Genesis 11

Genesis 11:10-21

Subdivision 4. (Genesis 11:10-21.) Abraham.Abraham, the “heir of the world” (Romans 4:13); and the pilgrim-walk and trial of faith. (Fruit of the ground, third day.) Abraham occupies an especial place in Scripture, as the pattern of faith so far as the Old Testament could give it, “the father of all them that believe.” Coming after Noah, in the series of Genesis-lives, he typically presents to us, and in the most striking way, the pilgrim character, which is the result of the consciousness of the heavenly calling. Called to Canaan, the type of our heavenly portion, he does not yet possess it, except in faith, and is therefore a sojourner only, -a man of the tent, and not the city. Lot is his contrast and opposite in this, and that he is a child of God makes him more strikingly so. His history divides into two sections: the first of which gives the call of God and his obedience to it (Genesis 11:10-14); the second, the conflicts of his faith as regards his relationships and the promises of God. Section 1. (Genesis 11:10-14.)The call of God and the obedience of faith. We have in the first section a complete sevenfold picture: —

1. His genealogy, or birth-title, as descended from Shem: the line of promise. (Genesis 11:10-26.)
2. The hindrances of nature to faith. (Genesis 11:27-32.)
3. Abram in the land: the heavenly portion realized. (Genesis 12:1-8.)
4. His failure in Egypt: the saint going down into the world, and its consequences. (Genesis 12:9-20.)
5. Abram and Lot: our choice and God’s choice for us. (Genesis 13:1-18.)
6. Abram as overcomer: the strife with the kings. (Genesis 14:1-16.)
7. Where the heart rests. (Genesis 14:17-24.) God, nature, heaven, the world, victory over self, and the victory over opposition from without are all represented here, while the last of this series closes it with so blessed an assurance of what Christ is for the heart occupied with Him that we know without any doubt that there can be nothing beyond it. Let us look more closely at these things.
8. Abram’s descent from Shem shows him in the line of promise. Jehovah’s revelation of Himself to Shem was to be realized above all in that Seed of Abram whose day his own faith rejoiced to see. But the promise itself expressed a grace in God which preceded all personal claim whatever on Abram’s part. In the chosen line itself, though we have only a scanty record of names and of the length of life, it is plain that there is decay, and that continuous. No doubt the years of man’s life were every where shortening, but there was at any rate no exception, and elsewhere we read of spiritual apostasy on their part, which left all possibility of hope to the sovereign grace of God. The root of all the blessing following is here and only here.
9. But not only does nature furnish no help: it is in conflict with the call of God when this has come, and not least so when it volunteers obedience which it never performs, and proposes to lead where it cannot even follow. “Terah” means “delay,” and he delays: they went forth to go into the land of Canaan, and they came to Haran and dwelt there. And Terah died in Haran.
10. Now, and not before, Abram comes into the land. We have here, (1) the call of God with its accompanying promise; (2) his coming into the land to the place of Shechem, or “shoulder,” to the oak of Moreh, “instructor.” The “shoulder” is that which bears the burden, and it is in stooping to serve that we acquire ability to learn of God: “to virtue” we add “knowledge.” (3) Jehovah appears to him, and Abram builds an altar and worships. His tent is pitched in view of Ai (“ruins”), -a judged world upon the one side, and Bethel, the house of God, upon the other.
11. But as yet he cannot hold this place. The south country attracts him, and he gravitates toward Egypt. A famine in his own land follows, just as barrenness in spiritual things comes surely when we are looking toward the world. Then, upon going down into it, the boldness of faith gives place to disguises and prevarication. As the direct result, Abram loses his wife, and is enriched by the world.

Sarai, as the apostle tells us, speaks of the terms upon which the believer is with God. She is the “covenant of grace:” the grace in which we stand God has linked with faith, and with faith alone. It belongs not to the world. We are of God, and the whole world lieth in the wicked one. But who can maintain such testimony when the world’s help is wanted and association with it sought? Sarai must be left open to the world as such; and thus, by sacrifice of their exclusive place, Christians have bought the favor of the world today.

But the world will yet learn by judgment that Sarai is not its own. This manifest, the world’s favors cease, and Abram is sent away. 5. Abram gets back to where he was at the beginning, and his real restoration in heart comes out in this section; while, on the other hand, he who has been walking with Abram rather than with God manifests the power of what he has been in still over him, as we shall see. Abram’s own power over Lot seems lost also by his failure. The wealth acquired on both sides comes in to separate; but Abram, master of himself once more, offers to Lot his choice as to the land before him. Lot without hesitation chooses, and you see the man in his choice. The plain of Jordan is like the garden of the Lord -like paradise! there is his religious self-justification, and Lot will keep his religion and the world as well.

