given. Abraham had never been as blessed in his seed, if he had not neglected Isaac for God. The only way to find comfort in an earthly thing is, to surrender it in a believing carelessness into the hands of God.' Bp. Hall. 22 And Chesed, and Hazo, and Pildash, and Jidlaph, and Bethuel. 23 And Bethuel begat" Rebekah: these eight Milcah did bear to Nahor, Abraham's brother. 24 And his concubine, whose name was Reumah, she bare also Tebah, and Gaham, and Thabash, and Maachah. 1 ch.24. 15. u Called, Rom. 9. 10, Rebecca. probably a correct rendering, as the names of individuals in the scriptures, who were the founders of nations, usually stand for the nations themselves. Aram' throughout the Bible is rendered by the Greek Syria' and 'Syrians,' as is Mitzraim' by Egypt,' and 'Cush' by Ethiopia.' This usage of the Septuagint has for the most part governed that of all the later versions. 6 20. It came to pass after these things, &c. The genealogy here given, and occupying the remaining verses to the end of the chapter, is undoubtedly introduced in order to make way for the 22. Chesed. Heb. Kesed, that following account of Isaac's marriage to is, the Kasdim or Chaldeans, respecting Rebekah, a daughter of the family of whom and their origin see Note on Gen. Nahor. It was contrary to the design 11. 28. Of the other four individuals of heaven that the family of Abraham whose names follow, with the excepshould intermarry with the heathen tion of Bethuel, the sacred writers give races among whom he now dwelt, and us no information. to add to the recent tokens of the divine favor, he is now cheered by the wel-gesh, from whence the Gr. mauris palcome tidings of the prosperity of his brother's house, in which he would not fail to perceive how kindly God was preparing the way for the higher happiness of his son and the further fulfilment of his promises. 21. Huz his first-born. Heb. 24. His concubine. Heb. pille lakis and Lat. peller. Our English word 'concubine' is derived from a Latin compound con and cubo, implying simply mutual cohabitation without a duly solemnized marriage. The Heb. term, however, supposed to be derived from palag, to divide, and nagash, to ap Oolz or Uz, the letter z in scripture pro-proach, did not, as the word concubine per names being almost invariably the does with us, imply any thing immoral representative of the Heb. tz. The land or reproachful. Its true import is that of Uz', the country of Job, was, it may be supposed, so called from this individual. He and his brother Buz seem to have emigrated and settled south, either in Edom or the northern regions of Arabia. Buz was probably the father or one of the ancestors of Elihu, who, in Job 32. 2, is called 'Elihu the Buzite.'The father of Aram. Gr. marepa Evpiwv Father of the Syrians; of a half-wife, divided or secondary wife, from the implied division of the husband's affections and attentions between two objects. An accurate knowledge of oriental customs and notions is necessary to enable one to enter fully into the force of the term as distinguished from our sense of the word concubine. This, as it is well known, denotes a woman who, without being married to a man, lives with him as his wife. In power of this principle was probably been preceded by the loss of his substance, the untimely death of his children, the rash counsel of his wife, and the heavy hand of God, it would have been much more tolerable. So if Abraham's faith and patience had not been exercised in the manner they were an less more easily have borne it. But fact, in its usual acceptation it dif- never put forth by a human being. In fers not from mistress, and of course addition to all the aggravating circumconveys the idea of a connexion in the stances above detailed, it should be conhighest degree unlawful and abhorrent sidered that Abraham's previous trials to the fundamental laws of Christianity. had been very severe. The same But with the sacred writers concubi- things, we well know, may be more or nage runs into polygamy, the word being less trying according to the situation or used to designate a lawful wife, but one state of mind in which they find us. If of secondary or subordinate rank. She the treatment of Job's friends had not differed from the proper wife in not being wedded with all the usual ceremonies and solemnities; in not bringing with her a dowry; and in having no share in the government of the family. Wives of this description are at present known in the East under the title of odaliques, and it is generally un-terior to this temptation, he could doubtderstood that they are subject to the mistress of the family, or the principal was after these things' that God apwife, whose nuptials have been cele- pointed this sore trial to his servantbrated according to the usual rites. after his being called away from his They are at the same time treated with country and kindred-after his pilgrimevery respect as a secondary order of age to Egypt-after his domestic troubles wives-very seldom, unless in cases of and his parting with Ishmael-after five criminality, with the indignities inflicted and twenty years' waiting for the child on a slave. The children of the principal of promise—after hope had been raised wife usually inherit the father's fortune to the highest pitch, yea, after it had in preference to the children of the oda- been actually turned into enjoymentliques. In the harem she takes the and when the child had lived long upper seat on the sofa, directs the econ- enough to discover an amiable and pious omy of the women's apartments, and spirit-yet after all this he is called to when her consort forgets her charms for pass through another ordeal still more those of another, her title to supremacy trying than any preceding one! And still remains unaltered. She sits too on how plausible were the pleas which the same sofa with her husband, al- might have been urged against so fearthough at its extreme edge; while the ful a command? odaliques sit, their feet