The Pulpit Commentary — Exodus — Volume 1 — Section 93

tion, and disappointment; but God could point back to all hie de11.linge with men as comistent, glorious, and worthy of all remembrance, 2. It provided a certain kind q/ medi.atorship in the knowledge of God. It gave the be~t way for Moses and Israel to think of God. at that particular time. It was as if God had said to Moses "You are to gain your chief sense of my nearness to Israel and abiding interest in the~ by thinldng of my actual, repeated, e.nd recorded dealings with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." No devout Israelite could become acquainted with that section of Genesis, from the time when Goo first appeared to Abram down to the death of Jacob, without feeling that the Goo of these three men was even e. more prominent figure in the history than they are themseh-es. We could as easily leave out the name of Abraham from the narrative as leave out the name of God. What we a.re told of Abraham is nothing, save as the effect and expression of the will of God. Abram is as a mere name, till God comes in contact with him. It is not so much a life of Abraham we are reading, a.s a history of how God's purposes and power became manifest in his experience. 3. It kept before Moses the connexion of God with the lives of individuals. God made separate appearances to each of these three men, dealing with them according to their circumstances and their charac:ter. . He showed his contin_u:i,I and_ unfailing observation of their lives, by revea.lmg his presence at every critical pomt. 4. There was a connexion of peculiar importance whiih God had with some individuals rather than with others. He was the God of Adam, of Enoch, and of Noah; why not have associated kimself with these ilhu;trious names? The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob stood towards Israel in the relation of one who had made large promises, allowed himself to become the source of large expectations, and imposed strict requirements. He was not only the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, taken separately, but of these three men, bound tocrether .in a very peculiar way. Not only did they stand in a lineal succession, Abrah~m being father to Isaac, and Isaac father to Jacob, but that succession was contrary to natural expectations and customary arrangements. Isaac was the son of Abraham, but also a son born when the resources of nature were exhausted. Jacob was the son of Isaac, but also the younger son, on whom, contrary to custom, the privileges of the firstbori:J. alighted. Thus it became impossible to describe God as the God of Abraham and Ishmael, though in !L certain sense he was the God of Ishmael (Gen. xvii. 20). Nor could he be called the God of A bra.ham, Isaac, and Esau, though assuredly he was the God of Esau also. 'l'he only name which would indicate to Moses all he had to bear in mind, was the name which God here employs. 5. He was the God of these men in spite of great defects ef character and gre,at blots on conduct. They were men in whom he found much that was evil, much that indicated a low moral state, but he found in them all, and particularly in the firBt of them, a spirit of faith which enabled him to begin, as from a certain definite point in history, that work which is to end in all nations of the earth being blessed. Already he had made a great nation out of Abram-a perse- cuted and oppressed nation indeed, but none the less a great one. And had he not spoken to Abram concerning this very bondage in Egypt? (Gen. xv. 13, 14). Some such revelation as this e.t Horeb, to some deliverer or other, might now be expected. It must surely have been often a perplexity to Moses, what had become of this God who had done so much for Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. II. CoNSIDER THE SIG1''IFICANCE OF TmB NAME TO us. We are not mere spectators of the way in which the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob approved himself as also the God of Moses and the Israelites in Egypt and in the wilderness. To speak of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is only another way of speaking of the God of those who really believe in him. Whenever a real believer ponders this name, then it becomes one of precious associations; it leads by the very mention of it, further and further onwards in subjection to the invisible. But after all, this name, so deeply impressed on Moses, is chiefly valuable to us as suggesting a name far richer in meaning and in power. We have a look into the past which Moses had not. He looked backward and saw God's-dee.lings with Abraham, and found in them everything to inspire faith in God and expectation from him. We look backward and see, not only Abraham, but Christ; not only 18118.C, but Christ; not only Jacob, but Christ. When w~ look back to these men of Genesis, we see faith standing out like ail isolated mountain in the midst of a plain ; but we 110e much also that we would rather not see. Whereas, when we look back to Christ we see not only a full believer, but a flawless· life. In him thera cm. m. 7-9.J THE BOOK OF EXODUS. 75