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| Of the Meaning of the Sacrifice Abraham Was Commanded to Offer When He Supplicated to Be Taught About Those Things He Had Believed.
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Chapter 24.—Of the Meaning of the
Sacrifice Abraham Was Commanded to Offer When He Supplicated to Be
Taught About Those Things He Had Believed.
In the same vision, God in speaking
to him also says, “I am God that brought thee out
of the
region of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it.”910
And when
Abram asked whereby he might know that he should inherit it, God
said to him, “Take me an heifer of three years old, and a
she-goat of three years old, and a ram of three years old, and a
turtle-dove, and a pigeon. And he took unto him all these, and
divided them in the midst, and laid each piece one against another;
but the birds divided he not. And the fowls came down,” as it
is written, “on the carcasses, and Abram sat down by them. But
about the going down of the sun, great fear fell upon Abram; and,
lo, an horror of great darkness fell upon him. And He said unto
Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land
not theirs, and they shall reduce them to servitude and shall
afflict them four hundred years: but the nation whom they shall
serve will I judge; and afterward shall they come out hither with
great substance. And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace; kept
in a good old age. But in the fourth generation they shall come
hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.
And when the sun was setting, there was a flame, and a smoking
furnace, and lamps of fire, that passed through between those
pieces. In that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying,
Unto thy seed will I give this land, from the river of Egypt unto
the great 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 Hivites,
and the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.”911
All these things were said and done
in a vision from God; but it would take long, and would exceed the
scope of this work, to treat of them exactly in detail. It is
enough that we should know that, after it was said Abram believed
in God, and it was counted to him for righteousness, he did not
fail in faith in saying, “Lord God, whereby shall I know that I
shall inherit it?” for the inheritance of that land was promised
to him. Now he does not say, How shall I know, as if he did not
yet believe; but he says, “Whereby shall I know,” meaning that
some sign might be given by which he might know the manner of those
things which he had believed, just as it is not for lack of faith
the Virgin Mary says, “How shall this be, seeing I know not a
man?”912
for she
inquired as to the way in which that should take place which she
was certain would come to pass. And when she asked this, she was
told, “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the
Highest shall overshadow thee.”913
Here also, in fine, a symbol was
given, consisting of three animals, a heifer, a she-goat, and a
ram, and two birds, a turtle-dove and pigeon, that he might know
that the things which he had not doubted should come to pass were
to happen in accordance with this symbol. Whether, therefore, the
heifer was a sign that the people should be put under the law, the
she-goat that the same people was to become sinful, the ram that
they should reign (and these animals are said to be of three years
old for this reason, that there are three remarkable divisions of
time, from Adam to Noah, and from him to Abraham, and from him to
David, who, on the rejection of Saul, was first established by the
will of the Lord in the kingdom of the Israelite nation: in this
third division, which extends from Abraham to David, that people
grew up as if passing through the third age of life), or whether
they had some other more suitable meaning, still I have no doubt
whatever that spiritual things were prefigured by them as well as
by the turtle-dove and pigeon. And it is said, “But the birds
divided he not,” because carnal men are divided among themselves,
but the spiritual not at all, whether they seclude themselves from
the busy conversation of men, like the turtle-dove, or dwell among
them, like the pigeon; for both birds are simple and harmless,
signifying that even in the Israelite people, to which that land
was to be given, there would be individuals who were children of
the promise, and heirs of the kingdom that is914
| 914 Various reading, “who are to
remain.” | to remain in eternal felicity.
But the fowls coming down on the divided carcasses represent
nothing good, but the spirits of this air, seeking some food for
themselves in the division of carnal men. But that Abraham sat
down with them, signifies that even amid these divisions of the
carnal, true believers shall persevere to the end. And that about
the going down of the sun great fear fell upon Abraham and a horror
of great darkness, signifies that about the end of this world
believers shall be in great perturbation and tribulation, of which
the Lord said in the gospel, “For then shall be great
tribulation, such as was not from the beginning.”915
But what is said to Abraham,
“Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land not
theirs, and they shall reduce them to servitude, and shall afflict
them 400 years,” is most clearly a prophecy about the
people
of Israel which was to be in servitude in Egypt. Not
that this people was to be in that servitude under the oppressive
Egyptians for 400 years, but it is foretold that this should take
place in the course of those 400 years. For as it is written of
Terah the father of Abraham, “And the days of Terah in Haran were
205 years,”916
not because
they were all spent there, but because they were completed there,
so it is said here also, “And they shall reduce them to
servitude, and shall afflict them 400 years,” for this reason,
because that number was completed, not because it was all spent in
that affliction. The years are said to be 400 in round numbers,
although they were a little more,—whether you reckon from this
time, when these things were promised to Abraham, or from the birth
of Isaac, as the seed of Abraham, of which these things are
predicted. For, as we have already said above, from the
seventy-fifth year of Abraham, when the first promise was made to
him, down to the exodus of Israel from Egypt, there are reckoned
430 years, which the apostle thus mentions: “And this I say,
that the covenant confirmed by God, the law, which was made 430
years after, cannot disannul, that it should make the promise of
none effect.”917
So then
these 430 years might be called 400, because they are not much
more, especially since part even of that number had already gone by
when these things were shown and said to Abraham in vision, or when
Isaac was born in his father’s 100th year, twenty-five years
after the first promise, when of these 430 years there now remained
405, which God was pleased to call 400. No one will doubt that
the other things which follow in the prophetic words of God pertain
to the people of Israel.
When it is added, “And when the
sun was now setting there was a flame, and lo, a smoking furnace,
and lamps of fire, which passed through between those pieces,”
this signifies that at the end of the world the carnal shall be
judged by fire. For just as the affliction of the city of God,
such as never was before, which is expected to take place under
Antichrist, was signified by Abraham’s horror of great darkness
about the going down of the sun, that is, when the end of the world
draws nigh,—so at the going down of the sun, that is, at the very
end of the world, there is signified by that fire the day of
judgment, which separates the carnal who are to be saved by fire
from those who are to be condemned in the fire. And then the
covenant made with Abraham particularly sets forth the land of
Canaan, and names eleven tribes in it from the river of Egypt even
to the great river Euphrates. It is not then from the great river
of Egypt, that is, the Nile, but from a small one which separates
Egypt from Palestine, where the city of Rhinocorura is. E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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