События в четвертом столетии четвертого тысячелетия

Terah, the son of Nahor and the grandson of Serukh, staying in the same Chaldean city called Ur, in which both his father and his grandfather were, gave birth to Abram (Gen. 11:26-27), who was later called by God by the name Abraham, that is, the father of all the faithful in the heavenly places (Gen. 17:5). For he was a father according to the flesh to the Jews, as they boasted, saying: “We are the seed of Abraham; father imam Abraham" (John 8:33; Matt. 3:9). For us, he is a father in spirit, since after the flood he was the first example of faith, zeal and obedience to God. Terah also had other sons, Nahor and Arran, but they are remembered in the Holy Scriptures only by name, for they did nothing good and worthy of memory, being evil and unfaithful. When Abraham came of age, his father united him in marriage, choosing for him a beautiful bride from his family. Her name was Sarah, but she was later renamed Sarah by God because she discovered the faith and virtues of her husband. The holy Apostle Paul praises her faith (Heb. 11:11), and St. Peter sets as an example to his wives her pure, meek, silent and obedient life to her husband (1 Pet. 3:6). This holy duo, Abraham and Sarah, united in flesh and spirit, was among the infidel race like a grain in the thorns, like a spark in the ashes and like gold between the blat (dirt, swamp). While all the nations sank into idolatry and lived godlessly, committing unspeakable evil and ungodly iniquities, they both knew the one true God and believed in Him, and served Him faithfully, pleasing them with good deeds. They glorified and preached His holy name to others whom they could, instructing them in the knowledge of God. For this reason, God led them from one place to another, from Chaldea to Harran, from Harran to the borders of Canaan, from there to Egypt, and from Egypt again to the land of Canaan, so that His Divine name would be known among the unfaithful pagans and His greatness would be glorified. Thus, in those days, Abraham and Sarah were chosen vessels of God, bearing His name before the pagans and kings. For the last times, they left the image of their holy life as the basis of faith, the mirror of righteousness, the rule of pleasing God. That is why the Lord Himself in Isaiah’s prophecy, exhorting and exciting the corrupt Jewish people to correction and righteous life, presents them both as an example, saying: “Look at Abraham your father, and at Sarah who gave birth to you” (Is. 51:2). The Lord seems to be saying here: be of the same faith and the same life as Abraham and Sarah were. The interpreters of the Divine Scriptures and some of the historians consider Abraham to be the youngest in years among the sons of Terah, and not the eldest, although he is mentioned in the Holy Scriptures at the beginning; They believe that the first son from one wife was Arran, and the second was Nahor, and the third from another wife was Abraham; They consider Sarah to be the daughter of Arran. For Arran gave birth to three children - a son, Lot, and two daughters: the eldest's name was Melcha, and the other's name was Escha. The Divine Scripture says about Arran: “This is the father of Melchin and the father of Eschines” (Gen. 11:29). It is this Eshu that interpreters consider Sarah, so called by Abraham himself. Nahor took Melcha, and Abraham took Eshu, both brothers of Arran. Let us hear why Abraham renamed his wife Eshu Sarah. She revered her husband (as the holy Apostle Peter testifies to this - 1 Pet. 3:6), calling him master; Abraham also honored his wife, calling her mistress. For this reason, he called her Sarah, which is interpreted as “lady,” for this name has precisely this meaning and meaning in the Hebrew language. If Abraham had as his wife Eshu, the daughter of his brother Arran, who was later renamed Sarah, then Abraham was undoubtedly younger than Arran; for Abraham was only ten years older than Sarah, as can be clearly seen from the 17th chapter of the Book of Genesis, where Abraham says to God: “What if a son is born to a man who is a hundred years old, and if Sarah bears life ninety years?” (Gen. 17:17) If Abraham were older than his brothers in years, then he would need to be not only ten years older than Sarah, but much more. And how would a younger brother precede another older brother in marriage and childbearing, when the natural law did not allow the younger brother to marry before the elders? When Arran gave birth to and raised his daughter Sarah until marriageable age, Abraham had not yet married and took Sarah. From this it is clear that Arran was older in years; Nahor followed him, and then Abraham, as the youngest. As for the fact that Saint Moses in his history placed Abraham among the sons of Terah at the beginning, although he was the youngest, he did this because he intended to narrate only about the faith and godly life of him alone, and because only from his family would the Messiah promised by God come. Hence, let us seek benefit not in the seniority of someone’s years, but in the virtuous life of those who have pleased God. How Abraham’s faith in God arose, Georgy Kedrin writes about this as follows. Having been twenty-four years old from his birth, he came to know the true God, who lives in heaven, is omnipresent, contains everything and controls everything, and worshiped Him. He knew the Creator from the visible creation, for he was taught by his fathers to consider the celestial movements, the knowledge of stellar