Период третий. От избрания Авраама до смерти Иосифа и заключения патриархальной эпохи

VII. Election of Abraham. His resettlement to the land of Canaan and his life in this country. God's Covenant with Abraham and the Promise of a Son 24. In the southern part of Mesopotamia, in what was called Chaldea in ancient times, on the right bank of the Euphrates, about ten miles from it, there is the village of Mugair, founded on the ruins of an ancient city, the remains of which are still visible today. This city, as can be seen from the inscriptions on the monuments, was Ur, called Chaldean after its location. In ancient times it was much closer to the shore of the Persian Gulf, from which it is now separated by a large strip of alluvial land, and carried on an extensive maritime trade. The surrounding area was fertile, industry was vibrant, and the population (mostly of Cushitic origin), distinguished by its peaceful industrial character, enjoyed complete prosperity and stood at a high level of civilization. Their art of construction was especially developed, and the remains of large structures still excite wonder among researchers. The extraordinary transparency of the air, in which the stars glow rather than simply shine, gave rise to early observations of the celestial bodies, and astronomy, with its related astrology, was the favorite subject of a special class of scientists who also studied mathematics, legislation and methods of government. Writing was already well known, and there were even entire libraries, although instead of books there were clay tablets with writing depicted on them. Of the industrial arts, textile production, metal working and engraving were especially famous. Unfortunately, this entire rich civilization was permeated through and through with the grossest idolatry with its inseparable wickedness. Instead of altars to the true God, churches and churches to idols rose everywhere, the service of which often took on a grossly sensual and shameful character. The main deities were considered to be the sun and the moon, followed by other minor deities like the lesser planets and stars. Churches were built to them, cities were dedicated, images were made from them, which received the meaning of household gods (teraphim), who were entrusted with protecting the welfare of individual families. It was to this land of idolatry that one of the post-flood patriarchs, namely the son of Nahor, Terah, migrated. His distant ancestor was Eber, who descended in a direct line from Shem, the son of Noah. Coming from such a glorious family and being its direct representative, Terah firmly adhered to the traditions of his fathers: he preserved not only the true faith in God and the promise associated with it, but also all the laws of Noah. It is unknown what exactly prompted him to move to Chaldea; but, in any case, it is known that he settled in Ur and lived there for a considerable time. He formed his own family there, consisting of three sons - Abram, Nahor and Haran, who in turn got married, and the last two had their own children, and Abram's wife Sarah (his sister on his father's side, but not from his own mother) was barren. The position of this family in an idolatrous country was undoubtedly difficult. The most disgusting idolatry reigned all around. Ur of the Chaldees itself was even the center of local idolatry and was famous for its churches to idols, among which the most revered was the moon. All this weighed so heavily on the pious family of Terah that he, not seeing the possibility of remaining any longer in an idolatrous and wicked country, the inhabitants of which, perhaps, were also hostile to him for his true faith and non-worship of idols, intended to leave it completely and move to the land of Canaan. But various connections with the country still kept him from doing this, and he only moved to another Chaldean city, Harran, where he stayed. Meanwhile, the environment did not remain without influence on this pious family: Terah himself, towards the end of his life, apparently succumbed to idolatry (Joshua 24:2), and thus the danger threatened the faith even in this pious family. Then the Lord determined to take a man from this family in order to make him His chosen instrument in preserving true religion in the world. The divine choice fell on Abram. He was undoubtedly the most religious and pious member of the family, and, according to Jewish tradition, he showed extraordinary devotion to the true religion even in childhood. While still a youth, Abram, seeing the gross idolatry surrounding him, was anxiously occupied with the great question of whether people were doing the right thing in idolizing the heavenly bodies. One day, says legend, looking around the earth and looking at the sky, the youth Abram began to think who could have created all this. Then the sun rose in all its brilliant splendor, and he thought that this must be the Creator of everything, and he bowed to him and idolized him all day long. When, however, with the onset of evening, the sun set, Abram doubted that the Creator of all could be so darkened. But then in the east the moon rose in its enchanting brilliance, and countless stars sparkled around it. “Truly,” the youth cried, “this is the creator of the universe, and the stars are his servants!” and he bowed to the moon and deified her. However, the moon slowly rolled to the west, the stars faded, and again the luminary of day rose in the eastern sky. Then Abram said: “No, it is not possible that any of these heavenly bodies could be the creator of the world; they obey only the will of the Invisible, to whom they owe their existence: It is Him that I will henceforth only idolize, It is Him that I will only worship.” And he invariably adhered to this true faith until the moment when the Providence of God made him his chosen one. And the Lord said to Abram: “Get out of your land, from your kindred, and from your father’s house, (and go) to the land that I will show you.” To encourage him in this feat, the Lord immediately added a great promise: “And I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you, and I will magnify your name, and you will be a blessing. And I will bless those who bless you, and those who curse you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.” Abram was at that time seventy-five years old, he was a married man and, although he had no children, he was still quite settled in his homeland; therefore, to leave everything and go into an unknown land required strong faith in the voice of revelation. But Abram was strong in faith, in his father’s house he courageously fought against the invasion of idolatry, and now, hearing such a great promise, higher than which in patriarchal times and for a believer nothing could be, he “obeyed by faith the calling to go to the country that he had to receive as an inheritance, and he went, not knowing where he was going” (Heb. 11:8). Taking his wife and nephew Lot (who remained an orphan after his father Haran) and capturing his flocks with their household members, Abram crossed to the right bank of the Euphrates and headed across the Syrian desert to Damascus, where he found himself a faithful servant Eleazar, and then, crossing the Jordan River, entered the land of Canaan and pitched his tent near the oak grove of Moreh, near Shechem, in one of the most fertile places in the country. And there the Lord appeared to him a second time and confirmed that He would give this land to the descendants of Abram, in memory of which Abram erected an altar to the Lord there. The Canaanite natives did not particularly welcome the stranger who came to use their pastures, and therefore Abram was forced to move further to the south and there, stopping between Bethel and Ai, he erected another altar to the Lord. Being in this mountainous area made him safe from the Canaanites, who occupied richer pastures in the lowlands, but this area was poor for feeding herds. He therefore moved even further to the south, until complete famine forced him to completely leave the promised land and go to the granary of the ancient world - Egypt 25. Egypt at this time was already at a high level of civilization. On the banks of the Nile, majestic pyramids already rose, as they still do; There were even monuments that testified to the historical antiquity of the country. The unlimited ruler (pharaoh) received divine honors from his people, as a direct descendant of the gods. The sciences and arts flourished, and there was already significant literature on various branches of knowledge, and especially on anatomy and medicine. In large, rich capitals and cities, numerous churches and obelisks rose, lined with polished granite, and everywhere one could see many sphinxes and all kinds of statues and idols - made of stone, gold, silver, bronze and ivory. The richest tombs, decorated in every possible way with paintings and sculptures, with embalmed dead bodies (mummies) resting in them, represented entire “cities of the dead.” The most lively and flourishing social life was in full swing all around. The pharaoh's palace in Memphis was teeming with all kinds of priests and magicians who served as close advisers to the pharaoh. Noble nobles lived in magnificent houses, filled with all sorts of servants, all kinds of servants and slaves, and all the surrounding life testified that Egypt rightly deserved the name “land of wonders.” All this, undoubtedly, should have amazed Abram a lot (although he had seen something similar in his homeland, in Chaldea); but he, however, had already heard a lot about Egypt and was even partially familiar with the nature of the government and the morals of the country. Therefore, when entering it, he found it necessary to take some precautions. So, knowing the boundless arbitrariness and despotic character of her kings - the pharaohs, he agreed with Sarah so that she would pretend to be only his sister, since otherwise, if the pharaoh liked her, the Egyptians would kill her husband, which actually happened, as the monuments of ancient Egypt show. The precaution was not in vain. The pharaoh liked the beautiful Sarah, and he took her into his house, and endowed his imaginary brother-in-law with rich gifts - “flocks and herds, and donkeys, and male and female slaves, and mules, and camels.” But “the Lord struck Pharaoh with heavy blows because of Sarai Abram’s wife,” so that he was forced to return her to her husband and ordered them to leave his country. After leaving Egypt, Abram again settled in the vicinity of Bethel, where he resumed his worship, “calling on the Lord.” Meanwhile, the herds of Abram and his nephew Lot multiplied so much that they began to lack pastures, the shepherds of both began to start disputes and quarrels among themselves over pastures, and Lot himself, apparently, began to strive for independence from his uncle 26 . This was a new test of Abram's faith, and he did not disgrace it. He invited Lot to choose for himself the best part of the pastures, which he chose, taking for himself the entire richest surroundings of the Jordan, a country that “all up to Zoar was watered with water, like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt.” Abram himself, believing in the best promises, remained in the meager pastures of Bethel, and for this faith, combined with self-sacrifice, the Lord rewarded him with the third promise: “Lift up your eyes, the Lord who appeared to him said, and from the place where you are now, look to the north, and to the south, and to the east, and to the west. For all the land that you see I will give to you and to your descendants forever. I will make your descendants like the sand of the earth; if anyone can count the sand of the earth, then your descendants will also be counted. Arise, walk through this land to the length and breadth of it: for I have given it to you (and to your descendants forever).” Abram moved his tent and settled near the oak grove of Mamre in Hebron. This was Abram's third encampment in the Promised Land, and it became his usual place of sojourn there. Meanwhile, Lot, having separated from his uncle Abram, settled in the lower part of the Jordan Valley, which at that time was occupied by five rich cities. These cities of Sodom, Gomorrah, Seboim, Adma and Bela (or Zoar) formed the union of the five cities; each of them had its own special king, but at their head was the king of Sodom. The population of these cities was distinguished by outrageous corruption of morals and depravity, disgusting and unnatural vices. But besides this moral wickedness, which troubled Lot’s not yet completely corrupted conscience, a terrible disaster suddenly befell him. These cities paid tribute to Hedorlaomer, the king of Elam, one of the states neighboring Mesopotamia 27 . In the thirteenth year of their subjection they rebelled, refused to pay tribute, and Hedorlaomer with three allied kings moved to pacify and punish them. The king of Sodom, in alliance with four kings of other cities in the valley, opposed him. The troops of the warring parties met in the Sidlim valley, replete with many tar pits. The Sodomites were defeated and put to flight, the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fell into pits and died, and the rest fled to the mountains. The victors seized all the property of Sodom and Gomorrah with their reserves, and with great booty and many captives they set off on a return campaign. Among the captives was Lot, who at that time lived in Sodom. When news of such a disaster for his nephew reached Abram, he immediately armed his slaves, numbering 318, and, in alliance with neighboring friendly tribes, rushed in pursuit of the enemy. Having caught him at Dan (in the northern part of Palestine), he attacked the careless victors from both sides at night, defeated them, put them to flight, freed all the captives along with Lot, his nephew, and returned to everyone the property that had been taken back, refusing even the gifts brought to him in gratitude for the liberation by the new king of Sodom. Abram's return from this victory