folded under them, upon cushions spread upon the carpet. When she first appears among the latter in the morning, it is the usage that they should kneel down and kiss the hem of her garment. See Quin's Life in the East. REMARKS. The transaction which we have now considered, taken in all its bearings, is rich in practical instruction. We learn from it, (1) The nature and working of true faith. A more illustrious display of the Murder was an ob ject both of human and divine abhorrence; and what would the surrounding heathen say when they should hear of this cruel massacre? What would they think of him and his religion when he could represent such a horrid deed of blood as an act of piety performed in obedience to a divine mandate? Would they not universally have exclaimed against him as a monster of cruelty, and said of him at every turn, 'There goes the man that cut the throat of his own son.' Again, with what face could he look upon his wife whose son he had the greatest darkness and distress. He murdered? How could she entertain the may not come to our help at the moexecutioner of Isaac, or believe that such ment that our impatient minds may dean order emanated from God? In all these sire. On the contrary, he may tarry respects it is easy to see with what a long till we are ready to cry, 'The Lord strength of reason his faith had to wres- hath forsaken us, and our God hath fortle, to say nothing of the still sorer con- gotten us.' But he has wise and graflict with affection. But faith had taught cious purposes to answer by such deAbraham not to argue, but to obey. lays. He makes use of them to stir us up He knew that what God commanded to more earnest importunity; to render was good, and what he promised, infal- us more simple and humble in our delible; and therefore went forward with- pendence, to display more gloriously the out wavering in absolute submission to riches of his power and goodness when the will of the Most High. Such was he does appear; and to teach both us the triumph of Abraham's faith. And and others the wisdom of waiting his now, do we desire to form an estimate time. Whatever, then, our unbelieving of the reality and strength of our own fears may say, let us be assured that faith? Let us place ourselves for a mo- God is no inattentive observer of our ment in a situation similar to that of the condition, and that at the critical mopatriarch. Let us think of that person, ment, when his succour shall be most of that object, which is the dearest to welcome, it shall come. And where is us of any on earth; and let us imagine the christian heart that hath not had the breath of the destroying angel wither- engraven upon it many precious rememing it, like Jonah's gourd, at our feet, brances of the fulfilment of this proits beauty fled. and the grave about to mise? In temporal and in spiritual difshut it for ever from our view; and let ficulties; in the day of sorrow, and on us ask ourselves whether we could re- the bed of sickness; in the hour of danceive such a visitation without a mur-ger to ourselves or to those we have mur from the hands of our heavenly loved, the Lord has most unexpectedly Father? Could we say with the Shunamite, in answer to the prophet's message, 'Is it well with the child?' that child which had just expired in her arms -could we say with her, 'It is well.' This is the office of faith, and one of its most difficult works. Yet it has been achieved by thousands, and must be achieved by us ere patience shall have had her perfect work. The most valuable of the gifts of heaven, the dearest of our earthly delights, must all be held as Isaac in his father's arms, ready at the slightest bidding to be laid and to be sacrificed on the altar of God. (2) The certainty that God will interpose for his people in the hour of their necessity. This is the plain import of the proverb, In the mount of the Lord it shall be seen.' We may therefore confidently trust in him in seasons of appeared in our behalf, and enabled us to exclaim 'Jehovah-jireh' in view of the joyful deliverance. What then ought to be the effect of these repeated interferences of divine mercy in our behalf? Surely to teach us never to doubt, never to despair, never to despond. If called to give up our dearest possession, the wife of our bosom, the children of our love, let us bow even amidst our keenest sufferings, to kiss the rod and him who hath appointed it. He that hath been with us in six troubles will not leave us in seven; and it will only be adding ingratitude to unbelief, to rob ourselves of the comfort of this delightful assurance. Nor is it in life only that we are to sustain ourselves by cleaving to this confidence. In nature's final conflict, when our faith may be expected to meet its severest CHAPTER XXIII. 2 And Sarah died in a Kirjath AND Sarah was an hundred arba; the same is Hebron in the land of Canaan: and Abraham came to mourn for Sarah, and to weep for her. shock, then shall these cheering words stand out in letters of light, which even the closing eye can read and the fainting heart can dwell upon. CHAPTER XXIII. 1. And Sarah was an hundred and seven and twenty years old. Heb. 7 Josh. 14. 15. Judg. 1. 10. b ch. 13. 