Lecture II: Abraham and Isaac (part 1)

by Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D.D.         

It is an advantage of visiting a country once civil-     
ized but since fallen back into barbarism, that     
its present aspect more nearly reproduces to us     
the appearance which it wore to its earliest                 
inhabitants, than had we seen it in the height of its       
splendor.  Delphi and Mycenae, in their modern deso-        
lation, are far more like what they were as they burst      
upon the eyes of the first Grecian settlers, than at     
the time when they were covered by a mass of tem-      
ples and palaces.  Palestine, in like manner, must ex-      
hibit at the present day a picture more nearly re-       
sembling the country as it was seen in the days of       
the Patriarchs, than would have been seen by David,       
or even by Joshua.  Doubtless many of the hills      
which are now bare were then covered with forest;       
and the torrent beds which are now dry throughout      
the year were, at least in the winter, foaming streams.       
But, as far as we can trust the scanty notices, the      
land must have been in one important respect much     
what it is now.  It is everywhere intimated that its      
population was thinly scattered over its broken surface          
of hill and valley.  Here and there a wandering shep-     
herd, as now, must have been driving his sheep over     
the mountains.  The smoke of some worship, now ex-         
tinct for ages, may have been seen going up from the         
rough, upright stones, which, like those of Stonehenge         
or Abury, in our own country, have survived every form       
of civilized buildings, and remain to this day standing        
on the sea-coast plain of Phœnicia.  Groups of wor-      
shippers must have been gathered from time to time         
on some of the many mountain heights, or under some        
of the dark clumps of ilex; "For the Canaanite was          
"then in the land."  But the abodes of settled life     
are described as confined to two spots: one, the oldest       
city n Palestine, the city of Arba, or the Four Giants,            
as it was called, in the rich vale of Hebron; the other,          
"the circle" of the five cities in the vale of Jordan.        
These were the earliest representatives of the civil-         
ization of Canaan; the Perizzites, or, as they were      
usually called, "the Hittites," the dwellers in the            
open villages, who gave their name to the whole            
country; so much so, that the children of Heth are          
called "the children of the land," and the land itself          
was known both on Egyptian and Assyrian monu-         
ments as the land of "Heth."  Mingled with these,            
on the mountain-tops, as their name implies, were              
the warlike Amorite chiefs, Mamre and his two broth-       
ers.  Along the southern coast, and the undulating        
land called "the south country," between Palestine        
and the desert, were the ancient predecessors of the        
Philistines, probably the Avites; not, like their future       
conquerors, a maritime people of fortified cities, but a        
pastoral, nomadic race, though under a ruler entitled        
"king."  On the east of the Jordan, round the sanc-         
tuary of the Horned Ashtaroth, and southward as far      
as the Dead Sea, were remnants of the gigantic abo-      
riginal tribes, not yet ejected by the encroachments             
of Edom, Ammon, or Moab, — the Horites, dwellers in      
the caves of the distant Petra, the Emim and Zam-        
zummim on the east of the Jordan, and the Rephaim,        
whose name long lingered in the memory of the     
later inhabitants, and was used to descibe the shades       
of the world beyond the grave.                     
   I.  Such must have been the general outline of Pal-      
estine when Abraham "passed over" from Damascus,       
and "passed through the land."  Let us briefly      
note his halting-places, as he roves, almost at         
will, through the unknown country to which we are          
specially invited by the Sacred narrative, and also by        
the account of the Patriarchal wanderings in the speech          
of S. Stephen, which gives us warrant, even from a             
higher point of view, for touching on these rapid        
transitions from place to place.  They bring before us       
the point often forgotten, which that great precursor         
of S. Paul was specially endeavoring to impress upon       
his hearers, that the migration was still going on,         
that the Patriarch "had no inheritance in the land,       
"no, not so much as to set his foot on."  Fixed        
locality was to form no essential part of the true       
religion.  Abraham was still the first Pilgrim, the first      
Discoverer; "not knowing whither he went."  The        
words which Reuchlin used to Melanchthon leaving       
his father's home were directly and without effort     
taken from the call to Abraham, to go out "from his       
country and from his kindred and from his father's      
house."  The figures which we thus employ, in prose      
and poetry, in allegory and sermon, are the direct        
bequest of the Patriarchal pastoral age.  In the sight       
 of that primitive time the symbols and realities, which      
we now regard as separate from each other, were            
blended in one.  The curtain of the picture of life, if       
I may use the expression of the Greek artist, was to      
them the picture itself.             
