Bible Commentaries

"Handfuls of Purpose"

For All Gleaners

"... to possess nations greater and mightier than thyself."— Deuteronomy 9:1

This would seem to be an inversion of the doctrine of proportion.—We forget, however, that there is a proportion of quality as well as a proportion of quantity.—Force is not to be measured by bulk.—The helm is very small compared to the whole ship, yet it turns the vessel's course. The man is very small physically in relation to the mountain which is thousands of feet high, yet the man is master of the mountain. The rider is small in strength compared with the horse he rides, yet the steed obeys the touch of his hand.—We constantly see how apparently little things rule obviously great bulks and quantities.—The true sovereignty is in the spirit.—This is the seat of the highest miracles that are wrought; such miracles simply illustrate the sovereign influence of mind over matter.—How little is man as to mere arithmetical measurement compared with the great globe; yet God has put all things under the hands of man: "All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field; the fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas."—Let us reason upwards towards moral power: the power of ideas, impulses, sympathies, convictions.—The time will come when moral forces will be regarded as the true sovereignties. Towards this consummation Christ has been working from the beginning. The sword shall be beaten into a ploughshare, and all violence shall be deposed by the quietness of power.—Carry this a step higher into the religious region, and draw from the whole reasoning the inference that the religious nature is the most influential of all.—Truth shall take captive all the superstitions, idolatries, misconceptions, and false worships of the world.—We must admit what may be called even the smallest truth; let it have free course, and it will overturn the most ancient thrones and dominions which have been claimed by the powers of darkness.—Even the light of a candle will break up the darkness which fills the largest building.—In the strength of these thoughts and hopes every Christian should toil gladly, delighting himself with the pleasures of expectancy, knowing that the whole earth shall be filled with the knowledge of God.

Criticisms and Cautions

Deuteronomy 9:1-2).—We seem to be looking on the remains of some Cyclopean city. These are scanty enough, but still sufficient to be remarkable. It is not merely, however, their size that strikes us, but their curiously mingled order and confusion, as they lie down in the ravine at our right, or rise above each other on the hill-slope at our left. We see no pillars, no ornaments, no inscriptions. Whatever city was here it belonged to a far antiquity, a time of rude, unadorned, but massive architecture, when men, few in number, and unable to apply any great amount of power, took advantage of natural peculiarities, such as the withdrawing cave, or the outstanding boulder, and instead of shaping their materials to their plan, shaped their plan to their materials. Yet the scene is not a bare one; far from it. There is no stream below, no rill trickling down the clefts, no moss vivifying the dead stone; but there is quite a wilderness of rich brushwood overspreading the whole. Not shrubs merely, but trees, have taken possession of every free inch of soil; the ballut, the privet, and the fir rooting themselves in each crevice, and forming an exquisite fringe, or rather network of green, through whose interminable meshes the grey patches of the old rock came up like the tombstones of some primeval cemetery.

It appears that this region was occupied at a very early period by the Anakim, who were of the Rephaim nations. Their chief city, Hebron, which we are just approaching, was one of the oldest cities of history, having been built seven years before Zoan, in Egypt ( Numbers 13:22), the chief city of the Delta. The identity of the Anakim and Rephaim is of no consequence to our present statement; still, it is worth while noticing that Moses explicitly mentions this:—"The Emims dwelt therein in times past, a people great, and many, and tall as the Anakims; which also were accounted Rephaim" (in our translation, giants), "as the Anakims" ( Deuteronomy 2:10-11). Thus the Anakim branch of the Rephaim were the original occupiers of Southern Judea. They were the first that took possession of its mountains, building cities, and swaying no feeble sceptre over a large region around. They were evidently not only an ancient, but a warlike and formidable tribe. It was not of hordes of savage wanderers or herdsmen that Moses made mention ( Deuteronomy 9:1-2). And even though we may admit that the report of the spies was greatly coloured by their fears, still their language indicates the character of the Rephaim tribe ( Numbers 13:33).

Prayer

Almighty God, how can we live so long as Satan is in our heart? It is not life: it is death twice dead. The pain is more than we can bear. All music is choked; all light is put out; all hope is killed. We are in fear of the enemy; yea, though we boast sometimes in his hearing we know that our boasting is vain. He is stronger than we are—older, wiser, more subtle than any beast of the field. He comes into Eden: he allures us by seductions which are fatal. This is our life's complaint; this is our heart's bitter testimony. When we would do good evil is present with us; the good that we would we do not: the evil that we would not that we do. We know this to be Deuteronomy 9:19

The memorable prayers of life.—Times of conscious conquest.—Who cannot recall periods in which the Lord by consent allowed himself to be overthrown, as if in war and wrestling, by the tender violence of love?—These great memories stimulate us to renewed endeavours in prayer and service.—We date our best endeavours from our latest conquests.—Only the good man can say whether prayer can be answered or not.—Moses here pledges his word as to the reality of answered prayer.—To destroy this answer we must first discredit Moses.—This is the real reply to those who would discuss the virtue of prayer.—This is not a question which can be settled in controversial terms, or within the narrow grounds of verbal definition; the inquiry must be addressed to the praying soul itself; the praying soul has never feared to say that its supplications have been rewarded with great answers.—Family history may be inquired into to bear evidence upon this matter. What of sickness? What of deliverance in the time of vital perplexity? What about the dispersion of clouds that hung like an infinite night over the whole life? What of sudden and unexpected answers to questions which we expected would cut us like swords?—A man must be very wise who can answer all such questions offhandedly, and dispense with the idea of the personality and intervention of God in the shaping and direction of human affairs.