horrible BaCrifice of the King of Edom'e son by the King of Moab, and the subsequent burning of the King of Edom's bones by the Moabites, were both expressions of this wild and savage resentment. Moab's hatred of Edom was hatred of her as Israel's ally, and therefore at bottom was hatred of Israel itself. So the ungodly hate things from the standpoint of their connection with religion. They hate believers for Christ's sake (Matt. x. 22), and the friends of believers for believers' sakes. The compensation for this is that for Christ's sake also Christiane love each other and the ungodly as well, and God for bis own sake loves them all. II. MoAB'B WAS A RATE THAT EVEN DEATH COULD NOT APPEASE. This fact illustrates its insatilbility. "The soul being after death beyond man's reach, the hatred vented upon his remains is a sort of impotent grasping at eternal vengeance. It wreaks on what it knows to be insensible the hatred with which it would pursue, if it could, the living being who is beyond it" (Pusey). The employment of the burnt bones as lime is a circumstance which, like the ripping of pregnant women by Ammon, reveals the savage debasement of the people, and that contemptuous disregard of the human body which is generated by a career of blood and lust. There is a sacredness about death. It introduces an unseen factor, marks off a territory into which we may not intrude. There is a sacredness, too, about the human body. It i11 for a temple of the Holy Ghost, and to be treated as holy (1 Cor. vi.19, 20). Its members are to be members of Christ, and to be treated as consecrated things (1 Cor. vi. 16-18). The best guarantee against intemperance, uncleanness, violence, and every abuse of the body is respect for it as the home and instrument of God. III. THE OIBCUMBTANCE THAT MAKES MoAB THE ENEMY OF EDOM MAKES Gon HER FRIEND. Edom's alliance with Israel had results in two directions. It embroiled her with Israel's enemies, and commended her to Israel's friends. And primarily it com- mended her to Israel's God. His favour to his people includes, to certain intents, their friends. Members of the families of Noah and Lot were spared for their fathers' sake. A. mixed multitude of foreigners were fed miraculously in the desert., because they were servants to the Israelites. Even the Egyptians were favoured because they for a time had given Israel a home (Deut. xxiii. 7). So with Edom. He was a brother by blood (Deut. xxiii. 7), and had been an ally agninst Moab, and so his cause is championed by God in this exactly as the cause of Israel is in the other woes. So with more spiritual relations. The virgin-companions of the biide, the Church, are brought, as her com- panions, to the King (Ps. :xiv. 14). The final jud11;ment apart, service rendered to God's people will not go unrewarded (Matt. x. 40-42). No investment brings in surer return than help and kindness shown to the saints of God. IV. MoAn's DOOM WAB ONE THAT MATOHED ITS LIFE. "Shall die with tumult." The Moabites were "sons of tumult" (Numb. xxiv.17; Jer. xlviii. 45), and asin tumult they lived, so in tumult they should die (see Pusey). This is providential, the punishment being made appropriate to the crime. It is also natural, violence provoking violence, and so fixing the character of its own punishment. Monb had probably lost its kings before the prophecy was fulfilled, but the judges and princes who had headed the nation in its violence fitly head it in its destruction also.
Vers. 4, 6.-The woe against Judah. In the form of this woe, u.s compared with those be.fore, is nothing to indicate the difference of underlying principles which it involves. A woe on a Hebrew and a heathen have little in common but the inevitable connection between punishment and sin. I. THE SINS FOR WHICII GoD VISITS RESPECTIVELY THOSE WII0 KNOW HIM AND THOSE WHO KNOW III:U NOT ARE VERY DH'FERENT. The six woes against tho heathen are fathered exclusively on their sins against Israel or its friends. This woe ngninst Judah is denounced with exclusive reference to sins against God himself. 'l'his is exactly what we might _expect. Each is judged out of his own law (Rom. ii. 12). The revelation of God and duty to him wa~ the first great commandment of the Law given to the Jews (Matt. xxii. 37, 38), and for this God reckons with them-first, because it was at once the guiltiest sin, and the sin of which they were oftenest guilty. The law revealed to the heathen made known the existence and many perfections of God (Ps. xix. 1; Rom. i. 20), and threw a side-light on the way to worship him (Acts xvii 29). But tlis was not their clearest revelation, and so their sin against it is not 98 THE BOOK OF AMO& [oB, IL 1-18.