Page images
PDF
EPUB

at once the magnificence and the kind remembrance of his master Abraham.

Next morning the steward arose to depart; but the mother and brother of Rebekah begged him to abide with them a few days, that the maiden might not so suddenly be taken from among the friends of her childhood, but that they might have an opportunity to do honour to Abraham by their hospitality to his messengers. The servant, however, refused to tarry, saying, “Hinder me not: the Lord hath prospered my journey. Send me away that I may go to my master." Then Rebekah was consulted, and she agreeing to go forthwith unto Isaac, they blessed her, and sent her away, accompanied by her nurse and her maidens; and escorted by the steward of Abraham and his men.

At this time Isaac, who was forty years old, dwelt in the south country, by the way of the well Lahai-roi; and he went forth, at eventide, into the verdant fields to meditate on the goodness and glory of God; and, lo, as he lifted up his eyes, he saw at a distance a train of camels, which, on drawing nearer, he knew from the tinkling of their silver bells and their rich caparisons, to be those which his father had despatched into Syria. Rebekah, also, looking across the plain, beheld Isaac, and enquired of Abraham's servant who he was. And when she was informed that it was her spouse, she

lighted off the camel, and took a veil and covered herself; for, in the East, it was then, and still is accounted improper, for a female to let her face be seen by him who is to be her husband until the ceremony of marriage has been performed.

Abraham made great rejoicings on the wedding of his son; and to Rebekah he assigned the tent of Sarah, wherein she dwelt with her husband Isaac, who, loving her, was then first comforted after his mother's death.

And Abraham died at the age of a hundred and seventyfive years. His sons, Isaac and Ishmael, buried him in the cave of Machpelah, wherein the ashes of Sarah had been lain. Isaac inherited his father's flocks and herds, and the greater part of his wealth; the other sons of Abraham, for he had several by a wife whom he married after the death of Sarah, having received large presents during their father's lifetime, and been sent away into the east country. Ishmael had, probably, been provided for at the time of his settlement in the wilderness, when his mother took for him a wife from the women of Egypt.

ISAAC AND HIS SONS.

AFTER the death of Abraham, the Lord blessed Isaac, and continued to him his loving-kindness; and Rebekah bare twin sons, of whom the first-born was named Esau, and the younger, Jacob. Of these the Lord, previously to their birth, had said, They shall be two nations, and two manner of people; the one shall be stronger than the other, and the elder shall serve the younger."

[ocr errors]

When the children grew, Esau, who was red, and all over like a hairy garment, loved to be in the fields and forests, among the wild mountains and glens of his native land, hunting the gazelle, the hill-goat, and the savage beasts which sometimes scoured the plains, and made havoc among his father's flocks. Jacob was a plain man, less courageous, of pastoral habits, seldom wandering from the vicinity of the tents. Their father, Isaac, bestowed his greatest affection upon Esau, "because he did eat of his venison;" but Rebekah loved Jacob.

It happened, after one of his hunting excursions, that Esau

returned to the plain, faint and weary with the heat of the season and his severe exercise, and hungry from the length of time he had been out without food. At the tent of Jacob, which was pitched in the shade of some overhanging palms and pleasant forest trees, in the neighbourhood of a crystal spring, Esau perceived his brother with a dish of fresh-prepared pottage. The legs of the hunter could scarcely sustain his weight; lassitude seemed to have overpowered his nerves; and the delicious food before him appeared, at the moment, to be of an importance and worth secondary only to life itself. He went straight to Jacob, and craved earnestly, Give me, I pray thee, that same red pottage, for I am faint."

[ocr errors]

Jacob however was subtle, and appears to have been somewhat tinctured with avarice; he therefore sought to take advantage of the prostration of body, and consequent want of mental energy which was apparent in his brother, and instead of freely supplying the necessities of Esau, he demanded from him the transfer of his birth-right as the price of relief. This birth-right, it should be observed, consisted, in ancient times, among the race from which Isaac sprang, in a double portion of the paternal estate, and the right of chieftainship in their tribe or family.

Esau, completely exhausted, sank down at the entrance of

the tent, and in a tone of languor said,

[ocr errors]

Behold, I am at the point to die; what profit then shall my birth-right do me?" In this state of helplessness, he consented therefore to Jacob's proposal, and offered to relinquish his claim to the chief inheritance; but his brother, feeling how unnatural was such a compact, insisted upon its being ratified by an irrevocable oath. So Esau sware to Jacob, and sold his birthright for a meal of bread and pottage of lentiles. ate, and drank, and rose up, and went his way :" thus, by trusting to man's aid, rather than to the saving power of the Almighty, who had promised to make of him a great nation, he is said to have "despised his birth-right." The conduct of Jacob in the matter was highly blameable, and did not pass without punishment in many after years of fear and

remorse.

[ocr errors]

And he

Subsequently a famine in the country induced Isaac to go into the land of the Philistines, where the Lord blessed him, and where from what he sowed he received in the same year an hundredfold. He waxed great and wealthy therefore; having large flocks and herds, and abundance of servants, inasmuch, that the Philistines envied him, and stopped up the wells which the servants of Abraham had dug to water the cattle; and when this, through the perseverance of Isaac's servants who digged fresh wells, availed not to drive the

« PreviousContinue »