Use. I^p and be doing, you that are about the work of thp Lord. Your enemies are bread ready to be eaten, and
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yield you refreshment. Do you think if our armies had not walked in a trodden path, they could have made such journeys as they have done of late? Had not God marched before them, and traced out their way from Kent to Essex, from Wales to the north, their carcases had long ere this been cast into the field. Their work was done in heaven before they begun it. God was gone over the mulberry- trees ; 2 Sam. v. 24. The work might have been done by children, though he was pleased to employ such worthy instruments. They see I doubt not their own nothingness in his all-sufficiency. Go on then, but with this caution, search by all ways and means to find the footsteps of the mighty God going before you.
The trembling condition of the oppressing nations round about, when God appeared so gloriously for his people, is held out ver. 7.
Ver. 7. * I saw the tents of Cushan in affliction: the cur- tains of the land of Midian did tremble.'
You have here three things considerable.
1. The mention of two nations, enemies of the church : Cushan and Midian.
2. The state and condition of those nations: the tents of the one in affliction, and the curtains of the other in trem- bling.
3. The view the prophet had of this, I saw it, saith he : ' I saw,* &c.
1. For the first, these two nations, Cushan and Midian, were the neighbouring people to the Israelites, being in the wilderness when God did such great things for them.
(1.) Cushan, that is, the tent-dwelling Arabians on the south side towards Ethiopia, being, as the Ethiopians, of the posterity of Cush (thence called Cushan) the eldest son of scoffing Ham, Gen. x. 6. enemies and opposers of the church (doubtless) all the way down from their profane ancestors.*^ These now beheld the Israelites going to root out their al- lies and kindred, the Araorites of Canaan, the posterity of Canaan, the younger brother of their progenitor Cush ; Gen. X. 6.
(2.) Midian was a people inhabiting the east side of Jor- dan, on the borders of Moab, so called from their forefather
•■ 2 Kings six. 9. Jer. siii. ?:?. Jo«pp}i. Anfiq. Isa. ixxvii. 9.
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Midian, the son of Abraham by Keturah; Gen. xxv. 3, 4. These obtained a temporal blessing far a season, from the love borne to their faithful progenitor. In the days of Jacob they were great merchants; Gen. xxxvii. 28. At this time, in less than four hundred years, they were so multiplied, that they had five kings of their nation; Numb. xxxi. 1. Some knowledge of the true God was retained, as it should seem, until now amongst some of them, being received by tradition from their fathers. Moses's father-in-law was a priest of this country, Exod. ii. 15, 16. not altogether un- acquainted with Jehovah, Exod. xviii. and was himself, or his son, persuaded to take up his portion in Canaan ; Numb. X. 29, 30. But for the generality of the nation, being not heirs of the promise, they were fallen off to superstition and idolatry. Exceeding enemies they were to the people in the wilderness, vexing them with their wiles, and provoking them to abominations, that the Lord might consume them ; Numb. xxv. 17. None so vile enemies to the church as superstitious apostates. These two nations then set out all manner of opposers : gross idolaters, as Cushan ; and superstitious, envious apostles, as Midian.
2. Their state and condition severally.
(1.) 'The tents of Cushan' were in affliction : the tents, the Arabian Ethiopians of Cush, dwelling in tents: the habitation for the inhabitant, by a hypallage. They were ' in affliction, under vanity, under iniquity, the place of vanity,' so variously are the words rendered : ]'\\u nnn * under affliction, vanity, or iniquity.' Sin and the punishment of it are frequently in the Scripture of the same name; so near is the relation. ]Vii^ is properly and most usually iniquity, but that it is here taken for the consequent of it, a consuming, perplexed, vexed con- dition can be no doubt. The Cushanites then were in afflic- tion, full of anguish, fear, dread, vexation to see what would be the issue of those great and mighty things, which God was doing in their borders for his people '."^ aflSicted with Israel's happiness and their own fears, as is the condition of all wicked oppressors.
(2.) ' The curtains of the land of Midian,' for the Midian- ites dwelling in curtained tabernacles, by the same figure as
^ Tantos invidushabet poena justa tortores, quantoe invidiosus Iiabucritlaudatorev. Prosp. vita contempt.
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before. They trembled : prj"i>, 'moved themselves, were moved,' that is, shaken with fear and trembling, as though they were ready to run from the appearance of the mighty God with his people. The story of it you have in the book of Num- bers,* as it was prophetically foretold by Moses concerning other nations, Exod. xv. 14 — 16. ' The people shall hear and be afraid, sorrow shall take hold of the inhabitants of Pa- lestina. Then the dukes of Edom shall be amazed, the mighty men of Moab,' &c. God filled those nations with anguish, sorrow, and amazement, at the protection he granted his people.