   1.  Look at the Patriarchal wanderings in this light,      
and it will not be thought misspent time to        
dwell for a short space on the successive stages of       
their advance.  The first was "the place," as it is      
called of Shechem; then, as it would seem, only        
marked by the terebinths of Moreh.  It is the        
earliest instance of these primitive wanderers pitching      
their tents, for shelter against wind or rain, under        
the shade of some spreading tree.  As a rock or      
a palm-grove in the desert, so in Palestine itself was         
the isolated terebinth or ilex, the most massive and          
majestic of its native trees, and therefore legitimately,      
though not quite correctly, rendered by the English         
parallel of "the oak."  The oak of Moreh, like that       
of Mamre, to which we shall presently come, probably       
derived its name from some ancient chief, and was      
perhaps already regarded as in some measure sacred.            
Here, doubtless, by the side of the gushing streams           
of the vale of Shechem, the first encampment was       
described to have been made, and the altar of the         
earliest holy place in the Holy Land to have been        
consecrated.  Even the oak remained for many cen-      
turies the object of national reverence.  The sanctity      
of the place lasts even to this day.                 
   2.  The second halt was a day's journey farther         
south, on the central ridge of Palestine, at        
Bethel; then doubtless only known, if known at all,        
by its ancient name of Luz; and to this same spot       \
Abraham returned after the journey from Egypt, of     
which we will presently speak more at length.  This      
was more than a halting-place; it is represented as       
the turning point of his life.  In the philosophical           
and religious traditions of all countries there is often           
described a separation as between two parting roads,         
a divortium, or "watershed," as the Romans called it,         
where those who have been companions up to a cer-      
tain point are thenceforth severed asunder.  In Greek       
teaching the choice is described, through the well-       
known fable of Hercules, between the rugged path of       
Virtue and the easy descent of Pleasure.  In Mussul-        
man legends, Mahomet stands on the mountain above        
Damascus, and, gazing on the glorious view, turns       
away from it with the words, "Man has but one para-         
dise, and mine is fixed elsewhere."  Often, too, in        
the lives and conversations of good men in later times,        
shall we see this same necessity of selection brought         
before us in the spiritual world.  Here it is pre-         
sented to us in one of those instances which I just            
noticed, in which the spiritual lesson and the out-         
ward image are so blended together as to be indis-       
tinguishable.  The two emigrants from Mesopotamia         
had now swelled into two powerful tribes, and the           
herdsmen of Abraham and Lot strove together, and          
the first controversy, the first primeval pastoral con-        
troversy, divided the Patriarchal Church.  "Let there         
be no strife, I pray thee" (so the Father of the         
Faithful replied in language which might well ex-      
tend beyond the strife of herdsmen and shepherds, to        
the strife of "pastors and teachers" in many a       
church and nation), "Let there be no strife, I pray      
thee, between thee and me, between my herds-     
men and thy herdsmen, 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 depart       
to the right hand, I will go to the left."           
   It was the first instance of agreeing to differ," in      
later times so rarely found, so eagerly condemned; and       
yet not less suitable to all times, because of the ex-          
treme simplicity of its earliest application.            
   Meanwhile let us take our stand with them on the      
mountain east of Bethel.  The indications of the sacred      
text, and the peculiar position of the localities, enable        
us to fix the very spot.  On the rocky summit of that        
hill, under the grove of oaks, Abraham had pitched his       
tent and built his altar, — the first of the high places        
which so long continued in Palestine amongst his       
descendants.  And now, from this spot, he and his kins-         
man made the choice which determined the fate of       
each, according to the view which that summit com-           
mands.  Lot looked down on the green valley of the        
Jordan, its tropical luxuriance visible even from thence,           
beautiful and well-watered, as that garden of Eden of         
which the fame still lingered in their own Chaldæan       
hills, as the valley of the Nile in which they had so      
lately sojourned.  He chose the rich soil, and with it           
the corrupt civilization which had grown up in the rank        
climate of that deep descent; and once more he turned       
his face eastward, and left to Abraham the hardship,        
the glory, and the virtues of the rugged hills, the sea-        
breezes, and the inexhaustible future of Western Pales-       
tine.  It was Abraham's henceforward; he was to "arise             
and walk through the length and through the breadth        
of it, for God had given it to him."  This was the first         
appropriation, the first consecration of the Holy Land.                
