2. Parental and filial affection. — ChUd-life baa always been the great emblem of wliat apjjcals to human afl'ection and responds to it. \\ itli the young, love, that in the ordinary lives of men is often the hireling of selfish interests, is always a free and independent instinct. The child's natural assurance that it must be so with all, appears amid sordid commonplaces and surrendered idejvls as a remembrancer of Eden, and a type of what the kingdom of God is meant to be (Mt 18- 19'^). The llilile is throughout a book for the families of men, and finds the fulfilment of all its teaching in the life of the Sinless Man. Its references, especially to child-life, are so simple and realistic that in read- ing thciM one forgets the antiquity of the narra- tive. The Land is here in very close atliiiity with the Book, for the strength of the family all'ictions is the brightest feature of Oriental life. The infant in the ark of bulrushes cries like a child of to-day on beholding the strange face of his deliverer (Ex 2"). Again, in 2 K 4" we have a child's re- peated cry of pain, the instinctive appeal to the father, and tlie resource of a mother's comforting and care. Isaiah takes note of the first words a child learns to lisp (Is 8*), and Naaman's flesh he- comes ' like the flesh of a little child ' (2 K 5"). Solomon reveals his own wisdom in revealing the strain that could be put uimn the love even of a degraded mother. David cries over his rebellious yet still beloved son, ' Would (iod that I had died for thee ! ' (2 S 18^). The cruelty to their infants was one of the experiences tliat made it impossible for the captives to forget Jeru.salem (Ps 137"). Such an experience was in its turn the worst thing that couM happen to the oppressors of Israel (Nail 3"'). The transmi.ssion of sullering to the innocent of the third and fourth generations waa one of the mightiest intimidations of the moral law (Ex 34'). ilagar could not bear to sit alone and watch the last unconscious movements of her dying child (Gn 21"). ' When my children were
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CniLMAD
about me ' (Job 29°), was a toiu'liinj; suininary of vanished liajipiness. Amos, seeking to picture the daj' of ruin lliat Israel was precipitating l)y wliole- sale corruption, could lind nothing more expressive of all that was bleak and bitter and unbearable than ' the mourning of an only son ' (Am 8'").
It was in such a prepared cradle of family ex- perience, with its tenderest ties of affection, and folds of life's sweetness and sorrow, that the gospel of the unexpected and unspeakable gift was laid. 'He gave his only-begotten Son' (Jn 3'°); 'He spared not his own Son ' (Ko 8"-).
3. The importance uf the parental position. — Mingled with the natural afieotion of parents to- wards their children, was the fact that their posses- sion meant increase of dignity, influence, and wealth. This is shown in the preference for male children. In the home-circle, daughters might be as affectionate and as much beloved as sons, but in the expansion and continuance of the family name, in the holding of property, the acquisition of wealth, and generally with regard to worldly prosperity, sons and not daughters were the precious gifts of God. The former especially were the olive-shoots springing up from the roots of the parent stem (Ps 1'28*). Hence the forfeiture and reproach connected with childlessness, and the rejoicing over a man-child bom into the world. In Syria the paternal position is so important that the father usually ceases to be called by his own name, and receives that of his firstborn son, as Abu-Yusc'ph (' father of Joseph '). If a middle- aged man has no son, courtesy often gives him a fictitious paternity, and styles him Abu-' Abdullah ('father of 'Abdullah '). 'The son might also be known by tlie father's name as a sort of surname. Thus David's full name was David Jesse, or ben- Jesse ('son of Jesse'). It was quite unusual for the son to receive in circumcision the name of the father until late in Israel's liistory (see Gray, Heb. Prop. Names, 2 ti'.). The father was still alive, and needed as yet no memorial, but a son often received the name of a grand-parent, to keep alive the name of the departed, and with the name to inherit his gifts and srraces of character. The later custom appears in Lk f 'They would have called him Zacharias, after the name of his father.' The authority of the parents over their children, and over all arrangements for their welfare, was com- plete and far-reaching. One of the commandments was devoted to this relationship, and one of the death-penalties of the law of Moses was to meet the case of filial disobedience (Dt 2^"). Hence the solemnity of the charge against Israel (Is I'), an<l the deep meaning of the confession, ' I am no more worthy to be called thy son' (Lk 15").
4. Heredity. — Given a life with little change in its outward conditions, and with a law that con- trolled every detail of life, it followed that time would be an intensifier of the parental features. Among the Arabs the epithet 'dog' has for its chmax 'son of a dog.' As one of their proverbs states the problem, ' If the father be onion and the mothi'r garlic^ how can there be sweet per- fume?' When Saul asked the young slayer of Goliath, ' Wliose son art thou, young man?' (1 S 17'"), the question would not only reveal the family of David, but also account in |).art for the^ouraL'C he had shown. Hence the incriminations, 'Ye are the children of them that killed the prophets ' (Mt 23^'); 'If ye were Abraham's children, ye would do the works of Abraham ' (Jn 8'") ; and the defence, ' How can Satan cast cut Satan? '(Mk 3^). So Ezk 18=, Ac 13'° etc.