Here is the under-current that carries him: it is like the land of Egypt. Association with the world follows, however bad the world may be, and Lot’s tent (soon to be given up) stretches toward Sodom. Then he who has not chosen is shown what the Lord has chosen for him, and he is bidden to walk through it and enjoy it as his own. So faith is called to enjoy its heavenly portion. 6. As Sodom is a type of the world in its open evil, so Babylon is clearly identified in the New Testament with the world-church, whose head is Rome. (Revelation 17:9; Revelation 17:18). Here we have, not Babylon named, but Shinar, first in a coalition of four kings -the world-number, while the kings on the other side are five -the number of the senses, the merely sensual man. Between the open world and the world-church there is constant strife; but man must have a religion, and the latter in general prevails, and puts its yoke upon the other. In the present war, Lot, dwelling in Sodom, is carried captive with the rest: the way a child of God falls under the power of spiritual evil is here pointed out; it is through getting into the world. Abram the overcomer is noticed here (the only time) as the Hebrew, the passenger, the pilgrim.

This is the secret of spiritual power. Lot is thus delivered by the power of another, but because only thus, falls back into Sodom. 7. And now we come to Melchisedek, king of righteousness, king of Salem (peace), priest of the Most High (God’s millennial name), possessor of heaven and earth, -type of Christ in the day when He shall claim the earth for God and bring it back to Him. To him Abram gives tithes of all. Faith owns in Christ the One to whom all belongs, partaking of His true “bread and wine,” the memorials of His fruitful suffering, and so refuses to be enriched at the world’s hand. Present rest for the heart is here, and the future rest when He fulfills this type. The end of this series is reached, then, with this. Section 2. -Faith’s conflicts.A very different line of truth is found in the second section. We have here faith’s conflicts as to relationship and the word of God. The fifteenth chapter clearly gives a new beginning, as Abram here for the first time is recognized as righteous by faith, the true beginning for every soul spiritually. Here again we have seven subsections: —

1. The covenant of promise and the righteousness of faith. (Genesis 15:1-21.)
2. Hagar: the legal covenant, manward and Godward. (Genesis 16:1-16.)
3. Circumcision, the seal of the covenant of promise, and faith in the God of resurrection. (Genesis 17:1-27.)
4. The tent-door at Mamre, and the intercession for Sodom. (Genesis 18:1-33.)
5. The gate of Sodom and the end of Lot. (Genesis 19:1-38.)
6. The Philistines’ land and the failure there. (Genesis 20:1-18.)
7. Isaac: the promise fulfilled. (Genesis 21:1-34.) The connection of these chapters is mostly plain, and Isaac is evidently the Melchisedek of this section. He is, in fact, the type of the same blessed Person, but in quite a different character: here as “dwelling in the heart by faith.” The first leaf we turn in this gives us the promise as to Him; the last shows us (typically) the fulfillment. All through, directly or indirectly, we are occupied with Him.
8. The promise is really threefold: of the one seed, Isaac, typically Christ; of the numerous seed, which, as represented by the stars of heaven, directs our eyes especially to the present children of Abraham by faith; thirdly, of the land, type of our heavenly possession. The first is the ground of the second; the second, of the third. Christ, the heavenly seed, and the heavenly inheritance are all (typically) the subject of promise here. The covenant is of promise, -that is, of grace; the answer to it is faith -dependence on another; and the believer it is who is counted righteous. Every thing is assured to us by God without condition, and to take freely what is freely given is the secret of all joy, all peace, all power. Faith in one’s self is what we are never called to, and is but so much glory taken from God. But this we are slow to learn. In the third promise, as to the land, we have the worth of Christ’s sacrifice opened up to us. In these different animals He is variously seen, and by these, passing between the divided parts, God binds Himself. He is seen also as the God of resurrection. The deep sleep falling on Abram is like that of Adam, and even the Egyptian oppression which it represents was, as it were, the death of the nation, from which only such power as that of resurrection could bring them forth. Here, the might of the sacrifice is seen when faith itself seems in collapse. He who guarded it from the birds of prey is now guarded by it; and in the furnace of Egypt, no less than in the word of deliverance, it is the covenant-keeping God who acts.

