THE

HISTORY OF THE BIBLE.

BOOK III.

CONTAINING AN ACCOUNT OF THINGS FROM THE CALLING OF ABRAHAM TO THE ISRAELITES' DEPARTURE OUT OF EGYPT, IN ALL 430 YEARS.-ACCording to DR HALES 1015 YEARS.

PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS.

Christ came, the natural branches were broken off, and the Gentiles were grafted in their stead.

At this era there was given a more full and clear ABRAHAM was born only two years after the death of discovery of the plan of redemption than had previously Noah, from whom he descended in the line of Seth. Of been enjoyed by the church. There had been given, on Abraham the sacred historian gives us little information two particular occasions, disclosures of the covenant of till he was seventy-five years old, when the Lord called grace,-one to our first parents immediately after the him to leave his father's house and his native country. | fall-the other to Noah and his family soon after the Promises were added, for his encouragement, respecting flood. There is now a third, and a more particular his posterity, that from him should arise a numerous and powerful people; and respecting himself, that God would so highly honour him, as not only to make his name great, but also to render his life a general blessing to mankind.

In wisdom and in mercy God called Abraham, the person in whose family he intended to uphold the true religion, out of his own country, which was the land of Chaldea, and from his kindred, to a far distant land, that his posterity might there remain, a people separate from the rest of mankind, that so the true religion might be maintained and preserved. A foundation was thus laid, and means were thus provided, for upholding the church of Christ in the world till he should come. For the world having become idolatrous, it was necessary that the people of God should be thus separated, that they might receive and preserve the types and prophecies that were to be given concerning Christ; that they might be the depositaries of the Oracles of God; and that, at the appointed time, the light of the gospel might shine forth from them to the rest of the world. As Abraham was the person in whom this foundation, as it were, was laid, he is represented in Scripture as though he were the father of all the church, the father of all them that believed, the stem whence the visible church thenceforward through Christ rose, as a tree distinct from all other plants,-and from which, after

a That is reckoning according to the common or Hebrew computation; but, according to Josephus and Dr Hales, Noah died B. C. 2805, and Abraham was born B. C. 2153; consequently, a period of 652 years intervened between the death of the former and birth of the latter.-ED.

revelation given of the provisions of that covenant, which, in due time, was to be sealed and ratified by the blood of Christ. It was now revealed, not only that Christ should come into the world, but that he should be of the seed of Abraham, and that in him all the families of the earth should be blessed. In the institution of circumcision, there was appointed a seal of the covenant of grace, a seal of the righteousness of faith.' This sacrament distinguished Abraham's seed from the world, and kept up a distinction and separation in future ages. It was in consequence of the clearer vision which was vouchsafed to this patriarch, that he rejoiced to see the day of Christ, and was glad.

Nor should we omit to notice, in our survey of the period on which we are now entering, the preservation of the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, during their sojournings in the land of Canaan. For the inhabitants of that country were exceedingly wicked; so much so, that Abraham, when he was old, could not be content till he had made his servant swear that he would not take a wife for his son of the daughters of the land. When we consider that the lives of those holy men formed a continual reproof of the wickedness of the Canaanites, and that they were strangers and sojourners among them, we cannot but admire the remarkable dispensation of providence in their preservation.

In the course of this period, we have presented to our view an extraordinary and visible manifestation of God's displeasure against sin, in the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities of the plain.

b See Dewar on the Atonernent, p. 30.

A. M. 2083. A. C. 1921 ; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 3333 A. C. 2078. GEN. CH. xii-xx7. 11.

The destruction of the world by the flood served to | would bless, protect, and multiply his posterity in an exhibit the terrors of the law, and manifest the wrath of extraordinary manner, and that in his seed all the God; and thus to make men sensible of the absolute families of the earth should be blessed.' necessity of redeeming mercy. But this was now, in a Abram was fully persuaded of the truth of all God's great measure, forgotten ; and God was pleased again, | promises; and therefore, without any hesitation, taking in a most striking manner, to show his abhorrence of his wife and family, and all his effects, together with his sin, and his determination to punish it; which tended to | nephew Lot, and his substance with him, he pursued his convince men of the necessity of redemption, and so to journey, 'not knowing whither he should go,' until, by prepare the way for the accomplishment of that great the divine guidance, he came into the land of Canaan; and being minded to make some survey of the country, proceeded to the famous Oak of Moreh, not far from

work.

