Expositions of Holy Scripture

A >> Alexander Maclaren >> Expositions of Holy Scripture

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II. Now, if, turning from the lessons to be drawn from these two
petitions, taken in conjunction, we look at them separately, we may
say that we have here an example of the spirit in which we should
set ourselves, day by day, and at each new epoch and beginning, be
it greater or smaller, to every task.

There are truths that underlie that first prayer, 'Rise up, Lord,
and let Thine enemies be scattered,' which are of perennial
validity, and apply to us as truly as to these warriors of God in
the wilderness long centuries ago. The first of them is that the
divine Presence is the source of all energy, and of successful
endeavour after, and accomplishment of, any duty. The second of them
is that that presence is, as I have been saying, granted, in its
operative power, only on condition of its being sought. And the
third of them is that I have a right to identify my enemies with
God's only on condition that I have made His cause mine. When Moses
prayed, 'Let Thine enemies be scattered,' he meant by these the
hostile nomad tribes that might ring Israel round, and come down
like a sandstorm upon them at any moment. What right had he to
suppose that the people whose lances and swords threatened the
motley host that he was leading through the wilderness were God's
enemies? Only this right, that his host had consented to be God's
soldiers, and that they having thus made His enemies theirs, He, on
His part, was sure to make their enemies His. We are often tempted
to identify our foes with God's, without having taken the
preliminary step of having so yielded ourselves to be His servants
and instruments for carrying forward His will, as that our own wills
have become a vanishing quantity, or rather have been ennobled and
greatened in proportion as they have been moulded in submission to
His. We must take God's cause for ours, in all the various aspects
of that phrase. And that means, first of all, that we make our own
perfecting into the likeness of Jesus Christ the main aim of our own
lives and efforts. It means, further, the putting ourselves bravely
and manfully on the side of right and truth and justice, in all
their forms. Above all, it means that we give ourselves to be God's
instruments in carrying on His great purposes for the salvation of
the world through Jesus Christ. If we do these things, whatever
obstacles may arise in our paths, we may be sure that these are
God's antagonists, because they are antagonists to God's work in and
by us.

Only in so far as they are such, can you pray, 'Let them flee before
Thee!' Many of the things that we call our enemies come to us
disguised, and are mistaken by our superficial sight, and we do not
know that they are friends. 'All things work together for good to
them that love God.' And, when we desire His Presence, the
hindrances to doing His will--which are the only real enemies that
we have to fight--will melt away before His power, 'as wax melteth'
before the ardours of the fire; and, for the rest, the distresses,
the difficulties, the sorrows, and all the other things that we so
often think are our foes, we shall find out to have been our
friends. Make God's cause yours, and He will make your cause His.

That applies to the great things of life, and to the little things.
I begin my day's work some morning, perhaps wearied, perhaps annoyed
with a multiplicity of trifles which seem too small to bring great
principles to bear upon them. But do you not think there would be a
strange change wrought in the petty annoyances of every day, and in
the small trifles of which all our lives, of whatever texture they
are, must largely be composed, if we began each day and each task
with that old prayer, 'Rise, Lord, and let Thine enemies be
scattered'? Do you not think there would come a quiet into our
hearts, and a victorious peace to which we are too much strangers?
If we carried the assurance that there is One that fights for us,
into the trifles as well as into the sore struggles of our lives, we
should have peace and victory. Most of us will not have many large
occasions of trial and conflict in our career; and, if God's
fighting for us is not available in regard to the small annoyances
of home and daily life, I know not for what it is available. 'Many
littles make a mickle,' and there are more deaths in skirmishes than
in the field of a pitched battle. More Christian people lose their
hold of God, their sense of His presence, and are beaten
accordingly, by reason of the little enemies that come down on them,
like a cloud of gnats in a summer evening, than are defeated by the
shock of a great assault or a great temptation, which calls out
their strength, and sends them to their knees to ask for help from
God.

So we may learn from this prayer the spirit of expectance of victory
which is not presumption, and of consecration, which alone will
enable us to pass through life victorious. 'Be of good cheer,' said
the Master, as if in answer to this prayer in its Christian form--'I
have overcome the world.' We turn to the helmed and sworded Figure
that stands mysteriously beside us whilst we are all unaware of His
coming, and the swift question that Joshua put rises to our lips,
'Art Thou for us or for our adversaries?' The reply comes, 'Nay! but
as Captain of the Lord's host am I come up.' That is Christ's answer
to the prayer, 'Rise, Lord, let Thine enemies be scattered.'

