Cain and Abel. Flood

According to the Bible, one and a half thousand years after the creation of the world, the Lord set out to punish people for their moral failure and unwillingness to follow the paths that He commanded them. But in order not to completely cut off the human race, the Creator chose Noah, saved him from death and made the progenitor of all people who were born in subsequent times.

Venerable patriarch

From Holy Scripture it follows that by the time when the Almighty brought down the Flood on the earth, the chosen one of God was five hundred years old from birth, and he had three sons. The era in which he lived can truly be called the dawn of humanity. From Adam - the first husband created by the Lord - he was separated by only ten generations. In those days, human life lasted much longer than today. It is known that the venerable patriarch died at the age of nine hundred years. His children were also long-livers. The Bible tells us what the names of Noah's sons were. They were Shem, Ham and Japheth.

Not wanting to destroy the work of His hands, the Creator commanded the righteous old man to build an ark, and before the heavenly abyss opens and streams of water fall on the earth, enter it together with his entire family. To preserve the animal world, he said to take with you a couple of each species of all animals and birds. Those who, according to religion, were considered "pure" and were suitable for sacrifices, were to be taken in seven pairs. This is how the Holy Scriptures tell us.

The death of all life on earth

Noah did exactly everything that the Lord commanded, and when the Flood broke out, he was safe. Together with him, his sons and wives and many animals entered the ark. For forty days and nights the water came, until, finally, the highest mountain peaks disappeared into its depths. God's punishment has come to pass: all who were not included in the number of those chosen by Him perished in the raging waves. Only after five months had passed, the element was finally pacified.

Little by little the clouds cleared away, the streams flowing from them dried up. The water subsided, and soon the ark touched its bottom to the Ararat summit. But the whole surrounding world is still long time was hidden in the waves. Noah waited forty days before releasing the raven and finding out if there was any land suitable for habitation. But the bird soon returned back, finding nothing. This was repeated several times, until, finally, the dove sent by him brought an olive leaf in its beak - a sign that the water had receded, the earth had dried up, and the long-awaited end of the voyage came.

Days after the flood

The first thing that Noah and his sons did when they left the ark was to build an altar and offer a burnt offering in gratitude to God for the salvation that had been given to them. The Lord, however, gave them a number of moral laws and promised to continue to save the human race from floods, as evidenced by the heavenly rainbow.

When life began to take its course, the three sons of Noah, together with the patriarch, took up agriculture. The soil, so lavishly irrigated, bore abundant fruit. The brothers planted extensive vineyards, and their father took up winemaking. The bunches filled with the sun turned into a drink that cheered the heart and soul. But, as it sometimes happens, one day the old man got carried away and, having drunk too much, fell asleep.

The curse of the patriarch

At this time, Noah's son named Ham, entering the tent, saw the naked body of his father spread on the floor. Instead of showing respect, cover him up and leave, he went to his brothers and with a laugh told what he had seen. Shem and Japheth were, unlike him, delicate people, and therefore, taking clothes, they modestly went to Noah, trying to keep their backs to him so as not to offend the elder with their glances. After covering the body, the brothers withdrew respectfully.

Waking up in the morning and learning about how disrespectful Ham had treated him, the father cursed his son and all his descendants. In the heat of anger, he announced that henceforth his entire family would be in eternal bondage to the nations that would come from Shem and Japheth. From that moment on, the future offspring of Noah was divided into those who were destined to command and those who were destined to obey. The venerable old man himself lived for another three hundred and fifty years and went in peace to the forefathers.

Descendants of the sons of the pious old man

His offspring spread throughout the earth. How many sons Noah has - so many peoples have appeared from them. Ham became the ancestor of the nationality, which received the name "Hamites". This ethnic group, who lived at one time south of Canaan and spoke a dialect that belongs to the Afrasian language family. Since the territory where Ham went after the conflict with his father was Africa, the current inhabitants of this continent are considered his descendants. By the way, his very name has become a household name these days and means a rude, ill-mannered person.

Another son of Noah, by the name of Shem, is the progenitor of the people called "Simits." Despite the fact that this nation is heterogeneous in its composition, it is united by a common culture, religion and historical traditions. The name itself is taken from the Old Testament, and large groups of inhabitants of the Middle East are mentioned under it. Currently, this term, although considered obsolete, has not yet gone out of use.

Finally, Noah's third son, Japheth, became the father of many Indo-European nations. This is the largest group, which includes both peoples that disappeared in the course of the historical development of mankind, and those that exist today. The territory of their residence is very extensive and includes huge spaces that nowadays belong to various states. According to some scientists, the Slavs also belong to this group.

Other testimonies about Noah

He is mentioned in the literary monuments of many world religions. For example, the Hebrew Haggadah dwells in great detail on his deeds and actions before and after the flood. In particular, it speaks of Noah's sagacity, thanks to which he foresaw the future death of all living things, and for this reason did not want to marry. This, incidentally, explains his so late paternity. When he finally got married, he did it exclusively by the command of God.

It is difficult to accurately indicate the name of his wife, since in different sources she is called differently. Most often it is Neoma or Emzarag. Jewish literature also indicates that Noah enriched people with many useful knowledge and skills. It was he who introduced the plow, sickle, ax and many other tools familiar in our time into use. By the way, it is said about his hands that they were special - strong and adapted to physical labor. This quality certainly helped the patriarch in building the ark.

Love for people and humanism

Before taking care of himself and his family, Noah did everything he could to help avoid death for everyone around him. From the same Haggadah it is known that he repeatedly called people to repentance and even postponed his own salvation for this reason. His boundless humanity is evidenced, in particular, by the fact that for a whole year, while the flood lasted, Noah, knowing neither sleep nor rest, took care of the animals inside the ark.

In conclusion, I would like to cite a small parable from Hebrew literature, which is not mentioned in the Holy Scriptures, but has deep meaning... It is said that a very unusual couple turned out to be in Noah's Ark - Lies and Unhappiness. Initially, Lies alone tried to get inside, but she was kicked out, saying that the entrance is open only to married couples. Then she left, and when she returned, she brought Unhappiness with her. Then they were allowed in. Since then, they have been inseparable.

In conclusion, I would like to say one more thing: since, according to the Bible, the chosen one of God and the builder of the ark through his offspring became the ancestor of all nations, then every person to a certain extent is the son of Noah. This is evidenced by the Holy Scriptures, calling him our forefather.

Noah's father was Lamech, his mother's name is unknown. According to the Bible, when Noah was five hundred years old, he gave birth to Shem, Ham and Japheth.

Noah's Ark.

Noah was a righteous and believing man, for which he was chosen by God as the builder of the ark, in which all who would restore the human race after the Flood - God's punishment for the sins of mankind, had to be saved. God gave Noah precise instructions on how to build the ark and how to equip it for the long voyage. Before the flood, Noah took a pair of each type of animal, as well as seven pairs of those animals that could be sacrificed. Noah himself, his wife and three sons with their wives entered the ark from among the people. After that, it began to rain, which has never happened before or since. After 40 days, the ark floated. All life outside the ark perished. The ark sailed for 150 days before the water began to subside. After the 8th month of travel, Noah released a raven from the ark, but he, not finding land, returned to the ark. Then Noah released the dove, at first the dove returned with nothing, then brought an olive leaf, and the third time did not return at all, this indicated that the land had become habitable again. Noah left the ark about a year after the flood began.

Noah's Covenant with God.

It is believed that Noah left the Ark at the foot of the Ararat Mountains, after which he immediately offered a sacrifice to God in gratitude for the salvation of him and his family. God, in turn, promised never to devastate the earth with floods and blessed Noah and his descendants (future humanity). God gave Noah's descendants a number of commandments:

• Be fruitful and multiply
• Possess the Earth,
• To command animals and birds,
• Feed off the ground,
• Do not shed human blood.

The sign of God's covenant was the rainbow that shone in heaven.

Noah's life after the flood.

According to the Bible, after the flood, Noah began to cultivate the land and planted a vineyard. Noah is considered the first winemaker on Earth. One day, after drinking wine, Noah lay naked in his tent. His son Khan with his son Khaan entered the tent and saw a naked sleeping Noah. Without undertaking anything, they hastened to tell the sons of Noah, Shem and Japheth, about this, the same, without looking at their father, covered his nakedness with robes.

Waking up, Noah was angry with his son Khan and especially with his grandson Khaan for disrespect. Noah cursed Haan and all his descendants, ordering them to be slaves to their brothers. The name of Noah's son Ham has become a household name.

According to the Bible, Noah lived another 350 years after the flood and died at the venerable age of 950 years.

After Noah.

The descendants of Noah are considered the ancestors of all mankind. As we already know, Noah had three sons who became the founders of different nations.

Shem's descendants are Jews, Arabs and Assyrians.

The descendants of Ham are the peoples of North and East Africa and South Arabia, incl. Egyptians, Libyans, Ethiopians, Phoenicians, Philistines, Somalis, Berbers, etc.

The descendants of Japheth settled in Europe. The sons of Japher became the ancestors of the tribes and peoples of Russia, Chud, Yugra, Lithuania, Livs, Poles, Prussians, Varangians, Goths, Anglyans, Romans, Germans, Finno-Ugrians, etc. The peoples of the Caucasus also originated from Japheth.

Image of Noah in Christianity.

Noah typifies the new humanity. He is the harbinger of Christ. Noah's salvation during the Great Flood anticipates the sacrament of baptism. Noah's ark is a type of the Church that saves those who yearn for salvation.

The Orthodox Church classifies Noah as one of the forefathers and commemorates him in the "Week of the Forefathers".

The name of the Old Testament righteous man Noah is known to everyone from childhood, but not everyone knows who Noah is, and why he became the forefather of mankind after the Flood.

Who is Noah from the Bible

Noah is one of the righteous men of the Old Testament, whom the Orthodox Church reveres as a Holy One. His life story can be found in Genesis, but the name of Noah is found in many biblical texts. He is always spoken of as a man of rare righteousness.

Noah lived at the height of sin on earth and walked in the full sense against the tide, firmly following the ways of the Lord. Noah's determined and unshakable virtue helped him find "grace in the eyes of the Lord" (Genesis 6: 8).

Despite the fact that the time of his earthly life is distinguished by the general inclination of people to wickedness, this period is not far from the moment of the fall. According to the Bible, the first generations of people lived for a very long time: Adam lived 930 years, his son Seth - 912 years. Noah is only ten generations away from the first man; his father Lamech was born while Adam was still alive.

However, despite the fact that the memory of the expulsion of people from paradise was alive, as were the witnesses of the formation of mankind on earth, sin conquered the hearts of everyone in Noah's generation, except himself. And, in spite of ridicule and reproach, the righteous man walked according to the will of God with all his firmness.

Sons of noah

By the age of five hundred, the righteous man had three sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth. Tradition claims that Noah foresaw the punishment of mankind and for a long time did not want to have children. The Lord told him to marry, and therefore the sons of Noah appeared much later than happened with his ancestors.

After the flood, when all who did not enter the ark perished, the sons of Noah divided the earth and became the ancestors of all peoples living today. Shem got the East, he became the progenitor of the peoples named after him by the Semites. Shem is also included in the genealogy of Jesus Christ.

Today, the Semitic peoples include: Jews, Arabs, Maltese, Assyrians and some peoples of Ethiopia. The Amalekites, Moabites, Ammonites and others mentioned in the Bible, but no longer existing today, also belong to the descendants of Shem.

Ham was Noah's second son, his descendants settled in the South after the flood. The Egyptians, Libyans, Ethiopians, Somalis and the entire Negroid race are called Hamites. The Philistines, Phoenicians, Canaanites also descended from Ham.

Japheth - younger son Noah - became the progenitor of modern Europeans, occupying lands in the North and West. The Japhethites today are the most numerous among the peoples of the world. Legend has it that these are all the peoples of Western Europe, as well as Slavic and Finno-Ugric. The traditions of Armenia and Georgia also trace the Caucasian peoples to Japheth.

Great grandfather noah

There are many remarkable people among the ancestors of Noah, but it is hardly possible to find a second one like Enoch. The seventh from Adam, according to the testimony of various biblical texts, was the first to follow the path of the Lord after the death of Abel. Pleasing God, Enoch was removed from the place of his life, without meeting death.

Often the story of Enoch's resettlement is considered to contradict the words of the Gospel of John that no one except our Lord Jesus Christ ascended to heaven. The reason for the bewilderment is probably the speculation about the transfer of Enoch to heaven, although there are no direct indications of this in the Bible.

Indeed, the Old Testament twice mentions the transfer of Enoch:

• according to the book of Genesis "he was not, because God took him." It was not where it was, but it is not said where it moved;
• in the book of Jesus, the son of Sirach, it is mentioned that Enoch “was caught up from the earth,” that is, his transfer took place over the earth.

