known. Among the rabbinical writers fwj chut, or yfwj chuti, signifies a fillet worn by young women to tie up their hair; taken in this sense it will give a good meaning here. As Abram had rescued both the men and women carried off by the confederate kings, and the king of Sodom had offered him all the goods, claiming only the persons, he answers by protesting against the accepting any of their property: “I have vowed unto the Lord, the proprietor of heaven and earth, that I will not receive the smallest portion of the property either of the women or men, from a girl’s fillet to a man’s shoe-tie.”
Verse 24. Save only that which the young men have eaten— His own servants had partaken of the victuals which the confederate kings had carried away; see <011411>
Genesis 14:11. This was unavoidable, and this is all he claims; but as he had no right to prescribe the same liberal conduct to his assistants, Aner, Eshcol, and Mamre, he left them to claim the share that by right of conquest belonged to them of the recaptured booty. Whether they were as generous as Abram we are not told.
THE great variety of striking incidents in this chapter the attentive reader has already carefully noted. To read and not understand is the property of the foolish and the inconsiderate.
1. We have already seen the danger to which Lot exposed himself in preferring a fertile region, though peopled with the workers of iniquity.
His sorrows commence in the captivity of himself and family, and the loss of all his property, though by the good providence of God he and they were rescued.
2. Long observation has proved that the company a man keeps is not an indifferent thing; it will either be the means of his salvation or destruction.
3. A generous man cannot be contented with mere personal safety while others are in danger, nor with his own prosperity while others are in distress. Abram, hearing of the captivity of his nephew, determines to attempt his rescue; he puts himself at the head of his own servants, three hundred and eighteen in number, and the few assistants with which his neighbors, Mamre, Aner, and Eshcol, could furnish him; and, trusting in God and the goodness of his cause, marches off to attack four confederate kings!
4. Though it is not very likely that the armies of those petty kings could have amounted to many thousands, yet they were numerous enough to subdue almost the whole land of Canaan; and consequently, humanly speaking, Abram must know that by numbers he could not prevail, and that in this case particularly the battle was the Lord’s.
5. While depending on the Divine blessing and succor he knew he must use the means he had in his power; he therefore divided his troops skilfully that he might attack the enemy at different points at the same time, and he chooses the night season to commence his attack, that the smallness of his force might not be discovered. God requires a man to use all the faculties he has given him in every lawful enterprise, and only in the conscientious use of them can he expect the Divine blessing; when this is done the event may be safely trusted in the hands of God.
6. Here is a war undertaken by Abram on motives the most honorable and conscientious; it was to repel aggression, and to rescue the
innocent from the heaviest of sufferings and the worst of slavery, not for the purpose of plunder nor the extension of his territories;
therefore he takes no spoils, and returns peaceably to his own possessions. How happy would the world be were every sovereign actuated by the same spirit!
7. We have already noticed the appearance, person, office, etc., of Melchizedek; and, without indulging in the wild theories of either ancient or modern visionaries, have considered him as the Scriptures do, a type of Christ. All that has been already spoken on this head may be recapitulated in a few words.
1.
The Redeemer of the world is the King of righteousness; he creates it, maintains it, and rules by it.2.
His empire is the empire of peace; this he proclaims to them who are afar off, and to them that are nigh; to the Jew and to the Gentile.3.
He is Priest of the most high God, and has laid down his life for the sin of the world; and through this sacrifice the blessing of God is derived on them that believe. Reader, take him for thy King as well as thy Priest; he saves those only who submit to his authority. and take his Spirit for the regulator of their heart, and his word for the director of their conduct. How many do we find, among those who would be sorry to be rated so low as to rank only with nominal Christians, talking of Christ as their Prophet, Priest, and King, who are not taught by his word and Spirit, who apply not for redemption in his blood, and who submit not to his authority! Reader, learn this deep and important truth: “Where I am there also shall my servant be; and he that serveth me, him shall my Father honor.”CHAPTER 15
God appears to Abram in a vision, and gives him great encouragement, 1.
Abram’s request and complaint, 2, 3. God promises him a son, 4; and an exceedingly numerous posterity, 5. Abram credits the promise, and his faith is counted unto him for righteousness, 6. Jehovah proclaims himself, and renews the promise of Canaan to his posterity, 7. Abram requires a sign of its fulfillment, 8. Jehovah directs him to offer a sacrifice of five different animals, 9; which he accordingly does, 10, 11. God reveals to him the affliction of his posterity in Egypt, and the duration of that affliction, 12, 13.
Promises to bring them back to the land of Canaan with great affluence, 14-16. Renews the covenant with Abram, and mentions the possessions which should be given to his posterity, 18-21.
