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Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the yenr one thousand eight hundred and sixty-five, by HARPER & BROTHERS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District of New York. SRLU URl PREFACE. THIS work is designed to supply a condensed Manual ot Scripture History for the junior classes in Schools, and for Family Use. It presents the whole subject in one volume, containing the Histories of the Old and New Testaments, with a brief, but fairly complete, account of the connecting period. To simplify the plan, and to suit the comprehension of the young, the book is confined for the most part to a narrative of leading facts, avoiding critical discussion on the one hand, and theological exposition on the other. The Notes, which have been added very sparingly, on points which could scarce- ly be left unexplained, are intended chiefly for the teacher. Other matters, which the teacher may desire to introduce at his discretion, will be found in the " Student's Manuals of Old Testament " and " of New Testament History," the order ot which is here generally followed. As the book is meant to be used with, and not at all in place of, the Bible, many of those exquisite stories, which are only spoiled by the attempt to repeat them in other words, are merely referred to, leaving the details to be read in Scripture itself; and thus space has been gained to make the general narrative more complete. The " Received Chronology " is adopted throughout. No other complete system is yet established ; and partial attempts at correction would have involved discussions quite out of place here. This will explain some differences in the dates vi PREFACE. given for contemporary events in the "Ancient History" of this series. Down to the destruction of the kingdom of Israel in B.C. 721, the dates both of Sacred and Secular History still require adjustment ; and, meanwhile, each system of chronol- ogy affords a valuable aid for the order of the events. The " Contents " are drawn up in such a manner as to form a Chronological Table ; and they will also suggest Questions for the teacher. Tables of the Weights, Measures, and Money mentioned in the Bible are given at the end of the book. CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS. PART I. HISTORY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. B.C. 4004-400. CHAPTER I. FROM TUB CREATION TO THE DEI.UOE. B.C. 4004-2348. 4004. The Creation 19 The Fall of Man 21 Cain and Abel 23 The Caiuites and Sethitcs..23, 24 Translation of Enoch 26 2349. Noah and the Flood 2S 2348. Covenant with Noah 27 Shem, Ham, and Japheth 27 1998. Death ofNoah 28 A'ote on the Ark 28 CHAPTER II. FUOM THE DKUJOE TO THK DEATH OF AHIIAIIAM. B.C. 2348-1822. '.'J21. Peopling of the earth 29 Call of Abram 31 Abram at Shcchem and Beth- el 32 His visit to Egypt 32 Abram at Mamre 33 1913. Rescue of Lot Melchizedek 33 1910. Birth of Ishmael 34 New names of Abraham and Sarah 34, 35 1893. Destruction of Sodom 35, 30 Abraham and Abimelech . . . 38 1897. Birth oflsaac 3 Expulsion of Hagar and Ish- mael 30, 87 1872. Offorinp: oflsaac 37 1860. Death and burial of Sarah .. 88 1857. Isaac marries Rebekah 39 1853. Abraham marries Keturah . . 39 1822. Death and burial of Abra- ham 39 Notf. Diaper svm of the Na- tions 40 Tiii CONTENTS. CHAPTER III. FKOM THE DEATH OP ABRAHAM TO THE DEATH OF JOSEPH B.C. 1S22-163S, B.C. PAGE 1837. Birth of Esau and Jacob 41 1806. Esau sells his birthright. ... 42 1804. Isaac and Abimelech 42 1760. Isaac blesses Jacob 43 Jacob flies to Haran 44 1753. He marries Leah and Rachel 44 Family of Jacob 46 1739. He returns to Canaan 45 Jacob at Shechein 47 1732. RemovestoBethelandMamre 47 Birth of Benjamin Death of Rachel 47 1729. Joseph and his brethren... 47-53 1706. The Israelites go to Egypt. . 63 1689. Prophecy, death, and ourial of Jacob 54, 55 1635. Death of Joseph 56 His bones kept 56 CHAPTER IV. ISRAEL IN EGYPT. FBOM TUB DEATH OP JOSEPH TO THE EXODUS B.C. 1635- 1491. 1635. Increase of the Israelites 57 Their oppression by Pharaoh 58 1571. Birth ofMoses 58 1531. His flight to Midian 59 1491. He is sent to Egypt 60 1491. Moses and Aaron before Pha- raoh 61 The Ten Plagues 02, 65 The PASSOVER and the EXO- DUS 65, 66 Length of the Sojourn 66 CHAPTER V. THE EXODUS AND THE LAW. B.C. 1491-1490. 1491. Stages of the journey 6T Passage of the Red Sea 68 The Manna and the Sabbath 69 Victory over Amalek 70 Israel at Sinai 71 Giving of the Law 72 1491. The Golden Calf 73 Consecration of the Levites. 74 Construction of the Taber- nacle 75 1490. The Tabernacle set up T5 CHAPTER VI. THE WANDERING IN THE WILDERNESS B.C. 1490-1451. 1490. Departure from Sinai 76 Quails sent Plague 77 Sedition of Aaron and Mir- iam 77, 78 Israel at Kadesh The spies 78 The Forty Years' Wandering 79 The Sabbath-breaker stoned 79 Rebellion of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram 79 Plague Aaron's rod blos- soms 80 1453. Return to Kadesh SO The Water of Meribah 80 X462. Death of Aaron 81 , 1452. Fiery Serpents The Brazen Serpent 81 March through Moab 82 Defeat of Sihon and Og 82 Balaam and Balak 82, a"5 Slaughter of the Midinnites. 85 1451. Settlement of two and a half tribes east of Jordan 86 Last words of Moses Book of Deuteronomy 84 The Song and Blemrinrj of Mo- ses 88 Death of Moses 88 Moses a type of Christ 89 CONTENTS. CHAPTER VH. THE LEGISLATION or MOSES. 4KCT. PACK I. Principles of the Law 90 The Ten Commandments. . 91 II. The Tabernacle ; its parts and its furniture 92, 9G JIT. The Priests and Levites ... 97 IV. Sacrifices and oblations 99 V. Holiness of the people 101 SECT. PAOB VI. The Sacred Seasons 102 i. Sabbath and like feasts 102 ii. Three Great Festivals. 104 iii. The Day of Atonement 10T VII. Laws : political, civil, and criminal 108 Forms of government 109 CHAPTER VIII. THE CONQUEST AND DIVISION OP TUB HOLY LAND. B.C. 1451-142C. 1461. Joshua leader of Israel .... 112 The spies and Rahab 113 Passage of the Jordan 114 Capture of Jericho 115 Sin and fate of Achan . .115, 116 Craft of the Gibeonites .... 116 1451. Conquest of the South 117 Conquest of the North 118 1451-45. The conquest completed 118 Allotments of the tribes... 119 1426. Death of Joshua 120 Joseph's bones buried 121 CHAPTER IX. THE JUDGES. B.C. 1426-1095. 1426 (foil.) State of Israej 122 Micah and the Danites 122 Destruction of Benjamin.. . 123 Story ofRuth 125 1402. i. Oppression by Chushan- rishathaim. . . 125 1394. OTHNIEL, the first judge 126 1354. ii. Oppressor, Eglon, king of Monb 126 1336-1296. Emm, the second judge 126 1336. iii. Philistine oppression. . . 126 1290. SHAMOAR, the third judge.. 126 1316. iv. Oppressor, Jabin, king ofHazor 126 1296. DEIWEAH and BARAK 126 Sisera killed by Jael 127 1256. v. Oppression by Midian, Amalek, etc 127 1249. GIDEON, the fifth judge 127 His name of Jerub-baal 128 lie rejects the kingdom 129 1209. vi. Usurpation of AUIME- LEOII 130 Jotham's Parable of the Trees 130 Abimeloch slain by a wom- an 131 1206. vii. TOLA, the seventh judge 131 1183. yiii. JAIK, the eighth judge. 131 1161. ix. Oppression by Ammon- ites and Philistines 131 1143. JEVIITUAII, the ninth judge. 132 Jephthah's daughter 132 Ephraim Shibboleth and Sibboleth 133 1137. x. IIJZAN, the tenth judge.. 133 1130. xi. EI.ON, the eleventh judge 133 1120. xii. AHDON, the twelfth judge 133 1141. xiii. SAMSON, the thirteenth judge 133 His birth, exploits, and death 133-135 1181. xiv. ELI, high-priest and judge 13G 1141. xv. SAMUEL, fifteenth and last judge 135 His birth and ministry 130 His prophecy against Eli. . 136 Capture and return of the ark 137 1120. Victory of Eben-ezer 138 1112. The sons of Samuel 13S 1095. Demand for a king 139 CONTENTS. CHAPTER X. TnR REION OF SAUL. B.C. J095-1066. 1095. Saul anointed by Samuel... 140 Elected king at Mizpeh 142 1095. Defeats the Ammonites 142 Jonathan surprises the Phi- listines 143 _ Saul's other victories 144 1079. He spares the Amalekites. . 145 ! God rejects Saul 145 ! 1063. Samuel anoints David 140 | 1003. David slays Goliath 148 Sau! jealous of David 149 1062. David a fugitive 151 Saul massacres the priests. 151 The cave of Adullam 151 10CO. David and Abigail 153 1056. Defeat and death of Sanl . . 154 David's dirge for Saul and Jonathan 155 CHAPTER XI. THE REION OP DAVID. B.C. 1056-1015. 105C. Kingof Judah at Hebron.. 156 Civil war with Ish-bosheth. 157 Joab's murder of Abner. . . . 157 1048. David king of all Israel 157 He takes JERUSALEM 153 Removal of the ark 159 1040 (foil.). Victories of David... 160 1035. David and Batli-sheba 161 1023. Rebellion of Absalom 162 1017. Great pestilence 16fi Preparations for the Temple 165 1015. Rebellion of Adonijah 105 Coronation of Solomon 166 Death and character of Da- vid 166 CHAPTER XII. THE REIGN OF SOLOMON. B.C. 1015-975.' 1015. A chronological epoch 167 j 1000. Dedication of the Temple.. 153 1014. Adonijah, Joab, Abiathar Solomon's other buildings. 153 and Shimei 168 1011. The great Jewish monarchy 168 1014. Alliance with Egypt 168 The gift of wisdom 151 Splendor of Solomon 151 Alliance with Hiram 151 1012. Foundation of the Temple. 152 I His foreign commerce 154 His fall into idolatry 154 Adversaries raised up 155 Ahijah designates Jero- boam 155 975. Death of Solomon 155 CHAPTER XIII. THE KINGDOMS or JUDAII AND ISRAEL TO THE REIGNS OF JEHOBIIAPHAT AND AIIAB. B.C. 975-S92. Division of the Kingdom t5C JUDAH. 9T5. I. REIIOBOAM : 17 years 157 Shemaiah forbids war 158 970. Shishak takes Jerusalem 158 958. IT. AIU.IAH: 3 years 150 Victory over Israel 159 P5C. III. ABA : 41 years. 162 975. 1. JEROBOAM I. : 22 years... 159 Worship of the calves de- nounced by a prophet ' CIITJKCH. B.C. 536-400. 636. Proclamation of Cyrus 214 636. Return of the Jews First caravan under Zerabbabel and Jeshua 215 535. The second temple 210 Haggai and Zechariah 217 List of Persian kings 217 516. Dedication of the Temple ... 217 i78 (about). Esther, Mordecai, and Human 218 158. Second caravan under Ezra. 218 444. Mission of Nehemiah 218 Ezra reads the Law 219 Peopling of Jerusalem 220 Dedication of the Walls 220 428 (about). Second mission of Nehemiah 220 400 (about) The Prophet Malachi 221 End of the Old Testament. . 221 The coming Elijah 221 CONTENTS. xiii PART II. CONNECTION OF THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS. B.C. 400-4. CHAPTER XIX. RECOVERY OF JEWISH INDEPENDENCE. B.C. 400-106. 536-331. Judaea tinder the Per- sians 222 Governed by high-priests . . . 223 Samaritan temple on Mt. Ge- rizim 223 331. Judaea under the Ptolemies. 224 The Septuagint 224 198. Judaea under the Seleucids. . 225 168. Persecution of Antiochus Epiphanes 225 Revolt of Mattathias 226 ICG. Judas Maccabaeus 226 161. Jonathan Apphus 228 143. Simon Maccabsus 228 142. Epoch of Jewish freedom... 228 135-100. JohuHyrcauus 229 CHAPTER XX. NEW KINGDOM OK JUD.EA. TIIE ASMONJEANS AND HEROD. B.C. 106-4. Name and parts of Judaea . . 230 7.06. Aristobulus I. becomes King 230 105. Alexander Jannseus 231 78. Alexandra 231 63. Pompey takes Jerusalem . . . 231 69. Hyrcanus II. and Aristobu- lus IL 232 Antipater the Idnmsean 232 Hyrcanus II. restored 232 Judaea subject to Rome 232 Alexander, son of Aristobu- lus II 232 54. Crassus at Jerusalem 232 48. Antipater made Procurator.. 232 Rise of Herod 232 44. Cassius at Jerusalem 232 43. Murder of Antipater 232 41. Antony favors Herod 233 40. Antigonus, son of Aristobulus 233 37. End of the Asmonaeans 233 HEROD TIIE GREAT, King 233 His policy and cruelties 234 18-9. Rebuilds the temple 234 5-4. Birth of JESUS CHRIST 235 4. Execution of An ti pater 235 Death of Herod. 235 PART m. HISTORY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. FROM THE NATIVITY OF JESUS CHRIST TO THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. B.C. 4-A.D. 70. CHAPTER XXI. THE NATIVITY AND EARLY MINISTRY OF JERUS CHRIST TO HIS FIRST PASS- OVER. B.C. 4-A.D. 27. B.C. PAOE Divisions of New Testament History 236 The Four Gospels 237 5. Zacharias and Elisabeth ..... 237 6. Annunciation of the Virgin. . 238 5. Birth of John the Baptist. ... 238 xiv CONTENTS. 6-4. Birth of Jesus Christ 4. Adoration of the Marians 23S 2H'.l 4. Flight to Egypt. 239 4. Return to Nazareth 239 4. Family of Herod 240 B.O, 4 to /Archelaus, ethnarch) otr . A.D. 7 \ of Judaea / " 7-27. Roman Procurators 241 a o. 4 to ( Herod Antipas, te-) 1 T, -io-l t rar ch of Galilee}- 241 A - D - 39 ) and Perea j tn (Herod Philip II., te-) .; q?H trarch of Itur.-ea,l 241 A.D. sa j Trachoutis, etc ) A.D. (Preaching of John the) , 26. 1 Baptist / i 20-7. Baptism of Jesus 242 26-7. Temptation in the Wilder- ness 242 26-7. Testimony of John 242 26-7. Christ's first disciples 243 26-7. First miracle at Cana 243 26-7. Residence at Capernaum . . 243 CHAPTER XXII. FIRST YEAK OF CUBIST'S Puisne MINISTRY. FROM me FIKST TO ins SEOONI PASSOVER. A. D. 27-28. 27. Jesus appears in the temple.. 27. Retires from Jerusalem 27. Imprisonment of John 27. Jesus in Samaria 27. Returns to Galilee, 27. Second Miracle at Cana 27. Preaches first in Galilee 245 27. Rejected at Nazareth 248 245 27. Resides at Capernaum 248 245 27. The Lake of Galilee 249 246 27. Call of Peter and Andrew, 246 James and John 249 247 27-28. First Circuit of Galilee.... 261 247 I Various kinds of Miracles. . . . 261 CHAPTER XXIII. SECOND YEAR OF CHRIST'S MINISTRY. FROM THE SECOND TO TIIK THIRD PASSOVER. A.D. 28-29. 28. " The Feast of the Jews " 253 28. Miracle at Beth-esda 254 28. Jesus and the Sabbath 254 28. Return to Galilee 255 28. The twelve apostles 256 28. Sermon on the Mount 257 28. Jesus and the Baptist. 258 28. The CHRIGT anointed 259 28. Second Circuit of Galilee 260 28-29. Third Circuit of Galilee. . . 261 29. Death of John the Baptist. .. 263 29. Christ withdraws from Herod 264 29. The Loaves and Fishes 264 NOTE: On Christ's Parables. 204 CHAPTER XXIV. THE THIRD YEAR OF CHRIST'S MINISTRY. FROM THE THIRD TO THE FOURTH AND LAST PASSOVER. A.D. 29-30. 29. Offer of the kingdom 267 29. Walking on the waves 267 29. Jesus in Phoenicia and De- capolis 268 29. Sign of the prophet Jonah. . . 208 29. Jesus at Caesarea Philippi 209 29. Confession of Peter. 209 29. The Transfiguration 270 29. Departure frm Galilee 271 2!t. Last visit to Samaria 272 29. The seventy disciples. 272 29. The Feast of Tabernacles 272 29. Events and discourses 273 29. Feast of the Dedication 274 29. Jesus retires to Bethabara. . . 274 29. Raising of Lazarus 275 29-30. Jesus in Persea 270 30. Various parables and miracles 277 30. The blind men at Jericho 277 30. Arrival at Bethany 277 30. Jesus anointed for his burial. 277 CONTENTS. xv CHAPTER XXV. THE PASSION OK or/E LORD. A.D. 30. S. Apr. 1. Entry into Jerusalem 279 M. Apr. 2. Cleansing the tem- ple 280 The barren fig-tree . 280 Tu. Apr. 3. Last day of' public teaching 280 . Great prophecy of the destruction of Jeru- salem and the end of the world 283 Treason of Judas ... 284 W. Apr. 4. Day of retirement.. . 285 Th. Apr. 5. The Passover 285 The Lord's Supper. . 286 Agouy in the garden 287 Betrayal of Christ... 28T Denials of Peter 2SS Good-Friday,) Trial by the San- April G. ( hedrim 288 Trial and condemna- tion by Pilate 289 Fate of Judas 292 Events and sayings at the Crucifixion . 292 Certainty of Christ's death 297 The entombment ... 298 S. Apr. 7. The Sabbath Easter Eve... .. 298 CHAPTER XXVI. TIIE RESURRECTION AND ASCENSION OF CUEIST. A.D. 30. *>. Apr. 17. Baxter -day. First Lord's Day 299 The Resurrection... 300 Various appearances of Christ 301 Th. May 18. His ascension 300 CHAPTER XXVII. THE Cinmoii is PALESTINE. To THE MARTYRDOM or ST. STEPHEN. A.D. 30-37. $0. The Church at Jerusalem 307 Election of Matthias 308 S. May 27. Pentecost. Whitsun- day 308 Gift of Tongnes 308 I State of the Church 309 | Lame man healed 309 Peter and John before the San- hedrim 309 Barnabas, Ananias and Sap- phira 310 Imprisonment of the apostles 310 Advice of Gamaliel 310 Hebrews and Hellenists 311 Institution of deacons 311 Martyrdom of Stephen 312 Saul's persecution 312 Dispersion of the disciples... 312 Samaria Simon Magus 313 Conversion of the Eunuch . . . 313 Political changes 318 Chronology of Paul's Life.... 314 CHAPTER XXVIII. THE GENTILES RECEIVED INTO THE CHCRGII. A.D. 37-50. Saul of Tarsus 315 67. His conversion and first preaching 318 Escape from Damascus 319 39. First visit to Jerusalem 319 Rest of the Jewish churches. 320 40. Conversion of Cornelius 320 CHRISTIANS at Antioch 321 41. Herod Agrippa I 321 44. Martyrdom of Jnmes 322 Escape of Peter 322 Death of Herod 323 Famine in Judtea 323 Barnabas and Saul at Jerusa- lem 323 48-49? First missionary journey of Patil and Barnabas 324 Troubles from Judai/.ers 3'2(! 50. Council at Jerusalem 320 Paul and the other apostles. . 8St Paul withstands Peter 32$ xvi CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXIX. ST. PAUL'S SECOND MISSIONARY JOURNEY, AND THE ENTRANCE OF TUB GOBPKI INTO EUROPE. A.D. 51 TO 54. fil. Quarrel of Paul and Barnabas 328 ; John Mark, Silas, and Luke. . 328 Ordination of Timothy 329 Paul in Galatia and Mysia . . . 329 Epistle to the Galatians 329 Call to Europe 330 Events at Philippi 331 Thessalonica and Bercea 332 Discourse at Athens 332 52. Residence at Corinth (18 months) 333 Aquila and Priscilla 333 Epistles to the Tliessalonians. . 335 Tumult at Corinth 335 53. Impartiality of Gallio 335, 53 or 54. Voyage to Ephesus 335 Visit to Jerusalem 336 Felix procurator 336 54. Accession of Nero 336 CHAPTER XXX. ST. PAUL'S THIRD MISSIONARY JOURNEY. His Two IMPRISONMENTS AT ROME, AND IIIB MARTYRDOM. WITH SEQUEL. A.D. 54-70, ETC. 54. Third circuit from Autioch . . 