Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Of the property belonging to the king of Sodom, which he had taken from the enemy, Abram would not keep the smallest part, because he would not have anything in common with Sodom. On the other hand, he accepted from Salem's priest and king, Melchizedek, not only bread and wine for the invigoration of the exhausted warriors, but a priestly blessing also, and gave him in return the tenth of all his booty, as a sign that he acknowledged this king as a priest of the living God, and submitted to his royal priesthood. In this self-subordination of Abram to Melchizedek there was the practical prediction of a royal priesthood which is higher than the priesthood entrusted to Abram's descendants, the sons of Levi, and foreshadowed in the noble form of Melchizedek, who blessed as king and priest the patriarch whom God had called to be a blessing to all the families of the earth. The name of this royal priest is full of meaning: Melchizedek, i.e. King of Righteousness. Even though, judging from Josh. x. 1, 3, where a much later king is called Adonizedek, i.e. Lord of Righteousness, this name may have been a standing title of the ancient kings of Salem, it no doubt originated with a king who ruled his people in righteousness, and was perfectly appropriate in the case of the Melchizedek mentioned here. There is no less significance in the name of the seat of his government, Salem, the peaceful or peace, since it shows that the capital of its kings was a citadel of peace, not only as a natural stronghold, but through the righteousness of its sovereign; for which reason David chose it as the seat of royalty in Israel; and Moriah, which formed part of it, was pointed out to Abraham by Jehovah as the place of sacrifice for the kingdom of God which was afterwards to be established. And, lastly, there was something very significant in the appearance in the midst of the degenerate tribes of Canaan of this king of righteousness, and priest of the true God of heaven and earth, without any account of his descent, or of the beginning and end of his life; so that he stands forth in the Scriptures, " without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days nor end of life." Although it by no means follows from this, however, that Melchizedek was a celestial being (the Logos, or an angel), or one of the primeval patriarchs (Enoch or Shem), as Church fathers, Eabbins, and others have conjectured, and we can see in him nothing more than one, perhaps the last, of the witnesses and confessors of the early revelation of God, coming out into the light of history from the dark night of heathenism; yet this appearance does point to a priesthood of universal significance, and to a higher order of things, which existed at the commencement of the world, and is one day to be restored again. In all these respects, the noble form of this king of Salem and priest of the Most High God was a type of the God-King and eternal High Priest Jesus Christ; a thought which is expanded in Heb. vii. on the basis of this account, and of the divine utterance revealed to David in the Spirit, that the King of Zion sitting at the right hand of Jehovah should be a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek (Ps. ex. 4).

With the formula " after these tilings^' there is introduced a new revelation of the Lord to Abram, which differs from the previous ones in form and substance, and constitutes a new turning point in his life. The " word of Jehovah *' came to him " in a vision;^ i.e, neither by a direct internal address, nor by such a manifestation of Himself as fell upon the outward senses, nor in a dream of the night, but in a state of ecstasy by an inward spiritual intuition, and that not in a nocturnal vision, as in chap, xlvi. 2, but in the day-time. The expression " in a vision " ajiplies to the whole chapter. There is no pause anywhere, nor any sign that the vision ceased, or that the action was transferred to the sphere of the senses and of external reality. Consequently the whole process is to be regarded as an internal one. The vision embraces not only vers. 1-4 or 8, but the entire chapter, with this difference merely, that from ver. 12 onwards the ecstasy assumed the form of a prophetic sleep produced by God. It is true that the bringing Abram out, his seeing the stars (ver. 5), and still more especially his taking the sacrificial animals and dividing them (vers. 9, 10), have been supposed by some to belong to the sphere of external reality, on the ground that these purely external acts would not neces- sarily presuppose a cessation of the ecstasy, since the vision was no catalepsy, and did not preclude the full (?) use of the outward senses. But however true this may be, not only is every mark wanting, which would warrant us in assuming a transition from the purely inward and spiritual sphere, to the outward sphere of the senses, but the entire revelation culminates in a prophetic sleep, which also bears the character of a vision. As it was in a deep sleep that Abram saw the passing of the divine appearance through the carefully arranged portions of the sacrifice, and no reference is made either to the burning of them, as in Judg. vi. 21, or to any other removal, the arrangement of the sacrificial animals must also have been a purely internal process. To regard this as an outward act, we must break up the continuity of the narrative in a most arbitrary way, and not only transfer the commencement of the vision into the night, and suppose it to have lasted from twelve to eighteen hours, but we must interpolate the burning of the sacrifices, etc., in a still more arbitrary manner, merely for the sake of supporting the erroneous assumption, that visionary procedures had no objective reality, or, at all events, less evidence of reality than outward acts, and things perceived by the senses. A vision wrought by God was not a mere fancy, or a subjective play of the thoughts, but a spiritual fact, which was not only in all respects as real as things discernible by the senses, but which surpassed in its lasting significance the acts and events that strike the eye. The covenant which Jehovah made with Abram was not intended to give force to a mere agreement respecting mutual rights and obligations, — a thing which could have been accomplished by an external sacrificial transaction, and by God passing through the divided animals in an assumed human form, — but it was designed to establish the purely spiritual relation of a living fellowship between God and Abram, of the deep inward meaning of which, nothing but a spiritual intuition and experience could give to Abram an effective and permanent hold. Vers. 1-6. The words of Jehovah run thus: ^^ Fear not, Abram: I am a shield to thee, thy reward very much" i^?"):? an inf, absoL, generally used adverbially, but here as an adjective, equivalent to " thy very great reward," The divine promise to be a shield to him, that is to say, a protection against all enemies, and a reward, i.e, richly to reward his confidence, his ready obedience, stands here, as the opening words " after these things " indicate, in close connection with the previous guidance of Abram. Whilst the protection of his wife in Egypt was a practical pledge of the possibility of his having a posterity, and the separation of Lot, followed by the conquest of the kings of the East, was also a pledge of the possibility of his one day possessing the promised land, there was as yet no prospect whatever of the promise being realized, that he should become a great nation, and possess an innumerable posterity. In these circumstances, anxiety about the future might naturally arise in his mind. To meet this, the word of the Lord came to him with the comforting assurance, ^iFear not, I am thy shield." But when the Lord added, " and thy very great reward," Abram could only reply, as he thought of his childless condition: ^^ Lord Jehovah^ what wilt Thou give me, seeing I go childless f " Of what avail are all my possessions, wealth, and power, since I have no child, and the heir of my house is Eliezer the Damascene? P^^y synonymous with p^^^p (Zeph. ii. 9), possession, or the seizure of possession, is chosen on account of its assonance with pj?^^. P??^"I?, son of the seizing of possession = seizer of possession, or heir. Eliezer of Damascus (lit. Damascus viz. Eliezer): Eliezer is an explanatory apposition to Damascus, in the sense of the Damascene Eliezer; though p?^^^, on account of its position before nrri'Xj cannot be taken grammatically as equivalent to ^pi^^*!.^ — To give still more distinct utterance to his grief, Abram adds (ver. 3): " Behold, to me Thou hast given no seed; and lo, an inmate of my house (""^^^'Ir^ in distinction from n^^'Hv^, home-born, chap. xiv. 14) will he my heirP The word of the Lord then c^me to him: " Not he, hut one ivho shall come forth from thy body, he will he thine heirT God then took him into the open air, told him to look up to heaven, and promised him a posterity as numerous as the innumerable host of stars (cf. chap. xxii. 17, xxvi. 4; Ex. xxxii. 13, etc). Whether Abram at this time was " in the body or out of the body," is a matter of no moment. The reality of the occurrence is the same in either case. This is evident from the remark made by Moses (the historian) as to the conduct of Abram in relation to

^ The legend of Abram having been king in Damaftciis appcare to have originaUnl in this, though the passage before us does not so much as show that Abram obtaineil possefliion of Eliezer on his way through Damascui.

the promise of God: " And he believed in Jehovah, and He counted it to him for righteousness ^ In the strictly objective character of the account in Genesis, in accordance with which the simple facts are related throughout without any introduction of subjective opinions, this remark appears so striking, that the question naturally arises. What led Moses to introduce it? In what way did Abram make known his faith in Jehovah? And in what way did Jehovah count it to him as righteousness? The reply to both questions must not be sought in the New Testament, but must be given or indicated in the context. What reply did Abram make on receiving the promise, or what did he do in consequence? When God, to confirm the promise, declared Himself to be Jehovah, who brought him out of Ur of the Chaldees to give him that land as a possession, Abram replied, " Lord, whereby shall I know that I shall possess it?" God then directed him to "fetch a heifer of three years old," etc.; and Abram fetched the animals required, and aiTanged them (as we may certainly suppose, though it is not expressly stated) as God had commanded him. By this readiness to perform what God commanded him, Abram gave a practical proof that he believed Jehovah; and what God did with the animals so arranged was a practical declaration on the part of Jehovah, that He reckoned this faith to Abram as righteousness. The significance of the divine act is, finally, summed up in ver. 18, in the words, " On that day Jehovah made a covenant with Ahram^ Consequently Jehovah reckoned Abram' s faith to him as righteousness, by making a covenant with him, by taking Abram into covenant fellowship with Himself, rp^il', from ipx to continue and to preserve, to be firm and to confirm, in Hiphil to trust, believe (TrurreveLv), expresses " that state of mind which is sure of its object, and relies firmly upon it;" and as denoting conduct towards God, as "a firm, inward, personal, self-surrendering reliance upon a personal being, especially upon the source of all being," it is construed sometimes with? {e,g» Deut. ix. 23), but more frequently with 3 (Num. xiv. 11, xx. 12; Deut. i. 32), "to believe the Lord," and " to believe on the Lord," to trust in Him, — ttco— T6V€Lv eVt Tov Beov, as the apostle has more correctly rendered the CTrlarevaev — ro) Oeat of the LXX. (vid, Rom. iv. 5). Faith therefore is not merely assensus, hut Jiducia also, unconditional trust in the Lord and His word, even where the natural course of events furnishes no ground for hope or expectation. This faith Abram manifested, as the apostle has shown in Rom. iv.; and this faith God reckoned to him as righteousness by the actual conclusion of a covenant with him. •"'^"IVj righteousness, as a human characteristic, is correspondence to the will of God both in character and conduct, or a state answering to the divine purpose of a man's being. This was the state in which man was first created in the image of God; but it was lost by sin, through which he placed himself in opposition to the will of God and to his own divinely appointed destiny, and could only be restored by God. When the human race had universally corrupted its way, Noah alone was found righteous before God (vii. 1), because he was blameless and walked with God (vi. 9). This righteousness Abram acquired through his unconditional trust in the Lord, his undoubting faith in His promise, and his ready obedience to His word. This state of mind, which is expressed in the words t^Sp^^ TP^.H, was reckoned to him as righteousness, so that God treated him as a righteous man, and formed such a relationship with him, that he was placed in living fellowship with God. The foundation of this relationship was laid in the manner described in vers. 7— IL

