1 " Hie igitur fons est, ex quo manat totura jus civile et jus gentium. Nam si Deus concedit homini potestatem super vitam et mortem, profecto etiam concedit potestatem super id, quod minus est, ut sunt fortunse, familia, uxor, liberi, servi, agri; Haec omnia vult certorum hominum potestati esse obnoxia Deus, ut reos puniant." — Luther.
Vers. 8-17. To give Noah and his sons a firm assurance of the prosperous continuance of the human race, God condescended to establish a covenant with them and their descendants, and to confirm this covenant by a visible sign for all generations. n''"i2 D''ipn is not equivalent to JVQ JTQ; it does not denote the formal conclusion of an actual covenant, but the " setting up of a covenant," or the giving of a promise possessing the nature of a covenant. In summing up the animals in ver. 10, the prepositions are accumulated: first ^ embracing the whole, then the partitive |p restricting the enumeration to those which went out of the ark, and lastly?, " with regard to,'" extending it again to every individual. There was a correspondence between the covenant (ver. 11) and the sign which was to keep it before the sight of men (ver. 12): " / give (set) My bow in the cloud" (ver. 13). When God gathers (l^V ver. 14, lit. clouds) clouds over the earth, " the bow shall be seen in the cloud" and that not for man only, but for God also, who will look at the bow, " to remember His everlasting covenant." An " everlasting covenant" is a covenant " for perpetual generations " i.e. one which shall extend to all ages, even to the end of the world. The fact that God Himself would look at the bow and remember His covenant, was " a glorious and living expression of the great truth, that God's covenant signs, in which He has put His promises, are real vehicles of His grace, that they have power and essential worth not only with men, but also before God" {0. v. Gerlach). The establishment of the rainbow as a covenant sign of the promise that there should be no flood again, presupposes that it appeared then for the first time in the vault and clouds of heaven. From this it may be inferred, not that it did not rain before the flood, which could hardly be reconciled with chap. ii. 5, but that the atmosphere was differently constituted; a supposition in perfect harmony with the facts of natural history, which point to differences in the climate of the earth's surface before and after the flood. The fact that the rainbow, that " coloured splendour thrown by the bursting forth of the sun upon the departing clouds," is the result of the reciprocal action of light, and air, and water, is no disproof of the origin and design recorded here. For the laws of nature are ordained by God, and have their ulti mate ground and purpose in the divine plan of the universe which links together both nature and grace. " Springing as it does from the effect of the sun upon the dark mass of clouds, it typifies the readiness of the heavenly to pervade the earthly; spread out as it is between heaven and earth, it proclaims peace between God and man; and whilst spanning the whole horizon, it teaches the all-embracing universality of the covenant of grace" (Delitzsch).
Vers. 18-29. The secortc? occurrence in the life of Noah after the flood exhibited the germs of the future development of the human race in a threefold direction, as manifested in the characters of his three sons. As all the famihes and races of man descend from them, their names are repeated in ver. 18; and in prospective allusion to what follows, it is added that " Ham was the father of Canaan^ From these three " the earth (the earth's population) spread itself out" " The earth" is used for the population of the earth, as in chap. x. 25 and xi. 1, and just as lands or cities are frequently substituted for their inhabitants. nifW: probably Niphal for "^ys^^, from J^B to scatter (xi. 4), to spread out. " And Noah the husbandman began, and planted a vineyard^ As noisn B'^s cannot be the predicate of the sentence, on account of the article, but must be in apposition to Noah, V^]'! and 7^*1 must be combined in the sense of " began to plant" {Ges. § 142, 3). The writer does not mean to aifirm that Noah resumed his agricultural operations after the flood, but that as a husbandman he began to cultivate the vine; because it was this which furnished the occasion for the manifestation of that diversity in the character of his sons, which was so eventful in its consequences in relation to the future history of their descendants. In ignorance of the fiery nature of wine, Noah drank and was drunken, and uncovered himself in his tent (ver. 21). Although excuse may be made for this drunkenness, the words of Luther are still true: " Qui excusant patriarcham, volentes hanc consolationem, quam Spiritus S. ecclesiis necessariam jvdicavit, abjiciunt, quod scilicet etiam summi sancti aliquando labnntur." This trifling fall served to display the hearts of his sons. Ham saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without. Not content with finding pleasure himself in his father's shame, " nunquam enim vino victum patrem jilius risisset, nisi prius ejecisset animo illam reverentiam et opinionem, quce in liberis de parentibus ex mandato Dei existere debet" (^Luther), he must proclaim his disgraceful pleasure to his brethren, and thus exhibit his shame- less sensuality. The brothers, on the contrary, with reverential modesty covered their father with a garment Qvp^T] the garment, which was at hand), walking backwards that they might not see his nakedness (ver. 23), and thus manifesting their childlike reverence as truly as their refined purity and modesty. For this they receive their father's blessing, whereas Ham reaped for his son Canaan the patriarch's curse. In ver. 24 Ham is called I^pn i33 "his (Noah's) little son," and it is questionable whether the adjective is to be taken as comparative in the sense of " the younger," or as superlative, meaning " the youngest." Neither grammar nor the usage of the language will enable us to decide. For in 1 Sam. xvii. 14, where David is contrasted with his brothers, the word means not the youngest of the four, but the younger by the side of the three elder, just as in chap. i. 16 the sun is called "the great" light, and the moon " the little" light, not to show that the sun is the greatest and the moon the least of all lights, but that the moon is the smaller of the two. If, on the other hand, on the ground of 1 Sam. xvi. 11, where "the little one" undoubtedly means the youngest of all, any one would press the superlative force here, he must be prepared, in order to be consistent, to do the same with haggadol, " the great one," in chap. X. 21, which would lead to this discrepancy, that in the verse before us Ham is called Noah's youngest son, and in chap. x. 21 Shem is called japhet's oldest brother, and thus implicite Ham is described as older than Japhet. If we do not wish lightly to introduce a discrepancy into the text of these two chapters, no other course is open than to follow the LXX., Vulg. and others, and take " the little" here and " the great" in chap. X. 21 as used in a comparative sense. Ham being represented here as Noah's younger son, and Shem in chap. x. 21 as Japhet's elder brother. Consequently the order in which the three names stand is also an indication of their relative ages. And this is not only the simplest and readiest assumption, but is even confirmed by chap, x., though the order is inverted there, Japhet being mentioned first, then Ham, and Shem last; and it is also in harmony with the chronological datum in chap. xi. 10, as compared with chap. v. 32 {vid. chap. xi. 10).
To understand the words of Noah with reference to his sons (vers. 25—27), we must bear in mind, on the one hand, that as the moral nature of the patriarch was transmitted by generation to his descendants, so the diversities of character in the sons of Noah foreshadowed diversities in the moral inchnations of tlic tribes of which they were the liead; and on the other hand, that Noah, through the Spirit and power of tliat God with whom he walked, discerned in the moral nature of his sons, and the different tendencies which they already displayed, the germinal commencement of the future course of their posterity, and uttered words of blessing and of curse, which were prophetic of the history of the tribes that descended from them. In the sin of Ham " there lies the great stain of the whole Kamitic race, whose chief characteristic is sexual sin" (Ziegler); and the curse which Noah pronounced upon this sin still rests upon the race. It was not Ham who was cursed, however, but his son Canaan. Ham had sinned against his father, and he was punished in his son. But the reason why Canaan was the only son named, is not to be found in the fact that Canaan was the youngest son of Ham, and Ham the youngest son of Noah, as Hofmann supposes. The latter is not an established fact; and the pm*ely external circumstance, that Canaan had the misfortune to be the youngest son, could not be a just reason for cursing him alone. The real reason must either lie in the fact that Canaan was already walking in the steps of his father's impiety and sin, or else be sought in the name Canaan, in which Noah discerned, through the gift of prophecy, a significant omen; a supposition decidedly favoured by the analogy of the blessing pronounced upon Japhet, which is also founded upon the name. Canaan does not signify lowland, nor was it transferred, as many maintain, from the land to its inhabitants; it was first of all the name of the father of the tribe, from whom it was transferred to his descendants, and eventually to the land of which they took possession. The meaning of Canaan is " the submissive one," from VJS to stoop or submit, Hiphil, to bend or subjugate (Deut. ix. 3; Judg. iv. 23, etc.). " Ham gave his son the name from the obedience which he required, though he did not render it himself. The son was to be the servant (for the name points to servile obedience) of a father who was as tyrannical towards those beneath him, as he was refractory towards those above. The father, when he gave him the name, thought only of submission to his own commands. But the secret providence of God, which rules in all such things, had a different submission in view" (Hengstenberg, Christol.i. 28, transL). "Servant of servants (i.e. the lowest of slaves, vid. Ewald, § 313) let him become to his brethren." Although this curse was expressly pronounced upon Canaan alone, the fact that Ham had no share in Noah's blessing, either for himself or his other sons, was a sufficient proof that his whole family was included by implication in the curse, even if it was to fall chiefly upon Canaan. And history confirms the supposition. The Canaanites were partly exterminated, and partly subjected to the lowest form of slavery, by the Israelites, who belonged to the family of Shem; and those who still remained were reduced by Solomon to the same condition (1 Kings ix. 20, 21). The Phoenicians, along with the Carthaginians and the Egyptians, who all belonged to the family of Canaan, were subjected by the Japhetic Persians, Macedonians, and Romans; and the remainder of the Hamitic tribes either shared the same fate, or still sigh, like the negroes, for example, and other African tribes, beneath the yoke of the most crushing slavery. — ^Ver. 26. In contrast with the curse, the blessings upon Shem and Japhet are introduced with a fresh " and he said^^ whilst Canaan's servitude comes in like a refrain and is mentioned in connection with both his brethren: " Blessed he Jehovah, the God of Shem, and let Canaan be servant to them." Instead of wishing good to Shem, Noah praises the God of Shem, just as Moses in Deut. xxxiii. 