Page:Legends of Old Testament Characters.djvu/205

XXIV.] more of thee. I change not My purpose, but I did suffer thee to misunderstand the purport of My command, and to think that I exacted more of thee; and this I did to prove thee. And now, by Myself have I sworn; for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son; that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heavens, and as the sand which is upon the sea-shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies." Then Isaac revived, and Abraham cut his cords, and he stood up and said, "Praised be the Eternal One, who quickeneth those that be dead." And Abraham turned to the Shekinah and said, "Lord! how shall I depart hence without having offered to Thee a sacrifice?" The Lord answered, "Lift thine eyes, and thou shalt see a beast for sacrifice behind thee." In the thicket of the wood was that ram which God created at dusk on the sixth day, that it might serve this purpose. An angel had brought it out of Paradise, where it had lived since its creation, and had fed under the shadow of the Tree of Life, and had drunk of the River that there flows. And when the ram was brought into this earth, all the earth was filled with the fragrance from its fleece, on which hung the odours of the flowers on which it had lain in Paradise. But by Satan's fraud, the animal was frightened and strayed away, and Abraham tracked it by its foot-prints. Then Satan decoyed the beast behind some bushes and entangled its horns in the thicket; and Abraham would have passed by, and not seen it, but the ram caught him by his cloak. So Abraham slew it, and offered it in sacrifice, and sprinkled with its blood the altar he had made.

Now the Last Trumpets that shall sound, the one to call the just, the other the unjust, are made of the horns of this wondrous ram.

II. THE DEATH OF SARAH. Sarah,—who, as we have seen, accompanied Abraham and Isaac part of the way to Moriah,—on her return to the tent, found an old man awaiting her. It was Satan.

He greeted her with profound respect, and asked after her husband and son.