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2 And he said, Take now thy | land of Moriah; and offer him there son, thine only son Isaac, whom for a burnt-offering upon one of the thou lovest, and get thee into the mountains which I will tell thee of.

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a Heb. 11. 17. 2 Chron. 3. 1.

cline of life, after the various trials and conflicts, the dangers and deliverances through which he had passed; yet he is once more reminded that he is still in the flesh, that the days of his warfare are not yet accomplished, and that he must arm himself for a far more fiery trial than any he has yet endured. We cannot ( but feel for the venerable patriarch thus suddenly awakened from his state of repose, and summoned to a new and unparalleled conflict; but the event teaches us that a believer's trials are not confined to the commencement of his course; that the longest period of rest and peace may be succeeded by a sore temptation; and the severest conflict be reserved for the last.

επειρασε,

of their hearts. In this sense of trying, putting to the proof, bringing to the test, the original term in many other instances is used in reference to the Most High, and always in such a way as to leave his attributes unimpeached. Thus Deut. 13. 3, 'For the Lord your God nissah) proveih you, to know (i. e. to make known) whether ye love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul.' 2 Chron. 32. 31, 'In the business of the ambassadors God left him (1775 lenassotho) to try him, that he might know all the evil that was in his heart.' Indeed, in some cases we find this kind of trial made a subject of petition on the part of good men, as if God they regarded it as a special favor. Ps. did tempt Abraham. Heb. o nis- 26. 2, 'Examine me, O Lord, and (0) | sah, tried, proved. Gr. Enεipaoε, id. This nassani) prove me; try my reins and my literal rendering of the term, which is heart.' And so with a different word, actually given in the old Geneva ver- but to the same effect, Ps. 139. 23, 24, sion, 'God did prove Abraham,' goes at Search me, O God, and know my once to correct the erroneous impression heart: try me, and know my thoughts, that might possibly be received from and see if there be any wicked way in our English word 'tempt,' which usually me, and lead me in the way everlasting. has the sense of exciting to sin. But And we find Paul, 2 Cor. 13 5, employ in this sense we are expressly assured ing the corresponding Gr. term, wher by James 1. 13, that God is not tempted enjoining as a duty to be performed by of evil, neither tempteth he any man ;' Christians towards themselves, the very he neither deceives any man's judgment probation, which is indicated by the Heb nor perverts his will, nor seduces his word; Examine (pazerɛ try) your affections, nor does any thing else that selves, whether ye be in the faith; can subject him to the blame of men's prove your own selves.'--¶ Behold, sins Temptation in this bad sense al- here I am Heb. hinnini, beways proceeds from the malice of Sa- hold me. Arab. What is thy pleatan working on the corruptions of our sure?' The patriarch's prompt obown hearts. God may, however, con- sequiousness to the slightest call of sistently with all his perfections, by his God is strikingly set forth in this reply. providence, bring his creatures into cir- It exhibits him as presenting himself in cumstances of special probation, noi for the divine presence, ready at a mothe purpose of giving him information, ment's warning to enter upon any ser but in order to manifest to themselves vice that might be enjoined upon him, and to others the prevailing dispositions without first waiting to know distinctly

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what it was, or what were the reasons ment put our souls in his soul's stead, of it. Our obedience ever derives its principal value in the sight of heaven from the ready, implicit, and unquestioning spirit in which it is rendered.

αγαπωμενος

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and realize to ourselves the spontaneous train of thought and feeling which must have passed through his mind. Take now thy son; and for what?-To in2. Take now thy son, thine only son vest him with all the honors of the proHeb. yahid, only. Gr. ayarηTоv mise, to put him in possession of the ayanτov beloved. As an only son is usually destined inheritance? Alas no!-To the object of a very intense affec- seek for him a fitting companion to share tion, the epithets only and beloved came with him the blessings and comforts to be used interchangeably. Thus Prov. that might be expected to flow from the 4..3, 'For I was my father's son, ten- covenant favor of his own and his fader and only (beloved) in the sight of ther's God? Neither is this the end of my mother;' where the original Heb. the command. Take now thy sononly is also rendered by the Sept. thine only son-Isaac-whom thou lovaуапwμɛvos beloved. The term μovoyɛ- est, and-offer him up upon one of the vns only begotten, applied to Christ in the mountains, which I will tell thee of!' New Testament, is of equivalent import. Was ever message like this addressed In accordance with the Heb. there- to a father?-each word more piercing fore, Paul calls him, Heb. 11. 17, his to parental ears than the keenest dagger only begotten son.' Isaac was the to the heart!-every clause awakening only son of Sarah, the free woman, and a new and sharper pang of anguish ! he only, in contradistinction from Ish- Who but Abraham could have forborne mael, who was now expelled, was to be remonstrance on such a heart-rending reckoned the seed of Abraham and the occasion? Who but he could have reheir of the promises. In this sense frained from saying, 'Lord, shall I lose Abraham would naturally understand my child?---lose him almost as soon as it; and thus understood, it could not but | I have received him? Didst thou give go to enhance beyond expression the him only to tantalize thy servant? Reanguish of a father's heart in view of member the long years through which the command now given him. Indeed, his birth was expected, and the transthe language in which this severe man- ports of joy with which at length it was date is conveyed, appears to be pur-hailed, and which was commemorated posely so constructed; as to aggravate in the name of thine own appointment. to the utmost the wound it was calcu-Remember the promises which can be lated to inflict. Every word seems fulfilled only on the condition of his life chosen with a view to awaken some being prolonged.-If sin lie at the door, painful feeling, and to increase the diffi- let me expiate the guilt. Let thousands culty of compliance. To a person of of rams, let every bullock in my stalls. humane and benevolent disposition, like bleed at thine altar. These are nothing Abraham, the idea of a human sacrifice compared with my child.-Or if nothing would naturally be in the highest de- will appease thine indignation but hugree revolting, had the meanest slave man blood, let my death be the sacrifice. of his household been demanded, and I am old and grey-headed. The best had the choice of the victim been left of my days are past, and the best of my to himself. What then must have been services performed. My life is of little his emotions as the true object of the value. Let me die, but let him live.— command unfolded itself, and he found Yet if the decree cannot be reversed, his own beloved son demanded as a the offering must come from my own sacrificial offering! Let us for a mo- family, if it must be the fruit of my own

