Solomon 'blessed the congregation' when, in their name, he lifted up
his voice to bless the Lord, prayed that God would incline their hearts
to keep His law, and would maintain their cause, and exhorted them to
keep their hearts perfect with Him. We bless each other when we ask God
to bless, and when we draw each other nearer Him. Standing there in the
new Temple, with a united nation gathered before him, the cloud filling
the house, and peace resting on all his land to its farthest border,
the king looks back on the long road from Sinai and the desert, and
sums up the whole history in one sentence. The end has vindicated the
methods. There had been many a dark time when enemies had oppressed,
and many a hard-fought field had been stained with Israel's blood; but
all had tended to this calm hour, when Israel's multitudes were
gathered in worship, and their unguarded homes were safe. There had
been many heroes in the long line.
'Time would fail' him 'to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah; of
David and Samuel ... who ... turned to flight armies of aliens.' One
name alone is worthy to be named,--the name of the true Deliverer and
Monarch. It is the Lord who 'hath given rest unto His people.' We look
on the past most wisely when we see in it all the working of one mighty
Hand, and pass beyond the great names of history or the dear names
which have made the light of our homes, to the ever-living God, who
works through changing instruments; and 'the help that is done on
earth, He doeth it Himself.' We read the past most truly when we see in
all its vicissitudes God's unchanging faithfulness, and recognise that
the foes and sorrows which often pressed sore upon us were no breach of
His faithful promises, but either His loving chastisement for our
faithlessness, or His loving discipline meant to perfect our
characters. We read the past best from the vantage-ground of the
Temple. From its height we understand the lie of the land. Communion
with God explains much which is else inexplicable. Solomon's judgment
of Israel's checkered history will be our judgment of our own when we
stand in the higher courts of the heavenly home, and look from that
height upon all the way by which the Lord our God hath led us. In the
meantime, it is often a trial for faith to repeat these words; but the
blessing that comes from believing them true is worth the effort to
stifle our tears in order to say them.
II. Note the prayer for obedient hearts (verses 57, 58). The proper
subject-matter of this petition is 'that He may incline our hearts to
walk in His ways,' and God's presence is invoked as a means thereto.
The deepest desire of a truly religious soul is for the felt nearness
of God. That goes before all other blessings, and contains them all.
Nothing is so needful or so sweet as that The presence of God is the
absence of evil, the evil both of pain and of sin, as surely as the
rising sun is the routing of night's black hosts. 'The best of all is,
God is with us.' The prayer again looks back to the past, and asks that
the ancient experiences may be renewed. The generations of those who
trust in God are knit together, and the wonders of old time are capable
of repetition to-day. Faith can say with deeper meaning than the
Preacher, 'That which hath been is that which shall be.' However
varying may be the forms, the fact of a divine presence and help
according to need is invariable, and they that have gone before have
not exhausted the fountain, which will fill the vessel of the latest
comer as it did that of the first. How beautifully the abiding God and
the fleeting series of 'our fathers' is contrasted! A moment of
triumph, when some work, like that of building the Temple, which has
for ages been looked forward to, and into which the sacrifices and
aspirations of a long line of dead toilers are built, brings strongly
before all thoughtful men the continuity of a nation or a Church, and
the transiency of its individual members. It should suggest the abiding
God yet more strongly than it does the passing fathers. The mercy
remains the same, while the receivers change. The sunshine and the tree
are the same, though the leaves which glisten and grow in the light
have but one summer to live.
But Solomon desires that God may be with him and his people for one
specific purpose. Is it to bring outward prosperity, or to extend their
territory, or to give them victory? As in his choice in his dream, so
now, he asks, not for these things, but for an inward influence on
heart and will. What he wants most for himself and them is moral
conformity to God's will. All must be right if that be right. The
prayer implies that, without God's help, the heart will wander from the
paths of duty. The weakness of human nature, and the consequent
necessity for God's grace in order to obedience, were as deeply felt by
the devout men of the Old Testament as by Apostles. They are felt by
every man who has honestly tried to measure the sweep and inwardness of
God's law, and to realise it in life. We need go but a very short way
on the road to discover that temptations to diverge lie so thick on
either side, and that our feet grow weary so soon, that we shall make
but little progress without help from above.
