PUBLIC-DOMAIN CHRISTIAN BOOK
The Pulpit Commentary — Numbers
Rayner Winterbotham [1842-1924] · 425,969 words · 472 reading sections
The Pulpit Commentary — Numbers — Section 241
EXPOSITION, perfect equality with the rest, it is evident CHAPTER XVII. th.e.t the twelve rods were exclusive of that .A..uo:N's ROD Tl!AT BUDDED (vera. 1-18). of Aaron. The joining together of Ephraim Ver. 1.-And th.e Lord spake. Presuma.bly and Manasseh in Deut. iuvii. 12 we.a a very upon the same day, since the…
1,324 wordsSECTION 242The Pulpit Commentary — Numbers — Section 242
HOMILETICS. Vera.1-13.-Thesign of thett-ue Priesthood. In this chapter we have the testimony .of God to the priesthood of hie Anointed in 11. 11111.,iov, e. teaching miracle, eetting forth tbe inner and hidden truths upon which the exclusive claims of that priesthood rest. The application, according to what has been …
1,265 wordsSECTION 243The Pulpit Commentary — Numbers — Section 243
HOMILIES BY VARIOUS AUTHORS. Ver. 8.-The budding of Aaron's rod. The budding, blossoming, and fruit- bearing of the dry staff of office le.id by Aaron in the tabemncle, significant- I. As A MIRACLE. It was an unmistakable sign of God's interposition (such o. natural impossibility the occasion of an oath among the hea…
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things of the world "mighty through God " (l Cor. i. 27 ; 2 Cor. x. 4). The rod of the lowly Jesus is "a rod of strength," or" of iron" (Ps. ii. 9; ex. 2; Isa. xi. 4). II. The rod of Aaron, a tribal sceptre, a symbol of power, as the shepherd's staff was not. This symbol of authority used for remedial and spiritual p…
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(John xiv. 19). The very descent of Aaron to an equality with the rest implied a poeeibility that they might ascend to an equality with him. The risen Saviour in the glory of hie heavenly life ie the first-born among many brethren. Aaron became different from the rest in order that by hie difference he might draw the r…
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even where the communication refers to Ver. 2.-Thy brethren also of the tribe things wholly and _pec_uliarly within the of Levi The Levites generally, M dis- pronnce of Aaron, 1t 1s usually made to tinguished from the Kohathites in pe.rticular Moses, and only through him to his brother (see on eh. iii,). That they m…
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here it means "the keeping" for their own be eaten at home by nil members of ~he use (cf. Exod. :rii. 6). Mine heave oft'ering1. priestly families who were clean ; they m- 'J;)b-,11;1. The possessive prononn marks the cluded (1) all wave offerings, especially the fnct that these did not belong to the priest wave bre…
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the rest went to the offerer. This, however, riav 3'avar111/)dpov. In the sense of incurring does obvious violence to the limguage, and sin, and the consequent wrath and death, is not snpported by the Septuagint. 2. That Ver. 23.-And the:, shall bear (~tc~•~) their as the priest was bound to consume the first- iniqu…
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HO!,IILETICS. Vera. 1-32.-Respcmsibilitiu and primleges of Gocfs servants. We have in this chapter, spiritually, the statue of those who are hpEi, r,i 8E,jj and 8oi,Xo, 'J11"oi, Xp<<7roiJ, ae being the inheritance of the Lord, and (in this world) "ha.ving nothing, and yet possessing all things." Much that has been co…
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IJ. THAT WHU.E E\'ER WATCHFUL AND ON THE ALERT, TIIEY MUST NOT INTRU'Dll UPON THE SACRED i·HINGS OF THE SANCTUARY, OR THE ALTAR, ON PAIN OF DEATH. Even so it is fatal presumption and loss of spiritual life when men leave their practical duti~,s. to " intrude " by vain speculat10n into " thos!' things which they hav…
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HOMILIES BY VARIOUS AUTHORS. Vere. 1-7.-The resp_OMibility of authority. Recent assaults on the priesthood give occasion for a reaffirmation of its prerogatives, Lest this should tend unduly to elate the family of Aaron, the same Divine oracle which confirms to them their distinguished privileges insists on their grav…
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But even npnrt from such cnpitnl instances of transgreegion, we may be sure there WBII continual iniquity both in sanctuary and priesthood-things done too often in a formal, listless way, priest and Levite alike conscious that the heart wa.a not always in the work. It was necessary to provide also for imperfections in …
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oa_rliest things he did. Be gave them also great power, such ae to heal dieeaees, raise dead persons, and cast out demons; that thus they might authenticate the gracious and momentous message with which he had intrusted them. .And in the course of ages how the helpera have increased in numbers and in variety of serv…
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work which no other human being can do. He did indeed himself take up the work of the Baptist at one time, preaching repentance (Matt. iv. 17), and he also at times became his own apostle in proclaiming the gospel ; hut to his own peculiar work neither Baptist nor apostle could rise. Whatever responsibility be laid on …
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miraculous ,rift, sach an intimation would have been easier to receive than the one actually made. That which has to come to us indirectly, gives occMion for a greater trial of fait~ th~n what has to_come directly. ~e food of these priests was to flow through a c1rcmtons and, to Judge by late expenence, not very pro…
