CHAPTER II

THE HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL AS

PRESENTED BY THEMSELVES

Prologue to the Old Testament

THE relation between the people of Israel and their God is in the Bible expressed by the word 'covenant' : God appears repeatedly as referring to his covenant with Abraham, and at successive stages in the history of Israel the covenant is renewed. The word 'testament,' which in later times has changed its meaning, was in earlier English exactly equivalent to 'covenant': hence it is natural that the sacred literature of Israel should be called 'The Old Testament,' or covenant between God and his ancient people of Israel.

It might have been expected that this literature should commence with the first of the fathers: as a fact, Genesis commences long before. But when the eleven chapters which precede Abraham are examined, the reason is plain. The call of Abraham is not the first example of covenantal relations between God and mankind.

When the origin of all things has been noted in the creation of the world, Adam is granted dominion over all the earth; the garden of Eden is given him for his abode, and for a sign of obedience is the command to abstain from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. . This is the covenant between God and the common ancestor of men. Then is narrated the eating of the

forbidden fruit; and Adam is driven out of Eden. With the slaying of Abel by Cain, the feud of the righteous and the wicked has appeared upon earth. Its continuance is suggested in the two genealogies that follow. The one traces the progeny of Cain to Lamech, the inventor of deadly weapons. In the other, Abel is replaced by Seth: "then began men to call upon the name of the LORD." Descendants of Seth- including Enoch, who "walked with God, and he was not, for God took him". are traced to Noah. At that point corruption has reached its completeness; and then, with vivid detail, is pictured the flood which sweeps a world away, the household of Noah alone preserved in the floating ark.

With Noah we have a fresh starting point for mankind, and a fresh covenant:

The bow shall be in the cloud: and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.

The foulness of Canaan's father recommences the history of sin, and the Curse of Noah prophesies the feud of righteous and wicked nations.

Cursed be Canaan;

A servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.

Blessed be the LORD, the God of Shem;

And let Canaan be his servant.

God enlarge Japheth,

And let him dwell in the tents of Shem;

And let Canaan be his servant.

A genealogical table connects the sons of Noah with the nations of the world that were to be; this is followed by the story of the Tower of Babel, in which diversity of speech enhances differences of nationality. Another

table traces the individual descendants of Noah to Abraham.

Enough has been said to show how the early chapters of Genesis serve as prologue to the Old Testament. Twice has God entered into covenant with all mankind, as represented in a common ancestor; twice the covenant has been broken, and sin has triumphed. Henceforward a particular people is to be called forth from among the nations, and through this chosen people all the nations of the earth are to be blessed.

Genesis: or, The Formation of the Chosen Nation

The first division of the history of Israel is occupied with the origin of the chosen nation. Abraham is called upon to give up his country and kindred, and to go out into a new land that is promised to his seed. The descendants of Abraham are followed through the stage in which they are a nomad people, wandering from station. to station in the Canaan that is hereafter to be their own; when they are a succession of families, living under simple patriarchal rule; until at last they have grown into the twelve tribes which never ceased to be the basis of the future nation's organisation.

The main note in the history is the gradual narrowing of the succession to the covenant. It was a family migration which had started from Mesopotamia: Abraham and his kinsman Lot, with their households. When the land is no longer able to bear the increased flocks and herds, Lot makes his choice for the fertile plains with their cities of wickedness, Abraham remains in the country districts of Canaan. Lot is entangled in the

wars of the cities and taken prisoner; Abraham comes to his deliverance. As the doom of the vile cities is approaching Abraham is admitted into the counsels of Deity; in his intercessory prayer for the fifty, the forty and five, the forty, the thirty, the twenty, the ten righteous men who may be found in Sodom, we find the first example of piety struggling with the mysteries of providential judgments. At last we have the exciting story of the destruction of the guilty cities: vice seeking to lay hands on the very angels themselves; Lot and his household torn away by force before it is too late; Lot's wife looking back and overtaken by the destruction; Lot himself, with the spectacle of desolation before him, clinging to the chance of city life at the point where destruction may stop.1 Thus one of the original emigrants is unfaithful to the career of the chosen people. And, by incestuous wedlock, Lot becomes ancestor of the Moabites and Ammonites, chief neighbours and foes of the future Israel.

There is a narrowing of the succession even among the descendants of Abraham. The long childlessness of Sarah brings into prominence the children of the bondwoman. There is a glimpse of household strife, persecuting mistress and mocking maid; we have the affecting story of Hagar in the wilderness going a bowshot away that she may not see her child die, and coming upon the well; Abraham is heard crying to God that Ishmael might live before him. But the children of the bondwoman are not to inherit with the children of the free. Ishmael stops short at the nomad type of life, ancestor of Bedouin Arabs; his lot is compared to the wild ass,2 2 Genesis xvi. 12.

1 Genesis xix. 20.

untameable, rejoicing in desert solitudes; his hand is against every man's and every man's against his, but he has no place in the advance of history.

The long-promised seed appears when to Abraham and Sarah in their extreme old age Isaac is born, a son of promise, rather than a child according to the flesh. Immediately we have the strange incident of the offering of Isaac. Abraham obeys without question, and passes straight to the appointed spot, while the child wonders. innocently at the absence of a lamb for sacrifice; with wordless submission he is bound on the altar. The lifted knife is stayed, but the symbolic act has reached its completion in their ancestor Isaac the future people of Israel have been solemnly devoted to their mission.

In the second generation there is a further falling out of the succession. Two children struggle in the womb of Rebekah: before they are born the oracular word declares that the elder shall serve the younger. The natural course of events is found to fulfil the prediction. From the first Esau is attracted to the hunter's ideal. Rough in person he is also rough in life; he is full of impulses, generous or revengeful, but without the tenacity of purpose that makes great nations. In a fit of appe

tite he sells his birthright to his younger brother for a mess of pottage. He takes a wife from the daughters of the land, and is thereby a grief to Isaac and Rebekah. At last we have the strange story of the stolen blessing. Diversities of the children have led to favouritism on the part of the parents: Isaac, on the verge of death, seeks to use his patriarchal authority to secure the succession for his favourite, Esau, to be proclaimed at a feast of the venison his soul loveth; the mother takes advantage of