A. M. 2108. A. C. 1896; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 3398. A. C. 2013. GEN. CH. xx-xxv. 11. to satisfy his curiosity; for the inhabitants assured him the place was inaccessible, and could not be visited without apparent danger of death, because of the prodigious beasts and serpents that abounded there, but more especially, because of the Biduini, a very savage and inhuman sort of people, that dwelt near it; and yet, if we will believe other writers of this kind, they will tell us expressly, that there is some part of it remaining, and to be seen between Engaddi and the Dead Sea. We will suppose however for once, that the long duration of this monument is an imposition of the inhabitants upon the credulity of strangers; yet it will not therefore follow, that there never was any such thing in being, unless we can think it inconsistent with the nature of God to work a miracle for the punishment of a wicked woman. Miracles indeed are not to be multiplied, unless there be occasion for them; but when the plain sense of the words leads us to such a construction, it is a niceness, I think, no way commendable, to endeavour to find out another, merely for the sake of avoiding the miraculousness of the fact; as if the Scriptures were more valuable for containing nothing but obvious matters, and the majesty of God any way magnified by seeming to exert as little of its omnipotent power as possible. of persons struck with lightning, and killed with cold vapours, that have immediately petrified in the same manner. Why she was turned into a body of salt rather than any other substance, is only resolvable into the good pleasure of God. The conjectures of Jewish writers upon this head, we acknowledge, are trifling; nor are we responsible for the reveries of such Christian commentators as would crowd in a multitude of palpable absurdities, merely to make the miracle more portentous: but why God exacted so severe a penalty for an offence so seemingly small, is not so hard to be resolved; because, according to the light wherein we are to consider this woman, her disobedience to the divine command had in it all the malignity of an obstinate and perverse mind, unthankful to God for his preservation of her, and too closely attached, if not to the wicked customs, at least to the persons and things which she had left behind her in that sink of sin and sensuality. 2 But there is another observation which we may draw 1 from our Saviour's application of this story, as well as the angel's expression to Lot, namely, that she loitered by the way, if not returned to the city; and if so, it is no wonder that she suffered when she was found within the compass of the sulphureous streams from heaven; nor unless we think it reasonable for his providence, in this case, to have interposed, and wrought a miracle for her preservation, who had so little deserved it, and had run herself voluntarily into the jaws of destruction. The short of the matter is this,-We have a clear account in a book full of wonders, of a woman confes-can God be blamed for his exemplary punishment of her, sedly guilty of disobedience and ingratitude, struck dead by the hand of God, and turned into a statue of salt, for a monument of terror to future generations. And is there any thing in this so repugnant to reason, or so incongruous for God to do, that we must immediately fly to Thus we have endeavoured to vindicate the character another interpretation, and to make the matter easy, of the patriarch Abraham, and to account for several resolutely maintain that the whole purport of the thing transactions and passages in Scripture, which seem to is only this,―That the poor woman either suddenly died give umbrage to infidelity during the compass of his life. of a fright, or indiscreetly fell into the fire? God certainly And for the confirmation of all this, we might now may work a miracle when he pleases, and punish any produce the testimony of profane authors, and make it wicked person in what manner he thinks fit; nor is there appear, that Abraham's fame for a just, virtuous, and any more wonder in the metamorphosis of Lot's wife, religious man, is spoken of by Berosus in a fragment than there was in changing the rod of Moses into a ser- preserved by Josephus: that his being born in Ur of the pent. The same power might do both; and since the Chaldees, his removal into Canaan, and afterwards same history has recorded both, there is the same reason sojourning in Egypt, is related by Eupolemus, as he is for the credibility of both. Nay, of the two, the trans-quoted by Eusebius: that the captivity of his nephew formation of Lot's wife seems more familiar to our con- Lot, his victory over the four kings, and honourable ceptions, since we want not instances, as I said before, reception by Melchizedek, king of the sacred city of Argarize, and priest of God, are recorded by the same author: that his marrying two wives, one an Egyptian, by whom he had a son, who was the father of twelve kings in Arabia, and the other a woman of his own kindred, by whom he had likewise one son, whose name in Greek was Texas, which answers exactly to the Hebrew word Isaac; and that this Isaac he was commanded to