to account for the apparent incivility of the King of Edom to the
Israelites and Moses. That quarrel had surely been long forgotten! But
we need not wonder if the kinship of the two peoples was no availing
argument in the case. Those were not times when covenants like that
proposed could be easily trusted, nor was Israel on an expedition the
nature of which could reassure the Idumæans. And we have parallels
enough in modern life to show that from the only point of view the king
could take he was amply justified. There are demands men make on others
without perceiving how difficult it will be to grant them, demands on
time, on means, on goodwill, demands that would involve moral as well
as material sacrifice. The foolish intrusions of well-meaning people
may be borne for a time, but there is a limit beyond which they cannot
be suffered. Our whole life cannot be exposed to the derangements of
every scheme-maker, every claimant. If we are to do our own work well,
it is absolutely necessary that a certain space shall be jealously
guarded, where the gains of thought may be kept safely and the ideas
revealed to us may be developed. That any one's life should be open so
that travellers, even with some right of close fraternity, may pass
through the midst of it, drink of the wells, and trample down the
fields of growing purpose or ripening thought, this is not required.
Good-will makes an open gate; Christian feeling makes one still wider
and bids many welcome. But he who would keep his heart in fruitfulness
must be careful to whom he grants admission. There is beginning to be
a sort of jealousy of any one's right to his own reserve. It is not
a single Israel approaching from the West, but a score, with their
different schemes, who come from every side demanding right of way and
even of abode. Each presses a Christian claim on whatever is wanted
of our hospitality. But if all had what they desire there would be no
personal life left.
On the other hand, some whose highways are broad, whose wells and
streams are overflowing, whose lives are not fully engaged, show
themselves exclusive and inhospitable--like those proprietors of vast
moors who refuse a path to the waterfall or the mountain-top. Without
Edom's excuse, some modern Idumæans warn every enterprise off their
bounds. Neither brotherhood nor any other claim is acknowledged. They
would find advantage, not injury, in the visit of those who bring
new enthusiasms and ideas to bear on existence. They would learn of
other aims than occupy them, a better hope than they possess. Their
sympathy would be enlisted in heavenly or humane endeavours, and
new alliances would quicken as well as broaden their life. But they
will not listen; they continue selfish to the end. Against all such
Christianity has to urge the law of brotherhood and of sacrifice.
* * * * *
We have assumed that Kadesh was on the western side of the Arabah,
and it is necessary to take ver. 20 as referring to an incident that
occurred after the Israelites had crossed the valley. Not otherwise
can we explain how they came to encamp among the mountains on the
eastern side. The repulse must have been sustained by the tribes
after they had left Kadesh and penetrated some distance into the
northern defiles of Idumæa. Bozrah, the capital, appears to have been
situated about half way between Petra and the southern extremity of
the Dead Sea, and a force issuing from that stronghold would divert
the march southward so that the Israelites could safely encamp only
when they reached the open plain near Mount Hor. Hither therefore
they retreated: and here it was that Moses and Aaron were parted. The
time had come for the high priest to be gathered to his people.
Scarcely any locality in the whole track of the wandering is better
identified than this. From the plain of the Arabah the mountains rise
in a range parallel to the valley, in ridges of sandstone, limestone,
and chalk, with cliffs and peaks of granite. The defile that leads by
Mount Hor to Petra is peculiarly grand, for here the range attains
its greatest height. "Through a narrow ravine," says one traveller,
"we ascended a steep mountain side, amid a splendour of colour from
bare rock or clothing verdure, and a solemnity of light on the broad
summits, of shade in the profound depths--a memory for ever....
It was the same narrow path through which in old times had passed
other trains of camels laden with the merchandise of India, Arabia,
and Egypt. And thus having ascended, we had next a long descent
to the foot of Mount Hor, which stands isolated." The mountain
rises about four thousand feet above the Arabah and has a peculiar
double crest. On its green pastures there graze flocks of sheep and
goats; and inhabited caves--used perhaps since the days of the old
Horites--are to be seen here and there. The ascent of the mountain
is aided by steps cut in the rock, "indeed a tolerably complete
winding staircase," for the chapel or mosque on the summit, said to
cover the grave of Aaron, is a notable Arab sanctuary, resorted to
by many pilgrims. "From the roof of the tomb--now only an ordinary
square building with a dome--northward and southward, a hilly desert;
eastward, the mountains of Edom, within which Petra lies hid;
westward, the desert of the Arabah, or wilderness of Zin; beyond
that, the desert of Et-Tîh; beyond that again, in the far horizon,
the blue-tinted hills of the Land of Promise."