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Some interpreters have imagined, that these words require no higher sense than this,-that all nations should see the pros

Bearing in mind that the sacred history is the history of the gradual and progressive unfolding of the plan of redemption, we shall not fail to mark, in our survey of this period, the renewal of the covenant of grace to Isaac and to Jacob. God said to Isaac, And I will perity of Abraham and his seed so evidently, that they should perform the oath which I swore unto Abraham thy father; and I will make thy seed to multiply as the stars of heaven, and will give unto thy seed all these countries ; | and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.' This covenant was repeatedly confirmed to Jacob; more especially at Bethel, in his vision of the ladder that reached to heaven, which was a symbol of the way of salvation by Christ :- Thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth; and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south; and in thee, and in thy seed, shall all the families of the earth be blessed.'

Besides these particulars, the reader will observe included in the section of the sacred history on which we are now entering, the preservation of the family from which Christ was to descend, by the instrumentality of Joseph, who was a type of the Great Deliverer; the remarkable prophecy respecting the coming of the Messiah, and the gathering of the people to him,"* and the upholding of the children of Israel, the visible church of God, in Egypt, notwithstanding the grinding oppression and deep affliction which they suffered.

SECT. I.

CHAP. I.—Of the Life of Abraham, from his Call to his Death.

A M 2083, A. C. 1921, or, according to Hales, A. M. 3333, A. C. 2078, from Gen. xii-xxv. 11.

THE HISTORY.

AFTER the death of his father Terah, Abram, who, by God's appointment, had not long before left Ur in Chaldea, was now ordered to leave Haran, and go into a country whereunto God would conduct him, and who, at the same time, gave him assurance, that he

1 Gen. xxvi. 3, 4. 2 Gen. xxvi; xxxv. 10., &c. 3 Gen. xlix. 10. a It is very probable that this was done by some appearance or other of the Shekinah going before him, even as afterwards his posterity was conducted in the way thither; since, passing over rivers, climbing mountains, and travelling through a dangerous and vast desert, he had certainly need of an extraordinary divine direction, and of some sensible exhibition or token of it, while he had nothing but the promise of God to support him in so long and so hazardous a journey.-Bibliotheca Biblica, vol. 1.

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bless themselves; and others, in some such form as this:"God make thee as great as Abraham and his seed." But, besides the incongruity of supposing that God's everlasting covenant, as he calls it, Gen. xvii. 19, was given only to produce a proverbial form of speech, it is plain matter of fact, that the posterity of Abraham, in the line of Isaac, was far from being the most prosperous, as to temporal affairs, of all the other branches of his family; and therefore this promise must of necessity be supposed to relate to some more spiritual and distant blessing, just as St Paul, in his epistle to the Galatians, has explained it: Now to Abraham and to his seed were the promises made; he saith not, and to seeds, as of many, but as of one, and to thy seed, which is Christ.' Gal. iii. 16.-See Bishop Sherlock's Use and Intent of Prophecy.

