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EXPOSITIONS OF HOLY SCRIPTURE

ALEXANDER MACLAREN, D. D., Litt. D.

GENESIS, EXODUS, LEVITICUS AND NUMBERS




EXPOSITIONS OF HOLY SCRIPTURE

ALEXANDER MACLAREN, D. D., Litt. D.

GENESIS




CONTENTS


THE VISION OF CREATION (Genesis i. 26--ii. 3)

HOW SIN CAME IN (Genesis iii. 1-15)

EDEN LOST AND RESTORED (Genesis iii. 24; Revelation xxii. 14)

THE GROWTH AND POWER OF SIN (Genesis iv. 3-16)

WHAT CROUCHES AT THE DOOR (Genesis iv. 7, R.V.)

WITH, BEFORE, AFTER (Genesis v. 22; Genesis xvii. 1; Deuteronomy xiii.
4)

THE COURSE AND CROWN OF A DEVOUT LIFE (Genesis v. 24)

THE SAINT AMONG SINNERS (Genesis vi. 9-22)

'CLEAR SHINING AFTER RAIN' (Genesis viii. 1-22)

THE SIGN FOR MAN AND THE REMEMBRANCER FOR GOD (Genesis ix. 8-17)

AN EXAMPLE OF FAITH (Genesis xii. 1-9)

ABRAM AND THE LIFE OF FAITH

GOING FORTH (Genesis xii. 5)

COMING IN

THE MAN OF FAITH (Genesis xii. 6, 7)

LIFE IN CANAAN (Genesis xii. 8)

THE IMPORTANCE OF A CHOICE (Genesis xiii. 1-13)

ABBAM THE HEBREW (Genesis xiv. 13)

GOD'S COVENANT WITH ABRAM (Genesis xv. 5-18)

THE WORD THAT SCATTERS FEAR (Genesis xv. 1)

FAITH AND RIGHTEOUSNESS (Genesis xv. 6)

WAITING FAITH REWARDED AND STRENGTHENED BY NEW REVELATIONS (Genesis
xvii. 1-9)

A PETULANT WISH (Genesis xvii. 18)

'BECAUSE OF HIS IMPORTUNITY' (Genesis xviii. l6-33)

THE INTERCOURSE OF GOD AND HIS FRIEND

THE SWIFT DESTROYER (Genesis xix. 15-26)

FAITH TESTED AND CROWNED (Genesis xxii. 1-14)

THE CROWNING TEST AND TRIUMPH OF FAITH

JEHOVAH-JIREH (Genesis xxii. 14)

GUIDANCE IN THE WAY (Genesis xxiv. 27)

THE DEATH OF ABRAHAM (Genesis xxv. 8)

A BAD BARGAIN (Genesis xxv. 27-34)

POTTAGE _versus_ BIRTHRIGHT (Genesis xxv. 34)

THE FIRST APOSTLE OF PEACE AT ANY PRICE (Genesis xxvi. 12-25)

THE HEAVENLY PATHWAY AND THE EARTHLY HEART (Genesis xxviii. 10-22)

MAHANAIM: THE TWO CAMPS (Genesis xxxii. 1, 2)

THE TWOFOLD WRESTLE--GOD'S WITH JACOB AND JACOB'S WITH GOD (Genesis
xxxii. 9-12)

A FORGOTTEN VOW (Genesis xxxv. 1)

THE TRIALS AND VISIONS OF DEVOUT YOUTH (Genesis xxxvii. 1-11)

MAN'S PASSIONS AND GOD'S PURPOSE (Genesis xxxvii. 23-36)

GOODNESS IN A DUNGEON (Genesis xl. 1-15)

JOSEPH, THE PRIME MINISTER (Genesis xli. 38-48)

RECOGNITION AND RECONCILIATION (Genesis xlv. 1-15)

JOSEPH, THE PARDONER AND PRESERVER

GROWTH BY TRANSPLANTING (Genesis xlvii. 1-12)

TWO RETROSPECTS OF ONE LIFE (Genesis xlvii. 9; Genesis xlviii. 15, 16)

'THE HANDS OF THE MIGHTY GOD OF JACOB' (Genesis xlix. 23, 24)

THE SHEPHERD, THE STONE OF ISRAEL (Genesis xlix. 24)

A CALM EVENING, PROMISING A BRIGHT MORNING (Genesis l. 14-26)

JOSEPH'S FAITH (Genesis l. 25)

A COFFIN IN EGYPT (Genesis l. 26)




 THE VISION OF CREATION


    'And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our
    likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of
    the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the
    cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping
    thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man
    in His own image: in the image of God created He him;
    male and female created He them. And God blessed them:
    and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and
    replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion
    over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air,
    and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
    And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing
    seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every
    tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed;
    to you it shall be for meat. And to every beast of the
    earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing
    that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I
    have given every green herb for meat: and it was so. And
    God saw every thing that He had made, and, behold, it
    was very good. And the evening and the morning were the
    sixth day.

    'Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all
    the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended His
    work which He had made; and He rested on the seventh day
    from all His work which He had made. And God blessed the
    seventh day, and sanctified it; because that in it He
    had rested from all His work which God created and made.'
    --GENESIS i. 26-ii. 3.

We are not to look to Genesis for a scientific cosmogony, and are not
to be disturbed by physicists' criticisms on it as such. Its purpose is
quite another, and far more important; namely, to imprint deep and
ineffaceable the conviction that the one God created all things. Nor
must it be forgotten that this vision of creation was given to people
ignorant of natural science, and prone to fall back into surrounding
idolatry. The comparison of the creation narratives in Genesis with the
cuneiform tablets, with which they evidently are most closely
connected, has for its most important result the demonstration of the
infinite elevation above their monstrosities and puerilities, of this
solemn, steadfast attribution of the creative act to the one God. Here
we can only draw out in brief the main points which the narrative
brings into prominence.

1. The revelation which it gives is the truth, obscured to all other
men when it was given, that one God 'in the beginning created the
heaven and the earth.' That solemn utterance is the keynote of the
whole. The rest but expands it. It was a challenge and a denial for all
the beliefs of the nations, the truth of which Israel was the champion
and missionary. It swept the heavens and earth clear of the crowd of
gods, and showed the One enthroned above, and operative in, all things.
We can scarcely estimate the grandeur, the emancipating power, the
all-uniting force, of that utterance. It is a worn commonplace to us.
It was a strange, thrilling novelty when it was written at the head of
this narrative. _Then_ it was in sharp opposition to beliefs that have
long been dead to us; but it is still a protest against some living
errors. Physical science has not spoken the final word when it has
shown us how things came to be as they are. There remains the deeper
question, What, or who, originated and guided the processes? And the
only answer is the ancient declaration, 'In the beginning God created
the heaven and the earth.'

2. The record is as emphatic and as unique in its teaching as to the
mode of creation: 'God said... and it was so.' That lifts us above all
the poor childish myths of the nations, some of them disgusting, many
of them absurd, all of them unworthy. There was no other agency than
the putting forth of the divine will. The speech of God is but a symbol
of the flashing forth of His will. To us Christians the antique phrase
suggests a fulness of meaning not inherent in it, for we have learned
to believe that 'all things were made by Him' whose name is 'The Word
of God'; but, apart from that, the representation here is sublime. 'He
spake, and it was done'; that is the sign-manual of Deity.

3. The completeness of creation is emphasised. We note, not only the
recurrent 'and it was so,' which declares the perfect correspondence of
the result with the divine intention, but also the recurring 'God saw
that it was good.' His ideals are always realised. The divine artist
never finds that the embodiment of His thought falls short of His
thought.

  'What act is all its thought had been?
   What will but felt the fleshly screen?

But He has no hindrances nor incompletenesses in His creative work, and
the very sabbath rest with which the narrative closes symbolises, not
His need of repose, but His perfect accomplishment of His purpose. God
ceases from His works because 'the works were finished,' and He saw
that all was very good.

4. The progressiveness of the creative process is brought into strong
relief. The work of the first four days is the preparation of the
dwelling-place for the living creatures who are afterwards created to
inhabit it. How far the details of these days' work coincide with the
order as science has made it out, we are not careful to ask here. The
primeval chaos, the separation of the waters above from the waters
beneath, the emergence of the land, the beginning of vegetation there,
the shining out of the sun as the dense mists cleared, all find
confirmation even in modern theories of evolution. But the intention of
the whole is much rather to teach that, though the simple utterance of
the divine will was the agent of creation, the manner of it was not a
sudden calling of the world, as men know it, into being, but majestic,
slow advance by stages, each of which rested on the preceding. To apply
the old distinction between justification and sanctification, creation
was a work, not an act. The Divine Workman, who is always patient,
worked slowly then as He does now. Not at a leap, but by deliberate
steps,