body, O that Ishmael-yet how shall I spicuous land. Chal. To the land of speak it ?--my heart bleeds at the reverence or worship;' the variation thought!--but as for Isaac, the son of from the Hebrew being owing to the Sarah, the son of my old age, the crown | Targum's referring the word to the root of all my hopes, the very solace of my yara, to fear, to reverence, instead of soul; how shall I survive such a loss? | deriving it from raah, to see. The The blow that goes to his heart, must | Gr. evidently refers the term to the right be fatal to us both.' Such we may root, but interprets it solely of the high, conceive to have been the plea which commanding, conspicuous character of the fond nature would have prompted in locality in question. The probability is, any other father than the father of the that the name is here used proleptically, faithful; and if his prayer availed not it having been given from the event, in to avert the doom of death, he would reference to the remarkable vision or have besought that it might be mitigat- manifestation of the Most High which ed; that he might expire by a natural was there made, and to which allusion dissolution; that some disease might is had in the expression Jehovuh-jireh, v. gently loose the cords of life, and that 14. Indeed, this seems to be intimated his sorrowing but submissive parents in the very form of the word itself, might have the melancholy consolation which Fuller (Misc. Sac.) suggests is a of soothing his dying pangs, and of clos- contraction or compound of 120 ing his eyes when he had ceased to moreh-jah, Jehovah manifested, by a prolive. At any rate he would sue to be cess of formation which is fully given by exempted from the pain of witnessing Rosenmuller in loc. That the land of the sad catastrophe. If the son of his Moriah included the site of Jerusalem, love must be bound hand and foot for where was a well-known mountain the slaughter; if he must receive the called by the same name, is a point steel into his bosom, and welter in his universally admitted; but upon which own blood, how fervently would he ask one of the several hills included in the to be spared the anguish of beholding compass of the city the commanded such a scene. Such, we say, would be sacrifice was to be offered up, it is imthe native promptings of the paternal possible to determine. From the conheart. Yet in the case of Abraham all gruities of the case, we should naturalthese aggravations clustered round the ly suppose that the spot would be secommand that was given him, and as lected on which the antitypical sacrino alleviation was hinted to him, so none fice was to be made in the fulness of does he seem to have sought. He who time, and this is perhaps the general before staggered not at the promise, opinion of commentators. But this is staggers not now at the precept. Deaf made less certain by the now admitted alike to the arguings of carnal reason, and fact that Calvary was not properly a the yearnings of fatherly affection, he mountain; and that, although the place consults not with flesh and blood, but of the crucifixion is often popularly enters with the utmost promptitude up-called 'Mount Calvary,' yet the Scripon the work before him; and the sequel tures nowhere authorise this mode of informs us that it was carried out as it expression. There was doubtless a was commenced, in the full triumph of gentle swell or rocky protuberance in an unwavering faith.. The land of the ground, resembling in form a human Moriah. Heb. el eretz | skull, from which the name was derivhammoriyah; by interpretation the land ed; but as the present locality has no of vision. Gr. eis tnu ynu thu vựnλny to appearance of a mountain, or even a the high land; i. e. the visible, the con-hill of any size, so we have no reason

3 ¶ And Abraham rose up early | the wood for the burnt-offering, and in the morning, and saddled his ass, rose up, and went unto the place of and took two of his young men with which God had told him. him, and Isaac his son, and clave

ass. Ordered it to be done. See Note on Gen. 3. 21. The saddles of that ancient period were doubtless a far more simple contrivance than those of mo dern times. Goguet remarks in his Ori

knew the use of either saddles or stirrups;' and even in our times Hasselquist, when at Alexandria, says, 'I procured an equipage which I had never used before; it was an ass with an Arabian saddle, which consisted only of a cushion, on which I could sit, and a handsome bridle.' But even the cushion seems an improvement upon the ancient eastern saddles, which were probably nothing more than a kind of rug or mat of straw girded to the beast.- Two of his