c The land of Canaan lies between the Mediterranean sea and the mountains of Arabia, and extends from Egypt to Phonicia. It is bounded to the east by the mountains of Arabia ; to the south by the wilderness of Paran, Idumea, and Egypt; to the west, by the Mediterranean, called in Hebrew the Great sea; and to the north, by the mountains of Libanus. Its length from the city of Dan (since called Cæsarea Philippi, or Pancadis, which stands at the foot of these mountains) to Beersheba, is about seventy leagues, and its breadth, from the Mediterranean sea to the eastern borders, is, in some places, thirty. It was first called the land of Canaan, from Cainan the son of Ham, whose posterity possessed it. It was afterwards called Palestine, from the people which the Hebrews call Philistines, and the Greeks and Romans corruptly Palestines, who inhabited the sea coasts, and were first known to them. It likewise had the name of the Land of Promise, from the promise God made Abraham of giving it to him; that of the land of Israel, from the Israelites having made themselves masters of it; that of Judah, from the tribe of Judah, which was the most considerable of the twelve; and lastly, the happiness it had of being sanctified by the presence, actions, miracles, and death of Jesus Christ, has given it the name of the Holy Land, which it retains to this day. -Lamy's Introduction.

d The city of Sichem, or Sechem, or Sychar (for it had all these names), was at this time so called by way of anticipation (for as yet it was not founded), and is a town of Samaria, in the borders of Ephraim, which stands in a narrow valley, between Gerazim on the south, and Ebal on the north, being built at the foot of the former. At present it is called Naplossa, and consists only of two streets, lying parallel under mount Gerazim, though it is still full of people, and the seat of a bashaw. The and is far from being in the flourishing condition it was once, true name, which was given it by Abram, was Moreh, or Allon Moreh, which our translation renders the plain of Moreh; by St Jerome, the illustrious vale; by the Jerusalem Targum, the Valley of Vision, because of God's appearing to Abraham here; and by others, the Oak of Moreh, or the Illustrious Oak, &c., though it seems very probable that there was in this place, not only one single tree, but a whole grove of them; and therefore it is called Allon, or Aulon, being a corruption from Elon, in Latin Esculetum, that is, an oaken grove, or forest of evergreen oaks. And since this was the place where Abraham, at his first coming into the country, built an altar, we have great reason to be of the same opinion with the learned and sagacious Mr Mede, namely, that this Allon Moreh was a place of divine worship, a proseucha, or open oratory, in imitation of which the Jewish proseuche (which were certain spaces of ground, with

A. M. 2083. A. C. 1921; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 3333. A. C. 2078. GEN. CH. xii-xxv. 11.

the city of Sichem, then inhabited by the Canaanites. | she had passed the sixty-fifth year of her age, retained Here he took up his abode for some time, and here built an altar, in order to pay his devotions to God; who, pleased with his behaviour, appeared to him again, as he had done at Haran before, and gave him fresh assurances of his favour, and a promise inviolable, that, in process of time, the whole land, where he then dwelt, should be the portion of his posterity.

From Sichem he removed into the mountainous country, which lies between Bethel and Hai, where he likewise built an altar for a place of divine worship, (as he did in all other countries where he came), and from Bethel he was travelling farther to the south, when he was stopped by a famine, which grew grievous in the land, and obliged him to go down to Egypt, the only place for provision in such like exigencies. But as he came to the confines of Egypt, he began to be not a little uneasy upon the account of his wife, who, though

A. M. 2083. A. C. 1921; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 3333. A. C. 2078. GEN. CH. xii-xxv. 11.

passed for a single, was in reality a married woman; so that the king, immediately calling for Abram, expostulated with him on the ill consequences that might have ensued from the method he had taken; and after some few exprobations, returned him his wife, and gave orders that they might safely depart his kingdom, without any the least molestation, either to their persons or possessions.

Abram, after this, tarried not long in Egypt; for understanding that the famine was ceased in Canaan, he returned thither by the same way, and on the altar which he had built before, offered a sacrifice of thanks for his happy escape and safe return. Lot and Abram had hitherto lived together; but by this time their substance was so much increased, that they found it inconvenient to be any longer near one another. Their cattle mingled; their herdsmen quarrelled; and their flocks, when together, required a larger tract of ground to feed and support them than they could take up, without interfering with the property of the inhabitants of the land wherein they sojourned. Upon these considerations, Abram resolved, in a friendly manner, to separate from Lot; and having given him his choice of the whole country that lay before him, Lot chose the fertile and pleasant plains of Sodom and Gomorrah," which he saw were well watered by the streams of Jordan, and so parted from

