Genesis Vol 3.pdf - College Press

“ GENESIS’.’
liisdnatural life (as did also Isaac and, Jacob) without own-
ing a foot of Canaan’s soil excep e small plot of land
which he bought from Abimele a Canaanite prince,
for a burial ground. What is th lanatiori? It is that
of our text: the iniquity of the- Canaanites had not yet
reached the point where there w e righteous, no, not
one. We know this from the ess shown Abraham
by various Canaanite chieftain . 14:13, 20:1-18,
23:7-20, 26:6-11). Some four hundred years later when
Israel came out of Egypt under’ Moses and Joshua, the
Canaanites had become so given over to the grossest forms
of licentiousness and idolatry that 1 their very existence was
a moral blight on mankind. Therefore God gave them
up to destruction as nations when‘ the Israelites under
Joshua took possession of their land (cf. Lev. 18 :24-28).
(2)History is the story of the rise and fall of nations;
the stage on which history is acted out has rightly been
called the graveyard of nations. As expressed in Shelley’s
imperishable lines:
“ ‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair.’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
And in the memorable lines of Kipling’s Recessional:
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Far-called, our navies melt away;
On dune and headland sinks the fire-
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,
Lest we forget-lest we forget!”
(3) Nations do not die of old age: they perish when
they die of a rotten heart. They die when they cease to
be ,fit :to go on living (Cf. Abraham’s intercession for
Sodom and Gomorrah: not even ten righteous souls could
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