She fled, with one reproachful lookOn him who bade her go,And scarcely could the patriarch brookThat glance of voiceless wo:In vain her quivering lips essay'dHis mercy to implore;Silent the mandate she obey'd,And then was seen no more.The burning waste and lonely wildReceived her as she went;Hopeless, she clasp'd her fainting child,With thirst and sorrow spent.And in the wilderness so drear,She raised her voice on high,And sent forth that heart-stricken prayer"Let me not see him die!"Her beautiful, her only boy,Her all of hope below;So long his father's pride and joy,And yet—fromhimthe blow!Alone she must his head sustain,And watch his sinking breath,And on his bright brow mark the stainOf the destroyer, Death."Let me not see him die," and lo!The messenger of peace!Once more her tears forget to flow,Once more her sorrows cease.Life, strength, and freedom now are givenWith mighty power to oneWho from his father's roof was driven,And he—the outcast's son.How often we, like Hagar, mourn,When some unlook'd for blightDrives us away, no more to turnTo joys we fancied bright!Forced from our idols to retreat,And seek the Almighty's care,Perchance we are sent forth to meetA desert-angel there.
She fled, with one reproachful lookOn him who bade her go,And scarcely could the patriarch brookThat glance of voiceless wo:In vain her quivering lips essay'dHis mercy to implore;Silent the mandate she obey'd,And then was seen no more.
The burning waste and lonely wildReceived her as she went;Hopeless, she clasp'd her fainting child,With thirst and sorrow spent.And in the wilderness so drear,She raised her voice on high,And sent forth that heart-stricken prayer"Let me not see him die!"
Her beautiful, her only boy,Her all of hope below;So long his father's pride and joy,And yet—fromhimthe blow!Alone she must his head sustain,And watch his sinking breath,And on his bright brow mark the stainOf the destroyer, Death.
"Let me not see him die," and lo!The messenger of peace!Once more her tears forget to flow,Once more her sorrows cease.Life, strength, and freedom now are givenWith mighty power to oneWho from his father's roof was driven,And he—the outcast's son.
How often we, like Hagar, mourn,When some unlook'd for blightDrives us away, no more to turnTo joys we fancied bright!Forced from our idols to retreat,And seek the Almighty's care,Perchance we are sent forth to meetA desert-angel there.
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After the departure of Hagar and her son from the tents of Abraham, peace seems to have returned, and it became the abode of filial and parental as well as of conjugal affection. Sarah's days were still prolonged, that she might exercise the duties and enjoy the pleasures of a mother.
The heir of wealth, and the child of love and indulgence, the character of Isaac seems to havebeen the reverse of his brother, the restless, wandering Ishmael. The one, cast off from the care of the father and taught to rely upon his own energies, early distinguished himself, and became the leader of a band, and a prince among the nations around; while the other, cherished and cared for, was content to dwell in the peaceful enjoyment of wealth and prosperity. Thus do we find that trials are necessary to develope the higher qualities and to call them into action. The truly great and noble, the eminent in talent or usefulness, are never nursed in the bosom of ease.
Sarah died; and while the bereaved husband felt his loss, the son could not have been insensible. There was a dreary void in the home of the patriarch when the wife and the mother had been laid in the sepulchre. There was no one to fill the place of Sarah—no one to bless their simple meals. She no longer appears towelcome them as they returned from the field or the flock. The tribe is without a mother, the household without a mistress. Many considerations led Abraham to desire the marriage of his son, and he cast around his thoughts for a wife worthy of being the mother of the promised seed, and one who could well fulfil the duties which must devolve upon her as the head of his large household. The people around him would have courted his alliance, and as yet no command from God forbade his forming family ties with the inhabitants of the land. But Abraham too well knew the influence of the wife and the mother, to choose a wife for the child of promise from a race apostate from the religion of Jehovah. He knew the ensnaring influence which would there be brought to bear upon his family, and he resolved to seek a wife for Isaac among his far-distant kindred—those who yet retained the knowledgeand clung to the worship of the God of Shem, of Noah, and of Adam. Though far separated from his brethren, yet communications seem to have passed, and Abraham had been told of the enlargement of the family of his brother; and he resolved, not only to seek a wife for his son from among his own kindred, but, while making arrangements for such a marriage, he solemnly guarded against the return of his descendants to the land from whence he had been called.
Trying as might be the long journey, and uncertain as seemed the issue, no inferior motives were allowed to be put in competition with the perpetuity of the worship and knowledge of God. A connection with any of the families of the Canaanites would have been at once ensnaring to the household of Abraham and injurious in its influence upon the heart of Isaac. Had Isaac married the daughter of an idolater, irreligion and immorality would soon have pervaded the family of the patriarch, and the knowledge of the true God have departed from the earth. Thus the beacon light of nations had been extinguished, and the last altar erected to Jehovah had been broken down: for the other descendants of Shem were fast departing from the God of their fathers,—and if the children of Keturah and Ishmael for a period retained the faith of Abraham, the torch which kindled the fire on their altars was lighted at that which was kept burning on those of Isaac and Jacob, and the example of their families preserved alive the remembrance and the acts of the living God in the nations around them.
