EXPOSlTIO~. Ver. 20.-And it came to pass after these Ver. 22.-And Chesed,-accordin~ to Je- things (probably not long after his return to rome the fother of the Chasdim or Chalrlees Beersheba), that it WBB told (by some un- (eh. xi. 28) ; but more generally regnrded as known messenger or occidental traveller from the head of a younger branch or offshoot of Mesopotamia) Abraham, saying, Behold, that race (Keil, Murphy, Lange; cf. Job i. llrlilcah (vide eh. xi. 29), she hath alao hom 17)-and Bazo, and Pildaah, and Jidlaph children unto thy brother Nahor-n.s Snrah (concerning whom nothing is known), and hns born R son to thee. From this it would Bethuel-" man of God" (Gcsenius); dwell- nlmost seem ns if M ilcnh had not begun to ing of God (Furst) ; an indication probably have her family at the time Abmm left Ur of of his piety. the Chnldces ; but uide eh. xi. 30. 'l'he Ver. 23.-And Bethuel begat Rebekah- present brief table of Nohor's <loscendants Ribkah; captivating, ensnnring (Fiirst); "" IR introduced for the sake of showing the rope with a noose," not unfit as the naruo or descent of Rebekah, who is soon to become e. girl who ensnares men by her beauty (Gc- Isnac' s wife. senius). Rebekah was the child of Isaac's Ver. 21.-Xnz his firstbom,-(vide eh. x. cousin, and being tho daughter of Nahor's 23, where Uz appears as a son of Aram ; and youngest son, was probably about tho samA eh. xxxvi 28, where he recurs as o descend- age as her future husband. Theae eight ant of Esa.lL That he was a progenitor of llrliloah did bear to Nabor, Abraham's bro- Job (Jerome) has no better foundation than ther. Job i. 1-and Billi his brother,-mentioned Ver. 24.-And his cononbine (vide on eh. along with Dedan and Tema as an Arabfan xvi. 3), whose name wns Reumah,-mised, tribe (Jer. xxv. 23), and may have beon an elevated (Gesenius) ; penr, or corn: (Fiirst)- ancestor of Elihu (Joh xxxii 2)-and Kemuel she b&re a.ho Tebah, and Ga.ham, and The.- the father of Aram.. " Not the founder of hash, and llrlaaohah-whence probably the the Ammeans, but the forefother of the Maachathites (Dout. iii. 14 ; Josh. xiii. 6). family of Ram, to which the Buzito Elihu 'fhat three of Terah's descendants (N cihor, belonged ; Aram being written for Ram, like Ishmael, and Jacob) should each have twelve Arammim, in 2 KinP, viii. 29, for Rammim, eone has been pronounced" a contrived sym- iu 2 Chron. xxii. 5 ' (K~il). metry, the iut~nlional ehrin~tor of which GENE8IS. i. 2'.10 THE BOOK OF GENESIS. [err. xxm. 1-20.
cannot be mistaken" (Bohlen); but "what int~ntion the narrator should havo connected with it remains inconceivnblo, unless it was to I that some of them had more than twolvo sons) to supply a round numborensily retainable by tho memory'' (Hiivcrnick), state the fact AS itwas, or(on the supposition
HOMILETICS. y~rs. 20-24.-Good news from a far country. I. TeE JOYFUL BUDGET. I. T1.dings from home. For nearly half a century Abraham had been a wanderer in Palestine, and with something like an emigrnnt's emotion on receiving letters from the old country would the patriarch listen to the message come from Haran beyond the_ river. 2. News concerning }lo/tor: It demands n_o v}olent exercise of fancy to believe that Abraham regarded lus distant brother with mtense fraternal affection and that the unexpected report of that distant brother's prosperity struck a chord of joy within bis aged bosom. 3. A niessage about Milcah. When the two brothers parted it would seem that neither of their spouses bad begun to have a family. Now information reaches the patriarchal tent that the union of Nahor and Milcah, like that of himself and Sarai, hns been blessed with offspring; and, in particular, that the second generation had begun to appear in Nahor's house, the queenly grace of Milcah being reproduced in her captivating grandchild Rebekah. II. THE WELCOME MESSENGER, I. Hu unknown name. One is curious to know who it was that brought the tidings from the old home. Some spirited adventurer who at the distance of half a century sought to emulate the Chaldrean chief- tain who left the valley of the Euphrates for the bleak hills of Palestine; some Mesopotamian Stanley whom Nahor, now a wealthy Emir, had despatched upon a mission of inquiry after his long-lost brother; or some chance traveller who had come across the patriarch's tent. 2. His timely arrival. Whoever he was, his appearance at this particular juncture was exceedingly opportune, when, the great trial having passed, Isaac's marriage must have loomed in the prospect as a near possibility. To .Abraham it must have seemed not a. fortuitous occurrence, but a providential arrangement. Learn-I. That no passage of Scripture can be said to be entirely useless. 2. That joy and sorrow mostly lie in close contiguity in human life. 3. That it becomes good men and women to be interested in each other's welfare. 4. That in God's gO'l,-ernment of the world there are no such things ns accidents. 5. That it becomes good men to keep an outlook upon the leadings of Divine providenC'e.
EXPOSITION. to a later period (cf. Josh. xiv. 16). The CH.APTER XXIII. ae.me is Hebron-the original name of the Ver. 1.-And Sarah was an hundred and city, which wa.s supplanted by that of Kir- aeven and twenty years old (literally, arvl jath-arba, but restored at the conquest (Keil, the livlJIJ of Sarah were an hundred and Hengstenberg, Murphy; vide eh. xiii. 18)- twenty and seven years); so that Isaac must in the land of Canaan-indicating that the have been thirty-seven, havillg been born in writer was not then in Palestine (' Speaker's his mother's ninetieth year. Sarah, as the Commentary') ; perhaps rather designed to wife of Abraham and the mother of believers emphasise the circumstance that Sarah's (Isa. Ii. 2 ; 1 Pet. iii. 6), is the only woman death occurred not in the Philistines' country, whose age is mentioned in Scripture. These but in the promised land (Rosenmiiller, Keil, were the years of the life of Sarah- an Murphy). And Abraham oame- or went; emphatic repetition designed to impress the i)>,91 (LXX. ), venit (Vulgate); not as if he Israelitish mind with the impo1tance of re- had been absent nt l:er death (Calvin), either membering the age of their ancestress. in Beersheba, where ho retained a location Ver. 2. -And Sarah died in Xirjath-arba (Clarke), or in Gerar, whither he hnd gone -or city of Arlia, Abraham having again to sell the lands and other properties ho removed thither after an absenco of nearly held there (Luther), or in the po.sturo grounds forty years, during which interval Murphy adjoining Hebron (Keil, Murphy) ; but aa thinks the reign of Arba the Anakite may addressin~ h~mself to tho work of mourn• have commenced, though Keil postpones it ing for his deceased wife (Vntablus, Rosen• CII. XXII). 1-20.) THE BOOK OF GENESIS. 291