PUBLIC-DOMAIN CHRISTIAN BOOK
The Expositor's Bible: Judges and Ruth
Watson, Robert A. (Robert Alexander) · 126,355 words · 170 reading sections
_Gideon, Iconoclast And Reformer._
And the church of Christ must be filled with His Spirit, animated by His law of life, or be unworthy the name. It exists to unite men in the quest and realization of highest thought and purest activity. The church truly exists for all men, not simply for those who appear to compose it. Salvation and peace are with the …
849 wordsSECTION 62_Gideon, Iconoclast And Reformer._
Gideon was not unfit to render high service. He was a young man tried in humble duty and disciplined in common tasks, shrewd but not arrogant, a person of clear mind and a patriot. The people of the farm and a good many in Ophrah had learned to trust him and were prepared to follow when he struck out a new path. He had…
773 wordsSECTION 63_Gideon, Iconoclast And Reformer._
False religion is not always so easily exposed and upset. Truth may be so mixed with the error of a system that the moral sense is confused and faith clings to the follies and lies conjoined with the truth. And when we look at Judaism in contact with Christianity, at Romanism in contact with the Protestant spirit, we s…
652 wordsSECTION 64_Gideon, Iconoclast And Reformer._
Now with this in view many will think it strange to hear of the conversion of Abiezer. It is a great error however to despise the day of small things. God gives it and we ought to understand its use. Conversion cannot possibly mean the same in every period of the world's history; it cannot even mean the same in any two…
759 wordsSECTION 65_Gideon, Iconoclast And Reformer._
One answer certainly is that the nation at the stage it has reached cannot as a whole esteem a better man, cannot understand finer ideas. A hundred men of more spiritual faith were possibly brooding over Israel's state, ready to act as fearlessly as Gideon and to a higher issue. But it could only have been after a clea…
638 wordsSECTION 66"_The People Are Yet Too Many._"
JUDGES vi. 33-vii. 7. Another day of hope and energy has dawned. One hillside at least rises sunlit out of darkness with the altar of Jehovah on its summit and holier sacrifices smoking there than Israel has offered for many a year. Let us see what elements of promise, what elements of danger or possible error mingle …
716 wordsSECTION 67"_The People Are Yet Too Many._"
Now have the heads of families and the chief men in Israel been active in rallying the tribes? Or have the people waited on their chiefs and the chiefs coldly held back? There are good elements in the situation but others not so encouraging. The secular leaders have failed; and what are the priests and Levites doing? …
821 wordsSECTION 68"_The People Are Yet Too Many._"
Gideon for his work will have to make sharp division. Three hundred who can dash fearlessly on the enemy will be more to his purpose than two-and-thirty thousand most of whom grow pale at the thought of battle, and he will separate by-and-by. But first he seeks another sign of Jehovah. This man knows that to do anythin…
1,041 wordsSECTION 69"_The People Are Yet Too Many._"
"Just for a handful of silver he left us, Just for a riband to stick in his coat-- Found the one gift of which fortune bereft us, Lost all the others she lets us devote.... We shall march prospering--not thro' his presence; Songs may inspirit us--not from his lyre; Deeds will be done--while he boasts his quiescen…
680 wordsSECTION 70"_The People Are Yet Too Many._"
Many are the commonplace incidents, the seemingly small points in life that test the quality of men. Every day we are led to the stream-side to show what we are, whether eager in the Divine enterprise of faith or slack and self-considering. Take any company of men and women who claim to be on the side of Christ, engage…
698 wordsSECTION 71"_The People Are Yet Too Many._"
In the incidents we have been reviewing voluntary churches may find hints at least towards the justification of their principle. The idea of a national church is on more than one side intelligible and valid. Christianity stands related to the whole body of the people, bountiful even to those who scorn its laws, pleadin…
428 wordsSECTION 72"_Midian'S Evil Day._"
JUDGES vii. 8-viii. 21. There is now with Gideon a select band of three hundred ready for a night attack on the Midianites. The leader has been guided to a singular and striking plan of action. It is however as he well knows a daring thing to begin assault upon the immense camp of Midian with so small a band, even tho…