   3.  "Then Abraham removed his tent, and came and         
dwelt in the 'oak-grove' of Mamre, which is        
in Hebron, and built the third and chief resting-place         
of the wandering Patriarch.  The modern town of He-       
bron, or, as it is now called after its first illustrious occu-         
pant, "El Khalil," "The Friend," lies on the northern      
slope of a basin formed by the confluence of two broad      
valleys, whose superior cultivation and vegetation have           
probably caused the long historical celebrity of this spot           
as the earliest seat of the civilization and power, if not       
of Palestine, at least of Judæa.  The hills which rise        
above it on the north present for a considerable distance         
a level table-land slightly broken by occasional depres-     
sions, now mostly occupied by cornfields.  It is on this        
high ground, in one of the depressions, that a large          
square enclosure of ancient masonry marks in all prob-       
ability the remains of the sanctuary which the Kings         
of Judah built round what is still called by Jews and      
Arabs "The House," or "The Height," of Abraham.                
On this spot, in the time of Josephus, a gigantic tere-      
binth was shown as coeval with the Creation, and as       
being that under which the tent of the Patriarch was      
pitched.  A fair used to be held under ts branches, in              
which Christians, Jews, and Arabs assembled every         
summer, when each with his peculiar rites honored the        
sacred tree with the images and pictures which hung           
from its branches.  Constantine destroyed the images       
but left the tree; and its trunk, standing in the midst           
of the church, was still visible in the seventeenth             
century.  Now, the only indication of the exact      
spot is a deep well, being in truth precisely what       
one would expect to find hard by the Patriarchal       
encampment.             
   This is the nearest approach to a home that the      
wanderings of Abraham present.  Underneath the tree        
his tent was pitched when he sat in the heat of the        
Eastern noon.  Thither came the mysterious visitants        
whose reception was afterwards commemorated in one        
of the pictures hung from the sacred oak.  In their en-         
tertainment is presented every characteristic of genuine        
Arab hospitality, which has given him the name of "The       
Father of Guests."  But there is another spot in He-       
bron which gives a yet more permanent and domestic       
character to its connection with Abraham's life.  When        
Darius pursued the Scythians into their wilderness, they         
told him that the only place which they could appoint         
for a meeting was by the tombs of their fathers.           
The ancestral burial-place is the one fixed        
element in the unstable life of a nomadic race; and       
this was what Hebron furnished to the Patriarchs.  The         
one spot of earth which Abraham could call his own          
the pledge which he left of the perpetuity of his in-      
terest in "the land wherein he was a stranger," was the      
sepulchre which he bought with four hundred shekels       
of silver from Ephron the Hittite.  It was a rock with           
a double-cave ("Machpelah"), standing amidst a grove         
of olives or ilexes, on the slope of the table-land where         
the first encampment had been made, its valley prob-       
ably occupying the same position with regard to the        
ancient town of Hebron, that the sepulchral valley of           
Jehoshaphat did afterwards to Jerusalem.  Round this      
venerable cave the reverence of successive ages and         
religions has now raised a series of edifices which, whilst        
they preserve ts identity, conceal it entirely from view.         
