FOOTNOTES:

[20] Though of course the Person Whose Body was thus offered is Divine

(Acts xx. 28), and this gives inestimable value to the offering.

[21] Here the sceptical theorists are widely divided among themselves.

Kuenen has discussed this whole theory, and rejected it as

"irreconcilable with what the Old Testament itself asserts in

justification of this sacrifice." And he is driven to connect it with

the notion of atonement. "Jahveh appears as a severe being who must be

propitiated with sacrifices." He has therefore to introduce the notion

of human sacrifice, in order to get rid of the connection with the penal

death of the Egyptians, and of the miraculous, which this example would

establish. (_Religion of Israel_, Eng. Trans., i., 239, 240.)

[22] The astonishing significance of this declaration would only be

deepened if we accepted the theories now so fashionable, and believed

that the later passage in Isaiah was the fruit of a period when the

full-blown Priestly Code was in process of development out of "the small

body of legislation contained in Lev. xvii.--xxvi." What a strange time

for such a spiritual application of sacrificial language!

[23] So that it is used equally of the slow action of the lame, and of

the lingering movements of the false prophets when there was none to

answer (2 Sam. iv. 4; 1 Kings xviii. 26). "The Lord of Hosts shall come

down to fight upon Mount Zion.... As birds flying, so will the Lord of

Hosts protect Jerusalem; He will PASS OVER and preserve it" (Isa. xxxi.

4, 5).

CHAPTER XIII.

_THE LAW OF THE FIRSTBORN._

xiii. 1.

Much that was said in the twelfth chapter is repeated in the thirteenth.

And this repetition is clearly due to a formal rehearsal, made when all

"their hosts" had mustered in Succoth after their first march; for Moses

says, "Remember this day, in which ye came out" (ver. 3). Already it had

been spoken of as a day much to be remembered, and for its perpetuation

the ordinance of the Passover had been founded.

But now this charge is given as a fit prologue for the remarkable

institution which follows--the consecration to God of all unblemished

males who are the firstborn of their mothers--for such is the full

statement of what is claimed.

In speaking to Moses the Lord says, "Sanctify unto Me all the firstborn

... it is Mine." But Moses addressing the people advances gradually, and

almost diplomatically. First he reminds them of their deliverance, and

in so doing he employs a phrase which could only have been used at the

exact stage when they were emancipated and yet upon Egyptian soil: "By

strength of hand the Lord brought you out _from this place_" (ver. 3).

Then he charges them not to forget their rescue, in the dangerous time

of their prosperity, when the Lord shall have brought them into the

land which He swore to give them; and he repeats the ordinance of

unleavened bread. And it is only then that he proceeds to announce the

permanent consecration of all their firstborn--the abiding doctrine that

these, who naturally represent the nation, are for its unworthiness

forfeited, and yet by the grace of God redeemed.

God, Who gave all and pardons all, demands a return, not as a tax which

is levied for its own sake, but as a confession of dependence, and like

the silk flag presented to the sovereign, on the anniversaries of the

two greatest of English victories, by the descendants of the conquerors,

who hold their estates upon that tenure. The firstborn, thus dedicated,

should have formed a sacred class, a powerful element in Hebrew life

enlisted on the side of God.

For these, as we have already seen, the Levites were afterwards

substituted (Num. iii. 44), and there is perhaps some allusion to this

change in the direction that "all the firstborn of man thou shalt

redeem" (ver. 13). But yet the demand is stated too broadly and

imperatively to belong to that later modification: it suits exactly the

time to which it is attributed, before the tribe of Levi was substituted

for the firstborn of all.

"They are Mine," said Jehovah, Who needed not, that night, to remind

them what He had wrought the night before. It is for precisely the same

reason, that St. Paul claims all souls for God: "Ye are not your own, ye

are bought with a price; therefore glorify God with your bodies and with

your spirits, which are God's."

And besides the general claim upon us all, each of us should feel, like

the firstborn, that every special mercy is a call to special gratitude,

to more earnest dedication. "I beseech you, by the mercies of God, that

ye present your bodies a living sacrifice" (Rom. xii. 1).

There is a tone of exultant confidence in the words of Moses, very

interesting and curious. He and his nation are breathing the free air at

last. The deliverance that has been given makes all the promise that

remains secure. As one who feels his pardon will surely not despair of

heaven, so Moses twice over instructs the people what to do when God

shall have kept the oath which He swore, and brought them into Canaan,

into the land flowing with milk and honey. Then they must observe His

passover. Then they must consecrate their firstborn.

And twice over this emancipator and lawgiver, in the first flush of his

success, impresses upon them the homely duty of teaching their

households what God had done for them (vers. 8, 14; cf. xii. 26).

This, accordingly, the Psalmist learned, and in his turn transmitted. He

heard with his ears and his fathers told him what God did in their days,

in the days of old. And he told the generation to come the praises of

Jehovah, and His strength, and His wondrous works (Ps. xliv. 1, lxxviii.

4).

But it is absurd to treat these verses, as Kuenen does, as evidence that

the story is mere legend: "transmitted from mouth to mouth, it gradually

lost its accuracy and precision, and adopted all sorts of foreign

elements." To prove which, we are gravely referred to passages like

this. (_Religion of Israel_, i. 22, Eng. Vers.) The duty of oral

instruction is still acknowledged, but this does not prove that the

narrative is still unwritten.

From the emphatic language in which Moses urged this double duty, too

much forgotten still, of remembering and showing forth the goodness of

God, sprang the curious custom of the wearing of phylacteries. But the

Jews were not bidden to wear signs and frontlets: they were bidden to

let hallowed memories be unto them in the place of such charms as they

had seen the Egyptians wear, "for a sign unto thee, upon thine hand, and

for a frontlet between thine eyes, that the law of the Lord may be in

thy mouth" (ver. 9). Such language is frequent in the Old Testament,

where mercy and truth should be bound around their necks; their fathers'

commandments should be tied around their necks, bound on their fingers,

written on their hearts; and Sion should clothe herself with her

converts as an ornament, and gird them upon her as a bride doth (Prov.

iii. 3, vi. 21, vii. 3; Isa. xlix. 18).

But human nature still finds the letter of many a commandment easier

than the spirit, a ceremony than an obedient heart, penance than

penitence, ashes on the forehead than a contrite spirit, and a

phylactery than the gratitude and acknowledgment which ought to be unto

us for a sign on the hand and a frontlet between the eyes.

We have already observed the connection between the thirteenth verse and

the events of the previous night. But there is an interesting touch of

nature in the words "the firstling of an ass thou shalt redeem with a

lamb." It was afterwards rightly perceived that all unclean animals

should follow the same rule; but why was only the ass mentioned? Plainly

because those humble journeyers had no other beast of burden. Horses

pursued them presently, but even the Egyptians of that period used them

only in war. The trampled Hebrews would not possess camels. And thus

again, in the tenth commandment, when the stateliest of their cattle is

specified, no beast of burden is named with it but the ass: "Thou shalt

not covet ... his ox nor his ass." It is an undesigned coincidence of

real value; a phrase which would never have been devised by legislators

of a later date; a frank and unconscious evidence of the genuineness of

the story.

Some time before this, a new and fierce race, whose name declared them

to be "emigrants," had thrust itself in among the tribes of Canaan--a

race which was long to wage equal war with Israel, and not seldom to see

his back turned in battle. They now held all the south of Palestine,

from the brook of Egypt to Ekron (Josh. xv. 4, 47). And if Moses in the

flush of his success had pushed on by the straight and easy route into

the promised land, the first shock of combat with them would have been

felt in a few weeks. But "God led them not by the way of the

Philistines, though that was near, for God said, Lest peradventure the

people repent them when they see war, and they return to Egypt" (ver.

17).

From this we learn two lessons. Why did not He, Who presently made

strong the hearts of the Egyptians to plunge into the bed of the sea,

make the hearts of His own people strong to defy the Philistines? The

answer is a striking and solemn one. Neither God in the Old Testament,

nor God manifested in the flesh, is ever recorded to have wrought any

miracle of spiritual advancement or overthrow. Thus the Egyptians were

but confirmed in their own choice: their decision was carried further.

And even Saul of Tarsus was illuminated, not coerced: he might have

disobeyed the heavenly vision. He was not an insincere man suddenly

coerced into earnestness, nor a coward suddenly made brave. In the moral

world, adequate means are always employed for the securing of desired

effects. Love, gratitude, the sense of danger and of grace, are the

powers which elevate characters. And persons who live in sensuality,

fraud, or falsehood, hoping to be saved some day by a sort of miracle of

grace, ought to ponder this truth, which may not be the gospel now

fashionable, but is unquestionably the statement of a Scriptural fact:

_in the moral sphere, God works by means and not by miracle_.

A free life, the desert air, the rejection of the unfit by many

visitations, and the growth of a new generation amid thrilling events,

in a soul-stirring region, and under the pure influences of the

law,--these were necessary before Israel could cross steel with the

warlike children of the Philistines; and even then, it was not with them

that he should begin.

The other lesson we learn is the tender fidelity of God, Who will not

suffer us to be tempted above that we are able to bear. He led them

aside into the desert, whither He still in mercy leads very many who

think it a heavy judgment to be there.

_THE BONES OF JOSEPH._

xiii. 19.

It is certain that Moses, in the days of his greatness, must often have

mused by the sepulchre of the one Israelite before himself who held high

rank in Egypt. The knowledge that Joseph's elevation was providential

must have helped him at that time, now many years ago, to think rightly

of his own. And now we read that Moses took the bones of Joseph with

him. In the Epistle to the Hebrews (xi. 22) it is recorded as the most

characteristic example of the faith of the patriarch, that instead of

desiring to be carried, like his father, at once to Canaan, he made

mention of the departure of the children of Israel, and gave commandment

concerning his bones. To him Egypt was no longer an alien land. There

only he had known honour without envy, and happiness without betrayal.

There his bones could rest in quiet; but not for ever. Personal

elevation, which had not rent the cord between him and his unworthy

family, could still less sever the bands between him and the sacred

race. Let him sleep in Egypt while his grave there was honoured: let the

remembrance of him be kept fresh, to protect awhile his kindred; and

when the predicted days of evil came, let his ashes share the neglect

and dishonour of his people, if only they would remember his remains

when the Lord would lead them forth. This confidence in their

emancipation was his faith--which meant, here as always, not a clear

view of truth, but an assuring grasp of it. He had straitly sworn the

children of Israel saying, "God will surely visit you; and ye shall

carry up my bones away hence with you."

Many a Christian might well envy a confidence so practical, so

thoroughly realised, entering so naturally into the tissue of his

thoughts and calculations. And their actual remembrance of him goes to

show that the tradition of his faith had never completely died out, but

was among the influences which kept alive the nation's hope.

And as the people bore his honoured ashes through the desert, these

being dead spoke of bygone times, they linked the present and the past

together, they deepened the national consciousness that Israel was a

favoured people, called to no common destiny, sustained by no common

promises, pressing toward no common goal.