337 Troubles in Galatia 337 Apollos at Ephesus 337 Panl at Ephesus (3 years) 338 Epistles to the Corinthians. . . . 338 57. Tumult at Ephesus 339 j Journey through Macedonia, etc 339 57-58. Stay at Corinth (3 months) 339 Pass.to (Iiicideutsofthevoyage) o^, Pant. \ to Jerusalem J Arrest in the temple, etc 342 Defense to the people 342 Paul before the Sanhedrim. . . 343 Sent to Caesarea 343 Trial before Felix 343 68-Gfl. Imprisonment at Csesarea. 344 60. Festns succeeds Felix 344 Paul appeals to Csesar 344 Paul before Agrippa II 345 His voyage and shipwreck.. . . 346 61. Arrival at Rome 348 Conferences with the Jews... 348 They reject the Gospel 349 61-63. First imprisonment at Rome 349 63. Paul acquitted by Nero 349 Epistlesto tlieEphesiam, Phile- mon, the Colossi/ins, the Phi- lippians, and the Hebrew*. . 350 62. Martyrdom of James the Just 350 Sequel of Paul's life 350 His Pastoral Epistles 350 66-68? His martyrdom 350 Notice of St. Peter 351 Notice of St. John 351 70. The "Coming of the Lord "in the destruction of Jerusa- lem a type of the end of the world 352 Tables of Weights, Money, aud Measures 353 Index... , 868 LIST OF ILLUSTKATIONS. Jerusalem : FRON' IBPIEOB. Coin of Apamea, in Phrygia, representing the Deluge TITI K-PAOF. A Shekel of the Maccabees Fage vii. Tomb of Absalom " xviii. PAOB Mouut Ararat 19 Temple of Birs-nimrnd 29 The town and valley of KAblus from the south-western flank of Mount Ebal 41 Egyptian sarcophagus 66 Egyptian archers 57 Bronze tlgiire of Apis 67 Mount Hor 76 The serpent "Cneph Agathodtc- mon " 89 The golden candlestick 90 Plan of the courtof the tabernacle 93 Supposed form of the Altar of Incense 95 Sacred Egyptian boat or ark 111 Jericho 112 Goodly Babylonish garments 121 Sacred symbolic tree of the Assyr- ians 122 Assyrian fls>h-god 139 Assyrian kintr in his robes 140 Rabbah, the chief city of the Am- monites 156 Tomb of Darius near Peraepolis. 167 Ssbustiyeh, the aucieut Samaria. 174 Statue of Shalmaneser 1 182 Israelites bringing tribute to Shalmaneser 183 Jehu doing homage to Shalma- neser 192 The City of Lachish repelling the attack of Sennacherib 201 The Kasr, or remains of the an- cient palace at Babylon 209 Tomb of Cyrus at Murg-Aub 214 View of the Lake of Antioch 222 Remains of arch of the bridge of the temple 230 Bethlehem 236 Nazareth 244 Map of Galilee 250 Sea of Galilee 253 Bethany 266 Gethsemane 278 Mount of Olives 299 Jerusalem 307 Tarsus 315 Thessalonica 32T Ruins of theatre at Ephesus 837 Coin with image of Diana. 339 Ancient ship 34T Tomb of Abealuui. SCRIPTURE HISTORY. PART I. HISTORY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. FKOM THE CREATION TO THE COMPLETION OP THE OLD TESTAMENT CANON.-B.C. 4004 TO 400. CHAPTER I. PROM THE CREATION TO THE DELUGE. H.C. 4004-2348. "!N the beginning God created tlie heavens and the earth." Thus, at the very commencement of the Bible, we are taught that the world lias not always been in existence, but that it was made out of nothing by an Almighty God. The heaven which God cre- nted is that which we see, or which can be seen ; the earth is the globe on which we live. Whatever wonders science may reveal in heaven or earth, the simple truth remains that God created them all 20 SCRIPTURE HISTORY. CHAP. I The sacred writer next describes the order in which the various portions of the universe were made. The earth, after its creation, was for a long time in a formless and empty state " without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep." The steps by which the heavens and the earth, one after the other, rose out of this chaos, are arranged in periods called days. The follow- ing are the works assigned to each day when the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters : On the First Day was created Light (Gen. i. 1-5). On the Second Day the Firmament or Sky (6-8). On the Third Day Dry Land, Herbs and Trees, and separation of the earth from the sea (9-13). On the Fourth Day Sun, Moon, and Stars (14-19). On the Fifth Day Fishes and Birds (20-23). On the Sixth Day Animals and Man (24-31). On the Seventh Day God rested from His work, and blessed and sanctified it as a Sabbath or day of rest (ii. 2-3). After the earth had been prepared and adorned for his dwelling- place, after sky and earth and ocean had been peopled with living creatures for his use, man was formed of the dust of the ground, and God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and Man be- came a living soul (Gen. ii. 7). He differed from all other crea- tures in that he was made in the image and after the likeness of God in other words, in that lie possessed an intellectual and spirit- ual nature. God gave him dominion over all created tilings, and to him, and to the animals, the plants were assigned for food. The name ADAM, bestowed upon the first man by the Almighty, had reference apparently to the ground (AdamaJi) out of which he was formed ; and in the meaning of the word there is contained the idea of redness of color. The Lord God placed the man whom he had made in a garden, in the region of Eden. This spot was probably somewhere among the highlands of the modern Armenia, south of the Caucasus. It was watered by four rivers Pison, Gihon, Hiddckel, and the Eu- phrates. The first two arc unknown ; the third was no doubt the Tigris. The only task given to Adam was to dress and keep tint garden. Of the fruit of every tree therein he might freely eat, with the exception of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Of that God said, " Thou shall not eat of it ; for in the day that thou cat- est thereof thou shall surely die." Surrounded as he was by liv- ing creatures, man was yet alone. God brought them all before him that he might name them, which shows that he was endowcci at his creation with the power of language ; but for Adam no helf* B.C. 4004-2348. CREATION AND FALL OF MAN. 21 meet for him was found. Then the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon him ; and while he slept, he took one of his ribs, of which he formed a woman, and brought her unto him. And when Adam awoke and saw her, he said, "This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh : she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of man " (Gen. ii. 23). This was long after- wards used by our Lord as a reason for the law of marriage, which is plainly implied in the fact that one woman was created for one man. "Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh " (Matt. xix. 5). It is important to notice that the two ordinances of the Sabbath and of Marriage were instituted by God " in the time of man's in- nocence." Eden was not merely the blissful abode of our first parents, it was also the scene of their temptation and of their fall. When Adam was first placed there, and commanded not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, a restraint was laid upon his appetite and upon his self-will. While he was shown by this prohibition that he was to live under a law, he was at the same time left free either to obey or to break it. Adam and Eve had not long been in Eden before a serpent a creature well known as the type of the chief of the fallen angels came to the woman, and inquired wheth- er God had really told them not to eat of every tree of the garden. And when the woman replied that it was so, he invited her to eat of the forbidden fruit, assuring her that they would not really die ; that God had forbidden them to touch the tree of knowledge be- cause he knew that, as soon as they did so, they would be "as gods, knowing good and evil." Whereupon the woman, seeing that " the tree was good for food, and pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise," believed his words, and " took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat." Thus they fell into the threefold sin of sensuality, pleasure, and ambition " the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life " (1 John ii. 16). The same threefold apj>eal of the tempter to the infirmities of our nature may be traced also in the temptation of Christ, the second Adam who was " in all points likewise tempted, but without sin " (Heb iv. 15). Immediately the eyes of them both were opened ; they perceived that they were naked, nnd made themselves aprons of fig- leaves. Soon afterwards they heard the voice of the Lord God, and hid themselves from his presence among the trees of the garden. But the Lord called Adam, and said, Where art thou ? Adam re- plied, " I heard thy voice, and I was afraid, because I was naked ; and I hid myself." How couldst thou know, said the Lord, that thon wast naked unless thou hadst oaten of the tree of which 1 22 SCRIPTURE HISTORY. CHAP. I commanded thee not to eat? Then the man cast the blame upon the woman, and the woman upon the serpent, and God proceeded to award a righteous sentence to each. i. A curse was pronounced upon the serpent. " Upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life. And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed ; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel " (Gen. iii. 14, 15). ii. A curse was pronounced upon the woman. In sorrow and in multiplied suffering she was to give birth to her children. And as the cause of his fall, henceforward she was to be subject to her hus- band. At first she was his equal (Gen. iii. 16). iii. A curse was pronounced upon the man, and upon the ground also on his account. He was doomed to a life of toil : the earth was to bring forth thorns and thistles, and in the sweat of his face was he to eat bread till he returned to the ground (Gen. iii. 18, 19). They had also incurred by their disobedience another penalty, which was to be paid at a later period. "Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." They were, however, sent forth at once from the Garden of Eden, lest they should eat of the tree of life and live forever. Cherubim, armed with a flaming sword, were sta- tioned at the entrance to prevent them from returning to taste its fruit. It is most probable that the " coats of skins," with which the Lord God clothed our first parents, were the skins of animals slain in sacrifice. Thus early was man taught by the use of sacri- fice that " without shedding of blood there is no remission " of sin (Heb. ix. 22). The curse upon the serpent, and the promise to the woman tha". her seed should bruise his head, pointed clearly to a Redeemer, who should be born of a woman, and who, after suffering from the ma- lignity of the Serpent after his heel had been bruised should destroy the works and the power of the Devil. Here we have the first prophecy of the Messiah. Henceforth the woman lived in the expectation of the promised seed, which should make her the moth- er of a truly livinrf race ; and, to signify this hope, Adam gave her the name of Eve (Chavak, that is, living). Thus already life began to spring from death (Gen. iii. 20). After their banishment from Eden, Eve bore her first-born son, and named him Cain (that is, gotten or acquired), saying, " I have gotten a man from the Lord." Her second son was named AbeJ (that is, breath, transitoriness). "Abel was a keeper (or feeder) of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground." In course of time it came to pass that they offered sacrifices unto the Lord : Cain brought of the fruit of the ground ; Abel brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. But the two offerings were not B.C. 4004-2348. ABEL MURDERED BY CAIN. 23 presented in the same spirit, and so "the Lord had respect unto Abel and his offering, "but Cain's was rejected on account of the state of mind in which it was brought. At this Cain was very wroth and unhappy. "Why art thou wroth?" said the Lord to him. "If thou doest well, shall thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well," sin lurketh as a wild beast at the door, seeking the mastery over you, but thou art to resist and subdue it (Gen. iv. 7). Cain, however, could not pardon his brother Abel for being bet- ter than himself, and when they were in the field together, he fell npon him and slew him. Awful is it to remember, that the first overt act of sin after the fall was a brother's murder ; but he who knew what was in man has testified that " Whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause " (Matt. v. 22) has already broken the spirit of the Sixth Commandment, and that "Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer" (1 John iii. 15). This first crime was quickly punished. "Cain, "said the Lord, " where is Abel, thy brother?" To this he replied, "I know not; nm I my brother's keeper?" But God said, "What hast thou done? thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground." And, in punishment of his crime, the ground was cursed for him again, and henceforth was not to yield her strength under his tillage: "a fugitive and a wanderer was he to be upon the earth." But even in this renewal of the curse we still see the mercy which turns the curse into a blessing, as it no doubt caused the family of Cain to turn their attention to those mechanical arts which they afterwards practiced (Gen. iv. 1-12). Cain received his doom in a hardened spirit of impenitence, and exclaimed, "My punishment is greater than I can bear." His great fear was that, when driven out from the abodes of men, and from the face of God, every one who found him should slay him. That shall not be so, said the Lord. And he set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him, and he pronounced a sevenfold punishment on any one who should do so. Cain, having gone out from the presence of the Lord, directed his steps to the east of Eden, and settled in the lund of Nod, that is, banishment. -There he built a city, and called it Enoch, after his first-born son. The names of his descendants to the sixtli gen- eration were Enoch, Irad, Mehujael, Methusael, and Lamech. From the few facts recorded about them we learn that Lamech set the example of polygamy ; his address to his two wives (Gen. iv. 23, 24) is the earliest example of poetry, and it also shows that lie committed the second murder. Of his three sons, Jabal was the first wandering herdsman; Jubal, the inventor of musical instru- ments, both stringed and wind; and Tubal-Cain, the first smith. Dismissing the family of Cain, the sacred writer now relates the 24 SCRIPTUKE HISTORY. CHAI-. 1 history of the chosen race. God gave to Eve another son instead ot Abel, whom Cain slew (Gen. iv. 25), who was hence named Seth (properly, aj>i>ointed). His birth was followed by that of othei children. Seth, too, had a numerous posterity. The names of Seth's descendants were Enos, Cainan, Mahaialeel, and Jared, of none of whom are any particulars recorded. But the next among the descendants of Seth, " Enoch, the seventh from Adam," stands .;onspicuous as one who walked with God a phrase which is often jsed to describe a life of close communion with God. When lie was three hundred and sixty-five years old his faitli was rewarded by a special favor. "He was not; for God took him" (Gen. v. 24) Of the meaning of this phrase the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews leaves no doubt : " By faith Enoch was translated, that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had trans- lated him " (Heb. xi. 5). In his case, as in Elijah's, the miracle was a testimony to the divine mission of the prophet. Methuselah, thsson of Enoch, is noted for having reached the greatest age of any man on record. He lived nine hundred and sixty-nine years : his son Lamech, the father of Noah, died five years before the Deluge. The traditions of primeval history may very easily have been handed down by a few generations of teachers. Adam, no doubt, handed down to Seth and his posterity the promises of mercy that had been given to him by God, and thus they were easily trans- mitted to Noah, from Noah to Abraham, and from Abraham to Moses. The descendants of Seth were called sons of God, in oppo- sition to the descendants of Cain, who were called sons of men. The former were a people of simple habits and religious spirit the latter were a violent and godless race. The genealogies of the two races of Cain and Seth, when placed side by side, are as follows : ADAM. _ r~ i Caiu. Seth. I ! Enoch (Chanoch). Enos. Irad. . Cainan. Mehujael. MahalaleeL Methnsael. Jared. Adah=Lamech=:Zniah. - Enoch (Chanoch). I I ( tabaL Jubal. Tabul-Caiu. Naunuib. Methuselah. Laniech. KottU. B.C. 4004-2348. NOAH THE FLOOD. 