a The Jews here tell us, that the herdsmen of Abraham were commanded by their master not to go near the Canaanites, or the Perizzites, nor to come into the grounds which they had taken, either for culture or pasturage, so that they might not appear to do the least injury to any of them; and that, in obedience to his command, they took especial care to confine all their cattle, and to watch their flocks with a strict eye, so that none might go astray, and so trespass upon the natives; but that Lot's herdsmen were herein very negligent, and suffered their cattle to go beyond their bounds, and to feed in the fields which belonged to the Canaanites and Perizzites, who dwelt then in the land, and claimed the sovereignty of it.-Bibliotheca Biblica, vol. 1.

6 The words in the text are these: The plain of Jordan was well watered every where, before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah (even like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt) as thon goest to Zoar.' The last clause, as thou goest to Zoar,' has much perplexed commentators, whilst they refer it to the land of Egypt in the clause immediately preceding; whereas, if what is said by way of comparison of the plain of Jordan to the garden of the Lord, that is, the garden of Eden, and to the land of Egypt, be understood as inserted by of parenthesis, the difficulty will be taken away, and the import of the last clause will be plain and easy; for then the meaning of the verse will amount to this,-"That before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, the plain of Jordan was well watered every where, as thou comest unto Zoar," that is, in the parts where Sodom and Gomorrah stood, or in short, in the vale of Siddim. But there is another interpretation which supposes the word Zoar to be a false reading for Zoan, a city that was once the capital of Egypt, situate at the lower part of the river Nile, where it divides itself into several branches, and so waters the country more plentifully thereabouts than in any other part. According to which reading, the import of the verse will be this:-That the plain of Jordan was well watered every where about Sodom and Gomorrah, before the Lord destroyed them; yea, the plain was so well watered, that it was in this respect as the garden of Eden, or as the land of Egypt, and particularly as thou goest to Zoan, that is, in the parts about Zoan, where the Nile is divided into several branches.Wells' Geography of the Old Testament, vol. 1. The river Jordan, called by the Arabs El Sharia, which runs through this plain, is of so great note in the Sacred Writings that we must not pass it by without this observation,-that it derives its name (as some assert) from the Hebrew word Jor, which signifies a spring, and Dan, which is a small town near the source of this river. But the misfortune is, that the name of Dan is much more modern than that of Jordan. From its source, in Anti-Libanus, about |

his uncle. Abram, continuing, for some time, in the place where Lot had left him, had a vision imparted to him, wherein God was pleased to renew the promise of enlarging his posterity; and bidding him cast his eyes round the horizon, confirmed the gift of all the land which he beheld to him and his posterity. Not long after this, he left Bethel, and went to dwell at the Oak of Mamre, which is not far from Hebron, where he built an altar unto the Lord, and in a short time contracted an acquaintance with three of the greatest men there, Mamre, Aner, and Escol; the first of whom communicated his name to all the country.

This alliance proved very serviceable to him, but more especially upon the following occasion. Chedorlaomer, king of Elam, had held five petty princes in a tributary subjection to him for some years, of which number the king of Sodom was one. At length they shook off their yoke, and confederated against him ; which provoked him (in conjunction with three other kings, his allies) to march directly with a powerful army against them. The revolted kings, seeing the enemy drawing towards them, took the field with the resolution to try the fate of a pitched battle. The valley of Siddim was the place where the armies were to meet; and twelve miles north of Cæsarea Philippi, now Banias, it runs through a space of fifty leagues, till it discharges itself into the Dead Sea, otherwise called the Asphaltite lake, where Sodom and Gomorrah, and the other cities of the plain, that were destroyed with fire from heaven, once stood. About five or six leagues' distance from its spring it forms the lake Semechon, or waters of Merom, now Houle, and from thence it enters the lake Tiberias, or Gennesereth, passes quite through it, and is lost in the Dead Sea. Its water, in the summer time, is very shallow; but about the time of the barley-harvest, or the feast of the passover, it constantly overflows its banks, and greatly fructifies the plain.Calmet's Dictionary.

