Bible Commentaries

THE NEW BEGINNING

‘Get you over the brook Zered.’

Deuteronomy 2:13

‘Much in this chapter instructs us, such as the careful way in which their inheritance and the way to it were defined. But one star glimmers in the sky with an especial radiance and beauty, that which tells of One who knows all about the walking of His people, through the wilderness, and whose presence makes lack impossible (Deuteronomy 2:7). This must come home to many as they read. It is an echo of other words, spoken by a voice we love, ‘Your Father knoweth,’ ‘God only knows’; the words are often said flippantly, but they are sometimes the expression in which untold anguish finds utterance. Yes, He does know; penitent, weeping over a blotted past; prodigal, on the way home; parent, whose heart is breaking over that truant boy; wife, with nameless grief at waning love. Not a step is taken, not a tear is shed, not a pang stabs the heart, in this great wilderness journey, which is not known to Him. ‘I know their sorrows.’ But He has been with thee all the time, though often veiled from sense, and He will never leave thee, and thou shalt lack no good thing. Even now He is providing for thee, and putting the dread of thee on thy foes, and meting out thy land. “Fear not, I am with thee; be not dismayed, I am thy God.”’

Illustration

(1) ‘God may make even our enemies to be at peace with us. They lack nothing who travel with God. He knows all our need.

Israel were forbidden to touch Moab or Ammon, because of their far-off connection with Lot. So careful is God of His holy covenant; so true is He to His friends! For long generations He will remember, and fulfil promises into which He has entered.’

(2) ‘Zered was the southern border of Moab (13); and the people passed through that country until they came to its northern border, the river Arnon (24), which lay between Moab and the kingdom of the Amorites. Notice that, before ever Israel appeared on the scene, there had been great revolutions (20, 21): the hand of God had been compelled to destroy nations which had reached an excessive pitch of sin (Leviticus 18:28).

A pacific offer was made, in all good faith, to Sihon; but he refused to meet it (26–30). God hardens hearts which have already hardened themselves against Him. The sun, which melts wax, hardens clay; but the fault is not with the sun, but with the clay.’