If Israel had been wise, they would have thought of him, the Israelite

in heart, though glittering in the splendours of Egypt; and would have

considered well that as little as men detected his secret life from his

appearance, so little could theirs be judged. To the eye, they were free

from the foreign trammels in which he was seemingly entangled, yet many

of them in heart turned back to all which strove in vain to bind his

affections down. The lesson holds good to-day. Many a modern religionist

looks askance at the "worldliness" of high office and rank and state;

little dreaming that the "world" he censures is strong in his own

ambitious and self-asserting spirit, and is overcome by the gentle and

tranquil spirit of hundreds of those whom he condemns.

Bearing this hallowed burden, which might easily have become an object

of superstitious regard, the nation moved from Succoth to Etham on the

edge of the wilderness. And with them a Presence moved which rebuked all

others, however venerable. The Lord went before them. It has already

been pointed out that throughout the early history of this nation, just

come out of an idolatrous land, and too ready to lapse back into

superstition, God never reveals Himself except in fire. To Abraham and

to Jacob He appeared in human form, and again to Joshua; but in the

interval, never. So now they see Him by day in a pillar of cloud to

guide them on the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them

light. The glory of the nation was that manifested Presence, lacking

which, Moses besought Him to carry them up no farther. Nothing in the

Exodus is more impressive, and it sank deep into the national heart.

Many centuries afterwards, the ideal of a golden age was that the Lord

should "create over the whole habitation of Mount Zion, and over her

assemblies, a cloud of smoke by day, and the shining of a flaming fire

by night" (Isa. iv. 5).

But it has been well observed that, amid the various allusions to it in

Hebrew poetry, not one treats it as modern literature has done, with an

eye to its marvellous sublimity and picturesque effects:

"By day, along the astonished lands

The cloudy pillar glided slow:

By night, Arabia's crimsoned sands

Returned the fiery column's glow."

The Hebrew poetry is vivid and passionate, but all its concerns are

human or divine--God, and the life of man. It is not artistic, but

inspired. "The modern poet is delighting in the scenic effect; the

ancient chronicler was wholly occupied with the overshadowing power of

God."[24]

FOOTNOTES:

[24] Hutton's _Essays_, Vol. ii., _Literary: The Poetry of the Old

Test._

CHAPTER XIV.

_THE RED SEA._

xiv. 1-31.

It would seem that the Israelites recoiled before a frontier fortress of

Egypt at Khetam (Etham). This is probable, whatever theory of the route

of the Exodus one may adopt; and it is still open to every reader to

adopt almost any theory he pleases, provided that two facts are borne in

mind: viz., first, that the narrative certainly means to describe a

miraculous interference, not superseding the forces of nature, but

wielding them in a fashion impossible to man; and second, that the

phrase translated "Red Sea"[25] (xiii. 18, xv. 4) is the same which is

confessed by all persons to have that meaning in chap. xxiii. 31, and in

Numbers xxi. 4 and xxxiii. 10.

Checked, without loss or with it, they were bidden to "turn back," and

encamp at Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea. And since Migdol is

simply a watch-tower (there were several in the Holy Land, including

that which gave her name to Mary Magdal-ene), we are to infer that from

thence their inexplicable movements were signalled back to Pharaoh. It

was the natural signal for all the wild passions of a baffled and

half-ruined tyrant to leap into flame. We are scarcely able to imagine

the mental condition of men who conceived that a God Who had dealt out

death and destruction might be far from invincible from another side.

But ages after this, a campaign was planned upon the ingenious theory

that "Jehovah is a god of the hills but He is not a god of the valleys"

(1 Kings xx. 28); and plenty of people who would scorn this simple

notion are still of opinion that He is a God of eternity and can save

them from hell, but a little falsehood and knavery are much better able

to save them from want in the meanwhile. Nay, there are many excellent

persons who are not at all of opinion that the prince of this world has

been dethroned.

Therefore, when his enemies recoiled from his fortresses and wandered

away into the wilderness of Egypt, entangling themselves hopelessly

between the sea, the mountains, and his own strongholds, it might well

appear to Pharaoh that Jehovah was not a warlike deity, that he himself

had now found out the weak point of his enemies, and could pursue and

overtake and satisfy his lust upon them. There is a significant emphasis

in the song of Miriam's triumph--"Jehovah is a man of war." At all

events, it was through an imperfect sense of the universal and practical

importance of Jehovah as a factor not to be neglected in his

calculations, through exactly the same error which misleads every man

who postpones religion, or limits the range of its influence in his

daily life,--it was thus, and not through any rarer infatuation, that

Pharaoh made ready six hundred chosen chariots and all the chariots of

Egypt, and captains over all of them. And his court was of the same

mind, saying, "What is this that we have done, that we have let Israel

go from serving us?"

These words are hard to reconcile with the strange notion that until now

a return after three days was expected, despite the torrent of blood

which rolled between them, and the demands by which the Israelitish

women had spoiled the Egyptians. Upon this theory it is not their own

error, but the bad faith of their servants, which they should have cried

out against.

At the sight of the army, a panic seized the servile hearts of the

fugitives. First they cried out unto the Lord. But how possible it is,

without any real faith, to address to Heaven the mere clamours of our

alarm, and to mistake natural agitation for earnestness in prayer, we

learn by the reproaches with which, after thus crying to the Lord, they

assailed His servant. Were there no graves in that land of superb

sepulchres--that land, now, of universal mourning? Would God that they

had perished with the firstborn! Why had they been treated thus? Had

they not urged Moses to let them alone, that they might serve the

Egyptians?

And yet these men had lately, for the very promise of so much

emancipation as they now enjoyed, bowed their heads in adoring

thankfulness. As it was their fear which now took the form of

supplication, so then it was their hope which took the form of praise.

And we, how shall we know whether that in us which seems to be religious

gladness and religious grief, is mere emotion, or is truly sacred? By

watching whether worship and love continue, when emotion has spent its

force, or has gone round, like the wind, to another quarter.

How did Moses feel when this outcry told him of the unworthiness and

cowardice of the nation of his heart? Much as we feel, perhaps, when we

see the frailties and failures of converts in the mission-field, and the

lapse of the intemperate who have seemed to be reclaimed for ever. We

thought that perfection was to be reached at a bound. Now we think that

the whole work was unreal. Both extremes are wrong: we have much to

learn from the failures of that ancient church, in which was the germ of

hero, psalmist, and prophet, which was indeed the church in the

wilderness, and whose many relapses were so tenderly borne with by God

and His messenger.

The settled faith of Moses, and the assurances which he could give the

agitated people,[26] contrast nobly with their alarm. But his confidence

also had its secret springs in prayer, for the Lord said to him,

"Wherefore criest thou unto Me? speak unto the children of Israel that

they go forward."

The words are remarkable on two accounts. Can prayer ever be out of

place? Not if we mean a prayerful dependent mental attitude toward God.

But certainly, yes, if God has already revealed that for which we still

importune Him, and we are secretly disquieted lest His promise should

fail. It is misplaced if our own duty has to be done, and we pass the

golden moments in inactivity, however pious. Christ spoke of men who

should leave their gift before the altar, unpresented, because of a

neglected duty which should be discharged. And perhaps there are men who

pray for the conversion of the heathen, or of friends at home, to whom

God says, Wherefore criest thou unto Me? because their money and their

faithful efforts must be given, as Moses must arouse himself to lead the

people forward, and to stretch his wand over the sea.

And again the forces of nature are on the side of God: the strong wind

makes the depths of the sea a way for the ransomed to pass over. History

has no scene more picturesque than this wild night march, in the roar of

tempest, amid the flying foam which "baptized" them unto Moses,[27]

while the glimmering waters stood up like a rampart to protect their

flanks; the full moon of passover above them, shown and hidden as the

swift clouds raced before the storm, while high and steadfast overhead,

unshaken by the fiercest blast, illumined by a mysterious splendour,

"stood" the vast cloud which veiled like a curtain their whole host from

the pursuer. This it was, and the experience of such protection that the

Egyptians, overawed, came not near them, which gave them courage to

enter the bed of the sea; and as they trod the strange road they found

that not only were the waters driven off the surface, but the sands were

left firm to traverse.

But when the blind fury of Pharaoh, "hardened" against everything but

the sense that his prey was escaping, sent his army along the same

track, and this after long delay, at a crisis when every moment was

priceless, then a new element of terrible sublimity was added. Through

the pillar of cloud and fire Jehovah looked forth on the Egyptian host,

as they pressed on behind, unable to penetrate the supernatural gloom,

cold fear creeping into every heart, while the chariot wheels laboured

heavily in the wet sand. In that direful vision at last the question was

answered, "Who is Jehovah, that I should let His people go?" Now it was

the turn of those who said "Israel is entangled in the land, the

wilderness hath shut them in," themselves to be taken in a worse net.

For at that awful gaze the iron curb of military discipline gave way;

their labouring chariots, the pride and defence of the nation, were

forsaken; and a wild cry broke out, "Let us fly from the face of Israel,

for Jehovah"--He who plagued us--"fighteth for them against the

Egyptians." But their humiliation came too late,--for in the morning

watch, at a natural time for atmospheric changes, but in obedience to

the rod of Moses, the furious wind veered or fell, and the sea returned

to its accustomed limits; and first, as the sands beneath became

saturated, the chariots were overturned and the mail-clad charioteers

went down "like lead," and then the hissing line of foam raced forward

and closed around and over the shrieking mob which was the pride and

strength of Egypt only an hour before.

But, as the story repeats twice over, with a very natural and glad

reiteration, "the children of Israel walked on dry land in the midst of

the sea, and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand, and

on their left" (ver. 29, cf. 22).

_ON THE SHORE._

xiv. 30, 31.

After the haste and agitation of their marvellous deliverance the

children of Israel seem to have halted for awhile at the only spot in

the neighbourhood where there is water, known as the Ayoun Musa or

springs of Moses to this day. There they doubtless brought into some

permanent shape their rudimentary organisation. There, too, their

impressions were given time to deepen. They "saw the Egyptians dead on

the sea-shore," and realised that their oppression was indeed at an end,

their chains broken, themselves introduced into a new life,--"baptized

unto Moses." They reflected upon the difference between all other

deities and the God of their fathers, Who, in that deadly crisis, had

looked upon them and their tyrants out of the fiery pillar. "They feared

Jehovah, and they believed in Jehovah and in His servant Moses."

"They believed in Jehovah." This expression is noteworthy, because they

had all believed in Him already. "By faith 'they' forsook Egypt. By

faith 'they' kept the passover and the sprinkling of blood. By faith

'they' passed through the Red Sea." But their former trust was poor and

wavering compared with that which filled their bosoms now. So the

disciples followed Jesus because they believed on Him; yet when His

first miracle manifested forth His glory, "His disciples believed on Him

there." And again they said, "By this we believe that Thou camest forth

from God." And after the resurrection He said, "Because thou hast seen

Me thou hast believed" (John ii. 11, xvi. 30, xx. 29). Faith needs to be

edified by successive experiences, as the enthusiasm of a recruit is

converted into the disciplined valour of the veteran. From each new

crisis of the spiritual life the soul should obtain new powers. And that

is a shallow and unstable religion which is content with the level of

its initial act of faith (however genuine and however important), and

seeks not to go from strength to strength.

