The knife dropped from the trembling hand of the patriarch, a quiver of revulsive feeling ran through his frame, and he gazed upward towards the sky.

The heavenly voice resumed: "Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou anything unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing that thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from me."

Then Abraham released Isaac, and looking round with unalloyed joy, beheld behind him a ram caught in a thicket by its horns. So he took the ram, and offered it for a sacrifice instead of his beloved son. And Abraham called the name of that place, Jehovah-jireh, which is the same spot where, ages afterwards, the Lord's only son, the Lamb of God, became a spotless sacrifice for the sins of the world.

From the midst of the smoke of the burnt-offering the voice of the angel was again heard: "By myself have I sworn, saith the Lord; for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son; that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the seashore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies : and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice."

And Abraham returned to Beer-sheba with his son and his servants; and the Lord increased the worldly substance of Abraham, and blessed him with peace and happiness.

At length, when she had attained the age of one-hundred and twenty-seven years, Sarah, the mother of Isaac, died at Kirjath-arba, afterwards called Hebron; and the friends and household of Abraham were gathered together according to the custom of those days to weep and mourn for her. And Abraham, desirous to keep the ashes of his believing wife apart from those of the idolatrous Canaanites, who inhabited the surrounding country, went forth to crave audience of the sons of Heth, and said, "I am a stranger and a sojourner with you give me a possession of a burying-place, that I may bury my dead out of my sight."

The answers made to this touching application forcibly demonstrate the respect and esteem which the upright conduct, the amiable qualities, and the wealth of Abraham had procured for him from the surrounding tribes. "Hear us, my Lord," replied the children of Heth; "in the choice of our sepulchres bury thy dead: none of us shall withhold from thee his sepulchre."

But Abraham entreated that Ephron the son of Zohar would give him the cave of Machpelah, situated at the end of his field, for as much money as it was worth ::-so strictly

scrupulous was he of blending the memory of her, who had been chosen by the Almighty as one of those through whose lains the Redeemer of mankind should descend upon earth, with that of persons who had forsaken the worship of the true God.

Hear me, my Lord," answered Ephron the Hittite: "the field and the cave that is therein will I give thee; in the presence of the sons of my people give I it thee: bury thy dead."

Abraham, however, wished a permanent burial-place for his family in the land which had been promised him for an inheritance, and he could not consent to be indebted for this to one whose offer of free burial among the noblest of the land had been refused: so he replied to Ephron," If thou wilt give it, I pray thee, hear me. I will give thee money for the field; take it of me, and I will bury my dead there."

Abraham then weighed to Ephron four hundred shekels of silver, the full value of the field in money then current among merchants; and the field of Ephron, with the cave and the trees that were therein, were made sure to Abraham for an inheritance in the presence of all the children of Heth. And Abraham buried Sarah in the cave of Machpelah, before Mamre, in the land of the Canaanites; and Abraham and his servants mourned for her many days, according to the custom of eastern nations.