With a train which became the suitor of a prince, with costly presents of gold and ornaments according to the custom of both ancient and modern days, but more particularly conforming to Eastern usage, the confidential servant of Abraham was sent on his embassy tothe kindred of his master, there to receive a bride for the son of the patriarch. We gain a delightful impression both of the piety and intelligence of the household of Abraham from the account of the messenger to whom this important transaction was intrusted. The faith of the patriarch animated the other members of his household, and a strong chain of love encircled all. After a long journey, the train reached the plains of Mesopotamia, and then the tents of Nahor appeared in view; and then, in the prospect of the immediate discharge of his commission, the messenger of the patriarch sought explicit direction from the God of Abraham.
While the description of the interview at the fountain, "without the gate of the city," gives a most beautiful view of the manners of the age and the people, and an unsurpassed picture of the freshness and simplicity of pastoral life,it proves at once the piety and the clear discrimination of the agent employed. The beauty of the youthful Rebekah caught his eye, while the test he devised afforded a safe criterion of the character of the woman. Weary with the labours of the sultry day, after tending her own flocks, had she been indolent or inactive, selfish or sullen, she had turned from his request, and suffered his attendants to administer to his wants. But as she looked upon them—dusty, weary, parched by thirst, worn down by long travel—the sympathies of a kind nature were awakened, as the servant ran to meet her, saying, "Let me, I pray thee, drink a little water from thy pitcher." She said, "Drink, my lord," and she let down the pitcher upon her hand and gave him to drink; and when he had done drinking, she said, "I will draw water for thy camels also, until they have done drinking." Thus did the maiden clearly provethat she possessed some of the qualities most necessary for a wife—that ready self-forgetfulness, that kindness, cheerfulness, and desire to promote the happiness of others, that sunshine of the heart which sheds its brightening beams over all the clouds that darken domestic life. Through all the ages of the world, in all the circumstances in which mankind are placed, the wife has ever need of them, and wisely may the suitor look for them. But the servant of the patriarch, "still wondering, held his peace." Not until assured that she was of the race of the true worshippers of the God of Abraham, that she had been trained in the fear of the Lord, did he feel assured that the fair and kind Syrian damsel was to be chosen for the wife of his master's son. He had felt that the prayer was answered. He had taken out the rich gifts intended for her, but he seems to hesitate as he says, "Whose daughter art thou! Tellme, I pray thee, is there room in thy father's house for us to lodge in?" And she answered, "I am the daughter of Bethuel, the son of Milcah, whom she bore unto Nahor."
"And the man bowed down and worshipped the Lord, and he said, Blessed be the Lord God of my master Abraham, who hath not left destitute my master of his mercy and his truth. I being in the way, the Lord hath led me to the house of my master's brethren."
The negotiation between the servant of Abraham and the father and brothers of Rebekah was soon concluded. They deferred not the answer to be given, when the messenger had laid before them his errand, and told them of the wealth and honour of his master; and the whole transaction impresses us with an idea of the piety and kindness of the family of Bethuel.
The thing is from the Lord—while the richgifts, made to all the members of the family, proved the truth of the statements of the messenger, and perhaps enforced his plea. Yet, when he urged the immediate departure of the bride for the tent of her husband, the hearts of the mother and of the brothers yet clung to the youthful maiden. They shrank from a separation so sudden, so complete—and they said, Let the damsel stay with us a few days—at least ten. Oh, do not snatch her away from us so suddenly. But after that, she shall go.
And he said, "Hinder me not. Seeing that the Lord hath prospered me, send me away that I may go to my master." And they said, "We will call the maiden, and inquire at her mouth." And they called Rebekah, and said unto her, "Wilt thou go with this man?" And she said, "I will go."
Are we not, even at this period, taught lessons of parental wisdom, in the care displayed by theancient patriarch respecting the choice of a wife for his son? In the care taken to secure an unstained parentage in one who had been early trained in the habits of piety and godly principles of action? The character of the family is often stamped upon each member, and the marked features are transmitted from generation to generation, even where the character of the woman may be modified by her new relations. As she advances in years she often returns to the habits of her youth, while she almost invariably adopts the practice of her own mother in the early nurture and training of her children.
He who would have reformed France was taught that he must begin his work by training mothers. And thus the ancient patriarch foresaw that the great nation that was to descend from him, like to the stars of heaven for multitude, would long bear the impress of the character of the mother who rocked it in the firstcradle of its existence, and his wisdom was manifested in the pains which he took to secure a good lineage and right habits and principles. The foresight of the father could go no farther. Time must test the individual character.
After they left the tents of Bethuel, the train, now augmented by the presence of the bride and her immediate attendants, her nurse and handmaids, slowly wended its way back to the tents of the patriarch, pursuing the natural highways of the country,—now by the stream, then across the plain, then through the desert, sandy, barren, trackless; then winding through the mountain pass, encamping during the heat of the day by the fountain and under the shade, and pursuing their journey in the cool of the evening and of the morning.