sacrifice, but when he was going to kill him, was stopped by an angel, and offered a ram in his stead; all this is related by Antipanus, as he is quoted by the same Eusebius: that the ancient custom of circumcision is taken notice of 6 by Herodotus, Diodorus, Strabo, and others: that the burning of Sodom and Gomorrah, and a Bisselius (in his Argon. Americ. b. 14. c. 2.) has a very remarkable story to this purpose. He tells us, that Badicus Almagrus, who was the first man that ever marched an army over the mountains between Peru and Chili, by the extremity of the cold, and unwholesomeness of the air, lost in that expedition a great many men. Being obliged, however, some few months after, to return the same way, what the historian tells us upon this occasion is very wonderful. The horsemen and infantry, who five months ago were frozen to death, were still standing untouched, uncorrupted, in the same condition and shape that they were in when they were laid hold of by the sudden grasp of death, one lay flat with his face on the ground, another stood erect, a third seemed to shake the bridle, which he still retained in his hand. In a word, he found them exactly as he left them; they had no fulsome odour, and their colour was altogether different from that of corpses. In fine, unless that the soul had been long ago in another world, they were in other respects more like the living than the dead. To the like purpose it is related by Aventinus (Annot. Bavar, b. 7.), a credible historian, that in his time above fifty country people, with their cows and calves, in Carinthia, were all destroyed at once by a strong suffocating exhalation, which immediately after an earthquake (in the year 1348) ascended out of the earth, and reduced them to saline 4 5 Gen. xix. 22. Præpar. Evang. b. 9. c. 17. Præpar. Evang. b. 9. c. 18. Hug. Grot. de Veritate. statues, such as that of Lot's wife, which he tells us were seen both by himself and by the chancellor of Austria.-Bibliotheca Biblica, vol. 1. Occasional Annotations, 22. A. M. 2108, A. C. 1896; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 3398. A. C. 2013. GEN. CH. xx--xxv. 11. the strange waste it has made in a once most beautiful blackness of the soil, and its being turned into dust and country, is described1 by Strabo, Tacitus, and Solinus: ashes, is a sure token of its having suffered by fire from that Isaac's being born to a father when old, and to a heaven; and if we may believe the report, of a late tramother incapable of conception, gave occasion of the veller, according to the account which he had from the story of the miraculous birth of Orion, by the help of the inhabitants themselves, some of the ruins of these ancient gods, even when his father Hyreus had no wife at all: cities do still appear whenever the water is low and that Lot's kind reception of the two angels in Sodom, shallow. his protecting them from the insults of the people, and escaping thereupon the destruction that befell them, are all well delineated in the common fable of Baucis and Philemon and (to mention no more) that the fate of his wife, for her looking back upon Sodom, and her being thereupon changed into a statue of metallic salt, gave rise to the poet's fiction of the loss of Eurydice, and her remission into hell for her husband's turning to look upon her, and of Niobe's being changed into a stone for resenting the death of her children. So well has infinite wisdom provided, that the sacred truths of divine revelation should not only be supported by the attestation of all ancient history, but preserved likewise even in the vanity and extravagance of fables; for even they, O Lord, shew the glory of thy kingdom, and talk of thy power; that thy power, thy glory, and the mightiness of thy kingdom, might be known unto men.' What the number of these cities were, is a matter wherein we can have no absolute certainty.. Moses, in the text, makes no mention but of two, Sodom and Gomorrah; but in another place he enumerates four, and gives this description of their dreadful punishment. "When the generations to come shall see the plague of that land, and the sicknesses which the Lord hath laid upon it, and that the whole land thereof is brimstone, and salt, and burning like the overthrow of Sodom, and Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboim, (which the Lord overthrew in his anger, and in his wrath,) even all the nations shall say, Wherefore hath the Lord done this unto the land?' Nay,if we will believe 10 the historian above cited, and who perhaps might have an account of the thing from some Phoenician writer, the number of the cities which at this time were destroyed were thirteen; and to this there is a passage in the prophet, which seems to give some countenance, though not as to the precise number of them: 11As I live,' saith the Lord God to Jerusalem,' Sodom, thy sister, has not done, she nor her daughters' (that is, CHAP. II-of the Destruction of Sodom and Go- the cities which were built round it, and were tributary to morrah. Or all God's judgments upon the wicked, next to that of the universal deluge, the destruction of Sodom, and the neighbouring cities in the plain of Jordan, seems to be one of the most remarkable, and the most dreadful interpositions of providence; and may therefore in this place deserve a particular consideration. 