25 The name of Noah is significant. It means rest or comfort, and his father gave it, saying, "This shall comfort us concerning out work arid toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed" ^Gen. v. 29). These words seem to express a deepe/ weariness than that arising from the primal curse, from which, in- deed, the age of Noah brought no deliverance. But it did bring the comfort of rest from the wickedness which had now reached its greatest height. The race of Seth had become infected with the vices of the Cainites. This seems to be the only reasonable sense of the intercourse between " the sons of God " and "the daughters of men " (Gen. vi. 2). The family of Seth, who preserved their frith in God, and the family of Cain, who lived only for this world, hnd hitherto kept distinct ; but now a mingling of the two races took place, which resulted in the thorough corruption of the former, who, falling away, plunged into the deepest abyss of wickedness. We are also told that this union produced a stock conspicuous for physical strength and courage (Gen. vi. 4). God, beholding the perverse imaginations of the human race, re- pented that lie had made man, and said, "I will destroy man and beast, birds and reptiles, from the face of the earth." Noah, how- ever, found grace in the eyes of the Lord. He was the tenth from Adam, and is described as a just man and perfect in his genera- tions. Like Enoch, he testified against the prevailing wickedness, for he is called ' a preacher of righteousness " (2 Pet. ii. 5). Hav- ing looked upon the earth and seen that it was corrupt, God said to him, " Make tliee an ark of gopher (/. e., cypress) wood for the sav- ing of thyself and thy house." God then gave him instructions as to the building of an ark capable of receiving himself and his fami- ly, with two of every species of living creatures, and according to all that God commanded him so did he. 1 For one hundred and twen- ty years, while the ark was preparing, the long-suffering of God wnitcd, but iu vain, as if hoping for some improvement in the pre- vailing wickedness (1 Pet. iii. 20). Doubtless Noah continued his " preaching of righteousness " throughout that period, but his work preached louder still. Mankind went on, however, !' eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark " (Matt. xxiv. 38). Ai length the flood began. Noah was ix hundred years old when the Lord said to him, " Come thou and all thy house into the nrk, for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation. ( )f every clean beast take seven couples, and of beasts that are not c-lcan take two couples, and of birds take seven couples, to keep up their mce. For in seven days' time I will cause it to rain upon ' Wee Note on " Noah's Ark " at the end of this chapter. 26 SCRIPTURE HISTORY. CHAP. I. the earth forty days and forty nights, and I will destroy all tha creatures that I have made from off the face of the earth." Noah obeyed, and entered into the ark with his wife, and with his three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and their wives, and the Lord shut him in. Seven days afterwards, "the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened." For forty days and forty nights the rain fell upon the earth, and rose tc such a height that all the high hills and the mountains were fifteen cubits (about twenty-four feet) under water. "And all flesh died chat moved upon the earth." Noah and those that were with him in the ark alone remained alive. The vast expanse of water was unbroken save by that floating ark for one hundred and fifty day.-,, or five months (Gen. vii. 1-24). Meanwhile God had not forgotten Noah and those that were with him in the ark. He made a wind to pass over the earth, the fount- ains of the deep and the rain from heaven were restrained, and on the seventeenth day of the seventh month of the six hundredth ye;:r of Noah's life, the subsiding waters left the ark aground upon one of the mountains of Ararat, that is. of Armenia; for Ararat, in bib- 'lical geography, is the name, not of a mountain, but of a district. More than two months later, on the first day of the tenth month, the tops of the mountains appeared. Forty days afterwards Noah sent out a rav.en, which did not return to the ark. Then he sent forth a dove, which found no resting-place, and came back again. In another seven days she was sent out again, and returned with an olive-leaf in her bill, a sign that even the low trees were uncovered, and a type for after ages of peace and rest. After seven days more, the dove was sent out again, and proved by not returning that the waters had finally subsided (Gen. viii. 1-12). In the waters of this flood, the whole human race, except eight persons, perished. In the New Testament our Lord declares that the state of the world at his second coming shall be such as it Avas in the days of Noah (Matt. xxiv. 37). St. Peter sees in the waters of the flood, by which the ark was borne up, a type of the waters of baptism, .whereby the Church is separated from the world (1 Pet. iii. 21). The ark itself is a type of the Church of Christ, in which alone there is the promise of salvation. On the first day of the six hundred and first year of Noah's age, he removed the covering of the ark, and saw that the surface of the ground was dry. On the twenty-seventh day of the second month, after having been in the ark one year and ten days, he went out of it by the command of God, with every living thing that was with him. His first act on leaving the ark was to take a couple of every dean bird and beast, and to offer them as a burnt-offering. This B.C. 4004-2348. COVENANT WITH NOAH. 27 sacrifice was acceptable to the Lord, and He promised that He would not any more curse the earth or destroy the creatures that dwelt upon it as He had done, but that the existing course of nature- seed-time and harvest, summer and winter should not cease as long as tho earth remained (Gen. viii. 13-22). To Noah and his sons God then repeated the blessing pronounced on Adam and Eve, and said, " Be fruitful and multiply and re- plenish the earth." To this He added that the inferior creatures were to be subject to them, and that, in addition to the green herb, they might have the animals for food ; but the eating their blood was forbidden, because the blood is the life. He enacted, also, a new law against murder. The first murderer had been driven out as a vagabond and a fugitive ; but his life was sacred. Now, howev- er, the penalty was changed. God said, " Whoso sheddeth man's blood by man shall his blood be shed." This law amounts to giving the civil magistrate " the power of the sword " (Rom. xiii. 4). Hence we may consider that, in addition to the laws of the Sabbath and of marriage, which were revealed to Adam, three new j>rcce/>ts were given to Noah namely, the abstinence from blood, the prohibition of murder, and the recognition of the civil authority (Gen. ix. 1-7). In addition to these promises and precepts, God made with Noah H COVENANT, which may be called the covenant of God's forbearance, under which man is to live to the end of time. As a token of the permanence of this covenant, he gave the beautiful sign of the ralit bow in the cloud, and repeated His promise that the world should not be again destroyed by a flood (Gen. ix. 8-17). The sons of Noah that went forth of the ark with him were Shem, Ham, and Japlieth, and from them the whole human race is descended. Noah began his new life as a husbandman in the land of Armenia. Having planted a vineyard, as he was one day drink- ing of the wine, he made himself drunk in his tent probably from ignorance of its properties and lay exposed in the presence of his sons. Ham, the father of Canaan, saw and told his father's shamo to Shem and Japheth, who hastened to conceal it even from their own sight, turning away their eyes as they covered him with a mantle. On coming to himself, and learning the conduct of Ham, he pronounced upon his race a curse, and upon the other two sons a blessing. " Cursed be Canaan ;" a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren." And he said, "Blessed be the Lord God of Shem ; and Canaan shall be his servant. God shall enlarge Ja- plieth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem ; and Canaan shall be his servant" (Gen. ix. 18-27). The subsequent history of Ca- 8 Ilara's youngest son. 28 SCRIPTURE HISTORY. CHAP. I. nnan shows in the clearest possible manner the fulfillment of the curse. The blessing upon Shem was fulfilled in that history of the chosen race, Ms descendants, which forms the especial subject of the Old Testament. The blessing upon Japheth,. the ancestor of the great European nations, is illustrated in their subjugation of Asia and Africa, and especially by the wide-spread diffusion of their religion. The very name of Japheth means enlargement. Noah lived for three hundred and fifty years after the Flood, an(i vas nine hundred and fifty years old when he died (B.C. 1998). NOTE ON NOAH'S ARK. THE ark was to be made of gopher (i. e., cypress) wood, a kind of tim- ber which, both for its lightness and Us durability, was employed by the Phoenicians for building their vessels. The planks of the ark, after being put together, were to be protected by a coating of pitch, or rather bitumen, which was to be laid on both inside and outside, as the most effectual means of making it water-tight. The ark was to consist of a number of "rooms" or "nests," i.e., compart- ments, with a view, no doubt, to the convenient distribution of the differ- ent animals and their food. These were to be arranged in three tiers, one above another; "with lower, second, and third (stories) shalt thou make it." Means were also to be pro- vided for letting light into the ark. The words "a window shalt .thon make to the ark, and in a cubit shalt thon finish it above " seem to imply a sky-light, or series of sky-lights, a cubit wide, running the whole length of the ark, with a single compart- ment which could be opened at will. There was to be a door placed in the side of the ark. Of the shape of the ark nothing is said; but its dimeu- sions are given. It was to be 300 cu- bits in length, 50 in breadth, and 30 in height. Taking 21 inches for the cubit, the ark would be 525 feet in length, 87 feet C inches in breadth, and 52 feet C inches in height. This is very considerably larger than the largest British man-of-war. It should be remembered that this huge struc- ture was only intended to float on the water, and was not, in the proper sense of the word, a ship. It had neither mast, sail, nor rudder ; it was, in fact, nothing but an enormous floating house, or oblong box rather. Two objects only were aimed at in its construction : the one that it should have ample stowage, and the other that it should be able to keep staad* upon the water (Gen. vu 14-92). Temple of Birs-Ximrud CHAPTER II. FROM THE DKI.UGE TO THK DKATH OF ABRAHAM. B.C. 2348-1822. THK history of tlic next four hundred years, from the Deluge to the Call of Abraham, has two principal features of interest: the general peopling of the earth by the descendants of Shem, Hani, and Japhcth, and the special notices that are given us of the descent of the chosen race from Shem down to Abraham. In the outline of the population of the world given in Gen. x., two facts are prominent: that the highlands of Armenia, where Noah came forth out of the ark, formed the primitive seat of man- kind, and that the nations wa/e divided into three races, the off- spring of the three sons of Noah. The dispersion of these nations rrom this region to their subsequent abodes only began a consider- 30 SCRIPTURE HISTORY. CHAP. II able time after the Deluge. It was in the days of Peleg, the fifth from Noah, that the earth was divided (Gen. x. 25). Under the pressure of necessity, the great body of Noah's offspring left the rugged highlands of Armenia in search of a better soil and climate. "The whole earth was as yet of one language and of one speech," when, "as they journeyed eastward, they found a plain in the land of Shinar (Babylonia), and dwelt there." Soon the idea sprung up :n their minds of founding a universal empire, with a mighty city ler its capital. " Come, said they, let us build us a city and a citadel with its top (reaching) to heaven." But God saw the dan- ger of their scheme, and defeated their design by confounding their language, so that they could not understand one another's speech. " So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth ; and they left off to build the city" (Gen. xi. 1-8). This event probably took place about the end of the third century after the flood. The different peoples thus scattered were the three races by whom the world was afterwards overspread, and who quick- ly lost the remembrance of their common origin. 3 From the confusion of tongues the city was called Babel (confu- sion) (Gen. xi. 9), and at a later period became famous under the Greek name of Babylon. The ruins which form the Birs-Nimrud, or " Mound of Nitnrod " (at the ancient Borsippa, near Babylon), bear an inscription of Nebuchadnezzar, telling how he restored an older building on the same site, the sun-dried clay of which had been dispersed by the earthquake and the thunder "since the re- mote time" when " people had abandoned it. without order erjircss- iny their rvords." Nimrod, the son of Gush, who founded tlie first great military despotism, made Babel his capital ; he built also three other cities in the plain of Shinar namely, Ercch, Accad, and Calneh. Thence he extended his empire northward along the course of the Tigris over Assyria, and founded Nineveh, with three other cities (Gen. x. 8-11). The names of the descendants of Shem to the tenth generation were Arphaxad, Salah, Eber, Peleg, Reu, Semg, Nnhor, and Terah s who was the father of Abraham, Nahor, and Haran (Gen. xi. 20). The world soon relapsed into idolatry and profaneness after the Deluge. Accordingly, God selected out of the race of Shem a FAMILY from which the promised seed of the woman was in the fullness of time to spring, and which should meanwhile preserve the knowledge and worship of Himself. The patriarch whom God made the head of this chosen family was born only two years after the death of Noah (B.C. 199G). His name AH-RAM (father of cle- 1 See Note "Oil the Dispersion of the Nations," at the nd of this Chapter. B.C.2848-182. CALL OF ABRAHAM. 31 vatiori) was prophetic of his calling to be the ancestor of a race chosen for an exalted destiny. Terah, his father, was the ninth of the patriarchs from Shem and the nineteenth from Adam, and it ap. pears from Josh. xxiv. 2 that he was an idolater. His genealogy, which the subsequent history requires to be most clearly understood, is as follows : GKXKALOGY OF THE FAMILY OF TERAH, FATHER OF ABRAHAM TKKAII. I Haran. Milcah=Nahor. (By Hagar.) ABRAM=Sarai (aft. Sarah). | | I (aft. Abraham). | Lot Mil'cah, Sn'rai Bethuel. Ishmael. ISAAC=Rebekau. C5y his two m. her or Ifcah, J | daughters), uncle m. her [ i | i J Nahor. uncle Laban. Rebekah, Esau or Edom. JACOB. | Abram. | married | Ammon. Moab. Leah ISAAC. Twelve and Rachel, sons and the wives one of Jacob. daughter. The first call of God came to Abram while he was still living in the house of his father, in the land called Urof the Chaldces, "when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Charran" (Gen. xi. 28 ; Neliern. ix. 7; Acts vii. 2). He was upward of seventy years of age when Terah removed from the land of his nativity to go into the land of Canaan (Gen. xi. 31). He went forth accompanied by his son Abram, Sarai, Abram's wife, and Lot his grandson, and took up his residence in Haran, more properly called in the New Testament - Charran (Acts vii. 4), east of the Euphrates. Here Terah died,' after a residence of some years (Gen. xii. f>), aged two hundred and five years. All we know of their original abode is that it was be- yond the Euphrates, in some part of Mesopotamia. Nahor, Tcrah's eldest son, settled in Haran, attracted probably by tli3 fertility of the country ; but Abram, immediately on his father's death (B.C. 1921), proceeded on his journey towards the land of Canaan, with his wife Sarai and his nephew Lot. He went out from his country and from his kindred into a land that God promised to show him (Gen. xii. 1), " not knowing whither he went " (Heb. xi. 8). This was the first great proof he gave of that un- wavering faith in God which gained him the title of the Father of the Faithful (Rom. iv. 11). He was now seventy-five years old, and this is the period usually assigned to the CAI,I, OF ABRAHAM. God then promised him, " I will make of thee a great nation, and I will 32 SCRIPTURE HISTORY. CHAV. II. bless theej and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed." The last words contain a promise of the Messiah. Abram had now to leave Mesopotamia, and to cross the " Great River," the Euphrates. Hence the Canaanites gave him the name of the "Hebrew" the man who had crossed the river. Passing through the Great Syrian desert, and tarrying probably for a little while at Damascus, at length he crossed the Jordan, and entered '.he beautiful valley of Moreh, which lies between the mountains of Ebal and Gerizim, where the city of Shcchem was not long after founded. Here he made his first encampment in the land of Ca- naan. God appeared to him again, and said, "Unto thy seed will I give this land." Here he built the first of those altars to the Lord, which the patriarchs erected wherever they pitched their tents. Thus Sichem became his Jirst halting -place in the Holy Land. His second was still farther south, near a mountain on the east of a place then called Luz, afterwards named by Jacob BKTHEL. The pressure of famine at length drove him out of the Promised Land into Egypt, and for a while his faith failed. Fearing that the Egyptians might kill him to obtain possession of his wife, who was " a fair woman to look upon," he caused Sarai to pass for his sister. He had not been long there before the king took her into his house., and, for her sake, heaped extraordinary favors upon her pretended brother. Warned