was marked by one very remarkable event 28. Melchizedek, king of Salem, came out to meet him among others with bread and wine. He was at the same time the “priest of the most high God,” and he blessed Abram in the name of the most high God, and Abram gave him a tenth of everything. The unexpected appearance and disappearance of Melchizedek surrounds his personality with extraordinary mystery. That he was both king and priest is completely consistent with the patriarchal state of ancient society; but his priesthood appears to have been higher than the ordinary priesthood of the head of a family, as is evident from the extraordinary honor shown him by Abram. Hence he became a striking type of the great High Priest of the New Testament, and his history shows that the true faith was also preserved outside the chosen family. No matter how complete Abram’s victory was, it could only entail terrible vengeance on the part of the defeated king, and therefore now Abram needed moral encouragement more than ever. And the Lord appeared to him for the fourth time 29 and said: “Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward will be very great.” In response to Abram's complaint about childlessness, the Lord gave him a promise of numerous offspring. “Look at the sky,” the Lord told him, and count the stars if you can count them. You will have so many descendants.” “Abram believed the Lord, and He counted it to him as righteousness.” The great promise was confirmed by a covenant concluded according to the ritual of that time through dissected animals, and during the deep sleep that fell on Abram, the Lord made a revelation about the further fate of his descendants, namely, “that for four hundred years they will be in slavery and humiliation in a foreign land, but will come out of there with great wealth, will return to the promised land, and it will be given to him for his possession - “from the river of Egypt to the great river Euphrates." All these promises required great faith from Abram, because their implementation was contradicted by reality. Abram was already approaching old age, but was still childless. Sarah, barren and less involved in these promises, in order not to leave her husband completely without offspring, gave him her maid Hagar the Egyptian as a concubine 30 . The latter, however, soon aroused jealousy in her mistress, and Sarah began to oppress her, so that she fled from her into the desert. But there an “angel of the Lord” appeared to her, who ordered her to return to her mistress and submit to her, promising her at the same time numerous offspring from the son Ishmael who would be born to her. “He will be,” said the angel, among people like a wild donkey; his hands are against everyone, and the hands of everyone are against him; he will live in the presence of all his brothers.” Abram was already eighty-six years old when Hagar bore him a son, Ishmael, but his faith was to be tested for another fourteen years, when the previous promise was again confirmed to him with a new solemn assurance of a large number of offspring, as a sign of which the Lord commanded him from now on to be called Abraham - “Father of many nations,” and gave Sarah the name of Sarah, as the mother of numerous offspring. But Abraham’s faith seemed to have partly already wavered: “he fell on his face, and laughed, and said to himself: will there really be a son from a hundred years old? and Sarah, ninety years old, will she really give birth?” and asked that at least Ishmael might live. Then the Lord said to him: “It is Sarah your wife who will bear you a son, and you will call his name Isaac (laughter). And I will establish my covenant with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear to you at this very time next year.” As a visible sign of inclusion in this solemn covenant with God, the rite of circumcision 31 was established at this time, which was commanded to be performed on the eighth day on every newborn male child and on all slaves when they were purchased. The entire family of Abraham, with all their households and slaves, was then brought into the covenant through circumcision. VIII. Epiphany at the Oak of Mamri. The death of cities in the Siddim Valley. The supreme test of Abraham's faith and the last days of his life 32. After confirming the covenant with God, Abraham becomes a complete “friend of God” and lives in constant and close communion with Him. But while the faith and piety of the chosen patriarch grew and strengthened, the unbelief and wickedness of those evil and lawless cities among which his nephew Lot lived grew and intensified. Quickly filling the cup of their iniquity, they finally incurred the terrible wrath of God. When Abraham one hot day was sitting at the entrance to his tent near the Mamri oak grove, he saw three wanderers whom he, with truly patriarchal cordiality, asked to come to him and take a break from the day's heat and fatigue, and offered them the usual hospitality in the east, refreshing their feet with water and strengthening their strength with bread and the meat of a deliberately killed calf. But these were not ordinary wanderers, but in their person the Lord Himself with two angels serving Him. Abraham soon learned the true dignity of his visitors, especially when they, after asking about Sarah and reproaching him for not believing in the possibility of a son, reaffirmed the promise, even setting a time for its fulfillment. Then they went towards Sodom, and when Abraham escorted them away, he received a revelation from them about the terrible judgment that they intended to carry out on the lawless cities for their sins. Thus the truth was revealed that God subjects sinners to His judgment even in this life. But Abraham, by his faith, comprehended another truth, that the righteous has boldness to intercede for sinners. And so Abraham began to have a conversation with the Lord about pardoning Sodom, and received a promise that the Lord would have mercy on the entire city if there were at least fifty, or thirty, twenty, or even ten righteous people in it. But in the lawless cities there were not such a small number of righteous people, and therefore their execution was inevitable. Abraham sadly returned to his tent, and two wandering angels went to Sodom, where Lot met them and, following the example of his uncle Abraham, showed them warm hospitality. But the inhabitants of Sodom, maddened by unbridled lust, even on the eve of their death did not stop at insulting the strangers with their lustful and depraved violence, and thereby accelerated their well-deserved death 33. The angels announced to Lot the reason and purpose of their terrible visit and ordered him to notify all his relatives about this and flee from the city with them. But even his sons-in-law thought he was joking, and Lot himself hesitated. Then the angels, commanding him to take his wife and two daughters, forcibly took them out of the city and ordered them to run up the mountain, to run without looking back. But even then he could not completely tear himself away from the place to which his worldly connections tied him, and he begged that at least one of the five cities of the valley, small Bela, in which Lot was saved, be spared for him. At sunrise, Lot reached this city, which became known as Zoar, and on the same day a terrible execution took place over the other four cities of the valley - Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboim. Destructive lava of sulfur and fire poured from the sky, and the next day, in the place where the lawless cities were, only stench and smoke smoked, “like smoke from a furnace,” and instead of land there was a yellow-turbid sulfur lake, now known as the Dead Sea. During the execution of this execution, Lot's wife could not overcome her criminal curiosity and, contrary to the command of the angels, looked back at the place of her worldly attachments and immediately, as a warning to all those looking at the wicked deeds of this world after renouncing him, “became a pillar of salt.” Lot himself, although saved from death, like Noah, after the flood, indulged in intoxication. His two daughters, thinking that the rest of the human race had perished, took advantage of this condition to restore the family, and their sons were born, Moab and Ben-Ammi, who became the founders of two nations, called by their names the Moabites and the Ammonites. The terrible execution of God over the lawless cities prompted Abraham to temporarily move away from their stinking neighborhood, and he temporarily left the Mamrian oak grove and moved further south from Bathsheba, which after that began to be considered the last border of the Promised Land in the south. Here, by the way, he found himself in the possessions of the Philistine king Abimelech, 34 with whom the same story was repeated that had already happened with the Egyptian pharaoh, and Abimelech was forced to return Sarah to her husband and with gifts escorted him out of his possession, and concluded a special agreement with him regarding the use of wells for pastures. Finally the time came when the great promise Abraham received from the Lord was to be fulfilled. Abraham was one hundred and Sarah was ninety years old when, while staying in Bathsheba, their long-desired son, Isaac, was born, who was circumcised on the eighth day according to the ordinance 35. In memory of the weaning of Isaac, Abraham made a great feast; but then Sarah noticed that Ishmael, the son of her despised slave, was mocking her Isaac and, despite Abraham’s reluctance, she insisted that he drive Hagar and her son out of the house, and Abraham escort them into the desert adjacent to Bathsheba. There, when the supply of water was exhausted, Hagar, exhausted by thirst and heat, despaired of salvation and, not wanting to see the death of her son, laid him under a bush, and she sat down at a distance and began to cry bitterly. Then the angel of the Lord again appeared to her to help, showed her a well with flowing water and repeated the promise that a great nation would come from her son. Miraculously saved from death, Ishmael “grew up and began to live in the desert, and became an archer.” He lived in the Paran desert, in the space between Palestine and Mount Horeb (in an area that is still the undivided property of his descendants, the Bedouins of Arabia), and his mother “took him a wife in the land of Egypt.” No matter how difficult the test that Abraham was subjected to when he was forced to lose his natural son Ishmael, he soon faced an even more difficult test, which, in the event of the steadfastness of his faith and obedience, was to finally secure for him the high title of the father of believers. This test consisted of God's command to sacrifice his only, long-awaited son Isaac, the one on whom all the hopes of Abraham and all the great promises given to him were based! 36. The command was given in all its terrifying clarity, without the slightest hint of the possibility of cancellation. God said to Abraham: “Take your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac; and go to the land of Moriah and there offer him as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I will tell you about.” And Abraham did not hesitate even before such a great sacrifice for him. He “rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took with him two of his young men, and Isaac his son; He chopped wood for the burnt offering and got up and went to the place that God had told him about.” According to legend, Isaac was already twenty-five years old at this time. After three days of travel, they reached the designated area and saw the mountain on which Isaac was to be sacrificed. Leaving his servants behind, Abraham took Isaac and went with him to the fatal mountain, himself carrying a sacrificial knife and fire, and forcing Isaac to carry firewood for the sacrifice. “And Isaac began to speak to Abraham his father, and said: My father, here is the fire and the wood, where is the lamb for the burnt offering? Abraham said: God will provide for Himself a lamb for a burnt offering, my son. And they both walked on together.” Upon reaching the appointed place, Abraham built an altar, placed firewood on it, tied up the astonished but unquestioningly obedient Isaac and laid him on the altar. The sacrificial knife had already been raised for slaughter, when suddenly the angel of the Lord held Abraham’s hand and told him that he had fully proven the steadfastness of his faith, not even sparing his beloved son, and Abraham, with a relieved and jubilant heart, sacrificed a ram, whose horns had become entangled not far from him in a thicket. In view of such boundless obedience to the will of God, not only were all the previous promises repeated to Abraham, but for the first time they were confirmed by an oath that God would “bless him and multiply his seed like the stars of heaven and like the sand on the seashore, and in his seed all the nations of the earth will be blessed because he obeyed the voice of God.” And Abraham, even more strengthened in faith, returned to Bathsheba. After the sacrifice of Isaac, Abraham still lived for many years, but the rest of his life was a peaceful enjoyment of the fruits of his faith and hope and does not represent any outstanding events. A few years later, Sarah, being one hundred and twenty-seven years old, died 37, and this is the only woman whose age is indicated in St. Scripture. Isaac was thirty-seven years old at this time and lived with his father in Hebron. Abraham wanted to bury his late wife with honor, but in all the promised land he did not have his own land “not even one foot.” As a result, he was forced to buy land from the Hittites and, having paid 400 shekels of silver for the field with the cave of Machpelah, not far from the Mamrian oak grove, he buried Sarah, who had long been mourned by him, in that cave. Three years after Sarah's death, Abraham decided to make up for the loss in his family by marrying Isaac 38 . His sincere desire was for his son to marry not a spoiled Canaanite woman, but