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 " to Gesenius, "burned incense unto." entreated" means, according 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. DEATII. 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 I 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 wife 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 that Keturah became his secondary wife after Sarah's death is derived from his age at the time. He was then one hundred and thirty-seven years old, and it is argued that it is most improbable that he, whose body was as good as dead when Isaac was born, should forty years afterwards become the father of six sons (which is the number of Keturah's children), and live to see them grow up and go forth into the world to form independent settlements. To this objection it is answered, that his youthful powers having been miraculously restored to him before Isaac's birth, were retained to extreme old age. Josephus (" Antiq." i. 15. 1) seems to imply that Abraham's second marriage took place before Isaac's espousals; Jewish tradition ' affirms that it was after this transaction, gathering thence the rule that a widower ought not to remarry till he has seen his sons settled in life. The chronological question must be left undecided. Equally uncertain is the answer to the inquiry into Keturah's nationality. That she was of one of the neighbouring Canaanitish tribes, seems most unlikely in the face of Abraham's firm opposition to any such alliance for his son. The probability is that she was the daughter of one of his houseborn slaves, as the "Book of Jubilees" asserts.2 From this union sprang six sons, half as many as the sons of Israel, the progenitors of many Arab tribes inhabiting the country between the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, or, as the Jewish legend 3 tells, from Pharmon (Paran) unto the entrance of Babylon. To these sons of Keturah and Hagar, sons of the concubines, as they are called (chap. xxv. 6), Abraham gave gifts; but warned by previous experience, and anxious to leave no room for jealousy or dispute with the real heir, he sent them away from his own neighbourhood unto the East country, to be known by the name of "children of the East" (Judg. vi. 3), and in later history as "Saracens," a designation which has the same meaning. Modern investigations have made it clear that the Midianite tribes and the population of Northern Arabia belonged to the Aramaic branch of the Semitic family. It may not be possible to identify all the tribes which sprang from Keturah and her six sons, but recent discoveries have proved that hordes of Aramaic origin occupied the country between Petra and Mecca even down to the third or fourth century of Beer, "Leben Abraham's," pp. 83, 193. 2 Cap. xiv. Rönsch, p. 24. 3 Rönsch, p. 28. 3 2 the Christian era. Josephus (" Antiq.” i. 15) says that by Abraham's direction these six sons went forth and colonized the country of the Troglodytes, and Arabia Felix, even to the shores of the Red Sea. Zimran, the eldest of these sons, may have given his name to Zabran, according to Ptolemy (vi. 7. 5) the chief city of the Cinædocolpitæ who dwelt to the west of Mecca, on the Red Sea. Ewald thinks that the name reappears as Zimri in Jer. xxv. 25. Jokshan, if his name, as some suppose, passed into Kashan, may have been the progenitor of the Casanitæ (Ptol. vi. 7. 6) who were settled below the people last mentioned. The Medanites and Midianites formed practically one tribe, the best known of all the Keturahites. They inhabited part of the peninsula of Sinai, and also a tract of country on the east of Jordan, in the neighbourhood of the Moabites. They became a very powerful people, and exercised a virtual control over the nomad tribes of Arabia. Of their conflicts with Israel, there are many memorable narratives in Scripture. Carrying on an extensive commerce with Syria and Egypt, they are sometimes called Ishmaelites, a common name for the merchants of the Desert, as in the transaction that concerned the sale of Joseph (Gen. xxxvii. 25, 28). From their family Moses took his wife when he fled for refuge from Egypt, thus allying himself with the descendants of his great ancestor, though he did not thereby secure their friendship, as after events lamentably proved. Of the possessions of Ishbak, the fifth son of Keturah, Porter (" Handbook," p. 58) finds vestiges in the mediævally celebrated castle of Shobek, which stands on a hill, Mons Regalis, about twelve miles north of Petra. Mr. E. S. Poole 3 thinks that he has recovered the name in the valley of Sabak, in the north-east of Nejd, the highlands of Arabia, on the borders of the Great Desert. The name of the youngest son, Shuah, has been recognized in the country called in the Inscriptions Suchu, which lay on the right bank of the Euphrates, between the mouths of the Balik and Khabor. One of Job's friends, Bildad, is called "the Shuhite," and probably came from this locality (Job ii. II; viii. 1). The insertion of Sheba and Dedan here as sons of Jokshan, whereas in chapter Prof. Sayce, "Monthly Interpreter," iii. 467 f. 'History of Israel," i. 15. อ 3 "Dictionary of the Bible," sub voc. 4 Dillmann on Gen. xxv. 2. |