was seated a beautiful woman, so beautiful that her countenance
illumined all Egypt; and the news reached the ears of Pharaoh. All this
occurred in the night of the 15th of the month Nisan.
Abraham and Sarah were sorely troubled, and prayed to God to protect
them. Then the angel of the Lord was sent to watch over Sarah, and the
angel comforted her with these words, “Fear not; God has heard thy
petitions!”
Pharaoh asked Sarah who that man was who accompanied her, and when she
answered “My brother,” Pharaoh bade him to be brought before him, and he
gave him rich gifts.
And Pharaoh asked Abraham, “Who is this woman?” He answered, “She is my
sister.” This, say the Mussulmans, is the _third_ lie that Abraham told;
but it was not a lie, but a justifiable falsehood.
Pharaoh was filled with love for Sarah, and he offered her as his
present for her hand, all his possessions of gold and silver and slaves,
and the land of Goshen. And when he pressed his suit upon her with great
vehemence, she cried to God and told him she was already married; then
he was smitten with paralysis, and great plagues afflicted all his
servants. But Pharaoh sent for Abraham, and returned him Sarah, his
wife, and dismissed him with costly presents, and he gave to Sarah also
his daughter, Hagar, to be her servant.
“Truly, my daughter, it is better,” said Pharaoh, “to be servant in a
house which God has taken under His protection, than to command
elsewhere.”
After a three months’ sojourn in Egypt, Abraham returned to Canaan.
According to Tabari, Hagar loved Sarah greatly. On their way back to
Canaan, the provisions failed, and Abraham went out one day to get food,
with a sack on his back; but the day was hot, so that he laid down and
went to sleep. He did not awake till evening, and then he returned, but
was ashamed to appear with the sack empty before his wife, so he filled
it with sand. On reaching the tent he put the sack under his head and
went to sleep again. Very early in the morning Sarah said to Hagar,
“What has Abraham in his sack? open it and look.” So Hagar untied it,
put in her hand and drew out flour. She and Sarah baked cakes of the
flour, and woke Abraham and bade him eat. Then, full of wonder, he asked
where they had obtained meal. They told him, and he understood that God
had wrought a miracle.[305]
Now Abraham’s flocks and herds, and those of Lot, pastured together.
Abraham’s cattle were muzzled that they should not feed in the lands of
the neighbouring people; but Lot’s cattle were not muzzled. And when
Abraham’s shepherds complained of this to those of Lot, the latter
answered, “Your master is old, and has no children; soon he will die,
and then all will belong to our master Lot.”
But Abraham spake to Lot and said, “Thy ways and my ways do not agree:
we must part; do thou go to the left, and I will go to the right.” So
they separated; and Lot departed from Abraham, and from the way of
righteousness, and from the living God; but Abraham camped in Mamre.
3. THE WAR WITH THE KINGS.
After the failure of the Tower of Babel, and the people had been
scattered over the whole earth, Chedorlaomer, one of Nimrod’s chief
captains, had left his service, and had established a kingdom of his own
in Elam. He speedily brought into subjection all the Canaanitish peoples
that dwelt in the fertile valley of Jordan,—Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah,
Zebojim, and Zoar, and made them tributary to himself. These cities bore
his yoke for twelve years, and then they rebelled. Five years after did
Nimrod, who is also called Amraphel in the sacred text,[306] march
against Chedorlaomer, but Nimrod was defeated, along with his allies,
Arioch, king of Ellasar, and Tidal, king of many confederate nations;
and obliged to enter into alliance with his former general,
Chedorlaomer, and agree to assist him in bringing back the revolted
cities—Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zebojim, and Zoar—to their allegiance.
Consequently a huge army of confederates, under Chedorlaomer, Nimrod or
Amraphel, Arioch, and Tidal, overran the plain and valley of Jordan, and
slew all the giants that were there. The country before them was a
garden, and behind them it was a desert.
They resolved also to defeat, and utterly to destroy, Abraham, the
servant of the Most High; for Nimrod (Amraphel) remembered the perils to
which his soothsayers had assured him he was exposed so long as Abraham
lived.
The rulers of the five cities—Bera (Ruffian), king of Sodom; Birsha
(Evil-doer), king of Gomorrah; Shirrab (Covetous one), king of Admah;
Shemeber (the Strong one), king of Zebojim; and the king (a nameless
one) of Bela (the engulfing city)—went forth in battle array, and met
the host of Chedorlaomer in the great plain of Siddim, from whose canals
and fountains the Salt Sea, or Dead Sea, was afterwards formed; and
there they were utterly routed, and fled in precipitate haste to the
mountains and to the desert.