currents, the knowledge of earthly and sea nature and all the Chaldean wisdom in which his father Terah, and his grandfather Nahor, and his great-grandfather Serukh were skilled, but they, being wise, fooled around, not comprehending the God who created everything and serving the work of human hands, that is, idols Blessed Abraham, even in his youth, considering everything above and below, inquired with his prudent mind where all this came from: who created all this, maintains, moves and controls everything? One night, fixing his eyes and mind on the sky decorated with stars, he began to think about where it all came from, and at that time the light of knowledge of God shone in him. In addition, according to the legend of Kedrin, the angel of the Lord was also his teacher. Such a student is worthy of such a teacher! Just as he himself learned to know the one and true God and to believe in Him, so he tried to lead his father and his brothers to the same knowledge of God and faith, but had no success in this. In none of them did he find a like-minded person similar to himself in faith, except for his beloved wife Sarah, who believed in the same way as him, and both of them prayed together to the true God. In the sixtieth year of his life, Abraham saw that he could not convert anyone from idolatry, and he was kindled with zeal for God. Getting up at night, he secretly lit the idol church. When the church burned, the brothers woke up and rushed to save the idols from the fire. When Arran, caring more diligently than anyone else for the idols, entered the burning church, he was severely burned and therefore died. It is said of this Arran that he was the first to die before his parents, and before him a son had never died before his father. This is narrated in the large Moscow printed Sobornik, in the “Tale of the Court and the Serpent,” attributed to Chrysostom. The Jews tell about Abraham that the Chaldeans were angry with Abraham for the destruction of their idols and threw him into the fire, but he came out of there, preserved by the power of God unharmed from the fire. Abraham's father Terah, seeing this, was surprised by this miracle, came to know the true God and rejected idols, and from that time began to serve with Abraham the one true God. After this, God had a revelation to Abraham, commanding him to leave from there, as the holy First Martyr Stephen spoke about this to the Jewish assembly: “Men, brothers and fathers, listen: the God of glory appeared to our father Abraham, dry land in Mesopotamia, before he even settled in Harran, and spoke to him: get out of your land and from your kindred, and from the house of your father, and go to the land south of Az. I will show you” (Acts 7:2-3). Having received this command from God, Abraham prompted his father Terah to leave the idolatrous city, since the citizens of the latter caused them a lot of oppression, hating the house of Terah for their pious worship of God. Thus, Terah left the Chaldean land, from the city called Ur, left with his son Abraham and with his grandson Lot, the son of Arran, and with his granddaughter and daughter-in-law Sarah, the wife of Abraham, intending to go to the land of Canaan (Nachor remained in Chaldea with the idolaters). When they came to Harran, Terah settled there. The Ammonian commander Achior spoke about this to the commander of the Assyrian troops as follows: “This people is from the tribe of the Chaldeans, and you formerly lived in Mesopotamia; and because they did not want to follow the god of their fathers, who lived in the land of Chaldeans, but abandoned their ranks with the multitude of former gods, the only God of Heaven; God commanded them, that they should go out from there and dwell in Canaan” (Judith 5:6–9). Terah did not reach the land of Canaan and settled in Haran because he was old and weak in body; there he died, having been two hundred and five years old from his birth. Nahor arrived in Haran when his father was dying, and together with Abraham he buried Terah’s body. After this, Nahor began to live here along with his entire household, but neither he himself nor his tribe abandoned idolatry, for his grandson Laban was also an idolater, as will later become clear. After the death of Terah in Harran, God resettled Abraham to the land of Canaan (later called Judea and Palestine), giving him a promise to multiply his seed. “I will make you,” He said, “a great language, and I will bless you, and I will magnify your name, and you will be blessed; And I will bless those who bless you, and those who curse you I will curse, and all the families of the earth will be blessed because of you” (Gen. 12:2-3). At the time when Abraham accepted this promise from God, he was 75 years old. From that time until the acceptance of the Mosaic Law, given by God on Mount Sinai, 430 years passed (John Navcleres). The holy Apostle Paul mentions these years in his letter to the Galatians (Gal. 3:17). The life of Saint Abraham, as well as the holy forefathers who came after him, is described at length in the Holy Scriptures, in the Book of Genesis, where anyone can read it. Since we here proposed to write briefly, here we will only remember a little from the Divine Scripture for useful teaching. “All nations will be blessed because of you” (Gen. 12:3). This is revealed more clearly from the 22nd chapter: “All the nations of the earth will be blessed through your seed” (Gen. 22:18). About which seed? Is it not about the whole race that is to come from Abraham? No, but about