III. Lastly, we have here a pattern of the temper for hours of
repose.

'When the ark rested, he said, "Return, O Lord, unto the many
thousands of Israel."' As I said at the beginning of these remarks,
the pillar of cloud seems to have taken two forms, braced together
upright when it moved, diffused and stretched as a shelter and a
covering over the host of Israel when it and they were at rest. In
like manner, that divine Presence is Protean in its forms, and takes
all shapes, according to the moment's necessities of the Christian
trusting heart. When we are to brace ourselves for the march it
condenses itself into an upright and moving guide. When we lay
ourselves down with relaxed muscles for repose, it softly expands
itself and 'covers our head' in the hours of rest, 'as in the day of
battle.'

Ah! brother, we have more need of God in times of repose than in
times of effort. It is harder to realise His Presence in the brief
hours of relaxation than even in the many hours of strenuous toil.
Every one who goes for a holiday knows that. You have only to look
at the sort of amusements that most people fly to when they have not
anything to do, to see that there is quite as much, if not more,
peril to communion of soul with God in times when the whole nature
is somewhat relaxed, and the strings are loosened, like those of a
violin screwed down a turn or two of the peg, than there is in times
of work.

So let us take special care of our hours of repose, and be quite
sure that they are so spent as that we can ask when the day's work
is done, and we have come to slippered ease, in preparation for
nightly rest, 'Return, O Lord, unto Thy waiting servant.' Work
without God unfits for rest with Him. Rest without God unfits for
work for Him.

We may take these two petitions as tests of the allowableness of any
occupation, or of any relaxation. Dare I ask Him to come with me
into that field of work? If I dare not, it is no place for me. Dare
I ask Him to come with me into this other chamber of rest? If I dare
not, I had better never cross its threshold. Take these two prayers,
and where you cannot pray them, do not risk yourself.

But the highest form of the contrast between the two waits still to
be realised. For life as a whole is a fight, and beyond it there is
the 'rest that remaineth,' where there will be not merely God's
'return unto the thousands of Israel,' but the realisation of His
fuller presence, and of deeper rest, which shall be wondrously
associated with more intense work, though in that work there will be
no conflict. The two petitions will flow together then, for whilst
we labour we shall rest; and whilst we rest we shall labour,
according to the great sayings, 'they rest from their labours,' and
yet 'they rest not day nor night.'

MOSES DESPONDENT

'I am not able to bear all this people alone, because
it is too heavy for me.'
NUM. xi. 14.

Detail the circumstances.

The leader speaks the truth in his despondency. He is pressed with
the feeling of his incapacity for his work. We may take his words
here as teaching us what men need in him who is to be their guide,
and how impossible it is to find what they need in mere men.

I. What men need in their guide.

These Israelites were wandering in the wilderness; they were without
natural supplies for their daily necessities; they had a long hard
journey before them, an unknown road, at the terminus of which was a
land where they should rest. We have precisely the same necessities
as those which Moses despairingly said that they had.

Like them, we wander hungry, and need a Leader who can satisfy our
desires and evermore give us bread for our souls even more than for
our bodies. We need One to whom we can 'weep,' as the Israelites did
to Moses, and not weep in vain. We need One who can do for us what
Moses felt that the Israelites needed, and that he could not give
them, when he almost indignantly put to God the despairing question,
'Can I carry them in my bosom as a nursing father beareth the
sucking child?' Our weakness, our ignorance, our heart-hunger, cry
out for One who can 'bear all this people alone.' who in his single
Self has resources of strength, wisdom, and sufficiency to meet not
only the wants of one soul but those of the world. For He who can
satisfy the poorest single soul must be able to satisfy all men.

II. The impossibility of finding this in men.

Moses' experience here is that of all leaders and great men. He is
overwhelmed with the work; feels his own utter impotence; has
himself to be strengthened; loathes his work; longs for release from
it. See how he confesses

His human dependence.
His incapacity to do and be what is needed.
His impatience with the people.
His longing to be rid of it all.

That is a true picture of the experience of the best of men--a true
picture of the limitations of the noblest leaders.

