The Pulpit Commentary — Numbers — Section 446

(from ?P-0 ; cf. Isa. :mi. 16; x1ix. 16 family and the household,. was to i-eceive its with Ezek. iv. l ; :mii. U) on a. wall ; but special inheritanco by lot; no doubt iu such C\'en this belongod to a very different age. a way that the final settlement of the country would correspond with the blood relation• Their molten images. Clt'l~~I,;) \P,~1. "im- ships of the settlers. ages cast of brass." Septuagint, .;1,. .:ciwA11 Ver. 55. - I f ye will not drive out the TO. xovtvra. The word f,Sel,em is only else- ~abitante. .As was in fact the case (Judges where used in the Pentateuch for tl1at "like- 1. ). The warning is here given for the first ness" which fa reproduced in Divine creation time, because the danger was now near at (Gen. i. 26, 27 ; ix:. 6) or in human gener- hand, and had indeed already shown itself in ation (Gen. v. 3) ; in the later books, how• the matter of the :Midianitish women and c,cr (especially in Daniel), it is freely used for children. Pricks in your eyes, and thoms itlols. On " massekak" see on Exod. xx:tli. in your sides. Natural symbols of dangerous 4; Isa. xxx. 22. Their high places. 01;'.1\t.:l~. a1!11oyanccs. Possibly the thickets which See on Lent. :.:xvi. 30. The Septuagint fringe the Jordan supplied them with pre- translates Ba.moth in both places by urjjA<u sent examples. In Josh. x.xili, 13 we have and of course it wa.s not the high p ~ "SCC'lf,rgea !,n. you.r sides, and thorns in your themselves, which were simply ce1tain pro- eyes, which sounds somewhat more arti- minent elevations, but the montlillents (of ficial. In Judges ii. 3, where this warning whatever kind) which superstition had erected is quoted, the figure is not expressed at a.ll: upon them, which were to be plucked down. "they shall be in your sides." As a fact, it would seem that the Jews in• Ver. 56.-I shall do Ullto you as I thought stead of obeying this comm.and, apprJpri- to do llllto them, i. e. I shall execute by other ated the Bamotli to their own religious uses hands upon you the sentence of dispossession ( cf. l Sam. ix. 12; 1 Kings iii. 2; Ps. lxxviii. whieh ye sha.ll have refused to execute upon 58, &c.). The natural result was, as in all the Canaa.nites. The threat (although in similar cases, that not only the Ba.moth, but fact fulfilled) does not necessarily involve ,ery many of the superstitions and idolatries any prophecy, since to settle down among eonncctcd with them, were taken over into the remnants of the heathen was a course of the service of the Lord. action which would obviously and for many Ver. 53.-I have given 'f°.U the land. reasons commend itself to the Israelites. "The earth is the Lord's,' and no one, Indolence and cowardice were consulted by therefore, can dispute his right in the ab• such a policy as much as the natural feelings etract to evict any of his tenants a.nd to put of pity towards vanquished and apparently others in possession. Bnt while the whole harmless foes. The command to extirpate ~-arth was the Lord's, it is clear that he as- was certainly justified in this case (if it could sumed a special relation towards the land of be in any) by the unhappy coll.8eqnences of Canaan, as to which he chose to exercise its neglect. Israel being what he was, and directly the rights and duties of landlord so little severed in anything but religion (see on Dent. x.:rii. 8 for a small but striking from the ancient hea.then, his only chance of in.stance). The first duty of a landlord is to future happiness lay in keeping himself from see that the occupancy of his property is not any contact with them. On the morality of abused for illegal or immoral ends ; and this the command itself, see on the passages re- duty excUBes, because it necessitates, eviction ferred to, and on the slaughter of the Midian- under certain circn.mstances. It is not, ites. As a fact, the extirpation of the con- therefore, necessa.JY to argue that the Canaan- quered did not offend the moral sense of the itcs were more infamou.s than many others ; Jews then any more than it did that of our it is enough to remember that God had as- heathen Saxon ancestors. Where both races aumed towards the land which they occupied could not dwell in security, it was a matter of (apparently by conquest) a relation which course that the weaker was destroyed. Such did not allow him to overlook their enormi- a command was therefore justified at that ties, as he might those of other nations (see time by the end to be attained, because it on Exod. xriii. 23-33; xuiv. 11-17, and was not contrary to the moral lo.w 8ll then cf. Acts xiv. 16; xvii 30). It was (if we revealed, or to the moral sense as then like to put it so) the misfortune of the educated. Being in itself a lawful ;proceed• CauaaJJ.ites that they a.lone of" all nations" ing, it was made a religions proceeding, and could not Le aulfered to " walk in their own taken out of tho category of eelfish violence ways," becaUBe they had settled in a land by being made f.l direct command of God. which the Lord had chosen to administer directly as his own earthly kingdom. Ch. x:xx.iv. 2.-Into the land of Ca.DAan. Ver. 54.-Ye shall divide the land by lot. Canaan has here its proper signification as These directions are repeated in substance the land (roughly speaking) between Jordan from eh. xxvi. 53-56. Every man's in- and the see. (so In eh. uxii 32; Josh. x.xii. heritance. Not on.J.r the tribe. but tl:ie U, 32). Nor is there any cle"r il:llltauce i;,f OH. xxxm. 50-xxxiv. 29.] THE BOOK OF NUMBERS. 435