The News-Herald. [volume] (Hillsboro, Highland Co., Ohio) 1886-1973, 1894-03-08
THE SUNDAY SCHOOL


the selling of the birthright, and Immediately
following the obtaining the birthright by fraud.
BY some the date - given as 1890
ISAAC is now III years old. He died in 17lI,
aged 1s0 years.
EsAU AND JACOB are 81 years old.
PLACE. Bethel, House of Cod twelve
miles north of Jerusalem. 1t was then called
Luz. The homestead was at Beersheba, fifty
five TO sixty miles to the south.
LESSON NOTES.
The Flight from Honey. 10. In
our last lesson we saw Jacob not only
taking advantage Of his twin brother
in sharp bargain for his birthright,
but also obtaining possession of it by
fraud. 1t had been promised him. and
he had bought it legally for mere
song, taking advantage of his broth
er's weakness and needs. He thought
it was his, and without faith to trust
in God for the fulfillment of his proph-
ecy, and without love to present the
case fairly to his father and his broth
er. he gained by trickery what he might
have had honestly. He now begun to
feel the curse that clung to his bless
ing. 81 think Jacob really sold out
cheaper than Esau did. 1t is an awful
thing for man to swap home. friends,
station, respcctability and character
for the first place in an old mans will"
-Layman. in Christian Union.
Esau naturally was very angry. He
might have given up his birthright
freely but it made him indignant to
be cheated out of it. He saw one easy
course to obtain it. With his physical
strength he could kill his brother
Jacob, and the birthright would be
his. To escape this danger Rebekah
planned to have Jacob go away for a
time, ostcEsibly to seek wife among
his kindred on the Euphrates. She
knew Esau well enough to believe that
his anger would soon burn itself out,
and expected that Jacob would ere
long return home with one of her
nieces for his wife She little thought
that it would be forty years before he
would return, and that she would never
see her beloved son again.
TO- "And Jacob went out from Beer
sheba." his fathers home. Without a
a servant to attend him, or beast to
carry him. or any other accommoda-
ton, except. as he afterward informs
lie
he pursues his solitary way. Jacob
may have stolen away secretly, and
without any retinue, and have stunned
the frequented path to Paden-Aram,
in order to elude the vigilance and re-
sentiment of his brother. Nor can we
doubt that he was oppressed with a
desolating sense of his loneliness, and
inwardly panied with the compunctious
visitings of his faithful conscience.
"And went toward Haran:" In Padan-
Aram, Mesopotamia, the place where
Abraham settled for time, before he
came to Canaan, and where his brother
Nahor. remained. Here lived Jacobs
uncle. the brother of Rebekah. The
distance was about four hundred and
fifty miles 1t was long, dreary,
dangerous journey.
The Pillow of Stones..V. IL.
Lighted upon 4 certain place" Lit
orally: lighted on the place" The
s definite article probably indicates that
it was the well-known place after1
wards mentioned and the one where
his grandfather Abraham had built an
altar Q2:S). 1t was near Bethel, about
fftyfive miles north from Beersheba
1t must have been toward the close of
the third day that Jacob reached
this place. 1t may have been too late
to enter the city, the gates being shut
at sundown. "And he took of the
stones of that place and put them for
his pillows" The "stones of that
, place" are still numerous enough to ac-
commodate an army of Jacobs. 1t was
no hardship for Jacob to take a
stone for pillow; the Syrians and Pal
estinians do it every night. Sleeping
on the ground in the open air, where
there is not even bush for shelter, is
the commonest thing in the world.
Wrapped only in his aba or other
mantle, the native does not find fault
with bed in the open air.
The Heavenly Vision.-V. 10. Some
chapters beyond the one where this in
cident is recorded is single verse (35:
81 which throws no little light upon
this night of the vision. The account
here reads as if God, unasked. revealed
Himself to Jacob in this wonderful
way, and we could but guess at the
feelings of Jacob ON this eventful oc-
casion. But twenty-eight years after
wards he proposes to his family to go
to Bethel, and build an altar to God,
who answered me in the day of nv
distress" This vision was not gift
unsought, but in answer to earnest
prayer, an answer to a soul which
looked to the God of his fathers in
time of distress.
LESSONS FROM JACOBS VISION.
Unconscious providences." unseen
guidance. Goods hand in history"
I'VE need celestial observations" said
Coleridge, whenever we attempt to
mark our terrestrial charts"
1t is so commonly observed as to be
scarcely worth again remarking, that
persons who employ great deal of
craft in the management of their af-
fairs are invariably entrapped in their
own methods.
Sin spoils home. A single act of
deception or of meanness will some
times put an end to all the love and
joy and peace of household.
bull.
This whole incident makes q special