CHAPTER IV

ABRAHAM AND ISAAC

WHEN the thread of the story is again picked up there are indications of a change in the methods of God’s dealings with men. Now that nations had developed, a man, and through him a nation descended from him, were selected to keep alive the knowledge of the true God in a world astray from Him.

The beginning of this new phase is laid in Ur of the Chaldees. A great deal is known about this place to-day. It was in the south of Mesopotamia, and had been a royal city, for its rulers had borne sway over the peoples around. It had lost that position and others now ruled over it. Yet it was still an important place; many of its people lived in good and comfortable houses; and it was a centre of trade and commerce.

Among the inhabitants of Ur was a man named Terah. He had three sons: Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and a grandson, Lot, the son of Haran. Abram’s wife was Sarai, Nahor’s wife was Milcah. Haran died early, and when Terah decided to leave Ur, Abram and Nahor, their wives, and their nephew Lot, went with him. They travelled something like a thousand miles to a city named Haran. When they reached that place Terah would go no further. There was a reason for this. At Haran the people worshipped the same gods as those who lived in Ur, and no doubt Terah felt at home among them. He was getting old, and stayed there until he died.

Abram was not satisfied with Haran as a home; he had left Ur for a specific reason, and that reason prevented him from settling there. He had received a divine call: “Now the Lord said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto the land that I will show thee; and I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and be thou a blessing; and I will bless them that bless thee, and him that curseth thee will I curse; and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed.” Until he arrived in the land that God had promised to show him, his wanderings could not cease. Nahor decided to stay, but as soon as his father was dead Abram continued his journey with his wife and nephew.

The Land of the promise

After they had travelled some eight hundred more miles they arrived at a place named Shechem, not far from the modern Nablus, or Samaria. When he arrived there God spoke to him again, saying, “Unto thy seed will I give this land,” and thus Abram knew that his search was over, and that he had found the land that God had promised to show him. He built an altar there on which he offered sacrifices to God.

Gradually he moved southward into a portion of the country called the Negeb, a dry and sterile land which in times of drought cannot supply its inhabit­ants with food and drink. Such a time came and Abram went down into Egypt. There he made a mistake. He said that Sarai was not his wife but his sister. (She was the daughter of his father but not of his mother.) Being a beautiful woman the Pharaoh of Egypt took her into his harem, but God sent a plague upon him and his house which caused him to let Sarai go. Abram had done wrong, and must have felt ashamed at what had happened, especially as Pharaoh had given him a great present of sheep, oxen, asses, and camels.

Abram returned to the land of Canaan and stayed near Bethel. He was now very rich, with great possessions of flocks and herds, and many servants. The scanty herbage of the district was not sufficient for his flocks and herds and those of Lot, and this caused strife between their respective herdmen. Abram wanted peace; God had promised to give him the land, yet he would not turn Lot away. So he called him and said, “Let there be no strife I pray thee, between me and thee,” and with a true nobility of mind added, “Separate thyself from me, if thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if thou take the right hand, then I will go to the left.”

Abram and Lot

Lot looked around and saw below them the plains of Jordan. They were green and fruitful, with an abundance of food for his flocks and herds, so he elected to go into the country around Sodom and Gomorrah. Thus another separation took place, and Abram and Sarai were alone in the Promised Land. More separations were to follow in the history of the family; the whole story is one of selection and separation.

When Lot had left him God spoke to Abram again. “Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art, northward and south­ward, and eastward and westward, for all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever. . . . Arise, walk through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it, for unto thee will I give it.” Nothing could be plainer or more specific; the whole land of Canaan was promised to Abram as his personal possession.

As days and years passed by God revealed to Abram more details connected with the promise. Meanwhile Lot’s choice of the district of Sodom brought him into trouble. He became associated with its people, and when an enemy from Elam and Shinar (Babylon) invaded the country he was carried away prisoner. News of the disaster reached Abram, who, gathering together all his servants, marched after the retreating army. He attacked them by night and recovered Lot and all the spoil that they had taken.