Vers. 7—11. Abram's question, " Whereby shall I know that 1 shall take possession of it (the land)?" was not an expression of doubt, but of desire for the confirmation or sealing of a promise, which transcended human thought and conception. To gratify this desire, God commanded him to make preparation for the conclusion of a covenant. " Take Me, He said, a heifer of three years old, and a she- goat of three years old, arid a ram of three years old, and a turtle-dove, and a young pigeon;" one of every species of the animals suitable for sacrifice. Abram took these, and " divided them in the midst,*^ i.e, in half, " and placed one half of each opposite to the other (^"^^12 C^K, every one its half, cf. xlii. 25; Num. xvii. 17); only the birds divided he not,^* just as in sacrifice the doves were not divided into pieces, but placed upon the fire whole (Lev. i. 17). The animals chosen, as well as the fact that the doves were left whole, corresponded exactly to the ritual of sacrifice. Yet the transaction itself was not a real sacrifice, since there was neither sprinkling of blood nof offering upon an altar {ablatio), and no mention is made of tho pieces being burned. The proceeding corresponded rather to the custom, prevalent in many ancient nations, of slaughtering animals when concluding a covenant, and after dividing them into pieces, of laying the pieces opposite td one another, that the persons making the covenant might pass between them. Thus Ephraem Syrus (1, 161) observes, that God condescended to follow the custom of the Chaldeans, that He might in the most solemn manner confirm His oath to Abram the Chaldean. The wide extension of this custom is evident from the expression used to denote the conclusion of a covenant, ri''")2i n^3 to hew, or cut a covenant, Aram. 0"^!? P^, Greek opKta t€/jlv€lv, foedus ferire, i.e. ferienda hostia facere fcedus; cf. Bochart (Hieroz. 1, 332); whilst it is evident from Jer. xxxiv. 18, that this was still customary among the Israelites of later times. The choice of sacrificial animals for a transaction which was not strictly a sacrifice, was founded upon the symbolical significance of the sacrificial animals, i.e. upon the fact that they represented and took the place of those who offered them. In the case before us, they were meant to typify the promised seed of Abram. This would not hold good, indeed, if the cutting of the animals had been merely intended to signify, that any who broke the covenant would be treated like the animals that were there cut in pieces. But there is no sure ground in Jer. xxxiv. 18 sqq. for thus interpreting the ancient custom. The meaning which the prophet there assigns to the symbolical usage, may be simply a different application of it, which does not preclude an earlier and different intention in the symbol. The division of the animals probably denoted originally the two parties to the covenant, and the passing of the latter through the pieces laid opposite to one another, their formation into one x sl signification to which the other might easily have been attacned as a further consequence and explanation. And if in such a case the sacrificial animals represented the parties to the covenant, so also even in the present instance the sacrificial animals were fitted for that purpose, since, although originally representing only the owner or offerer of the sacrifice, by their consecration as sacrifices they were also brought into connection with Jehovah. But in the case before us the animals represented Abram and his seed, not in the fact of their being slaughtered, as significant of the slaying of that seed, but only in what happened to and in connection with the slaughtered animals: birds of prey attempted to eat them, and when extreme darkness came on, the glory of God passed through them. As all the seed of Abram was concerned, one of every kind of animal suitable for sacrifice was taken, ut ex toto populo et singulis partibus sacrificium unum Jieret (^Calvin), The age of the animals, three years old, was supposed by Theodoret to refer to the three generations of Israel which were to remain in Egypt, or the three centuries of captivity in a foreign land; and this is rendered very probable by the fact, that in Judg. vi. 25 the bullock of seven years old undoubtedly refers to the seven years of Midianitish oppression. On the other hand, we cannot find in the six halves of the three animals and the undivided birds, either 7 things or the sacred number 7, for two undivided birds cannot represent one whole, but two; nor can we attribute to the eight pieces any symbolical meaning, for these numbers necessarily followed from the choice of one specimen of every kind of animal that was fit for sacrifice, and from the division of the larger animals into two. — Ver. 11. " Then birds of prey (p\V^ with the article, as chap. xiv. 13) came down upon the carcases^ and A bram frightened them away^ The birds of prey represented the foes of Israel, who would seek to eat up, i.e. exterminate it. And the fact that Abram frightened them away was a sign, that Abram' s faith and his relation to the Lord would preserve the whole of his posterity from destruction, that Israel would be saved for Abram's sake (Ps. cv. 42).

Vers. 12-17. " And when the sun was just about to go down (on the construction, see Ges. § 132), and deep sleep ("^^^.l^, as in chap. ii. 21, a deep sleep produced by God) had fallen upon Abram, behold there fell upon him terror, great darkness!^ The vision here passes into a prophetic sleep produced by God. In this sleep there fell upon Abram dread and darkness; this is shown by the interchange of the perfect n^s: and the participle ripa:. The reference to the time is intended to show " the supernatural character of the darkness and sleep, and the distinction between the vision and a dream" {0. v. Gerlach). It also possesses a symbolical meaning. The setting of the sun prefigured to Abram the departure of the sun of grace, which shone upon Israel, and the commencement of a dark and dreadful period of suffering for his posterity, the very anticipation of which involved Abram in darkness. For the words which he heard in the darkness were these (vers. 13 sqq.): " Know of a surety y that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them (the lords of the strange land), and they (the foreigners) shall oppress them 400 years^ That these words had reference to the sojourn of the children of Israel in Egypt, is placed beyond all doubt by the fulfilment. The 400 years were, according to prophetic language, a round number for the 430 years that Israel spent in Egypt (Ex. xii. 40). " Also that nation ivhom they shall serve will I judge (see the fulfilment, Ex. vi. 11); and afterward shall they come out with great substance (the actual fact according to Ex. xii. 31-36). And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace, and be buried in a good old age (cf. chap. XXV. 7, 8); and in the fourth generation they shall come hither again J^ The calculations are made here on the basis of a hundred years to a generation: not too much for those times, when the average duration of life was above 150 years, and Isaac was born in the hundredth year of Abraham's life. " For the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full^ Amorite, the name of the most powerful tribe of the Canaanites, is used here as the common name of all the inhabitants of Canaan, just as in Josh, xxiv. 15 (cf. X. 5), Judg. vi. 10, etc.). — By this revelation Abram had the future history of his seed pointed out to him in general outlines, and was informed at the same time why neither he nor his descendants could obtain immediate possession of the promised land, viz. because the Canaanites were not yet ripe for the sentence of extermination. — Yer. 17. When the sun had gone down, and thick darkness had come on (^l*] impersonal), " behold a smoking furnace, and (with) a fiery torch, which passed between those pieces^^ — a description of what Abram saw in his deep prophetic sleep, corresponding to the mysterious character of the whole proceeding, "i^^ri^ a stove, is a cylindrical fire-pot, such as is used in the dwelling-houses of the East. The phenomenon, which passed through the pieces as they lay opposite to one another, resembled such a smoking stove, from which a fiery torch, i,e, a brilliant flame, was streaming forth. In this symbol Jehovah manifested Himself to Abram, just as He afterwards did to the people of Israel in the pillar of cloud and fire. Passing through the pieces. He ratified the covenant which He made with Abram. His glory was enveloped in fire and smoke, the product of the consuming fire, — both symbols of the wrath of God (cf. Ps. xviii. 9, and Ilengstenberg in loc.)^ whose fiery zeal consumes wdiatever opposes it (vid. Ex. iii. 2). — To establish and give reality to the covenant to be concluded with Abram, Jehovah would have to pass through the seed of Abram when oppressed by the Egyptians and threatened with destruction, and to execute judgment upon their oppressors (Ex. vii. 4, xii. 12). In this symbol, the passing of the Lord between the pieces meant something altogether different from the oath of the Lord by Himself in chap. xxii. 16, or by His life in Deut. xxxii. 40, or by His soul in Amos vi. 8 and Jer. li. 14. It set before Abram the condescension of the Lord to his seed, in the fearful glory of His majesty as the judge of their foes. Hence the pieces were not consumed by the fire; for the transaction had reference not to a sacrifice, which God accepted, and in which the soul of the offerer was to ascend in the smoke to God, but to a covenant in which God came down to man. From the nature of this covenant, it followed, however, that God alone went through the pieces in a symbolical representation of Himself, and not Abram also. For although a covenant always establishes a reciprocal relation between two individuals, yet in that covenant which God concluded with a man, the man did not stand on an equality with God, but God established the relation of fellowship by His promise and His gracious condescension to the man, who was at first purely a recipient, and was only quahfied and bound to fulfil the obligations consequent upon the covenant by the reception of gifts of grace.

In vers. 18-21 this divine revelation is described as the making of a covenant (n^iB, from nn3 to cut, lit. the bond concluded by cutting up the sacrificial animals), and the substance of this covenant is embraced in the promise, that God would give that land to the seed of Abram, from the river of Egypt to the great rivelr Eu})linites. The river C^^^) of Egypt is the Nile, and not the brook (^01) of Egypt (Num.:jcxiv^ 5), i.e. the boundary stream Wdnocorura^ Wady el Arish. According to the oratorical character of the promise, the two large rivers, the Nile and the Euphrates, are mentioned as the boundaries within which the seed of Abram would ])ossess the promised land, the exact limits of which arc more minutely described in the list of tho tribes who were then in possession. Ten tribes are mentioned between the southern border of the land and the extreme north, " to convey the impression of universality without exception, of unqualified completeness, the symbol of which is the number ten" (^Delitzsch). In other passages we find sometimes seven tribes mentioned (Deut. vii. 1; Josh. iii. 10), at other times six (Ex. iii. 8, 17, xxiii. 23; Deut. xx. 17), at others five (Ex. xiii. 5), at others again only two (chap. xiii. 7); whilst occasionally they are all included in the common name of Canaanites (chap, xii. 6). The absence of the Hivites is striking here, since they are not omitted from any other list where as many as five or seven tribes are mentioned. Out of the eleven descendants of Canaan (chap. X. 15-18) the names of four only are given here; the others are included in the common name of Canaanites. On the other hand, four tribes are given, whose descent from Canaan is very improbable. The origin of the Kenites cannot be determined. According to Judg. i. 16, iv. 11, Hobab, the brotherin-law of Moses, was a Kenite. His being called a Midianite (Num. X. 29) does not prove that he was descended from Midian (Gen. XXV. 2), but is to be accounted for from the fact that he dwelt in the land of Midian, or among the Midianites (Ex. ii. 15). This branch of the Kenites went with the Israelites to Canaan, into the wilderness of Judah (Judg. i. 16), and dwelt even in SauFs time among the Amalekites on the southern border of Judah (1 Sam. xv. 6), and in the same towns with members of the tribe of Judah (1 Sam. xxx. 29). There is nothing either in this passage, or in Num. xxiv. 21, 22, to compel us to distinguish these Midianitish Kenites from those of Canaan. The Philistines also were not Canaanites, and yet their territory was assigned to the Israelites. And just as the Philistines had forced their way into the land, so the Kenites may have taken possession of certain tracts of the country. All that can be inferred from the two passages is, that there were Kenites outside Midian, who were to be exterminated by the Israelites. On the Kenizzites, all that can be affirmed with certainty is, that the name is neither to be traced to the Edomitish Kenaz (chap, xxxvi. 15, 42), nor to be identified with the Kenezite Jephunneh, the father of Caleb of Judah (Num. xxxii. 12; Josh. xiv. 6: see my Comm. on Joshua, p. 356, Eng. tr.). — The Kadmonites are never mentioned again, and their origin cannot be determined. On the

