(1) He is a holy God. — The Scriptural idea of the holiness of God has a wider sweep than we often recognize. It funda- mentally means His supreme and inaccessible elevation above the creature; which, of course, is manifested in His perfect separation from all sin, but has not regard to this alone. Joshua here urges the infinite distance between man and God, and especially the infinite moral distance, in order to enforce
» J. Stark, Dr. Kidd of Aherdeen, 242,
JOSHUA XXIV. 15 165
a profounder conception of what goes to God's service. A holy God cannot have unholy worshippers. His service can be no mere ceremonial, but must be the bowing of the whole man before His majesty, the aspiration of the whole man after His loftiness, the transformation of the whole man into the reflection of His purity, the approach of the unholy to the Holy through a sacrifice which puts away sin.
(2) He is a j'ealoics God. — "Jealous" is an ugly word, with repulsive associations, and its application to God has sometimes been explained in ugly fashion, and has actually repelled men. But, rightly looked at, what does it mean but that God desires our whole hearts for His own, and loves us so much, and is so desirous to pour His love into us, that He will have no rivals in our love? The metaphor of marriage, which puts His love to men in the tenderest form, underlies this word, so harsh on the surface, but so gracious at the core.
The jealousy exercised in the interests of others must be holy and beneficent. God will brook no intrusion into His work, no division of His authority, no departure from His laws. He alone can guide us through the rocks and whirlpools, and bring us to the far-off goal. That He should be supreme is the very salvation of the universe.
^ In the darkness of a blustering winter's night I was once coming down the rapids of a Chinese river. There were several scores of market people in the same boat returning to their homes. The boatmen, who made their journey ten or a dozen times a month, were versed in the swish of every eddy and the roar of every separate whirlpool, the boom of the current on each obstructing rock, and the hurly-burly of the waters as they spread themselves out over the broad gravel beds, and were at home on almost every square inch of the water-way. Sometimes we came down full swing between chasms of rock where we had not more than half a foot of margin. A mistaken tug at the rudder, too energetic a use of the oar on the wrong side at the wrong moment, failure to calculate the margin of the water-way to a shade, and we should have been dashed to bits on the rocks. Now if I, a stranger, had laid a hand upon the rudder, or had snatched an oar from one of the boatmen, and had begun to make proof of a skill I had cultivated on English rivers, the boatmen would have been profoundly jealous of my intervention. And rightly so ; for they possessed a special knowledge in which I was wanting.
i66 AS FOR ME AND MY HOUSE
Their common humanity, a sense of their responsibility for the souls on board, the dread of a more formidable form of trial for manslaughter than that of European courts, compelled them to a temper of keen and passionate jealousy, and the temper did them all honour.^
* T. G. Selby, The Lesson of a Dilemma, 118.
The Sin of Meroz.
T&r
Literature.
Baird (W.), Sermons at St. Gabriel's Mission Church, 70.
Brooks (P.), The Candle of the Lord, 287.
Brown (C. J.), The Word of Life, 63.
Davies (D.), Talks with Men, Women, and Children, 3rd Ser., 161.
Doney (C. G.), The Throne-Boom of the Soul, 149.
Foster (J.), Works, iii. 369.
Hadden (R. H.), Sermons and Memoir, 139.
Henson (H. H.), Christ and the Nation, 73.
Ingram (A. F. W.), A Mission of the Spirit, 83.
Liddon (H. P.), University Sermons, 2nd Ser., 264.
lilayor (J. B.), The World's Desire, 102.
Skrine (J. H.), A Goodly Heritage, 52.
Smith (W. M.), Giving a Man another Chance, 101.
Stuart (J.), Church and Home, 122.
Christian World Pulpit, xxxiv. 211 (Stuart); xlvi. 275 (Eyton) ; Ixiv.
200 (MacColl) ; Ixviii. 180 (Williams) ; Ixxi. 163 (Rushbrooke). Church Pulpit Year Book, ii. 174 ; iii. 145 ; viii. 123. Churchman's Pulpit : Second Sunday after Trinity ; x. 1 (Eyton), 3
(Williams). Clergyman's Magazine, viii. 289 (Dearden) ; New Ser., v. 359. Contemporary Pulpit, let Ser., vi. 42 (Hook). Treasury (New York), xvii. 82 (Hallock).
t«8
The Sin of Meroz.
Curse ye Meroz, said the angel of the Lord,
Curse ye bitterly the inhabitants thereof;
Because they came not to the help of the Lord,
To the help of the Lord against the mighty.— Judg. v. 23.
1. Israel's struggle against the Canaanitish king Jabin closes the first period of the history of the Judges. Of that struggle the central figure is the speaker in the text — Deborah, prophetess and mother in Israel. This extraordinary woman might have ranked, so far as natural strength of character is concerned, with those of her sex who, by splendid examples, whether of energy, of intellect, or of sanctity, have from time to time reversed the ordinary relations of men and women, and have left their mark for ever upon the history of the world. She belongs to the same class, in respect of natural ascendancy, as Joan of Arc, as EUzabeth of England, as Catharine the Second of Eussia, not to mention humbler but, speaking religiously, greater names. She had, besides her natural gifts, the gift of prophecy, as before her had Miriam the sister of the Lawgiver; as had Huldah the wife of Shallum in a later age. Her husband Lapidoth is mentioned ; he is mentioned only to be forgotten : Deborah's was a life shaped by the pursuit of public rather than of domestic objects.