1. When we endeavour to piece together the scattered allusions of the sacred story so as to form a picture of the outward life of Abraham, it is as a wealthy emir or shepherd-chieftain that we have to represent him. His wealth was portable. It consisted mainly in extensive flocks of sheep and goats, which were bred chiefly for their wool, and the milk of which, more than their flesh, furnished the staple article of food. To these were added smaller herds of camels and asses, but not horses, to be employed in riding or as beasts of burden. Oxen were probably of less consequence until the use of the plough became general. But though cattle constituted the leading item in the chief's property, a metallic medium of exchange was not unknown. For this purpose silver was used in uncoined masses (probably ring-shaped), the value of which, whether impressed upon each or not, could always be ascertained by weighing them. Gold is not spoken of as a currency; but it was twisted into armlets, noserings, and similar objects of female ornament.
Not many years ago much offence was given by one, now a high dignitary in the English Church, who ventured to suggest the original likeness of Abraham, by calling him a Bedouin Sheykh. It is one advantage flowing from the multiplication of Eastern travels that such offence could now no longer be taken. Every English pilgrim to the Holy Land, even the most reverential and the most fastidious, is delighted to trace and to record the likeness of patriarchal manners and costumes in the Arabian chiefs. To refuse to do so would be to decline the use of what we may almost call a singular gift of Providence. The unchanged habits of the East render it in this respect a kind of living Pompeii. The outward appearances which in the case of the Greeks and Romans we know only through art and writing, through marble, fresco, and parchment, in the case of Jewish history we know through the forms of actual men, living and moving before us, wearing almost the same garb, speaking in almost the same language, and certainly with the same general turns of speech and tone and manners. Such as we see them now, starting on a pilgrimage, or a journey, were Abraham and his brother's son, when they “went forth” to go into the land of Canaan. “All their substance that they had ‘gathered' ” is heaped high on the backs of their kneeling camels. The “slaves” that they “had bought in Haran” run along by their sides. Round about them are their flocks of sheep and goats, and the asses moving underneath the towering forms of the camels. The chief is there, amidst the stir of movement, or resting at noon within his black tent, marked out from the rest by his cloak of brilliant scarlet, by the fillet of rope which binds the loose handkerchief round his head, by the spear which he holds in his hand to guide the march, and to fix the encampment. The chief's wife, the princess of the tribe, is there in her own tent, to make the cakes and prepare the usual meal of milk and butter; the slave or the child is ready to bring in the red lentil soup for the weary hunter, or to kill the calf for the unexpected guest. Even the ordinary social state is the same; polygamy, slavery, the exclusiveness of family ties; the period of service for the dowry of a wife: the solemn obligations of hospitality; the temptations, easily followed, into craft or falsehood.1 [Note: A. P. Stanley, The Jewish Church, i. 9.]
2. In every aspect, except that which most concerns us, the likeness is complete between the Bedouin chief of the present day and the Bedouin chief who came from Chaldæa some four thousand years ago. In every aspect but one; and that one contrast is set off in the highest degree by the resemblance of all besides. The more we see the outward conformity of Abraham and his immediate descendants to the godless, grasping, foul-mouthed Arabs of the modern desert, and even their fellowship in the infirmities of their common state and country, the more we shall recognize the force of the religious faith which has raised them from that low estate to be the heroes and saints of their people, the spiritual fathers of European religion and civilization. The hands are the hands of the Bedouin Esau; but the voice is the voice of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob-the voice which still makes itself heard across deserts and continents and seas; heard wherever there is a conscience to listen, or an imagination to be pleased, or a sense of reverence left amongst mankind.
Let us, in order to see this contrast, return to the story, which now deepens in power and interest, and in the sculpture of a great character. A quarrel arose between the herdsmen of Lot and Abraham; and in human affairs the quarrels of servants finally involve the masters. All the world is linked together into a family, though nine-tenths of the world deny this truth. It is no use denying it, and the truth acts sharply in punishment on those who contradict it. Systematic denial of it by nations, by classes, by families, by societies, means fighting, misery, famine, desolation, cruelty, barbarism, revolution, the red flag of blood and fire and social hatred waving in the hurricane of war. The powerful in the quarrel crush the weak, until the weak, becoming powerful, crush their foes in turn. In national and social quarrels this is the way of the thing we call civilization, the ignoble result of the principle that self-interest is the law of progress. “And Abram said unto Lot, Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee, and between my herdmen and thy herdmen; for we are brethren. Is not the whole land before thee? separate thyself, I pray thee, from me: if thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if thou take the right hand, then I will go to the left.”
3. As yet the character of Lot has not been exhibited, and we can only calculate from the relation he bears to Abraham what his answer to the proposal will probably be. We know that Abraham has been the making of his nephew, and that the land belongs to Abraham; and we should expect that in common decency Lot would set aside the generous offer of his uncle and demand that he alone should determine the matter.