The Apostle Paul in the Epistle to the Hebrews says "he was no more, because God moved him." We are not talking about moving to heaven. For understanding the story of Noah, it is important that the only righteous people of the antediluvian world were saved by the Lord and received a reward from Him.

The Flood and Noah's Ark

At the age of five hundred years, the prophet Noah received from the Lord a revelation about the flood - the impending punishment of mankind for the sin that enslaved him. At the same time, Noah learned that he was going to save himself and his family from death by going into the ark along with many animals.

Noah built the ark for a hundred years. The unshakable faith in the word of the Lord for a whole century kept the construction of a gigantic ark, ridiculed by others. They did not want to listen to Noah's tales of the coming disaster, continuing to live an unbridled life.

Noah is called the preacher of truth in the Second Epistle of the Apostle Peter for his firmness in faith and constancy in his attempts to return sinners to the path of Truth.

In a new revelation, the Lord told Noah and his family to enter the ark. Then it was said that water would flow from the sky for forty days, destroying all living things. On the day of this revelation, animals and birds began to converge to Noah's ark from all sides of the earth. Noah's contemporaries, seeing how elephants, lions, monkeys enter the ark, only marveled at such a sight, continuing to persist and refusing to believe the preaching of the righteous man.

For another week, the doors of the ark were opened in anticipation of the repentance of sinners. But no one else entered them. And the sky opened up. The flood filled the earth gradually, leaving all forty days, albeit fading, but chances of repentance. The Apostle Peter claims that there were indeed people among the lost who brought repentance to the Lord in these last days and accepted death with all humility.

For another five months the water on the earth did not decrease, and then, on the first day of the tenth month after the beginning of the flood, the tops of the mountains became visible. The ark is attached to the mountains of Ararat.

Raven and Dove Release from the Ark

The raven was the first herald of the retreat of the water. Seeing that the earth was gradually freed from water, Noah released a raven from the ark. But the raven returned. Then - again and again the raven flew into the ark, until the earth was dry.

Then Noah released the dove, but there was no place for it on earth, and he returned. Seven days later, re-released, he flew in with an olive leaf. And the third time, he did not return at all, which meant the final drainage of the land. Then Noah, his family and the animals that had escaped with them went outside.

The story of Ham, son of Noah

The first thing Noah did after leaving the ark was a gratitude sacrifice to God. Then the Lord made a covenant with Noah, blessing the righteous man himself and his offspring.

The sign of the covenant was the rainbow, which also announced that people would no longer be destroyed by the flood from the earth.

However, not everyone in Noah's family was as righteous as he was. This is the conclusion that the story of Hama suggests. While cultivating the newly discovered land, Noah drank wine from his vineyard and became drunk. Ham saw him lying naked in the tent and wanted to reveal it to the brothers Shem and Japheth.

They showed respect to their father, covering him with clothes so as not to see what they should not have seen.

Learning about Ham's unworthy act, Noah cursed his son, Canaan, promising him a slave share in the houses of his brothers. Why was Canaan cursed and not Ham? John Chrysostom says that Noah could not break with a curse the blessing given to him and his sons by the Lord.

At the same time, punishment for Ham was necessary, therefore the father was punished through his son, who himself, as the saint says, was sinful and deserved punishment. Blessed Theodoret sees in this also a just retribution for his son (Ham), who sinned against his father (Noah) and received punishment through the curse of his son (Canaan).

Canaan's punishment was fulfilled in full, since the Canaanites were exterminated or subjugated by the descendants of Shem. John Chrysostom explains the intoxication of Noah himself by ignorance, since the harm from drinking wine was not so well known then as it is now.

How many years did Noah live

After the flood, Noah chose the path of abstinence and had no more children except three sons.

Noah was six hundred years old when the flood began, and he lived for another three hundred and fifty years after that. Further, the book of Genesis testifies that after Noah people lived less and less: so, Moses lived only 120 years.

Conclusion

• the prophet Ezekiel;
• the prophet Isaiah;
• Jesus, son of Sirakhov;
• the book of Ezra;
• the book of Tobit;
• The Gospel of Matthew;
• The Epistle of the Apostle Paul to the Hebrews;
• 2 Epistle of the Apostle Peter et al.

Today, the Orthodox Church honors righteous Noah as one of the Old Testament forefathers who firmly upheld God's law long before the giving of the commandments to Moses.

(in the light of the latest excavations)

Life after the Flood

Noah. Creation of the Ark.

God rejects antediluvian humanity, “because they are flesh” (Genesis 6: 3) and chooses righteous Noah to become the father of a new humanity. The Lord commissions Noah to build an Ark to save family members and all domestic animals, both clean (edible) and unclean. The dimensions of Noah's Ark are indicated in the Bible exactly: 300 cubits in length, 50 cubits in width and 30 cubits in height. The elbow was approximately half a meter, hence the dimensions of the Ark: 150 x 25 x 15 meters.

Noah began to build the Ark. Then, apparently, he was already the king of the pre-Sumerian kingdom of the Adamites, which means that he was already 600 years old, and he lived, as evidenced by cuneiform records, in "the capital of the antediluvian kings of Eridu." Eridu adjoined one side to the gulf, the other to the Euphrates River, on which the Ark could be built. In any case, this ship, in the minds of people of that time, was intended for a long voyage along the Jordanian Gulf to unknown lands.

Two years before the Flood, the last of the forefathers died - Noah's grandfather Methuselah, while Noah's father Lamech died 5 years before the Flood. Noah became the sovereign master of the kingdom and could freely build a ship, grandiose for that time. By that time, Noah had at his disposal a fairly sophisticated technique, as evidenced by the fact that the nearest Japhethites built "Cyclopean" temples, which are a miracle of technology. They set up vertically uncouth columns and placed blocks weighing two locomotives on top of them. The Adamites erected walls around cities, created monumental buildings. And yet the construction of the Ark is an incomparable true miracle of technology of that time. The Ark was a capacious ship, not equipped with masts and sails, but it still had to be strong enough.

Territory flooded during the Flood

The flooded area was enormous. Our task of describing the original Old Testament Church, the sons of blessing, does not include the study of the outcast lineage of the Cainites, which spread throughout Europe, and partly in Asia and North Africa. This would be too large-scale a task requiring the most thorough archaeological and geological analysis.

In this case, we are considering the dwelling place of the descendants of Seth, who were corrupted by the time of Noah and underwent the same fate as the Cainites. All mankind perished in the waters of the Flood, as Christ the Savior confirmed this: “As it was in the time of Noah: they ate, drank, married and got married until the Flood came and destroyed everyone,” all, not a part of humanity. Of course, Christ the Lord could not be mistaken - the Flood was universal. Neither America, nor Australia, nor Oceania were inhabited at that time. Apparently, most of the lands of Asia and Africa were not inhabited either. The latter sank only partially under the water, but without exception the entire Middle East, North Africa and all of Europe sank below ocean level. This was a supernatural geological phenomenon for the Quaternary period, when all European mountains were the bottom of the ocean. But the same would have been normal for all previous geological periods.

Despite the fact that precipitation of the "deluvium" (Flood) turbidity covers, like snow, all of Europe, they are absolutely unexplained until now. Unbelieving scientists cannot believe in such a sinking of the Eurasian continent during the Ice Age (Quaternary Period). Indeed, this can only be perceived as a geological miracle.

But recently it was discovered that the mainland Antarctica has settled hundreds of meters below the ocean under the weight eternal ice... Geologists are not surprised that the peaks of all European mountains were the bottom of the Tethys ocean in Tertiary time, and it is not surprising that in Quaternary time Europe either rose or fell hundreds of meters four times. But the fact that it sank not hundreds, but thousands of meters for the fourth time - geologists cannot admit and do not want to believe it, although there are dozens of the most reliable evidence. Not believing in God, in the fact that God is the Creator of the world, one cannot believe in a miracle.

Return of Noah to his homeland. Blessing Shem and Japheth.

There can be no doubt that Noah's family returned home to their city, because all five cities of the Adamites (according to archeology) were settled again. All the cities of the Adamites: Eridu, Ur, Obeid, Uruk and Lagash have on top of the Adamite cultural layers a two-four-meter "empty layer" of the Flood, after which the cultural layers begin again, but already the cultures of the descendants of Sim, the Semites-Sumerians. It can be assumed that the name of this original kingdom of Sumer sounded in antiquity - Simera (Sim).

Only Noah's wife did not return to her homeland. Not far from the ancient capital of Armenia Nakhichevan, in the valley of the Araks River, the remains of the second foremother of mankind, the wife of Noah, are buried; her grave has been sacredly revered since time immemorial.

Unfortunately, Moses did not write anything about the way of Noah's return and about where Noah lived after the Flood, however, there are two indirect but significant indications in the book of Genesis.

First: "Shem gave birth to Arphaxad two years after the Flood" (Genesis 11, 10). Noah entered the Ark and left it only with his sons, without grandchildren. Where was Arfaxad born? Maybe in the same place, in the Araks valley, because the first ancient capital of Armenia was called that way - Arfaksad. Arfaxad, the firstborn of Shem, was the first person to be born after the Flood.

Moses leads a direct genealogy of the forefathers before the Flood along the line of the firstborn, without reporting anything at all about other sons: "he had sons and daughters." The lineage of Cain is kept separately by Moses.

After the Flood, Moses informs about the sons of Shem, Japheth and Ham with their offspring, and writes that Ham was the lesser (Gen. 9, 24), and, listing, Moses writes: “Shem, Ham and Japheth” (Gen. 9, 18), without attaching importance to the order of enumeration, as we would do at present. Why? It is not known, as it is not known why Moses did not indicate the place of residence of Adam after his expulsion from Paradise, saying “against Paradise”, but without naming a specific place known in the time of Moses. Moses does not indicate the place of residence of Noah either before the Flood, or after the Flood, or considering it unimportant, or by the Providence of God leaves the last mankind to reveal a secret in order to once again give a huge irrefutable proof of the truth of the Revelation of God before the end of the world. This conceals the same meaning as in the coming to earth at the time of the Antichrist of one of the first people - Enoch, who in his sermon will tell about his time and reveal all the undisclosed secrets of the history of Paradise and the first people. This great event, described in the Apocalypse, will take place before the end of the world on the "great river Euphrates." It is there, in the homeland of humanity, that the greatest apocalyptic events will take place. “Free the four Angels bound by the great river Euphrates. And four Angels were released to kill a third of the people ”(Apoc. 9, 14-15).

“The sixth angel poured out his bowl into the great river Euphrates, and the water dried up in it. And I saw three unclean spirits coming out of the dragon's mouth. They go out to the kings of the whole universe to gather them for battle on the great day of God Almighty ”(Rev. 16, 12-14).

Let's return now to Sim's pedigree. When listing his sons, Moses did not indicate Arphaxad first, not observing the order, as when listing the sons of Noah. But Moses points out that Arphaxad was born to Shem two years after the Flood. Therefore, he is the eldest son, which is why his lineage goes back even to Abraham. Arfaxad is the firstborn; he was to inherit the father's house and power.

If it was known where Arfaxad lived, then it would be possible to establish the place of residence of his father and grandfather - Noah, since Arfaxad was their heir in everything.

In addition, thanks to this information, the place of residence of Lamech, Methuselah and all the forefathers in the senior line - before Adam would become known.

But there is no such information, and it remains only to look for the abode of the antediluvian forefathers in five cities of the Obeid culture: Ur, Eridu, Obeid, Lagash on the coast of the gulf, and Uruk a little higher along the Euphrates. As a matter of fact, the first three cities were located so close to each other that it was enough to cross the Euphrates River from the right bank, where Eridu is located, to the left, in order to get to Ur and Obeid, which were nearby. We can say that the Adamites lived all together, and only Lagash and Uruk were at a farther distance, a few hours away - along the Euphrates to Uruk, and by the bay - to Lagash. There were no other cities among the Adamites. The last two, Uruk and Lagash, can hardly be mistaken for the residence of Seth or Noah, since Eridu was the capital of the antediluvian kings. The first temple in the history of mankind was built here, which was rebuilt 16 times over the course of millennia, leaving the original sanctuary intact.

History of the search for Noah's Ark

The Bible says that the Ark stopped on the mountains of Ararat. Of course, we must mean - on Mount Ararat, because it is not a ridge, but a cone-shaped mountain of volcanic origin, the upper part of which, starting from 4.5 km above sea level and up to the very top, is covered with eternal ice (the height of Ararat is 5.700 meters).

