Chapter XXI · THE LAST FOUR BOOKS OF THE PENTATEUCH: THEIR METHOD OF ARRANGEMENT AND SUBJECT-MATTER.

THE manner in which the last four of the five books of Moses are made up is peculiar and should have a moment’s special attention. Their striking peculiarity is the blending of matters pertaining to the religious system, to the civil code, and to the national history with no well defined order or method—the historic facts taking their place probably as they occurred and came before the writer, and the other topics being arranged quite miscellaneously. This method obviously indicates that the writer was not an author by profession—a mere writer and nothing else; but one who was pressed with the cares and burdens of public office; bearing the chief responsibilities for the constitution of the religious system with its elaborate ritual observances; for the civil code—its exact record and its judicial administration; and for the general government of the people—quelling disturbances; answering their complaints; supplying their wants; guiding their desert march, and directing their wars in defense against assailants. These books answer so perfectly to the circumstances of Moses as to leave no rational doubt that he was their author. Incidentally and most inadvertently they write out his daily history, showing us how he was occupied during those years when the events he narrates were transpiring. For the most part the record in these four books pertains to the first two years after Moses entered upon his great mission and the last two years before his death. There was a long interval between these periods of which nothing special is said.

Passing the first twenty chapters of Exodus which are history and follow the natural order of the events; and passing also the thrilling and solemn scenes of Sinai—the great work of Moses was to receive and record the statutes of the civil code, and the directions respecting their religious system, including the construction of the tabernacle; the services of the priests and Levites; the sacred festivals, and the whole ritual of worship. We are told how the long sessions of Moses with the Lord on the Mount were interrupted (Ex. 32–34) by the sin of the people in the matter of the golden calf; after which the record of the tabernacle—its construction, etc., is resumed and continued to the close of Exodus.

Leviticus, takes its name from Levi whose tribe furnished the line of priests and the servants for all the religious ritual. The first nine chapters record ritual observances and sacrifices; then the death of Nadab and Abihu, occurring, is recorded in its chronological place (chap. 10); after which the author resumes his main subject—things clean and unclean; purifications; the case of leprosy, etc. In connection with the consecration of the High Priest and his duties, we have (chap. 16) the very interesting description of the great day of atonement. Statutes of a civil character are interspersed with those which are religious (chap. 19, and 20, and 24); the great feasts are described (chap. 23); the Sabbatic year and the Jubilee (chap. 25); a chapter of moral warnings and admonitions (26); closing with one on special vows and consecrations (27).

The book of Numbers is named from the theme of its first two chapters—the census of the tribes. Another census was made during the last year of their wandering, viz. on the plains of Moab (chap. 26). It has also an itinerary of the journeyings of the people during their entire wilderness life (33). Several chapters are devoted to the religious ritual (none to the civil code); and several (more than in Leviticus) to historic events; e. g. the murmuring and the consequent plague at Taberah and Kibroth-hattaavah (chap. 11); the envy and sedition of Miriam (chap. 12); the case of the spies and the doom of the unbelieving (13 and 14); Korah and his doom (16). Then passing over to the last year of the wandering, we have the scenes at Kadesh—the murmuring for water and the sin of Moses for which God forbade his entering Canaan (20); a conflict of arms with Arad the Canaanite; the fiery serpents; the overthrow of Sihon and Og (21); Balaam and his prophecies (22–24); and other matters of miscellaneous character (25–36).

Deuteronomy—the name meaning the second law, i. e. the law repeated—takes this name from the fact that the book repeats portions of the civil code and also of the religious system. It also gives a resume (a brief summary) of the leading historical events of the Exodus, of Sinai, of the golden calf, and of the murmurings of the fathers in the early years of their wanderings. This book was manifestly written within the last one or two years of Moses’ life, when the scenes of the desert wandering were drawing to a close. Moses stood before the people, almost the only old man of the nation at the age of one hundred and twenty years, while all the rest (Caleb and Joshua excepted) were under twenty when they came out of Egypt, and not exceeding sixty at the writing of this book. “The fathers—where were they”! Fallen in death; smitten with the swift judgments of the Almighty for their murmurings or cut off in middle life during their wanderings, to which they were doomed for their unbelief upon the report of the spies. The nation, as they stood before Moses, were truly his children. How had he borne them on his parental heart for forty years; given them line upon line of statute and of ritual; shaping their civil life and their religious life; watching with the interest of a patriarch every development of their character; devoted with the deepest love of his heart to their moral culture.――Such was Moses and such were the people whom he addressed on the plains of Moab, with the words of sublime moral power, recorded in this book.

It is not my purpose to repeat the points of this history from Egypt and Sinai onward to that hour, which form the staple of Deut. 1–11. Let it suffice to say that Moses brings them forward here with more or less expansion of the details for the sole purpose of enforcing their moral application. He makes those historic facts the text for this most impressive sermon—the basis of a series of exhortations to holy living which well up from the depths of his parental, loving heart, and testify how deeply he sympathized with God and with the true interests of his covenant people. Most solemnly does he exhort them against the great sin of their times—idolatry; and implore them to remember the God of their fathers; the Giver of all their mercies; the God of their national salvation. As a specimen of the historic sermon, nothing can be more admirable, complete, and effective. Coming from such a patriarch, from one who had done and suffered so much for his countrymen; who had been admitted so freely into the deep counsels and sympathies of Israel’s God; who had been honored of God not only as the great law-giver, but also as the Savior and Deliverer of his nation—these words ought to have been listened to with profoundest attention. Let us hope they were truly wrought into the very souls of this generation. No one can read them attentively at this day without a quickened sense of the solemn relations which God establishes between himself and his covenant people in every age of time.

Of the statutes, mostly civil, in small part religious, which chiefly fill chap. 12–26, there is little occasion for special remark here. They have chiefly come under consideration in my treatment of the civil code of Israel. Some points are much more fully expanded here than in the previous books, e. g. the year of release (chap. 15: 1–11), the case of female captives (21: 10–14). There is some new matter; e. g. the war-law (20); the expiation for murder by unknown hands (21: 1–9); the case of partiality toward sons (21: 15–17) and to mention no more, the form of announcement and consecration with which the Hebrew worshiper was to bring before the Lord the first-fruits of his land, and also his tithes of the third year (chap. 26). These forms are instructive as giving us a just idea of the solemnities of Hebrew worship. Let us think of the Israelite coming up to Shiloh or to Jerusalem, say from the mountains of Ephraim or the pasture lands of Gilead, after the conquest and possession of Canaan, in obedience to the law here recorded, thus:

“That thou shalt take of the first of all the fruit of the earth, which thou shalt bring of thy land that the LORD thy God giveth thee, and shall put it in a basket, and shall go unto the place which the LORD thy God shall choose to place his name there. And thou shalt go unto the priest that shall be in those days, and say unto him, I profess this day unto the LORD thy God, that I am come unto the country which the LORD sware unto our fathers for to give us. And the priest shall take the basket out of thine hand, and set it down before the altar of the LORD thy God. And thou shalt speak and say before the LORD thy God, A Syrian46 ready to perish was my father; and he went down into Egypt, and sojourned there with a few, and became there a nation, great, mighty, and populous: and the Egyptians evil-entreated us, and afflicted us, and laid upon us hard bondage: and when we cried unto the LORD God of our fathers, the LORD heard our voice, and looked on our affliction, and our labor, and our oppression: and the LORD brought us forth out of Egypt with a mighty hand, and with an out-stretched arm, and with great terribleness, and with signs, and with wonders: and he hath brought us into this place, and hath given us this land, even a land that floweth with milk and honey. And now, behold, I have brought the first-fruits of the land, which thou, O LORD, hast given me. And thou shalt set it before the LORD thy God, and worship before the LORD thy God: and thou shalt rejoice in every good thing which the LORD thy God hath given unto thee, and unto thine house, thou, and the Levite, and the stranger that is among you” (vs. 2–11).

This offering, put so impressively upon its great historic grounds—the preservations and mercies with which God had crowned their nation in fulfilling the promises made to the national fathers, became no unmeaning service. All is instinct with life. Those children of the old patriarchs reposing under their vine and fig-tree in the land flowing with milk and honey had a wonderful history, and God meant to have their ritual of worship link itself continually with that history and take quickening impulses from those impressive associations.