816 wordsSECTION 73"_Midian'S Evil Day._"
Now in every combination of godless men there is a like feeling of insecurity, a like presage of disaster. Those who are in revolt against justice, truth and the religion of God have nothing on which to rest, no enduring bond of union. What do they conceive as the issue of their attempts and schemes? Have they anything…
830 wordsSECTION 74"_Midian'S Evil Day._"
It was not long after midnight, the middle watch had been newly set, when the three companies reached their stations. The orders had been well seized and all went precisely as Gideon had conceived. With crash and tumult and flare of torches there came the battle-shout--"Sword of Jehovah and of Gideon." The Israelites h…
744 wordsSECTION 75"_Midian'S Evil Day._"
We look back to those few plain men with whom lay the new life of the world, going forth with the strong certain word of a belief for which they could die, a truth by which the dead could be revived. Their equipment was of the soul. Of outward means and material advantages they were, one may say, destitute. Our methods…
683 wordsSECTION 76"_Midian'S Evil Day._"
3. Without pursuing this suggestion we pass to another raised by the conduct of the men of Ephraim. They obeyed the call of Gideon when he hastily summoned them to take the lower fords of Jordan within their own territory and prevent the escape of the Midianites. To them it fell to gain a great victory, and especially …
734 wordsSECTION 77"_Midian'S Evil Day._"
Penuel and Succoth lay in the way between the wilderness in which the Midianites dwelt and the valleys of western Palestine. The men of these cities feared that if they aided Gideon they would bring on themselves the vengeance of the desert tribes. Yet where do we see the lowest point of unfaith and meanness, in Ephrai…
664 wordsSECTION 78"_Midian'S Evil Day._"
"On, chariot! on, soul! Ye are all the more fleet. Be alone at the goal Of the strange and the sweet!" 6. Finally let us glance at the fate of Zebah and Zalmunna, not without a feeling of admiration and of pity for the rude ending of these stately lives. The sword of Jehovah and of Gideon has slain its thousands. …
628 wordsSECTION 79_Gideon The Ecclesiastic._
JUDGES viii. 22-28. The great victory of Gideon had this special significance, that it ended the incursions of the wandering races of the desert. Canaan offered a continual lure to the nomads of the Arabian wilderness, as indeed the eastern and southern parts of Syria do at the present time. The hazard was that wave a…
744 wordsSECTION 80_Gideon The Ecclesiastic._
Along with his devotion to God it is quite likely that the caution of Gideon had much to do with his resolve. He had already found some difficulty in dealing with the Ephraimites, and he could easily foresee that if he became king the pride of that large clan would rise strongly against him. If the gleaning of the grap…
932 wordsSECTION 81_Gideon The Ecclesiastic._
"He made an ephod and put it in his city, even in Ophrah." A strong but not spiritual religiousness, we have said, is the chief note of Gideon's character. It may be objected that such a one, if he seeks ecclesiastical office, does so unworthily; but to say so is an uncharitable error. It is not the devout temper alone…
663 wordsSECTION 82_Gideon The Ecclesiastic._
But while we try to understand we are not to miss the warning which comes home to us through this chapter of religious history. Pure and, for the time, even elevated in the motive, Gideon's attempt at priestcraft led to his fall. For a while we see the hero acting as judge at Ophrah and presiding with dignity at the al…
973 wordsSECTION 83_Gideon The Ecclesiastic._
A century ago Englishmen were as little devout as they are to-day; they were even less spiritual, less moved to fine issues. They had their scepticisms too, their rough ignorant prejudices, their giant errors and perversities. "We have gained vastly," as Professor Seeley says, "in breadth of view, intelligence and refi…
683 wordsSECTION 84_Gideon The Ecclesiastic._
Now in a dim way the priestly function presented itself to Gideon and allured him. Sufficient for it he was not, and his ephod became a snare. Neither could he grasp the wisdom of heaven nor understand the needs of men. In his hands the sacred art did not prosper, he became content with the appearance and the gain. It …