of his mistake by plagues sent upon him and his household, the king restored Sarai to Abram, and, after a rebuke for his deceit, he sent him out of Egypt, with all that he had (Gen. xii. 10-20). Abram then returned with Sarai and Lot to his old encampment near Bethel, where he again "called on the name of the Lord" (Gen. xiii. 4). Both Abram and Lot were very rich in flocks and herds, and as the land they lived in was insufficient to furnish pasture for the cattle of both, contentions began to arise between their hcrdmen. Abram therefore said unto Lot, " Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee, and between my herdmen and thy hcrdmen ; for we be brethren." He then gave him his choice of the whole country that lay before him. Lot chose the fertile plain of Sodom and Gomorrah, watered by the river Jordan, and journeyed east, leaving his uncle on the barren hills of Bethel. After his separa- tion from Lot, Abram received his reward in a third blessing and promise from God, who said to him, "Lift tip 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 forever. And I will make thy ivted as the dust of the earth " (Gen. xiii. 14-lt!). Lot pitched his tent near Sodom, not caring for the fact that B.C. 2348-1 822. BLESSING OF MELCHIZEDEK. S3 the men of Sodom were " sinners before the Lord exceedingly." Abram now removed to the oaks of Mamre near Hebron,, and there built an altar unto the Lord. This became his usual abode. Tho plain of the Lower Jordan was then occupied by five cities Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboiim, and Bela, which were tributary to Chedorlaomer, king of Elam. In the thirteenth year of their sub- jection, they revolted against Chedorlaomer, who marched against ihem with three allied kings, and in the battle that ensued the five kings were defeated. The conquerors then proceeded to ravage tho cities of the plain, and Lot and his family were among the number of the captives. When the news was brought to Abram, he took "his trained servants, born in his own house, three hundred and eighteen," sallied forth from Mamre, and overtook the victors at Dan (Laish). Dividing his band, he fell upon Chedorlaomer and his allies by night, pursued their routed forces to Hobah, north of Damascus, and rescued Lot and his family, with all the spoil (Gen. xiv. 1-16). On the return of Abram from this expedition, he was met by Melchizedek, king of Salem, and priest of the most high God, who " brought forth bread and wine and blessed him," and said, "Bless- ed be Abram of the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth " (Gen. xiv. 18, 19). And Abram gave him tithes of all the spoil. Who this Canaanite was, crossing for a moment the path of Abram and then disappearing as suddenly as he came, is a question in. volved in great mystery. He appears to have been a person of higher spiritual rank than the Father of the Faithful, and in the Epistle to the Hebrews he is regarded in his priestly office as a type of Christ (Heb. vii. 17.) Abram then returned to his tent at Mamre, and Lot went back to Sodom. About this time, apparently, Abram's faith began again to waver. His heart grew faint with the thought of promises long unfulfilled, and hopes unrealized. He said, "Lord God, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless?" (Gen. xv. 2.) To all appearance, his house-born servant, Eliezer of Damascus, would be his heir. He, said the Lord, shall not be thine heir, but a son of thine own. '"Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them : and He said unto him, So shall thy seed be. And ho believed in the Lord; and he counted it to him for righteousness" (Gen. xv. 5, 6). Though Abram was now eighty-five years old, and Sarah turned of seventy -four, yet he was told that he should have a son in his old age; and " he staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief, but was fully persuaded that what He had prom ised He was able also to perform " (Rom. iv. 20, 21). This prorr i)C, that his own son should be his heir, God vouchsafed to confirm C 34 SCRIPTURE HISTORY. CHAP. IL and to ratify by a sign and by a covenant. On the same day, Abrara was directed to offer a special sacrifice, and he remained near the altar to drive away the fowls from the victims. When the sun be- gan to go down, "a deep sleep, and lo! horror and great darkness fell upon him." Then it was that God revealed His intentions to him more plainly than He had yet done. " Know," He says, " of a surety that thy seed shall be a stronger in a land that is not theirs, and shall be afflicted four hundred years. That nation whom they shall serve will I judge, and afterward shall they come out with great substance. And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace ; thou shalt be buried in a good old age.'' After this vision, Abram saw a smoking furnace and a burning lamp pass between the severed parts of the victims sacrificed to ratify the new covenant between God and him. The Lord then added, " Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates " (Gen. xv. 18). At a later period, when this covenant was renewed, the sign of circumcision was added thereto. Sarai, being considered barren, gave Abram her handmaid Ha- gar, an Egyptian, for his concubine, and she bore him a son. But, before the child was born, the insolence of Hagar provoked the jealousy of Sarai, who treated her handmaid so hardly that she fled away into the desert which lies between the land of Canaan and Egypt. Here the angel of the Lord found her by a fountain of water, and, while bidding her to return and submit to her mistress, he encouraged her by the promise of a numerous offspring. "Be- hold," he says, "thou shalt bear a son, and shalt call his name ISHMAEL " (that is, God shall hear) and he foretold his character and destiny in words which to this day describe the Bedouin Arabs who are descended from him : " He will be a wild man ; his hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him, and he shall dwell in the face of all his brethren," that is, to the east of the kindred tribes sprung from Abraham. The birth of Ishmael took place when Abram was eighty-six years old (B.C. 1910) ; but he had to wait fourteen years longer be- fore the true child of promise was born. In Abram's ninety-ninth fear, the Lord appeared to him by the name of " the Almighty God," and renewed His former covenant with him, changing his name from AB-RAM (exalted father) to AB-HAHAM (father of a mul- titude), and appointing the rite of circumcision as a sign of the covenant between Himself and Abraham and his posterity. " I will be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee " (Gen. xvii. 1- 7). Abraham was then commanded to circumcise all the males of his family, and in future the rite was to be performed on chil- dren <&ight 'lays after their birth, and on slaves when they were B.C. 2348-1822. BIRTH OF ISAAC FORETOLD. 35 purchased. And God said unto Abraham, "As for Sarai thy wife, thou shalt not call her name Sarai (my /trincess), but, Sarah (prin- cess) shall her name be." God then told him that she should beai him a son, who should be named ISAAC (laughter), because Abra- ham had laughed for joy and Sarai from incredulity, when the an- nonncement was made to him. On the same day Abraham, witb his son Ishmael, and all the males in his house, were circumcised. Shortly after this, Abraham was honored with a still more re- markable visitation. As he was one day sitting at his tent dooi under the oak of Mamre, he beheld afar off three men, and when he saw them he ran to meet them. Bowing himself towards the ground, he said, " My Lord, if now I have found favor in thy sight, pass not away, I pray thee, from thy servant. Let a little water, I pray you, be fetched, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves un- der the tree. And I will fetch a morsel to comfort your hearts ; after that ye shall pass on. And they said, So do, as thou hast said " (Gen. xviii. 3-5). While the three heavenly guests were eat- ing, he stood by them under the tree, and they said unto him, Where is Sarah thy wife ? In my tent, he replied. One of them then informed the patriarch that within a year Sarah should have a son. Sarah, who was sitting just inside the tent, heard what passed, and laughed to herself incredulously. After rebuking Sa- rah for her want of faith, and repeating the promise, two of the angels went on in advance towards Sodom, and "Abraham was left standing alone with the Lord." This last was, no doubt, the "An- gel Jehovah," the "Word of God" through whom God spake to the fathers ; the other two were perhaps attendant angels. As Abraham brought them on their way, the Lord told him that be- cause "the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah was great, and their sin very grievous," he was about to destroy them for their wickedness. Then follows that wondrous pleading in which he who was "but dust and ashes" took upon himself to speak with God, and obtained a promise that the guilty cities should be pardoned, if but fifty ; then if forty-five ; and so on down to, if only ten righteous men were found in them. "The Lord then went on his way, and Abra- ham returned to his place " (Gen. xviii. 6-33). Towards evening, the two angels came to Sodom. Lot was then sitting at the gate of the city, and he rose up to meet them, and invited them to tarry with him all night. At first they declined his invitation, but at length yielded, and entered with him into his house, where " he made them a feast, and baked unleavened bread, and they did eat." But before they lay down the house was be- sieged by the men of the city for wicked purposes. The angels having smitten the men at the door of the house with blindness, said 36 SCRIPTURE HISTORY. CHAP. II. to Lot, "Whatsoever thou hast in the city, bring them out of this place, because the cry ef them is waxen great before the face of the Lord, and the Lord hath sent us to destroy it." Lot told his sons- in-law of the impending destruction of the place, but they despised his warning. He himself, with his wife and two daughters, was re- luctantly dragged from the devoted city ; and in answer to his en. treaties that one of the five cities might be preserved as his abode, because it was hut a little one, he was allowed to take refuge in Bela, thence called Zoar, that is, little. His wife, looking back from behind him, became a piHar of salt. When Abraham arose early in the morning, and looked towards Sodom and Gomorrah, "lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace." God, however, when he destroyed the cities of the plain, remember- ed Abraham, and on his account Lot was saved. The plain in which these cities stood, hitherto fruitful "as the Garden of Jeho- vah," became henceforth a scene of perfect desolation (Gen. xix.). After a long residence at Mamre, Abraham once more set forth upon his wanderings, and, " turning toward the south country, he sojourned in Gerar " (Gen. xx. 1), a place in the land of the Phi- listines. Here the deceit which he had formerly put upon Pha- raoh, by calling Sarah his sister, was acted again, and with the like result. Sarah was carried off by Abimelech, king of Gerar, who thought that she was unmarried and the patriarch's sister. Dis- covering his mistake, having been warned thereof by God in a dream, he restored her to her husband, and gave him valuable presents. A dispute subsequently arose between Abraham and Abimelech respecting a well in the neighborhood. This led to a treaty between them, whence the well was called " Beer-sheba," or the well of the oath, "because there they swore both of them" (Gen. xxi. 31). At this place Abraham and his descendants dwelt for a long time. It was situated on the borders of the Desert, and continued till the latest times to be the southern boundary of the Holy Land. It was during his abode at Beer-sheba that Sarah "bare Abra- ham a son in his old age," when he himself was a hundred years aid (Gen. xxi. 5). The child was named Isaac. At the great feast made in celebration of the weaning, Sarah saw Ishmael, the son of Hagar the Egyptian, mocking. " Cast out this bondwoman and her son," she said to Abraham, " for the son of this bondwom- an shall not be heir with my son Isaac." Her request was very grievous to the patriarch ; but, comforted by God's renewed prom- ise that of Ishmael he would make a nation, he gave Hagar some bread and a bottle of water, and sent her away with the child; and they departed and wandered in the wilderness of Beer-sheba. B.C. 2348-1822. ISAAC TO BE SACRIFICED. 37 Here her supply of water was quickly spent, and as it seemed that her boy must soon die of thirst, she laid him down under the shade of one of the desert shrubs, and went and sat down a good way off from him, and wept aloud. "Let me not see the death of the child," she said. The cries of the lad and of his mother were heard in heaven, and the angel of God, calling to her " What aileth thee, Hagar? fear not," renewed the promise already thrice given, " I will make him a great nation ;" and God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. And God was with the lad ; and he grew, and dwelt in the wilderness of Paran, and became an archer ; and when he was of a suitable age, his mother took him a wife out of the land of Egypt (Gen. xxi. 9-21). Henceforward the history of Abraham is intertwined with that of Isaac, of whom it was said, "In Isaac shall thy seed be called" (Gen. xxi. 12). God had yet a crowning trial to make of the pa- triarch's faith and obedience. When Isaac, the son of his old age, was about twenty-five years old, God said to Abraham, "Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get theo into the land of Moriah ; and offer him there for a burnt-offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of." According- ly Abraham "rose up early in the morning, and saddling his ass, took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and wood for the burnt-offering, and went unto the place of which God had told him." On the third day of his journey, he saw afar off the spot appointed for this awful sacrifice. "Abide ye here with the ass," he said to his young men, " while I and the lad go yonder and worship." Then laying the wood for the burnt-offering upon Isaac his son, and taking with him fire and a knife, they went for- ward together. "My father," said Isaac, "behold the fire and the wood : but where is the lamb for a burnt-offering ?" " My son," said Abraham, " God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt-offer- ing." At length they reached the place which God had told him of; and then, no doubt, the patriarch explained to his son that he was himself the destined victim. The altar was built and the wood laid in order upon it ; Abraham then bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood, and stretching forth his hand, he took the knife to slay his son. But the angel of the Lord caller k unto him out of heaven, and said, "Abraham, Abraham, lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him, for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy eon, thine only son, from me." Abraham, on lifting up his eyes, bo- held " a ram caught in a thicket by his horns, and he took the rarn and offered him up for a burnt-offering in the stead of his son." 4s a reward for his obejienct, God once more renewed his cove- 88 SCRIPTUKE HISTORY. CHAP. II. nant with his posterity, and for the first time confirmed it with an oath. "By myself have I sworn, saith the Lord, that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand upon the sea-shore. And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice." Abraham then returned with Isaac jnto his young men, and went back to his dwelling-place at Beer- jheba (Gen. xxii. 1-19). After this twelve years passed away, during which Abraham must have removed from Beer-sheba to his old home at Hebron. There Sarah died, at the age of one hundred and twenty-seven. After mourning for her, the patriarch bought for four hundred shek- els of silver, of Ephron, one of the sons of Heth, the cave of Mach- jielah (or the Double Cave) as a burying-place, close to the oak of Mamre, with the field in which it stood" (Gen. xxiii. 16-20). Here he buried Sarah ; here he was himself buried by his sons Isaac and Ishmael; here they buried Isaac and Rebecca his wife, Jacob and his wife Leah, and it formed, perhaps, the final resting- place of the bones of Joseph. The sepulchre still exists under the mosque of Hebron, and was first permitted to be seen by Europe- ans, since the Crusades, when it was visited by the Prince of Wales in 1862. After the burial of Sarah, Abraham returned to Beer-sheba. His last care was for the marriage of his son Isaac to a wife of his own kindred, and not to one of the daughters of the Canaanites. Calling to him "the oldest servant of his house," he made him "swear by the Lord, the God of heaven and earth," not to take a wife for his son of the daughters of the Canaanites among whom he dwelt, but to go unto his own country and kindred, and take a wife unto his son Isaac. The servant set forth on his journey to Haran, in Mesopotamia, where Abraham sixty-five years before had dwelt with his father Terah, and where his brother Nahor had settled. It was towards evening when he reached the place of his destina- tion. "O Lord God of my master Abraham," he prayed, "send me good speed this day, and show kindness unto my master." And he asked the Lord to point out by a certain sign the person he sought. He was yet speaking when Rebekah, the daughter of Bethuel, son of Nahor, Abraham's brother, came out to draw water from the well. She had filled her pitcher and was returning, when Abraham's servant met her, and said, "Let me, I pray thee, drink a little water of thy pitcher." "Drink, my lord," she said. She afterwards gave his camels water. The servant then gave her a golden ear-ring and two bracelets of gold, asking her at the same time whose daughter she was. When he found that she was the B.C. 2348-1822. DEATH OF ABRAHAM. 