unto the great river, the river Euphrates: the Kenites, and the Kenizzites, and the Kadmonites, and the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Rephaims, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Girgashites, and the Jebusites."* Gen. xv. 9-21.

Q. What did Abram see on the occasion ?

A. When it was dark, "behold a smoking furnace and a burning lamp, that passed between those pieces.Ӡ Gen. xv. 17.

A. M. 2093.

Q. What happened in his eighty-sixth

B. C. 1911. year? ·

A. Sarah gave him Hagar her handmaid to wife. But Hagar, despising her mistress, incurred her displeasure; and being unable to bear her severe treatment, she fled to the wilderness of Shur. Gen. xvi. 3-7.

Q. What befel her there?

A. The Angel of the Lord appeared to her, and commanded her to return and submit herself to Sarah. He also told her that the child she should bear to Abram would be a wild man, whose hand would be against every man, and every man's hand against him; but that nevertheless he should dwell in the presence of all his brethren. Gen. xvi, 7-12.

* This promise was completed in the reign of Solomon.

+ In fæderal sacrifices, the animals being divided in the midst, Gen. xv. 10. Jerem. xxxiv. 18, 19. the contracting parties, by passing between the pieces, imprecated on themselves the fate of the victims if they proved false to the covenant.

The history of the Bedouin Arabs, to the present day, strikingly demonstrates the truth of this prophecy.-See Bp. NEWTON On the Prophecies, Dissert. II.

A. M. 2094.

B. C. 1910.

Q. What was this child called?
A. Ishmael. Gen. xvi. 15.

Q. Had Abrain any other wives?

A. Yes he had a wife called Keturah, by whom he had several children. Gen. xxv. 1.

A. M. 2106.

Q. What happened in Abram's ninety

B. C. 1898. ninth year?

A. The Lord again appeared to him, and promised him a son by Sarah. On this occasion his name was changed to Abraham. Gen. xvii. 1-16.

Q. Of what persons did his household then consist? A. Of his wives, his steward, his hired servants, servants born in his house, and slaves bought with money. Gen. xvii. 27.

Q. When was this promise again renewed?

A. Shortly after, when Jehovah* and two angels, in the likeness of men, appeared to him. Gen. xviii. 2. Q. How did he receive the strangers ?

A. He caused them to wash their feet, and rest themselves under the tree, while he and Sarah procured them some refreshment. Gen. xviii. 4-8.

Q. What communication was then made to him ?

A. As he accompanied his guests, to bring them on their way, the Lord revealed to him his design of destroying. Sodom and Gomorrah. This discovery led Abraham to intercede: and he obtained a promise, that if ten righteous men were found in Sodom, the city should not be destroyed. Gen. xviii. 16—32.

* This was the Lord Jesus, the only begotten Son, who declared the Father.-See John i. 18. viii. 56-58.

Q. Who received the angels at Sodom ›

A. Lot; whom, having acquainted with their object, they advised to assemble his relatives and flee. But when Lot spake to his sons-in-law, he seemed unto them as one that mocked. Gen. xix. 1-14.

Q. Did Lot leave the place forthwith?

A. No: he lingered, unwilling to depart; but the angels laid hold on him, his wife, and daughters, (the Lord being merciful to them) and drew them out of the city, which, together with the other cities, was destroyed by fire and brimstone from heaven. Their site is now occupied by the Asphaltite Lake, or Dead Sea. Gen. xix. 16.

Q. What catastrophe befel Lot's wife?

A. Contrary to an express injunction, venturing to look back, she was turned into a pillar of salt.* As for

* Mr. HORNE, from the description of the country given by travellers, and the account given by Moses, considers the devoted cities to have been destroyed by an eruption of some adjacent volcano. "The quantities of sulphur, pumice, and ashes, poured by the volcano to an immense height in the air, and falling from that elevation, might, with strict propriety, be said to have been rained from heaven. In allusion to this catastrophe, God is said to rain on the wicked hot ashes, fire, and brimstone."-Psalm xi. 6. He conceives, therefore, that Lot's wife," looking with a wistful eye towards Sodom,-was surrounded, ere she was aware, by the lava, which rising and swelling, at length reached her, and [while the volcanic effluvia deprived her of life] incrustated her where she stood; so that being, as it were, embalmed by the salso-bituminous mass, she became a conspicuous beacon and admonitory example to future generations. The power of this asphaltic substance in

Lot, he fled, with his daughters, to Zoar, which was spared for his sake; but shortly after they took up their abode in a cave in the mountains. Gen. xix. 26.

Q. What are we to learn from the deliverance of Lot in the overthrow of Sodom?

A. That "the Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptation, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment, to be punished. 2 Pet. ii. 9. Q. Had Lot any children after this event?

A. Yes he had two sons, Moab and Ammon, whose descendants were the most inveterate enemies of the children of Israel. Gen. xix. 37, 38.

Q. Where did Abraham sojourn after this?

A. In Gerar, where Abimelech the king, believing, from Abraham's report, that Sarah was his sister, sent and took her into his house; where Providence again interposed in her behalf. Gen. xx. 2-14.

Q. Did Abimelech expel Abraham for his misconduct?

A. No: he said to him "Behold my land is before thee dwell where it pleaseth thee. And unto Sarah he said, Behold I have given thy brother a thousand

:

preserving from corruption is evident, from its being employed by the Egyptians for embalming their mummies. She is said to have been converted into a pillar of salt, on account of the quantity of that substance which appeared in the crust, and its abundance in those regions is notorious, both from sacred and profane history: so much so, that the lake which now fills the caverns made by the earthquake, has, among other names, that of "the Salt Sea."-Introd. to Crit. Study, &c. Vol. iii.

pieces of silver: behold he is to thee a covering of the eyes, and to all that are with thee, and with all other : thus she was reproved.' "'* Gen. xx. 15, 16.

A. M. 2108.

Q. What happened in Abraham's family B. C. 1896. in his hundredth year?

A. Sarah bare a son, as the Lord had promised; and Abraham called his name Isaac. Gen. xxi. 1-3.

Q. What happened when Isaac was weaned?

A. Ishmael, then sixteen or seventeen years of age, was seen mocking, which so incensed Sarah, that she demanded the immediate dismissal of him and his mother. Gen. xxi. 9-10.

Q. What became of Ishmael?

A. He dwelt in the wilderness, and became an archer; and his mother caused him to marry an Egyp tian woman. Gen. xxi. 20, 21.

The Jews had many silly traditions about Lot's wife; and JOSEPHUS, not to be behind his countrymen, says "Lot's wife was changed into a pillar of salt; for I have seen it, and it remains at this day." ANTIQUITIES OF THE JEWS, b. i. c. xi. § 4.

* Commentators have always found this passage a difficulty. The REV. WM. CLARKE, referring to this, among many other passages where the word "pw shekel occurs, to shew that in the Saxon version, this piece of silver, being the forty-eighth part of a pound, was very properly termed a shilling, to which it exactly corresponds in weight, explains it by the lxx, whence the passage is thus translated :-" Behold I have given thy brother a thousand didrachms (or shillings); take them as an acknowledgment of the regard I had for thy person, and for all those that are with thee; but in all things speak the truth." See Connexion of Roman, Saxon, and English coins, chap. iii.