seen close by, caught in a thicket by his branching horns, and Abraham substituted this animal and offered it up instead of his son. Was not this whole transaction a parable? Was it not intended to prefigure the sacrifice and death of Christ, the well-beloved Son of His Father, who was indeed truly to be sacrificed and to die (in that same land of Moriah), and after death to be raised to life? Thus this trial of Abraham's faith was a type of that better sacrifice, and would lead men to see that the awful event of Good Friday was predicted and anticipated. Now that the shadow has given place to the substance, the figure been made real, we Christians can trace this resemblance in all its wonderful particulars, can see in it a prophecy and picture of the mightiest event which earth has ever witnessed from the foundation of the world. This is no mere history, no mere mythic tale of the hoary past which has no concern for us of modern days. It is a manifestation of God's purpose working gradually its own development and shaping events to foreshadow coming mysteries. Here, on the one hand, is the Father sparing not His own Son, but delivering Him up to the cross; here, on the other hand, is a father willingly surrendering his own son to die at God's command. Here is the Son, the only begotten of His Father, though able to will other. wise (John x. 18), deliberately consenting to obey His Father's command; and here is Isaac, in the full strength of vigorous youth, voluntarily laid upon the altar and baring his throat to the sacrificial knife. His father's only son, heir of all things that he possessed, beloved greatly, his birth, long foretold, happening punctually at the appointed time, innocent, yet to suffer death, meek and submissive to his father's will, bearing the wood for the sacrifice up the hill-Isaac is a marvellous type of Christ. And so also in his restoration to life after being three days in his father's purpose dead, he represents the resurrection of Christ. He did not indeed die, as Christ died; but herein is seen another emblem of the great atonement. Death and substitution are needed to make the type complete, and they are found in the victim offered in Isaac's place. It was a true conception of an old writer' that Isaac was a type of the Godhead, the ram of the manhood of Christ. As Isaac was not to be slain, was too noble a victim to be put to death, so the Godhead cannot die, and a body must be prepared for ■ Theodoret, ap. "Speaker's Commentary," Gen. xxii. 13. Christ before He could taste of death, though the Godhead was indissolubly united to the manhood. The ram was, as it were, joined to Isaac and suffered death, and thus the sacrifice was perfected. But it is well to observe that in every point the reality surpasses the shadow. Isaac, though he is parted from his servants, is not alone, his father is with him; Christ is betrayed to death by His own familiar friend, deserted by His chosen Apostles, and in His hour of unknown agony is left to Himself, bereft of the consolations of the Divine Presence, so that He cries, "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" Isaac was stretched by loving hands on the pile of wood; Christ was nailed by rude, unfeeling soldiers to the cross Isaac saw his father's arm uplifted to slay him; Christ felt “the arrows of the Almighty within Him, the poison whereof His spirit drank up; the terrors of God did set themselves in array against Him" (Job vi. 4). Isaac was saved from death, the heavenly voice forbade the sacrifice; but Christ suffered upon the cross. In His case the victim must die; there is no arresting of the uplifted hand, and instead of saying, as Isaac said, "My father, behold the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt-offering?" Christ's words are, "Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God." The sacrifice is done, the mighty act whose consequences shall thrill through all ages is complete; the smoke of the sacrifice has passed away, and by the smouldering ashes, on the wild hill-top, the father and son stand wondering at what had befallen, with hearts full of faith and love and every tender feeling. Then from the silent heaven the angel's voice a second time was heard, announcing the reward of this great deed. God called Abraham by name, and with awful solemnity pronounced over him a mighty blessing, as He shall speak hereafter to each of those who have won the victory of faith: "Well done, thou good and faithful servant ; enter thou into the joy of thy lord." He swears by Himself that His promise to Abraham shall never fail, that His blessing waits on him and his posterity for ever, that not only should his own direct descendants bask in the light of His countenance, but that from him the benediction should extend unto all the nations of earth. The spiritual promise made in the early revelation long years ago is here repeated