The Pulpit Commentary — Numbers — Section 235

their grasp, was to trample down Moses and Aaron and take their place, " What is Aar~n, th~t ye mnr,:nu: again~t him?" An earthen vessel is a very common, cheap, fragile thrng._ If 1t 1s no!lnng 1!1ore than a1;1 earthen vessel, then you may in a moment, unhmdered, dash it to pieces. But if God, to show the excellency of hie power, has put his treasure in an earthen vessel, then it were safer for you to con- spire against the best founded of human governments than to touch that earthen vessel v.-ith so much as your little finger.-Y. Vers. 12-15.-Dathan, Abiram, and Moses. Datban and A.biram seem to have been absent from the inter~iew, as _if to show their par~icular and utter contempt for Moses. It was a sort of cnme agamst the new authonty to have any dealings with him, to treat him with any civility. But Moses does not treat them as they treat him. It is good to stoop to rebels even, and show them a way of being reconciled- a way all in vain, however, so far as these two were concerned. What contempt they had silently shown by their absence is now made clear in unmistakable words. A free vent is found for all the rage and scorn pent up in their hearts, and one can see a sort of sidelong rebuke to Korab for condescending to make any terms with such a deceiver. I. THEIR CHARGE AGAINST MOSES. Notice how all their complaints end with him. There is no word concerning Jehovah. Korab, at any rate, made a pretence of thinking of God's glory, as if Moses were not merely injuring the people, but robbing God of their service. Dathan and Abiram talk like utter atheists, as if the promises were of Moses, and not of God, and as if the non-fulfilment came from the inability or malice of Moses, and not from the righteous indignation of God. God had said that be brought them out of Egypt to be their God. Dathan and Abiram leave God altogether out of the question. It is Moses who has brought them out of a land that might be coUDted one of milk and honey, as compared with the wilderness. That assertion of Jehovah's appointment, favour, and protection which Moses so rejoicingly made was to them nothing but the lying of tyrannous statecraft. Men who are themselves without perceptions of the Eternal, whose thoughts are wholly within the sphere of time and sense, are fond of speaking concerniDg such as walk in the light of the Eternal as if they must be either fools or knaves. It is possible that Dathan and Abiram had been so blinded by the god of this world as to have persuaded them- selves they were the champions of a righteous cause. The savage and heartless aima whu;h they attribute to him. How easy it is when one's hea.rt is so inclined, to distort into hideousness the lineaments of the most noble characters I Vindictive minds are like those spherical mirrors which alter the shape of everything presented to them. Thus did Dathan and Abiram make it out that Moses had drawn them from com- parative comfort and security, to trifle with them and knock them about hither and thither e.t his own caprice. How differently the same things look according to the point from which we view them I How we should be on our guard against the re- presentations of wicked self-seeking men I how slow to credit or even to consider any slander upon God's ~ervants I They charge him, moreover, with drawing them into the wilderness by specious promues, made only to be broken, as if, finding he could not keep these promises, he had cunningly thrown the_ fault_ on a pretend~ deity behind. Men will look anywhe:e fo: the reason~ of ~1sapp?mtment save ,m their own headstrong and self-regarding lives. The infallible discernment whicl,, they claim for themsdves. "Do you think people have only eyes for what you would have them see ? " What is harder tha.n to get the Dathans and Abirams of the world out of the supercilious egotism in which they are entrenched ? It is bad enough to have eyes and yet see not, to fail in discerning the great ree.li_ti~s ~f. the unseen and eternal, but it is even worse to see all sorts of horrors and 1mqu1t1es that have no existence. There is a sort of people in the world who suspect everybody, and the better any one seems, the more for that very re!lson are they doubtful. Thus J~sus is held for a gluttonous man and a wine-bibber, one casting out demons by the prmce of the demons; Paul is a pattern of duplicity; there is no real integrity among men, no real purity among women. The defiled minds of such pull ~own _every other person, without hesitation, to their own level. There is no argumg with the maQ who believes that every face is nothing but II mask, -011, XVI, 1-40,) THE BOOK OF NUMBERS. 217