20, instead of blessing Gad, blesses Him " that enlargeth Gad," and points out the nature of the good which he is to receive, by using the name Jehovah. This is done "propter excellentem benedictionem. Non enim loquitur de corporali benedictione, sed de henedictione futura per semen promissum. Earn tantam videt esse ut explicari verbis non possit, idea se vertit ad gratiarum actionem^' (^Luther). Because Jehovah is the God of Shem, Shem will be the recipient and heir of all the blessings of salvation, which God as Jehovah bestows upon mankind, io? = Dn? neither stands for the singular i? (Ges. § 103, 2), nor refers to Shem and Japhet. It serves to show that the announcement does not refer to the personal relation of Canaan to Shem, but applies to their descendants. — ^Ver. 27. " Wide let God make it to Japhet, and let him dwell in the tents of Shem." Starting from the meaning of the name, Noah sums up his blessing in the word P}^] (japht), from nns to be wide (Prov. XX. 19), in the Hiphil with?, to procure a wide space for any one, used either of extension over a wide territory, or of removal to a free, unfettered position; analogous to^^T)"]?!, chap, xxvi. 22; Ps. iv. 1, etc. Both allusions must be retained here, so that the promise to the family of Japhet embraced not only a wide extension, but also prosperity on every hand. This blessing was desired by Noah, not from Jeliovah, the God of Shem, who bestows saving spiritual good upon man, but from Elohim, God as Creator and Governor of the world; for it had respect primarily to the blessings of the earth, not to spiritual blessings; although Japhet would participate in these as well, for he should come and dwell in the tents of Shem. The disputed question, whether God or Japhet is to be regarded as the subject of the verb " shall dwell," is already decided by the use of the word Elohim. If it were God whom Noah described as dwelling in the tents of Shem, so that the expression denoted the gracious presence of God in Israel, we should expect to find the name Jehovah, since it was as Jehovah that God took up His abode among Shem in Israel. It is much more natural to regard the expression as applying to Japhet, (a) because the refrain, "Canaan shall be his servant," requires that we should understand ver. 27 as applying to Japhet, like ver. 26 to Shem; (b) because the plural, tents, is not applicable to the abode of Jehovah in Israel, inasmuch as in the parallel passages *' we read of God dwelling in His tent, on His holy hill, in Zion, in the midst of the children of Israel, and also of the faithful dwelling in the tabernacle or temple of God, but never of God dwelling in the tents of Israel " {Hengstenherg); and (c) because we should expect the act of affection, which the two sons so delicately performed in concert, to have its corresponding blessing in the relation established between the two (Delitzsch). Japhet's dwelling in the tents of Shem is supposed by Bochart and others to refer to the fact, that Japhet's descendants would one day take the land of the Shemites, and subjugate the inhabitants; but even the fathers almost unanimously understand the words in a spiritual sense, as denoting the participation of the Japhetites in the saving blessings of the Shemites. There is truth in both views. Dwelling presupposes possession; but the idea of taking by force is precluded by the fact, that it would be altogether at variance with the blessing pronounced upon Shem. If history shows that the tents of Shem were conquered and taken by the Japhetites, the dwelling predicted here still relates not to the forcible conquest, but to the fact that the conquerors entered into the possessions of the conquered; that along with them they were admitted to the blessings of salvation; and that, yielding to the spiritual power of the vanquished, they lived henceforth in their tents as brethren (Ps. cxxxiii. 1). And if the dwelling of Japhet in the tents of Shem presupposes the conquest of the land of Shem by Japhet, it is a blessing not only to Japhet, but to Shem also, since, whilst Japhet enters into the spiritual inheritance of Shem, he brings to Shem all the good of this world (Isa. Ix.). " The fulfilment," as Delitzscli says, "is plain enough, for we are all Japhetites dwelling in the tents of Shem; and the language of the New Testament is the language of Javan entered into the tents of Shem." To this we may add, that by the Gospel preached in this language, Israel, though subdued by the imperial power of Rome, became the spiritual conqueror of the orbis terrarum Romanus, and received it into his tents. Moreover it is true of the blessing and curse of Noah, as of all prophetic utterances, that they are fulfilled with regard to the nations and families in question as a whole, but do not predict, like an irresistible fate, the unalterable destiny of every individual; on the contrary, they leave room for freedom of personal decision, and no more cut off the individuals in the accursed race from the possibility of conversion, or close the way of salvation against the penitent, than they secure the individuals of the family blessed against the possibility of falling from a state of grace, and actually losing the blessing. Hence, whilst a Hahab and an Araunah were received into the fellowship of Jehovah, and the Canaanitish woman was relieved by the Lord because of her faith, the hardened Pharisees and scribes had woes pronounced upon them, and Israel was rejected because of its unbelief. In vers. 28, 29, the history of Noah is brought to a close, with the account of his age, and of his death.
Of the sons of Noali, all that is handed down is the pedigree of the nations, or the list of the tribes which sprang from them (chap. X.), and the account of the confusion of tongues, together with the dispersion of men over the face of the earth (chap. xi. 1-9); two events that were closely related to one another, and of the greatest importance to the history of the human race and of the kingdom of God. The genealogy traces the origin of the tribes which were scattered over the earth; the confusion of tongues shows the cause of the division of the one human race into many different tribes with peculiar languages.
The genealogy of the tribes is not an ethnographical myth, nor the attempt of an ancient Hebrew to trace the connection of his own people with the other nations of the earth by means of uncertain traditions and subjective combinations, but a historical record of the genesis of the nations, founded upon a tradition handed down from the fathers, which, to judge from its contents, belongs to the time of Abraham (cf. Havernick's Introduction to Pentateuch, p. 118 sqq. transl.), and was inserted by Moses in the early history of the kingdom of God on account of its universal importance in connection with sacred history. For it not only indicates the place of the family which was chosen as the recipient of divine revelation among the rest of the nations, but traces the origin of the entire world, with the prophetical intention of showing that the nations, although they were quickly suffered to walk in their own ways (Acts xiv. IG), were not intended to be for ever excluded from the counsels of eternal love. In this respect the genealogies prepare the way for the promise of the blessing, which was one day to spread from the chosen family to all the families of the earth (chap. xii. 2, 3). — The historical character of the genealogy is best attested by the contents themselves, since no trace can be detected, either of any pre-eminence given to the Shemites, or of an intention to fill up gaps by conjecture or invention. It gives just as much as had been handed down with regard to the origin of the different tribes. Hence the great diversity in the lists of the descendants of the different sons of Noah. Some are brought down only to the second, others to the third or fourth generation, and some even further; and whilst in several instances the founder of a tribe is named, in others we have only the tribes themselves; and in some cases we are unable to determine whether the names given denote the founder or the tribe. In many instances, too, on account of the defects and the unreliable character of the accounts handed down to us from different ancient sources with regard to the origin of the tribes, there are names which cannot be identified with absolute certainty.^
Vers. 1-5. Descendants of Japhet. — In ver. 1 the names of the three sons are introduced according to their relative ages, to give completeness and finish to the Tholedoih; but in the genealogy itself Japhet is mentioned first and Shem last, according to the plan of the book of Genesis as already explained at p. 37. In ver. 2 seven sons of Japhet are given. The names, indeed, afterwards occur as those of tribes; but here undoubtedly they are intended to denote the tribe-fathers, and may without hesitation be so regarded. For even if in later times many nations received their names from the lands of which they took possession, this cannot be regarded as a universal rule, since unquestionably the natural rule in the derivation of the names would be for the tribe to be called after its ancestor, and for the countries to receive their names from their earliest inhabitants. Gomer is most probably the tribe of the Cimmerians, who dwelt, according to Herodotus, on the Maeotis, in the Taurian Chersonesus, and from whom are descended the Cumri or Cymry in
' Sam. BocJiart has brought great learning to the explanation of the table of nations in PAaZe^', the first part of his geograpMa sacra, to \fhich. Michaelis and Rosenmuller made valuable additions, — the former in his spicil. geogr. Heir. ext. 1769 and 1780, the latter in his Biblical Antiquities. Knolel has made use of all the modern ethnographical discoveries in his " Vblkertafel der Genesis" (1850), but many of his combinations are very speculative. Kiepert, in his article iiber d. geograpJi. Stellung der nordlichen Lander in der pTionikisch-Jielrdischen Erdkunde (in the Monatsbericlite d. Berliner Akad. 1859), denies entirely the ethnographical character of the table of nations, and reduces it to a mere attempt on the part of the Phoenicians to account for the geographical position of the nations with which they were acquainted.
Wales and Brittany, whose relation to the Germanic Cimhri is still in obscurity. Magog is connected bj Josephus with tlie Scythians on the Sea of Asof and in the Caucasus; but Kiepert associates the name with Macija or Maka, and applies it to Scythian nomad tribes which forced themselves in between the Arian or Arianized Medes, Kurds, and Armenians. Madai are the Medes, called Mada on the arrow-headed inscriptions. Javan corresponds to the Greek 'lawt/, from whom the lonians (^Idove^) are derived, the parent tribe of the Greeks (in Sanskrit Javana, old Persian Juno). Tubal and Meshech are undoubtedly the Tibareni and MoscJii, the former of whom are placed by Herodotus upon the east of the Thermodon, the latter between the sources of the Phasis and Cyrus. Tiras: according to Josephus, the Thracians, whom Herodotus calls the most numerous tribe next to the Indian. As they are here placed by the side of Meshech, so we also find on the old Egyptian monuments Mashuash and Tuirash, and upon the Assyrian Tubal and Misek {Rawlinson). — Ver. 3. Descendants of Gomer. Ashkenaz: according to the old Jewish explanation, the Germani; according to Knobel, the family of Asi, which is favoured by the German legend of Mannus, and his three sons, Jscus (Ask, ^AcrKavios:), Ingus, and Hermino. Kiepert, however, and Bochart decide, on geographical grounds, in favour of the Ascanians in Northern Phrygia. Riphath: in Knobets opinion the Celts, part of whom, according to Plutarch, crossed the opr] 'PiTraca, Montes Rhipaei, towards the Northern Ocean to the furthest limits of Europe; but Josephus, whom Kiepert follows, supposed 'Pi^ddrj^ to be Paphlagonia. Both of these are very uncertain. Togarmah is the name of the Armenians, who are still called the house of Thorgom or Torkomatsi. — Ver. 4. Descendants of Javan. Elishah suggests Elis, and is said by Josephus to denote the JEolians, the oldest of the Thessalian tribes, whose culture was Ionian in its origin; Kiepert, however, thinks of Sicily. Tarshish (in the Old Testament the name of the colony of Tartessus in Spain) is referred by Knobel to the Etruscans or Tyrsenians, a Pelasgic tribe of Greek derivation; but Delitzsch objects, that the Etruscans were most probably of Lydian descent, and, like the Lydians of Asia Minor, who were related to the Assyrians, belonged to the Shemites. Others connect the name with Tarsus in Cilicia. But the connection with the Spanish Tartessus must be retained, although, so long as the orighi of this colony remains in obscurity, nothing further can be determined with regard to the name. Kittim embraces not only the Citicei, Citienses in Cyprus, with the town Cition, but, according to Knohel and Delitzsch, probably " the Carians, who settled in the lands at the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea; for which reason Ezekiel (xxvii. 6) speaks of the " isles of Chittim." Dodanim {Dardani): according to Delitzsch, " the tribe related to the lonians and dwelling with them from the very first, which the legend has associated with them in the two brothers Jasion and Dardanos;" according to Knohel, " the whole of the Illyrian or north Grecian tribe." — Ver. 5. " From these have the islands of the nations divided themselves in their lands;" i.e. from the Japhetites already named, the tribes on the Mediterranean descended and separated from one another as they dwell in their lands, " every one after his tongue, after their families, in their nations^ The islands in the Old Testament are the islands and coastlands of the Mediterranean, on the European shore, from Asia Minor to Spain.
