אברם, _a high father_; and ABRAHAM, אבררם, _father of a great
multitude_, the son of Terah, born at Ur, a city of Chaldea, A. M. 2008.
The account of this eminent patriarch occupies so large a part of the
book of Genesis, and stands so intimately connected with both the Jewish
and Christian dispensations,--with the one by a political and religious,
and with the other by a mystical, relation,--that his history demands
particular notice. Our account may be divided into his _personal
history_, and his _typical, and mystic character_.
I. Abraham’s PERSONAL history.
1. Chaldea, the native country of Abraham, was inhabited by a pastoral
people, who were almost irresistibly invited to the study of the motions
of the heavenly bodies, by the peculiar serenity of the heavens in that
climate, and their habit of spending their nights in the open air in
tending their flocks. The first rudiments of astronomy, as a science, is
traced to this region; and here, too, one of the earliest forms of
idolatry, the worship of the host of heaven, usually called Tsabaism,
first began to prevail. During the three hundred and fifty years which
elapsed between the deluge and the birth of Abraham, this and other
idolatrous superstitions had greatly corrupted the human race, perverted
the simple forms of the patriarchal religion, and beclouded the import
of its typical rites. The family of Abraham was idolatrous, for his
“fathers served other gods beyond the flood,” that is, the great river
Euphrates; but whether he himself was in the early period of his life an
idolater, we are not informed by Moses. The Arabian and Jewish legends
speak of his early idolatry, his conversion from it, and of his zeal in
breaking the images in his father’s house; but these are little to be
depended upon. Before his call he was certainly a worshipper of the true
God; and that not in form only, but “in spirit and in truth.” Whilst
Abraham was still sojourning in Ur, “the God of glory” appeared to him,
and said unto him, “Get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred,
and go into the land which I shall show thee;” and so firm was his faith
in the providence and care of God, that although the place of his future
abode was not indicated, nor any information given of the nature of the
country, or the character of its inhabitants, he nevertheless promptly
obeyed, and “went out, not knowing whither he went.” Terah his father,
Nahor his brother, and Lot his nephew, the son of Haran his deceased
brother, accompanied him; a circumstance which indicates that if the
family had formerly been idolatrous it had now received the faith of
Abraham. They first migrated to Haran, or Charran, in Mesopotamia, a
flat, barren region westward of Ur; and after a residence there of a few
years, during which Terah had died, Abraham left Haran to go into
Palestine, taking with him Sarah his wife, who had no child, and Lot,
with his paternal property. Nahor appears to have been left in Haran. To
this second migration he was incited also by a Divine command,
accompanied by the promises of a numerous issue, that his seed should
become a great nation, and, above all, that “in him all the families of
the earth should be blessed;” in other words, that the Messiah, known
among the patriarchs as the promised “seed of the woman,” should be born
in his line. Palestine was then inhabited by the Canaanites, from whom
it was called Canaan. Abraham, leading his tribe, first settled at
Sechem, a valley between the mountains Ebal and Gerizim, where God
appeared to him and promised to give him the land of Canaan, and where,
as in other places in which he remained any time, he built an altar to
the Lord. He then removed to a hilly region on the north of Jericho; and
as the pastures were exhausted, migrated southward, till a famine drove
him into Egypt, probably the earliest, certainly the most productive,
corn country of the ancient world.
2. Here it may be observed, that the migrations of Abraham and his sons
show the manner in which the earth was gradually covered with people. In
those ages some cities had been built, and the country to some extent
about them cultivated; but wide spaces of unoccupied land lay between
them. A part of society following therefore the pastoral life, led forth
their flocks, and, in large family tribes, of which the parent was the
head, uniting both the sovereign power and the priesthood in himself,
and with a train of servants attached to the tribe by hereditary ties,
pitched their camps wherever a fertile and unappropriated district
offered them pasture. A few of these nomadic tribes appear to have made
the circuit of the same region, seldom going far from their native
seats; which would probably have been the case with Abraham, had he not
received the call of God to depart to a distant country. Others, more
bold, followed the track of rivers, and the sweep of fertile valleys,
and at length some built cities and formed settlements in those distant
regions; whilst others, either from attachment to their former mode of
life, or from necessity, continued in their pastoral occupations, and
followed the supplies afforded for their flocks by the still expanding
regions of the fertile earth. Wars and violences, droughts, famines, and
the constant increase of population, continued to impel these
innumerable, but at first, small streams of men into parts still more
remote. Those who settled on the sea coast began to use that element,
both for supplying themselves with a new species of food, and as a
medium of communication by vessels with other countries for the
interchange of such commodities as their own lands afforded with those
offered by maritime states, more or less distant. Thus were laid the
foundations of commerce, and thus the maritime cities were gradually
rendered opulent and powerful. Colonies were in time transported from
them by means of their ships, and settled on the coasts of still more
distant and fertile countries. Thus the migrations of the three
primitive families proceeded from the central regions of Armenia,
Mesopotamia, and Assyria; and in succession they established numerous
communities,--the Phenicians, Arabians, Egyptians, Ethiopians, and
Lybians southward;--the Persians, Indians, and Chinese eastward;--the
Scythians, Celts, and Tartars northward;--and the Goths, Greeks, and
Latins westward, even as far as the Peruvians and Mexicans of South
America, and the Indians of North America.
3. Abraham, knowing the dissolute character of the Egyptians, directed
Sarah to call herself his sister, which she was, although by another
mother; fearing that if they knew her to be his wife, they would not
only seize her, but kill him. This circumstance indicates the vicious
state of morals and government in Egypt at this early period. In this
affair Abraham has been blamed for want of faith in God; but it was
perhaps no more than an act of common prudence, as the seraglio of the
Egyptian monarch was supplied by any means, however violent and lawless.
