F.W. Robertson has some suggestive remarks on the significance of ancient names in his sermon on 'Jacob's Wrestling' (vol. 1. pp. 41, 42). He recognizes in the Hebrew history three periods in which names and words bore very different characters. We deal with the first of these periods, when "names meant truths, and words were the symbols of realities. The characteristics of the names given then were simplicity and sincerity. They were drawn from a few simple sources: either from some characteristic of the individual, as Jacob, the 'supplanter;' or from the idea of family, as Benjamin, 'son of my right hand;' or from the conception of the tribe or nation, then gradually consolidating itself; or, lastly, from the religious idea of God." Scripture attaches significance to names, and the precise name indicates the minuteness of the Divine knowledge and the tenderness of the Divine care: "I have called thee by name," "I will give him a new name," etc. So a change of a man's name may seal to him the fact of new, more important, and more tender Divine relations. Explain the precise force of the two names, Ab-ram and Ab-ra-ham, and give details of the occasion chosen for changing the names (Genesis 17.). Then illustrate and enforce these three points -

I. THE DIVINE INTEREST IN A MAN'S LIFE. This is so minutely detailed in such lives as these of Abraham and Jacob, that we may each gain the impression of its being the fact concerning ourselves. We are under the eye and in the hand.

II. THE DIVINE RECOGNITION OF A MAN'S VIRTUE. Illustrate by the reason given for God's telling Abraham of his proposed judgment on Sodom; by David's appeal, "Judge me according to my integrity;" and Christ's address to the Church at Ephesus, "I know thy works" (Revelation 2:2).

III. THE DIVINE COMMUNICATION OF DIVINE APPROBATiON. We indeed may not look to get a change of name, and yet we, too, may be quite sure that our progress in the Divine life has all its stages noticed and marked by God, and, it may be, sealed with a now "unknown name." We want to see the stages of our spiritual growth; it is enough that we learn from Abraham's double name how God watches them, and surely marks them down ready for the by-and-by. - R.T.

The chief value of the genealogical records consists —

1. In enabling us to view the origin of nations historically.

2. In enabling us to trace out the various tribes of the sons of Jacob.

3. In enabling us to prove the lineal descent of Christ to have been of the house and lineage of David; and that He was the fulfiller of the promise to Abraham, "In thy seed shall all nations of the earth be blessed."

4. Independently of all this we meet with a sentence or a paragraph suggestive of the deepest thought, or illuminating a principle expressed in another part of the Scriptures with light as clear and bright as it is beautiful and enchanting. Such an instance we have in the text.

I. CONSIDER THE DIVISION OF THE EARTH AS ORDAINED WITHOUT SIN. Sin alters and affects everything. There is not a duty you perform or matter you can engage in, in which you do not find sin exerting a pernicious influence. And here it is, I think, that many persons make great error when seeking to interpret to themselves the trials and calamities which come upon them. "Providence ordained it," is the common philosophy on the matter, when I humbly think the truer account of every calamity would be, "Providence ordained and desired my happiness, but sin has deformed it, and for a time blasted the intended joys and filled me with anxieties." The division which God intended would be but a repetition in every case of what He had done at the beginning; there would have been allotted to the sons of men certain portions of this fair earth to govern and to till, and every child of Adam would be taught, in the beautiful homilies of nature, the first principles at least of homage to the Creator, and of confidence, and of love. The division Jehovah ordained was division without disunion. Distinction, but not discord. Partition, but still perfect peace. This first inquiry, then, is of much value, and will prove, ere many years, of vast importance in refuting the errors of the sceptical writers which abound. Nor will it perhaps be without its use, to have noticed the character of that division which God intended among the sons of men, one which should have promoted the equal comfort of all, amidst the blessings of universal peace and brotherhood. It may be, that when grace shall have triumphed in our sin-stained earth even but a little more, you may see a disposition to revert to these very principles of division which the Eternal desired to be followed, but which (as we shall notice directly) have been marvellously distorted ever since the day of which it is recorded in the text — "Unto Eber were born two sons: the name of the one was Peleg; because in his days the earth was divided."

