the city of Jericho, pronounced this curse: “Cursed be the man, before
the Lord, that riseth up and buildeth this city, Jericho: he shall lay
the foundation thereof in his first-born, and in his youngest son shall
he set up the gates of it,” Joshua vi, 26. Hiel of Bethel, about five
hundred and thirty-seven years after this imprecation, having undertaken
to rebuild Jericho, whilst he was laying the foundation of it, lost his
eldest son, Abiram, 1 Kings xvi, 34; and Segub, the youngest, when they
set up the gates of it: a remarkable instance of a prophetic
denunciation fulfilled, perhaps on a person who would not credit the
tradition, or the truth of the prediction. So true is the word of the
Lord; so minutely are the most distant contingencies foreseen by him;
and so exact is the accomplishment of Divine prophecy!
2. ABIRAM, the son of Eliab, of the tribe of Reuben, was one of those
who conspired with Korah and Dathan against Moses in the wilderness, and
was swallowed up alive, with his companions, by the earth, which opened
to receive them, Num. xvi.
ABISHAG, a young woman, a native of Shunam, in the tribe of Issachar.
David, at the age of seventy, finding no warmth in his bed, was advised
by his physicians to procure some young person, who might communicate
the heat required. To this end Abishag was presented to him, who was one
of the most beautiful women in Israel, 1 Kings i, 3; and the king made
her his wife. After his death, Adonijah requested her in marriage, for
which he lost his life; Solomon perceiving in this a design upon the
crown also. Adonijah was his elder brother, an intriguing man, and had
aspired to be king before the death of David, and had had his life
spared only upon the condition of his peaceable conduct. By this request
he convinced Solomon, that he was still actuated by political views, and
this brought upon him the punishment of treason.
ABISHAI, the son of Zeruiah, David’s sister, who was one of the most
valiant men of his time, and one of the principal generals in David’s
armies.
ABLUTION, purification by washing the body, either in whole or part.
Ablutions appear to be almost as ancient as external worship itself.
Moses enjoined them; the Heathens adopted them; and Mohammed and his
followers have continued them: thus they have been introduced among most
nations, and make a considerable part of all superstitious religions.
The Egyptian priests had their diurnal and nocturnal ablutions; the
Grecians, their sprinklings; the Romans, their lustrations and
lavations; the Jews, their washings of hands and feet, beside their
baptisms; the ancient Christians used ablution before communion, which
the Romish church still retains before the mass, sometimes after; the
Syrians, Copts, &c, have their solemn washings on Good Friday; the Turks
their greater and less ablutions, &c.
Lustration, among the Romans, was a solemn ceremony by which they
purified their cities, fields, armies, or people, after any crime or
impurity. Lustrations might be performed by fire, by sulphur, by water,
and by air; the last was applied by ventilation, or fanning the thing to
be purified. All sorts of people, slaves excepted, might perform some
kind of lustration. When a person died the house was to be swept in a
particular manner; new married persons were sprinkled by the priest with
water. People sometimes, by way of purification, ran several times naked
through the streets. There was scarcely any action performed, at the
beginning and end of which some ceremony was not required to purify
themselves and appease the gods.
ABNER was the uncle of king Saul, and the general of his army. After
Saul’s death, he made Ishbosheth king; and for seven years supported the
family of Saul, in opposition to David; but in most of his skirmishes
came off with loss. While Ishbosheth’s and David’s troops lay near each
other, hard by Gibeon, Abner challenged Joab to select twelve of David’s
warriors to fight with an equal number of his. Joab consented: the
twenty-four engaged; and fell together on the spot. A fierce battle
ensued, in which Abner and his troops were routed. Abner himself was
hotly pursued by Asahel, whom he killed by a back stroke of his spear.
Still he was followed by Joab and Abishai, till he, who in the morning
sported with murder, was obliged at even to entreat that Joab would stay
his troops from the effusion of blood, 2 Sam. ii.