Love or devotion, or the mingling of both, led Isaac out into the fields at eventide to meditate, and his feet turned towards the route bywhich his messengers might be expected, and the eye of his servant descried him afar off, and he pointed him out to the stranger. And while the messenger seems to have hasted to meet his master and give an account of his mission, Rebekah descended from her lofty seat and covered herself with a veil.
Henry the Fourth, of France, met his bride soon after she entered his kingdom, and mingled with her attendants, that he might watch her unobserved; and when his presence was announced she kneeled, and he gracefully raised her up. Napoleon entered the carriage of his Austrian bride, and announced himself, while she gazed with wondering eyes upon one, long only known as the enemy of her father's house and the terror of his kingdom. The meeting of the heir of the patriarch and his youthful bride is quite as interesting a scene as any of those recorded of more modern days.
And Isaac went out to meditate in the fields at eventide, and he lifted up his eyes, and, behold! the camels were coming. And Rebekah lifted up her eyes, and when she saw Isaac she lighted off the camel. For she had said unto the servant, "What man is this that walketh in the field to meet us?" And the servant said, "It is my master;" therefore she took a veil and covered herself. And the servant told Isaac all things that he had done. And Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah's tent, and took Rebekah, and she became his wife, and he loved her.
Rebekah seems to have made an affectionate, happy wife. Many years passed before children were born to Isaac; and when the twin boys, Esau and Jacob, were in childhood, there was evidently a marked difference in their characters. Esau was active, restless, and enterprising, He grew up a hunter,—daring and bold,—loving a life of change and adventure; whileJacob was a "plain man, dwelling in tents." Blindness was stealing over Isaac and unfitting him for the cares which rested upon him, for the supervision of his numerous servants and his many flocks and herds. During the frequent absences of Esau upon his hunting expeditions, these cares must have devolved upon Rebekah and Jacob. Her heart clung to the child who was ever with her in sympathy; while the tales of peril and adventure with which Esau enlivened the wearisome days of his father, were as acceptable to blindness and loneliness, as were the presents of the game he so frequently brought. "And Isaac loved Esau." Thus the injudicious fondness of the parents sowed the seeds of bitterness and alienation between the two brothers, and led to their mutual estrangement. The birth-right, which implied the inheriting of the blessing promised to the seed of Abraham, was despised by Esau,who, doubtless, in his prolonged wanderings from home, and his frequent associations with the inhabitants of the land, had been led to feel contempt for the worship and the promises of God, and in his reckless levity he transferred it to Jacob for "a mess of pottage," while he further alienated himself from his parents and brother by marrying the daughter of a Hittite. "This was a grief and sorrow of mind to Isaac and Rebekah." Forgetting the respect due to them as his parents; forgetting his own position as the eldest son of the heir of the promise; heedless of the example of filial deference shown by Isaac, and of all the care that preserved the family free from the corruption around them, he formed an union with those who were strangers to the faith of Abraham and of a race apostate from the worship of Jehovah. Yet, while mourning the perverseness of his favourite child, the father, aged and blind,did not propose to withdraw his favour from him; and, feeling that his infirmities increased, Isaac bade Esau with his own hands prepare him a favourite dish, that he might eat and bless him before his death. Did we better understand the customs of that age, we might find that Isaac was not merely influenced by bodily appetite, but that there might be a peculiar significance in the act.
We do not love to dwell upon Rebekah's deceit and the lessons of falsehood she taught her son—and the prophecy uttered before the birth of the children, neither justifies nor extenuates her guilt; for God has never taught his people, that to promote his plans they are to violate his laws.
Alienated from her elder son, we see Rebekah, by intrigue and treachery, seeking to advance the interests of the younger at theexpense of the rights of his brother. As we read the sacred narrative, every sympathy is awakened in favour of the injured Esau, and we hear, with burning indignation against the author of his wrong, his pathetic cry, "Hast thou no blessing for me! Bless me, even me, my father!" But the artifice of the mother and wife was successful. She secured all she sought—and her success brought its own punishment. Dark clouds of hate settled over the household, and Esau waited only for the death of his father that he might destroy the life of his brother; and to save the life of her son, the mother was forced to send him into banishment. Again the intriguing, managing character of the mother appears. She assigned what might be a reason, but not the true reason, to Isaac. "I am weary of my life, because of the daughters of Heth. If Jacob takes a wifeof the daughters of Heth, such as these which are of the daughters of the land, what good shall my life do me?" The plea of the mother prevailed, and Isaac blessed Jacob, and he left the land of his father, ostensibly to seek a wife, but in truth to flee from the vengeance of his brother.
