_Second case._ "And it came to pass after these things that God did tempt Abraham." The contrary does not happen to be a contradiction. Here it is, "Let no man say when he is _tempted_ I _am tempted_ of God; for God can not be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man with evil."--James i, 13. Any grammarian can see at once that there is no contradiction here. God did (try) tempt Abraham. When was this and what was it for? Well, it was thousands of years before James's _present tense_ language was written. Suppose I give a parallel. Here it is: Let no Jew say when he offers a lamb he offers it to obey the Lord, for the Lord accepteth not lambs, neither does he require them of any man. The contradiction is found in the fact that some thousands of years in the past, the Lord did, for wise and benevolent purposes, require Jews to offer lambs. Now, can any man fail to see that there is no contradiction here. God did tempt Abraham. What was it for? Answer. He simply designed to teach Abraham, in a way that would impress the lesson upon the mind for all time to come, that the human beings were not to be offered in burnt sacrifices as the heathen were wont to do. His angel said to Abraham, "Stay thy hand." See! there is an offering fast by the horns in the bushes. _Don't kill your son!_ Yes, God did try or tempt Abraham. It was a grand trial of his loyalty to God. And it was God's most effectual way of teaching Abraham and his posterity that they must not offer their sons and daughters in the fire as the heathen did. There is not only no contradiction here, but a grand lesson also, which represents God in just the reverse of the infidel interpretation of the case. _Third case._ "And the man which journeyed with him stood speechless, _hearing a voice_, but seeing _no man_."--Acts iv, 7. This voice heard by those persons was in the _Hebrew tongue_, and as such was _not understood_ by those who were with Saul. So we have it upon record in the 22d chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, that "they saw _the light_ and were afraid, but they heard not," that is, _understood not_, the voice. That the voice was in the Hebrew is asserted in the twenty-sixth chapter and the fourteenth verse. We often hear a man's voice, and fail at the same time--say we did not hear because we did not understand the words uttered. Such is the latitude of the original term translated by the word _hear_. So there is no contradiction here. The term _hear_ in one passage is used with reference simply to the noise; in the other it is used with reference to the _words spoken_, which they _understood not_. So it is said, they heard them not. Can you hear a man speaking in a dead language? You can hear the voice in the sense of hearing the noise, but you can't hear the voice in the sense of _hearing the language_. No man can hear a language unless he understands it in the sense of the original term.