tribes and their ancestors, from whom the chosen people proceeded, in the regular succession of the several generations of the family, and that it discriminates between them and collateral tribes, like the Moabites, Ammonites, Ishmaelites, Edomites, &c. A single branch is taken from the tree of the Shemitic race to which the promise had been given (§ 19. OBS.); it is transplanted and set in another soil, where it is carefully tended by its owner, and takes root; it is regularly cleansed and pruned; and when it has advanced in its growth and become itself a vigorous trunk, it spreads forth at length in twelve widely-extended branches. 2. All the revelations of God and the whole course of his Providence, as well as all the hopes and designs of the chosen family, are directed towards two central points: the seed of promise, and the land of promise. It was needful that the foundation of the new development should be laid in the land of promise, that the promised seed should be conceived and born there, and that Israel's history in its earliest stages should occupy that land as the home of its childhood; hence has arisen the deep, powerful, and unvarying tendency of this history to seek that home perpetually; for the spot in which man was born, and in which he passed the years of his childhood, is always felt to be his home, and attracts to itself the longings of his heart. There is deep significance in the circumstance that the land of promise was at first assigned to the chosen family merely as a land of pilgrimage, and only promised as a land of possession; there is equal significance in the fact that the family abandons it during four hundred years; the former is appointed to be the means of unfolding and strengthening their faith; the latter is designed to secure a period of probation and education (see § 35. 1, OBS.) The design of this period, which constitutes the childhood of the history of Israel, corresponds to the childlike mode in which the testimonies and revelations of God are given. The Lord, as the tutor, assumes an appearance adapted to the state of the pupil, and may be regarded as advancing in his communications with the progress of the latter. Hence this period exceeds all others in the number of theophanies (§ 7. 2), or manifestations of God.

3. History derives not only its commencement but also its early prefigurative form and its peculiar features from the family; for the germs and vital powers of the character, the tendency

and the pursuits which are gradually developed in the regular increase resulting in the existence of a whole people, are enclosed in all their original vigor in the family. The history of the patriarchs is, consequently, the prelude and the type of the entire subsequent history of the nation, both in its divine and in its human aspects. The peculiar features of the character and the life of the ancestors of Israel re-appear in the character of the nation descending from them, in so far and so long as that nation does not, with suicidal violence, cut itself off from its source, and oppose its own nature and destination. The pictures of life which the age of the patriarchs presents in their representatives, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, are like a mirror, in which the future generations of Israel may behold the reflection of themselves; and, indeed, they render the same service to that succeeding age in which the spiritual Israel takes the place of Israel after the flesh. (Gal. 3: 7, 29; Rom. 9: 6–8.)

OBS.

The following table, which anticipates the regular succession of events, may contribute to give distinctness to the familyconnexions of this period:

§ 24. The Calling and Emigration of Abraham.

1. Gen. 12: 1-9.- Abraham came originally from Ur of the Chaldees; his father Terah, whose nomadic habits had induced him to leave that region, died in Haran (Carra) in Mesopotamia. Here Nahor established his residence. But Abraham, when he was 75 years old, received the divine call: "Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will show thee;" he also received the promise: "I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: and I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee; and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed." Abraham obeyed the call; Lot, whose father Haran had already died in Chaldea, went with him. When Abraham had passed through the land unto the place of Sichem, unto the plain of Moreh (on Mount Ephraim), he learned that he had arrived at the chosen place, and the Lord said to him: "Unto thy seed will I give this land." Abraham pitched his tent between Bethel and Hai, builded an altar, and called upon the name of the Lord.

OBS. 1.- Abraham remained after his marriage without issue, but Jehovah promised to raise up children unto him, against the course of nature. He, therefore, chose in Abraham a people which was called into existence only by his almighty, creative power. It was needful that Abraham should be withdrawn from all connection with his own family and people, since it was full of danger (Josh. 24: 2, 14); if he had retained his early connection with them, he would have been nothing more than one link of the whole chain: his union with them would have oppressed, checked or arrested his peculiar political as well as his religious development. As the founder of a new family, and of a new order of things, it was needful that he should withdraw from the relation which he had hitherto sustained towards others. The history of the old covenant begins with the strictest Particularism, that is, with the selection of a particular individual and of his seed, but it immediately opens a view of the widely-extended or general plan of the salvation of all nations. The salvation of the whole world is the purpose and end of the election of Abraham.

