go down;' who are 'us?' Did the Almighty actually fear lest his creatures should build a tower so high that they might scramble into heaven without his assistance? The whole of this account is absurd in the extreme. Dr. John Pye Smith says that 'the confusion of language was probably only to a certain point, not destroying cognation.' I do not the better understand the story with the aid of this comment. The only thing proved by the elaborate commentaries of many divines is, that they gave God the credit of inspiring an inexplicable revelation, and that, instead of endeavouring to make it explicable, they burden the margin of the book with suppositions which only increase the difficulties of the text. Verse 26. 'And Terah lived seventy years, and begat Abram.'
Verse 32. 'And the days of Terah were two hundred and five years, and Terah died in Haran.'
Chapter xii., v. 1. And the Lord said to Abram, 'Get thee out,' etc. So that Abram must have been one hundred and thirty-five years old when he left Haran; but, according to verse 4 it appears that Abram was only seventy-five years of age. This has been regarded as an inexplicable difficulty by St. Jerome and St. Augustine; and I, who am not a saint, must confess with Voltaire that I cannot understand how a man can be seventy-five and one hundred and thirty-five years of age at the same time.
Chapter xii., v. 1, 2, 3, and 7; chap, xiii., v. 14, 15, 16, and 17; chap, xv., v. 5, 6, 7, and 18; chap, xvii., v. 7 and 8; chap, xviii., v. 18; chap, xxii., v. 17 and 18; chap, xxvi., v. 3 and 4.; chap, xxviii., v. 14.
These verses contain the solemn promise, the more solemn covenant, and the most solemn oath of God; this promise, covenant, and oath all being to one effect – namely, that Abraham's children should be as numerous as the dust of the earth, or the stars of heaven, and that this numerous progeny should possess certain specified land for ever. There is a difficulty in comprehending why God, who is no respector of persons, should have selected Abraham and his descendants for such great reward; but waiving this, we find several questions requiring answer. Who are Abraham's descendants? Not the Jews; their number is very limited. Where are Abraham's descendants? Not in the promised land, most certainly.
If Abraham's descendants are the Jews, then I say that they have never been as numerous as God promised, covenanted, and swore they should be. I say that they have not held the promised land for ever. It may be that this promise is yet to be fulfilled; it is quite certain that it is unfulfilled up to the present time.
Chapter xii., v. 11 to 20. The account of the chosen of God having recourse to a lie to pass off his wife for his sister, deserves notice. When this happens twice (chap. 20), it excites suspicion; and when it occurs a third time in the same country to the son of Abraham, it creates doubt as to the truth of the whole. Voltaire writes thus of Abraham: —
'The Scripture says that the God of the Jews, who intended to give them the land of Canaan, commanded Abraham to leave the fertile country of Chaldea, and go towards Palestine, promising that in his seed all the nations of the earth should be blessed. It is for theologians to explain, by allegory and mystical sense, how all the nations of the earth were to be blessed in a seed from which they did not descend, since this much-to-be-venerated mystical sense cannot be made the object of a work purely critical. A short time after these promises, Abraham's family was afflicted by famine, and went into Egypt for corn. It is singular that the Hebrews never went into Egypt but when pressed by hunger; for Jacob afterwards sent his children on the same errand.
'Abraham, who was then very old, went this way with his wife Sarah, aged sixty-five; she was very handsome, and Abraham feared that the Egyptians, smitten by her charms, would kill him in order to enjoy her transcendent beauties; he proposed to her that she should pass for his sister, etc. Human nature must at that time have possessed a vigour which time and luxury have since very much weakened. That which Abraham had foreseen came to pass; the Egyptian youth found his wife charming, notwithstanding her sixty-five years; the king himself fell in love with her, and placed her in his seraglio, though, probably, he had younger females there; but the Lord plagued the king and his seraglio with very great sores. The text does not tell us how the king came to know that this dangerous beauty was Abraham's wife; but it seems that he did come to know it, and restored her.
'Sarah's beauty must have been unalterable; for, twenty-five years afterwards, when she was ninety years old, pregnant, and travelling with her husband through the dominions of a King of Phoenicia, named Abimelech, Abraham, who had not yet corrected himself, made her a second time pass for his sister. The Phoenician King was as sensible to her attractions as the King of Egypt had been; but God appeared to this Abimelech in a dream, and threatened him with death if he touched his new mistress. It must be confessed that Sarah's conduct was as extraordinary as the lasting nature of her charms.
'The singularity of these adventures was probably the reason why the Jews had not the same sort of faith in their histories which they had in their Leviticus. There was not a single iota of their law in which they did not believe; but the historical part of their Scriptures did not command the same respect. Their conduct in regard to their ancient books may be compared to that of the English, who received the laws of St. Edward without absolutely believing that St. Edward cured the scrofula; or that of the Romans, who, while they obeyed their primitive laws, were not obliged to believe in the miracles of the sieve filled with water, the ship drawn to the shore by a vestal's girdle, the stone cut with a razor, and so forth.'
Chapter xiii., v. 7 and 18, as before observed, could not have been written by Moses, (see p. 5.)
Chapter xiv., v. 1 to 16. This victory of Abraham over four mighty kings is, if true, a very wonderful one. It is quite clear that Chedorlaomer was a very powerful monarch, having other monarchs for his vassals. Amraphel was the king of the mighty empire of Babylon, doubtless not so grand as it afterwards became, but still one of the most powerful of the then monarchies of the world. These are assisted by two other kings; one of whom is described as the king of nations. The four allies make war upon certain kings, five in number; and, according to verse 10, they fight, and the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fall in the vale of Siddim.
Abraham, hearing that Lot, his relative, was taken prisoner, took three hundred and eighteen men, and, by night, pursued and smote the four allied kings, and recaptured his brother. As he went near to Damascus in pursuit, he must have travelled more than one hundred miles, beside crossing some very mountainous country; this, of course, enhances the character of the victory. One of the fruits of this triumph seems to have been, that the King of Sodom, who is killed in verse 10, comes to meet Abraham, alive and well, in verse 17. Verse 18. 'Melchizedek;' who was he? Before answering this question, read Psalm ex., v. 4, Hebrews, chap, v., v. 6, 10, and 11, chap, vii., and chap, viii., v. 1. In the verse we are examining, he is described as [ – ] (melekitzedek) – [ – ] (melek) [ – ] (shelem).
What does this mean? Melekitzedek or Melchizedek; 'first by interpretation King of Righteousness, and after that the King of Salem, which is, the King of Peace; without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life' —vide Hebrews, chap, vii., v. 3.
This description does not answer to any man who ever lived on the face of the earth; nearly everybody claims to have had a father and a grandfather; everybody has had a mother. Everybody was one hour old before he grew older; and after existing some few score years, more or less, every man has, sooner or later, died. So Melchizedek could not have been a man. In Malachi, chap iv., v. 2, we find [ – ] (Chemesh zedek); this is translated Sun of Righteousness, and it is only to the sun that the description of Melchizedek will apply. The ancients looked upon the sun as the everlasting source of all existence, and personified it in various names; Melchizedek, king of the zodiac, appears to be one of the Bible personifications. But supposing Melchizedek to be not a real person, what becomes of the story of Abraham giving him tithes of his spoils? If this story be not fact, how much is allegory?
Is any portion of the history of Abraham a fact? In chap, xvi., we find part of the history of Hagar and Sarai;