Sarah, upon the report of her beauty, was seized and taken into his
harem; and God sent great plagues upon his house, which, from their
extraordinary character, he concluded to be divine judgments. This led
to inquiry, and on discovering that he was detaining another man’s wife
by violence, he sent her back, and dismissed Abraham laden with
presents.
4. After the famine Abraham returned to Canaan, and pitched his tents
between Bethel and Hai, where he had previously raised an altar. Here,
as his flocks and herds, and those of Lot, had greatly increased, and
strifes had arisen between their herdsmen as to pasturage and water,
they peaceably separated. Lot returning to the plain of the Jordan,
which before the destruction of Sodom was as “the garden of God,” and
Abraham to Mamre, near Hebron, after receiving a renewal of the promise,
that God would give him the whole land for a possession. The separation
of Abraham and Lot still farther secured the unmingled descent of the
Abrahamitic family. The territories of the kings of the cities of the
plain were a few years afterward invaded by a confederacy of the petty
kings of the Euphrates and the neighbouring countries, and Lot and his
family were taken prisoners. This intelligence being brought to Abraham,
he collected the men of his tribe, three hundred and eighteen, and
falling upon the kings by night, near the fountains of Jericho, he
defeated them, retook the spoil, and recovered Lot. On his return,
passing near Salem, supposed to be the city afterward called Jerusalem,
he was blessed by its king Melchizedec, who was priest of the most high
God; so that the knowledge and worship of Jehovah had not quite departed
at that time from the Canaanitish nations. To him Abraham gave a tithe
of the spoil. The rest he generously restored to the king of Sodom,
refusing, in a noble spirit of independence, to retain so much as a
“shoe lachet,” except the portion which, by usage of war, fell to the
young native sheiks, Aner, Eschal, and Mamre, who had joined him in the
expedition.
5. After this he had another encouraging vision of God, Gen. xv, 1; and
to his complaint that he was still childless, and that his name and
property would descend to the stranger Eliezer, who held the next rank
in his tribe, the promise was given, that he himself should have a son,
and that his seed should be countless as the stars of heaven. And it is
emphatically added, “He believed in the Lord, and he counted it to him
for righteousness.” He was then fully assured, that he stood before God,
a pardoned and accepted man, “whose iniquities were forgiven,” and to
whom “the Lord did not impute sin.” Still the fulfilment of the promise
of a son was delayed; and Sarah, perhaps despairing that it would be
accomplished in her person, and the revelation which had been made
merely stating that this son should be the fruit of Abraham’s body,
without any reference to her, she gave to him, according to the custom
of those times, one of her handmaids, an Egyptian, to be his secondary
wife, who brought forth Ishmael. Children born in this manner had the
privileges of legitimacy; but fourteen years afterward, when Abraham was
a hundred years old, and Sarah ninety, the Lord appeared to him again,
established his covenant with him and with his seed, changed his name to
Abraham, “the father of many nations,” promised that Sarah herself
should bring forth the son to whom the preceding promises had referred;
instituted circumcision as the sign of the covenant; and changed the
name of his wife from Sarai, _my princess_, to Sarah, _the princess_,
that is, of many people to descend from her.
6. At this time Abraham occupied his former encampment near Hebron.
Here, as he sat in the door of his tent, three mysterious strangers
appeared. Abraham, with true Arabian hospitality, received and
entertained them. The chief of the three renewed the promise of a son to
be born from Sarah, a promise which she received with a laugh of
incredulity, for which she was mildly reproved. As Abraham accompanied
them toward the valley of the Jordan, the same divine person, for so he
manifestly appears, announced the dreadful ruin impending over the
licentious cities among which Lot had taken up his abode. No passage,
even in the sacred writings, exhibits a more exalted view of the divine
condescension than that in which Abraham is seen expostulating on the
apparent injustice of involving the innocent in the ruin of the guilty:
“Shall the city perish, if fifty, if forty-five, if forty, if thirty, if
twenty, if ten righteous men be found within its walls?” “Ten righteous
men shall avert its doom.” Such was the promise of the celestial
visitant; but the guilt was universal, the ruin inevitable; and the
violation of the sacred laws of hospitality and nature, which Lot in his
horror attempted to avert by the most revolting expedient, confirmed the
justice of the divine sentence.
7. Sarah having conceived, according to the divine promise, Abraham left
the plain of Mamre, and went south to Gerar, where Abimelech reigned;
and again fearing lest Sarah should be forced from him, and himself be
put to death, her beauty having been, it would appear, preternaturally
continued, notwithstanding her age, he here called her, as he had done
in Egypt, his sister. Abimelech took her to his house, designing to
marry her; but God having, in a dream, informed him that she was
Abraham’s wife, he returned her to him with great presents. This year
Sarah was delivered of Isaac; and Abraham circumcised him, according to
the covenant stipulation; and when he was weaned, made a great
entertainment. Sarah, having observed Ishmael, son of Hagar, mocking her
son Isaac, said to Abraham, “Cast out this bondwoman and her son, for
Ishmael shall not be heir with Isaac.” After great reluctance, Abraham
complied; God having informed him that this was according to the
appointments of his providence, with respect to future ages. About the
same time, Abimelech came with Phicol, his general, to conclude an
alliance with Abraham, who made that prince a present of seven ewe lambs
out of his flock, in confirmation that a well he had opened should be
his own property; and they called the place Beer-sheba, or “the well of
swearing,” because of the covenant there ratified with oaths. Here
Abraham planted a grove, built an altar, and for some time resided, Gen.
xx, xxi.