Where is Noah's Ark staying? After six months of "the presence of the water of the great abyss," even the tops of the mountains were covered with water. The ice in the water should have melted, but if the ship had stopped below the zone of eternal ice, it would have rotted and died without a trace. However, if he stopped at the very top, then after the Flood it would be covered with a thick layer of ice and would become inaccessible to people. By God's providence, it was arranged that the Ark stopped in a mountain lake at an altitude of 5 km, where glaciers slide from the top and the ice cover is much less. In cold years, the Ark is covered with ice, snow and is not visible, and in summer, in hot years, part of it is exposed, which, however, happens very rarely.

On July 6, 1955, French climber Fernand Navarra with his fifteen-year-old son Rafael found Noah's Ark and made this discovery known to the whole world. The radioactive method was used to analyze a meter-long piece of wood (ship frame) brought by Fernand Navarre. Studies have shown that the tree (oak) is 5000 years old. The analyzes were carried out in two laboratories: in Cairo and in Madrid. All photographs, test results and certificates are attached by F. Navarre to the book, published in French.

This unique discovery was preceded by two unsuccessful expeditions by the same person in 1952 and 1953. And it is not surprising, since access to the Ark is difficult even for the most desperate climbers due to the frequent blizzards threatening the death.

F. Navarra devoted seventeen years to this expedition. He experienced difficulties because Ararat is located at the junction of three borders: Armenia, Iran and Turkey, between which an agreement was signed that prohibited climbing Ararat. All three expeditions Navarre made secretly, making his way through the danger zone at night.

The last time he was fired upon and arrested by border guards, but then he was safely released with all the tapes and a piece of frame. In such conditions, this heroic expedition took place.

The first information about the search for Noah's Ark was reported by the pagan priest Veron in 475 BC. He tells that many people in his time and earlier reached the top of Ararat, saw Noah's Ark there and brought particles as relics. Nikolai Damascene in Christian times testifies that the skeleton of the Ark remained intact for a long time. Josephus Flavius ​​in his work "Antiquities" also writes that many brought particles of the Ark from Ararat. Theophanes of Antioch testifies to the same in 180. In 1800, the American Claudius Rich published a message from Aga Hussein, who claimed that he reached the top of Ararat and saw the remains of the Ark.

In 1829, the expedition of the professor of the University of Dorpat Frederick Parrot opened the way for scientific expeditions to Ararat. Parrot's two expeditions did not reach the top of Ararat, the third time he and a group of six people, it seems, managed to get to the place where the Ark stopped, but they could not prove it.

In 1840, the Constantinople magazine reported the discovery of Noah's Ark. A Turkish expedition, equipped to investigate the snow falls on Ararat, discovered a giant frame of almost ebony sticking out of the glacier. Inhabitants of the settlements closest to Ararat reported that they knew about the existence of this structure for 6 years, but did not dare to approach it, because they saw there some formidable spirit that appeared in the upper window. Turks - brave people - were not stopped by these fears. Despite great difficulties, they continued their research. Their expedition approached the Ark. It was in good condition, only the sides were damaged from time to time. One of the expedition members, who spoke French and English, stated that the sides of the Ark were made of wood mentioned in Scripture. This tree, as everyone knows, does not grow anywhere except in the valley of the Euphrates River. Once inside the Ark, the members of the expedition made sure that it was arranged for the transport of livestock.

Indoor room divided into compartments 15 feet high. The Turks could only enter three compartments because the others were filled with ice. The ark was 500 "kude" in length (Turkish measure).

In 1893, the archdeacon of the Nestorian church Nurri studied the sources of the Euphrates River and after climbing Ararat officially announced that he had seen the remains of the Ark, "the front and rear of which are reachable, and the middle part remains under the ice." The ark is made of thick planks of dark brown color. Having measured the Ark, Nurri found that its dimensions were the same as those described in the Bible.

On his enthusiasm, Nurri formed a society that was supposed to finance the second expedition, supplying it with the necessary materials, but on the condition that the Ark, launched from Ararat, would be delivered to the Chicago exhibition.

In the end, Nurri was forced to abandon his brilliant project because the Turkish government refused to give permission to take Noah's Ark out of the country, and the shareholders refused to participate in the case. After that, there was no information about the expeditions until the First World War.

But in August 1916, the Russian aviator Vladimir Roskovitsky, who was exploring the Turkish border, found himself over Ararat and saw a frozen lake in the eastern part of the snow-covered peak. At the edge of this lake was the skeleton of a giant ship. Part of the ship remained covered with ice, and the sides were open and damaged in some places. In addition, one of the doors was visible. When Roskovitsky announced his discovery to his superiors, they wanted to find an exact confirmation of it. Having made flights over the mountain, they, for their part, became convinced of the existence of this object and reported this to Moscow and Petrograd. Tsar Nicholas II ordered to send a state-owned expedition to Ararat. 150 soldiers worked for a month to make the climb even possible. Then a scientific mission was sent there, it conducted research - measured and photographed the Ark, collected samples. The results were sent to Petrograd. Unfortunately, all of these priceless documents appear to have perished during the Russian Revolution.

The Roskovitsky case should have received some kind of response during the Second World War. Chef Soviet service Major Jaspar Maskalin says that one of his men was curious to fly over Ararat to see if there was anything similar to the truth reported by Roskovitsky 25 years ago. The Soviet pilot, in fact, noticed a structure partially submerged in an icy lake.

All this did not prevent the Soviet expedition from defining the history of the Ark as a myth that has nothing to do with science.

Expeditions were undertaken in the post-war period, but they were not crowned with success due to obstacles put up by the Turkish government under pressure from the Muslim world, since the Koran indicates another mountain on which Noah's Ark stopped.

F. Navarra was to take part in the expedition of the missionary Dr. Smith. Having suffered several setbacks, F. Navarra decided to act independently, even without the permission of the Turkish government.

Navarre described the heroic epic of the last expedition in his book. Having reached the border of glaciation at night, at the direction of his Armenian friend, he set up a camp there in order to set off in the morning to storm the inaccessible rocks, completely covered with ice. A terrible storm broke out in the night, and there was severe frost, so that F. Navarra and Rafael almost froze, brought in a large layer of snow in the shelter, at a temperature of 30 degrees below zero.

In the morning, with God's help, as Navarre writes, he went to a place that he saw from afar during one of the first expeditions. Despite the fact that everything was covered with ice and covered with snow, he managed to find the Ark. With great difficulty and risk, Navarra cut out of the ice a piece of oak frame 1 m long and 8 inches thick, which was later determined to be 5,000 years old. There were no planks in this place.

F. Navarre's book is illustrated with his photographs of the cut-down frame and the area where the Ark is under the ice, as well as photographs of laboratory evidence, drawings, plans and other things. Of course, this is not the last expedition; the future is likely to bring even more detailed information.

Creation of the Egyptian and Babylonian kingdoms according to biblical and archaeological data

What time period separates the reign of Abraham from the Flood? There is a significant difference between the Hebrew text of the Bible and the Seventy translation, so the question remains open. And the data of archeology are not yet so complete that they could fully reconstruct the true course of events in the history of post-Flood Semitic mankind. So far, archeology knows very little about the period that interests us most - the period immediately after the Flood, the so-called original Sumerian culture. It cannot be called a kingdom, because the history of post-Flood humanity began again with one family, and it took several hundred years for humanity to multiply and expand to the limits of the kingdom, which began in the city of Ur as the first dynasty of post-Flood kings.

Biblical chronology is not a doctrine of the Church - it only serves as a rough guide to trace the sequence of events. The generally accepted date for the creation of Adam is usually considered to be 5500 BC.

We will take 4000 BC as the date of the Flood (it is possible that the year 5508 of the creation of Adam is indicated correctly).

Modern theological scholarship dates the time of Abraham to 1800 B.C. and the time of Moses to 1350 B.C. How can these biblical dates be correlated with archaeological data?

The first humanity in the Ancient East in the above table by G. Childe is attributed to 5000 BC. This fully coincides with the biblical story of the reign of Jared - the sixth after Adam. In Palestine, this culture is called the Natufian culture.

The antediluvian cultural layers in Ur, Eridu and Obeid have not yet been assigned to any specific dates. These cultures, beginning in 5000 BC, such as the Protobeid culture, may have ended by 4000 BC.

The layers of the Uruk culture in Sumer belong to the post-Flood period, as they begin from 4000 BC. Then a small layer of the short culture of Jemded-Nasr was found, after which the dynasty of the post-Flood kings of Ur began, their period is called the early dynastic period of Ur-1 (see table in "Life of the Descendants of Adam").

Here, the data of the Bible and science coincide, almost completely.

In Egypt, the Tasian antediluvian culture begins from 5000 BC, the contemporary Natufian culture in Palestine and the Obeid culture in Sumer are modern to it.

The beginning of the first Egyptian dynasty dates back to 2850 BC. As you can see, all chronological data: biblical and archaeological data are in full agreement with each other and their insignificant discrepancies do not violate the harmony and sequence of events. In other words - from the Flood, after which only one family remained, to Abraham, who already lived during the time of the powerful and organized kingdom of the era of the famous king Hammurabi, a considerable time should have passed. In Mesopotamia, from the Flood to Abraham, the following events were to occur: Noah's offspring multiplied and, before the dispersion, began to build a monument - Tower of babel of enormous size, the ruins of which still exist. Humanity was divided into three branches, of which the Semitic was to create the powerful state of Sumer and Akkad, which later passed into the Babylonian kingdom. For the most part, people lost Monotheism, developing a pagan religion, the only exceptions were isolated islands of Monotheism, such as the clan of Abraham, the clan of Melchizedek, but, of course, there should have been more exceptions among the general apostasy.

For these events, a time of 2000 years is quite enough, if we assume that the Flood was 4000 years (or slightly less) BC, and Abraham lived 1600 years before the birth of Christ.

In the light of these data, the archaeological table of Gordon Childe (by the way, a man of very liberal views) about the time of the emergence of certain cultures, as well as the beginning of the Babylonian and Egyptian first dynasties (Egyptian in 2850 BC), may well be acceptable, as well as the Mesopotamian dynasties: northern and southern in 3650 BC.

In addition, it is necessary to take into account that the European Neolithic, (post-Flood mankind) is dated unreasonably and without proof - 5000 years BC, although it may well date back 4000 years or even less, which means approximately the date of the Flood.

The fact that all the kingdoms known in antiquity came from the first descendants of Noah is evidenced by Josephus, a Jewish historian of the first century, referring to sources that have not reached us. “Shem had five sons. Elam left behind the Eleanites, Assur gave his name to the Assyrians. Arfaxad called the present Chaldeans (Sumerians) Arfaxadites. The ancestor of today's Ludians was Lud. Aram had four sons: Us founded Trachonis and Damascus, Hoole laid the foundation for Armenia, Gopher is the ancestor of the Bactrians, the Misanians, whose country is called Antioch ”.

"Islands" of true knowledge of God, which remained in the world before God called Abraham

How long in the Sumerian kingdom true worship of God was kept among all the people is unknown. The Bible testifies that the knowledge of the true God was preserved in the lineage of Shem in a straight line to Abraham, which is 2000 years. There is no doubt: the ten generations indicated during this time have large gaps, which clearly proves the discrepancy in the description of the genealogy of the Hebrew text and the translation of the Seventy. Archaeological evidence also indicates that there were significantly more generations during this period.

One way or another, one thing is indisputable that in Ur, the main city of Sumer, the true knowledge of God was preserved until the days of Terah, the father of Abraham, although idolatry by that time began to penetrate into the family of Terah, which, apparently, for some time, inclined to idolatry, what Joshua mentions in his book.

The original Old Testament Church existed along the straight line of Shem's legacy until the days of Abraham in Sumer and until the days of Melchizedek in Palestine. This clan of priests of God the Highest according to the order of Melchizedek (when the elders of the clan or the king were at the same time high priests) is a witness to the fact that, although the bulk of humanity in the Ancient East was already pagan, islands of true knowledge of God and service to God the Highest continued to exist in the clan of Shem ... After all, Melchizedek was not alone - the people, whose king he was, also worshiped the One God.

But, without a doubt, these "islets" - separate principalities (like Salim, for example), separate communities, clans and families scattered everywhere - were already in an insignificant minority and risked drowning in general pagan corruption. Therefore, the election of Abraham, from whom a people would have originated, who preserved the true knowledge of God, was a historical necessity in the operation of the Providence of God over the world before the coming of the Redeemer to earth.