FOOTNOTES:

[25] The Sea of Zuph, or reeds, the word being used of the reeds in

which Moses was laid by his mother and found by Pharaoh's daughter (ii.

3, 5), rendered "flags" in the Revised Version.

[26] But his assurance is, "The Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall

hold your peace." When Wellhausen would summarise the work of Moses, he

tells us that "he taught them to regard self-assertion against the

Egyptians as an article of religion" (_History_, p. 430). It would be

impossible, within the compass of so many words, more completely to miss

the remarkable characteristic which differentiates this whole narrative

from all other revolutionary movements. Expectancy and dependence here

take the place of "self-assertion."

[27] Not the adults only; nor yet by immersion, whether in the

rain-cloud or the surf.

CHAPTER XV.

_THE SONG OF MOSES._

xv. 1-22.

During this halt they prepared that great song of triumph which St. John

heard sung by them who had been victorious over the beast, standing by

the sea of glass, having the harps of God. For by that calmer sea,

triumphant over a deadlier persecution, they still found their adoration

and joy expressed in this earliest chant of sacred victory. Because all

holy hearts give like thanks to Him Who sitteth upon the throne,

therefore "deep answers unto deep," and every great crisis in the

history of the Church has legacies for all time and for eternity; and

therefore the triumphant song of Moses the servant of God enriches the

worship of heaven, as the penitence and hope and joy of David enrich the

worship of the Church on earth (Rev. xv. 3).

Like all great poetry, this song is best enjoyed when it is neither

commented upon nor paraphrased, but carefully read and warmly felt.

There are circumstances and lines of thought which it is desirable to

point out, but only as a preparation, not a substitute, for the

submission of a docile mind to the influence of the inspired poem

itself. It is unquestionably archaic. The parallelism of Hebrew verse is

already here, but the structure is more free and unartificial than that

of later poetry; and many ancient words, and words of Egyptian

derivation, authenticate its origin. So does the description of Miriam,

in the fifteenth verse, as "the prophetess, the sister of Aaron." In

what later time would she not rather have been called the sister of

Moses? But from the lonely youth who found Aaron and Miriam together as

often as he stole from the palace to his real home--the lonely man who

regained both together when he returned from forty years of exile, and

who sometimes found them united in opposition to his authority (Num.

xii. 1, 2)--from Moses alone the epithet is entirely natural.

It is also noteworthy that Philistia is mentioned first among the foes

who shall be terrified (ver. 14, R.V.), because Moses still expected the

invasion to break first on them. But the unbelieving fears of Israel

changed the route, so that no later poet would have set them in the

forefront of his song. Thus also the terror of the Edomites is

anticipated, although in fact they sturdily refused a passage to Israel

through their land (Num. xx. 20). All this authenticates the song, which

thereupon establishes the miraculous deliverance that inspired it.

The song is divided into two parts. Up to the end of the twelfth verse

it is historical: the remainder expresses the high hopes inspired by

this great experience. Nothing now seems impossible: the fiercest tribes

of Palestine and the desert may be despised, for their own terror will

suffice to "melt" them; and Israel may already reckon itself to be

guided into the holy habitation (ver. 13).

The former part is again subdivided, by a noble and instinctive art,

into two very unequal sections. With amplitude of triumphant adoration,

the first ten verses tell the same story which the eleventh and twelfth

compress into epigrammatical vigour and terseness. To appreciate the

power of the composition, one should read the fourth, fifth, and sixth

verses, and turn immediately to the twelfth.

Each of these three divisions closes in praise, and as in the "Israel in

Egypt," it was probably at these points that the voices of Miriam and

the women broke in, repeating the first verse of the ode as a refrain

(vers. 1 and 21). It is the earliest recognition of the place of women

in public worship. And it leads us to remark that the whole service was

responsive. Moses and the men are answered by Miriam and the women,

bearing timbrels in their hands; for although instrumental music had

been sorely misused in Egypt, that was no reason why it should be

excluded now. Those who condemn the use of instruments in Christian

worship virtually contend that Jesus has, in this respect, narrowed the

liberty of the Church, and that a potent method of expression, known to

man, must not be consecrated to the honour of God. And they make the

present time unlike the past, and also unlike what is revealed of the

future state.

Moreover there was movement, as in very many ancient religious services,

within and without the pale of revelation.[28] Such dances were

generally slow and graceful; yet the motion and the clang of metal, and

the vast multitudes congregated, must be taken into account, if we would

realise the strange enthusiasm of the emancipated host, looking over the

blue sea to Egypt, defeated and twice bereaved, and forward to the

desert wilds of freedom.

The poem is steeped in a sense of gratitude. In the great deliverance

man has borne no part. It is Jehovah Who has triumphed gloriously, and

cast the horse and charioteer--there was no "rider"--into the sea. And

this is repeated again and again by the women as their response, in the

deepening passion of the ode. "With the breath of His nostrils the

waters were piled up.... He blew with His wind and the sea covered

them." And such is indeed the only possible explanation of the Exodus,

so that whoever rejects the miracle is beset with countless

difficulties. One of these is the fact that Moses, their immortal

leader, has no martial renown whatever. Hebrew poetry is well able to

combine gratitude to God with honour to the men of Zebulun who

jeopardised their lives unto the death, to Jael who put her hand to the

nail, to Saul and Jonathan who were swifter than eagles and stronger

than lions. Joshua and David can win fame without dishonour to God. Why

is it that here alone no mention is made of human agency, except that,

in fact, at the outset of their national existence, they were shown,

once for all, the direct interposition of their God?

From gratitude springs trust: the great lesson is learned that man has

an interest in the Divine power. "My strength and song is Jah," says the

second verse, using that abbreviated form of the covenant name Jehovah,

which David also frequently associated with his victories. "And He is

become my salvation." It is the same word as when, a little while ago,

the trembling people were bidden to stand still and see the salvation of

God. They have seen it now. Now they give the word Salvation for the

first time to the Lord as an appellation, and as such it is destined to

endure. The Psalmist learns to call Him so, not only when he reproduces

this verse word for word (Ps. cxviii. 14), but also when he says, "He

only is my rock and my salvation" (lxii. 2), and prays, "Before Ephraim,

Benjamin, and Manasseh, come for salvation to us" (lxxx. 2).

And the same title is known also to Isaiah, who says, "Behold God is my

salvation," and "Be Thou their arm every morning, our salvation also in

the time of trouble" (Isa. xii. 2, xxxiii. 2).

The progress is natural from experience of goodness to appropriation: He

has helped me: He gives Himself to me; and from that again to love and

trust, for He has always been the same: "my father," not my ancestors in

general, but he whom I knew best and remember most tenderly, found Him

the same Helper. And then love prompts to some return. My goodness

extendeth not to Him, yet my voice can honour Him; I will praise Him, I

will exalt His name. Now, this is the very spirit of evangelical

obedience, the life-blood of the new dispensation racing in the veins of

the old.

Where praise and exaltation are a spontaneous instinct, there is loyal

service and every good work, not rendered by a hireling but a child. Had

He not said, "Israel is My son"?

From exultant gratitude and trust, what is next to spring? That which is

reproachfully called anthropomorphism, something which indeed easily

degenerates into unworthy notions of a God limited by such restraints or

warped by such passions as our own, yet which is after all a great

advance towards true and holy thoughts of Him Who made man after His

image and in His likeness.

Human affection cannot go forth to God without believing that like

affection meets and responds to it. If He is indeed the best and purest,

we must think of Him as sharing all that is best and purest in our

souls, all that we owe to His inspiring Spirit.

"So through the thunder comes a human voice,

Saying 'O heart I made, a heart beats here.'"

If ever any religion was sternly jealous of the Divine prerogatives,

profoundly conscious of the incommunicable dignity of the Lord our God

Who is one Lord, it was the Jewish religion. Yet when Jesus was charged

with making Himself God, He could appeal to the doctrine of their own

Scripture--that the judges of the people exercised so divine a function,

and could claim such divine support, that God Himself spoke through

them, and found representatives in them. "Is it not written in your law,

I said Ye are gods?" (John x. 34). Not in vain did He appeal to such

scriptures--and there are many such--to vindicate His doctrine. For man

is never lifted above himself, but God in the same degree stoops towards

us, and identifies Himself with us and our concerns. Who then shall

limit His condescension? What ground in reason or revelation can be

taken up for denying that it may be perfect, that it may develop into a

permanent union of God with the creature whom He inspired with His own

breath? It is by such steps that the Old Testament prepared Israel for

the Incarnation. Since the Incarnation we have actually needed help from

the other side, to prevent us from humanising our conceptions over-much.

And this has been provided in the ever-expanding views of His creation

given to us by science, which tell us that if He draws nigh to us it is

from heights formerly undreamed of. Now, such a step as we have been

considering is taken unawares in the bold phrase "Jehovah is a man of

war." For in the original, as in the English, this includes the

assertion "Jehovah is a man." Of course it is only a bold figure. But

such a figure prepares the mind for new light, suggesting more than it

logically asserts.

The phrase is more striking when we remember that remarkable peculiarity

of the Exodus and its revelations which has been already pointed out.

Elsewhere God appears in human likeness. To Abraham it was so, just

before, and to Manoah soon afterwards. Ezekiel saw upon the likeness of

the throne the likeness of the appearance of a man (Ezek. i. 26). But

Israel saw no similitude, only he heard a voice. This was obviously a

safeguard against idolatry. And it makes the words more noteworthy,

"Jehovah is a man of war," marching with us, our champion, into the

battle. And we know Him as our fathers knew Him not,--"Jehovah is His

name."

* * * * *

The poem next describes the overthrow of the enemy: the heavy plunge of

men in armour into the deeps, the arm of the Lord dashing them in

pieces, His "fire" consuming them, while the blast of His nostrils is

the storm which "piles up" the waters, solid as a wall of ice,

"congealed in the heart of the sea." Then the singers exultantly

rehearse the short panting eager phrases, full of greedy expectation, of

the enemy breathless in pursuit--a passage well remembered by Deborah,

when her triumphant song closed by an insulting repetition of the vain

calculations of the mother of Sisera and "her wise ladies."

The eleventh verse is remarkable as being the first announcement of the

holiness of God. "Who is like unto Thee, glorious in holiness?" And

what does holiness mean? The Hebrew word is apparently suggestive of

"brightness," and the two ideas are coupled by Isaiah (x. 17): "The

Light of Israel shall be for a fire, and his Holy One for a flame."

There is indeed something in the purity of light, in its absolute

immunity from stain--no passive cleanness, as of the sand upon the

shore, but intense and vital--and in its remoteness from the conditions

of common material substances, that well expresses and typifies the

lofty and awful quality which separates holiness from mere virtue. "God

is called the Holy One because He is altogether pure, the clear and

spotless Light; so that in the idea of the holiness of God there are

embodied the absolute moral purity and perfection of the Divine nature,

and His unclouded glory" (Keil, _Pent._, ii. 99). In this thought there

is already involved separation, a lofty remoteness.

