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Joshua Chapter
Twenty-two
Joshua 22
Chapter Contents
Reuben and Gad, with the half tribe of Manasseh,
dismissed to their homes. (1-9) They build an altar of testimony, The
congregation offended thereat. (10-20) The answer of the Reubenites. (21-29)
The children of Israel satisfied. (30-34)
Commentary on Joshua 22:1-9
(Read Joshua 22:1-9)
Joshua dismisses the tribes with good counsel. Those who
have the commandment have it in vain, unless they do the commandment; and it
will not be done aright unless we take diligent heed. In particular to love the
Lord our God, as the best of beings, and the best of friends; and as far as
that principle rules in the heart, there will be constant care and endeavour to
walk in his ways, even those that are narrow and up-hill. In every instance to
keep his commandments. At all times, and in all conditions, with purpose of
heart to cleave unto the Lord, and to serve him and his kingdom among men, with
all our heart, and with all our soul. This good counsel is given to all; may
God give us grace to take it!
Commentary on Joshua 22:10-20
(Read Joshua 22:10-20)
Here is the care of the separated tribes to keep their
hold of Canaan's religion. At first sight it seemed a design to set up an altar
against the altar at Shiloh. God is jealous for his own institutions; we should
be so too, and afraid of every thing that looks like, or leads to idolatry.
Corruptions in religion are best dealt with at first. But their prudence in
following up this zealous resolution is no less commendable. Many an unhappy
strife would be prevented, or soon made up, by inquiries into the matter of the
offence. The remembrance of great sins committed formerly, should engage us to
stand on our guard against the beginnings of sin; for the way of sin is
down-hill. We are all concerned to reprove our neighbour when he does amiss,
lest we suffer sin upon him, Leviticus 19:17. The offer made that they should
be welcome to come to the land where the Lord's tabernacle was, and settle
there, was in the spirit of true Israelites.
Commentary on Joshua 22:21-29
(Read Joshua 22:21-29)
The tribes took the reproofs of their brethren in good
part. With solemnity and meekness they proceeded to give all the satisfaction
in their power. Reverence of God is expressed in the form of their appeal. This
brief confession of faith would remove their brethren's suspicion that they
intended to worship other gods. Let us always speak of God with seriousness,
and mention his name with a solemn pause. Those who make appeals to Heaven with
a careless "God knows," take his name in vain: it is very unlike
this. They express great confidence of their own uprightness in the matter of
their appeal. "God knows it," for he is perfectly acquainted with the
thoughts and intents of the heart. In every thing we do in religion, it highly
concerns us to approve ourselves to God, remembering that he knows the heart.
And if our sincerity be known to God, we should study likewise to let others
know it by its fruits, especially those who, though they mistake us, show zeal
for the glory of God. They disdained the design of which they were suspected to
be guilty, and fully explained their true intent in building this altar. Those
who have found the comfort and benefit of God's ordinances, cannot but desire
to preserve them to their seed, and to use all possible care that their
children may be looked upon as having a part in him. Christ is the great Altar
that sanctifies every gift; the best evidence of our interest in him is the
work of his Spirit in our hearts.
Commentary on Joshua 22:30-34
(Read Joshua 22:30-34)
It is well that there was on both sides a disposition to
peace, as there was a zeal for God; for quarrels about religion, for want of
wisdom and love, often prove the most fierce and difficult to be made up. Proud
and peevish spirits, when they have passed any unjust blame on their brethren,
though full evidence be brought of its unfairness, can by no means be persuaded
to withdraw it. But Israel was not so prejudiced. They looked upon their
brethren's innocence as a token of God's presence. Our brethren's zeal for the
power of godliness, and faith and love, notwithstanding the fears of their
breaking the unity of the church, are things of which we should be very glad to
be satisfied. The altar was called ED, a witness. It was a witness of their
care to keep their religion pure and entire, and would witness against their
descendants, if they should turn from following after the Lord. Happy will it
be when all professed Christians learn to copy the example of Israel, to unite
zeal and steady adherence to the cause of truth, with candour, meekness, and
readiness to understand each other, to explain and to be satisfied with the
explanations of their brethren. May the Lord increase the number of those who
endeavour to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace! may increasing
grace and consolation be with all who love Jesus Christ in sincerity!
── Matthew Henry《Concise Commentary on Joshua》
Joshua 22
Verse 4
[4] And
now the LORD your God hath given rest unto your brethren, as he promised them:
therefore now return ye, and get you unto your tents, and unto the land of your
possession, which Moses the servant of the LORD gave you on the other side
Jordan.
Your tents —
That is, to your settled habitations. Tho' their affections to their families
could not but make them very desirous to return, yet like good soldiers, they
would not move 'till they had orders from their general. So, tho' we desire to
be at home with Christ ever so much, yet we must stay here till our warfare is
accomplished, wait for a due discharge, and not anticipate the time of our
removal.
Verse 5
[5] But take diligent heed to do the commandment and the law, which Moses the
servant of the LORD charged you, to love the LORD your God, and to walk in all
his ways, and to keep his commandments, and to cleave unto him, and to serve
him with all your heart and with all your soul.
Take heed —
Watch over yourselves and all your actions.
Commandment and law —
Two words expressing the same thing, the law of commandments delivered by
Moses.
All your heart and soul — With the whole strength of your minds, and wills, and affections.
Verse 8
[8] And
he spake unto them, saying, Return with much riches unto your tents, and with
very much cattle, with silver, and with gold, and with brass, and with iron,
and with very much raiment: divide the spoil of your enemies with your
brethren.
With your brethren —
That is, with them who stayed beyond Jordan for the defence of their land, and
wives, and children, who therefore were to have a share, though not an equal
share with these. But for them, 1 Samuel 30:24, their share was equal, because
their danger was equal.
Verse 10
[10] And
when they came unto the borders of Jordan, that are in the land of Canaan, the
children of Reuben and the children of Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh built
there an altar by Jordan, a great altar to see to.
Built an altar —
About that time when they came to them, they designed it, and as soon as they
were got over Jordan, which was in a very little time, they effected and
perfected it. They built it, no doubt, on their own side of the water: for how
could they build on other men's land, without their consent? And it is said, in
the following verse, to be over against the land of Jordan. Nor would there
have been cause to suspect that it was designed for sacrifice, if they had not
built it among themselves.
Verse 11
[11] And the children of Israel heard say, Behold, the children of Reuben and
the children of Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh have built an altar over
against the land of Canaan, in the borders of Jordan, at the passage of the
children of Israel.
At the passage —
Where they passed over Jordan, either at their first entrance into Canaan, or
afterwards, and usually.
Verse 12
[12] And
when the children of Israel heard of it, the whole congregation of the children
of Israel gathered themselves together at Shiloh, to go up to war against them.
The children of Israel — Not in their own persons, not by their elders, who used to transact all
affairs of this kind in the name of all the people.
Against them — As
apostates from God, according to God's command in that case, Deuteronomy 13:13. etc.
Verse 16
[16] Thus
saith the whole congregation of the LORD, What trespass is this that ye have
committed against the God of Israel, to turn away this day from following the
LORD, in that ye have builded you an altar, that ye might rebel this day
against the LORD?
The congregation —
Who do and are resolved to cleave unto that God from whom you have revolted.