Why did Abraham receive a blessing from Melchizedek and not the other way around? The Apostle Paul said on this occasion that "the lesser is blessed with the greater." So great was Melchizedek! He was the last great priest of God the Most High, and he conveyed the blessing of the entire original Old Testament Church to the founder of the new period of the Old Testament Church, Abraham. With this Melchizedek completed the kingdom of the ancient forefathers and patriarchs. The story of the chosen people began, which God promised to produce from Abraham. Everything great and glorious, both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament Church, has always been accomplished with the blessing of the fathers. Adam blessed Seth to be the high priest (Seth did not decide on this himself). Noah blessed Shem and Japheth, and by this blessing the destinies of mankind were shaped. The last great priest of this period blessed Abraham, the originator of the new era, and when the history of the entire Old Testament ended, its last greatest man - John the Baptist - at the command of God laid a blessing and baptismal hand on the head of Christ the Savior, the Founder of the Holy Church of Christ of the New Testament.

Neither hymns nor prayers have come down to us, even from the time of Noah, although the first Sumerian cuneiform could record oral traditions that were kept (and are kept) in the East for many centuries. Nevertheless, one hymn-prayer has been preserved in the Sumerian tables. It is distorted by later pagan insertions, which clearly contradict the general monotheistic content of the hymn. But the hymn itself is of such powerful spiritual power that it can be directly attributed to even Noah himself. As we sing the hymns and psalms of David three thousand years ago, so the Sumerians who lost the God-revealed religion of Noah could sing the psalms of their distant ancestor.

We present this wonderful hymn, omitting at the beginning and at the end the obvious later pagan insertions, which contradict the monotheistic spirit of the hymn itself.

“Lord, the One great in heaven and on earth, Lord of Ur,
Merciful Father, in whose hands the life of the whole earth.

Lord, Thy Divine, like a distant sky, like a wide sea, is full of beauty.

He who created the earth, founded the temple, and named them, the Father of all celestials and people: calling to reign, presenting the scepter and establishing destinies for many years. Mighty Leader (Provider), the innermost depth of Which no one has explored.
Fast (Lightning Fast), which is from the base of the sky to the earth
passes, shining, and opens the gates of heaven, sends Light to all people,
Father and culprit of all being.

The Lord, who decides the fate of heaven and earth, whose commands are irrevocable, who sends cold and heat, controls living beings.

Who is like you? Who is great in heaven? You, the One! When You utter a word, food becomes abundant, and Your word calls forth truth and justice, and people begin to speak the truth.

Your Word is a distant Sky, inaccessible to the touch of a gaze. Who can understand this Word of Yours and compare with It? Lord! You have no equal in dominance in heaven and on earth ... "(See Prof. V. A. Turaev." History of the Ancient East ", 1935, p. 137).

Noah was the king of Eridu and Ur, and, according to the order of Melchizedek, king and high priest, he could say this prayer of the priest of God.

How in this magnificent hymn to the One God, the Creator of heaven and earth, one can feel the Divinely revealed knowledge of the forefather Noah!

And what a striking meaning does he put into the concept of the Word of God, the Eternal Logos, "Who has been all," as we say. Where does this Divinely Revealed knowledge come from? Apostles and Fathers of the Church unknown, and especially inaccessible in those ancient times of the beginning of a new mankind? After all, it is not for nothing that it is said in this hymn that “Your Word is inaccessible to the touch of the gaze,” which means even to touch this innermost secret with your gaze or thought is impossible, not something that can be clearly seen or understood.

"Who is like You?" - exclaims the great God-inspired psalmist of antiquity, - “Who is great in heaven? You are One. " How can this be combined with polytheism, with the savage, humanized Babylonian religion? It is clear that the pagans did not create, but preserved the hymn, spoiled it, adding a beginning and an end. This hymn could only be created by the interlocutor of God - Noah, or Shem, or Japheth.

But let us listen to what Ut-Writetim says (the Babylonian name of Noah, which, perhaps, means “escaped from the Flood”) in the Sumerian great legend about the Flood to his son: “Do not slander, but speak friendly. Do not speak evil, but proclaim goodwill. He who slanders and slanders will be avenged. Do not widen your mouth, keep your mouth, do not speak immediately, if you are irritated - you will have to repent in silence for your thoughtless speech - it is better to calm down with meekness.

Offer a sacrifice to God every year, pray and cadi to Him and have a pure heart before Him - this is the most worthy for the Divine. Every morning you must bring Him prayer, supplication and admiration, and He will give you abundance.

If you are intelligent, learn from this blackboard (writing): The fear of God is the beginning of prayer, a sacrifice favorable for longevity, prayer allows (forgives) sins. Give good to the one who has done you evil. "

These teachings have come down to us in the Sumerian cuneiforms. This, in fact, was the righteous Noah. The righteous of God in the days of Seth and Enoch, Noah and Abraham, David and John the Baptist expressed the same thoughts and feelings, often even in almost the same words. This passage, if its origin were unknown, could be mistaken for a passage from the teachings of the Church Fathers.

Now it remains to clarify the last question related to the chapter on the preservation of the true knowledge of God. Who were the three wise men who came from the East to worship the newborn Christ Child?

It is said that they came from the East, if you draw a straight line from Jerusalem to the East, it turns out that the Magi came from Southern Mesopotamia - from Sumer. Babylon and Assyria are not located east of Jerusalem. Weren't the Magi the direct descendants of Shem, who remained in the homeland of their fathers? Did they not come from the high family of Nahor and Aram, the brothers of Abraham, who remained in Ur of the Chaldees? But the wise men were not pagans, they were worshipers of the True God, according to the teachings of the Church they achieved holiness. Who are they? Could it be that true worship of God could have survived among them for two thousand years in the midst of general corruption? We think not - Melchizedek was the last guardian of the Truth, and the explanation should be sought elsewhere.

King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon 400 BC took captive the inhabitants of Jerusalem, all the nobility and artisans of the Israelite people and kept them there for 80 years "on the rivers of Babylon." Not all returned home after eighty years of captivity, when Cyrus the Persian, having conquered Babylon, allowed them to return to Palestine. Many remained in the lands where they were born and raised and mingled with the local people. Mingling with the offspring of Shem, on another line - with the offspring of Nahor and Aram, they kept the faith of their fathers in the One True God, kept the promise of the coming to earth of the "Reconciliator and submission to Him of the peoples," as the forefather Jacob prophesied.

The Church keeps the tradition that the wise men were not only wise, but came from a noble family, perhaps from sovereign princes, whose small principalities were many in the East. Apparently, they came to worship the Conciliator of God with people, moved by the Spirit of God.

And, of course, there is no need to mix with them a Hindu and a Negro, as the Western tradition does, contrary to common sense and the ways of the Providence of God in the historical destinies of mankind.

The election of Abraham. Completion of the story of the original
Old Testament Church

Part 1

During the first half of his life, Abraham belonged to the original Old Testament Church. Not young at all, he entered Palestine - the land promised to him and his descendants. Then Abraham was 75 years old.

In our understanding of the duration of human life, this is already a deep old age; then this age was considered only half of life. Abraham's father died at 205. In any case, Abraham was already at the age of a perfect husband, with established views, character, and way of life. Only he was childless.

Then Abraham lived in the blessed and beloved by him, as we will see further, the homeland of his fathers, the homeland of Shem and Noah, Enoch and Adam, in the hometowns of Ur and Eridu on the great Euphrates river, near the place of the former Paradise.

The land of Canaan was not only not native to Abraham, but alien and repulsive in the way of life of the peoples inhabiting it. If Abraham lived in Ur in peace and quiet, protected by the wise laws of King Hammurabi, then at every step he was awaited by hunger and arbitrariness: his wife was first kidnapped by Pharaoh, to whose country Abraham was forced to go because of the famine in Palestine, then - by the local Tsar Tararky, and only Providence of God twice saved Sarah from reproach.

Abraham was even afraid to call Sarah his wife and called her sister, since she was the daughter of his father by another mother.

All his life Abraham was a stranger (Jew - translated as a stranger), he always hired land to live in, and only at the end of his life bought land from the Philistines, from the oak of Mamre in Hebron. The inhabitants of the Canaanite country, the descendants of Ham, behaved wildly and perversely, as evidenced by the death of Sodom and Gomor for monstrous debauchery.

Why did the Lord command Abraham to leave his beautiful homeland and go to the terrible land of the Canaanites? There were many reasons for this, but the main one was that Abraham followed God's command to go to the grave of Adam, no matter what.

Other reasons are as follows:

1. In Sumer, paganism became militant and threatened all who did not want to serve their gods. A few generations later, when Sumer and Akkad were united under the rule of Babylon, the wild religion of Baal emerged, with human sacrifice and the compulsion to serve Baal without exception. Let us recall the three youths who did not bow their knees before Baal and were thrown into the Babylonian oven for this.
2. A small kingdom of God of King Melchizedek, who became a friend of Abraham, survived in Palestine. Melchizedek's ancestors were the Semitic local princes of the Urian kings in the land of Canaan, and later became independent kings.
3. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob lived in isolation among the Canaanites, only Jacob's sons married the inhabitants of Palestine and, having become corrupted among them, were given into Egyptian slavery. When the Israelites returned back from Egypt, and Joshua conquered the lands of Canaan, then part of the inhabitants died in the war, part was expelled, and part (the descendants of Melchizedek's subjects - the Jebusites who lived in Jerusalem) remained in place. We must not forget that the graves of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were preserved in Palestine all the time, and the descendants of Ishmael and Keav also lived.
4. At the time of Abraham, Palestine was not a single state like Sumer or later Babylon, but it was a country of small principalities, in which they did not pay attention to belonging to one religion or another. Babylon, on the other hand, demanded obedient performance of pagan rituals and idolatry on a public level. Abraham in the land of Canaan remained the same Urian as he was in his father's house. The way of life, morality - everything was transferred by Abraham from there, from the blessed homeland of his father. “And he said to him (Abraham): I am the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldees” (Gen. 15: 7). Sarah was the same Urik, their son Isaac was the same, and Rebekah, whom Abraham sent for, to take her from the family of his fathers. And Abraham made an oath to his son that he should not take a wife from the daughters of the Canaanites. This covenant was repeated, in turn, by Isaac to his son Jacob, and he also fulfilled it.

“And Isaac called Jacob and blessed him, and commanded him and said: 'Do not take yourself a wife from the daughters of the Canaanites. Rise, - go to Mesopotamia to the house of Bethuel, your mother's father, and get yourself a wife from there, “- which Jacob did” (Gen. 28, 1–2). Only Esau did not fulfill the covenant, taking for himself two Hittite wives (in violation of the law of Ur), which poisoned the lives of Isaac and Rebekah.

“And Rebekah said to Isaac: I am not happy about life because of the Hittite daughters. If Jacob also takes a wife from the Hittite daughters, such as these, from the daughters of this land, then why should I live? " (Gen. 27:46).

The words of the Uriyka Rebekah are mournful. How strong, then, was the difference between the people of her homeland and the people of the land of Canaan. To understand this more clearly, we must consider the way of life of Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, and Rebekah.

To do this, you need to familiarize yourself with the laws of King Hammurabi, who reigned in Ur during the time of Abraham. They had nothing to do with the later depraved Babylon.

Ur during the time of Abraham experienced a period of greatest prosperity as a wealthy commercial seaside city. Cuneiform tablets testify that Ur then stood on the seashore (bay). The bay receded from Ur much later. During the rule of the Romans, the bay was already far from Ur. The religion at the time of Abraham was officially pagan, although only one supreme god, Anu, was revered.

The cuneiform legends of that time about the creation of the world in six periods, the tale of Paradise and the Fall, the Flood and the salvation of Noah with three sons have survived. Their time count was the same as it has survived to this day: 12 months, 12 noon and night, 60 minutes, because they had a sixty-fold system of counting, 360 degrees of a circle. They knew astronomy well, all 12 signs of the zodiac. They knew geometry very well. In general, they had a very high culture. Compared to Ur, Palestine was a primitive shepherd country.

King Hammurabi, according to researchers, was either a contemporary of Abraham, or lived 100-200 years earlier than him. It should be noted that the moral level there did not rise, on the contrary, there was a regression: the further from the time of Noah, the more immoral the religion and the morality arising from it became. Hammurabi's laws were very strict, but moral. Many crimes were punished with death, in the absence of prisons, which testifies to the height of morals. For example, not only murder, theft from the royal palace or temple, but also the appropriation of someone else's expensive thing, theft of children and slaves, theft during a fire, adultery and incest was punishable by death. For beating, 60 lashes were required. For injury - injury. Lynching was prohibited. Monetary fines were levied for smaller crimes. An unjust judge was permanently removed from office. The losses to the robbed had to be compensated by the community of the city, which forced everyone to keep an eye on the robbers.

A woman could only have one husband, and a man could only have one wife; if the wife was childless or sick, then the wife could give her husband her slave or maidservant. Mixed marriages were allowed, and the slave woman became free at the same time. The adopted children became legal. Divorce was allowed only by court. A great deal of attention was paid in the legislation to labor relations, finance, trade and others.