to think it was ever entitled to such a designation. But we can easily conceive that it would have answered all the typical purposes intended in the transaction, to have had the offering made on any of the several mountain-gin of Laws that 'no nation of antiquity tops which distinguish the site of that venerable city. We incline, on the whole, to the opinion that it was the spot upon which the temple was afterwards erected.¶ Offer him there for a burnt-offering. Heb. 5 make him ascend for an ascension, one of the usual terms in the original for offering. The act was performed by first cutting the throat of the animal, to drain off its blood, and then consuming the body to ashes upon the altar. 3. Abraham rose up early in the morn-young men. That is, servants, as explaining, &c. The ready obedience exhibited Gen. 14, 24.————¶ And clave the wood. ed by the patriarch to this call, evinces Another instance of the usage so incesbeyond question that he must have been santly recurring, by which a person is perfectly satisfied of its emanating from said to do that which he orders or pro God. The law of parental duty, the in- cures to be done. See on Gen. 27. 37. stincts of parental feeling, would inevita- He carried the wood with him, because bly have prevailed over a dubious reve- the mountain probably afforded nothing lation; and though we may be unable to but green shrubs, which would make a determine how he could have been thus very slow fire, and thus prolong the assured, yet of the fact there can be no consumption of the victim. To guard doubt. His conduct was such as might against this, Abraham took with him a nave been expected under the un-supply of dry materials, which could be wavering conviction by which it was speedily kindled into a lively flame. prompted. The command came during Rose up. Heb. yakom. This term the night, and it was obeyed 'early in is frequently employed to express the the morning.' There was no doubtful act of entering upon the execution of any question of its reality or its obligation. business, the addressing one's self to a There was no culpable communing work. Thus, Ezra 3. 2, 'Then stood up with flesh and blood. Even Sarah ( rose up) Joshua and his brethren, seems not to have been informed of it, and builded the altar;' i. e. i. e. they set lest her affections should embarrass or about it. It is applied to God in the overpower his faith. That which he same sense; Ps. 3. 7, Arise, O Lord, must do, he will do: he that hath learn- save me ;' i. e. enter thou upon the work ed not to regard the life of his son, had of my deliverance —¶ Went_unto the | learned not to regard the sorrow of his place. Went towards the place, which wife.' Bp. Hall. Saddled his he did not reach till the third day.

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4 Then on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off.

5 And Abraham said unto his

young men, Abide ye here with the ass, and I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you.

he should know it? And the answer was, 'Wheresoever thou seest my Glory, there will I stay and wait for thee. And accordingly now he beheld a pillar of fire reaching from heaven to earth, and thereby knew that this was the place.'-Pirke Eliezer. Calvin supposes that he saw with his eyes the place which he had before seen in mental vision.

4. On the third day. It was not quite two days' journey from Beersheba to Moriah, and though it is no doubt true that a loaded ass moves slowly, it is somewhat difficult to conceive why so long a time should have been consumed in travelling the distance of only 42 miles. The fact may be accounted for by supposing that, although he rose early in the morning, and went about the necessary preparations, yet he did 5. Abide ye here, &c. He left his sernot find himself in readiness actually to vants behind, lest their affectionate but set forth till the middle of the day. This ill-judged remonstrances, if not their would leave but half a day's journey | forcible resistance, when they saw what for the first day. The second might he was about to do, might interfere with have been wholly occupied, and early the execution of his purpose. It was on the third he may have reached the not unnatural that they should think destined spot. But whatever may be him actually beside himself, when they thought of this, certain it is, that the perceived him on the point of immotrial must have been rendered more ag- lating his son. Upon what grounds gravating to Abraham by the delay, Abraham felt himself warranted to say, and the distance which he had to travel. We will come again to you,' is not Had the oracle demanded an instant clear. Some commentators consider it sacrifice, the struggle, though severe, as a kind of involuntary prophecy, and would have been short and compara- by some it is resolved into an allowable tively easy. But in a three days' jour-dissimulation, adopted in order to quiet ney, leisure was afforded for reflection; the minds of his attendants. the powerful pleadings of nature would more probable, as well as a more cremake themselves heard; parental af-ditable solution is, to suppose that he fection had time to revive; and the truly, though vaguely, believed that sight, the society, the conversation of God would either prevent the catastroIsaac, could not but combine to shake phe, or restore his slain son to life. We the steadfastness of his faith, and urge can scarcely derive any other inference him to return. But whatever may be from the words of the apostle, Heb. 11. the promptings of nature, faith such as 17-19, 'By faith Abraham, when he Abraham's, knew not what it is to re- was tried, offered up Isaac-accounting lent. With steady step and unwaver- that God was able to raise him up even ing purpose he advances to the fatal from the dead."' As his birth at the adspot.- -¶ Saw the place afar off. It be-vanced age which his parents had ating probably pointed out by a luminous tained, was a miracle little short of life cloud, preintimative of the Shekinah, which rested upon it. Such is the tradition of the Jews.' When God bade Abraham go to the place he would tell him of, and offer his son, he asked how

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from the dead, this would render his restoration less difficult of belief than it would otherwise have been. And as he was assured, that the promise before given, that in Isaac and in him

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