What trespass —
How heinous a crime is this! This day - That is, so soon after God hath obliged
you by such wonderful favours, and when God is now conducting you home to reap
the fruits of all your pains and hazards.
Rebel —
With a design to rebel against God, and against his express command of
worshipping him at one only altar.
Verse 17
[17] Is
the iniquity of Peor too little for us, from which we are not cleansed until
this day, although there was a plague in the congregation of the LORD,
Of Peor —
That is, of our worshipping of Baal-peor, Numbers 25:3. Probably this is mentioned the
rather, because Phinehas, the first commissioner in this treaty, had signalized
himself in that matter: and because they were now at or near the very place,
where that iniquity was committed.
Are not cleansed —
For though God had pardoned it, as to the national punishment of it, Numbers 25:11, yet they were not yet throughly
purged from it; partly because the shame and blot of that odious practice was
not yet wiped off: and partly, because some of that corrupt leaven still
remained among them, and though smothered for a time, yet was ready to break
forth upon all occasions, See Joshua 24:33. And God also took notice of these
idolatrous inclinations in particular persons, and found out ways to punish
them.
Verse 18
[18] But
that ye must turn away this day from following the LORD? and it will be, seeing
ye rebel to day against the LORD, that to morrow he will be wroth with the
whole congregation of Israel.
To-morrow —
That is, suddenly, as that word is often used.
Congregation —
With you for doing so, and with us for suffering, or not punishing it.
Verse 19
[19]
Notwithstanding, if the land of your possession be unclean, then pass ye over
unto the land of the possession of the LORD, wherein the LORD's tabernacle
dwelleth, and take possession among us: but rebel not against the LORD, nor
rebel against us, in building you an altar beside the altar of the LORD our
God.
Be unclean — If
you apprehend it to be so for want of the tabernacle and altar there; as the following
words imply: if you now repent of your former choice in preferring the worldly
commodities of that country before the advantage of God's presence, and more
frequent opportunities of his service.
Among us — We
will readily resign part of our possessions to you for the prevention of this
sin and mischief.
Against us —
For all the tribes were united in one body politick, and made one commonwealth,
and one church; and each tribe was subject to the laws and commands of the
whole society, and of the chief ruler or rulers thereof; so its disobedience to
their just commands was properly rebellion against them.
Verse 20
[20] Did
not Achan the son of Zerah commit a trespass in the accursed thing, and wrath
fell on all the congregation of Israel? and that man perished not alone in his
iniquity.
Of Zerah —
That is, one of his posterity.
Not alone —
But brought destruction upon his whole family, and part of our forces sent
against Ai.
Verse 22
[22] The
LORD God of gods, the LORD God of gods, he knoweth, and Israel he shall know;
if it be in rebellion, or if in transgression against the LORD, (save us not
this day,)
The Lord —
That Jehovah, whom we no less than you acknowledge and adore as the God of
gods, infinitely superior to all that are called gods. The multiplying of his
titles, and the repetition of these words, shew their zeal and earnestness in
this matter.
He knoweth — To
him we appeal who knoweth all things, and the truth of what we are now saying.
Not only our present words, but our future and constant course shall satisfy
all Israel of our perseverance in the true religion.
In rebellion — If
this have been done by us with such design, or in such a manner.
Save us not —
Thou, O Lord, to whom we have appealed, and without whom we cannot be saved and
preserved, save us not from any of our enemies, nor from the sword of our
brethren. It is a sudden apostrophe to God, usual in such vehement speeches.
Verse 23
[23] That
we have built us an altar to turn from following the LORD, or if to offer
thereon burnt offering or meat offering, or if to offer peace offerings
thereon, let the LORD himself require it;
Require it —
That is, call us to an account and punish us for it.
Verse 24
[24] And
if we have not rather done it for fear of this thing, saying, In time to come
your children might speak unto our children, saying, What have ye to do with
the LORD God of Israel?
With the Lord —
You have no relation to him, nor interest in him, or his worship.
Verse 25
[25] For
the LORD hath made Jordan a border between us and you, ye children of Reuben
and children of Gad; ye have no part in the LORD: so shall your children make
our children cease from fearing the LORD.
A border — To
shut you out of the land of promise, and consequently from the covenant made
between God and our fathers.
No part —
Nothing to do with him; no right to serve him or expect favour from him.
Cease from fearing the Lord — For they that are cut off from public ordinances, usually by degrees
lose all religion. It is true, the form and profession of godliness, may be
kept without the life and power of it. But the life and power will not long be
kept, without the form and profession of it.
Verse 27
[27] But
that it may be a witness between us, and you, and our generations after us,
that we might do the service of the LORD before him with our burnt offerings,
and with our sacrifices, and with our peace offerings; that your children may
not say to our children in time to come, Ye have no part in the LORD.
Before him —
That we and ours may have and hold our privilege of serving and worshiping God,
not upon this altar, but in the place of God's presence, in your tabernacle,
and upon your altar.
Verse 28
[28]
Therefore said we, that it shall be, when they should so say to us or to our
generations in time to come, that we may say again, Behold the pattern of the
altar of the LORD, which our fathers made, not for burnt offerings, nor for
sacrifices; but it is a witness between us and you.
The pattern — An
exact representation and resemblance.
A witness —
That we both serve one God, and approve and make use of one and the same altar.
Verse 30
[30] And
when Phinehas the priest, and the princes of the congregation and heads of the
thousands of Israel which were with him, heard the words that the children of
Reuben and the children of Gad and the children of Manasseh spake, it pleased
them.
Pleased them —
They were fully satisfied with this answer.
Verse 31
[31] And
Phinehas the son of Eleazar the priest said unto the children of Reuben, and to
the children of Gad, and to the children of Manasseh, This day we perceive that
the LORD is among us, because ye have not committed this trespass against the
LORD: now ye have delivered the children of Israel out of the hand of the LORD.
Is among us — By
his gracious presence, and preventing goodness, in keeping you from so great an
offence, and all of us from those calamities that would have followed it.
Hand of the Lord —
That is, from the wroth and dreadful judgments of God, by avoiding that sin
which would have involved both you and us in a most bloody war; you have
delivered us from the evils we feared. He that prevents an approaching disease
or mischief, doth as truly deliver a man from it, as he that cures or removes
it after it hath been inflicted.
Verse 33
[33] And
the thing pleased the children of Israel; and the children of Israel blessed
God, and did not intend to go up against them in battle, to destroy the land
wherein the children of Reuben and Gad dwelt.
Destroy the land — As
they were by the law of God obliged to do, if they had been guilty and
persisted therein; as afterwards they did the tribe of Benjamin for the same
reason.
Verse 34
[34] And
the children of Reuben and the children of Gad called the altar Ed: for it
shall be a witness between us that the LORD is God.
The altar Ed —
That is, a witness: a witness of the relation they stood in to God and Israel,
and of their concurrence with the other tribes in the common faith, that
Jehovah he is God. It was a witness to posterity, of their care to transmit
their religion pure and entire; and would be a witness against them, if ever
they should turn from following the Lord their God.
── John Wesley《Explanatory Notes on Joshua》
22 Chapter 22
Verses 1-34
Ye have not left your brethren.
Helping one another
I. These tribes
helped their brethren to their own inconvenience and positive detriment. A
narrow-minded, selfish race would have recognised no claim for any service
which could not be repaid dollar for dollar. What fine excuses could have been
made for the non-performance of this duty if they had been in the excuse-making
mood! How prominently that threadbare proverb, “Charity begins at home”--a
proverb often outrageously perverted--might have figured in their conversation!
