Gen. 8, 9.

:

The Waters assuage and Noah leaves the Ark. And God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that were with him in the ark: and God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters assuaged; the fountains also of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained; and the waters returned from off the earth continually and after the end of an hundred and fifty days the waters decreased. And the ark rested upon the mountains of Ararat. And it came to pass at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made: and he sent forth a raven ', and it went forth to and fro, until the waters were dried up from off the earth. And he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters were abated from off the face of the ground; but the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned unto him to the ark, for the waters were on the face of the whole earth: and he put forth his hand, and took her, and brought her in unto him into the ark. And he stayed yet other seven days; and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark; and the dove came in to him at eventide; and, lo, in her mouth an olive leave pluckt off: so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth. And he stayed yet other seven days: and sent forth the dove: and she returned not again unto him any more. And Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked, and, behold, the face of the ground was dried. And God spake unto Noah, saying, 'Go forth of the ark, thou, and thy wife, and thy sons, and thy sons' wives with thee.' And Noah went forth, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons' wives with him: every beast, every creeping thing, and every fowl, whatsoever moveth upon the earth, after their families, went forth out of the ark.

God's Covenant with Noah as the Founder of a new Race. And Noah builded an altar unto the LORD; and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And God spake unto Noah, and to his sons with him, saying, 'Behold, I establish my covenant with you, and with your seed after you: neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth. While the earth remaineth, seed time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.' And God said,

1 raven.

The raven being a carrion bird could easily find food.

'This is the token of the covenant, which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations: I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth. And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud, and I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh.' And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, 'Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth. And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air: with all wherewith the ground teemeth, and all the fishes of the sea, into your hand are they delivered. Every moving thing that liveth shall be food for you as the green herb have I given you all. But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat. And surely your blood, the blood of your lives, will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it; and at the hand of man, even at the hand of every man's brother, will I require the life of man. Whoso sheddeth man's blood 2, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.'

race.

[The three sons of Noah became the fathers of the future human Gen. 9, 10. Ham disgraced himself, and both he and his son Canaan fell under their father's curse, while Shem and Japheth received their father's blessing. Roughly speaking:-1. The descendants of Japheth (called the Japhetic peoples) spread themselves over the northern parts of Asia Minor, the countries bordering on the Black and Caspian Seas, Greece, Macedonia and Cyprus, and the southern parts of Italy and Spain.

2. The descendants of Shem (called the Semitic peoples) spread themselves over the Valley of the Euphrates and Tigris, the northeastern shores of the Persian Gulf, the southern parts of Asia Minor, and the northern and western parts of the Arabian Peninsula.

3. The descendants of Ham (called the Hamitic peoples) occupied Canaan, Phoenicia, Egypt, and Ethiopia, i. e. the countries lying to the south of Egypt.

1 set my bow. Set, i. e. appoint. There is no reason for supposing that this was the first time the bow' was seen in the vault of heaven. It had no doubt been a familiar sight before this, but now it was to be a visible sign or token to the world of the covenant of mercy which God had made with man.

2 sheddeth man's blood. The great lesson here taught is the sacredness of human life.

Gen. 11.

The object of the Writer in introducing the Story of the Building of Babel seems to be to show, (1) that God governs the World; (2) that he restrains man's presumption and self-exaltation ; (3) that the diversity of tongues was a part of his plan for the extension, development and progress of mankind.] (See Driver's Genesis.)

The Building of Babel: the Confusion of Tongues and the Dispersion of Mankind throughout the Earth. And the whole earth was of one language and of one speech. And it came to pass, as they journeyed east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar: and they dwelt there. And they said one to another, 'Go to, let us make brick, and burn them throughly.' And they had brick for stone, and slime1 had they for mortar. And they said, 'Go to, let us build us a city, and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven, and let us make us a name ; lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.' And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. And the LORD said, 'Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language: and this is what they begin to do: and now nothing will be withholden from them, which they purpose to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.' So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth and they left off to build the city. Therefore was the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.

[Having reviewed the whole of the races of mankind, the Writer now takes up the line of Shem to the exclusion of the other lines, and then confines his attention to a single family of that line, viz. that of Arpachshad, and traces the descendants of that family through ten generations down to Abram, the Founder of the Jewish Nation. From this point onward the narrative is concerned only with the Chosen People of God, and those persons and nations, who in the course of their history were brought into contact with them.]

1 slime, i. e. bitumen.

PART II

THE LIVES OF THE PATRIARCHS, ABRAHAM,
ISAAC AND JACOB

[JEWISH History begins with the Call of Abram. The Writer tells us that God called upon the Patriarch Abram to leave his native country, Ur of the Chaldees, and his kindred, and go into the Land of Canaan, so that he might practise a purer form of religious worship, and preserve the knowledge of the true God. At the same time God promised him that he should be the father of a great nation, and a source of blessedness 1 to the whole of the human race.]

1

The Call of Abram. Now the LORD said unto Abram,2 Gen. 12. 'Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto the land that I will shew thee: and I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and be thou a blessing: and I will bless them that bless thee, and him that curseth thee will I curse: and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed.' So Abram went, as the LORD had spoken unto him; and Lot went with him and Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran. And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran: and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan; and into the land of Canaan they came. And Abram passed through the land unto the place of Shechem, unto the oak of Moreh. And the Canaanite was then in the land. And the LORD appeared unto Abram, and said, 'Unto thy seed will I give this land:'

1 source of blessedness, i. e. through the revelation of God which was given to Abraham, and which would be fully made known to the whole world in Christ.

2 said unto Abram. This must not be understood of actual speaking; 'the voice was heard within Abram's inmost soul' (Delitzsch).

Gen. 12.

Gen. 13.

and there builded he an altar, unto the LORD, who appeared1 unto him. And Abram journeyed, going on still toward the South.

[Famine compelled the Patriarch to seek refuge in Egypt. Fearing lest Sarai's beauty would be the means of exposing him to the danger of being put to death, he instructed her to say that she was his sister. But the expedient was both foolish and useless. Sarai was brought into Pharaoh's house and Abram was well entreated for her sake. God however interposed, and visited Pharaoh with great plagues, and so the Egyptian king ordered Abram's wife to be restored to him.

Abram's untruthfulness must not be judged by the Christian standard of morality.

The story is recorded to show the care God took of his Chosen People, when they seemed to be helpless and unprotected in a strange land.] (See Century Bible.)

The Separation of Abram and Lot. And Abram went up out of Egypt, he, and his wife, and all that he had, and Lot with him, into the South. And Abram was very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold. And he went on his journeys from the South even to Beth-el. And Lot also, which went with Abram, had flocks, and herds, and tents. And the land was not able to bear them, that they might dwell together. And there was a strife between the herdmen of Abram's cattle and the herdmen of Lot's cattle. And Abram said unto Lot, 'Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee, and between my herdmen and thy herdmen: for we are brethren. Is not the whole land before thee? separate thyself, I pray thee, from me: if thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to the right: or if thou take the right hand, then I will go to the left.' And Lot lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the Plain of Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere, before the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, like the garden of the LORD. So Lot chose him all the Plain of Jordan; and Lot journeyed east and they separated themselves the one from the other. Abram dwelled in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelled in the cities of

1 appeared. This appearing of God to man is called a 'Theophany'. It cannot mean that God was really seen by Abram, because we read, 'that no man hath seen God at any time,' but that in some mysterious way the Divine Presence was felt by the Patriarch. Sometimes the Divine Presence manifested itself in the form of an angel or a man.