the one Lord, our Savior, the Son of Abraham, as the Apostle Paul beautifully interpreted, saying: “To Abraham The words of the One were vows and to his seed: He does not speak about one seed, as about many, but as about one, even to your seed, who is Christ” (Gal. 3:16). The holy Apostle Peter interprets this in a similar way in the Acts of the Apostles, in the third chapter (Acts 3:25-26). “I will bless those who bless you, and those who curse you I will curse.” The Lord seems to say: “Whoever loves you, Abraham, I will love, and whoever hates you, I will hate; your friend will be My friend, your enemy will be My enemy; he who pleases you pleases Me, and he who blasphemes you blasphemes Me; he who honors you honors Me, and he who dishonors you becomes, as it were, dishonoring Me; whoever does you a favor will show Me a benefit, and I will repay him a hundredfold, and whoever offends you will offend Me, and I will take revenge on him; “Whatever anyone does to you, whether good or evil, he will do to Me, and he will receive the same reward from Me.” This is what God’s words to Abraham mean: “I will bless the one who blesses thee,” etc. We heed how good and useful it is to have godly men as friends and to do good to them! And how great, therefore, is the evil - to be hostile to godly men, to hate, offend and slander them! Abraham, having come to the land of Canaan with all his house and property, took with him Lot, his anepsius (nephew), who was the son of Arran, with all his property, walked around the entire land on which the Canaanites then lived, the tribe of Ham, descended from Ham’s son Canaan, from whose name that land received the name Canaan or Canaan. Previously, this land was the heritage of Arphaxad, the son of Shem, the ancient forefather of Abraham. However, the Canaanites (they are also Canaanites) in their morals were similar to their forefathers Canaan and Ham, did not observe the covenant of Saint Noah, were not content with the site determined by him (Noah) in the hot countries of Africa, forcibly invaded the eastern countries of Asia, which were the lot of Shem and the heritage of Arphaxad, and, having expelled the Arphaxad family, settled there themselves. When Abraham walked around this land, the Lord appeared to him and said: “To your seed I will give this land” (Gen. 12:7). After this vision, Abraham created an altar to the Lord God in that place and offered thanksgiving sacrifices. In those days, the king of the Assyrian monarchy was Ninius, whom historians call the second Nin, the son of the former Nin and Semiramis. He was not the same expander and ruler of the kingdom as his father was; He also did not imitate his mother in her courage, but only followed her in her prodigal life. Thanks to his negligence, many countries fell away from the monarchy, for he, having put aside military weapons, and entrusted the rule of the kingdom to his boyars and governors, he himself completely indulged in voluptuous carnal impurities and exhausted his whole life with hosts of nasty girls and eunuchs, even bringing her to old age and to a disastrous death. He reigned for 38 years. All the other Assyrian kings who came after him lived the same depraved life; more than thirty of their names are mentioned in stories, even before Sardanapalus, under which the Assyrian monarchy ceased to exist. All of them were kings only in name, but in reality they were slaves of their passions, and the memory of them died with noise (Ps. 9:7) (Bellarmine, Kluver and Alstedius). When righteous Abraham was in the land of Canaan, as a stranger and stranger, there was a famine in this country, and he had to go to Egypt, where there was a harvest. Saint Ambrose says that not only for the sake of hunger, but also at the command of God, Abraham went to Egypt, so that the name of the omnipotent God would become known there and so that the infidels would be horrified. For the saint of God, entering the Egyptian country and knowing the evil and fornicating disposition of its inhabitants, raging with lust for wives, commanded his beloved wife Sarah, who was beautiful, to be called not his wife, but his sister (as in reality she was his distant sister by kinship), fearing that the Egyptians would not kill him for her sake. Here Abraham turned out to be a man subject to infirmities and, as it were, doubting God’s protection. But this doubt and fear appeared in him by God’s permission for a greater revelation of God’s care for His servants and for their quick and strong protection. For when the chaste Sarah was taken by force into the house of Pharaoh (the Egyptians usually called their kings Pharaohs), the hand of God immediately stretched out on Pharaoh so that he would not touch the holy wife of the holy husband, who at that time tearfully prayed to God for his wife, whose chastity he did not doubt, knowing that she would never deign to commit the sin of adultery; he entrusted her to the strong protection of his Lord, in whom he trusted unshakably. The hand of the Lord touched not only Pharaoh alone, but also his entire house, for various and serious illnesses suddenly came upon the king himself, on all his male and female servants, and on all his livestock, and they suffered continuously both day and night. Since no one could determine why such a great evil befell them all, the Egyptian priests began to beg their bad gods with sacrifices to tell them the cause of the disaster that had broken out. And at the command of God, the demons who lived in idols prophesied