Grace secures holiness, and the means to it; and God acts from Himself and glorifies Himself, where man is powerless. Thus the promise is complete. 2. Promise is grace, and thus the promise already given can only be fulfilled in Sarai, who speaks of this. (See Galatians 4:24.) Her name is Sarai -“my princess,” for “grace reigns.” She is the free-woman and brings forth to freedom; but in contrast with her, another is now seen -Hagar, the law, the full account of which, spiritually and dispensationally, is given us here. Hagar is an Egyptian, as the law is the “principles of the world” (Galatians 4:3), and she gravitates naturally to Egypt. She is Sarai’s handmaid, as the law is to grace, but taken up by the believer in whom some strength of nature still remains, in the impatient desire for fruit. Grace in him even urges him to it; but God has not to do with it, except that when the relationship is entered on, He sends her back to Abram that the fruit might be seen as not what He had promised. Thus the law came in, (faith and grace having long been joined together of God before it,) not at the beginning, but as sought of man himself naturally: and God takes her up, and by the fountain of water makes this child of nature to know Himself. We get thus the law and revelation joined together in the Old Testament. But God declares at the same time the fruit of law, easy enough to produce, to be but lawless (the wild man), though “God hears” the child of law -the Jew. 3. God now re-affirms His principle; for circumcision is the seal of the covenant of promise, and the sign of righteousness by faith. (See Romans 4:1-25.) Abram’s body is now “as good as dead,” as Sarai’s womb is. Grace will do nothing except as the power of the living God works in it, and for this, nature must be seen as worthless. God is now to be the Almighty, and Abram to walk before Him as such. Significantly thereupon He changes his name, adding but one letter, in fact, to it, in the middle of it -the letter “h,” the fifth letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and which stands for 5. This, we have seen, Isaiah 4 + 1, -“the weak creature in the presence of the almighty God:” thus Abram (“high father”) becomes Abraham, (“father of a multitude.”) He is abased to be multiplied; and this we know well to be the spiritual law. How blessed are the thoughts of God! Circumcision is thereupon ordained in the flesh of all the family of faith: in its inner meaning, “the putting off of the body of the flesh.” (Colossians 2:11.) The typical answer, the “bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus, that the life of Jesus may be manifest.” (2 Corinthians 4:10.) As born into the family of God, and come into the new creation (the eighth day), and as purchased with the money of atonement, still we are to have this sign. And now God declares Himself the God of resurrection. Sarai is to have a son -the first positive announcement of it. And her name also is changed: from Sarai (my princess) she becomes Sarah (the princess), the merely personal element removed with the “i,” which stands for the number 10 -the number of responsibility, to make way again for the “h” -the 5, where the creature stands once more in its weakness before this almighty God. Thus grace and faith, the ways of God and the conscious need of man, exactly suit, and are united to one another; and now grace shall be fruitful, Sarah shall have a son. 4. Hereupon the practical fruits appear. Abraham is found in his tent-door in Mamre (“fatness”?), and this is here as characteristic as the “gate of Sodom,” in the next chapter, is for Lot. Here, Jehovah appears to him in the new form of man: communion is evidently more realized than at previous times. Note how faith in Abraham recognizes God; how suitably yet to His manifestation of Himself he entertains Him; and how ready a response is given to his invitation. The material for entertainment is typically Christ, in His death, and in the glory of His person; three measures of meal -all the fullness of the Godhead in Him bodily. Such material have we ever to invite God to remain with us. Then comes once more the promise, in which God more openly takes His place than before. The powerlessness of man is more revealed, faith in the Almighty is challenged, and unbelief rebuked. And now God reveals as to His “friend” His purposes as to Sodom -the world; as to which, judgment does not come till there has been full testing: only when the state of things is fully proved does God proceed as if He “knew.” Then Abraham draws near to intercede, pleading that the righteous should be distinguished from the wicked, and God’s governmental ways come out. For the sake of even ten righteous He will spare the city, and after six successive and effectual pleadings, Abraham stops with this. 5. The gate of Sodom now comes before us, and Lot sitting there. All is in contrast with the former chapter, -the evening; the visit of two angels, not now “men;” the invitation hardly accepted; the city fare, poorer than that under the tent; -all this makes a significant picture. Then comes the interruption of the men of Sodom: (Abraham had none!) -like the evil things which association with the world produces to destroy communion. How Lot also smells of the company he keeps! God can manifest Himself here only in judgment, and call to separate from what is to be destroyed; but Lot’s dwelling in the city has rendered ineffectual his witness against it, and his sons-in-law take it as a jest. (Notice how, through all the sorrow of this scene, the “angels” become once more “men.”) Lot too lingers: they hasten him, lay hold upon him, bring him out. Notice how different the prayer of unbelief from that of faith! -his plea is unbelief, fear of the consequences of doing what he is bidden; a little city -God can do a little thing! Blessed be His name, He spares it. Then the judgment comes, in which his wife also is involved. His own being spared is now seen also as for Abraham’s sake: of him, though one of His own, God is ashamed. Finally, we have the end of Lot in a shame which is that of his daughters also. His death need not be mentioned. But from him thus spring Moab and Ammon, the enemies of the people of God. 6. In the Philistines, we find undoubtedly a form of that which meets us in full development in Babel. They are not Canaanites, though sons of Ham. They sprang, according to Genesis 10:14, from Mizraim, -i.e. were of Egypt; yet we find them in the land of Canaan always, on the lowland of the south-west coast, with their outlook indeed toward Egypt, with which they had (Exodus 13:17) the freest and most unobstructed communication. They hold but a border of the land of Canaan, and its lowest part; beyond that, may ravage, but not possess; although looming in men’s eyes so large as to give their name (“Palestine,” from “Philistine,”) to the whole of it. It is easy to see in this the picture of the world as come into the church, and become the church.

