Bible Commentaries

The Journeys of Israel

Numbers 33:1-49

This chapter gives a very graphic and instructive picture of a much larger scheme of journeying. The local names may mean nothing to us now, but the words "departed," "removed," "encamped," have meanings that abide for ever. We are doing in our way, and according to the measure of our opportunity, exactly what Israel did in this chapter of hard names and places mostly now forgotten. Observe, this is a written account:—"And Moses wrote their goings out." The life is all written. It is not a sentiment spoken without consideration and forgotten without regret: it is a record—a detailed and critical writing, condescending to geography, locality, daily movement, position in society and in the world. It Numbers 33:50-56

The subject is evidently thoroughness. Do the work completely—root and branch, in and out, so that there may be no mistake as to earnestness; and the result shall be security, peace, contentment;—Do the work partially—half and half, perfunctorily; and the end shall be disappointment, vexation, and ruin. Causes have effects; work is followed by consequences. Do not suppose that you can turn away the law of causation and consequence. Things are settled and decreed before you begin the work. There is no cloud upon the covenant, no ambiguity in its terms. He is faithful who hath promised—faithful to give blessing, and faithful to inflict penalty. Faithfulness in God is not a one-sided quality or virtue. Do not fear to call God "Judge." We mistake and misapply the term when we think of it only in its vengeful aspect. To "judge" is to do right. God will "judge the fatherless and the widow," God will "judge" every worker. He will come into the Canaan which he has appointed to us, and see whether we have done the work thoroughly or only partially; if thoroughly, Canaan will be as heaven; if partially and selfishly, then the very land of promise shall become the land of disappointment. It is well the words were spoken before the work began. There is no after-thought with God. Hell is not a recent invention of Omnipotence: it is as old as right and wrong. Let us have no affectation of surprise, no falling-back as from uncalculated violence; the covenant is written in plain ink, uttered in distinct terms—so written, so uttered, that the wayfaring man need not err.

There was so much to be undone in the Canaan that was promised. It is this negative work which tries our patience, and puts our faith to severe tests. We meet it everywhere. The colonist has to subdue the country, take down much that is already put up, root out the trees, destroy the beasts of prey, and do much that is of a merely negative kind, before he begins to sow corn, to reap harvests, and to build a secure homestead. This is the case in all the relations of life. The weed is not the green thing on the surface; that is only the signal that the weed is underneath. The work that has to be done is a work of eradication. The weed must be torn up by its every fibre. We are apt to lop off the top, and think we have completed the work of destruction. We must learn the meaning of the word eradication—the getting out of the root, the sinking right down to the very farthest point of residence, and then having no pity, but pulling out the weed, not for the sake of destruction, but to make room for a flower that shall please the very vision of God. But the colonist is a character of whom we know little. The illustration by being so remote does not immediately touch our life; but an illustration can be drawn from our own experience and conduct. In the work of education, for example, how much has to be undone! When the first thing the teacher has to do is to destroy a man's supposed Numbers 21:1-3). The Israelites, however, did not follow up this victory, which was simply the consequence of an unprovoked assault on them; but, turning back, and compassing the land of Edom, they attempted to pass through the country on the other side of the Jordan, inhabited by a tribe of the Amorites. Their passage being refused, and an attack made on them by Sihon, king of the Amorites, they not only forced their way through his land, but destroyed its inhabitants, and proceeding onwards toward the adjoining kingdom of Bashan, they in like manner destroyed the inhabitants of that district, and slew Og, their king, who was the last of the Rephaim, or giants. The tract of which they thus became possessed was subsequently allotted to the tribes of Reuben and Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh.

Prayer

Almighty God, thou hast set us in our places, and we would not change them but at thy bidding. We want to sit, when we are ambitious and left to our vain selves, one on the right hand and the other on the left; but now, being taught of the Spirit and being chastened by daily providence and touched into new sacredness of service and hope by grace divine, we are willing to go as thou dost point the way,—to run, to stand, to serve, to wait;—only give us some foothold within the living circle. Thou wilt not thrust us out "into the darkness immeasurable. God is light, God is love; his eyes are full of tears; his hands are loaded with gifts for men. Comfort us with these words, for our hearts sometimes give way, and we think the lamp of our hope is going quite out, and we never can light it again. We know we are wayward, for we are of the earth: we are rooted in the soil; we carry the clay in our whole form, and every feature is charged with the dullness of the dust. Yet we carry something more: we are filled with the presence of God: we have the divine treasure in an earthen vessel, and the divine treasure burns through the crust and makes it glow with immortal flame. We are made in the image and likeness of God. Sometimes we are all but in heaven: now and again the life-tide rises within us so high that it plashes against the very throne of God; sometimes we say we cannot be kept out of the inner places much longer. Then we come down again to darkness, and strife, and disappointment, and weariness; but, though we may sigh our impatience, we cannot utter our unbelief, for our hearts are still saying, each in its own way,—Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief. So, we are still on the right side: our life is still lifted up in prayer, our souls are not without hope. So, we can bear the jeer and folly of frivolous men; they know not what they say, and they say it for no purpose. We would be found in the tabernacle, in the holy place—just on the borderland that hardly separates earth from heaven; and, being there, we catch occasional warmth and occasional glimpses of better things, and we hear voices that touch our inmost spirit by their subtle music; and we hope, nor spend our hope in unprofitable sentiment, but receive it as an inspiration, and return to heal the sick and help the blind across a busy thoroughfare, and teach ignorance its alphabet, and break bread to the hungry; this is the proof of our hope; were it a merely coloured vapour, we should cast it away, but it is an inspiration: it rouses us to endeavour, it compels us to transfer ourselves into other people, and to carry, where we may, part, at least, of their heavy burdens. We bless thee for this Christian hope; it lives when all things fail; it goes upstairs with us when we go for the last time—never to come down again until we are borne out by devout men; it is the Christian's inheritance, his immediate and blessed paradise. Help us all according to our need. Speak to the aged pilgrim, and say the last mile is the very sunniest of all the road—quite an eventide blessing resting upon it, a tenderness of light, a kind of opening door in the sky, showing how grand the prospect is. Help the young to measure their days, count them and allot them, setting them down in columns and adding them up, and dividing them wisely, to sec which is day and which is night, which is the young time, with all its blood, and which is the old time when the blood becomes pale and languid; and then let them set themselves to work out, like wise economists and devotees of God, the whole purpose of life's little day. As for the prodigal, we send after him; our letters are left unanswered—perhaps our prayers may be responded to. We will still think and love and hope, not knowing but the next knock on the door may be the announcement of return. Comfort the sick; they are very ailing and frail and all but breathless; may we give their looks large interpretations of love: may we spare them the trouble of speaking by knowing in looking at them just what they want;—for we, too, shall be sick, and must be waited on. The Lord's blessing be upon all families: unite them in the holy fear of God; upon all business: purify it from all evil and meanness, and pitiable selfishness. Look upon all kinds of honest life, giving them force and breadth, daily reinvigoration and continual blessing.

We speak our prayer in the sweet name of Jesus, crucified once, crowned for evermore. He died for us—the just for the unjust; he rose again for us to show that death can snatch but a momentary triumph, the final and eternal victory being on the side of life. God be merciful unto us, and bless us, and cause his face to shine upon us; and in the shining of that face, we shall forget all the pale and mocking glory which once made us glad. Amen.