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ECONOMICS OF
INFORMATION SECURITY
 Advances in Information Security

Sushil Jajodia
Consulting Editor, Center for Secure Information Systems
George Mason University, Fairfax, VA 22030-4444
email: [email protected]
The goals of Kluwer International Series on ADVANCES IN INFORMATION SECURITY
are one, to establish the state of the art of, and set the course for, future research in
information security and two, to serve as a central reference source for advanced and timely
topics in information security research and development. The scope of this series includes all
aspects of computer and network security and related areas such as fault tolerance and
software assurance.
ADVANCES IN INFORMATION SECURITY aims to publish thorough and
cohesive overviews of specific topics in information security, as well as works that
are larger in scope or that contain more detailed background information than can
be accommodated in shorter survey articles. The series also serves as a forum for
topics that may not have reached a level of maturity to warrant a comprehensive
textbook treatment. Researchers as well as developers are encouraged to contact
Professor Sushil Jajodia with ideas for books under this series.

Additional titles in the series:

PRIMALITY TESTING AND INTEGER FACTORIZATION IN PUBLIC KEY
CRYPTOGRAPHY by Song Y. Yan; ISBN: 1-4020-7649-5
SYNCHRONIZING E-SECURITY by Godfried B. Williams; ISBN: 1-4020-7646-0
INTRUSION DETECTION IN DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS:
An Abstraction-Based Approach by Peng Ning, Sushil Jajodia and X. Sean Wang
ISBN: 1-4020-7624-X
DISSEMINATING SECURITY UPDATES AT INTERNET SCALE by Jun Li, Peter
Reiher, Gerald J. Popek; ISBN: 1-4020-7305-4
SECURE ELECTRONIC VOTING by Dimitris A. Gritzalis; ISBN: 1-4020-7301-1
APPLICATIONS OF DATA MINING IN COMPUTER SECURITY, edited by Daniel
Barbará, Sushil Jajodia; ISBN: 1-4020-7054-3
MOBILE COMPUTATION WITH FUNCTIONS by Zeliha Dilsun ISBN:
1-4020-7024-1
TRUSTED RECOVERY AND DEFENSIVE INFORMATION WARFARE by Peng Liu
and Sushil Jajodia, ISBN: 0-7923-7572-6
RECENT ADVANCES IN RSA CRYPTOGRAPHY by Stefan Katzenbeisser, ISBN: 0-
7923-7438-X
E-COMMERCE SECURITY AND PRIVACY by Anup K. Ghosh, ISBN: 0-7923-7399-5
INFORMATION HIDING: Steganography and Watermarking-Attacks and
Countermeasures by Neil F. Johnson, Zoran Duric, and Sushil Jajodia, ISBN: 0-7923-7204-2

Additional information about this series can be obtained from

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ECONOMICS OF
INFORMATION SECURITY

edited by

L. Jean Camp
Harvard University, U.S.A.

Stephen Lewis
University of Cambridge, UK

KLUWER ACADEMIC PUBLISHERS

NEW YORK, BOSTON, DORDRECHT, LONDON, MOSCOW
eBook ISBN: 1-4020-8090-5
Print ISBN: 1-4020-8089-1

©2004 Springer Science + Business Media, Inc.

Print ©2004 Kluwer Academic Publishers

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Contents

Preface vii
Acknowledgments xv
1
System Reliability and Free Riding 1
Hal Varian
2
Pricing Security 17
L Jean Camp and Catherine Wolfram
3
Cryptography and Competition Policy 35
Ross Anderson
4
How much is stronger DRM worth? 53
Stephen Lewis
5
Trusted Computing, Peer-To-Peer Distribution 59
Stuart E. Schechter, Rachel A. Greenstadt, and Michael D. Smith
6
Economics of IT Security Management 71
Huseyin Cavusoglu
7
Evaluating Damages Caused by Information Systems Security Incidents 85
Fariborz Farahmand, Shamkant Navathe, Gunter Sharp and Philip Enslow
8
The Economic Consequences of Sharing Security Information 95
Esther Gal-Or and Anindya Ghose
9
The Economics of Information Security Investment 105
Lawrence A. Gordon and Martin P. Loeb

10
What Price Privacy? 129
Adam Shostack, Paul Syverson
vi THE ECONOMICS OF INFORMATION SECURITY
11
Why We Can’t Be Bothered to Read Privacy Policies 143
Tony Vila, Rachel Greenstadt and David Molnar
12
Improving Information Flow in the Information Security Market 155
Carl E. Landwehr
13
Privacy Attitudes and Privacy Behavior 165
Alessandro Acquisti and Jens Grossklags
14
Privacy and Security of Personal Information 179
Alessandro Acquisti
15
Privacy, Economics, and Price Discrimination on the Internet 187
Andrew Odlyzko
16
We Want Security but We Hate It 213
Mauro Sandrini and Ferdinando Cerbone
17
Security and Lock-In 225
Tom Lookabaugh and Douglas C. Sicker
18
How and Why More Secure Technologies Succeed in Legacy Markets 247
Nicholas Rosasco and David Larochelle
19
Cognitive Hacking 255
Paul Thompson, George Cybenko and Annarita Giani
20
Evaluating Security Systems 289
Bruce Schneier

Index 295
Preface

The security market has failed.

On Tuesday, October 8, 2003 Aaron Caffrey, age nineteen, began his
trial. The charge: subverting the operation of the Port of Houston.
His prosecution had been a model of international interaction, with the
British and American authorities cooperating at every step. Mr. Caffery
was to be tried in the United Kingdom.
The Port of Houston took all normal security practices. The Port
had developed web-based services for assisting shipping pilots as they
moor, in coordinating loading and unloading companies, and in harbor
navigation. In a denial of service attack Aaron brought the port to a halt
on September 20, 2001. (A denial of service attack consists of repeated
initiations of contact, with the attacking machine pretending to be many
different machines. An analogous attack would be to repeatedly call
someone on the phone and remaining silent until the hearer hangs up,
then repeating the process constantly so no work could be completed.)
The initial stated reason for the attack? A person from Houston had
taunted Aaron about the object of his on-line affections.
Aaron Caffery walked free from that courtroom in October 2003. Se-
curity experts explained that there was no way to disprove his assertion
that his threats against Houston, his association with a hacker group,
and his talents proved nothing. The defense illustrated that there was
no way to illustrate beyond a reasonable doubt that Caffery’s machine
itself was not subverted, so that it acted upon direction other than its
owners.
A hacker who can both manipulate code and illustrate that no one is
immune to hackers, Aaron Caffrey is an autistic young man.
This is the state of the security of the American information infras-
tructure.
In July, 2003 a virus, a variant of one originally named SoBig, infected
one out of every three computers in China. The virus provides spammers
with the processing power and bandwidth of the infected computer in
their distribution of unwanted mass email. The virus caused mail server
crashes, denial of service attacks, and encouraged the spread of an unre-
lated virus masquerading as a Microsoft patch for SoBig. SoBig was the
most expensive in history – until MyDoom arrived six months later. In
viii THE ECONOMICS OF INFORMATION SECURITY