8. More than twenty years after this, (A. M. 2133,) God, for the final
trial and illustration of Abraham’s faith, directed him to offer up his
son Isaac. Abraham took his son, and two servants, and went toward mount
Moriah. When within sight of the mountain, Abraham left his servants,
and ascended it with his son only; and there having bound him, he
prepared for the affecting sacrifice; but when he was about to give the
blow, an angel from heaven cried out to him, “Lay not thine hand upon
the lad, neither do thou any thing to him. Now I know that thou fearest
God, since thou hast not withheld thine only son from me.” Abraham,
turning, saw a ram entangled in the bush by his horns; and he offered
this animal as a burnt offering, instead of his son Isaac. This
memorable place he called by the prophetic name, _Jehovah-jireh_, or
_the Lord will see_--or _provide_, Gen. xxii, 1–14, having respect, no
doubt, to the true sacrifice which, in the fulness of time, was to be
offered for the whole world upon the same mountain.
9. Twelve years afterward, Sarah, wife of Abraham, died in Hebron.
Abraham came to mourn and to perform the funeral offices for her. He
addressed the people at the city gate, entreating them to allow him to
bury his wife among them; for, being a stranger, and having no land of
his own, he could claim no right of interment in any sepulchre of that
country. He, therefore, bought of Ephron, one of the inhabitants, the
field of Machpelah, with the cave and sepulchre in it, at the price of
four hundred shekels of silver, about forty-five pounds sterling. And
here Abraham buried Sarah, with due solemnities, according to the custom
of the country, Gen. xxiii. This whole transaction impressively
illustrates the dignity, courtesy, and honour of these ancient chiefs;
and wholly disproves the notion that theirs was a rude and unpolished
age.
10. Abraham, having grown old, sent Eliezer, his steward, into
Mesopotamia, with directions to obtain a young woman of his own family,
as a wife for his son Isaac. Eliezer executed his commission with
fidelity, and brought back Rebecca, daughter of Bethuel, grand-daughter
of Nahor, and, consequently, Abraham’s niece, whom Isaac married.
Abraham afterward married Keturah; by whom he had six sons, Zimran,
Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak, and Shuah; who became heads of different
people, which dwelt in Arabia, and around it. He died, aged a hundred
and seventy-five years, and was buried, with Sarah his wife, in the cave
of Machpelah, which he had purchased of Ephron, Gen. xxiv, xxv, A. M.
2183, before Christ 1821.
II. From the personal history of Abraham we may now proceed to the
consideration of the TYPICAL circumstances which were connected with it.
1. Abraham himself with his family may be regarded as a type of the
church of God in future ages. They indeed constituted God’s ancient
church. Not that many scattered patriarchal and family churches did not
remain: such was that of Melchizedec; and such probably was that of
Nahor, whom Abraham left behind in Mesopotamia. But a visible church
relation was established between Abraham’s family and the Most High,
signified by the visible and distinguishing sacrament of circumcision,
and followed by new and enlarged revelations of truth. Two purposes were
to be answered by this,--_the preservation of the true doctrine of
salvation in the world_, which is the great and solemn duty of every
branch of the church of God,--and _the manifestation of that truth to
others_. Both were done by Abraham. Wherever he sojourned he built his
altars to the true God, and publicly celebrated his worship; and, as we
learn from St. Paul, he lived in tents in preference to settling in the
land of Canaan, though it had been given to him for a possession, in
order that he might thus proclaim his faith in the eternal inheritance
of which Canaan was a type; and in bearing this testimony, his example
was followed by Isaac and Jacob, the “heirs with him of the same
promise,” who also thus “confessed that they were strangers and
pilgrims,” and that “they looked” for a continuing and eternal city in
heaven. So also now is the same doctrine of immortality committed to the
church of Christ; and by deadness to the world ought its members to
declare the reality of their own faith in it.
2. The numerous natural posterity promised to Abraham was also a type of
the spiritual seed, the true members of the church of Christ, springing
from the Messiah, of whom Isaac was the symbol. Thus St. Paul expressly
distinguishes between the fleshly and the spiritual seed of Abraham; to
the latter of which, in their ultimate and highest sense, the promises
of increase as the stars of heaven, and the sands of the sea shore, are
to be referred, as also the promise of the heavenly Canaan.
3. The intentional offering up Isaac, with its result, was probably that
transaction in which Abraham, more clearly than in any other, “saw the
day of Christ, and was glad.” He received Isaac from the dead, says St.
Paul, “in a figure.” This could be a figure of nothing but the
resurrection of our Lord; and, if so, Isaac’s being laid upon the altar
was a figure of his sacrificial death, scenically and most impressively
represented to Abraham. The _place_, the same ridge of hills on which
our Lord was crucified; the _person_, an only son, to die for no offence
of his own; the _sacrificer_, a father; the _receiving back_, as it
were, from death to life; the _name_ impressed upon the place,
importing, “_the Lord will provide_,” in allusion to Abraham’s own words
to Isaac, “the Lord will provide a lamb for a burnt offering;” all
indicate a mystery which lay deep beneath this transaction, and which
Abraham, as the reward of his obedience, was permitted to behold. “The
day” of Christ’s humiliation and exaltation was thus opened to him; and
served to keep the great truth in mind, that the true burnt offering and
sacrifice for sin was to be something higher than the immolation of
lambs and bulls and goats,--nay, something more than what was _merely_
human.
4. The transaction of the expulsion of Hagar was also a type. It was an
allegory in action, by which St. Paul teaches us to understand that the
son of the bondwoman represented those who are under the law; and the
child of the freewoman those who by faith in Christ are supernaturally
begotten into the family of God. The bondwoman and her son being cast
out, represented also the expulsion of the unbelieving Jews from the
church of God, which was to be composed of true believers of all
nations, all of whom, whether Jews or Gentiles, were to become “fellow
heirs.”