But there it still remains.  Within the Mussulman       
mosque, within the Christian church, within the massive        
stone enclosure built by the Kings of Judah, is, beyond      
any reasonable question, the last resting-place of Abra-        
ham and Sarah, of Isaac and Rebecca; "and there Jacob      
buried Leah;" and thither, with all the pomp of      
funeral state, his own embalmed body was brought     
from the palaces of Egypt.  Of all the great Patriarchal      
family, Rachel alone is absent.  All that has ever been      
seen of the interior of the mosque (held by Mussulman          
pilgrims to be the fourth most sacred in the world) is       
the floor of the upper chamber, containing six chests,      
placed there, as usual in Mussulman sepulchres, to        
represent the tombs of the dead.  But it is said that          
here, as in the analogous case of the tomb of Aaron on      
Mount Hor, the real cave exists beneath; divided by       
an artificial floor into two compartments, into the upper      
one of which only the chief minister of the mosque is       
admitted to pray in times of great calamity.  The lower      
compartment, containing the actual graves, is entirely       
closed, and has never been seen by any one within the      
range of memory or tradition.      
   4.  Although the oaks of Mamre and the cave of Mach-       
pelah rendered Hebron the permanent seat of          
Patriarchal life beyond any spot in Palestine,         
and although they are always henceforth described as        
lingering around this green and fertile vale, there is        
yet another circle of recollections more in accordance       
with their ancient pastoral habits.  Even at the moment        
of the purchase of the sepulchre, Abraham represents      
himself as still "a stranger and a sojourner in the land;"          
and as such his haunts were elsewhere.  "He journeyed       
from thence toward the south country, and dwelt be-        
tween Kadesh and Shur, and sojourned in Gerar.          
None of these particular spots are known with cer-       
tainty; but it is evident that we are now far away        
from the hills of Judæa, in the wide upland valley, or             
rather undulating plain, sprinkled with shrubs, and with               
the wild flowers which indicate the transition from the        
pastures of Palestine to the desert, — marked also by the       
ancient wells, dug far into the rocky soil, and bearing on       
their stone or marble margins the traces of the long            
ages during which the water has been drawn up from       
their deep recesses.  Such are those near the western       
extremity of the plain, still bearing in their name their          
identification with "the well of the oath," or "the well      
of the Seven," — Beer-sheba — which formed the last      
point reached by the patriarchs, the last centre of their          
wandering flocks and herds; and, in after-times, from         
being thus the last inhabited spot on the edge of the      
desert, the southern frontier of their descendants.  This        
southernmost sanctuary marks the importance which,       
in the migratory life of the East, was and is always          
attached to the possession of water.  Here the solemn        
covenant was made, according to the significant Arab      
forms, of placing the seven lambs by themselves, be-          
tween Abraham and the only chief of those regions       
who could dispute his right, the neighboring king of        
the Philistines or Avites.  "And Abraham," still faith-       
ful to the practice which he had followed in Canaan     
itself, "planted there a sacred grove," — not now of        
ilex or terebinth, which never descend into those wild       
plains, but the light feathery tamarisk, the first and the         
last tree which the traveller sees in his passage through       
the desert, and thus the appropriate growth of this spot.       
Beneath this grove and beside these wells his tents     
were pitched, and "he called there on the name of the            
"Lord, the everlasting God."  It was the same wilder-         
ness into which Ishmael had gone forth and become an        
archer, and was to be made a great nation.  Is it not      
as though the strong Bedouin (shall we add the strong              
parental) instinct had, in his declining days, sprung up         
again in the aged Patriarch? — as if the unconquerable       
aversion to the neighborhood of walls and cities, or            
the desire to meet once more with the first-born son        
who recalled to him his own early days, drew him down      
from the hills of Judæa into the congenial desert?  At        
any rate in Beersheba, we are told, he sojourned "as         
a stranger" many days.  In Beersheba Rebekah was          
received by her son Isaac into Sarah's vacant tent; and         
in the wilderness, as it would seem, "he gave up the         
ghost and died in a good old age," in the arms of his      
two sons, — Isaac the gentle herdsman and child of       
promise, Ishmael the Arabian archer, untamable as the       
wild ass of the desert, — "and they buried him in the     
cave of Machpelah."        