But it is not only the leaders who confess their inadequacy, but the
followers feel it, for even the most enthusiastic of them come
sooner or later to find that their Oracle had not learned all
wisdom, nor was fit to be taken as sole guide, much less as sole
defence or satisfaction. He who looks to find all that he needs in
men must take many men to find it, and no multiplicity of men will
bring him what he seeks. The Milky Way is no substitute for the sun.
Our hearts cry out for One great light, for One spacious home.
Endless strings of pearls do not reach the preciousness of One pearl
of price.

III. The failures of human leaders prophesy the true Leader.

Moses was prophetic of Christ by his failures as by his successes.
He could not do what the people clamoured to have done, and what he
in the mood of despair in which the text shows him, sadly owned that
he could not. In that very confession he becomes an unconscious
prophet. For that he should have so vividly set forth the
qualifications of a leader of men, as defined by the people's cries,
and should have so bitterly felt his incapacity to supply them, is a
witness, if there is a God at all, that somewhere the needed Ideal
will be realised in 'a Leader and Commander of the people,' God-sent
and 'worthy of more glory than Moses.'

The best service that all human leaders, helpers or lovers, can do
us, is to confess their own insufficiency, and to point us to Jesus.

All that men need is found in Him and in Him alone. All that men
have failed, and must always fail, to be, He is. Those eyes are
blessed that 'see no man any more save Jesus only.' We need One who
can satisfy our desires and fill our hungry souls, and Jesus speaks
a promise, confirmed by the experience of all who have tested it
when He declares: 'He that cometh unto Me shall never hunger.' We
need One who will dry our tears, and Jesus, when He says 'Weep not,'
wipes them away and stanches their sources, giving 'the oil of joy
for mourning.' We need One who can hold us up in our journey, and
minister strength to fainting hearts and vigour to weary feet, and
Jesus 'strengthens us with might in the inner man.' We need One who
will bring us to the promised land of rest, and Jesus brings many
sons to glory, and wills that they be 'with Him where He is.' So let
us turn away from the multiplicity of human insufficiencies to Him
who is our one only help and hope, because He is all-sufficient and
eternal.

AFRAID OF GIANTS

'And Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan, and
said unto them, Get you up this way southward, and go
up into the mountain; 18. And see the land, what it is;
and the people that dwelleth therein, whether they be
strong or weak, few or many; 19. And what the land is
that they dwell in, whether it be good or bad; and what
cities they be that they dwell in, whether in tents, or
in strong holds; 20. And what the land is, whether it
be fat or lean, whether there be wood therein, or not.
And be ye of good courage, and bring of the fruit of the
land. Now the time was the time of the firstripe grapes.
21. So they went up, and searched the land from the
wilderness of Zin unto Rehob, as men come to Hamath.
22. And they ascended by the south, and came unto Hebron;
where Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, the children of Anak,
were. (Now Hebron was built seven years before Zoan in
Egypt.) 23. And they came unto the brook of Eshcol, and
cut down from thence a branch with one cluster of grapes,
and they bare it between two upon staff; and they brought
of the pomegranates, and of the figs. 24. The place was
called the brook Eshcol, because of the cluster of grapes
which the children of Israel cut down from thence. 25. And
they returned from searching of the land after forty days.
26. And they went and came to Moses, and to Aaron, and to
all the congregation of the children of Israel, unto the
wilderness of Paran, to Kadesh; and brought back word
unto them, and unto all the congregation, and shewed them
the fruit of the land. 27. And they told him, and said,
We came unto the land whither thou sentest us, and surely
it floweth with milk and honey; and this is the fruit
of it. 28. Nevertheless the people be strong that dwell
in the land, and the cities are walled, and very great:
and, moreover, we saw the children of Anak there. 29.
The Amalekites dwell in the land of the south; and the
Hittites, and the Jebusites, and the Amorites, dwell
in the mountains; and the Canaanites dwell by the sea,
and by the coast of Jordan. 30. And Caleb stilled the
people before Moses, and said, Let us go up at once,
and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it.
31. But the men that went up with him said, We be not
able to go up against the people; for they are stronger
than we. 32. And they brought up an evil report of the
land which they had searched unto the children of Israel,
saying, The land, through which we have gone to search
it, is a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof;
and all the people that we saw in it are men of a great
stature. 33. And there we saw the giants, the sons of
Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our own
sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.'
--NUM. xiii. 17-33.

