6. And Abram passed through the pears luxuriantly embosomed in the most land, Heb. in the land. The delightful and fragrant bowers; half import is not so much that of passing concealed by rich gardens and by statein a direct line from one point to anoth-ly trees collected into groves all around er, as of passing to and fro from place the bold and beautiful valley in which to place, or sojourning after the manner it stands.'- - Unto the plain of of the nomades till a district has been Moreh. If the place here designated thoroughly traversed. It was thus were any where in the vicinity of Sichthat Abraham passed through the land em, the geographical features of the of promise, surveying his destined inher- country would seem to preclude the itance in its length and breadth, till in idea of its having been a 'plain;' for the course of his wanderings he came there is scarcely a more broken and to Sichem, where he probably made mountainous locality in the whole resomewhat of a prolonged stay.- -Tgion of Palestine. Accordingly the Unto the place of Sichem. That is, Heb. 13 ailon moreh is diversthe spot on which Sichem was after-ly rendered by eminent critics 'the oak wards built, for it is named here by anticipation, the town not having been yet founded. The name occurs elsewhere in the form of Sechem, Sychem, and Shechem; and in the New Testament the place is called Sychar. There is not the least doubt of its identity with the present town, the name of which is variously spelt Nablous, Naplous, Napolose, and Naplosa; all from the ancient Greek Nearolis Neapolis, i. e. new town or new city. It occupies a most pleasant situation in a narrow valley in the ancient province of Samaria, between the mounts Gerizim and Ebal, which press it so closely on each side as to leave no room to add to its breadth, though it might be indefinitely extended lengthwise. It consists of two long streets, and has a population which Mr. Buckingham estimates at rather less than 10.000, mostly Mohammedans. It is upon the whole a flourishing place, considering the general misery of the country, and is indebted for some part of its pros-ural than that Moses should advert to a perity to the concourse of pilgrims to visit the well of Jacob in the vicinity, where Christ discoursed with the woman of Samaria. There is nothing in the Holy Land finer,' says Dr Clarke, 'than the view of Napolose from the heights around it. As the traveller descends towards it from the hills, it ap

of Moreh,' or 'the terebinth (turpentine) tree of Moreh :' implying in either case, not a single tree of the kind, but a plantation or grove of them, probably called 'Moreh' after the name of the individual by whom the place was first owned or occupied; just as in ch. 13. 18, the 'plain of Mamre' is supposed to be so called from the name of a man. Whether the genuine import of the original be 'oak' or 'terebinth,' is a point which lexicographers do not enable us to decide. The Canaanite was then in the land. It was very pertinent to the writer's scope, in speaking of Abraham's traversing the country, to mention who were then its possessors. It is true indeed that the Canaanite was in the land also when Moses wrote the history, but the inference which some, in a spirit of cavil, would draw from this expression, viz. that the Canaanite of course was not in the land when Moses wrote, is by no means well-founded. Nothing was more nat

circumstance so well calculated to try the faith of the patriarch as that of finding himself surrounded by a profane and abandoned race, hostile to his religion, and disposed to shew him no fa vour. Yet this was to be the land of his inheritance; or rather that of his posterity; and it is easy to see, that

n

7. And the LORD appeared un- | there_builded he an • altar unto to Abram, and said, Unto thy the LORD, who appeared unto seed will I give this land: and him.

m ch. 17. 1. n ch. 13. 15. & 17. 8. Ps. 105. 9, 11.

o th. 13. 4.

