The Pulpit Commentary — 1 Chronicles — Section 38

who feel deeply the natural infirmity of their charactcrR, or have to do with the training of young people who are heavily weighted with inherited infirrnitie~. II. JAcon's BEOOND NAllrlE-'l'HE PRINCE OF Goo. ThiM declares the possible triumph of Divine grace over natural infirmity. \Ve must connect it, not with the incident of meeting Esn.u only, but with Jacob's whole life. It seals the Divine training. ancl affirms Ju.cob's conversion from the self-willed and self-seeking spirit. "Jacob has gone through a long training and chastening from the God of bis fathers, to whose care and guidance be had given himself (at Bethel) ; he suffers heavily, but be learns from that be suffered." '!'race the stages of the Divine dealing. The force of the scene of Mahanairu in completing the Divine work is suggestively given by F. W. Robertson: "His name was changed from Jacob to Israel, because himself was an altered man. Hitherto there had been something subtle in his character-a certain cunning and craft-a want of breadth, as if he bad no firm footing upon reality. Jacob was tender and devout and grateful for God's pardon, and only half honest still. But this half-insincere man is brought into contact with the awful God, and bis subtlety falls from him-he becomes real at once. No longer Jacob-the supplanter, but Israel-the prince of God . . . a larger, more unselfish name-a larger and more unselfish man- honest and true at last." This, then, becomes the great and searching question for us all: not, "What are we in our inherited tendencies and natural dispositions?" but, "What are we now, and what are we becoming, in all holy triumph over inward infirmities and outward foes, through yielding ourselves fully to the leadings and teach- incrs and sanctifyings of Divine grace?" "And such were some of you, hut ye are w;shed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the Name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.''-R. T. Ver. 3.-Divine judgment on individual sin. Very little is known of Er. The account in Genesis (xxxviii. i) is as brief as that given in the Chronicles. Yet it sets clearly before us a case of early death, probably a sudden and violent death, an,l it declares to us that, in this particular instance, the death, and the manner of the <leath, were immediate judgments on personal transgression. There is a strong tendency to assume individual sin as the cause of calamities and so-called acci<lents, but our Lord taught us that we cannot always, or necessarily, trace such a connection. It may be so, but it may not be so; and we, in Christian charity, bad better leave the discovery of the connection in God's own hands (see Luke xiii. 1-5). Still, we should be ready to learn the lessons which God may design to teach us, when he is pleased to give us illustrative cn.ses in his Word. Oftentimes we 6.nd the Divine recognition and judgment of social and national sins illustrated. The old divine bids us remember that " God can only punish nations, as such, in this world; he can punish individuals in this world and the next." Israel is, as a nation, the subject of frcqueut Divine judgments, and Israel is bidden observe how Divine judgments fall on the guilty natir,ns around her. But as this feature of the Divine dealings is set forth so prominently and so constantly, there is some danger of our assuming thn.t Divine judgments, as executed here on earth, do not concern the individual; and that God may be said directly to ~ovcrn the race, but not the man. Such a delusion would tend to nourish human wilfulness and pride, and still more completely separate men from God; a11d, therefore, we have men's i;ersonal sins, and the immediate Divine judgment on those sins, impressively narrated. I. Ea's SIN WAS SOllrlE PERSONAL ACT OF WRONG-DOING. Exactly what it was we are not told, but we know the ways in which men nowadays transgress God's laws and insult the Divine honour. There are acts of wilful disobedience and rebellion, acts of bodily self-indulgence, and acts of violence and cruelty toward others. Wo have to see that this evil of Er's was distinctly personal. He did not merely share in the errors, or follies, or sins of his age, in a blind and heedless way; he made wicked ways for himself, and wrought evil in his own wilfulness. 'Therefore the Divine observation rested upon him as a man who strove to set himself against God. II. Ea's SIN REVEALED A HOPELESSLY CORRUPTED NATURE. It was such a fruitago as could only come out of a corrupt tree. Distinguish between the one sin into which man ma.v be tempted; even the good man may be "drawn aside am! enticed," "overtaken ln a fault;" and the continuing in sin, which indicates the love for it, and the dct11- 28 THE F1RST noorr. OF TllE CHMNICLES. [tirt. n. 1.-:.CiS.