We stand here on the edge of the Promised Land. The discussion of
the true site of Kadesh need not concern us now. Wherever it was,
the wanderers had the end of their desert journey within sight; one
bold push forward, and their feet would tread on their inheritance.
But, as is so often the case, courage oozed out at the decisive
moment, and cowardice, disguised as prudence, called for 'further
information,'--that cuckoo-cry of the faint-hearted. There are
three steps in this narrative: the despatch of the explorers, their
expedition, and the two reports brought back.

I. We have the despatch and instructions of the explorers. A
comparison with Deuteronomy i. shows that the project of sending the
spies originated in the people's terror at the near prospect of the
fighting which they had known to be impending ever since they left
Egypt. Faith finds that nearness diminishes dangers, but sense sees
them grow as they approach. The people answered Moses' brave words
summoning them to the struggle with this feeble petition for an
investigation. They did not honestly say that they were alarmed, but
defined the scope of the exploring party's mission as simply to
'bring us word again of the way by which we must go up, and the
cities into which we shall come.' Had they not the pillar blazing
there above them to tell them that? The request was not fathomed in
its true faithlessness by Moses, who thought it reasonable and
yielded. So far Deuteronomy goes; but this narrative puts another
colour on the mission, representing it as the consequence of God's
command. The most eager discoverer of discrepancies in the component
parts of the Pentateuch need not press this one into his service,
for both sides may be true: the one representing the human
feebleness which originated the wish; the other, the divine
compliance with the desire, in order to disclose the unbelief which
unfitted the people for the impending struggle, and to educate them
by letting them have their foolish way, and taste its bitter
results. Putting the two accounts together, we get, not a
contradiction, but a complete view, which teaches a large truth as
to God's dealings; namely, that He often lovingly lets us have our
own way to show us by the issues that His is better, and that
daring, which is obedience, is the true prudence.

The instructions given to the explorers turn on two points: the
eligibility of the country for settlement, and the military strength
of its inhabitants. They alternate in a very graphic way from the
one of these to the other, beginning, in verse 18, with the land,
and immediately going on to the numbers and power of the
inhabitants; then harking back again, in verse 19, to the fertility
of the land, and passing again to the capacity of the cities to
resist attack; and finishing up, in verse 20, with the land once
more, both arable and forest. The same double thought colours the
parting exhortation to 'be bold,' and to 'bring of the produce of
the land.' Now the people knew already both points which the spies
were despatched to find out. Over and over again, in Egypt, in the
march, and at Sinai, they had been told that the land was 'flowing
with milk and honey,' and had been assured of its conquest. What
more did they want? Nothing, if they had believed God. Nothing, if
they had been all saints,--which they were not. Their fears were
very natural. A great deal might be said in favour of their wish to
have accurate information. But it is a bad sign when faith, or
rather unbelief, sends out sense to be its scout, and when we think
to verify God's words by men's confirmation. Not to believe Him
unless a jury of twelve of ourselves says the same thing, is surely
much the same as not believing Him at all; for it is not He, but
they, whom we believe after all.

There is no need to be too hard on the people. They were a mob of
slaves, whose manhood had been eaten out by four centuries of
sluggish comfort, and latterly crushed by oppression. So far as we
know, Abraham's midnight surprise of the Eastern kings was the
solitary bit of fighting in the national history thus far; and it is
not wonderful that, with such a past, they should have shrunk from
the prospect of bloodshed, and caught at any excuse for delay at
least, even if not for escape. 'We have all of us one human heart,'
and these cowards were no monsters, but average men, who did very
much what average men, professing to be Christians, do every day,
and for doing get praised for prudence by other average professing
Christians. How many of us, when brought right up to some task
involving difficulty or danger, but unmistakably laid on us by God,
shelter our distrustful fears under the fair pretext of 'knowing a
little more about it first,' and shake wise heads over rashness
which takes God at His word, and thinks that it knows enough when it
knows what He wills?

