1. Never had Abraham stood higher in honour or sustained a more heroic part than at the close of the Eastern invasion. Yet, by a revulsion not unusual with men of a highly strung temperament, it was “after these things” that he fell into a despondent, dispirited condition. He began to be alarmed for his position; and this seems to have led him half to question the words on which for ten years he had been building his life, and half to feel as though any fulfilment they were likely to have was scarcely worth waiting for. This is not the attitude of mind which is commonly associated with the model man of faith. It shows that he was subject to like passions with other men. His faith had its conflicts with doubt, and his courage its intervals of depression, like those of lesser believers.
2. Several reasons for such a mood at this juncture in his affairs can be fairly guessed at, and are worth attention.
(1) For one thing, a certain reaction was natural after the sudden and unaccustomed strain of the Sodom war. His hurried levy and rapid chase; the night attack, crowned with splendid success; the solemn home-coming; the high-pitched devotion in which he offered the first-fruits of spoil to God; and the generous temper with which he refused for himself the value of a thread-all these formed so great a change from the placid, uneventful years of a shepherd as partly to explain the reaction which followed.
(2) Besides, his over-wrought spirits might well sink when he calmly reviewed the situation. He had defeated Chedorlaomer, it was true, by a surprise; but in doing so he had made an enemy of the most powerful monarch in Asia, and the arm which was long enough to chastise the revolted cities could easily avenge itself upon one man. How was he to withstand a fresh foray from the Euphrates, supposing the confederates to return next season; especially since, by his attitude to the king of Sodom, he had just thrown away his first good chance for securing a foothold in the land, or a predominant position of influence among its native tribes? Nay, was it wise, or was it worth his while, to have put himself forward as a “shield” or champion of the territory which God had promised him, seeing that, were it ten times his own, it must after all pass into the hand of a stranger?
It is easy to compare this with our life. The experience is common enough. We have had all our energies called upon; we have had a time of vivid employment and excitement; we have won that for which we went forth upon the war-path; and now we return to quiet, uneventful life again; home after a long voyage, back to the country after a London season, back to commonplace work after an eager episode of fame or what seemed like fame, back to monotony after excitement. And a dark mood descends on us; dulness of being, deep depression. This is our reaction. And it generally takes the line of the chief aim or the chief sorrow of our life. That thing for which we have steadily worked ever since we were young seems to us to be marked out for failure. That hope of success in business, in literature, in art, which shone before us like a star and beckoned us on, is darkened in the sky. “We are no good,” we think; “our life is broken. All the ideas we had are baffled by misfortune.” Or we go back and think of the great sorrows, the special troubles which are the steady distress of being-the one whose love we missed, the friend we lost, the poverty which suddenly overwhelmed us, the son we, like Abraham, have not got, and we sink deeper and deeper into gloom. It is a common story.1 [Note: Stopford A. Brooke.]