Abimelech, whose name (whether “whose father [was] king,” or “father of a king,”) speaks of successional derived authority, is their king, and Phicol, “the voice of all” -as men say, “the voice of the Church,” -is the captain of their host. Who can fail to see here the shadow of that traditional authority to which human religiousness, ignorant of the living Spirit, ever appeals? This externalism speaks much of grace, divorcing it from what God has joined it to alone -the living faith which is seen in Abraham. Alas! faith too may easily yield here its exclusive claim, and with the son of the bondwoman in the house, and not yet Isaac, seem ready to yield up its choicest possessions to the demand upon it. This is a chronic evil, as is plain here, and apt to reproduce itself, as we see in Isaac afterward. Philistines are, as we know, ready enough to claim Sarah: the men of tradition speak largely of “grace,” but it is in their sacraments and outward observances. And this claim imposed for ages on even the men of faith. Yet Sarah in the Philistines’ house cannot, do what they may, become their own: grace will not be handled by men’s hands.

Nay, more; her presence there stops all the wombs of the house of Abimelech: this barren pretension to grace prevents all real fruit; with it, they are just as the “ninety and nine just persons who need no repentance,” and so cannot repent; but that is where all true fruit begins. But how guilty, then, are we if we seem even to justify them in this claim! and how well may they reproach us with it! On the other hand, with Sarah we may sojourn in the Philistines’ land, for it is our own, though only a border tract. To adopt their language, we may say, for instance, the sacraments “sacraments remain to us, though only two, (the witnesses to something better than themselves,) not seven (as Rome makes them), the perfect fulfillment of that of which they speak. This is only a sample. All the land here is ours, and it is a fruitful land: may we claim it all! 7. And now the promise is fulfilled, and Isaac is born to dwell in Abraham’s tents: the consummation of the life of faith is when Christ dwells in the heart through faith; the true fruit of faith in us is Christ thus abiding. Dispensationally, it is the coming of Christ and Christianity that we reach here, the two, as it were, identified, for are they not one? Therefore the child is circumcised, (as I take it, at the cross,) and weaned gradually, and there is a great feast when the child is weaned. Is not this the blessed truth which was given through Paul, and which especially brought out the mockery of unbelief and persecution of the Church by the Jews? Then the bondwoman and her son are sent away, the nation is in the meantime as such rejected.

The wandering in the wilderness of Beersheba (the “well of the oath”), is a striking picture of their present condition. The water, the word of life, is spent for them, and the well they see not, though the oath of God, the covenant with their fathers, secures it for their final possession. This, therefore, their eyes are yet to be opened to, and Hagar herself to become a means of blessing to them (Deuteronomy 30:1-3); their dwelling still and ever outside of Canaan -the heavenly inheritance. The contention for the wells is characteristic with the Philistines: they do not dig them, but stop them with earth, though they are made here finally to own that God is with the man of faith, and that the well he digs is all his own.