III. But Abraham appears before us invested with a MYSTIC character,
which it is of great importance rightly to understand.
1. He is to be regarded as standing in a _federal_ or _covenant_
relation, not only to his natural seed, but specially and eminently to
all believers. “The Gospel,” we are told by St. Paul, “was preached to
Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed.” “Abraham
believed in God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness;” in
other words, he was justified. A covenant of gratuitous justification
through faith was made with him and his believing descendants; and the
rite of circumcision, which was not confined to his posterity by Sarah,
but appointed in every branch of his family, was the sign or sacrament
of this covenant of grace, and so remained till it was displaced by the
sacraments appointed by Christ. Wherever that sign was it declared the
doctrine, and offered the grace, of this covenant--free justification by
faith, and its glorious results--to all the tribes that proceeded from
Abraham. This same grace is offered to us by the Gospel, who become
“Abraham’s _seed_,” his spiritual children with whom the covenant is
established, through the same faith, and are thus made “the heirs with
him of the same promise.”
2. Abraham is also exhibited to us as the _representative_ of true
believers; and in this especially, that the true nature of faith was
exhibited in him. This great principle was marked in Abraham with the
following characters:--An entire unhesitating belief in the word of
God;--an unfaltering trust in all his promises;--a steady regard to his
almighty power, leading him to overlook all apparent difficulties and
impossibilities in every case where God had explicitly promised;--and
habitual and cheerful and entire obedience. The Apostle has described
faith in Heb. xi, 1; and that faith is seen living and acting in all its
energy in Abraham.
A few miscellaneous remarks are suggested by some of the circumstances
of Abraham’s history:--
1. The ancient method of ratifying a covenant by sacrifice is
illustrated in the account given in Gen. xv, 9, 10. The beasts were
slain and _divided_ in the midst, and the persons covenanting passed
between the parts. Hence, after Abraham had performed this part of the
ceremony, the symbol of the Almighty’s presence, “a smoking furnace, and
a burning lamp, passed between the pieces,” verse 18, and so both
parties ratified the covenant.
2. As the beauty of Sarah, which she retained so long as quite to
conceal her real age from observers, attracted so much notice as to lead
to her forcible seizure, once by Pharaoh in Egypt, and again by
Abimelech in Palestine, it may appear strange, that, as in the east
women are generally kept in seclusion, and seldom appear without veils,
she exposed herself to observation. But to this day the Arab women do
not wear veils at home in their tents; and Sarah’s countenance might
have been seen in the tent by some of the officers of Pharaoh and
Abimelech, who reported her beauty to their masters.
3. The intentional offering up of Isaac is not to be supposed as viewed
by Abraham as an act sanctioned by the Pagan practice of human
sacrifice. The immolation of human victims, particularly of that which
was most precious, the favourite, the first-born child, appears to have
been a common usage among many early nations, more especially the tribes
by which Abraham was surrounded. It was the distinguishing rite among
the worshippers of Moloch; at a later period of the Jewish history, it
was practised by a king of Moab; and it was undoubtedly derived by the
Carthaginians from their Phenecian ancestors on the shores of Syria.
Where it was an ordinary usage, as in the worship of Moloch, it was in
unison with the character of the religion, and of its deity. It was the
last act of a dark and sanguinary superstition, which rose by regular
gradation to this complete triumph over human nature. The god, who was
propitiated by these offerings, had been satiated with more cheap and
vulgar victims; he had been glutted to the full with human suffering and
with human blood. In general it was the final mark of the subjugation of
the national mind to an inhuman and domineering priesthood. But the
Mosaic religion held human sacrifices in abhorrence; and the God of the
Abrahamitic family, uniformly beneficent, had imposed no duties which
entailed human suffering, had demanded no offerings which were repugnant
to the better feelings of our nature. The command to offer Isaac as “a
burnt offering,” was for these reasons a trial the more severe to
Abraham’s faith. He must therefore have been fully assured of the divine
command; and he left the mystery to be explained by God himself. His was
a simple act of unhesitating obedience to the command of God; the last
proof of perfect reliance on the certain accomplishment of the divine
promises. Isaac, so miraculously bestowed, could be as miraculously
restored; Abraham, such is the comment of the Christian Apostle,
“believed that God could even raise him up from the dead.”
4. The wide and deep impression made by the character of Abraham upon
the ancient world is proved by the reverence which people of almost all
nations and countries have paid to him, and the manner in which the
events of his life have been interwoven in their mythology, and their
religious traditions. Jews, Magians, Sabians, Indians, and Mohammedans
have claimed him as the great patriarch and founder of their several
sects; and his history has been embellished with a variety of fictions.
One of the most pleasing of these is the following, but it proceeds upon
the supposition that he was educated in idolatry: “As Abraham was
walking by night from the grotto where he was born, to the city of
Babylon, he gazed on the stars of heaven, and among them on the
beautiful planet Venus. ‘Behold,’ said he within himself, ‘the God and
Lord of the universe!’ but the star set and disappeared, and Abraham
felt that the Lord of the universe could not thus be liable to change.
Shortly after, he beheld the moon at the full: ‘Lo,’ he cried, ‘the
Divine Creator, the manifest Deity!’ but the moon sank below the
horizon, and Abraham made the same reflection as at the setting of the
evening star. All the rest of the night he passed in profound
rumination; at sunrise he stood before the gates of Babylon, and saw the
whole people prostrate in adoration. ‘Wondrous orb,‘ he exclaimed, ‘thou
surely art the Creator and Ruler of all nature! but thou, too, hastest
like the rest to thy setting!--neither then art thou my Creator, my
Lord, or my God!’”
multitude_, the son of Terah, born at Ur, a city of Chaldea, A. M. 2008.
