being neither dead nor divorced, the conduct of Esau in adding to them a third was wrong. 2. The way of shame. In the selection of lshmael's daughter he hoped to please his father, but was apparently indifferent about the judgrnent of either Rebeknh or Jehovah. Daring transgressors, like Esau, rather glory in their shame than feel abashed at their wickedness. 3. The way of sorrOUJ. If not to himself, at least to his pious parents, this fres~ matrimonial alliance could not fail to be a grief. The daughter of Ishmael was certainly better than a daughter of the Hittites being al~ost as neBr a relative on Isaac's side as Rachel and Leah were on Rebekah'~; but, unhke Rachel and Leah, who belonged to the old family stock (the Terachites) in Mesopotamia, Mahalath descended from a branch which had been removed from the Abrahamic tree. Learn-I. The care which pious parents should take to see their sons well married. 2. The piety which children should delight to show to their parents. 3. The con- nection which subsists between true religion and prosperity. 4. The inevitable tendency· of sin to produce shame and sorrow, 5. The wickedness of violating God'A law of marriage.
HOMILIES BY VARIOUS AUTHORS. Vera. 1-9.-Life with, and life without, God. The divergence of the two repre- sentative men ie seen in this short statement of their marriage relations. I. Domestic life under the blessing of God and apart from that blessing. 2. The true blessing ie the blessing of Abraham, the blessing which God has already pro- vided, promised, and secured. 3. The heir of the blessing must be sent away and learn by experience how to use it. 4. The disinherited man, who ·has scorned his opportunity, cannot recover it by his own devices. Esau is still Esau. Polygamy was suffered, but never had the blessing of God upon it.-R.
EXPOSITION. Ver. 10.-And J'acob went ont from :Beer- some few here and there standing np like tho sheba, - in obedience to his father's com- cromlechs of Druidical monuments" (Stan- mandment to seek a wife (ver. 2), but also ley's 'Sinai and Palestine,' p. 219 ; cf. 'Lec- in compliance with his mother's counsel to tures on Jewish Church,' p. 59)-and put evade the wrath of Esau (eh. LTI'ii. 43; er. them for his pillows,-literolly, and put for Hosea xii. 12. On Beersheba vide eh. :x:xi. his head-bolster, the word signifying that 81 ; xxvi. 33-and went towards Haran- which is at the henu of any one (cf. 1 Sam. probably along the route traversed by Abra- xix. 13 ; :x:xvi 7, 11, 16 ; 1 Kings xix. 6)- hnm's serv1mt (cf. eh. xxiv. 10). and lay down in that place to sleep (cf. eh. Ver. 11.-And he lighted npon a certain xix. 4 ; 1 S11m. iii. 6, 6, 9). plaoe,-Iiterally, he struck upon the place; Ver. 12.-And he dreamed. This drenm, i. e. either the place )lest suited for him to which has been pronounced " beautifully rest in (Inglis), or the place opJ>ointed for ingenious," " clever," and "philosophical," him by God (.Ainsworth, Bush), or more the work of a Inter Hebrew poet, anu not prob11bly the well-known place afterwards of Jacob (De Wette), was not wonderful con- mentioned (Keil, Wordsworth, 'Speaker's sidering the state of mind and body in which Commentary'). Situated in the mountains he must have been-fatigued by trove!, s,Hl- of Ephraim, about three hours north of Jern- dened by thoughts of home, doubtless medi- salem, it was not reached after one, but after tating on hi~ mother, anu more than likely several days' journey (r.f. eh. xxii. 4)-and pondering the great beneJiction of his agcJ tarried there all night, because the sun and, to all appearance, dying father. Yet was set ;-being either remote from the city while these circumstance~ may account for Luz when overtaken by darkness, or unwill- the mental fmmework of the dream, the ing to enter the town ; not because he hntcd dream itself was Divinely sent. And behold the inhabitants (Josephus), but because be a ladder-the rough stones of the mountain was 11 stranger-and he took of the atones appearing to form themselves into a vast of that plaoe,-i. e. one of the stones (vide staircase (Stanley, Bush) - set np on the ver. 18). "The track (of pilgrims) winds earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: through an uneven valley, covered, 11s with -symbolically intimating tho fact of a real, gravestones, by large &hcets of biiro rock ; uninterrupted, ~nd close corr11nunica\io11 Lo· 350 THE DOOK OF GENESIS. [CH . .lXYIII, 10-22.