And when holiness is attributed to man, it never means innocence, nor

even virtue, merely as such. It is always a derived attribute: it is

reflected upon us, like light upon our planet; and like consecration, it

speaks not of man in himself, but in his relation to God. It expresses a

kind of separation to God, and thus it can reach to lifeless things

which bear a true relation to the Divine. The seventh day is thus

"hallowed." It is the very name of the "Holy Place," the "Sanctuary."

And the ground where Moses was to stand unshod beside the burning bush

was pronounced "holy," not by any concession to human weakness, but by

the direct teaching of God. Very inseparable from all true holiness is

separation from what is common and unclean. Holy men may be involved in

the duties of active life; but only on condition that in their bosom

shall be some inner shrine, whither the din of worldliness never

penetrates, and where the lamp of God does not go out.

It is a solemn truth that a kind of inverted holiness is known to

Scripture. Men "sanctify themselves" (it is this very word), "and purify

themselves to go into the gardens, ... eating swine's flesh and the

abomination and the mouse" (Isa. lxvi. 17). The same word is also used

to declare that the whole fruit of a vineyard sown with two kinds of

fruit shall be _forfeited_ (Deut. xxii. 9), although the notion there is

of something unnatural and therefore interdicted, which notion is

carried to the utmost extreme in another derivative from the same root,

expressing the most depraved of human beings.

Just so, the Greek word "anathema" means both "consecrated" and "marked

out for wrath" (Luke xxi. 5; 1 Cor. xvi. 22: the difference in form is

insignificant.) And so again our own tongue calls the saints "devoted,"

and speaks of the "devoted" head of the doomed sinner, being aware that

there is a "separation" in sin as really as in purity. The gods of the

heathen, like Jehovah, claimed an appropriate "holiness," sometimes

unspeakably degraded. They too were separated, and it was through long

lines of sphinxes, and many successive chambers, that the Egyptian

worshipper attained the shrine of some contemptible or hateful deity.

The religion which does not elevate depresses. But the holiness of

Jehovah is noble as that of light, incapable of defilement. "Who among

the gods is like Thee ... glorious in holiness?" And Israel soon learned

that the worshipper must become assimilated to his Ideal: "Ye shall be

holy men unto Me" (xxii. 31). It is so with us. Jesus is separated from

sinners. And we are to go forth unto Him out of the camp, bearing His

reproach (Heb. vii. 26, xiii. 13).

The remainder of the song is remarkable chiefly for the confidence with

which the future is inferred from the past. And the same argument runs

through all Scripture. As Moses sang, "Thou shalt bring them in and

plant them in the mountain of Thine inheritance," because "Thou

stretchedst out Thy right hand, the earth[29] swallowed" their enemies,

so David was sure that goodness and mercy should follow him all the days

of his life, because God was already leading him in green pastures and

beside still waters. And so St. Paul, knowing in Whom he had believed,

was persuaded that He was able to keep his deposit until that day (2

Tim. i. 12).

So should pardon and Scripture and the means of grace reassure every

doubting heart; for "if the Lord were pleased to kill us, He would not

have ... showed us all these things" (Judg. xiii. 23). And in theory,

and in good hours, we confess that this is so. But after our song of

triumph, if we come upon bitter waters we murmur; and if our bread fail,

we expect only to die in the wilderness.

_SHUR._

xv. 22-7.

From the Red Sea the Israelites marched into the wilderness of Shur--a

general name, of Egyptian origin, for the district between Egypt and

Palestine, of which Etham, given as their route in Numbers (xxxiii. 8),

is a subdivision. The rugged way led over stone and sand, with little

vegetation and no water. And the "three days' journey" to Marah, a

distance of thirty-three miles, was their first experience of absolute

hardship, for not even the curtain of miraculous cloud could prevent

them from suffering keenly by heat and thirst.

It was a period of disillusion. Fond dreams of ease and triumphant

progress, with every trouble miraculously smoothed away, had naturally

been excited by their late adventure. Their song had exulted in the

prospect that their enemies should melt away, and be as still as a

stone. But their difficulties did not melt away. The road was weary.

They found no water. They were still too much impressed by the miracle

at the Red Sea, and by the mysterious Presence overhead, for open

complaining to be heard along the route; but we may be sure that

reaction had set in, and there was many a sinking heart, as the dreary

route stretched on and on, and they realised that, however romantic the

main plan of their journey, the details might still be prosaic and

exacting. They sang praises unto Him. They soon forgat His works. Aching

with such disappointments, at last they reached the waters of Marah, and

they could not drink, for they were bitter.

And if Marah be indeed Huwara, as seems to be agreed, the waters are

still the worst in all the district. It was when the relief, so

confidently expected, failed, and the term of their sufferings appeared

to be indefinitely prolonged, that their self-control gave way, and they

"murmured against Moses, saying, What shall we drink?" And we may be

sure that wherever discontent and unbelief are working secret mischief

to the soul, some event, some disappointment or temptation, will find

the weak point, and the favourable moment of attack, just as the seeds

of disease find out the morbid constitution, and assail it.

Now, all this is profoundly instructive, because it is true to the

universal facts of human nature. When a man is promoted to unexpected

rank, or suddenly becomes rich, or reaches any other unlooked-for

elevation, he is apt to forget that life cannot, in any position, be a

romance throughout, a long thrill, a whole song at the top note of the

voice. Affection itself has a dangerous moment, when two united lives

begin to realise that even their union cannot banish aches and

anxieties, weariness and business cares. Well for them if they are

content with the power of love to sweeten what it cannot remove, as

loyal soldiers gladly sacrifice all things for the cause, and as Israel

should have been proud to endure forced marches under the cloudy banner

of its emancipating God.

As neither rank nor affection exempts men from the dust and tedium of

life, or from its disappointments, so neither does religion. When one is

"made happy" he expects life to be only a triumphal procession towards

Paradise, and he is startled when "now for a season, if need be, he is

in heaviness through manifold temptations." Yet Christ prayed not that

we should be taken out of the world. We are bidden to endure hardness as

good soldiers, and to run with patience the race which is set before us;

and these phrases indicate our need of the very qualities wherein Israel

failed. As yet the people murmured not ostensibly against God, but only

against Moses. But the estrangement of their hearts is plain, since they

made no appeal to God for relief, but assailed His agent and

representative. Yet they had not because they asked not, and relief was

found when Moses cried unto the Lord. Their leader was "faithful in all

his house"; and instead of upbraiding his followers with their

ingratitude, or bewailing the hard lot of all leaders of the multitude,

whose popularity neither merit nor service can long preserve unclouded,

he was content to look for sympathy and help where we too may find it.

We read that the Lord showed him a tree, which when he had cast into the

waters, the waters were made sweet. In this we discern the same union of

Divine grace with human energy and use of means, as in all medicine, and

indeed all uses of the divinely enlightened intellect of man. It would

have been easy to argue that the waters could only be healed by miracle,

and if God wrought a miracle what need was there of human labour? There

was need of obedience, and of the co-operation of the human will with

the divine. We shall see, in the case of the artificers of the

tabernacle, that God inspires even handicraftsmen as well as

theologians--being indeed the universal Light, the Giver of all good,

not only of Bibles, but of rain and fruitful seasons. But the artisan

must labour, and the farmer improve the soil.

Shall we say with the fathers that the tree cast into the waters

represents the cross of Christ? At least it is a type of the sweetening

and assuaging influences of religion--a new element, entering life, and

as well fitted to combine with it as medicinal bark with water, making

all wholesome and refreshing to the disappointed wayfarer, who found it

so bitter hitherto.

The Lord was not content with removing the grievance of the hour; He

drew closer the bonds between His people and Himself, to guard them

against another transgression of the kind: "there He made for them a

statute and an ordinance, and there He proved them." It is pure

assumption to pretend that this refers to another account of the giving

of the Jewish law, inconsistent with that in the twentieth chapter, and

placed at Marah instead of Sinai.[30] It is a transaction which

resembles much rather the promises given (and at various times, although

confusion and repetition cannot be inferred) to Abraham and Jacob (Gen.

xii. 1-3, xv. 1, 18-21, xvii. 1-14, xxii. 15-18, xxviii. 13-15, xxxv.

10-12). He said, "If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the

Lord thy God, and wilt do that which is right in His eyes, and wilt give

ear to His commandments, and wilt keep all His statutes, I will put none

of the diseases upon thee which I have put upon the Egyptians, for I am

the Lord which healeth thee." It is a compact of obedient trust on one

side, and protection on the other. If they felt their own sinfulness, it

asserted that He who had just healed the waters could also heal their

hearts. From the connection between these is perhaps derived the

comparison between human hearts and a fountain of sweet water or bitter

(Jas. iii. 11).

But certainly the promised protection takes an unexpected shape. What in

their circumstances leads to this specific offer of exemption from

certain foul diseases--"the boil of Egypt, and the emerods, and the

scurvy, and the itch, whereof thou canst not be healed" (Deut. xxviii.

27)? How does this meet the case? Doubtless by reminding them that there

are better exemptions than from hardship, and worse evils than

privations. If they do not realise this at the spiritual level, at least

they can appreciate the threat that "He will bring upon thee again all

the diseases of Egypt which thou wast afraid of" (Deut. xxviii. 60). To

be even a luxurious and imperial race, but infected by repulsive and

hopeless ailments, is not a desirable alternative. Now, such evils,

though certainly not in each individual, yet in a race, are the

punishments of non-natural conditions of life, such as make the blood

run slowly and unhealthily, and charge it with impure deposits. It was

God who put them upon the Egyptians.

If Israel would follow His guidance, and accept a somewhat austere

destiny, then the desert air and exercise, and even its privations,

would become the efficacious means for their exemption from the scourges

of indulgence. A time arrived when they looked back with remorse upon

crimes which forfeited their immunity, when the Lord said, "I have sent

among you the pestilence after the manner of Egypt; your young men have

I slain with the sword" (Amos iv. 10).

But it is a significant fact that at this day, after eighteen hundred

years of oppression, hardship, and persecution, of the ghetto and the

old-clothes trade, the Hebrew race is proverbially exempt from repulsive

and contagious disease. They also "certainly do enjoy immunity from the

ravages of cholera, fever and smallpox in a remarkable degree. Their

blood seems to be in a different condition from that of other people....

They seem less receptive of disease caused by blood poisoning than

others" (_Journal of Victoria Institute_, xxi. 307). Imperfect as was

their obedience, this covenant at least has been literally fulfilled to

them.

It is by such means that God is wont to reward His children. Most

commonly the seal of blessing from the skies is not rich fare, but bread

and fish by the lake side with the blessing of Christ upon them; not

removal from the desert, but a closer sense of the protection and

acceptance of Heaven, the nearness of a loving God, and with this, an

elevation and purification of the life, and of the body as well as of

the soul. Not in vain has St. Paul written "The Lord for the body." Nor

was there ever yet a race of men who accepted the covenant of God, and

lived in soberness, temperance and chastity, without a signal

improvement of the national physique, no longer unduly stimulated by

passion, jaded by indulgence, or relaxed by the satiety which resembles

but is not repose.