Not less pertinent and impressive is the form of announcement and protestation for the service of “tithing the tithes of their increase the third year”—on this wise:

“When thou hast made an end of tithing all the tithes of thine increase the third year, which is the year of tithing, and hast given it unto the Levite, the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, that they may eat within thy gates, and be filled; then thou shalt say before the Lord thy God, I have brought away the hallowed things out of mine house, and also have given them unto the Levite, and unto the stranger, to the fatherless, and to the widow, according to all thy commandments which thou hast commanded me: I have not transgressed thy commandments, neither have I forgotten them: I have not eaten thereof in my mourning, neither have I taken away aught thereof for any unclean use, nor given aught thereof for the dead: but I have hearkened to the voice of the Lord my God, and have done according to all that thou hast commanded me.” (Deut. 26: 12–15).

――We must note with pleasure the fraternal and liberal spirit which this service cherished so effectively, remembering kindly the Levite, the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow: the Levite as the religious servant of the nation; the stranger as one but too often neglected and forsaken according to the impulses of man’s selfish nature, but one whom God remembered out of the depths of his fatherly care for the neglected and forlorn; the fatherless and the widow as those whose cup of affliction is sore and should commend them to every humane sympathy of the heart. Such treatment of the stranger would naturally bring most of them into the Hebrew communion as proselytes. Where else in all the earth could they expect such kindness and such inducements to build their family home?――This inside view of the institutions and usages of Hebrew thanksgiving worship remind us that God’s religion has a social side; forgets not man’s social nature, but provides for fraternal sympathy and for the ministrations of kindness and relief to all the children of want and sorrow.

This chapter (26) closes appropriately with the mutual relations between God and his people—they having solemnly declared [“avouched”] the Lord to be their God, and he on his part having in like manner declared them to be his people.

“The Prophet like unto Moses.”

From this point we turn back to consider a special prophecy (Deut. 18: 15–22), passed without notice in the rapid and general view taken of those chapters.

Moses is contemplating the state of the people located in Canaan; frequently brought into contact there with diviners, soothsayers, and magicians. The devoted nations of Canaan, he tells them, were rotten with those abominations; and for these sins the Lord drove them out before Israel. Addressing the Israelites, he tells them they shall not have the least occasion to resort to magic arts for superhuman knowledge or help.

“The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken; according to all that thou desiredst of the Lord thy God in Horeb in the day of the assembly, saying, Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God, neither let me see this great fire any more, that I die not. And the Lord said unto me, They have well spoken that which they have spoken. I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him. And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him. But the prophet, which shall presume to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other gods, even that prophet shall die” (Deut. 18: 15–20).

Here the great question will be—Is Jesus the Messiah predicted here?

The supposable theories are three:

1. That the passage treats of the Hebrew prophets only, and not of the Messiah;

2. Of the Messiah only, and not of the Hebrew prophets;

3. Of the Messiah primarily, yet not excluding the Hebrew prophets.

The reasons for including the Hebrew prophets lie in the connection of thought in which the passage stands; its relation to the magicians of Canaan, and to false prophets. The Lord says to the people through Moses: I do not leave you dependent on magicians; I give you prophets as I have given you Moses; they shall teach you my words from time to time as ye may need words from your God. Moreover, there will be counterfeit prophets coming up; but I will give you tests of their character, take heed to prove and reject them.――This close connection of thought demands some reference to the succession of Hebrew prophets.

On the other hand, the reasons for including the Messiah, and in fact for assuming a primary reference to him, lie in the use of the singular—“a prophet; one great Prophet;” and in his being compared to Moses—“like unto me.” Moses stood in many respects quite above the grade of the future Hebrew prophets, having none like him in the obvious sense of this comparison except Jesus.――This construction is greatly strengthened by the authority of the New Testament writers and of Jesus himself, who manifestly found here the real Messiah. See his words (Jn. 5: 46). “He [Moses] wrote of me.” (Compare Luke 24: 44.) Christ’s allusion to his words as having authority (Jn. 12: 48, 49) seem to refer to this passage (vs. 18, 19). “He that receiveth not my words hath one that judgeth him; the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day. For I have not spoken of myself, but the Father who hath sent me, he gave me a commandment what I should say,” etc.――The Lord said unto Moses—“I will put my words into his mouth, and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him, and whosoever shall not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him.”――The current opinion of the men taught by Christ finds in these words a prophecy of him. Philip (Jn. 1: 45) said: “We have found him of whom Moses in the law did write—Jesus of Nazareth.” Peter (Acts 3: 22, 23) cites this very passage as having been spoken truly by Moses and as being fulfilled in Christ. So also does Stephen (Acts 7: 37). The Samaritans also (as appears from Jn. 4: 25) found the Messiah here, since they received of the Old Testament scriptures the Pentateuch only. The circumstance that the Christ whom they expected would “teach them all things” points certainly to this prophecy rather than to prophecies from Genesis (e. g. 3: 15 or 49: 10).――Finally, the voice from the cloud at Christ’s transfiguration—“Hear ye him” (Mat. 17: 5) corresponds to the prominent point of this prophecy—“Unto him shall ye hearken” (v. 15). Moses (present at the transfiguration) must have recognized this identity.――These considerations compel us to find here a primary reference to the Messiah.

The full answer to the question: How can these words cover both the one great Prophet—the Messiah; and also the succession of Hebrew prophets?—will be found in these facts: That the spirit of Jesus was in all the old prophets; that they were his servants, bearing his messages; that he and they were parts of the same great system of divine revelation to men; and that Christ’s mission was at once the guaranty and pledge of theirs—their work being linked in with his as the natural consequent and adjunct. Comprehensively spoken of, the one great prophet included all the lesser prophets; the promise of the one embracing and implying the promise of all.

Chapter 27 provides for a special service to be performed after they are located in Canaan. The record of its fulfillment appears in Josh. 8: 30–35. The service was two-fold: first the writing of the law on large plastered stones: second, the proclamation of a series of blessings and also of curses in the presence of the whole people.

As to the first, it does not appear definitely how much was to be written upon these stones. Somewhat more probably than the ten commandments as written originally on two stone tablets; yet probably not all the statutes and judgments which appear in the last four books of Moses. Perhaps the writing included the curses and blessings proclaimed from Mounts Ebal and Gerizim.――The stones were great; the number is not given. The writing was done while the plaster was yet fresh and soft. When hardened it would stand for a considerable time. The purpose was rather present effect than permanent record—a solemn testimony that the people who had now taken possession of Canaan were in covenant with their God to obey this law.

Moses records in full the manner of the rehearsal of blessings and of curses: the blessings from Mt. Gerizim; the curses from Mt. Ebal: six tribes standing on the former and six on the latter: the Levites solemnly and in concert pronouncing the words, and the people in concert responding, Amen. Here may be seen the words of these blessings and curses (Deut. 27: 14–26, and 28: 1–6). The “curses” specify the sins, but the announcement of blessings, assuming in general obedience to God, simply enumerates the various good which the Lord will bestow.――The curses do not enumerate all the sins which might be committed nor all upon which curses would fall, but only some heinous crimes as specimens.――This service, performed with due solemnity, must have been impressive. The gathered thousands of Israel overspreading the contiguous mountains; the priests and Levites rehearsing with loud voice these fearful curses, and the people responding to each curse their expressive Amen:—how must every thoughtful heart have been thrilled, and every sensitive conscience recoiled from the sins thus terribly denounced!

Moses proceeds to expatiate through chapter 28 upon the blessings which should reward obedience, but especially upon the curses that must come upon disobedience. It would seem that this catalogue of curses has well-nigh exhausted the possibilities of calamity—personal, social, national—that can befall the children of men. Alas! this catalogue was fearfully prophetic of that avalanche of woes which came upon this same people in the destruction of their city and country, first by the Chaldeans; last and most fearfully, by the Romans. How were the vials of wrath through those agencies of God poured out upon the guilty people for their great iniquities!

In the two next chapters (29 and 30) Moses seems to gather up all the moral forces of the nation’s history into one fervent appeal to induce obedience and to press the people to most earnest consecration to the Lord their God. The great mercies of God upon them and their fathers on the one hand coupled with largest promises of good hereafter; on the other hand, the fearful curses impending over disobedience, are spread out to their view: life on the one hand, death on the other, awaiting their choice, pending upon their decision, sure to come according to their free election of the one course or the other:—How are these moral forces made to culminate and press upon the conscience of the whole people!