The account of this eminent patriarch occupies so large a part of the
book of Genesis, and stands so intimately connected with both the Jewish
and Christian dispensations,--with the one by a political and religious,
and with the other by a mystical, relation,--that his history demands
particular notice. Our account may be divided into his _personal
history_, and his _typical, and mystic character_.
I. Abraham’s PERSONAL history.
1. Chaldea, the native country of Abraham, was inhabited by a pastoral
people, who were almost irresistibly invited to the study of the motions
of the heavenly bodies, by the peculiar serenity of the heavens in that
climate, and their habit of spending their nights in the open air in
tending their flocks. The first rudiments of astronomy, as a science, is
traced to this region; and here, too, one of the earliest forms of
idolatry, the worship of the host of heaven, usually called Tsabaism,
first began to prevail. During the three hundred and fifty years which
elapsed between the deluge and the birth of Abraham, this and other
idolatrous superstitions had greatly corrupted the human race, perverted
the simple forms of the patriarchal religion, and beclouded the import
of its typical rites. The family of Abraham was idolatrous, for his
“fathers served other gods beyond the flood,” that is, the great river
Euphrates; but whether he himself was in the early period of his life an
idolater, we are not informed by Moses. The Arabian and Jewish legends
speak of his early idolatry, his conversion from it, and of his zeal in
breaking the images in his father’s house; but these are little to be
depended upon. Before his call he was certainly a worshipper of the true
God; and that not in form only, but “in spirit and in truth.” Whilst
Abraham was still sojourning in Ur, “the God of glory” appeared to him,
and said unto him, “Get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred,
and go into the land which I shall show thee;” and so firm was his faith
in the providence and care of God, that although the place of his future
abode was not indicated, nor any information given of the nature of the
country, or the character of its inhabitants, he nevertheless promptly
obeyed, and “went out, not knowing whither he went.” Terah his father,
Nahor his brother, and Lot his nephew, the son of Haran his deceased
brother, accompanied him; a circumstance which indicates that if the
family had formerly been idolatrous it had now received the faith of
Abraham. They first migrated to Haran, or Charran, in Mesopotamia, a
flat, barren region westward of Ur; and after a residence there of a few
years, during which Terah had died, Abraham left Haran to go into
Palestine, taking with him Sarah his wife, who had no child, and Lot,
with his paternal property. Nahor appears to have been left in Haran. To
this second migration he was incited also by a Divine command,
accompanied by the promises of a numerous issue, that his seed should
become a great nation, and, above all, that “in him all the families of
the earth should be blessed;” in other words, that the Messiah, known
among the patriarchs as the promised “seed of the woman,” should be born
in his line. Palestine was then inhabited by the Canaanites, from whom
it was called Canaan. Abraham, leading his tribe, first settled at
Sechem, a valley between the mountains Ebal and Gerizim, where God
appeared to him and promised to give him the land of Canaan, and where,
as in other places in which he remained any time, he built an altar to
the Lord. He then removed to a hilly region on the north of Jericho; and
as the pastures were exhausted, migrated southward, till a famine drove
him into Egypt, probably the earliest, certainly the most productive,
corn country of the ancient world.
2. Here it may be observed, that the migrations of Abraham and his sons
show the manner in which the earth was gradually covered with people. In
those ages some cities had been built, and the country to some extent
about them cultivated; but wide spaces of unoccupied land lay between
them. A part of society following therefore the pastoral life, led forth
their flocks, and, in large family tribes, of which the parent was the
head, uniting both the sovereign power and the priesthood in himself,
and with a train of servants attached to the tribe by hereditary ties,
pitched their camps wherever a fertile and unappropriated district
offered them pasture. A few of these nomadic tribes appear to have made
the circuit of the same region, seldom going far from their native
seats; which would probably have been the case with Abraham, had he not
received the call of God to depart to a distant country. Others, more
bold, followed the track of rivers, and the sweep of fertile valleys,
and at length some built cities and formed settlements in those distant
regions; whilst others, either from attachment to their former mode of
life, or from necessity, continued in their pastoral occupations, and
followed the supplies afforded for their flocks by the still expanding
regions of the fertile earth. Wars and violences, droughts, famines, and
the constant increase of population, continued to impel these
innumerable, but at first, small streams of men into parts still more
remote. Those who settled on the sea coast began to use that element,
both for supplying themselves with a new species of food, and as a
medium of communication by vessels with other countries for the
interchange of such commodities as their own lands afforded with those
offered by maritime states, more or less distant. Thus were laid the
foundations of commerce, and thus the maritime cities were gradually
rendered opulent and powerful. Colonies were in time transported from
them by means of their ships, and settled on the coasts of still more
distant and fertile countries. Thus the migrations of the three
primitive families proceeded from the central regions of Armenia,
Mesopotamia, and Assyria; and in succession they established numerous
communities,--the Phenicians, Arabians, Egyptians, Ethiopians, and
Lybians southward;--the Persians, Indians, and Chinese eastward;--the
Scythians, Celts, and Tartars northward;--and the Goths, Greeks, and
Latins westward, even as far as the Peruvians and Mexicans of South
America, and the Indians of North America.
3. Abraham, knowing the dissolute character of the Egyptians, directed
Sarah to call herself his sister, which she was, although by another
mother; fearing that if they knew her to be his wife, they would not
only seize her, but kill him. This circumstance indicates the vicious
state of morals and government in Egypt at this early period. In this
affair Abraham has been blamed for want of faith in God; but it was
perhaps no more than an act of common prudence, as the seraglio of the
Egyptian monarch was supplied by any means, however violent and lawless.