Vers. 1—6. As the promise of a lineal heir (chap. xv. 4) did not seem likely to be fulfilled, even after the covenant had been made, Sarai resolved, ten years after their entrance into Canaan, to give her Egyptian maid Hagar to her husband, that if possible she might " be built up by her^^ i.e. obtain children, who might found a house or family (chap. xxx. 3). The resolution seemed a judicious one, and according to the customs of the East, there would be nothing wrong in carrying it out. Hence Abraham consented without opposition, because, as Malachi (ii. 1 5) says, he sought the seed promised by God. But they were both of them soon to learn, that their thoughts were the thoughts of man and not of God, and that their wishes and actions were not in accordance with the divine promise. Sarai, the originator of the plan, was the first to experience its evil consequences. When the maid was with child by Abram, " her mistress became little in her eyesr When Sarai complained to Abram of the contempt she received from her maid (saying, " My wrong^'' the wrong done to me, " come upon, thee^^ cf. Jer. li. 35; Gen. xxvii. 13), and called upon Jehovah to judge between her and her husband,^ Abram gave her full power to act as mistress towards her maid, without raising the slave who was made a concubine above her position. But as soon as Sarai made her feel her power, Hagar fled. Thus, instead of securing the fulfilment of their wishes, Sarai and Abram had reaped nothing but grief and vexation, and apparently had lost the maid through their self-concerted scheme. But the faithful covenant God turned the whole into a blessing.

Vers. 7—14. Hagar no doubt intended to escape to Eg}'pt by a road used from time immemorial, that ran from Hebron past Beersheba, " by the way of Shurr — Shur, the present Jifar^ is the name given to the north-western portion of the desert of Arabia (cf. Ex. xv. 22). There the angel of the Lord found ^ "n^^^a, with a point over the second Jod, to show that it is irregular and suspicious; since ^3 with the singular suIGx is always treated as a siugular, aud only with a plural suflix as plural.

her by a well, and directed her to return to her mistress, and submit to her; at the same time he promised her the birth of a son, and an innumerable multiplication of her descendants. As the fruit of her womb was the seed of Abram, she was to return to his house and there bear him a son, wJio, though not the seed promised by God, would be honoured for Abram's sake with the blessing of an innumerable posterity. For this reason also Jehovah appeared to her in the form of the Angel of Jehovah (cf. p. 129). i^'][} is adj. verb, as in chap, xxxviii. 24, etc.: " thou art with child and wilt bear;^^ Jp?'' for THt (chap. xvii. 19) is found again in Judg. xiii. 5, 7. This son she was to call Ishmael (" God hears "), ''for Jehovah hath hearlcened to thy distress^ ^^y ajflictionem sine dubio vocat, quam Hagar affiictionem sentiebat esse, nempe conditionem servitem et quod castigata esset a Sara (Luther). It was Jehovah, not Elohim, who had heard, although the latter name was most naturally suggested as the explanation of Ishmael, because the hearing, i.e. the multiplication of Ishmael's descendants, was the result of the covenant grace of Jehovah. Moreover, in contrast with the oppression which she had endured and still would endure, she received the promise that her son would endure no such oppression. " He will be a wild ass of a manP The figure of a t^"]^, onager, that wild and untameable animal, roaming at its will in the desert, of which so highly poetic a description is given in Job xxxix. 5—8, depicts most aptly " the Bedouin's boundless love of freedom as he rides about in the desert, spear in hand, upon his camel or his horse, hardy, frugal, revelling in the varied beauty of nature, and despising town life in every form; " and the words, " his hand will be against every man, and every mans hand against him^^ describe most truly the incessant state of feud, in which the Ishmaelites live with one another or with their neighbours. " He will dioell before the face of all his brethren^* \^^ ^V denotes, it is true, ta the east of (cf. chap. xxv. 18), and this meaning is to be retained here; but the geographical notice of the dwelling-place of the Ishmaelites hardly exhausts the force of the expression, which also indicated that Ishmael would maintain an independent standing before (in the presence of) all the descendants of Abraham. History has confirmed this promise. The Ishmaelites have continued to this day in free and undiminislied possession of the extensive peninsula between the Euphrates, the

Straits of Suez, and the Red Sea, from whicli they have overspread both Northern Africa and Southern Asia. — Ver. 13. In the angel, Hagar recognised God manifesting Himself to her, the presence of Jehovah, and called Him, " Thou art a God of seeing; for she said, Have I also seen here after seeing?^* Believing that a man must die if he saw God (Ex. xx. 19, xxxiii. 20), Hagar was astonished that she had seen God and remained alive, and called Jehovah, who had spoken to her, "God of seeing," i.e. who allows Himself to be seen, because here, on the spot where this sight was granted her, after seeing she still saw, i.e. remained alive. From this occurrence the well received the name of " well of the seeing alive,^ i.e. at which a man saw God and remained alive. Beer-lahai-roi: according to Ewald^ ^NT '•n is to be regarded as a composite noun, and /" as a sign of the genitive; but this explanation, in which ^fc<T is treated as a pausal form of ^i<^., does not suit the form ''^?^ with the accent upon the last syllable, which points rather to the participle n^n with the first pers. suffix. On this ground Delitzsch and others have decided in favour of the interpretation given in the Chaldee version, " Thou art a God of seeing, i.e. the all-seeing, from whose all-seeing eye the helpless and forsaken is not hidden even in the farthest corner of the desert." ''Have I not even here (in the barren land of solitude) looked after Him, who saw meV^ and Beer-lahai-roi, " the well of the Living One who sees me, i.e. of the omnipresent Providence." But still greater difficulties lie in the way of this view. It not only overthrows the close connection between this and the similar passages chap, xxxii. 31, Ex. xxxiii. 20, Judg. xiii. 22, where the sight of God excites a fear of death, but it renders the name, which the well received from this appearance of God, an inexplicable riddle. If Hagar called the God who appeared to her "•si h^ because she looked after Him whom she saw, i.e. as we must necessarily understand the word, saw not His face, but only His back; how could it ever occur to her or to any one else, to call the well Beer-lahai-roi, "Avell of the Living One, who sees me," instead of Beer-el-roi? Moreover, what completely overthrows this explanation, is the fact that neither in Genesis nor anywhere in the Pentateuch is God called "the Living One;" and throughout the Old Testament it is only in contrast with the dead gods or idols of the heathen, a contrast never thought of here, that the expressions ^n D'n^N and

V ''^ occur, whilst ^nn is never used in the Old Testament as a name of God. For these reasons we must abide by the first explanation, and change the reading ^^?^ into "^ip} With regard to the well, it is still farther added that it was between Kadesh (xiv. 7) and Bered. Though Bered has not been discovered, Rowland believes, with good reason, that he has found the well of Hagar, which is mentioned again in chap. xxiv. 62, xxv. 11, in the spring Ain Kades, to the south of Beersheba, at the leading place of encampment of the caravans passing from Syria to Sinai, viz. MoyUj or Moilahi, or Muweilih (Robinson, Pal. i. p. 280), which the Arabs call Moilahi Hagar, and in the neighbourhood of which they point out a rock Beit Hagar, Bered must lie to the west of this.

Vers. 15—16. Having returned to Abram's house, Hagar bare him a son in his 86th year. He gave it the name IsJimael, and regarded it probably as the promised seed, until, thirteen years afterwards, the counsel of God was more clearly unfolded to him.

SEALING OF THE COVENANT BY THE GIVING OF NEW NAMES AND BY THE RITE OF CIRCUMCISION. — CHAP. XVII.

Vers. 1-14. The covenant had been made with Abram for at least fourteen years, and yet Abram remained without any visible sign of its accomplishment, and was merely pointed in faith to the inviolable character of the promise of God. Jehovah now appeared to Him again, when he was ninety-nine years old, twenty-four years after his migration, and thirteen after the birth of Ishmael, to give effect to the covenant and prepare for its execution. Having come down to Abram in a visible form (ver 22), He said to him, ^'I am El Shaddai (almighty God): walk before Me and be blameless^ At the establishment of the

^ The objections to this change in the accentuation are entirely counterbalanced by the grammatical difficulty connected with the second explanation. If, for example, "»KT is a participle with the 1st pers. suff., it should be written ^^fc^i (Isa. xxix. 15) or ^3t<i (Isa. xlvii. 10). ^Kl cannot mean, "who sees me," but "my seer," an expression utterly inapplicable to God, which cannot be supported by a reference to Job vii. 8, for the accentuation varies there; and the derivation of ^Ki from ''j<i " eye of the seeing," for the eye which looks after me, is apparently fully warranted by the analogous expression rrh ntJ'fc^ in Jer. xiii. 21.