The son of the wealthy patriarch went not out like an Eastern suitor—not with a train such as Abraham sent when he wooed Rebekah for his son. To avoid the hate of Esau, he stole like a fugitive from the tents of Isaac; and, a foot-worn pilgrim, unattended, he sought the kindred of his mother. And here the mother and her favourite child parted. She had alienated his brother to promote his interests. She had sacrificed her integrity to secure his fortune, and her plan had succeeded. She had secured the object at which she had aimed, and yet in the result she had been forcedto send forth her darling child—a homeless wanderer.
There is no reason to believe that the mother and the son ever met again. From this time she disappears. Surrounded by the alienated Esau's hated wives and ill-loved children, separated from the child of her affection, she may have sunk into a premature grave, or she may have lived many sorrowful years to feel the miseries she had drawn upon herself by her violations of the rules of rectitude, and an eager desire to promote the happiness of one child at the sacrifice of that of another.
There are still too many families involved in all the bitterness of domestic strife from the unjust partiality of one or both of the parents for favoured children. If, as children advance in life and their characters are formed, a calmer feeling succeeds the trembling tenderness which guarded their infant days, and ourlove to them (as to all other mortal beings) results from an appreciation of their characters, so that one may awaken a purer regard than another, this feeling is very different from that partial fondness which adopts one and gives him a place in our affection to the exclusion of another. That instinctive justice which compels a higher regard for the purer moral worth, will, of itself, prevent that parental partiality which leads to injustice or to an infringement of established rights and recognised principles. An unjust parent presents one of the most revolting pictures of human nature. The character involves a disregard of the most sacred ties and the tenderest relations. And whoever exhibits parental injustice, or that partial fondness which leads to injustice, at once destroys the affections and violates the moral sense. Families trained under such influences, still exhibit revolting scenes ofhuman depravity—of bitterness, strife, alienation and revenge. Who can tell how much of the estrangement of Esau, and this early introduction of the worship of strange gods among his descendants, may have been induced by the conscious alienation of his mother, and the unjust preference of the interests of his brother? Had Rebekah, with a mother's love, striven to win her eldest son back to his father's tent and the altar of his God—had she still respected his rights and preserved his regard by undeviating truth and faithfulness, she would have retained a strong hold upon him, and her influence might have been long felt by her descendants, in restraining them from the sins of those around them.
We cannot yet part with the two principal actors in these sad scenes of treachery and deceit. We think of Rebekah, the companion of her blind husband—deprived of the son who hadshared and alleviated her cares, and conscious of having awakened that bitter hate which would seek the blood of a brother—still following in her thoughts the footsteps of the wandering Jacob, feeling that by her own intrigues she had banished him from his home and her presence.
And we may follow Jacob, as he stole from the tents of Isaac, a wanderer like the first fugitive, with his brother's curse upon him. Until this hour all Jacob's views and feelings seem earthly and grovelling. Until now, there has been no indication of that trust and piety which afterwards marked his life. He had seemed worldly, cunning, ready to snatch any personal advantage. From this period he seems to awaken to a higher—a spiritual life. He seems to have comprehended the deeper meaning of promise and prophecy. We cannot tell what remorseful and despairing thoughtsfilled his soul as he left his home—how strange and inexplicable may have seemed all the ways of God toward him. Yet he must have felt that, in punishment of his deceit and falsehood, he was thus sent forth with but his scrip and staff, while he left Esau to inherit the possessions of his father.
He had wandered until he was faint and weary, and then he had lain himself down on the earth, with stones for his pillow and the heavens for the curtains of his tent. In the silence of the night his soul was opened to spiritual revealings—to those influences from heaven which marked the change in his future life. Hesawthe angels of God ascending and descending upon him. Often before this may they have visited him—constantly may they have hovered over him—but now he was made conscious of the presence, watch and interposition of the heavenly intelligences of the higherpresence of the God of Abraham. From this hour we trace a different influence pervading the heart and life of Jacob. He was awakened to higher motives—and from this hour he entered into covenant with God, and took Him to be his God.
And Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and said, "Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not;" and he was afraid, and said, "How dreadful is this place! This is none other than the house of God—and this is the gate of heaven." And Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put for his pillow, and set it for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it. "And he called the name of that place Bethel." And Jacob vowed a vow, saying "If God will be with me, and will keep me in the way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, so that I come again to my father's house in peace, then shall the Lordbe my God, and this stone, which I have set for a pillar, shall be God's house, and of all that thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto thee."
The future life of Jacob was not free from the infirmity of human purpose—the imperfection of human nature. Yet from this time he walked with God, and all his deportment was marked by deep and humble piety. We doubt not that at this period he passed through that transforming change by which, in every age, and under every dispensation, the human soul has been enabled to enter into the mysteries of the spiritual life and enjoy communion with the Author of its existence, through that Spirit which breathed the first breath of life by which man became a living soul.
