recollect or attend to, Ao.ron should have supplied from hie own knowledge. Th us holy, foithful, and honourable as hie life might rightly be called, hie sin at the hour 11f death is brought right into the foreground. We justly magnify the lives of God's servants, and point with satisfaction to the serenity and expectancy that mark: their closing days, and often their closing hour itself, but never Jet us forget what sin has bad to do in bringing them where they are. It is because of Christ that his people die peacefully, but it is because of sin that they have to die at all. He surely dies the calmest who, forgetting his own good works, casts himself, more conscious than ever of his sin, on the mercy of God and the redeem.in~ work of Christ. II, THOUGH PENAL, IT WAB TRANQUIL; we may even say 1t was hopeful, A great deal-more than we can fathom-may be hidden in that expression, "gathered unto his people." If Aaron did not receive the promise, it wns because he could not be made perfect without us (Heh. xi. 39, 40). The man who presumptuou8ly neglected the passover was to be cut off from among his people (eh. ix. 13; xv. 30); Korah and his companions perished from among the congregation ; but Aaron was gathered to his people. Doubtless he went up in repentance, faith, obedience, and deep humility to face the great mystery. Though he had sinned at Meribah, disobedience to God and self-seeking were not the chosen and beloved principles in his life. It is a dreadful thing to die in sin, but to the repentant sinner, showing his repentance in sufficient and appropriate fruits, and steadfastly believing in Christ, Low can death be dreadful? Many who have lived in long bondage to the fear of death have been wonderfully relieved and calmed as the dreaded hour drew nigh, "Many shapes Of Death, and many are the ways that lead To his grim cave, all dismal; yet to sense More terrible at th' entrance than within." III. THE CONTINUITY OF BOLT SERVICE IS PROVIDED FOR.· Among the kingdoms of this world the cry is, "The king is dead-long live the king." The departing king keeps_ his authority and pomp to the last breath. But here while Aaron is still alive, before death can stain those rich and holy garments with its hated touch, they are taken from the father and assumed by the son. Consider this transfer of office thus made, in the light of eh. xix. It was not on Aaron's part a spontaneous abdica- tion,-tbat he could not make,-but o. further significant hint bow abominable death is to God. It is not the priest who dies, but the sinful man, There in the sight of all the people it was signified that though they ho.d lost the mo.n, never for a moment had they lost the priest. There wa,s nothing Aaron bad done which Eleazar coulcl. not do as well. Aaron personally does not seem to have been a very remarkable mnn; if anything, wanting in individuality, and easily led. Do not let us look with apprehension when those who seem to be pillars a.re giving way. The word of Jesus should reassure our doubts, and make us utterly ashamed of them. "Lo, I am with you alway, even to the end of the world."-Y.
THE LAST MA.ROH: FROM MOUNT Hon TO JORDAN (CH. XXI.-XXII. 1). EXPOSITION. 16. From the context of these passages it CHAPTER XXI. is evident that it was situated in the southern- EPISODE OF THE KING OF ARAD (vere. most district of what was aftenvards the 1-3). Ver. 1.-And when king Arad the territory of Judah. Accortling to Eusebius, Canaanite, whioh dwelt in the south, heard it stood twenty Roman miles to the south of tell. Rather, "And the Canaanite, the Hebron, and its site has been found by king of Arad, which dwelt in the Negeb, modern travellers at Tel-Arad, a low hill in heard tell" It is possibfo that Arad was this direction. On the N egeb see note on the name of the king (it occurs as the name eh. xiii. 17. By the way of the apiea. of a man, 1 Chron. viii. 15), but it was C'")J;l~t' 'iJ)'J. Septuagint, oJov 'Mtap,iv. almost certainly the name of his place. The The translation is very uncertain ; atharim "king of Arad" is mentioned in Josh. xii. may be a proper nan_ie, ns the Septuagint 14, o.nd "the Negeb of Arad" in Judges i. seems to Auppose, or 1t m11y be nn unu~ual 270 THE BOOK OF NUMBERS. [CH, XXI, 1-3.