the care of daughters upon their uterine brothers. Thus it was Simeon and Levi who avenged the honour of their own sister Dinah by murdering the Shechemites (Gen. xxxiv. 25, 26); it was Absalom who assassinated Amncn for the outrage on his sister Tamar (2 Sam. xiii. 28); it was the brothers as well as the fathers of the women of Shiloh who would come to complain of their capture by the Benjamites when the latter were in danger of extinction for want of wives (Judg. xxi. 22). The above reason may account for Laban's prominence in the matter of his sister's espousals. But the absence of Bethuel's name in the chief points of the transaction is explained in different ways. Josephus ("Antiq.” i. 16. 2) makes Rebekah tell Eliezer that he is dead-a statement at variance with our text (chap. xxiv. 50). Jewish tradition ' affirms that he died on the morning after the betrothal from eating some poisonous pottage at the feast on the previous evening. Another suggestion is that he was subject to some imbecility or mental incapacity, and therefore unable to transact business or to be consulted in family matters. Whatever be the reason for the father's inferior position, Laban is the prime mover in the matter, and his character, as it comes out in his dealings with Jacob, shows even here faint traces of selfishness and greed. In contrast with the time-serving and semi-infidel Laban stands the upright and faithful Eliezer. He has not lived with Abraham without learning from him something of true religion and trust in God. The patriarch's household had kept to the right way, and had been taught the fear of the Lord. In all his conduct the steward reflects the piety, the courtesy, the faith of his master. He prays for guidance at the outset, and he trusts wholly to the leading of Divine Providence. That beautiful religious story, the Book of Tobit, reflects the same assurance of God's protecting hand, when it makes Tobias to be accompanied by the angel Raphael on his journey to the distant Media, and narrates his subsequent conduct at his marriage with Sara. The constant sense of the Divine Presence is a marked feature in all the transaction. Almighty God takes interest in human affairs, vouchsafes to answer prayer by showing tokens of His will, turns what to worldly minds might seem mere accidents or chances into signs of His guidance. Beer, "Leben Abraham's," pp. 81, 196. * Blunt, "Undesigned Coincidences," i, sec. 4. Meantime, while these events were happening in far distant Haran, Isaac had waited calmly for the issue in the neighbourhood of Beersheba. He, with his father, was now at the well Lahai-roi, where Hagar had received the heavenly message; and at eventide he went forth into the plain to pray and meditate-to reflect, perchance, on all God's dealings with his parents, so wonderful and consoling and filled with a glorious future, to pray for a happy result to the steward's journey, so momentous to himself and his family. As he pondered on these things, he beheld a caravan approaching from the north, and recognized the camels which had started weeks ago on the mission to Haran. On her side, Rebekah, in the distance, seeing a man of distinction before her, sprung from her camel to the ground, Eastern etiquette alike forbidding women to ride in the presence of great personages,' and enjoining men to receive chiefs and nobles on foot, even as Naaman the Syrian alighted from his chariot to meet the messenger of the Prophet Elisha (2 Kings v. 21), and Abigail dismounted from her ass to prostrate herself before David (1 Sam. xxv. 23). Classical students will remember how the father of the Consul Fabius, desiring to try whether his son was duly sensible of his high dignity, rode up to him on horseback, and was gratified at being commanded by the lictor to dismount, as he was thus assured that filial affection did not outweigh official position." Having heard who it was that was approaching, Rebekah modestly takes a veil, one of those ample wrappers that cover, not the face only, but the whole body, and enshrouds herself in its folds. The bride must not appear unveiled before the bridegroom at the early stage of the marriage ceremony. It was thus that the fraud could be practised upon Jacob in the substitution of Leah for Rachel, etiquette not permitting the man to see his wife's face until the marriage was completed (chap. xxix. 25). Isaac received from Eliezer full particulars of all that had befallen him; he heard of the Providential guidance which had led to the selection of Rebekah, of her kindliness, her modesty, her faith, her ready mind; he could see her beauty of form, he could realize her beauty of character, and with tender love he took her to his mother's tent, and she became his wife, and comforted him in his bereavement, filling the void which Sarah's death had left in his tender heart. Thomson, The Land and the Book," p. 593. Livy, xxiv. 44. The marriage thus happily contracted was not blessed with children. The promised seed, humanly speaking, seemed likely to fail. Abraham's intense desire to fold in his arms an heir of his beloved son, before he himself departed in peace to rest with his fathers, remained for twenty years unfulfilled. Like his deceased wife Sarah, Rebekah was barren. Other holy women have learned through long expectation that children are a gift of the Lord. So Rachel waited impatiently; so Hannah passionately implored the blessing of children. The gentle Isaac showed no impatience at the frustration of his hopes, and Rebekah had learned