Page:An Exposition of the Old and New Testament (1828) vol 1.djvu/116

84 and thirty years, and begat Salah: 13. And Arphaxad lived after he begat Salah, four hundred and three years, and begat sons and daughters. 14. And Salah lived thirty years, and begat Eber: 15. And Salah lived after he begat Eber, four hundred and three years, and begat sons and daughters. 16. And Eber lived four and thirty years, and begat Peleg: 17. And Eber lived after he begat Peleg, four hundred and thirty years, and begat sons and daughters. 18. And Peleg lived thirty years, and begat Reu: 19. And Peleg lived after he begat Reu, two hundred and nine years, and begat sons and daughters. 20. And Reu lived two and thirty years, and begat Serug: 21. And Reu lived after he begat Serug, two hundred and seven years, and begat sons and daughters. 22. And Serug lived thirty years, and begat Nahor: 23. And Serug lived after he begat Nahor, two hundred years, and begat sons and daughters. 24. And Nahor lived nine and twenty years, and begat Terah: 25. And Nahor lived after he begat Terah, an hundred and nineteen years, and begat sons and daughters. 26. And Terah lived seventy years, and begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran.

We have here a genealogy, not an endless genealogy; for here it ends in Abram, the friend of God, and leads further to Christ, the promised Seed, who was the Son of Abram, and from Abram the genealogy of Christ is reckoned, (Matth. 1. 1, &c.) so that put ch. 5. ch. 11, and Matth. 1, together, and you have such an entire genealogy of Jesus Christ as cannot be produced, for aught I know, concerning any person in the world, out of his line, and at such a distance from the fountain-head. And laying these three genealogies together, we shall find that twice ten, and thrice fourteen, generations or descents, passed between the first and second Adam, making it clear concerning Christ, not only that he was the Son of Abraham, but the Son of man, and the Seed of the woman. Observe here, 1. That nothing is left upon record concerning those of this line, but their names and ages; the Holy Ghost seeming to hasten through them to the story of Abram. How little do we know of those that are gone before us in this world, even those that lived in the same places where we live, as we likewise know little of those that are our contemporaries, in distant places; we have enough to do, to mind the work of our own day, and let God alone to require that which is past, Eccl. 3. 15. 2. That there was an observable gradual decrease in the years of their lives; Shem reached to 600 years, which yet fell short of the age of the patriarchs before the flood; the three next came short of 500; the three next did not reach to 300; after them, we read not of any that attained to 200, but Terah; and, not many ages after this, Moses reckoned 70 or 80 to be the utmost men ordinarily arrive at: when the earth began to be replenished, men's lives began to shorten; so that the decrease is to be imputed to the wise disposal of providence, rather than to any decay of nature; for the elect's sake, men's days are shortened; and being evil, it is well they are few, and attain not to the years of the lives of our fathers, ch. 47. 9. 3. That Eber, from whom the Hebrews were denominated, was the longest lived of any that were born after the flood; which perhaps was the reward of his singular piety, and strict adherence to the ways of God.

27. Now these are the generations of Terah: Terah begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran begat Lot. 28. And Haran died before his father Terah, in the land of his nativity, in Ur of the Chaldees. 29. And Abram and Nahor took them wives: the name of Abram's wife was Sarai; and the name of Nahor's wife, Milcah, the daughter of Haran, the father of Milcah, and the father of Iscah. 30. But Sarai was barren; she had no child. 31. And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot, the son of Haran, his son's son, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram's wife; and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan, and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there. 32. And the days of Terah were two hundred and five years: and Terah died in Haran.

Here begins the story of Abram, whose name is famous, henceforward, in both Testaments; we have here,

I. His country; Ur of the Chaldees, that was the land of his nativity, an idolatrous country, where even the children of Eber themselves were degenerated. Note, Those who are, through grace, heirs of the land of promise, ought to remember what was the land of their nativity; what was their corrupt and sinful state by nature; the rock out of which they were hewn.

II. His relations; mentioned for his sake, and because of their interest in the following story. 1. His father was Terah, of whom it is said, Josh. 24. 2, that he served other gods, on the other side of the flood: so early did idolatry gain footing in the world, and so hard is it even for those that have some good principles, to swim against the stream. Though it is said, v. 26, that when Terah was seventy years old, he begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran, (which seems to tell us that Abram was the eldest son of Terah, and born in his 70th year,) yet, by comparing v. 32, which makes Terah to die in his 205th year, with Acts 7. 4, (where it is said that Abram removed from Haran, when his father was dead,) and with ch. 12. 4, (where it is said that he was but 75 years old when he removed from Haran,) it appears that he was born in the 130th year of Terah, and, probably, was his youngest son; for, in God's choices, the last are often first, and the first last. We have, 2. Some account of his brethren. (1.) Nahor, out of whose family both Isaac and Jacob had their wives. (2.) Haran, the father of Lot, of whom it is here said, v. 28, that he died before his father Terah. Note, Children cannot be sure that they shall survive their parents: for death does not go by seniority, taking the eldest first: the shadow of death is without any order, Job 10. 22. It is likewise said that he died in Ur of the Chaldees, before the happy removal of the family out of that idolatrous country. Note, It concerns us to hasten out of our natural state, lest death surprise us in it. 3. His wife was Sarai, who, some think, was the same with Iscah, the daughter of Haran. Abram himself says of her, that she was the