It is a solemn act for even one so holy as Moses to gather a nation of children about him to say to them his last words and prepare to die (chapter 31). There are some last words to be said; some last things to be done. Fully conscious that his days are numbered and that his end is near he must make the public transfer of his responsibilities to Joshua. The written law upon which he has spent so much thought and labor must be properly committed to the priests the sons of Levi (31: 9–13), and provision made not only for its preservation, but for its public rehearsal in each Sabbatic year at the feast of tabernacles.――Not the least important of these last things was the putting of farewell thoughts into the form of song which might be committed to memory, impressed with all the power of music (perhaps), and embalmed in the hearts of the people with the fragrance and impressiveness of its poetic power. There are properly two songs, one of a general character (chapter 32); the other specific, in the form of blessing or benediction upon the several tribes (chapter 33). The latter follows the patriarchal usage which we have seen in the case of Jacob (Gen. 49).――As to the first which is distinctively styled “this song,” Moses received from the Lord special directions to write it out and “teach it to the children of Israel” (31: 19); to “put it in their mouths that it might be a witness for God against the children of Israel,” and “not be forgotten out of the mouths of their seed” (v. 21). In this chapter (31: 16–30) the Lord not only directed Moses to write out this song but gave him its subject-matter almost entire—the whole current of its thought—the facts in the future history of the people upon which it is built:—in substance, thus:

The Lord said to Moses—Thou shalt sleep with thy fathers; other generations of this people will arise who will depart from me in grievous apostasy—going after the strange gods of the nations; they will break my covenant with them. My anger will kindle against them in that day; I will forsake them and hide my face from them and bring upon them sore judgments—until they say: “Are not these evils upon us because our God is not among us”?――Yet more definitely the Lord gave Moses some of the inducing causes of this apostasy; viz. fullness of bread; the absence of want and trial; coming into a land flowing with milk and honey. Filling themselves and waxing fat, they will become sensual, pleasure-loving, and lost to the fear of God. So they will turn to other gods (v. 20). Hence the occasion for this witnessing song, of solemn forewarning, pregnant with moral forces against apostasy and rich in suggestions of untold value for those apostate generations to whom it would specially apply.

I place this song before the reader with explanations of its dark points and some suggestions as to its line of thought and its moral application.

1. Give ear, O ye heavens, and I will speak; and hear, O earth, the words of my mouth.

2. My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass:

3. Because I will publish the name of the Lord; ascribe ye greatness unto our God.

4. He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he.

This call upon the heavens and the earth to hear the words of this song must be construed not as a call upon the intelligent beings of heaven to listen to it; much less, upon the material sun, moon, and stars, and this globe of ours; but rather as poetic usage, due to the lofty inspiration of the poet’s soul who feels that the message which burns in his heart is so momentous to his people that all nature—above and beneath—may fitly be summoned to hear. It is his strongest way of saying—Let all people of this and future generations give ear and heart to these messages from the God of heaven and earth.――The poet-prophets of Israel in later days adopt the same form of address (Isa. 1: 2, and Jer. 2: 12, and 6: 19).――“My doctrine”—the truths I teach—“shall drop as the rain”; good for the soul as rain for the grass; refreshing, fraught with real life and the beauty of holiness:—the reason of its great value being, “Because I am to proclaim the name of the Lord”—i. e. his name as significant of his nature.――Appreciating this sacred name, ye will testify to his greatness; your heart will be impressed with a sense of his excellent glory.

“Their Rock is he”—the writer placing this forcible word first in order. The great elements of his character are stable, solid, enduring, changeless: every thing in his nature and work is perfect; all his ways are righteous; a God of truth is he, whose words of promise or of threatening can never fail. “Without iniquity” moreover; there is nothing in him morally tortuous; all is on the right line of equity and justice. Such is the Great God of our fathers—the God of our national covenant. It was pertinent to place these views of God at the head of this song because they set the guilt of forsaking God in its true light, and would also vindicate his justice in sending even great calamities upon his apostate people.――In later ages David uses this figure—​(the “Rock”)—of God with exquisite beauty and force (Ps. 18: 2, and 28: 1, and 42: 9).

5. They have corrupted themselves, their spot is not the spot of his children; they are a perverse and crooked generation.

The poet turns suddenly to the great fact of the future apostasy of God’s people.—“Their spot”—moral defilement—the dark pollution of their souls. That does not indicate my children. My dutiful sons and daughters never carry such stains; never give their hearts to other gods; never turn their backs upon their loving and glorious Father!

6. Do ye thus requite the Lord, O foolish people and unwise? is not he thy Father that has bought thee? hath he not made thee and established thee?

7. Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations: ask thy father, and he will shew thee; thy elders, and they will tell thee.

Is it possible that ye can thus requite your own Jehovah? Is this fair treatment of such a Father? Is not the God whom ye have forsaken the very same who hath bought thee from bondage; redeemed thee for himself; made thee a prosperous and happy nation, and established thee in permanent strength? Go back over the grand ages of your national history; ask the fathers for their testimony to the great works of your God in your behalf.

8. When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel.

9. For the Lord’s portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.

In the original planting of the nations the Lord reserved Canaan—best and fairest of all lands—for his people. This refers to those providential agencies by which God assigned to the nations descended from Noah’s sons their geographical localities and national home. In this arrangement he reserved sufficient territory for Israel—“according to their numbers”; and in the best locality for their residence. The Lord accounted them his own people and gave them his own reserved “lot.”

10. He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; he led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye.

11. As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings:

12. So the LORD alone did lead him, and there was no strange god with him.

“He found him in a desert land.” With poetic license the writer touches Hebrew history where he will—in this case at Sinai where God met Israel visibly, and called them into special covenant with himself. All through that wilderness he led Israel about by his guiding pillar of cloud and of fire; instructed him by precepts and statutes; kept him from danger even as a man guards the apple of his eye (which the more poetic Hebrew called the little man of the eye—that diminutive picture of yourself).――The next figure—at once exquisite in beauty and forcible for illustration—comes from the eagle training his young to fly. When he sees that the time has come for this training, he stirs up his nestlings—waking them as the father does his sons at the morning hour; flutters over them as if to show them the exercise; spreads abroad his wings; takes them up aloft, casts them off upon their flying power—coming swift to the rescue if their strength should fail;—all to train them into courage, and strength of wing, and steadiness of stroke. So the Lord alone—he and none other—did lead Israel. There was no strange god there. In all his wilderness training of forty most eventful years—that tender youth-time of Israel, there was not the least help from Baal or Ashtoreth. But the hand of his own God was every-where; in his daily bread; in his rock-gushing waters; in his pillar of cloud and of fire; in his victories over Amalek, Arad, and Midian. This high hand and uplifted arm, strong as the eagle’s pinions, bore the younglings taken from his nest over and through the roughnesses of that waste howling wilderness, until at length he set them down in the promised Canaan.

13. He made him ride on the high places of the earth, that he might eat the increase of the fields; and he made him to suck honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock;

14. Butter of kine, and milk of sheep, with fat of lambs, and rams of the breed of Bashan, and goats, with the fat of kidneys of wheat; and thou didst drink the pure blood of the grape.

The fatness of this fertile land calls out the richest poetic imagery.――“He made him ride on the high places of the earth”—letting him down just a little yet but a little from the symbol of the eagle’s lofty flight. “Riding on the high places of the land”—as if his were a railway path, stretched from summit to summit, resting only on mountain peaks, commanding every magnificent prospect; or with an eye to his conquest of Canaan, the poet sees him sweeping through with the tread of a conquerer, for the phrase seems to conceive of the hill-tops as the strategic points in war, commanding the whole country. As we might expect, Isaiah admired and adopted this gem of poetry (Isa. 58: 14).

The richest luxuries of oriental climes lie at the nation’s feet; honey and oil; butter and milk; rams and goats; “with the fat of the kidneys of wheat” which curiously draws its terms for the best of wheat from the favorite qualities of animal food.――In v. 14 the Heb. word for “pure” [“pure blood of the grape”], means by its etymology—effervescing, bubbling up, in the process of fermentation. Our translators probably supposed it to have worked itself “pure” by this process. The word seems to describe the process—not the subsequent state.

15. But Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked: thou art waxen fat, thou art grown thick, thou art covered with fatness; then he forsook God which made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation.

16. They provoked him to jealousy with strange gods, with abominations provoked they him to anger.

17. They sacrificed unto devils, not to God; to gods whom they knew not, to new gods that came newly up, whom your fathers feared not.

