LETTER LXV.

I told you in last Fors to learn the 15th chapter of Genesis by heart. Too probably, you have done nothing of the sort; but, at any rate, let us now read it together, that I may tell you, of each verse, what I wanted, (and still beg,) you to learn it for.

1. “The word of God came to Abram.” Of course you can’t imagine such a thing as that the word of God should ever come to you? Is that because you are worse, or better, than Abram?—because you are a more, or less, civilized person than he? I leave you to answer that question for yourself;—only, as I have told you often before, but cannot repeat too often, find out first what the Word is; and don’t suppose that the printed thing in your hand, which you call a Bible, is the Word of God, and that the said Word may therefore always be bought at a pious stationer’s for eighteen-pence.

Farther, in the “Explanatory and Critical Commentary and Revision of the Translation” (of the Holy Bible) by Bishops and other Clergy of the Established Church, published in 1871, by Mr. John Murray, you will find the interesting statement, respecting this verse, that “This is the first time that the expression—so frequent afterwards—‘the Word of the Lord’ occurs in the Bible.” The expression is certainly rather frequent afterwards; and one might have perhaps expected from the Episcopal and clerical commentators, on this, its first occurrence, some slight notice of the probable meaning of it. They proceed, however, without farther observation, to discuss certain problems, suggested to them by the account of Abram’s vision, respecting somnambulism; on which, though one would have thought few persons more qualified than themselves to give an account of that condition, they arrive at no particular conclusion.

But even their so carefully limited statement is only one-third true. It is true of the Hebrew Law; not of the New Testament:—of the entire Bible, it is true of the English version only; not of the Latin, nor the Greek. Nay, it is very importantly and notably untrue of those earlier versions.

There are three words in Latin, expressive of utterance in three very different manners; namely, ‘verbum,’ a word, ‘vox,’ a voice, and ‘sermo,’ a sermon.

Now, in the Latin Bible, when St. John says “the Word was in the beginning,” he says, the ‘Verbum’ was in the beginning. But here, when somebody (nobody knows who, and that is a bye question of some importance,) is represented as saying, “The word of the Lord came to Abram,” what somebody really says, is that “There was made to Abram a ‘Sermon’ of the Lord.”

Does it not seem possible that one of the almost unconscious reasons of your clergy for not pointing out this difference in expression, may be a doubt whether you ought not rather to desire to hear God preach, than them?

But the Latin word ‘verbum,’ from which you get ‘verbal’ and ‘verbosity,’ is a very obscure and imperfect rendering of the great Greek word ‘Logos,’ from which you get ‘logic,’ and ‘theology,’ and all the other logies.

And the phrase “word of the Lord,” which the Bishops, with unusual episcopic clairvoyance, have really observed to ‘occur frequently afterwards’ in the English Bible, is, in the Greek Bible always “the Logos of the Lord.” But this Sermon to Abraham is only ‘rhema,’ an actual or mere word; in his interpretation of which, I see, my good Dean of Christ Church quotes the Greek original of Sancho’s proverb, “Fair words butter no parsneps.” Which we shall presently see to have been precisely Abram’s—(of course cautiously expressed)—feeling, on this occasion. But to understand his feeling, we must look what this sermon of the Lord’s was.

The sermon (as reported), was kind, and clear. “Fear not, Abram, I am thy Shield, and thy exceeding great Reward,” (‘reward’ being the poetical English of our translators—the real phrase being ‘thy exceeding great pay, or gain’). Meaning, “You needn’t make an iron tent, with a revolving gun in the middle of it, for I am your tent and artillery in one; and you needn’t care to get a quantity of property, for I am your property; and you needn’t be stiff about your rights of property, because nobody will dispute your right to Me.”

To which Abram answers, “Lord God, what wilt Thou give me, seeing I go childless.”

Meaning,—“Yes, I know that;—but what is the good of You to me, if I haven’t a child? I am a poor mortal: I don’t care about the Heavens or You; I want a child.”