We have our own children and our own houses to look after; our crops must be
planted and harvested; our homes must be established in this new land; the
wandering tribes of our enemies may at any time swoop down upon our vineyards
and gardens. Small and selfish souls always reason in this way, whether they
live in Palestine or America, in the fifteenth century before Christ or the
nineteenth after Christ. Such reasoning and such living inevitably lead to
national and individual bankruptcy in all the generous and noble qualities
which make a nation great. Let us remember also that it is not what we can
spare as well as not which helps our brother. It is not the cast-off coat which
we should never wear, the superfluous dollar whose gift we should never feel,
that blesses the world; it is the gift that carries part of ourselves with it
that helps to regenerate mankind. The Reubenites and Gadites gave themselves,
their sturdiest men, their bravest warriors, not merely a quota of drafted
hirelings. There is no other brotherly kindness worth the name; a dollar bill
given without the personal interest of the one who sends it is but a piece of
printed paper; a dollar bill sent with love and prayer, a bill that represents
the yearning of some heart to do good, may be--yea, it always is--the winged
messenger of God, carrying a blessing to him to whom it goes and leaving a
larger one with him who sends it.
II. These heroic
israelites helped their brethren persistently and patiently. Seven long years
passed before all their battles were fought and they were at liberty to return
to their wives and their children. In our deeds of benevolence and charity the
tendency is to leave the work half-done because of discouragement at the
slowness of results. “Ye did run well, who did hinder you?” might be the
epitaph on the tombstone of many abandoned schemes of philanthropy. If the
world could be converted in a year, there would be many enthusiastic
missionaries among those who now chiefly find fault with the slowness of
missionary operations, because the Lord chooses to make use of centuries in
bringing about the triumph of His cause. The reason for this seeming slowness
of God’s hosts is not far to seek. There is more virtue in the fight than in
the victory. There are souls to be enlarged, there are sympathies to be
quickened, there are lives to be inspired with zeal for God and truth and
fellow-men. All this is accomplished by the struggle and not by the ease and
the possession of the goodly land that follows the struggle.
III. Their
home-coming after the seven years of conflict. There is another home-coming to
which every true heart aspires, and the conditions of honourable discharge and
of welcome to that home are typified in our lesson. What is heaven except the
final gathering-place for those who have helped their brethren for Christ’s
sake? (F. E. Clark.)
Helping others
The law for us is the same as for these warriors. In the family,
the city, the nation, the Church, and the world, union with others binds us to
help them in their conflicts, and that especially if we are blessed with secure
possessions, while they have to struggle for theirs. We are tempted to selfish
lives of indulgence in our quiet peace, and sometimes think it hard that we
should be expected to buckle on our armour and leave our leisurely repose
because our brethren ask the help of our arms. If we did as Reuben and Gad did,
would there be so many rich men who never stir a finger to relieve poverty, so
many Christians whose religion is much more selfish than beneficent? Would so
many souls be left to toil without help, to Struggle without allies, to weep
without comforters, to wander in the dark without a guide? All God’s gifts in
providence and in the gospel are given that we may have somewhat wherewith to
bless our less happy brethren. “The service of man” is not the substitute for, but
the expression of, Christianity. Are we not kept here, on this side Jordan,
away for a time from our inheritance, for the very same reason that these men
were separated from theirs--that we may strike some strokes for God and our
fellows in the great war? Dives, who lolls on his soft cushions, and has less
pity for Lazarus than the dogs have, is Cain come to life again; and every
Christian is either his brother’s keeper or his murderer. Would that the Church
of to-day, with infinitely deeper and sacreder ties knitting it to suffering,
struggling humanity, had a tithe of the willing relinquishment of legitimate
possessions and patient participation in the long campaign for God which kept
these rude soldiers faithful to their flag and forgetful of home and ease till
their general gave them their discharge. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
Standing by our brethren
A ship arrived at San Francisco recently which had been two
hundred and ninety-six days from New Castle, Australia. She had been in great
peril in a storm at sea and had had long delays. One night when she was in
great danger the captain asked the captain of another ship to stand by through
the night, and he did so at great risk to his own vessel and his own life, but
finally was the cause of the salvation of the imperilled vessel. As soon as he
was safe in harbour the captain of the ship that had been threatened with wreck
gave his first attention to showing appreciation of the other captain’s
assistance, and sent him a gold watch, and went before the council of the city
of Sydney and told the story of his heroism. On learning of it the Sydney
authorities presented to the noble captain a medal bearing his name on one
side, and on the other the simple inscription, “The man that did stand by.” In
the midst of the campaign for righteousness that is going on in our modern life
the noblest ambition for a Christian man is to share the fate of righteousness;
to be no more popular than Jesus Christ would be, if He stood in his place, and
sought as of old to make it easy for men to do right and hard for them to do
wrong. Rather than anything else the Christian man should prize having Christ
look down upon him and say: “The man that did stand by.” (Louis A. Banks, D.
D.)
Take diligent heed to do
the commandment and the law.
The commander’s parting charge
They were about to depart for a life of comparative separation
from the mass of the nation. Their remoteness and their occupations drew them
away from the current of the national life, and gave them a kind of
quasi-independence. They would necessarily be less directly under Joshua’s
control than the other tribes were. He sends them away with one commandment,
the imperative stringency of which is expressed by the accumulation of
expressions in verse 5. They are to give diligent heed to the law of Moses.
Their obedience is to be based on love to God, who is their God no less than
the God of the other tribes. It is to be comprehensive--walking in all His
ways; it is to be resolute--cleaving to Him; it is to be whole hearted and whole-souled
service, that will be the true bond between the separated parts of the whole.
Independence so limited will be harmless; and, however wide apart the paths may
lie, Israel will be one. In like manner the bond that knits all divisions of
God’s people together, however different their modes of life and thought,
however unlike their homes and their work, is the similarity of relation to
God. They are one in a common faith, a common love, a common obedience. Wider
waters than Jordan part them. Graver differences of tasks and outlooks than
separated these two sections of Israel part them. But all are one who love and
obey the one Lord. The closer we cleave to Him, the nearer we shall be to all
His tribes. (American Sunday School Times.)
Universal obligation
All the great duties of a Christian life are no more incumbent
upon Christians than upon other men; for men are bound to be and to do right on
the religious scale of rectitude not because they are Christians, but because
they are men. Religious obligations took hold of us when we were born. They
waited for us as the air did. They have their sources back of volition, back of
consciousness, just as attraction has. Though a man declares himself an atheist
it in no way alters his obligations. Right and wrong do not spring from the
nature of the Church. Obligation lies deeper than that. It is as much the
worldling’s duty to love God and obey His laws as the Christian’s. (H. W.
Beecher.)
Obedience unmeasured
When the truth of our sincerity requires to be weighed out in
drachmas and scruples, and runs so sparingly as from an exhausted vessel--when
the state of the conscience must be ascertained by a theological barometer, the
health of the soul must be in a very feeble and crazy condition. (H. G.
Salter.)