   II.  We turn from this external framework to the      
general effect of the Patriarchal age, as sug-        
gested, amongst many other scenes, by the few          
words which have just been quoted describing          
the end of Abraham.  They bring home to us, beyond         
any other writings, the force and the beauty of simple      
feeling and natural affection.  It is Homer, and more             
than Homer, carried at once into the hands and hearts      
of every one.  We all know the instantaneous effect pro-       
duced upon us in countries, however distant, in classes     
or races of men, however different from our own, by       
hearing the cry of a little child; with that irresistible         
force it reminds us that we belong to the same human           
family; how suddenly it recalls to us, however far      
away, the thought of our own home.  Is not this the         
exact effect of reading the story of Ishmael?           
Remote as it is in language, garb, and manner     
from ourselves, we instantly recognize the testimony       
to our common nature and kindred in the prayer of       
Abraham for his first-born, Ishmael, — the child who
had first awakened in his bosom the feeling of parental     
love: — "O Ishmael might live before Thee:" or        
yet more in the pathetic scene where the imperious     
caprice of the Arab chieftainess forbade Hagar and her      
son to remain any longer in the tent, and "the thing       
was very grievous in Abraham's sight because of his       
son.  Abraham rose up early in the morning, and took            
bread and a 'skin' filled with water, and gave it to      
Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, and the child, and       
sent her away into the wilderness."          
   Or look at the story of the other son, the child of     
laughter and joy, the gentle Isaac.  Read the narrative      
of Eliezer's mission to fetch Rebekah.  Track every       
stage of that journey — our first introduction in early      
childhood to the pictures of Oriental life, only deepened          
more strongly by the sight of the reality.  Watch the       
long pilgrimage over river and mountain, retraced back       
to the original settlement of the race.  See the camels         
kneeling beside the well without the city;           
Rebekah descending the flight of steps with       
the pitcher on her shoulder, exactly as the traveller     
Niebuhr met the Syrian damsels at one of these very     
wells.  Look at the different characters as they come          
out, one by one, in the interview, — Eliezer, the faith-    
ful slave bent solely on discharging his mission: "I will      
not eat till I have told mine errand.  Hinder me not,           
seeing that the Lord hath prospered my way."  Send           
me away, that I may go to my master;" — the aged       
Bethuel always in the background; — Laban's hard       
temper relaxing when he sees the exact ornaments still      
so dear to Arab acquisitiveness in this very region, the        
ear-ring or nose-ring, and the bracelets on his sister's        
hands; — Rebekah, eager to receive, forward to go, the      
same high spirit as we shall see afterwards in her future         
home.  "I will draw water for thy camels also till they           
have done drinking."  "We have both straw and               
provender enough, and room to lodge in."  "And they       
called Rebekah, and said unto her: Wilt thou go with       
this man? and she said, I will go."  "And they sent     
away Rebekah, their sister, and her nurse.  And they       
blessed Rebekah and said unto her, Thou art our sister           
be thou the mother of thousands of millions, and let          
thy seed possess the gate of them that hate thee."          
Nor can we overlook the first touch of what may be        
called sentimental feeling, in the close of the journey,           
when the mournful meditations of Isaac, by the well     
at eventide, are suddenly interrupted by the arrival       
of the bride: "And he brought her into his mother      
Sarah's tent, and Rebekah became his wife; and he       
loved her, and Isaac was comforted after his mother's       
death."                 
   What an insight into the primitive age! but what a      
cradle also for the earliest religious history!  We often      
say that in the family is to be found the Patriarchal        
Church, in the father of the family of the Patriarchal        
Priest.  It is indeed so in more senses than one.  When        
we think of the many periods in which the relations of      
brother and sister, father and child, husband and wife,        
have, even by good men, been thrust into the back-        
ground as unworthy of a place in the religious rela-         
tions of mankind, we may well hail this first chapter of         
Ecclesiastical History, as possessing far more than a      
merely poetical value.  It is like one of those ancient       
Patriarchal wells so often mentioned in the history.  Its          
waters are still fresh and clear in its deep recess.  It       
has outlasted all other changes.  It ministers indeed        
only to human affections and feelings, but it is precisely        
to those feelings which are as lasting as the human         
heart itself, and which therefore give and receive from         
the record which so responds to them, a testimony        
which will never pass away.           

from The History of the Jewish Church, Vol. I : Abraham to Samuel,
Lecture II: Abraham and Isaac
by Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D.D., Dean of Westminster
Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1879, pp. 29 - 42