18. Of the Rock that begat thee thou art unmindful, and hast forgotten God that formed thee.

Here is the sad moral result of being over-fed, over-tempted.――“Jeshurun,” the upright one; he who had bound himself by covenant to walk uprightly with God.――The Hebrews constantly associate fatness with moral obtuseness, insensibility, and consequent obliquity. The ceremonial distinctions of things clean and unclean assumed this—swine being utterly unclean, and the fatty portions of sacrificed animals being accounted good only for burning on the altar. Hence the figure—Jeshurun, too fat for self-control and self-denial; too fat for the worship of the pure and holy One; and consequently he forsook the God who made and blessed him.――The verb for “lightly esteemed” means to regard as dried up; withered; of faded beauty. So Israel thought of their God though he had been to them the Rock of their salvation. The sad fact of their fall into idol-worship is reiterated and made impressively emphatic. They provoked God to jealousy; for how could he be otherwise than jealous when they cast him off and gave their hearts’ homage to devils; to new gods, unknown to their fathers; gods that were no gods at all!――The Hebrew word here for “devils” means primarily lords—mighty ones. The Septuagint and Vulgate give it demons—true to the ultimate idea, for all idol-worship is equivalent to the worship of the devil, being real obedience to his will.――The blackness of this guilt lies in its forgetting, disowning God, our Great Benefactor; our only real Friend.

19. And when the LORD saw it, he abhorred them, because of the provoking of his sons, and of his daughters.

20. And he said, I will hide my face from them, I will see what their end shall be: for they are a very froward generation, children in whom is no faith.

21. They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God; they have provoked me to anger with their vanities: and I will move them to jealousy with those which are not a people; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation.

The most cruel point as to God was that this insult came from his own “sons and daughters.” From them he might expect better treatment.――What shall he do? What can he do, less than to hide his face from them and to leave them to try the friendship of the new gods they had so madly chosen? “I will see what their end shall be.” They will see in due time!――In v. 21 there is a play upon the words—the same verbs, “move to jealousy” and “provoke,” being used first of their ways toward God; next, of God’s ways in retribution toward them. Paul (Rom. 10: 14) assumes that this passage at least applies well if indeed it does not refer primarily to God’s judgments on Israel by casting her off, and taking into her place of privilege the Gentiles whom Israel had been wont to regard as nobody.

22. For a fire is kindled in my anger, and shall burn unto the lowest hell, and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains.

23. I will heap mischiefs upon them; I will spend mine arrows upon them.

24. They shall be burnt with hunger, and devoured with burning heat, and with bitter destruction: I will also send the teeth of beasts upon them, with the poison of serpents of the dust.

25. The sword without, and terror within, shall destroy both the young man and the virgin, the suckling also with the man of gray hairs.

These are the vials of retributive judgment poured out on Israel, first for her persistent idolatries; last for her murder of her King Messiah. The fire is thought of as burning deep; not merely skimming the surface but penetrating to the deep foundations of her mountains. “Hell” here is not to be taken in its modern usage—the place of future punishment—but in the early Hebrew sense as lying below the earth’s surface—the “pit” into which Korah and his company went down.――“Burnt with hunger” (v. 24) is more literally exhausted, their vitality sucked out of them by famine—a fearful doom!――The sword abroad and terror at home (literally, “in the chambers”), shall bereave [Heb.] both the young man and the virgin—a calamity well compared to bereavement of most loved offspring.

26. I said, I would scatter them into corners, I would make the remembrance of them to cease from among men:

27. Were it not that I feared the wrath of the enemy, lest their adversaries should behave themselves strangely, and lest they should say, Our hand is high, and the LORD hath not done all this.

28. For they are a nation void of counsel, neither is there any understanding in them.

The thought is that for these great sins the Lord would have utterly annihilated Israel were it not for the honor of his name before the nations as their recognized God.――The word for “scatter into corners” means rather, to blow away as with his powerful breath.――It is not precisely the “wrath” of the enemy, but rather the reproaches, or the underlying spirit which would manifest itself in insult and haughty exultation. The context shows the true idea. Lest they should say “Israel is down because our hand is high and our power resistless. We have done it. Their God is far enough from being Almighty.”――“Behave themselves strangely” should rather be—should reason strangely; should make this strange inference, that the fall of Israel was due to their own great power, rather than to God’s forsaking them for their great sin.

29. O that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end!

30. How should one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, except their Rock had sold them, and the LORD had shut them up?

31. For their rock is not as our Rock, even our enemies themselves being judges.

How does the tenderness of a loving Father’s heart pour itself out in these matchless words! O if my people were only wise; wise to know and appreciate their Great Benefactor! Wise to render him the homage, the trust, and the love of their heart! How would one of them chase a thousand of their foes if only their God were on their side; if he who is their Rock and Strength had not sold and disowned them!――Expressively Moses adds—For as they very well know—we have it on their own admission—their Rock is not as our Rock; their gods were never like our God. Moses did not say this without authority. He remembered how the Egyptian hosts in the Red Sea cried out, “Let us flee from the face of Israel, for the Lord fighteth for them against the Egyptians” (Ex. 14: 25). The testimony of Balaam was still fresh: “God hath blessed; I can not reverse it. The Lord his God is with him, and the shout of a king is among them. God brought them out of Egypt; he hath as it were the strength of a unicorn. Surely there is no enchantment against Jacob, nor any divination against Israel. Behold, the people shall rise up as a great lion,” etc. (Num. 23: 20–24). The fame of God’s wonders for Israel was already abroad among all the adjacent nations, as may be seen in the words of Rahab (Josh. 2: 9–11).

32. For their vine is of the vine of Sodom, and the fields of Gomorrah: their grapes are grapes of gall, their clusters are bitter:

33. Their wine is the poison of dragons, and the cruel venom of asps.

34. Is not this laid up in store with me, and sealed up among my treasures?

35. To me belongeth vengeance, and recompense; their foot shall slide in due time: for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that shall come upon them make haste.

By a somewhat sudden transition of thought, “for” [first word of v. 32] answers the implied question—Why then, if Israel’s Rock is so mighty, does not Israel live and triumph in perpetual victory and prosperity? Do ye ask, Why not? Because they are corrupt like Sodom; their “vine” being put poetically for themselves morally considered. Their heart and life are altogether rotten.――In v. 34 I take the sense to be—Do I not remember all their sin? Is it not laid up before me, awaiting its time for a fearful retribution, sealed up as securely as one keeps his choice treasures? “Vengeance belongeth to me”—is my sole prerogative, and can not fail of its due execution.

36. For the LORD shall judge his people, and repent himself for his servants, when he seeth that their power is gone, and there is none shut up, or left.

37. And he shall say, Where are their gods, their rock in whom they trusted,

38. Which did eat the fat of their sacrifices, and drank the wine of their drink offerings? let them rise up and help you, and be your protection.

God will arise for judgment and retribution. Calamities must scourge the guilty; mercy will spare the innocent and ultimately save his Zion. In the latter portion of this song (vs. 36–42), the divine agency seems to be of a twofold character; exterminating the hopelessly guilty, but sparing and restoring the penitent, and ultimately retrieving the fortunes of his kingdom.――When God seeth that his people are powerless and none remain, either bond or free, shut up or let go [the sense of the Heb. words translated “shut up or left”], he will ask, What has become of the gods to whom my people have apostatized, with whom they ate their sacrifices in common? Since those gods have utterly failed them, let me call their attention to myself. Perhaps now it will not be in vain.

39. See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god with me: I kill, and I make alive. I wound, and I heal: neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand.

40. For I lift up my hand to heaven, and say, I live forever.

41. If I whet my glittering sword, and mine hand take hold on judgment; I will render vengeance to mine enemies, and will reward them that hate me.

42. I will make mine arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh; and that with the blood of the slain and of the captives from the beginning of revenges upon the enemy.

They shall know the power of their God. When I lift up my awful hand to bring down retribution on the guilty apostates among my people, shall not my arrows be drunk with blood and my sword devour flesh? The guilty must fall; yet through the fires of these sore judgments Zion shall be purified and so redeemed.――The last clause of v. 42 were better read—“From the head of the princes of the enemy.”

43. Rejoice, O ye nations, with his people: for he will avenge the blood of his servants, and will render vengeance to his adversaries, and will be merciful unto his land, and to his people.

This closing strain brings out in unmistakable terms the idea which seems to have been implied since v. 36, viz. that these great judgments on Israel will not ultimately break down God’s cause and kingdom, but will only cut off the hopelessly reprobate and really bring deliverance, purity, salvation to Zion. Therefore let all the nations rejoice with his people. They have a deeper interest than they are yet aware of in this purifying process for the ultimate redemption of Zion. The prophetic eye of Moses sees through to the glorious ingathering of the Gentiles to Christ, and seems to trace the connection of this ingathering with the judgments sent on apostate Israel in the first Christian age.――The outcome of this song is therefore ultimately hopeful to the real Zion. It gives a fearfully dark view of the guilty apostasies of Israel—those which culminated first in the captivity to Babylon; last in the fall of their city before the Romans. In the result God vindicates his great name; purifies his people, and spreads the glory of his name far abroad among the nations.

