Introduction to the Old Testament | Page 3

laid on
the sacredness of blood, especially of the blood of man, ix. 1-17.
Though grace abounds, however, sin also abounds. Noah fell, and his
fall revealed the character of his children: the ancestor of the Semites,
from whom the Hebrews sprang, is blessed, as is also Japheth, while

the ancestor of the licentious Canaanites is cursed, ix. 18-27. From
these three are descended the great families of mankind (x.) whose
unity was confounded and whose ambitions were destroyed by the
creation of diverse languages, xi. 1-9. [Footnote 1: Death is the penalty
(iii. 22-24). Another explanation of how death came into the world is
given in the ancient and interesting fragment vi. 1-4.]
It is against this universal background that the story of the Hebrews is
thrown; and in the new beginning which history takes with the call of
Abraham, something like the later contrast between the church and the
world is intended to be suggested. Upon the sombreness of human
history as reflected in Gen. i.-xi., a new possibility breaks in Gen. xii.,
and the rest of the book is devoted to the fathers of the Hebrew people
(xii.-l.). The most impressive figure from a religious point of view is
Abraham, the oldest of them all, and the story of his discipline is told
with great power, xi. 10-xxv. 10. He was a Semite, xi. 10-32, and under
a divine impulse he migrated westward to Canaan, xii. 1-9.
There various fortunes befell him--famine which drove him to Egypt,
peril through the beauty of his wife,[1] abounding and conspicuous
prosperity--but through it all Abraham displayed a true magnanimity
and enjoyed the divine favour, xii. 10-xiii., which was manifested even
in a striking military success (xiv.). Despite this favour, however, he
grew despondent, as he had no child. But there came to him the
promise of a son, confirmed by a covenant (xv.), the symbol of which
was to be circumcision (xvii.); and Abraham trusted God, unlike his
wife, whose faith was not equal to the strain, and who sought the
fulfilment of the promise in foolish ways of her own,[2] xvi., xviii.
1-15. Then follows the story of Abraham's earnest but ineffectual
intercession for the wicked cities of the plain--a story which further
reminds us how powerfully the narrative is controlled by moral and
religious interests, xviii. 16-xix. Faith is rewarded at last by the birth of
a son, xxi. 1-7, and Abraham's prosperity becomes so conspicuous that
a native prince is eager to make a treaty with him, xxi. 22-34. The
supreme test of his faith came to him in the impulse to offer his son to
God in sacrifice; but at the critical moment a substitute was
providentially provided, and Abraham's faith, which had stood so
terrible a test, was rewarded by another renewal of the divine assurance
(xxii.). His wife died, and for a burial-place he purchased from the

natives a field and cave in Hebron, thus winning in the promised land
ground he could legally call his own (xxiii). Among his eastern
kinsfolk a wife is providentially found for Isaac (xxiv.), who becomes
his father's heir, xxv. 1-6. Then Abraham dies, xxv. 7-11, and the
uneventful career of Isaac is briefly described in tales that partly
duplicate[3] those told of his greater father, xxv. 7-xxvi. [Footnote 1:
This story (xii. 10-20) is duplicated in xx.; also in xxvi. 1-11 (of Isaac).]
[Footnote 2: The story of the expulsion of Hagar in xvi. is duplicated in
xxi. 8-21.] [Footnote 3: xxvi. 1-11=xii. 10-20 (xx.); xxvi. 26-33=xxi.
22-34.]
The story of Isaac's son Jacob is as varied and romantic as his own was
uneventful. He begins by fraudulently winning a blessing from his
father, and has in consequence to flee the promised land, xxvii.-xxviii.
9. On the threshold of his new experiences he was taught in a dream the
nearness of heaven to earth, and received the assurance that the God
who had visited him at Bethel would be with him in the strange land
and bring him back to his own, xxviii. 10-22. In the land of his exile,
his fortunes ran a very checkered course (xxix.-xxxi.). In Laban, his
Aramean kinsman, he met his match, and almost his master, in craft;
and the initial fraud of his life was more than once punished in kind. In
due time, however, he left the land of his sojourn, a rich and prosperous
man. But his discipline is not over when he reaches the homeland. The
past rises up before him in the person of the brother whom he had
wronged; and besides reckoning with Esau, he has also to wrestle with
God. He is embroiled in strife with the natives of the land, and he loses
his beloved Rachel (xxxii.-xxxv.).
Into the later years of Jacob is woven the