joshua's envy reproved.
Numb. xi. 27 — 29. And there ran a young man, and told Moses, and said, Eldad and Medad do prophesy in the camp. And Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of Moses, one of his young men, answered and said, My lord Moses, forbid them. And Moses said unto him., Enviest thou for my sake ? Would God that all the Lord's people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his Spirit upon them !
EXPERIENCE proves that eminent situations are atttended with manifold anxieties ; and that rulers, though envied by their subjects, often feel a weight of care which is burthensome in the extreme. Moses was supported in his office by God himself,
152.1 Joshua's envy reproved. 41
who confirmed his authority by many signal and miraculous interpositions : yet even he complained, " I am not able to bear all this people alone, because it is too heavy for mea."
To relieve him from the burthen, God promised, that he would pour out his Spirit upon seventy elders, whom Moses should select, and would qualify them for taking a share in the government. Two of the persons nominated, (being deterred, it should seem, by a sense of their own insufficiency for the office,) stayed in the camp, instead of going up with the others to the tabernacle at the time appointed. God how- ever did not on this account withhold his Spirit from them, but gave it to them in the same manner as to the others : in consequence of which they began to prophesy in the camp. This innovation excited the jealousy of Joshua; who, fearing lest it should weaken the authority of Moses, instantly informed him of it, and desired him to forbid any further exercise of their gifts : but Moses saw through the hidden motives by which he was actuated, and checked the evil which had risen in his heart.
Let us consider, I. The principle he indulged —
Doubtless, Joshua thought that he was acting under a good impression, and that his zeal was of the purest kind : but Moses traces his conduct to a principle of envy, which needed to be mortified and suppressed. Now envy is,
1. A common principle —
[Few are conscious of it in themselves ; but all see the operation of it in their neighbours. There is not any evil in the heart of man more universally prevalent than this. " It is not in vain that the Scripture saith, The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envyV We may see in Cain, in Joseph's brethren, in Saul, and in all the rulers of the Jewish Church, that this disposition is natural to man0. Infants at the breast have been seen to feel its malignant influence, when another has been permitted to participate what they have deemed their
a ver. 14. b Jam. iv. 5.
c 1 John iii. 12. Acts vii. 9. 1 Sam. xviii. 9. Matt, xxvii. 18.