that lightning is ever called in the Scriptures ‘brimstone and fire, since these passages evidently refer to the event narrated here. The words must be understood in an entirely peculiar sense, that brimstone with fire, i. e., the burning brimstone, fell from heaven, etc.” But the words are not thus peculiarly understood, brim- stone with fire, i, e., burning brimstone, but brim- stone and fire. Brimstone cannot mix with fire, in the air, without becoming fire. We might, indeed, think of burning meteors, which stood in reciprocal relations and efficiency with the burning ground. Knobel adopts the explanation of Joszruus: ‘An- tig.” i.11, 4; “Bell Jud.” iv. 8, 4; and Tacrr.: “ History,” v. 7%. Fire and brimstone appear also elsewhere as the instruments of divine punishment (Ps. xi. 6; Ezek. xxxviii, 22), The author does not point out more fully what was the concern of the two angels in the destruction. But in analogous cases, when God was about to send evil diseases or pestilences, he used the angels as his instruments (2 Sam. xxiv. 16; Is. xxxvii. 86). Denitzsca: “ Not only Sodom. and Gomorrah, but, with the exception of Zoar, the other cities of the pentapolis (ch. xiv. 2), as is stated Deut. xxix. 23 (comp. Hos. xi. 8), or as it is here, the whole circle, all the plain, was sub- merged in fire and brimstone; a catastrophe which also Strabo, Tacitus, and Solinus Polyhistor, fully attest, and which is constantly referred to in the later literature, e. g., Ps. xi. 6 (see Hupfield upon this passage), even down to the Revelation.”—But his wife looked back from behind him.*— Some conclude from this expression, that she went behind Lot, and thus looked back. But the looking back is plainly not more to be understood in a strict literal sense than the account that she became a pillar of salt. Female curiosity, and the longing for hey home at Sodom, led her to remain behind Lot, and delay, so that she was overtaken in the destruc- tion (see Luke xvii. 31, 32). Keil even departs from the literal interpretation in the term, pillar of salt, when he explains: she was encrusted with salt; resembled a, pillar of salt, just as now objects in the neighborhood of the Dead Sea, are soon encrusted from its salty evaporations. This salt-pillar is men- tioned as still existing in the “Book of Wisdom,” xi. 4, and in Ciemens of Rome to the “Cor.” 11; Jo- sEePnus: “ Antiq.” i. 11, 4, as that which they had seen. The biblical tradition has here passed into a mere legend, which points out a pillar-like salt-cone, about forty feet high, at the lower end of the Dead * [Abe word here used for look implies a deliberate con- templation, steady regard, consideration, and desire; see Is. Ixiii 5. The Sept. has éréBaeper, looked wistfully. ‘Worpsworts, p. 89. She became, lit., she was a pillar of salt. ‘*The dashing spray of the salt, sulphureous rain, seems to have suffocated her, and then encrusted her whole body.”? Murphy.—A. G.] Sea, as this pillar of salt (see Knoper, p. 176, Seerzen: “Travels,” ii. p. 240; Lyncu: “ Report,” p. 183 ff.). This salt-cone is connected with the salt-mountain of Usdum (Sodom). Rosinson: “ Re- searches,” ii. p. 481-485. [Also Grove’s article on the “Salt Sea,” in Smith’s Dictionary—A. G.J— And Abraham gat up early in the morning. [That is, the morning of the destruction.—A. G.]— The catastrophe of the judgment was soon com- pleted. The destruction, viewed from its universal aspect and relations, is ascribed to Elohim. But it is God, as Elohim also, who saves Lot, for Abra- ham’s sake (see the remarks upon his intercession), —Out of the midst of the destruction.—A vivid description of the salvation of Lot from the ex- tremest peril, in a place which itself lay in the skirts of the overthrow,—a statement which Knobel, with- out the least ground, attempts to prove differs from the earlier account. The destination of this judgment, whose precon- ditions lay in the terrestrial volcanic character of the vale of Siddim (see ch. xiv. 10), for an eternal warn- ing to the descendants of Abraham, i. e., all the mem- bers of the kingdom of God, appears clearly in the constant quotation in the Holy Scriptures. Sodom is alone named, as the most important city (Is, iii. 9 ; Lam. iv. 6; Ezek. xvi. 48; Matt. xi. 23), Sodom and Gomorrah as the two greatest (Is. i. 9, 18, 19, and in other passages), Admah and Zeboim (Hos. xi. 8), and in the “ Book of Wisdom” the five cities are named in a vague and general way. The catastrophe, conditioned through the nature of the ground, corresponds with the divine decree of judgment, The fundamental idea is the burning of the earth, through the fire from heaven; but that an earthquake, which are frequent in Palestine, may have been in action, and that volcanic eruptions might have wrought together with this, is intimated in the expression: All the plain was overthrown. The Dead Sea was formed through the flowing in of the Jordan, in connection with the sinking of the ground. But there are two views concerning the Dead Sea, According to one (Leake, Hoff, and others), the Jordan before this flowed through the vale of Siddim to the Ailanitic gulf of the Red Sea. In the other view (Robinson and others), there was an in- land sea, before the catastrophe of Sodom, which forms part of the Dead Sea. For the reasons in favor of the latter view, see Knopez, p. 177. A’ principal reason is found in the fact that the northern part of the Dead Sea has a depth throughout of nearly 1300 feet, while the southern is only 15 feet deep, is ricb in asphaltum, has hot places, and is hot at the bottom. Bunsen: ‘ That northern basin, ac- cording to Ritter’s statement (xv. 767, 778), is due to the falling in of the ground; the local elevation of the southern part, to the peculiar character of the ground.” Upon the Dead Sea, sce Knoset, p. 177; Keit, p. 165; Dezirzscn, p. 398; and the Diction- aries, especially the article ‘‘Salt Sea,” in the “ Bible Dictionary for Christian People.” [The earlier view is now abandoned, and it has no decisive ground in the sacred history.” Derxirzscu, p. 289. See also Grove, in 8S. D. p. 1839.—A. G.] 5. Lot’s departure, and his descendants (vers. 80- 88).—And Lot went out of Zoar.—[“ Lot’s res- cue is ascribed to Elohim, as the judge of the whole earth, not to the covenant God, Jehovah, because Lot in his separation from Abraham was removed from the .special leading and providence of Jeho- 440 yah.” Kur, p. 166.—A.G.] After he had recov- eved from ie focmaty cing terrors which fettered him in Zoar, a calculating fear took possession of him and drove him from Zoar further into the mountains of Moab, in the east. It was an unbelieving fear, for the Lord had granted Zoar to him as an asylum ; he could not trust that divine promise further. The result is, that, poor and lonely, he must dwell with his two daughters in a cave in those cavernous chalk mountains. Lot is thus now a poor troglodyte. “There are in that region now those who dwell in caves and grottoes (Buckingham and: Lynch).” Kwo- BEL, p. 178.—And the first-born said to the younger.—[Our father is old. This confirms the assertion of St. Stephen, in which it is implied that Abraham was not the oldest son of Terah; for Lot was now old, and he was the son of Haran, and |, Haran was Abraham’s brother. Thus one part of Scripture confirms another, when perhaps we least expect it, Worpswortu, p. 89.—A.G.] The de- sire for posterity led her to the iniquitous thought of-incest, which she believes excusable because there is not a man in the earth, etc. According to Keil and Knobel, they did not think that the human race had perished, but only that there was no man who would unite himself with them, the remnant of a region stricken with the curse. Their idea of the world, according to the terms of the narrative, ap- pears to have been sad and gloomy. What did they know of the world, in their mountain solitude ? This deed was worthy of Sodom, says Keil. But there is a distinction and a wide difference between incest and pederasty (see introduction). thinks that they were represented by the writer as moulded by the mother, who was probably a Sodom- ite ; and, on the other hand, that Lot, as the nephew of Abraham, was more favorably (i. e., partially) represented. Every one of these points is fiction! The narrative, Knobel remarks, lacks probability. It assumes that Lot was so intoxicated both times that he should know nothing of what took place, and still, an old man should, with all this, be capa- ble of begetting seed. Keil, on the contrary, says it does not follow from the text that Lot was in an unconscious state during the whole interval, as the Rabbins have, according to Jerome, described this as an incredible thing, taken in connection with the issue of the event. Indeed, the narrative says only that Lot was in an unconscious state, both when his daughters lay down, and when they rose up; in the evening perhaps through intoxication, in the morn- ing through profound, heavy sleep. In any view, a certain measure of voluntariness must be assumed, according to the degree in which he was conscious, and therefore his intoxication can only be urged as an excuse, and this a wretched excuse, since the in- toxication was, like the deed itself, immediately repeated. Psychologically, the reaction from great mental effort and tension is to be taken into account in pronouncing upon the pleasures of rest in an indolent and sensual nature.—Moab.—There are two derivations: 1N2, from the father, or ‘ia, water (as the semen virile is euphemistically called in Arabic), for semen and aN. Keil decides in favor of the first derivation, from a reference to the ex- planatory expressions (vers. 82, 34, 36), [And also the analogy of the "”-2n.—A, G.]—Ammon— ‘™a2"22,son of my people.’ According to Delitzsch, the form j7a¥ designates simply the descendants of the people. Wor the character of the Moabites and Knobel | GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. Ammonites, especially in reference to their origin, see Kwnopet, p. 178, who, however, in his usual method, draws the inference as above remarked, that this narrative has its origin in Jewish animosity. Besides the reply of Keil [See Deut. ii. 9, 19, and xxiii, 4, Lot here disappears from the history, and, as Kurtz remarks, it is the design of this narra- tive to give a support for the later récords of the relation of these tribes with the Israelites.—A, a Delitzsch also may be consulted (p. 401). Knobel himself recognizes the fact of the descent of both of’ these peoples from Lot. The nomadic hordes of Lot gradually extended themselves east and north- east, and partly subdued and destroyed, and partly incorporated among themselves, the original tribes of the Emim and Susim. DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL. See the’ preliminary and Exegetical remarks. 1, Upon the manifestation m the oak grove of Mamre compare ch. xii. We observe, however, that the manifestation which was given to Abraham, was complex, because it had reference in part to him and the birth of Isaac, and in part to Lot and Sodom, Hence it resolves itself, in the course of the history, into two manifestations, 2. The connection of the promise of redemption and the announcement of judgment, which is peculiar to this section, runs throughout the whole sacred Scripture. 8. The oriental virtue of hospitality appears here in the light of the theocratic faith, and so likewise its blessing, which is proclaimed throughout the whole Scripture, down even to the epistle to the Hebrews (Heb. xiii. 2.) It is a contradiction in the natural custom of the Arabs, that they will rob the pilgrim in the desert before he enters their tents, but receive him with the greatest hospitality, as it is generally true that the natural virtues of people are tainted by con- tradictions. Hospitality, however, is the specific vir- tue of the Arab, his inheritance from his father Abraham, But in Abraham himself this virtue is consecrated to be the spiritual fruit of faith. 4, The feast of God with Abraham. [How true it is that Abraham has now become the friend of God, James ii, 28. And what light this history casts upon the meaning of that term.—A.G.] A New Testament and heavenly sign, whose later reflection is the table of shew-bread in the temple, the Lord's Supper in the New Covenant, and the Marriage Sup- per of the Lamb in the new world. b. The distinction between the laughing of Abra- ham and Sarah (see above). In ch. xxvi. 6 there appears still another, a third laugh, in order to deter- mine the name Isaac (comp. v. 9). The laughter of a joyful faith, the laughter of a doubting little faith, and the laughter of astonishment or even of the animosity of the world, appear and participate in the name of the son of promise, as indeed at that of every child of the promise, 6. The initiation of Abraham into the purposes of God. In ch. xviii. 17, ‘the Scripture has the ad- dition of rod madés pov ("529) to dxd *ABpady, for which Philo reads roi piaov wov (comp. James, ii. 23). There is scarcely any passage in which this "739 or "3NUR (Isa. xli. 8; 2 Chron, xx. 7), would be more fitting than in this, Abraham is the friend of Jehovah (among the Moslems it has become a sur- name; chalil Allah, or merely el-chalil, from which CHAP. XVIII—XIX. 1-38. 441 Hebron is also called Beit-el-chalil, or simply El- ‘chalil), and we have no secrets from a friend.” De- litzsch (comp. John xv. 15 ff). The first reason is, that God has chosen Abraham, and that he, as the chosen, has the destination to found in his race for all time, a tradition and school of the revelation of God, of righteousnéss and judgment. The doctrine of the election first appears here in its more definite form. [God says, I know bim, but also that he will command, &c. We ought not to overlook how early family relations, instructions and discipline, assume an important place in the progress of the kingdom of God; and what a blessing descends upon those who are faithful as parents. “Family religion is God’s method for propagating his church. This would lead him to exercise a careful parental au- thority for controlling his house in the name of God.” Jacobus.—A, G.] 4. A further and more peculiar reason, why God reveals to Abraham the impending judgment upon Sodom, lies in this, that not only the history of So- dom, but also the Dead Sea, should be for all time a constituent part of the sacred history, a solemn warn- ing for the people of God, and for all the world, At the same time this history should make illustrious the justice of God, according to which a people are ripe for judgment, when a cry of its iniquity ascends to heaven. 8. Abraham’s intercession, in its strength and in its self-limitation, is an eternal éxample of the true position of the believer to the corruption of the world. Upon the self-limitation of intercession see 1 John v. 16. Intercession even falls away from faith and becomes mere fanaticism or frenzy, when it oversteps the limits of truth, Abraham’s excuses in his intercession, his prudent progress in his petitions, his final silence, prove that even the boldest inter- course is morally conditioned. On the other hand, the whole power of intercession and the full certainty that prayer will be answered, appear here most clearly. [See the 29th verse, which makes it clear that Ara- ham’s intercession was not fruitless.— A. G. 9. It is evident from the intercession of Abraham, that the father of the faithful had a very different idea of righteousness from that which regards it ag consisting only in the non plus ultra of punishment. See upon the idea of Sixaios, Matt. i. 19. Moreover, in the reflection, the prudence, and the constancy of the intercession, the Abrahamic or even the Israel- _itish character appears here in its true worth and in its sanctified form, as it enters afterward in the life of Jacob at first less sanctified, but at the same fitted for sanctification. But in regard to the thought of Abraham’s intercession, we would make the follow- ing remarks: 1. His intercession takes more and more the form of a question. 2. He does not pray that the godless should be freed from punishment, but for the sparing of the righteous, and the turning away of the destructive judgment from all, in case there should be found a sufficient salt of the right- eousamongthem. 3. His prayer includes the thought that God would not-destroy any single righteous one with the wicked, although the number of the right- eous should be too small to preserve the whole. [The righteous, of course, are not destroyed, although they are often involved in the punishment of the wicked. —A. G. s 10. This history makes the truth conspicuous for all time, that the whole depraved world is preserved through a seed of believing and pious men, and that indeed, not according to a numerical, but according to their dynamic majority. Ten righteous would have saved Sodom. But when even the salt of the earth (Matt. v. 18) does not avail to save a people or a community, then still God cares for the salvation of his chosen, as is seen in the history of Noah, the history of Lot, and the history of the destruction of Jerusalem. But the relative mediators who are given to the world in the “‘salt of the earth,” point to the absolute mediator, Christ, who is the central saving pivot in the history of the world. [We stand here on the verge of a most striking type of the judg- ment. We know that the storm is gathering and ready to burst, but in the awful ‘silence which pre- cedes it we hear the voice of the intercessor. Thus while the final judgment is preparing, the voice of the true intercessor is heard.—A. G. 11. The Angels in Sodom. In all such casos there must come a last final decision. See above. 12. The manifestation which was given to Lot, corresponds with that which was given to Abraham, in a way similar to that in which the vision of the cen- turion, Cornelius, at Caesarea, corresponds to the vision of Peter, at Joppa (Acts x.). The precondition for this connection of the revelations was, doubtless, in both cases, the mysterious bond of a common premo- nition or presentiment of great events. 13. The sin of Sodom runs, as a general charac- teristic, through the heathen world (see Rom. i. 24); still, in this aspect some nations are far more inno- cent or guilty than others. Church history also, ix this connection, preserves sad remembrances. Among the causes of the ruin of the Osmanic kingdom, this sin stands prominent whose analogue is found in the sin of Onan (ch. xxxviii. 8.). 14, The description of the night scene in Sodom is a night piece of terrible aspect and impressiveness, It is plain (from the little prospect of the mass for the gratification of personal lusts, and from the prob- ability that the inhabitants of the city only knew | indirectly of Lot’s mysterious guests), that the uproar of. the Sodomites was more than half an uprising against the judgment of Lot which they had already experienced, and « tumultuous manifestation that their abominable immorality must be held as a public custom, of which we have a purely analogous event in the uproar of the heathen at Ephesus (Acts xix. 28 ff), All the spirits of villainy, wantonness, and scoffing unbelief are to be regarded as unfettered. The ripeness of the city for destruction, however, is not to be viewed directly as a ripeness of the Sodom- ites for damnation (see Matt, xi, 23). 15. The demonic and bestial nature of sin ap- pears in this history in frightful, full life, or rather death size. [So, also, its corrupting power. Lot felt its influence, even though he resisted and condemned their vile practices. The offer which he makes to save his guests, although made under great confusion, anxiety and terror, shows its influence.—A. G.] 16. Lot’s salvation is an image of salvation with the utmost difficulty. But the delay of his faint heartedness is raised to its highest power of double heartedness in the history of his wife. She is the example of a worldly mind, which turns back from the way of salvation, and through its seeking after the world falls into the fire of judgment.* In this sense the Lord has set Lot’s wife as a warning example * [The looking back shows, on the one hand, her doubt and unbelief of the divine warning, and on the other, that her heart was still clinging to the lusts of Sodom, and that she was an unwilling follower of the rescuing angels. Kurtz, p. 195.—A, G.] ‘ 442 (Luke xvii. 32). We may perceive that even Lot was sensibly depressed as to the earnestness of his faith, through the ridicule of his sons-in-law, who regarded him as a jester. 17. The Dead Sea serves to complete the sym- bolic meaning which is peculiar to the whole land of Canaan, The whole land is an illustration of the divine word, and of sacred history, and thus the Dead Sea in particular, is the glass of the divine judgment. As a monument of the miraculous judgment it stands opposed to the Red Sea, which is the monument of the miraculous deliverance. So, likewise, as the sea of the old covenant, it stands opposed to Genessaret, the sea of the new covenant. In the description of the Dead Sea, however, we must guard against those ancient assumptions, of the apples of Sodom, etce., al- though some one-sided apologies for these traditions ‘of the Dead Sea have appeared again in recent times. [It is interesting to note how often this event is referred to in the New Testament, not only directly but incidentally. The phrases flee from the wrath to come, unquenchable fire, the description of the sud- denness and completeness of the judgment, and its eternal duration in the smoke of their torment, which ascendeth forever and ever. All have a more or less direct reference to this event.—A. G.] 18. The early rising of Abraham, his hastening to the place where he stood before Jehovah, and his silent look to the smoking vale of Siddim, is a sublime and impressive picture. There stands the mourning priest, lonely and silent in the morning light, as Jeremiah sat upon the ruins of Jerusalem. Now he saw that there were not ten righteous in Sodom, but knew from the rescue of Noah from the flood, and felt con- fident indeed that his intercession had not been in vain. 19. In the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, as in the primitive miracles in Egypt, and in the biblical miracles generally, the correspondence between the miraculous divine providence and the intellectual and natural conditions upon the earth must not be mis- taken. 20. Lot and his daughters. It is a psychological fact that, in human nature, especially in beginners in the age of faith or those whose sensuous nature is strong, after a great tension of the life of faith, of spiritual elevation, great and dangerous reactions oc- eur, during which temptation may easily prove cor- rupting to the man. ‘ 21. Moab and Ammon. See the Bible Dictiona- ties. “De Wette, Tuch, Knobel, explain the narra- tive as a fiction of Israelitish national animosity, &c. (Seeabove.) When, however, later debauchery (Num. ii, 25) and impiety (e. g. 2 Kings iii. 26 ff) appear as fundamental traits in the character and cultus of both people, we can at least hold with equal justice, that these inherited sins came with them from their origin, as that the tradition of their origin has moulded their character.” 22. Lot's disappearance. The chastising hand of God is seen in the gravest form, in the fact that Lot-is lost in the darkness of the mountains of Moab, as a dweller in the caves, But it may be questioned whether one is justified by this, in saying that he came ’ to a bad end, as Detirzscx does in a detailed descrip- tion, after a characteristic outline by F. C. V. Moszrs (p. 400, comp. Krzx, p. 167). His not returning poor and shipwrecked can be explained upon better grounds. In any case the testimony for him, 2 Pet. UL 7, 8, must not be overlooked. There remains one light point in his life, since he sustained the assaults GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. of all Sodom upon his house, in the most extreme danger of his life. [It may be said, moreover, that: his leaving home and property at the divine warning, and when there were yet no visible signs of the judg- ment, and his flight without looking back, indicate the reality and genuineness of his faith—-A. G.] His two-fold intoxication certainly has greater guilt than the one intoxication of Noah. His two-fold sin with his daughters may involve greater difficulty than the act.of Judah. Both analogies show, however, that in judging so ancient a character we may easily place them too strictly in modern points of view. True, he appears, in comparison with Abraham, with whom he once entered upon the path of the faith of the promise, in a light similar to that in which Esau appears in relation to Jacob. He might have suffi- cient piety to save his soul, but he was no man of the future, who could found a line of blessing; he was too much like the mass, too much under the senses, and too much involved in respect to worldly things for such a calling. “ With the history of Lot,” Dz- LitzscH remarks, “the side line from Haran is com- pleted, and the origin of two people who are inter- woven in the history of Israel is related.” 23. The destruction of Sodom an example of the later destruction of the Canaanites. 24. The prudence which, in the life of Abraham, ap- pears as a sinful prudence, and yet susceptible of being sanctified, appears in the lives of his kindred as a family trait of the children of Therah, in Lot and his daugh- ters, as well asin Laban. But it takes on in them the expression of refined cunning, and thus becomes manifoldly and positively ungodly. + Thus Lot himself chose the region of Sodom; thus he flatteringly ad- dressed the Sodomites as brethren; thus he offers them his daughters as a substitute, probably from an ironical expression of a prudent foresight that they, controlled by their demonic and unnatural lusts, would reject his proposal: but his daughters use | criminal cunning to obtain offspring. This incest, however, appears in a milder light when set in con- trast with the sin of Sodom. 26. Passavant. These cities are represented throughout the old covenant as types of the most severe judgments of God (Jer. xli..11; 1. 40, ete.) And there is again another word in the old cove- nant, a wonderful, mysterious promise, spoken con- cerning these places, which, at the very least, alle- viates the eternity of the pain, and for the sake of Jesus Christ, the only redeemer of all mankind, abbreviates the endurance of the heavy judgments of the poor heathen (see Ezek. xxxix. 25; Jer. xxix. 14; xlviii. 47; Ezek. xvi.), [The passages quoted by no means sustain the inference which is here drawn from them; and the inference lies in the face of the general and constant testimony of the Scriptures. The words of our Lord, Matt. xi. 24, place the destiny of these places and of the heathen in its true light—A. G.] hat farther prophetic vision of the seer appears to cast new light upon the farther fate of Sodom, when he says: This water flows out towards the east and down into the plain, and goes into the sea (salt sea), and when it comes into the sea its waters shall become healthful (ch. xlvii. 8 ff.; 1 Pet. iii, 19f.; iv.-6). [The following learned and impressive note on the destruction of Sodom, kindly furnished me by its author, will be read with the deepest interest.—A. G.] Norz on rat Dsstrucrion or Sopom—Ins Sup- DENNESS—TuHE Deep Impression 1T MADE ON THE AN- CHAP. XVII.—XIX. 1-38, 443 cient Minp—Irs Frequent Mention in toe Scrip- cURES—Tacitus—THEe ARABIAN TRapition.—“ As the subversion by God of Sodom and Gomorrah.” Such is the constant style of reference in the Bible. See Deut. xxix, 22; Is. xiii. 19; Jer. xlix.18; Jer. 1 40; Lam. iv. 6; Amos iv. 11. Its ever occurring in the same form of words, shows that it was a prover- bial or traditional saying ; and this reveals to us how vividly the awful event had stamped itself upon the human memory. It is always described in language of its own, The peculiar Hebrew word is used in the same way of no other catastrophe. The word M2pi1'2 denotés utter subversion or reversal,—the bringing of a thing, and all that belongs to it, in the direct opposite of its former condition, Land has become water, fertility barrenness and salt, beauty deformity, fragrance and freshness a vile and loath- some putridity. It is not simply decay and ruin, but an overthrow total and remediless. These cities are thus referred to as a standing warn- ing—a judgment of God visible from generation to generation. It isa region cursed by the Almighty,— doomed ever to bear the marks of its dreadful visita- tion, to which Peter refers, 2 Pet, ii. 6, wat wéActs Zodd- pov kal Toudppas teppdoas KATASTPOSH xaréxpi- vev, brdderyua Tedeuds: ‘the -cities of Sodom and Gomorrah he condemned with an overthrow, when he reduced them to ashes and set them forth as an ex- ample.” The Greek word katastrophe is the exact counterpart of the Hebrew M55, having the same peculiar intensity of meaning as used in this connec- tion. In Jude 7. the language is still stronger— mpéxevtar detypa wupds alwviov: “they. are set forth as an example, undergoing (iréyouoa) the sentence of eternal fire.” This eternal fire does not mean the punishment of the inhabitants in another world (though the event itself may be regarded as the first type of ‘Hell, the first suggestive glimpse to the human mind of that awful doctrine), but has primary reference to their long earthly desolation. The language most graphically expresses the condition of those doomed plains, as showing the signs of their fearful burning, age after age, am’ aldvos cis alava. is These regions were very near to Jerusalem, al- most if not quite visible from the highest places ; and this accounts for the prophet’s frequent appeal to them, eis Se?ypa, ef in terrorem. How fearful is the allusion to it made by Ezekiel, xvi. 46; where the adulterous Judah is told to remember the startling proximity of this her younger or smaller sister, so early buried in volcanic fires: ‘‘ Thine elder sister, Samaria, that dwelleth on thy left (the N. W.), and thy smaller* sister, Sodom, and her daughters (the other cities of the plain), that lie upon thy right.” How awful the reminiscence of this lost sister Sodom lying for so many ages under the sulphurous waters of the Dead Sea, with all the burnt district a short distance to the right of Jerusalem, and ever presenting that terrific warning, the dSe?yua mupds aiwylov, to the oft rebel- lious city. We find elsewhere evidence of the deep impression this early divine judgment made upon the ancient mind. The language of Tacitus, Hist. v. 7, could only have come from some vivid tradition prevailing in the East and brought thence to Rome: Haud pro- cul inde campi, quos ferunt olim uberes, magnis que * MDP MINN. The term generally denotes juniority, and it may be so literally taken here, since the origin ot Jerusalem may have been historically older than that of Sodom.—T. L.] urbibus habitatos, FULMINUM JACTU arsisse, ef manere vestigia terramque ipsam specie torridam vim frugi- Seram perdidisse ; nam cuncta atra et inania velut in | CINEREM vanescunt. go, sicut inclitas guondam urbes IGNE ceLest! flagrasse concesserim, etc. There is something in the language strikingly resembling that of Peter and Jude. Compare Tacitus’ fulminum jactu arsisse—igne coelesti flagrass e vestigia, with the Se?yna mupds aiwviov, and in cinerem with reppd- cas. They appear to be the set terms in all descrip- tions. Nothing but an early, most vivid impression could have produced such fixedness and vividness in the language of the tradition. 7 The same feature of constancy in terms for which no others could be an adequate substitute, appears remarkably in the notices of the Koran, which strong internal evidence shows must have come from tradi- tion independent of the O. T. scriptures. It mani- fests itself especially in one word ever found in con- 2-8 nection. It isthe Arabic ACES past, which is, etymologically, the same with the Hebrew mae, and used in a similar manner as a participial noun. The peculiarity, however, is, that in the Arabic the primary sense which belongs to it in this connection had long ceased, so that no traces of it are anywhere else found, even in the remains which we have of ante-Mohammedan writing. Both the form and the peculiar sense have become obsolete in all other ap- plications of the root. In this recurring phrase, as used of these ancient cities, it has acquired something like the force of a proper name as a well known ap- pellative, taking its place along with Midian, Egypt, Hud, Thamud, and other names of places that tra- dition gives as having been specially visited with the divine vengeance. Thus Sodom and Gomorrah are ever called Al-mow-ta-fe-kat, “the overturned.” As in Koran Surat, lili. 51-55, where it occurs with others given as proper names: “And that he de- stroyed Ad, and Thamud, and left no remainder; and also the people of Noah before them, and the Mow-ta-fe-kat (the overturned) he cast down, and that which covered them covered them.” The last clause of this passage is meant to be intense in its repetition: that is, there is no conceiving the horrors under which they lay; “that which covered them covered them,”—no tongue can tell it. So, also, Koran lxix.'9: “thus went on Pharoah and those who were before him, the sneer pee (the over- turned), in their sin.” Thamud and Ad, as usual, had been mentioned just before. The constant introdue- ing of the Mow-ta-fe-kat along with these, which are peculiar Arabic traditions, shows that the story of the “overturned” cities had a common origin with them, and was not derived from the Hebrew scriptures. The usage appears still more clearly, Koran ix. "71, where the term in question occurs in connection with the people of Ad, and the wicked in the days of Abraham, who is the peculiar Mohammedan patri- arch: “Did there not come to them the story of those who were before them—the people of Noah and of Ad; and of the people of Abraham, and of the inhabitants of Midian, and of ‘the Overturned’ (the Mow-taye-kat), whose messengers came unto them with their prophecies?” Now what makes this the more striking is the fact (as before indicated) that although the Arabic root, gst, or Xan, is, in all other cases (and these are quite frequent), used solely in its secondary meaning of falsehood (coming from the primary sense of subversion, turn- 444 ing upside down, through the intermediate ideas of contrariness or opposition, ab invertendo, perverten- do), in these special usages from the Koran, and others like them, the word ever goes back to its primitive Hebrew sense, being taken precisely as Jan and Mop in the Bible. If the Hebrew verb had had a hoth-pa-hel form, its participle, 723172 , moth-hap-pek = motaffek, would be almost identical with the Arabic word so constantly used for this purpose (in this sense) and for no other. Evidently it was an archaism in the days of Mohammed, and this accounts for its being used as a proper name, in which form it had become fixed against change and substitution. The root is used in the same manner throughout the Syriac version, but in this branch of the Shemitic it had, in all its applications, kept nearer to its old primary sense preserved in the Hebrew. 7 What shows that it was an antique phrase in Arabic, or that @Xas{ (or 72) had lost the sense of subversion in all other applications, and that its employment as a proper name in this particular con- nection came from traditional preservation, is the fact that even in translating the Old Testament, the Jew- ish Arabic interpreters never use it,—not even in those places where the Hebrew 720 and nsEn7 would have immediately suggested it as the more fitting word; and this, too, notwithstanding that they frequently give to an Arabic term a rarer He- brew sense. Thus Rabbi Saad does not employ it in this very passage, Isaiah xiii. 19, but uses, instead; the more common Arabic verb, ‘ =, to express the sense of overturning which is given by M25M72: Byoahs py at wks Ls. Now in the Arabic verb yX3f, the letter 1 (or 39) of the He- brew has been softened into &, but there can be no doubt of the two words being etymologically identi- cal. So, too, in the Koran, sometimes, the Hebrew sense of the antique Arabic RES. { , is clearly given in different and more common Arabic words, As in Surat xv. 73, 74, where, speaking again of this very judgment, and the manner of it, it says: “And a sudden storm took them at sunrise, and we made the highest parts of it to be the lowest, LL&L. gills Liles? (that is, we turned it upside down), and we rained upon them stones of burning marl”—a voleanic earthquake and a lava shower. This standing epithet occurs, Lam. iv. 6, in the same connection and in the same way; that is, in the nature of a proper name, though there it has the form of the participle perfect of Grn. It is maim oto, “Sodom the overturned.” Our English translation of the whole passage is far from being clear; “Greater than the punishment of the sin of Sodom which was overthrown as in a moment, and no hands steyed on her”: B72 a sbM ND. In this passage there is an uncertainty as to the ety- mology and meaning of the word abn, but that interpretation is to be preferred which is most in keeping with the ideas of suddenness, or quick alarm, that make so graphic a feature in all allusions to the event, whether Hebrew or Arabic. Gesenius makes 4bm from 4m (torquere), and gives it the sense: non immisse sunt manus, “no hands were ’ GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES, sent upon, or against. her”—meaning, hands of the enemy. Rabbi Tanchum’s Arabic commentary is to the same effect: “‘Of Sodom it is said here, that there did not come upon her the hand of man, but she was overturned, at one blow, by the divine com- mand ; the word being the same as that in Jer. xxiii, 19, ‘on the head of the wicked shall rush (>1m5) a rushing tempest, b4nrva “YO (a whirlwind slung or hurled), and also as found Eccles. v. 12, 15. mbin myn ws, there is a sore evil (an impend- ing or threatening evil) that I have seen under the sun,” It may be a question here, however, whether ts" refers to the hands of the enemy, or to the hands of the inhabitants of the doomed city. If we place the accent on the ultimate, aon may be from tm, and this would give us the rendering, “ when no hands were weak in her”—that is, suddenly, when they were in their full strength and security, Or the same general idea may be obtained from bart, if we advert to its primary sense, which we find very clearly in the Arabic dl. - Itis a curv. ing motion combined with the spiral or oblique, Hence the sense of pain as expressed by twisting, wringing (torquere).' It is used to denote the most intense anguish, the wringing of the hands in de- spair; which is the language employed by the Peschito Syriac version to render dmopia (distress or perplexity), Luke xxi, 25. No hands were wrung: in her. So sudden was the storm that there was no time for lamenting over their doom. All this, too, is expressed by the way in which the frequent Koranic word, X13 , is used when sudden judgments are described, ‘and especially this particular event. It is rendered sometimes, punish- ment, or pain. It is also used of the crash of the thunder, fragor tonitru ; but ih its most literal sense it denotes one sharp cry or shriek. Or it may be rendered, a shock. Thus in the passage before quoted, Surat xv. 78: ‘a sudden storm or shock took them at sunrise” (comp. Gen. xix. 23). The same, verse 83 of the same Surat, “‘ took them early in the morning.” Though literally denoting one sudden scream of terror, it is taken for the cause, the thunderstorm or earthquake that produces it. Thus is it most impressively employed to represent the suddenness and surprise of the judgment that came upon those people of Lot, as the Sodomites are styled, Giles Lg le Bot, Kt I Le, “only one shock; there was in it no waiting,” no recovery. Or it may be rendered, “ only one ery, and all was over.” The remedilessness, as well as the suddenness, is still more graphically set forth in the use of similar language, Surat xxxvi. 25: “Lo, one cry, and they are all still "—literally, burnt out, syeQhw lds, extinguished, dead. So, again, Surat liv. 81: “Lo, we sent upon them one shock (one shriek) and they are all burnt stubble.” In the same manner is it used of the day of judgment, xxxvi. 58: “One shock, or one cry, and they (the risen dead) are all before us.” For other similar passages with similar applications, see Koran, xi. 70, 97; xxiii. 48; xxix. 39; 1.41; xv. 78, 83; Lxiii. 3. In the most express terms do the Scriptures assign this catastrophe of Sodom and Gomorrah to the judicial action of God, the Lord of nature, No CHAP. XVIIL—XIX. 1-38. language can be clearer: “Jehovah rained upon them fire from Jehovah out of heaven,” Gen. xix. 24. And yet, in perfect consistency with this, may we regard it as brought about by natural causes, though belonging to those great movements in nature which marked the primitive period of our present earth, | or before its constitution became settled in that comparative calm which leads the scoffer to say that “all things continue as they were from the begin- ning.” This fearful M3512 , or overthrow, has im- pressed indelible “vestigia” (to use the language of Tacitus) on the region in which it took place ; but no less sharp and incisive are the marks it has left in the Oriental traditions, and the peculiar language to which it has given rise in them all. It sent one sharp cry through the ancient Eastern world, and that ery has echoed down to us through other chan- nels than the Hebrew Scriptures. On this account has the peculiar language employed been so minutely traced, as furnishing evidence of the rainute credi- bility of an event so ancient, and of the strong impression it must have made at the time. It wasa divine judgment, a divine revelation in the earth, too awful and too unmistakable to allow much diversity of language in describing it, and it is this constant manner of telling the fearful story which separates it widely from the shadowy and changing ae with which some would compare it.— T. L. HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL. See the Doctrinal and Ethical paragraphs. The xviiith ch. Abraham, the xixth Lot. Promi- nent points in Abraham’s life: 1. the great vision; 2. the feast of the angels; 8. the faith in the promise; 4. the intercession for Sodom. Prominent points in the life of Lot: 1. the entertaining of the angels; 2. the moral resistance of the assault of the whole city of Sodom; 8. his faith, and his mission to his two sons-in-law; 4. his emigration with his family in dis- tress, before the judgment. The revelation of grace and of wrath.—The connection of the announcement of salvation with the announcement of judgment.— The oak grove of Mamre, and the burning Sodom.— As Abraham saved Lot the first time through war, so the second time through his intercessory prayer.— Abraham and Lot in their different positions.—In their last position with respect to each other (Abra- ham the friend of God, Lot the fugitive from Sodom, etc.).—The connection of the manifestation to Abra- ham and Lot.—The great manifestation of God, in the life of Abraham, in its great significance: 1. A reve- lation of the incarnation of God, of the future Christ, and at the same time of the angelic world; 2. a reve- lation of the great sign of the coming redemption, and of the coming judgment. = 1. Section. The appearance of Jehovah in the oak grove of Mamre, and the promise of the birth of Isaac (ch. xviii. 1-15). The great manifestation of God, in the life of Abraham, is the most striking sign in the old covenant of the incarnation of God.—The feast in the oak grove of Mamre; a sign of the incar- pation of God.—Abraham in the oak grove of Mamre; great in his power of intuition, and great in his activ- ity —Herein, also, a type of Christ.—As in all great characters, the contrasts of nature are here reconciled and removed.—Abraham’s hospitality as to its pecu- liar traits —The real method and spirit of hospitality consists alone in this, that in or with the stranger we 445 f receive the Lord himself.—How well love and hu- | mility qualify Abraham to be the giver of the feast, the one who makes.ready the meal and then stands and serves.—Sarah as the housewife.——Sarah’s doubt- ing laughter, and believing astonishment.—Ver. 10, The promise of Isaac: 1. a promise; 2. an endless ful- ness and succession of promises.—Sacred oak grove: sign of the sacred temples, especially of the Gothic Cathedral,—the sacred feast, sign of the most sacred meals.—Abraham’s friendship with God as hospital- ity: 1, God as the guest of Abraham in this world; 2. Abraham as the guest of God in the other world (tosit down with Abraham, Abraham’s bosom).—StTaRKE: Ver. 1 (The manifestation of the Son of God, at first, is not through a natural nor even through a personal union, but through a voluntary and casual union, since he took from his free love a body, or rather the form of a body, for a time)—To this person are ascribed divine-works, omnipotence (vers. 10, 14), omnipresence (ver. 13), the power to execute judg- ment (ver. 25).—The virtue of hospitality is becoming to Christians, and should be practised especially by believers and the pious (Heb. xiii. 2; Is, lviii. 7; 1 Pet, iv. 9; Job xxxi. 32; Rom. xii. 13; Gal. vi. 10); but still they must use circumspection here also.—We should not permit strangers to rest in the streets, but receive them and show them kindness and help (Rom. xii. 13), to which now innkeepers are in a peculiar sense obliged (Luke x. 34, 35).—Ver. 15. From the fact that Sarah makes no further reply, but receives her rebuke patiently, we may see that she recognizes her fault, and that God had rebuked it, hence she also is graciously preserved, that she should be at the same time the type of the free New Testament Church (Gal. iv. 22, 27, 81) and the mother of believers (1 Pet. iii. 6). How severely, on the other hand, Zach- arias was chastised for his unbelief (see Luke i. 20.)— A Christian must never measure the promises of God by what seems good to him, but give to the power of God the preference over his reason (Zech. viii. 6; Luke i. 87; 1 Pet. iii. 6).—Gurtaca: In regard to Sarah. Even her unbelief which lay concealed within her, must be brought out into the light, since it was now designed to confirm her confidence in the prom- ise, which should not be fulfilled without her faith.— Scuréper, (Lurner): Now there is hospitality in all places where the church is. She bas always a com- mon purse and storehouse, according to Matt. v. 42, and we should all so serve her, and furnish her, not only with doctrine but also with kindness, and that the spirit and the flesh may here at the same time find refreshment and consolation (Matt. xxv. 35, 40).— Rampacu: Ver, 8. As Abraham’s tent is here the house in which the Son of God and his angels are entertained, so is his bosom the common place of rest for the blessed in the other world (Luke xvi. 22). —The power and susceptibility for intuition, and the absorbing and even careful attention to busi- ness, which sere separated in Mary and Martha (Luke x. 39), are here seen united in the same person.— That they must necessarily eat, would be in opposition to their spiritual nature, but the power to eat was given. with the human form.—Ver. 9. Now follows, as Luruer says, the zable talk, that nothing might be wanting in this description, and tnat the whole world might know that this feast was not so passed as among the monks, who must keep silence at tho table. 2. Section. The revelation of God concerning Sodom, and Abraham’s intercessory prayer (vers. 16— 33).—1. The communing of God with himself before 446 the revelation (ver. 18), or the revelation of God throughout the fruit of the highest divine purpose, as the creation of man; 2. the reason for this revela- tion:-(ver. 19); 8. its contents (vers. 20, 21); 4. its yesults: a. the departure of the men to the judgment (ver. 22); b, the intercession of Abraham (vers. 23- 30).—Abraham the friend of God (child of God, ser- vant of God, the intimate confidant of God).—The cry of the sin of Sodom.—The intercession of Abraham for Sodom as the first long prayer and intercession com- municated to us: 1. awakened or animated by the consciousness of salvation which was given to him; 2. as a pattern for all intercessory prayers.—The great importance of intercession.—Its features: 1. The boldness of faith ; 2. caution in the fear of God; 3. truthfulness of love.—Even the apparently unavailing intercessions are not in vain.—Srarke: Ver. 20. They (the Sodomites) went so far that the greatness of their sin had become a proverb (Is. i. 9 ff.), and therefore they were destroyed 400 years earlier than the Canaanites.—The sins crying to heaven are espe- cially, in the Holy Scriptures: 1. the shedding of innocent blood (ch. iv. 10; Job xvi. 18); 2. the sin of Sodom; 3. the oppression of the people of God (Ex. iii, 7), especially of widows and orphans. (Ex. xx. 22, 27; Sirach. xxxv. 19); 4. the withhold- ing of the hire of the laborer (James v. 4).—There- fore he could not understand by the righteous little children; for, although they are not righteous in their natural state, they could not have committed sins crying to the heavens.—They were, however, included with those destroyed, without, it may be. - hoped, any injury to their blessedness, or (so will it be added by some in an uncertain way) because God saw that they would tread in the footpaths of their fathers. [But the Scriptures never allude to this knowledge of God as the ground of his acts, either saving or destructive.—The same event bears a very different aspect and meaning as sent to the wicked and the good, e. g., death. So with these judgments, ——A. G.] The nearer Abraham comes to God in his prayers and intercession, the more clearly he recognizes his nothingness and entire unworthi- ness. A glorious fruit of faith.—The people of So- dom, indeed, could not think what was determined in the purpose of the watchers concerning them, and how Abrahazh stood in the breach.—Ver. 32. This Iwill is here repeated six times, to intimate the truth of God, his earnest will, that he does not will the death of the sinner, but rather that he should turn unto him and live (Ezek. xviii. 11, 82).—Brs. Tus. : Intercession for a brother believer, even for the god- less, a Christian duty.—Mark this, ye godless, that ye and the world stand only for the sake of the righteous, —We must come before God with the greatest rever- ence, and in the deepest humility of heart bow our-. selves before his sacred majesty.—The righteous are highly esteemed in the sight of God.—Gerriacu: Ver. 19, Abraham, I‘ have known him, i. e., chosen in mylove. As Amos iii, 2; John xvii. 3. Ver. 23. The righteous who dwell together with the godless in any place, restrain the judgments of God.—Zrn- zenDorF: I cannot tell in terms strong enough the blessed privilege of speaking with our Lord.—Cat- wer Hanpsucu: But in this prayer lie concealed deep mysteries, which render conspicuous to us the worth and importance, in the sight of God, of the ' righteous in the world, and on the other hand helps to explain the wonderful patience and long suffering | of God towards the evil, and even towards heaven crying sinners.—Scuréprr:. Cavin: If, therefore, GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES, oftentimes temptations contend in our hearts, and things meet us, in the providence of God, which seem to involve a contradiction, let the conviction of his righteousness still be unshaken in us. We must pour into his bosom the cares which give us pain and anxiety, that he may solve for us the difficulties which we cannot solve-—Passavant: When I other- wise can do nothing, when Iam without any influ- ence, and free access, without any means or any power, then still I may do something through the in- tercessory prayer. 8. Section. The entrance and sojourn of the angels in Sodom, and the final manifestation of its depravity, in contrast with the better conduct of Lot (ch. xix. 1-11). There are parts of this section which do mot seem fitted for public reading and homiletical treatment. But the examination of the .whole history may be joined, by practical and homi- letical wisdom, to the section, vers. 1-3.—How sin is radically a beginning of the most extreme corrup- tion: 1. it is against nature,‘and tends to the most unnatural abominations; 2. a delusion, which tends to fury and madness; 3. an act of disobedience, which issues in rebellion against God; 4. an impu- dence and falsehood, tending even to blasphemy.— Hellish night-scenes in the earliest antiquity.—The blinding of the godless that they could not find what they sought.—Srarxe: (It is incredible that Lot, as the Rabbins think, sat in the gate to judge (Deut. xvi. 18) and had been a judge in Sodom.)—A Chris- tian must behave towards every one, especially towards the pious, with humility and reverence (Rom. xii. 10)—The holy angels dwell cheerfully with the pious.—Ver, 5. (Lev, xviii. 22, 24; xx. 13.) Has not experience shown, that if here and there songs and prayers have been offered in a home at evening by devout persons, there have been those who have run together before the windows and made them the matter of sport and ridicule, while on the other hand, in other homes every kind of night revel has been endured and approved.—Ver. 8. The offer of Lot did not spring from evil, but from the greatest confusion and alarm; still he did wrong (Rom. iii. 8 ff). We see from this: 1. that Lot is not to be praised as some have thought (Am: - brose, Chrysostom); 2. that he was not guilty of a sin which removes him bgyond the grace of God.— Ver. 9, An Winvesdouatie, reproach. Had there been now ten such strangers in Sodom, they would not yet have been destroyed.—The gracious requital. Lot ventured all to preserve his guests; now he ex- periences how he is saved by them.* It belongs to no man to prevent a greater sin by a lesser.— Whoever will judge and punish the rough world, must be a disturber and excite an uproar.—Godless people are only hardened the more, through kind and gracious warnings.—Woe to him whom God strikes with spiritual blindness.|—Gurtacu: The very na- ture of the trial which God adopts consists in this, that he honors to the very last the liberty lent by him to the creature, and does not punish to destruc- tion until the most extreme abuse of freedom has been made evident.—Catwer Hanpsvcn: Sins and shameful vices appear in their fullest disgracefulness. in the night.—Lot appears, also, to have before rebuked their sinful movements, wherefore they reproach him, the stranger, with a lust of power — * [God’s people are, safe when angels stand sentries at the doors. Bush.—A. G. t (It is the use of God, to blind and besot those whom he means to destroy. Rp. Hall; Bush.—A. G.] CHAP. XVIII.—XIX. 1-38. 447 The nearer the judgments of God, the greater the security of sinners. [The scriptuf™ signs that the judgment is near are: 1. that God abandons men or communities to out-breaking and presumptuous sins; 2. that warnings and chastisements fail to produce their effect, and especially when the person grows harder under them; 3. that God removes the good from any community—so before the flood, so before the destruction of Jerusalem; and, 4. the deep, undisturbed security of those over whom it is suspended.—A, G.] 4, Section. Lot's salvation. Sodom’s destruction (vers. 12-29). Lot’s rescue from Sodom: 1. his obedience. The first message of deliverance (vers. 12-14). 2. Then, even, scarcely saved, on account of his delay and fears (vers. 15-22),—The test of Lot in the judgment of Sodom: 1. Saved, indeed, but, 2. scarcely saved, and that with difficulty.. Urged, importuned by the angels, Paralyzed by his terror in the way. His wife lost. [Almost saved, and yet lost.—A. G.]. His daughters.—In the his- tory of Lot, also, the unity of the family is again illustrated: 1. In its great importance; 2. in its final extent.—Ver. 15. The danger in delaying the flight out of Sodom, é. ¢., of conversion, or also of separa- tion from the society of the wicked.—Srarxe: (Ver. 12. It may be what belongs to thee, and could there- fore relate to his possessions, especially his herds. Still, some doubt, and think that he bore away as a gain or spoil only his own life and the lives of his family, while be must have left the herds behind in his haste.)—Ver. 14. Acts xvii. 18.—Sodom a type of the spiritual Babylon (Rev. xi. 8).—Whoever will not be borne away and crushed with the godless, he must early and cheerfully separate himself from them, while he has time and leisure * (Rev. xviii. 4), —-Ver. 16. God shows his goodness not only to the pious, but to those who belong to them.—Upon ver. 21. How God excuses the weakness of the believer, if he walks with God in uprightness.}—As Zoar was spared at the intercession of Lot, so afterwards the house of Laban was blessed for Jacob’s sake, and Potiphar for the sake of Joseph, the widow’s meal- chest and cruse of oil for the sake of Elijah.—That Zoar was made better by the recollection of the ter- rible overthrow of the cities may be inferred from the fact that it was still standing at the time of Isaiah (Is. xv. 6).—{A comparison between Sodom and Rome in eight particulars: beautiful region; security ; iniqui- ties ; crying to the heavens ; the true faith persecuted ; announcement of its judgment (Rev.); the rescuing of the pious; punishment by fire; the rising of the sun ; the enlightening of the Jews, ete, H.C. Ram- bach,)—(The Dead Sea: Troilo and others say: I could compare it only with the jaws of hell.)—The fearful judgment upon Lot’s wife: 1. She died imme- diately; 2. in her sins; 8. an unusual death; 4. remained unburied, an example of the vengeance of God.—Luke vii. 82, 33; ix. 62—Ver. 28. It is calm, pleasant weather with the children of God, when it storms with the godless (Exod. a. 22, 23; Ps, xxxii. 10).—Grrtacu: A living type of those whom the messenger of the Lord warns before the future punishment (Luke xvii. 28, 29).—The word: haste and escape for thy life ; this is the deep under- * [The man who will not consult for his cwn safety, and who, even being warned to beware, yet exposes himself by -his sloth to ruin, deserves to perish.” Calvin—A. G:] + [Itisno new thing for the Lord to grant sometimes, asan indulgence, what he does not approve. Calvin. See Jacobus.—A. (t.] . tone which must be heard through all preaching of the gospel.—Catw. Hanp.: The mercy of the Lord saves Lot and his family, as a brand plucked from the burning, Until Lot is saved the Lord himself restrains his hand.—Scuwence: Ver. 15. The deep impression which the declaration of the near judg- ment made upon him was greatly weakened by the mocking words of his sons-in-law ; he delays, waits, puts off. Flesh and blood, and the clinging to the beautiful city, struggle with obedience to the revela- tion from God.—Scuriper: The entrance of Lot into the vale of Siddim corresponds to his exodus (Baumgarten).*—How the first universal judgment of the flood, liké the partial judgment upon Sodom and Gomorrah, serves in the Scriptures as an exam- ple and type of all the divine judgments, and espe- cially of the last judgment (Luke xvii. 28 ff.; 2 Pet. ii. 6, etc.).—Hrvszr: Destruction of Sodom: 1. A judgment from heaven; 2. a sign for the earth — Taupe: The eternal righteousness of God in the judgment upon Sodom and Lot’s wife. The free mercy of God in saving Lot and his family. 5. Section. Lot's disappearance and his descend- ants (vers. 30-38). The 30th verse is alone fitted for public use. But from this a faint light may be thrown upon the whole night-scene. Lot’s disap- pearance as a dweller in caves.—Lot’s history illus- trates the truth, that whoever will build a house, must count the cost: 1. His inspired exodus from Haran with Abraham, and journey through Canaan to Egypt, with ever-increasing wealth; 2. his settle- ment in the valley of Sodom; 3. his asylum in Zoar; 4. his disappearance from the scene in the. caves of the mountains.—How should the pious fear temptations when the mind is unbent after extreme spiritual tension.—Man falls. easily into the sins of the flesh when the ideals of his intellectual life are dissolved and lose their power.t—Ruth a Moabitess. —Srarke: Lot’s daughters, The reason which moved them was rather a groundless prejudice than wantonness of the flesh. (Anxiety lest the human race should perish. It may be, also, that they were only Lot’s step-daughters, if he had married in Sodom a widow who was the mother of two daughters).— Cramer: Loneliness in retired places allures not only to good, but also, and much more, to great sins (Eccles. iv. 10).—Whoever will avoid sin must avoid the occasions which lead to it—[Strong drink the fruitful sourte of untold degradation and sins.—A.. G.]—Grecory I.: There was a moral sense in Lot, but it was confused and disturbed. Intoxication de- ceived Lot, who was not deceived in Sodom; the flames of lust burn him, whom the flames of sulphur did not burn.—Lurger: Some think that Lot died soon after, from distress and sorrow, before his daughters were delivered, because otherwise he would not have gonsented that names should be given them which should constantly remind him of his in- cest.—He who was not deceived in Sodom, drunken- ness deceived; who in Sodom, the very school of unchastity, had lived chastely, in the cave was guilty of incest; suffered shipwreck in the harbor.—Ruth a Moabitess, We may infer from Is. xi. 14; Jer. xlviii. 47; Dan. xi. 41, that there will be, besides, * [The beauty and fruitfulness of nature attracted him, and he chose it without thinking whether it would work injury to his soul. The same power now prevents him from sormiestly Hecrg the salvation of his soul. BaumeaRTEN, - 213.—. ye " t [Those who have been won oney preserved from temporal destruction, may shamefully into sin.”? Ja- cobus.—A. G.1 \ 448 GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. some conversions from the Moabites to Christ.—The children of Ammon were characterized by similar sins with those of their brother Moab, and therefore have a similar future——Drunkenness is the way to all bestial lusts and acts.—(Holy descendants from polluted beds. Judg. xi. 1; Heb. xi. 32.)—Scuroper : The thought that they should remain alone in case of their father’s early death was one to them very hard to bear. Then, indeed, they would be entirely helpless and without protection in the wide world. father, our childgen’s grandfather ; my husband, thy husband, the husband of our mother, and yet one and the same man.)—Baumearten: This is the crime of Lot’s daughters, that to secure descend- ants, and those of pure blood, they thought incest a small offence—Hzrsercer : For one ‘evil hour, one must bear the sword at his side a whole year.— Tue same: Still even such children (illegitimate and springing from incest) should not despair. God can do great things even through the illegitimate Jephtha If no husband was granted to them, they would at least have children, sons, who could give protection and help.—(Berl. Bibel.: The following riddle has been constructed from the history: My father, thy Judg. xi. 1 ff). True repentance makes all well. But ¢rwe repentance is never separated from ‘true faith. Faith in Christ and repentance make all well. —A. G.] EIGHTH SECTION. Abraham and Abimelech of Gerar. His and Sarah's renewed exposure through his human, calew lating prudence, as formerly in Egypt before Pharaoh. The Divine preservation. . Abraham's intercession for Abimelech. : —— CuaprER XX. 1-18. 1 And Abraham journeyed from thence toward the south? country [the mid-day], and dwelled between Kadesh and Shur, and sojourned [as a stranger even] in Gerar [lodging-place, pilgrim’s rest]. And Abraham said of Sarah his wife, She is my sister; and Abimelech [father of the king, or father-king] king of Gerar sent and took Sarah. But God [Elohim] came to Abimelech in a dream by night, and said to him, Behold, thou art but a dead man thou diest, art dead], for the woman which thou hast taken; for she is a man’s wile Ke married]. But Abimelech had not come near her: and he said, Lord, wilt thou slay also a righteous nation? Said he not unto me, She zs my sister? and she, even she herself said, He zs my brother: in the integrity of my heart, and the innocency, of m hands have I done this. And God said unto him in a dream, Yea, I know that thon didst this in the integrity of thy heart; for I also withheld thee from sinning against me: therefore suffered I thee not to touch her. Now therefore restore the man Ais wife! for he is a prophet,” and he shall pray for thee, and thou shalt live: and if thou restore her not, know thou that thou shalt surely die, thou and all that are thine. Therefore Abimelech rose early in the morning, and called all his servants, and told all these things in their ears: and the men were sore afraid. Then Abimelech called Abraham, and said unto him, What hast thou done unto us? and what have I offended thee, that thou hast brought on me and on my kingdom a great sin? thou hast done deeds unto me that ought not tobe done. And Abimelech said unto Abraham, What sawest thou [evit], that thou hast done this thing? And Abraham said, Because I thought [ssid], Surely the fear of God [Elohim] is not in this place; and they will slay me for my wife's sake. And yet indeed she ts my sister; she zs the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother; and she became my wife. And it came to pass when God [Elchim] caused me to wander [to go on pilgrimages ; astriking plural.8 The manifestations of God here and there, caused me to go here and there, pilgrimages | from my father’s house, that I said unto her, This %s thy kindness which thou shalt show unto me; at every place whither we shall come, say of me, He #s my brother. And Abimelech took sheep and oxen [small and large cattle|, and menservants, and womenservants, and gave them to Abraham, and re- stored him Sarah his wife. And Abimelech said, Behold, my land is before thee [stands open to theo]: dwell where it pleaseth thee [is good in thine eyes], And unto Sarah he said, Behold, I have given thy brother a thousand pieces of silver: behold he is to thee 10 ll 12 13 14 15 16 CHAP. XX. 1-18. 449 [fr] a covering of the eyes unto all that are with thee, and with all other: thus she ‘was reproved * [set right, proved to be a wife, not unmarried J. 17 So Abraham prayed unto God [tlohim]: and God [Elchim] healed Abimelech, and 18 his wife, and his maidservants; and they bare children. For the Lord * had fast closed up all the wombs of the house of Abimelech, because of Sarah, Abraham’s wife. (! Ver. 1-33: . The region south of what was afterwards called Judah.—A. G.} (? Ver. 7.813) » from N33, to cause to bubble up as a fountain. Keil, Delitzsch, and others derive it from a root N) and NB, to breathe, and thus make wabi to mean one inspired—who speaks that which is inbreathed of God.—A. G.]J (8 Ver. 13.—53 MNF is plural in punctuation, agreeing grammatically with pvbs. Vav, however, may be regarded as the third radical, and the verb may then really besingular. Murpuy, p. 325.—A. G.) {* Ver. 16.—M33, 2 pers, fem. sing. Niphal, an unusual form. See the Exegetical note.—A. G.] {® Ver. 18.—Jchovah.—A. G.J GENERAL PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 1. The present chapter and the following ap- pear to favor strongly the documentary hypothesis. The cases in which the name Jehovah appears (chap. xx. 18 and xxi. 1), have, according to Delitzsch, all the traits of explanatory additions of the completer. But Knobel accepts, aside from the text of the original writing (chap. xxi, 2-5), a twofold enlargement, which should be ascribed to the Jehovistic writer, but which he must have derived in great part from Elohistic records “designed to complete the original record, and onlf‘in part from a completing Jeho- vistic record (p. 180 181). We leave the hypothesis of different records to rest upon its own basis, but shall enquire how far the choice in the names of God may be explained from the text itself, and this with- out regard to the hypothesis in question. 2. The repetition of the fact that Abraham pro- claims his wife to be his sister has been noticed already. In Knobel’s view, the Jehovistic writer has recorded the occurrence with Sarah already (ch. xii, 11-20), because he could then do it independently, which could not be the case here. ‘‘ This conjecture,” remarks Delitzsch, “is certainly plausible if one ascribes the Elohistic portions to a peculiar source, but it is equally probable that the same event might occur twice in the life of Abraham.” Keil, on the other hand, justly brings into prominence the great distinction between the two histories. The first dif- ficulty, viz. that Abraham, after having experienced in Egypt the reproach of this deed, should here repeat it once more, cannot be removed, if, as Delitzsch holds, Abraham in Egypt had condemned himself to penitence after the reproof of Pharoah; if even he walked under a general sense that he had done wrong, as Delitzsch ‘and Baumgarten state the case. [It is not insupposible, surely, in the light of experience, that even such a believer as Abraham should have fallen again into the same sin: that he should have repeated the act even when he was walking under the sense of his wrong-doing in the first instance.—A. G.] Our history gives us the key (v. 18) why this act was repeated, Abraham could not make an explanation to Pharoah, concerning the determination to pro- claim his wife his sister while among strangers, but Abimelech has instilled the necessary confidence in him, for this confidential explanation. But if the saying was then founded and chosen, the event might, under possible circumstances, have often occurred unless Jehovah had interfered to prevent this ven- ture of an unfounded and exaggerated confidence ; which we have already above distinguished from a mere exposure of Sarah. It must be taken into 29 account, moreover, that Abraham had recently re- ceived fearful impressions of the godless beings in the world, which naturally filled him with suspicion. The second difficulty consists in this: that Abimelech should have found delight in taking Sarah, who was ninety years old, into his harem, According to Kurtz, her still blooming or now rejuvenated beauty was not the motive ; according to Delitzsch, he would relate himself by marriage with the rich nomadic prince, Abraham. Beauty and the consideration of rank do not exclude each other; spiritual excellence and greatness have often an almost magical effect.. But it is to be observed that here it is not said that the beauty of Sarah was reported to Abimilech. He knew only, it may be, that there was a sister of Abraham in his tent, and brought her to himself. 8. We are here told again that Abraham broke up his tent, and journeyed thence towards the south— the land towards the mid-day (ch. xii. 9; xiii. 1). According to ch. xiii. 18, he had a permanent abode at Hebron; but here he removes from Hebron to the south. This is to be explained upon the ground that, for the northern parts of Canaan, the south designates preéminently the land of Judah; but for the land of Judah, thus for Hebron itself, it denotes the parts towards Arabia Petrea, Egypt, and the western shore upon the Mediterranean. The southern section of Canaan (which was assigned to the tribes of Judah, Simeon, and Benjamin) falls into four distinct parts, through the character of the country. The mountains (71) or highlands form the central part, upon whose westerly slopes lies a hilly country which gradually sinks to the plain (M>pv!), while towards the east the descent (127) falls off into the valley of the Jordan and the Dead Sea, but towards the south, the mid-day land (23), Josh. xv. 21; com- pare above ch. xii. 9; xiii. 1) forms, in several distinctly marked terraces, a kind of first step to the mountains, from the Petrean peninsula. (See Gross, in Stud. und Krit, 1848, p. 1080.) Here Abraham descends to the stretch of country between Kadesh and Shur, and remained a long time about Gerar, whose ruins have been recently discovered by Rowland, under the name Khirbet-el-Gerar, about three hours south- easterly from Gaza, in the neighborhood of a deep and broad wady, which takes the name Dschurf-el- Gerar.” Delitzsch. Robinson sought Gerar in vain, see ScHRODER, p. 382. “ Eusebius and Jerome locate the place about twenty-five Roman miles south from Eleutheropolis, and Sozomen relates that there stood very near here, in a winter stream, a great and re- nowned convent. The name of Marcian, bishop of Gerar (perhaps in the convent), appears amang the 450 GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. subscribers in the Council of Chalcedon in the year 451.” “Gerar, upon the way from Gaza to Elusa, removed about three hours from the first-named place.” Bunsen. The most southerly of the five cities of the Philistines was not far from Beersheba. The king of Gerar, Abimelech, had this territory in the lands of the Philistines, according to ch. xxi. 33. In ch. xxvi. 1, he is named directly as a king of the Philistines, According to Bertheau, the reference to the Philistines is an anticipation, and Delitzsch also finds in ch. xxvi. traces of a later hand, though not recognizing therein an actual anticipation, If moby denotes the land of wanderers, or of strangers (Ge- senius), the name denotes those who came from the coasts into the interior, in distinction from the earlier Canaanites, and the mquiry whether the later Philis- tines, of the times of the Judges and Kings, are here meant, is a matter by itself; in any case, the text here intimates that the later confederate cities of the Philistines did not yet exist. Hitzig and Ewald also concede Philistine emigrations into Canaan, or tradi- tions of them, before Moses. Knobel’s view, that Abraham may have left Hebron from a similar auxiety with that which led Lot (to leave Zoar), is arbitrary in the highest degree, since Abraham was in covenant with the mightier men in Hebron. Ac- cording to Keil, he went probably to find better pastures. In any case the pasture-ground must be changed from time to time, but this could be done through a wider range, as we learn from the history of Joseph and Moses. The neighborhood of the scene of the terrible judgment upon Sodom, in con- nection with other unknown motives, may have determined him to change his residence. The birth of Isaac (ch. xxi.) and the offering of Isaac (ch. xxii.) occur during his residence in the further south: but ,then be dwelt (ch. xxiii. 1) again in Hebron, although his return thither from Beersheba, whére he had last dwelt (ch. xxi. 33), is not recorded, 4, Since, from the promise which was given to Abraham in the oak-grove of Mamre, to the birth of /Jsaac, we must reckon, according to ch. xviii., about a year, Abraham must have drawn southwards very soon after the overthrow of Sodom, and the meeting .with Abjmelech must also have taken place at an early date, But if vers. 17, 18 seem to point toa longer time, this creates no real difficulty, since the sickness of the house of Abimelech may have lasted a long time after Sarah was restored. More- over, our history illustrates, in two respects, what may introduee the further history of the birth of Isaac. First, we see that Sarah was not faded in , her appearance, although according to the usual sup- position her body was dead. Then we see how her ‘usual relation to Abraham could be animated and Strengthened by a new affection resulting directly ;through the exposure and disturbance to which it ,had been subjected, EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL. 1, Abraham’s settlement in the South, especially in Gerar. 7OM integrity of his heart, may be ex- plained from his moral and religious standpoint. But that God recognizes his deed as such, and still says to him that he can only live through the inter- cession of Abraham, thus that his sin was one worthy of death, proves that God regards him as one who: was fitted to have, and ought to have, deeper: moral views and piety. This is intimated in the change of the names of God in the narrative, and noticed in the * (The term, however, may mean, dead as to progeny, which is rendered probable by ver. 17. God healed Abime- lech. Jacobus.—A. G.] CHAP. XX. 1-18. 451 text. Kutt, p. 168—A.G.] That is to say, the spirit of a higher moral standpoint comes to him in his dream, and opens to him not only the cause of his sickness, but also that divine preservation secured by the sickness, as well as lis duty and the danger of death in which he was still moving. With this he receives an enlargement of his religious knowledge. “At first O°MDx (without the article) the Godhead in a general sense appears to him (ver. 3): but Abime- lech recognizes in the appearance the Lord "27%, upon which the narrator introduces ayn the personal and true God, as speaking to him (ver. 6.) _—F'or he is a prophet.—tThe spirit of prophecy had been present trom the beginning in the Scripture, but here the name prophet occurs for the first time. How could this aggravate the error of Abimelech, that Abraham, whose rights he ignorantly had vio- lated, was a prophet? Knobel explains that the sin of violating the rights of the chosen of God, which he had in idea committed, was a sin against God himself. Since every sin is a sin against God himself, it must still be asked, how far this shows the danger of greater guilt? for the text cannot be explained under the idea of a partiality of God for Abraham. But Abimelech held Abraham and Sarah as the ordi- nary nomads of his time, and thought therefore that he could blindly lay his hands upon them: he thus resisted the dim impression, which they must have made upon him, of a higher calling and aim. A prophet should be received in the name of a prophet; the sin against the divine in the prophet was a sin against the divine in his own conscience, and thus in a special sense a sin against God.—And he shall pray for thee.—Abraham had already appeared as a royal warlike hero, in his conflict with the Eastern kings. We have learned to recognize him as a priest, especially in his intereessory prayer for Sodom: here he appears preéwineutly as a prophet. But here intercession appears as the most obvious func- tion of the prophet.* The attributes of the prophet and the priest are thus still inwardly united in one, as this indeed is evident from the altars he erected. 2. The atonement of Abimelech (vers. 8-16).— And called all his servants (courtiers). — It marks the frank, open character of this God-fearing king, that he humbles himself by communicating the events of the night, before his courtiers. It was humbling in the first place to confess that, in spirit- ual blindness, he had made a dangerous mistake, and secondly that he must restore to the stranger his wife. It speaks well also for his household and his court, that the effect of his reverence communicates itself to his servants—Then Abimelech called Abraham.—He addresses him before his people, for Abraliam had not only brought him into danger, but also his household and kingdom. He had reason to complain of the conduct of Abraham, as Pharaoh before him (ch. xii.). He is thus also evidently a bold, heroic character, who does not shrink from declaring against Abruham his injured sense of truth and justice, although he must have regarded him as under the special protection of God. He does not belong to the kings who oppose the priests in slavish bigotry.—What hast thou done to us 7— Done ¢o ws. Thus he values the unity in which he ‘feels that he is bound with his household and people. But he reproaches him especially with this: that be had bronght him into danger of bringing sin both * [See Jer. xxvii. 18, referred to by Bush.—A. G.] upon himself and his people. This, he says, is im- moral, But since he takes up again the words, What have I offended thee? and asks, What hast thou seen? he utters in a discreet form, which concedes the possibility that he might have ignorantly occasioned the wrong of Abraham, his consciousness that he had himself indeed given no occasion for this deceitful course. Keil and Knobel explain the words what hast thou seen? what hast thou in thy eye, what purpose? Dexitzscu (with a reference to Ps. xxxvii. 37: Ixvi. 18): “Is is preferable to take the word in its usual sense through all time: what evil hast thou seen in me or in us, that thou believest us capable of greater evil ?"—Abraham said, because I thought (said). —He assumes the antecedent ; I acted thus, because he is ashamed. The two grounds of apology follow. The first runs: Because I spake (thought or con- sidered it with myself and with Sarah). [This use of the word 77x is fully illustrated by Bush, who refers to Ex. ii. 14; 1 Kingsv.5; Ps. xiv. 1.—A. G.] —Surely the fear of God is not in this place.— This special motive has its explanation in the fact that he had so recently seen the destruction of Sodom. The fear of men which had determiued him so to act in Egypt, was awakened afresh by this de- struction. But he palliates the offence of this declara- tion by his second excuse. He explains at first that what he had said was not untrue, since Sarah, as his half-sister, was his sister; and then why, in his mi- gration from Haran, he had arranged with Sarah that she should journey with him from place to place under the name of his sister. [Some suppose that Sarah is the same with Iscah, xi. 29. Bush holds that Terah had two wives: the one the mother of Haran, the father of Sarah and Lot; the other the mother of Abraham.—A, G.] The suppressed feeling of an end- less, difficult pilgrimage, and of a very dangerous situation, reveals itself clearly in the expressions of vers. 13, 14. He cannot yet speak to:Abimelech of Jehovah, his covenant God. Still less was it neces- sary that he should reveal to him that Jehovah had promised Canaan to him. Thus he says: at the command of God I entered upon my wanderings. He speaks of his theocratic journeys as wanderings, says Elohim instead of Haelohim, uses this noun with the plural of the verbs, that he may make him- self understood by Abimelech. “This use of the substantive with the plural verbs is found (in the Pentateuch only in this author, ch. xxxv.7; Ex. xxii. 8; xxx. 4,8; Josh. xxiv. 19. Gesenius, § 146, 2; Ewatp, § 318a.)” Knobel. Keil finds in the words of Abraham, especially in the plural of the verb, a certain accommodation to the polytheistic standpoint of the Philistine king. Delitzsch, on the other hand, remarks, that the plural connection of Elohim is found in passages which exclude any idea of accommo- dation, or of any polytheistic reference; by which he refutes ut the same time the explanation of Schel- ling, that the Gods of the house of Terah are to be uuderstood by Elohim. Under the expression inn ody [The verb here is not necessarily plural But if it be, it is only an instance of the literal meaning of Elohim, the eternal, supernatural powers, cowing into view. Murpny, p. $28.—A. G.] we understand the fact, expressed with some reser- vation, that Haclohim, through a plurality of special manifestations of God, which he received here and there, had caused him to move from place to place, and thus, although in the extremest danger which hig 452 GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. wanderings could occasion, extended his providence over him still. When, on the contrary, Abimelech (ch. xxvi. 28) calls God Jehovah, Delitzsch supposes (p. 103), but without certainty, that it is the same person, and besides overlooks the difference of time, in which a longer intercourse may have made the Philistines familiar with the Abrahamic ideas—And Abimelech took sheep and oxen.—He is satis- fied, and acts analogously to the conduct of Pharaok (ch. xii.), in that he makes Abraham rich presents of the ancient nomadic goods. The departure of Abraham from Egypt also seems to find its echo here. He appears to utter a modest wish that Abra- ham would leave Gerar. [This seems a forced inter- pretation of the words.—A.G.] Still he may dwell in his territory where it pleases bim.—And to Sarah he said.—‘ The thousand pieces of silver, i. e., the thousand shekels of silver, are not a peculiar present ‘taade to Sarah, but the estimated worth of the pres- ent (ver. 14), and designate it as something impor- tant.” Knobel. So also Keil. Delitzsch, with others, distinguishes a special present in money, “a truly royal present, since thirty shekels was the price of a slave (Ex. xxi. 32).” (A thousand shekels of silver after the shekel of the sanctuary would be about 550 dollars; according to the ordinary shekel, less. It is not certain which is intended here.) The first interpretation is preferable, as otherwise the second present must have been made to Sarah.—Behold, he is to thee (or that shall be to thee) a cover- ing of the eyes.—This difficult place admits of different explanations. Virrinaa: “If the words are referred to Abraham, the idea seems to be: Abraham, ‘if he professes to be the husband of Sarah, would be in- stead of a veil to those who, looking upon Sarah more intensely, may be inflamed with love for her. (Thus Ewald; so Dexitzscu, p. 404.) We prefer, however, to refer the words to the money received by Abra- ham. As if he says, let this money, paid as a fine to’ Abraham, prevent any from desiring thee as I have done. He alludes to the veil usually worn by women. See ch, xxiv. 65.” Gxsmnius: “This is an expiatory present to thee, for all that has happened to thee, and to Abram, and she was convinced (of her fault).” Knobel similarly, but still with less fit- ness, and at the conclusion, “ thou art adjudged, i. e., justice is done to thee.” ‘Dexirzscu and Ker: “This is to thee an atoning present, for all who are with thee (since the whole family is disgraced in the mis- tress, etc.)” “It is to be explained,” says Knobel, “after "22 “BD to cover one’s face, so that he may forget the wrong done (ch. xxii, 21), DXQE "325 MDD to cover the face of the judge, so that he shall not see the right.” Michaelis, Baumgarten, and others, explain the words to mean a present for the purchase of « veil which she should wear in the future. [Murrny urges against this that the proper word for veil is M"3%, “The covering of the eyes isa figura- tive phrase for a recompense or pacificatory offering, in consideration of which an offence is overlooked.” And so also Jacobus.—A. G.] Since Sarah wore no veil in Egypt, but the custom’ of veiling the face quickly with the mantle soon after appears in the history of Rebekah (ch. xxiv. 65), this, thought seems quite probable. But one would then expect a special present to Sarah, besides the one to Abraham. De- litzsch remarks, “this would be bitter irony.” But the irony in the expression, I have given chy brother, cannot, however, be denied. The >2-Mx* also agrees well with this thought, Besides, it must be considered that Abimelech had to relieve himself of his displeasure as well against Sarah as against Abraham. And what then could this mean, “that shall be to thee an atoning present, and for all with thee,” leaving out of view that here the conjunctive 1 is wanting? As a covering of the eyes, designed to make good his error in her eyes, the great present would excite rather only contempt. The atonement would thus be to the violated rights of the husband; Sarah, who had constantly declared that he was her brother, even when prudent calculation became impru- dent temerity, had well deserved that she also should suffer a reproof. Still Abimelech appears to define it as a covering of the eyes only ina figurative sense; in the sense of the Vulgate: hoc erit tibi in velamen oculorum ad omnes qui tecum sint, et quocungue perp- exeris ; mementoque te deprehensam.* Since Sarah wore no veil, which designated her as the wife of a husband (see ch. xxiv. 6; 1 Cor. xi. 10), so the pres- ent of Abimelech, wherewith he expiates his fault, has the effect of such a veil; it should for all, and everywhere, be a testimony that she is a married woman. As such should she now be held every- where, in consequence of his present. With Clericus, therefore, we find here a designed double sense or meaning ; a covering of the eyes as an atonement, which should, at the same time, have the effect of a veil, “™mD121 can only be the second person feminine perf. Niph., although the daghesh lene is wanting in M (GzsEnius, § 28, 4, and § 65, 2), for to hold this form for a participle is scarcely possible,” ete.| Kein: Since this word may be rendered ad- judged as well as justified, we take it in a middle sense, and as designedly having a twofold meaning: con- vinced, placed right. This last word does not belong to the writer, but to Abimelech himself. With the pride of injured magnanimity, he declares that he, through his atoning present, would provide her with a veil, and designate her as a married woman. For the veil, see Winer. 8. Abraham’s intercession (vers. 17,18). “ After this compensation Abraham intercedes (ver. 17), and God removes the sickness from Abimelech and his women. The author does not define the sickness more closely (as in ch. xii. 1'7) ; according to ver. 6 it was such a sickness as indisposed to sleep. Compare the plague of the Philistines (1 Sam. v. 6-9; xii. 6, 4, ete.) Knobel— And God healed Abimelech, and his wife, and his maidservants.—Thus Abimelech was not only afflicted with some sexual disease, but indirectly, through his inability, his wife also, i. e., his wife in a peculiar sense, the queen; and his maid-servants, that is, his concubines (see Keil). [They bare means that they were again capable of procreating children. The verb is masculine, because both males and females were involved in this judicial malady. Murpuy, p.829.—A. G.] [This is clear also, since the malady was sent to preserve the purity of Sarah. Abimelech was not suffered to touch her, see ver. 6.—A.G.] Ver. 18 contains the explana- tioa—F'or the Lord (Jehowah) had fast closed up.—[It is Jehovah who delivers Abraham, and pre- * [Wordsworth suggests all three senses—that of a pro- Pitiation ; of a provision for the purchase of a veil; and of a ra to the usage of covering a bride with a veil, p. t [If with Baumgarten, and according to the accents, we connect the Don} with the last word, the sense can only be: and all this has been done or given that thou mayest be righted or redressed, p. 220. So also Murphy.—A. G:] CHAP. XX. 1-18. 453 serves the purity of Saruh, the mother of Isaac the promised seed. Worpswortu, p. 93. Who urges also. the use of the names of God in the chapter, against the fragmentary hypothesis, with great force. —A.G.] Here the providence of Elohim is traced to the motives of Jehovah, the Covenant God of Abra- ham, who would protect his chosen. They were closed up; i. e., not as Knobel thinks, they could could not bring to the birth, but the whole house- hold of Abimelech was unfruitful in consequence of his sickness. [The term here used for maid-servants, minx, denotes those held as concubines, and is to be distinguished from min5', servants. See 1 Sam. xxv.4l. Kem, p.170.—A.G.] This fearful fact for an ancient household was remarkable here, because the state remained after the free return of Sarah, until Abraham enters with his intercession. But this in- troduces the circumstance that he had interceded for Sarah also. DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL. 1. See the preliminary remarks and the exi- getical paragraphs. The preceding history is the history of sins “crying to heaven.” The history of Abraham in Gerar is a history of unconscious sins, concealed faults in the life of most excellent men, of the father of the faithful, and of a noble heathen king. 2. The first meeting between the house of Abra- ham and the Philistines, It serves to illustrate the fact, that the knowledge of God among the Philis- tines has sunken lower and lower in the lapse of time, while it has been more and more completely developed among the theocratic people. 3. Abraham in Gerar, in a certain measure, a counterpart to Lot in the caves. Lot fears the pres- ence of men; Abraham appears to have sought a wider intercourse, Both fall into folly and sin, after the experience of the great judgment upon Sodom. The reaction from a state of great spiritual excite- ment reveals itself even in Abraham. 4, The repetition of the old saying of Abraham, is a proof that he, in his faith, thought himself justi- fied in using it. We must take into account also, that Sarah also was his sister in the faith, and that she had accustomed herself, in her painful sense of her unfruitfulness, to style themselves brother and sister, 5. Abimelech’s dream. In the night sleep, the spirit of revelation comes nearer to the heathen, as is shown also in the dreams of Pharaoh and Nebuchad- nezzar. It isa medium of revelation also for children (Joseph, in the old covenant), and for laborers with the hand (Joseph, in the new covenant); and the prophetic disposition, enduring into the night or extending itself through its hours (Isaac, Jacob, Paul). Moreover, Pharaoh’s butler and baker (ch. xl. 8); the Midianites (Judges vii. 13-15); the wile of Pilate (Matt. xxvii. 19, compare Wisdom xviii. 17 -19), bad significant dreams. 6. Abimelech’s innocence and guilt. The moral standpoint of tradition, in its relation to the higher standpoint. Traditional morality and the morality of conscience. The religious susceptibility of Abimelech. 4%, Abraham a prophet. There are different views as to the derivation of this word. A derivation from the Arabic, analogous form, explains the word to mean the bringer of knowledge, the foreteller or pre- dictor (see Deitzscx, p. 634; a communication of Fleischer). The derivation from the Hebrew 823, ebullire, appears to us nearer at hand, and corre- sponds better with the idea of the prophet. In the reference of the word to the Niph., Redslob explains it in a passive sense, what is poured forth; W.New- mann and Hélemann, actively pouring forth, speaking. If we regard the Niph. as both passive and reflexive, then the prophet is a man who, because he has received communications poured into himself, pours forth. One who is a fountain. But the pouring forth desig- nates more than the simple speaking. It is the utterance of that which is new, in the inspired, out- pouring form; analogous to the out-pouring of a fountain, which is ever pouring out new, fresh water. The prophet pours forth that which is new, both in words and deeds; the miraculous words of prophecy, and the miraculous deeds of typical import. The de- rivation which Delitzsch proposes from 82 = "1B , MD, to breathe, the inspired, appears to be sought from dogmatic motives. Abraham was a prophet in the most general sense; the organ of the divine revela- tion, seer of the future. He was a prophet, priest, and king in one person, but preéminently a prophet. And here God brings out distinctly his prophetic dignity, because he is in this especially commended as the friend of God, the object of his protecting care, with whose injuryAbimelech’s sickness was connected, and by whose intercession he could be healed. The peculiar order of the prophets, introduced through the prophetic schools of Samuel, was formed after the order of priests, and then the order of kings were severed from the general class or order of prophets. 8. Abimelech’s character and his atonement. Through his noble and pious conduct he wins a friend in Abraham (ch. xxi, 22 ff.) : 9. Abraham’s intercession, a claim of his faith in the promise. His intercession for Abimelech and Gerar, a counterpart to his intercession for Sodom. The intercession of Abraham for Abimelech, his house, and kingdom, in comparison with his inter- cession for Sodom. 10. Abraham has, through his fear, and the pru- dential means which his fear bade him to use, twice directly brought about the very thing which he feared, the taking away of his wife, and perhaps would have incurred his death, either the first or second time, if God had not interfered. How fear first truly makes that actual which it seeks to hinder in ungodly ways, the history of Joseph’s brethren, who sold him that he might not rise above them; the conduct of Pha- raoh towards Israel, which brings him and his hosts to destruction in the Red Sea; Saul’s determination against David; but above all, the history of the crucifixion of Christ on the part of the Jewish San- hedrim prove still more perfectly. How this same fact: appears in proverbs, under various forms, e. g., in the saying of Gidipus, is well known. 11. The Philistines (see the Bible Dictionaries), Their first appearance in sacred history makes a favourable impression; Abimelech knows, or learns to know, the only true God. Later, the Philistines appear sunken in idolatry. HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL. Any homiletic use of this chapter presupposes homiletic wisdom. Themes: Abraham in the repe- tition of his fall_—Abraham and Abimelech.—Abra- ham’s character: reverent humility, moral pride,— \ 454 GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. Abraham, the believer, in his weakness, exalted above the man of the world, in his strength. [The exaltation, however, a matter of pure grace.—A.G.] First Section.—Abraham’s and Abimelech’s error (vers, 1-7) Abraham’s reaction after his high spiritual experiences.—The repetition of his old fault. 1. Causes: Recent experience of the corruption of the world, false prudence, exaggerated confidence, the brotherly relation to Sarah, the tolerable issue of the case in Egypt. 2. Natural results: Anxiety and danger, shame before a heathen’s princely court. 3. Gracious issue through the interference of God.*— ‘How sclf-will rushes into the danger which, with many plans, it seeks to avoid.—How the believer endangers “the promise of God, and how it is wonderfully guard- ed through the grace of God,—Abimelech’s integrity the point of union for the gracious provideuce of God. —The author of sacred marriage is also its protector. —the care of God for Sarah a care for the world. StaRKE: Now God, in his providence, rescues Abraham again from his human weakness.—(Ver. 4. The Holy Spirit marks this doubtless, lest any one should say that Isaac was the son of Abimelech.) (Although God is a lover of life, yet still, according to his punitive righteousness, there may be ascribed to him, as here, a destruction, consumption, ete.)— God suffers his saints to fall into folly and sin, that it may be clear how little they are able to do right by themselves.—CrameR: God preserves the sacred «marriage state.—OsIaNDER : Subjects are often pun- ished on account of the transgressions of their rulers. —Ver. 6. Asimpleand not evilly intended plan, even in a bad cause, if it proceeds from inconsideration, or from ignorant zeal, is described by this word— simplicity, in Holy Scripture (2 Sam. xv. 11, etc.)— Ver. 6. God hinders men from committing sin in many ways.—God searches the heart, and knows what is done in integrity and what in pretence.— Catwer, Handbuch: Ver. 2. As there (in Egypt) so here, Abraham reaches the directly opposite point from that which he intended.. Sarah was taken away, just because he said, she is my sister,— Scuréper: (V. Herzercer.) Ver. 1. Abraham will avoid the cross, (?) but he passes from the smoke into the flame, from the mud into the mire. There are in foreign lands misfortunes and adversities as well as where he has lived hitherto. Ah! Lord, help us, that we may sit quietly in our little space; the dear cross dwells yet nowhere, as everywhere, i. e., wherever we are.—His sin appears greater here than at the first offence; he stands no longer as then (in Egypt), at the beginning of the divine leadings. After so many and such great experiences of God’s faithfulness, still such unfaithfulness to him. (?)— (Calvin.) All those who will not, as is becoming, trust themselves to the providence of God, shall win like fruits of unbeliefi—Ver. 2. It is to be considered that an extraordinary beauty is ascribed to Sarah ; then also, that notwithstanding her ninety years, she is in the first half of human life at that period of the world.—Lurutr: Ver. 3. It is impossible that a man who believes in the promises of God, should be forsaken, —God would suffer the heavens to fall, rather than forsake his believing people.—Thus God shows how displeasing adultery is to him.—Ver. 6. Abimelech has sinned nevertheless, therefore God by no means concedes to him “ purity of hands,” as the “integrity of heart.”—Passavant: An old oak which loses a bough or twig, has not, therefore, * [How thankful for the interference of God,—A. G.] 1 lost its crown.—Pharaoh and Abimelech. Ver. 4, Many a king who is called christian, has done what these two kings did, and even worse, and his people have necessarily suffered for it in various ways before his crumbling throne; in a thousand offences, sins, sorrows, etc. Kings may learn what the sins of princes are before God, and the people also may learn to hate and deplore the evil which descends from the upper ranks.—The prosperity of the family depends upon the marriage state, and the welfare of society upon that of the family, and upon the society turns the good of the state.—Ver. 6. It is a great grace when God guards any one from sinning, either against their fellows or against God.— Thou knowest not how often God has kept thee and me (Ps. ev. 14, 15; Zach, ii. 8).—Scuwenke: The Scriptures do not de- scribe a saint in Abraham, but a man, who, although so good, is yet a sinner like ourselves, but who through faith was justified before God, and what he did as he went from step to step in the narrow path of faith stands recorded, that we with him might enter the school of faith. Second Section.—Abraham’s confusion and shame, and Abimelech’s atonement.—(Vers. 8-16), The castigatory speech of the heathen to the father of the faithful—vVer. 11. The judgment of faith con- cerning the world ought not to be a prejudice.—The danger of life in Abraham’s pilgrimage an apology for his swerving to his own way.—Ver. 8. The zeal of Abimelech in the removing and expiating of his fault.—His noble and pious integrity: 1. In the ex- pression of his fear of God; 2. of his injured moral : feeling ; 3. his readiness to make his error good.— Ver. 9. Abimelech knew that his royal sins fell upon his household and kingdom, as a burden and as guilt. Starke: ver. 9. It is to the praise of this heathen king, who, however, was not without some fear and knowledge of God, that he held a breach of the mar- riage law to be so great a sin that the whole land could be punished.—Ver. 10. OstanprER: A pious ruler and a pious father of the household agree well, since they warn and keep their own in the fear of God.—The praise of mildness and gentleness. — Luruer: The saints were gently punished and for their good.— Bibl. Tub, Ver. 9. We should amend our past faults without delay.—Scuréprr: (Luruer) He who was before u king (Abimelech) is now a bishop who spreads among his subjects the fear and knowledge of God, so that they also should learn to fear God and honor his word. Here indeed the Sodomites, and those who dwelt in Gerar, are held in broad contrast.—Ver. 12. (Musculus: Concerning Sarah as the sister of Abraham: recognize hero the type of Christ and the Church. The Church is the sister and the bride of Christ; sister through God the Father, bride through the mystery of the incar- nation, and the truth of his espousal, etc.)—Ver. 15. While the Egyptian invites Abraham in a compliment- ary way out of his land, the Philistine says, Behold my land is before thee.—(Canvin): This distinction is due to the fact that the severely punished Pharoah experienced only fear, 80 that the presence of Abra- ham was intolerable. Abimelech, on the other hand, was, with the terror, at the same time comforted.— Passavant: Ver. 11. Christians’ excuses are often- times worse than their faults—But Abraham is the father of the faithful ; God sees in him Isaac, the son of promise, conceived, born, reared in faith, ete. ; be sees in him Jacob’ his servant, etc., Moses, Aaron, Joshua, but above all that one of the seed of David, Gal. iii, 16.—The forefather bore already in himself, CHAP. XXI. 1-34, 455 that seed of faith upon the Son of God from which should bloom the new hosts of saints and righteous of the old and new covenant, as the dew drops from the womb of the morning (Ps. cx.).—ScHWENKE: Thus the Lord knows how to make good what has been complicated, and endangered through human prudence, Third Section.— Abraham’s intercession, the healing of Abimelech and his household. (Vers. 17, 18). Abraham believes still in the efficacy of inter- cession, although Sodom was destroyed notwith- standing his intercessory prayer.—The connection of intercession, with the receptivity of those to whom it relates.——Abraham as an intercessor for Sodom and for Gerar.—The healing of Abimelech an illustration of salvation, and leading toit—Srarke: A beautiful exchange between the worldly and spiritual state. That bestows gold and possessions, this reecompenses with the knowledge of God and prayer.-—OsIaNDER : If God punishes this king with such serious earnest- ness and severity, who ignorantly had taken another man’s wife, how will they escape who knowingly and deliberately defame and dishonor other men’s wives and daughters?—Scaréper: (Canvin.) Abraham arms and disarms the hand of God at the same time. —(Roos): Thus God does not forsake his own in their need, although there are not wanting faults on their side—(Vat. Hespercer: We know how to make what is good evil, since we are masters there, but how to make good again what is evil, that is the work of God.)—Because Abraham and Sarah should laugh, they must first weep sound repentance. The martyr-week ever precedes the Euaster-week with Christians. wnre anon 18 19 20 21 NINTH SECTION. The birth of Isaae. Ishmael’s expulsion. The Covenant of peace with Abimelech at Beer-sheba. CaaPTeR XXI. 1-34, And the Lord visited Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did unto Sarah as he had spoken. For Sarah conceived, and bare Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time of which God [tiohim] had spoken to him, And Abraham called the name of his son that was born unto him, whom Sarah bare to him, Isaac [sitzhak; ho or one will laugh], And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac, being eight days old [at the eighth day], as God amu had commanded him. And Abraham was an hundred years old when his son saac was born unto him. And Sarah said, God [Hlchim] hath made me to laugh, so that all that hear will laugh with me. And she said, Who would have said unto Abraham, that Sarah should have given children suck? for I have borne him a son in his old age. And the child grew and was weaned: and Abraham made a great feast the same day that Isaac was weaned. And Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, which she had borne 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. And the thing was very grievous in Abraham’s sight, because of his son. And 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 [thy descendants] be called. And also of the son of the bondwoman will I make a nation, because he is thy seed. And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and took bread, and a bottle of water, and gave zt unto Hagar, putting 2 on her shoulder, and [took with her] the child, and sent her away: and she departed, and wandered in the wilderness of Beer-sheba [seven wells; well of the oath], And the water was spent in the bottle, and she cast the child under one of the shrubs, And she went, and sat her down over against him a good way off, as it were a bow- shot [as archers]: for she said, Let me not see the death of the child. And she sat over against Aim, and lifted up her voice and wept. And God [Mobim] heard the voice of the lad; and the angel of God? [Bichim] called to Hagar out of heaven,.and said unto her, What aileth thee, Hagar? fear not; for God [Hlobim] hath heard the voice of the lad where he zs. Arise, lift up the lad, and hold him in thine hand; for I will make him a great nation. And God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water; and she went, and filled the bottle with water, and gave the lad drink. And God was with the lad; and he grew, and dwelt in the wilderness, and became an [mighty] archer. And 456 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. he dwelt in the wilderness of Paran [Gesenius: prob. a region abounding in caverns}: and his mother took him a wife out of the land of Egypt. : And it came to pass at that time, that Abimelech and Phichol [mouth of all i. €., com= manding all] the chief captain of his host [general] spake unto Abraham, saying, God Elohim] is with thee in all that thou doest: Now therefore swear unto me here by God ania that thou wilt not deal falsely [injure deceitfuly] with me, nor with my son, nor with my son’s son: but [rather] according to the kindness [truth] that I have done unto thee, thou shalt do unto me, and to the land wherein thou hast sojourned. And Abraham said, I will swear. And Abraham reproved Abimelech [brought a charge against him] be- ease [im the case] of a well of water, which Abimelech’s servants had violently taken away. And Abimelech said, I wot not [have not known] who hath done this thing; neither didst thou tell me, neither yet heard I of ct but to-day. And Abraham took sheep and oxen, and gave them unto Abimelech; and both of them made a covenant. 29 And Abraham set [still] seven ewe-lambs of the flock by themselves. And Abime- lech said unto Abraham, What mean these seven ewe-lambs, which thou hast set by themselves? And he said, For these seven ewe-lambs shalt thou take of my hand, that they may be a witness unto me that I have digged this well. called that place Beer-sheba; because there they sware both of them. Wherefore he Thus they made a covenant at Beer-sheba: then Abimelech rose up, and Phichol the chief captain of his host, and they returned into the land of the Philistines. name of the Lord, the everlasting God. land many days. And Abraham planted a grove [Tamarisk, tree] in Beer-sheba, and called there on the And Abraham sojourned in the Philistines’ (? Ver. 12.—In Isaac shall seed be called to thee.—A. G.] [? Ver. 17.—Not Hi" YN, as in ch. xvi. 7.—A. G] GENERAL PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 1. Delitzsch holds (“ not led astray by ch. xxi. 1”) that ch. xxi. 1-21, forms the fourth Elohistic part of the third section of the life of Abraham. The first part (vers. 1-8, of ch. xxi.) goes back to ch. xvii., unfolds itself with a clear reference to it, and forms one whole with it. The second verse here refers to ch. xvii. 21. According to Knobel on the contrary, only ch. xxi. 2-5, belong to the original writing ; the rest consists of Jehovistic enlargements, out of records which, at the most, may possibly be Elohistic. Since Delitzsch describes ch, xx. also as Elohistic, it is plain that he must assume different Elohistic sources. But out of this assumption the whole arbitrary and artificial hypothesis may be developed. There must certainly be some internal reason for the change of the names in the first and second verses. That the name Elohim should be used in the history of ‘the expulsion of Ishmael, and of the covenant of Abraham with Abimelech requires no explanation: Abimelech does not know Jehovah; Ishmael walks under the general providence of God. The reason lies in the fact that in ver, 2 there is a reference to ch. xvii. 21, while ver. 1 refers to ch. xviii. 14. So likewise it is with the circumcision of Isaac, which Elohim commanded (ver. 4); it embraces in Isaac both Esau and Jacob. Sarah also (ver. 6), refers the name of Isaac to the arrangement of Elohim; since every one in the world (existing under Elohim), would recognize Isaac as a miraculously given child—awakening laughter and joy.* * [‘ The birth of Isaac is the first result of the covenant, and the first step toward its goal. As itis the germ of the future development, and looks to the greater than Isaac—the New Testament Son of Promise—so it is the practical and persona) pledge on God’s part, that the salvation of the world shall be accomplished.” Jacobus.—A. G.] 2. It is questionable whether we should refer ver. 8 to what precedes, or what follows. Delitzsch fa- vors the first connection, Knobel and Keil the last. They suppose that the feast at the weaning of Isaac gave occasion for the expulsion of Ishmael. But this is not certain, and were it even certain, ver. 8 could, notwithstanding, belong to the conclusion of the history of the childhood of Isaac, EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL. 1, Isaac's birth, cireumeision, and the feast at his weaning.—(Vers. 1-8)—And the Lord (Jehovah) visited [The Sept. has éreoxéjaro, a word adopted by St. Luke in two places in the song of Zacharias (Luke i. 68-78), who thus intimates the connection between the birth of Isaac and the birth of the promised seed.” Wornswoarrn p. 93. He refers also to the connection of the song of the bles- sed virgin with these exultant and thankful words of Sarah. See also Gen. xvii. 17-19; Luke ii, 21; John vill. 56; and Luke i. 44-47.—A.G.] Sarah.—pp to come to, to visit, to visit with the purpose of aiding, of saving, or with the design to punish, marking the great transitions in the providence of God; an idea running throughout the Scriptures (ch. 1, 24; Ex. iii, 16), to express which, according to Knobel, the Elohist uses "31 (ch, viii. 1; xix. 29; xxx. 20); where, however, in the two first cases, the ideas are widely different. The pregnancy of Sarah is traced back to Jehovah, since the conception of Isaac is a fruit of faith, i. e., of that connection of the sexes, on the part of both parents, animated and sanctified through faith.—As he had said (ch. xviii, 14).—As God had said to him (ch. xvii. 21),—[These ex- pressions have an exegetical value, not only aa CHAP. XXI. 1-34. 457 showing the divine faithfulness, and the develop- ment of his plan, but as showing also how the different parts of this book are inwoven together, and thus prove its unity.—A. G.]—As God had commanded him (ch. xvii. 12).—It is assumed, alluding to what had been done before on this occasion, that the son should bear the name Isaac. God had given him this name already, before his birth (ch. xvii. 19; comp. xix. 11). The special cause of this name lies in the laughing of Abraham (ch. xvii.) whose darker echo is heard in the laugh of Sarah (ch. xviii.), and the laughter of the people at this singular birth, of which Sarah speaks further here. The one thread running through all these various laughs is the apparently incredible nature of the event. Knobel, therefore, holds, without suf- ficient ground, that these are “‘ different attempts to explain the origin of the name.”—An hundred years old (see ch, xvii. 24)—And Sarah said, God hath made me to laugh.—Delitzsch signal- izes the poetical force of the two sentences of Sarah. “ They are joyful cries, the first a distich, the second in three lines, Hence also the term >579 instead of saz. Sarah, without doubt, goes back to the divine giving of the name, which the laughing of Abraham had occasioned. But then also, she glances at her own laughing, which is now followed by another and better laugh, even the joyful cry of a thankful faith. That laugh arose from her unbelief, this Jehovah has given to her as the fruit of her faith. But she must explain still further, and that not without a certain feeling of shame.” (Delitzsch, comp. ch. xviii. 12.) —All that hear will laugh with me.—[79 with the perfect has the sense of the conjunctive. Ket1, p. 172.—A. G.]—i. e., with astonishment at the mi- raculously given child—A great feast.—Srarkz: “The Hebrews, and other eastern nations, named their feasts from the drinks (Mmti"2), as if more regard was paid to the drinks than to the food.” But as the joy over Isaac, in respect to the promise given in him, was directed more to the spiritual than the bodily, so also without doubt this feast was arranged with reference to the same thing—And the child grew.—Knobel and Keil refer the eighth verse to the following section. ‘ Ishmael,” Ker remarks, ‘mocked at the feast held at the weaning of Isaac.”* Knogen: he had made sport. But it is hardly probable that Ishmael had thus made sport or mocked on one occasion only. “The weaning of the child was often delayed, sometimes after three (2 Mace.vii. 27; Monao Parx’s “ Travels,” p. 237), and even after four years, (RussEL: “Natural History of Aleppo,” I. p.427). [“ The weaning from the mother’s breast was the first step to the independent existence of the child” (Baumgarten), and hence gave occasion for the profane wit and mocking of Ishmael, in which there was, as Keil remarks, unbelief, envy, and pride—A. G.]_ It was observed by Abraham, as also to day in the lands of the east, as a family feast. Scuréper: “The Koran fixes two years, at least, as the period of nursing children.” 2. The expulsion of Ishmael (vers. 9-21)—And Sarah saw the son of Hagar.—It is not said that this happened at the feast upon the weaning of Isaac, The different explanations of Px. The first ex- planation: The word describes one making sport, as * (Kurtz says that Ishmael laughed at the contrast be- tween the promises and corresponding epee centring in Isaac, and ate weak nursling, p. 201.—A. G. ch. xix. 14; Ishmael appears as a playful lad, leap- ing and dancing around, who thus excited the envy of Sarah. Thus Knobel, after Aben Ezra, Ilgen, Gesenius, Tuch. The Septuagint and Vulgate intro- duce so much into the text: ‘playing with Isaac.” Since Ishmael was fourteen years of age at the birth of Isaac, and now about sixteen to seventeen, Sarah must certainly have seen him playing with Isaac much earlier, with jealousy, if his playfulness gener- ally could indeed have excited her jealousy. But if Ishmael, at the feast-day of Isaac, was extravagantly joyful, he thus gave an assurance of his good-will towards her son, the heir of the house. Hence the second explanation: The word describes the act of scoffing, mockery. Keil and others, after Kimchi, Vatabl, Piscat, Grot, against which Knobel objects that the word in question was never used of mock- ing. ‘Still less,” he adds, ‘‘are we to think of a persecution of Isaac (Gal. iv. 29; Rosenm.; DeL), or of a controversy about the inheritance (the old Jewish interpret.), or of an idolatrous service (Jona- than, Jarchi).” Dertrrzscu explains: “ Ishmael, at the feast of the weaning of the child, made sport of the son of his father instead of sharing the joy of the household.” But the text certainly says only that Sarah made the observation that he was a jest- ing, mocking youth. But since the pmx7a follows so directly upon PM¥7, so we may certainly conjecture that the word is here used to denote that he mim- icked Isaac, jeered at him, or he ridiculed Isaac. [He does not laugh, but makes himself sportive, derides. This little feeble Isaac a father of nations! HenestenserG: Beitrdge, ii. p. 276. Kurtz urges well in favor of the stronger meaning of the word, the force of the Pihel and the fact that the conduct of Ishmael so described was made the reason by Sarah for her demand that the son of the bondwoman should be driven out, p. 202.—A. G.] Leaving this out of view, the observation of Sarah was certainly the observation of a development of character. Ish- mael developed a characteristic trait of jealousy, and such persons pass easily, even without any inclina- tion, to mockery. It is probable that this reviling conduct appeared in some striking way at the feast of the weaning of Isaac, although this cannot be in- ferred with certainty from the text. “The Rabbins feign here a controversy between the children, about the descent of Isaac from Abimelech, about the inher- itance, and the like.” Schréder. Sarah does not regard him directly as a pretender, claimiug the rights of primogeniture, but as one unworthy to be heir with her son. Even later, the moral earnestness and the sense and love of truth in the heir of the promise, are wanting in the talking and fiction-loving Arab. But tradition has added to this feature, his hand is against every man, and thus has found the explana- tion, that he persecuted Isaac with his jests and scoffs, a tradition which Paul could use in his alle- gorical explanation. [The apostle does far more than merely use a Jewish tradition. He appears to allude to the use made of this history by the prophet Isaiah (ch. liv.), and in his explanation of the alle- gory states that the conduct of Ishmael towards Isaac was a type of the conduct of the self-righteous Jews towards those who were trusting in Christ alone for righteousness, or who were believers. This mocking, therefore, was the persecution of him who was born «ar& odpra against him who was born «ara wvedus, In this view, the word can only mean the unbelieving, envious sport and derision of this youth, 458 proud of his mere fleshly preéminence, as Keil and Hengstenberg hold. He was thus, obviously, in heart separated from the household of faith—A. G.] The’ passages, however, which Delitzsch quotes (ch. xxxix. 14 and Ezek. xxiii, 82) for the meaning of PMs, to scoff, must not be overlooked. In her es- timate of character, Sarah was far superior to Abra- ham, as Rebekah was also superior to Isaac in judg- ment in reference to her two sons.—Cast out * this pbondwoman and her son.—Knobel thinks that according to ch. xxv. 6 the Elobist has not admitted into the record any such expulsion. The unmerciful severity towards his own son and his mother, does not agree well with the character of Abraham, and it is doubtful, therefore, whether we are dealing here with a literal fact. But this isa mere human arbi- trariness, in which the lofty, pure motive, remains unappreciated. [There is underlying all these ob- jections of Knobel and others who sympathize with him, a false hermeneutical principle, viz. that we must interpret and explain the word by what we conceive to have been the moral state and feelings of these historical personages.—A. G.] The word of Sarah was displeasing to Abraham also. It is not the Angel of the Lord, but God as Elohim, who confirms the judgment of Sarah. For the exclusion ot Ishmael was requisite not only to the prosperity of Isaac and the line of the promise, but to the wel- fare of Ishmael himself.—F'or in Isaac shall thy seed be called (see ch. xvii. 19)—There are three explanations of these words: 1. After Isaac shall thy seed be named (Hofmann). But Delitzsch reminds us that the people of the promise are only once called Isaac (Amos vii. 9). 2. In Isaac shall thy seed be called into existence (Drechsler) ; better, 8. In Isaac shall the people which is, and is called (Is, xli. 8) the peculiar seed of Abraham, have its point of de- parture (Bleek, Delitzsch)—And also of the son of the bondwoman (comp. ch. xvii. 20; xvi. 12). —And Abraham rose up early in the morning. —RHe did not yield to the will of Sarah, but indeed to the command of God which, as it seems, came to him in a revelation by night. This decided, perfect, prompt cheerfulness, proves that he would, at the command of God, sacrifice Isaac also (ch. xxii, 3),— And took bread and a bottle of water.—The narrative passes over the provision of Hagar with the simple requisites for her journey ; with the bread it may be thought (ch. xxv. 6) that there was in- cluded a provision with money for a longer time. He had doubtless made known to his household the revelation of the night, so that Sarah might not be elated nor Hagar depressed.—And the child.— [He was now about sixteen or seventeen—a youth. “Boys were often married at this age.” Ishmael was soon after married. This must be borne in mind in our_estimate of the command given to Abraham. —A.G.] According to the Septuagint, Tuch, and others, the author places the burden upon the boy also ; [The 4 conjunctive makes it necessary that the ‘32°71 M¥} should be connected with the principal verb mp. Kerz, p. 172.—A. G.] but this does not follow from the text. Knobel correctly recalls to view that Ishmael was at this time at least sixteen years old. Delitzsch, on the contrary, understands the passage in’the first instance thus: Abraham “* (Bush suggests that it is some legal divorce which is intended. The Heb. word has that meaning, see Lev. xxi. 7,14; xxii, 13; Is. lvii. 20.—A. G.] GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. \ placed Isaac [Ishmael ?—A. G.] also upon the back of Hagar ; and speaks of inconsistencies and contra- dictions in the context ; but then, he himself destroys this interpretation in a casual side remark. The: Vulgate also here corrects the Septuagint.—She:de-: parted and wandered.—In the first case she found the way easily, for her flight was voluntary, but in: this case she is quickly lost, no doubt because of the extreme agitation of her mind on account of her sudden dismissal. Luther has admirably shown these inward causes for her wandering.—In the wil- derness of Beersheba.—Southerly from Beersheba (see ver. 83), bordering upon the desert El Tih— And the water was spent in the bottle.—This was the special necessary of life for those passing through the desert. The boy began to faint from thirst.—And she cast the child.—The words here have certainly the appearance as if spoken of a little child. But a wearied boy of sixteen years, unac- quainted with the straits of the desert, would natu- ‘rally be to the anxious mother like a little child. The expression, she cast him, is an expression that, with a feeling of despair, or of renunciation, she suddenly laid down the wearied one, whom she had. supported and drawn along with her, as if she had prayed that he might die, and then hastened away with the feeling that she had sacrificed her child. A whole group of the beautiful traits of a mother's, love appear here; she lays her child under the pro- tecting shadow of a bush; she hastens away; she seats herself over against him at the distance of a bowshot, because she will not see him die, and yet’ cannot leave him, and there weeps aloud. Thusalso Ishmael must be offered up, as Isaac was somewhat later. But through this necessity he was conse- crated, with his future race, to be the son and king of the desert. And now Hagar must discover the oasis, which -is also a condition of life for the sons of the desert—As it were a bowshot.—Just as the stone’s throw in Luke xxi. 41.—And God heard the voice of the lad.—The weeping of the mother and the child forms one voice, which the narrative assumes. It is a groundless particularism when it'is said Ishmael was heard because he was the son of Abraham.—And the Angel of God.*— As Jehovah himself is Elohim for Ishmael, so the Angel of the Lord (Jehovah) also is for him the Angel of God. There is no word here of a peculiar angelic appearance, for Hagar only hears the call of the Angel from heaven. But the call of the Angel was 80 far completed by the work of God that he opened her eyes. Since she suffers on account of the pcople of revelation, the angel of revelation here also, as in her flight, ch. xvi., protects and rescues her.—What aileth thee, Hagar? Fear not.— Her heart grows firm and strong again under the revelation from above—And hold him in thine hand.—Jerome infers admirably from this expres- sion as to the sense of the former passage, ‘ from which it is manifest that he who is held could not have been a burden upon his mother, but her com- panion.”—-For I will make him a great nation. —A repetition of the earlier promise in ch. xvi. He therefore cannot die—I will make him.—It is only the Angel of Elohim, who is Elohim, who can thus speak.—And she saw a well of water.-A * ies angel of Elohim, not Jehovah, because Ishmael, since the divinely ordained removal from the house of Abra- ham, passes from under the protection of the covenant God, to that of the leading and providence of God, the ruler of all nations. KextL, p. 173.—A. G.] CHAP, XXI. 1-34, 459 living fountain, not merely a cistern. The cisterns were covered, and only discoverable by signs which were known only to those who were entrusted with the secret. Some have conjectured that Hagar now discovered these marks of a cistern. But it is a well in the peculiar sense which is here spoken of.— And gave the lad drink.—Ishmael is saved, atid now grows up as the consecrated son of the desert. --And became an archer.—The bow was the means of his livelihood in the desert. ‘ Some of the Ishmaelitish tribes, e. g., the Kedarenes and Itureans (ch. xxv, 18-15), distinguish themselves through this weapon.” Knobel. For the twofold signification 35, see Detivzscu, p. 410.¥—And he dwelt in the wilderness of Paran.—Ishmael is already in the way from Palestine to Arabia. The wilderness of Paran is the present great desert El Tih. It runs from the southern border of Palestine, especially from the desert of Beersheba, beginning with the desert of Sin, between Palestine and Egypt, south- easterly down to the northern part of the Sinaitic peninsula, where it is limited by the mountains of Paran [Robinson and Coleman think it embraces the whole great desert, and this supposition best: meets the various notices of this desert in the Scriptures.— A. G.] (See the article in the ‘‘ Bible Dictionary for Christian _People.”)—A wife out of the land of Egypt.—Hagar takes a wife for her son from her own home. Thus the heathen element at once re- ceives additional strength, The Ishmaelite Arabs are thus, as to their natural origin, sprung from a twofold mingling of Hebrew aud Egyptian blood; of on ideal and contented disposition, inwoven with a recluse, dream-like, and gloomy view of the world. 