might give him rich presents as her brother, instead of killing him as her husband. It all fell out just as he had expected. The king himself, hearing of Sarai's beauty, had her brought to him to become one of his wives, and presented Abram, supposing him to be her brother, with a great number of sheep, cattle, asses, and male and female slaves, so that he became very rich. But this was not the greatest blessing that Yahweh intended to confer upon him. He was about to make his servant utterly ashamed of his previous fear, and to show that he could defend him even in a foreign country. At his command, one disaster after another fell upon the king and his household, and he soon perceived that all this happened to him because he had taken a married woman into his harem. So he sent for Abram, and reproached him with the deceit by which he had brought him into danger of committing so great a sin. Then he ordered his people to protect and to help Abram, and all that he had.

This adventure of Sarai's is told not so much to Abram's disgrace as to Yahweh's honour. The writer does not appear to have seen anything wrong in Abram's conduct. This shows that he had no very exalted idea of integrity, as we shall see indeed from other passages as well as this. It is very instructive to compare our story with the account of the same event given by another writer,1 for it shows us how low a position the Israelites took in matters such as these. This other writer removes the scene of the adventure to Gerar, in the land of the Philistines, and says that Abimelech, the king, who had taken Sarai away from Abram, was warned by God in a dream that she was a married woman, and reproached the patriarch for his deceit. But he defended himself by saying that Sarai really was his half-sister, and

1 Genesis xx.

that ever since they had left their fatherland and begun their wanderings, he had begged her to call herself his sister for fear he should be injured for her sake. Abimelech was perfectly satisfied by this excuse, loaded the patriarch with gifts, and made a present to Sarai also, with the words, "May this make you close your eyes to all the wrong that has been done you. May justice thus be done you." It looks very much as if this writer wished to acquit the patriarch of the lie by which he was disgraced in the older narrative; but if so he did not see that he failed to make the affair any more creditable to his hero after all. For such shuffling is just as bad as a lie; nay, a premeditated, persevering, systematic deceit really tells more against a man's character than a lie which is the result of a momentary fright.

And, again, neither writer seems to have felt how unutterably base it was in Abram to tell this lie, not for the sake of rescuing his wife, but for the sake of turning it to account in his own private interest if she were taken away from him.

But enough of this. The whole story represents Abram as the believer, who, "in obedience to Yahweh's commandment, goes out indeed to a land which he shall receive for an inheritance, but without knowing whither he goes." In this character we shall meet him again and again, and in this lies the deep and lasting significance of Abram, as he is represented in Genesis. He is the hero of faith.

There are people in the world who shrug their shoulders when they hear anyone speak of faith, and take a special pride in not having any themselves. Very often they are better than their word, and have more faith in their hearts than they are at all aware of; while their contempt for faith is the result of their not understanding what it means. it were not so we could have but small respect for any man

If

1 After an amended version.

2 Hebrews xi. 8.

who thinks that faith is worthless, for it is just in having faith that the noblest of mankind differ from the common herd.

Properly to understand what faith is and what it is worth, we must first understand what is meant by God speaking to a man. In this story, and in many others, God is represented as holding conversations with men, and telling them various things in actual words. It needs no proof that this is not what really takes place, for no man can hear God's voice with his outward ears. He speaks in our conscience. Whenever our duty becomes clear to us, then we hear the voice of God giving us commands; and whenever we feel that our true happiness lies in obedience to this voice, we receive promises from God. Now, if we are firmly convinced that these commands and these promises are not merely imaginary but are true, then we may be said to have faith.

Faith shows itself in various ways. It is often mingled with products of the imagination, that is with superstition. If, for instance, Abram felt, as the later Israelite writers say he did,' that he must flee from the land of his fathers, because he was in danger of falling into idolatry there; if he saw that Yahweh would bless him elsewhere too, and that it is better for a man to be a wanderer on the earth and to worship his god in uprightness than to remain in his fatherland and live a life of sin, then that was faith. But if he thought that the land of Canaan was the precise reward assigned to his obedience, then that was all imagination, and therefore superstition. For though in the legend this promise is both made and kept, yet in reality earthly possessions are not the reward of piety. We shall often see from our Bible-stories that, as a rule, the faith of the Israelites was clothed in imperfect forms, that it was mingled

K

1 Joshua xxiv. 2, 14, 15. Flavius Josephus. Judith v. 6 ff.

with superstition. Even with Christians this is very often the case. But in whatever form it shows itself, however far it is from perfect purity, faith is a treasure always. A man with faith is in every case something more than a man without it, for faith is a power that rescues him from the tyranny of his sensual nature and gives him the strength to make sacrifices.

All reformers and all the noblest benefactors of mankind have had faith, and one of the followers of Jesus said in honour of him that he was 66 perfect in faith.”

WE

—had escaped

HEN Abram-so the narrator goes on— this danger in Egypt, he returned with his wife and all his possessions to the south of Judah. Lot still accompanied him, and they returned along the road they had come by, always halting in the same places as before, till they pitched their tents once more between Bethel and Ai. There Abram offered a second sacrifice to Yahweh on the altar he had already erected to him.

But gradually it became clear that the two shepherd princes could not live together much longer; for they were both of them rich in flocks. Not that this would have made it impossible for them to remain in the same neighbourhood if only they had had free play; but the Canaanites and Perizzites had possession of a great deal of the land, and the Hebrews had to be content with the portions that these tribes did not require for themselves.

1 Hebrews xii. 2.

So the land

became too small for them, and though Abram and Lot still continued to be good friends, their dependants were always quarrelling about pastures and wells. Now, as each of them kept hearing his own shepherds complain of the other's, and was naturally inclined to side with his own servants, there really seemed to be some danger of their falling out with each other in the end.

Abram was the first to see this, and however much he would have liked to go on living with his dearly-loved kinsman, he thought it better for them to part in peace before it was too late, than to remain together and endanger the bond of brotherly love which united them. So he proposed to Lot that they should separate, and, with open-hearted generosity, left him the choice as to which way he would go. He had no wish to dictate to his nephew; if he went to the right, he would go to the left himself, or if Lot took the left, he would take the right.

Lot was far inferior to Abram in generosity. He had followed him from the distant land, and so had had faith in the glorious promises made by Yahweh to Abram. But now self-interest overpowered him. Instead of asking what was the wish of his uncle, the chief of his tribe, he took advantage of his open liberality, and chose as his portion the valley of the Jordan. From a worldly point of view he had made a very wise selection, for the valley of the Jordan was a splendid country, and the southern portion especially, where the Dead Sea now is, but where Sodom and Gomorrah formerly lay, was a true "garden of Yahweh," a paradise, like Egypt in fruitfulness. But there was a dark side to the settlement in this region, for Lot's heart was drawn towards the cities. And though he did not desert the simple shepherd life at once, yet he pitched his tents hard by Sodom, and before long settled in the city itself. This was a source of misery to him against which no fruitfulness of the soil could