Sarah, upon the report of her beauty, was seized and taken into his
harem; and God sent great plagues upon his house, which, from their
extraordinary character, he concluded to be divine judgments. This led
to inquiry, and on discovering that he was detaining another man’s wife
by violence, he sent her back, and dismissed Abraham laden with
presents.
4. After the famine Abraham returned to Canaan, and pitched his tents
between Bethel and Hai, where he had previously raised an altar. Here,
as his flocks and herds, and those of Lot, had greatly increased, and
strifes had arisen between their herdsmen as to pasturage and water,
they peaceably separated. Lot returning to the plain of the Jordan,
which before the destruction of Sodom was as “the garden of God,” and
Abraham to Mamre, near Hebron, after receiving a renewal of the promise,
that God would give him the whole land for a possession. The separation
of Abraham and Lot still farther secured the unmingled descent of the
Abrahamitic family. The territories of the kings of the cities of the
plain were a few years afterward invaded by a confederacy of the petty
kings of the Euphrates and the neighbouring countries, and Lot and his
family were taken prisoners. This intelligence being brought to Abraham,
he collected the men of his tribe, three hundred and eighteen, and
falling upon the kings by night, near the fountains of Jericho, he
defeated them, retook the spoil, and recovered Lot. On his return,
passing near Salem, supposed to be the city afterward called Jerusalem,
he was blessed by its king Melchizedec, who was priest of the most high
God; so that the knowledge and worship of Jehovah had not quite departed
at that time from the Canaanitish nations. To him Abraham gave a tithe
of the spoil. The rest he generously restored to the king of Sodom,
refusing, in a noble spirit of independence, to retain so much as a
“shoe lachet,” except the portion which, by usage of war, fell to the
young native sheiks, Aner, Eschal, and Mamre, who had joined him in the
expedition.
5. After this he had another encouraging vision of God, Gen. xv, 1; and
to his complaint that he was still childless, and that his name and
property would descend to the stranger Eliezer, who held the next rank
in his tribe, the promise was given, that he himself should have a son,
and that his seed should be countless as the stars of heaven. And it is
emphatically added, “He believed in the Lord, and he counted it to him
for righteousness.” He was then fully assured, that he stood before God,
a pardoned and accepted man, “whose iniquities were forgiven,” and to
whom “the Lord did not impute sin.” Still the fulfilment of the promise
of a son was delayed; and Sarah, perhaps despairing that it would be
accomplished in her person, and the revelation which had been made
merely stating that this son should be the fruit of Abraham’s body,
without any reference to her, she gave to him, according to the custom
of those times, one of her handmaids, an Egyptian, to be his secondary
wife, who brought forth Ishmael. Children born in this manner had the
privileges of legitimacy; but fourteen years afterward, when Abraham was
a hundred years old, and Sarah ninety, the Lord appeared to him again,
established his covenant with him and with his seed, changed his name to
Abraham, “the father of many nations,” promised that Sarah herself
should bring forth the son to whom the preceding promises had referred;
instituted circumcision as the sign of the covenant; and changed the
name of his wife from Sarai, _my princess_, to Sarah, _the princess_,
that is, of many people to descend from her.
6. At this time Abraham occupied his former encampment near Hebron.
Here, as he sat in the door of his tent, three mysterious strangers
appeared. Abraham, with true Arabian hospitality, received and
entertained them. The chief of the three renewed the promise of a son to
be born from Sarah, a promise which she received with a laugh of
incredulity, for which she was mildly reproved. As Abraham accompanied
them toward the valley of the Jordan, the same divine person, for so he
manifestly appears, announced the dreadful ruin impending over the
licentious cities among which Lot had taken up his abode. No passage,
even in the sacred writings, exhibits a more exalted view of the divine
condescension than that in which Abraham is seen expostulating on the
apparent injustice of involving the innocent in the ruin of the guilty:
“Shall the city perish, if fifty, if forty-five, if forty, if thirty, if
twenty, if ten righteous men be found within its walls?” “Ten righteous
men shall avert its doom.” Such was the promise of the celestial
visitant; but the guilt was universal, the ruin inevitable; and the
violation of the sacred laws of hospitality and nature, which Lot in his
horror attempted to avert by the most revolting expedient, confirmed the
justice of the divine sentence.
7. Sarah having conceived, according to the divine promise, Abraham left
the plain of Mamre, and went south to Gerar, where Abimelech reigned;
and again fearing lest Sarah should be forced from him, and himself be
put to death, her beauty having been, it would appear, preternaturally
continued, notwithstanding her age, he here called her, as he had done
in Egypt, his sister. Abimelech took her to his house, designing to
marry her; but God having, in a dream, informed him that she was
Abraham’s wife, he returned her to him with great presents. This year
Sarah was delivered of Isaac; and Abraham circumcised him, according to
the covenant stipulation; and when he was weaned, made a great
entertainment. Sarah, having observed Ishmael, son of Hagar, mocking her
son Isaac, said to Abraham, “Cast out this bondwoman and her son, for
Ishmael shall not be heir with Isaac.” After great reluctance, Abraham
complied; God having informed him that this was according to the
appointments of his providence, with respect to future ages. About the
same time, Abimelech came with Phicol, his general, to conclude an
alliance with Abraham, who made that prince a present of seven ewe lambs
out of his flock, in confirmation that a well he had opened should be
his own property; and they called the place Beer-sheba, or “the well of
swearing,” because of the covenant there ratified with oaths. Here
Abraham planted a grove, built an altar, and for some time resided, Gen.
xx, xxi.
