Lot was spared "because God remembered Abraham,” but this is not the idea of the ancient legend itself, which was better understood by one of the New Testament writers,2 who declared Lot to have been a righteous man, rescued because of his piety. No doubt Lot stands far below Abraham in our story, but still he is a man who deserves to find favour in the eyes of Yahweh. He offers the most liberal hospitality to the angels, and when they, in return, warn him of the coming destruction he gives heed to them at once. Not only does he rise far above the godless inhabitants of the place in which he lived, but his readiness to leave all he had contrasts favourably with the unbelief of his sons-in-law. For his sake, therefore, Zoar was spared. While Lot is the believer who hastens to escape the coming destruction, his wife who looks behind her in her flight, and is therefore changed into a pillar of salt, is also a believer, but only half-hearted in her faith. Why must she not look back? Perhaps the idea that lies at the bottom of this prohibition is the thought, familiar also to heathen antiquity, that the higher powers will not suffer themselves to be watched when at work. But it may be that it contains the idea borrowed from it by the Gospel of Luke that he whose heart still clings to his possessions in the day of God's judgment, so that he cannot unhesitatingly leave everything that he has to save himself, is but half a believer and will be destroyed with the rest. The noblest figure in all the scene is that of Abraham, the trusted friend of Yahweh, from whom he will conceal nothing, because the patriarch must teach his offspring to fear him, Abraham the humble, faithful advocate of the unhappy country. It need not be said that the way in which Abraham prays, constantly beating down the demands of the retributive justice of his god, and persuading him to 1 Genesis xix. 29. 2 2 Peter ii. 7, 8. 3 Luke xvii. 32. offer more and more favourable terms, cannot be made the model of our prayers, but this is an objection to the writer's idea of God rather than to his account of Abraham's piety. Deep sympathy with the doomed cities is expressed in his bold but humble intercession. It is a noble thing to "say a good word" for others, however wicked they are, and however much we hate their wickedness; for it shows that we love our fellow-men. It was very natural that the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah should pass into a proverbial expression for any terrible disaster among the Israelites; natural, too, that together with the flood, it should become the type of God's severest judgments, in the writings of the early Christians.1 Nor is this injurious to the religious and moral life if only we clearly understand that when so used it is an emblem of the terrible consequences of sin, and nothing more; but the superstitious view of the phenomena of nature which lies at the basis of this story, and about which we spoke when treating of the flood, is very hurtful to our inner life. The volcanic eruptions, the earthquakes, the explosions. of the naptha wells, and the way in which they had changed the country from a fruitful plain to a salt sea with barren shores, all this spoke to the ancient inhabitants of the district of the punishments of God; and the aspect of the Dead Sea ever reminded them that their god was a consuming fire who could punish them in fearful ways. So if one of our rivers overflowed its banks in spring time, and its waters, tumbling over the fruitful land, converted it into a swamp, and caused incalculable misery to the inhabitants, we might imagine that the sufferers were more sinful than those who lived on the other side, and who were rescued by the very fact of the river having overflowed on the side removed from them. But this is a miserable idea, for it not only 1 Luke xvii. 28, 29. makes us slothful in discovering and applying the best means of preventing or avoiding the danger, but it is apt to make those that escape self-satisfied; and in any case produces a fear of God that may indeed lead to a slavish obedience and a cringing submission, but can never be united with a free surrender of the heart to God or genuine love of Him. For love is cast out by fear. CHAPTER XVII. THE SON OF THE PROMISE. GEN. XXI. 1--21. BRAHAM'S faith in the repeated promises of his god was not put to shame by the event. For what both he and Sarah had thought impossible until it was promised to them really happened; his wife at ninety years of age became the mother of a son, and he was called Isaac, that is, the laugher. In child-like joy Sarah exclaimed when he was born: "God will make them all laugh at what has happened to me. Everyone who hears of it will laugh. Who will go and tell Abraham Sarah gives children suck? For even in his old age have I borne him a son!" It was not customary in ancient times for a child to be completely weaned till it was about three years old. When Isaac had reached this age, the event was celebrated by a festal gathering. Then Sarah looked round her with a mother's pride, and her eye fell upon Ishmael, who was happy, playing. He was an eyesore to her. Had he not been treated but now as Abraham's heir and the future chief of the tribe ? And yet his mother was nothing but an Egyptian slave! As long as she had had no son herself she had smothered her vexation, and was even glad to have this other child, though only hers by adoption. But now she had a son of her own. The reign of the slave child must come to an end. He was not the son of the promise. Away with him! 66 Sarah "the princess" went in wrath to her husband. 'Drive out this slave and her son," she cried, "for the child of a serf shall never share my son's inheritance!" Abraham was grieved by this violent demand, not so much for Hagar's sake as for Ishmael's, who was, after all, his son. He hesitated, therefore, to comply with Sarah's desires. But in the night his god appeared to him and said: "Let not the request of Sarah trouble you. You need feel no anxiety for your son and his mother. The descendants of Isaac shall indeed be called especially after you, but I will make a mighty people of the posterity of the slave-girl's child as well, because he is your son." Thus persuaded and urged to compliance, Abraham called Hagar to him in the morning, and told her of this sentence of banishment. He gave her bread and water for the journey through the desert; and she took her child upon her shoulder, and entered the desert of Beersheba. Poor Hagar! How had she fallen! Ever since Isaac's birth she had seen the arm uplifted that struck her now; but the blow fell none the less heavily for that. In her imagination her son had been the heir, nay even the tribal chief, and now rejected! All the glory of which she had dreamed had vanished! Alone with her child she entered the inhospitable desert-an exile. She pursued her way until the water was all gone, and then there was nothing left her but to die. What did she care for that? All joy in life had ceased for her, and as for her son, what enjoyment could he ever taste the disinherited! But yet she could not look on him while he died of thirst. So she laid him under a bush, and threw herself down a bowshot off, so as not to hear his cries. But now her strength and spirit were exhausted too-her mother's heart was so deeply smitten-and she burst into tears. Consolation was near the mourner. God had compassion on her son, and his angel cried to her: "Hagar! why do you weep? Your son, rejected as he is, is not forgotten by God even here. Raise him up and support him; and despair not of his future lot, for he is the father of a great people." Thus encouraged, Hagar raised herself; and now that her eyes were cleared by hope, she saw a spring. Life smiled upon her once more for her child's sake. She soon refreshed the fainting Ishmael, and then she pursued her journey. In the desert of Paran Hagar and her son continued to dwell, and God protected the boy, and he grew up in the hardy life of the desert, and became a skilful archer. His mother took him a wife from Egypt. So Ishmael, as Abraham's son, was saved and blessed; but, as the son of a slave, he could not be his father's heir, but must yield to the son of the promise. Undoubtedly. Is this touching story a legend too? This appears not only from the repeated mention of immediate communications from God, in a dream or by the appearance of an angel, which always show that we have the work of imagination or invention before us, but also from the fact that Ishmael, according to the foregoing narratives,1 must have been seventeen years old three years after Isaac's birth, and was therefore no longer a lad that his mother could carry, as is here supposed.2 In many points this story resembles that of Hagar's flight, of which we have spoken already, though they are not both 2 Vv. 14, 15, 18, 20. 1 Genesis xvii. 24, 25; xxi. 5. 8 |