Such is the mountain at the foot of which Israel lay encamped when
the Lord said unto Moses, "Take Aaron and Eleazar his son, and bring
them up unto Mount Hor; and strip Aaron of his garments, and put them
upon Eleazar his son: and Aaron shall be gathered unto his people
and shall die there." We imagine the sorrowful gaze of the multitude
following the three climbers, the aged brothers who had borne so long
the burden and heat of the day, and Eleazar, already well advanced in
life, who was to be invested with his father's office. Coming soon
after the death of Miriam, this departure of Aaron broke sharply one
other link that still bound Israel with its past. The old times were
receding, the new had not yet come into sight.
The life of a good man may close mournfully. While some in leaving
the world cross cheerfully the river beyond which the smiling fields
of the heavenly land are full in view, others there are who, even
with the faith of the Conqueror of death to sustain them, have no
gladdening prospect at the last. Only from a distance Aaron saw
the Land of Promise; from so great a distance that its beauty and
fruitfulness could not be realised. The sullen gleam of the Lake of
Sodom, lying in its grim hollow, was visible away to the north.
Besides that the dim eyes could make out little. But Edom lay below;
and the tribes would have a great circuit round that inhospitable
land, would have to traverse another desert beyond the horizon to
the east, ere they could reach Moab and draw near to Canaan. A true
patriot, Aaron would think more of the people than of himself. And
the confidence he had in the friendliness of God and the wisdom of
his brother would scarcely dispel the shadow that settled on him as
he forecast the journey of the tribes and saw the difficulties they
were yet to meet. So not a few are called away from the world when
the great ends for which they have toiled are still remote. The cause
of liberty or of reformation with which life has been identified may
even appear farther from success than years before. Or again, the
close of life may be darkened by family troubles more pressing than
any that were experienced earlier. A man may be heavily burdened
without distrusting God on his own account, or doubting that in the
long run all shall be well. He may be troubled because the immediate
prospect shows no escape from painful endurance for those he loves.
He does not sorrow perhaps that he has found the promises of life to
be illusory; but he is grieved for dear friends who must yet make
that discovery, who shall travel many a league and never win the
battle or pass beyond the wilderness.
The mind of Aaron as he went to his death was darkened by the
consciousness of a great failure. Kadesh lay westward across the
valley, and the thought of what took place there was with the
brothers as they climbed Mount Hor and stood upon its summit. They
had repented, but they had not yet forgiven themselves. How could
they, when they saw in the temper of the people too plain proofs
that their lese-majesty had borne evil fruit? It needs much faith
to be sure that God will remedy the evil we have done; and so long
as the means cannot be seen, the shadow of self-reproach must
remain. Many a good man, climbing the last slope, feels the burden
of transgressions committed long before. He has done his utmost to
restore the defences of truth and rebuild the altars of witness which
in thoughtless youth or proud manhood he cast down. But circumstances
have hindered the work of reparation; and many who saw his sin have
passed far beyond the reach of his repentance. The thought of past
faults may sadly obscure the close of a Christian life. The end would
indeed be hopeless often were it not for trust in the omnipotent
grace which brings again that which was driven away and binds up that
which was broken. Yet since the very work of God and the victory of
Christ are made more difficult by things a believer has done, is it
possible that he should always have happy recollections of the past
as life draws near its end?
