triumphs of defeat or of suffering; he could not think of God's kingdom as asserting itself in any other way than in the overthrow, or (better still) the annihilation, of Moab, Edom, Assyria, Babylon, Rome, the whole world which was not Israel, The sufferings of the vanquished, the horrors of sacked cities, the agonies of desolated homes, were nothing to him; nothing, unless it were joy-joy that the kingdom of God should be exalted in the earth, joy that the reign of wit kedness should be broken. All these feelings belonged to a most imperfect moralit.} and we rightly look upon them with horror, because we have (albeit as yet very imperfectly) conformed our sentiments to a higher standard. But it was the very condition of the old dispensation that God adopted the then moral code, such as it was, and hallowed it with religious sanctions and gave it a strong direction God-ward, and so educated hie own for eomethin~ higher. Hence it is wholly natural and consistent to find this early vision of the Messiah, the heaven-sent King of Israel, introduced in connection with the fall of the petty pastoral state of Moab, To Balaam, standing where he did in time and place, and all the more because his personal desires went with Moa.b as against Israel, Moab stood forth as the representative kingdom of darkness, Israel as the kingdom of light. Through that strong, definite, narrow, and essentially imperfect, but not untrue, conviction of his he saw the Messiah, lllld he saw him crushing M:oab first, and then trampling down all the rest of a hostile world. That no one would have been more utterly astonished if he had beheld the Messiah as he was, is certain i but that is not at all inconsistent with the belief that he really prophesied concerning him. That he should put all enemies under his feet was what Balaam truly saw; but he saw it and gave utterance to it according to the ideas and imagery of which his mind was :full. God ever reveals the supernatural through the natural, the heavenly through the ea.rthly, the future through the present. It remains to consider brieB.y the temporal fulfilments of Balaam's prophecies. l\foab was not apparently seriously attacked until the time of David, when it was vanquished, and a great part of the inhabitants slaughtered (2 Sam. viii. 2). In the division of the kingdom it fell to the share of Israel, with the other lands beyond Jordan, but the vicissitudes of the northern monarchy gave it opportunities to rebel• of which it successfully availed itself after the death of Ahab (2 Kings i. 1). Only in the time of John Hyrcanu.a (B.C. 129) was it finally subdued, and ceased to have an independent existence. Edom was also conquered for the first time by David, and the people as far lll!I possible exterminated (1 Kings xi. 16, 16). Nevertheless, it was able to shake off the yoke under J oram (2 Kings viii. 20), and, although defeated, was never again sub- dued (see on Gen. xxvii. 40). The prophecies against Edom were indeed taken up again and again by the prophets (e. g. Obadiah), but we 1nust hold that they were never adequately fulfilled, unlees we look for a spiritual realisation not in wrath, but in mercy. The later Jews themselves came to regard "Edom" ne a Scriptural synonym for all who hated and oppresead them . . Amalek was very thoroughly overthrown by Saul, acting under the directions of Samuel (1 Sam. xv. 7, 8), and never appears to have regained any national existence. Certain bands of Amalekites were smitten by David, and others at a later period in the •eign of Hezekiah by the men of Simeon (1 Chron. iv. 89-48). The prophecy concerning the Kenites presents, as noted above, great difficulty, be- cause it is impossible to know certainly whether the older Kenites of Genesis or the )at.er Kenites of 1 Samuel are intended. In either case, however, it must be acknow- ledged that sacred history throws no light whatever on the fulfilment of the prophecy ; we know nothing at all ~ to tbe fate of this ,mall clnn. ?io cloubt it ultimal!llf, .:,U, UII. 41-x:::iv.] THE BOOK OF NUMBERS. 321
shared the lot of nll the inhabitants of Palestine, with tlie excey,tion of Judah and Jerusalem, and was transplanted by one of tlio Assyrian generals to some far-off spot, where its very existence as a separate people was lost. The "ships from the side of Cyprus" clearly enough represent in tlie vision of Balaam invaders from over the western seas, as opposed to previous conquerors from over the eastern deserts and mountains. That the invasion of Alexander the Great was not actually made by the way of Cyprus is nothing to the point. It was never any part of spiritual illumination to extend geographical knowledge. To Balaam's mind the only open way from the remote and unknown western lands was the water- way by the sides of Cyprus, and accordingly he saw the hostile fleets gliding down beneath the lee of those sheltering coasts towards the harbours of Phrenicia. Doubt- less the ships which Balaam saw were rigged as ships were rigged in Balaam's time, and not 88 in the time of Alexander. But the rigging, like the route, belonged to the local and personal medium through which the prophecy came, not to the prophecy itself. As a facflt remains true that a maritime power from the West, whose home was beyond Cyprus, did overwhelm the older power which stood in the place and inherited the empire of Assyria. Whether the subsequent ruin of this maritime power also is part of the prophecy must remain doubtful.