At the end of the code of laws it is said: “I, Hammurabi, the king of righteousness. My words are intended to destroy (humiliate) the arrogant, to humble the proud, to destroy the arrogance. " This was the way of life, morality and way of life of the Urians, or rather, the Urian kingdom of the time of Abraham. Abraham and Isaac kept these laws. They were not bigamists, and Jacob would not have become a bigamist if he had not been deceived by his father-in-law. He could not part with his beloved Rachel.

In the land of the Canaanites, bigamy and triplegamy were common, as evidenced by Esau's three wives. The mores of the Canaanites are well attested to by Sodom and Gomorrah.

The sons of Jacob succumbed to the influence of the environment, and, as a result, fell into Egyptian captivity. How touching were Abraham's concerns not only that his son Isaac, because of his love for his bride, would not return, in violation of the commandment of the Lord, back to Mesopotamia, to the blessed land of his fathers - but also that his son's wife should be the same Uriyk , like Abraham himself with Sarah, and even from a faithful to God clan, for their clan is the clan of Seth's direct offspring.

Abraham and Sarah were born and spent half of their lives in Ur, during the period of the original Old Testament Church, their son Isaac is a pure-blooded Urian, and so is Rebekah. By them one can judge what the worshipers of the true God were like in Ur, Eridu, Obeid and other cities, where islets of true God-knowledge have been preserved.

Meek, full of boundless faith and obedience to the will of God, blessed and blessed Abraham, beloved by the Lord, glorified by Christ the Savior, sung with love by the Blessed Virgin Mary: “As (the Lord) spoke to our fathers, Abraham and his seed until everlasting” - (present). Yes, the lineage of God, the lineage of God's chosen ones, has always lived by the succession and blessing of the fathers.

And Isaac is a prototype of Christ the Savior, as the Holy Church calls him, the meekest of the sons of God, a lamb prepared for the slaughter, in all respects was submissive to the will of his father: both when he lay bound on the altar, and when the father appointed him a bride, which he had never seen, but so longed to see, knowing that by the will of God everything would be fine.

"Not what, - as Isaac would say, - what I want, but what God will send according to the will of my father."

Isn't that the very beautiful bride Rebekah, the real God-chosen Uriyka? Was it not with the same humility that she fulfilled the will of God and the blessing of her father to go nowhere, beyond the distant lands, leave her beloved homeland, where Noah lived, Adam, where Paradise was, and go to an unknown country, to an unknown person, take a long and dangerous path with an unknown servant of Abraham, but to go in the name of God's command. Isn't that a feat?

Is this not a characteristic feature of other Urians known to us: Abraham, Sarah? All their lives until the very old age, when Isaac was already 180 years old, they lived together, full of love and respect for each other.

Sending his servant Eliezer to the land of the fathers, Abraham said: “Swear to me by the Lord God of heaven and earth that you will not take my son a wife from the Canaanite daughters, among whom I live. But you will enter my land, my homeland to my tribe, you will take from there a wife for my son Isaac. " The slave told him: “Perhaps the woman will not want to come with me to this land. Should I return your son to the land from which you came? " Abraham said to him: “Beware, do not return my son there; The Lord God of heaven and earth, who took me from my father's house and from the land of my birth, who spoke to me and who appeared to me, saying: to you and to your descendants I will give this land - He will send His Angel before you, and you will take a wife to my son (Isaac) from there. If the woman does not want to go with you to this land, you will be free from this oath of mine; only do not return my son there. "

Eliezer "got up and went to Mesopotamia, to the city of Nahor." The Bible does not indicate exactly which city, but according to the meaning of Abraham's speech, it is clear that he sent a servant to his hometown of Ur or the nearby small farm of Nahor. According to the description of the conversation between Eliezer and Rebekah at the well, it can be assumed that this was the country estate of Nahor, which was called by his name - Nahor. Rebekah tells Eliezer: “We have a lot of straw and fodder, and a place to sleep” (Gen. 24:25), testifying that this was apparently the field farm of Nahor. The word "city" in those days often meant just a settlement, a fenced-in place, but sometimes it meant a city in our understanding too.

Half a century later, when Isaac sent Jacob to take a wife from the house of Laban, Rebekah's brother, Laban moved to the upper Euphrates in the city of Harran, where Terah, the father of Abraham and Nahor, and Laban's great-grandfather, was once buried.

Near the town (village) of Nahor, Eliezer stopped the camels behind the fence, at the well in the evening, at the time when the women went out to draw water, and said: “Lord, God of my master Abraham! Send her to meet me today ”(Gen. 24, 12). “He had not yet stopped speaking in his mind, and behold, Rebekah came out, who was born of Bethuel, the son of Milka, the wife of Nahor, brother of Abraham, and her jug ​​on her shoulder, the maiden was beautiful in appearance, a virgin whom her husband did not know” And Eliezer asked her - who is she? She answered him. Then Eliezer bowed to the Lord and said: "Blessed is God who has brought me on the straight path to the house of my master's brother." The maiden ran and told her mother about it at her mother's house. Rebekah had a brother named Laban. Laban ran out to meet Eliezer, to the fountain.

All the details indicate that it was a private estate, not a big city. And when Eliezer told everything to Rebekah's father, he asked if he intended to show mercy to his Lord Abraham?

Her father and brother answered: “This is from the Lord. Behold, Rebekah is before you; let her be the wife of your master's son, as the Lord said ”(Genesis 24: 50-51).

“As the Lord said,” this was the life law of the last blessed Urians.

“And they called Rebekah and said to her, Will you go with this man? She said, I will go ”(Genesis 24, 58).

Laban, brother of Rebekah, also believed in the One God. Subsequently, having moved to Harran, he took up as a craft, making pagan gods, but this does not mean at all that he himself became a pagan. In anger Laban said to Jacob: "Why did you steal my gods?" Such disrespect reveals that for them it was only jewelry made of gold, and nothing more, a commodity that "for a rainy day" Rachel intended to sell to the Canaanite lands.

So when Rebekah and Eliezer approached the house of Abraham, Isaac came out to meet them; Seeing him, Rebekah, ashamed, lowered her veil over her face: four thousand years have passed, and Christian brides, going to the church for a wedding, still cover their faces with a veil (veil) following the example of Rebekah, in her honor and memory - a beautiful God-fearing Uriyka.

Yes, we can get a vivid idea of ​​the Urians through these wonderful rites.

Much has passed to us from the Sumerians: the count of time, the rudiments of astronomy, sciences and arts, their measures of length and weight have survived to our time (see Turaev, "History of the Ancient East", 148), and even such customs as the veil of the bride.

Having considered the life of Abraham in Ur, where he spent half of his life, 75 years, and his Urian origin, comparing the appearance of Abraham with other Urians, his relatives and children as the last representatives of the original Old Testament Church - let us now turn our eyes to Abraham as the father of the chosen people, let's take a look from a spiritual point of view on his majestic image, towering at the turn of the two great periods of the Old Testament Church.

“Abraham was ninety-nine years old when the Lord appeared to him and said: I am God Almighty: walk before Me and be blameless, and I will establish My Covenant between Me and you, between your offspring after you in their generations. The everlasting covenant is that I will be your God and your offspring ”(Genesis 17: 1-7).

Three times, God throughout all ages from the creation of Adam to the coming of the Son of God to earth made His Covenant with people. For the first time, the Lord promised, as a consolation to the fallen Adam, that from his offspring will come the One Who “erase the head of the serpent” (the devil), that his Seed will become the Conqueror of hell and death, the Redeemer of original sin - and then the lost Paradise will be returned to Adam.

The second covenant was with Noah: “And the Lord said to Noah and his sons with him: behold, I will establish My Covenant with you and your offspring that all flesh will no longer be destroyed by the waters of the Flood”, this was a covenant to preserve humanity until the end of the world, as no matter how sinful it is.

And, finally, the third covenant of God - with Abraham - that God’s chosen people will come from him, which will keep faith in the True God, and the Lord will keep this people and, sending them His prophets, proclaim His will until it comes " Reconciliator, and to Him the obedience of nations, ”as Abraham's grandson Jacob prophesied (Gen. 49, 10).

Part 2

This last Testament of God - with Abraham and his descendants before the Son of God came to earth - calls the Holy Church the Old Testament in the narrow sense of the word, but the Old Testament with man in a broad sense embraces the period from Adam to the Nativity of Christ.

A terrible time accompanied Abraham's youth. The true worship of the sons of Shem and Japheth began to be forgotten by their offspring. The descendants of Shem still retained the veneration of the True God, but under Abraham this was already a rare exception: only individual families in the Urian kingdom and some small principalities, for example, the principality of Salem (Jerusalem), headed by the king and high priest Melchizedek, who blessed the first ruler of God's chosen people, Abraham.

Theological science does not know when chronologically true worship of God in the eastern and western branches of Japheth's descendants ceased. We can say that the era of Abraham (1800 BC) was the era of the dying of true worship of the Japhethites in Europe.

And so God chooses one of the representatives of the family of Simov in a straight line, living in his homeland, in the city of Ur of the Chaldees in Sumer. “And the Lord said to Abraham: Get out of your land, from your kindred and from your father's house, and go to the land that I will show you; and I will produce from you great people and I will bless you, and I will magnify your name, and all the families of the earth will be blessed in you ”(Genesis 12: 1-3).

In the last words, it is indicated that Christ will go forth from his root, in whose name all the tribes of the earth will be blessed. Thus began a new period in Abraham's life, full of hardships, drama and dishonor, grievous sorrows for his beloved beautiful wife. And so God appeared to the king in a dream and said to him: "I did not allow you to touch her (Sarah), now return the wife to her husband, for he is the Prophet and will pray for you, and you will live" (Gen. 20, 6- 7).

Here the Lord called Abraham a word that is translated "prophet" in Slavonic, and in the Hebrew language means "God-inspired man", "the one through whom God speaks." All the holy forefathers are God-inspired people, therefore the word "prophet" has two meanings: the authors of the prophetic books and all the forefathers, from Adam to Simeon the God-Receiver, they were all prophets in the true meaning of this word.

When Abraham was 100 years old, and his wife Sarah was 90 years old, God appeared to Abraham in the form of three Angels. The two Angels later visited Lot in Sodom, where they were attacked by the Sodomites. And then Sodom and Gomorrah fell into the abyss from a tectonic shock, and the hole was filled with the waters of the Dead Sea.

Who appeared to Abraham - God the Father or God the Son? No one has ever seen God - according to the word of Christ, and His words are true. “Jesus answered them: and all will be taught by God ... It is not that anyone has seen the Father, except He who is from God: He has seen the Father” (John 6: 45-46). John the Theologian says: “No one has ever seen God. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has revealed. " The Apostle Paul writes to Timothy: “One who has immortality, Who dwells in an unapproachable light, Which no man has seen or can see” (1 Tim. 6, 16).

Only the glory of God the Father was seen by Moses, for which he was called the Church - the God-Seer.

Christ the Savior gave a clear explanation of the prophetic words “thus says the Lord”, “the Lord appeared to him” (revealed Himself), “was taught by God” ... This means that whoever “saw God” can be “taught by God” in different ways - in a dream vision, with the voice of God from heaven - as God often spoke to Moses, commanding him to stand before the Ark of the Covenant between the wings of two cherubim; through the sent Angel; the inner voice of a person's conscience; in a vision in heaven (how Jacob saw a ladder from heaven to earth and the Lord who stood on it, Who said: “I am the Lord God of Abraham”); in the voice of a gentle breath, as God revealed to the prophet Elijah. The Lord revealed himself by appearing in a dream, as at the conclusion of the Covenant with Abraham (Gen. 15, 1-12); Jacob on the way to Haran (Gen. 28, 12); To Laban, brother of Rebekah, in the form of an Angel who spoke sometimes as a Messenger, sometimes as God Himself; Abraham at the sacrifice of Isaac; also to Hagar, Gideon, and others. People saw the image of God in the Son of God, in all the Glory Sitting on the throne, like the Son of Man, surrounded by seraphim (Ezek. 1: 24-28), for God the Son had this image forever, and man was created in the image and likeness of God (Gen. 1, 26).

Here is what the Holy Fathers of the Church say about this. St. Justin the Philosopher writes: “No one, even one who thinks little, will dare to assert that the Creator of everything and the Father left everything and appeared in a small particle of the earth. Neither Abraham, nor Isaac, nor Jacob, and no one else saw the Father and the ineffable Lord of everything in general, but they saw the One who, according to the will of the Father, is both God, His Son, and together his Angel by His ministry, Who, by His determination, must become man from Virgin and Who once appeared even in the fire during a conversation with Moses from the bush "(St. Justin." Conversation with Tryphon Judah ").