the time it takes to publish this work, another even more virulent and
expensive virus will undoubtedly appear.
This is the state of the security of the global information infrastruc-
ture.
Certainly, the web server at the Port of Houston was economically and
politically important enough to warrant sufficient investment in security.
Indeed, the Port of Houston is important enough that a single teenager
should not be able to single-handedly stop the port from functioning.
Similarly, the investment in personnel, networks, and sheer mass of
individual time would argue that a virus such as SoBig would have been
more effectively prevented than battled, or tolerated as a chronic insolv-
able problem, like malaria in the tropics.
Why have market mechanisms thus far failed to create secure net-
works?
The Internet is critical to all sectors of the economy and integrated
into government. Security technologies do exist, and capable program-
mers can implement secure code. Programming projects and operating
systems based on secure design principles populate research databases.
Yet the network at the Port of Houston was sabotaged by a creative
teenager with limited programming experience.
Why? Clearly the answer to this question must include more than
technology. There is a problem in the economics of security, and more
broadly in the economics of information control. These problems emerge
as security violations, spam, ‘private’ databases indexed by Google, and
products based on practices exposed as snake oil decades before.
Computer viruses and worms are no longer the domains of experts
only. Every business experienced infections and disruptions from in-
fected machines in the latest generation of worms. Economics combined
with a management, organization theory, and computer security together
can address the chronic problems of economic security. Yet the prob-
lems of security have not, before now, been systematically examined in
economic and management terms. This text, rather than trying to en-
courage managers and practitioners to become security experts uses the
tools of economics to bear on the problems of network security. The re-
sult is a narrative about the economic problems of information security,
a set of tools for examining appropriate investment in computer secu-
rity, all embedded in a set of rich metaphors for balancing the various
alternative for computer security.
The security market in the case of networked information systems can
be thought of in many different ways, and each view suggest a different
set of regulatory and economic responses. Yet, for all the metaphors
that may apply there is a single potential measure: dollars. Economics
offers a powerful lens for understanding the apparently wildly irrational
behavior of software providers, companies, home users and even nation
states. This text brings all the tools of economics to bear on the indi-
vidual, corporate, and national problems of computer security. Perverse
PREFACE ix

incentives, lock-in, irrational risk evaluations and bad information all

play a role in creating the chronically broken network.
The economics of information security is not a metaphor for computer
security, like war or health. Recognizing the economics of information
security allow managers to alter incentives and policy makers to better
evaluate policies that may be presented under the warfare metaphor.
A simple example of corporate incentives is that of patching vulner-
abilities. Individual departments must pay for their own IT services,
machines, and employee time. Engaging ITS to support employees and
requiring employees to patch creates immediate costs for each manager.
Charging each section for vulnerabilities will enhance company wide se-
curity, but such a solution comes from consideration of the complexities
of the security market. Assuming that security works like all other goods
has and will continue to result in the creation of perverse incentives that
cause managers to ignore the long term issue of security in favor of goals
with more pressing time frames.
While the elephant of computer security emerges piecewise, with the
ear and tail and foot, the volume as a whole offers a clear picture of
computer and information security. Such clarity could only be obtained
by painting the whole picture with the palette provide by economics.
Camp’s article discusses the concept of security vulnerabilities as an
externality, and the direct implication of such externalities for market
construction. Of course the use of economics proposes that security must
be some kind of tradable or measurable good. Perhaps security is that
canonical economic failure – a public good. In this case one person’s
security investment is another’s gain, therefore no one makes the ade-
quate investment. Or perhaps it is not the value to others but the simple
lack of return that means that there is little investment. If security is
an externality it can still be subject to measurement. Understanding
security as an externality may inform the security debate and, as the
chapter concludes, offer some insight in how to manage it in a corporate
environment.
Yet perhaps vulnerabilities and externalities is too narrow a descrip-
tion of security. What kind of good exactly is being measured? Hal
Varian offers three scenarios.
First, security can be defined by the lowest investment, just as the
height of a protective wall is defined by its lowest or weakest point. Even
barbarians knew this, as they aimed for the gate and not the towers.
Second, the level of security can be determined by the greatest invest-
ment, as when the town is protected by concentric walls. The highest
wall provides the greatest protection (or rather, the combination of the
strongest gate and highest wall).
Alternatively, the security level can be determined by the average
investment. In this case consider the community involved in the con-
struction of the wall – the wall is as high as the combined effort of all
participants. Individual effort can raise the average somewhat, but not
x THE ECONOMICS OF INFORMATION SECURITY

significantly raise the wall. Consumer behavior reflects the assertion that
security and privacy claims are not trustworthy. Few consumers exhibit
the understanding of “trusted” computing as trustworthy. Indeed, secu-
rity is more complex than most goods in that its primary function will
be subverted by its users. Passwords written on post-it notes, shared
passwords, violations of security policy, and sharing of security informa-
tion are all common. Why is security both so desirable and so frequently
subverted?
Control and verification of information are the critical goal of security
and privacy. Yet control of information on an individual machine may
be of interest to more then the user. In the most common examples, a
remote party with commercial interests will want to constrain the use of
information; however, even more common is the desire of en employer
to control information use on the employee’s machine. One economics
of security is needed to analyze remote control of information, whereas
distinct economic concepts are required to discuss the protection of a set
of machines with a define periphery.
Digital rights management systems are designed by producers with
complex commercial interests; these interests are often in conflict with
the interests of the user. As a result, the most consistent and highest
investment in security has been in the interest of manufacturers, not
consumers. Trusted computing has been primarily used to implement
bundling. Cell phone companies tie the battery to the phone; auto-
mobile companies tie maintenance to the dealership. What would be
theoretically prevented in the contract can be prohibited by the code.
Ross Anderson has illustrated this dichotomy in a series of case studies
of security as applied in modern technologies. The nature of security as
a good is complicated by the fact that it is inherently a bundled good.
You cannot purchase security in the abstract. There must be a threat to
be considered and the security investment (average, lowest or highest)
must be commensurate with and targeted to that threat. In all of these
the threat as perceived by the user is the threat of external control;
while the threat as perceived by the producer is that of a consumer out
of control.
Having acknowledged that producer security is at odds with consumer
Desires, it is feasible to examine investment from the perspective of the
producer or the consumer. Beginning with the producer, Stephen Lewis
asks if producers have accurately and correctly invested in digital rights
management technology. Indeed, as shown in the next chapter by Stuart
Schechter, investments in encryption against P2P networks are in fact
changing the balance. But the balance is being changed in favor of
the file traders and against the interests of those who would license
the content. Beginning with the argument about the current uses of
security technology, observing the incentives in peer to peer systems,
the final chapter in this section argues that trusted computing may end
up supporting the user and subverting the investors.
PREFACE xi