Sincere obedience
If conscience be enlightened, and faithful in the trial, a man
cannot deliberately deceive himself: he must know whether his resolutions and
endeavours be to obey all the will of God; or, whether, like an intermitting
pulse, that sometimes beats regularly, and then falters, he is zealous in some
duties, and cold, or careless in others? Saul would offer sacrifice, but not
obey the Divine command to destroy all the Amalekites: for his partiality and
hypocrisy he was rejected of God. ‘Tis not the authority of the lawgiver, but
other motives that sway those who observe some commands, and are regardless of
others. A servant that readily goes to a fair or a feast, when sent by his
master, and neglects other duties, does not his master’s command from obedience,
but his own choice. Sincere obedience is to the royalty of the Divine taw, and
is commensurate to its purity and extent. (H. G. Salter.)
What trespass is this that
ye have committed?--
The memorial altar
1. Notice the proper jealousy
of the elders. When the chiefs of the tribes of Israel heard of this altar they
arose in great alarm and went down to their brethren, the two and a half
tribes, to demand an explanation. Their jealousy was hasty, it was ignorant and
uncharitable, but it was not unnatural. It arose, indeed, from a
misunderstanding. They imagined that the eastern men were wishful to do the
exact opposite of that which was in their hearts; they took the altar to be a
sign and a means of division, whereas it was intended to be a symbol and an
influence for unity. Such misunderstandings often and naturally arise. Men look
at what others are doing; they do not stay to inquire, they assume they know
all about it; they read in what they see their own notions, and hence they come
to unwise and uncharitable opinions. It is surely necessary that Christian men,
in judging each other’s work, should cultivate a spirit of candour, should be
anxious to be clear in judgment, should assume the better motive until the
worse is proved; and should remember that, within the limits of what is right,
there is room for wide difference of taste, even where there is equal loyalty
for the truth and equal anxiety for its maintenance.
2. Now notice the anxiety of the fathers. They were very anxious to
have a symbol of unity. They themselves, who had borne a part in every
conflict, could never forget the battle or the victory; but to their children
those memories might become dim, and might even become to be thought mere
myths, and so they desired a symbol, the existence of which could only be
accounted for by the fact symbolised, and the sight of which, exciting
curiosity and comment, should keep the glorious facts alive amongst them. And
they were surely right. Symbols and monuments are useful, the human mind
requires them, and men in all ages and lands have provided them erected on the
sites of great battles, as Waterloo and Quebec; to commemorate great
discoveries, such as chloroform; or great inventions, such as the steam engine;
they have been executed to keep green the memory of great men. The busy world
is only too apt to forget its benefactors and to lose trace of the events which
have been mightiest in moulding its fortunes, so the instinct of men has led
them to keep alive precious memories by monumental symbols. And the principle
has been recognised by God Himself, and has been embodied in the institutions
of the Church. The Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper is a symbol, a memorial
observance in which we do show forth the Lord’s death till He comes. By its
frequent observance the Church recalls to the mind of its members and the
attention of the thoughtless world the supreme fact of human history. And
surely never were becoming memorials of great and noble events more necessary
than in our own time! These are days of rush and hurry unexampled. Events
succeed each other so rapidly that one impression overlays, and perhaps
effaces, its predecessors. Anything that will help us to keep in mind great
deeds done for God and man, and their influence on subsequent events, will
preserve the rich treasure of our spiritual heritage.
3. But, again, those fathers were anxious for a link with the past.
They were unwilling that the continuity of their history should be broken.
They, and their children after them, would be impoverished if the memories of
the past should be lost. Some of them might be memories of shame, but even
therein were precious lessons of warning; and many of them were memories of
triumph invaluable for the inspirations to duty and to enterprise which they
conveyed. Those old heroes were unwilling that the past with its lessons should
fade away and disappear, and they were right. How much we owe to the past,
though we are often unconscious of the debt! Our position, our mental quality,
the balance of our faculties, our peculiar character, have come to us through
the mingling of many strains and the influence of a thousand varying
circumstances. Our mental conceptions arise out of the heritage of ideas which
we find before us when we come into the world, possessed by all minds as a
common endowment and embodied in a multitude of forms, literary, mechanical,
social, religious. What magnificent possessions the past hands on to us!
4. And, especially, these people were anxious for their children;
they were anxious that their share in the toils and risks of the campaigns of
Israel should not be forgotten. They were fearful lest their children should
lose their part in the original heritage of the covenant. Many causes would
favour this: distance, which made it impossible for them to attend the great
national festivals; difference of habits occasioned by the different
surroundings of their life; the influence of neighbouring idolatry;
intermarriage with the tribes hard by--all these things would make it only too
likely that, after one or two generations, their children would fall away from
the faith of Israel. If by the sight of this great altar overlooking the Jordan
they could be reminded of God’s claim upon them and God’s covenant with them
and God’s dealing with their fathers, perhaps they might be preserved from the
apostasy which would otherwise ruin them. Who does not sympathise with this
anxiety of the fathers of the ancient days which has always been a marked
characteristic of truly godly men, that they have been anxious for their
children’s salvation? “Oh, that Ishmael might live before Thee!” is a prayer
which has often found echo in the hearts of men. Love itself becomes more true
and tender when, with all the other passions, it is sanctified by the
indwelling Spirit. Then, too, the successes or failures of life become properly
discriminated. Men who see the invisible estimate the more correctly the things
temporal and the things eternal. And the chief solicitude for their children
comes to be, not that they should be rich or fashionable, but that they should
be good. (T. R. Stephenson, D. D.)
The altar of testimony
Suppose we call the Israelites who built the altar the Eastern
Church, and those who found fault with them the Western Church. We shall hope
to get instruction from both. From the builders of the altar of testimony we
shall ask you to learn a lesson in Christian doctrine; from their brethren of
the west, who found fault with them, a lesson in Christian practice.
I. Now the story
of the altar on the banks of the Jordan appears to me remarkable as a perfect
illustration of what may be called a great spiritual ambiguity, common (in
fact, universal) throughout the church of the moderns. It certainly is
something above and beyond a mere theological refinement when we discuss one
with another the right province of duty and work in the system of Christianity.
It enters into every judgment we form of other men’s Christianity or our own. The hard-toiling
Christian, is he a Pharisee or not? The idle and the use less Christian, is he
a humble believer in the sacrifice of Christ? Here, then, it is that the
Reubenites will come in and render us a valuable service as teachers of sound
doctrine. “We dwell,” said they, “in the near neighbourhood of idolatrous
tribes. There is nothing now--there will be less when we are dead and gone--to
mark us out from the heathen and to rank us with the chosen of the Lord.” And
therefore up went the altar--a memorial, a lasting memorial, in the style of
it, or the inscription
it bore, that the builders were they who had come up out of Egypt, and belonged
to the seed of Abraham according to the promise. And is it not for this very
same purpose that we Christians are commanded to “let your light so shine
before men”? The offerings of the silver and the gold, the building of
churches, the visiting of the widow and the fatherless, the carrying of the
gospel to foreign climes, the reclaiming of untaught and neglected childhood
from misery and guilt--there are lesser motives for doing these things, but the
chief motive is that we may adorn the doctrines we profess, that men may take
knowledge of us that we have been with Jesus, and that all the world may
discover that ours is no barren or unprofitable faith. Or perhaps, like the
Reubenites, our motives may stretch out into other generations. We may build,
with our money, and our toils, and our example, and our lives, that our
children and our children’s children may say of our memory, “Behold the pattern
of the altar of the Lord, which our fathers made.” But now, mark you. It was an
altar that the Church east of the Jordan built up for their memorial. Were the
Reubenites wrong in rearing their memorial in the form of an altar? It came
out, “Not at all.” It was not designed for a victim: no sacrifice, in the
proper Shiloh sense of sacrifice, was ever to be offered up from it. “Behold
the pattern of the altar of the Lord.” That was all they intended by the
erection. They would tell the heathen, and their children would tell the
children of the heathen, that the Jordan made no difference between them and
the seed of Abraham on the other side. They must build something. What shall it
be? Why, let it be a model, a copy, of the altar that is at Shiloh. What more
fitting? What more pregnant with meaning? It reminds them whilst they live of
the one solitary spot where the blood must be shed for the remission of sin; it
will prove to friends and enemies, when they themselves are no more, that they
too were blessed in faithful Abraham. The altar was a tribute, not a rival, to
the tabernacle that dwelt in Shiloh. Oh, beautiful picture this of what a
Christian’s good works are, and what a Christian’s good works are not. They are
a memorial, a demonstration. They must take some form. What form shall they
have? What? Why the form of patterns, copies, models of the sacrifice of
Christ. To be trusted in? To be looked to for salvation? To supplant the
offering on the Cross? Nay, indeed, not so. But to do homage to that Cross by
imitation, to remind us of it while we live, and to point our descendants to it
when we are gone.