Decorated T
There are two characters, which by some associations of memory, or caprice of fancy, are ever blended in our recollections—the one of ancient, the other of modern days—the one of sacred, the other of profane history. Catharine of Arragon, the unloved consort of the King of England, and Leah, the daughter of the Syrian shepherd, the hatedwife of the Hebrew patriarch. There may seem to be as little assimilation of character and destiny, as there is of condition, between the daughter and the wife of a Syrian shepherd, and the daughter of one of the proudest monarchs of Spain and the wife of the haughtiest king of England; but they were both women, and both wives of those who loved them not; and this fact, whatever the condition of woman, stamps her lot as one of wretchedness. The wife neglected and despised is a woman sorrowful, whether she be the inmate of a tent or the dweller in a palace—whether she tend the flock or grace the throne.
Catharine of Arragon, the daughter of Isabella and Ferdinand, seems a truth-loving, devout woman, well prepared to welcome the great principles advanced by the Reformers, had she not been placed in circumstancesmost adverse to their influence. Had Henry embraced the doctrines and the principles of the Reformation from a conviction of their truth and importance—had he sought to regulate his own life by the pure precepts of the Bible, and thus striven to disseminate a pure faith among his people—had the conscientious Catharine been the patroness and the friend of the Reformers, instead of the trifling, if not guilty, Anne Boleyn—the English church and the state of religion in the English nation would doubtless have presented a different history for the past, and a different aspect for the future.
But these are vain speculations. Catharine lived and died in the Papal faith. From the circumstances in which she was placed, she clung to it as to her womanly honour, her queenly dignity—as she would preserve her name from blight, her child from shame. Andwhen she saw herself supplanted, when she was disgraced, divorced, her child declared illegitimate, and she knew her death was desired by one to whom she had been a devoted, faithful wife, what words could be more touching than those the dramatist gives as her last message to the king! "Tell him, his long sorrow has passed away." Oh, none but a wife dying thus, with the bitter consciousness that her life was undesired and that her death would be unregretted, can feel their full import.
The bells which had tolled for Catharine of Arragon had hardly ceased to vibrate when the roar of the cannon announced the execution of Anne. The one died in January, the other was beheaded in May; and she who, by exciting and encouraging the unholy love of the king, had unchained his fierce passions and taught him to break through all restraints, was herself, full early, their victim.
Shall we pass from the palaces of England to the tents of Mesopotamia—from the last days of chivalry to those of the ancient patriarchs and shepherds of the earliest of recorded ages?
When the wandering Jacob reached the abode of his mother's kindred, the land of Haran, he met, at the same fountain at which Rebekah had watered the flocks of the messenger of Abraham, the daughter of her brother Laban. He had seated himself by the well, and when the maiden came, he aided her to water her flocks; and he was thus introduced to his kinsmen by Rachel; and he told them that he was the son of Rebekah, of whom, perhaps, they had long lost the recollection; and with all the hospitality of the East—that hospitality which ever prevails among a simple and pastoral people—he was welcomed by the kindred of the mother.
The brother of Rebekah had two daughters. Leah, the elder, was tender-eyed, but Rachel was beautiful; and both sisters loved their cousin, while the heart of Jacob clung to the younger, the fair damsel who first welcomed him; so that he overlooked the claims of the elder,—the plain, if not disfigured, Leah. He brought no offerings with him to conciliate the favour of the father, and, according to the custom of the East, to facilitate his marriage. But he offered his personal service as an equivalent. And the son of Isaac served seven years for the daughter of Laban. But this long period was passed; and dwelling, as Jacob did, in the presence of Rachel, a member of the household of her father, they seemed but as a few days, for the love he bore her.
But the time had now arrived when the marriage should be celebrated, and Jacob claimed his bride. But he who had wronged his brother, who had by disguise deceived his father, was now imposed upon by guile and treachery; and all the hopes and expectations of these long years were defeated. The customs of Eastern marriages favoured the deceit, and Jacob found that he was wedded to Leah, and not to the object of his affection. The deceit was most unjustifiable. The disappointment and the resentment must have been proportionally great; and miserable was the excuse of Laban, and wretched the device which was offered as an atonement. Yet Jacob must have bowed before the retributions of an avenging God, and the remembrance of his own treachery may have stayed his anger.
Thus commenced the family of Jacob, with all the elements of dissension, strife and bitterness incorporated into its very earliest existence. The daughters of Laban both became the wives of Jacob, and they were rivals aswomen, as sisters, as wives and as mothers—forced to dwell together, yet ever in sullen hatred or bitter strife. When the ties of natural affection are severed, the heart never ceases to bleed; and there is no hatred so deep, so implacable as that which springs up where hearts once knit are thus alienated and forced asunder: and the sorrows and evils which sprang up in the family of Jacob may have led to that command so explicitly given by Moses—"Neither shalt thou take a wife to her sister to vex her, in her lifetime."
The heart of Jacob never departed from Rachel. She was the chosen bride. He loved her with a deep and true affection, while the forced claims of Leah awoke only the remembrance of the deceit. In the emphatic language of the Bible, "he loved Rachel, but he hated Leah," and it was in accordance with the constant exhibitions of human nature thatit should be thus. He had never sought her love. No love, no devotedness, could efface the remembrance of her connivance at that deep-laid plot which had imposed her upon him as a wife. Yet the lot of Leah was peculiarly a lot of reproach and trial—and as we behold her wretchedness, we are led, not to extenuate her fault, nor to palliate her sin, but to forgive and pity her sorrows.