DEUT. 33.

The blessing of Moses upon the tribes shortly before his death.

This blessing of Moses follows in general the usage of patriarchal times, as seen in Noah, but especially in Jacob, the great tribe-father (Gen. 49). It also follows the impulses of the great heart of Moses, now a patriarch of one hundred and twenty years, who had long outlived the associates of his earlier days; who had suffered and borne every thing for his people and had labored for them more than a father for his sons and daughters. In this parting hour he has some last blessings to bequeathe before his eyes shall close in death. Let us listen to his dying benedictions.

The first five verses apply generally to all the tribes. The last four also are general rather than special; while the intervening portion of the chapter (vs. 6–25) is made up of special benedictions upon the several tribes.――Note also that while the “Song” [chap. 32] is largely in the minor strain—a sad prophetic vision of the nation’s future apostasies and consequent calamities, this chapter is pure benediction—the outpouring of hopeful prayers and heartfelt good wishes, with no shade of anticipated disaster, no foreseen calamities.

1. And this is the blessing, wherewith Moses the man of God blessed the children of Israel before his death.

2. And he said, The LORD came from Sinai, and rose up from Seir unto them; he shined forth from Mount Paran, and he came with ten thousands of saints: from his right hand went a fiery law for them.

3. Yea, he loved the people; and all his saints are in thy hand: and they sat down at thy feet; every one shall receive of thy words.

4. Moses commanded us a law, even the inheritance of the congregation of Jacob.

5. And he was king in Jeshurun, when the heads of the people and the tribes of Israel were gathered together.

The first thing to be noticed was that greatest fact, equally of the life of Moses and of the life of all Israel, viz. the coming forth of the glorious God in majesty so sublime from the mountains of Sinai. How did the blaze of his glory illumine her towering summits and flash forth from all her hill-tops! Such a coming—when had the world ever seen before?――“Rose up from Seir” would suggest to a Hebrew the rising of the sun in his glory.――“He came with ten thousands of saints,” says our English version; but the Hebrew has it from—the same preposition which is used before Sinai, Seir, and Paran—certainly implying therefore that God came forth from the midst of those ten thousand holy ones in a sense analogous to that in which he shone forth from Sinai, Seir, and Paran. He must refer to holy angels to whom in great numbers Jacob was introduced at Bethel and Mahanaim. But whether the Lord came forth from them, leaving them in heaven, or shone forth from among them, attending him on Sinai, can not be certainly determined from the words used here. Other scriptures however speak of the law as given by the ministration of angels, and therefore fully imply their presence on Sinai at the giving of the law. See Ps. 68: 17, and Acts 7: 53, and Gal. 3: 19, and Heb. 2: 2.――The last clause of v. 1—“from his right hand went forth a fiery law for them”—involves grave difficulties of a sort which can not well be put before the English reader. The word translated “law” is unknown to the ancient Hebrew—is not the word used for law in v. 4 and in the Pentateuch generally. The best critical authorities would unite these two words which our translators supposed to mean “fire” and “law,” into one word of quite different signification, referring perhaps to the pillar of fire [Gesenius]; or to some geographical point [Fuerst]; or to flashes of lightning [Keil].――V. 3 is singularly abrupt, and consequently the course of thought is obscure. God was loving the people [continuous action]—i. e. all the nations and not the Hebrews only—showing that God shone forth from Sinai in love to the race. All his holy ones are his wards, upheld by his arm. They lie humbly at his feet; in filial loving obedience they receive his words—indicating most beautifully the spirit with which all true souls welcome God’s uttered words as to moral duty. It is perhaps possible that [as Keil suggests] the “holy ones” here are holy angels; yet I incline to apply the phrase without restriction to all holy beings, man certainly not excluded.――Moses gave us a law, as a legacy, inheritance, for the whole congregation of Jacob. He [God] was King in Jeshurun [over the upright people], even over all that great nation with its congregated tribes and their tribal leaders.

6. Let Reuben live, and not die; and let not his men be few.

As to Reuben, let his tribe be perpetuated and not become extinct; for some fear on this point might have sprung from the scenes of Num. 16; the fearful death of Dathan, Abiram, and On, all sons of Reuben (Num. 16: 1, 27).

7. And this is the blessing of Judah: and he said, Hear, Lord, the voice of Judah, and bring him unto his people: let his hands be sufficient for him; and be thou a help to him from his enemies.

Judah is thought of as leading the tribes in battle, going forth in advance of all others to war. Hence the prayer—Bring him back safely to his people from the scenes of battle. Let his hand [military power] be equal to any emergency.

8. And of Levi he said, Let thy Thummim and thy Urim be with thy holy one, whom thou didst prove at Massah, and with whom thou didst strive at the waters of Meribah;

9. Who said unto his father and to his mother, I have not seen him; neither did he acknowledge his brethren, nor knew his own children: for they have observed thy word, and kept thy covenant.

10. They shall teach Jacob thy judgments, and Israel thy law; they shall put incense before thee, and whole burnt sacrifice upon thine altar.

11. Bless, Lord, his substance, and accept the work of his hands: smite through the loins of them that rise against him, and of them that hate him, that they rise not again.

The blessing on Levi suggested the insignia on Aaron’s breast-plate, known as the “Urim and Thummim” [described somewhat in Ex. 28: 29, 30]—the words signifying Light and Right. These breast-plate insignia were used in some way, not altogether clear at this day, in obtaining special directions from the Lord.――The tribe of Levi as a whole became in a sense God’s “Holy One,” bearing in the person of Aaron these insignia. God had proved them at Massah and Meribah where the people murmured against Moses and Aaron. It was especially in the scenes of the calf-worship (Ex. 32) and of the Midianites (Num. 25) that the tribe of Levi, and particularly Phineas, proved themselves true to God, with higher regard for him and his honor than for father, mother, brethren, or children; for they remembered and honored God’s word and covenant. Let them therefore have the functions of the priesthood, to teach Jacob thy law and to minister at the national altar.

12. And of Benjamin he said, The beloved of the Lord shall dwell in safety by him; and the Lord shall cover him all the day long, and he shall dwell between his shoulders.

Let Benjamin, the beloved of the Lord, dwell safely by the side of the Lord, his protector, abiding between his shoulders—i. e. upon his back where fathers are wont to place their children to bear them long distances. This tribe is thought of as God’s child, to be borne upon his shoulder.

13. And of Joseph he said, Blessed of the Lord be his land, for the precious things of heaven, for the dew, and for the deep that croucheth beneath,

14. And for the precious fruits brought forth by the sun, and for the precious things put forth by the moon,

15. And for the chief things of the ancient mountains, and for the precious things of the lasting hills,

16. And for the precious things of the earth and fulness thereof, and for the good will of him that dwelt in the bush: let the blessing come upon the head of Joseph, and upon the top of the head of him that was separated from his brethren.

17. His glory is like the firstling of his bullock, and his horns are like the horns of unicorns: with them he shall push the people together to the ends of the earth: and they are the ten thousands of Ephraim, and they are the thousands of Manasseh.

The blessings on Joseph comprise all good upon his land; the dew and the shower, the sunshine and the moonbeams; all the products of the mountains and of the deep;—let all come upon the head of him who was prince among his brethren [in Egypt]—this being the sense, rather than “separated” from his brethren.

18. And of Zebulun he said, Rejoice, Zebulun, in thy going out; and, Issachar, in thy tents.

19. They shall call the people unto the mountain; there they shall offer sacrifices of righteousness: for they shall suck of the abundance of the seas, and of treasures hid in the sand.

Let Zebulun and Issachar rejoice both in their going forth and in their tents; equally in their labor and in their repose. Living on the shore of the great sea, let their influence go forth upon and beyond the great waters, calling the nations to the mountain of the Lord’s house for worship with sacrifices of righteousness to the God of the whole earth; and let Zion under their hand become enriched with the abundance of the seas—of all countries beyond the seas—bringing their gold and their treasures to the God of Israel. Isaiah has the same thought often; e. g. chapters 49, 60, and 66.

20. And of Gad he said, Blessed be he that enlargeth Gad: he dwelleth as a lion, and teareth the arm with the crown of the head.

21. And he provided the first part for himself, because there, in a portion of the lawgiver, was he seated; and he came with the heads of the people, he executed the justice of the Lord, and his judgments with Israel.