II. Learn, then,
from the warm-hearted Israelites on the east of the Jordan that a good man’s
toils are not the good man’s atonement, but that they may be reared, and must
be reared, in the shape and on the model of Christ’s atonement--an altar, but
an altar of witness or testimony, reminding both yourselves and your neighbours
of the one sacrifice for sin which, though none can ever repeat, all are
commanded to copy. But now it seems hardly possible to make the Reubenites and
the Gadites our only teachers in this story. They may render a lesson upon
Christian doctrine, but certainly their brethren across the water match them
with a lesson on Christian practice. Just think for a moment of the spirit and
manner wherein, from the days of the apostles, the Church has carried on the
innumerable controversies that split up the Catholic Church into parties. Grace
and good works. What a happy thing it would have been for every one but the
booksellers if the champions on both sides had only had the charity and good
sense to do what the men of Western Israel did towards the men of Eastern
Israel three thousand years ago. They condescended first to find out whether,
in point of fact, there was any heresy to fight against. “Strike,” then, in
your controversies, but “hear” first; and when you “strike,” let it be only
with the strong argument, and never with the frenzy of the persecutor. Remember
the words of Bishop Taylor: “Either the disagreeing person is in error, or he is
not. In both cases to persecute is extremely imprudent. If he be right, then we
do open violence to God and to God’s truth; if he be wrong, what stupidity it
is to give to error the glory of martyrdom. Besides which, there is always a
jealousy and a suspicion that persecutors have no arguments, and that the
hangman is their best reasoner.” No, no, we will not hastily “bear false
witness against our neighbour,” but we will speak one to another, and judge
other men’s servants no longer; and may the very God of peace and love give to
all of us to build up everywhere humble models and copies of His great work for
our salvation, and help us to do all that we do in the spirit of charity. (H.
Christopherson.)
The purity and unity of the Church
I. The state of mind
which the erection of this altar excited in the other tribes.
1. Zeal for the honour of God.
2. Fear lest they should incur the Divine displeasure.
II. THE real design
for which the altar was erected.
1. It was a memorial that they were one people.
2. It was a memorial that they had one God and one religion.
Lessons:
1. These Israelites, by setting up this altar, show their love to
the service and worship of God. Had they not valued their privileges, it would
not have occurred to them to provide against the possibility of losing them:
that which we value we endeavour to keep.
2. They show their love to their brethren. Had they not felt a
regard for them, they would not have sought means to preserve the know ledge of
their common relation to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They who sincerely love God
will love their brethren, and love will secure unity; but not at the expense of
purity. (Essex Congregational Remembrancer.)
A supposed wrong explained
1. How little reliance can be placed upon hearsay! It is always so
difficult to give a true report of what has happened, that to draw inferences
from, and institute action upon mere rumour, is a dangerous course. A fact is
not necessarily the truth, because it may be but part of the truth. Part of the
truth is often the most dangerous, subtle, and wicked lie. A fact is after all
but the expression of a motive; so that to grasp the bearing of a fact the
motive must be first of all understood. Consequently, hearsay must always be an
unsafe, and often a mischievous guide.
2. Notice how a religious symbol, employed with the most innocent
design and for a praiseworthy end, was interpreted as a signal of idolatry and
rebellion. At the present day, what excites the worst passions so powerfully,
and that, too, in the name of religion, as some devout act or pious sign, of
which the meaning is not quite clear to the uninitiated, or which prejudice
associates with heresy or superstition.
3. If all would follow the example of the Israelites, and, before
going to war, as it were, to right a supposed wrong, would first seek an
explanation, how often the wrong would be found to have no existence, and how
clear of discord the atmosphere of the world would become!
4. Never assume the guilt of those whom you suspect. It creates a
prejudice in one’s own mind, which it is hard to overcome. It makes one’s own
manner severe and condemnatory, instead of being conciliatory and impartial.
The effect upon the opposite party is to create an attitude of resentment, to
excite irritation, to give a sense of injury, to predispose to a perpetuation
of the quarrel, instead of seeking to remove it.
5. The eastern tribes behaved with exemplary self-control. They were
the grossly injured party. Yet, smarting as they were under the sense of
injustice, they did not resent the indignity. You hear no reproaches or
recriminations. They simply state their innocence and disclose their real
motives.
6. Phinehas and the people blessed God that war was averted. Are we
not sometimes disappointed when we find there is no cause for quarrel? (T.
W. M. Lund, M. A.)
Misunderstanding
1. Prepossessions and
misunderstandings are too often the occasion of great divisions in the world,
and of such as, if not prevented, draw after them very pernicious and fatal
consequences.
2. There ought to be the speediest and most effectual care taken for
preventing the ill-consequences of such misunderstandings, and to rake up the
case before it comes to the utmost extremity.
3. The most proper method for preventing such misunderstandings, and
for composing differences arising from such misunderstandings, is
examination and inquiry into the cause with deliberation and meekness, that
they may see where the difference lies, and take the best course for the
composing of it.