Vers. 6-20. Descendants of Ham. — Cush: the Ethiopians of the ancients, who not only dwelt in Africa, but were scattered over the whole of Southern Asia, and originally, in all probability, settled in Arabia, where the tribes that still remained, mingled with Shemites, and adopted a Shemitic language. Mizraim is Egypt: the dual form Avas probably transferred from the land to the people, referring, however, not to the double strip, i.e. the two strips of land into which the country is divided by the Nile, but to the two Egypts, Upper and Lower, two portions of the country which differ considerably in their climate and general condition. The name is obscure, and not traceable to any Semitic derivation; for the term "li^O in Isa. xix. 6, etc., is not to be regarded as an etymological interpretation, but as a significant play upon the word. The old Egyptian name is Kemi (Copt. Chemi, Keme), which, Plutarch says, is derived from the dark ash-grey colour of the soil covered by the slime of the Nile, but which it is much more correct to trace to Ham, and to regard as indicative of the Hamitic descent of its first inhabitants. Put denotes the Libyans in the wider sense of the term (old Egypt. Phet; Copt. Phaiat), w^ho were spread over Northern Africa as far as Mauritania, wliere even in the time of Jerome a river with the neighbouring district still bore the name of Phut; cf. Bochart, Phal. iv. 33. On Canaan, see chap. ix. 25. — Ver. 7. Descendants of Cush. Seba: the inhabitants of Meroe; according to Knohel, the northern Ethiopians, the ancient Blemmyer, and modern Bisharin. Havilah: the AvdXirai or ^A/3a\cTac of the ancients, the Macrobian Ethiopians in modern Habesh. Sabtah: the Ethiopians inhabiting Hadhramaut, whose chief city was called Sabatha or Sabota. Haamah: 'PejfMci, the inhabitants of a city and bay of that name in southeastern Arabia (^Oman). Sabtecah: the Ethiopians of Caramania, dwelling to the east of the Persian Gulf, where the ancients mention a seaport town and a river ^afivBaKij. The descendants of Raamah, Slieha and JDedan, are to be sought in the neighbourhood of the Persian Gulf, "from which the Sabsean and Dedanitic Cushites spread to the north-west, where they formed mixed tribes with descendants of Joktan and Abraham." See notes on ver. 28 and chap. xxv. 3.
Vers. 8-12. Besides the tribes already named, there sprang from Cush Nitnrod, the founder of the first imperial kingdom, the origin of which is introduced as a memorable event into the genealogy of the tribes, just as on other occasions memorable events are interwoven with the genealogical tables (cf. 1 Chron. ii. 7, 23, iv. 22, 23, 39-41).^ Nimrod " began to be a mighty one in the earths 132 is used here, as in cliap. vi. 4, to denote a man who makes himself renowned for bold and daring deeds. Nimrod was mighty in hunting, and that in opposition to Jehovah (evavTLOv Kvpcov, LXX.); not before Jehovah in the sense of, according to the purpose and will of Jehovah, still less, like DNpK7 in Jonah iii. 3, or rw Qew in Acts vii. 20, in a simply superlative sense. The last explanation is not allowed by the usage of the language, the second is irreconcilable with the context. The name itself, Nimrod from T^O, " we will revolt," points to some violent resistance to God. It is so characteristic that it can only have been given by his contemporaries, and thus have become a proper name.^ In addition to this, Nimrod
^ These analogies overthrow the assertion that the verses before us have been interpolated by the Jehovist into the Elohistic document; since the use of the name Jehovah is no proof of difference of authorship, nor the use of *i^"i for I'l^in, as the former also occurs in vers. 13, 15, 24, and 2G.
as a mighty liunter founded a powerful kingdom; and tlie founding of this kingdom is shown by the verb ^'^Jill with i consec. to have been the consequence or result of his strength in hunting, so that the hunting was most intimately connected with the establishment of the kingdom. Hence, if the expression " a mighty hunter " relates primarily to hunting in the literal sense, we must add to the literal meaning the figurative signification of a " hunter of men " (" a trapper of men by stratagem and force," Herder); Nimrod the hunter became a tyrant, a powerful hunter of men. This course of life gave occasion to the proverb, " like Nimrod, a mighty hunter against the Lord," which immortalized not his skill in hunting beasts, but the success of his hunting of men in the establishment of an imperial kingdom by tyranny and power. But if this be the meaning of the proverb, nin^ "oap " in the face of Jehovah " can only mean in defiance of Jehovah, as Josephus and the Targums understand it. And the proverb must have arisen when other daring and rebellious men followed in Nimrod's footsteps, and must have originated with those who saw in such conduct an act of rebellion against the God of salvation, in other words, with the possessors of the divine promises of grace.^ — ^Ver. 10. " And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel,^' the well-known city of Babylon on the Euphrates, which from the time of Nimrod downwards has been the symbol of the power of the world in its hostility to God; — ^^and JErech" (^Opi^, LXX.), one of the seats of the Cutheans (Samaritans), Ezra iv. 9, no doubt Orchoe, situated, according to Rawlinson, on the site of the present ruins of Warka, thirty hours' journey to the south-east of Babel; — and Accad (^Ap-^dB, LXX.), a place not yet determined, though, judging from its situation between Erech and Calneh, it was not
" Crediderim hominem hunc utpote venatorem ferocem et sodalium comitatu succinctura semper in ore habuisse et ingeminasse, ad reliquos in rebellionem excitandos, illud nimrod, nimrod, h.e. rebellemus, rebellemus, atque inde postea ab aliis, etiam ab ipso Mose, hoc vocabalo tanquam proprio nomine designatum," and who supports his opinion by other similar instances in history.
1 This view of Nimrod and his deeds is favoured by the Eastern legend, which not only makes him the builder of the tower of Babel, which was to reach to heaven, but has also placed him among the constellations of heaven as a heaven-storming giant, who was chained by God in consequence. Vid. Herzog's Real-Encycl. Art. Nimrod.
far from either, and Pressel is probably right in identifying it with the ruins of Nifer, to the south of Hillah; — "and Calneh:" this is found by early writers on the site of Ctesiphon, now a great heap of ruins, twenty hours north-east of Babel. These four cities were in the land of Shinar, i.e. of the province of Babylon, on the Lower Euphrates and Tigris. — Vers. 11, 12. From Shinar Nimrod went to Assyria (pw^ is the accusative of direction), the country on the east of the Tigris, and there built four cities, or probably a large imperial city composed of the four cities named. As three of these cities — Rehoboth-Ir, i.e. city markets (not " street-city," as Bunsen interprets it), Chelach, and Resen — are not met with again, whereas Nineveh was renowned in antiquity for its remarkable size {yid. Jonah iii. 3), the words " this is the great city " must apply not to Resen, but to Nineveh. This is grammatically admissible, if we regard the last three names as subordinate to the first, taking i as the sign of subordination {Ewald, § 339a), and render the passage thus: " he built Nineveh, with Rehoboth-Ir, Cheloch, and Resen between Nineveh and Chelach, this is the great city." From this it follows that the four places formed a large composite city, a large range of towns, to which the name of the (well-known) great city of Nineveh was applied, in distinction from Nineveh in the more restricted sense, with which Nimrod probably connected the other three places so as to form one great capital, possibly also the chief fortress of his kingdom on the Tigris. These four cities most likely correspond to the ruins on the east of the Tigris, which Layard has so fully explored^ viz. Nehhi Yunus and Kouyunjik opposite to Mosul, Khorsahad five hours to the north, and Nimrud eight hours to the south of Mosul.^
Vers. 13, 14. From Mizraim descended Ludim: not the Semitic Ludim (ver. 22), but, according to Movers, the old tribe of the Lewdtah dwelling on the Syrtes, according to others, the Moorish tribes collectively. Whether the name is connected with the Laicd fiumen (Plin. v. 1) is uncertain; in any case Knobel is wrong in thinking of Ludian Shemites, whether Hyksos, who forced their way to Egypt, or Egyptianized Arabians. Anamim: inhabitants of the Delta, according to Knobel. He associates the ' EvefieTiel/j, of the LXX. with
^ This supposition of RawUnson, Grote, M. v. Niebuhr, Knohel, Delitzsch, and others, has recently been adopted by Ewald also.