St. Irenaeus of Lyons: "The Son of God is everywhere in the Biblical scriptures: now He talks with Abraham, then he eats food with him, then brings judgment on the Sodomites."

St. John Chrysostom: “At the same time three were visible in the bush of Abraham: both the Angels and their Lord. But after the ministers were sent to destroy these cities, the Lord Himself remained and, as with His friend, with the righteous one, talked about what he wanted to do. "

In the ancient Liturgy, we read: "You delivered Abraham from the forefather's wickedness, made him the heir of the world and showed him Thy Christ."

"Have you seen Abraham?" - the astonished Jews exclaimed to Christ. "Jesus said to them, truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am" (John 8:58).

The eternal Son of God, similar to the Son of Man, Sitting on a throne surrounded by Seraphim, descended to His chosen one Abraham, accompanied by two Angels, whom he later sent to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah.

In this vision, Abraham was worthy to see the Son of God, who later became the Son of Man, and to converse with Him from mouth to mouth.

Now let us turn our eyes to the stunning Biblical prototypes of the three greatest events: the Last Supper of Christ, His Calvary sacrifice and the Epiphany of the Most Holy Trinity, for they were all revealed to the great forefather Abraham.

Abraham with his armed servants and allies defended the king of Salem (Jerusalem) Melchizedek from the Urian soldiers who attacked him. When Abraham returned victorious from Damascus, the king and high priest of the Most High Melchizedek came out to meet him, offering him a meal - bread and wine and, blessing him, said: "Blessed is Abraham from God the Most High, the Lord of heaven and earth" (Gen. 14 , 18-19).

What king, meeting another king, and even freeing him from enemies, would offer him not a royal meal, but only bread and wine? But let's pay attention: where did this happen? In the same city in which two thousand years later the King of Glory offered His disciples the Last Supper of bread and wine, His Most Pure Body and Holy Blood. The Last Supper of Christ has a representative symbolic image in this meal, offered to Abraham by Melchizedek, according to the order of which the Church called Christ: "You are a Priest for ever according to the order of Melchizedek."

Then the king was simultaneously the high priest. And since then, all the descendants of Abraham began to consider it sacred to offer at the beginning of the meal a bowl of wine blessed by prayer and bread blessed by the prayer of the head of the house. They sang songs of praise, recited prayers. This sacred custom was most used during the Passover meal, which Christ the Savior performed during the Jewish Passover.

Wonderful is God's economy, the transformative institutions of God are inviolable in everything. The glory of Abraham does not fade in centuries and millennia - in almost all the peoples of the Semites and Japhethites - “all the tribes of the earth will be blessed in you”.

Where did this event occur - the mysterious type of the Last Supper - the meal of bread and wine offered by Melchizedek to Abraham? In the palace of Melchizedek in Salem itself or outside it on the road along which Abraham returned with his soldiers from the north from Damascus?

The Melchizedek Palace was found by archaeologists where it should have been - in the most ancient, southernmost part of the so-called city of David, outside the present walls of the old city. He was found on a high hill called the city of Ophel, where the Geon stream flows into the Kidron Valley, where the royal pond and the royal garden are, and where there is one of the four water sources in Jerusalem.

But according to the custom of that time, the owner himself came out of the palace to meet the guests of honor, which, presumably, happened in this case, since the approach of Abraham's army, in alliance with other Palestinian princes, who liberated Salim from the Urian alliance of kings, should have been announced in advance to King Melchizedek of Salem. The road from Damascus passed near Calvary and Zion, which was 10 minutes' walk from Melchizedek's palace.

As you can see, the most ancient tradition relates the meeting place of Abraham and Melchizedek to the Hill of Calvary, representing the Last Supper. Maybe it was so. In any case, this has no symbolic meaning, because at Calvary the Lamb of God was slain for the food of the faithful for the remission of sins. More can be assumed that the offering of bread and wine took place somewhat closer to the palace of Melchizedek, on the hill of Zion, where the Zion chamber of the Last Supper was later located. Let us recall the circumstances under which Christ the Savior chooses a place to celebrate the Last Supper: “On the first day of unleavened bread, when the Passover lamb was slain, His disciples say to Him: Where do you want to eat Passover? We'll go and cook. And he sent two of his disciples and said to them: Go to the city; and you will meet a man carrying a jug of water; follow him. And where will he go, tell the owner of that house: - The teacher says: where is the room in which I would have Passover with my disciples? And he will show you a large room, covered, ready; prepare for us there ”(Mark 14, 12-15). The Evangelist Luke says almost literally the same thing.

The Lord knew this place, but in order for the disciples to understand that this is not just a “familiar” house and not just a random place, but that the Holy Spirit himself will indicate it, the Lord predicts to the disciples that they will meet a person who will carry a jug of water at that moment. and that they should follow him into the house. And then the Lord says that they will be shown the room already prepared. This house, presumably, was located in the very place where Melchizedek typified the Mysteries of the Holy Body and Blood of Christ. That is why Jesus tells His disciples that the Lord will show them this house. This means that it is not just a house, but some special, holy and historical place. Was it by chance that the same upper room of Zion became the place of the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles, which marked the beginning of the Church of Christ?

Equally majestic is the type of the Calvary Sacrifice, in which the Heavenly Father gave His beloved Son for the sins of the world - the type of this was Abraham's sacrifice of his beloved son Isaac.

How many unbearable torments Abraham had to endure at the time when the Lord told him: “Take your only begotten son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah, and there offer him as a burnt offering on one of the mountains, about which I will tell you "(Genesis 22, 2).

Calvary Hill is next to Moriah Hill (just 500 meters). Moriah Hill stands over a precipice in the Kidron Stream Valley. So here the Lord commanded Abraham to go, telling him: "On one of the mountains that I will show you." This means that it does not matter which of them, namely the one that the Lord chose, precisely on Mount Moriah, on which the hill of Calvary was located. The Lord chose this place for the sacrifice of His Only Begotten Son, which was to become the greatest shrine of the human race, to which the sons of Shem and Japheth would come from all over the earth, so that in fear and spiritual trembling with tears, they would kiss this holy place. Christians all over the world will create the image of the Hill of Calvary in their churches and will fall to it, kissing the image of the crucified Christ.

How shocking is the biblical prototype of the Calvary sacrifice, so closely associated with the name of the forefather Abraham!

And, finally, let us consider the striking Divine prototype of the Epiphany, the appearance of the Most Holy Life-Giving Trinity to people at the site of the Baptism of the Lord. Only this time, the place of the appearance of God on earth in the representative appearance to Abraham at the oak of Mamre and the Epiphany of the Holy Trinity near the waters of Jordan do not coincide territorially, but are only within the same holy Palestinian land, which Christ the Savior all proceeded with His feet, showing people His Divine face.

The first time the visible Epiphany was at the oak of Mamre to Abraham and Sarah, and the second time - to all the sons of Israel.

No one in the Old Testament, either before Abraham, or after him, saw God on earth in human form so clearly. We emphasize - on earth, because in visions in the opened heavens the prophets of God saw the Lord, God-inspired men - Jacob, Ezekiel, Isaiah, and, perhaps, others. But on earth, only Abraham, in whom all the tribes of the earth were blessed, was worthy of such a clear conversation and contemplation of God who appeared in human form.

The God-seer Moses was worthy to see God, but not in the human image of the Son of God, but in the great power of God inaccessible to man. Moses saw only the retreating God, but even from this his face began to shine with an intolerable light, why he had to cover his face with a veil.

And in the Epiphany near the waters of Jordan, the Holy Trinity was revealed - the Son of God stood on the banks of the Jordan, the Holy Spirit descended on Him in the form of a dove, and the voice of the Uncontemplated Heavenly Father was heard: "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." Therefore, this holiday is called the Epiphany, the appearance of the Holy Trinity to people: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

The death of Sodom and Gomorrah

The location of the Sodom Pentapolis has not yet been determined with sufficient accuracy, but most geographers believe that these cities were located north of the Dead Sea, in that part of the Jordan Valley, which is now submerged by water. This of course suggests that the Dead Sea already existed before the catastrophe, since it served as a basin where the waters of the Jordan merged, but undoubtedly it was smaller and differed in other properties; perhaps it was as clear and lively as Lake Galilee, or Gennesaret. The death of these cities is one of the most terrible events in the Bible, and it is most often referred to as evidence of the terrible wrath of God for violating all moral laws.

This event is narrated as follows: “And the Lord poured sulfur and fire from the Lord on Sodom and Gomorrah from heaven. And he overthrew these cities, and all this neighborhood, and all the inhabitants of these cities, and (all) the growth of the earth. " When Abraham looked in the direction of the perished cities early the next morning, he saw: "Behold, smoke is rising from the ground like smoke from a furnace." Here we see one of many proofs of how the Lord uses natural destructive forces to punish people for lawlessness. Cities perished not from internal strife, not from the hands of enemies, but from such a disaster that could not be foreseen or avoided.

It is not surprising that this event should have attracted the attention of writers of subsequent times, and we find references to it in the later Jewish and New Testament writers. Josephus Flavius ​​says the following about him: “The Sodomite region adjacent to the lake was once a blessed country in its fertility and was adorned with many cities, but now it is completely burnt out. They say that for the wickedness of its inhabitants, it was destroyed by lightning. Even to this day, some remnants of the heavenly fire and traces of the five cities can be seen; ash appears in the fruits themselves; in appearance and color, they seem to be real fruits, but as soon as you crush them with your hand, they turn into dust and ash. "

In the Council Epistle to St. Jude says: “Sodom and Gomorrah, and the surrounding cities, who committed the fornication like them and walked after other flesh, having been subjected to the punishment of eternal fire, were set as an example for all workers of evil” (Jude 1: 7). According to the testimony of ap. Peter, God “condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction, turned them into ashes, setting an example for the future wicked” (2 Peter 2, 6). But even pagan writers testify to this event. The Roman historian Tacitus, describing in detail the Dead Sea with its striking features, then says: "The neighboring plain, once fertile and inhabited by large cities, was destroyed by lightning, traces of which can be seen in the scorched earth, now completely barren." The ancient geographer Strabo, speaking of the Dead Sea, explains its unusual features by the action of underground volcanic forces, although he adds evidence of the tradition preserved among the local residents that it was formed as a result of a catastrophe that destroyed Sodom and twelve other cities subordinate to him, most of which were absorbed the waters of the lake.

All these evidences sufficiently confirm the historical reliability of the terrible event, but at the same time, they partly contribute to the understanding of the very method of the death of cities. This area amazes with the extraordinary abundance of sulfur. “Sulfur springs, says one of the newest investigators (Canon Tristram), hit the banks everywhere here: sulfur is scattered either in whole layers, or in pieces and all over the desolate plain; at the same time, the resin floats in large masses from the bottom of the lake, seeps through the cracks of the rocks, is mixed with sand on the very stretch of the coast, or even appears with an admixture of the same sulfur, as if due to some extraordinary shock ... The ignition of such a mass of combustible substances - whether from lightning, or from some other reason - together with an earthquake throwing tar or sulfur from the lake, they are capable of themselves causing devastation on the adjacent plain. "

This feature alone makes it pretty clear how cities die. There is no need to suppose even the action of underground volcanic forces. Everything points precisely to the ignition of combustible substances that are there in such abundance, and this ignition could have occurred from lightning or some other reason, which turned the entire valley with cities into a "smoking furnace", as the biblical narrative testifies.

Pliny says that in Lycia in his time there were the so-called Ephesus mountains, which consisted of such a combustible substance that it could be ignited even with a smut; from the fire, the sand on the banks of the rivers became red-hot, and the water itself, by its sulfuric quality, not only did not extinguish the fire, but intensified it. This catastrophe naturally brought about a profound change in the surrounding area, which turned from a luxurious oasis into a gloomy desert.

All these, of course, were secondary reasons, serving only to clarify the very method of the destruction of wicked cities; but behind them stands the main and first reason - the will of the Righteous Judge, Who uses natural causes themselves as instruments and means to achieve His holy goals.

Recent underwater studies have shown that there are ruins of cities at the bottom of the Dead Sea.

Archpriest Stefan Lyashevsky

After the expulsion from paradise, Adam and Eve began to give birth to children: sons and daughters. (Gen. 5 , 4).

They named their first son Cain and the second Abel... Cain was engaged in agriculture, and Abel tended the flocks.

Once they offered a sacrifice to God: Cain is the fruits of the earth, and Abel is the best animal of his flock.