4. It is a comfortable evidence of God’s presence with a people to
bless, defend, and prosper them when mistakes are removed, differences happily
composed, and they are at union and peace among themselves. (John Williams,
D. D.)
Misconstruction
Thus quarrels among brethren oft arise from mere mistakes, as
betwixt Cyril and Theodoret, who excommunicated one another for heresy,
&c., yet afterwards coming to a better understanding of each other’s
meaning, and finding they both held the same truth, they were cordially
reconciled. We must justly wonder at the over-hasty jealousy of the ten tribes
against their brethren, whose faithfulness and valour for God and His people
they had so long experience of in the Seven Years’ War; yet now to find fault,
when themselves were foully faulty of a rash censure, having only Allegata’s,
or matters alleged, but no Probata’s, or things proved; but alas I how oft doth
inconsiderate zeal transport even religious men to uncharitable censures. Would
to God all such differences upon mistakes in our day may be as happily ended as
this was here, then God is among us (Joshua 22:31), perceivingly; but
dissension drives God from us, and will let in dissolution among us if we avoid
not all giving offence carelessly and all taking offence causelessly. Oh, that
the Lord would take away that morosity and malignity of a censorious spirit
from us, and give to us more meekness of wisdom (James 3:13). The Reubenites, &c.,
here were really to be commended not only for their care in building this altar
for the spiritual good of their posterity (lest they should forsake the sincere
service of the true God in their following generations), but also for their
meekness when thus foully calumniated. They did not bristle and set up the
crest in a way of scornful defiance, but they calmly sought to give due
satisfaction to their offended brethren; and the ten tribes were verily more
blameworthy for misconstruing their religious meanings and doings upon such
slender grounds as a bare report (without any solid proof), misrepresenting the
matter to them. Yet herein were they truly praiseworthy, not only that they
were so blessedly blown up with a zeal for God’s glory, in preparing war
against idolatry, yea, even in one half of the tribe of Manasseh against the
other half beyond Jordan, when the purity of their religion came in competition
with brotherly affection, like Levi in that heroic act of Divine justice (Exodus 32:26-29), would not spare their
own brethren (Deuteronomy 33:9), but also, and more
especially, that the ten tribes first sent Phinehas, so famous for his heroic
act against Zimri and Cozbi, whereby God’s wrath was appeased (Numbers 25:8-11; Psalms 106:30), to compromise the
controversy, which he happily effected without any imbruing their hands in one
another’s blood. Sure I am we want such a Phinehas in our day to put an happy
end to our unhappy differences. (C. Ness.)
.
Verse 20
Achan . . . perished not alone in his iniquity.
Achan and his punishment
Where could I allege Scripture so wonderful to show the mystery of
God’s justice, lest we speak unadvisedly with our lips: “Why art Thou so wrath
with the sheep of Thy pasture?” Strike once upon this rock of justice, and I
dare promise a fountain will issue out from thence of fear and reverence not to
provoke the Lord by sins and trespasses; for if He threaten, shall He seem as
one that mocks? First, We must put the cause foremost, the cause of all the
wrath that follows, and that both general: it is iniquity, and with an instance
his iniquity. The subject, Achan, but not alone; the affliction, that he
perished. Now let not any man make it a fallacy to deceive his own soul. Doth
not the cause deserve severe arraignment? Then blaspheme not as the wicked do:
“He seeketh an occasion to punish.” Sin in its essence is confederate with
death and punishment. Thus much for the cause in general. But what offence his
iniquity did give, the sin of Achan will ask a peculiar and a larger trial. You
are deceived if you think it was but larceny or greedy pilfering. But heinous
was the fact of Achan, first in scandal, that an Israelite, preserved so long
in the wilderness, one that fought the Lord’s battles, and came always home
with victory, that he should be the first that trespassed among the Canaanites,
the heathen that would blaspheme the living God. Secondly, In disobedience:
that Joshua, his noble general, made the head of all the tribes by God’s
appointment, and Moses’ good liking, and Eleazar’s unction, could not command
to be obeyed. Thirdly, In faithless covetousness. That since manna did fall no
more from heaven about their tents, the Lord did heed His people no longer,
every man must catch what come to his hands, so Achan took the accursed,
&c. Here is scandal to them that were without; within themselves contempt of
the Lord and His servant Joshua, in his own heart an inordinate desire to grow
rich and sumptuous. Now turn to the punishment of this man. Behold Achan, the
son of Zerah, that man perished not alone in his iniquity. Achan that had
outlived the corruption of his young years, and was grown in age able to go to
warfare, to have many children, to know how to steal from God, and dissemble
with Joshua, doth his hoary head go down with peace into the grave? Like the
web of Penelope, all that hath been wrought in the year may be ravelled out in
a night. Secondly, He that was spared among all the dangers of the wilderness
is consumed in the city; he that could escape the pilgrimage of forty years is
doomed to die in Canaan; he that was not devoured in the fire of Taberah is
burnt in the valley of Achor. As Aristotle speaks of Homer’s poetry, when he
set up walls for Troy in one book, and plucked them down in another. They that
walk in the night preserve the flame of their torch or candle from winds and
casualties abroad, which notwithstanding they put out when they return to their
home. So Achan that walked over the sea, when the bridge was under water, and
lived among scorpions, and was not consumed in the sedition of Dathan, nor
slain in the battles of Moab, yet the vessel is not cast away in the ocean sea, but in the haven, and
his light is put out at home in the long-expected Canaan. Note this, thirdly,
in Achan’s person, mischief did light upon him, not in the hunger and thirst of
the wilderness, not in his poverty, but having compiled much riches together,
enough to purchase a good fee-simple in Canaan if the Lord had not given him
his portion. Men think themselves nowadays past the law and penalties of death,
when they have sinned so much that they are grown wealthy in iniquity; because,
if need be, they can buy the favour of the judge. But this man, when he was
furnished to live sumptuously, then he is cut off, that, as Solomon says, the
remembrance of death may be bitter to that man, who thought it pleasant to live.
This was St. Austin’s rule when he was old and had learnt the world: “I fear no
hurt from the world when it goes against me, and casts a froward look upon my
fortunes, but my danger is near at hand, when it smiles and flatters me, as if
all were happy.” The sponges that swell with liquors are most likely to be
pressed and emptied. Now recollect these three qualities of Achan, who was more
likely to prosper than a soldier in the flower of his age, a joyful man at his
journey’s end in the land of his peace, a wealthy man in the plenty of his
riches. Take it to thought, all you that have the world tied unto you with a
threefold cord of health and peace and prosperity, which men dream as if it
could not be broken; for it broke like tow among the sparks. I have many
theorems to propound unto you, but all shall end in this doctrine, that
excepting the first Adam, the root of our corrupt nature, and excepting the
second Adam, who, being without spot or sin, gave Himself to the death of the
Cross for the sins of all the world, these two excepted, every man dies for his
own iniquity. First, I do presume that you will consent unto me that the heart
of man is only evil continually, and that we may call it, as Theodorus did
revile Tiberius, mud tempered with pollution. Then, it is confessed, that the
wages of sin is death. Give me your credit but to one thing more. You are bound
to answer to as painful and severe a death as God’s vengeance shall inflict
upon you. Observe these points, then. First, If the disobedience of one sinner
is enough to consume many persons, Lord whither will a multitude of iniquity
send one man headlong? Sufficient are our evil days wherein we have walked too
much before after the vanity of our mind. Secondly, As the greatest unity of
the triumphant Church above doth consist in the glory which they enjoy together
in the sight of God, so our unity of the militant Church below is to suffer and
die together. It is that which must combine the souls of Christians. Thirdly,
Shall not this make me as careful to prevent every man’s sins as mine own?