covenant, God had manifested Himself to him as Jehovah (xv. 7); here Jehovah describes Himself as El Shaddai, God the Mighty One. ""^K^: from T]^ to be strong, with the substantive termination ai, like ""^n the festal, ''^''^^. the old man, '"^p the thorn-grown, etc. This name is not to be regarded as identical with Elohim, that is to say, with God as Creator and Preserver of the world, although in simple narrative Elohim is used for El Shaddaij which is only employed in the more elevated and solemn style of writing. It belonged to the sphere of salvation, forming one element in the manifestation of Jehovah, and describing Jehovah, the covenant God, as possessing the power to realize His promises, even when the order of nature presented no prospect of their fulfilment, and the powers of nature were insufficient to secure it. The name which Jehovah thus gave to Himself was to be a pledge, that in spite of " his own body now dead," and "the deadness of Sarah's womb" (Rom. iv. 19), God could and would give him the promised innumerable posterity. On the other hand, God required this of Abram, " Walk heforeMe (cf. chap. v. 22) and be blameless^'* (vi. 9). "Just as righteousness received in faith was necessary for the establishment of the covenant, so a blameless walk before God was required for the maintenance and confirmation of the covenant." This introduction is followed by a more definite account of the new revelation; first of the promise involved in the new name of God (vers. 2-8), and then of the obligation imposed upon Abram (vers. 9-14). " / will give My covenant,^ says the Almighty, " between Me and thee^ and multiply thee exceedingly,^^ n''"}3 jnj signifies, not to make a covenant, but to give, to put, i.e. to realize, to set in operation the things promised in the covenant — equivalent to setting up the covenant (cf. ver. 7 and ix. 12 with ix. 9). This promise Abram appropriated to himself by falling upon his face in worship, upon which God still further expounded the nature of the covenant about to be executed. — Ver. 4. On the part of God ("'^fc< placed at the beginning absolutely: so far as I am concerned, for my part) it was to consist of this: (1) that God would make Abram the father (3X instead of ""^K chosen with reference to the name Abram) of a multitude of nations, the ancestor of nations and kings; (2) that He would be God, show Himself to be God, in an eternal covenant relation, to him and to his posterity, according to their familieSj according to all their successive generations; and (3) that He would give them the land In which he had wandered as a foreigner, viz. all Canaan, for an everlasting possession. As a pledge of this promise God changed his name Di2N, i.e. high father, into Drnnx, i.e. father of the multitude, from 3X and DHi Arab, rulidm =z multitude. In this name God gave him a tangible pledge of the fulfilment of His covenant, inasmuch as a name which God gives cannot be a mere empty sound, but must be the expression of something real, or eventually acquire reality. — Vers. 9 sqq. On the part of Abraham (^^^1 ihou^ the antithesis to ^^X, as for me, ver. 4) God required that he and his descendants in all generations should keep the covenant, and that as a sign he should circumcise himself and every male in his house. ^iJsn Niph. of i"io, and D^r'P^ perf. Niph. for Q^^^^, from?pD=?lD. As the sign of the covenant, circumcision is called in ver. 13, 'Hhe covenant in the flesh^"* so far as the nature of the covenant was manifested in the flesh. It was to be extended not only to the seed, the lineal descendants of Abraham, but to all the males in his house, even to every foreign slave not belonging to the seed of Abram, whether born in the house or acquired (i.e, bought) with money, and to the " son of eight days,* i.e, the male child eight days old; with the threat that the uncircumcised should be exterminated from his people, because by neglecting circumcision he had broken the covenant with God. The form of speech i^'^*^<] tJ'Mn nn")D3, by which many of the laws are enforced (cf. Ex. xii. 15, 19; Lev. vii. 20, 21, 25, etc.), denotes not rejection from the nation, or banishment, but death, whether by a direct judgment from God, an untimely death at the hand of God, or by the punishment of death inflicted by the congregation or the magistrates, and that whether nni^ niD is added, as in Ex. xxxi. 14, etc., or not. This is very evident from Lev. xvii. 9, 10, where the extermination to be effected by the authorities is distinguished from that to be executed by God Himself (see my biblische Archdologie ii. § 153, 1). In this sense we sometimes find, in the place of the earlier expression ''from his peo'ple^'' i.e, his nation, such expressions as "from among his people" (Lev. xvii. 4, 10; Num. XV. 30), "from Israel" (Ex. xii. 15; Num. xix. 13), " from the congregation of Israel" (Ex. xii. 19); and instead of "that soul," in Lev. xvii. 4, 9 (cf. Ex. xxx. 33, 38), we find "that man." Vers. 15-21. The appointment of the sign of the covenant was followed by this further revelation as to the promised seed, that Abram would receive it through his wife Sarai. In confirmation of this her exalted destiny, she was no longer to be called Sarai (''T^, probably from "i^K^ with the termination aij the princely), but nnb^^ the princess; for she was to become nations, the mother of kings of nations. Abraham then fell upon his face and laughed, saying in himself (i.e, thinking), " Shall a child be horn to him that is a hundred years old, or shall Sarah, that is ninety years old, bearf" " The promise was so immensely great, that he sank in adoration to the ground, and so immensely paradoxical, that he could not help laughing" (Del.), " Not that he either ridiculed the promise of God, or treated it as a fable, or rejected it altogether; but, as often happens when things occur which are least expected, partly lifted up with joy, partly carried out of himself with wonder, he burst out into laughter" (Calvin), In this joyous amazement he said to God (ver. 18), " 0 that Ishmael might live before Thee! " To regard these words, with Calvin and others, as intimating that he should be satisfied with the prosperity of Ishmael, as though he durst not hope for anything higher, is hardly sufficient. The prayer implies anxiety, lest Ishmael should have no part in the blessings of the covenant. God answers, " Yes (/'5^5 imo), Sarah thy wife bears thee a son, and thou wilt call his name Isaac (according to the Greek form ^laacLK, for the Hebrew pn^^, i.e, laugher, with reference to Abraham's laughing; ver. 17, cf. xxi. 6), and I will establish My covenant with him^^ i.e, make him the recipient of the covenant grace. And the prayer for Ishmael God would also grant: He would make him very fruitful, so that he should beget twelve princes and become a great nation. But the covenant, God repeated (ver. 21), should be established with Isaac, whom Sarah was to bear to him at that very time in the following year. — Since Ishmael therefore was excluded from participating in the covenant grace, which was ensured to Isaac alone; and yet Abraham was to become a multitude of nations, and that through Sarah, who was to become "nations" through the son she was to bear (ver. 16); the "multitude of nations" could not include either the Islunaelites or the tribes descended from the sons of Keturah (chap. xxv. 2 sqq.), but tlie descendants of Isaac alone; and as one of Isaac's two sons received no part of the covenant promise, the descendants of Jacob alone. But the whole of the twelve sons of Jacob founded only the one nation of Israel, with which Jehovah established the covenant made with Abraham (Ex. vi. and xx.-xxiv.), so that Abraham became through Israel the lineal father of one nation only. From this it necessarily follows, that the posterity of Abraham, which was to expand into a multitude of nations, extends beyond this one lineal posterity, and embraces the spiritual posterity also, i.e. all nations who are grafted ix Trto-reo)? ^AfipadfM into the seed of Abraham (Rom. iv. 11, 12, and 16, 17). Moreover, the fact that the seed of Abraham was not to be restricted to his lineal descendants, is evident from the fact, that circumcision as the covenant sign was not confined to them, but extended to all the inmates of his house, so that these strangers were received into the fellowship of the covenant, and reckoned as part of the promised seed. Now, if the whole land of Canaan was promised to this posterity, which was to increase into a multitude of nations (ver. 8), it is perfectly evident, from what has just been said, that the sum and substance of the promise was not exhausted by the gift of the land, whose boundaries are described in chap. xv. 18-21, as a possession to the nation of Israel, but that the extension of the idea of the lineal posterity, " Israel after the flesh," to the spiritual posterity, " Israel after the spirit," requires the expansion of the idea and extent of the earthly Canaan to the full extent of the spiritual Canaan, whose boundaries reach as widely as the multitude of nations having Abraham as father; and, therefore, that in reality Abraham received the promise " that he should be the heir of the worW^ (Rom. iv. 13).^

And what is true of the seed of Abraham and the land of Canaan must also hold good of the covenant and the covenant sign.

^ What stands out clearly in this promise — viz. the fact that the expressions " seed of Abraham'*'' (people of Israel) and " land of Canaan " are not exhausted in the physical Israel and earthly Canaan, but are to be understood spiritually, Israel and Canaan acquiring the typical significance of the people of God and land of the Lord — is still further expanded by the prophets, and most distinctly expressed in the New Testament by Christ and the apostles. This scriptural and spiritual interpretation of the Old Testament is entirely overlooked by those who, like Auberlen, restrict all the promises of God and the prophetic proclamations of salvation to the physical Israel, and reduce the application of them to the " Israel after the spirit," i.e. to believing Christendom, to a mere a oommodation.

Eternal duration was promised only to the covenant established by God with the seed of Abraham, which was to grow into a multitude of nations, but not to the covenant institution which God established in connection with the lineal posterity of Abraham, the twelve tribes of Israel. Everything in this institution which was of a local and limited character, and only befitted the physical Israel and the earthly Canaan, existed only so long as was necessary for the seed of Abraham to expand into a multitude of nations. So again it was only in its essence that circumcision could be a sign of the eternal covenant. Circumcision, whether it passed from Abraham to other nations, or sprang up among other nations independently of Abraham and his descendants (see my Archaologie, § 63, 1), was based upon the religious view, that the sin and moral impurity which the fall of Adam had introduced into the nature of man had concentrated itself in the sexual organs, because it is in sexual life that it generally manifests itself with peculiar force; and, consequently, that for the sanctification of life, a purification or sanctification of the organ of generation, by which life is propagated, is especially required. In this way circumcision in the flesh became a symbol of the circumcision, i.e. the purification, of the heart (Deut. X. 16, XXX. 6, cf. Lev. xxvi. 41, Jer. iv. 4, ix. 25, Ezek. xliv. 7), and a covenant sign to those who received it, inasmuch as they were received into the fellowship of the holy nation (Ex. xix. 6), and required to sanctify their lives, in other words, to fulfil all that the covenant demanded. It was to be performed on every boy on the eighth day after its birth, not because the child, like its mother, remains so long in a state of impurity, but because, as the analogous rule with regard to the fitness of young animals for sacrifice would lead us to conclude, this was regarded as the first day of independent existence (Lev. xxii. 27; Ex. xxii. 29; see my Archaologie^ § 63).

Vers. 22-27. When God had finished His address and ascended again, Abraham immediately fulfilled the covenant duty enjoined upon him, by circumcising himself on that very day, along with all the male members of his house. Because Ishmael was 13 years old when he was circumcised, the Arabs even now defer circumcision to a much later period than the Jews, generally till between the ages of 5 and 13, and frequently even till the 13th year.

Havinor been received into the covenant with God through the rite of circumcision, Abraham was shortly afterwards honoured by being allowed to receive and entertain the Lord and two angels in his tent. This fresh manifestation of God had a double purpose, viz. to establish Sarah's faith in the promise that she should bear a son in her old age (vers. 1-15), and to announce the judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah (vers. 16-33).