Indeed if reliable security information is so difficult to find, the in-

centives so hard to evaluate, and the results so unreliable, why should
anyone share it? What are the economic consequences of sharing infor-
mation? Esther Gal-or and Anindya Ghose examine the generic question
of sharing security information, to find that it is in fact anything but
generic. The size of the firm, the nature of the market in which the firm
is competing, and even the functional requirements for anti-trust policy.
Information sharing among firms and across industries varies widely, and
this chapter explains why.
Hussein offers a broad look of the quantitative examinations of com-
puter security economics. The findings are remarkably consistent for a
young branch of the dismal science. There are a few discordant findings,
illustrating that there is no single unified theory of information security
but that a range of possibilities suggests reasons for underinvestment.
If security and confidentiality are primarily targeted at preventing
firm loss, then what are the limits to security? If security is primarily a
conceptual issue, then attacks on reputation as well as integrity are a se-
curity issue. Considering the vast investment in brands, are investments
in security rational?
Sharing information may lead to more investment and thus a decrease
in losses to security breaches. Beyond direct loss, what is the loss in value
of the firm when there are security breaches? Larry Gordon and Marty
Loeb illustrate that security breaches by and large have little effect on
stock market evaluation of a firm. Yet when confidentiality is lost, then
there is a high price to pay. The implicit argument is that the market
responds very strongly to losses of privacy and less strongly to losses
of security. The security market cannot be extricated from the privacy
market, without serious misunderstandings of both.
In rejecting techniques that require effort, users are rejecting invest-
ment in the very confidentiality that the market so values. Aquisti argues
that is because users share the characteristic so often identified in the
stock market itself: extremely high long term discounting. Users value
the current convenience offered by privacy violations at current value,
and implement extraordinary discounts for the later potential harm.
This observation is validated from an entirely different perspective by
Paul Syverson in his examination of the security market. Discounts and
probabilities are not well understood when consumers offer information
that could be used against them. However that immediate discount is
extremely well understood.
Shostack makes a counter observation that it is perhaps not the dis-
counts and risk calculations that make users so casual about protecting
their own information. Perhaps users simply have no understanding of
the threat. Just as some miners refused to take the accumulation of gas
seriously as a threat, and no one understood why workers on the Brook-
lyn Bridge were dying of the bends, individuals today do not understand
the value of privacy. To make an analogy, why would someone buy cur-
xii THE ECONOMICS OF INFORMATION SECURITY

tains and then offer details of their home over the Internet? The value
of security for the end user is even more difficult to understand than the
value of privacy for the consumer. The overall evaluation of the security
market when seen from the privacy perspective is not optimistic.
Landwehr argues explicitly that the information flows in the security
market are broken. Not only do consumers not understand the issues
of privacy and security risks, but even vendors themselves do not un-
derstand security. Bill Gates’ vaulted commitment to security includes
training in security for 7,000 developers, yet there has not been a month
without the release of a security patch for Microsoft. Even the con-
siderable financial and technical resources of Microsoft cannot result in
coherent application of security research implemented decades ago in a
complex computing environment characterized by unpredictable inter-
actions.
If security and privacy policies are “lemons markets”, then simple
claims of investment in security are far cheaper and easier than actually
securing a site. If the claims are security are adequate to insure customer
trust (and possibly cause malevolent profit-oriented actors to target oth-
ers) then there is no reason for investment in security or privacy. Like
false claims about a reliable used cars, false claims of secure software
and false claims of privacy policy have no costs. Ironically, the lemons
argument suggest that the core security failure in the information infras-
tructure is one of trustworthy information. Vila and Greenstadt argue
clearly for this counter-intuitive possibility.
Integrating personal actions in security and privacy is a significant
contribution of the next chapter. SoBig, MyDoom, and many other vi-
ral variants depend on a large population of unsecured user machines to
flourish. Users express great concern for security, and privacy concerns
have been monotonically increasing. Given this concern, how can ob-
served user behaviors that illustrate that users share information readily
and avoid installing security patches be explained?
Acquisiti uses the issue of on-line and off-line identities to illustrate
how economics can shed light on the apparent irrationalities of both
individuals and the market, regarding the confidentiality of information.
Odlyzko explains that users are correct in rejecting security designed
for them by merchants and providers because the greatest value for mer-
chants in controlling information is to implement price discrimination.
Offering information to a merchant who can then charge you more is
not in the interest of a consumer, even if the issues of control were not
relevant. Security systems that violate privacy are directly opposed to
the interest of the user when price discrimination is more likely than per-
sonal security loss. In economic terms, users are balancing risks when
selecting privacy.
A more detailed discussion of users who reject security is provided in
the aptly-titled, “We Want Security But We Hate It: The Foundations
of Security Techo-Economics in the Social World”. The undercurrents
PREFACE xiii

of user resistance to security include economics, as well as being a social

and psychological phenomena. Beyond losing money through price dis-
crimination, users seek to maintain control and confidentiality. When
much security is implemented in order to best reflect vendor needs (as
when security is provided as part of digital rights management) users
seek to avoid the “features” offered in mainstream security solutions.
Perhaps users are motivated but misinformed. Certainly, corporate
organizations are not discouraged from investing in security because of
concerns of control of the desktop - this would be a feature and not a bug.
Perhaps the critical problem in the information age is the information
flow. Information is calculated and generated. Standards are made.
Committees meet. Yet for all the research and effort, homes users do
not see themselves at risk. Corporations do not develop appropriate
responses.
In fact, manipulation of information and users remains a threat that
cannot be addressed through technology alone. Can economics hope to
address the problems of manipulation of authorized individuals and naive
home users? Economics and markets themselves can be manipulated
with the same tools of misinformation. “Cognitive Hacking” can apply
to economic systems and information systems.
Yet within the generally bleak picture of information failure, market
failure and suspicion there are cases of remarkable success. We end with
two of these: secure sockets layer and the cable industry.
Having used economics to extract the distinctions between security
and privacy as information control mechanisms in the market, the book
closes with some specific examples of security in markets.
The story of the secure sockets layer and secure telnet illustrate that
a chronic low level of security need not be an external state of affairs, no
matter how long term or ubiquitous the state of affairs. The cable in-
dustry illustrates that lock-in need not lock out security, if the incentives
are properly aligned. The following examination of the secure shell and
the secure sockets layer illustrates that forward movement is possible
even in a distributed, chaotic market. However, even the success stories
of Larochelle and Rosasco illustrate that history offers as much caution
as promise, as each tale offers specific conditions and constraints that
enable security diffusion.
Economics offers a powerful lens for the examination of security. This
text aims to promote a more sophisticated vision of security in an ef-
fort to assist designers in making systems that respect the alignment of
incentives, managers in aligning their investments with the most criti-
cal security problems, and policy makers in understanding the nature of
the chronic, core problem of modern computer security. Bruce Schneier
explains better than any how apparently technical failures are in fact
economic failures, and his explanation provides the final thoughts in
this text.
xiv THE ECONOMICS OF INFORMATION SECURITY

Incentives in the security market are badly aligned, and the technology
is not understood. Ironically in the information age, trustworthy infor-
mation is increasingly difficult to locate. To paraphrase Mark Twain: A
virus can be half way around the world while a patch is still putting its
boots on.

