The Pulpit Commentary — Numbers — Section 182

cultivation of it, Observe the climate and the people themselves, if they be a strong, 11ta!wart race, and numerous. Do they live peacefully among themselves or in strongholds ? " There was not .a sentence in these instructions but thre~ some doubt on the wisdom, power, and :faithfulnel!II of Jehovah. When God sends out people to do s!lch wor~ ~s delights his heart, it is in a. very diff!3rent spirit; as be sent out the emgle stnplmg, unaccustomed to war, 01p,mst the gie.tit; tl8 Jesus sent out the twelve on their gospel miesion, encumberl!ld·wtth as few material resources as possible. The land to be searched was the land in which their honoured progenitors bad lived ; but there is no word to say "Tell us of Bethel, e.nd of the plain of Ma.mre, e.nd the cave of Machpelah in Hebron." And to crown all, the result shows that they took all this trouble and waited these forty days for useless information. The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.-Y. Vers. 21-29.-Tlte search and tk report. l THE SEABClI. The land passed over is indicated in a somewhat indefinite way. Contrast it with the definiteness of the tribal boundaries in Joshua (chs. xiii.-xix.). These were forty days of specu- lative and dangerous wandering, with no guiding cloud, though doubtless God pro- tected them enn when they felt not the protection ; if for nothing else, for the sake of the faithful two who would yet serve bis purposes and confirm his word. Forty days too of waiting in the wilderness of Paran-days, one may imagine, of much con- jecture, fo.U of apprehension to some, while by others many airy castles would be built, how soon to tremble at the first breath of God's approaching anger I Forty days was not much time to see even so small a land, geographically speaking, as Canaan. We know by our own land the ludicrous mistakes of travellers passing through it, and their sometimes serious mistakes ; how they exalt exceptions into rules, and the eccentricities of the individual into the character and habits of the race. Live in a land, and then you shall report on it with the authority of ·experi- ence. We have heard the story of the traveller who visited a Carthusian monastery in Italy. He admired the situation. and said to one of the monka, "What a fine residence ! " " Transeuntihus," was the sad, satiric reply. If we wish to know the fatness, the beauty, and the safety of the land in which God's people dwell, we must have something more than forty days of superficial rambling. It is not Saul, with eyesight lost, and waiting at Damascus, crushed in spirit, for Ananias, who shall tell us how Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life; but rather such a one as Paul the aged, thirty years later, sounding from the fulness of his experience, "I kno,11 whom I have believed" (2 Tim. i. 12). • II. THE BEPOBT. After forty days they came back, bearing on a staff between two of them the cluster of grapes-bearing it thus, as some think, because of its weight; as others, that the fruit might keep its shapeliness and bloom. And, indeed, along with the pomegranates and figs, which were doubtless choice samplell'1 this fruit was God's own beautiful testimony. Human messengers might differ a.ml deceive, but these sweet silent messengers seemed to intimate that God bad been making ready the land for his own people. So much for what the spies brought i'/1, tkeir ha.ruu. But as to the verbal report, what a meagre thing it is I As to the quality of the land, they content themselves with saying, "Surely it floweth with milk and honey." Yes. God had said this very thing to Moses long before: it was the highest poetry of promise to speak thus ; it was meant to excite. large antici- pations of something fertile and beautiful ; but men who had been over the land for a personal inspection migbt have said something more prosaic and exact. Then as to the stro ~le, the walled towns, and the giants, God bad indicated these very things as in the future of his people, when he caused the fighting men to be numbered not before. The report was meagre, we may well believe, because not otherwise could it have been unanimous. As long as they kept to certain bare facts, and did not proceed to advise, the spies could agree, and yet it v~ry speedil;, appeared bow hollow their agreement was. Caleb and Joshua had to strike out their_ own path, no longer wasting time in trying to sustain vain compromises.-Y. Vers. ~83.-Confiiding coumela. The report has been received, such as it is,· and the next question comes : What Bhall be done? "Caleb stilled the people <ms. x1:1., x1v.] THE BOOK OF NUMBERS. 163'