8. The covenant between Abraham and Abimelech (vers, 22-34),—And Abimelech spake unto Abra- ham,—Abimelech, i. e., father of the king, or father- king, the king my father, the title of the kings at Gerar; Phichol, i. e., the mouth of all, probably also a title of the highest officer of the kings at Gerar. The proposition of Abimelech to Abraham to make a covenant with him rests upon a deep feel- ing of the blessing which Abraham had in commun- ion with God, and upon a strong presentiment that in the future he would be a dangerous power to.the inhabitants of Canaan. It is to this man’s praise that he does not seek in a criminal way to free him- self from his anxiety, as Pharaoh in his hostility to the Israelites in Egypt, or as Saul in his hostility to David, but in the direct, frank, honest way of a cove- nant. Abimelech has indeed no presentiment how far the hopes of Abraham for the future go beyond his anxieties. The willingness, however, of Abra- ham to enter into the covenant, is a proof that he had no hopes for the personal possession of Canaan. As a prudent prince, Abimelech meets him in the company of his chief captain, who might make an impression of his power upon Abraham, although he addresses his appeal chiefly to his generosity and gratitude. He appeals to the faithfulness which he had shown him, and desires only that he should not be injured by Abraham either in his person or in his descendants. But Abraham distinguishes clearly between political and private rights, and now it is for him to administer rebukes.;}—And he reproved * (Baumgarten renders a hero an archer ; and refers for an analogy to the phrase mana sIIS2, Ps 223,—A. G.] t [Murphy renders Kin and Kith to represent the He- brew "723 72°92) p- 884.—A. G.] Abimelech because of a well of water (see ch. xiii. 7; xxvi. 15; the great value of wells in Canaan). —But the ingenuous prince in part throws back the reproach upon him: Abraham had not spoken of the matter until to-day, and he had known nothing of it. He is ready, therefore, to make restitution, and now follows the making of the covenant.—Sheep and oxen.—The usual covenant presents (Is, xxx. 6; xxxix. 1; 1 Kings xv. 19).—Seven ewe lambs of the flock.—Although the well belonged to him, he secures again in the most solemn way its possession, through the execution of the covenant, since a gift which one of the contracting parties receives from the other binds him more strictly to its stipulations (Ewan; “ Antiquities,” p. 18)—Beersheba.—It is a question, in the first place, how the name is to be explainéd, and then, what relation this well, in its derivation, sustains to the wells of Beersheba (ch. xxvi. 32). Knobel asserts that the author explains Beersheba through oath of the wells, since he takes 32W for MPA, oath; but literally the word can only signify seven wells. Keil, on the other hand, -asserts that the sense of the passage is this : that the wells take their name from the seven lambs with whose gift Abraham sealed his possession. When we recollect that in the name of Isaac differently related titles were united, we shall not press the an- tithesis between the seven wells and the wells of the oath. The form designates it as the seven wells, but the seven really marks it as the well of the oath. “33153, they sware, literally they confirmed by seven, not because three, the number of the deity, is united in the oath with four, the number of the world (Leopold Schmidt, and this exposition is un- deniably suggestive), but on account of the sacred- ness of the number seven, which has its ground and origin in the number seven of the creation (which, however, may be divided into the three and the four) ; they chose seven things for the confirmation of the oath, as Herodotus, umong others, testifies of the Arabians (ch, iii. 8).” Keil. According to Kno- bel, the narrative of the name Beersheba (ch. xxvi. 80) is only another tradition concerning the origin of thesame name, ‘But Robinson,” Delitzsch replies, “after a long time the first explorer of the southern region of Palestine, found upon the borders of the desert two deep wells, with clear, excellent water.” * These wells are called Bir es Seba, seven wells; after the erroneous explanation of the Bedouins, the well of the lions. According to Robinson, Beersheba lay in the bed of a wide watercourse running here towards the coast, called Wady es Seba (Ros. * Pal.” i. p. 300).— And he planted a grove (tamarisk), —‘“ Probably the Zamarix Africana, common in Egypt, Petrea, and Palestine ; not a collection (com- pare with this tamarisk of Abraham, that in Gibeah, 1 Sam. xxii. 6, and that in Jabesh, 1 Sam, xxxi. 18),” Delitzsch. “They were accustomed to plant the tamarisks as garden trees, which grew to a remark- able height and furnished a wide shade.” [Calvin remarks that the planting of the trees indicates that Abraham enjoyed: more of quiet and rest after the covenant was made than he had done before.—A. G.} Michaelis. The tamarisk, with its lasting wood and evergreen foliage, was an emblem of the eternity of God, whom he declared, or as Keil expresses it, of * [There are thus, in fact, two wells, from which the city might have been named, and from which it was named, ac- cording to the two accounts or testimonies in Genesis. Dz LITzscH, p. 296.—A. G.} 460 the eternally enduring grace of the true God of the Covenant. But it is questionable whether Abraham, the great antagonist of all that is traditional in mythology, overthrowing the symbolism of nature, would make such an exception here. We must then also suppose that his preaching of Jehovah, the eter- nal God, both preceded and followed the planting of the tamarisk. Knobel thinks it is clear that a remark- able tamarisk stood there, which one then traced back to Abraham. As a planter of the tamarisk, Abraham appears a prophet of civilization, as in his proclaim- ing of the eternal God (the RP with beth is always more definite than simply ¢o call upon ; it designates also the act of proclaiming) he is the prophet of the faith (the cultus).—The name B>43 >x appears to be used here as a peculiar explanation of 71%", and thus to justify the translation of this name by the words, the eternal. But Abraham had earlier (ch. xiv. 22) designated Jehovah as El Eljon, then recog- nized him (ch. xvii. 1) as El Shaddai. It follows from this that Jehovah revealed himself to him under various aspects, whose definitions form a parallel to the universal name Elohim. The God of the highest majesty who gave him victory over the kings of the East, the God of miraculous power who bestows upon him his son Isaac, now reveals himself in his divine covenant-truth, over against his temporary covenant with Abimelech, as the eternal God. And the tamarisk might well signify this also, that the hope of his seed should remain fresh and green until the most distant future, uninjured by his temporary covenant with Abimelech, which he will hold sacred. —Abraham sojourned in the land of the Phil- istines.—Abraham evidently remained a longer time at Beersheba, and this, together with his residence at Gerar, is described as a sojourn in the land of the Philistines. But how then could it be said before, that Abimelech and his chief captain turned back from Beersheba to the land of the Philistines? Keil solves the apparent difficulty with the remark, the land of the Philistines had at that time no fixed bounds towards the wilderness; Beersheba did not belong to Gerar, the kingdom of Abimelech in the narrower sense.—Many days.—These many days during which he sojourned in the land of the Philis- tines, form a contrast to the name of the eternal God, who had promised Canaan to him, DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL, 1, Sarah’s visitation a type of the visitation of Mary, notwithstanding the great distinction between them. The visitation lies in the extraordinary and wonderful personal grace, to which an immeasurable general human salvation is closely joined. But with Sarah this visitation occurs very late in life, and after long waiting ; with Mary it was entirely unexpected. Sarah’s body is dead; Mary had not known a hus- band. The son of Sarah is himself only a type of the son of Mary. But with both women the richest promise of heaven is limited through one particular Woman on the earth, a conception in faith, an ap- parently impossible, but yet actual human birth; both are illustrious instances of the destination of the female race, of the importance of the wife, the mother, for the kingdom of God. Both become il- lustrious since they freely subjected themselves to this destination, since they yielded their sons in the future, the sons of promise, or in the son of prom- GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. ise; for Isaac has all his importance as a type of Christ, and Christ the son of Mary is the manifesta- tion of the eternal Son.—The visitation of Sarah was that which Jehovah had promised a year before. He visits the believer with the word of promise, and visits him again with the word of fulfilment. Abra- ham must have waited five and twenty years for the promise, Sarah only one year. 2. Isaac: he will laugh, or one will laugh (see ch. xvii. 19), The believer laughs at the last, 8. The sons of old age and miraculously-given children : the sons of Noah, Isaac, Joseph (ch. xxxvii. 8), Benjamin (ch. xliv. 20), Samuel, John the Bap- tist, and Christ. 4, The little song of Sarah, the sacred joyful word of the mother over Isaac. The first cradle hymn. 5. The feast of the weaning of Isaac. “The announcement, the birth, the weaning of the child.— All this furnishes matter for manifold joy and laugh- ter; pmz7,i-e., the laughter, the fulness of foy in hisname. Our Lord reveals the profoundest source of this joy when he says (John viii. 56), Abraham your father rejoiced to see my day, and he sawit, and was glad. Since Sarah, the wife of one, became the mother of Isaac, she became the mother of Is- rael (Is. li, 2; Mal. ii, 15; Ezek. xxxiii. 24), and since she is the mother of Israel, the ancestress, and, in some sense, the mother of Jesus Christ, who de- rives his flesh and blood from Isaac, out of Israel, and in whom Abraham is a blessing to all the na- tions, the birthday of Isaac, spiritually viewed, thus becomes the door or entrance of the day of Christ, and the day of Christ the background of the birth- day of Isaac.” Delitzsch. Calvin dwells especially upon the circumstance that Sarah nursed her child. “Whom he counts worthy of the honor of being a mother he at the same time makes nurse; and those who feel themselves burdened through the nursing of their children, rend, as far as in them lies, the sacred bonds of nature, unless weakness, or some infirmities, form their excuse.” It is remark- able that a century after the Genevan Calvin, the Genevan Rousseau should again hold up the sacred- ness of this law of nature, that mothers should nurse their own children, against the unnatural custom at his time of using wet-nurses, although, indeed, he himself had fundamentally no right to plead it. 6. The whole context confirms the Hebrew tradi- tion, which finds in the jests of Ishmael the kindred idea of mockery, and upon this rests the confirma- tion of the allegorical explanation of Paul (Gal. iv.; comp. “Biblework ” on Gal. iv. 22-80). [The apos- tle, however, does not say that the history was designed to be typical, but had been used and may be used to illustrate the truth he was discussing —A, G.] [Ish- mael mocked the child of promise, the faith of his parents, and therefore the word and purpose of God. His mocking was the outward expression of his un- belief, as the joy of his parents, which gave rise to the feast, was of their faith. It thus reveals his character as unworthy and incapable of sharing in the blessing, which then, as now, was secured only by faith. Hence, like Esau, Saul, the carnal Juda- izers of the apostle’s day, all who trust in them- ele rather than in the promise, he was cast out.— 7. Female tact and accuracy in the estimate of youthful character. Sarah. Rebekah. Sarah’s in- terference with the order of Abraham’s household CHAP. XXI. 1-34. 461 cannot be without sin, but in this case she meets and responds to the theocratic thought. This fact is re- peated in a stronger form in the position of Rebekah over against that of Isaac, since she secures to Jacob the right of the first-born. Both fathers must have their prejudices in favor of the rights of the natural first-born corrected by the presaging, far-seeing mothers, 8. Abraham rose up early in the morning, espe- cially when a command of the Lord is to be fulfilled or a sacrifice is to be brought (ch. xxii). 9. The expulsion of Hagar, Since Ishmael had grown to nearly sixteen years of age in the house of Sarah, her proposal cannot be explained upon motives of human jealousy. The text shows how painful the measure was to Abrabam. But the man of faith who should later offer up Isaac, must now be able to offer Ishmael also. He dismisses him, however, in the light of the promise, that his expul- sion confirmed his promotion to be the head of a great nation, and because the purpose of God in reference to Isaac could only become actual through this separation. The separation of Lot from Abra- ham, of Ishmael from Isaac, of Esau from Jacob, proceeds later in the separation of the ten tribes from Judah, and finally in the excision of the unbe- lieving Jewish population from the election (Rom. x.; Gal. iv.). These separations are continued even in the Christian Church. In the New-Covenant, moreover, the Jews for the most part have been ex- cluded as Ishmael, while many Ishmaelites on the contrary have been made heirs of the faith of Abra- ham. The Queen of Sheba perhaps adheres more faithfully to wisdom than Solomon. 10. The moral beauty of Hagar in the desert, in her mother-love and in her confidence in God. Ha- gar in the desert an imperishable pattern of true maternal love. 11, The straits of the desert the consecration of the sons of the desert. The terrible desert, through the wonderful help of God, the wells, and oases of God, became a dear home to him. There is no doubt, also, that after he had learned thoroughly by experience that he was not a fellow-heir with Isaac, he was richly endowed by Abraham (ch. xxv. 6), and also remained in friendly relations with Isaac (ch. xxv. 9). 12, Abimelech’s presentiment of Abraham’s fu- ture greatness, and his prudent care for the security of his kingdom in his own person and in his descend- ants. The children of Israel did not attack the land of the Philistines until the Philistines had destroyed every recollection of the old covenant relations. Abimelech ever prudent, honest, and noble. The significance of the covenant of peace between the ‘father of the faithful and a heathen prince (comp. “Covenant of Abraham,” ch. a 13. Abraham gives to Abimelech upon his de- sire the oath of the covenant, as he had earlier sworn to the king of Sodom. ‘I will swear,” the sign of the condescension of the believer, in the re- lations and necessities of human society. Bearing upon the doctrine of the oath. 14, Abraham learns the character of Jehovah in a living experience of faith, according to his varied revelations, and with this experience the knowledge of the attributes of God rises into prominence, As Elohim proves himself to be Jehovah to him, so Je- hovah again proves himself to be Elohim in a higher sense. God the Exalted is the Covenant God for him; God the Almighty performs wonders for him ; God the Eternal busies himself for him in the eternal truth of the Covenant. 15, Abraham calls upon and proclaims the name of the Lord. The one is in truth not to be sepa- rated from the other. The living prayer must yield its fruit in the declaration, the living declaration must have its root in prayer. The faith of Abraham in Jehovah develops itself into a faith in the eternal truth of his covenant, and in the ever green and vigorous life of the promise. [‘‘ He calls upon the name of the Lord with the significant surname of the God of perpetuity, the eternal, unchangeable God. This marks him as the sure and able performer of his promise, as the everlasting vindicator of the faith of treaties, and as the infallible source of the believ- er’s rest and peace.” Murphy.—A. G.] For the tamarisk (see Dictionaries of the Bible) and for the meaning of the desert of Beersheba and the city of tbe same name (see Concordances). 16. Abraham, Samson, and David, in the land of the Philistines. Alternate friendships and hostilities, Abraham at first gains in South-Canaan a well, then a grave (ch. xxiii.). Both were signs of his inherit- ing the land at some future time, 17. Beersheba, honored and sanctified through the long residence of Abraham and Isaac. This city marking the southern limits of Israel in contrast with the city of Dan as a northern limit was, later, also profaned through an idolatrous service (Amos v. 5; viii. 14). 18. Passavant dwells upon the glory of the Ara- bians in Spain for seven centuries. ‘Indeed, they still, to-day, from the wide and broad desert, ever weep over the forsaken, crushed clods of that heroic land.” But what has Roman fanaticism made of the land of Spain? He says again: ‘‘ Arabia has also its*treasures, its spices, and ointments, herds of noble animals, sweet, noble fruits, but it is not a Canaan, and its sons, coursing, racing, plundering, find in its wild freedom an uncertain inheritance.” ‘Gal. iv. 29 - is fulfilled especially in the history of Mohammed.” 19. Upon the covenant of Abraham and Abime- lech, Passavant quotes the words, Blessed are the peace-makers. Schwenke represents Abimelech as a self-righteous person, but without sufficient reason. HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL. See the doctrinal paragraphs.—The connection between Isaac’s birth and Ishmael’s expulsion.—The joyful feast in Abraham’s house.—Hagar’s necessity ; Hagar’s purification and glorification —Abraham’s second meeting with Abimelech.—Abraham at Beer- sheba, or the connection between civilization and the cultus in Abraham’s life. An example for Christian missions. 1, Isoae’s birth (ver. 1-8). Ver. 1. In the prov- idence of God we first experience that he himself visits‘ us, that he gives us himself; then that he visits us with his deeds of salvation. ‘Noble natures regard what they are as one with what they do.” It is true of God above all others, that we come to know him in his gifts, and his gifts in his visitation. —The section affords appropriate texts for baptismal discourses. Starke: the repetition (as he had spoken, of which he had spoken) has the utmost emphasis, The promises of God must at last pass into fulfil- ment, even when all hope has been lost by men. His promises are yea and amen.—LurTuEr: ‘ Moses abounds in words, and repeats his words twice, in 462 order to bring before our minds the unutterable joy of the patriarch. This joy would be increased also (if it is true, as some say, that the Son of God in human form appeared to Sarah in the sixth week, and wished her joy of her young son, ch. xviii. 10). —H. ©. Rampacu: Isaae’s birth in many respects resembles greatly the birth of Christ: 1. Both births were announced long before; 2. both occur at the time fixed by God; 3. both persons were named before they were born; 4. both were supernaturally (miraculously) conceived ; 5. both births occasioned great joy: 6. the law of circumcision begins (as to its principle) with Isaac, and ceases in (through) Christ. Ver. 7. In her joy Sarah speaks of many (several) children, when she had borne only one son, who, however, was better to her than ten sons.—She will say: Not only has my dead body received strength from God, to bring a child into the world, but Iam conscious of such strength that I can supply its food which sometimes fails much younger and more vigorous mothers.—Sarah did this (nursed her child) although she was a princess (ch, xxili. 6) and of noble blood, for the law of nature itself requires this from all, since, with this very end in view, God has given breasts to all and filled them with milk. The Scriptures united these two functions, the bearing of children and nursing them, as belong- ing to the mother (Luke xi. 27: xxiii, 29: Ps. xxii. 10). Thus these two things were reckoned among the blessings and kindness of the Great God (ch. xlix. 25), while an unfruitful body and dry breasts are a punishment from him (Hosea ix. 11-14).—Ver. 8. (Whether, as the Jews say, Shem, Melchizedec and Selah were present at this feast, cannot be said with eertainty.)—Abraham doubtless had his servants to share in the feast, and held instructive conversation with them, exhorting them to confidence in God, to the praise of his name. It is a peculiarly spiritual, joyful, and thankful feast.—An enumeration of bib- lical feasts (2 Cor. i. 20).—The blessing of children. Ingratitude, in regarding many such gifts (children) as a punishment.—Feasts after bantism are not opposed to the will of God, but they should still be observed to his honor, with pious people, without luxury, and other poor women in childbed should not be for- gotten.—Scuréper: Ver. 1. He is faithful (Num. xxiii. 19).—Since every birth flows from (is a gift from) God (Ps. cxxvii. 3), so we may rightly say, that the Lord visits those to whom he sends children.—Ver. 8. Isaac was the son of the free-woman, born through the promise of God (Gal. iv. 22, 28), consequently a type of every child of God, who through the strength of the promise, or of the gospel, is born to freedom and of a free-woman. (Roos.)—What strange dis- appointments! The son, who receives from God who hears the cries and wishes of men, his name Ishmael (God hears) is not the promised one, but the promise was fulfilled in the other, Isaac, who was named according to a more common human custom ! [The laughing of Abraham (ch. xvii. 17) has how- ever a greater spiritual worth than tle cry of Hagar for help a xvi. 11).J—Passavant: Behold, two children of one father and inthe same house, reared un- der one discipline, consecrated before the same altar, of like hearts, borne before God upon the same prayer and thus offered to him, and still so unlike in their minds and ways, in their conduct and aims, etc.; the dark mysteries of nature and grace.—TauBE: The birth of Isaac and expulsion of Ishmael an example of what occurred at the Reformation, and of what must take place in us all, GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES, 2. Ishmael’s removal (ver. 9-21). The theocratic , separations in their import: a. Judgment in respect to the fitness for theocratic purposes, but not, b. in respect to a destination to blessedness.—[So Henry, We are not sure that it was his eternal ruin; it is presumption to say that all those who are left out of the external dispensation of God’s covenant, are therefore excluded from all his mercies.—A. G.]— The providence of God over Ishmael.—The Arabians, —The Mohammedan world.—Mission Sermons.—The external separation presupposes an inward estrange- ment. SrarkE: Ver. 9. A laughing, jesting, gay, and playful youth. It may be that Ishmael had reviled Isaac because of his name which he had received from a laugh, and had treated him with scorn— Lance: Ver. 10. Sarah could not have been without human weakness in this harsh demand; but the hand of God was in it—Cramer: The faults and defects of parents usually cleave to their children, hence parents, especially mothers during pregnancy, should guard themselves lest they stain themselves with a grave fault which shall cleave to their children during their lives.— Bibl. Tid. ; The mocking spirit is the sign of an evil, proud, jealous, envious heart; take heed that thou dost not sit with the scorner (Ps, i. 1)—Bibl. Wirt. Cases often occur in a family in which the wife is much wiser than her husband, hence their advice and counsel ought not to be refused (1 Sam. xxv. 3, 17). Polygamy produces great unhappiness.—Cramer: There will arise some- times disputes between married persons, even be- tween those who are usually peaceful and friendly. Still one should not give loose reins to his passion, or allow the difference to go too far.—Ver. 12. Lance: Here we see that the seed of the bond- woman shall be distinguished from Isaac. —The general rule is, that the wife shall be subject to her husband, and in all reasonable things obey him, but here God makes an exception.—Since Abraham in the former case had followed his wife without consult- ing God, when she gave him Hagar to wife, so he must now also fulfil her will—The comparison of Ishmael with the unbelieving Jews at the time of the New Testament: the haughty, perverse, scoffing spirit of persecution; the sympathy of Abraham with Ishmael, the compassion of Jesus towards the Jews; the expulsion and wandering in the wilder- ness, but still under the Divine providence ; the hope that they shall finally attain favor and grace— Cramer: The recollection of his former sins should be a cross to the Christian.—One misfortune seldom comes alone.—Bibl. Wirt.: There is nothing which makes a man so tender and humble as the cross, affliction, and distress—Grertacn: The great truth that natural claims avail nothing before God, reveals itself clearly in this history.—Isaac receives his name from a holy laughing; Ishmael was also a laugher, but at the same time a profane scoffer.—CaLwer, Handbuch: What we often receive as a reproach, and listen to with reluctance, may contain under the rough, hard shell a noble kernel of truth, which in- deed agrees with the will of God,—Scuréprr: (Luther supposes Abraham to invite to the feast all the patriarchs then living; with Melchizedec and the King of the Philistines.)—Isaac, the subject’ of the holy laugh, serves also as a laughing-stock of profane wit.—Ishmael is the representative of that world in the church yet scoffing at the church. (In the letter to the Galatians of the bond-church, in opposition to the free.—Both, if I may say so, are the sons of laughter, CHAP. XXII. 1-19. 463 but in how different a sense. Sarah does not call Ishmael by his name (a clear sign of her indignation), and shows her contempt by calling him the son of this bond-woman, (Lurner: ch. iii.-24; Prov. xxii. 10; John viii. 35.)—Ver. 13. Ishmael remained his son, and indeed his first-born, whom he had long held for the heir of the blessing. It is never easy to rend from our hearts the objects of our dear affec- tions. But he who must soon offer Isaac also is here put into the school for preparation. Michaelis sees in this removal the evidence that God was displeased with polygamy.—Ver. 14. In many points surely the men of God seem somewhat cold and hard-hearted (Ex. xxxii. 27; Deut. xiii, 6 ff. ; xxxili. 9; Matt. x. 37; Luke xiv. 26). After this distinction was clearly made, Ish- mael himself might draw near again (ch. xxv, 9) and indeed share in the possessions of his rich father. Baumgarten.— The expulsion of Ishmael was a warning for Israel, so far as it constantly relied upon its natural sonship from Abraham.—Thus the Papists to-day, when they parade their long succession, say nothing more than if they also called Ishmael the first-born.—Ver. 17. We see moreover here that if father and mother forsake us, then the Lord himself willtakeusup. UaLvin.—THESAsME: Ver.19. If God withdraw from us the grace of his providence we are as surely deprived of all means of help, even of those which lie near at hand, as if they were far removed from us. We pray him, therefore, not only that he would supply us with what we need, but give us pru- dence to make a right use of it; otherwise it will happen that, with closed eyes, we shall lie in the midst of our supplies and perish.* — Passavant: Hagar’s marriage was Sarah’s own deed, not the work of God, and this also made her fearful. -Men easily become anxious about their own, self-chosen ways,—Abraham obeys.—The obedience of the pious * [So we do not see the fountain opened for sinners in this ue wilAerness until God opens our eyes. Jacobus. —A.G. blessed in its results in all cases—God knows how to find us, even in the wilderness. 3. Abraham’s covenant with Abimelech (vers. 22-34).—Traces of noble minds in the heathen world.—The Hebrews and the Philistines —Why they attract and why repel.—Srarke: Bibl. Tud.. Even the world wonders at the blessedness of the Pious.—Bibl. Wirt. It is allowed the Christian truly to enter into covenant with strange, foreign, and, to a certain extent, with unbelieving people.—A pious man ought to complain to the rulers of the reproach and injustice he suffers—Rulers should themselves guard the care of the land, since cour- tiers often do what they wish_—The Rabbins (ver. 33) think that Abraham planted a garden of fruit- trees, in which he received and entertained the stran- gers, from which he did not suffer theni to depart until they became proselytes.—It is probable that Abraham had pitched near a grove or wood, from which he might have wood for his sacrifices, and in which he might perhaps hold his worship, and also that he might have more shade in this hot Eastern land.—TI am also a stranger here upon the earth.— GerLacu: Ver, 22. The blessing of God which rest- ed upon Abraham awakened reverence even in these heathen, who served still the true God; a type of the blessing which, even in Old-Testament times, passed over from the covenant people upon the heathen.— Scuréper: A consolation follows upon the great sorrow (Calvin).—The oath was an act of condescen- sion to the evident mistrust of the Princes; in the other aspect an act of worship.—The Holy -Scrip- tures regard the oath as if a peculiar sacrament; there is the name of God, and the hearts of the peo- ple are reconciled, and mistrust and strifes destroyed. (Luther),—Nature fixes itself firmly when all goes well. But faith knows here no continuing city (Ber- lenburger Bibel).—Moses reports three sacred works of Abraham: 1. He labored; 2. he preached; 38. he bore patiently his long sojourn in a strange land. TENTH SECTION. e The sacrifice of Isaac, The sealing of the faith of Abraham. The completion and sealing of the Divine Promise. Carter XXII. 1-19, 1 And it came to pass after these things [preparatory thereto|, that God [Elohim] did 2 tempt’ Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, herel am. And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah [shown or provided of Jehovah] ;* and offer him there for a burnt offering*® upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of. : 3 And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his.ass, and took two of’ his young men [servants] with him, and Isaac his son, and clave the wood for tlie burnt 4 offering, and rose up, and went unto the place of which God had told him. Then on 5 the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place afar off. And-Abraham said unto his young men, Abide ye-here with the ass; and I and the lad will go yonder 6 and worship, and come [may come] again to you (M=12). And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid 2é upon Isaac his son; and-he took the fire in his hand, . 464 GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. 7 and a knife: and they went both of them together. And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father: and he said, Here amTI [1hear], my son. And he 8 said, Behold the fire and the wood, but where zs the lamb for a burnt offering ? And Abraham said, My son, God will provide* himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they 9 went agree! both of them together. And they came to the place which God had told him of; and Abraham built an altar there, and ‘laid [uponit] the wood in order; and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood. And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son. And the angel of the Lord called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham: and he said, Here am I, And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know [Ihave perceived | that thou fearest God [literally : a God-fearer art thou], seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me. And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked [spied, descriea], and behold, behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him for a burnt offering in the stead of his son. And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovah-jireh® [Jehovah will see]: as it is said to this day, In the mount of the Lord it shall be seen, And the angel of the Lord called unto Abraham out of heaven the second time, And said, By myself have I sworn, saith the Lord, for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son: That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which zs upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies, And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed [shall bless themselves ; Hithpael] ; because thou hast obeyed my voice. So Abraham returned unto his young men; and they rose up, and went together to Beer-sheba; and Abraham dwelt [still longer] at Beer-sheba. 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 {! Ver. 1.—103), to try, to prove, to put tothe test. And, since men are tested only as they are placed in circumstances of temptation, to tempt.—A. G.] (? Ver. 2.—Or where Jehovah is seen, appears, is manifested.—A. G.] (3 Ver. 2.—Heb., Make him ascend for a pegtnerinaes G.] {4 Ver. 8.— Will see for himself a lamb.—A. G. (8 Ver, 14.—Lit., Jehovah shall be seen—or appear—or be manifested. Most of the early versions render Jehovah in J the nominative.—A., G. GENERAL PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 1, The documentary hypothesis [which implies not only that historical documents may have come down to Moses, and were used by him, but also that the book is compacted from distinct and still distinguishable conpositious—A. G] meets in this section a very significant rebuke, whose import has not been sufficiently estimated either by Knobel or Delitzsch. ‘Leaving out of view the term Elohim, nothing reminds us,” says Knobel, “ of the Elohistic, but rather, everything is in favor of the Jehovistic author, e. g., in the main point, its whole tendency as thus stated (the knowledge of the unlawfulness of human sacrifices in Israel), the human way in which God is spoken of, ete. We must, therefore, hold that the Jehovist uses Elohim here, so long as he treats of human sacrifices, and then first, after this sacrifice, so foreign to the religion of Jehovah (ver. 1), has been rebuked, uses Jehovah.” The real distinction of the names of God is thus recognized without considering its consequences, Delitzsch says, “‘the enlarger generally uses the name min" less exclusively than the author of the original writing the pwm>x(n), This change of the names of God is, at all events, significant, as is every change of the names of God in the original dependence and con- nection of one of the two narrators.” This conces- sion does not agree with his introduction, when he says, “‘u comprehensible distinction between the two names of God, Elohim and Jehovah, is not always to be received; the author has often merely found a pleasure in ornamenting his work with the alternation of these two names” (p. 82, 38), The change in the names in this section is explained by the fact, that the revelation of God, which the patriarch re- ceived at the beginning of the history, mingled itself in his consciousness with traditional Elohistic ideas or prejudices, while in the sequel, the second revela- tion of Jehovah makes a clear and lasting distinction between the pure word of Jehovah, and the tradi- ie Elohistic, or general religious apprehension of it. 2. We have already discussed, in the introduc- tion (p. Ixxiv. ff.), the peculiar idea in the history of the sacrifice of Isaac, which the traditional theologi- cal misunderstanding has transformed into a dark enigma, which lies as a grave difficulty or stumbling block in the history. In his “ History of the Old Covenant” (2d_ed. p. 205), Kurtz resumes with great zeal the discussion, with reference to HENGSTENBERG'S Beitrage, iii. p. 145; Lanz: Leben Jesu, i. p. 120; “Positive Dogmatics,” p, 818, and other works, and asserts directly that God demanded from Abraham the actual slaying of Isaac. It is no difficulty, in his view, that God, the true one, who is truth, commands at the beginning of the narrative, what he forbids at the close, as it was not difficult to him to hold that the assumed angels (ch. vi.) were created sexless, but had in some magical way themselves created for them- selves the sexual power. [This is the difficulty which CHAP, XXII. 1-19.. 465 Kurtz overlooks. It is not the difficulty in reconciling this command with the prohibition of human sacrifices in the Mosaic law, but in reconciling the command with the prohibition in this history, if the killing of Isaac is referred to in both. Hengstenberg and those who argue with him, urge in favor of their view: 1. That the command relates only to the spiritual sacri- fice of Isaac, here termed a burnt-offering because of the entire renunciation of Isaac as a son by na- ture, which he was to make, so that Isaac was to be dead to him, and then received back again from the dead, no longer in any sense a son of the flesh, but the son of promise and of grace; and then, 2. the numerous places in the Scripture in which these sac- rificial terms are used in a spiritual sense (e. g., Hos. xiv. 3; Ps. xl. 7-9; where the same term, burnt- offering, is used, and the Psalmist describes the en- tire yielding of his personality as the sacrifice which God required; Ps. li. 19; cxix. 108; Rom. xii. 1; Phil. iv. 18 ; Heb. xiii. 15, etc. See also the passage 1 Sam. i. 24, 25); and finally 3. the force and usage of the word here rendered to tempt. But on the other hand it is urged with great force: 1. That the terms here used are such as to justify, if not require, the interpretation which Abraham put upon the com- mand, i. e., that he was required literally to slay his son asa sacrifice; 2. that it is only as thus under- stood that we see the force of the temptation to which Abraham was subjected. It is obviously the design of the writer to present this temptation as the most severe and conclusive test. He was tried in the conmand to leave his home, in his long waiting for the promised seed, in the command to expel Ish- muel. test. It remained to be seen whether it would yield the son of promise also. This test, therefore, was applied. The temptation was not merely to part with his son, the only son of his love, but it was in the command to put him to death, of whom it was said, “in Isaac shall thy seed be called.” The com- mand and the promise were apparently in direct con- flict. If he obeys the command he would seem to frustrate the promise; if he held fast to the promise and saved his son he would disobey the command. 8. That this interpretation best explains the whole transaction, as it related to Isaac as the channel of blessing to the world, and the type of Christ, who was the true human sacrifice—the man for men. 4. That there is no real moral difficulty, since God, who is the giver of life, has a right to require it, and since his command clearly expressed, both justified Abraham in this painful deed and made it binding upon him. 5. That this seems to be required by the words of the apostle, Heb. xi. 19, ‘accounting that God was able to raise him from the dead.” The weight of authority is greatly in favor of the latter interpretation, even among recent commentators, and it is clearly to be preferred. In regard to the difficulty which Hengstenberg and Lange urge, it may be said that the command of God is not always a revelation of his secret will, He did not intend that Abraham should actually slay his son, and there is therefore no change in his purpose or will. He did intend that Abraham should understand that he was to do this. It was his purpose now to apply the final test of his faith (a test needful to the patriarch himself, and to all believers), which could only be the surrender to the will of God of that which he held most dear; in this case his son, the son of promise, in whom his seed should be called. To ap- ply the test, he commands the patriarch, as he had a 30 In all these his faith and obedience stood the. perfect right to do, to go and offer his son a burnt- offering. When the act was performed in heart, and was about to be actually completed, the test was clear, the obedience of faith was manifest, the whole condition of things was changed, and there was therefore a corresponding change in the formal com- mand, though no change in the. divine purpose.— A.G.] The actual divine restraint, which even restrained the sacrifice of Isaac in the very act (p. 207), forms the reconciling middle-term be- tween the command to Abraham and the pro- hibition to Abraham’s descendants. We cannot truly yield our assent to such reconciling middle- terms between the commands and prohibitions of God, The question, how could the assumed posi- tive command, “Thou shalt slay Isaac,” become a ground of the certain faith of Abraham? which is the main difficulty in the ordinary view of the pas- sage, Delitzsch dismisses with the remark (8d ed. p. 418), “the subjective criterion of a fact of revela- tion is not its agreement with the utterances of the so-called pious consciousness which exalts itself above the Scripture, etc., but it is the experience of the new-birth.” This accords entirely with the ex- planation of the Tridentine theologians. The sub- jective criterion of a fact of revelation is rather that clear, i. e., calm, because free from doubt, firm cer- tainty of faith produced directly by the fact of reve- lation itself. And this is truly a consciousness of the pious, which does not indeed set itself above the Scripture, but with which, also, the different acts, words, and commands of Jehovah, who ever remains the same in his truth and veracity, cannot be in con- flict. The agreement between the declarations of the eternal revelation, and the eternal declarations of the religious consciousness, is so far wanting here, that Delitzsch says: “Israel knew that God had once required from Abraham (the human sacrifice) in order to fix for it a prohibition for all time. The law therefore recognizes the human sacrifice only as an abomination of the Moloch-worship (Lev. xviii. 21; xx. 1-5), and the case of Jephthah belongs to a time when the Israclitish and Canaanitish popular spirit and views were peculiarly intermingled.” Then the abomination of the Moloch-service in Israel rests purely upon the positive ground of the example in this history, an example which with the same extreme positiveness, might be understood to have just the contrary force, if it signifies, perhaps; we may omit the human sacrifice in all such cases, when Je- hovah makes the same wonderful prohibition. As to the sacrifice of Jephthah, Delitzsch regards it as a sort of reconciling middle-term between the Moloch- worship of the Canaanites and the prohibition of a Moloch-worship in Israel, that a hero of the time of the Judges should have acted in a heathen (even Canaanitish !) rather than in an Israelitish manner. Jephthah, who with the most definite and triumphant consciousness. distinguishes between the Moabitish and Ammonite God, Chemosh, to whom, probably, human sacrifices were offered (2 Kings iii. 27), and the God of Israel, Jehovah (Judg, xi. 24); Jephthah, who made his vow of a sacrifice to Jehovah, after the spirit of Jehovah came upon him (ver. 29), a vow which was connected with a prayer for victory over a Moloch-serving people ; Jephthah, who was clearly conscious that he had made his vow to Jehovah that through him he might overcome the children of Am- mon under their God Chemosh ; offered indeed an abomination to Jehovah; and it is obvious what is meant when it is said, the daughters upon the moun- 466 tains bewailed her virginity (not the lost, but the illegally fixed) and not her life, although the matter concerned her life; but it is not so evident when it is said that she never knew a man, after her father had put her to death (ver. 89), and it must not sur- prise us, truly, that it became a custom for the daugh- ters of Israel to spend four days yearly to commemo- rate and praise a virgin who was entirely in accord- ance with her father in the most hurtful and godless misunderstanding, and in the most abominable sacri- fice.* We have to observe three oppositions in this history: first, that between VN") MO} and NIP pr2uri~y | second, that between onn>xn and min, and third, that between m>3m of verse second and ‘UMW of verse tenth.—The key to the explana- tion of the whole history lies in the expression 70). It denotes not simply to prove, or to put to the test (Knobel, Delitzsch), but to prove under circumstances which have originated from sin, and which increase the severity of the proof, and make it a temptation. And in so far as the union of the elements of the testing and of the tempting, i. e., the soliciting to evil, is under the providence of Jehovah, it denotes, he tempts, in much the same sense that he also pun- ishes sin with sin. It is defined more closely thus: he leads or can lead into temptation (to do wrong) (Matt. vi. 13). But the closest analysis is this: the proving is from God, the temptation is from sin (James i. 13). Thus the promise at Marah (Exod. xv. 25, 26) was in so far a temptation of the people as it had the inclination to misinterpret the same in a fleshly sense; the giving of the manna was a temp- tation so far as it was connected with the ordinance that the manna should not be gathered upon the Sabbath (Exod. xvi. 4); the terrible revelation of God from Sinai (Exod, xx. 20) was a temptation of the people, since it could be the occasion for their falling into slavish fear, and flight from the presence of God (Exod. xx. 19); comp. Deut. viii. 2; ver. 16; especially ch. xiii. 4; Judg. ii. 22. The demand of God from Abraham that he should sacrifice his son, became, through the remaining and overwhelming prejudices of the heathen, to whom to sacrifice was identical with to slay, a temptation to Abraham ac- tually ‘‘to lay his hands upon the lad.” The com- mand of God stands sure, but he did not understand its import fully, viz., that he should, in and under the completion of ap animal sacrifice, consecrate and in- wardly yield his son to Jehovah, and thus purify his heart from all new fleshly and slavish attachment to him. But it was the ordination of God, that in his conflict with the elements of the temptation, he should come to the point, when he could reveal to him the pure and full sense of his command. Hence also the first revelation was darker than the second. This fact is distorted when Schelling finds here in the Elohim the ungodly principle, which appears in opposition to the Maleach Jehovah as the true God (Detrrzscn, p. 417). Even the distinction between a night and dream-voice, and a clear and loud tone at the perfect day (Ewald), decides nothing, although generally the dream-vision is the more imperfect form. * We congratulate ourselves upon securing Dr. Paulus Cassel to prepare the Bibelwerk upon the boo who has shown in his condensed article, “‘ Jephthah,” in Herzoe’s Real Encyclopedia, that he will not suffer himself to be imposed upon by the massive traditional misinterpre- tation of this passage (for whose exegetical restitution Hengsten berg has rendered important service), to the injury of a free and living interpretation of it, of Judges, | GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. But: the distinction between an imperfect, vague, and general, and the perfect, definite revelation, is here truly of decisive importance. The history of the prophets (as of Jonah) and. of the apostles (as of Peter) confirms abundantly that a true divine reve- lation can be obscured through an erroneous under- standing of the revelation (as indeed the unerring voice of cosscience may be obscured through an er. roneous judgment of the conscience). This same fact appears and continues in the development of faith. “The flame purifies itself from the smoke.” We thus hold here, as earlier, with Hengstenberg and Bertheau, that the divine command to Abraham was subject to a misunderstanding in him, through the inner Asiatic sinful tradition of human sacrifice, but a misunderstanding providentially appointed to be finally salutary to Abraham. With this contrast between the imperfect and perfect revelation now referred to, corresponds fully the contrast between hzlohim, Elohim on the one side, and Maleach-Jeho- vah, and Jehovah on the other side. God, as the God of all Gods, whose name breaks through all the im: pure conceptions of him, gave the first command, which Abraham, in his traditional and Elohistic ideas, with an admixture of some misconception, has yet correctly but vaguely understood, but the God of revelation corrects his misunderstanding, when he seals and confirms his understanding, that he should sacrifice his son to God in his heart. But the third opposition, between the expression to sacrifice and to slay (bm and UM), is very important. It is a fact that the Israelitish consciousness from the begin- ning has distinguished between the spiritual yielding, consecration (especially of the first-born), and the external symbolical slaying of a sacrificial animal for the representation and confirmation of that inward consecration; and thus also between the sacrifice and the killing in a literal sense. This fact was also divinely grounded, through the sacrifice of Isaac. It served, through the divine providence, for the rejection of all heathenish abominations, and for the founding of the consecrated typical nature of the sacrifices of the Israelites. 8. According to De Wette, Schumann, von Boh- len and others, this narrative is a pure myth. Kno- bel is doubtful whether there is not a fact lying at its basis, but which he explains in a rationalistic manner (p. 189). He gives correctly the ideas of the history, the removing of. human sacrifice, and the sanctifying of a place for sacrifice at Jerusalem. But the main idea, the spiritual sacrifice of the son, as well as the unity of the idea and the historical fact escapes him. For the untenableness of myth- ical interpretations in the Old Testament, see the In- troduction. EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL. 1. The command of God to Abraham, and his journey to Moriah (vers. 1-8)—God did tempt Abraham.—For the meaning of the word sce above. It isin the highest degree probable that the form of the revelation was a dream-vision of the night, as this was the form of the revealed command to re- move Ishmael_—Abraham! Behold, here am I. —Similarly: My father / Here am I, my son (ver. 7). Abraham, Abraham! Here am I (ver. 11). These brief introductions of the conversation express the great tension and application of the human mind in those moments, in a striking way, CHAP. XXII. 1-19. 467 and serve at the same time to prepare us for the im- portance of the conversation. The call: Abraham! the announcement of a revelation, of a command. Here am 1! the expression of hearing and obedience. ~—Take now thy son—Ni-Mp. The &} modifies the command; it scems to express that Elohim wished to receive the sacrifice from him as a free- will offering —Thine only.—[Reminding us, as was intended, of the only begotten of the Father. A.G.] The Sept. has ayanyrdy, the Vul. unigenitum. The 1"m" is more significant; it renders emphatic the incomparableness; this term and the two follow- ing express the greatness of the sacrifice, but also the thought that God knew well what he demanded from him.—Get thee into the land of Moriah. —i. e., into the region of the mountain of Moriah, or of Jerusalem. The name Moriah was anticipated ; according to ver. 14, it was occasioned through the events here recorded.* Michaelis, Bleek and Tuch understand the word to refer not to Jerusalem, but to Moreh in Sichem. See the counter-reasons in Kno- bel. One main reason among others, is that the way from Beer-sheba, where Abraham still dwelt, by Hebron and Jerusalem to Sichem, according to Robinson, required about 35 hours, a distance which the old man Abraham and the youth Isaac could not well have accomplished in three days (ver. 4). The distance from Beer-sheba to Jerusalem is, according to Robinson, 204 hours. For the meaning of Moriah see below. [Henasrenperc (Beit. ii, p. 268) derives the name from M8, to see. It is the Hoph. part. with the abbreviated name of Jehovah, or ", and signifies the shown or pointed out of Jehovah. The M873, 2 Chron. fii. 1, has no decisive weight against this since it may be rendered: “which was pointed out, shown to David,” as well as ‘“where Jehovah appeared to David."—A. < The Samaritans hold Gerizim to have been the place of the sacrifice, but have not altered the text.—And offer him there.— For a burnt offering may mean as a burnt offering, or, also, with a burnt offering, in and under the sym- bolical presenting of it—Upon one of the moun- tains.—A clear intimation of the region of Jeru- salem.— Which I will tell thee of.—It is not said when this more distinct designation of the place of the sacrifice should be given. The designation is, however, already, by anticipation, contained in Moriah. And Abraham rose up early in the morning. (See Chap. xxi. 24.)— And saddled his ass.—Girded, not saddled him. The asa was destined to bear the wood upou his covering. Abra- ham sets out with the bleeding heart of the father, and the three days’ journey are, no doubt, designed to give him time for the great conflict within him, and for the religious process of development (see Acts ix. 9). [As far as the matter of obedience was coucerned, the conflict was over. His purpose was fixed. He did not consult with flesh and blood, but instantly obeyed. —A. G.] 2. The mountain and place of the sacrifice. (Vers. 4-10.)—Then on the third day.—He had now entire certainty as to the place. It is barely intimated how significant, sacred and fearfut the place of sacrifice was to him.—Abide ye here with the ass.—The young men or servants, or young slaves, destined to this service, must not go * (Comp. with this history the revelation of God in the mount, recorded in 2Sam. xxiv. 25; 2 Chron. vii. 1-3, and Luke il. 22-28.—A. GJ with him to the sacred mountain, nor be present at the fearful sacrifice.—And I and the lad.—They could easily see from the wood of the burnt-offering, and the fire, and the knife, that he went not merely to worship, .but to sacrifice; but to him the sacrifice was the main thing—And will worship, and come again to you.—Knobel remarks: “The author appears not to have believed that Abraham would be presented in a bad light, through such false utterances (comp. ch, xii. 13; xx. 12)” We have already seen what are the elements of truth, in the places referred to, here the sense of the word of Abraham is determined through the utterance of the wish in 3°W3, which, according to the form M31w24, might be translated: and may we return again— would that we might. It is the design of the am- biguous term to assure them as to his intention or purpose. [It is rather the utterance of his faith that God was able to raise him from the dead. See Heb. xi. 19.—A. G.] —And laid it upon Isaac— From the three days’ journey of Isaac, and the service which he here performs, we may conclude that he had grown to a strong youth, like Ishmael, perhaps, at the time of his expulsion (the age at which we confirm),—The fire.—‘‘A glimmering ember or tin- der wood.” Knobel_—But where is the lamb? * —Isaac knew that a sacrificial animal belonged to the sacrifice. The evasive answer of the father, trembling anew at the question of his beloved child, appears to intimate that he held the entrance of a new revelation at the decisive moment to be possible. Until this occurs he must truly obey according to his previous view and purpose,—The terms of the ad- dress: My father! my son!—The few weighty and richly significant words mark the difficulty of the whole course for Abraham, and present in so much clearer a light, the unwavering steadfastness of his readiness to make the offering.—And took the knife.—The very highest expression of his readi- ness.¢ Nothing is said of any agitation, of any re- sistance, or complaint on the part of Isaac. It is clear that he is thus described as the willing sacri- ficial lamb. 3. The first call from heaven (vers. 11~14),— Abraham, Abraham !—As the call of the Angel of Jehovah stands in contrast with that of Elohim, so, also, the repetition of the name here, to its single use (ver. 1). A clearer, wider, more definite, and further leading revelation is thus described. The repeated eall: Abraham! designates also the ur- geney of the interruption, the decided rejection of the human sacrifice. For the Angel of the Lord, see ch. xii—Now I know that thou fearest God,— Abraham has stood the test. The knowledge of God reflects itself as 4 new experimental knowledge in the consciousness of Abraham. [I know, in the sense of use, declare my knowledge—have made it manifest by evident proof. Worpsworts, p. 100. ‘“‘An eventual knowing, a discovering by actual ex- periment.” Murpny, p. 341.—A. G.|—Behind him a ram.— “NN for TinN behind, baekwards, is not used elsewhere in the Old Testament, and from this has arisen the conjectural reading “4X, and also numerous constructions (see Knoxxt, p. 175). * [God will das himself. “Another prophetie speech ;”” zaifean I~. ‘ t [All the commentators dwell upon the tenderness and beauty of the scene here described. But no words ean make it more impressive.—A. G.] and how si A, G.] } [How it brings before ns the Lamb who was led to the slau Gj 468 Gesenius explains the word in the background; but we should observe well that it is said that Abra- ham looked around him, and thus perceived the same behind his back. Unseen, God mysteriously pre- pares his gifts for his own. Te does not receive a positive command to sacrifice the ram instead of his son, although he recognizes in the fact that the ram with his long, crooked horns was caught in the thick- et, the divine suggestion. Kyosen: ‘In a like way, throngh a divine providence, a goat is presented asa sacrificial animal for Iphigenia, whom her father, Agamemnon, would sacrifice to Venus at Aulis (Korte. Iphig. Aulid. 1591 ff.)."—In the stead of hig son. * —This expression is of deciding import- ance for the whole theory of sacrifice. The sacri- ficial animal designates the symbolical representation of the person who presents the sacrifice; but this representation in the Jater ritual of the sacrifices, must be interpreted differently, according to the dif- ferent sacrifices. —And Abraham called the name of that place.—Delitzsch and Keil explain the word mR, Jehovah observes, or takes care, but reject the explanation of the Niphal, M75 ete., upon the mount of the Lord it shall be seen, chosen, i. e., be provided, or cared for, They lay aside this signifi- cation of the Nipbal, and Delitzsch translates: he appears upon the mount of Jehovah. But the Niphal must here certainly correspond with the Kal, although we could point to no other proof for it. The explanation also, upon the mount where Jehovah appears, is far too general, since Jehovah does not appear only upon Moriah. The expression: “ it will be chosen, provided,” does not mean he will care for, but he will himself choose, and hence the Niphal also must be: Zhe mount of Jehovah is the mountain where he himself selects and provides his sacrifice. Moriahis, therefore, indeed, not the mount of the becoming visible, of the revelation of God (Delitzsch), but the mouat of being seen, the mount of selection, the mount of the choice of the sacrifice of God—inclusive of the sacrifices of God. [And thus of the sacrifice-—A. G.] For Moriah and Zion, compare the Bible Dictionaries and the topography of Jerusalem. 4. The second call from heaven (vers, 15-19). The subject of the first call was preéminently nega- tive, a prohibition of the human sacrifice, connected with a recognition of the spiritual sacrifice, ascer- tained, and confirmed through this suggestion of the typical nature of the sacrifice. The second call of the Maleach Jehovah is throughout positive——By myself have I sworn.—The oath of Jehovaht (ch. xxiv. 7; xxvi3; 124; Ex. xiii, 5; xi, 88) is described here as a swearing by himself, algo, Ex. xxxii, 13; Isa. xlv. 23; Heb. vi. 13 ff The swearing of God by himself, is an anthro- pomorphic expression, for the irrevocable, cer- tain promise of Jehovah, for which he, so to speak, pledges the consciousness of his own personality, the promise as it imprints itself in the perfect seal- ing of the assurance of the faith of the believing patriarchs, Abraham can only be certain of the oath of God, through its eternal echo in his own heart. Hence this oath is supposed also where the perfection of the assurance of the faith is supposed. _™* [Abraham offors the ram as a substitute for Isaac. He withholds not his only son in intent, and yet in fact he offers a substitute for his son. Murray, p. 341.—A. G.] _ + {This is the only instance of God's iba] by himself in his intercourse with the patriarchs--a proof of the unique importance of this event. WorpsworrH, p. 301.—A. G.] GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. Hence, also, Jehovah declares that he had swom unto Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and it is not alto- gether correct, although Keil yields his assent, when Luther says with reference to Ps. Ixxxix. 36; cx, 4, and exxxii. 11, “As the promise of the seed of Abraham descends in the seed of David, so the sa- cred scriptures transfer the oath given to Abraham, to the person of David.” Although “there is nothing said in the promise, 2 Sam. vii., and 1 Chron. xvii. upon which these psalms rest, of an oath of God.” Knobel. The oath of God reveals itself even in the sealing of the faith, leaving out of view the fact that the promise given to David was much more particular and definite than that which Abra- ham received.—Saith the Lord (the saying of Jehovah).—[Compare the rendering of the Sept., thou hast not withheld thy son, with the terms of the apostle, Rom. viii, 82. The resemblance is striking, and is one of the catch-words of which Wordsworth speaks.—A. G.] A solemn statement of the prom- ise, pointing down to tho time of the prophets, nin DN3, address of the Lord, occurs elsewhere in the Pentateuch only (Num. xiv. 28), and without Jebovah in the words of Balaam (Num. xxiv, 3-15), In addition to the comparison of the number of the stars of heaven (ch. xv. 5), we have that of the sand upon the sea-shore, the strong figure for an innumer- able mass (ch. xxxii, 13; Josh. xi. 4).—Shall pos- sess the gate of his enemies.—The most obvious sense is this: Israel should overcome his enemies, and capture their cities, since he should seize and occupy their gates. But the gate here points te a deeper meaning. The hostile world has a gate or gates in its susceptibilities, through which the be- lieving Israel should enter it (Ps, xxiv. 7-9), The following words prove that this is the sense of the words here—And shall be blessed (shall bless themselves).—The blessing of the nations (ch. xii.) in which they appear still in a passive attitude, be- comes, in its result, the cause of their freely blessing themselves in the seed of. Abraham, i, e., wishing blessedness, and calling themselves blessed.—Be- cause thou hast obeyed my voice (comp. ver. 16).—The great promise of Jehovah is no blind, arbitrary form, but stands in relation to the tried and believing obedience of Abraham (see James ii. 23). [The closing remarks of Keil on this pas- sage, are as follows: This glorious issue of the temptation so triumphantly endured by Abraham, not only authenticates the historical character of this event, but shows, in the clearest manner, that the temptation was necessary to the faith of the patriarch, and of fundamental importance to his position in the history of salvation. The doubt wheth- er the true God could demand a human sacrifice, is removed by the fact that God himself prevents the completion of the saciifice, and the opinion that God, at least apparently, comes into conflict with himself, when he demands’‘a sacrifice, and then actually forbids and prevents its completion, is met by the very significant chamge in the names of God, since God who commands Abraham to offer Isaac, is called pinay, but the actual completion of the- sacrifice is prevented by 4m", who is identical with the Mim 3N>2. Neither mn, the God of sal- vation, or the God of the covenant, who gave to Abraham the only son as the heir of the promise, demands the sacrifice of the promised and given heir, nor anmbds, God the creator, who has the pow- CHAP. XXII. 1-19. 469 er to give and take away life, but H°7>NN, the true God, whom Abraham knew and worshipped as his personal God, with whom he had entered into a per- sonal relation. The command (coming from the true God, whom Abraham served) to yield up his only and beloved son, could have no other object than to purify and sanctify the state of the heart of the patriarch towards his son, and towards his God; an object corresponding to the very goal of his call- ing. It was to purify his love to the son of his body from all the dross of fleshly self-love, and nat- ural self-seeking which still clave to it, and so to glorify it through love to God, who had given him his son, that he should no more love his beloved son as his flesh and blood, but solely and only as the gracious gift and possession of God, as a good en- trusted to him by God, and which he was to be ready to render back to him at any and every moment. As Abraham had left his country, kindred, father’s house, at the call of God, so he must, in his walk before God, willingly bring his only son, the goal of his desires, the hope of his life, the joy of his old age, an offering. And more than this even. He had not only loved Isaac as the heir of his posses- sions (xv. 2,) but upon Isaac rested all the promises of God, in Isaac should his seed be called (xxi. 12). The command to offer to God this only son of his wife Sarah, in whom his seed should become a mul- titude of nations (xvii. 4, 6, 16), appeared to destroy the divine promise itself; to frustrate not only the wish of his heart, but even the repeated promises of his God. At this command should his faith perfect ‘itself to unconditional confidence upon God, to the firm assurance that God could reawaken him from the dead, But this temptation has not only the im- port for Abraham, that he should, through the over- coming of flesh and blood, be fitted to be the father of believers, the ancestor of the Christ of God; through it, also, Isaac must be prepared and consecrated for his calling in the history of salvation. As he suf- fered himself, without resistance, to be bound and laid upon the altar, he gave his natural life to death, that he might, through the grace of God, rise to newness of life. Upon the altar he was sanctified to God, consecrated to be the beginner of the holy Church of God, and thus “the later legal consecra- tion of the first-born was completed in him” (De- litzsch). ‘As the divine command, therefore, shows in all its weight and earnestness the claim of God upon his own, to sacrifice all to him, even the most dear (comp. Matt. x. 87, and Luke xiv. 26), pene- trating even to the very heart, so the issue of the temptation teaches that the true God does not de- mand from his worshippers a bodily human sacrifice, but the spiritual sacrifice, the unconditional yielding up of the natural life, even unto death. Since - through the divine providence Abraham offered a ram for a burnt-offering, instead of his son, the ani- mal sacrifice was not only offered as a substitute for the human sacrifice, and sanctioned as a symbol of the spiritual sacrifice of the person himself, well pleasing to God, but the offering of human sacrifices by the heathen, is marked as an ungodly éSeAoSpyc- xela, judged and condemned. And this comes to pass through Jehovah, the God of salvation, who restraing the completion of the external sacrifice. Henee, this event, viewed with respect to the divine preparation of salvation, wins for the church of the Lord prophetic significance, which is pointed out with peculiar distinctness in the place of this sacri- fice, the mount Moriah, upon which, under the legal economy, all the typical sacrifices were brought to Jehovah, upon which, also, in the fulness of time, God the Father, gave his only-begotten Son an atoning sacrifice for the sins of the world, in order, through this one true sacrifice, to raise the shadow- ing image of the typical animal sacrifice to its truth and real nature. If, therefore, the destination of Moriah, as the place for the offering of Isaac, with the actual offering of the ram in his stead, should be only at first typical, with reference to the signifi- cance and object of the Old Testament sacrifice, still this type already, also, points down to that in the future appearing antitype, when the eternal love of the Heavenly Father, itself, did what it demanded here from Abraham, namely, spared not his only-be- gotten son, but gave him, for us all, up to that death ac- tually, which Isaac only endured in spirit, that we might die with Christ spiritually, and with him rise to eternal life (Rom. viii. 82; vi.-5, ete.), pp. 177- 179.—A. G.] DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL. 1, The ruling thought in this whole narrative, is the perfection of the obedience of faith of Abraham, not merely, however, im the sacrifice of his son, but also in his readiness to perceive the revelation of Jehovah, which forbids the killing of his son, and causes the symbolic killing of the sacrifice provided as the Seal and confirmation of the spiritual sacrifice. Faith must prove itself in the inward hearty conces- sion of the dearest objects of life, even of all our own thoughts, as to the realization of salvation, pres- ent and future, to the providence of the grace of God. But it cannot complete itself with reference to this salvation, without purifying itself, or allowing itself to be purified from all traditional, fanatical ideas, or misconceptions of faith, In the completion of faith, the highest divinity coincides with the purest humanity. The sacrifice of Isaac is, therefore, the real separation of the sacred Israclitish sacrifice from the abominations of human sacrifices. “These sacrifices, especially of children, were customary among the pre-Hebraic nations of Palestine (2 Kin. xvi. 3; Ps. cvi. 38), among the kindred Pheenicians (Porpuyr. de abstin. ii. 56; Euses, Prepar. ev. 1,10, and Lavpbp. Const. xiii. 4), among their de- scendants, the Carthaginians (Diop. xx. 14, PLurarcs, ete.), among the Egyptians (Diop. i. 88, etc.), among | the tribes related with Israel, the Moabites and Am- monites (2 Kin. iii. 27) who honored Moloch with them (Lev. xviii. 21; xx. 2), appear also in the Ar- amaic and Arabian tribes (2 Kings vii. 31 ff), as well as in Ahaz among the Israelites (2 Kings xvi. 3 ff.), but were forbidden by the law (Deut. xii. 31), and opposed by the prophets (Jer. vii. 31 ff.). They were thus generally spread through the culéus of. the nations in contact with Israel, but were entirely for- eign to its legally established religion.” Knobel. According to Henastenserc, the human sacrifice does not belong to heathenism in general, but to the darkest aspect of heathenism (Beitrdge iii. p. 144). Kurtz believes that he gives the correction (p. 210). The fact that the spirit of humanity among the Greeks and Romans opposed the human sacrifice (see Lange: Positive Dogmatik, p. 862), loses its force with him, since he ascribes this opposition to the re- ligious and rationalistic superficialty of their times ; the human sacrifices are, indeed, a fearful madness, but a madness of doubt as to the true sacrifice, of 470 GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. hopelessness as to finding the true atonement... But the true atonement is even in the death of Christ, the obedient concession of Christ to. the judgment of God ; and the analogy of the crucifixion of Christ in | the Moloch-sacrifice, must be distinguished from it both on the side of Judaism and of the world. The entire perversion of the fact that the religion of Jehovah abhors and rejects the human sacrifice, as it has been introduced by Vatke and Von Bohlen (the religion of Jehovah stood originally upon the same plane with the Moloch service), and has been com- pleted by Daumer, Kurtz has examined and exposed in a most satisfactory way (p. 204 ff.). [The arbi- trariness and blasphemy of Daumer, and the boldness with which he makes his assertions in the face of all history, render his work unworthy of any serious refutation. And Kurtz justly treats it with ridicule. —A.G.] Guitiany’s essay: ‘The Human Sacri- fice of the Old Hebrews,” may be, also, consulted here, but is essentially one with Daumer. 2. The sacrifice of Isaac has an inward connection with the expulsion of Ishmael, which will appear more clearly if we recollect that the age of both at the time of these events must have been nearly the same. Thus must Abraham repent in the history of Isaac, the human guilt which lay in his relation to Ishmael. But as he had surely doubted a long time as to the choice of Ishmael, so also a doubt intrudes itself as to the literal external sense of the divine command in regard to Isaac; a doubt which can no more prejudice or limit the divine revelation than perhaps the doubting thought of Paul upon the way to Damascus, but rather serves to introduce the new revelation. [The narrative of Paul’s conversion will not bear out this comparison. He does not seem to have been in any doubt, but was, as he himself says, conscientious. He verily thought that he ought to persecute the Chureh of God.—A. G.] 8. The distinction between the divine revealed command and Abraham’s misconception of it, is similar to the distinction between the infallible con- science* and the fallible judgment in regard to conscience, which has not been sufficiently noticed in theology. Thus also Peter, on his way from Joppa to Caesarea, with the divine commission to convert Cornelius, might have connected with it the misconception that he must first circumcise him, but the further revelation tears away the misconcep- tion. The stripping away of the erroneous and unessential ideas of the time, belongs also to a sound development of faith. 4,'The burnt-offering of Abraham appears here as the foundation and central point of all the typical sacrifices in Israel. Its fundamental thought is’ the spiritual yielding of the life, not the taking of the bodily life, It receives its wider form in the Passover lamb, in which the division of the offerings is already intimated, viz. the thank or peace-offering and the consecrated killing on the one hand, and the sin- and guilt- (trespass) offering and the imprecatory offering on the other, The peculiar atonement offer- ing is a higher centralization and completion, in which the whole system of offerings points to that which is beyond and above itself. 5. The mountain of Jerusalem receives, through the offering of Abraham, its preconsecration to its * [This assumes what, to say the least, is a matter of doubt, and is against the general faith of the Church, that the conscience itself has not suffered in the ruins of the fall. There is ground for the distinction, but we cannot hold that the conscience is infallible.—A. Gd future destination as the later mount Morial which the temple stood, the pee ee of the historical faith in God, which transcends the un- historical faith in God of Melchizedec, 6. The Angel of the Lord gives the more accu- rate and particular definition of that which Elohim has pointed out in the more general way. 7. The obedience of faith which Abraham ren- ders in the sacrifice of Isaac, marks the historical perfection of his faith, in a decisive test, It marks the stage of the New Testament S0xu4, or sealing (see the Biblework upon James), . 8. The typical significance of the sacrifice of Isaac is so comprehensive that we may view it, in some Measure, as embracing all Old Testament types just as the sacrifice of Abraham itself may be regarded as including the whole Mosaic system of sacrifices. The sacrifice itself is the type of the sacrificial death of Christ, and indeed, just as truly, in reference to the interest of God, as to the interest of the world in this fact. The self-denial of Abraham is a copy, a sym-" bol (not perhaps a type) of the love of God, who gave his only-begotten Son for the salvation of the world (John fii. 16: Rom. viii, 82). The sacrificial act of Abraham, as also the enduring silence of Isaac is typical in referenc: to the two sides of the suffering obedience of Christ, as he is priest and sacrifice at the same time. Isaac received again from the altar is now, in reference to Abraham, a God-given, consecrated child of the Spirit and of promise: in reference to Christ, a type of the resurrection, and therefore, also a type of the vew resurrection life of believers, 9. Since Abraham must have reconciled the prom- ise, earlier connected with the person of Isaac, with the command to offer Isaac as he understood the command, he was necessarily driven to the hope of a new awakening, as this is admirably expressed in the Epistle to the Hebrews (xi. 19). Luther re- marked upon the obedience of faith: “ Faith recon- ciles things which are contrary.” [Abraham’s faith rested not upon the conclusions of his understanding, but upon the word of God. The nature and strength of his faith appear in that he held to the promise while he went promptly to do what, to human view, seemed to prevent its fulfilment. He set to his seal that God was true. He believed that God would ful- fil all that he had promised. How he did not stay to question. This is true faith. It takes the word of God as it is, in the face of all difficulties, and acts upon it—A,.G.] But this reconciliation of appar- | ent contradictions does not happen in this method, that faith in blind passivity receives and holds the contradictions, or rather, suffers them to remain (as, e.g., universal grace and particular election), but that faith itself is brought, through the spirit of revelation, to a higher standpoint, [But is not this standpoint just that from which faith receives truths apparently contradictory, upon their own evi- dence in the word of God, and holds them, though,it is not seen how they can be reconciled ?—A.G.]—In the anticipating activity of his faith, Abraham gained the idea of the resurrection, but in the actual issue of the history of the sacrifice he gained the idea of the true sacrifice (Ps. li, 18, 19: Heb. x. 19 ff.), as also the fundamental form of the Old Testament sacrifice. [Jn the stead of his son. ‘“ The wonderful substitution in which God get forth, as in a figure, the plan of the Mosaic economy, for the offering of animal victims instead of human sacrifices—pointing forward to the only acceptable substitute whom they foreshadowed, who is God’s Lamb and not man’s— CHAP. XXII. 1-19, 471 the Lamb of God’s providing and from his own bosom. His only-begotten and well-beloved Son, the man—the God-man.” Jacobus. And this great doctrine, running through the whole system of sac- rifice, culminates in the sacrifice of Christ—the innocent in the stead of the guilty.—A. G.] 10. Denitzscu: “The concession unto death at the threshold of the preliminary history of the new- humanity is not completed, but merely a prefiguration, for Isaac’s death would have been useless, but the concession unto death at the threshold of the history itself is completed, because the fulfilling and per- fection of the death of Christ is the passing of himself, and with him of humanity, into life. Judaism believes differently. It sees in the sacrifice or bind- ing of Isaac an act serviceable for all time, and bringing Israel into favour with God. Where the Church prays for the sake of the suffering and death of Jesus Christ, the Synagogue prays for the sake of the binding of Isaac” (p. 418). ll. The oath of Jehovah. It is not merely the basis for the oaths of men, but: 1. The expression of the absolute self-determination, consciousness, and faithfulness of the personal God ;* 2. The ex- pression of a correspondiug unshaken certainty of faith in the hearts of believers; 8. The expression of the indissoluble union between the divine promise and the human assurance. 12. The name Moriah + points out that as God himself perceives (selects) his sacrifice in the readi- ness of an obedient heart to make the sacrifice, man should wait in expectation, and not make an arbitrary and abominable sacrifice. 18. W. Horrmann: “ Until now we hear only of the bruiser of the serpent, of a conqueror, of a bless- ing of the nations, of a dominion ; in short only the image of a great king and dominion, could present itself to human thought as the form in which the divine salvation should reach perfection. But now sorrow, concession, death, the rendering of self as a sacrifice, enter into the circle of the hope of salvation, and indeed so enter that the hope of sal- vation and the sacrifice belong together and are inseparable.” 14, The completion of the promise.t As the whole history of the sacrifice of Isaac is typical, so also is the expression of the completed promise. It refers beyond Israel, to the innumerable children of Abraham by faith, and the conquest of the world, promised to them, appears both in the aspect of a contest, as in that of the solemn feasts of victory and blessing. 15. We cannot say directly that Abraham sacri- ficed Isaac as a natural son, that he might receive him again sanctified and as a spiritual son. For Isaac was given to him as the son of the promise from his birth. But he sacrificed him in his present corporeal nature, that he might receive him again as the type of a second, new, and higher life. Thus Israel must sacrifice its ideas of the present kingdom of God in order to gain the true kingdom of God * (An oath with God is a solemn pledging of himself in all the unchangeableness of his faithfulness and truth to the fulfilment of the ee Morpay, p. 341,—A. G.J t [The Mount of the Lord here means the wety helehy of the trial into which he brings his saints. ere he will certainly appear in due time for their deliverance. Murray, p. 341.—A. G.] A s ¢ [In this transcendent blessing, repeated on this mo- mentous occasion, Abraham truly saw the day of the seed of the woman, the seed of Abraham, the Son of man. Murrey, p. 342.—A, G.] which is not of this world. The want of this idea of sacrifice betrays the most of them into unbelief through Chiliastic dreams. It happens similarly to all who, in the’ sacrificial hour appointed by God, will not sacrifice their inherited ideas that they may gain a glorified form of faith. On the other hand, every arbitrary external sacrifice is regarded and judged as a self-chosen service of God. 16, The meaning of the ram in the sacrifice of Abraham is not to be lightly estimated. It desig- nates figuratively the fact, that Christ also, in his sacrificial death, has not lost his own peculiar life, but, as the leading shepherd of his flock, has only sacrificed his old temporal form of a servant, in order that through his death he might redeem them from death, the fear of death, the bondage of sin and Satan, and introduce them into a higher, deathless life. [J the person of Abraham is unfolded that spiritual process by which the soul is drawn to God. He hears the call of God, and comes to the decisive act of trusting in the revealed God of mercy and truth, on the ground of which act he is accounted as righteous. He then rises to the successive acts of walking with God, covenanting with him, communing and interceding with him, and at length withholding nothing that he has or holds dear from him. In all this we discern certain primary and essential charac- teristics of the man who is saved through acceptance of the mercy of God proclaimed to him in a prime- val gospel. Faith in God (ch. xv.), repentance towards him (ch. xvi.), and fellowship with him (ch. xviii.), are the three great turning-points of the soul’s returning life. They are built upon the effec- tual call of God (ch. xii.), and culminate in unre- served resignation to him (ch. xxii.). With wonder- ful facility has the sacred record descended in this pattern of spiritual biography, from the rational and accountable race to the individual and immortal soul, and traced the footsteps of its path to God. Mur- pHy p. 342.—A, G.] HOMILETICAL AND PRACTIOAL. Through the traditional exegetical interpretation, the sacrifice of Isaac has often been used homileti- cally without due caution. What Kurtz in his work asserts with confidence we often hear also from the pulpit—God commanded Abraham to kill his son Isaac. Thus a gross sensuous interpretation in fact transforms a history which is the key to the nature of the whole Old-Testament sacrificial system, which presents in a striking light the humane aspect of the theocracy in contrast with heathenism, into an of- fence to the human and Christian feeling, i. e., an offence which is burdensome and injurious to a lim- ited and contracted theology, but must be carefully distinguished from the offences or difficulties of un- belief. We make this remark notwithstanding Kurtz thinks that he must administer to us a rebuke for similar utterances (p. 206). Luther also has already spoken of the difficulty in treating this passage cor- rectly.—Ver. 1. The testing or trying of Abraham, as full of temptation: 1. As a temptation; 2. as a. testing. Or: 1, The sacrifice of God; 2. Abrabam’s obedience of faith.—Ver. 2, Abraham’s sacrifice: 1. The command of God; 2. the leading of God; 3. the decision of God; 4. the judgment of God.—Ver. 3. Abraham’s obedience of faith: 1. Faith as the soul of obedience; 2. obedience as the full preser- vation of faith.—Abraham’s sealing.—Ver. 16. The 472 oath of God: 1, What it means; 2. as it perpetu- ates and generalizes itself in the sacraments; 3. to whose advantage it will be.—The silence of Isaac.— Ver. 4. Abraham’s journey to Moriah an image of the way to all true sacrifice: 1. The journey thither ; 2. the journey home.—Moriah, or the meeting of God with the sacrificing believer: 1. God sees; 2. he is seen, appears; 8. he cares for, provides ; 4, he himself selects his sacrifice; 5. he gives to man in an eternal form what he has taken from him in a temporal form. ae Srarxe: (Moses does not relate the peculiar time of this severe test of Abraham’s faith. Some place it in the thirteenth, others in the fifteenth, and still others in the thirty-fifth or thirty-seventh year of Isaac. Because in this whole transaction Isaac was a type of Christ, and he finished the work of redemp- tion, through his death, in the thirty-third, or accord- ing to others the thirty-fourth, year of his age, it may well be thought that in this year also Isaac was led out as a sacrifice.—The existing incorrect use of the typology still runs through the misconceptions of Passavant and Schwenke. He is three and thirty years old, says Schwenke; and Passavant says he was grown up to be a mature man.)—Some reckon ten temptations wherein Abraham’s faith was put to the test, among which this was the last and most se- vere: 1. When he must leave his fatherland at the call of God (ch. xii. 1), ete—Ver. 2. (Ofer him there, put him to death with thine own hand, then ‘burn the dead body to ashes, thus make him a burnt- offering.—Luther and others think that Adam, Cain and Abel, Noah also when he came from the ark, held their worship of God and sacrificed upon this mountain, Hence the Arabic and both the Chaldaic interpreters name it the land of the worship and service of God.—Various ancient utterances as to the mountain of Moriah and its meaning follow.)— Ver. 4. God reveals the place where our Saviour should suffer and die, earlier than the city in which he should be born (we must distinguish, however, between verbal and typical prophecy).—The two ser- vants of Abraham. It is scarcely, at least not seri- ously, to be conjectured even, as the Chaldaic inter- preters suppose, that they were Ishmael and Eliezer. —wNeither Sarah nor Isaac knew at the time the special object of the journey. Undoubtedly the mother would have placed many hindrances in the way, and would have sought to dissuade Abraham for entering it.—When it is said (Heb. xi. 19) that he had received him as a figure, we discern what Abraham knew through the illumination of the Holy Spirit.* (At all events Abraham knew that the sac- rifice of the first-born should henceforth be an ordi- nance of God, and that this should culminate in a closing sacrifice bringing salvation).—The three days of the journey.—Abraham must in his heart hold his son as dead, as long as Christ should lie in the grave.—But one must above all else guard against a self-chosen service of God.—Upon ver. 8. He stood at the time in the midst of the controversy between natural love and faith_(The altar upon Moriah. The Jews think tbat it was the altar which Noah had -built upon this mountain after the flood, which time had thrown into ruins, but was again rebuilt by Abraham.)—Upon ver. 18. The LXX render, in the thicket, Sabek. They regarded it as a proper name, -which shows the ignorance of the Hebrew language « * [Isaac's deliverance was a parable or figure, viz., of Christ’s resurrection. Worpsworrn, p. 101.—A. G.] GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. in the Greek commentators, after the Babylonian captivity. Starke records the fact, that some “ Pa- pists” refer the expression of Christ upon the cross, lama sabacthani, to this bush Sabek, and that Atha- nasius says, Planta Sabek est venerand crux.—Com- parison of the sacrifice of Isaac with the death and resurrection of Jesus (1 Cor. x. 18)——Ver. 10. Lance: God knows the right hour, indeed, the right moment, to give his help.— Bibl. Wirt. : If our obe- dience shall please God, it must be not merely ac- cording to examples without command, but in accord- ance with the express word of God.— idl. Tud.: Ver. 11. When we cannot see on any side a way of escape, then God comes and often shows us a won- derful deliverance.—H.atx : The true Christian motto through the whole of life is: The Lord sees me.— Ver. 15. The last manifestation of God with which Abraham was directly honored, which appears in the Holy Scriptures.—The oath of God: just as if he had sworn by his name, or by his life. In place of this form of speech Christ uses very often the Verily.—John xvi. 20.—What one gives for God, and to him, is never lost. [Not only not lost, but received back again in its higher form and use. Even so every child of Abraham must hold all that is most precious to him as the gift of God’s grace; must first yield to God the blessings which seem to come to him as to others, as mere natural blessings, and then receive them back as coming purely from his grace.—A. G.] Lisco: What could better teach the Jews the true idea and aim of the whole sacrificial service (the perfect yielding to God) than the history of Abra- ham? Ver. 6. Thus Jesus bare his cross.’ Ver. 18. The great blessing is Christ who brings blessings to all nations (Acts iii, 25; Gal. iii, 8).—When God brings a dear child near to death, or indeed calls it alway, he thus proves us in a like way.—GERLacu: The name Moriah signifies, shown, pointed out, by Jehovah, and refers especially to the wonderful pointing to the ram, through which Isaac was saved, since this was for Abraham the turning-point of the history, through which God confirmed hisypromise and crowned the faith of Abraham.—Ver. 12. God knows: he knows from experience, from the testing, that the man remains faithful to him, since without the test his faithfulness is uncertain. He foreknew it, in so far as he foreknew the result of the trial_— Catw. Hand.: God naturally lays such severe trials not upon children, but upon men.—Abraham kept his faith in God, as Jehovah, through his act; now also God will approve himself to Abraham, as Jeho- vah.—This same promise appears here for the third time (ch. xii. 3; xviii. 18) as a reward for Abraham's obedience and triumph of faith.—Each new well- endured ¢rial of faith leads to greater strength of faith; the fruit of faith yields nourishment again to faith itselfi—The act of faith on the part.of Abra- bam here described, is held, not only by Jews and Christians, but even by Mohammedans, as the very acme of all his testing, and as the most complete obedience of his faith—Scuréprer: Ver. 1. He is constantly leading us into situations in which what lies concealed in the heart must be revealed.—The devil tempts that he may destroy ; God tempts that he may crown (Ambrose).—The temptation has as a presupposition, that God has not yet been perfectly formed in us (Hengstenberg).—The idea of the sac- rifice (1 Sam. i. 25). And they slew the bullock and brought the child to Eli (comp. Hos. xiv. 2; Micah vi. 7; Ps. xl 7-9; li, 19)—For this whole history, see CHAP, XXII. 1-19. 473 the similar history (Judg. xi.). That Abraham him- self is the priest, and his own heart, his own deepest love, and all his blessing, is the sacrifice, this consti- tutes the severity of the test (Krummacher).*—Ver. 5. We cannot regard these words as mere empty words ; it is rather the word of hope which had not forsaken Abraham (Baumgarten; also Gerlach).— According to the Epistle to the Hebrews, an intima- tion of the hope of the reawakening of Isaac. “But then, indeed, some one objects, the very severe and weighty thing in the sacrifice is taken away.” Strauss replies to this by an allusion to the painfulness of the death-beds of children to their parents, even when they are assured of their resurrection.—It is a more wonderful faith which supports itself even to the issue which he did not see, as if he saw it (Strauss).—Ver. 9. The son is silent before the father, as the father before God, and the child obeys the parents as the parents obey the Lord (Strauss).—A sacred contention finds place here. One elevates himself above human nature ; to the other to resist the father seems more terrible than death (Gregory Nyssa). Ver. 12. The apostle (Rom. viii, 82) takes up again the last words of the Angel, and thus indi- cates the typical relations of the event.—Ver. 13. The entire Levitical system of sacrifices is only an extension of this sacrifice of the ram (Richter).—It is remarkable that the ram is destined among the Greeks and Romans as the substitutionary sacrifice in the gravest cases (Baumgarten). It happens at first according to the ordinance, that God by virtue of his concealed providence places and controls what may serve us, but it follows upon this that he stretches out his hand to us, and reveals himself in an actual experience (Calvin).—Ver. 18. The blessing given to the nations in the seed of Abraham, they shall them- selves come to desire and wish (Baumgarten). Abra- ham’s obedience is named here as a reason of the promise. This is, too, a new reason (Baumgarten). —(Abraham’s obedience is, however, not so much a reason of the promise as of the sealing of the prom- ise through an oath.}—The promise is the promise of the covenant. On the one hand it rests funda- mentally upon the grace of God, on the other it is introduced for Abraham through the obedience of faith — Abraham receives the name of the father of believers through this completion of his faith (Baum- garten). (Certainly also through the whole develop- ment of his faith.)—Ver. 16. There is a constant ref- erence to this passage, as to the solemn, great, and final explanation. Thus in ch. xxiv. 7; xxvi. 3; Exod. xxxiii. 1; Numb. xxxii. 11; Deut. xxix. 13; xxx, 20; xxxiv. 4; Luke i. 78; Acts vii. 17; Heb. * [What God required of Abraham was not the sacrifice of Isaac, but the sacrifice of himself. Worpsworts, p. 97. ~—A. G. I vi, 13 (Drechsler).—It claims our notice still, that the Jews hold the binding of Isaac (ver. 9) as a sat- isfaction, and use in prayer the words, Consider the binding of thine only one (see above). ‘Indeed, one hundred and sixty millions of Mohammedans also read in their Koran to-day.. This truly was a manifest testing” (Zahn).—Robinson’s description of Beersheba.—ScuweExkE: The Lord knows how to reward his own.—Passavant: Abraham journeys the first, the second, the third day in silence.—Pre- cious school of faith, the highest, the most sacred school, how art.thou now so greatly deserted 9— Abraham has become the father of Christians.—Ver. 14. God sees, he will see, choose.—Reflection upon the children of Abraham.—The future of Israel, of believers, ete.—(Passavant closes his work with these reflections.)—W. Horrmann: The consecration of the promise through sacrifice: 1, The concession of the promised son; 2. the new reception of the prom- ised son.—According to this history God tempted Abraham. There the key is placed in your hand. It was said indeed before, that the purpose of God was not-to secure an external offering, but an inward sacrifice, etc. In this inbeing of the internal and external, in this interworking of the divine and hu- man, of the eternal and the earthly, there lay a severe temptation, a constant inducement, to the believers of the Old Testament, to rest satisfied with the mere external, the mere shell, the sweet kernel, the fruit of life itself being forfeited, to go on in security, indeed oftentimes to grow proud of their possession. —Ver. 1. In how many ways he enters the family and calls to the father Abraham ! and when you know the voice of the Lord, thus answer: Here am I.—Upon Isaac. Almost entirely a feeble repetition of what has appeared in the life of Abraham. Ver. 9. But he lay upon the altar in full consciousness and in si- lence. There he lay himself, as a dumb sacrificial lamb, at the feet of God. This is sufficient for a lifetime of more than a century, and imparts to it, con- tents, and a character, which admit of no exchange for the better—He gives Isaac to him in another way than that in which he had called him his own at first. The whole glory of a wonderful future sur- rounds the head of Isaac.—Tause: The obedience of faith, or how first in the yielding of that which is most precious faith is tested: 1. God brings us to this proof at the right time; place yourselves there- fore in his hands, as Abraham; 2. these tests are very severe, and will ever grow more severe in their progress, for they demand the death of self; 3. these tests have a blessed end for the tried and approved believer; therefore let us follow the footsteps of Abraham.—Heuser: The way of Abraham to the sacrifice.—The offering up of Isaac: 1. In its his- torical detail; 2. in its inward typical meaning, 474 GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. 20 21 22 23 24 ELEVENTH SECTION. The sorrows and joys of Abraham's domestic life. The account and genealogy of those at home, Sarah’s death. Her burial-place at Hebron ; the seed of the future inheritance of Canaan. The theocratic foundation of the consecrated burial. —— Cuarrer XXII, 20—XXIII. 20. And it came to pass after these things that it was told Abraham, saying [what follows], Behold, Milcah, she hath also borne children unto thy brother Nahor; Huz [see ch. x. 23; a light sandy land, in northern Arabia his first-born, and Buz [a people and region in western Arabia] his brother, and Kemuel [the congregation of God] the father of Aram. And Chesed [the name of a Chaldaic tribe], and Hazo [an Aramaic and Chaldaie tribe ; Gesenius : perhaps formitn A vision], and Pildash [Farst: Ux 3>Q, flame of fire], and Jidlaph [Gesenius: tearful; Furst: melting away, pining], and Bethuel [ Gesenius : man of God. First: dwelling-place or people of Goa]. And Bethuel begat Rebekah [Bibkah, captivating, ensnaring; First: through beauty | : these eight Mileah did bear to Nahor, Abraham’s brother. And his concubine, whose name was Reumah Gesenius: raised, elevated; Fiirst: pearl or coral ], she bare also Tebah [Furst : extension, breadth; a locality in Mesopotamia |, and Gaham [ Gesenius : having flaming eyes; Fiirst: the black; an Aramaic, dark- colored tribe], and Thahash [the name of an unknown animal: badger, marten, seal 9], and Maachah low-lands ; a locality at the foot of Hermon ; used besides as a female name |. at 4 Ca. XXIII. 1. And Sarah was an hundred and twenty and seven years old: these were 2 & OUR oo a 10 ll 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 the years of the life of Sarah. And Sarah died in Kirjath-arba [city of Arba]; the same is Hebron in the land of Canaan: and Abraham came to mourn for Sarah, and to weep for her. And Abraham stood up from before his dead, and spake unto the sons of Heth; saying, I am a stranger and a sojourner [not acitizen] with you: give me a possession of a burying-place with you, that I may bury my dead out of my sight. And the children of Heth answered Abraham, saying unto him, Hear us, my lord: thou art a mighty prince [» prince of Goa] among us: in the choice [most excellent] of our sepulchres bury thy dead: none of us shall withhold from thee his sepulchre, but that thou mayest bury thy dead. And Abraham stood up, and bowed himself to the people of the land, even to the children of Heth. And he communed with them, saying, If it be your mind [soul, soul-desire] that I should bury my dead out of my sight, hear me, and entreat for me to Ephron [Fiirst: more powerful, stronger] the son of Zohar [splendor, noble]. That he may give me the cave of Machpelah [Gesenius : doubling; First: winding, serpentine |, which he hath, which is in the end of his field; for as much money as it is worth [fll money] he shall give it me for a possession of a burying-place [hereditary sepulchre] among you. And Ephron dwelt [sat] among the children of Heth, And Ephron the Hittite answered Abraham in the audience [ears] of the children of Heth, even of all that went in at the gate of his city, saying, Nay, my lord, hear me: the field give I thee, and the cave that is therein, I give it thee; in the presence of the sons of my people give I it thee: bury thy dead. And Abraham bowed down himself before the people of the land. And he spake unto Ephron in the audience of the people of the land, saying, But if thou wilt give it, I pray thee, hear me [give me hearing]:. I will give thee money for the field; take zt from me, and I will bury my dead there. And Ephron answered Abra- ham, saying unto him, My lord, hearken unto me: the land is worth four hundred shekels of silver; what is that betwixt me and thee? bury therefore thy dead. And Abraham hearkened [followed] unto Ephron; and Abraham weighed to Ephron the silver which he had named in the audience of the sons of Heth, four hundred shekels of silver, current money with the merchant. And the field of Ephron, which was in Machpelah, which was before Mamre, the field, and the cave which was therein, and all the trees which were in the field, that were in all the borders round about, were made sure [stood] Unto Abraham for a possession CHAP. XXII, 20—XXIII. 20. 475 in the presence of the children of Heth, before all that went in at the gate of his city. 19 And after this Abraham buried Sarah 20 before Mamre: the same is Hebron in his wife in the cave of the field of Machpelah the land of Canaan. And the field, and the cave that is therein, were made sure unto Abraham for a possession of a burying-place by the sons of Heth. EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL, _ 1. Survey. The two sections which we have here placed together, with the following and the last sec- tions of the life of Abraham, form a contrast with his previous history. The revelations from God, the wonderful events of his life, cease, for Abraham’s life of faith is completed with the sacrifice of Isaac. To the wonderful completion of the faith of Abraham there is now added the purely natural and human per- fection of Abraham. Its history is certainly much shorter, but it is at the same time a proof that the miraculous in the Old Testament does not stand in any exclusive relation to the material and human. A neh seeking to produce effect, would have closed the life of the father of the faithful with some splendid supernatural or heroic events. It is, on the other hand, a trait of the true historical charac- ter of the tradition here, that it closes the life of Abraham in the way already stated. But at the same time the true christological character of the Old Testament history, wherein it forms the intro- duction to the New Testament manifestation of the God-man, discovers itself therein, that the history of the life of Abraham does not close abruptly with his greatest act of faith, but that from and out of this act of faith there proceeds a natural and human progress of a consecrated and sanctified life, a course of life into which even the second marriage of Abra- ham does not enter as a disturbing element. A ter- mination of this kind has already appeared in the life of Noah, appears later in the life of Jacob; and has its New Testament counterpart in the history of the forty days of the risen Christ. But as in the life of Jesus, so in the life of Abraham, the events after the great contests of faith are not without importance. The two sections which we have combined under this point of view, the family sorrows and family joys of Abraham point downwards to the history of Isaac and Israel. From the son of Abraham there must now be a family of Abraham, and to this the family genealogy of the house of Nahor serves as an intro- duction, This genealogical register first names Re- bekah, and then lays the ground for the mission and the wooing of the bride by Eliezer (ch. xxiv.), a history in which also the wooing of his bride by Jacob is introduced through the mention of Laban. But as the history of the family of Abraham is intro- duced through the record of the house of Nahor, so also is the first possession of Abraham and his descendants in Canaan introduced by the narrative of the death of Sarah. The burial-place in the cave and field of Machpelah, are made a point of union for the later appropriation of Canaan by the people of God, just as in the new covenant, the grave of Christ has introduced for Christians the future possession of the earth; a method of conquest which unfolds itself. through the graves of the martyrs and the crypts of Christian churches throughout the whole world. “The testing of the faith of Abraham is completed with the sacrifice of Isaac, the end of his divine calling is fulfilled, and henceforward the his- tory of his life hastens to its conclusion. It is alto- gether fitting that there should follow now, after this event, a communication to him concerning the family of his brother Nahor (ch. xi. 27 ff.), which is joined with so much appropriateness to the sacrifice of Isaac, since it leads on to the history of the marriage of the heir of the promise. The 8° ©5 (comp. ch. ii. 29) also points to this actual connection. As Sarah had borne a son to Abraham, Milcah also bare sons to Nahor, &"M ©A of ver. 24 refers back to ver, 20.” Keil—Scuréper: “This paragraph is merely a continuation of ch. xi. 27 ff As ch. xix. 37, 88, brought the side line of Haran to its goal and end, so here the side line of Nahor is continued still further, a testimony, moreover, that Moses never loses the genealogical thread of the history.” 2. Ch, xxii. 20-24. Knobel holds the number twelve of the sons of Nahor, as also of the sons of Ishmael (ch. xxv. 13 ff.) for an imitation of the twelve tribes of Israel. It is unjustifiable to infer from such accidental, or even important resemblances, without further grounds, that the record is fiction. It is certainly true also, that of the sons of Nahor, as also of the sons of Jacob, four are the sons of a con- cubine. Still, as Keil observes in the history of the sons of Jacob, there are two mothers as also two con- cubines. Keil also opposes, upon valid grounds, the view of Knobel, that the twelve sons of Nahor must signify twelve tribes of his descendants; thus, e. g., Bethuel does not appear as the founder of a tribe. “It is probably true only of some of the names, that those who bore them were ancestors of tribes of the same name.” Keil.— Huz his first-born.—He must be distinguished from the son of Aram (ch. x. 28), and from the Edomite (ch. xxx. 28). Knobel holds that he must be sought in the neighborhood of the Edomites.—Buz.—“ Also, since this tribe is mentioned (Jer. xxv. 28) in connection with Dedan, and Thema, aud since Elihu, the fourth opponent of Job, belonged to it (Job xxxii. 2), Knobel.— Kemuel—‘ Is not the ancestor or founder of the Aramaic people, but an ancestor of the family of Ram, to which the Buzite, Elihu, also belonged, since BUN stands for 29.” Keil_—Chesed.—The chief tribe of the Chaldees appears to have been older than Chesed, but he seems to have been the founder of a younger branch of the Chaldees who plundered Job (Job i. 17).—Bethuel, the father of Rebekah (see ch. xxv. 20).—IMaacha.—Deut. iii. 14 ; Josh. xii, 5, allude to the Maachathites. At the time of David the land Maacha was a small Aramaic kingdom (2 Sam. x. 6-8; 1 Chron. xix. 6). “The others never appear again,” Keil. For conjectures in regard to them, see Knobel, p. 194. For the difference in the names Aram, Uz, Chasdim, see Drurrzscu, p. 422. 8. Gertaca: “The German word ‘ Kebsweid’ sig- nifies a woman taken out of the condition of service, or bondage, and this is the meaning of the Hebrew term. Besides one or more legal wives, a man might take, according to the custom of the ancients, one from the rank of slaves, whose children, not by Abraham, but by Jacob, were made sharers alike with the le- gally born (naturally, since, they were held for the 476 adopted children of Rachel and Leah). It was a kind of lower marriage, as with us the marriage ‘on the left,’ * for the concubine was bound to remain faithful (Judg. xix. 2;.2 Sam. iii. 7), and any other man who went in unto her, must bring his trespass offering (Lev. xix. 20); the father must treat the concubine of his son as his child, and the son also, after the contraction of a marriage with one of equal rank, must still treat her as his concubine (Ex. xxi, 9-10).” 4. Ch. 23. Sarah's death and burial in the cave of Machpelah, purchased with the adjoining field, by Abraham, from the children of Heth as a possession of a burying-place. Knobel and Delitzsch find in the antique and detailed method of statement, and similar traits, the stamp of the characteristics of the fundamental Elohistic writing. The more truly the human side of the theocratic history comes into re- lief, this peculiar, pleasant, picturesque tone of the narrative appears, as, e. g., in the next so-called Je- hovistic chapter. The division of this section into two parts, the one of which should embrace only the two first verses, Sarah’s death (Delitzsch) is not in accordance with the unique, pervading method of statement throughout the whole. Sarah’s grave was the cradle of the Abrahamic kingdom in Canaan. The scene of the narration is in Hebron (now El Chalil). When Isaac was born, and also at the time of his sacrifice, Abraham dwelt at Beersheba (ch. xxii. 19). At Isaac’s birth Sarah was ninety years old (ch. xvii. 17), now she has reached 127 years, and Isaac is thus in his 87th year (see ch. xxv. 20). “ Between the journey to Moriah, and Sarah’s death, there is thus an interval of at least 20 years.” De- litzsch. During this interval Abraham must have changed his dwelling place to Hebron again. The mention of this change of residence may have ap- peared, therefore, superfluous to the writer, and fur- ther, it may be that even during his abode at Beer- sheba, Hebron was his principal residence, as Knobel conjectures.—The years of the life of Sarah.— The age of Sarah was impressed on the memory of the Israelites through this repetition, as a number which should not be forgotten. Keri: ‘Sarah is the only woman whose age is recorded in the Bible, because, as the mother of the seed of promise, she became the mother of all believers (1 Pet. iii. 6).” —Kirjath-Arba, the same is Hebron (see ch. xiii. 18).—The name Kirjath-Arba, i. e., city of Arba, is marked by Keil after Hengstenberg as the later name (coming after Hebron), since the Anakim had not dwelt there at the time of the patriarchs, but Delitzsch, on the contrary, according to Josh. xiv. 15, and Judg. i, 10, views it as the earlier name. Since, however, Num. xiii. 22, the city at the very blooming period of the Anakim, was called Hebron, and, indeed, with reference to its being founded seven years before Zoan (Tanis) in Egypt, it seems clear that while the time mentioned in the books of Joshua and Judges, was an earlier time, it was not the earliest, and the succession in the names is ‘this: Hebron, Kirjath-Arba, Hebron, El Chalil (the friend of God, viz., Abraham). It is still, however, a ques- tion whether Heron may not designate specially a * [The allusion is to a German law or custom, in regard to marriage between persons of unequal rank, and the off- spring of such a marriage.—A. G.] {The concubine was a secon or half-wife, and among the Hebrews her position was well defined, and was not re- garded as illegitimate. Her position was not that of a mis- tress, as we use the term concubine.—A. G.] GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. valley city of this locality, which belonged to the Hittites (see ch. xxxvii. 14, where Hebron is described as a valley), the name Kirjath-Arba, on the contrary, the mountain and mountain city, belonging to the Anakim. The locality seems to favor the supposi- tion of two neighboring cities, of which one could now use the valley city as the abode of Abraham for the whole locality, and now the mountain city. We have confessedly to accept such a relation between Sichem and the neighboring town Sichar, in order to meet the difficulty in John iv. 6. Delitzsch explains the change of names through a change of owners, Even now Hebron is a celebrated city, at the same time a hill and valley city, although no longer, great and populous, situated upon the way from Beer- sheba to Jerusalem, and about midway between them (7-8 hours from Jerusalem), surrounded by beautiful vineyards, olive trees and orchards; comp. the arti- cles in Winer’s “Dictionary,” Von Raumer, and the various descriptions of travellers. [RoBINSson’s description (ii. 431-462) is full and accurate, and leaves little to be desired—A. G.J—In the land of Canaan.—This circumstance appears here con- spicuously in honor of Sarah, and from the import- ance of her burial-place.—And Abraham came.— The shepherd prince was busy in his calling in the field, or in the environs. It is not said that he was absent at the death of Sarah, but only that he now sat down by the corpse at Hebron, to complete the usages of mourning (to mourn for Sarah, and to weep for her), and to provide for her burial.—F'rom be- fore his dead (corpse).—From before his dead. * He had mourned in the presence of the dead; now he goes to the gate of the city, where the people assembled, where the business was transacted, and where he could thus purchase a grave—To the sons of Heth.—The name, according to Knobel, appears only in the Elohistic writings. [This at- tempt to define and characterize particular points of the book by the use of special names, breaks down go often that it may be regarded as no longer of any serious importance.—A. G.J—A possession of a purying-place with you.—It is, as F.C. V. Moser remarks, a beautiful scene of politeness, simplicity, kindness, frankness, humility, modesty, not un- mingled with some shades of avarice, and of a kind of expectation when one in effecting a sale, throws himself upon the generosity of the purchaser.” De- litzsch. The delicate affair is introduced by the modest request of Abraham. As a stranger and a sojourner + he had no possession, thus even no bury- ing-place among them. He therefore asks that they would sell him a piece of ground for the purpose of a burial-place.—Thou art a mighty prince (a prince of God).—That is, a man to whom God has given a princely aspect, in consequence of com- munion with him. [Aman whom God has favored and made great.—A. G.] They offer him a sepul- chre, among the most select of their sepulchres (upon the exchange of 4> for 1> see Knobel and the op- posing remarks by Keil), [niaxd is generally used absolutely, but the peculiarity here is not without analogy (see Lev. xi. 1), and does not justify the change to ‘> nor that adopted by the Sept. X>.— * (Sarah, though dead, was still his. Wordsworth.—A.G.} t [Wordsworth here calls attention to the fact that the Apostle Peter (1 Pet. ii. 11) quotes these words as found in the Septuagint, when he addresses believers as “strangers and pil a They were, like Abraham, the father of the faithful.—A. G.] CHAP. XXII. 20—XXIII. 20. 417 A.G.]_ But Abraham cannot consent thus to mingle himself with them. He has a separate burying- place in his eye—And Abraham stood up.—The reverential bowing is an expression of his gratitude and of his declining the offer. In the oriental bow- ing the person touches the earth with his brow. Luther often translates the word in question by “ to worship,” in relation to men, where it is obviously unsuited to the sense.—If it be your mind.—Abra- ham introduces, in a very courtly and prudent way, his purpose to secure the cave of Ephron. It marks Ephron as a man of prominence and rank, that he avails himself of their intercession ; Keil infers from the words his city (ver. 10), that he was then lord of the city. This is doubtful—The cave of Mach- pelah,—“ The name is rendered in the Septuagint: 7b orhdauov 7d SixAody, according to the meaning of mp3, But it is a proper name, which is also true of the field (ch. xlix. 80; 1. 18), although it was originally derived from the form of the cave.” Keil. Caves were often used for sepulchres in Palestine (see Winer, sepulchres)—And Ephron, the Hit- tite, answered.— When now Ephron offered to give the cave to Abraham—this is a mode of expres- sion still in use in the East, by which, so far as it is seriously intended, leaving out of view any regard to a counterpresent, richly compensating the value of the present, for the most part it is designed to pre- vent any abatement from the price desired. [See ‘The Land and the Book,’ by Txompson, ii. 381- 888.—A. G.] (Comp. Dretericr and descriptions of the Eastern lands, ii. p.168 f.).” Keil. It is not certain that we should identify so directly the orig- inal utterance of true generosity with the like sound- ing form of a later custom. It must be observed, still, that Abraham modestly desired only to gain the cave, a place which was at the end of the field, and to this no one objected; on the contrary, Ephron offered him at the same time, the adjoining field. And this is in favor of the good intention of Ephron, since he could have sold to him the cave alone at a cost- ly price.—And Abraham bowed down himself (again).—An expression, again, of esteem, thank- fulness, and at the same time, of a declinature, but, also, an introduction to what follows. He presses, repeatedly, for a definite purchase. The answer of Ephron: “The field, four hundred shekels,” etc., announces again the price in courtly terms. Knobel explains: “A piece of land of so little value could not be the matter of a large transaction between two rich men.” Butitis the more distinct echo of the offer of the present, and with this utters an ex- cuse or apology for the demand, because he (Abra- ham) would insist upon having it thus—And Abra- ham weighed.—“At that time none of the states had stamped. coins which could be reckoned, but pieces of the metals were introduced in the course of trade, and these pieces were of definite weight, and, indeed, also marked with designations of the weight, but it was necessary to weigh these pieces in order to guard against fraud” (see Winer, article Miinzen). Knobel. The use of coins for the greater con- venience of original barter, has been regarded as the invention of the Phoenicians, as also the inven- tion of letters is ascribed to them. —~ Current money with the merchant.—The Hebrew term is snip "25, passing over, transitive; i. e., current, fitted for exchangein merchandise. The idea of the distinction between light pieces, and those of full weight, existed already. Kurz: ‘ The shekel of sil- ver used in trade was about 274 Parisian grains, and the price of the land, therefore, about 250 dollars, a very considerable sum for the time.” The Rabbins ascribe the high price to the covetousness of Ephron. Delitzsch, however, reminds us, that Jacob purchased a piece of ground for 100 Mu"wWP (Gen, xxxiii. 19), and the ground and limits upon which Samaria was built, cost two talents, i. e. 6,000 heavy shekels of silver (1 Kings xvi. 24), For the shekel see Denirzscu, p. 426. [Also article in Kirro on “ Weights and Measures,” and in Suir’s “Dictionary.” —A. G.] It must be observed, too, that we cannot judge of the relation between the price and the field, since we do not know its bounds,—Machpelah, which was before Mamre.—For these local relations compare Detirzscu and Kuit, and also v. RaumeEr, p. 202. [Compare also Rozinson: “ Researches,” vol. ii. pp. 481462; Stantey: “ History of the Jew. Church.” This cave, so jealously guarded by the Mohammedans, has recently been entered by the Prince of Wales with his suite. Dean Stanley, who was permitted to enter the cave, says that the shrines “‘are what the Biblical narrative would lead us to expect, and there is evidence that the Moham- medans have carefully guarded these sacred spots, and they stand as the confirmation of our Christian faith."—A. G.] The cave lay "35% (ver. 17; comp. ver. 19) before Mamre, i. e., over against the oak grove of Mamre; Keil and Knobel think eastward, Delitzsch southerly. But the expression here does not appear to refer to any quarter of the heavens. The valley of Hebron runs from north to south, in a southeasterly direction. Mamre and Machpelah must have been situated over against each other in the two sides, or the two ends, of this valley. Since the structure Haram, which the Mohammedan tradi- tion (without doubt, a continuation of the earlier Christian tradition,) designates as the cave of Mach- pelah, or as Abraham’s grave, and which the Moham- medan power jealously guards against the entrance of Jews or Christians, lies upon the mountain-slope towards the east, it is clear that Mamre must be sought upon the end of the valley, or mountain- slope toward the west (which forms its eastern side). Here lies the height Numeidi, which Rosen- miiller says is theland of Mamre. We must then hold that the grove of Mamre descended into the valley, and that Abraham dwelt here in the valley at the edge of the grove. Still the opposition in locality (the vis-d-vis) may be defined from the high ground which lies northerly from Hebron, and is called Nimre or Nemreh (=Mamre?), but even then also Abraham must have dwelt at the foot of this emi- nence. However, according to the old Christian tradition (Schubert, Robinson, Seetzen, Ritter and others), this Hebron of Abraham (Wady el Rame or Ramet el Chalil,-with its ruins of old walls and foundations) lay about an hour northward from the present city. This view is abandoned by the most recent commentators, since this would require too great a distance between Mamre and Hebron. So much seems at least to be established, viz., that the tradition in regard to Machpelah is confirmed, then that the tradition concerning Mamre and the loca- tion of Mamre, must be determined by the situation of Machpelah, [In regard to the words of - St. Stephen, Acts. vii, 16, Wordsworth holds that Abraham purchased two burial-places, the first, the cave of Machpelah, the second at Sichar or Shechem ; and that it is by design that the one should be com- 478 municated to us by the Holy Spirit, speaking by Moses, the Hebrew legislator, and the other by the Hellenist Stephen, when he pleaded before the Jew- ish Sanhedrim the cause of the faithfulness of all nations, p. 108. See also ALEXANDER “on the Acts.” —A.G.J—And the field of Ephron was made sure.—The record of the transaction is very minute ; first, in regard to the purchase price and the wit- nesses (ver. 16), then in regard to the piece of ground (the cave, the field and all the trees) (ver. 1’7), finally, in reference to the right of possession (again with the mention of witnesses) (ver. 18); as if a legal contract was made and executed. Even the burial of Sarah belongs to the confirmation of the posses- sion, as is apparent from the forms of ver. 19, and from the conclusion of the account in ver. 20, -DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL. (Upon ch. xxii. 20-24.) 1. See the Exegetical and Critical remarks. 2. Joy follows upon sorrow, comfort succeeds the conflict, The message which Abraham received was very providential, and comes at the right mo- ment. Isaac was saved. Soon Abraham must think of his marriage, and of the establishment of his family through him. The opportune account from Mesopotamia of the children of his brother Nahor laid the foundation for the hope in him, that he might find in his family a suitable bride for Isaac. Rebekah also is mentioned in the report. Rebekah ap- pears as the youngest branch of the children of Nahor, his grandchild through Bethuel. She is in so far.a late-birth, as Isaac was. Her brother Laban, who, in some respects, forms a parallel to Ishmael, the brother of Isaac, first appears later in the history. 38. It avails not for the race to be hasty, the race is not always to the swift. Nahor precedes Abraham with his twelve sons, as Ishmael does Isaac. In the line of Abraham, the twelve sons appear first in the third generation. : 4, The message from Nahor’s house, the sign of a relationship and love, sanctified through a reference to higher ends. 5. Love excites the thoughts of the loved ones in the distance, forms the greeting, and devises also the messages in primitive times. Between the earliest messengers, the angels of God, and the latest form of human communication, the telegraph, there is every possible form of communication and kind of messengers ; but they all ought to serve, and all shall, in accordance with their idea, serve the urposes of love and the kingdom of God.—The mportance of the newspaper.—A pious man re- marks: I have only two moulding books, the one is the Bible, the other the newspaper.— We should view all the events of the times in the light of God. 6. Nahor, the brother of Abraham, stands still in a spiritual relationship with him; both his mes- sage, and the piety and nobleness of his grandchild Rebekah, prove this, But he is clearly less refined than Abraham. Abraham suffers the espousal of Hagar to be pressed upon him, because he had no children; but Nahor, who had already eight children by Milcah, took in addition to her a concubine, Reumah.—Contrasts of this kind teach us to esti- mate the higher direction of the partriarchal life, as e. g. also the history of Lot, will be estimated in the mirror of the history of Sodom. GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. ‘pon ch, xxifi.) 1. See the Exegetical and Critical remarks. 2. Sarah. ‘It wag in the Jand of promise that Sarah, the ancestress of Israel, died. The Old Testament relates the end of no woman’s life so particularly as the end of the life of Sarah—for she is historically the most important woman of the old covenant. She is the mother of the seed of promise, and in him of all believers (1 Pet. iii. 6). She is the Mary of the old Testament. In her unshaken faiih Mary rises still higher than Sarah, but the Scriptures neither record the length of her life, nor her death. This occurs because the son whom Sarah bare was not greater than herself, but Mary bore a son before whose glory all her own personality fades and van- ishes away,” etc. Delitzsch. 8. Abraham, the father of believers, also a model of the customary courtliness, and a proof how this courtliness is, at the same time, an expression of re- gard, of human love and gratitude, a polished form of human friendship, and a protection of personality and truth. [Religion does not consist entirely in acts of worship, in great self-denials or heroic virtues, but in all the daily concerns and acts of our lives. It moulds and regulates our joys and sorrows; it affects our relations; it enters into our business. Thus we have the faith and piety of Abraham, pre- sented in the ordinary changes, the joys, the sorrows, and the business transactions of his life—A. G.] 4, Our history is a living portraiture of the court- liness and urbanity general in the remote antiquity and in the East. 5. The traffic and purchase of Abraham, through- out, a testimony of Israelitish prudence and fore- sight, but free from all Jewish meanness and covet- ousness. 6. The gradual development of money, or of the measures in value of earthly things, proceeding from the rating of the nobler metals, especially of silver, according to its weight. The importance of the Phoenicians in this respect. 4. A precious gain, the gain of a burial posses- sion for her descendants, is connected with the death of Sarah. ‘The first real-estate property of the patriarchs was a grave. This is the only good which they buy from the world, the only enduring thing they find here below, etc. In that sepulchre Abra- ham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, were laid, there Jacob laid Leah, and there Jacob himself would rest after his death, even in death itself a confessor of his faith in the promise. This place of the dead becomes the punctum saliens of the possession of the promised land. It was designedly thus minutely described, as the glorious acquisition of the ancestors of Israel. It was indeed the bond which ever bound the descend- ants of Abraham in Egypt to the land of promise, drew with magnetic power their desires thither, and, collected in Canaan, they should know where the ashes of their fathers rested, and that they are called to inherit the promise, for which their fathers were here laid in the grave.” Delitzsch.—The cave Mach- pelah became for the Israelites the sacred grave of the old covenant, which they won again with the conquest of Canaan, just as the Christians in the cru- sades reconquered the sacred grave of the new cove- nant, and with it Palestine. And the Christians also, like the Jews, have lost again their sacred grave and their holy land, because they have not inwardly adhered sufficiently to the faith of the fathers, who beyond the sacred grave looked for the eternal city CHAP. XXII. 20—XXIII. 