I come to the specification of the curse, wherein it stands : * He shall lay the foundation thereof in his first-born.'
If any man will be so venturous to build it up again, as one Hiel did, in 1 Kings xvi. 34, if any man will be so audacious, he shall do it with the
*AZ THE UNPKOSPEROUS BUILDER.
peril of the life of his first-begotten ; and if he will not desist then, he shall finish the gates of it, he shall make an end of it, with the death of his younger son. It is God's custom to denounce a threatening of a curse before he execute it. It is a part of God's mercy and of his blessing, that he will curse only in the threatening; for therefore he curseth, that he might not execute it; and therefore he threateneth, that he might not smite; and when he smites, he smites that he might not destroy; and when he kills the body, it is that he might not destroy the soul; as 1 Cor. xi. 32, ' Therefore some of you are weak, and sick, and some sleep, that you might not be condemned with the world.' Thus God is merciful, even till it comes to the last upshot, that men by their rebellions provoke him. God's mercy strives with the sins of men. Mark here the degrees of it : first, God threatens the curse, * Cursed be the man ;' and then in the particulars, he begins with the eldest son. First, there is a threatening; and when the execution comes, he takes not all his sons away at once, but begins with the eldest ; and if that will not do, he goes to the youngest.
This carriage of God, even in his threatenings, it should put us in mind of God's mercy, and likewise it should move us to meet God presently, before any peremptory decree be come forth, as we shall see afterward ; for if we leave not sinning, God will never leave punishing. He might have desisted in the death of his first son ; but if that will not be, God will strike him in his youngest son, and sweep away all between ; for so we must understand it, that both elder, and younger, and all should die.
Now for the judgment itself.
* He shall lay the foundation thereof in his first-born.'
There is some proportion between the judgment and the sin. The sin was to raise up a building, a cursed city, contrary to God's will. The punishment is in pulHng down a man's own building ; for children, accord- ing to the Hebrew word, are the building, the pillars of the house (e) ; and since he would raise up a foundation and building contrary to God's mind, God would pull up his foundation. Cities are said to have life, and to grow, and to have their pitch, and then to die like men ; and, indeed, they do : observing only a proportion of time, they are of longer continuance, but otherwise cities live and grow and die and have their period as men have.* Now he that would give life to a city, that God would have buried in its own ruins, God would have his sons die ; he would have his sons as it were buried under the ruins of that city that he would build in spite of God, that would give life to that city that was cursed. Ofttimes we may read our very sins in our punishments, there is some proportion. But to go on to the particulars.
' He shall lay the foundation in his first-born.'
A heavy judgment, because the first-born, as you know he saith of Eeuben, he was his strength ; and he was king and priest in the family. The first-born had a double portion, he was redeemed with a greater price, as we pee in Moses's law, than other sons. It was a heavy judgment to have his first-born smitten in this fashion, to be taken away.
If any ask why God was so severe, that he did not punish Hiel in him- self, but take away his children, it may seem against reason.
But we must not dispute with God, for we must know that God hath the supreme power of life and death.
* Cf. Dr Vanghan's 'Ages of Great Cities,' wherein this truth is eloquently illustrated and enforced.— G.
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Then we must know again that children are part of their parents ; God punisheth the parents in their children, and it is a heavier punishment oft- times in their esteem than in themselves, for they think to live and con- tinue in their children. Now when they see their children took away it is worse than death. Men ofttimes live to see things worse than death, as those that see their children killed before them, as Zedekiah and Mauritius, the emperor, for indeed it is a death oft (/) ; a man dies in every child. This man he died in his eldest son, and he died in his youngest son ; he died in regard of the apprehension of death. It was more sharp in apprehension than when he died himself. So it is a heavy judgment to be stricken in our children. God, when he will punish, he punisheth ofttimes in pos- terity ; as we see it was the most terrible judgment of all upon Pharaoh, that in his first-born ; God drew them all to let Israel go out, when * he smote their first-born.' It is a heavy judgment for a man to be stricken in his first- bom, either when they are dissolute, and debauched, and lawless, for God hath judgments for the soul as well as for the body, or else when they are taken out of the world.