The same year Sarah gave birth to the long promised son, and, according to previous direction, the name of Isaac was given to him. [ISAAC.] This greatly altered the position of Ishmael, and appears to have created much ill-feeling both on his part and that of his mother towards the child ; which was in some way manifested so pointedly on occasion of the festivities which attended the weaning, that the wrath of Sarah was awakened, and she insisted that both Hagar and her son should be sent away. This was a very hard matter to a loving father ; and Abraham would probably have refused com pliance with Sarah's wish, had he not been apprised in a dream that it was in accordance with the Divine intentions respecting both Ishmael and Isaac. With his habitual uncompromising obedi ence, he then hastened them away early in the morning, with provision for the journey. [HAGAR.] When Isaac was about 25 years old (B.c. 5872) it pleased God to subject the faith of Abraham to a severer trial than it had yet sustained, or that has ever fallen to the lot of any other mortal man. He was commanded to go into the mountainous country of Moriah (probably where the temple afterwards stood), and there offer up in sacrifice the son of his affection, and the heir of so many hopes and promises, which his death must nullify. But Abra ham's 'faith shrunk not, assured that what God had promised he would certainly perform, and that he was able to restore Isaac to him even from the dead' (Heb. xi. 17-19), and he rendered a ready, however painful obedience. Assisted by two of his servants, he prepared wood suitable for the purpose, and without delay set out upon his melancholy journey. On the third day he descried the appointed place: and informing his attendants that he and his son * It is, however, supposed by some biblical critics that the preceding adventure with Abimelech is related out of its order, and took place at an earlier date. Their chief reason is that Sarah was now ninety years of age. But the very few years by which such a supposition might reduce this age, seem scarcely worth the discussion [SARAH].
would go some distance farther to worship, and then return, he proceeded to the spot. To the touch ing question of his son respecting the victim to be offered, the patriarch replied by expressing his faith that God himself would provide the sacrifice ; and probably he availed himself of this opportunity of acquainting him with the Divine command. At least, that the communication was made either then or just after is unquestionable; for no one can sup pose that a young man of twenty-five could, against his will, have been bound with cords and laid out as a victim on the wood of the altar. Isaac would most certainly have been slain by his father's uplifted hand, had not the angel of Jehovah inter posed at the critical moment to arrest the fatal stroke. A ram which had become entangled in a thicket was seized and offered; and a name was given to the place reh—` the Lord will provide'—in allusion to the believing answer which Abraham had given to his son's inquiry respecting the victim. The promises before made to Abraham—of numerous descendants, superior in power to their enemies, and of the blessings which his spiritual progeny, and especially the Messiah, were to extend to all mankind—were again confirmed in the most solemn manner; for Jehovah swore by himself (comp. Heb. vi. 13, 17), that such should be the rewards of his uncompromising obedience. The father and son then rejoined their servants, and returned rejoicing to Beersheba (Gen. Twelve years after (B.c. 'SW, Sarah died at the age of 127 years, being then at or near Hebron. This loss first taught Abraham the necessity of acquiring possession of a family sepul chre in the land of his sojourning. His choice fell on the cave of Machpelah [MACHPELAH], and after a striking negotiation with the owner in the gate of Hebron, he purchased it, and had it legally secured to him, with the field in which it stood and the trees that grew thereon. This was the only posses
sion he ever had in the Land of Promise (Gen. xxiii.) The next care of Abraham was to provide a suitable wife for his son Isaac. It has always been the practice among pastoral tribes to keep up the family ties by intermarriages of blood-rela tions (Burckhardt, Notes, p. 154): and now Abra ham had a further inducement in the desire to maintain the purity of the separated race from foreign and idolatrous connections. He therefore sent his aged and confidential steward Eliezer, under the bond of a solemn oath, to discharge his mission faithfully, to renew the intercourse between his family and that of his brother Nahor, whom he had left behind in Charran. He prospered in his important mission [IsaAc], and in due time returned, bringing with him Rebekah, the daughter of Nahor's son Bethuel, who became the wife of Isaac, and was installed as chief lady of the camp, in the sepa rate tent which Sarah had occupied (Gen. xxiv.) Some time after Abraham himself took a wife named Keturah, by whom he had several children. These, together with Ishmael, seem to have been portioned off by their father in his lifetime, and sent into the east and south-east, that there might be no danger of their interference with Isaac, the divinely appointed heir. There was time for this: for Abraham lived to the age of 175 years, 100 of which he had spent in the land of Canaan. He died in B. C. 1822 (Hales, 1978), and was buried by his two eldest sons in the family sepulchre which he had purchased of the Hittites (Gen. xxv. I- to). —J. K.
It has been supposed by some that Keturah, who is called a concubine (1 Chron. i. 32, comp. Gen.xxv. 6), was taken by Abraham before Sarah's death, and lived with him, along with her, as a second ary wife. This seems more probable than that at the advanced age of nearly too years he should marry and beget children, especially as Paul speaks of him as being as good as dead for such acts when he was forty years younger (Rom. iv. 19 ; Heb. xi. 12). The sons of Abraham by Keturah became the heads of Arab tribes, the dip']] or `children of the East' (Judg. vi. 3). His name was thus widely spread, and to this day it continues to be reverenced alike by Jew, Mohammedan, and Chris tian. `Innumerable,' says Kurz, 'are his de scendants. Peoples have risen and passed away, but the posterity of Abraham pass through the centuries unmingled and unchanged. Nor is their history yet ended; they still retain the blessing given to Abraham's seed, unhurt by the pressure of peoples and times. But it is not his human and national character that constitutes the most re markable distinction of Abraham; it is his spiritual character. Wherever this is reproduced in any of his posterity, or through their instrumentality in any belonging to the other nations of the world, these are the true children of Abraham (Gal. iii. 7, 29 ; Ram. ix. 6-S). Abraham's place and signi ficancy consequently in the history of the world and of redemption, is rightly apprehended only as he is recognised as the Father of the Faithful. And numberless as the stars of heaven, shining as they, is his spiritual seed, are the children of his faith. Abraham's faith, which was reckoned to him for righteousness, is the prototype of the Christian faith. Anticipating a development of two thousand years, there may be found in his life a clear repre sentation of what is the kernel and star of Chris tianity (Rom. iv.) The apostle James gives him the honourable title of ' Friend of God ;' and by the Mohammedans of the East this is still his ordinary name (Khalil Allah, or simply el-Khalil). Herzog's Real- Encycl. s. v.—W. L. A.