From Marah and its agitations there was a journey of but a few hours to

Elim, with its twelve fountains and seventy palm trees--a fair oasis, by

which they encamped and rested, while their flocks spread far and wide

over a grassy and luxuriant valley.

The picture is still true to the Christian life, with the Palace

Beautiful just beyond the lions, and the Delectable Mountains next after

Doubting Castle.

FOOTNOTES:

[28] There is no warrant in the use of Scripture for Stanley's assertion

that the word translated "dances" should be rendered "guitars." (Smith's

_Dict. of Bible_, Article _Miriam_.)

[29] This is to be taken literally; it does not mean the waves, but the

quicksands in which they "drave heavily," and which, when steeped in the

returning waters, engulfed them.

[30] Wellhausen, _Israel_, p. 439.

CHAPTER XVI.

_MURMURING FOR FOOD._

xvi. 1-14.

The Israelites were now led farther away from all the associations of

their accustomed life. From the waters and the palms of Elim they

marched deeper into the savage recesses of the desert, haunted by fierce

and hostile tribes, such as presently hung upon their rear-guard and cut

off their stragglers (Deut. xxv. 18). Nor had they quite emerged from

the shadow of their old oppressions, since Egyptian garrisons were

scattered, though sparsely, through this district, in which gems and

copper were obtained. Here, cut off from all natural modes of

sustenance, the hearts of the people failed them. Such is the frequent

experience of renewed souls, when privilege and joy are followed by

trouble from without or from within, and the peace of God is broken by

the strife of tongues, by mental perplexities, by temptations, by

physical pain. It is quite as wonderful that paltry disturbances should

mar for us the life divine, when once that life has become a realised

experience, as that men who moved under the shadow of the marvellous

cloud could be agitated by fear for their supplies. And of this our

experience, what befel Israel is not a mere type or symbol, it is a case

in point, a parallel example. For it also meant the breaking-in of the

flesh upon the spirit, the refusal of fallen nature to rise above

earthly wants and cravings even in the light of trust and acceptance,

the self-assertion of the baser instincts, and the sacrifice to them of

the higher life. We recognise the herd of slaves, from whence it must

perplex the unbeliever to remember that the seed of immortal heroism and

prophetic insight and apostolic service was yet to ripen, in their poor

desire, if they must perish, to perish well fed rather than emancipated

(ver. 3). Most people, we may fear, would choose to live enslaved rather

than to die free men. But there is a special meanness in their regret,

since die they must, that they had not died satiated, like the firstborn

whom God had slain: "Would that we had died by the hand of Jehovah in

the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh-pots and when we ate bread

to the full, for ye have brought us forth into this wilderness to kill

this whole assembly with hunger." And to-day, among those who scorn

them, how many are far less ambitious of dying holy and pure than rich,

famous or powerful, having glutted their vanity if not their appetite.

In the sight of angels this is not a much loftier aim; and the apostle

reckoned among the works of the flesh, emulation as well as drunkenness

(Gal. v. 19-21).

Tertullian draws a striking contrast between Israel, just now baptized

into Moses, but caring more for appetite than for God, and Christ, after

His baptism, also in the desert, fasting forty days. "The Lord

figuratively retorted upon Israel His reproach" (_Baptism_, xx.)

We are not to suppose that but for their complaining God would have

suffered them to hunger, although Moses declared that the reason why

flesh should be given to them in the evening, and in the morning bread

to the full, is "for that the Lord heareth your murmurings." But there

would have been some difference in the time of the grant, to ripen their

faith, some more direct manifestation of His grace, to reward their

patience, if unbelief had not precipitated His design. Thus the

disciples, when they awakened Jesus in the storm, received the rescue

for which they clamoured, but forfeited some higher experience which

would have crowned a serener confidence: "Wherefore did ye doubt?"

Israel receives what is best in the circumstances, rather than the ideal

best, now made unsuitable by their impatience and infidelity. But while

the Lord discontinued the test of need and penury, which had proved to

be too severe a discipline, He substituted the test of fulness. For we

read that the removal of their suspense and anxiety by the gift of manna

from heaven was "to prove them whether they will walk in My laws or no"

(ver. 4). And in so doing it was seen that worldly and unthankful

natures are not to be satisfied; that the disloyal at heart will

complain, however favoured. For "the children of Israel wept again and

said, Who will give us flesh to eat? We remember the fish which we did

eat in Egypt for nought, the cucumbers and the melons and the leeks and

the onions and the garlick: but now our soul is dried away; there is

nothing at all: we have nought save this manna to look to" (Num. xi.

4-6). Onions and garlick were more satisfactory to gross appetites than

angels' food.

At this point we learn that what is called prosperity may indeed be a

result of spiritual failure; that God may sometimes abstain from strong

measures with a soul because what ought to mould would only crush; and

may grant them their hearts' lust, yet send leanness withal into their

souls. Perhaps we are allowed to be comfortable because we are unfit to

be heroic.

And we also learn, when prosperous, to remember that plenty, equally

with want, has its moral aspect. The Lord tries fortunate men, whether

they will be grateful and obedient, trusting in Him and not in uncertain

riches, or whether they will forget Him who has done so great things for

them, and so perish in calm weather--

"Like ships that have gone down at sea

When heaven was all tranquillity."

There is an experiment being tried upon the soul, curious, slow,

little-suspected, but incessant, in the giving of daily bread.

In promising relief, God required of them obedience and self-control.

They were to respect the Sabbath, and make provision in advance for its

requirements. And this direction, given before the Mount of the Lord was

reached, has an important bearing upon the question whether the Fourth

Commandment was the first institution of a holy day--whether, except as

a Church ordinance, the duty of sabbath-keeping has no support beyond

the ceremonial law. "For that the Lord hath (already) given you the

Sabbath, therefore He giveth you on the sixth day the bread of two days"

(ver. 29).

While conveying the promise of relief, Moses and Aaron rebuked the

people, whose murmurs against them were in reality murmurs against God,

since they were but His agents, and He had been visibly their Leader.

And the same rebuke applies, for exactly the same reason, to many a

modern complaint against the weather, against what people call their

"luck," against a thousand provoking things in which the only possible

provocation must come directly from heaven. It is because our religion

is so shallow, and our consciousness of God in His world so dim and

rudimentary, that we utter such complaints idly, to relieve our

feelings, and hear them spoken without a shock.

Such dulness is not to be removed by sounder views of doctrine, but by a

more vivid realisation of God. The Israelites knew by what hand they

should have fallen if they had died in Egypt; yet in fact they forgot

their true Captain, and upbraided their mortal leaders. So do we confess

that afflictions arise not out of the ground, yet lose the impress of

divinity upon our daily lives, while we ought, like Moses, to "endure as

seeing Him who is invisible."

As our Lord was in the habit of asking for some confession, or demanding

some small co-operation from those He was about to bless, so the smoking

flax of Hebrew faith is tended: it is a promise, and not the actual

relief, which calms them. There is a curious difference in the manner of

the communications now made to the people. First of all the two brothers

unite their energies to hush their outcries: "At evening ye shall know

that Jehovah is your leader from Egypt, and in the morning ye shall

behold His glory; and what are we, that ye murmur against us?" Then

Moses affirms, with all the energy of his chieftainship, that in the

evening they shall eat flesh, and in the morning bread to the full.

Again he asks them "What are we?" and more sternly and directly charges

them with murmuring against Jehovah. And this is a good example of the

true meaning of his "meekness." He is fiery enough, but not for his own

greatness; rather because he feels his littleness, and that the offence

is entirely against God, does he resent their conduct; absence of

self-assertion is his "meekness," and thus we read of it when Miriam and

Aaron spake against him, declaring that they were commissioned as well

as he (Num. xii. 3). Finally, when order was restored, and some

mysterious manifestation was at hand, he resumed the solemn and formal

usage of conveying his orders through his brother, and in cold, compact,

impressive words, said unto Aaron, "Say unto all the congregation of the

children of Israel, Come near before the Lord, for He hath heard your

murmurings." All this is very dignified and natural. And so is--what

after ages could scarcely have invented--the impressive reticence of

what follows. "They looked toward the wilderness, and behold, the glory

of the Lord appeared in the cloud."

Were they not then intended to "come near"? and was it as they turned

their faces to draw nigh that the Vision revealed itself and stopped

them? And what was the untold sight which they beheld? The narrative

belongs to a primitive age; it is quite unlike the elaborate symbolisms

of Ezekiel and Daniel, or even of Isaiah, but yet this undescribed,

mystic and solitary glory is not less sublime than the train which

covered the Temple-floor, while, hovering above it, reverent seraphim

veiled their faces and their feet, or the terrible crystal and the

wheels of dreadful height, or the throne of flame whence issued a fiery

stream, and before which thousands of thousands and myriads of myriads

stood (Isa. vi. 2; Ezek. i. 22, 18; Dan. vii. 9, 10). But the point to

observe is that it is different, more primitive, an undefined and lonely

vision of awe well fitted for the desert wilds and for the gaze of men

whose hearts must not be misled by the likeness of anything in heaven or

earth; the glory of the Lord appearing in the cloud (most probably, but

not of necessity, the cloud which guided them), and in the direction

whence they were so fain to turn away.

No later inventor would have known how to say so little, much less to

make that little harmonise so exactly with the lessons meant to be

suggested by the wild and solemn solitudes into which they were now

plunged.

And now the Lord Himself repeats the promise of relief, but first

solemnly announces that He is not heedless of their ill-behaviour while

He tolerates it. The question is suggested, although not asked, How long

will His forbearance last?

Well for them if they learn the lesson, and "know that I am Jehovah your

God," mindful of their needs, entitled to their fealty. In the evening,

therefore, came a flight of quails; and in the morning they found a

small round thing, small as the hoar-frost, upon the ground.

_MANNA._

xvi. 15-36.

The manna which miraculously supplied the wants of Israel was to them an

utterly strange food, the use of which they had to learn. Thus it was

another means of severing their habitual course of life and association

of ideas from their degraded past. And while we may not press too far

the assertion that it was the "corn of heaven" and "angels' food"

(_i.e._ "the bread of the mighty"--Psalm lxxviii. 24-5, R.V.), yet the

narrative shows, even without help from later scriptures, that it was

calculated to sustain their energies and yet to leave their appetites

unstimulated and unpampered. For they were now called to purer joys

than those of the senses--to liberty, a divine vocation, the presence of

God, the revelation of His law and the unfolding of His purposes.

Failing to rise to these heights, they fell far, murmured again, and

perished by the destroyer, not merely to avenge the petulance of an

hour, but for all that it betrayed, for treason to their vocation and

radical inability to even comprehend its meaning. In the language of

modern science, it answered to Nature's rejection of the unfit.

Their calling was thus, though under very different forms, that which

the apostles found so hard, yet did not quite refuse: it was to mind the

things of God and not the things of men.

It is well known that the manna of the Israelites bore some resemblance

to a natural product of the wilderness, still exuded by certain plants

during the coolness of the night, and formerly more plentiful than now,

when all vegetation has been ruthlessly swept away by the Bedouin. But

the differences are much greater than the resemblance. The natural

product is a drug, and not a food; it is gathered only during some weeks

of summer; it is not liable to speedy corruption, nor could there be any

reason for preserving a specimen of this common product in the ark; it

could not have sufficed, however aided by their herds and flocks, to

feed one in a hundred of the Hebrew multitudes, even during the season

of its production; nor could it have ceased on the same day when they

ate the first ripe corn of Canaan.

