And Jehovah called unto the man, and said unto him, "Where art thou?" And he said, "I heard thy voice in the garden and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself." And he said, "Who told thee that thou wast naked? 60 Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?" And the man said, "The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.' And Jehovah said unto the woman, "What is this thou hast done?" And the woman said, "The serpent 65 beguiled me, and I did eat." And Jehovah said unto the serpent, "Because thou hast done this, cursed art thou above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life: and I will put enmity between thee and the woman, 70 and between thy seed and her seed: he shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." Unto the woman he said, "I will greatly multiply thy pain and thy conception; in pain thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee." And unto Adam he 75 said, "Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in toil shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt 80 eat the herb of the field; in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." Therefore Jehovah God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was 85 taken. And the man called his wife's name Eve; because she was the mother of all living. And Jehovah God made for Adam and for his wife coats of skins, and clothed them. And Jehovah God said, "Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil," and now, lest he put forth his 90 hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever, he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden the Cherubim,' and the flame of a sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life. The story of the great Flood, Genesis, chaps. 6-9, emphasizes, on the other hand, the rewards of obedience. I *Cherubim: winged creatures, possibly the man-headed bulls, which were familiar figures in Assyria. The Call of Abram1 The following story voices the hope of the prophets for a great future for Israel. Now Jehovah2, 3 said unto Abram, "Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto the land that I will show thee: and I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and 5 be thou a blessing: and I will bless them that bless thee, and him that curseth thee will I curse: and all the families of the earth shall be blessed through thee." So Abram went, as Jehovah had spoken unto him; and Lot went with him. And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and IO all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran; and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan; and into the land of Canaan they came. And Abram passed through the land unto the place of Shechem,4 unto the oak of Moreh. And the Canaanite was then in the 15 land. And Jehovah appeared unto Abram, and said, "Unto thy seed will I give this land," and there builded he an altar unto Jehovah, who appeared unto him. And he removed from thence unto the mountain on the east of Beth-el, and pitched I Gen. 12:1-8 (Am. Standard Rev. Ver., by permission). 2 *We must consider Abram in this story not as a simple individual, but as the chief of the tribes represented by himself and Lot. This is therefore the record of the migration of tribes, a large company moving slowly and by successive stages, often lingering long in a section where pasturage was good, for they doubtless moved with them vast flocks and herds, carrying on the business of life as they went, buying, selling, and trading with the people along their route. In chap. 14 Abram appears as the leader of 318 fighting men, born in his house. This would imply a following of many hundred persons. 3 * Tradition places the early home of the Abrahamic tribes in Ur of the Chaldees, a spot which is not definitely located. Two locations have been suggested, one in the north and the other in the south of the country bordering upon the Euphrates River. Haran, which is mentioned in the later account of Gen. 11:32 as one of the stages of the journey, is easily located on the map. Among shepherd peoples there was always a tendency to leave the well-settled communities and to move on toward better pasture lands. 4*The place of Shechem: possibly a spot where an ancient sanctuary existed. The Oak of Moreh was probably a sacred tree such as is often mentioned in the Old Testament in connection with a sanctuary. The name may signify the Oak of the Soothsayer, and the tree was possibly the seat of an oracle. 20 his tent, having Beth-el' on the west, and Ai on the east: and there he builded an altar unto Jehovah, and called upon the name of Jehovah. Jehovah Forbidding Human Sacrifice2 Another story associated with Abraham, the great ancestor of the Hebrews, is inserted here not only because of its purpose, to depict the wonderful character of the forerunner of the race and to arraign the barbarous custom of human sacrifice, resorted to in Israel in great emergencies, and common among the surrounding nations, but also because of the perfection of the story as such. And it came to pass after these things, that God did prove Abraham, and said unto him, "Abraham"; and he said, "Here am I." And he said, "Take now thy son, thine only son, whom thou lovest, even Isaac, and get thee into the land of Moriah;3 5 and offer him there for a burnt-offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of." And Abraham rose early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his young 1 *Bethel: This word means the House of God. By tradition it was associated with Jacob and his dream. This story does not mean that the name of the place was Bethel at the time when Abram settled there. In 28:19, we see that the old name of the place was Luz. Its sacred name seems to have been given by the Israelites themselves. 2 Gen. 22:1-19 (Am. Standard Rev. Ver., by permission). 3 The land of Moriah: Considerable trouble has been taken to locate the spot where this offering was intended to take place. In the innermost part of the mosque in Jerusalem which stands upon the supposed site of the ancient Temple of Solomon is a great stone upon which the offerings of the Hebrews were made for centuries. Tradition has said that this stone marked the spot where Isaac was placed upon the altar, but in the time of Abraham Jerusalem was already a city, and there is no suggestion in the story that Abraham went to a city to make his offering. We are quite in the dark as to the facts, however, and speculation is useless. 4 Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son Isaac, while testifying strongly to his faith in Jehovah, was not unique. Such sacrifices were a familiar fact to him even among his immediate neighbors, especially as a last resort in extreme distress or fanaticism. In II Kings 3: 27, it is related of the king of Moab that he offered his son for a burntoffering upon the city wall, when under siege. Judg. 11:39 suggests that the daughter of Jephthah suffered the same fate. Two centuries later we find Ahaz of Judea offering his son, "in accordance with the abominations of the heathen," II Kings 16: 3. Doubtless this story stood for centuries as the classic denunciation of the prophets against the practice. That it was a favorite story and was retold and rewritten numberless times is apparent in the perfection of the story. Not a detail is omitted, not a non-essential included, and the story moves on from start to finish smoothly and with just the right regard for climax. An effort to improve it will convince one of this. |