"We have heard of the pride of Moab, that he is very proud, Even of his arrogancy and his pride and his wrath."[222]
This verse is a striking example of the Hebrew method of gaining emphasis by accumulating derivatives of the same and similar roots. The verse in Jeremiah runs thus: "We have heard of the pride (Ge'ON) of Moab, that he is very proud (GE'EH); his loftiness (GABHeHO), and his pride (Ge'ONO), and his proudfulness (GA'aWATHO)."
Jeremiah dwells upon this theme:--
"Moab shall be destroyed from being a people, Because he hath magnified himself against Jehovah."
Zephaniah bears like testimony[223]:--
"This shall they have for their pride, Because they have been insolent, and have magnified themselves Against the people of Jehovah Sabaoth."
Here again the Moabite Stone bears abundant testimony to the justice of the prophet's accusations; for there Mesha tells how in the name and by the grace of Chemosh he conquered the cities of Israel; and how, anticipating Belshazzar's sacrilege, he took the sacred vessels of Jehovah from His temple at Nebo and consecrated them to Chemosh. Truly Moab had "magnified himself against Jehovah."
Prosperity had produced other baleful effects beside a haughty spirit, and pride was not the only cause of the ruin of Moab. Jeremiah applies to nations the dictum of Polonius--
"Home-keeping youths have ever homely wits,"
and apparently suggests that ruin and captivity were necessary elements in the national discipline of Moab:--
"Moab hath been undisturbed from his youth; He hath settled on his lees; He hath not been emptied from vessel to vessel; He hath not gone into captivity: Therefore his taste remaineth in him, His scent is not changed.
Wherefore, behold, the days come--it is the utterance of Jehovah-- That I will send men unto him that shall tilt him up; They shall empty his vessels and break his[224] bottles."
As the chapter, in its present form, concludes with a note--
"I will bring again the captivity of Moab in the latter days--it is the utterance of Jehovah"--
we gather that even this rough handling was disciplinary; at any rate, the former lack of such vicissitudes had been to the serious detriment of Moab. It is strange that Jeremiah did not apply this principle to Judah. For, indeed, the religion of Israel and of mankind owes an incalculable debt to the captivity of Judah, a debt which later writers are not slow to recognise. "Behold," says the prophet of the Exile,--
"I have refined thee, but not as silver; I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction."[225]
History constantly illustrates how when Christians were undisturbed and prosperous the wine of truth settled on the lees and came to taste of the cask; and--to change the figure--how affliction and persecution proved most effectual tonics for a debilitated Church. Continental critics of modern England speak severely of the ill-effects which our prolonged freedom from invasion and civil war, and the unbroken continuity of our social life have had on our national character and manners. In their eyes England is a perfect Moab, concerning which they are ever ready to prophesy after the manner of Jeremiah. The Hebrew Chronicler blamed Josiah because he would not listen to the advice and criticism of Pharaoh Necho. There may be warnings which we should do well to heed, even in the acrimony of foreign journalists.
But any such suggestion raises wider and more difficult issues; for ordinary individuals and nations the discipline of calamity seems necessary. What degree of moral development exempts from such discipline, and how may it be attained? Christians cannot seek to compound for such discipline by self-inflicted loss or pain, like Polycrates casting away his ring or Browning's Caliban, who in his hour of terror,
"Lo! 'Lieth flat and loveth Setebos! 'Maketh his teeth meet through his upper lip, Will let those quails fly, will not eat this month One little mess of whelks, so he may 'scape."