Sanemliit, or Northern Egypt: " tsanemJdt, i.e. pars, regio septentrionisr Leliahim (= Luhim, Nahum iii. 9) are, accordinif to Josephus, the Al^ve<i or Av^ie<i, not the great Libyan tribe (Phut, ver. 6), which Nahum distinguishes from them, but the Libyaegyptii of the ancients. Naphtucliim: in KnoheVs opinion, the Middle Egyptians, as the nation of Pthali, the god of Memphis: but Bochart is more probably correct in associating the name with Ne^6v<;, in Plut. de Is., the northern coast line of Egypt. Pathrusim: inhabitants of Pathros, IIa6ovp7]<i, Egypt. Petrds, land of the south; i.e. Upper Egypt, the Thebais of the ancients. Casluchim: according to general admission the Colchians, who descended from the Egyptians (Herod, ii. 104), though the connection of the name with Cassiotis is uncertain. "From thence {i.e. from Casluchim, which is the name of both people and country) proceeded the Philistines." Philistim, LXX. ^v\- larieifi or 'AW6(j)v\ot,, lit. emigrants or immigrants from the Ethiopic falldsa. This is not at variance with Amos ix. 7 and Jer. xlvii. 4, according to which the Philistines came from Caphtor, so that there is no necessity to transpose the relative clause after Philistim. The two statements may be reconciled on the simple supposition that the Philistian nation was primarily a Casluchian colony, which settled on the south-eastern coast line of the Mediterranean between Gaza (ver. 19) and Pelusium, but was afterwards strengthened by immigrants from Caphtor, and extended its territory by pressing out the Avim (Deut. ii. 23, cf. Josh. xiii. 3). Caphtorim: according to the old Jewish explanation, the Cappadocians; but according to Lakcmacher's opinion, which has been revived by Ewald, etc., the Cretans. This is not decisively proved, however, either by the name Cherethites, given to the Philistines in 1 Sam. xxx. 14, Zeph. ii. 5, and Ezek. xxv. 16, or by the expression " isle of Caphtor" in Jer. xlvii. 4. — Vers. 15 sqq. From Canaan descended "Zidon his first-born, and HethV Although Zidon occurs in ver. 19 and throughout the Old Testament as the name of the oldest capital of the Phoenicians, here it must be regarded as the name of a person, not only because of the apposition " his first-born," and the verb ^?^, "begat," but also because the name of a city does not harmonize with the names of the other descendants of Canaan, the analogy of which would lead us to expect the nomen gentile " Sidonian" (Judg. iii. 3, etc.);
and lastly, because the word Zidon, from isix to hunt, to catch, is not directly applicable to a sea-port and commercial town, and there are serious objections upon philological grounds to JustirCs derivation, " quam a piscium ubertate Sidona appellaverunt, nampiscem Phoenices Sidon vocanf (yar. hist. 18, 3). Heth is also the name of a person, from which the term Hittite (xxv. 9; Num. xiii. 29), equivalent to " sons of HetK^ (chap, xxiii. 5), is derived. ^^ The Jehusite:" inhabitants of Jebus, afterwards called Jerusalem. " The Amorite:" not the inhabitants of the mountain or heights, for the derivation from "T"?^, " summit," is not established, but a branch of the Canaanites, descended from Emor (Amor), which was spread far and wide over the mountains of Judah and beyond the Jordan in the time of Moses, so that in chap. xv. 16, xlviii. 22, all the Canaanites are comprehended by the name. " The Cfirgashites" Tepr^eaalo'i (LXX.), are also mentioned in chap. xv. 21, Deut. vii. 1, and Josh. xxiv. 11; but their dwelling-place is unknown, as the reading Pepye- (T7]voi in Matt. viii. 28 is critically suspicious. " The Hivites^' dwelt in Sichem (xxxiv. 2), at Gibeon (Josh. ix. 7), and at the foot of Hermon (Josh xi. 3); the meaning of the word is uncertain. ''The Arkites:" inhabitants of '-^/j/ct;, to the north of Tripolis at the foot of Lebanon, the ruins of which still exist (yid. Robinson). "The Sinite:" the inhabitants of Sin or Sinna, a place in Lebanon not yet discovered. " The Arvadite" or. Aradians, occupied from the eighth century before Christ, the small rocky island of Arados to the north of Tripolis. " The Zemarite:" the inhabitants of Simyra in Eleutherus. " The Hamathite: " the inhabitants or rather founders of Hamath on the most northerly border of Palestine (Num. xiii. 21, xxxiv. 8), afterwards called Epiphania, on the river Orontes, the present Hamdh, with 100,000 inhabitants. The words in ver. 18, " and afterward were the families of the Canaanites spread abroad" mean that they all proceeded from one local centre as branches of the same tribe, and spread themselves over the country, the limits of which are given in two directions, with evident reference to the fact that it was afterwards promised to the seed of Abraham for its inheritance, viz. from north to south, — "from Sidon, in the direction (lit. as thou comest) towards Gerar (sec chap. XX. 1), unto Gaza^^ the primitive Avvite city of the Philistines (Deut. ii. 23), now called Guzzeh, at the S.W. comer of
Palestine, — and thence from Avest to east, 'Hn the direction towards Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zehoim (see xix. 24) to Lesha^^ i.e. Calirrhoe, a place with sulphur baths, on the eastern side of the Dead Sea, in Wady Serha Maein (^Seetzen and Hitter).
Vers. 21-32. Descendants of Shem. — ^Ver. 21. For the construction, vid. chap. iv. 26. Shem is called the father of all the sons of Eber, because two tribes sprang from Eber through Peleg and Joktan, viz. the Abrahamides, and also the Arabian tribe of the Joktanides (vers. 26 sqq.). — On the expression, " the brother of Japhet ''^"'^n," see chap. ix. 24. The names of the five sons of Shem occur elsewhere as the names of tribes and countries; at the same time, as there is no proof that in any single instance the name was transferred from the country to its earliest inhabitants, no well-grounded objection can be offered to the assumption, which the analogy of the other descendants of Shem renders probable, that they were originally the names of individuals. As the name of a people, Elam denotes the Elymceans, who stretched from the Persian Gulf to the Caspian Sea, but who are first met with as Persians no longer speaking a Semitic language. Asshur: the Assyrians who settled in the country of Assyria, 'Arovpla, to the east of the Tigris, but who afterwards spread in the direction of Asia Minor. Arphaxad: the inhabitants of 'AppaTra'^iri^ in northern Assyria. The explanation given of the name, viz. " fortress of the Chaldeans" (Ewald), " highland of the Chaldeans " (Knobel), " territory of the Chaldeans" (Dietrich), are very questionable. Lud: the Lydians of Asia Minor, whose connection with the Assyrians is confirmed by the names of the ancestors of their kings. Aram: the ancestor of the Aramceans of Syria and Mesopotamia. — Ver 23. Descendants of Aram. Uz: a name which occurs among the Nahorides (chap. xxii. 21) and Horites (xxxvi. 28), and which is associated with the Alalrac of Ptolemy, in Arabia deserta towards Babylon; this is favoured by the fact that Uz, the country of Job, is called by the LXX. Xcopa Avatrfi, although the notion that these Aesites were an Aramsean tribe, afterwards mixed up with Nahorides and Horites, is mere conjecture. JIul: Delitzsch associates this with Cheli (Cheri), the old Egyptian name for the Sja'ians, and the Hylatce who dwelt near the Emesenes (Plin. 5, 19). G ether he connects with the name given in the Arabian legends to the ancestor of the tribes Themud and Ghadis. Mash: for which we find Meshech in 1 Chron. i. 17, a tribe mentioned in Ps. cxx. 5 along with Kedar, and since the time of Bochart generally associated with the 6po<i Mdacov above Nisibis. — Ver. 25. Among the descendants of Arphaxad, Eber's eldest son received the name of Peleg, because in his days the earth, i.e. the population of the earth, was divided, in consequence of the building of the tower of Babel (xi. 8). His brother Joktan is called Kachtan by the Arabians, and is regarded as the father of all the primitive tribes of Arabia. The names of his sons are given in vers. 26-29. There are thirteen of them, some of which are still retained in places and districts of Arabia, whilst others are not yet discovered, or are entirely extinct. Nothing certain has been ascertained about Ahnodad, Jerah, Diklah, Obal, Abimael, and Jobab. Of the rest, Sheleph is identical with Salif or Sulaf (in Ptol. 6, 7, ^aXairi^voL), an old Arabian tribe, also a district of Yemen. Ilazarmaveth (i.e. forecourt of death) is the Arabian Hadhramaut in South-eastern Arabia on the Indian Ocean, whose name Jauhari is derived from the unhealthiness of the climate. Hadoram: the ^ASpafurat of Ptol. 6, 7, Atramitce of Plin. 6, 28, on the southern coast of Arabia. Uzal: one of the most important towns of Yemen, south-west of Mareh. Sheba: the Sabceans, with the capital Saba or Mareb, Mariaba regia (Plin.), whose connection with the Cushite (ver. 7) and Abrahamite Sabaeans (chap. xxv. 3) is quite in obscurity. Ophir has not yet been discovered in Arabia; it is probably to be sought on the Persian Gulf, even if the Ophir of Solomon was not situated there. HavilaJi appears to answer to Chaulaw of Edrisiy a district between Sanaa and Mecca. But this district, which lies in the heart of Yemen, does not fit the account in 1 Sam. xv. 7, nor the statement in chap. xxv. 18, that Havilah formed the boundary of the territory of the Ishmaelites. These two passages point rather to Xavkoralot, a place on the border of Arabia Petraea towards Yemen, between the Nabatseans and Hagrites, which Strabo describes as habitable. — Ver. 30. The settlements of these Joktanides lay "from Mesha towards Sephar the mountain of the East." Mesha is still unknown: according to Gesenius, it is Mesene on the Persian Gulf, and in Knobefs opinion, it is the valley of Bisha or Beislie in the north of Yemen; but both are very improbable. Sephar is supposed by Mesnel to be the ancient Himyaritish capital, Shafdr, on the Indian Ocean; and the mountain of the East, the mountain of incense, which is situated still farther to the east. — The genealogy of the Shemites closes with ver. 31, and the entire genealogy of the nations with ver. 32. According to the Jewish Midrash, there are seventy tribes, with as many different languages; but this number can only be arrived at by reckoning Nimrod among the Hamites, and not only placing Peleg among the Shemites, but taking his ancestors Salah and Eber to be names of separate tribes. By this we obtain for Japhet 14, for Ham 31, and for Shem 25, — in all 70 names. The Rabbins, on the other hand, reckon 14 Japhetic, 30 Hamitic, and 26 Semitic nations; whilst the fathers make 72 in all. But as these calculations are perfectly arbitrary, and the number 70 is nowhere given or hinted at, we can neither regard it as intended, nor discover in it " the number of the divinely appointed varieties of the human race," or " of the cosmical development," even if the seventy disciples (Luke x. 1) were meant to answer to the seventy nations whom the Jews supposed to exist upon the earth. — Ver. 32. The words, '^ And hy these were the nations of the earth divided in the earth after the jiood^^ prepare the way for the description of that event which led to the division of the one race into many nations with different languages.
