18 And Pharaoh called Abram, | her to me to wife: now therefore and said, What is this that behold thy wife, take her, and go thou hast done unto me? why thy way. didst thou not tell me that she was thy wife?

19 Why saidst thou, She is my sister? so I might have taken

c ch. 20. 9. & 26, 10.

20 d And Pharaoh commanded his men concerning him: and they sent him away, and his wife, and all that he had.

d Prov. 21. 1.

words were calculated to lead me to take her. The original p is rendered by Onkelos and the Syriac, in* the absolute form, and I have taken,' but upon weighing more exactly the force of the particle 7, and the purport of the connected future tense, in which the verb is here found, the potential or contingent sense appears the most probable. This sense is accordingly adopted by the Vulgate, and from thence has passed into most modern versions, which are very nearly unanimous in conveying the impression that Pharaoh did not actually consummate his intended nuptials with Sarah.

throughout was just and honourable. We may therefore perhaps conclude that the plagues inflicted were not any severe visitations intended as a punishment, but something merely designed to touch him, as the Hebrew indicates, and thus restrain him from the wrong which he was unknowingly about to commit. But whatever else is to be inferred from it, the incident teaches us how solicitously the Lord watches over the welfare of his people, and that how ever poor, mean, weak, or contemptible in the eyes of the world, they are still precious in his eyes, and that in their defence he will array himself as an enemy against kings and princes. The words of the Psalmist, Ps. 105. 12 -14, in allusion to this very period of commanded men ; i. e. certain the sacred history, seal the truth of this men; some portion of his subjects. remark: When there were but a few The ensuing clause, and they sent men in number; when they went from him away,' may also be rendered as it one nation to another, from one king- is in the Greek, 'that they should send dom to another people; he suffered no him away,' though the former is rathman to do them wrong, yea, he reprover more consonant with the sense indied kings for their sake; saying, Touch cated by the Hebrew accents. The orinot mine anointed, and do my proph-ginal term (yeshallehu) is often ets no harm.'

20. And Pharaoh commanded his men concerning him.

ויצו .Heb

used for that kind of sending or con18. And Pharaoh called Abram, and veying away which is marked by pecusaid, What is this that thou hast done liar tokens of honour and respect, as unto me? 'God had reproved Pha- when a guest is accompanied at his raoh, and now Pharaoh reproves Abra- departure to some distance by his host ham. It is a sad thing that saints and a party of friends. The corresshould do that, for which they should ponding Greek term ovνяρожεμтоμaι has justly fall under the reproof of the distinctly this sense, and so also has wicked.' Trapp. the Chaldee word employed by Onke19. Why saidst thou, She is my sis-los in this passage. In the N. T. the ter? so I might have taken her to me equivalent term (TOOTεμя) is usually to wife. That is, so as to render her rendered to bring forward on a jour, liable to be taken by me to wife. Your ney, which was considered a token of

Christian hospitality and
Acts, 15. 3. 3 John, 6. et al.

kindness, | divert us from our path. We are to be looking forward to our journey's end, and to be proceeding towards it, whatever be the weather, or whatever the road. Thus are we to fulfil our pilgrimage to the heavenly Canaan in the same spirit as did Abraham to the earthly.

REMARKS.-The call of Abraham and his subsequent history in the foregoing chapter is susceptible of still farther admonition to us than we have yet deduced from it. Doubtless we must exercise a sober judgment in determining how far we are to follow the patriarchs, prophets, and apostles, for there were many things in their conduct which were peculiar to their situation and circumstances. But we can never materially err if we attend to the spirit of their actions, as herein they were patterns to us, and as far as relates to this, we are to be followers of them who through faith and patience now inherit the promises.' We are bidden particularly to walk in the steps of our father Abraham,' one of the most remarkable of which is that above considered, and in respect to which we may observe,

(2.) Similar inducements also are of fered to us. Abraham was to be a blessing to himself and a blessing to others. In respect to temporal things he was blessed in a very signal manner to the latest hour of his life. He was loaded also with spiritual and eternal benefits, being justified and accounted righteous before God, and being exalted after death to the highest seat in his Father's house. He was also a blessing to many; for his children and household were governed by him in a way most conducive to their best interests. The people among whom he sojourned could not but be edified by his instructions and conduct. And to this day the whole of his life affords a stimulus to the church to serve God after his example. In like manner every one who, for Christ's sake, will renounce the world, shall be blessed. He may not possess opulence and honour; but 'the little he may possess shall be better to him than all the riches of the ungodly.' In his soul he shall be truly blessed. View him in the

(1.) That a similar command is virtually given to us. We are not indeed called to leave our country and connexions; but to withdraw our affections from earthly things and fix them upon things above, we are called. The world around us lies in wickedness, and we are forbidden to be of the world, any more than Christ himself was of the world. We are not to love it, or the things that are in it. We are not to be conformed to it, or to seek its friend-state least enviable according to human ship. We are rather to come out from it, and to be crucified to it. We are to regard it as a wilderness through which we are passing to our Father's house, and in our passage through it to consider ourselves as strangers and pil-tifying influences of the Holy Spirit. grims. If we meet with good accommodation and kind treatment we are to be thankful. If we meet with briars and thorns in our way, we must console ourselves with the thought that it is the appointed way, and that every step still brings us nearer home. Nothing good is to detain us; nothing evil to

apprehension; see him weeping and mourning for his sins; yet then is he truly blessed. He shall have pardon and acceptance with his God. He shall experience the renewing and sanc