e What we translate the plain should be rendered the Oak of Mamre; because the word elon signifies an oak, or tree of long duration. Sazomen tells us that this tree was still extant, and famous for pilgrimages and annual feasts, even in Constantine's time; that it was about six miles distant from Hebron; that some of the cottages which Abraham built were still standing near it; and that there was a well likewise of his digging, whereunto both Jews, and Christians, and Heathens, did at certain seasons resort, either out of devotion or for trade, because there was held a great mart. As for Hebron, or Chebron, it was accounted one of the most ancient cities in the world, having been built seven years before Tanis, the capital of Lower Egypt. It was situate on an eminence, twenty miles southward from Jerusalem, and twenty miles north from Beersheba, and had its name very probably from the word Chavar, to couple or join; because these married couples, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob and Leah, were buried there.-Calmet's Dictionary, and Universal History, in the Notes, b. 1. c. 7.

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d We meet no where in profane history with the name of Chedorlaomer, nor with any of those names of the kings that were confederate with him and the reason hereof is, that Ctesias, (from whom the profane historians took the names of these kings) did not use the original Assyrian names in his history, but rather such as he found in the Persian records. However, since the date of this transaction falls four years before the death of Ninyas, there are good grounds to infer, that Ninyas, who then lived in Persia, was the Chedorlaomer of Moses, at that time the head of the Assyrian monarchy: that Amraphel was his deputy at Babylon in Shinar; and Arioch and Tidal his deputies over some other adjacent countries: for it is remarkable that Ninyas was the first who appointed under him such deputies: nor is there any absurdity in Moses to call them kings, since it is observable, from what Isaiah hinted afterwards, ch. x. 8, that the Assyrian boasted his deputy princes to be equal to royal governors, Are not my princes altogether kings?'-Shuckford's Connection, vol. 2. b. 6.

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A. M. 2083. A. C. 1921; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 3333. A. C. 2078. GEN. CH. xii-xxv. 11.

as it was full of pits of bitumen, it might have made the engagement more difficult and dangerous to the enemy's horse: but so it was, a that the five kings were put to the rout; one part of their army was cut in pieces, and the other fled to the neighbouring mountains, leaving their cities a prey to the conquerors. Lot, who at this time resided at Sodom, was involved in the calamity of the city; was plundered of all he had, and himself carried away among the rest of the captives. As soon as Abram had intelligence of this by an express messenger, he immediately sends to his three friends, desiring their assistance at this critical juncture; and putting himself at the head of three hundred and eighteen of his own domestics, all well prepared, and men of resolution, he began his pursuit, and after a march of almost seventy leagues, coming up with the enemy, and dividing his forces into small parties, he fell upon them by night, and charging them on all sides at once, put them in such a terror and consternation, that they took to their heels and fled, leaving all the booty and captives behind them, among whom he happily recovered Lot, and brought him back with all his substance to his former habitation.

The first person who came to congratulate Abram upon this victory, was the king of Sodom, (very probably the son of him1 who perished in the slime-pits,) who, in thankful acknowledgment of the benefits he had received from his valour and assistance, offered him all the booty which he had retaken, and desired only his subjects, the prisoners, to be restored. But Abram was too generous to take the advantage of the misery of war; and, therefore, saving to his confederates such a proportion of the plunder as by the law of arms belonged to them, he returned all the rest, both prisoners and goods, to the king of Sodom; having before resolved to keep no part of them, that it might be said he undertook that enterprise, not for any private advantage, but purely for the public good, which every man of honour should have always primarily in his view.

The next who congratulated him upon this occasion, was Melchizedek king of Salem; who, upon his return from the battle, had provided plenty of all things necessary for his refreshment and his men's in their march; and as he was a priest, as well as a king, he both blessed Abram for being the instrument of so public a deliverance in the hands of God, and God himself, who had given such uncommon success to his arms; whereupon Abram, in return, presented him with the tenth part of the spoils which he had taken from the enemy in this expedition.

