Half Hours in Bible Lands, Volume 2 Patriarchs, Kings, and Kingdoms

Excerpt

 Job and His Three Friends.


THE BIBLE AND THE HOLY LAND.

PATRIARCHS, KINGS, AND KINGDOMS.


SCENES IN THE LIVES OF THE PATRIARCHS.


The patriarchs might be called family kings--the divinely appointed
rulers of households. They were the earliest sovereigns under God of
which we have any account. Their authority was gradually extended by the
union of households, whose retinue of servants was often large, and
their wealth very great. The founder and leader of the patriarchal line
chosen by God from the wealthy nomades, or wandering farmers of the
fruitful valleys, was Abram. A worshipper of the Infinite One, he
married Sarai, a maiden of elevated piety and personal beauty. And
doubtless they often walked forth together beneath the nightly sky,
whose transparent air in that latitude made the stars impressively--

"The burning blazonry of God!"

Upon the hill-tops around, were the observatories and altars of Chaldean
philosophy, whose disciples worshipped the host of Heaven. In the
serenity of such an hour, with the white tents reposing in the distance,
and the "soul-like sound" of the rustling forest alone breaking the
stillness, it would not be strange, as they gazed on flaming Orion and
the Pleiades, if they had bowed with the Devotee of Light, while--

  "Beneath his blue and beaming sky,
   He worshipped at their lofty shrine,
   And deemed he saw with gifted eye,
   The Godhead in his works divine."

But a purer illumination than streamed from that radiant dome, brought
near in his majesty the Eternal, and like the holy worshippers of Eden,
they adored with subdued and reverent hearts, their infinite Father.

There is great sublimity and wonderful power in the purity and growth of
religious principle, in circumstances opposed to its manifestation. The
temptations resisted--the earnest communion with each other--the
glorious aspirations and soarings of imagination, when morning broke
upon the summits, and evening came down with its stars, and its rising
moon, flooding with glory nature in her repose. These, and a thousand
lovely and touching scenes of that pastoral life, are all unrecorded.
The great events in history, and bold points in character, are seized by
the inspired penman as sufficient to mark the grand outline of God's
providential and moral government over the world, and his care of his
people.

Just when it would best accomplish his designs, which are ever marching
to their fulfillment, Jehovah called to Abram, and bade him go to a
distant land which he would show him. With his father-in-law, and with
Lot, his flocks and herds, he journeyed toward Palestine. When he
arrived at Haran, in Mesopotamia, pleased with the country, and probably
influenced by the declining health of the aged Terah, he took up his
residence there. Here he remained till the venerable patriarch, Sarai's
father, died. The circle of relatives bore him to the grave, and kept
the days of mourning. But the dutiful daughter wept in the solitary
grief of an orphan's heart. A few years before she had lost a brother,
and now the father to whom she was the last flower that bloomed on the
desert of age, and who lavished his love upon her, was buried among
strangers.

Then the command to move forward to his promised inheritance came again
to Abram. With Sarai he journeyed on among the hills, encamping at night
beside a mountain spring, and beneath the unclouded heavens arching
their path, changeless and watchful as the love of God--exiles by the
power of their simple faith in him. Soon as they reached Palestine,
Abram consecrated its very soil by erecting a family altar, first in the
plain of Moreh, and again on the summits that catch the smile of morning
near the hamlet of Bethel.

Months stepped away, rapidly as silently, old associations wore off, and
Abram was a wealthy and happy man in the luxuriant vales of Canaan. His
flocks dotted the plains, and his cattle sent down their lowing from
encircling hills. But more than these to him was the affection of his
beautiful wife. Her eye watched his form along the winding way, when
with the ascending sun he went out on the dewy slopes, and kindled with
a serene welcome when at night-fall he returned for repose amid the
sacred joys of home.

At length there came on a fearful famine. The rain was withholden, and
the dew shed its benediction no more upon the earth. He was compelled to
seek bread at the court of Pharaoh, or perish. Knowing the power of
female beauty, and the want of principle among the Egyptian princes, he
was afraid of assassination and the captivity of Sarai which would
follow. Haunted with this fear, he told her to say that she was his
sister--which was not a direct falsehood, but only so by implication.
According to the Jewish mode of reckoning relationship, she might be
called a sister; and Abram stooped to this prevarication under that
terrible dread which, in the case of Peter, drove a true disciple of
Christ to the brink of apostacy and despair.



Results of Prevarication. Peter denying his Master.


But his deception involved him in the very difficulty he designed to
escape. The king's courtiers saw the handsome Hebrew, and extolled her
beauty before him. He summoned her to the apartments of the palace, and
captivated by her loveliness, determined to make her his bride. During
the agonizing suspense of Abram, and the concealed anguish of Sarai in
her conscious degradation, the hours wore heavily away, until the
judgment of God upon the royal household brought deliverance. Pharaoh,
though an idolater, knew by this supernatural infliction, that there was
guilt in the transaction, and called Abram to an account. He had nothing
to say in self-acquittal, and with a strange magnanimity, was sent away
quietly, with his wife and property, followed only by the reproaches of
Pharaoh, and his own wakeful conscience.

Abram returned to Palestine, became a victor in fierce battles with a
vastly outnumbering foe, and was in possession of a splendid fortune.

Whether in Egypt, or in his tent on the plains of Palestine, Abram, with
all the patriarchs, was a true gentleman. We may doubt whether any
modern school of refinement in manners could furnish any nobler examples
of dignity and civility in personal learning and manners, than were the
rich dwellers in ancient Palestine. Subjects fell prostrate before
sovereigns; equals, when they met, inclined the head toward the breast,
and placed the right hand on the left breast. Of the Great King it is
written, "Come, let us bow down; let us worship before the Lord our
Maker."

Jehovah appeared to Abram in a glorious vision, talking with him as
friend to friend. He fell on his face in the dust, as did the exile of
Patmos ages after, while a voice of affection and hope carne from the
bending sky: "I am the Almighty God; walk before me and be thou
perfect." The solemn covenant involving the greatness and splendor of
the people and commonwealth that should spring from the solitary pair,
was renewed; and as an outward seal, he was named Abraham, The father of
a great multitude--and his wife Sarah, The princess. Still he laughed at
the absurdity that Sarah would ever be a mother, and invoked a blessing
on Ishmael, but evidently said nothing to her upon a subject dismissed
as incredible from his thoughts. For when the celestial messengers were
in the tent, on their way to warn Lot, she listened to their earnest
conversation, concealed by the curtains, and hearing that repeated
promise based on the immutability of God, also laughed with bitter mirth
at her hopeless prospect in regard to the marvelous prediction. And when
one of the Angels, who was Jehovah veiled in human form, as afterward
"manifest in the flesh," charged her with this unbelief and levity, the
discovery roused her fears, and approaching him, without hesitation, she
denied the fact. He knew perfectly her sudden apprehension, and only
repeated the accusation, enforced by a glance of omniscience, like that
which pierced the heart of Peter....