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guest of the priest, and the priest in tum the guest of God. In this way God lifted a social custom to a holy use. ·we cannot but notice in the second chapter of Leviticus that while some things are mentioned as constituents of the meat offering, viz., oil and frankincense, and others ns excluded, viz., leaven and hone…
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disease e.nd death spread their infection in of the Jews heaped around the choice of this the spiritual u well as in the natural order of animal a multitude of precise roquirements, things. Life e.nd death were the two oppo• e.nd supplemented the prescribed ritual with site poles under the law, e.s under the gospel;…
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was perhaps almost the only one they had in the ashes, while, as it were, so redolent of the wilderneSB, and those which ou~ht to death that they must be kept outside the have been offered continually according to camp, were most holy, and were to he laid the Levitical ordinances. The red heifer up by a clean man in a …
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HOMILETICS. Vera. 1- 22, -The remedy of death.. We ha.ve in this chapter, spiritually, death, and the remedy for death. Death ia treated of not as the mere physical change which ia the end of life, nor a.a the social and domestic lose which breaks so many hearts and causes so many tears to flow, but a.a the inseparabl…
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the enduring effects of hie expiation to do away the contagion and terror of spiritual death; in a word, we have him who by dying overcame death, and delivered them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. In drawing out this great type we may consider-I. The circumstances under which the o…
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and heathens, wns without fault and irreproachable (John vii. 46; xviii. 23; xix. 4; 1 Pet. ii. 22). 5. That no yohi lwd ever come upon it. The innocent freedom of its young life had never been harshly bent to the purposes and plane of others. Even ~o our Lord wa.~ never .under any yoke of co~stmint, nor ,..,aa any …
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Christ-the entire value and efficacy of hie self-sacrifice, of his life given for us, of all that he was, and did, and suffered-remain ever, ancl abide with us, and a.re avail- able for our cleansing. 2. That the ashes of the heifer were laid up, but Mt by the priest, or by anv one concl!/rll,ed in iu death, wiihiJUt t…
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HOMILIES BY VARIOUS AUTHORS. Vers. 1-10, 17-19.-Purge me wul,, hyssop, and I shall be clean. This law respecting the purification of oue who has contracted uncleanness by contact with the dead must have been familiar to every Israelite. Death with impartial foot visits e,·ery house. No one can long remain a stranger…
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One of the chief lessons of the ceremonial law. When the grnce of God touches the heart, on,i of its first effects is to open the heart to feel this. "Lorcl, I am vile." As habits of personal cleanliness make a man loathe himself when he has been touched with filth, so the grace of God makes a man lof\the himself for s…
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evil at all, bnt rather the welcome riddance of the soul from a burdensome and unfit companion-was not learned from the word of God. The Bible teaches us to regard the body as the fitting dwelling-place of the soul, and necessary to the completeness of our nature. That separation of body and soul which takes place i…
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godliness " itself there are "secret things which belong unto the Lord our God." But we mny be eo.tiefied because the way of salvation is "the gospel o./ God," the Lamb elu.in is "the Lamb of God," the atonement is God) s atonement. In the purifi.. co.tion of our consciences "from dead works•• we have the beet proof of…
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III. OccASION IS GlVEN FOR MUCH HUMILITY AND SELF- \BIIORRBNCE AS WB CONSIDER 'l'HE HOLD WBICII_ SI~ H,As ON oun MORTAL BODIES. The agonieing appeal of sin- burdened humamty 1s, ' 0 wretched man that I am I who shall deliver me from the body of this death ? '' Every consideration should be welcomed which will mnke …
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II. THI!: DEVOTED ANIMAL WAS IN A TYPICAL SEN8E VERY PECULIAR. TheTe is the selection of one kind of nnimal, one sex in that kind, one colour, all absence of blemish, and complete freedom from the yoke. May we not say that to find all these marks in one animal wns indication of some special provision from on high? "It …
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the desert or Zin, i. e., if the western site be the rebellion of Korab happened towards the maintained for Kadesh, the Wady Murreh. end of the period of wandering, and that the See the note on Kadesh. In the flret month. reference is to the plague which followed it; In the month Abib (Nisan), the vernal or it may be t…
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howover, is extremely precarious, and is in- Testament). What then was the disobedi- deed to accuse the Evangelist of a blunder, ence of Moses 1 Here, again, the more for there is no real correspondence between obvious answer is insufficient. It is true the words. llluat we fetch you water. that Moses struck the rock t…
