^ Better to take Moses for our example when he prayed, as the ark set forward and the march began, " Eise up, 0 Lord, and let thine enemies be scattered," than to follow him in eagerly seeking some Hobab or other to show us where we should go. Better to commit our resting times to God with Moses' prayer when the ark halted, " Eeturn, 0 Lord, unto the many thousands of Israel," and so to repose under the shadow of the Almighty, than to seek safety in having some man with us " who knows how we are to encamp in this wilderness."
Whither, midst falling dew, While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue
Thy solitary way ?
7,74 COME WITH US
Vainly the fowler's eye Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong, As, darkly seen against the crimson sky,
Thy figure floats along.
Seek'st thou the plashy brink Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide, Or where the rocking billows rise and sink
On the chafed ocean-side ?
There is a Power whose care Teaches thy way along that pathless coast — The desert and illimitable air —
Lone wandering, but not lost.
All day thy wings have fanned. At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere, Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land.
Though the dark night is near.
And soon that toil shall end; Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest. And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend,
Soon, o'er thy sheltered nest.
Thou'rt gone, the abyss of heaven Hath swallowed up thy form; yet, on my heart Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given,
And shall not soon depart.
He who, from zone to zone, Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight In the long way that I must tread alone.
Will lead my steps aright.^
2. Man. — Most commentators excuse, or even approve of, the effort of Moses to secure Hobab's help, and they draw from the story the lesson that supernatural guidance does not make human guidance unnecessary. That, of course, is true in a fashion ; but it appears to us that the true lesson of the incident, considered in connection with the following section, is much rather that, for men wlio have God to guide them, it argues weakness of faith and
» W. 0. Bryant, To a TFater/owl.
NUMBERS X. 29-31 375
courage to be much solicitous of any Hobab to show them where to go and where to camp.^
^ Our weakness of faith in the unseen is ever tending to pervert the relation between teacher and taught into practical forgetfulness that the promise of the new covenant is, " They shall all be taught of God." So we are all apt to pin our faith on some trusted guide, and many of us in these days will follow some teacher of negations with an implicit submission which we refuse to give to Jesus Christ. We put the teacher between ourselves and God, and give to the glowing colours of the painted window the admiration that is due to the light which shines through it.
^ We seek our Hobabs in the advice of sage grey-haired counsellors ; in the formation of strong, intelligent, and wealthy committees; in a careful observance of precedent. Anything seems better than a simple reliance on an unseen guide. Now, in one sense, there is no harm in this. We have neither right nor need to cut ourselves adrift from others who have had special experience in some new ground on which we are venturing. It is a mistake to live a hermit life, thinking out all our own problems, and meeting all our own questions as best we may. Those who do so are apt to become self-opinionated and full of crotchets. God often speaks to us through our fellows ; they are His ministers to us for good, and we do well to listen to our Samuels, our Isaiahs, our Johns. But there is also a great danger that we should put man before God ; that we should think more of the glasses than of that which they are intended to reveal ; and that we should so cling to Hobab as to become unmindful of the true Guide and Leader of souls. When we have given Him Hia right place. He will probably restore our judges as at the first and our counsellors as at the beginning ; but the first necessity is that the eye should be single towards Himself, so that the whole body may be full of light.^
3. Christ. — Moses sought to secure this Midianite guide because he was a native of the desert, and had travelled all over it. His experience was his qualification. We have a Brother who has Himself travelled every foot of the road by which we have to go, and His footsteps have marked out with blood a track for us to follow, and have trodden a footpath through the else pathless waste. He knows " how to encamp in this wilderness," for He Himself has "tabernacled among us," and by experience has
' A. Maclaren. ' F. B. Meyer.
376 COME WITH US
learned the weariness of the journey and the perils of the wilderness.
^ Our poor weak hearts long for a brother's hand to hold us up, for a brother's voice to whisper a word of cheer, for a brother's example to animate as well as to instruct. An abstract law of right is but a cold guide, like the stars that shine keen in the polar winter. It is hard even to find in the bare thought of an unseen God guiding us by His unseen Spirit within and His unseen Providence without, the solidity and warmth which we need. Therefore we have mercifully received God manifest in the liesh, a Brother to be our guide and the Captain of our salvation.