The synonyms for the law are worthy of notice. Why are there so many of
these in the Old Testament? For the same reason that there are so many
for 'money' in English,--because those who made the language thought so
much about the thing, and delighted in it so much. As 'commandments,'
it was solemnly imposed by rightful authority, and obedience was
obligatory. The word rendered 'statutes' means something engraved, or
written, and recalls the tables inscribed by God's finger. 'Judgments'
are the divine decisions or sentences as to what is right, and
therefore the infallible clue to the else bewildering labyrinth. To
obey these commandments, to read that solemn writing, and to accept
these decisions as our guides, is man's perfection and blessedness; and
for that God's felt presence is indispensable.
III. Note the prayer for God's defence (verses 59, 60). The proper
subject-matter of this petition is that God would maintain the cause of
king and nation; and it is preceded by a petition that, to that end,
the preceding prayer may be answered, and is followed by the desire
that thereby the knowledge of God may fill the earth. The prayer for
outward blessings comes after the prayer for inward heart-obedience. Is
not that the right order? Our prayers need to be prayed for, and a true
desire is not contented with one utterance. To ask that what we have
asked may be given is no vain repetition, nor a sign of weak faith, or
undue anxiety. How bold the figure in asking that the prayer may lie
before God day and night, like some suppliant at the foot of His throne!
Note the grand aim of God's help of Israel,--the universal diffusion of
His name among all the peoples of the earth. Solomon understood the
divine vocation of Israel, and had risen above desiring blessings only
for his own or his subjects' sake. Later ages fell from that elevation
of feeling, and hugged their special privileges without a thought of
the obligations which they involved. God's choice of Israel was not
meant for the exclusion of the Gentiles, but as the means of
transmitting the knowledge of God to them. The one nation was chosen
that God's grace might fructify through it to all. The fire was
gathered into a hearth, that the whole house might be warmed. But
selfishness marred the divine plan, and Israel became a nonconductor,
and the privileges selfishly kept became corrupt; as the miser's corn
stored in his barns in famine breeds weevils. Christians need no more
solemn lesson of what comes from selfishly hoarding spiritual blessings
than the fate of Israel. God hath shined into our hearts, that we may
give to others who sit in the dark the light which we possess; and if
we fail to do so, the light will darken within us.
IV. The blessing ends with one brief, all-comprehensive charge to the
people, which seems based, by its 'therefore,' on the preceding thought
of Jehovah as the only God. The only attitude corresponding to His sole
and supreme Majesty is the entire devotion of heart, which leads to
thoroughgoing obedience to His commandments. The word rendered
'perfect' literally means 'entire' or 'sound,' and here expresses the
complete devotion of the whole nature. Solomon meant that it should be
complete, in contradistinction to any sidelong glances to idolatry. The
principle underlying that 'therefore' is that, God being what He is,
our only God and refuge, the only adequate hope and object of our
nature, we should give our whole selves to Him. We, too, are tempted to
bring Him divided hearts, and to carry some of our love and trust as
offerings at other shrines. But if there be 'one God, and none other
but He,' then to serve Him with all our heart and strength and mind is
the dictate of common sense, and the only service which He can accept,
or which can bring to our else distracted natures peace and
satisfaction. His voice to us is, 'My son, give Me thy whole heart.'
Our answer to Him should ever be that prayer, 'Lord, ... unite my heart
to fear Thy name.' A divided heart is misery. Partial trust is
distrust. 'Love me all in all, or not at all,' is the requirement of
all deep, human love; and shall God ask less than men and women ask
from and give to one another?
'THE MATTER OF A DAY IN ITS DAY'
'At all times, as the matter shall require.'--1 KINGS viii. 59.
I have ventured to diverge from my usual custom, and take this fragment
of a text because, in the forcible language of the original, it carries
some very important lessons. The margin of our Bible gives the literal
reading of the Hebrew; the sense, but not the vigorous idiom, of which
is conveyed in the paraphrase in our version. 'At all times, as the
matter shall require,' is, literally, 'the thing of a day in its day';
and that is the only limitation which this prayer of Solomon places
upon the petition that God would maintain the cause of His servants and
of His people Israel. The kingly suppliant got a glimpse of very great,
though very familiar, truths, and at that hour of spiritual
illumination, the very high-water mark of his relations to God--for I
suppose he was never half as good a man afterwards--he gave utterance
to the great thought that God's mercies come to us day by day,
according to the exigencies of the moment.
Now, I think that in the words 'the matter of a day in its day' we may
see both a principle in reference to God's gifts and a precept in
reference to our actions. Let us look at these two things.