18. ver. 19. then the more to the select circle in which they move, and which alone can duly appreciate their unobtrusive amiableness and worth, is adverse to their gaining eclat. The traits of character which best entitle them to celebrity, are the very ones which prevent their attaining it. 2. Sarah died in Kirjath-arba. The patriarch, after having enjoyed the tenderest of all relationships during a longer period than that of which a whole life, at the present day usually consists, is at length called to feel the pang of separation. Sarah pays the debt of nature, and is removed to that world where they neither 'marry nor are given in marriage' Although there is always something in the breaking of this tie more affecting, perhaps, than in the disruption of any other which unites us to our kind, yet the bitterness of the bereavement was enhanced to Abraham by peculiar circumstances. Sarah had been his 'companion in tribulation.' They had shared together in a series of trying dispensations through a long course of years, and their union had at length been cemented by a pledge, such as had never before, and but in one instance since, gladdened the heart of a parent. The stroke therefore could not but be one of deep affliction to the survivor, and the sequel clearly informs us that he felt it as such.T Kirjath-arba. yihyu haye Sarah, the lives of Sarah were, &c. according to the Heb. idiom which always employs the plur. for life;' a usage designed, according to Calvin, to intimate the various events of life, its numerous and often rapid vicissitudes, which seemingly divide it into several different lives. Another solution, however, of a physiological character, is given Gen. 2. 7. It is somewhat remarkable that Sarah is the only female mentioned in the scriptures, whose age, death, and burial are distinctly noted. She was 65 at the period of Abraham's departure from Haran, lived with him in his pilgrim state ·62 years, and died 33 years before him. She is always spoken of in the sacred writings as the pattern of conjugal fidelity and love, and her example is held forth by the apostle, 1 Pet. 3. 6, as the highest model for christian women, and the title of her 'daughters' as their most honorable distinction. The very fact that so few of the incidents of her history are recorded speaks strongly in her favor; for there is little in the even tenor of female life, when that life is passed in the retired and noiseless path lit. the city of the four; so called, if we of devotedness to God, and in the peace- may believe the Jewish tradition, from ful round of domestic duties, which can the circumstance of the four illustrious or ought to form the subject of the his-men, viz. Adam, Abraham, Isaac, and torian's pen. The very privacy of the | Jacob, being buried there, as also the christian graces, manifested in such a four distinguished women, Eve, Sarah, walk and conversation, while it endears | Rebekah, and Leah. All these persons קרית ארבע .Heb were certainly buried there, except and winding. The adjoining district, Adam and Eve, whose place of inter- which is no doubt 'the valley of Hement is nowhere mentioned. But as to bron,' is an oblong hollow, or valley, dithe origin of this naine, see Josh. 14. 15. versified with rocky hillocks, groves of Whoever built the city, it must have fir, and some plantations of vines and been one of the most ancient in the world. olive trees. Abraham came to mourn Egypt was one of the first countries set- for Sarah, and to weep. Heb. tled after the deluge, and its inhabitants livkothah, to weep her; i. e. to bewail or made much boast of the antiquity of their lament her. Mourning for the pious cities; yet we are informed in Num. 13. dead is but a suitable tribute to the me22, that Hebron was built seven years mory of their living worth. Abraham before Zoan, or Tanis, the ancient capi- was sensible of his loss, and gave vent tal of Lower Egypt. At the conquest to the natural expressions of sorrow. of Palestine by the Israelites Hebron His religion was not of that sort which was possessed by the Anakims, and was values itself on doing violence to nature. taken by Caleb, whose possession it be- He knew nothing of that philosophy came, being in the allotment of the tribe which affects to deny what it feels. of Judah. It was afterwards assigned Neither had an old age of one hundred to the Levites, and became a city of and thirty years,extinguished in his heart refuge. David kept his court there in those tender emotions which such an the first seven years of his reign, before event was calculated to awaken. He Jerusalem was taken. Afterwards Ab- who does not weep on such an occasion, salom raised the standard of rebellion is something more or less than a man. in Hebron. During the Babylonish cap-From the example of our Lord himself, tivity, the Edomites appropriated He- who wept over the bier of Lazarus, we bron when they invaded the south of are taught that there is nothing abhorJudah, and it became the capital of a rent from true wisdom or manly virtue district which continued to be called in grave and temperate lamentation for Idumæa long after the territory of the our departed friends. But the Christian Edomites had been incorporated with is not to mourn as those that have no Judæa. Wells think it became the hope, nor is his mourning to be allowed site of a bishopric in the early times of to interfere with the grand duties of Christianity, and it was certainly made life.-In what sense Abraham is said to such when the Crusaders conquered have 'come' to mourn for Sarah, is not Palestine. Hebron is now merely a clear. Harmer thinks that, according to village, called Habroun and El Khalyl, a custom among the Syrians and Greeks, i. e. the friend, from its having been the of mourning at the door within which a residence of Abraham, the friend of dead body lay, the patriarch came from God. It is situated about 27 miles south his own tent to sit mourning on the of Jerusalem, eastward of a chain of ground at the door of Sarah's, which hills which intersects the country was distinct from his own. Gen. 24. 67. from north to south. It stands on the But as it is common for those that lead slope of an eminence, at the summit the nomade mode of life, for the conof which are some mis-shapen ruins venience of feeding their numerous of an ancient castle. It has some small flocks, to have several places of temmanufactures of cotton, soap, glass-porary residence, we should rather inlamps, and trinkets, which render it the fer that he was absent from Hebron at most important place of the district. It the time of her death, but hastened is rather a neat town, with unusually thither to perform the last duties when high houses; but the streets are narrow he received the intelligence, |