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CRITICAL AND PRACTICAL,

ON THE BOOK OF

GENESIS;

DESIGNED AS A GENERAL HELP TO

BIBLICAL READING AND INSTRUCTION.

BY GEORGE BUSH,

PROF. OF HEB. AND ORIENT. LIT., N. Y. CITY UNIVERSITY.

IN TWO VOLUMES

VOL II.

NINTH EDITION.

NEW YORK:

PUBLISHED BY MARK H. NEWMAN.

Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1838, by

ELI FRENCH,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District of New York

STEREOTYPED BY J. S. REDFIELD,
No. 13 Chambers-street, New York.

THE BOOK OF GENESIS.

VOL. II.

could, no doubt, have submitted without hesitation; but when, to the eye of reason, he saw the precept arrayed against the promise of God, and an act enjoined directly at variance with all the attributes of a Being holy, just, and true, he could not but be conscious of an inward struggle, ineffably severe. But the faith which had triumphed before, triumphed now; and as he came forth from the terrible ordeal, like gold tried in the furnace, how pertinently may we conceive an approving God addressing him in the language of the poet :

"All thy vexations Were but my trials of thy love: and thou Hast strangely stood the test."

CHAPTER XXII. If those portions of history are most replete with interest and instruction which exhibit to us illustrious characters in trying situations, having their virtues put to the severest test, yet holding fast their integrity, conquering difficulties, and rising superior to temptation by the power of moral principle, then the ensuing narrative of Abraham's last and greatest trial prefers the strongest claims to our attention. It is an event preeminently memorable in the life of the patriarch. Whatever signal instances of faith and obedience have hither- | to distinguished his conduct, they are all eclipsed by that which we are now called to consider. At the very time when we are prompted to congratulate The command here given to the pathe happy sire, and flatter ourselves triarch to sacrifice his only son has ever that his tribulations have an end; been so fruitful a theme of cavil with the that the storms which ruffled the noon enemies of revelation, that it will be proof life are blown over, and the evening | per, in the outset, to advert with some of his age is becoming calm and serene, particularity to the objections usually the sorest of his struggles yet awaits him. The loss of a beloved child would, under any circumstances, have been a grievous affliction; but in the present case he finds himself required to submit to a bereavement which threatened to extinguish the hopes of the world. Nor was this all. The fatal blow was to be struck with his own hand! And in this he was called to obey a mandate in which the divine counsel seemed so evidently to war with itself, that his bosom could not but be torn with a conflict of emotions, such as the mere grief of a father could never occasion. To a command which should merely put to the proof his paternal affection. he

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urged against it. The command, it is said, is inconsistent with the attributes of a Being of perfect justice and goodness. But to this it may be replied, that the, assertion rests upon no sufficient grounds. As God is the author and giver of life, he surely can, without the least shadow of injustice, take it away when and in what manner he pleases. It cannot be supposed that he conferred life either upon Abraham or Isaac, upon the terms of taking it away only in one certain manner, or in the way most agreeable to them. It was given in this, as in all other cases, under the ordinary reserve of his own indisputable right of resumption in any mode that

