Bible -- Commentaries; Bible -- Feminist criticism; Women in the Bible
Notwithstanding that Abraham mourned Sarah so sincerely, within three
years after she died, and when at the ripe age of a hundred and forty
years, he married again and the six children he begat by Keturah he
took quite as a matter of course, although half a century before, when
told that a son should be born to him, he laughed incredulously.
Abraham had his failings, some of which are shared by the moderns, yet
doubtless he was a moral giant compared with other men of the land from
which he came and of the nations around him. As such he was chosen as
the founder of a race whose history should promulgate the idea of the
one true God. Certainly the descendants from this remarkable trio have
retained their own peculiar characteristics and have ever been
worshippers at the shrine
of Jehovah.
A singular fact may be mentioned here that Mrs. Souvielle in her book
"The Sequel to the Parliament of Religions," has shown that from
Midian, one of the sons of Keturah, came Jethro or Zoroaster.
Western thinkers are so matter-of-fact in their speech and thought
that it might not have occurred to them that the true value of this
story of Sarah and Hagar, like that of all else, not only in our own
Bible but in the scriptures of other faiths, lies in the esoteric
meaning, had it not been for Paul, that prince of occult philosophers,
who distinctly says, according to the old version, that it is an
allegory; according to the revised, that it contains an allegory: "for
these women are two covenants," one bearing, children unto bondage, the
other unto freedom. It is our privilege, Paul goes on to teach, to be
children of the free woman, but although we are this by birthright, yet
there has to be a personal appreciation of that fact, and an effort to
maintain our liberty. The mystical significance of this allegory has
never been elucidated in reference to the position of woman, but it may
well be considered as establishing her claim, not only for personal
freedom, but for the integrity of the home. Acting according to the
customs of the day, Sarah connived at her own degradation. Later, when
her womanly dignity was developed by reason of her motherhood, she saw
what should be her true position in her home, and she made her rightful
demand for unrivalled supremacy in that home and in her husband's
affections. She was blessed of God in taking that attitude, and was
held up to the elect descendants of Abraham nearly 1660 years later by
the Apostle Peter as an example to be imitated. And these later women
are to be Sarah's daughters, we are told, if like her, they "are not
afraid with any amazement," or as the new version hath it, if they "are
not put in fear by any terror."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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