L JEAN CAMP
 Another Random Document on
Scribd Without Any Related Topics
earth remained, seed-time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and
winter and day and night should not cease. Again too the blessing of
Paradise was bestowed, sovereignty and dominion over the animal
creation were assured, and once more men were bidden to be
fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth. At the same time
animal food was expressly allowed, while the sanctity of human life
was as solemnly enforced, whoso shed man’s blood, by man should
his blood be shed. Of this covenant the Rainbow was the visible
pledge, assuring man that he might enter afresh on his course of
probation, nor dread its interruption by any catastrophe like that
with which the earth had been so lately visited (Gen. ix. 8–17).

The elevation of the Armenian plateau, in the neighbourhood of

which the Ark had rested, being equidistant between the Black and
Caspian Seas on the north, the Persian Gulf and Mediterranean Sea
on the south, being also the region in which all the great rivers of
Western Asia, the Tigris, the Euphrates, the Araxes, and the Halys
take their rise, formed a natural and convenient centre whence the
descendants of Noah might overspread the whole earth. But on this
migration they did not set out, before an unseemly incident revealed
the natural character of his sons, prophetic of their future destinies.
Noah began to practise agriculture, and planted a vineyard, and
through ignorance, as it has been supposed, of its properties, drank
of the wine in excess, and lay exposed in his tent. Ham, his
youngest son, mocked him while he lay in this condition, but Shem
and Japheth, with more filial feeling, averting their eyes covered
their father with a garment. Awaking from his slumbers Noah
became conscious of what his youngest son had done, and justly
angry at the irreverence he had displayed, brake forth into prophetic
utterances of blessing and cursing, foreshadowing the diverse
destinies of the descendants of his family. Upon Canaan, the fourth
son of Ham, and probably a partaker in his father’s transgression, he
pronounced the doom of perpetual servitude to his brethren 10. Shem
he declared to be the chosen one of Jehovah, from whom the
promised Salvation should proceed, while Japheth, multiplied and
enlarged should dwell in his tents 11, and be received as a partaker in
his spiritual privileges.

With their future destinies thus foretold, the sons of Noah went
forth, and took up their abode for some time on the rich alluvial
plain of Shinar between the Tigris and Euphrates. Here their
descendants began to form a great fraternal community, which it
was the more easy to do, seeing that they all proceeded from the
same parental home, and had all one language. But here, in
defiance of the Divine command, which bade them disperse
themselves abroad and replenish the whole earth, they resolved to
make a City and a huge Tower whose top might reach unto heaven,
to serve as a central point of union, and a great World-Metropolis.
But their design was counteracted. The Almighty interposed, and by
confounding their language, so that they could not understand one
another’s speech, rent the closest bond of human society. Unable to
continue the erection of their City and Tower, which was henceforth
called Babel or Confusion, they were scattered abroad over the face
of the earth, and thus constrained to fulfil the eternal designs of
Him, who has determined the times before appointed, and the
bounds of the habitations of the sons of men (Acts xvii. 26) 12.

Before, however, it leaves them to pursue their own ways, the

Sacred Narrative presents to us a Genealogical Table, in which the
names of the several nations descended from Noah, and their
geographical distribution, have been preserved. With this Table
antiquity has handed down nothing that can be compared for
accuracy or comprehensiveness. “It exposes the fallacies of the
mythical genealogies of pagans, contradicts their fables respecting
gods, heroes, and periods of millions of years, and also affords a
firm foundation for investigations concerning the origin and the
traditions of nations.” From this Table, then, it appears that

(i) The descendants of Japheth (enlargement) after leaving the

original cradle of the human race, occupied chiefly the isles of the
Gentiles, or the coast-lands of the Mediterranean Sea in Asia Minor
and Europe, and thence spread chiefly in a northerly direction over
the entire European Continent, and a great portion of Asia. Thus
Gomer was the ancestor of the Cymmerians or Cimbri, Magog of the
Scythians, Madai of the Medes, Javan of the Ionians and Greek race,
Tubal and Mesech of the Tibareni and Moschi, two Colchian tribes,
and Tiras of the Thracians.

(ii) The descendants of Ham (“heat”) proceeded in a southerly

direction, and occupied the whole of Africa, and the Southern
peninsulas of Asia, India, and Arabia. Of his four sons Cush extended
his settlements from Babylonia to Ethiopia, Mizraim colonized Egypt,
Phut Libya, and Canaan the land called by his name.

(iii) The descendants of Shem established themselves in Central

Asia, and thence extended in an easterly and westerly direction,
Aram colonising the country afterwards known as Syria, Lud Lydia,
Arphaxad Chaldæa, Asshur part of Assyria, Elam Persia, Joktan a
portion of the Arabian peninsula (Gen. x. 1–26).

Thus He, who hath made of one blood all nations of men for to
dwell on all the face of the earth (Acts xvii. 26), directed the
repeopling of the world by the descendants of Noah. Like prodigal
sons they were to go into far countries, and learn by bitter
experience that neither human strength nor human wisdom can
work out the righteousness of God, or win back for man his lost
inheritance. But the preservation of their names in this Table of
Nations is a proof that no one of them was forgotten by a God of
Love; that though they might forget Him He yet guided their
destinies, and overruled their counsels only to the accomplishment
of His gracious purposes of Redemption. The Day of Pentecost in the
New Testament corresponds to the Confusion of Tongues in the Old.
Then, not till then, did men hear, each in their tongue wherein they
were born, the Glad Tidings of One, very God and very Man, in
whom there is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither bond nor free,
neither male nor female (Gal. iii. 28).
 THE DISPERSION OF NOAH’S DESCENDANTS

CHAPTER V.

RISE OF IDOLATRY—THE PATRIARCH

JOB.
Gen. x. 6–12. Job.

S
ACRED History does not record many facts connected with the
immediate descendants of Noah. The scene of the Confusion
of Tongues continued to attract around it a large number of
the early inhabitants of the world, and here was established one of
the earliest of the great empires of the earth by Nimrod, a son of
Cush, and grandson of Ham. Of great powers and gigantic stature,
he first obtained wide-spread renown by his exploits as a mighty
hunter, and the services he rendered the surrounding populations by
ridding them of the terror of noxious and terrible animals. In process
of time, however, he combined with his exploits as a hunter the
conquest of men, and founded a great empire on the plains of
Shinar, the chief towns of which were Babel, Erech (Edessa), Accad
(Nisibis), and Calneh (Ctesiphon). Thence (for such seems to be the
meaning of Gen. x. 11) he extended his dominions along the course
of the Tigris into Assyria, amongst the descendants of Shem, where
he founded a second group of cities, Nineveh, Rehoboth, Calah, and
Resen. At a period when men’s lives were prolonged so far beyond
the period now allotted them, it is probable that this great conqueror
may have carried on his successful invasions for nearly 200 years,
and after death was worshipped under the title of Belus, or Bel, the
Lord. Certainly the vast ruins that overspread the site of the ancient
Babylonian empire seem to tell of the days when there were great
heroes in the earth; and to Nimrod the modern Arabs ascribe all the
great works of ancient times, the Birs-Nimrûd, near Babylon, Tel
Nimrûd, near Baghdad, and the Mount of Nimrûd, near Mosul 13.

