SECTION X.

Comment on the preceding prophecies.

The prophecies relating to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, were all necessarily similar; and they all tend to the same wonderful and glorious results. The faith, righteousness and obedience of Abraham were to be rewarded, and have been rewarded, by the Almighty's selection of him, as the original stock, from whence was to proceed, and from whence has proceeded, in due time, a seed in whom "all the families of the earth should be blessed." And this seed is 66 Christ," who now once in the end of the world hath appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself." (Heb. ix. 26.)

"To Him give all the prophets witness, that through his name, whosoever believeth in him, shall receive remission of sins." (Acts x. 43.)

The promised seed was to proceed from the second son, in two succeeding generations: from Isaac, the second son of Abraham; and from Jacob, the second

son of Isaac. "The elder shall serve the younger," was God's decree. The inheritance was spiritual, and had nothing to do with any human laws or usages of primogeniture. The pardoning mercy of God is his own free gift, and therefore "hath He mercy on whom He will have mercy." (Rom. ix. 18.) It was God's good pleasure to appoint the two elder brothers, Ishmael and Esau, to temporal kingdoms, and to establish his own divine kingdom in the line of Isaac and Jacob. When Esau implored a blessing from his father, "Isaac answered and said, behold I have made Jacob thy Lord, and all his brethren have I given to him for servants." (Gen. xxvii. 37.)

This pre-eminence was a spiritual rather than a temporal distinction; for when the two brothers encountered each other at Penuel, Esau was already a chief at the head of four hundred men, and Jacob accosted him with every demonstration of deference and submission. "He bowed himself to the ground seven times." (Gen. xxxiii. 3.) Jacob had hardly established his own independence of Laban, when Esau was already a Prince " in the land of Seir, the country of Edom." At the prospect of meeting his powerful and rival brother," Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed." He prayed to God, "Deliver me, I pray thee, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for I fear him, lest he will come and smite me, and the mother with the children." (Gen. xxxii. 11.) Moreover, when Isaac granted his qua

lified blessing to his elder son Esau, though he forewarned him that he should "serve his brother," yet he added—" It shall come to pass, when thou shalt have the dominion, that thou shalt break his yoke from off thy neck." (Gen. xxvii. 40.)

In the year 889 B.C., nearly 900 years after this prophecy of Isaac was uttered, "the Edomites revolted from under the dominion of Judah;" (2 Chron. xxi. 8.) "and hereby," says Bishop Newton, " this part of the prophecy was fulfilled." The emancipation of Esau from "the yoke of Jacob," and the establishment of his "dominion," were finally realized when Herod, son of Antipater, the Idumæan, was made King of the Jews, 36 years B.C. Thus the birthright which Esau lost, and which Jacob obtained, was a spiritual, rather than a worldly, privilege. With this intent, the wrestling angel, at the river Jabbok, changed the name of Jacob to " Israel," that is, a "Prince with God." (Gen. xxxii. 28.) This change of name was further confirmed by God to Jacob at Padan-aram. "God said unto him, thy name is Jacob," (that is, he that supplants, or undermines,) "thy name shall not be called any more Jacob, but Israel shall be thy name and He called his name Israel," (a prince with God-or a wrestler with God, or prevailing with God.) (Gen. xxv. 10.)

Isaac's second son, (when, perhaps from worldly motives of ambition, he refused to share his pottage with his elder brother, who was "faint with hunger"

and "at the point to die," unless he would consent to sell his birthright; and when afterwards he deceitfully supplanted him in his Father's blessing,) was rightly called "Jacob."

In a mere temporal and worldly sense, from the moment of his birth, until he surreptitiously obtained the final blessing of his father, Jacob was an usurper of his twin-elder brother's rights. He had scarce entered into the world, when he seized his brother's heel. Hence the name bestowed upon him, signifies "heel," or " one that supplants or undermines."

But after he had wrestled with the angel of God, striving for the high prize of his blessing, and persevering even under the anguish of a dislocated thigh, the glorious destiny, to which he was appointed, became apparent, and was openly declared by God's decree.

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'Thy name shall not be called any more "Jacob," (the usurper of Esau's temporal inheritance) but "Israel" a Prince with God; "for as a prince, thou hast power with God and with man, and hast prevailed.'

As a prince, his power was not to be that of earthly dominion, but a power far more glorious and comprehensive-a power with God-in relation to man; this was the wondrous privilege and blessing for which he had struggled and prevailed. His victory had established him, not as a mighty potentate on earth, but as "strong in the Lord, and in the

power of his might," and, through that promised seed, which was to spring from him, would mankind "prevail," when, clad "in the whole armour of God," they should "wrestle, not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this worldagainst spiritual wickedness in high places." (Ephes. vi. 12.)

Thus were Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob chosen, not for the purpose which their descendants vainly imagined; not that they might become, in any sense, a worldly empire, a "chosen generation," but that they might be spiritually a "peculiar people," destined to be the instruments of the Almighty's gracious purposes of salvation, towards" all the families of the earth."

The prophet Balaam described them as a people perfectly distinct from, and unlike the powerful empires of the world. "Lo!" said he, "the people shall dwell alone, and shall not be reckoned among the nations." (Numb. xxiii. 9.)

Those countless numbers, which were to proceed from the patriarchal stock, were not their "children in the flesh." "These, says St. Paul," are not the children of God; but the children of the promise are counted for the seed." (Rom. ix. 8.)

In this sense it is, that the progeny of Jacob was to be " as dust," and even "the fourth part of Israel' not to be numbered; for these divine and gracious