I have dwelt longer on this account than I at first intended, merely to show the folly in believing that the Almighty Lord of all had any concern in such contemptible fooleries as are recorded in the family concerns of Abram. One thing, however, is omitted; and that is, the quarrel between Sarah and Hagar. The tent or house became too hot to hold those rival women; at last, Sarah triumphed by turning out Hagar and her love-begotten child, which demanded the Lord's interference, and gave poor Abram no small share of trouble.
From the moment that Jehovah adopted the family of Abram, the Bible account warrants us in supposing that the family concerns of that patriarch particularly engaged the attention of Jehovah; since, for every trifling concern that took place, the Lord was applied to in order to settle the matter. Rebekah, the mother of Jacob and Esau, when about to become a mother, applied to the Lord for information respecting her singular situation; and the Lord informed her that she would be the mother of two celebrated nations, and satisfied her mind as to every other inquiry she made. And here we may ask, how it was that the Lord, in those days, was so easy of access? How every gossipping old woman could lay her case before the Lord, and wait his advice and answer? The reply is at hand. The whole account of the Lord's saying unto Abram, or the Lord's saying unto Moses, and again, "_the word of the Lord came unto Moses, saying,"_ is all humbug: no such word ever came; no such conversation ever took place.
Whoever wrote the Book of Genesis, has placed Jehovah in an immoral point of view; as keeping company with unprincipled knaves, and as acting without any regard to the strict rules of justice and mercy; as having a system of favoritism, which does not admit of administering impartial justice. The case of Jacob and Esau is directly opposed to truth and impartiality. Esau was, in a moral point of view, evidently the best of the two; but Jacob was Jehovah's choice. Esau, according to Bible history, was a hardy, industrious, and generous man. Jacob, on the other hand, was his mother's pet; and the deception which he and his mother played on old Isaac, who was blind, is in strict accordance with the conduct of all the Lord's favorites. Jacob, according to Bible history, was, through his whole life, full of deception and trickery. He could lie and take a false oath to deceive his blind father; and by deceit, deprive his brother Esau of his lawful right of inheritance. And yet the Lord was with him, and connived at all his baseness!