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bringing with them their idolatrous associations, may have formed an additional
incentive for departing. And so far, God had in His providence made it easier for
Abram to leave, since his father Terah had died in Haran, at the age of two hundred
and five years. The second call of Jehovah to Abram, as given in Genesis 12:1-3,
consisted of a fourfold command, and a fourfold promise.
The command was quite definite in its terms: "Get thee out of thy country, and from
thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee;" leaving it,
however, as yet undecided which was to be the place of his final settlement. This
uncertainty must have been an additional and, in the circumstances, a very serious
difficulty in the way of Abram's obedience. But the word of promise reassured him. It
should be distinctly marked, that on this, as on every other occasion in Abram's life,
his faith determined his obedience. Accordingly, we read, "By faith Abraham, when
he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance,
obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went."(Hebrews 11:8)
The promise upon which he trusted assured to him these four things: "I will make of
thee a great nation;" "I will bless thee," with this addition (in ver. 3), "and thou shalt
be a blessing, and I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee;"
"I will make thy name great ;" and, lastly, "In thee shall all families of the earth be
blessed."
When we examine these promises more closely, we at once perceive how they must
have formed yet another trial of Abram's faith; since he was not only going, a
stranger into a strange land, but was at the time wholly childless. The promise that he
was to "be a blessing," implied that blessing would, so to speak, be identified with
him; so that happiness or evil would flow from the relationship in which men would
place themselves towards Abram. On the other hand, from the peculiar terms "them
that bless thee," in the plural, and "him that curseth thee," in the singular, we gather
that the Divine purpose of mercy embraced many, "of all nations, kindreds, and
tongues." Lastly, the great promise, "In thee shall all families of the earth be blessed,"
went far beyond the personal assurance, "I will make thy name great." It resumed and
made more definite the previous promises of final deliverance, by fixing upon Abram
as the spring whence the blessing was to flow. Viewed in this light, all mankind
appear as only so many families, but of one and the same father; and which were to
be again united in a common blessing in and through Abram. Repeated again and
again in the history of Abram, this promise contained already at the outset the whole
fullness of the Divine purpose of mercy in the salvation of men. Thus was the
prediction to be fulfilled: "God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents
of Shem," as is shown by St. Peter in Acts 3:25, and by St. Paul in Galatians 3:8, 14.
(^)