The allusion to Gad seems to be built upon his then recent history—leading the movement for locating the two and a half tribes on the East of Jordan and foremost in battle and in victory over the national enemy; prompt also to go over Jordan to execute God’s righteous judgments on the devoted nations of Canaan.

22. And of Dan he said, Dan is a lion’s whelp: he shall leap from Bashan.

Dan is fierce and formidable in war, to which his border locality on the extreme North may have conduced. Jacob touches the same tribal characteristic (Gen. 49: 16, 17).

23. And of Naphtali he said, O Naphtali, satisfied with favor, and full with the blessing of the Lord, possess thou the west and the south.

24. And of Asher he said, Let Asher be blessed with children; let him be acceptable to his brethren, and let him dip his foot in oil.

25. Thy shoes shall be iron and brass; and as thy days, so shall thy strength be.

Let Asher be blessed above the sons—may be the sense—the favored one among his brethren. May thy castle-bars [not “shoes”] be of iron and brass. But the best authorities on the word “strength” prefer rest [Gesenius], or affluence [Fuerst]. The prayer is that this rest or affluence may be life-long.

26. There is none like unto the God of Jeshurun, who rideth upon the heaven in thy help, and in his excellency on the sky.

27. The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms: and he shall thrust out the enemy from before thee and shall say, Destroy them.

28. Israel then shall dwell in safety alone; the fountain of Jacob shall be upon a land of corn and wine; also his heavens shall drop down dew.

29. Happy art thou, O Israel: who is like unto thee, O people saved by the Lord, the shield of thy help, and who is the sword of thy excellency! and thine enemies shall be found liars unto thee; and thou shalt tread upon their high places.

These words of unsurpassed sublimity and most exquisite poetry set forth the glories of the God of Israel and the blessedness of the people who enjoy such a Father and live under such a Protector. Perhaps we can not give them higher praise than to say they are worthy of the pen of Moses—worthy even to be his last words—he noblest utterances of one who above any other mere man had communed with God face to face as man does with his dearest friend.――The English translation is almost faultless, constituting one of the grandest passages to be found in English literature. In the last clause of v. 27, I prefer to follow the Hebrew more closely and say simply Destroy! The high behest of Jehovah, hurling the enemy forth from the land of his people is best expressed in the emphatic word, Destroy!――In the last verse, the clause, “Thine enemies shall be found liars unto thee,” means that they shall cringe, fawn, and flatter with false and lying pretenses to gain if but a little favor from a people so terrible in arms as Israel with God on her side. The case of the Gibeonites is mostly in point.

It was due to the stand-point of Moses, looking forth across the Jordan upon the earthly Canaan, beholding the earthly Israel just then entering there; Jehovah the shield of their help, the sword of their excellency, the scourge of their foes—this mighty God riding sublimely upon the heavens for their help, his everlasting arms underneath them forevermore—that this view should be primarily of scenes in the present life and not in the future; of earthly and material relations rather than of spiritual. Yet let us not forget that the manifestations of God in blessings of earthly sort foreshadow like manifestations in the spiritual life. The God who saves his people here in things of earth, in ways so grand, with power so transcendant, in a spirit so parental and so tender, may surely be trusted to save and shield and bless with his own Godlike wisdom and power against spiritual foes and for the other world no less than for this. Surely there is none like the God of Jeshurun who comes in the tenderness of infinite pity to wipe away the penitent tear; to bind up hearts broken for sin; to place underneath all feeble souls his own everlasting arms; to bid away every spiritual foe with the mandate Destroy; and to gather home his redeemed in his own best time to his Canaan above, of which that ancient land of promise gives us only some poetic images and some illustrations of God’s faithfulness and love. It is quite well, therefore, to exchange the earthly sense of this sublime passage for its spiritual significance and transfer its imagery to that world whose glories are worthy of sublimer strains than even these.

The death and character of Moses.

These benedictions having been uttered, it remained for Moses to see the goodly land with his eyes and then close them in death. The record is that his vision from the top of Pisgah swept the whole country of Palestine even to the Mediterranean—a statement which implies miraculous power. We must either tone down the statement in extent, or admit a superhuman extension of sight—the latter being by far most probable.

The record assumes that at his death Moses had no attendant save the Lord himself—a circumstance which throws a shade of doubt over the ultimate disposition of his body. According to the narrative the Lord buried him in a valley in the land of Moab; yet the place of his burial remained unknown to mortals. Was the fact of his being buried at all revealed to some Hebrew prophet by special inspiration; or was it merely assumed as the common course of events; or was his body really translated, as in the case of Enoch and Elijah? In favor of the latter supposition are two circumstances; viz. the allusion by Jude (v. 9) to a dispute over his body between Michael the archangel and the devil; and his appearance together with Elijah at the transfiguration of Jesus (Mat. 17: 3). These hints comprise all that is known on the point or can be known at present; or as we may say, all that the Lord thought it important to let us know.

Altogether in keeping with the masterly vigor of mind manifested in the last exhortation of Moses (chap. 27–31); in the “Song” (chap. 32), and in the tribal blessings (chap. 33)—is the statement that although at the age of one hundred and twenty, “his eye was not dim nor his natural force abated.” The Hebrew word suggests, instead of natural force, the idea of freshness, youthful vigor. How wonderfully were his powers of both mind and body preserved till his great work was done!――The historian who wrote this last chapter says: “There arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses”—which raises the question, How long a period of time is embraced in this comparison? Was this remark made in the time of Samuel, or in the time of Ezra, or at some point between? Or was it based upon the belief or the special revelation that the divine policy included but one Moses—all later prophets down to the coming of the Great Anointed being of a subordinate grade? I do not see that the choice between these several alternatives can be made with absolute certainty, and it is not specially important that we attempt to balance nicely the mere probabilities.

We think of Moses (as of Paul, Isaiah, Daniel) as a sublime illustration of God’s marvelous resources for raising up great men for great occasions. Where shall we set the limit to these resources? True, these great men die (unless they may be translated), but their names die not; their work does not die; their influence travels onward down the ages, and will, long as men live on the earth. They are the world’s really great men, belonging to a totally different order from the Cæsars, the Alexanders, and the Napoleons, or the Platos and the Aristotles of the race. It may not be unprofitable to note that all these were modest men; meek above most other men; of unaspiring spirit; true to their divine mission, and little caring to give their thought to any thing else. The fact in the recorded history of Moses which seems to me the very gem of his life was that God’s proposal, twice made to him, to cut off all Israel and make of him a great nation (Ex. 32: 10 and Num. 14: 12) did not get from him a moment’s attention. He never even alluded to it. But as the Lord seemed to overlook the glory of his own name before the nations, Moses took the responsibility (boldly, shall we say?) of reminding him as to this point. Apparently his soul was so much absorbed in this line of considerations—the glory of God as before the nations of the earth—that he could not let it drop from his range of view. Hence Moses was mighty (almost omnipotent we may say) in prayer. It would seem to have been the Lord’s special purpose to bring out this prime quality of his religious character and set it in sunlight before all future ages—an illustration of the fact that the great men of all time are mighty with God in prayer. They know the secret of communion with God. They have easy, unrestricted access to his throne.――One blemish—nay rather, one sin, stands on the record of his life in his own hand-writing; one sad, humiliating fact mars his history—viz. that at Kadesh his sensibilities to himself were too keen; that for the moment, self threw even his God into the shade, and he cried out: “Ye rebels; must we fetch you water from this rock”? True, the complaints of Israel were severely cruel as against Moses; but how much more so against God! And if Moses had thought and felt much less as to himself and much more of God, he had passed through this stern ordeal unhurt. From that point onward this sin could not pass altogether out of his mind. It had been the aspiration of his life to see the goodly land of Canaan and to plant his children—the great Hebrew nation—there with his own hand and see them with his own eyes in their glorious home! We sympathize in his disappointment and trial in that he must die short of Canaan. But this is not quite a sinless world. The painful experiences of imperfection force themselves into the best Christian lives. There is a better life beyond!

The Mosaic system and the future life.

The question often comes up in even the most candid and honest minds: Why is the Pentateuch silent, or at least, so nearly silent as to the rewards and punishments of the future life?――Moreover, there is a class of critics who are fain to decry the Hebrew people as almost contemptibly low in point of knowledge, culture, and civilization, and who are wont to deny that the Mosaic system, civil or religious, has any allusion to the future life or even assumes its existence.――From this supposed fact, they infer that the Hebrew people and even Moses himself had no knowledge of the future life.

