The Story of the Chosen People (Yesterday's Classics) (3 page)

The blessing which had been spoken in the Garden of Eden, "be fruitful and multiply," was repeated; and the animals were again made subject to man, who was now allowed to eat meat for the first time.

Besides the law about the killing of animals for food, God now made a decree against murder, saying that he who "sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed." That is why murderers are still put to death.

God then made a covenant, or agreement, with Noah, and said that if men obeyed him he would watch over them and not destroy them; and as a reminder of this promise, he set the rainbow in the clouds. This is the reason why you will often hear the rainbow called the "bow of promise."

Although God had saved Noah and his family, to begin a new race, it soon became plain that they too would sin; for Noah himself yielded to the low vice of drunkenness. His son Ham found him in a drunken sleep, and went and told Noah's other sons, mocking him.

Shem and Japheth were shocked and ashamed, but they did not join in their brother's mockery. Instead of this, they threw a great cloak over their sleeping father, to hide him from their own and everybody else's eyes.

When Noah came to his senses, he was bitterly ashamed; and when he heard how rude Ham had been, Noah sent him away, and cursed him, saying that his children would be slaves. This prophecy came true, and Ham was the ancestor of the black, or negro, race, who were slaves even in this country half a century ago.

Noah then rewarded Shem and Japheth for their dutiful conduct, by blessing them. In time, Japheth's descendants became the ancestors of all the European nations (and thus of the Americans); while Shem was chosen as the father of the race of the Jews. You will often hear it called the "Chosen Race," because God gave his laws to this people, and said that the Messiah would be born among them.

Noah lived three hundred and fifty years after the flood, and died when he was nine hundred and fifty years old. The date of his death is said to be just halfway between the creation of Adam and the birth of Christ, whom the Christians consider as the Redeemer promised when Adam and Eve were driven out of Eden.

Noah died just one year before the great patriarch Abraham was born; but the story of creation passed directly from Adam to Methuselah, from Methuselah to Noah, and from Noah to Terah, the father of Abraham. Thus, although it was not yet written, but only told, it could not have changed much, although so many years had passed since the creation of Adam.

The Bible tells us that the descendants of Noah's sons spread, in the course of time, all over the face of the earth. In a few words it says that Japheth's race included all the Gentiles (people who were not Jews). One of the descendants of Ham was Nimrod, a mighty hunter and king, and the founder of a great city called Babylon. Some of Nimrod's descendants built the city of Nineveh also, and formed the great Assyrian Empire.

The only one of Noah's sons whose story is given at length in the Bible, is Shem, the ancestor of the Jewish race. In his days "the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech," and we are told that the people generally wandered about in search of good pasture for their large flocks, which were their chief possession.

Journeying thus from place to place, Shem's descendants came at last to the plain of Shinar, where Nimrod lived. Here the soil was mostly clay, so the people soon learned to make bricks, and to use them for building houses.

T
HERE
were plenty of building materials on the plain of Shinar, so the people soon fancied that it would be a fine thing to join Nimrod and found a world-wide empire, with a great city as its capital. Nimrod, it seems, was at the head of this plan, and greatly encouraged them. He hoped that if all the people were banded together, he would be able to prevent them from being scattered all over the face of the world, as God had said he intended to have them.

The work of building was therefore begun, and by Nimrod's orders a huge tower was erected near the new city. But "the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded;" and it did not please him. To defeat their plans, God confused the tongues of the builders, so that they spoke different languages; and then, as they could no longer understand one another's speech, the men left off working together.

BUILDING THE TOWER OF BABEL

People who do not understand one another are sure to quarrel, and before long the builders went off in different directions, in search of new homes, where they could speak their own language in peace. Thus Nimrod's plan to found a great empire came to an end, and the Tower of Babel (confusion) was never completed.

Terah, the father of Abraham, was the eighth in direct descent from Shem, son of Noah. Besides Abraham, he had two other sons, Nahor and Haran, who were probably much older than Abraham. The brothers all married, and for some time dwelt in the ancient city of Ur; but before long God called to Abraham, and bade him go into a new land which would be given to him. In obedience to this call, the whole family set out, and made their home east of the Euphrates River, where Terah died when Abraham was seventy-five years old.

Nahor, the oldest living son of Terah, claimed the land where they had settled as his inheritance; and, after a second call from God, Abraham continued his journey, traveling southward with his wife Sarah, and his nephew Lot. They were going in search of the land promised by God, for Abraham fully trusted in these words which the Lord had spoken:

"I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great, and thou shalt be a blessing; and I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee, and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed."

These last words, as you see, contained a new promise of a Redeemer, like the one made to Adam, and God now added the information that this Redeemer would bless even the Gentiles,—that is to say, the people who did not belong to the Chosen Race.