while the inquietude and annoyance ari- the secret chambers of the soul, and sing from the presence of these wicked by unknown channels to infuse strength, tribes would increase his longing for peace, confidence, and refreshing joy that heavenly country to which he into the hearts of his servants, who looked forward, it was a great triumph are disposed to make sacrifices and enof faith to hold fast the assurance that counter perils for his sake. The Scripin despite of all opposing probabilities tures teem with assurance to such that his seed should one day be the peaceful they, like Abraham, shall not fail to occupants of the territory before him. find their reward even in the present 7. And the Lord appeared unto Abram. life. The case before us is but another Although Moses and the other sacred demonstration of the truth, that in the writers make frequent mention of these sorest trials God often makes the sweettheophanies or divine appearances, yet est discoveries of himself. Unto as they have no where expressly de- thy seed will I give this land. The scribed the manner of them, we are Most High unfolds his counsels and left on this subject very much to our promises gradually; rewarding one deown conjectures. A reference to vari-gree of faith with such intimations of ous other passages where a similar mercy as will beget another. He at event is described, leads to the belief first signified his purpose of merely that such manifestations were vouch-shewing to Abraham a distant land in safed for the most part in dreams and which he was to sojourn. He now visions of the night, when supernatural speaks of giving it, but not immediately revelations were made in such a way to himself, but to his seed; doubtless as to carry the evidence of their divin- for a farther trial of his faith. This ity along with them. But until we promise is still farther amplified in a know more of the nature of spirits and subsequent chapter, ch. 15.-T And of the mode of spiritual communica- there builded he an altar, &c. As an tions, we must be content to abide in evidence and a pleage of the grateful comparative ignorance on this whole and adoring sentiments to which the matter. Certain it is that that almighty divine appearance had given rise. power which has reared our bodies from There was something in the nature or the dust, which has formed the eye circumstances of the manifestation that and planted the ear, and whose inspi- exercised a constraining power upon ration hath given us understanding, can his pious feelings, aud prompted him, avail itself of any avenue that it pleases by some outward testimonial, to evince to reach the sentient spirits of his crea- his sense of the favour conferred. The tures, whether in their sleeping or wa- essence of religion undoubtedly has its king moments, and impart the knowl-seat in the affections; its primary influedge of his will. To the pious and humble mind it will be matter rather of devout admiration and praise, than of curious research, that the Father of our spirits and the God of all consolation is thus pleased to manifest his presence in

ence, its throne, its conquests, are emphatically there; but its legitimate fruits will invariably shew themselves in outward acts of worship. We, as well as Abraham, may cherish a grateful inward sense of the mercies of heaven,

8 And he removed from thence, on the east and there he builded unto a mountain on the east of an altar unto the LORD, and P callBeth-el, and pitched his tent hav-ed upon the name of the LORD. ing Beth-el on the west, and Hai

sionary, and thus every part of the earth
through which he passed possessed the
edifying opportunity of beholding the
worship of the true God in its purity, and
of viewing those sacrifices which were
appointed to keep up a perpetual re-

the foundation of the world.'-By his
'calling upon the name of the Lord' is
meant in general his performing the
various duties of sacred worship. That
this embraced the offering of sacrifices,
as well as the paying of thanks, is
altogether probable, though not so ex-
Comp. Gen. 8. 20.
But certain it is, that the whole system
of the divinely prescribed worship from
the time of the fall, was built upon the
recognition of an atoning sacrifice to be
afterwards offered, and the more dis-
tinctly the religious services of the an-
cient believers avowed this fact, the
more acceptable they must have been
in the eyes of Jehovah.

an altar, and called upon the name atonement, and together worshipping of the Lord. According, it would the true and only Jehovah. Thus Abraseem, to his constant practice whereso-ham acted the part of a patriarchal misever he sojourned. 'Wherever he had a tent, God had an altar, and an altar sanctified by prayer.' Henry. He erected his own altar that he might not participate with idolaters in the worship offered upon theirs, and it is not improbable that his steadfast singular-membrance of the 'Lamb slain from ity in this respect drew upon him the ill will, if not the persecution, of his heathen neighbours. Men will usually brook any thing more easily than a slight cast upon their religion, and yet the worship of Abraham was a standing rebuke of theirs. It is plain from the inspired narrative that the Canaan-pressly mentioned. ites were a proud, fierce, and vindictive people, and it was perhaps owing to the cause now mentioned that the patriarch was obliged to make such frequent removals. But like every other good man he chose to put his life in peril rather than deny his God or forsake his service. He was now travelling as an eastern prince or emir, as a person of more than ordinary distinction, for we hear shortly after of his having three hundred and eighteen trained servants, born in his own house;' and he was passing through a country, the inhabitants of which were idolaters. How instructive then must have been the example thus held forth by the father of the faithful. Wherever he stopped, though it were but for a night, there he was seen, unawed by the opposition, unmoved by the ridicule, of the idolaters around him, building his temporary altar, assembling his family and his household, and together offering their sacrifices as types of the great