Whether the practice of idolatrous worship was introduced, as

some have supposed, by this great hero of the ancient world, or not,
certain it is that mankind became more and more addicted to
idolatry. Though the knowledge of the one true God, and the
promise of salvation, had been handed down by tradition, and
though His invisible attributes, even His eternal power and Godhead,
were clearly to be discerned in the works of creation (Rom. i.
19, 20), yet mankind glorified Him not as God, neither were they
thankful. They began to worship and serve the creature rather than
the Creator. The sun, moon, and stars, the principle of fire, even the
inferior animals and departed heroes, came to be regarded with
veneration, and usurped the worship due only to the Supreme. With
idolatry came its usual consequences, a deep moral degeneracy,
cruelty, tyranny, and licentiousness.

One of the earliest allusions to the worship of the heavenly

bodies occurs in the Book of Job (xxxi. 26–28). The age and writer
of this book are alike unknown; by some it is ascribed to Job himself,
by others to Moses, by others to some writer who lived at a still later
period. As, however, the scenes therein described had with great
probability been referred to a period very little removed from that at
which we have now arrived, it may be well to speak of them here.
Job was an eminent Eastern chief, dwelling in very early times in the
land of Uz (Job i. 1), probably Arabia Deserta, or, as some suppose,
Mesopotamia. Greatest among “the sons of the East,” endowed with
all the riches of his age, he ruled piously and wisely over a happy
and numerous household, having seven sons and three daughters.
To considerable mental attainments he added a moral uprightness,
which preserved him blameless in all the relations of life, and was
declared by the Lord Himself to be without his like in all the earth, a
perfect and an upright man, one that feared God, and eschewed evil
(Job i. 8). With large and liberal hand he distributed to the
necessities of the poor, so that whenever the ear heard him then it
blessed him, when the eye saw him it gave witness to him; the
blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon him, and he
caused the widow’s heart to sing for joy. But in the midst of this
almost perfect temporal happiness he was suddenly overwhelmed
with the heaviest misfortunes that can befall the sons of men. He
who slandered God to Eve slandered Job before God, and affirmed
that he did not fear Him for naught; that if he were stripped of all
his possessions he would be as other men, and curse the Lord to His
face (i. 11). To put, therefore, the patriarch’s faith to the most
certain test, the Accuser of mankind received mysterious permission
to cast him down, and try him with the most grievous afflictions.
Blow after blow descended upon him. From being the lord of a
numerous and attached household he suddenly became childless, for
the storm of the desert swept over the house where his sons and
daughters were assembled, and crushed them all beneath its ruins.
From being the richest of the sons of the East he suddenly became a
beggar, for the thunderbolt, “the fire of God,” fell and struck down all
his sheep, as they were grazing quietly with their shepherds, while
his camels were carried off by a band of Chaldean robbers, and his
oxen and asses by a horde of Sabeans. And not only did he become
a childless, beggared, ruined man, but upon his own body the black
leprosy of the East set its awful mark, making him an object hateful
and loathsome to look upon. Smitten with sores from the sole of his
foot even unto his crown, he sat apart, forsaken by his friends and
even by his wife. But amidst these awful trials his faith was not
prostrated. When the terrible tidings reached him of the fate of his
household he said, in words of sublime resignation, The Lord gave,
and the Lord hath taken away, and blessed be the name of the Lord;
when his wife, utterly unable to bear up, bade him curse his Maker
and die, he replied, What? shall we receive good at the hand of God,
and shall we not receive evil? (Job i. 21, ii. 10).

Before long the news of his terrible affliction was noised abroad,
and three of his old friends, Eliphaz from Teman, Bildad from Shuah,
and Zophar of Naamath, came to mourn with him and to comfort
him. In their presence Job at length brake forth into desperate
words, and cursed the day of his birth (Job iii. 1). The storm of his
soul was not calmed by the sympathy of his friends. Instead of
pouring in the oil of comfort, they only heightened his griefs by
ascribing his calamities to some great sin, some secret guilt, if not
committed by himself at least by his children, for which he was now
punished. A distinct question was thus propounded, Is great
suffering a proof of great guilt? Job’s friends affirmed it was, and
exhorted him to repent and confess. Job denied, and at great length
laboured to refute this (Job iv. 5–xxxii). At the close of their
dialogue, Elihu, another and younger friend of the patriarch,
intervened, to moderate between the disputants. Unable to solve the
problem of Job’s calamities, he declared that afflictions, even when
not the direct consequences of sin, were intended for good, and he
reproved his friend for justifying himself rather than the Almighty,
and speaking unadvisedly of His works (Job xxxii–xxxvii). At length
the Lord Himself condescended to interpose in the controversy. From
the midst of a whirlwind, in words of incomparable grandeur and
sublimity, he silenced the murmurs of his servant, bidding him reflect
on the glory of creation, and learn from the marvels of the animal
kingdom the stupendous power and wisdom of Him with whom it is
useless for a created being to contend (Job xxxviii–xli). Thereupon,
in deep contrition, Job acknowledged his error and supplicated the
Divine pardon for the bitterness and arrogance of his complaints.
This penitent acknowledgment was accepted, and Job’s three friends
were severely reproved for their uncharitable surmises respecting
the origin of his misfortunes. On the intercession, however, of the
patriarch they were pardoned; and He who had suffered him to be
thus sorely tried, when his trials had served the purpose for which
they had been sent, once more showered down upon him the riches
of His goodness, restoring him to still greater prosperity than he had
even enjoyed before, and made him the father of seven sons and
three daughters 14, celebrated for their beauty above all the maidens
of the East. Job survived his altered fortunes upwards of 140 years,
and then, having seen his children to the fourth generation, died in a
good old age, an instructive example of integrity (Ezek. xiv. 14, 20),
and of patience under the most trying calamities (Jas. v. 11).
 BOOK II.

THE PATRIARCHAL AGE.

 CHAPTER I.

THE CALL OF ABRAHAM.

Gen. xi. B.C. 1921.

T
HERE will always, perhaps, be a doubt as to the exact period
after the Flood when Job lived, but there can be no doubt
that neither his constancy nor his faithfulness to the one true
God, were the characteristics of the age succeeding the Flood.
Within ten generations after that event mankind had again become
forgetful of their Maker, and corrupted their way, threatening a fresh
outbreak of violence and irreligion. Now, however, it was not the
purpose of the Almighty to visit the earth with any universal
judgment. In the counsels of Redemption it was His will to select a
man, and through him, a nation, to be His witness upon earth, to
withdraw this nation from contact with the surrounding world, to
place it under a special and peculiar constitution, to entrust to it the
guardianship of ancient truths and of future hopes, and out of it to
bring, in the fulness of time (Gal. iv. 4), the promised Saviour of the
human race.

