The token of this covenant is to be the rainbow – v. 13. The Geneva translation has it, 'I have set my bow;' the authorised version, 'I do set my bow;' the Douay,'I will set my bow. Of this latter, Voltaire remarks – 'Observe, that the author does not say, I have put my bow in the clouds; he says, I will put; this clearly implies it to have been the prevailing opinion that there had not always been a rainbow. This phenomenon is necessarily produced by rain; yet, in this place, it is represented as something supernatural, exhibited in order to announce and prove that the earth should no more be inundated. It is singular to choose the certain sign of rain, in order to assure men against their being drowned.'
It is quite evident by the context, whichever translation be right, that the meaning intended to be conveyed is, that the rainbow is to be the sign to remind God and the people and beasts of his covenant with them. This covenant, like many treaties made with high powers, is open to misconstruction. God only covenants not again to destroy all flesh by a flood, but it is quite within the terms of his covenant to overflow a few rivers, and sweep flocks, herds, villages, and villagers off a large tract of country; this is occasionally done, and the rainbow cheers the survivors with the thought that, as everybody is not to be drowned at once, they are safe till another time.
Verse 16. It is implied that, but for the rainbow, God might forget his covenant; surely this cannot be a revelation from an unchangeable God, who could never forget.
Verse 21. Noah, if he was a just and perfect man before the flood, seems to have soon degenerated, although he had just had cognizance of so fearful an example of God's vengeance. 'His tent.' The word [ – ] does not mean his tent; the final [ – ] is a feminine termination, and the word should be translated 'her tent;' but to save revelation from seeming ridiculous, the translators have taken a slight liberty with the text.
Verse 25. It is hard to understand why Canaan should be cursed because his father, Ham, accidentally walked into a tent and saw Noah naked. If Ham even deserved a curse, it is no reason for cursing his son, who was no party to his father's offence.
Chapter x. There are scarcely any of the names contained in this or the preceding or following chapter, until we come to Abraham, which are now used amongst the Jews. Paine says, 'If they (the Jews) affix the same idea of reality to those names as they do to those that follow after, the names of Adam, Abel, Seth, etc., would be as common among the Jews of the present day, as are those of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and Aaron.
'In the superstition they have been in, scarcely a Jew family would be without an Enoch, as a presage of his going to heaven as ambassador for the whole family. Every mother who wished that the days of her son might be long in the land, would call him Methuselah; and all the Jews that might have to traverse the ocean would be named Noah, as a charm against shipwreck and drowning.'
Chapter xi., v. 1. If the whole earth was of one tongue, what do verses 5, 20, and 31 of the preceding chapter mean?
Voltaire says, 'People have wished to know how the children of Noah, after having divided among themselves the islands of the nations, and established themselves in divers lands, with each one his particular language, family, and people, should all find themselves in the plain of Shinaar to build there a tower, saying, "Let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth."
'The book of Genesis speaks of the states which the sons of Noah founded. It has related how the people of Europe, Africa, and Asia all came to Shinaar, speaking one language only, and purposing the same thing.
'The Vulgate places the deluge in the year of the world 1656, and the construction of the Tower of Babel, 1771; that is to say, one hundred and fifteen years after the destruction of mankind, and even during the life of Noah.
'Men then must have multiplied with prodigious celerity; all the arts revived in a very little time. When we reflect on the great number of trades which must have been employed to raise a tower so high, we are amazed at so stupendous a work.
'It is a pity that there remains not on the earth, among the profane authors, one vestige of the famous Tower of Babel; nothing of this story of the confusion of tongues is found in any book. This memorable adventure was as unknown to the whole universe, as the names of Noah, Methusalem, Cain, and Adam and Eve.'
It seems scarcely probable that a multitude of people, forming so many nations, could be got together in one plain; and if they were, why should they fear being scattered?
Verse 5. 'The Lord came down.' This idea pervades the book – that is, that God resides in heaven, above the earth, and that he leaves heaven occasionally and comes down to earth, and after having finished his business, goes up again to heaven. The writer appears to have had no conception that God could see from heaven to earth, but makes God come down to ascertain whether the tale which had reached him in heaven be true. Unfortunately, even after ignoring the attribute of omnipresence in relation to God, the idea is not a correct one. That which is above me when I look up and pray is not above the New Zealander, if he looks up and prays at the same instant. The powers above to him would be the powers below to me. The verse implies that God could not see the tower until he came down.
Verses 6 and 7. Who did God speak to? 'Let us go down;' who are 'us?' Did the Almighty actually fear lest his creatures should build a tower so high that they might scramble into heaven without his assistance? The whole of this account is absurd in the extreme. Dr. John Pye Smith says that 'the confusion of language was probably only to a certain point, not destroying cognation.' I do not the better understand the story with the aid of this comment. The only thing proved by the elaborate commentaries of many divines is, that they gave God the credit of inspiring an inexplicable revelation, and that, instead of endeavouring to make it explicable, they burden the margin of the book with suppositions which only increase the difficulties of the text. Verse 26. 'And Terah lived seventy years, and begat Abram.'
Verse 32. 'And the days of Terah were two hundred and five years, and Terah died in Haran.'
Chapter xii., v. 1. And the Lord said to Abram, 'Get thee out,' etc. So that Abram must have been one hundred and thirty-five years old when he left Haran; but, according to verse 4 it appears that Abram was only seventy-five years of age. This has been regarded as an inexplicable difficulty by St. Jerome and St. Augustine; and I, who am not a saint, must confess with Voltaire that I cannot understand how a man can be seventy-five and one hundred and thirty-five years of age at the same time.
Chapter xii., v. 1, 2, 3, and 7; chap, xiii., v. 14, 15, 16, and 17; chap, xv., v. 5, 6, 7, and 18; chap, xvii., v. 7 and 8; chap, xviii., v. 18; chap, xxii., v. 17 and 18; chap, xxvi., v. 3 and 4.; chap, xxviii., v. 14.
These verses contain the solemn promise, the more solemn covenant, and the most solemn oath of God; this promise, covenant, and oath all being to one effect – namely, that Abraham's children should be as numerous as the dust of the earth, or the stars of heaven, and that this numerous progeny should possess certain specified land for ever. There is a difficulty in comprehending why God, who is no respector of persons, should have selected Abraham and his descendants for such great reward; but waiving this, we find several questions requiring answer. Who are Abraham's descendants? Not the Jews; their number is very limited. Where are Abraham's descendants? Not in the promised land, most certainly.
If Abraham's descendants are the Jews, then I say that they have never been as numerous as God promised, covenanted, and swore they should be. I say that they have not held the promised land for ever. It may be that this promise is yet to be fulfilled; it is quite certain that it is unfulfilled up to the present time.
Chapter xii., v. 11 to 20. The account of the chosen of God having recourse to a lie to pass off his wife for his sister, deserves notice. When this happens twice (chap. 20), it excites suspicion; and when it occurs a third time in the same country to the son of Abraham, it creates doubt as to the truth of the whole. Voltaire writes thus of Abraham: —
'The Scripture says that the God of the Jews, who intended to give them the land of Canaan, commanded Abraham to leave the fertile country of Chaldea, and go towards Palestine, promising that in his seed all the nations of the earth should be