II. NOW LET US INQUIRE INTO THE DIVISION OF THE EARTH AMONG NATIONS AS IT DOES EXIST, UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF SIN. Now you notice, by referring to the text (Genesis 10:25), that the division took place before the building of Babel, and according to some persons, some considerable period before that epoch. At all events, the narrative implies that this division preceded the dispersion, and must therefore have occurred when all men spoke but one language. Remember, then, that God's will was that men should divide (though without discord) and replenish all the earth. Recollect, too, that from the text we learn that the first step in this had been taken, even as Eber names his child Peleg (division) in memory of the event. Observe, then, what we are told immediately after the division in the days of Peleg. You read in the eleventh chapter of Genesis that the whole earth was of one language and of one speech; but that in their journeyings from the east, instead of dividing (as probably was the intention when they started), finding a large and inviting plain in Shinar, they counsel each other: "Let us build a city and tower whose top may reach to heaven, and let us make us a name lest" (mark) "we be scattered abroad on the face of the whole earth." So that sin at once interrupted the beneficent designs of God, and interposing its corrupting leaven, sought to change His ordinances by promising greater benefits than He, but which have ever been found productive of evil. And now, that which was ordained for a blessing in every age, forthwith becomes a curse while it is yet obeyed; for God coming down, and seeing the injurious moral effect which would follow from this congregating together, disperses them by a division wholly unlooked for. God confounded their speech, made them talk in different languages, and they are obliged in consequence to disperse, and the division is accomplished. But how? Not in peace and harmony, and with a "God be with you." But brother utters jargon to brother, and words of blessing and adieu are impossible, and now it is no more division with love, but confusion, and disunion, and discord, and ill-will. For I ask you what is the history of nations, but a continuation of this story? Nations for the most part are distinguished from one another by their .difference of speech. But this is not the only difference. Scarcely a nation in the world but has at one time or another, been at war with other nations, and almost .every kingdom of importance has, in its turn, encountered the armies of all other kingdoms in the dread attack of war and slaughter, at some period of their history. And this is the place for observing another very striking result of sin in the division of the earth. God, we saw, intended it so to be conducted as to subserve the advantage of all; but man decreed in his pride of intellect and reasoning that he would live in the dense vastness of a thickly populated city. And though God indeed dispersed them from Babel, the tendency of our nature seems to be far from eradicated. Still mankind crowd into cities, until they are so closely populated, that disease and death are fearfully increased. So you may notice how the retributive hand of judgment has followed these transactions. Man is a social being, and intended by God to congregate, but intended not so to congregate as we find he has done, and will still persist in doing, until by a strange anomaly his next-door neighbour is the veriest stranger to him. God ordered earth to be divided; and the plan by which thousands are huddled in close, dark, narrow alleys and areas is only sin's development of its influences, as it reverses God's intended method of division, and says with towering vanity, "Go to, let us build rather a city that we may not be scattered." It is a known fact, that there is less religion in large towns than small ones, and far less where the poor are obliged to pack together as I have described. The reason is also plain. The cause is, that since the days of Peleg, the earth has been divided according to sin, and the dispersion of nations is the result of God's anger, in confounding their speech. But the reason is, because the human mind, cut off from the beauties of nature, and those countless sources which it possesses for preparing the mind for religion, becomes prejudiced in its fearfully artificial state of town life, and by the evil customs and habits which surround it, against every sense of real godliness, which it thus learns to regard as belonging only to the rich.

III. BUT THOUGH YOU SEE SIN SO PLAINLY OPERATING, YOU ARE ASSURED THAT CHRIST WILL CONQUER, AND GRACE FINALLY PREVAIL. In the day of glory which awaits you (described in the last two chapters of the Revelation), it is very interesting to observe that the city of the new Jerusalem described there bears a peculiar likeness to those which would have existed if the division of the world had been such as God ordained, and which began in the days of Peleg. In Christ's kingdom there will be division without discord, that is, every person in his right place, in perfect love, and unity with all the rest.