gleam of religion, iv. 26. After the lapse of ten generations (v.)
the world had grown so corrupt that God determined to destroy it by a
flood; but because Noah was a good man, He saved him and his household
and resolved never again to interrupt the course of nature in judgment
(vi.-viii.). In establishing the covenant with Noah, emphasis is laid
on the sacredness of blood, especially of the blood of man, ix. 1-17.
Though grace abounds, however, sin also abounds. Noah fell, and his
fall revealed the character of his children: the ancestor of the
Semites, from whom the Hebrews sprang, is blessed, as is also Japheth,
while the ancestor of the licentious Canaanites is cursed, ix. 18-27.
From these three are descended the great families of mankind (x.)
whose unity was confounded and whose ambitions were destroyed by the
creation of diverse languages, xi. 1-9.
[Footnote 1: Death is the penalty (iii. 22-24). Another explanation of
how death came into the world is given in the ancient and interesting
fragment vi. 1-4.]

It is against this universal background that the story of the
Hebrews is thrown; and in the new beginning which history takes with
the call of Abraham, something like the later contrast between the
church and the world is intended to be suggested. Upon the sombreness
of human history as reflected in Gen. i.-xi., a new possibility breaks
in Gen. xii., and the rest of the book is devoted to the fathers of
the Hebrew people (xii.-l.). The most impressive figure from a
religious point of view is Abraham, the oldest of them all, and the
story of his discipline is told with great power, xi. 10-xxv. 10.
He was a Semite, xi. 10-32, and under a divine impulse he migrated
westward to Canaan, xii. 1-9.

There various fortunes befell him--famine which drove him to Egypt,