Nevertheless conscience,which testifies of guilt, shows also man's capability of being redeemed; and side by side with the curse. a divine word points forward to a victorious end of the conflict (Gen. 3: 15). The seed of the serpent, which by cunning overcame the woman, shall be vanquished in open combat by the seed of the woman. Oehler maintains, however, that the older theology erred when it sought to find here (in Gen. 3: 15) the Messiah, the great destroyer of the serpent, directly promised, although he is willing to grant that it did not err in the general conception of the thought in the passage.

§ 20. The First Offering. Cainites and Sethites. Tradition of the flood. The first offering (Gen. 4) is not to be regarded as a proper sin-offering, but rather an offering of supplication as well as of gratitude, or, in a wider sense of the word we may designate it a propitiatory offering. The difference in the nature of the offerings was due to the difference of the employments of the two brothers; so that the reason that Abel's offering pleased God, was not that it was a bloody sacrifice. The reason can only be found in the different states of heart of the two offerers. This is indicated in Gen. 4: 3, where it is evident that Abel made choice of the best to express his gratitude, while Cain offers his gift of the fruit of the ground without selection.

At the very opening of the Bible, therefore, emphasis is laid upon the pious disposition of the one making the sacrifice, as the indispensable condition of its being acceptable to God (compare Heb. 11: 4).

While among the descendants of Cain, the life of sin rises. to insolent defiance (Gen. 4: 23, 24), in Seth, who takes the place of the murdered Abel, is propagated the race of patriarchs who seek the living God (Gen. 4: 26).

After the wickedness of man had reached its height by the intermarriage of the sons of God (Sethites) with the daughters of men (Cainites) (Gen. 6: 1, 2), and the time granted for repentance had passed without result, the judgment of extermination was executed in the Flood, from which Noah as the righteous one (Gen. 6: 9) was saved, along with his family.*

* The tradition of the flood is found in several religions of antiquity; but in these traditions each religion evidently expresses a distinct idea of its own.

It is the first judgment on the world executed by the holy God, who, according to Gen. 6: 3, will no longer permit His spirit to be profaned by man's sin.

II. The Second Age of the World (§ 21, 22).

§ 21. Covenant with the World. Noah's Saying. Division of Mankind. The second age of the world begins with the new form taken by revelation, in presenting itself as God's covenant with man, and, in the first instance, as a covenant with the world, in which God gives to creation a pledge of its preservation (Gen. 9: 8-17).

Sacrifice precedes the institution of the covenant (Gen. 8: 20), which offering is mainly thanksgiving for the deliverance experienced, while at the same time man thereby approaches God, seeking grace for the future, after having seen the severity of God's penal justice.

The words of Noah in Gen. 9: 25-27 are of the greatest importance for the conception of the general history of mankind as given in the Old Testament, for here is indicated the type for the development of the human race. The race of Shem, to whom Jehovah is God, is chosen as the bearer of divine revelation; on Japheth the blessing is conferred through Shem; on Ham, and mainly on Canaan, the curse of slavery is to press.

The establishment of that world-kingdom which is at enmity to God, proceeds from the Hamites (Gen. 10: 8-10), whose first seat seems to have been Babel. Here begins the distinction between the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of the world which runs through the whole Bible.

The register of nations (Gen. 10: 1-32) is intended to keep in memory the original brotherhood of all the nations of the earth (compare Acts 17: 26), which are again to be united in time to come, by one blessing of God (compare Gen. 12: 3; 18: 18, etc.)

The importance of this "register of the nations" can scarcely be overestimated. The vast increase of human knowledge in recent times has proved the truth of its statements. It concerns peoples and not individuals, and stands at the end of

grand traditional records of the mighty past, giving us a picture of the world at a time when nations and kingdoms had become settled and their boundaries fixed. The document, however, must be prior to the time of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 10: 19). The table works backwards, and not forwards. Taking the nations at some particular time, it groups them together, and classifies them according to the line to which they belonged.

§ 22. The Foundation of a People of God.

When

In order to give an historical basis to the work of salvation, a people is to be chosen as the bearer of revelation. God assigned to the nations of the earth the territory where they were to develop themselves, He had in view the place which his chosen people should afterward possess in order to fulfil their historical calling (Deut. 32: 8).