Vers. 1-15. When sitting, about mid-day, in the grove of Mamre, in front of his tent, Abraham looked up and unexpectedly saw three men standing at some distance from him (V?y above him, looking down upon him as he sat), viz. Jehovah (ver. 13) and two angels (xix. 1); all three in human form. Perceiving at once that one of them was the Lord C}"'^., Le, God), he prostrated himself reverentially before them, and entreated them not to pass him by, but to suffer him to entertain them as his guests: " Let a little water be fetched, and wash your feet, and recline yourselves (ji^^n to recline, leaning upon the arm) under the treer — " Comfort your hearts;" lit, " strengthen the heart," Le. refresh yourselves by eating and drinking (Judg. xix. 5; 1 Kings xxi. 7). ''For therefore {sc, to give me an opportunity to entertain you hospitably) have ye come over to your servant:" ""S |3 /'y does not stand for ""^ |3 pV {Ges, thes, p. 682), but means " because for this purpose" (vid, JEwaldy § 353). — Vers. 6 sqq. When the three men had accepted the hospitable invitation, Abraham, just like a Bedouin sheikh of the present day, directed his wife to take three seahs (374 cubic inches each) of fine meal, and bake cakes of it as quickly as possible (ni-iy round unleavened cakes baked upon hot stones); he also had a tender calf killed, and sent for milk and butter, or curdled milk, and thus prepared a bountiful and savoury meal, of which the guests partook. The eating of material food on the part of these heavenly beings was not in appearance only, but was really eating; an act which may be attributed to the corporeality assumed, and is to be regarded as analogous to the eating on the part of the risen and glorified Christ (Luke xxiv. 41 sqq.), although the miracle still remains physiologically incomprehensible.— Vers, 9-15. During the meal, at which Abraham stood, and waited upon them as the host, they asked for Sarah, for whom the visit was chiefly intended. On being told that she was in the tent, where she could hear, therefore, all that passed under the tree in front of the tent, the one whom Abraham addressed as Adonai (my Lord), and who is called Jehovah in ver. 13, said, '^ I will return to thee (p^^ nj;3) at this time^ wheyi it lives again ^ {p1^, reviviscens, without the article, Ges. § 111, 26), i.e. at this time next year; " and, behold, Sarah, thy wife, will (then) have a sonJ* Sarah heard this at the door of the tent; ^^and it was behind Ilim^' (Jehovah), so that she could not be seen by Him as she stood at the door. But as the fulfilment of this promise seemed impossible to her, on account of Abraham's extreme age, and the fact that her own womb had lost the power of conception, she laughed within herself, thinking that she was not observed. But that she might know that the promise was made by the omniscient and omnipotent God, He reproved her for laughing, saying, "/« anything too wonderful (i.e. impossible) for Jehovah? at the time appointed I will return unto thee," etc.; and when her perplexity led her to deny it. He convicted her of falsehood. Abraham also had laughed at this promise (chap. xvii. 17), and without receiving any reproof. For his laughing was the joyous outburst of astonishment; Sarah's, on the contrary, the result of doubt and unbelief, which had to be broken down by reproof, and, as the result showed, really was broken down, inasmuch as she conceived and bore a son, whom she could only have conceived in faith (Heb. xi. 11).

Vers. 16-33. After this conversation with Sarah, the heavenly guests rose up and turned their faces towards the plain of Sodom (\^3?V, as in chap. xix. 28; Num. xxi. 20, xxiii. 28). Abraham accompanied them some distance on the road; according to tradition, he went as far as the site of the later Caphar barucha, from which you can see the Dead Sea through a ravine, — solitudinem ac terras Sodomce. And Jehovah said, " Shall I hide from Abraham what I propose to do? Abraham is destined to be a great nation and a blessing to all nations (xii. 2, 3); for I have known, i.e. acknowledged him (chosen him in antici|)ative love,)ni as in Amos iii. 2; Hos. xiii. 4), that he may command his whole posterity to keep the way of Jehovah, to practise justice and righteousness, that all the promises may be fulfilled in them." God then disclosed to Abraham what he was ahimt to do to Sodom and Gomorrah, not, as Kurtz supposes, because Abraham had been constituted the hereditary possessor of the land, and Jehovah, being mindful of His covenant, would not do anything to it without his knowledge and assent (a thought quite foreign to the context), but because Jehovah had chosen him to be the father of the people of God, in order that, by instructing his descendants in the fear of God, he might lead them in the paths of righteousness, so that they might become partakers of the promised salvation, and not be overtaken by judgment. The destruction of Sodom and the surrounding cities was to be a permanent memoiial of the punitive righteousness of God, and to keep the fate of the ungodly constantly before the mind of Israel. To this end Jehovah explained to Abraham the cause of their destruction in the clearest manner possible, that he might not only be convinced of the justice of the divine government, but might learn that when the measure of iniquity was full, no intercession could avert the judgment, — a lesson and a warning to his descendants also. — Ver. 20. " The cry of Sodom and Gomorrah, yea it is great; and their sin, yea it is very grievousT The cry is the appeal for vengeance or punishment, which ascends to heaven (chap. iv. 10). The ""S serves to give emphasis to the assertion, and is placed in the middle of the sentence to give the greater prominence to the leading thought (cf. Ewald, § 330). — Ver. 21. God was about to go down, and convince Himself whether they had done entirely according to the cry which had reached Him, or not. n73 nby, lit. to make completeness, here referring to the extremity of iniquity, generally to the extremity of punishment (Nahum i. 8, 9; Jer. iv. 27, V. 10): n73 is a noun, as Isa. x. 23 shows, not an adverb, as in Ex. xi. 1. After this explanation, the men (according to chap. xix. 1, the two angels) turned from thence to go to Sodom (ver. 22); but Abraham continued standing before Jehovah, who had been talking with him, and approached Him with earnestness and boldness of faith to intercede for Sodom. He was urged to this, not by any special interest in Lot, for in that case he would have prayed for his deliverance; nor by the circumstance that, as he had just before felt himself called upon to become the protector, avenger, and deliverer of the land from its foes, so he now thought himself called upon to act as mediator, and to appeal from Jehovah's judicial wrath to Jehovah's covenant grace {Kurtz), for he had not delivered the land from the foe, tut merely rescued his nephew Lot and all the booty that remained after the enemy had withdrawn; nor did he appeal to the covenant grace of Jehovah, but to His justice alone; and on the principle that the Judge of all the earth could not possibly destroy the righteous with the wicked, he founded his entreaty that God would forgive the city if there were but fifty righteous in it, or even if there were only ten. He was led to intercede in this way, not by " communis erga quinque populos misericordia^* (Calvin), but by the love which springs from the consciousness that one's own preservation and rescue are due to compassionate grace alone; love, too, which cannot conceive of the guilt of others as too great for salvation to be possible. This sympathetic love, springing from the faith which was counted for righteousness, impelled him to the intercession which Luther thus describes: " sexies petiit, et cum tanto ardore ac affectu sic urgente, ut prce nimia angustia, qua cupit consultum miseris civitatibus, videatur quasi stulte loqui^ There may be apparent folly in the words, " Wilt Thou also destroy the righteous xoith the wicked V^ but they were only " violenta oratio et impetuosa, quasi cogens Deuni ad ignoscendum" For Abraham added, " peradventure there be fifty righteous within the city; wilt Thou also destroy and not forgive (^^J, to take away and bear the guilt, i.e, forgive) the place for the fifty righteous that are therein?" and described the slaying of the righteous with the wicked as irreconcilable with the justice of God. He knew that he was speaking to the Judge of all the earth, and that before Him he was " but dust and ashes^* — " dust in his origin, and ashes in the end;" and yet he made bold to appeal still further, and even as low as ten righteous, to pray that for their sake He would spare the city. — DVSn '^^ (ver. 32) signifies '^ only this (one) time more,"

as in Ex. x. 17. This "seemingly commercial kind of entreaty is," as Dclitzsch observes, " the essence of true prayer. It is the holy avalSeta, of which our Lord speaks in Luke xi. 8, the shamelessness of faith, which bridges over the infinite distance of the creature from the Creator, appeals with importunity to the lieart of God, and ceases not till its point is gained. This would indeed be neither permissible nor possible, had not God, by virtue of the mysterious interlacing of necessity and freedom in His nature and operations, gi-anted a power to the prayer of faith, to which He consents to yield; had He not, by virtue of His absoluteness, which is anything but blind necessity, placed Himself in such a relation to men, that He not merely works upon them by means of His grace, but allows them to work upon Him by means of their faith; had He not interwoven the life of the free creature into His own absolute life, and accorded to a created personality the right to assert itself in faith, in dis-

tinction from His own." With the promise, that even for the sake of ten righteous He would not destroy the city, Jehovah " went His way," that is to say, vanished; and Abraham returned to his place, viz. to the grove of Mamre. The judgment which fell upon the wicked cities immediately afterwards, proves that there were not ten " righteous persons^^ in Sodom; by which we understand, not merely ten sinless or holy men, but ten who through the fear of God and conscientiousness had kept themselves free from the prevailing sin and iniquity of these cities.

INIQUITY AND DESTRUCTION OF SODOM. ESCAPE OF LOT, AND HIS SUBSEQUENT HISTORY. — CHAP. XIX.

Vers. 1-11. The messengers (angels) sent by Jehovah to Sodom, arrived there in the evening, when Lot, who was sitting at the gate, pressed them to pass the night in his house. The gate, generally an arched entrance with deep recesses and seats on either side, was a place of meeting in the ancient towns of the East, where the inhabitants assembled either for social intercourse or to transact public business (vid. chap, xxxiv. 20; Deut. xxi. 19, xxii. 15, etc.). The two travellers, however (for such Lot supposed them to be, and only recognised them as angels when they had smitten the Sodomites miraculously with blindness), said that they would spend the night in the street — ^'^^l^^ the broad open space within the gate — as they had been sent to inquire into the state of the town. But they yielded to Lot's entreaty to enter his house; for the deliverance of Lot, after having ascertained his state of mind, formed part of their commission, and entering into his house might only serve to manifest the sin of Sodom in all its heinousness. While Lot was entertaining his guests with the greatest hospitality, the people of Sodom gathered round his house, " both old and young j all people from every quarter"* (of the town, as in Jer. li. 31), and demanded* with the basest violation of the sacred rite of hospitality and the most shameless proclamation of their sin (Isa. iii. 9), that the strangers should be brought out, that they might know them. VT is applied, as in Judg. xix. 22, to the carnal sin of pcederastia, a crime very prevalent among the Canaanites (Lev. xviii. 22 sqq., xx. 23), and according to Rom. i. 27, a curse of heathenism generally. — Vers. 6 sqq. Lot went out to them, shut the door behind him to protect his guests, and offered to give his virgin daughters up to them. " Onl]/ to these men (/^^, an archaism for n?xn, occurs also in ver. 25, chap. xxvi. 3, 4, Lev. xviii. 27, and Deut. iv. 42, vii. 22, xix. 11; and i'^ for n^i< in 1 Chron. xx. 8) do nothing, for therefore (viz. to be protected from injury) have they come under the shadow of my roofT In his anxiety. Lot was willing to sacrifice to the sanctity of hospitality his duty as a father, which ought to have been still more sacred, " and committed the sin of seeking to avert sin by sin." Even if he expected that his daughters would suffer no harm, as they were betrothed to Sodomites (ver. 14), the offer was a grievous viola^ tion of his paternal duty. But this offer only heightened the brutality of the mob. " Stand bach '' (make way, Isa. xlix. 20), they said; " the man, who came as a foreigner, is always wanting to play the judge^^ (probably because Lot had frequently reproved them for their licentious conduct, 2 Pet. ii. 7, 8): " now ivill we deal worse with thee than with them^ With these words they pressed upon him, and approached the door to break it in. The men inside, that is to say, the angels, then pulled Lot into the house, shut the door, and by miraculous power smote the people without with blindness (Dni3D here and 2 Kincrs vi. 18 for mental blindness, in which the eye sees, but does not see the right object), as a punishment for their utter moral blindness, and an omen of the coming judgment.

