Quarter SUBJECTS FOR BIBLE CLASS DISCUSSION March 2 What did God promise Abraham? The Sunday School Times once asked Professor Israel Friedlander and President Robert Ellis Thompson to answer these questions: Does God's covenant with Abraham still hold good, or was it necessarily abrogated long ago? Just what was meant by, and included in, the promise? In Professor Friedlander's long answer from the Jewish standpoint the main thought was this: Our ancient rabbis noticed that the prediction of the bondage in Egypt was symbolic of the whole Jewish history, that it typified the succession of bondages in which Israel was held in all subsequent periods, and the position, as well, of the Jewish people in some parts of the world at the present time. The thinking Jew of today realizes that the Jews still have a land which is theirs by right of divine promise and historical tradition, and he is convinced that this promise once fulfilled, the Jewish problem would find a final and satisfactory solution. It is this conviction which has found its expression in the movement known as Zionism. Zionism aims at establishing a publicly and legally assured home in Palestine. President Thompson says the Abrahamic Covenant covers three points: (1) that of the seed of Abraham shall come an elect nation; (2) that to this nation shall be given a specified country as their own; and (3) that the nation occupying this land shall be made a blessing to all the nations. The land was given to Israel in perpetuity. It is by their own unfaithfulness that they have lost their land, and in part through their preference for more profitable work than farming. The greatest thing in the promise is that Abraham's posterity was to be a blessing to all mankind. To the Christian, therefore, the promise has a depth and a height of meaning which it can have for no literal son of Abraham who rejects the greatest Teacher his race has produced, and who will not submit himself to the grandest spiritual influence which has come out of the Hebrew nation for the elevation of mankind. The Christian sees in that promise the prediction of the development of the national society into a universal society-a brotherhood of mankind under the leadership of one who is the rightful “Lord and head of every man.” WORK TO BE ASSIGNED FOR THE NEXT LESSON I. Questions to look up. Where was Sodom? (Clipping, p. 114.) 2. Give the account of Abraham's plea for Sodom. 3. How did Abraham show hospitality to his guests? 4. What does Ezek. 16.49 say about the Sodomites? 5. Who were the "men," v. 12? 6. How may the destruction of Sodom have been brought about? (Clipping, p. 113.) 7. How did Jesus once draw a comparison between the cities on the Sea of Galilee and those by the Dead Sea? (Mt. 11.20-24.) 8. When did Jesus refer to the fate of Lot's wife and for what purpose? (Lk. 17.32.) 9. Read Whittier's poem entitled "The Cities of the Plain." 10. What chapters in the Bible tell about primeval history? What chapters tell about patriarchal history? Questions to think about. 1. On what four occasions has Abraham shown his care for Lot? (Gen. 12.5; 13.8-9; 14.13-16; 18.22-33.) 2. What was Abraham's offer and what was Lot's choice when a separation became necessary? 3. Which one fared the better in the end? 4. When was the whole earth so corrupt that it called for vengeance? 5. Through whom were the people warned? 6. Who were saved and why? 7. What similarity between the destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum and that of Sodom and Gomorrah? 8. Was the destruction of Sodom just? 9. What is the meaning of the saying that Lot's wife became "a pillar of salt"? (Clipping, p. 113.) 10. What is the lesson to be learned from Lot's wife? II. Compare Lot's request for the sparing of Zoar with Abraham's request for the sparing of Sodom. 12. How is our Golden Text applicable to the lesson? Memory and Note-Book Work. Read Whittier's poem about the "Cities of the Plain" and commit to memory the important stanzas. Write Part III of your Biography of Abraham: God's Covenant with Abraham. On your map locate Hebron, LESSON X-March 9 THE DESTRUCTION OF SODOM (TEMPERANCE LESSON) Golden Text Come ye out from among them, and be ye separate, saith HOME DAILY BIBLE READINGS-M. Gen. 19.12-17, 23-29. The Destruction of Sodom. T. Gen. 18.16-33. Doom of Sodom Decreed. W. Isa. 5.8-24. Six Divine Woes. T. 1 Kings 20.13-21. Revelers Unfit for Duty. F. Dan. 5.1-9, 25-28. The Handwriting on the Wall. S. Gen. 9.18-27. Noah's Intemperance. S. 1 Pet. 4.1-11. Sobriety and Watchfulness. STUDY Gen. 19.1-3, 12-29 READ Gen. 18-21 COMMIT vv 15, 16 I 12 And the men said unto Lot, Hast thou here any besides? son-in-law, and thy sons, and thy daughters, and whomsoever thou hast in the city, bring them out of the place: 13 for we will destroy this place, because the cry of them is waxed great before Jehovah; and Jehovah hath sent us to destroy it. 14 And Lot went out, and spake unto his sons-in-law, who married his daughters, and said, Up, get you out of this place; for Jehovah will destroy the city. But he seemed unto his sons-in-law as one that mocked. 