The king of Sodom alone escaped unharmed of all the five kings, by a
miracle which God wrought, to exhibit His power to the dwellers in the
plain, who had begun to doubt the truth of Abraham’s deliverance out of
the burning, fiery furnace.
The conquerors took the spoils of Sodom, and carried away Lot, who was
like Abraham in face, thinking that they had taken Abraham captive; and
they placed him in chains.
Abraham was, in prophetic spirit, performing all the sacred rites, and
preparing the unleavened cakes for the Paschal feast, for it was the Eve
of the Passover, when the only giant who escaped the overthrow of the
Rephaim by Chedorlaomer and his confederate kings,—Og, who was
afterwards king of Basan, and who had been saved alive in the Flood of
Noah,—came in haste to announce to the Patriarch the captivity of Lot.
Now Og had long cast his lustful eyes on Sarah, and he thought in his
heart, “This Abraham is full of fire and zeal, like a sportsman; that I
know well. He will rush into battle to deliver his kinsman Lot, and will
perish; and then Sarah, his beautiful wife, will be mine.”
But, according to another version, it was the angel Michael who brought
the news to Abraham; and to another, it was Oni, one of the slaves
Nimrod had given him, and who had been sent to observe the progress of
the war.
No sooner had Abraham heard the tidings than, filled with anxiety on
Lot’s behalf, and with sympathy for the Sodomites, his neighbours, he
called all his neighbours together, and all those who had followed him,
and in earnest words exhorted them to prepare to fight and rescue Lot.
But they, knowing the disparity of numbers, would make no promise; then
he threatened them, but could not persuade them to join in what they
regarded as an infatuated course certain to lead to destruction.
Consequently Abraham was obliged to go against the enemy with only his
own servants. But as they neared the plain, and saw the devastation
wrought by the host of Chedorlaomer, they also slipped away in the
night, and Abraham was left alone with Eliezer, his trusty slave, and
his three friends Aner, Eshcol, and Mamre. And he followed after the
foe, as they retired with their spoil, till he reached one of the
fountains of Jordan, which is named Paneas, or Dan.
Here his three friends forsook him, along with their wives, who had
accompanied them thus far.
It was the night of the 15th Nisan, the self-same night in which in
after-years the firstborn of Egypt would be slain; and Abraham’s heart
fainted as he overtook the mighty host, and saw that they were countless
as the sands of the sea-shore, and as grasshoppers for number.
But lo! God fought for Abraham. The grass-blades changed into swords,
and the stubble into spears, and battled all that night; and in the
morning, when he looked upon the host, they were all dead corpses. Thus
he delivered Lot and all the captives, men, women, and children, and the
spoil that had been carried away; and none stayed them, for all their
foes lay dead upon the ground.
The King of Sodom came forth to meet Abraham, full of pride of heart
because he had been miraculously delivered, and attributing all the
glory of the victory to Divine interposition on his own behalf. But all
the people knew that Abraham was the favoured of God, and their
deliverer, and they built a throne of the trees that covered the plain,
and which had been burnt in the war, and set Abraham as their prince and
king thereon; therefore is that place called to this day, “The king’s
dale.”[307]
But Abraham was little pleased with this exhibition of honour, and he
thought upon what he had learnt of old from that aged man, Shem,
consecrated by God to be His priest, when he fled to him in his cave
from the tyranny of Nimrod.
Shem reigned now in the city of Salem, which was in later years called
Jerusalem, and from his righteous government he was named Melchizedek
(king of righteousness). And Abraham thought, “Will Shem ever forgive me
for having drawn the sword against his grandsons, the sons of Elam?”
But Shem was of no less noble and considerate temper than Abraham; and
he mused within himself, and said, “What sort of opinion can Abraham
have formed of me, that such godless and violent hosts should have
sprung from my loins, and have devastated the fair plain of Jordan, and
carried away captive even his near kinsman!”
Then Shem, full of noble resolution to reconcile himself with Abraham,
rose up and went forth, bearing bread and wine as tokens of friendship.