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eongregation into the land. That they spee.king, far greater tha.n any thef would should die in the wilderness was implied in have encountered in any other direotion • but this sentence, but wa.s not strictly a part of this was part of their necessary discipline.• the sent.>nee itself. Moses, indeed, altho~h Thy bro…
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translates ,rapd TO opoc, but no doubt the reckoned as the pro:pert,Y of Edom. We may wol'd means a " high road" in the original suppose that at this time the encampment sense of a raised causeway (cf. Isa. lvii. 14). stretched along the Arabah in front of the Such a road is still called Derb es Sultan- mountain (see o…
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exist, but hardly live ; there is indeed a movement in them, but it hae no definite aim, it leads no whither; they do but return upon themselves. Only after a long time (if God have mercy upon them) do they find themselves once more in a posi• tion to start afresh, and not one step further forward than all those yea…
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who will more or Iese consciously tnke their ideas of religion from our practice of it. 6, Tliat Moses e11'ed because he lost hia temper, and regarded the sinful murmuring of the 'J!eople only as a lrial and vematwn to himself. He had in fact nothing to complam of, for he was only an instrument in God's hand, and it wa…
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nothing that grow~ upo~ a m~n more certainly _than bad teml?er. 3. That God, had, been very forbea.r1:n.g_ ~ him on that occa.tton, ~ on this was very strict,• the reason no doubt bemg that then Moses uttered his unreasonable and passionate complaints only in the ear of God, ,vhereas now his angry insolence was vent…
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And no marvel. For eighty long years he had waited and laboured for the fulfil- ment of the promise, During the last thirty-seven of these he had been cheering himself with the hope that he, nlong with Joshua and Caleb, and the men of the younger generation, would be suffered to take possession of the land. This lay so…
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eldest, was the first to bo removed. She died, and was buried at Kadesh in the beginning of the year. Aaron, the elder of the brothers, followed in the fifth' month. Lastly, Moses died at the end of the year. The surpassing fame of Moses has thrown that of Miriam and Aaron into the shade. Nevertheless, they were emi…
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that his investiture should take place in their eight (cf. eh. xxvii. 22). Ordination to a public office ought to take place in public. Thie particular mountain was chosen because from it Aaron's eye might descry the southern out.skirt.a of the land of promise, Moses and Aaron were forbidden to enter it; but to each th…
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bliglited through one sin of haste or disobedience in word or act. The fovour ot God brings with it great privileges, but imposes on us grave responsibilities (cf. Amos iii. 2; Luke xii. 47; 1 Pet. iv. 17). What need for the confession and the prayer, Ps. :rix. 12-141-P. Ver. 28.-The ikatli, of ./.aron,:-" Mercy and j…
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mind, perhaps many a time she had wept bitterly over her pride and envy in the past ; ~ut Go?'s ~ete~inations ?ann~t be set aside, and even when the earthly Canaan 1s agam commg m eight, that sight 1s not for her. There was no way for Miriam, any more than the rest of us, to escape that suffering and lose in thi,s worl…
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and prejudicing their beam with recollections of carnal comforts and delicacies wllich seemed hopelessly lost. Instead of pointing out that the wildernel!II with all its hardships was a place of Divine manifestations, they could only see that it wu no place of seeds, or figs, or vines, or pomegranates. The mention Q…
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earnestly to consider the sin by which they fell I It is another proof of the hold which sin has on our nature, and of the need that we should walk warily, and look for snares 11.t every step. Consider- I. How THE SIN WAS COMMITTED. 1. It was a sin of iwJ;f,ent:inn,. H there was anything which Moses 11.nd Aaron should…
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credible. The lesson to us is that an impaired faith may be the cause of many of our spiritual troubles. We, worse than Moses, may be habitually inattentive and irritable, and afflicted with the sad consciousness that the habits are becoming more and more fixed. To treat them by direct effort is only to mitigate the sy…
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(Gen. xx.xii!.), The descendants he.d passed through very different experiences, and were now m very different positions; but Moses felt that this common ancestry constituted II claim which he might reason11bly plead. So wherever the believer ire.vels, though he cannot put in the claim of grace upon the unbeliever, …
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gi,ven,, yet .Edom luzd tMm, lllrong a1nJ, ,:,otent, in us heart. It is not always e11.t1y 'fJH!1"e or decent ro avow reaeone for action; bes@e which, Edom felt that promptitude in action was required. Moses had sent a message which called up all the past, not only what he wished called up, but many things he would ra…