Abram's deportment, upon this occasion, was so very acceptable to God, that he was pleased to appear to him again in a vision, and to give him fresh assurances of his special favour, and of his intention to be his shield of defence in all dangers, and for all the good acts which he performed his exceeding great reward.

1 Gen. xiv. 10.

a As the text tells us, that the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fell into some of the slime pits, with which the valley of Siddim abounds, and takes no notice of their coming out of them, it is more rational to suppose that they perished there, than that Abraham staid to take them up, as the Jews vainly imagine; and that therefore the king of Sodom, who afterwards came out to congratulate Abraham, must have been the son of the deceased.

Hitherto, indeed, the patriarch had listened to God's promises without any expression of distrust; but upon this fresh assurance, he ventured, for the first time, to expostulate with him, not knowing how these things possibly could be accomplished whilst himself continued childless, and, to all appearance, must be obliged to leave the bulk of his substance to Eliezar, his household steward. This, indeed, was a modest way to try whether God designed to bless him with a child; and God did not leave him long in suspense. He told him, that not his servant, but a son of his own, begotten of his body, should be his heir, and should have a race descending from him as innumerable as the stars.

This was such joyful news, as gave Abram fresh courage, even to request of God some sensible and visible token, whereby he might be assured of this blessing; and accordingly God was pleased to comply with his request. That, therefore, they might enter into a formal covenant upon this occasion, he ordered him to take an heifer, a goat, and a ram, of three years old each, with a pigeon and a turtle-dove, and to offer them up. Abram did as he was ordered; and having killed the four-footed beasts, he cut them in two, and laid the halves at proper distances, directly opposite to each other, but the fowls he left whole; and so passing between the dissected bodies, (as the manner of covenanting then was,) he made his solemn vows of perpetual obedience to God; and then sitting down, in expectance of what God would do on his part, he took care to drive away all birds of prey from settling upon the sacrifice.

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As soon as the sun began to set, a deep sleep, attended with an horrible darkness and dread of spirits, fell upon him; during which it was revealed to him that he was not to expect an immediate accomplishment of

6 The only place, besides this, where we have any intimation given us of this custom of making covenants, by dividing the beasts then to be sacrificed, and by the parties who covenanted passing between the parts of the beast so divided, is in Jer. xxxiv. 18, 19. I will give the men that have transgressed my covenant, which have not performed the words of my covenant, which they had made before me, when they cut the calf in twain, and passed between the parts thereof; the princes of Judah, and the princes of Jerusalem, the eunuchs, and the priests, and all the people of the land, which passed between the parts of the calf; I will even give them into the hands of their enemies, and into the hand of them that seek their life; and their dead bodies shall be for meat unto the fowls of the heaven, and unto the beasts of the earth.' This certainly was a very ancient custom; and accord ingly we find in Homer, that making a solemn covenant by oaths and sacrifices, literally, cutting faithful oaths, is a very common phrase, upon which his commentator Eustathius has this observation, "that in matters of great moment, oaths or covenants were generally made by dividing the animals, which upon such occasions were sacrificed;" and the design of this rite (as the learned Mede, in a discourse upon the subject, has expressed it) was as much as to say, 'Thus let me be divided, and cut in pieces, if I violate the oath which I have now made in the presence of God.' -Patrick and Le Clerc's Commentary.

e That horror and dread of spirits do frequently seize on those who see visions, is evident from what Daniel tells us of himself, 'I was left alone, and saw this great vision, and there remained no strength in me; for my comeliness was turned in me into corruption, and I retained no strength' (chap. x. 8); but the description which we have in Job of this matter, is, in itself, very awful and affecting. In thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth on men, fear came upon me and trembling, which made all my bones to shake. Then a spirit passed before my face, the hair of my flesh stood up. It stood still, but I could not discern the form thereof; an image was before mine eyes, there was silence, and I heard a voice; ch. iv. 13, &c.