Ver. 1. '■''And the whole earth {i.e. the population of the earth, vid. chap. ii. 19) was one lip and one hind of words;" unius labii eorundemgue verborum. The unity of language of the whole human race follows from the unity of its descent from one human pair (vid. ii. 22). But as the origin and formation of the races of mankind are beyond the limits of empirical research, so no philology will ever be able to prove or deduce the original unity of human speech from the languages which have been historically preserved, however far comparative grammar may proceed in establishing the genealogical relation of the languages of different nations.— Vers. 2 sqq. As men multiplied they moved from the land of Ararat "eastward" or more strictly to the south-east, and settled in a plain, nvjpn does not denote a valley between mountain ranges, but a broad plain, TreBiov fieja, as Herodotus calls the neighbourhood of Babylon. There they resolved to build an immense tower; and for this purpose they made bricks and burned them thoroughly (i^B^^? " to burning " serves to intensify the verb like the inf. absoL), so that they became stone; whereas in the East ordinary buildings are constructed of bricks of clay, simply dried in the sun. For mortar they used asphalt, in which the neighbourhood of Babylon abounds. From this material, which may still be seen in the ruins of Babylon, they intended to build a city and a tower, whose top should be in heaven, i.e. reach to the sky, to make to themselves a name, that they might not be scattered over the whole earth. DK^ i? nby denotes, here and everywhere else, to establish a name, or reputation, to set up a memorial (Isa. Ixiii. 12, 14; Jer. xxxii. 20, etc.). The real motive therefore was the desire for renown, and the object was to establish a noted central point, which might serve to maintain their unity. The one was just as ungodly as the other. For, according to the divine purpose, men were to fill the earth, i.e. to spread over the whole earth, not indeed to separate, but to maintain their inward unity notwithstanding their dispersion. But the fact that they were afraid of dispersion is a proof that the inward spiritual bond of unity and fellowship, not only " the oneness of their God and their worship," but also the unity of brotherly love, was already broken by sin. Consequently the undertaking, dictated by pride, to preserve and consolidate by outward means the unity which was inwardly lost, could not be successful, but could only bring down the judgment of dispersion. — Vers. 5 sqq. " Jehovah came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men liad huiU " (the perfect ''ia refers to the building as one finished up to a certain point). Jehovah's "coming down" is not the same here as in Ex. xix. 20, xxxiv. 5, Num. xi. 25, xii. 5, viz. the descent from heaven of some visible symbol of His presence, but is an anthropomorphic description of God's interposition in the actions of men, primarily a " judicial cognizance of the actual fact," and then, ver. 7, a judicial infliction of punishment. The reason for the judgment is given in the word, i.e. the sentence, M'hich Jehovah pronounces upon the undertaking (ver. 6): " Behold one people (QJ? lit. union, connected whole, from D^V to bind) and one language have they all, and this (the building of this city and tower) is (only) the leginning of their deeds; and now (sc. when they have finished this) nothing will be impossible to them (ono -))f21 N^ lit. cut off from them, prevented) ichich they -purpose to do " (l»r for ^sr from Q»T, see chap. ix. 19). By the firm establishment of an ungodly unity, the wickedness and audacity of men would have led to fearful enterprises. But God determined, by confusing their language, to prevent the heightening of sin through ungodly association, and to frustrate their design. " Up " (ii^C " go to," in ironical imitation of the same expression in vers. 3 and 4), " We will go down, and there confound their language (on the plural, see chap, i, 26; ^733 for •"1^33, Kal from?f3, like lOP in ver. 6), that they may not understand one another^ s speech^ The execution of this divine purpose is given in ver. 8, in a description of its consequences: " Jehovah scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the eartli, and they left off building the cityT We must not conclude from this, however, that the differences in language were simply the result of the separation of the various tribes, and that the latter arose from discord and strife; in which case the confusion of tongues would be nothing more than " dissensio anhnorum, per quam factum sit, xit qui turrem struebant distracti sint in contraria studia et consilia" (Vitringa). Such a view not only does violence to the words " that one may not discern (understand) the lip (language) of the other,^' but is also at variance with the object of the narrative. When it is stated, first of all, that God resolved to destroy the unity of lips and words by a confusion of the lips, and then that He scattered the men abroad, this act of divine judgment cannot be understood in any other way, than that God deprived them of the ability to comprehend one another, and thus effected their dispersion. The event itself cannot have consisted merely in a change of the organs of speech, produced by the omnipotence of God, whereby speakers were turned into stammerers who were unintelligible to one another. This opinion, which is held by Vitringa and Hofmann, is neither reconcilable with the text, nor tenable as a matter of fact. The differences, to which this event gave rise, consisted not merely in variations of sound, such as might be attributed to differences in the formation in the organs of speech (the lip or tongue), but had a much deeper foundation in the human mind. If language is the audible expression of emotions, conceptions, and thoughts of the mind, the cause of the confusion or division of the one human language into different national dialects must be sought in an effect produced upon the human mind, by which the original unity of emotion, conception, thought, and will was broken up. This inward unity had no doubt been already disturbed by sin, but the disturbance had not yet amounted to a perfect breach. This happened first of all in the event recorded here, through a direct manifestation of divine power, which caused the disturbance produced by sin in the unity of emotion, thought, and will to issue in a diversity of language, and thus by a miraculous suspension of mutual understanding frustrated the enterprise by which men hoped to render dispersion and estrangement impossible. More we cannot say in explanation of this miracle, which lies before us in the great multiplicity and variety of tongues, since even those languages which are genealogically related — for example, the Semitic and Indo-Germanic — were no longer intelligible to the same people even in the dim primeval age, whilst others are so fundamentally different from one another, that hardly a trace remains of their original unity. With the disappearance of unity the one original language was also lost, so that neither in the Hebrew nor in any other language of history has enough been preserved to enable us to form the least conception of its character.^ The primitive language is extinct, buried in the materials of the languages of the nations, to rise again one day to eternal life in the glorified form of the Katval j\waa-a(, intelligible to all the redeemed, when sin with its consequences is overcome and extinguished by the power of grace. A type and pledge of this hope was given in the gift of tongues on the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the Church
^ The opinion of the Rabbins and earlier theologians, that the Hebrew ■was the primitive language, has been generally abandoned in consequence of modern philological researches. The fact that the biblical names handed down from the earliest times are of Hebrew extraction proves nothing. With the gradual development and change of language, the traditions with their names were cast into the mould of existing dialects, without thereby affecting the truth of the tradition. For as Drechster has said, " it makes no difference whether I say that Adam's eldest son had a name corresponding to the name Cain from njp, or to the name Ctesias from x,roca6»t; the truth of the Thorah, which presents us with the tradition handed down from the sons of Noah through Shem to Abraham and Israel, is not a verbal, but a living tradition — is not in the letter, but in the spirit."
on the first Christian day of Pentecost, when the apostles, filled with the Holy Ghost, spoke with other or new tongues of " the wonderful works of God," so that the people of every nation under heaven understood in their own language (Acts ii. 1-11). From the confusion of tongues the city received the name Babel (^33 i.e. confusion, contracted from?373 from P^3 to confuse), according to divine direction, though without any such intention on the part of those who first gave the name, as a standing memorial of the judgment of God which follows all the ungodly enterprises of the power of the world.^ Of this city considerable ruins still remain, including the remains of an enormous tower, Birs Nimrud, which is regarded by the Arabs as the tower of Babel that was destroyed by fire from heaven. Whether these ruins have any historical connection with the tower of the confusion of tongues, must remain, at least for the present, a matter of uncertainty. With regard to the date of the event, we find from ver, 10 that the division of the human race occurred in the days of Peleg, who was born 100 years after the flood. In 150 or 180 years, with a rapid succession of births, the descendants of the three sons of Noah, who were already 100 years old and married at the time of the flood, might have become quite numerous enough to proceed to the erection of such a building. If we reckon, for example, only four male and four female births as the average number to each marriage, since it is evident from chap. xi. 12 sqq. that children were born as early as the 30th or 35th year of their parent's age, the sixth generation would be born by 150 years after the flood, and the human race would number 12,288 males and as many females. Consequently there would be at least about 30,000 people in the world at this time.
' Such explanations of the name as " gate, or house, or fortress of Bel," are all the less worthy of notice, because the derivation a:ro rov Byj-hov in the Etymol. magn., and in Persian and Nabatean works, is founded upon the myth, that Bel was the founder of the city. And as this myth is destitute of historical worth, so is also the legend that the city was built by Semiramis, which may possibly have so much of history as its basis, that this half-mythical queen extended and beautified the city, just as Nebuchadnezzar added a new quarter, and a second fortress, and strongly fortified it.
After describing the division of the one family which sprang from the three sons of Noah, into many nations scattered over the earth and speaking different languages, the narrative returns to Shem, and traces his descendants in a direct line to Terah the father of Abraham. The first five members of this pedigree have already been given in the genealogy of the Shemites; and in that case the object was to point out the connection in which all the descendants of Eber stood to one another. They are repeated here to show the direct descent of the Terahites through Peleg from Shem, but more especially to follow the chronological thread of the family line, which could not be given in the genealogical tree without disturbing the uniformity of its plan. By the statement in ver. 10, that " Shem, a hundred years old, begat Arphaxad two years after the flood,^^ the chronological data already given of Noah's age at the birth of his sons (chap. v. 32) and at the commencement of the flood (vii. 11) are made still more definite. As the expression " after the flood" refers to the commencement of the flood (chap. ix. 28), and according to chap. vii. 11 the flood began in the second month, or near the beginning of the six hundredth year of Noah's life, though the year 600 is given in chap. vii. 6 in round numbers, it is not necessary to assume, as some do, in order to reconcile the difference between our verse and chap. v. 32, that the number 500 in chap, v, 32 stands as a round number for 502. On the other hand, there can be no objection to such an assumption. The different statements may be easily reconciled by placing the birth of Shem at the end of the five hundredth year of Noah's life, and the birth of Arphaxad at the end of the hundredth year of that of Shem; in which case Shem would be just 99 years old when the flood began, and would be fully 100 years old " two years after the flood," that is to say, in the second year from the commencement of the flood, when he begat Arphaxad. In this case the " two years after the flood" are not to be added to the sum-total of the chronological data, but are included in it. The table given here. forms in a chronological and material respect the direct con- tinuation of the one in chap, v., and differs from it only in form, viz. by giving merely the length of life of the different fathers before and after the birth of their sons, without also summing up the whole number of their years as is the case there, since this is superfluous for chronological purposes. But on comparing the chronological data of the two tables, we find this very important difference in the duration of life before and after the flood, that the patriarchs after the flood lived upon an average only half the number of years of those before it, and that with Peleg the average duration of life was again reduced by one half. Whilst Noah with his 950 years belonged entirely to the old world, and Shem, who was born before the flood, reached the age of 600, Arphaxad lived only 438 years, Salah 433, and Eber 464; and again, with Peleg the duration of life fell to 239 years, Reu also lived only 239 years, Serug 230, and Nahor not more than 148. Here, then, we see that the two catastrophes, the flood and the separation of the human race into nations, exerted a powerful influence in shortening the duration of life; the former by altering the climate of the earth, the latter by changing the habits of men. But while the length of life diminished, the children were born proportionally earlier. Shem begat his first-born in his hundredth year, Arphaxad in the thirtyfifth, Salah in the thirtieth, and so on to Terah, who had no children till his seventieth year; consequently the human race, notwithstanding the shortening of life, increased with sufficient rapidity to people the earth very soon after their dispersion. There is nothing astonishing, therefore, in the circumstance, that wherever Abraham went he found tribes, towns, and kingdoms, though only 365 years had elapsed since the flood, when we consider that eleven generations would have followed one another in that time, and that, supposing eveiy marriage to have been blessed with eight children on an average (four male and four female), the eleventh generation would contain 12,582,912 couples, or 25,165,824 individuals. And if we reckon ten children as the average number, the eleventh generation would contain 146,484,375 pairs, or 292,968,750 individuals. In neither of these cases have we included such of the earlier generations as would be still living, although their number would be by no means inconsiderable, since nearly all the patriarchs from Shem to Terah were alive at the time of Abram's migration. In ver.
26 the genealogy closes, like that in chap. v. 32, with the names of three sons of Terah, all of whom sustained an important relation to the subsequent history, viz. Abram as the father of the chosen family, Nalior as the ancestor of Eebekah (cf. ver. 29 with chap. xxii. 20-23), and Haran as the father of Lot (ver. 27).