Meaning this, at least, if the Latin and English Bibles are right in their translation—“I am thy great gain.” But the Greek Bible differs from them; and puts the promise in a much more tempting form to the modern English mind. It does not represent God as offering Himself; but something far better than Himself, actually exchangeable property! Wealth, according to Mr. John Stuart Mill. Here is indeed a prospect for Abram!—and something to refuse, worth thinking twice about. For the Septuagint reads, “Fear not, Abram. I am thy Protector, and thou shalt have an exceeding great pay.” Practically, just as if, supposing Sir Stafford Northcote to represent the English nation of the glorious future, a Sermon of the Lord should come just now to him, saying, “Fear not, Sir Stafford, I am thy Devastation; and thou shalt have an exceeding great surplus.”

On which supposition, Abram’s answer is less rude, but more astonishing. “Oh God, what wilt thou give me? What good is money to me, who am childless?”

Again, as if Sir Stafford Northcote should answer, in the name of the British people, saying, “Lord God, what wilt thou give me? What is the good to me of a surplus? What can I make of surplus? It is children that I want, not surplus!”

A truly notable parliamentary utterance on the Budget, if it might be! Not for a little while yet, thinks Sir Stafford; perhaps, think wiser and more sorrowful people than he, not until England has had to stone, according to the law of Deuteronomy xxi. 18, some of the children she has got: or at least to grapeshot them. I couldn’t get anything like comfortable rooms in the Pea Hen at St. Alban’s, the day before yesterday, because the Pea Hen was cherishing, for chickens under her wings, ever so many officers of the Royal Artillery; and some beautiful sixteen-pounders,—exquisite fulfilments of all that science could devise, in those machines; which were unlimbered in the market-place, on their way to Sheffield—where I am going myself, as it happens. I wonder much, in the name of my mistress, whose finger is certainly in this pie, what business we have there, (both of us,) the black machines, and I. As Atropos would have it, too, I had only been making out, with good Mr. Douglas’s help, in Woolwich Repository on Wednesday last, a German Pea Hen’s inscription on a sixteen-pounder of the fourteenth century:—

Ich bin fürwahr, ein Grober Baur Ver frist mein ayr, es wurd ihm Saur.

Verse 5th. “And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Tell now the stars, if thou be able to number them. So shall thy seed be.”

Of course you would have answered God instantly, and told Him the exact number of the stars, and all their magnitudes. Simple Abram, conceiving that, even if he did count all he could see, there might yet be a few more out of sight, does not try.

Verse 6th. “And he believed in the Lord, and He counted it to him for righteousness.”

That, on the whole, is the primary verse of the entire Bible. If that is true, the rest is worth whatever Heaven is worth; if that is untrue, the rest is worth nothing. You had better, therefore, if you can, learn it also in Greek and Latin.

“Καὶ ἐπίστευσεν Ἀβραμ τῷ Θεῷ, καὶ ἐλογίσθη αὐτῷ εἰς δικαιοσύνην.

“Credidit Abram Deo, et reputatum est illo in justitiam.”

If, then, that text be true, it will follow that you also, if you would have righteousness counted to you, must believe God. And you can’t believe Him if He never says anything to you. Whereupon it will be desirable again to consider if He ever has said anything to you; and if not, why not.

After this verse, I don’t understand much of the chapter myself—but I never expect to understand everything in the Bible, or even more than a little; and will make what I can of it.

Verses 7th, 8th. “And He said, I the Lord brought thee, to give thee this land, to inherit it.

“But he said, Lord, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it?”

Now, I don’t see how he could know it better than by being told so; nor how he knew it any better, after seeing a lamp moving between half-carcases. But we will at least learn, as well as we can, what happened; and think it over.

The star-lesson was of course given in the night; and, in the morning, Abram slays the five creatures, and watches their bodies all day.

‘Such an absurd thing to do—to cut rams and cows in two, to please God!’

Indeed it seems so; yet perhaps is better than cutting men in two to please ourselves; and we spend thirty millions a year in preparations for doing that. How many more swiftly divided carcases of horses and men, think you, my Christian friends, have the fowls fed on, not driven away,—finding them already carved for their feast, or blown into small and convenient morsels, by the military gentlemen of Europe, in sacrifice to—their own epaulettes, (poor gilded and eyeless idols!) during the past seventy and six years of this one out of the forty centuries since Abram?

“The birds divided he not.” A turtle dove, or in Greek ‘cooing dove;’ and a pigeon, or in Greek ‘dark dove;’ or black dove, such as came to Dodona;—these were not to be cut through breast and backbone! Why? Why, indeed, any of this butchery and wringing of necks? Not wholly, perhaps, for Abram’s amusement, or God’s; like our coursing and pigeon-shooting;—but then, all the more earnestly one asks, why?