39 7ery person that he had come to seek, the man bowed down hig head and worshipped the Lord. "Blessed be the Lord God of my master Abraham," he said, "who hath led me to the house of my master's brethren." Rebekah had a brother named Laban, who went out to the well to meet the man, and asked him to his house. There the servant quickly told his errand. As, there were evident traces of God's guidance in the matter, Bethuel soon consented to let his daughter go, and the next morning they sent away Rebekah and her nurse mounted on camels, with Abraham's sen-ant and his men, blessing her and saying to her, "Be thou the mother of thou- sands of millions, and let thy seed possess the gate of those which hate them." It was even-tide when they drew near to the tent of Isaac, who dwelt by the well of Lahai-roi, in the extreme south of Palestine. He had gone forth into the field to meditate ; on lift- ing up his eyes he saw the camels coming, and went at once to meet them. When Rebekah saw Isaac, she dismounted from her camel and covered herself with a veil. On learning from the serv- ant all the things that he had done, Isaac " took her to his mother's tent, and she became his wife. And he loved her, and was com- forted after his mother's death " (Gen. xxiv. 1-67) Soon after Isaac's marriage, Abraham took another wife, whose name was Keturah. By her he had six sons, who became the founders of Arabian tribes. During his lifetime, however, he en- riched them all with presents, and sent them away, like Ishmacl, to dwell eastward of Beer-sheba, lest any of them should settle in the land of Canaan and dispute the destined inheritance of his son Isaac. To him Abraham gave all his great wealth, and died, ap- parently at Beer-sheba, "in ft good old age, an old man arid full of years," his age being one hundred and seventy-five. His sons Isaac and Ishmael met at his funeral, and buried him in the cave of Machpelah, by the side of Sarah his wife (Gen. xxv. 1-10). The events in Abraham's life which rendered this patriarch most remarkable were, (1) his obedience to the command of God in leav- ing his native country ; (2) his believing that he should possess the land of Canaan, and be the father of a great nation ; and (3) his offering up his son Isaac. Abraham was the father of the faith- ful: his character was fully displayed in his faith. The Almighty ieigned to be called the God of Abraham ; and in this designation our Lord found one of his proofs of the resurrection of the dead. 40 SCRIPTURE HISTORY. CHAP. 1L NOTE ON THE DISPERSION OF THE NATIONS. (Genesis x.) THE three races descended from the three sons of Noah were distributed :u the following mariner : 1. The territories of JAPIIETH lie chiefly on the coasts of the Mediter- ranean, in Europe and Asia Minor, " the isles of the Gentiles ;" but they also reach across Armenia and along the north-eastern edge of the Tigris and Euphrates valley, over Media and Persia. The race spread westward and northward over Europe, and at the other end as far as India, embrac- ing the great Indo-European family of languages. This wide diffusion was prophetically indicated by the very name, Japheth (enlarged), and by the blessing of his father Noah (Gen. ix. 27). Among his children, Javan is, in its old Hebrew form, the same word as the Greek Ion; and of his progeny, Tarshish is probably identified with the people of southern Spain, Madai probably represents the Medes, and Owner the Cimmerians. 2. The race of SHEM occupied the gonth-western corner of Asia, includ- ing the peniusula of Arabia. Of his five sons. Arphaxad is the progenitor both of the Hebrews and of the Arabs and other kindred tribes, whose ori- pu is recorded iu the book of Gene- sis. North of them were the children of Aram (which signifies high), in the highlands of Syria and Mesopotamia. Asshur evidently represents Assyria-, and the eastern and western extremi- ties were occupied by the well-knowi: nations of the Elymaeans (children of Elam), on the south-eastern margin of the valley of the Tigris, and the Lydians (children of Lud), in Asia Minor. 3. The race of HAM (the swarthy, according to the most probable ety- mology) had their chief seat in Afri- ca, but they are also found mingled with the Semitic races on the shores of Arabia, and on the Tigris and Eu- phrates; while on the north they extended into Palestine (the laud of the Philistines), Asia Minor, and the larger islands, as Crete and Cyprus. In Africa, Mizraim is most certainly identified with Egypt ; Cuh with Ethiopia, above Egypt ; and Phvi probably with the inland peoples to the west. Among the sons of Mizra- im, the Lubim correspond to Libya; and those of Cush represent tribes which crossed the Red Sea and spread along the southern and eastern shorea of Arabia, up the Persian Gulf and tha valley of the Tigris and Euphrates. The town and rallcy of NiMus, tho ancient Bhechem. The mountain on tho right is EbaJ; that on tho left Is Gerizim. CHAPTER III. FROM THE DEATH OP ABRAHAM TO THE DEATH OF JOSEPH. B.C. 1 822-1 G35. FOR nearly twenty years Rebekah continued barren. At length through the prayers of Isaac, she became a mother, and brought forth twin sons, ESAU (hairy), and JACOB (the su/iplanter}. When the boys grew np, the former became " a cunning hunter, a man of the field," and a favorite of his father ; while the latter, who was " a plain and quiet man dwelling in tents," was his mother's favor- ite. One day Esau, returning from hunting in a famished state, *M\V Jacob preparing red pottage of lentils, and quickly nskcd for omc. Jacob seized the occasion to obtain Esau's birthright as tho 42 SCRIPTURE HISTORY. CHAP. III. price of the meal. " Never surely was there any meat, except the forbidden fruit, bought so dearly." Esau consented so readily, that it is regarded in the sacred narrative as a proof that " he de- spised his birthright " (Gen. xxv. 34). For this the Apostle (Heb. xii. 16) calls him "a profane person, who for one morsel of food sold his birthright." The justice of this judgment will appear if we consider that Esau was by right of birth not only the head of his own family, its prophet, priest, and king, but also the head of the chosen family, thus inheriting the blessing of Abraham, that "in his seed all families of the earth should be blessed." In de- spising his birthright he thus put himself out of the sacred family, and so became a profane person. Soon after this, Isaac was driven from Lahai-roi by a famine, and went down to "Abimelech, king of the Philistines, into Gerar." There the Lord appeared unto him, and said, " Go not down into Egypt : sojourn in this land, and I will be with thee and bless thee." At the same time all the promises were renewed to him that had been made to Abraham. While he was at Gerar, he practised the same deceit of which his father had been guilty, by giving out that his wife was his sister. The king, having acci- dentally discovered that Rebekah was his wife, sent for him, and, after pointing out the consequences that might have ensued, he " charged all his people, saying, He that toucheth this man or his wife shall surely be put to death." This is the first instance on record of a king holding the pbwer of life and death (Gen. xxvi. 1-11). The tranquil course of Isaac's life, which presents a marked con- trast to the varied incidents of Abraham's career, was vexed by the disobedience of his son Esau, who at the age of forty married two Hittite wives, thus introducing heathen alliances into the chosen family (Gen. xxvi. 34). When Isaac grew old, and his eyes, dim with age, warned him of the near approach of death, he was anx- ious to perform the solemn act by which he was to hand down the blessing of Abraham to another generation. Calling to him Esau, his eldest son, he said, "Take, I pray thee, thy weapons, thy quiver and thy bow, and go out to the field, and take me some venison ; and make me savory meat, and bring it to me, that I may eat ; that my soul may bless thee before I die." While Esau was gone out to the field to hunt for venison, Rebekah spake unto Jacob her son, and said, " Go now to the flock, and fetch me from thence two good kids of the goats ; and I will make them savory meat for thy father, such as he loveth : and thou shalt bring it to him, that he may bless thee before his death." Jacob replied, "Esau my broth- er is a hairy man, and I am a smooth man : my father will per- B.C. 1822-1G35. JACOB'S DREAM. 43 Tjaps feel me, and I shall seem to him as a deceiver, and shall bring a curse upon me, and not a blessing." His mother answered, " Upon me be thy curse, my son : only obey my voice, and go and fetch them." In this way Rebekah came to the aid of her favorite son, and devised the stratagem by which Jacob supplanted Esau, and having previously taken away his birthright, he now took away Esau's blessing also (Gen. xxvii. 1-29). Esau, we are told, hated Jacob " because of the blessing where- with his father blessed him," and said in his heart, "The days of mourning for my father are at hand ; then will I slay my brother Jacob." When these words of her elder son were reported to Rebekah, she was greatly alarmed. Having sent for Jacob, she told him to go and stay for a little while with Laban, her brother, in Haran, until Esau's fury was over. Concealing her principal reason for sending him away, she said to Isaac that it would be a trouble to her if Jacob were to marry one of the daughters of Heth, as Esau had done. Isaac then called Jacob, and said unto him, " Thou shall not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan. Arise, go to Padan-aram, to the house of Bethuel, thy mother's father; and take thee a wife from thence of the daughters of Laban, thy mother's brother. And God Almighty bless thee, and multiply thee, and give thee the blessing of Abraham, to thee and to thy seed after thee ; that thou mayest inherit the land wherein thou art ft stranger, which God gave unto Abraham." And so the heir of the promises went on his long journey to Mesopotamia, as a solitary wanderer, with nothing but the staff he carried, along the self-same road by which Abraham had first entered Canaan after the death of his father Terah. Proceeding northward on his way to Haran, lie lighted upon a place near Luz, the site, doubtless, of Abram's second halting-place in the Holy Land, where he found some stones, one of which he made his pillow, and then lay down to sleep. Thus forlorn, he was visited by God ; and in a dream he saw a ladder, one end of which rested upon the earth, and the other reached to heaven, " and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it.'' And the Lord himself appeared to him, and stood above ft, and his voico added to the renewal of the covenant made with A.brabam and with Isaac, a special promise of protection to Jacob: 1 Behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land." When Jacob awoke out of his sleep, he exclaimed, "How dreadful is this place! this is none other but the house of God, this is the gate of heaven." And he called the name of the place BETH-EL (the house of God). He then dedicated himself to God and the tenth of all that God should give him (Gen. xxviii. 1-22). This, the 44 SCRIPTURE HISTORY. CHAP. III. turning-point in Jacob's religions life, took place in his seventy, seventh year. Jacob then went on his journey, and at length arrived at Haran. There he witnessed a repetition of the pastoral scene which Abra. ham's servant had seen at the same place about a century before. Rachel, the daughter of his uncle Laban, comes with her father's sheep to the well, just as her aunt Rehekah had done, and brings him to the house. There Jacob tol t Laban what his object was in coming to him, and at the end of a month it was agreed between them that Jacob should serve him seven vears in tending his flocks, and as a recompense Laban agreed to jjive him his younger daugh- ter Rachel for wife. "And Jacob served seven years for Rachel; and they seemed unto him but a few diiys, for the lovo he had to her." At the end of this time he claimed his bride. Laban then, by a trick rendered easy by the forms of an Eastern wedding, where the bride is closely veiled, gave him Leah in place of Rachel, and afterwards excused his deceit by saying, " In our country, we must not give the younger before the elder," but he gave Jacob Rachel also, on condition of his serving with him seven more years (Gen. xxix. 1-30). Jacob felt very differently towards his two wives: Rachel he loved deeply, but Leah he disliked (Gen. xxix. 31). She, how- ever, bore him four sons, Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah, while her sister Rachel was for a long time childless. In grief for her barrenness, she gave her handmaid Bilhah to Jacob (as Sarah had given Hagar to Abraham) by whom he had two sons, Dan and Naphtali. Leah also gave her maid Zilpah to Jacob, who bore him two sons, Gad and Asher. Leah afterwards had her fifth son, Issa- char, and then a sixth, whom she named Zebulun. Her last child was a daughter called Dinah (Gen. xxx. 21.) The prayers of Ra- chel being at length heard, she became the mother of a son, and said, "God hath taken away my reproach : and she called his name Joseph " (adding}. During the fourteen years that Jacob served Laban he had by his two wives and their two handmaids eleven sons and one daughter. At the end of this time he wished to pro- Tide for his own house, and to return to his own country (Gen sxx. 25) ; and he requested his uncle to let him go. Laban, how ever, begged him to remnin with him, for he said, "I have learned by experience that the Lord hath blessed me for thy sake." Jacob agreed to do so, on the condition that all the dark sheep, and all the spotted cattle and goats, hereafter born in the flocks under his care, should belong to him in payment of his services. Jacob's artifice to make the most of his bargain (Gen. xxx. 37-42) succeed- ed so well, that his flocks throve greatly, while Laban's dwindled B.C. 1822-1635. JACOB'S ESCAPE FROM LABAN. 45 away. His prosperity began to excite the envy of Laban and of his sons, when " the Lord said unto Jacob, Return unto the land of thy fathers, and of thy kindred ; and I will be with thee " (Gen. xxxi. 3). After sending for his wives into the field, and laying the matter before them, he resolved to leave Laban. Setting his sons and his wives upon camels, and carrying away all that he had gotten in Padan-aram, he hastily set out for the land of Canaan, after twenty years spent in Laban's service fourteen for his wives and six for his cattle. Having passed the Euphrates, he struck across the desert by the great fountain of Palmyra, then traversed the eastern part of the plain of Damascus, and entered Gilead the range of mountains east of the Jordan, forming the frontier between Palestine and the Syrian desert. Jacob must have fled swiftly to have accomplished in ten days this journey of two hundred and fifty miles from Haran. But when Laban heard of his flight, he must have pursued him with even greater haste. Calling his kindred together, he set out after him, and overtook him in seven days (Gen. xxxi. 23), in Mount Gilead ; his anger for the loss of his daughters, carried away "like captives taken with the sword," being increased by the loss of his household gods (teraphim), which Rachel had secretly stolen. Ja- cob, ignorant of Rachel's theft, desired Laban to make a strict search for them, which he did in the different tents, but unsuccess- fully, as they were craftily concealed by Rachel. Laban, having been forewarned by God not to injure Jacob, then made a covenant with his son-in-law. Jacob took a tall stone and set it up for a pillar, and the rest collected large stones and made a heap, and " they did eat there upon the heap," which was called Galeed (the heap of witness). The heap of stones erected by the two tribes of Jacob and Laban as a boundary between them, "marked that the natural limit of the range of Gilead should be their actual limit also." Early in the morning Laban rose up, and, after kissing his sons and daughters and blessing them, he departed. Jacob also went on his way, and, to encourage him, his eyes were opened to see a troop of angels, " the host of God," sent for his protection. In the land to which Jacob was returning his first danger would be from the revenge of Esau, who had now become powerful in Mount Seir, the land cf Edom. Jacob sent messengers, therefore, before him, to acquaint his brother of his approach, and of the pros- perity that had attended him during his sojourn in Mesopotamia. His messengers returned, and told him, "Thy brother Esau cometh to meet thee with four hundred men." Well might Jacob distrust his purpose ; for, though such a retinue might be meant to do him honor, it might also be designed to insure revenge. "Then Jacoh 46 SCRIPTURE HISTORY. CHAP. III. was greatly afraid and distressed." Having divided his people and his herds into two bands, that if the first were smitten the second might escape, he turned to God in prayer. This is the first prayer on record ; nor could there be a finer model for a special prayer. To prayer he adds prudence, and sends forward present after pres- ent to win his brother's heart "Two hundred she-goats, twenty he-goats, two hundred ewes, twenty rams, thirty milch-camels with their colts, forty cows, ten bulls, twenty she-asses, and ten foals." This done, he rested for a while ; but in the night he arose and sent forward his two wives, his two women-servants, and his eleven sons, across the Jabbok, while he himself remained alone at Mahanaim t* prepare his mind for the coming trial. It was then that "a man* appeared and wrestled with him till break of day. This "man' was the "angel Jehovah." For a while He prevailed not against him, but at last the angel touched the hollow of Jacob's thigh and put it out of joint, when the sinew instantly shrank. "Let me go, he said, for the day breaketh. I will not let thee go, Jacob re- plied, except thou bless me." "Thy name shall no more be call- ed Jacob, he said, but ISRAEL (a prince of God), as a sign that thou hast power with God and with men." Well knowing with whom he had to do, Jacob called the name of the place Peniei {the face of God), "for, he said, I have seen God face to face, and my life ia preserved " (Gen. xxxii. 