The genealogical data in vers. 27-32 prepare the way for the history of the patriarchs. The heading, " These are the generations of Terah^^ belongs not merely to vers. 27-32, but to the whole of the following account of Abram, since it corresponds to '•' the generations" of Ishmael and of Isaac in chap. xxv. 12 and 19. Of the three sons of Terah, who are mentioned again in ver. 27 to complete the plan of the different Toledoth, such genealogical notices are given as are of importance to the history of Abram and his family. According to the regular plan of Genesis, the fact that Haran the youngest son of Terah begat Lot, is mentioned first of all, because the latter went with Abram to Canaan; and then the fact that he died before his father Terah, because the link which would have connected Lot with his native land was broken in consequence. " Before his father,^' ""pS pV lit. upon the face of his father, so that he saw and survived his death. Ur of the Chaldees is to be sought either in the " Ur nomine persiciim castellum^' of Ammian (25, 8), between Hatra and Nisibis, near Arrapachitis, or in Orhoi, Armenian Urrhai, the old name for Edessa, the modern Urfa. — Yer. 29. Abram and Nahor took wives from their kindred. Abram married Sarai, his half-sister (xx. 12), of whom it is already related, in anticipation of what follows, that she was barren. Nahor married Milcah, the daughter of his brother Haran, who bore to him Bethuel, the father of Rebekah (xxii. 22, 23). The reason why Iscah is mentioned is doubtful. For the rabbinical notion, that Iscah is another name for Sarai, is irreconcilable with chap. xx. 12, where Abram calls Sarai his sister, daughter of his father, though not of his mother; on the other hand, the circumstance that Sarai is introduced in ver 31 merely as the daughter-in-law of Terah, may be explained on the ground that she left Ur, not as his daughter, but as the wife of his son Abram. A better hypothesis is that of Ewald, that Iscah is mentioned because she was the wife of Lot; but this is pure conjecture. According to ver. 31, Terah already prepared to leave Ur of the Chaldees with Abram and Lot, and to remove to Canaan. In the phrase " ther/ went forth with them" the subject cannot be the unmentioned members of the family, such as Nahor and his children; though Nahor must also have gone to Haran, since it is called in chap. xxiv. 10 the city of Nahor. For if he accompanied them at this time, there is no perceptible reason why he should not have been mentioned along with the rest. The nominative to the verb must be Lot and Sarai, who went with Terah and Abram; so that although Terah is placed at the head, Abram must have taken an active part in the removal, or the resolution to remove. This does not, however, necessitate the conclusion, that he had already been called by God in Ur. Nor does chap. xv. 7 require any such assumption. For it is not stated there that God called Abram in Ur, but only that He brought him out. But the simple fact of removing from Ur might also be called a leading out, as a work of divine superintendence and guidance, without a special call from God. It was in Haran that Abram first received the divine call to go to Canaan (xii. 1-4), when he left not only his country and kindred, but also his father's house. Terah did not carry out his intention to proceed to Canaan, but remained in Haran, in his native country Mesopotamia, probably because he found there what he was going to look for in the land of Canaan. Haran, more properly Charan, TjTj, is a place in north-western Mesopotamia, the ruins of which may still be seen, a ftdl day's journey to the south of Edessa (Gr. Kappai, Lat. Carrce), where Crassus fell when defeated by the Parthians. It was a leading settlement of the Ssabians, who had a temple there dedicated to the moon, which they traced back to Abraham. There Terah died at the age of 205, or sixty years after the departure of Abram for Canaan; for, according to ver. 26, Terah was seventy years old when Abram was born, and Abram was seventy-five years old when he arrived in Canaan. When Stephen, therefore, placed the removal of Abram from Haran to Canaan after the death of his father.
ne merely inferred this from the fact, that the call of Abram (chap, xii.) was not mentioned till after the death of Terah had been noticed, taking the order of the narrative as the order of events; whereas, according to the plan of Genesis, the death of Terah is introduced here, because Abram never met with his father again after leaving Haran, and there was consequently nothing more to be related concerning him.
The dispersion of the descendants of the sons of Noah, who had now grown into numerous families, was necessarily followed on the one hand by the rise of a variety of nations, differing in language, manners, and customs, and more and more estranged from one another; and on the other by the expansion of the germs of idolatry, contained in the different attitudes of these nations towards God, into the polytheistic religions of heathenism, in which the glory of the immortal God was changed into an image made like to mortal man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things (Rom. i. 23 cf. Wisdom xiii.-xv.). If God therefore would fulfil His promise, no more to smite the earth with the curse of the destruction of every living thing because of the sin of man (chap. viii. 21, 22), and yet would prevent the moral corruption which worketh death from sweeping all before it; it was necessary that by the side of these self-formed nations He should form a nation for Himself, to be the recipient and preserver of His salvation, and that in opposition to the rising kingdoms of the world He should establish a kingdom for the living, saving fellowship of man with Himself. The foundation for this was laid by God in the call and separation of Abram from his people and his country, to make him, by special guidance, the father of a nation from which the salvation of the world should come. With the choice of Abram the revelation of God to man assmned a select character, inasmuch as God manifested Himself henceforth to Abram and his posterity alone as the author of salvation and the guide to true life; whilst other nations were left to follow their own course according to the powers conferred upon them, in order that they might learn that in their way, and without fellowship with the living God, it was impossible to find peace to the soul, and the true blessedness of life (cf. Acts xvii. 27).
But this exclusiveness contained from the very first the germ of Tiniversahsm. Abram was called, that through him all the families of the earth might be blessed (chap. xii. 1-3). Hence thb new form which the divine guidance of the human race assumed in the call of Abram was connected with the general development of the world, — on the one hand, by the fact that Abram belonged to the family of Shem, which Jehovah had blessed, and on the other, by his not being called alone, but as a married man with his wife. But whilst, regarded in this light, the continuity of the divine revelation was guaranteed, as well as the plan of human development established in the creation itself, the call of Abram introduced so far the commencement of a new period, that to carry out the designs of God their very foundations required to be renewed. Although, for example, the knowledge and worship of the true God had been preserved in the families of Shem in a purer form than among the remaining descendants of Noah, even in the house of Terah the worship of God was corrupted by idolatry (Josh. xxiv. 2, 3); and although Abram was to become the father of the nation which God was about to form, yet his wife was barren, and therefore, in the way of nature, a new family could not be expected to spring from him.
As a perfectly new beginning, therefore, the patriarchal history assumed the form of a family history, in which the grace of God prepared the ground for the coming Israel. For the nation was to grow out of the family, and in the lives of the patriarchs its character was to be determined and its development foreshadowed. The early history consists of three stages, which are indicated by the three patriarchs, peculiarly so called, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; and in the sons of Jacob the unity of the chosen family was expanded into the twelve immediate fathers of the nation. In the triple number of the patriarchs, the divine election of the nation on the one hand, and the entire formation of the character and guidance of the life of Israel on the other, were to attain to their fullest typical manifestation. These two were the pivots, upon which all the divine revelations made to the patriarchs, and all the guidance they received, were made to turn. The revelations consisted almost exclusively of promises; and so far as these promises were fulfilled in the lives of the patriarchs, the fulfilments themselves were predictions and pledges of the ultimate and complete fulfilment, reserved for a distant, or for the most remote futurity. And the guidance vouchsafed had for its object the calling forth of faith in response to the promise, which should maintain itself amidst all the changes of this earthly life. " A faith, which laid hold of the word of promise, and on the strength of that word gave up the visible and present for the invisible and future, was the fundamental characteristic of the patriarchs" (Delitzsch). This faith Abram manifested and sustained by great sacrifices, by enduring patience, and by self-denying obedience of such a kind, that he thereby became the father of believers {irarrjp irdvTwv rwv incrrevovrcov, Eom. iv. 11). Isaac also was strong in patience and hope; and Jacob wrestled in faith amidst painful circumstances of various kinds, until he had secured the blessing of the promise. " Abraham was a man of faith that works; Isaac, of faith that endures; Jacob, of faith that wrestles" (Baumgarten). — Thus, walking in faith, the patriarchs were types of faith for all the families that should spring from them, and be blessed through them, and ancestors of a nation which God had resolved to form according to the election of His grace. For the election of God was not restricted to the separation of Abram from the family of Shem, to be the father of the nation which was destined to be the vehicle of salvation; it was also manifest in the exclusion of Ishmael, whom Abram had begotten by the will of man, through Hagar the handmaid of his wife, for the purpose of securing the promised seed, and in the new life imparted to the womb of the barren Sarai, and her consequent conception and birth of Isaac, the son of promise. And lastly, it appeared still more manifestly in the twin sons bom by Eebekah to Isaac, of whom the first-born, Esau, was rejected, and the younger, Jacob, chosen to be the heir of the promise; and this choice, which was announced before their birth, was maintained in spite of Isaac's plans, so that Jacob, and not Esau, received the blessing of the promise. — All this occurred as a type for the future, that Israel might know and lay to heart the fact, that bodily descent from Abraham did not make a man a child of God, but that they alone were children of God who laid hold of the divine promise in faith, and walked in the steps of their forefather's faith (cf. Eom.
we find a new beginning in this respect, that as soon as Abram is called, we read of the appeamng oi God. It is true that from the very beginning God had manifested Himself visibly to men; but in the olden time we read nothing of appearances, because before the flood God had not withdrawn His presence from the earth. Even to Noah He revealed Himself before the flood as one who was present on tlie earth. But when He had established a covenant with him after the flood, and thereby had assured the continuance of the earth and of the human race, the direct manifestations ceased, for God withdrew His visible presence from the world; so that it was from heaven that the Judgment fell upon the tower of Babel, and even the call to Abram in his home in Haran was issued through His word, that is to say, no doubt, through an inward monition. But as soon as Abram had gone to Canaan, in obedience to the call of God, Jehovah appeared to him there (chap. xii. 7). These appearances, which were constantly repeated from that time forward, must have taken place from heaven; for we read that Jehovah, after speaking with Abram and the other patriarchs, " went away" (chap, xviii. 33), or " went up" (chap. xvii. 22, xxxv. 13); and the patriarchs saw them, sometimes while in a waking condition, in a form discernible to the bodily senses, sometimes in visions, in a state of mental ecstasy, and at other times in the form of a dream (chap, xxviii. 12 sqq.). On the form in which God appeared, in most instances, nothing is related. But in chap, xviii. 1 sqq. it is stated that three men came to Abram, one of whom is introduced as Jehovah, whilst the other two are called angels (chap. xix. 1). Beside this, we frequently read of appearances of the " angel of Jehovah" (xvi. 7, xxii. 11, etc.), or of "Elohim," and the "angel of Elohim" (chap. xxi. 17, xxxi. 11, etc.), which were repeated throughout the whole of the Old Testament, and even occurred, though only in vision, in the case of the prophet Zechariah. The appearances of the angel of Jehovah (or Elohim) cannot have been essentially different from those of Jehovah (or Elohim) Himself; for Jacob describes the appearance of Jehovah at Bethel (chap, xxviii. 13 sqq.) as an appearance of " the angel of Elohim," and of « the God of Bethel" (chap. xxxi. 11, 13); and in his blessing on the sons of Joseph (chap, xlviii. 15, 16), " The God (Elohim) before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk, the God (Elohim) which fed me all my iife long unto this day, the angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads," he places the angel of God on a perfect equality with God; not only regarding Him as the Being to whom he has been indebted for protection all his life long, but entreating from Him a blessing upon his descendants.