5 3 That this catastrophe (as the apostle calls it) did really happen, according to the account which Moses gives us of it, we have the concurring testimony of all historians, both ancient and modern, to convince us. * Diodorus Siculus, after having given us a description of the lake Asphaltites, (which now fills the place where these cities once stood,) acquaints us, that the adjacent country was then on fire, and sent forth a grievous smell, to which he imputes the sickly and short lives of the neighbouring inhabitants. Strabo, having made mention of the same lake, pursues his account, and tells us, that the craggy and burnt rocks, the caverns broken in, and the soil all about it adust, and turned to ashes, give credit to a report among the people, that formerly several cities stood there, (whereof Sodom was the chief,) but that by earthquakes, and fire breaking out, there were some of them entirely swallowed up, and others forsaken by the inhabitants that could make their escape. 6 Tacitus describes the lake much in the same manner with these other historians; and then adds, that not far from it are fields, now barren, which were reported formerly to have been very fruitful, adorned with large cities which were burned by lightning, and do still retain the traces of their destruction. 7 Solinus is clearly of opinion, that the it) have not done, as thou and thy daughters have done.' But whatever the number of the cities might be, it will be proper for us, before we come to inquire in what manner they were destroyed, to give some account of their situation, 12 The plain of Jordan includes the greatest part of the flat country, through which the river Jordan runs, from its coming out of the sea of Galilee, to its falling into the Asphaltite lake, or Salt Sea. But we are not to imagine, that this plain was once a continued level, without any risings or descents. The greatest part of it indeed was champaigne country, (and for this reason was commonly called the great field,') but therein we read 13 of the valley of Jericho, and 14 of the vale of Siddim; in the latter of which these cities stood, in a situation so very advantageous, that we find it compared 15 to the land of Egypt, even to the garden of paradise, upon account of its being so well watered. And well it might, seeing it had (as the Lacus Asphaltites has to this day) not only the streams of the river Jordan running quite through it, but 16 the river Arnon from the east," the brook Zered, and the 18 famous fountain Callirrhoe from the south, falling into it. Now, since all this water had no direct passage into the sea, it must necessarily follow, either that it was conveyed away by some subterraneous passage, or was swallowed up in the sands, that every where encom passed it; which might the more easily be done, because the inhabitants of those hot countries used to divide their rivers into several small branches, for the benefit of watering their fields. And as this plenty of water gave great riches to the 8 Maundrell's Journey from Aleppo to Jerusalem. 9 Deut. xxix. 22, 23, 24. 10 Strabo, b. 16. "Ezek. xvi. 48. 12 Wells' Geography of the Old Testament, vol. 1. Deut. xxxiv. 3. 15 Gen. xiii. 10. See page 145, in the notes Josephus Antiq. b. 4. c. 4. Num. xxi. 12. 18 Pliny, b. 5. c. 16, 14 Gen. xiv. 3. 16 A. M. 2108. A. C. 1896; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 3398. A. C. 2013. GEN. CH. xx-xxv. 11. 2 Be soil, and fertility to the country, so wealth and abun- | nations, is frequently called the fire of God, the fire from dance of all things (as mankind are too apt to abuse God, &c.; and the reason is,-Because, men having no God's gifts) made Sodom and the neighbouring cities power over this kind of meteor, and it being impossible very infamous for their wickedness and impiety. The for them, by any kind of contrivance, to ascend up to prophet Ezekiel gives us a description of them: the clouds, God is therefore supposed to dwell there, and hold this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom; pride, to cast down his bolts from thence. fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness, was in her and in her daughters; neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy, but was haughty, and committed abomination before me;' which Josephus might have in his eye when he gave us this account of them. "The Sodomites (says he) waxed proud, and, by reason of their riches and wealth, grew contumelious towards men, and impious towards God; so that they were wholly unmindful of the favours they received from him. They were inhospitable to strangers, and too proud and arrogant to be rebuked. They burned in unnatural lusts towards one another, and took pleasure in none but such as ran to the same excess of riot with themselves.' Now, from these observations put together, we may, in some measure, form a notion to ourselves, how this destruction came to be effected. For though Moses 36 5 4 does not inform us, after what manner the lightning and thunderbolts from above subverted these cities and their adjacent territories; yet, since