1-20. of God: because they have sought too much “ the living among the dead.” Even now the last desire of the orthodox Jews is for a grave at Jerusalem, in Canaan. [The transaction in securing this burial- place was, not as some have thought, to secure a title to the land of promise, that was perfect and secure in the sovereign promise of God: but it was: 1, A declaration of the faith of Abraham in the promise; 2. a pledge and memorial to his de- scendants, when in captivity, of their interest in the land.—A. G.] 8. Notwithstanding the ancients did not easily receive a stranger into their families (among the Greeks and Romans usage forbade it), the Hittites are ready to receive Sarah into their best family sepulchres, as Joseph of Arimathea took the body of our Lord into his own tomb. This is a strong testimony to the impression which Abraham, and Sarah also, had made upon them, to their reverence and attachment for the patriarchal couple. They ap- pear also, like Abimelech at Gerar, to have had their original monotheism awakened and strengthened by their intercourse with Abraham, whom they honor as a “Prince of God.” 9. Hebron, the first royal city of David, is situated five hours southerly from Bethlehem, his native city. How deeply the present spiritual relations of Hebron lie under the splendor of the royal city of David! Its inhabitants cultivate the vine, cotton, have glass- works, and live ‘in constant feuds with the Bethle- hemites.” V. Raumer. 10. The custom of burial and the sanctification of the grave, after the intimation, ch. xv. 15, appears here in a striking and impressive manner. 11. In order to preserve his hope for Canaan pure, Abraham could not entangle himself with the Caananites, thus: 1. He could not use, in common ‘with the heathen, their sepulchre; 2. he could not receive as a present a possession in the land. [This chapter is interesting as containing the first record of mourning for the dead, of burial, of property in land, of purchase of land, of silver as a medium of purchase, and of a standard of weight. Murray, p. 847.—A. G.] HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL. (Upon ch. xxii. 20-24.) Human consolation follows the great conflict and victory of faith —The joyful message which Abraham received: a. From his home; b. from his blood rela- tions; c. from his spiritual kindred.—The destination ‘and the blessing of the ties of relationship, in the widest sense.—The end and the blessing of all com- munication in the world—All human messengers should be messengers of love, in joy and sorrow.— Salutations, messages, letters, journals, are all also under the conduct of divine providence. Human missions are accompanied by divine missions—A people spring from children, or how significantly Rebekah here comes forward from her conceal- ment.—The joy of a loving participation in the happiness of companions—neighbors. Srarke: (A picture of Syria and Babylon.) Ps. exii. 2; cxxvii. 3. ——OstanpEr: God usually refreshes and quickens his people again, after temptation.—CaLwer, Hand- buch: When Isaac was about to be offered, God allows bim to hear that bis future wife was born and educated. . 479 (Upon ch, xxiii.) The richly blessed end of Sarah as it appears: 1. In the quenchless memory of her age by Israel; 2. in the mourning of Abraham; 3. in his care for her grave; 4, in the esteem of the Hittites (every one is ready to admit her into his sepulchre); 5. in the opportunity for the securing of the sepulchre as a possession by Abraham.—The whole chapter instruc- tive on the grave, as is chapter fifth on death, the eleventh chapter of John on the resurrection from the grave: 1. Of death ;* 2. of mourning ; 3. of the acquisition of sepulchres; 4. of the burial itself; 5. of hope over the grave.—The true mourning a sanc- tified feeling of death: 1. A fellow-feeling of death, with the dead; 2. an anticipation of death, or a liv- ing preparation for one’s own death; 3. a believing sense of the end or destination of death, to be made useful to the life—Sarah’s grave a sign of life: 1. A monument of faith, a token of hope; 2. an image of the state of rest for the patriarchs ; 3. a sign of the home and of the longing of Israel; 4. a sign or prognostic of the New-Testament graves.—The sol- emn burial of the corpse: 1. An expression of the esteem of personality even in its dead image; 2. an expression of the hope of a new life.t—The sancti- fication of the grave for a family sepulchre, fore- shadowing the sanctification of the church-yards or God’s-acres.—Abraham the father of believers, also the founder of a believing consecration of the grave —offers themes for funeral discourses, dedication of church-yards, and at mourning solemnities.—The first possession which Abraham bought was a grave for Sarah, for his household, for himself even.— The choice of the grave: 1. Significantly situated (a double cave); 2. still more suitably (at the end of the field).—Israel’s first possession of the soil: the grave of Sarah; the first earthly house of the Chris- tian; the grave of Christ and the graves of the martyrs.—Ver. 2. The mourning of Abraham: 1, Its sincerity (as he left his pursuits and sat or lay before the corpse); 2. its limit, and the preservation of his piety (as he rose up from before the corpse, and purchased the grave)—Abraham himself must have had his own mortality brought to his mind by the death of Sarah, since he cared for a common grave.—Vers. 9, 18. Abraham’s traffic; 1. In his transparency ; 2. his purity; 8. his carefulness and security.— Abraham and the Hittites a lively image of the Eastern courtliness in the early times.—The true politeness of spirit as a cultivation of hearty human friendliness, in its meaning: 1. Upon what it rests (respect for our fellows and ‘self-respect); 2. what it effects (the true position toward our neigh- bors, as an olive-branch of peace and a protection of personal honor).—The mysterious sepulchre at Hebron.—The Mohammedans as the intelligent pro- tectors of the graves of the East until the time of its restitution.—Srarxe: (There is no ground for the saying of the Rabbins, that Sarah died from ‘sorrow when she learned of the sacrifice of Isaac).—The fear of God makes no one insensible to feeling, as the Stoics have asserted (Job xiv. 5; 1 Thess. iv. 13; Ps. xxxix. 5, 6)—Ver. 13, There is a reference * (The patriarch had encountered other trials, but he had hitherto been spared this of death. But now death en- ters, No health, relations, affections, can resist the march. and power of death.. Abraham has in heart parted with his childn now he must part actually from her who had shared all his trials and hopes.—A. G.J : } [In that grave was Paphos the hope of Resurrection. Worpsworts, p. 104.—A. G.] 480 GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. ; here to the first money transaction, for the land was not to be received as a present, or be held without price, by Abraham, but by his successors, hence he must pay for what he obtains (Acts vii. 5). This was, however, plainly the ordering of God, that Abraham, through a purchase of a burial-place with money, should have a foothold, and some possession of property, as a pledge of the future” possession.— God also shows that he takes the dead into his care and protection, and he would never do this had he not a purpose to reawaken the dead.—Cramer: We should proceed with gentleness and modesty in our dealings with any one.— Bibl, Z'ub.: Purchases should be made with prudence, that we may not give cause for controversy (1 Cor. vi. 7)—We should veil in a seemly way the bodies of the dead, and bear them reverently to the grave-—Lisco: Thus Abra- ham gained the first possession in the land of prom- > ise; here he would bury Sarah, here he himself TWELFTH would be buried; thus he testifies to his faith in the certainty of the divine promise made to him, as in a later case the prophet Jeremiah, just before the exile, testified his faith in the return of Israel from its ban- ishment, by the purchase of the field of Hanameel at Anathoth (Jer. xxxii.),— CaLwer, Handbuch: The possession of a burying-place as his own, satis- fied the pious pilgrim, and is for him a pledge of the full possession of the land by his successors. —Scur6- per: Ver. 1. Then also the believer may recollect how God has written all his days in his book. Ps, exxxix. 16 (Berleb, Bibl.).—Ver.2. The tear of sor- sow has its right in the heart, because it is a human heart: but there is a despair concerning death, as concerning sin.—It is thoughtfully tender to lay the children of the mother earth again in her bosom (Sir. xl. 1).—The money with which he secures the care is the blessing of God; thus God procures for him peculiarly a possession in the land of promise. SECTION. 12 Abraham's care for Isaac's marriage. Eliezer's wooing of the bride for Isaac. The theocratic found- ing of a pious bride-wooing. Isaac's marriage. —_——- Cuarrer XXIV. 1-67. I And Abraham was old, and well stricken [comein days] in age: and the Lord had 2 blessed Abraham in all things. And Abraham said unto his eldest servant’ of his house, 3 that ruled over all that he had, Put, I pray thee, thy hand under my thigh: And I will make thee swear by the Lord, the God of heaven, and the God of the earth, that thou shalt not take a wife unto my son, of the daughters of the Canaanites, among 4 whom I dwell: But thou shalt go unto my country, and to my kindred, and take a 5 wife unto my son Isaac. And the servant said unto him, Peradventure, the woman will not be willing to follow me into this land; must I needs bring thy son again into 6 the land from whence thou camest? And Abraham said unto him, Beware that thou bring not my son thither again, 7 The Lord God of heaven, which took me from my father’s house, and from the land of my kindred, and which spake unto me, and that sware unto me, saying, Unto thy seed will I give this land, he shall send his angel before thee, and thou shalt take a 8 wife unto my son from thence, And if the woman will not be willing to follow thee, then thou shalt be clear from this thine oath: only-bring not my son thither again. 9 And the servant put his hand under the thigh of Abraham his master, and sware to him concerning that matter. And the servant took ten camels of the camels of his master, and departed ; for all the goods of his master [with every kind of costly goods] were in his hand: and he arose and went to Mesopotamia, unto the city of Nahor. And he made his camels to kneel down without the city by a well of water, at the time of the evening, even at the time that women go out to draw water. And he said, O Lord God of my master Abraham, I pray thee send me good speed ® this day, and show kindness unto my master Abra- ham. Behold I stand here by the well of water; and the daughters of the men of the city come out to draw water: And let it come to pass that the damsel to whom I shall say, Let down thy pitcher, I pray thee, that I may drink; and she shall say, Drink, and I will give thy camels drink also ; Jet the sume be she that thou hast appointed for thy servant Isaac; and thereby shall I know that thou hast showed kindness unto ‘my master. 10 il 13 14 CHAP. XXIV. 1-67. 481 28 29 30 31 32 33 44 45 46 47 And it came to pass, before he had done speaking, that behold, Rebekah came out, who was born to Bethuel, son of Milcah, the wife of Nahor, Abraham’s brother, with her pitcher upon her shoulder. And the damsel was very fair to look upon, a virgin; neither had any man known her; and she went down to the well and filled her pitcher, and came up, And the servant ran to meet her, and said, Let me, I pray thee, drink a little water from thy pitcher. And she said, Drink, my lord; and she hasted, and let down her pitcher upon her hand, and gave him drink, And when she had done giving him drink, she said, I will draw water for thy camels also, until they have done drink- ing. And she hasted, and emptied her pitcher into the trough, and ran again unto the well to draw water, and drew for all his camels, And the man, wondering at her, held his peace [waiting to mow], to wit whether the Lord had made his journey prosperous or not. And it came to pass, as the camels had done drinking, that the man took a golden ear [nose] ring, of half a shekel weight, and two bracelets for her hands, of ten shekels weight of gold, And said, Whose daughter art thou?. tell me, I pray thee: is there room 7m thy father’s house for us to lodge in? And she said unto him, I am the daughter of Bethuel, the son of Milcah, which she bare unto Nahor. She said, more-' over, unto him, We have both straw and provender enough, and room to lodge in, And the man bowed down his head, and worshipped the Lord. And he said, 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. And the damsel ran and told them of her mother’s house these . things. And Rebekah had a brother, and his name was Laban [the white]: and Laban ran out unto the man, unto the well, And it came to pass, when he saw the ear [nose] ring, and bracelets upon his sister’s hands, and when he heard the words of Rebekah his sister, saying, Thus spake the man unto me; that he came unto the man, and behold, he stood by the camels at the well. And he said, Come in, thou blessed of the Lord ; wherefore standest thou without? for I have prepared the house, and room for the camels. And the man came into the house: and he [aban] ungirded his camels, and gave straw and provender for his camels, and water to wash his feet, and the men’s feet that were with him. And there was set [os the imperf. Hoph. of Dw] meat before him to eat: but he said, I will not eat until I have told mine errand. And he [Zaban] said, speak on. 35 And he said, Iam Abrakam’s servant. And the Lord hath blessed my master greatly, and he is become great; and he hath given him flocks, and herds, and silver, and gold, and men-servants, and maid-servants, and camels, and asses, And Sarah, my master’s wife, bare a son to my master when she was old: and unto him hath he given all that he hath. And my master made me swear, saying, Thou shalt not take a wife to my son of the daughters of the Canaanites, in whose Jand I dwell. But thou shalt * go unto my father’s house, and to my kindred, and take a wife unto my son. And I said unto my master, Peradventure the woman will not follow me. And he said unto me, The Lord, before whom I walk, will send his angel with thee, and will prosper thy way; and thou shalt take a wife for my son of my kindred and of my father’s house. Then shalt thou be clear from this mine oath [the oath given by me] when thou comest to -my kindred; and if they give not thee one, thou shalt. be clear from my oath. And I ‘3 day unto the well, and said, O Lord God of my master Abraham, if now oo. prosper my way which I go: Behold, I stand by the well of water; and it shall come to pass, when the virgin cometh forth to draw water, and I say unto her, Give me, I pray. thee, a little water of thy pitcher [112 ,, bucket ; a jug similar to a pail or bucket, of wide mouth] to drink: And she say to me, Both drink thou, and I will also draw for thy camels: Jet the same be the woman whom the Lord hath appointed out for my master’s son. And before I had done speaking in my heart [in myself ], behold, Rebekah came forth with her pitcher on her shoulder ; and she went down unto the well, and drew water ; and I said unto her, Let me drink, I pray thee. And she made haste, and let down her pitcher from her shoulder, and said, Drink, and I will give thy camels drink also: so I drank, and she made the camels drink also, And Tasked her, and said, Whose daughter art thou? And she said, The daughter of Bethuel, Nahor’s son, whom Milcah bare unto him: and I put the ear [nose] ring upon her face, and the 31 482 GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 bracelets upon her hands, And I bowed down my head and worshipped the Lord, and blessed the Lord God of my master Abraham, which had led me in the right way, to take my master’s brother’s daughter unto his son. And now if ye will [are ready to| deal kindly and truly with my master, tell me: and if not, tellme: that I may turn to the right hand or to the left. Then Laban and Bethuel answered and said, The thing proceedeth from the Lord; we cannot speak [in our own choice] unto thee bad or good. Behold Rebekah 7s before thee, take her, and go, and let her be thy master’s son’s wife, as the Lord hath spoken. And it came to pass, that, when Abraham’s servant heard their words, he worshipped the Lord, bowing himself to the earth, And the servant 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. And they did eat and drink, he and the men that were with him, and tarried all night; and they rose up in the morning, and he said, Send me away unto my master. And her brother and her mother eaid, Let the damsel abide with us a few days [acircle of days|, at the least ten [adecade]; after that she shall go. And he said unto them, Hinder me not, seeing the Lord hath prospered my way; send me away, that I may go to my master. And they said, We will call the damsel, and inquire at her mouth, And they called Rebekah, and said unto her, Wilt thou go with this man? And she said, I will go. And they sent away Rebekah their sister, and her nurse, and Abraham’s servant, and his men. And they blessed Rebekah, and said unto her, Thou art our sister; be thou the mother of thousands of millions, and let thy seed possess the gate of those which hate them [enemies]. And Rebekah arose, and her damsels, and they rode upon the camels, and followed the man: and the servant took Rebekah, and went his way. And Isaac came from the way of [visit to] the well Lahai-roi [of the living—animating, quickening-vision|; for he dwelt [had his station] in the south country. And Isaac went out [now aie scar to meditate in the field [the northern field-region] at the eventide: and he lifted up his eyes, and saw, and, behold, the camels were coming. And Rebekah lifted up her eyes; and when she saw Isaac, she lighted off the camel. For she had said* unto the servant, What man is this that walketh in the field to meet us? And the servant had said, It is my master: therefore she took a veil and covered herself. And the servant told Isaac all things that he had done. And Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah’s tent, and took Re- bekah, and she became his wife; and he loved her: and Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death, [) Ver. 2.—Heb. his servant, the elder of his house.—A, G.] [2 Ver. 12.—Heb, cause it to occur.—A. G.] [2 Ver. 38ND ON, U7 thou shalt not.—A. G.] [4 Ver. 65.—Heb. and satd.—A. G.] peculiarly fitted for the quiet, patient Isaac. “ Hu- GENERAL REMARKS. manly speaking, the following history belongs to the ° To the chapter upon the sepulchre and the burial of the dead, there follows now a chapter upon the wooing of the bride. The former has greater strength of expression, grounded in the last need, death and the care for the dead; the latter has greater richness and life, and glows in all the fresh- ness and fulness of a sacred, biblical idyll, the first pearl in that string of pearls, in the religious glorifi- cation of the human bridal state which runs down through the wooing of Rachel by Jacob, the little pook of Ruth, to its culmination in the Song of Songs. Abraham was warned by the death of Sarah, to set the concerns of his house in order, to seek a pride for Isaac, and thus to provide for his descend- ants. The narrative joins one beautiful trait to another, until the circle is complete ; the spirit of his master Abraham, who had instructed him, is clearly reflected in the faithful and prudent bridal journey of his servant, and Rebekah appears from the beginning as the glorious, lovely and boldly-determined maiden, most attractive portions of the first book of Moses ; we are tempted to call ita biblical idyll. Everything in these verses, down to the most minute part, is finished and elaborated with inimitable beauty.” Schréder. Delitzsch refers to the excellent treat- ment of this narrative by F. C. V. Movers. The fundamental thought in the narrative is the provi- dence of God in Isaac’s marriage. It appears in Abraham's believing foresight and care for Isaac, in the faithfulness and prudence of his servant, in the happy meeting of Rebekah and the servant, in the forming of the life and character of Rebekah, in the hospitality and the pious spirit of her house, even in the self-interested conduct of Laban, in the meet- ing of Isaac and Rebekah, in the movement of her heart, and in his love. “It is thus through the provi- dence of God that Rebekah became the wife of Isaac, and an ancestress of the people of Israel.” Knobel. The documentary hypothesis falls into perplexity here, since, according to ch. xxiii. and ch. xxv. 19, the CHAP. XXIV. 1-67. 483 fundamental writing must have related this marriage. It relieves itself with the conjecture that the brief Elohistic narration has been displaced by this longer Jehovistic narrative, Knobel finds in the fact that the mission proceeds from Abraham, and the report is made to Isaac, although he has no real ground for the conjecture, as also in similar cases, the traces that the narrative is not genuine. [Which is much the same as if he had said, since the narrative is not constructed as I think it should have been, it cannot be genuine.—A. G.] It may be divided into the fol- lowing particular portions: 1. The arrangement of the theocratic journey for the bride, the spiritual image and character of the bride (vers. 1-9); 2, the journey for the bride, and the choice of the bride (vers. 10-21); 38. the entrance into the house of the bride (vers. 22-33); 4. the wooing of the bride (vers. 34-49); 5. the rewards for the bride (vers. 50-54); 6. the bridal journey (vers. 54-61); 7. the meeting of the bridegroom and the bride (vers. 62-67). EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL. 1. The arrangement of the theocratic journey for the bride (vers. 1-9).—And Abraham.—The mo- tives for his arrangement: 1. After Sarah’s death his age warned him to provide for Isaac’s marriage. 2. the blessing of Jehovah warns him, he must now through the marriage of his son, do his own part, that the blessing might be preserved. His faith and his acts of faith must correspond to the promise of blessing of Jehovah. Isaac could not marry a Canaanitess, but only a Shemitess, one who was of equal birth in a theocratic point of view. It might possibly be from his own ancestral home, and the account which he had received of the home of Nahor, favored his hope. He could not think of Lot’s daughters.—Unto his eldest * servant.—It is usually inferred from ch. xv. 2, that Eliezer of Damascus is here meant. Gerlach says it is not probable, because he is not named. For the same reason the Catwer Handbuch concludes that he is intended, because otherwise the servant would be named in so important a mission, and this inference is just. Eleazer was peculiarly fitted for this mis- sion, as an old man in the school of Abraham (more than 60 years had elapsed since ch. xv. 2). Eleazer thus stands for all time as the type of all pious and prudent bride-wooers. He is a steward or ruler of the whole house, thus a trusted servant. [The word servant like the word elder, is an official title. Bush refers to Gen. xl. 30; Ex. xii. 30; Deut. xxxiv. 6; Heb. iii. 6; and for elder to Gen. 1.7; Ruth iv. 2; Tim. v. 17.—A.G.] Still the present mission of Abraham is so important, that he lays him under the obligations of an oath.—Put thy hand under my thigh.—This usage in the oath is referred to only in one other place (ch. xvii. 29). The person who took the oath, was to place his hand under the thigh of him to whom it was given. Some refer this rite to a heathen idea or imagina- tion. “It points to the generating member, which, as the organ of the generative strength of nature, * (Here the term elder approaches its official significa- tion. Murray, p. 353.—A. G.) [‘ The elder was not a title of age, but of office. It } heres into the Church, coming down to us from the Jewish Church.”? Jacobus.—A. G.} had a kind of sacredness among the ancients, and in the Phallus (or Bacchus) worship, had a kind of re- ligious honor (ARNoB, advers. Gent. 6), e. g.: among the Egyptians (Herop., ii. 48; Prorarcu; Turo- DorRET), among the Syrians (Lucian), at times even among the Hebrews (1 Kings xv. 13?). It is record- ed of the Egyptian Bedouin in modern times, that in a solemn asseveration or oath he places his hand upon the generative organ (Sonnim.: ‘ Travels,’ ii. p. 474).” Knobel. According to the Jewish idea (which the Targums, Jonathan, Jarchi, Tuch, ete., follow), the rite relates to the generative member in its relations to God, by virtue of circumcision, Von Bohlen, Gesenius, Knobel, bring together these two ideas or explanations, The explanation of the an- cients, that Abraham, with reference to the promise of the covenant, “had in his mind the promised seed of the covenant, the future Christ,” is a mystical and Christian idea, not improperly adduced here, remarks Delitzsch, although the thought is “ usually regarded as belonging to the New Testament (see SrRipPE- mann: ‘The Christian Oath,’ p. 22), It is doubtful whether dpxos and épxis, testart and testiculus, stand in a relation referring back to this custom.” Since the hand in the oath has always the signification of pledging oneself, we must inquire first of all, what rite-forms of the hand in the person who takes the oath, usually appear. But now Abraham, when he takes the oath (ch. xiv. 22), raises his hand to heaven, before those around him, when he worshipped the E] Eljon, the heavenly exalted God (comp. Rev. x. 5-6). According to Ezek. xx. 5, the object of the hand is generally to mark the subject in respect to which the obligation is taken. In this idea the Christian oath is taken upon the gospel, or even upon a chest of relics. | When, therefore, Eleazer and Joseph give the oath, in that they place their hands upon the thigh of the one swearing them, the act had a special meaning. The thigh is the symbol of posterity ; in Israel the symbol of the promised pos- terity, with the included idea of the promise, Gen. xlvi. 26; Ex. i. 5. Eleazer and Joseph thus must swear by the posterity, the promise and the hope of Abraham and Israel.* This promise should be changed into a curse for themif they did not regard the oath. This oath was required in Eleazer because he did not belong to the house of Abraham, in Jo- seph, because, as a prince in the land of Egypt, he might be tempted to be false to the faith of the promise. It is sufficient to regard the thigh as the symbol of the whole posterity, the generative organ as symbolical of the immediately succeeding genera- tion—By Jehovah [It is not an ordinary marriage which is here about to be made, which would fall under the providence of Elohim; but a marriage which concerns the kingdom of God, and therefore, Jehovah appears in the whole narrative. Kurz, p. 183,—A. G.], the God of heaven.—Eleazer knows the God of Abraham, and the faith of the promise. He should swear by the God of the promises, the God of Abraham, and with this the rite of laying the hand upon the thigh corresponds.—That thou shalt not take a wife.—Eleazer does not appear as the guardian of Isaac, now forty years old, atter the death of Abraham (Knobel), but the negation in * [Since the generative virtue in the patriarch was through the promise blessed and sanctified by Jehovah, its seat was a sacred place, by contact with which the person swearing placed himself in union with Jehovah, the God of the promise. BavMGartEn, Py 241. Kurtz regards the thigh as the seat of strength and firmness,—A. G.] 484 GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. his oath designates only the negative side of his mis- sion. Since Abraham had appointed him to gain a bride for Isaac, he might easily, as an old man, have given free play to his own opinion, and viewed a brilliant match in Canaan as advantageous for Isaac’s future. Abraham himself certainly exercises a patriarchal and guardian-like care over the patient and yielding Isaac, who, although forty years of age, appears not to have thought of marriage, but mourned his mother in earnest, devout contemplation. It involves also the decisive patriarchal and theo- cratic union under the providence of Jehovah.— Peradventure the woman will not be willing. —the servant has not an equal measure of faith with Abraham. Since the journey to Mesopotamia for a Shemitic bride is thus strongly enjoined, and Isaac must not marry a Canaanitess, it appears to him that it may easily happen that he must take Isaac back to Mesopotamia, if he should indeed be married.—Be- ‘ware thou.—Abraham opposes him. As the father of faith upon the promise, of the people of the fu- ture, he bad the watch-word, ‘never backward.” To the syllogism of the reflecting and calculating servant, he opposes the syllogism of faith. Its major premise: Jehovah had brought him out of his fatherland into a strange land; its minor: he had promised to his seed the land of Canaan; its conclusion : therefore he will crown the mission of Eleazer, through the leading of his angel, with a suc- cessful issue. In this assurance he can easily quiet the sworn servant with the explanation, if the other- wise proper wife will not follow him from Mesopo- tamia, he should be clear from his oath. 2. The journey for the bride, and the choice of the bride (ver. 10-21).— And the servant took.—The ten camels, and the accompanying train of servants, must, on the one hand, bear the presents and repre- sent the riches of his master ; and on the other hand, are already carefully prepared, and destined for the caravan of the bride and her maidens. He provides himself, in case of success, with every kind of jewels from the treasures of his master, which came later into legitimate use. He could take of every kind which he wished, they were all at his disposal; Abra- ham risking all upon the issue of this journey.—To Mesopotamia (Aram,* of the two rivers.)— Mesopotamia, between the Euphrates and Tigris, Padan-Aram (ch. xxv. 20), according to Knobel, an Elobistic expression; upon Egyptian monuments, Neherin = Naharaina—To the city of Nahor— i. c., to Haran (see ch. xi. 31; xii. 4).—By a well of water at the time of the evening.—A. Explanations: 1. For the purpose of think- ing. Septuagint, Vulgate, Baumgarten, Delitzsch. 2. In order to pray. Targums, Arabic version, Lu- ther, and others. 8. For deliberation. Aquila and ‘others. 4. For the purpose of walking, exercise. Syriac, Aben Ezra, Kinchi. 5. To bring the trav- eler (/) Bottcher. 6. For lamentation. Kuobel. In order to give himself alone, and undisturbed, to mourning the death of his mother. [The first three éxplanations may well be thrown together, since thought, prayer, and deliberation, or medita- tion, are seldom separated in the experience of the pious.—A. G.] Knobel correctly quotes, in favor of this, the frequent signification of m7 and ver. 67. One might almost think it was in the field of Ephron, ‘but then we should have to seek the cave of Mach- pelah northerly from Hebron. But the remark of Knobel “ that Isaac first after the death of Abraham, according to the Elohist (ch. xxv. 11), removed into the southern country,” is of no moment, since we must distinguish between the mere resting-place of a subordinate, and the chief abode of a shepherd- prince.—She lighted off the camel.—Another in- stance of the rapid, energetic Rebekah. ‘‘ Fell from the camel, i.e. threw herself off from the animal she rode, sprang quickly down, and indeed as a mark of her reverence for Isaac, for she recognized him’ as a man of rank, This custom is frequently men- tioned in the Old Testament (1 Sam. xxv. 23; 2 Kings v. 21), even by this same writer (Josh. xv. 18); it appears also, elsewhere among the ancients, e. g., among the Romans (Liv. xxiv. 44). In the East, to- day, the rider descends from the animal he rides when he meets a distiguished person (NizBUHR: ‘ Arabia,’ p. 50, and the ‘Description of his Trav- els, i. p. 289; Jone: ‘Travels,’ p. 274), and it is required of Jews and Christians when they meet a Mohammedan of rank (Niebuhr, etc.).” Knobel. —What man is this.—She thus assumes that Elie- zer knew him. A womanly presentiment.—There- fore she took a veil.—Krm: “The mantlelike Arabian veil for the head.” ‘The bride appears before the bridegroom veiled, hence the nubere viro. Prin. H. N., 21, 22. When the two came together the veil was removed. The custom still exists in the East (Russel, ete.).” Knobel All things that he had done.—Meeting his young master, the self-im- portance of the old servant appears more freely in his words.—Into his mother Sarah’s tent.—The tent of Sarah was occupied by the new mistress, al- though Abraham was again married. It lay in He-. bron, and there is no reason for the inference of Knobel, from ver. 62, that it must be sought in Beer- sheba (comp. ch. xxxi. 33). The wives also of the Be- douin chiefs have their own tents.—And he loved her.—She became the object of his peculiar bridal love-—And Isaac was comforted.—[The word death is not in the original. It seems as if the Holy Spirit would not conclude this beautiful and joyful parrrative with « word of sorrow—death.—W orps- worTH, p. 109.—A.G.] Until this oecurred he had mourned the death of his mother, from three to four years. Since the great mournings lasted from thirty to seventy days (ch. 1. 3; Numb. xx. 29; Deut. xxxiv. 8), Knobel cannot find anything here of the three or 487 four years’ mourning of Isaac. But there is a plain distinction between the customary mournings and the weight of sadness in the life of a retiring and elegiac nature. Isaac appears to have clung to his mother Sarah, much as Jacob did afterwards to his mother Rebekah. DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL. 1, See the Critical and Exegetical remarks. This chapter evidently presents a picture for all time, of a sacred bride-wooing. Abraham designates as the chief requisite of a blessed theocratic marriage, spiritual kindred and equality of birth. The Shem- ites of his father’s house did not indeed stand upon the same line of theocratic hopes with himself, but they were still acquainted with his hopes and recog- nized them ; they were free from the tendency of the grosser heathenism, and the result shows that Re- bekah, the daughter from the home of Nahor, had a clearer insight into theocratic things than Isaac him- self. And although, on the other hand, the Canaan- ites, at the time of Abraham, were not so sunken in corruption as the Canaanitish generations at the time of Joshua; although there were a Melchizedec, an Abimelech, and similar characters, and around them circles who feared God, among the people; still all this was a waning blessing, which the curse gradu- ally overwhelms, as the history of Sodom shows, and Abraham, who knew the end of the Canaanites because Canaan was promised to him, could not mingle the future of his race with the race of the Canaanites. The tirew év TG Kadg is according to Prato’s Symposion, or the instruction of Diotima, a peculiar spiritual impulse of Eros, after the Greek ideal; but Abraham in the theocratic history has realized this fundamental principle in a far higher sense (see John i. 18). : 2. The oath upon the loins of Abraham (see the exegetical notes under the first paragraph). It should be observed that Abraham himself here causes the oath to be taken. 8. The Angel of the Lord, who, as the Angel of the covenant, promised Isaac the heir of the cove- nant to Abraham, will, according to the assurance of Abraham, mediate and secure a marriage suited to the covenant, 4, The journey and position of Eliezer at the well in Haran, his aim and his prayer, prove that two things belong to a happy marriage: human foresight and wisdom, and the blessing of Jehovah ; i. e., not merely the general blessing of God, but the blessing of the God of the covenant. ‘ 5. The mark which Eliezer fixed upon as the sign ‘by which he should recognize the bride selected by Jehovah for Isaac, shows what an important estimate was placed upon genuine good works in the house of the father of the faithful, especially upon human friendliness, hospitality, kindness to animals and men. The cheerful service which Rebekah gives to the aged Eliezer, shows a love of men free from any sensual interest. But that on his side, Eliezer places a high estimate upon her beauty, and in his conduct treats her in a youthful and complimentary way, shows the glorious power and effect of her beauty. 6. The scripture has throughout a free estimate of the importance of beauty. It places the beau- tiful with the good, in the praise of the creation, as the Greeks place the good with the beautiful. But in the beauty of the ancestresses of Israel (Sarah, ) 488 © GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. Rebekah, Rachel,) it sees the symbolical manifesta- tion of a consecrated, beautiful life of the soul. We must distinguish clearly in reference to the estimate of the beautiful, the purely Christian standpoint, from the ecclesiastical and monkish. This last has drawn from the words, “he was without form or comeliness ” (Is. liii. 2), the inference, that the most beautiful among the children of men (Ps. xlv. 3) was of an extraordinarily disagreeable appearance. The moral idea, and the moral estimate of the lux- ury, in the presents of Eliezer. 7. The expression 17281 709], which runs through the whole Old Testament as a description of the di: vine grace and truth (see Micah vii. 20), and even in the New Testament (John i. 17), appears here in a remarkable manner for the first time, in reference to the conduct of man with man. “ Thus also,” says Delitzsch, ‘‘ mutual proofs of love between men are Or, and the mutual truly intended, faithful acts be- tween men are M72X.” We must, however, hold, indeed, that these ideas even in reference to the re- lations of man to man, have a theocratic definiteness and peculiarity. The house of Nahor must prove, through its love to Abraham, that it went with bim in spirit, and through its truth preserves its connec- tion with him. Under these circumstances, the re- fusal of their daughter would have been theocratic felony. 8. The‘importance of pious mothers for the king- dom of God. 9. The elevated distinction of the wife, in the history, and for the history of the kingdom of God. 10. Eliezer’s bride-wooing, the first speech in the Bible, a fit beginning for the whole circle of biblical speeches. 11. Eliezer, the earthly messenger of Abraham, in the convoy of the heavenly messengers. A pious diplomat, accompanied by the Angel of the Lord. The diplomats of this world are often accompanied by demons. 12. The propensity of Isaac for retirement and mourning, agrees with his passive individuality, and with his fearful and affecting experiences in his childhood upon Moriah. If, in after times, he does not seem fully to understand the great consequence of his father, and clings to and pines for his mother, this is explained by his history ; but wesce also how very greatly the hopes of Abraham were endangered through this retiring and melancholy propensity. But Abraham saw the right way to relief. Rebekah was a consoling providential gift from Jehovah for Isaac, and he was rescued from the lonely way of the recluse, since he now entered fully upon the way of the future of Israel, HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL. Abraham’s marriage-suit for his son Isaac.—The sanctification of the bride-wooing.—The qualifica- tions of a blessed bride.—The life pictures in this history: Abraham, Eliezer, Rebekah, Laban, Isaac. —The mother in history, the foundation of the king- dom of God.—The two remarkable meetings (that of Eliezer and Rebekah, and that of Rebekah and Isaac), a testimony for the old proverb that ‘ mar- riages are made in heaven.”—How this proverb has its significance: a. In the narrower sense, in the marriage of the pious; b. in the wider sense, in the marriage of the ungodly (the providence of judg- ment); c.in the sense of a divine discipline and in- struction, leading from the way of evil to the way of virtue and salvation.—Rebekah as a maiden, virgin, bride, wife, mother—(The heroine at last acted too purely as a heroine. She must repent. Shesaw her Jacob no more after their separation).—The codpera- tion of parents in the marriage of their children: a. Its justice or propriety ; b. its limits.—Eliezer in his faithfulness, prudence and piety.—Eliezer, an ex- ample of the way in which the blessing of the Lord, and the faithfulness of men, meet together in one.— Eliezer’s petition and thanksgiving.—The import of beauty in the kingdom of God.—Rebekah’s charming service, the peculiar, fundamental trait of a noble, pious womanliness.—The blessing of an unfeigned human friendliness.—Especially in the female sex.— Eliezer’s speech the first in the Bible: a. As the speech of aservant; b. of a master; c. which turns the heart to the master.—The love and truth of God, as a foundation for love and truth among men.—The bridal feast at Haran.—Detain me not, or the unre- strained eagerness to reach the goal.—The caravan of Rebekah, or the kingdom of God under the figure of a journeying pilgrim and wanderer.*— Isaac’s and Rebekah’s meeting.—Isaac’s transforma- tion.—The blessing of pious love-—Rebekah in the tent of Sarah, or the joining of a new blessing to the old. 1. Vers. 1-9. Srarxe: Certainly it wasno small thing, since Abraham is represented as a prince, that Eliezer, next to his master, should have supreme command in all the house. The word “servant,” therefore, is not a term of contempt here, but a truly marked name of honor, as the word "39 is elsewhere used also (Ex. v. 21, etc.). Joseph was such a servant afterward in the house of Pharaoh the king (cb. xxxix. 4)—Luruer: It is truly in the arrangement of a household a great, valuable gift, to have a, faithful servant or maiden, since the dishon- esty and wickedness of servants is a common com- plaint the world over.—Cramer: The blessing of God makes rich without toil (Prov. x. 22; Ps, exxviii. 4). When one has something important be- fore him, let him attend to it with prudence and un- der good advice. (There follow here several remarks upon the true marriage, and upon the duties of parents and children in contracting marriage.) (Jer. xxix. 6; 1 Kings xi. 4.) Lanee: Ver. 5. Whoever allows himself to be used in important concerns, does well to seek beforehand full instructions.—The Angel (Heb. i. 14: Ps, xxxiv. 8).—Craver: Homes and goods are inherited from parents, but a prudent wife comes from the Lord (Prov. xix. 14).—Scuréprr: The hoary head should impel us to set our household in order (Calvin).—The last Iabor of each of the patriarchs, is to attend to the nécessary dispositions ‘and arrangements with respect to their successors (Drechsler).— What Abraham in his faith here avoids, was expressly forbidden to the people of Abraham in the law (ch. xviii. 19; Ex. xxxiv.16; Deut. vii. 1-3). Natural prudence would have led Abraham to coutract an alliance with one of the Canaanitish fam- ilies through the marriage of Isaac, to have thus se- cured for himself support and protection, and indeed, thus to have taken the first step toward the posses- sion of the land of Canaan; but he had learned * [Those who would see the resemblance here ailuded to, elevated into a type, and drawn out at length, may consult Worpswortn, p. 107, who is rich in these—at times fancies, and at times very striking suggestions.—A. G.] CHAP. XXIV. 1-67. 489 already that God directed his way, ete. (Roos),—It occurs even to-day, in the East, that the marriage of children is arranged by the parents, before the young persons have seen each other. Similar occurrence, ch. xxi. 21.—The doctrine we draw from this pas- sage, is this, that parents should take care for their sons and daughters, that they may be advanced to an honorable marriage state, although parents at times misuse their power and right, and constrain children to take those in marriage whom they have not loved. Such parents should be punished, for they have no parental heart or disposition, but are as blocks or stones, etc. (Luther).—Here the angels are the servants of the bride or marriage (Luruer against ‘‘The Romish Celibacy”). [Parents in dis- posing of their children, should carefully consult the welfare of their souls, and their furtherance in the way to heaven. Henry.—A. G.] 2. Vers, 10-21. Starke: (All the goods of his master were in his hand. The Jews infer from this that Eliezer had taken an inventory of his master’s goods with him to Haran, that he might persuade more readily the bride of Isaac to go with him!) Ver. 14. Upon the desire of Eliezer to recognize the bride through a sign. We see that God himself was not displeased with it. But it does not follow, therefore, that we should follow this example, since that would be to tempt God. (But the general truth that the cheerful readiness to render service to the aged and helpless, and an affable demeanor, are to be viewed as qualities in maidens which render them worthy of love, and desirable in marriage, is, how- ever, truly contained in this example.)—Cramer : Ver. 11. A reminding us of our duty, to relieve the animals from their toil, and to feed and water them at the proper time.—Ver. 17. A Christian must be- gin his bride-wooing with prayer.—Muscutus: To be a creature of God, is common to all; to be beau- tiful is the mark of special favor.—(Upon ver. 19. This was a great offer surely, since it is well known that when camels have had nothing to drink for sev- eral days, they drink for a long time after one another before they are satisfied).—Christian parents should train their children, especially their daughters, not to idleness and pride, but to household duties and work.—Ver. 21, A man often does something in the simplicity of bis heart, and knows not what end God will make it serve—We may serve our neighbors in a greater measure than they desire-—Lisco: The ring, Either a semicircular ring, as a diadem for the brow, pendent above the nose, or the customary nose-ring of the East (Isa. iii, 21; Ezek. xvi. 12; Prov. xi, 22).—Canwer Handbuch: A remarkable hearing of prayer.—Scuréper: The Arabians still call Mesopotamia El Dschesireh, i. e., the island.— At one sign from the camel’s driver the camel kneels down; at another he rises up.—The Arabian ge- ographers still recognize the fountains without the city, which provide the needy inhabitants with water. —Varrrivs Hersercer: A young person, also, should not, as dazzled and blinded, cling to one only, and think that if he could not obtain that one, he must go out from the world, but should ever look to the Lord, and see whither he will lead him. What God gives prospers well, but what men and the lust of the eye gives, that becomes a pure purgatory. (But although the understanding, and, indeed, the spiritual understanding, should direct the affair, still the choice itself remains a matter of the heart). [We here learn to be particular in commending our affairs to the conduct and care of divine providence. It is our wisdom to follow providence, but folly to force it. Henry.—A. G. 8. Vers. 22-33. Srarke: (Upon ver. 22. Is it not in opposition with 1 Tim. ii. 9,10; 2 Tim. iii. 4,5, to put on these ornaments? We. answer: 1. Rebekah had no conceit of herself in connection with them; 2. as Sarah was a princess, so Rebekah became the daughter of a prince, and we cannot re- fuge to distinguished persons a certain preéminence in clothing and ornaments; 3. the great abundance of gold, precious stones and jewels in the Levitical cultus, was not to contribute to pride.)—CrRamEr: Ver. 27. If God has heard us, we should thank him. —Ver. 31. Blessed of the Lord. An honorable title of the believer in the Old Testament (Ps, xxxvii. 22, etc.).—To be obliging, mild, hospitable, is a Christian virtue—CaLtwer Handbuch: (The brace- lets were 42 ducats, the ring 2 ducats).*—Scur6pEr : One may hold this before the sour hypocrites, who hold it a part of spirituality and peculiar sanctity not to wear gold or silver. God permits the pomp, splendor and ornaments ata marriage feast. Even the dance cannot be condemned, if it is carried on in a chaste, moral and honorable way. Tuther. {The hypothetical “if” shows the doubtfulness of this announcement even in Luther’s mind, and in the circumstances by which he was surrounded. —A. G.]—Ver. 31. Upon Laban’s sonorous words. As soon as a living consciousness of God springs up in any one, there enters, as its consequence, a sacred horror of going beyond one’s own stand-point (Heng- stenberg). (But although Laban speaks here beyond his own proper measure, still we are not justified in denying his piety). 4, Vers. 84-49. Srarxe: Upon ver. 35. Herein Eliezer shows his prudence. He knew well that a mother would never give her daughter to a man who lived more than a hundred miles away, in scanty, perhaps needy circumstances. He thus also, when he says, “The Lord hath blessed my master,” turns away from his master every suspicion that he had gained such great wealth in any wrong way.—Upon ver. 87. Hence they could not entertain the thought, |if Abraham is so rich why so great and expensive a journey ? (he could indeed have easily taken a Ca- naanitess).—Upon ver. 47. In verses 22, 23, it is said, the servant had given her the presents before he had asked after her relationship, here the reverse seems to be true; but the two are easily reconciled upon the supposition that he brought out the presents be- fore the question, but after it, laid them upon her.+ (They are rather reconciled upon the theory, that he here gives the order of things as he would have acted, while he himself above, in the joy of his heart, a little too hastily, or in the strong assurance of prosperous issue, had actually done both things at the same time, leaving out of view, that by the presupposition and statement of the question here, he declares the friend- liness of the family of Bethuel.)—7o the right hand or to the left. Nahor left several sons, and Eliezer was not therefore confined to one line of Nahor’s descendants.—The Christian suitor must not seek to constrain by power the consent of the bride, of her parents and friends, but leave all to the providence of God.—Scuréver: The fulness and particularity with which the servant makes his narrative, agrees * (The bracelets were from four to five ounces in weight | —their value would depend upon the precious stones con- nected with them. Buss, ii.p.43.—A.G.] t [This 1s clearly the proper way of reconciling the two statements.—A. rf . 490 perfectly with the character of the affectionate, in- telligent, and aged parents. He knows how to put every lever into play ; he uses every possible means. —While in verse 14 he had used the common term maiden, he uses here with great diligence, in his cir- cumstantial speech, the more elevated term virgin. [The distinction referred to is that between Bethulah and Almah. The latter appears in Is. vii. 14. See Wordsworth.—A. G.]—The nose-ring, the golden. ring, which penetrated the middle wall of the nose, hung down over the mouth, was a female ornament of the ancient East (Ezek. xvi. 12), and remains so still, according to Niebuhr and Arvieux. About the size of a dollar, it frequently surrounded the whole mouth. It is at present also used among the Ara- bians as an engagement present. 5. Vers. 50-54, Srarze: Upon ver. 50. The received conjecture that Bethuel stands in the back-., ground because he was old or sick. Otherwise it appears as if the brother had somewhat to say in the marriage of his sister—Upon ver. 52. Eliezer must have been a most devout worshipper (vers. 12, 26, 27).—Christian (pious) marriages are not by chance, but made by God.—Bibl. Wirt.: When parents see that God deals with their children in a favorable way, they should not have too much unseasonable consid- eration or hesitancy.—Scuriper: Of a so-called purchase-price (for the wife) (ch. xxix.; Exod. xxii. 16, 17), which was usually analogous to the price of a slave,—as the Arab of to-day purchases his bride perhaps for from three to five camels—and of our word marriage,* from to buy, or to hire, there is nothing said here, since the suitor divided richly his jewels between Laban and the mother. 6. Vers. 54-61. Srarxe: Upon ver. 55. Be- cause she must go with him to about 124, or, accord- ing to another reckoning, 128 miles. The Jews have received it as a rule that there should be at least ten months between the engagement and the home- bringing of the bride. (The Jews understand 6°72" to mean a year, and under the tenth, ten months.)— Lange; Although Eliezer would not be detained seve- ral days, it is not necessary to conclude that the de- parture took place on the very nextday. (He reminds *[German: hetrathen from hetren, i. e., micthen kayfen.] GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. us, with good reason, that Rebekah had her things to arrange and pack for the departure, eic. It is cer- tain that they hasted, and did not remain more than ten days). Upon ver. 56, A Christian must guard the times carefully—Pious parents should not con- strain their children to a marriage to which they have no inclination—O ye maidens, see that the pious Rebekah has found her bridegroom, not as she gave way to idleness, or entered the unseemly dances, but as she discharged her duty. Follow her example, fear God and labor diligently, God will bring you to the one for whom he has assigned you.—OsianpER: The desire of pious people for a blessing upon others are mighty | prayers before God, and therefore are never in vain. 7. Vers. 62-67. Srarxe: Nothing is said here of Abraham, but he will doubtless receive his daughter- in-law in the most friendly manner and with many ben- edictions, and the account given hereof by Eliezer must have afforded much satisfaction, and furnished mat- ter for praise to God. (An allegorical explanation of the marriage of Isaac, in reference to the marriage of Christ with his Church, is here introduced).—Upon ver. 62. Whoever will be free must know how he is to support and care for his wife-—(OstaNnprr: Married men must love, not hate or strike their wives.)—A happy and well-sustained marriage, miti- gates greatly the adversities of this life. (Sir. xxxvi. 24.)—Scuroper: The twilight resting upon the field is, in nature, what the vesper-bell is in the Church. —Rebekah throws herself from the animal she rode, immediately, in an impulsive, hasty manner.—The Arabian woman still comes down from her camel when she meets a man of the same or higher rank than herself. Niebuhr was a witness of such a meet- ing (1 Sam. xxv. 23; Ps. xlv. 12).—The bride was constantly led veiled to the bridegroom. After the completed marriage, he could first see her with her face unveiled.—In ver. 16 above, as also Rachel, ch. xxix. 9, Rebekah was engaged in her duties, and therefore, as was customary, without the veil—(The above-quoted allegory of Rambach: As that (mar- riage of Isaac) happened according to the appoint- ment of his father Abraham, so this (espousal of Christ) is according to the good pleasure of the Father, etc.) THIRTEENTH SECTION. Abraham’s second Marriage. Keturah and her Sons. Abraham's death and his burial. CuarteR XXV. 1-10. 1 Then again Abraham took a wife, and her name was Keturah [incense, vapor, fragrance]. 2 And she bare him Zimran [= Simon. Celebrated in song, renowned |, and Jokshan [fowler |, and Medan [strife], and Midian’ [contention], and Ishbak [leaving, forsaking], and Shuah [bowed, sad 3 —pit, grave |. And Jokshan begat Sheba [man ; the Sabeans |, and Dedan [First : low country, lowlands]. And the sons of Dedan were Asshurim [pluralof Asshur. First: hero, strength |, and 4 Letushim [hammered, sharpened |, and Leummim [people P And the sons of Midian; Ephah [darkness, gloomy], and Hpher [= opher; # young animal, calf], and Hanoch [initiated], and A bidah CHAP. XXV. 1-10. 491 [father of wisdom, the wise], and Hldaah [Gesenius: whom God has called]. All these were the chil- dren of Keturah. 5, 6 And Abraham gave all that he had unto Isaac. But unto the sons of the concu- bines, which Abraham had, Abraham gave gifts, and [separating] sent them away from 7 Isaac his son, while he yet lived, eastward, unto the east country. And these are the days of the years of Abraham’s life which he lived, an hundred threescore and 8 fifteen years. Then Abraham gave up the ghost,” and died in a good old age, an old inan, and full [satisfied with life; see ch. xxxv. 29] of *years; and was gathered to his people. 9 And his sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah, in the field of 10 Ephron the son of Zohar the Hittite, which zs before [easterly from] Mamre; The field which Abraham purchased of the sons of Heth: there was Abraham buried, and Sarah his wife. {2 Ver. 2.—Medan, Judge, and ea who measures. Murphy.—A. G.] {? Ver. 8.—Lit., Breathed out.—A. G. ‘GENERAL REMARKS. The present section is closely connected with the following (vers. 12-18) which treats of Ishmael, and with the whole history of Isaac, under the common idea of the descendants of Abraham. It introduces first these descendants in the widest idea of the word: the sons of Keturah. Then those in a narrower sense: the family of Ishmael. And upon these, those in the most restricted sense: Isaac and his sons. The writer adheres to the same method here which he has followed in the presentation of the tabular view of the nations. He begins in his descrip- tion with those most remote, then proceeds to those nearer, and finally comes to those standing nearest the centre. We cannot, however, make the Tholedoth (generations) here the place of a division in the history, since the end of the life of Abraham marks distinctly a section which is closed at the beginning of the history of Isaac; and thus, as the genealogy of Keturah is interwoven with the history of Abra- ham, so the genealogy of Ishmael is connected with the history of Isaac. Knobel holds that the section ver. 1-18 belongs to the original writing. But it is not Elohistic merely because it contains genealogies, but because of the universal relation of the tribes here referred to. Knobel remarks upon the two genealogies of Keturah and Hagar, that the tribes dwelt in western Arabia and Arabia Petrea, and also in the northern -half of Arabia Felix, while the descendants of Joktan (ch. x. 26 ff.) belonged to southern Arabia, at least in the earliest time. ‘ From the Abrahamic horde (?) there were thus divisions who went to the east, south-east, and south, where, however, they found original Arabian inhabitants, with whom they mingled and formed new tribes. We are not, therefore, to understand that the tribes here mentioned in each case were descended entirely from Abraham. It is not intended, even, that these tribes alone peopled the regions described ; rather they were inhabited by other tribes also, e. g., Amalekites, Horites, Edomites, and others, The Arabs, who are truly so very dependent upon the Hebrew traditions, agree essentially with the Hebrew accounts, They distinguish: 1. Original Arabs in different parts of Arabia; 2. Katanites in Yemen and Hhadramant, and 8. Abrahamites in Hedjaz, Nejd, etc., but trace back the last-named to Ishmael, who turned his course to Meeca, and joined the tribe Djorhomites, with whom Hagar herself was buried. (See Ipn Corzrsa, ed. by Wiistenfeld, pp. 18, 30 ff. AsuLvepa: Hist. Anéeisl., ed. by Fleischer, p. 190 ff.)"” Knobel. [Also article “Arabia,” in Kitto and in Smith—A. G.] EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL. 1, Vers. 1-4, Abraham and Keturah.—Then again Abraham took a wife.—The sense of this statement evidently is: 1. That Abraham took Keturah first after the death of Sarah, and had six sons by her, thus at an age of 137 years and upward (Abraham was ten years older than Sarah, who died aged 127 years); 2. that Keturah, although united with Abraham according to the nature of monogamy, enjoyed only the rights of a concubine (see ver. 6, comp. 1 Chron. i. 32). The first point is opposed by Kurz: ‘It is generally held that the marriage of Abraham with Keturah was concluded after the death of Sarah, and that the power of Abraham at so great an age, to beget still six sons, is explained upon the ground that the Almighty God had endowed his body, already dead, with new life and generative strength, for the generating of the son of promise. This idea has, however, no sure ground upon which it rests, since it is not said that Abraham took Keturah to wife first after the death of Sarah, ete. This supposition is precarious, and does not agree well with the declaration that Abraham had sent away the sons of his concubines with presents during his own lifetime,” etc. Keil appears desirous to save the literal expression, that Abraham’s body was dead when he was a hundred years old (Rom. iv. 19) but in the effort comes into direct conflict with the moral picture of the life of Abraham, who even in his younger years had only taken Hagar at the sugges- tion of Sarah, in impatience as to the faith of the promise, aud thus certainly would not in later years, and when there was no such motive, have violated the marriage rights of Sarah by taking another wife,.* He might also send the sons of Keturah away from his house before they were from thirty to forty years of age, as he had before sent Ishmael away. The expression as to the dead body evidently cannot be understood in an absolute sense, otherwise the con- * (It is not unusual for the author to go back and brin; up the narrative, especially at the close of one section, or ai the beginning of another; but it is not probable that this is the.case here. We may hold to the literal sense of the words, that Abraham’s body was dead, i. e., dead asto off- spring, and yet hold that the energy miraculously given to it for the conception of Isaac was continued after Sarah’s death.—A, G.] 492 ception of Isaac even could not be spoken of. But if, however, there is a miracle in the conception of Isaac, it follows only that the facts of our history are to be viewed as extraordinary, not as something incredible—And she bare him (see 1 Chron, i. 82).—1. Keturah’s sons: Zimram. ZouBpav or ZeuBpay, etc. in the Septuagint. Knobel compares it with ZaSpdy, the royal city of KiaBoxoa- nirat, westwards from Mecca, upon the Red Sea, spoken of in Protemzus, 6, 7, 5, etc. Still he is in doubt. According to Delitzsch they lie nearer the Zemareni (Pun, vi. 82).—Jokshan. — Knope; “ Probably the Kacoavtra: (in Protmum. vi.,7, 6) upon the Red Sea.” Keil suggests the Himjaric tribe of Jakisch, in southern Arabia.—Miedan and Midian. —Kvnopsst : “ Without doubt Mo8:dva, upon the east- ern coast of the Ailanitic gulf, and Madidua, a tract to the north-east of this, in Proem. vi. 7; ii. 27. The two tribes appear to have been united. The Arabian geographers regard a place, Madjain, as the residence of the father-in-law of Moses.”—Ishbak. Kwoset: ‘Perhaps the name is still preserved in Schobeck, a place in the land of the Edomites.”— Shuah.—Kyosen: “It must be sought in or near the Edomites, since a friend of the Edomite, Job, belonged to this tribe (Job ii. 11).” Other explana- tions may be seen in Delitzsch and Keil.—2. Jok- shan’s sons: Sheba.—Probably the Sabzans men- tioned in connection with Tema (Job. vi. 19). The plunderers of the oxen and asses of Job (Job i. 15). —Dedan.—Named in Jer. xxv. 23, in connection with Tema and Buz, as a commercial people.—3. The sons of Dedan: Ashurim, compare with the tribe Asyr; Letushim, with the Banu Leits ; Le- ummim, with the Banw Lam.—4. The sons of Midian : Epha.—Named in Isa. lx. 6, in connection with Midian, a people trading in gold and incense.— Epher.—The Banu Ghifar in Hedjaz; Hanoch, compare with the place Hanakye, three days journey northerly from Medina: Abidah and Eldaah. “Compare with the tribes Abida and Wadaah, in the vicinity of Asyr.” Keil. For the more particular and detailed combination of these names with Arabic tribes, see Knope, p. 188-190. [The attempt to identify these tribes, and fix their locality, has not been very successful. The more full and accurate explorations of Arabia may shed more light upon what is now very obscure—although it is probable that in their eternal wars and tumults, their fixed limits, and probably the tribes themselves, have been lost.—A. G.] 2. Vers. 5, 6. Abraham’s bequests—All that he had,—i. e., The herds and essential parts of his possessions. Isaac was the chief heir of his legit- imate marriage. This final distinction was previous- ly a subject of divine appointment, and had been also confirmed by Abraham (ch. xxiv. 86), and finds expression in the arrangements for Isaac’s marriage. —The sons of the concubines.—In comparison with Sarah, the mistress, even Keturah was a wife of a secondary rank. This relation of degrees is not identical with concubinage, nor with a morganitic marriage. It is connected, beyond doubt, with the diversity in the right of inheritance on the part of the children.—Gave gifts._-He doubtless established them as youthful nomads, with small herds and flocks, and the servants belonging with them.—Unto the east country.—To Arabia. [In the widest sense, east- erly, east, and south-east.—A.G.] This separation was not occasioned merely by the necessities of nomadic chiefs, but also for the free possession of GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. the inheritance by Isaac (see ch. xiii. 11; xxxvi. 6), Delitzsch thinks that he had already, during his life- time, passed over his possessions to Isaac. Under patriarchal relations, there is no true sense in which that could be done. But when the necessities of the other sons were satisfied, the inheritance was thereby secured exclusively to Isaac. “The Mosaic, and in- deed patriarchal usage recognized only a so-called intestate inheritance, i. e., one independent of the fal arrangement of the testator, determined according to law, by alineal and graded succession. If, therefore, Abraham would not leave the sons of his concubines to go unprovided for, he must in his own lifetime endow them with gifts.” Delitzsch. 3. Vers. 7-10. Abraham's age, death, burial, and grave-—And these are the days.—The import- ance of the length of Abraham's life is here also: brought into strong relief through the expression which is fitly chosen. One hundred and seventy-five years.—An old man and full of years.—[O/ years is not in the original. Abraham was full, satisfied. A. G.] According to the promise ch. xiii, 15, comp, ch, xxxv. 29,—And was gathered.—The expression ‘is similar to that: come to his fathers (ch. xv. 15), or shall be gathered to his fathers (Judg. ii. 10), and presupposes continued personal existence, since it designates especially the being gathered into Sheol, with those who have gone before, but also points without doubt, to a communion in a deeper sense with the pious fathers on the other side of death. In later days Abraham’s bosom became the peculiar aim and goal of the dying saints (Luke xvi. 22).—And they buried him.—Ishmael * takes his part in the burial, not as Knobel thinks, because he was first removed after this; but because he was not so far removed but that the sad and heavy tidings could reach him, and because he was still a renowned son of Abraham, favored with a special blessing (ch. xvii. 10.—In the cave of Machpelah.—It should be observed with what definiteness even the burial of Abraham in his hereditary sepulchre is here recorded. DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL. 1. Dewitzscn: “ Keturah was not, like Hagar, a concubine during the lifetime of the bride: so far Augustin: De civ. dei, xvi. 34, correctly rests upon this fact in his controversy with the opponents of secunde nuptie. But still she is, ver. 6 (comp 1 Chron. i, 82), W25%D; she does not stand upon the level with Sarah, the peculiar, only one, the mother of the son of promise. There isno stain, moreover, cleaving to this second marriage. Even the relation to Ketu- rah promotes, in its measure, the divine scheme of blessing, for the new life which (ch. xvii.) came upon the old, exhausted nature and strength of Abraham, and the word of promise, which destined him to Be the father of a mass of nations, authenticates itself in this second marriage.” 2. The second marriage of Abraham has also its’ special reason in the social necessities and habits of the aged and lonely nomad. The word (Gen, ii. 24) holds true of Isaac. * (Ishmael, although not the promised seed, was yet the. subject of a special blessing. The sons of Keturah had no particular blessing. Ishmael is, thevefore, properly asso- ciated with Isaac, in paying the last offices to their deceased father. Murray, p. 360.—A, G.] “I CHAP. XXV. 1-10. 493 8. Physiology speaks of a partial appearance of a certain regeneration of life in those who have reached a great age; new teeth, ete. These physio- logical phenomena appear to have reached a full development in the life of Abraham. We should perhaps hold—that these epochs of regeneration in the course of life appear more frequently in the patriarchs, living nearer to the paradisiac time and state. [We must not, however, overlook the fact, that the regeneration in Abraham’s case was super- natural.—A. G.] 4, The Abrahamites in the wider sense, who par- tially peopled Arabia, must form the broad basis for the theocratic faith of Abraham, and become a bridge between Judaism and Christianity on the one hand, and heathenism on the other.—Gzruacu: “All these are’heads of Arabian tribes, but they are in great part unknown. Those who aze best known are the (ver. 2) Midianites, on the east of the Ailanitic gulf. A mercantile people (ch. xxxvii. 28) often afterwards at war with Israel (especially Judg. viii.) who in the time of the kings, have already disappeared from the history.” Bunsen: “The Arabians are still Saracens, i. e., east-landers (comp. ch, xxix. 1).” 6. The days of the years. The life-time is spent in the days of the years, and at its end the years ap- pear as days. [Abraham is now in all respects com- plete as to his life; he has rendered the highest obedience (ch. xxii.), he has secured a grave in the land of promise (ch. xxiii.), he has cared for the marriage of the son of promise (ch. xxiv.), he has dismissed the sons of nature merely (vers. 5, 6), and finally he has come to a good age and is. satisfied with life. Then Abraham dies. BaumGaRrren, p. 246.—A. G.] 6. Gathered to his people. The choice of the expression here rests upon a good ground ; Abraham has become a father in an eminent and peculiar sense. Essentially, moreover, the expression is the same with that (ch. xv. 15), come to his fathers, /ée with the fathers (Deut. xxxi. 16), be gathered with the fathers (Judg. ii. 10). “These expressions do not mean merely to die, for 314 and m4 are constantly joined together (vers. 8, 17; ch. xxxv. 29, etc.), nor to be buried in a family burial-place with relatives, because the burial is expressed still by "ap (vers. 9; ch. xv. 15, etc.), and because they are used of those who were not buried with their fathers, but in other places, e. g., Moses, David, etc., as well as of those in whose tombs the first one of the fathers was laid, e. g., Solomon and Ahab (1 Kings xi. 48 ; xxii. 40).” Knobel. But there is no ground for his assertion, that these expressions, however, are derived from burials in common public grounds, and then trans- ferred to the admission into Sheol. We should not confound with this harsh assumption the fact, that a more or less common burial represented perhaps the reunion on the other side of the grave. But the peculiar church-yards or large public burial-places were unknown to the patriarchal nomads. Jacob did not bring the body of his Rachel to Hebron. There must have been developed already with Enoch a definite consciousness of the faith of immortality (Heb. xi. 6). Detirzscr: “ As the weariness with life on the part of the patriarchs was not only a turning away from the miseries of the present state, but a turning to that state beyond the present, free from these miseries, so the union with the fathers is not one of the corpse only, but of the persons. That death did not, as it might have appeared from Gen. iii, 19, put an end to the individual continued exist- ence of the man, was an idea widely spread through the after-paradisiac humanity, which has its ulti- mate (?) source and vindication in that grace of God, testified to man’ at the same time with his anger,” etc. The consciousness of immortality no more takes its origin after the fall, than the conscience (Rom. ii. 14, 15). The hope of life in the patriarchs was surely something more (Heb. xi. 13) than a mere consciousness of immortality. But death and the state beyond it haa evidently, in the view of the pa- triarchs, a foreshadowing and gleam of that New- Testament peace, which was somewhat obscured during the Mosaic period, under the light of the law, and the more developed feeling of guilt and death. To the very rich literature upon this subject belong : Bérronzr: de Inferis, etc.; Euter: Veteris Testa- menti sententia de rebus post mortem futuris illus- trata ; the writings of Gideon Brecher, Engelbert, Schumann; ‘The presupposition of the christian doctrine of Immortality stated,” H. Scuuttz. Upon Sheol consult the Bible Dictionaries.* 4. Was gathered to his people, or those of his race, to his tathers—to go home to them, thus to go home—lie or rest with them ; a symbolical, rich, glo- rious declaration of a personal life in the other world, and of a union with those of like mind or character. 8. The connection of Ishmael with Isaac in the burial of Abraham presents the former in a favor- able aspect, as Esau appears in a favorable light in his conduct towards Jacob at his return to Canaan. HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL. See the Doctrinal and Ethical paragraphs. —How God fulfils to Abraham all his promises: 1. The promise of a rich life (father of a mass of nations, of a great age); 2. the promise of a peaceful death (satisfied with life, full of days, an honorable burial). —The Abrahamites, or children of Abraham: 1. Common characteristic religiousness, spirituality, wide-spread, ruling the world; 2. distinctions (Ara- bian and Jew, Mohammed and Christ, Mohammedan- ism and the Christian world).—Abraham’s bequests, a modification of the strictness of the right of in- heritance.—Days of Abraham, or this full age even, at last only a circle of days.—Abraham died in faith (Heb. xi. 13)—The present and future in the burial of Abraham: 1. On this side, the present, his two sons alone in the cave of Machpelah with the corpse; 2. on that side, the future, a community of people, the companions of Abraham, to whose society he joins himself.—Abraham died on the way to perfection : 1. How far perfected? 2. how far still not perfect? Srarxe: (Upon the division of Arabia in the wider sense.)—Cramer: The second or third mar- riage is not prohibited to widowers or widows; still all prudence and care ought to be exercised (Rom. vii. 8; 1 Cor. vii. 89; Tob. iii. 8).—Bibl. Wirt. : Pious and prudent householders act well when for the sake of good order they make their bequests among their children and heirs (Is. xxxviii. 1).— (Since Isaac was born in the hundredth year of Abra- * (Also an Excursus of Prof. TayLeR Lewis on Gen. xxxvil. 35, below, and the wide literature here open to the English reader ; embracing the doctrine of “the intermedi- ate state,” and the controversies upon the intermediate place.—A. G.] 494 ham, and Jacob and Esau in the sixtieth year of Isaac, and in the twentieth year of bis married state, so Jacob must have been fifteen years old at the death of Abraham.) (Sir. xiv. 16, 17.)—The pious even are subject to death, still their death is held precious by the Lord.—What God promises his chil- dren, that he certainly keeps for them (ch. xv. 15; Ps, xxxiii. 4).—To die at a tranquil age and in a tran- quil time, is an act of God’s kindness and love.— Cramer: The cross and adversity make one yielding and willing to die-—The souls of the dead have their certain places; they are in the hand of God, and no evil befalls them (Wis. iii. 1; 2 Cor. v. 8).—Lisco: Faith in immortality is indeed never expressly assert- ed in the Holy Scriptures (see however Matt. xxii, 32), but is everywhere assumed, for without this faith the whole revelation of God would be vain and nu- gatory; the Scripture doctrine of the resurrection of the body includes the doctrine of immortality ; is impossible indeed without this. This truth is set in its fullest and clearest light by Christ (2 Tim. i. 10). —CaLwer Handbuch: We see, moreover, from these verses, how the Bible relates only the true his- tory. Had it been a myth or poem it would have left Abraham at the highest step of the glory of his faith, and passed over in silence this union with Keturah at the age of a hundred and forty years. Abraham is presented to us as an instance and type of faith, but not as one artistically drawn and beau- tified, but as one taken from actual life, not even as a (superhuman) perfect believer, but as one such, GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. who leaves us to find the first perfect one in his great descendant, and points us to him. Scuréper: The satisfaction with life well agrees with a heavenly-minded man (Roos).—TZo his people. The words sound as if Abraham went from one peo- ple to another, and from one city to another. An illustrious and remarkable testimony to the resurrec- tion and the future life (Luther)—Since Abraham himself was laid there (in the cave of Machpelah) to rest, he takes possession in his own person of this promised land (Drechsler). [And while his body was laid there as if to take possession of the prom- ised land, his soul has gone to his people to take possession of that which the promised land typified, or heaven.—A. G.]—For the character of Abraham see ScuropER, p. 442, where, however, the image and form of Sarah is thrown too much in the shade. [In the section now completed the sacred writer descends from the general to the special, from the distant to the near, from the class to the individual. He dissects the soul of man, and discloses to our view the whole process of the spiritual life, from the new-born babe to the perfect man. The Lord calls, and his obedience to the call is the moment of his new birth. The second stage of his spiritual life presents itself to our view when Abraham believed the promise, and the Lord counted it to him for righteousness, and he enters into covenant with God. The last great act of his spiritual life is the surren- der of his only son to the will of God. Murray, p. 362.—A. G.] ‘ B. ISAAC, AND HIS FAITH-ENDURANCE. Cu. XXV. 12—XXVIIL 9. FIRST SECTION. Isaac and Ishmael. —— Cuaptrr XXYV. 11-18. ll And it came to pass after the death of Abraham, that God blessed his son Isaac ; and [but] Isaac dwelt by the well Lahai-roi [wells of the quickener of vision |. 12 13 Now [ana] these are the generations [ genealogies, Toledoth] of Ishmael, Abraham’s son, whom Hagar the Egyptian, Sarah’s handmaid, bare unto Abraham. And these 14 15 16 17 18 are the names of the sons of Ishmael, by their names according to their generations: the first-born of Ishmael, Nebajoth [heights ; Nabathei, a tribe of Northern Arabia]; and Kedar [dark skin, An Arabian tribe |, and Adbeel [miracle of God], and Mibsam [sweet odor}. And Mishma [hearing, report, what is heard], and Dumah [silence, solitude |, and Massah [bearing, burden, uttering what is said], Hadar [inner apartment, tent], and Tema [desert, uncultivated region], Jetur [Seven @ nomadic village], N: aphish [recreation], and Kedemah aor, These are the sons of Ishmael, and these are their names, by their towns [fixed abodes], and by their castles ; twelve princes according to their nations. And these are the years of the life of Ish- mael: an hundred and thirty and seven years; and he gave up the ghost and died; and was gathered unto his people. And they dwelt from Havilah [o region of Arabia inhab- ited by the descendants of Joctan, upon the eastern boundary of the Ishmaclites | unto Shur [a place east of Egypt, in the borders of the desert], that is before Hgypt, as thou goest toward [in the direction of | Assyria : and he died*in the presence of all his brethren [he settled eastward of all his brethren |. [) Ver. 18,—Lit., he fell down, or it fell tohim.—A. G.] CHAP, XXV. 11-18. GENERAL REMARKS, See the remarks upon the previous section. EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL, 1. Ver. 11. Isaac after the death of Abraham.— God blessed Isaac.—The blessing of Abraham continues in the blessing of Isaac; this is manifest- ‘ ed in his welfare and prosperity, or rather in a grate- ful consciousness which refers this welfare to the kindness of God. We read: Elohim blessed Isaac ; for Isaac, as future ancestor of Edom and Jacob, sustained now a universal relation, In earthly re- spects Edom is Isaac’s heir as well as Jacob, or even by preference.—By the well Lahai-roi.—By the well of Hagar. According to ch. xxxv. 27, Jacob met his aged father Isaac at Hebron. Doubtless this city bore the same relation from the time of Abra- ham onwards; Hebron was the principal residence, Beer-sheba the principal station for overseeing their flocks. At this station Isaac, as steward of his father, had already taken up his abode, and in con- sequence of his love of solitude and seclusion he became so fond of it that now he dwelt here regu- larly, without yielding up the principal residence at Hebron ; he even moved his tent from Beer-sheba farther into the deep solitude of Hagar’s well. 2. Vers. 12-16. Zhe Toledoth of Ishmael. [Upon the documentary hypothesis, each of these phrases marks the beginning of a new document. But if we are to regard each of these documents as the work of a separate author, then this author con- tributes only seven verses to the narrative. This is obviously running the theory into the ground, and shows how unreasonable it is to regard these phrases as indicating any change of author. They open new themes or sections of the histury.—A. G.] Here also it is obvious that the Toledoth of Genesis does not begin the separate section of the history, but frequently concludes them. In ch. iv. and v. the first human race, together with the Toledoth of Adam, is dismissed from history. So is it also in ch, x., in respect to the heathen nations, descendants of Japheth, Ham, and Shem. Ch. xi. dismisses the more theocratic Shemites, together with their Tole- doth. In ch. xxii. 20, the Nahorites, the last of the Shemites and nearest to Abraham, retire from the history, just as the Haranites, or Lot and his descend- ants in ch. xix. 86; and as the Abrahamites de- scending from Keturah, in ch. xxv.; and in our section the Ishmaelites. After the close of the his- tory of Isaac the Edomites, ch. xxxvi. 1, etc., ap- pear. The theocracy permits no branch of the human race to vanish out of its circle of vision without fixing it in its consciousness. In ch. xxxvii. 2 Jacob also retires into the background as compared with the history of his sons. With the Toledoth of Ishmael comp. 1 Chron. i. 28~31.— Whom Hagar the Egyptian.—Besides the names of the twelve sons of Ishmael that here present themselves, there oc- curs also (1 Chron. v. 10) the name of the Hagar- ites, Ishmaelites called after the mother, whose name is no doubt assumed in one or more of the names before us. In respect to the frequent occurrence of the name Hagar in Arabic authors, see KNoBEL, p. 211.—Nebajoth and Kedar.—Dexirzsca: “The names of the twelve sons of Ishmael are in part well known. Nebajoth and Kedar are not only mentioned together in Is. lx. 7, but also by Puin.: Hisi, Nat., 6, 7 (Nabatei et Cedrei ; Kaidhar and 495 Nabat (Nabt) are also known to Arabian historians as descendants of Ishmael. In respect to the mean- ing of the word Nabateans, both in a stricter and a more comprehensive sense, a8 also in regard to their abodes in Arabia Petrea and beyond, see Knobel, Delitzsch, Keil—The Kadarenes, described Is. xxi. 17 as good bowmen, lived in the desert between Arabia Petrea and Babylonia (Is. xlii. 11; Ps. exx. 6). “The Rabbins use their name to denote the Ara- bians in general.” Knobel Adbeel and Mibsam. —In respect to these names, as well as to that of Kedma, we can only reach conjectures (see Knobel). —Mishma (Septuagint and Vulgate: Masma).— Connected by Knobel with Ma:capuvérs of Prot., vi. 4, 21, In Arabic authors we have beni Mismah.— Duma.—Probably Dumath al Djendel, on the bor- der between Syria and Babylonia.—Massa.—Ap- parently the same as Magavol, on the northeast side of Duma according to Prot., v. 19, 2.—Hadar (a more correct reading, 1 Chron. i. 30, is TIN, as compared with the maritime country Chathth, famous among the ancient Arabians on account of its lances), between Omam and Bahrein. For further informa- tion see Knobel, ete.—Hadar is taken together with Thema, which Knobel connects with @eyoi of Ptol- emy, on the Persian Gulf, or with the Arabic banu Teim, a celebrated tribe in Hamasa, probably differ- ent from the Tema, Is, xxi. 14; Jer. xxv. 23; Job vi. 19.—Jetur, Naphisch (see 1 Chron. v. 18).— ‘“‘ Neighbors to the Israelites on the east side of Jor- dan. Knobel refers Jetur to the Itureans. The present Druses are probably their descendants.”— Kedma.—“ As a separate Arabic tribe we can only refer it, in its narrower sense, to D1 "33, who in Judg. vi. 8, 88; vii. 12, are distinguished from other Arabians, and must have dwelt in the vicinity of the country east of Jordan. Perhaps they are the same with those enumerated with the Moabites and Am- monites in Is. xi. 14 and Ezek. xxv. 4,10.” Kno- bel. The sons of the East in a more comprehensive sense denotes the Arabians generally, the Saracens. their towns, and by their castles, i. e., their movable and fixed habitations. — Twelve princes according to their nations (Lange ren- ders “to their nations””)—The translation, accord- ing to their nations, can only mean, as moulded, determined by their nations. We hold, therefore, the expression to mean: twelve princes chosen for governing and representing their twelve tribes. 8. Vers. 17,18. The death of Ishmael and the expansion of the Ishmaelites.—The years of the life of Ishmael.—This hale man attained only an age of a hundred and thirty-seven years, while on the contrary, the more delicate appearing Isaac reaches the age of a hundred and eighty years. Possibly the natural passions of the one consumed life sooner ; no doubt also the quiet, peaceful, believing disposi- tion of the other, exercised a life-prolonging influ- ence. Ishmael dies, the Ishmaelites spread them- selves abroad—From Havilah unto Shur.— Havilah, see ch. x. 29. Kwosen: “From Chaulan in the south to the eastern boundary of Egypt.” Schur. From Egypt to the east in the direction of | Assyria. According to Josepnus: ‘ Antig.” i. 12, 4, the Ishmaelites dwelt from the Euphrates to the Red Sea.—In the presence of all his brethren, i. e., Hebrews, Edomites, and the children of Keturah, If.we understand by Havilah the Chauloteans on the boundary of Arabia Petrea (Keil), we must assign a different meaning to these words. Kei: “From 496 southeast to southwest.” KnopeL: ‘From south- east to northwest.” Derxirzscu: “The capital of the Ishmaelitic tribes was Hezaz, situated south of Yemen. From this they spread themselves to the west side of the Siniaitic peninsula, and still further in a northerly and northeasterly direction beyond Arabia Petrea and Deserta to the countries under Assyrian sway.’ [He died. He had fallen into the lot of his inheritance. The, Heb. word includes the idea of a deliberate settlement, and an assertion by force of his rights and possessions. Thus the prom- ise uttered before his birth was now fulfilled.—A. G.] DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL. 1. Ishmael in his development precedes Isaac, as Esau precedes Jacob, as the world gets the start of the kingdom of heaven. It looks well for the devel- opment of Ishmael that he buries his father in com- pany with his brother Isaac, though the latter had been preferred to him. 2. The twelve princes of Ishmael are also men- tioned as witnesses that God has faithfully fulfilled his promises concerning their ancestor (ch. xvi, 10, 17, 20). The Arabs, too, count twelve sons of Ishmael. 3. The Ishmaelites, the germ of the Arabic peo- ple in its historic significance. The country of Ara- bia. Its history. Mohammed. The mission of the Mohammedans. The mission among the Moham- medans. Since Ishmael did not subject himself to Israel, he has become subject to the Turk. 4. Ishmael’s genealogy seems to have been pre- served in the house of Isaac, just as Therah’s in the house of Abraham, or as the genealogy of the na- tions in house of Shem. The father’s house does not lose the memory or the trace of the lost son. 5. How the blessing of Abraham descends upon Isaac. The hereditary blessing in the descendants of Abraham, an antithesis to the hereditary curse in the descendants of Adam generally. The inclination to solitude in the life of Isaac. The nature, rights, and limit of contemplation. ‘Contemplative charac- ters. History of a contemplative life. HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL. See Doctrinal and Ethical.—tIsaac the blessed son of a blessed father. The great divine miracle, that the blessing of a saving faith was preserved in one line (in spite of all partial obscurations) from Adam to Christ.—Isaac’s inclination to solitary contempla- tion.—Perhaps he believed already that a special blessing was confined to that particular place, the well of vision.—That Isaac selected Hagar’s well as a favorite spot, testifies to the nobility of his soul (for Hagar was the rival of his mother, and Ishmael was her son).—Ishmael’s death; or the robust often die before the feeble.-—From Ishmael, a child once lan- guishing and perishing from thirst in the wilderness, God’s providence made a great (world-conquering) nation.—We may in fact best comprehend the patri., archal triad by regarding Abraham as constitutin; especially an example of faith, Isaac an example of love, Jacob an exaniple of hope. We have promi- nently presented to us the still more predominating features : theman of the deeds of faith, the man of the sufferings of faith, the man of the struggles of faith. SrarKE: The temporal blessing (of Isaac) a pre- Jude: a. As an earnest for the whole land of Ca- GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. naan; b. asa type and pledge of the eternal and spiritual blessing of salvation in Christ.—Misma, Duma, Masa, From these three names, meaning: hearing, silence, patience, the Hebrews formed the proverb: We must hear many things, keep secret many things, and suffer many things.—(The Ishmael- ites called Hagarites after Hagar. In later times they preferred to be called Saracens, after Sarah, as if dwelling in the tents of Sarah.)—Ver. 17. Some cite this to prove the happy death of Ishmael, some’ to prove the contrary. Luther does not wish to de- cide, but leaves it with God—Ver. 18. (Ps. cxii. 2.) —What God promises he will surely perform. Let us only have faith in his. promises (Gen. xvii. 20; xxi, 13).— Bibl. Wirt.: People of no note may be- come eminent and distinguished persons if it is God’s will (Gen. xli. 40-48). Lisco: Ishmael becomes the ancestor of the Bedouins of Arabia; these, therefore, and the Edom- ites descending from Esau, are the nations nearest related to the Hebrews,—Catwer Handbuch : The father’s blessing descends: upon the children.—After Abraham, that hero of faith, had‘ gone to his rest, Isaac appears in the foreground of the history. In his character love appears predominant, the less powerful and independent love, or love itself with its weaknesses. He appears as a gentle, pliable link between Abraham and Jacob, possessing neither the manly strength of the father nor of the son. Never- theless, he wears an amiable aspect, which, when closely viewed, immediately wins our affections. He does not make bis appearance as a fictitious and an artfully embellished personage, but as a historical character ; so much so, that his faults appear in the foreground, whilst his good qualities fall into the background and lie concealed to the superficial ob- server. Isaac is of a predominantly kind nature, and therefore appears reserved, outwardly, but in- wardly and really, frank.—Scuroper: As to the char- acter of Abraham‘and Isaac, see pp. 442 and 448. With Abraham, who, as father of the faithful, was to begin the long line of believing souls, and in whose peculiar form of life their life was to have its way prepared, everything is vigorous and peculiarly inde- pendent. With Isaac, on the contrary, who only continues this line, everything appeared perfectly arranged, just as it is with Joshua in relation to Moses, etc.—(HenestEnBrre: However, we must not mistake the peculiar characteristics of Isaac, Joshua, Elisha.)—It seems to me, one might know that he is the son of a dead body, but on this very account is he eminently a gift of God (Ziegler).— Could the memory of the knife drawn over him by the hand of the father ever become extinguished in the mind of the son? Perhaps this affords us a par- tial solution of his life and character (Krumm.).— Let us not overlook the fact that he was the only monogamist among the patriarchs, remaining satis- fied with his Rebekah. Abraham’s piety descends as an heritage to Isaac, therefore the grace of God also descends upon Isaac (Val. Herberger) —The dwelling of Isaac at a place so important in the life of Ishmael (Hagar’s well), attests his friendly relation to his step-brother.— Gathered unto his people. A beautiful and charming description of immortality. We are now living among the gross people of this world, who seek but little after God, yea, in the very kingdom of the devil.- But when we depart from this wretched life, we shall die peacefully, and be gath- ered unto our people, and there will be no distress, nomisery, no tribulation, but peace and rest. (Luther), CHAP. XXV. 19-84. 497 SECOND SECTION, Jacob and Esau, + Cuarren XXV. 19-34. ‘19 And these are the generations? [geneatogies] of Isaac, Abraham’s son: Abraham 20 begat Isaac: And Isaac was forty years old when he took Rebekah to wife, the daughter of Bethuel the Syrian of Padan-Aram [from Mesopotamia], the sister to Laban the Syrian. And Isaac entreated the Lord [Jehovah] for his wife, because she was barren: and the Lord was entreated of him, and Rebekah his wife conceived. And the children struggled together [thrust, jostled each other] within her; and‘she said, If ¢t be so, why am 1 thus?? And she went to inquire of the Lord. And the Lord said unto her, Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people® shall be separated from thy bowels; and the one people shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger [the greater shall serve the loss]. And when her days to be delivered were fulfilled, behold, there were twins in her womb. And the first came out red, all over like an hairy garment ;* and they called his name Esau [covered with hair]. And after that came his brother out, and his hand took hold on Hsau’s heel; and his name was called Jacob [hecl-catcher]; and Isaac was threescore years old when she bare them. And the boys grew: and Esau was a cun- ning hunter [a man knowing the ra aman of the field [a wild rover, not an husbandman | ; and Jacob was a plain® [discreet, sedate] man, dwelling in tents. And Isaac loved Esau, be- cause he did eat of As venison [game was in his mouth his favorite foo]: but Rebekah loved Jacob. 29 And ‘Jacob [once] sod pottage; and Esau came from the field, and he was faint. 30 And Esau said to Jacob, Feed me, I pray thee [let me devour greedily], with that same red pottage [from the red—this red, here]; for lam faint: therefore was his name called Edom 31, 32 ee And Jacob said, Sell me this day [frst] thy birthright. And Esau said, Behold, I am at the poiut to die [going to die]: and what profit shall this birthright do to 33 me? And Jacob said, Swear to me this day; and he sware unto him: and he sold 34 his birthright unto Jacob. Then Jacob gave Hsau bread and pottage of lentiles; and he did eat and drink, and rose up, and went his way: thus Esau despised Ais birthright. 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 () Ver 19.—The ndin is more than genealogies, See note on ver. 4, ch, ii—A. G.] [? Ver. 22.—Lit., If so, for what this am I.—A. G.] (2 Ver. 23,—D774 and paxd are here used as synonymous, although there is ground for the distiuction which refers the former to the nations generally, and the latter to the peculiar people of God.—A. G.] [4 Ver. 25.—[All over like a hai ry garment ; literally, the whole of him as a mantle of hair.—A. G.] [5 Ver. 27M, perfect, peaceful, in his disposition, as compared with the rude, roving Esau.—A. G.] T GENERAL PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 1. According to Knobel we have, in the present narration, as in ch. 26, a mixture of different records upon an Elohistic basis by means of the Jehovistic supplement. It is enough to say, that in our section the theocratic element is predominant. [Keil remarks that if the name of God occurs less frequently here, it is due partly to the historic material, which gives less occasion to use this name, since Jehovah ap- peared more frequently to Abraham than to Isaac and Jacob; and partly to the fact that the previous revelations of God formed titles or designations for the God of the Covenant, as “God of Abraham,” “ God of my father,” which are equivalent in signifi- cance with Jehovah.—A. G.] It introduces the election of Jacob in opposition to Esau. The order of the Toledoth Knobel explains thus: ‘The author usually arranges them, in the first place, according to 32 the individual patriarchs, after he has recorded the death of the father. Next begins the proper history of the patriarchs, e. g., ch. x. 1; xi. 27: xxv. 133, xxxvi, 1; xxxvii. 2. We have already made the re mark that the Toledoth frequently dispose of a mare general sequence of history, in order to pass over to a more special one. Delitzsch finds three “tran- sitions” in the history of Jacob. The first reaching to the departure of Jacob, ch. xxv. 19-xxviii. 9; the second to Jacob’s departure from Laban, ch. xxxii. 1 (a section, however, in which nothing in regard. to Isaac occurs); the third, from Jacob’s return to the death of Isaac, ch. xxxv. 29. But this section, too, is merely a history of Jacob, except the three verses in ch. xxxv. 27-29. On the other hand it is. pre- eminently the history of Joseph and of the rest. of the sons of Jacob, which begins at ch. xxxvii. 2, where, according to Knobel, the history of Jacob should first begin. In the separate biographies. we 498 are to distinguish the theocratic stages of the life of the patriarchs, from the periods of their human decrepitude and decease, in which the new theocratic generation already becomes prominent. This history has four sections: Rebekah’s barrenness and Isaac’s intercession; Rebekah’s pregnancy and the divine disclosure of her condition; the antithesis in the nature of the sons reflecting itself in the divided love of the parents; and Esau’s prodigality of his birth- right, parting with it for a mess of pottage. In the second section we have the prophetic preface, in the third and fourth the typical prelude to the entire fu- ture history of the antithesis between Jacob and Esau, Israel and Edom. 2. The points of light in the life of Isaac lie in _ part back of this narrative. These are his child-like inquiries and his patient silence upon Moriah (ch. xsii.); his love to Rebekah (ch. xxiv.); his brotherly commu- nion with Ishmael at the burial of Abraham, and his residing at the well Lahai-Roi (ch. xxv.). Here we now read first of his earnest intercession on account of the barrenness of Rebekah; then, moreover, of his preference of Esau because he was fond of game. Somewhat later Jehovah appeared unto him at Gerar, preventing him from imitating his father Abraham in going to Egypt during the famine, although he imitates him in passing off Rebekah for his sister. In this, too, he differs from Abraham, that he began to devote himself to agriculture (ch. xxvi. 12). He suffers himself, however, to be supplanted by the Philistines, and one well after another is taken away from him, until he at last retains only one, and finds rest at Beer-sheba. In the second appearance too (ch, xxvi. 24), his deep humility is reflected in this, that he preserves the promise of the blessing, receiving it as he does for the sake of his father Abraham. He now takes courage, and, as Abraham did, proclaims the name of the Lord, and ventures to reprove the conduct of Abimelech. His digging of wells, as well as his tilling the soil, seems to indicate a progress beyond Abraham. Then, too, he is willing to trans- mit to Esau the theocratic blessing of the birthright, though Esau had shortly before sorely grieved him ‘by the marriage of two of the daughters of the Hittites. The marked antithesis between Isaac’s vision power, his contemplative prominence, and his short-sightedness in respect to the present life, as well as the weakness of his senses, appears most strikingly in ch. xxvii. Rebekah proceeds now with more energy, and Isaac dismisses Jacob with his blessing, who returns after many years to bury his father. When Isaac blessed his sons his eyes had already become dim, yet many years passed before he died (from his one hundred and thirtieth to his cone hundred and eightieth year). Delitzsch exagger- ates Isaac’s weakness as making him in everything a mere copy of Abraham. ‘‘Even the wells he digs are those of Abraham, destroyed by the Philistines, and the names he gives to them are merely the old ones renewed, He is the most pa sive of the three patriatchs. His life flows away in a passive quiet- ness, and almost the entire second half in senile tor- pidity(!). So passive, so secondary, or, so to speak, so sunken or retired is the middle period in the pa- triarchal history.” We have referred to the points in which he does not imitate Abraham, but is himself. He does not go to Egypt during the famine, as Abra- bam did; he begins the transition from a-nomadic to and agricultural life, he digs new wells in addition to the old ones, he lives in exclusive monogamous wedlock, and even in his preference of Esau, the GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. game, surely, is not the only motive. If the external right of the firstborn impressed so deeply his passive character (especially in connection with the robust, striking appearance of Esau, seeming to fit him par- ticularly to be heir of Canaan); there can be no doubt, also, that he was repelled by traits in the early life of Jacob. But most especially does he appear to have had a feeling for those sufferings of the first- born Ishmael, which he endured on his account. And hence he appeared willing to make amends to Esau, his own firstborn, a fact to which, at least, his dwelling at Hagar’s well, and his brotherly union with Ishmael, may point. It is evident that the ar- dent Rebekah, by her animated, energetic declara- tions (ch. xxiv. 18, 19, 25, 28, 58, 64, 65; ch. xxv, 22), formed a very significant complement to Isaac, confiding more in the divine declarations as to her boys than Isaac did, and therefore better able to appreciate the deeper nature of Jacob. But when Isaac, through his passiveness, fails in the perform- ance of his duty, the courageous woman forgets her vocation, and with artifice counsels Jacob to steal the blessing from Isaac—a transgression for which she had to atone in not seeing again her favorite son after his migration. And even if Isaac was short- sighted respecting his personal relations in this world, yet the words of the blessing attest that bis spiritual sight of the divine promises had not diminished with his blinded eyes. It had its ground, moreover, in the very laws of the psychical antithesis that Isaac, so feeble in will and character, was attracted by the wild and powerful Esau; while the brave, energetic Rebekah found greater satisfaction in union with the gentle Jacob. In the assumed zeal of her faith for the preservation of a pure theocracy among the patri- archs, she too excels Isaac. We should bear in mind that they were Jews who relate so impartially the Nahoritic Rebekah’s superiority over the Abrahamic Isaac. [‘ Consenting to be laid on the altar asa sacrifice to God, Isaac had the stamp of submission early and deeply impressed on his soul. Hence, in the spiritual aspect of his character, he was the man of patience, of acquiescence, of susceptibility, of obedience. His qualities were those of the son, as Abraham’s were those of the father. He carried out, but did not initiate ; he followed, but did not lead; he continued, but he did not commence. Accord- ingly the docile and patient side of the saintly charac- ter is now to be presented to our view.” Murray, p. 867.—A. G.] EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL 1. Vers, 19-21. Rebekah’s barrenness, and Isaac's intercession.—Padan-Aram.—Level, plain of Aram: Hosea xii. 12, it reads, field of Aram, Ch. xlviii. 7. Padan, Mesopotamia. Keil limits the name to the large plain of the city of Haran surrounded by mountains, following the conjectures of Knobel, who, however, regards Padan-Aram as a specific Elohistic expression. According to others, Mesopotamia is divided into two parts, and here the level country is distinguished from the moun- tainous region. But this does not apply to Haran. To one travelling from Palestine to Mesopotamia across the mountains, Mesopotamia is au extensive plain, According. to ver. 26, Isaac waited twenty years for offspring. This was « new trial to him though not to Abraham, who still lived. Since the line of the blessing was to pass through Isaac, his intercession was based upon a divine foundation in CHAP. XXV. 19-34. 499 Jehovah’s promise. [For his wife, with reference to, literally before ; which Luther says is to be explained Spiritually, indicating the intensity of his prayer, the single object before his mind.— Entreated the Lord. The seed of promise must be sought from Jehovah, so that it should be regarded, not as the fruit of nature, but as the gift of divine grace.” Ker1, p. 191.—A. G.] i _ 2. Vers, 22, 23. Rebekah's pregnancy, and the divine explanation of her condition. —The Hebrew expression 1¥29M" denotes a severe struggling with each other. Knobel will have it that this feature was derived from the later enmities be- tween the Israelites and Edomites, and quotes ch. iv. 14; xvi. 12; xix. 30. “In like manner, ac- cording to APoLLon., 2, 2,1, Acrisius and Proetus, two brothers, had already quarrelled with each other in the womb of their mother about the domiuion.”” That such intimations and omens can have no real existence is regarded as a settled matter in the prejudices of this kind of criticism.—Why am I thus ?—We see again the character of Rebekah in this very ex- pression. According to Delitzsch, she was of a san- guine temperament: rash in her actions, and as easily discouraged. We would rather regard her words as an ill-humored expression of a sanguine- _choleric temperament. It does not mean: why am I yet living? (Delitzsch, referring, to ch. xxvii. 46, Knobel, Keil), but why am Iso? i. e., in this condi- tion. [Why this sore and strange struggle within me? —A. G.]—To inquire of the Lord.— According to a certain Jewish Midrash, she went to Salem (so Knobel). According to Delitzsch, she went rather to Hagar’s well; at all events, to a place sacred on account of revelations and the worship of Jehovah. Luther thinks she went to Shem, others to Abraham or Melchizedek, just as men inquired of the prophets in the time of Samuel (1 Sam. ix. 9). The prophet nearest to her, if she had wanted one, would have been Isaac. The phrase “she went” no doubt means she retired to some quiet place, and there re- ceived for herself the divine revelation. For in the patriarchal history sacred visions determined as yet sacred places, nor is it different at present. [Still the phrase seems to imply that there was some place and mode of inquiring of the Lord. Perhaps, as Theodoret suggests, at the family altar.—A.G.] Ac- cording to Knobel, she received the experience indi- eated as, in general, a sign of ill omen. Delitzsch thinks she saw in it the anger of Jehovah. However, we must not too sharply interpret her iil humor, on account of the mysterious, painful, and uneasy con- dition, and the alarming presentiment she may have had of the contentions of her posterity. That she was to be a mother of twins she did not know at this time—T'wo nations.—The divine answer is a rhythmical oracle. (See Delitzsch.) [Two nations are in thy womb ; And two people from thy bowels shall be separated ; And people shall be stronger than people; And the elder shall serve the younger. Wordsworth.—A. G.] With the prophetic elevation the poetic form appears also. It appears very distinctly from this oracle, that they would differ from the very womb of the mother. Since Es:u’s liberation is not predicted here, Knobel regards this as a sign that the author lived at atime before Edom threw off the yoke of Judah. We know, however, how the theocratic prophecies gradually enlarge. The meaning of this obscure revelation, clothed as it was in the genuine form of prophecy, and which so greatly calmed her, she saw in a certain measure explained in the relations that had existed between Isaac and Ishmael. 3. Vers. 24-28, he birth of the twins. The antithesis of their nature, and the divided partiality of the parents towards their children. — Behold, there were twins.—The fulfilment of the oracle in its personal, fundamental form.—And the first came out red.—Of a reddish flesh color. His body, like a garment of skins, covered with hair, (Luxuri- ance of the growth of the hair.) In the word 7217258 there is an allusion to OT7N, in the word ">Y there is an allusion to ""9i2. “ Arab authors derive also the red-haired occidentals from Esau.” Knobel. Both marks characterize his sensual, hard nature.— And his hand took hold on Esau’s heel.—Dr- LitzscH: “It is not said that he held it already in the womb of his mother (a position of twins not considered possible by those who practise obstet- rics), but that he followed his brother with such a movement of his band.” Knobel contends against the probability of this statement, since, according to a work on obstetrics by Busch, the birth of the second child generally occurs an hour after that of the first one, frequently later. The very least that the expression can convey is, that Jacob followed Esau sooner than is generally the case; upon his heels, and, as it were, to take hold of his heel. Since the fact, considered symbolically, does not speak in his favor; since it points out the crafty combatant who seizes his opponent unawares by the heel, and thus causes him to fall, there is the less ground for imagining any forgery here. The signification of the name “Jacob” is essentially the same with “ suc- cessor,” as Knobel conjectures. Jacob’s cunning seems to have been stripped from him in his life’s career, deceived as he had been by Laban, and even by his own sons, whilst there remains his holy pru- dence, his deeper knowledge, and his incessant look- ing to the divine promise—A cunning hunter.— Esau developed himself according to the omen.— Because he did eat of his venison.—Literally, “was in his mouth.”—And Jacob was a plain man.—on ww". Lurner: a pious man. Kwno- BEL: a blameless man, i. e., as a shepherd, ‘ Hunt- ing, pursued, not for the sake of self-defence or of necessity, but for mere pleasure, as with Esau, the author regards as something harsh and cruel, espe- cially when compared with the shepherd-life so highly esteemed by the Hebrews.” Isaac’s fond- ness for venison, however, cannot be fully explained by this. Gesenius emphasizes the antithesis of gentle and wild. Delitzsch explains om, “with his whole heart” devoted to God and the good, etc. Keil, more happily, as “a disposition inclined to a domes- tic, quiet life.’ The most obvious explanation of the word in this place points out a man, modest, correct, and sedate, in contrast with the wild, un- steady, roving, and proud manner of Esau’s life, Jacob was modest, because he adhered to the costume of his father, and stayed near the tents.— Because he did eat of his venison, lit., was in his mouth. This weakness of the patriarch was not his only motive in his preference of Esau, but it is particularly men- tioned here on account of the following narrative. In like manner, Haman was a melancholy, indolent man, fond of good living. ‘ 500 4, Vers, 29-34, The typical prelude of the histor- teal antithesis between Jacob and Esau.—Jacob sod pottage.—A dish of lentiles, see ver. 2 .—Feed me.—Lit., ‘let me swallow,” an expression for eat- ing greedily, w»>. According to Knobel, Esau, by reason of his greediness, was not able to think of the name, “ lentiles,” but points them out by the words, ‘‘that Red!” At the most, “that Red” might express his strong appetite, excited by the in- viting color. The addition MY SINT is generally interpreted: ‘‘ from that same Red.” The repetition in the original shows that his appetite was greatly excited: “‘Let me swallow, I pray thee, some of that Red, that Red there!” We question, however, whether he did not say rather: Feed with that Red, me the Red one. Thus by a rude, witty play upon words, he would have introduced the fact of his afterward having been called ‘‘the red one.” At all events his name is not to be deduced from the red pottage. “In the words "227% and “9 above there is indicated a different relation of the names pitN (red-brown) and “730 (hairy), but the one re- ferring to tiny, that red, i. e., brown-yellow pot- tage of lentiles, powiidiov, is there predominant. Moreover, thousands of names, e. g., among the Arabs (comp. Asutrepa’s Hist. Anteisl.), have a like fortuitous origin. But if any one should regard it as accidental that the history of nations for several thousand years should have been connected with a pottage of lentiles, he will not look in vain for simi- lar occurrences in perusing the pages of Oriental history. [Therefore was his name called Edom. There is no discrepancy in ascribing the name both to his complexion and the color of the lentile broth. The propriety of a name may surely be marked by different circumstances. Nor is it unnatural to sup- ‘pose that such occasions should occur in the course of life. Jacob, too, has the name given to him from the circumstances of his birth, here confirmed.— A.G.] It is scarcely necessary to say here, that lentiles (adas) are still a favorite dish in Egypt and Syria.” Delitzsch—Sell me this day.—Knobel, as his manner is, regards this fact as improbable. He thinks the object of the narrative is to answer the question, how the birthright descended from Esau to Jacob, and thus erroneously supposes that, according to the Jewish view, the people of God, from Adam down to Isaac, had always descended from the line of the first-born. The text, however, presents to our view the contrast between Esau’s carnal thinking and Jacob’s believing sensibility, in the measure of fanatical exaggeration, and according to its conflict so decisive and typical for all time. The right of the first-born has its external and internal aspects. The external preference consisted in the headship over the brothers or the tribe (ch. xxvii. 29), and later also in a double portion of the inheritance of the father. The internal preference was the right of priesthood, and in the house of Abraham, according to the supposition thus far as- sumed, a share in the blessing of the promise (ch. xxvii. 4, 27-29). [Which included the possession of Canaan and the covenant fellowship with Jeho- vah, and still more, the progenitorship of him in whom all the families of the earth were to be blessed. —A.G.] To acquire a rightful claim to this, was undoubtedly the principal aim in the bargain, as is seen immediately from the answer of Esau: “I am at the point to die;” and also from the fact that GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. Esau appears not to have been limited in his ex- ternal inheritance. It is to the praise of Jacob that he appreciated so highly a promise extending into the far future and referring to the invisible; the realization of which, moreover, though he was un- conscious of it, was already prepared in his very being (either in his natural disposition or in his elec- tion). The acuteness, too, with which he discerned Esau’s gross bondage to appetite, deserves no cen- sure. The selfishness of his nature by which he so soon estimates his profits and takes advantage of his brother,—this impure motive, as well as a fanatical self-will arising from his excitement in respect to the birthright, through which he anticipates God’s provi- dence, is all the more obvious in his cunningly avail- ing himself of the present opportunity. [Yet it must be borne in mind that he laid no necessity upon Esau. He leaves him to accept or reject the proposal. And Esau knew well, though he did not value it, what the birthright included. His own words, “ what profit shall it do to me, seeing I am about to die? ” show clearly that he knew that it in- cluded invisible and future things, as well as the visi- ble and present. It was because he thus consciously sold his birthright, and for such a consideration, that the Apostle, Heb. xii. 16, calls him a profane person. —A.G.] In Esau of course he was not mistaken. —Behold I am at the point to die—Esau, in his carnal disposition, seems to regard only the pres- ent and the things of this life, and of the things of this life, the visible and the sensual only. He yields the entire higher import of the birthright, the specific blessing of Abraham, the inheritance of his posterity, the right and land of the covenant, for the satisfac- tion of a moment—and that, too, near his paternal hearth, where he would soon have obtained a meal. He is therefore designated (Heb. xii, 16) as BéBnaos, or profane.—Swear to me this day.—Jacob’s de- mand of an oath in this transaction evinces a very ungenerous suspicion, just as the taking of the oath on the part of Esau shows a low sense of honor.— And rose up and went his way.—As if nothing happened. Repentance followed later. DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL. 1. Rebekah’s barrenness during twenty years. The sons of Isaac, too, were to be asked for; they were to be children of faith, especially Jacob. Sa- rah’s example appears to occur again. Similar ex- amples: Rachel, Hannah, Elizabeth. Even when not viewed in the light of the Abrahamic promise of the blessing, barrenness was regarded in the an- cient Orient as a trial of special severity ; how much more so in this case. Starke: “ Barrenness among the patriarchs (Hebrews) was a painful occurrence. It was sometimes the fruitful source of strife (Gen. Xxx. 2); tears were shed (1 Sam. i. 7); it was con- sidered a reproach (Luke i. 25); it was even held for a curse.” Here, however, Abraham could from his own experience comfort them; he lived fifteen years after the birth of the children. 2. Isaac’s intercession. It could be based upon God’s promise and Abraham’s experience. Jehovah heard him. He granted more than asked. Instead of one child he received two, Undoubtedly Re- bekah sustained his intercession by her prayers, 3. Rebekah’s pregnancy, her painful sensation, her ill-humor and alarming presentiments, The gen- tle story of the hopeful maternal temperament is CHAP. XXV. 19-34. often of the greatest significance in history. Isaac, in accordance with his disposition, prays to Jehovah ; Rebekah, after her manner of feeling, goes and aske Jehovah. Undoubtedly she herself is the prophetess to whom God reveals the manner and future of her delivery. Jehovah speaks to her. The word of revelation, though dark, infuses into her an earnest yet hopeful feeling of joy, instead of maternal sad- ness and despondency. Two brothers, as two na- tions—two nations, to contend and fight with each other from the very womb of the mother, The larger, or elder, and externally more powerful, gov- erned by the smaller, the younger, and apparently the more feeble. In these three points the antithesis between Ishmael and Isaac is reflected again. [The Apostle, Rom. ix. 12, dwells upon this passage as affording a striking illustration and proof of the doctrine he was then teaching. Isaac was chosen over Ishmael, but further still, Jacob was chosen over Esau, though they were of the same covenant mother, and prior to their birth. The choice, elec- tion, was of grace.—A. G.] 4, Brothers unlike, hostile; twins even at en- mity, whose physiological unconscious antipathy shows itself already in the womb of the mother— dark forebodings of life not yet existing, bearing witness, however, that the life of man already, in its coming into being, is a germinating seed of a future individuality. This cannot be meant to express a mutual hatred of the embryos. Antipathies, how- ever, aS well as sympathies, may be manifested in the germinating life of man as in the animal and vegetable kingdom. 5. The relation of prophecy and poetry appears in the rhythmical form of the divine declaration as it is laid before us. Common to both is the elevated lyrical temperament manifesting itself in articulate rhythm. 6. The individuality of the twins is manifested immediately by corresponding signs. Esau comes into this world with a kind of hunter’s dress cover- ing his rough-red skin ; he is, and remains, Esau or Edom. Jacob seems to be a combatant immediate- ly; an artful champion, who unawares seizes his opponent by the heel, causing him to fall. But un- der Jehovah’s direction and training, Jacob, the heel- holding struggler, becomes Israel, the wrestler with God. In the name “ Jacob ” there is then intimated, not only his inherited imperfection, but at the same time his continual struggle, i. e., there exists a germ of Israel in Jacob. Esau, in his wild rambles, be- comes an after-play of Nimrod. Jacob is so domes- tic and economical that he cooks the lentile broth himself. Esau appears to have inherited from Re- bekah the rash, sanguine temperament, but without her nobility of soul; from Isaac he derives a certain fondness of good living—at least of game. Jacob inherited from Isaac the quiet, contemplative man- ner, from Rebekah, however, a disposition for rapid, prudent, cunning invention. Outwardly regarded, Jacob on the whole resembled more the father,— Esau the mother. This, however, seems to be the very reason why Isaac preferred Esau, and Rebekah Jacob. The gentle Isaac, who was to transmit to one of his children the great promise of the future, even the hope of Canaan, might have considered Esau, not only in his character of first-born, but also in that of a courageous and strong hunter, more suitable to hold and defend Abraham’s prospects among the heathen, than Jacob, who was so similar to himself in respect to domestic life. He might, therefore, understand the oracle given to Rebekah 501 in a sense different from that received by her; or he might doubt, perhaps, its objective validity, opposed as it was to the customary right of succession. That Fsau’s venison exercised an influence as to his posi- tion towards Esau, is proved from thetext. It might be to him a delusive foretaste of the future conquests of Canaan. Esau’s frank nobility of soul is seen also in his promptly and zealously complying with the request. Rebekah confided in her oracle and understood her Jacob better. But even here there covperated that mutual power of attraction which lay in the two antithetical temperaments. Without doubt, Esau, the stately hunter, moved about in his paternal home as a youthful lord; in which fact Isaac thought that he saw a sign of future power. 7. Isaac’s taste and Esau’s greediness—the two prime features of a likerish deportment. The weak- ness of the father soon increases to the greediness of the son. Isaac’s contemplation and weakness as to his senses reminds us of similar contrasts. 8. And Jacob sod pottage. Every human weak- ness has its hour of temptation, and if we do not watch and pray, it will come upon us like a thief. 9. To sell one’s birthright fora pottage of len- tiles: this expression has become the established ex- pression for every exchange of eternal treasures, honors, and hopes, for earthly, visible, and mowent- ary pleasures. No doubt the motto: Let us eat and drink, ete., is an echo of Esau’s expression. Yet we are not at liberty to regard this moment of aban- donment to appetite as an instance of u frame of miud continual, fixed; nor can we refer the divine reprobation, beginning with this moment, to his future happiness, He was rejected relatively to the prerogatives of the Abrahamic birthright. Notwith- standing his mauliness and placability, he was not a man who had longings for the future, and therefore could not be « patriarch among the people of the future (Mal. i. 8; Heb, xii. 17). Jacob, however, was different; he knew how to prize the promises, in spite of those faults of weakness and craft, trom which God’s training purified him. 10. Thus it stood with both children even before their birth. The antithesis of their lives was grounded in the depths of their individuality, that is, in the religious inclination of the one, and the spiritual superficiality of the other. But their very foundations had their ground in the divine election (Rom. ix. 11), The fundamental relations become apparent, with respect to both, in a sinful manner. They become apparent through the sins of both, but they would have appeared, too, without their sinful actions, by God’s providence. The question is about a destination, who was to be the proper bearer of the covenant, not about happiness and perdition. 11. In their next conflict Jacob’s ungenerous negotiation increases to fraud. Thence his subse- quent great sufferings and atonement. By the de- ception of Laban, too, as well as by that of his sons, must expiation be made. The bloody coat of many colors, sent to him by his sons, reminded him of Fsau's coat, in which he approached his father. For Jacob’s opinion concerning the sufferings of his life, see Gen, xlvii. 9. SrarKE: Paul, in quoting these words, Rom. ix. 12, does not speak of an absolute - decree to eternal life or eternal damnation. Because God was to establish his church among the posterity of Jacob, and the Messiah was to come through them, Esau’s posterity, if desirous of salvation, must turn to the worship of Jacob (John iv. 22). Upon the idea of election, see Lancx’s Positive Dogmatic, 502 article Ordo Salutis. [Also Tholuck, Meyer, Hodge on the passage Rom. ix. 11. It seems well-nigh im- possible to escape the conviction that the Apostle here teaches the sovereign choice of persons, not merely to the external blessings, but the internal and spiritual blessings of his kingdom, i. e., to salva- tion.—A. G.] ‘ 12. The present prophecy respecting. Jacob and Esau is farther developed in the blessings of Isaac (ch. xxvii.), Thus everything was historically ful- filled. For Edom and Idumza, see the Bible Diction- aries; also respecting the prophetic declarations con- cerning Edom. The prophet Obadiah represents Edom as a type of the anti-theocratic (anti-Christian) conduct of false and envious brothers. This typical interpretation no more excludes the preaching of the Gospel in Idumea than similar and more definite representations of Babel exclude the preaching of Peter at Babylon. 13. The Hebraic, i. e., the profoundest concep- tion of history, here comes into view again. All his- tory develops itself from personal beginnings. The personal is predominant in history. 14, The mystery of births; of the like relation between male and female being; of the unlike but natural relations between the more and less gifted, between noble and common; and of the different degrees of natural dispositions—a reservation of God, in his decrees of providence. HOMILETICAJ, AND PRACTICAL, See the Doctrinal and Ethical. The house of a patriarch in its light and dark aspects: a. The di- vine blessing and human piety; b. human weakness and sin.—Different directions of the parents. Con- trasts of the children.—The trials in the life of Isaac.—Children a blessing, an heritage of the Lord. —The intercession and its answer.—Isaac’s prayers, Rebekah’s inquiries. —Hoping mothers are to inquire of the Lord.—Twin brothers not always twin spirits. —Jacob and Esau.—The sale of the birthright for a pottage of lentiles——Edom’s character in respect to good and evil. (Saying of Lessing : Nothing ina man is condemned as execrable if he only has the reputa- tion of honor and integrity.)—Jacob’s sin, to human eyes, indissolubly connected with his higher strivings. --It is reserved to the chemistry of God to separate the dross of sin from the pure metal of a pious striving (Mal. iii. 3).—The experience of the pious, a succession of divine purifications. —Hereditary faults. —Jacob’s haste and eager grasping, the sign of the severe expiatory penitential sorrows of his life.— He wished to acquire externally, what God’s grace had put into his heart—The first fault of Jacob a harbinger of the second.—Hereditary virtues and hereditary vices,—Divine election: 1. A predestina- tion of Jacob’s and Esau’s theocratic position; 2. no decree as to their deportment.—Esau and Jacob; or a frank, noble disposition without subjectiveness, without a desire, and even without a true sense of di- vine things ; opposed to an enthusiastic feeling for the eternal, yet tainted with self-deceit and dishonesty.— Jacob, a man of the higher longing and hope. Esau, a tan of sevsual pleasure, regardless of the future. Srarke, Cramer: The true church is never re- spected by the world as much as the great mass of the children of the flesh; we must not, therefore, place the bushel by the largest heap.— Bibl. Tub. : Children are an heritage of the Lord (Ps. cxxvii. 3). GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. —Ha tt: Isaac asks for one son and he receives two. —Laner: Married people are under obligations to unite in prayer, especially on important occasious.— Notwithstanding natural causes, God, as creator, re- / serves to himself the closing and opening of the womb of mothers. This shows his sovereignty over the human race (Jer. xxxi. 20).—Rebekah, in her impatience, may be a type of those who, having been aroused by God, so that a struggle, necessarily painful, takes place between spirit and flesh, soon become impatient.—In an unfruitful conjugal. life we are to take comfort in this: 1. That God visited with barrenness holy people in former times-Sarah, Rachel, Hannah, Elisabeth; 2. God best knows our wants ; 3. we are not to render an account for chil- dren, etc. ; 4, to die without children takes away, ina certain degree, the bitterness of death; 5. the times are calamitous (Matt. xxiv. 19). In times of need we are not to consult soothsayers, but God and his word.—(The struggle of the flesh with the spirit in the new life of the new-born; Rom. vii. 22,,23)— Ver. 26. Gen. iii, 16.—Cramir: Within the pale of the Christian Church we have different classes of peo- ple: Jews and heathen (John x. 16), true believers and hypocrites, good and evil (Matt. xiii. 47). God does not judge after the advantages of the flesh, of age, of size and other things which concern the appear- ance.— Bibl. Wirt.: Two churches are prefigured here: one believing the promises of Christ; the other depending on a carnal advantage of antiquity and extent. These two bodies will never come to an agreement, until finally the true church, as the small- er, will overcome the false by the victory of her faith, and triumph over her in eternal blessedness (1 John v. 4).—0, children, remember what anxiety you have cost your mothers.—Ver. 28. Laner: The preference of parents for one or another of their children may have its natural cause, and be sanctified, but seldom does it keep within proper limits. Proba- bly Esau was more attached to his father, and Jacob to his mother. (Isaac, probably, prefers venison, not as a delicacy, but to make better and economical use of his cattle ; and because wild animals are of no use to the husbandman, but only cause destruction to him.)—Ver. 29. The simplicity of early time. Jacob sitting by the hearth and cooking, which is usually the duty of the females.—Ver. 31. The apology for Jacob (Luther and Calvin, indeed, approve of his transaction on the ground of his right to the privilege of the first-born by the divine promise). Though the first-born was highly esteemed among the patriarchs, Christ would not descend from one of the first-born (indicating that he was the true first-born, who was to procure for us the right of the first-born from God). [See, also, Rom. viii. 29; Col. i. 18; Rev. 1. 5; Heb. xii.23.—A. G.] He claimsto descend, not from Cain, but from Shem; not from Nahor, or Haran, but from Abraham; not from Ishmael, but from Isaac; not from Esau, but from Jacob; not from the seven elder sons of Jesse, but from David, and from Solo- mon, who was one of David’s younger sons.—(Ver. 27. The permission of hunting on certain conditions: First, that the’ regular vocation be not neglected ; second, that our neighbor be not injured.)—Cramer : In educating children we are to pay particular at- tention to their dispositions, observing in what di- rection each one inclines, for not every one is qual- ified for all things (Prov. xx. 11; xxii, 6).—Godless men, who, for the sake of temporary things, despise and hazard the eternal (Phil. iii. 19), Gertaca: The birth of many celebrated men of CHAP. XXVI. 1-22. God, preceded by a long season of barrenness.— Thereby the new-born babe is to become not only more endeared to the parents, who turn their whole attention to it, but is especially to be regarded by them as a supernatural gift of God, and thus become a type of the Saviour’s birth from a virgin.— The di- vine prophecy: The patriarchs come into view only (?) in reference to their descendants, with whom they are considered as constituting a unity. For prophecy has not been fulfilled in respect to the brothers as individuals.—Lisco: A frivolous con- tempt of an advantage bestowed on him by God.— So, also, an inconsiderate oath (Heb. xii. 16).—An immoderate longing after enjoyment sacrifices the greatest for the least, the eternal for the temporal.— Catwer Handbuch: Abraham too rejoiced in the birth of these boys; he lived yet 15 years after their birth, and the narrative of his death and burial has been, for historical purposes, considered first. When the inherited blessing of the promise is the subject treated of, the mere course of nature cannot decide the issues, in order that all praise may be to God, and not to men.—Scuriéper: (The Rabbins explain Isaac’s faithfulness to Rebekah from the fact of his having been offered in sacrifice to God (1 Tim. iii. 2). Isaac, to whom the very promise was given, is placed after Ishmael, and Ishmael, possessing a temporal promise only, is put far before him. He is lord over other lords, counts 12 princes in his line, while Isaac lived alone and without any children, like a lifeless clod (Luther).—All the works of God begin painfully, but they issue excellently and gloriously. Earthly undertakings progress rapidly, and blaze up like a fire made of paper, but sudden leaps seldom prosper (Val. Herb.).—Every mother conceals a fu- ture; every maternal heart is full of presagings. Her bodily pains, she interprets as spiritual throes that await her.—The case of Rebekah presents con- solation to a woman with child (Val. Herb.).—CaLvin: Rebekah probably inquired of God in prayer.—Her example should teach us not to give way too much to sadness in distress. We are to restrain, and struggle with, ourselves.—Prophecy (even the hea- then oracles) always assumes a solemn and metrical style, ete. The prophet is a poet, as frequently the poet is a prophet.—Her alarming presentiment did not deceive Rebekah. The struggle within her indi- cated the external and internal conflicts not only of her children, but even of the nations which were to 503 descend from them.—This ver. 23 embraces all times ; it is the history of the world, of the church, and of individual hearts, enigmatically expressed. (Coats made of red camel’s hair were worn by poor people, also by prophets (Zach, xiii4; 2 Kings i. 8).)—The Hebrew Admoni is also connected with Adam; Esau is ason of Adam, predominantly in- clined to the earth and earthly things.—(Isaac’s bod- ily nature appears feeble everywhere; ch. xxvii. 1,19). Such persons are fond of choice and finer viands. Wherever Abraham has calves’ flesh, butter and milk, on special festive occasions, Isaac delights in venison and wine (ch, xxvii, 3, 4, 25).—In the Logos, as the first-born of all creatures, the signifi- cation of tbe first-born, both animal and human, has its true, its ultimate, and divine foundation (Ziegler). The father is pleased, that Esau, like Ishmael, ch. xxi. 20, is a good hunter, and he regards it as an ornament to the first-born, who is to have the gov- ernment (Luther), Esau becomes Edom, and there- fore, still the more remains Esau merely; Jacob, on the other hand, becomes Israel (ch, xxxii. 28),—Ja- cob is the man of hope. The possession that he greatly desires is of a higher order: hopes depend- ing on the birthright. He never strives after the lower birthright privileges. (It is doubtful, also, whether these were as fully developed at the time of Abraham as at the time of Moses).—I am at the point to die. Sooner or later I will have to succumb to the perils to which my vocation exposesme. A thought expressed more than once by Arabic heroes (Tuch).—Esau’s insight into the future extended to his death only.—Jacob’s request that Esau should swear. He is as eager for the future as Esau is for the present.—(Lentiles, to this day, are w very fa- vorite dish among the Arabs, being mostly eaten in Palestine as a pottage. Robinson found them very savory, etc.).—Want of faithful confidence in him who had given him such a promise, it was this that made Jacob wish to assist God with carnal subtilty, as Abraham once with carnal wisdom.—Thou shalt not take advantage of thy brother. For the present, no doubt, Jacob obscured the confidence of his hopes, just as Abraham, by anticipation, obscured his prospects. —As Ishmael had no claim for the bless- ings of the birthright, because begotten kara edpxa, so Esau forfeits the blessings of his birthright, not because begotten card odpxa, but because inclined Kata odpxa, (Delitzsch). THIRD SECTION. Isaac in the region of Abimelech at Gerar. imitation of the maxim of his father. The manifestation of God, and confirmed promise, His The exposure of Rebekah. The living figure of a richly blessed, patient endurance. Cuarter XXVI. 1-22. ‘ 1 And there was [agoin] a famine in the land, besides the first [previous] famine that was in the days of Abraham. And Isaac went unto Abimelech king of the Philistines 2 unto Gerar. And the Lord [sehovah] appeared unto him, and said, Go not down into 3 Egypt; dwell in the land which I shall tell thee of: Sojourn [asa stranger] in this land, 504 GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. 7 1 1 1 1 14 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 and I will be with thee, and will bless thee; for unto thee, and unto thy seed, I will give all these countries, and I will perform [cause to stand] the oath which I sware unto 4 Abraham thy father; And I will make thy seed to multiply as the stars of heaven, and will give to thy seed all these countries; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the 5 earth be blessed [bless themselves]; Because that Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws. And Isaac dwelt in Gerar: And the men of the place asked Aim of his wife; and he said, She zs my sister: for he feared to say, She is my wife; lest, sacd he [thought he], the men of the place should kill me for Rebekah; because she was fair to look upon. And it came to pass, when he had been there a long time,’ that Abimelech king of the Philistines looked out at a window, and saw, and behold, Isaac was sporting with Rebekah his wife. And Abimelech called Isaac, and said, Behold, of a surety [certainly] she ts thy wife: and how saidst thou, She zs my sister? And Isaac said unto him, Because I said [1 thought], Lest I die for her, And Abimelech said, What és this that thou hast done unto us? one of the people might lightly’ have lien with thy wife, and thou shouldest have brought guiltiness upon us. And Abimelech charged all his people, saying, He that toucheth [injures] this man or his wife shall surely be put to death. Then Isaac sowed in that land, and received [found. a.c.] in the same year an hundred- fold: and [thus] the Lord blessed him: And the man waxed great, and went forward, and grew until he became very great: For he had possession of flocks, and possession of herds, and great store of servants: and the Philistines envied him. Fr all the wells which his father’s servants had digged in the days of Abraham his father, the Philistines had stopped them, and filled them with earth. And Abimelech said unto Isaac, Go from us; for thou art much mightier than we. And Isaac departed thence, and pitched his tent in the valley I valley—wady.—A. G.] of Gerar, and dwelt there. And Isaac digged again the wells of water, which they had digged in the days of Abraham his father; for the Philistines had stopped them after the death of Abraham: and he called their names after [hike] the names by which his father had called them. And Isaac’s servants digged in the valley [atthe bottom], and found there a well of springing [living] water. And the herdmen of Gerar did strive with Isaac’s herdmen, saying, The water ¢s ours: and he called the name of the well Ezek [contention]; because they strove with him. And they digged another well, and strove for that also: and he called the name of it Sitnah [enmity—adversary, Satan wells]. And he removed [brake up] from thence, and digged another well; and for that they strove not: and he called the name of it Rehoboth [wiéeroom]; and he said, For now the Lord hath made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land. 0 — 2 3 5 6 7 8 9 0 — 2 [ Ver. 8.—When the days were drawn out.—A. G.] . [2 Ver. 10.—O363 » within a little ; it lacks but little, as the Chaldee renders.—A. G.] consecration as a type of Christ. He waited for his bride until Abraham's and Eliezer’s care procured GENERAL PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 1, The present chapter (xxvi.) is the only one devoted exclusively to traditions concerning Isaac. The former narratives were, on the one hand, inter- woven with Abraham’s history, and, on the other, contained the beginnings of the history of Esau and Jacob. The section in the following chapter, but more fully given in the beginning of chapter xxviil., forms a conclusion, in which the history of Isaac and that of his sons are considered as one. This is fol- lowed by ch. xxxv. 27, like a melancholy echo ex- tending over Isaac’s long and isolated life, during which Rebekah disappears from the scene, deeply grieved on account of her sons We have here a vivid life-picture, taken from the midst of Isaac’s pilgrimage, and representing clearly the fact that Tsaae’s composedness and tranquillity draw after ‘them pure blessings. This thought, however, per- vades his whole history. He submits to suffer upon Moriah, and thus receives a mysterious theocratic one for him without his co-operation, and in this he fared well. During Rebekah’s long barrenness he seeks no remedy such as Abraham did in connection with Hagar, but finally resorts to prayer, and is richly compensated in the bestowal of twins, During the famine he does not go to Egypt, but, according to Jehovah's instruction, remains in Canaan, and here, in the country of the Philistines, is most abundantly blessed. He receives in silence the censure of Abimelech for his deceptive statement respecting Rebekah. He is exiled, and departs from Gerar. He yields one well after another to the shepherds of the Philistines, ever receding, further and farther; and yet the king of the Philistines applies to him for an alliance, as to a mighty prince, Finally Isaac knows how to reconcile himself to the strong devep- tion prepared for him by Rebekah and Jacob, and even this pliancy of temper is blessed to him, in that he is thereby kept in the right theocratic direction. CHAP. XXVI. 1-22, 505 His passive conduct, too, at the marriage of his sons, renders the difference between the true Esau and the theocratic Jacob Moore distinct. His composure and endurance seem infirmities ; these, however, with all weakness of temperament, are evidently supported by a power of the spirit and of faith. The moral power in it is the self-restraint whereby, in opposi- tion to his own wishes, he gives up his hasty purpose to bless Esau. _ Isaac learned experimentally upon Moriah, that quietness, tranquillity, and confidence in the Lord have a glorious issue. This experience is stamped upon his whole career. If we judge him from the declarations concerning Rebekah at Gerar, he appears to be the timid imitator of his father ; though the assuming of his father’s maxim in this respect may be explained from his modest, suscep- tible nature. But that he does not imitate his father slavishly, is seen especially from the fact of his quiet suffering without any resistance. This is made evi- dent, too, by the fact that he does not, like Abraham, go to Egypt during the famine. Moreover, he does not take a concubine, as Abraham did; nor like him does he look to divine revelation for the decision re- specting the lawful heir, but holds himself sure of it by reason of the transmitted right of the first-born. New and original traits appear in his transition to agriculture, as well as in his zealous digging of wells. The naming of the wells, taken away from him, has something of humor, such as is peculiar to tranquil minds. His pleasant disposition reveals itself not only in his preference of venison, but by his peculiar manner of preparing, for Abimelech of Gerar, and his friends, a feast, even after the gentle reproof, and before he made a covenant with him on the follow- ing day. In his vocation, however, as patriarch, he shows himself a man of spirit by building an altar unto the Lord, and calling upon his name (ver. 25). And while there are but two visions mentioned defi- nitely during his life (ver. 3, ver. 24), still there fol- lows a higher spiritual life, and, at the same time, a further development of the Abrahamic promise through the disposition he manifests in the blessing of his sons. Our section may be divided as follows : J. Isaae’s sojourn in the country during the famine in consequence of an injunction of Jehovah. Re- -newed promise (vers. 1-6); 2. Isaac’s assertion that Rebekah was his sister (vers. 7-11); 3. Isaac's pros- perity ; his exile from the city of Gerar, and his set- tlement in the valley of Gerar (vers. 12-17); 4. Isaac’s patience in what he endured from the Philis- tines, and its blessing (vers. 18-22). Knobel regards the present chapter as a Jehovistic supplement, mingled with Elohistic elements. [In regard to the numerous points of resemblance between Isaac and Abrabam, Kurtz has shown (Gesch., p. 226) that these resemblances are not slavish imitations, but are marked by distinct peculiarities, and moreover, that these similar experiences are not accidental, but on the one hand, as the result of the divine provi- dence, they flow from the same purpose and disci- pline with the father and the son, and on the other hand, as far as they are the result of human choices, they arise from an actual resemblance in their condi- tion and hopes. Thus all believers in their expe- riences are alike and yet unlike,—A. G.] EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL. 1. Vers. 1-6. Isaac’s abode in the country.—A famine.—It is distinguished from the famine in the history of Abraham. Isaac, following the example of his father, was on the point of going to Egypt, but is arrested by divine interposition. ‘ Isaac’s history commences with the same trial as the history of Abraham” (Delitzsch), This frequent calamity of antiquity occurs once more in the history of Ja- cob.—Isaac went unto Abimelech.—Not the one mentioned ch. xx. 21 (Kimchi, Schum, ete., Del.), but his successor (Knobel), The same may be said of Phichol (ch. xxi, 22). There is here, very proba- bly, a different Abimelech, and with him another Phichol. The former is expressly called king. Upon this name Abimelech, as a standing title of the kings, compare the title to the xxxivth Ps, with 1 Sam. xxi. 11.—Gerar.—*“ The ruins of which, under the name of Kirbet-el-Gerar, have been again discovered by Rowland, three leagues in a southeasterly direction from Gaza.” Del. Isaac intends to go to Egypt, but according to God's instruction, he is to remain in Palestine as a stranger—Go not down.—It is characteristic that Abraham received the first divine instruction to depart, Isaac to remain. God leads every one according to his peculiar necessities, Even in Canaan nothing shall be wanting to him—AI these countries.—Extending the promise beyond Canaan [or rather all the lands of the different Ca- naanitish tribes.—A. G.]—I will be with thee.— A promise of help, blessing, and protection, especial- ly needed by Isaac.—I will perform the oath.— As for God, the divine oath was absolutely firm, though, on the part of Abraham, it might have been obscured. But since Abraham, on his part, remained true to the covenant, it is renewed to the son by virtue of an oath, whilst in regard to the contents of the promise, it is even enlarged. The one land of Canaan is changed into many countries, the seed multiplied as the stars of heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea-shore, becomes stars only ; and the blessing of the nations (ch. xxii. 18) becomes in his seed a voluntary blessing of the nations among themselves.—Because that Abraham.—Literally, for that. Abraham’s obedience is brought out conspic- uously through the use of the richest deuteronomic terms, To the commendation of obedience in general, foliows in strict derivation: 1. the charge; 2. the commandments; 8. the institutions; 4. the germ of the Thorah in the plural, mum, [He kept the charge of God, the special commission he had given him; his commandments, his express or occasional orders; his statutes, his stated prescriptions graven on stone; his law, the great doctrine of moral obli- gations. Murpuy, p. 874, His obedience was not perfect, as we know, but it was unreserved, and as it flows from a living faith, is thus honored of God.—A.G.] The motive of the promise empha- sizes the humility and low position of Isaac. He must also, however, render the obedience of faith, if Jehovah's blessing is to rest upon him, and, in- deed, first of all, by remaining in the country. Abraham had to go to Egypt, Jacob must go to Egypt to die there, Isaac, the second patriarch, is not to go to Egypt at all. Notwithstanding the re- semblance to the promise, ch. xxii., the new here is unmistakable. 2. Vers. 7-11. Isaac’s assertion respecting Re- bekah, In the declaration of Isaac the event here resembles Abraham’s experience, both in Egypt and at Gerar, but as to all else, it differs entirely. With regard to the declaration itself, it is true that Re- bekah was also related to Isaac, but more distantly than Sarah to Abraham, It is evident from the nar- 506 GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. rative itself that Isaac is not so seriously threatened as: Abraham, although the inquiries of the people at Gerar might have alarmed him, It is not by a punishment inflicted upon a heathen prince, who perhaps might have abducted the wife, but through the intercourse of Isaac with Rebekah that the true relation became known. That the Abimelech men- tioned in this narrative is the same person who, eighty years before, received Sarah into his harem, appears plausible to Kurtz and Delitzsch, since it may be taken for granted that as a may gray with age he did not send for Rebekah and take her into his harem. We reject these as superficial grounds. The main point is, that Isaac appears in this narra- tive as a very cautious man, while the severe edict of Abimelech seems to suppose a solemn remem- brance in the king’s house of the former experience with Abraham, The oath that follows seems also to show that the new Abimelech avails himself of the policy of his father, as well as Isaac. The windows in old times were latticed openings for the light to enter, as found in the East at the present day. 3. Vers. 12-17. Isaac's prosperity and exile — Then Isaac sowed.—Besides planting trees, Abra- ham was yet a mere nomad. Isaac begins to pursue agriculture along with his nomadic life; and Jacob seems to have continued it in a larger measure (ch. xxxvii. 7). ‘Many nomads of Arabia connect agricul- ture with a nomadic life (see BurxaarnT: Syrien, p. 430, ete.).” Knobel. This account agrees well with the locality at Gerar. The soil of Gaza is very rich, and in Nuttar Abu Sumar, a tract northwest of Elysa, the Arabs possess now storehouses for their grain (see Rosinson, i. p. 291, 292). Even at the present time, in those countries (e. g., Hauran), the soil yields a very rich produce (BURKHARDT: “Syria,” p. 463). Knobel. [The hundred-fold is a large and very rare product, and yet Babylonia is said to have yielded two hundred and even three hundred fold. Herop., i. p. 193; Murpny, p. 375. —A.G.] “The exigency of the famine induced Isanc to undertake agriculture, and in the very first year his crops yielded a hundred-fold (p7731y). The agriculture of Isaac indicates already a more perma- nent settlement in Palestine; but agriculture and the occupation of the nomadic life were first engaged in equally by the Israelites in Egypt, and it was not until their return from Egypt that agriculture became the predominant employment.” Delitzsch._ And the Philistines envied him.—Hostilities began in their filling with carth the wells that Abraham dug at Gerar, and which therefore belonged to Isaac. This very act is already an indirect expulsion, for without wells it is not possible that Isaac should live a nomadic life at Gerar. [The digging of wells was regarded as a sort of occupancy of the land, and as conferring a kind of title to it; and hence per- haps the envy of the Philistines —A, G.] This conduct was customary during wars (2 Kings ili. 26 ; Is. xv, 6), and the Arabs fill with earth the wells along the route of the pilgrims if they do not re- ceive the toll asked by them (Trorxo : Orientalische Reisebeschreib., p. 6823; Nispunr: ‘ Arab.’ p. 862).” Knobel—Go from us.—Abimelech openly vents his displeasure against Isaac. He banishes bim from his city, Gerar, and from his country in the narrower sense.—In the valley of Gerar.—The undulating country Gurf-el-Gerar, through which flows a wady (Riven: Erdk, xiv. p. 804), Constantine erected a monument in this valley (Sozom. 6, 32). 4. Vers. 18-22. Isaac’s patient behavior under the violation of his rights by the Philistines. The wells.—Digged again the wells.—Behind his back too, the Philistines filled the wells which Abraham dug. Knobel infers from verse 29 that the hostile conduct of the Philistines was not mentioned in the more ancient record! The discoveries of the wells (vers. 19, 21), too, must be regarded as identical with the digging again, ver. 18 !—The quarrels about the wells seem to be connected with views respecting the boundaries of Isaac’s place of exile. He is driven further and further by them. ‘‘ Quarrels about watering-places and pastures are common among the Bedouins (see xiii. 7; Exod. ii. 17; Borxuarpr: ‘Syria,’ p. 628, and ‘ Bedouins,’ p. 118), Among the ancient Arabs, also, severe contesis arose about watering-places (Hamasa, i. p. 122 f. 287). In many regions the scarcity of water is such that the Bedouins rather offer milk than water as a bev- erage (SEETZEN, fii. p. 21).” Knobel. Isaac yields without any resistance; still he erects a monument to the injustice he suffered. The name of the second well, 720, from the verb joW, brings to view an enmity malignant and satanic—A well of springing water.—Running water (Lev. xiv. 5, etc.).—Reho- both (ample room).—The third well was probably situ- ated beyond the boundaries of Gerar ; for it is previous- ly said that he had removed from thence, i. e., from the valley of Gerar. The name Rehoboth indicates that now by the guidance of Jehovah he had come to a wide, open region. Ruhaibeh, 2 wady, southwest from Elusa, and discovered by Robinson (i. 291 ff.), together with the extended ruins of the city of the same name, situated upon the top of a mountain, remind us of this third well (Srrauss: ‘Sinai and - Golgotha,’ p. 149).” Delitzsch. Robinson also dis- covered further north, in a wady, what was perhaps’ the Sitnah of Isaac. Ruhaibeh is situated about three hours in a southerly direction from Elusa and about eight and a half from Beer-sheba, where the main roads leading to Gaza and Hebron separate from each other. DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL. 1, Denrrzscn: “This chapter (xxvi.) is composed of these seven short, special, and peculiarly colored narratives, which the Jehovist arranged. One pur- pose runs through all: to show, by a special narra- tion of examples running through the first forty years of Isaac’s independent history, how even the patriarch hiraself, though less distinguished in deeds and sufferings, yet under Jehovah's blessing and pro- tection comes forth out of all his fearful embarrass- ments and ascends to still greater riches and honor,” His life, however, is not “the echo of the life of Abrabam;” but Isaac’s meekness and gentleness indicate rather a decisive progress, which, like his pure monogamy, was a type of New Testament rela- tions. 9, The events related in the present section belong undoubtedly to a time when Esau had not reached the development of all his powers, for other- wise this stately and powerful hunter would scarcely have submitted so quietly to the infringements of his rights by the Philistines. 3. The two visions which mark the life of Isaac are entirely in accordance with his character and his point of view. In the first, Jehovah addresses him: Go not down into Egypt; in the second: Fear not. The promises, however, which he receives, are fur- CHAP. XXVI. 1-2%. 507 ther developments of the Abrahamic romnis j arse moreover, Jehovah's promises ee ae C 1, @., @ confidence of faith in him built upon a 4. The three famines occurring in the hist the three patriarchs constitute the fixed eee tions of one of the great national calamities of an- tiquity, from which the pious have to suffer together with the ungodly; but in which the pious always ae Bee _ Special ov of the Lord, assuring ‘hem that all things work to jee Gen. ig gether for good to them _5. Isaae’s imitation of his father in passing his wife for his sister, incurs the more severe censure of history than the same actions of Abraham, and it has this time for its result the gradual expulsion from Gerar. This ignominy, too, must have the more in- clined him to yield patiently to the infringements of his rights by the Philistines; and thus he is again blessed with the freedom of a new region, so that the word is fulfilled in him: Blessed are the meek ; for they shall inherit the earth. __6. Isaac and Abimelech, sons of their respective fathers, and yet having each a peculiar character according to their individual and finer traits. 7. Isaac, and the signs that appear of a willingness to struggle bravely for the faith, though still subject to his natural infirmities and obscured by them. 8. Isaac's energy in his agricultural undertak- ings and in the diligent digging of wells, 9. The filling of the wells with earth, as taken in a spiritual sense, indicates an old ‘hatred of the Phil- istines towards the children of God. 10. And thou shouldst have brought guiltiness upon us. The idea of guilt is the extension of cul- pability over the future of the sinner ; and frequently (as e. g. in public offences) more or less even to those around us. Participation of sin is participation in its corrupting and ruinous results. HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL. To the whole chapter. How the promises of Abraham descend upon Isaac: 1. As the same promises ; 2/ as newly shaped in their development and confirmation.—Incidents of a life of faithful suffering and rich with blessings, as presented in the history of Isaac: Isaac during the famine; in dan- ger at Gerar; as exposed to the jealousy of the Philistines ; during the exile ; in the strife about the wells; in the visit of Abimelech; in the marriage of Esau.—How Isaac gradually comes out of his dif- ficulty: 1. From Gerar to the valley of Gerar; 2. from the valley of Gerar to Rehoboth ; 8. from Re- hoboth to Beer-sheba.—Isaac as a digger of wells, a type also of spiritual conduct: 1. In digging again the wells of the father that are filled with earth ; 2. in digging new wells.—Isaac and Abimelech, or the sons in relation to their fathers: 1. Resemblance ; 2, difference.—The blessing of Isaac in his crops (at the harvest-festival).—Malignant joy, a joy most de- structive to the malignant man himself. [Words- worth, who finds types everywhere, says: “ Here also we have a type of what Christ, the pure Isaac, is doing in the church. The wells of ancient truth had » been choked up by error, but Christ reopened them and restored them to their primitive state and called them by their old names,” et¢., p. 115.—A. G.] Starke: (What Moses narrates in this chapter appears to have happened before Esau and Jacob were born (see ver. 7). [More probably when they ° were about fifteen years old, after Abraham’s death. —A.G.] Regarding the Philistines and Philistia, see Dictionaries.) The reason why God did not per- mit Isaac to go to Egypt is not given, yet it may have been that Isaac might experience the wonderful providence and paternal care of God toward him. Some (Calvin) assign the reason, that Isaac, because not as far advanced in faith as his father Abraham, might have been easily led astray by the idolatrous Egyptians (the result shows, however, that it was unnecessary this time).—J will give all these coun- tries. Thy descendants through Esau shall receive a great part of the southern countries, lying between Canaan and Egypt.—Ver. 5. It does not follow from these four terms, which were frequently used after the law was given upon Mt. Sinai, that Abraham al- ready possessed the law of Moses, as the Jews as- sert. Had this been the case, no doubt he would have transmitted it to his children. Moses, kow- ever, chooses these expressions, which were in use in his time, in order to point out clearly to the peo- ple of Israel how Abraham had submitted himself entirely to the divine will and command, and ear- nestly abstained from everything to the contrary in his walk before God. To these four terms there are sometimes added two more, viz., rules and testimo- nies,—OsIanveR: There are no calamities in the world from which even the pious do not sometimes suffer. The best of it, however, is that God is their protection and comfort (Ps. xci. 1).—We are to re- member the divine promises, though ancient and general, and apply them to ourselves.—CramEr : We are to abide by God’s command, for his word is a light unto our path (Ps. cxix. 105).—Thus God sometimes permits his people to stumble, that his care over them may become known.—To ver. 10. From this we see that the inhabitants of Gerar, not- withstanding their idolatry, were still so conscien- tious that they considered adultery a crime so great as to involve the whole land in its punishment.— Cramer: Comely persons should be much more watchful of themselves than others.—The woods have ears and the fields eyes, therefore let no one do anything thinking that no one sees and hears him. —Strangers are to be protected. (Since Isaac pos- sessed no property, perhaps he cultivated with the king’s permission an unfruitful tract of land, or hired a piece of ground.)—It is the worst kind of jealousy if we repine at another's prosperity without any prospect of our own advantage. Bibl. Tub.: God blesses his people extraordinari- ly in famine-—Cramer: Success creates jealousy; but let us not be surprised at this; it is the course of the world.—Ver. 17. To suffer wrong, and therein to exercise patience, is always better than to revenge oneself and do wrong.—Christian, the Holy Scrip- tures are also a well of living water; draw there- from incessantly. — Bibl. Tub.: The jealousy and artifice of enemies cannot prevent or restrain the blessing which the Lord designs for the pious. 508 23, 25 9 - 6 27 28 29 30, 32 33 GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. FOURTH SECTION. Isaac in Beer-sheba. Treaty of Peace with Abimelech. Carter XXVI. 23-33, 24 And he went up from thence to Beer-sheba. And the Lord appeared unto him the same [frst] night, and said, I’ am the God of Abraham thy father; fear not, for I am with thee, and will bless thee, and multiply thy seed for my servant Abraham’s sake, And he builded an altar there, and called upon [witnessed to] the name of the Lord, and pitched his tent* there: and there Isaac's servants digged a well. Then [ana] Abimelech went to him from Gerar, and Ahuzzath [possession, occupant | one of his friends, and Phichol the chief captain [see ch. xxi. 22, commander] of his army. And Isaac said unto them, Wherefore come ye to me, seeing ye hate me [have treated me with hatred], and have sent me away from you? And they said, We saw certainly ° that the Lord was with thee: and we said, Let there be now an oath betwixt us [on both sides], 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: thou art [thus art thou] now the blessed of the 31 Lord. And he mads them a feast, and they did eat and drink. And they rose up betimes in the morning, and sware one to another: and Isaac sent them away, and they departed from him in peace. And it came to pass the same day, that Isaac's servants came and told him concerning the well which they had digged, and said unto him, We have found water. And he called it Shebah [seven; here in its signification: oath]: therefore the name of the city is Beer-sheba unto this day. (! Ver. 24—"53N. The pronoun is emphatio—I the God, eto.—A. G.} (? Ver. 25.—O35. Not the usual word for the pitching a tent, see ver.17. The term may be chosen with reference to the permanence of his abode, or the increase of his family and retinue. —A. G.] (3 Ver. 28.—Lit., Seeing we have seen.—A. [* Ver. 29.—Lit., EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL, To Beer-sheba.—The former residence of Abra- ham (ch. xxi. 38), and Isaac’s former station for his flocks.—The appearance of Jehovah.—A night vis- -ion; a form which now enters more definitely into the history of the patriarchs.—The God of Abra- ham, thy father.—In this way Jehovah reminds him of the consistency of his covenant faithfulness, but especially of his covenant with Abraham.— Fear not.—This encouraging exhortation no doubt refers to the disposition of Isaac. Abraham needed such an encouragement, after having exposed himself to the revenge of the Eastern kings on account of his victory over them. Isaac needs it because of his modest, timid disposition, and on account of the en- mity of the Philistines, by whom he was driven from place to place. Perhaps his heart foreboded that Abimelech would yet follow him. He consecrates* his prolonged sojourn at Beer-sheba by the erection of analtar, the establishment of a regulated worship, and by a fixed settlement.—Then Abimelech went to him.—By comparing this covenant act with that between Abraham and Abimelech of Gerar, the difference appears more strikingly. Abimelech, in the present chapter, is accompanied not only by the chief captain of his army, but also by his friend, i. e., Ahuzzath, his private counsellor. Isaac ani- madverts on his hatred, but not like Abraham, on If thou shalt. The usual Hebrew form of an imprecation or oath.—A. G.] the wells that had been taken away from him (see ch. xxi. 25), Even in the boasting assertion of Abimelech respecting his conduct toward Isaace— which the facts will not sustain—we recognize, ap- parently, another Abimelech, less noble than the former. This appears also in his demand of the im- precatory oath (5x). It is also peculiar to Isaac that he permits a banquet, a feast of peace as it were, to precede the making of the covenant. The same day, after the departure of Abimelech, the ser- vants, who had commenced some time before to dig a new well, found water. Their message seems to be a new reward of blessing, immediately following the peaceable conduct of Isaac. Isaac names this well as Abraham had done the one before (ch. xxi. 31); thus the name Beer-sheba is given to it also. [It is not said that this name was here given for the first time; but as the covenant concluded was the renewal and confirmation of the covenant of Abra- ham with the previous Abimelech, so the name is the renewal and confirmation of that given by Abraham. The same name is appropriate to both occasions.— A. G.] The existence of both these wells bears wit- ness to the credibility of this fact. Keil, Knobel, of course, regards this as an entirely different tradi- tion. But Delitzsch remarks: To all appearance, Isaac, in the naming of this well, followed the exam- ple of his father in naming the well situated near it; since in other cases he renewed the old names of the CHAP. XXVI. 23-83. 509 wells.—Bunsen: To swear, to the Hebrew, signi “to take sevenfold,” or, “i to bind oneself eee holy things, referring to the Aramaic idea of God as Lord of Seven; i.e, of the seven planets (Sun, Moon, Venus, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn).” The remembrance of the seven sacrifices or pledges of the covenant, is far more probable, unless the ex- pression is to be regarded’as signifying a seven-fold degree of ordinary certainty, DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL. 1. Isaac’s holy elevation of soul at his return from the country of the Philistines to his old home, Beer-sheba, crowned by a promise and a glorious ap- pearance of God. 2. The divine promise renewed; see above, 3. Isaac at Beer-sheba, He builds an altar to the Lord before a tent for himself. In the establishment of the worship of Jehovah, in this testimony to him, as he calls upon his name, and in his preaching, he is a worthy heir of his father. 4. Human covenants are well established, if a divine covenant precedes and constitutes their basis. 5. Isaac in his yielding, his patient endurance and concessions, a terror to the king. 6. Isaac’s feast of peace with Abimelech, a sign of his great inoffensiveness, 4. The solemnity of the well, and on the same day with the feast of peace, or, the blessing of noble conduct. 8. Abraham prefers to dwell in the plains (Moreh, Mamre), and he planted trees. Isaac prefers to re- side at wells, and he is fond of digging wells. HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL. See the Doctrinal and Ethical paragraphs. The rich contents of the term: God of Abraham. It de- clares: 1, That the eternal God has made a covenant with us imperishable beings (Luke xx. 37, 38); 2. the continuity, the unity, the unchangeableness, of the revelation of Jehovah through all times and de- velopments ; 3. the transmission of the hereditary blessing from the believing father to the believing children.—How the expression, in the history of the patriarchs, fear not (ch. xv.1; xxvi. 24; xxviii. 15), goes through the whole scriptures until it reaches its full development in the angelic message of the birth of Christ (Luke ii. 10), and at the morning of his resurrection. : Srarke: Cramer: God always supports his church, and builds it everywhere (Isa. li. 6). What- ever a Christian undertakes, he ought to undertake in the name of the Lord (Col. iii, 17). When a man’s ways please the Lord, he maketh even his ene- mies to be at peace with him (Prov. xvi. 7; Gen. xxxiii. 4).—Lawful alliances and oaths are permitted (Deut. vi. 13)—GerLacu: At this place, remarkable, al- ready, during the life of Abraham, the Lord renews the assurance of his grace, as afterwards to Jacob (ch. xlvi. 1); whilst, in the consecration of individual places, he connected himself with the child-like faith of the patriarchs, and satisfied the want to which it gave rise. Scuréper: The least thing we sacrifice for the sake of God, he repays, by giving us himself (Berl. Bib.). Whenever Jehovah calls himself God of Ahraham, Isaac, and Jacob, he shows, thereby, in each day’s revelation of himself to Israel, the ground and occasion of the same in the revelation that is past—thus connecting the new with the old, while presenting the grace shown to the poster- ity, a3 a4 necessary consequence of that which he had covenanted to their fathers’ fathers. True re- ligion is essentially historical ; history (not fanciful myths) is its foundation and limits. God is our God, because he has made himself our God by repeated acts in history. In the kingdom of God everything develops and progresses ; there is no past without a future, nor a future without a past—Abraham re- ceived the promise respecting the Messiah in the name of all the faithful; if, now, Isaac and every believer be blessed for the sake of Abraham, he is blessed merely for the sake of the promise that was given to Abraham, and, therefore, for the sake of Christ (Roos).—Isaac is mindful of his sacerdotal office, as soon as he takes up his abode (Berl. Bib.). —The Abimelech mentioned here is more cunning than his father, for he pretends to know nothing about the taking away of Isaac’s wells by his ser- vants (Luther).—Such is the course of the world. Now insolent, then mean. He who wishes to live in peace with it (which is true of all believers) must be able to bear and suffer (Roos).—The Abimelech of ch. xxi. uses Elohim, a word proper to him; the one in the present chapter, not caring much about the affair, says Jehovah, because he constantly heard Isaac make use of this divine name. He accommo- dates himself to the feast of Isaac, as Laban in ch. xxiv. (Rom. xii. 20; Jos. ix. 14; 2 Sam. iii. 20; Isa, xxv. 6; Luke xiv. 17.)—The divine blessing of this conciliatory and humble love, did not exhaust itself in temporal things. Isaac contended and suf- fered for the sake of wells ; as to the wells which he digged soon after his arrival at Beer-sheba, it hap- pened on the very day he made the covenant and swore, etc.—The relation, of which the name Beer- sheba was the memorial, had ceased to exist. But by the repetition of the fact, the name regained its significance and power, and was the same as if now given for the first time (Hengstenberg). 510 GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. FIFTH SECTION. Isaac’s sorrow over Esau’s marriage with the daughters of Canaan. CnapreR XXVI. 34, 35. 34 And Esau was forty years old when he took to wife Judith [celebrated ?] the daughter of Beeri? [heroic son? Fontanus 1] the Hittite, and Bashemath [lovely, Dib, fragrance, spicy | the 35 daughter of Elon [oak-grove, strength] the Hittite: Which were a grief of mind? [a heart sorrow] unto Isaac and Rebekah. {) Ver. 34.—Beeri, of a welL—A. G.] {? Ver. 35.—The margin, lit., bitterness of spirit.—A. G.] EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL. “Esau was forty years old.—Isaac, therefore, according to ch. xxv. 26, was about 100 years.—Ac- cording to ch. xxviii. 9, he took Mahalath as his third wife, together with the two mentioned here. These names are mostly different, as to fourm, from those of ch. xxxvi. 2, etc. The points of resemblance are, first, the number three; secondly, the name of Bashemath ; third, the designation of one of them as the daughter of Elon, the other as.a daughter of Ishmael. In respect to the dissimilarities and their solution, see Knoset, p. 278, on ch. xxxvi.; Dz- LirzscH, 605; Ket, 229.—Which were a grief of mind.—Lit.: ‘‘a bitterness of spirit.” Their Canaanitish descent, which, in itself, was mortifying to Esau’s parents, corresponds with the Canaanitish conduct. It is characteristic of Esau, however, that, without the counsel and consent of his parents, he took to himself two wives at once, and these, too, from the Canaanites. Bashemath, Ahuzzath, Maha- lath (ch. xxviii. 9) are Arabic forms. DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL. 1. Esau’s ill-assorted marriage a continuance of the prodigality in the disposal of his birthright. 2. The threefold offence: 1. Polygamy without any necessary inducement ; 2. women of Canaanitish origin ; 3. without the advice, and to the displeasure of his parents. 8. The heart-sorrow of the parents over the mis- alliance of the son.—How it produced an effect in the mind of Rebekah, different from that produced in the mind of Isaac, = HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL. See Doctrinal and Ethical paragraphs, Starke: Lavoe: Children ought not to marry without the advice and consent of their parents.— Cramer: Next to the perception of God’s wrath, there is no greater grief on earth than that caused by children to their parents.—Grrtacn: Esau may be regarded as a heathen, already and before his ex- pulsion from the line of blessing —CaLtwer Handb, : Took two wives. Opposed to the beautiful example of his father.—In addition to the trials undergone up to this time, domestic troubles are now added. It is very possible that this act of disobedience toward God and his parents, of which Esau became guilty by his marriage, matured the resolution of Rebekah, to act as related in ch. xxviii—Scuréprer: The no- tice respecting Esau, serves, preéminently, to prepare for that which follows(Esau’s action). A self-attest- ation of his lawful expulsion from the chosen gen- eration, and, at the same time, an actual warning to Jacob.—Lamentation and grief of mind appeared when he was old, and had hoped that his trials were at an end (Luther). SIXTH SECTION. Isaac's preference for the natural first-born, and Esau. Esaw’s hostility to Jacob. theocratic blessing. Esau's blessing. Rebekah and Jacob steal from him the Rebekah’s preparation for the flight of Jacob, and his journey with reference to a theocratic marriage. Isaac's directions for the journey of Jacob, the counterpart to the dismissal of Ishmael. Esau's pretended correction of his ill-assoried marriages. pe Cuaprers XXVII.—XX VIII, 1-9. 1 And it came to pass, that when Isaac was old, and his eyes were dim, so that he could not see,’ he called Esau his eldest son, and said unto him, My son: And he said 2 unto him, Behold, here am I. And he said, Behold, now I am old, I know not the day CHAPS. XXVII.—XXVIII. 1-9. 511 co © =I OD 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 2 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 of my death. Now therefore take, I pray thee, thy weapons [hunting weapons], thy quiver, and thy bow, and go out to the field, and taie me some venison; And make me savory meat [tasty; favorite; festive dish. De Woette : dainty dish], such as I love, and bring 7 to me, that I may eat; that my soul may bless thee before I die. And Rebekah heard when Isaac spake to Esau his son. And Esau went to the field to hunt for venison, and to bring 2. And Rebekah spake unto Jacob her son, saying, Behold, I heard thy father speak unto Esau thy brother, saying, Bring me venison, and make me savory meat, that I may eat, and bless thee before the Lord before my death. Now therefore, my son, obey my voice [strictly], according to that which I command thee. Go now to the flock [small cattle], and fetch me from thence two good kids of the goats; and I will make them savory meat for thy father, such as he loveth: And thou shalt bring ito thy father, that he may eat, and that he may bless thee before his death. And Jacob said to Rebekah his mother, Behold, Esau my brother is a hairy man, and I am a smooth man: My father peradventure will feel me, and I shall seem to him as a deceiver; and I shall bring a curse upon me, and not a blessing. And his mother said unto him, Upon me 2e thy curse, my son: only obey my voice, and go fetch me them. And he went, and fetched, and brought them to his mother: and his mother made savory meat [dainty dish], such as his father loved. And Rebekah took goodly [costly] raiment of her eldest son Esau, which were with her in the house, and put them upon Jacob her younger son: And she put the skins of the kids of the goats upon his hands, and upon the smooth [part] of his neck; And she gave the savory meat and the bread, which she had prepared, into the hand of her son Jacob. And he came unto his father, and said, My father: And he said, Here am I; who art thou, my son. And Jacob said unto his father, Iam Esau thy firstborn; I have done according as thou badest me: arise, I pray thee, sit and eat of my venison, that thy soul may bless me. And Isaac said unto his son, How és it that thou hast found aso quickly, my son? And he said, Because the Lord thy God brought 7 to me. And Isaac said unto Jacob, Come near, I pray thee, that I may feel thee, my son, whether thou de my very son Esau, or not. And Jacob went near unto Isaac his father; and he felt him, and said, The voice zs Jacob’s voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau. And he discerned him not, because his hands were hairy, as his brother Esau’s hands: so he blessed him. And he said, Art thou [thou there] my very son Esau? And he said, lam. And he said, Bring zt near to me, and I will eat of my son’s venison, that my soul may bless thee. And he brought ¢¢ near to him, and he did eat: and he brought him wine, and he drank. And his father Isaac said unto him, Come near now, and kiss me, my son, And he came near, and kissed him: and he smelled the smell of his raiment, and blessed him, and said, See, the smell of my son ds as the smell of a field which the Lord hath blessed: Therefore [thus] God give thee of the dew of heaven, and the fatness of the earth and plenty [the fulness] of corn and wine: Let people serve thee, and nations bow down to thee: be lord over thy brethren, and let thy mother’s sons bow down to thee [thy mother’s sons shall bow] : cursed be every one that curseth thee, and blessed be he that blesseth thee. And it came to pass, as soon as Isaac had made an end of blessing Jacob, and Jacob was yet scarce gone out from the presence of Isaac his father, that Esau his brother came in from his hunting. And he also had made savory meat, and brought it unto his father, and said unto his father, Let my father arise, and eat of his son’s venison, that thy soul may bless me. And [tien] Isaac his father said unto him, Who art thou? And he said, I am thy son, thy firstborn Esau. And Isaac trembled very exceedingly [shuddered in great terror above measure |, and said, Who? where zs he [who then was he]? that hath taken [hunted] venison, and brought 2¢ me, and I have eaten of all before thou camest, and have blessed him? yea, and he shall be blessed. And when Esau heard the words of his father, he cried with a great and exceeding bitter cry, and said unto his father, Bless me, even me also, O my father. And he said, Thy brother came with subtilty, and hath taken away thy blessing. And he said, Is he not rightly named heel-holder, supplanter] Jacob? for he hath supplanted me these two times: he took away my birthright [right of the firstborn]; and, behold, now he hath taken away my blessing. And he said, Hast thou not reserved a blessing forme? And Isaac answered and said 512 GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. unto Esau, Behold, I have made him thy lord, and all his brethren have I given to him for servants; and with corn and wine have I sustained him [have I endowed him]: and what shall I do now unto thee, my son? And Hsau said unto his father, Hast thou but one blessing, my father? bless me, even me also, O my father. And Esau lifted up his voice and wept. And [then] Isaac his father answered, and said unto him, Behold, thy dwelling shall be the fatness of the earth, and of the dew of heaven from above; And by thy sword shalt thou live, and shalt serve thy brother: and but] it shall come to pass when thou shalt have the dominion [im the course of thy wanderings], that thou shalt break his yoke from off thy neck. And Esau hated Jacob, because of the blessing wherewith his father blessed him: and Esau said in his heart [formed the design], The days of mourning for my [dead] father are at hand, then will I slay my brother Jacob. And these words of Esau her elder son were told to Rebekah: and she sent and called Jacob her younger son, and said unto him, Behold, thy brother Esau, as touching thee, doth comfort himself, purposing to Kill thee [goes about with revenge to kill thee.” Now therefore, my son, obey my voice ; aud arise, flee thou to Laban my brother, to Haran; And tarry with him a few days [some time], until thy brother’s fury turn away; Until thy brother's anger turn away from thee, and he forget that which thou hast done to him: then I will send, and fetch thee from thence: why should I be deprived also of you both in one day? And Rebekah said to Isaac, 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 [what is life to me] ? Cu. XXVIII. 1. And Isaac called Jacob, and blessed him, and charged him, and said unto 2 him, Thou shalt not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan. Arise, go to Padan-aram [Mesopotamia], to the house of Bethuel, thy mother’s father; and take thee a wife from 3 thence of the daughters of Laban, thy mother’s brother. And God [the] Almighty bless thee, and make thee fruitful, and multiply thee, that thou mayest be [become] a 4 multitude® of people; And give thee the blessing of Abraham, to thee and to thy seed with thee; that thou mayest inherit the land wherein thou art a stranger [of thy pilgrimage], 5 which God gave unto Abraham, And Isaac sent away Jacob: and he went to Padan- aram unto Laban, son of Bethuel the Syrian, the brother of Rebekah, Jacob's ‘and Esau’s mother. 6 When Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob, and sent, him away to Padan-aram, to take him a wife from thence; and that, as he blessed him, he gave him a charge, 7 saying, Thou shalt not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan; And that Jacob obeyed 8 his father and his mother, and was gone to Padan-aram; And sau seeing that the 9 daughters of Canaan pleased not Isaac his father; Then went Esau unto Ishmael, and took unto the wives which he had Mahalath [from root mn, Cecinit. Delitzsch derives it from “DM, to be sweet] the daughter of Ishmael, Abraham’s son, the sister of Nebajoth. [heights, nabatheea |, to be his wife. 38 39 40 41 ()_Cu. XXVII. Ver. 1.—Lange renders ‘‘ when Isaac was old, then his eyes were dim, so that he could not see,” as an independent sentence, laying the basis for the following narrative.—A. G. 7 {? Ver. 42.—Comforteth, or avengeth. The thought of vengeance was his consolation.—A. G.] (2 Ca. XXVIII. Ver. 8—Snp , congregation.—A. G.] GENERAL PRELIMINARY REMARKS. though he did not die until forty-three years after- wards. The correct determination of his age, given 1. Knobel, without regard to verse 46,.and not- withstanding the word Elohim, verse 28, regards our section as a Jehovistic narrative. We have only to refer to the prevailing Jehovistic reference. Re- specting the origin of our narrative Knobel has given his opinion in a remarkable manner, e. g., he cannot conceive how an old man may hear well, smell well, and yet be unable to see! ! 2, The time. ‘Isaac at that time was a hundred and thirty-seven years old, the age at which Ishmael, his half-brother, died, about fourteen years before; a fact which, in consequence of the weakness of old age, may have seriously reminded him of death, already by Luther, is based upon the following cal- culation: Joseph, when he stood before Pharaoh, was thirty years old (ch. xli. 46), and at the migra- tion of Jacob to Egypt he had reached already the age of thirty-nine; for seven years of plenty and two years of famine had passed already at that time; nine years had elapsed since the elevation of Joseph (ch, xlv. 6). But Jacob, at that time, was a hundred and thirty years old (ch. xlvii. 9); Joseph, therefore, was born when Jacob was ninety-one years; and since Joseph’s birth occurred in the fourteenth year of Jacob’s sojourn in Mesopotamia (comp. ch, xxx, 25 with ch, xxix. 18, 21, and 27), Jacob’s flight to CHAPS, XXVII.—XXVIII. 1-9. ‘Laban happened im his seventy-seventh year, and in the hundred and thirty-seventh aoa ne Isaac. Comp. Huncstensere: Beitr, iii. p. 848, ete.” Keil. 8. The present section contains the history of the distinction and separation of Esau and Jacob ; first- introduced by enmity after the manner of man, then confirmed by the divine judgment upon human sins, and established by the conduct of the sons. This narrative conducts us from the history of Isaac to that of Jacob. The separate members of this sec- tion are the following: 1. Isaac’s project; 3. Rebe- kah’s counter-project; 3. Jacob’s deed and blessing ; 4. Esau’s complaint and Esau’s blessing; 5. Esau’s scheme of revenge, and Rebekah’s counter-scheme ; 6. Jacob and Esau in the antithesis of their mar- riage, or the divine decree. EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL. 1, Vers. 1-4.—And his eyes were dim. —-We construe with the Sept., since we are of the opinion that this circumstance is noticed as an ex- planation of the succeeding narrative—Thy quiver. —The drat Acy., 7M (lit. hanging), has by some -been explained incorrectly as meaning sword (Onke- los and others).—Savory meat.—o723u5 , deli- cious food. But it is rather to be taken in the sense of a feast than of a dainty dish. It is praiseworthy in Isaac to be mindful of his death so long before- hand, That he anticipates his last hours in this manner indicates not only a strong self-will, but also a doubt and a certain apprehension, whence he makes the special pretence, in order to conceal the blessing from Jacob and Rebekah. [Notwithstanding the divine utterance before the children were born, un- doubtedly known to him, and the careless and almost contemptuous disposal of his birthright by Esau, and Esau’s ungodly connection with the Canaanitish wo- men, Isaac still gives way to his preference to Esau, and determines to bestow upon him the blessing. — A. G, 9. Vers. 5-17. ‘Rebekah’s counter-project.—Unto Jacob her son.—Her favorite—Two good kids of the goats.—The meat was to be amply provided, so as to represent venison.—As a deceiver (lit., as a scoffer).—‘ He is afraid to be treated as a scoffer merely, but not as an impostor, since he would have confessed only a mere sportive intention.” Knobel. It may be assumed, however, that his conscience really troubled him. But from respect for his moth- er he does not point to the wrong itself, but to its hazardous consequences.—Upon me be thy curse. —Rebekah’s boldness assumes here the appearance of the greatest rashness. This, however, vanishes for the most part, if we consider that she is positive- ly sure of the divine promise, with which, it is true, she wrongfully identifies her project.—Goodly raiment.—Even in regard to dress, Esau seems to have taken already.a higher place in the household. His goodly raiment reminds us of the coat of Joseph. —Upon his hands.—According to Tuch, the skins of the Eastern camel-goat (angora-goat) are here referred to. The black, silk-like hair.of these ani- mals, was also used by the Romans as a substitute for human hair (Martian, xii..46).” Keil. 8. Vers. 18-29. Jacob's act and Jacob's blessing. —Who art thou, my son.—The secrecy with which Isaac arranged the preparation for the bless- ing must have a him suspicious at the very be- 5138 ginning. The presence of Jacob, under any circum- stances, would have been to him, at present, an unpleasant interruption. But now he thinks that he hears Jacob's voice. That he does not give effect to this impression is shown by the perfect success of the deception. But perhaps an infirmity of hearing corresponds with his blindness—Arise, I pray thee, sit and eat.—They ate not only ina sitting posture, but also while lying down; but the lying posture at a meal differed from that taken upon a bed or couch. It is the solemn act of blessing, moreover, which is here in question.—How is it that thou hast found it so quickly.—It is not only Jacob’s voice, but also the quick execution of his demand, which awakens his suspicion.—And he: blessed him.—Ver. 23, This is merely the greet+. ing. Even after having felt his son, he is not fully satisfied, but once more demands the explanation. that he is indeed Esau.—Come near now, and’ kiss me.—After his partaking of the meat,, Isaac wants still another assurance and encouragement by the kiss of his son.—And he smelled the smell of his raiment.—The garments of Esau were im-. pregnated with the fragrance of the fields, over which he roamed as a hunter. ‘The scent of Leba~ non was distinguished (Hos. xiv. 7; Song of Sol. iv... 11).” Knobel. The directness of the form of his- blessing is seen from the fact that the fundamental? thought is connected with the smell of Esau’s rai-- ment. The fragrance of the fields of Canaan, rith. in herbs and flowers, which were promised to. the- theocratic heir, perfumed the garments of Esau, and. this circumstance confirmed the patriarch’s prejudice, —And blessed him, and said.—The words.of: his. blessing are prophecies (ch. ix, 27 ; ch. xlix.)—uttezr. ances of an inspired state looking into the-future,, and therefore poetic in form and expression: The same may be said respecting the later blessing: upon: Esau.—Of a field which the Lord hath blessed. —Palestine, the land of Jehovah’s blessing,.a copy of the old, and a prototype of the new, paradise.— Because the country is blessed of Jehovah, he as- sumes that the son whose garments smell: of the fragrance of the land is also blessed.—Therefore God give thee.—Ha-elohim. The cHoite of the expression intimates a remaining doubt. whether Esau was the chosen one of Jehovah; but.it is-explained also by the universality of the succeeding blessing. [He views Ha-elohim, the personal God, bub not Je- hovah, the God of the Covenant, as- the: source and. giver of the blessing—A.G:|—Of the dew of heaven.—The dew in Palestine is. of the greatest importance in respect to the fruitfulness of the year during the dry season (ch. xlix, 25 ;.Deut. xxxiii. 18, 28; Hosea xiv. 6; Sach. viii, 12)—And the fat~ ness of the earth.—Knose.: “Of the fat parts of the earth, singly and severally.” Since the land promised to the sons was to be divided between Esau and Jacob, the sense no doubt is: may he give to thee the fat part of the promised land, i. e., Canaan. Canaan was the chosen part of the lands of the earth belonging to the first-born, which were blessed with the dew of heaven and the fatness of the earth, As to the fruitfulness of Canaan, see Exod. iii. 8. Com- pare also the Bible Dictionaries ; Winer: article . “Palestine.” The antithesis of this grant to that of the Edomitic country appears distinctly, ver. 39. A two-fold contrast is therefore to be noticed: 1. To Edom; 2. to the earth in general; and so we have 72. But to a bleased land belong also blessed seasons, therefore plenty of corn and wine.—Let 514 GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. people serve thee.—To the grant of the theocratic country is added the grant of a theocratic, i. e., spir- itual and political condition of the world.—And nations.—Tribes of nations. Not only nations but tribes of nations, groups of nations, are to bow down to him, i.e. to do homage to him submissively. This promise was fulfilled typically in the time of David and Solomon, ultimately and completely in the world-sovereignty of the promise of faith—Be Lord over thy brethren.—This blessing was fultilled in the subjection of Edom (2 Sam. viii. 14; 1 Kings xi. 16; Ps. Ix. 8, 9).—Thy mother’s sons.—His preju- dice still shows itself in the choice of this expression, according to which he thought to subject Jacob, the “mother’s” son, to Esau.—Cursed be every one that cnrseth thee.—Thus Isaac bound himself. He is not able to take back the blessing he pro- nounced on Jacob. In this sealing of the blessing he afterwards recognizes also a divine sentence (ver. 83). His prophetic spirit has by far surpassed his human prejudice. [This blessing includes the two elements of the blessing of Abraham, the possession of the land of Canaan, and a numerous offspring, but not distinctly the third, that all nations should be blessed in him and his seed. This may be in- cluded in the general phrase, let him that curseth thee be cursed, and him that blesseth thee be blessed. But it is only when the conviction that he had against his will served the purpose of God in blessing Jacob, that the consciousness of his patriarchal calling is awakencd within him, and he has strength to give the blessing of Abraham to the son whom he had rejected but God had chosen (ch. xxviii. 8,4). See Keil.—A. G.] 4 Vers. 30-40, Esau’s lamentation and Esau's .blessing.—And Isaac trembled.—If Isaac himself had not intended to deceive in the matter in which be was deceived, or had he been filled with divine confidence in respect to the election of Esau, he would have been startled only at the deception of Jacob. But it is evident that he was surprised most at the divine decision, which thereby revealed itself, .and convinces him of the error and sin of his at- ‘tempt to forestall that decision, otherwise we should hear of deep indignation rather than of an extraor- dinary terror. What follows, too, confirms this in- terpretation. He bows not so much to the deception practised upon him as to the fact and to the pro- ‘phetie spirit which has found utterance through him. Aveusrine: De Civitate Dei, 16, 87: “ Quis non hie maledictionem potius ee irati, si hee non superna inspiratione sed terreno more generentur.” .—Who ? where is he ?—Yet before he has named Jacob, he pronounces the divine sentence : the bless- ‘ing of the Lord remains with that man who received it,—He cried with a great and exceeding bit- ter cry.—Heb. xii. 17.—Bless me, even me also. —Esau, iit is true, had a vague feeling that the ques- tion here was about important grants, but he did not understand their significance. He, therefore, thought the theocratic blessing admitted of division, and was as dependent upon his lamentations and prayers as upon the caprice of his father—_Thy brother came ‘with subtilty.—With deception. Isaac now indi- cates also the human error and sin, after having declared the divine judgment. But at the same time he declares that the question is only about one bless- ‘ng, and that no stranger has been the recipient of this blessing, but Esau’s brother.—Is not he rightly wamed (1357) ?—Shall he get the advantage of me because he was thus inadvertently named (Jacob= heel-catcher, supplanter), and because he then acted thus treacherously (with cunning or fraud) shall I acquiesce in a blessing that was surreptitiously ob- tained ?—He took away my birthright.—Instead of reproaching himself with his own act, his eye is filled with the wrong Jacob has done him.—Hast thou not a blessing reserved for me ?—Esau is perplexed in the mysterious aspect of this matter. He speaks as if Isaac had pronounced a gratuitous blessing. Isaac’s answer is according to the truth. He informs him very distinctly of his future theo- cratic relation to Jacob. As compared with the blessing of Jacob he had no more a blessing for Esau, for it is fundamentally the greatest blessing for him to serve Jacob.— Hast thou but one bless- ing ?—Esau proceeds upon the assumption that the father could pronounce blessings at will. His tears, however, move the father’s heart, and he feels that his favorite son can be appeased by a sentence hay- ing the semblance of a blessing, and which in fact contains every desire of his heart. That is, he now understands him.—The fatness of the earth.— The question arises whether 472 is used here in a partitive sense (according to Luther’s translation’ and the Vulgate), as in the blessing upon Jacob, ver. 28, or in a privative sense (according to Tuch, Knobel, Kurtz, etc.). Delitzsch favors the last view: 1. The mountains in the northeastern part of Idumea (now Gebalene), were undoubtedly fertile, and therefore called Palestina Salutaris in the middle ages (Von Ravumer, in his Palestina, p. 240, considers the prophecy, therefore, according to Luther’s ‘transla- tion, as fulfilled), But the mountains in the western part of Iduma#a are beyond comparison the most dreary and sterile deserts in the world, as Seetzen expresses himself. 2. It is not probable that Esau’s and Jacob’s blessing would begin alike. 3. Itis in contradiction with ver. 87, etc. (p. 455); Mal. i. 3. This last citation is quoted by Keil as proof of the preceding statement. [The jis the same in both cases, but in the blessing of Jacob, “after a verb of giving, it had a partitive sense; here, after a noun of place, it denotes distance, or separation, e. g., Proy. xx. 8.” Murphy. The context seems to de- mand this interpretation, and it is confirmed by the prediction, by thy sword, etc. Esau’s dwelling-place was the very opposite of the richly-blessed land of Canaan.—A. G.] But notwithstanding all this, the question arises, whether the ambiguity of the ex- pression is accidental, or whether it is chosen in relation to the excitement and weakness of Esau. As to the country of Edom, see Dutirzscn, p. 455; Kwon, p. 299; Ke, p. 198; also the Dictionaries, and journals of travellers—And by thy sword. —This confirms the former explanation, but at the same time this expression corresponds with Esau’s character and the future of his descendants, War, pillage, and robbery, are to support him in a barren country. “Similar to Ishmael, ch. xvi. 12, and the different tribes still living to-day in the old Edomitic country (see Burknarpr: ‘Syria,’ p, 826; Ritrzr: Lrdkund’, xiv. p. 966, etc.).” Knobel. See Obadiah, ver, 3; Jer. xlix. 16. “The land of Edom, there- fore, according to Isaac’s prophecy, will constitute a striking antithesis to the land of Jacob.” Keil,— And shalt serve thy brother.—See above — And it shall come to pass.—As a consequence of the roaming about of Edom in the temper and pur- pose of a freebooter, he will ultimately ‘shake off the CHAPS, XXVII—XXVIII. 1-9. yoke of Jacob from his neck. This seems to be a promise of greater import, but the selfliberation of Edom from Israel was not of long continuance, nor did it prove to him a true blessing, Edom waa first strong and independent as compared to Israel, slower in its development (Numb. xx. 14 ete.), Saul first fought against it victoriously (1 Sam. xiv. 47); David conquered it (2 Sam. -vili. 14). Then followed a conspiracy under Solomon (1 Kings xi. 14), whilst there was an actual defection under Joram. On the other hand, the Edomites were again subjected by Amaziah (2 Kings xiv. 7; 2 Chron, xxv. 11) and remained dependent under Uzziah and Jotham (2 Kings xiv. 22; 2 Chron. xxvi. 2). But under Ahaz they liberated themselves entirely from Judah (2 Kings xvi. 6; 2 Chron, xxviii.17). Finally, however, John Hyreanus subdued them completely, forced them to adopt circumcision, and incorporated them into the Jewish state and people (Josrpaus: ‘Antiq.” xiii. 9, 1; xv. 7, 9), whilst the Jews themselves, how- ever, after Antipater, became subject to the dominion of an Jdumean dynasty, until the downfall of their state. 5. Hsau's scheme of revenge, and Rebekah’s counter-scheme (vers, 41-46).—And Esau said in his heart.—Esau’s good-nature still expresses itself in his exasperation toward Jacob and in the scheme uf revenge to kill him. For he does not maliciously execute the thought immediately, but betrays it in uttered threats, and postpones it until the death of his father—The days of mourning ... are at hand.—Not for my father, but on account of my father; i. e., my father, weak and trembling with age, is soon to die—Then, and not before, he will execute his revenge. He does not intend to grieve the father, but if his mother, his brother's protec- tress, is grieved by the murder, that is all right, in his view.—These words were told.—On account of his frank and open disposition, Esau’s thoughts were soon revealed ; what he thought in his heart he goon uttered in words.—And called Jacob.—From the herds—F'lee thou to Laban.—Rebekah en- courages him to this flight by saying that it will last but few days, i.e, a short time. But she looked further. She took occasion from the present danger to carry on the thoughts of Abraham, and to unite Jacob honorably in a theocratic marriage. For, notwithstanding all his grief of mind arising from Esan’s marriages, Isaac had not thought of this. But still she lets Isaac first express this thought, Nor is Isaac to be burdened with Esau’s scheme of revenge and Jacob’s danger, and therefore she leads him to her mode of reasoning by a lamentation concerning the daughters of Heth (ver. 46).—Deprived also of you both.—Bunsen: “Of thy father and thy- self.” Others: “Of thyself’ and Esau, who is to die by the hand of an avenger.” But as soon as Esau should become the murderer of his brother, he would be already lost to Rebekah. Knobel, again, thinks that in verse 46 the connection with the pre- ceding is here broken and lost, but on the contrary connects the passage with ch. xxvi. 84 and ch. xxviii, 1, as found in the original text. The connection is, however, obvious. If Knobel thinks that the char- avter of Esau appears diiferent in ch. xxviii, 6 etc., than in ch. xxvii. 41, that proves only that he does not understand properly the prevailing characteristics of Esau as given in Genesis. : 6. Jacob ant Esau in the antithesis of their mar- ‘piage, or the divine dec ee (ch. xxviii. 1-9).—And Isaac called Jacob and blessed him.—The whole dismissal of Jacob shows that now he regards him 515 voluntarily as the real heir of the Abrahamic bless- ing. Knobel treats ch. xxviii-ch. xxxiii. as one section (the earlier history of Jacob), whose funda- mental utterances form the original text, enlarged and completed by Jehovistic supplements. There are several places in which he says contradictions to the original text are apparent. One such contradiction he artfully frames by supposing that, according to the original text, Jacob was already sent to Mesopo- tamia immediately after Esau’s marriage, for the purpose of marrying among his kindred—a supposi- tion based on mere fiction. As to other contradic- tions, see p. 233, etc. —Of the daughters of Ca- naan.—Now it is clear to him that this was a theo- cratic condition for the theocratic heir.—Of the daughters of Laban.—These are first mentioned here—And God Almighty.—By this appellation Jehovah called himself when he announced himself to Abraham as the God of miracles, who would grant to him a son (ch, xvii. 1). By this apellation of Jehovah, therefore, Isaac also wishes for Jacob a fruitful posterity. Theocratic children are to be children of blessing and of miracles, a multitude of people (Sp), a very significant development of the Abrahamic blessing. [The word used to denote the congregation or assembly of God’s people, and to which the Greek ecc’esia answers. It denotes the people of God as called out and called together.— A. G.J—The blessing of Abraham.—He thus seals the fact that he now recognizes Jacob as the chosen heir—And Isaac sent away Jacob (see Hos. xii, 18).—When Esau saw that Isaac.—Esau now first discovers that his parents regard their son’s connection with Canaanitish women as an injudicious and improper marriage. He had not observed their earlier sorrow. Powerful impressions alone can bring him to understand this matter. But even this understanding’ becomes directly a misunderstanding. He seeks once more to gain the advantage of Jacob, by taking a third wife, indeed a daughter of Ishmael. One can almost think that he perceives an air of irony pervading this dry record. The irony, how- ever, lies in the very efforts of a low and earthly mind, after the glimpses of high ideals, which he himself does not comprehend.—To Ishmael.—Ish- mael had been already dead more than twelve years; it is therefore the house of Ishmael which is meant here.—Mahalath.—Ch. xsxvi. 2 called Bashemath. —The sister of Nebajoth.—-As the first-born of the brothers he is named instead of all the others; just as Miriam is always called the sister of Aaron. The decree of God respecting the future of the two sons, which again runs through the whole chapter, receives its complete development in this, that Jacob emi- grates in’ obedience of faith accompanied with the theocratic blessing, to seek after the chosen bride, whilst Esau, with the intention of making amends for his neglect, betrays again his unfitness. The de- crees of God, however, develop themselves in and through human plans. DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL. 1. The present section connects a profound tragic family history from the midst of the patriarchal life, with a grand and sublime history of salvation. In respect to the former, it is the principal chapter in the Old Testament, showing the vanity of mere hu- man plans and efforts; in respect to the latter, it holds the corresponding place in reference to the cer- 516 GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. tainty of the divine election and calling, holding its calm and certain progress through all disturbances of human infatuation, folly, and sin. 2. It is quite common, in reviewing the present narrative, to place Rebekah and Jacob too much under the shadows of sin, in comparison with Isaac. Isaac's sin does not consist alone in his arbitrary de- termination to present Esau with the blessing of the theocratic birthright, although Rebekah received that divine sentence respecting her children, before their birth, and which, no doubt, she had mentioned to him; and although Esau had manifested already, by his marriage with the daughters of Heth, his want of the theocratic faith, and by his bartering with Jacob, his carnal disposition, and his contempt of the birthright—thus viewed, indeed, his sin ad- mits of palliation through several excuses. The clear right of the first-born seemed to oppose itself to the dark oracle of God, Jacob’s prudence to Esau’s frank and generous disposition, the quiet shepherd- life of Jacob to Esau’s stateliness and power, and on the other hand, Esau’s misalliances to Jacob’s continued celibacy. And although Isaac may have been too weak to enjoy the venison obtained for him by Esau, yet the true-hearted care of the son for his father’s infirmity and age, is also of some import- ance. But the manner in which Isaac intends to bless Esau, places his offence in a clearer light. He intends to bless him solemnly in unbecoming secrecy, without the knowledge of Rebekah and Jacob, or of his house. The preparation of the venison is scarcely to be regarded as if he was to be inspired for the blessing by the eating of this “ dainty dish,” or of this token of filial affection. This preparation, at least, in its main point of view, is an excuse to gain time and place for the secret act. In this point of view, the act of Rebekah appears in a different light. It is a woman’s shrewdness that crosses the shrewdly calculated project of Isaac. He is caught in the net of his own sinful prudence. A want of divine confidence may be recognized through all his actions. It is no real presentiment of death that urges him now to bless Esau. But he now antici- pates his closing hours and Jehovah's decision, be- cause he wishes to put an end to his inward uncer- tainty which annoyed him. Just as Abraham antici- pated the divine decision in his connection with Hagar, so Isaac, in his eager and hearty performance of an act belonging to his last days, while he lived yet many years. ith this, therefore, is also con- nected the improper combination of the act of bless- ing with the meal, as well as the uneasy apprehension lest he should be interrupted in his plan (see ver. 18), and a suspicious and strained expectation which was not at first caused by the voice of Jacob. Rebekah, however, has so far the advantage of him that she, in her deception, has the divine assurance that Jacob was the heir, while Isaac, in his preceding secrecy, has, on his side, only human descent and his human reason without any inward, spiritual certainty. But Rebekah’s sin consists in thinking that she must save the divine election of Jacob by means of human de- ception and a so-called white-lie. Isaac, at that crit- ical moment, would have been far less able to pro- nounce the blessing of Abraham upon Esau, than afterward Balaam, standing far below him, could have cursed the people of Israel at the critical mo- ment of its history. For the words of the spirit and of the promise are never left to human caprice. ‘Rebekah, therefore, sinned against Isaac through a want of candor, just as Isaac before had sinned against Rebekah through a like defect, The divine decree would also have been fulfilled without her as- sistance, if she had had the necessary measure of faith. Of course, when compared with Isaac’s fatal error, Rebekah was right. Though she deceived him greatly, misled her favorite son, and alienated Esau from her, there was yet something saving in her action according to her intentions, even for Isaac himself and for both her sons. For to. Esau the most comprehensive blessing might have become only a curse. He was not fitted for it. Just as Re- bekah thinks to oppose cunning to cunning in order to save the divine blessing through Isaac, «nd thus secure a heavenly right, so also Jacob secures a hu- man right in buying of Esau the right of the first- born. But now the tragic consequences of the first officious anticipation, which Isaac incurred, as well as that of the second, of which Rebekah becomes guil- ty, were soon to appear. ’ -3. The tragic consequences of the hasty conduct and the mutual deceptions in the family of Isaac. Esau threatens to become a fratricide, and this threat repeats itself in the conduct of Joseph’s brothers, who also believed that they saw in Joseph a brother unjustly preferred, and came very near killing him. Jacob must become a fugitive for many a long year, and perhaps yield up to Esau the external inheritance for the most part or entirely. The patriarchal dig- nity of Isaac is obscured, Rebekah is obliged to send her favorite son abroad, and perhaps never sce him again. The bold expression: ‘Upon me be thy , curse,” may be regarded as having a bright side; for she, as a protectress of Jacob's blessing, always enjoys a share in his blessing. But the sinful ele- ment in it was the wrong application of her assur- ance of faith to the act of deception, which she her- self undertook, and to which she persuaded Jacob ; and for which she must atone, perhaps, by* many a long year of melancholy solitude and through the joylessness which immediately spread itself over the family affairs of the Henghold. 4, With all this, however, Isaac was kept from a grave offence, and the true relation of things secured by the pretended necessity for her prevarication. Through this catastrophe Isaac came to a full under- standing of the divine decree, Esau attained the full- est development of his peculiar characteristics, and Jacob was directed to his journey of faith, and to his marriage, without which the promise could not even be fulfilled in him. 5. Isaac's blindness. That the eyes of this re- cluse and contemplative man were obscured and closed at an early age, is a fact which occurs in many a similar character since the time of “blind Homer” and blind Tiresias. Isaac had not exercised his eye in hunting as Esau. The weakness of his age first settles in that organ which he so constantly neglected. With this was connected his weakness in judg- ing individual and personal relations. He was con- scious of an honest wish and will in his conduct with Esau, and his secrecy in the case, as well as the pre- caution at Gerar, was connected with his retiring, peace-loving disposition. Leaving this out of view, he was an honest, well-meaning person (see ver. 37, and ch. xxvi. 27), His developed faith in the prom- ise, however, reveals itself ‘in his power or fitness for the vision, and his words of blessing. 6: Rebekah obviously disappears from the stage as a,grand or conspicuous character; grand in her prudence, magnanimity, and her theocratic zeal of faith. Ler zeal of faith had ‘a mixture of fanatic * CHAPS. XXVII—XXVIII. 1-9. exaggeration, and in this view she is the grand mother of Simeon and Levi (ch. xxxviii.). 7. Tt must be especially noticed that Jacob re- mained single far beyond the age of Isaac. He seems to have expected a hint from Isaac, just as Isaac was married through the care of Abraham, The fact bears witness to a deep, quiet disposition, which was only developed to a full power by extraor- dinary circumstances, He proves, again, by his ac- tions, that he is a Jacob, i. e., heel-catcher, sup- planter. He does not refuse to comply with the plan of the mother from any conscientious scruples, but from motives of fear and prudence, And how ably and firmly he carries through his task, though’ his false confidence seems at last to die upon his lips with the brief "38, ver. 24! But however greatly he erred, he held a proper estimate of the blessing, for the security of which he thought he had a right to make use of prevarication ; and this blessing did not consist in earthly glory, a fact which is decisive as to his theocratic character. Esau, on the other hand, scarcely seems to have any conception of the real contents of the Abrahamic blessing. The pro- found agitation of those who surrounded him, gives him the impression that this must be a thing of in- estimable worth. Every one of his utterances proves a misunderstanding. Esau’s misunderstandings, how- ever, are of a constant significance, showing in what light mere men of the world regard the thingsof the kingdom of God. Even his exertion to mend his im- proper marriage relations eventuates in another error. 8. Isaac's blessing. In the solemn form of the bless- ing, the dew of heaven is connected with the fatness of the earth in a symbolic sense, and the idea of the theocratic kingdom, the dominion of the seed of blessing first appears here. In the parting blessing upon Jacob, the term SMP indicatesa great develop- ment of the Abrahamic blessing —Ranke ; Abraham, no doubt, saw, in the light of Jehovah’s promises, on to the goal of his own election and that of his seed, but with regard to the chosen people, however, his prophetic vision extended only to the exodus from Egypt,and to the possession of Canaan. Isaac’s prophe- cy already extends farther into Israel's history, reach- ing down to the subjugation arid restoration of Esau, 9. The blessing pronounced upon Esau seems to be a prophecy of his future, clothed in the form of a blessing, in which his character is clearly announced. It contains a recognition of bravery, of a passion for liberty, and the courage of a hunter—The Idumaans were a warlike people. : : 2 10. When, therefore, Isaac speaks in the spirit, about his sons, he well knew their characters (Heb. xi. 20),. The prophetic blessing will surely be ac- complished ; but not by the force of a magical effi- cacy; as Knobel says: ‘A divine word uttered, is a power which infallibly and _unchangeably secures what the word indicates. The word of God can never be ineffectual (comp. ch. ix. 18; Numb, xxii. 6; 2 Kings ii. 24; Is, ix. 7).’—The word of a pro- phetic spirit rests upon the insight of the spirit into the profound fundamental principles of the present, in which the future, according to its main features, reflects itself, or exhibits itself, beforehand. 11. The high-souled Esau acted dishonestly Jin this, that he was not mindful of the oath by which he had sold to Jacob the birthright ; and just as Re- bekah might excuse her cunning by that of Isaac, go Jacob might excuse his dishonest conduct by pleading Esau’s dishonesty. 517 12, The application of the proverb, “The end justifies the means,” to Jacob’s conduct, is appar- ently not allowable. The possible mental reserva- tion in Jacob’s lie, may assume the following form: 1. I am Esau, i. e., the (real) hairy one, and thy (lawful) first-born. But even in this case the mental reservation of Jacob is. as different from that of the Jesuits, as heaven from earth. 2. Thy God brought the venison to me; i. e., the God who has led thee wills that I should be blessed. 13. However plausible may be the deceit, through the divine truth some circumstance will remain unnoticed, and become «a traitor. Jacob had not considered that his voice was not that of Esau. It nearly betrayed him. The expression: “The voice is Jacob’s voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau,” has become a proverb in cases where words and deeds do not correspond. 14, The first appearance of the kiss in this nar- rative presents this symbol of ancient love to our view in-both its aspects, The kiss of Christian brother- hood and the kiss of Judas are here enclosed in one. 15. Just as the starry heavens constituted the symbol of the divine promise for Abraham, so the blooming, fragrant, and fruitful fields are the symbol to Isaac. In this also may be seen and employed the antithesis between the first, who dwelt under the rustling oaks, and of the other, who sat by the side of springing fountains, The symbol of promise de- ‘ scends from heaven to earth. HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL. See the Doctrinal and Ethical paragraphs. Upon the whole the present narrative is both a patriarchal family picture and a religious picture of history. . —Domestic life and domestic sorrow in Isaac's house. —In the homes of the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.—The blind Isaac: 1. Blind in two re- spects; and 2. yet a clear-sighted prophet.—How Isaac blesses his sons: 1. How he intends to bless them; 2. how he is constrained to bless them.—Hu- man guilt and divine grace in Isaac’s house: 1. The guilt ; Isaac and Rebekah anticipate divine provi- dence. They deceive each other. Esau is led to forget his bargain with Jacob; Jacob is induced to deceive his father. Yet the guilt of all is diminished because they thought that they must help the right with falsehood. Esau obeys the father, Jacob obeys the mother. Isaac rests upon the birthright, Re- bekah upon the divine oracle. 2. God’s grace turns everything to the best, in conformity to divine truth, but with the condition that all must repent of their sins.—The image of the hereditary curse in the light of the hereditary blessing, which Isaac ministers: 1. How the curse obscures the blessing; 2. how the blessing overcomes the curse.—The characteristics mentioned in our narrative viewed in their contrasts : 1, Isaacand Rebekah; 2. Jacob and Esau; 3. Isaac and Jacob; 4. Isaac and Esau; 5. Rebekah and Esau; 6. Rebekah and Jacob.—The cunning of a theocratic disposition purified and raised to the pru- dence of the ecclesiastical spirit—God's election is sure: 1. In the heights of heaven; 2. in the depths of human hearts; 8. in the providence of grace; 4, in the course of history.—The clear stream of the divine government runs through all human errors, and that: 1. For salvation to believers; 2. for judg- ment to unbelievers. To Section First, vers. 1-4. Isaac’s infirmity of 518 age, and his faith: 1. In what manner the infirmity of age obscured his faith; 2. how faith breaks through the infirmities of age.—Isaac’s blinduess. —The sufferings of old age.—The thought of death: 1. Though beneficial in itself; 2. may yet be prema- ture—The hasty making of wills.—We must not anticipate God.—Not act in uncertainty of heart.— The preference of the parents for the children dif- ferent in character from themselves.—The connection of bunting and the enjoyment of its fruits, with the divine blessing of promise: 1. Incomprehensible as a union of the most diverse things; 2. comprehen- sible as a device of human prudence; 3. made fruit- less by the interference of another spirit.—Isaac’s . secrecy thwarted by Rebekah’s cunning device.— Human right and divine law in conflict with each other.—Isaac’s right and wrong view, and conduct. Starke: It is a great blessing of God, if he pre- serves our sight not only in youth, but also in old age (Deut. xxxiv. 7).—Cramer: A blind man, a poor man (Tob. v. 12).—Old age itself is a sickness (2 Sam. xix. 35).—If you are deprived of the eyes of your body, see that you do not lose the eye of faith (Ps. xxxix. 5, 6)—A Christian ought to do nothing from passion, but to judge only by the word of God.— Bibl. Tub. : Parents are to bless their children before they die; but the blessing must be conformed to the divine will (ch. xlviii. 5). Doubtless Jacob, taught by Isaac’s error, learned to bless his children better; i.e, in a less restricted manner.—(The Rab- bins assert that Jacob desired venison before his pro- nouncing the blessing, because it was customary that the son about to receive the blessing should perform some special act of love to his father.)—OsIanpER: It is probable that: Isaac demanded something better than ordinary, because this was to be also a peculiar day. To all appearance it was a divine providence through which Jacob gains time to obtain and bear away the blessing before him.—Scuriper: Contem- plative men like Isaac easily undermine their health (?).—Experience teaches us that natures like that of Isaac are more exposed to blindness than others. Shut in entirely from the external world, their eyes are soon entirely closed to it.—The son, by some embodiment of his filial leve, shows himself as son, in order that the father on his part also, may, through the act of blessing, show himself to be a father.—Love looks for love.—Thus the blessing may be considered not so much as belonging to the priv- ilege of the first-born, but rather as constituting a rightful claim to these privileges, ‘Section Second, vers, 16-17. Rebekah’s counter- scheme opposed to Isaac’s scheme.—Rebekah’s right and wrong thought and conduct.—Rebekah protectress of the right of Jacob's election opposed to Isaae the elect.—Jacob’s persuasion: 1. The mother’s faith and her wrong view of it—The faith of the son and his erroneous view.—Jacob’s doubt and Rebekah’s confidence.—The defect in his hesita- tion (it was not a fear of sin, but a fear of the evil consequences).—The defect in the confidence (not in the certainty itself, but its application).—The cun- ning motber and the cunning son.—Both too cun- ning io this case.—Their sufferings for it —God’s commandment is of more weight than the parental authority, than all human commands generally. Starke: Some commentators are very severe upon Rebekah (Saurin, Discours XXVIIJ; others on the contrary (Calvin and others), praise her faith, her cunning, her righteousness (because Esau as a bold scoffer, had sold his birthright), her fear of God GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. (abhorrence of the Canaanitish nature). (We must add, however, that Calvin also’ marks the means which Rebekah uses as evil.)—Rebekah, truly, had acted in a human way, striving by unlawful means to attain a good end.— Bibl. Wirt: If the Word of God is on our side we must not indeed depart from it, but neither must we undertake to bring about what it holds before us by unlawful means, but louk to God, who knows what means to use, and how and when to fulfil his word.— Bibl. Tid: God makes even the errors of the pious to work good, if their heart is sincere and upright; yet we are not to imi- tate their errors. Gertacu: Though staining greatly, as she did, the divine promise by her deception, yet at the same time her excellent faith shines out through the his- tory. She did not fear to arouse the brother's deadly hatred against Jacob, to bring her favorite son into danger of his life and to excite her husband against her, because the inheritance promised by God stood before her, and she knew God had promised it to Jacob. (Calvin).—ScurépER: (Mi- cuaznLis: The kids of the goats can be prepared in such a way as to taste like venison.) Isaac now abides by the rule, but Rebekah insists upon an exception (Luther).—The premature grasping bargain of Jacob (ch. xxv. 29, etc.,) is the reason that God is here anticipated again by Rebekah, and Jacob’s sinful cunning, so that the bargain again turns out badly,— Luther, holding that the law is annulled by God himself, concludes: Where there is no law, there is no transgression, therefore, she has not sinned (! ?)— Both (sons) were already 77 years old. The fact, that Jacob, at such an age, was still under maternal control, was grounded deeply in his individuality (ch. xxv. 27), as well as in the congeniality which existed between Jacob and his mother. Esau, sure- ly, was passed from under Rebekah’s control already at the age of ten years. Section Third, vers. 18-29. Isaac’s blessing upon Jacob: 1. In its human aspect; 2. in its di- vine aspect.—The divine providence controlling Tsaac’s plan; Abraham, Isaac and Esau.—Jacob, in Esau’s garments, betrayed by his voice: 1. Almost betrayed immediately; 2. afterwards cléarly betray- ed.—Isaac’s solicitude, or all care in the service of sin and error gains nothing.—Jacob’s examination. —The voice is Jacob’s voice, the hands are Isau’s hands,—Isaac’s blessing: 1. According to its exter- nal and its typical significance; 2. in its relation to Abraham’s promise and the blessing of Jacob.—lIts new thoughts: the holy sovereignty, the gathering ofa holy people, the germ of the announcement of a holy kingdom. Isaac’s inheritance: a kingdom of na- tious, a church of nations.—The fulfilment of the bles- sing: 1, In an external or typical sense : David’s king- dom; 2. in a spiritual sense: the kingdom of Christ. _ Starke: Jacob, perhaps, thought with a contrite heart of the abuse of strange raiment, when the bloody coat of Joseph was shown to him. To say nothing of the cross caused by cliildrcn, which, no doubt, is the most severe cross to pious parents in this world, and with which the pious Jacob often met (Dinah’s rape, Benjamin's difficult birth, Sim- eon’s and Levi’s bloody weapons, Reuben’s incest, Joseph’s history, Judah’s history, ch. xxxviii., ete.). For Jacob sinned: 1. In speaking contrary to the truth, and twice passing himself for Esau; 2: in really practising fraud by means of strange raiment and false pretences; 8. in his abuse of the name ot God (ver. 20); 4. in taking advantage of his’ father’s CHAPS. XXVII.—XXVIII. 1-9. 519 weakness.—Yet God Isaac, ete. Ver. 26: a collection of different places in which we read of a kiss or kisses (see Concordance).—That this uttered blessing is to be received not only ac- cording to the letter, but also in a deeper, secret sense, is apparent from Hebr. xi. 20, where Paul says: that by faith Isaac blessed his son, of which fuith the Messiah was the theme. : ; GERLACH: The goal and central point of this blessing is the word: be lord over thy brethren. For this implies that he was to be the bearer of the blessing, while the others should only have a share in his enjoyment.—Lisco: Earthly blessing (Deut. xxxiii, 28)—Cursed be, etc. He who loves the friends of God, loves God himself; he who hates them, hates him; they are the apple of his _eye.-Catwer Handbuch: The more pleasant the fragrance of the flowers and herbs of the field, the richer is the blessing. Earthly blessings are a sym- bol and pledge to the father of divine grace—Power and sway: The people blessed of the Lord must stand at the head of nations, in order to impart a blessing to all—tIsaac, much against his will, blesses him whom Jehovah designs to bless.—Scuréver: Ah, the voice, the voice (of Jacob)! I should have dropped the dish and run away ee also the servants of God sow the seed of redemption among men, not knowing where and how it is to bring fruits. God does not limit the authority granted to them by other knowledge and wisdom. The virtue and efficacy of the sacraments by no means depend, as the Papists think, upon the inten- tion of the person who administers them (Catvin).—— (Esau’s goodly raiment: Jewish tradition holds these to be the same made by God himself for the first parents (ch, iii, 21), and it attributes to the person wearing them the power even of taming wild beasts. —The inhabitants of South Asia are accustomed to scent their garments in different ways. By means of fragrant oils extracted from spices, etc. (Michaelis).—Smell of a field. Herodotus says, All Arabia exhales fragrant odors.)—Thus he wished that the land of Canaan should be to them_a pattern and pledge of the heavenly inheritance (Calvin).— Dew, corn, wine, are symbols of the blessings of the kingdom of grace and glory (Ramb.).—That curseth thee. Here it is made known, that the true church is to exist among the descendants of Jacob. The three different members of the blessing contain the three prerogatives of the first-born: 1. The double inheritance. Canaan was twice as large and fruitful ag the country of the Edomites; 2. the do- minion over his brethren; 8. the priesthood which walks with blessings, and finally passes over to Christ, the source of all blessing (Rambach).— Luther calls the first part of the blessing: the food of the body, the daily bread; the second part: the secular government; the third part: the spiritual priesthood, and places in this last part’ the dear and sacred cross, and at the same time also, the victory in and with the cross. In Christ, the true Israel of all times, rules the people and nations. To Section Fourth, vers. 30-40, Esau comes too late: 1. Because he wished to obtain the divine blessing of promise by hunting (by running and striving, etc.) (Rom. ix. 16); 2. he wished to gain it, after he had sold it; 8. he wished to acquire it, without comprehending its significance; and, 4. without its being intended for him by the divine deoree, and any fitness of mind for it.—Isaac’s trem- bore with his errors, like bling and terror are an indication that his eyes are opened, because he sees the finger of God and not the hand of man.—Esau’s lamentation opposed to his father’s firmness: 1. A passion instead of godly sorrow; 2, connected with the illusion that holy things may be treated arbitrarily ; 3. referring to the external detriment but not to the internal loss.— Esau’s misunderstanding a type of the misunder- stunding of the worldly-minded in regard to divine things: 1. That the plan of divine salvation was the work of man; 2. the blessing of salvation was a matter of human caprice; 3. that the kingdom of God was an external affair—Hsau’s blessing the type: 1. Of his character; 2. of his choice: 3. of his apparent satisfaction.—Here Isaac and Esau are now for the first time opposed to each other in their complete antithesis: Isaac in his prophetic greatness and clearness opposed to Esau in his sad and carnal indiscretion and passionate conduct. Starke: Ver. 80. Divine providence is here at work.—Ver. 33. This exceedingly great amazement came from God.—Cramer: God rules and determines the time; the clockwork is in his hands, he can pro- long it, and he can shorten it, according to his plea- sure, and if he governs anything, he knows how to arrange time and circumstances, and the men who live in that time, in such a way that they do not ap- pear before or after he wishes them to come. Chris- tian, commend to him, therefore, thy affairs (Ps. xxxi. 17; Gal. iv, 4).—Hati: God knows both time and means to call back his people, to obviate their sins, and to correct their errors (Heb. xii. 1'7).— Laner': Isaac did not approve of the manner and means, but the event itself he considers as irrev- ocable, as soon as he recognizes that God, on account of the unfitness of Esau, has so arranged it. While, therefore, we do not ascribe to God any active working of evil, we concede that, by his wisdom, he knows how to control the errors of men, especially of believers, to a good purpose.—Ver. 36. Thus in- solent sinners roll the blame upon others,—Ver. 37. The word ‘‘ Lord” is rendered remarkably prominent, since it appears only here and ver. 29. Just as if, out of Jacob’s loins alone would come the mightiest and most powerful lords, princes, and kings, espe- cially the strong and mighty Messiah —Hatt : Tears flowing from revenge, jealousy, carnal appetites, and worldly cares, cause death (2 Cor. vii. 10). God’s word remains forever, and never falls to the ground. —Catwer Handbuch: Ver, 36. And still Esau had sold it—He lamented the misfortune only, not his carelessness; he regretted only the earthly in the blessing, but not the grace. Scuréper: Tien cried he a great cry, great and bitter exceeding'y. This is the perfectly (?) natural, unrestrained outbreaking of a natural man, to whom, because he lives only for the present, every ground gives way beneath his feet when the present is lost. To Isaac's explanation that the blessing was gone. Here also a heroic cast is given to the quiet, retiring, and often unobserved love—The aged, feeble, and infirm Isaac celebrates upon his couch a similar triumph of love, just as the faith of his father tri- umphed upon Mt. Moriah, ete. (i. e., he sacrifices to the Lord his preference for Esau),—The world to- day still preserves the same mode of thinking; it sells the blessing of the new birth, etc., and still claims to inherit this blessing (Roos).—Esau, and perhaps Isaac also, thought probably by the blessing to invalidate the futal bargain as to the birthright.— He only bewails the consequences of his sin but he. 520 has no tears for the sin itself—The question here was properly not about salvation and condemnation. Salvation was not refused to Esau, but he serves as a warning to us all, by his cries full of anguish, not to neglect the grace of God (Roos).—Hsaw's blessing. Esau appealed to the paternal heart, and with the true objective character of the God of the patriarch, Ysaac neither could nor should drop his own paternal character.—Now he has no birthright to give away, and therefore no solemn: and he blessed him, occurs here.—(Descriptions of the Idumzan country and people follow). Section Fifth. Vers, 41-46. Esau’s hatred of Ja- cob: 1. In its moral aspect; 2. in its typical signifi- cance.—Want of selfknowledge a cause of Esau’s enmity.—Esau inclined to fratricide: 1. Incited by envy, animosity, and revenge; 2. checked by piety toward the father; 8. prevented by his frankness and out-spoken cheracter, as well as by Rebekah’s sagacity.—Rebekah’s repentance changed into an atonement by the heroic valor of her faith.—Rebe- kah’s sacrifice—How this sagacious and _heroic- minded woman makes a virtue (Jacob’s theocratic wooing for a bride) of necessity (the peril of Jacob’s |. life). Nance : Ver. 44. These few days became twenty years.—Ver. 45. That Rebekah did this, is not men- tioned in any place. Probably she died soon after, and therefore did not live to see Jacob’s return (ch. xlix. 31; Matt. v. 22; 1 John iii. 15; Prov. xxvii. 4). —Cramzr: Whatever serves to increase contention and strife, we are ta conceal, to trample upon, and to turn everything to the best (Matt. v. 9).—Gmr- Lacu: Ver. 41. This trait represents to us Esau most truthfully ; the worst thing in his conduct, however, is not the savage desire of revenge, but the entire unbelief in God and the reluctance to subject him- self tohim. Whilst Isaac submitted unconditionally zs soon as God decided, Esau did not care at all for the divine decision.—CaLwer Handbuch: He did not think of the divine hand in the matter, nor of his own guilt, self-knowledge, or repentance.— Scuréper: God never punishes his people without correcting grace is made also purifying grace at the same time (Roos).—As Esau had only cries and tears at first, he now has only anger and indignation — Ver. 41. “Repentance and its fruits correspond” (Luther).—All revenge is self-consolation. True \ GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. consolation under‘ injustice conies from God (Rom. xii. 19).—.And he forgets what thou hast done to him, With this she both. acknowledges Jacob’s guilt and betrays a precise knowledge of Esau’s character.— Let us not despair too soon of men. Are there not twelve hours during the day? The great fury and fiery indignation. pass away with time (Luther).— How sagacious this pious woman: she conceals to her husband the great- misfortune and affliction existing in the house so as not to bring sorrow upon Isaac in his old age (Luther). Section Siath, ch. xxviii.1-8. Jacob’s mission to Mesopotamia compared with that of Eliezer: 1. Its agreement; 2. its difference.—Isaac now voluntarily blesses Jacob.—The necessity of this pious house becomes the source of new blessings: 1. The feeble Isaac becomes'a hero; 2. the plain and quiet Jacob becomes a courageous pilgrim and. soldier ;. 3. the strong-minded Rebekah becomes a person that. sac- rifices her most dearly loved.—How late the full self-development of both Jacob’s and Esau’s charae- ter appears.—Jacob’s prompt obedience and Esau’s ' foolish correction of his errors.—The church is a community of nations, typified already by the theo- cracy. Srarxe: Coricerning the duties of parents and children as to the marriage of their children.—The dangers of injudicious marriages.—Parents can give ‘to their children no better provision on their way than a Chrisiian blessing (Tob. v. 21).—Bidl. Tud.: The blessing of ancestors, resting upon the descend- ants is a great treasure, and to be preserved as the true and the best dowry.—Catwer Handbuch: He goes out of spite (or at least in his folly and self- will) to the daughters of Ishmael, and takes a third Wife as near of kin to his father as the one Jacob takes was to his mother. (But the distinction was that Ishmael was separated from the theocratic line, while the house in Mesopotamia belonged to the old stock.)—Scuréprr : Rebekah, who in her want of faith could not wait for divine guidance, has now to exercise her faith for long years, and learn to wait. —-Isaac appears fully reconciled to Jacob.—In the eyes of Isaac Ais father. He does not care about the mother.—Thus natural men never find the right way to please God and their fellow-men whom they have offended, nor the true way of reconciliation with them (Berl. Bibel.), C. JACOB.-ISRAEL, THE WRESTLER WITH GOD, AND HIS WANDERINGS, FIRST SECTION. Jacob’s journey to Mesopotamia, and the heavenly Ladder at Bethel. panera Cuarrer XXVHI. 10-22. 10, 11 And Jacob went out from Beer-sheba, and went toward Haran. And he lighted’ upon a certain place, and tarried there all night, because the sun was set; and he took of the stones [one of the stones] of that place, and put them [i] for his pillows, and lay 12 down in that place to sleep. And [then] he dreamed, and be old a ladder set up on the CHAP. XXVIN. 10-22. 13 [were] ascending 14 of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, 521 earth, and the top of it reached [was reaching] to heaven: and behold, the angels of God | 1 and descending on it. And behold, the-Lord stood [was standing] above it: and said, I am the Lord God [Jehovah, the God] of Abraham thy father, and the God to thee will I give it, and to thy seed; And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west [evening], -¢ and to the east’ [morning], and to the e north thee and in thy seed shall all the families o midnight], and to the south [midday]: and in ‘the earth be blessed. And behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places [everywhere] whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of [promisea thee]. And Jacob awaked out of and I knew 2 not. 16 17 18 be Jacob rose up early in the morning, of that place Bethel the first. keep me in this way that I go, 20 21 his sleep, and he said, Surely the Lord is in this place, id J And he was afraid, and said, How dreadful this 7s none other but the house of God, and this [here] zs the gate of heaven, And 0 1 and took the stone that he had put for his pillows, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it. And he called the name [house of God]; but the name of that city was called [earlier] Luz at And Jacob vowed a vow, saying, [awful] ¢s this place ! If God [Elohim] will be with me, and will y and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, So that I come again to my father’s house in peace [in prosperity]; then shall the Lord [Jehovah] be my God: And this stone, which I have set for @ pillar, shall be God’s house: and of all that thou shalt give me, I will surely give the tenth unto thee. PRELIMINARY REMARK. Jacob's divine election, as well as the spirit: of his inward life and the working of his faith, first ap- pear in a bright light in his emigration, his dream, and his vow.. EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL. 1. Jacob's emigration, his night-quarters, and dream (vers. 10-15).—Went out from Beer-sheba. —The journey from Beer-sheba to Haran leads the pilgrim through a great part of Canaan, in a direc- tion from south to north, then crossing the Jordan, and passing through Gilead, Bashan, and Damascus, he comes to Mesopotamia. that Abraham, and afterwards Eliezer, had already made, well known to the patriarchal family.—And he lighted upon a certain place.—Not after the first day’s journey, but after several days’ journey (see ch. xxil. 4). Bethel (see ver. 19), or originally Luz, Aoved, was situated in the mountain of Ephraim, on the way from Jerusalem to Shechem, probably the present Beitin; more than three hours north of Jerusalem (see Dictionaries, especially Winer, and books of travels, particularly RosiNson, ii. pp. 125— 130).—He lighted upon.—By this expression the place in which he took up his night-quarters, in the open air, is distinguished from the city already exist- ing.—And tarried there all night.—After the sun went down, indicating an active journey. — Even at the present date it frequently occurs that pilgrims in ‘those countries, wrapped in their cloaks, spend the night in the open air, during the more favorable seasons of the year.—He took of the stones.— “One of the stones.” A stone becomes his pillow. Thus he rests upon the solitary mountain, with no covering but the sky.—And he dreamed.—In his dream a strange night-vision comes to him, and 1 velongs to his peculiar character that in this condi- It was the same journey far and wide. changed into an ideal possession of the country.— tion he is susceptible of this dream. “Here he sleeps upon a hard pillow, exiled from his father’s ‘house, with deep anxiety approaching an uncertain future, and intentionally avoiding intercourse with his fellow-men ; a stranger, in solitude and without shelter.” Delitzsch. The dream-vision is so glori- ous, that the narrator represents it by a threefold m3r3. The participles, too, serve to give a more vivid representation.” The connection between heaven and earth, and now especially between heaven and the place where the poor fugitive sleeps, is represented in three different forms, increasing in fulness and strength ; the ladder, not too short, but resting firmly on the earth below and extending up to heaven ; the angels of God, appearing in great num- bers, passing up and down the ladder as the messen- gers of God; ascending as the invisible companions of the wanderer, to report about him, and as medi- ators of his prayers; descending as heavenly guar- dians and mediators of the blessing; finally, Jehovah himself standing above the ladder, henceforth the covenant God of Jacob, just as he had hitherto been the covenant God of Abraham and Isaac. [It is a beautiful and striking image of the reconciliation and mediation effected by the Angel of the Covenant. See John i. 51.—A. G.]—Jehovah, the God of Abraham.— (see Fiirst upon this verb),—The word 77 used to describe the eyes of Leah, means simply: weak or dull, whence the Arabians have made, moist or blear-eyed. ‘Leah’s eyes were not in keeping with the Oriental idea of beauty, though otherwise she might be a woman greatly blessed. “Eyes which are not clear and lustrous. To the Oriental, but especially to the Arabian, black eyes, full of life and fire, clear and expressive, dark eyes, are considered the principal part of female beauty. Such eyes he loves to compare with those of the Gazelle, (Hamasa, i. p. 557, etc.” Knobel.—Rachel, the third renowned beauty in the patriarchal family. If authentic history was not in the way, Leah, as the mother of Judah, and of the Davidic Messianic line, ought to have carried off the prize of beauty after Sarah and Rebekah.—And well favored.— Beau- tiful as to her form and beautiful as to her counte- nance.” Beside the more general designation: beautiful as to her form, the second: beautiful N72 must surely have a more definite significa- tion: beautiful as to her countenance, and, indeed, with a reference to her beautiful eyes, which were wanting to Leah. Thus the passage indirectly says that Leah’s form was beautiful—Serve thee seven years for Rachel.—Instead of wages he desires the daughter, and instead ofa service of an indefinite number of days he promises a service of seven years. “ Jacob’s service represents the price which, among the Orientals, was usually paid for the wife which was to be won (see Winer, Realw., under marriage). The custom still exists. In Kerek, a man without means, renders service for five or six years (RitTER, Erdkunde, xv. p. 674), and in Hauran, Burkhardt (“‘Syria,” p. 464), met a young man who had served eight years for his bare support, and then received for a wife the daughter of his master, but must ren- der service still.” Knosen, On the contrary, Keil dis- putes the certainty of the assumption that the cus- tom of selling their daughters to men was general at that time. And we should certainly be nearer the truth in explaining many usages of the present bor- der Asia from patriarchal relations, than to invert everything according to Knobel’s view. Keil holds that Jacob’s seven years of service takes the place pe ee of the customary dowry and the presents given to the relatives; but he overlooks the fact that the ideas of buying and presenting (and barter) are not as far apart in the East as with us. Nor can we di- rectly infer the covetousness of Laban from Jacob’s ac- ceptance of the offer, although his ignoble, selfish, nar- row-minded conduct, as it is seen afterwards, throws some light also on these Eastern transactions.—It is better that I give her to thee.—‘ Among all Bedouin Arabians the cousin has the preference to strangers (BrerkHannt, “Bedouin,” p. 219), and the Druses in Syria always prefer a relative to a rich stranger (VoLney, “Travels,” ii. p. 62). It is gene- ‘rally customary throughout the East, that a man marries his next cousin; he is not compelled to do it, but the right belongs to him exclusively, and she is not allowed to marry any other without his consent. Both relatives, even after their marriage, call each other cousin (BurKHaRD?, ‘ Bedouins,” p. 91, and “ Arabian Proverbs,” p. 274, etc.; Layarp, “Nineveh and Babylon,” p. 222; Lanz, ‘‘ Manners and Customs,’ i, p. 167). Knoset.—They seemed unto him but a few days.—So far, namely, as that his great love for Rachel made his long service a delight to him; but, on the other hand, it is not said that he did not long for the end of these seven years. Yet he was cheerful and joyful in hope, which is in perfect keeping with Jacob’s charac- ter.—A Feast.—Probably Laban intended, at the | great nuptial feast which he prepared, to facilitate Jacob’s deception by the great bustle and noise, but then also to arrange things so, that after seven days the wedding might be considered a double wed- ding. For it is evident that he wishes to bind Jacob as firmly and as long as possible to himself (see ch. xix. 27)—Leah, his daughter.—The deception was possible, through the custom, that the bride was led veiled to the bridegroom and the bridal chamber. Laban probably believed, as to the base deception, that he would be excused, because he had already in view the concession of the second daughter to Jacob. —And Laban gave unto her Zilpah.—We can- not certainly infer that he was parsimonious, because he gave but one handmaid to Leah, since he un- doubtedly thought already of the dowry of Rachel with a second handmaid. The number of Rebekah’s handmaids is not mentioned (ch. xxiv. 61),—Behold, it was Leah.—[“ This is the first retribution Jacob experiences for the deceitful practises of his former days.” He had, through fraud and cunning, secured the place and blessing of Esau,—he, the younger, in the place of the elder; now, by the same deceit, the elder is put upon him in the place of the younger. What a man sows that shall he also reap. Sin is often punished with sin.—A. G.] See Doctrinal and Ethical paragraphs. 4. Vers. 26-80, His renewed service for Rachel. —It must not be so done.—‘ The same custom exists among the East Indians (see Manv. : “Stat utes,” iii, 160; Rosenm., A. u. “Mod. Orient,” and Von Bouten, upon this place), Even in the Egypt of to-day, the father sometimes refuses also to give in marriage a younger daughter before an older one (Lane: “Customs and Manners,” i. p. 169).” Kno- bel. Delitzsch adds the custom in old imperial Germany. This excuse does not justify in the least Laban’s deception, but there was, however, u sting for Jacob in this reply, viz., in the emphasis of the right of the first-born, But Laban’s offer that fol- lowed, and in which now truly his ignoble selfishness 's manifest, calmed Jacob’s mind—Fulfil her 34 CHAP. XXIX.—XXX, 1-24. 529 week.—Lit., make full the week with this one, i. e., the first week after the marriage, which is due to her, since the wedding generally lasted one week (Judg. xiv. 12; Tob. xi, 19). [Her week—the week of Leah, to confirm the marriage with her by keeping the usual wedding-feast of seven days. But if Leah was put upon him at the close of the feast of seven days, then it is Rachel’s week, the second feast of seven days which is meant. The marriage with Rachel was only a week after that with Leah. The seven years’ service for her was rendered afterwards. —A. G.J—And we will.—Ch. xxxi. 1; ver. 23; probably Laban and his sons. Laban also, as Rebe- kah’s brother, took part in her marriage arrange- ments.—Rachel his daughter.— Within eight days Jacob therefore held a second wedding, but he ful- filled the service for her afterwards. Laban, there- fore, not only deceived Jacob by Leah’s interposition, as Jacob tells him to his face, but le overreached him also in charging him with seven years of service for Leah. Thus Jacob becomes entangled in polyg- amy, iu the theocratic house which he had sought in order to close a theocratic marriage, first by the father and afterwards by the daughters. 5. Vers. 31-35. The first four sons of Leah.— When the Lord saw.—The birth of Leah’s first four sons is specifically referred to Jehovah's grace ; first, because Jehovah works above all human thoughts, and regards that which is despised and of little account (Leah was the despised one, the one loved less, comparatively the hated one, Deut. xxi. 15); secondly, because among her first four sons. were found the natural first-born (Reuben), the legal first-born (Levi), and the Messianic first-born (Judah) ; even Simeon, like the otherg, is given by Jehovah in answer to prayer, Jacob’s other sons are referred. to Elohim not only by Jacob and Rachel (ch. xxx. 2, 6, 8), but also by Leah (vers. 18, 20), and by the- narrator himself (ver. 17), for Jacob’s sons in their totality sustain not only a theocratic but also a universal destination Ee opened her womb.— He made her fruitful in children, which should attach her husband to her. But theocratic husbands did not esteem their wives only according to their fruit- fulness (see 1 Sam.i.) It is a one-sided view Keil takes when he says: ‘ Jacob’s sinful weakness ap- pears also in his marriage state, because he loved’ Rachel more than Leah, and the divine reproof appears, because the hated one was blessed with children but Rachel remained barren for a long time.” All we can say is, it was God’s pleasure to show in this way the movements of his providence: over the thoughts of men, and to equalize the incon- gruity between these women.—Reuben.—Lit., Rew- Ben: Behold, a son. Joyful surprise at Jehovah's compassion. From the inference she makes: now, therefore, my husband will love me, her deep, strong love for Jacob, becomes apparent, which had: no doubt, also, induced her to consent to Laban’s deception.—Simeon, her second son, receives his name from her faith in God as a prayer-answering God.—Levi.—The names of the sons are an expres- sion of her enduring powerful experience, as well as of her gradual resignation. After the birth of the first one, she hopes to win, through her son, Jacob’s love in. the strictest sense. After the birth of the second she hoped to be put on a footing of equality with Rachel, and to be delivered from her disregard, After the birth of the third one she hoped at least for a constant affection. At the birth of the fourth she looks entirely away from herself to Jehovah— 530 Judah.—Praised. A verbal noun of the future Hophal from 717. The literal meaning of the name, therefore, is: “shall be praised,” and may thus be referred to Judah as the one “that is to be praised,’ but it may also mean that Jehovah is to be praised on account of him (see Deurtzscu, p. 465). [See Rom. ii. 29. He is a Jew inwardly, whose praise is of God. Wordsworth refers here to the analogies between the patriarchs and apostles.—A. G.]—She left bearing. —Not altogether (see ch. xxx. 16, etc.), but for a time. : : 6. Rachel’s dejection, and the connection with Bilhah, her maid (ch. xxx. 1-8).—And when Ra- chel saw.—We have no right to conclude, with Keil, from Rachel's assertion, that she and Jacob were wanting in prayer for children, and thus had not followed Isaac’s example. Even in prayer, pa- tience may be finally shaken in the human sinful heart, if God intends to humble it.—Give me children or else I die, i. e., from dejection; not: my remembrance will be extinguished (Tremell); much less does it mean: I shall commit suicide (Chrysost.). Her vivid language sounds not only irrational but even impious, and therefore she rouses also the anger of Jacob.—Am I in God’s stead.— Lit., instead of God. God alone is the lord over life and death (Deut. xxxii. 89; 1 Sam. ii. 6). Ra- chel’s sad utterance, accompanied by the threat: or else I die, serves for an introduction as well as an excuse of her desperate proposition—My maid, Bilhah.—The bad example of Hagar continues to operate here, leading into error. The question here was not about an heir of Jacob, but the proud Ra- chel desired children as her own, at any cost, lest she should stand beside her sister childless. Her jealous love for Jacob is to some extent overbalanced by her jealous pride or envy of her sister, so that she gives to Jacob her maid—Upon my knees.—, there is reward; according to Keil, "20 xiv, it brings reward, which is less fitting here. Leah, according to ver. 18, looked upon Issachar as a re- ward for her self-denial in allowing her maid to take her place. By this act, also, her strong affection for Jacob seems to betray itself again. But no such struggle is mentioned of Rachel in the interposition of her maid.—Zebulun.—That the children here are altogether named by the mothers, is Jehovistic, as Knobel thinks: ‘‘The Elohist assigns the names to the children through the father, and is not fond of etymologies!” It is just as great violence to the words: God hath endued me, etc., to say the name signifies a present, while, according to the words following, it signifies dweller. The name of Zebulun is first formed after the inference which Leah drew from the divine gift or present. by , to dwell, alludes to the preceding 131, to make a pres- ent; both verbs are rat Acy.—Dinah, is mentioned on account of the history, ch. xxxiv. Ch. xxxvii. 36 and ch, xxxvi. 7 seem to intimate that he had other daughters, but they are not mentioned further. Dinah is the female Dan. Leah retains her supe- riority. Hence there is no fuller explanation of the name after the deed of Dinah’s brothers, ch. Xxxiv. 