The Pulpit Commentary — Numbers — Section 166

personal ends. Hore we ma.y see the true >.ao~ rik yijr, 6r, ttarafjpe,µa uµiv l,mv. ?98.Son why Joshua had not been put for. Theu: defence ia departed from them. Liter- ward to ad l"orot:e an immediate advance. ally, "their shadow.'' that which shielded The Septuagint has 01iy6nutoJ1 (cf. 1 Cor. them for a while from the fierce blast of x. 10). Would God we had died. ~)fl~'i~. Divine wrath. This "sha.dow" was not Septuagint, oih>.o,, a.r~avoi,w. The· A. V. positively tl1e Divine protection (as in Ps. is unnecessarily strong. xci. 1, and elsewhere), bnt negatively that Ver. 8.-Wherefore hath the Lord llro'llght Providence which left them a space wherein 118. Ra.ther, "wherefore doth the Lord to walk in their own ways (cf. ro urixov of bring us." t-t':;11;?. Septuagint, ,i11&yu. They 2 Thess. ii. 6). were not actually in the land yet, but only Ver. 10.-Bade atone them with stones. on the threshold. Angry people cannot endure the counsels of calm reason, and perhaps the hostility which Ver. 4.-Let 'llS make a captain, and let they felt against Moses they were very ready us retorn into Egypt. .Although this was to vent npon his "minister." 'l'he glory of only proposed in -the wildness of their dis- the Lord appeared . . 'before all the children tress, yet it was a height of rebellio.n to which of Israel. At the moment when they were they had never risen before. They had about to proceed to violence, the Divine lamented that they had not died in Egypt, glory filled the tabernacle, and &shed forth and they had wished themselves back in with a. brilliancy which compelled their awe- Egypt, but they had never proposed to take struck attention. any overt steps towards returning thither. Ver. 11.-And the Lord said unto llosea, Nothing less than an entire and deliberate who had, as we may suppose, risen a.nd revolt was involved in the wish to elect a drawn nigh w-lien the glory of the Lord captain for themselves, for the angel of the appeared. covenant was the Captain of the Lord's host Yer. 12.-And will make of theea greater (Josh. v. H, Hi). The proposal to de_pose nation a.nd mightier than they. By electing him, and to choose another in bis place, Moses, in the place of Jacob, to be the marked the e::rtremity of the despair, the un- founder and ancestor of the chosen race, God belief, and the ingratitude of the people. would still have made good his promises to Ver. 5.-][oses and Aa.ron tell on their Abraham, and would only have vindicated faces. After making ineffectual efforts to for himself the same freedom of choice which reason with the people, or rather with their he had used in the ease of Ishmael and of leaders (Dent. i 29-31). It was not, how- Esau. We cannot, however, regard this offer ever, in this case an attitude of intercession, as embodying a deliberate intention, for we but the instinctive action of those who await know that God did not really mean to cast in silent horror a ca.tastroJihe which they see off Israel; nor can we regard it as expressing to be inevitable ; it testified to all who saw the anger of the moment, for it is not of God it that they were overwhelmed with shame to be hasty. We mnst nnderstahd it dis- and sorrow in view of the awful sin of the tinctly as intended to try the loyalty and people, a.nd of the terrible pmtlshment which charity of Moses, and to give him an oppor- must follow. tunity of rising to the loftiest height of mag• Yer. 6.-And Joshua. In a last hopeless nanimity, unselfishness, a.nd courage. Moses effort to bring the people to a. better mind, would unquestionably have been leaa noble or at least to deliver their own souls, there than he was if he ha,i listened to the offer ; was no reason why Joshua should hold back it is therefore certain that the otrer was only any more. Rent their clothes. Another made in order that it might be refused (cf. token of grief and horror practised from Exod. zuii 10). patriarchal times (cf. Gen. xxxvii. 29, 34 ; Ver. 13.-And ]l[osea all.id unto the Lord. Job i 20). The words which follow a.re so confused, and Ver. 8.-It the Lord delight in 'llS. An the construction so dislocated, that they afford erpression ued by Mose3 himself (Dent. x.. the strongest evidence that we have here the 15). It did indeed place the whole matter ipsisaima 'IJ6Tba of the mediator, disordered in the only right light ; all the doubt that as they were in the moment of utterance by could pol!llibly exist was the doubt implied pa.ssionate earnestness and an agonising fear. in that "if.,. Had Moses been ever so eloquent, a facility Ver. 9.-They are bread for us. "They of speech at such a moment would have beeu a.re our food," i. e. we she.11 easily devour them alike unnatural and unlovely. Wbat we can (cf. eh. mv. 8; Ps. xiv. 4). Perhaps it ha.a see in the words is this : that Moses had no the further significance that their enemies thought for himself, and that it never occurred would be an absolute advantage to them, to him to entertain the tempting offer made because they would (however unwillingly) to him by God ; that he knew God too well, tmpply them with the necessaries of life. So and (if we may say to) cared for God too apparentl1 the Septuagint : l'-T/ fo/3~ijr1 rov much, to let him so compromis<1 lt:a honou:r CIIS. Xlll, 1 XIV.] THE BOOK OF NUMBERS. 147