and confirmed in the most solemn manner. "When God made promise to Abraham," says the writer of the Epistle ... to the Hebrews (chap. vi. 13 ff.), "since He could swear by none greater, He sware by Himself. . . . God, being minded to show more abundantly unto the heirs of the promise the immutability of His counsel, interposed with an oath; that by two immutable things [the promise and the oath], in which it is impossible for God to lie, we may have a strong encouragement, who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us.” This transcendent promise, the last recorded utterance of God to Abraham, is continually in the mouth of the Lord and His servants; it was repeated to Isaac, it was Joseph's comfort on his death-bed, it inspired Moses' exhortation to his countrymen and his intercession with God, it accentuated the people's ingratitude in their rebellion, it fired the denunciations of the prophets and kept their hope alive, it shines in the Benedictus of Zacharias, it pervades the speech of Stephen. Nor yet has the blessing received its full accomplishment. Though the Israelites, God's peculiar people, be Abraham's seed, and from his family Christ was born, yet who can tell what victories Christ's kingdom has still to win? Who can tell what unspeakable blessings He, the Saviour, the Messiah, the Godman, has conferred and shall confer upon His body the Church, and through her on all creation? The full import of that angelic word no mortal man can know it is beyond our thought; we cannot grasp its connotation. : Well might Abraham call that hallowed spot "Jehovah-Jireh," "The Lord will provide." He had said, in answer to his son's artless question, "God will provide a lamb for sacrifice," and now, seeing how true his words had proved, how God had shown Himself the covenanted Saviour, he changes his tone, and names the scene of this marvellous transaction, "Jehovah will provide." And well might hence a proverbial expression arise, significant of more than one great truth. People say : "In the mount of the Lord it shall be provided," meaning, that, as help came to Abraham in his greatest need, so if we look to God we may always find succour and relief. But the words may also signify, "In the mount Jehovah shall be seen," or, disregarding the vowel points, "In the mount of the Lord is Jireh." The mount of the Lord elsewhere (e.g. Isa. xxx. 29; Zech. viii. 3) is a name of the Temple hill; and that there Jehovah shall be is true indeed. On Moriah the Lord was specially present in His Temple, when He showed His glorious shechinah and accepted His people's worship; to this house of God came the Lord in the person of Christ, as Malachi (chap. iii. 1) had prophesied ; and on the neighbouring hill of Calvary the cross was raised, whereon was offered that mighty sacrifice which taketh away the sin of men, the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. Thus closes this momentous episode. The glorious promise made, the voice from heaven sealing its truth, Isaac rescued from death, the continuity of the favoured seed for ever assured, nothing better can follow. Pondering these things, grateful, trusting, awestruck, the father and son return to the servants whom they had left at their halting-place, and retracing the path by which they had travelled so lately, went to their home at Beersheba. CHAPTER XIIL MACHPELAH. Sarah dies; her character-Burial-places-Abraham buys MachpelahThe contract-Money-Mosque of Hebron and Abraham's burial. place described-Life beyond the grave and resurrection of the body. FOR some years Abraham continued to reside at Beersheba, and then for some reason he moved northwards to his old quarters at Hebron. Thirty-seven years had passed since he last had pitched his tent there, and now he comes but to face the last great sorrow of his life; for here he loses the faithful companion of his pilgrimage, his trusty partner and wife Sarah. She had reached the age of one hundred and seven and twenty years when she was called away. A long life had passed by the side of a husband whom she loved and reverenced, a life in which she had been cherished, honoured, and tenderly treated. She was no ideal wife of an ideal hero. Real flesh and blood was she, with many of the foibles as well as many of the virtues of a woman. As a wife she sets an example of conjugal obedience and subordination; as a mother, of the warmest love. Old stories tell that it was the intelligence of Abraham's awful mission to Moriah that killed her, and that he found her dead on his return. The maternal instinct was always warm within her. This was one motive that made her so earnestly desirous of children, and that led her to take means to obtain a child even from her bondmaid. She is jealous and unreasonable. She is cruel to Hagar, and envious of her position as a mother; she lays all the blame of her own * Beer, "Leben Abraham's," pp. 72 ff. |