someone from his closest family. For this purpose, he equipped his faithful servant Eleazar to go to his homeland and there find a wife for Isaac. Having taken an oath from the slave, Abraham released him, and the story of meeting the bride for Isaac and concluding a marriage with her presents a vivid picture of the morals of that patriarchal age. Arriving in the indicated country, precisely in the city of Harran, slave Abraham accidentally meets “a maiden of beautiful appearance, a maiden whom her husband did not know.” He involuntarily drew attention to her, asked her for water to drink, and when she turned out to be so helpful that she not only gave him something to drink, but also took the trouble to draw water for his camels, then after that he could no longer let her out of sight: her physical beauty and spiritual kindness riveted him to her. He immediately gave her a gold earring weighing half a shekel and two wristbands for her hands, worth ten shekels of gold. Having asked whose daughter she was and whether they had a place to stay for the night, and having received an answer from the kind girl, surprised and delighted with the gifts, that they “had a lot of straw and feed, and a place to sleep,” he went to her father’s house, who turned out to be Bethuel, Abraham’s nephew, from his brother Nahor, and immediately expressed his desire. The girl’s parents and her brother Laban, who took a special part in her, seeing the seriousness of the slave’s assignment, as well as the wealth of his master, who spared nothing for his beloved son, agreed to the marriage; They asked Rebekah (what was the girl’s name) if she agreed? and when she expressed her full consent, the marriage was concluded. The girl's parents and relatives received gifts; They still wanted to keep Rebekah in their house “at least ten days,” but since Eleazar could not hesitate, they said goodbye to their daughter, and “blessed her and said: our sister! May thousands of thousands be born of you, and may your descendants possess the dwellings of your enemies!” After this, Rebekah set off with a slave and several maidservants. When the travelers were approaching the goal of their journey, Isaac accidentally went out into the field to “think.” Rebekah, seeing him and recognizing who it was, was embarrassed and “took the veil and covered herself.” Having learned from the servant all the circumstances under which he had chosen the maiden brought for him, Isaac “brought her into the tent of his mother Sarah, and took Rebekah, and she became his wife, and he loved her; and Isaac was comforted in his sorrow for his mother Sarah.” From the subsequent life of Abraham, all that is known is that he took another wife, Keturah, with whom he had six sons 39 . But Keturah was rather his concubine, since Abraham bequeathed all his property to his son Isaac, “and gave gifts to the sons of the concubines and sent them during his lifetime to the east, to the eastern land.” And then the biblical chronicle reports that Abraham “passed away, and died in a good old age, aged, full (of life), and was gathered to his people.” He died at the age of one hundred and seventy-five and was buried by his sons Isaac and Ishmael in the cave of Mahpeda, in the very same place where the remains of his lifelong friend Sarah lay. This is how this great and glorious chosen one of God ended his life. Among the chosen vessels of God there are many great and righteous men, but above all of them in his faith and righteousness stands the spiritual ancestor of the human race, the father of believers and friend of God - Patriarch Abraham. His whole life shows that his faith was not a simple external confession, but the active beginning of everything, his being. He never had any doubts about the word and promise of God, even if its fulfillment seemed completely impossible to the human mind. “By faith,” says the apostle, Abraham, being tempted, sacrificed Isaac (his only son, from whom all the descendants promised to him were to come), for he thought that God was strong and would raise him from the dead (Heb. 11:17–19). The expression that he “believed in the Lord”, i.e., has never been applied to anyone with such force. I trusted Him completely, resting my spirit in this faith, like a child resting in the arms of its mother. And such faith was credited to him as righteousness, because it constitutes the main source from which righteousness can arise. “Abraham obeyed the voice of the Lord, kept His commandments, statutes and laws” (Gen. 26:5). Hence, he will forever remain the highest example of a believer, and from his example people of all nations and centuries can draw inspiration from the holy feelings of faith and hope. It is not for nothing that his memory is sacredly revered by the peoples of the three greatest religions of the world - Judaism, Christianity and Islam. – Despite, however, the greatness of his faith and hope, one can say about him the same thing that has been said about many other righteous people like him: “All these died in faith, not receiving the promises; but only they saw them from afar, and rejoiced, and said about themselves that they were strangers and strangers on earth” (Heb. 11:13). Ancient Jewish traditions praise the extraordinary knowledge and wisdom of Abraham and say that he was a teacher of monotheism among the Chaldeans, and was the first to teach astronomy and mathematics to the Egyptians. His name is still preserved in the memory of the Arabs, who call him “el-khalil” - “friend (of God).” IX. Isaac and his sons 40 The first years of Isaac's family life passed during the life of his elderly father, the patriarch. He was the sole heir of all the promises of Abraham, but he, like his father, had to be tested in his faith. His wife Rebekah was childless for twenty years, but he did not despair and prayed to the Lord. “And the Lord heard him, and Rebekah his wife conceived.” Just before the birth, something unusual happened that alarmed Rebekah; but she was reassured by the revelation that she would have two twin sons, “and two different nations would arise from her womb,” “one nation would become stronger than the other, and the older would serve the younger,” i.e. that, contrary to the usual order, the firstborn would not possess the right of birthright, with which all the great promises given to the posterity of Abraham were connected. This revelation sank deeply into Rebekah’s soul and served as a guide for her in her later life. Rebekah actually gave birth to two twins 41: “the first came out red, all shaggy like skin, and they called his name Esau (shaggy); then his brother came out, holding Esau’s heel with his hand; and his name was called Jacob (that is, he who holds the heel).” The character of the twin brothers turned out to be consistent with this. When they grew up, “Esau became a man skilled in hunting, a man of the fields, but Jacob became a meek man, living in tents.” As often happens, parents were somewhat partial to their chosen favorites, and it is remarkable that the calm, meek Isaac loved the brave, courageous trapper more, while Rebekah especially loved the modest and gentle Jacob. The latter probably soon learned from his mother about the revelation she had received regarding the future fate of the brothers, and began to wait for an opportunity to claim his rights to the birthright. The opportunity soon presented itself. One day Esau came from the field tired and hungry, and when he saw that Jacob had cooked a dish of lentils (which are now a favorite dish in Syria and Egypt), he began to persistently ask him to give him this “red” to eat. His hunger was so strong that when Jacob told him to sell him his birthright for this food, Esau did not even pay attention to Jacob’s offer and impatiently remarked: “Now I’m dying, what’s in this birthright?” Esau knew that with the birthright he was selling all his spiritual advantages and all rights to possess the promised land. But due to his wild and rude nature, he apparently did not attach any importance to the former, and as for the latter, perhaps he hoped to regain them with the help of his father’s favor and even direct violence against his meek brother, and thus, to satisfy his hunger, he sold his birthright for “red” lentils, which is why “he was given the name: Edom” (red). Meanwhile, one of those famine years began in the country, which had previously forced the patriarchs to move to neighboring, more fertile countries for food. Isaac decided to follow the example of his patriarch father and wanted to move to Egypt, but he was forbidden, and he spent a hungry year within the boundaries of the Philistine king Abimelech, where the same story that happened with Abraham was repeated with him and Rebekah 42 . Namely, he passed off Rebekah as his sister, but when the truth was revealed, Abimelech (probably the son of Abraham’s contemporary of the same name) showed him special patronage and respect. Thanks to this, Isaac was able to begin a more settled life and began farming. “And Isaac sowed in that land, and that year he received barley a hundredfold: so the Lord blessed him. And the man became great, and increased more and more until he became very great. He had herds of small and herds of cattle and many arable fields.” But the Philistines soon became jealous of his wealth, began to oppress him, buried the wells dug by Abraham, and generally started quarrels, which finally forced Isaac to move from here to Bathsheba. There the Lord appeared to strengthen him, confirming His blessing and promise to him, and Isaac built an altar there and called on the name of the Lord. Seeing the rightness of Isaac and repenting of the unjust oppression against him, the Philistine king Abimelech came to him with an apology, and between them, at a feast made by Isaac, a sworn alliance was concluded, near the same well, near which their fathers (Bathsheba) once concluded their alliance. Isaac's quiet family life was soon outraged by the disobedience of his favorite son Esau, who, without the blessing of his parents, at the age of forty, married two Canaanite women, thus entering into kinship with idolaters. “And they were a burden to Isaac and Rebekah.” But he soon faced an even more difficult family test. As his old age approached, his eyesight weakened, and he found it opportune to perform a solemn blessing to convey the promises associated with it to his posterity 43 . According to established custom, he, of course, intended to transfer the birthright to Esau, as the eldest son, and told him to prepare a meal from his own game for this occasion. Esau hardly informed him about the sale of his birthright, and Jacob, in turn, did not dare to openly express his claims to this right. It is not known whether Rebekah also knew about this, but only she, having heard about Isaac’s intention, decided to use cunning in order to use it to deliver the blessing of the birthright to her favorite Jacob. According to her advice, he had to put on his brother’s clothes, saturated with the smell of aromatic herbs and bushes, among which the trapper had to spend his life, and cover his body with a shaggy skin in order to be like his brother to the touch; Rebekah herself promised to prepare such a dish from domestic young animals that Isaac could hardly distinguish from the dish he expected from the game of Esau. Jacob hesitated, fearing a curse from his father if the deception was discovered; but Rebekah convinced him that she would even accept the curse. Jacob set to work; But what awe did he feel when the elder father, surprised by the too quick return of Esau and the preparation of the food, called the one who had appeared for a blessing to him in order to verify by touch whether it was really Esau. The elder felt the shaggy cover on Jacob’s hands and remarked in bewilderment: “the voice, the voice of Jacob; and the hands, the hands of Esau.” But the smell of hunting clothes finally dispelled the doubts of the elderly patriarch; He ate the food, drank wine, ordered himself to be kissed, and then blessed Jacob with the blessing of the birthright: “May God give you from the dew of heaven and from the fatness of the earth, and plenty of bread and wine. Let the nations serve you, and let the nations worship you; be lord over your brothers, and let your mother’s sons worship you; those who curse you are cursed; those who bless you are blessed!” But it is remarkable that in this blessing there is only a faint hint of the great promise to Abraham, namely, that in him and his seed all the nations of the earth would be blessed. Isaac, imagining that he was blessing Esau, apparently did not consider him fully worthy to inherit the fullness of the blessing, and thus Jacob and Rebekah did not quite achieve what they sought. As soon as the imaginary Esau, having received the blessing of the birthright, left, the real Esau appeared to receive it. If Jacob’s act was unseemly, then Esau’s actions are no less subject to censure, since he did not want to admit that he had long ago sold his birthright to his brother Jacob. When Isaac learned of this deception, he “trembled with great trembling,” but refused to take away this blessing. “I blessed him, he will be blessed!” said the alarmed patriarch. Esau raised a “loud and very bitter cry” and asked Isaac to bless him too. “Is it really, my father, that you have only one blessing? bless me too!” Esau begged with tears, and Isaac blessed him and said: “Behold, your livelihood will be from the fatness of the earth, and from the dew of heaven from above; and thou shalt live by thy sword, and shalt serve thy brother; The time will come when you will resist and cast off his yoke from your neck.” This blessing predicted the entire future fate of the descendants of Esau - the Edomites, who for a long time were subordinate to the descendants of Jacob - the Jews, but, subsequently, a king even emerged from them who subjugated the latter (Herod the Great, an Edomite by origin). Having lost his birthright, Esau hated his brother Jacob and even planned to kill him as soon as his father