At this point, then, Sacred History becomes more full, and its
stream hitherto slender widens into a broad river. Mighty empires
and great nations seem for a while to be forgotten, but only because
we are now to be more especially concerned with the history of that
particular nation, in and through which all nations of the earth were
to be blessed (Gen. xii. 3).

The man selected by the Almighty to be the ancestor of a people

destined to exert so momentous an influence on the salvation of the
world was Abraham, or, as he was first called, Abram, the son of
Terah, who lived in the eighth generation from Shem, in Ur of the
Chaldees. Besides Abram, Terah had two other sons, Nahor and
Haran, but Abram, though mentioned first, was in all probability the
youngest of the three. From Ur, which may perhaps be identified
with the modern Orfah 15, in upper Mesopotamia, where his family
had become tainted with the generally prevailing idolatry (Josh. xxiv.
2, 14), Terah removed, and travelling in a southerly direction arrived
at Haran or Charran 16, where he stayed. In this journey he was
accompanied by his son Abram, his daughter-in-law Sarai, and his
grandson Lot, and seems to have intended to go into the land of
Canaan (Gen. xi. 31), but this was prevented by his death at Haran,
when he had reached the age of 205. After this event, a still more
distinct intimation of the Divine Will was made to his son Abram,
bidding him leave his country, his kindred, and his father’s house,
and go to a land which God would shew him. There, said the
Almighty, I will make of thee a great nation, and make thy name
great, and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed.
Severe as were the hardships which this call involved, painful as it
must have been to flesh and blood to sever the ties which bound
him to his family and his people, Abram did not refuse to follow the
Hand which promised him guidance, protection, and a mighty future.
At the age of 75, with his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, and all that he
possessed, he left Haran, crossed the Euphrates, and commenced
his journey southward and westward towards the Land of Promise
(Acts vii. 4, 5).

This country, the future home of the great nation destined to

spring from his loins, was in many respects eminently adapted for its
special mission in the history of the World. In extent, indeed, it was
but a narrow strip of country, but a little larger than the six northern
counties of England, being nearly 180 miles in length 17, and 75
miles in breadth, and having an area of about 13,600 English square
miles. Bounded on the west by the Mediterranean Sea, on the north
by the mountains of Lebanon, on the east by the Syrian desert, on
the south by the wilderness of Arabia, it was situated at the
meeting-point of the two continents of Asia and Africa, “on the very
outpost, on the extremest western edge of the East.” It was a
secluded land. A wilderness encompassed it on the east and south,
mountains shut it in on the north, and the “Great Sea” which washed
its western shore was the terror rather than the thoroughfare of
ancient nations. “Unlike the coast of Europe, and especially of
Greece, it had no indentations, no winding creeks, no deep
havens 18,” but one small port—that of Joppa—with which to tempt
the mariner from the west. But while thus eminently adapted to be
the “silent and retired nursery of the Kingdom of God 19,” it was in
the very centre of the activity of the ancient world, in the midst of
the nations, and the countries that were round about it (Ezek. v. 5).
On the South was the great empire of Egypt, on the North-east the
rising kingdom of Assyria. Neither of these great nations could
communicate with the other without passing through Palestine, and
so learning something of its peculiar institutions and religion; and
when the fulness of time was come no country was better suited,
from its position at the extremest verge of the Eastern World, to be
the starting-point whence the glad tidings of Redemption might be
proclaimed to all nations 20. Moreover, narrow as were its limits, and
secluded as was its position, it yet presented a greater variety of
surface, scenery and temperature than is to be found in any other
part of the world, and needed not to depend on other countries for
anything that either the luxuries or actual wants of its inhabitants
required. Four broadly marked longitudinal regions divided its
surface. (i) First, there was the low plain of the western sea-coast,
broad towards the south, and gradually narrowing towards the
north, famous for the Shephelah (the low country) with its waving
corn-fields, and the vale of Sharon (level country), the garden of
Palestine. From this was an ascent to (ii) a strip of table-land, every
part of which was more or less undulating, but increasing in
elevation from north to south 21, and broken only by the plain of
Jezreel or Esdraelon. To this succeeded a rapid descent into (iii) a
deep fissure or valley, through which the Jordan (the descender),
the only river of importance in the country, rushes from its source at
the base of Hermon into the Dead Sea, the surface of which is no
less than 1316 feet below that of the Mediterranean 22. Hence was a
second ascent to (iv) a strip of table-land on the east similar to that
on the west, and seeming with its range of purple-tinted mountains
to overhang Jerusalem itself. Crowned by the forests and upland
pastures of Gilead and Bashan, this eastern table-land gradually
melted into the desert which rolled between it and the valley of
Mesopotamia. Thus within a very small space were crowded the
most diverse features of natural scenery, and the most varied
products. It was a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains
and depths that spring out of valleys and hills, a land flowing with
milk and honey (Deut. viii. 7–9; xi. 10–12). The low plains yielded
luxuriant crops of wheat and barley, of rye and maize; on the table-
lands with their equable and moderate climate grew the vine, the
olive, the fig, the almond, the pomegranate; in the tropical
neighbourhood of Jericho flourished the palm-tree and the balsam;
while the noble cedar waved on the mountains of Lebanon.

Such was the Land, secluded and yet central, narrow and yet
wonderfully diversified alike in its natural features and its products,
whither the Almighty now bade Abram direct his steps. Striking
across the great Syrian desert, the patriarch kept on his southward
course, and having crossed the Jordan, passed through the land, till
he came to Shechem 23, situated between the mountains Ebal and
Gerizim. This spot, destined afterwards to be so celebrated, was
then only marked by the majestic oak of Moreh, probably a
Canaanitish chief, but its many fountains, rills, and water-courses 24
made it then, as it ever has been since, a natural pasture-ground for
flocks and herds; and here Abram halted, and learnt that he had
reached the goal of his long journey. This land, said God, I will give
unto thy seed; and at Shechem the patriarch built his first altar to
the Lord in the “Land of Promise 25” (Gen. xii. 6, 7).
 Thence he afterwards removed southward a distance of about
twenty miles, to the strong mountain country east of Bethel, or as it
was then called Luz; one of the finest tracts of the land for
pasturage, and here he erected his second altar unto the Lord.
During his sojourn in this neighbourhood he learnt that, though the
heir of mighty promises, he was not to be exempt from his share of
trials and disappointments. The first that befell him was a grievous
famine, caused probably by a failure of the usual rains; in
consequence of which, finding himself unable to support his
numerous dependents, he resolved, though without direct Divine
suggestion, to go down into Egypt, then, as always, the fertile
granary of the neighbouring nations. As he drew near the land of the
mighty Pharaohs, he reflected that the beauty of his wife might
expose her to danger from the sensual, voluptuous Egyptians, and
under the influence of these apprehensions persuaded her to stoop
to an unworthy equivocation, and give herself out as his sister. What
he anticipated came to pass. The princes of Egypt beheld the
woman that she was fair, and recommended her to their monarch,
by whom she was taken into his palace, while numerous presents of
cattle and sheep were sent to her supposed brother. But the
monarch found that the coming of the stranger into his palace
involved him in serious troubles, the Lord plagued Pharaoh with
great plagues, till, having ascertained the true relation between her
and Abram, he sent her back to her husband, with a strong rebuke
to the latter for the deception he had practised.