It was no doubt honourable to Aaron that his death was appointed to
be on that mountain in Seir. Old as he was, he would never think of
complaining that he was ordained to climb it. Yet to the tired limbs
it was a steep, difficult path, a way of sorrow. Here, also, we find
resemblance to the close of many a worthy life. High office in the
Church has been well served, overflowing wealth has been used in
beneficence; but at the last reverses have come. The man who was always
prosperous is now stripped of his possessions. Darkened in mind by
successive losses, bereaved of friends and of power, he has to climb
a dreary mountain-path to the sharp end. It may be really honourable
to such a man that God has thus appointed his death to be not in the
midst of luxury, but on the rugged peak of loss. Understanding things
aright, he should say: "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away;
blessed be the name of the Lord." But if dependence is felt as shame,
if he who gave freely to others feels it a sore thing to receive from
others, who can have the heart to blame the good man because he does
not triumph here? And if he has to climb alone, no Eleazar with him,
scarcely one human aid, what shall we say? Now life must gird itself
and go whither it would not. Sad is the journey, but not into night.
The Christian does not impeach Divine providence nor grieve that
earthly good is finally taken away. Though his life has been in his
generosity, not in his possessions, yet he will confess that the last
bitter trial is needful to the perfecting of faith.
Should the believer triumph over death through Christ? It is
his privilege; but some display unwarranted complacency. They
have confidence in the work of Christ; they boast that they rest
everything on Him. But is it well with them if they have no sorrow
because of days and years that ran to waste? Is it well with them if
they deplore no failure in Christian effort when the reason is that
they never gave heart and strength to any difficult task? Who can be
satisfied with the apparent victory of faith at the last of one who
never had high hopes for himself and others, and therefore was never
disappointed? Better the sorrowful ending to a life that has dared
great things and been defeated, that has cherished a pure ideal and
come painfully short of it, than the exultation of those who even as
Christians have lived to themselves.
Perhaps the circumstances that attended the death of Aaron were
to him the finest discipline of life. Climbing the steep slope at
the command of God, would he not feel himself brought into a closer
relation with the Eternal Will? Would he not feel himself separated
from the world and gathered up into the quiet massiveness of life
with Him who is from everlasting to everlasting? The years of a high
priest, dealing constantly with sacred things and symbols, might
easily fall into a routine not more helpful to generous thought and
spiritual exaltation than the habits of secular life. One might exist
among sacrifices and purifications till the mind became aware of
nothing beyond ritual and its orderly performance. True, this had not
been the case with Aaron during a considerable portion of the time
since he began his duties. There had been many events by means of
which Jehovah broke in upon the priests with His great demands. But
thirty-seven years had been comparatively uneventful. And now the
little world of camp and tabernacle court, the sacred shrine with its
ark, the symbolic dwelling-place of God, must have their contrast
in the broad spaces filled with gleaming light, the blue vault, the
widespread hills and valleys, the heavens which are Jehovah's throne,
the earth which is His footstool. The bustle of Israel's little life
is left behind for the calm of the mountain land. The high priest
finds another vestibule of the dwelling of Jehovah than that which
he has been accustomed to enter with sprinkled blood and the pungent
fumes of the incense.
Is it not good thus to be called away from the business of the world,
immersed in which every day men have lost the due proportions of
things, both of what is earthly and what is spiritual? They have
to leave the computations recorded in their books, and what bulks
largely in the gossip of the way and the news of the town; they are
to climb where greater spaces can be seen, and human life, both as
brief and as immortal, shall be understood in its relations to God.
Often those who have this call addressed to them are most unwilling
to obey. It is painful to lose the old standards of proportion, to
hear no longer the familiar noise of wheels, to see no machinery,
no desks, no ledgers, to read no newspapers, to have the quiet, the
slow-moving days, the moonless or moonlit nights. But if reflection
follows, as it should, and brings wisdom, the change has saved a
man who was near to being lost. The things he toiled for once, as
well as the things he dreaded,--that success, this breath of adverse
opinion,--seem little in the new light, scarcely disturb the new
atmosphere. One thus called apart with God, learning what are the
real elements of life, may look with pity on his former self, yet
gather out of the experience that had small value, for the most part,
here and there a jewel of price. And the wise, becoming wiser, will
feel preparation made for the greater existence that lies beyond.