Vers. 12-22. The sin of Sodom had now become manifest. The men. Lot's guests, made themselves known to him as the messengers of judgment sent by Jehovah, dnd ordered him to remove any one that belonged to him out of the city. " Sotiin-law (the singular without the article, because it is only assumed as a possible circumstance that he may have sons-inlaw), and thy sons, and thy daughters, and all that belongs to thee^* (sc. of persons, not of things). Sons Lot does not appear to have had, as we read nothing more about them, but only " sons in-law 0"'^^? "'OP'') '^^0 were about to take his daughters,^ as Josephusy the Vulgate, JEwald, and many others correctly render it. The ZiXX,, Targums, Knohel, and Delitzsch adopt the rendering " who had taken his daughters," in proof of which the last two adduce nNVD3n in ver. 15 as decisive. But without reason; for this refers not to the daughters who were still in the father's house, as distinguished from those who were married, but to his wife and two daughters who were to be found with him in the house, in distinction from the bridegrooms, who also belonged to him, but were not yet living with him, and who had received his summons in scorn, because in their carnal security they did not believe in any judgment of God (Luke xvii. 28, 29). If Lot had had married daughters, he would undoubtedly have called upon them to escape along with their husbands, his sons-in-law. — Ver. 15. As soon as it was dawn, the angels urged Lot to hasten away with his family; and when he still delayed, his heart evidently clinging to the earthly home and possessions which he was obliged to leave, they laid hold of him, with his wife and his two daughters. Ivy njn; ripDna, " by virtue of the sparing mercy of Jehovah (which operated) upon him,^ and led him out of the city. — Ver. 17. When they left him here (n''?'?, to let loose, and leave, to leave to one's self), the Lord commanded him, for the sake of his life, not to look behind him, and not to stand still in all the plain ("^33, xiii. 10), but to flee to the mountains (afterwards called the mountains of Moab). Li ver. 17 we are struck by the change from the plural to the singular: " when they brought them forth, he said." To think of one of the two angels — the one, for example, who led the conversation — seems out of place, not only because Lot addressed him by the name of God, '^ Adonai'^ (ver. 18), but also because the speaker attributed to himself the judgment upon the cities (vers. 21, 22), which is described in ver. 24 as executed by Jehovah. Yet there is nothing to indicate that Jehovah suddenly joined the angels. The only supposition that remains, therefore, is that Lot recognised in the two angels a manifestation of God, and so addressed them (ver. 18) as Adonai (my Lord), and that the angel who spoke addressed him as the messenger of Jehovah in the name of God, without its following from this, that Jehovah was present in the two angels*

Lot, instead of cheerfully obeying the commandment of the Lord, appealed to the great mercy shown to him in the preservation of his life, and to the impossibility of his escaping to tiie mountains, without the evil overtaking him, and entreated therefore that he might be allowed to take refuge in the small and neighbouring city, i.e, in Bela, which received the name of Zoar (chap. xiv. 2) on account of Lot's calling it little. Zoar, the Svy^^p of the LXX., and Segor of the Crusaders, is hardly to be sought for on the peninsula w^hich projects a long way into the southern half of the Dead Sea, in the Ghor of el Mezraa, as Irb]/ and Robinson (Pal. iii. p. 481) suppose; it is much more probably to be found on the south-eastern point of the Dead Sea, in the Ghor of el SzapJiia, at the opening of the Wady el Ahsa (vid, v. Eaumer, Pal. p. 273, Anm. 14).

Vers. 23-28. " When the sun had risen and Lot had come towards Zoar (i,e. was on the way thither, but had not yet Qxrived), Jehovah caused it to rain brimstone and Jire from Jehovah out of heaven^ and overthrew those cities^ and the whole plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and the produce of the earth,^^ In the words "Jehovah caused it to rain from Jehovah " there is no distinction implied between the hidden and the manifested God, between the Jehovah present upon earth in His angels who called down the judgment, and the Jehovah enthroned in heaven who sent it down; but the expression "from Jehovah " is emphatica repetitio, quod non usitato naturce ordine tunc Deus pluerit, sed tanquam exerta manu palam fulminaverit prceter solitum morem: ut satis constaret nullis causis naturalibus confl/xtam fuisse pluviam illam ex igne et sulphure (^Calvin), The rain of fire and brimstone was not a mere storm with lightning, which set on fire the soil already overcharged with naphtha and sulphur. The two passages, Ps. xi. 6 and Ezek. xxxviii. 22, cannot be adduced as proofs that lightning is ever called fire and brimstone in the Scriptures, for in both passages there is an allusion to the event recorded here. The words are to be understood quite literally, as meaning that brimstone and fire, Le. burning brimstone, fell from the sky, even though the examples of burning bituminous matter falling upon the earth which are given in Oedmann^s vermischte Sammlungen (iii. 120) may be called in question by historical criticism. By this rain of fire and brimstone not only were the cities and their inhabitants consumed, but even the soil, which abounded in asphalt, was set on fire, so that the entire valley was burned out and sank, or was overthrown (^p*}) Le, utterly destroyed, and the Dead Sea took its place.^ In addition to Sodom, which was probably the chief city of the valley of Siddim, Gomorrah and the whole valley (i.e. the valley of Siddim, chap. xiv. 3) are mentioned; and along with these the cities of Admah and Zeboim, which were situated in the valley (Deut. xxix. 23, cf. Hos. xi. 8), also perished, Zoar alone, which is at the south-eastern end of the valley, being spared for Lot's sake. Even to the present day the Dead Sea, with the sulphureous vapour which hangs about it, the great blocks of saltpetre and sulphur which lie on every hand, and the utter absence of the slightest trace of animal and vegetable life in its waters, are a striking testimony to this catastrophe, which is held up in both the Old and New Testaments as a fearfully solemn judgment of God for the warning of self-secure and presumptuous sinners. — Ver. 26. On the way. Lot's wife, notwithstanding the divine command, looked " behind him away^^ — i.e. went behind her husband and looked backwards, probably from a longing for the house and the earthly possessions she had left with reluctance (cf. Luke xvii 31, 32), — and " became a pillar of salt." We are not to suppose that she was actually turned into one, but having been killed by the fiery and sulphureous vapour with which the air was filled, and afterwards encrusted with salt, she resembled an actual statue of salt; just as even now, from the saline exhalation of the Dead Sea, objects near it are quickly covered with a crust of salt, so that the fact, to which Christ refers in Luke xvii. 32, may be understood without supposing a miracle.^ — In vers. 27,

^ Whether the Dead Sea originated in this catastrophe, or whether there was previously a lake, possibly a fresh water lake, at the north of the valley of Siddim, which was enlarged to the dimensions of the existing sea by the destruction of the valley with its cities, and received its present character at the same time, is a question which has been raised, since Capt. Lynch has discovered by actual measurement the remarkable fact, that the bottom of the lake consists of two totaUy different levels, which are separated by a peninsula that stretches to a very great distance into the lake from the eastern shore; so that whilst the lake to the north of this peninsula is, on an average, from 1000 to 1200 feet deep, the southerp portion is at the most 16 feet deep, and generally much less, the bottom being covered with salt mud, and heated by hot springs from below.

2 But when tkis pifiar of salt is mentioned in Wisdom xi. 7 and Clemens

28, the account closes with a remark which points back to chap, xviii. 17 sqq., viz. that Abraham went in the morning to the place where he had stood the day before, interceding with the Lord for Sodom, and saw how the judgment had fallen upon the entire plain, since the smoke of the country went up like the smoke of a furnace. Yet his intercession had not been in vain.

Vers. 29-38. For on the destruction of these cities, God had thought of Abraham, and rescued Lot. This rescue is attributed to Elohim, as being the work of the Judge of the whole earth (chap, xviii. 25), and not to Jehovah the covenant God, because Lot was severed from His guidance and care on his separation from Abraham. The fact, however, is repeated here, for the purpose of connecting with it an event in the life of Lot of great significance to the future history of Abraham's seed. — Vers. 30 sqq. From Zoar Lot removed with his two daughters to the (Moabitish) mountains, for fear that Zoar might after all be destroyed, and dwelt in one of the caves {^IV^ with the generic article), in which the limestone rocks abound (vid. Lynch), and so became a dweller in a cave. While there, his daughters resolved to procure children through their father; and to that end on two successive evenings they made him intoxicated with wine, and then lay with him in the night, one after the other, that they might conceive seed. To this accursed crime they were impelled by the desire to preserve their family, because they thought there was no man on the earth to come in unto them, i.e. to marry them, " after the manner of all the earth." Not that they imagined the whole human race to have perished in the destruction of the valley of Siddim, but because they were afraid that no man would link himself with them, the only survivors of a country smitten by the curse of God. If it was not lust, therefore, which impelled them to this shameful deed, their conduct was worthy of Sodom, and shows quite as much as their previous betrothal to men of Sodom, that they were deeply imbued with the sinful character of that city. The words of vers. 33 and 35, " And he knew not of her lying down and of her ad Cor. xi. as still in existence, and Josephus professes to have seen it, this legend is probably based upon the pillar-like lumps of salt, which are still to be seen at Mount Usdum (Sodom), on the south-western side of the Dead Sea.

rising up," do not affirm that he was in an unconscious state, as the Rabbins are said by Jerome to have indicated by the point over HD'ipB: " quasi incredibile et quod natura rerum non capiat^ coire quempiam nescientemr They merely mean, that in his intoxicated state, though not entirely unconscious, yet he lay with his daughters without clearly knowing what he was doing. — Vers. 36 sqq. But Lot's daughters had so little feeling of shame in connection with their conduct, that they gave names to the sons they bore, which have immortalized their paternity. Moab, another form of 3KD " from the father," as is indicated in the clause appended in the LXX.: Xeyovaa e/c rov Trarpo? fiov, and also rendered probable by the reiteration of the words " of our father" and "by their father" (vers. 32, 34, and 36), as well as by the analogy of the name Ben-Ammi = Ammorij 'Afjifidv, Xeyovaa Tto9 yevov^ fMov (LXX.). For ptsy, the sprout of the nation, bears the same relation to oy, as P^^K, the rush or sprout of the marsh, to D^X {Delitzsch). — This account was neither the invention of national hatred to the Moabites and Ammonites, nor was it placed here as a brand upon those tribes. These discoveries of a criticism imbued with hostility to the Bible are overthrown by the fact, that, according to Deut. ii. 9, 19, Israel was ordered not to touch the territory of either of these tribes because of their descent from Lot; and it was their unbrotherly conduct towards Israel alone which first prevented their reception into the congregation of the Lord, Deut. xxiii. 4, 5. — Lot is never mentioned again. Separated both outwardly and inwardly from Abraham, he was of no further importance in relation to the history of salvation, so that even his death is not referred to. His descendants, however, frequently came into contact with the Israelites; and the history of their descent is given here to facilitate a correct appreciation of their conduct towards Israel.