the truth, although they did not want it; They prophesied that such an execution was sent from the heavenly God to the king and his entire house because someone else’s wife had been taken to the king. Then Pharaoh was filled with great fear and feared the heavenly God, returned his pure wife to Abraham, presented her with gifts and honored her with great honor. At this time, the true and all-powerful God, about whom people had never heard before, became known in Egypt, and His greatness became a subject of surprise, as did His strength, for He showed such a threat against Pharaoh for His servants Abraham and Sarah. Saint Abraham did not remain silent before Pharaoh and before all the Egyptians, confessing and preaching the true God, the only Creator of heaven, earth and sea and the Almighty of the world. And Pharaoh, as the Jew Joseph narrates, counted Abraham among his Egyptian sages. Abraham had a great dispute with the latter about God, and the Egyptian wisdom had no success before the godly lips of Abraham. However, even the godly lips of Abraham had little success in hardened hearts, “whose ears were hard to hear” (Isa. 6:10). Although the Egyptians did not believe in the God preached by Abraham, they learned about Him to their greater condemnation, namely, that they would not have an excuse at the Last Judgment of God when they said: we have not heard about the true God, and therefore we did not know about Him. In addition, arithmeticians (mathematicians) and astrologers learned from Abraham what they did not know before. Since Abraham constantly kept in his memory the promise of a land for his tribe, after a year of famine he returned to it again, being escorted with honor by the Egyptians, as it is written about this: “And Pharaoh commanded his husband Abraham and his wife, and all who were greater than him, and Lot to spend with him” (Gen. 12:20). When Abraham and Lot returned to the land of Canaan, they were faced with the need to be separated from each other. God blessed Abraham with earthly wealth, for he was worthy of heavenly blessings; and he had large herds of cattle. It’s the same with Lot, for even over him, who was with the great saint of God, God’s blessing poured out in abundance. As a result, there were frequent disputes between their shepherds over pastures. Abraham, seeing this, said to his nephew Lot: “Let there be no quarrel between us, let us be separated from ourselves; Behold, the whole earth is before you, to what country do you want to turn? If you go to the left, I go to the right; If you go to the right, I will go to the left” (Gen. 13:8-9). A righteous and godly husband, not wanting to offend anyone in anything, gives the youngest the will of choice, so that he chooses for himself the part that he wants, so that later he cannot be indignant at him as his offender. And Lot chose for himself a place of settlement in the country of Jordan, within the borders of Sodom, since this country before the destruction of Sodom was fertile, like the paradise of God, and Abraham settled in Hebron, near the Mamre oak. Before he moved there, God again appeared to him, promising to multiply his family and give him that land as an inheritance. “All the land,” He said, “even as you see, I will give it to you and to your seed, and I will make your descendants like the sand of the earth” (Gen. 13:15–16). Abraham created an altar to God in Hebron and offered sacrifices, thanking his Lord for keeping him safe in Egypt and bringing him back healthy and for the promise of the increase of his family and the inheritance of the good land. When righteous Lot was staying with his property within the borders of Sodom, then a fight arose between the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah with the king of Elam, Chodollogomor, and others who entered into an agreement with him. Hodollogomor defeated the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah, drove them out, began to fight in their countries, capturing a lot of booty and took many people captive, among whom Abraham’s nephew Lot was also captured. Abraham, hearing about Lot's captivity, gathered 318 of his household, chased after the enemies, attacked them at night, defeated them and drove them away, and took away all the captivity and booty, returning his nephew Lot with all his estates and people. During Abraham's return from this battle, the king of Sodom came out to meet him, thanking him for the return of the captives. Also, the King of Salem, Melchizedek, met him and brought him bread and wine, for he was a priest of the Most High God” (Gen. 14:18). He blessed Abraham, and Abraham gave Melchizedek a tenth of all the spoils. Regarding these kings who came together to war, whose names are mentioned in the 14th chapter of the Book of Genesis, it is necessary to know that they were not such kings as monarchs possessing many countries and cities, but each of them was the king of one city, they were like kings and princes, but all together they were under the authority of one Assyrian monarchy. That is why the Jew Joseph calls this war that befell the Sodomites the Assyrian war. Before the final death of the Sodomites, the Lord first allowed them to be invaded by enemies and captured, so that they would refrain somewhat from their evil deeds and show repentance. The merciful God, who does not want the death and destruction of sinners, although they are worthy of eternal execution, does not immediately execute them, but first allows them certain punishments, such as an