Not long after, Abner, taking it highly amiss for Ishbosheth to charge
him with lewd behaviour toward Rizpah, Saul’s concubine, vowed that he
would quickly transfer the whole kingdom into the hands of David. He
therefore commenced a correspondence with David, and had an interview
with him at Hebron. Abner had just left the feast at which David had
entertained him, when Joab, informed of the matter, warmly remonstrated,
asserting, that Abner had come as a spy. On his own authority he sent a
messenger to invite him back, to have some farther communication with
the king; and when Abner was come into Joab’s presence, the latter,
partly from jealousy lest Abner might become his superior, and partly to
revenge his brother Asahel’s death, mortally stabbed him in the act of
salutation. David, to show how heartily he detested the act, honoured
Abner with a splendid funeral, and composed an elegy on his death, 2
Sam. iii.
ABOMINATION. This term was used with regard to the Hebrews, who, being
shepherds, are said to have been an abomination to the Egyptians;
because they sacrificed the animals held sacred by that people, as oxen,
goats, sheep, &c, which the Egyptians esteemed unlawful. This word is
also applied in the sacred writings to idolatry and idols, not only
because the worship of idols is in itself an abominable thing, but
likewise because the ceremonies of idolaters were almost always of an
infamous and licentious nature. For this reason, Chrysostom affirms,
that every idol, and every image of a man, was called an abomination
among the Jews. The “abomination of desolation” foretold by the Prophet
Daniel, x, 27, xi, 31, is supposed by some interpreters to denote the
statue of Jupiter Olympius, which Antiochus Epiphanes caused to be
erected in the temple of Jerusalem. The second of the passages above
cited may probably refer to this circumstance, as the statue of Jupiter
did, in fact, “make desolate,” by banishing the true worship of God, and
those who performed it, from the temple. But the former passage,
considered in its whole connection, bears more immediate reference to
that which the evangelists have denominated the “abomination of
desolation,” Matt. xxiv, 15, 16; Mark xiii, 14. This, without doubt,
signifies the ensigns of the Roman armies under the command of Titus,
during the last siege of Jerusalem. The images of their gods and
emperors were delineated on these ensigns; and the ensigns themselves,
especially the eagles, which were carried at the heads of the legions,
were objects of worship; and, according to the usual style of Scripture,
they were therefore an abomination. Those ensigns were placed upon the
ruins of the temple after it was taken and demolished; and, as Josephus
informs us, the Romans sacrificed to them there. The horror with which
the Jews regarded them, sufficiently appears from the account which
Josephus gives of Pilate’s introducing them into the city, when he sent
his army from Cæsarea into winter quarters at Jerusalem, and of
Vitellius’s proposing to march through Judea, after he had received
orders from Tiberius to attack Aretas, king of Petra. The people
supplicated and remonstrated, and induced Pilate to remove the army, and
Vitellius to march his troops another way. The Jews applied the above
passage of Daniel to the Romans, as we are informed by Jerome. The
learned Mr. Mede concurs in the same opinion. Sir Isaac Newton, _Obs. on
Daniel_ ix, xii, observes, that in the sixteenth year of the emperor
Adrian, B. C. 132, the Romans accomplished the prediction of Daniel by
building a temple to Jupiter Capitolinus, where the temple of God in
Jerusalem had stood. Upon this occasion the Jews, under the conduct of
Barchochab, rose up in arms against the Romans, and in the war had fifty
cities demolished, nine hundred and eighty-five of their best towns
destroyed, and five hundred and eighty thousand men slain by the sword;
and in the end of the war, B. C. 136, they were banished from Judea upon
pain of death; and thenceforth the land remained desolate of its old
inhabitants. Others again have applied the prediction of Daniel to the
invasion and desolation of Christendom by the Mohammedans, and to their
conversion of the churches into mosques. From this interpretation they
infer, that the religion of Mohammed will prevail in the east one
thousand two hundred and sixty years, and be succeeded by the
restoration of the Jews, the destruction of antichrist, the full
conversion of the Gentiles to the church of Christ, and the commencement
of the millennium.
In general, whatever is morally or ceremonially impure, or leads to sin,
is designated an _abomination_ to God. Thus lying lips are said to be an
_abomination_ to the Lord. Every thing in doctrine or practice which
tended to corrupt the simplicity of the Gospel is also in Scripture
called abominable; hence Babylon is represented, Rev. xvii, 4, as
holding in her hand a cup “full of abominations.” In this view, to “work
abomination,” is to introduce idolatry, or any other great corruption,
into the church and worship of God, 1 Kings xi, 7.
