friendship, that he who would enter into it must be ready to make a complete surrender of himself, in loving trust, to him with whom he covenants. He must, in fact, so love and trust, as to be willing to merge his separate individuality in the dual personality of which he becomes an integral part. Only he who be lieves in another unreservedly and fearlessly can take such a step intelligently. The record concerning Abraham stands: "He believed in the Lord; and He counted it to him for righteousness." The Hebrew

word heëmeen (P), here translated "believed in," carries the idea of an unqualified committal of self to another. It is from the root aman (P) with the two-fold idea of "to be faithful and "to trust.' 2 Its correspondent in the Arabic, (amana,,) carries the same double idea, of a confident and an entire committal of self to another, in trust and in trustworthiness.3 Lane's definition of the substantive from this root is: "The becoming true to the trust, with respect to which God has confided in one, by a firm believing of the heart."5 Abraham so trusted the 1 Gen. 15: 6; Rom. 4: 3; Gal. 3: 6; James 2: 23.

2 See Fuerst's Heb. Chald. Lex., s. v.

3 See Freytag's Lex. Arab. Lat., s. v.

4 See Lane's Arab. Eng. Lex., s. v.

5 In the Chinese language, likewise, "the word for faithfulness means both to be trustworthy, and also to trust to, and refers chiefly to friendship." (Edkins's Relig. in China, p. 118.)

THE FIRST BORN OF MOSES.

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Lord, that he was ready to commit himself to the Lord, as in the rite of blood-friendship. Therefore the Lord counted Abraham's spirit of loving and longing trust, as the equivalent of a spiritual likeness with himself; and the Lord received Abraham, by his circumcision, into the covenant of blood-friendship.1 Or, as the Apostle James states it: "Abraham believed [in] God, and it was reckoned unto him for righteousness; and he was called the friend of God."2 Here is the doctrine of "imputation," with real life in it; in lieu of a hard commercial transaction, as some have viewed it.

The recognition of the covenant of blood in the rite of circumcision, throws light on an obscure passage in the life of Moses, as recorded in Exodus 4: 20–26. Moses, himself a child of the covenant, had neglected the circumcision of his own first-born; and so he had been unfaithful to the covenant of Abraham. While on his way from the Wilderness of Sinai to Egypt,

1The Rabbis give a pre-eminent place to circumcision as the rite by which Abraham became the Friend of God. They say (see citations from the Talmud, in Nethivoth Olam, p. 367): "Abraham was not called perfect before he was circumcised; and because of the merit of circumcision was the covenant made with him concerning the inheritance of the Land. It [circumcision] also saves from the punishment of hell; for our sages have said, that Abraham sits at the gates of hell and suffers no one to enter in there who is circumcised."

2 James 2: 23.

with a message from God to Pharaoh, concerning the un-covenanted first-born of the Egyptians,' Moses was met by a startling providence, and came face to face with death-possibly with a bloody death of some sort. "The Lord met him, and sought to kill him,” it is said. It seems to have been perceived, both by Moses and his wife, that they were being cut off from a farther share in God's covenant-plans for the descendants of Abraham, because of their failure to conform to their obligations in the covenant of Abraham.

"Then Zipporah took a flint, and cut off the foreskin of her son, and cast it at [made it touch] his [Moses'] feet; and she said, Surely a bridegroom of blood [one newly bound through blood], art thou to me. So He [the Lord] let him [Moses] alone [He spared him, as one newly true to the covenant of Abraham, and newly safe within its bounds]. Then she [Zipporah] said [again], A bridegroom of blood art thou, because of the circumcision;" or, as the margin renders it: “A bridegroom of blood [art thou] in regard of the circumcision." 2

The Hebrew word khathan (1), here translated "bridegroom," has, as its root idea, the binding through severing, the covenanting by blood;

1 Exod. 4: 21-23.

3

an idea that is

2 Exod. 4: 25, 26.

3 See Fuerst's Heb. Chald. Lex., s. v.

A BLOOD-WON RELATION.

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in the marriage-rite, as the Orientals view it,' and that is in the rite of circumcision, also. Indeed, in the Arabic, the corresponding term (khatan,), is applied interchangeably to one who is a relation by the way of one's wife, and to one who is circumcised.2 Hence, the words of Zipporah would imply that, by this rite of circumcision, she and her child were brought into blood-covenant relations with the descendants of Abraham, and her husband also was now saved to that covenant; whereas before they were in danger of being covenanted with a bloody death. It is this idea which seems to be in the Targum of Onkelos, where it renders Zipporah's first words: "By the blood of this circumcision, a khathna [a blood-won relation] is given to us ;" and her second speech: “If the blood of this circumcision had not been given [to us; then we had had] a khathna [a blood-won relation] of slaughter [of death]." It is as though Zipporah had said: "We are now newly covenanted to each other, and to God, by blood; whereas, but for this, we should have been covenanted to slaughter [or death] by blood."

1 See Deut. 22: 13-21. To this day, in the East, an exhibit of bloodstains, as the indubitable proof of a consummated covenant of marriage, is common. See Niebuhr's Beschreibung von Arabien, pp. 35-39; Burckhardt's Arabic Proverbs, p. 140; Lane's Mod. Egypt., I., 221, note.

2 See Lane, and Freytag, s. vv., Khatan, Khatana.

4. THE BLOOD COVENANT TESTED.

After the formal covenant of blood had been made between Abraham and Jehovah, there was a specific testing of Abraham's fidelity to that covenant, as if in evidence of the fact that it was no empty ceremony on his part, whereby he pledged his blood,—his very life, in its successive generations,—to Jehovah, in the rite of circumcision. The declaration of his "faith," and the promise of his faithfulness, were to be justified, in their manifest sincerity, by his explicit "works" in their direction.

All the world over, men who were in the covenant of blood-friendship were ready-or were supposed to be ready-to give not only their lives for each other, but even to give, for each other, that which was dearer to them than life itself. And, all the world over, men who pledged their devotedness to their gods were ready to surrender to their gods that which they held as dearest and most precious-even to the extent of their life, and of that which was dearer than life. Would Abraham do as much for his Divine Friend, as men would do for their human friends? Would Abraham surrender to his God all that the worshipers of other gods were willing to surrender in proof of their devotedness? These were questions yet to be answered before the world.

"And it came to pass after these things, that God did prove Abraham [did put him to the test, or the