The Pulpit Commentary — Numbers — Section 283

credible. The lesson to us is that an impaired faith may be the cause of many of our spiritual troubles. We, worse than Moses, may be habitually inattentive and irritable, and afflicted with the sad consciousness that the habits are becoming more and more fixed. To treat them by direct effort is only to mitigate the symptoms of 11 deep disease, but to get into a truly believing state of mind to have faith and to lia'l'e it more abundantly, will soon weaken and ultimately d~stroy these h~rassing spiritual infirmities. 2. In a consequent failure to sanctify God in the eyes of tne peopk. The unbelief of Moses was not only a loss to him personally but those who were out of the way already it led still further out of the way. All ~yes were look- ing to Moses ; his fall was not that of some obscure man. Furthermore he made God's action appear stern and wrathful just at the very time when it was' intended to be specially gracious. For forty years the people had been under God's dis- pleasure, Now the gloomy cloud was breaking, the time for entrance into Canaan drawing near, and at the very place where God had once appeared in wrath he evidently intends now to appear in grace and mercy. But the conduct of Moses and Aaron spoils all this beautiful revelation. It was a strange reversal of whe.t had hitherto happened. We no longer see God threatening wrath, and Moses offering ingenious pleas for mercy, but God is now gracious, overlooking a time of ignorance, and Moses, whom one would have expected to see radiant with benignity and ea.tie- faction, goes to the very extreme of denunciation. The grace of the benefit was utterly spoiled. It seemed as if God threw down a supply for the people's need, as a chlll'lish hand might fling a loaf at a beggar. We must labonr to live as Christ wonld ;have us live, so that men may glorify God in ne, and find no occasion to blaspheme; following in the footsteps of him who wa.e able to say," I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou go.vest me to do" (John xvii4). • III. T:e:E WAY m WHICH THE SIN WAS PUNISHED. Those who fail to sanctify God before the people, and make his glory to appear, must in turn bear humiliation be- fore the people. This was not a private intimation to Moses and Aaron, so that only • they knew the reason why they were to die before entrance on the promised land. The publication of the doom was needed. Moses himself at the beginning of Deuteronomy ( eh. i. 87) seems to make some allusion to this doom upon him: "The Lord was angry with me for your sakes, saying, Thou also she.It not go in thither;" though certainly there is some difficulty arising from the blending of these words with the general doom on the Israelites forty years before. AJiyway it is plain that the people knew Moses was to die with the doomed generation. Hie death happening as it did was a kind of blotting out of all that seemed harsh in the gh·ing of the water. It was an impressive reminder to all future generations of what God had meant to be done. We must not exaggerate this penalty beyond its proper extent and purpose. To the people it would seem very great, and to Moses also at that time it would seem great. But, at the worst, it was only a temporal deprivation. Moses lost the earthly Canaan, but the better land he did not lose. Who was it that appeared in glory to Jesus on the mount? This very Moses, with whom God for a time dealt so sternly. The greatest of temporal losses, the one that now brings most pain, and seems as if it never could be made up, will look a very little thing from among the attainments of eternity. What shall it hurt a ma.n if he lose the whole world and ga.in a. place in the inheritance of the saints in light? Learn, lastly, that none can humiliate us or bring us into Joss but ourselves. It may not be our own fault if we a.re ridicu!ed; it is always our own fault if we are ridiculous. Moses had suffered many thmgs from the J>eople in the way of scorn and threatening, but through all ~hese thing~ he moves with unimpaired hopes and possessions. It is his own unbehef that brmgs this bitter disappointment. One traitor within the gates is more dangerous than all the army outside.-Y. Vere. 14--21.-Tke claim of kinship rejected. I. THE CLAIM. 1. It is the claim of a lcimman, even a. brother. The message is not from Moses, but "thy brother Israel,'' who was also a twin-brother. '£be long intervening space of years seems to fade awa.y, and with it the hosts of the Israelites and Edomites. Ja.?ob and Es~u •tand before us, as on the morning of reconciliation, after the wrestling nt Pemel OJT. XX. 1-29.] THE BOOK OF NUMBERS. 267