388 wordsSECTION 85_Abimelech And Jotham._
JUDGES viii. 29-ix. 57. The history we are tracing moves from man to man; the personal influence of the hero is everything while it lasts and confusion follows on his death. Gideon appears as one of the most successful Hebrew judges in maintaining order. While he was there in Ophrah religion and government had a centr…
786 wordsSECTION 86_Abimelech And Jotham._
It is the success of the adventurer we have here, that common event. Abimelech is the oriental adventurer and uses the methods of another age than ours; yet we have our examples, and if they are less scandalous in some ways, if they are apart from bloodshed and savagery, they are still sufficiently trying to those who …
801 wordsSECTION 87_Abimelech And Jotham._
It is a piece of satire of the best order, brief, stinging, true. The craving for a king is lashed and then the wonderful choice of a ruler. Jotham speaks as an anarchist, one might say, but with God understood as the centre of law and order. It is a vision of the Theocracy taking shape from a keen and original mind. H…
835 wordsSECTION 88_Abimelech And Jotham._
The fable does not make the refusal of olive and fig-tree and vine rest on the comfort they enjoy in the humbler place. That would be a mean and dishonourable reason for refusing to serve. Men who decline public office because they love an easy life find here no countenance. It is for the sake of its fatness, the oil i…
716 wordsSECTION 89_Abimelech And Jotham._
Abimelech maintained himself in power for three years, no doubt amid growing dissatisfaction. Then came the outburst which Jotham had predicted. An evil spirit, really present from the first, rose between Abimelech and the men of Shechem. The bramble began to tear themselves, a thing they were not prepared to endure. O…
766 wordsSECTION 90_Abimelech And Jotham._
Against Abimelech the adventurer there arose another of the same stamp, Gaal son of Ebed, that is the _Abhorred_, son of a slave. In him the men of Shechem put their confidence such as it was. At the festival of vintage there was a demonstration of a truly barbarous sort. High carousal was held in the temple of Baal. T…
726 wordsSECTION 91_Gilead And Its Chief._
JUDGES x. 1-xi. 11. The scene of the history shifts now to the east of Jordan, and we learn first of the influence which the region called Gilead was coming to have in Hebrew development from the brief notice of a chief named Jair who held the position of judge for twenty-two years. Tola, a man of Issachar, succeeded …
779 wordsSECTION 92_Gilead And Its Chief._
No doubt the duties we owe to each other and to the nation of which we form a part are imposed by natural conditions which have arisen in the course of history, and some may think that the natural should give way to the spiritual. They may see the interests of a kingdom of this world as actually opposed to the interest…
843 wordsSECTION 93_Gilead And Its Chief._
Again, the religious so far as they have wisdom and strength are required to be pioneers, which they can never be in following fancy or taste. Here nothing but strenuous thought, patient faithful obedience can avail. Hebrew history is the story of a pioneer people and every lapse from fidelity was serious, the future o…
743 wordsSECTION 94_Gilead And Its Chief._
To Israel troubled and contrite came as on previous occasions a prophetic message; and it was spoken by one of those incisive ironic preachers who were born from time to time among this strangely heathen, strangely believing people. It is in terms of earnest remonstrance he speaks, at first almost going the length of d…
805 wordsSECTION 95_Gilead And Its Chief._
We cannot say that when Israel repented it was in the love of holiness so much as in the desire for liberty. The ways of the heathen were followed readily, but the supremacy of the heathen was ever abominable to the vigorous Israelite. By this national spirit however God could find the tribes, and a special feature of …
682 wordsSECTION 96_Gilead And Its Chief._
And here the religious character of the man begins to appear. At Mizpah on the verge of the wilderness where the Israelites, driven northward by the victories of Ammon, had their camp there stood an ancient cairn or heap of stones which preserved the tradition of a sacred covenant and still retained the savour of sanct…
545 wordsSECTION 97_The Terrible Vow._