How long after this Abram stayed in Egypt we are not told. But at
length his wealth in cattle, and gold and silver, having materially
increased, he quitted the country, and once more took up his abode
on his former camping-ground between Bethel and Ai. Hitherto his
nephew Lot had accompanied him in all his wanderings, but now the
increasing numbers of their flocks and herds generated a quarrel
between their respective herdsmen, and it was plainly necessary that
they should separate. With characteristic generosity Abram bade his
nephew take the first choice, and select for himself, whether on the
left hand or the right, a place for his new abode. From the high
mountain-range 26 to the east of Bethel, where they were then
encamped, Lot lifted up his eyes and looked down upon the wide
and well-watered plain south of the Jordan, then a very garden of
the Lord, like the land of Egypt (Gen. xiii. 10) they had so lately left.
As yet no terrible convulsion had effaced the site of Sodom and
Gomorrah and the other cities of the plain. Fair and fertile the
coveted possession stretched onwards unto Zoar, and in spite of the
notorious wickedness of the inhabitants Lot chose it for his abode,
and the two separated themselves the one from the other. Though
Abram was thus left to wait alone for the fulfilment of the Promise,
he was not forgotten by the God in whom he trusted. A more full
and more definite promise was now vouchsafed to him. Lift up thine
eyes, said the Almighty, and look from place to place where thou art,
northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward; all the
land which thou seest to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever;
and I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth, so that if a man
can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be
numbered (Gen. xiii. 14–17).

Thus encouraged, the Friend of God (Jas. ii. 23) removed his
tent, and travelling southward took up his abode under the
spreading terebinth 27 of Mamre, an Amorite prince (Gen. xiv.
13, 24), near Hebron, or as it was then called Kirjath-Arba, the City
of Arba the father of Anak and the progenitor of the giant Anakim
(Gen. xxiii. 2; xxxv. 27; Josh. xiv. 15). While dwelling peacefully in
this neighbourhood, which like all other places he hallowed with an
altar to Jehovah, he received one day unexpected tidings of his
nephew Lot. The chiefs of the five cities in the tropical valley of the
Jordan, Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboim, and Belah, had for twelve
years been subject to Chedorlaomer, a powerful king of Elam or
Mesopotamia. But they had lately united together to throw off his
yoke. Thereupon the King of Elam, aided by three other confederate
chiefs, proceeded to make war against the southern kings. Sweeping
down on a sudden foray, he smote the countries on the eastern
uplands of the Jordan and the southern region of Mount Seir.
Returning thence he ravaged all the country of the Amalekites, and
with his allied chiefs met the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah in
pitched battle in the Vale of Siddim, probably at the north-west
corner of the Dead Sea. The five southern kings were utterly routed,
and with much spoil and many captives the Assyrian invader
commenced his return northwards. It was the news of this sudden
invasion which now reached the ears of Abram. Without losing a
moment he instantly armed his 318 trained servants, and, aided by
the confederate chief Mamre and his brothers Eshcol and Aner, arose
and pursued the Assyrians by night. The latter had in the meantime
reached the neighbourhood of the Sidonian Laish, far up in the
northern mountains. Thither, however, Abram pursued them, and
falling upon them suddenly, while all unconscious of coming danger,
he smote them and chased them to Hobah, on the left of Damascus.
Thence, with the recovered captives, amongst whom was Lot, he
returned, and at the King’s Dale, not far from Hebron, was met by
the King of Sodom, accompanied by a mysterious personage, who
now meets us for the first and only time, named Melchisedec, a king
of Salem and priest of the Most High God. The sudden appearance
of one thus uniting the kingly and priestly functions, of whose origin
and family we know nothing, has led to much speculation. Putting
aside more improbable conjectures, we may perhaps conclude that
he was an eminent Canaanitish prince in the line of Ham, who had
maintained the pure worship of the One true God, and who,
according to a custom not uncommon in patriarchal times, was at
once king and priest 28. A sufficient proof of his high dignity is
afforded by the fact that to him the patriarch Abram reverently gave
tithes of all that he had taken in his late successful expedition, and
received his solemn blessing (Heb. vii. 2, 6). Before they parted the
King of Sodom pressed Abram to take a portion of the spoil as his
reward. This, however, the latter with his usual generosity firmly
declined; he would take nothing, from a thread even to a
shoelatchet (Gen. xiv. 23), save only a portion for his allies, the
chiefs Aner, Eshcol, and Mamre, and then returned to the shade of
the oak or terebinth near Hebron.
 CHAPTER II.

LIFE OF ABRAHAM CONTINUED.

Gen. xv.–xxv. B.C. 1913–1822.

W
E now enter on another and a different scene in the history
of Abram. He had been victorious over the Assyrian kings;
he had gotten him honour as the prompt avenger of
injustice and oppression before the chiefs of the land in which he
was a pilgrim and a sojourner; he had been solemnly blessed by the
King of Righteousness; but where was the fulfilment of the promise
for which he had so long been waiting? He had no son, no single
pledge of the mighty nation destined to spring from his loins. When,
therefore, his all-merciful Guide appeared to him again in vision, to
assure him of safety and protection, he could not restrain the deep
sorrow of his heart, and mournfully complained that in place of a
son, one born in his house, probably Eliezer of Damascus, would be
his heir. On this occasion the Almighty not only solemnly assured His
desponding servant that a son should be born to him, an earnest of
a seed as numerous as the stars of heaven, and that the land on
which he walked should undoubtedly be their inheritance, but, as in
the case of Noah after the Flood, he vouchsafed to him an outward
and visible sign to strengthen and support his faith. He bade the
patriarch take a heifer, a ram, and a she-goat, each three years old,
together with a turtle-dove and a young pigeon, and after dividing
them all, except the birds, to lay them piece by piece over against
the other. Familiar, doubtless, with this ancient method of ratifying a
covenant, Abram did as the Lord had told him, slew the victims, and
laid the divided portions in order. Then from morning until evening
he watched them, and from time to time drove away the birds of
prey which hovered over them. At length the sun went down, and a
deep sleep fell upon him, and a horror of great darkness gathered
around him. Amidst the deepening gloom there appeared to him a
Smoking Furnace and a Burning Lamp passing along the space
between the divided victims. Presently a Voice came to him telling
him that his seed should be a stranger in a land that was not theirs,
that there they should suffer affliction 400 years; that afterwards, in
the fourth generation, when the cup of the Amorites was full, they
should come out with great substance, return to the spot where the
patriarch now was, and enter on their promised inheritance. Thus,
amidst mingled light and gloom, the ancestor of the elect nation was
warned of the chequered fortunes which awaited his progeny, while
at the same time he was assured of the ultimate fulfilment of the
Promise, and the actual boundaries of the lands of his inheritance
were marked out from the river of Egypt to the distant Euphrates;
and in this confidence Abram was content to possess his soul in
patience (Lk. xxi. 19).