1-32). Jacob now proceeded on his way, and overtook his family. Soon Esau and his men came in sight. Advancing before all his com- pany, Jacob then went to meet him, bowing himself to the ground seven times until he came near to his brother. "And Esau ran to meet him, and fell on his neck and kissed him : and they wept." Jacob then pressed Esau to accept the presents he had sent for- ward for him, which he reluctantly consented to do. After a cor- dial interview they separated ; Esau went back to Mount Seir, and Jacob pursued his journey westward, and halted at Succoth. Soon afterwards he crossed the Jordan and arrived at Shechem, a city so called after Shechem, the son of Hatnor, prince of the Amorites. From them he bought for one hundred lambs the field where he had pL ched his tent ; and he erected there an altar to God, as the giver of his new name " God the God of Israel" (El-elohe-Israel) This piece of ground, with the exception of the cave of Machpelah, was the first possession of the chosen family in the land of Canaan (Gen. xxxiii. 1-20). The memory of Jacob's abode there is still preserved by "Jacob's well," on the margin of which his divine Son taught the woman of Sychar (Shechem) a better worship than that of sacred places. At Shechem Jacob lived about seven .years, when he became in- B.C. 1822-1635. DEATH OF ISAAC. ^ 47 volved in a conflict with the Shechemites. His daughter Dinah having been carried off by Shechein the son of Hamor, his sons Simeon and Levi treacherously revenged the wrong done to their sister by putting to death Hamor and Shechem and their people, and ravaging the city. To avoid the revenge of the Canaanites, Jacob deemed it prudent to withdraw from Shechem, and by the command of God he returned to Beth-el. There he fulfilled the vows which he had made many years before, when he had fled from home to escape the enmity of his brother Esau (Gen. xxviii. 16-22). There he built an altar to the Lord, and God appeared to him again (Gen. xxxv. 9), and renewed with him the Covenant made with Abraham. There Deborah, his mother Rebekah's nurse, died and was buried beneath the "oak of weeping" (Allon-bachutfi). Jacob did not stay long at Beth-el, but journeyed southward on his way to visit his father at Mamre, near Hebron. Not far from Eph- rath, the ancient name of Bethlehem, Rachel died in giving birth to Jacob's youngest son. The dying mother called him BENONI (son of my sorrow), but the fond father changed his name to BEN-JAMIN (son of the right hand) (Gen. xxxv. 16-18). Soon quitting this melancholy place, he went forward, and at length reached the en- campment of his father Isaac at the old station beside Hebron, " where Abraham and Isaac sojourned." It does not appear that Jacob had seen him from the time that he went to Padan-aram, some thirty years before, until now. They spent the next thirteen years together, when Isaac died at the age of one hundred and eighty. His sons Esau and Jacob buried him in the cave of Mach- pelah, with Abraham and Sarah (Gen. xxxv. 28, 29). Esau then returned to Mount Seir, and became the founder of the Edomites or MUIIKI an nation, and Jacob remained at Mamre (Gen. xxxvi. 8,9).' The story of Joseph and his brethren, which the sacred writer now relates, may safely be called the most charming in all history. As the first-born son of his beloved Rachel, and the son of his old age, "Israel loved Joseph more than all his children." He gave him "a coat of many colors ;" but his partiality awoke the jealousy of his other sons, and they " hated Joseph, and could not speak 1 The following is the list of Jacob's twelve sons by his two wives and their two handmaids, with the significance of their names : i. The song of Leah : Renbeu (ee ! a son), Simeon (hearing), Levi (joined), Jadah (praise), Issachar (hire), Zebnlun (dwelling). ii. The eons of Rachel : Joseph (adding), Benjamin (son of the, right hand). III. The sons otBilhah, Rachel's handmaid : Dan (judging), Naphthali (my wrestling). iv. The sons of Zilpah, Leah's handmaid : Gad (a troop), Asher (hajrpy). Besides Dinah (judgment), the daughter of Leah. Gen. xxxv. 23-26. 48. SCRIPTURE HISTORY. CHAP. III. peaceably unto him." Their hatred was increased after Joseph had told them two dreams which he had dreamed. In the first, his brothers' sheaves of corn bowed down to his, which stood upright in their midst; and in the second, "behold the sun, and the moon, and the eleven stars made obeisance " to him. His father rebuked him for repeating these dreams, and said, " Shall I, and thy mother, and thy brethren, indeed come to bow down ourselves to thee to the aartli ?" _ Jacob was at this time at Hebron, while his sons fed his flocks wherever they could find pasture ; Joseph being sometimes with them, and sometimes with his father. On one occasion he was sent from Hebron to Shechem, where the field lay which Jacob had purchased, and probably afterwards recovered, from the Amorites, to inquire after his brethren and the flocks. Finding that they had gone farther north to Dothan, he went after them ; but as soon as they saw him coming they conspired to kill him. " They said -one to another, Behold this dreamer cometh. Come now, let us slay him, and cast him into some pit, and we will say some evil beast hath devoured him. Then we shall see what will become of his dreams." His life was saved by Reuben, who said, " Let us not kill him," and he persuaded them to cast him into an empty pit, whence he intended to take him and restore him to his father. When Joseph came to them, they stripped him of his tunic "of many colors," and having cast him into the pit, they coolly sat down to eat bread. Just then an Arab caravan a company of Ishmael- ite8 were seen on the road which leads from Gilead through Do- than to Egypt, carrying to that country on their camels the spices, and balm, and myrrh of the Syrian desert. As such traders were always ready to buy up slaves on their way, Judah suggested, dur- ing the absence of Reuben, that they might now get rid of their brother without the guilt of murder, and he proposed that he should be sold to the Ishmaelites. "And his brethren were content." When the Midianites came near they took Joseph out of the pit and sold him to them for twenty shekels of silver ; the very sum which afterwards, under the Law, was set as the value of a male from five to twenty years old a type of the sale of Him " whom the children of Israel did value " (Matt, xxvii. 9). Reuben returned to the pit ; but not finding his brother there, he was greatly grieved, and rent his clothes. To deceive their father, his brothers then took Joseph's tunic, and having dipped it in a kid's blood, they carried it back to Jacob. As soon as he saw it he knew it, and said, " It is my son's coat ; a wild beast hath, no doubt, torn him in pieces." With guilty consciences they pretended to com- fort their father, but he refused to be comforted, and said, " I will B.C. 1822-1635. HISTORY OF JOSEPH. 49 go down into the grave unto my son mourning" (Gen. xxxvii. 1-35). Meanwhile the Ishmaelite merchants carried Joseph down into Egypt, and sold him as a slave toPoxiPHAK, "an officer of Pharaoh and captain of the guard." Here Joseph served his master with so much fidelity that he quickly gained his confidence, when Potiphar made him steward over his household, and over all that ho had. " And the Lord blessed the Egyptian's house for Joseph's sake." Joseph being "a goodly person and well-favored," his youthful beauty exposed him to a great temptation from his master's wife, which, however, he was enabled to withstand. In revenge for this slight, she made a false charge against Joseph and procured his dis- grace, stirring up the wrath of her husband against him, who put him into the state prison. This imprisonment lasted probably eight or nine years ; and we gather from the words of the Psalmist (Psalm*" *"\ cv. 17, 18), that his treatment was at first severe; "Whose feet "^ they hurt with fetters; the iron entered into his soul." But the same blessing that had raised him in the house of Potiphar followed him in the prison, the keeper of which gave him the entire charge of the other prisoners, " because the Lord was with him, and that which he did, the Lord made it to prosper " (Gen. xxxix. 1-23). It happened that the chief of the cup-bearers and the chief of the cooks" of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, gave some offense to their master, for which they were cast into prison, and committed to the charge of Joseph. One morning when he looked upon them he per- ceived that they were very sad, and, on inquiring the cause, they replied, "We have dreamed a dream, and there is no interpreter of it." After reminding them that the interpretation of dreams be- longed to God, he then interpreted their dreams, which forewarned them of their fate. Joseph told the chief cup-bearer that his dream signified that in three days Pharaoh would restore him to his office ; and to the chief of the cooks he predicted that within three days he would be hanged. His words came true ; but al- though he had asked the chief cup-bearer to think on him and in- tercede witli Pharaoh for his release from prison, yet "did not he remember him, but forgat him " (Gen. xl. 1-23). After this two years passed away, when Pharaoh was disturbed by dreams which none of the wise men of Ejjypt were able to in- terpret. Then the chief cup-bearer told the king of Joseph's skill, and he was hastily sent for out of prison, and brought into the pres-. ence of Pharaoh. After Joseph had told Pharaoh that the power of interpreting dreams was only in God who had sent them, the 1 The terms chief butler and chief baker, in our version, are misleadim; as to their dignity. D 50 SCRIPTURE HISTORY. CHAP. Ill king related his dreams, which Joseph proceeded to interpret. " In my dream," said Pharaoh, " behold I stood upon the bank of the river (Nile). And I saw seven fat and beautiful heifers come up out of the river, and feed on the marsh grass by its banks ; then seven of the leanest and most ill-looking heifers I had ever seen came up after them, and devoured the others." In his second dream, he saw seven full ears of corn devoured by seven that were thin and blasted. Joseph explained to the king that the dream had been twofold, to mark its certain and speedy fulfillment ; that the seven heifers and the seven ears of corn had the same mean- ing ; and that God had taken this way of showing to the king what He was about to do. The seven fat heifers and the seven full ears denoted seven years of great abundance, which nevertheless should be forgotten by reason of the severity of the famine which should come in the next seven years after them, denoted by the lean and ill-looking heifers, and the blasted ears of corn. He then advised Pharaoh to appoint a wise and discreet minister over his whole kingdom, who should send officers into every part of the land to store up a fifth part of all the corn of the seven years of plenty against the seven years of famine. "And the thing was good in the eyes of Pharaoh and of all his servants." Can we find another man like this, said the king, in whom is the Spirit of God ? Feel- ing that no man could be more fit for the office than Joseph him- self, he said to him, "See, I have set thee over all the land of Egypt." He then took off his own signet-ring and gave, it to him. Clothing him with fine linen robes and putting a collar of gold round his neck, he seated him in the second royal chariot, before which the people were bidden to fall prostrate. Thus Joseph was made ruler over all the land of Egypt, with authority next to that of the king himself. Pharaoh changed his name to ZAPHNATH- PAANEAH, which perhaps signified, in Egyptian, the preserver of life, and gave him for wife Asenath, the daughter of Potipherah, priest (or prince) of On, who bore him two sons during the seven years of plenty. The elder he named MANASSKH (forgetting), and the younger EPHRAIM (double fruitfulness). Joseph was thirty years old when he was made governor over all Egypt (Gen. xli. 46). The first thing he did was to go through the country. During his progress, he gave instructions for granaries to be built in the principal cities, and appointed officers whom he charged with the duty of buying up one-fifth of the produce of the land during the seven years of plenty, and storing it away for use during the years of famine. When the seven years of dearth began to come, the Egyptians quickly used up their private stores. Joseph then opened all the store-houses and sold corn to them ; and as tlm B.C. 1822-1635. HISTORY OF JOSEPH. 51 famine was sore in all the neighboring countries, people from Ca- naan, and the nations round about, went down into Egypt to buy corn (Gen. xli. 47-57). These seven years of famine had the most important bearing on the chosen family of Israel. When all the corn in Canaan was gone, Jacob sent down ten of his sons into Egypt to buy corn there ; but Benjamin, Joseph's brother, he sent not with them, "lest mis- chief should befall him." Probably he was unwilling to trust; Rachel's remaining child with his brethren. When Joseph saw them, he knew them, but they knew not him. He spake roughly to them, and charged them with being spies, come down to see the nakedness of the land. To test their truthfulness, he at first de- manded that one of them should be sent to fetch their youngest brother ; but, after keeping them three days in prison, he changed his mind, and said, " Let one of your number remain as a hostage, and let the rest return with the corn you have purchased for your houses, but bring your youngest brother back with you to verify your words." Then his brethren remembered the crime which they had committed in selling Joseph into slavery, and they said one to another, " We are verily guilty concerning our brother, therefore is this distress come upon us." Joseph then, having taken Simeon and bound him before their eyes, commanded his servants to fill their sacks with corn, to restore every mnn's money into his sack, and to give them provision for the way, and afterwards they departed. They returned unto their father in the land of Canaan, and told him all that had befallen them. When they emptied their sacks, they found every man's bundle of money in his sack, and were afraid. They asked their father to intrust Benjamin to their care ; but he replied, " Me have ye bereaved of my children ; Joseph is not, and Simeon 4 s not, and ye will take Benjamin away. All these things are against me." "My father," said Reuben, "slay my two sons if I bring him not to thee ; deliver him into my hand, and I will bring him to thee again." "No," said Jacob, "my son shall not go down with you ; for his brother is dead, and he is left alone : if mischief befall him by the way in the which ye go, then shall ye bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave ' <.Gen. xlii. 1-38). The famine, however, was sore in the land of Canaan. When they had eaten up the corn which they had brought out of Egypt, their father said to them, " Go again, buy us a little food." " If thou wilt send our brother with us," said Judah, " we will go down and buy thee food ; but if thou wilt not send him, we will not go down, for the man said unto us, Ye shall not see my face except your brother be wit> you." " Why dealt ye so ill with me," Israel 52 SCRIPTURE HISTORY. CHAP. III. said, "as to tell the man whether ye had yet a brother?" At length their father consented. "If it must be so now," he said. " do this ; take of the best fruits in the land, and carry down the man a present, a little balm, and a little honey, spices and myrrh, nuts and almonds. Take double money in your hand, and the money that was brought back in the mouth of your sacks perad- venture it was an oversight. Take also your brother, and go again unto the man. And may God Almighty give you grace before the man that he may send away your other brother and Benjamin. If I be bereaved of my children, I am bereaved." And the men returned to Egypt and stood before Joseph. As soon as he saw Benjamin with them, he said to the ruler of his bouse, " Bring these men home and make ready, for these men shall dine with me at noon." At first they were afraid ; but their fears were soon dispelled, and Simeon was brought out to them. When Joseph came home, they made obeisance to him, and pro- duced the presents they had brought with them. He asked them of their welfare, and said, " Is your father well, the old man of whom ye spake? Is he yet alive ?" He then saw his brother Benjamin, his mother's son, and said, "Is this your younger broth- er, of whom ye spake unto me ? God be gracious unto thee, my son." His yearning fondness for his brother moved him to tears, and he entered into his chamber and wept there. Then their din- ner was served to each at separate tables, at which they were ar- ranged strictly in accordance with their several ages. But Benja- min's mess was five times as much as any of theirs (Gen. xliii.). Desirous of putting them to one more trial, Joseph commanded the steward of his house to fill the men's sacks with food, to put every man's money in his sack's mouth, and to put his silver cup in the sack's mouth of the youngest. His orders were executed ; and in the morning, as soon as it was light, the men were sent away. They had not gone far from the city when Joseph said to his steward, " Up, follow after the men, and say, Why have ye re- warded evil for good ? The cup you have stolen is one in which my lord urinketh, and whereby he divineth. " " God forbid," they replied, " that thy servants should do this thing. With whomsoever it shall be found, let him die, and we also will become thy lord's bondmen." The cup was found in Benjamin's sack. At once they rent their clothes and returned to the city. Judah and his brethren made their way to Joseph's house and fell before him on the ground. "What shall we say unto my lord?" he said. " How shall we clear ourselves ? Behold we are all my lord's sen-- ants." "God forbid that I should do so," said Joseph. " The man in whose hand tae cup is fouud, he shall be my servant." B.C. 1822-1635. JACOB SENT FOR BY JOSEPH. 