Abraham now crossed the Euphrates River, and hence received the name of Hebrew, which is borne by his descendants, and which means "the man who has crossed the river." He passed through the desert, crossed the river Jordan, and entered the Holy Land, where he rested for a while.

From there Abraham wandered on in search of pasture, until he came at last to the rich land of Egypt. Here he was in a strange country, among a strange people. He was afraid they would kill him to obtain possession of Sarah, his wife, so he coaxed her to say that she was only his sister.

The people, thinking that Sarah was an unmarried woman, carried her off to the king's palace to be his wife; but, as soon as she arrived there, a terrible disease visited all the family of the king. At first no one knew the cause of this sickness, but finally the king found out that it had been sent to punish him for trying to take another man's wife.

He had no intention of doing so wicked a thing, so he at once sent Sarah back to her husband, and reproved Abraham for deceiving him. He also bade Abraham leave the country, saying that he did not wish to keep a man who had brought him nothing but harm.

Thus forced to wander on, Abraham traveled northward until he came to Bethel, in the Holy Land, where he had once rested, and where he rebuilt the altar to worship God.

His cattle had now become so numerous that it was very hard indeed to find pasture enough for all his flocks. One day a quarrel arose between the shepherds of Abraham and those of Lot; and, to prevent a renewal of it, the uncle and nephew decided to part. As Lot was the son of an elder brother, Abraham gave him the first choice; and he passed down the valley to the eastward, where the pasture seemed the best. Then Abraham, still trusting in the promises of God, moved a little way towards the south, where he again rested and built another altar.

A
FTER
parting from his uncle, Lot went down into the fertile valley of the lower Jordan, and pitched his tents near the five rich cities of the plain, among which were Sodom and Gomorrah. These cities were ruled by five kings, and in them dwelt men who were as wicked as wicked could be.

Lot, who was a good man, did not enjoy the neighborhood of these wicked people; but, instead of going away, he lingered there until a war broke out between the five cities and a powerful king who claimed tribute from them.

A battle was fought, in which the Kings of Sodom and Gomorrah were killed. Their cities were then robbed; and Lot, being found on their lands, was carried off into captivity with all the rest of the people, and all his possessions were taken away from him.

The news of Lot's peril was brought to Abraham. As soon as he heard it, he hastily gathered together the three hundred and eighteen men of his household, and, accompanied by the Amorites, his friends, he hurried off to rescue his unlucky nephew.

This small troop overtook the victors near the sources of the Jordan. There, by cleverly dividing his forces, and surprising the enemy in the middle of the night, Abraham managed not only to beat them, but to free Lot and to get back all the spoil they had taken.

The little army then came home in triumph, and Abraham gave back the spoil to the new King of Sodom. He kept only the tenth part for the King of Salem, a priest of the Lord, who came to meet him, and gave him bread and wine, and blessed him.

Abraham, having thus saved Lot from the hands of his enemies, went home, where he was soon made happy by a vision from God. This time the Lord repeated all the promises he had already made, and told Abraham that he would have a son. Then pointing upward, God said that Abraham's descendants would be as many as the stars shining in the blue sky above them.

Now the patriarch was over eighty years old, and had already waited many years in vain for the son whom God had promised him, but yet he believed these words. He also listened respectfully while God foretold that the Hebrews would be treated as slaves in a foreign land for four hundred years, but would finally escape, with larger numbers and greater riches, to take possession of the promised land.

Another time, God bade Abraham practice a religious rite called circumcision. This rite was observed by all the Jews after that, and it finally became the mark of the Hebrew nation, just as baptism is the outward sign of a Christian.

Abraham's faith in God's promises was tried by another long period of waiting. His wife Sarah became so sure that God would never give her a son that she finally persuaded her husband to accept Hagar, her servant, as a second wife. It was not at all unusual in those days for a man to have several wives at the same time; and you will soon see that more than one of the patriarchs followed this custom.

Hagar, Abraham's new wife, soon became the mother of a son called Ishmael, whose birth was foretold by an angel. The messenger of God came to Hagar one day, and told her that this child would be "a wild man;" and it is said that he became in time the ancestor of a wandering race which we now call Bedouins, or Arabs.

Fourteen years after the birth of Ishmael, three strangers came to Abraham's tent; and it is supposed that they must have been angels. After they had rested and eaten, these angels told Abraham that Sarah would have a son. The patriarch believed them, for he had not lost faith in God's promise even yet; but Sarah, who was standing behind the door, laughed at them.

The messengers reproved her for doubting their words, and set out with Abraham toward the cities of the plain. On their way, one of these strangers told Abraham that God was weary of the wickedness of the people in Sodom and Gomorrah, and was about to destroy them in punishment for their sins.

Abraham was horrified when he heard this, and he humbly asked whether God would destroy the guilty cities if fifty good persons could be found within them. When told that fifty good men would save the towns, Abraham inquired whether forty, thirty, twenty, or even ten righteous men would not be enough, and each time the stranger answered, "Yes."