9. Vers, 22-24. Rachel the mother of Joseph.— And God remembered Rachel.—The expression: he remembered, here also denotes a turning-point after a long trial, as usually, e. g., ch. viii. 1. In relation to the removing of unfruitfulness, see 1 Sam. i. 19—And God hearkened to her.—She there- fore obtained fruitfulness by prayer also.—Joseph. —This name, in the earlier document, as Knobel expresses himself, is called HON", one that takes -away, i. e., takes away the reproach, from 0%; and they, in the second document, he shail add, from 50", Detach also explains: one that takes away. Keil adopts both derivations. The text only allows the latter derivation: he may add. To take away and to add are too strongly opposed to be traced back to one etymological source. Rachel, it is true, might have revealed the sentiments of her heart by the expression: God hath taken away my reproach; but she was not able to give to her own sons names that would have neutralized the significance and force of the names of her adopted sons Dan and Naphtali. That she is indebted to God’s kindness for Joseph, while at the same time she asks Jehovah for another son, and thereupon names Joseph, does not furnish any sufficient occasion for the admission of an addi- tion to the sources of scripture, as Delitzsch assumes. The number of Jacob’s sons, who began with Jeho- vah, was also closed by Jehovah. For, according to the number of twelve tribes, Israel is Jehovah’s covenant people. In regard to the fact, however, that Jacob’s children were not born chronologically in the pre- zeding order, compare Delitzsch with reference to Fusesius: Preparatio Evang., ix. 21, and ASTRUC. : “ Conjectures,” p. 396, and Keil. The first-born, Reuben, was born probably during the first year of the second seven years, and Simeon at the close of . the same. All the sons, therefore; were born during the second heptade. Dinah’s birth, no doubt, occurs also during this period, though Keil supposes, from the expression “mx, that she may have been born later. But if we now adopt the chronological suc- cession, Leah would have given birth to seven chil- dren in seven years, and even then there was a pause for some time between two of them. The imperfect, with the 1 consecutive, however, does not express always a succession of time, but sometimes also it expresses a train of thought. We may suppose, therefore, that Leah gave birth to the first four sons during the first four years. In the meanwhile, how- ever (not after the expiration of the four years), Rachel effected the birth of Dan and Naphtali by Jacob's connection with Bilhah. This probably in- duced Leah, perhaps in the fifth year, to emulate her example by means of her handmaid, who in a quick succession gave birth to two sons in the course of the fifth and sixth years. During the sixth and sev- enth years Leah again became a mother, and a short time after Zebulun, Joseph was born also. Accord- ing to Delitzsch, Joseph’s birth would occur between that of Issachar and Zebulun. But then the expres- sion ver. 25 would not be exact, and the naming of Zebulun by his mother would be without foundation. The last remark also bears against Keil’s view, that Joseph probably was born at the same time with Zebulun, though he also considers it probable that he may have been born later. DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL. 1, The divine revelation, its consolations and its promises, revive the believer, so that he can pro- ceed on his pilgrimage with renewed vigor. An ex- perience similar to that at Bethel Jacob afterwards met with at Peniel (ch. xxxii. 30). 2, Eliezer, acting for Isaac, Jacob, and Moses, found their future brides by the side of wells. These charming descriptions of the East resemble each other, and yet greatly differ in their details. On ac- count of their significance and beauty, they were applied to spiritual relations by the fathers. [See also Wordsworth, who goes fully into all the details of these analogies.—A. A 3. Jacob experienced the gracious providence of Jehovah here at the well, through one act after another: Shepherds from Haran; acquaintances of Laban ; Rachel’s appearance; the occasion and call to assist her at the moment. 4, Ishe well? 1> cidtim. Happiness and wel- fare, according to the oriental, but particularly accord- ing to the biblical, view, consists especially in peace, inviolability, both as to outward and inward life. 6. The characters. Laban’s character. That Laban was really a sharer in the theocratic faith, and susceptible of noble and generous sentiment, is evi- dent not only from the manner in which he receives Jacob, but also from the way in which he dismisses him (ch. xxxi. 24; 54 ff.), But we also see, how, un- der the influence surrounding him at home (ch. xxxi, 1), the selfishness in him gradually increased, until it culminated in the base use which he made of his nephew’s necessity and love, and thus, at last, pro- ceeds to practise the grossest deception, Even in 532 this deception, however, we must not overlook the fact that, with a friendly interest in Jacob, he con-, sidered it as a pious fraud. He was willing to give both his daughters to Jacob; perhaps, too, he had in his eye Leah’s quiet but vehement affection for Jacob. He so far restrained his selfishness, also, that he per- mits Jacob to return home with the large possessions that he had acquired while with him. Moreover, he had to overcome the excited spirit of his sons and brethren. The lower standpoint which he occupies is evident from the fact that he himself leads his nephew into a theocratic double-marriage, but per- haps also with the intention of securing to his house, with greater certainty, a full share in the mysterious blessing expected by Abraham, and because he qui- etly consented that the strife of his daughters should involve Jacob still farther in polygamy.—As to Leah, the narrator has no fault to find, except that her eyes were not as beautiful as those of her sister, but were tender. The vehement, though quiet love for Jacob, as seen on every occasion, no doubt made her also willing to enter into the deception of Jacob by Laban. Besides, she regarded herself certainly as excusable upon higher grounds and motives, just as Thamar, who fanatically married into the house of promise, and that by a guilty course (ch. xxxviii). Her increasing humility (see Exegesis) causes her to be an object of Jehovah’s peculiar regard, or rather, by this humility, her especial election as ancestress of David and the Messiah becomes evident, and even in her over-zealous strife with her sister, in which the question is about the increase of the patriarchal family, her self-denial is proven by the struggle with which she gives her maid to Jacob, and the kindness with which she gave the mandrakes to her sister. Rachel, onthe other hand, possessed not only bright eyes, but also ardent affections. In the fiery and glowing nature of her affection (ch. xxx. 1), as well as in her cunning (ch. xxxi. 84, 35) Rachel is the image of Rebekah, but with these features of char- acter more strongly marked. So also at the end, in the tragical issue of her life. For as Rebekah did not reach the goal and see Jacob again, so Rachel did not attain her aim in sharing with him peacefully and honorably his paternal heritage. In Rachel’s sinful impatience too, there was not wanting also a moral element, for ‘tthe pure desire of parents for offspring is the highest degree of virtuous matri- mony.” Delitzsch (see p. 465, and the words of Luther there quoted). Keil, without any sufficient reason, places Rachel (p. 206), in religious respects, .below Leah. Distinctions of election are not always contrasts of lightand darkness. Finally, Jacob here appears clearly as the man of the wrestlings of faith, and as the patriarch of hope. However pru- dent, it happens to him as to the Qidipus in the Greek tragedy. idipus solved the riddle of the sphinx, ‘yet is blind, and remains blind in relation to the riddle of his own life. Laban cheated him, as his sons did afterwards, and he is punished through the same transgression of which he himself was guilty. Jacob is to struggle for everything—for his birth- right, his Rachel, his herds, the security of his life, the rest of his-old age, and for his grave, But in these struggles he does not come off without many transgressions, from which, however, as God’s elect, he is liberated by severe discipline. He, therefore, is stamped as a man of hope by the divine provi- dence. As a fugitive he goes'to Haran, as a fugitive ‘he returns home. Seven years he hopes for Ruchel, twenty years he hopes for a return home; to the GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. very evening of his life he is hoping for the recov- ery of Joseph, bis lost son in Sheol; even whilst he ig dying upon Egyptian soil, he hopes for a grave in his native country. His Messianic hope, however, in its full development, rises above ‘all these instan- ces, as is evident in the three chief stages in his life of faith: Bethel, Peniel, and the blessing of his suns upon his death-bed. His life differs from that of his father Isaac in this: that with Isaac the quickening experiences fall more in the earlier. part of his life, but with Jacob they occur in the latter half; and that Isaac’s life passes on quietly, whilst storms and trials overshadow, in a great measure, the pilgrimage of Jacob. The Messiani¢ suffering, in its typical features, is already seen more plainly in him than in Isaac and Abraham; but the glorious exaltation corresponds also to the deeper humiliation. 6. Jacob’s service for Rachel presents us a pic- ture of bridal love equalled only in the same devel- opment and its poetic beauty in the Song of Solo- mon. It is particularly to be noticed that Jacob, however, was not indifferent to Rachel’s infirmities (ch. xxx. 2), and even treated Leah with patience and indulgence, though having suffered from her the most mortifying deception. : 4, The deception practised by Laban upon Jacob was perfectly fitted, viewed as a divine punishment through human sin, to bring his own sin before his eyes. As he introduced himself as the first-born, by the instigation of his mother, so Leah, the first-born, is introduced to him by his mother’s brother, under the pretence of the appearance of his own Rachel. And this deception Laban even excuses in a sarcastic way, with the custom as to the birthright of the daughters at Haran. Thus Jacob atones for his cun- ning, and Laban truly must atone for his deception. 8. Leah’s election is founded upon Jehovah's grace. Without any doubt, however, she was fitted to become the ancestress of the Messianic line, not only by her apparent humility, but also by her in- nate powers of ‘blessing, as well as by her quiet and true love for Jacob. The fulness of her life be- comes apparent in the number and the power of her children ; and with these, therefore, a greater strength of the mere natural life predominates. Joseph, on the contrary, the favorite son of the wife loved with a bridal love, is distinguished from his brethren, as the separated (ch. xlix.) among them, as a.chijdof a nobler spirit, whilst the import of his life is’ not as rich for the future as that of Judah. e 9. If we would regard the deception and impo- sition practised upon Jacob as at all endurable, we must assume, on the one hand, Leah’s fanatic and vehement love ; on the other, his own perfect illu- sion. This unconscious error and confusion of na- ture, seems almost to have been transmitted to Reu- ben, the first-born (ch. xxxv. 22; xlix. 21); and therefore, in consequence of his offence, he also lost the birthright. We cannot, however, entirely con- cur in Luther’s view, which Delitzsch approves, that while there was nothing adulterous in the connection of Jacob and Leah, it was still extra-natural, and in that sense, monstrous, There was undoubtedly an impure and unnatural element in it. But we must bear in mind, as was remarked above, not only Leah's love, but also Jacob’s self-oblivion, in which the free choice is generally limited and restrained by the blind forces of the nightlife, through and in which God works with creative energy. It is the moment in which the man falls back into the hand of God as the creator, CHAP. XXIX. % 10. The difference between the house at Haran and Isaac’s house at Beer-sheba, appears from this, that Laban entangled Jacob.in polygamy. And even in this case the evil consequences of polygamy appear: envy, jealousy, contention, and an increased sensuality. Nevertheless Jacob’s case is not to be judged according to the later Mosaic law, which prohibited the marrying of two sisters at the same time (Ley. xviii. 18). Calvin, in his decision, makes no distinction between the times and the economies, a fact which Keil justly appeals to, and insists upon as bearing against his harsh judgment (that it was a case of incest) (p. 205), 11. In our narrative we first read of a great and splendid wedding-feast, lasting for seven days. It is therefore not by chance that this splendid wedding- feast was followed by a painful illusion. «And, leay- ing out of view grosser deceptions, how often may Rachel’s image have been changed afterwards into Leah’s form. 12. While the sisterly emulation to surpass each other in obtaining children is tainted with sin, there is yet at the bottom a holy motive for it, faith in the Abrahamic promise consisting in the blessing of theocratic births. Thus also we can explain how the fulness of the twelve tribes proceeded from this emulation. 13. Isaac’s prejudice, that Esau was the chosen one, seems to renew itself somewhat in Jacob’s prejudice that he must gain by Rachel the lawful heir. The more reverent he appears therefore, in being led by the spirit of God, who taught him, not- withstanding all his preference for Joseph, to recog- nize in Judah the real line of the promise. 14, That the respective mothers themselves here assign the names, is determined by the circumstances. The entire history of the birth of these sons, too, is reflected in their names.: Of similar signification are the names; Gad and Asher; Levi and Zebulun; Simeon and Naphtali; Judah and Joseph; Reuben and Benjamin born afterwards; Issachar, Dan and Dinah. 15. The progress of life equalizes and adjusts, to a great extent, the opposition between Jacob's love for Rachel and his disregard toward Leah, espe- cially by means of the children. At the same time in which he recognizes Leah’s resignation, Rachel’s passionate ill-humor incites him to anger. ; 16. He shail add; he shall. give to me another son, This wish was fulfilled, and was the cause of ber death. She died at Benjamin’s birth. How dangerous, destructive, and fatal, the fulfilment of a man’s wishes may be to him, is illustrated by fre- quent examples in the Scriptures. Sarah wished for ason from Hagar, a source of great grief to her. The desire of Judas. to be received among the dis- ciples of Jesus was granted, but just in this position ‘ he fell into the deepest corruption. Peter wished to be as near as possible to the Lord in ‘the house of the high priest, but hence his fall. The sons of Zebedee wished for places at the right and left hand of Jesus,—had their wish heen fulfilled they would have filled the places of the malefuctors on the cross, at the right and left of the Crucified. Rachel's wish, it is true, was not the only cause of her death, but with a certain triumph the once barren one died in childbirth, just as she was completing the number twelve of Israel’s sons. - 17. How important Joseph’s birth was to Jacob is seen from this: that henceforth he thinks of his journey home, although the report looked for from 1—XXX. 24. 533 Rebekah tarried long. He was urged to venture a journey home. y ; 18. This history of Jacob’s and Leah’s union sheds « softening light upon even the less happy marriages, which may reconcile us to them, for this unpleasant marriage was the cause of his becoming the father of a numerous posterity; from it, indeed, proceeded the Messianic line; leaving out of view the fact that Leah’s love and humility could not remain without a blessing upon Jacob. The fundamental condition of a normal marriage is doubtless bridal love. We notice in our narrative, however, how wonderfully divine grace may change misfortune, even in such instances, into real good, God is espe- cially interested in marriage connections, because he is thus interested in the coming generations. HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL. See Doctrinal and Ethical paragraphs. Jacob’s ‘ wrestlings of faith.—The patriarch of hope.—Jacob’s double flight, from Esau and from Laban.—Rich in fortune and rich in misfortune, in both respects rich in blessing.—Jacob and Rachel, or the consecration of bridal love-—The shepherd and the shepherdess : the same condition.—Jacob’s service for his bride a type of the same service of Christ for the church, his bride-—Rachel and Leah, or God makes a great difference between his children, and yet esteems them alike according to his justice—The three marriage connections at wells: that of Isaac, of Jacob, and of Moses.—The names of Jacob’s sons, a type of human weakness and divine salvation in his house. (Texts for marriage occasions.) To Section First, vers. 1-8. StaRKE: Cramer: If God’s command and promise are before us, we can proceed in our undertakings with joy and confidence. —Places where wells are mentioned (see Concord- ances).—(Jesus, the well of life, The stone, the impotence of human nature, to be removed by faith. Since, according to ch. xxxi. 47, the Chaldzans spoke a different language from that of the inhabitants of Canaan, Jacob probably made himself understood to the people of Haran; because he had learned the Chaldee from his mother (Clericus).—The changing of the language of the patriarchs into the later He- ‘brew of the Jews.) [There is every reason to believe that these dialects were then so nearly alike that there was no difficulty in passing from one to the other.—A. G.]—Because the word peace embraces both spiritual and natural well-being, the Hebrews used it as a common salutation. ; Section Second, vers. 9-14. Divine providence was here at work.—(Allegory of the well. How Christ has removed the heavy stone of sin and death. The three herds referred to the three days in which Christ was in the grave! ete. Burmann.)—Ver. 18. This was necessary in order to remove all suspicion from the mind of Laban, since he still remembered what a numerous retinue had accompanied Eliezer. —As three distinguished patriarchs found their brides at wells (Moses and his Zipporah), just so the Lord Christ presents to himself the church, his spir- itual bride, through holy baptism, as the laver in the word.—Scuréper : Their first meeting a prophecy of their whole future united life-—Ver. 11 (Calvin), In a chaste and modest life greater liberties were allowed.—(If any one turn to the true source of wis- dom, to the word of God, and to the Saviour revealed 534 GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. therein, he will receive celestial wisdom for his bride. Berl, Bibel.) Section Third, vers. 15-25, Ver. 20. As a regular servant. A typical intimation of the Messiah, who in the form of a servant, with great and severe toil, obtained his bride—(Reward of Jacob’s patient waiting, of his faith and his chastity.—Ver. 18. Vir- “tuous maidens do not attend large, exciting assem- blies, to get a husband, but remain at their vocation, and trust in God, who is able to give to them a pious, honorable, and upright husband.—Lanee: If the whole difficult service became easy to Jacob from the love he had to Rachel, why should it not be said of God’s children, that it is from love to God that we keep his commandments, ete. (1 John v. 3).— Bibl. Wirt.: A chaste love is a beautiful thing, by which conjugal love is afterwards more and more strengthened and confirmed.—Ver. 25. Here Jacob might have understood how it grieved Esau when, for the sake of his birthright, he had practised upon him such cunning and deceit. As he had done unto oth- ers, God permitted that he should receive from others. —The crafty Laban wears the image of the world; whoever serves it never receives what he expects ; he looks for Rachel, and behold it is Leah (Olear). GrriacH: From this instance onward (especially) God speaks to Jacob by every occurrence. Laban deceives him, because he thinks that Laban’s (Ja- cob’s ?) service will be profitable to him, and thus he (Laban) Jdses not only a great part (?) of his herds, but is also obliged to part from his children._-The misery of bigamy: it was therefore expressly forbid- den in the law (Lev. xviii. 18) that any one should marry two sisters at the same time, or to favor one wife before the other (Deut. xxi. 17). The seven ‘years of service reminds us perhaps of the later statute among the Israelites, according to which ser- vants were to obtain their freedom during the sev- enth year (Exod. xxi. 2); Jacob, therefore, as a compensation for the daughters, took upon himselt’ a seven years’ service (slavery).—-(The danger’ of exciting Esau prevented him from bringing the price from his home, even had he entrusted. his affair to God.)—Scuréper: Space is no obstacle to faith, nor time to hope—An engagement of long standing, if decreed by God, may become’a salutary and bene- ficial school for a Christian marriage.—Comparisons between the deception practised by Laban upon Jacob, and that which Jacob practised upon Esau: 1. One brother upon another. 2. There the younger instead of the older; here the older, etc. 3. (Roos) He did not know Leah when he was married to her, just as his father knew him not when he blessed him. 4. Leah at the instigation of her father, Jacob at the instigation of his mother.—But he received, notwithstanding his ignorance as to Leah, the wife designed for him by God, who was to become the mother of the Messiah, just as Isaac blessed him unwittingly as the rightful heir of the promise. Ah, in how many errors and follies of men, here and everywhere, do we find God’s inevitable grace and faithfulness intertwined (Roos). Section Fourth, vers. 26-30. Srarke: Ver. 27. It is remarkable that the ancient Jews, at births, marriages, and deaths, observed the seventh day as an holy day (Gen. xxi. 4; Luke ii, 21; Gen. 1. 10; Sir. xxii. 18), From this fact we may conclude that the ancient Hebrews already considered the day of birth and circumcision, the day of marriage, and the day of death, as the three most important ones in life.—(Ver. 28. Jacob might have asked for a di- vorce.)—Jacob’s polygamy not caused by sensuality ; but did: not remain unpunished.—_(BurMany: Com- parison between the two wives and the Old and New Testament, the two churches to whom the Lord is betrothed. The Old Testament Leah, the wearied, the tender eyed.) — Hatt: God often afflicts us through our own friendship (relatives). He often punishes our own sins by the sins of others, before we are aware of it(2Sam. xvi. 22).—Osranpzr : Oh, what is avarice not capable of ?—Hatt: God’s chil-: dren do not easily obtain what they wish for, but must toil hard for it; (German) work for it, tooth and nail—Scuréper: Jacob’s history, in its turning- points, meets with personages who serve to bring out his character more clearly in contrast with theirs; their thoughts bound in the present,—his looking on‘into the future. Thus Esau and Laban. Section Fifth, vers. 831-35. Srarke: OSIANDER: Jt is still customary with God to take care of the distressed.—Cramer: God distributes his gifts by parts. Do not despise any one.-—Hat.i: God knows how to weigh to us in similar ways both our gifts of grace and our crosses.— Biol. Wirt. : There is nothing so bad or so complicated but that God can bring good out of it—(Signification of the word from which “ Judah” is derived: 1. To thank; 2. to commend; 8. to praise; 4. to confess.) From this Judah all Jews received their beautiful name. —GeRLacu: Reuben: see @ son; in allusion to Raah-Be-Onyi, i. e., he (Jehovah) hath looked upon my affliction. — Scuréper: The mother gives the names, as she does also in Homer. Section Sixth, ch. xxx. 1-8. Starke: Bibl. Wirt. : Impatience is the mother of many sins.—Even to the pious in their married life the sun of peace and har- mony does not always shine ; at times dark clouds of dissension and strife arise. But we must guard in time against such clouds and storms.—We must not try to obtain the divine blessing by unrighteous means.—Scuréper: Children are God’s gift. Al parents should consider this, and take such care of these divine gifts that when God calls those whom he has entrusted to them, they may render a good account (Valer. Herb.).—In Rachel we meet with envy and jealousy, while in Jehovah there is com- passion and grace. Section Seventh, vers. 9-18. Scuroper: For all times Israel is warned by the patriarch’s culpable weakness and pliancy in relation to his wives, as well as by the frightful picture of his polygamy. (Israel, it is true, should even in this way learn to distinguish the times, to recognize the workings of divine grace in and over the errors of men, and to rejoice at the progress in his law.) Section Highth, vers. 14-21. Srarxn: (Do you ask as to the nature of the Dudaim ? some think they are lilies, others that they are berries, but no one knows what they are. Some call them “ winter ° cherries.” Luther.)—The rivalry of the sisters. Thus God punished him because he had taken two wives, even two sisters. Even the holy women were not purely and entirely spiritual—Scuréper: In reference to the maid’s children, God’s name is nei- ther mentioned by Leah nor by the narrator. They were in the strictest sense begotten in a natural way (Hengstenberg). (This is wrong, for in the first place Jacob had nothing to do with the maids in the natural way sof mere lust; 2. in that case they would not have been numbered among the blessed seed of Israel. The principal tribes, indeed, did not spring from them.) = CHAP, XXX. 25—XXXI. 1-3. 535 Section Ninth, vers, 22-24, Sranke: Why bar- | and multiply—Ostanper: Our prayers are not to be Tenness was considered by Abraham’s descendants | considered as in vain, if we receive no answer im- as a sign of the divine curse: 1. It appeared as if mediately. If we are humbled sufficiently below the they were excluded from the promise of the enlarge- | cross, then we will be exalted.—Scurépzr: Luther ment of Abraham’s seed; 2. They were without the |says respecting Jacob’s wives that they were not hope of giving birth to the Messiah; 3. They had | moved by mere carnal desire, but looked at the bless- no share in God’s universal command: be fruitful ing of children with reference to the promised seed. THIRD SECTION. Tacob’s thought of returning home. New treaty with Laban. His closely calculated proposition (Prelude to the method of acquiring possession of the Egyptian vessels). Laban's dis- pleasure. God’s command to return. . Cuaprer XXX. 25—XXXI. 1-3. 25 And it came to pass, when Rachel had borne Joseph, that Jacob said unto Laban, Send me away [let me go], that I may go unto mine own place, and to my country. 26 Give me my wives and my children, for whom I have served thee, and let me go: for 27 thou knowest my service which I have done thee. And Laban said unto him, I pray thee, if I have found favour in thine eyes, tarry; for I have learned by experience’ 28 that the Lord hath blessed me for thy sake. And he said, [farther], Appoint me thy 29 wages, and I will give ¢f. And [Bat] he said unto him, Thou knowest how I have 30 served thee, and how thy cattle was with me [what thy herds have become under me]. For if was little which thou hadst before I came, and it is now increased unto a multitude; and the Lord hath blessed thee, since my coming? [afterme]: and now when shall I provide 31 for mine own house also? And he said, What shall I give thee? And Jacob said, Thou shalt not give me anything [anything peculiar], If thou wilt do this thing for me, I 32 will again feed and keep thy flock [small cattle]: I will pass through all thy flock to-day, removing from thence all the speckled and spotted [dapplea] cattle [lambs], and all the brown [dark-colored] cattle among the sheep, and the spotted and speckled among the 33 goats: and of such shall be my hire. So shall my righteousness [rectitude] answer for me in time to come,® when it shall come for my hire; before thy face: every one that . 4s not speckled and spotted among the goats, and brown among the sheep, that shall be 34 counted stolen with me. And Laban said, Behold, I would it might be according to 35 thy word. And he removed that day the he-goats that were ringstreaked [stripe] and spotted, and all the she-goats that were speckled and spotted, and every one that had some white in it, and all the brown among the sheep, and gave them into the hands 36 of hissons. And he set three days’ journey betwixt himself [the shepherds and flocks of Laban | and Jacob [the flocks of Jacob under his sons]: and Jacob fed the rest [the siftea] of Laban’s flocks. ; 3h And Jacob took him rods of green poplar, [gum] and of the hazel [almona] and chest- nut-tree [maple]*; and pilled white streaks in them, and made the white appear which 38 was in the rods. And he laid the rods which he had [striped] pilled before the flocks in the gutters in the watering-troughs * when the flocks came [to which the flocks must come] 39 to drink, that they should conceive when they came to drink. And the flocks con- ceived before the rods, and brought forth [threw, cast ] ringstreaked, speckled and spotted. 40 And Jacob did separate the lambs, and set the faces of the flocks toward the ring- straked, and all the brown in the flock of Laban; and he put his own flocks by them- 41 selves, and put them not unto Laban’s cattle. And it came to pass, whensoever the stronger cattle did conceive, that Jacob laid the rods before the eyes of the cattle in the 42 gutters, that they might conceive among the rods. But when. the cattle were feeble, 43 he put them not in: so the feebler were Laban’s, and the stronger Jacob’s. And the 536 GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. man increased exceedingly, and had much [smat!] cattle, and maid-servants, and men- servants, and camels and asses. Cz. XXXL 1. And-he heard the words of Laban’s sons, saying, Jacob hath taken away all that was our father’s; and of that which was our father’s hath he gotten all 2 this glory [riches].° And Jacob beheld the countenance of Laban, and, behold, it was 3 not toward him as before’ [formerly]. And [Then] the Lord said unto Jacob, Return unto the land of thy fathers, and to thy kindred [thy home]; and I will be with thee. [) Ver. 27.—Lit., I have augured, "MWOM2; Sept., olwvigowa; not that Laban was a serpent-worshipper, but that he used divination as the heathen; and thus drew his inferences and auguries.—A. G.] j? Ver. 30.—Lit., at my foot.—A. G.] (3 Ver. 33.—Lit., in day to-morrow—the future—at all times, when, etc. Lange renders “ when thou shalt come upon G.J or to my wages}; i. e., to examine.—. [* Ver. 37.—Heb., yaa » plane-tree; so Sept., Vulg. and Syriac.—A.G,] [8 MIerTs4, an unusual archaic form for MANN. Keil.—A, G.] [° Cu. XXXI. Ver, 2.—Lit., weight—A, G.T {7 Ver. 2.—Lit., as yesterday, the day before.—A. G.] ’ GENERAL PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 1, The term 5d33, ver. 27 (comp. ch. xii. 13), shows that, this section, according to Knobel, is Je- hovistic. 2. In consequence of Laban’s deception, Jacob must serve fourteen years for his Rachel. According to ch. xxxi. 41 he served him six years longer, agreeably to the terms of the contract that he had just now concluded with him. 8. The doubtful way in which he now secured his reward leads us to conjecture that he was conscious that he had been defrauded by Laban, and that he was dealing with a selfish man, whose selfishness and eunning. Nor is it to be denied that wisdom’s weapon is given to the feeble te protect himself against the harsh and cruel power of the strong. Our harrative’ comes under the same category with the surreptitious obtaining of the blessing of the first-born by Jacob, and the acquisition of the gold and silver vessels of the Egyptians by the Israelites. The prudence manifested in these cases is the same; but still there was a real deception in the first case (one deception, however, against another); in the present case it was simply an overreaching, while in the third they were only availing themselves of the | situation of the Egyptians, i. e., their disposition, In all three cases, however, the artful, or at least wisely-calculated, project, was provoked by a great and gross wrong. Esau proposes to take back the birthright which he had sold to Jacob. Laban caused him to perform a service of fourteen years, and intends to make him still further a prey to his avarice. The Egyptians have indeed consumed the very strength of Israel by their bondage. And if, the scale here turns against Jacob because he thus cunningly overreached his father-in-law, it is bal- anced by Laban’s pressing him again into his ser- vice, that he might misuse him anew; nor is the marvellous charm to be left out of view, which lay minds were never inclined to let their arts and sciences lie dormant. EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL. 1. Vers, 25-34. The new contrac.—When Ra- chel.—At Joseph’s birth [which therefore could nat have occurred until the fifteenth year of his residence with Laban.—A. G.] a strong feeling comes over Jacob, which leads him to believe that he is to re- turn home without having received a call from thence or a divine command here. It is apparent: from what follows that he first of all wished to be- come independent of Laban, in order to provide for his own. He is, therefore, soon hampered again, since a fair prospect opened to him now and here. Laban’s character now comes into view in every utterance.—May I still grace, etc., lit., Jf I have found favor, etc. If this expression may be called an aposiopesis, we must still bear in mind that this was a standing form of expression even in the oath. | Keil supplies “ stay yet.” The optative form already power, he thought, could only be countervailed by | expresses all that is possible, If "mwma is, accord- ing to Delitzsch, a heathen expression, then the phraseology in Laban’s mouth appears more striking still, through the connection of this expression with Jehovah’s name.— Appoint me.—He not only recognizes, almost fawningly, Jacob’s worth to his house, but is even willing to yield unconditionally to his determination—a proof that he did not expect of Jacob too great a demand. But Jacob is not in- clined to trust himself to his generosity, and hence his cunningly calculated though seemingly trifling demand. Laban’s consent to his demand, however, breathes in the very expression the joy of selfishness ; and it is scarcely sufficient to translate: Behold, I would it might be according to thy word. But Jacob’s proposition seems to point to a very trifling reward, since the sheep in the East are nearly all white, while the goats are generally of a dark color or speckled. For he only demands of Laban’s herds those sheep that have dark spots or specks, or that are entirely black, and those only of the goats that were white-spotted or striped. But he does not only demand the speckled lambs brought forth hereafter, after the present number of such are set aside for Laban (Tuch, Baumg., Kurtz), but the present in- spection is to form the first stock of his herds (Kno- aaa : | bel, Delitzsch), [The words, *t! ; in his ancient nomadic science and art. Superior | ab 2. thou shalt not give me anything,” seem to indicate that Jacob had no stock from Laban to begin with, and did not intend to be dependent upon him for any part of his posses- sions. Those of this description which should ap- pear among the flocks should be his hire. He would depend upon the divine providence and his own skill. He would be no more indebted to Laban than Abra, ham to the king of Sodom.—A. G.] Afterwards, also, the speckled ones brought forth among Laban’s CHAP. XXX, 25—XXXI. 1-3. herds are to be added to his, as is evident from his following arts. Michaelis and Bohlen miss the pur- port, but it lies in verse 88, For when he invites Laban to muster his herds in time to come, "7172 E173, it surely does not mean literally the next day, as Delitzsch supposes, but in time to come (see Gesenius, ama). As often as Laban came to Jacob’s herds in the future he must regard all the increase in speckled and ringstreaked lambs as Jacob’s property, but if he found a purely white sheep or an entirely black goat, then, and only then, he might regard it as stolen. (As to the sheep and goats of the East, see Bible Dictionaries, the Natural History of the Bible, and Kwoxet, p. 246.) Moreover, this transaction is not conducted wholly “in the conventional forms of oriental politeness, as in ch, xxiii, between Abra- ham and the Hittites” (Del.). Laban’s language is | submissive, while that of Jacob is very frank and bold, as became his invigorated courage and the | sense of the injustice which he had suffered. 2. Vers. 85, 36. The separation of the herds.— And he removed.—It surely is not correct, as Rosenmiiller, Maurer, Del. and Keil suppose, that Laban is here referred to; that Laban, ‘to be more certain,” had removed the speckled ones himself and. put them under the care of his own sons. In this view everything becomes confused, and Bohlen justly remarks: “The reference here is to Jacob, bécause he intended to separate the animals (ver, 32), as cer- tainly it was proper for the head servant to do, and be- | cause there is no mention of Laban’s sons until ch. | xxxi. 1, while Jacob’s older children were certainly | able to take care of the sheep.” Reuben, at the close of this new term of six years, had probably reached his | thirteenth year, Simeon his eleventh. But evenif they | had not reached these years, the expression he gave | them, 17357773, could mean: he formed a new family | state, or herds, as a possession of his sons, although they were assisted in the management by the mothers, : maids, and servants, since he himself had anew become Laban’s servant. Hence it is also possible (ver. 36) for him to make a distinction between himself as La- ' ban’s servant, and Jacob as an independent owner, now represented by’his sons. It is altogether improbable that Jacob would entrust his herds to Laban’s sons. | But it is entirely incomprehensible that Jacob, with | his herds, could have taken flight without Laban’s | knowledge, and gained three days the start, unless | his herds were under the care of his own sons. [This is of course well put and unanswerable on the suppo- | sition that the sheep and goats which were removed | from the flocks were Jacob’s stock to begin with, | but it has no force if we regard these as Laban’s, | and put therefore under the care of his own sons, | while Jacob was left to manage the flocks from which the separated were taken.—A. G.]—Three | days’ journey betwixt.—Lit., ‘‘a space of three’ days between.” Certainly days’ journeys here are. those of the herds and are not to be estimated ac- cording to the journeys of men. Again, Jacob is. ahead of Laban three days, and yet Laban can over- take him. We may conceive, therefore, of a dis- tance of about twelve hours, or perhaps eighteen miles. By means of this separation Jacob not only | gained Laban’s confidence but also his property. 3. Vers. 87-43. Jacob’s management of Laban’s | herds.—Took him rods.—Dr Wertr: Storax, al- mond-tree, maple. Bunsen: “ Gum-tree. The Alex: | andrians here translate, styrax-tree, but Hos. iv. 13 poplars. If we look at the Arabic, in which our { second artifice. 537 Hebrew word has been preserved, the explanation of styrax-tree is to be preferred. It is similar to the quince, grows in Syria, Arabia, and Asia Minor, reaches the height of about twelve feet, and fur- nishes, if incisions are made in the bark, a sweet, fragrant-smelling, and transparent gum, of a light- red color, called styrax. Almond-tree. . This signifi- cation is uncertain, since the hazelnut-tree may also be referred to. Plane-tree. A splendid tree, fre- quent even in South Europe, having large boughs, extending to a great distance (hence the Greek name, Platane), and bearing some resemblance to the maple tree.” Jacob of course must select rods from such trees, whose dark external bark produced the great- est contrast with the white one below it. In this: respect gum-tree might be better adapted than white poplars, almond-tree or chestnut better than hazel- nut, and maple better than plane-tree. Kx: Storax, chestnut, and maple trees, which all have below their bark a white, dazzling wood. Thus he procured rods of different kinds and pilled white streaks in them.— And he set the rods.—Knobel thinks, he placed the staffs on the watering-troughs, but did not put them in the gutters. But this does not agree with the choice of the verb, nor the fact itself: the animals, by looking into the water for some time, were to receive, as it were, into themselves, the appearance of the rods lying near. They, in a technical sense, “ were frightened” at them. The wells were surrounded with water- ing-troughs, used for the watering of the cattle.— And they conceived.—For the change of the forms here, see Ker, p. 210.—And brought forth cattle—‘“ This crafty trick was based upon the common experience of the so-called fright of ani- mals, especially of sheep, namely, that the represen- tations of the senses during coition are stamped upon the form of the foetus (see Bocu., Hieroz., i. 618, and Frizprercu upon the Bible, i. 37, etc.).” Keil. For details see Knonet, p. 247, and Dexitzscu, p.472.—And set the faces of the flock.—Jacob’s The speckled animals, it is true, were removed, from time to time, from Laban’s herds, and added to Jacob’s flock, but in the meantime Jacob put the speckled animals in front of the others, so that Laban’s herds had always these spotted or variegated animals before them, and in this manner another impression was produced upon the she-goats and sheep. Bohlen opposes this second artifice, against Rosenmiiller, Maurer, and others. The clause in question should be: he sent them to the speckled ones that already belonged to him ("25 in the sense of versus). But the general term jN2M is against this. The separation of the new-born lambs and goats from the old herds could only be gradual.— The stronger cattle.—The third artifice. He so arranged the thing that the stronger cattle fell to him, the feebler to Laban. His first artifice, there- fore, produced fully the desired effect. It was owing partly, perhaps, to his sense of equity toward Laban, and partly to his prudence, that he set these limits to his gain; but he still, however, takes the advan- tage, since he seeks to gain the stronger cattle for himself. Bonen: “ Literally, the bound ones, firmly set, i.e., the strong, just as the covered ones, i.e., the | feeble, languid, faint; for the transition is easy from the idea of binding, firmness, to that of strength, and from that of covering, to languishing, or faint- ness. Some of the old translators refer them to ver- nal and autumnal lambs (comp. Pum. 8, 47, Coxv- MELLA, De re sust., 8,5), because the sheep in Pales- 538 GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. tine and similar climates bear twice in a year (ARIS- tot., Hist. Anim., 6, 18, 19; ‘Problems,’ 10, 46; ‘Bocwart, Hieroz,, i. p. 512), and because those con- ceived in the Spring or Summer and born in the Autumn are stronger than those conceived in Au- tumn and born in Spring. But the text does not draw this precise distinction.” The Septuagint only distinguishes between érionua and &onuc. Luther renders “late” and “ early born.”—And the man increased.—With the rich increase in cattle, care was taken at the same time to secure an increase in men-servants and maid-servants, as well as camels and asses. Knobel finds a contradiction in the fact that this rich increase is here ascribed to Jacob’s artifice, whilst it is attributed to the divine blessing in ch. xxxi, 9. But so much only is evident, that Jacob did not act against his conscience, but thought that he might anticipate and assist by human means _ the fulfilment of those visions in which the rewards of this kind were promised to him.—And he heard. The complete success that Jacob met with excited the envy and jealousy of Laban’s sons, whose exist- ence is indicated first in the plural (ch. xxix. 27), but whose definite appearance here shows that the selfish disposition peculiar to this family was more fully developed in them than in Laban himself.— The words of Laban’s sons.—According to De- litzsch, they were quite small, not yet fourteen years of age—an assertion, however, which has no suffi- cient ground. 4, Ch. xxxi. 1-8. Jacob's resolution to return home,—All that was our father’s.—They evident- ly exaggerate in their hatred, and even accuse him of dishonesty by the use of the expression: of that which was our father’s. But Laban shares in the threatening disposition; his countenance had changed remarkably toward Jacob, a fact all the more striking, since he had formerly been extraordinarily friendly. Trouble and dangers similar to those at home now develop themselves here; then comes, at the critical juncture, Jehovah’s command: Return. DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL. 1. Jacob’s resolution to return home at his own risk, is to be explained from his excessive joy at Joseph’s birth, and from his longing for home and for deliverance from the oppression of Laban. More- over, he seems to have considered Rachel’s son as the principal Messianic heir,’ and therefore must hasten to conduct him to the promised land, even at the peril of his life. Besides, he now feels that he must provide for his own house, and with Laban’s | selfishness there is very little prospect of his attain- |. ing this in Laban’s house. These two circumstances show clearly why he allows himself to be retained by Laban (for he has no assurance of faith that he is now to return), and in the second place, the manner and means by which he turns the contract to his own advantage. 2..We here learn that Laban’s prosperity was not very great before Jacob’s arrival. The blessing first returns to the house with Jacob’s entrance. But this blessing seemed to become to Laban no blessing of faith. His conduct toward the son of his sister and his son-in-law, becomes more and more base. He seizes eagerly, therefore, the terms offered to him by Jacob, because they appear to him most favor- able, since the sheep in the East are generally white, while the goats are black. His intention, therefore, is to defraud J acob, while he is, actually overreached by him. Besides, this avails only of the mere form ; as to the thing itself, Jacob really had claims toa . ~ ~ fair compensation. 3. Just as Jacob’s conduct at the surreptitious obtaining the birthright was preceded by Isaac’s intended cunning, and the injustice of Esau, so also, in many respects, here Laban’s injustice and artifice precedes Jacob’s project (ch. xxxi.). Jn this light Jacob’s conduct is to be judged. Hence he after. wards views his real gain as a divine blessing, al- though he had to atone again for his selfishness and cunning, in the form of the gain, at least, by fears and danger. Moreover, we must still bring into view, as to Jacob’s and Laban’s bargain, the follow- ing points: 1. Jacob asks for his wages very mod- estly and frankly ; he asks for his wives and children, as the fruit of his wives, and for his discharge. While Laban wishes to keep him for his own advan- tage. 2. Jacob speaks frankly, Laban flatters and fawns. 8. Jacob might now expect a paternal treat- ment and dowry on the part of Laban. Laban, on the contrary, prolongs his servile relation, and asks him to determine his reward, because he expected from Jacob’s modesty the announcement of very small wages. 4. In the proposition made by Jacob, he thought he had caught him. 4, The establishment of his own household, after being married fourteen years, shows that Jacob, in this respect, as well as in the conclusion of his mar- riage, awaited his time. 5. The so-called impressions of she goats and sheep, a very old observation, which the codperation of subtle impressions, images, and even imaginations at the formation of the foetus, and, indeed, the foetus itself among animals confirms.—The attainment of varieties and new species among animals and plants is very ancient, and stands closely connected with civilization and the kingdom of God. 6. Jacob's sagacity, his weapon against the strong. But as he stands over against God, he employed dif- ferent means, especially prayer. 7. The want of candor in Laban’s household, corresponds with the selfishness of the household. 8. In the following chapter we find still further details respecting Jacob’s bargain. In the first place, the selfish Laban broke,.in different ways, the firm bargain made with Jacob, in order to change it to his advantage (ch. xxxi. 7). Secondly, Jacob’s mor- bid sense of justice had been so excited that he re- ceived explanation of the state of things in his herds even iu his night-visions. HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL. See the Doctrinal and Ethical paragraphs. The present section is, for the most part, fitted for re- ligious, biographical, and psychological contempla- tions. It is to be treated carefully both with respect to Jacob’s censure as well as his praise.—Jacob’s resolutions to return home: 1. The first: why so vividly formed, but not accomplished ; 2. the second: the cause of his assurance (the divine command). Moreover, perils equal to those threatening at home, were now surrounding him,—His longing for home during his service abroad.—The hardships of a se- vere servitude in Jacob's life, as well as in the history of his descendants: when blessed ?—Laban’s selfish- ness and Jacob’s sense of right ut war with each other.—Prudence as a weapon in life’s batttle: 1. CHAP, XXXI. The authority to use this weapon when opposed to a harsh superiority or subtlety; 2. the mighty effi- cacy of this weapon; 8. the danger of this weapon. —Jacob’s prudence in its right and wrong aspects in our history: 1. The right lies in his just claims; 2. the wrong, in his want of candor, his dissimula- tion and his self-help.—His natural science, or knowl- edge of nature, combined with prudence, a great power in life.—The difficulties in the establishment of an household: 1. Their general causes; 2. how they are to be overcome.—Jacob’s prosperity abroad. —Jacob struggling with difficulties all his life long. _ Section First, vers, 25-84, Srarxe: (As to the different meanings of wm, ver. 27. Some com- mentators hold that Laban had superstitiously con- sulted his. teraphim, or idols.)—Bibl. Wirt.: It is customary witl covetous people to deal selfishly with their neighbors.—Ver. 30. By means of my foot. Luruer: i.e., I had to hunt and run through thick and thin in order that you might be rich—Ver. 34. If! Laban had been honest, he could have represented to Jacob, that he would be a great loser by this bargain. God even blesses impious masters on account of their pious servants (1 Tim. v. 8)—Catwer Handbuch : Jacob 91 years old.—Thus Laban’s covetousness and avarice is punished by the very bargain which he purposed to make for his own advantage.—We are not to apply the criterion of Christianity to Jacob’s conduct.—Scuréper: Acts and course of life among strangers. As to Laban. Courtesy to- gether with religion are made serviceable to the at- tainment of his ends—Thus, also, in the future, there is only a more definite agreement of master 4—XXXII. 2. 539 and servant between Jacob and his father-in-law.— (The period of pregnancy with sheep lasts five months ; they may therefore lamb twice during the year. Herds were the liveliest and strongest in au- tiumn, after having enjoyed the good pasture during the summer, etc. On the contrary, herds are feeble after having just passed the winter.) ' Section Second, vers, 85,36. Starke: A Christian is to look for pious men-servants and maid-servants. Section Third, vers. 87-43, Starke: Christian, be warned not to misuse this example to encourage the practice of cunning and deceit with your neigh- bor.—Cramer: Wages that are earned, but kept back, cry to heaven; hence nature here serves Ja- cob (James v. 4).—Hatu: God’s children, even in external things, have evident proofs that his grace over them is greater than over the godless.—Scnri- per: Luther and Calvin are inclined to excuse Jacob (ch. xxxi. 12). Section Fourth. Ch. xxxi, 1-8, Srarxe: It is a very great reproach if acquaintances and relatives slander each other.—Haut: As the godless enjoy no peace with God, so also the pious enjoy no peace with godless men.—Cramer: Sin in man is so poi- sonous that it glitters in the eye, and is sweet to the taste, and pleasant to all the members.—Scaro6peEr : Thus the Lord often serves his people more through the jealousy of the godless, than if he suffered them to grow feeble in prosperity.—Ver. 8. Lurner: It probably was an answer to Jacob’s prayer.—The di- vine command and promise compensates Jacob for the promised message of the mother. Thus his return re- ceives the character of an act of faith (Baumgarten). FOURTH SECTION. Jacob's flight. Laban’s persecution. The covenant between the two on the mountain of Gilead. Departure. Cuarrer XXXI. 4—XXXII. 2. 4, 5 unto them, I see [am seeing] your 6 fore: but the God [Hlobim] of my father hath h ved your father. Se anaes aE ae but God suffered him not to hurt me. all the cattle bare speckled: and if he said thus, 8 changed my wages ten times: The Erecidled shall be thy wages; then And Jacob sent and called Rachel and Leah to the field unto his flock. And said father’s countenance, that it 7s not toward me as be- been with me. And ye’ know that with And your father hath deceived* me, and If he said thus, The [symm.: white-footed | ring-streaked shall be thy hire; then hare all the cattle ring- 9 streaked. Thus God hath taken 10 them to me. mine eyes, away th d it came to pass at the ti i ai oF ‘i a deat, and behold [1saw], the rams which leaped upon the e [acquisitions | cattle of your father, and given me that the cattle conceived, that I lifted up 11 cattle were ring-streaked, speckled, and grizzled.’ And the angel of God spake unto me 12 ina dream, saying, Jacob: And eyes and see, all the rams which leap 13 grizzled: for I said, Here ) upon the cattle are ring-streaked, speckled, and I have seen all that Laban [is doing] doeth unto thee. I am the God of am I, And he said, Lift up now thine Beth-el, where thou anointedst the pillar, and where thou vowedst a vow unto me: now urise, get thee out from 14 And Rachel and Leah answered, and said unto him, this land, and return unto the land of thy kindred [birth]. Is there yet any portion or imhert- 540 GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. 15. 16 17, 19 20 21 22 24 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 tance for us in our father’s house? Are we not counted of him strangers? for he hath sold us, and hath quite devoured‘ also our money. For all the riches which God hath taken from our father, that ds ours, and our children’s: now then, whatsoever God hath said unto thee, do. : Sr ; 18 Then Jacob rose up, and set his sons and wives upon camels; And he carried away all his cattle, and all his goods [his movable property, gain] which he had gotten, the cattle of his getting, which he had gotten in Padan-aram; for to go to Isaac his father in the land of Canaan. And Laban went to shear his [to the feast of sheep-shearing| sheep : and Rachel had stolen the images® [Teraphim, household gode| that were her father’s. | And Jacob stole away unwares [the heortof] to Laban the Syrian, in that he told him not that he fled. So he fled with all that he had; and he rose up, and passed over the river [Bupbrates], and set his face [journey] toward the mount Gilead. And it was told Laban on the third day, that Jacob was fled. And [Then] he took his brethren with him, and pursued after him seven days’ journey: and they overtook him in the mount Gilead.. And God came to Laban the Syrian in a dream by night, and said unto him, Take heed that thou speak not to Jacob either good or bad. Then Laban overtook Jacob. Now Jacob had pitched his tent in the mount: and Laban with his brethren [tented] pitched in the mount of Gilead. And Laban said to Jacob, What hast thou done, that thou hast stolen away unwares to me, and carried away my. daughters, as captives taken with the sword [thespoilsofwar]? Wherefore didst thou flee away secretly, and steal away from me, and didst not tell me, that I might have sent thee away [given thee a convoy] with mirth, and with songs, with tabret, and with harp? And hast not suffered me to kiss my sons [grandsons], and my daughters? thou hast now done foolishly in so doing. 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. And now, though thou wouldest needs be gone, because thou sore longedst after thy father's house; yet wherefore hast thou stolen my gods? And Jacob answered and said to Laban, Because I was afraid: for I said [said to myself ], Peradventure thou wouldest take by force thy daughters from me. With whomsoever thou findest thy gods, let him not live: before our brethren discern thou what 7 thine with me, and take ¢t to thee: for Jacob knew not that Rachel had stolen them. And Laban went into Jacob’s tent, and into Leah’s tent, and into the two maid-servants’ tents; but he found them not. Then went he out of Leah’s tent, and entered into Rachel’s tent. Now Rachel had taken the images [household gods], and put them in the camel’s furniture, and sat upon them. And Laban searched all. the tent, but found them not. And she said to her father, Let it not displease my lord that I cannot rise up before thee; for the custom of women [female period] 2s upon me. And he searched [su], but found not the images, And Jacob was wroth, and chode with Laban: and Jacob answered, and said to La- ban, What 7s my trespass? what 7s my sin, that thou hast so hotly pursued [burned] after me? Whereas thou hast searched all my stuff, what hast thou found of all thy household- stuff? set dthere before my brethren, and thy brethren, that they may judge betwixt us both. This twenty years have I been with thee; thy ewes and thy she-goats have not cast their young, and the rams of thy flock have I not eaten. That which was torn of beasts, I brought not unto thee; I bare the loss of it [must make satistaction for it] ; of my hand didst thou require it, whether stolen by day, or stolen‘ by night. Thus I was; in the day the drought consumed me, and the frost by night; and my sleep departed from mine eyes. Thus have I been twenty years in thy house: I served thee fourteen years for thy two daughters, and six years for thy cattle: and-thou hast changed my wages ten times. 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 labor [wearisome labor] of my hands; and rebuked [judged] thee yesternight. : And Laban answered, and said unto Jacob, These daughters are my daughters, and these children ave my children, and these cattle are my cattle [herds], and all that thou seest is mine; and what can I do this day unto these my daughters, or unto their children which they have borne? Now therefore come thou, let us make a’ covenant {a covenant of peace], I and thou; and let it be for a witness between me and thee. And CHAP, XXXI 4—XXXII. 2. 541 Jacob took a stone, and set it up for a pillar. And Jacob said unto his brethren, Gather stones; and they took stones, and made an heap: and they did eat there upon the heap. And Laban called it Jegar-sahadutha [Syriac: heap of witness]: but Jacob called it Galeed [the same in Hebrew]: And Laban said, This heap 7s a witness between me and thee this day. Therefore was the name of it called Galeed: And Mizpah [watch-tower] ; for he said, The Lorp watch between me and thee, when we are absent one from another. If thou shalt afflict my daughters, or if thou shalt take other wives besides my daughters, no man is with us; see, God, 2s witness betwixt me and thee. And Laban said to Jacob, Behold this heap [stone beap], and behold this pillar, which I have cast [erected] betwixt me and thee; This heap e witness, and this pillar be witness, that I will not pass over this heap to thee, and that thou shalt not pass over this heap and this pillar unto me, for harm,. The God of Abraham, and the God of Nahor, the God of their father, judge [piural] betwixt us. And [But] Jacob sware by the fear of his father Isaac. 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. And 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. Cu, XXXILE 1. And Jacob went on his way, and the angels of God met him. And 2 when Jacob saw them, he said, This 7s God’s host: and he called the name of that place Mahanaim [two camps: double camp |. 54 55 {) Ch, xxxi. ver. 6.—The full form of the pronoun, see Green’s Grammar, 71, (2.)—A. G.] [2 Ver. 7.—binM , Hiphil from 55m ; see Greew’s Grammar, 142, (3.)—A. G.] [8 Ver. 10.—Heb., Beruddim, spotted with hail. Our word, grizzled, is from the French, grél i i translation of the Hebrew.—A. GT 1 Br ? ench, gréle, hail, and thus a literal 4 Ver. 15.—The Hebrew form, the absolute infinitive after the finite verb, denotes continuance of the action.—He has constantly devoured.—A. G.] (8 Ver. 19.—B°D"". The word occurs fifteen times in the Old Testament; three iimes in this chapter, and nowhere else in the Pentateuch. It is always in the plural. xvii. and xviii., and Hosea iii. 4), they are six times associated with It means, perhaps, to live well, or to nourish. In two passages (Judg. e ephod. The use of them in the worship of God, is denounced as idolatry (1 Sam. xv. 23), and hence they are classed with the idols put away by Josiah, 2 Kings xxiii. Murphy.—A. G. [® Ver. 29.--Heb., There is to God my hand.—A. G.] GENERAL PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 1. Delitzsch regards the present section as throughout Elohistic; but according to Knobel, Je- hovistic portions are inwrought into it, and hence the narrative is here and there broken and discon- nected. 2. The present journey of Jacob is evidently in contrast with his previous journey to Mesopotamia ; Mahanaim and Peniel form the contrast with Bethel. 3. We make the following division: 1. Jacob’s conference with his wives, vers. 4-16; 2. the flight, vers, 17-21; 3. Laban’s pursuit, vers. 22-25; 4, Laban’s reproof, vers. 26-30; 5. Laban’s search in the tents of Jacob, ver. 81-35; 6. Jacob's reproof, vers. 36-42; 7. the covenant of peace between the two, vers. 43, 53; 8. the covenant meal and the de- parture, ver. 54—ch. xxxii. 2. EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL. 1. Vers, 4-16. Jacob’s conference with his wives. —Unto his flock.—Under some pretext Jacob had left the flocks of Laban, although it was then the feast of sheep-shearing, and gone to his own flocks (a three days’ journey, and probably in a di- rection favoring his flight), Hither, to the field, he calls his wives, and Rachel, as the favorite, is called first—Changed my wages ten times.—The expression ten times is used for frequently, in Numb. xiy. 22, and in other passages. [Keil holds that the | ten, as the number of completeness, here denotes as of- ten as he could, or as he had opportunity. It is proba- bly the definite for an indefinite —A. G.|—If he said thus, The ring-streaked.—As Laban deceived Ja- cob in the matter of Rachel, so now in the arrange- ment for the last six years, he had in various ways dealt selfishly and unjustly, partly in dividing equally the spotted lambs, according to his own | terms, and partly in always assigning to Jacob that particular kind of spotted Jambs which had previously béen the least fruitful—And the Angel of God.—Jacob here evidently joins togeth- er a circle of night-visions, which he traces up to the Angel of the Lord, as the angel of Elohim, and which run through the whole six years to their close. If Laban imposed a new and unfavorable condition, he saw in a dream that now the flocks should bring forth lambs of that particular color agreed upon, now ring-streaked, now speckled, and now spotted. But the vision was given to comfort him, and indeed, under the image of the variegated rams which served the flocks. This angel of Elohim declares himself to be identical with the God of Bethel, i. ¢., with Jes hovah, who reveals himself at Bethel as exalted above the angels, It is thus his covenant God who has guarded his rights against the injustice of Laban, and prepares this wonderful blessing for him; a fact which does not militate against his use of skill and craft, but places those in a modified and milder light. The conclusion of these visions is, that Jacob must return. [The difference between this narrative an‘ that given in ch. xxx., is a difference having. its 542 ground and explanation in the facts of the case. For obvious reasons Jacob chose here to pass over his own strategy and craft in silence, and brings out into. prominence the divine providence and aid to which his prosperity was due. That Jacob resorted to the means he did, is not inconsistent with the ob- jective reality of the dream-vision, but rather con-_ firms it. If he regarded the vision as prophetic of the issue, as he must have done, the means which he used, the arts and cunning, are characteristic of the man, who was not yet weaned from confidence in himself, was not entirely the man of faith. If we regard this vision as occurring at the beginning of the six years’ service, it is entirely natural that Jacob sbould now connect it so closely with the voice of the same angel commanding him to return to the land of his birth— A. G.]—Are we not counted of him strangers ?—Laban takes the same posi- tion towards his daughters as towards Jacob himself. Hence they have nothing more to hope for from him. He had sold them as strangers, i. e., really, as slaves, for the service of Jacob. But this very price, i. e., the blessing resulting from Jacob’s service, he had entirely consumed, i. e., the daughters had received no share of it. Hence it is evident that they speak with an inward alienation from him; although not calling him by name, and that they desired the flight. 2. Vers, 17-21. The Flight.—The circumstance that Jacob, with his wives, was already at the station of his herds, while aban remained at his own sta- tion, three days’ journey distant, keeping the feast of sheep-shearing, favored the flight. Either Laban had not invited Jacob to this feast, which is scarce- ly probable, since he was usually at this station, or Jacob took the opportunity of leaving, in order to ‘visit his own flocks. As the sheep-shearing lasted several days (1 Sam. xxv.) the opportunity was a very favorable one—And Rachel had stolen.—This feature, however, as also the following, when she de- nied the theft to her father, reveals a cunning which is far more befitting the daughter of Laban, than the wife of the prudent Jacob.—The images.— Literally Teraphim (see Detirzscn, p. 410, Note 78), Penates, small figures, probably resembling the human form, which were honored as guardians of the household prosperity, and as oracles. But as we must distinguish the symbolic adoration of re- ligious images (statuettes) among ancients, from the true and proper mythological worship, so we must distinguish between a gentler and severe censure of the use of such images upon Shemitic ground. Doubtless the symbolic usage prevailed in the house of Laban and Nahor. It is hardly probable that Rachel intended, by a pious and fanatical theft, to free her father from idolatry (Greg. Nuz., Basil), for then she would have thrown the images away. She appears to have stolen them with the superstitious idea that she would prevent her father from consult- ing them as oracles, and under their guidance, as the pursuer of Jacob, from overtaking and destroying him, (Aben Ezra). The stpposition of a condition of war, with its necessity and strategy, enters here with apologetic force. This, however, does not ex- elude the idea, that she attributed to the images'a certain magical, though not religious, power (perhaps, as oracles, Chrysostom). The very lowest and most degrading supposition, is that she took the images, often overlaid with silver, or precious metals, from mercenary motives (Peirerius). Jacob himself had at first a lax rather than a strict conscience in regard GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. to these images (see ch, xxxv. 2), but the stricter view prevails since the time of Moses (Ex. xx.; Josh. xxiv. 2,14 f.) [The derivation of the Heb. word teraphim, always used in the plural, is doubtful. Some derive it from taraph, to rejoice—thus dispen- sers of good; others from a like root, to inquire— thus they are oracles; and others, as Kurtz and Hofmann, make it another form of Seraphim. They were regarded and used as oracles (Judg. xvii. 5-6; Ezek. xxi. 21; Zech. x. 2). They were not idols in the worst sense of the word; and were sometimes used by those who professed the worship of the true God (1 Sam. xix. 13). The tendency was always hurtful, and they were ultimately rooted out from Is- rael, Laban had lapsed into a more corrupt form of religion, and his daughters had not escaped the in- fection. We may modify our views of Rachel’s . sin, but it cannot be excused or justified (see Ken, “Arch.,” p. 90; WorpswortH, p. 132; HENGSTENBERG, “Christology ;” Havrricr’s “ Ezek.” xiii. 47). A.G.] —And Jacob stole away unawares to Laban.— The explanation xAémrety vdoy in the sense of ‘‘ to de- ceive” (Del., Keil), appears to us incorrect. The ex- pression indeed does not bear the sense which we moderns associate with the words “ steal the heart,” and ver. 26 seems to indicate that the heart of Laban is the love which this hard-hearted father bears towards his daughters. Rachel, however, seems to have been his favorite. -He regarded and treated her not only as » wise but cunning child, and, hence, while he searched carefully everything in all the tents, he did not venture to compel. her to arise. The last clause of ver. 20, further cannot possibly mean “ in that he told him not that he fled.” For who would betray his own flight? We interpret "art impersonally, it was not told him.—The Syrian.—“ Moses gives this title to Laban because the Syrians were more crafty than other nations.” Jacob, however, surpassed him (Cleric.). Over the river.—The Euphrates—-Toward the mount Gilead.—For the mountains of Gilead see Geogra- phies of Palestine, Bible Dictionaries, Books of Travels, ete. “Knobel understands 1953 "M to be the mountain range now known as Gebel Gilad, or Gebel es-Ssalt, and combines M2X'2 with the present Ssalt. But this assumption leads to the improbable results that Mahanaim, south of Jabbok and Succoth (prob- ably the one on the other side), lay north from Jab- bok, and thus Jacob’s line of march would be back- wards in uw north-westerly direction.” Dxxrrzsou. Delitzsch understands correctly, that it is the north- ern side of the mountains of Gilead, above the Jab- bok, which lay nearest to those coming from Meso- potamia, ; 3. Vers, 22-25. Laban’s pursuit.—On the third day.—This is partially? ecuiead by the long distance between the 'two stations,—His brethren with him.—Of the same tribe, kinsmen. —Seven days’ journey.—aAs Jacob,with his herds, moved slower than Laban, he lost his start of three days in the course of seven days.—And God came to Laban.—A proof that he had still some nobler traits of character—Hither good or bad.—The translation neither good nor bad is not fitting here. Literally from good to bad (Knobel). It presupposes that he was inclined to pass from a hasty greeting of his daughters and their children, to reproaches and invective.——Now Jacob had pitched his tent.—As soon as he reached the heights of the mountain range, the mount Gilead, he pitched his CHAP. XXXII, 4—XXXII. 2. tent, but here Laban with his retinue overtook him. and tented near by him. The text assumes: 1. That a certain mountain, north of Jabbok, gave its name to the whole range of mountains (just as Galilee, originally designating a small mountain re- gion, gradually extended its significance). 2. That thus we must distinguish between this first moun- tain in the range of Gilead, and the principal mountain mentioned later. 4, Vers. 26-30. The words of Laban are charac- teristic, passionate, idiomatic, exaggerated even to falsehood and hypocrisy, and still at the end there is a word which betrays the man—shows his hu- man nature and kindness. He calls his daughters his heart; their voluntary flight (although he had sold them) an abduction, as if they were captives. He asserts that he had not given any occasion to Jacob to flee, on the contrary, that he would have sent him away with music and mirth. He had not, however, even suffered him to take leave of his daughters and grandsons. These tender ut- terances are followed at once by haughty threats (ver. 29). From his own point of view it seems im- prudent to relate the night warning, but his pride and animosity lead him to do it. Jacob should not think that he willingly let him go unpunished, but “the God of your father,” he says, with a bitter heart, has forbidden me. He finally (ver. 80) ac- knowledges in a sarcastic way that Jacob might go, but only to crush him with the burden of his ac- cusation, in which, however, there was a two-fold exaggeration ; first, in calling the Jderaphim his gods, and then, second, in making Jacob the thief. The true sentiment for his children, the fear of God, and, finally, a real indignation at the secrecy of Jacob’s departure, form the core of the speech, which assumes at last the shape’ of a pointed accusation. There is no trace of self-knowledge or humility.— With mirth._(See 1 Sam. xviii. 6; 2 Sam. vi. 5.) The word mmm) is indeed a collective for all that follows, and Delitzsch thinks it probably means dance. —With tabret.—See Winer: “Musical Instru- ments.” [Also Kirro and Sarru.—A. G.].—Thou hast done foolishly.—Thou who art usually so pru- dent hast here acted foolishly. The reproach of folly carries with it that of immorality—It is in the power of my hand.—Knobel and Keil [and Jaco- bus.—A.G. ] translate “‘Thereis to God my hand,” with reference to Job, xii.6; Hab. i, 11. Others translate bx power (so Rosen., Gesen.), [Wordsworth, Bush, A. G.] and this seems here to be preferable, notwith- standing Knobel’s objection, since Laban immediately says it is Elohim who restrains his hand. b. Vers. 31-85. Laban’s search.—Laban’s rash accusation gives Jacob, who knew nothing of the theft of the teraphim, great boldness—Let him not live-—We must emphasize the finding, otherwise Jacob condemned Rachel to death. ‘(The cunning of Rachel was well planned, for even if Laban had not regarded it as impure and wrong to touch the seat of a woman in this state (see Lev. xv. 22), how could he have thought it possible that one in this state would sit upon his God.”—Dexirzscn. But Keil calls attention to the fact-that the view upon which the law (Lev. xv.) was based, is much older than that statute, and exists among other people. [Seealso Kurz: Gesch.,vol. i. p. 252; Baznr’s “Sym. of the Mosaic Cultus,” vol. ii. p. 466.—A.G.] For the camel’s furniture or saddle, see Knobel, p. 251. 6. Vers. 36-42. Jacob’s reproof. He connects 543 it with Laban’s furious pursuit and scarch. Then he reminds him generally of his harsh treatment, as opposed to Kis own faithful and self-sacrificing shep- herd service for more than twenty years. ‘‘The strong feeling and the lofty self-consciousness which utter themselves in his speech, impart to it a rhyth- mical movement and poetic forms ("778 ry to pursue ardently; elsewhere only 1 Sam. xvii. 53.”) Dexirzscr.—And the frost by night.—The cold ofthe nights corresponds with the heat of the day in the East (Jer. xxxvi. 80; Psalms, exxi. 6).—My sleep.—Which I needed and which belonged to me. He had faithfully guarded the flocks by night. Not- withstanding all this Laban had left him unrewarded, but the God of his fathers had been with him and secured his rights. Both the name of his God, and of his venerable father, must touch the conscience of | Laban.—The fear of Isaac.—[Heb: he whom Isaac feared.] The object of his religious fear, and veneration; of his religion, c¢Bas, o¢Bacua.—Re« buked thee yesternight.—This circumstance, which is only incidentally alluded to in the course of Laban’s speech, forms the emphatic close to that of Jacob. Jacob understands the dream-revelation of Laban better than Laban himself. 4. The covenant of peace between the two. Laban is overcome. He alludes boastfully indeed once more to his superior power, but acknowledges that any injury inflicted upon Jacob, the husband and father, would be visited upon his own daughters and their children — What can I do unto thee.—i.e., ina bad sense. The fact that his daughters and eens were henceforth dependent upon Jacob, lls his selfish and ignoble mind with care and solici- tude about them ; indeed, reminded of the promises to Abraham and Isaac, he is apprehensive that Jacob might some time return from Canaan to Haran as mighty prince and avenge his wrong. In this view, anticipating some such event, he proposes a covenant of peace, which would have required merely a feast of reconciliation. But the covenant of peace involved not only a well-cemented peace, but a theocratic sepa- ration.—Let us make a covenant.—Laban makes the proposal, Jacob assents by entering at once upon its execution. The pillar which Jacob erected, marks the settlement, the peaceful separation; the stones heaped together by his brethren (Laban and his reti- nue, his kindred) designate the friendly communion, the covenant table. . The preliminary eating (ver. 46) appears to be distinct from the covenant meal (ver. 54), for this common meal continued throughout the day. The Aramaic designation of the stone heap used by Laban, and the Hebraic by Jacob, are ex- plainable on the supposition “that in the fatherland of the patriarchs, Mesopotamia, the Aramaic or Chal- dee was used, but in the fatherland of Jacob, Canaan, the Hebrew was spoken, whence it may be inferred | that the family of Abraham had acquired the Hebrew !tongue from the Canaanites (Phcenicians).”—Kem, [But this is a slender foundation upon which to base such a theory. The whole history implies that the two families of Abraham and Nahor down to this time and even later found no difficulty in holding inter- course. They both used the same language, though with some growing dialectic differences. It is just as easy to prove that Laban deviated from the mother tongue as that Jacob did—A. G.] Knobel regards it an error to derive the name Gilead, which means hard, firm, stony, from the Gal-Ed here used. But proper names are constantly modified as to their significance in popular use, from the original or more 544 remote, to that which is proximate—And Mizpah, for he said.—Keil concedes that vers. 49 and 50 have the appearance of an interpolation, but not such as to justify any resort to the theory of combina- tion from different sources. But since Laban’s prin- cipal concern was for the future of his daughters, we might at least regard the words, And Mizpah, for he said, as a later explanatory interpolation. But there is not sufficient ground even for this, since Galeed and Mizpah are here identical in fact, both referring to the stone heap as well as to the pillar. Laban prays specifically to Jehovah, to watch that Jacob should not afflict his daughters ; especially that he should not deprive them of their acquired rights, of being the an- cestress of Jehovah’s covenant people. From this hour Jehovah, according to his prayer, looks down from the heights of Gilead, as the representative of his rights, and watches that Jacob should keep his word to bis daughters, even when across the Jordan. But now, as the name Gilead has its origin in some old sacred tradition, so has the name Mizpah, also. It is not to be identified with the later cities bearing that name, with the Mizpah of Jephthah (Judg. x1. 11, 84), or the Mizpah of Gilead (Judg. xi. 29), or Ramoth-Mizpah (Josh. xiii. 26), but must be viewed as the family name which has spread itself through many daughters all over Canaan (Kxrt, 216).—No man is with us.—i. e., no one but God only can be judge and witness between us, since we are to be so widely separated—Which I have cast.—He views himself as the originator, and of the highest authority in this covenant.—That I will not pass over.—Here this covenant thought is purely nega- tive, growing out of a suspicious nature, and securing a safeguard against mutual injuries; properly a theocratic separation.—The God of Abraham and the God of Nahor.—The monotheism of Laban seems gliding into dualism; they may judge, or “judge.” He corrects himself by adding the name of the God of their common father, i. e., Terah. From his alien and wavering point of view he seeks for sacredness in the abundance of words. But Jacob swears simply and distinctly by the God whom Isaac feared, and whom even his father-in-law, Laban, should reverence and fear. Laban, indeed, also ad- heres to the communion with Jacob in his monothe- ism, and intimates that the God of Abraham and the God of Nahor designate two different religious direc- tions from a common source or ground. : 8. Ver. 54-ch. xxxii.2. Zhe covenant meal, and the departure.—Then Jacob offered sacrifice.— As Isaac prepared a meal for the envious and ill- disposed Abimelech, so Jacob for Laban, whom even this generosity should now have led to shame and re- pentance. The following morning they separate from each other. The genial blood-tenderness of Laban, which leads him to kiss both at meeting and parting should not pass unnoticed (see ver. 28; ch. xxix, 13, and the Piel forms). It is a pleasant thing that asa grandfather he first kissed his grandsons. Blessing, he takes his departure.—Met him.—Lit., came; drew near to him, not precisely that they came from an op- posite direction. This vision does not relate primarily to the approaching meeting with Esau (Peniel relates to this), but to the dangerous meeting with Laban. ‘As the Angel of God had disclosed to. him in vision the divine assistance against his unjust sufferings in Mesopotamia, so now he enjoys a revelation of the protection which God .had prepared for him upon Mount Gilead, through his angels (comp. 2. Kings vi. 17). In this sense he well calls the angels, ‘‘ God’s GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. host,” and the place in which they met him, double camp. By the side of the visible camp, which he, with Laban and his retainers, had made, God had prepared another, invisible camp, for his protection. Tt served also to encourage him, in a general way, for the approaching meeting with Esau.—Maha- naim.—Later a city on the north of Jabbok (see V. Ravmer’s ‘ Palestine,” p. 258; Ropixson: “ Re- searches,” vol. iii. 2 app. 166), probably the one now called Mabneh. [For the more distinct reference of this vision to the meeting with Esau, see Kurtz: Geschichte, p. 264, who draws an instructive and beautiful parallel between this vision and that at Bethel.— A. GJ DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL. 1. Jacob a fugitive even in his journey home. But the God of Bethel protects him now as the God of Mahanaim; and the angels who, as heavenly mes- sengers, moved up and down the ladder at Bethel, now appear, as became the situation, a warlike host, or the army of God. Keil holds that he saw the angels in a waking state, “not inwardly, but with- out and above himself; but whether with the eye of the body or of the spirit (2 Kings vi. 17) cannot be decided.” At all events, in the first place he saw an objective revelation of God, with which was con- nected, in the second place, the vision-power [i. e., eine visiondre stimnung, a power or disposition cor- eee to the vision and enabling him to perceive it—A. G.]. 2. The want of candor between Laban and Ja- cob at Haran leads finally to the violent and passior- ate outbreak on Mount Gilead. But such outbreaks have ever been the punishment for the want of frankness and candor. The fearful public: terrors of war, correspond to the secrecies and blandish- ments of diplomacy.—The blessing of a genuine and thorough frankness. Moral storms, their dan- ger, and their salutary results. 8. The visions in which Jacob saw how God se- cured his rights against Laban’s injustice, prove that from his own point of view he saw nothing wrong in the transaction with the parti-colored rods. But those rods are thus seen to be merely a subordinate means. There is no sufficient ground for the conjec- ture of Keil, that it may be suspected that the dream-vision of Jacob (of the spotted rams) was a mere natural dream (see p. 212). It is evident that the vision-disposition pervades the night-life of Ja- cob, growing out of his oppressed condition and his unjust sufferings,—Scnrépsr: “But Jacob’s crafty course (ch. xxx. 37) is not therefore commended by God, as Luther and Calvin have taught. Jacob was still striving to bring about the fulfilment of the di- vine promise by his own efforts.” i 4. The alienation of the daughters of Laban from their father is not commendable, but is explained by his severity. On the other hand, they are bound’ to their husband in a close and lovely union. For the theft of the teraphim, see the Exegetical notes. 5. It is not a chance that we meet here in the idols of Laban the earliest traces of idolatry in the Old World, although they had doubtless existed else- where much earlier and in x grosser form. We can thus see how Polytheism gradually developed itself out of the symbolic image-worship of Monotheisin (Rom. i, 23), Moreover, the teraphim are estimated entirely from a theocratie point of view. They CHAP. XXXI. could be stolen as other household furniture (have eyes but see not). They could be hidden under a camel’s saddle. They are a contemptible nonentity, which can render no assistance.—Ver, 23. The zeal for gods and idols is always fanatical. 6. The speech of Laban, and Jacob’s answer, give us a representation of the original art of speaking among men, just as the speech 7 form at the same time an antithesis between a pas- sionate and exaggerated rhetoric and phraseology on the one hand, and an earnest, grave, religious, and moral oratory on the other hand, exemplified in his- tory in the antithesis of the heathen (not strictly classic) to the theocratic and religious oratory. The contrast between the speeches of Tertullus and Paul Acts xxiv. 2) is noticeable here. Laban’s eloquence agrees with his sanguine temperament. It is pas- sionate, exaggerated in its terms, untrue in its exag- geration, and yet not without a germ of true and affectionate sentiment. Analysis of diffuse and wordy speeches a difficult but necessary task of the Christian spirit. 7. Prov. xx. 22, Rom. xii. 17, come to us in the place of the example of Jacob; still we are not jus- tified in judging the conduct of Jacob by those ut- terances of a more developed economy (as Keil does). [This is true in a qualified sense only. The light which men have is of course an important element in our judgment of the character of their acts. But Jacob had, or might have had, light sufficient to know that his conduct was wrong. He might have known certainly that it was his duty, as the heir of faith, to commit his cause unto the Lord.—A. G.] 8. The establishment of peace between Laban and Jacob has evidently, on the part of Laban, the significance and force, that he breaks off the theo- cratic communion between the descendants of Nahor and Abraham, just as the line of Haran, earlier, was separated in Lot. 9. At all events, the covenant-meal forms a thor- ough and final conciliation. Laban’s reverence for the God of his fathers, and his love for his daughters and grandsons, present him once more in the most favorable aspect of his character, and thus we take our leave of him, We must notice, however, that before the entrance of Jacob he had made little progress in his business. Close, narrow-hearted views, are as really the cause of the curse, as its fruits. / 10. The elevated state and feeling of Jacob, after this departure of Laban, reveals itself in the vision of the hosts of God. Heaven is not merely con- nected with the saint on the earth (through the lad- der); its hosts are warlike hosts, who invisibly guard the saints and defend them, even while upon the earth. Here is the very germ and source of the designation of God as the God of hosts (Zebaoth). 11. There are still, as it appears to us, two strik- ing relations between this narrative and that which follows. Jacob here (ver. 82) pronounces judgment of death upon any one of his family who had stolen the images. But now his own Rachel, over whom he had unconsciously pronounced this sentence, dies soon after the images were buried in the earth (see xxxv, 4, 18). But when we read afterwards, that Joseph, the wise son of the wise Rachel, describes his cup as his oracle (although only as a pretext), the conjecture is easy, that the mother also valued the images as @ means of securing her desires and long- ings. She even ascribes marvellous results to the mandrakes. 35 of Eliezer did. They | - 4—XXXIL 2, 545 12. The Mount of Gilead a monument and wit- ness of the former connection between Mesopotamia and Canaan. HOMILETIOAL AND PRACTICAL. Contrasts: Jacob’s emigration and return, or the two-fold flight, under the protection of the God of Bethel, and of Mahanaim.—Laban the persecutor : a. of his own; b. of the heir of the promise.—The persecutor: 1. His malicious companions; 2, those who flee from him; 3. his motives—The word of God to Laban: “ Take heed,” etc., in its typical and lasting significance —The punishments of the want of candor: strife and war.—The two speeches and, speakers.—The peaceful departure: 1. Ita light side, reconciliation; 2. its dark aspect, separation. First Section, vers, 4-16. Stange: Cramer: The husband should not always take his own way, but sometimes consult with his wife (Sir. iv. 35).—It is a grievous thing when children complain before God of the injustice of their parents.—Ohildren should conceal, as far as possible, the faults of their parents, ——Lisco: The human means which he used are not commanded by God, but are his own.—GErLacu: Jacob’s conduct, the impatient weakness of faith ; still a case of self-defence, not of injustice.—Scuri- DER: A contrast: the face of your father, the God of my father. Second Section, vers. 17-21. SrarKe: Although Jacob actually begins his journey to the land of Oa- naan, some suppose that ten years elapse before he comes to Isaac, since he remained some time at Succoth, Sichem, and Bethel (comp, ch. xxxiii, 17; xxx. 6).—The shearing of the sheep was in the East a true feast for the shepherds—an occasion of great Joy (see ch. xxxviii. 12; 1 Sam. xxv. 2, 8, 36). Section Third, vers. 22-25, SrarKe: Josephus. The intervention of the night, and the warning by God in his sleep, kept him from injuring Jacob.— Bibl. Tub. : God sometimes so influences and directs the hearts of enemies that they shall be favorably inclined towards the saints, although they are really embittered against them.—Haut: God makes fool- ish the enemies of his church, ete.— Whoever is in covenant with God need have no fear of men.— ‘Sonréver: Jacob moves under the instant and pressing danger of being plundered, or slain, or of being made a slave with his family and taken to Meso- potamia. Still the promiser (ch. xxviii. 15) fulfils the promise to him. Thus, whatever may oppress us for a time, must at last turn to our salvation (Calvin). Section Fourth, vers. 26-30. Srarke: (It is the way of hypocrites when their acts do not prosper, to speak in other tones.)—Vers, 29. He does not say that he has the right and authority, but that he has the power (comp. John xix.10). In this, however, he refutes himself. For if he possessed the power, why does he suffer himself to be terrified and de- terred by the warning of God in the dream ?—Cat- wer Handbuch: He cannot cease to threaten.—He would have injured him but dared not.—Scuréper : The images are his highest happiness, since to him the presence of the Deity is bound and confined to its symbol. Section Fifth, vers, 31-35. STaRKE: CRAMER: Ver. 32. A Christian should not be rash and pas- sionate in his answer. Ver. 35. The woman’s cun- ning is preéminent (Sir. xxv. 17; Judg. xiv. 16).— Catwer Handbuch: Ver. 38. The ewes and the 546 goats in their state were the objects of his special care.—Falsehood follows theft.—Man’s cunning is ready; woman’s inexhaustible and endless (Val. Herberger). 3s Section Sixth, vers. 86-42. Srarke: What is in- cluded in a shepherd’s faithfulness (ver. 38).—Bidi. Wirt.: When one can show that he has been faith- ful, upright, and diligent, in his office, he can stand up with a clear conscience, and assert his innocence. Cramer: A good conscience and a gracious God give one boldness and consolation.—Scuréper: The per- secution of Jacob by Laban ends at last in peace, love and blessing.—Thus the brother line in Meso- potamia is excluded after it has reached its destina- tion, Section Seventh, vers. 48-58. Srarxe: (Differ- ent conjectures as to what Laban understood by the God of Nahor, whether the true God or idols),— Cramer: When a man’s ways please the Lord, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him (Prov. xvi. 7).—Catwrr Handbuch: Laban now turns again and gives way to the natural affections of a father, The circumstances which tended to calm his mind: 1, The seven days’ journey; 2. the divine warning; 8. the mortification resulting from his fruitless search; 4. Jacob’s self-defence and the truth of his reproaches.—His courage and anger ‘gradually give way to fear and anxiety.—ScurupEr : dn the Hebrew, the word “ if” occurs twice, pointing, GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. as we may suppose, to the idea, may God so punish thee.—(Lurszr: How can this fellow (Laban) so name the thing ?) Eighth Section, ver. 65-ch, xxxii. 2. SrarKe: Jacob has just escaped the persecutions of his unjust father-in-law, when he began to fear that he should meet a fiercer enemy in his brother Esau. Hence God confirms him in his faith, opens his eyes, etc.—It is the office of the angels to guard the saints, (Two conjectures as to the double camp: one that some of the angels went before Jacob, others fol- lowed him ; the other that it isthe angel camp and the encampment of Jacob.)—(Why the angels are called hosts: 1. From their multitude; 2. their or- der; 8, their power for the protection of the saints, and the resistance and punishment of the wicked; 4, from their rendering a cheerful obedience as be- came a warlike host—Cautwer Handbuch: The same as ch. xxviii. Probably here as there an inward vision (Ps, xxxiv. 7).—Scurépir: Jacob’s hard service, his departure with wealth, and the per- secution of Laban, prefigure the future of Israel in Egypt.—(Val. Herberger.) Whosoever walks in his way, diligent in his pursuits, may at all times say with St. Paul: ‘ He shall never be forsaken.” —The invisible world was disclosed to him, because anxiety and fear fill the visible world—Luruer: The angels, In heaven their office is to sing Glory to God in the Highest ; on the earth, to watch, to guide, to war. FIFTH SECTION. Tacob’s return, His fear of Esau. His night wrestlings with God, Peniel. The name Israel. Meeting and reconciliation with Esau. CuapreR XXXII. 83—XXXIII. 1-16. cd And Jacob sent messengers before him to Esau his brother, ‘unto the land of Seir, the country of Edom. And he commanded them, saying, Thus shall ye speak unto my lord Esau; Thy servant Jacob saith thus, I have sojourned [have been a stranger] with 5 Laban, and stayed there until now: servants, and women-servants : And I have oxen, and asses, flocks, and men- and I have sent [ana now I must send, the M paragogic| to tell my lord, that I may find grace in thy sight. “IO And 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: and he divided the people that was with him, and the flocks, and 8 herds, and the camels into two bands: And said [thought], If Esau come to the one company, and smite it, then the other company which is left shall escape. 9 And Jacob said, O God of my fath Lord which saidst [art saying] unto me, Ret 10 place], and I will deal well with thee: Ia mercies, and of all the truth, which thou h ll 12 er Abraham, and God of my father Isaac, the urn unto thy country, and to thy kindred m not worthy [too little for] of the least of all the t ast shewed unto thy servant: for with’ my staff [alone] I passed over this Jordan, and now I am become two bands [camps]. Deliver me, I pray thee, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau: 1 will come and smite me, and the mother with [apon, over] the children, re for I fear him, Jest he And thou CHAP, XXXII. 8—XXXIII. 1-16. 547 saidst, I will surely do thee good, and make [establish] thy seed as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude. And he lodged there that same night,’ and took of that which came to his hand a present for Esau his brother; Two hundred she-goats and twenty he-goats, two hundred ewes and twenty rams, Thirty milch camels with their colts, forty kine and ten bulls, twenty she-asses and ten foals. And he delivered them into the hand of his servants, every drove by themselves; and said unto his servants, Pass over before me, and put a space betwixt drove and drove. And he commanded the foremost, saying, When Esau my brother meeteth thee, and asketh thee, saying, Whose art thou? and whither goest thou? and whose are these before thee [what he drives before him]. Then thou shalt say, They be thy servant Jacob’s: it 7s a present sent unto my lord Esau: and behold, also, he ¢s behind us. And so commanded he the second, and the third, and all that followed the droves, saying, On this manner shall ye speak unto Esau, when ye find him. And say ye moreover, Behold, thy servant Jacob 7s behind us. For he said [thought], I will appease? him with the present that goeth before me, and afterward I will see his facé; peradventure he will accept [make cheerful my face] of me. So went the present over before him; and himself lodged that night in the company. And he rose up that night, and touk his two wives, and his two women-servants, and his eleven sons, and passed over the ford Jabbok. And he took them, and sent them over the brook, and [then] sent over that he had [his herds]. And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled * a man with him, until the breaking of the day. And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh [hip-joint or socket]: and the hollow of Jacob’s thigh was out of joint, as he wrestled with him. And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh: and he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me. And he said unto him, What ds thy name? And he said, Jacob. And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel [Yisrael]: for as a prince hast thou power [thou hast contested] with God, and with men, and hast prevailed. And Jacob asked Aim, and said, Tell me, I pray thee, thy name: and he said, Wherefore zs it that thou dost ask after my name? And he blessed him there. And Jacob called the nathe of the place Peniel [face of Goa]: for I have seen God face to face, and my life [soul] is preserved. And as he passed over Penuel:[Peniel], the sun rose upon him, and he halted [was lame] upon his thigh. There- fore the children of Israel eat not of the sinew [sciatienerve], which shrank, which is upon the hollow of the thigh, unto this day; because he touched the hollow of Jacob’s thigh in the sinew that shrank. Ca. XXXIII. 1. And Jacob lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold, Hsau came, 2 12 13 14 and with him four hundred men. And he divided the children unto Leah, and unto Rachel, and unto the two handmaids. And he put the handmaids and their children foremost, and Leah and her childfen after, and Rachel and Joseph hindermost [at the last]. And he passed over before them, and bowed himself to the ground seven times, until he came near to his brother. And Hsau ran to meet him, and embraced him, and fell on his neck, and kissed him: and they wept. And he lifted up his eyes, and saw [now] the women and the children, and said, Who are those with thee* [whom hast thou there] ? And he said; The children which God hath graciously given thy servant. Then the handmaidens came near, they and their children, and they bowed themselves. And Leah also with her children came near, and bowed themselves; and after came Joseph near and Rachel, and they bowed themselves. And he said, What meanest thou by all this drove [camp ] which I met?® And he said, These are to find grace in the sight of my lord. And Hsau said, I have enough, my brother; keep that thou hast unto thyself, And Jacob said, Nay, I pray thee, if now I have found grace in thy sight, then receive my present at my hand: for therefore [now] I have seen thy face, as _ though I had seen the face of God, and thou wast pleased with me. Take, I pray lessine that is brought to thee; because God hath dealt graciously with me, eee I Eee enough : ead he urged him, and he took 7. And he said, Let us take our journey, and-let us go, and I will go before thee. And [But] he said unto him, My lord knoweth that the children are tender, and the flocks and herds with young ° are with me, and if men should over-drive them one day, all the flock will die. Let my lord, I pray thee, pass over before his servant : and I will lead on softly, according” as 548 GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. the cattle that goeth before me and the children be able to endure; until I come unto 15 my lord unto Seir. And Esau said, Let me now leave with thee some of the folk that are with me: And he said, What needeth it? Let me find grace in the sight of my lord. 16 So Esau returned that day on his way unto Seir. 1 Ch. xxxii. . 13.—The night after the return of the messengers, and his arrangement of his company.—A, G.] (? Ver 90.—Heb., cover his ace 3 and so, in the last clause: he will litt up my face.—A. G.] [? Ver. 24.—PAN7, an antique form, only used here and v. 25, 26, from PIN, to struggle with, or the kindred root Pah, to limit, enclose, as one member the other. Kx, p. 219.—A. G.] [4 Ch. xxxiii. ver. 5.—Lit., Who these to thee.—A. G.] [5 Ver. 8.—What to thee all this train.—A. G.] [6 Ver. 13.—Heb., which are milking.—A. G.] {’ Ver. 14.—According to the foot, or pace.—A. G.] PRELIMINARY REMARKS. Knobel supposes here an artificial mingling of heterogeneous and even contradictory parts, taken from different sources, a supposition resting, as is often the case, upon a want of insight as to the con- nection, which is the great law in that kind of crit- icism, Thesending of messengers by Jacob to Esau, is regarded as a proof that he was not afraid of his brother, while the Jehovist represents him as being in terror of him, ete. (p. 256), All parts of this section turn upon Jacob’s relation to Esau: 1. The sending of messengers (vers. 3-6); 2. the fear of Jacob, and his preliminary division of the train into two bands (vers. 7, 8); 8. Jacob’s prayer (vers. 9-12); 4. the delegation of new messengers with his presents (vers. 13-21); 5. the night passage of the train over Jabbok, and Jacob’s wrestling ; Peniel (vers, 21-32); 6. Esau’s approach, the new arrayge- ments of the train, and the greetings (ch. xxxiii. 1-11); 7. Esau’s offer and return (vers, 12-16). EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL, 1. The sending of the messengers (vers, 3~6).— Sent messengers before him.—The measure was precautionary, to inspect what-the danger was, and to conciliate his brother.—Unto the land of Seir. —The natural taste for hunting and the thirst for power, must have led Esau, even during the lifetime of Isaac, to think of a location more suitable to him, since the thickly settled region of Hebron was not favorable either for hunting or for the establishment of a strong power, The region of Seir, or the moun- tians of Edom (see Bible Dictionaries and geogra- phies, and books of travels) seemed more favorable in both respects, We thussee that Esau had already made a decided progress in his occupation of the new land, without having completely transferred his residence from Hebron to Seir, which followed after- wards (see ch. xxxvi, 6). The same distinction be- tween the chief residence, “and an out-station or colony, meets us in the life of Isaac. Keil says he severed the relations which bound him to his father’s house and possessions, “ because he was more and more thoroughly convinced that the blessing pro- nounced by his father upon Jacob, and which ex- cluded him from the inheritance of the promise, the future possession of Canaan, could not be changed.” But this would ascribe too much to Jacob’s obedience of faith to Esau, The fact takes place, doubtless, upon natural grounds, Esau’s power did not lie in his faith, but in his strong hand. This man of might had gathered his sons, servants, and confederates, and already partially completed the conquest of the Horites. He deems the momentary possession of power of greater value than the promise of a relig- ious dominion, the actual possession of which lay in the dim future. He entertains, no doubt, therefore, that he has already surpassed his brother, and this may, first of all, have predisposed him to peaceful thoughts towards him, especially after Jacob’s .hum- ble message, whose prominent thought was that he now cheerfully conceded to him the external honors of the first-born. In his present state of mind Esau is satisfied to leave his brother to struggle a little longer with his fear, and to harass and distress him with a pompous show of his forces. The messen- gers return without bringing back any friendly counter-greeting. He comes as a princely sheik of : the desert, with his retainers. This is the prelim- inary answer. The text here presupposes that Jacob had received some notice of Esau’s operations at Seir. [There is no contradiction between this text and ch. xxxvi. 6. It is not said here that Esau had any fixed abode or dwelling in Seir. The fact that be appears with his armed band shows that he was out upon a warlike expedition, and probably with the design of driving the Horites from Seir. It was not his home. His family and possessions were still in Canaan, and were first removed to Seir (ch. xxxvi. 6) when it had been freed from his enemies, and thus Le a-safe abode for his wives and children.— A 2. The fear of Jacob, and his preliminary di- vision of the train into two bands (vers. 7, 8).— Was greatly afraid.—Jacob’s fear was not ground- less. Rebekah had not called him back. Esau has not intimated that he was reconciled or would be easily appeased. The messengers had not brought back any counter-greeting.. Esau was coming with his four hundred men. The promise at Bethel, too, re- lates definitely only to the journey and the return, and the vision at Mahanaim was a disclosure as to his de- liverance from the hand of Laban, but not accompa- nied with new promises. The main thing, however, was this, heis ill at ease in his conscience, with regard to his offence against Esau. His fear, therefore, as well as his prudence, appears in the division of bis train into two bands. ‘This measure precedes his prayer, as the last act of his overhasty and impatient cunning, which does not appear to have been exer- cised after his prayer and struggle. The measure itself has little to do with the name Mahanaim, to which Knobel refers it. It may serve to explain the fact that the Bedouins usually march in divisions. 3. The prayer of Jacob (vers. 9-12). Jacob is CHAP. XXXII. 8—XXXIII. 1-16. conscious now that all his cunning cannot give hi heart rest.— Which saidst unto fee emis the third link in the chain; God of Abraham and God of Isaac. He appeals to the repeated promise of the covenant God of his fathers, given to him in the di- vine intimation and warning to return.—I will deal well with thee.—He strives to draw from this Yague expression a promise of protection against Esau. On the other hand, he cannot appeal with any confidence to the blessing of his father Isaac which he had stolen—I am not worthy of the least.—Literally, am less than. Humiliation and gratitude underlie the joyful confidence in asking for deliverance.—This Jordan.—We must conceive of the ford of Jabbok, as lying in the neighborhood of the Jordan.—The mother with the children. —Literally, upon the children, since she protects the children against the-raging foe. Used proverbially (see Deut. xxii. 6; Hosea x. 14). Knobel, Keil, Delitzsch, reject the rendering, upon the children.— As the sand of the Sea.—This is the import of the promise ch. xxviii. 14, as the dust of the earth ; and thus he increases the imagery of the Abrahamic promise, ch. xxii. 17. Such a destructive attack as now threatens him, would oppose and defeat the di- vine promise. Faith clings to the promise, and is thus developed. [The objection that it is unbecom- ing in Jacob to remind God of his promise, shows an utter misconception of true prayer, which pre- supposes the promise of God just as truly as it im- plies the consciousness of wants. Faith, which is the life of prayer, clings to the divine promises, and pleads them.—A. G.] 4. The delegation of new messengers with his presents (vers. 13-21)—And took of that, etc.— His prayer led him to better means of help than the division of his train in fear, and for a flight. near at hand. He passes from the defensive to the offensive. He will not flee from Esau, but go to meet him, and overcome him with deeds of love. Delitzsch thinks he did not select the present until the next morning. Keil, however, says, correctly, that the prayer, the delegation with the present, the transfer across the Jabbok, and Jacob’s struggle, all took place on the same night (ver. 14). Delitzsch, indeed, admits that the crossing of the Jabbok, and Jacob’s struggle, occur in the same night. The present which Jacob chose for an immediate departure during the night, was a great propitiatory sacrifice to the injured brother, and an humble homage to the mighty prince of the desert, consisting of five hundred and fifty head of cattle. And thus, while making an atone- ment to Esau, he actually atones also for his cunning course towards Laban. The.selections corresponded with the possession of the Nomadic chiefs, as to the kinds of animals (comp. Job i. 3; xiii. 12), and as to the proportion between the males and females to the rule of Varro, De re rustica, Keil. The present is broken up into divisions with intervening spaces [lit., breathing places.—A. G.], and thus approaches Esau, that by the regular appearance of these differ- cnt droves, he might, by one degree after another, soften the fierce disposition of his brother. Observe: 1. The climax; goats, sheep, camels, cattle, asses. 2. The spaces between the droves. Each impression must be made, and its force felt by Esau, before the next comes on. 3. The ever repeated form of hom- age: Thy servant, Jacob. A present. My lord Esau. 4. The final aim: friendly treatment: Thy servant, Jacob himself, is behind us. Knobel sup- poses that he finds here even, a difference between 549 the interpretation of the Jehovist, and the design of ° his predecessor to describe the procession according to oriental custom (p. 230)—For he said.—We meet here, for the first time, the later important “B= (comp. xx. 16). Esau’s face is to be covered by atoning presents, so that he should not see, any more, the offence which Jacob had committed against him. Jacob had, in an ideal sense, deprived him of prince- ly honor; he now recognizes, in a true and real sense (and one entirely suited to Esau’s thought and disposition), his princely honor, and thus atones, in fact, for his fault, since Esau cared nothing for the ideal element in and by itself. “2D here, at its first occurrence, refers to the reconciling of one who is angry, and to the atonement for guilt. Since the of- fence is covered for Esau’s face, so even Esau’s face is covered as to the offence. It is very remarkable, moreover, that the word “face” here occurs three times. Esau’s face is covered towards Jacob’s obliga- tion and guilt. Then Jacob beholds the face of Esau, and is comforted, and Esau lifts up Jacob’s face, i. e., cheers, enlightens it, since he receives him kindly. 5. The night-crossing of the train over Jabbok, and Jacol’s wrestling (vers, 21-32)—And he rose up that night.—The confidence of Jacob, rising out of his prayer and the sending of his present, is so strong that he does not defer the crossing of his train over the ford of Jabbok until the morning. Jabbok is now called the Zerka, i. e., the blue, from its deep-blue mountain water. “It rises near the car- avan route at Castell Zerka ; its deep mountain valley then forms the boundary between Moered on the north and Belka on the south. It empties into the Jordan about midway between the Sea of Tiberias and the Dead Sea, and about an hour and a half from the point at which it breaks through the moun- tain.” Von Raumer: “ Palestine,” p. 74. The Jabbok comes from the east nearly opposite to Si- chem. It was at one time the boundary between the tribes of Gad and Manasseh. For further details, see the Bible Dictionaries.— Although it is quite cus- tomary in the East to travel during the night (see Kwoset, p. 258), yet still the crossing of his train over a rapid mountain stream would be difficult. The ford which Jacob used was not that upon its upper course, near the route of the Syrian caravans, at Kiila’t Zerka, “but the one farther to the west, through which Buckingham, Burkhardt (‘ Syria,’ p. 597), and Seetzen (‘ Travels,’ i. p. 392) passed, be- tween Jebel Adschlun and Jebel Jelaad, and at which are still to be seen traces of walls, buildings, and the signs of an older civilization (Rirrer, ed. xv. p. 1040).” Keil. And he was left alone.—lIt is generally supposed that Jacob remained on the north side of the Jabbok. Kriz, p. 218; Dexirzscu, p. $34. [Jacosus; Worpswortu, p. 136.—A.G.] Ro- senmiiller and Knobel reject the idea that Jacob re-. crossed the stream, although nothing there claimed his attention, the latter indeed, on the incorrect as- sumption that Jacob crossed the Jabbok going from the south, northwards. In ver. 23 it is, he passed over, i.e, he himself, without mentioning that he took his family, which is specially related elsewhere. [It seems probable that he first went over himself, and then, finding the crossing safe, he returned and sent over his herds and his family.—A.G.] Then, too, it is not necessary that "m3" should be under- stood in a local sense (see Ges. under 2M"). More- over, we find him (ver. 32), when leaving the place of his wrestling, Peniel, ready to proceed on his 550 Journey. Lastly, it would seem an act of cowardice if Jacob had sent his wives and children across the brook, which was a protection against the danger, while he himself remained behind. [Still, the narra- tive plainly implies that Jacob remained on the north of the Jabbok. And whatever courage may have prompted to do, as to protect his own with his life, Jacob was dimly conscious that the crisis of his life Was now upon him, and that he must be alone with God. It was not the want of courage, but the sense that help must come from God, and the working of : his faith which led him to cling to the arm of God, which kept him here for the prayer and struggle and victory.—A. G.]— And there wrestled a man ‘with him.—Now, when he supposed everything ar- ranged, the greatest difficulty meets him. The un- measured homage, with which he thought to recon- cile Esau, touches the violation or at least puts in peril the promise which was given to him. More- over, he has not only injured Esau, but offended God (Elohim), who is the God of Esau, and will not suffer him to be injured with impunity.—There wrestled a man,—This archaic form occurs only here and in vers. 25 and 26. Dietrich traces it to the idea of “struggling or freeing oneself from; ” Delitzsch to P=N, to limit, to touch each other closely, member to member. We prefer the reference to the kindred form, PDN, to hold fast, to adhere firmly, etc. Hithpael, to hold to oneself. There seems to be an allusion in the word to the name Jabbok (Knobel), or rather, the brook derives its name from this struggle, ps5 instead of P'S" (Keil). An older derivation traces the word, “to dust,” to raise dust in the struggle. The question arises whether the sense of the word here is, that the nameless man came upon Jacob, as if he had been his enemy, or that Jacob seized the man, as he appeared to him, and held him fast, while he strives to free himself from the grasp. Ac- cording to ver. 27, the last sense is the true one. If we take the other supposition, we must conceive that Jacob, during the night-wrestling, recognized as a friend the man who came upon him as an enemy. Still there is no intimation of a hostile attack. The passage in Hosea xii. 4, also supports the idea that Jacob held fast the mysterious man, and not vice versd. ‘He took his brother by the heel in the womb—and by his strength he had power with God —he had power over the angel and prevailed—be wept and made supplication unto him—he found him in Bethel.”—And when he saw that he pre- vailed not against him.—That is, ver. 27, he could not compel him to let him go.—F'or the day breaketh.—In regard to this, and to the circum- stance that Jacob remained alone, Knobel remarks, “that the acts of God are not spectacles for the eyes of impious mortals (see ch, xix. 173 xxii. 13 3 Exod. xii, 29).” There is, however, a broad distinction between the heathen and theocratic interpretation of this event, There is no teference here to any fear or dread of the day-light on the part of spirits. — The hollow of his thigh.—Lit., the socket of the hip, It is not said that he struck it a blow (Knobel); the finger of God (for it is God who is spoken of )needs but to touch its object, and the full coal is secured And the hollow of Jacob’s i ‘oint.—This is explained more thigh was oot ur The sinews of his in the thirty-fourth verse. fick (nervus ischiadicus) were paralyzed through the extreme tension and distortion. But: this bodily paralysis does not paralyze the persevering Jacob.— GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. I will not lect thee go.—Now the blessing which he obtained from his father by cunning and deceit, must be sought with tears from this mysterious di- vine man. And then he blesses him when he gives him the name Israel, i. e., the God-wrestler or fight-. er (from maw and 5x), [The captain and prince of God, from sarah, to marshal in battle, to lead, to command, to fight, and hast prevailed, mw, as a prince. Worpsworrs, p. 138.—A. G.] Instead of a supplanter, he has now become the holy wrestler with God, hence his name is no longer Jacob, but Israel. There is no trace in his after-history of the application of his wisdom to mere selfish and cun- ning purposes. But the new name confirms to him in a word the theocratic promise, as the name Abra- ham confirmed it to Abram. For the connection of this passage with ch. xxxviii. 10, see the Exegetical note upon that passage—And hast prevailed.— Has he overcome in his wrestling with God, he need have no further fears as to his meeting with Esau.— Wherefore is it, that thou dost ask after my name ?—The asking after his name in this particu- lar way, not the general inquiry, is the point which occasions this answer. The believer is not to learn all the names of the Lord in this theoretic manuer, but through the experience of faith; thus even the name Immanuel. Indeed, he had already learned his name substantially. — Thou hast wrestled with God and men.—lIt does not rest upon “ the view which the Jews have when they regard the name Jehovah as &pyrov,” as Knobel asserts.— And he blessed him.—The blessing contained al- ready in the name Israel, is now definitely completed. —Peniel, or Penuel with the 1 conj., face of God. The locality of this place has not been definitely fixed (V. Raumer, p. 255), but if it could be identi- fied it would be idle to look for it upon the north of the Jabbok. Knobel refers for an analogy to the Phoenician promontory @cod mpédcwrov. [Keil thinks Peniel was upon the north of the Jabbok, though he does not regard it as certain. Kiepert locates it on the Jabbok. It was certainly east of Succoth (see Judg. viii. 8, 9), and was most probably on the north of the Jabbok.—A. G.]—F'ace to face.— With his face he had seen the face of God (Exod, xxxiii. ; Deut. xxxiv. 10), Exod. xxxiii. 20 is not in contra- diction to this, since that passage speaks of the see- ing of God beyond and above the form of his reve- lation in its legal development.—And my life is preserved.—Luther’s translation and my soul is healed, saved, is equally beautiful and correct. For it is impossible that the idea here is that of the later popular notion: he rejoices that he had seen the face of God and did not die—The sun rose upon him. —The sun not only rose, but rose especially upon him ; and with a joyful mind he begins with the sun- rise his journey to meet Esau—And he halted upon his thigh.—He appears not to have noticed this before. In the effort of the wrestling it had es- caped him, just as the wounded soldier oftentimes first becomes aware thatyhe is wounded by the blood and gash, long after the wound was received.— Therefore the children of Israel eat not.— “The author explains the custom of the Israelites, in not eating of the sinew of the thigh, by a refer- ence to this touch of the hip of their ancestor by God. Through this divine touch, this sinew, like the blood (ch. ix, 4) was consecrated and sanctified to God. This custom is not mentioned elsewhere in the Old Testament; the Talmudists, however (Tract. CHAP. XXXII. 3.—XXXIII. 1-16. Cholin, Mischna, 7), regard it as a law, whose trans- gression was to be punished with several stripes.” Knobel. Delitzsch adds : “ This exemption exists still, but since the ancients did not distinguish clearly in "3 (WIN ‘Ts, the large, strong cord of the sinew of the thigh), between muscle, vein, and nerve, the sinew is now generally understood, i. e., the interior cord and nerve of the so-called hind-quarter, includ- ing the exterior also, and the ramifications of both.” 6. Hsau's approach, the new arrangement of the train, and the greeting (ch. xxxiii. 1-11).—And Ja- cob lifted up his eyes.—In contrast to his previous inward contemplation, and in confident, expectation. —And he divided the children We read no more of the two bands or trains. He now separates his family into three divisions. He himself, as the head of the family, as its protector and representa- tive, takes the lead; then follow the handmaids with their children; then Leah with hers; and at last, Rachel with Joseph. This inverted order, by which the most loved came last, is not merely chosen from a careful and wise prudence, but at the same time the free expression of the place which they occupied in his affections.—To the ground seven times.— Not that he cast himself seven times to the ground, which would have been expressed by MUN DTD, but he bowed himself seven times with the low in- clination of the head [the low oriental bow, in which one bends the head nearly to the ground without touching it. Keil—A.G.]. But even this courtesy far excels the usual degree in oriental greetings, and finds its explanation in the number seven. The bow- ing itself expresses the recognition of an external princely prerogative, from which Esau beliéved that he had robbed him ; the seven-fold utterance of this recognition stamps it with the mimic (Ger., mémische) seal of the certainty which belongs to the covenant. Thus Jacob atones for his offence against Msau. The manifestation of this courtesy is at the same time, however, a barrier which in the most favorable issue protects him, before mingling with the spirit and temper of the Edomitic army.—And Hsau ran to meet him.—He is overcome; his anger and threats are forgotten; the brother's heart speaks. Jacob’s heart, too, now released from fear, is filled with like affection, and in their common weeping these gray-headed men are twins once more. “ The unusual pointing of SMpw probably indicates a doubt as to the sincerity of this kiss, But the doubt is groundless. The Scriptures never authorize us to regard Esau as inhuman. He is susceptible of noble desires and feelings. The grace of God which ruled in his paternal home has not left him without its in- fluence.” Delitzsch. The assertion of Knobel, ‘ that the author of ch, xxvii. 1 ff and xxxii. 8 ff could not thus write if he wrote proprio marte,” is critically on the same level with the remark of Tuch upon Jacob’s prayer, ch. xxxii. 9—“ it is unseemly in the narrator that he allows Jacob to remind God of his promises.” The old Jewish exegesis | hag indeed outbid this modern zeal in effacing this great and beautiful moral feature in the narrative. “The Breschith Rabba and Kimchi inform us that some in the earlier time held that spi meant here that he bit him. The Targum‘of Jonath. says that Jacob’s weeping sprung from a pain in his neck, and Esau’s from atoothache.” Knobel.—The children which God.—The name Elohim, out of regard to Esau’s point of view [and, as Delitzsch and Keil suggest, in 551 order not to remind Esau of the blessing of Jehovah, of which he was now deprivedi—A. G.]—Joseph and Rachel.—It is a fine trait in the picture that the order is here reversed, so that Joseph comes be- fore his mother. The six-year-old lad seems to break through all the cumbrous ceremonial, and to rush confidently into the arms of his uncle.—By all this drove (camp or train).—Knobel-thinks that he here discovers a third explanation of the name Mahanaim, and finds in the answer of Jacob, these are to find grace, etc., an offensive fawning, or cringing humil- ity. But in fact, it is not a mere present which is here in question, but a voluntary atonement—an in- direct confession that he needed forgiveness. We find this same thought also in Esau’s refusal.—I have enough.—Esau had a two-fold reason for his refusal, for he doubtless possessed a large share of the paternal estate, while Jacob had earned all that he had by the labor of his hands. It is nevertheless a noble strife, when Esau says, keep that thou hast, I have enough, and Jacob overcomes him, take, I pray thee, my blessing, I have enough of all, or briefly all.F’or therefore I have seen. —tThis cannot mean, I have gained the friendly as- pect of thy face by my present, but therefore, for this purpose, is it. As things now stand, the present is an offering of gratitude.—As though I had seen the face of God.—The words sound like flattery, but they bear a good sense, since in the friendly face of his brother he sees again in full manifestation the friendliness of God watching over his life’s path (Job xxxiii. 26; Ps. xi.7). [He refers either to his wrestling with the angel, in which he had “learned that his real enemy was God and not Esau, or in the fact that the friendly face of his brother was the pledge to him that God was reconciled. ‘In the surprising, unexpected change in his brother’s dispo- sition, he recognizes the work of God, and in his brother's friendliness, the reflection of the divine.” Delitzsch.— A. G.] The words, take, I pray thee, my blessing, are just as select and forcible. It is as if, in allusion to the blessing he had taken away, he would say, in so far as that blessing embraced pres- ent and earthly things, and is of value to you, I give it back. Knobel explains the choice of the expres- sion from the benedictions which accompanied the present. ‘The presents to the clergy in the middle ages were called benedictions.” But the idea of homage lies nearer here. In the reception of his present he has the assurance that Esau is completely reconciled to him. The friendliness in Esau’s coun- tenance is a confirmation to him of the friendliness of the divine countenance, a seal of the grace of God, whieh he saw in his face at Peniel. 4. Esau’s offer and return (vers. 12-16).—I will go before thee.—The kindness of Hsau assumes a confidential and officious character. He will take the lead in the way, go before as the protector of his caravan. But that could have happened only at the expense of Jacob’s freedom. Besides this, the car- avan, with tender children, and sucklings among the cattle, could not keep pace with a train of Bedouin. Jacob urges this strenuously, in order to effect a sep- aration. It is no pretence on his part, but it is the only reason he ventures to offer to the powerful Esau, whose superficial nature unfitted him to appreciate the other reasons. He reveals to him also, in a. striking way, his purpose to come to him atSeir. Is. this the new Israel or the old Jacob who speaks? The words are ambiguous, even if he actually visited him in after years at Seir, as some have urged as an 552 GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. excuse. There is, indeed, a peculiar emphasis upon the word "1ax>, in connection with the verb, Hare excludes any obligation to hasten there. He declines, also, the offer ats protecting band.—What need- eth it 2—He is conscious of a higher protector. He desires nothing from Esau but a peaceful and friend- ly deportment. [Jacob’s promise of a visit was honestly made. His course led him to Canaan, prob- ably to Hebron, and from thence he contemplated a visit to Esau at Seir. Whether it was ever made, or not, we do not know. The narrative does not record all the events of Jacob's life, and this may well bave been one of those less important, which it passes over in silence. There is no ground, in any case, to question his sincerity, or to think that it is the old Jacob who speaks.