And yet the resemblance is suggestive. Unbelievers find, in the links

which connect most of our Scripture miracles with nature, in the

undefined and gradual transition from one to the other, as from a

temperate day to night, an excuse for denying that they are miraculous

at all. But the instructed believer finds a confirmation of his faith.

He reflects that when Fancy begins to toy with the supernatural, she

spurns nature from her: the trammels under which she has long chafed are

hateful to her, and she flies from them to the utmost extreme.

It could not be thus with Him by whom the system of the world was

framed. He will not wantonly interfere with His own plan. He will regard

nature as an elastic band to stretch, rather than as a chain to break.

If He will multiply food, in the New Testament, that is no reason why

His disciples should fare more delicately than Providence intended for

them: they shall still eat barley loaves and fish. And so the winds help

to overthrow Pharaoh and to bring the quails; and when a new thing has

to be created, it approaches in its general idea to one of the few

natural products of that inhospitable region.

Now let it be supposed for a moment that the supply of manna had never

ceased, so that until this day men could every morning gather a day's

ration off the ground. Such continuance of the provision would not make

it any the less a gift; but only a more lavish boon. And yet it would

clearly cease to be regarded as miraculous, an exception to the course

of nature, miscalled her "laws," since men do strive to subvert the

miracle by representing that such manna, however scantily, may still be

found. And this may expose the folly of a wish, probably sometimes felt

by all men, that some miracle had actually been perpetuated, so that we

could strengthen our faith at pleasure by looking upon an exhibition of

divine power. In truth, no marvel could excel that which annually

multiplies the corn beneath the clod, and by the process of decay in

springtime feeds the world in autumn. Only its steady recurrence throws

a veil over our eyes; and it is a vain conceit that the same web would

not be woven by use between man and the Worker of any other marvel that

was perpetuated. Already the earth is full of the goodness of the Lord,

for all who have eyes to see.

It is also to be observed that the manna was not given to teach the

people sloth. They were obliged to gather it early, before the sun was

hot. They had still to endure weary marches, and the care of their

flocks and herds.

And, in curious harmony with the manner of all the gifts of nature, the

manna sent from heaven had yet to be prepared by man: "bake that which

ye will bake, and seethe that which ye will seethe." Thus God, by

natural means and by the sweat of our brow, gives us our daily bread;

and all knowledge, art and culture are His gifts, although elaborated by

the brain and heart of generations whom He taught.

Moreover, there was a protest against the grasping, unbelieving temper

which cannot trust God with to-morrow, but longs to have much goods laid

up. That is the temper which forfeits the smile of God, and grinds the

faces of the poor, to make an ignoble "provision" for the future. How

often, since the time of Moses, has the unblessed accumulation become

hateful! How often, since the time of St. James, the rust of such

possession has eaten the flesh like fire! Men would be far more

generous, the difference between wealth and poverty would be less

portentous, and the resources of religion and charity less crippled, if

we lived in the spirit of the Lord's prayer, desirous of the advance of

the kingdom, but not asking to be given to-morrow's bread until

to-morrow. That lesson was taught by the manner of the dispensation of

the manna, but the covetousness of Israel would not learn it. The people

actually strove to be dishonest in their enjoyment of a miracle. It is

no wonder that Moses was wroth with them.

Among the strange properties of their supernatural food not the least

curious was this: that when they came to measure what they had

collected, and compare it with what Moses had bidden,[31] the most eager

and able-bodied had nothing over, and the feeblest had no lack. Every

real worker was supplied, and none was glutted. This result is

apparently miraculous. St. Paul's use of it does not, as some have

supposed, represent it as a result of Hebrew benevolence, sharing with

the weak the more abundant supplies of the strong: the miracle is not

cited as an example of charity, but of that practical equality, divinely

approved, which Christian charity should reproduce; the Christian Church

is bidden to do voluntarily what was done by miracle in the wilderness:

"your abundance being a supply at this present time for their want, that

their abundance also may become a supply for your want, that there may

be equality; as it is written, He that gathered much had nothing over,

and he that gathered little had no lack" (2 Cor. viii. 15).

It is quite in vain to appeal to this passage in favour of socialistic

theories. In the first place it applies only to the necessities of

existence; and even granting that the state should enforce the

principle to which it points, the duty would not extend beyond a liberal

poor rate. When contributions were afterwards demanded for the

sanctuary, there is no trace of a dead level in their resources: the

rulers gave the gems and spices and oil, some brought gold, with some

were found blue and linen and skins, and others had acacia-wood to offer

(xxxv. 22-4).

In the second place, this arrangement was only temporary; and while the

soil of Canaan was distinctly claimed for the Lord, the enjoyment of it

by individuals was secured, and perpetuated in their families, by

stringent legislation. Now, land is the kind of property which

socialists most vehemently assail; but persons who appeal to Exodus must

submit to the authority of Judges.

Socialism, therefore, and its coercive measures, find no more real

sanction here than in the Church of Jerusalem, where the property of

Ananias was his own, and the price of it in his own power. But yet it is

highly significant that in both Testaments, as the Church of God starts

upon its career, an example should be given of the effacing of

inequalities, in the one case by miracle, in the other by such a

voluntary movement as best becomes the gospel. Is not such a movement,

large and free, the true remedy for our modern social distractions and

calamities? Would it not be wise and Christ-like for the rich to give,

as St. Paul taught the Corinthians to give, what the law could never

wisely exact from them? Would not self-denial, on a scale to imply real

sacrifice, and fulfilling in spirit rather than letter the apostle's

aspiration for "equality," secure in return the enthusiastic adhesion to

the rights of property of all that is best and noblest among the poor?

When will the world, or even the Church, awaken to the great truth that

our politics also need to be steeped in Christian feeling--that humanity

requires not a revolution but a pentecost--that a millennium cannot be

enacted, but will dawn whenever human bosoms are emptied of selfishness

and lust, and filled with brotherly kindness and compassion? Such, and

no more, was the socialism which St. Paul deduced from the equality in

the supply of manna.

_SPIRITUAL MEAT._

xvi. 15-36.

Since the journey of Israel is throughout full of sacred meaning, no one

can fail to discern a mystery in the silent ceaseless daily miracle of

bread-giving. But we are not left to our conjectures. St. Paul calls

manna "spiritual meat," not because it nourished the higher life (for

the eaters of it murmured for flesh, and were not estranged from their

lust), but because it answered to realities of the spiritual world (1

Cor. x. 3). And Christ Himself said, "It was not Moses that gave you the

bread out of heaven, but My Father giveth you the true Bread from

heaven," making manna the type of sustenance which the soul needs in the

wilderness, and which only God can give (John vi. 32).

We note the time of its bestowal. The soul has come forth out of its

bondage. Perhaps it imagines that emancipation is enough: all is won

when its chains are broken: there is to be no interval between the Egypt

of sin and the Promised Land of milk and honey and repose. Instead of

this serene attainment, it finds that the soul requires to be fed, and

no food is to be seen, but only a wilderness of scorching heat, dry

sand, vacancy, and hunger. Old things have passed away, but it is not

yet realised that all things have become new. Religion threatens to

become a vast system for the removal of accustomed indulgences and

enjoyments, but where is the recompense for all that it forbids? The

soul cries out for food: well for it if the cry be not faithless, nor

spoken to earthly chiefs alone!

There is a noteworthy distinction between the gift of manna and every

other recorded miracle of sustenance. In Eden the fruit of immortality

was ripening upon an earthly tree. The widow of Zarephath was fed from

her own stores. The ravens bore to Elijah ordinary bread and flesh; and

if an angel fed him, it was with a cake baken upon coals. Christ Himself

was content to multiply common bread and fish, and even after His

resurrection gave His apostles the fare to which they were accustomed.

Thus they learned that the divine life must be led amid the ordinary

conditions of mortality. Even the incarnation of Deity was wrought in

the likeness of sinful flesh. But yet the incarnation was the bringing

of a new life, a strange and unknown energy, to man.

And here, almost at the beginning of revelation, is typified, not the

homely conditions of the inner life, but its unearthly nature and

essence. Here is no multiplication of their own stores, no gift, like

the quails, of such meat as they were wont to gather. They asked "What

is it?" And this teaches the Christian that his sustenance is not of

this world. They were fed "with manna which they knew not ... to make

them know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that

proceedeth out of the mouth of God doth man live" (Deut. viii. 3). The

root of worldliness is not in this indulgence or that, in gay clothing

or an active career; but in the soul's endeavour to draw its nourishment

from things below. And spirituality belongs not to an uncouth

vocabulary, nor to the robes of any confraternity, to rigid rules or

austere deportment; it is the blessedness of a life nourished upon the

bread of heaven, and doomed to starve if that bread be not bestowed. Let

not the wealthy find an insuperable bar to spirituality in his

condition, nor the poor suppose that indigence cannot have its treasure

upon earth; but let each man ask whence come his most real and practical

impulses and energies upon life's journey. If these flow from even the

purest earthly source--love of wife or child, anything else than

communion with the Father of spirits, this is not the bread of life, and

can no more nourish a pilgrim towards eternity than the husks which

swine eat.

There is no mistaking the doctrine of the New Testament as to what this

bread may be. By prayer and faith, by ordinances and sacraments rightly

used, the manna may be gathered; but Jesus Himself is the Bread of life,

His Flesh is meat indeed and His Blood is drink indeed, and He gives His

Flesh for the life of the world. Christ is the Vine, and we are the

branches, fruitful only by the sap which flows from Him. As there are

diseases which cannot be overcome by powerful drugs, but by a generous

and wholesome dietary, so is it with the diseases of the soul--pride,

anger, selfishness, falsehood, lust. As the curse of sin is removed by

the faith which appropriates pardon, so its power is broken by the

steady personal acceptance of Christ; and our Bread and Wine are His new

humanity, given to us, until He becomes the second Father of the race,

which is begotten again in Him. An easy temper is not Christian

meekness; dislike to witness pain is not Christian love. All our

goodness must strike root deeper than in the sensibilities, must be

nourished by the communication to us of the mind which was in Christ

Jesus.

And this food is universally given, and universally suitable. The strong

and the weak, the aged chieftain and little children, ate and were

nourished. No stern decree excluded any member of the visible Church in

the wilderness from sharing the bread from heaven: they did eat the same

spiritual meat, provided only that they gathered it. Their part was to

be in earnest in accepting, and so is ours; but if we fail, whom shall

we blame except ourselves? In the mystery of its origin, in the silent

and secret mode of its descent from above, in the constancy of its

bestowal, and in its suitability for all the camp, for Moses and the

youngest child, the manna prefigured Christ.