Shall I not offer myself to be my brother’s keeper? Like watch men that compass
the city in the night, not only for the safety of their own house, but lest any
mansion take fire about them. Thus is the brief sum of the second part of my
text, man perished in iniquity. Secondly, That man Achan, a branch of the olive
tree, even Israel which God had planted. But an evil branch is evil though the
stock were a cedar of Libanus. Is it any glory for the dead branches to boast
they were vine branches, and not heythorn, since they are cut off and cast
away? Lastly, He fell down like the tower of Siloam, and brained all that were
about him. I have but one short part to dispatch, his execution, that man
perished, &c. To search much into Achan’s punishment were not the way to be
more learned, but more tormented. Briefly thus, Every man in the rank of a
subject lives under the authority of three commanders--
1. Under the conscience of his own heart.
2. Under the laws of his king.
3. Under the commandments of God.
And if we displease either God or the king, or our own conscience,
vengeance meets us on every side. Conscience hath a worm in store, nay, a
cockatrice to sting us; the magistrate bears a sword to divide us; but especially
it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. In an evil
conscience we die unto all joy and comfort; in our trespass against the laws of
man we die unto men; in breaking the statutes of God we die unto heaven: surely
he deserved not to die but one death that offended three. Some, perchance, will
go a thought further, and pronounce a fearful sentence that this man was wiped
for ever out of the book of the living. Nothing should make me mistrustful and
doubt of his salvation but his too late repentance. Is this a time to leave off
sin when we must leave off life and can sin no more? Do you then come to play
the huxters for mercy, as if the market were cheapest at the latter end of the
day? (Bp. Hacket.)
Achan’s sin, and Achan’s end
I. The
perpetration of sin. Iniquity is the common characteristic of all mankind: “The
heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.” But there is
before us a reference to one particular act of sin, which, while proceeding
from the depraved heart possessed by the perpetrator in common with others,
appears to us in prominent and isolated distinction of enormity.
1. The iniquity of Achan was heinous, on account of its intrinsic
nature. It was an act of covetousness. He was beguiled by a greedy and
unprincipled desire after the attainment and preservation of wealth.
2. The iniquity of Achan was perpetrated against the Divine command,
distinctly expressed and amply known.
3. The iniquity of Achan was heinous on account of its attendant
dissimulation and attempted concealment.
II. The infliction
of punishment. The punishment of the transgressor himself: “That man perished
in his iniquity.” The terms of our text appear to justify the implication, that
his iniquity was not repented of, and that therefore it was not cleansed or
forgiven; he confessed, but he was not contrite; and the whole spirit of the
narrative must be regarded as justifying the view which now is expressed. So
that you perceive the death of his body was the sign of the ruin of his soul.
And it is true with regard to every impenitent sinner, in every age of the
world, who dies in iniquity, that thus he must “perish.” “They shall utterly
perish in their own corruption.” They die “the second death.”
2. Observe the punishment of the transgressor, in relation to the
interests of others. “That man perished not alone in his iniquity.” Men by
their iniquity often associate themselves with the ruin of the souls of their
fellow-men. It is probable that no person can long continue in a state of alienation
from God without exerting (although he attempts it not) some baneful influence
on the character and the interests of others; and there are, we have reason to
fear, numerous instances in which men by bad example, or even by direct efforts
for that purpose, make others “partakers of their evil deeds” and lead them
down to hell. How horrible, how thrice horrible, to lead others into the prison
I to lash around others the fetters! to administer to others the poison! to
enwrap others in the flame! Deeds at which hell itself may wonder and fiend may
point with amazement to his fellow fiend “That man ‘perished not alone in his
iniquity’; there is the seducer, and there are his victims--all victims now!”
Lessons--
1. There ought to be anxious application for the pardon of our
transgressions perpetrated in past times.
2. There ought to be the determined repudiation and avoidance of sin
for the time to come.
3. There ought to be diligent endeavour to bring our fellow-men to
salvation. Some are “not alone in their iniquity”; it must be our ambition not
to be alone in our salvation. (James Parsons.)
The history of Achan improved
I. The nature of
the iniquity which he committed. He transgressed the plain command of God, and
thus sinned against Him. He no doubt sinned also against his own soul, against
his family, and against his people. But no notice is taken of this. What is
dwelt upon is, that he sinned against the Lord. His iniquity was a
transgression of the command and law and covenant of his God. It implied the
basest ingratitude for the mercies he had received, as well as a secret
disbelief of the Divine omniscience, power, holiness, righteousness, and truth.
Was this sin peculiar to Achan? Are there not many others who are virtually
guilty of the same thing? Are there not many who apply to their own use what
has been dedicated to God? Are there not many who retain in their own
possession gold and silver which they ought to consecrate to Him? Are there not
many who rob Him of the time which He has set apart for His immediate worship
and service? Are there not many who by no entreaty can be prevailed upon to
glorify Him in their body, and in their spirit, which are His? What incited
Achan to commit sacrilege, and thus to sin against God, was avarice--an
inordinate desire of money, an eagerness of gain. And are there not many who,
under the influence of the same sordid spirit, act like him, and thus sin
against God and their own souls? “Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a
man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of things which he possesseth.”
II. The way in
which the iniquity of Achan was brought to light.
1. The Lord hates and abhors sin. It is an enemy within the camp
which is sure to betray us into the hands of those that are without, and
ultimately make us their prey.
2. The Lord sees our sins, however secretly they may be committed.
3. God is able to bring our sins to light even now, and that He
frequently does bring them, to our utter confusion. By such visitations in time
the Lord warns us of what we are to expect in eternity.
III. The confession
which Achan made of his iniquity. Had Achan made this confession sooner, there
would have been room to hope that he truly repented of his iniquity; but as he
deferred his acknowledgment of his guilt till the lot actually pointed him out,
there is reason to fear that it proceeded at last from no real change of heart;
that, in fact, it was constrained and not voluntary.
1. How he was led to commit his iniquity. Mark here the way in which
men are frequently led to sin against God. The temptation makes its insidious
approach by means of the eyes, or one of the other senses; then there arises in
the heart an evil desire for the thing seen; and desire, when it hath
conceived, bringeth forth sin. It is necessary, therefore, that we should make
a covenant with our eyes, that we should watch against temptation, that we
should guard against the first approaches of iniquity, that we should stop
every avenue by which sin can enter.
2. How full of fear and disquietude is the life of a sinner. Achan,
having taken the accursed thing, hid it in the earth in the midst of his tent.
Why? Because he was afraid some one would see it; and in this fear he must have
lived day after day, until his iniquity was brought to light. Such always is
sin, every sin, and especially the sin of theft or sacrilege. It deludes those
who are under its dominion. It promises them much, but pays them little but
wretchedness and misery. It fills them with fears and anxieties, and often
causes them to flee when no man pursueth.
IV. The punishment
which followed the iniquity of Achan.
1. As to Achan himself, condign punishment speedily overtook him:
“He perished in his iniquity.” He suffered death as the due reward of his
crime. And such is the wages which every sinner is sure to receive unless he
obtains deliverance through the death of Christ, who died that we might live.
2. Others also suffered for the iniquity of Achan: “That man
perished not alone in his iniquity.” Who, then, perished besides him? Many had
perished before him, and perished too for his iniquity, namely, the
thirty-and-six men who were smitten by the men of Ai. It is also probable that
all his family were put to death with him for the same sin. Such were the
dreadful consequences occasioned by the iniquity of this man. And is not sin,
even in our own day, frequently followed by similar consequences? How often do
we see children suffering for the sins of their parents and parents for the
sins of their children? How often do we see thieves and murderers, adulterers,
drunkards, and such like, involving their wives and families, and perhaps other
relations also, in poverty and disgrace, in troubles and anxieties, in
wretchedness and misery, if not in still more awful calamities? How often, also,
has one order of society to bear the ill consequences arising from the
misconduct of another?