—A. G.] DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL, 1. This section belongs to the more important parts of Genesis, especially of the patriarchal his- tory, holding in the life of Jacob a position like ch. xv., Xvii., xviii, and xxii, in the life of Abraham, ch. xxvii. in the life of Isaac, and ch. xli. and xlv. in the life of Joseph. We have here, indeed, the full development of patriarchalism, the bud which shall open into its most perfect flower, and which unfolds itself completely in the blessing of Jacob. As the institution of a sacred sacrifice reached its full development in the offering of Abraham (ch. xxii.), and the mysterious fact of election comes into prominence in the blessing of Isaac (ch. xxvii.), so this narrative brings out in a clear, distinct form: 1. The prayer of faith, based upon the promise and the clear consciousness of the contrast between human unworthiness and divine grace; 2. the actual occur- rence of a believing wrestling with God, and its re- sult, the prelude to the theanthropic life; 3. the con- trast between the old and new man, between Jacob and Israel, the token of the new birth growing out ofthe circumcision of the heart; hence, also, 4. the dawn of the love of one’s enemies, and of the triumph of that affection over the hatred of our en- emies, through confidence in God and the proofs of his reconciliation; and 6. lastly, that divine law, according to which believers inwardly and truly over- come the world, by their outward subjection to the demands of its power. In the struggle with Jacob, moreover, the form of the Angel of the Lord passes already into the form of the angel of his face, which afterwards, in the book of Exodus, develops itself more completely. Thus, also, we find here already clearly intimated the germ of the distinction between the external aspect of the kingdom of God (the blessing of Isaac), and its inward essence, a distinc- tion which was not fully comprehended by Israel at the time of Christ, and over which, even in our own day, many toil and labor without clear conceptions. This section contains also a representation of the nightly and sacred birth hour of Jsrae/, and in a formal point of view is well fitted to introduce a true insight into the fundamental form of revelation. 2. The intellectual movement and progress in the narrative, correspond to the most subtle laws of the ‘spiritual and intellectual life of the soul. After Ja- ‘cob had seen the divine messengers, the angels, in his | journey, he takes heart, and sends a human embassy to greet Esau. The contents of their message is de- ‘termined by hisprudence. He greets his lord Esau, ‘and love. as Jacob his servant. ~The unpleasant and dangerous recollections of the events which had occasioned his long absence, are passed over; on the contrary, he speaks of his rich possessions in herds and flocks, which he had acquired while with Laban, lest Esau should think that he was now returning, longing for the paternal goods. He wishes only to find favor in the eyes of Esau. In thus rendering homage to him, he recognizes the earthly and temporal prerogatives of the first-born, and at the same time makes indi- rectly a confession of his guilt. When the messen- gers return without any counter-greeting, and an- nouncing that Esau was drawing near, the mere human prudence of Jacob again suggests his course, As he apprehends a hostile attack from Esau, so he thinks of resisting force with force, but with the prospect of being vanquished. Hence ‘the division of his caravan into two bands. But this measure gives him no rest. His pressing wants drove him to faith and prayer, a prayer which marks already a great development of the patriarchal life and faith. His soul was thus so sustained and comforted, that he can no more rest or sleep during the night. He now boldly crosses the Jabbok (his Rubicon, or better, his Kedron) with his whole train. And then, in the © loneliness and solitude, he meets with the decisive struggle of his life. After the victory of his faith in this struggle, he is, as Jacob, lame in his thigh; he no longer expects salvation from his natural struggles with Esau, but has found, in the grace of Jehovah, the source of his world-subduing humility He thinks no longer of the two bands for mutual self-defence or flight, but on the contrary, he sends his five bands to the attack, five different acts of homage embodied in presents, which, as a contin- uous train, has the most impressive aspect, and gives the highest satisfaction to Esau in the presence of his four hundred men. The closing word of the messengers was that Jacob was coming after them ; he himself, and thus the strongest expression of his confidence toward his brother. Upon the five droves which designate the completed act of homage, as an actual outward occurrence (since five is the number of free choice), there follows now the seven-fold bowing of Jacob himself, as a sacred assurance of his intellectual, real homage, as to the prerogatives of the first-born which belonged to Esau. Hence his family also, in three intervals and acts, which follow the salutation, must render the same homage. Jacob, in offering so large a portion of his herds, had made a great sacrifice; so that probably it may be literally true that his children, who at first rode upon camels, now that so few of the camels were left, were obliged to walk, But it was both noble and wise not to take advantage of Esau’s magnani- mous feelings, as he had formerly done of his nat- ural and sensual infirmity in the matter of the lentile pottage. And now he has completely overcome him, and even more than this. As he had at first to guard against his former threats, and his alarming appear- ance, so,now against his amiable importunity, which might have led him into the danger of mingling and developing his cause and future history with those of Esau. Esau actually yields to his request, and returns, He overcomes him in this, too, but not as Jacob the supplanter, but as Israel the warrior of God [the prince with God.—A. G.]. 8. Jacob’s prayer. The great development of faith which marked this prayer: 1. The resting of the prayer upon the divine promises, and the more definite development of prayer in its general idea; CHAP. XXXII. 3.—XXXIII. 1-16. 2. the contrast: I am: not worthy, ete. [literally, I am too little for, less than.—A. G.], an ancient denial of any righteousness of works, a watchword of hu- mility for all time; 8. the connection of the divine goodness and grace (here in the plural) and truth, or faithfulness, which henceforth runs through the sacred scriptures; 4. the beautiful description of the divine blessing, for with my staff I passed over this Jordan, ete. [Jacob’s faith appears in the very terms by which he addresses God, in his confidence in the divine promise and command, the two pillars of his hope, in his expectation of deliverance, not- withstanding his deep sense of his personal unwor- thiness, and in the clear, sharp contrast which he makes between the destruction he feared and the divine promise. How could the promise: I will make thy seed as the sand of the sea, be saved, if the mother was to be slain with the children? As Luther has said, this is a beautiful specimen of all hearty se and has all the attributes of real pray- er.—A. G. 4, The prayer of Jacob precedes his choice of his presents for Esau. We must first deal with God, be reconciled with him, then with men. First faith, ther works. 5. Jacob’s present. A great sacrifice of peni- tence and restitution, of large value in itself, but far more- glorious in its spiritual form and import. 6. Jacob’s wrestling, We must distinguish: 1. The motive of the struggle; 2. its elements; 3. its greatness; 4. the fruits of victory. Its motive can- not lie in Jacob’s fear of Esau, although he was not yet free from all fear. For as to the main thing, his fears have been removed by the foregoing prayer and the sending of the present, with which, indeed, is connected also the announcement that Jacob him- self ‘was coming to meet Esau. The motive arises from the fact, that a new, and indeed the final and greatest necessity, sprang from this act of homage which Jacob had just performed. He had restored to Esau in spirit as well as in his outward arrange- ments the honor of the first-born, as to dts earthly aspects. But had he not thus resigned also his theo- cratic birthright, the Abrahamic blessing? This question rested upon his mind with great weight, since the external aspect of the blessing was appar- ently inseparably connected with the inward. To how many of his descendants has the external theo- cracy occupied the place of the inward and real king- dom of God! Abraham must distinguish the pres- ent from the future, Isaac between patient endurance and dominion, but Jacob must now learn to distin- guish between the external attributes and the internal and real possession of the birthright and the bless- ing. And since these things have hitherto been in- separably blended in his mind, there must now be, as it were, a rent in his very soul; it is only through the sorest birth-throes that he can attain a faith in the blessing, stripped of its outward and temporal glory. If he will retain the real blessing, then ap- parently he must recall the messengers who have gone to render homage to Esau. If he suffers these to go on, then all his hopes for the future seem to vanish. And still this is impossible, since his hope ig inscribed, as a destination, in his innermost being, his election. Like Abraham upon Moriah, he must also, through his readiness to make the sacrifice, attain the full assurance in its great gain, the new life springing out from this sacrifice. Hence his wrestling. According to Hosea, it consisted essen- tially and fundamentally in weeping and tears; a 553 weeping and tears that he might secure the assurance of the blessing in his very sacrifice of the blessing. His sacrifice must be completed in his heart, for it is the genuineness of his repentance, but he must also have the certainty of his blessing, for it is the genu- ineness and certainty of his faith. And all that he can present to the God of revelation, for redemption and deliverance from this fearful appearance of op- position in his inward life, is his sighs and tears. There his prayer becomes a vision of the most intensive form and nature. Jehovah appears to him in his Angel, the Angel appears to him in human form, in the form, indeed, of some individual man. The man in a certain measure is his alter ego in an objective form, in so far as he is the image of his innermost individuality in its communion with Jeho- vah, or the type of the Son of Man, the Godman. But the man meets him asa stranger. He must in him become certain of his own inward election, as Moses was made certain of the law in his own heart, in the law of the two tables of stone. At first he meets him as a mighty wrestler, who will cast him to the ground, and then proceed on his way. That is, the Angel of his election will cast him down and then leave him lying in his repentance in bitter an- guish over his life lost through his sin and guilt. But Jacob wrestles with him, although unable, and even not choosing, to make use of his strivings as Jacob, of his supplanting and crafty efforts. His human prudence discerns no way of escape from this fearful inward sorrow, nor does it seek any. But what was the very core and centre of his nature as Jacob, his adherence to his faith in the future, that is preserved, even now; he does not yield in his wrestling. The day dawns upon the struggle, and now the strange man seems to get the upper hand; he puts Jacob’s thigh out of joint. The human strength and elasticity of the patriarch were gone. And now the trial culminates, when the man says: Let me go. But now also the precise thought of Jacob, and the purpose of his heart, comes out in the words: I will not let thee go except thou bless me. He struggles no more, but throws his arms around the neck of the divine man and clings to him. This is the full renunciation, and the full and determined embracing of faith, both in one act, and there lies his victory. The mysterious stranger asks after his name and his name is now as an acknowl- edgment, a confession, Jacob. His new name, Jsrael, which is now given to him, on the other hand, im- ports not only his absolution, but also his restitution, indeed, his exaltation above his previous blessed condition. From this time onwards he is the war- rior of God. He not only overcomes Esau, but God suffers him to prevail over him in that specific way of wrestling which he has just learned. Jacob now asks after his name. He must not seek this name, however, prematurely, but learn it in his actual ex- perience. The names Peniel, Shiloh, Immanuel, are for him to be developed from the name Israel. But when the parting one gives him a special blessing, that is the assurance, that in bringing the offering of the external qualities of the blessing to Esau, he has perfectly and fully gained the essential blessing of Abraham. As in the very beginning of his new birth he had learned to distinguish between the old and new life, between Jacob and Israel, between the wrestlings of Jacob and the strength of Israel, so also he has now been taught to distinguish between the rights of the natural human birth, and the rights of the new divine birth, [There is another view of 554 this wrestling, which bases it upon the character and previous history of Jacob. He was not, indeed, des- titute of faith and reliance upon God, but the promi- nent feature of his character was a strong reliance upon his own resources and strength. He had thus fallen into doubtrul and censurable courses. In this confidence he had wrestled with Esau for the birth- right, and with Laban for the reward of his wages and his present possessions. God had dealt with him by chastisements. He had been involved in difficulties and trials which he could not well have failed to connect with his sins. Still his fault was not corrected. And now, on his return to the land of promise, and his paternal home, to inherit the blessing he had so striven to secure, he is met by Esau with his four hundred men, Conscious of his weakness, and reminded of his sins, feeling as he doubtless did that Esau’s anger was not unprovoked, he flies to God for help (vers. 10-18). His prayer gives him relief from his fears, But it does not necessarily wean him from his self-reliance. He must feel that his crimes against men are at the same time sins against God. And to teach him this, and at the same time bring him to unreserved reliance upon God, is the purpose with which God, meets him here. The progress of the struggle and its issue show this, He struggles with this new combatant to the very end, or as long as he had any strength, but when his thigh was thrown out of joint, then he saw how vain the struggle in this form was. In his disabled state he merely hangs upon the conqueror, and thus overcomes him. He is no longer strong in himself, but in the Lord, It is his faith, the divine principle planted in him, in one sense “ the divine energy” working in him, which secures the victory. The lesson which Jacob here learned reveals its power in his whole after-life. He is no longer the supplanter. - His life is not marked by his own striv- ings, but by his reliance upon God. And this is in accordance with the prophet Hosea (xii. 4 ff), who} not only teaches that the sighs and tears were promi- nent features in the struggle, but that in his wrest- ling with God in this way, Jacob has completely secured what he had been striving for from his birth, the inheritance of the first-born, the promise and blessing of the covenant; secured it, however, not by his own strength, but by casting himself upon God.—aA. G.] 4. With regard to the form of the struggle, it cannot on the one hand be a dream-vision which is spoken of (Rosenm. and others), nor on the other hand an external event (Kurrz: ‘‘ History of the Old Covenant,” i. p. 260; AuBERLEN, in the article “Jacob,” in Herzoe’s Encyclopedic.) [Jacozus: “ Notes,” ii. p. 184; Murpuy, p. 414; Worpsworta, p. 187.—A. G.]; for the mythical explanation may be entirely left out of view. For moral struggles and decisions are not wrought in dreams or in dream- visions, Against an external bodily wrestling, Hengstenberg reminds us forcibly that an outward wrestling does not occur in the form of weeping and supplication, Kurtz attempts to evade this difficulty by assuming two acts in the struggle, in which the external bodily wrestling precedes the spiritual wrest- ling with tears and prayers. “He thus seeks to ex- clude the vision and the ecstasy (conditions which in our view are only two aspects of one and the same state). Keil rejects the idea of a natural cor- poreal wrestling, but thinks that an ecstasy, of a like or related condition of the body and soul, must be received. We have often seen already that the GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. condition of vision or ecstasy does not exclude the objective manifestation. We now see, also, that the soul-struggles in vision, might present themselves under the form of bodily labor, and wrestlings of the soul, since in the vision the whole spiritual process is represented in pictures; and further, that such a struggle may even produce bodily effects, as here the - lameness of Jacob’s thigh. Kurtz replies, on the contrary, that such effects of the inward life upon the body are not certainly ascertained ; that, indeed, the reverse is for the most part true in such cases, the germinant bodily complaint giving its peculiar form to the dream. But how can one confound these mere natural dreams with the very highest re- ligious events in the world of mind? Should we suppose that the whole history of the despised one rested upon a mere illusion, still the history of Geth- semane would not stand there in vain with reference to the event here before us. It has been denied that such a lameness as that described here, could result from any corporeal wrestling. [It may be said, how- ever, that there is no necessity here for departing from the obvious and literal sense of the passage. The idea of close personal corporeal conflict seems to be suggested in the very terms which the sacred writer has chosen to describe this wrestling. It is certainly implied in the crippling of the thigh. And if God walked in the garden with Adam, and partook of the feast which Abraham prepared, there is no reason why he should not enter into bodily conflict with Jacob. The other events in the narrative, the crossing of the Jabbok, the rising of the sun, seem also to require that we should understand this wres- tling as real, objective, corporeal, without any at- tempt, however, to define too closely its precise mode.—A. G.] 8. The man who wrestled with Jacob. ‘Some have absurdly held that he was an assassin sent by Esau. Onicen: The night-wrestler was an evil spirit (Eph. vi. 12). Other fathers held that he was a good angel. The correct view is that he was the constant revealer of God, the Angel of the Lord.” Schréder. Delitzsch holds “ that it was a manifestation of God, who through the angel was represented and visible asaman.” The well-known refuge from the recep- tion of the Angel of the Incarnation! In his view, earlier explained and refuted, Jacob could not be called the captain, prince of God, but merely the captain, prince of the Angel. “No other writer in the Pentateuch,” Knobel says, “so represents God under the human form of things as this one.” Jacob surely, with his prayers and tears, has brought God, or the Angel of the Lord, more completely into the human form and likeness than had ever occurred be- fore. The man with whom he wrestles is obviously not only the angel, but the type also of the future incarnation of God. As the angel of his face, how- ever, he marks a development of the form of the angel of revelation which is taken up and carried on in Exodus. ‘ 9. The angel and type of the incarnation, is at the same time an angel and type of atonement. When Kurrz (p. 257) says ‘‘that God here meets Jacob as an enemy, that he makes an_ hostile at- | tack,” the expressions are too strong. There is an obvious distinction between a wrestler and one who attacks as an enemy, leaving out of view the fact, that there is nothing said here as to which party makes the assault. After the revelations which Ja- cob received at Bethel, Haran, and Mahanaim, a peculiar hostile relation to God is out of the ques- CHAP, XXXII.—8.—XXXIIl. 1-16, tion. So much, certainly, is true, that Jacob, to whom no mortal sins are imputed for which he must overcome the wrath of God (Korrz, p. 258, the divine wrath is not overcome but atoned), must now be brought to feel that in all his sins against men he has striven and sinned against God, and that he must first of all be reconciled to him, for all the hitherto unrecognized sins of his life. 10. The wrestling of Jacob has many points of resemblance to the restoration of Peter (John xxi.), As this history of Peter does not treat of the recon- stituting of his general relation to Jesus, but rather of the perfecting of that relation, and with this of the restitution of his apostolic calling and office, so here the struggle of Jacob does not concern so much the question of his fundamental reconciliation with Jehovah, but the completion of that reconciliation and the assurance of his faith in his patriarchal calling. And if Christ then spake to Peter, when thou wast young thou girdedst thyself, ete., in order that he might know that henceforth an entire reli- ance upon the leading and protection of God must take the place of his sinful feeling of his own strength and his attachment to his own way, s0, doubtless, the lameness of Jacob’s thigh has the same significance, with this difference, that as Peter must be cured of the self-will of his rash, fiery tem- perament, so Jacob from his selfish prudence, tend- ing to mere cunning. 11. A like relation holds between their old and new names. The name Simon, in the narrative of Peter’s restoration, points to his old nature, just as here the name Jacob to the old nature of Israel. ‘Simon’s nature, however, was not purely evil, but tainted with evil. This is true also of Jacob. He must be purified and freed from his sinful cunning, ‘but not from his prudence and constant perseverance. Into these latter features of his character he was consecrated as Israel. The name Abram passes over into the name Abraham, and is still ever included in it; the name Isaac has in itself a two-fold signifi- cance, which intimates the laughter of doubt, and that of a joyful faith; but the name Jacob goes along with that of Israel, not merely because the latter was preéminently the name of the people, nor because in the new-birth the old life continues side by side, and only gradually disappears, but also be- cause it designates an element of lasting worth, and still further, because Israel must be continually re- minded of the contrast between its merely natural and its sacred destination. : - 12, The sacred and honored name of the Israelit- ish people, descends from this night-wrestling of Israel, just as the name Christian comes from the birth and name of Christ. The peculiar destination of the Old-Testament children of the covenant is that they should be warriors, princes of God, men of prayer, who carry on the conflicts of faith to vic- tory. Hence the name Israelites attains complete- ness in that of Christians, those who are divinely blessed, the anointed of God. The name Jews, in its derivation from Judah, and in its Messianic im- port, forms the transition between these names, since it designates those who are praised, who are a praise and glory to God. But the contrast between the cunning, running into deceit, which characterized the old nature of Jacob, and the persevering struggle of faith and prayer of Israel, pervades the whole history of the Jewish people, and hence Hosea, ch. xii. 1 ff, applies it to the Jewish people (see Kurtz, 555 p. 259, with reference to the “Practical Com.” of Unsrerr, iv. p. 82). The force of this contrast lies in this, that in the true Israelite there is no guile, since he is purified from guile (John i. 47), and that Christ, the king of Israel (ver. 44), is without guile, while the deceit of the Jacob nature reaches its most terrible and atrocious perfection in the kiss of Judas, _ 18. The natural night, through which Jacob car- ried on his long wrestling, not only figures symboli- cally the inner night which brooded over his soul, but also the mystery of his new-birth, determined of course by its Old-Testament limits, Hence the dawn and sunrise indicate not only the blessed state of faith which he had now gained, but also the fact that he, as the halting and lame, now appeared as a new man in the light of the breaking day. 14, Whenit is said of Israel that he had prevailed with God, we must not forget that he prevailed with him because God permitted him to do so. The idea that God permits himself to be overcome, assumes a gross and dangerous form if we should apply it to our selfish prayers according to our own selfish thoughts, In the entire concession to the grace of God, the believer first reaches that turning-point in his life where the will of God becomes even his own will, where God can yield and confide himself to the will of his faith. 15. In the apparent rejection of Jacob’s question, | Tell me, I pray thee, thy name? the angel proceeds in the same way with Christ in his public ministra- tions. He does not immediately call himself Christ. Believers must attain the true idea of his name from the experience of its effects. : 16. The growth in Jacob’s life of faith is marked by the names Bethel, Mahanaim, Peniel. But it is surely an entirely unallowable explanation of the words “T have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved,” when they are explained upon the preva- lent Jewish notion, that whoever has seen Jehovah must die. Leaving out of view the essential germ of that notion, that the sight of the glory of God terrifies sinful men and mortifies sin within them, which takes place in this case also, it might be held more plausibly that this very notion grew out of a misunderstanding of these words (comp. the similar expression of Hagar, ch. xvi. 18). Dexitzscu: “ The sun which rose upon Jacob at Peniel has its antitype in the sun of the resurrection morning.” 17. The glorious reconciliation between Jacob and Esau is based upon the perfect reconciliation of Jacob with God. For the old way in which he hoped to overcome Esau, he now makes amends in the new method by which he actually overcomes him. We shall do injustice to the history if we do not distin- guish here the elements of humility, satisfaction, reconciling love, and confidence. Jacob’s humilia- tion before Esau implies his humiliation before God ; his satisfaction to Esau, his reconciliation with God; and the strength of his love and confidence by which he overcomes Esau, comes from Jehovah’s grace and trath. 18. The fact that Jacob after his reconciliation with Esau, could not be prevailed upon by any con- sideration whatever, either of fear or favor, to mingle with him, is the clearest proof of the strength of his patriarchal consciousness. 19. For the mythical traditions which resemble this wrestling of Jacob with God, see Delitzsch, Bunsen, Schréder, upon the passage. 556 HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL, See the Doctrinal paragraphs.—Jacob between Laban and Esau on his homeward journey.—J: acob’s progress from struggle to struggle.—His conflict with Laban compared with that with Esau.—His struggle with men, in comparison with that with God.—How the sins of youth are punished after a long period of years. How Jacob, through his prayer, passes from the plan of flight from Esau, suggested by his human fears, to the method of attacking him with the weapons of humility and love; from a mere human defensive, to a divine offensive.—The prayer of Ja- cob.—The distinction between his prayer and his wrestling.—Jacob’s act of faith in crossing the Jab- bok.—Jacob’s struggle and victory, or how from Jacob he became Israel.—The features of the devel- opment of revealed faith in Jacob’s wrestling: 1. The germ of the incarnation (Godhead and humanity wrestling with each other; the Godhead in the form of aman); 2. the germ of the atonement (sacrifice of the human will); 3. the germ of justification by faith (I will not let thee go, etc.); 4. the germ of the new-birth (Jacob, Israel); 5. the germ of the prin- ciple of love to one’s enemies (the reconciliation with God, reconciliation with the world).—Jacob’s night and Jacob’s dawn.—The sacrifice of human prudence upon the altar of God, one of the most difficult sacrifices (more so than that of human strength).—Bethel, Mahanaim, Peniel, divine stations in the journey of the pilgrim of faith—The shep- herd train of Jacob, and the warlike procession of Esau.—Civility a barrier against injury, and a source of security and protection.—In their tears Jacob and Esau are twins once more.—Thus the nobler life of the world and the life of faith have twin elements and moments.—The permanent friendship between Jacob and Esau (persons so in antipathy with each other, the children of God and men of the world, the church and the state), under proper conditions and at proper distances.—The triumph of departing Esau, and Jacob (the future Bedouin sheik and the ances- tor of Israel).—Jacob between the Jabbok and the Jordan.—tThe return of the banished to his father- land.—The native country.—The bloom of patri- archalism. First Section, vers. 4-7. Starke: Christians must be open to reconciliation with their enemies (Rom. xii. 18).—Scuréper: If his mother had sent him the message, as was agreed upon: Thy brother has now laid aside his anger, then Jacob would have had an easier journey than now, when he returns leaning upon the hand of the invisible God (Baum- garten).—The little ship nears the haven, all depends on this last moment.—Esau as prinee in Mount Seir. —Thus he chooses with perfect freedom what God has from the beginning determined (Baum. and Calvin). Second Section, vers. 8, 9. ScHRODER: We must not overlook the name of Jehovah in his prayer. The danger is so great that a mere general belief ina gen- eral providence will not sustain him (Hengstenberg). ‘ Third Section, vers. 10-13. Starke: Nothing is more humbling than the grace of God.—CrameEr: There ig no better way to avoid danger than by be- lieving prayer (Ps. xxvii. 8).—Scuréprr : His humil- ity does not blush at the recollection: for with my staff, ete.—The mother with the children. The words describe the most relentless cruelty.—The death of a mother, over and with her children, is the most cruel way of taking life imaginable (Baumgarten).— GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. God saved his promise in saving Jacob.—Taune: The school of the cross is the most glorious school, for: 1. It reveals his God to the Christian; 2. it reveals also the Christian heart before God and the world. Fourth Section, vers. 14-22. Srarxe: If we may infer from his presents, as to the size of his flocks of different kinds, we shall easily see how abundantly God has blessed Jacob, and fulfilled to him his prom- ise of prosperity.—Scuriper: He chooses milch- camels because they are more valuable for their milk, which is used by the Arabians as a drink. The camel’s milk becomes intoxicating when it has stood a few hours, but when fresh has no such property (Michaelis), Fifth Section, vers, 23-83. SrarKe: CRAMER: When a Christian has prayed, he is not to sit down in idleness and security, but should consider well how he may best accomplish his end.—There is no better way to win the heart of an enemy than by good deeds (1 Sam. xxv. 18).— Bibl. Tub. : There is no conflict more blessed and glorious than when we wrestle with God in faith and prayer, and thus take heaven by violence.—OsianprER: God is often accus- tomed thus to try his saints, and prove their faith; he sends upon them many afflictions at the same time, but still sustains his saints so that they shall not sink (Exod. iv. 24; Ps, xxxviii. 6 ff.).—We bear about with us the marks of our sin, our misery, and our mortality, that we may not become proud (2 Cor. xii. 7).—(Ver. 26. The Jews, who hold this man to have been an angel, suppose that in thus addressing Jacob he wished to remind him that it was time for him to sing his morning song. For the Jews be-° lieved that at the dawn the angels raised their bymns of praise to God.—Ver. 28 (no more ; No, here, is equivalent with not alone).—Luruer: Here the temptation to despair often enters, a temptation by which the greatest saints are wont to be tried. Whoever stands the test, he comes to the perfect knowledge of the will of God, so that he can say, I have seen God face to face.—Ha.: When the angel of the covenant has once blessed, no trial can make us miserable (John x. 28).—(Ver. 82. The Jews think that Jacob was healed at Sichem, and hence the city was called Shalem.)—Compare the conflict of Jacob after he had crossed the dabbok, with the conflict of Jesus in Gethsemane, after he had crossed the Kedron. [Wordsworth also has a long and sug- gestive note, in which Jacob is held up as a type of Christ, and this comparison is carried out into vari- ous minute points—A. G.J—Jacob a type of the New-Testament church.— Bibl. Tub: They are blessed who see the face of God in faith, for thus their souls are healed.—Cramur: To see God is the best food for souls, their strength and courage (1 Cor. xiii. 12)—GrRuacu, upon the 28th verse: In the words, with men, God reminds him of the more consolatory aspect of the events of his former life, of the opposition which first Esau, then Isaac, etc. (We must remember, however, that in the previous struggles he was victorious as Jacob merely.)—Ca.w. Hand.: Although all human power is weakness com- pared with God, yet he suffers himself to be over- come by faith and prayer—His name truly was a confession of his sin.—Scuréper: Quotations from G. D. Krummacner’s “Contest aud Victory of Ja- cob.” —The thigh is the very basis of the body ; when it is put out of joint the body falls (KRumMacuER: Jacob, however, did not fall)—There was nothing left for him but to hang upon his neck if he would CHAP. XXXII. 17—XXXV. 1-15. not fall—Hope maketh not ashamed. —The wrestler first for himself and with men, then with God and with men, lastly for God and for men.—The name of Christian is the completion of the name Israel,— Tavse: Jacob’s conflict and victory: 1. The con- test ; 2. the victory. Siath Section, ch. xxxiii. 1-11. Srarze: In this manner we Christians are in the eyes of the world the most miserable, subject to every one, but in truth we are and remain the heirs of heaven and earth.— Ver. 7. The wives of Jacob. Now when they thought to reach his father’s house and their kindred, they are in fear of death. This was certainly a severe test.—How beautiful when contending parties come together; but then previous difficulties must not be called up (Rom. xii, 10).—In the world, among all outward means there are none more effectual than presents and gifts (Prov. xvii. 8).—Grrracu: An atoning present is indeed blessing (1 Sam, xxv. 27). ——Lisco: His victory of faith is typical for all the children of God. 557 Seventh Section, ver. 12-16. Starke: (Ver. 14.) Some are offended at Jacob and have charged him with deceit (Calvin), But it rather seems that at the first he was willing to go thither, Perhaps God had warned him, as he did the wise men (Matt, ii, 12).—Ver. 15. Ostanpser: All official persons in ecclesiastical or worldly positions should use wise precaution, that they may direct affairs according to the power of those who are entrusted to them, lest they should be rather injured than helped.—Scuré- DER: Luruer: Note, the justified and those resting in their good works cannot walk together.—Catw. Hand.: Persons so widely different a3 Esau and Ja- cob are the best friends when they do not come into too close relations.—Scuréper: The sacred Scrip- tures are indeed sacred. As the dark side of the elect is revealed without any attempt at concealment, so they do not pass without notice the brighter features of those who are without. We find traces of the divine image in every one, and it is too frequently true that the world teaches morality to the believer. SIXTH SECTION. Jacod’s settlement in Canaan. At Succoth. At Shechem. Dinah. Simeon and Levi. The Jirst mani- | festation of Jewish fanaticism. Jacob's rebuke, and removal to Bethel. —_—+— Cuaprer XXXIII. 17—XXXYV. 1-15. 17 And Jacob journeyed to Succoth [booths], and built him an house, and made booths for his cattle: therefore the name of the place is called Succoth. And Jacob came to Shalem? [im peace], a city.of Shechem, which ¢s in the land of Canaan, when he came from Padan-aram [Mesopotamia]; and pitched his tent before the 19 city. And he bought a [tne] parcel of a field, where he had spread his tent, at the hand of the children of Hamor [ass ; peaceful bearer of public burdens], Shechem’s father, for 20 an hundred pieces? of money. And he erected there an altar, and called it El-Hlohe- rength |. eae a And Dinah the daughter of Leah, which she bare unto Jacob, went out to see the daughters of the land. And when Shechem the son of Hamor the Hivite, prince of the country [region], saw her, he took her, and lay with her, and defiled her. 3 And his soul clave unto Dinah the daughter of Jacob, and he loved the damsel, and 4 spake ® kindly unto the damsel. And Shechem spake unto his father Hamor, saying, 5 Get me this damsel [from Jacob] to wife. And J acob heard that he had defiled Dinah his daughter: (now his sons were with his cattle in the field: and Jacob held his peace i i i were come). : ; 6 ee oe of ane went out unto Jacob to commune with him. 7 And the sons of Jacob came out of the field when they heard 7: and the men were grieved, and they were very wroth, because he had wrought folly in Israel, in lying 8 with Jacob’s daughter; which thing ought not to be done [ana a ei = communed with them, saying, The’ soul of my son Shechem longeth or vont augl ter: 9 I pray you give her him to wife. And make ye marriages with us, - ave ves daughters unto us, and take our daughters unto you. And ye shall dwe with us : anc the land shall be before you; dwell and trade ye therein, and get you poseeony there- jn. And Shechem said unto her father, and unto her brethren, Let me fin os in our eyes, and what ye shall say unto me, I will give. Ask me never so ma owry and gift [price of the bride], and I will give according as ye shall say unto me: but give 18 Cu. 2 11 12 558 GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. 14 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 26 27 29 30 31 Cu. 2 3 12 13 me the damsel to wife. And the sons of Jacob answered Shechem and Hamor his father deceitfully [under mere pretence], and said, Because he had defiled Dinah their sister : And they said unto them, We cannot do this thing, to give our sister 10 one that is uncircumcised : for that were a reproach unto us: But in this [condition] will we consent unto you: If ye will be as we be, that every male of you be circumcised; Then will we give our daughters unto you, and we will take your daughters to us, and we will dwell with you, and we will become one people. But if ye will not hearken unto us, to be circumcised ; then will we take our daughter, and we will be gone. And their words pleased Hamor, and Shechem, Hamor’s son. And the young man deferred not to do the thing, because he had delight in Jacob’s daughter: and he was more honor- able than all the house of his father, And Hamor and Shechem his son came unto the gate of their city, and communed with the men of their city, saying, These men are peaceable with us, therefore let them dwell in the land, and trade therem: for the land, behold, <¢ 7s large enough for them: let us take their daughters to us for wives, and let us give them our daughters. Only herein [on this condition] will the men consent unto us for to dwell with us, to be one people, if evéry male among us be circumcised, as they are circumcised. Shail not their cattle, and their substance, and every beast of theirs be ours? only let us consent unto them, and they will dwell with us. And unto Hamor, and unto Shechem his son, hearkened all that went out of the gate of his city: and every male was circumcised, all that went out of the gate of his city. And it came 1o pass on the third day, when they were sore, that two of the sons of Jacob, Simeon and Levi, Dinah’s brethren, took each man his sword, and came upon the city boldly, and slew all the males, And they slew Hamor and Shechem his son with the edge of the sword, and took Dinah out of Shechem’s house, and went out. The sons of Jacob came [now] upon the slain and ‘spoiled the city; because they [its inhabitants] had defiled their sister. They took their sheep, and-their oxen, and their asses, and that which was in the city, and that which was in the field. And all their wealth and all their little ones, and their wives took they captive, and spoiled even all that was in the house. And Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, Ye have troubled me [so greatly] to make me to stink among the inhabitants of the land, among the Canaan- ites, and the Perizzites: and I being few in number [of asmall household; easily numbered], they shall gather themselves together against me, and slay me, and I shall be de- stroyed, I and my house. And. they said, Should he deal with our sister as with an harlot ? XXXV. 1. And God said unto Jacob, Arise, go up to Bethel, and dwell there: and make there an altar unto God [™] that appeared unto thee when thou fleddest from the face of Hsau thy brother. Then Jacob said unto his household and to all that were with him, Put away the strange gods that are among you, and be clean, and change your garments: And let us arise, and go up to Bethel; and I will make there an altar unto God, who answered me in the day [atthe time] of my distress, and was with me in the way which I went. And they gave unto Jacob all the strange gods which were in their hand [possession], and all their ear-rings which were in their ears; and Jacob hid them under the oak [terebinth] which was by Shechem. And they journeyed: and 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 7s in the land of Canaan (that 7s Bethel), he and all . the people that were with him. And he built there an altar, and called the place El- beth-el; because there God appeared unto him, when he fled from the face of his brother. But Deborah [bee], Rebekah’s nurse, died, and she was buried beneath Beth- el, under an oak: and the name of it was called Allon-bachuth. And God appeared unto Jacob again, when he came out of Padan-aram [Mesopotamia] ; and blessed him. And God said unto him, Thy name ts Jacob: thy name shall not be called any more Jacob, but Israel shall be thy name: and he called his name Israel. And God said unto him, I am God Almighty: be fruitful and multiply ; a nation and a company [>MP] of nations shall be of thee, and kings shall come out of thy loins. And the land which I gave Abraham and Isaac, to thee I will-give it, and to thy seed after thee will I give the land. And God went up from him, in the place where he CHAP. XXXII. 17.—XXXV. 1-15. 559 14 talked with him. And Jacob set up a pillar in the place where he talked with him, even a pillar of stone: and he poured a drink-offering thereon, and he poured oil there- 15 on. And Jacob called the name of the place where God spake with him, Bethel. ( Ver. Sila is not a proper noun, but must be rendered in peace, as in Jacob's vow (xxviii. 21), to which it evidently refers.—A. G. {? Vor. 19.—Quesitah—weighed or Thee en?” Vul., Onk., have amb, as if stamped upon the coin; but coined money was not in use among the patriarchs.—A. {° Ch. xxxiv. 3.—Lit., spake to her heart,—A. G.] PRELIMINARY REMARKS. The section now before us, whose unity consists in the remarkable sojourn of Jacob at the different stations, on his homeward journey to Hebron, may be divided as follows: 1. The settlement at Succoth ; 2. the settlement at Shechem; 8. Dinah: a, The rape of Dinah; b. Shechem’s offer of marriage; c. the fanatical revenge of the sons of Jacob, or the bloody wedding ; the plot, the massacre, the sacking of the city, the judgment of Jacob upon the crime ; 4, the departure for Bethel; 5. the sealing of the covenant between God and the patriarch at Bethel. Knobel, as usual, finds here a commingling of Jeho- vistic and Elohistic elements, since the internal rela- ‘tions are brought into view as little as possible, while names and words are emphasized. EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL. 1, Ver, 17.—To Succoth.—The name Succoth, booths, tents, might have been of frequent occur- rence in Palestine, but the locality here spoken of is generally regarded as the same with the later well- known city of Succoth, which lies east of the Jor- dan. It was situated within the limits of the tribe of Gad (Jos. xiii. 27; Judg. viii. 5-14; Ps. Ix. 6). Josephus speaks of it under its Greek name Zxnval, and Jerome Succoth is at this day a city across the Jordan, in the neighborhood of Scythopolis. Rob- inson (later “‘ Resear.,” pp. 810-312) identifies Suc- coth with Sakut, lying west of the Jordan, and southerly from Beisan. The fact that the traditional Succoth lies too far to the north, and that it is not easy to see how Jacob, after crossing the Jabbok, should come hither again, is in. favor of this sug- gestion. Nor is it probable that, having so nearly reached the Jordan, he would have settled in the east-Jordan region (comp. ch. xxxii. 10). Knobel thinks that the writer wished to show that the patri- arch had now fixed his abode in the trans-Jordan re- gion. That Succoth belonged to the tribe of Gad, does not disprove Robinson's conjectures, since there may have been more than one Succoth. Compare, further, as to the traditional Succoth, Von RaumER p. 266; Kwonzt, p. 204 [also Keil, Murphy, Words- worth, Jacobus, Surra’s “ Bib. Dic.,” all of whom decide against Robinson.—A. G.]—And he built.— He prepares here for a longer residence, since he builds himself a house instead of tents, and booths for his flocks, i. e., inclosures made of shrubs or stakes wattled together. Knobel thinks “ that this is very improbable, since Jacob would naturally wish to go to Canaan and Isaac” (ch. xxxi. 8), But if we bear in mind that Jacob, exhausted by a twenty- years’ servitude and oppression, and a flight of more than seven days, shattered by his spiritual conflicts, and lame bodily, now, first, after he had crossed the Jordan, and upon the spiritual and home land, came to the full sense of his need of repose and quiet, we shall then understand why he here pauses and rests. As the hunted hart at last sinks tothe ground, so he settles down and rests here for a time. He seems to have hoped, too, that he would be healed at Succoth, and it is probably with a special reference to this that it is said, ver. 18, that Jacob came “in peace or in health” to Shechem. Jacob, too, after his experience of his brother Esau’s importunity, had good reason for inquiring into the condition of things at Hebron, before he brought his family thither. [The fact that he built a house for himself, and permanent booths for his flock, indicates his contin- ued residence at Succoth for some years; and the age of Dinah at his flight from Laban makes it ne- cessary to suppose either that he dwelt here or at Shechem six or more years before the sad events nar- rated in the following chapter.—A. G.] And it ap- pears, indeed, that, either from Succoth or Shechem, he made a visit to his father Isaac at Hebron, and brought from thence his mother’s nurse, Deborah, since Rebekah was dead, and since she, as the confi- dential friend of his mother, could relate to him the history of her life and sufferings, and since, more- over, she stood in closer relation to him than any one else. Nor could Jacob, as Keil justly remarks, now an independent patriarch, any longer subordinate his household to that of Isaac. 2. The sojourn at Shechem (vers. 18-20).— And Jacob came (to Shalem) in good health— The word Dbw is taken by the Sept, Vul, and Luther [and by the translators of the Eng, Bib.— A. G.], a8 a proper noun, to Shalem, which some have regarded as another name for Shechem, and others as designating an entirely different place, and the more so, since the village of Salim is still found in the neighborhood of Shechem (Rosrnson: ‘‘ Re- searches,” vol. iii. p. 114 ff.). But it is never men- tioned elsewhere in the Old Testament, and a2 as an adjective, refers to the pibya, ch, xxviii. 21. Jehovah has fulfilled his promise.—A city of She- chem.—Or, to the city. Lit., of Shechem. The city was not in existence when Abraham sojourned in this region (ch. xii. 6). The Hivite prince Ha- mor had built it and called it after the name of his son. For the old name Mamortha of Pliny, see Kait, p. 224 [who holds that it may be a corruption from Hamor; but see also Rozrnson, vol. iii, p. 119. —A. G.].—In the land of Canaan.—Keil infers from these words that Succoth could not have been in the land of Canaan, i. e., on the west of the Jor- dan. But the words here, indeed, refer to the im- mediately following Hebraic acquisition of a piece of ground, just asin the purchase of the cave at Hebron by Abraham it is added, “in the land of Canaan” (ch. xxiii. 19)—Padan-aram (see ch. xxv. 20)—before the city.—[See the Bible Diction- aries, especially upon the situation of Jacob’s well, and Rosinson, vol. iii. pp. 113-136.—A, G.]. Even 560 after his return to Hebron Jacob kept a pasture sta- tion at Shechem (ch. xxxvii. 12).—A parcel of a field (Josh. xxiv. 32),—Abraham purchased for himself a possession for a burial place at Hebron. Jacob goes further, and buys a possession for bim- self during life. ‘This purchase shows that Jacob, in his faith in the divine promise, viewed Canaan as his own home, and the home of his seed. Tradition fixes this parcel of land, which, at the conquest of Canaan, fell as an heritage to the sons of Joseph, and in which Joseph’s bones were buried (Josh. xxiv, 32), as the plain lying at the southeast opening of the valley of Shechem, where, even now, Jacob’s well (John iv. 6) is shown, and about two hundred or three hundred paces north of it a Mohammedan wely, as the grave of Joseph (Ropinson: “ Re- searches,” vol. iii. pp. 113-186, and the map of Nablous, in the “German Oriental Journal,” xvi. p. 684).” Keil. For. the relation of this passage with ch, xlviii, 22, see the notes upon that passage.—An hundred pieces of money.—Onk., Sept., Vul., and the older commentators, regard the Quesita as a/ piece of silver of the value of a lamb, or stamped with a lamb, and which some have held as a proph- ecy pointing to the Lamb of God. Meyer (Heb. Dict.) estimates the Quesita as equal to a drachm, or an Egyptian double-drachm. Delitzsch says it was a piece of metal of an indeterminable value, but of greater value than a shekel (see Job xiii, 11)—An altar, and named it.—That is, he undoubtedly named it with this name, or he>) nivy , a standing expression for crimes which are irrecon- cilable with the dignity and destination of Israel as the people of God, but especially for gross sins of the flesh (Deut. xxii, 21; Judg. xx. 10; 2 Sam. xiii. 12), but also of other great crimes (Josh, vii. 15).— Which thing ought not to be done.—A new and stricter morality in this respect also, enters with the name Israel—My son Shechem.—tThe hesi- tating proposal of the father gives the impression of embarrassment. The old man offers Jacob and his sons the full rights of citizens in his little country, and the son engages to fulfil any demand of the brothers as to the bridal price and bridal gifts. Keil confuses these ordinary determinations. [He holds only with most that they were strictly presents (and not the price for the bride) made to the bride and to her mother and brothers.— A. G.|—c. Zhe fanat cal revenge of the sons of Jacob (vers. 13-29).—De- ceitfully.—Jacob had scarcely become Israel when the arts and cunning of Jacob appear in his sons, and, indeed, in a worse form, since they glory in being Israel.—_And said ("2'), we cannot do this thing.—Keil thinks the refusal of the proposition lies fundamentally in the proposal itself, because if they had not refused they would have denied the historical and saving vocation of Israel and his seed. The father, Israel, appears, however, to have been of a different opinion. For he doubtless knew the proposal of his sons in reply. He does not condemn their proposition, however, but the fanatical way in CHAP, XXXII. 17—XXXY. 1-15. which they availed themselves of its consequences. Dinah could not come into her proper rélations again but by Shechem’s passing over to Judaism. This way of passing over to Israel was always allowable, and those who took the steps were welcomed. We must therefore reject only: 1. The extension of the proposal, according to which the Israelites were to blend themselves with the Shechemites; 2. the mo- tives, which were external advantages. It was, on the contrary, a harsh and unsparing course in refer- ence to Dinah, if the sons of Leah wished her back again; or, indeed, would even gratify their revenge and Israelitish pride. But their resort to subtle and fanatical conduct merits only a hearty condemnation. —The young man deferred not.—We lose the force of the narrative if we say, with Keil, that this is noticed here by way of anticipation; the thing is as good as done, since Shechem is not only ready to do it, but will make his people ready also. The pur- pose, indeed, could only be executed afterwards, since Shechem could not have gone to the gate of the city after his circumcision—And communed with the men of the city.—They appeal in the strongest way to the self-interest of the Shechem- ites. Jacob’s house was wealthy, and the Shechem- itcs, therefore, could only gain by the connection.— 179312. Beasts of burden, camels, and asses. “Ac- cording to Herodotus, circumcision was practised by the Phoenicians, and probably also among the Ca- naanites, who were of the same race and are never referred to in the Old Testament as uncircumcised, as e. g., it speaks of the uncircumcised Philistines. It is remarkable that the Hivites, Hamor and She- chem, are spoken of as not circumcised. Perhaps, however, circumcision was not in general use among the Phoenician and Canaanitish tribes, as indeed it was not among the other people who practised the rite, e. g., the Ishmaelites, Edomites, and Egyptians, among whom it was strictly observed only by those of certain conditions or rank. Or we may suppose that the Hivites were originally a different tribe from the Canaanites, who had partly conformed to the customs of the land, and partly not.” Knobel.—On the third day.—After the inflammation set in. This was the critical day (see Detirzscn, p. 340). [He says it is well known that the operation in case of adults was painful and dangerous. Its subjects were confined to the bed from two to three weeks, and the operation was attended by a violent inflam- mation.—A.G.] “ Adults were to keep quiet for three days, and were often suffering from thirty-five to forty days.”—Simeon and Levi.—Reuben and Judah were also brothers of Dinah, but the first was probably of too feeble a character, and Judah was too frank and noble for such a deed. ‘Simeon and Levi come after Reuben, who, as the first-born, had a special responsibility towards his father (ch. xxxvil. 21 ff.; xlii, 22), and appears, therefore, to have withdrawn himself, and as the brothers of Dinah next in order undertake to revenge the dishonor of their sister. For the same reason Ammon was killed by Absalom (2 Sam. xiii. 28), Seduction is punished with death among the Arabians, and the brothers of the seduced are generally active in inflicting it (w IE- Buur: Arabien, p. 39; BurxHarpt’s ‘Syria,’ Pp. 361. and ‘Bedouins,’ p. 89).” Knobel. Keil says that the servants of Simeon and Levi undoubtedly took part in the attack, but it may be a question whether each son had servants belonging to himself. The city lay in security, as is evident from the NDA. 36 561 —Sons of Jacob.—Without the 1 conjunctive. The abrupt form of the narrative does not merely indi- cate “the excitement over the shocking crime.” For it is not definitely stated that all the sons of Jacob took part in sacking the city (Keil), although the slaughter of the men by Simeon and Levi may have kindled fanaticism in the others, and have led them to view the wealth of the city as the spoils of war, or as property without an owner. Much Jess can it be said that Simeon and Levi were excluded from these sons (as Delitzsch supposes). On the contrary, they are charged (xlix. 6) with hamstringing the oxen [Eng. ver., digged through a wall—A. G.], i. e., with crippling the cattle they could, not take with them. Nor are we here to bring into promi- nence that the Jacob nature breaks out again in this act, but, on the contrary, that the deed of the sons of Jacob is entirely unworthy. [Kurtz urges as an extenuation of their crime: 1. The fact that they viewed the rape as peculiarly worthy of punishment because they were Israel, the chosen people of God, the bearers of the promise, etc.; 2. their natural character, and the strength of their passions; 3. their youthful ardor; 4. the absence of counsel with their depressed and suffering father. But with every palliation, their treachery and bloodthirstiness, their use of the covenant sign of circumcision as a means to cloak their purpose, their extension of their re-. venge to the whole city, and the pillage of the slain, must shock every one’s moral sense.—A. G.]— a. The judgment of Jacob upon their crime (vers. 30, 81).—Ye have troubled me.—If we look at the places in which the word "39 occurs (Josh. vi. 18; vii. 15), we shall see plainly that Jacob is not. speaking here of mere simple grief. The idea pro- ceeds from the shaking of water, to the utmost con- fusion and consternation of spirit, or changes and. loss of life. The expression made to stink, signi-- fies not merely to become odious, offensive, but to make infamous, literally, to make one an abomina- tion. When Knobel concludes from the words: And I being few in number, that Jacob did not censure the act as immoral, but only as inconsiderate, and one which might thus cause his ruin, the infer- ence is manifestly false and groundless. He ex-. presses his censure of the act as immoral in the- words trouble me, put him to shame, made him blameworthy, while they thought that they were glorifying him.—Should he deal.—Should one: then, not should he then (Knobel), for he is dead ;. nor even should they then. The idea is, that if they had suffered this patiently they would thereby have consented that their sister should generally have been treated in this way with impunity. They thus insist upon the guilt of Shechera, but pass over his. offer of an atonement for his crime, and their own fearful guilt. ‘They have the last word (Delitzsch), but Jacob utters the very last word upon his death- “bed.” [And there, too, he makes clear and explicit, his abhorrence of their crime, as not merely dan- gerous, but as immoral, and this in the most solemn and emphatic way.—A. G.] Indirectly, indeed, he: even here utters the last word, in his warning call to rise up and purify themselves by repentance. They must now flee from their house and home, i. e., from the land which they have so lately purchased. 4, The departure to Bethel. Ch. xxxv, 1-8.— And God said to Jacob.—The warning to depart comes from Elohim, and hence Knobel and Delitzsch regard the section in ch. xxxv.-as Elohistic, though 562 Knobel thinks the Jehovist has made additions. Without regard to this, we can easily see, that God, who is to hold the Canaanites under his fear, so that they shall not take revenge on the house of Jacob, must be called Elohim. Although Jacob bad suffer- ed nearly ten years to elapse since his return from Mesopotamia, without fulfilling the vow he had made (ch. xxviii. 20) at Bethel, when he fled from Esau (Keil), we are not, therefore, to infer that he had been regardless of his duty during these ten years. For a perfect security against Esau was a part of that which was to complete his happy return; but there arose a necessity between Peniel and Succoth, that he must not only have security for himself .and his family, against the persecutions of Esau; but against his officious importunity, before he could go beyond Shechem with his whole train. Hence his sojourn at Succoth and Shechem. But when he is now reminded of a duty, too slowly fulfilled, the mo- tive is found not merely in the vow which he has to fulfil, but in the circumstances occasioned by his sons, which make his longer stay at Shechem unsafe, to which we must, doubtless, add, that in the mean- while the relations and distinctions between his house and that of Esau,were more securely and permanent- ly established. Have not the sons, who formerly were easily infatuated to render homage to their stately uncle, now-manifested in an extreme way their Israelitish consciousness ? The recollection (ch. xxxi. 30) proves that Jacob cherished the consciousness of his duty. He seems, indeed, to have gone too far in his precautionary tardiness. In seeking to entirely avoid Esau, he is entangled with the Shechemites. The call and warning also—Make an altar at Bethel—informs him that the time for his complete return home has now come.—Up to Bethel.— Bethel lay in the mountain region.—Put away the strange gods.—The shock that Jacob had expe- rienced by the rape of Dinah, the crime of his sons, the imperilled existence of his family, and the divine warning immediately following, strengthens his sense of the holiness of God, and of the sinfulness in him- self and his household, and he enjoins, therefore, an act of repentance, before he can enter upon the act of thanksgiving. He has, moreover, to confess, in reference to his house,,the sins of a refined idolatry, the sins of his sons at Shechem, and his own sins of omission. His love for Rachel had, doubtless, led him weakly to tolerate her teraphim until now. But now he has grown strong aud decided even in re- spect to Rachel, The fanatical Israelitish zeal of his sons had also a better element, which may have quickened his monotheistic feeling. Since the ma- jority of Jacob’s servants came from the circle and influence of the Nahorites, whose image-worship was viewed by the stricter Israelitish thought as idola- try (Ex. xx.; Josh. xxiv. 2), there were probably to be found in Jacob’s house other things, besides the teraphim of Rachel, which were regarded as the ob- jects of religious veneration. But the purification was necessary, not merely because they were now to remove to Bethel, the place of the outward revela- tion of Jehovah (Knobel), but because the spirit of Jehovah utters stronger demands in the conscience of Jacob, and because the approaching thanksgiving must be sanctified bya foregoing repentance. [There is good ground for the conjecture that there was 2 special reason for the charge now, since in the ‘spoil of the city there would be images of gold and silver. —A.G.]—And be clean.—The acts take place in the following order: 1. The putting away of the strange | GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. gods; 2. A symbolical purification, completed, ‘with out any doubt, through religious washings (Ex. xxix. 4; and similar. passages) ; and 3. The change of gar- ments. In some cases (Ex. xix. 20) a mere washing of the garments was held to be sufficient, here the injunction is more strict, since the pollution has been of longer duration. In Knobel’s view they were to put on their best garments, but they would scarcely go on their mountain journey insuch array. The chang- ed garments express the state of complete purification, even externally —Unto God who answered me, —He will thus fulfil his vow, and hold a thanksgiving feast with them.—And all their ear-rings.—They followed the injunction of Jacob so strictly, that they not only gave up the religious images, but also their amulets (chains), for the ear-rings were especially so used (see Winer: Real Worterbuch, Amulets).—And Jacob hid them.—aAs stripped and dead human images they are buried as the dead (Isa. ii. 20).— Under the oak (Terebinth)—KnopreL: “In the Terebinth grove at Shechem, i.e., under one of its trees (comp. ch. xii. 6; Judg. vi. 11). According to ch, xii. 7, and other passages, it was a grove. We must, therefore, read here mENM, as in Joshua, xxiv. 26, by the same author, to whom belongs also Ex. xxxii, 2, or assume that there were both kinds of trees in the grove.”—And the terror of God was upon.—The genuine repentance in the house of Ja- cob was followed by the blessing of divine protec- tion against the bloody revenge with which he.was threatened from those who dwelled near Shechem. God himself, as the protecting God of Jacob, laid this terror upon them, which may have been intro- duced on the one hand, through the outrage of She- chem (Knobel); and on the other, through the fear- ful power of Jacob’s sons, their holy zeal, and that of their God.— Luz, which is in the land of Ca- naan.—The words appear to be added, in order to fix the fact, that Jacob had now accomplished his pros- perous return. [The name Luz, almond tree, still re- curs, as the almond tree is still flourishing. Murpry. —A. G.J—And all the people.—The number of Jacob's servants, both in women and children, may have been considerably increased through the sudden overthrow of Shechem. Although Jacob would have restored all, as some have conjectured, the heads of the families to whom this restitution could be made were wanting.—That is Bethel.— There is no contradiction, as Knobel thinks, between this passage and ch. xxviii. 19, which is to be ex- plained upon the assumption of an Elohistic account, but as (vers. 35) a confirmation of the new name which Jacob gave the city. Luzis so called by the Canaan- ites now, as it was before, although a solitary wander- cer had named the place, where he.spent the night, more than twenty years before, Bethel —Hl-Bethel. He names the altar itself, as he had also the altar at Shechem (ch. xxxiii. 20), and still further the place surrounding the altar, and thus declared its conse- cration as a sanctuary. El, too, is here in the geni- tive, and to be read of God; the place is not called God of Bethe], but of the God of Bethel. He thus evidently connects this consecration with the earlier revelation of God received at Bethel.*—Then Deb- orah died.—The nurse of Rebekah had gone with her to Hebron, but how came she here? Delitzsch conjectures that Rebekah had sent her, according to the promise (ch. xxvii. 45), or to her daughter- * [The verb aba2, appeared, is here plural—one of the few cases in which Elohim takes the plural verb,—A. G.), CHAP, XXXII 17—XXXV. 1-18. in-law and grandchildren, for their care; but we have ventured the suggestion that Jacob took her with him upon his return from a visit to Hebron. She found her peculiar home in Jacob’s house, and with his children after the death of Rebekah. For other views see Knobel, who naturally prefers to find a difficulty even here. It is a well-known method of exaggerating all the blanks in the Bible into diversities and contradictions—Allon- bachuth.—Oak of weeping. Delitzsch conjectures that perhaps Judg. iv. 5; 1 Sam. xvi. 8, refer to the same tree as a monument, a conjecture which, however, the locality itself refutes—And God ap- peared unto Jacob.—The distinction between God spake and God appeared is analogous to the dis- tinction in the mode of revelation (ch. xii. vers. 1 and 7). ‘‘He now appears to him,” Keil says, ‘ by day in visible form: for the darkness of that form- er time of anguish has now given way to the clear light of salvation. The representation is incorrect, and is based upon the assumption, that the night revelations are confined to times of trouble—Again. —Now, at his return when the vow has been paid, as before in his migration, when the vow was oc- casioned and made. But now Jehovah appears to him as his God, according to his vow, then shall the Lord be my God. [When he came out of Padan- aram.—This explains the ‘clause (ver. 6), which is in the land of Canaan. Bethel was the last point in the land of Canaan that was noticed in his flight from Esau. His arrival at this point indicates that he has now returned to the land of Canaan. Murray, p. 427.—A. G.]—And blessed him.—So also Abra- ham was blessed repeatedly—_Thy name is Jacob ? —wWe read the phrase according to its connection with ch. xxxii. 27, as a question, Then Jacob an- swered to the question “ what is thy name? Jacob. Here God resumes the thread again, thou art Jacob ? But if any one is not willing to read the words as a question, it still marks a progress. The name Israel was given to him at Peniel, here it is sealed to him. Hence it is here connected with the Messianic prom- ise. [Murphy suggests also that the repetition of the name here implies a decline in his spiritual life between Peniel and .Bethel.—A. G.J—I am God Almighty.—This self-applied title of God has the same significance here as it had in the revelation of God for Abrabam (xvii. 1); there he revealed him- self as the miracle-working God, because he had promised Abraham a son; here, however, because he promises to make from Jacob’s family a community [assembly.—A. G.] of nations. [The kahal is sig- nificant as it refers to the ultimate complete fulfil- ment of the promise in the true spiritual Israel. —A.G.]* Knobel secs here only an Elohistic statement of the fact which has already appeared of the new naming of Jacob, which, too, he re- gards as a mere poetic fiction. According to ae supposition, Israel here cannot be warrior ee but, perhaps, prince with God. Even Delitzse wavers between the assumption of an Elohistic redac- tion or revision, aud the apprehension and recognition of new elements, which, of course, favor the idea of a says, from this time the Sao ot t “five years after this e aan prance erie hundred and * (Murph, Israe] is rapid. : i + with seventy souls, and two v pe ae after that Israel goes out of Egypt numberin, about one million cight hundred thousand. A nation an a congregation of nations, such as were then known in the world, had at the last date come of him, and “kings” were to follow in due time.—A. G.] 563 new fact. To these new elements belong the libation, the drink-offering (probably of wine), poured upon the stone anointed with oil, Jacob’s own reference to this revelation of God at Bethel (ch. xlviii. 3), and the circumstance that Hos. xii. 5, can only refer to this revelation. Under a closer observation of the devel- opment of Jacob’s faith, there cannot be any question as to the confounding the theophany at Peniel with a second theophany at Bethel. It must be observed, too, tliat henceforth the patriarch is sometimes called Jacob, and sometimes Israel. [This is the first men- tion of the drink-offering in the Bible—A. G.] DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL. 1. We view Jacob’s settlement at Succoth: a. In the light of a building of booths and houses for re- freshment, after a twenty years’ servitude, and the toils and soul-conflicts connected with his journey- ings (comp: the station Elim, Ex. xv. 27, where Is- rael first rested); b. As a station where he might regain his health, so that he could come to Shechem well and in peace; ¢c. As a station where he could tarry for a time on account of Esau’s importunity (comp. Exegetical notes). 2. Jacob’s places of abode in Canaan, in their principal stations, are the same with those of his grandfather Abraham. He settles down in the vicin- ity of Shechem, as formerly Abraham bad done in the oak groves of Moreh (ch. xii. 6). Then he re- moved to Bethel, just as Abraham had gone into the same vicinity (ch. xii. 8), and after his wandering to Egypt returned here again to Bethel. At last he comes to Hebron, which had been consecrated by Abraham, as the seat of the patriachal residence. 8. For the history of Shechem in the history of the kingdom of God (see Bible Dict.) It is: a. A capital of the Hivites, and as such the scene of the brutal heathenish iniquity, in relation to the religious and moral dignity of Israel; b. The birth-place of Jewish fanaticism in the sons of Jacob; c. A chief city of Ephraim, and an Israelitish priestly city ; d. The capital of the kingdom of Israel for some time ; e. The principal seat of the Samaritan nationality and cultus, The acquisition of a parcel of land at Shechem by Jacob, forms a counterpart to the pur- chase of Abraham at Hebron. But there is an evi- dent progress here, since he made the purchase for his own settlement during life, while Abraham barely gained a burial place. The memory of Canaan by Israel and the later conquest (comp. xlviii. 22), is closely connected with this possession. In Jacob’s life, too, the desire to exchange the wandering no- madic life for a more fixed abode, becomes more appa- rent than in the lifeof Isaac. [Rontnsoy’s “History of Shechem ” is full and accurate. Wordsworth’s re- mark here, after enumerating the important events clustering around this place from Abraham to Christ, is suggestive. Thus the history of Shechem, combin- ing so many associations, shows the uniformity of the divine plan, extending through many centuries, for the salvatian of the world by the promised seed of Abraham, in whom all nations are blessed ; and for the outpouring of the spirit on the Israel of God, who are descended from the true Jacob; and for their union in the sanctuary of the Christian church ; and for the union of all nations in one household in Christ, Luke, i. 68.—A. G.] : 4, Dinah’s history, a warning history for the daughters of Israel, and a foundation of the Old 564 GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. Testament limitation of the freedom of the female sex. 5. The collision between the sons of Jacob and Shechem, the son of Hamor, is a vivid picture of the collisions between the youthful forms of political despotism and hierarchal pride. Shechem acts as an insolent worldly prince, Jacob’s sons as young tanatical priests, luring him to destruction. 6. After Jacob became Israel, the just conscious- ness of his theocratic dignity appears manifestly in his sons, under the deformity of fanatical zeal. We may view this narrative as the history of the origin, and first original form of Jewish and Christian fanaticism. We notice first that fanaticism does not originate in and for itself, but clings to religious and moral ideas as a monstrous and misshapen outgrowth, since it changes the spiritual into a carnal motive. The sons of Jacob were right in feeling that they were deeply injured in the religious and moral idea and dignity of Israel, by Shechem’s deed. But still they are already wrong in their judgment of She- chem’s act; since there is surely a difference between the brutal lust of Ammon, who after his sin pours his hatred upon her whom he had dishonored, and Shechem, who passionately loves and would marry the dishonored maiden, and is ready to pay any sum as an atonement; a distinction which the sons of Jacob mistook, just as those of the clergy do at this day who throw all branches of the seventh command- ment into one common category and as of the same heinous dye. Then we observe that Jacob’s sons justly shun a mixture with the Shechemites, al- though in this case they were willing to be circum- cised for worldly and selfish ends. But there is a clear distinction between such a wholesale, mass conversion, from improper motives, which would have corrupted and oppressed the house of Israel, » and the transition of Shechem to the sons of Israel, or the establishment of some neutral position for Dinah. But leaving this out of view, if we should prefer to maintain (what Jacob certainly did not maintain) that an example of revenge must be made, to intimidate the heathen, and to warn the future Israel against the Canaanites, still the fanatical zeal in the conduct of Jacob’s sons passed over into fa- naticism strictly so called, which developed itself from the root of spiritual pride, according to its three world-historical characteristics. The first was cun- ning, the lie, and enticing deception, Thus the Hu- ‘guenots were enticed into Paris on the night of St. Bartholomew. The second was the murderous at- tack and carnage. How often has this form shown itself in the history of fanaficism! This pretended sacred murder and carnage draws the third charac- teristic sign in its train: rapine and pillage. The possessions of the heretics, according to the laws of the middle ages, fell to the executioner of the pre- tended justice; and the history of the crusades against the heretics testifies to similar horrors and devastation. Jacob, therefore, justly declares his condemnation of the iniquity of the brothers, Simeon and Levi, not only at once, but upon his death-bed (ch. xlix.), and it marks the assurance of the apocry- phal standpoint, when the book Judith, for the pur- pose of palliating the crime of Judith, glorifies in a poetical strain the like fanatical act of Simeon (ch. ix.). Judith, indeed, in the trait of cunning, appears as the daughter in spirit of her ancestor Simeon. We must not fail to distinguish here in our history, in this first vivid picture of fanaticism, the nobler point of departure, the theocratic motive, from the terrible counterfeit and deformity. In this relation there seems to have been a difference between the brothers, Simeon and Levi. While the former. ap- pears to have played a chief part in the history of Joseph also (ch. xlii. 24, and my article, “ Simeon,” in Herzoe’s “ Real Encyclopedia”), and in the divi- sion of Canaan was dispersed among his brethren, the purified Levi came afterwards to be the repre- sentative of pure zeal in Israel (Exod. xxxii., 28; Deut. xxxiii. 8) and the administrator of the priest- hood, i. e., the theocratic priestly first-born, by the side of Judah the theocratic political first-born. A living faith and a faithful zeal rarely develop them- selves as a matter of fact without a mixture of fa- naticism; “the flame gradually purifies itself from the smoke.” In all actual individual cases, it is a question whether the flame overcomes the smoke, or the smoke the flame. In the life of Christ, the Old- Testament covenant faithfulness and truth burns pure and bright, entirely free from smoke; in the history of the old Judaism, on the contrary, a dan- gerous mixture of fire and smoke steams over the land, And so in the development of individual be- lievers we see how some purify themselves to the purest Christian humanity, while others, ever sinking more and more into the pride, cunning, uncharitable- ness and injustice of fanaticism, are completely ruined. De.irzscn: “The greatest aggravation of their sin was that they degraded the sacred sign of the covenant into the common means of their mal- ice. And yet it was a noble germ which exploded so wickedly.” 7, This Shechemite carnage of blind and Jewish fanaticism, is reflected in a most remarkable way, as to all its several parts, in the most infamous crime of Christian fanaticism, the Parisian St. Bartholo- mew. [The narrative of these events at Shechem shows how impartial the sacred writer is, bringing out into prominence whatever traits of excellence there were in the characters of Shechem and Hamor, while he does not conceal the cunning, falsehood, and cruelty of the sons of Jacob. Nor should we fail to observe the connection of this narrative with the later exclusion of Simeon and Levi from the rights of the first-born, to which they would natu- rally have acceded after the exclusion of Reuben; and with their future location in the land of Canaan. The history furnishes one of the clearest proofs of the genuineness and unity of Genesis,—A. G.] 8. Jacob felt that, as the Israel of God, he was made offensive even to the moral sense of the sur- rounding heathen, through the pretended holy deed of his sons; so far so that they had endangered the very foundation of the theocracy, the kingdom of God, the old-covenant church. Fanaticism always produces the same results ; either to discredit Chris- tianity in the moral estimate of the world, and im- peril its very existence by its unreasonable zcal, or to expose it to the most severe persecutions. 9. The direction of Jacob to Bethel, by the com- mand of God, is a proof that in divine providence ‘the true community of believers must separate itself from the condition into which fanaticism has placed it. By this emigration Israel hazards the possession at Shechem which he had just acquired. 10. Divine providence knows perfectly how to unite in one very different aims, as this narrative very clearly shows. They are then, indeed, subordi- nated to the one chief end. The chief end here which the providence of God has in view in the jour- ney of Jacob from Shechem to Bethel, is the duty CHAP, XXXII. 17—XXXV. 1-15. of Jacob to fulfil the vow he had made at Bethel. But with this the object of his removing from She- chem and of his concealed flight is closely connect- ed. So also the purpose of purifying his house from the guilt of fanaticism, and the idolatrous image- worship, At the same time it is thus intimated that both these objects would have been secured already, if Jacob had been more in earnest in the fulfilment of his vow. _ 11, As Jacob intends holding a feast of praise and thanksgiving at Bethel, he enjoins upon his house- hold first a féast of purification, 1. e., a fast-day. This preparation rests upon a fundamental law of the inner spiritual life. We must first humble ourselves for our own deeds, and renounce all known cvil practices, if we would celebrate with joyful praise and thanksgiving, with pure eyes and lips, the gra- cious deeds of God. The approach of such a feast ig a foretaste of blessedness, and hence the con- science of the pious, warned by its approach, is quickened and made more tender, and they feel more deeply the necessity for a previous purification by repentance. In the Mosaic law, therefore, the purification precedes the sacrifices; the solemnities of the great day of atonement went before the joy- ful feast of tabernacles. Hence the Christian pre- pares himself for the holy Supper through a confes- sion of his sins, and of his faith, and a vow of re- formation, The grandest form in which this order presents itself is in the connection between Good- Friday and Easter, both in reference to the facts commemorated (the atonement and the new life in Christ) and in reference to the import of the solemni- ties. The Advent-season affords a similar time for preparation for the Christmas festival (comp. Matt. v. 23). ot Viewed in its outward aspect, the purification of Jacob’s house was a rigid purification from relig- ious image-worship, and the means of superstition, which the now awakened and enlightened conscience of Jacob saw to be nothing but idolatry. But these works of superstition and idolatry are closely con- nected with the fanaticism for which Jacob’s house must also repent, The common band or tic of idol- atry and fanaticism is the mingling of the religious state and disposition with mere carnal thoughts or sentiments. There is, indecd, a fanaticism of icono- clasm, but then it is the same carnal thought, which regards the external aspect of religion as religion itself, and through this extreme view falls into an idolatrous fear of images, as if they were actual hos- tile powers. The marks of a gound and healthy treatment of images idolatrously venerated, are clear- ly seen in this history: 1. A cheerful putting away of the images at the warning word of God; but no threats or violence against the possessors of the im- ages; 2. a seemly removal, as in the burial of the dead body. Whatever has been the object of wor- ship should be buried tenderly, unless it was used directly for evil and cruel purposes. The sacred washings follow the removal of the images, the pre- lude to the religious washings of the Jews, and the first preliminary token of baptism. The washing was a symbol of the purifying from sin and guilt by repentance ; and as such was connected with the change of garments, the new garments symbolizing the new disposition, as with the baptismal robes. 13. The religious earnestness with which Israel departed from Shechem set the deed of the sons of Jacob in a different light before the surrounding Ca- paanites. They saw in the march of Israel a host 565 with whom the holiness and power of God was in covenant, and were restrained from pursuing them by a holy terror of God. The terror of God here indicates the fact, that the small surrounding nations received an impression from the religious and moral earnestness of the sons of Israel, far deeper and more controlling than the thirst for revenge. A like religious and moral working of fear went afterwards before the nation of Israel when it entered Canaan, and we may even view the present march of Jacob as foreshadowing that later march and conquest. But the same terror of God has at various times protected and saved the people of God, both during the old and new covenants. 14. The fulfilment of a pious vow in the life of the: believer, corresponds, as the human well-doing, to the fulfilment of the divine promise. It stands in the same relation as the human prayer and amen to the word of God. The vow of baptism and con- firmation* is fulfilled in the pious Christian life, upon the ground of the grace and truth with which God fulfils his promises. Jacob’s vow refers to a special promise of God, at his entrance upon a diffi- cult aud dangerous journey, and hence the fulfilment of the vow was the glorification of the gracious lead- ing of God, and of’ the truth and faithfulness of God to hisword. It was a high point in the life of Israel, from which, while holding the feast, he looked back over his whole past history, but more especially over his long journey and wanderings. But for this very reason the feast was consecrated also to an outlook into the future. For the further history of Bethel, see Bible Dictionaries. 15. The solemn, reverent burial of Deborah, and the oak of weeping dedicated to her memory, are 4 proof that old and faithful servants were esteemed in the house of Jacob, as they were in Abraham’s , household. As they had taken a deep interest and part in the family spirit and concerns, so they were treated in life and death as members of the family. The aged Deborah is the counterpart to the aged Eliezer. The fact that we find her here dying in the family of Jacob, opens to us a glance into the warm, faithful attachment of this friend of Rebekah, and at the same time enables us to conclude with the highest certainty that Rebekah was now dead. Debo- rah would not have parted from Rebekah while she was living. Dewitzscn: ‘‘ We may regard the hea- then traditions, that the nurse of Dionysius (0°32, Bdxxos) lies buried in ‘Scythopolis (Pui. H.W. ch. v. 15), aud that the grave of Silenos is found in the land of the Hebrews (Pausay. Hliaca, cap. 24), with which F. D. Michaelis connects the passage, as the mere distorted echoes of this narrative.” 16. We may regard the new and closing revelation and promise which Jacob received at Bethel after his thanksgiving feast, as the confirmation and sealing of his faith, and thus it forms a parallel to the con- firmation and sealing of the faith of Abraham upon Moriah (ch. xxii, 15). But it is to be observed here that Jacob is first sealed after having purified his faith from any share in the guilt of fanaticism. And the same thing precisely may be said of the sealing of Abraham, after he had freed himself from the fanatical prejudice that Jehovah could in a religious * [Among the continental churches confirmation is re- sie in much the same light as we regard the open recep- tion of the baptized members of the church, to their first communion; when they are said to assume for themselves the vows which were made for them in their baptism.—A. G.] 566 sense literally demand the sacrifice of a human life, i. e., the literal killing, he became certain of his life of faith, of the promise of God, and of his future. Thus here the flame of Israel is completely purified from the smoke. But here, again, it lies in the very law of the inward life, that God, cannot seal the faith from which the impure elements have not been purged. Otherwise fanaticism, too, would be con- firmed and sanctioned. Hence the assurance of faith will, always waver and fluctuate, even to its disap- pearance in any one, in the measure in which he combines impure and carnal elements with his faith, and then holds it more and more as a confidence of a higher grade. Enthusiastic moments, mighty hu- man acts of boldness, party earnestness and temerity, will not compensate for the profound, heavenly as- surance of faith, an established life of faith, which is the gift of the Holy Spirit. True it is, that the precondition of sealing is justification, the heart ex- perience of the peace of God, of reconciliation by | faith ; but this gift of God the Christian must keep pure by steadfastness in the Lord, even in the midst of temptation, which is often a temptation to fanati- cism (see the Epistle of James), and then he is con- firmed. In our estimate of the stages of confirma- tion, it is not at all strange that Jacob should have the name of Israel, first given to him at Peniel, here confirmed.to him. Henceforth he is more frequently called Israel, for the new life in him has become a new nature, the prominent and ruling feature of his being.. : 17, The renewed Messianic promise assured to Jacob (ch, xxxv. 11), 18, From the fact that Jacob erected a stone pil- lar at Bethel, on which he poured a drink-offering, and then oil, Knobel conjectures, without the least , ground, that the Elohist here introduces the sacrifice in this form, and knows nothing of’ an altar and of animal sacrifices (p. 274). But it is evident that this pillar was taken.from the altar before mentioned (ver. 7), and that this drink-offering must therefore be distinguished from the sacrifice upon that altar. As in the wrestling of Jacob, the distinciion between | the outward and inward aspects of the right of the first-born, and thus also of the priesthood, first comes into view, so here, also, we have the distinction be- tween the peculiar sacrifice in the strict sense and the thank-offering. The stone designates (ch. xxviii. 20) the ideal house of God, and in this significance must be distinguished from the altar. Through the thank-offering Jacob consecrates the enjoyment of his prosperity to the Lord; through the oil he raises the stone, as well as his thanksgiving, to a lasting, sacred remembrance. [Kurtz remarks here: “ The thirty years’ journey from Bethel to Bethel is now completed. The former residence at Bethel stands to the present somewhat as the beginning to the end, the prophecy to the fulfilment; for, the unfolding of the purpose of salvation, so far as that could be done in the life of Jacob, has now reached its acme and relative completion. There the Lord appeared to him in a dream, here in his waking state, and the dream is the prophetic type of the waking reality. ‘here God promised to protect and bless him, and bring him back to this land—a promise now fulfilled. There Jacob made his vow, here he pays it. There God consecrates him to be the bearer of salvation, and makes the threefold promise of the blessing of silvation. So far as the promise could be fulfilled in Jacob, it is now fulfilled; the land of promise is open before him, he has already obtained possession GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. in part, and the promised seed reaches its first stage of completeness in the last son of Rachel, giving the significant number twelve, and the idea of salvation attains its development, since Jacob has become Is- rac], But this fulfilment ‘is only preliminary and relative, and in its turn becomes a prophecy of the still future fulfilment. Hence God renews the bless- ing, showing that the fulfilment lies in the future still; hence God renews his new name Israel, which defines his peculiar position to salvation and his re- lation to God, showing that Jacob has not yet fully become Israel; the promise and the name are cor- relates—the one will be realized when the other is fulfilled. Hence, too, Jacob renews the name Beth- el, in which the peculiarity of the relation of God to Jacob is indicated; his dwelling in and among the seed of Jacob, and the renewing of this name pro- claims his consciousness that God would still become in a far higher measure, El-beth-el.”—A. G.] HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL. See the Doctrinal and Ethical remarks. Jacob’s settlement at Shechem; 1. The departure thither from Succoth ; 2. the settlement itself: 8. the new departure to Bethel.—The settlement itself: 1. How promising! happy return. Prosperous acquisition of the parcel of land. Peaceful relations with the Shechemites. Religious toleration. 2. How seri- ously endangered (through Jacob’s carelessness. He does not return early enough to Bethel to fulfil his vow. Probably he even considers the altar at She- chem a substitute. His love for Rachel makes him tolerant to her teraphim, and consequently to the teraphim of his house generally. His polygamy is perhaps the occasion of his treating the children with special indulgence). 8. How fearfully disturbed ! Dinah’s levity and dishonor. Importunity of the Shechemites; the carnage of his sons. The exist- ence of his house endangered. 4. The happy con- clusion caused by Jacob’s repentance and God’s pro- tection.—The first great sorrow prepared for the patriarch by his children.—Dinah’s conduct.—The dangerous proposals of friendship by the Shechem- ites.—The brothers, Simeon and Levi. Their right. Their wrong.—Fanaticism in its first biblical form, and its historic, manifestations.—Its contagious pow- er. All, or at least the majority, of Jacob’s sons, are swept along by its influence.—Jacob’s repentance, or the feast of purification of his house ——How the union of repentance and faith is reflected in the sacred institutions. , In both sacraments, in the cele- bration of the Lord’s Supper, in the connection of sacred festivals, especially in the connection between Good-Friday and Easter.—The thanksgiving at Beth- el.—Here, too, the feast of joy is followed by deep mourning and funeral obsequies.—Deborah: 1. We know very little of her; and yet, 2. we know very much of her.—The greatness of true and unselfish love in the kingdom of God.—The nobility of free service.—Jacob’s confirmation—confirmed as Israel. —The renewed promise. First Section. The settlement at Suecoth, Ch. xxxiii, 17. Srarxe: He, no doubt, visited his father during this interval.—Geriacu: (On some accounts we believe that Succoth was situated on the right side of Jordan, in the valley of Succoth, in which lay the city of Beth-Shean. Succoth are literally huts made of boughs, here folds made of boughs of trees and bushes.) CHAP. XXXII. 17—XXXV. 1-15. Second Section. The settlement at Shechem. Ch. xxxiii, 18-20. Srarke: (Shechem, Quesita. The Septuagint transl., lambs; Chald., pearls. Others un- derstand money. piph., de pond. et mons., asserts that Abraham introduced the art of coining money in Canaan). Scuriéper: Von Raumer considers Shalem as the more ancientname of Shechem, Robin- son regards it as a proper name, and finds it now in the village of Shalem, some distance east from Shechem. Third Section. Dinah, Ch. xxxiv. 1-31. Starke: Dinah’s walk: without doubt, taken from motives of curiosity.—Contrary to all his expecta- tions (for a peaceful, quiet time of worship, etc.), Jacob’s heart is most keenly mortified by Dinah’s disgrace, and the carnage committed by Simeon and Levi.—He who wishes to shun sin, must avoid also occasions of sin.—Curiosity is a great fault in the female sex, and has caused many a one to fall. Scuréper: (Val. Herb.) A gadding girl, and a lad who has never gone beyond the precincts of home, are both good for nothing (Tit. ii. 5). a. Zhe rape. Srarke: (2 Sam. xiii. 12) By force (2 Sam. xiii, 12- 14), (Judging from Dinah’s levity, it was not with- out her consent.)—Cramer: Rape a sin against the sixth and seventh commandments.—What a disgrace, that great and mighty lords,-instead of being an ex- ample to their subjects in chastity and honor, should surpass them in a dissolute and godless deportment. —Geriacn: Ver. 7. Fool and folly are terms used frequently in the Old Testament to denote the perpe- tration of the greatest crimes. The connectién of the thought is this, that godlessness and vice are the greatest folly, ete.—Scuréper: Josephus says, Dinah went to a fair or” festival at Shechem. The person that committed the rape was the most distin- guished (ver. 19) son (the crown-prince, 80 to speak) of the ruling sovereign.—The sons of Jacob, for the first time, transfer the spiritual name of their father to the house of Jacob, etc. They are conscious, therefore, of the sacredness of their families. The sharp antithesis between Israel and Canaan enters in- to their consciousness (Baumgarten). b. Zhe propo- sal of marriage. Starke: Although it is just and proper to strive to restore fallen virgins to honor by asking their parents or friends to give them in mar- riage, and thus secure their legal position and rights, yet it is putting the cart before the horse,—Little children bring light cares, grown children heavy cares, (God afterwards prohibited (Deut. vil. 8) them to enter into any friendly relations with the heathen nations.) c. The fanatical revenge of Jacob's sons. Srarxe: Take care that you do not indulge in wrath and feelings of revenge.—Hat1 : Smiling malace is generally fatal_—Even the most bloody machina tions are frequently gilded with religion. —Freiberger Bibel : Hamor, the ruling prince, is a sad example of an unfaithful and interested magistracy, who, under the pretence of the common welfare, pursues his own ad- vantage and interests, while he tries to deceive his subjects.—The Shechemites, therefore, did not adopt the Jewish religion from motives of pure love ora proper regard for it, but from self-interest and love of gain.—CraMEr : It is no child’s play, to treat re- ligion in a thoughtless and careless way, and to change from one form to another.—One violent son may bring destruction upon a whole city and country. —_-Hatt: The aspect of external things constrains many more to profession of religion, than con- science (Jobn vi. 26), But how will it be with those who do not use the sacraments from proper motives? —Sirictures upon the apology for this deed in the 567 book of Judith, and by others,—Cramrr; God some- times punishes one folly by another—Hat: To make the punishment more severe than the sin, is no less unjust than to injure—What Shechem perpe- trated alone, is charged upon all the citizens in com- mon, because it seems that they were pleased with it. —Lance: This was a preliminary judgment of God upon the Shechemites, thus to testify what the Ca- naanites in future had to expect from Jacob’s de- scendants.—OsianpER: When magistrates sin, their subjects are generally punished with them. They evidently do not present circumcision as an entire- ly new divine service, as an initiation into the cove- nant with the God of Israel, but only as an external custom.—It is remarkable here, how adroitly Hamor and Shechem represent to the people as pertaining to the common advantage, what was only for their personal interest.—We here meet the wild Eastern vindictiveness in all its force. Moreover, the carnal heathen view, that all the people share in the act of the prince.—ScurépEr: We have here the same sad mixture of flesh and spirit which we have seen at the beginning, in Jacob.—Tause: Sins of the world and sins of the saints in their connection. d. Jacob’s judgment upon this crime, SrarKxe: (Jacob, no doubt, sent back all the captives with their cattle.)— (It seems that, while not altogether like Eli, he did not have his sons under a strict discipline, since his family was so large.)—For the wrath of man work- eth not the righteousness of God (James i. 20),— Geriacn: How miraculously God protected this poor, despised (?) company from mingling with the heathen on the one hand, and from persecution on the other.—Scuréper: Judging from this test, what would have become of Jacob’s descendants, if divine grace had left them to themselves in sucha way (Calvin) ? It was not due to themselves, certainly, that they were not entirely estranged from the kingdom of God, ete. Fourth Section. The departure to Bethel. Ch. xxxv. 1-8. Srarke: Because the true church was in Jacob’s house, God would not permit it to be wholly destroyed, as Jacob, perhaps, conjectured.— Change your garments.—Which ‘are yet sprinkled with the blood of the Shechemites.—OstanpzrR : Le- gitimate vows, when it is in our power to keep them, must be fulfilled (Deut. xxiii. 21).—Cramer: The Christian Church may err, and easily be led to super- stition; pious bishops, however, are to recognize these errors, and to do away with them. They are to purify churches, houses, and servants, and point them to the word of God. Repentance and conver- sion of the soul is the proper purification of sins.— Bidl. Tub. : Is our worship to please God, then our hearts must be cleansed, and the strange gods, our wicked lusts, must be eradicated.—The proper refor- mation of a church consists, not only in the extirpa- tion of idolatry and false doctrines, but also in the reformation of the wrong courses of life(Neh. x. 29). —Ver. 8. All faithful servants, both males and fe- males, are to be well cared for when they become sick or feeble, and to be decently buried after their death._Cramer: Christ is the pillar set up, both in. the Old and New Testament; he is anointed with: the oil of gladness, and with him only we find the true Bethel, where God speaks with us.—GERLacH: Ver. 1. His worship of God connects itself with this critical point in his history. As in the Old Test., “The God of peace and of comfort,” etc., is frequent- ly mentioned, so also the faith of the patriarch clings to God in his peculiar personal revelations. It is: 568 the God who revealed himself at Bethel. (Still the name, El-Bethel, given with’ the first revelation at Bethel, includes the whole journey of Jacob until his return to Bethel.)—Scuréner: Jehovah has accom- plished what he has said.— We can only approach the house of God in faith, when we have first penitential- ly put away from our houses all strange gods, (Mr- cuaguts finds here the first and oldest trace of the baptism of proselytes.) I consider that Deborah, a wise and pious matron, was esteemed, so to speak, by the servants as a grandmother, who served and con- soled Jacob (Luther).—Tavse: The house of the patriarch Jacob as a mirror of Christian family life, Fifth Section. The seali g of the t bet: God and the patriarch at Bethel. Ch. xxxv. 9-15. Srarxe: As God appears to Abraham ten times, so SEVENTH GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES, he appears to Jacob six timés (ch. xxviii, 12; xxxi, 11,138; xxxii. 1-2; xxxii. 24; xxxv. 1; the present passage; and ch. xlvi. 2)—Scuréper: Now that Jacob has become Israel in its fullest sense, the re- newal of the promise connected with the conferring of the name has a far greater signification than be- fore (Hengstenberg).—Ver. 18. God descends into us, whenever he gives us a token of his presence. Here, therefore, we havea designation of the end of the vision (Calvin).—For the symbolical signification of oil, see Bahr.—As Israel, as patriarchal ances- tor, the foundation-stone of the spiritual temple, he lays the first (?) stone to the building which his de- scendants are to complete. (Drecaster: So much is certain, that the first idea of a definite house of God is connected with the Bethel of Jacob.) SECTION. Departure from Bethel. Benjamin's birth. Rachel's death, CuaPTeR XXXV. 16-20. 16 17 And they journeyed from Bethel; and there was but a little’ way to come to Ephrath [trnit, the fruitful]: and Rachel travailed, and she had hard-labor. And it came to pass, when she was in hard Jabor, that the midwife said unto her, Fear not; thou 18 shalt have this son also.” And it came to pass as her soul was in departing, (for she died,) that she called his name Ben-oni [my son of pain or sorrow]: but his father called him 19 20 Benjamin [son of the right hand], And Rachel died, and was buried in the way to Ephrath, which zs Beth-lehem [house of bread], And Jacob set a pillar [monument] upon her grave: that zs the pillar of Rachel’s grave unto this day. pC yuan. » a space or stretch of ground. How long is unknown; see ch. xviii. 7; 2 Kings v.19. Josephus renders a, furlong ; the Sept., ‘somewhat longer distance.”—A. G.] [? Lit., for this is also to thee a son.—A. G@.] EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL. And they journeyed.—The residence at Beth- el, enjoined upon him, had reached its end with the founding of the altar, and the completed thanksgiv- ing.—And there was but a little way.—An un- known distance. The Rabbinical explanation, “as far as one could plough in a day,” is senseless, for in one direction they could plough miles, but in plough- ing a field, the breadth ploughed depends upon the length of the field, but in any case is too small to be the measure of distances. The Sept., misunder- standing the passage, makes it the name of a place. [In the 19th verse, however, the Sept. has hippo- drome.—-A. G.] Delitzsch conjectures a distance equal to a Persian parasang.—And Rachel travail- ed.—The wish she had uttered at Joseph’s birth, that God would give her another son, now, after a long period, perhaps sixteen or seventeen years, is about to be fulfilled, but it caused her death. Jacob was now old, and Rachel ‘certainly was no longer young ; moreover, she had not borne children for many years. Delitzsch reckons Jacob’s age at one hun- dred and six, and Rachel’s at about fifty years.— ‘When she was in hard labor.—The Piel and Hi- phil forms of YP denote not merely heavy birth- pains, but the very birth-throes and anguish.—The midwife, i.e., a maid-servant skilful and trusted in this matter.—Thou shalt have a son.—The last consolation for Rachel. She dies during the final fulfilment of the strongest wish of her life. [As her soul was departing, denotes not the. annihilation of the soul, but the change of state and place. It pre- supposes, of course, its perpetual existence; at least, its existence after death.—A.G.] In this sense we must explain the giving of the name. The empha- sis in the son of my pain, must be laid upon son. From her very death-anguish, a son is born to her. Knobel explains the name to mean son of my vanity, “8, because his birth caused her “annihilation,” i.e., death. In this explanation, the child becomes the father, i.e., originator of her ‘ annihilation,” but is not the son. The son of her pain, on the con- trary, denotes the great gain of her sorrow: she . dies, as it were, sacrificing herself; and, indeed, the once childless, now in childbed.—But his father called him.—Against the interpretation of Benja- a AE, a ee CHAP. XXXV. 16-20. . min, as the son of prosperity, may be urged the yr" in the Hebrew, which cannot with any certainty be said to mean prosperity; and further, that this . would have been in harsh contrast with the dying word of the mother. Delitzsch, therefore, holds that \the son of the right hand, may mean the son of the ‘south, since the other sons were born in the north. Some derive the name son of prosperity from the fact that Jacob had now reached a happy independence, or from the fact that Benjamin filled up the prosperous number twelve (see Delitzsch). But Benjamin might be regarded as the son of the strong right hand, since he fills up the quiver of the twelve mighty sons (Ps. exxvii. 5). We may bring into view, further, the re- lation of the name to the state of rest which Jacob now believed that he had attained. The tired wan- derer now prepares himself as a patriarch to rest, and his youngest favorite must take the place at his right hand. But he is not thereby designated as his suc- cessor. Jacob seems, in some erroneous way, for a long time to have had Joseph in his eye for this position ; still, not with the same self-will with which Tsaac had chosen Esau. The Samaritan explanation, son of days, 5°72", ie. of his old days or age, we pass with a mere allusion. Some suggest, also, that Jacob called him Benjamin, so that he might not be constantly reminded of his loss by the name Ben-oni. This lays the ground for the change of the name, but not for the choice of Benjamin.—In the way to Ephrath.—Ephrath (from 78) is the fruitful, a name which corresponds with the added name Beth- lehem (house of bread). The distance from Jerusa- lem to Bethlehem is about two hours, in a southerly direction, on the road to Hebron. About a half-hour on this side of Bethlehem, some three hundred steps to the right of the road, there lies, in a small recess, the traditional grave of Rachel. This “ Kubbet-Ra- hil (Rachel’s grave), is merely » Moslem wely, or the grave of some saint, a small, square stone struc- ture, with a dome, and within a grave of the ordinary Mohammedan form (Roptnson : © Res.” vol. i. p. 822), which has been recently enlarged by the addition of a square court on the east side, with high walls and arches (later “ Res.” p. 878).”_ Keil. We must dis- tinguish between the old tradition as to the locality, and the present structure. Knobel infers, from Micah iv. 8, that Jacob’s next station, the tower of the flock, was in the vicinity of Jerusalem. In that case Ra- chel’s grave, and even Ephrath, must be sought north of Jerusalem, according to 1 Sam. x. 2, and the ad- dition—which is Bethlehem—must be viewed as a later interpretation. In Micah, however, in the passage which speaks of the tower of the flock, or the stronghold of the congregation, the words seem to be used in a symbolical sense. But the passage, 1 Sam. x. 2, is of greater importance. If Rama, the home of Samuel, lay to the north of Jerusalem, then Rachel’s grave must have been 10 that region, and the more so, since it is said to have been within the limits of Benjamin, whose boundaries did not run below Jerusalem. We refer for further discussions to Knobel, p. 275, and Delitzsch, [and Mr. Grove, in Smith’s Bible Dict—A.G.] We are inclined to recard it as probable that the Benjamites, at the time of the conquest of the country, brought the bones of Rachel from Ephrath, into their own re- gion, and tbat since then, there have been two monuments of Rachel, one marking the place of her death, and her first burial ; the other, the place where they jaid her bones, in the home of ber Ben-ont. 569 Similar transportations of the remains of the blessed occur in the history of Israel. In this view we may explain more clearly how Rachel (Jer. xl. 1) bewailed her children at Rama, than it is by the usual remark, that the exiled were gathered at Rama. —Unto this day.—From this notice Delitzsch in- fers that Genesis was not completed until after the arrival of the Israelites in Canaan. Keil says thin remark would have*been in place within ten or twenty years after the erection of the pillar. Still, he appears to have felt that a term of from ten to twenty years could make no distinction between old- er and more recent times, and hence adds in a note, if this pillar was actually preserved until the time of the conquest, i. e., over four hundred and fifty years, this remark may be viewed as an interpo- lation of a later writer. It belongs, doubtless, to the last redaction or revision of Genesis. Still there are possible ways in which the Israelites even in the desert could have received information as to the existence of this monument, although this is less probable. [Kurtz defends the genuineness of the passage, but locates the grave of Rachel in the vi- cinity of Rama, on the grounds that the announce- ment here of a stretch of land is indefinite, and fur- ther, that the designation of the place by the distant Bethlehem, arose from the fact that the tower of the flock in Bethlehem was the next station of Jacob, and his residence for a considerable period ; and lastly, that Jer. xxxi. 15 clearly points to the vicinity of Rama, Keil urges in favor of his own view, that the existence of a monument of this kind, in a strange land, whose inhabitants could have had no interest in preserving it, even for the space of ten or twenty years, might well have appeared worthy of notice.—A. G.] DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL. 1, Rachel’s wish; Rachel's death ; but her death at the same time her last gain in this life. 9, Rachel’s confinement at Bethlehem, viewed in its sad and bright aspects: 1. The sad aspect: A confinement upon a journey; a death in the presence of the goal of the journey so long desired ; a part- ing by death from the desired child. 2. The joyful aspect: A son in whom her old wish is now fulfilled (see ch. xxx. 24; also the passionate word, ‘“ Give me children, or else I die,” xxx.1); a new enrich- ing of Jacob, and indeed, to the completion of the number twelve; the triumph that she dies as the mother of a child. 3. Rachel’s deathand grave. A preliminary con- secration of the region of Bethlehem. Through her tragic end she becomes the ancestress of the suffer- ing children of Israel generally. even of the chil- dren of Leah (Jer. xxxi. 15; Matt. ii, 17). Her grave probably at Ephrath and Rama at the same fime. Rachel as the first example mentioned in the Scriptures of a mother dying in travail, and a com- forter to mothers dying in similar circumstances. The solemn aspect of such a death (Gen. iii. 16), Its beauty and transfiguration (1 Tim. ii, 15). 4. The heroic struggles, and struggling places of travailing women. Through these painful struggles they form the beautiful complement to the manly struggles in sacred wars. While the latter are in- stitutes of death, the former are the institutes of “5, The first midwife who appears in the region of 570 sacred history, is a worthy counterpart to the first nurse, Deborah. She shows the vocation of a mid- wife, to support the laboring with sympathy, to en- courage her, and to strengthen her by announcing the birth of a child, especially of a son, or the an- nouncement of the beginning of the new life. 6. The name Benoni, on Rachel’s lips, was not an utterance of despair, but of a deeply painful feeling of victory. The desired fruit of her womb came out of these death-struggles. Jacob’s naming connects itself with this also: the son of my right hand, com- panionship of my rest, support, joy of my old age, It is true, indeed, even in the sense of the usually received antithesis, that every new-born child is a Beroni, and » Benjamin; Benoni in Adam, Benja- min in Christ. 7. The youngest children of a family, Benjamin’s companions; and frequently described as Benjamins, they stand under the blessing of a ripe old age, un- der the protection of older and stronger brothers and sisters; but on the other hand, the danger that the paternal discipline should give way to grandfather- like indulgence, great as it may be in particular cases, is scarcely brought into view here. They embrace, as it were, in themselves, the whole past of the fam- ily and the most distant future. 8. Bethlehem here enters, clouded by Jacob’s mourning; afterwards enlightened by David, the Old- Testament hero out of Judah, and finally glorified by the fulfilment of Israel’s hope. 9. The following verse shows how Jacob, as the Israel of God, rises from his grief over Rachel’s death. 10, As her soul was departing, As Starke sug- gests, we have thus an indication that we are to re- gard death as the separation of the soul and body. For if, indeed, 53, the soul, is life also, so, and much more, is the human life, soul. HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL. See the Doctrinal and Ethical remarks, It re- quires no special notice that this section is peculiarly GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. adapted for texts at the burial of women dying ir confinement, at the transactions over consecrated graves, and similar occasions.—Rachel’s death upon the journey.—Rachel’s journey home in a two-fold sense.—Our life a pilgrimage.—As we are all born during the pilgrimage, so we must all die upon our pilgrimage.—We reach a fixed, permanent goal only upon the other side. Benoni and Benjamin: 1. The similarity of the names; 2. the difference be-. tween them.—Jacob at Rachel’s grave.—His silent grief.—His uttered faith, Srarke: An enunciation of Jacob’s sorrows. It is connected with the names: Simeon, Levi, Dinah, Rachel, Reuben, and Bilhah. Then follows Isaac’s death, and afterwards Joseph’s disappearance; the famine, ete. Hence he says: ‘Few and evil have the days of the years of my life been” (ch. xlvii. 9). (An allegorical comparison of Rachel, at this birth, with the Jewish Church. As Rachel died at the birth of Benjamin, so the Jewish Church at the birth of Christ.)—Craaer: The birth-throes are a cross and a reminder of our sins (Gen. iii. 16). God recognizes this, and gives his aid (John xvi. 21).— But if the divinely-blessed mother, or her fruit, should die, their happiness is not put in peril (1 Tim. ii, 15). —Christian midwives should encourage women in this fearful crisis—Women in this state should dili- geutly prepare themselves for death.—OsianprR: The dead bodies of the pious are not to be treated as those of irrational animals, but must be decently buried, that we may thus testify our hope in the resurrection from the dead (Prov. x. 7).—ScHroper: Bethlehem .is called now Beit-Lahm; i. e., meat- house. Benjamin a type of the Messiah, who, in his humiliation, was 2 man of sorrows, and in his ex- altation a son of the right hand of God (Drechsler). [Wordsworth here brings out several striking analo- gies between Benjamin and St. Paul, basing them upon the word é«rpwa, which the apostle applies to himself “as one born out of due time,” properly, “the child whose birth is the cause of his mother’s death.” Paul speaks of himself as one thus born, and thus seems to invite us to compare him with Benjamin. P, 145.—A. G.] EIGHTH SECTION. The station at the tower of Edar. Reuben’s crime. Jacob’s sons. His return to Isaac and Hebron : (Rebekah no longer living). Lsaac’s death. His burial by Esau and Jacob. Carrer XXXV. 21-29. 21 And Israel journeyed, and spread 22 23 24 his tent beyond the tower of Hdar [fock], And it came to pass, when Israel dwelt in that land, that Reuben went and lay with Bilbah his father’s concubine: and Israel heard ¢t.* twelve: The sons of Leah; Reuben, Jacob’s first-born, and Simeon, and Levi, and Judah, and Issachar, and Zebulun: The sons of Rachel; Joseph, and Benjamin: Now the sons of Jacob were 25, 26 And the sons of Bilhah, Rachel’s handmaid; Dan, and Naphtali: And the sons of Zilpah, Leah’s handmaid; Gad, and Asher. These are the sons of Jacob, which were born to him in Padan-aram [Mesopotamia]. CHAP, XXXYV. 21-99, 27 28 ds Hebron) where Abraham 29,hundred and fourscore years, 571 And Jacob came unto Isaac his father, unto Mamre, unto the city of Arbah (which and Isaac sojourned. And the days of Isaac , And Isaac unto his people, being old and full of days were an gave up the ghost and died, and was gathered ; and his sons Esau and Jacob buried him. (1 Ver. 22.—The break in the MS. here, and the Masoretic note, “that there ia a hi i i ie suits the sense better than the division into verses, It may hi be ce WOrdsHOrh gine ete Toone ne Ce eee unutterable feelings of Jacob when hhe heard of this Andere ee, aaa ae eer designed to express the EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL. Vers. 21-26.—Beyond the tower of Eidar.— Had Rachel’s original burial taken place at Rama, we could not well have supposed that J: acob, who here, as Israel, rises above his grief for his loved wife, should have made his next station at Jerusalem. Moreover, the region immediately around Jerusalem was proba- bly not suitable for a nomadic station, We adhere, however, to the tradition which fixes Rachel's death north of Bethlehem, and the next station of Jacob, below Bethlehem, at the tower of Edar. The tower of the flock is a tower built for the protection of the flocks, and as their gathering place, in a region pecu- ‘liarly fitted for pasturage (2 Kings xviii. 8; 2 Chron. xxvi, 10; xxvii. 4 f.). Jerome and the common tradi- tion locate it south of Bethel, and not far from that place. From this tower Jacob could have easily and frequently visited his father Isaac, without prema- turely mingling his household and possessions with the household economy at Hebron, which it is possi- ble may yet have stood in strict relations with Esau. Such an absence might have favored Reuben’s crim- inal purpose and act.—Reuben went.—Bilhah was Rachel’s handmaid, not Leah’s; nevertheless, Reuben was guilty of incest; ofa lustful deed of impiety, which oceasioned his loss of the birthright (ch, xlix. 4). The characteristic weakness of Reuben, which ap- pears in its praiseworthy aspect in other cases (see history of Joseph), here exposes him to the force of temptation.—And Israel heard it.—As if he was absent, Was he at Hebron, and does Reuben, as the temporary head of the household, assume special privileges to himself? Jsrael heard it, that he might reprove it in a suitable way, in his spiritual maturity, quiet, and dignity—Now the sons of Jacob were twelve.—Jacob’s sons must also become sons of Israel through a divine discipline and training. They are, however, the rich blessing of the promise, with which he returns to his father, and are here enumerated by name after their seve- ral mothers, as if in presenting them to their grand- father. As a whole, they are said to have been born in Padan-aram ; although this was not strictly true of Benjamin, Weare thus prepared already, and introduced to Isaac's point of view, for whom, it is true, Jacob brings all his sons from a strange land. Thus the exile Jacob returns home to his father Isaac, laden with the richest blessing of the promise. The dark days of this patriarch are followed by this joyful reappearance of the exile. ; Vers. 27-29.—Unto Mamre (see history of Abraham, above).—Isaac has thus changed his residence to Hebron during the absence of Jacob. ~—An hundred and fourscore years.—With the conclusion of the life of Isaac, the narrative hastens to the immediately following events (ch. xxxvii.). Jacob was born in the sixtieth year of Isaac’s life (ch. xxv. 26), and was thus one hundred and twenty years old when Isaac died. But when he was presented to Pharaoh in Egypt, he was one hundred ani thirty years old (ch. xlvii. 9). Of this time there were seven fruitful and two unfruitful years since Joseph’s exaltation in Egypt (ch. xlv. 6), and thirteen years between the selling of Joseph and his exaltation, for he was sold when seventeen (ch. xxxvii. 2), and was thirty when he was raised to honor and power, Hence we must take twenty- three years from the one hundred and thirty years of Jacob, to determine his age at the time Joseph was sold; which is thus one bundred and seven. “Isaac, therefore, shared the grief of Jacob over the loss of his son for thirteen years.” In a similar way, Abraham had witnessed and sympathized with the long unfruitful marriage of Isaac. But Isaac could see in these sorrows of Jacob the hand of God, who will not allow that any one should anticipate him in a self-willed preference of a favorite son.— Old and full of days.—He recognized the close of his life-experiences and trials, and, like Abraham, departed in peace.—And Esau and Jacob buried him.—It is a beautiful, genuine historic feature, that Esau here precedes Jacob, while Isaac is men- tioned before Ishmael at the burial of Abraham. Could we draw any inference from this, as to the external inheritance, the assertion of Keil, that Ja- cob heired the earthly goods of Isaac, is far too strong and confident. It is certain, indeed, that Esau re- ceived a considerable portion, and in external affairs merely he took a prominent part, to which the hom- age Jacob rendered him had given him an indirect claim. A certain degree of separation had already been made between the spiritual and earthly birthright. Isaac was buried in the cave of Machpelah (ch. xlix. 31). « DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL 1. Jacob’s last station at the tower of Edar is also marked by a new heart-sorrow. 2. Reuben’s crime probably occasioned by his authority over the household during his father’s ‘ab- sence with Isaac at Hebron. The cause of his for- feiture of the right of the first-born (ch. xlix). 8. The number, twelve, of the sons of Jacob, in its typical significance. Twelve, the number of a life completed, or expanded to its full limits and devel- opment, Thus in the house of Ishmael and of Esau, but in a higher sense in the house of Isracl. Hence the twelve sons are the types of the twelve tribes (ch, xlix.; Deut. xxxiii.), and the twelve tribes of the theocracy types of the twelve apostles of Christ, and these, again, types of the twelve fundamental forms of the New Testament Church (Rev. xxi. 12 f.). That the number four is a factor of the number twelve, is here intimated by the four mothers; four is the number of the world, three the number of the sanc- tuary and of the spirit; and thus twelve is the num- ber of a fulness or completeness, consecrated to God. 4, Jacob’s return to Isaac with his sons, the last 572 ray of sunlight for the aged and blinded patriarch. This belonged to the complete satisfaction of the old man’s life, after which he could go to his people “full of days,” or satisfied. Thus Jacob’s soul was once more revived, when he saw the wagons sent by Joseph. 5. The brotherly union of Jacob and Esau at the burial of Isaac, a beautiful token of peace and re- conciliation at his end, [‘‘Esau and Jacob having shaken hands over the corpse of their father, their GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. the grave.—SrarkeE: Ver. 22. (The Jewish Rabbis make this a small crime, and say Reuben overthrew the bed, when he saw that, after Rachel’s death, it was not borne into his mother Leah’s tent, but into that of Bilhah; because he inferred that Jacob loved Bilhah more than Leah).—OstanpEr: In the true Church also there arise at times great scandals.— Gzrtacn: Comp. 2 Sam. xvi. 22. Catwer: Hand- buch: Isaac reached the greatest age among the three patriarchs.—Scuréper: Bilhah proved unfaith- ful; Reuben committed incest.—Jacob’s painful si- lence.—When he departed, nothing; when he re- turned, all (Drechsler),—Details as to the number twelve, also in regard to Jacob.—[WorpswortH : The record of these sins in the history is an evidence of the veracity of the historian. If it had been a human composition, designed to do honor to the He- brew nation, assuredly: it would have said little of these flagrant iniquities of Simeon, Levi, Dinah, and Reuben.—A. G.] t paths diverge to meet no more.” Delitzsch.—A. G.] HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL. See Doctrinal paragraphs. Isaac’s long and pa- tient waiting for Jacob’s return home, during the night of his blindness.—Light at the evening-time.— Isaac and Simeon (Luke ii.)—Esau and Jacob, or the reconciling, peace-making efticacy of death and NINTH SECTION. Esaws Family Record and the Horites, CHarTER XXXVI. 1-48. 1,2 Now these are the generations of Esau [hairy, rough], who 7s Edom [rea]. Esau took his wives of the daughters of Canaan; Adah [ornament, grace] the daughter of Elon [cak-grove, oak, strength | the Hittite, and Aholibamah [tent of the sacred height | the daughter of Anah [answering] the daughter of Zibeon [Gesenius : colored; First: wild, robber | the Hivite; 3 And Bashemath [pleasant fragrance] Ishmael’s daughter, sister of Nebajoth [lofty place]. 4 And Adah baxe to Esau, Eliphaz [strength of God]; and Bashemath bare Reuel [siend of 5 Goa] - And Aholibamah bare Jeush [or Jehus, gatherer |, and Jaalam [Furst : mountain-climber ], and Korah* [smooth]: these are the sons-of Esau, which were born unto him in the 6 land of Canaan. And Esau took his wives, and his sons, and his daughters, and all the persons of his house, and his cattle, and all his beasts, and all his substance which he had got in the land of Canaan; and went into the country from the face of his brother 7'Jacob. For their riches were more than that they might dwell together: and the land? 8 wherein they were strangers could not bear them, because of their cattle. Thus dwelt Esau in mount Seir [rough, wild mountain-region|]; Esau 7s Edom. 9 And these are the generations of Esau the father of the Edomites, in mount Seir : 10 These are the names of Esau’s sons; Eliphaz the son of Adah the wife of Esau; 11 Reuel the son of Bashemath the wife of Esau. And the sons of Eliphaz were, Teman right side, southlander |, Omar [ Gesenius: eloquent; Fiirst: mountain-dweller |, Zepho [watch ], and, atam [Geseni us: puny, thin; First: burnt, dry valley | and Kenaz [bunting]. And Timna [restraint] was concubine to Eliphaz, Esau’s son; and she bare to Eliphaz, Amalek*: these were 13 the sons of Adah, Hsau’s wife. And these are the sons of Reuel; Nahath [going down, evening], and Zerah [rising, morning], Shammah [wasting ; First: report, cal], and Mizzah [Gesenius : fear ; First: perhaps joy, rejoicing] : these were the sons of Bashemath, Esau’s wife. And these were the sons of Aholibamah, the daughter of Anah, the daughter of Zibeon, Esau’s wife: and she bare to Esau, Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah. These were dukes [prunces, heads of families, chiefs] of the sons of Esau: the sons of Eli- phaz, the first-born son of Esan; duke Teman, duke Omar, duke Zepho, duke Kenaz, 12 14 15 CHAP. XXXVI. 1-48. 