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recollect or attend to, Ao.ron should have supplied from hie own knowledge. Th us holy, foithful, and honourable as hie life might rightly be called, hie sin at the hour 11f death is brought right into the foreground. We justly magnify the lives of God's servants, and point with satisfaction to the serenity and expecta…
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plural formed from ,m, equivalent to Cl 1")~i:1, Arad itself, as would have seemed most •' spies " u the Cha.I.dee, Sam&rit.an, and natural, because Arad and Hormah are men- most of the versions take it ; or it may be tioned side by side in Josh. xii. 14. It ja simply the plural from "'llJ~, a place, used identified…
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the towns of the king of .Arad the.n was done .Ara.d, suspecting whe.t would follow, should at the ae.me time to the towns of e.11 his attempt to anticipate invasion by attack. neighbours. It would be more reverent to If it were so it might help to account for the reject the story na an error or e. falsehood re.sh conf…
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EXPOSITION. THE FIERY SERPENTS (ve:rs. 4-9). Ver. ,~~- Septue.gint, Euulv,.,. They meant to 4..-They journeyed from '.ltount :Hor. It say, as their fathers had (eh. xi. 6), that it appears from comparison of eh. xx:riii. 38 was uus11.voury 11.nd unsubstantial in com- and eh. :u:. 29 that their depa.rtu:re was not pari…
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HOMILETICS. Vere, 4-9.-Sin and the Sa'IJUJ'll,r. The type of the brazen serpent lifted up in the wilderness is the only one which our Lord directly claims for himllelf as a type of his own crucifixion. No one can doubt that many other types, hardly less wonderful and instructive, exist ; but this one will always have …
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they ilu:ndd have ~ . Even so ~hen we ~re euife1ing, as we mullt expect sometimes to euffe:, from :ehgious depression and _d!5colll'agement we a~ in great danger of murmuring agamst God and of complatnmg of our lot. lf 1t were, as it ought to be, • " our chief complaint That ou:r love is weak and mint." we should…
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HOMILIES BY VARIOUS AUTHORS. Ver. 4.-The disC01J,ragements of tlie way_. The circumstances of the Israelites suggest some of the discouragements of Christian _pilgrims. These may arise from- I. THE DIRECTION 011' THE WAY. lt led away from Canaan j it was apparently a retreat. Our circumstances may seem to be drawing …
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his Son" (Rom. viii. 32; Gal. iv. 4, 5; cf. Wisdom xvi. 6, 7, 12). 6. In both cases a resemblance between the destroyer and the deliverer. The brazen serpent a deliverer in the likeness of the destroyer; Christ a Saviour in the likeness of the sinner (Rom. viii. 8). But the serpent was without venom, and Christ with…
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might have proved both tedious and perilous in the end. God knows the way of the righteous, even when the righteous himself scarcely knows it, Bad as the way was, it is called the way of the Red Ben, and the very sight of those memorable waters Bhould have brought to mind, and kept in mind, an unparalleled imrtance of …
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while others so soon have the serpent poisoning their consciousness and filling them with a deep sense of the failure, sadness, and misery of natural human life. There are some who seem to have triple armour against the serpent-bite. Of the bitten ones, many had been no worse in their unbelief than 11ome who remaine…
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stricken servants, hated by the world, we me.y well say the.t the semblance o-f the serpent sets him forth. 4. And yet it was the semblance only. By the way men treated him, he appeared to be judged e.s e. destroyer e.nd deceiver, but we know that in himself he we.s he.rmleee. 5. There is the pr<>minence of the saving …
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the other, and this circumstance m'IIBt 'have Wll8 at that time the boundary (see on abated the insolence of the Edomites. More- ver. 26). over, they must now have seen enough of Ver. U. -Wherefore, i. e. becauae tba Israel to know that, while immensely for- Amorites had wrested from Moab all to the midable in numb…
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but in ]ater times it we.s Rabbah, a town looketh toward J'eshimon. Jeshimon, or many miles further sonth in the heart of "the wute," seems to mean here that desert Moab which bore thisnamo. Ar WR!! at this plain on the north-east side of the Salt Sea period the boundary town of Moab, and e.s now called the Ghor el Bel…
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Yer. 24.-And Isre.el smote him with the was little diffel'ence between poetry e.nd rhe- edge of the sword. This wns the first time toric, and when the distinction was hardly tbe.t generation h&d seen we.r, if we except drawn between the inventive fe.culty of m1m. the nncerte.in episode of the king of Arad, and the Divi…
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Ver. 30.-We he.ve 1hot e.t them. C11)t a few miles below the lake of Tiberias. The A poetical word of somewhat doubtful mean- kingdom of Og, however, extended over the ing. It is generally supposed to be e. verbe.l northern and larger part of Gilead, a much form (first person plural imperf. Kal), from more fertile terr…
947 wordsSource & rights
Public domain historical Pulpit Commentary. Source page identifies the volume as Public Domain; text extracted from its historical PDF.
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Historical Christian writing; not Scripture.