The Episcopal commentary tells you, (usefully this time) that the beasts were divided, because among all nations it was then the most solemn attestation of covenant to pass between halves of beasts. But the birds?

We are not sure, by the way, how far the cleaving might reach, without absolute division. Read Leviticus i., 15 to 17, and v., 6 to 10. ‘You have nothing to do with those matters,’ you think? I don’t say you have; but in my schools you must know your Bible, and the meaning of it, or want of meaning, at least a little more definitely than you do now, before I let you throw the book away for ever. So have patience with it a little while; for indeed until you know something of this Bible, I can’t go on to teach you any Koran, much less any Dante or Shakspeare. Have patience, therefore,—and you will need, probably, more than you think; for I am sadly afraid that you don’t at present know so much as the difference between a burnt-offering and a sin-offering; nor between a sin-offering and a trespass-offering,—do you? (Lev. v. 15); so how can you possibly know anything about Abram’s doves, or afterwards about Ion’s,—not to speak of the Madonna’s? The whole story of the Ionic migration, and the carving of those Ionic capitals, which our architects don’t know how to draw to this day, is complicated with the tradition of the saving of Ion’s life by his recognition of a very small ‘trespass’—a servant’s momentary ‘blasphemy.’ Hearing it, he poured the wine he was about to drink out upon the ground. A dove, flying down from the temple cornice, dipped her beak in it, and died, for the wine had been poisoned by—his mother. But the meaning of all that myth is involved in this earlier and wilder mystery of the Mount of the Amorite.

On the slope of it, down to the vale of Eshcol, sat Abram, as the sun ripened its grapes through the glowing day; the shadows lengthening at last under the crags of Machpelah;—the golden light warm on Ephron’s field, still Ephron’s, wild with wood. “And as the sun went down, an horror of great darkness fell upon Abram.”

Indigestion, most likely, thinks modern philosophy. Accelerated cerebration, with automatic conservation of psychic force, lucidly suggests Dr. Carpenter. Derangement of the sensori-motor processes, having certain relations of nextness, and behaviour uniformly depending on that nextness, condescendingly explains Professor Clifford.

Well, my scientific friends, if ever God does you the grace to give you experience of the sensations, either of horror, or darkness, even to the extent your books and you inflict them on my own tired soul, you will come out on the other side of that shadow with newer views on many subjects than have occurred yet to you,—novelty-hunters though you be.

“Behold, thy seed shall be strangers, in a land not theirs.” Again, the importunate question returns, ‘When was this written?’ But the really practical value of the passage for ourselves, is the definite statement, alike by the Greeks and Hebrews, of dream, as one of the states in which knowledge of the future may be distinctly given. The truth of this statement we must again determine for ourselves. Our dreams are partly in our power, by management of daily thought and food; partly, involuntary and accidental—very apt to run in contrary lines from those naturally to be expected of them; and partly, (at least, so say all the Hebrew prophets, and all great Greek, Latin, and English thinkers,) prophetic. Whether what Moses, Homer, David, Daniel, the Evangelists and St. Paul, Dante, Chaucer, Shakspeare, and Bacon, think on this matter, or what the last-whelped little curly-tailed puppy of the Newington University thinks, is most likely to be true—judge as you will.

“In the fourth generation they shall come hither again, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.”

What was the iniquity of the Amorites, think you, and what kind of people were they? Anything like ourselves? or wide-mouthed and goggle-eyed,—terrifically stalking above the vineyard stakes of Eshcol? If like us, in any wise, is it possible that we also may be committing iniquity, capable of less and more fulness, through such a space as four hundred years? Questions worth pausing at; and we will at least try to be a little clear-headed as to Amorite personality.

We habitually speak of the Holy Land as the Land of ‘Canaan.’ The ‘promised’ land was indeed that of Canaan, with others. But Israel never got it. They got only the Mount of the Amorites; for the promise was only to be perfected on condition of their perfect obedience. Therefore, I asked you to learn Genesis x. 15, and Genesis x. 16, separately. For all the Canaanites were left, to prove Israel, (Judges