died. Rebekah learned about this danger and, knowing Esau’s violent and indomitable temper, decided to send Jacob for some time to Mesopotamia to his brother Laban in Haran, until Esau’s rage subsided 44 . But, in order not to disturb her elderly husband, she did not tell him about Esau’s bloodthirsty intention, but presented to him another reason for Jacob’s temporary departure from home, namely, so that he could marry someone from her family, which undoubtedly was at the same time the true desire of her heart. “I am not happy with life from the daughters of the Hittites (wives of Esau), she said; If Jacob takes a wife from the daughters of the land, then why should I live?” Isaac heeded her complaint and sent Jacob to Laban to find a wife for himself, but at the same time, he deliberately repeated to him the blessing that he had previously given out of ignorance, and, moreover, aggravating it with the fullness of the promises given to Abraham. “God Almighty,” he said, “bless you, may he make you fruitful, and may he multiply you, and may there be from you many nations; and may Abraham (my father) give you the blessing, you and your descendants with you, that you may inherit the land of your sojourning, which God gave to Abraham!” Thus, Isaac received his sight from spiritual blindness and gave his blessing to the most worthy, and Esau indulged more and more in sensuality and took himself a third wife, Mahalath, the daughter of Ishmael, concluding a family alliance with the one whom Abraham had expelled. Thus, Esau’s spiritual inability to bear the birthright was revealed in its entirety. After this, Isaac lived for another forty-three years, but he no longer declared himself in history. And in general, he was one of those rare people whose whole life is boundless meekness, embodied humility and serene contentment. Being the patriarch of a large family, he, however, avoided everything that could make his position particularly visible, and thereby proved that with humility and meekness one can please God just as much as with a life filled with great deeds and difficult trials. Unquestioning obedience to his father, even to the point of slaughtering his very life, tender affection for his mother, for whose loss he was consoled only by his marriage to Rebekah; unconditional devotion and fidelity to one's wife in an age when polygamy was common; patiently enduring domestic trials inflicted on him by his wife and sons; the inactivity of life itself, during which he never moved more than forty miles from the place of his homeland (Bathsheba) - all this together paints before us the image of a patriarch who was great not in his external loud exploits, but in that inner spiritual world that is invisible to people, but which shines all the brighter before the Heavenly Father - that invincible faith in the Providence of God, which all his life made him the embodiment of humility, hope and love. After the events described, the fate of the further history of the patriarchal era is concentrated in the hands of Jacob, to whom all the hereditary blessing and promise of the family of Abraham passed. Having set out on a long journey, on the first day Jacob, apparently driven by the fear of his fierce brother, walked more than sixty miles, and having reached the town of Luz, he stopped there to spend the night, since the sun had already set and night had fallen. This was the very place where Abraham once erected an altar to God. Seeing several stones, perhaps the remnant of this particular altar, Jacob put one of them under his head instead of a pillow and, out of extreme fatigue, fell into a deep sleep 46 . And so, under the influence of the events he has just experienced, he sees a wonderful dream: he sees a ladder that stands on the earth, and its top touches the sky, and the angels of God ascend and descend along it. This wonderful symbol of divine providence for the earth concluded with the appearance of the Lord to him, who repeated to him the promise of Abraham: “I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father, and the God of Isaac; (don't be afraid). The land on which you lie I will give to you and to your descendants. And your descendants will be like the sand of the earth, and will spread to the sea, and to the east, and to the north, and to the noonday, and in you and in your seed all the families of the earth will be blessed. And here I am with you; and I will keep you wherever you go; and I will return you to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have spoken to you.” Such a wondrous vision awakened Jacob, and he was afraid of the presence of the Divine in this holy place, erected a monument here from the stone on which he slept, made a libation of oil on it and called this place Bethel, i.e. “House of God,” which is the name that forever replaced the former name Luz. Encouraged and strengthened by the promise of God, Jacob went further to his destination, and after several days of travel he arrived at rich pastures with numerous herds of large and small livestock 47 . Near the well, where the flocks were being brought for watering, he met among others a shepherdess named Rachel, and, having learned that she was the daughter of his uncle Laban, he rolled away the stone from the well for her, watered her flocks of sheep and, having kissed Rachel, “lifted up his voice and wept,” declaring to her that he was a relative of her father and that he was the son of Rebekah, her aunt. Rachel immediately ran home to tell about what had happened, and her father Laban, with kindred cordiality and greetings, received his nephew into his house from his beloved sister Rebekah. Having met a kindred reception, Jacob began to serve Laban, and the latter, noticing his zeal, even invited him to set himself a payment for his work. But Jacob already had in mind the payment of his heart 48 . Laban had two daughters, of whom the eldest “Leah was weak-eyed, and the other Rachel was beautiful in figure and beautiful in face.” Jacob fell in love with Rachel and invited Laban to work for her for seven years, so that only he would marry her to him. Laban agreed, and those seven years seemed like a few days to Jacob, because he loved her. When the time came for the wedding, Laban, taking advantage of the Eastern custom, according to which the bride is tightly wrapped in veils during marriage, deceived Jacob and substituted Leah instead of Rachel, later justifying himself by saying that according to local custom, “they don’t do that in order to give the youngest before the eldest.” But he proposed to Jacob and Rachel on the condition that he work for another seven years, to which Jacob agreed. In this deception on the part of Laban, for Jacob it was like retribution for his own deception in receiving the blessing of the birthright. Having received Leah and Rachel after a week of marriage, Jacob worked for her for another seven years for his father-in-law Laban. But this bigamy took place without the permission of God, and therefore in his family life Jacob was destined to experience many sorrows both from the rivalry of his wives and from the actions and fate of his children. Taking revenge on Leah for her involuntary deception, Jacob treated her with disdain and became completely attached to Rachel; but God saw Leah’s innocence and uncomplaining meekness and therefore blessed her with childbearing, while proud Rachel remained barren. Leah already had four sons - Reuben, Simeon, Levi and Judah, but Rachel did not yet have one, and in extreme envy she wanted to have children, even through her maidservant Balla, from whom two lateral sons were actually born to her - Dan and Naphtali. Leah, in turn, gave Jacob her maidservant Zilpah and from her received two bastard sons - Gad and Asher, and then she herself also gave birth to Issachar and Zebulun and a daughter, Dinah. Thus, when Leah, unloved by her husband, already had six sons of her own and a daughter in addition to two side sons, Rachel, beloved by Jacob, still bore the shame of childlessness, so heavy in the east. This forced her to finally come to terms and turn to God in prayer. “And God heard her and opened her womb. She conceived and bore (Jacob) a son, and said: God has taken away my shame. And she called his name Joseph, saying, The Lord will give me another son also.” Having become the father of the family, Jacob felt the need to gain independence and become the master of his own home and household. Therefore, he began to ask Laban to let him and his family go back to their homeland 49. Laban, realizing his merits for increasing his wealth, began to ask him to stay a little longer, offering to give him a reward in the form of cattle marked with black wool, spots and specks. Jacob agreed, and under his direction and supervision such livestock multiplied miraculously, so that when he had to receive his reward, he “became very, very rich, and had an abundance of flocks (and herds), and maidservants, and menservants, and camels, and donkeys.” Such wealth even aroused envy in Laban and he began to look at Jacob with a gloomy and dissatisfied face, even more frowned by the slander of his sons, who said: “Jacob took possession of everything that our father had, and from our father’s estate he made up this wealth.” As a result of a vision that Jacob had, commanding him to return to his homeland, having received the consent of his wives, who also wanted to move away from their selfish father, who sold them for work to himself (Gen. 31 and 15), Jacob made all the necessary preparations for the journey and, when Laban left to shear his cattle, he secretly set out on the road, and Rachel took with her even “the idols that her father had.” Having crossed the Euphrates River, Jacob moved into the desert and headed towards Mount Gilead. Laban only learned about Jacob’s departure three days later, and, finding that even his idols – “teraphim” 50 – had been stolen from him, he rushed along with his sons and relatives in pursuit of the fugitive. On the seventh day, Laban overtook him at Mount Gilead, and the consequences of this would undoubtedly have been terrible if Laban had not received a warning from God in a dream the day before - not to harm Jacob. Thanks to the cunning of his daughter Rachel, he failed in finding his teraphim. Despite his supposedly related reproach to Jacob, accompanied by a hypocritical statement about with what triumph and honor he would have seen Jacob out of his house if he had told him on his departure, Laban felt that he was wrong before Jacob when the latter expressed to him all his indignation at his greed and injustice. Then Laban humbled himself in spirit and entered into an alliance with Jacob, who, in turn, swore not to offend his wives and not to take others except Laban’s daughters. “And Jacob slaughtered a sacrifice on the mountain, and called his relatives to eat bread; and they ate bread (and drank) and spent the night on the mountain. And Laban rose early in the morning, and kissed his grandchildren and his daughters, and blessed them, and Laban returned to his place, and Jacob went his way.” One terrible danger had passed, and God averted the vengeance of his father-in-law Laban from Jacob. But another meeting lay ahead, even more dangerous - a meeting with Esau, from whom he could fear revenge for depriving him of his birthright 51 . Although Jacob was encouraged by the vision of the heavenly army, as if taking up arms in his defense, but from this place (which he called in memory of the vision: Mahanaim, that is, the army), he took his own measures to prevent danger and vengeance on the part of Esau and for this purpose sent messengers to him in the land of Seir, in the region of Edom, asking for favor on his part to his brother returning to his homeland. But the messengers returned only with the answer that Esau himself would come to meet his brother and at the same time was walking at the head of four hundred armed soldiers. This news was by no means reassuring, even apart from the fact that these four hundred armed warriors gathered under his banner, apparently with the goal of robbery and bloodshed, like those wild tribes of Bedouins who even now cause terror wherever they appear. As a result, upon hearing this news, “Jacob was very afraid and embarrassed.” He was completely helpless and defenseless before the rage of his vengeful brother, and the only thing he could come up with in case of real danger was to divide his caravan into two camps in the calculation that “if Esau attacks one camp and beats it, then the rest of the camp can escape.” The calculation was obviously dubious and, in any case, sad. Then he turned to his only defense with a prayer to God. His prayer was sincere and ardent and represents the first prayer, literally preserved for us from primitive patriarchal times 52. Recognizing his powerlessness, Jacob placed his entire trust in the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and in his promise not to deprive him of his protection. And this cry of despair did not go unheard. Meanwhile, in order to appease his brother, Jacob allocated a significant part of the herds from his caravan and sent them as a gift to Esau, and he himself with his family and the rest of the caravan moved behind, and having ferried them across the ford of the stream of Jabbok, flowing between Lake Gennesaret and the Dead Sea into the Jordan River, he himself was left alone, and here one of the most mysterious and great events in the life of Jacob took place 53. This place amazes with its desert beauty. The stream itself runs in a deep hollow, completely covered by a thicket of oleanders and other aromatic bushes. The night of solitude arrived for Jacob, who was trembling for his fate. Countless stars shone overhead, a dead silence hovered all around, broken only by the murmur of the stream and the distant echoes of sounds from the caravan. And on this night “someone fought with him until dawn appeared; and when he saw that it did not prevail against him, he touched the joint of his thigh, and damaged the