II. We have the exploration (verses 21-25). The account of it is
arranged on a plan common in the Old Testament narratives, the
observation of which would, in many places, remove difficulties
which have led to extraordinary hypotheses. Verse 21 gives a general
summary of what is then taken up, and told in more detail. It
indicates the completeness of the exploration by giving its extreme
southern and northern points, the desert of Zin being probably the
present depression called the Arabah, and 'Rehob as men come to
Hamath' being probably near the northern Dan, on the way to Hamath,
which lay in the valley between the Lebanon and the Anti-Lebanon.
The account then begins over again, and tells how the spies went up
into 'the South.' The Revised Version has done wisely in printing
this word with a capital, and thereby showing that it is not merely
the name of a cardinal point, but of a district. It literally means
'the dry,' and is applied to the arid stretch of land between the
more cultivated southern parts of Canaan and the northern portion of
the desert which runs down to Sinai. It is a great chalky plateau,
and might almost be called a steppe or prairie. Passing through
this, the explorers next would come to Hebron, the first town of
importance, beside which Abraham had lived, and where the graves of
their ancestors were. But they were in no mood for remembering such
old stories. Living Anaks were much more real to them than dead
patriarchs. So the only thing mentioned, besides the antiquity of
the city, is the presence in it of these giants. They were probably
the relics of the aboriginal inhabitants, and some strain of their
blood survived till late days. They seem to have expelled the
Hittites, who held Mamre, or Hebron, in Abraham's time. Their name
is said to mean 'long-necked,' and the three names in our lesson are
probably tribal, and not personal, names. The whole march northward
and back again comes in between verses 22 and 23; for Eshcol was
close to Hebron, and the spies would not encumber themselves with
the bunch of grapes on their northward march. The details of the
exploration are given more fully in the spies' report, which shows
that they had gone up north from Hebron, through the hills, and
possibly came back by the valley of the Jordan. At any rate, they
made good speed, and must have done some bold and hard marching, to
cover the ground out and back in six weeks. So they returned with
their pomegranates and figs, and a great bunch of the grapes for
which the valley identified with Eshcol is still famous, swinging on
a pole,--the easiest way of carrying it without injury.

III. We have next the two reports. The explorers are received in a
full assembly of the people, and begin their story with an object-
lesson, producing the great grape cluster and the other spoils. But
while honesty compelled the acknowledgment of the fertility of the
land, cowardice slurred that over as lightly as might be, and went
on to dilate on the terrors of the giants and the strength of the
cities, and the crowded population that held every corner of the
country. Truly, the eye sees what it brings with it. They really had
gone to look for dangers, and of course they found them. Whatever
Moses might lay down in his instructions, they had been sent by the
people to bring back reasons for not attempting the conquest, and so
they curtly and coldly admit the fertility of the soil, and fling
down the fruit for inspection as undeniably grown there, but they
tell their real mind with a great 'nevertheless.' Their report is,
no doubt, quite accurate. The cities were, no doubt, some of them
walled, and to eyes accustomed to the desert, very great; and there
were, no doubt, Anaks at Hebron, at any rate, and the 'spies' had
got the names of the various races and their territories correctly.
As to these, we need only notice that the Hittites were an outlying
branch of the great nation, which recent research has discovered, as
we might say, the importance and extent of which we scarcely yet
know; that the Jebusites held Jerusalem till David's time; that the
'Amorites,' or 'Highlanders,' occupied the central block of
mountainous country in conjunction with the two preceding tribes;
and that the 'Canaanites,' or 'Lowlanders,' held the lowlands east
and west of that hilly nucleus, namely, the deep gorge of the
Jordan, and the strip of maritime plain. A very accurate report may
be very one-sided. The spies were not the last people who, being
sent out to bring home facts, managed to convey very decided
opinions without expressing any. A grudging and short admission to
begin with, the force of which is immediately broken by sombre and
minute painting of difficulty and danger, is more powerful as a
deterrent than any dissuasive. It sounds such an unbiassed appeal to
common-sense, as if the reporter said, 'There are the facts; we
leave you to draw the conclusions.' An 'unvarnished account of the
real state of the case,' in which there is not a single misstatement
nor exaggeration, may be utterly false by reason of wrong
perspective and omission, and, however true, is sure to act as a
shower-bath to courage, if it is unaccompanied with a word of cheer.
To begin a perilous enterprise without fairly facing its risks and
difficulties is folly. To look at _them_ only is no less folly,
and is the sure precursor of defeat. But when on the one side is
God's command, and on the other such doleful discouragements, they
are more than folly, they are sin.