Every day a fresh supply had to be laid up, and nothing could be held

over from the largest hoard. So it is with us: we must give ourselves to

Christ for ever, but we must ask Him daily to give Himself to us. The

richest experience, the purest aspiration, the humblest self-abandonment

that was ever felt, could not reach forward to supply the morrow. Past

graces will become loathsome if used instead of present supplies from

heaven. And the secret of many a scandalous fall is that the unhappy

soul grew self-confident: unlike St. Paul, he reckoned that he had

already attained; and thereupon the graces in which he trusted became

corrupt and vile.

The constant supply was not more needful than it was abundant. The manna

lay all around the camp: the Bread of Life is He who stands at our door

and knocks. Alas for those who murmur for grosser indulgences! Israel

demanded and obtained them; but while the flesh was in their nostrils

the angel of the Lord went forth and smote them. Is there no plague any

longer for the perverse? What are the discords that convulse families,

the uncurbed passions to which nothing is sacred, the jaded appetite and

weary discontent which hates the world even as it hates itself? what but

the judgment of God upon those who despise His provision, and must needs

gratify themselves? Be it our happiness, as it is our duty, to trust Him

to prepare our table before us, while He leads us to His Holy Land.

The Lord of the Sabbath already taught His people to respect His day.

Upon it no manna fell; and we shall hereafter see the bearing of this

incident upon the question whether the Sabbath is only an ordinance of

Judaism. Meanwhile they who went out to gather had a sharp lesson in the

difference between faith, which expects what God has promised, and

presumption, which hopes not to lose much by disobeying Him.

Lastly, an omer of manna was to be kept throughout all generations,

before the Testimony. Grateful remembrance of past mercies, temporal as

well as spiritual, was to connect itself with the deepest and most awful

mysteries of religion. So let it be with us. The bitter proverb that

eaten bread is soon forgotten must never be true of the Christian. He is

to remember all the way that the Lord his God hath led him. He is bidden

to "forget not all His benefits, Who forgiveth all thine iniquities, Who

healeth all thy diseases ... Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things."

So foolish is the slander that religion is too transcendental for the

common life of man.

FOOTNOTES:

[31] The "omer" of this passage is not mentioned elsewhere in Scripture:

it is known to have been the one-hundredth part of the homer with which

careless readers sometimes confuse it, and its capacity is variously

estimated, from somewhat under half a gallon to somewhat above

three-quarters.

CHAPTER XVII.

_MERIBAH._

xvii. 1-7.

The people, miraculously fed, are therefore called to exhibit more

confidence in God than hitherto, because much is required of him to whom

much is given. They have now to plunge deeper into the wilderness; and

after two stages which Exodus omits (Num. xxxiii. 12, 13), and just as

they approach the mount of God, they find themselves without water. Even

the Son of Man Himself was led into the wilderness next after the

descent of the Spirit, and the avowal by the voice of God; nor is any

true Christian to marvel if his seasons of special privilege are

succeeded by special demands upon his firmness.

One finds himself conjecturing, very often, what nobler history, what

grander analogies between type and antitype, what more gracious and

lavish interpositions might have instructed us, if only the type had

been less woefully imperfect--if Israel had been trustful as Moses was,

and the crude material had not marred the design.

It would be more practical and edifying to reflect how often we

ourselves, like Israel, might have learned and exemplified deep things

of the grace of God, when all we really exhibited was the well-worn

lesson of human frailty and divine forbearance.

In the story of our Lord, it has been observed that before the Pharisees

directly assailed Himself, they found fault with His disciples who

fasted not, or accosted them concerning Him Who ate with sinners. And so

here the people really tempted God, but openly "strove with Moses," and

with Aaron too, for the verb is a plural one: "Give _ye_ water" (ver.

2).

But as Aaron is merely an agent and spokesman, the chief value of this

tacit allusion to him, besides proving his fidelity, is to refute the

notion that he sinks into comparative obscurity only after the sin of

the golden calf. Already his position is one to be indicated rather than

expressed; and Moses said, "Why do ye quarrel with me? wherefore do ye

try the Lord?"

But the frenzy rose higher: it was he, and not a higher One, who had

brought them out of Egypt; the upshot of it would only be "to kill us,

and our children, and our cattle, with thirst."

Look closely at this expression, and a curious significance discloses

itself. Was it mere covetousness, the spirit of the Jew Shylock

lamenting in one breath his daughter and his ducats, which introduced

the cattle along with the children into this complaint of dying men?

Shylock himself, when death actually looked him in the face, readily

sacrificed his fortune. Nor is it credible that a large number of

people, really believing that a horrible death was imminent, would have

spent any complaints upon their property. The language is exactly that

of angry exaggeration. They have come through straits quite as

desperate, and they know it well. It is not the fear of death, but the

painful delay of rescue, the discomfort and misery of their condition in

the meanwhile, the contrast between their sufferings and their own

conception of the rights of the favourites of heaven, which is audible

in this complaint. And thus their "Trial" and "Quarrel" are admirably

epitomised in the phrase "Is Jehovah among us or not?" a phrase which

has often since been in the heart, if not upon the lips, of men who had

supposed the life divine to be one long holiday, the pilgrimage an

excursion, when without are fightings and within fears, when they have

great sorrow and heaviness in their hearts.

Because God is not a Judge, but a Father, the murmurs of Israel do not

prevent Him from showing mercy. Accordingly, when Moses prays, he is

bidden to go on before the people, bringing certain of their elders

along with him for witnesses of the marvel that was to follow. Such is

the Divine method. As soon as unbelief and discontent estranged the Jews

of the New Testament from Christ, He would not vulgarise His miracles,

nor do many mighty works among the unbelieving. After His resurrection

He appeared not unto all the people, but unto witnesses chosen before.

And as the Jews were chosen to bear witness to Him among the nations, so

were these elders now to bear witness among the Jews, who might without

their testimony have fallen into some such rationalising theory as that

of Tacitus, who says that Moses discovered a fountain by examining a

spot where wild asses lay.

With these witnesses, he is bidden to go to a rock in Horeb (so nearly

had these murmurers approached the scene of the most awful of all

manifestations of Him whose presence they debated), and there God was to

stand before them upon the rock, making His universal presence a

localised consciousness in their experience.

A true religion is progressive: every stage of it leans on the past and

sustains the future; and so Moses must bring with him "the rod,

wherewith thou smotest the river." The dullest can see the fitness of

this allusion. Among all the wonders which the shepherd's wand had

wrought, the mastery over the Nile, the plague which inflicted an

unwonted thirst upon the inhabitants of that well-watered field of Zoan,

was most to the purpose now. To kill and to make alive are the functions

of the same Being, and He Who spoiled the Egyptian river will now

refresh His heritage that is weary. At the touch of the prophetic wand

the waters poured forth which thenceforth supplied them through all

their desert wanderings.

Reserving the symbolic meaning of this event for a future study, we have

to remember meanwhile the warning which the apostle here discovered. All

the people drank of the rock, yet with many of them God was not pleased.

Privilege is one thing--acceptance is quite another; and it shall be

more tolerable at last for Sodom and Gomorrah than for nations, churches

and men, who were content to resemble soil that drinketh in the rain

that cometh upon it oft, and yet to remain unfruitful. Already the

conduct of Israel was such that the place was named from human

worthlessness rather than Divine beneficence. Too often, it is the more

conspicuous part of the story of the relations of God and man.

_AMALEK._

xvii. 8-16.

Nothing can be more natural, to those who remember the value of a

fountain in the East, than that Amalek should swoop down from his own

territories upon Israel, as soon as this abundant river tempted his

cupidity. This unprovoked attack of a kindred nation leads to another

advance in the education of the people.

They had hitherto been the sheep of God: now they must become His

warriors. At the Red Sea it was said to them, "Stand still, and see the

salvation of the Lord ... the Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall

hold your peace" (xiv. 13). But it is not so now. Just as the function

of every true miracle is to lead to a state of faith in which miracles

are not required; just as a mother reaches her hand to a tottering

infant, that presently the boy may go alone, so the Lord fought for

Israel, that Israel might learn to fight for the Lord. The herd of

slaves who came out of Egypt could not be trusted to stand fast in

battle; and what a defeat would have done with them we may judge by

their outcries at the very sight of Pharaoh. But now they had experience

of Divine succour, and had drawn the inspiring breath of freedom. And so

it was reasonable to expect that some chosen men of them at least will

be able to endure the shock of battle. And if so, it was a matter of the

last importance to develop and render conscious the national spirit, a

spirit so noble in its unselfish readiness to die, and in its scorn of

such material ills as anguish and mutilation compared with baseness and

dishonour, that the re-kindling of it in seasons of peril and conflict

is more than half a compensation for the horrors of a battle-field.

We do not now inquire what causes avail to justify the infliction and

endurance of those horrors. Probably they will vary from age to age; and

as the ties grow strong which bind mankind together, the rupture of them

will be regarded with an ever-deepening shudder,--just as England

to-day would certainly refuse to make war upon our American kinsmen for

a provocation which (rightly or wrongly) she would not endure from

Russians. But the point to be observed is that war cannot be inherently

immoral, since God instructed in war the first nation that He ever

trained, not using its experience of His immediate interpositions to

supersede all need of human strife, but to make valiant soldiers, and

adding some of the most precious lessons of all their later experience

on the battle-field and by the sword. Now, it assuredly cannot be shown

that anything in itself immoral is fostered and encouraged by the Old

Testament. Slavery and divorce, which it was not yet possible to

extirpate, were hampered, restricted, and reduced to a minimum, being

"suffered" "because of the hardness of 'their' hearts" (Matt. xix. 8).

The wildest assailant of the Pentateuch will scarcely pretend that it

fosters and incites either divorce or slavery, as, beyond all question,

it encourages the martial ardour of the Jews.

And yet war, though permissible, and in certain circumstances necessary,

is only necessary as the lesser of two evils; it is not in itself good.

Solomon, not David, could build the temple of the Lord; and Isaiah

sharply contrasts the Messiah with even that providentially appointed

conqueror, the only pagan who is called by God "My anointed," in that

the one comes upon rulers as upon mortar, and as the potter treadeth

clay, but the Other breaks not a bruised reed, nor quenches the smoking

flax (Isa. xli. 25, xlii. 3, xlv. 1). The ideal of humanity is peace,

and also it is happiness, but war may not yet have ceased to be a

necessity of life, sometimes as ruinous to evade as any other form of

suffering.

Another necessity of national development is the advancement of capable

men. The empire of Napoleon would assuredly have withered, if only

because its chief was as jealous of commanding genius as he was ready to

advance and patronise capacity of the second order. It is a maxim that

true greatness finds worthy colleagues and successors, and rejoices in

them. And while the guidance of Jehovah is to be assumed throughout, it

is significant that the first mention of the splendid commander and

godly judge, during all whose days and the days of his contemporaries

Israel served Jehovah, comes not in any express revelation or

commandment of God; but the narrative relates that Moses said unto

Joshua, "Choose out men for us and go out, fight with Amalek: to-morrow

I will stand on the top of the hill with the rod of God in my hand."

They are the words of one who had noted him already as "a man in whom is

the Spirit" (Num. xxvii. 18), of one also who had unlearned, in the

experience now of eighty years, the desire of glittering achievement and

martial fame, who knew that the deepest fountains of real power are

hidden, and was content that another should lead the headlong and

victorious charge, if only it were his to hold, upon the top of the

hill, the rod of God.