15 And when the morning arose, then the angels hastened Lot, saying, Arise, take thy wife, and thy two daughters that are here, lest thou be consumed in the iniquity of the city. 16 But he lingered; and the men laid hold upon his hand, and upon the hand of his wife, and upon the hand of his two daughters, Jehovah being merciful unto him: and they brought him forth, and set him without the city. 17 And it came to pass, when they had brought them forth abroad, that he said, Escape for thy life; look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the Plain; escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed. 23 The sun was risen upon the earth when Lot came unto Zoar. 24 Then Jehovah rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from Jehovah out of heaven; 25 and he overthrew those cities, and all the Plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground. 26 But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt. 27 And Abraham gat up early in the morning to the place where he had stood before Jehovah: 28 and he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the Plain, and beheld, and, lo, the smoke of the land went up as the smoke of a furnace. 29 And it came to pass, when God destroyed the cities of the Plain, that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities in which Lot dwelt. WORDS AND PHRASES EXPLAINED Lesson Outline. I. The arrival of the Angels and Lot's Hospitality, 1-3. II. The Deliverance of Lot, 12-16, 29. III. The Sparing of Zoar, 17-22. IV. The Destruction of the Cities, 23-28. 12-13. The men. The two angels, verse 1, "The visit of the two angels may be regarded as the final test of Sodom. If they were hospitably received and honorably treated they might still be spared" (Dummelow).—The cry of them is waxed great before Jehovah. Compare Gen. 4.10. Quarter March 9 14-17. Mocked. Jested.-Iniquity. Or, punishment, RVm.-Laid hold upon his hand. The men led away from danger a family reluctant to leave.-Look not behind thee. Delay might be dangerous. The mountain. The mountains of Moab east of the Dead Sea, a plateau that rises from 2500 to 3000 feet above the sea. 23. Zoar. That is, Little, verse 20, RVm. Lot's faith was not great enough to carry him as far as the mountain, verse 17, and he asked permission to stop at Zoar, for it was so little, that it could not be so wicked as the other cities and might therefore be spared from destruction, verses 18-22. He would have the city spared for his own sake, not for the sake of the people therein: contrast his prayer with that of Abraham for the Cities of the Plain. 24. Jehovah rained brimstone and fire from Jehovah out of heaven. It was the work of Jehovah, through natural means. "It is a plausible suggestion that the physical cause of the destruction was an eruption of petroleum, occasioned by an earthquake. Such eruptions arise from the existence of reservoirs of compressed inflammable gases, by the side of the petroleum, at a considerable depth below the surface: if from any cause, such as an earthquake, a fissure is opened through the overlying strata, the gas escapes, carrying the petroleum with it; the fluid mass readily ignites, whether through lightening or spontaneously; and it then rains down in burning showers, while a dense smoke towers up into the air. All the conditions for such an eruption are present in the region of the Dead Sea. The strata about it, especially at the southwest end, abound in bituminous matter: after earthquakes, bitumen is often found floating on the water; sulphur springs, and sulphur deposits, are also frequent around the Dead Sea, so that the mention of brimstone is quite intelligible" (Driver). 26. His wife looked back. The verb means much more than a passing glance, Her heart was in the city she was leaving. Remember Lot's wife are the words of Jesus in Luke 7.32. She was loth to leave: in Sodom were pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of prosperous ease (Ezek. 16.49), and from them it was hard to tear herself away.-A pillar of salt. "She died in the way, as Pliny died in the destruction of Pompeii, suffocated in the fiery and sulphurous vapor of the volcano flames. The body of the dead woman remained, and, according to the story, became encrusted over by the saline particles with which the air in the neighborhood of the Dead Sea is charged; and in the vivid words of the Bible narrative, she became a pillar of salt' (Aked). 28. As the smoke of a furnace. Today, if the petroleum springs at Baku in the Caspian region become accidentally ignited they burn for days. 29. A summary of verses 1-28.