8. More than twenty years after this, (A. M. 2133,) God, for the final
trial and illustration of Abraham’s faith, directed him to offer up his
son Isaac. Abraham took his son, and two servants, and went toward mount
Moriah. When within sight of the mountain, Abraham left his servants,
and ascended it with his son only; and there having bound him, he
prepared for the affecting sacrifice; but when he was about to give the
blow, an angel from heaven cried out to him, “Lay not thine hand upon
the lad, neither do thou any thing to him. Now I know that thou fearest
God, since thou hast not withheld thine only son from me.” Abraham,
turning, saw a ram entangled in the bush by his horns; and he offered
this animal as a burnt offering, instead of his son Isaac. This
memorable place he called by the prophetic name, _Jehovah-jireh_, or
_the Lord will see_--or _provide_, Gen. xxii, 1–14, having respect, no
doubt, to the true sacrifice which, in the fulness of time, was to be
offered for the whole world upon the same mountain.
9. Twelve years afterward, Sarah, wife of Abraham, died in Hebron.
Abraham came to mourn and to perform the funeral offices for her. He
addressed the people at the city gate, entreating them to allow him to
bury his wife among them; for, being a stranger, and having no land of
his own, he could claim no right of interment in any sepulchre of that
country. He, therefore, bought of Ephron, one of the inhabitants, the
field of Machpelah, with the cave and sepulchre in it, at the price of
four hundred shekels of silver, about forty-five pounds sterling. And
here Abraham buried Sarah, with due solemnities, according to the custom
of the country, Gen. xxiii. This whole transaction impressively
illustrates the dignity, courtesy, and honour of these ancient chiefs;
and wholly disproves the notion that theirs was a rude and unpolished
age.
10. Abraham, having grown old, sent Eliezer, his steward, into
Mesopotamia, with directions to obtain a young woman of his own family,
as a wife for his son Isaac. Eliezer executed his commission with
fidelity, and brought back Rebecca, daughter of Bethuel, grand-daughter
of Nahor, and, consequently, Abraham’s niece, whom Isaac married.
Abraham afterward married Keturah; by whom he had six sons, Zimran,
Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak, and Shuah; who became heads of different
people, which dwelt in Arabia, and around it. He died, aged a hundred
and seventy-five years, and was buried, with Sarah his wife, in the cave
of Machpelah, which he had purchased of Ephron, Gen. xxiv, xxv, A. M.
2183, before Christ 1821.
II. From the personal history of Abraham we may now proceed to the
consideration of the TYPICAL circumstances which were connected with it.
1. Abraham himself with his family may be regarded as a type of the
church of God in future ages. They indeed constituted God’s ancient
church. Not that many scattered patriarchal and family churches did not
remain: such was that of Melchizedec; and such probably was that of
Nahor, whom Abraham left behind in Mesopotamia. But a visible church
relation was established between Abraham’s family and the Most High,
signified by the visible and distinguishing sacrament of circumcision,
and followed by new and enlarged revelations of truth. Two purposes were
to be answered by this,--_the preservation of the true doctrine of
salvation in the world_, which is the great and solemn duty of every
branch of the church of God,--and _the manifestation of that truth to
others_. Both were done by Abraham. Wherever he sojourned he built his
altars to the true God, and publicly celebrated his worship; and, as we
learn from St. Paul, he lived in tents in preference to settling in the
land of Canaan, though it had been given to him for a possession, in
order that he might thus proclaim his faith in the eternal inheritance
of which Canaan was a type; and in bearing this testimony, his example
was followed by Isaac and Jacob, the “heirs with him of the same
promise,” who also thus “confessed that they were strangers and
pilgrims,” and that “they looked” for a continuing and eternal city in
heaven. So also now is the same doctrine of immortality committed to the
church of Christ; and by deadness to the world ought its members to
declare the reality of their own faith in it.
2. The numerous natural posterity promised to Abraham was also a type of
the spiritual seed, the true members of the church of Christ, springing
from the Messiah, of whom Isaac was the symbol. Thus St. Paul expressly
distinguishes between the fleshly and the spiritual seed of Abraham; to
the latter of which, in their ultimate and highest sense, the promises
of increase as the stars of heaven, and the sands of the sea shore, are
to be referred, as also the promise of the heavenly Canaan.
3. The intentional offering up Isaac, with its result, was probably that
transaction in which Abraham, more clearly than in any other, “saw the
day of Christ, and was glad.” He received Isaac from the dead, says St.
Paul, “in a figure.” This could be a figure of nothing but the
resurrection of our Lord; and, if so, Isaac’s being laid upon the altar
was a figure of his sacrificial death, scenically and most impressively
represented to Abraham. The _place_, the same ridge of hills on which
our Lord was crucified; the _person_, an only son, to die for no offence
of his own; the _sacrificer_, a father; the _receiving back_, as it
were, from death to life; the _name_ impressed upon the place,
importing, “_the Lord will provide_,” in allusion to Abraham’s own words
to Isaac, “the Lord will provide a lamb for a burnt offering;” all
indicate a mystery which lay deep beneath this transaction, and which
Abraham, as the reward of his obedience, was permitted to behold. “The
day” of Christ’s humiliation and exaltation was thus opened to him; and
served to keep the great truth in mind, that the true burnt offering and
sacrifice for sin was to be something higher than the immolation of
lambs and bulls and goats,--nay, something more than what was _merely_
human.
4. The transaction of the expulsion of Hagar was also a type. It was an
allegory in action, by which St. Paul teaches us to understand that the
son of the bondwoman represented those who are under the law; and the
child of the freewoman those who by faith in Christ are supernaturally
begotten into the family of God. The bondwoman and her son being cast
out, represented also the expulsion of the unbelieving Jews from the
church of God, which was to be composed of true believers of all
nations, all of whom, whether Jews or Gentiles, were to become “fellow
heirs.”