invasion of foreigners and war or any other troubles, hunger, illness, adversity, and the like, so that they come to their senses and become wiser. If, even after being punished, they do not repent, then he consigns them to final destruction and ruin. This is what He did with the Sodomites: first of all, He punished them with the battle of God, and when they did not repent, He already destroyed them with fire, as will be said later. From here you can also see that God punishes sinners with sinners, for evil and wicked people in the hands of God are like a scourge with which He beats those who sin against Him. So He punished the Jews with the Chaldeans, the Chaldeans with the Persians, the Persians with the Greeks, the Greeks with the Romans, the Romans with the Goths, and now He punishes Christians with the Hagarians, which can be observed, for example, in Greece. “Abraham gathered together his household 318” (Gen. 14:14). It is not a multitude of troops, but faith with good deeds and prayer with unshakable trust in God that defeats the enemy regiments. Khodollogomor, together with the other three kings who came to fight against the Sodom kings, had incomparably greater military strength than Abraham, and yet they were defeated by Abraham’s few warriors, for they were godless and did not have God as an assistant, whom Abraham called for help with warm prayer. Therefore, every king who goes to war trusts in vain in the large number of his troops; if he has God angry with him, then he will lose His help. He who has a merciful God upon himself and trusts in His help will not be embarrassed even with the small number of his troops: “Our Lord does not delight in the strength of our bodies, nor in the baldness of men, but He delights in those who fear Him and in those who trust in His mercy” (Ps. 146: 10-11). Saint Abraham, who defeated Khodollogomor with 318 of his household, was a prototype (as Saint Ambrose thinks) of the three hundred and eighteen holy fathers who gathered in Nicaea against the evil Arius and defeated him in a dispute with their words and miracles. Many people have written different opinions about Melchizedek. Some of the Jews believed that it was Shem, the son of Noah, and perhaps Noah himself, while others saw Enoch in him. Origen and Didymus considered Melchizedek to be an angel, and some of the heretics said that it was the Holy Spirit, which is why they received the name “Melchizedekians.” Let it be known to us that Melchizedek was like us in everything, had a father and mother from the tribe of Ham and was one of the kings or kings of the land of Canaan; but of all the Canaanite kings, he alone knew the one true God, who created heaven and earth, and served him with pure sacrifices; and he was king in the city of Salim. Why is Melchizedek called by the holy Apostle Paul to have neither father, nor mother, nor sacred family (Heb. 7:3), this was clarified by St. John Chrysostom, saying the following: “We do not know who and when he had as a father, or who his mother was; We also don’t know when it began and when it died. And further he says: “He is likened to the Son of God” (Heb. 7:3). What is this similarity? This is that we know neither the beginning nor the end of this or the other, but the last one (that is, Melchizedek) because it is not written about him, and this one (that is, Christ) because He cannot be likened to anything” (Discourse 25 on the Book of Genesis, moral teaching 5). This is not why it is written about Melchizedek by the Apostle - “without father and mother,” as if he did not come from people, for he was a man in the flesh and was like us in everything, but because it is written that the holy prophet Moses, the first writer of holy history, did not write the name of his father and mother and did not indicate the family from which Melchizedek came. Why didn't he write? Because Moses proposed to write only about one family of Abraham, coming from the son of Shem, Arphaxad, from which (the family) Christ came; and since Melchizedek was not from this family, then (the writer of everyday life) did not write the names of his father and mother. Melchizedek was the image and likeness of the Son of God in the following respects. The name Melchizedek in interpretation means “king of righteousness,” and Christ the Lord is truth itself, for He justified us with His blood, so that through Him we might be saved from the wrath of God. Melchizedek was king of the city of Salem, that is, the world; Christ is the very peace that reconciled us with God the Father, as the Apostle says: “He is our peace, making both one” (Eph. 2:14). Like Melchizedek in Salem, so Christ in Jerusalem was glorified as a King when he entered the city on a young donkey as the youths exclaimed: “Blessed is the King who comes!” (Luke 19:38; John 12:13), as well as when the title was written over Him crucified: “Jesus the Nazarene King” (John 19:19). Melchizedek is without a father and without a mother in the books, since neither his father nor his mother are mentioned by name; Christ is truly without a Mother from the Father before the ages and without a father from the Mother in time. Melchizedek does not have the beginning and end of his days in the Holy Scriptures, since it is not written when he was born and when he died, but his birth and death are certain; Christ is in fact beginningless and endless, He is eternal. Melchizedek is in his generation the first and last priest, for We do not read that anyone else after him was such; Christ our Lord