Moses accompanied his brother to the mountain top. By his hands,
with all considerateness, the priestly robes were taken from Aaron's
shoulders and put on Eleazar. The true friend he had all along relied
upon was with the dying man at the last, and closed his eyes. In this
there was a palliation of the decree under which it would have been
terrible to suffer alone; yet in the end the loneliness of death had
to be felt. We know a Friend who passed through death for us, and
made a way into the higher life, but still we have our dread of the
solitude. How much heavier must it have weighed when no clear hope of
immortality shone upon the hill. The vastness of nature was around
the dying priest of Israel, his face was turned to the skies. But
the thrill of Divine love we find in the touch of Christ did not
reassure him. "These all ... received not the promise, God having
provided some better thing concerning us, that apart from us they
should not be made perfect."
Eleazar followed Aaron and took up the work of the priesthood,
not less ably, let us believe, yet not precisely with the same
spirit, the same endowments. And indeed to have one in all respects
like Aaron would not have served. The new generation, in new
circumstances, needs a new minister. Office remains; but, as history
moves on, it means always something different. When the hour comes
that requires a clear step to be taken away from old notions and
traditions of duty, neither he who holds the office nor those to whom
he has ministered should complain or doubt. It is not good that one
should cling to work merely because he has served well and may still
seem able to serve; often it is the case that before death commands a
change the time for one has come. Even the men who are most useful to
the world, Paul, Apollos, Luther, do not die too soon. It may appear
to us that a man who has done noble work has no successor. When,
for instance, England loses its Dr. Arnold, Stanley, Lightfoot, and
we look in vain for one to whom the robes are becoming, we have to
trust that by some education they did not foresee the Church has to
be perfected. The same theory, nominally, is not the same when others
undertake to apply it. The same ceremonies have another meaning
when performed by other hands. There are ways to the full fruition
of Christ's government which go as far about as Israel's to Canaan
round the land of Moab, for a time as truly retrogressive. But the
great Leader the one High Priest of the new covenant, never fails
His Church or His world, and the way that does not hasten, as well as
that which makes straight for the goal, is within His purpose, leads
to the fulfilment among men of His mediatorial design.
XVII
_THE LAST MARCH AND THE FIRST CAMPAIGN_
NUMBERS xxi
It has been suggested in a previous chapter that the repulse of the
Israelites by the King of Arad took place on the occasion when, after
the return of the spies, a portion of the army endeavoured to force its
way into Canaan. If that explanation of the passage with which chap.
xxi. opens cannot be accepted, then the movements of the tribes after
they were driven back from Edom must have been singularly vacillating.
Instead of turning southward along the Arabah they appear to have moved
northward from Mount Hor and made an attempt to enter Canaan at the
southern end of the Dead Sea. Arad was in the Negeb or South Country,
and the Canaanites there, keeping guard, must have descended from the
hills and inflicted a defeat which finally closed that way.
From the time of the departure from Kadesh onward no mention is made
of the pillar of cloud. It may have still moved as the standard of
the host; yet the unsuccessful attempt to pass through Edom, followed
possibly by a northward march, and then by a southward journey to the
Elanitic Gulf when they "compassed Mount Seir many days" (Deut. ii.
1), would appear to prove that the authoritative guidance had in some
way failed. It is a suggestion, which, however, can only be advanced
with diffidence, that after the day at Kadesh when the words fell from
Moses' lips, "Hear now, ye rebels," his power as a leader declined, and
that the guidance of the march fell mainly into the hands of Joshua,--a
brave soldier indeed, but no acknowledged representative of Jehovah.
It is at all events clear that attempts had now to be made in one
direction and another to find a feasible route. Moses may have retired
from the command, partly on account of age, but even more because he
felt that he had in part lost his authority. Israel, moreover, had to
become a military nation: and Moses, though nominally the head of the
tribes, had to stand aside to a great extent that the new development
might proceed. In a short time Joshua would be sole leader; already he
appears to hold the military command.
