Abimelech
(father of the king), the name of several Philistine kings, was probably a common title of these kings, like that of Pharaoh among the Egyptians and that of Caesar and Augustus among the Romans. Hence in the title of ( Psalms 34:1 ) ... the name of Abimelech is given to the king, who is called Achish in ( 1 Samuel 21:11 ) A Philistine, king of Gerar, Genesis 20,21 , who, exercising the right claimed by Eastern princes of collecting all the beautiful women of their dominions into their harem, ( Genesis 12:15 ; Esther 2:3 ) sent for and took Sarah. A similar account is given of Abraham’s conduct of this occasion to that of his behavior towards Pharaoh. [ Abraham ] (B.C. 1920.) Another king of Gerar int he time of Isaac, of whom a similar narrative is recorded in relation to Rebekah. ( Genesis 26:1 ) etc. (B.C. 1817.) Son of the judge Gideon by his Shechemite concubine. ( Judges 8:31 ) (B.C. 1322-1319.) After his father’s death he murdered all his brethren, 70 in number, with the exception of Jotham, the youngest, who concealed himself; and he then persuaded the Shechemites to elect him king. Shechem now became an independent state. After Abimelech had reigned three years, the citizens of Shechem rebelled. He was absent at the time, but he returned and quelled the insurrection. Shortly after he stormed and took Thebez, but was struck on the head by a woman with the fragment of a millstone, comp. ( 2 Samuel 11:21 ) and lest he should be said to have died by a woman, he bade his armor-bearer slay him. A son of Abiathar. ( 1 Chronicles 18:16 )
Abraham
(father of a multitude) was the son of Terah, and founder of the great Hebrew nation. (B.C. 1996-1822.) His family, a branch of the descendants of Shem, was settled in Ur of the Chaldees, beyond the Euphrates, where Abraham was born. Terah had two other sons, Nahor and Haran. Haran died before his father in Ur of the Chaldees, leaving a son, Lot; and Terah, taking with him Abram, with Sarai his wife and his grandson Lot, emigrated to Haran in Mesopotamia, where he died. On the death of his father, Abram, then in the 75th year of his age, with Sarai and Lot, pursued his course to the land of Canaan, whither he was directed by divine command, ( Genesis 12:5 ) when he received the general promise that he should become the founder of a great nation, and that all the families of the earth should be blessed in him. He passed through the heart of the country by the great highway to Shechem, and pitched his tent beneath the terebinth of Moreh. ( Genesis 12:6 ) Here he received in vision from Jehovah the further revelation that this was the land which his descendants should inherit. ( Genesis 12:7 ) The next halting-place of the wanderer was on a mountain between Bethel and Ai, ( Genesis 12:8 ) but the country was suffering from famine, and Abram journeyed still southward to the rich cornlands of Egypt. There, fearing that the great beauty of Sarai might tempt the powerful monarch of Egypt and expose his own life to peril, he arranged that Sarai should represent herself as his sister, which her actual relationship to him, as probably the daughter of his brother Haran, allowed her to do with some semblance of truth. But her beauty was reported to the king, and she was taken into the royal harem. The deception was discovered, and Pharaoh with some indignation dismissed Abram from the country. ( Genesis 12:10-20 ) He left Egypt with great possessions, and, accompanied by Lot, returned by the south of Palestine to his former encampment between Bethel and Ai. The increased wealth of the two kinsmen was the ultimate cause of their separation. Lot chose the fertile plain of the Jordan near Sodom, while Abram pitched his tent among the groves of Mamre, close to Hebron. ( Genesis 13:1 ) ... Lot with his family and possessions having been carried away captive by Chedorlaomer king of Elam, who had invaded Sodom, Abram pursued the conquerors and utterly routed them not far from Damascus. The captives and plunder were all recovered, and Abram was greeted on his return by the king of Sodom, and by Melchizedek king of Salem, priest of the most high God, who mysteriously appears upon the scene to bless the patriarch and receive from him a tenth of the spoil. ( Genesis 14:1 ) ... After this the thrice-repeated promise that his descendants should become a mighty nation and possess the land in which he was a stranger was confirmed with all the solemnity of a religious ceremony. ( Genesis 15:1 ) ... Ten years had passed since he had left his father’s house, and the fulfillment of the promise was apparently more distant than at first. At the suggestion of Sarai, who despaired of having children of her own, he took as his concubine Hagar, her Egyptian main, who bore him Ishmael in the 86th year of his age. ( Genesis 16:1 ) ... [ Hagar ; Ishmael ] But this was not the accomplishment of the promise. Thirteen years elapsed, during which Abram still dwelt in Hebron, when the covenant was renewed, and the rite of circumcision established as its sign. This most important crisis in Abram’s life, when he was 99 years old, is marked by the significant change of his name to Abraham, “father of a multitude;” while his wife’s from Sarai became Sarah. The promise that Sarah should have a son was repeated in the remarkable scene described in ch. 18. Three men stood before Abraham as he sat in his tent door in the heat of the day. The patriarch, with true Eastern hospitality, welcomed the strangers, and bade them rest and refresh themselves. The meal ended, they foretold the birth of Isaac, and went on their way to Sodom. Abraham accompanied them, and is represented as an interlocutor in a dialogue with Jehovah, in which he pleaded in vain to avert the vengeance threatened to the devoted cities of the plain. ( Genesis 18:17-33 ) In remarkable contrast with Abraham’s firm faith with regard to the magnificent fortunes of his posterity stand the incident which occurred during his temporary residence among the Philistines in Gerar, whither he had for some cause removed after the destruction of Sodom. It was almost a repetition of what took place in Egypt a few years before. At length Isaac, the long-looked for child, was born. Sarah’s jealousy aroused by the mockery of Ishmael at the “great banquet” which Abram made to celebrate the weaning of her son, ( Genesis 21:9 ) demanded that, with his mother Hagar, he should be driven out. ( Genesis 21:10 ) But the severest trial of his faith was yet to come. For a long period the history is almost silent. At length he receives the strange command to take Isaac, his only son, and offer him for a burnt offering at an appointed place Abraham hesitated not to obey. His faith, hitherto unshaken, supported him in this final trial, “accounting that God was able to raise up his son, even from the dead, from whence also he received him in a figure.” ( Hebrews 11:19 ) The sacrifice was stayed by the angel of Jehovah, the promise of spiritual blessing made for the first time, and Abraham with his son returned to Beersheba, and for a time dwelt there. ( Genesis 22:1 ) ... But we find him after a few years in his original residence at Hebron, for there Sarah died, ( Genesis 23:2 ) and was buried in the cave of Machpelah. The remaining years of Abraham’s life are marked by but few incidents. After Isaac’s marriage with Rebekah and his removal to Lahai-roi, Abraham took to wife Keturah, by whom he had six children, Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbok and Shuah, who became the ancestors of nomadic tribes inhabiting the countries south and southeast of Palestine. Abraham lived to see the gradual accomplishment of the promise in the birth of his grandchildren Jacob and Esau, and witnessed their growth to manhood. ( Genesis 25:26 ) At the goodly age of 175 he was “gathered to his people,” and laid beside Sarah in the tomb of Machpelah by his sons Isaac and Ishmael. ( Genesis 25:7-10 )
Abram
(a high father), the earlier name of Abraham.
Aner
one of the three Amorite chiefs of Hebron who aided Abraham in the pursuit after the four invading kings. ( Genesis 14:13 , 24 ) (boy), a city of Manasseh, west of Jordan, with “suburbs,” given to the Kohathites. ( 1 Chronicles 6:70 )
Angels
By the word “angels” (i.e. “messengers” of God) we ordinarily understand a race of spiritual beings of a nature exalted far above that of man, although infinitely removed from that of God—whose office is “to do him service in heaven, and by his appointment to succor and defend men on earth. I. Scriptural use of the word .—There are many passages in which the expression “angel of God” is certainly used for a manifestation of God himself ( Genesis 22:11 ) with Genesis 22:12 and Exod 3:2 with Exod 3:6 and Exod 3:14 It is to be observed, also, that side by side with these expressions we read of God’s being manifested in the form of man—as to Abraham at Mamre, ( Genesis 18:2 , 22 ) comp. Genesis 19:1 To Jacob at Penuel, ( Genesis 32:24 , 30 ) to Joshua at Gilgal, ( Joshua 5:13 , 15 ) etc. Besides this, which is the highest application of the word angel, we find the phrase used of any messengers of God, such as the prophets, ( Isaiah 42:19 ; Haggai 1:13 ; Malachi 3:1 ) the priests, ( Malachi 2:7 ) and the rulers of the Christian churches. ( Revelation 1:20 ) II. Nature of angels—Angels are termed “spirits,” as in ( Hebrews 1:14 )—but it is not asserted that the angelic nature is incorporeal. The contrary seems expressly implied in ( Luke 20:36 ; Philemon 3 :21) The angels are revealed to us as beings such as man might be, and will be when the power of sin and death is removed, because always beholding his face, ( Matthew 18:10 ) and therefore being “made like him.” ( 1 John 3:2 ) Their number must be very large, ( 1 Kings 22:19 ; Matthew 26:53 ; Hebrews 12:22 ) their strength is great, ( Psalms 103:20 ; Revelation 5:2 ; 18:21 ) their activity marvelous ( Isaiah 6:2-6 ; Matthew 26:53 ; Revelation 8:13 ) their appearance varied according to circumstances, but was often brilliant and dazzling. ( Matthew 28:2-7 ; Revelation 10:1 , 2 ) Of the nature of “fallen angels,” the circumstances and nature of the temptation by which they fell, we know absolutely nothing. All that is certain is that they “left their first estate” and that they are now “angels of the devil.” ( Matthew 25:41 ; Revelation 12:7 , 9 ) On the other hand the title especially assigned to the angels of God—that of the “holy ones,” see ( Daniel 4:13 , 23 ; 8:13 ; Matthew 25:31 )—is precisely the one which is given to those men who are renewed in Christ’s image. Comp. ( Hebrews 2:10 ; 5:9 ; 12:23 ) III. Office of the angels . Of their office in heaven we have only vague prophetic glimpses as in ( 1 Kings 22:19 ; Isaiah 6:1-3 ; Daniel 7:9 , 10 ; Revelation 6:11 ), etc., which show us nothing but a never-ceasing adoration. They are represented as being, in the widest sense, agents of God’s providence, natural and supernatural, to the body and to the soul. In one word, they are Christ’s ministers of grace now, and they shall be of judgment hereafter. ( Matthew 13:39 , 41 , 49 ; 16:27 ; 24:31 ) etc. That there are degrees of the angelic nature, both fallen and unfallen, and special titles and agencies belonging to each, is clearly declared by St. Paul, ( Ephesians 1:21 ; Romans 8:38 ) but what their general nature is it is useless to speculate.
Ashurim
(steps), a tribe descended from Dedan, the grandson of Abraham. ( Genesis 26:3 ) Knobel considers them the same with the Asshur of ( Ezekiel 27:28 ) and connected with southern Arabia.