In early youth the sympathies are all awakened for the beautiful and the beloved Rachel, the only chosen, the betrothed bride. As we advance in years, in deeper acquaintance with human hearts, in truer fellowship in human suffering, we learn to feel for the plain and hated Leah. There is something deeply touching in the quiet sorrow which marks her lot; in her deep consciousness of her husband's alienation and her sister's hate. We feel how difficult it might have seemed to resist theauthority of the father, when it was aided by the pleadings of her own affection and the customs of her people. We glance into the tents of Jacob, and contrast Leah with the beautiful, the loved, the indulged, the self-willed Rachel. There we see her, plain and unattractive in person, broken in spirit, bowed down by the consciousness of her own sin and her husband's hate—her sister's bitter contempt—striving, though scarce hoping, to win the love of her husband; and welcoming the anguish of a mother, with the fond assurance, "Now will my husband love me, for I have borne him a son."
We follow the sisters, as, still side by side, but with alienated hearts and estranged affections, they depart from the tents of their father to follow the footsteps of their husband,—Rachel and her offspring are the first objects of the care, as of the affection, of the patriarch.Yet we find Rachel, the loved and indulged wife, more murmuring, more repining, more fault-finding than Leah. By sorrow and trial, Leah may have learned submission; and the dearest earthly hopes disappointed—all her affections as a wife crushed and despised—in her hour of grief, and in the desolation of a widowhood of hate, she may have sought and found that love which never faileth, which giveth liberally and upbraideth not.
And He whose ear is ever open to the cry of his creatures, who forgives even while he punishes their iniquities, pitied Leah, and, without upbraiding her for that deceit by which she became a wife, gave her the joys of a mother; and in all the names bestowed upon her children, Leah at once recognises the mercy of God, while she still remembers that she is hated of her husband—attesting at once her conscious sorrow and her trusting faith.
Rachel was childless—and when she saw Leah rejoicing as a mother, it awoke all the bitterness of envy. With the unreasonable pettishness of a wife ever indulged, she reproached her husband. For once, the anger of Jacob was kindled against the idolized Rachel. "Am I in God's stead?" said he. The consciousness of being the loved and the cherished one—the overflowing tenderness and the ready indulgence which Rachel received, made her only more exacting and imperious; and while Leah seemed softened by trials and sorrows, her sister grew more unreasonable by indulgence, and was at once haughty and insolent. So corrupt is human nature, that the gratification of our desires too often merely excites the pride and haughtiness of the human heart, and the prosperous claim the blessings of Heaven as a matter of right; while it is mercifully ordained that the verysorrow which ever follows transgression, the evils which await all departures from duty and right, should, by their very tendency, awaken repentance and lead to a penitent and humble spirit.
When the daughters of Laban left the house of their father, either from a latent superstition, or from a family cupidity, Rachel stole the household gods of Laban and secreted them; and with an art worthy of the daughter of Laban, she prevented her father from reclaiming them; thus paving the way for the introduction of idolatry into the household of Jacob. He had already introduced polygamy by his marriage with her, and, to secure her, and thereby gratify her rivalry of her sister, he had multiplied his wives, and brought upon himself still heavier sorrows and trials. It was the beauty of Rachel which first captivated the eye, and then enthralled the heart of Jacob; and the wisest of men, thus ensnared, are still led into sin and folly. All the influences of Rachel upon his heart and life seem to have been unhappy; and the narrative shows that the strongest passion, gratified in defiance of prudence and previously imposed obligation, can only lead to disappointment and vexation. The two sisters both proved the love of the wife, in leaving all at the command of the husband; and the God in whom Jacob still trusted, guarded him against all the designs of Laban, averted the wrath of his brother, and guided him to the land of Isaac. He had passed Jordan with his staff and his scrip—he went out an outcast, and a fugitive; he returned with the train of a chief, the retinue of an Eastern prince; and his heart swelled with thanksgiving as he recounted the mercy and remembered the faithfulness of Jehovah. His fatherwas still living—the nurse of Rebekah, who so long since had left the family of Bethuel, came to close her eyes in the tents of the grand-daughter of her former master; but the mother who had led her son into sin, who had taught him to practise that deceit which had recoiled upon himself, is not mentioned. She, doubtless, was laid by the side of Abraham and of Sarah, in the cave of Machpelah. She had anticipated a short absence, a transient separation from her son. She purposed to send for him to return to his father, that he might yet be heir of the estate; but when Jacob did return in wealth and honour—yet bearing that bitter burden of care and sorrow, from which no honour, no wealth are exempt,—she who would have assuredly exulted in the one, and sympathized with the other, was not in the tent of Isaac. She came not forth to welcome her son, to embrace herrelatives and daughters or caress their children. Her place in the tent and at the board was vacant—her voice was hushed—her heart cold. The places that had known her, knew her no more. And thus it often is. Before man attains wealth or honour, those who had most rejoiced to witness it have passed away; while still, fair as is the outward lot, there are internal sorrows, imbittering every pleasant draught, and casting a shadow over all the brightness of human existence. Thus it is that the most prosperous are often followed by a cloud, reflecting glory and radiance upon such as are without, but covering with gloom and darkness those who fall within its shadow.