573 16 Duke Korah, duke Gatam, and duke Amalek: these are the dukes that came of Eliphaz, in the land of Edom: these were the sons [grandsons] of Adah. 17 And these are the sons of Revel, Hsau’s son; duke Nahath, duke Zerah, duke Shammah, duke Mizzah: these are the dukes that came of Reuel, in the land of Edom: these are the sons [grandsons] of Bashemath, Hsau’s wife. 18 And these are the sons of Aholibamah, Esau’s wife; duke Jeush, duke Jaalam, duke Korah: these were the dukes that came of Aholibamah the daughter of Anah, Esau’s 19 wife. These are the sons of Esau (who 7s [prince of] Edom) and these are their dukes. 20 These are the sons of Seir the Horite oo troglodyte], who inhabited [primitive dweller? | the land ; Lotan [= covering, veiled |, and Shobal [ traveller, wanderer |, and Zibeon, 21 and Anah, And Dishon [gazette |, and Hzer [Gesenius : store; First : connection ], and Dishan‘ [same as Dishon]: these are the dukes of the Horites, the children of Seir in the land of 22 Edom. And the children of Lotan were Hori [troglodytes], and Heman [Gesenius: destruc- 23 tion; First: commotion}: and Lotan’s sister was Timna, And the children of Shobal were these; Alvan [Gesenius: unjust ; First: lofty ], and Manahath [rest], and Ebal [First : bald 24 mountain |, Shepho ‘[bare, desert], and Onam [strong, robust]. And these are the children of Zibeon ; both Ajah [screamer, hawk], and Anah [singer, answerer]: this was that Anah that found the mules [hot springs] in the wilderness, as he fed the asses of Zibeon his father. 25 And the children of Anah were these: Dishon, and Aholibamah the daughter of Anah. 26 And these are the children of Dishon; Hemdan [pleasant], and Eshban [Gesenius: insight; First: thoughtful hero], and Ithran [superior = Jethro and Jithron ], and Cheran [ Gesenius : harp; 27 First: companion]. ‘he children of Ezer are these; Bilhan_[— bithah; Gesenius: modest; 28 First: tender |, and Zaavan [First : unquiet, troubled], and Akan [ twisting]. The children of 29 Dishan are these ; Uz [sandman, or woodman |, and Aran [Gesenius: mightier]. These are the dukes that came of the Horites; duke Lotan, duke Shobal, duke Zibeon, duke Anah, 80 Duke Dishon, duke Ezer, duke Dishan: these are the dukes that came of Hori, among their dukes®* in the land of Seir. 31 And these ave the kings that reigned in the land of Edom, before there reigned any 32 king over the children of Israel. And Bela [comp. ch. xiv.2] the son of Beor [Gesenius: torch, lamp; First: shepherd] reigned: in Edom: and the name of his city was Dinhabah 33 [ Gesenius, First: place of plunder (? Fehmgericht) 5]. And Bela died, and Jobab [shout, howl, i. e., 34 desert] the son of Zerah of Bozrah [fold, fort] reigned in his stead. And Jobab died, and 35 Husham [=Hushai; rapid, hasto] of the land of Temani reigned in his stead. And Husham died, and Hadad [prince 5 strong, violent | the son of Bedad [separate, the lonely |, (who smote ‘Midian in the field of Moab), reigned in his stead: and the name of his city was Avith 36 | Gesenius: ruins; First: tent-village |. And Hadad died, and Samlah [covering of Masrekah 37 [avineyard] reigned in his stead. And Samlah died, and Saul [asked, wished] of Rehoboth 38 [wide,room| by the river reigned in his stead. And Saul died, and Baal-hanan [gracious 89 tora] the son of Achbor [= Achbar, mouse] reigned in his stead. And Baal-hanan the son of Achbor died, and Hadar [grace, honor] reigned in his stead: and the name of his city was Pau [Gesenius: bloating; First: yawning deep]; and his wife’s name was Mehetabel [@oa-benestting], the daughter of Matred [pushing], the daughter of Mezahab [water of gold]. 40 And these are the names of the dukes that came of Esau, according to their families, after their places, by their names; duke Timnah, duke Alvah [Gesenius: unrighteousness ; 41 First: height, exaltation ], duke Jetheth [Gesenius- nail; First: subjugation]. Duke Aholibamah, duke Elah [¥arst: oak strong, and hard], duke Pinon [=Punon; Gesenius: darkness; First: 2 mine]. 42,43 Duke Kenaz, duke Teman, duke Mibzar [fortress, strong city]. Duke Magdiel [Farst: glory of God; Gesenius: prince of God], duke Iram [citizen, city region | : these be the dukes of Edom, according to their habitations, in the land of their possession: he zs Esau,’ the father of the Edomites. ms [ Ver. 5.—Murphy gives these names the signification of haste, hiding, ice.—A. G.] [? Ver. 7.—Of their sojournings.—A. G.] : , 25 ; (3 Ver. 12.—From pba 2, a nation of head-breakers, spoilers? Lange. Laboring, licking up; Murphy: which seems the better derivation.—A. G.] 8 4 Ver. 21.—Murphy: threshing.—A. G.] a EF Ver. 30 Whish ee to them for tribe-princes (and tribe names),—A. G. J (* Ver. 82.—The Fehmgericht was the secret criminal court in Westphalia, somewhat akin to our vigilance com- i .—A, G. A i ae 5 waite Rs aS nit, This is Esau = the father of Edom, the founder of the Edomites, with their kings and princes. This closes this Section, and at the same time prepares us for what follows.—A, G.] 574 PRELIMINARY REMARKS. A. It is in full accordance with the mode of statement used in Genesis, that at this point, at which Esau passes out from connection with the theocratic history, the history of his family, as be- longing to the genealogical tree, should be preserved in the memory of the people of God (see p. 495). | B. The toledoth of the Edomites is recorded in a series of special genealogies: 1. The point of depar- ture: Esau’s wives and children, and his settlement upon the mountains of Seir (vers. 1-8); 2. Esau’s sons and grandsons viewed as tribe-fathers (vers. 9- 14); 3. the tribe-chiefs or princes of the house of Esau (vers. 15-19); 4. the genealogy of the abori- gines of the land, the Horites, with whom the Edom- ites, as conquerors, are mingled (vers, 20-8); 5. the kings of the land of Edom (vers. 31-39); 6. the ruling princes, i. e., the heads of provinces, or rather the seats of chieftains, enduring throughout the reigns of the kings of Edom (vers, 40-43).—C. It is clear that these tables do not form any one peculiar chronological succession. The tables, number three of the Edomitic princes, and four, of the Horite princes, form a parallel; in point of time, indeed, the line of Horite princes must be regarded as the older line. So, also, table number five of the kings of Edom, is parallel with number six of the provincial princes or councillors of Edom. . There are, therefore, but three fundamental divisions: 1. The sons and grand- sons of Edom; 2. the old and new princes of Edom; 8. the kingdom of Edom viewed as to its kings and as to its provincial rulers (or dukedoms).—In Deut. ii, 12, 22, the Edomites appear to have destroyed the Horites, as the aboriginal dwellers in Seir. But this must be understood in.the sense of a warlike subju- gation, which resulted partly in their absorption, partly and mainly in placing the original dwellers in the land in a state of bondage, and that wretched condition in which they are probably described in the book of Job (Job xvi. 11; xvii. 6; xxiv. 7; xxx. 1; see KnoseL, p. 277). Knobel refers these tables, as generally all the completed genealogical tables in Genesis, to the Elohist. But this only is established, that the genealogical tables are, in thei very nature, in great part Elohistic. ‘ EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL. Esau’s wives and children, and his settlement upon the mountains of Seir (vers, 1-8).—Of Esau, that is Edom (ch, xxv. 30).—In ch. xxvi. 34 the two first wives of Esau are called Judith, the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Bashemath, the daughter of Elon the Hittite. In ch. xxviii. 9 the third wife bears the name of Mahalath, the daughter of Ish- mael. Here the daughter of Elon the Hittite is called Adah, and in the place of Judith, the daugh- ter of Beeri the Hittite, we have Aholibamah, the daughter of Anah, the granddaughter of Zibeon the Hivite. But while the daughter of Elon is named Bashemath above, here the daughter of Ishmael bears that name. It is perfectly arbitrary when Knobel and others identify the Zibeon of ver. 2 with the Zibeon of ver. 21, and then, instead of the addi- tion, the Hivite, read the Horite. But Knobel re- marks correctly: ‘The different accounts (all of which he ascribes to the Elohist) agree in this: a. That Esau had three-wives; b. that one of them is GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. called Bashemath ; c. that the third was a daughter of. Ishmael and sister to Nebajoth.” Keil explains the differences upon the assumption that Moses used genealogical records of Esau’s family and descend- ants, and left them unaltered. The statement, how- ever, presents no irreconcilable contradiction, but is explained by the custom of the ancient orientals, which is still in use among the Arabians, by which men often received surnames from some important or remarkable event of life (as, e. g. Esau the sur- name Edom, ch. xxv. 80), which gradually became proper names, and by which women at their marriage generally assumed new first names (comp. HEnesTEN- BERG'S Beitrdge, iii, pp. 278-302). We remark only that Judith takes the name Aholibamah, her father ° Beeri (for the conjecture of Hengstenberg, which will scarcely stand the test, in our judgment, see KEIL, p. 282) the name Anah, while the general popular name Hittites—=Canaanites becomes specific in the name Hivite. But now the names Aholibamah and, Anah appear to be symbolic and religious names. Bashe- math, the daughter of Elon, now bears the name Adah, while, on the contrary, Mahalath, the daughter of Ishmael, is now called Bashemath. This may be explained upon the supposition that Esau, whose garments were fragrant with sweet odors, distin- guished Judith [Mahalath ?—A. G.], whom he mar- ried twenty years later than his other wives, as his favorite wife by the name Bashemath, the fragrant, while as a compensation he called bis former Bashe- math, Adah, or ornament. If Beeri was a priest, the name Anah (hearing, answering), would be ap- propriate to him, as also Aholibamah, tent of height, holy tabernacle, would be to his daughter. For the’ different attempts. at reconciling these differences, see KnopeL, p. 278. The impossibility of solving these difficulties is emphasized and supported by a collection of examples, which certainly shows’ that there were different traditions according to different points of view, in full accord with the living nature and character of biblical relations. [These tables carry the genealogy of the descendants of Esau down to the period at which the Pentateuch closes, since the last of the eight kifgs, whose united reigns would probably cover this length of time, of whom it is not said that he died, was probably still upon the throne at the time of Moses, and was theking of Edom to whom Moses applied for leave to pass through the land. The statement, though very brief, is arranged with the utmost precision. We have first the introductory statement in regard to Esau and his wives, and his settlement at: Seir ; then the genealogy of his sons and grandsons ‘born in Seir, in distinction from those born in Canaan; then of the tribe-princes of Edom; then by an easy and natural transition the genealogy of the Horite princes and tribes who were absorbed by the Edomitic tribes ; then of the kings of Edom; and lastly of the places or chief seats of these tribal princes, after their families, by their names, It is not surprising thet there should be inquiries suggested here, which can- not be answered, or that there should be missing links in the historical statement. The apparent dis- crepancies, however, involve no contradiction. As to the wives of Esau, the different accounts may be . reconciled in either of two ways. We may suppose with some (Murphy, Jacobus) that Judith, during the long period between her marriage and the removal of Esau to Seir, had died, without leaving male issue, and that Aholibamah here recorded is the fourih wife of Esau in the order of time, although in this CHAP. XXXVI, 1-43. 575 table classed with the daughter of Elon, because she was a Canaanitess also. The mere change of names in the females occasions little difficulty, since it is so common for persons to have two names, and since the first name of the female was so frequently changed at marriage. This seems a natural supposi- tion, and will meet the necessities of the case. We may, however, suppose, as Hengstenberg suggests (see also Kurtz, Keil, Baumgarten), that the names Beeri and Anah designate the same person. In the 24th verse we meet with an Anah who is thus de- scribed: ‘‘ This was that Anah that found the warm springs (E. V. mules) in the wilderness, as he fed the asses of Zibeon his father.” The identity in the name of the father, Zibeon, leads to the identifying of Anah and Beeri. This is confirmed by the signiti- cance of the name Beeri, man of the wells, which would seem to refer to some such remarkable event in the desert. He would probably be known by this name, Beeri, among his associates, but in the gene- alogy he appears with his own proper name, Anab. That he is in one place called a Hittite, in another a Hivite, in another still a Horite, may be easily ex- plained on the theory that the Hittite defines the race, the Hivite the specific tribe, and the Horite describes him with reference to his abode. The theory of Hengstenberg is certainly ingenious, meets essentially the difficulties in the case, and may well be held until a better is suggested.- See HEnesTENBERG’S Beitriige, vol: iii. pp. 2'78-802 ; Keil, Kurtz, Baum- garten, in loc.—A. G.]—And Adah bare.—See the names of the sons of Esau, 1 Chron. i. 35. [The difference between the catalogue there and here is due to the change in the Hebrew from one weak let- ter to another.—A. G.]—Into the country, from the face of his brother.—The conjecture that the word Seir has been left out after the word land or country, is superfluous [and hence unjustifiable.— A. G.], if ‘we understand the words “ away from his brother” as « qualifying adjective or phrase. He sought a country in which he should not meet with his brother. The final emigration of Esau to Seir after the death of his father does not exclude the preliminary migration thither (xxxii. 3); neither does the motive for the earlier removal, the securing of a wide domain for hunting, and over which he might rule, exclude the motive for the later, in the fact that the flocks of the two brothers had grown so large that they could not dwell together. We may well conclude, however, from the last statement, that Esau had at least inherited a large part of the herds of Isaac, although Keil assumes the contrary. Second Section. Esau’s sons and grandsons as the ancestors of tribes (vers. 9-14; comp. 1 Chron. t. 86, 87).—To Mount Seir.—The mountain-range between the Dead Sea and the Ailanitic Gulf. The northern part was called Gebalene, and the southern Es Sherah (see Kut, p. 283; Winer’s Real Wiirter- buch [Kitto, new edition, Smith, Murphy.—A. G.], and the Geographies of the Bible). ‘‘ While the sons of Aholibamah became directly heads of tribes, it was only the grandsons of the other two wives, each of whom bare only one son, who attained this dis- tinction. There were thus thirteen heads of tribes, or, if we exclude Amalek, who was born of the con- cubine Timnah, twelve, as with the Nahorites, Ish- maelites, and Israelites.” Knobel. [It is probable, as Hengstenberg has shown, that this Amalek was the ancestor of the Amalekites who opposed the Israelites in their march through the desert; and that this is what Balaam alludes to when he says that Amalek was the first of the nations, not the oldest, but the first who made war with the Israclites after they became the covenant people of God. The ref- erence to the field of the Amalekites, ch. xiv. 7, is not in opposition to this, since it is not said in that passage that the Amalekites were slain, but that they were slain who occupied the country which after- wards belonged to this tribe. It is not probable that a people who played so important a part in the his- tory of Israel (see Numb. xiii, 29; xiv. 48; Judg. vi. 3; vii. 12; xii, 15; 1 Sam. xiv. 48; xv. 2 ff; xxvii. 8; 2 Sam. viii. 12) should have been without their genealogy in the book of Genesis. Amalek probably separated himself early from his brethren, perhaps from the fact of his birth not being strictly legitimate, and grew into an independent people, who seem to have had their main position at Kadesh, in the mountains south of Judah, but spread themselves throughout the desert and even into Canaan. See Hencsrenperc: Beitrige, vol. iii. p. 302 f_—A. G.] There were three divisions from the three wives,— The sons of Eiliphaz.—For the ethnographic im- portance of these names, compare Knobel and the Bible Dictionaries. Amalek, see above.—These are the sons of Adah.—Since Timnah was a con- cubine, it is assumed that Adah had adopted her. Third Section. The Edomitic tribe-princes (vers. 15-19). “DAD, probably from 2% or O°B>N = ming, families, heads of families, is the peculiar _ title of Edomitic and Horitie phylarchs, only once, Zech, ix. 7, xii. 5, applied to Jewish princes or gov- ernors. Knobel is entirely wrong when he explains these names geographically.” Keil. But they may have established themselves geographically within more or less fixed limits, v. g. Teman (Edom from Teman to Dedan, Ezek. xxv. 13). Fourth Section. Genealogy of the Horites (vers. 20-30; comp. 1 Chron. i.-388-42)—Of Seir.—The name of the ancestor of the early inhabitants of Seir is identical with the name of the land, as is true also with the names Asshur, Aram, Mizraim, Canaan, in the genealogical table—The Horites.—77n , from “in, hole, cave, cave-man, troglodyte—Who inhabited the land—i. e., the earlier inhabitants in contrast with the Edomites. The land of the Edomites is full of caves (Rozryson, “ Researches,” vol. ii. p. 551 ff). ‘The inhabitants of Idumaa use them for dwellings. Jerome, upon Obadiah, says they had dwellings and sheepfolds in caves. This was peculiarly true of the aboriginal Horites, who (Job xxx. 6) are described by this peculiarity. It is re- markable that the description of the wretched man- ner of living and evil courses of the Horites; given in the book of Job, are still accurately true to-day of the dwellers in the old Edomitic land.” Knobel. The Horite table first enumerates seven princes, then their sons, among whom the name Anah occupies a prominent place (ver. 24), who is said in Luther’s version [also in the English.—A. G.], following the error of the Talmud, ‘“‘to have found the mules in the wilderness.” He discovered rather in the desert o°051, warm springs (Vulgate), which may refer to the warm sulphur springs of Calirrhoe, in Wady Zerka Maein, or to those in Wady El Ahsa, south- east of the Dead Sea, or to those in Wady Hamad between Kerek and the Dead Sea. For further de- tails see Knobel and Keil, the latter of whom re- marks that the notice of his feeding the asses may indicate that these animals led to the discovery of the springs, p. 225, note. Besides the sons, there 576 GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. are two daughters named.in this genealogical table, Thimnah and Aholibamah. ‘“Thimnah may per- haps be the same person with the concubine of Hli-. phaz, ver. 12, Aholibamah is, however, not the same with the wife of Esau.” Keil. There may have been, also, more than one person of the name of Thimnah. For the differences between this cata- logue and that in 1 Chron., comp. Ker, p. 234. [These diversities are mainly those which arise from the substituting one weak letter for another.—A. G.] The princes are still mamed once more, as they gave their names to tribes or districts. Knobel attempts to explain these names as if they were geographical and not personal, which Keil should not so strongly have opposed. [Keil shows, however, how vain and groundless this attempt is, by the fact that the son of Zibeon discovered the warm springs, which proves of course that this is a table of the names of per- sons, and not of tribes or their localities—A. G.] Fifth Section. The kings of the land of Edom (vers. 31-39; comp. 1 Chron, i, 43-50). Out of the original discordant or opposing Edomite and Horite princes there sprang one united kingdom, the Edom- itic element being undoubtedly the predominant. From the statement here made, it is plain that the kings were not hereditary kings; in no case does the son succeed to the father’s throne. Still less are we to suppose, with Keil, Hengstenberg [also Murphy, Jacobus, and others.—A. G.], that it was a well- ordered elective monarchy, with chosen kings, since in that case, at least, some of the sons would have succeeded their fathers. (Knobel wavers between the assumption of elections and usurpations.) It is rather in accordance with the Edomitic character (see the blessing of Isaac), that a circle of usurpa- tions should arise out of the turbulent transition state; dark counterparts of the way and manner in which the judges in Israel wrought together or fol- lowed one another at the calling of God. Thus Bela, of Dinhaba, city of plunder, as devourer (as despotic Balaam), might well begin the series. And the name of Jobab, one who with the howling of the desert breaks forth from his' fastness, confirms the mode of the kingdom as already intimated. Husham seems to have gainéd his power and position by surprise, Hadad by violence, and Samlah by political arts and fraud. With Saul, therefore, we first meet with one who was desired and chosen, and the remark that he was succeeded by Baal-hanan, gracious lord, and he by Hadar, rich in power, whose wife bears a truly pious name, justifies the conjecture that the savage, uncultivated forms of violence and cunning gradually gave place to the more noble forms, Of this eighth king of the Edomites, it is not said here that he died. The table closes, therefore, with the time of Hadar. Keil justly assumes that the tribe-princes or phylarchs (who, indeed, as persons, did not follow each other, but were cotemporary, and as hereditary dignities located and fixed themselves geographically) existed as cotemporaries with the kings (with regard to Ex. xv. 15, comp. Numb, xx. 14 ff). “While Moses treats with the king of Edom with reference to a passage through his land, in the song of Moses it is the tribe-princes who are filled with fear at the miraculous passage of the Israelites through the Red Sea (comp. Exek. xxxii. 29). We may urge further that the account of the seats of these phylarchs, vers, 40-48, follows after the catalogue of the kings.” Keil—Before there reigned any king over the children of Israel.—It has been inferred from this statement, that Genesis, or the part of / | Masrekah and Rehoboth, see Knobel. Genesis lying before us here, was not composed unti: the time of the kings in Israel. Delitzsch replies to this, that the narrator might have inserted this clause from the stand-point of the promise spoken, e. g. ch. xvii. 1 and ch. xxxv. 11. Then, indeed, we should have expected another mode of expression. But how obvious it is to suppose that this phrase is an interpolation by a later writer! [‘‘The phrase does not imply that monarchy began in Israel immediately after those kings; nor does it imply that monarchy had begun in Israel at the time of the writer; as Isaac’s saying ‘that my soul may bless thee before I die,’ does not imply that he was dead at the time of his saying so. It simply implies that Israel was ex- pected to have kings, as Isaac was expected to die.” Murphy. The sentence is in its place, and the sup- position of any interpolation is needless and there- fore unwarrantable.—A. G.] But, carefully consid- ered, this table points back to a very remote time of the Edomitic kingdom. Leaving out of view the fact, that usurpations follow each other far more rapidly than hereditary sovereigns, we must ob- serve that no one of these kings ever appears else- | where, or is in any way involved in the Israelitish history. Some have, indeed, supposed that Hadad, | the son of Bedad, ver. 35, is identical with the Edom- ite king who rebelled against Solomon (1 Kings xi. | 14), yet the various distinctions of the two differ | altogether (see Kutt, p. 236). Hengstenberg, with much stronger force, concludes, from the fact that he is said to have smitten Midian in the field of Moab, | that he must have been nearly a contemporary with | Moses, since at the time of Gideon the Midianites | disappear from the history.—Bela the son of Beor. —It is merely an accidental coincidence, that Balaam also, whose name is related to Bela, is a son of Beor, | although even Jewish expositors have here thought ! of Balaam (see Knosg1, p. 286).—Of Bozrah.—An important city of the Edomites (Is. xxxiv. 6 and other passages). Knobel thinks that the name has been preserved in the village Busaireh [see Roxin- son: ‘“ Researches,” vol. ii. p. 511 &—A.G.]. For [Keil holds that the allusion to the river determines the locality to be on the Euphrates ; probably it is the Errachabi or Rachabeh on the Euphrates near the mouth of the Chaboras.—A. G.] We prefer, however, to seek it at some small nahar, river, in Edom.—Hadar, 1 Chron. i. 50, erroneously Hadad.—Mezahab.— Regarded by Knobel as masculine, by Keil as femi- nine, but the former is more probable. [Keil makes Matred the mother of his wife, and Mezahab her mother. Murphy regards both as masculine nouns. There is no general rule, other than usage, to deter- mine the gender of many Hebrew names, and the usage is not uniform. See Green’s “Grammar,” § 197.—A. G.] . Keil supposes that the last-named king, Hadar, is the same one with whom Moses treated for a passage through his land. The theory that the Pentateuch must be entirely referred to Mo- ses, probably lies at the basis of this supposition. The critical history of the Bible, however, cannot depend upon such conjectures. If we take into ac- count the strong desire in the Edomitic race for do- minion, we may well conjecture that the first usurpa- tion began soon after the death of Esau’s grandsons, “Tf now,” Keil remarks, ‘we place their death about two hundred and fifty years before the exodus of Israel from Egypt, there would be a period of two hundréd and ninety years before the arrival of Israel at the borders of Edom (Numb, xx. 14); a CHAP, XXXVI. 1-48. 577 period long enough for the reigns of the eight kings, even if the kingdom arose first after the death of the phylarchs mentioned in vers. 15-18.” We may add, further, that the tables mhy possibly close with the beginning of Hadar’s reign, and hence, perhaps, we have a more detailed account of his family. We should thus only have to divide the two hundred and ninety years between the seven kings. An average of forty years is certainly, however, a very long pe-: riod to assign to a circle of such despotic sovereigns. [If, however, the kings co-existed with the dukes, and were elective, chosen probably by these dukes or phylarchs, and began soon after the death of Esau, . we should have a longer average. The length of human life at that period would justify the assump- tion of these longer reigns; if there is good reason to believe, as there seems to be, that their reigns were peaceful, and not violent usurpations. All these calculations, however, depend upon the length of the period of the bondage.—A. G. Sixth Section. The permanent tribe-princes, or the seats of their power, in Edom (vers. 40-48 ; comp. 1 Chron, 1. 51-54), It is plain that we have here the geographical position of the original personal -tribe-princes, recorded under the political provincial tribe-names, i. e., we have the ethnographic and geographical divisions of the kingdom of Edom ; and Keil justly rejects the assertion of Bertheau, that. there follows here a second catalogue of the Edomitic princes, who perhaps, after the death of Hadar, ‘restored the old tribal institution and the heredi- tary aristocracy.” After their places, according to their families, by their names.—After the names, i. e., which their families and places had formed for themselves. Hence many, perhaps the most, of the old names of princes have passed over into new names of tribes and localities—1. Thim- nah=Amalek (see vers. 12, 16, and 22).—2. Al- wah.—Here the Horitic name Alwan, ver. 23, ap- pears to have forced its way through the Edomite dominion. — 8. Jetheth.—4. Aholibamah.—Per- haps the district of the sons of Aholibamah, ver. 2. Keil is inclined to refer it to the Horite Aholibamah, ver. 25.—5. Hlah.—Reminds us of Elon, ver. 2, and of Eliphaz his grandson and Esau’s son, whose sons, Omar, Zepho, and Gatam (ver. 11), may per- haps have gone up into the district of Kenaz.—é. Pinon.—7. Kenaz.—Points back to Kenaz, the son of Eliphaz, ver. 11,—8. Theman.—This was the name of the first son of Eliphaz, ver. 11.—9. Mib- zar—Goes back, perhaps through Bozra, to a tribe- prince. The signification of Zepho, ver. 11, is analo- gous.—10. Miagdiel—Is perhaps connected with Manahath, ver. 23.—11. Iram.—‘ my is the sea-. point Aila. 337» is the same with Phunon, a camp- ing place of the Israelites (Numb. xxxiii. 43 f.), celebrated for its mines, to which many Christians were sent by Diocletian, situated between Petra and Zoar, northeasterly from Wady Musa (RitTEr, siv. p. 125 ff), parm, the capital, "22"Mn yoN, ver, 34.” Keil. Mibzar might be referred to Petra, Knobel thinks, since it is a stronghold, but that place is usually called Selah.—Hle is Esau.—The conclu- sion of the narrative is entirely in accordance with the Hebrew conception of the personal character and relations of history. Esau is actually “‘ the father” and not merely the founder of Edom, as he lives on in his toledoth. This close of the toledoth of Esau points forward to the toledoth of Jacob. 37 DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL, 1. The sacred history hangs up in the treasure- house of the Old Testament the tables of the tole- doth of Fsau, not merely because he too received a. blessing from God, and had the promise ofa blessing (Keil), but more especially because he now breaks: the band of the theocracy, and passes out of view,. just as it had done with the tables of the nations, and all the succeeding genealogical tables. God, indeed, per- mits the heathen to go their own way (Acts xiv. 16; Ps. lxxxi, 18), but is mindful of all his children Gee xv. 14 f.; xvii. 26), even those who are in the king-: dom of the dead [but in a different sense, surely.. —A.G.] (Luke xx. 38; 1 Peter iv. 6), and hence ihe people of God, too, preserve their memory in ope. . 2. We may suppose that Edom at first preserved the patriarchal religion, although in a more external form. Its vicinity to the tribe of Judah, if it made any proper use of it, was a permanent blessing. The idolatry of Edom is not referred to frequently even in later history. The only allusions are 1 Kings xi.1; ix. 8; 2 Chron. xxv. 14. From these intimations we may infer that Edom declined, to a certain extent, into heathen, religious darkness, but much more in- to moral depravity (see Ex. xv. 15, and other pas- sages). The people of Israel are frequently remind- ed, however, in the earlier history, to spare Esau’s people, and treat them as brethren (Deut. ii. 4, 5 ; xxiii, 7,8). It may be remarked, by the way, that these passages show the early age of Deuteronomy, since Edom stands in other relations at a later period. The refined theocratic recollection in Edom, avails so far as to even awaken and cherish its jealousy of Israel. And in this respect Edom stands in the relation of an envious, malicious, and false brother of Israel, and becomes a type of Antichrist (Obadiah). This, however, does not exclude the promise of salvation for the historic Edom, in its individual members (Isai. xi. 14; Jer. xlix. 17 ff), We do not read of any special conversion of Edom to Christianity, per- haps (see, however, Mark iii. 8), because the violent conversion of Edom to the Jewish faith, under John Hyrcanus, had first occurred, by which Edom was par- tially merged into the Jews, and partially amalga- mated with the Bedouin Arabs. To return back to Jacob, or, to fall away to Ishmael, was the only alter- native open to Edom. 8. In the Herodian slaughter of the children at Bethlehem, however, the old thought of Esau, to kill his brother Jacob, becomes actual in the assault upon the life of Jesus. - 4, The history of the Edomites falls at last into the history of the Herods. For this history, as for that of Edom, we may refer to the Bible Dictionaries, the sources of religious history (Josephus, and others), and books of travels. [Ropinson, “ Re- searches,” vol. ii. p..551 f—A. G.] 5. The table here is composed of several tables which portray, vividly and naturally, the origin of a kingdom: 1. The period of the tribe-chiefs; 2. the period of the peculiar permanent tribe-princes ; 3. the period of the formation of the kingdom, and its continued existence upon the basis of permanent tribe principalities or dukedoms.’- 6. The subjugation of the Horites (whom we are not to regard as savages, merely because they dwelt in caves) by the Edomites, and the fusion of both people under an Edomitic kingdom, represents to us 578 vividly the process of the formation of a people, as in a precisely similar way it has occurred a hundred times in the history of the world. In sacred history we may refer here especially to the rise of the Sa- maritans, and in later history, to the formation of the Roman people. The Franks overcame the Gauls as the Edomites the Horites, although under different moulding relations. This great forming process is now taking place under our very eyes in North America. But these historical growths of a people are the sub- ject of a special divine providence (Acts xvii. 26). 7, We are here reminded again of the prominent personal view of all the relations of life in the sacred Scriptures. At the close of the whole evolution of a people it is said again: This is Esau. He lives still, as the father, in the entire people; stamps even the Horitic element with his own image. ‘ 8. The discovery of the warm springs by Anah, is an example of human discoveries in their accidental and providential bearings and significance. [Words- worth says: There is an important moral in these generations of Esau. They show that the families of the carnal race of this world develop themselves more rapidly than the promised seed. Ishmael and Esau come sooner to their possession than Isaac and Jacob. The promised seed is of slow growth. It is like the grain of mustard-seed (Matt. xiii. 81). The fulfilments of all God’s promises, of great blessings to his people, are always long in coming. But the kingdoms of this world would soon fade, while the ea of heaven will endure for ever (p. 147, 148). —A. G. HOMILETIOAL AND PRACTICAL. Meditations upon this chapter must be connected with the general declarations as to Esau, e. g.,-with Isaac’s blessing upon him, with the prophetic pas- sages relating to Esau, with the history of the Herods, with Acts xvii. 26, or with other New Testament passages.—The fulfilling of the blessing upon Esau. —KEsau’s development.—The ancient and modern Edom.—How Israel even in later days regarded the fraternal relation of Edom as sacred. : Starke: This narrative of Esau has, doubtless, its important uses, partly as it shows how richly God fulfils his promises (ch. xxv. 23 ; xxvii. 89, 40), partly as it sets before the descendants of Jacob, how far the boundaries of Hsau’s descendants reach, and partly as thence the Israelites are earnestly forbidden to encroach upon them (Deut. ii. 4, 5), except in rela- tion to the Amalekites (Ex. xvii. 14). Moreover, there were many pious men among the descendants of Esau, who were in covenant with God. Observe how the patriarchal sacrificial service continued for a long time among the Edomites, until, after the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt, the church of the Edomites gradually declined, etc. (Taken in part from Rampacu’s “ Ecclesiastical History.”) Ver. 8. These names lead one to think of Job’s friends, (He then remarks, that some suppose that Job’s friend Eliphaz descended from this one, while others regard the Eliphaz of Job as still older.) View of the Edo- mites and of the Amalekites.—(Ver. 24. Mules, ac- GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. cording to Luther. The Hebrew word occurs but once in the sacred Scriptures, and is, therefore, more difficult to explain. The Sept. has formed from it a man’s name; the Chaldee renders it “giants; ” the Samar. Emim, a race of giants; in the Arabic some understand a kind of warm bath; others, a kind of healing drug.)—Ver. 33. This Jobab is held by some, though without any good reason, as the same with Job. —OstanvEr: The kingdom of Christ alone endures and is eternal; the other kingdoms and sovereign- ties, which are of this world, are subject to fre- quent changes, and, indeed, decay and perish (Ps. Ixxxix. 3,4), Whatever rises rapidly disappears rapidly also (Ps. xxxvii. 35 f.). Lanex: Jacob, not less than Abraham and Isaac, was a type of Christ: 1. According to the promise, the lord over all Canaan, but he had nothing of his own there but the parcel of the field which he bought at Shechem. Thus, Christ also is the Lord of the whole world, etc.; 2. Jacob a great shepherd, Christ the chief shepherd ; 3. Jacob’s long service for Rachel and Leah, Christ in the form of a servant and his ser- vice; 4. Jacob gained two herds, Christ the Jews and Gentiles; 5. Jacob a prophet, priest, and king, the three offices of Christ; 6. Jacob’s wrestling, and Christ’s agony and struggle; 7. Jacob lame in his thigh, Christ and the prints of the nails and spear; 8, Jacob left behind him twelve patriarchs, Christ the twelve apostles. Geruacn: Calvin’s re- marks, We must here remember, that those sep- arated from God’s covenant rise quickly and de- cay rapidly, like the grass upon the house-tops, which springs up quickly and soon withers be- cause it has no depth of earth and roots. Both of Isaac’s sons have the glorious promise that kings shall come from them; now they appear first among the Edomites, and Israel seems to be set aside. But the course of the history shows how much better it is first to strike the roots deep in- to the earth, than to receive immediately a tran- sitory glory which vanishes away in a moment, The believer, therefore, while he toils slowly on- wards, must not envy the rapid and joyful pro- gress of others, for the permanent prosperity and blessedness promised to him by the Lord is of far greater value.—Scuréper: (Ranke:) The Is- raelites also were to be encouraged in their con- test, through the conspicuous victory which the Edomites in earlier times had obtained over the numerous tribes of Seir. (Baumgarten:) This exter- nal glory in the very beginning of Esau’s history, stands in striking contrast to the simple relations in the family of Jacob, but corresponds perfectly with the whole previous course of our history, which, from the hegiantag, assigns worldly power and riches to the line which lies beyond the cove- nant and union aith God, while it sets forth the humility and retiring nature in the race chosen by God.—In later history, the kingdom among the Edomites appears to have been hereditary (1 Kings xi. 14).—Ver. 48. (Baumgarten:) We may ex- plain the fact that only eleven names are found here, while there are fourteen above, upon the supposition that some of the seats of power em- braced more than one princely family, CHAP, XXXVII 1-36. 579 THIRD PERIOD. Tux Genesis of the People of Israel in Egypt.from the Twelve Branches of Israel, TO oe co 10 ll 12, 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 or the History of Joseph and his Brethren. Jaseph the Patriarch of the Faith- dispensation through Humiliation and Exaltation—Cu. XXXVII. 1—L. FIRST SECTION. Jacob's inconsiderate :fondness for Joseph. Joseph's dreams. His brothers’ envy. Joseph sold into Egypt. —_—— Cuarrern XXXVII. 1-86. And Jacob dwelt in the land wherein his father was a stranger, in the land of Canaan. These are the generations of Jacob. Joseph being seventeen years old, was feeding the flock with his brethren; and the lad was with the sons of Bilhah, and with the sons of. Zilpah, his father’s wives: and Joseph brought unto his father their evil report." Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age”; and he made him a coat of many colors® [a beautiful robe, ch. xxvii. 15]. And when his brethren saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto him. And Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told it to his ‘brethren: and they hated himi yet the more. And he said unto them, Hear, I pray you, this dream which I have dreamed: For, behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and, lo, my sheaf arose, and also stood upright; and, behold, your sheaves stood round about, and made obeisance to my sheaf. And his brethren said unto him, Shalt thou indeed reign over us? or shalt thou indeed have dominion over us? and they hated him yet the more for his dreams, and for his words. And he dreamed yet another dream, and told it to his brethren, and said, Behold, I have dreamed a dream more; and, behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance unto me. And he told it to his father, and to his brethren; and his father rebuked him, and said unto him, 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? And his brethren envied him; but his father observed [kept, preserved] the say- 13 ing. And his brethren went to feed their father’s flock inShechem. And Israel said unto Joseph, Do not thy brethren feed the flock in Shechem? come, and I will send thee unto them. And he said to him, Here am Z. And he said to him, Go, I pray thee, see whether it be well with thy brethren, and well with the flocks; and bring me word again. So he sent him out of the vale of Hebron, and he came to Shechem. Anda certain man found him, and, behold, he was wandering in the field: and the man asked him, saying, What seekest thou? And he said, I seek my brethren: tell me, I pray thee, where they feed their flocks. And the man said, They are departed hence; for I heard them say, Let us go to Dothan [the twowels], And Joseph went after his brethren, and found them in Dothan. And when they saw him afar off, even before he came near unto them, they conspired against him to slay him. And they said one to another, Behold, this dreamer [man of dreams] cometh. Come now, therefore, and let us slay him, and cast him into some pit; and we will say, Some evil beast hath de- voured him: and we will see what will become of his dreams. And Reuben heard 7, 580 GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. and he delivered him [sought to deliver] out of their hands; and he said, Let us not kill him. 22 And Reuben said unto them, Shed no blood, but cast him into this pit that ¢s in the wilderness, and lay no hand upon him; that he might rid him out of their hands, to 23. deliver him to his father again. And it came to pass, when Joseph was come unto his brethren, that they stripped Joseph out of his coat, his coat of many colors that was 24 on him. And they took him, and cast him into a pit: and the pit was empty, there was 25 no water init. And they sat down to eat bread: and they lifted up their eyes and looked, and, behold, a company of Ishmaelites [a caravan] came from Gilead, with their camels bearing spices [tagakanth-gum J, and balm, and myrrh, going to carry it down to 26 Egypt. And Judah said unto his brethren, What profit ds ¢¢ if we slay our brother, 27 and conceal his blood? Come, and let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and let not our hand be upon him; for he 2s our brother, and our flesh. And his brethren were content. Then there passed by Midianites, merchantmen; and they drew and lifted up Joseph out of the pit, and sold Joséph to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver: and they brought Joseph unto Egypt. And Reuben returned unto the pit; and, behold, Joseph was not in the pit: and he rent his clothes. And he returned unto his brethren, and said, The child zs not; and I, whither shall I go? And they took Joseph’s coat, and killed a kid of the goats, and dipped the coat in the blood. And they sent the coat of many colors and they brought ¢ to their father; and said, This have we found; know now whether it be thy son’s coat or no. And he knew it, and said, Jt 7s my son's coat; an evil beast hath devoured him; Joseph is without doubt rent in pieces. And Jacob rent his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his loins, and mourned for his son many days. And all his sons, and all his daughters, rose up to comfort him; but he refused to be comforted; and he said, For I will go down into the grave [sheo!] * unto my son mourn- 36 ing. Thus his father wept for him. And the Midianites sold him into Egypt, unto Potiphar [Septuagint: Hereppfs, belonging to theeun], an officer of Pharaoh’s [Iing; Lepsius: sun], and captain of the guard. 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 {2 Ver. 2-794 ona - LXX,, péyov rovnpév ; Vulgate, more strongly, accusavit fratres suos apud patrem crimine pessimo. From 237, an onomatope (dabab—dab—dabble), denoting a light, oft-repeated sound (tap-tap), or motion, like the Arabic Ss 3 5 leniter incessit, reptavit. In either way the noun may would come to mean a rumor whispered, or creeping round. It does not mean that Joseph made accusations against them, as the Vulgate has it, but that, in boyish simplicity, he repeated what he had heard about them. The root 13'7 occurs only Cant. vii. 10, where Gesenius gives it the sense of lightly flowing, which hardly seems consistent with the radical idea of repetition. The light motion of the lips, like one muttering, or faintly attempting to speak in sleep, as our translators have given it, is more in accordance with the nature of the root.—T. L.] {? Ver. 3.—D9p1 ja. Rendered, son of his old age, rmAvyeros. But, as Maimonides well remarks, this could not have been the case with Joseph in a degree much exceeding the relation to the father of Issachar and Zebulon. He thinks, therefore, that he was so called, not because he was late born, but because he ae at home, and thus became his father’s principal stay and support—‘‘ as is the custom of old men to retain one son, in manner, whether the youngest or not—Ip td maw 312393—that is, be to him yyporpddos or ynpoBockds, as the Greeks called it.”” In this view the plural form would be intensive, denoting éxtreme old age, to which the other places where the form occurs would well agree, Gen. xxi. 2, 7; xliv. 20. After Joseph, Benjamin performed this duty. The Targum of Onkelos seems to have had something of this kind in view, when it renders it mpsnas > his wise son—his careful son, who provided for him.—T. L.} [3 Ver. 3.—D"OB moh, coat of many colors,—rather, coat of pieces. The context shows that it was something beautiful and luxurious; the other passage where it occurs, 2 Sam. xiii. 18, shows that it may denote a garment for either sex, and the plural form indicates variety of construction or material. The primary sense of the root, DOD ; is diminution, not diffusion, as Gesenius says (see OB). This is inferred from the use of ON for something small, as the end or extremity of anything, and the parallelism of the verb, Ps. xii. 2,—a garment distinguished for small spots, stripes, or fringes.—1. L.] ‘ [4 Ver. 35.—On the etymology of dinw see Excursus, p. 585 sqq.—T. L.] GENERAL PRELIMINARY REMARKS, 1, It is to be noted here, in the first place, that the history of Joseph is amplified beyond that of any of the patriarchs hitherto. This is explained by the contact which Joseph’s transportation gives rise to between the Hebrew spirit and the Egyptian culture and literature. A trace of this may be found in the history of Abraham ; for after Abraham had been in Egypt, his history becomes more full, With the memorabilia of Joseph connects itself the account of Moses, who was educated in all the different branches of Egyptian learning, whilst this again points to Samuel and the schools of the prophets. 2, Knobel regards Joseph’s history as having grown out of the original Elohistic text connected with a later revision (p. 288). He supposes, however, in this case, two halves, which, taken separately, have nosignificance. That Joseph was sold into Egypt, ac- cording to the supposed original text, can only be explained from the fact mentioned in the supposed additions, that he had incurred the hatred of his CHAP, XXXVII. 1-36. 581 brethren by reason of his aspiring dreams. Reu- ben’s proposition to cast Joseph into the pit, and which aimed at his preservation, was not added until- afterwards, it is said. Even Joseph’s later declara- tion: I was stolen from the country of the Hebrews, is regarded as making a difference. Delitzsch, too, adopts a combination of different elements, without, however, recognizing the contradictions raised by Knobel (p. 517). He presents, also, a3 a problem difficult of solution, the usage of the divine names in this last period of Genesis. In ch, xxxvii. no name of God occurs, but in ch. xxxviii. it is Jehovah that slays Judah’s sons, as also, in ch. xxxix., it is Jeho- vah that blesses Joseph in Potiphar’s house, and in person; as recognized by Potiphar himself. Only in ver. 9 we find Elohim,—the name Jehovah not being here admissible. From ch. xl. onward, the name Jehovah disappears. It occurs but once be- tween ch. xl. and 1, as in ch. xlix. 18, when Jacob uses it: “I have waited for thy salvation, Jehovah.” For different interpretations of this by Keil, Drechs- ler, Hengstenberg, Baumgarten, and Delitzsch, see DzuirzscH, p. 515. The three last agree in this, that the author of Genesis, in the oft-repeated Elohim, wished here to mark more emphatically, by way of contrast, the later appearance of the Jehovah- period, Exod. iii. 6. This would, indeed, be a very artificial way of writing books. The riddle must find its solution in actual relations. The simple ex- planation is, that in the history of a: Joseph, which stands entirely upon an Elohistic foundation, this name Elohim predominantly occurs. Joseph is the Solomon of the patriarchal times. 8. The generations of Jacob connect themselves with those of Esau. Delitzsch justly remarks, p. 511, that the representation which follows (ch. xxxvii. to ch. 1), was intended to be, not a mere his- tory of Joseph, but a history of Jacob in his sons. Otherwise Judah’s history, ch. xxxviii., would appear as an interpolation. The twelve sons of Jacob con- stitute Israel’s new seed. The latter fact, of course, has the stronger emphasis. The generations of Jacob are the history and successions of his poster- ity—that is, his living on in his posterity, just as Adam’s tholedoth, Gen. v. 1, represent the history of Adam, not personally, but historically, in his descend- ants. . 4. Joseph’s history is considered in a triple rela- tion: as the history of the genesis of the Israelitish people in Evypt; as an example of a special provi- dence, such as often brings good out of evil, as ex- emplified in the book of Job; and as a type of the fundamental law of God in guiding the elect from suffering to joy, from humiliation to exaltation—a law already indicated in the life of Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but which, henceforth, develops it- self more and more (especially in the history of David), to terminate, at last, in the life of Jesus, as presenting the very sublimity of the antithesis. Hence the appearance, in our history, of individual types representing the New-Testament history of Jesus, such as the jealousy and hatred of Joseph’s brethren, the fact of his being sold, the fulfilment of Joseph’s prophetic dreams in the very efforts intended to pre- vent his exaltation, the turning of his brothers’ wick- ed plot to the salvation of many, even of themselves, and of the house of Jacob, the spiritual sentence pronounced on the treachery of the brethren, the victory of pardoning love, Judah’s suretyship for Benjamin, his emulating Joseph in a spirit of re- deeming resignation, Jacob’s joyful reviving on hear- ing of the life and glory of his favorite son, whom he had believed to be dead. ‘ Concerning Israel’s genesis in Egypt, Delitzsch remarks: “ According to a law of divine providences, to be found not only in the Old Testament, but also in the New (?), not the land of the promise, but a foreign country, is the place where the Church is born, and comes to maturity. This foreign country, to the Old-Testament Church, is the land of Egypt. To go before his people, to prepare a place for them, is Joseph’s high vocation.« Sold into Egypt, heopens the way thither to the house of Jacob, and the same country where he matures to mauhood, where he suf- fers in prison, and attains to glory, becomes, to his family, the land where it comes to the maturity of a nation,—the land of its servitude, and of its re- demption. Thus far Joseph’s history is the overture of Jacob’s history—a type of the way of the Church ; not of Jehovah only, but of Christ in his progress from huwiliation to exaltation, from subjection to freedom, from sufferings to glory.” See Matt. ii. 15; Hosea xi. 1. Israel’s riches of election and endow- ment are to be developed by contact with different heathen nations, and especially with Egypt. Just as Christianity, the completed revelation of the new covenant, developed itself formally for the world, by its reciprocal intercourse with a Graco-Romanic culture, thus was it also with the faith of the old covenant in its reciprocal intercourse with the old Egyptian world-culture, as'‘shown especially in the history of Joseph, Moses, and Solomon who became the son-in-law of one of the Pharaohs. More prom- inently does this appear, again, in the history of Alex- andrian Judaism ; in which, however, the interchange of influence with Egypt becomes, at the same time, one with that of the whole Orient, and of Greece. The key of Joseph’s history, as a history of prov- idence, is clearly found in the declaration made by him ch. xly. 5-8, and ch. 1.20, The full explanation, however, of its significance, is found in the history of Christ as furnishing its perfect fulfilment. Per- mission of evil; counteraction and modification of evil, frustration of its tendency, its conver- sion into good, victory over evil, destruction of evil, and reconciliation of the evil themselves,—these are the forces of a movement here represented in its most concrete and most powerful relations. The evil is conspiracy, treachery, and a murderous plot against their innocent brother. The conversion of itis of the noblest kind. The plot to destroy Jo- geph is the occasion of his greatest glorification. But as God’s sentence against the trembling con- scious sinner is changed into grace, so also the tri- umph of pardoning love overcoming hatred becomes conspicuous as a glorious omen in Joseph’s life. “Jnasmuch,” says Delitzsch, “as Israel’s history is a typical history of Christ, and Christ’s history the typical history of the Church, so is Joseph a type of Christ himself. What he suffered from his brethren, and which God’s decree turned to his own and his nation’s salvation, is a type of Christ’s sufferings, caused by his people, but which God’s decree turned to the salvation of the world, including, finally, the salvation of Israel itself.” Says Pascat (Pensées, ii, 9, 2): “Jesus Christ is typified in Joseph, the be- loved of his father, sent by his father to his brethren, the innocent one sold by his brethren for twenty pie- ces of silver, and then becoming their Lord, their Saviour, the saviour of those who were aliens to Israel, the saviour of the world,—all which would not have been if they had not cherished the design 582 GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. of destroying him—if they had not sold and rejected him. Joseph, the innocent one, in prison with two malefactors—Jesus on the cross between two thieves ; Joseph predicts favorably to the one, but death to the other; Jesus saves the one, whilst he leaves the other in condemnation. Thus has the Church ever regarded Joseph’s history.” Already is this inti- mated in the Gospels. What Pascal here says, and as is also held by the fathers, e. g., Prosper Aqui- tanus, de Promissionibus et Praedictionibus Dei, is but a brief statement of the pious thoughts of all believers, in the contemplation of the history. It is this which imparts to the wonderful typical light here presented its irresistible charm. When, however, Joseph is made the exclusive centre of our history, and the patriarchal type of Christ (Kurrz, “History of the Old Testament,” i. p. 348), Keil presents, in opposition, some most im- portant considerations. It is, indeed, no ground of difference (as presented by him), that Joseph became formally naturalized in Egypt; for Christ, too, was delivered to the heathen, and died out of the camp. Nor does it make any important difference that Jo- seph received no special revelations of God at the court of Pharaoh, as Daniel did at the court of Nebuchadnezzar; the gift of interpreting dreams he also, like Daniel, referred back to God. Of greater importance is the remark that Joseph is nowhere, in the Scriptures themselves, presented as a type of Christ; yet we must distinguish between verbal references and teal relations, such as might be indi- cated in Zach. xi. 12, and in Christ’s declaration that one of his disciples should betray him. There is, however, & verbal reference in Stephen’s speech, Acts vii. 9. There is no mistaking the fact that the Messianic traces in our narrative are shared both by Joseph and Judah, Judah appears great and no- ble throughout the history of Joseph; the instance, however, in which he is willing to sacrifice himself to an unlimited servitude for Benjamin, makes him of equal dignity with Joseph. So in Abraham’s sac- rifice, the Messianic typical is distributed between him and Isaac. Joseph’s glory is preéminently of a prophetic kind; the weight of a priestly voluntary self-sacrifice inclines more to the side of Judah. Benjamin, too, has his Messianic ray; for it is espe- cially on his account that the brethren may appear before Joseph in a reconciling light. On Hitter’s “‘Typological Contemplation of Joseph,” see Kriz, p. 242. MEINERTZHAGEN, in his “Lectures on the Christology of the Old Testament” (p. 204), treats of the typical significance of Joseph with great ful- ness. It is also to be noted that ever afterwards Benjamin appears theocratically and geographically connected with Judah. : B. The disposition of Joseph’s history, and the settlement of the Israelites in Egypt, as well as its relation to the Hyksos of whom Joszpuus speaks (contra Apion, i. 14), in an’ extract from Manetho’s history, presents a question of great historical inter- est (see Detirzscn, p. 518). The extract concerning the Hyksos has a mythical look. Still darker are other things which Josephus gives us from Manetho and Cheremon (contra Ap., i, 26, 82). Different views: 1) The Hyksos and the Israelites are iden- tical; so Manetho, Josephus, Hugo Grotius, Hof mann, Knobel (p. 301), and, in a modified form, Seyffarth, Uhlemann. 2) The Hyksos are distinct from the Israclites; they were another Shemitic tribe—Arabians, or Phoenicians; so Cunaeus, Scal- iger, ete. This view,’ says Delitzsch, is now the pre- vailing one. So also Ewald, Lepsius, Saalschiitz, but with different combinations, On these see Dr- Livzscu, p. 521. 8) The Hyksos were Scythians ; |so Champollion, Rossellini. The first view is op- posed by the fact that the Israelites founded no dynasties in Egypt, as did the Hyksos; nor did they exist there under shepherd-kings, as the name Hyksos has been interpreted. Against the second view De- litzsch insists that the people of Egypt, into whose servitude Israel fell, appear as » people foreign to them, and by no means as one connected with them. The Shemitic idea, however, is so extended, that we cannot always suppose a theocratic element along with it. The most we can say is, that the Hyksos, who, no doubt, were a roving band of conquerors, came from Syria, or the countries lying north and east beyond Palestine. In the Egyptian tradition, their memory seems to have been so mingled with that of the Israelites, that it would seem almost im- - possible to separate the historical element from such a mixture. Since, however, the Israelitish history seems more obscured by that of the Hyksos than contradicted, it may be regarded as more probable that the latter came latest. The pressure of the Israelites upon the Canaanites, from the east, may have driven them in part to the south; and the weakening of Egypt by the destruction of Pharaoh and his army, forty years before, might have favored a conquest. The chronological adjustment, however, must be left to itself. For a fuller treatment of this subject, see EH. Béumer, “ The First Book of the Thora” (Halle, 1862); appendix, p. 205, etc. Accord- ing to Lepsius, the appearance of the Hyksos in Egypt preceded the history of Joseph. At all events, this dim tradition bears testimony to the Israelitish history in many particulars (e. g., that they founded Jerusalem in Judea). On the full confirmation of Joseph’s history by Greek historians and by Egyp- tian monuments, compare DruirzscH, p. 524, etc.; HenestenserG, “The Pentateuch and Egypt,” Ber- lin, 1841, - 6. The history of Israel’s settlement in Egypt ex- tends through the sections that follow: 1) The corrup- tion in Jacob’s house, the dispersion of his sons, the loss of Joseph (ch, xxxviii—xxxix.). 2) Joseph’s elevation, and the reconciliation and gathering of his brethren (ch. xl.~1.). 38) Israel’s transplantation to Egypt (ch. xlvi.~—xlvii. 26). 4) The keeping of the divine promise, and the longing of Israel to return home to Canaan (ch, xlvii. 27—ch. 1). EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL. . Contents: The conspiracy of Jacob’s sons against their brother Joseph, considered in its awful dark- ness, or the déep commotion and apparent destruc- tion of Jacob’s house: 1. The occasion (vers, 1-11); 2. the opportunity, and the plot of murder (vers. 12-20); 3. Reuben’s attempt to rescue; 4. Judah’s effort to save, unknowingly crossing that of Reuben (vers. 25-27); 5. the crime, the beginning of mourn- ing, the hiding of guilt (vers, 28-82); 6. Jacob’s deep grief, and Joseph apparently lost (vers. 88-86). 1. The occasion (vers. 1-11),—In the land of Canaan.—It seems to have been made already his permanent home, but soon to assume a different ap- pearance.-The generations (see above).—Joseph being seventeen years old.—A statement very important in respect both to the present occurrence and the future history. In ch. xli. 46, he is men- CHAP. XXXVII. 1-36. 583 tioned as thirty years old. His sufferings, therefore, lasted about thirteen years. At this age of seventeen he became a shepherd with his brethren. Jacob did not send his favorite son too early to the herds ; yet, though the favorite, he was to begin to serve be- low the rest, as a shepherd-boy. At this age, how- ever, Joseph had great naiveness and simplicity. He therefore imprudently tells his dreams, like an inno- cent child. On the other hand, however, he was very sedate; he was not enticed, therefore, by the evil example of some of his brethren, but considered it his duty to inform his father.—And the lad was with the sons of Bilhah.—For the sons of Bilhah Rachel’s servant stood nearer to him, while those of Leah were most opposed. He brought to his father mys ASI MX, translated by Keil, evil reports con- cerning them. A direct statement of their offences would doubtless have been differently expressed. They were an offence to those living in the vicinity. This determined him to inform his father, but it does not exclude a conviction of hisown. It is inadmis- sible to refer this to definite sins (as, e. g., some have thought of unnatural sins). That the sons of the concubines surpassed the others in rude conduct, iseasily understood. Joseph’s moral earnestness is, doubtless, the first stumbling-block to his brethren, whilst it strengthens his father in his good opinion. The beautiful robe was the second offence. It is called bYO M2hD, “an outer garment of ends,” which extends, like a gown, to the hands and the ancles. ‘The Septuagint, which Luther’s translation follows, renders it ‘a coat of many colors.” Comp. 2 Sam. xiii. 18. The common tunic extended only to the knees, and was without arms. Already this preference, which seemed to indicate that Jacob in- tended to give him the right of the first-born, aroused the hatred of his brethren. One who hates cannot greet heartily the one who is hated, nor tall: with him frankly and peaceably. In addition to this, Jo- seph, by his dreams and presages (though not yet a prudent interpreter), was pouring oil upon the flames. At all events, the 727 (lo), as repeated in his narra- tion, shows that he had a presentiment of something great. Both dreams are expressive of his future ele- vation. In Egypt he becomes the fortunate sheaf- binder whose sheaf “stood up” ducing the famine. The second dream confirms the first, whilst present- ing the further thought: even the sun and moon— that is, according to Jacob’s interpretation, even his father and his mother—were to bow beforehim. Ra- chel died.some time before this. On this account the word mother has been referred to Bilhah, or to Benjamin as representing Rachel, or else to Leah. The brethren now hated him the more, not merely as recognizing in his dreams the suggestions of am- bition, but with 2 mingled feeling, in which there was not wanting a presentiment of his possible exalta- tion—as their declaration, ver. 20, betrays. In Ja- cob’s rebuke we perceive also mingled feelings. There is dissent from Joseph’s apparently pretentious prospects, a fatherly regard toward the mortified brethren, yet, withal, a deeper presentiment, that caused him to keep these words of Joseph in his heart, as Mary did those ‘of the shepherds. As the naivete of the shepherd-boy was evidence of the truthfulness of these dreams, so the result testifies to the higher origin of a divine communication, con- ditioned, indeed, by the hopefully presageful life of Joseph. These dreams were probably intended to sustain Joseph during his thirteen years of wretch- edness, and, at the same time, to prepare him to be an interpreter. The Zodiac, as here brought in by Knobel, has no significance, nor the custom of placing a numbey of sheaves together. 2. The opportunity and the plot of murder (vers. 12-20),—In Shechem.—There is no ground for supposing another Shechem, as some have done, on account of what had formerly occurred there. It is more likely that Jacob’s sons courageously returned to the occupation of the parcel of land formerly ac- quired by them. This very circumstance, however, may have so excited the anxiety of the cautious parent that he sent Joseph afterthem. That Joseph could have lost his way at Shechem is easily ex- plained, since he was so young when his father lived there.—In Dothan.—The Septuagint has AwSaeiu, Judith iv. 6; vii. 8; viii. 3; AwSaiz. 2 Kings vi. 13, Dothan. It was a place above Samaria, towards the plain of Jezreel, according to Josephus and Hierony- mus. ‘Thus it was found by Robinson and Smith in their journey of 1852, and also by Van de Velde, in the southeast part of the plain of Jabud, west of Genin. It is a beautiful green dell, always called Dothan, at whose south foot a fountain rises.” De- litzsch. Through the plain of Tell-Dothan a high- way passes from the northwest to Ramleh and Egypt. —They conspired against him.—That Reuben and Judah were not concerned in this, is plain from what follows—This dreamer cometh.—Spoken contemptuously —- master of dreams, dream-man. The word men does not express contempt of itself, as is seen from ch. xxiv. 65, the only other place in which it occurs. It denotes something unexpected and remarkable-—Into some pit.—Cisterns (see Winer: wells),—And we shall see. — They thought by their fratricide surely to frustrate his ex- altation—a proof that his dreams alarmed them ; but by this very deed, as controlled by God’s providence, they bring it about. , 3. Reuben’s artful attempt at saving (vers. 21- 24). The text states directly that Reuben made his proposition in order to save Joseph. Knobel, by a frivolous criticism; would foist a contradiction upon the text, namely, that Reuben made the proposition in order to let him perish in the pit; since a blood- less destruction of life seems to have been regarded as less criminal than a direct killing. But, then, the Reviser must have imparted to Reuben’s proposition a different interpretation, by means of an addition. Reuben, it is true, had to express himself in such a way that the brothers might infer his intention to let him perish in the pit; but this was the only way to gain their consent—They stripped Joseph out of his coat.—The object of their jealousy and their wrath. And the pit was empty.—So that he did not perish. His cries for mercy they remembered many years afterwards (ch. xli. 21). 4, Judah's bold attempt to save him (vers. 25-217). —And they sat down.—Through this apparent insensibility their inward agony is betrayed; it ap- pears in their agitated looking out, so that they espy the Ishmaelites already at a great distance—And behold, a company of Ishmaelites.—A caravan, nm (Job vi. 19). “ This caravan (as Robinson’s description shows) had erossed the Jordan at Beisan, and followed the highway that led from Beisan and Zerin to Ramleh and Egypt, entering the plain of Dothan west of Genin.” Delitzsch. In vers. 25, 27, and 28, the merchants are called Ishmaelites, whilst in the first part of ver. 28 they are styled 584 Midianites, and in ver. 86 Medanites. Knobel, of course, regards them as different traditions (p. 293). Ver. 28, however, would seem to tell us that the Ish- , maelites were the proprietors of the caravap, which was made up, for the most part, of Midianitish peo- ple. In a similar manner, probably, as Esau made a number of the Horites subject to him, so had the Ishmaelites also brought under them a number of the Midianites. One hundred and fifty years, the time that had elapsed since Ishmael’s departure from Abraham, would give a sufficient increase for this (see Krit, p. 244). As merchants, they were trans- porting costly products of their country to Egypt. Gum-tragacanth is found in Syria; the balm of Gilead was especially renowned, and was sold to Pheenicia and Egypt; ladanum (myrrh), or the fra- grant rose of the cistus, is found in Arabia and Syria, as well as in Palestine (see Scuuserr, iii. p. 114 and 174). Concerning the cisterns, or the artificially prepared reservoirs of rain-water, see the Diction- aries and geographical works. They might be full of water, or have mire at the bottom, or be entirely dry. They were frequently used as prisons (see Jer. xxxviii. 6; xl. 15). Scuréper: “On his way to Damascus, Robinson found Khan Jubb Jisuf (a kind of inn), the khan of Joseph’s pit, so called after a well connected with it, and which for a long time, both among Christians and Mohammedans, was re- garded as the cistern into which Joseph was thrown.” —And Judah said.—“Then Judah began to use the language of a hypocritical self-interest,” says De- litasch. This, however, seems to be not at all justified by Judah’s after-history. It must be presupposed that Judah was unacquainted with Reuben’s inten- tion. The brethren were so much excited that Ju- ‘dah alone could not have hoped to rescue Joseph from their hand. The ferocity, especially, of Simeon and Levi, is known to us from former history. Ju- dah, therefore, could think no otherwise than that -Joseph must die from hunger jn the pit. As in op- _ position to this, therefore, and not as a counteraction of Reuben’s attempt at deliverance, is his proposal ‘to be judged. He lived still, though a slave. There was a possibility of his becoming free. He might make his escape by the caravan routes that passed south through his home. Reuben, in his tenderness, “had made a subtle attempt to save him. In the “bolder policy.of Judah we see that subtle attempt crossed by one more daring. No doubt both had some ill-fecling towards Joseph, and were, therefore, not capable of a mutual and open understanding. ‘That both, however, preserved a better conscience ‘than the rest, is evident from the later history. The unity of our story is not disturbed by Knobel’s re- mark, “that a further tradition is given, Evsen. Prep, Evang., ix. 28, to the effect that, in order to escape the snares of his brethren, Joseph besought Arabians, who were near, to take him along with them to Egypt; which they did; so that, in this way, are the patriarchs still more exculpated.” What Joseph says of himself afterwards, that he was stolen out of the land of the Hebrews (ch. xl. 1s does not contradict our narration, Was he to ‘tell to the Egyptians the crime of his brethren ? 5. Vers, 28-32. The erime, the beginning of mourning, and the concealment of the guilt.— ‘Twenty pieces of silver.—Comp. ch. xx. 16. ‘Twenty shekels of silver was the compensation that Moses appointed for a boy from five to twenty years old (Ley. xxvii. 5), whilst the average price of a slave was thirty shekels (Exod. xxi. 82),—And GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. Reuben returned unto the pit.—His absence may easily be accounted for: it was impossible for him to eat with his brethren in his then state of mind; and he probably resorted to solitude to think out a plan of deliverance—And he rent his clothes.—The later custom (Matt, xxvi. 65) origin- ally sprung from vivid emotions of sorrow,—the rending as an expression of inward distraction. Af- terwards came this rending of garments upon the others (ch, xliv. 13).—And I, whither shall I go? —Not only as the first-born was he especially re- sponsible for the younger brother, but his tender feelings for him, and for the unhappy father, made him the. bearer of the agony of the guilty confede- racy; and this to such a degree that he knew not’ what to do.—And they took Joseph’s coat.— One transgression gives birth to another. With the consciousness that tried to conceal their guilt, there mingles the old grudge concerning the coat of many colors, which here turns itself even against the fu- ther. Doubtless, in some degree, they thought them- selves justified in the thought that the father had given them cause of irritation by providing such a coat for Joseph. Reuben and Judah are, moreover, burdened by the ban of silence. 6, Jacob's deep grief, and Joseph’s apparent loss (vers. 83-36).—It is my son’s coat.—Their decep- tion succeeded. In his agony he does not discover the fraud; the sight of the blood-dyed garment led him to conclude: Surely an evil beast hath torn Jo- seph, and devoured him,—Sackcloth.—The sign of the deepest mourning (see Winer: Trauer-sack ). —And mourned for his son.—Retaining also his garment of mourning—And all his sons.—The criminals as comforters !—And all his daughters, —From this there arises the probability that Jacob had other daughters than Dinah, though the daugh- ters-inlaw may be so called.—For I will go down. —The “2 is elliptical, implying, nothing can comfort me, for, etc—Mourning unto my son.—There is, doubtless, something more “here than grief merely for the loss; there is also self-reproach for having exposed the child to such danger.—Into the grave (sheol).—In this mournful mood of Jacob does this word sheol first occur.. It was not the world beyond the grave considered as the gathering to the fathers, but the dark night of death and mourning. There are various derivations of this word. One that easily suggests itself is that which marks it from baw , to demand—that place which inexorably demands all men back (Prov. xxx. 15; Is. v. 14; Heb. ii. 5). [See Excursus below, especially p. 586 sq.—T. L.J Ver. 86, The word 0°70, according to its original significance, denotes an eunuch; its later and more general interpretation is cowrtierx—Captain of the guard.—Literally a slayer, that is, an executioner (see 2 Kings xxv. 8; Jer. xxxix.9), For particulars, see DrLirzscH, p. 631. On the chronology as con- nected with the remark that Joseph was sold when he was _seventeen years old, see also Detirzscu, p. 582. Joseph’s history here suffers an interruption by the insertion of an incident in the life of Judah, Ch. xxxviii. Delitzsch ascribes this to literary art on the part of the author, but of that we may doubt. It is, of itself, just the time that we should expect to learn something more about Judah. [Nore on Gunusis xxxvu. 35. Tue Priminiyz Conceprion or Suxot.—This is the first place in which the word occurs, and it is very important to CHAP. XXXVII. 1-36. 585 trace, as far as we can, the earliest conception, or rather emotion, out of which it arose. ‘I will go down to my son mourning to Sheol,’’—towards Sheol, or, on the way to Sheol,—the reference being to the decline of life terminating in that unknown state, place, or condition of being, so called. One thing is clear: it was not a state of not-being, if we may use so paradoxical an expression. Jacob was going to his son; he was still his son; there is yet a tie between him and his father; he is still spoken of as a personality; he is still regarded as having a being somehow, and somewhere. Compare 2 Sam. xii, 28, 758 WBA ow, “J am going to him, but he shall not return to me.” The him and the me in this case, like the J and the my son in Genesis, are alike personal, In the earliest language, where all is hearty, such use of the pronoun could have been no unmeaning figure. The being of the one who has disappeared is no less real than that of the one who remains still seen, still fownd,* to use the Shem- itie term for existence, or oud-being, as a known and visible state (see note, p. 273), The LXX have ren- dered it here eis “Adov, into Hades; the Vulgate, ad filium meum in infernum. It was not to his son in his grave, for Joseph had no grave. His body was supposed to be lying somewhere in the desert, or torn in pieces, or carried off, by the wild beasts (see ver. 83). To resolve it all into figurative expressions for the grave would be simply carrying our meaning- less modern rhetoric into ancient forms of speech employed, in their first use, not for the reflex paint- ing, but for the very utterance of emotional concep- tions. However indefinite they may be, they are too mournfully real to admit of any such explanations. Looking at it steadily from this primitive standpoint, we are compelled to say, that an undoubting convic- tion of personal extinction at death, leaving nothing but a dismembered, decomposing body, now belong- ing to no one, would never have given rise to such language. The mere conception of the grave, as a place of burial, is too narrow for it. It, alone, would have destroyed the idea in its germ, rather than have given origin and expansion to it. The fact, too, that they had a well-known word for the grave, as a con- fined place of deposit for the body (WAR MINS, a possession, or property, of a grave, see Gen. xxiii. 9), shows that this other name, and this other concep- tion, were not dependent upon it, nor derived from it. The older lexicographers and commentators gen- erally derived the word Dixv) (Sheol) from Sew (Sha-al), to ask, inguire, etc. This is a very easy derivation, so far as form is concerned; and why is it not correct ? - In any way the sense deduced will seem near, or far-fetched, according to our precon- ceptions in respect to that earliest view of extinct or continued being. Gesenius rejects it, maintaining that binw is for bivv}, and means cavity ; hence a subterranean region, ete. He refers to 590 , hollow of the hand, or fist, Is, x]. 12; 1 Kings xx.10; Ezek. xiil. 19; and >34W), the name for fox or jackal, who digs holes in the earth,—this being all that can be found of any other use of the supposed root from * [Compare the Hebrew N2Oj, asustd Ps. xlvi.1, from which comes the frequent rabbinical use of the term for ex- istence as that which is somehow present, Comp. also the Arab. Ogtmy and 21Ogm>yed| = 78 inva, entia, Lit, things to be found.—T. LJ which comes this most ancient word, so full of some most solemn significance. There isa reference, also, to the German Adlle, or the general term of the northern nations (Gothic, Scandinavian, Saxon), de- noting hole, or cavity; though this is the very ques- tion, whether the northern conception is not a sec- ondary one, connected with that later thought of penal confinement which was never separable from the Saxon /el/,—a sense-limitation, in fact, of the more indefinite and more spiritual notion primarily presented by the Greek Hades, and which furnishes the true parallel to the early Hebrew Sheol, Fiirst has the same view as Gesenius. To make binvi and biyvu) equivalents, etymologically, there is supposed ” to be an interchange of & and ¥, a thing quite com- mon in the later Syriac, but rare in the Hebrew, especially the earlier writings, and which would be cited as a mark recentioris Hebraismi, if the ration- alistic argument, at any time, required it. The 3 has ever kept its place most tenaciously in the Arabic, as shown by Robinson in the numerous proper names of places in which it remains un- changed to this day. So it was, doubtless, in the most early Shemitic, though in the Syriac it became afterwards much weakened through the antipathetic Greek and Roman influence upon that language, and 80, frequently passed into the more easily pronounced &. It is improbable that this should have taken place in the most ancient stage of the language, or at the time of the first occurrence of this word in the biblical writings. Gesenius would give to >xw, too, the supposititious primary sense of digging, to make it the ground of the secondary idea of search or inquiry; but this is not the primary or predomi- nant conception of bxw; it is always that of inter- rogation, like the Greek épwrdw, or of demand, like airéw, ever implying speech, instead of the positive act of search, such as is denoted by the Hebrew “pn, to explore. Subsequent lexicographers and commentators have generally followed Gesenius, who seems to pride himself upon this discovery (see Rosinson: ‘‘ Lex. N. Test.” on the word Hades). Of the older mode of derivation he says: “ Prior etymo conjectura. vic memoratu digna est.” By some it would be regarded as betraying a deficiency in Hebrew learning to think of supporting an etymology so contemptuously rejected. And yet it has claims that should not be lightly given up, especially as they are so intimately connected with the important in- quiry in respect to the first conception of those who first used the word. Was this, primarily, a thought of locality, however wide or narrow it may have been, or did the space-notion, which undoubtedly prevailed afterwards, come from an earlier thought, or state of soul rather, more closely allied to feeling than to any positive idea? This conception of lo- cality in the earth came in very early; it grew natu- rally from something before it; but was it first of all? Lowth, Herder, etc., are, doubtless, correct in the representations they give of the Hebrew Sheol, as an imagined subterranean residence of the dead, and this is confirmed by later expressions we find in the Psalms and elsewhere, such as “going down to the pit” (compare 913 "797" and similar latzuage, Ps, xxviii, 1; xxx. 4; Ixxxvili. 5; Is. xiv. 19; xxxvili. 10, ete.); yet still there is the best of rea- sons for believing that what may be called the emotional or ejaculatory conception was earlier than 586 . this, and that the local was the form it took when it passed from an emotion to a speculative thought. From what source, then, in this earlier stage, could the name more naturally have come than from the primitive significance of that word byw, which, in the Arabic (JL, and everywhere in the Shemitic family, has this one old sense of appealing interro- gation,—first, simple inquiry, secondly, the idea of demand? The error of the older etymologists, then, consisted, not in making it from bxw, but in con- necting it with this secondary idea, and so referring it.to Sheol itself as demanding, instead of the mourning, sighing survivors asking after the dead. They supposed it was called Sheol from its rapacity, or unsatiableness, ever claiming its victims,—a thought, indeed, common in the early language of mourning, but having too much of tropical artifice to be the very earliest. It belongs to that later stage in which language is employed, retroactively, to awaken or intensify emotion, instead of being its gushing, irrepressible utterance. In support of this view, the text constantly cited, as the standard one, was Prov. xxx. 16, ji 77N Nb maw Nd -- Dine, Sheol that is never satisfied, that never says, enough, See the old commentary of Martin Geier on the book of Proverbs. Corresponding to this is the manner in which Homer speaks of Hades, and its vast popu- lation: , + «khuTa EOven. vexpov. So the dramatic poets represent it as rapacious, carrying off its victims like a ferocious animal (see the “Medea” of Evnrirrpzs, 1108), inexorable, vndehs, pitiless, ever demanding, but hearing no prayer in return. Hence it had settled into the clas- sical phrase rapax Oreus (see CaTuLuus, ii, 28, 29). But this, whatever form might be given to it, was not the first thought that would arise in the mind respecting the state of the departed. Instead of such an objective attribute of Hades, or Sheol, as a place demanding to be filled, it was rather the sub- jective feeling of inquiring wonder at the phenome- non of death, at the thought of the one who had disappeared, and of that inexplicable state into which even the imagination failed to follow him. Shadowy .ag all such language is, it is only the stronger evi- dence of that feeling of continued being which holds on so firmly through it all, as though in spite of the positive appearances of sense testifying to the de- parture, or the negative testimony arising from the failure of the eye to pierce the darkness (whence the Greek Hades, the unscen), or of the car to gather any report from the silence into which the dead had gone. See remarks in the note before referred to, p. 273, on the idea of death as a state, a state of being, the antithesis, not of being, but of the active life “beneath the sun.” Now the idea of extinction, of absolute not-being, of a total loss of individual personality, would have excluded all questioning ; it would never have made such words as Hades, or Sheol, according to either conception, whether of inquiry or of locality, whether as denoting a state or a place, whether as demanding or as interrogated, whether as addressed to the wnseen, or to the voice- less ald unheard. The man was gone, but where ?. According to a most ancient and touching custom, they thrice most solemnly invoked his name, but no answer came back. Their belief in his continued being was shown by the voice that went after hin, though no responding voice was returned to the living GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. ! ear. d4xXU (the infinitive used as a noun), to ask, to inquire anxiously; he had gone to the land thus denoted, that “undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveller returned.” The key-text here is Job xiv. 10: “Man dies, and wastes away; he giveth up the ghost (BINT 3135, yighwah ha-adam, man sighs, or gasps for breath), and where is he?” 3x4, weayyo, O, where ishe? See Zach.i.5: The fathers! OMAN, where are they? Compare also Job vii. 21, and other places of a similar kind, all showing how natural is the connection between the wailing, questioning weayyo, and the word Sheol so immedi- ately suggested by it, The disappearance of Enoch from the earth was stranger than that of the ordinary death, but gave rise to the same feeling of inquiry, only in a more intensive degree. ‘He was not found,” odx eiploero, says the LXX, and this gives the real meaning of the Hebrew 333°8, not denoting non-existence, for that would be directly contrary to what follows, but that he was nowhere to be found on earth. Thus regarded, it is easy to see how the idea of some locality would soon attach itself to the primi- tive emotional conception, and in time become so predominant that the older germ of thought, that was in the etymology, would almost wholly disap- pear. Still the spirit of the word, its geist or ghost, to use the more emphatic German or Saxon, long haunts it after the conception has changed go as to receive into it more of the local and definite. Trench has shown how tenacious is this root-sense of old words, preserving them, like some guardian genius, from misusage and misapplication, ages after it has ceased to be directly conceptual, or to be known at all, except to the antiquarian philologist. Thus, although the cavernous or subterranean idea had become prominent in the Psalms and elsewhere, this old spirit of’ the word still hovers about it in all such passages; we still seem to hear the sighing weayyo ; there yet lingers in the ear the plaintive sheolah, denoting the intense looking into the world unknown, the anxious listening to which no answer- ing voice is returned. That Sheol, in its primary sense, did not mean the grave, and in fact had no etymological associa- tion with it, is shown by the fact, already mentioned, that there was a distinct word for the latter, of still earlier occurrence in the Scriptures, common in all the Shemitic languages, and presenting the definite primary conception of digging, or excavation (73P, kbr, krb, 293, 373, grb, grub, grav). There was no room here for expansion into the greater thought. The Egyptian embalming, too, to one who attentively considers it, will appear still less favorable. It was a dry and rigid memorial of death, far less suggestive of continued being, somehow and somewhere, than the flowing of the body into nature through decom- position in the grave, or its dispersion by fire into the prime elements of its organization. In the sup- posed case, however, of Joseph’s torn and dismem- bered corpse, there was nothing from any of these sources to aid the conception. Yet Jacob held on to it: I will go mourning to my son, "33 bx, not bY . or 58 for >Y, on account of my son, as some would take it.* Had Joseph been lying by the side of his * [In proof that be may have the sense of by » Rosen- miiller refers to 1 Kings xiv. 5; and Rashi to 2Sam. xxi. 1; 1 Sam. iv. 21. Buttbese do not bear out theinference. The CHAP. XXXVII. 1-36. mother in the field near Bethlehem Ephratah, or with Abraham and Sarah, and Isaac and Rebekah, in the cave of Machpelah, or in some Egyptian sar- cophagus, embalmed with costliest spices and wrapped in aromatic linen, the idea of his unbroken personality would have been no more vivid, Joseph himself (his very ¢pse) would have been no nearer, or more real, to the mourning father, than as he thought of his body lying mangled in the wilderness, or borne by rapacious birds to the supposed four corners of the earth. I will go to my son mourning, sheolah (HOR , With © of direction), Sheol-ward,— on the way to the unknown land. This view of Sheol is ‘strongly corroborated by the parallel etymology, and the parallel connection of ideas we find in the origin and use of the Greek Hades. Some would seek its primary meaning else- where, but it is clearly Greek, and no derivation is nore obvious than the one given long ago, and which would make this word “A.dys (Homeric *AtSys, with the mild aspirate) from « privative and ide7y to see. We have the very word as an adjective, with this meaning of invisible or unseen, Heston: “ Shield of Hercules,” 477. It denotes, then, the unseen world, ‘earrying the idea of disappearance, and yet of con- tinued being in some state unknown. The analogy between it and the Hebrew word is perfect. So is the parallelism, all the more striking, we may say, from the fact that in the two languages the appeal is to two different senses. In the one, it is the eye peering into the dark; in the other, it is the ear in- tently listening to the silence. Both give rise to the same question: Where is he? whither has he gone? and both seem to imply with equal emphasis that the one unseen and unheard yet really és. Some- times a derivative from the same root, and of the same combination, is joined with Hades to make the meaning intensive, as in the “Ajax” of Sopnocizs, 607: tov dmdrporoy aisydrov "Arvsav— The awful, unseen Hades. From this use has come the adjective ai5ios, rendered eternal, but having this meaning from the association of ideas (the Hadean, the everlasting), since it is not etymologically connected with aidy (see Jude 6, Seopots aidtois, where the two conceptions seem to unite). In truth, there is a close connection between these two sets of words (‘AfSqs and aidy, O>49 and Drigw), one ever suggesting the other,— the things that are seen are temporal (belong to time), the things that are wnseen are eternal.” Hence we have in Greek the same idiom, in respect to Hades, that we have in Hebrew in relation to Olam (Dis), the counterpart of aidy. Thus, in the former language we have the expressions, ofios “A:3ou-—Béuos “Aidou, ete., corresponding exactly to the Hebrew BSi9 N73, the house of eternity, poorly rendered his long home, Eccles. xii. 56. Compare the oisfay aidmov, the sense of direction, so clear everywhere else in the hundreds of cases where this preposition PX occurs, is not lost even in these. ‘ Gone is the glory of Israel” (the glory that was). It is broken, Sevier language, and we may suppose an ellipsis: she said this ooking) to the taking of the ark, etc. So, in the chief case cited, it is most vividly rendered by taking it elliptically—to the house of Saul, 2 Sam. xxi. 1— that is, “look not to me for the cause,” says the oracle, but ‘tto Saul and his bloody house.”” At the utmost, these very few doubtful cases cannot invalidate the clear sense that the common rendering makes here.—T. L.] 587 “house eternal,” 2 Cor. v. 1. Compare also Xzno- pHon’s Agesilaus, at the close, where it is said of the Spartan king, rhy at8iov olknow xarnydyero, “he was brought back, like one who had been away, to his eternal home.” See, too, a very remarkable passage, Dioporus Sicunvs, lib. i. ch. 51, respecting the belief of the most ancient Egyptians: “ The habitations of the living they call inns, or lodging- places, xaraddceis, since we dwell in them so short a time, but those of the dead they style ofxous diSlous, everlasting abodes, as residing in them forever, viv &reipov didva.” See also Parzav : De Jobi Notitiis, etc., on the early Arabian belief, p. 27. Why should not Jacob have had the idea as well as these most ancient Egyptians? That his thought was more indefinite, that it had less of circumstance and locality, less imagery every way, than the Greek and Egyptian fancy gave it, only proves its higher purity as a divine hope, a sublime act of faith, rather than a poetical picturing, or a speculative dogma. The less it assumed to know, or even to imagine, showed its stronger trust in the wnseen world as an assured reality, but. dependent solely for its clearer revelation on the unseen God. The faith was all the stronger, the less the aid it received from the sense or the imagination. It was grounded on the surer rock of the “everlasting covenant” made with the fathers, though in it not a word was said directly of a, future life. “The days of the years of my pil- grimage,” says Jacob. He was ‘a sojourner upon earth a8 his fathers before him.” The language has no meaning except as pointing to a home, an afdiov ofxnotv, an eternal habitation; whether in Sheol, or through Sheol, was not known. It was enough that it was a return unto God, “his people’s dwelling- place (mb iva, see Ps, xc. 1) in all generations.” It was, in some way, a “living unto him,” however they might disappear from earth and time; for “he is not the God of the dead.” His covenant was an assurance of the continued being of those with whom it was made. ‘Because he lived they should live also.” “Art thou not from everlasting, Jehovah, my God, my Holy One? we shall not (wholly) die.” “Thou wilt lay us up in Sheol; thou wilt call and we will answer; thou wilt have regard to the work of thy. hands.” The pure doctrine of a personal God, and a belief in human extinction, have never since been found conjoined. Can we believe it of the lofty theism of the patriarchal ages? Hades, like Sheol, had its two conceptual stages, first of state, and afterwards of locality. To the Greek word, however, there was added a third idea. It came to denote, also, a power; and so was used for the supposed king of the dead, *Atdys, “Aus, *AlSwvets,—ivak évépwy (Iliad, xx. 61); and this personification appears again in the later Scripture, 1 Cor. xv. 55, O Hades, where is thy victory? and in Rev, vi. 8, xx. 18, 14, where Hades becomes lim- ited to Gehenna, and its general power, as keeper of souls, is abolished.—T. L.] DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL. 1, Jacob’s fondness for the younger son forms the other extreme to Isaac’s predilection for the first-born. He had, it is true, better reasons than Isaac; for Joseph is not only the son of his beloved Rachel, but also the Nazarite (the consecrated or sep- arate one) among his brethren,—a fact to which he testifies upon his death-bed (see Gen. xlix. 22), But 588 GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. then he began to see clearly that Judah surpassed Joseph in what pertained to the future. The struggle between his predilection and his love of justice ap- pears in more than one instance. Joseph must en- ter service as a shepherd’s boy; nevertheless, his father provides for him a showy garment, and keeps him at home longer than the others. He ventures his favorite upon a distant and dangerous mission, and this is a reason why he refuses to be comforted at his loss. He rebukes him for his apparently presumptuous dream, but feels compelled to keep the presaging omens in his vaticinating heart. 2. The Scriptures make no palliation of the sins of the twelve patriarchs—the fathers of the very people to whom they are sent. This shows their super- earthly origin. 8. By his dreams Joseph gets into misery, and by their interpretations he is delivered from it. The first fact would give him occasion to think closely on the ground-laws that regulate the symbolic language of dreams ; and both he, and the New-Testament Jo- seph, are witnesses to the fact that there is a signifi- | cance in them. Elsewhere have we shown the cir- cumstances favorable to this that were possessed by both. 4. The simplicity with which Joseph relates his dreams, reminds us of Isaac’s naive question on the way to Mount Moriah: but where is the lamb? It stands in beautiful contrast with that moral earnest- ness which had already, in early age, made him self- reliant in presence of his brethren. 5. Here, too, in the history of Joseph’s brethren, is there an example showing how envy passes over to animosity, animosity to fixed hatred, and hatred to a scheme of murder, just as in the history of Cain, and in that of Christ. The allegorical significance of our history, as typical of that of Christ, appears in the most diversified traits. 6. As the murderous scheme was prevented by Reuben’s plan of deliverance, and modified by Judah’s proposal, so, in the life of our Lord, the scheme of the Sanhedrin was changed more than once by ar- resting circumstances. Thus providence turned the destructive plots to a beneficent end. It was the chief tendency of these schemes to promote the high- est glory of the hated one, whose glory they aimed to destroy. 7. Concerning the way in which these plans of Reuben and Judah cross each other, see the Exeget- ical and Critical. We have no right to suppose that Reuben behaved as he did in this case in order to appease his father for the wrong done in the case of Bilbah. The weakness, which, according to ch, xlix. 4, was the great reproach of his character, had also its good side. Equally false is the supposition that Judah maliciously frustrated Reuben’s good inten- tions, Both remind us of Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, who did not consent to the sentence of the Sanhedrin; but they were less inclined to the right, and their half-measures remind us of Pilate’s attempt to save, though they had not, like him, the power in their hands ; since being implicated by their former animosity towards Joseph, they could only weakly oppose their angry brethren. 8. The “coat of many colors” dipped in blood, reminds us of the deception that Jacob, in Esau’s raiment, practised upon his father. Yet it must not be overlooked, that Jacob became reconciled at Peniel. Had he been sanctified, indeed, as well as reconciled, he would not, after such bitter experience, have repeated his father’s error of an arbitrary prefer- ence of one son to another. And, in this respect, he even now atoned for a sin which had been already pardoned. : . 9. Jacob’s mourning shows how deeply his peace was shaken. The self-examination occasioned in pious souls, in consequence of the loss or sufferings of dear ones, especially of children, becomes a griev- ous self-condemnation. From this there arises a longing after death. But here, too, there must be an unconditional surrender to God’s grace. We see here, also, how “‘ the congregation of the fathers” beyond the grave becomes a Sheol to the pre-Chris- tian consciousness through the feeling it gives of death, of his power, of the effect of mourning as ex- tending even to the other world. Luther has fre- quently translated Sheol by Hell (we find it also thus in Apost. Symb.); but a careful distinction should be made between Sheol and Gehenna. 10. These Ishmaelitish-Midianitish merchantmen are the first Ishmaelites with whom we become ac- quainted. They remind us of the caravan of Mo- hammed, that most renowned of all Ishmaelitish mer- chants. They testify to the outward increase and spi- ritual decrease of the descendants of Ishmael. They are witnesses to a heart-rending scene, but coolly pay their twenty pieces of silver, reminding us of the thirty paid by Judas, then go their way with the poor lad, who passes his home without hope of deliverance, and is for a long time, like Moses, David, and Christ, reckoned among the lost. 11. Jacob’s house shaken, burdened with a curse, given over, apparently, to destruction, and yet won- derfully saved by God's grace and human placability (see ch. 1). 12. Joseph’s character. Presageful of the future, like a prophet ; simple as a child ; the extraordinari- ly prudent son of the prudent Rachel and the prudent Jacob, yet noble-minded, and so generous that he be- comes a type of New-Testament love for enemies,— God-fearing in a distant land, and yet so liberal in his universalism that he can reconcile himself to Egyptian culture, holding himself free, even to bit- terness, in respect to home remembrances (see the name he gave his son Manasseh (make to forget, oble- vioni tradens), and yet, at last, homesick after Ca- naan,—renowned for chastity, and yet not without ambition, full of high-minded and proud anticipations, and yet prepared to endure all humiliations by which Jehovah might aim to purify him. Calumniated by, many, by others hastily canonized as a saint. A man of spirit and a man of action in the highest sense. HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL, The whole chapter. Joseph sold. The sing of men and the providence of God. The character of our narrative. The chain of circumstances. The significance often of things apparently small. 1. Of Jacob’s wéakness (in the case of the coat); 2. of Joseph’s dreams; 3. of his thoughtlessness; 4. of Reuben’s absence; 5. of the appearing of the Ish- maelites——Man proposes, God disposes.—‘‘ My thoughts are not your thoughts,” ete. The sublimity of the divine decrees as compared with human schemes. Section First. (Vers. 1-12.) Sranxe: Although Jacob had his reasons for specially loving Joseph, yet he did not act prudently in allowing it to become noticed. Parents should guard againstit, Amprosn: CHAP XXXVII. 1-36. 589 Jungat liberos equalis gratia quos junxit equalis natura. Envy is a diabolical vice (Wisd. Sol. ii. 24),* —Hatu: Suffering is theroad to honor.—Tue saz: When we are loved by our Heavenly Father, and weep over our sins, we will be hated by our brethren in the flesh (1 Peter iv. 4).—Bibl. Tub.: Do not un- necessarily tell your enemy what may be for your ad- vantage.—CaLwER Handbuch: Ver. 2. No mali- cious information was it, but coming from an inno- cent free-heartedness and a dutiful abhorrence of evil.—Lisco, on the contrary: A child-like and inju- dicious tale-telling—Geriaca : As a spoiled child, he accuses his brethren to his father. [The boundary between the malicious and the dutiful here may be drawn with difficulty; yet it is to be observed, that Joseph told the father what was already spoken of by the people, that is, when it had already become an ill- fame.]—Scuréoer : Luther says,that Joseph narrat- ed his dreams ‘‘like a child,” not from malice, but in simplicity and innocence.—RicuteR: Mark it; young Joseph saw in his dreams only his exaltation, not the humiliation that preceded it—Her (“ Bible Studies”): The difference between the two dreams. * [BOdve $8 diaBdrov Odvaros eichAGev eis Tov Kéopov, through envy of the devil death entered into the world. There is something very peculiar about this sin of envy, fully just- ifying the epithet diabolical. In the first place, it is pre- eminently spiritual. It is a pure soul-sin, having least connection with the material or animal nature, and for which there is the least palliation in appetite, or in any ex- trinsic temptation. Its seat and. origin is wholly supercar- nal, except as the term carnal is taken, as it sometimes is by the Apostle, for all that is evilin humanity, A man may be most intellectual, most free from every vulgar appetite of the flesh ; he may be a philosopher, he may dwell specu- latively in the region of the abstract and the ideal, and yet his soul be full of this corroding malice, which the author of the book of Proverbs, describing it in its effect rather than its origin, calls ‘“‘rottenness in the bones” (Prov. xiv. 30), presenting it as the opposite of that ‘sound heart which is the life of the flesh.” In the second place, it is the most purely evil. Alm®st every other passion, even ac- knowledged to be sinful, has in it somewhat of good, or ap- pesranve of good. Revenge assumes to have, at its founda- ion, some sense of wrong, that allies it to justice, Nemesis claims Pence to Themis. Anger makes a similar plea, and, with some show of reason, lays pets at least, of the blame upon the nervous irritability. hese, and other hu- man passions, trace a connection, in their spiritual geneal- ogy, between themselves and pure affections that might have belonged to man’s psychical or sensitive nature before the fall. But envy, or hatred of a man for the good that is in him, or in any way pertains to him, is evil unalloyed. To use the imagery of John Bunyan, its descent is simply Diabolonian, without any cross or mixture with anything that might allege a title to citizenship in Mansoul before it tevolted from king Shaddai. Neither can it be laid, where we are so fond of charging our sins, upon the poor body. It would seem to have no natural growth from Mansoul’s ma- terial corporation, ruined qs it is. It is the breath of the old serpent. It is pure devil, as it is, also, purely spiritual, It needs no body, no concupiscent organization, no appe- tites or fleshly motions, no nerves even, for the exercise of its devilish energies. It isa soul-poison, yet acting fear- fully upon the body itself, bringing more death into it than seemingly stronger and more tumultuous passions that have their nearer seat in the fleshly nature. ‘‘It is rottenness in the bones.” We may compare this proverb of Solomon with a terrific description of envy by AiscHyLus, Agamem., tov ebruxodvra, civ Pbévy BAérev, dvodpwv pev "10'S xapdiav mpooyjnevos, Gx8os Sumdoige: 7G TeTappevy vogov* Tos 7 avrds aiTov mipagi Bapiverat, xai Tov Oupaiov SABov eloopiay—orévet. Envy at others’ good is evermore Malignant Porson sitting on the soul ; A double woe to him infected with it. Of inward pain the heavy load he bears, At sight of joy without, he ever mourns. What inspired the Greek poets in such truthful description of the most intense evils of the soul? All bad passions are painful, but envy bas a double barb to sting itself.—T. L.] In the first there could be only ten sheaves besides Joseph’s, since Benjamin was not present, and Joseph said to his brethren, Your sheaves. In the second, however, he beholds definitely eleven stars, there- fore himself as the twelfth included. Section Second. (Vers. 12-20.) Srarge: Ver. 15. Joseph enters upon his journey in the simplicity of his heart, expecting no evil; and thus God lets him run into the net against which he could have easily warned him. God’s ways, however, are se- cret. Whom he wishes to exalt he first tries, puri- fies, tempts, and humbles. [The Rabbins and one of the Targums tell us that this man, who directed Jo- seph in the field, was the angel Gabriel in the form of a man.]—Hatt: God’s decree precedes and is fulfilled, whilst we have no thought about it, yea, even fight against it. Though a Christian does not always prosper, though difficulties be- set his way, he must not be confounded, but ever continue firm and steadfast in his calling. Ver. 18. Here Moses shows what kind of ancestors the Jews had (comp. Acts vii. 9, ete.). Thus they fell from one sin into another. Perhaps Simeon was the ringleader; since he afterwards was bound as hostage for his brethren.—Scuréprr: Joseph goes in search of his brethren, and finds sworn enemies, bloodthirsty murderers.—Heim (‘Bible Studies”) : Shechem is about twenty-five leagues from Hebron. Joseph’s mission tothis remote and dangerous coun- try is a proof, at the same time, that Jacob did not treat him with too much indulgence, and that be did not keep him home from any feelings of tenderness. Joseph’s willing obedience, too, and his going alone, an inexperienced youth, upon such a dangerous jour- ney, is a proof that he was accustomed to obey cheer- fully—a habit not acquired in an effeminate bringing- up. : Section Third (yers. 21-24), Starke: So goes the world. Pious people ponder the welfare of the godless, whilst the latter are conspiring for their de- struction (1 Sam. xix. 5). God can raise up, even among enemies, helpers of the persecuted. ‘‘ Woe to those who draw iniquity with cords of vanity and sin, as it were with a cart-rope” (Isa. v. 18). Section Fourth (vers, 25-27). Starke: LUTHER: They take their seats as though they had well done their work. Conscience is secure; sin is asleep ; yet God sees all.—Scuréper: [Unfavorable judgment of Judah.] Lurner: O, Judah, thou art not yet purified. CatweErR Handbuch Judah is even com- pared to Judas, who sold the Lord. But it is alle- gorising merely, when we are determined in our judg- ment by mere outward resemblances. See the Exe- getical and Critical. Judah’s proposition arose from the alternative: He must either starve to death in the pit, or he must be sold as a slave. é Section Fifth (vers. 28-32). Srarke: No matter what hindrances Joseph’s brethren might put in the way of the dreams’ fulfilment, against their will were they made to promote it (Ps. lv. 10).—Bib/. Tub, : Thus, there is yet a spark of good in nature. If only man would not suppress this small light, he would be preserved from the greatest sins —TuE SAME: Joseph is a type of Christ in his exaltation, in his humiliation, and especially in his being sold for thirty [twenty] pieces of silver. Ver. 29. Jose- phus thinks that Reuben came by night so as not to be detected. [One of the Targums adds, that Reu- ben, on account of the incest committed, had been fasting among the mountains, and, in order. to find grace before his father, had intended to bring Joseph 590 again to him.] Ver. 32. Thus Joseph’s brothers add sin to sin. : Section Sixth (vers, 33-86). Starke: This was a punishment of God. Jacob had deceived his fa- ther Isaac by putting around his neck and hands the skin of a kid; he is himself now deceived by Jo- seph’s coat dipped in the blood of a kid.—Hai: One sin is made to cover another; godless men, it is true, ever try to conceal their malignity, but it comes to light at’ last, and is punished.—Ostanpzr : Seldom does misfortune come alone. It is but a short time since Jacob was deprived of Rachel; now he has lost | Joseph. In such a concealment of guilt they pass twenty-two years. And his father wept for him. [Luruer: This was Isaac, Joseph’s grandfather, who lived still twelve years after this event.] He himself (Jacob) had several things to reproach him in his GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. conscience: Why did he let the boy go alone on such a journey? Why did he send him into a coun- try abounding in wild beasts ?—Bibl, Wirt,: In grief we are inclined to overdo.—OstanpER: Pious parenis often blame themselves when things go bad- ly with their children, even when there is the least ground for it—Catwer Handbuch: After the crime comes the lie; after the lie, a hypocritical comforting of the father.—Scuréprr: Luraer: During all this time, the brethren were unable to pray to God with a good conscience.—Observe, each one of the three patriarchs was to sacrifice his dearest son. To the whole chapter. Taupe: The selling of Joseph by his brethren: 1. From what sources this horrible deed arose; 2. how the divine mouth re- mains silent, whilst the divine hand so much the 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 more strongly holds; 3. the types that lie concealed. SECOND SECTION. Judah's temporary separation (probably in sadness on account of the deed). His sons. Thamar. ‘ _— ; Cuaprern XXXVIIIL. 1-80. And it came to pass at that time, that Judah went down from his brethren, and turned in to a certain Adullamite, whose name was Hirah [noble, free]. And Judah saw there the daughter of a certain Canaanite, whose name was Shuah [ery for help] ; and he took her, and went in unto her. And she conceived, and bare a son; and he called his name Er ["¥, watcher]. And she conceived again, and bare a son} and she called his name Onan [strength, strong one], And she yet again conceived, and bare a son; and called his name Shelah [peace, quietness, Shiloh ?] ; and he was at Chezib [delusion], when she bare him. And Judah took a wife for Er his first-born, whose name was Thamar [palm ], And Er, Judah’s first-born, was wicked in the sight of the Lord; andthe Lord slew him, And Judah said unto Onan, Go in unto thy brother’s wife, and marry her, and raise up seed to thy brother. And Onan knew that the seed should not be his Ne own name|! and it came to pass, that when he went in pnto his brother’s wife, that he spilled ¢¢ on the ground, lest that he should give seed to his brother. And the thing which he did displeased the Lord ; wherefore he slew him also. Then said Judah to Thamar his daugh- ter-in-law, Remain a widow in thy father’s house, till Shelah my son be grown; (for he said, Lest peradventure he die also, as his brethren did); And Thamar went and dwelt in her father’s house. And in process of time the daughter of Shuah, Judah’s wife, died ; and Judah was comforted, and went up to his sheep-shearers to Timnath [possession], he and his friend Hirah the Adullamite. And it was told Thamar, saying, Behold, thy father-in-law goeth up to Timnath, to shear his sheep. And she put her widow’s gar- ments off from her, and covered her with a veil, and wrapped herself, and sat in an open place [literally, gate of two eyes] * which zs by the way to Timnath: for she saw that.Shelah was grown, and she was not given unto him to wife. When Judah saw her, he thought her to de an harlot; because she had covered her face. And he turned unto her by the way, and said, Go to, I pray thee, let me come in unto thee; (for he knew not that she was his daughter-in-law) ; and she said, What wilt thou give me, that thou mayest come inunto me? And he said, I will send thee a kid from the flock; and she said, Wilt thou give me a pledge, till thou send 7? And he said, What pledge shall I give thee? And she said, Thy signet, and thy bracelets, and thy staff that is in thy hand. And he gave 7 her, and came in unto her; and she conceived by him. And she arose, and went away, and laid by her vail from her, and put on the garments of her widowhood. CHAP, XXXVIII. 1-80. 591 And Judah sent the kid by the hand of his friend the Adullamite, to receive his pledge from the woman’s hand: but he found her not. Then he asked the men of that place, saying, Where ¢s the harlot that was openly by the way-side? And they said, There was no harlot in this place. And he returned to Judah, and said, I cannot find her; and also other men of the place said, that there was no harlot in this place, And Judah said, Let her take <¢ to her, lest we be shamed; behold, E sent this kid, and thou hast not found her. And it came to pass about three months after; that it was told to Judah, saying, Thamar thy daughter-in-law hath played the harlot; and also, behold, she zs with child by whoredom. And Judah said, Bring her forth, and let her be burnt. When she was brought forth, she sent to her father-in-law, saying, By the man whose these are, amI with child; and she said, Discern, I pray thee, whose are these, the signet, and bracelets, and staff. And Judah acknowledged them, and said, She hath been more righteous than I; because that I gave her not to Shelah my son; and he knew her again no more. And it came to pass in the time of her travail, that behold twins were in her womb. And it came to pass when she travailed, that the one put out Ais hand; and the midwife took and bound upon his hand a scarlet thread, say- ing, This came out first. And it came to pass, as he drew back his hand, that, behold, his brother came out; and she said, How hast thou broken forth? this breach be upon thee; therefore his name was called Pharez [breach]. And afterward came out his brother, that had the scarlet thread upon his hand; and his name was called Zarah [going forth, sun-rising |. 20 21 22 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 [) Ver. 14.—D39D_ nnpa - Rendered, in our translation, an open place; margin, door of eyes, more literally, with reference to Proy. vii. 12. The LXX. have taken it as a proper name, rais miAqus Alvév, which has led some to regard it as the same with Enam mentioned Joshua xv. 84, and referred to by Hieronymus as situated in the tribe of Judah, and called, in his day, Beth-enim. See Rosenmiiller. The dual form here is expressive of something peculiar in the place. It means two eyes, or two fountains, probably the former, denoting two openings, that is, two ways, a place where she was certain to be seen. This corresponds to the Vulgate rendering, in bivio itineris. So the Syriac, |wjo] Aa255 Arabs Erpenianus the same, (Se 20. The idea of there being a city there, at that time, or of her taking her place by the gate of a city, is absurd. Aben Ezra, says it was a place so called because there were two fountains there. This was an early use of the Hebrew "5, the eye, arising from the beautiful conception that springs, or fountains, were eyes to the earth, as the herbs, in some places, are called MN , lights coming from the earth.—T. L.] GENERAL PRELIMINARY REMARKS, The story here narrated is not, as Knobel sup- poses, an insertion in Joseph’s history, but a par- allel to it, considered from the one common point of view as the story of the sons of Israel. Accord- ing to the previous chapter, Joseph (that is, Ephraim) _ appeared to be lost; here Judah, afterwards the head tribe, appears also to be lost. But as in the history of the apparently lost Joseph there lay con- cealed the marks of a future greatness, so must we look for similar signs in the history of Judah’s ap- parent ruin. Parallel to Joseph’s spiritual ingen- uousness, patience, hopeful trust in the future, appears Judah’s strong and daring self-dependence, fulness of life, sensuality combined with strong ab- stinence, besides the sense of justice which leads him to acknowledge his guilt. Examine it more closely, and we cannot fail to trace a strong feature of theocratic faith. It is a groundless conjecture of Knobel, that the object of this narrative was to show the origin of the levirate law among the Jews, that required the brother of a husband who died without ‘issue to take the widow to wife, and that the first- born of this connection should stand in the toledoth, or genealogical lists, in the name of the deceased, Deut. xxv. 5; Matt. xxii, 23; Ruth iv. See WINER on “Levirate Marriage.” The law in question is of a later date, and needed no such illustration. The custom here mentioned, however, might have existed before this time (see Dexirzscn, p. 534). But why could not the idea have originated even in Judah’s mind? Besides this, Knobel presents chro- nological difficulties. They consist in this, namely, that in the period from Joseph’s abduction to Jacob’s migration Into Egypt—about twenty-three years— Judah had become not only a father, but a grand- father by his son Pharez (according to ch. xlvi. 16). Now Judah was about three years older than Joseph, and, consequently, not much above twenty at his mar- riage, provided he had intended it at the time when Joseph was carried off. On accountof this difficulty, and of one that follows, Augustine supposes that Judah’s removal from the parental home occurred several years previous. But this is contradicted by the fact of his presence at the sale of Joseph (see Kurz, p. 246); whilst the remark of Delitzsch, that “such early marriages were not customary in the patriarchal family,” is of no importance at all, besides its leaving us in doubt whether it was made in respect to Judah’s own marriage, or the early marriage of his nephews. ‘‘ Jacob,” he says, ‘had already attained to the age of seventy-seven years,” etc. In reply to this, it may be said, that early mar- tiages are evidently ascribed to other sons of Jacob (ch. xlvi), though these children, it is probable, were for the most part born in Egypt. Between the pa- triarchs and the sons of Israel there comes a decisive turning-point: earlier marriages—earlier deaths (see ch. 1, 20). Nevertheless, the twenty-three years here are not sufficient to allow of Pharez having two sons already at their close, Even the possibility 592 that Pharez and Zarah were born before. the migra- tion to Egypt, is obtained only from the supposition that Judah must have married his sons very early. Supposing that they were seventeen or eighteen years old, the reason for so early a marriage may have been Judah’s knowledge of Er’s disposition. He may have intended to prevent evil by his marriage, but he did not attain his object. The marriage of Onan that resulted from this was but a consequence of the first; and, in- fact, Onan’s sin seems to indi- cate a youthful baseness. Judah, however, might have made both journeys to Egypt whilst his own family was still existing. With respect to Judah’s grandchildren, it is an assumption of Hengstenberg (Authentie, p. 864), that they were born in Egypt, and that they are considered to have come to Egypt, as in their fathers, together with Jacob (Dr.irzscu, p. 538). According to Keil, the aim of our narrative is to show the three principal tribes of the future dynasties in Isracl, and the danger there was that the sons of Jacob, through Canaanitish marriages, might forget the historic call of their nation as the medium of redemption, and so perish in the sins of Canaan, had not God kept them from it by leading them into Egypt. It must be remarked, however, that, in this period, it was with difficulty that such marriages with Canaanitish women could be avoided, since the connection with their relations-in Mesopota- mia had ceased. Undoubtedly the beginning of corruption in Judah’s family, was caused by a Ca- naanitish mode of life, and thereby the race was threatened with death in its first’ development; but we see, also, how a vigorous life struggles with, and struggles out of, a deadly peril. EXEGETICAL AND ORITICAL. 1. Judah's separation, his marriage, and his sons (vers. 1-5).—And Judah went down.—He parted from his brethren at the time they sold Joseph. It was not, asin the case of Esau, the unbridled im- pulse of a rude and robust nature that prompted him prematurely to leave his paternal home, though he showed thereby his strong self-reliance. On account of his frank disposition, Judah could not long par- ticipate in offering, as his brethren did, false conso- lations to his aged father (ch. xxxvii. 35), It weighs upon him that he cannot tell the true nature of the case without betraying his brethren; and it is this that drives him off, just as his grudge against those ‘who had involved him in their guilt separates him from their company. Besides, a bitter sadness may have come upon him on account of his own purpose, though meant for good. Thus he tries to find peace in solitude, just as a noble-minded eremite or separa- tist, leaves a church that has fallen into corruption. Like his antitype, the New-Testament Judas, but in a nobler spirit, does he try to find peace, as he did, after having sold his Lord. In a similar manner did the tribe of Judah afterwards keep its ground against the ten tribes in their decline and ruin, The question now arises, whether Judah went down from the Hebron heights in a westerly direction towards the Mediterranean Sea, to the plain of. Sarepta, as Delitzsch and Knobel suppose, or eastward toward the Dead Sea, where, according to tradition, the cave of Adullam Jay (1 Sam, xxii, 1), in which David con- cealed himself from Saul, Chezib (ver. 5) was sit- uated east from Hebron, if it be identical with Ziph of the desert of Ziph. Timnath, according to Jose- GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. phus, xv. 57, was situated upon the heights of Judah, and could be visited as well from the low country.in the east, as from that of the north. If, according to Eusebius and Hieronymus, Adullam lay ten Roman miles, or four leagues, east of Eleutheropolis (Beit- dschibrin), this statement again takes us to the mountains of Judea. It is, therefore, doubtful. Still it is worthy of note that David, like his ances- . tor, once sought refuge in the solitude of Adullam. —And turned in to, ete—‘u>" and he pitched, namely, mx, his tent, ch. xxvi. 25, close by (7) a man, belonging to the small kingdom of Adul- lam (Josh, xii, 15) in the plain of Judah (Josh, xv. 35).” Delitzsch. This settlement indi- cates friendly relations with Hirah. No wonder that Hirah gradually yields himself, as a servant, to the wiser Judah. Here Judah marries a Canaanite woman. This should be noted in respect to Judah, who became afterwards the principal tribe, as also in respect to Simeon (ch. xlvi. 10), because it would be least expected of him, zealous as he was for ‘the Is- raelitish purity in the murder of the Shechemites. Without taking into view the unrestrained position of Jacob’s sons, this step in Judah might be ex- plained from a transient fit of despair respecting Is- rael’s future. In the names of his three sons, how- ever, there is an intimation of return to a more hopeful state of mind, Onan, Shelah (see 1 Chron. ii, 3).—The place of Shelah’s birth is mentioned, because there remained of him descendants who would have an interest in knowing their native district, 2. The marriage of the sons with Thamar, It may, at least, be said of Thamar, that she is not ex- pressly ealled Canaanitish. If we could suppose a westerly Adullam, she might have been of Philistine descent. By the early marriage of his sons, Judah seems to have intended to prevent in them a germ- inating corruption. That he finds Thamar qualified for such a state, that beside her Er appears as a criminal, whose sudden death is regarded as a divine judgment (then Onan likewise), and all this, taken in connection with the fact that, after the death of both sons, she hoped for the growing-up of the third, Shelah, seems to point her out as a woman of ex- traordinary character.—Till Shelah my son be grown.— According to Knobel (Delitzsch and Keil), Judeh regarded Thamar as an unlucky wife (comp. Tobit iii. 7), and was, therefore, unwilling to give to her the third son, but kept putting her off by promises, thus-causing her to remain a widow. This, however, is inconsistent with Judah’s character, and is not sustained by the text. It is plainly stated that Judah postponed Shelah’s marriage to Thamar be- caused he feared that he might diealso. It was not superstition, then, according to the analogy of later times, but an anxiety founded on the belief that the misfortune of both his sons might have been con- nected with the fact of their too early marriage, that made the reason for the postponement of his promise.—In her father’s house.—Thither widows withdrew (Lev. xxii. 18). 8. Judal’s crime with Thamar (vers. 12-16).— And (when) Judah was comforted.—After the expiration of-the time of mourning, he went to the fes- tival of sheep-shearing at Timnath upon the moun- tains, in company with Hirah.—And it was told Thamar.—The bold thought which now flashed across the mind of Thamar is so monstrously enig- matical, that it takes itself out of the range of all ordinary criticism. Mere lust would not manifest CHAP. XXXVIII. 1-30. 593 itself in such a way. It might have been a grieved feeling of right, She seemed to herself, by Judah’s command and her own submission to it, condemned to eternal barrenness and mourning widowhood. To break these barriers was her intention. A thirst, however, for right and life, was not her only motive for assuming the appearance of a harlot, the reproach of legal incest (for the intimation of Er’s baseness and of Onan’s conduct leaves it a question whether it was so in reality), and the danger of destruction. Like the harlot Rahab, she seems to have had a knowl- edge of the promises made to Israel. She even ap- pears to cling, with a kind of fanatical enthusiasm, to the prospect of becoming a female ancestor in Israel. See the Introduction, p. 81. AmBrosius: “ Von temporalem usum libidinis requisivit, sed successionem gratias concupivit.” According to Keil, Judah came to her on his return. Since the sheep-shearing festi- vals were of a jovial kind, this assumption might serve for an explanation and palliation of Judah’s | sin ; still it cannot be definitely determined from the text—And sat in an open place.