Bible Commentaries

Reuben and Gad

Numbers 32:1-5

This is too often the prayer of prosperous men. They find upon the earth what they regard as heaven enough. Having found plenty of pasturage and deep wells of water, they say,—This is enough,—why not build here, and here remain during the rest of our lives? This has, sometimes, quite a religious look; it seems to breathe the spirit and to bear the image of a serene and pious content. They would leave whatever is beyond Jordan to other people; they are quite willing to let well alone; give them grass enough, cattle enough, water enough, and who will may pass beyond the river and realise the mystery of the unseen. Is it not so written in the history of nearly every man to whom a considerable measure of prosperity has been accorded? Yet how he soliloquises and lets out the bitter truth in his mournful talk! Says Numbers 32:6). It was a soldier's taunt; it was a tremendous retort to those who could read between the lines and to those who understood the lower tones of human suggestion and reproof. It was not a question put for consideration; it was a question and an answer in one—an interrogative tone, a query,—long, sharp, terrible as a sword forged in heaven. The matter was not put before Reuben and Gad for purposes of consideration and debate and the statement of reasons on the one side or the other. "Shall your brethren go to war, and shall ye sit here? "What suggestion there is in the colour of every tone! What sublime mockery! What a hint of cowardice! What an infliction of judgment upon meanness! Sometimes the only way in which we can put a rational rebuke is in the form of an inquiry. We remit the case to its original Numbers 32:7). Take the word "discourage" in any sense, and it is full of meaning. Perhaps a stronger word might have been inserted here—a word amounting to aversion and utter dislike to the idea of going forward. Our actions have social effects. There are no literal individualities now; we are not separate and independent pillars;—we are parts of a sum-total; we are members one of another. Consider the social effects of certain actions. It is possible for men to say,—We will not go to church; we have really outgrown the whole idea represented by the Church;—not that it is a vicious idea, but by culture, by reading, by progress of every kind, we have practically outgrown the Church;—we will sit down outside in the wood where the birds sing, by the stream where the wild flowers grow, clear out in the blue morning; and there we will be glad with a kind of mute religiousness. Does the matter end there? Finding you sitting outside, what are those who have not outgrown the Church to do? It is easy for you to say they should go on; but you have miscalculated your own influence: you have undervalued your own social importance. When men like you do certain things, your doing of them must have an effect upon inferior minds. It might be well, perhaps, to sacrifice yourselves somewhat, lest you discourage other men, or avert their attention from those things to which you, may be, owe more of your own manhood than you are at first disposed to acknowledge. A great deal is assumed in this reasoning—namely, that a man can outgrow the Church. Personally, I have never known a man outgrow the sublimity of prayer; I have never seen a man who need no longer sing God's praise; but for purposes of argument, assuming that outside the Church you can find room for your cattle, pasture for your flocks, water enough for all the purposes of your life, remember that you are not all Israel or the sum-total of humanity, and that sometimes even persons who have outgrown the Church—at least, in their own estimation—would show the better side of their nature by sacrificing themselves and passing through a process which may amount to tedium, rather than repel, discourage, or avert men who have not yet attained that sublimity of mental altitude or moral compass. The answer of Moses was not only military but shepherdly. At first, he taunted Reuben and Gad with being cowards, and then, with a shepherd's solicitude, thinking of the larger Israel, he said,—How can ye discourage the hearts of your brethren, and hinder them morally from going over into the land which the Lord hath given them?

Then Moses utilised history. Beginning at the eighth verse, and going to the thirteenth, Moses brings to bear upon Reuben and Gad a tremendous historical impeachment, commencing—"Thus did your fathers, when I sent them from Kadesh-barnea to see the land" ( Numbers 32:8). They belonged, therefore, to an ancestry not only physically but morally akin. Who can tell the origin of the desires, ambitions, propositions, and programmes of his life? The past speaks in the present. Our fathers come up in a kind of resurrection in our own thinking and our own propositions. Meanness of soul is handed down; disobedience is not buried in the grave with the man who disobeyed. This is a broad law; were it rightly understood and applied, many a man's conduct would be explained which today appears to be quite inexplicable. Appetites descend from generation to generation; diseases may sleep through one generation, and arise in the next with aggravated violence. Men should take care what they do. The great scheme of life—whether it be a scheme invented by chance or originated and governed by God—asserts, in the soul of it, a principle of criticism and judgment and penalty, which makes the strongest men afraid. Argument Numbers 32:18-19)-Moses said, in effect,—So be it: if you complete the battle, you shall locate yourselves here: but you must complete the battle, and when the conquest is won, you may return and enjoy what you can here of green things and flowing water; but, let me tell you, "if ye will not do Numbers 32:38

Many persons live in names.—This is fatal to the grasp of complete truth and relation.—The poet asks, "What's in a name?"—The name of a friend may be necessary to his identification, but the name is not the man.—Character is to be studied, motive is to be understood, purpose is to be appreciated, then whatever changes may take place in the mere name, love and confidence will be undiminished.—The change of names, both in the Old Testament and the New, deserves careful study.—The name of Abram was changed, so was the name of Jacob, so was the name of Saul of Tarsus.—Those changes of name symbolise changes of trust and vocation in life.—The name should enlarge with the character, but the character should be always more highly valued than the name.—The solemn application of this text is to the matter of great evangelical truths and doctrines.—For want of attention to this matter, bigotry has been encouraged, and men have been separated from one another.—Some persons do not know the gospel itself, except under a certain set of names, words, and stereotyped phrases.—This is not Christianity, it is mere literalism; it is, in fact, idolatry, for there is an idolatry of phrase as well as of images.—It is simply despicable, when men trickle about names, or details of any kind, in other words when they pay tithes of mint, anise, and cummin, and forget the weigh tier matters of the law.—Literalism was the sin of the scribes.—The truth is not in the letters which print it, the letters but stand to express the inexpressible.—All life is symbolic.—God has spoken in little else than parables.—Revelation addresses the imagination, when imagination is used in its highest senses.—It is not the faculty of mere cloud-making, but the faculty of insight into the largest meanings and the innermost relations of things.—Many persons have less difficulty with the miracles than with the parables, simply because the one requires unquestioning assent, and the other continually discloses new aspects, colours, and suggestions of meanings. The parable will be found to be at once the hardest and pleasantest reading of the spiritual future.—The parables represent the kingdom of heaven, and in proportion to the dignity of that which they represent, is the rapture of following all their suggestion.—Your child is not a mere name to you; see that you be not a mere name to God.—The letter in which you endeavour to express your love, is a poor substitute for the living voice, and the living touch; it is indeed invaluable in the absence of the living personality; but what, letter was ever written that quite satisfied the writer when love was the subject and devotedness the intention?—There is a change of names that inspires the soul with hope.—God is to give his servants a new name in the upper world; their name is to be in their foreheads; but, in the changing of the name, there is. no changing in the burning love, and the rapturous adoration.