command went forth, Cut them down! and the Israelites were bidden to smite and spare not, for they were abominable in the sight of God. The Israelites were to be a peculiar people, separate from sinners, specially appointed to keep alive in the world the knowledge of the true God till Messiah came. How could they do this, if they had been "mingled amongst the heathen and learned their works?" How could they have maintained the pure worship of God, if they had inter-married with these idolaters and lived as they lived? Therefore they were to exterminate these nations, and have no pity, lest they should learn to do after all their abominations, and so sin against the Lord who had dealt so lovingly with them. And what a lesson was this to the Israelites themselves! They learned by this how utterly hateful is sin in the eyes of God; how sin forfeits His favour and brings sure punishment. It was burnt in upon their hearts that as the Lord hates sin so they were to hate it also. They were to realize the Psalmist's feeling when he says (Psa. cxxxix. 21, 22): "Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate Thee? and am not I grieved with those that rise up against Thee? I hate them with perfect hatred; I count them mine enemies." And what could more surely impress this upon their mind than being themselves made the executioners of God's wrath? Not an overflow of waters as in the Flood, not a tempest of fire and brimstone as in the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, took off the guilty race. God did not use the powers of nature, the unconscious agencies of the elements, to inflict His sentence. No; He made His own people the instruments of His vengeance. Pestilence and famine and earthquake might have done His work, but He will have His own children, with their own hands, uproot the evil seed, that they may recognize the connection between sin and suffering, and may fear to incur the punishment which they themselves applied. Thus they were not merely passive spectators of God's judgments, they were the agents of these judgments, they were workers together with God; they learned that the Lord was a moral Governor; they could say: "Verily, there is a reward for the righteous; doubtless there is a God that judgeth the earth."

Thus Abram was consoled for the affliction that was to come upon his descendants. All should be well at the last. And as for himself, he should go to his grave in peace; he should join

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his forefathers in the other world, though his body should lie in this distant land. A long and prosperous life is promised: "Thou shalt be buried in a good old age." And then God shows more definitely what is His part in the newly made covenant ; what is that possession which He promises to the posterity of His faithful servant. This is first stated broadly as territory extending “from the river of Egypt to the great river—the river Euphrates." The river of Egypt is doubtless the Nile, or its eastern branch; and the prediction claims that the Israelites shall be lords of the country from the Nile valley to the Euphrates. This was the design of God, and such actually was the extent of the kingdom in Solomon's time, who, as we read (2 Chron. ix. 26) : “ ruled over all the kings from the River even unto the land of the Philistines, and to the border of Egypt." When David was about to bring up the Ark from Kirjath-jearim to Jerusalem, he gathered all Israel together" from Shihor of Egypt [ie., the Nile] even unto the entering of Hemath" (1 Chron. xiii. 5). The peoples who were to be dispossessed are expressly mentioned, in order that others not so named might be unmolested. The ten nations here named are these: the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites. The first three are not of the tribes of Canaan. The Kenites were well known in after years from their connection with Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses (Judg. i. 16; iv. 11), and their firm friendship for Israel. At this time they inhabited the country between the south of Canaan and the mountains of Sinai, being allied with, or a sub-tribe of, Amalek. If, as might be inferred from Jethro, the priest of Midian, being also called a Kenite, they were a branch of the Midianites, they must have descended from a different tribe from that which derived its origin from Keturah, Abraham's wife. One of their towns was Cain, which was situated on the edge of the mountains above Engedi, and was probably that "nest in the rocks" denounced by Balaam in his prophecy (Numb. xxiv. 21). The Kenizzites are mentioned nowhere else as being dispossessed by the Israelites. Caleb, who was of the tribe of Judah, is called (Numb. xxii. 12; Josh. xiv. 6, 14) a Kenizzite, his mother perhaps being of that nation, or the particular territory where he was settled appertaining to them. That a grandson of Esau is named Kenaz points to the

