The Pulpit Commentary — Amos — Section 33

alkr-oenturies. He me.kes it the fulcrum on which to rest the lever of resistloea motive. His Law, in its moral (Exod. xx. 2), judicial (Deut. xxiv. 18-22; xv. 16), and cerernonie.l aspects (Dcut. xvi. 12), is bespoken a ready and glad obedience in the wc,rd, "I am the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt," eto. III. NATIONAL PRESERVATION. "And led you forty years." The sustained but quiet miracles of the desert-pilgrimage were a worthy sequence to the prodigies of the Exodus. Didne energies were not exhausted in the thunder-bursts under which Egypt was made to reel. They were but the stormy prelude to the sunshine and soft showers and gentle wooing winds of a long spiritual husbandry. In the manna falling silently, and the mystic guiding pilla_r, and the S~echinah-glory lighting up the most holy place, Jehovah by a perpetual miracle kept himself before the nation's eye in all pro,idential and saving relations. The resist.less Deliverer was the jealous Pro- tector, the bounteous Provider, and the solicitous and tender Friend. IV. N ATIO~AL TRIUMPH. "I destroyed the Amorite," etc. The Hebrews had fierce and powerful enemies in all the neighbouring nations. These were generally their superiors in physical strength and courage and the warlike arts. Apart from miracu- lous help, it is doubtful whether Israel would not have been overmatched by almost any one of them (Exod. xvii. 11; 1 Sam. xvii. 42). Yet the giant races were subdued before them and wasted off the earth. When the grasshopper (Numb. xiii. 33) seizes on the lion's domain there are forces at work that invert the natural order of things. To make the minnows of unwarlike, timid, plodding Israel victorious over the tritons of Anak, the colossal warriors of Hebron (Josh. xi. 21), was a moral miracle, sufficient in itself to carry a nation's faith and a nation's gratitude till the end of time. V. NATIONAL ENFEOFMEi.."'T. "To possess the land of the Amorite." An earthly inhe1itance was included in the earliest promise to Israel (Gen. xvii. 8). The tradition of this ideal provided home was never lost. In the stubble-fields and by the brick- kilns, where, "like dumb, driven cattle," they toiled throughout the years of their Egyptian bondage, the vision of it came as a ray of comfort lighting the darkest hours. When they marched from Egypt they consciously went to possess their own land, and the long detention in the desert was taken as o. tedious but appropriate schooling to prepare them for the coming of age. Palestine, when at last they settled in it, was the very garden of the world, and a home so perfect of its kind as to be made an emblem of the eternal home above. God's standing monument, written over with the story of bis goodness, wa.s to every Israelite the teeming, smiling land in which he lived, VI. NATIONAL EVANGELIZATION. "And I raised up of your sons," etc. The prophet was a characteristic national institution among the Jews. He was a. man to whom God made revelations of his will (Numb. xii. 6), and through whom he com- municated that will to the people (Heb. i. 1). Of this communication more or less was generally, although not invariably, committed to writing, and embodied in the Scriptures. The prophet did not regularly instruct the people; that was rather the business of the priest. But he did so often, and was besides God's mouthpiece for the communication of new truth, speaking it always according to the analogy of faith (Deut. xiii. 1-5). The permanent establishment thus of a Divine oracle in their midst, giving constant access to the fountain-head of truth, was a notable privilege to Israel. The institution of N azarites was little less so in another direction, They were conse- crated ones, separated from common men and common uses, and devoted in a special manner to God (Numb. vi. 1-21). Such consecratiou was the ideal human life (John xvii. 19). Therefore what the prophet did for truth in the abstract the Nazarite did for it in the concrete. The one revealed God's will, the other embodied it, or at least its great central principle. Their respective functions were compleme1,tary of each other, and between the two the Israelitish nation was " throughly furnished unto good works." Ver. 12.-" Children that are oorrupters." "But ye made the dedicated drink wine; and ye commanded the prophets, sayiug, Ye shall not prophesy." Action and reaction have a natural connection and a normal relation to each other. In all departments of being they meet and answer, as face answers to face in a glass. The rebound is as the blow, the conviction as the argument, the response as the appeal. 'l'he mention of what God had done for Israel brings up the question-How had Israel been affected by OH. n. 1-16.) TBl!l BOOK OJ!' AMOS. 33