Yet the natural conclusion for the Jew to draw, which at this point flashes into St. Paul's mind, the conclusion that God has proved unfaithful, is not the true one. No: God's word, God's promise, has not broken down. For, if the facts are looked at, it appears quite plainly that the Israel of God was never simply the Israel of physical descent, nor the children of Abraham simply his physical seed. Plainly not. For Isaac and Ishmael were equally Abraham's seed, physically considered, but for the purpose of God the promise is given only to the family of the younger son, Isaac (Gen. xxi. 12), who moreover was born, not in the mere natural order, but under circumstances of special divine promise and intervention (Gen. xviii. 10). And if in this case it be said that the younger son Isaac was the only son of Sarah, the wife and free woman, and therefore had a natural prerogative over Ishmael, yet the same inscrutable principle of selection is apparent in the next generation, in a case where there is no possible inequality {17} of natural claim--in the case of the two sons born simultaneously to Isaac of the same mother. Prior to their birth, and prior therefore to any possible merit or demerit on their own part--so that God's absolute freedom of choice should appear quite conspicuously--the younger Jacob was deliberately preferred over the elder Esau (Gen. xxv. 23). And in fact this race of Esau, this Edom--though they were Israelites after the flesh--appear in history as something much worse than merely secondary to the true Israel; for God speaks by Malachi and declares that, whereas Israel is His beloved son, Esau, that is Edom, He has 'hated' (Mal. i. 3). No Israelite therefore who reads his scriptures (St. Paul would conclude) ought to have failed to perceive an inscrutable element in God's choice of his chosen people. He ought not to have felt in his own case, any more than in that of the first children of Abraham or Isaac, that he could be sure of membership in the people of God merely because of his physical descent.