The Pulpit Commentary — Numbers — Section 453

necessary for the att~ining of it, We must not leave unexpelled from our life or undestroyed from our circumstances anything that may imperil the inheritance. Walk mth no companion, engage in no business, cultivate no taste or recreation, if there be in them the slightest chance of peril to the inheritance. It is a. glorious thing to conquer temptation in actual conflict, but it is better still so to watch and pray as not to enter into temptation at all. II. THE GREAT TEMPTATION ON THE PART OF ISRAEL TO REST BATISl!'IED WITB AN IMPERFECT CONQUEST. Not of course that Israel thought it imperfect. Israel was anxious in its own way to have the conquest and possession complete. But God alone had the requisite wisdom and foresight to direct the people into real security. There were many temptations to what he knew was a premature cessation of hostilities, Tke Oanaa1ni.te,s would in due time make atlt!mpt,s at compromises and partial 811/1'- renders, even as Pharaoh had made like attempt.'! when his -people were smitten by the plagues. There was the temptation that came from tke weari.ness of long waiting. A complete expulsion involved much d are tempted even in the e,fl:airs of this life to premature conclusions throu tience. We want to pluck the fruit long before it is ripe. Moreover, the Israelites, many of them at least, would ·wish to make slavu of tke Canaanitf!S. They were not entering Canann with the steward-feeling in their hearts. The promise wa.a sufficiently fulfilled in their estimate when they got the land to do as they liked with it. The tribes crossing Jordan had the same carnal views concerning their possession as Reuben and Gad concerning the le.nd which they had chosen. There was the temptation coming from self-confidence; that of supposing an enemy enfeebled to be practically tke same as an enemy destroyed. There might be the temptation also to sliow a human, ignorant, undiscerning pity, as co'Tlir<Uf£d wit/1, a Di'll'in.ely wise severity. Such utter expulsion ns God demanded could easily be made to look unreasonable, and indeed nothing better than sheer tyranny. It takes much patient inquiry to discover that what mny be kind on the surface is cruel underneath ; kind at the present, cruel in the future ; kind to the few, cruel to the many; kind for time, utterly ruinous for eternity. There was no reasonable pity in leaving those who were utterly corrupt to become the plentiful sources of idolatrous infection to the peopl11 of Jehovah. There was also the temptation that came from a 'llf!rl/ imperfect sympatkq with tke purposes of God. During their wanderings the Israelites had shown ngam and agam their lack of ap1->rehension and appreciation mth respect to Jehovah. What then of hearty aversion from idolatry could be expected when its subtle perils came upon them? Only those who were filled with an abiding sense of the holiness and majesty of God could estimate the dangers of idolatry nnd take the precautions needful to guard against them. III. THE EARNEST WARNING IN wmos: Goo BPEOIFIEB THE BESULTB 011' NEGLIGENOE. 1. Tke earlu:r re.sult (ver. 55). These Canaanites, however fairly they speak, and with whatever leniency they he treated, will tum out pricks and thorns in the end. " Those which ye let remain of them." One, even though he be ~ ch!ld, and s~em easily moulded to other ends, may be the cause of measureless m1sch1ef. A little leaven leavens the whole lump. Behold how great a mass of mutter a tiny flame will kindle. A. Canaanite, a real Canaanite, worshipping his idols, must be a bad man. Just a.a a true, believing connection with God leads into all purity and virtue, so a grovelling before idols makes a man vicious; and not only vicious, hut the viciousness is upon a sort of principle and n1le. Those who change t~e glory of the incorruptible God into an im~ge made like to corruptib!c man, and ~1rde, and ,four- footed beasts, e.nd creeping thmgs, change at the anme time much bes1dee. It 11!1 one of the unspeakable miseries of idolatry that it changes vices into virtues, and idolaters do the moat wicked things for conscience' sake. Hence the Canaanite could not but hurt the Israelite ; it was his very nature eo to do. He might undertake allegiance and amity, but by the 1 ery necessity of the case he must prove in the end a prick in the eye and a thom in the side. Therefore let Israel uproot with a timely and unsparing severity all that would end in pricks and thoms. Study the nature ?f thinga in their genns. Stop evil if you can at the very beginning. Consider, m connection with this expulsion of the Canaanites rnd the dangers of idolatry, the whole of the first chapter of Romans. 2. Tke later rest1,lt (ver. 66). Leave the OU:. XXXIII, 50-xxxiv. 29.] THE BOOK OF NUMBERS. WJ