The two men stood on the rocky summit of Bethel and looked down on either side, east and west. East rose the sharp-toothed range of hills above Jericho. Beyond them lay the steep valley of the Jordan, and Lot knew, by report, of the wealthy land of the cities of the plain. Westward and southward were the naked hills of Judah, and the rocky passes where Benjamin afterwards housed like a wolf, and the range where Hebron couched-a difficult and rugged land, dwelt in by rude tribes; a pilgrim's mountain country. Here the choice was made, and the story takes a more solemn turn, and is weighty with a deeper moral, a moral driven home by the writer, to the grave issues of life, and charged with a religious humanity. Lot, instead of rivalling, traded on his uncle's magnanimity; and chose him all the plains of Jordan because in his eye it was the richest part of the land.
Dean Stanley, with a few firm touches, has sketched the panorama from Abraham's tent. “To the east there rises in the foreground the jagged range of the hills above Jericho; in the distance the dark wall of Moab; between them lies the wide valley of the Jordan, its course marked by the tract of forest in which its rushing stream is enveloped; and down to this valley a long and deep ravine, now, as always, the main line of communication by which it is approached from the central hills of Palestine, a ravine rich with vine, olive, and fig, winding its way through ancient reservoirs and sepulchres, remains of a civilization now extinct, but in the times of the patriarchs not yet begun. To the south and the west the view commanded the bleak hills of Judæa, varied by the heights crowned with what were afterwards the cities of Benjamin, and overhanging what in a later day was to be Jerusalem, and in the far distance the southern range on whose slope is Hebron. Northward are the hills which divide Judæa from the rich plains of Samaria.”1 [Note: A. P. Stanley, Sinai and Palestine, 218.]
4. Let us look for a moment at Lot's choice. The well-watered plain of Jordan is a great prize for any man, and Lot has made sure of it. His estate is large, and is favoured by the sun and the clouds. Is there, then, any drawback? Read: “But the men of Sodom were wicked, and sinners before the Lord exceedingly.” A great estate, but bad neighbours! Material glory, but moral shame! Noble landscapes, but mean men! But Lot did just what men are doing to-day. He made choice of a home without making any inquiry as to the religious state of the neighbourhood. They do not care how poor the Church is, if the farm be good. They will give up the most inspiring ministry in the world for ten feet more garden, or a paddock to feed an ass in. They will tell you that the house is roomy, the garden is large, the air is balmy, the district is genteel; and if you ask them what religious teaching they will have there, they tell you they really do not know, but must inquire! They will take away six children into a moral desert for the sake of a garden to play in; they will leave Paul or Apollos for six feet of greenhouse! Others again fix their tent where they can get the best food for the heart's life; and they sacrifice a summer-house that they may now and again get a peep of heaven.2 [Note: J. Parker.]
There is a solemn choice in life. Life and death, light and darkness, truth and lies are set before us. At every instant the cry comes for us to choose one or the other, and the choice of one involves the putting away of the other. And we must choose. That is one of the certainties of life. There is no such thing as offering one hand to God and another to evil; one hand to the self-sacrifice of Christ, and the other to the covetousness of the world. You cannot serve God and Mammon. You cannot follow Jesus at home, and your own pleasure in your outward life. Your life, whether you like it or not, becomes of one piece.3 [Note: S. A. Brooke.]
5. The moment Abraham chose the simple life, lofty and unreproved, with God, God spoke to him. “Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art, northward and southward, eastward and westward: for all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever. And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth for multitude. Arise, walk through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it; for unto thee will I give it.” A spiritual reward for a spiritual act; the possession of an exalted thought-the thought of the mighty people which were to flow from him. For the country was not his, save in spiritual possession, in the thought of its belonging to his seed after him. And in that thought Abraham lived the uplifting life of faith, such faith as some of us have in the glory of the race which shall come after us. No actual possession of the earth spoiled or tainted that life, as he wandered to and fro. No; there was not one solitary touch of the world in his heart from now until he died.
In his character of Abraham the writer has uplifted our whole conception of humanity; and to do that so long ago, to hand down that great tradition to the reverence and aspiration of mankind, to give this impulse and passion to men and women and children, was to do a greater and more useful thing than to make a thousand inventions for material progress. Verily, the poets and story-tellers who image forth noble and beautiful human life and character have, while they represent the true rewards of others, their one immortal and marvellous reward.1 [Note: S. A. Brooke, The Old Testament and Modern Life, 51.]
What though thine arm hath conquered in the fight,-
What though the vanquished yield unto thy sway
Or riches garnered pave thy golden way,-
Not therefore hast thou gained the sovran height
Of man's nobility! No halo's light
From these shall round thee shed its sacred ray;
If these be all thy joy,-then dark thy day,
And darker still thy swift approaching night!
But if in thee more truly than in others
Hath dwelt love's charity;-if by thine aid
Others have passed above thee, and if thou,
Though victor, yieldest victory to thy brothers,
Though conquering conquered, and a vassal made,-
Then take thy crown, well mayst thou wear it now.2 [Note: Samuel Waddington]
