Articles under Scripture

“For [Sarai’s] sake, [Pharaoh] dealt well with Abram.”

Abram uses the curious ruse of claiming that Sarai is his sister in order to avoid death at the hands of Pharaoh. This ruse could only work because they were childless. The Apostle writes that “women will be saved through bearing children” [1 Tim 2: 15]. Yet Abram and Sarai are clearly saved here because Sarai had not borne children, in terms of the flesh. We must therefore allow for a spiritual meaning in the Apostle’s words. In fact, he gives us the key in the following phrase: “…if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with modesty.”* These are true “fruits of the Spirit” [Gal 5: 22], and they ought to console those who fear that Sarai may have been unchaste when in Pharaoh’s household. But clearly the bearing of children in this sense means an increase of faith and love, which Sarai demonstrated in her holiness and modesty toward Pharaoh. When Pharaoh sent Abram and Sarai away, he gave them “sheep, oxen, he-asses, menservants, maidservants, she-asses, and camels” [Gen 12: 16].  This accords with the Lord’s own teaching, which He gave to those disciples who were anxious over what to eat and what to drink. “Seek first the kingdom of God”—that is, bear the spiritual fruits of chastity, faith and love—“and all these things will be given you as well.”

*The RSV gives, “If she continues…” Obviously the translators were trying to make sense of the flow of thought on the level of the literal sense. This is our modern method, but I am increasingly suspect of this need to smooth out the text handed on to us. In this sudden turn to the third person plural rather than the expected feminine second person singular, the Fathers would see an invitation to a spiritual reading, which is what we have attempted to provide.

“Now there was a famine in the land.”

Abram was able to go to Egypt and sojourn there to find bread. But where would we go if there were “not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord”? Would we not “wander from sea to sea, and from north to east”? [Amos 8: 11-12]

Abram’s descent to Egypt foreshadows the crucible through which his descendants must pass: the crucible of humility, becoming dependent upon the nations for bread. This indicates that the faithful, who have been given the bread of God’s Word, should not claim superiority over those who are in ignorance. Rather, they should commend them to God, since the faithful rely upon them for bodily sustenance. In this way, the knowledge of God will come to the nations.

It is notable that, amidst the distress of the famine, Abram does not return to the Haran, the comfort of the familiar, but presses on to Egypt.  Having put his hand to the plow [cf. Lk. 9: 62] and begun to cultivate the ground of his heart with the figurative gospel plow of true belief in One God, Abram does not look back to Assyria, Ur or Haran. Indeed, he exacts a promise from his servant illustrating his resolve: “See to it that you do not take my son back there.” [24: 6, 8]  Since, in Biblical language, the word ‘son’ often stands for our thoughts and words, we who have renounced the world should not allow our thoughts to go back there.  A servant may bring a wife for our son from the world, but she must return to dwell in the Promised Land of the cloistered heart; that is to say, we must “take every thought captive to obey Christ.” [1 Cor 10: 5]

Abraham builds his first altar at Shechem, at the oak of Moreh. ‘Shechem’ means ‘shoulder’. Now in the New Testament, we read that the Good Shepherd places the lost sheep on his shoulders [cf. Lk. 15: 5]. So, too, in Abraham, the race of Adam is gathered up to begin the process of returning home. ‘Moreh’, a word related to torah, means ‘teaching’. We see in this the necessity of ongoing learning in the ways of God, taught by the Good Shepherd Who speaks through the shepherds of the Church.

“Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.”

This is an invitation to put one’s security entirely in God’s hands, renouncing past (the country of Ur, which they had already left), present (kindred: our accustomed place in the fabric of society) and future (father’s house: our hoped-for inheritance). This demonstrates that the ‘land that I will show you’ ultimately refers not to Canaan, but to our heavenly homeland, outside of the succession of time in the present age.

“Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem…”

Jacob will later recapitulate the very movement of Abram: entering from the north, he will first abide at Shechem, then Bethel, and then Hebron. While the proximate approach is from the north, they are ultimately coming from ‘the East’, where God had originally planted the Garden. Abram/Abraham and Jacob are gradually being acclimated to the idea that the way to their true home passes through this promised land.  The location of Jerusalem and the Temple of God’s presence have not yet been revealed, except in an obscure manner in the Binding of Isaac.