—Lange trans- lates: And sat in the gate of Hnnayim (Enam, in the low country of Judah, Josh. xv. 34).—Which is by the way to Timnath.—“ She puts off from her the common garments of a widow, which were destitute of all ornaments (Judith x. 3; xvi. 8), covers herself with a. veil, so as not to be recognized (comp. Job xxiv. 15), and wraps herself in themanner customary with harlots.” Knobel. “Thamar,” says the same, “wishes to appear as a kedescha ” (a priestess of Astarte, the goddess of love). This, however, could hardly have been her intention, as appearing before Judah. . The proper distinction may be thus made: According to ver. 15, he thought her to be a zona (rit), but in ver. 21 the question is asked, accord- ing to the custom of the country: Where is the kedescha? (WI). Asason of Jacob he might havé ‘erred with a zona, but could not have had in- tercourse ‘vith a kedescha, as a devotee of the god- dess of ‘love. Still the offence is great; though there is to be ‘considered, on the one side, the custom of the times, together with Judah’s individual tempera- ment, and the excitement caused by the sheep-shear- ing, whilst, on the other, thereis to be kept in mind the éenigmatical appearance of the transaction, behind which moral forces, and a veiled destiny, are at work. This giving of the seal-ring, the cord, and the staff, shows that Judah has fallen within the circle of a magical influence, and that it is not fleshly lust alone that draws him. These pledges were the badges of his dignity. “Every Babylonian, says Herodotus, carries a seal-ring, and a staff, on the top of which there is some carved work, like an apple or a rose. The same custom prevailed in Canaan, as we see here in the case of Judah.” Delitzsch. To this day do the town Arabians wear a seal-ring fastened by a cord around the neck (Ropinson: “Palestine,” i. p. 58). ‘‘The he-goat appears also asa present from a man to his wife (Judg. xv. 1).” Knobel.—Lest we be shamed.—These words characterize the moral state of the country and the times. In his eager search for the woman and the pledges (which probably were of far more value than the kid), Ju- dah shows himself by no means so much afraid of moral condemnation, as of mocking ridicule. 4, Thamar and her sons (vers. 27-80).— And let her be burnt.—By this sentence the energetic Judah reminds us again of David, the great’hero of his family. With arash and angry sense of justice 38 he passes sentence without any thought that he is condemning himself, just as David did when cor fronted by Nathan, 2 Sam. xii. 5. There are ever in this line two strong natures contending with each other. “In his patriarchal authority, he commanded her to be brought forth to be burned. Thamar was regarded as betrothed, and was, therefore, to be punished as a bride convicted of unchastity. But in this case the Mosaic law imposes only the penalty of being stoned to death (Deut. xxii. 20), whilst . burning to death was inflicted only upon the daugh- ter of a priest, and upon carnal intercourse both with mother and daughter (Lev. xxi.19; xx.14). Judah’s sentence, therefore, is more severe than that of the future law.” Keil. The severity of the decision ap- pears tolerable only upon the supposition that he really intended to give to Thamar his son Shelah; besides, it testifies to an arbitrary power exercised in a strange country, and which can only be ex- plained from his confidence in his own strength and standing. How fairly, however, does Thamar bring’ him to his senses by sending him his pledges. The delicate yet decisive message elicits an open confes- sion. But his sense of justice is expressed not only in the immediate annulling of the decision, but also in his future conduct towards Thamar. The twin- birth of Rebecca is once more reflected. We see: how important the question of the first-born still re- mains to the Israelitish mother and midwife. In the case of twins there appears more manifestly the marks of a striving for the birth-right. Pharez, how- ever, did not obtain the birth-right, as Jacob sought it, by holding on the heel, but by a violent breach. In this he was to represent Judah’s lion-like manner within the milder nature of Jacob. According to Knobel, the midwife is supposed to have said to Pharez: A breach upon thee, i. e., a breach happen to thee; and this is said to have been fulfilled when the Israelitish tribes tore themselves away from the house of David, as a punishment, because the Da- vidian family of the Pharezites had violently got the supremacy over its brethren. : DOCLRINAL AND ETHICAL. 1, Judah’s beginnings as compared with those of” Joseph.—A strong sensual nature; great advances, great offences—strong passions, great self-condemna- tion, denials, struggles, and breaches, 2. Judah as Hremite, or Separatist, in the noblest sense ; the dangers of an isolated position. 8. Hirah, from a valuable comrade, becoming an officious assistant,—a witness to Judah’s superiority. 4. The sons of Judah. The failure of his well- intended experiment to marry his sons early. 5. Onan’s sin, a deadly wickedness, an example: to be held in abhorrence, as condemnatory, not only of secret sins of self-pollution, but also of all similar offences in sexual relations, and even in marriage it- self, Unchastity in general is a homicidal waste of the generative powers, a demonic bestiality, an out- rage to ancestors, to posterity, and to one’s own life. It is a crime against the image of God, and a degra- dation below the animal. Onan’s offence, mereover, as committed in marriage, was 4 most unnatural: wickedness, and a grievous wrong. The-sin named: after him is destructive as a pestilence that walketh. in darkness, destroying directly the body and soul of the young. But common fornication is likewise an unnatural violation of the person, a murder of} two . 594 souls, and a desecration of the body as the temple of God. There are those in our Christian communities who are exceedingly gross in this respect; a proof of the most defective development of what may be called, the consciousness of personality, and of perso- nal dignity. 6. The Levirate law. Its meaning and object. The theocratic moral idea of the levirate law is as- eribed in the Calwer Handbuch to the desire of imper- | Geriacnu remarks: ‘ An endeavor to | ishableness. : preserve families, even in their separate lines, and to retain the thereby inherited property, pervades the laws of the Israelites,—a feeling that doubtless came | The father still lived on | in the son; the whole family descending from him | down from the patriarchs. was, in a certain sense, himself; and, through this, the place among the people was to be preserved. From the remotest antiquity, somuch depended upon the preservation of tradition, upon the inheritance of religion, education, and custom, that these things were never regarded as ‘the business of individuals, but of families and nations. When afterward the house of Jacob became a people, this duty of the le- virate law necessarily made trouble, and the brother- in-law was no longer forced to it; but even then he was publicly contemned for his refusal (Deut. xxv. 5; Ruth iv. 7; comp. Matt. xxii. 23)” ‘The first mo- tive for the patriarchal custom, or for Judah's idea, comes, doubtless, from a strugele of faith in the pro- mise with death. As the promise is to the seed of Abraham, so death seems to mar the promise when he carries away some of Jacob’s sons, especially the first-born, before they have had offspring. Life thus enters into strife with death, whilst the remaining brothers fill up the blank. The second motive, how- ever, is connected with the fact, that the life of the deceased is to be reflected in the future existence of their names in this world. Israel’s sons are achurch of the undying. There is a third motive; it is toin- troduce the idea of spiritual descent. The son of the surviving brother answers for the legitimate son of the dead, and thus the way is prepared for the great extension of the adoptive relationship, accord- ing to which Jesus is called the son of Joseph, and mention is made of the brothers of Jesus, The institution, however, being typical, it coutd not be carried through consistently in opposition to the right of personality. A particular coercive marriage would have been at war with the idea of the law itself. 7. Thamar’s sin, and Thamar’s faith. 8. The Hierodulai. Female servants of Astarte, Aschera, or Mylytta (see Dexrrzscn, p. 586). The he-goat sacred to Astarte. 9. Judah’s self-condemnation and confession. 10, Judah’s (Thamar’s) twins; Isaac’s (Rebecca’s) twins. HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL, See Theological and Ethical. It is only with great caution, and in a wise and devout spirit, that this nar- rative should be made the ground of homiletical dis- courses.—-Judah’s solitude.—The apparent extinction -of the tribe.—God’s judgments on the sins of unchas- tity.—The danger arising from feasts (such as that of the sheep-shearing.—The keeping of promises.—Self- condemnation.—The fall and the recovery in our nar- rative.—Apparent extinction, and yet a new ‘life, oe God’s grage, in Judah’s uprightness and sin- -eerity. : GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. Section First, Vers. 1-5. Srarke: Hat: Ged’s election is only by grace, for otherwise Judah never would have been chosen as an ancestor of Christ.— Sibl. Wirt: : Pious parents can experience no great- er cross than to have vile and godless children (Sirach xvi. 1).—Gzrtaca: This marriage of Judah is not censured, since it was impossible that all the sons of Jacob should take wives from their kindred in Meso- potamia.—Scuriper: Ver. 5. Chezib; meaning prE- LUSION, on account of the delusions connected with ‘this place.—The false hope of Judah—afterwards of Thamar.—Then again of Judah. _ Section Second. Vers, 6-11. Srarxe: This Thamar, very generally regarded as a Canaanite, though by some of the Jews very improbably called a daughter of Melchizedek, has received a place in the Toledoth of Christ (Matt. i. 8), to show that he is also the hope of the heathen. [The Jews might, in two ways, have suggested to them this strange hy- pothesis of Thamar’s being the daughter of Melchize- dek; 1. Through ancestral pride; 2. From conclu- sions derived from the law. They reasoned thus: If Judah intended to burn Thamar, she must have been the daughter of a priest. If she was the daughter of a priest, then probably the daughter of Melchizedek.] —Hat.: Remarkably wicked sinners God reserves to himself for his own vengeance.—Ver, 11. Judah spake deceitfully to his daughter-in-law. Judah may also have thought that his sons’ early marriages hastened their death, especially if they were only fourteen years of age (?); and it may be that on this account he did not wish his son Shelah to marry so young.— Hatt: Fulfilment of promises is the duty of every up- right man, nor can either fear or loss absolve him.— Scuréper: The seed has the promise of salvation—~. the promise on which the fathers grew. The levirate law was but a peculiar aspect, as it were, of that universal care for offspring which formed the Old- Testament response to God’s covenant faithfulness. Onan’s sin a murder, It is as if the curse of Canaan descended upon these sons from a Canaanitish wo- man.—ScuweEnke: The sin of Onan, unnatural, de- structive of God’s holy ordinance, is even yet so dis-. pleasing to the Lord that it gives birth to bodily and spiritual death—Humm (“ Bible Studies”): 1 Cor. vi. 11. Why is it that the Holy Ghost mentions first in this chapter the sin of Onan, and then points us so carefully to the Saviour of the world as descending from the incest-stained Judah and Thamar? Here only may we find salvation, forgiveness, the taking away of all guilt, and the curse that rests upon it. Section Third, Vers. 12-16. Haun: Immodesty in dress and conduct betrays evil desires.—Cramer : Widower and widow are to live lives of chastity. That Thamar desired Shelah to be given to her was not unreasonable ; but her course in thus avenging herself is by no means approved, though some of the Christian fathers (Chrysostom, Ambrose, Theo- doret) praise her on this very account, and ascribe her design to a peculiar desire to become the mother of the Messiah.— Ver. 24. It is not agreed whether he spoke these words as judge or accuser. He was here among’a strange people; but as he has never subjected himself to them, he would be judge in his own affairs.—Catvin: Severe as Judah had been against Thamar, he judges nowindulgently in bis own case.—Lisco has a remarkable view, namely, that Judah himself, after the death of his wife, was under obligation to marry Thamar, if he was not willing to give her to his son. The same view is entertained by Gerlach, undoubtedly from a misunderstanding of CHAP. XXXIX. 1-23, 595 the later levirate law.—Scuréprr: Harlots only, in contrast with virtuous and domestic women, frequent the streets and markets, lurking at every corner- stone (Prov. vii. 12; Jer. iii, 2; Isaiah xvi. 25-31; Jos. ii, 15). Section Fourth. Vers. 27-30. Srarxe: Ver 30. In Christ’s birth-register, too, great sinners are found. —([Ostanper: These two children signified two people, namely, the Jews and the Gentiles. For the Jews, though seeming te be the first to enter eternal life, have become the last ; whilst those of the Gen- tiles who heard the gospel of Christ have gone before them and become the first (according to Val. Her berger.)|—Scuriper: Zarab, according to some, means brightness, as a name given to him on account of the scarlet color of the thread upon his hand. Ac- cording to others, it means the sun-rising, as indica- tive of his appearing firsi—Lotuzr: Why did God and the Holy Ghost permit these shameful things to be written? Answer: that no one should be proud of his own righteousness and wisdom,—and, again, that no one should despair on account of his sins, etc. It may be to remind us that by natural right, Gentiles, too, are the mother, brothers, sisters of our Lord. | Joseph in Potiphar’s house and in prison. 10 ll 12 13 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 THIRD SECTION. His sufferings on account of his virtue, and his apparent destruction. Cuarter XXXIX. 1-23. And Joseph was brought down to Egypt; and Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, captain of the guard [hife-guardsmen, executioners|, an Egyptian, bought him of the hands of the Ishmaelites, which had brought him down thither. And the Lord was with Joseph, and he was a prosperous man; and he was in the house of his master the Egyptian. And his master saw that the Lord was with him, and that the Lord made all that he did to prosper in his hand. And Joseph found grace in his sight, and he served him; and he made him overseer over his house, and all that he had he put into his hand. And it came to pass from the time that he had made him overseer in his house, and over all that he had, that the Lord blessed the Egyptian’s house for Joseph’s sake; and the blessing of the Lord was upon all that he had in the house and in the field. And he left all that he had in Joseph’s hand; and he knew not aught he had save the bread which he did eat. And Joseph was a goodly person, and well-favored [sce ch. xxix. 17]. And it came to pass, after these things, that his master’s wife cast her eyes upon Joseph; and she said, Lie with me. But he refused, and said unto his master’s wife, Behold, my master wotteth not what 7s 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 art his wife: how then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God? And it came to pass as she spake to Joseph, day by day, that he hearkened not unto her, to lie by her, or to be with her. And it came ‘to pass about this time, that Joseph went into the house to do his business ; and there was none of the men of the house there within. And she caught him by his garment, saying, Lie with me: and he left his garment in her hand, and fled, and got him out. [ofthe house]. And it came to pass, when she saw that he had left his garment in her hand, and was fled forth, That she called unto the men of her house, and spake unto them, saying, See, he hath brought in an Hebrew unto us to mock us; he came in unto me to lie with me, and I cried with a loud voice: And it came to pass, when he heard that I lifted up my voice and cried, that he left his gar- ment with me and fled, and got him out. And she laid up his garment by her, until his lord came home. And she spake unto him according to these words, saying, The Hebrew servant, which’ thou hast brought unto us, came in unto me to mock me: And it came to pass, as I lifted up my voice, and cried, that he left his garment with me, and fled out. And it came to pass, when his master heard the. words of his wife, which she spake unto him, saying, After this manner did thy servant to me; that his wrath waa kindled. And Joseph’s master took him, and put him into the prison [stronghold] * a place where the king’s prisoners [state-prisoners] were bound: and he was there in the prison. But the Lord was with Joseph, and shewed him mercy, and gave him favor 596 22 in the sight of the keeper of the prison. GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. And the keeper of the prison committed tc Joseph’s hand all the prisoners that were in the prison ; and whatsoever they did there, he 23 was the doer of 7. The keeper of the prison looked not to anything that was under his hand, because the Lord was with him, and that which he did, the Lord made ¢ to prosper. {). Ver. 20.—On mz - Literally, the round house, so called from its shape, which was different from the common Egyptian architecture—thus constructed, perhaps, as giving greater strength. Aben Ezra expresses the opinion that the word is Egyptian; but it occurs in Hebrew, as in Cant. vii. 3 ("90), where it evidently has the sense of roundness, and is so rendered in the ancient versions. This is confirmed by its near relationship to the more common “MQ, to go round, from which the Syriac has its word 12jpmso for tower or castle, Although Joseph, for policy, used an interpreter when speaking with his brethren, yet there must have been, at this time, a great’ affinity between the Shemitic and the old Egyptian tongue. Very many of the words must have been the same in both languages. The LXX. have rendered it, év oxupwmare, in the stronghold ; Vulg., simply in carcerem.—T. L.] GENERAL PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 1. The three chapters, xxxix.—xlii., form a dis- tinct section by themselves. Joseph in Egypt—in his misery and in his exaltation; first, himself ap- parently lost, afterwards a saviour of the world. Ch. xl. presents the transition from his humiliation to his exaltation. 2. In the section from ch. xxxix.—xlii., Knobel re- cognizes the elements of the original text, mingled with the additions of the Jehovist. It is a matter of fact, that the elohistic relations predominate, but in decisive points Jehovah appears as the ruler of Jo- seph’s destiny. 4 3. If the preceding chapter might be regarded as a counterpart to ch. xxxvii., then the present chap- ter forms again a counterpart to the one before it. Both chapters agree in referring especially to sexual relations. In the former, Onan’s sin, whoredom, and incest, are spoken of; in the one before us, it is the temptation to adultery. In the former, however, Judah, on account of sexual sins, seems greatly in- volved in guilt, though it is to be considered that he intended to restrain the unchastity of his sons, that he upholds the levirate law, that he judges severely of the supposed adultery of one betrothed, and that he purposely and decidedly shuns incest. Nevertheless, he himself does not resist the allurement to unchas- tity, whilst Joseph persistently resists the temptation to adultery, and shines brilliantly as an ancient ex- ample of chastity. His first trial, when he was sold, wag his suffering innocently in respect to crime, and yet not without some fault arising from his inconsid- erateness. His second and more grievous trial was his suffering on account of his virtue and fear of God, and, therefore, especially typical was it in the history of the kingdom of God. 4, Our narrative may be divided into three parts : 1) Joseph’s good conduct and prosperity in Potiphar’s house (vers.1-6); 2) Joseph’s temptation, constancy, and sufferings (vers. 6-20) ; 8) Joseph’s well-being in prison (vers, 21-28). ‘ EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL. 1. Joseph's good behavior and prosperity in Potiphar’s house (vers. 1-6).—And Potiphar bought him (see ch, xxxvii. 36),—As captain of the “executioners,” he commanded the guard of the palace, or Pharaoh’s body-guard, who were to exe- cute his death-sentences, and was named accordingly. Concerning this office among other ancient nations, | see Knozzt, p. 303. The name eunuch also denotes a courtier in general; but Knobel, without any ground, would regard Potiphar as really such ; though these were frequently married—And the Lord was with Joseph.—Here the name Jehovah certainly corresponds with the facts. Joseph was not only saved, but it is Jehovah who saves him for the purposes of his kingdom. His master soon recognizes in him the talent with which he under- takes and executes everything entrusted to him. As by Jacob’s entrance into Laban’s house, so by Jo- seph’s entrance into Potiphar’s, there comes a new prosperity, which strikes Potiphar as something re- markable. He ascribes it to Joseph as a blessing upon his piety, and to his God Jehovah, and raises Joseph to the position of his overseer. In this office he had, doubtless, the management of an extensive land-economy ; for in this respect there was, for the military order, a rich provision. It was a good ‘training for the management of the trust he after- wards received in respect to all Egypt. Upon this new influence of Joseph there follows a greater pros- perity, and therefore Potiphar commits to him his whole house.—Save the bread which he did eat.—Scuriper : “ There appears here that charac- teristic oriental indolence, on account of which a slave who has command of himself may easily attain to an honorable post of influence.” Save the bread, ete. ‘ This,” according to Bohlen, “is an expression of the highest confidence; but the ceremonial Egyp- tian does not easily commit to a stranger anything that pertains to his food.” Besides, the Egyptians had their own laws concerning food, and did not eat with Hebrews. 2. Joseph's temptations, consolations, and suffer- ings (vers, 6-20).—And Joseph was a goodly man.—His beauty occasioned his temptations,—His master’s wife cast her eyes upon him,—His temptations are long continued, beginning’ with lust- ful persuasions, and ending in a bold attack. Jo- seph, on the other hand, tries to awaken her con- science; he places the proposed sin in every possi- ble light ; it would be a disgraceful abuse of the con. fidence reposed in him by his master; it would be an outrage upon his rights as a husband; it would be adultery, a great crime in the sight of God. Again, he shuns every opportunity the woman would give him, and finally takes to flight on a pressing oceasion which she employs, notwithstanding he is now to expect her deadly revenge. Kyosen: “ The ancients describe Egypt as the home of unchastity (Martiat, iv. 42,4: nequitias tellus scit dare nuila magis), and speak of the great prevalence of mar- riage infidelity (Heron. ii. 111; Drop. Sto. i. 59), as well as of their great sensuality generally. For CHAP. XXXIX. 1-43. example, the history of Cleopatra, Drop. ch. 61. 15.” For similar statements respecting the later and mod- ern Egypt, see Kzrz, p. 251, note.—To lie by her. —An euphemistic expression. That she called unto the men.—Lust changes into hatred. She intends to revenge herself for his refusal. Besides, it is for her own safety; for though Joseph himself might not betray her, she might be betrayed by his garment that he had left behind. Her lying story is characteristic in every feature. Scornfully she calls her husband he (“he hath brought in,” etc.), and thereby betrays her hatred. Joseph she designates as “‘an Hebrew,” i. e., one of the nomadic people, who was unclean according to Egyptian views (ch. xliii. 32; xlvi. 34). Both expressions show her anger. She reproaches her husband with having im- perilled her virtue, but makes a show of it, by call- ing the pretended seductions of Joseph a wanton mockery, as though by her outcry she would put herself forth as the guardian of the virtue of the females of her house.—Unto me to mock me.— Her extreme cunning and impudence are proved by the fact that she makes use of Joseph’s garment as the corpus delicti, and that in pretty plain terms she almost reproaches Potiphar with having purposely endangered her chastity—That his wrath was kindled.—It is to be noticed that it is not exactly said, against Joseph. He puts him into the tower, the state-prison, surrounded by a wall, and in which the prisoners of the king, or the state criminals, were kept. Ver. 10. Delitzsch and Keil regard this pun- ishment as mild; since, according to Diop. Sic. i. 28, the Egyptian laws of marriage were severe. It must be remembered, however, that Potiphar decreed this penalty without any trial of the accused, and that his confinement seems to have been unlimited. At the same time, there is something in the opinion, expressed by many, that he himself did not fully believe his wife’s assertion, and intended again, in time, to reinstate Joseph. It may, therefore, have seemed to him most proper to pursue this course, in order to avoid the disgrace of his house, without sacrificing entirely this hitherto faithful servant. The prosperous position that Joseph soon held in the prison seems to intimate that Potiphar was punishing him gently for appearance sake. 8. Joseph's well-being in the prison (vers. 21-28). —F'avor in the sight of the keeper.—This was a subordinate officer of Potiphar; and ‘‘thus van- ishes the difficulty presented by Tuch and Knobel, that Joseph is said to have had two masters, and that mention is made of two captains of the body-guard.” Delitzsch. The overseer of the prison also recognizes Joseph’s worth, and makes him a sort of sub-officer ; though he does not, by that, cease to be a prisoner. DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL. 1. Gertacu: The important step in the develop- ment of the divine plan is now to be made: the house of Jacob was to remove from the land of the promise into a foreign country, as had been an- nounced to Abraham many years before (ch. xv. 13). Jacob’s numerous family could no longer remain among the Canaanites, without dispersion, loss of unity and independence, and troublesome conflicts with the inhabitants of the country. ‘‘ Further on it is said: They were to become a people in the most cultivated country then known, and yet most distinct- ly separated from the inhabitants.” 2. Jehovah was with Joseph. The covenant God 597 victoriously carries forward his decrees through all the need, sufferings, and ignominy of his people. Joseph, so to say, is now the support of the future development of the Old-Testament theocracy; and on the thread of his severely threatened life, as one above whose head hangs the sword of the heathen executioner, there is suspended, as far as the human eye can see, the destiny both of Israel and the world. God’s omnipotence may, and can, make its purposes dependent from such threads as Joseph in prison, Moses in the ark, David in the cave of Adullam. Providence is sure of the accomplishment of its object. 8. Joseph suffering innocently, yet confiding in God: a. aslave, yet still a freeman; 6, unfortunate, yet still a child of fortune: ¢. abandoned, yet still standing firm in the severest temptations; d. forlorn, yet still in the presence of God; ¢. an object of im- pending wrath, yet still preserved alive; f. a state- prisoner, and yet himself a prison-keeper; gy. every way subdued, yet ever again superior to his condi- tion. In this phase of his life, Joseph is akin to Paul (2 Cor. vi.), with whom he has this in common, that, through the persecutions of his brethren, he is forced to carry the light of God’s kingdom into the heathen world,—a fact, it is true, that first appears, in the life of Joseph, in a typical form. 4, Joseph, as an example of chastity, stands here in the brightest light when compared with the con- duct of Judah in the previous chapter. From this we see that the divine election of the Messianic tribe was not dependent upon the virtues of the Israelitish patriarchs. We should be mistaken, however, in ‘ concluding from this a groundless arbitrariness in the divine government. In the strong fulness of Judah’s nature there lies more that is undeveloped for the future, than in the immature spirituality and self-reliance of Joseph. It is a seal of the truth of Holy Scripture that it admits such seeming paradoxes as no mythology could have invented, as well as a seal of its grandeur that it could so boldly present such a patriarchal parallel to a people proud of its ancestry, whose principal tribe was Judah, and in which Judah and Ephraim were filled with jealousy toward each other. ‘ 6. Joseph’s victory shows how a man, and espe- cially a young man, is to overcome temptation. The first requirement is: walk as in the all-seeing pres- ence of God; the second: fight with the weapons of the word in the light of duty (taking the offen- sive, which the spirit of conversion assumes accord- ing to the measure of its strength); the third: avoid the occasions of sin; the fourth: firmness before all things, and, if it must be, flight with the loss of the dress, of the good name, and even of life itself. 6. The curse of adultery and its actual sentence in Joseph’s speech and conduct. 7, The accusation of the woman a picture of cabal, reflecting itself in all times, even the most modern. The first example of gross calumniation in the Sacred Scripture, coming from an adulterous woman, presenting a picture, the very opposite of Joseph’s virtue, as exhibiting the most impudent and revengeful traits of vindictive lying. Thus, also, was Christ calumniated, in a way that might be called the consummation of all calumny, the master-piece of the prince of accusers. 8. Potiphar’s wrath and mildness are indications that he had a presentiment of what the truth really was. It is also an example showing how the pride of the great easily inclines them to sacrifice to the 598 honor of their house the right and happiness of their ‘dependants. HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL. See Doctrinal and Ethical. Joseph’s destiny ac- cording to the divine providence: 1. His misfortune in his fortune. As formerly the preference of his father, his variegated coat, and the splendid dreams, prepared for him misfortunes, so now his important function in Potiphar’s house, and his goodly person. 2. His fortune in his misfortune. He was to go to Egypt, assume the condition of a slave, enter prison, and all this in order to become a prophetic man, an interpreter of dreams, an overseer of estates, lord of Egypt, a deliverer of many from hunger, a cause of repentance to his brethren, and of salvation to the house of Jacob.—Tausr: The promise of suf- fering, and the blessing of godliness: 1. Its use: “godliness is profitable unto all things;” 2. its suf- ferings : “all that will live godly shall suffer persecu- tion,” 8. its blessing in its exercise: “‘ exercise thy- self unto godliness.” Section First. (Vers. 1-6). Srarnxy: There is no better companion on a journey than God, Blessed are they who never forget to take this society with them wherever they go.— Bibl. Tub. : God’s blessing and grace are with the pious everywhere, even in their severest trials. —Cramer: Where God is present with his grace, there he will be soon known through his word, and other tokens of his presence.—Osran- pER: Pious servants should be made happy in their service ; they should be loved as children, and ele- vated to higher employments.—Lanee: A beautiful bodily form, and a disposition fundamentally enriched, both by grace and nature! how fitly do they corres- pond.—Scuriper: In Egypt Jacob’s family had a rich support during the famine; there could it grow up to a great and united people; there it found the best school of human culture; there was the seat of the greatest worldly power, and, therefore, the best occasion in which to introduce those severe suf- ferings that were to awaken in Israel a longing after redemption, and a spirit of voluntary consecration to God (Hengstenberg).—God’s being with Joseph, how- ever, is not a presence of special revelations, as with the patriarchs, but a presence of blessing and suc- cess in all things (Baumgarten).—Joseph happy, though a servant.—Among the implements of agri- culture delineated on the Egyptian tombs, there is often to be seen an overseer keeping the accounts of the harvest. Ina tomb at Kum el Ahmar there is to be seen the office of a household steward, with all its appurtenances. Section Second, (Vers. 7-20). Srarxe: Luruzr: Thus far Satan had tempted Joseph on his left side, i.e., by manifold and severe adversities; now he tempts him on the right, by sensuality. This temp- tation is most severe and dangerous, especially to a young man. For Joseph lived now among the hea- then, where such sins were frequent, and could, therefore, more easily excite a disposition in any way inclined to sensual pleasure. The more healthy one is in body, the more violent is this sickness of the soul (Sir. xiv. 14). The more dangerous temptations | are, or the more difficult to be overcome, s0 much the more plausible and agrecable are they. Nothing is more alluring than the eyes, ‘And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out.’—Ver. 9. Muscunus: In all cases he who sins, sins against God,—even then GENESIS, OR “THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. when he is wronging his fellow-men. But he most especially sins against God who injures the forsaken, the miserable, the “little ones,” and those who are deficient in understanding. For God will protect them, since they cannot be wronged without the grossest wickedness—AvevstiIne: Imitentur ado- lescentes Joseph sanctum, pulchrum corpore, pulchri- orem mente.—Lance: Since by nature shame is im- planted in women to a higher degree than in men (in addition to the fact, that in consenting and trans- gression she is exposed to more danger and shame), so much the more disgraceful is it when she so de- generates as not only to Jay snares secretly for the other sex, but also impudently to importune them.— Tur same: The fear of God is the best means of grace for avoiding sin and shame.—Hatu: A pious heart would rather remain humbled in the dust than tise by sinful means.—Ver. 12. He preferred to leave his garment behind him, rather than a good conscience.—Lance: In a temptation to adultery and fornication, flight becomes the most pressing ne- cessity—Ver. 18, Cramer: The devil will be true to his nature ; for as he is an unclean spirit, so also is be a liar—Hatu: Wickedness is ever artful in getting up false charges against the virtues and good works of others (Acts xvi. 20). We must be patient toward the diabolical slanders of the impious; for God finally comes and judges them.—Beware of the act itself; against the lie there may be found a remedy.—Vers. 19, 20. He who believes easily is easily deceived. Magistrates should neither be par- tial, hasty, nor too passionate. Scuroper: “ Joseph was a goodly person.” With literal reference to ch. xxix. 17, Joseph was the re- flected image of his mother. They in whose hearts the Holy Spirit dwells, are wont to have a counte- nance frank, upright, and joyful (Luther).—The love of Potiphar’s wife was far more dangerous to Joseph than the hatred of his brothers (Rambach).—Now a far worse servitude threatens him, namely, that of sin (Krummacher).—Joseph had a chaste heart, and, therefore, a modest tongue (Val. Herberger). Un- chaste expressions a mark of unchaste thoughts. On the monuments may be seen Egyptian women who are so drunk with wine that they cannot stand. Of a restriction of wives, as customary afterwards in the Hast, and even in Greece, we find no trace.—Joseph lets his mantle go, but holds on to a good conscience, Joseph is again stripped of his garment, and again does it serve for the deception of others.—Sensual love changes suddenly into hatred (2 Sam. xiii, 15), —Catwrr Handbuch ; Such flight is more honorable than the most heroic deeds. Section Third. (Vers. 21-23), Srarxm: Ostan- pr: To a pious man there cannot happen a severer misfortune than the reputation of guilt, and of de- served punishment therefor, when he is innocent (Rom. viii. 28).—Cramer: God sympathises with those who suifer innocently (James i. 8). God bringeth his elect down to the grave, but bringeth them up again (1 Sam. ii. 6). Whom God would re- vive, can no one stifle. Whom God favors, no mis- fortune can harm. Scuréper: Those who believe in God must suffer on account of virtue, truth, and goodness ; not on account of sin and shame (Luther), Exalt- ation in humiliation, a sceptre in a prison, servant and Lord—even as Christ—God’s eyes behold the prison, the fetters, and the most shameful death, as he beholds the fair and shining sun. In J oseph’s condition nothing is to be seen but death, the loss CHAP. XL. 1-23. 599 of his fair fame, and of all his virtues. Now comes Christ with his eyes of grace, and throws light into the grave. Joseph is to become a Lord, though he had seemingly entered into the prison of hell (Luther). Joseph’s way is now for a time in the darkness, but this is the very way through which God often leads his people. Thus Moses, David, Paul, Luther; so lived the Son of God to his thirtieth year in Nazareth. Nothing is more opposed to God than that impa- tience of the power of nature which would violently usurp his holy government.—Sroupere justly com- mends “ the inimitable simplicity of Joseph’s history, narrated in the most vivid manner, and bearing on its face the most unmistakable seal of truth.” 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22, FOURTH SECTION. Joseph as interpreter of the dreams of his fellow-prisoners. Cuapter XL. 1-23. And it came to pass after these things that the butler of the king of Egypt, and his baker, had offended their lord the king of Egypt. And Pharaoh was wroth against two of his officers, against the chief of the butlers, and against the chief of the bakers. And he put them in ward in the house of the captain of the guard, into the prison, the place where Joseph was bound. And the captain of the guard charged Joseph with them; and he served them; and they continued a season in ward. And they dreamed a dream, each man his dream in one night, each man according to the interpretation of his dream, the butler and the baker of the king of Egypt, which were bound in prison. And Joseph came in unto them in the morning, and looked upon them, and, behold, they were sad. And he asked Pharaoh’s officers that were with him in the ward of his lord’s house, saying, Wherefore look ye so sadly to day? And they said unto him, We have dreamed a dream, and there 1s no inter- preter of it, And Joseph said unto them, Do not interpretations belong to God? tell me them, I pray you, And the chief butler told his dream to Joseph, and said to him, In my dream, behold, a vine was before me. And in the vine were three branches : and it was as though it budded, and her blossoms shot forth; and the clusters thereof brought forth ripe grapes: And Pharaoh’s cup was in my hand: and I took the grapes, and pressed * them into Pharaoh’s cup, and I gave the cup into Pharaoh’s hand. And Joseph said unto him, This ¢s the interpretation of it: The three branches are three days: Yet within three days shall Pharaoh lift up thine head, and restore thee unto thy place; and thou shalt deliver Pharaoh’s cup into his hand, after the former manner when thou wast his butler. But think on me when it shall be well with thee, and shew 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. When the chief baker saw that the interpretation was good, he said unto J oseph, I also was in my dream, and behold, I had three white baskets on my head ; And in the uppermost basket there was of all manner of bakemeats for Pharaoh; and the birds did eat them out of the basket upon my head. And Joseph answered and said, This zs the inter- pretation thereof: The three baskets are three days: Yet within three days shall Pharaoh lift up thy head from off thee, and shall hang thee on a tree; and the birds shall eat thy flesh from off thee, And 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 unto his butlership again; and he gave the cup into Pharaoh’s hand ; 23 But he hanged? the chief baker; as Joseph had interpreted to them. Yet didnot the chief butler remember Joseph, but forgat him. ( Ver. 11.—LZFTWN. pressed. The word occurs only here, yet its meaning is sufficiently obvious from the context, and from the cognate Chaldaic pmmp. It is onomatopic, representing the emission of the juice. Itis allied to MMW with its sense of waste and destruction. LXX., é$é0Aufa; Vulg., expresst.—T, L.] (2 Ver. 225M). It does not here denote suspension from, like hanging from a gallows. Tbe preposition b¥ is opposed to that, and shows that it denotes crucifixion.—T, L.] 600 PRELIMINARY REMARKS. The contents of this chapter may be denoted, the silent preparation for the great turning in Jo- seph’s destiny. In itself considered, however, our narrative shows us how the religious capacity of suf- fering for the. Lord’s sake develops itself, like a germ, in the people of God. Joseph's spiritual life shines resplendent in his prison. There may be dis- tinguished the following sections : 1. The imprison- ment of the two court-officers, and Joseph’s charge over them (vers. 1-4); 2. their dejectedness, and Joseph’s sympathy (vers. 6-8); 3. the dream of the chief butler, and its interpretation (vers. 9-15); 4. the dream of the chief baker, and its interpretation (vers, 16-19); 5. the fulfilment of both dreams. EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL. 1. Vers. 1-4. The imprisonment of the two court-officers, and Joseph's charge over them—The chief of the butlers and the chief of the ba- kers.—According to ver. 2 they are the chiefs in their respective departments of service. The ori- ental kings, as those of the Persians (Xrnoru., Hel- lenica, viii. i. 88), had a multitude of butlers, bakers, and covks. The office of chief butler was very hon- orable with the kings of Persia (Hxrop., iii. 34; XzEnopu., Cyroped. i. 8, 8). It was once filled by Nehemiah (Neh. i, 11; ii. 1).—In the house of the captain of the guard—i.e., in the house of Poti- phar. The house of the captain of the guard was connected with the state-prison, and denotes here the prison itself—Charged Joseph with them.— Here Potiphar again mingles himself with Joseph’s fortune (and that by way of mitigating it) in the recognition of his talents. By this distinguished charge, he shows favor, at the same time, to Joseph and to his fallen colleagues, ‘ nn 2. Vers. 5-8. Their dejectedness and Joseph's sympathy.— According to the interpretation.— Both had dreamed—each one a different dream— each one a significant dream, according to the antici- pated occurrence upon which it was founded, and also according to its interpretation. Joseph’s con- versation with the sad and dejected prisoners, proves his sagacity as well as his kindly sympathy. It shows, too, how misfortune equalizes rank, and. makes the great dependent on the sympathy of those who are lower in position. And there is no in- terpreter of it.—An expression showing that the interpretation of dreams was much in vogue, and that it was one of the wants of persons of rank to have their dreams interpreted.—Do not inter- pretations belong to God ?—He admits that there are significant dreams, and that God could bestow on men the gift of interpretation when they are re- ferred back to him. He rejects, indirectly, the hea- then art of interpreting dreams, whilst, at the same time, giving them to understand that it was, perhaps, imparted to himself. First, however, he is to hear their dreams. Knobel is inexact when he speaks in general terms of “the ancient view concerning dreams.” Doubtless the field of revelation admits dreams as sent by God, but these coincide with dreams in general just as little as the prophetic mode of interpreting them coincided with that of the hea- then, though, according to Egyptian views, all pro- GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. | wine was prohibited. phetic art comes from the gods (Heron. ii. 83) Knobel. ; 3. Vers. 9-15. The dream of the chief butler and its interpretation—In my dream, behold a vine.—aA lively description of a lively dream. _ The first picture is the vine; and the rapid: development of its branches to the maturity of the grapes. On the vine in Egypt, see Knozen, p. 307. In the sec- ond picture, the chief butler beholda himself in the service of Pharaoh, preparing and presenting to him the juice of the grapes. ‘The vine was referred to Osiris, and was already well known in Egypt. See Ps. lexviii. 47; ev. 88; Numb. xx. 5. The state- ment, Hrrop., ii. 77, is, therefore, to be taken with limitations. Nor is it true that in the time of Psam- meticus fresh must only was drank, while fermented Knobel has shown that Prov- tarcH, De Iside, vi. 6, says just the contrary. The people drank wine unrestrained; the kings, because they were priests, only so much as was allowed by the sacred books; but from the time of Psammeti- cus even this restriction was abolished. The old monuments show . great variety of wine-utensils, wine-presses at work, topers tired of drinking, even intoxicated women.” Delitzsch. “Wine had been prohibited before the time of Mohammed (Smaras- TANI, fi, p. 846). ‘The grapes he allowed (Koran, xvi. 11, 69). They evaded his prohibition by pressing the grapes and: drinking the juice of the berries (Scuut1z, Leitungen, v. p. 286). Such juice of grapes the Egyptian king drank also in Joseph’s time. He was'a ruler of the Hyksos (?), who were an Arabian tribe.” Knobel. Tue same: The dream- interpreter Artemidorus classes the vine with plants that grow rapidly, and regards dreams concerning it as ade 5 a quick fulfilment. Joseph’s interpreta- tion.—Three branches, three days.—Since Pha- raoh’s birth-day was at hand, and was known, per- haps, as a day of pardon, this presentiment may, to some degree, have been affected by it— Lift up thine head.—To replace, again, in prosperity and honor, especially to bring out of prison (2 Kings xxv, 27)—And show kindness, I pray thee, unto me.—Joseph is so sure of his interpretation that he employs the opportunity to plead for his own tight and liberty.—I was stolen.—An expression of innocence. They took him away from his father, but how it was done, his feelings do not allow him to relate; enough that he:came to Egypt neither as a criminal, nor as a slave, rightly sold. With the same caution he speaks about his imprisonment without exposing the house of Potiphar. 4, Vers. 16-19. The dream of the chief of the bakers, and iis interpretation. The striking resem- blance of his dream to the one previously interpreted, caused the baker to overlook its ominous difference ; he, therefore, hopes also for a favorable interpreta- tion. The interpreter, however, shows his discern- ment in recognizing the birds that did not eat the bakemeats out of the basket upon his head, as the main point. He differs also from the heathen inter- preters in announcing the unfavorable meaning plain- ly and distinetly. Knozen: “In Egypt men were accustomed to carry on their heads, women upon their shoulders. In modern Egypt women bear bur- dens upon their heads.” “ Even at this day in Egypt kites and hawks: seize upon articles of food .carried upon the head.” The criminal to be put to death was fastened to a stake, to increase thereby the se- verity of the punishment (Deut, xxi. 22; Josh. x. 26; 2Sam. iv. 12). This custom was also prevalent CHAP. XL. 1-23. , 601 among other nations, especially the Persiana and Carthaginians, 5. Vers. 20-23. The fulfilment of both these dreams. The kings of antiquity were accustomed to celebrate their birth-days. “ According to Herodo- tus, this was the only day on which the kings of the Persians anointed themselves, and gave presents to their subjects. In like manner the Hebrew kings, on joyous occasions, exercised mercy (1 Sam. xi. 13).” Knobel. Joseph is forgotten by the butler, apparently for ever; God, however, has provided for his exaltation, not only through the destiny denoted in the dreams, but also by the clearing up of the truthfulness of the interpreter. DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL. 1, The manner in which the divine providence qui- etly and secretly makes the most insignificant things, apparently, the occasion and the cause of wonderful changes, appears very visible in our narrative. It would appear simply fortuitous that Pharaoh should have thrown into prison his two officers on account, perhaps, of some very trifling offence’; still more ac- cidental would it appear that Joseph should have had charge of them, and that both should have had alarming dreams, and finally, how extraordinarily fortuitous that Joseph, on entering, should have ob- served their depression in their countenances! But all this apparent chance was made a prerequisite, in the course of God’s providence, for Joseph's exalta- tion, and Israel’s redemption. ‘The Lord finds a thousand ways where reason sees not even one.” 2. The occurrences of the heathen world, the affairs of courts, their crimes, cabals, intrigues, are all under the divine control. A country in which the wisdom of the world seems to have emancipated it- self from all regard to the government of a divine providence, is just the one whose administration shows the most failure, and most frequently expe- riences an ironical disappointment of its plans, 3. Prisons, too, with their dark chambers, dun- geons, sorrows, secrets, are under the control’ of God. At all times have they enclosed not only criminals, but the innocent,—oftentimes the best and most pious of men. Christ says: Iwas in prison, and ye came unto me; and he speaks thus, not of faithful martyrs only; even among the guilty there is a spark of Christ’s kinsmanship,—i. e., belonging to him. 4, How mightily misfortune takes away the distine- tion of rank. Joseph has not only the heart’s gift of sympathy for the unhappy, but also that open- hearted self-consciousness that fits him to associate with the great. Even when a child did he run be- fore his mother in meeting Esau. 5. The night-life with its wakefulness, as with its dreams, enters into the web of the divine providence (see Book of Esther, Daniel, Matt. ii. xxvii. 19 ; Acts xvi. 9; Ps. cxxxii. 4). Dreams are generally so un- meaning that they should never cause men to err in obedience to the faith, in duty, or in the exercise of a judicious understanding. Their most general sig- nificance, however, consists in their being a reflection of the feelings, remembrances, and anticipations of the day life, as also in the fact, that all perceptions of the body give themselves back in the mirror of the nightly consciousness, as imaged speech or pic- ture. The spirit of God may, therefore, employ dreams as a medium of revelation. He can send dreams and bestow the gift of interpretation. But, in themselves, the most significant dreams of reve- lation never form ethical decisions, though they may be signs and monitors of the same. Their higher significance, however, is sealed by their great and world-historic consequences for the kingdom of God. 6. Joseph very definitely distinguished between his own and the heathen mode of interpreting dreams ; and this he owes to his Israelitish con- sciousness as opposed to the heathen. The divine certainty of his interpretation is seen in the fact, that, notwithstanding the greatest similarity in both dreams, he immediately recognizes the point of dis- similarity, and dares to make the fearful announce- ‘ment in the assurance that the issue of the affair would be in correspondence. The apparent severity of such frankness could not make him falter in the feeling of what was due to truth. To narrate how he may have sought to mitigate it, by expressions of sympathy, lay not within the scope of this narration. 7. The joyous feasts of the great are sources both of life and death. 8. A man in prosperity soon forgets the com- panions of his former misery, just as the chief butler forgot Joseph. God’s memory never fails, and it is, at the same time, the chief quickener of the memories of men. God keeps his own time. The ray of hope that shone for the prisoner at the release of the chief butler went out again for two years. When all hope seemed to have vanished, then divine help comes in wonderfully. HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL. See Doct. and Eth. Joseph’s disciplinary trials. His preparation for his great calling of saviour and ruler: a. by sufferings; b. by works of his vocation. —Traces of God in the prison: 1. Divine light; 2. holy love; 3. divine monitions; 4. hope of deliver- ance.—God’s government in its great issues: 1. Of the smallest things; 2. of the proudest events; 3. of the most fallible judgments of men; 4. of the darkest prisons; 5. of the nightly life; 6. of hopes and fears in human need. First Section. Vers, 1-4. Srarge: Ver. 1. In what the offence consisted is not announced. The Rabbins, who pretend to know all things about which the Seriptures are silent, say that the butler bad per- mitted a fly to drop into the king’s cup, and that a grain of sand was found in the bread of the baker. The conjecture of Rabbi Jonathan has more proba- bility ; he thinks that both had conspired to poison the king. Joseph was thirteen years in a state of humiliation, and the last three (?) in a prison. Scuréper: Information concerning the Egyptian wine culture and representations of it upon the monu- ments (according to Champollion and others, p. 576), —also concerning the modes of baking, which was quite an advanced art among the Egyptians. The Egyptians had for their banquets many different kinds of pastry.—The offices of chief butler and chief baker were in high honor, and sometimes that of field-marshal was connected with them.—In the East the prisons are not public buildings erected for this sole purpose, but a part of the house in which the prison officer resided. Second Section, Vers, 6-8. Starke: CRAMER: There are different kinds of dreams: divine dreams (ch. xxviii, 12; xli. 17; Daniel ii. 28); diabolical dreams (Deut. xiii. 2; Jeremiah xxiii. 16; xxvii, 9) ; natural dreams (Eccles. v. 2). We must, therefore, 602 distinguish between dreams, and not regard them all alike (Sirach xxxiv. 7). The godless and the pious may get into the same troubles, and have similar suf- ferings ; yet they cannot look upon them with the like dispositions and emotions. Scurépsr: They may have been dreams suggested by their official po- sition. Both of them may have gone to sleep with the number three upon their minds because of the thought that Pharaoh was to celebrate his birth-day within three days, No wonder that their imagination overflowed from the abundance of their hearts; and who can tell how much their consciences were con- cerned in these dreams. The culture and the char- acter of the Egyptians was every way mystical, or ratber symbolical; the less they are able to account for an occurrence the more divine it seemed. Night they considered as source of all things, and as a being to which they paid divine honors. The whole ancient history of this wonderful people has a: noc- turnal aspect about it. One might call it the land of dreams, of presentiments, enigmas. Joseph's des- tiny in respect to this country begins in dreams, and is completed by them (Krummacher). It is not every one that can read the writing of the human counte- nance ; this power is given to love only (Baumgarten). He preached in prison as Christ did (Richter), Third Section, Vers. 9-15. Srarxe: Ver. 14, The Jews charge that Joseph in this request demand- ed pay for his interpretation, and allege that, on this account, he had to remain in prison two years longer. There is, however, no ground for such an imputation ; | but though he had the assurance of the divine pres- ence, and that God would deliver him from the prison, he had, ‘nevertheless, a natural longing for liberty. Besides, he did not ask anything unfair of the butler (1 Cor, vii. 21).—Crammr: Ordinary means are from God, and he who despises them tempts God,—Tz saz: We may assert our inno- cency, and seek deliverance, yet still we must not, on that account, speak ill of those who have injured us ( Matt. v. 44), Scurépver: The dream of the chief butler, no doubt, leans upon the business of his life and office, but, on the other hand, it also has the imaginative impression of “the poet concealed within every man,” as Schubert calls it—Carwer Handbuch : Ver. 15. Amildjudgment upon the act of his breth- ren, whom he would not unnecessarily reproach. Fourth Section. Vers, 16-19. Srarge: Bibl. . Wirt. Whenever the word of God is to be expound- ed, it should be done in the way the Holy Spirit pre- sents it, and according to the word itself, no matter GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. - —- whether tlie hearers are disturbed, alarmed, or com- forted.—Scurépzr: (Calvin :) Many desire the word of God because they promise themselves simply en- joyment in the hearing of it—CaLwer Handbuch : In Hebrew, “to lift up the head,” is a play upon words, It means to restore to honor and dignity, or to hang upon the gallows, or. decapitation (taking off the head), or crucifixion (lifting up upon the cross). Fifth Section. Vers. 20-28. Srarke: Bibl. Wirt: Godless men in adversity, when they receive help from the pious, make the fairest of promises, but when prosperity returns they forget them all. Be; not, therefore, too confiding. High station” changes the manners, and usually makes men arro- gant.—Lanex: How easily is a favor forgotten, and how seductive the courtier life !—Scuriéper: These are times when men, through the prestige of birth, or by money, or human fayor, may reach the summit of honor and wealth, without any previous schooling of adversity; still such men are not truly great, whatever may be the greatness of their title and their revenues. They are not the instruments that God employs in the accomplishment of his great purposes. Thus to Joseph, who was to become Lord of Egypt, the house and prison of Potiphar, in both of which he bore rule on a lesser scale, were to be his prepara- tory school. The wisdom he was to exercise in great- er things begins here to show itself in miniature. Such a heart-purifying discipline is needed by all who would see God, and who would be clothed with authority for the world’s benefit. Without this there is no truly righteous administration. It never comes from passsionate overhastiness, sensual sloth, needless fear, selfish purposes, or unreasoning obsti- nacy. On the contrary, Joseph was purified, in | prison, by the word of God; so was Moses in Midian, David in exile, Daniel in Babylon. Thus became they fit instruments in the hand of God (Roos), Therefore is it that the pious Joseph was crucified, dead, and buried, and descended into hell. Now comes the Lord to deliver him, honor him, make him great (Luther).—Her (Bible Studies): It was Jo- seph’s single ray of hope in the prison—that which lighted him to freedom—that he could commend himself to the intercession of the chief butler. When this went out, according to every probable view, there seemed nothing else for him than to pine away his whole life in prison ; and yet the fulfilment ofthe dreams of the court officers might have strengthened him in the hope of the fulfilment of his own dreams in his native home. FIFTH SECTION. Joseph the interpreter of Pharaoh’s dreams. ——— Cuarter XLI. 1~57. 1 And it came to pass, at the end of two full And, behold, there came up out of the river seven 2 and, behold, he stood by the river. years [lit., days], that Pharaoh dreamed ; well-favoured kine, and fat-fleshed; and they fed in a meadow! [ bulrushes,the grass on the 3 bank of the river]. 4 favoured and lean-fleshed, And, behold, seven other kine came up after them out of the river, ill- and stood by the other kine upon the brink of the river, And 14 15 16 17 19 20. 21 22 23 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 35 36 37 38 40 41 42 CHAP. XLI. 1-57. 603 the ill-favoured and lean-fleshed kine did eat up the seven well-favoured and fat kine. So Pharaoh awoke. And he slept and dreamed the second time; and, behold, seven ears of corn came up upon one stalk, rank and good. And, behold, seven thin ears, and blasted with the east wind, sprung up [insingle stacks] after them. And the seven thin ears devoured the seven rank and full ears, And Pharaoh awoke, and, behold, 7 was a dream. And it came to pass in the morning, that his spirit was troubled; and he sent and called for all the magicians? [scribes : skilled in hieroglyphics] of Egypt, and all the wise men [magicians] thereof; and Pharaoh told them his dreams; but there was none -that could interpret them unto Pharaoh. Then spake the chief butler unto Pharaoh, saying, 1 do remember my faults this day. Pharaoh was wroth with his servants, and put me in ward in the captain of the guard’s house, both me and the chief baker; And we dreamed a dream in one night, I and he; we dreamed each man according to the interpretation of his dream. And there was there with us a young man, an Hebrew, servant to the captain of the guard; and we told him, and he interpreted to us our dreams; to each man according to his dream he did interpret. And it came to pass, as he interpreted to us, so it was; me he restored unto mine office, and him he hanged. Then Pharaoh sent and called Joseph, and they brought him hastily out of the dungeon [pit]; and he shaved himself, and changed his raiment, and came in unto Pharaoh. And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, I have dreamed a dream, and there is none that can interpret it; and I have heard say of thee, that thou canst understand a dream to inter- pret it. And Joseph answered Pharaoh, saying, It is not in me:* God shall give Pharaoh an answer of peace. And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, In my dream, behold, I stood upon the bank of the river; And, behold, there came up out of the river seven kine, fat-fleshed, and well-favoured; and they fed in a meadow; And, behold, seven other kine came up after them, poor, and very ill-favoured and lean-fleshed, such as I never saw in all the land of Egypt for badness; And the lean and the ill-favoured kine did eat up the first seven fat kine; And when they had eaten them up, it could not be known that they had eaten them; but tliey were still ill-favoured, as at the beginning. SoLawoke. And I saw in my dream, and, behold, seven ears came up in one stalk, full and good; And, behold, seven ears, withered, thin, and blasted with the east wind, sprung up after them; And the thin ears devoured the seven good ears. And I told this unto the magicians; but there was none that could declare 7 to me. And Joseph said unto Pharaoh, The dream of Pharaoh zs one; God hath shewed Pharaoh what he zs about to do. The seven good kine are seven years; and the seven good ears are seven years; the dream 7s one. And the seven thin and ill-favoured kine, that came up after them, are seven years; and the seven empty ears, blasted with the east wind shall be seven years of famine. This ¢s the thing which I have spoken unto Pharaoh; what God zs about to do, he sheweth unto Pharaoh. Behold, there come seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt; And there shall arise after them seven years of famine; and all the plenty shall be forgotten in the land of Egypt; and the famine shall consume the land; And the plenty shall not be known in the land, by reason of that famine following; for it shall be very grievous. And for that the dream was doubled unto Pharaoh twice; tt is because the thing 7s established by God, and God will shortly bring it to pass. Now, therefore, let Pharach look out a man discreet and wise, and set him over the land of Egypt. Let Pharaoh do this, and let him appoint officers over the land, and take up the fifth part of the land of Egypt in the seven plenteous years. And let them gather [layinstore] all the food of those good years that come, and lay up corn under the hand of Pharaoh, and let them keep food in the cities. And that food shall be for store to the land against the seven years of famine, which shall be in the land of Egypt; that the land perish not through the famine. And the thing was good in the eyes of Pharaoh, and in the eyes of all his servants. And Pharaoh said unto his servants, Can we find such a one as this is, a mau in whom the Spirit of God is? And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, Forasmuch as God hath shewed thee all this, there 7s none so discreet and wise as thou avt; Thou shalt be over my house, and according unto thy word shall all my people be ruled: only in the throne will I be greater than thou. And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, See, T have set thee over all the land of Egypt. And Pharaoh took off his ring from his hand, and put it upon Joseph’s hand, and arrayed him in vestures of fine linen, and put 604 GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. 43 a gold chain upon his neck; And he made him to ride in the second chariot which he had; and they cried before him, Bow the knee;* and he made him ruler over all the 44 land of Egypt. And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, I am Pharaoh, and without thee shall 45 no man lift up his hand or foot in all the land of Egypt. And Pharaoh called Joseph’s name Zaphnath-paaneah e [gave him the title of Savior of the world ; preserver of life, &c. | ; and he gave him to wife Asenath [consecrated to Neith (the Egyptian Minerva) |, the daughter of Poti- pherah [same as Potiphar ; near to the sin], priest of On [light: sun; Heliopolis}. And J oseph 46 went out over all the land of Egypt.. And Joseph was thirty years old when he stood before Pharaoh king of Egypt. And Joseph went out from the presence of Pharaoh, 47 and went throughout all the land of Egypt. And in the seven plenteous years the 48 earth brought forth by handfuls [armfol upon ermful]. And he gathered up all the food of the seven years, which were in the land of Egypt, and laid up the food in the cities; 49 the food of the field which was round about every city, laid he up in the same. And Joseph gathered corn as the sand of the sea, very much, until he left numbering; for 50 it was without number. And unto Joseph were born two sons before the years of famine came; which Asenath, the daughter of Poti-pherah, priest of On, bare unto him. 51 And Joseph called the name of the first-born Manasseh [the one that causes to forget ; viz., Jehovah]; For God, sadd he, hath made me forget all my toil, and al] my father’s house. 52 And the name of the second called he Ephraim [First : fruits; Delitasch : double fruitfulness | ; 53 For God hath caused me to be fruitful in the land of my affliction. And the seven .54 years of plenteousness that was in the land of Hgypt were ended [mi"b2m"]. And the seven years of dearth began [ma"knms] to come, according as Joseph had said; and the 55 dearth was in all lands; butin all the land of Hgypt there was bread. And when [also] all the land of Egypt was famished, the people cried to Pharaoh for bread; and Pharaoh said unto all the Hgyptians, Go unto Joseph; what he saith to you, do. And the 56 famine was over all the face of the earth; And Joseph opened all the store-houses, and 57 sold unto the Egyptians; and the famine waxed sore in the land ef Egypt.’ And all countries came into Egypt to Joseph for to buy corn; because that the famine was so sore in all lands. U Ver. 2.—IM&. NM, and their heart went out. LKX, earn 4 xapdia abrav, Hence the Greek éxorasts, ecstasy. It may denote rapture, astonishment, overwhelming sorrow—any condition of soul in which the thoughts and affections seem to pass beyond the control of the will. The heart goes forth, the mind wanders, the soul loses command of itself, It is the same imagery, and nearly the same terms, in many languages. Corresponding to it are the expressions for the opposite state. Compare the Latin exire de mente, ratione, etc., to be or go out of one’s mind, and the opposite, colligere se, to lake courage, to recover one’s self. So the English, to be collected, or composed. There isa similar usago of the Greek ovvavaye(pecbat and a0poiger@at, to collect, gather back the soul. See the Pheedo, 67c. Vulgate, obstupefacti sunt.—T. L.] PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 1. It appears uncertain to Knobel which narrator (the Elohist or the Jehovist) tells the story here. Many expressions, says he, favor the original Scrip- ture, but some seem to testify for the Jehovist, e. g., land of Goshen (ch. xlv. 10), thy servantinstead of I (ch. xlii. 10). Very singular examples truly! Yet the language, it is then said, is rich in peculiarities. This part the Jehovist is said to have made up from his first record. A very peculiar presentation this, of the &rat Acydueva of different authors, as obtained by sueh @ combination. The drat Aeyéueva (words or expressions occurring but once) are always forth- coming from behind the scene. Such is the dead representation of that spiritless book-making, or rather that book-mangling criticism, now so much in’ vogue with those who make synopses of the New Testament. 2. The history of Joseph’s reconciliation to his brethren extends through four chapters, from ch. xli.-xlv. It contains; 1) The history of the chas- tisement of the brothers, which, at the same time is a history of Joseph’s struggles ; 2) of the repentance of his brothers, marked by the antithesis Joseph and Simeon (ch. xlii.); 8) the trial of the brothers, in which appears their repentance and Joseph’s recon- ciliation, marked by the antithesis of Joseph and Benjamin (ch, xliii. 1; xliv. 17); 4) the story of the . reconciliation and recognition, under the antithesis of Judah and Joseph (ch. xliv. 18; xlv. 16); 5) the account of the glad tidings to Jacob (vers. 7-28). CHAP. XLII. 1-38. 1, The contents of the present section: 1) The journey to Egypt (vers. 1-6); 2) the rough reception (vers. 7-17); 3 the tasks imposed and the arrange- ments made by Joseph (vers. 18-34); 4) The volun- tary release, the return home, the report, the dark omen (vers. 25-35) ; 5) Jacob’s lament (vers. 36-38). EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL. 3. Vers. 1-6. The first journey of Joseph's brethren to Egypt.—When Jacob saw.—It is al- ready presupposed that: the famine was raging in Canaan. Jacob’s observation was probably based upon the preparations of others for buying corn in Egypt. The word "2w is translated corn, but more properly means a supply of corm (/frumenti cumulus, Geseu., Thesaur.), or vendible or mar- ket corn—Why do ye look one upon another ?—Their helpless and suspicious looking to each other seems to be connected with their guilt. The journey to Egypt, and the very thought of Egypt haunts them on account of Joseph’s sale—And Joseph’s ten brethren.—They thus undertake the journey together, because they received corn in pro- portion to their number. For though Joseph was humanely selling corn to foreigners, yet preference for his own countrymen, and a regard to economy, demanded a limitation of the quantity sold to indi- viduals—But Benjamin.—Jacob had transferred to Benjamin his preference of Joseph as the son of Rachel, and of his old age (ch. xxxvii. 3). He guarded him, therefore, all the more carefully on ac- count of the self-reproach he suffered from having once let Joseph take a dangerous journey all alone. Besides, Benjamin had not yet arrived at full man- hood. Finally, although the facts were not clearly known to him, yet there must be taken into the ac- count the deep suspicion he must have felt when he called to mind the strange disappearance of Joseph, their envy of him, and all this the stronger because Benjamin, too, was his favorite—Rachel’s son, Josepb’s brother.—Among those that came.— The picture of acaravan. Jacob's sons seem willing to lose themselves in the multitudes, as if troubled by an alarming presentiment. Knobel thinks the city to which they journeyed was Memphis. Accord- ing to others it was probably Zoar or Tanais (see Numb. xiii. 23). By the double N17 the writer denotes the inevitableness of their appearing before Joseph. Having the general oversight of the sale, he specially observed the selling to foreigners, and it appears to have been the rule that they were to present themselves before him. Such a direction, though a proper caution in itself, might have been connected in the mind of Joseph with a presentiment of their coming. He himself was the u"2t}. The circumstance that this word appears otherwise only in later writers may be partly explained from the peculiarity of the idea itself See Dan. v. 29. Here Daniel is represented as the third b">W (shalit) of the kingdom. “It seems to have been the standing title by which the Shemites designated Joseph, as one having despotic power in Egypt, and from which later tradition made the word ZaAaris, the name of the first Hyksos king (see Josepaus: Contra Apion. i, 14).”—Keil— And bowed themselves.—Thus Joseph’s dreams were fulfilled, as there had been al- ready fulfilled the dreams of Pharaoh. 611 2. Vers. 7-17. The harsh reception. Joseph recognized them immediately, because, at the time of his abduction, they were already grown up men, who had not changed as much as he, and because, moreover, their being all together brought out dis- tinetly their individual characteristics. He was, be- sides, familiar with their language and its idioms. They, on the contrary, did not recognize him because he had attained his manhood since in Egypt,—because he appeared before them clad in foreign attire, and introduced himself, moreover, as an Egyptian who spoke to them through an interpreter. Add to this, that he had probable reasons for expecting his breth- ren, whilst they could have had no thought of meeting Joseph in the character of the shalit.—But made himself strange unto them.—By speaking rough- ly unto them. It is a false ascription to Joseph of a superhuman perfection and holiness, whev, with Luther, Delitzsch, Keil, and others (see Kzi, p. 259), we suppose that Joseph, with settled calmness, only intended to become acquainted with the disposition of their hearts, so as to lead them toa perception of their guilt, and to find out how they were disposed towards his hoary sire, and their youngest brother. Kurtz is more correct in supposing it a struggle be- tween anger and gentleness, Their conduct to him- self may have even made it a sign of suspicion to him that Benjamin did not accompany them. True it is, that a feeling of love predominates; since the humiliation foretold in his dreams was already, for the most part, fulfilled, and he might, therefore, ex- pect the arrival of his father, and of his brother Ben- jamin, who would, at the same time, represent his mother. His future position towards them, however, must be governed by circumstances. The principal aim, therefore, of his harsh address, is to sound them in respect to their inner and outer relations. According as things should appear were they to ex- pect punishment or forbearance. Finding them well disposed, self-renunciation becomes easier to him; whilst his harsh conduct is to them only a wholesome discipline.—Ye are spies.—That such a danger was common, in those ancient days of emigration and con- quest, is clear from various instances (Numb. xxi. 82 ; Josh. ji. 1, ete.). See also Knope, p. 321. More- over, Egypt was exposed to invasion from the North, Supposing, too, that Joseph had already « presenti- ment of how the affair would turn out, he might term them spies, with something of an ironical feeling, be- cause their coming was undoubtedly a preliminary to their settlement in Egypt.—The nakedness of the land—its unfortified cities, unprotected boundaries, ete. Afterwards Joseph himself becomes to them the gate through which they enter Egypt. —Nay, my Lord.—Their answer shows a feel- ing of dignified displeasure—We are all one man’s sons, we are true men.—yYet their mortified pride is restrained by fear and respect. Joseph repeats his charge, and so gets from them the further information, that his father is still alive, and that Benjamin was well at home.—And one is not. —From this expression Keil concludes that they did not yet feel much sorrow for their deed. But are they to confess to the Egyptian shalit? If, however, their distress alone had afterwards drawn from them a sudden repentance, it could hardly have been genuine.—That is it that I spake with you.— Joseph's great excitement shows itself in his waver- ing determinations quickly succeeding and correct- ing each other, They gravitate from severity to 612 mildness. In ver. 14, we have his positive decision that they are spies, and are, therefore, to expect death. In ver. 15, it is made conditional. Asatest of their truth they are to be retained until the ar- rival of their brother.—By the life of Pharaoh.*— The Egyptians, as the Hebrews afterwards, swore by the life of their kings (see Knope, 322). Joseph thus swears as an Egyptian. His main solicitude, however, appears here already: he must know how Benjamin does, and their disposition towards him. In ver. 16, be expresses himself more definitely: one of them is to go and bring the brother, the others are to remain in confinement. A change follows in ver. 17, they are confined for three days, probably on account of the expression of their unwillingness to fetch Benjamin. Pit for pit (see ch. xxxvii. 24)! These three days, however, were to Joseph a time for reflection, and for the brothers a time of visitation. They all seemed now to have fallen into slavery in Egypt, even if they had not inourred the death of criminals. How this must have made them remember Joseph’s sale! One ray of hope has he left them: on Benjamin’s appearance they could be released. (* XLIL 15. M37D 4M. Literally, by tho lives of Pharaoh; but the primitive conception, whatever it may have been (see note, p. 163, 2d. column), that gave rise to the plural form of this word, had probably become dim or lost, and there is intended here only the one general sense of life. There is, however, a remark of Maimonides on this phrase, in this place, that is worthy of note. His criti- cal, as well as most philosophical, eye observes a difference in this little word "M, and the vowel pointing it has in the Scriptures according as it is used of God or man. Thus in the Hebrew oath, U5} "077 M7 “TI (comp. 1 Sam. xx, 3; xxv. 26; 2 Kings il. 2, 4,6; iv. 80; and other laces), which is rendered, as the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, he notices what has escaped most critics, viz., the change of yowel in the word "I; so that the rendering should be, as the Lord liveth, or by the living Jehovah, and by the life of thy soul. The reasons of this he thus states in the Sepher Hamada, or Book of Knowledge, the first part of the great work entitled Yad Hochazakah, ch. ii. sec, 14: “In Gen. xlii. 15, it is said, MI"D “91, by the life (lives) of Pharaoh ; so in 1 Sam. i. 26, e532 “MI, by the life of thy soul, as also in many other places. “But in the eame connection it is not said 70% 47 (chei), but nm 4M (chai), in the absolute form instead of the construct or genitive, because the Creator, blessed be he, and his life are one, not separate, as the lives of creatures or of angels. Therefore, he does not know creatures by means of the creatures, as we know them, but by himself (179% Mam), because all life leans upon him, reyes Soong himselfhe knoweth all things—since heand his knowledge also, as well as he and his life, are one. This is a matter which the tongue has not the power of ut- tering, nor the ear of hearing, nor can the mind comprehend it; but such is the reason of the change, and of its being said M97D “NI, by the life of Pharaoh, in the construct state, since Pharaoh and his life are two.” Again, sec. xi. and xii,: “All things beside the Creator, blessed be he, exist through his truth (or truthfulness) and because he knows himself, he knows everything. And he does not know by a knowledge which is without (or outside, yn 427273), to himself, as we know, because we and our knowl- edze are not one; but as for the Oreator, blessed be he, both his knowledge and his lifo are one with himself in every mode of unity. Hence we maay say that he is, at the sume time, the knower, the known, and the knowledge itself, allin one.” Or, as he tells us in the beginning of this pro- found treatise, ch. i. sec. 1: “God's truth is not like the truth of the creatures, and thus the prophet says (Jerem. x, 19), Jehovah God is truth, and God is life (plural D7" lives ; oompare mrarhp Tov $dtwv, James i. 17), he isthe “5% DDS, the king of eternity, the king of the world.” That is, - he is, at the same time, the truth, the Wife, the everlastin law. Compare, also, MAmmonipy Porta i oe edition, p. 256.7, 12] eee eee Reon GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. 8. Vers, 18-24. The hard terms imposed; Jo- seph’s arrangement and the repentance of the brothers ; Joseph’s struggle ; Simeon in prison.—This do and live.—Joseph now presents the charge in its condi- tional aspect. The motive assigned: For I fear God.—This language is the first definite sign of peace—the first fair self-betrayal of his heart. Agi- tated feelings lie concealed under these words. It is as much as to say: I am near to you, and to your faith. For them, it is true, the expression meant that he was a religious and conscientious man, who would never condemn on mere suspicion. It is an assertion, too, on which they are more to rely than on the earlier asseveration made: by the life of Pha- raoh.—Let one of your brethren be bound.— Before, it was said: one shall go, but the others re- main ; now the reverse, and more mildly: one shall remain, but the others may go. This guarantees the return with Benjamin, and leaves them under the impression that they are not yet free from suspicion. Joseph sees the necessity of the others going, for his father’s house must be supplied with bread.—And they did so.—A summary expression of what fol- lows, but anticipatory of their readiness to comply with Joseph’s request—We are verily guilty.— Not: ‘‘ we atone for our brother's death ” (Delitzsch) ; for thus there would be effaced the thought that the guilt was still resting upon them. The expiation is expressed in what follows.—Therefore is this dis- tress come upon. us.—Knobel translates it atoning, and makes the trivial remark: ‘‘All misfortune, ac- cording to the Hebrew notion, is « punishment for sin.” Joseph’s case itself directly contradicts him. —When he besought us.—Thus vividly paints the evil conscience. The narrator had not mentioned this beseeching. Thus are they compelled to make confession in Joseph’s hearing, without the thought that he understands them. But their open confes- sion, made, as it was, before the interpreter, betrays the pressure of their sense of guilt And Reuben answered.— picture of the thoughts that “ accuse or excuse one another” (Rom. ii. 15). Reuben, too, is not wholly innocent; but, as against them, he thought to act the censurer, and what he did to save Joseph he represents in the strongest light. We may, indeed, conclude that his counsel to cast bim into the pit was preceded by unheeded entreaties for his entire freedom.—F'or he spake with them by an interpreter.—Knobel here has to encounter the difficulty that Joseph, “as an officer of the Hyksos” (to use his own language), assumes the ap- pearance of not being able to speak Hebrew.—And he turned himself about from them.—Overcome by his emotion, he has to turn away and weep. This is repeated more powerfully at the meeting with Benjamin (ch. xliii. 80), and finally, in a most touch- ing manner, after Judah’s appeal (ch, xliv. 18, ate The cause of this emotion, thrice repeated, and eac time with inoreasing power, is, in every instance, some propitiating appeal. In the first case, it is the palliating thought that Reuben, the first-born, in- tended to save him, and yet takes to himself the feel- ing of the guilt that weighed upon them. In the second case it is the appearance of the young and innocent Benjamin, his beloved brother, as though standing before the guilty brethren. In the third instance, it is Judah's self-sacrifice in behalf of Ben- jamin and his father’s house. The.key-note of Jo- seph’s emotion, therefore, is this perception of aton- ‘ing love, purifying the bitter recollection of injustice suffered, A presentiment and a sentiment of recon- CHAP. XLI¥, 1-38. ciliation melt the heart which the mere sense of right might harden, and becomes even a feeling, at the same time, of divine and human reconciliation. Only as viewed from this definite perception can we estimate the more general feelings that flow from it: “painful recollection of the past, and thankfulness to God for his gracious guidance."—And returned to them again—Joseph’s first emotion may, have removed his harsh decisiveness. His feeling of jus- tice, however, is not yet satisfied ; still less is there restored his confidence in his brethren, especially in reference to the future of Benjamin. But before adopting any severer measures, he communed with them, doubtless in a conciliatory manner. Then he takes Simeon, binds him, or orders him to be bound, that he might remain as a hostage for their return. That he does not order Reuben, the first-born, to be bound, explains itself from the discovery of his guiltlessness. Thus Simeon, as standing next, is the first-born of the guilty ones. He did not adopt Reuben’s plan of deliverance, though he did not es- pecially distinguish himself in Joseph’s persecution, as might have been expected of him from his zealous disposition shown in the affair of Shechem,—a fact the more easily credited since neither did Judah, the next after him, agree with the majority. 4, Vers. 25-85. The voluntary release ; the re- turn; the report; the dark omen—To fill their sacks.—nDr">3 , receptacles or vessels, in the most general sense.—To restore every man’s money with his sack.—Joseph would not receive pay from his father, and yet he could not openly return the money without betraying a particular relation to them. Therefore the secret measure, one object of which, doubtless, was to keep up the fear and excite- ment, as it also served to give them reasons for ex- pecting something extraordinary.—Provisions for the way.—To prevent the decrease of their store, and to make unnecessary the premature opening of their sacks —One of them opened his sack.—At the place of their night-quarters. It could not have been what we now call an inn. Delitzsch supposes that, at that time, already, there were shed-like buildings, caravanseras, existing along the route through the desert (Exod. iv. 24), Keil doubts this. The fact of the separate opening of his sack by one of them, demands no explanation. He might have made a mistake in the sack, or the money might have been put in a wrong one ; but even this circumstance is so arranged as to increase the fear of their awak- ened eonsciences.—What is this that God hath done unto us ?—They are conscious of no decep- tion on their part, and they cannot understand how the Egyptians could have done it. Whether it were an oversight on their side, or a cunning trick of the Egyptians to arrest them afterwards for theft—at all events, their aroused consciences tell them that they have now to contend with God. They see a dark and threatening sign in it, now that a sense of God’s judgments is awakened in them.—And they came unto Jacob.—The story of their strange intercourse with the terrible man in Egypt, is confirmed by the fearful discovery made when all the sacks are opened. Joseph’s intimation, which they report, that they might traffic again in Egypt, provided they fulfilled the imposed condition, is a ray of light, which, in their present mood,.they hardly knew how to appreciate. 5, Vers. 36-38. Jacob’s lamentation.—_Me have ‘ye bereaved of my children.—The pain of Simeon’s apparent loss, grief for Joseph here re- 613 newed again, and the anguish concerning Benjamin, move Jacob greatly, and cause him to express him- self, hyperbolically indeed, but still truthfully, ac- cording to his conception, as a man overwhelmed with misfortune, and losing his children, one after the other. So little thought the wise and pious Ja- cob how near was the joyful turning-point in the destiny of his house. His reproach: me have ye be- reaved of my children, as addressed to those who might have formally contradicied it, is more forcible in its application than he could have thought. Or had he a presentiment of something he knew not ? In regard to Joseph he could only knowingly charge that he had once sent him to them, and they had not brought him back. In respect to Simeon he could only reproach them with having told too much to the governor of Egypt respecting their family affairs (see ch. xliii.). Respecting Benjamin he could only complain that they should ask to take him along. The aroused consciences of his sons, how- ever, told them that truly all the threatening losses of Jacob were connected with their removal of Jo- seph; for they themselves considered the present catastrophe as a visitation on account of it—And Reuben spake.—With a clearer conscience, he has also more courage; but his offer to leave his sons as hostages, so that Jacob might slay them if he did not return with Benjamin, is more expressive of a rude heroism than of true understanding ; for how could it be a satisfaction to a grandfather to slay both his grandchildren! It can only be understood as a tender of a double blood-vengeance, or as a strong expression of assurance that his return without Ben- jamin was not to be thought of. Knobel thinks it strange that Reuben speaks of two sons, since at the time of the emigration to Egypt, according to ch. xlvi., he had four sons. And yet he was quite ad- vanced in years, according to the Elohistic account! —With sorrow to the grave (see ch. xxxvii. 35 ; 1 Kings ii. 6, 9). DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL. 1. A chapter showing the unfailing fulfilment of the divine decrees, the power of a guilty conscience, the righteous punishment of guilty concealers as visited by suspicion on all sides, the certainty of final retribution, the greatness of moral struggles, the imaginations of an evil consciente, the presenti- ments of misfortune as felt by a gray-haired sire in a guilty house, and, with it all, the change from judgment to recbdnciliation and salvation in the life of the now docile sons of the promise. 2. They came at last ; late indeed, but come they must, even if it had been from the remotest bounds of the earth. Joseph’s brethren were to eome and bow themselves down before him. God’s decrees must stand. It is not because Joseph saw it in a dream, but because in the dreams there was represented the realization of God’s decrees as al- ready interweaving themselves with the future of the sons in the innermost movements of their most in terior life. So sure is the fulfilment of the divine counsels,—so unfailingly grow the germs of destiny - in the deepest life of man. * 3. Why do the sons of Jacob look so helplessly one upon the other? Why does it not come into their minds that corn is for sale in Egypt, and that a caravan of travellers is making preparation in their vicinity? To their guilty conscience, Egypt is a 614 foreboding name, threatening calamity. If they must go, however, they would rather go all together, that, in the multitude, they may find mutual encour- agement. They have to explain why they come ten strong, and are thus driven to speak about Joseph ; but with what embarrassment do they pass hastily over one who is no more! And now, terrified by the prospect of imprisonment, and threatened with death, they are unable, even in Joseph’s presence, and within the bearing of the interpreter, to suppress their self-accusation : ‘‘ We are verily guilty concern- ing our brother.” And now, again, bow vividly come to their minds the prayers of that brother, in vain beseeching them for mercy. So truthful is. the memory of conscience. The money, too, found again in the sack of one of them, becomes another fearful sign that the divine judgments are at last to descend upon them. The last discovery of it in the sacks of all of them, fills up the measure of their fears. All favorable signs are gone: the twofold mitigation of Joseph’s purpose; his assurance: I fear God; his explanation that Benjamin’s appear- ance would satisfy him; the voluntary release; the finding again of their money. Reuben, too, though having a better conscience, shares in their feelings ; he sees coming down upon them the full visitation of their blood-guiltiness; even the pious father has a foreboding, becoming even more distinct, that somehow, through the crime of his sons, a dark doom is impending over his house. Therefore is he not willing to trust his Benjamin, for so long a jour- ney, to these sons, who seem, for some reason, to have a guilty conscience,—it may be in relation to Joseph. 4, Ye are spies, Though Joseph’s suspicion was unfounded, it expresses a righteous judgment: that guilty men who conceal a crime demanding an open atonement, must ever encounter suspicion as the re- flex of their evil secret. Even when trusted they cannot believe it, because not yet true to themselves. To Joseph it must have appeared strangely suspicious that they came without Benjamin. 5. By regarding Joseph as a saintly man, who, from the very first, and with a freely reconciled spirit, was only imposing a divine trial upon his brothers, and leading them to repentance through a soul-enlightening discipline, we raise him above the Old-Testament stand-point ; to say nothing of the fact that Joseph could not at first have known whether these;*his half-brothers, were not also the persecutors of Benjamin, and with as deadly a hatred, perhaps, as they had shown to hima. Neither had he any means of knowing whether or not he could ever be on friendly terms with them. But that he is to pass through great religious and moral struggle with himself, is evident from his wavering decisions, from the time he takes for consideration, and espe- cially, from the fact that he postpones the trial even after they had brought Benjamin to him. He adopts 4 course in which both his aged father and his be- loved Benjamin are exposed, temporarily, to the greatest distress. Decidedly, from the very begin- ning, does he take a noble position, but by severe Struggles is he to attain to that holy stand-point of complete forgiveness; and for this purpose his brothers’ confession of their guilt, and especially the appearance of Reuben, Benjamin, and Judah, are blessed to him, just as his own conduct assisted the brothers in bringing on their struggles of repentance and self-sacrifice by faith. 6. The turning of judgment into reconciliation. GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. A principal point in this is the involuntary confes- sion of the brethren in Joseph’s hearing, the discov- ery of Reuben’s attempt to save him, the atonement made by the proud-hearted Simeon, the melting of the brothers’ obduracy, and, through it, of Joseph’s exasperation. Above all, the recognition tliat God’s searching providence is present throughout the whole development. ‘ Whatsoever maketh manifest is light ” (Epb. v.13). Thus under-the light of Christ’s cross the entire darkness of the world’s guilt was uncovered, and only in such an uncovering could it become reconciled. 7. Even now there already dawns upon Joseph the wonderful fact that his exaltation was owing mediately to the enmity of his brethren, and that they were together both conscious and unconscious instruments of God’s mercy and of his providential design to save much people alive (ch. xlv. and 1.). 8. Jacob feels the burden of his house, and his alarming presentiments of evil become manifest more and more. We must imagine this to ourselves, if we would clearly understand his depression. He is not strengthened by the spirit in his household, but put under restraint and weariness. He feels that there is something rotten in the foundation of his house. 9. Here, too, death is not denoted as a descend- ing into Sheol, but as the dying from the heart’s sor- row of an uncompleted life. Opposed to it is the going home to the fathers when the soul is satisfied with the life on earth, and its enjgmas are all solved. HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL, See Doctrinal and Ethical. The brethren appear- ing before Joseph. Thus the world before Christ, the oppressors in the forum of the oppressed, the wicked at the judgment-seat of the pious.—Joseph and his brethren as they stand confronting each other: 1. He recognizes them, but they do not ree- ognize him; 2. the positions of the parties are changed, but Joseph exercises mercy; 8. the judg- ment must precede the reconciliation; 4. human and divine reconciliation go together. We are verily guilty concerning our brother. 1. This language considered in their sense; 2. according to Joseph’s understanding ; 8. in the sense of the spirit. The guilty conscience terrified, at first, by signs that were really favorable. Jacob’s lamentation as the seem- ing curse of his house becomes gradually known. At the extremest need help is near. Benjamin's dark prospects (his mother dead, his brother lost, himself threatened with misfortune), and their favor- able issue. Taube: The hours of repentance that come to Joseph’s brethren: 1. How the sinner is led to re- pentance; 2. how repentance manifests itself; 3. the relation of the Lord to the penitent sinner. First Section (vers. 1-6). Srarge: The utility of commerce. The different products which God has given to different countries, demand mutual in- tercourse for their attainment. A believer must em- ploy ordinary means, and not tempt God by their refusal. Nothing can hinder God’s decrces in behalf of the pious—Scuriper: The guilt of Benjamin's brothers in respect to Joseph seems to weigh upon the father’s heart as u kind of presentiment.—Cat- wer Handbuch: Joseph's brethren are they called, because Joseph stands here in the foreground of his- tory, and the destiny of the family is connected with CHAP. XLIII. him. The very ten by whom he was sold must bow themselves before him, and receive the righteousand higher requital—Hzm: The expression sons of Is- rael, instead of sons of Jacob, points to Israel the man of faith, whose children they were, who accom- panied them with his prayers, and for whose sake, although he knew it not, this journey to Egypt, so dark in its commencement, became a blessing to them Second Section (vers. 7-17). Srarze: Formerly they regarded him as a spy—now are they treated as spies in turn.—Ver. 15. This expression is not an oath, but only a general asseveration. The first Christians, though making everything a matter of conscience, did not hesitate thus to affirm by the life of the Emperors, but they were unwilling to swear by their divinity. Juramus sicut non per genios Cesarum, ita per salutem eorum que est augustior omnibus geniis. Tert. Apol.—Hatu: The disposi- tion of a Christian is not always to be judged by his outward acts.—Gerruaca: Ver. 9. Nothing is more common than this reproach upon travellers in the East, especially when they would sketch any parts of the country—Scuréper: He who was hungry when they were eating, now holds the food for which they hunger. To him (Joseph) there was committed, for some time, the government of a most important part of the world. He was not only to bless, but also to punish and to judge; é.¢, become forgetful of all human relations and act divinely. [KrumMMAcHER: Still Joseph felt as man, not as though he were Provi- dence.] Joseph plays a wonderful part with his brethren, but one which humbles and exercises him greatly. A similar position God assumes towards believers when in tribulation ; let us, therefore, hold assuredly that all our misfortunes, trials, and la- mentations, even death itself, are nothing but a hearty and fair display of the divine goodness towards us (Luther). Joseph’s suspicion, though feigned in expression, has, nevertheless, a ground of fact in the former conduct of his brothers towards him. Third Section (vers 18-24). Srarxe: God knows how to keep awake the conscience.—Ver. 18. The test of a true Christian in all his doings, is the SEVENTH The second journey. Benjamin accompanying. Their return. 1—XLIV. 1%. 615 fear of the Lord.—Bib/. Tub. : How noble is religion in a judge!—Lance: Chastisements as 1 means of self-examination. There may be times when sins, long since committed, may present themselves so vividly before the eyes as to seem but of yesterday. —Tue samz: God’s wise providence so brings it about, that though a guilty man may escape the de- served punishment for a time, the visitation will surely come, even though it be by God’s permitting misfortunes to fall upon him through the guilt of others, when he himself is innocent. Fourth Section (vers. 25-35). Srarke: Simeon may now let his thoughts wander back, in repentance for his murderous deeds at Shechem, in weeping for the grief he had caused to Joseph, and in imploring God’s forgiveness. God does not bestow the bless- ing of the gospel on the sinner in any other way than in the order of the law, or in the knowledge of his sins, A frightened conscience always expects the worst (Wisd. of Sol, xvii. 11).—Scuréper: Simeon is bound; probably because the leader at Shechem was also the prime mover against Joseph (Baum- garten. Fifth Section (vers, 35-88). SrarKe: He “who wrestled with God (and man) and prevailed, shows here great weakness of faith. Yet he recovers, and again struggles in faith, like Abraham his grand- father.—Cramer: When burdened with trials and temptations, we interpret everything in the worst way, even though it may be for our peace.—GERLACH: Jacob's declarations betray a feeling that the broth- ers were not guiltless respecting Joseph’s disappear- ance. He knew their jealousy, and he had expe- rienced the violent disposition of Simeon and Levi. —Scurépzr: There is nothing so restless or so great a foe to peace as a frightened heart, that turns pale at a glance, or at the rustle of a leaf (Luther). He had long suspected them in regard to Joseph (see ver. 4); the old wound is now opened again. Reu- ben is once more the tender-hearted one. He offers everything (ver. 87) that he may prevail with his father. “But it is out of reason what he offers.” Luther.—Hzm: Jacob’s painful language. There breaks forth now the hard suspicion which he had long carried shut yp in the depths of his own heart. SECTION. Joseph maketh himself known to his brethren. Jacob's joy. —_—_——- Cuarrer XLIII—XLV. A. The trial of the brethren. Their repentance and Joseph’s reconcilableness. Joseph and Benjamin. Cuapter XLIII. 1—XLIV. 17. 1, 2 And the famine was sore in the land. And it came to pass, when they had eaten up the corn which they had brought out of Egypt, their father said unto them, Go 3 again, buy us a little- food. And Judah spake unto him, saying, The man did solemnly 616 GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. 4 5 6 7 10 12 13, 15 16 io 18 19 20, 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 protest unto us, saying, Ye shall not see my face, except your brother de with you. If thou wilt send our brother with us, we will go down and buy thee food; But if thou wilt not send Aim, we will not go down; for the man said unto us, Ye shall not see my face [again], except your brother de with you. And Israel said, Wherefore dealt ye so ill with me, as to tell the man whether ye had yet a brother? And they said, The man asked us straitly of our state, and of our kindred, saying, Zs 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? And Judah said unto Israel his father, Send the lad with me, and we will arise and go; that we may live, and not die, both we, and thou, and also our little ones. I will be surety for him; of my hand shalt thou require him; if I bring him not unto thee, and set him before thee, then let me bear the blame for ever; For except we had lingered, surely now we had returned this second time. And their father Israel said unto them, If ct must be so now, do this; take of the best fruits in the land in your vessels, and carry down the man a present, a little balm, and a little honey, spices, and myrrh, nuts, and almonds; And take double money in your hand; and the money that was brought again in the mouth of your sacks, carry 7f again in your hand; peradventure it was an oversight; 14 Take also your brother, and arise, go again unto the man; And God Almighty give you mercy before the man, that he may send away your other brother, and Benjamin. If I be bereaved of my children, I am bereaved. And the men took that present, and they took double money in their hand, and Benjamin, and rose up, and went down to Egypt, and stood before Joseph. And when Joseph saw Benjamin with them, he said to the ruler of his house, Bring these men home, and slay, and make ready; for these men shall dine with me at noon. And the man did as Joseph bade; and the man brought the men into Joseph’s house. And the men were afraid, because they were brought into Joseph’s house; and they said, Because of the money that was returned in our sacks at the first time are we brought in; that he may seek occasion against us, and fall upon us, and take us for bondmen, and our asses. And they came near to the steward of Joseph’s house, and they communed with him at the door of the house. 21 And said, O sir, we came indeed down at the first time to buy food; And it came to pass, when we came to the inn, that we opened our sacks, and, behold, every man’s money was in the mouth of his sack, our money in full weight ; and we have brought it again in our hand, And other money have we brought down in our hands to buy food; we cannot tell who put our money in our sacks, And he said, Peace be to you, fear not; your God, and the God of your father, hath given you treasure in your sacks; Thad your money. And he brought Simeon out unto them. And 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. And when Joseph came home, they brought him the present which was in their hand into the house, and bowed themselves to him to the earth. And he asked them of thecr welfare, and said, Is your father well, the old man of whom ye spake? Js he yet alive? And they answered, Thy servant our father 7s in good health, he zs yet alive. And they bowed down their heads, and made obeisance. And he lift up his eyes, and saw his brother Benjamin, his mother’s son, and said, Js this your younger brother, of whom ye spake unto me? And he said farther [without waiting foran answer] 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 hes chamber and wept there. And he washed his face, and went out,and refrained himself, and said, Set on bread. And they set cn for him by himself, and for them by themselves, and for the Egyptians, which did eat with him, by themselves; because the Egyptians might not eat bread with the Hebrews: for that 7s an abomination unto the Egyptians, And they sat before him, the first born according to his birthright, and the youngest according to his youth; and the men marvelled one at another. And he took and sent messes unto them from before him; but Benjamin’s mess was five times so much as any of their’s. And they drank, and were merry with him. Cu. XLIV. 1. And Joseph commanded the steward of his house, saying, Fill the men’s sacks with food, as much as they can carry, and put every man’s money in his CHAP. XLIY. 18—XLV. 28. 617 08 bo “ToD Ot 18 19 20 21 23 24 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 84 sack’s mouth. And put my cup, the silver cup, in the sack’s mouth of the youngest, and his corn-money. And he did according to the word that Joseph had spoken. As soon as the morning was light, the men were sent away, they and their asses. And when they were gone out of the city, and not yet far off, Joseph said unto his steward, Up, follow after the men; and when thou dost overtake them, say unto them, Where- fore have ye rewarded evil for good? Js not this ¢¢ in which my lord drinketh, and whereby indeed he divineth? Ye have done evil in so doing. And he overtook them, and he spake unto them these same words. And they said unto him, Wherefore saith my lord these words? God forbid that thy servants should do according to this thing; Behold, the money which we found in our sacks’ mouths, we brought again unto thee out of the land of Canaan; how then should we steal out of thy lord’s house silver or gold? With whomsoever of thy servants it be found, both let him die, and we also will be my lord’s bondmen. And he said, Now also let it be according unto your words; he with whom it is found shall be my servant; and ye shall be blameless. Then they speedily took down every man his sack to the ground, and opened every man his sack. And he searched, and began at the eldest, and left at the youngest; and the cup was found in Benjamin’s sack. Then they rent their clothes, and laded every man his ass, and returned to the city. And Judah and his brethren came to Joseph’s house; for he was yet there; and they fell before him on the ground. And Joseph said unto them, What deed zs this that ye have done? ‘Wot ye not that such a man as I can certainly divine? And Judah said, What shall we say unto my lord? what shall we speak? or how shall we clear ourselves? God hath found out the iniquity of thy servants; behold, we are my lord’s servants, both we, and he also with whom the cup is found. And he said, God forbid that I”should do so; dué 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. B. The narrative of the reconciliation and the recognition. Judah and Joseph. Caap. XLIV. 18—XLV. 28. Then Judah came near unto him, and said, O my lord, let thy servant, I pray thee, speak a word in my lord’s ears, and let not thine anger burn against thy servant; for thou art even as Pharaoh. My lord asked his servants, saying, Have ye a father, or a brother? And we said unto my lord, We have a father, an old man, and a child of his old age, a little one; and his brother is dead, and he alone is left of his mother, and his father loveth him. And thou saidst unto thy servants, Bring him down unto me, that I may set mine eyes upon him. And we said unto my lord, The lad can not leave his father; for 7f he should leave his father, his father would die. And thou saidst unto thy servants, Except your youngest brother come down with you, ye shall see my face no more. And it came to pass when we came up unto thy servant my father, we told him the words of my lord. And our father said, Go again, and buy us a little food. And we said, We can not go down; if our youngest brother be with us, then ‘will we go down; for we may not see the man’s face, except our youngest brother be with us. And thy servant my father said unto us, Ye know that_ my wife bare me two sons; And the one went out from me [and did not return], and I said, Surely he is torn in pieces; and I saw him not since; And if ye take this also from me, and mischief befall him, ye shall bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave [Sheol]. Now, therefore, when I come to thy servant my father, and the lad be not with us, seeing that his life is bound up in the lad’s life; It shall come to pass, when he seeth that the lad ¢s not with us, that he will die; and thy servants shall bring down the gray hairs of thy servant our father with sorrow to the grave. For thy servant became surety for the lad unto my father, saying, If I bring him not unto thee, then I shall bear the blame to my father for ever. Now, therefore, I pray thee, let thy servant abide instead of the lad, a bondman to my lord; and let the lad go up with his brethren. For how shall I go up to my father, ‘and the lad be not with me? lest peradventure I see the evil that shall come on my father. 618 GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. Cu. XLV. 1 Then Joseph could not refrain himself before all them that stood by him ; and he cried, Cause every man to go out from me. And there stood no man with him, 2 while Joseph made himself known unto his brethren. And he wept aloud; and the 3 Egyptians and the house of Pharaoh heard. And Joseph said unto his brethren, I am Joseph; doth my father yet live? And his brethren could not answer him; for they 4 were troubled at his presence. And Joseph said unto his brethren, Come near to me, I pray you. And they came near. And he said, I am Joseph your brother, whom ye sold into Egypt. Now, therefore, be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me thither; for God did send me before you to preserve life. For these two years hath the famine been in the land; and yet there are five years in the which there shall 7 neither de earing nor harvest. And God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity 8 in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance. So now 2 was not you that sent me hither, but God; and he hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of 9 all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt. Haste ye, and go up to my father, and say unto him, Thus saith thy son Joseph, God hath made me lord of all 10 Egypt; come down unto me, tarry not; And thou shalt dwell in the land of Goshen [Hast district of Egypt ; the name is of Koptic origin. Uncertain: district of Hercules], and thou shalt be near unto me, thou, and thy children, and thy children’s children, and thy flocks, and 11 thy herds, and all that thou hast; And there will I nourish thee; for yet there are five years of famine; lest thou, and thy household, and all that thou hast, come to poverty. 12 And, behold, your eyes see, and the eyes of my brother Benjamin, that ¢¢ 7s my mouth 13 that speaketh unto you. And ye shall tell my father of all my glory in Egypt, and of 14 all that ye have seen; and ye shall haste and bring down my father hither. And he fell upon his brother Benjamin’s neck, and wept; and Benjamin wept upon his neck. 15 Moreover he kissed all his brethren, and wept upon them; and after that his brethren talked with him. oo C. The glad tidings to Jacob, vers. 16-28. 16 And the fame thereof was heard in Pharach’s house, saying, Joseph’s brethren are 17 come; and it pleased Pharaoh well, and his servants. And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, Say unto thy brethren, This do ye; lade your beasts, and go, get you unto the land of 18 Canaan; And take your father, and your households, and come unto me; and I will 19 give you the good of the land of Egypt, and ye shall eat the fat of the land. Now thou art commanded, this do ye; take you wagons out of the land of Heypt for your 20 little ones, and for your wives, and bring your father, and come. Also regard not your 21 stuff; for the good of all the land of Egypt 7s yours. And the children of Israel did so; and Joseph gave them wagons, according to the commandment of Pharaoh, and 22 gave them provision for the way. To all of them he gave each man changes of rai- 23 ment; but to Benjamin he gave three hundred pieces of silver, and five changes of raiment. And to his father he sent after this manner; ten asses laden with the good 24 things of Egypt, and ten she-asses laden with corn, and bread, and meat for his father by the way. So he sent his brethren away, and they departed; and he said unto them, 25 See that ye fall not out by the way. And they went up out of Egypt, and came into 26 the land of Canaan unto Jacob their father. And told him, saying, Joseph ¢s yet alive, 27 and he ts governor over all the land of Egypt. And Jacob’s heart fainted, for he be- lieved them not. And they told him all the words of Joseph, which he had said unto them ; and when he saw the wagons which Joseph had sent to carry him, the spirit of 28 Jacob their father revived. And Israel said, It is enough; Joseph my son is yet alive; I will go and see him before I die. {7 Ch. xliii. iW. rboy smboul WIND WN. Rendered: “If Iam bereaved of my children, I am bereaved.” Our translators, by putting in children, would seem to have regarded it as emphatic, thus: If Iam bereaved of my chil- dren, I am bereaved of all. It may be taken, however, as a declaration of submission to what appears inevitable, as in Esth. iv. 16, “HIBN “MTIN “UND + Or it may be regarded asa passionate exaggeration in view of Joseph's sup- a giant Simeon’s confinement, and the demand for Benjamin: I am bereaved of all my children, one after the other.—T. L.] CHAP. XLII. 1—XLYV. 28. 619 [? Ver. 18.) . The » here is servile. Compare Malachi ii. 13 and Gen. xxviii. 6. In Gen. xxx. 15, we have both forms of the infinitive cnn and MTP) in immediate connection. See it explained in the Sepher Harikma, or Hebrew Grammar, of Ben Ganwnaca, p. 30, line 30. He regards both alike as infinitives.—T. L.) [3 Ver. 20.—"9 TX, “a. Gesenius regards °3 in this and some similar cases (see Josh. vii. 8), as a contraction for "33, from the root nzva ) & very rare word in Hebrew, though very commun in the Chaldaic and Syriac. In the sense of entreaty, 95 occurs only Is. xxi. 12, and of inquiry, Obad.6. Abbreviations are made only of words that are much used, and we cannot, therefore, regard it asa forma precationis ("D2 , my prayer), having such an origin. The Targum of Onkelos interprets it in this way, but this is owing to its being written in the Chaldaic language. A much better view is that of Aben Ezra, who regards it as the preposition and pronoun, with an ellipsis of the word i > as in 1 Sam. xxv. 24, "278 "2 y3sn, on me my Lord be the guilt. Or it may be a sort of ejaculatory phrase, with an ellipsis of the precatory verb,—as would seem to be confirmed by Judges vi. 13, 222 MID ws Woy 52, come tell me, my lord, if Jehovah is with us, why, etc. See Ben Gannacu, Sepher Harikma, 32, ai. The view of Gesenius was suggested, probably, by the Syriac rendering of this passage, Judg. vi. 13, we r> ys ta] bss. In Josh. vii. 8, where the same phrase occurs, the Syriac has left it out entirely.—T. L.] PRELIMINARY REMARKS, Contents: a. The trial of the brethren. Their repentance and Joseph’s forgiveness. Joseph and Benjamin. Ch. xliii. 1-xliv. 17: 1. Judahas surety for Benjamin unto his father, vers. 1-14; 2. Joseph and Benjamin, vers. 15-80; 3. the feast in honor of Benjamin, vers. 31-34; 4, the proving of the breth- ren in respect to their disposition towards Benjamin, especially after the great distinction shown to him, eh, xliv. 1-17. b. The story of the reconciliation, and of the recognition, as presented under the an- tithesis of Judah and Joseph, ch. xliv. 18, xlv. 13. 1, Judah as surety and substitute for Benjamin, ch. xliv. 18-34; 2. Joseph’s reconciliation and faking himself known to them, ch. xlv. 1-5; 3. Joseph’s divine peace and divine mission, vers, 5-18; 4. the solemnity of the salutation, vers. 14, 15. c¢. The glad tidings to Jacob, vers. 16-28. 1. Pharaoh’s message to Jacob, vers. 16-20; 2. Joseph’s presents to Jacob, vers. 21-24; 8. the return of Joseph’s brethren ; Pharaoh’s wagons and Jacob's revivifica- tion, vers. 25-28, EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL. a, The proving of the brothers. Their repentance and Joseph's forgiveness. Joseph and Benjamin, ch, xliii, 1; xliv. 17. 1. vers. 1-14; Judah as sure- ty for Benjamin unto the father.—Buy us a little bread.—In death and famine a rich supply is but little; so it was especially in Jacob’s numerous fam- ily, in regard to what they had brought the first time. —And Judah spake.—Judah now stands forth as a principal personage, appearing more and more glorious in his dignity, his firmness, his noble dispo- sition, and his unselfish heroism. He, like Reuben, could speak to his father, and with even more free- dom, because he had a freer conscience than the rest, and regarded the danger, therefore, in a milder light. Judah does not act rashly, but as one who has a grand and significant purpose. His explana- tion to the wounded father is as forbearing as it is firm, If they did not bring Benjamin, Simeon was lost, and they themselves, according to Joseph’s threatening, would have no admittance to him—yea, they might even incur death, because they had not removed from themselves the suspicion of their being spies.— Wherefore dealt ye so ill with me ?— Knopet: “His grief and affliction urge him on to reproach them without reason.” Unreasonable, however, as it appears, it becomes significant on the supposition that he begins to read their guilty con- sciences, and, especially, when, with the one pre- ceding, we connect the expression that follows: Me have ye bereaved of my children. The man asked us straitly.—[Lange translates the Hebrew téagit baud binw literally, or nearly so: er fragte und fragte uns aus; or, as it might be rendered, still closer to the letter, he asked to ask ; or, if we take the infinitive in such cases as an adverb, he asked inguisitively, and then proceeds to remark]: This expressive connection of the infinitive with the in- dicative in Hebrew must not be effaced by grammat- ical rules; we hold fast to its literalness here. They did not speak forwardly of their family relations, but only after the closest questioning. By this pas- sage and Judah’s speech (ch. xliv.), the account in the preceding chapter (ver. 32) is to be supplemented, They owed him an answer, since the question was to remove his suspicion; and, moreover, they had no presentiment of what he wanted.—Send the lad with me.—"MX (with me) says the brave Judah. He presents himself as surety ; he will take the guilt and bear the blame forever. The strong man prom- ises all he can, To offer to the grandfather his own grandchildren, as Reuben offered his sons, that he might put them to death, was too unreal and hyper- bolical to occur to him. We become acquainted with him here as a man full of feeling, and of most energetic speech, as ver, 3, and ch. xxxiii. had be- fore exemplified. He eloquently shows how they are all threatened with starvation, The expression, too: Surely now we had returned the second time, promises a happy issue.—If it must be so now.—Jacob had once experienced, in the case of Esau, that presents had an appeasing effect on hos- tile dispositions. From this universal human expe- rience there is explained the ancient custom, es- pecially in the East, of rendering rulers favorably disposed by gifts (see 1 Kings x. 25; Matt. ii. 11; Prov. xviii. 16; xix. 6).—Of the first fruits of the land.—(Lange translates: Of that which is most praiseworthy.) Literally, of the song; i. c., that which was celebrated in song. The noblest products of nature are, for the most part, celebrated and sym- bolized in poetry. In presents to distinguished per- sons, however, the simple money-value of the things avails but little; it is the peculiar quality, or some poetic fragrance attached to them, that makes them effective. Delitzsch doubts this explanation, but without sufficient reason. They are especially to take balm, the pride of Canaan, but in particular of Gilead. Then honey. Knobel and Delitzsch sup- pose it to be the honey of grapes, Arab., dibs, “Grape syrup; i. e., must boiled down to one third, 620 GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES. an article, of which, even at the present day, there are sent yearly three hundred camel-loads from He- bron’s vicinity to Egypt.” Delitzsch. But this very abundance of the syrup of grapes would lead us to decide rather for the honey of bees, were it not for the consideration, that in the Egypt of to-day great attention is given to the raising of bees, and that it ig no wine country, although not wholly without the culture of the vine (ch. xl. 10).—Spices.—(Lange, tragacanth-gum.) A kind of white resinous medica- ment (see Winer, Zragacanth),—Myrrh.—Frank- incense, salve medicament (see Winer, Ladanum). —Nuts.—The Hebrew word 6°20 occurs here only, but by the Samaritan translation it is interpret- ed of the fruit of the Pistacia vera, ‘‘a tree similar to the terebinth—oblong and angular nuts of the size of a hazel-nut, containing an oily but very pal- atable kernel, which do not, however, grow any more in Palestine (as is stated in Scnupert’s ‘Travels in the East,’ ii. p. 478; iii. 114), but are obtained from Aleppo (comp. Rosgn., in the ‘German Orient. Mag- azine,’ xii. p. 502).” Keil—Almonds.—(See Winer, Almond-tree.) On the productions of Palestine in general, see Can wer Bid/. “ Natural History,” etc.— And take double money.—(Lit. second money. They are not to take advantage of the mistake, even though no unfavorable construction should be put upon it, or it should occasion them no harm.—And God Almighty.—Here, when some strong miracu- lous help is needed, he is again most properly desig- nated by the name El Shadai.—If I be bereaved of my children.—Be it so. An expression of resignation (Esth. iv. 16). As his blessing here is not a prayer full of confidence, so the resignation has not the full expression of sacrifice; for Jacob’s soul is unconsciously restrained by a sense of the ban resting upon his sons. He is bowed down by the spiritual burden of his house. 2. Vers. 15-80. Joseph and Benjamin.—And stood before Joseph.—Knuobel justly states that the audience they had with Joseph did not take place until afterwards. The meaning here is that they took their place in front of Joseph’s house, to- gether with Benjamin and the presents, and so an- nounced to him their arrival— Bring these men home.—With joy had Joseph observed Benjamin with them, and concludes from thence that they had practised no treachery upon him, through hatred to the children of Rachel, the darlings of their father. Benjamin’s appearance sheds a reconciling light upon the whole group. He intends, therefore, to re- ceive them in a friendly and hospitable manner. His staying away, however, until noon, characterizes not only the great and industrious statesman, but also the man of sage discretion, who takes time to consult with himself about his future proceeding.— And stay.—Bohlen’s assertion that the higher castes in Egypt ate no meat at all, is refuted by Kno- BEL, p. 326.—-At noon.—The time when they par- took of their principal meal (ch. xviii. 1)—And the men were afraid.—Judging from their for- miner treatment they know not what to make of their being thus led into his house. If a distinction, it is an incomprehengibly great one; they, therefore, ap- prehended a plan for their destruction. Some mon- strous intrigue they, perhaps, anticipate, having its introduction in the reappearance of the money in their sacks, whilst the fearful imagination of an evil conscience begins to paint the consequences (sec ver. 18), “A thief, if unable to make restitution, was sold asa slave (Exod. xxii. 3).” Therefore they are not willing to enter until they have justified them- selves about the money returned in their sacks. They address themselves, on this account, to Joseph’s steward, with an explanatory vindication —When we came to the inn.—In a summary way they here state both facts (ch. xlii. 27; and xlii. 35) to- gether. For afterwards they might have concluded that the money found in the sack of one of them was a sign that that money had been returned in all the sacks.—In full weight.—There was, as yet, no coined money, only rings or picces of metal, which were reckoned by weight.—Peace be to you.—It can hardly be supposed that the steward was let into Joseph’s plan. He knew, however, that Joseph him- self had ordered the return of the money, and might have supposed that Joseph’s course toward them, as his countrymen, had in view a happy issue. In this sense it is that he encourages them.—Your God and the God of your father.—The shrewd stew- ard is acquainted with Joseph’s religiousness, and, pethaps, has adopted it himself. He undoubtedly regards them as confessors of the same faith with Joseph. Kyosen: “ His own good fortune each man deduces from the God he worships (Hos. ii. 7).”— Has given you treasure.—Thus intimating some secret means by which God had given it to them; but for all this they still remain uneasy, though suf- ficiently calmed by his verbal acknowledgment of receipt: I had your money, but more so by the releasing of Simeon. It is not until now that they enter the house which they had before regarded as a snare. Now follaw the hospitable reception, the disposition of the presents, Joseph’s greeting, and their obeisance.—And he asked them of their welfare.—This was his greeting. See the contrast, ch. xxxvii. 4. For the inquiry after thcir father’s welfare they thank him by the most respectful obei- sance, an expression of their courtesy and of their filial piety. They represent their father, just as Ben- jamin represents the mother, and so it is that his dream of the sun and moon fulfils itself (ch. xxxvii. 9). If we suppose Benjamin born about a year be- fore Joseph’s sale, he would be now twenty-three years of age. Knobel does not know how to under- stand the repeated expressions of his youth ("33, etc.) But they are explained from the tender care exercised towards him, and from the great difference between his age and that of his brothers—And he said.—It is very significant that Joseph does not wait for ananswer. He recognizes him immediately, and bis heart yearns.—IMy son.—