joint of Jacob’s thigh, when he wrestled with him.” The mysterious adversary, having entered into a struggle with Jacob, wanted to test the courage of his faith and the persistence of his prayer. And Jacob proved this by the fact that even when wounded, he overcame his opponent and did not let him out of his hands until he blessed him, saying: “From now on your name will not be Jacob, but Israel; for you have fought with God, and you will overcome men.” Jacob called the name of that place: “Penuel” as a sign that he “saw God face to face, and his soul was preserved.” The sun rose, and Jacob, limping on his hip, hurried to his caravan. As Jacob crossed the ford of the brook Jabbok early in the morning, the flash of spears in the sun among the dark green forest alerted him to the approach of Esau with his armed force. But Jacob no longer had anything to fear from people after he overcame his nightly struggle with God. And if in the struggle with God he overcame by the power of faith and the persistence of prayer, then when he met Esau he won by the power of his humility, bowing to the ground seven times and offering him gifts. Esau may have intended to take revenge on Jacob or to prove his superiority over him with his armed force. But now, at the meeting of his long-unseen brother, surrounded by a whole generation of young nephews, Esau’s harsh heart softened, he ran towards Jacob, “and embraced him, and fell on his neck, and kissed him, and they both wept.” After such a cordial meeting, Jacob wisely rejected Esau's offer to go with him or, at least, to give him part of the armed force for protection, and Esau returned to Mount Seir, which he had conquered, after which he completely disappears from the field of history, appearing only for the burial of Isaac. Jacob, meanwhile, continued his journey to the west, crossed the Jordan, entered the land of Canaan, and arrived in Shechem, which since the time of Abraham had already grown into a strong city and was named after Shechem, the son of Emmor, prince of the Amorites. Here he bought himself “for a hundred coins” a field, which became the full possession of a chosen family in the land of Canaan, set up his tent on it, built an altar and “called on the name of the Lord God of Israel.” This place can still be seen today near the “well of Jacob,” at which his divine Descendant taught the Samaritan woman to pray to God in spirit and truth. “But Jacob’s stay here brought him new grief. His daughter Dinah, who took part in one of the local folk festivals, was dishonored by the son of the local prince Shechem, who liked her so much that through his father he petitioned Jacob and her brothers to give her to him in marriage. The brothers agreed, but on the condition that all the inhabitants of Shechem be circumcised according to the law. When they were actually circumcised, Simeon and Levi, taking advantage of the time of their illness from circumcision, attacked the city, killed the entire male sex along with the princely family and, together with other brothers, plundered the entire city, and so cruelly avenged the dishonor of their sister Dina. But this violent cruelty outraged Jacob, and he made a severe rebuke to his violent sons, expressing fear for the possibility of the same cruel retribution from the Canaanites. As a result of this, he was forced to retire from here to Bethel for a while, especially since, under the influence of the Canaanites, idolatry began to penetrate into the family of Jacob, so that when leaving from here, he ordered all his family to “throw away the foreign gods,” whom he buried under an oak tree near Shechem. In Bethel he erected an altar to God, and there the Lord again appeared to him, who confirmed to him all the previous promises. In memory of this, Jacob erected a stone monument at this place and poured out a libation of oil on it. From Bethel, where, by the way, Rebekah's elderly nurse Deborah died and was buried under an oak tree, Jacob moved further south towards Ephrath, i.e. Bethlehem. Not reaching the city a little, Rachel gave birth to her second son; but childbirth was fatal. Dying, she named her newborn son Benoni (son of my sorrow), but Jacob called him Benjamin (son of the right hand) as a consolation for the loss of his beloved wife. Jacob buried Rachel on the road to Bethlehem, and erected a monument over her grave, which still stands today. Jacob's grief was soon aggravated by the dishonor that his eldest son Reuben inflicted on his father's bed, for which he was deprived of his birthright. Finally, Jacob reached the camp of his father Isaac, who was still alive and was in the oak grove of Mamri, beloved by Abraham, near Hebron. There, with them, the elderly patriarch, one hundred and eighty years old, died: “he was gathered to his people, being old and full of life; and Esau and Jacob his sons buried him.” This, however, was already after the sale of Joseph to Egypt and only ten years before Jacob and his sons moved there. But from now on, the historical fate of the house of Abraham is concentrated precisely in the life of Joseph, Rachel’s eldest son. Jacob's life was full of adventures and grave sorrows, but Providence was preparing new trials for him, precisely through his most beloved son, Joseph. In biblical history, Joseph first appears before us as a seventeen-year-old youth. As a beloved son, he was constantly with his elderly father and only occasionally visited his brothers, who were engaged in shepherding and moved with their herds from one pasture to another. Simple-minded and innocent, with childish naivety, returning home, he told his father about the various bad deeds of his brothers, who were not distinguished by any particular height of morality. They, naturally, hated him for this, and their hatred flared up the more strongly the more they saw that their elderly father did not hide his special love for Joseph, as “the son of his old age” and, moreover, the eldest son of his beloved wife Rachel, now mourned by him. The elder really openly showed his special love for Joseph and made him a special “robe of many colors,” long and, perhaps, from the best Egyptian materials. In the east, where centuries-old customs are invariably preserved, beloved children are still dressed in the same way. Clothes are made from fabrics of different colors, which are elegantly combined according to the dictates of fashion and taste. Such clothing could at the same time serve as a sign that Jacob intended to make Joseph the heir of all his property, especially in view of the fact that his older brothers had brought terrible dishonor to their father. In any case, all this together aroused anger in the older brothers along with envy of Joseph, and they decided to get rid of him, especially when one of the two dreams he saw, foreshadowing the worship of all his older brothers and even parents, aroused indignation even in Jacob himself. When they were once with their herds at a greater distance from their father’s headquarters than had happened before, namely near Shechem, then at the first appearance of their hated brother among them they decided to kill him; but since the elder brother Reuben rebelled against such a decision, they simply took off his clothes and threw him, just in case, into one of those ditches or dry wells that were deliberately prepared in order to store water in them during rainy times during droughts. When the older brothers, having thrown him into the ditch, were wondering what to do with him next, an Arab caravan (the Midianites) appeared in the distance, stretching towards Egypt, and he decided the fate of Joseph. The cruel brothers sold him to Midian merchants for twenty pieces of silver, and they told the ill-fated father that Joseph had probably been torn to pieces by wild animals, as proof of which they presented him with Joseph’s clothes, tattered and deliberately soaked in blood. Jacob, out of unbearable grief, tore his clothes, “put sackcloth on his loins and mourned his son for many days,” not wanting to be consoled and saying: “with sorrow I will go down to my son to hell." Meanwhile, in Egypt, Joseph was purchased from the Midianites by Potiphar, Pharaoh's courtier, chief of the bodyguard. Palestinian slaves, such as Joseph, were highly valued in Egypt and were used primarily for running in front of the chariots of their masters on the street. With a gilded cane or whip in hand, they cleared the way and guided the horses. But Joseph, with his efficiency, honesty and success in fulfilling all orders, more than justified the general view of the Egyptians on the special dignity of Palestinian slaves. He gained “favor in the eyes” of Potiphar, as a result of which he “set him over his house and gave all that he had into his hands” (Gen. 39:4). The houses of the Egyptian nobles were distinguished by extraordinary wealth, and in a huge economy, the agility and honesty that distinguished Joseph should have been highly valued; and indeed, Potiphar found in him such a faithful and reliable servant that he could completely entrust to him the entire management of his household, and “he himself knew nothing in his presence except the bread that he ate,” and this only because the strict Egyptian laws of ceremonial purity did not allow a stranger, especially from a shepherd nation, to touch the objects of direct consumption of the Egyptians. Despite his high moral dignity and economic abilities, Joseph was also distinguished by his stateliness and beauty, which did not fail to attract the attention of the pampered luxury and idleness of Potiphar’s wife. His reluctance to satisfy her voluptuousness caused understandable revenge and slander in front of her husband, as if this “Jewish slave” wanted to abuse her. Believing his wife’s slander, Potiphar “flared with anger and delivered Joseph to prison, where the king’s prisoners were imprisoned” (Gen. 39:20). Potiphar did not have the power to take his life, since ancient Egyptian laws protected the lives of slaves from the violence of their masters, but he could castrate him or give him a thousand sticks if he wanted. But he did not take advantage of this right, which made it clear that, unable to disbelieve his wife’s story about the insult inflicted on her, he nevertheless retained his affection for Joseph and, by sending him to prison, left it to time to find out the truth. But even the suspicious eye of the prison governor soon saw the innocence of this prisoner, and therefore Joseph soon occupied the same position in the prison as he occupied in Potiphar’s house, which had the further consequence of his release from prison. Some time later, the chief cupbearer and the chief baker of Pharaoh fell into royal disfavour and were imprisoned in the same prison with Joseph. Their positions were important. They had an extremely responsible duty to protect the life of the pharaoh from poisoning. The position of the former in particular gave him constant access to the pharaoh, who drank only what he accepted from his hands; and the baker was obliged to take care not only of supplying the court with all kinds of cakes and cookies that the Egyptians loved to feast on, but also to ensure that no harmful substances were mixed with them for criminal purposes. Busy with their fate, they were extremely alarmed by the dreams they had, and racked their brains in vain over the interpretation. Not being able, due to strict confinement, to see the priests, who were the usual interpreters of dreams, they, of course, were very happy when Joseph volunteered to interpret for them the dreams that occupied them. The cupbearer dreamed that he saw in front of him a grapevine with three branches; the vine developed, blossomed, and berries grew and ripened on it, from which the cupbearer pressed the juice into a bowl and presented it to Pharaoh. Joseph interpreted this dream in such a sense that in three days the cupbearer would be pardoned, returned to his position and would continue to serve the cup to Pharaoh; and at the same time asked him that, if the dream came true, he would remember Isif and intercede for him before Pharaoh. Encouraged by such a happy interpretation of his brother’s dream, the baker joyfully told Joseph his dream. He dreamed that he had three lattice baskets on his head. In the upper basket were all sorts of provisions for Pharaoh's table, and the birds flew in and pecked at them. “In three days,” Joseph explained to him, “Pharaoh will take off your head and hang you on a tree, and the birds of the air will eat your flesh from you” (Gen. 41:13). Joseph's predictions exactly came true over both courtiers on the “birthday of Pharaoh,” when the king, according to custom, after the feast, surrounded by his courtiers and dignitaries, distributed his favors or punishments at his discretion. On this particular holiday, Pharaoh “returned the chief cupbearer to his original place, and he gave the cup into Pharaoh’s hand, and hung the chief baker (on the tree), as Joseph interpreted to them.” The happy cupbearer, having again become a great dignitary, forgot about Joseph, but soon one incident reminded him of him. After two years, the pharaoh himself saw two dreams that struck him with their mystery. In the first dream, “seven cows, good in appearance and fat in flesh, came out of the river”; they apparently swam or wandered along the shallows of the river, picking off various water thickets, and now came ashore to graze on reeds and coastal marsh plants, which Egyptian cattle usually feed on; but then they were eaten by seven other cows, thin in appearance and skinny in flesh, who also came out of the river after them. In another dream, he imagined that seven full and good ears of corn grew on one stalk, as can now be seen on Egyptian wheat; but nearby grew another seven ears of skinny ears, dried by the east wind (khamsin), and these skinny ears devoured the seven good ears of grain. Dreams in Egypt were given great importance, and therefore it is understandable that the significant dreams seen by the pharaoh “confused his spirit,” and he called “all the