ABRAM, אברם, _a high father_; and ABRAHAM, אבררם, _father of a great
multitude_, the son of Terah, born at Ur, a city of Chaldea, A. M. 2008.
The account of this eminent patriarch occupies so large a part of the
book of Genesis, and stands so intimately connected with both the Jewish
and Christian dispensations,--with the one by a political and religious,
and with the other by a mystical, relation,--that his history demands
particular notice. Our account may be divided into his _personal
history_, and his _typical, and mystic character_.
I. Abraham’s PERSONAL history.
1. Chaldea, the native country of Abraham, was inhabited by a pastoral
people, who were almost irresistibly invited to the study of the motions
of the heavenly bodies, by the peculiar serenity of the heavens in that
climate, and their habit of spending their nights in the open air in
tending their flocks. The first rudiments of astronomy, as a science, is
traced to this region; and here, too, one of the earliest forms of
idolatry, the worship of the host of heaven, usually called Tsabaism,
first began to prevail. During the three hundred and fifty years which
elapsed between the deluge and the birth of Abraham, this and other
idolatrous superstitions had greatly corrupted the human race, perverted
the simple forms of the patriarchal religion, and beclouded the import
of its typical rites. The family of Abraham was idolatrous, for his
“fathers served other gods beyond the flood,” that is, the great river
Euphrates; but whether he himself was in the early period of his life an
idolater, we are not informed by Moses. The Arabian and Jewish legends
speak of his early idolatry, his conversion from it, and of his zeal in
breaking the images in his father’s house; but these are little to be
depended upon. Before his call he was certainly a worshipper of the true
God; and that not in form only, but “in spirit and in truth.” Whilst
Abraham was still sojourning in Ur, “the God of glory” appeared to him,
and said unto him, “Get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred,
and go into the land which I shall show thee;” and so firm was his faith
in the providence and care of God, that although the place of his future
abode was not indicated, nor any information given of the nature of the
country, or the character of its inhabitants, he nevertheless promptly
obeyed, and “went out, not knowing whither he went.” Terah his father,
Nahor his brother, and Lot his nephew, the son of Haran his deceased
brother, accompanied him; a circumstance which indicates that if the
family had formerly been idolatrous it had now received the faith of
Abraham. They first migrated to Haran, or Charran, in Mesopotamia, a
flat, barren region westward of Ur; and after a residence there of a few
years, during which Terah had died, Abraham left Haran to go into
Palestine, taking with him Sarah his wife, who had no child, and Lot,
with his paternal property. Nahor appears to have been left in Haran. To
this second migration he was incited also by a Divine command,
accompanied by the promises of a numerous issue, that his seed should
become a great nation, and, above all, that “in him all the families of
the earth should be blessed;” in other words, that the Messiah, known
among the patriarchs as the promised “seed of the woman,” should be born
in his line. Palestine was then inhabited by the Canaanites, from whom
it was called Canaan. Abraham, leading his tribe, first settled at
Sechem, a valley between the mountains Ebal and Gerizim, where God
appeared to him and promised to give him the land of Canaan, and where,
as in other places in which he remained any time, he built an altar to
the Lord. He then removed to a hilly region on the north of Jericho; and
as the pastures were exhausted, migrated southward, till a famine drove
him into Egypt, probably the earliest, certainly the most productive,
corn country of the ancient world.
2. Here it may be observed, that the migrations of Abraham and his sons
show the manner in which the earth was gradually covered with people. In
those ages some cities had been built, and the country to some extent
about them cultivated; but wide spaces of unoccupied land lay between
them. A part of society following therefore the pastoral life, led forth
their flocks, and, in large family tribes, of which the parent was the
head, uniting both the sovereign power and the priesthood in himself,
and with a train of servants attached to the tribe by hereditary ties,
pitched their camps wherever a fertile and unappropriated district
offered them pasture. A few of these nomadic tribes appear to have made
the circuit of the same region, seldom going far from their native
seats; which would probably have been the case with Abraham, had he not
received the call of God to depart to a distant country. Others, more
bold, followed the track of rivers, and the sweep of fertile valleys,
and at length some built cities and formed settlements in those distant
regions; whilst others, either from attachment to their former mode of
life, or from necessity, continued in their pastoral occupations, and
followed the supplies afforded for their flocks by the still expanding
regions of the fertile earth. Wars and violences, droughts, famines, and
the constant increase of population, continued to impel these
innumerable, but at first, small streams of men into parts still more
remote. Those who settled on the sea coast began to use that element,
both for supplying themselves with a new species of food, and as a
medium of communication by vessels with other countries for the
interchange of such commodities as their own lands afforded with those
offered by maritime states, more or less distant. Thus were laid the
foundations of commerce, and thus the maritime cities were gradually
rendered opulent and powerful. Colonies were in time transported from
them by means of their ships, and settled on the coasts of still more
distant and fertile countries. Thus the migrations of the three
primitive families proceeded from the central regions of Armenia,
Mesopotamia, and Assyria; and in succession they established numerous
communities,--the Phenicians, Arabians, Egyptians, Ethiopians, and
Lybians southward;--the Persians, Indians, and Chinese eastward;--the
Scythians, Celts, and Tartars northward;--and the Goths, Greeks, and
Latins westward, even as far as the Peruvians and Mexicans of South
America, and the Indians of North America.
3. Abraham, knowing the dissolute character of the Egyptians, directed
Sarah to call herself his sister, which she was, although by another
mother; fearing that if they knew her to be his wife, they would not
only seize her, but kill him. This circumstance indicates the vicious
state of morals and government in Egypt at this early period. In this
affair Abraham has been blamed for want of faith in God; but it was
perhaps no more than an act of common prudence, as the seraglio of the
Egyptian monarch was supplied by any means, however violent and lawless.
Sarah, upon the report of her beauty, was seized and taken into his
harem; and God sent great plagues upon his house, which, from their
extraordinary character, he concluded to be divine judgments. This led
to inquiry, and on discovering that he was detaining another man’s wife
by violence, he sent her back, and dismissed Abraham laden with
presents.
4. After the famine Abraham returned to Canaan, and pitched his tents
between Bethel and Hai, where he had previously raised an altar. Here,
as his flocks and herds, and those of Lot, had greatly increased, and
strifes had arisen between their herdsmen as to pasturage and water,
they peaceably separated. Lot returning to the plain of the Jordan,
which before the destruction of Sodom was as “the garden of God,” and
Abraham to Mamre, near Hebron, after receiving a renewal of the promise,
that God would give him the whole land for a possession. The separation
of Abraham and Lot still farther secured the unmingled descent of the
Abrahamitic family. The territories of the kings of the cities of the
plain were a few years afterward invaded by a confederacy of the petty
kings of the Euphrates and the neighbouring countries, and Lot and his
family were taken prisoners. This intelligence being brought to Abraham,
he collected the men of his tribe, three hundred and eighteen, and
falling upon the kings by night, near the fountains of Jericho, he
defeated them, retook the spoil, and recovered Lot. On his return,
passing near Salem, supposed to be the city afterward called Jerusalem,
he was blessed by its king Melchizedec, who was priest of the most high
God; so that the knowledge and worship of Jehovah had not quite departed
at that time from the Canaanitish nations. To him Abraham gave a tithe
of the spoil. The rest he generously restored to the king of Sodom,
refusing, in a noble spirit of independence, to retain so much as a
“shoe lachet,” except the portion which, by usage of war, fell to the
young native sheiks, Aner, Eschal, and Mamre, who had joined him in the
expedition.
5. After this he had another encouraging vision of God, Gen. xv, 1; and
to his complaint that he was still childless, and that his name and
property would descend to the stranger Eliezer, who held the next rank
in his tribe, the promise was given, that he himself should have a son,
and that his seed should be countless as the stars of heaven. And it is
emphatically added, “He believed in the Lord, and he counted it to him
for righteousness.” He was then fully assured, that he stood before God,
a pardoned and accepted man, “whose iniquities were forgiven,” and to
whom “the Lord did not impute sin.” Still the fulfilment of the promise
of a son was delayed; and Sarah, perhaps despairing that it would be
accomplished in her person, and the revelation which had been made
merely stating that this son should be the fruit of Abraham’s body,
without any reference to her, she gave to him, according to the custom
of those times, one of her handmaids, an Egyptian, to be his secondary
wife, who brought forth Ishmael. Children born in this manner had the
privileges of legitimacy; but fourteen years afterward, when Abraham was
a hundred years old, and Sarah ninety, the Lord appeared to him again,
established his covenant with him and with his seed, changed his name to
Abraham, “the father of many nations,” promised that Sarah herself
should bring forth the son to whom the preceding promises had referred;
instituted circumcision as the sign of the covenant; and changed the
name of his wife from Sarai, _my princess_, to Sarah, _the princess_,
that is, of many people to descend from her.
6. At this time Abraham occupied his former encampment near Hebron.
Here, as he sat in the door of his tent, three mysterious strangers
appeared. Abraham, with true Arabian hospitality, received and
entertained them. The chief of the three renewed the promise of a son to
be born from Sarah, a promise which she received with a laugh of
incredulity, for which she was mildly reproved. As Abraham accompanied
them toward the valley of the Jordan, the same divine person, for so he
manifestly appears, announced the dreadful ruin impending over the
licentious cities among which Lot had taken up his abode. No passage,
even in the sacred writings, exhibits a more exalted view of the divine
condescension than that in which Abraham is seen expostulating on the
apparent injustice of involving the innocent in the ruin of the guilty:
“Shall the city perish, if fifty, if forty-five, if forty, if thirty, if
twenty, if ten righteous men be found within its walls?” “Ten righteous
men shall avert its doom.” Such was the promise of the celestial
visitant; but the guilt was universal, the ruin inevitable; and the
violation of the sacred laws of hospitality and nature, which Lot in his
horror attempted to avert by the most revolting expedient, confirmed the
justice of the divine sentence.
7. Sarah having conceived, according to the divine promise, Abraham left
the plain of Mamre, and went south to Gerar, where Abimelech reigned;
and again fearing lest Sarah should be forced from him, and himself be
put to death, her beauty having been, it would appear, preternaturally
continued, notwithstanding her age, he here called her, as he had done
in Egypt, his sister. Abimelech took her to his house, designing to
marry her; but God having, in a dream, informed him that she was
Abraham’s wife, he returned her to him with great presents. This year
Sarah was delivered of Isaac; and Abraham circumcised him, according to
the covenant stipulation; and when he was weaned, made a great
entertainment. Sarah, having observed Ishmael, son of Hagar, mocking her
son Isaac, said to Abraham, “Cast out this bondwoman and her son, for
Ishmael shall not be heir with Isaac.” After great reluctance, Abraham
complied; God having informed him that this was according to the
appointments of his providence, with respect to future ages. About the
same time, Abimelech came with Phicol, his general, to conclude an
alliance with Abraham, who made that prince a present of seven ewe lambs
out of his flock, in confirmation that a well he had opened should be
his own property; and they called the place Beer-sheba, or “the well of
swearing,” because of the covenant there ratified with oaths. Here
Abraham planted a grove, built an altar, and for some time resided, Gen.
xx, xxi.
8. More than twenty years after this, (A. M. 2133,) God, for the final
trial and illustration of Abraham’s faith, directed him to offer up his
son Isaac. Abraham took his son, and two servants, and went toward mount
Moriah. When within sight of the mountain, Abraham left his servants,
and ascended it with his son only; and there having bound him, he
prepared for the affecting sacrifice; but when he was about to give the
blow, an angel from heaven cried out to him, “Lay not thine hand upon
the lad, neither do thou any thing to him. Now I know that thou fearest
God, since thou hast not withheld thine only son from me.” Abraham,
turning, saw a ram entangled in the bush by his horns; and he offered
this animal as a burnt offering, instead of his son Isaac. This
memorable place he called by the prophetic name, _Jehovah-jireh_, or
_the Lord will see_--or _provide_, Gen. xxii, 1–14, having respect, no
doubt, to the true sacrifice which, in the fulness of time, was to be
offered for the whole world upon the same mountain.