Jacob Ben Chajim, in his introduction to the Rabbinical Bible (p. 28), tells us that the Hebrew text used to read in verse 22: “And Jehovah still stood before Abraham;” but the scribes altered it, and made Abraham stand before the Lord, thinking the original text offensive to Deity. Genesis xviii has given plenty of work to the divines. Augustine contended that God can take food, though he does not require it. Justin compared “the eating of God with the devouring power of the fire.” Kalisch sorrows over the holy fathers “who have taxed all their ingenuity to make the act of eating compatible with the attributes of Deity.” In the Epistle to the Romans Abraham’s faith is greatly praised. We are told (iv, 19 and 20) that: “Being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah’s womb. He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God.” Yet, so far from Abraham giving God glory, Genesis xvii, 17, says that: “Abraham fell upon his face and laughed, and said in his heart, Shall a child be born unto him that is an hundred years old? and shall Sarah, that is ninety years old, bear?” The Rev. Mr. Boutell says that “the declaration which caused Sarah to ‘laugh’ shows the wonderful familiarity which was then permitted to Abraham in his communications with God.” After the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham journeyed south and sojourned in Gerar, and, either untaught or too well taught by his previous experience, again represented his wife as his sister, and Abimelech, king of Gerar, sent and took Sarah. As before, we find neither remonstrance nor resistance recorded on the part of Abraham. This time God punished the women in Abimelech’s house for an offence they did not commit, and Sarah was again restored to her husband, with sheep, oxen, men-servants, women-servants, and money. Infidels object that the Bible says Sarah “was old and well stricken in age;” that “it had ceased to be with her after the manner of women;” that she was more than 90 years of age; and that it is not likely King Abimelech would fall in love with an ugly old woman; but if Genesis be true, it is clear that Sarah had not ceased to be attractive, as God resorted to especial means to protect her from Abimelech. At length Isaac was born, and his mother Sarah urged Abraham to expel Hagar and her son, “and the thing was very grievous in Abraham’s sight because of his son;” the mother being only a bondwoman does not seem to have troubled him. God, however, approving Sarah’s notion, Hagar was expelled, “and she departed and wandered in the wilderness, and the water was spent in the bottle, and she cast the child under one of the shrubs.” She had apparently carried the child, who—being at least more than 14, and according to some calculations as much as 17 years of age—must have been a heavy child to carry in a warm climate.