The question arises, therefore, whether the angel of Jehovah, or of God, was God Himself in one particular phase of His self-manifestation, or a created angel of whom God made use as the organ of Plis self-revelation.^ The former appears to us to be the only scriptural view. For the essential unity of the Angel of Jehovah with Jehovah Himself follows indisputably from the following facts. In the first place, the Angel of God identifies Himself with Jehovah and Elohim, by attributing to Himself divine attributes and performing divine works: e.g., chap. xxii. 12, " Now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from me " {i.e. hast been willing to offer him up as a burnt sacrifice to God); again (to Hagar) chap. xvi. 10, " 1 will multiply thy seed exceedingly, that it shall not be numbered for multitude;" chap, xxi., */ will make him a great nation," — the very words used by Elohim in chap. xvii. 20 with reference to Ishmael, and by Jehovah in chap. xiii. 16, xv. 4, 5, with regard to Isaac; also Ex. iii. 6 sqq., " I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob: I have surely seen the affliction of My people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry, and / am come down to deliver them" (cf. Judg. ii. 1). In addition to this. He performs miracles, consuming with fire the offering placed before Him by Gideon, and the sacrifice prepared by Manoah, and ascending to heaven in the flame of the burnt-offering (Judg. vi. 21, xiii. 19, 20). Secondly, the Angel of God was recognised as God by those to whom He appeared,
' In the old Jewish synagogue the Angel of Jehovah was regarded as the Shechinah, the indwelling of God in the world, i.e. the only Mediator between God and the world, who bears in the Jewish theology the name Metatron. The early Church regarded Him as the Logos, the second person of the Deity; and only a few of the fathers, such as Augustine and Jerome, thought of a created angel {vid. Hengstenlerg, Christol. vol. 3, app.). This view was adopted by many Romish theologians, by the Socinians, Arminians, and others, and has been defended recently by Hofmann, whom Delitzsch, Kurtz, and others follow. But the opinion of the early Church has been vindicated most thoroughly by Hengstenlerg in his Christology.
on the one hand by their addressing Him as Adonai [i.e. the Lord God; Judg. vi. 15), declaring that they had seen God, and fearing that they should die (chap. xvi. 13; Ex. iii. 6; Judg. vi. 22, 23, xiii. 22), and on the other hand by their paying Him divine honour, offering sacrifices which He accepted, and worshipping Him (Judg. vi. 20, xiii. 19, 20, cf. ii. 5). The force of these facts has been met by the assertion, that the ambassador perfectly represents the person of the sender; and evidence of this is adduced not only from Grecian literature, but from the Old Testament also, where the addresses of the prophets often glide imperceptibly into the words of Jehovah, whose instrument they are. But even if the address in chap, xxii. 16, where the oath of the Angel of Jehovah is accompanied by the words, " saith the Lord," and the words and deeds of the Angel of God in certain other cases, might be explained in this way, a created angel sent by God could never say, " / am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob," or by the acceptance of sacrifices and adoration, encourage the presentation of divine honours to himself. How utterly irreconcilable this fact is with the opinion that the Angel of Jehovah was a created angel, is conclusively proved by Rev. xxii. 9, which is generally regarded as perfectly corresponding to the account of the " Angel of Jehovah " of the Old Testament. The angel of God, who shows the sacred seer the heavenly Jerusalem, and who is supposed to say, " Behold, I come quickly " (ver. 7), and " I am Alpha and Omega" (ver. 13), refuses in the most decided way the worship which John is about to present, and exclaims, " See I am thy fellow-servant: worship God." Thirdly, the Angel of Jehovah is also identified with Jehovah by the sacred writers themselves, who call the Angel Jehovah without the least reserve (cf. Ex. iii. 2 and 4, Judg. vi. 12 and 14-16, but especially Ex. xiv. 19, where the Angel of Jehovah goes before the host of the Israelites, just as Jehovah is said to do in Ex. xiii. 21). — On the other hand, the objection is raised, that ayyeko'; Kvpiov in the New Testament, which is confessedly the Greek rendering of niiT' "1X^)0, is always a created angel, and for that reason cannot be the uncreated Logos or Son of God, since the latter could not possibly have announced His own birth to the shepherds at Bethlehem. But this important difference has been overlooked, that according to Greek usage, ajjekof; Kvpiov denotes an (any)
angel of the Lord, whereas according to the rules of the Hebrew language nini Ti^po means the angel of the Lord; that in the New Testament the angel who appears is always described as ar/y€\o<i icvpiov without the article, and the definite article is only introduced in the further course of the narrative to denote the angel whose appearance has been already mentioned, whereas in the Old Testament it is alwa^te " the Angel of Jehovah " who appears, and whenever the appearance of a created angel is referred to, he is introduced first of all as " an angel " (yid. 1 Kings xix. 5 and 7).^ At the same time, it does not follow from this use of the expression Maleach Jehovah, that the (particular) angel of Jehovah was essentially one with God, or that Maleach Jehovah always has the same signification; for in Mai. ii. 7 the priest is called Maleach Jehovah, i.e. the messenger of the Lord. Who the messenger or angel of Jehovah was, must be determined in each particular instance from the connection of the passage; and where the context furnishes no criterion, it must remain undecided. Consequently such passages as Ps. xxxiv. 7, XXXV. 5, 6, etc., where the angel of Jehovah is not more particularly described, or Num. xx. 16, where the general term angel is intentionally employed, or Acts vii. 30, Gal. iii. 19, and Heb. ii. 2, where the words are general and indefinite, furnish no evidence that the Angel of Jehovah, who proclaimed Himself in His appearances as one with God, was not in reality equal with God, unless we are to adopt as the rule for interpreting Scripture the inverted principle, that clear and definite statements are to be explained by those that are indefinite and obscure.
In attempting now to determine the connection between the appearance of the Angel of Jehovah (or Elohim) and the appearance of Jehovah or Elohim Himself, and to fix the precise meaning of the expression Maleach Jehovah, we cannot make
^ The force of this difference cannot be set aside by the objection that the New Testament writers follow the usage of the Septuagint, where TJNPD nin'' is rendered aEyysXoj Kvpiov. For neither in the New Testament nor in the Alex, version of the Old is dLyysT^og Kvpiov used as a proper name; it is use, as recent opponents of the old Church view have done, of the manifestation of God in Gen. xviii. and xix., and the allusion to the great prince Michael in Dan. x. 13, 21, xii. 1; just because neither the appearance of Jehovah in the former instance, nor that of the archangel Michael in the latter, is represented as an appearance of the Angel of Jehovah. We must confine ourselves to the passages in wh!ch " the Angel of Jehovah" is actually referred to. We will examine these, first of all, for the purpose of obtaining a clear conception of the form in which the Angel of Jehovah appeared. Gen. xvi., where He is mentioned for the first time, contains no distinct statement as to His shape, but produces on the whole the impression that He appeared to Hagar in a human form, or one resembling that of man; since it was not till after His departm'e that she drew the inference from His words, that Jehovah had spoken with her. He came in the same form to Gideon, and sat under the terebinth at Ophrah with a staff in His hand (Judg. vi. 11 and 21); also to Manoah's wife, for she took Him to be a man of God, i.e. a prophet, whose appearance was like that of the Angel of Jehovah (Judg. xiii. 6); and lastly, to Manoah himself, who did not recognise Him at first, but discovered afterwards, from the miracle which He wrought before his eyes, and from His miraculous ascent in the flame of the altar, that He was the Angel of Jehovah (vers. 9-20). In other cases He revealed ] Himself merely by calling and speaking from heaven, without those who heard His voice perceiving any form at all: e.g., to Hagar, in Gen. xxi. 17 sqq., and to Abraham, chap. xxii. 11 sqq. On the other hand. He appeared to Moses (Ex. iii. 2) in a flame of fire, speaking to him from the burning bush, and to the people of Israel in a pillar of cloud and fire (Ex. xiv. 19, cf. xiii. 21 sq.), without any angelic form being visible in either; case. Balaam He met in a human or angelic form, with a | drawn sword in His hand (Num. xxii. 22, 23). David saw Him by the threshing-floor of Araunah, standing between heaven and earth, with the sword drawn in His hand and stretched out over Jerusalem (1 Chron. xxi. 16); and He appeared to Zechariah j in a vision as a rider upon a red horse (Zech. i. 9 sqq.). — From these varying forms of appearance it is evident that the opinion that the Angel of the Lord was a real angel, a divine mani lestation, " not in the disguise of angel, but through the actual appearance of an angel," is not in harmony ■with all the statements of the Bible. The form of the Angel of Jehovah, which was discernible by the senses, varied according to the purpose of the appearance; and, apart from Gen. xxi. 17 and xxii. 11, we have a sufficient proof that it was not a real angelic appearance, or the appearance of a created angel, in the fact that in two instances it was not really an angel at all, but a flame of fire and a shining cloud which formed the earthly substratum of the revelation of God in the Angel of Jehovah (Ex. iii. 2, xiv. 19), imless indeed we are to regard natural phenomena as angels, without any scriptural warrant for doing so.^ These earthly substrata of the manifestation of the " Angel of Jehovah" perfectly suffice to establish the conclusion, that the Angel of Jehovah was only a peculiar form in which Jehovah Himself appeared, and which differed from the manifestations of God described as appearances of Jehovah simply in this, that in " the Angel of Jehovah," God or Jehovah revealed Himself in a mode which was more easily discernible by human senses, and exhibited in a guise of symbolical significance the design of each particular manifestation. In the appearances of Jehovah no reference is made to any form visible to the bodily eye, unless they were through the medium of a vision or a dream, excepting in one instance (Gen. xviii.), where Jehovah and two angels come to Abraham in the form of three men, and are entertained
^ The only passage that could be adduced in support of this, viz. Ps. civ. 4, does not prove that God makes naturg,! objects, winds and flaming fire, into forms in which heavenly spirits appear, or that He creates spirits out of them. Even if we render this passage, with Delitzsch, " making His messengers of winds. His servants of flaming flre," the allusion, as Delitzsch himself observes, is not to the creation of angels; nor can the meaning be, that God gives wind and fire to His angels as the material of their appearance, and as it were of their self-incorporation. For ntJ'J?, constructed with two accusatives, the second of which expresses the materia ex qua, is never met with in this sense, not even in 2 Chron. iv. 18-22. For the greater part of the temple furniture summed up in this passage, of which it is stated that Solomon made them of gold, was composed of pure gold; and if some of the things were merely covered with gold, the writer might easily apply the same expression to this, because he had already given a more minute account of their construction (e.g. chap. iii. 7). But we neither regard this rendering of the psalm as in harmony with the context, nor assent to the assertion that nb'y with a double accusative, in the sense of making into anything, is ungrammatical by him, — a form of appearance perfectly resembling the appearances of the Angel of Jehovah, but which is not so described by the author, because in this case Jehovah does not appear alone, but in the company of two angels, that "the Angel of Jehovah" might not be regarded as a created angel.
