The Pulpit Commentary — Numbers — Section 391

them out to find pasture, and he lee.de them in to insure security. The Good Shepherd is in himself the guarantee both for nourishment and security, and the sheep follow him, as if to show the.t the real nourishments and securities of religion must come by 11 voluntary acceptance. There is much difference between being drawn and driven. The sheep following the shepherd is not like the ox dragging the plough and quick- ened by its master's goad. There are times indeed when, like the ox, we must be driven e.nd chastised, but the greatest results can only be gained when we a.re drawn like the sheep. In the lives of God's people there is a very instructive mingling of freedom and constraint. Let us e.dd, that in thinking of the responsibility of the ·shepherd for the providing of pasture it must not be forgotten how soon the manna ceased when Canaan was entered (Josh. v. 12). The people then needed guiding into a forethought and industry from which, in the presence of the daily manna, they had long been free. III. lT IS MANIFEST THAT NOTHING BUT A DIVINE APPOINTMENT WAS ADEQUATE To MEET THIS NECESSITY. Popular electwn was certainly not available. The sheep would make a poor business of it if they had to choose e. shepherd, Popular government is Iese objectionable than the rule of despots, but it has its own delusions, its own narrow e.ims. The natural m11.n is the natural man, circumscribed by the limits of time, e.nd sense, e.nd natural discernment, whether he be noble or peasant. The follies and cruelties of democracy have caused e.s sad, humiliating po.gee to be written in the history of the world as the follies and cruelties of e.ny despot whnteYer. The me.n who says vox populi, vox Dei speaks error none the less because he speaks out of a generous, enthusiastic heart. Never till the voice of Christ becomes the willing and gladsome voice of the people can voz populi, voz IJei be the truth. Equally plain is it that the choi-ce of Moses was not available. He feels the.t the thing can only be done in entire submission to God. Moses himself, in the day of his first call, he.d spoken very depreciatingly of his own qualifications. Yet not only he.d God chosen him, but e.lso proved the choice was right. The event had shown the.t he was the leader after God's own heart. What a thing if he had turned out like Se.ul; but that he could not do, he was so completely the choice of God. It we.a not for Moses then, who he.d gone so tremblingly from Midie.n to Egypt, to say, "Who is fittest man for shepherd now?" Moses felt well able to estimate the qualifications of a leader; but who best supplied those qualifications was a question which none but the all-searching, all-knowing God could answer. God he.d not only seen fitness in Moses, but he had seen fitness in Mo11e& only,· for we must ever believe that in each generation, and for ea.eh emergency, he takes the very fittest m11n 11mong the thousands of Isre.el. God had chosen at the departure from Egypt ; God also shall choose at the entrance into Cana11n. IV. NOTICE THE SUGGESTIVE AND APPROPRIATE WAY IN WHICH Goo IS ADDRESSED. " The God of the spirits of all flesh." It is God who breathes in the breath of life, eust11ins and controls it, and can fix the time of its cessation. Speaking to God in this way, there is thus an ezpresswn of humble personal submission. Moses cannot choose the time of death, any more than he has been able to choose anything else. God had shielded th11 faint and delicate breath of the infant as it lay in the f111gs by the river's brink, and now he calls upon the old man of a hundred and twenty years, who has p11ssed through such a difficult and oft-endangered course, to yield that breath up. There,is also in this mode of address a clear recognuwn of how it is that God may be looked to for the choice of a leader. God h11s but lately proved his knowledge of individual men by his complete control over those dying in the wilderness (eh. xxvi. 64, 65). He who assuredly know11 the hearts of e.ll the 600,000 lately counted can se.y who of them is fittest to be leader. God knows who is -nearest to him as a follower. There is no fear but the sheep will recognise those whom God 11ppoints. In spite of all the difficulties of Moses, in spite of rebellions and curses, in spite of the crumbling away of a whole generation, the nation is still there. Moses ce.n s11y1 on the verge of Jordan and at the foot of Abarim, "Here am I and the flock that w11s given me." But all this achievement only glorified God the more, th11t God who h11d chosen Moses and hedged up his we.y. Any othel' lender than the one God he.d chosen could never have got out of Egypt. Any other leader than the one God will now choose cannot get across Jord11n.-Y, 878 THE BOOK OF NUMDERS. [cu. xxvu. 12-28..