JUDGES xi. 12-40. At every stage of their history the Hebrews were capable of producing men of passionate religiousness. And this appears as a distinction of the group of nations to which they belong. The Arab of the present time has the same quality. He can be excited to a holy war in which thousands perish. With the…
771 wordsSECTION 98_The Terrible Vow._
The king of Ammon refused Jephthah's offer to negotiate. He claimed the land bounded by the Arnon, the Jabbok and Jordan as his own and demanded that it should be peaceably given up to him. In reply Jephthah denied the claim. It was the Amorites, he said, who originally held that part of Syria. Sihon who was defeated i…
996 wordsSECTION 99_The Terrible Vow._
Now we should like to find more knowledge and a higher vision in a leader of Israel. We would fain escape from the conclusion that a Hebrew could be so ignorant of the divine character as Jephthah appears; and moved by such feelings many have taken a very different view of the matter. The Gileadite has, for example, be…
883 wordsSECTION 100_The Terrible Vow._
And he? A sudden horror checks his heart. He stands arrested, cold as stone, with eyes of strange dark trouble fixed upon the gay young figure that welcomes him to home and rest and fame. She flies to his arms, but they do not open to her. She looks at him, for he has never repulsed her--and why now? He puts forth his …
658 wordsSECTION 101_The Terrible Vow._
To Jephthah and his daughter the vow was sacred, irrevocable. The deliverance of Israel by so signal and complete a victory left no alternative. It would have been well if they had known God differently; yet better this darkly impressive issue which went to the making of Hebrew faith and strength than easy unfruitful e…
692 wordsSECTION 102_The Terrible Vow._
There are not a few popularly accepted guides in religion who fatally misconceive the doctrine of sacrifice. They take man-made conditions for Divine opportunities and calls. Their arguments come home not to the selfish and overbearing, but to the unselfish and long-suffering members of society, and too often they are …
312 wordsSECTION 103_Shibboleths._
JUDGES xii. 1-7. While Jephthah and his Gileadites were engaged in the struggle with Ammon jealous watch was kept over all their movements by the men of Ephraim. As the head tribe of the house of Joseph occupying the centre of Palestine Ephraim was suspicious of all attempts and still more of every success that threat…
899 wordsSECTION 104_Shibboleths._
Civil war, at all times lamentable, appears peculiarly so when the cause of it lies in haughtiness and distrust. We have found however that, beneath the surface, there may have been elements of division and ill-will serious enough to require this painful remedy. The campaign may have prevented a lasting rupture between…
762 wordsSECTION 105_Shibboleths._
The expedient used at the fords turned on a defect or peculiarity of speech. Shibboleth perhaps meant _stream_. Of each man who came to the stream of Jordan wishing to pass to the other side it was required that he should say _Shibboleth_. The Ephraimites tried but said _Sibboleth_ instead, and so betraying their west-…
799 wordsSECTION 106_Shibboleths._
* * * * * But there are _Shibboleths_ of party, and we must be careful lest in trying others we use some catchword of our own Gilead by which to judge their religion or their virtue. The danger of the earnest, alike in religion, politics and philanthropy, is to make their own favourite plans or doctrines the test of a…
666 wordsSECTION 107_Shibboleths._
Amidst pedants, critics, hot and bitter partisans, we see Christ moving in divine freedom. Fine is the subtlety of His thought in which the ideas of spiritual liberty and of duty blend to form one luminous strain. Fine are the clearness and simplicity of that daily life in which He becomes the way and the truth to men.…
445 wordsSECTION 108_The Angel In The Field._
JUDGES xiii. 1-18. In our ignorance not in our knowledge, in our blindness not in our light we call nature secular and think of the ordinary course of events as a series of cold operations, governed by law and force, having nothing to do with divine purpose and love. Oftentimes we think so, and suffer because we do no…
757 wordsSECTION 109_The Angel In The Field._
From the quaint and simple narrative before us the imaginative rationalist turns away with the one word--"myth." His criticism is of a sort which for all its ease and freedom gives the world nothing. We desire to know why the human mind harbours thoughts of the kind, why it has ideas of God and of a supernatural order,…