Abel had a kind and meek disposition, he offered a sacrifice from a pure heart, with love and faith in the promised Savior, with a prayer for mercy and hope for the mercy of God; and God accepted Abel's sacrifice - it is believed that the smoke from her ascended to heaven.

Cain, on the other hand, had an evil and cruel disposition, he offered sacrifice only as a custom, without the love and fear of God. The Lord did not accept his sacrifice; this is thought to have been evident from the smoke from his victim spreading across the ground.

After that, Cain became jealous of his brother, summoned Abel to the field and killed him there.

God turned to Cain, wanting him to repent, and asked him: "Where is your brother Abel?"

Cain boldly replied: "I do not know; am I my brother's keeper?"

Then God said to him: "What have you done? Your brother's blood cries out to Me from the earth. For this you will be cursed and wander on the earth." And Cain, tormented by his conscience, fled with his wife from his parents to another land.

The life of a person is a gift from God, therefore a person has no right either to deprive himself of it, or to take it away from others. Taking the life of a neighbor is called murder, and taking one's own life is called suicide and there is the most serious sin.

Instead of the murdered Abel, God gave Adam and Eve a third son - a pious Seth, and then many more children. Adam and Eve lived on earth for a long time. Adam lived for 930 years. They endured much suffering and grief, sincerely repented of their sin and firmly believed in the promised Savior. This faith saved them, they are now among the holy forefathers.

Cain kills his brother Abel

NOTE: see the Bible in the book. Genesis: ch. 4 , 1-16, 25; 5 , 3-5.

Flood

From the children of Adam and Eve, the human race quickly multiplied, people at that time lived for a long time, up to 900 years or more.

From Seth came the godly and kind people- "sons of God", and from Cain the wicked and wicked - "sons of men."

At first, the descendants of Seth lived separately from the descendants of Cain, preserved faith in God and the future Savior. But later they began to take daughters from the descendants of Cain as wives and began to adopt from them bad customs, to become corrupted and forget the true God.

After a long time, wickedness between people reached the point that of all people on earth, only one descendant of Seth remained faithful to God - the righteous Noah with his family.

Seeing the great corruption of people, the merciful Lord gave them one hundred and twenty years for repentance and correction. But people not only did not improve, but became even worse.

Then the Lord determined to wash (cleanse) the earth with water from the wicked human race, and keep righteous Noah on earth, for the further multiplication of people. God appeared to Noah and said: "The end came to all creation, for the earth was filled with evil deeds from them; and I will destroy them from the face of the earth. I will bring a flood of water on the earth to destroy everything that is on the earth." He commanded Noah to build the ark, that is, a large quadrangular ship, like a house, in which his family and animals could fit, and gave him for this exact dimensions and directions. Noah accepted God's command in faith and began to build the ark.

When the ark was ready, Noah, at the command of God, entered it with his wife, three sons and their wives and, according to God's instructions, took with him all the animals and birds that cannot live in water, clean, (i.e. which can be sacrificed) - seven pairs each, and the unclean - one pair each, in order to preserve their tribe for the whole earth. I also took a supply of food for everyone for a whole year.

global flood

On the day that Noah entered the ark, the waters of the flood poured onto the earth - " all the springs of the great abyss were opened, and the windows of heaven were opened", that is, there was a great flood from the seas and oceans, and from heaven it rained on the earth for forty days and forty nights. And the water on the earth rose above the highest mountains, increasing one hundred fifty days, and drowned all people and animals, so that no one could be saved, except those who were in the ark.

After one hundred and fifty days, the water began to gradually decrease. On seventh month the ark stopped on the Ararat mountains (in Armenia). First day tenth month the tops of all the mountains appeared. TO end of the year the water entered its receptacles.

Noah opened the window of the ark and released a raven to see if the water had come off the ground, but the raven flew away and flew back to the roof of the ark.

Mount Ararat

Then Noah released a dove, which, having flown away, could not find a place to live, because the water was still on the surface of the whole earth, and returned back to the ark. After waiting seven days, Noah again released the dove from the ark. This time the pigeon returned in the evening and brought a fresh oil leaf in its mouth. And Noah realized that the water had left the earth and greenery appeared on it again. After waiting another seven days, Noah again released the dove, and it never returned to him. And Noah opened the roof of the ark and saw that the earth had already dried up.

Noah's exit from the ark

Then, at the command of God, Noah came out of the ark with all his family and released all the animals that were with him.

And Noah built an altar, that is, a place for offering sacrifices, and offered a thanksgiving sacrifice to God for his salvation from all clean animals and birds.

Noah makes a thankful sacrifice to God for salvation

God graciously accepted the sacrifice of Noah and blessed him and his sons and promised that there will never be such a flood to destroy all life on earth for the sins of people, that is, there will never be a worldwide flood. As a sign of this promise, the Lord pointed to a rainbow in the clouds, which since then serves as an eternal reminder to people of this God's promise.

NOTE: see the Bible in the book. "Being", ch. 4 , 17-24; 5; 6 , 1-22; 7; 8; 9 , 1-17.

Flood Discourse

On the part of unbelievers, there is an objection to the flood, which is that it is impossible for the whole earth to be under water at the same time, as the Bible says. But, as the English researcher Arthur Hooke points out: "the scientist Dr. John Murray established that if the surface of the earth were turned into a plane, then there is so much water in the seas, which in some places reaches six miles deep that it would be enough - to cover the entire earth with a simultaneous ubiquitous depth of two miles. "

But the flood could be not universal in the full sense of the word. We must remember why the Lord made the flood: The Lord saw that the corruption of men on earth is great and that their thoughts were evil for all time ... And the Lord said: I will destroy from the face of the earth the men whom I have created. (Gen. 6 , 5 and 7). Consequently, we can imagine the flood in the form of a flood that covered only the space of the earth inhabited by people, and how great this space was during the flood, we do not know at all. At the same time, we may not be embarrassed by the fact that the Bible speaks several times about the flood as having spread "throughout the whole earth." The Bible and all religious literature, which has only human soul, often calls the earth and even the universe only the area of ​​human habitation, and even only the area of ​​a certain human culture, ripe for the influence of Holy Scripture. Byzantium, brought up on the Bible, called the Universe the basin of the Mediterranean Sea, which is why it called its emperors "masters of the universe" and gave the Patriarch of Constantinople the title of ecumenical.

The widespread prevalence of the flood legend testifies to the fact that the flood was an event that engulfed all of humanity, and it was preserved in the memory of many branches of the human race. The same researcher Arthur Hooke reports that the Chaldeans, Phoenicians, Babylonians, Phrygians, Syrians, Persians, Greeks and even Armenians - they all had, more or less, consistent stories about the flood. The Phrygian narrative, for example, mentions Enoch as the forerunner of the flood, and reports that he wept and prayed for the fate of the bitter unrepentant inhabitants of the antediluvian world. An ancient Phrygian coin was found, with a rough image of the ark, and the letters "N-0" on one of its sides, undoubtedly referring to Noah. Further, we find that India and China have records of the flood and that during the flood, he was saved someone with seven people of his family... The Mexicans had a legend about a man who made a ship to be saved in a disaster that was about to come.

In addition, it should be indicated that, on the basis of scientific (geological) excavations, it has been established that there is thick layer of clay, silty layer, which does not contain any remnants of organic animal life. This layer sharply separates layers stone age(Paleolithic), from subsequent layers: neolithic, bronze and iron age... The French scientist Mortilier called this layer hiatus, that is, a break. it oozy layer from the bottom of the sea, it is believed, under the influence of a global cataclysm, that is, the land fell below the level of the ocean, the waters of which flooded the entire earth, all the mountains. As Moses says: "and all the springs of the great abyss were opened up"(Gen. 7 , 11), and then mentions rain. Moreover, these silty layers cover with a thick layer all of Europe, North Africa and Western Asia, up to the high mountains. Scientist Cuvier this is what he called these sediments, this thick silty layer, Deluge - the flood.

Of course, for believers, all these proofs are not needed, because they know that the Almighty Lord God, having created heaven and earth, could certainly flood the entire land with the waters of a flood.

The life of Noah and his children after the flood

The sons of Noah who went out of the ark with him were Shem, Ham and Japheth.

Noah began to cultivate the land and planted a vineyard. When from grape juice he made wine and tasted it, then he became drunk, because he did not yet know the power of wine, and having opened, he lay naked in his tent. His son Ham saw this, he disrespectfully treated his father, went and told his brothers about it. Shem and Japheth took a garment, went up to their father so as not to see his nakedness, and covered him. When Noah woke up and learned about the deed of his younger son Ham, he condemned and cursed him, in the person of his son Canaan, and said that his descendants would be enslaved by the descendants of his brothers. And he blessed Shem and Japheth and predicted that the true faith would be preserved in Shem's posterity, and the descendants of Japheth would spread throughout the earth and accept the true faith from the descendants of Shem.

Noah lived for 950 years, he was the last one to reach such a ripe old age. After him, human strength began to dwindle, and people could only live up to 400 years. But even with such a still long life, people multiplied rapidly.

Everything Noah predicted to his sons has come true exactly. Shem's descendants are called Semites, these include, first of all, the Jewish people, they alone preserved faith in the true God. The descendants of Japheth are called Japhetids, these include the peoples inhabiting Europe, who adopted the faith in the true God from the Jews. The descendants of the boor are called hamites; these include the Canaanite tribes that originally inhabited Palestine, and many peoples in Africa and other countries. The Hamites have always been subordinate to other peoples, and some of them remain savages to this day.

9 , 18-29; ch. 10 .

Babylonian pandemonium and scattering of people

The multiplying descendants of Noah lived together for a long time in one country, not far from the Ararat mountains, and spoke the same language.

When the human race became numerous, evil deeds and strife among people increased, and they saw that they would soon have to disperse throughout the earth.

But, before dispering, the descendants of Ham, drawing others along with them, decided to build a city in it the tower, like pillars, reaching to heaven, in order to be glorified and not to be subordinate to the descendants of Shem and Japheth, as Noah predicted. They made bricks and set to work.

This proud idea of ​​people was displeasing to God. So that evil does not finally destroy them, the Lord mixed the language of the builders so that they began to speak in different languages and stopped understanding each other. Then people were forced to abandon the construction they had begun and disperse on the ground in different sides... The descendants of Japheth went west and settled in Europe. The descendants of Shem remained in Asia, the Descendants of Ham left for Africa, but some of them also remained in Asia.

The unfinished city is nicknamed Babylon which means mixing. The whole country, where this city was, began to be called the land of Babylon, and also the Chaldean.

The people who settled on the earth gradually began to forget their kinship, and separate, independent peoples or the nation, with their own customs and language.

The Lord saw that people learn more evil deeds from each other than good, and therefore made a confusion of languages, and divided people into separate nations and gave each nation a separate task and purpose in life.

NOTE: see the Bible in the book. "Being": ch. 11 .

The emergence of idolatry

When people scattered all over the earth, they began to forget the invisible true God, the Creator of the world. The main reason for this was sins, which remove people from God and darken the mind. The righteous became less and less, and there was no one to teach people the true faith in God. Then the wrong faith (superstition) began to appear among people. People saw a lot of wondrous and incomprehensible around them, and instead of God they began to worship the sun, moon, stars, fire, water and various animals, make their images, worship them, make sacrifices and build temples for them, or temples... Such images of false gods are called idols, or idols, and the peoples who worship them are called idolaters, or pagans... This is how idolatry appeared on earth.

Soon almost all people became pagans. Only in Asia, in the offspring of Shem, was there a righteous man named Abraham who remained faithful to God.

Abraham

Abraham lived in the country of the Chaldees, not far from Babylon. He was a descendant of Shem and, with all his family, retained true faith in God. He was rich, had many cattle, silver and gold, and many servants; but had no children and grieved over it.

God chose the righteous Abraham to preserve the true faith, through his posterity, for all mankind. And in order to protect him and his offspring from his native pagan people (because among the native people - the pagans it was sooner possible to learn idolatry), God appeared to Abraham and said: "Get out of your land and from your father's house to the land that I will show you. I will make you a great people and I will bless you and make your name great. And all the tribes of the earth will be blessed in you", that is, in this people - in its offspring, in time the Savior of the world promised to the first people will be born, Who will bless all the peoples of the earth.

Abraham was seventy-five years old at the time. He obeyed the Lord, took his wife Sarah, Lot's nephew and all the property that they had acquired, all his servants, and moved to the land that the Lord had shown him. This land was called Canaanite and was very fertile. The Canaanites then lived there. It was one of the most wicked nations. The Canaanites were the descendants of Canaan, the son of Hamov. Here the Lord again appeared to Abraham and said: "All the land that you see, I will give you and your offspring." Abraham built an altar and offered a thanksgiving sacrifice to God.