OBS. 2.-The promise which is here given to Abraham is the resump

tion, continuation and further unfolding of the blessing given to his ancestor, Shem (19). The servitude to which Canaan is condemned, is resumed in the words: "Unto thy seed will I give this land," but it appears in the form of a blessing given to Abraham; in the same manner, the promise that Japheth shall find Jehovah and his salvation in the tents of Shem, is also resumed in the words: "In thee shall all families of the earth be blessed;" but the promise, no longer restricted to the descendants of Japheth, is now extended to all the nations which do not refuse the blessing proceeding from Abraham's race. The organic progress of the idea of salvation did not yet admit here of the mention of a personal Messiah. The idea of a Messiah could not assume the form of a clear and distinct expectation of a personal Messiah, until a personal deliverer and redeemer of the people had appeared in Moses (§ 57), and until, even in a more expressive manner, the highest splendor of the history of the old covenant had appeared in the person of David (8 76. 1). As the first evangelic announcement (Gen. 3: 15) presents the seed of the woman, that is, her offspring, or the human race in general, as the ultimate conqueror of the tempter ( 14), so here too, Abraham's seed in general, that is, the nation descending from him, viewed in its unity as an aggregate, appears as the bearer and medium of salvation. Still, a decided advance already appears here, in the circumstance that the expectation of salvation obtains clearer and more precise boundaries, and that this expectation does not, as in the former case, refer, negatively, to the absence of evil only, but also, positively, to the presence of salvation.

OBS. 3.-The words of Jehovah: "I will curse him that curseth thee," express, as it is very evident, not the rule which Abraham is to observe in his conduct towards those who curse him, but the rule which God will adopt when he judges them. It is precisely the fact that God assumes the office of punishing them, which imposes on Abraham the obligation to submit both the curse and the vengeance to God exclusively. Abraham is appointed to "be a blessing," and "all families of the earth shall be blessed" in him - hence it is his office to bless and not to curse. Besides, the word of Jehovah does not refer to Abraham simply as an individual, but to Abraham as the representative of the chosen people, and as the bearer of the divinely-appointed development of salvation; - hence, those who curse Abraham are not here his personal enemies, but those who disturb and oppose the divine development of salvation, and who do not hate the person of Abraham or of his seed, but rather the calling, the office and the position which he received from God. This minatory

language of God is a pledge that, in his just administration of earthly affairs, he will ultimately hurl back on the nations and the kingdoms of the world that curse which they bring on the chosen people. The whole history of the people of Israel, and of their collisions with other nations, furnishes evidence of the strictness with which God has fulfilled his word. (See ? 56. 2, and 89.)

2. Gen. 12: 10-20.—In consequence of a famine which prevailed in the land, Abraham journeyed to Egypt. He is exposed to the danger of losing his wife, on account of this journey which he had undertaken by his own choice; he had announced her as his sister, and believed himself to be justified in making this declaration, by his near relationship to Sarah (Gen. 20: 12), who, according to an old tradition, was Iscah, (mentioned in Gen. 11: 29.) Pharaoh, who had caused her to be brought to his house, is compelled, by great plagues from the Lord, to restore her. Abraham, after receiving valuable gifts, departs.

OBS.-Egypt, a country not far removed from the land of promise, with its seductive profusion and wealth, its civilization and wisdom, is a type of the kingdoms of the world in their power and glory; it was adapted both by its attractive and its repellent influences, to be a tree of the knowledge of good and evil to the chosen poople, throughout the whole course of the history of the latter. It first enters here into connection with Sacred History, and offers in its relation to Abraham a prefiguration of the relation which it will afterwards sustain to his descendants. The same necessity conducts both him and them to Egypt; they both encounter similar dangers in that land; the same mighty arm delivers both, and leads them back, enriched with the treasures of that wealthy land.

3. Gen. ch. 13. Abraham returned to Canaan, and continued to call on the name of the Lord. Lot had hitherto accompanied him; the numbers of their flocks and herds, however, and the strife between their respective herdmen, at length rendered a separation necessary. Abraham, already accustomed to self-denial, resigned the choice of the country to Lot; the latter, consulting his own interest, chose the plain of the Jordan, or the vale of Siddim, which was soon afterwards occupied by the Dead Sea (Gen. 14: 3), but which was, at that time, a well-watered region, even as the garden of the Lord. Lot pitched his tent