stricken servants, hated by the world, we me.y well say the.t the semblance o-f the serpent sets him forth. 4. And yet it was the semblance only. By the way men treated him, he appeared to be judged e.s e. destroyer e.nd deceiver, but we know that in himself he we.s he.rmleee. 5. There is the pr<>minence of the saving object. The serpent was set upon a pole. We may suppose that it was as central and prominent e.n object as the tabernacle itself. It was to be placed where all could see, for there were many in the camp, and the bitten ones were everywhere around. And what Moses did -for the brazen serpent, God himself, in the marvellous arrangements of the gospel, has done for the cruci,.fied Jems. It is not apostles, evangelists, theologians who have pushed forward the doctrine of the cross; Jesus himself put it in the forefront in that very discourse which contains the deepest things of God concerning 011r salvation (John iii. 14). No one saw him rise from the dead; thousands saw him, or bad the opportunity of seeing him, on the cross. We can no more keep the cross in obscurity than we oan keep the sun from rising. 6. The pure de:ment of faith is brought in. Contrast the mode of God's treatment here with that employed when Aaron with bis smoking censer stood between the living and the dead ( eh. xvi. 47). On that occasion nothing was asked from the people. Aaron with his censer was the means of sparing even the unconscious. The mercy then was the mercy of sparing; now through the serpent it is the mercy of saving. The serpent was of no use to those who did not look. A man may long be spared in unbelief, but in unbelief be cannot possibly be saved. It is a great advance from sparing to saving. Thus the faith required was put in sharp contrast with past unbelief, which bad been so sadly conspicuous and ruinous, gaining its last triumph a little while before in the fall of Moses and Aaron ( eh. xx. 12). The people were shut up to pure faith. If once in their great pain and peril they began to doubt how a brazen image of a serpent should save, then they were lost. If there had been anything in the image itself to save, there would have been no room for faith to work. If one serpent- bitten person bad been healed without looking, that would have proved faith no necessity. But only those who looked were healed; all who looked were healed; and those who refused to look :eerished. Thus Jesus early began inviting a needy world to look to him with a spirit full of faith and expectation, and the more be seemed to a critical world incapable and presumptuous, the more be asked for faith. "After that, in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleaAed God by the foolishness of _preachin~ to save them that believe" (1 Cor. i. 21). 7. The salvation depends on the disposition <if the person to be saved. Man fell with his eyes open and in spite of a solemn commandment and warning. And every man must be saved with his eyes open, turning himself intelligently, wholly, and grate- fully towards the Saviour. There is everything to help the sinner if he will only turn. Some there might be in Israel who seemed too far gone even to turn their eyes, but doubtless God recognised the genuine turning of the heart. Though the eyes of sense beheld not the serpent, the eyes of the hea1t beheld, and this was enough for healing. It was very helpful to be assured that there was one mode of healing, and only one, for only one was needed. It is only while we are cleaving to our sins that we find distraction nnd perplexity. There was distraction, anxiety, and fear in abundance ns long as the Israelite lived in momentary terror of the fatal bite ; but with the lifted serpent there came not only healing, but composure. God in sending his Son has not dietract11d ue by a complication of possible modes of ealvation.-Y.
EXPOSITION. THE END OF lO'DBNEYS, THE BEGINNING All we can conclude with any certainty is 011' VICTORIES (vor.l~h. mi. 1). Ver. that the Israelites passed round.the southern 10.-The children of Israel set forward, end of the mountains of Edom by the and pitohed in Oboth. In the list of eh. Wady el Ithm, and then marched north- nxiii. there occur two other stations, wards along the eastern border of Edom by Zo.Imon11h and Phunon, between Mount Hor the route now followed between Mekka and and Oboth. Phunon may be the Pinon of Damascus. On this side the mountains are Gen. xxxvi. 41, but it is a mere conjecture. far less precipitous and defensible than ou 280 THE BOOK OF NUMBE:tlS. [oa. xxr. 10-xxtr. 1