9. And Abram journeyed, going on still toward the south. Heb. 730

broke up going and breaking up, that is, advancing forwards by degrees; now removing to one point and now to another, according to the nomade custom, but on the whole moving on towards the south. The allusion is plain to the habits of those who dwell in tents, and as dweiling in tents is opposed to dwelling in houses, 1 Chron. 17. 1, 5, and implies that unsettled migratory kind of life which the apostle 1 Cor. 4. 11, calls asarovμevov unfixed, we see with how much propriety he represents Abraham as 'sojourning in

11 And it came to pass, when he was come near to enter into Egypt, that he said unto Sarai his wife, Behold now, I know that thou art " a fair woman to look upon :

u ver. 14. ch. 26. 7.

12 Therefore it shall come to pass, when the Egyptians shall see thee, that they shall say, This is his wife: and they will kill me, but they will save thee alive.

w ch. 20. 11. & 26. 7.

the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles (tents) with Israel and Jacob.' In the present state of society the people of God are in a great measure exempted from such a necessity and made to possess quiet and permanent abodes, but our mansions below are still sufficiently moveable to remind us that our rest is not here, but in heaven, whither, if Christians, all our removes are rapidly conducting us.

instead of evincing the spirit of his unbelieving descendants in the times of Moses, and saying, 'Would God we had remained at Haran, if not in Ur; surely this is a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof,' he merely goes to Egypt as a place of temporary sojourning, with the firm purpose of returning whenever the rigor of the famine should abate. In the midst of all our changes and buffetings in this world we should still retain our hold upon the promise of a better and an eternal inheritance.

10. And there was a famine in the land. Another trial of his faith the patriarch is here called to encounter. A famine arises in the very land of promise and of plenty. In the fertile plains of Chaldea he had doubtless been a stranger to want, and his large establishment in Haran, makes it probable, that no difficulty of subsistence was there experienced. But now he is made to lack and suffer hunger,' and by being constrained to leave the land of his sojourning, undergoes the hard-perienced none of the effects of matership of a double exile. He went down nity in weakening their force. into Egypt,' a country lying relatively somewhat lower than Canaan, and the fertility of which, owing to the annual overflow of the Nile, seems to have entitled it, from the very earliest periods, to be considered as the granary of the world. But even here his faith holds him steadfast in the assurance of finally possessing the promised inheritance. He manifests no regret at having forsaken the land of his nativity nor any disposition to return thither, though now 'if he had been mindful of that country from whence he came out, he might have had opportunity to have returned.' But

11. I know that thou art a fair woman to look upon. Heb. fair of aspect. The original implies fairness of complexion, and one therefore likely to attract the attention of the darker coloured Egyptians. Though Sarah was now probably upwards of sixty, yet, considering the longevity and robust health of the patriarchs, she might still retain her personal attractions, especially as she had as yet ex

12. They will kill me but they will save thee alive. Whether the apprehension here expressed was grounded upon any thing more than a knowledge of the general evil promptings of our corrupt nature, particularly in a lax state of society, is uncertain. This alone would doubtless form a sufficient warrant for his fears, and the result shews that they were well founded. Still he might have had special reasons for such an anticipation arising from the known character and habits of the people, of which we are ignorant. The opinion expressed by him gives the Egyptians