he plainly makes mention of them, we cannot comprehend how it could happen any otherwise than that the lightning and thunderbolts, falling in great abundance upon some pits of bitumen, c the veins of that combustible matter took fire immediately, and as the fire penetrated into the lowermost bowels of the bituminous soil, these wicked cities were subverted by a dreadful earthquake, which was followed with a subsiding of the ground; and that, d as soon as the earth was sunk, it would unavoidably fall out, that the waters running to this place in so great an abundance, and mixing with the bitumen, which they found in great plenty, would make a lake of what was a valley before, and a lake of the same quality with what the Scripture calls the Salt Sea. e This lake, according to the account we have of it, is enclosed to the east and west with exceedingly high mountains; on the north it is bounded by the plain of Jericho, on which side it receives the waters of Jordan; with the fire of the Lord;' to which the passage in the Latin poet uses the same expression, ch. lxvi. 16. He shall be punished exactly agrees:- He, swifter than the bolt of Jove and the speed of falling stars, leaped from the dreary banks,' Stat. Theb. b. 1. Some however have remarked it, as a peculiar elegancy in the Hebrew tongue, that it very often makes use of the antecedent instead of the relative, or the noun instead of the pronoun, especially when it means to express a thing with great vehemence, or to denote any action to be supernatural or miraculous.— Heidegger's Hist. Patriar, vol. 2. Essay 8. These, and other abominable enormities, provoked the Divine Ruler of the world to destroy their cities, whose cry was now grown great for vengeance; and the manner wherein it was effected, Moses has recorded in these words: Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven, and he overthrew the cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground; and for the better understanding of this, we must observe, 1st, That in the vale of Siddim (the tract of ground which was now destroyed) there were a great many pits of bitumen, which being a very combustible matter, is in some places liquid, in others solid; and not only found near the surface of the earth, but lies sometimes very deep, and is dug from the very bowels of it. 2dly, We must observe, that the brimstone and fire which the Lord is said to rain upon Sodom and Gomorrah, means brimstone inflamed; that, in the Hebrew style, brimstone inflamed signifies lightning; and that the reason why lightning is thus described, no one can be ignorant of, that has either smelt the places which have been struck with thunder, or a read what learned men have wrote upon the subject. 3dly, We must observe further, that God is not only said to have rained down brimstone and fire,' but brimstone and fire from the Lord; where the addition of 'from the Lord,' which at nish us with several examples of this kind. Strabo, out of Posid Strabo in his first, and Pliny in his second book, will furfirst sight may appear to be superfluous, or to denote a donius, tells us, (p. 40.) that in Phoenicia, a certain city plurality of persons in the Deity, (as most Christian in-situated above Sidon, was absorbed by an earthquake; and out of terpreters would have it,) does more particularly describe the thunderbolt, & which by the Hebrews, as well as other 1 C. xvi. 49, 50. 2 Antiq. b. 1. c. 12. * Gen. xix. 24, 25. 'Le Clerc's Commentary. Pliny's Natural History, b. 25. c. 15. Thus thunder and lightning, says Pliny, (b. 25. c. 15.) have the smell of brimstone, and the very light and flame of them is sulphureous. And Seneca (Quæst. Nat. b. 2. c. 21.) tells us, that all things which are struck by lightning have a sulphureous smell; as indeed our natural philosophers have plainly demonstrated, that what we call the thunderbolt, is nothing else but a sulphureous exhalation. Persius, in his second satire, calls it sulphur sacrum. When it thunders, the oak is not more rapidly rent asunder by the sacred sulphury flame than you and your house.' And for this reason the Greeks, in their language, call brimstone divine, because the thunderbolt, which it assimilates, is supposed to come from God.-Le Clerc's Dissertation. 6 Thus, in the second book of Kings, THE FIRE OF GOD came down from heaven and devoured them," ch. i. 12. And Isaiah 106) if you do but touch them with a lighted torch, immediately e In Lycia, the Hephæstian mountains, says Pliny (b. 2. c. take fire; nay, the very stones in the rivers and sands in the waters burn. If you take a stick out of these waters, and draw furrows upon the ground with it (according to the common report) a tract of fire follows it.-Le Clerc's Dissertation. Demetrius Scepsius, that several earthquakes have happened in Asia Minor, by which whole towns have been devoured, the mountain Siphylis overthrown, and the marshes turned into standing lakes:" and Pliny (b. 2. c. 88) testifies, that "by a fire which suddenly broke out of it, the mountain Epopos was levelled to the ground, and a town buried in the deep; for the arch that supported the ground, breaking in, the matter underneath being wholly consumed, the soil above must of necessity sink and be swallowed up in these caverns, if they were of any large extent.