The Pulpit Commentary — Numbers — Section 389

spot where there was the most suggestive view of Canaan. Not of necessity the view of greatest geographical extent, but probably one that would sufficiently in- dicate the variety of surface and products, showing also something of the populous cities. There would be everything to impress on "Moses a moat decided and cheering contrast with the wilderness. Tbere might be no place even in the promised land itself where he could get a better view for the purpose. He may have climbed to different heights during the sojourn of the people in Moab, and seen many things to gladden his heart, yet never found just the Abarim point of view, until God signified it to him. There are many points of wide and spirit-filling view to which we may come in our excursions through the high lands of Scriptural truth and privilege, but we must wait for God himself to give us the great Abarim point of view. Many 11 Moabite shepherd had wandered on those heights, and seen with the outward eye the same landscape ne Moses; but it needed a Moses, with a long-instructed, experienced, and privileged· heart, to see what the Lord would show him. Balaam was driven from one height to another by the unRatisfied Balak, yet from them all even he, the man of carnal and corrupt mind, saw something glorious. What then must not Moses have seen, being so different a man from Balaam, and looking from God's own chosen point of view ? II. IT IS ALSO 1'HE PLACE FOR CHEERING ANTICIPATIONS OF THE EARTHLY FUTURE OF Gon's PEOPLE. Moses is to see with his own eyes that the lnnd was worth forty years' waiting and suffering for. The object stands revealed before him as worthy of the effort. And though the earthly future of Israel is not to be his future, yet how could he look upon it otherwise than with as much interest and solicitude e.s if it were his own ? Certainly that future was assured, as far as promi~e could assure it, and all the tenor of experience in the past. Whatever the circumstances of Moses' death, they could not materially affect the course of the people, seeing the ever-loving, all-comprehending God had them in charge. But it became God-it was a sign of loving care for a faithful servant-that Moses should die as he did. Quite conceiv- ably he might have died in the gloom caused by some fresh aberration of the people, or at the best in the ordinary circumstances of daily life, with nothing more to mark liis departure than if he were one of the most obscure persons in the camp. But God orders all things so that he shall depart where and when his mind may be filled with great joy because of Israel's coming years in Canaan. It happened not to him, ae it baa happened often in great crises of human affairs, that the leader has been suddenly ca:lled away with the feeling in his heart, ".After me the deluge." None indeed knew better than Moses that Canaan would have its own difficulties. From the wilderness to Canaan was in many things only an exchange of difficulties, but still Canaan had things the wilderness never had, never could have, else it would not have been the promised land. Moses looks down on Canaan, and he sees not only the land, but a Joshua, with 600,000 fighting men under him, a tabernacle, an ark of the covenant, institutions in a measure consolidated by the daily attention of forty years. III. THE SIMILAR ASSURANCES WE MAY HAVE AS TO THE FUTURE OF Gon's WORK IN THE WORLD. We have things which our fathers had not--instruments, opportunities, liberties, and successes which were denied to them. Yet they saw the bright day coming; its first streaks fell on their dying faces ; and they rejoiced even in what they coul~ not share. Aged and bone-weary Israelites who died just as the people were leavmg Egypt would nevertteless rejoice with all their hearts in the deliver- ance of their children. And Moses who had been born an exile, who had lived forty years among strangers in Egypt, £01 ty years more in the second exile of Midian, and forty years in the wilderness, was just the man to appreciate the satisfactions which were coming to his brethren at last. Thus we should learn to rejoioe with all our hearts in the advent of possessions and privileges which have come too late for us individually to share. It is not enough fonguidly to say that things will be better for the next generation than they are for the present; it should be our joy to live, and work as Moses did for the attainment of this. Let all our life be a slow climb- ing of Abarim, then our closing days will be rewarded with Abarim's view, It was the gfory and joy of Moses that while he looked from the top of the mount, Israel was 111 the plain beneath, They were not far away in the wilderness of Sinai or, 876 THE BOOK OF NUMBEUS. [CB. XXVU. 12-23.