53 Then Judah came near to him, and with most moving eloquence told his artless talc, offering to become a bondman instead of Benjamin, and pleading with unequalled earnestness and filial af- fection that the lad might be sent back to his father. " It shall come to pass," he said, " that, as his life is bound up in the lad's life, when he seeth that the lad is not with us, he will die ; and thy servants shall bring, down the gray hairs of our father with sorrow to the grave " (Gen. xliv.). Joseph was unable to resist this touching appeal. He could not refrain himself, but wept aloud, and said unto his brethren, " I am Joseph. Doth my father yet live ?" They could not answer him, for they were troubled at his presence. But no word of upbraid- ing or of reproach fell from his lips. " Be not grieved or angry with yourselves," he said, " that ye sold me hither. It was not you that sent me hither, but God. Hasten back to my father, and say unto him, Thus saith thy son Joseph, God hath made me lord of all Egypt : come down unto me, tarry not. And thou shall dwell in the land of Goshen, and be near unto me." Then he fell upon his brother Benjamin's neck and wept, and Benjamin wept upon his neck. Moreover, he kissed all his brethren, and wept upon them. It was soon known in Pharaoh's house that Joseph's brethren were come ; and the king and his servants were glad. Joseph then sent wagons for his father and his household, with rich presents, and to all his brethren he gave changes of raiment. And they returned to the land of Canaan, and said to their father, " Joseph is yet alive, and he is governor over all the land of Egypt." But Jacob's heart fainted, for he believed them not at first, until he had seen the wagons sent for 1 him, and then his spirit revived, and he said, " It is enough, Joseph my son is yet alive. I will go and see him before I die " (Gen. xlv.). Though at that time about one hundred and thirty years old, Jacob's eager desire to see the son for whom he had so long mourned induced him to go down at once, with all that he had. into Egypt. On his way, he rested at Beer-sheba, and offered sac rifices unto the God of hi3 father Isaac. There God encouraged him by a vision, commanding him to go down, and promising to bring him up again in the person of his descendants, and assuring him that his eyes should be closed by Joseph (Gen. xlvi. 4). So he went down, with his sons and their wives and children, and all their cattle. The number of his own descendants who went down with him into Egypt was sixty-six; to these must be added Jacob himself, with Joseph and his two sons. Thus "all the souls of the house of Jacob which cnme with him into Egypt were three- score and ten " (Gen. xlvi. 27). 64 SCRIPTURE HISTORY. CHAP. Ill Just before reaching the land of Goshen a province on the ex- treme frontier of Egypt, towards Canaan Jacob sent Judah on in advance, to acquaint Joseph with his arrival. Joseph immediately went to meet his father ; and when he saw him he fell on his neck, and wept on his neck a good while. "Now," said Israel, "let me die, since I have seen thy face, because thou art yet alive ' (Gen. xlvi. 30). Joseph then went and told Pharaoh that his fa- ther and his brethren had come out of the land of Canaan, and he presented five of them to him. The king, when he found that they were shepherds, a class held in abomination by the Egyptians, gare them for their separate abode the land of Goshen, which was the best pasture-ground in all Egypt. Joseph then brought his father into the presence of Pharaoh, and "Jacob blessed Pharaoh.'' "How old art thou?" said the king to him. "The days of my pilgrimage," he answered, "are one hundred and thirty years: few and evil have the days of the years of my life been, nor have they attained to the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage'' (Gen. xlvii. 9). These words furnish a testimony to the gradual decline of human life, and are a mem- orable example of how the patriarchs confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth (Heb. xi. 13). The removal of the chosen family from Canaan, and their settle- ment in Egypt, formed a part of the great plan which God had un- folded to their forefather Abraham (Gen. xv. 13). Two hundred years had passed away since God had said, " Unto thy seed will 1 give this land," and as yet they had no possessions in the land of Canaan. In Egypt, under the discipline of affliction, the family was to be consolidated into a nation. Then God's words would meet with their fulfillment, and the Israelites would enter on the possession of their promised inheritance. After dwelling in the land of Goshen for seventeen vears in com- fort and prosperity, "the time drew nigh that Israel must die." As his end npproachetl, he sent for Joseph, and made him swear that he would not bury him in Egypt, but would take him to the Promised Land, and " bury him in the burying-placc of his fathers,' 1 in the cave of Machpelah. In thanksgiving to God for the mercies vouchsafed to him during a troubled life, and for the solemn assur- ance given to him by his son that he should be "gathered to his fathers," Israel bowed himself upon the bed's head (Gen. xlvii. 31) and worshipped (Heb. xi. 21). Not long afterwards Joseph heard that his father was sick, and went with his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, to visit him. When Jacob heard that he was come, his strength revived, and he got up in his bed to receive him. 1 The dying patriarch claimed B.C. 1822-1635. DEATH OF JACOB. 55 Ephraim and Manasseh for his own children, and henceforth they \ were numbered among the heads of the tribes of Israel. HiS"^ thoughts then went back to the glorious promises God had once made to him at the crisis of his religious life, when he lay down to rest a forlorn wanderer at Luz (Bethel)! And then they turned to the death of his beloved Rachel on his return from Padan, and to her burial near Ephrath (Bethlehem). His eyes being dim from age, he did not at first see Joseph's two sons ; but when they were brought near to him, ho kissed them and embraced them, fondly saying to Joseph, " I had not thought to see thy face ; and, lo, God hath showed me thy seed also" (Gen. xlviii. 11). Joseph, having received his father's blessing, then took his two sons, and, bowing himself with his face to the earth, placed Manasseh the elder at Ja- cob's right hand and Ephraim the younger at his left. Jacob, how- ever, crossing his arms, laid his right hand upon the younger, and his left upon the elder, and, disregarding Joseph's opposition, he gave the larger and nobler blessing to Ephraim the younger. " Tru- ly." said he, " the younger brother shall be greater than the elder, and his seed shall become a multitude of nations" (Gen, xlviii. 19). Thus was added another instance of God's sovereign choice ~l to the examples of Abel, Shem, Abram, Isaac, who, like the patri- / arch Jacob himself, were all younger sons. Having given his separate and special blessing to Joseph him- self and his two sons, and bestowed upon Joseph an extra portion above his brethren (Gen. xlviii. 22), thus marking him as his heir, he called together all his sons to hear the last words of Israel their father, that he might tell them what would befall them in the last days (Gen. xlix.). It is evident that the blessings and the prophecies of the dying patriarch were a formal appointment of his twelve sons to be the twelve heads of the chosen race, and that they had respect to the tribes as well as to their individual ancestors. At the end of his charge, he gave to all his sons, collectively, the same command that he had previously jr ; "en to Joseph individually, "I am to be gath- ered unto my people. Bury me with my fathers " in the cave of Machpcln.li (Gen. xlix. 29), and, "gathering up his feet into the bed, he yielded up the ghost," at the age of one hundred and forty- seven. Joseph then fell upon his father's face, and passionately wept over him and kissed him. He afterwards gave orders for his body to be embalmed, which occupied forty days, and there was a public mourning for him among the Egyptians, which lasted altogether seventy days. With Pharaoh's permission, he then went, with all his brethren, and the elders both of Israel and of Egypt, and a great 56 SCRIPTURE HISTORY. CHAP. III. company of chariots and of horsemen, to bury his father in the land of Canaan. To avoid, probably, the tribes of the frontier, they did not take the nearest road, but made a circuit to Atad, a little to the west of the Jordan, where they kept so great and sore a lamentation for seven days that the astonished Canaanites called the place Abel- Mizraim (the mourning of Egypf). Thence they continued their journey to Hebron, and there buried him in the cave of Machpelah, is he had commanded them (Gen. 1. 12, 13). After the burial of Ja- :ob, Joseph and all his company returned to Egypt. He outlived his father about fifty-four years. He saw Ephraim's children of the third generation, and had Manasseh's grandchildren on his knees (Gen. 1. 23). At length he died, aged one hundred and ten years. His body was embalmed and preserved in a coffin (sarcoph- agus), but not buried. The last instructions that he gave his brethren, and made them swear that they would fulfill, were, " God will surely visit you, and bring you out of this land unto the land which he sware to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. And ye shall carry up my bones from hence" (Gen. 1. 24, 25). From that time forward the coffin with Joseph's remains bore silent witness to the fact that the children of Israel were only temporary sojourners in the land of Egypt. When God led them forth under Moses, they did not forget the trust ; and when they were settled in Canaan, they buried Joseph at Shechem (Exod. xiii. 19 ; Josh. xxiv. 32). NOTE. Concerning the "Pharaohs" (i. e., Kings) tinder whom the events recorded in Genesis and Exodus took place, see the " Smaller Ancient Histo- ry," chapters vi.-ix., especially vii. and ix. AD Egypt**" Sarcophagus, on the funeral sledge, with an open panel, showing tha head of the mummy. Egyptian Archers. CHAPTER IV. ISRAEL IN EGYPT. FROM THE DEATH OF JOSEPH TO THE EXODUS OR DEPARTURE FROM EGYPT. B.C. 1G35-1491. IN the period between the death of Joseph and the beginning of the bondage in Egypt, the children of Israel " increased abundant- ly, and the land was filled with them " (Exod. i. 7). The duration of their sojourn there may be reckoned in round numbers at 430 years (Exod. xii. 41): but thi9 includes the whole pilgrimage of the chosen family, from the time when Abram was called to leave hir home for "a land that he should ^afterward receive as an inherit- ance," to the time when his heirs did actually receive it. The bondage itself was probably about one hundred years, as the whole period from the death of Joseph to the Exodus was one hundred and forty-four years (B.C. 1635-1491). The story of the affliction of the Israelites in Egypt begins with the words, "Now there arose up a new king over Egypt whio'* knew not Joseph " (Exod. i. 8). The descendants o( Jaeoo had then grown so numerous that Pharaoh was afraid that in the event 68 SCRIPTURE HISTORY. CHAP. IV. of a war they might go over to the enemy, and so ecape out of the land. He resolved, therefore, to weaken them by degrees, hy forc- ing them to hard labor and reducing them to slavery. The service which he compelled them to perform consisted in field-work, and especially in making bricks and building the treasure-cities Pithotn and Raamses, in the land of Goshen. Although the lives of the Israelites were bitter with hard bondage and oppression, still they multiplied and grew. Pharaoh then adopted a more severe and cruel course to diminish their numbers. He commanded the He- brew midwives to kill the male children at their birth, but to let the females live. The midwives, however, " feared God " and dis- obeyed the king, and they saved all the children that were born. Pharaoh then charged all his people to cast the new-born sons of the Israelites into the river, but to save the daughters (Exod. i. 8-22). Pharaoh's edict led, by the Divine providence, to the bringing up at his own court of that very child whom God designed to be the future deliverer of his people Israel. Amram, the son of Koh.-Uh, son of Levi, had for his wife Jochebed, also of the tribe of Levi. They had already two children, a daughter called Miriam, and a son named Aaron. Soon after the king had issued his edict, an- other son was born to them. The child was so very fine and good- ly, that his mother could not bear to part with him in obedience to the cruel ordinance. She hid him, therefore, three months. When she could no longer conceal him, she was forced to expose him like the rest. Accordingly, taking a covered basket of papyrus the flags of which the Egyptians made their paper and daubing it with bitumen to make it water-tight, she put the child therein and laid it among the rushes on the banks of the Nile, leaving Miriam a little way off, to see what would become of her infant brother. Close to that spot the daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe ; and as soon as she saw the ark, she sent one of her maidens to fetch it. And when she opened it, "behold the babe wept." Touched with pity, she said, "This is one of the Hebrews' children." At this moment Miriam came forward, and having asked whether she should go and fetch a nurse of 4ie Hebrew women, she was told to do so, "when she went and called the child's mother." "Nurse this child for me," said Pharaoh's daughter, "and I will give thee thy wages." When he grew up, Jochebed brought him to tho princess, who adopted him for her son, and gave him the name of Moses (drawn out), because she said, "I drew him out of the wa- ter" (Exod. ii. 10). Moses was no doubt taught by his Hebrew mother the knowledge of the true God, and the history as well as the destiny of the chosen B.C. 1G35-14'J1. EAKLY LIFE OF MOSES. 