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might seem to him best. There is un- from being concerned in guarding great doubtedly something shocking in the minds from great trials, that it is rather idea of a parent's taking away the life evinced in granting them. Nor are we of his own child; but when this is done to estimate such a dispensation by the in obedience to an express command slight and transient anxieties or pains of from a competent authority, then that the trial itself, but by the lasting joy which would otherwise be a sin be- that awaits and rewards the triumph. comes a duty, and whoever would im- Add to this the incalculable advantages pugn the act, must necessarily impugn that would redound to mankind at large the authority from which it proceeds. from such an example. No one can doubt To human view it might appear a very that every signal instance of devout barbarous deed in a father to order a submission to the will of God under the son to be beaten to death with rods be-pressure of sharp temptations is among fore his eyes; yet the conduct of Junius the stablest supports and the most powBrutus, who passed this sentence upon erful incitements to a similar conduct his own children, is usually considered under similar circumstances. as having been fully justified by the such example is a new and shining light circumstances which occasioned it. set up on high to guide, enlighten, and And did Abraham owe less obedience cheer us in the path of duty. But while to God than Brutus to his country? we find, in these considerations, an ample Indeed, had the command been actually vindication of the wisdom and equity of executed, we should have been bound, this command, perhaps a still more adeby our antecedent knowledge of the quate estimate will be formed of it, if we perfections of the Deity, to regard it as view it in another light. It has genewise, just, and good; though we might rally been held that the present comnot, from our limited powers, have been mand was imposed merely as a trial of able to see the reason of it; for a di- | Abraham's faith; and seeing the deed vine command necessarily supposes wis- was not executed, it has been affirmed dom, justice, and goodness in the highest that there was nothing unworthy the possible degree. But this was not the divine goodness in having instituted case. God never intended that the such a trial; all which may be readily command should be actually executed. admitted: but as Bp. Warburton has His purpose was to make trial of Abra- suggested, it hardly accounts for all the ham's faith and obedience; to make circumstances; and it may be well to him perfect by suffering; and in him state, in a condensed form, the theory of to propose to all coming generations an that learned divine in regard to it. He illustrious example for their imitation supposes that Abraham was desirous of in the various trying services and sacri- becoming acquainted with the manner fices to which the voice of duty might in which all the families of the earth call them. And will any one affirm should be blessed in him; and upon that God may not, without impeaching this he builds the conclusion that the his wisdom, his justice, or his mercy, command was imposed upon him chiefput true religion to the test?-the test ly with the design of teaching him by of severe and repeated trials--the bet-action, instead of words, and thus enater to display, to perfect, and to crown it? Great virtue has a right to be made conspicuous. It is sinking the merit of all true moral heroism to withold from it the occasions of exercising itself. The justice of God, therefore is so far

bling him to see and feel by what means this great end should be accomplished. In other words, that it was a prefiguration of the sacrifice of Christ.

This theory the author founds upon that passage of the Gospel of John 8

A

ND it came to pass after these | Abraham, and said unto him, Abrathings, that a God did tempt ham: and he said, Behold, here I

a 1 Cor. 10. 13. Heb. 11. 17. Jam. 1. 12. 1 Pet. 1.7.

am.

the command to sacrifice his only son. In this transaction therefore, he would have a lively figure of the offering up of the Son of God for the sins of the world; and not only so, but the inter

56. in which the Lord says to the unbe- Abraham must have rejoiced to see, and lieving Jews, 'Your father Abraham re-seeing which he was glad. But there joiced to see my day; and he saw it is nothing recorded of Abraham in the and was glad.' It is evident, from the Old Testament, from which it could be reply made by the Jews to this asser-inferred that he saw Christ's day in tion, that they understood the expression this sense, if he did not see and feel it in to see in its most literal sense; while it is equally evident, that when they objected to the possibility of a man, not yet fifty years old, having seen Abraham, our Lord did not correct them in the notion which they had formed as mediate system of typical sacrifices unto seeing. It was not, however, himself der the Mosaic economy was reprepersonally, whom our Saviour asserted sented by the prescribed oblation of the that Abraham rejoiced to see, but his ram instead of Isaac. day; by which cannot be meant the On the whole, we regard this as a veperiod of his sojourn upon earth, but the ry rational and plausible hypothesis, and circumstance in his life which was of one that derives no little support from the highest importance, and mainly the place where the scene of the transcharacteristic of his office as the Re-action was laid. If the design of the deemer. That the term will admit of command had been simply a trial of this interpretation is indubitable, from Abraham's faith, it is not easy to see the frequent use made, in a similar sense, of the word hour. Thus, when our Lord repeatedly says, 'My hour is not yet come''the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners;' when he prayed that 'if it were possible the hour might pass from him:' where it is said, that 'no man laid hands on him, because his hour was not yet come;' and again, 'that the hour was come when the Son of Man should be glorified,'-in all these instances it is evident that the word does not signify a mere portion of time, from which no one can be saved by its passing from him; but some particular circumstance or circumstances in his life, which were peculiar to him as the Redeemer. The peculiar circumstance, however, which constituted Jesus the Redeemer of the world, was the laying down of his life; and this it was which

why he should have been required to go to such a distance to perform an act that might as well have been performed anywhere else. But when we find him directed to go to the site of Jerusalem, and to rear his altar, and offer up his sacrifice, on or near the very spot where the Saviour was afterwards actually crucified, we cannot well avoid seeing in the incident a designed typical and prophetical character. But a fuller view of the event in its various bearings will be gained from the explanations that follow.

1. And it came to pass after these things. Heb. After these words' That is, we suppose, not merely after the things recorded in the preceding chapter, but after all the previous trials which Abraham had been called to pass through. Notwithstanding he may have hoped for a period of tranquil rest in the de

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