wise men of Egypt and all her wise men,” demanding from them the interpretation of these dreams. With the king, there was always a council of priests of various degrees, who guided every step in his everyday life and interpreted to him the will of the gods, as it manifested itself in omens, dreams and signs. They did not recognize the gift of direct revelation, but to resolve certain issues they retired to secluded places, where they tried to find this or that interpretation in sacred books and in mysterious rituals, and, one must assume that this work was hard and slow. That is why, when all the wisdom of the Egyptian magicians turned out to be powerless in interpreting the dreams of Pharaoh, and Joseph, whom the cupbearer just remembered, interpreted them without references in books, through the highest direct inspiration, he immediately aroused extraordinary surprise at his mysterious personality. Pharaoh's dreams, according to Joseph's interpretation, foreshadowed the onset of famine, after seven years of harvest. Famine could come, partly, from insufficient flooding of the Nile, and partly, from the strong hot wind of the khamsin, destroying the seedlings. The onset of both was foreshadowed by the dreams of the pharaoh. This interpretation of Joseph so coincided with the views of the Egyptians themselves, and the advice he offered in the event of lean years (namely, to make huge reserves of grain during harvest years) was so wise and reasonable that everyone involuntarily had to pay attention to the young stranger. Pharaoh and his court, being amazed by the inspired interpretation of mysterious dreams and, appreciating the wisdom of a statesman in Joseph’s advice, could not find a more suitable person for this position than the young dream interpreter himself, and, as often happens in eastern despotic countries, an insignificant slave was immediately made a great dignitary of the country, its sovereign ruler. “You will be over my house, and all my people will adhere to your word, only I will be greater than you on the throne,” Pharaoh solemnly told Joseph, and then followed his formal elevation to the position assigned to him. Pharaoh took the ring from his hand and put it on Joseph’s hand, which was a sign of his elevation to the rank of first nobleman and ruler of the country; The “fine robes” that distinguished the priests, the highest class in Egypt, meant his acceptance into this highly respected class, and the golden chain placed around his neck was for everyone a formal sign of his power. The second royal chariot was put at his disposal so that he could ride through the streets of the capital to announce his rank, and the messengers had to run ahead of his chariot shouting - abrek, abrek - “bow down!” Along with the rank, Joseph received from the Pharaoh a new Egyptian name Tzafnaf paneah, i.e. "guardian of life" To complete the merits of the king's new favorite, all that was missing was a brilliant marriage for him, and it was arranged by the pharaoh himself. Asenath, the daughter of Potiphera, a noble priest of Iliopolis, became the wife of Joseph, and thus he was finally accepted into the highest class of the country. About thirteen years had passed since Joseph was carried away from his native country and sold into slavery in Egypt, where he now, after extraordinary vicissitudes of fate, had achieved the highest position and power. He was still a young man of thirty years of age and a member of the court staff of priests, with a golden chain assigned to his high rank around his neck, and with a pharaoh's ring on his hand, he was the actual ruler of the richest and most famous country in the then known world. He had two sons who gave him the opportunity to erase the bitter memories of the past: Manasseh, “who made him forget all his misfortunes,” and Ephraim, so named because “God made Joseph fruitful in the land of his suffering.” The coming years of abundant harvest gave him the opportunity to accumulate enormous wealth in the granaries, and when the famine years came, he sold grain to the Egyptians, who, due to extreme need, had to sell him not only all their property, with all their livestock, but even their freedom, so that “the whole land went to Pharaoh, and all the people became slaves from one end of Egypt to the other.” Meanwhile, the famine spread far beyond Egypt, and caravans flocked there from different countries to buy bread. The sons of the elderly Jacob were also forced to go to Egypt, which at that time was conducting an extensive grain trade with Canaan and other neighboring countries 55. It was, of course, difficult for them to recognize Joseph, now mature and surrounded by all the courtly Egyptian splendor; but they themselves still wore the shepherd's clothes that Joseph remembered so well, and therefore he immediately recognized them as his brothers. But there was no Benjamin between them. Did they not also kill or sell Rachel’s other son, his only maternal brother? – a heavy thought flashed through him. In order to let them feel at least some of the severity of the state in which he himself had once been placed by them, and also to find out the truth about his younger brother, Joseph could not find a better way to declare them spies. Egypt constantly had to fear an enemy attack from the northeast, to prevent which the eastern border of the state was protected by a large fortified wall, similar to the wall with which China was protected from the attacks of the Mongols. To be cleared of such a grave suspicion, they had to leave the hostage until they brought their younger brother with them. It was the second brother Simeon who was left as a hostage, and not the elder Reuben, and by this, perhaps, Joseph wanted to remind the latter of his good feeling, which forced him to once try to save his brother. It was bitter for the elderly Jacob to listen to the story conveyed to him by his sons about the harsh treatment of them by the Egyptian ruler, who left one of them as a hostage; but it was even harder to part with Benjamin. Necessity, however, forced me to decide on this. He released Benjamin, but at the same time wanted to appease the Egyptian ruler with his gifts 56. This is completely in accordance with Eastern customs, which required bringing gifts to those in power; but nothing could be simpler and more primitive than the fact that Jacob, as such gifts to an Egyptian court dignitary drowning in luxury, sent “the fruits of his land: a few balsam and a few honey, styrax and frankincense, pistachios and almonds.” “Honey,” of course, is not bee honey, but what the Arabs call dibs, condensed grape syrup, which is still in great use in Egypt, where it is brought annually from Hebron by a caravan of three hundred camels. Jacob's grief from the fear of losing the last son of his beloved Rachel, the ardent assurances of Reuben and Judah that they take full responsibility for his safety, the question of the silver that, by an incomprehensible accident, ended up in their bread bags - all this makes up a deeply touching scene in history. But an even more unexpected scene was to unfold before these poor and frightened shepherds of Canaan when, upon arriving in Egypt with Benjamin, they were suddenly demanded straight to the palace of the Egyptian ruler. The houses of noble Egyptians were surrounded by high walls, decorated with paintings, and access to them was through huge gates with high pillars from which long flags fluttered. The gate led to a vast paved courtyard, flanked by spacious passages supported by thin painted columns. From the palace itself, a back door led into extensive gardens, with rows of fruit trees and vines, bushes and flower beds and all kinds of vegetation. Palms, sycamores, acacias, figs, pomegranates and jasmines provided luxurious vegetation, watered by artificial pools and fountains. Such luxury of the house of the Egyptian ruler, of course, should have blinded and plunged into confusion and trembling the poor shepherds, accustomed to the simple life of tents, and their confusion knew no bounds when they were called to dinner with a courtier, whose position seemed to them beyond the reach of even their thoughts. They were led into a richly decorated dining room, glittering with gold and flowers and decorated with royal splendor. At the sight of Benjamin, a brotherly feeling began to boil in Joseph, and he had to retire to the inner chambers to hide the tears that were appearing. He rejoiced doubly, and rejoiced for his brothers that they were not as cruel to Benjamin as they had once been to him. With purely oriental agility, the animals for the upcoming dinner were killed; water was brought so that each guest could wash his feet, as required by the rules of Egyptian politeness. The brothers, according to Eastern custom, bowed to the ground to the great dignitary and presented him with the gifts they had brought. During dinner (at which Simeon was also present), Joseph sat at a separate table, as required by the dignity of his rank, which did not allow him to eat with ordinary people; A separate table was also placed nearby for the Egyptians, who were also not allowed by custom to sit with “unclean” foreigners, since the Egyptians generally shunned all other peoples, considering them, no matter how civilized, unclean barbarians. Food was served to the guests from the host's table, as required by the ceremony, and Joseph at the same time allocated the largest portion to Benjamin, as was generally done in Egypt in relation to persons enjoying the special favor of the host. The dinner astonished the poor shepherds of Canaan with its luxury and richness, and in order to get rid of the embarrassment that had seized them, they, according to the biblical story, “drank and drank contently” with their high-ranking host. Joseph could not hold out any longer. Feelings overpowered diplomatic tact, and he revealed himself to his brothers - to their horror and the amazement of the entire Pharaoh's court. When Pharaoh learned about this story of his beloved courtier, he transferred his affection towards him to his entire family and expressed a desire for them all to move to Egypt. The brothers were given chariots, gifts were made to each of them with a change of clothes, and for Benjamin five changes and three hundred pieces of silver. Joseph sent to his father “ten donkeys laden with the best produce of Egypt, and ten donkeys laden with grain, bread and provisions for the journey” (Gen. 45:23). The news brought to Jacob was so unexpected for him that the old man, depressed by the vicissitudes of life, did not want to believe him; Only when he saw the chariots sent for him, “his spirit came to life,” and he exclaimed in extraordinary delight: “It’s enough, my son Joseph is still alive: I will go and see him before I die!” (Gen. 47:28) And so, the caravan of the children of Israel quietly stretched towards Egypt, accompanied by the entire “house” of Jacob, which consisted of seventy souls, households and herds 57 . Jacob's days of sorrow were over, he looked cheerfully into the future and cried with joy in anticipation of meeting Joseph, who had mourned him for so long, with bitter tears. Having passed the heights of Bathsheba, where Jacob made a sacrifice to God and was rewarded with a vision of the Lord, confirming the covenant with his fathers and encouraging him with His help and protection, the caravan entered the northeastern district of Egypt - Goshen. Hearing about the approach of the caravan, Joseph got into a chariot and, surrounded by a brilliant retinue, rode out to meet his elderly father, and when he saw him, he “fell on his neck and wept on his neck for a long time,” and the emboldened old man exclaimed: “I will die now, having seen your face, for you are still alive!” The powerful pharaoh honored the elderly father of his high dignitary with a special audience. The meeting between them was touching in its simplicity and sincerity. Pharaoh asked the elder about his age, and Elder Jacob briefly reviewed his much-tested life. With touching simplicity and dignity, Jacob told the powerful monarch about his life. In comparison with the life of his ancestors, his own life was short - only one hundred and thirty years, while Abraham lived one hundred and seventy years, Isaac - one hundred and eighty. But this was too much given the vicissitudes and sorrows that befell him. His whole life was a “wandering”, like life in general, and even more so for him, a dweller in tents, constantly moving with his herds from one place to another. Pharaoh was touched by this meeting and asked for blessings from the elder. The new newcomers settled in the Goshen district, which was distinguished by excellent pastures. There they could live at a distance from the Egyptians, who were alienated from communication with shepherd tribes, although not shepherd occupations in general, since they themselves, not excluding the pharaoh, had huge herds of all kinds of livestock. Hatred towards foreign shepherd tribes, who often disturbed the country with their predatory raids, was so strong even under the Pharaoh of Joseph's time that it was impossible to allow the settlement of the shepherd family of Jacob in one of the districts of the country closer to the capital. Pharaoh, however, was glad to find among the newcomers people who knew the shepherd business, and entrusted them with supervision of his herds. Thus, God’s prediction to Abraham was fulfilled that “his descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs,” where, as was confirmed to Jacob on his way to Egypt, a great nation was to come from them. The remaining years of Jacob's life, under the protection of his high-ranking son, passed in peace and contentment. He lived in Egypt for another seventeen years and saw consolation in the fact that during his lifetime his family “multiplied greatly.” But now, feeling the approach of death, he called Joseph to him and, as a sign of his faith in the promise, bequeathed to him to bury himself with his fathers Abraham and Isaac, and at the same time gave him the land that