After that, the land of Canaan began to be called promised, that is, the promised, since God promised to give it to Abraham and his posterity. And now it is called Palestine... This land is located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea, and the Jordan River flows in the middle of it.

When the flocks of Abraham and Lot multiplied so much that they became crowded together and there was incessant disputes between their shepherds, then they decided to disperse amicably.

Abraham said to Lot: "Let there be no contention between us, since we are relatives. Is not the whole earth before you? Separate yourself from me; if you are to the right, then I am to the left."

Lot chose the Jordan Valley and settled in Sodom. And Abraham remained to live in the land of Canaan and settled near Hebron, near the oak forest of Mamra. There about oak of Mamri, he pitched his tent and built an altar to the Lord. This oak of Mamri is still growing in Palestine, near the city of Hebron.

Melchizedek Blesses Abraham

Shortly after Lot settled in Sodom, the neighboring king of Elam attacked Sodom, defeated the city and took prisoners of people and property. Lot was among the captives.

Abraham, having learned about this, immediately gathered his servants (318 people), invited neighbors to help, caught up with the enemy, attacked him and fought off all the spoils.

When Abraham returned, he was greeted with triumph. Melchizedek, which was priest of God Most High and king of Salem, brought to Abraham as a gift bread and wine and blessed him.

Nothing is known about Melchizedek - his origin and death. Name Melchizedek means king of truth: word salim means peace... Melchizedek was a representative of Jesus Christ: as Melchizedek was both a priest and a king, so Jesus Christ is the High Priest and King. As about Melchizedek, neither the beginning nor the end of his life is indicated - he, as it were, forever alive- so Christ is the eternal God, King and High Priest; and we call Jesus Christ the High Priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. And how our Lord Jesus Christ gave us His body and blood under the guise of bread and wine, that is, St. the sacrament, so Melchizedek, representing the Savior, brought bread and wine to Abraham, and as the elder blessed Abraham.

Abraham reverently received the blessing from Melchizedek and gave him a tenth of his spoil.

NOTE: see the Bible in the book. Genesis: chapters 12, 14, 15, 16, 17.

The Appearance of God to Abraham in the Form of Three Wanderers

One day, on a sultry day, Abraham was sitting under the shade of an oak tree, at the entrance of his tent, and saw: three strangers were standing opposite him. Abraham loved to receive strangers. He immediately got up and ran to meet them, bowed to the ground and began to invite them to rest under a tree and refresh themselves with food.

Appearance of God (Holy Trinity) to Abraham

The strangers came to him. According to the custom of that time, Abraham washed their feet, served bread, immediately prepared by his wife Sarah, served butter, milk and the best roast calf and began to treat them. And they ate.

And they said to him, "Where is Sarah; thy wife?"

He replied, "Here in the tent."

And one of them said: "In a year I will again be with you, and Sarah your wife will have a son."

Sarah, who was standing behind the entrance to the tent, heard these words. She laughed to herself and wondered: should I have such comfort when I am already old?

But the stranger said: "Why did Sarah laugh? Is there anything difficult for the Lord? At the appointed time I will be with you and Sarah will have a son."

Sarah was frightened and said: "I did not laugh."

But he told her, "no, you laughed."

Abraham then realized that before him were not simple pilgrims, but that God Himself was talking to him.

Abraham at this time was 99 years old, and Sarah was 89.

NOTE: see the Bible in the book. "Being": ch. 18, 1-16 .

The death of Sodom and Gomorrah

Departing from Abraham, God revealed to him that He would destroy the neighboring cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, since they are the most wicked cities on earth. Abraham's nephew, the righteous Lot, lived in Sodom.

Abraham began to beg the Lord to have mercy on these cities if there were fifty righteous people there.

The Lord said, "If I find fifty righteous people in the city of Sodom, I will have mercy on the whole city for their sake."

Abraham asked again: "Maybe five righteous people will not reach the fifty righteous?"

The Lord said, "I will not destroy it if I find there forty-five righteous men."

Abraham continued to speak with the Lord and to beg Him, decreasing the number of the righteous, until he reached ten; he said: "May the Lord not be angry, what will I say again: maybe there will be ten righteous people there?"

God said, "Nor will I destroy it for the sake of ten." But in these unfortunate cities, the inhabitants were so wicked and depraved that there were not even ten righteous people. These wicked people even wanted to outrage the two Angels who came to save the righteous Lot. They were about to break down the door, but the Angels struck them with blindness, and took Lot with his family - with his wife and two daughters - out of the city. They told them to run and not look back so as not to perish.

Flight of Lot with his family from Sodom

And then the Lord shed a rain of brimstone and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah and destroyed these cities and all the people in them. And he devastated the whole place so that in the valley where they were, a salt lake was formed, now known as Dead sea, in which nothing living can live.

Lot's wife, when she ran away from the city, looked back to Sodom, and immediately turned into a pillar of salt.

By the fact that Lot's wife looked back at Sodom, she showed that she regretted the sinful life she had left - she looked back, lingered, and immediately turned into a pillar of salt. This is a strict lesson for us: when the Lord saves us from sin, we need to run away from it, not to look back at it, that is, not to linger and not regret it.

Dead Sea today

NOTE: see the Bible in the book. "Being": ch. 18 , 16-33; 19 , 20.

The sacrifice of Isaac

A year after the appearance of God to Abraham in the form of three pilgrims, the prediction of the Lord was fulfilled: Abraham and Sarah had a son, whom they named Isaac. Abraham was then a hundred years old, and Sarah was ninety. They loved their only son very much.

When Isaac grew up, God wanted to raise the faith of Abraham and teach all people through him to love God and obedience to the will of God.

God appeared to Abraham and said: "Take your only son Isaac, whom you love, go to the land of Moriah, and sacrifice him on the mountain that I will show you."

Abraham obeyed. He felt very sorry for his only son, whom he loved more than himself. But he loved God most of all and believed Him completely, and knew that God would never wish anything bad. He got up early in the morning, saddled a donkey, took with him his son Isaac and two servants; took the wood and fire for the burnt offering and set out on the road.

On the third day of the journey, they came to the mountain indicated by the Lord. Abraham left the servants and the donkey under the mountain, took fire and a knife, and put the wood on Isaac, and went with him to the mountain.

As the two of them walked up the mountain, Isaac asked Abraham: "My Father, we have fire and wood, but where is the lamb (lamb) for the sacrifice?"

Abraham replied, "The Lord will provide for Himself a lamb." And both went further together and came to the top of the mountain, to the place indicated by the Lord. There Abraham built an altar, spread the wood, tied his son Isaac, and laid him on the altar on top of the wood. He has already raised the knife to stab his son. But the angel of the Lord called him from heaven and said: "Abraham, Abraham! Do not raise your hand against the boy and do nothing on him. For now I know that you fear God, because you did not spare your only son for Me."

And Abraham saw a ram not far off, entangled in a bush, and sacrificed it instead of Isaac.

The sacrifice of Isaac

For such faith, love and obedience, God blessed Abraham and promised that he would have as many descendants as stars in the sky and as sand on the seashore, and that all the peoples of the earth would receive blessings in his descendants, that is, a Savior would come from his family the world.

The sacrifice of Isaac was a type or prediction to people about a Savior, who, being the Son of God, will be given by His Father to die on the cross, as a sacrifice for the sins of all people.

Isaac, being the prototype of the Savior two thousand years before the birth of Christ, pre-depicted, by the will of God, Jesus Christ. He, just like Jesus Christ, resignedly went to the place of the sacrifice. As Jesus Christ carried the cross on Himself, so Isaac carried the wood for the sacrifice.

Isaac - a type of the Savior

The mountain on which Abraham sacrificed Isaac was called Mount Moriah. Subsequently, on this mountain was built by King Solomon, at the direction of God, the Jerusalem temple.

NOTE: see the Bible in the book. "Being": ch. 21, 22 .

Isaac's marriage

Sarah, Abraham's wife, died when she was 127 years old. Abraham himself felt weak health and decided to marry his son Isaac, but not to a Canaanite woman, but to a girl of his tribe. Isaac was then forty years old.

Abraham called his eldest servant Eleazar and said to him: "Swear to me by the Lord, the God of heaven and earth, that you will not take my son a wife from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I live, but you will go to my homeland, to my tribe, and you will bring a bride from there. Isaac, my son. "

Eleazar swore an oath and immediately set out on the road. Then it was customary for the groom to give gifts to the parents for the bride; the richer the bride was, the richer were the gifts (veno).

Eleazar took with him various expensive things and ten camels for gifts and went to Mesopotamia, to the city of Harran, where Nahor, Abraham's brother, lived.

Approaching the city, Eleazar stopped at a well. The day leaned towards evening, when women usually come to draw water. Eleazar began to pray to God, he said: "Lord God, my lord Abraham, send her meet me today and show mercy to my lord. Here, I stand at the source to which the daughters of city dwellers go out to draw water. Let that damsel, who at my request will tilt the jug and give me a drink, say: - drink, I will give your camels to drink, - will be appointed by you for Isaac. "

Rebekah gives drink to Eleazar

Before he had time to finish the prayer, Eleazar went down to the well with a jug on her shoulder, a beautiful-looking girl, took some water and went up.

Eleazar ran up to her and said: "Let me drink a little water from your jug."

The maiden said: "Drink, my lord." And immediately she lowered the jug from her shoulder onto her hand and gave him drink.

When Eleazar got drunk, the girl said: "I will scoop for the camels, until everyone is drunk." She immediately poured water from her jug ​​into the drinker, and ran again to the well to draw water, and drew for all his camels.

Eleazar looked at her with amazement and silence.

When the camels stopped drinking, Eleazar took gold earring and two wrists on his hands and gave it to her, and asked her: "Whose daughter are you? tell me, is there a place to sleep in your father's house?"

This girl was called Rebekah, she replied: "I am the daughter of Bethuel, son of Nahor. We have a lot of straw and stern and we have a place to sleep."

Eleazar knelt down and thanked God that He had heard his prayer.

Rebekah ran to her house and told her mother and all the household about everything.

Eleazar gives gifts

Rebekah had a brother Laban, he immediately ran to the fountain and said to Eleazar: "Come in, blessed by the Lord. Why are you standing here? I have prepared a house and a place for the camels."

Eleazar entered the house. Laban unsaddled the camels, gave them straw and fodder. They immediately brought water to wash the feet of Eleazar and the people who were with him, and offered them food.

But Eleazar said: "I am a servant of Abraham. I will not eat until I have told my deed." And Eleazar told in detail why he had come and how, through his prayer, the Lord gave a sign about Rebekah. When he had told everything, he asked: "Now tell me, do you intend to show mercy and truth to my master or not?"

Laban and Bethuel replied, "This work came from the Lord, and we cannot contradict you. Here is Rebekah before you: take her and go; let her be the wife of your master's son, as the Lord said."

Father blesses Rebekah on her way to Isaac

When Eleazar heard these words from them, he bowed down to the ground with gratitude to the Lord. Then he took out gold and silver things and clothes and presented them to the bride, her brother and her mother.

Isaac meets Rebekah

The next day Eleazar asked to be allowed to go home. But Rebekah's brother and mother began to persuade him to stay at least ten days.

But Eleazar answered: "Do not hold me back, for the Lord has made my way comfortable."

Isaac introduces Rebekah to his father Abraham

Then the parents called Rebekah and asked her: "Will you go with this man?" Rebekah said, "I will go." Then her parents blessed her and let her go.

When Eleazar with Rebekah and his companions rode up on camels to the tents of Abraham, Isaac met them.

And Rebekah became Isaac's wife. Love for Rebekah consoled Isaac in grief over the death of his mother, Sarah.

NOTE: See the Bible in the book. "Being": ch. 23 and 24 .

Isaac's marriage is a great example for all generations. How often are young people mistaken when critical issue your life - when you get married. Some are looking for wealth, others - bodily beauty, others - nobility, etc., and only rare seek reason and meek kind heart, that is, inner, spiritual beauty. The first qualities are temporary and transient, and the second, inner beauty, is permanent and does not depend on changes in external circumstances.

The wrong attitude to marriage occurs because people want to arrange their own happiness, without God, according to their own selfish whims.

Christian youths and girls wishing to marry should earnestly pray to the Lord-Sower of the Heart, so that He Himself, according to His will, arrange their marriage and bless them with His grace, for without the blessing of God no one can arrange their happiness, good order in married life and a true Christian family.

A good Christian family is a fence of pure morals, a soil for planting goodness in humanity, a tool and means for the spread and establishment of the Holy Church of Christ on earth.

The family is also the basis of the state, as Filaret, Metropolitan of Moscow, says so well: "the family contains the seeds of everything that then opens up and grows in the great family, which is called the state."

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