is a great Bishop who has passed through heaven, and He is the first and last such High Priest, who sacrificed Himself on the cross to His Father for the sins of the whole world. Melchizedek's sacrifice consisted of bread and wine; Christ, our Savior, left us Himself as a sacrifice, His most pure flesh and His life-giving blood under the guise of bread and wine. That is why David predicted about Him: “Thou art a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek” (Ps. 109:4). Not in the eternity of years according to the order of Melchizedek, but in a bloodless sacrifice made with bread and wine, for one Son of God is eternal, and Melchizedek died, as Saint Chrysostom says about him: “He (Melchizedek) died and was not a priest forever.” Ignatius the God-Bearer, in his letter to the Philadelphians about Melchizedek, writes the following: “Since he was a king and a high priest, and a virgin all the days of his life, he was thus a type of the Son of God, the King and the Hierarch, the Source of virginity and purity and the Bridegroom of those who are virgins.” – Anyone who wants to know more about Melchizedek, let him look in the Prologue for the months of May (22nd day) and February (23rd day). “Melchizedek king of Salem” (Gen. 14:18). The city of Salem is mentioned in the Gospel of John, in the 11th conception, in the following words: “John baptized in Aenon near Salem, for there were many waters” (John 3:23). We think that that Salim was not Jerusalem, although many believed so, calling Salim Jerusalem; it was a different city. For Salem was in the area of ​​Manasseh, near Aenon and Scythopolis, by the Jordan River, and Jerusalem was in the area of ​​Benjamin, on Mount Moriah, which was later called Zion, from the Amorite king Zion, on which Mount Abraham sacrificed his son Isaac to God, when at that time there was no city there, but there was an empty place, perhaps inhabited by a few surrounding farmers. And when Melchizedek met Abraham returning from the battle, Isaac had not yet been born. From this it is clear that Melchizedek was the king of that Salem, which was near the Jordan, near which John later baptized in the days of Christ. In the same sense, Jerome also narrates on the basis of the ancient Jewish rabbis, in confirmation of which the place of the Melchizedek chambers that were in ancient times is shown to this day. As for the fact that Melchizedek is said to be the creator of Jerusalem, he was only after the sacrifice that Abraham made on Mount Moriah, offering up Isaac as a sacrifice. This legend may be reliable, namely, that the holy man Melchizedek, filled with the gift of prophecy, having foreseen the miracles that would take place in this place in recent times, moved here from Salem, located near the Jordan, and created a city, calling it the name “Jerusalem”, composed of Greek and Hebrew. For “hieros” is a Greek word that means “sacred,” and “salim” is a Hebrew word that means “peace.” Combining both of these words into one word, we get “Jerusalem”, that is, “holy world”, for this place was sanctified by the sacrifice of Abraham and God’s appearance to Abraham, who was in this place and confirmed with him the covenant of eternal peace. After the battle in which Abraham defeated his enemies and freed his nephew Lot from captivity, Abraham returned to his place, which was in Hebron, and Lot again headed to Sodom and already settled in the city of Sodom itself, afraid to live outside the city within its borders, so that the enemies would not invade this country again. Lot's stay in Sodom was arranged according to God's discretion. Since the people who lived there were godless and lawless, as the Scripture says about them: “The people who were in Sodom are evil and sinners before God” (Gen. 13:13), then God sent them Lot, a righteous, God-fearing man, keeping his life blamelessly, so that they, having an example of a pure and honest life and listening to his admonishing words, would correct themselves and avoid what was being prepared for them. God's justice is fierce punishment. One can clearly see the bitterness of the vile Sodomites and the great chastity of Lot. They were not corrected by the presence of a virtuous and righteous man among them and his useful admonitions. Lot, among such a lawless people, who openly and without shame committed bad deeds, did not become corrupted and did not change his righteous life, no matter how he walked in the middle of the fire and got dirty in the middle of the swamp. And he was a righteous man in the midst of sinners, like a bush in the midst of thorns, being heard and seen from everywhere by their sinful deeds, as if wounded by thorns, as the holy Apostle Peter tells about this, saying: “By seeing and hearing the righteous man living in them, from day to day the righteous soul was tormented by (their) lawless deeds” (2 Pet. 2:8). Oh, how great is the virtue that he who dwells among the obstinate should not become corrupt, and he who tarries among those who commit fornication should be pure! It is not surprising to be venerable with the venerable, innocent with the innocent (Ps. 17:26) and in solitude to keep oneself pure, without having any temptations before one’s eyes; It’s amazing when someone among the evil remains good, among the unclean and among the outrageous, a dean! Whoever is like Lot was, let us please him! And vice versa, how great will be God’s condemnation of the one who, living among the good, turns out to be evil, while staying with the righteous, appears lawless, living