As yet, it will be observed, it had not been expressly said that his
wife Sarai was the destined mother of the long-promised son. As the
prospect, therefore, of her contributing to the fulfilment of the
Promise became more and more remote, she seems to have
concluded that this honour was not reserved for her, and accordingly
persuaded her husband to take her handmaid, Hagar, an Egyptian,
as a secondary wife, that by her he might obtain what was denied
herself. Abram complied with her suggestion, and Hagar conceived;
but the consequences did not tend to increase the patriarch’s
happiness. In a moment of elation Hagar mocked her mistress, and
Sarai dealt hardly with her, till she fled from her into the southern
wilderness, on the way that led to her native land. There, as she
halted near a fountain of water, an angel of the Lord met her, and
bade her return and submit herself to her mistress, assuring her at
the same time that she should give birth to a son, whom she was to
call Ishmael (whom God hears). Though the son of a bondwoman
(Gal. iv. 22, 23), no mean future lay before him; he should become
the ancestor of a numerous seed, who, like himself, would be true
roving sons of the desert, their hand against every man, and every
man’s hand against them. In remembrance of this incident Hagar
named the fountain Beer-lahai-roi, (the well of the God that
appeareth), and returned to the tents of Sarah, where, in process of
time she gave birth to Ishmael, when Abram was 86 years old.

Again thirteen years rolled away, and still the Promise was not
fulfilled. But when hope might almost have ceased to hope, God
appeared once more to Abram, recapitulated the main outline of the
Covenant-Promise, changed his name from Abram (a high father), to
Abraham (the father of a multitude), and assured him that at length
the long-expected time was well-nigh come. But in prospect of the
peculiar blessing about to be bestowed upon him, he himself, and all
his seed after him, must carry about with them a perpetual pledge
of their covenant relation to Jehovah. The rite of Circumcision must
now be adopted by him, and instead of being the badge of any
favoured class amongst the nation destined to spring from his loins,
was, on pain of excommunication, to be open to the lowliest
member of the Hebrew commonwealth, even to the bond-servant
and the stranger. At the same time it was intimated to the patriarch
that his wife Sarai, whose name also was now changed to Sarah
(princess), and no other, was to be the mother of the promised child,
that it would be born during the next year, and be called Isaac
(Laughter); while Ishmael also, for whom Abraham had prayed,
would not be forgotten, but be a partaker in the Divine blessing, and
become the father of twelve princes, the ancestors of a great nation.
Thereupon Abraham complied with the Divine command, and was
circumcised, together with Ishmael, now thirteen years of age, and
all the male members of his household.

Shortly after this, as the patriarch sat, in the heat of the day,
under the oak of Mamre, he received a visit from three mysterious
Strangers, whom he entertained with becoming hospitality. The meal
over which he had hastily prepared, one of them inquired for his
wife, and formally announced that within the year she would be the
mother of a son. His words were overheard by Sarah, and she
laughed incredulously at the possibility of such an event, but was
thereupon reproved by the Speaker, and assured in a still more
confident manner of the fulfilment of His word. Then the Three left
the tent and turned their steps eastward towards Sodom. Abraham
accompanied them, and on the way one of them, in whom he
recognised no other than the Angel of the Covenant, informed him
of the real purport of this visit to the cities where his nephew Lot
had taken up his abode. The sin of these cities was very great, and
their cup was now full; their inhabitants had wearied themselves
with wickedness, and their licentiousness and iniquity called to
Heaven for a visible revelation of Divine wrath, and judgment was
now even at the door. Informed of the impending doom the Friend
of God drew near, and with marvellous boldness blended with the
deepest humility pleaded with the Almighty for the guilty cities.
Peradventure there might be found therein at least fifty, or forty-five,
or forty, or thirty, or twenty, or even ten righteous souls, would the
Lord of all the earth spare them for ten’s sake? Thereupon he was
assured that if only ten righteous souls could be found the cities
should be spared. While he was thus pleading with God, the two
other angels entered Sodom, and were hospitably entertained by
Lot. But their celestial beauty only served to excite the wickedness of
the inhabitants, who surrounded Lot’s house, and, in spite of his
earnest expostulations, would have offered them personal violence
had they not been suddenly stricken with blindness. As the night
wore on, his visitors assured Lot of the certain destruction of the
city, and warned him to gather together with all speed every
member of his family if he would save them from the impending
judgment. Lot did as he was advised; but his warning was lost upon
his sons-in-law and his daughters-in-law, and he seemed unto them
as one that mocked. When the day dawned, the angels broke off
any further delay by laying hold on him, and his wife, and his two
daughters, and having dragged them forth beyond the city, bade
them flee to the neighbouring mountain range if they would not be
consumed. But thither Lot was afraid to flee, and in compliance with
his urgent entreaty was permitted to betake himself to the town of
Bela, or Zoar (Little), on the southern extremity of the Dead Sea.
The sun rose as he entered this city of refuge, and then the Lord
rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire out of heaven,
and utterly swept away by an awful convulsion every trace of the
guilty cities and their inhabitants, the site of which became
henceforth a perpetual desolation. Few as were the remnants of this
fearful overthrow, yet one of these few failed to reach the little city
of refuge. In spite of the Angel’s reiterated warning, Lot’s wife
lingered, looked back, and, caught by the advancing sulphurous tide,
was smothered as she stood, and became a pillar of salt (Gen.
xix. 26; Lk. xvii. 32). As for Lot himself, afraid to dwell even in Zoar,
he fled with his two daughters to the eastern mountains, and
became the father of two sons, Moab and Ben-Ammi, the ancestors
of two powerful nations—the Moabites and Ammonites.

Shortly after this terrible judgment, Abraham left the oak of

Mamre, where he had so long encamped, and journeyed in a
southerly direction towards Gerar, between Kadesh and Shur, at that
time the principal seat of the Philistines, whose chief was known by
the hereditary title of Abimelech, or Father-King 29. Under the same
apprehensions which he had felt when drawing nigh to Egypt,
Abraham wished that Sarah should pass for his sister, and again
exposed her to imminent risk. But, as before, the Lord mercifully
intervened, and the Philistine chief restored his wife to the patriarch,
together with ample presents (Gen. xx. 14–16). At length the time
had come for which Abraham, now upwards of 100 years of age,
had so long waited. Either at Gerar or Beersheba, Sarah gave birth
to the child of promise, who was duly circumcised on the eighth day,
and named Isaac (Laughter) according to the Divine command. At
the feast given on the occasion of his weaning, Ishmael mocked, or
in some way insulted the child. This act, observed by Sarah, roused
all her animosity, and she demanded the instant dismissal of the boy
and his mother. Though sorely against his will, Abraham, advised by
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