69 race. In all other respects, he was brought up as an Egyptian prince, and was instructed in " all the wisdom of the Egyptians " (Acts vii. 22). When he was full forty years old, the crisis came when he decided to cast in his lot with his own people, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the treasures in Egypt, for he regarded "the recompense of the re- ward " (Heb. xi. 25, 26). This was the time when he went forth to make himself acquainted with the state of his brethren. The first sight he saw was an Egyptian overseer beating one of the Hebrews who worked under him. Stung with indignation, after looking round to see that no one was near, he killed the Egyptian on the spot, and buried his body in the sand. When he went out the next day, he saw two men of the Hebrews striving together; and his interference was scornfully rejected by the wrong-doer, who asked him, "Who made thee a prince and a judge over us? Intendest thou to kill me as thou killedst the Egyptian ?" The story reached the ears of Pharaoh, and he ordered Moses to be put to death. He fled, however, into the desert which surrounds the head of the Red Sea, then inhabited by the people of Midian, who were descended from Abraham and Keturah (Gen. xxv. 2). As he was one day seated beside a well, the seven daughters of JETHRO, the chief or sheykh of the Midianites, came to water their flocks. The shep- herds of other flocks, coming also to the well, rudely drove away the women, that they might serve their own cattle first, but Moses helped them and watered their flock. When Jethro heard of this, he welcomed "the Egyptian," and Moses dwelt with him, like Ja- cob with Laban, for forty years feeding his flocks. He married his daughter Zipporah (Exod. ii. 21), who bore him a son, named Ger- shom (a stranyer here"), and afterwards a second son, named Eliezer (my God is a hel/>). Moses had been forty years in Midian, pondering amidst the seclusion of the deserts and unfrequented vales where he fed his flocks, the past history of his fathers, and the condition of their de- scendants in Egypt, when God's time arrived for the deliverance of his people. When the King of Egypt, from whom Moses had fled, lied, the oppression of the Israelites under his successor became more severe. "And they cried, and their cry came up unto God by :eason of the bondage. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Ja- cob " (Exod. ii 23, 24). Moses, while he was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Je- thro, in the land of Midian, little thought, that God had chosen him to be the future deliverer of the Israelites. Yet so it was. The scene selected for the revelation to him of his divine mission ia y a spe- cial revelation, while he was alone with God in the Mount (Exod. xxiv. 18). It is this character which distinguishes his legislation from that of all other great lawgivers. Before attempting to point out the principal divisions of the Mo- saic code, it is necessary to discover first its leading principles. The commonwealth of Israel was a theocracy, that is, a govern- ment under the direct guidance and control of God himself. He was ever present with the people, abiding in His tabernacle in their m'.dst, manifested by the symbol of His presence, and speaking to CHAP. VII THE MOSAIC LAW. 91 them continually through Moses and the high-priest. The whole law was the direct expression of His will, and the government was carried on with constant reference to His decisions. Thus His un- seen presence was to Israel what a visible king was to other na- tions. Hence their desire to have another king is spoken of as treason to Him (1 Sam. viii. 7). Moreover, the people were Hii possession; for He had redeemed them from their slavery in Egypt, and was leading them into a new land of His own choice. His right over their persons was asserted by His claim to the first-born both of man and of beast (Exod. xiii. 2), and by requiring the Jew. ish slave to be set free in the seventh year of his service (Dent. xv. 12-15). His absolute right over their land was the fundamental condition upon which all property was held by the Jews. Its hold- ers were deemed His tenants. The payment of tithes as a kind of rent was a constant acknowledgment of this right ; and in requiring all sold land to be restored, in the year of jubilee, to the families whose allotment it originally was, there was the strongest reasser- tion of His sole proprietorship (Lev. xxv. 25-28). The people, on their part, were required to believe in the intimate relations thus established between Jehovah and themselves. They accepted this relationship first of all at the foot of Mount Sinai, and into this covenant every Israelite was initiated by circumcision, the common seal of God's covenant with Abraham and with themselves. They were to observe it in practice by the worship of Jehovah as the only God, by abstaining from idolatry, and by obedience to the law as the expression of His will. From this relation of Jehovah to the people each separate por- tion of the law may be deduced. The basis of the whole law is laid in the TEN COMMANDMENTS, as we call them, though they are nowhere so entitled by Moses him- self, but the "TEN WOUDS" (Exod. xxxiv. 28), the COVENANT, or very often the TESTIMONY. Their division into Two Tables is cx- prossly mentioned, and it answered, no doubt, to that summary of the law which was made both by Moses and by our Lord, so that the First Table contained Duties to God, and the Second, Duties to nr Neighbor. The First Table contains Four Commandments, The First Commandment begins with the declaration, "I am the Lord thy God which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage" (Exod. xx. 2). This clause involves as its consequences: (1.) The belief in Je.hovah as God, the acceptance of His covenant, and the observance of His ordinances. (2.) The Holiness of the People as Jehovah's peculiar possession, with their families, servants, and all that belonged to them. The remainder of the commandment forbids them to " have any other gods bffor* 92 SCRIPTUKE HISTORY. CHAP. VIL Jehovah," that is, in the presence of Jehovah. For false worship began, not with the positive rejection of the true God, but by asso- ciating with His worship that of other gods and their images. The Second Commandment, which is the necessary consequence of the first, prohibits the making and worshipping of any likeness of any object in the heaven, the earth, and the water. The command- ment does not forbid sculpture, which God enjoined in the case of She cherubim (Exod. xxv. 18), but it forbids the making of images for the purposes of worship. The Third Commandment enforces the reverence of the lips towards Jehovah and His holy name ; it implies the sacredness of oaths ana votes, and also embraces common speech. The Fourth Commandment is based on the principle that our na- ture needs seasons for remembering our God and Maker. Under it may be grouped all the ordinances for the observance of times and festivals. We now proceed to the special laws based upon these command- ments of the -first table, and have first to speak of God's presence among the people; the Tabernacle, with its furniture, and its ministers SECTION II. THE TABERNACLE. To give the Israelites a visible manifestation of God's continual presence with them, on the very night in which they began their march, the visible symbol of that presence went before them, in THE SHEKINAH, or pillar of fire by night and of a cloud by day, giving by its advance or halt the signal for their march or rest. Sacrifice was contemplated as the very object of their journey, and it was soon declared that God would fix a place for His abode where alone sacrifices might be offered. After the Ten Commandments were proclaimed from Mount Sinai, the first ordinances given to Moses related to the ordering of the TABERNACLE, its furniture, and its service. While he was alone with God in Sinai, an exact pattern of the whole was shown to him, and all was made according to it (Exod. xxv. 9). It was the tent of Jehovah, standing in the midst of the tents of the people. It was a portable building, designed to contain the sacred ark, the special symbol of God's presence, and was set up within an inclosed space called the Court of the Tabernacle. This inclosure was of an oblong form, 100 cubits by 50 (i. e., 150 feet by 75 feet), standing east and west, with an entrance on the eastern side. It was surrounded by CHAP. VII THE TABERNACLE. w 93 &0 Cubits. 10 2o ao -10 oo eo fo 75 Fttt, Plan of the Court of the Tabernacle. hangings of fine-twined linen (canvas), suspended from pillars of brass 5 cubits (7 feet) apart, to which the curtains were attached by hooks and fillets of silver. The tabernacle itself was placed in the western half of the inclosurc ; in the outer or eastern half, not 94 SCRIPTURE HISTORY. CHAP. VIL far from the entrance, stood the altar of burnt-offering, betweei which aud the tabernacle was the laver of brass at which the priestv. washed their hands and feet every time they ministered (Exod. xxx. 18-20). The tabernacle was an oblong rectangular structure, 45 feet by 15, and 15 in height ; and the interior was divided into two portions, the first or outer being two-thirds, and the inner one-third, of the whole. The former was called the First Tabernacle, or Holy Place, and contained the golden candlestick on one side, the table of shew-bread opposite, and in the centre between them the altar of incense. The inner portion was the Most Holy Place, or the Hoh of Holies ; it contained the ark, in which were deposited the two tables of stone, covered by the mercy seat, and surmounted by figure of gold called cherubim. The walls of this structure were made of boards of shittim (acacia) wood, overlaid with gold. On the eastern side there were no boards, but the entrance was closed by a curtain of fine linen embroidered in blue, purple, and scarlet, attached by golden hooks to five pillars of shittim-wood, overlaid with gold, which were let into brass sockets. A more sumptuous curtain of the same kind, embroidered with figures of cherubim, and hung on four such pillars with silver sockets, divided the Holy from the Most Holy Place (Exod. xxvi. 31, 33). It was called the VAIL, as it hid from the eyes of all but the high-priest the inmost sanctuary where Jehovah dwelt on His mercy-seat between the cherubim above the ark. It was passed only by the high-priest once a year, on the Day of Atonement. The Holy Place was entered daily by the priests alone, to offer incense at the time of morning and evening prayer, and to renew the lights on the golden candlestick ; and on the Sabbath to remove the old shew-bread and to place the new upon the table. (i.) In the Outer Court. 1. The altar of Burnt -off eriny stood in the midst of this court, and formed the central point of the services in which the people had a part. On it all sacrifices and oblations were presented, except the sin-offerings, which were burnt without the camp. It was a large hollow case, about 7 feet square, and standing about 4 feet high, made of shittim-wood overlaid within and without with plates of brass, and with a movable grating of brass suspended in tie mid- dle on iron rings, on which the wood for the sacrifices was placed (Exod. xxxviii. 1-7). The priest went up to it not by steps, but by a sloping bank of earth. 2. The Brazen Laver, a vessel on a foot, held the water with which the priests washed their hands and feet before commencing their sacred ministrations. It stood between the altar of burnt' offering and the entrance to the holy place. CHAP. VII. FUKNITURE OF THE TABERNACLE. 95 (ii.) In the Holy Place, or Sanctuary. The furniture of the outer court was connected with sacrifice , but that of the sanctuary with the deeper mysteries of mediation and access to God. The holy place contained three objects: the al- tar of incense in the centre, the table of skew-bread on its right as north side, and the golden candlestick on the left or south side. 1 . The Altar of Incense was made of shittim (acacia) wood, over laid with gold (Exod. xxx. 1-10). It was about 18 inches square by 36 inches high. It had an ornamental rim of gold around its top, with projections at the corners, called horns. Upon these, once a year, the blood of the sin-offering of the atonement was sprinkled, but no other offering might be laid thereon. Incense was offered upon this altar daily, morning and evening, at the time the lamps were trimmed. The priest took some of the sacred fire in a golden bowl, or censer, off the altar of burnt-offering ; then, entering the holy place, he threw the incense upon it and placed it upon the golden altar. He then prayed and performed the oth- er duties of his office, while the people prayed outside ; and thus was typified the intercession of Christ in heaven making His peo- ple's prayers on earth acceptable. 2. The Table of Shew-bread was an oblong table, with legs, about 3 feet long, 18 inches broad, and 27 inches high. It was of shittim- wood, covered with gold, and its top was finished with u rim of gold. Upon this table were placed twelve cakes of fine flour, in two rows f the Altar of Inceiue. 96 SCRIPTURE HISTORY. CHAP. VII. of six each, with frankincense upon each row. This /S^ew-bread, as it was called, from being exposed before Jehovah, was placed fresh upon the table every Sabbath by the priests, who ate the old loaves in the holy place (Lev. xxiv. 5-9). Besides the show-bread there was a drink-offeriny of wine placed in the covered bowls upon the table. Some of it was used for libations, and what remained at the snd of the week was poured out before Jehovah. 3. The Golden Candlestick, or rather Candelabrum (lamp-stand), was placed on the left or south side of the altar of incense. It was made of pure beaten gold, and weighed, with its instruments, a talent; the value of the pure metal, exclusive of the workmanship, has been estimated at 5076. It had an upright stem, from which branched out, at equal distances apart, three arms curving upward to the right and to the left, each pair forming a semicircle, and their tops coming to the same level as the top of the stem, so as to form with it supports for seven lamps. There were oil vessels and snuffers for trimming the seven lamps, and dishes for carrying away the snuff, an office performed by the priest when he went into the sanctuary every morning to offer incense. All the lamps were lighted at the time of the evening oblation, and were kept burning during the night. As there were no windows to the tabernacle, the central lamp was alight in the day-time also. This candlestick symbolized the spiritual light of life, which God gives to his serv- ants with the words by which they live (Exod. xxv. 31-40). (iii.) In the Holy of Holies. In the Holy of Holies, within the vail, and shrouded in darkness, there was but one object, the most sacred of all. There stood the Ark of the Covenant, or the Testimony a sort of chest nearly four feet long, and a little over two feet in width and height. It was of shittim-wood, overlaid with gold within and without. It was enriched with a rim of gold round the top. The cover of the ark was a plate of pure gold. Standing erect upon it, at opposite ends, with their faces bent down and their wings meeting, were the cher- nbim, winged figures made of beaten gold. This covering was the rery throne of God, and was called the mercy-seat. Hence God Is said to have dwelt between the cherubim. Inclosed within the ark were the two tables of stone, inscribed with the Ten Command- ments, and, in the fact that God's throne of mercy covered and hid the tables of the law, we may see a foreshadowing of the coming dispensation of the Gospel (Exod. xxv. 10-22). Probably there never was so small a structure made at such an immense cost. As the quantities of the precious metals used in its construction are stated, some idea can be formed of its surpassing L.-HAP. VII. HISTORY OP THE TABERNACLE. tf7 richness. The value of the materials, and of the skill and labor employed in the work, can not have been much less than a quarter of a million sterling. HISTORY OF THE TABERNACLE. As /ojg as Canaan remained un- canqnered, and the people were still therefore an army, the Tabernacle was probably moved from place to place, wherever the host of Israel was for the time encamped. It rested finally at " the place which the Lord had chosen," at SIIILOH (Josh. ix. 27 ; xviii. 1). The Ark of God was taken by the Philistines, and the sanctuary lost its glory ; and the Tabernacle, though it did not perish, never again recovered it (1 Sam. iv. 22). Samuel treats it as an abandoned shrine, and sacrifices elsewhere, at Mizpeh (vii. 9), at Ramah (ix. 12, : x. 3), at Gilgal (x. 8 ; xi. 15). It probably became once again a movable sanctuary. For a time it seems, under Saul, to have been settled at NOB (xxi. 1-0). The massacre of the priests and the flight of Abiathar must, however, have rob- bed it yet farther of its glory. It had before lost the Ark : it now lost the presence of the high-priest (xxii. 20 ; xxiii. 6). In some way or other, it found its way to Gibeon (1 Chron. xvi. 39) ; and while the Ark remained at Kirjath-jearim, the Tabernacle at Gibeou connected itself with the wor- ship of the high places (1 Kings iii. 4). The capture of Jerusalem and the erection there of a new Tabernacle, with the Ark, of which the old had been deprived (2 Sam. vi. 17 ; 1 Chron. xv. 1), left it little more than a tra- ditional, historical sanctity. It re- tained only the old altar of burnt-of- ferings (xxi. 9). The double service went on ; Zadok, as high-priest, of- ficiated at Gibeon (xvi. 39) ; the more recent, more prophetic service of psalms and hymns and music, under Asnph, gathered round the Taber- nncle at Jerusalem (xvi. 4, 37). The divided worship continued all the days of David. The sanctity of both places was recognized by Solomon on his accession (1 Kings, iii. 15 ; 2 Chron. i. 3), till the claims of both merged in the higher glory of the Temple, and the Tabernacle, with all its holy vessels, was removed by Sclo- mou to Jerusalem (1 Kings viii. 4) SECTION m. THE PRIESTS AND LEVITES. AFTER this description of the tabernacle and its furniture, w