793 wordsSECTION 110_The Angel In The Field._
The child that was to be born, a gift of God, a divine charge, was promised to these parents. And in the case of every child born into the world there is a divine predestination which whether it has been recognized by the parents or not gives dignity to his existence from the first. There are natural laws and spiritual…
792 wordsSECTION 111_The Angel In The Field._
To each human mind are given powers which require special fostering, peculiarities of temperament and feeling which ought to be specially considered. One way will not serve in the upbringing of two children. Even the most approved method of the time, whether that of private tutelage or public instruction, may thwart in…
808 wordsSECTION 112_The Angel In The Field._
The special method of training for the child Samson is described in the words, "He shall be a Nazirite unto God." The mother was to drink no strong drink nor eat any unclean thing. Her son was to be trained in the same rigid abstinence; and always the sense of obligation to Jehovah was to accompany the austerity. The h…
726 wordsSECTION 113_Samson Plunging Into Life._
So is it always. One kind of exercise, discipline, obedience, virtue will not suffice. We need to be temperate and also pure, we need to keep from self-indulgence but also from niggardliness if we are to be men. We have to think of the discipline of mind and soul as well as soundness of body. He is only half a man, how…
902 wordsSECTION 114_Samson Plunging Into Life._
But even before manhood Samson had times of deeper feeling than people in general would have looked for. Boisterous hot-blooded impetuous natures grievously wanting in decorum and sagacity are not always superficial; and there were occasions when the Spirit of the Lord began to move Samson. He felt the purpose of his v…
1,023 wordsSECTION 115_Samson Plunging Into Life._
Returning to Samson's case, he would possibly have said that he wished an adventurous marriage, that to wed a Danite woman would have in it too little risk, would be too dull, too commonplace a business for him, that he wanted a plunge into new waters. It is in this way, one must believe, many decide the great affair. …
1,082 wordsSECTION 116_Samson Plunging Into Life._
At Timnah, where life was perhaps freer than in a Hebrew town, Samson appears to have seen the woman who had caught his fancy; and he now found her, Philistine as she was, quite to his mind. It must have been by a low standard he judged, and many possible topics of conversation must have been carefully avoided. Under t…
679 wordsSECTION 117_Samson Plunging Into Life._
We are not finished with the lion; he next appears covertly, in a riddle. Samson has shown himself a strong man; now we hear him speak and he proves a wit. It is the wedding festival, and thirty young men have been gathered--to honour the bridegroom, shall we say?--or to watch him? Perhaps from the first there has been…
705 wordsSECTION 118_Dauntless In Battle, Ignorantly Brave._
JUDGES xv. Given a man of strong passions and uninstructed conscience, wild courage and giant energy, with the sense of a mission which he has to accomplish against his country's enemies so that he reckons himself justified in doing them injury or killing them in the name of God, and you have, no complete hero, but a …
793 wordsSECTION 119_Dauntless In Battle, Ignorantly Brave._
The need is that men should in the first instance live so that they may be faithful to their calling. Deborah looking round beheld her country under the sore oppression of Jabin, saw the need and answered to it. Others only vegetated; she rose up in human stature resolute to live. That also was what Gideon began to do …
798 wordsSECTION 120_Dauntless In Battle, Ignorantly Brave._
Now we see in Samson a man who in his degree lived. He had strength like the strength of ten; he had also the consecration of his vow and the sense of a divine constraint and mandate. These things urged him to life and made activity necessary to him. He might have reclined in careless ease like many around. But sloth d…
673 wordsSource & rights
Public domain in the USA; original historical text digitized by Project Gutenberg.
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Historical Christian writing; not Scripture.