He shall have joys and consolations 'which the stranger intermeddleth not with.' But this is not all. He shall be a blessing too to all around him, View him in his family connexions; view him as a husband, a parent, a master, a friend. Who so kind, so benevolent, so anxious to promote the

happiness of those connected with | biographers must be for ever ignorant, him? View him in the church or in and which yet form a large part of the the state; what blessings does he com- communion between a deeply penitent municate by the light of his example! soul and a forgiving God. The world what evils does he avert by his prevail- may remember with unkindly triumph ing intercessions! Suppose him to be the mournful lapses of the pious, but instrumental to the salvation of but a He, 'for his own name's sake, passes single soul; the whole world is not to by their transgressions and will not be weighed in the balance with the good remember their sins.' It is not neceshe has done. Nor is it that individual sary that the repentance should in all soul only that shall acknowledge him cases be recorded even by the pen of as its benefactor; for all the good that inspiration; but it is necessary, in vinshall accrue through the medium of that dication of the truth of God, that the soul to the remotest posterity, shall be sins even of the holiest should not be traced up to him as its author; and suppressed, since they tend more fully shall occasion thanksgiving to God on to establish, by the conduct, even of his behalf to all eternity. Let these in- the best of men, the doctrine of the ducements be duly weighed, and how universal corruption of the race, that light will the vanities of this world ap- 'there is none that doeth good, no, not pear in comparison of them.-But one;' not the father of the faithful himself; that we have but one example which we cannot follow too closely or copy too minutely, even the Lord Jesus Christ, for he alone was 'holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners.'

CHAPTER XIII.

(3.) The narrative in the foregoing chapter affords another of the specimens, so often occurring in the Scriptures, of the fidelity with which the sacred writers have spoken of the faults of good men. They neither extenuate the failings nor emblazon the virtues of their heroes. While we would carefully avoid, in our construction of the writer's meaning, any unjust or gratuitous imputations, at the same time we would not slur over or soften away the really exceptionable points of their conduct. In the present case, though some commentators, have taken great pains to prove that Abraham adopted a mode of expression common in those early times, and in those Eastern countries, and one not implying equivocation, yet it is far more in accordance with the spirit of truth to acknowledge that this, like the subtilty of Jacob, and the denial of Peter, was a positive sin, unjustifiable by any sound reasoning, yet susceptible of pardon, and as the event here proved, actually pardon-haps more frequently than the means ed, by the infinite mercy of God. He it is who alone hears the secret sigh, and watches the silent tear, and accepts the heartfelt contrition of which human

What renders Scripture history in general, and that of the patriarch Abraham in particular, useful and instructive is, the exhibition of private life it affords us, and the lessons of wisdom and worth taught by it to ordinary men. Opportunities of performing splendid actions or displaying heroic virtue are accorded but to a few, and and that but seldom in the course of one's life. But occasions to practise generosity, justice, mercy, und moderation; to speak truth and show kindness; to melt with pity and glow with affection; to forbear and to forgive, are administered to us at every step as we move through the world, and recur per

of gratifying the common appetites of hunger and thirst. When therefore we behold men of like passions with ourselves, placed in situations exactly sim

ND Abram went up out of into the south.

A Egypt, he, and his wife, and

3 And he went on his journeys from the south even to Beth-el, unto the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Beth-el and Hai;

c ch. 21. 8, 9.

4 Unto the place of the altar, which he had made there at the first: and there Abram called on the name of the LORD.

1 ch. 12. 7, 8. e Ps. 116. 17.

e

pounds (i. e. between $120,000 and $160,000). Allowing a deduction of one third of this amount for the difference between Job's property and Abraham's, it would still leave the latter a rich man,

mates of wealth. The 'silver and gold' which he possessed in addition to his cattle, no doubt arose from the same source which supplies the conveniences of life to the existing nomadic tribes; namely, the sale of animals for slaughter, and of butter, cheese, and wool to the townspeople. He would naturally accumulate much property in Egypt, the inhabitants of which depended chiefly upon the pastoral people who abode in or near their country. The Egyptians themselves hated pastoral pursuits. See Note on Gen. 46. 34.

sists almost wholly in horses and camels, though some tribes instead of these have extensive flocks of sheep and goats, proceeds to say, that 'no family can exist without one camel at least; a man who has but two is acknowl-even according to our own higher estiedged poor; thirty or forty place a man in easy circumstances; and he who possesses sixty is rich.' In the richer tribes a father of a family is said to be poor with less than forty camels; and the usual stock of a family is from one to two hundred. Although some families pride themselves on having only camels, there is no tribe wholly destitute of sheep or goats. On the whole, it seems that the property of these Arab sheikhs, whose wealth is rumoured far and wide in the East, is in most cases very moderate when estimated by European standards of value-a remark useful to be remembered when 3, 4. Went on his journeys. Heb. riches in cattle are mentioned indefi-went according to his renitely in the Old Testament. Admit-movings, or breakings-up; i. e. either ting however, that Abraham's wealth approximated somewhat nearly to that of Job, ch. 1. 3, the statement thus given fortunately enables us to see the amount of property which constituted wealth in the primitive times. On this the editor of the Pictorial Bible, to whom we are indebted for the principal details in this note, remarks, that the property assigned to Job in cattle is immense, and as we are accustomed to estimate such possessions in money, it would be interesting to state the value in money of the cattle there enumerated. From all the information we posess, we should say that the average value in the same country might now be between thirty and forty thousand

proceeding slowly from place to place, pausing and availing himself of pasturage in the way; or, pursuing the same route and occupying the same stations that he had on his journey down to Egypt. It is in the latter sense that the phrase is rendered by the Septuagint and the Vulgate.-¶ To Beth-el, unto the place where his tent had been at the beginning, &c. That is, before he went down to Egypt. From the manner in which the place of the altar' is mentioned, it would seem that this was the main attraction that drew him to the spot. With his heart set, not upon his earthly possessions, but upon his heavenly inheritance, he measured his steps to the place where he might 'com.