In connection, probably, with the mighty moving of the nations at this early period, the Terahites leave the ancestral dwelling-place of the Chaldeans in Northern Assyria and wander first to Haran in Northern Mesopotamia (Gen. 11: 31). Here, where idolatry, designated as the worship of Teraphim, begins to break out even in this family (Josh. 24: 2; Gen. 31: 19), the basis of the Old Testament dispensation is laid by the calling of Abram (Gen. 12: 1). While the nations of the earth walk in their own ways, in which they develop their natural peculiarities, an everlasting people is to be founded in Abram's descendants (Isa. 44: 7), which, in its peculiar national type is to be not a product of natural development, but of the creative power and grace of God (Deut. 32: 6). It is only in this idea of the people of God that the key is given to the Old Testament history, which would otherwise remain an insoluble riddle. The view that the Old Testament dispensation is a natural production of the religious genius of the people of Israel must be absolutely rejected.

III. The Time of the Three Patriarchs (§ 23-25)

§ 23. Abraham.

Obedient to the divine call, Abram leaves Mesopotamia, accompanied by Lot, the ancestor of the Moabites and Am

monites, to go to Canaan, which is already (Gen. 12: 6) possessed by the tribes bearing this name. In solemn revelation God closes with him the covenant of promise (Gen. 15: 1-21), and Abram, several years later, takes upon himself the obligations of the covenant through circumcision (Gen. 17: 1-27).

Three points are contained in the promises given to Abram (Gen. 12: 2, 3, 7; 13: 15, 16; 17: 5–8; 22: 16—18): 1) Unto him is to be given for an everlasting possession to his descendants, all the land of Canaan; 2) He who remains childless till his old age shall have an innumerable posterity; 3) In his seed shall all the earth be blessed.

Abraham, by his faith, which is reckoned to him for righteousness, becomes the father of all believers (compare Rom. 4 and Gal. 3), and his name stands at the head of the three monotheistic religions of the world (Jewish, Christian and Mohammedan) even when looked at in a purely historical way.

The character of God's people is ethically determined from the first, and Gen. 18: 19 shows that not all natural descendants belong to the true sons of Abraham and to the heirs of the promise.

On the relation of the religion of the patriarchs to the surrounding heathenism, the narratives in Gen. 14: 18-22 and Chap. 22 shed the most important light. The former passage contains the story of Melchizedek, king of Salem. This Salem is without doubt Jerusalem, and Abraham in the way which he does homage to Melchizedek manifestly acknowledges the God whose priest Melchizedek is. We have here traces of an older purer monotheism on Canaanitish ground, which at first sight is remarkable, because elsewhere the relation of the Old Testament God to the Canaanitish religion is sharply antagonistic. No doubt we have here a remnant of an older and pure religion, preserved in the midst of the Canaanitish religion by a Semitic race dwelling among the Canaanites.*

Abraham accepted from Salem's priest and king, Melchizedek, not only bread and wine for the invigoration of his ex*See especially the interesting researches of Movers in his exhaustive work Die Phönizier.

hausted warriors, but a priestly blessing also, and gave him in return the tenth of all his booty, as a sign that he acknowledged this king as a priest of the living God, and that he submitted to his royal priesthood. And although we can see in Melchizedek nothing more than one, perhaps the last of the witnesses and confessors of the early revelation of God, coming out into the light of history from the dark night of heathenism; yet this appearance does point to a priesthood of universal significance, and to a higher order of things, which existed at the commencement of the world, and is one day to be restored again. In all these respects, the noble form of this King of Salem and Priest of the Most High God was a type of the God-King and eternal High Priest Jesus Christ; a thought which is expanded in Heb. 7, on the basis of this account, and of the divine utterance revealed to David in the Spirit, that the king of Zion sitting at the right hand of Jehovah should be a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek (Ps. 110: 4).*

With reference to the second narrative, the temptation of Abraham, Kurtz in his History of the Old Covenant, seems to have given the right explanation. He says: "Abraham must have been conscious that the way that led to the perfecting of his faith was the way of renunciation and self denial. The sight of the Canaanite sacrifices of children must have led Abraham to self-examination, whether he would be strong enough in renunciation and self-denial to do what those heathen did, if his God desired it from him. But if the question was once made the subject of discussion in Abraham's heart, it had also to be brought to a definite and real decision." But the remarks of Keil in his Commentary are equally true: "The command to offer up his only son Isaac did not come from Abraham's own heart,— was not a thought suggested by the sight of the human sacrifices of the Canaanites, that he would offer a similar sacrifice to his God; nor did it originate with the tempter to evil. The word came from Ha-Elohim, the personal true God, who tried him, who demanded the sacrifice of the only, beloved son, as a * See Keil in his Commentary on Gen. 14: 18-22.