Bible Commentaries

Providential Lines

Deuteronomy 2:5). That mount belongs to another man. The law of proprietorship must be recognised. We must have social rights, or we shall not have social securities. Very particular is the direction. Read the words again,—"No, not so much as a foot breadth." It is upon such fine lines that such great rights are based. If Jacob, in the person of the children of Israel, could have put one foot upon Mount Seir, he soon would have put the other foot there too, and Esau might have been dispossessed. The only way for some men to keep themselves honest is to have nothing to do with the other side. A footprint may some day be turned into a boundary: a finger-print may one day be pointed to as a right. "Touch not, taste not, handle not,"—but keep away absolutely, in the very innermost thought of the mind, from the things that are not yours. The same law holds good in regard to the Moabites:—"Distress not the Moabites, neither contend with them in battle: for I will not give thee of their land for a possession; because I have given Ar unto the children of Lot for a possession" ( Deuteronomy 2:9). The same law related to the children of Ammon:—"Distress them not, nor meddle with them: for I will not give thee of the land of the children of Ammon any possession; because"—then comes the reason ( Deuteronomy 2:19). God has taken care of every one of us in life. There is a little portion for the very smallest of us—one little handful of bread for the poorest Exodus 15:15-16 we read,—"Then the dukes of Edom shall be amazed; the mighty men of Moab, trembling shall take hold upon them; all the inhabitants of Canaan shall melt away. Fear and dread shall fall upon them; by the greatness of thine arm they shall be as still as a stone; till thy people pass over." Thus God works through the medium of apprehension, wonder, curiosity; thus God holds the eyes of men that they may not see the reality of the case; and thus God touches the eyes of men that they mistake one man for a thousand. Clouds on the horizon God makes into oceans, the very vastness of which terrifies the observer. God makes noises in the air which men mistake for the sound of battle, as if the war were being led by an infinite host of skilled soldiers. Write the history of fear as known in your own consciousness; put down exactly what fear has done in your case—how it has multiplied difficulties, how it has excited anxieties, how it has made you feel as if the little number you saw only came ahead of an infinite host; and the result will be that you will discover that fear has done more in life than reality has ever done—that imagination has outrun literal realism. We have suffered more from the things we thought were going to happen than we ever suffered from the things which really did occur. The mind of man is in the hand of the Lord; the heart of man is under the guidance of Heaven.

No Christian man can too strongly denounce the spirit and cruelty of war: there are no terms sufficiently expressive and emphatic with which to characterise the horribleness of the military spirit; but there are worse things than war: slavery is worse, oppression is worse, robbery is worse; war may become comparatively righteous and even holy, but slavery can never become Deuteronomy 2:36

This is a human testimony to divine promise.—Every city appeared to be too strong, yet in the strength of the Almighty the most powerful cities were as straw before fire.—What is true of cities is true of temptations.—There need not be one temptation that can distress the tried Christian.—If left to himself every temptation would be too much for him; but he is never left to himself; he is fighting God's battle; he is not at the war at his own charges, but at the cost of God, and under the security of heaven.—When we reach the better land we shall be enabled to repeat this testimony according to the variety of the circumstances through which we have come.—It will apply to difficulties of every kind,—personal, social, spiritual: the testimony will be that throughout the whole scheme of life he that was for us was more than all they that were against us.—My soul, hope thou in God!