their relation to Rim, to "lay hold on his covena.nt." It is no slight mero.v to us that God is willing still to enter into au '' everlasting covenant witll us, orJered in all things and sure." If now our neglect is reg1·etted, let not despair prolong it. Whnt.eYer falseness to conscience we have been guilty of, He keeps the door oper,, and t:;iYes us what we have no title to expect-the oppo1·tunity to repni.r neglect. He lays it as a charge on all to observe these covenant rites, so tho.t we cannot without being disobedient keep outside of a. covenant relation to Him. Belong to the Church of the redeemed. Let the name of God o.ud of the city of God be upon you. \Yhen God permits us to repa.ir our neglect, let us do so. Thirdly obsen·e- III. ALL BEGI:S"NING ANY NEW ENTERPRISE SHOULD BEGIN IT WITH Goo. Isreal has a great task before it. He will do well to lay hold on God's strength to help him. The messenger of God's justice, he must himself be just. "They must be holy who ben.1· the Yessels of the Lord." Exposed to great strain and great difficulty, they act wisely to close with God, and gain Him on their side. In this we have lessons for several classes. Fu-st, for the young, and those beginning life. When life is yet all before you, and the struggle with your foes ye.t to come, join your redeeming God iu solemn covet!ant. Many a life would have been saved from wreck had this been done. Save yours. You will be saved mo.ny a grief, and come safe ~ut of every danger, if in the beginning of your career before leaving Gilgal yon enter into sacramental covenant with your Saviour. Well begun is half done. And a good beginning of the better life secures its perfectest and easiest development. The earliest is always the most convenient season for the great religions decisions of life. (2) Those not young, but yet entering on some new career, eome new set of experiences or duties or dangArs, will always act wisely by consecrating the opening of a new career. Begin all things with God, His wisdom will preserve from error, and His power from all danger. Hallow the new undertaking, the enjoyment of the new mercy, the, experience of the new trial, by getting closer to God. Commence business life, commence m1111"'Tied life, • commence your life in a strange land, by special consecration. Let all ponder these matters. Let those who have made, keep th~ir sacramental vows, and those who ha,-e neglected make them; for while the Saviour is honoured by them and rejoices in them, their blessings on ourselves surpass all otu· conceptions.-G.
EXPOSITION. CHAPTER V. 10-12. they are apt to think themselves excused from religious exercises (they have not time THE PABSO\"CTI AXD THE CESSATION OF THE nor thought to attend to them); yet Joshua MA'!<x.,.-Yer. 10.-Alld kept the passover. opens the campaign with one act of devo· In reference to the question which he.s been tion after another" (Matthew Henry). discussed above, wbether the passover was kept after the rebellion at Kadeeh-Bamea, Ver. lL-The old corn. The produce of Keil notices, a.e a remarkable fact, that not the land; literally, that which passes from only no mention of a passover ask. v;u~ been off it, from i;iy to pass over. Whether new kept is fo11Dd in the Pentatench, after Num. or old we have no means of telling. The ix. l, bnt there ie not even any instance barley would be ripe (see note on eh. ii. 6), givrn of the law of sacrifice ha,·ing been bot the wheat harvest had not yet taken o !,served in the plains of Jericho ; see above, plaee. The morrow after the sabbath. The eh. iv. 13. "Yides ergo qnia nemo immun- 15th Nienn (see Num. xxxiii. 3). The du.s facit pascha, nemo incircumcisue sed law of the wave sheaf (Levit. xxiii. 10, 11) quicumque mundue fuerit et circumcisus,. was intended to a_Pply to corn raised by the sicut et apostolus interpretator dicens ete- Israelites on their own land, after Canaan n1m pascha nostrum immolatus est Chris· had been divided to them for an inheritance tus. Haque diem !estum celebremus non (see Exod. xxiii. 16). And parched co"!-; in lenm,nto veteri, sed in azymis smceri- i.e., ear~ roasted at the fire, and the gram tatis et veritatis " (Origen, Hom. 5, on afterwards rubbed out, a custom Htill in use Joshua,). " When soldiers take the field, among the Ara.be (see Levit. ii. 14 ; 1 So.m. CIII, v. 10-12.] THE BOOK OF JOSHUA. p,7
xvii. 17; 2 Sam. xvii. 28, &c. Hee also for when the Israelites entered a cultivated the precept here followed, Levit. xxiii. 14). region. The eastern portion of their in- Thi• vcrae therefore n.dds some confirmation heritance, though well suited for pastoral to the view that until their arrival in Pales- purposes (see eh. i. 12), was not a la.nd of tine a full obaervanee of the precept• of the agricnltura.l prod nee. Therefore the manna la.w was impoBsible (see above, ver. 6). did not eee.se until the !Braelites hall crossed Ver. 12.-Tbe mlLDDa ceased. It ceased the Jordan.