-Le Clerc's Dissertation. e The account given in the text of the Salt or Dead Sea differs somewhat, though not much, from the descriptions of modern travellers. According to the analysis of Dr Marcet, the specific gravity of the water is 1. 211, that of fresh water being 1000 Thus it is able to support bodies that would sink elsewhere. It is impregnated with mineral substances, and a fetid air often exhales from the water. Recent travellers may have found a few shellfish on the shore, or seen a few birds cross its waves; but these form only exceptions to the general absence of animal life. Every thing around bears that dreary and fearful character that marks the malediction of Heaven. A. M. 2108. A. C. 189; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 3398. A. C. 2013. GEN. CH. xx-xxv. 1). 1 4 5 the on the south it is open, and extends beyond the reach of | sending down this heavy judgment. For though in a the eye, being twenty-four leagues long, and six or seven soil impregnated with bitumen, the cities which are built broad. Its water is extremely deep and heavy; so thereupon may be shaken with an earthquake, and swalheavy, that a man cannot, without difficulty, sink in it; lowed up by a sudden hiatus; though thunderbolts may but of so nauseous a taste, and noisome smell, that nei- fall, and set the veins of sulphur and bitumen on fire, ther fish nor fowl, unaccustomed to the water, can live which afterwards breaking out, and mingling with the in it. It is full of bitumen, which at uncertain seasons water, may, in a low valley, easily cause a lake, full of boils up from the bottom in bubbles, at which time the asphaltus: though these things, I say, in process of time superficies of the lake swells, and resembles the rising might have come to pass in an ordinary course of of a hill. Adjoining to the lake are fields, which for- nature; yet, if they were done before their natural causes merly (as we showed from Tacitus) were fruitful, but are were in a disposition to produce them; if they would now so parched, and burned up, that they have lost their not have been done that instant, unless it had been fertility, insomuch, that every thing, whether it grow for some extraordinary interposition of God or his spontaneously, or be planted by man, whether it be blessed angels; it ought to be reputed no less a miracle herb, fruit, or flower, 4 as soon as it is compressed, than if every particular in the transaction had plainly moulders away immediately into dust; and to this the surpassed the usual operations of nature. And that the author of the book of Wisdom seems to allude, when he judgment now before us happened in this manner, tells us, that of the wickedness of those cities, the waste two angels despatched by Almighty God, upon this land that smoketh to this day is a testimony, and the important occasion, God's foretelling Abraham his plants bearing fruit, that never come to ripeness.' design, the angel's acquainting Lot with the errand about which they came, and their urging and instigating him to be gone, to make haste and escape to Zoar, because they could do nothing until he was come thither,' are arguments sufficiently convincing, that the thunder and lightning, or (as others will have it), the showers of liquid fire, or rather storms of nitre and sulphur, mingled with fire, which fell upon these wicked places, were immediately sent down by the appointment of God, and by the ministry of his angels, who, knowing all the meteors of the air, and their repugnant qualities, did collect, commix, and employ them, as they thought fit, in the execution of God's just judgment upon a people devoted to destruction. “The cinders, brimstone, and smoke," says Philo, " and a certain obscure flame, as it were of a fire burning, still perceivable in some parts of the country, are memorials of the perpetual evil which happened to it :" and, as ' Josephus adds, "the things that are said of Sodom are confirmed by ocular inspection, there being some relics of the fire, which came down from heaven, and some resemblance of the five cities, still to be seen." And it is the duration of these monuments of divine wrath perhaps, which gave occasion to St Jude to say, that the wicked inhabitants of these cities were set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of an eternal fire,' that is, of a fire, whose marks were to be perpetuated unto the end of the world; for it is a common thing in Scripture, to express a great and irreparable vastation, whose effects and signs shall be permanent to the latest ages, by the word ainos, which we here render eternal. Thus, in all probability, were the cities of the plain of Jordan overthrown; nor is there any doubt to be made but that the miraculous hand of God was employed in Chap. x. 7. In Vita Mosis, b. 2. 