Spiritually, this is an indication that our return to God, to the image and likeness that was ours before sin, requires us to go out from the things that keep us attached to the world. We must journey by stages toward a place that God will reveal only when we have perfected our faith. We cannot ‘go back’ to an Edenic existence, at least by a direct route. As in Dante’s Inferno, the only way back is by journeying through the land of unlikeness, learning to let go of every spiritual hindrance.

“Terah died in Haran.”

Interestingly, Terah, Abraham’s father, begins this sojourn away from Ur toward Canaan. But like Moses and the generation of the Exodus, he is not permitted to enter into the Promised Land. We are told that Abraham “took…all their possessions which they had gathered, and the persons that they had gotten in Haran.” [12: 5-6] This happens so that nothing tainted by Ur will accompany Abraham. Terah was appointed to bring the family into this place of transition.  But there the things of Ur were forgotten, and new possessions were acquired.  This mystically represents the uprooting of vice and the acquisition of virtue before we can properly enter upon the vision of God in His dwelling place.

“They went forth together from Ur of the Chaldeans.”

The rabbis tell us that the name ‘Ur’ (‘ur) is related to the word for ‘light’. Abraham was ‘tried in the fire’ of the Chaldeans, just as his later descendants, the Three Young Men spoken of in Daniel, were tried in the fires of idolatrous Babylon in the days of the Exile. Abraham, our ‘father in faith’, foreshadowed Israel’s return to the Holy Land. He, too, departed from the gods of Babylon/Chaldea to follow the promptings of the One God.

The way of faith is a way of darkness.  To go forth from Ur is to go forth from the light of the earthly senses into the darkness of the purgative way.  Abraham now ‘walks by faith and not by sight’ [2 Cor 5: 7], journeying ‘by paths they never knew’ [Is. 42: 16], allowing God to ‘turn the darkness before them into light.’

“The Lord confused the language of all the earth.”

(Here are the first and second parts of the scholion on this verse.)

The confusion of languages is also displayed in an ironic and ominous way in the modern academy. The effort of the various disciplines to delve more and more deeply into narrower subjects results in a situation in which inter-disciplinary discussion is simply impossible. Who can discuss the fineries of theology and the mechanics of cellular evolution at the same time? Who in each discipline can even begin to understand the vocabulary and significance of the work of the other? We see how even our well-intended human quests, tinted perhaps by a certain pride, end in the scattering of knowledge.

This is most dangerous where, for example, ethicists and biological researchers cannot comprehend one another. What results will this have for human beings? It seems to me that many of the more frightening advances in medicine will either not benefit the poor, who cannot afford highly specialized procedures, or will actively harm them (witness the incentives involved in finding live or recently-deceased research subjects). And yet, rather than slow down and take the time to listen for what will benefit all, we instead let our desire to ‘make a name for ourselves’ [Gen. 11: 4] continue to drive us on down who knows what bitter road.

“The Lord confused the language of all the earth.”

(Here are the first part of the scholion on this verse.)

We cannot understand the full meaning of the confusion of languages without reference to its remedy in the story of Pentecost morning. The presence of the Holy Spirit made it possible for the Jews on pilgrimage from every land to understand the Apostles’ teaching in their own native language. From this we see that the solution to the confusion of tongues is not ‘Esperanto’ or some kind of universal code. Any such attempts are bound to the limitations of any single human language, and will force all persons into an artificial discourse, presided over by the humanly powerful. Rather, God preserves the uniqueness of each language, and by extension each individual voice. But in the power of the Holy Spirit individuals can now understand one another and rejoice to discover how diversity enriches. Understanding the Other no longer entails the danger of losing myself.

We also see that ‘purity’ is not achieved by destroying all differences, but by eliminating sin and violence. As soon as bricks and mortar are mentioned in the story of the Tower of Babel, every listening Israelite, mindful of his Egyptian slavery, would be asking, “Whose backs were broken to construct this ridiculous tower?” All this to ‘make a name’ for some anonymous ‘ourselves’ [Gen. 11:4]—undoubtedly, the materially wealthy and powerful.

The outcome of the Babel project was liberation for the voice of the oppressed and the exposure of the ‘impurity’ at the project’s heart. Restoring purity is not, therefore, to be seen as reimposing one language (English?) on all peoples, but by all people coming to an understanding of one another, thereby purifying hearts and uniting the members of the body in one mutually-beneficial working order.