Once it was his own rod: with it the exiled shepherd controlled the

sheep of his master; that it should be the medium of the miraculous had

appeared to be an additional miracle, but now it was the very rod of

God, nor was any cry to heaven more eloquent and better grounded than

simply the reaching toward the skies, in long, steady, mute appeal, of

that symbol of all His dealings with them--the plaguing of Egypt, the

recession of the tide and its wild return, the bringing of water from

the rock. Was all to be in vain? Should the wild boar waste the vine

just brought out of Egypt before ever it reached the appointed vineyard?

And we also should be able to plead with God the noble works that He

hath done in our time. For us also there ought to be such experience as

worketh hope. As long as the exertion was possible even to the heroic

force which age had not abated, Moses thus prayed for his people; for

the gesture was a prayer, and a grand one, and must not be criticised

otherwise than as the act of a poetic and primitive genius, whose

institutions throughout are full of spiritual import. While he did this,

Israel prevailed; but the slow progress of the victory reminds us of

these dreary centuries during which we are just able to discern some

gradual advance of the kingdom of Christ on earth, but no rout, no

collapse of evil. And why was this? Because the sustaining and permanent

energy was not to flow from the prayers of one, however holy and however

eminent; three men were together in the mountain, and the co-operation

of them all was demanded; so that only when Aaron and Hur supported the

sinking hand of their chief was the decisive victory given.

Now, the lesson from all this does not concern the High-priestly

intercession of our Lord, for the office of Moses is consistently

distinguished from the priesthood. Nor can the notion be tolerated that

if our Lord requires mortal co-operation before asking and being given

the heathen for His heritage, which is obviously the case, the reason

can be at all expressed by that weakness which needed support.

No, the Lord our Priest is also Himself the dispenser of victory. To Him

all power is given on earth, and to Him it is our duty to appeal for

the triumph of His own cause. And here and there, doubtless, a

Christian heart is fervent and faithful in its intercessions. To these,

unknown, unsuspected by the combatants in the heat of battle,--to humble

saints, some of them bed-ridden, ignorant, poverty-stricken, despised,

holy souls who have no controversial skill, no missionary calling, but

who possess the grace habitually to convert their wishes into

prayers,--to such, perhaps, it is due that the idols of India and China

are now bowing down. And when they cease to be a minority in so doing,

when those who now criticise learn to sustain their flagging energies,

we shall see a day of the Lord.

Observe, however, that as the active exertion of the host does not

displace the silence of intercession, neither is it displaced itself:

Joshua really bore his part in the discomfiture of Amalek and his host.

And so it is always. The development of human energy to the uttermost is

a part of the design of Him Who gave a task even to unfallen man. Let

none suppose that to labour is (sufficiently and by itself) to pray; but

also let none idly persuade himself that while energies and

responsibilities are his, to pray is sufficiently to labour.

Thus it came to pass that Israel won its first victory in battle.

Another step was taken toward the fulfilment of the promise to Abraham

to make of him a great nation; and also toward the gradual transference

of the national faith from a passive reliance in Divine interposition to

an abiding confidence in Divine help. Let it be clearly understood that

this latter is the nobler and the more mature faith.

With martial ardour, God took care to inculcate the sense of national

responsibility, without which warriors become no more than brigands. So

it was with Amalek: he had not been attacked or even menaced; he had

marched out from his own territories to assail an innocent and kindred

race ("then _came_ Amalek" ver. 8), and his attack had been cruel and

cowardly, he smote the hindmost, all that were feeble and in the rear,

when they were faint and weary, and he feared not God (Deut. xxv. 18).

Against all such tactics the wrath of God was denounced when, because of

them, Amalek was doomed to total extirpation.

Moses now built an altar, to imprint on the mind of the people this new

lesson. And he called it, "The Lord is my Banner," a title which called

the nation at once to valour and to obedience, which asserted that they

were an army, but a consecrated one.

* * * * *

Now let us ask whether this simple story is at all the kind of thing

which legend or myth would have created, for the first martial exploit

of Israel. The obscure part played by Moses is not what we would expect;

nor, even as a mediator, is the position of one whose arms must be held

up a very romantic conception. If the object is to inspire the Jews for

later struggles with more formidable foes, the story is ill-contrived,

for we read of no surprising force of Amalek, and no inspiriting exploit

of Joshua. Everything is as prosaic as the real course of events in this

poor world is wont to be. And on that account it is all the more useful

to us who live prosaic lives, and need the help of God among prosaic

circumstances.

CHAPTER XVIII.

_JETHRO._

xviii. 1-27.

The defeat of Amalek is followed by the visit of Jethro; the opposite

pole of the relation between Israel and the nations, the coming of the

Gentiles to his brightness. And already that is true which repeats

itself all through the history of the Church, that much secular wisdom,

the art of organisation, the structure and discipline of societies, may

be drawn from the experience and wisdom of the world.

Moses was under the special guidance of God, as really as any modern

enthusiast can claim to be. When he turned for aid or direction to

heaven, he was always answered. And yet he did not think scorn of the

counsel of his kinsman. And although eighty years had not dimmed the

fire of his eyes, nor wasted his strength, he neglected not the warning

which taught him to economise his force; not to waste on every paltry

dispute the attention and wisdom which could govern the new-born state.

Jethro is the kinsman, and probably the brother-in-law of Moses; for if

he were the father-in-law, and the same as Reuel in the second chapter,

why should a new name be introduced without any mark of identification?

When he hears of the emancipation of Israel from Egypt, he brings back

to Moses his two sons and Zipporah, who had been sent away, after the

angry scene at the circumcision of the younger, and before he entered

Egypt with his life in his hand. Now he was a great personage, the

leader of a new nation, and the conqueror of the proudest monarch in the

world. With what feelings would the wife and husband meet? We are told

nothing of their interview, nor have we any reason to qualify the

unfavourable impression produced by the circumstances of their parting,

by the schismatic worship founded by their grandchildren, and by the

loneliness implied in the very names of Gershom and

Eliezer--"A-stranger-there," and "God-a-Help."

But the relations between Moses and Jethro are charming, whether we look

at the obeisance rendered to the official minister of God by him whom

God had honoured so specially, by the prosperous man to the friend of

his adversity, or at the interest felt by the priest of Midian in all

the details of the great deliverance of which he had heard already, or

his joy in a Divine manifestation, probably not in all respects

according to the prejudices of his race, or his praise of Jehovah as

"greater than all gods, yea, in the thing wherein they dealt proudly

against them" (ver. 11, R.V.). The meaning of this phrase is either that

the gods were plagued in their own domains, or that Jehovah had finally

vanquished the Egyptians by the very element in which they were most

oppressive, as when Moses himself had been exposed to drown.

There is another expression, in the first verse, which deserves to be

remarked. How do the friends of a successful man think of the scenes in

which he has borne a memorable part? They chiefly think of them in

connection with their own hero. And amid all the story of the Exodus, in

which so little honour is given to the human actor, the one trace of

personal exultation is where it is most natural and becoming; it is in

the heart of his relative: "When Jethro ... heard of all that the Lord

had done _for Moses_ and for Israel."

We are told, with marked emphasis, that this Midianite, a priest, and

accustomed to act as such with Moses in his family, "took a

burnt-offering and sacrifices for God; and Aaron came, and all the

elders of Israel, to eat bread with Moses' father-in-law before God."

Nor can we doubt that the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, who laid

such stress upon the subordination of Abraham to Melchizedek, would have

discerned in the relative position of Jethro and Aaron another evidence

that the ascendency of the Aaronic priesthood was only temporary. We

shall hereafter see that priesthood is a function of redeemed humanity,

and that all limitations upon it were for a season, and due to human

shortcoming. But for this very reason (if there were no other) the chief

priest could only be He Who represents and embodies all humanity, in

Whom is neither Jew nor Greek, barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free,

because He is all and in all.

In the meantime, here is recognised, in the history of Israel, a Gentile

priesthood.

And, as at the passover, so now, the sacrifice to God is partaken of by

His people, who are conscious of acceptance by Him. Happy was the union

of innocent festivity with a sacramental recognition of God. It is the

same sentiment which was aimed at by the primitive Christian Church in

her feasts of love, genuine meals in the house of God, until licence and

appetite spoiled them, and the apostle asked "Have ye not houses to eat

and drink in?" (1 Cor. xi. 22). Shall there never come a time when the

victorious and pure Church of the latter days shall regain what we have

forfeited, when the doctrine of the consecration of what is called

"secular life" shall be embodied again in forms like these? It speaks to

us meanwhile in a form which is easily ridiculed (as in Lamb's

well-known essay), and yet singularly touching and edifying if rightly

considered, in the asking for a blessing upon our meals.

On the morrow, Jethro saw Moses, all day long, deciding the small

matters and great which needed already to be adjudicated for the nation.

He who had striven, without a commission, himself to smite the Egyptian

and lead out Israel, is the same self-reliant, heroic, not too discreet

person still.

But the true statesman and administrator is he who employs to the utmost

all the capabilities and energies of his subordinates. And Jethro made a

deep mark in history when he taught Moses the distinction between the

lawgiver and the judge, between him who sought from God and proclaimed

to the people the principles of justice and their form, and him who

applied the law to each problem as it arose.

"It is supposed, and with probability," writes Kalisch (_in loco_),

"that Alfred the Great, who was well versed in the Bible, based his own

Saxon constitution of sheriffs in counties, etc., on the example of the

Mosaic division (comp. _Bacon on English Government_, i. 70)." And thus

it may be that our own nation owes its free institutions almost directly

to the generous interest in the well-being of his relative, felt by an

Arabian priest, who cherished, amid the growth of idolatries all around

him, the primitive belief in God, and who rightly held that the first

qualifications of a capable judge were ability, and the fear of God,

truthfulness and hatred of unjust gain.

We learn from Deuteronomy (i. 9-15), that Moses allowed the people

themselves to elect these officials, who became not only their judges

but their captains.

From the whole of this narrative we see clearly that the intervention of

God for Israel is no more to be regarded as superseding the exercise of

human prudence and common-sense, than as dispensing with valour in the

repulse of Amalek, and with patience in journeying through the

wilderness.

THE TYPICAL BEARINGS OF THE HISTORY.

We are now about to pass from history to legislation. And this is a

convenient stage at which to pause, and ask how it comes to pass that

all this narrative is also, in some sense, an allegory. It is a

discussion full of pitfalls. Countless volumes of arbitrary and fanciful

interpretation have done their worst to discredit every attempt, however

cautious and sober, at finding more than the primary signification in

any narrative.[32] And whoever considers the reckless, violent and

inconsistent methods of the mystical commentators may be forgiven if he

recoils from occupying the ground which they have wasted, and contents

himself with simply drawing the lessons which the story directly

suggests.

But the New Testament does not warrant such a surrender. It tells us

that leaven answers to malice, and unleavened bread to sincerity; that

at the Red Sea the people were baptized; that the tabernacle and the

altar, the sacrifice and the priest, the mercy-seat and the manna, were

all types and shadows of abiding Christian realities.