' A Syrian (i.e. Aramsan) ready to perish was my father' (Ut 2(i=). Whether Ur-Casdim is to be placed in N. Mesopotamia or in Chaldea, the impression remains that '.) ' believed A.'s home and kindred to have been in Haran.
2. Thp Chnrartir of the Xarrative related in Gn 14. — There appears to be no reason to question the hist, probability of an Klamite campaign such as is here described. There is nothing inherently im- probable in the event as has sometimes, in some quarters, been asserted. A. did not defeat the Klamite army in a pitched battle ; he made a night attack, fell upon an unsuspecting foe, and recovered prisoners and baggage, — a very different exploit from the conquest of Damascus, which late legend a.ssigned to him. The primitive inv;usion of Chedor- Laomer has been claimed by some Assyriologists for an approximate date of 2150 (so Hommel, ISah.- A!<<<. fiesrh. p. 'A); and the invasion of W. Asia by an Klamite will naturally be associated with the Klamite empire of that remote time. But upon what principle the events of A.'s life can be carried back to the 22nd cent. n.c. has not yet been satisfactorily explained. Biblical chronology does not suggest the interval of nearly a thousand years between A. and the Exodus.
3. The I'riimisfs nunle to A. are found eight timesrepeated,(i.)Gn 12-'' (ii.) 12" (iii.) 13'* (iv.) 15 (V.) 17 (vi.) 18 (vii.) 21'^ (viii.) 22'o. The promises fall under three main heads, (a) the land of Can. shall be po.ssessed by the seed of A.; (&) the seed of A. shall become a mighty nation ; (c) A. shall have a .son born of Sarah, and the son is to be called Isaac. The number of times that the promise appears is due to the compiliTS having selected this as the mo.st conspicuoiLS feature in the narrative of A. in each of the sources of tr.adition. The seemingly strange fact, that the narrative in ch. 17 .should take no notice of the mention of the same promise in ch. 15, is at once accounted for when it is seen to be an instance of the manner in which the different narratives overlap one another. The promises, contained in thi- different tnadilions, seemed to the compiler so imp<irlaiit in view of the general purpose of his book, that, at the risk of considerable repetition, he has incorporated them all. The.se promises ever ranked among the religious privileges of Israel (Ko !•*). 'I'hey pro- claimed God's covenant with His people, according to which He required of them simple obedience and
justice (Gn 18") ; they also announced that through Israel all nations should be blessed.
4. The Sacrijce of Isaac marks the crowning event in the life of A. Obviously, it must rank as the surpassing act of the patriarch's faith in God. But a difficulty ari.ses in some minds from the wickedness of the act which God at fir.st commands A. to do. Even though He never intended A. eventually to execute the terrible command, still is it consistent with divine goodness and justice to issue an order, to obey which seemed to have the result of placing blind trust in a positive command above the reasonable recognition of the natural demands of love, mercy, and justice ? But there are two considerations which cut the ground from beneath this objection. (1) We are tempted to a-ssume that in the patriarchal narrative the voice of God is an audible external communication. But then, as now, God speaks in different ways, and by conscience most directly. The que-stion put by A.'s conscience was whether his complete trust in God extended even to the readiness to surrender his only son ; it wa-s in the truest sense a word of God to A. (2) That the answer to this que.stioning was given in the shape of human sacrifice on a mountain top, illustrates the importance of bearing in mind the imperfect development of the moral conscious- ness in that remote period. Human sacrifice was frequently practised in Sem. races. If the wor- shippers of other Sem. deities were ready to sacrifice their firstborn to their gods, was A. to be behind Assyria, Amnion, and Moab in devoticui ? The moral standard of the age would not be shocked at a deed too fatally common. The ideas of mercy and justice were, in that period, low, and needed to be raised. To propitiate the Deity by child murder was regarded as the height of religious devotion. The narrative, therefore, fulfils the twofold object of giving the crowning proof of A.'s absolute faith in .J"; and further, of demonstrating the moral superiority of faith in J" over the religious customs of other Sem. races. .1" forbade the sacrifice of the firstborn : .1" upheld the instinct implanted in human nature which shrunk in horror from the act. He taught that .1" had no pleasure in the infliction of suffering upon the innocent ; that the cliaracter of .1" was raised above that of the heathen gods by higher love and truer justice.
ii. A. IN THE History of Iskaki,. — The attempt has been made to deprive the story of A. of all hist, value, and to represent the patriarch either as a mythical personage or as the typical impersonation of the virtues of the religious Isr. ; but as yet no evidence has been found to ctmnect the name of A. with that of a tribal deity, wliile the endeavour to find in his story a iiliilosophical description of abstract qualities seems to jire- suppose a stage of literary development to which the materials of the Hex. can make no claim, and to desiderate a literary unity which those materials emphatically contradict.