he had acquired as his property near Shechem. Then he adopted Joseph's two sons, prophetically blessing the younger Ephraim for the birthright in preference to the older Manasseh. Finally, having gathered all his sons, he, in the blessings he expressed, 58 prophetically predicted to each of them their future fate, and at the same time exalted his son Judah before everyone, predicting to him that his tribe would receive a scepter, and this “scepter will not depart from Judah, and the lawgiver from his feet, until the Reconciler comes” (Shiloh), to whom all nations will submit, i.e. made one of those prophetic predictions that announced with ever increasing clarity and certainty that the Savior of the world was about to appear. Having completed the prophetic blessing, Israel died, mourned by Joseph and all his family. As a high-ranking Egyptian, Joseph, of course, honored his father with expensive embalming. As the first ruler of the state and a high dignitary, he had at his disposal specialists in this matter - doctors, for whom Egypt was famous and who constituted a special rank in the priestly class. The corpse was taken to special country premises designated for embalming, which was carried out within forty days. After this, the mourning continued for another thirty days, so that the entire mourning lasted seventy days, two days less than the mourning under the king, and then the desire declared by the deceased before his death to be taken to Canaan could already be fulfilled, and there he was buried with honor in the cave of Machpelah, along with Abraham and his father Isaac. Joseph's subsequent life is little reported in the biblical narrative. It only says that he treated his brothers mercifully even after the death of his father, despite the fact that the latter were extremely afraid of his revenge for their previous cruelty to him; lived a hundred and ten years and had the consolation of seeing his grandchildren and great-grandchildren, whom he loved and cherished, as is natural for deep old men, whose fading life seems to be kindled again at the sight of the young life of their descendants. Faithful to the end to the promise handed down from his fathers, Joseph, before his death, took a solemn oath from his brothers that they would carry his bones out of Egypt when God again led them to Canaan. Upon death, of course, he was embalmed. The Egyptians usually placed the embalmed corpses of their friends and dignitaries in special wooden boxes and carefully lowered them into tombs or kept them in special rooms in their houses. Joseph's mummy remained in this state until the Israelites left Egypt, then was taken by his descendants to Canaan and finally buried on a plot of land in Shechem, once purchased and bequeathed to him before his death by Jacob. XII. The internal and external state of the chosen clan during the patriarchal era. Worship and rituals. Morals and way of life. Government, industry and education With the death of Jacob and Joseph, the patriarchal era of biblical history ends. Its distinctive feature was the close and direct communication of the patriarchs, i.e. the main leaders and fathers of the chosen clan (patriarch - father-boss) with God and their management of the people on the basis of those directly communicated moral rules that were already recognized by everyone, although they had not yet been reduced to formal legislation, except for their primary set in the “Noahic Laws”. This was the experience of morally paternal government in its best and simplest form. In the history of the patriarchal era, three separate stages in God's relationship to people clearly appear. After the fall of the first parents and their loss of the primitive blissful state of innocence, God, having given them the promise of a future Savior, gave them the freedom to choose between humble obedience and sinful resistance to Him. Already among their first sons we see division: righteous Abel suffers martyrdom from the wicked Cain; then the offspring of the latter apparently takes precedence over the pious offspring of Seth, and the first period ends with general corruption, which made the terrible punishment on all humanity inevitable in the flood. After the flood, God concluded a new covenant with the righteous Noah, as the ancestor of the new humanity, and he was promised God's long-suffering until the end of time. But as a result of this long-suffering, sin again entered the world, a terrible arrogance appeared among people who, by building a “tower to heaven,” wanted to express their contempt for heaven. The plan was destroyed and the peoples were scattered, but this led to the oblivion of the true God, and in place of true religion, crude idolatry reigned everywhere. Then, in order to preserve the true religion and the great promise associated with it about the Savior of the world, God chooses a new righteous man to make him the ancestor of the chosen race, which has to preserve the true religion in itself. This covenant with Abraham represents the third stage in the history of the patriarchal era, and it is distinguished by the frequent appearances and promises of God to the ancestors and heads of the chosen race. In these phenomena, the essence of God is gradually revealed, who is not only the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, but “God almighty” (Gen. 17:1; 28:3; 35:11), “Judge of all the earth” (Gen. 18:25); and in numerous promises the great thought of the future Savior, as the seed in whom all nations will be blessed, receives full development (Gen. 22:18). At the same time, the very life of the patriarchs, in the sublimity and purity of their faith, according to the constant guidance of God’s Providence, represented such a highly edifying example of the implementation of the highest virtues that, as a result, it received transformative significance in relation to many secrets in the future destinies of God’s economy in the world. Thus, the seedless birth of the Savior was transformatively depicted in the barrenness of Sarah and Rebecca; the union of divine and human nature in Him - in the ladder seen by Jacob; His suffering, suffered by Him from His people, but which later became a source of blessing for all mankind - in the adventures of Joseph; His death on the cross and resurrection are in the sacrifice of Isaac; His eternal priesthood is in Melchizedek; different states of law and grace - in the different fate of Ishmael and Isaac; grace given to the pagans, but lost to the Jews - in the blessing of Jacob and Esau, and so on. This entire era with its majestic representatives is a transformative mirror in which the future destinies of the church and the world were clearly reflected. The faith of the patriarchs found its outward expression in worship. But worship in this era had not yet received definite forms and consisted mainly of making sacrifices on the first stone that came across, although at the same time, the altar once made received sacred significance for the following time, so that it was chosen for sacrifices by subsequent patriarchs, preferably over other altars, and served as a place for special phenomena and visions (which, for example, was the altar in Bethel). The altar itself for the sacred service was consecrated through a libation of oil, and the service began with special preparation, which consisted of washing the body and changing clothes (Gen. 35:2). Special vows gave certain altars a special sacred meaning in the sense of a permanent “house of God,” that is, like a church, for the maintenance of which tithes of property were given (Gen. 28:20–22). Since the time of Abraham, a special rite was introduced as a means of entry into the Old Testament church, namely the rite of circumcision, which as a sacrament meant cleansing from previous sinfulness and impurity, foreshadowing at the same time internal circumcision or mortification of the flesh and the birth of a spiritual man. The very patriarchal life of the chosen clan was protected by the observance of certain regulations. All the wealth of the promises was transferred by birthright, received through a special blessing, the sanctity of marriage was protected and all confusion with idolaters was rejected (Gen. 34: 7, 13, 31; 38: 24; 26: 34, 35; 27: 46). Obedience and respect for parents were considered the highest and most important virtues, which clearly appears in the history of those individuals who are subject to punishment and punishment for violating them (Ham). Family life in general was characterized by primitive simplicity; the marriage itself was completely unartificial and was concluded with the blessing and instructions of the parents, although at the same time there are examples of willful marriages (for example, the marriage of Esau), which led to family discord and discontent. At the same time, patriarchal life is generally no stranger to examples when original sin was reflected in the obvious dominance of the flesh, leading to a departure from the previous institutions of God. We see this even in such great and holy personalities as Abraham and especially Jacob, of whom the first, in addition to his wife, had concubines (although concubinage stemmed from pious motives to have heirs of the best promises), and the second was a bigamist, for which he suffered various severe trials, as a natural consequence of this deviation from the original law of married life (monogamy). In the civil sphere, the patriarchal form of government completely dominated. It consisted in the fact that the power to manage all civil affairs was concentrated in the head of the family or clan. The patriarch, as the head of the family, was at the same time the sole decider of all matters that arose between members of his family or clan. He completely controlled the fate of his children and household members, carried out trials and reprisals, had the right of life and death (Gen. 38.24), and in case of external danger he was a commander (like Abraham), for whom the right of war and peace was recognized. But all these rights and obligations did not yet have a fully defined character and all stemmed from the natural position of the father in the family, obliged to take care of the protection and well-being of his family. Here we see humanity in its adolescence. The patriarchs are peaceful shepherds who move from one place to another to find better pastures, and their only beasts of burden are camels and donkeys. The horse is still unknown to them, and it’s for the best, since with its appearance the shepherd tribes always develop a tendency towards raids and predation. Agriculture was still poorly developed and was only a temporary and occasional occupation. They had no land ownership. Abraham bought land for himself only for burial, and only Jacob acquired ownership of the plot for his tent. There were no provisions for life, as a result of which famine often forced people to move to neighboring countries (mainly to Egypt, as the breadbasket of the ancient world). In the time of Jacob, however, a fairly regular grain trade seems to have been established between Egypt and neighboring countries, and there were trading caravanserais along the way. Trade caravans appeared throughout the vast space between Egypt and Mesopotamia, and there was a lively trade in spices and other products of the east, as well as slaves, who were imported into Egypt in large quantities. By the time of Abraham we see the beginnings of barter coin, although in the form of pieces of a known metal with its value determined by weight; under Jacob, a kind of “coin” appears, and his sons are already well acquainted with the circulating pieces of silver, for which they sold their brother Joseph. As for enlightenment, from the entire history of the patriarchal era it is clear that although the patriarchs are primarily wandering shepherds, at the same time, they show traces of a fairly high enlightenment, partly due to the influence of neighboring peoples, some of which, such as for example. The Egyptians already stood at a high level of civilization, and partly as a result of the original development of the chosen family, distinguished by high spiritual talents. Thus, tradition attributes to Abraham high knowledge in astronomy and mathematics, which he allegedly taught to the Egyptians. There are no traces of writing in the proper sense, although there is no sufficient reason to doubt its existence, especially since it undoubtedly already existed in the countries neighboring Palestine. In any case, there is evidence of the existence of personal seals, which involve the inscription of a name or some conventional signs (Gen. 38:18, 25). In such general terms, the life of the patriarchs of the chosen family is presented, who were the exclusive bearers of the true religion and the great promise of the Savior associated with it, and therefore were under the special guidance of the Providence of God. XIII. True religion is outside the chosen race. Job. Religious state of pagan peoples. Calculation The providential action of God, as well as true religion and piety, however, were not limited only to a close circle of a chosen family. Individual righteous people and entire families of righteous people lived in other places, “walking with God.” This, besides Melchizedek, is especially Job, whose life is described in the book known by his name (the book of Job). He was the greatest righteous man and an example of faith and patience, which could not be shaken by any machinations of the primordial enemy of the human race. He lived in the land of Uz, in the northern part of Arabia, “he was blameless, just and fearful of God, and shunned evil” (Job 1:1), and in his wealth “he was more famous than all the sons of the east.” He had seven sons and three daughters, who formed a happy and contented family. But the primordial enemy of humanity, Satan, was jealous of this happiness, and in the face of God, the knower of the heart, he began to boldly assert that Job was righteous and God-fearing only for the sake of his wealth and earthly happiness, and that