Genesis 22:21-24

Huz his firstborn, and Buz his brother, and Kemuel the father of Aram, And Chesed, and Hazo, and Pildash, and Jidlaph, and Bethuel. And Bethuel begat Rebekah: these eight Milcah did bear to Nahor, Abraham's brother. And his concubine, whose name was Reumah, she bare also Tebah, and Gaham, and Thahash, and Maachah.

Concubines were a kind of half wives; they themselves were considered as servants in the house; and their offspring were not entitled to any inheritance. Genesis 25:5

REFLECTIONS

When we behold the happy termination of the trial of Abraham's faith, who doth not see the certainty of that precious promise, Blessed is the man that endureth temptation! Oh! the vast privilege of those whom the Lord enables to be faithful, and whom he supports in the trying hour. Gracious God! be it my portion, to be kept by thy grace in every conflict, then shall I be more than conqueror, through Him that hath loved me.

But while I derive this instruction, under grace, from the Patriarch's bright example of faith, teach me, Lord, to behold a more glorious object of contemplation, in which this scene so strikingly represents of divine mercy. Do I not see in Abraham, as a father, so readily offering up his son, the type of that unequalled love of God our Father, in giving his only begotten Son as a sacrifice for the salvation of his people? And in the free-will offering of Isaac, to his father's direction, is not Jesus' voluntary submission to the death of the cross strongly represented? Oh! matchless love of both! May it be my happiness always to connect, in the view of redemption, the love of both, as the united cause and source of all my hopes; and under the precious application of the Father's grace, and the Son's merits to my heart, by the merciful influences of God the Holy Ghost, may I live in the full enjoyment of this assurance, until I come to enter upon the possession of the realized felicity unto all eternity.