3 De Bello Jud. b. 5. e. 27. a Whether there be any truth in this part of the account of Tacitus, it is hard to tell. As for the apples of Sodom (to which he seems to allude) Mr Maundrell tells us, that he never saw nor heard of any thereabouts, nor was there any tree to be seen near the lake from which one might expect such kind of fruit; and therefore he supposes the being, as well as the beauty of that fruit, a mere fiction, and only kept up because it served for a good allusion, and now and then helped poets to a pat similitude. Journey from Aleppo to Jerusalem. b Thus God threatens to make the people of Israel 'a perpetual desolation,' Ezek. xxxv. 9; a perpetual hissing,' Jer. xviii. 16; and an everlasting reproach,' Jer. xxiii. 40; and this more especially is threatened where the destruction of a city or nation is compared to the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah; it shall never be inhabited,' Isa. xiii. 20. Whether Sodom really underwent this fate or sometime after was rebuilt, is a question that has exercised the learned. It is certain, that in the Notitia, express mention is made of Sodom, as an episcopal city; and among the bishops of Arabia, there is found one Severus, a bishop of Sodom, who subscribed to the first council of Nice; Mr Reland, however, cannot persuade himself that this impious place was ever rebuilt; and therefore he believes that the word Sodom, which is read among the subscriptions of that council, must be a fault of the copiers.-Calmet's Dictionary on the word Sodom. 7 6 8 Thus we have considered the manner of the destruction of the cities of the plain, how far natural causes might be concerned, and wherein the miraculous hand of God did intervene. Whether a deluge or a conflagration be the more formidable judgment of the two, we cannot tell; our imaginations will hardly reach the dreadfulness of either; and to enter into the comparison, is a task too shocking. As the history, however, of those who suffered these punishments, is recorded in Scripture for our admonition, 10 that we should not lust after evil things even as they lusted;' so the apostle has set both their examples before us, and laid it down for a sure proposition,-That "if God spared not the old world, but brought in a flood upon the ungodly, and if he, turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them with an overthrow,' or (according to St Jude) condemned them to the vengeance of eternal fire;' we need not doubt, but that, as he is in all ages the same, a God of justice, as well as mercy, no iniquity can ultimately escape. For though, upon every occasion, he does not lay bare his vindictive arm, though he is strong and patient, so that he seldom whetteth his sword, and prepareth the instruments of death;' yet a few of these remarkable, these monumental instances of his severity against sin, are enough to convince us, that he hath reserved the unjust (however they may escape now) unto the day of judgment to be punished.' 136 'Le Clerc's Commentary in locum. A. M. 2148. A. C. 1856; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 3418. A. C. 1993. GEN. CH. xxv. 20-xxviii. 8. SECT. II. CHAP. I.-Of the Life of Isaac from his Marriage to his Death. THE HISTORY. ISAAC was forty years old a when he married Rebecca, the daughter of Bethuel; but his mother Sarah's misfortune attended his wife, namely, that she was without issue for almost twenty years together, till God at last was pleased to hear his earnest prayers, and grant him the blessing he so much longed for. Rebecca, however, had not many months conceived before the struggles of the two children (for she had twins) in her womb, gave her such pain and uneasiness, that she began, in a manner, to wish herself not with child again; and when she went to consult the divine oracle, what the meaning of this uncommon conflict might be, she had it returned for answer, that the two children which she then bore, were a How old Rebecca was when she was married to Isaac, the Scripture does nowhere inform us; but the conjectures of most of the Jewish commentators make her to be extremely young. The oldest that they will allow her to be, is not above fourteen, which was a thing hardly customary in those days: and yet, considering her absolute management of all affairs, even when Isaac was alive, we cannot but suppose, that although she lived not so long, she was a considerable deal younger than he.-Heidegger's Hist. Patriar, vol. 2. Essay 11. the When the appointed time for their birth was come, child which Rebecca was first delivered of, was all covered over with red hair, for which reason his parents d called him Esau ; and the other came after him so very ; close, that he took hold of his heel with his hand, and was therefore called Jacob, to denote (what he afterwards proved) the supplanter of his brother; and as they advanced in years, their tempers and occupations were quite different. Esau was a strong and active person, who delighted much in hunting, and thereby supplying his father with venison very frequently, won his particular affection; while Jacob, who was of a more gentle and courteous disposition, by staying at home in the tent, and employing himself in family offices, became his mother's darling. One day, when Jacob had made him some lentil pottage, Esau, returning from his sport, quite spent with hunger and fatigue, was so taken with the looks of it, that he earnestly desired his brother e to let him eat with him: but his brother, it seems, being well instructed by his mother, refused