with the loss of it he would stop blessing and glorifying God. In order to punish the daring lies of the father of lies and strengthen the faith and patience of His righteous man, God gives Job, along with happiness, to experience all the misfortunes and bitterness of earthly life. By God's permission, Satan inflicts terrible blows on him one after another, depriving him of all his wealth, all his servants and all his children. But when this disaster did not shake the faith of Job, who only bowed to the Lord and said: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, naked I will return; The Lord gave, the Lord also took away,” then the shamed Satan wanted to test the long-suffering righteous man with even worse disasters, and again, by God’s permission, he struck his very body with terrible leprosy, the most terrible and disgusting disease in the east. A terrible illness deprived him of the right to stay in the city, and he had to retire outside its boundaries, and there, scraping the scabs on his body with a shard, he sat in the ashes and dung. Everyone turned away from him, and even his wife contemptuously told him: “You are still firm in your integrity. Blaspheme God and die." “You speak like a madwoman,” the long-suffering righteous man answered her. Will we really accept good from God, but not evil?” Thus, Job did not even sin with a word before God, meekly enduring his own terrible situation and the position of his wife, who, after her former rich life as a mistress, was now forced to earn her daily bread through hard and unusual daily work. His friends Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar heard about Job's misfortune. Seeing him in the unfortunate state of poverty and leprosy, they, not daring to come close to him, exclaimed in horror and began to weep, silently grieving for seven days at the sight of their ill-fated friend. The sight of them finally loosened Job’s tongue, hitherto constrained by disasters, and the sufferer for the first time showed how hard it was for him to endure his situation, and cursed the very day of his birth and the very night of his conception. Friends began to console him, assuring him that God is just, and if Job suffers, he suffers for some of his sins, which he must repent of. But Job, firm in his faith and conscious of his innocence, recognizing in his misfortunes a test on the part of God, rejects the accusation of lawlessness and wickedness, since he never forgot his Creator and never ceased to pray to Him, and in the midst of his very misfortunes expressed unshakable faith in the coming of the Redeemer and in the resurrection of the dead: “I know that my Redeemer lives, and on the last day he will raise from the dust my decaying skin this. And I will see God in my flesh.” Meanwhile, during the conversation and reasoning of Job with his friends, a storm arose and thunder roared, from the storm the voice of God was heard to Job, reproaching the reasoning friends for wanting to penetrate into the incomprehensible advice and intentions of the Almighty. God expressed His anger for the wrong judgments of his friends, and only their sacrifice and the intercession of righteous Job for them justified them before God. This ended the test of Job, who had shamed the original murderer in his daring lies and slander, and God healed Job of his illness and enriched him twice as much as before. He again had seven sons and three daughters, and he again became the happiest patriarch of a happy family. “And Job died in old age, full of days.” The silence in this glorious narrative about the laws and miracles of Moses, the patriarchal features in life, religion and morals, and, finally, the very longevity of Job, who died two hundred years old, clearly show that he lived in the patriarchal era of biblical history and, moreover, at the end of it. In its history we already see the high development of civilization and social life. Job lives with considerable splendor, often visiting the city, where he is greeted with honor as a prince, judge and noble warrior. In his book there are indications of courts, written charges and correct forms of legal proceedings. People already knew how to observe celestial phenomena and draw well-known astronomical conclusions from them. There are even indications of mines, large buildings, the ruins of tombs, as well as great political upheavals, thanks to which entire peoples who had hitherto enjoyed independence and prosperity were plunged into slavery and misery. Thus, among the pagan peoples contemporary with the patriarchal era of the chosen race, there were individual bright personalities who preserved the purity of primitive piety and true religion with its lofty truths and promises. But the masses were immersed in dark idolatry, which with development took on a wide variety of forms. In Mesopotamia, idolatry became so developed and widespread that it even invaded the pious house of Terah, Abraham’s father, and we find the existence of household idols (teraphim) in the house of Abraham’s brother Nahor and especially the latter’s grandson Laban. According to assumptions, teraphim were folding idols depicting human figures or objects most revered by local residents. But in general, in Mesopotamia, as in Arabia, Sabeism prevailed, that is, the idolization of heavenly bodies, the image of which, perhaps, was made on teraphim. At the same time, it is remarkable that in Mesopotamia, and especially Chaldea, traces of how religion gradually deviated from the original truth and degenerated into crude idolatry were preserved. In a very vague idea they were presented with a single supreme God, Il or Ra, the creator of pre-temporal chaos. In this chaos, vaguely identified with Il itself, there were three principles - matter, desire and mind. They divided among themselves, and from this came peace. These principles, in turn, were personified in the form of three gods: Anu - matter, Ben - desire and Noah - mind. From this first trinity the second is born, but it is already clearly degenerating into purely planetary deities: Samas - the god of the sun, Sin - the god of the moon and Bin - the god of airspace. Each of these gods has a wife, who, however, are identical with them, and then follow the minor planetary gods: Nin (Saturn), Bel-Merodach (Jupiter), Nergal (Mars), Ishtar or Nana (Venus) and the sky (Mercury). These gods were followed by many even smaller gods, the meaning of which is very difficult to determine, but which already constituted the last stage of darkness of the original religious truth. The number of gods increased further because each city had its own special patron god, who was considered the main one there, regardless of the general system. Thus, Bel-Merodach, the god of the planet Jupiter, was the local deity of Babylon and with the rise of this city he became the main one and merged with Bel. The service to all these gods and especially to Ishtar (Astarte) was of a crudely sensual nature, turning into complete debauchery, performed in honor of the gods and goddesses in the churches and churches themselves. The same Sabeanism, but with its expansion into the idolization of nature in general, was the dominant type of idolatry of the Canaanite peoples, among whom the life of the patriarchs mainly passed. The main deity of the Hittites (whom Abraham first met upon entering the land of Canaan) was the goddess Istar or Ashtoreth (Astarte), whose idolatry was carried out under the guise of the most vile licentiousness. Other Canaanite tribes also idolized Bel or Baal (the sun) under various names - Bl, Moloch, Adoni. As in all similar religions, which constitute a complete deviation from the original truth, the people idolized their own passions and lusts under the guise of these gods, giving them, as it were, the stamp of divine permission. To appease the wrath of the gods, he made human sacrifices and, guided by the opinion that the more expensive the offering, the greater the mercy the offerer could count on, erring madmen sacrificed their children to idols, maidens sacrificed their chastity, and so on. Under the influence of this immoral cult, wickedness reached such an ugly degree as we see it in the inhabitants of the cities of the Sodom Pentate City, who incurred the terrible wrath of God. Religious and moral life in Egypt stood at a higher level, but even then only in the upper classes of the country and especially the famous Egyptian priesthood, where religion reached significant heights, showing that the spark of truth and ancient traditions still smoldered under the ashes of pagan error. In their highest mental conception, the Egyptians rose to the concept of one God, having neither beginning nor end. The sacred hymns of the Egyptians say about this God that “He is the only Fruitmaker in heaven and on earth, but He is not begotten. God is one in truth, who gives birth to himself, who exists from the beginning, who created everything, but was not himself created.” This supreme one God was called differently: in Thebes - Ammon-Ra, in Memphis - Phtha. But one in itself, this supreme God is at the same time not only a father, but also a mother and a son, and therefore, as it were, triple in his being, representing three principles. Maut, the feminine principle, is at the same time the wife of Ammon-Ra, and he himself, as his son, Khons, is at the same time the same Ammon, because he created everything from himself. Ammon-Ra, Maut and Khons constitute the highest trinity, the single highest deity, about which one Egyptian book (papyrus) says: “He gives life to the fish in the water, the bird in the sky, gives breath to the fetus in the egg. He gives life to reptiles, gives life to birds, for reptiles and birds are equal in his eyes. He makes provisions for the mouse in its hole and feeds the bird on the branch. Be blessed for this, the one, the only many-armed one.” The entire outer world was a manifestation of this supreme deity. As a result, every natural phenomenon was sacred. This is how the upper classes in Egypt understood deity. But for the masses, such a concept was unbearable and too abstract. Therefore, ordinary people made independent gods for themselves from various manifestations of deity. Hence there is an almost endless series of living gods, whose symbols were various objects of inanimate nature, birds and animals. One of the main deities of this kind was the Nile, identified in the minds of the people with the god Api or Osiris, whose wife was Isis (earth). The embodiment of Osiris was a living bull - apis, which from a simple symbol turned into an independent deity in the minds of the people, and the priests said about him that he is born every twenty-five years from a heifer fertilized by lightning. Other deities personified various beneficent or formidable forces of nature, such as the beneficent sun (Ra), the sun as a scorching destroyer of life (Mont), the destroyer of light - Set, and so on, and the personification of various gods were the hawk, ibis, crocodile, goat, cat, which were also sometimes revered as independent deities. The multiplication of gods was also facilitated by the fact that each city with its own district certainly worshiped its own special god. Here, obviously, religious thought had already descended to the crudest stage of idolatry. In accordance with religion, moral life stood at the same low level, in which the most vile vices dominated, which found encouragement in the very ritual of a crude and immoral cult. Such was the religious and moral state of the pagan peoples, and in comparison with them, the chosen family of patriarchs was truly a lamp, shining brightly among the deep religious and moral darkness of the surrounding humanity. In terms of time, the considered patriarchal era embraces more than two centuries. There is not enough data to accurately determine it. We only have the testimony of St. Paul that 430 years passed from the great promise to Abraham to the publication of the Law of Sinai. The same figure is indicated in the book of Exodus 12, verse 40, which says: “And the time in which the children of Israel (and their fathers) dwelt in Egypt (and in the land of Canaan - as added in the Greek text of the translation of seventy interpreters) was four hundred and thirty years.” In the revelation to Abraham himself, the same period is defined as a round number of four hundred years. If we assume that the duration of the Israelites' stay in Egypt was approximately equal to the duration of the patriarchal period of wandering from the calling of Abraham to the migration of Jacob to Egypt, then half of this figure, namely 215 years, will approximately determine the duration of the patriarchal era, which is quite consistent with the years of life of the patriarchs and is confirmed by Jewish traditions. Abram's sojourn in Egypt, Gen. 12:10–20 . Separation of Abram from Lot, Gen. 13. The name of this king is revealed on the monuments and read Kudur-Lagamar, as well as the names of his allies. Life 14:1–16. Abram's meeting with Melchizedek, Gen. 14:17–23. The fourth appearance of the Lord to Abram, Gen. 15. The institution of circumcision, Gen. 17:10–14. The death of lawless cities, Gen. 19. Birth and circumcision of Isaac, Gen. 21. Sacrifice of Isaac, Gen. 22. Marriage of Isaac, Gen. 24. The last days of life and death of Abraham, Gen. 25:1–18. Children of Isaac, Gen. 25:20–34. Blessings of Isaac, Gen. 27:1–40. Jacob's departure to Mesopotamia, Gen. 27–28:22. Vision of the Staircase, Gen. 28:12–22. Jacob's meeting with Rachel, Gen. 29:1–12. Marriage of Jacob, Gen. 29ff. Jacob's return to his homeland, Gen. 31. Teraphim - small Babylonian images of idols - are a sign of how much idolatry penetrated into the house of Abraham's family. Meeting with Esau, Gen. 32 and 33. Jacob's Prayer, Gen. 32:9–12. Jacob's struggle with God, Gen. 32:24–30. The first trip of the sons of Jacob to Egypt. Life Chapter 42 Joseph's brothers' second trip to Egypt. Life 43–45. The Migration of Israel to Egypt, Gen. 46, 47:27. Blessings of Jacob, Gen. 49:1–28. You might be interested in: