Bible Emblems

by Edward Eli Seelye

At this period, when Abram’s anxiety deepened, and hope began to grow impatient, God appeared again to him in vision, and renewed his covenant promises. And in answer to the patriarch’s request for some outward sign or ratification, the Most High directed him to slay a heifer, a she-goat, and a ram, and divide the parts, and set them the one over against the other, that one might pass between the parts.

In ancient times the ratification of covenants was attended by the most solemn rites, in which the contracting parties participated. In the 34th chapter of Jeremiah there is an explicit reference to a ceremony like the one here described: “And I will give the men that have transgressed my covenant, which have not performed the words of the covenant which they made before me, when they cut the calf in twain and passed between the parts thereof—the princes of Judah, and the princes of Jerusalem, the eunuchs, and the priests, and all the people of the land, which passed between the parts of the calf—I will even give them into the hand of their enemies.” In these solemnities the contracting party or parties passed between the parts of the slain victim, in token of their full assent to the stipulations made, imprecating upon themselves a most bitter curse if they should violate them. The ceremony was of the nature of a most solemn oath.

Nor was it confined to the Israelitish nation alone, but similar rites were observed among other people. In the third Book of the Iliad, Homer describes the solemn ratification of the covenant between the Greeks and the Trojans, according to the terms of which Menelaus and Paris were to determine the great quarrel between them in single combat. Victims were slain, their heads distributed among the chiefs of the hostile parties, their palpitating limbs placed opposite to each other on the ground, while the officiating priest uttered a prayer to Jupiter, accompanied by a most awful imprecation upon any one who should break the solemn oath. Livy also, the Roman historian, records a like solemnity on the occasion when the Roman and Alban nation agreed to settle their contest by the combat of the three Horatii and the three Curiatii. Then too the Roman priest slew the victim, and called Jupiter to witness their vows, and strike the violator as he struck the victim.

In this fifteenth chapter of Genesis, the sacred writer describes a sacred institution, which Homer, a thousand years later, found among the Greeks; and the Roman historian, still later, records as in use among his countrymen. The intent, or meaning of the solemnity, was evident. Abram well understood it; for without any particular instruction recorded, he prepared the sacrifice.

It must have been a day of overwhelming interest to the patriarch. Early in the morning God directed him to make his preparations. He obeyed with promptness, and slew the animals, and arranged their parts upon the ground. Having passed between them himself, thus acknowledging his obligations in the covenant, he sat down alone to wait for Jehovah to signify his presence. What strange, unearthly thoughts revolved in his anxious mind! What a condition for a creature to be in—a lonely man watching for God to come!

The day wore by; the sun was far down the west; the shadows were deepening on the earth: the weary patriarch dropped his head upon his breast, and slept. A horror of great darkness fell upon him; and then came a vision and a voice, which revealed to him the future. When this had passed, night had set in; and in the darkness the weary watcher waited, near the limbs of his slain victims, for Jehovah to reveal his presence and seal his promises, till at length, through the thickening gloom and spectral silence, the Shechinah is discovered, moving in awful majesty near the sacrifice. A smoking furnace and a burning lamp passed between those pieces.

Abram understood it all: God’s visible presence was before him; Jehovah had ratified his covenant; the deed was done. The patriarch was satisfied. He had not been imposed upon by his fancy; he had not been deceived by some ignis fatuus. It was Jehovah’s presence he had looked upon; it was Jehovah’s own doings, making his covenant sure to him.

Yet all he saw was a smoking furnace and a burning lamp pass between the pieces. He heard no voice; he saw no living personal form: but that appearance before him was Jehovah’s sign. He doubted not a moment; he asked for nothing more. It is evident that the manner in which God signified his presence on this occasion had a peculiar significance in it, that there was a peculiar fitness in the form which he assumed—a smoking furnace and a burning lamp—rather than some other visible form.

We believe that these signs indicated not only that Jehovah was there, but who that Jehovah was. They exhibit God as hiding, and yet revealing himself. The smoking furnace, dimly visible, and followed by the burning lamp, presents the side which the Almighty turns towards us, marked by obscurity, and light. The Most High is known, and yet unknown; revealed to us, and yet concealed.

And we believe that a correct view of God, as exhibited to us in his word and providence, will correspond with the view which the patriarch had of him in the loneliness and darkness of that night, when He sealed His covenant with him.