to do it, unless he would make him an immediate dedition of his birthright. Esau, considering to what a multitude of dangers his manner of life, in encountering wild beasts, did daily expose him, made no great esteem of what Jacob required; and Jacob, perceiving his disposition to comply, (that he The word in the original signifies to pray with constancy, might have the right more firmly conveyed to him) ƒ vehemence, and importunity; and the Jews hereupon have a proposed his doing it by way of oath, which the other traditional explication, which is preserved in Jonathan's Targum, namely, that he carried his wife to the place of the altar, upon never scrupled, and after the bargain was made, fell to mount Moriah, where he himself was once bound to be sacrificed, eating very greedily, never once reflecting on what a and there made a most solemn invocation, by the faith of his vile and scandalous thing it needs must be, to sell his father Abraham, and by the oath of God, that she, though barren birthright, and all the great privileges thereunto by nature, might conceive by virtue of the covenant and super-belonging, for a mess of pottage. natural blessing; and accordingly he prevailed with God to grant him his request. What we render for his wife,' may likewise signify in the presence of his wife: and so the import of the d The meaning of the word Esau is somewhat obscure, unless words will be, that besides their more private devotions, they did we derive it from Hassah, to make or be perfect; because he was oftentimes, in a more solemn manner, and with united force, of a stronger constitution than ordinary infants, as having hair pray for the mercy wherein they were equally concerned: nor all over him, which is an indication of manhood, whereas other could there be any presumption in their thus petitioning what at children are born with hair only on their heads: and as for Jacob, present was denied them, because they knew very well, that it is derived from an Hebrew word, which signifieth to supplant, God's purpose and promise did not exclude, but rather require and by the addition of the letter Jod, one of the formatives of the use of all convenient means for their accomplishment.-nouns, it denotes a supplanter, or one that taketh hold of, and Poole's Annotations, and Bibliotheca Biblica in locum. e The most early and common method of inquiring of the Lord, was, by going to some one of his prophets, and consulting him; but then the question is, who the prophet was whom Rebecca, upon this occasion, consulted? Some of the Jewish doctors are of opinion, that she went to the school, or oratory of Shem, (whom they suppose then alive,) or to some other person, constituted by him, and called of God to that ministration. Some Christian commentators imagine, it was Melchizedek the priest of the Most High God' whom she consulted; but if it were any priest or prophet, that then she applied to, her father-in-law, Abraham, who was certainly then alive, and is expressly called 'a prophet,' Gen. xx. 7, seems to have been the most proper person, not only because he was highly interested in her concerns, but had likewise the Shechinah, or Divine appearance (as most imagine) continually resident with him. But as there was another manner besides that of answering by prophets, customary in those days, namely, by dreams and visions, their opinion seems to be most probable, who suppose, that Rebecca retired into some secret place, and there having poured out her soul before God in ardent prayers, received an answer, not long after, either in a dream or vision, by a voice from heaven, or by the information of an angel sent for that purpose.-See Le Clerc's Commentary, Bibliotheca Biblica in locum, and Heidegger's Hist. Patriar. vol. 2. Essay 11. trippeth up his brother's heels.-Poole's Annotations, and Universal History, c. 7. e Lentils were a kind of pulse, somewhat like our vetches, or coarser sort of pease. St Austin, upon Psalm lxvi. says, that these were Egyptian lentils, which were in great esteem, and very probably gave the pottage a red tincture. The inhabitants of Barbary still make use of lentils boiled and stewed with oil and garlick, a pottage of a chocolate colour; this was the red pottage for which Esau, from thence called Edom, sold his birthright.-Shaw's Travels, p. 140.-ED. f Some imagine that Esau did not know what this lentil soup was, and therefore he only called it by its colour, give me of that red, that same red,' as it is in the Hebrew; for which reason he was likewise called Edom, which signifies red. But there is no occasion to suppose, that he was ignorant of what lentils were, only his repeating the word red, without adding the name of a thing, denoted his great hunger, and eagerness of appetite, which was probably still more irritated by the colour of the soup.Bibliotheca Biblica. g The birthright, or right of primogeniture, had many privileges annexed to it. The first-born was consecrated to the Lord, Exod. xxii. 29; had a double portion of the estate allotted him, Deut. xxi. 17; had a dignity and authority over his brethren, Gen. xlix. 3; succeeded in the government of the family or kingdom, 2 Chron. xxi. 3; and as some with good reason |