As he returned from this expedition he passed by Salem (Jerusalem), where he was met by Melchizedek, the king of the city and priest of God Most High. Melchizedek blessed him and received tithes from him. An important application is made of this incident in the New Testament, but that is hardly part of the story itself.

The next glimpse we have of Abram relates to a most important incident in his life. He was getting anxious; God had promised him the land, and had said that his seed should possess it. At present he did not own a single foot of the land, he was an old man, and he had no child. In his anxiety Abram said, “Lord God, . . . Behold, to me Thou hast given no seed.” God told him to look up to the stars shining in the sky, and said, “So shall thy seed be.” Then Abram referred to the personal aspect of the promise, “O Lord God, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it?” A strange thing followed. Abram was told to offer a sacrifice of a heifer, a she goat, a ram, a turtle dove and a young pigeon. He was to divide each of the animals into two halves, and place them on the altar. Then he fell asleep, and “a horror of great darkness” came over him. As he lay asleep he dreamed and saw a smoking torch passing between the parts of the divided animals. It was God’s way of indicating that he had made a covenant with Abram. There was now a covenant of promise between God and Abram, the terms of it being that Abram should inherit the Land of Promise. He has never done so, and nothing but his resurrection from the dead will enable the covenant to be fulfilled.

The birth of Ishmael

More years passed by and Abram and Sarai still had no son. Then Sarai gave her maid, Hagar, to Abram, thinking that she might have a child by that means. Her hope was fulfilled, and Ishmael was born. He grew up to be a wild man, and though Abram was fond of him, God told him that Ishmael could not be the child of the promise. Sarai treated Hagar so harshly that she ran away, but an angel told her to return, and she remained until the real child of the promise was born.

Before that time came God changed Abram’s name to Abraham, and that of Sarai to Sarah. The names mean the father of a multitude, and princess respectively. On the same occasion a great addition was made to the promise, for God said, “I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee ... all the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession.” Thus to the assurance that he should have a resurrection from the dead there was added a promise of ever­lasting life. The covenant now involved everlasting life and an everlasting inheritance.

Angel visitors

One day as Abraham sat in the door of his tent on the Plains of Mamre, three angels came to him. They looked like men, they had no wings such as are usually shown on modern pictures of angels. With true eastern hospitality Abraham ran to meet them. There was something majestic in their appear­ance, and Abraham bowed before them, requesting them to stay and partake of food. He told Sarah to make cakes of bread, while he himself killed a calf and gave it to one of his servants to prepare and cook.

When the preparations were complete the three men sat down to eat. As they were eating one of them said, “Where is Sarah, thy wife?”

“In the tent,” said Abraham.

“Sarah, thy wife, shall have a son,” said one of the angels.

Sarah laughed to herself in the tent. She was too old for such a thing to happen to her. But the angel, who was speaking for God, said, “Wherefore did Sarah laugh? . . . Is anything too hard for the Lord?”

Sarah was ashamed to admit that she had laughed, and said, “I laughed not.”

“Nay, but thou didst laugh,” replied the angel.

It was no use denying; God knows all that we do or say, and He knew what Sarah had done. But the statement of the angel was true, and Abraham and Sarah, though old people, far beyond the age when children were likely to be born to them, were to have a son. The promises of God cannot fail. It is recorded in the New Testament that Abraham “considered his own body, now as good as dead, and the deadness of Sarah’s womb.” yet “being fully assured that what God had promised He was able also to perform. Wherefore also it was ac­counted to him for righteousness. It is an example of the faith that is necessary if we would please God.

The angels had other tidings to tell. After the meal was over the three supposed men rose up to continue their way, and Abraham went some dis­tance with them. They went in the direction of Sodom; where Lot and his family were living. Lot did not reside outside the city then; probably after Abraham had rescued him and the spoil of Sodom the people of the city had treated Lot with consider­able respect, and he now lived inside the city gate. He was grieved for the evil ways of the people, but he continued to live there, surrounded by their wickedness.

As Abraham and the three men walked along one of them told him that Sodom and the other cities of the district were to be destroyed on account of the wickedness of the inhabitants Abraham thought of Lot, and said, “Wilt thou consume the righteous with the wicked? Peradventure there be fifty righteous within the city. . . . That be far from thee to slay the righteous with the wicked. . . . Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” It was a great thought, and a true one, for God will never do evil to the righteous.