Vers. 1-7. After the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham removed from the grove of Mamre at Hebron to the south country, hardly from the same fear as that which led Lot from Zoar, but probably to seek for better pasture. Here he dwelt between Kadesh (xiv. 7) and Shur (xvi. 7), and remained for some time in Gerar, a place the name of which has been preserved in the deep and broad Wady Jurfel Gerdr (i.e. torrent of Gerar) about eight miles S.S.E. of Gaza, near to vrhich Row land discovered the ruins of an ancient town bearing the name of KJiirhet el Gerdr. Here Abimelech, the Philistine king of Gerar, like Pharaoh in Egypt, took Sarah, whom Abraham had again announced to be his sister, into his harem, — not indeed because he was charmed with the beauty of the woman of 90, which was either renovated, or had not yet faded {Kurtz)^ but in all probability " to ally himself with Abraham, the rich nomad prince" {Delitzsch). From this danger, into which the untruthful statement of both her husband and herself had brought her, she was once more rescued by the faithfulness of the covenant God. In a dream by night God appeared to Abimelech, and threatened him with death (np ^3ri en te moriturum) on account of the woman, whom he had taken, because she was married to a husband. — Vers. 4 sqq. Abimelech, who had not yet come near her, because God had hindered him by illness (vers. 6 and 17), excused himself on the ground that he had done no wrong, since he had supposed Sarah to be Abraham's sister, according to both her husband's statement and her own. This plea was admitted by God, who told him that He had kept him from sinning through touching Sarah, and commanded him to restore the woman immediately to her husband, who was a prophet, that he might pray for him and save his life, and threatened him with certain death to himself and all belonging to him in case he should refuse. That Abimelech, when taking the supposed sister of Abraham into his harem, should have thought that he was acting " in innocence of heart and purity of hands," i.e. in perfect innocence, is to be fully accounted for, from his undeveloped moral and religious standpoint, by considering the customs of that day. But that God should have admitted that he had acted " in innocence of heart," and yet should have proceeded at once to tell him that he could only remain alive through the intercession of Abraham, that is to say, through his obtaining forgiveness of a sin that was deserving of death, is a proof that God treated him as capable of deeper moral discernment and piety. The history itself indicates this in the very characteristic variation in the names of God. First of all (ver. 3), Elohim (without the article, i.e. Deity generally) appears to him in a dream; but Abimelech recognises the Lord, Adonai, i.e. God (ver. 4); whereupon the historian represents D^ni5sn (Elohim with the article), the personal and true God, as speaking to him. The address of God, too, also shows his susceptibility of divine truth. Without further pointing out to him the wrong which he had done in simplicity of heart, in taking the sister of the stranger who had come into his land, for the purpose of increasing his own harem, since he must have been conscious of this himself, God described Abraham as a prophet, whose intercession alone could remove his guilt, to show him the way of salvation. A prophet: lit. the God-addressed or inspired, since the " inward speaking " (Ein-sprache) or inspiration of God constitutes the essence of prophecy. Abraham was 7rpo(j)i]T7}(; as the recipient of divine revelation, and was thereby placed in so confidential a relation to God, that he could intercede for sinners, and atone for sins of infirmity through his intercession.

Vers. 8-15. Abimelech carried out the divine instructions. The next morning he collected his servants together and related what had occurred, at which the men were greatly alarmed. He then sent for Abraham, and complained most bitterly of his conduct, by which he had brought a great sin upon him and his kingdom. — Ver. 10. '^ What sawest thou,^ i.e. what hadst thou in thine eye, with thine act (thy false statement)? Abimelech did this publicly in the presence of his servants, partly for his own justification in the sight of his dependants, and partly to put Abraham to shame. The latter had but two weak excuses: (1) that he supposed there was no fear of God at all in the land, and trembled for his life because of his wife; and (2) that when he left his father's house, he had arranged with his wife that in every foreign place she was to call herself his sister, as she really was his half-sister. On the subject of his emigration, he expressed himself indefinitely and with reserve, accommodating himself to the polytheistic standpoint of the Philistine king: " ivhen God (or the gods, Elohim) caused me to wander j"* i.e. led me to commence an unsettled life in a foreign land; and saying nothing about Jehovah, and the object of his wandering as revealed by Him. — Vers. 14 sqq. Abimelech then gave him back his wife with a liberal present of cattle and slaves, and gave him leave to dwell wherever he pleased in his land. To Sarah he said, " Behold, I have given a thousand shekele of silver to thy brother; behold, it is to thee a covering of the eyes (i.e. an expiatory gift) with regard to all that are with thee ("because in a mistress the whole family is disgraced," Del.), and with all — so art thou justified^ The thousand shekels (about £131) were not a special present made to Sarah, but indicate the value of the present made to Abraham, the amount of which may be estimated by this standard, that at a later date (Ex. xxi. 32) a slave was reckoned at 30 shekels. By the " covering of the eyes " we are not to understand a veil, which Sarah was to procure for 1000 shekels; but it is a figurative expression for an atoning gift, and is to be explained by the analogy of the phrase 'B \^Q "IS3 " to cover any one's face," so that he may forget a wrong done (cf. chap, xxxii. 21; and Job ix. 24, " he covereth the faces of the judges," Le, he bribes them). fin?i^1 can only be the 2 pers. fem. sing. perf. Niphal, although the Dagesh lene is wanting in the n; for the rules of syntax will hardly allow us to regard this form as a participle, unless we imagine the extremely harsh ellipsis of nn^i^ for ij^^? nriDi:. The literal meaning is " so thou art judged," i.e. justice has been done thee. — Vers. 17, 18. After this reparation, God healed Abimelech at Abraham's intercession; also his wife and maids, so that they could bear again, for Jehovah had closed up every womb in Abimelech's house on Sarah's account. niriDK, maids whom the king kept as concubines, are to be distinguished from ninaK^ female slaves (ver. 14). That there was a material difference between them, is proved by 1 Sam. xxv. 41. "i^y ^C'T T ^^^^ ^^* mean, as is frequently supposed, to prevent actual childbirth, but to prevent conception, i.e. to produce barrenness (1 Sam. i. 5, 6). This is evident from the expression " He hath restrained me from bearing " in chap. xvi. 2 (cf. Isa. Ixvi. 9, and 1 Sam. xxi. 6), and from the opposite phrase, " open the womb," so as to facilitate conception (chap. xxix. 31, and xxx. 22). The plague brought upon Abimelech's house, therefore, consisted of some disease which rendered the begetting of children (the coitus) impossible. This might have occurred as soon as Sarah was taken into the royal harem, and therefore need not presuppose any lengthened stay there. There is no necessity, therefore, to restrict W1 to the women and regard it as equivalent to •^J'^r'^], which would be grammatically inadmissible; for it may refer to Abimelech also, since 'if'J signifies to beget as well as to bear. We may adopt KnoheVs explanation, therefore, though without approving of the inference that ver. 18 was an appendix of the Jehovist, and arose from a misunderstanding of the word ^75 in ver. 17. A later addition ver. 18 cannot be; for the simple reason, that without the explanation given there, the previous verse would be unintelligible, so that it cannot have been wanting in any of the accounts. The name Jehovah, in contrast with Eloldm and Ha-Elohim in ver. 17, is obviously significant. The cure of Abimelech and his wives belonged to the Deity (Elohim). Abraham directed his intercession not to Elohirrij an indefinite and unknown God, but to D^ni^Kn; for the God, whose prophet he was, was the personal and true God. It was He too who had brought the disease upon Abimelech and his house, not as Elohim or Ha-Elohim, but as Jehovah, the God of salvation; for His design therein was to prevent the disturbance or frustration of His saving design, and the birth of the promised son from Sarah.

But if the divine names Elohim and Ha-Elohim indicate the true relation of God to Abimelech, and here also it was Jehovah who interposed for Abraham and preserved the mother of the promised seed, our narrative cannot be merely an Elohistic side-piece appended to the Jehovistic account in chap. xii. 14 sqq., and founded upon a fictitious legend. The thoroughly distinctive character of this event is a decisive proof of the fallacy of any such critical conjecture. Apart from the one point of agreement — the taking of Abraham's wife into the royal harem, because he said she was his sister in the hope of thereby saving his own life (an event, the repetition of which in the space of 24 years is by no means startling, when we consider the customs of the age) — all the more minute details are entirely different in the two cases. In king Abimelech we meet with a totally different character from that of Pharaoh. We see in him a heathen imbued with a moral consciousness of right, and open to receive divine revelation, of which there is not the slightest trace in the king of Egypt. And Abraham, in spite of his natural weakness, and the consequent confusion which he manifested in the presence of the pious heathen, was exalted by the compassionate grace of God to the position of His own friend, so that even the heathen king, who seems to have been in the right in this instance, was compelled to bend before him and to seek the removal of the divine punishment, which had fallen upon him and his house, through the medium of his intercession. In this way God proved to the Philistine king, on the one hand, that He suffers no harm to befall His prophets (Ps. cv. 15), and to Abraham, on the other, that He can maintain His covenant and secure the realization of His promise against all opposition from the sinful desires of earthly potentates. It was in this respect that the event possessed a typical significance in relation to the future attitude of Israel towards surrounding nations.

Vers. 1-7. Birth of Isaac. — Jehovah did for Sarah what God had promised in chap. xvii. 6 (cf. xviii. 14): she conceived, and at the time appointed bore a son to Abraham, when he was 100 years old. Abraham gave it the name of Jizchak (or Isaac), and circumcised it on the eighth day. The name for the promised son, had been selected by God, in connection with Abraham's laughing (chap. xvii. 17 and 19), to indicate the nature of his birth and existence. For as his laughing sprang from the contrast between the idea and the reality; so through a miracle of grace the birth of Isaac gave effect to this contrast between the promise of God and the pledge of its fulfilment on the one hand, and the incapacity of Abraham for begetting children, and of Sarah for bearing them, on the other; and through this name, Isaac was designated as the fruit of omnipotent grace working against and above the forces of nature. Sarah also, who had previously laughed with unbelief at the divine promise (xviii. 12), found a reason in the now accomplished birth of the promised son for laughing with joyous amazement; so that she exclaimed, with evident allusion to his name, " A laughing hath God prepared for me; every one who hears it will laugh to me " (i,e. will rejoice with me, in amazement at the blessing of God which has come upon me even in my old age), and gave a fitting expression to the joy of her heart, in this inspired tristich (ver. 7): " Who would have said unto A hraham: Sarah is giving suck; for I have born a son to his old ageP /^p is the poetic word for "i^'n, and ""P before the perfect has the sense of — whoever has said, which we should express as a subjunctive; cf^ 2 Kings xx. 9; Ps. xi. 3, etc.