In briefly discussing this subject, I propose,

1. To qualify somewhat the absolute statement—No allusion to the future life or assumption of its existence.

2. To give some reasons for placing the Theocracy mainly on the basis of temporal rewards and punishments.

3. To maintain that Moses and the patriarchs knew and believed in the future life as one of rewards and punishments.

1. I propose to qualify somewhat the absolute statement—“No allusion to the future life and no assumption of its existence.”

Here I call attention to the remarkable fact that there are several statutes without penalties—left simply upon the consciences of men and upon their sense of the fear of God.――As to those who violate the third of the ten commandments, it is simply said, “The Lord will not hold him guiltless”; but it is not intimated that any due punishment should befall him in the present life. The statutes touching this sin stand also without penalties. Correspondingly the statutes forbid perjury; but they seem to leave the sanctity of the solemn oath upon the conscience and upon men’s fear of God. So of the precept, “Thou shalt not revile the judges, nor curse the rulers of thy people” (Ex. 22: 28).

Now it scarcely need be suggested that human laws without penalties are mere puerilities—virtually no laws at all. Suppose under any human government, sundry statutes were left without penalties, the law saying only, “he shall bear his iniquity”; “his sin shall be upon him”: Would not the whole body of lawless, law-breaking men say in their heart, What of that? What then? Every violator of human law knows well enough that there is nothing to fear from it beyond the grave. If human law will only let them have their way in this world, they would scoff at the thought of its penalties in the next.――Now my point is that the Hebrew statutes did not leave the law-breaker’s conscience in this attitude. The man who scorned those statutes because they stood without penalties in this world had something to think of for the world to come. Those statutes, left without penalties for this life were not by any means for that reason powerless. So far from being powerless, they were in many minds more terrible than any other statutes. Was it of no account to them that God had said—“His sin shall be upon him” and “he shall bear his iniquity”? Did they not know that “it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God”—fearful, moreover, not because he might bring trouble on them in time, but because there is an after-life and the same dreadful God is there—terrible to those who have defied his authority and scorned his law?――Therefore the statement that this Hebrew code did in no manner assume the existence of an after-life and of a God terrible to the sinner there, must be somewhat modified.

2. I am to assign some reasons for putting this Theocracy mainly on the basis of temporal rewards and punishments.

(1.) It was to be administered chiefly by human agents. Human judges sat upon offenses against it, and human hands executed their decisions.――I qualify these statements with the words “mainly,” “chiefly,” stating this as being the case for the most part.――The fact as to human agents being admitted, there is no need of further reasons for placing the administration of this government mainly on the basis of earthly rewards and punishments—penalties in this world, not in the next. How could human judges award judgments for the world to come, and human hands execute them there?

(2.) God governed Israel as a nation, not as an individual man. Now since nations as such exist in this life only, it follows of necessity that all retribution that is truly national must be in time, not in eternity. The nation as such is not known in the eternal world. The individuals that compose the nation have their own personal account to settle with God in the world to come; but this has no bearing upon the government of God over the nation. This national government must be complete in time, else it remains incomplete forever. It may run on through many human generations; national life may outlast scores of individual human lives; but God’s retribution as to nations must be administered in this world, no part lying over to the next. Hence when God made himself king in Jeshurun over the Hebrew nation, he of necessity established a government to be administered mainly in time, not in eternity; by the rewards and penalties of this world—not of the next.――This again would be in itself a sufficient reason for the fact we are accounting for, even if there were no other.

(3.) This national system of government was intended to be a moral lesson for all other nations of all time. Hence the government must be put on the same basis as that of all other nations in the point of providential retribution. As God holds every nation on earth to a positive retribution in time, giving them prosperity for their righteousness, and adversity for their violation of the common laws of humanity; and as he would fain make his administration over Israel a cogent moral lesson to every other nation on this great point, he must needs govern Israel in this respect as he governs them—i. e. administering his retributions in time.

(4.) Yet one reason more. Distinguishing carefully between God’s providential government and his moral—the former being of time only; the latter of both time and eternity; the former being (for our present purpose) over nations as such; the latter over individuals only and not over nations—it remains to say that God manifestly designed his providential government over Israel to be suggestive, perhaps we might say typical—certainly illustrative of his moral government over all men which is not of time only, but which reaches into the eternal world. In the early ages of the world men needed some proof that God would punish sin in the world to come. They needed some illustrations of God’s character as a righteous, moral governor. Therefore the Lord planned to put himself at the head of the Hebrew nation, and then in that position, to give to mankind some illustrations in this world of what all sinners are to believe and expect for themselves, not in this world only or chiefly, but in the world to come. He would make this limited government illustrate that universal one. He would show in the case of the Hebrew people under his law what all men have to expect from their righteous God when his moral government shall have had full scope and shall have administered its perfect retribution in the world to come. This divine policy is well set forth by Peter (2 Pet. 2: 4–9); “For if God spared not the angels that sinned but cast them down to hell”; and “spared not the old world, but saved Noah”; if he “turned Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, but delivered just Lot”;—then (we may infer), “the Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptation, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished.” Yes, the Lord knoweth how to do this, and he means to let all living men see that he knoweth how; and see also that being a holy moral Governor, he can not fail to do it. He will give them occasion to see in his ruling over nations in time that his ruling over individual sinners can not be less righteous—can not be less retributive according to deeds done; and since equal and perfect justice calls for more time than one human life on earth, there must be an after part to it, to come in when death has located men in the eternal world.――This designed use of a theocratic government over Israel to illustrate God’s moral relations to every individual man, required an administration mainly in this world, in time, before human eyes; and is therefore another reason for working this theocracy mainly with temporal rewards and punishments.――I do not see that further reasons can be rationally called for.

3. I am to rebut the inference made from the fact of a theocracy administered mostly in time, viz. that Moses and the patriarchs did not believe in or even know of a future life.

(1.) The inference is utterly illogical. The rewards and penalties of the Hebrew system were of time and not of eternity, for other good and sufficient reasons, and not necessarily for the reason that the Hebrew law-giver and his people knew of no future life. To be of any force the argument must assume that if Moses had known of a future life he would have built this system upon it. But what is the proof of that? By what right is that assumed?――On the contrary there are reasons in abundance, not to say in excess—far more than would be sufficient—why the theocracy should be temporal in its penalties, whether Moses knew or did not know of a future life.

(2.) That Moses and the patriarchs assumed and believed in a future life is apparent from their words.

Moses wrote of Enoch (Gen. 5: 24); “And Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him.” “Took him” where? Did not Moses know where? “Took him”—in what sense? Is it even supposable that Moses thought this was annihilation—taking a godly man out of existence? Extinguishing his being because he walked with God! Is this a credible construction? Shall it be assumed that Moses was so ignorant, or so misinformed, or so little versed in logic, as this?――If the Lord had made this problem a special study—how best to teach and impress the doctrine of a future blessed life for the righteous who walk with God on earth, we can not see how he could have improved upon the method he actually adopted, viz. to take the godly Enoch from earth to heaven without dying.

Again, Moses constantly spoke of the death of the godly patriarchs as a being “gathered to their people.” He said this of Abraham (Gen. 25: 8); of Ishmael (25: 17); of Isaac (35: 29); of Jacob (49: 33). And he records these as Jacob’s words when he supposed Joseph to have died: “I will go down into Sheol to my son mourning” (37: 35).――In the face of these facts can it be said that Moses knew nothing of the future life? Did he think the fathers—the righteous people—had passed by death into non-existence—into what was not life in any sense whatever?――Again, when at the bush the Lord said to Moses so solemnly: “I am the God of thy fathers; the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” (Ex. 3: 6), is it credible that Moses was so obtuse as not to see that this implied that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were yet living, since the Lord could not be the God of dead things, but only of living souls?――A sensible view of the case may be obtained thus: Suppose that Moses had replied—“Lord, I see not how that can be, for Abraham has been dead and out of existence more than two hundred years”! If really Moses had no knowledge of a future life, he ought frankly to have made substantially this reply at the bush.

