g JUDGES, I. 6, 7. [261.
with the tribe of Simeon, renewed the conflict with the Canaanites. God gave them success, and deh- vered into their hand Adoni-bezek, one of the most powerful of the kings of Canaan. Him they treated with great severity : and their conduct towards him forms the subject of our present consideration. We shall consider,
I. The particular dispensation here recorded —
The conduct of this king had been most cruel —
[What occasions he had had for waging war against seventy kings, we know not: ambition never wants a pretext for its bloody projects: but to insult over their misfortunes in such a manner as to maim their persons, and compel them, Hke dogs, to gather up scraps from under his table for their subsistence, argued a degree of cruelty, which one could scarcely have con- ceived to exist in a rational being. One might suppose it pos- sible that some particular provocation might have caused him to offer such an indignity to a single individual ; but when sucli conduct was pursued towards so many vanquished kings, it manifestly proceeded only from his barbarous and brutal dis- position. But here we are constrained to acknowledge, how emj)ty is human greatness ; how uncertain the continuance of those honours in which men so vainly pride themselves ; and how often it happens that pre-eminence in station leads only to a sad pre-eminence in distress and misery. Nor can we for- bear to notice, what desolation and trouble one ambitious tyrant may produce in the earth.
Whilst we see the dispositions of this man exhibited in such awful coloui's, let us not suppose that we ourselves are altoge- ther exempt from them. The truth is, that the dispositions themselves are common to every child of man, tliough they have not attained in all the same maturity, or brought forth in aU such visible and deadly fruits. We cannot but have seen that children feel a pleasure in vexing and tyrannizing over those who are weaker than themselves ; and, as we grow up in life, a fondness for manifesting superiority and exercising de- spotic sway increases : and, in proportion as our opportunities for displaying these hateful qualities are enlarged, our evil tendencies become augmented and confirmed. How conspi- cuous is this in the great men of the earth, who can spread desolation over whole provinces without remorse, and invade, as we have seen, even neutral and friendly kingdoms for no other end than to gratify their own insatiable ambition !]
But he in his turn was made to feel the judgments which he had so wantonly inflicted upon others —
261.1 adoni-bezek's punishment. 3
[It was a law in Israel, that magistrates should punish offenders in a way of just retribution^ : and doubtless it was by the direction of God, the righteous Governor of the universe, that the Israelites on this occasion maimed the body of their captive king. To insult over him indeed, as he had insulted over others, would have been inconsistent with those gracious affections, which Israel, as the Lord's people, were bound to exercise. In that part therefore the sentence was relaxed : but, as far as the law required, they " meted to him the mea- sure which he had meted out to others." This brought his sin to his remembrance, and compelled him to acknowledge the equity of Jehovah, who in his righteous providence had so re- quited him: "As I have done, so God hath requited me." And though a feeling mind cannot but regret that such a judgment should be executed on a fallen prince, yet in this case we are constrained to acquiesce in it, and even to feel a secret satisfaction, in seeing that the evils which he had so cruelly inflicted upon others were at last brought home to himself.]
Let us now turn our attention from the particular dispensation, to,
II. The insight which it gives us into God's moral government— " God is still known by the judgments which he executeth " —