III. But Abraham appears before us invested with a MYSTIC character,
which it is of great importance rightly to understand.
1. He is to be regarded as standing in a _federal_ or _covenant_
relation, not only to his natural seed, but specially and eminently to
all believers. “The Gospel,” we are told by St. Paul, “was preached to
Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed.” “Abraham
believed in God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness;” in
other words, he was justified. A covenant of gratuitous justification
through faith was made with him and his believing descendants; and the
rite of circumcision, which was not confined to his posterity by Sarah,
but appointed in every branch of his family, was the sign or sacrament
of this covenant of grace, and so remained till it was displaced by the
sacraments appointed by Christ. Wherever that sign was it declared the
doctrine, and offered the grace, of this covenant--free justification by
faith, and its glorious results--to all the tribes that proceeded from
Abraham. This same grace is offered to us by the Gospel, who become
“Abraham’s _seed_,” his spiritual children with whom the covenant is
established, through the same faith, and are thus made “the heirs with
him of the same promise.”
2. Abraham is also exhibited to us as the _representative_ of true
believers; and in this especially, that the true nature of faith was
exhibited in him. This great principle was marked in Abraham with the
following characters:--An entire unhesitating belief in the word of
God;--an unfaltering trust in all his promises;--a steady regard to his
almighty power, leading him to overlook all apparent difficulties and
impossibilities in every case where God had explicitly promised;--and
habitual and cheerful and entire obedience. The Apostle has described
faith in Heb. xi, 1; and that faith is seen living and acting in all its
energy in Abraham.
A few miscellaneous remarks are suggested by some of the circumstances
of Abraham’s history:--
1. The ancient method of ratifying a covenant by sacrifice is
illustrated in the account given in Gen. xv, 9, 10. The beasts were
slain and _divided_ in the midst, and the persons covenanting passed
between the parts. Hence, after Abraham had performed this part of the
ceremony, the symbol of the Almighty’s presence, “a smoking furnace, and
a burning lamp, passed between the pieces,” verse 18, and so both
parties ratified the covenant.
2. As the beauty of Sarah, which she retained so long as quite to
conceal her real age from observers, attracted so much notice as to lead
to her forcible seizure, once by Pharaoh in Egypt, and again by
Abimelech in Palestine, it may appear strange, that, as in the east
women are generally kept in seclusion, and seldom appear without veils,
she exposed herself to observation. But to this day the Arab women do
not wear veils at home in their tents; and Sarah’s countenance might
have been seen in the tent by some of the officers of Pharaoh and
Abimelech, who reported her beauty to their masters.
3. The intentional offering up of Isaac is not to be supposed as viewed
by Abraham as an act sanctioned by the Pagan practice of human
sacrifice. The immolation of human victims, particularly of that which
was most precious, the favourite, the first-born child, appears to have
been a common usage among many early nations, more especially the tribes
by which Abraham was surrounded. It was the distinguishing rite among
the worshippers of Moloch; at a later period of the Jewish history, it
was practised by a king of Moab; and it was undoubtedly derived by the
Carthaginians from their Phenecian ancestors on the shores of Syria.
Where it was an ordinary usage, as in the worship of Moloch, it was in
unison with the character of the religion, and of its deity. It was the
last act of a dark and sanguinary superstition, which rose by regular
gradation to this complete triumph over human nature. The god, who was
propitiated by these offerings, had been satiated with more cheap and
vulgar victims; he had been glutted to the full with human suffering and
with human blood. In general it was the final mark of the subjugation of
the national mind to an inhuman and domineering priesthood. But the
Mosaic religion held human sacrifices in abhorrence; and the God of the
Abrahamitic family, uniformly beneficent, had imposed no duties which
entailed human suffering, had demanded no offerings which were repugnant
to the better feelings of our nature. The command to offer Isaac as “a
burnt offering,” was for these reasons a trial the more severe to
Abraham’s faith. He must therefore have been fully assured of the divine
command; and he left the mystery to be explained by God himself. His was
a simple act of unhesitating obedience to the command of God; the last
proof of perfect reliance on the certain accomplishment of the divine
promises. Isaac, so miraculously bestowed, could be as miraculously
restored; Abraham, such is the comment of the Christian Apostle,
“believed that God could even raise him up from the dead.”
4. The wide and deep impression made by the character of Abraham upon
the ancient world is proved by the reverence which people of almost all
nations and countries have paid to him, and the manner in which the
events of his life have been interwoven in their mythology, and their
religious traditions. Jews, Magians, Sabians, Indians, and Mohammedans
have claimed him as the great patriarch and founder of their several
sects; and his history has been embellished with a variety of fictions.
One of the most pleasing of these is the following, but it proceeds upon
the supposition that he was educated in idolatry: “As Abraham was
walking by night from the grotto where he was born, to the city of
Babylon, he gazed on the stars of heaven, and among them on the
beautiful planet Venus. ‘Behold,’ said he within himself, ‘the God and
Lord of the universe!’ but the star set and disappeared, and Abraham
felt that the Lord of the universe could not thus be liable to change.
Shortly after, he beheld the moon at the full: ‘Lo,’ he cried, ‘the
Divine Creator, the manifest Deity!’ but the moon sank below the
horizon, and Abraham made the same reflection as at the setting of the
evening star. All the rest of the night he passed in profound
rumination; at sunrise he stood before the gates of Babylon, and saw the
whole people prostrate in adoration. ‘Wondrous orb,‘ he exclaimed, ‘thou
surely art the Creator and Ruler of all nature! but thou, too, hastest
like the rest to thy setting!--neither then art thou my Creator, my
Lord, or my God!’”