The Pulpit Commentary — 1 Chronicles — Section 60

Ver. 10.-'l'he prayer for the hand. "And that thine hand micrht be with me." This amplifying petition follows significantly upon the more defi~ite and specific entreaty of the beginning of the verse. It also takes us into the ancient workshop of language. The countenances of us all, and their infinitely various expression, come from the different combinations of a very few features and other elements. All our words come from the immense number of combinations possible between and among t\\'enty-six letters. And the amazing proportion of the whole vast mass of our languaae comes from the figurative and the analogic appropriations of what would otherwi~e be, and once was, a -..ery scanty vocabulary. This is especially observable of our r~ligious and de:votional language, though none truer of it than of our ordinary language. 'I he twenty-third psalm, and very many sentences of other psalms, give abundant illustrations of the way in which figurative language at once doubles, but in point of fact far more than doubles, language. And the Eentence of the text is one of the most elementary and most plain of all illustrations of the kind. 'l'he first uses of a hand, the many uses of a hand, lend a wealth of imagery, and thereby of enrichment, to language. From the suggestion of the prayer of Jabez to the effect that" the hand" of God "might be with" him, let us take opportunity to view some of the chief scrip- tural representations of the exercise of the Divine hand and_ of the effects thereof, and thus lead up again to the prayer before us. And we often read of- I. THE CREATIVE Hil<"D. Man is spoken of as the work of God's creative hands: "Thy hands ha-..e made me and fashioned me" (Ps. cxix. 73). So also the heavens : "The heavens are the work of thy hands" (Ps. cii. 25). So, again, the earth and the sea: "The sea is his, and he made it: and his hands formed the dry land" (Ps. xcv. 5). And all living things and things inanimate: "Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet: all sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field; the fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas" (Ps. viii. 5-8). (See also glorious reminiscences to the same effect, Job x. 8; xiv. 15; xxxiv. 19; Isa. xlviii. 13; !xiv. 8.) II. T= HAND OF THE SOVEREIG~, ABSOLUTE OWNER, (Job v. 18; xii. 10; Dan. v. 23; Eccl. ix. 1 ; eh. xxix. 12, 16; Ps. xxxi. 15.) III. THE HAND OF THE PERPETUAL, BOUNTIFUL GIVER. (Ps. XCV. 7; civ. 28; cxlv. 16.) IV. THE HA?\"D OF ONE TB.AT DELIVERS, UPLIFTS, AND UPHOLDS, (Exod. xxxii. 11; Dent. v. 15; Ezra vii. 9; Neh. ii. 8; Ps. xliv. 3; !xiii. 8; lxxiii. 23; Isa. Ii. 16.) V. 'l'HE HAND OF THE CORRECTOR AND CHASTISER. (Judg. ii. 15; Ps. xxxii. 4; xxxviii. 2; xxxix. 10; cvi. 26; Job ii. 10; xix. 21.) VI. THE H.A_,W OF WIDEST SWAY AND SOVEREIGN CONTROL, or power to rule and power to overrule. (Isa. xl. 12; xlviii. 13; Prov. xxi. 1; Dan. iv. 35.) VII. THE HAXD THAT EXALTS TO REAL HONOUR, (See the splendid description of Isa. !xii. 3; Ps. xvi. 11.) VIIL 'l'IIE HAb"D THAT PLEDGES AND BEOURES ABSOLUTE AND EVERLASTING SAFETY. See such passages as more than satisfy the soul; they go far even "to ravish it with the thoughts" of the glory signified. "I have graven thee on the palms of my hand" (Isa. xlix. Hi); "They shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand" (John x. 28, 29). And, as during all our lifetime it had been the lesson to be learnt that our breath is in God's hands, and all our ways and our times in his soverei'-'n 0 hand, so at last it is permitted us to breathe tho spirit into that same mighty, merciful, safe hand: "Into thy hands I commit my spirit" (Ps. xxxi. 5). Perhaps it was not all of these powers of the Divine hand that could have been as familiar to Jabez as they may be to us; yet it is evident that he knew and had prized the meaning and the virtue of the hand of God. And he does not ask to know it in one particular way nor in another. He does not dictate or suggest-at least, not beyond a certain very wide margin. He prays tho.t the Divine band may be "with" him-now to help on, now to stop; now to uphold, now, if neces- i;ary, to cast down; IIOW to put it on his lips, and to bid his mouth be dumb, and c11. 1v. 1-13.J 'l'I-IE FIRST BOOK OF THE CHRONICLES. Iii