The words of God flowed from his mouth; he instructed Abraham in all
that appertained to the high priest’s office, which was in future times
to belong to his family; and before he left, he blessed Abraham with
these words, “_Blessed be Abraham of the most high God, possessor of
heaven and earth; and blessed be the most high God, which hath delivered
thine enemies into thy hand._”[308]
But in so saying, Melchizedek erred grievously, for he blessed Abraham
before he blessed God, and the Creator should be blessed first, and the
creature blessed afterwards; therefore the high priesthood was taken
from him, and was given to Aaron in after-times.
Of all the spoil which Abraham had taken, he separated a tenth part, and
he gave it to Melchizedek, as the offering due to the priest, and this
was the first tithe paid in the history of the world. All the booty of
Sodom Abraham returned to the king thereof, and he took an oath, “_I
will not take from a thread even to a shoe-latchet, and I will not take
anything that is thine, lest thou should say, I have made Abraham rich,
save only that which the young men have eaten, and the portion of the
men which went with me, Aner, Eshcol, and Mamre; let them take their
portion._”[309]
On account of this unselfishness, the remembrance of which was to be
continued through all generations, God gave the descendants of Abraham
maxims to be written on their phylacteries and shoe-latchets; and the
promise was made, “_Over Edom will I cast out my shoe_;”[310] that is,
Edom, the most cruel oppressor of the chosen people, should fall under
the condemnation of the Most High.
The end of Nimrod and his confederate kings is related with greater
fulness by the Mussulman historians.
According to Tabari, God sent an army of flies against the host of
Chedorlaomer and Nimrod, and these flies attacked the soldiers in their
faces; and the flies were so numerous that the soldiers could not see
one another; and the horses stung by them went mad, and leaped, and
fell; so that, what with the horses and the flies, the army was entirely
dispersed. Nimrod escaped to Babylon, but he was pursued by the meanest
of the gnats of that host; it was blind of one eye and lame of one leg.
When Nimrod sat down on his throne, the gnat settled upon his knee. Then
the tyrant smote at it; and it rose, flew up one of his nostrils and
entered his brain, which it began to devour.
Nimrod beat his face and his head, and when he did so the fly ceased
gnawing at his brain, but he had no repose from his agonies, save when
struck upon the head. Consequently there was, after that, always some
one stationed by him to strike his head. The king had a large
blacksmith’s hammer brought into his throne-room, and with that his
princes and nobles smote him on the head; and the more violent the blow,
the greater was the relief afforded. Nimrod reigned a thousand years
before he felt the torment of the gnat; up to that moment he had
suffered no pains. He lived for five hundred years with the fly eating
at his brain; and all that while, night and day, there were relays of
men to strike his head with the hammer.[311]
Precisely the same story is told by the Jewish Rabbis of Titus.[312]
There is, however, another version of the tradition; which is, that the
gnat fattening on the brain grew in size till it swelled to the
dimensions of a pigeon, and then the skull of Nimrod burst, and the gnat
flew away; and this was fifteen days after it had entered by his
nose.[313]
More shall be told of Melchizedek in a separate article.
4. THE BIRTH OF ISHMAEL.
Ten years passed, and yet Sarah was barren. Abraham, in sore distress,
prayed to God, and reminded Him of His promises. Sarah then said to
Abraham, “God has refused me children, therefore take Hagar to wife, the
daughter of Pharaoh, who was given to be my servant; I give her thee in
all good-will, that my reproach may be taken away, and to her I give her
freedom.”
Abraham consented; but Hagar, who had been virtuously brought up by
Sarah, objected modestly, till Sarah pointed out to her how great an
honour it would be to be the concubine of such a holy man.
But no sooner was Hagar installed as second wife, and felt in herself
that she was about to become a mother, than her character changed; she
assumed the pre-eminence, and cast bitter words in the teeth of her
mistress. “What,” said she, “can Sarah be so holy and beloved of God,
and He has never given her her heart’s desire?”
Sarah was stung to the quick by these words of her former slave. She
turned to her husband and said, “I demand of thee my rights. For thee I
forsook my father’s house, and followed thee into a strange land; for
thee I passed myself off in Egypt as thy sister. And now what hast thou
done? Thou hast suffered my slave to assume the chief place in the
house, and to take upon herself airs, and thou holdest thy peace. Depend
upon it, if she bear thee a son there will be no peace in the house, for
she is a daughter of Pharaoh, who is of the race of Nimrod, who cast
thee into the furnace of fire.”
