The Pulpit Commentary — Numbers — Section 322

eeeing they are blessed. What was the needful word yeeterda:, may become ueeleea to-day. The possible of one hour ~ecome, the !mpossible of the next. Jesus says, 11 Watch and pray, that ye enter not rnto temptation;" but that does not prevent him saying very soon afterwards, "Sleep on no,v, and take your reet. . . . Rise let 'US bd going." The father has not changed because the child whom he comman'ds in one way to-day he commands in another to-morrow. Different actions outwardly may ren_al .the. same ~harac~er an~ advance the same p~rp?se. The appearance of con- tra<l:ICtion rn God ~ dealing anses from our hasty thrnking, not because there is any reality correspondrng to the appearance. God was speaking, as we more and more clearly see, both for the real good of Balaam and the safety and blessedness of his own people. II. THE WORLD'S CONFIDENCE IN THE ATTRACTIVENESS OF ITS REWARDS. The world never has any doubt but what it can make its possessions fascinating to every man, and appeal successfully to his affections and sympathies. Weak as the world is, it 11ever loses its self-confidence. Though Balak's throne is in peril, he brags of the honours he can confer on Balaam; and when be sends the second message, he does not change the considerations, but simply increases them to the utmost. So, to take the other side, the world is equally confident in the terrifying power of its penalties. Nebuchadnezzar, sorely troubled about his forgotten oream, does not for all that forget to play the despot. He menaces the o.strologers, threatening. them with a dreadful death, in right royal style. It must be acknowledged also that the result only too often shows that the conjidence is justified. We cannot guard too carefully against the world, alike in its attractions and its threats ; and he does this best who is filled with a purer love and a worthier fear than anything in the world can inspire. Ill. BALAK'S ALABM BAD NOT DEEN LOST NOR LESSENED BY THE LAPSE OF TIME. "These Israelites are not going to steal away my suspicions by their quietude. The less they look my way, the more sure I am they mean ultimate mischief." And yet what was Israel doing all this time of going to Balaam and returning and going again? Why, while Balak is in all this fret and stir, Israel is steadily preparing for the promised land. Whatever God's enemies may do in plot and counsel, let it not hinder our e.dvance. Enemies outside cannot hinder, if only we, whom God hns called and guided, lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us.-Y. Vere. 22-35.-The angel, the prophet, and the ass. I. WE MUST LOOK NOT ONLY AT THE LETTER OF GoD'S COMMANDS, BUT THE SPIRIT 011' THEM. "If the men come to call thee, rise up and go with them" (ver. 20). "God's anger was kindled because he went" (ver. 22). It has been said indeed that God was angry not because he went, but with something that happened on the journey'; and to support this view grammatical considerations are urged, from the participle being used instead of the finite verb (' Keil and Delitzsch on the Pentateuch,' iii. 168. Clark's Translations). It is further urged, as a consequence of this construction, that the encounter with the angel took place not at the outset of the journey, but rather towards its close. All this may be true, but there is no distinct affirmation of it in the narrative and it is not necessary to assume it for reconciling purposes. There is no di1hculty in admitting that God was displeased with Balaam because he went at all. We must not go by words simply. '!'here is something, even in com- munications between men, which cannot be put into words. And just as the Spirit makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered, so there are com- munications of the answering God which can be put in no human tongue. The obedient heart will distinguish between the permissive and the imperative, between ihe concession to human weakness and the call to holy duty. Those who want to be right with God, to attend to his will rather than their own desires, will never ~ift a permission into a command Our interpretations of God's words are a searchmg test of our spiritual state. How many jump at them to excuse self-indulgence, but conveniently ignore equally prominent words that call for self-denial. The word teli.0g Balaam that he might go to Balak was not like the call to Abram to get out of his country and awav from his kindred to a land which the Lord would ,/wt, u ; nor like the sending of Molies to Pharaoh, l\nd Jonah to Nineveh. OH, XXII, 2-40.] THE BOOK OF NUMBERS. 307