fact that a portion of the Kenizzites was amalgamated with the Edomites. There is no occasion to suppose that the enumeration of this people in the passage which we are considering is proleptical, or introduced by a later hand; the tribe may have become extinct between the times of Abraham and Joshua, or they may have lived beyond the limits to which the Israelites' conquest then extended. Either of these hypotheses would account for their disappearance from the catalogue of the dispossessed inhabitants. As to the Kadmonites, we can give no account of their origin or location. The word itself probably means Eastern," and may be a synonym for "children of the East," the term by which the Arabian tribes were designated, and which is used in this passage by the Jerusalem Targum. The name occurs nowhere else. The Girgashites are sometimes mentioned among the Canaanitish peoples, but no indication of their geographical position is ever given, and Josephus ("Antiq." i. 6. 2) says that we know nothing of them but their name, as they were utterly destroyed by the Israelites. The identification of them with the Gergesenes, who, according to some MSS. of Matt. viii. 28, lived on the coast of the sea of Galilee, has nothing to recommend it. Of the connection of the Jebusites with Jerusalem there is no doubt. In that sad picture of immorality contained in the story of the Levite and his concubine in the Book of Judges (chap. xix.), Jerusalem is expressly identified with Jebus, which is further called "the city of a stranger." It is this connection with the Holy City which has made this people more memorable than otherwise their comparative insignificance would have rendered them. They held a stronghold on Zion, which was not finally captured till the time of David; and even then Araunah their king retains his possessions, and treats his conquerors right royally. Their district included the hill country in the immediate vicinity of Jerusalem, which they defended with great vigour and success. With the capture of their fortress, their political existence came to a close. The other tribes who were doomed to be dispossessed have been already mentioned among the inhabitants of Canaan.

Ishmael

Saraf's impatience-She gives to Abram Hagar as secondary wife-Con cubinage-Hagar a type-Her flight-She is met by the Angel of the Lord-Promise of a son-Character of the Ishmaelites born-Renewal of the covenant-Abram's name changed-Extension of the promise-Circumcision; its nature and signification-The numbers "seven" and "eight"-Sarai's name changed-Promise of a son from her.

THE voice divine had promised Abram offspring, but had not stated distinctly that Sarai should be the mother of the predicted seed. Ten years had passed since the migration to Canaan; Abram was eighty-five years old, and Sarai only ten years younger; and the promise seemed no nearer of fulfilment than before. Pondering these things in her heart, and thinking that her own fruitlessness hindered the accomplishment of the word, Sarai, more impatient or more impulsive than her husband, would wait no longer, and took other means to attain their mutual wish. Sarai is set forth by St. Peter (1 Peter iii. 6) as the great example of conjugal obedience, of one who was in subjection to her own husband; but here she appears rather as taking the lead and inducing him to do that of which he had never thought, and which was somewhat repugnant to his sentiments. If we commend in Sarai that self-abnegation which, to gain a momentous object, put aside the dearest privilege of woman, and placed another in her own position, we cannot but blame the impatience which would not wait God's good time and way, but must endeavour to force the accomplishment in its own mode. She had a female slave, named Hagar, whom

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she had brought with her from Egypt, being probably one of the gifts of Pharaoh. Legends' say that she was the daughter of the king by one of his concubines, Pharaoh having reconciled her to bondage by teaching her it was better to be a slave in the house of one who was in such high favour with God, than mistress in any family of her own. The name Hagar means "flight," and may have been given her here by anticipation in reference to an after event-her flight from her mistress, or because she had left her home in Egypt to become a stranger in a strange land. This woman Sarai persuaded Abram to take as concubine, that any child she might bear might be esteemed her own, and so the house might be built up by her." Abram was no polygamist; he upheld the primitive marriage law which obtained in Eden, and had been broken only by the lawless and violent, as Lamech, who, in the earliest recorded song, boasted of the power of his strong right hand (Gen. iv. 23, 26). But this pure view of matrimony did not impede concubinage under certain circumstances. The slave was absolutely in her mistress' hands to dispose of as she thought fit. The discredit attaching to barrenness was so great, that the means taken to avert this dire misfortune and virtually to obtain the merit of maternity were considered natural and proper. We find the same force acting in the case of Rachel when she gave her maid Bilhah unto Jacob (Gen. xxx. 3). And immoral and revolting as such a practice appears to us Christians, the patriarchs saw in it no infraction of conjugal fidelity, and their moral sense was not injured by the proceeding. In the case of Abram, the motive that inspired both him and his wife was a religious one, and redeemed from anything carnal or gross. The concubine, apparently without any formal betrothal or nuptial ceremony, assumed the position of secondary wife at the express command of her mistress, who herself retained her pre-eminent station, and lost none of her rights by this expedient. The children of this connection were regarded as what we should call legitimate. There was no question of this nature in their case. They were in all respects considered simply as a supplementary family, to be supported and provided for by their father, though not necessarily on an

Ap. Beer, p. 25.

• So the Hebrew rendered "I may obtain children by her" (Gen. xvi. a), -" 'Speaker's Commentary."