And soon followed the bitterest trial of Leah's life,—the shame, sorrow, and widowhood of her only daughter; avenged by those who neglected to guard her—while the husband, though indifferent to the sorrow andlove of the wife, must have felt the anguish of the father.
And the rivalry and strife of the sisters was over. "Give me children or else I die," was the cry of the wife whose wishes had been laws—and the prayer prompted by hate and envy was answered. Yet Rachel died. And in that hour of mortal agony, of bitter suffering, Leah probably stood by her sister. With affections estranged, love turned into bitterness, with hearts alienated, but fates inseparably united, they had passed their days. Their tents had been pitched side by side,—the voices of their children had been mingled together as they fell upon their mothers' ears,—they had been called to worship at the same altar,—they had been members of the same household.
Forced thus to dwell together, constantly to meet, to be familiar with the same objects, tohave the same interests, they were alienated, but not separated; and if their feelings were crushed, they were not all uprooted. As Leah saw her younger, her beautiful sister in the hour of extremity, in the agonies of a mother's sufferings, the sympathies of a woman must have risen with the love of a sister, and bitter tears of repentant sorrow must she have shed upon the pallid brow and quivering lips, as the hopes and the memories of youth and childhood gathered around, to reproach her for that deceit by which she had sown their path through mutual life with thorns, and made their joys to be but ashes. There are no tears so bitter as those which are shed by affection, too late revived, over those whom we have loved and yet injured,—over those from whom we have suffered ourselves to be estranged.
Rachel was buried in the way to Ephrath,which is Bethlehem. She was not laid in the sepulchre of Abraham. The children were left to the fostering care of her hated sister. Her sons passed through trials from which she could not guard them, and they came to honours while she knew it not. At this distance, her life seems to us a dream—a few years of pleasant childhood, a short vision of youthful love,—then comes the strife of life, its stern discipline, its bitter trials, its disappointed hopes, and its termination in the grave.
As we dwell upon the characters so truthfully delineated in the word of God, and follow the record of human pride, passion and infirmity, we are taught at once to magnify and adore the patience, the forbearance and the mercy of Jehovah. And let us remember that it is because these characters are reflected in the pure mirror of truth that the dark shades so plainly appear. In every age theheart of man is the same; but the temptations which especially evince this depravity may be peculiar to some particular age or condition.
We know not how long Leah survived her sister. Her advancing years were not exempt from affliction, and age brings its own trials; yet prosperity rested upon Jacob—and in the decline of life she may have known happiness desired, but not realized, in youth.
After the death of his beloved Rachel, the heart of Jacob may have turned to Leah, and a peaceful friendship have succeeded the storm and the conflicts of youthful passion. Sorrow may have knit hearts softened by the mutual consciousness of error and by the tears of repentance, and strengthened by the hopes of pardon, and drawn to each other by the strong ties of parental love for their mutual offspring. When the patriarch was called into Egypt, Leah went not with him. Hehad laid her in the gathering-place of his sons, in the tent of his fathers. From the touching expression of the dying patriarch—himself far from the land of his fathers' sepulchres—"And there I buried Leah," we feel that, in age and bereavement, the heart of Jacob turned to Leah. The repudiated wife of his youth became the solace of his age, and her memory awoke the last tender recollections in the dying patriarch. As we have read the book of God, we have been taught that good, inordinately coveted, or obtained by injustice and deceit, ever brings a curse. The principal actors in the events recorded in these chapters of Genesis, may have secured the object which they sought, yet the attainment did not avert or mitigate the punishment of the treachery by which it was secured.
Rebekah obtained the birth-right and the coveted blessing for her favourite child, and bythat act separated him from herself and doomed him to a banishment from his father's house, and from that hour she saw his face no more. Laban secured by his deceit the marriage of his unattractive daughter and the establishment of the beautiful Rachel, but he thus alienated the children he still seems to have loved, and that wealth which he so coveted.
Leah, by her connivance at her father's deceit, married the man she loved, but it was to lead a life of bitter, of heart-consuming sorrow. Jacob, departing from the institution of marriage that he might yet possess Rachel, entailed upon himself a career of strife, bitterness and disappointment; and introduced into his family an example that became a fruitful source of individual depravity and national corruption; while he first witnessed the evil effects of his complicated domestic relationsin the conduct of his eldest son, and felt at once his shame as a husband and his reproach as a father. And are not these things written for our edification? Are we not, in every page of God's word, taught explicitly that for man there is neither safety nor happiness save in the path of duty and of literal obedience? That each departure from the rule of right, whatever be the motive, and crowned as it may seem to be with success, draws a long succession of sin and sorrow in its train? Many have studied the word of God to justify sin, or palliate guilt, by the examples of the former dispensation. Let it be carefully studied, and it will show that the transgression which secured a positive object, still brought its punishment,—if delayed, never remitted—although successful, never justified. The word of God never justifies crimes, though in infinite wisdom Heover-rules them to promote the designs of his eternal providence.