in his school to look to God for every boon, to know that the promised seed was the fruit, not of nature, but of grace. She found it so in her own case. The expedient which Sarai had used to obtain an adopted son seems never to have occurred to Isaac and his wife; at any rate it was never put in practice. They would have a legitimate child, and wait God's good time for its arrival. When Isaac had reached the age of sixty years he could no longer endure to see Rebekah's silent sorrow at her lack of children, and he flew to God for relief. He entreated the Lord for his wife. As the head of his family and the priest of his household, he offered sacrifice and worship,' with the prayer for a blessing on his union. And his prayer was heard. Rebekah conceived, and in her mature age, impatient of the new life that stirred within her, and having a presentiment of ill, she cried aloud: "If so it be, wherefore do I live?" But always conscious of God's guiding hand, she went to inquire of the Lord. Perhaps she asked counsel through her aged father-in-law, that "prophet" of the Lord (chap. xx. 7), the patriarch-priest of the whole tribe. Some have thought that she went to Melchizedek, the king of Salem. Most probably she repaired to the altar or shrine at Beersheba, which had become the holy place of her family, consecrated by frequent worship and gracious revelations of Jehovah. The oracle she then received was handed down in antistrophic parallelisms, and thus it ran : "Two nations are in thy womb, And two people shall be separated even from thy bowels; ■ Gen. xxv. 21. The word here translated "entreated" means, according to Gesenius, "burned incense unto." After years proved the truth of this prophecy. Rebekah in due time gave birth to twins, whom she named respectively Esau, from his hairy skin, and Jacob, supplanter, because his hand held his brother's heel when he was born. For fifteen years the children grew up under their grandfather's eye. What effect his teaching and example had upon them we cannot tell. The opposition between the characters of the twins very early developed itself. In their lives there appeared none of that remarkable affection or that mysterious sympathy which are so generally exhibited by children of a common birth. Their dispositions were as different as their pursuits. While Jacob loved his home, was content with the employments and duties of his domestic circle, Esau was never happy except when engaged in outdoor pursuits, the chase of wild beasts, the free life of the half-savage hunter. The complete contrast to his own quiet, contented spirit, led Isaac to regard this wild, impetuous son with unusual favour; Rebekah, on the other hand, set her chief affection on the domestic, gentle Jacob. To what errors and misery this partiality opened the way in the future cannot here be told, as Abraham's life had closed before that evil day dawned. The "Book of Jubilees," or "The Little Genesis," as it is sometimes called, has retained some traditions concerning the twins, and the way in which their grandfather regarded them, which are curious, and may, like all myths, have a basis of fact. Jacob, it is said, learnt writing, and was diligent in studying all the learning that came in his way; Esau scorned all such pursuits, and attended only to hunting and war. Abraham regarded Esau's inclinations with no pleasure, but encouraged his younger grandson in his studious habits, and loved him as well as his mother did. Before he died he gave Rebekah a solemn charge concerning her beloved son. He told her that God had chosen Jacob to be the medium of blessing to the whole race of Shem, and the ancestor of a people severed from all other nations; he enjoined Rebekah to watch him carefully, and to keep him as the apple of her eye, and to promote his well-being by every means in her power CHAPTER XV. CLOSING YEARS. DEATH. Marriage with Keturah; difficulties in connection therewith--Tribes sprung from this union- Abraham dies-His burial--The friend of God-General view of his character. THE time came, as it comes to all, saint or sinner, king or peasant, when the great patriarch was to be called away to that unseen world whither already his beloved wife had preceded him, and in whose verities he had so long and steadfastly believed. Only one more event has to be considered before we come to the closing scene; but that is an event which has long perplexed commentators, and the difficulties connected with which have never been satisfactorily solved. After narrating Eliezer's mission and Isaac's marriage, the sacred writer proceeds (Gen. xxv. 1): “And Abraham took another wife, and her name was Keturah." The word here used for wife (ishah) is found in chapter xxx. 4, applied to Bilhah, Jacob's concubine; and in 1 Chron. i. 32 Keturah is called expressly the concubine of Abraham. As for the date of this circumstance, it is possible that it took place after Sarah's death, and that the paragraph relating to the matter follows in chronological sequence the account of the burial at Machpelah, chapter xxiv. being introduced out of the regular order. If it took place while his legitimate vife was living, it seems difficult to imagine, on the one hand, that Abraham's evident disinclination to such arrangement in the case of Hagar and his experience of its disastrous effects should have been forgotten; and, on the other, that the jealousy of Sarah should not have intervened to make the alliance impracticable during her lifetime. The chief argument against the theory |