besides was in rebellion against its sovereign, the king of Elam; but when the news of it was brought to Abram, his affection for his unhappy nephew, unsubdued by his past ingratitude or folly, urged him to take immediate steps for his rescue. He summoned together his servants; and, with some slight assistance from the neighbouring Amorite tribes, he overtook and routed the retreating conquerors, and came back in triumph with Lot, and with the spoils. These latter he might fairly have kept for himself; but the same high spirit which enabled him to win them, prevented his retaining any portion of them from their lawful owners, with the exception of a tenth, which, as an acknowledgment of that power who had given him victory, he made over to Melchisedec, king of Salem, the priest of the most high God. That remarkable personage, whom the Epistle to the Hebrews shows us that we are to consider as a type of Christ, brought forth bread and wine, and bestowed on Abram a blessing from his God.* With this exception, Abram restored to the king of Sodom the whole plunder of his city, requiring him only to give a portion to the friends who had attended him in his pursuit. Praiseworthy and spirited as this action of his had been, it had made him powerful enemies; and what disquieted him still more, he as yet saw no means by which the promise of God relating to his numerous offspring was likely to be fulfilled: he went childless, and seemed now looking to the probability of his principal steward becoming his heir. God, therefore, to reassure him on both these heads, declared to him first, "I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward;" and secondly, that Eliezer should not be his heir, but a son of his own; adding, that his descendants should be numerous as the stars Heb. v. 10; vi. 20; vii. 1-17. G + Gen. xv. 1. 66 which then were shining in heaven. "And he believed in the Lord, and it was counted unto him for righteousness."* Against hope," as says St. Paul to the Romans, "he believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations: he staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strong in faith, giving glory to God; and being fully persuaded that what he had promised he was able also to perform." At this time, also, the Lord declared to him in a vision the tribulation that should hereafter await his descendants in a strange land, before they took possession of their inheritance, specifying the ten nations which then occupied it, and noticing as a reason for the delay of four hundred years, that the iniquity of the Amorites was not yet' full. So merciful and long-suffering is the Lord to sinners, so graciously does he wait for the repentance of any who will flee from the wrath to come! The promise of God to Abraham had been, that he should have a son; but as he had received no distinct assurance as to its mother, and Sarai's barrenness continued as before, he took unto him, at her own request, her Egyptian handmaid, who, having conceived by him, and becoming proud of this favourable change in her condition, offended her mistress by some contemptuous behaviour, and was accordingly driven forth by Sarai's harsh treatment, to wander in the wilderness. There an angel of God found her, and commanded her to return home, and demean herself more submissively for the future; describing to her, in forcible terms, the character which her son Ishmael should hereafter bear: "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 presence of all his brethren :" a character which has continued even + Rom. iv, 18, 20, 21. * Gen. xv. 6. t Gen. xvi. 12. to this very day to distinguish his descendants, the Arabians, who, though surrounded by nations which they continually provoke by their habits of plunder, have never yet been subdued by any, and have preserved their peculiar customs and manners of life unchanged from the most ancient times. Ishmael, for thirteen years after his birth, remained in his father's house, the apparent heir of his possessions, and of the promises of God. During this time no revelation from heaven seems to have been made to Abram; at the end of it the Lord again appeared to him, and said, "I am the Almighty God: walk before me, and be thou perfect." Perhaps there may have been some remissness of duty on the part of the patriarch, during this long suspension of the Divine communications, which required this admonition: perhaps his conduct in quitting his lawful wife to seek the company of Hagar was not altogether blameless in the eyes of God; or possibly, the saying was intended as a warning to prepare him for the still more extraordinary trials of his faith which God had yet in store for him. This one son Ishmael was the only one as yet born to him, and he was now ninety-nine years old and nine yet his name was at this time changed to Abraham, because, said God, "I have made thee a father of many nations; and I will make thee exceeding fruitful, and kings shall come out of thee." All this Abraham believed with an unshaken faith and, as a token of his belief, he was commanded to submit, with all the males of his family, to the ceremony of circumcision, which thenceforward was to be adopted as the token of a covenant between God and him, by the succeeding generations of his offspring. To this also he readily submitted, with Ishmael his son; but when he circumcised this + Verses 5, 6. * Gen. xvii. 1. latter, it was not as his heir. Another communication had been made to him at the same time, of a yet more surprising nature: Sarai's name was to be changed to Sarah; and she, the barren woman, now nearly ninety years of age, was to become the joyful mother of a son: 66 yea, I will bless her," said the Lord, "and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of people shall be of her."* Abraham was astonished at this, but he did not for a moment doubt that so it would be: his first emotion was one of joy and pious exultation-he fell on his face and laughed. Mingle thus, when you think upon God's promises to you, your rejoicing with devotion, with praise, and prayer; let them all be, as saith the apostle, "yea and amen in Christ unto the glory of God by us." The next thought that crossed the mind of Abraham was, solicitude for the fate of that beloved son whom God had given him already. He knew that the birth of the promised seed would deprive Ishmael of his birthright, and therefore he addressed himself to God, saying, “O that Ishmael might live before thee!" The answer he received, was a promise of temporal blessings in abundance for Ishmael, coupled with an assurance that the establishment of the spiritual covenant was reserved for the yet unborn Isaac. It is our duty to pray for all: God dispenseth his free favours as it hath pleased him, and no man can complain that he has less than his due. Ishmael was the child of Abraham, and as such he received his share of worldly good; but "they which are the children of the flesh are not all children of God; but the children of the promise are counted for the seed."§ * Gen. xvi. 16. + 2 Cor. i. 20. § Rom. ix. 8. CHAP. IX. ISHMAEL AND ISAAC. 66 * AFTER Abraham had rescued his nephew Lot from the captivity into which his residence in Sodom had caused him to fall, the latter determined, it appears, in spite of the danger he had incurred, to take up his abode again within that wicked city; and remained there, grieved indeed by the filthy conversation of the sinners among whom he sojourned, yet wanting strength of mind, and singleness of religious purpose to quit them, because in so doing, he must have quitted also a country of the most pleasant and luxuriant description, even as the garden of the Lord." And this want of pious resolution might perhaps have caused him to be involved in the terrible destruction which was now impending over the cities of that lovely plain, had not God remembered Abraham," and for his sake "sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities in which Lot dwelt."+ We see here what an advantage it was to him that he was connected with a truly godly and pious man: let us, therefore, value such connexions highly, and strive to form them when we have the means. Times may 66 66 occur, when even "a man" so qualified may be unto you as a hiding-place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest:"§ never, however, forgetting that higher brotherhood and guardianship, to which above all things you should have recourse, of Him who is the one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, without whose gracious intercession and inter 2 Pet. ii. 7, 8. + Gen xiii. 10. G 3 |