But although there was no essential difference, but only a formal one, between the appearing of Jehovah and the appearing of the Angel of Jehovah, the distinction between Jehovah and the Angel of Jehovah points to a distinction in the divine nature, to which even the Old Testament contains several obvious allusions. The very name indicates such a difference. 'H^r'? nin^ (from 'n^? to work, from which come ^3X70 the work, opus, and ^^5<'?>, lit. he through whom a work is executed, but in ordinary usage restricted to the idea of a messenger) denotes the person through whom God works and appears. Beside these passages which represent " the Angel of Jehovah" as one with Jehovah, there are others in which the Angel distinguishes Himself from Jehovah; e.g. when He gives emphasis to the oath by Himself as an oath by Jehovah, by adding " saith Jehovah" (Gen. xxii. 16); when He greets Gideon with the words, " Jehovah with thee, thou brave hero" (Judg. vi. 12); when He says to Manoah, " Though thou constrainedst me, I would not eat of thy food; but if thou wilt offer a burnt-offering to Jehovah, thou mayest offer it" (Judg. xiii. 16); or when He prays, in Zech. i. 12, "Jehovah Sabaoth, how long wilt Thou not have mercy on Jerusalem?" (Compare also Gen. xix. 24, where Jehovah is distinguished from Jehovah.) Just as in these passages the Angel of Jehovah distinguishes Himself personally from Jehovah, there are others in which a distinction is drawn between a self-revealing side of the divine nature, visible to men, and a hidden side, invisible to men, i.e. between the self-revealing and the hidden God. Thus, for example, not only does Jehovah say of the Angel, whom He sends before Israel in the pillar of cloud and fire, " My name is in Him," i.e. he reveals My nature (Ex. xxiii. 21), but He also calls Him '•JS, " My face" (xxxiii. 14); and in reply to Moses' request to see His glory. He says " Thou canst not see My face, for there shall no man see Me and live," and then causes His glory to pass by Moses in such a way that he only sees His back, but not His face (xxxiii. 18-23). On the strength of these expressions, He in whom Jehovah manifested Himself to His people as a Saviour is called in Isa. Ixiii. 9, " the Angel of His face," and all the guidance and protection of Israel are ascribed to Him. In accordance with this, Malachi, the last prophet of the Old Testament, proclaims to the people waiting for the manifestation of Jehovah, that is to say, for the appearance of the Messiah predicted by former prophets, that the Lord (P"'^'^, i.e. God), the Angel of the covenant, will come to His temple (iii. 1). This " Angel of the covenant," or " Angel of the face," has appeared in Christ. The Angel of Jehovah, therefore, was no other than the Logos, which not only " was with God," but "was God," and in Jesus Christ "was made flesh" and "came unto His own" (John i. 1, 2, 11); the only-begotten Son of God, who was sent by the Father into the world, who, though one with the Father, prayed to the Father (John xvii.), and who is even called "the Apostle," o diroaroXo^;, in Heb. iii. 1. From all this it is sufficiently obvious, that neither the title Angel or Messenger of Jehovah, nor the fact that the Angel of Jehovah prayed to Jehovah Sabaoth, furnishes any evidence against His essential unity with Jehovah. That which is unfolded in perfect clearness in the New Testament through the incarnation of the Son of God, was still veiled in the Old Tesment according to the wisdom apparent in the divine training. The difference between Jehovah and the Angel of Jehovah is generally hidden behind the unity of the two, and for the most part Jehovah is referred to as He who chose Israel as His nation and kingdom, and who would reveal Himself at some future time to His people in all His glory; so that in the New Testament nearly all the manifestations of Jehovah under the Old Covenant are referred to Christ, and regarded as fulfilled through Him.^
1 This is not a mere accommodation of Scripture, but the correct interpretation of the obscure hints of the Old Testament by the light of the fulfilment in the New. For not only is the Maleach Jehovah the revealer of God, but Jehovah Himself is the revealed God and Saviour. Just as in the history of the Old Testament there are not only revelations of the Maleach Jehovah, but revelations of Jehovah also; so in the prophecies the announcement of the Messiah, the sprout of David and servant of Jehovah, is intermingled with the announcement of the coming of Jehovah to glorify His people and perfect His kingdom.
The life of Abraham, from his call to his death, consists of four stages, the commencement of each of which is marked by a divine revelation of sufficient importance to constitute a distinct epoch. The first stage (chap, xii.-xiv.) commences with his call and removal to Canaan; the second (chap. xv. xvi.), with the promise of a lineal heir and the conclusion of a covenant; the third (chap, xvii.— xxi.), with the establishment of the covenant, accompanied by a change in his name, and the appointment of the covenant sign of circumcision; the fourth (chap, xxii.-xxv. 11), with the temptation of Abraham to attest and perfect his life of faith. All the revelations made to him proceed from Jehovah; and the name Jehovah is employed throughout the whole life of the father of the faithful, Elohim being used only where Jehovah, from its meaning, would be either entirely inapplicable, or at any rate less appropriate.^
Vers. 1-3. The Call.— The word of Jehovah, by which Abram was called, contained a command and a promise. Abram was to leave all — his country, his kindred (see chap, xliii. 7), and his father's house — and to follow the Lord into the land which He would show him. Thus he was to trust entirely to the guidance of God, and to follow wherever He might lead him. But as he went in consequence of this divine summons into the land of Canaan (ver. 5), we must assume that God gave him at the very first a distinct intimation, if not of the land itself, at least of the direction he was to take. That Canaan was to be his destination, was no doubt made known as a matter of certainty in the revelation which he received after his arrival there (ver. 7). — For thus renouncing and denying all natural ties, the Lord gave him the inconceivably great promise, " / will make of thee a great nation; and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt he a blessing" The four members of this promise are not to be divided
^ The hypothesis, that the history is compounded of Jehovistic and Elohistic documents, can only be maintained by those who misunderstand the distinctive meaning of these two names, and arbitrarily set aside the Jehovah in chap. xvii. 1, on account of an erroneous determination of the relation ia ■which t-HB^ ^s stands to ^1^^ into two parallel members, in which case the athnach would stand in the wrong place; but are to be regarded as an ascending climax, expressing four elements of the salvation promised to Abram, the last of which is still further expanded in ver. 3. By placing the athnach under ^OK' the fourth member is marked as a new and independent feature added to the other three. The four distinct elements are — 1. increase into a numerous people; 2. a blessing, that is to say, material and spiritual prosperity; 3. the exaltation of his name, i.e. the elevation of Abram to honour and glory; 4. his appointment to be the possessor and dispenser of the blessing. Abram was not only to receive blessing, but to be a blessing; not only to be blessed by God, but to become a blessing, or the medium of blessing, to others. The blessing, as the more minute definition of the expression " he a blessing^' in ver. 3 clearly shows, was henceforth to keep pace as it were with Abram himself, so that (1) the blessing and cursing of men were to depend entirely upon their attitude towards him, and (2) all the families of the earth were to be blessed in him. Pj^ip, lit. to treat as light or little, to despise, denotes " blasphemous cursing on the part of a man;" 'TIS "judicial cursing on the part of God." It appears significant, however, " that the plural is used in relation to the blessing, and the singular only in relation to the cursing; grace expects that there will be many to bless, and that only an individual here and there will render not blessing for blessing, but curse for curse." — In ver. 3 b, Abram, the one, is made a blessing for all. In the word ^^ the primary meaning of a, in, is not to be given up, though the instrumental sense, through, is not to be excluded. Abram was not merely to become a mediator, but the source of blessing for all. The expression " all the families of the groujid" points to the division of the one family into many (chap. x. 5, 20, 31), and the word '^^1^^} to the curse pronounced upon the ground (chap. iii. 17). The blessing of Abraham was once more to unite the divided families, and change the curse, pronounced upon the ground on account of sin, into a blessing for the whole human race. This concluding word comprehends all nations and times, and condenses, as Baumgarten has said, the whole fulness of the divme counsel for the salvation of men into the call of Abram. All further promises, therefore, not only to the patriarchs, but also to Israel, were merely expansions and closer definitions of the salvation held out to the whole human race in the first promise. Even the assurance, which Abram received after his entrance into Canaan (ver. 6), was implicitly contained in this first promise; since a great nation could not be conceived of, without a f country of its own. This promise was renewed to Abram on f: several occasions: first after his separation from Lot (xiii. 14-16), "^ on which occasion, however, the " blessing" was not mentioned, | because not required by the connection, and the two elements I only, viz. the numerous increase of his seed, and the possession;' of the land of Canaan, were assured to him and to his seed, and >*. that "for ever;" secondly, in chap, xviii. 18 somewhat more casually, as a reason for the confidential manner in which Jehovah explained to him the secret of His government; and lastly, at the two principal turning points of his life, where the whole promise was confirmed with the greatest solemnity, viz. in chap. xvii. at the commencement of the establishment of the covenant made with him, where " I will make of thee a great nation" was heightened into " I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee," and his being a blessing was more fully defined as the estab- |.. lishment of a covenant, inasmuch as Jehovah would be God to him and to his posterity (vers. 3 sqq.), and in chap. xxii. after the attestation of his faith and obedience, even to the sacrifice of his only son, where the innumerable increase of his seed and the blessing to pass from him to all nations were guaranteed by an oath. The same promise was afterwards renewed to Isaac, with a distinct allusion to the oath (chap. xxvi. 3, 4), and again to Jacob, both on his flight from Canaan for fear of Esau (chap, xxviii. 13, 14), and on his return thither (chap. xxxv. 11, 12). In the case of these renewals, it is only in chap, xxviii. 14 that the last expression, "all the families of theAdamah," is repeated ver Ja^m, though with the additional clause "and in thy seed;" in the other passages "all the nations of the earth" are mentioned, the family connection being left out of sight, and the national character of the blessing being brought into especial prominence. In two instances also, instead of the Niphal W"i3p we find the Hithpael ^^nann. This change of conjugation by no means proves that the Niphal is to be taken in its original reflective sense. The Hithpael has no doubt the meaning " to wish one's self blessed" (Deut. xxix. 19), with n of the person from whom the blessing is sought (Isa. Ixv. 16; Jer. iv. 2), or whose blessing is desired