Lessons:
1. How wonderful is the patience of God towards the world we live
in. In the conduct of Achan we may see, as in a glass, what is the conduct of
hundreds and thousands who are now living on the earth. How astonishing, then,
is the patience of God! How wonderful that He should still bear with us, that
He should still give us space for repentance, that He should still be unwilling
theft we should perish! Oh, let us not despise the riches of His goodness and
forbearance and long-suffering!
2. The patience of God, however great and wonderful, will not last
for ever. (D. Rees.)
Fellowship in Achan’s fall
If indeed, says Dr. South, a man could be wicked and a villain to
himself alone, the mischief would be so much the more tolerable. But the case,
as he goes on to show, is much otherwise; the guilt of the crime lights upon
one, but the example of it sways a multitude; especially if the criminal be of
any note or eminence in the world. “For the fall of such an one by any
temptation (be it never so plausible) is like that of a principal stone or
stately pillar, tumbling from a lofty edifice into the deep mire of the street;
it does not only plunge and sink into the black dirt itself, but also dashes or
bespatters all that are about it or near it when it falls.” Well may the note
of exclamation follow: how strange, yet how inevitable, the tie which may link
our uneventful life with the stormy passions of numbers far away! More
wonderful than even the Atlantic cable is declared to be that unknown fibre,
along which, from other men’s sins, responsibility may thrill even to our
departed souls: “a chain whose links are formed perhaps of idle words, of
forgotten looks, of phrases of double meaning, of bad advice, of cynical
sentiment hardly seriously meant; yet carried on through life after life,
through soul after soul, till the little seed of evil sown by you has developed
into some deed of guilt at which you shudder, but from participation in
responsibility for which you cannot clear yourself.” Every sin, we are in fine
reminded, may waken its echo; every sin is reduplicated and reiterated in other
souls and lives. A distinguished French preacher has a striking discourse on what
he entitles the solidarity of evil; and lie, too, dilates upon the mysterious
links which connect together persons and acts that appear to have nothing in
common--suggesting melancholy examples of the contagion of guilt and its
consequences, of the expansive power of corruption and its almost boundless
results. Very forcibly Mr. Isaac Taylor warns us that in almost every event of
life the remote consequences vastly outweigh the proximate in actual amount of
importance; and he undertakes to show, on principles even of mathematical
calculation, that each individual of the human family holds in his hand the
centre lines of an interminable webwork, on which are sustained the fortunes of
multitudes of his successors; the implicated consequences, if summed together,
making up therefore a weight of human weal or woe that is reflected back with
an incalculable momentum upon the lot of each. The practical conclusion is that
every one is bound to remember that the personal sufferings or peculiar
vicissitudes or toils through which he is called to pass are to be estimated
and explained only in an immeasurably small proportion if his single welfare is
regarded, while their “full price and value are not to be computed unless the
drops of the morning dew could be numbered.” (F. Jacox, B. A.)
Verse 22
The Lord God of gods, He knoweth.
God knows
It is a great satisfaction when we feel that there is one Being
who knows everything. After some great perplexity, some dark hour, or some
mysterious visitation, when there seemed to be no clue to an event, no
interpretation arching it, and not a spark of illumination about it, it is a
blessed relief, both to mind and soul, when we feel that somebody can
understand it, can thoroughly sift it, and will in good time bring out its
illuminated side, and reveal the spiritual diamonds so long concealed in
darkness, sorrow, and grief. God knows--what? The uses of things--why the world
was made, why we were made, the meaning of the events that greet us, what
lessons they convey, what benedictions they unfold, what promises they hold
out, and how much culture we shall gain by them. Can anything be more cheering
than this fact, and is there anything strange about it? Strange that the Maker
should be familiar with what He has made, wonderful that the Architect should
understand all about His building, peculiar that the Creator of the world
should comprehend what He has produced? How is it in everyday affairs? Would it
not be wonderful if Mozart and Beethoven did not understand their own music,
stood apart from it as strangers, and were unable to comprehend the science of
its melody? or if Powers stood before one of his statues dumb as an idiot, and
unable to give an account of how it was shaped into its wondrous beauty? or if
Rubens stared at one of his own pictures with a vacant gaze, and with a total
inability to trace out the preparatory steps that led to its execution? Then is
it not very natural that the Great Musician of earth and heaven should be able
to explain all the grand chorus of the ages, that the Holy Sculptor of all time
should be able to describe every particular of His work, or that the Great
Painter of both worlds should, with a keen wisdom, delight in His own
magnificent paintings? I come now to my second proposition, that grows out of
the first--we do not know. Here we find two parties in the Church. One says,
“We do not know anything, and never can know anything,” and the other says, “We
do know something, but that something will not amount to much until God reveals
more knowledge.” I confess, I do not think that, in order to exalt God, we must
utterly extinguish ourselves. If I say that a human being is utterly incapable
of ever being enlightened, has no power, and is bound irrevocably to sin, with
no chance to escape, you may very properly ask me, “Who could have made such a
being as that?” But, because we can do something--aye, many things--and because
we are something--aye, much--it does not follow that we can do everything or
that we are Self-sufficient. No, never. God made us, and therefore we are not
failures; and let us not for a moment suppose that God has made a mistake in
our creation, but, because we are made, we are dependent, frail, and we must
often and always look to our Creator for aid and blessing. We are engirdled by
mysteries. Yet is it not something that we can, by the grace of God, think,
talk, write, walk, live? and can we speak meanly of one who can do all these
things? Forbid it, Father! Make us humble, but do not let us be ungrateful. As
we look at history and at historical results, it becomes very evident that all
through the past ages there has been a providential plan. If we made ourselves
Romans, Grecians, or Hebrews, and if we threw ourselves back thousands of
years, we should hardly understand that some of our greatest trials were to
prove such a vast benediction to after-ages. We could hardly believe that our
decay would prove to others life, and that every pang we suffered, both as
nations and as individuals, was in accordance with the great, glorious, and
holy scheme of Providence. What would be called in ancient days subjugation,
invasion, and a despotism, has since proved emancipation, while the baptism of
blood then offered has resulted in the salvation of the future. Time explains a
great many things that we do not understand to-day; and events always prove
that He who rules the heavens and the earth is never bewildered, nor mistaken,
nor vanquished. Let each
one of us take our own personal experience and trace it back, and see what we
wanted to do and where we wanted to go when God would not let us do it, and
when God held us back, and when God seemed to be working against us, and how
does the retrospect look with our present experience? Did not God know best?
and has not everything come out right, and was it not well for us that years
ago a restraining hand was placed upon our pleasures, appetites, and desires?
And is it not better that we were turned aside from the road that we desired to
travel? I think one of the bewitching attractions of biography rests in the
fact that we often detect what appear to be very slight and trivial matters,
changing the whole course of a person’s life. Washington gave up going into the
navy in order to please his mother; and thus a hero was secured for America and
a splendid monument of goodness and greatness for all the world. Franklin
started on a journey to Philadelphia as a mere pauper, and went under false
promises to London; and thus a philosopher was educated for all time. The
eyesight of a Prescott was suddenly eclipsed, but out of that darkness an
historian was born, whose sweet rhetoric will always prove a fascination and a
culture. Yes, the slightest incidents that we call disappointments are often
the turning-points in our experience, and prove the very moment when Heaven
interposes, and shapes us for ends more consistent with the will of God. (Caleb
D. Bradlee.)
──《The Biblical Illustrator》