“If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes,” was the reply.

Abraham thought. Perhaps he had been too sanguine. Fifty was a large number, so he said again, “Peradventure there shall lack five of the fifty righteous, wilt thou destroy all the city for lack of five?”

“I will not destroy it if I find there forty and five,” was the reply.

Abraham felt encouraged. Gradually he reduced the number-to forty, thirty, twenty, ten, “I will not destroy it for ten’s sake,” was the last reply.

The destruction of Sodom

Not even ten righteous people could be found in Sodom. Abraham went no further, but had he done so there were not even five. With a sad heart he returned to his tent to await the outcome of the visit of the angels to Sodom.

Two of them went there. They found Lot sitting in the gate of the city. He welcomed the visitors, invited them to stay the night, and prepared food for them. When it was dark the men of the city gathered round the house. They wanted to see the strangers who had come in, and abuse them. Lot was very worried, and did all he could to turn them from their purpose. It was no use; they threatened Lot himself. Suddenly the angels acted. By the powers they possessed they struck the men with dazzlings so that they could not see, while they drew Lot inside the house.

The angels told Lot what was to happen, and sent him to tell the men who had married his daughters. They only laughed at him; such a judgment would never overtake their beautiful city they thought, and when the time came the only ones who left Sodom were Lot, his wife and two daughters. The angels hastened them out, and told them not even to look back. “Escape to the mountains,” they said, but in response to Lot’s request they gave him permission to go to a little city named Zoar.

As soon as Lot and his family left Sodom the doom came. “The Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven.” Terrible clouds of smoke arose from the doomed cities, suffocating the people who were not burned in the conflagration, and spoiling the fertility of the surrounding country. From that awful judg­ment Sodom never recovered; even the site of the city is still disputed. As Lot and his family hurried away his wife looked back. She had enjoyed the bright life of Sodom, and regretted the loss of its pleasures and society. At once doom overtook her, and she became a pillar of salt.

Away in the distance, on the heights where he lived, Abraham stood, looking towards Sodom. The whole of the surrounding country was one mass of horrible smoke, telling of the awful doom of the place, and indicating that there had not been ten righteous men in the fated city.

It is not often that such catastrophes occur. Sometimes they do to show men that God cannot be mocked with impunity. Two illustrations have occurred already in the Bible story, the Flood and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Jesus referred to both of them, saying in regard to the latter, “Even as it came to pass in the days of Lot . . . after the same manner shall it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed.” Sin and sinners must be destroyed.

Isaac, the son of promise

When the long promised son was born he was named Isaac, which means laughter. Abraham was then one hundred years old. Isaac’s birth brought matters to a crisis in the home of Abraham and Sarah. Ishmael, who had been the only child in the household, made fun of his small brother, and Sarah determined to send him and his mother away. It was hard for Abraham, for he had grown to love Ishmael. However he complied with the desire of Sarah, and God told him that descendants of Ishmael should grow into a great, but wild, nation, a prophecy which has been abundantly fulfilled in the history of the Arabs. A little later the Bible story tells how Ishmael grew into a nation, and records the names of a number of its rulers; then they disappear from its pages because God had decreed that “in Isaac” Abraham’s seed should be called.

Some years later a great trial came upon Abraham. He heard God calling to him. As he listened the voice said “Take now thy son, thine only son, whom thou lovest, even Isaac, and get thee into the land of Moriah, and offer him there for a burnt offering.” The agony of mind created by such a command must have been terrible. Was he to kill his son, the son on whom such wonderful promises depended? How could the promises be fulfilled? But there was no mistaking what the Voice had said, and Abraham determined to obey it. God had made promises which involved the resurrection of the dead; perhaps He would raise his son from the dead.

He started early one morning on his strange errand. Everything was prepared before he set out, even to the wood that was to be used to burn the sacrifice. For three days Abraham, Isaac, and two servants journeyed northward. They must have been days of anguished mind to Abraham. Talk must have been an agony; probably little was said on the way. The last part of the journey was per­formed by Abraham and Isaac alone, the lad carrying the wood that was to consume him, while Abraham carried the fire that was to kindle it. Suddenly Isaac said, “My father.”

“Here am I, my son,” said Abraham.

“Behold the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?”

Where? The troubled father could only reply, “God will provide Himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.”

At last they came to the place for the sacrifice. An altar was prepared, the wood placed upon it, then the father bound his son prior to slaying him. Like Jesus, some two thousand years afterwards, Isaac was a willing sacrifice. Then, just as Abraham was about to plunge the knife into the heart of his son, the angel of the Lord called to him out of heaven,
“Abraham.”

“Here am I,” he replied.

“Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou anything unto him; for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing that thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from Me.”

Thus Isaac was saved from death. Looking around Abraham saw a ram caught in a thicket by its horns. Hastily loosing his son, he took the ram and offered it as a sacrifice instead of his son. Then once again a voice was heard from heaven. It said, “By Myself have I sworn, because thou hast done this thing, . . . that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multi­plying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven; . . . and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because thou hast obeyed My voice.”

And so one more item was added to the covenant, and God had sworn by Himself that the promise should be performed. In those days towns had walls and gates. So long as the latter were kept, no enemy could enter the town, and the inhabitants were safe. When a conqueror sat in the gate of his enemies he was master of the city. Thus Abraham was told that his seed should be a conqueror and rule over all his enemies. There is one thing more to be noticed. The voice had said, “Thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies.” “Seed” is in the singular number, not the plural, so that it referred to one particular individual. The New Testament shows to whom it applies, for the Apostle Paul wrote, “He saith not, And to seeds, as of many, but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ.” Thus the Bible story gets ever more interesting.

A wife for Isaac

More years passed by and Isaac grew up to man­hood. Sarah died, and it was necessary to bury her. Abraham had not a single foot of the promised land, and he had to buy a burying place for his wife, for he would not bury her outside the land of promise. He purchased the cave of Machpelah, with the field and the trees that were in it, for four hundred shekels of silver, and there he buried his wife.

Isaac grew up to be a quiet and peaceful man, who avoided strife whenever that was possible. The time came when it was necessary for him to take a wife. All around him were the women of the land, but Abraham objected to any marriage between them and his son. He called for the steward of his house and charged him to go to the old home at Haran and seek there a wife for Isaac. He was very insistent on two points; he made him swear by God not to take a wife for his son from among the Canaanites who dwelt in the land, and, not to take Isaac to the land from which he himself had come. Two principles stand out in this charge. The separation between Abraham and the people of the land was definite, and the break with the old country was equally so. There was no going back, and no affinity was to be sought with the people of Canaan. It is one of the fundamental features of the Bible story that those who are called of God must be separate from the world; in it, but not of it.

The steward went to the country of Mesopotamia where Nahor had remained. He prayed for God’s guidance in his quest. When he arrived there, Rebekah, the daughter of Bethuel and grand-daughter of Nahor, who was drawing water at the well, acted exactly as he had requested that the damsel might act whom God had decreed to be the wife for his master’s son. As he marvelled at the success of his mission the damsel ran to tell her mother, and her brother Laban, about the man who had spoken to her and who desired to stay with them. They gave him a great welcome, but he refused to eat with them until he had declared the purpose of his journey. As he did so they recognised that the matter was overruled of the Lord. They said, “The thing proceedeth from the Lord; we cannot speak unto thee bad or good.” Then the servant brought out his gifts for Rebekah and her mother and brother. Her father, Bethuel, was still alive, but he took no part in the matter; he was either too old, or was incapaci­tated in some way. Finally Rebekah accompanied the steward to the land of Canaan, where she became the wife of Isaac.

After this Abraham died; old and full of years, for he had lived 175 years. His sons Ishmael and Isaac buried him in the cave of Machpelah, near Hebron, which he had purchased. Thus he was buried in the land that had been promised to him, but of which he had not yet received a single foot breadth. It is for the future to witness the fulfilment of the promise made to him.