Modern days and Christian institutions allow no examples of the exact type of the strife and rivalry exhibited in the household of the patriarch of Israel. Yet, while human nature remains as it is, there will ever be the jealousies, the strifes, the bitterness arising from misplaced affection, or alienated hearts, or jarring interests. There is still to be found the coquetry which would win love from a sister or a friend, and the treachery that would supplant the rival—as there are still fathers who, for motives of interest, would sacrifice their daughters, regardless of their hearts or their happiness. Youthful beauty still attracts the eye and wins the heart, and the best and wisest of men are too often enthralled by mere personal attraction.
Human nature is ever the same, and the motives and feelings which swayed the generations who have mouldered back to dust are still felt and acknowledged.
While we thus attempt to trace the outlines of the domestic history of these individuals, we cannot but feel that there is a surpassing beauty and excellence in the character of Abraham. He bore the fresh impress of a renovated world, and was truly worthy of the pre-eminence which is always allotted to him. Isaac seems to have dwelt in quiet, peaceful prosperity. Inheriting great wealth, dwelling until mature age with his parents, there seem to have been few occasions in which the prominent traits of the character are displayed. His life offers less of interest, less to excite, less to praise and less to blame than either Abraham's or Jacob's. The father's energy, patience, faith and obedience had prepared the way for the prosperity of the son; and Isaac, nursed in affluence and cherished by maternal affection,seems to have exhibited less energy, enterprise and decision than either his father or his descendants. His premature blindness doubtless conduced to this inactive life. Yet he trusted and obeyed the God of his father, though he enjoyed neither the exalted faith of Abraham, nor was he favoured with the enlarged prophetic views of Jacob.
In all the trials and infirmities of Jacob—from the day in which he left his father's house until the hour in which "he gathered his feet in his bed and died" in Egypt—we see the evidence and the growth of true piety, of enlarged faith. He was encompassed with infirmities, and these infirmities betrayed him into sins, which brought in their train the sorrows which, through Divine grace, purified and sanctified him. Thus his character excites our increasing love and sympathy, and his advancing piety our veneration.
From the glimpses we obtain of the families of Nahor, Bethuel, and Laban, we trace a gradual departure from Jehovah among the descendants of Shem. Nahor and Abraham were possessors of like faith. They both worshipped the God of their fathers—of Shem, of Noah, of Methuselah, of Enoch, of Seth, of Adam. Bethuel's household still remained a household of faith, but in Laban we see the beginning of a departure from the true God. The first steps towards idolatry were taken. There was the resort to a sensible representation,—some image probably used as a symbol of the true God at first, but certainly ensnaring the heart, and ending in idolatry. Thus the gods of Laban, which Rachel stole, were leading him and his family rapidly to idol-worship, and to forgetfulness of the true God. Still he had not sunk into gross idolatry. Laban still pledged himself, and invoked the name of theGod of Abraham and of Nahor, and of their fathers, when he entered into covenant with Jacob. He had not yet altogether abjured the worship of Jehovah: he had begun to mingle a false worship with it, and thus prepared the way for the full apostasy of his descendants.
That the chosen people might be kept from the taint of idolatry, Jacob left Laban; yet Rachel had stolen her father's images—and there is then great significance in that act by which Jacob renewed his covenant with God, when called upon to build the altar at Bethel.
"And Jacob said unto his household, and to all that were with him, Put away the strange gods that are among you and be clean, and change your garments: and let us arise and go up to Bethel; and I will make there an altar unto God, who answered me in the dayof my distress, and was with me in the way which I went. And they gave unto Jacob all the strange gods which were in their hand, and all their ear-rings which were in their ears; and Jacob hid them under the oak which was by Shechem."
Probably the ear-rings were used as heathen charms or amulets. While idolatry, as a leprosy, was thus beginning to infect the household, he saw the need of their purification; and there seems no accidental connection between this searching out and putting away of idolatry in the household of Jacob and the following death of Rachel: "With whomsoever thou findest thy gods, let him not live."
The cherished wife of Jacob, deeply tainted with the superstitions by which her family were corrupting the religion of Jehovah, may have been thus removed to prevent further contagion. While the apostle may refer to this example inhis promise: "Nevertheless she shall be saved in child-bearing, if she continue in the faith." And this sin may have excluded Rachel from the sepulchre of Abraham. The plague-spot disappears from this time, and the purification of the household was availing. For many generations, whatever their other sins, the children of Jacob were kept from idolatry.