-God remembered Abraham. Remembered his interceding for Lot, as told in Chapter 18. SUGGESTIVE THOUGHTS FROM HELPFUL WRITERS 26. His wife looked back. Lot's wife illustrates the perils of a divided heart, of backward-looking glances charged with passionate if secret longing, warring against all the instincts of the soul that bid us look forward to higher levels and purer air. Not less picturesque, and not less calling for rational understanding, are our Lord's words, "In the day that Lot went out from Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. After the same manner shall it be in the day that the Son of Man is revealed. In that day he that shall be on the house-top and his goods in the house, let him not go down to take them away; and let him that is in the field likewise not return back." I understand this, the revelation of the Son of Man, to refer to the moral and spiritual crises in which divine truth is made manifest to the individual soul. Then comes the need of swift decision for the right and persistence in following it. Then, truly, delays are dangerous. Vacillation is failure, futility, ruin. We cannot afford to play with great questions of human destiny. In those moments when Christ comes to us, comes to compel our choice, the divided heart, the soul that cannot choose, the will that is shaken by antagonistic desires, the mind that quivers like an aspen-leaf in every breeze of hope or fear, presages doom. Heroic choice is called for. The heroic course alone is the safe course. "Remember Lot's wife." Dr. Charles F. Aked, in Old Events and Modern Meanings. Quarter LIGHT FROM ARCHÆOLOGY OR FROM ORIENTAL LIFE March 9 28. He looked toward Sodom. Chapter 18 tells us how anxious was Abraham for Lot's safety. Contrast with his care for Lot, and with Christian care for others, the feeling in China toward those that are in trouble. The report comes just now that a native ferryman saw close to his boat a man drowning, but would not save him for fear of the god of the river, who, he said, was angry at the dying man. THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND Review Questions. Why did Lot go to Sodom? Why did he think he had made a great bargain? What event first showed him that worldly prosperity does not always "succeed"? Who delivered him? Did the experience change his mode of life? How had God meanwhile dealt with Abraham? Today we see which one in the end fared the better, the one who chose the best things for himself or the one who generously allowed the other to have the best. Years had passed and Abraham and Sarah were still childless. Hagar, Sarah's maid, became Abraham's secondary wife, given to him by Sarah in accordance with the custom of those days. Hagar's position in the house was a hard one, and she made her escape, but was led to return upon receiving the message that she would have a son called Ishmael, who would be "a wild man," the ancestor of a great nation. The promise of a multitude of descendants was renewed to Abraham, the rite of circumcision was enjoined, and the name, hitherto Abram, "Exalted Father," was changed to Abraham, "The Father of the Multitude," and that of Sarai, "Princely," to Sarah, "the Princess." Sitting one day at his tent door under the shade of the terebinth at Mamre, near Hebron, Abraham saw three strangers approaching. He entertained them with true eastern hospitality and was informed by one of his angelic visitors that Beersheba Hebron Gerar the wickedness of Sodom and Gomorrah was so great it cried for vengeance, and they were on their way to investigate the evil. Abraham's compassion was aroused for the righteous who would be punished with the wicked, and he pleaded with his Divine Visitor to spare the city if there were fifty righteous ones there, then made the same plea for forty-five, for forty, for thirty, for twenty, for ten. The two others meanwhile continued their way to Sodom and were entertained by Lot. The inhabitants of Sodom tried to seize and ill-treat the strangers, but were prevented by sudden blindness. The object of their visit was attained, the wickedness of the people was proved and judgment was executed upon these two cities of the plain. THE GEOGRAPHICAL BACKGROUND Sodom and Gomorrah were cities of the plain, probably the plain at the southern end of the Dead Sea, but their location is unknown. Zoar was not far from Sodom. At the southwestern end of the Dead Sea is Jebel Usdum, the Mount of Sodom, a range of cliffs five miles long and six hundred feet high, formed of crystalized rock salt covered with limestone and gypsum. See the photograph facing this lesson. From its face great fragments are occasionally detached by the action of the rains, Dr. George Adam Smith tells us, and they appear as "Pillars of salt." Of course one of them is called "Lot's wife." 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