The journey from Mount Hor to the borders of Moab by way of the Red
Sea, or Yâm-Suph, is very briefly noticed in the narrative. Oboth,
Iye-abarim, Zared, are the only three names mentioned in chap. xxi.
before the border of Moab is reached. Chap. xxxiii. gives Zalmonah,
Punon, Oboth, and lastly Iye-abarim, which is said to be in the
border of Moab. The mention of these names suggests nothing as to the
extremely trying nature of the journey; that is only indicated by
the statement, "the soul of the people was much discouraged because
of the way." The truth is, that of all the stages of the wandering,
these along the Arabah, and from the Elanitic Gulf eastward and
northward to the valley of Zared, were perhaps the most difficult
and perilous. The Wady Arabah is "an expanse of shifting sands,
broken by innumerable undulations, and counter-sected by a hundred
watercourses." Along this plain the route lay for fifty miles, in
the track of the furious sirocco and amidst terrible desolation.
Turning eastward from the palm-groves of Elath and the beautiful
shores of the Gulf, the way next entered a tract of the Arabian
wilderness outside the border of Edom. Oboth lay, perhaps, east from
Maan, still an inhabited city, and the point of departure for one
who journeys from Palestine into central Arabia. Out from Maan this
desert lies, and is thus described:--"Before and around us extended
a wide and level plain, blackened over with countless pebbles of
basalt and flint, except when the moonbeams gleamed white on little
intervening patches of clear sand, or on yellowish streaks of
withered grass, the scanty produce of the winter rains, and now dried
into hay. Over all a deep silence which even our Arab companions
seemed fearful of breaking; when they spoke it was in a half whisper
and in few words, while the noiseless tread of our camels sped
stealthily but rapidly through the gloom without disturbing its
stillness."[9] For one hundred miles the route for Israel lay through
this wilderness; and it is hardly possible to escape the conviction
that although little is said of the experiences of the way the tribes
must have suffered enormously and been greatly reduced in number. As
for cattle, we must conclude that hardly any survived. Where camels
sustain themselves with the greatest difficulty, oxen and sheep would
certainly perish. There had come the necessity for a rapid advance,
to be made at whatever hazard. All that would retard the progress
of the people had to be sacrificed. There is indeed some ground for
the supposition that part of the tribes remained near Kadesh while
the main body made the long and perilous detour. The army entering
Canaan by way of Jericho would as soon as possible open communication
with those who had been left behind.
The only recorded episode belonging to the period of this march is
that of the fiery serpents. In the Arabah and the whole North Arabian
region the cobra, or _naja haie_, is common, and is superstitiously
dreaded. Other serpents are so innocuous by comparison that this
chiefly receives the attention of travellers. One incident is
recorded thus by Mr. Stuart-Glennie:--"Two cobras have been caught,
and one, which has been dexterously pinned by the neck in the slit
end of a stick, its captor comes up triumphantly to exhibit.... After
a time the fellow let it go, refusing to kill it, and permitting it
to glide away unharmed. This I understood to be from fear--fear of
the vengeance after death of what, in life, had been incapable of
defending itself. At Petra ... the snakes which Hamilton, a fearless
hunter of them, killed, the Arabs would not allow to lie within the
encampment, asserting that we should thus bring the whole snake-tribe
to which the individual belonged to avenge the death of their
kinsman." Whether all the serpents that attacked the Israelites were
cobras is doubtful; but the description "fiery" seems to point to
the effects of the cobra-poison, which produces an intense burning
sensation in the whole body. Another explanation of the adjective is
found in the metallic sparkle of the reptiles.
"Much people of Israel died" of the bites of these serpents, which,
disturbed by the travellers as they went sullenly and carelessly
along, issued from crevices of the ground and from the low shrubs
in which they lurked, and at once fastened on feet and hands. The
peculiar character of the new enemy caused universal alarm. As one
and another fell writhing to the ground, and after a few convulsive
movements died in agony, a feeling of terrified revulsion spread
through the ranks. Pestilence was natural, familiar, as compared with
this new punishment which their murmuring about the light food and
the thirst of the desert had brought on them. The serpent, lithe and
subtle, scarcely seen in the twilight, creeping into the tents at
night, quick at any moment, without provocation, to use its poisoned
fangs, has appeared the hereditary enemy of man. As the instrument
of the Tempter it was connected with the origin of human misery; it
appeared the embodied evil which from the very dust sprang forth to
seek the evil-doer. Many ways had Jehovah of reaching men who showed
distrust and resented His will. This was in a sense the most dreadful.