NOTES ON CHAP. 15
Verse 1. The word of the Lord came unto Abram— This is the first place where God is represented as revealing himself by his word. Some learned men suppose that the hwhy rbd debar Yehovah, translated here word of the Lord, means the same with the logos tou qeou of St. John, <430101>
John 1:1, and, by the Chaldee paraphrases in the next clause, called yrmym meimeri, “my word,” and in other places yyd armym meimera daiya, the word of Yeya, a contraction for Jehovah, which they appear always to consider as a person; and which they distinguish from amgtp pithgama, which signifies merely a word spoken, or any part of speech. There have been various conjectures concerning the manner in which God revealed his will, not only to the patriarchs, but also to the prophets, evangelists, and apostles. It seems to have been done in different ways.
1. By a personal appearance of him who was afterwards incarnated for the salvation of mankind.
2. By an audible voice, sometimes accompanied with emblematical appearances.
3. By visions which took place either in the night in ordinary sleep, or when the persons were cast into a temporary trance by daylight, or when about their ordinary business,
4. By the ministry of angels appearing in human bodies, and performing certain miracles to accredit their mission.
5. By the powerful agency of the Spirit of God upon the mind, giving it a strong conception and supernatural persuasion of the truth of the things perceived by the understanding. We shall see all these
exemplified in the course of the work. It was probably in the third sense that the revelation in the text was given; for it is said, God appeared to Abram in a vision, hzjm machazeh, from hzj chazah, to see, or according to others, to fix, fasten, settle; hence chozeh, a SEER, the person who sees Divine things, to whom alone they are revealed, on whose mind they are fastened, and in whose memory and judgment they are fixed and settled. Hence the vision which was mentally perceived, and, by the evidence to the soul of its Divine origin, fixed and settled in the mind.
Fear not— The late Dr. Dodd has a good thought on this passage; “I would read, says he, “the second verse in a parenthesis, thus: For Abram HAD said, Lord God, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless, etc.
Abram had said this in the fear of his heart, upon which the Lord
vouchsafed to him this prophetical view, and this strong renovation of the covenant. In this light all follows very properly. Abram had said so and so in <011502>
Genesis 15:2, upon which God appears and says, I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward. The patriarch then, <011503>
Genesis 15:3, freely opens the anxious apprehension of his heart, Behold, to me thou hast given no seed, etc., upon which God proceeds to assure him of posterity.”
I am thy shield, etc.— Can it be supposed that Abram understood these words as promising him temporal advantages at all corresponding to the magnificence of these promises? If he did he was disappointed through the whole course of his life, for he never enjoyed such a state of worldly prosperity as could justify the strong language in the text. Shall we lose sight of Abram, and say that his posterity was intended, and Abram understood the promises as relating to them, and not to himself or immediately to his own family? Then the question recurs, Did the
Israelites ever enjoy such a state of temporal affluence as seems to be intended by the above promise? To this every man acquainted with their history will, without hesitation, say, No. What then is intended? Just what the words state. GOD was Abram’s portion, and he is the portion of every righteous soul; for to Abram, and the children of his faith, he gives not a portion in this life. Nothing, says Father Calmet, proves more invincibly the immortality of the soul, the truth of religion, and the eternity of another life, than to see that in this life the righteous seldom receive the reward of their virtue, and that in temporal things they are often less happy than the workers of iniquity.
I am, says the Almighty, thy shield — thy constant covering and protector, and thy exceeding great reward, dam hbrh ˚rkç sekarcha harbeh meod, “THAT superlatively multiplied reward of thine.” It is not the Canaan I promise, but the salvation that is to come through the promised seed. Hence it was that Abram rejoiced to see his day. And hence the Chaldee Targum translates this place, My WORD shall be thy strength, etc.
Verse 2. What wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless— The anxiety of the Asiatics to have offspring is intense and universal. Among the Hindoos the want of children renders all other blessings of no esteem. See Ward.
And the steward of my house— Abram, understanding the promise as relating to that person who was to spring from his family, in whom all the nations of the earth should be blessed, expresses his surprise that there should be such a promise, and yet he is about to die childless! How then can the promise be fulfilled, when, far from a spiritual seed, he has not even a person in his family that has a natural right to his property, and that a stranger is likely to be his heir? This seems to be the general sense of the passage; but who this steward of his house, this Eliezer of Damascus, was, commentators are not agreed. The translation of the Septuagint is at least curious: ode uios masek oikolenous mou, outos damaskos eliezer. The son of Masek my homeborn maid, this Eliezer of
Damascus, is my heir; which intimates that they supposed qçm meshek, which we translate steward, to have been the name of a female slave, born in the family of Abram, of whom was born this Eliezer, who on account of the country either of his father or mother, was called a Damascene or one
of Damascus. It is extremely probable that our Lord has this passage in view in his parable of the rich man and Lazarus, <421619>
Luke 16:19. From the name Eliezer, by leaving out the first letter, Liezer is formed, which makes Lazarus in the New Testament, the person who, from an abject and distressed state, was raised to lie in the bosom of Abraham in paradise.
Verse 5. Look now toward heaven— It appears that this whole