(3.) In proof of their faith in the future life, is another argument, of greater force if possible than their words; viz. their lives. For men sometimes say more than they mean, or perhaps something other than what they think; but their lives testify truthfully to their real beliefs.――Here we might expand the argument already suggested by the writer to the Hebrews (11: 8–16), calling up to review the actual lives of the patriarchs; how Abraham tore himself away from home and kindred, and went, obeying a call believed to be from God, to a land before unknown; how he and his family sojourned as strangers there, dwelling only in tents but “looking for a city on beyond which hath foundations whose builder and maker is God”; how they lived in the faith of promises to be fulfilled far in the future ages of time; and how by such a life they “declared plainly that they were seeking another and better country, even an heavenly” one.――But waiving this, the argument will be more directly in point if made on the case of the man Moses himself.――Born a slave, it was little of earth that he had at his birth save the faith and consequent heroism of a godly mother. In the providence of God it fell to him to be taken—a beautiful babe of three months—into the family of the reigning Pharaoh. There he lived, trained in all the wisdom of Egypt, till he was full forty years old. Of prepossessing person and splendid talents; of capacities equal to any responsibility, the honors of all Egypt lay before him—we might probably say—were pressing upon his acceptance. What did he do?――The writer to the Hebrews answers our question on this wise: “When he was come to years, he refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season: esteeming reproach for Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt.”――Was not this choice and all this course of conduct unaccountably strange? Did any man in his senses, knowing nothing of the future life, ever make such a choice before or since? What! choose affliction before pleasure; reproach before the highest of earthly honors? What could be in the man to make such a choice and even carry it out in his actual life?

The writer of this Epistle has an explanation to suggest. He says in the outset that Moses had faith—a sort of faith described by himself as “the evidence of things not seen.” Quite unlike the doctrine of the critics above referred to—nay squarely in the face of their assumptions, he holds up this Moses as a special and illustrious example of real faith in the future life. “By faith Moses refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter”; “by faith he esteemed reproach for Christ greater riches than Egypt’s treasures—for he had respect to the recompense of the reward.” Aye, he had his eye onward upon that glorious recompense of reward which God gives his people when the joys that are transient have all faded out—when the life that is immortal dawns on the human soul. In his view the pleasures of Egypt were only for a season—too short to be matched against the joys before him—fully believed in—that endure forever.

Of this explanation, say what else men may of it, they must admit that it answers the purpose. It accounts for the choice Moses made of affliction before pleasure; of shame before the highest of Egypt’s honors. This explanation represents Moses to be a man of sense, and not a fool. Neological criticism holds him up to the world as void of all sense—as playing the part of supreme folly. Paul said—“If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable” (1 Cor. 15: 19). He would have said of Moses, If his hope and belief as to God were of this life only—if he had no belief in the future life and no knowledge of it, then he was of all men most foolish—most void of that judgment and good sense which are common to sensible men.――Therefore I claim that the life of Moses—the whole choice and purpose and labor of a life of one hundred and twenty years, witness to his full and glorious faith in the future life. The men who deny to him this faith stultify not Moses, but themselves.

(4.) It can scarcely be necessary to suggest that over and above the logical merits of the facts themselves, we have the current traditions of Jewish history and the authority of the inspired New Testament writers. He who wrote the Epistle to the Hebrews—a man of sense as his writings show and of surpassing eloquence and power—must have spoken the current voice of Hebrew tradition—to say nothing (in an argument with Neologist critics) of his unquestionable inspiration from God.

(5.) Still further, we have collateral proofs that the future life was known in the age of Moses.――Job gave a grand declaration of his faith that after the perishing of his body he should see God (Job 19: 25–27). Balaam, representing the thought of the ancient East, saw and believed in the blessedness of the righteous dead.――And to mention no more—the wise men of Egypt, even before the age of Moses, believed in the future life of man. With scarcely a doubt they built their pyramids in the faith of man’s immortality. Sepulchers with them had a special and grander significance because they thought of man, not as dropping at death into annihilation, but as having even then a future nobler life before him. It is more than supposable that the art and practice of embalming the body—thus providing for it a sort of immortality—was really an outgrowth of their belief in the immortality of the soul and of its returning again to its former bodily home.――That the Egyptians held the doctrine of a future life and of future rewards and punishments according to the deeds of this earthly life, is not questioned at all by those who are familiar with her ancient mythology. Symbolic representations are found which are affirmed to be nothing else but the personification of the grand principle of the immortality of the soul and the necessity of leading a virtuous life.47 Also a picture “representing the trial and judgment which the Egyptians supposed the soul of a man to undergo before he was allowed to enter the regions of rest and happiness.”48――R. S. Poole (in Smith’s Bible Dictionary on “Egypt,” p. 675) says: “The great doctrines of the immortality of the soul, man’s responsibility, and future rewards and punishments were taught” [in Egypt]. “The Egyptian religion in its reference to man was a system of responsibility, mainly depending on future rewards and punishments.” “Every Israelite who came out of Egypt must have been fully acquainted with the universally recognized doctrines of the immortality of the soul, man’s responsibility, and future rewards and punishments.”――Dr. J. P. Thompson, in supplementing this article on “Egypt,” refers to Dr. Lepsius as having given the earliest known text of the [Egyptian] “Book of the Dead” “which contains the important doctrines of the immortality of the soul, the rehabilitation of the body, the judgment of both good and bad, the punishment of the wicked, the justification of the righteous and their admission to the blessed state of the gods” (p. 688). See also Bib. Sacra, Oct. 1867, p. 775, and Jany. 1869, p. 190.

Hence we must conclude that even if it were possible that the Hebrews had no knowledge of the future life before they went to Egypt, they must have learned it there. Really however, the fact that this doctrine appears in the oldest records of Egyptian antiquity proves that it came down from Noah—not to say from Adam. It was not indigenous and original with Egypt. It was there because Egypt had retained the primitive beliefs of the race.

In concluding this argument, I refer to the allusions which appear in the Psalms to the future life (e. g. Ps. 17, and 37, and 49, and 73),—which speak of it not as being then a new revelation, just sprung upon the universal darkness of all foregoing ages, but distinctly as an old doctrine, to be learned by “going into the sanctuary of God” and there hearing the old Hebrew scriptures publicly read; and also to be seen as illustrated and assumed in the records of God’s judgments in time on such sinners as those of the old world, and of Sodom, and as Egypt’s hardened king. Let it suffice here to specify Ps. 73, whose author says of himself: “I was envious at the foolish when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. It was too painful for me until I went into the sanctuary of God; then I understood their end. Surely thou didst set them in slippery places; thou castedst them down into destruction.”—“But [all unlike their doom] thou wilt guide me with thy counsel and afterward receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but thee? And there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee. My flesh and my heart faileth; but thou art the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”――The good men who wrote thus, and the worshiping congregations who sung these rapturous strains in their temple worship were not in utter darkness as to the final doom of the wicked, or as to the glorious future life of the righteous.

In closing this volume it only remains to refer in a word to the progressive developments of God’s truth as manifest in these closing portions of the Pentateuch. Of previous points and periods in this history as developing progress I have spoken when the scenes were fresh in our reading and thought;—particularly of the age before the flood; of the scenes in the life of Jacob and Joseph; of the scenes of the Exodus and at Sinai; of the civil code and also of the religious Institutes.――The few incidents of history during the forty years of wilderness life bring us new lessons, some exceedingly instructive in regard to the intercessory prayers of Moses; many sadly painful, touching the unbelief, the murmuring, the sensuality, and the idolatrous tendencies of Israel. If it were not that apostasies from God occur in our own age, not at all less guilty considering the light sinned against, though less revolting perhaps to the current religious sentiments of the age, we might perhaps afford to pass these historic developments with little notice. Alas, that they should reveal sins of the human heart which it so much behooves us to study for our own admonition!

The book of Deuteronomy is an acquisition to the moral forces of the Pentateuch. Speaking now specially of its first eleven chapters and of its last nine; i. e. of the review which Moses gives of the scenes of Sinai and of his accumulation of predicted woes and of appeals at once tender and terrible in the last chapters, it is not easy to over-estimate their moral power. Let us hope that they thrilled the very heart of that generation and toned up their religious life with impulses not only deep and strong but abiding. That generation, then about to enter Canaan under Joshua, was unquestionably the best, morally, which appears throughout the entire history of Israel. For proof of this estimate of them it must suffice to refer to the spirit manifested in Josh. 1: 16–18 and in the entire scenes of Josh. 22, and indeed in the history throughout this book of Joshua.――Leaving Egypt while yet young or wilderness born; mostly uncontaminated with her idolatries and pollutions of moral life, looking upon the scenes of the Exodus and of Sinai with young eyes and susceptible souls; trained under Moses forty years; taking the ritual of religious worship in its freshness, with hearts, let us hope in a good measure tender to its first strong impressions—they give us certainly the best fruits of this wonderful moral and religious training. So many fearers of God—so large a host imbued with the spirit of obedience to God’s authority—the world had never seen before. They were prepared of God for the conquest of Canaan. They are living witnesses that the discipline of those desert wanderings was not in vain—witnesses also to the moral and spiritual forces of the new revelations which God made of himself during those forty years from Egypt to Canaan.