Vers. 8-21. Expulsion of Ishmael. — The weaning of the child, which was celebrated with a feast, furnished the outward occasion for this. Sarah saw Ishmael mocking, making ridicule on the occasion. " Isaac, the object of holy laughter, was made the butt of unholy wit or profane sport. He did not laugh (pnv), but he made fun (pnvp). The little helpless Isaac a father of nations! Unbelief, envy, pride of carnal superiority, were the causes of his conduct. Because he did not understand the sentiment, ^ Is anything too wonderful for the Lord? ' it seemed to him absurd to link so great a thing to one so small" {Ilengstenberg). Paul calls this the persecution of him that was after the Spirit by him that was begotten after the flesh (Gal. iv. 29), and discerns in this a prediction of the persecution, which the Church of those who are bom after the spirit of faith endures from those who are in bondage to the righteousness of the law. — Ver. 9. Sarah therefore asked that the maid and her son might be sent away, saying, the latter " shall not be heir with Isaac." The demand, which apparently proceeded from maternal jealousy, displeased Abraham greatly " because of his son" — partly because in Ishmael he loved his own flesh and blood, and partly on account of the promise received for him (chap. xvii. 18 and 20). But God {Elohim^ since there is no appearance mentioned, but the divine will was made known to him inwardly) commanded him to comply with Sarah's demand: "for in Isaac shall seed (posterity) be called to thee,^^ This expression cannot mean " thy descendants will call themselves after Isaac," for in that case, at all events, ^JTiT would be used; nor " in (through) Isaac shall seed be called into existence to thee," for K"ip does not mean to call into existence; but, " in the person of Isaac shall there be posterity to thee, which shall pass as such," for fi<'^i?^ includes existence and the recognition of existence. Though the noun is not defined by any article, the seed intended must be that to which all the pro mises of God referred, and with which God would establish His covenant (chap. xvii. 21, cf. Rom. ix. 7, 8; Heb. xi. 18). To make the dismissal of Ishmael easier to the paternal heart, God repeated to Abraham (ver. 13) the promise already given him with regard to this son (chap. xvii. 20). — Vers. 14 sqq. The next morning Abraham sent Hagar away with Ishmael. The words, " he took bread and a bottle of water and gave it to Hagar, putting it (Db participle, not perfect) upon her shoulder, and the boy, and sent her awayj^ do not state that Abraham gave her Ishmael also to carry. For 'i?.'.']"^^) does not depend upon DK^ and ]'^'^\ because of the copula \ but upon n|Tj the leading verb of the sentence, although it is separated from it by the parenthesis " putting it upon her shoulder." It does not follow from these words, therefore, that Ishmael is represented as a little child. Nor is this implied in the statement which follows, that Hagar, when wandering about in the desert, " cast the boy under one of the shrubs," because the water in the bottle was gone. For *!£ like "iV^ does not mean an infant, but a boy, and also a young man (iv. 23); — Ishmael must have been 15 or 16 years old, as he was 14 before Isaac was bom (cf. ver. 5, and xvi. 16); — and ^y^^'n, " to throw,'* signifies that she suddenly left hold of the boy, when he fell exliausted from thirst, just as in Matt. xv. 30 piTrretv is used for laying hastily down. Though despairing of his life, the mother took care that at least he should breathe out his life in the shade, and she sat over against him weeping, "in the distance as archers," i.e. according to a concise simile very common in Hebrew, as far off as archers are accustomed to place the target. Her maternal love could not bear to see him die, and yet she would not lose sight of him. — Vers. 17 sqq. Then God heard the voice (the weeping and crying) of the boy, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven, " What aileth thee, Hdgar? Fear not, for God hath heard the voice of the boy, where he zs" ("it^'K^ for "^^^^ ^^PPr^j 2 Sam. xv. 21), i.e. in his helpless condition: " arise, lift up the lad^^ etc. It was Elohim, not Jehovah, who heard the voice of the boy, and appeared as the angel of Elohim, not of Jehovah (as in chap. xvi. 7), because, when Ishm.ael and Hagar had been dismissed from Abraham's house, they were removed from the superintendence and care of the covenant God to the guidance and providence of God the ruler of all nations. God then opened her eyes, and she saw what she had not seen before, a well of water, from w^hich she filled the bottle and gave her son to drink. — Ver. 20. Having been miraculously saved from perishing by the angel of God, Ishmael grew up under the protection of God, settled in the wilderness of Paran, and " became as he grew up an archerr Although preceded by n^^.t the nni is not tautological; and there is no reason for attributing to it the meaning of " archer," in which sense 2^"^ alone occurs in the one passage Gen. xlix. 23. Tlie desert of Paran is the present large desert of et-7ih, which stretches along the southern border of Canaan, from the western fringe of the Arabah, towards the east to the desert of Shur (Jifar), on the frontier of Egypt, and extends southwards to the promontories of the mountains of Horeb (vid. Num. x. 12). On the northern edge of this desert was Beersheba (proleptically so called in ver. 14), to which Abraham had removed from Gerar; so that in all probability Hagar and Ishmael were sent away from his abode there, and wandered about in the surrounding desert, till Hagar was afraid that they should perish with thirst. Lastly, in preparation for chap. xxv. 12-18, it is mentioned in ver, 21 that Ishmael married a wife out of Egypt.

Vers. 22-34. Abimelech's Treaty with Abraham. — Through the divine blessing which visibly attended Abraham, the Philistine king Abimelech was induced to secure for himself and his descendants the friendship of a man so blessed; and for that purpose he went to Beersheba, with his captain Phicol, to conclude a treaty with him. Abraham was perfectly ready to agree to this; but first of all he complained to him about a well which Abimelech's men had stolen, i.e. had unjustly appropriated to themselves. Abimelech replied that this act of violence had never been made known to him till that day, and as a matter of course commanded the weU to be returned. After the settlement of this dispute the treaty was concluded, and Abraham presented the king with sheep and oxen, as a material pledge that he would reciprocate the kindness shown, and live in friendship with the king and his descendants. Out of this present he selected seven lambs and set them by themselves; and when Abimelech inquired what they were, he told him to take them from his hand, that they might be to him (Abraham) for a witness that he had digged the well. It was not to redeem the well, but to secure the well as his property against any fresh claims on the part of the Philistines, that the present was given; and by the acceptance of it, Abraham's right of possession was practically and solemnly acknowledged. — Ver. 31. From this circumstance, the place where it occurred received the name V^^ "l^?3, i.e. seven-well, " because there they sware both of them." It does not follow from this note, that tne writer interpreted the name " oath-well," and took V?^ in the sense of *^V^^. The idea is rather the following: the place received its name from the seven lambs, by which Abraham secured to himself possession of the well, because the treaty was sworn to on the basis of the agreement confirmed by the seven lambs. There is no mention of sacrifice, however, in connection with the treaty (see chap. xxvi. 33). V^^^ to swear, lit, to seven one's self, not because in the oath the divine number 3 is combined with the world-number 4, but because, from the sacredness of the number 7, the real origin and ground of which are to be sought in the number 7 of the work of creation, seven things were generally chosen to give validity to an oath, as was the case, according to Herodotus (3, 8), with the Arabians among others. Beersheha was in the Wady es-Seba, the broad chaimel of a winter-torrent, 12 hours' journey to the south of Hebron on the road to Egypt and the Dead Sea, where there are still stones to be found, the relics of an ancient town, and two deep wells with excellent water, called Bir es Seba, i.e. seven-well (not lion-well, as the Bedouins erroneously interpret it): cf. RobinsorHs Pal. i. pp. 300 sqq. — Ver. 33. Here Abraham planted a tamarisk and called upon the name of the Lord {yid. chap. iv. 26), the everlasting God. Jehovah is called the everlasting God, as the eternally true, with respect to the eternal covenant, which He established with Abraham (chap. xvii. 7). The planting of this long-lived tree, with its hard wood, and its long, narrow, thickly clustered, evergreen leaves, was to be a type of the ever-enduring grace of the faithful covenant God. — Ver. 34. Abraham sojourned a long time there in the Philistines' land. There Isaac was probably born, and grew up to be a young man (xxii. 6), capable of carrying the wood for a sacrifice; cf. xxii. 19. The expression " in the land of the Philistines " appears to be at variance with ver. 32, where Abimelech and Phicol are said to have returned to the land of the Philistines. But the discrepancy is easily reconciled, on the supposition that at that time the land of the Philistines had no fixed boundary, at all events, towards the desert. Beersheba did not belong to Gerar, the kingdom of Abimelech in the stricter sense; but the Philistines extended their wanderings so far, and claimed the district as their own, as is evident from the fact that Abimelech's people had taken the well from Abraham. On the other hand, Abraham with his numerous flocks would not confine himself to the Wady es Seha, but must have sought for pastureground in the whole surrounding country; and as Abimelech had given him full permission to dwell in his land (xx. 15), he would still, as heretofore, frequently come as far as Gerar, so that his dwelling at Beersheba (xxii. 19) might be correctly described as sojourning (nomadizing) in the land of the Philistines.

Vers. 1-19. Offering up of Isaac. — For many years had Abraham waited for the promised seed, in which the divine promise was to be fulfilled. At length the Lord had given him the desired heir of his body by his wife Sarah, and directed him to send away the son of the maid. And now that this son had grown into a young man, the word of God came to Abraham^ to offer up this very son, who had been given to him as the heir of the promise, for a burnt-offering, upon one of the mountains which should be shown him. This word did not come from his own heart, — was not a thought suggested by the sight of the human sacrifices of the Canaanites, that he would offer a similar sacrifice to his God; nor did it originate with the tempter to evil. The word came from ffa-Elohim, the personal, true God, who tried him (i^^?), i.e. demanded the sacrifice of the only, beloved son, as a proof and attestation of his faith. The issue shows, that God did not desire the sacrifice of Isaac by slaying and burning him upon the altar, but his complete surrender, and a willingness to offer him up to God even by death. Nevertheless the divine command was given in such a form, that Abraham could not understand it in any other way than as requiring an outward burnt-offering, because there was no other way in which Abraham could accomplish the complete surrender of Isaac, than by an actual preparation for really offering the desired sacrifice. This constituted the trial, which necessarily produced a severe internal conflict in his mind. Ratio humana simpliciter concluderet aut mentiri promissionem aut mandatum non esse Dei sed Diaboli; est enim contradictio manifesta. Si enim debet occidi Isaac, irrita est promissio; sin rata est promissio, impossibile est hoc esse Dei mandatum (Luther). But Abraham