with those who fear God, nevertheless, he spends his days without the fear of God in sinful impurities, having before his eyes an example of virtue and pleasing God, will remain incorrigible. Will he not receive a share with the Sodomites, who did not want to benefit from righteous Lot and become wiser, and with Judas, who was with Christ and among the apostles, but was not corrected by their example and inherited destruction? Then God appeared to Abraham again, promising to be his protector everywhere throughout his life. “Do not be afraid,” He said, “I will protect you, and your reward will be many” (Genesis 15: 1). When Abraham doubted the multiplication of the tribe that was promised to him, since he was childless, for Sarah was barren, then God commanded him to look at the sky and count the stars (for it was night), and just as the stars were uncountable, so his seed would be uncountable. God not only informed him about the multiplication of his family, but also about what would happen to his tribe, and informed him as follows. He ordered to prepare for the sacrifice a three-year-old young woman, a three-year-old goat and a three-year-old ram, as well as a dove and a turtledove, to cut them into pieces, but not to cut the turtledove and the pigeon; then he ordered to place them differently against himself, one part against the other, leaving a path in the middle of them, and to guard these parts all day and even until the evening. When Abraham did all this, carnivorous birds flocked to the dissected bodies, and Abraham drove them away, not allowing them to land on the bodies. When the sun began to set, horror and fear attacked him. And the word of the Lord came to him, saying: know that initially your descendants will not dwell in their own land, they will remain in slavery and bitterness for four hundred years; after this they will come out with much wealth; in the fourth generation they will return here, and in the meantime the sins of the wicked people living on this earth will reach the full measure of their punishment, for the measure of the iniquities of the Amorites has not yet been filled. After these words, a fiery flame came down from heaven and passed between the dissected animals and burned them as a sacrifice to God. Then Abraham began to unwaveringly believe the words of God. God commanded Abraham to cut up the bodies of animals according to a custom established in ancient generations. For in ancient times, in general, when reconciliation took place, several animals were dissected and, putting one part against the other, they walked between them and made their oaths, saying: so let us ourselves be cut up, like these animals, if we break our word and do not keep our peaceful covenant. By such a human institution, the Lord God and His saint Abraham wished to establish His mercy as eternal peace, which is why He ordered the animals to be cut up. In three three-year-old animals, a young woman, a goat and a ram, the three periods of time of the Jewish race in Egypt were mysteriously represented. The young woman prefigured the first time from the entry of Jacob into Egypt until the death of Joseph, precisely the time in which the Jews, like a young young woman who had not been brought under yoke, who entered a good pasture, sufficiently enjoyed the blessings of Egypt. The goat represented the time from the death of Joseph to the birth of Moses; During this period, the Egyptians began to burden the Jews with work, like milking a goat, and from their labors they began to get rich. Finally, the ram typified the time from the birth of Moses until the exodus of the Jews from Egypt, when the Jews greatly multiplied, despite the fact that they were oppressed by the Egyptians, and did not faint, but began to butt the Egyptians as if with horns - plagues miraculously inflicted by God through Moses and Aaron, and then, after eating the Passover lamb, they came out with the wealth of Egypt. The tearing of the flesh was a prototype of the grief of the Jews in Egypt, and the pair of birds marked two periods of time after the exit from Egypt. The turtledove living along the way signified that difficult forty-year time during which the people of Israel wandered in the desert; the dove meant a prosperous time in which they entered the promised land. Carnivorous birds descending on dissected bodies to eat them prefigured numerous enemies: the Amalekites, Moabites, Midianites, Amorites, Canaanites and others who wanted to destroy the Jewish race. Finally, Abraham, driving away these carnivorous birds from their bodies, was an image of God's help and protection, by which the Israelites were preserved (until they were corrupted) from all their enemies for the sake of their forefather Abraham. According to the spiritual interpretation, the sacrifice was a prototype of Christ Himself, our Lord, who was to become reconciliation and sacrifice to God the Father for the sins of the whole world. Aries meant the lamb's gentleness in Christ, the goat meant the flesh of Christ, like sinners, as the Apostle says: “God sent His Son in the likeness of the flesh of sin” (Rom. 8:3). The young woman symbolized the suffering of Christ, the turtle dove symbolized purity, and the dove symbolized Christ’s meekness. Abraham driving away carnivorous birds from the dissected bodies was an image of the deacon's service during the hierarchal celebration of the liturgy, for the deacons hold ripids over the sacrifice being performed and drive away flies and midges, and other