“Hagar is in thy power,” answered Abraham; “but do her no harm. After
thou gavest her her freedom, she may not again be brought into bondage.”
But Sarah paid no attention to these words of gentleness, and treated
Hagar with such cruelty, beat her, and cast an evil eye on her, so that
she was delivered before her time of a dead child, and she fled for her
life from the house.
The All-Righteous, for this offence, shortened Sarah’s life, and made
her die thirty-eight years before her husband.
Angels appeared to Hagar in the desert by the well of water whither she
had fled, and bade her return to Abraham. So she went back, and was
again pregnant, and bore a son, and called his name Ishmael.
5. THE DESTRUCTION Of SODOM AND GOMORRAH.
At noon on the 15th Nisan, the third day after the circumcision of
Abraham, as recorded in the Book of Genesis, the heat of the sun was so
great that Gehinom (Hell) was penetrated by it. And Abraham had not
recovered the administration of the rite, which had been performed by
the hands of Shem, king of Salem, priest of the Most High God.
Abraham was wont every day to go forth and invite any travellers he
might see to feast with him. But this day, owing to the heat and to his
being in pain, he sent Eliezer, his servant, forth, who looked and
returned and said that there was no one to be seen.
But Abraham thought, “Can I trust the words of this slave, and neglect
for one day the performance of my accustomed hospitality?”
Then, notwithstanding the heat and his suffering, he went and sat in the
shade of the door, and he beheld in the plain of Mamre the glory of the
Lord that appeared. Abraham would have risen, but the voice of God
called to him, saying, “Remain where thou art, and let thy pious,
sitting posture teach future generations in their prayer and instruction
to be seated; and let judges, in delivering judgment, occupy the same
position.”
Then Abraham lifted his eyes, and beheld three men, who seemed to
approach and then to withdraw. These were the angels Michael, Raphael,
and Gabriel, sent to him with messages, whereof each bore one. They now
stood before Abraham’s tent, and they came to satisfy his desire to show
hospitality: but when they observed the predicament in which he was,
they attempted to withdraw, but Abraham supposed them to be travellers
of the three neighbouring races of Saracens, Nabathæans, and Arabians;
and as two of the angels were smaller of stature than the third, who
stood in the middle—this was Michael—Abraham supposed him to be their
chief; and he rose and bowed himself before him, and said to the Majesty
of God which still shone, “If I have found favour in Thy sight, O Lord,
may Thy majesty not depart from me whilst I receive hospitably these
wanderers.” And the Lord granted his request.
Then said Abraham to the men, “_Let a little water, I pray you, be
fetched, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree; and I
will fetch a morsel of bread, and comfort ye your hearts; after that ye
shall pass on: for therefore are ye come to your servant._”
Now the reason why he said “Let a little water be fetched and wash your
feet,” was, that he supposed the men were idolaters, and he would not
have the dust from the feet of idolaters to pollute the floor of his
tent.
And they said, “Do so.”
Then Abraham hastened into the tent to Sarah, and said, “_Make ready
quickly three measures of fine meal, knead it, and make cakes upon the
hearth._” And Abraham ran unto the herd, and fetched a calf which he had
dressed, and set it before them; and he stood by them under the tree,
and they did eat.
Abraham placed butter and milk on the table first, then calves’ tongues,
then the other dishes, and lastly Sarah’s cakes; but some commentators
doubt whether the men ate the cakes. It is asserted by some that the
angels only appeared to eat, but by others we are assured that to reward
Abraham’s hospitality they really did eat, and this was the only
occasion on which angels tasted the food of earth.
The angels, knowing that Sarah was within the tent, asked after her. And
this betokens her great modesty, that she did not thrust herself forward
to be seen of strange visitors. Abraham replied that she was within,
engaged in women’s household work. Then said Michael, the chief of the
angels, “Truly shall such pious and seemly habits not pass unrewarded;
but Sarah shall bloom again as fair as in her youth, and shall bear a
son in her old age.”
Sarah heard these words at the entrance of the tent; so did Ishmael, who
stood near. Sarah stepped behind the angel, but the beauty of her
countenance shone before her, and the angel turned to look at her, and
then he saw she was laughing to herself, and saying, “I am good-looking,
and smart dresses become me; I could perfectly well produce a son, but
then my husband is old.”
Then the word of God came to Abraham, and said, “_Wherefore did Sarah
laugh?_ Am I, the all-powerful God, too old to create miracles? _At the
appointed time Sarah shall have a son._” To Sarah, who, out of fear,
denied having laughed, the word came, “Fear not, _but thou didst
laugh_.”
Then Michael withdrew, for his mission was accomplished; and left the
other two, Gabriel and Raphael, with Abraham. Then God revealed to
Abraham, by Gabriel, that He was about to destroy the cities of the
plain; and by Raphael, that He would deliver Lot and his family in the
overthrow.
These cities were very guilty before God. Eliezer, having been sent by
Sarah to her brother Lot with a message, some years before, arrived in
Sodom. An acquaintance invited him to a meal. But hospitality was a
virtue abhorred in Sodom, and the news of the invitation having got
wind, Eliezer’s friend was driven out of the city. Now it was a custom
in Sodom to make every stranger arriving within the walls rest in a
certain bed; and if the bed proved too long for him, his legs were
pulled out to fit it; and if it proved too short, his legs were pared
down to its dimensions. Eliezer saw with horror what it was that they
purposed to do with him, and he had recourse to a lie of necessity; he
declined to sleep in the bed, because he had taken an oath upon the
death of his mother never to lie on a bed again; and thus he escaped.
Shortly after, having seen a Sodomite rob a poor stranger of his
garment, Eliezer attempted to interfere, but the robber struck him over
the head and made a gash, from which he lost much blood. Both being
brought before the judge, this was the magistrate’s decision:—That
Eliezer was indebted to the Sodomite robber for having bled him. The
servant of Abraham thereupon took up a large stone, flung it at the
judge’s head, which he cut open, and said, “Now, pay me for having bled
thee!” and then he fled out of the city.
From these incidents it may be seen how wicked the city was.
Now Abraham had interceded with God to spare the cities of the plain,
for the intercession of His saints is mighty with God. And Abraham had
obtained of God that if in Zoar, the smallest of the cities, five
righteous could be found, and forty-five in all the rest of the country,
God would spare them. Then God ceased talking with Abraham. Next morning
early, Abraham arose and took his staff, and went to the place where God
had met him, to make further intercession for the cities of the plain,
but the smoke of them rose as from a furnace, for brimstone and fire had
been rained upon them out of heaven, and they had been consumed along
with their inhabitants. Only Zoar was spared, as a place of refuge for
Lot, and Lot was kept alive and his daughters; for God remembered how he
had been true to Abraham in Egypt, and had not betrayed the truth about
Sarah when questioned by Pharaoh.
The Mussulman tradition is as follows:—
Lot, whom the Arabs call Loth, was sent by God as a prophet to convince
the inhabitants of the cities of the plain of their ungodly deeds. But,
though he preached for twenty years, he could not convince them. And
whenever he visited Abraham he complained to him of the iniquity of the
people. But Abraham urged him to patience.
At length the long-suffering of God was exhausted, and He sent the
angels Michael, Gabriel, and Azrael, armed with the sword of
destruction, against these cities.
They came to Abraham, who received them, and slaughtered a calf, and
prepared meat and set it before them. But they would not eat. And he
pressed them, and ate himself; but they would not eat, being angels.
Then Abraham’s colour went, and he was afraid, for to refuse to eat with
a man is a token that you seek his life.
Seeing him discouraged, the angels announced their mission. But Sarah,
observing her husband’s loss of colour, laughed and said in her heart,
“Why is he fearful, being surrounded with many servants and faithful
friends?”
Now the angels promised to Abraham a son in his old age, and that they
would rescue Lot in the overthrow of Sodom. Then they rose up and went
on their way, and entered into Sodom; and they met a young maiden in the
street, and asked her the way to Lot’s house.
She answered, “He is my father, and I dwell with him; but know you not,
O strangers, that it is against the laws of this city to show
hospitality?”
But they answered her, “Fear not; lead us to thy father.”
So she led them, and ran before and told Lot, “Behold three men come
seeking thee and asking shelter, and they are beautiful as the angels of
God.”
Then Lot went out to them, and told them that the city was full of
wickedness, and that hospitality was not permitted.
But they answered, “We must tarry this night in thy house.” Then he
admitted them, and he hid them. But Lot’s wife was an infidel, a native
of Sodom; and finding that he lodged these strangers, she hastened to
the chief men of the city and said, “My husband has violated your laws,
and the customs of this people; he has housed travellers, and will feed
them and show them all courtesy.”