small insects. In addition, for our teaching this is interpreted in the following way. For anyone who wishes to achieve heavenly bliss as the promised land, it is appropriate to have, as a true-spirited son of Abraham, a three-year-old mental youth, that is, triple humility, consisting of submission to God for the sake of elders, equals and juniors, and also to have a three-year-old goat, that is, triple repentance - heartfelt contrition, true confession and satisfaction for the sins committed. It is also appropriate to have a three-year-old ram, that is, triple courage, which consists in steadfastness for the holy faith and one’s Lord, not taking into account property, honor or the health of one’s body, but despite the deprivation of all this, joyfully enduring for the glory of God and the Holy Church. It is necessary to have a turtle dove with all this. - purity of body and soul, and the dove - simplicity of heart and meekness, in order to drive away, like carnivorous birds, demonic temptations and one’s evil thoughts. “The sins of the Amorites have not passed away until now” (Gen. 15, 16). These words are terrible, which point to the great sin of people against the long-suffering God, who allows the atrocities of sinners to fill the measure of destructive punishment. For when the Lord God does not quickly punish an unrepentant sinner for his sins, but in His longsuffering leaves him to live in prosperity and fall into the same and even greater sins, then He spares him, let it be known, for the great execution, preparing for him endless torment in hell according to the extent of his sins, being a righteous Judge and Rewarder. So the God of the Amorites (they are also Canaanites) was long-suffering until they fulfilled the measure of their destruction with their sins. When a sinner, after his fall, does not quickly rise with repentance, then, due to the fact that the former grace of God is taken away from him for the sake of his sins, he becomes darkened in his mind, does not think or care about his salvation, does not see his destruction and, like a blind man, stumbles more and more day by day and falls into the deepest pit of sin until he fills the measure of lawlessness and impurity his own and will not end up in the extreme and eternal abyss of destruction, like the Amorites. What were the sins of the Amorites for which they perished temporarily and eternally? From the Books of Moses (Deut. 12:29–31; 27:9–26 and Lev. 18:1–28; 20:1–24) one can discern the three greatest sins: the first sin is idolatry, in which they sacrificed their sons and daughters to demons; the second sin is untruth and grief of wretched people, theft, robbery and bloodshed; finally, the third sin of the Amorites is their unrestrained fornication, extranatural stingy defilements, which it is not only disgusting to commit to writing, but also to remember with the mind. With such sins they filled themselves with the cup of the wrath of God, which they are now drinking in hell and will drink in endless centuries, the cup of burning pitch and brimstone, which is mentioned in the psalms: “Fire and a bogeyman, and a stormy spirit is part of their cup” (Ps. 10:6). Let us think about the fact that are not found in us, Christians, the same sins as those sinners had? We have no idols, but our sinful passions are idols for us, for which we bury our only begotten soul, not being afraid to betray it to Gehenna for the sake of temporary sinful pleasure. Who can count the untruths that are being committed today? Robberies, thefts, insults to the innocent, injustice, unmercifulness, deceit, flattery, insults and oppression inflicted on poor people, what language can he utter, or what written books can contain what is happening today among Christians? And about the uncleanness of the prodigal, which is a shame to write and talk about, what do we think about them, and are not Christians equal in them to those ancient pagans? It is truly amazing how such people are not suddenly punished, as was Sodom and Gomorrah in ancient times? But God is patient! until the sinner either turns to repentance, or fulfills with his sins the measure of punishment due to him, as in the Apocalypse the angel says to the Theologian: “The time is near, let him offend again, and let the bad one be defiled again” (Apoc. 22:11). That is why the filthy is allowed to continue to defile himself until he has fulfilled the measure of his defilements, and he will wallow in them, and go down with them even to the underworld. When such sins are committed in us, what can we expect? What kind of reward from God's justice can we hope for? Is it not the same as that received by the Amorites (aka Canaanites), whose bodies, when they lived, were destroyed by the sword of Israel, and when they died, their souls were devoured by fiery Gehenna? But it will be more joyful for the unfaithful, more joyful (according to Christ) it will be for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the Day of Judgment than for us (Matthew 10:15). For they did not know God and did not expect execution for sins or reward for good deeds, but we think that we know God, and we hear about the eternal torment awaiting unrepentant sinners, and we are also assured of reward for the righteous. However, even with all this, we still dare, like infidels, to fearlessly do all evil and God-wrathful deeds. How will we appear before the face of Christ at His Last Judgment? And what kind of judgment do we expect to receive from Him? You might be interested in: