Table of Contents

The Kings of Judah and Israel

1 Kings 15: 25-31.

1 Kings 16: 8-14.

1 Kings 16: 15-28.

1 Kings 22: 40, 49, 51; 2 Kings 1.

2 Kings 13: 1-9.

2 Kings 13: 10-25; 14: 8-16.

2 Kings 15: 8-12.

2 Kings 15: 13-15.

2 Kings 15: 16-22.

2 Kings 15: 23-26.

2 Kings 15: 27-31.

2 Kings 15: 30; 17: 1-6.

Samuel the Prophet

Staff and Sceptre

1 Samuel 17: 1-28.

1 Samuel 22.

A Fruitful Bough

Gen. 37: 12-36.

Genesis 40.

Genesis 41.

Genesis 45.

The Time of Harvest

Ruth 1

Ruth 2

C. Knapp - Books

C. Knapp

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The Kings of Judah and Israel

The Kings of Judah and Israel

C. Knapp.

Preface

The field covered by the present volume has been practically unworked hitherto. The author knows only of a brochure of less than a hundred pages on the Hebrew kings, and treating but of the kings of Judah as types of Christians when the subject permitted.

The volume in hand was begun several years ago, but laid aside in the hope that some one better qualified might take up the work. As nothing has appeared since, the writer resumed his work, and the result is now before the reader.

No claim whatever is made to what is called scholarship, though references to Hebrew, etc., in the body of the book, might suggest, to some, the contrary. Scholarly helps have, however, been freely used, the principal of which are Strong's "Exhaustive Concordance" (English, Hebrew, and Greek); Fausset's "Bible Cyclopedia" (a work too little known); J. N. Darby's most excellent translation of the Old Testament (designated N.Tr.); also, Josephus, and the already mentioned little volume on the kings of Judah; besides, of course, the indispensable, and best-beloved authorized version of the English Bible. This last has been quoted from freely, though not always fully, and the reader is therefore urged upon to read the passages for himself in their entirety, both in Kings and Chronicles, as referred to under each one of the thirty-eight kings named at the head of their separate biographies.

The Author's Introduction was found to be the most difficult part of the undertaking, and is, of course, open to criticism, correction, or amplification. Some one of more leisure and competency may some day, it is hoped, undertake this improvement. If, under God, the present effort shall lead to further researches, and fuller development of the subject, the author shall feel amply rewarded for what he has, from the beginning, sought to make "a labor of love," as also "a work of faith."

May our Lord, the "King eternal," be pleased to use it for the blessing of His people.

C. Knapp. Bethlehem, Pa., 1908.

Author's Introduction.

It is the author's purpose in the following pages to review briefly the histories of the kings of Judah and Israel, as recorded in the inspired books of the Kings and Chronicles. These histories are given us in more or less detail, and do not read exactly the same in each book. God has surely a purpose in this, and it is the glory of saints to search out these matters, and to discover, if possible, why these differences exist. Contradiction there cannot be, for "there is one Spirit," and He who inspired the historian of the Kings controlled also and directed the pen of the chronicler.

These two historical books of the Old Testament bear a relation one toward another somewhat similar to that existing between the four Gospels of the New. In the latter we have a quartet of evangelical biographers, all giving glimpses of that manifested Life, no two in just the same way, or even recording harmoniously any single event of that marvelous life of God incarnate, or reporting verbatim any discourse of the divine "Master of assemblies." The Evangelists Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, are somewhat like the four parts in some sublime musical composition. Each part differs, the one from the other, yet together they form a most perfect harmony, because arranged by one master musician. Each part is perfect in itself, yet requires the others to give the fulness intended. The one part expresses sweetness; the other, strength; another, pathos; and still another, profundity; and each several part is essential to the proper expression of the other three; and it is in the combination of the four that we have the full, grand harmony. So the four Gospels, though differing, are all the compositions of one Author — the Holy Spirit. Each, also, is in itself perfect, yet requires what the others contain to give to the fourfold record that surpassing beauty which every anointed eye beholds in the four Evangelists: each record being perfectly proportioned to the others, they together produce that sublime anthem of praise to "Heaven's beloved One" of whom they speak.

And He was the King. In the two books into which we are about to glance we have kings — some comparatively good, and others exceedingly bad; some who made fair beginnings, and foul endings; others, again, who commenced badly, but made a good finish. All, however, came short of God's glory and the divine ideal of what a king should be. He that was, according to the expectation of the Gentile magi, "born King of the Jews," and was to the Jew Nathanael "the King of Israel," fulfilled that ideal perfectly. So He is called by Jehovah "My King." And in the fast-approaching day of His kingdom and power He shall be known and owned as "King of nations." See Matt. 2: 2; John 1: 49; Ps. 2: 6; Rev. 15: 3, margin.

Let us now seek to discover, if we can, what are the real differences between the Kings and Chronicles, and their significance.

In the LXX., First and Second Kings are called "The third and fourth of the Kingdoms." Originally, in the Hebrew, they were, like First and Second Samuel, but one book.* Its opening word, "Now," indicates that it is really a continuation of Samuel. Its history of the kingdoms is carried on past the middle of the captivity, and ends with Jehoiachin restored to liberty, and his throne set above that of the other kings that were in Babylon — a beautiful, though perhaps faint, shadow of Israel's restoration and exaltation in the coming millennial day. This, as some one has said, is "in happy consonance with its design." It is as "the first ray of God's returning favor," a slight pledge that David's seed and kingdom should (as God said), in spite of past failure, endure forever. Fausset says, in reference to its relation to Chronicles, "The language of Kings bears traces of an earlier date. Chaldee forms are rare in Kings, numerous in Chronicles, which has also Persicisms not found in Kings." The writer of the book is not known. The Talmud ascribes it to Jeremiah, which seems somewhat unlikely, as the thirty-seventh year of Jehoiachin (the last date in the book) would be sixty-six years after his call to the prophetic office; besides, the prophet probably died in Egypt, with God's rebellious people, whom he so deeply loved, and with whose "sins" his devotion to them caused him to "serve" (Isa. 43: 24). On the other hand, as the above-quoted author states, "The absence of mention of Jeremiah in Kings, though he was so prominent in the reigns of the last four kings, is just what we might expect if Jeremiah be the author of Kings." He remarks further: "In favor of Jeremiah's authorship is the fact that certain words are used only in Kings and in Jeremiah: baqubuqu, cruse (1 Kings 14: 3; Jer. 19: 1, 10); yagab, husbandman (2 Kings 25: 12; Jer. 52: 16); chabah, hide (1 Kings 22: 25; Jer. 49: 10); avar, to bind (2 Kings 25: 7; Jer. 39: 7)."

{*"Samuel and Kings, as we name them, should be, however, as they were originally, but one book each." — Numerical Bible, Vol. II., page 287.}

But whoever the inspired penman may have been, he evidently wrote with a different purpose in view from that of the author of the Chronicles, who was probably Ezra, the priest. Two names, Akkub and Talmon, found in 1 Chron. 9: 17, 18, and mentioned in Neh. 12: 25, 26, as being porters "in the days of Nehemiah, and of Ezra the priest," and Zerubbabel's name, with that of others, in 1 Chron. 3: 19, prove the writer lived and wrote after the restoration. The fact of the close of Chronicles and opening of Ezra overlapping, indicates one common author — as Luke and the Acts. Both 1 Chron. 29: 7 and Ezra 2: 69 mention the Persian coin daric (as "dram" should be translated). "The high priest's genealogy is given in the descending line, ending with the captivity, in 1 Chron. 6: 1-15; in Ezra 7: 1-5, in the ascending line from Ezra himself to Aaron, abridged by the omission of many links, as the writer had in Chronicles already given a complete register." (Fausset.) So if a prophet (Jeremiah) wrote the Kings, and a priest (Ezra) the Chronicles, it would readily account for the ministry of the prophets being so prominent in the former book, and that of the priests and Levites in the latter. It might furnish the key, too, as to the meaning of the marked differences in many portions of the two records.

First and Second Chronicles, like Samuel and Kings, were originally one book. They are called in the LXX. Paraleipomena, or "Supplements"; in Hebrew, "Words," or "Acts of Days." Its real history (after the genealogies) begins with the overthrow of Saul (1 Chron. 10), and reads, almost word for word, like the concluding chapter of 1 Samuel, with this marked difference: Saul's body is mentioned in 1 Samuel; in Chronicles his head alone is spoken of. There is also, in Chronicles, a comment on the cause of his death, not found in Samuel, which would appear to indicate the author's desire to point out moral lessons in his "supplements." These practical reflections are frequent in Chronicles; in Kings they rarely occur.

There are other marked differences between the two books, and all, of course, in perfect keeping with the design of each — divergent, though not contradictory — historian. Let us note a few of the most prominent. 2 Sam. 24: 24 says "David bought the threshing-floor (of Araunah) and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver"; 1 Chron. 21: 25 says, "David gave to Ornan for the place (not the threshing-floor and oxen merely) six hundred shekels of gold by weight." The molten sea made by Solomon, 1 Kings 7: 26 says, "contained two thousand baths." 2 Chron. 4: 5 says "it received and held three thousand baths" (its capacity). Frequently Chronicles has "God" where Kings has "Lord" (see 2 Sam. 5: 19-25; 1 Chron. 14: 10-16; 2 Sam. 7: 3, 4; 1 Chron. 17: 2, 3, etc.). "House of God" is found seven times in Chronicles; in Kings, not once. In 1 Chron. 14: 3 there is no mention of David's concubines, as in 2 Sam. 5: 13. Nor does Chronicles mention his sin with Bathsheba, nor his son Amnon's crime against Tamar, nor Absalom's rebellion, nor Sheba's revolt. The idolatries of Solomon and some of the early kings of Judah are Jess detailed in Chronicles than in Kings; Chronicles, in fact, scarcely hints at Solomon's sin. Nor does it mention his somewhat questionable act of offering incense "upon the altar that was before the Lord," as 1 Kings 9: 25 (see on UZZIAH). Hezekiah's failure, too, is only briefly touched upon in Chronicles. Yet we must not think that there was any attempt made on the part of the writer of Chronicles to pass over, or wink at, the sins of the house of David. He records Hanani's reproof of Asa, on which Kings is silent; also, Jehoram's murder of his brethren, and his idolatry. Nor does Kings mention Joash's apostasy and murder of Zechariah, Amaziah's sin of idolatry, nor Uzziah's sin of sacrilege. On the other hand, the refreshing account of Manasseh's repentance is peculiar to Chronicles; yet no mention is made in that book of the liberation of the captive Jehoiachin.

Kings gives only seven verses to Uzziah's reign, and but five to righteous Jotham's. Chronicles, on the other hand, summarizes Jehoiakim's reign in four verses, and Jehoiachin's in two. Israel is in the background in Chronicles; Judah and Jerusalem are (with the priests and Levites) its principal subject; while in Kings, Israel, with her prophets (as Ahijah, Elijah, Elisha, Jonah, etc.), is prominent.

Another marked distinction between these two interesting books is the sources from which their writers obtained their material. In Kings it is always derived from state records, evidently, as "the book of the acts of Solomon" (1 Kings 11: 41); "the book of the Chronicles of the kings of Judah" (1 Kings 14: 29); "the book of the Chronicles of the kings of Israel" (1 Kings 14: 19), etc. Chronicles embodies more the writings of (or selections from) individuals, as "Samuel the seer," "Nathan the prophet," "Gad the seer," "the prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite," "the visions of Iddo the seer," "the book of Shemaiah the prophet," "the story of the prophet Iddo," "the book of Jehu the son of Hanani," "Isaiah the prophet," etc. (1 Chron. 29: 29; 2 Chron. 9: 29; 12: 15; 13: 22; 20: 34; 26: 22).

The explanation of all this seems to be that the author of Kings wrote his book in Judah, where be would have access to the national archives; while the writer of Chronicles probably compiled his histories from the writings of the above-mentioned seers, prophets, etc., carried with the exiles to Babylon, or obtained after their restoration to the land. This would make the Chronicles peculiarly the Remnant's book; while the Kings would be more for the nation at large, particularly Israel. And if this be so, it would explain why the sins of the earlier kings are veiled in Chronicles, and those of some of the later ones detailed (see above). Being under Gentile domination, they were more or less in communication with them, and they would, in all probability, come in contact with these records of the Hebrew kings. Their later history would be better known to Gentiles, and it would be well for them to know just why they were permitted to destroy Jerusalem and hold the nation in bondage; hence the record of the sins of Josiah, Amaziah, Uzziah, and others. There was no need to record the sins of David, Solomon, and their immediate successors, as this did not in any way concern the Gentiles. It was probably in view of Gentile readers that "God" is so frequently used in Chronicles, instead of His covenant name Jehovah,* that they might know that He is "not the God of the Jews only, but of the Gentiles also." It is the branches of the blessing of Joseph beginning to hang over the wall (Gen. 49: 22). Hence, too, perhaps, the genealogies of some not of Israel, and all extending back to Adam, common father of us all (1 Chron. 1). Note, too, in view of this, Asa's crushing defeat of Zerah the Ethiopian, recorded only in Chronicles, and his reproof by the prophet for relying on the king of Syria; Jehoshaphat's triumph over the vast allied forces of Moab and Ammon; God's (not "Jehovah's," note) helping Uzziah against the Philistines, Arabians, and Mehunims, and the Ammonites giving him gifts; Jotham's victory over the Ammonites, and their tribute of silver, and wheat, and barley, rendered to him; and Manasseh's repentance (that the Gentiles might know God's grace) — all peculiar to Chronicles. On the other hand, Hezekiah's weakness in first yielding to, and afterward rebelling against, Sennacherib, as recorded in 2 Kings 18, is carefully excluded from Chronicles. God never needlessly exposes the faults of His servants to the stranger. "Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Askelon," is His beautiful principle of action in such cases.

{* Israel being given up to Gentile dominion at the time that Chronicles was written, God's covenant name with them could hardly be used. — [Ed.]}

Then as to Kings, the sins of the house of David in its earlier history are faithfully and minutely recorded, that both Judah and Israel (for whose reading the book was primarily intended) might know the reason of their debased and divided condition. The book gives mainly the history of the northern kingdom, and it is delightful to see that though the terrible sins of its rulers are exposed, any acts of grace or goodness on the part of them or the people are carefully recorded (see 2 Kings 6: 8-23, etc.). Prophets are prominent among them, because they had cut themselves off from the ministry of the priests and Levites (which naturally connected itself with the temple at Jerusalem), and God made merciful provision for their spiritual needs by the prophetic ministry of such men as Elijah, etc.

These, I believe, are the real differences between the Kings and Chronicles. They are by no means so easily defined as those existing between the four Evangelists, and I do not profess to explain all of the many and marked variations that have been pointed out. What has been offered in the foregoing as a solution of the question may not be entirely satisfactory to all, but if it affords the reader any real help or clue to further discoveries in this direction, the author's main object will have been accomplished. What both writer and reader most need in these studies is to be more in touch with that blessed Master who of old, in the midst of His disciples, "opened their understanding, that they might understand the Scriptures."

Ere closing this Introduction, it might be well to say a word as to the authenticity of these books of Kings and Chronicles. As to the first, our Lord stamped it with His divine authority by referring repeatedly to it, as in the cases of the widow of Sarepta and Naaman the Syrian. Paul refers to Elijah's intercession against Israel; while his earnest prayer in connection with drought and rain is mentioned by James. Heb. 11: 35 alludes to the raising of the Shunammite's son; and Jezebel is mentioned by our Lord in Rev. 2: 20. Christ stamped the book of Chronicles with the seal of inspiration by alluding to the queen of Sheba's visit to King Solomon, and the martyrdom of Zechariah, "slain between the temple and the altar" (Matt. 23: 35) — "altar and temple," (Luke).

The histories as given in these books are likewise confirmed by both Egyptian and Assyrian monumental records; Rehoboam being represented on the former, and Omri, Jehu, Menahem, Hoshea and Hezekiah on the inscriptions of the Assyrian Tiglath-pileser, Sargon, Sennacherib, and Esarhaddon. But Scripture, like its great subject, Christ, neither receives nor requires "testimony from men." The monuments do not prove Scripture to be true; it is only proved, when they agree with the Bible, that they are true, and not lies. As we read God's word, "we believe and are sure," because "holy men of God," who wrote these records, "spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost" (2 Peter 1: 21). True, it is called "prophecy" in the quotation given, but it has been aptly said that "history as written by the prophets is retroverted prophecy." "Moses and the Prophets" means (like "the Law and the Prophets"), the Pentateuch, the Old Testament historical books, and the writings generally designated as "the Prophets." And "the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man." So we unhesitatingly declare ourselves, like Paul of old, as "believing all things which are written in the Law and in the Prophets" (Acts 24: 14). "And he that believeth shall not be ashamed" — no, "neither in this world, nor in the world to come." Amen and Amen!

Introduction.

by H. A. Ironside.

In complying with the request of the writer of this series of papers for an introduction to his truly practical opening up of the major part of the books of Kings and Chronicles, I shall but attempt to go briefly over the histories of the three kings of the undivided monarchy, and that only so far as they are set before us in these particular portions of Scripture. The lives of Saul and David are much more fully dwelt upon in the books of Samuel, but others have written at length upon them as there portrayed, and their writings are still available.

Chronicles opens with the genealogies of the children of Israel, tracing the chosen race right back to Adam. With his name the record begins, and, so far as nature is concerned, every name that follows is but another addition of the first man. "The second man is the Lord from heaven." For His coming the world was yet waiting. Man according to God had never been seen upon earth all through the centuries covered by the history and the genealogies of these books, and indeed of the entire Old Testament. God was indeed quickening souls from the first. There can be no manner of doubt that Adam himself had thus obtained divine life when he took God at His word; and, receiving the declaration made to the serpent as to the Seed of the woman, as the first preached gospel, he called his wife's name Eve, "Living"; believing that God had found a way to avert the terrible doom their sin had justly deserved. Faith was in exercise; and where there is faith, there is of necessity eternal life, and thus a new nature. In many of his offspring, therefore, the same blessed truth is manifested; and so, throughout these lists which God has seen fit to preserve, and which will be forever kept on high, we see in one and another the fruit of the new life manifested to the glory of Him who gave it.

There is something intensely solemnizing to the soul in thus being permitted to go over such a record of names long since forgotten by man, but every one of which God has remembered, with every detail of their pathway through this world. Some day our names likewise will be lost to mankind, but neither we nor our ways will be forgotten by God.

Esau's race, as well as that of Israel, is kept in mind; a race from which came mighty kings and princes before any king reigned over Israel; for "that is not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural, and afterward that which is spiritual." Then, too, some in Israel are only remembered, one might say, because of some fearful sin that was the ruin of themselves, and often of those associated with them; such as Er, and Achan the troubler of Israel (called here Achar); Reuben, who defiled his father's bed; and the heads of the half tribe of Manasseh, who "went a whoring after the gods of the people of the land."

On the other hand, it is sweet and edifying to the soul to trace out the brief notices (which, if this were but a human book, would seem so out of place in the midst of long lists of names) of what divine grace had wrought in one and another as they trod their oftentimes lowly ways, with faith in exercise and the conscience active. Of this character is the lovely passage as to Jabez, who was more honorable than his brethren because he set the Lord before him. His prayer, "Oh that Thou wouldest bless me indeed, and enlarge my coast, and that Thy hand might be with me, and that Thou wouldest keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me!" tells of the longings of his soul; and we do not wonder when we read that "God granted him that which he requested" (1 Chron. 4: 9, 10). The sons of Reuben, too, with their allies who overcame the Hagarites when "they cried to God in the battle, and He was entreated of them, because they put their trust in Him," are cited as another instance of the power of faith (chap. 5: 18-20). Nor does God forget Zelophehad, the man who had no sons to inherit after him, but who claimed a portion for his daughters, and learned that the strength of the Lord is made perfect in weakness (chap. 7: 15).

There are precious lessons too of a typical character that become manifest as we patiently search this portion of the word of the Lord, which, like all other Scripture, was written for our learning. Who can fail to see the lesson of "the potters, and those that dwelt among plants and hedges: there they dwelt with the king for his work"? Surely it has a voice for all who seek to care for the tender plants of the Lord's garden, as also for those who minister to the hardier ones that constitute the hedges, and who are set for the marking of the boundaries in divine things. It is only as the servants dwell with the King that they are fit to carry on His work (chap. 4: 23). The lesson of chap. 9: 26-34 is similar.

Saul's genealogy is given in chap. 8, beginning with verse 33; but his whole life is passed over in silence, and only his lamentable end recorded in the 10th chapter. He it was of whom God said, "I gave them a king in Mine anger, and took him away in My wrath." It was a desire to be like the nations that led Israel to ask for a king; and in giving them their request the Lord sent leanness into their souls. Saul was the man of the people's choice, but he was a dreadful disappointment. His dishonored death is on a par with his unhappy life, which is only hinted at in the closing verses of the chapter, as all the sorrowful details have been left on record in the books bearing Samuel's name — the prophet who loved him so dearly, but who could not lead him in the ways of God. As another has well described him, he was "the man after the flesh." This tells the whole story. In all his life he seems never to have truly been brought into the presence of God. His activities were all of the flesh, and his way of looking at things was only according to man, and the garish light of man's day. Defeated on Mount Gilboa, he is a suicide at last, and after his death becomes the sport of the enemies of the Lord. "So Saul died for his transgression which he committed against the Lord, even against the word of the Lord, which he kept not, and also for asking counsel of one that had a familiar spirit, to inquire of it; and inquired not of the Lord: therefore He slew him, and turned the kingdom unto David the son of Jesse" (chap. 10: 13, 14).

Upon the fall of the people's choice, God's man appears upon the scene. There is no word here of the early experiences of David, save that the mighty men are those who went down to the rock to him when he was in the cave of Adullam, and others also who came to him when he was at Ziklag, and kept himself close because of Saul the son of Kish.

The account here given begins with the coming of all Israel to David unto Hebron to make him king. The seven years' reign over Judah is not mentioned. Owned of the whole nation as the ruler of God's appointment, he begins at once the work of enlarging their borders and delivering them from their enemies. Jebus, the fortress of the Jebusites, is taken and converted into the city of David, where he reigns in power, waxing greater and greater; thus manifesting the fact that the Lord of hosts was with him. The mighty men who had shared his rejection are now the sharers of his power, and the glory pertaining thereto. It is a picture of the true David, God's "Beloved," who is yet to be manifested in authority over all the earth, when those who now cleave to Him when set at naught will have their part with Him when He takes His great power and reigns.

The ark is brought up to the city of David, but only after the lesson has been learned that God will be sanctified in them that come nigh Him, and that, though Philistine carts may do for those who know not the mind of God, where His word is given it must be inquired of and obeyed. Great are the rejoicings of the people when the symbol of the covenant of the Lord is installed in the place prepared for it, and burnt sacrifices and peace offerings ascend in a cloud of fragrance to God. But when the king would build a house for the God of Israel, though encouraged by the prophet Nathan in his pious purpose, both king and prophet have to learn that the thoughts of God are above the thoughts of the best and most devoted men. Nathan has to inform him that it cannot be for him to build the house, because he has been a man of blood: when, however, his son is established in peace upon the throne, he shall build the house, and all will be in keeping with the times. David thus is seen to picture the establishment of the kingdom in the destruction of the enemies of the Lord, while Solomon sets forth the reign of peace that is to follow for the thousand years. Bowing in obedience to the word of the Lord, David begins to prepare for the work of the temple by gathering in abundance all the materials that he is able to obtain.

But it is made evident that the ideal King has not yet come, for even in the man after God's own heart is found failure ere he resigns his crown to his son. His personal sin, that left so dreadful a blot upon his character, is here omitted, as befits the character of the book. But his official failure in numbering the people is told in all faithfulness, as also, the fact that it was Satan who provoked him to act as he did. But in amazing grace God overrules all to make David's very sin the means of manifesting the site for the future temple of the Lord. Finally, having set all in order, and arranged even the courses of the priests and Levites who are to officiate in the glorious house of Jehovah, the aged monarch appoints Solomon his son and the son of Bathsheba to be king in his stead; and after solemnly charging him both as to the kingdom and the house that is to be built, "he died in a good old age, full of days, riches, and honor: and Solomon his son reigned in his stead."

In the opening chapters of 1 Kings we see that his last days were not all bright. His failure to properly control his household brought him much sorrow, and embittered his cup when he was too feeble to exert himself as he would have desired. Adonijah's effort, however, to secure the crown for himself results in disaster, and eventually in his own death, and Solomon's, title is indisputably established.

Solomon's reign begins most auspiciously. Having gone to Gibeon, where the altar still remained with the tabernacle, to offer sacrifice, God appeared to him in the night with the wondrous message, "Ask what I shall give thee." It was as though He placed all His resources at the disposal of faith. The young king prays for wisdom and knowledge in order that he may care for the flock committed to him. It was a most remarkable prayer for one placed in his position, and the Lord manifests His pleasure in it by conferring upon him exceeding abundantly above all that he asked or thought. His wisdom is celebrated to this day, and in his own times was the admiration of his people and the surrounding nations wherever his fame was carried.

The main part of the chapters devoted to Solomon, in both Kings and Chronicles, is occupied with the account of the temple, every whit of which was to utter the glory of the "Greater than Solomon" who was yet to come. The symbolism of this magnificent structure has been gone into at length by others, and would not properly belong to this introductory notice. At the dedication of the temple, which had gone up so silently, Jehovah came in in a manner that none might misunderstand, and took possession of the house as His own. Solomon's prayer on that occasion is prophetic of the sad history that these books record as to later years. He seems to see all that his people would yet have to pass through.

But light and gift are not sufficient of themselves to keep one in the path with God. For a time all goes well with Solomon. His power is unprecedented. His fame is carried into all lands penetrated by the trader's caravan or touched by the ship of the voyager. The queen of Sheba comes from the uttermost parts of the earth to prove him with hard questions concerning the name of the Lord, and goes away with every question answered and her heart swelling with the glorious things that she has both seen and heard. The king's knowledge in all matters seems to be limitless. "And all the earth sought to Solomon to hear his wisdom, which God had put into his heart" (1 Kings 10: 24). Sad it is that so glorious a record has to be blotted by the tale of failure that the book of Kings records, but which is passed over in Chronicles.

"But King Solomon loved many strange women . . . and when Solomon was old, his wives turned away his heart." Such is the terrible fall of the man who was most privileged of all the rulers that history, sacred or profane, tells us of. He failed to keep his own heart. The Lord lost the place He had once had, and the result was that Solomon sinned grievously after all that he had known and enjoyed of the things of God. Idolatry was established in the very sight of the holy temple of the Lord. God was dishonored by the very man who, of all others, had received the most from Him. What a warning to every subject of His grace! May reader and writer lay it to heart!

As a result of his sins the Lord stirred up adversaries against him, and in the days of his son rent the kingdom from the house of David, with the exception of the two tribes. But of all this the following pages will treat.

We would only add a few remarks to trace the roots of the division that took place at the death of Solomon, rending the kingdom in twain, never to be reunited till that day of Israel's regeneration yet to come, when "the envy also of Ephraim shall depart, . . . . Ephraim shall not envy Judah, and Judah shall not vex Ephraim" (Isa. 11: 13).

As descendants of Joseph, who (in Jacob's and Moses' blessings) was exalted above and "separate from his brethren," Ephraim seems ever to have aspired to leadership in the nation. Already, in the time of the Judges, that pride had twice broken out in haughty demeanor. After the mighty victory of Gideon's little band over the Midianites that had invaded and ravaged the land, the men of Ephraim sharply chided Gideon because he had not called them to the war — envying the fame of such a victory. Gideon's most gracious answer to their haughty chiding averted a catastrophe (Judges, 8: 1-3); but their still more haughty chiding of Jephthah on a later occasion brought upon Ephraim a terrible, though deserved, retribution, (chap. 12: 1-6).

When the Theocracy (God's direct rule in Israel) gave place to the kingdom by Israel's impious request, Saul, taken from "little Benjamin," is acclaimed by all Israel. Benjamin having been nearly annihilated for their sin some time before, and being Joseph's full brother, may on that account have been more welcome to Ephraim. But when David, of the tribe of Judah, is manifested as God's anointed in the place of rejected Saul, and at Saul's death is made king in Hebron by Judah, he is not acclaimed, but opposed, by the other tribes, of whom Ephraim was chief, and a seven-years' war ensues, until the weak pretender of Saul's house gives way before the rising power of David and Judah, and Israel is reunited in one kingdom under David's godly and righteous rule. The jealousy and strife that broke out on previous occasions is for the time forgotten and out of sight.

But as David's sin, and his son's wicked conduct, brought about upheavals in the kingdom, so, later on, through Solomon's departure from God and oppression of His people, occasion is found at his death to make demands upon the new king coming to his father's throne. His insolent and foolish answer brings about the crisis in which the unthankful and heartless cry is heard, "What portion have we in David? neither have we inheritance in the son of Jesse: to your tents, O Israel! now see to thine own house, David" (1 Kings 12: 16). Ephraim, headed by Jeroboam — an Ephraimite — then takes leadership of the ten tribes revolted from the house of David, and a new kingdom is formed, in which every one in the line of their nineteen kings is an apostate from Jehovah.

I now leave the reader with what my beloved fellow-servant has penned, praying that as he passes on he may have the hearing ear, the anointed eye, and the subject heart that alone makes the truth living and real in the soul.

H. A. Ironside.

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE of the kings of Judah and Israel subsequent to the reigns of Saul, David, and Solomon, each of which lasted forty years; from B.C. 1095 to B.C. 975.

(After Ussher.)

{*Five or more years should be, from here, added to these dates of Ussher's. See on Hezekiah.}

List of Kings

The Kings of Judah

REHOBOAM (Liberator, or enlarger, of the people.)

(1 Kings 12: 1-24; 14: 21-31; 2 Chron. 10-12.)

Contemporary Prophet, SHEMAIAH.

"In the multitude of people is the king's honor: but in the want of people is the destruction of the prince." — Proverbs 14: 28.

REHOBOAM was not what we call a strong character. He was, in the beginning of his reign at least, as his own son Abijah said to Jeroboam, "young (inexperienced) and faint-hearted, and did not show himself strong" against the troublers of his kingdom (2 Chron. 13: 7, N.Tr.). Why Solomon should have chosen him as his successor is not clear. It is difficult to believe that he had no other sons; yet it is a fact that Rehoboam is the only one mentioned (1 Chron. 3: 10). His father seems to have had misgivings concerning his ability to rule the kingdom (see Ecc. 2: 18, 19; 4: 13-16, N.Tr.). And it was probably not a question of favoritism; for Pharaoh's daughter, and not Naamah the Ammonitess (Rehoboam's mother), appears to have been his preferred wife. But if Rehoboam was his only son, he had no choice; so we read, "Rehoboam his son reigned in his stead."

Weakness and vacillation marked his reign from the beginning. His going to Shechem to be crowned was evidently a concession to conciliate the already disaffected tribes to the north. He might have succeeded in his efforts to allay the dissatisfaction caused by the enforced levy of labor by his father (see Kings 11: 28), had he wisely and humbly heeded the advice of the aged men who had been his father's honored counselors. They, from long experience, knew the temper of the people well; and in petitioning for the lightening of their burdens, they were only doing what any people not reduced to the condition of slavery, or serfdom, might have asked. And had the newly crowned king granted them their reasonable demands, and been "kind to them," and "pleased" them, and spoken "good words" to them, they would, as the old cabinet ministers said, have been his loyal subjects forever. But he forsook their wise counsels. Influenced by a handful of callow novices and young court favorites, who, like himself, thought more of the rights of the king than of his responsibility to govern righteously he replied with as rash and insolent a speech as was, perhaps, ever uttered from the throne to a civilized nation. The outraged people answer in the same spirit as the king; and we have the sad, portentous cry, "What portion have we in David? and we have none inheritance in the son of Jesse: every man to your tents, O Israel: and now, David, see to thine own house." (See also 2 Sam. 20: 1.)

Though truly thankful to God that we are privileged to live under a form of government which gives us fullest freedom, we have no quarrel with absolute monarchy. But while God enjoins subjection to the powers that be, tyranny over the souls and bodies of men is nowhere countenanced in His word; and rulers who attempt it must learn the results to their cost. There are many proofs of this in Scripture, as in history. Government is of God, and therefore of divine appointment; but God's frown is upon all abuse of power.

Rehoboam found it hard to believe that the ten tribes had really refused his yoke. He flattered himself, no doubt, that they would not dare to rebel against his authority. It could not be possible, he might think, that these provincials should not readily and meekly submit to his chastening with scorpions. So he confidently sent to them Hadoram to collect the imposed assessment. This ill-advised act brings matters to a crisis, and the old collector-general, who had served in this office under his father Solomon and his grandfather David is stoned by the exasperated people. So the king, who had boasted so haughtily that his "little finger" should be "thicker than his father's loins," ingloriously "made speed to get him up to his chariot to flee to Jerusalem."

It must have been evident to him now that the rebellion was a very real and formidable one, and not a mere passing wave of discontent that would quickly die away of itself and be forgotten. But such an immense loss, such terrible results occurring so unexpectedly, are not so easily submitted to. Force may yet avail. There is the army, one hundred and eighty thousand strong: these malcontents should soon be made to feel the effect of its invincible power. Might must make right, if right cannot be demonstrated in any other way. But "the God of peace," who loves His people even when misguided and in error, warns the king of Judah (note the intentional limit of his title, 2 Chron. 11: 3) by the word of the man of God, Shemaiah, saying, "Ye shall not go up, nor fight against your brethren: return every man to his house; for this thing is from Me."

Under the government of God this division of the kingdom was the punishment of the sins of Solomon (1 Kings 11: 33), occasioned by the folly of Rehoboam; it must therefore stand. To fight, then, to bring back the unity of the nation, good as the purpose might seem, was to fight against God. Rehoboam ought to have been thankful that God's love to David had left him even two tribes. And he appears to have been, for "they obeyed the words of the Lord, and returned from going against Jeroboam." He now betakes himself to make sure what had been left him. He built, or garrisoned, fifteen cities within his decreased territory, "and he fortified the strong holds, and put captains in them, and store of victuals, and of oil and wine. And in every several city he put shields and spears, and made them exceeding strong." The successful rebel may sometimes turn invader, and Rehoboam (wiser now) will guard against this. There was war between him and the insurrectionist leader Jeroboam all their days, and the son of Solomon had to guard vigilantly what remained to him.

The priests and Levites remained faithful to Jehovah, to His house and worship at Jerusalem, and to the house of David, which was by the election of God the royal one. They left the land of Israel, to dwell in Judah and Jerusalem. Others too, who had set their hearts to seek the God of Israel, deserted the cause of the secessionists, and flocked to Rehoboam's standard. For three years all went well, and they walked "in the way of David and Solomon." But their goodness (like all that is of the creature merely) was as the early dew and like the morning cloud, and passed quickly away. Subdued, no doubt, and humbled, by the loss of the greater portion of his kingdom, Rehoboam walked for a time in fear and dependence. But alas, even serious lessons like this are soon forgotten by most, and before five years had passed both king and people had lapsed so far into idolatry as to be brought to the very verge of apostasy from Jehovah. "And Judah," we read, "did evil in the sight of the Lord, and they provoked Him to jealousy with their sins which they had committed, above all that their fathers had done. For they also built them high places, and images, and groves, on every high hill, and under every green tree. And there were also sodomites (men consecrated to impurity) in the land: and they did according to all the abominations of the nations which the Lord cast out before the children of Israel" (1 Kings 14: 22-24).

And for this cause God sent Shishak king of Egypt against them. Solomon had joined affinity with Pharaoh by taking his daughter to wife; and whether this was merely to please himself, or that he expected to strengthen his kingdom by an alliance with so powerful a country, it all comes to naught, as do all such expedients where God's word is disobeyed or ignored. Shishak overthrew Pharaoh, the father-in-law of Solomon, thus ending that dynasty, and Shishak became the "new king," who "knew not" Solomon, nor his successor. Influenced probably by Jeroboam, he marched against Jerusalem with a vast army of twelve hundred chariots and sixty thousand horsemen, besides an innumerable host of footmen. Realizing the utter hopelessness of his position, and not having faith in God, Rehoboam offered no resistance to the advance of Shishak. Huddled with the princes of Judah at Jerusalem, he awaited with them, in fear of his life, the coming of the Egyptian army.

It is now God's time to speak to their consciences; and Shemaiah the prophet appeared before them with this message of conviction: "Thus saith the Lord, Ye have forsaken Me, and therefore have I also left you in the hand of Shishak." They humbled themselves, then, and said, "The Lord is righteous;" and a partial deliverance was promised them. God says, "I will not destroy them." "The princes of Israel and the king humbled themselves," says the Word. The princes took the lead, it would seem (from their being mentioned first), in this humiliating, yet becoming, confession; the king was slower, the roots of his former haughtiness still lingering unjudged within his heart.

Note what God says: "I will not destroy them." Shishak was only His whip, like the Assyrian at a later date, whom God, by His prophet Isaiah, calls "the rod of Mine anger," and "a razor that is hired." It is necessary, for blessing, in calamities like these, to see beyond the instrument, and know the hand that uses it. But though their lives were spared, they must become servants (tributary) to Shishak, "That they may know," God says, "My service, and the service of the kingdoms of the countries." Where true submission is, the Lord's yoke is easy; and if His saints refuse to wear it, they must learn by humiliating and painful experience what the yoke of the enemy is like. So Shishak took away all the temple treasures, and those of the royal palace. He also took with him the five hundred shields of gold that Solomon had made; and Rehoboam made in their stead shields of bronze, and with these pathetically tried to keep up former appearances. It is like souls, who, when despoiled of their freshness and power by the enemy, laboriously endeavor to keep up an outward appearance of spiritual prosperity; or, like a fallen church, shorn of its strength, and robbed of its purity, seeking to hide its helplessness, and cover its nakedness, with the tinsel of ritualism, spurious revivalism, union, and anything that promises to give them some appearance of justification for saying, "I am rich, and increased with goods," etc.

There is little more to say of Rehoboam. Whatever was in his father's mind when naming him "Liberator," or "Enlarger of the people," he failed utterly to become either. He enslaved the nation to Shishak by his sins, and decreased the numerical strength of his kingdom by more than three millions through his folly at the very outset of his reign. He followed his father's shameful example in taking many wives. He displayed wisdom, however, in distributing his sons over the countries of Judah and Benjamin, placing them in the garrison towns, and providing them food in abundance. He probably remembered and was desirous to avoid such scenes as had occurred at the close of his grandfather David's life in connection with his sons. Would God that Christians had always as much spiritual wisdom as Rehoboam manifested natural wisdom in this. Were God's people well fed with truth, and well taken up with the affairs of Christ in the various services of His kingdom, there would be less strife among us. But alas, it is still too often true that "the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light." Rehoboam's wisdom was rewarded when, at the end of his seventeen years' reign, his son Abijah quietly assumed the crown without opposition from his many brethren.

Rehoboam died at the age of fifty-eight. The Spirit's last comment on his character is significant: "And he did evil because he prepared not his heart to seek the Lord." There we are told in a single sentence the whole secret of his failure, both as king of Judah, and servant of Jehovah, who gave him this exalted position, he applied not his heart to seek Jehovah. May God in His grace, help us to apply our hearts to seek first and always His kingdom and righteousness. Only so shall we be kept from evil, and preserved from making the record of our lives read anything like Rehoboam's — one sad succession of decline and failure.

ABIJAH (Jehovah is my Father.)

(1 Kings 15: 1-8; 2 Chron. 13.)

Contemporary Prophet, IDDO.

"Great deliverance giveth He to His king; and showeth mercy to His anointed, to David, and to his seed forevermore." — Ps. 18: 50.

ABIJAH'S reign was a brief one. He outlived his father Rehoboam by only three short years. His mother Maachah was a daughter (or granddaughter)* of Absalom. Abijah was thus descended from David on both his father's and his mother's side. His mother, however, turned out to be an idolatress (1 Kings 15: 13). The form of her name Maachah, which means oppressor, is altered in Chronicles, in the account of Abijah's reign, to Michaiah — Who is like God? She is said here, too, to be a daughter of Uriel, meaning light, or fire of God. The reason for this will be understood by referring to the Author's Introduction. There is, also, no account of Abijah's wickedness in Chronicles. In Kings, on the other hand, there is nothing recorded of him but his sin. "He walked," it says there, "in all the sins of his father, which he had done before him: and his heart was not perfect with the Lord his God, as the heart of David his father" (1 Kings 15: 3).

{*We should remember that family relations are not so punctiliously mentioned in Scripture as it is our custom now to do. Thus blood-relations are often mentioned as "brother" and ancestors as "father" or "mother." [Ed.]}

He was evidently a man of considerable spirit, for he had barely settled himself in his throne before he began a war with his father's old adversary Jeroboam (2 Chron. 13: 3, N. Tr.). His army numbered 400,000 "chosen men," while Jeroboam's was just as large again, 800,000, "mighty men of valor," it is noted.

It was a wonderful battle; and it was preceded by a very wonderful speech from Abijah. He stood on the top of Mount Zemaraim, in Mount Ephraim, somewhere along the northern border of his kingdom. For terseness, accusation, warning and appeal, the address is unsurpassed by anything in any literature of any time. Its merit was recognized even in his own day, for the prophet Iddo, in his "treatise," did not neglect to record the eloquent king's "sayings" (2 Chron. 13: 22, N. Tr.). We shall not attempt to analyze it. Nor does it require any analysis; for it is simple as it is weighty and powerful. Though true in all its statements, it lacks frankness. He says, "Hear me, thou Jeroboam, and all Israel! Ought ye not to know that Jehovah the God of Israel gave the kingdom over Israel to David forever, to him and to his sons by a covenant of salt? But Jeroboam the son of Nebat, the servant of Solomon the son of David, rose up and rebelled against his lord." The gathered hosts who listened to him knew well the truth of this. But, either intentionally or unconsciously, he ignores the root of all this strife — his, grandfather's sins; he also ignores the fact that God had forbidden his father Rehoboam to make war on the separated tribes, saying, "This thing (the schism) is from Me." He knows how to put forth that which makes his position right and good, but he wholly ignores the judgment of God upon his own tribes and upon the house of David because of its own sins. How unlike the humble and confessing spirit of his father David all this is! It is wisdom, but cold wisdom, without the spirit of grace so becoming their actual circumstances.

But he goes on: "And vain men, sons of Belial, gathered to him and strengthened themselves against Rehoboam the son of Solomon." Strong words these, spoken before an army of valiant men twice the size of his own! — he is bent on making them realize that, however strong they are, their origin in separation from his own tribes is not of God. This, of course, would also greatly strengthen his own adherents, and he was doubtless speaking for their ears as well as for those of his enemies. Ignoring the judgment of God upon the nation, he makes the plea that his father Rehoboam "was young and faint-hearted, and did not show himself strong against them. And now ye think to show yourselves strong against the kingdom of Jehovah in the hand of the sons of David." He seems to say, You might deter my faint-hearted father from punishing you, and reducing you to submission, but you have a different man to deal with now.

Then follows that which, together with Jehovah's love for the house of David, secures the victory he got, and the awful defeat of Jeroboam: "And ye are a great multitude, and you have with you the golden calves that Jeroboam made you for gods. Have ye not cast out the priests of Jehovah, the sons of Aaron, and the Levites, and made you priests as the people of the lands? Whoever comes to consecrate himself with a young bullock and seven rams, he becomes a priest of what is not God (or, 'to no-gods': see Gal. 4: 8). But as for us, Jehovah is our God, and we have not forsaken Him." (However true this might be outwardly, we have seen already the Spirit's testimony as to the inward or real condition in Judah as declared in 1 Kings 14: 22-25.) "And the priests that serve Jehovah are the sons of Aaron, and the Levites are at their work: and they burn to Jehovah every morning and every evening burnt-offerings and sweet incense; the loaves also are set in order upon the table; and the candlestick of gold with its lamps to burn every evening; for we keep the charge of Jehovah our God; but ye have forsaken Him! And, behold, we have God with us at our head, and His priests, and the loud-sounding trumpets to sound an alarm against you." Then he closes with a brief but eloquent appeal, "Children of Israel, do not fight with Jehovah the God of your fathers; for ye shall not prosper!"

On the one hand, all this is sublime; on the other, had it been true in their heart-relations with Jehovah as it was true in the outward sense, they would likely not have been found there, facing their brethren for battle, and about to be engaged in dreadful carnage. But while God could not have put His seal upon the state of soul in Abijah and the tribes with him, He must vindicate the righteousness of all that is said against Jeroboam and his followers. So, also, though "orthodoxy" be away from God in heart, yet its battle against antichrists must for the time being be acknowledged and helped. The house of David is loved, and must be sustained — Christ is dear to God, and all who fight for Him must be upheld, though God may have something against them too. So Abijah wins a great victory, and Israel suffers a most humiliating defeat. More than half their army is slain, and it was more than sixteen years before they again attempted to make war upon the house of David. "And the children of Israel were humbled at that time, and the children of Judah were strengthened, because they relied upon Jehovah the God of their fathers." God owns whatever good He can find among His people.

Abijah also took three cities, Bethel, Jeshanah, and Ephron, with their dependent villages, from Israel. Neither did Jeroboam ever recover from the effects of his defeat; and soon after, struck by Jehovah, he died.

When not more than forty years old, probably, Abijah died. Like his father before him, he was unfortunate in not having a good mother. He is called Abijam in Kings. God would not let His name be called upon him there, because there it is only the dark side of his life which is told. He is jealous of His name. It is a holy name; and He would not have it dishonored by the sins of those upon whom it has been called. May all His people everywhere give heed to this. The holy name of Christ ("Christian") is given us. May we never by any act of ours bring a stain of reproach on it!

ASA (Healing, or, Cure.)

(1 Kings 15: 9-24; 2 Chron. 14-16.)

Contemporary Prophets: AZARIAH, son of Oded; HANANI; JEHORAM.

"Better is a poor and a wise child, than an old and foolish king, who will no more be admonished." — Ecclesiastes 4: 13.

"And Abijah slept with his fathers, and they buried him in the city of David. And Asa his son reigned in his stead. And in his days the land was quiet ten years" (2 Chron. 14: 1).

His name, "healing," or "cure," reads like a prophecy of the reformation, and consequent rest, effected by him during the earlier portion of his reign. He made a most excellent beginning. "And Asa did that which was good and right in the eyes of Jehovah his God: for he took away the altars of the strange gods, and the high places, and brake down the images, and cut down the groves: and commanded Judah to seek the Lord God of their fathers, and to do the law and the commandment. Also he took away out of all the cities of Judah the high places and the images: and the kingdom was quiet before him." But he did not stop there; be did more: "He built fenced cities in Judah: for the land had rest, and he had no war in those years; because the Lord had given him rest. Therefore he said unto Judah, Let us build these cities, and make about them walls and towers, gates and bars, while the land is yet before us; because we have sought the Lord our God, we have sought Him, and He hath given us rest on every side." He was no mere iconoclast. If he had the zeal to break down the images, he had also the wisdom to build fortified cities. To expose evil is very well, but to furnish the soul with truth is what protects it from the invasion of the enemy. They redeemed the time, as we are bidden to do in Eph. 5: 16, "Redeeming the time, because the days are evil." So God was with them. Encouraged by the king's words and example, the people entered heartily into the blessed work of building and fortifying.

Well would it have been for the sixteenth-century churches had they been as wise after the Reformation, during the rest that followed, and built and fortified themselves in their position of defence of "the faith once for all delivered to the saints." But alas, they slept; and when the hosts of worldliness, ritualism and rationalism appeared at their borders, they were utterly unprepared, and powerless to repel them. They were not, like Judah, prepared and able to resist the enemy when he came.

"And Zerah the Ethiopian came out against him with a host of a thousand thousand, and three hundred chariots; and he came to Mareshah. And Asa went out against him, and they set the battle in array in the valley of Zephathah, near Mareshah. And Asa cried unto Jehovah his God, and said, Jehovah, it maketh no difference to Thee to help, whether there be much or no power: help us, O Jehovah our God, for we rely on Thee, and in Thy name we come against this great multitude. Jehovah, Thou art our God; let not man (Enosh, frail, mortal man) prevail against Thee. And Jehovah smote the Ethiopians before Asa, and before Judah; and the Ethiopians fled. And Asa and the people that were with him pursued them to Gerar; and the Ethiopians were overthrown, that none of them was left alive; for they were crushed before Jehovah and before His army. And they carried away very much spoil."

The monuments do not make clear just who this Zerah was. A king called Azerch Amar was reigning over Ethiopia about this time, and the inspired chronicler may have given the Hebrew form of his name. "The greatness of Egypt, which Shishak had raised, diminished at his death. His immediate successors were of no note in the monuments. . . . Zerah seems to have taken advantage of Egypt's weakness to extort permission to march his enormous force, composed of the same nationalities (Ethiopians and Lubians) as those of the preceding invader, Shishak, through Egypt into Judah" (Fausset). Others identify him with Osorkon II., one of Shishak's successors. He was son-in-law to Osorkon I., king of Egypt, and reigned in right of his wife. He was, if this be true, an Ethiopian ruling his own country jointly with that of his wife's (Egypt). And the invasion would then probably be caused by Asa's refusal to continue paying the tribute imposed upon his grandfather Rehoboam by Shishak. But it was one thing for Shishak to invade the land of Judah "because they had transgressed against the Lord" (2 Chron. 12: 2), and quite a different matter when Zerah came against them unprovoked, "at his own charges," as it were. He met his just punishment from God, who loves and defends His people; he was defeated therefore, and his immense army, numbering more than a million, utterly destroyed.

Asa's faith rises to blessed heights on this occasion. Though himself in control of a fine army of over a half million "mighty men of valor," he takes the place of entire dependence on God, and makes the conflict a matter between God and the enemy. Such faith can never be disappointed.

On Asa's triumphant return to Jerusalem the Spirit of God came on Azariah ("whom Jehovah helps") the son of Oded, and he went to meet him, not as a court flatterer, but with a solemn yet cheering word of admonition. "Hear me, Asa, and all Judah and Benjamin," he says; "The Lord is with you, while ye be with Him; and if ye seek Him, He will be found of you; but if ye forsake Him, He will forsake you." It was "a word in season"; for it has been truly said that we are never in greater danger than immediately after some great success, even though it be truly from God, in answer to genuine faith. David is a sad example. In the chapters preceding that which records his sin with Bathsheba (2 Sam. 11) he has one continued series of brilliant victories over his enemies. He defeated and subdued the Philistines, Moab, Hadarezer king of Zobah, the Syrians, the Ammonites, and Amalek. Then, as if resting in these victories, the watchfulness is relaxed, and "the mighty" falls. And Asa, his descendant of the fifth generation, is graciously warned of God lest he should also fall into similar condemnation.

Azariah then reminds them of how, in days gone by ("hath been," verse 3, should be "was" — in the days of the Judges, evidently: compare Judges 5), when, in apostasy and distress, the people turned to Jehovah, God of Israel, and sought Him, He was found of them. "Be ye strong therefore," he says, "and let not your hands be weak: for your work shall be rewarded." "But as for you, be firm," the New Translation says. Asa had probably met with opposition in his reformatory work, and was in danger of failing to continue it to its completion. So he was exhorted to be firm, for there should be a sure reward for his deeds of restoration of the uncorrupted worship of Jehovah in his realm. "And when Asa heard these words, and the prophecy of Oded the prophet (Alex. MS. and Vulg. read, "Azariah son of Oded"), he took courage, and put away the abominable idols out of all the land of Judah and Benjamin, and out of the cities which he had taken from Mount Ephraim, and renewed the altar of the Lord, that was before the porch of the Lord." This was the altar on which Solomon offered burnt-offerings when he brought his Egyptian bride into the house that he had built for her (2 Chron. 8: 12). It had evidently been removed, or allowed to fall into disuse, or decay, before being "rebuilt" by Asa.

His great victory over Zerah had its effect on many among the revolted tribes (for nothing wins God's people like God's blessing), and "they fell to him out of Israel in abundance when they saw that the Lord his God was with him." Stimulated, as it would seem, by these accessions to their ranks, the people entered into a covenant "to seek the Lord God of their fathers with all their heart and with all their soul." The tide of reformation ran high — too high, it is to be feared; for they determined "that whosoever would not seek the Lord God of Israel should be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman." This severity hardly became a people who had only a short time before been themselves guilty of just such omission. They were excessively demonstrative also. "And they sware unto the Lord with a loud voice, and with shouting, and with trumpets, and with cornets." Such demonstrations were no new thing in Israel. They had been heard before at Sinai, and elsewhere; and always with like results — more saying than doing; much promise, and little performance; great anticipation, and scant realization. But there was evident sincerity, and even reality, though mixed with much that was superficial; and God, who can discern what is of Himself, even when mingled with what is only of the flesh, rewarded them. And all Judah rejoiced at the oath: for they had sworn with all their heart, and sought Him with their whole desire; and He was found of them: and the Lord gave them rest round about."

Asa was no respecter of persons. He spared not his own mother (or grandmother), but deposed her for her idolatry. "And also concerning Maachah the mother of Asa the king, he removed her from being queen, because she had made an idol (or, horror) in a grove: and Asa cut down her idol, and stamped it, and burnt it at the brook Kidron." It is in a man's own family circle that his faithfulness is put fairly to the test. Levi was "proved at Massah," where he "said unto his father and to his mother, I have not seen him; neither did he acknowledge his brethren, nor knew his own children" (Deut. 33: 8, 9). Gideon too began his work for God by breaking down the altar of Baal which his father had set up. And in the apostolic church men could not serve as elders or deacons if they had not properly regulated homes. And He who was called "Faithful and True" said, when occasion required, "Who is My mother? and who are My brethren?"

"And in the six and thirtieth year of the reign of Asa, Baasha king of Israel came up against Judah, and built Ramah, to the intent that he might let none go out or come in to Asa king of Judah" (2 Chron. 16: 1). This verse, when compared with 1 Kings 15: 33 and 16: 8, presents a chronological difficulty. Baasha must have been dead ten years before the thirty-sixth year of Asa's reign, according to the above references. And we cannot be always falling back, in these seeming discrepancies, on a supposed error in transcription. The only apparent way out of the difficulty is to take "the six and thirtieth year" to date from the beginning of Judah as a separate kingdom from Israel. This would make the event to occur in the sixteenth year of the actual reign of Asa, and shortly after the occurrences of the preceding chapter. Ramah was on the high road from the northern kingdom, and it would be but natural for Baasha to take immediate steps to fortify this key city on the frontier, and thus check any further secessions to Asa from his dominion.

"Then Asa brought out silver and gold out of the treasures of the house of the Lord and of the king's house, and sent to Benhadad king of Syria, that dwelt at Damascus, saying, There is a league between me and thee, as there was between my father and thy father: behold, I have sent thee silver and gold; go, break thy league with Baasha king of Israel, that he may depart from me." It is difficult to account for this sudden defect in Asa's faith. He had only recently, with God's help, completely destroyed the immense army of Zerah the Ethiopian; now, before an enemy not half so formidable, his faith fails, and he depends for deliverance upon an arm of flesh. Had not his father Abijah, in dependence on the Lord, defeated a former army of Israel double the size of his own? It was the beginning of Asa's downfall; for though the desired deliverance was obtained (for "Benhadad harkened unto King Asa," and Baasha "left off building of Ramah, and let his work cease"), it cost him the rebuke of God and wars to the end of his reign. "And at that time Hanani the seer came to Asa king of Judah, and said unto him, Because thou hast relied on the king of Syria, and not relied on the Lord thy God, therefore is the host of the king of Syria escaped out of thy hand. Were not the Ethiopians and the Lubim a huge host, with very many chariots and horsemen? yet, because thou didst rely on the Lord, He delivered them into thy hand. For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect (or sincere) toward Him. Herein thou hast done foolishly: therefore from henceforth thou shalt have wars."

"Therefore is the host of the king of Syria escaped out of thy hand." Instead of calling upon Benhadad for help, he might have been subdued by Asa, as "escaped out of thy hand" implies. David had reigned over Damascus, and only in the days of Solomon's degeneracy did Syria begin to exist as a separate and independent kingdom. (See 1 Kings 11: 23-25.) Its first king "was an adversary to Israel all the days of Solomon: . . . and he abhorred Israel, and reigned over Syria," This continued to be the attitude of Syria toward Israel; but it was in God's heart to use Asa to destroy this heathen power, which in future days caused His people so much sorrow and distress. (See 2 Kings 8: 11–13.) But he missed his opportunity; and when charged by Hanani with folly, he committed the seer to prison for his faithfulness. "Then Asa was wroth with the seer, and put him in a prison-house; for he was in a rage with him because of this thing. And Asa oppressed some of the people the same time" — the seer's sympathizers, probably. His petty anger (at what he knew only too well to be the truth) betrays a low condition of soul from which he never evidently recovered; and his end was humiliating as his beginning had been brilliant. "And Asa, in the thirty and ninth year of his reign, was diseased in his feet, until his disease was exceeding great: yet in his disease he sought not to the Lord, but to the physicians." In all this record, let us hear and take to ourselves the Lord's word, "He that hath an ear to hear, let him hear."

It is easily seen why the chronicler should write of his acts "first and last" (2 Chron. 16: 1 1). "Ye did run well: who did hinder you?" might be asked of many besides the Galatians and Asa. Important as a good beginning is, it is not all: we are called to run with endurance the race that is set before us. But when God's people become diseased in their feet, they cease to run well; and though they may try various expedients, such as ritualism, revivalism, the union of churches, etc., to recover themselves, they are every one of them "physicians of no value." "Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation," wrote a notable backslider. It is Jehovah who says through His prophet, "I will heal their backslidings."

There was a great funeral made over Asa, and he appears to have been sincerely lamented by his people. "And Asa slept with his fathers, and died in the one and fortieth year of his reign. And they buried him in his own sepulchres, which he had made for himself in the city of David, and laid him in the bed which was filled with sweet odors and divers kinds of spices prepared by the apothecaries' art: and they made a very great burning for him."

Asa's history reveals his weaknesses: God, in His comments on his character, gives no hint of them (2 Chron. 20: 32; 21: 12). He loves to commend whatever is lovely in His servants' lives, and only when necessary exposes their failures and follies. May we in this, as in all things else, be "imitators of God"! (Eph. 5: 1.)

Jeremiah 41: 9 refers to a pit (or cistern) made by Asa "for fear of Baasha king of Israel." God would thus, in this incidental way, remind us by this late and last historical notice of king Asa what was the beginning of his decline — "the fear of man, which bringeth a snare."

JEHOSHAPHAT (He whom Jehovah judges.)

(1 Kings 15: 24; 22: 41-50; 2 Kings 8: 16; 2 Chron. chaps. 17: 1 to 21: 3.)

Contemporary Prophets: JEHU son of Hanani; JAHAZIEL the Levite; ELIEZER son of Dodavah.

"Mercy and truth preserve the king: and his throne is upholden by mercy." — Proverbs 20: 28.

The first thing recorded of Jehoshaphat is that he "strengthened himself against Israel. And he placed forces in all the fenced cities of Judah, and set garrisons in the land of Judah, and in the cities of Ephraim, which Asa his father had taken" (2 Chron. 17: 1, 2). He began his reign with a determined opposition to the idolatrous northern kingdom. This was in the fourth year of Ahab. A few years later all this opposition ceases, and, we read, "Jehoshaphat made peace with the king of Israel" (1 Kings 22: 44). This peace was brought about, evidently, by the marriage of Jehoshaphat's son Jehoram to Athaliah, daughter of Ahab and of the notorious Jezebel. Alas for Jehoshaphat, and his posterity, that he ever gave his consent to this unholy alliance, and made peace with him "who did evil in the sight of the Lord above all that were before him" (1 Kings 16: 30)! But such is man, even at his best: "wherein is he to be accounted of?"

But like Asa his father, he made a bright beginning: "And the Lord was with Jehoshaphat, because he walked in the first ways of his father David" (i.e., before his sin in the matter of Uriah the Hittite), "and sought not unto Baalim; but sought to the Lord God of his father, and walked in his commandments, and not after the doings of Israel. Therefore the Lord established the kingdom in his hand; and all Judah brought to Jehoshaphat presents; and he had riches and honor in abundance. And his heart was lifted up (encouraged) in the ways of the Lord: moreover he took away the high places and groves out of Judah" (2 Chron. 17: 3-6). This last statement does not contradict what is said in 1 Kings 22: 43. The high places and groves used for the worship of Baalim were removed; "nevertheless the high places (dedicated to Jehovah) were not taken away; for the people offered and burned incense (to the true God) yet in the high places." Compare 2 Chron. 20: 33. He abolished idolatry, but the people could not be brought to see the unlawfulness and danger of offering sacrifices elsewhere than at Jerusalem. Deuteronomy 12 condemned the practice; and it was probably to instruct the people as to this and kindred matters that he inaugurated the model itineracy described in 2 Chron. 17: 7-9. "Also in the third year of his reign he sent to his princes, even to Ben-hail, and to Obadiah, and to Zechariah, and to Nethaneel, and to Michaiah, to teach in the cities of Judah. And with them he sent Levites; . . . and with them Elishama and Jehoram, priests. And they taught in Judah, and had the book of the law of the Lord with them, and went about throughout all the cities of Judah, and taught the people." By this little band of princes, Levites and priests, sixteen in all, Jehoshaphat did more toward impressing the surrounding nations with a sense of his power than the largest and best-equipped standing army could have secured to him. "And the terror of Jehovah was upon all the kingdoms of the lands that were round about Judah, and they made no war against Jehoshaphat. And some of the Philistines brought Jehoshaphat gifts and tribute-silver. The Arabians also brought him flocks, seven thousand seven hundred rams, and seven thousand seven hundred he-goats." This was the promise of God, through Moses, fulfilled to them. If they diligently obeyed and clave to Jehovah, He would, He said, "lay the fear of you and the dread of you upon all the land," etc. (Deut. 11: 22-25). When the patriarch Jacob ordered his family to put away the strange gods that were among them, "the terror of God was upon the cities that were round about them" (Gen. 35: 5). And it was when the infant church at Jerusalem "continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers," that "fear came upon every soul" (Acts 2: 42, 43). In obedience is power, and only right makes might in the nation or church that has God for its help.

"And Jehoshaphat waxed great exceedingly; and he built in Judah castles, and cities of store. And he had much business in the cities of Judah." It was an era of great commercial prosperity, and the kingdom was in the zenith of its power and glory. He had an organized army of over a million men "ready prepared for the war" (2 Chron. 17: 12-19).

Then comes the cloud over this noonday splendor of the king and kingdom. "And Jehoshaphat had riches and honor in abundance; and he allied himself with Ahab by marriage. And after [certain] years he went down" — yes, it was "down" morally, as well as topographically, "to Ahab, to Samaria. And Ahab killed sheep and oxen for him in abundance, and for the people that were with him, and urged him to go up against Ramoth-gilead. And Ahab king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat king of Judah, Wilt thou go with me to Ramoth-Gilead? And he said to him, I am as thou, and my people as thy people; and I will be with thee in the war" (2 Chron. 18; 2, 3. N.Tr.) It was a sad come-down for the godly king of Judah. Think of him saying to a wicked idolater like Ahab, "I am as thou." And he not only puts himself down to Ahab's base level, he must needs compromise his people also, and say they were as Ahab's, all of whom, excepting seven thousand men, were bowing the knee to Baal. Such conduct and language from a man like Jehoshaphat seems almost incredible. But "who can understand his errors?" — his own; much more difficult to see, often, than those of others.

Ahab evidently had fears for Jehoshaphat's scruples of conscience, and was prepared to meet them; so the feast prepared for him and his retinue was given a religious character (the word for "killed" is "sacrificed"). An apostate people or church will go to almost any length of seeming compromise to entice and draw the faithful into fellowship or alliance with them. What must have men like Elijah thought of all this? It is little wonder that when fleeing from the murderous wrath of Jezebel he feared to trust himself anywhere within the realm of Judah. See 1 Kings 19: 3, 4. ("Beersheba" was on Judah's southern border.) Many would, no doubt, loudly praise the king of Judah for what they would term his large-heartedness and freedom from bigotry. The four hundred false prophets (Israel's clergy), could also quote from the Psalms, "Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!" and say how the world was growing better, and the millennium soon to come. Yes, and the cry to-day is for "union" (unity they know little of, and care less for), amalgamation, good fellowship; away with dogma (Scripture they mean, really), let doctrine die the death, and let twentieth century enlightenment make us ashamed of the conduct of our forefathers who fought, suffered, and died for the truth. "What is truth?" was Pilate's idle question — the answer to which he had neither heart nor conscience to care for — while before him was witnessed that good confession, declaring what men of to-day would condemn as bigotry of the most pronounced kind: "To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth My voice" (John 18: 37). But it is come to pass to-day that "truth is perished in the streets."

But to return to Jehoshaphat. He is not altogether at ease in his mind about this contemplated attack on Ramoth-gilead ("A fortress commanding Argob and the Jair towns, seized by Benhadad I. from Omri." Josephus, Ant. IX. 6, §1). His consent to accompany Ahab was, no doubt, hastily given, and probably during the warmth and excitement of the good fellowship at the banquet tendered in his honor. It is impossible not to violate a godly conscience, once we accept the fellowship of the wicked.

Now, when too late, he would inquire of Jehovah. A prophet, Micaiah, fearlessly foretells the failure of the enterprise. But he was only one against four hundred; "so the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat the king of Judah went up to Ramoth-gilead." But for God's mercy Jehoshaphat would have lost his life. Jehovah heard his cry for help, and delivered him; "and Jehoshaphat the king of Judah returned to his house in peace to Jerusalem," a humbler, a wiser, and, we trust, a grateful man.

But God has a message of rebuke for him. "And Jehu the son of Hanani the seer, went out to meet him, and said to king Jehoshaphat, Shouldest thou help the ungodly, and love them that hate the Lord? therefore is wrath upon thee from before the Lord. Nevertheless there are good things found in thee, in that thou hast taken away the groves out of the land, and hast prepared thy heart to seek God" (2 Chron. 19; 2, 3). This man's father had gone to prison for his faithfulness to Asa on a similar occasion, "not fearing the wrath of the king," like him whose laws he would see kept by king and people. The son of Asa, unlike his father, did not persecute his reprover; but much humiliated by his late experience, it would seem, from what immediately follows we gather that he profited by the rebuke. "And Jehoshaphat dwelt at Jerusalem: and he went out again through the people from Beersheba to mount Ephraim, and brought them back unto the Lord God of their fathers." He "went out again." This implies that he had lapsed spiritually, and was now restored, repentant, and doing the "first works." The work of reformation is resumed on his recovery. Like his great progenitor David, he will, when the joy of God's salvation is restored to him, "teach transgressors His way, and sinners shall be converted unto Him."

Jehoshaphat also set judges in all the fortified cities of the land. He charged them solemnly, saying, "Take heed what ye do: for ye judge not for man, but for the Lord, who is with you in the judgment. Wherefore now let the fear of the Lord be upon you; take heed and do it: for there is no iniquity with the Lord our God, nor respect of persons, nor taking of gifts." He established in Jerusalem what was probably a court of appeals ("when they returned to Jerusalem," implies this, 2 Chron. 19: 8), composed of Levites, priests, and chiefs of the fathers of Israel. To these he also gave a wholesome charge: "Thus shall ye do in the fear of the Lord, faithfully, and with a perfect heart. And what cause soever shall come to you of your brethren that dwell in their cities, between blood and blood, between law and commandment, statutes and judgments, ye shall even warn them (i.e., enlighten, teach, see Ex. 18: 20), that they trespass not against the Lord, and so wrath come upon you, and upon your brethren: this do, and ye shall not trespass. And, behold, Amariah the chief priest is over you in all matters of the Lord; and Zebadiah the son of Ishmael, the ruler (prince) of the house of Judah, for all the king's matters: also the Levites shall be officers before you. Deal courageously, and the Lord shall be with the good." "Matters of Jehovah" related to His word or precepts, doubtless; "the king's matters" to the civil things; and "controversies" which came under the jurisdiction of the crown. "The Levites were to be shorterim, 'officers,' lit. scribes, keeping written accounts; assistants to the judges, etc." (Fausset). All this would make for righteousness, and truly, "righteousness exalteth a nation," or any other body of people.

Satan could not stand idly by and witness this without making some attempt to disturb or destroy. "It came to pass after this also, that the children of Moab, and the children of Ammon, and with them other beside the Ammonites, came against Jehoshaphat to battle" (2 Chron. 20: 1). It was he, no doubt, who moved these neighboring nations to invade the land of Judah — whatever their motive may have been, whether jealousy, envy, greed, fear, or any other of the inciting causes of war among the nations of the earth. Scouts detected the movement and reported it to Jehoshaphat. "Then there came some that told Jehoshaphat, saying, There cometh a great multitude against thee from beyond the sea, on this side Syria; and, behold, they be in Hazezon-tamar, which is En-gedi." They might well exclaim, "Behold," for En-gedi was only twenty-five miles south of Jerusalem. The allies were almost upon them; "and Jehoshaphat feared." But though so nearly taken by surprise, the startling news did not create panic among the people. They were in communion with Jehovah. The king "set himself to seek the Lord, and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah. And Judah gathered themselves together, to ask help of the Lord: even out of all the cities of Judah they came to seek the Lord."

A great prayer-meeting was held in the temple enclosure. The king himself prayed; and a most wonderful prayer it was. "And Jehoshaphat stood in the congregation of Judah and Jerusalem, in the house of the Lord, before the new court, and said, Jehovah, God of our fathers, art not Thou God in the heavens, and rulest Thou not over all the kingdoms of the nations? And in Thy hand there is power and might, and none can withstand Thee. Hast Thou not, our God, dispossessed the inhabitants of this land before Thy people Israel, and given it forever to the seed of Abraham, Thy friend? And they have dwelt therein, and have built Thee a sanctuary therein for Thy name, saying, If evil come upon us, sword, judgment, or pestilence, or famine, and we stand before this house and before Thee — for Thy name is in this house — and cry unto Thee in our distress, then Thou wilt hear and save. And now, behold, the children of Ammon and Moab, and those of mount Seir, against whom Thou wouldst not let Israel go when they came out of the land of Egypt, (for they turned from them, and destroyed them not), behold, they reward us, in coming to cast us out of Thy possession, which Thou hast given us to possess. Our God, wilt Thou not judge them? for we have no might in the presence of this great company which cometh against us, neither know we what to do; but our eyes are upon Thee!"

If they did not know what to do, they were then certainly doing the right thing when they cast themselves on God, and their expectation was from Him. "And all Judah stood before the Lord, with their little ones, their wives, and their children." Nor did He disappoint them. "Then upon Jahaziel the son of Zechariah, the son of Benaiah, the son of Jeiel, the son of Mataniah, a Levite of the sons of Asaph, came the Spirit of the Lord in the midst of the congregation: and he said, Hearken ye, all Judah, and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem, and thou, king Jehoshaphat, Thus saith the Lord unto you, Be not afraid nor dismayed at this great multitude; for the battle is not yours but God's. To-morrow go ye down against them; behold, they come up by the cliff of Ziz; and ye shall find them at the end of the valley, before the wilderness of Jeruel. Ye shall not need to fight in this battle: set yourselves, stand ye still, and see the salvation of the Lord with you, O Judah and Jerusalem: fear not, nor be dismayed; to-morrow go out against them: for the Lord will be with you."

How these words must have cheered the distressed king and his trembling people. "And Jehoshaphat bowed his head with his face to the ground: and all Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem fell before the Lord, worshiping the Lord." What a sight, to see the king and all his subjects bowed in worship before God for His promised mercy! And the prayer-meeting becomes a praise-meeting. "And the Levites, of the children of the Kohathites, and the children of the Korhites, stood up to praise the Lord God of Israel with a loud voice on high."

They rose early on the morrow, and as they went forth to meet the foe, Jehoshaphat said to them, "Believe in the Lord your God, so shall ye be established; believe His prophets, so shall ye prosper." He was not a haughty sovereign; for he "consulted with his subjects. Then singers were appointed, and those that should praise "in holy splendor," as they marched along at the head of the army, saying, "Give thanks to Jehovah; for His loving-kindness endureth forever." It is no longer prayer for deliverance, but thanksgiving for assured victory over the enemy. "And when they began the song of triumph and praise, Jehovah set liers-in-wait against the children of Ammon, Moab, and mount Seir, who had come against Judah, and they were smitten. And the children of Ammon and Moab stood up against the inhabitants of mount Seir, to exterminate and destroy them; and when they had made an end of the inhabitants of mount Seir, they helped to destroy one another" (2 Chron. 20: 22, 23, N. Tr.). Never was a foreign invasion so easily repelled. An ambush set in some mysterious way by the Lord caused a panic amongst the allies, and they turned upon one another to their mutual destruction. The deliverance came in a way altogether unexpected by Jehoshaphat, no doubt; but faith never asks how can, or how will, God fulfil His promise. It is enough to know that He has promised; the method must be left to Him.

"And Judah came to the mountain-watch in the wilderness, and they looked toward the multitude, and behold, they were dead bodies fallen to the earth, and none had escaped. And Jehoshaphat and his people came to plunder the spoil of them, and they found among them in abundance, both riches with the dead bodies, and precious things, and they stripped off for themselves more than they could carry away; and they were three days in plundering the spoil, it was so much." And then, on the battlefield, they hold a thanksgiving meeting. "And on the fourth day they assembled themselves in the valley of Berachah, for there they blessed Jehovah; therefore the name of that place was called the valley of Berachah (blessing) unto this day." "It is a broad, rich vale, watered with copious springs, affording space for a large multitude" (Fausset).

The 48th psalm is supposed to have been sung in the temple on their return to Jerusalem. "And they returned, all the men of Judah and Jerusalem, and Jehoshaphat at their head, to go again to Jerusalem with joy; for Jehovah had made them to rejoice over their enemies. And they came to Jerusalem with lutes and harps and trumpets, to the house of Jehovah."

This miraculous deliverance of Judah had a salutary effect on the nations about them. "And the terror of God was on all the kingdoms of the lands, when they had heard that Jehovah had fought against the enemies of Israel. And the realm of Jehoshaphat was quiet; and his God gave him rest round about" (2 Chron. 20: 29, 30, N. Tr.).

Jehoshaphat's alliance with the king of Israel and the king of Edom for the invasion of Moab was probably after this. It would be unaccountable that a man of such piety and faith as he should be repeatedly betrayed into unholy confederacies did we not know what "the flesh" is — that it is no better in the saint than in the sinner, and is ever ready to betray the saint into wrongdoing unless he watches against it in the spirit of humility and self-distrust.* He almost repeats his former alliance with Ahab. It will come before us again, as we come to speak of king Jehoram, so we do not stop to dwell upon it here. These compromising entanglements appear to have been a special weakness with Jehoshaphat. He allied himself to Ahaziah, Ahab's son ("who did very wickedly"), to build ships to go to Tarshish. They were made at Ezion-Geber where Solomon had his navy built (1 Kings 9: 26). "And Eliezer the son of Dodavah, of Mare-shah, prophesied against Jehoshaphat, saying, Because thou hast joined thyself to Ahaziah, Jehovah hath broken thy works. And the ships were broken, and could not go to Tarshish" (2 Chron. 20: 37, N. Tr.). Psalm 48: 7 seems to allude to this. Thus he linked himself during his reign with three kings of the wicked house of Ahab, to his humiliation and sorrow; first with Ahab himself, and then with his sons Ahaziah and Joram, or Jehoram. No good came of any of these associations. The ships built in partnership were hardly launched before they were broken at Ezion-Geber — "the devil's backbone"** (1 Kings 22: 48). There is always something of the wiles or power of Satan in these unequal yokes. Child of God, beware of them!

{*In both the Old and New Testaments, God's people are warned against these alliances of believers with unbelievers, of which Jehoshaphat's history is a sad and solemn example. God had particularly forbidden and warned Israel against idolatry and intermarriages with the nations around, knowing full well how easily their weak heart would follow in the evil ways of the nations. See Deut. 7: 3-11; Ex. 20: 4, 5, etc.

In like manner, but in a more spiritual way, are we Christians exhorted and warned against all "unequal yokes" with unbelievers. See 2 Cor. 6: 11-18; 2 Tim. 2: 20, 21; 1 Peter 2: 11, 12; 1 John 2: 15-17, etc., etc.

We commend to the reader a pamphlet on this subject, "The Unequal Yoke" by C.H.M.  [Ed.]

**So Fausset.

Jehoshaphat reigned twenty-five years, and died at the age of sixty. His mother, Azubah, was the single Scripture namesake of Caleb's first wife (I Chron. 2 18).

JEHORAM (Exalted by Jehovah.)

(1 Kings 22: 50; 2 Kings 8: 16-24; 2 Chron. 21.)

"Give not thy . . . ways to that which destroyeth kings." — Proverbs 31: 3.

Of the seven sons of Jehoshaphat, Jehoram was the eldest; and to him his father gave the kingdom, "because he was the first-born." It would seem, from 2 Kings 8: 16, that he associated Jehoram with him on the throne during his lifetime. He probably foresaw and feared what was likely to occur after his death; and to avert, if possible, any such disaster, he endeavored to have the throne well secured to Jehoram before his decease. And to conciliate his remaining six sons, he "gave them great gifts of silver, and of gold, and of precious things, with fenced cities in Judah." They were not, probably, all children of one mother, as two of them bear exactly the same name — Azariah. This would make dissension among them all the more likely, and it is a warning to all to see Jehoshaphat ending his days with this threatening storm-cloud hanging over his house.

It was all the result of his ill-advised alliance with the ungodly house of Ahab, and what he sowed he, by dread anticipation at least, reaped. And his posterity were made to reap it actually, in a most terrible way. "Now when Jehoram was risen up to the kingdom of his father, he strengthened himself, and slew all his brethren with the sword, and divers also of the princes of Israel." He had married the daughter of a "murderer'' (2 Kings 6: 32), and as a natural consequence he soon imbrued his own hands in blood. "Jehoram was thirty and two years old when he began to reign, and he reigned eight years in Jerusalem. And he walked in the ways of the kings of Israel, like as did the house of Ahab: for he had the daughter of Ahab to wife: and he wrought that which was evil in the eyes of the Lord."

Decadence of power at once set in, which the neighboring nations were not slow to perceive, and take advantage of. "In his days the Edomites revolted from under the dominion of Judah, and made themselves a king. Then Jehoram went forth with his princes, and all his chariots with him: and he rose up by night, and smote the Edomites which compassed him in, and the captains of the chariots." This happened at Zair (2 Kings 8: 21), in Idumea, south of the Dead Sea. He barely escaped destruction, or capture, being surrounded by the enemy. He managed to extricate himself by a night surprise, but the expedition was a failure. "So the Edomites revolted from under the hand of Judah unto this day." The spirit of rebellion spread: "The same time also did Libnah revolt from under his hand; because he had forsaken the Lord God of his fathers."

His attitude toward idolatry was the exact reverse of that of his father. "He made high places in the mountains of Judah, and caused the inhabitants of Jerusalem to commit fornication, and compelled Judah thereto," or, "seduced Judah" (N.Tr.). He undid, so far as lay in his power, all the good work of his father Jehoshaphat. But how dearly he paid for his wickedness! "And there came a writing to him from Elijah the prophet (written prophetically before his translation, evidently), saying, Thus saith the Lord God of David thy father, Because thou hast not walked in the ways of Jehoshaphat thy father, nor in the ways of Asa king of Judah, but hast walked in the way of the kings of Israel, and hast made Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to go a whoring, like to the whoredoms of the house of Ahab, and also hast slain thy brethren of thy father's house, which were better than thyself: behold, with a great plague will the Lord smite thy people, and thy children, and thy wives, and all thy goods: and thou shalt have great sickness by disease of thy bowels, until thy bowels fall out by reason of the sickness day by day."

Elijah's ministry and field of labor had been, it would seem, exclusively among the ten tribes, the kingdom of Israel. But the servant of God is used here for a message to the king of Judah. And as it was prophesied to him, so it came to pass. "The Lord stirred up against Jehoram the spirit of the Philistines, and of the Arabians, that were near the Ethiopians: and they came up into Judah, and brake into it, and carried away all the substance that was found in the king's house, and his sons also, and his wives; so that there was never a son left him, save Jehoahaz (called Ahaziah, 2 Chron. 22: 1), the youngest of his sons. And after all this, (terrible as the stroke was) the Lord smote him in his bowels with an incurable disease. And it came to pass, that in process of time, after the end of two years, his bowels fell out by reason of his sickness: so he died of sore diseases. And his people made no burning for him, like the burning of his fathers." What a terrible recompense for his murders and idolatries! God made a signal example of him, that his successors might "see it and fear."

"Thirty and two years old was he when he began to reign, and he reigned in Jerusalem eight years, and departed without being desired [regretted]. Howbeit they buried him in the city of David, but not in the sepulchres of the kings." He is one of the most unlovely of all the kings of Judah. "Exalted by Jehohovah," he was for his wickedness thrust down to a dishonored grave. He took the kingdom when raised to its highest glory since the days of Solomon, and left it, after a reign of eight short years, with "Ichabod" (the glory is departed) written large upon it.

The proverb, "One sinner destroyeth much good" (Ecc. 9: 18), was sadly exemplified in this unhappy Jehoram's life. The lifetime's labor of some devoted man of God may be easily and quickly ruined, or marred, by some such "sinner." We see this illustrated in the case of Paul. After his departure, "grievous wolves" entered in among the flocks gathered by his toils and travail; also of their own selves men arose, "speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them." And even before his martyrdom he wrote, weeping, of "the enemies of the cross of Christ," and was compelled to say, "All seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ's." Also, "All they which be in Asia are turned away from me." And one has only to compare the writings of the earliest Greek fathers (so-called) with the writings of the apostle, to see how widespread and complete was the departure from the truth of Christianity. "Nevertheless [blessed word!] the foundation of God standeth sure." "And," the exhortation is, "let every one that nameth the name of the Lord depart from iniquity" (2 Tim. 2: 19). Oh, let not me be the "sinner" to "destroy the work of God" (Rom. 14: 20).

AHAZIAH (Sustained by Jehovah.)

(Also called, JEHOAHAZ, or AZARIAH.) (2 Kings 8: 24; 9: 29; 2 Chron. 22: 1-9.)

"For, lo, the kings were assembled, they passed by together." — Psalm 48: 4.

AHAZIAH must have reigned as his father's viceroy during the last year of the latter's sickness. This is evident from a comparison of 2 Kings 8: 25 with 9: 29. He was the youngest and only remaining son of Jehoram (2 Chron. 21: 17). "Two and twenty years old was Ahaziah when he began to reign." ("Forty and two" in 2 Chron. 22: 2 is doubtless a transcriber's error. His father was only forty at his death.) "And he reigned one year in Jerusalem. And his mother's name was Athaliah, the daughter (or granddaughter) of Omri king of Israel. And he walked in the way of the house of Ahab, and did evil in the sight of the Lord, as did the house of Ahab; for he was the son-in-law of the house of Ahab." His mother, in some way or other, escaped the fate of the rest of Jehoram's wives (who were carried away captive at the time of the Philistine-Arabian invasion), and "was his counsellor to do wickedly." 2 Chron. 22: 4 seems to give a slight hint that his father Jehoram repented during his last sufferings, and had broken away somewhat, from the house of Ahab; "for they were his (Ahaziah's) counsellors after the death of his father, to his destruction." His father's death removed the check, and he at once united himself with his mother's relatives in their sins and warfare. "He walked also after their counsel, and went with Jehoram the son of Ahab king of Israel to war against Hazael king of Syria at Ramoth-gilead."

This friendship cost him his life. "And the Syrians smote Joram (the king of Israel). And he returned to be healed in Jezreel because of the wounds which were given him in Ramah (or Ramoth), when he fought with Hazael king of Syria. And Azariah (Ahaziah) the son of Jehoram king of Judah went down to see Jehoram the son of Ahab at Jezreel, because he was sick. And the destruction of Ahaziah was of God by coming to Joram: for when he was come, he went out with Jehoram against Jehu the son of Nimshi, whom the Lord had anointed to cut off the house of Ahab." Ahaziah sees his uncle Jehoram slain in his chariot, and seeks in vain to make his escape from the hot-headed Jehu. "He fled by the way of the garden-house. And Jehu followed after him, and said, Smite him also in the chariot. And they did so at the going up to Gur, which is by Ibleam. And he fled to Megiddo, and died there. And his servants carried him in a chariot to Jerusalem, and buried him in his sepulchre with his fathers in the city of David." The account in Chronicles (we have been quoting from Kings) says, "he was hid in Samaria." There is no discrepancy here, for when he fled to the "garden-house" (Bethzan), he escaped to Samaria, where were his "brethren" and the princes of Judah. Thence, followed by Jehu, he was pursued to the hill Gur, and slain. Or "in Samaria" may mean simply in the kingdom of Samaria. "And when they had slain him, they buried him: Because, said they, he is the son of Jehoshaphat, who sought the Lord with all his heart." His being the grandson of Jehoshaphat was all that saved his body from being eaten by unclean dogs, like those of his great-aunt Jezebel and her son Jehoram.

"So the house of Ahaziah had no power to keep still the kingdom." And with these cheerless words the record of the reign of Ahaziah closes. He was the "seventh" from Solomon, and the first king of Judah to die a violent death. His name is the first of the royal line omitted in the genealogy of Matt. 1. The first of the three names given him, Jehoahaz, — "whom Jehovah helps," — is markedly at variance with his character. This may be the reason why he is called by that name only once in Scripture (2 Chron. 21: 19). He died at the early age of twenty-three. It was no part of Jehu's commission to slay the king of Judah; but he was found among those doomed to destruction, and consequently shared their fate. And God's call to His own, in that system of iniquity where the spiritual Jezebel teaches and seduces His servants, is, "Come out of her, My people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues" (Rev. 18: 4). Oh that all His own might even now lay this call to heart, and separate themselves from that which is fast shaping itself for its ultimate apostasy and doom!

JEHOASH (or JOASH) (Jehovah-gifted.)

(2 Kings 11, 12; 2 Chron. 22: 10 — 24: 27.) Contemporary Prophet, ZECHARIAH, son of Jehoiada.

"It is He that giveth salvation unto kings: who delivereth David His servant from the hurtful sword." — Psalm 144: 10.

"And when Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah saw that her son was dead, she arose and destroyed all the seed royal." Chronicles adds, "of the house of Judah" (we quote from Kings). "But Jehosheba, the daughter of king Joram, sister of Ahaziah, took Joash the son of Ahaziah, and stole him from among the king's sons which were slain; and they hid him, even him and his nurse, in the bedchamber from Athaliah, so that he was not slain."

"That wicked woman," is the character given this Athaliah by the Holy Ghost in 2 Chron. 24: 7. She was just such a daughter as her infamous mother, "that woman Jezebel," was likely to produce. Her father was himself a murderer, and the family character was fully marked in her. She heartlessly slaughtered her own grandchildren in her lust for power. She would be herself ruler of the kingdom, even at the cost of the lives of helpless and innocent children. No character in history, sacred or secular, stands out blacker or more hideous than this daughter-in-law of the godly Jehoshaphat. Joash was only an infant at the time, and his mother (Zibiah of Beersheba), in all likelihood, dead — murdered, probably, by her fiendish mother-in-law. Jehosheba (Jehovah's oath, i.e., devoted to Him), the child's aunt, and wife of the high priest Jehoiada (Jehovah known), hid him, with his nurse, first in one of the palace bedchambers, and later in the temple (where she lived), among her own children, and perhaps as one of them. "And he was with them hid in the house of God six years: and Athaliah reigned over the land." It was God's mercy to the house of David, even as it had been declared at the time of the reign of Athaliah's husband Jehoram: "Howbeit the Lord would not destroy the house of David, because of the covenant that He had made with David, and as He promised to give a light to him and to his sons for ever" (2 Chron. 21: 7).

Athaliah, no doubt, thought herself secure upon the throne of David. Six years she possessed the coveted power, and could say, "I sit a queen." She made the most of her opportunity to corrupt the kingdom with idolatry, and had a temple built to Baal. But in the seventh year her richly-merited retribution suddenly came upon her. "And in the seventh year Jehoiada sent and fetched the rulers over hundreds, with the captains and the guards, and brought them to him into the house of the Lord, and made a covenant with them, and took an oath of them in the house of the Lord, and showed them the king's son." "And they went about in Judah, and gathered the Levites out of all the cities of Judah, and the chief of the fathers of Israel, and they came to Jerusalem. And all the congregation made a covenant with the king in the house of God. And he (Jehoiada) said unto them, Behold, the king's son shall reign, as the Lord hath said of the sons of David." Arrangements were then entered into for the most unique coronation that was ever known. Everything was ordered with great care and secrecy, that suspicion should not be aroused. Trusted men, chiefly Levites, were stationed at important points about the king's house and temple. The sabbath day, and the time for the changing of the courses of the priests and Levites, may have been chosen so that the unusually large number of people about the temple would not excite suspicion in the minds of Athaliah and her Baalite minions. The Levites carefully guarded the royal child, "every man with his weapons in his hand," with strict orders to slay any one that should attempt to approach him. "And to the captains over hundreds did the priest give king David's spears and shields, that were in the temple of the Lord," and a strong guard was placed within the temple enclosure. "Then they brought out the king's son, and put upon him the crown, and gave him the testimony (a copy of the law, Deut. 17: 18), and made him king. And Jehoiada and his sons anointed him, and said, God save the king!" It is a thrilling tale, and nowhere given so well as in our time-honored Authorized Version.

"Now when Athaliah heard the noise of the people running and praising the king, she came to the people into the house of the Lord: and she looked, and, behold, the king stood at (or, on) his pillar (stage, or scaffold — Gesenius) at the entering in, and the princes and the trumpeters by the king: and all the people of the land rejoiced, and sounded with trumpets, also the singers with instruments of music, and such as taught to sing praise. Then Athaliah rent her clothes, and said, Treason! Treason!" "But Jehoiada the priest commanded the captains of the hundreds, the officers of the host, and said unto them, Have her forth of the ranges: and him that followeth her kill with the sword. For the priest had said, Let her not be slain in the house of the Lord. And they laid hands on her; and she went by the way by which the horses came into the king's house: and there she was slain. And Jehoiada made a covenant between the Lord and the king and the people, that they should be the Lord's people; between the king also and the people. And all the people of the land went into the house of Baal, and brake it down; his altars and his images brake they in pieces thoroughly, and slew Mattan the priest of Baal before the altars. And the priest appointed officers over the house of the Lord. And he took the rulers over hundreds, and the captains, and the guard, and all the people of the land; and they brought down the king from the house of the Lord, and came by the way of the gate of the guard to the king's house. And he sat on the throne of the kings. And all the people of the land rejoiced, and the city was in quiet: and they slew Athaliah with the sword beside the king's house" (2 Kings 11).

Jehoiada and his wife had engaged in this dangerous business in faith, as is manifest by the words of Jehoiada, "Behold the king's son shall reign, as the Lord hath said of the sons of David." "The Lord hath said" is quite enough for faith to move on or to act whatever be the dangers, the difficulties and the toils. And in that path all the wheels of Providence are made to turn to bring about the successful end. God gives the needful wisdom in it too, and so every step and arrangement of this faithful man succeeds perfectly, all proving that whatever be the cunning and craft of the devil in Athaliah, it must succumb to the wisdom of God and of faith. The cause was of God; Joash was the only and rightful heir to the throne of David, which by the promise of God was not to be without an heir till that Heir should come who would be "the sure mercies of David" and would need no successor.

"Joash was seven years old when he began to reign, and he reigned forty years in Jerusalem. His mother's name also was Zibiah (doe, or gazelle) of Beersheba. And Joash did that which was right in the sight of the Lord all the days of Jehoiada the priest. And Jehoiada took for him two wives; and he begat sons and daughters." His uncle appears to have exercised a wholesome influence over him. The noting of his taking two wives for him is doubtless to manifest his godly concern for the succession mentioned above.

"And it came to pass after this, that Joash was minded to repair the house of the Lord. And he gathered together the priests and Levites, and said to them, Go out into the cities of Judah, and gather of all Israel money to repair the house of your God from year to year, and see that ye hasten the matter. Howbeit the Levites hastened it not." Nothing was done at the time. The spiritual condition of the people made it difficult to accomplish anything. "The people still sacrificed and burnt incense in the high places," and would therefore feel little responsibility toward the temple at Jerusalem. The lines in Pope's pantheistic "Universal Prayer,"

"To Thee whose temple is all space,

Whose altar, earth, sea, skies!

would, no doubt, express pretty accurately their thoughts in the matter. What little was contributed was, it would seem, misappropriated towards the maintenance of the priests and Levites. (See 2 Kings 12; 7, 8, N. Tr.) This neglect continued until the twenty-third year of Joash. Then "the king called for Jehoiada the chief, and said unto him, Why hast thou not required of the Levites to bring in, out of Judah and out of Jerusalem, the collection, according to the commandment of Moses the servant of the Lord, and of the congregation of Israel, for the tabernacle of witness?" (He had not neglected to read the "testimony" delivered to him at his coronation, evidently). "For the sons of Athaliah, that wicked woman, had broken up (devastated, N. Tr.) the house of God; and also all the dedicated things of the house of the Lord did they bestow upon Baalim." True to what he had learned in the word of God, he did not hesitate to admonish even the high priest if he was negligent in carrying it out, for that Word is above all. And though he owed to his uncle a lasting debt of gratitude for the preservation of his infant life, he could, when occasion required, make request of him that he, as God's high priest, perform his duty in reference to the necessary repairs of that house over which he had been set by God. Would God he had continued in such a mind to the end of his reign.

"And at the king's commandment they made a chest, and set it without at the gate of the house of the Lord. And they made a proclamation through Judah and Jerusalem, to bring in to the Lord the collection that Moses the servant of God laid upon Israel in the wilderness." (See Ex. 30: 11-16.) "And all the princes and all the people rejoiced, and brought in, and cast into the chest, until they had made an end." It commended itself to the people's conscience, as what is of God usually does, and they gave as the Lord loves to see His people give — cheerfully. "Now it came to pass, that at what time the chest was brought unto the king's office by the hand of the Levites, and when they saw that there was much money, the king's scribe and the high priest's officer came and emptied the chest, and took it, and carried it to his place again. Thus they did day by day, and gathered money in abundance. And the king and Jehoiada gave it to such as did the work of the service of the house of the Lord, and hired masons and carpenters to repair the house of the Lord, and also such as wrought iron and brass to mend the house of the Lord. So the workmen wrought, and the work was perfected by them, and they set the house of God in his state, and strengthened it." No exacting accounts were kept; there was no suspicion of dishonesty, or misappropriation; the most beautiful confidence prevailed, evidencing the work of God. When it is the work of God, the heart is engaged; selfish ends are absent; there is one common object; all this produces confidence: "Moreover they reckoned not with the men, in whose hand they delivered the money to be bestowed on the workmen: for they dealt faithfully."

More than sufficient was bestowed by the willing-hearted people, "And when they had finished it, they brought the rest of the money before the king and Jehoiada, whereof were made vessels for the house of the Lord, even vessels to minister, and to offer withal, and spoons, and vessels of gold and silver." Nor were the priests left unprovided for. "The money of trespass-offerings and the money of sin-offerings was not brought into the house of Jehovah; it was for the priests" (2 Kings 12: 16, N. Tr.)

"And they offered burnt-offerings in the house of the Lord continually all the days of Jehoiada. But Jehoiada waxed old, and was full of days when he died; a hundred and thirty years old was he when he died. And they buried him in the city of David among the kings (as well they might), because he had done good in Israel, both toward God, and toward His house — "He had remembered the claims of the Holy One of Israel, and attended to them with vigor and fidelity. Nor could it be other than the energy of faith in a man nearly a hundred years old setting himself to overthrow such an enemy of God as Athaliah.

His extreme old age may account for his evident laxity in performing the king's command in regard to the repairing of the temple. He was born before the death of Solomon, and had seen much during his long life that peculiarly qualified him to become the protector and early guide of Jehoash. By him the kingdom was re-established, and the cause of Jehovah revived during his last days on earth. He was a true king, in heart and mind, and it was meet that the aged patriarch's mitered head should be laid to rest among those who had worn the crown.

How long he had filled the office of high priest is not known. He succeeded Amariah, who was high priest under Jehoshaphat. What a contrast between him and those other two high priests, Annas and Caiaphas, of whom we read in the New Testament. He labored to maintain the succession; they labored to destroy the final Heir — "great David's greater Son." And when the time of rewards comes, what will be the unspeakable differences!

But now a cloud begins to appear that dims the brightness of the reign of Joash, and culminates in treachery and murder. "Now after the death of Jehoiada came the princes of Judah, and made obeisance to the king. Then the king harkened unto them. And they left the house of the Lord God of their fathers, and served groves and idols: and wrath came upon Judah and Jerusalem for this their trespass. Yet He sent prophets to them, to bring them again unto the Lord; and they testified against them: but they would not give ear." The revival during Joash's early reign had already lost its hold; it could not have been of much depth when they could so quickly turn aside to idols after Jehoiada's departure. But the spirit of the good high priest was not dead; his worthy son Zechariah withstood and condemned their backslidings. "And the Spirit of God came upon Zechariah the son of Jehoiada the priest, which stood above the people, and said unto them, Thus saith God, Why transgress ye the commandments of the Lord, that ye cannot prosper? because ye have forsaken the Lord, He hath also forsaken you. And they conspired against him, and stoned him with stones at the commandment of the king, in the court of the house of the Lord." "At the commandment of the king"! Alas for Joash's unfaithfulness to God, and base ingratitude to the man who had been to him so great a benefactor! Zechariah was his cousin, and his foster-brother too! "Thus Joash the king remembered not the kindness which Jehoiada his father had done to him, but slew his son. And when he died, he said, The Lord look upon it, and require it." This is, in all probability, the "Zacharias" referred to by our Lord," whom ye slew," He says, "between the temple and the altar." He was the last historical Old Testament martyr, as Abel had been the first. The prophet Urijah was slain almost two hundred and fifty years after Zechariah, but it is not recorded in the historical canon of Scripture; it is only mentioned incidentally in the prophecy of Jeremiah (chap. 26: 23). "Son of Barachias" (Matt. 23: 35) presents no real difficulty. It may have been a second name for Jehoiada (and would be a very appropriate one too: "Barachias" — blessed); or, Barachias may have been one of Zechariah's earlier ancestors, as "son of" frequently means in Scripture. Luke 11: 51, does not have "son of Barachias." But one of the first of the above explanations is preferable.* Anyway, he met his death at the hand of the very man for whom his mother and his father risked their lives. Other sons of Jehoiada were also slain by Joash (2 Chron. 24: 25). "The Lord look upon it, and require it," the dying martyr said. Stephen, also stoned for his testimony, cried, when dying, "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge." Law, under which "every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward," was the governing principle of the dispensation under which the martyr Zechariah died; grace reigned in Stephen's day (as still in ours); therefore the difference in the dying martyrs' prayers. Both, though so unlike, were in perfect keeping with the dispensations under which they witnessed.

{*But see Num. Bible (Matthew), page 219. "There seems no good reason for supposing any other than Zechariah the prophet to be meant, though Zechariah the son of Jehoiada is generally taken to be. But this leaves the son of Barachias to be accounted for, when the son of Jehoiada also would have better reminded them of the history. It seems also too far back (in Joash's time) for the purpose, when summing up the guilt of the people."

"As to Zechariah the prophet, he was the son of Berachiah, and grandson of Iddo; and the Jewish Targum states that Zechariah the son of Iddo, a prophet and priest, was slain in the sanctuary.'" — See "The Irrationalism of Infidelity," by J. N. Darby, pp. 150-159. — [Ed.}

"The Lord require it." And He did, and that right speedily — for He does not disregard the dying prayers of men like Zechariah. "And it came to pass at the end of the year, that the host of Syria came up against him: and they came to Judah and Jerusalem, and destroyed all the princes of the people from among the people" (they were judged first for having been chiefly guilty in persuading the king to forsake Jehovah,) "and sent all the spoil of them unto the king of Damascus. For the army of the Syrians came with a small company of men, and the Lord delivered a very great host into their hand, because they had forsaken the Lord God of their fathers. So they executed judgment against Joash. And when they were departed from him (for they left him in great diseases), his own servants conspired against him for the blood of the sons of Jehoiada the priest, and slew him on his bed, and he died: and they buried him in the city of David, but they buried him not in the sepulchres of the kings." 2 Kings 12: 17, 18 records a previous invasion of Syrians under Hazael, when Joash bought him off with gold and other treasures taken from the temple and the king's palace. It was then that they discovered the real weakness of the army of Joash (spite of its being "a very great host"); hence only "a small company of men" was sent out on the second expedition against him. "There is no king saved by the multitude of a host," wrote that king (Ps. 33: 16) whose throne Joash so unworthily filled. And his time to receive the due reward of his deeds was come, and there was no power on earth that could have saved him. The murdered Zechariah's name (Jah hath remembered) must have had a terrible significance to him as he lay in "great diseases" on his bed in the house of Millo, the citadel of Zion. And if he escaped death at the hands of the Syrians by taking refuge in the stronghold at the descent of Silla (2 Kings 12: 20, N. Tr.), it was only to be treacherously assassinated by his servants, both of them sons of Gentile women (2 Chron. 24: 26), fruit of mixed marriages, condemned by the law. So disobedience brings its own bitter reward, and what God's people sow they always, in some way or other, reap. Joash abundantly deserved his inglorious and terrible end. It can be ever said, when the judgments of God are seen to come upon such as he, "Thou art righteous, O Lord, which art, and wast, and shalt be, because Thou hast judged thus. For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and Thou hast given them blood to drink; for they are worthy" (Rev. 16: 5, 6).

AMAZIAH (Strength of Jah.)

(2 Kings 14;1-20; 2 Chron. 25.)

Contemporary Prophets: Several unnamed (two in 2 Chron. 25).

"A king ready to the battle." — Job 15: 24.

"AMAZIAH was twenty and five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned twenty and nine years in Jerusalem. And his mother's name was Jehoaddan (Jehovah-pleased) of Jerusalem." He evidently reigned a year jointly with his father (comp. 2 Kings 13: 10; 14: 1; 2 Chron. 24: 1) during the latter's last sickness, when the "great diseases" were upon him.

"And he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, but not with a perfect heart." "Yet not like David his father," it is said; "he did according to all things as Joash his father did." Just like this is the lack of heart-devotedness in the children of God. He allowed the, "high places" to remain, and the people sacrificed and burned incense upon them.

"Now it came to pass, when the kingdom was established to him, that he slew his servants that had killed the king his father. But he slew not their children, but did as it is written in the law, in the book of Moses, where the Lord commanded, saying, The fathers shall not die for the children, neither shall the children die for the fathers, but every man shall die for his own sin." (See Deut. 24: 16.) He made a good beginning in thus adhering closely to the law. Happy would it have been for him and for his kingdom had he continued as he began. "As soon as the kingdom was confirmed in his hand" appears to imply that the state affairs were somewhat unsettled at his father's death. What follows confirms this thought. "Moreover Amaziah gathered Judah together, and made them captains over thousands, and captains over hundreds, according to the houses of their fathers, throughout all Judah and Benjamin." He began to reorganize the scattered army. "And he numbered them from twenty years old and above, and found them three hundred thousand choice men, able to go forth to war, that could handle spear and shield."

An expedition against Edom was probably in his mind in this organization of his forces. And trusting more to "the multitude of a host" than to the Lord, "he hired also a hundred thousand mighty men of valor out of Israel for a hundred talents of silver." But God does not want mercenaries in His battles — neither then, nor now. So "there came a man of God to him, saying, O king, let not the army of Israel go with thee; for the Lord is not with Israel, to wit, with all the children of Ephraim. But if thou wilt go (i.e., with them), do it, be strong for the battle: God shall make thee fall before the enemy: for," he adds, "God hath power to help, and to cast down." He may retain them if he wishes, but he has the consequences set before him. God knew the corrupting influence this body of Ephraimites would have upon the army of Judah. "Shouldest thou help the ungodly?" the prophet Jehu asked Jehoshaphat. Here Amaziah reverses the order, and would have the ungodly help him. And, besides, "the children of Ephraim" were not particularly famous for their courage. "The children of Ephraim, being armed, and carrying bows, turned back in the day of battle," was the inglorious record back of them (Ps. 78: 9). But Amaziah thinks of the advance wages already paid to these hireling warriors: "But what shall we do for the hundred talents which I have given to the army (lit., troop, or band,) of Israel? And the man of God answered, The Lord is able to give thee much more than this." It is a fine word for any child of God who may find himself in a position compromising the truth, and who cannot see his way out without serious pecuniary loss. "The Lord is able to give thee much more than this"; and if He does not more than make it up in temporal things, He will repay it in what is infinitely better — in those spiritual things, which are eternal. And "to obey is better than sacrifice," anyway and always.

Amaziah profited by the word, and separated the mercenaries, and sent them home again. "Wherefore their anger was greatly kindled against Judah, and they returned home in great (lit., fierce) anger." This refusal of their assistance only makes manifest their real character. They had long ago turned away from Jehovah; what did they care now for His honor or the good of Judah? So they avenge their supposed insult by falling upon defenceless cities on Judah's northern frontier; they plunder them, and slay mercilessly three thousand of their own flesh and blood! Such could not help in God's army then; neither can men with selfish motives be helps in Christ's cause now.

"And Amaziah strengthened himself, and led forth his people, and went to the valley of salt (south of the Dead Sea), and smote of the children of Seir ten thousand. And other ten thousand left alive did the children of Judah carry away captive, and brought them unto the top of the rock, and cast them down from the top of the rock, that they all were broken in pieces."

This seemingly cruel treatment of conquered enemies is related without comment. We know nothing of the attendant circumstances, nor the cause of Judah's invasion. They lived in the cold, hard age of law ("eye for eye, tooth for tooth, nail for nail"), and we must not measure their conduct by the standard we have received from Him who came "not to destroy men's lives, but to save them." A hundred years ago men were hung in enlightened "Christian" England for stealing sheep. Voltaire seems never to have condemned the English for it. Yet what government, for a like offence, would take a human life to-day? Amaziah's army may have believed themselves justified in meting out such horrible punishment to the Edomites. But we neither judge nor excuse them for their terrible act. God has left it without comment. It was not God's act, but Amaziah's. He "took Selah (Petra, the rock, Edom's capital) by war." ("It lay in a hollow, enclosed amidst cliffs, and accessible only by a ravine through which the river winds across its site." — Fausset), "and called the name of it Joktheel (the reward of God) unto this day." He seems to have looked upon this captured city as God's repayment for the one hundred silver talents lost upon the worthless Ephraimites. And does not God ever repay His obedient people with abundant increase?

But success with Amaziah (as with most of us) puffs him up. Inflated with his subjugation of the Edomites, he impudently challenged the king of Israel to meet him in combat, saying, "Come, let us look one another in the face." The offended Ephraimites had indeed wantonly wronged some of his subjects; yet for this the king of Israel was less responsible than Amaziah himself, who had hired them to enter his army. He "took advice," we read, in doing this. Like his father Joash, he was led into disaster by "the counsel of the ungodly." But it was of God, for the punishment of his idolatry. For, before this, when "Amaziah was come from the slaughter of the Edomites," we read that "he brought the gods of the children of Seir, and set them up to be his gods, and bowed down himself before them, and burned incense unto them. Wherefore the anger of the Lord was kindled against Amaziah, and he sent unto him a prophet, which said unto him, Why hast thou sought after the gods of the people, which could not deliver their own people out of thy hand? "A child might understand such reasoning. "And it came to pass, as he talked with him, that the king said unto him, Art thou made of the king's counsel? forbear; why shouldest thou be smitten? Then the prophet forbare, and said, I know thou hast done this, and hast not harkened unto my counsel." So God let him take other counsel (since he refused His own), that led to his ruin.

To Amaziah's rash challenge the king of Israel makes a scornful reply by the language of a parable. He says: "The thistle that was in Lebanon (Amaziah) sent to the cedar that was in Lebanon (himself, Joash), saying, Give thy daughter to my son to wife: and there passed by a wild beast that was in Lebanon (Joash's army), and trode down the thistle." And he adds, "Thou sayest [to thyself], Lo, thou hast smitten the Edomites — and thy heart lifteth thee up to boast. Abide now at home; why shouldest thou meddle to thy hurt, that thou shouldest fall, even thou, and Judah with thee?" Good, sound advice, this. "But Amaziah would not hear; for it came of God, that He might deliver them into the hand of their enemies, because they sought after the gods of Edom. So Joash the king of Israel went up; and they saw one another in the face, both he and Amaziah king of Judah, at Beth-shemesh, which belongeth to Judah. And Judah was put to the worse before Israel, and they fled every man to his tent. And Joash the king of Israel took Amaziah king of Judah, the son of Joash, the son of Jehoahaz, at Beth-shemesh, and brought him to Jerusalem, and brake down the wall of Jerusalem from the gate of Ephraim to the corner gate, four hundred cubits." This is the first time the walls of Jerusalem had ever been injured. It was on the north — the only side from which the city is easily accessible. Josephus (IX., 9, § 9) states that Joash gained entrance into the city by threatening to kill their captive king if the inhabitants refused to open the gates. The victorious Joash now took all the gold and silver, and the holy vessels, and all the treasures that were found in the temple and the king's house; he took hostages also, and returned to Samaria.

Amaziah lived more than fifteen years after his humiliating defeat and capture by the king of Israel. He died by violence, like his father and grandfather before him. "Now after the time that Amaziah did turn away from following the Lord they made a conspiracy against him in Jerusalem; and he fled to Lachish: but they sent to Lachish after him, and slew him there. And they brought him upon horses, and buried him with his fathers in the city of Judah," or of David. His "turning away from following the Lord" was probably his final and complete apostasy from Jehovah God of Israel; not when he first bowed down to the gods of Seir, which was the beginning of his downward course. Lachish was the first of the cities of Judah to adopt the idolatries of the kingdom of Israel ("the beginning of the sin to the daughter of Zion: for the transgressions of Israel were found in thee," Micah 1: 13), and it was natural for the idolatrous Amaziah to seek an asylum there. They brought his body back to Jerusalem on horses, as they would a beast. (Contrast Acts 7: 16.) His name means "strength of Jah"; but we read, "he strengthened himself" (2 Chron. 25: 11); his character of self-sufficiency thus belying his name — a thing not uncommon in our day, especially among a people called "Christians."

He was assassinated at the age of fifty-four. His mother's name, "Jehovah-pleased," would indicate that she was a woman of piety; and it may be that it was due to her influence that he acted righteously during the earlier portion of his reign. The record of his reign has the same sad monotony of so many of the kings of Judah at this period — "his acts first and last" — the first, full of promise; and the last, declension, or apostasy. "Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall."

UZZIAH (Strength of Jehovah.)

(2 Kings 15: 1-7; 2 Chron. 26.)

Contemporary Prophets: ZECHARIAH, of 2 Chron. 26: 5; ISAIAH: HOSEA; AMOS.

"He (the Lord) shall cut off the spirit of princes: He is terrible to the kings of the earth." — Psalm 76: 12.

"Then all the people of Judah took Uzziah, who was sixteen years old, and made him king in the room of his father Amaziah. He built Eloth, and restored it to Judah, after that the king slept with his fathers." He is called Azariah (helped by Jehovah) elsewhere: the names were so nearly equivalent in meaning as to be applied interchangeably to him. He seems to have come by the throne, not in the way of ordinary succession, but by the direct choice of the people. The princes had been destroyed by the Syrians toward the close of his grandfather Joash's reign (2 Chron. 24: 23), leaving the people a free hand. "For the transgression of a land many are the princes thereof," wrote Solomon, more than a century before; and this weeding out was not altogether to be regretted: perhaps, nor entirely unnecessary. If the princes selfishly "seek their own" things, they are incapable of judging aright; whilst a needy, suffering people instinctively turn to a deliverer. Their choice here of Azariah, was a good one, as the sequel proved. His first recorded work, the building, enlargement, or fortification of Eloth (Elath), and its restoration to the crown of Judah, was an early pledge of the great industrial prosperity of his reign. It belonged to Edom, and was lost to Judah during the reign of Joram (2 Kings 8: 20). It was a seaport on the Red Sea, near Ezion-geber (1  Kings 9: 26), and must have made a most important mart for the extensive commerce in his administration. It was taken by Rezin king of Syria fifty years later, who expelled the Jews, and occupied it permanently. (See 2 Kings 16: 6.)

"Sixteen years old was Uzziah when he began to reign, and he reigned fifty and two years in Jerusalem. His mother's name also was Jecoliah of Jerusalem." His was the longest continuous reign (Manasseh's, fifty-five years, was interrupted by his deposition and captivity by the king of Babylon) of any of the kings of Judah. His mother's name, Jah will enable, might indicate that she had pious expectations of her son, by the help of God. And in this she would not be disappointed, for "he," it is said, "did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his father Amaziah did"; that is, during the earlier portion of his reign. "And he sought God in the days of Zechariah, who had understanding in the visions of God (in the seeing of God, marg.): and as long as he sought the Lord, God made him to prosper." "Understanding in the visions of God" is not equivalent to having prophetical visions from God. LXX., Syr., Targ. Arab., Kimchi, etc., read, "who was (his) instructor in the fear of God," which is probably the general sense of the expression. Nothing more is known of this prophet, but his record is on high; and the coming "day" will declare what else, whether of good or bad, was accomplished by him during his earthly life. So shall it also, reader, in the case of you and me.

From city building for the peaceful purpose of commerce, Uzziah turns to retributive warfare. "And he went forth and warred against the Philistines, and brake down the wall of Gath, and the wall of Jabneh, and the wall of Ashdod, and built cities about (or, in the country of) Ashdod. And God helped him against the Philistines, and against the Arabians that dwelt in Gur-baal, and the Mehunim." Thus he avenged the Philistine invasion during the reign of Jehoram (2 Chron. 21: 16, 17), and punished their allies. It says, "The Lord stirred up against Jehoram the spirit of the Philistines, and of the Arabians," etc. This did not excuse them for their wrong-doing. "God helped Uzziah against the Philistines, and against the Arabians." They were the unconscious instruments used by God in the chastening of His people. Their motive was entirely of another kind, and after eighty years God metes out to them the punishment their attack on the land of Judah deserved. This is an important principle which must be borne in mind in any study of God's ways in government, with either men or nations. (See Isa. 10: 5-19.)

"And the Ammonites gave gifts to Uzziah: and his name was spread abroad even to the entering in of Egypt; for he-strengthened himself exceedingly." He "built towers" in Jerusalem, and fortified them. He also "built towers in the desert" ("the steppe-lands west of the Dead Sea"), and cut out many cisterns; "for he had much cattle, both in the low country" (literally, "the Shepheleh," the low hills between the mountains and the Mediterranean), "and in the plains" (east of the Dead Sea). His wealth seems to have been chiefly in stock and agriculture. He had "husbandmen also, and vinedressers in the mountains, and in Carmel: for he loved husbandry." He was an earnest and successful agriculturist. He probably gave special attention to the tillage of the soil because of the prophecies of Hosea and Amos (his contemporaries) concerning the scarcity about to come. (See Hosea 2: 9; 4: 3; 9: 2; Amos 1: 2; 4: 6-9; 5: 16-19.)

He also gave attention to military matters, and thoroughly organized his army, "that made war with mighty power, to help the king against the enemy." He saw too that his army was thoroughly equipped, as we read: "And Uzziah prepared for them throughout the host shields, and spears, and helmets, and coats of mail, and bows, and even slinging-stones. And he made in Jerusalem machines invented by skilful men, to be upon the towers and upon the bulwarks, wherewith to shoot arrows and great stones.* And his name spread far abroad; for he was marvelously helped, till he became strong." (N. Tr.) But alas, what is man! After all this well-doing, Uzziah's heart is lifted up with pride. Then came his act of sacrilege — the dark blot upon the record of this otherwise blameless man's life. "But" — alas, those "buts" in so many life-records of God's saints! — "when he was strong, his heart was lifted up to his destruction: for he transgressed against the Lord his God, and went into the temple of the Lord to burn incense upon the altar of incense" — explicitly forbidden by the law. (See Ex. 30: 7, 8; Num. 16: 40; 18: 7.) "And Azariah the priest went in after him, and with him fourscore priests of the Lord, that were valiant men: and they withstood Uzziah the king, and said unto him, It appertaineth not unto thee, Uzziah, to burn incense unto the Lord, but to the priests the sons of Aaron, that are consecrated to burn incense: go out of the sanctuary; for thou hast trespassed; neither shall it be for thine honor from the Lord God. Then Uzziah was wroth, and had a censer in his hand to burn incense: and while he was wroth with the priests, the leprosy even rose up in his forehead before the priests in the house of the Lord, from beside the incense altar. And Azariah the chief priest, and all the priests, looked upon him, and, behold, he was leprous in his forehead, and they thrust him out from thence; yea, himself hasted also to go out, because the Lord had smitten him. And Uzziah the king was a leper unto the day of his death, and dwelt in a several [separate] house, being a leper; for he was cut off from the house of the Lord." It was a fearful stroke from God. Death was the actual penalty enjoined by the law for his crime (Num. 18: 7), and leprosy was really that — a living death, prolonged and intensified. "Let her not be as one dead, of whom the flesh is half consumed," was said of Miriam, who was smitten with a like judgment, and for a similar offence. God is holy, and must vindicate His word against every transgressor. He is no respecter of persons, and brings to light, sooner or later, every man's work and purposes of heart — not excepting His best servants. (See Num. 12: 10-12; 1 Tim. 5: 24, 25.)

{*In these details, by which Uzziah's kingdom was strengthened and his people blessed and enlarged, God would call our attention, surely, to what will strengthen and bless His people now: first, the precious and abundant food of the land we occupy — the precious fruits of His grace appropriated through patient cultivation on our part, by which our souls are richly fed and strengthened; then, that watchful care against inroads of the enemy — uniting and strengthening God's people against the assaults and wiles of Satan. — [Ed.}

The actuating motive in this audacious act of king Uzziah's is not made known. It has been suggested that he wished, like the Egyptian kings, to combine in himself both the office of king and high priest, so arrogating to himself the religious as well as the civil power. But whatever the immediate impelling motive, we know the primary cause of his profane deed. It was pride, the really "original sin," that hideous parent-sin of all succeeding sins, whether among angels, or among men (1 Tim. 3: 6; Ezek. 28: 2, 17). "He was marvelously helped till he was strong. But when he was strong, his heart was lifted up to his destruction." "Strength of Jehovah" was the meaning of his name; and happy would it have been for him had he realized that only in His strength is any really strong. "My strength," says He who is "the Almighty" (Rev. 1: 8), "is made perfect in weakness." "When I am weak, then am I strong," wrote one who knew his own utter powerlessness and his Lord's sufficient strength. "Be strong in the Lord," he cautions his fellow-weaklings. Uzziah prospered; and because of his prosperity, his foolish heart was lifted up with pride: and in him was fulfilled his great ancestor's proverb, "The prosperity of fools shall destroy them": and another — "Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall" (Prov. 1: 32; 16: 18).

"Now the rest of the acts of Uzziah, first and last, did Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz, write. So Uzziah slept with his fathers, and they buried him with his fathers in the field of the burial which belonged to the kings; for they said, He is a leper: and Jotham his son reigned in his stead." They would not lay his leprous body in their "Westminster Abbey," but buried him in a field (in earth, perhaps) adjoining the sepulchres of their kings. He died about the time of the founding of Rome. It was "in the year that king Uzziah died" that Isaiah entered upon his full prophetic ministry. The moral condition of the nation during the close of Uzziah's reign is revealed in the first five chapters of his prophecy. He was also the historiographer of his reign. It is not known in just what year of Uzziah's reign he was smitten with leprosy. Nor is it certain just when the great earthquake occurred (Amos 1: 1; Zech. 14: 5). From Amos 1: 1, compared with other scripture chronological references, it is quite certain that it was not later than seventeen years after Uzziah's accession to the throne, and not when he was smitten with leprosy, as Josephus mistakenly affirms.

JOTHAM (Jehovah-perfect.)

(2 Kings 15: 32-38; 2 Chron. 27: 1-4.)

Contemporary Prophets: ISAIAH; MICAH; HOSEA.

"Mercy and truth preserve the king: and his throne is upholden by mercy." — Proverbs 20: 28.

"JOTHAM was twenty and five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem. His mother's name also was Jerushah, the daughter of Zadok." Jotham was regent over the kingdom after the judgment of God had fallen upon his father. "And Jotham his son was over the king's house, judging the people of the land" (2 Chron. 26: 21). This would indicate that Uzziah was guilty of his impious trespass in the very latter part of his long reign, as Jotham was only a young man of twenty-five at his father's death, and he could not have been judging the people of the land many years before this. His mother's name, Jerushah (possessed), daughter of Zadok (just), would seem to imply that she was really the Lord's, and just before Him. She, like every true mother, would have considerable influence over her son, in the formation of his character. So we read, "And he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his father Uzziah did: howbeit he entered not into the temple of the Lord." He avoided the folly of his headstrong father, and did not "rush in where angels fear to tread."

"And the people did yet corruptly." The prophecies of Isaiah and Micah contain much detail of the manner of their wickedness, which was indeed great. It probably increased rapidly toward the close of Uzziah's reign, though from the beginning of his rule "the high places were not taken away: as yet the people did sacrifice and burnt incense on the high places" (2 Kings 14: 4). True, the sacrifices and incense were offered to Jehovah; but Jerusalem, Scripture said, was "the place where men ought to worship"; and this departure, though considered unimportant, probably, by many godly Israelites, only paved the way for greater and more serious violations of the law. God's people are only safe as they adhere carefully and closely to the very letter of the word of God. The slightest digressions are often the prelude of wide and grave departures from obedience to God's will as revealed in His Word. The beginning of sin is, like strife, "as when one letteth out water."

And "he built the high gate of the house of the Lord, and on the wall of Ophel he built much." The "high gate" led from the king's house to the temple (see 2 Chron. 23: 20), and Jotham's building it (rebuilding, or repairing) is very significant. He wished free access from his own house to that of the Lord. He would strengthen the link between the two houses — keep his line of communication open (to use a military figure) with the source of his supplies of strength and wisdom. This is one of the secrets of his prosperity and power.

"Moreover he built cities in the mountains of Judah, and in the forests he built castles and towers." He built where most men would have thought it unnecessary, or too much trouble — in the "mountains" and "forests." He neglected no part of his kingdom, but sought to strengthen and fortify it everywhere. And as a result, he prospered. "He fought also with the king of the Ammonites, and prevailed against them. And the children of Ammon gave him the same year a hundred talents of silver, and ten thousand measures of wheat, and ten thousand of barley. So much did the children of Ammon pay unto him, both the second year and the third. So Jotham became mighty, because he prepared his ways before the Lord his God." That high gate between the palace and the temple was better than a Chinese wall around his kingdom. It is in communion with God that all real prosperity and power is found.

"Now the rest of the acts of Jotham, and all his wars, and his ways, lo, they are written in the book of the kings of Israel and Judah." "All his wars" implies that during his sixteen years' reign he was actively engaged in conflict with enemies, subduing some, like the Ammonites, and repelling the invasions of others (Rezin king of Syria, and Pekah king of Israel). His "ways" too were written. God's saints are called to walk, as well as to war. "I have fought a good fight," said one; "I have finished my course," he also adds. This last was his "ways." Ours, like king Jotham's, "are written in the book." May we say then, like another Hebrew king, "I will take heed to my ways"! (Ps. 37: 1). Jotham is the only one of all the Hebrew kings, from Saul down, against whom God has nothing to record. In this his character is in beautiful accord with his name, Jehovah -perfect. "All the world," we know, is "guilty before God." "All have sinned," God says. But in his public life, Jotham, like Daniel, was perfect, or blameless. "We" — Daniel's enemies say — "shall not find anything against this Daniel, except we find it against him concerning the law of his God." Yet this same Daniel says, "I was confessing my sin" (Dan. 6: 5; 9: 20). Man saw nothing to condemn: Daniel knew God's eye saw much. And, like the honest man that he was, he puts it on record with his own hand that he had sins to be confessed to God.

"And Jotham slept with his fathers, and they buried him in the city of David: and Ahaz his son reigned in his stead." Had Micah Jotham's death in mind when he wrote, "The godly [man] hath perished out of the land"? (Micah 7: 2, New Tr.) From what follows in the chapter, down to the 7th verse, it would appear so. The violence, fraud, bribery, treachery, and other forms of wickedness described here, is just what prevailed after Jotham, under Ahaz' infamous rule. Jotham was indeed a godly man, and well might the righteous say on his death, "Help, Lord, for the godly man ceaseth!" or, "is gone."

The record of his reign is brief, but full of brightness. His "memory," like that of all "the just," "is blessed." He was the tenth of Judah's kings, and God always claims His tithe; and in Jotham, the "Jehovah-perfect," it was found.

AHAZ (possessor.)

(2 Kings 16; 2 Chron. 28.)

Contemporary Prophets: ISAIAH; MICAH; HOSEA; ODED.

"It is an abomination to kings to commit wickedness: for the throne is established by righteousness." — Proverbs 16: 12.

Ahaz was wicked as his father Jotham was righteous. "Ahaz was twenty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem: but he did not that which was right in the sight of the Lord, like David his father: for he walked in the ways of the kings of Israel, and made also molten images for Baalim. Moreover he burnt incense in the valley of the son of Hinnom, and burnt his children in the fire, after the abominations of the heathen whom the Lord had cast out before the children of Israel. He sacrificed also and burnt incense in the high places" (not removed in Jotham's day, 2 Kings 15: 35), "and on the hills, and under every green tree." It seems strange that the best of men frequently have the worst of sons. Ahaz' mother is not mentioned, and it is possible that his father was unfortunate in his choice of a wife. A king with the heavy responsibilities of government pressing constantly upon him can have little time to give to the training of his children: that important duty must fall largely on the mother. It was not every king of Judah that was blessed with such a mother as king Lemuel's (Prov. 31).

But whoever, or whatever, Ahaz' mother may have been, he was himself responsible for his idolatrous deeds, and God punished him accordingly. "Wherefore the Lord his God delivered him into the hand of the king of Syria; and they smote him, and carried away a great multitude of them captives, and brought them to Damascus. And he was also delivered into the hand of the king of Israel, who smote him with a great slaughter." These statements in no way clash with what is recorded in 2 Kings 16: 5 — that these confederate kings "could not overcome him." They could not get into the city, nor reach the king personally, though they entered the land. "God delivered him," and "they smote him," means his people and kingdom. Elath was also lost to Judah at this time (2 Kings 16: 5). It was the purpose of "the two tails of these smoking firebrands" to dethrone king Ahaz, and set up in his stead "the son of Tabeal" (a Syrian, probably; it is not a Hebrew name). It was doubtless Satan's plot, if not man's, to destroy the Davidic dynasty; and God, for this reason, did not deliver Jerusalem into their hands. But the slaughter and slavery of the people at large throughout the kingdom was something almost unparalleled. See 2 Chron. 28: 6. This is why Isaiah took with him his son Shear-jashub (the remnant shall return), when he went forth to meet king Ahaz. There should be a remnant left to return to the land; and the virgin should bear a son, so there should not fail a king upon the throne of David. The dynasty could never be destroyed, for of Immanuel's kingdom there shall be no end. See Isa. 7.

"Pekah the son of Remaliah slew in Judah a hundred and twenty thousand in one day, which were all valiant men" — the flower of Ahaz' army — "because they had forsaken the Lord God of their fathers." And though the king himself escaped, God's rod reached him through his son: "And Zichri, a mighty man of Ephraim, slew Maaseiah the king's son." He also slew the "governor of the house," and "Elkanah that was next to the king." How, or where, we know not. God can find the guilty where and when He will.

"And the children of Israel carried away captive of their brethren two hundred thousand, women, sons and daughters, and took away also much spoil from them, and brought the spoil to Samaria. But a prophet of the Lord was there, whose name was Oded: and he went out before the host that came to Samaria, and said unto them, Behold, because the Lord God of your fathers was wroth with Judah, He hath delivered them into your hand, and ye have slain them in a rage that reacheth up unto heaven. And now ye purpose to keep under the children of Judah and Jerusalem for bondmen and bondwomen unto you: but are there not with you, even with you, sins against the Lord your God?" — alas, how many and how great were Israel's sins! "Now hear me therefore, and deliver the captives again, which ye have taken captive of your brethren: for the fierce wrath of the Lord is upon you and they were themselves, in a few short years, carried captive beyond Babylon. "Then certain of the heads of the children of Ephraim, Azariah the son of Johanan, Berechiah the son of Meshillemoth, and Jehizkiah the son of Shallum, and Amasa the son of Hadlai, stood up against them that came from the war, and said unto them, Ye shall not bring in the captives hither: for whereas we have offended against the Lord already, ye intend to add more to our sins and to our trespass: for our trespass is great, and there is fierce wrath against Israel."

Here is faithfulness and denunciation of sin where one might least expect it — in the city of Samaria, and from leaders, heads of the people. There were not ten righteous men in Sodom; and Samaria, one might think, was not much better. But all there had not bowed the knee to Baal, and they speak for truth and right with boldness in the very face of a returning, victorious army. And their words have the desired effect; for the wicked will sometimes give heed to the words of the righteous in a most wonderful way. "So the armed men left the captives and the spoil before the princes and all the congregation. And the men which were expressed by name rose up, and took the captives, and with the spoil clothed all that were naked among them, and arrayed them, and shod them, and gave them to eat and to drink, and anointed them, and carried all the feeble of them upon asses, and brought them to Jericho, the city of palm trees, to their brethren: then they returned to Samaria." Their conduct was morally beautiful, especially when looked at upon the dark background of the evil times and kingdom in which they lived. And the righteous Lord who loveth righteousness has seen to it that these men of tender heart and upright conscience should be "expressed by name." The incident is like a little gleam of light shining out of the rapidly deepening darkness, and the God of Israel has placed it on eternal record, and published it abroad, that men might know that He never forgets a kindness done to His people, even when they suffer, under His government, the just punishment of their sins.

"At that time did king Ahaz send unto the kings of Assyria to help him." Yes, it was "at that time,"when Israel, the last, was first, and Ahaz, on the throne of David, frantically invoking the aid of the Assyrian, became last. The Edomites, emboldened, doubtless, by the success of Rezin and Pekah, invaded the land and "carried away captives." The Philistines also invaded "the low country, and the south of Judah," and settled themselves in the captured cities. "For the Lord brought Judah low because of Ahaz king of Israel; for he made Judah naked [lawless, N. Tr.], and transgressed sore against the Lord."

The days were indeed dark: a cloud of gloom had settled over the once fair land and kingdom of David. Stroke succeeded stroke, and humiliation followed humiliation. But there was no national repentance, and the king (the responsible cause of it all) only hardened himself in rebellion and folly. The king of Assyria came, but, instead of really helping him, "distressed him." He took the treasure Ahaz "stripped" for him from the house of the Lord, and from his own house, and the houses of the princes. It was just as the prophet Isaiah had forewarned him: "The Lord shall bring upon thee, and upon thy people, and upon thy father's house, days that have not come, from the days that Ephraim departed from Judah; even the king of Assyria" (Isa. 7: 17). He trusted in man, made flesh his arm, his heart departing from the Lord, and brought upon himself and kingdom the consequent curse and barrenness (Jer. 17: 5). "And in the time of his distress did he trespass yet more against the Lord." How different was his great ancestor David! "In my distress," he says, "I called upon the Lord, and cried unto my God "(Ps. 18: 6). Even his wicked grandson Manasseh sought the Lord his God "when he was in affliction." But Ahaz seemed determined to fill up the measure of his sins, and, like the apostates of Christendom during the outpouring of "the vials of the wrath of God upon the earth," who, though "they gnawed their tongues for pain," still "blasphemed the God of heaven," and repented not of their deeds to give Him glory (Rev. 16). Each humiliating disaster, instead of turning Ahaz to God, drove him further into sin. It is plainly seen therefore why the inspired chronicler should despisingly write, "This is that king Ahaz!"

Oh, the blind delusion of demon-worship! — "He sacrificed unto the gods of Damascus, which smote him : and he said, Because the gods of the kings of Syria help them, therefore will I sacrifice to them, that they may help me. But they were the ruin of him, and of all Israel." He says, in effect, "Jehovah does not help me as the deities of the Syrian kings help them; so it is better for me to forsake Him and worship gods that will do me some good." So he "gathered together the vessels of the house of God, and cut in pieces the vessels of the house of God, and shut up the doors of the house of the Lord." His apostasy was now complete. "And he made him altars [for false gods] in every corner of Jerusalem. And in every several city of Judah he made high places to burn incense unto other gods, and provoked to anger the Lord God of his fathers." How far can they fall who, instead of being obedient to the word of God, are moved and governed by everything which has some present, apparent success!

How shameful is his obsequious appeal to the king of Assyria — "I am thy servant and thy son: come up, and save me out of the hand of the king of Syria" — and that greedy monarch, for the silver and gold sent him, went to Damascus and slew Rezin, its king. "And king Ahaz went to Damascus to meet Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria" — at his command perhaps, to do him honor personally — "and saw an altar that was at Damascus: and king Ahaz sent to Urijah the priest the fashion of the altar, and the pattern of it, according to all the workmanship thereof. And Urijah the priest built an altar according to all that king Ahaz had sent from Damascus: so Urijah the priest made it against king Ahaz came from Damascus. And when the king was come from Damascus, the king saw the altar: and the king approached to the altar, and offered thereon. And he burnt his burnt-offering and his meat-offering, and poured his drink-offering, and sprinkled the blood of his peace-offerings, upon the altar." The pattern of the altar caught his ritualistic eye, and he must needs imitate it — not unlike a class to-day who go to Rome for novelties, and then set up at home cheap imitations in churches that were once called Protestant. The real Rome awes men (for Babylon is "the GREAT"), but her little imitators move us only to pity. King Ahaz finds in Urijah the high priest a willing tool to his idolatrous designs. Untrue to his name (light of Jehovah), he yields unscrupulous obedience to his sovereign's orders, instead of rebuking him for his abominable act. For his degrading subserviency, probably, his name is omitted from the sacerdotal list in 1 Chron. 6: 4-15, Better have lost life than honor — when it is that true and eternal honor "which comes from God."

On this altar of new design Ahaz offers every kind of offering excepting that which he needed most for himself — the sin-offering. The plain brazen altar ("which was before the house of the Lord") seems to have offended his esthetic eye; so it was relegated to a place of comparative obscurity on the north side of his own foreign substitute. He arrogantly commanded the high priest as to what, and how, and when, to offer on his altar. And the unworthy successor of Jehoiada and Zechariah slavishly obeyed to the letter. "Thus did Urijah the priest, according to all that king Ahaz commanded." He reversed the apostles' maxim, that we "ought to obey God rather than men." He was of another mind: his eye was on the honor that comes from man; theirs was on that which comes from God.

"And king Ahaz cut off the borders [Heb., panels] of the bases, and removed the laver from off them; and took down the sea from off the brazen oxen that were under it, and put it upon a pavement of stones." Probably to obtain the precious metals of which they were made, these sacrilegious innovations were introduced. "And the covert for the sabbath" — (covered way) to be used on the sabbath by the royal worshipers — "that they had built in the house [of God], and the king's entry without, turned he from the house of the Lord for the king of Assyria." It was the high-gate that his father Jotham had so significantly rebuilt. Ahaz appears to have profaned it to the use of Tiglath-pileser when worshiping his false gods (at Ahaz' altar perhaps) on his visit to Jerusalem. "And the brazen altar," he said, "shall be for me to inquire by," or "consider." He either meant that he should use it for purposes of divination, — linking Jehovah's great name with his base idolatries, — or he would "consider" what should ultimately be done with it. And we Christians "have an altar," even Christ, our Creator-Redeemer, whom profane unitarian Higher Critics and others dare to debase and degrade before their deceived disciples, removing Him from His place of absolute preeminence, (like Ahaz with God's altar,) putting Him beside others, like Zoroaster and Confucius, for "odious" comparison! And already they "consider" what they shall finally do with Him — relegate Him to a place even of inferiority to some of their heathen Asiatic reformers! And what shall the end be? We know: "Another shall come in his own name," and him they "will receive" (John 5: 43). The "man of sin — the son of perdition" — is to arise; and "because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved, . . . God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie," etc. (2 Thess. 2 10, 11.)

"Now the rest of his acts and of all his ways, first and last, behold, they are written in the book of the kings of Judah and Israel." "His acts," and "his ways"! God too has "ways" and "acts." "He made known His ways unto Moses, His acts unto the children of Israel" (Ps. 103: 7). His ways were the manifestations of His nature; His acts more the displays of His power. "All his ways," it is said of Ahaz. And what manifestations of his heart's wickedness did his life of thirty-six years bring out! It is little wonder that the inspiring Spirit led the chronicler to call him "king of Israel" (2 Chron. 28: 19) — so like was he to the nineteen idolatrous rulers of the northern kingdom. Even his people who shared in his wickedness are called "Israel," instead of Judah (2 Chron. 28: 23). But there must have been some sense of righteousness (or shame) left in them; for we read, "They buried him in the city, even in Jerusalem: but they brought him not into the sepulchres of the kings of Israel." Corrupt as they themselves were, they felt that their late king had so exceeded in wickedness that it was not meet to lay his body among those of his royal ancestors.

The Philistines, who had good cause to fear the kings of Judah, had a special prophecy written for them by Isaiah at this time, bidding them not to rejoice at king Ahaz' death: "In the year that king Ahaz died was this burden." See Isa. 14: 28-32, paragraphed as in N.Tr. He appears to have been little influenced by the faithful ministry of the evangelist-prophet. He was apparently a man of esthetic tastes (as even the ungodliest of men may be), from his admiration of the Damascus altar; he was also interested in the sciences, it would seem, from his introduction into Jerusalem of the Chaldean sun-dial (2 Kings 20: 11). Nor was he of a persecuting spirit, apparently, for he did not, like his grandson Manasseh, shed innocent blood, nor put to death the prophets. He was possessed (Ahaz — possessor) of much that men admire and magnify to-day; but all this, without godliness, is of absolutely no worth. Impenitent to the last, apparently, he died as he had lived: "and Hezekiah his son reigned in his stead."

HEZEKIAH (Strength of Jehovah.)

2 Kings 18 — 21; 2 Chron. 29 — 32; Isa. 38, 39.

Contemporary Prophets: ISAIAH; MICAH; NAHUM; HOSEA.

"The king by judgment establisheth the land: but he that receiveth gifts overthroweth it." — Proverbs 29: 4.

"HEZEKIAH began to reign when he was five and twenty years old, and he reigned nine and twenty years in Jerusalem." We are confronted here with what has been considered one of the greatest chronological difficulties of the Bible. In few words, it is this: Ahaz, Hezekiah's father, began his reign, Scripture says, when he was twenty years of age, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem. And Hezekiah, it says, was twenty-five years old when he ascended the throne. This seems to teach that Ahaz was but eleven years old when Hezekiah his son was born, which is altogether unlikely, if not impossible. Josephus does not touch upon the difficulty; he possibly felt there was none. Modern commentators have suggested various solutions of the problem, none of which is satisfactory. Fausset says "twenty" in 2 Kings 16: 2 is "a transcriber's error" for "twenty-five"; citing the LXX., Syriac and Arabic of 2 Chron. 28: 1. But, in reply to this, one pertinently writes: "We may observe, that it is never advisable to find any fault with the text except where there is no other tolerable solution, which is not the case here." The LXX. and other versions reading "twenty-five" for "twenty" in 2 Chron. 28: 1 prove nothing, except, it may be, a tampering with the original text in order to get rid of a seemingly inexplicable difficulty.

Two legitimate explanations offer themselves. 1st, It is quite possible a break of some years may have occurred in king Ahaz' reign, either when he went to Damascus to meet Tiglath-pileser (2 Kings 16: 10); or, which seems more likely, when the king of Assyria came himself to Jerusalem (2 Kings 16: 18; 2 Chron. 28: 20, 21), and "distressed him." It would not be at all unlike these Assyrian kings for Tiglath-pileser to temporarily depose the king of Judah during his sojourn in those parts. 2nd, Scripture does not say that Hezekiah began to reign immediately after the death of his father. True, the usual form of words is used — "Ahaz slept with his fathers . . . and Hezekiah his son reigned in his stead" (2 Chron. 28: 27). But similar words are used in 2 Kings 15: 30: "And Hoshea the son of Elah made a conspiracy against Pekah the son of Remaliah, and smote him, and slew him, and reigned in his stead," when, in point of fact, he did not actually begin to reign until at least nine years later, as Scripture chronologists are generally agreed. (Compare 2 Kings 16: 1 and 17: 1.) So a number of years, Scripture permits us to believe, may have elapsed between the death of Ahaz (owing to the unsettled state of his kingdom) and the accession of Hezekiah. This would entirely do away with any difficulty as to Ahaz' immature age at the birth of his first-born.

In support of the first explanation it must be borne in mind that it is nothing unusual in Scripture to take no note of interruptions or breaks in chronology (compare 1 Kings 6: 1 and Acts 13: 18-22; the first, 480 years; the second, 573 — a difference of ninety-three years, just the number of years of Israel's five servitudes of 8, 18, 20, 7, and 40, under Mesopotamia, Moab, Canaan, Midian, and Philistia, respectively. See Judges 3: 8; 3: 14; 4: 3; 6: 1; 13: 1. The Ammonite oppression must be omitted, not being truly in the land, but "on the other side Jordan" (see Judges 10: 8); just as several generations are frequently omitted in the genealogies. If it is urged against either of these solutions that it would interfere with the harmony of the table of dates in this volume, it is replied that there is absolutely no positive proof that the interregnum between the reigns of Pekah and Hoshea was of nine years' duration. The calculation is based wholly on the figures used in reference to Ahaz and Hezekiah. As to any interference with late Old Testament chronology as a whole, it needs only to be said that chronologists are by no means agreed here, as in other portions of the Old Testament. Nor are the Hebrew, Septuagint and Samaritan texts in harmony as to dates. God seems purposely to have left the matter of dates somewhat undecided; nor is it for us "to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in His own power."

But we proceed with Hezekiah: "His mother's name was Abia, the daughter of Zechariah." Her father was perhaps one of the two faithful witnesses of Isa. 8: 2. Or, she may have been a descendant of the Zechariah who guided Uzziah during the earlier portion of his reign; or even of the martyr Zechariah, slain by order of king Joash. Anyway, she must have been a true "mother in Israel" to have raised so godly a son, with such a wicked father's example before him. O ye mothers, what a responsibility is yours, and what a privilege as well, to have God, as it were, say to you, "Take this child, and nurse it for Me, and I will give thee thy wages." Abia had her "wages," surely, when she saw her son renew and reform the desolated kingdom of his father David. Frequently, in truth, the hand that rocks the cradle rules the empire, whether it be for weal or for woe.

"And he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, according to all that David his father did." If, as has been remarked, Ahaz was an extraordinarily bad man to have come of so good a father, so here the reverse is true: Hezekiah was a remarkably good man, with so notably wicked a father. How truly, and widely, does the wise Preacher's reflection as to one's successors apply, whether it be in a kingdom or the narrower circle of the household, "Who knoweth whether he shall be a wise man or a fool?" (Ecc. 2: 19.)

Hezekiah began to manifest immediately what manner of king he should be. "He in the first year of his reign, in the first month, opened the doors of the house of the Lord" (which Ahaz his father had shut up), "and repaired them. And he brought in the priests and the Levites, and gathered them together into the east street, and said unto them, Hear me, ye Levites; sanctify now yourselves, and sanctify the house of the Lord God of your fathers, and carry forth the filthiness out of the holy place. For our fathers have trespassed, and done that which was evil in the eyes of the Lord our God, and have forsaken Him, and have turned away their faces from the habitation of the Lord, and turned their backs. Also they have shut up the doors of the porch, and put out the lamps, and have not burned incense nor offered burnt-offerings in the holy place unto the God of Israel. Wherefore the wrath of the Lord was upon Judah and Jerusalem, and He hath delivered them to trouble, to astonishment, and to hissing, as ye see with your eyes. For, lo, our fathers have fallen by the sword, and our sons and our daughters and our wives are in captivity for this. Now it is in my heart to make a covenant with the Lord God of Israel, that His fierce wrath may turn away from us. My sons, be not now negligent; for the Lord hath chosen you to stand before Him, to serve Him, and that ye should minister unto Him, and burn incense." He begins at the only right place — the sanctuary; and at the right time — immediately — without delay, in the first month of the first year; and it was the first day (2 Chron. 29: 17) — New-year, in fact. Whatever reforms were needed elsewhere in the kingdom, this must have precedence of them all. Other things could not be really right if this were wrong. Revival, with God, is like His judgment; it must begin at His house. See Ezek. 9: 6; 1 Peter 4: 17. "Let them make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them," was Jehovah's gracious command to them at the very beginning of their existence as a nation. Solomon said in his prayer, "That Thine eyes may be open toward this house night and day, even toward the place of which Thou hast said, My name shall be there." The temple was to the kingdom as the heart to the body — when it ceased to pulsate with activity and life, the body politic, or nation, could not but languish, stagnate, and die. If God had chosen them as His own peculiar nation out of all the rest, He must have the central place among them; His authority and claims must be recognized if they wished to be prospered by Him. So is it in this day of Church dispensation.

"My sons," he calls the priests and Levites, in true fatherly love to them, as every king should have toward his people. "The father of the coming [millennial] age," is one of the titles of our Lord Christ, who, as God's model King, shall reign over the happy inhabitants of the millennial earth in the glorious day now not far off. See Isa. 9: 6, N.Tr.

"Then the Levites arose; . . . and they gathered their brethren, and sanctified themselves, and came, according to the commandment of the king, by the words of the Lord, to cleanse the house of the Lord. And the priests went into the inner part of the house of the Lord to cleanse it, and brought out all the uncleanness that they found in the temple of the Lord into the court of the house of the Lord. And the Levites took it, to carry it out abroad into the brook Kidron." On the eighth day the work was finished, the Sabbath, probably; and on the sixteenth day "they made an end." They began at the inner sanctuary, and ended at the porch. God always works from within — not like man, from the outside. God looks on the heart, and is not, like man, satisfied with a fair external appearance.

"Moreover all the vessels, which king Ahaz in his reign did cast away in his transgressions," they re-sanctified, and set them before the altar of burnt-offering, which they had also cleansed, with the shewbread table. "Then Hezekiah the king rose up early, and gathered the rulers of the city, and went up to the house of the Lord." There they offered "a sin-offering for the kingdom, and for the sanctuary, and for Judah." Then an atonement was made for all Israel: "for the king commanded that the burnt-offering and the sin-offering should be made for all Israel." His fatherly heart went out toward all the tribes. He loved and thought of them all, even though the bulk of them were divided from him, and subjects of the murderous conspirator Hoshea. He set Levites in the temple "with cymbals, and psalteries, and with harps," and the priests stood with the trumpets. "And when the burnt-offering began, the song of the Lord began also with the trumpets, and with the instruments ordained by David king of Israel." It was a wonderful day for Jerusalem; the number of offerings brought by the people was so large that the priests could not flay them all, and had to be assisted by the Levites. "So," we read, "the service of the house of God was set in order. And Hezekiah rejoiced, and all the people, that God had prepared the people: for the thing was done suddenly."

And now comes what may be considered the crowning act of this excellent king's life. "And Hezekiah sent to all Israel and Judah, and wrote letters also to Ephraim and Manasseh, that they should come to the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, to keep the passover unto the Lord God of Israel. For the king had taken counsel, and his princes, and all the congregation in Jerusalem, to keep the passover in the second month. For they could not keep it at that time, because the priests had not sanctified themselves sufficiently, neither had the people gathered themselves together to Jerusalem. And the thing pleased the king and all the congregation." There was beautiful harmony between king and people. All was done willingly by every one. It was not as with Abijah, who "commanded Judah to seek the Lord God of their fathers" (2 Chron. 14: 4). Instead of commanding, the king consults with the people here. "So they," not he, the king only, "established a decree to make proclamation throughout all Israel, from Beersheba even to Dan, that they should come to keep the passover unto the Lord God of Israel at Jerusalem." "Because," the New Translation reads, "they had not held it for a long time, as it was written "(2 Chron. 30: 5). This may mean that before this the passover had been entirely neglected, or that it had been a long time since it was kept in the second month, "as it was written," in Num. 9: 10, 11.

If the first suggested meaning be the true one, what a condition the nation must have been in to have discontinued "for a long time," this, the primary and most significant of all their yearly feasts.* This revival in the very beginning of Hezekiah's reign is all the more remarkable in that it immediately succeeded what was probably the darkest period the kingdom of Judah had ever known. "Man's extremity is God's opportunity," certainly; and it is very frequently, if not always, "darkest just before dawn."

{*It is not likely that the Passover-feast, in which Jehovah's claims were especially remembered, would be kept during the reign of the apostate king Ahaz, at least. And has the characteristic Christian institution, "the Lord's supper," fared any better? In a large part of Christendom — that which arrogantly calls itself "The Church" — this precious remembrance of our Lord in His sufferings and death, has been prostituted to "the Mass," in which a little dough baked as a wafer is, by a Romish priest's magic words, turned into "the very flesh and blood of the Lord"; and this little wafer is worshiped as "the Host"! [Ed.}

Posts carry these circular letters of invitation "throughout all Judah and Israel," saying, "Ye children of Israel, turn again to the Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, and He will return to the remnant of you, that are escaped out of the hand of the kings of Assyria. And be ye not like your fathers, and like your brethren, which trespassed against the Lord God of their fathers, who therefore gave them up to desolation, as ye see. Now be ye not stiff-necked, as your fathers were, but yield yourselves unto the Lord, and enter into His sanctuary, which He hath sanctified forever: and serve the Lord your God, that the fierceness of His wrath may turn away from you. For if ye turn again unto the Lord, your brethren and your children shall find compassion before them that led them captive,* so that they shall come again into this land: for the Lord your God is gracious and merciful, and will not turn away His face from you, if ye return unto Him." It was a beautiful message, holding out comfort and hope to the sorrowing remnant of Israel, who had seen so many of their loved ones led away in bondage to the land of the Assyrian.

{*A large part of Israel (from the ten tribes) had already been carried away captive by the king of Assyria. (See 2 Kings chap. 17.) [Ed.}

"So the posts passed from city to city through the country of Ephraim and Manasseh even unto Zebulun: but they laughed them to scorn and mocked them. Nevertheless divers of Asher and Manasseh and of Zebulun humbled themselves, and came to Jerusalem. Also in Judah the hand of the Lord was to give them one heart to do the commandment of the king and of the princes, by the word of the Lord." Some, as we see, were glad of the exhortation (those who had suffered most from the Assyrian, probably); Ephraim, the "cake not turned," with others, impiously and impudently mocked, and made light of the messengers and their message. It is not the only occasion on which God's message received this opposite treatment. Seven hundred years later, and seven hundred miles away, at Mars Hill in Athens, Paul delivered a more solemn message from his God but with like result: "some mocked," while certain "clave unto him and believed" (Acts 17). And it is the same to-day. Hast thou, my reader, believed God's gospel message, and, like some of Asher and Manasseh and of Zebulun, "humbled" thyself, and come to Jesus? — hast thou?

"And there assembled at Jerusalem much people to keep the feast of unleavened bread in the second month, a very great congregation." They removed the unlawful altars found in the city "and cast them into the brook Kidron." They killed and ate the passover according to the law, as nearly as could be done under the circumstances. "For a multitude of the people, even many of Ephraim and Manasseh, Issachar, and Zebulun, had not cleansed themselves, yet did they eat the passover otherwise than it was written. But Hezekiah prayed for them, saying, The good Lord pardon every one that prepareth his heart to seek God, the Lord God of his fathers, though he be not cleansed according to the purification of the sanctuary." He makes intercession for the people in the spirit of the future King who shall sit "a priest upon His throne." (Zech. 6: 13.) "And the Lord hearkened to Hezekiah, and healed the people."

The feast was kept "with great gladness," with praise to God day by day on "instruments of praise." "And Hezekiah spake comfortably unto all the Levites that taught the good knowledge of the Lord." As in all true revivals, the Scriptures had their place. And how much the poor recovered people needed the instruction given them by these Levites. Everyone rejoiced (as well they might) and it was unanimously agreed "to keep other seven days." "So there was great joy in Jerusalem: for since the time of Solomon the son of David king of Jerusalem there was not the like in Jerusalem. Then the priests the Levites arose and blessed the people (see Num. 6: 23-26): and their voice was heard, and their prayer came up to His holy dwelling-place, even unto heaven."

And then appears the practical result of this wonderful fourteen days' general meeting. "Now when all this was finished, all Israel that were present went out to the cities of Judah, and brake the images in pieces, and cut down the groves, and threw down the high places and the altars out of all Judah and Benjamin, in Ephraim also and Manasseh, until they had utterly destroyed them all. Then all the children of Israel returned every man to his possession, into their own cities." Hezekiah then restores to order the priestly and Levitical services of the temple, "as it is written in the law of the Lord" (2 Chron. 31: 3). "Moreover he commanded the people that dwelt in Jerusalem to give the portion of the priests and the Levites, that they might be encouraged in the law of the Lord." There was an immediate and generous response to this thoughtful call of the king. "The children of Israel brought in abundance the first-fruits of corn, wine, and oil, and honey, and of all the increase of the field; and the tithe of all things brought they in abundantly." This awakening to their responsibilities towards those who ministered in holy things was not confined to the inhabitants of Jerusalem; it extended itself to all the kingdom. "And concerning the children of Israel and Judah, that dwelt in the cities of Judah, they also brought in the tithe of oxen and sheep, and the tithe of holy things." The offering continued from the third to the seventh month — all through their harvest and vintage — and were stored in heaps. "And when Hezekiah and the princes came and saw the heaps, they blessed the Lord and His people Israel." And it was meet that they should do so; for here in these material fruits of the land they beheld the fruit of God's Spirit in His people. When the king questioned the priests and Levites concerning the heaps, the chief priest "answered him and said, Since the people began to bring in the offerings into the house of the Lord, we have had enough to eat" — alas, that it should ever have been otherwise with them — "and have left plenty: for the Lord hath blessed His people; and that which is left is this great store." Chambers were prepared in the temple, by Hezekiah's command, to house this superabundant store. And they "brought in the offerings and the tithes and the dedicated things faithfully." Arrangements were made and officers appointed for the proper distribution of this store. Everything was done in systematic order, according to the king's commandment. "And thus did Hezekiah throughout all Judah, and wrought that which was good and right and truth before the Lord his God. And in every work that he began in the service of the house of God, and in the law, and in the commandments, to seek his God, he did it with all his heart" — the only way to do anything — "and prospered." He was like the happy man of Psalm 1, of whom it is said, "Whatsoever he doeth shall prosper." This was John's highest wish for the beloved and hospitable Gaius (3 John 2, N.Tr.) And it is written of the best Beloved of all, "The pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand."

So, having set in order the spiritual matters of the kingdom, Hezekiah turned to the more material things in his dominion. "He smote the Philistines, even unto Gaza, and the borders thereof, from the tower of the watchman to the fenced city" (2 Kings 18: 8). Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by the prophet Isaiah, in the year that king Ahaz died: "Rejoice not thou, Philistia, all of thee, because the rod that smote thee [Uzziah] is broken [in Ahaz' death]; for out of the serpent's root [as they regarded him] shall come forth a viper [Hezekiah], and his root shall be a fiery flying serpent," etc. (Isa. 14: 29, N.Tr.)

"And he rebelled against the king of Assyria; and served him not." It would seem that this attempt to throw off the yoke of Assyria was premature; or, perhaps, the good king went beyond his faith; for when Sennacherib invaded his kingdom, we are pained to read that he took all the fortified cities. And Hezekiah weakened and sent to him at Lachish his submission, saying, "I have offended; return from me: that which thou puttest on me will I bear." This was humiliating, though he does not grovel, like his worthless father saying, "I am thy son." His desire was right, but he may, in his zeal for the prosperity and glory of his kingdom, have anticipated God's time. Because of their former sins, Israel had become subject to the Assyrian, whom God had called; "the rod of His anger," and even though restored to righteousness under Hezekiah, God in His wise, yet gracious, government may have seen fit to allow them to suffer awhile for their past, that they might fully realize by bitter and humiliating experience what a serious thing it is for a people to turn from the living God to idols. So, poor Hezekiah (how we feel for the dear man!) pays the heavy fine imposed upon him — "three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold." To obtain this enormous amount, he had to almost strip bare the recently restored house of God and his palace of their treasures and utensils of silver and gold. He even had to strip from the temple doors and its pillars the gold that his own loving hand had but recently laid there. How it must have hurt his great and righteous heart to thus denude God's dwelling place of its wealth of glory And all because of his own hasty action, he might think.

This was in the fourteenth year of his reign (2 Kings 18: 13). Fausset says "fourteenth" is a copyist's error for "twenty-seventh." But we hear too much about these "copyist's errors." "Fourteenth" agrees with Isa. 36: 1; and it is the only number that will harmonize with Isa. 38: 5. It may be for lack of faith that men try hard to make Scripture square with profane history, or what purports to be history. Just because a date in the Bible does not come out even with Babylonian or Assyrian chronology, or disagrees with some untrustworthy heathen inscription, commentators cry "Transcriber's error"; as if imperfectly deciphered monuments and clay tablets must correct the word of God! "Fourteen" agrees with other portions and dates contained in Scripture; so, to faith, it is perfectly satisfactory, whatever Assyriologists, or commentators influenced by them, may say.

Sennacherib for some reason or other, did not depart from Hezekiah, as he had hoped. Perhaps it was impossible for Hezekiah to obtain the sum demanded by the king of Assyria; or that villainous plunderer, after receiving the required amount, may have changed his mind (if he ever really meant to let the king of Jerusalem buy him off), and determined, before he quitted the country, to possess himself of Hezekiah's capital. His intention became known to Hezekiah, "and he took counsel with his princes and mighty men." They were agreed to resist his capture of the city, and extensive preparations were made for the threatened siege. When all had been done that man could do, Hezekiah gathered the people "together to him in the street of the gate of the city," and addressed them with words of faith and courage: "Be strong and courageous," he said, "be not afraid nor dismayed for the king of Assyria, nor for all the multitude that is with him: for there be more with us than with him. With him is an arm of flesh; but with us is the Lord our God to help us, and to fight our battles." Fine words, these, and very different from his saying a short time before to Sennacherib, "I have offended," etc. His faith, though faint, had not altogether failed; and here it rises to its full height, and, like the restored Simon Peter, he is able, by his words and example, to "strengthen his brethren." "And the people rested themselves upon the words of Hezekiah king of Judah."

"After this did Sennacherib king of Assyria send his servants to Jerusalem, . . . unto Hezekiah king of Judah, and unto all Judah that were at Jerusalem, saying," etc.: then follows a harangue that for insolence and craftiness has never been exceeded. "Rabshakeh" (a title, not a name), Sennacherib's commander-in-chief, was the speaker. He was an accomplished diplomat, evidently, and delivered his artful speech in "the Jews' language." He, with his fellow-officers, "stood by the conduit of the upper pool, which is in the highway of the fuller's field" — on an eminence, probably. Hezekiah's cabinet ministers interrupt him in his discourse, saying, "Speak, I pray thee, to thy servants in the Syrian language; for we understand it: and talk not with us in the Jews' language in the ears of the people that are on the wall." They little knew the wily Rab-shakeh, who, gaining an advantage by their fear, answers: "Hath my master sent me to thy master, and to thee, to speak these words? hath he not sent me to the men which sit on the wall? . . . Then Rab-shakeh stood and cried with a loud voice in the Jews' language, and spake, saying," etc. He does his best to frighten the populace, "shut up like a bird in a cage," as Sennacherib's own inscription states. He hoped to incite sedition in the city, in order to get possession without laying siege to it. But he labored in vain; "the people held their peace, and answered him not a word: for the king's commandment was, saying, Answer him not."

His speech produced distress, however, and the king's officers came to Hezekiah "with their clothes rent, and told him the words of Rab-shakeh." And Hezekiah "rent his clothes, and covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the house of the Lord." He turns to the true source of comfort in the dark hour; and also sent to Isaiah the prophet, saying, "Thus saith Hezekiah, This day is a day of trouble, and of rebuke, and blasphemy" (for Sennacherib's servants had spoken against the Lord God, against the God of Jerusalem, as against the gods of the people of the earth, which were the work of men's hands); "for the children are come to the birth, and there is not strength to bring forth. It may be the Lord thy God will hear all the words of Rab-shakeh, whom the king of Assyria his master hath sent to reproach the living God; and will reprove the words which the Lord thy God hath heard: wherefore lift up thy prayer for the remnant that are left."

The prophet's reply is brief and decisive: "And Isaiah said unto them, Thus shall ye say to your master, Thus saith the Lord, Be not afraid of the words which thou hast heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed Me. Behold, I will send a blast upon him, and he shall hear a rumor, and shall return to his own land; and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land."

Sennacherib, anxious to leave the country, yet unwilling to let such a stronghold as Jerusalem remain untaken, despatched a letter to the king, hoping against hope to frighten him into capitulation. "And Hezekiah received the letter of the hand of the messengers, and read it: and Hezekiah went up into the house of the Lord, and spread it before the Lord." How beautiful his childlike trust in the God of Israel! And there in the temple he prays as only a saint in his hour of distress can pray. (Read 2 Kings 19: 15-19.) God answers him through a message from Isaiah, in which full deliverance is assured him. "Therefore," it concludes, "thus saith the Lord concerning the king of Assyria, He shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with shield, nor cast a bank against it. By the way that he came, by the same shall he return, and shall not come into this city, saith the Lord. For I will defend this city, to save it, for Mine own sake, and for My servant David's sake. And it came to pass that night, that the angel of the Lord went out, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred fourscore and five thousand: and when they [or, 'men'] arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses. So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed, and went and returned, and dwelt at Nineveh. And it came to pass, as he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god, that Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons smote him with the sword: and they escaped into the land of Armenia."

"So let all Thine enemies perish, O Lord;

But let them that love Him be as the sun when he goeth forth in his might."

"Thus the Lord saved Hezekiah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem from the hand of Sennacherib the king of Assyria, and from the hand of all other, and guided [lit., protected] them on every side. And many brought gifts unto the Lord to Jerusalem, and presents to Hezekiah king of Judah: so that he was magnified in the sight of all nations from thenceforth."

"In those days was Hezekiah sick unto death." "Those days" must refer to the time of the Assyrian invasion, or immediately after Sennacherib came up, in the fourteenth year of Hezekiah's reign; as fifteen years, the prophet said, should be added to his life. As he reigned twenty-nine years, there is no difficulty whatever in fixing the exact time of his sickness. Men make difficulties for themselves (where there really are none) by giving heed to uncertain monumental records, instead of abiding by the simple and sure statements of Holy Scripture.

"And the prophet Isaiah the son of Amoz came to him, and said unto him, Thus saith the Lord, Set thy house in order; for thou shalt die, and not live." Isaiah "came to him," it says. He had not gone personally to him, but sent word by a messenger, at the time of Sennacherib's investment of the city. Some have thought from this, and from certain passages in his prophecy, that there was a coolness, or even estrangement, between the prophet and the king, over his rebellion against Assyria. More likely it was the prophet's age (he must have been near eighty) that prevented him from going to the king. We can understand too how, when Hezekiah lay at the point of death, he would make a special effort to see him face to face. He was sent with heavy tidings to the childless king; and little wonder it was that the announcement of his death distressed him. True to his habit and faith in God, Hezekiah turns to Him in distress; and almost before he called, God answered. The prophet had not yet reached the middle court when God said to him, "Turn again, and tell Hezekiah the captain of My people, Thus saith the Lord, the God of David thy father, I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears: behold, I will heal thee: on the third day thou shalt go up to the house of the Lord. And I will add unto thy days fifteen years; and I will deliver thee and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria; and I will defend this city for Mine own sake, and for My servant David's sake." His full recovery was on the "third day." It is the day of resurrection (see Hosea 6: 2); and on that day Judah received her king as it were, in figure, from the dead. His cure was in answer to prayer, though means were used — "a lump of figs." It is often more humble, and more according to God, to use means than not to use them. If the incident is typical, and the king's recovery on the third day (answering to the passage in Hosea) foreshadows Israel's national restoration, or resurrection, as in Dan. 12: 2, we would naturally connect the lump of figs with Matt. 21: 19-21 and 24: 32 — figure of Israel, now under death and the curse of God, but yet to revive and bear fruit. This is not pressed, but only suggested. But as "God's commandment is exceeding broad," so is His blessed Word very full; and it is "not of any private (or separate) interpretation."

Hezekiah quite properly asks for a sign to assure himself of his recovery. His hypocritical father, in mock modesty, refused to ask for a sign. He used a pious phrase in his refusal, saying, "I will not tempt the Lord." But he was not asked to "tempt God." God Himself had told him to ask for a sign. Unbelief and self-will were at the bottom of his blank refusal, though covered under this pious phrase. And he was not the last of religious unbelievers to use the same expression, and for a like purpose. (See Isa. 7.)

God gives the anxious king a sign; and a wonderful sign it was. The shadow turned back on the dial of Ahaz ten degrees, in answer to the prophet's prayer. It was a miracle, whatever way we take it. God could have reversed the revolution of the earth, had He seen fit to do so — for he is a poor clockmaker even, who cannot turn the hands of his own workmanship backward; or He could have caused the phenomenon by the ordinary law of refraction, or even by volcanic pressure from beneath have altered the inclination of the dial's gnomon for the time being. In any case it was a miracle, whatever the rationalist or skeptical astronomer may say to the contrary.

The news of this miracle reached Chaldea, and a deputation was sent from Babylon "to inquire of the wonder that was done in the land." And it was in "the business" of these "ambassadors" that the recovered king was ensnared with pride. The "letter" and the "present" from the king of Babylon were too much for his latent vanity — native to us all. What Sennacherib's letter and deputation of offensive diplomats could not effect (for they drove him to his knees), the letter and friendly commission from Merodach-baladan accomplished — to his ruin almost, and that of his kingdom. How like the Christian and this world! Its frown is comparatively powerless; it is its subtle favor that we have most to fear. "Hezekiah rendered not again according to the benefit done unto him; for his heart was lifted up" — not, as with Jehoshaphat, "in the ways of the Lord" (see 2 Chron. 17: 6): "therefore there was wrath upon him, and upon Judah and Jerusalem. Notwithstanding Hezekiah humbled himself for the pride of his heart, both he and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the wrath of the Lord came not upon them in the days of Hezekiah." It was not spiritual pride, as with his great-grandfather Uzziah; but worldly pride — "the pride of life," we might say. It was his precious things, his armor, his treasures, his house, his dominion, etc., that he showed the ambassadors from Babylon. When the prophet came to reprove him, he significantly asked, "What have they seen in thy house?" "All that is in my house have they seen," Hezekiah answered; "there is nothing among my treasures that I have not showed them." Why did he not show these learned heathen God's house? "every whit" of which showeth "His glory" (Ps. 29: 9, marg.). There he could have explained to them the meaning of the brazen altar, and the sacrifices offered thereon; and who can tell what the result might not have been in the souls of these idolaters? They were brought to Hezekiah's very doors by one of God's wonders in creation; why did he not embrace the opportunity of showing them of His higher wonders of redemption? But no; they were shown what displayed the glory of the poor pride-filled king. The "benefit done to him" was apparently forgotten. He did not ask, like his great father David, "What shall I render unto the Lord for all His benefits toward me?" and who also said, "Forget not all His benefits." And we Christians, in a very much higher sense, have been made "partakers of the benefit." May we, in return, render unto God the glory due unto His name.

"God left him," it is said of Hezekiah, "to try him, that he might know what was in his heart." (See Deut. 8: 2.) He learned, to his shame and sorrow, that there was a vast amount of ego there. It was well to know it, that it might be judged and put away before he should be betrayed by it into deeper and more serious sin. But when he hears the judgment pronounced by the prophet on his posterity, he meekly submits, and says, "Good is the word of the Lord which thou hast spoken. He said moreover, For there shall be peace and truth in my days." Of this last, one aptly remarks: "Not the language of mere selfishness, but of one feeling that the national corruption must at last lead to the threatened judgment; and thanking God for the stroke being deferred yet for a time."

"And Hezekiah had exceeding much riches and honor." "God had given him substance very much." "And Hezekiah prospered in all his works." His scribes "copied out" a selection of Solomon's proverbs (Prov. 25: 1). Isaiah and other chroniclers recorded "the rest of his acts and goodness" (Heb., good works).

"And Hezekiah slept with his fathers, and they buried him in the chiefest of the sepulchres of the sons of David: and all Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem did him honor at his death. And Manasseh his son reigned in his stead."

Of all the kings of Judah since the days of Solomon, Hezekiah is the "burning and shining light." It was left to him to break in pieces the brazen serpent made by Moses in the wilderness. It had become a snare to the nation; for up to Hezekiah's day they had burned incense unto it. "And he called it Nehushtan" — a piece of brass (2 Kings 18: 4). His reforming predecessors had lacked either the discernment to see the element of idolatry in the superstitious reverence shown it, or lacked the holy courage to destroy it in the face of popular opposition, probably. It had been used by God in the wilderness as a type of Christ "made sin" for our salvation, but the nation had degraded it (and themselves) by regarding it with a semi-idolatrous spirit, like Rome and its pretended relics of "the true cross," "the holy sepulchre," and what not. Hezekiah, to his honor be it said, did not hesitate to remove this occasion of offence, calling it what it really was — a [mere] piece of brass.

"And the rest of the acts of Hezekiah, and all his might, and how he made a pool, and a conduit, and brought water into the city, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?"

MANASSEH (Forgetting.)

(2 Kings 21: 1-18. 2 Chron. 33: 1-20.)

Contemporary Prophet, JOEL.

"The king sent and loosed him; even the ruler of the people, and let him go free." — Psalm 105: 20.

"MANASSEH was twelve years old when he began to reign, and he reigned fifty and five years in Jerusalem: but did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, like unto the abominations of the heathen, whom the Lord had cast out before the children of Israel."

"Extremes meet": here, it would seem, is one of the worst and most cruel of kings that ever reigned —  succeeding Hezekiah, of whom it was said, "After him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor any that were before him" (2 Kings 18: 5). Had this good king been able to foresee the wickedness of his unworthy son, he would doubtless have had no desire to recover from his sickness. Better by far die childless than beget a son such as Manasseh proved to be. We must not presume to judge God's honored servant, but it does appear as if he would have done better to have meekly submitted to God's will in his sickness. He could surely have left it with God to care for the succession, as he knew the covenant made with David, "ordered in all things and sure," and have spared the nation that he loved the tears and blood (to say nothing of God's honor in the matter) that his desired descendant brought them to. Nothing to his honor is recorded as done by him after his recovery from his sickness. True, his healing was in answer to prayer, and a wonderful miracle was done in pledge of it. But so it was with Israel when they requested flesh to eat. "God gave them their request; but sent leanness into their soul" (Ps. 106: 15). A miracle was performed for them too (that of the quails), in order that they might have what they persisted in desiring. But there was only One who ever and always said, "Not My will, but Thine, be done." (Comp. Ps. 21: 4.)

Manasseh quickly, it would seem, undid the work of his father's early reign — which was also done "suddenly." "For he built again the high places which Hezekiah his father had broken down, and he reared up altars for Baalim, and made groves, and worshiped all the host of heaven, and served them. Also he built altars [for idolatry] in the house of the Lord, whereof the Lord had said, In Jerusalem shall My name be for ever. And he built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the Lord. And he caused his children to pass through the fire in the valley of the son of Hinnom: also he observed times, and used enchantments, and used witchcraft, and dealt with a familiar spirit, and with wizards: he wrought much evil in the sight of the Lord, to provoke Him to anger. And he set a carved image, the idol which he had made, in the house of, God."

It is a terrible portrait to paint of any man; but of a king of Judah, and a son of Hezekiah the Good, it seems almost incredible. It makes the heart turn sick almost, to read the list of his abominations. He "made Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to err, and to do worse than the heathen, whom the Lord had destroyed before the children of Israel." It was the worst of all corruptions — the corruption of the best. The higher the fall, the deeper the plunge. Alas, in the Corinthian church too there was such sin as was "not so much as named among the Gentiles." "I was almost in all evil in the midst of the congregation and assembly," one said (Prov. 5: 14). "Worse than an unbeliever," wrote another (1 Tim. 5: 8). Language like this may sound strange to some — strangely sad, indeed, that such things can be, and have been. Look at Rome, and see it verified. One within the pale of Rome has even said, "The annals of the church are the annals of hell!" And what must the surrounding nations have thought of these "annals" of Judah — "worse than the heathen"? Of Manasseh and Judah it could then truly be said, as the apostle, by the Spirit, declared seven hundred years later, "The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles through you."

"And the Lord spake to Manasseh, and to his people: but they would not hearken." He spoke, as usual, through His prophets (2 Kings 21: 10). This was their message: "Because Manasseh king of Judah hath done these abominations, and hath done wickedly above all that the Amorites did [how terrible!], which were before him, and hath made Judah also to sin with his idols: therefore thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Behold, I am bringing such evil upon Jerusalem and Judah, that whosoever heareth of it, both his ears shall tingle. And I will stretch over Jerusalem the line of Samaria, and the plummet of the house of Ahab: and I will wipe Jerusalem as a man wipeth a dish, wiping it, and turning it upside down. And I will forsake the remnant of mine inheritance, and deliver them into the hand of their enemies; and they shall become a prey and a spoil to all their enemies; because they have done that which was evil in My sight, and have provoked Me to anger, since the day their fathers came forth out of Egypt, even unto this day."

It was an appalling, though absolutely just, arraignment, and should have brought the nation to repentance. Its threats, if nothing more, should have startled them from their sins. They knew the fate of Samaria — already fallen; and Jerusalem should receive like punishment. The house of Ahab had perished, and their kings should not escape a similar judgment. But the message was evidently lost upon them; they proved themselves a more perverse people than the "men of Nineveh" who one hundred and fifty years before had "repented at the preaching of Jonas."

What prophets God used at this time is not known. Isaiah was still alive, possibly, though very aged, and the tradition may be true which says he "was sawn asunder" — with a wooden saw. Josephus does not mention this, though he does say that Manasseh "barbarously slew all the righteous men that were among the Hebrews. Nor would he spare the prophets." (Ant. x.: 3, § 1.) "Moreover," says the inspired historian, "Manasseh shed innocent blood very much, till he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another; besides his sin wherewith he made Judah to sin, in doing that which was evil in the sight of the Lord" (2 Kings 21: 16). Wicked as his grandfather Ahaz had been, he did not, so far as we know, redden his hands with blood like this human monster Manasseh. But the reaping came at last, though harvest-time was late, perhaps, in the long-suffering patience of God. "Wherefore the Lord brought upon them the captains of the host of the king of Assyria, which took Manasseh among the thorns, and bound him with fetters, and carried him to Babylon." They refused to hear the word, so they were compelled to feel the rod. As befitted this monster of evil, Manasseh was brought in chains to Babylon.

Scripture gives no hint as to the time of this event, but it appears from Assyrian monuments to have been somewhere about the middle of his reign. It was the old and oft-demonstrated law of retribution working itself out: the occasion of the sin becoming the instrument of its punishment. Hezekiah sinned in the "matter of the ambassadors" from Babylon, and it is to Babylon that his son Manasseh goes as a captive.

"And when he was in affliction, he besought the Lord his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers, and prayed unto Him: and He was entreated of him, and heard his supplication, and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that Jehovah He was God." "He humbled himself greatly," as well he might, for his guilt indeed was very great. "When he was in affliction" — no doubt, he owned the justice of his punishment. "I know, O Lord," he could say, "that Thy judgments are right, and that Thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me" (Ps. 119: 75).

We have no details of Manasseh's sufferings in his Babylonian captivity. God takes no pleasure in the punishment of His people, and very tenderly covers with the veil of silence all that can be profitably kept back. He heard Manasseh's bitter cry of repentance and entreaty, and restored him to his kingdom. This was grace indeed — "grace abounding."

On his return to Jerusalem he began to build and fortify, "and put captains of war in all the fenced cities." But, what was better, "he took away the strange gods, and the idol out of the house of the Lord, and all the altars that he had built in the mount of the house of the Lord, and in Jerusalem, and cast them out of the city. And he repaired the altar of the Lord, and sacrificed thereon peace-offerings and thank-offerings, and commanded Judah to serve the Lord God of Israel." He undertook to undo, as far as possible, his former works of wickedness. His name Manasseh means forgetting; and Josephus says: "When he was come to Jerusalem, he endeavored, if it were possible, to cast out of his memory his former sins against God; of which he now repented." But the innocent lives that he had taken he could never restore, nor could he ever wholly undo the evil of his former course. So great had been his iniquity, and that of Judah with him, that God never forgave it, nationally (2 Kings 23: 26; 24: 4; Jer. 15: 4). Personally, through his confession and humiliation before God, Manasseh was forgiven; and it is good to see the great change in his after life, and that he did not forget his indebtedness to God for His matchless grace to him, as his "thank-offerings" on the restored altar indicate. He was the Old Testament "chief of sinners," a "pattern" at that time in whom God "showed forth all long-suffering," to any who should turn to Him in penitence and faith. Newton's lines, no doubt, would well express the spirit of his grateful thoughts: —

"Amazing grace! how sweet the sound,

That saved a wretch like me!

I once was lost, but now am found,

Was blind, but now I see!"

"Now the rest of the acts of Manasseh, and his prayer unto his God, and the words of the seers that spake to him in the name of the Lord God of Israel, behold, they are written in the book of the kings of Israel. His prayer also, and how God was entreated of him, and all his sins, and his trespass, and the places wherein he built high places, and set up groves and graven images, before he was humbled: behold, they are written among the sayings of the seers" (or, "Hozia," a prophet. — Keil). His mother's name was Hephzibah (my delight is in her). See Isa. 62: 4. She may have been a pious woman, and so her name not have been inappropriate to her character; but if so, she had very little influence over her son — unlike the Eunice (victorious) of a later day, and many more besides.

"And Manasseh slept with his fathers, and was buried in the garden of his own house, in the garden of Uzza: and Amon his son reigned in his stead." His body found no place of rest among the kings, showing how the consequences of sin follow men even to the grave.

The so-called "Prayer of Manasseh" in the Apocrypha is a fiction, and was even declared so by so credulous a body as the Council of Trent.

"KINGS ON THE THRONE;

Yea, He doth establish them for ever,

And they are exalted.

And if they be bound in fetters,

And be holden in cords of affliction;

Then He showeth them their work,

And their transgressions that they have exceeded.

He openeth also their ear to discipline,

And commandeth that they return from iniquity.

If they obey and serve Him,

They shall spend their days in prosperity,

And their years in pleasures. But if they obey not,

They shall perish by the sword,

And they shall die without knowledge."

— Job 36: 7-12.

AMON (Training, or skilled.)

(2 Kings 21: 19-26; 2 Chron. 33: 21-25.)

"Is it fit to say to a king, Thou art wicked? and to princes, Ye are ungodly?" — Job 34: 18.

"AMON was twenty and two years old when he began to reign, and he reigned two years in Jerusalem. And his mother's name was Meshullemeth, the daughter of Haruz of Jotbah. And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, as his father Manasseh did. And he walked in all the way that his father walked in, and served the idols that his father served, and worshiped them: and he forsook the Lord God of his fathers, and walked not in the way of the Lord."

He was probably born after his father's return from Babylon, so must have had a godly training. The expression, "he forsook the Lord," would seem to indicate that he had in his earlier days professed to worship Him. His mother's name, Meshullemeth (reconciliation, or, to be safe), might have reference to his having been born subsequently to her husband's reconciliation to the Lord, or his safe return from his Babylonian captivity. This would increase Amon's responsibility, — having had such advantages, — and consequently enhance his guilt. Her father's name, Haruz (earnest) of Jotbah (pleasantness) leads to the supposition that Amon's mother, like his grandmother, must have been a good woman. But all good women do not always prove to be good mothers; and it would be no strange or unusual thing if some of these Hebrew "heirs-apparent" to the throne were permitted to do pretty much as they pleased, and in this way prepared to act the part of self-willed transgressors and rebels against God, when the time came for them to take the kingdom. For "a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame" (Prov. 29: 15).

There is not one bright spot in this king's character to relieve the darkness of his life's brief record. He "humbled not himself before the Lord," it says, "as Manasseh his father humbled himself; but Amon trespassed more and more" (or, "multiplied trespass," marg.). So odious did he make himself, even to the backslidden people, that they rid themselves of his unwelcome presence by the hand of assassins. "And his servants conspired against him, and slew him in his own house." His subjects must have been reduced to desperate straits when they would thus violate God's expressed prohibition — "Touch not Mine anointed." Jeremiah and Zephaniah must have been youths about this time, and the former's reluctance to taking up the prophetic work to which he was called can well be understood when the true condition of affairs in Judah at that time is known. Both could see quite plainly what they might expect if faithful to their trust.

"But the people of the land slew all them that had conspired against king Amon; and the people of the land made Josiah his son king in his stead." "The people of the land," or country, may be in contradistinction to the "inhabitants of Jerusalem." The centre of light and privilege is not always the seat of righteousness and "godly sincerity," but commonly the reverse, as here, apparently. The "provincial" is frequently more loyal and upright than the imperious citizen of the capital.

The record of the reign of Amon is most briefly told — in but sixteen verses. And well it should be so. There is enough for our admonition, after the lessons given in his father's history.

"And he was buried in his sepulchre in the garden of Uzza: and Josiah his son reigned in his stead." Uzza means strength; and death, the strong one, overcame this king of Judah, trained, or skilled, in wickedness, in his twenty-fourth year.

"He passed away, and, lo, he was not; yea, I sought him, but he could not be found."

JOSIAH (Supported by Jehovah,)

(2 Kings chaps. 22, 23; 2 Chron. 34-35.)

Contemporary Prophet, JEREMIAH.

"A wise king scattereth the wicked, and bringeth the wheel over them." — Proverbs 20: 26.

"JOSIAH was eight years old when he began to reign, and he reigned thirty and one years in Jerusalem. And his mother's name was Jedidah, the daughter of Adaiah of Boscath. And he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, and walked in all the way of David his father, and turned not aside to the right hand or to the left."

At last, after more than three hundred years, the prophecy of "the man of God out of Judah" is fulfilled: "Behold, a child shall be born unto the house of David, Josiah by name; and upon thee [the idol altar at Bethel] shall he offer the priests of the high places that burn incense upon thee, and men's bones shall be burnt upon thee" (1 Kings 13: 2). "For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet young [sixteen], he began to seek after the God of David his father: and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem from the high places, and the groves, and the carved images, and the molten images. And they brake down the altars of Baalim in his presence; and the images [lit., sun-pillars], that were on high above them, he cut down; and the groves, and the carved images, and the molten images, he brake in pieces, and made dust of them, and strowed it upon the graves of them that had sacrificed unto them. And he burnt the bones of the priests upon their altars, and cleansed Judah and Jerusalem."

"God's purposes will ripen fast,"

is true, in a certain sense; yet in another sense

"The mills of God grind slow."

Scoffers long may have asked, "Where is the promise of this coming prince, this child of the house of David, named Josiah?" And as generation after generation passed, and no prince of that name appeared, even the righteous may have questioned in their minds and wondered if God had forgotten, or doubted if the prophecy were really true. Did Jedidah (beloved) know of this prophecy when she named her first-born? or the child's grandmother, Adaiah (Jah has adorned)? They were of the town of Boscath, a swell (of ground), and at last the time had come when he should rise of whom the prophet had spoken; and the prophecy was now fulfilled — as all God's word must be.

"And so did he in the cities of Manasseh, and Ephraim, and Simeon, even unto Naphtali, with their mattocks round about. And when he had broken down the altars and the groves, and had beaten the graven images into powder, and cut down all the idols throughout all the land of Israel, he returned to Jerusalem." It took six years of labor to accomplish this; and "in the eighteenth year of his reign, when he had purged the land, and the house," he commissioned his officers of state "to repair the house of the Lord his God." Levites were sent throughout the land to collect the money necessary for this work. "And they put it in the hand of the workmen that had the oversight of the house of the Lord, and they gave it to the workmen that wrought in the house of the Lord, to repair and amend the house: even to the artificers and builders gave they it, to buy hewn stone, and timber for couplings [or joists], and to floor the houses which the kings of Judah had destroyed. And the men did the work faithfully." Manasseh, though restored personally, had not the energy — or influence, perhaps — to do this work. Everything must have been in a ruined state when the young Josiah began his work of restoration.*

{*The shameful idolatry that filled the land had to be cleared away before any claim to, or restoration of, Jehovah's worship could be made. Hence this must be accomplished ere Jehovah's temple is restored — which in Hezekiah's day was done first (2 Chron. 29: 3). — Ed.}

And now a great discovery was made. A hid treasure (long lost, no doubt) was found, "better than of gold or rubies rare." "And when they brought out the money that was brought into the house of the Lord, Hilkiah the priest found a book of the law of the Lord given by Moses. And Hilkiah answered and said to Shaphan the scribe, I have found the book of the law in the house of the Lord. And Hilkiah delivered the book to Shaphan. And Shaphan carried the book to the king, and brought the king word back again, saying, All that was committed to thy servants, they do it. And they have gathered together the money that was found in the house of the Lord, and have delivered it into the hand of the overseers, and to the hand of the workmen." He says nothing of the new-found treasure as yet. It may not have been a treasure in his eyes, perhaps. Like many at the present time, he was more occupied with "workmen" and "money" than with God's book, which He has "magnified," not merely above all Christian work or missionary enterprise (though these have their place), but "above all His name." Shaphan did not despise the book, but he had not yet, like many a modern scribe, realized the importance of that blessed volume. Then — after "money," and "overseers," and "workmen," have all been mentioned — "then, Shaphan the scribe told the king, saying, Hilkiah the priest hath given me a book" — only a book! "And Shaphan read it before the king."

"And it came to pass, when the king had heard the words of the law, that he rent his clothes." He then commanded the temple curators, and his servant Asaiah, saying, "Go, inquire of the Lord for me, and for them that are left in Israel and in Judah, concerning the words of the book that is found: for great is the wrath of the Lord that is poured out upon us, because our fathers have not kept the word of the Lord, to do after all that is written in this book." It was, no doubt, the Pentateuch — either the original, as written by Moses, or the temple copy (Deut. 31: 26), used in days gone by at the coronation of their kings (See Deut. 17: 18; 2 Chron. 23: 11.) How long it had been lost is not known; probably since the beginning of Manasseh's reign at least.

"And Hilkiah, and they that the king had appointed, went to Huldah the prophetess, the wife of Shallum the son of Tokehath, the son of Hasrah, keeper of the wardrobe: now she dwelt in Jerusalem in the second quarter [of the town]; and they spoke with her to that effect" (2 Chron. 34: 22, N. Tr.). Why they did not inquire of Jeremiah, or Zephaniah (who were contemporary with Josiah (Jer. 1: 3; Zeph. 1: 1), is uncertain. Anathoth, Jeremiah's birthplace, was only three miles from Jerusalem, and so within easy reach. Both these prophets, however, may have been too young at the time to be consulted as prophets by the nation. (See Jer. 1: 2).

Huldah's answer was a most impressive one: "Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Tell ye the man that sent you to me, Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will bring evil upon this place, and upon the inhabitants thereof, even all the curses which are written in the book which they have read before the king of Judah: because they have forsaken Me . . . therefore My wrath shall be poured out upon this place, and shall not be quenched. And as for the king of Judah, who sent you to enquire of the Lord, so shall ye say unto him, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, concerning the words which thou hast heard, because thy heart was tender, and thou didst humble thyself before God, when thou heardest His words against this place, and against the inhabitants thereof, and humbledst thyself before Me; . . I have even heard thee also, saith the Lord. Behold, I will gather thee to thy fathers, and thou shalt be gathered to thy grave in peace, neither shall thine eyes see all the evil that I will bring upon this place, and upon the inhabitants of the same. So they brought the king word again."

In wrath God remembers mercy; and like his great-grandfather Hezekiah, Josiah is comforted with the assurance that there should be a postponement of these impending judgments during his day, because he, like Hezekiah, humbled himself. He at once gathered all the elders of the land together, and with them and the priests and Levites, "and all the people, great and small: and he [or, one] read in their ears all the words of the book of the covenant that was found in the house of the Lord."

"And the king stood on the dais and made a covenant before Jehovah, to walk after Jehovah, and to keep His commandments and His testimonies and His statutes with all his heart and with all his soul, to establish the words of this covenant that are written in this book. And all the people stood to the covenant" (2 Kings 23: 3, N. Tr.) On the young king's part this was all real, no doubt, but one has only to read the earlier part of Jeremiah's prophecy to see how hypocritical it was with the mass of the people. (See Jer. 3: 10, marg.) They had enthusiastically entered into covenants with the Lord before, and the outcome was always the same — breakdown, and wider departure from God than ever before.

The work of reformation is then extended: "And Josiah took away all the abominations out of all the countries that pertained to the children of Israel, and made all that were present in Israel to serve, even to serve the Lord their God. And all his days they departed not from following the Lord, the God of their fathers" (2 Chron. 34: 33).

"Moreover the altar that was at Bethel, and the high place which Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin, had made, both that altar and the high place he brake down . . . And as Josiah turned himself, he spied the sepulchres that were there in the mount, and sent, and took the bones out of the sepulchres, and burned them upon the altar, and polluted it, according to the word of the Lord which the man of God proclaimed, who proclaimed these words [O altar, altar, thus saith the Lord; Behold a child shall be born unto the house of David, Josiah by name; and upon thee shall he offer the priests of the high places that burn incense upon thee, and men's bones shall be burnt upon thee. 1 Kings 13: 2.] Then he said, What title is that that I see? And the men of the city told him, It is the sepulchre of the man of God which came from Judah, and proclaimed these things that thou hast done against the altar of Bethel. And he said, Let him alone; let no man move his bones. So they let his bones alone, with the bones of the prophet that came out of Samaria."

It is not certain if this remarkable incident occurred before, or after, the finding of the copy of the law in the temple; (see Author's Introduction). It proves however that after the lapse of at least three centuries the prophecy of the Judean prophet was still fresh in the minds of men. God not only lets none of His words fall to the ground, but takes care also that in some way or other they are preserved in the memories of those concerned in them. The "title" on the man of God's tomb would help, no doubt, to keep the occurrence from being forgotten. How awed and encouraged Josiah the king must have felt, to know that he had been named and appointed by God for the work he was doing, so many generations before. How it would tend to impress upon him the force and meaning of such scriptures as the 139th psalm. And witnessing how literally the prophecy of the man of God was fulfilled, he and all his people, would be convinced that the prophecies of Huldah and Jeremiah against themselves would in like manner be exactly fulfilled.

Moved, no doubt, by what was written in the recovered book of the law regarding it, "Josiah kept a passover unto the Lord in Jerusalem." Careful preparations were made that everything might be done according to the written word of God. It was in the eighteenth year of his reign, so was probably celebrated immediately after the completion of the temple repairs and the finding of the book. (Comp. 2 Chron. 34: 8, and 35: 19). "And he set the priests in their charges, and encouraged them to the service of the house of the Lord. And said unto the Levites, that taught all Israel, which were holy unto the Lord, Put the holy ark in the house which Solomon the son of David king of Israel did build, it shall not be a burden upon your shoulders: serve now the Lord your God and His people Israel. And prepare yourselves by the houses of your fathers, after your courses, according to the writing of David king of Israel, and according to the writing of Solomon his son." It was all to be done according to what was written. Josiah evidently took great care as to this, and so became a beautiful example for all who long to please the Lord and desire to decline "neither to the right hand nor to the left," like this godly king, from following Him. Some in the kingdom might think him too much bound to the letter of these writings, but he would have God's approval, which was quite enough. No one can say where the wilful departure of a hair's breadth may not eventually lead. The safety of all is to keep as far away from the edge of the precipice as possible. "Then shall I not be ashamed, when I have respect unto all Thy commandments" (Ps. 119: 6).

Josiah tells the Levites to put the ark in its proper place in the temple, and not bear it any longer on their shoulders. It is the last historical reference to the ark in Scripture. It would almost appear, from Jer. 3: 16, that it had been made an object of ostentatious display, and was possibly borne by the Levites in procession through the streets of Jerusalem. It is never after heard of, and probably perished when the temple was burned by the Chaldees (2 Chron. 36: 19).

The king further commands the Levites: "Kill the passover," he says, "and sanctify yourselves, and prepare your brethren, that ye may do according to the word of the Lord by the hand of Moses." And such a passover it was! — "there was no passover like to that kept in Israel from the days of Samuel the prophet; neither did all the kings of Israel keep such a passover as Josiah kept, and the priests, and the Levites, and all Judah and Israel that were present, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem." It even exceeded the great passover under Hezekiah, which had not been equaled since "the time of Solomon son of David king of Israel" (2 Chron. 30: 20). Josiah's surpassed that of all the kings, and found its compeer only in that of the prophet.

And now comes the closing act in this stirring drama of Josiah's life. "After all this, when Josiah had prepared the temple, Necho king of Egypt came up to fight against Charchemish by Euphrates: and Josiah went out against him. But he sent ambassadors to him, saying, What have I to do with thee, thou king of Judah? I come not against thee this day, but against the house wherewith I have war: for God commanded me to make haste: forbear thee from meddling with God, who is with me, that He destroy thee not." It was a fair warning, and Josiah should certainly have heeded it. Necho came against Assyria, and had no quarrel with Josiah. He was a man of enterprise and energy. It was he who attempted to connect the Red Sea with the Nile by a canal. Phenician navigators, under his patronage, circumnavigated the continent of Africa. He came by sea on this expedition, and landed at Accho. So he was not even on Josiah's territory when that king culpably marched his forces against him.

"Nevertheless Josiah would not turn his face from him, but disguised himself, that he might fight with him, and harkened not unto the words of Necho from the mouth of God,* and came to fight in the valley of Megiddo. And the archers shot at king Josiah; and the king said to his servants, Have me away; for I am sore wounded. His servants therefore took him out of that chariot, and put him in the second chariot that he had; and they brought him to Jerusalem, and he died, and was buried in one of the sepulchres of his fathers."

{*The word "from the mouth of God" may sometimes come through such as are not true servants of God. See John 11: 49-51: Num. 23: 5; Joshua 13: 22. [Ed.}

"Why shouldest thou meddle to thy hurt, that thou shouldest fall?" said the king of Israel to Amaziah, Josiah's ancestor, years before (2 Kings 14: 10). Josiah should also have been familiar with the proverb, "copied by the men of Hezekiah," "He that passeth by, and meddleth with strife belonging not to him, is like one that taketh a dog by the ears (Prov. 26: 17). And another: "It is an honor for a man to cease from strife: but every fool will be meddling" (Prov. 20: 3). It was not of faith, else why "disguise" himself? There is no record of any prayer before the battle, as in the case of so many of his godly ancestors; and this rash act of Josiah seems unaccountable. He may have suspected that Necho had some ulterior design upon his kingdom; but as the king of Egypt strongly disclaimed any such intention, Josiah's unprovoked attack upon him was wholly unjustified. And God, who is the God of peace and righteousness, would not preserve him, as he had Jehoshaphat. There is another light, too, in which Josiah's early end may be looked at. The people were utterly unworthy of such a godly ruler, and their wickedness, spite of external reformation, called loudly for judgment; so the righteous was taken away from the evil to come. Viewed from this standpoint, it was a mercy to the man himself; but to the nation, speaking after the manner of men, it was a dire calamity.

They evidently realized this, for we read, "All Judah and Jerusalem mourned for Josiah. And Jeremiah lamented for Josiah: and all the singing men and the singing women spake of Josiah in their lamentations to this day, and made them an ordinance in Israel: and, behold, they are written in the lamentations." These "lamentations" must not be confounded with Jeremiah's "Lamentations," written over (and therefore after) Jerusalem's fall. (Comp. Jer. 22: 10-13; Zech. 12: 11.)

Josiah was the last good king to sit upon the throne of David, "till HE come whose right it is." And he was the last whose body found a resting-place among the kings, "the sepulchres of his fathers."

"The memory" of this "just" and energetic king is "blessed." When only twenty years of age he began the herculean task of cleansing his kingdom of its abominations. There were "vessels that were made for Baal," and "for all the host of heaven," to be brought forth out of the temple; there were "idolatrous priests whom the kings of Judah had ordained," to be "put down" — them that burned incense to "Baal, to the sun, and to the moon, and to the planets." "And he brake down the houses of the sodomites [men consecrated to vile purposes], that were by the house of the Lord, where the women [also consecrated to heathen deities] wove hangings [tents] for the groves." "Joshua the governor of the city" had high places at the entrance of his gate which Josiah fearlessly "broke down." He took away the "horses that the kings of Judah had given to the sun, at the entering in of the house of the Lord, by the chamber of Nathan-melech the chamberlain, . . . and burned the chariots of the sun with fire." "And the altars that were on the top [or roof] of the upper chamber of Ahaz, which the kings of Judah had made, and the altars which Manasseh had made in the two courts of the house of the Lord, did the king beat down" (or shattered). He seems to have had few sympathizers, or supporters, in his reforms, and superintended some of the work personally. (See 2 Kings 23: 16.) He could not be blamed if the mass of the people were hypocritical and unreal. (See Zeph. 1: 5). Genuine repentance is not wrought by a king's command, but he did all that lay in his power, and did not permit a single visible vestige of idolatry to remain in his realm. It is significant that when this last righteous king of Judah died, the whole land was outwardly cleansed of its abominations. And when his work was done, God called him home, though an Egyptian arrow was His messenger. "And like unto him was there no king before him, that turned to the Lord with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his might, according to all the law of Moses; neither after him arose there any like him" (2 Kings 23: 25).

"Now the rest of the acts of Josiah, and his goodness, according to that which was written in the law of the Lord, and his deeds, first and last, behold, they are written in the book of the kings of Israel and Judah."

JEHOAHAZ (Jehovah-seized.)

(2 Kings 23: 30-34; 2 Chron. 36: 1-4.)

Contemporary Prophets: JEREMIAH; HABAKKUK; ZEPHANIAH.

"The kings of the earth, and all the inhabitants of the world, would not have believed that the adversary and the enemy should have entered into the gates of Jerusalem." Lamentations 4: 12.

Then the people of the land took Jehoahaz the son of Josiah, and made him king in his father's stead in Jerusalem. Jehoahaz was twenty and three years old when he began to reign, and he reigned three months in Jerusalem."

The regular succession to the throne of Judah ceased with the lamented Josiah. Jehoahaz was not the eldest son of the late king. Johanan and Jehoiakim were both older than he (1 Chron. 3: 15). He was made king by popular choice: it was the preference of the multitude, not the appointment of God. "And his mother's name was Hamutal (delight), the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah. And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his fathers had done." He and Zedekiah, the last of Judah's nineteen kings, were born of the same mother (2 Kings 24: 18). He was about nine years older than his brother Zedekiah, though in 1 Chron. 3: 15 his name is placed last, because of his much shorter reign, probably. He is likened in Ezekiel 19: 1-4 to "a young lion, and it learned to catch the prey; it devoured men." This is the only hint given us as to the character of his sin. Josephus says of him that he was "an impious man, and impure in his course of life." He was probably guilty of deeds of violence. In Jer. 22: 11 he is called, significantly, Shallum (to whom it is requited); and by this name he is registered in the royal Judean genealogy (1 Chron. 3: 15). His name is omitted from among those of our Lord's ancestors in Matt. 1. Necho, it is said, made his half-brother Eliakim "king in the room of Josiah his father," which may imply that God did not recognize Jehoahaz, the people's choice, as being in a true sense the successor.

"And the king of Egypt put him down at Jerusalem, and condemned the land in a hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold." It is elsewhere stated that he was taken to Riblah in the land of Hamath and bound; which in no wise contradicts what is quoted above. History informs us that after his victory at Megiddo, Necho intended to march to the Euphrates; but, hearing of Jehoahaz' elevation to the throne by popular acclamation, he sent a division of his army to Jerusalem, which deposed him, and brought him captive to Riblah, where Necho and his chief forces were. This he did, it is said, because he believed Jehoahaz leaned toward an alliance with Assyria against him.

"And the king of Egypt made Eliakim his brother king over Judah and Jerusalem, and turned his name to Jehoiakim. And Necho took Jehoahaz his brother, and carried him to Egypt." He never returned from Egypt. Jehoahaz (Jehovah-seized) had seized the throne that was not his by right, and in turn was seized by Necho, God's instrument, and carried to a land of exile, there to find a grave afar from the sepulchres of his fathers.

He was "anointed" at his coronation, but no extraordinary ceremony could make up for his defective title to the crown. Men have similar thoughts today; and as they feel they have no real title to a throne in heaven with Christ, they "are going about," increasing forms and elaborating ceremonies. Hence the rapid growth of Ritualism. "And the end is not yet."

JEHOIAKIM (Whom Jehovah will raise.)

(2 Kings 23: 34 — 24: 6; 2 Chron. 36: 5-8.)

Contemporary Prophets: JEREMIAH; ZEPHANIAH; EZEKIEL.

"His confidence shall be rooted out of his tabernacle, and it shall bring him to the king of terrors." — Job 18: 14.

"JEHOIAKIM was twenty and five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem: and he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord his God. Against him came up Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and bound him in fetters, to carry him to Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar also carried [some] of the vessels of the house of the Lord to Babylon, and put them in his temple at Babylon."

Jehoiakim was of most unlovely character — treacherous, revengeful, and bloodthirsty. He was several years Jehoahaz' senior, and was not born of the same mother. "And his mother's name was Zebudah (gainfulness), the daughter of Pedaiah of Ramah." The mother's name boded no good for her son; and so it came to be. He taxed the land to give the money according to the commandment of Pharaoh: "he exacted the silver and the gold of the people of the land, of every one according to his taxation, to give unto Pharaoh-Necho." Having been slighted by the people in their choice of his younger half-brother, he would make no effort to ease the people's burdens, but rather increase them. He was in no way under obligations to them; and having behind him the power of Egypt, he had little to fear from them. (See 2 Kings 23: 34, 35.) His wickedness is depicted figuratively in Ezek. 19: 5-7. He too, like his deposed predecessor, "became a young lion, and learned to catch the prey, and devoured men. And he knew their desolate palaces, and he laid waste their cities; and the land was desolate, and the fulness thereof, by the noise of his roaring." His violence and rapacity are graphically represented here.

In the fifth year of his reign a fast was proclaimed among his subjects (the king seems to have had no part in it), and Baruch, Jeremiah's assistant, read in the ears of all the people the message of God to them from a book. Ready tools informed the king of what was being done, and he ordered the book brought and read before him. "Now the king sat in the winter house in the ninth month: and there was a fire on the hearth burning before him. And it came to pass, that when Jehudi had read three or four leaves, he cut it with the penknife [Heb., scribe's knife], and cast it into the fire that was on the hearth, until all the roll was consumed in the fire that was on the hearth. Yet they were not afraid, nor rent their garments, neither the king, nor any of his servants that heard all these words." It was an act of daring impiety, especially for a Jew, who was taught to look upon all sacred writing with greatest reverence. But Jehoiakim was fast hardening himself past all feeling, and no qualms of conscience are perceptible over his sacrilegious act. Jeremiah sent him a personal and verbal message, than which king never heard more awful. "And thou shalt say to Jehoiakim king of Judah, Thus saith the Lord, Thou hast burned this roll, saying, Why hast thou written therein, saying, The king of Babylon shall certainly come and destroy this land, and shall cause to cease from thence man and beast? Therefore thus saith the Lord of Jehoiakim king of Judah, He shall have none to sit upon the throne of David: and his dead body shall be cast out in the day to the heat, and in the night to the frost. And I will punish him and his seed and his servants for their iniquity." See Jer. 36.

He also attempted to put Urijah the prophet to death because he prophesied against Jerusalem and the land. The prophet fled to Egypt, whence Jehoiakim sent and fetched him, and "slew him with the sword, and cast his dead body into the graves of the common people" — his bitter hatred of God and His truth venting itself even on the body of His slaughtered servant, denying it the right of burial among the sepulchres of the prophets. See Jer. 26: 20-24. In just retribution God repaid him in kind for his murder and insult. "Therefore thus saith the Lord concerning Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah: They shall not lament for him, saying, Ah my brother! or, Ah my sister!" (as in family mourning): "they shall not lament for him, saying, Ah lord! or, Ah his glory!" (public mourning.) "He shall be buried with the burial of an ass, drawn and cast forth beyond the gates of Jerusalem" (Jer. 22: 18, 19). And so it happened unto him: Nebuchadnezzar defeated and drove out of Asia Jehoiakim's master, Necho. (See 2 Kings 24: 7.) "In his days Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up, and Jehoiakim became his servant three years: then he turned and rebelled against him." And though Nebuchadnezzar could not immediately punish him, his punishment came from another quarter. "The Lord sent against him bands of the Chaldees, and bands of the Syrians, and bands of the Moabites, and bands of the children of Ammon, and sent them against Judah to destroy it, according to the word of the Lord which He spake by His servants the prophets."

Now as to his end: Scripture (historically) is silent. 2 Chron. 36: 6 states that Nebuchadnezzar "bound him in fetters, to carry him to Babylon." It does not say he was taken there. He may have been released after promising subjection to his conqueror. But even if it could be proven that he was actually carried to Babylon, it would in no wise contradict what is recorded in 2 Kings 24: 6 ("So Jehoiakim slept with his fathers"); for he might easily have returned to Jerusalem, as other Jewish captives at a later date did. And though there is no historical record in Scripture concerning his death, this is nothing to show that the prophecies of Jeremiah concerning his end were not fulfilled to the letter. We do not really need the history of it, for prophecy in Scripture is only pre-written history — its advance sheets, we might say. It is enough to know what God had foretold concerning it; the fulfilment is certain. Josephus states that Nebuchadnezzar finally came and slew Jehoiakim, "whom he commanded to be thrown before the walls, without any burial" (Ant. x. 6 § 4). "So Jehoiakim slept with his fathers" simply expresses his death; it is a distinct expression in Scripture from "buried with his fathers," as a comparison of 2 Kings 15: 38 and 16: 20 will readily show. So the king who denied the prophet's body honorable burial was himself "buried with the burial of an ass." He mutilated and burnt God's book; and his body was in turn "drawn"* (torn) and burnt unburied in the scorching sun.

{*Heb. saw-khab', translated "tear" in Jer. 15: 3.}

His wicked life was a sad contrast to that of his righteous father. "Did not thy father eat and drink" (lived plainly), "and do justice and judgment, and then it was well with him?" asked Jeremiah; "He judged the cause of the poor and needy; then it was well with him: was not this to know Me? saith the Lord" (Jer. 22: 15, 16). Necho changed his name, but could not change his nature.

"Now the rest of the acts of Jehoiakim, and his abominations which he did, and that which was found in him, behold, they are written in the book of the kings of Israel and Judah: and Jehoiakin his son reigned in his stead."

His name, like that of his brother, is omitted from the royal genealogy of Matt. 1. "His uncleanness and iniquity" are mentioned in the Apocrypha (1 Esdras 1: 42). During his reign (when Nebuchadnezzar took the kingdom) "the times of the Gentiles" began. And until they be "fulfilled," Jerusalem "shall be trodden under foot," even as it is this day.

JEHOIACHIN (Jehovah will establish.)

(2 Kings 24: 8-17.)

Contemporary Prophets: JEREMIAH; ZEPHANIAH; EZEKIEL.

"He looseth the bond of kings, and girdeth their loins with a girdle." — Job 12: 18.

"JEHOIACHIN was eighteen years old when he began to reign, and he reigned in Jerusalem three months. And his mother's name was Nehushta, the daughter of Elnathan of Jerusalem. And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his father had done" (2 Kings 24: 8, 9). 2 Chron. 36: 9 makes him eight years old at the beginning of his reign, instead of eighteen, as here: so in LXX. and Vulg. But some Hebrew MSS., Syriac, and Arabic, read "eighteen" in Chronicles; so "eight" must be an error of transcription. All the internal evidence is in favor of eighteen. See Jer. 22: 28-30; Ezek. 19: 7.

His character was no different from that of his two predecessors. It is the same sad, unvarying record: "He did that which was evil." How the godly must have longed for that "King" mentioned by Isaiah, who should "reign in righteousness"! They little knew, or even suspected, perhaps, all that their nation would have to suffer, and the long, weary centuries — aye, millenniums — that would have to wear themselves away before that day of "righteousness and peace" should come. But there was something about even this wicked king that could give them hope — his name, Jehovah will establish. They might not know the time; the fact they were assured of. And so they could "with patience wait for it."

Nehushta, his mother's name, means copper. It refers to anything of copper, whether a copper coin, or a copper mirror or fetters: and both she and her son, with all his family and retinue, were carried captive to Babylon. "And Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came against the city, and his servants did besiege it. And Jehoiachin the king of Judah went out to the king of Babylon, he, and his mother, and his servants, and his princes, and his officers: and the king of Babylon took him in the eighth year of his [Nebuchadnezzar's] reign. And he carried out thence all the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king's house, and cut in pieces all the vessels of gold which Solomon king of Israel had made in the temple of the Lord, as the Lord had said. And he carried away all Jerusalem, and all the princes, and all the mighty men of valor, even ten thousand captives, and all the craftsmen and smiths: none remained, save the poorest sort of the people of the land. And he carried away Jehoiachin to Babylon, and the king's mother, and the king's wives" (wives, confirming the reading eighteen against eight), "and his officers, and the mighty of the land, those carried he into captivity from Jerusalem to Babylon." This was all "as the Lord said," through His prophet Jeremiah (Jer. 20: 5). Heaven and earth will pass away and perish, but not one word of God.

The temple was despoiled of its remaining treasures. A few years before the king of Babylon had carried away the solid and smaller vessels (2 Chron. 36: 7). On this occasion he (lit.) "cut the gold off." the larger plated vessels — the ark, the altar of incense, the showbread table, etc. There is no contradiction here, or any where in Scripture, for "the Scripture cannot be broken." The king's mother would be the queen mother mentioned in Jer. 13: 18.

The Babylonian captivity dates from Jehoiachin's reign. He never returned from his captivity. There he spent thirty-six years in prison until the death of Nebuchadnezzar in his eighty-third, or eighty-fourth year, after a reign of forty-three years. His son Evil-merodach succeeded him on the throne. This son had once been himself shut up in prison by his father, where he probably made the acquaintance of the royal Hebrew captive. He was not like the ungrateful butler who, when out of prison, "forgat Joseph"; he remembered his old prison companion. "And it came to pass in the seven and thirtieth year of the captivity of Jehoiachin king of Judah, in the twelfth month, in the five and twentieth day of the month, that Evil-merodach king of Babylon, in the first year of his reign, lifted up the head of Jehoiachin king of Judah, and brought him forth out of prison, and spake kindly unto him, and set his throne above the throne of the kings that were with him in Babylon; and changed his prison garments: and he did continually eat bread before him all the days of his life. And for his diet there was a continual diet given him of the king of Babylon, every day a portion until the day of his death, all the days of his life" (Jer. 52: 31-34).

He was not the first king of David's house to be held a prisoner there. Some time before, his father's great-grandfather, Manasseh, was brought a prisoner, and there in his affliction he sought and found the Lord. Whether Jehoiachin ever did so, we cannot say. His name (as "Jechonias") is the last of the kings of Judah, mentioned in the list of Matthew, chap. 1. The next is "Jesus who is called Christ," anointed King, not of Israel or the Jews only, but of the nations also (Rev. 15: 3, marg.)

Jeremiah said of Jehoiakim, (Jehoiachin's father) "He shall have none to sit upon the throne of David" (Jer. 36: 30). The word "sit" here means to "firmly sit," or "dwell"; and Jehoiachin's short three months' reign was not that surely. And Zedekiah, Jehoiachin's successor, was Jehoiakim's brother, not his son.

Though, like his father, "he did evil in the sight of the Lord," Jehoiachin appears to have been a favorite with the populace. "Is this man Coniah* a despised broken idol?" (or, "vase") ironically inquired the prophet. But he immediately adds, "Is he a vessel wherein is no pleasure?" — which is really what he was in God's eyes. "Wherefore are they cast out, he and his seed, and are cast into a land which they knew not? O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord: Thus saith the Lord, Write ye this man childless, a man that shall not prosper in his days: for no man of his seed shall prosper, sitting upon the throne of David, and ruling any more in Judah" (Jer. 22: 28-30). "Childless" here does not mean without descendants (for the prophecy itself mentions "his seed") but "no direct lineal heir to the throne" (Fausset). Matt. 1: 12 shows conclusively that he had descendants ("Jechonias begat Salathiel"), as does also 1 Chron. 3: 17 ("The sons of Jeconiah; Assir," etc.). The prophecy probably refers to his uncle's succeeding him to the throne instead of his son Assir — his first-born, probably; or it may have been a prophecy of Assir's premature death; and this may be why Assir is not mentioned in the genealogy in Matthew. Anyway, God made no mistake. He speaks, and it is done; He commands, and it stands fast. "And the word of our God shall stand forever."

{*In 1 Chron. 3: 17 Jehoiachin is given as Jeconiah, of which "Coniah" is an abbreviation.}

ZEDEKIAH (Righteousness of Jehovah.)

(2 Kings 24: 17-25: 21; 2 Chron. 36: 11-21.)

Contemporary Prophets: JEREMIAH; EZEKIEL; DANIEL; OBADIAH.

"Her king and her princes are among the Gentiles: the law is no more: her prophets also find no vision from the Lord." — Lamentations 2: 9.

"And the king of Babylon made Mattaniah his father's brother king in his [Jehoiachin's] stead, and changed his name to Zedekiah. Zedekiah was twenty and one years old when he began to reign, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. And his mother's name was Hamutal, the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah. And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, according to all that Jehoiakim had done. For through the anger of the Lord it came to pass in Jerusalem and Judah, until he had cast them out from His presence, that Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon."

Zedekiah was Josiah's youngest son, and full brother of Jehoahaz. He was, at his father's death, only ten years old. Nebuchadnezzar changed his name (as a token of his vassalage) but did not put upon him the name of some heathen deity, as in the case of Daniel and the three Hebrew children. He "had made him swear by God," and his new name, Righteousness of Jehovah, may have been given him to remind him of his oath; or, it may have had some connection, even in the heathen king's mind, with Jehovah's righteousness in taking from this wicked people (called by His name) their political independence, and subjecting them to his dominion.

"Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon." He had no real faith in Jehovah, Israel's covenant-keeping God, and therefore did not scruple to break his covenant with Nebuchadnezzar. But how dearly he paid for this violation of his oath! "And it came to pass, in the ninth year of his reign, . . . that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came, he, and all his host, against Jerusalem, . . . . and the city was besieged unto the eleventh year of king Zedekiah. And on the ninth day of the fourth month the famine prevailed in the city, and there was no bread for the people of the land. And the city was broken up, and all the men of war fled by night by the way of the gate between two walls, which is by the king's garden: (now the Chaldees were against the city round about) and the king went the way toward the plain. And the army of the Chaldees pursued after the king, and overtook him in the plains of Jericho: and all his army were scattered from him. So they took the king, and brought him up to the king of Babylon to Riblah; and they gave judgment upon him. And they slew the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, and put out the eyes of Zedekiah, and bound him with fetters of brass, and carried him to Babylon."

The occasion of this rebellion was Zedekiah's hope of assistance from the king of Egypt. (See Ezek. 17: 11-21.) He also vainly attempted to form an alliance with the surrounding nations, for the purpose of ridding himself, and them, of the yoke of the Babylonish king. (See Jer. 27: 1-11.)* Pharaoh-hophra attempted to relieve Zedekiah during the siege, but was driven back into Egypt by Nebuchadnezzar's army, who then returned and reinvested Jerusalem. (See Jer. 37: 5-10.) It was a terrible siege, lasting eighteen months; famine and pestilence prevailed. Mothers boiled and ate their own children (Lam. 4: 10). At midnight (Josephus) the Chaldees gained entrance into the city, and the fugitive king was captured. He was brought, with his sons, to Nebuchadnezzar at Riblah, "on the high road between Palestine and Babylon, where the Babylonian kings remained in directing the operations of their armies in Palestine and Phenicia" (Fausset).

{*In Jer. 27: 1 read, "Zedekiah" for "Jehoiakim"; so Syr., Arab.; and one of Kennicott's MSS. Comp. vers. 3, 12, and chap. 28: 1. "Jehoiakim" is a copyist's error, evidently. }

Here his terrible punishment was meted out to him for his perfidy in violating his solemn compact with his master. After seeing his own children slain before him, his own eyes were "dug" out of their sockets, and he was bound "with double chains of bronze" (2 Kings. 25: 7, lit.), and led off to Babylon. So the two seemingly contradictory prophecies of Jeremiah (32: 4) and Ezekiel (12: 13) were literally fulfilled. At Babylon he was cast into prison "till the day of his death" (Jer. 52: 11). "Until I visit him" (Jer. 32: 5), might imply that he was finally set at liberty, but "till the day of his death" precludes any such construction. It is more agreeable to take the expression to mean that God in mercy would visit him with repentance and a true knowledge of Himself as He did to Manasseh before him. How often God has used the stern hand of his government to break down the pride and rebellion of the heart, and through such "visitation" secure to the penitent soul the truest of all liberty — deliverance from the bondage of sin. So would his soul be set free, though his body remain in bondage.

"Stone walls do not a prison make,

Nor iron bars a cage,

If I have freedom in God's love,

And in my soul am free.

Josephus (Ant. x. 8 § 8) says Nebuchadnezzar "kept Zedekiah in prison until he died; and then buried him magnificently." This agrees with Jer. 34: 5: "Thou shalt die in peace: and with the burnings of thy fathers, the former kings which were before thee."

Zedekiah has been justly characterized as "weak vacillating, and treacherous." His weakness and subserviency to his princes mark him as a man wholly unfit to wear a crown, or sit upon a throne: "Behold he [Jeremiah] is in your hand," he says to them, "for the king is not he that can do anything against you" (Jer. 38: 5). He was hypocritical also. He feigned a desire for the prophet's prayers, saying, "Pray now unto the Lord our God for us" (Jer. 37: 3). He pretended too, at times, to have confidence in the prophecies of Jeremiah ("Enquire, I pray thee, of the Lord for us," Jer. 21: 2), which when delivered, he refused to heed, or believe. "He did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord his God, and humbled not himself before Jeremiah the prophet speaking from the mouth of the Lord" (2 Chron. 36: 12). He was not so openly wicked as his three predecessors, perhaps, and not willingly given to persecution. This is probably why Josephus judging after the standards of men, speaks of "his gentle and righteous disposition." But the Lord seeth not as man seeth, neither are His thoughts man's thoughts. He says, "He stiffened his neck, and hardened his heart from turning unto the Lord God of Israel." So God took him away in His anger.

The temple was burned to the ground; and only a miserable remnant of the nation was left in the land ("the poor") "to be vine-dressers, and husbandmen" (2 Kings 25: 12). Rebellion arose even among these, and for fear of the Chaldees they fled to the land of Egypt, only to miserably perish there, as Jeremiah had faithfully, and with tears, warned them.

For seventy years the land "lay desolate"; after which a remnant was permitted to return, that, six hundred, years later, "wise men" might come from that very land of the East, enquiring where they might find Him that was "born King of the Jews."

Until that day the godly remnant of His heritage could only pray, in the language of David — the type of that coming King —

"Oh, let the wrong of the wicked come to an end, And establish Thou the righteous [Man]" (Ps. 7: 9). "Even so, come, LORD JESUS"!

Note. Further details in connection with these last four kings of Judah may be found in "Notes on Jeremiah," by H. A. Ironside — a most excellent exposition.

The Kings of Israel

Dynasties of the Kings of Israel

1 Jeroboam; Nadab.

2 Baasha; Elah.

3 Zimri.

4 Omri; Ahab; Ahaziah; Joram.

5 Jehu; Jehoahaz; Jehoash; Jeroboam II.; Zachariah.

6 Shallum.

7 Menahem; Pekaiah.

8 Pekah.

9 Hoshea.

JEROBOAM (Whose people is many.)

1 Kings 11: 26-40; 12-14: 20; 2 Chron. 10; 13: 1-20.

Contemporary Prophets: AHIJAH; The Man of God out of Judah; The Old Prophet of Bethel.

"The memory of the just is blessed: but the name of the wicked shall rot." — Proverbs 10: 7.

JEROBOAM is an example of what is not at all uncommon in the East — a man exalted from a comparatively low station in private or public life to the highest, or one of the highest, positions in the land. We have scripture instances of this; as Joseph, Moses, etc.; and secular history mentions not a few. Let us see how Jeroboam's elevation came about: "And Jeroboam the son of Nebat, an Ephrathite of Zereda, Solomon's servant, whose mother's name was Zeruah, a widow woman, even he lifted up his hand against the king. And this was the cause that he lifted up his hand against the king: Solomon built Millo [LXX., 'the citadel'], and repaired the breaches of the city of David his father. And the man Jeroboam was a mighty man of valor: and Solomon seeing the young man that he was industrious, he made him ruler over all the charge [or, levy] of the house of Joseph" (i.e., Ephraim and Manasseh).

This naturally gave him a place of importance in the eyes of his fellow-countrymen, and prepared the way for what was soon to follow. They evidently resented this enforcement of labor. "Thy father," they afterwards said to Rehoboam, "made our yoke grievous." They spoke of it, too, as a "heavy" yoke (1 Kings 12: 4). There is no certain evidence that this was really so. What was being done by their labor was for the glory and security of the kingdom, whose prosperity all were supposed to profit by. See 1 Kings 4: 25. It is possible, however, that they were set to work on what served only for self-gratification; for when men depart from the right way, as Solomon did, they soon become oppressive. This would furnish some justification for their discontent, which Jeroboam, it is quite certain, would take no pains to allay. He probably had discernment sufficient to see to what final event circumstances were gradually shaping themselves, and had his own personal ambitions in mind, as shall be presently seen.

"And it came to pass at that time when Jeroboam went out of Jerusalem, that the prophet Ahijah the Shilonite found him in the way; and he had clad himself with a new garment; and they two were alone in the field. And Ahijah caught the new garment that was on him, and rent it in twelve pieces: and he said to Jeroboam, Take thee ten pieces: for thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel, Behold, I will rend the kingdom out of the hand of Solomon, and will give ten tribes to thee: (but he shall have one tribe for My servant David's sake, and for Jerusalem's sake, the city which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel:) because that they have forsaken Me, and have worshiped Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians, Chemosh the god of the Moabites, and Milcom the god of the children of Ammon, and have not walked in My ways, to do that which is right in Mine eyes, and to keep My statutes and My judgments, as did David his father. Howbeit I will not take the whole kingdom out of his hand: but I will make him prince all the days of his life for David My servant's sake, whom I chose, because he kept My commandments and My statutes: but I will take the kingdom out of his son's hand, and will give it unto thee, even ten tribes. And unto his son will I give one tribe, that David My servant may have a light alway before Me in Jerusalem, the city which I have chosen Me to put My name there. And I will take thee, and thou shalt reign according to all that thy soul desireth, and shalt be king over Israel. And it shall be, if thou wilt harken unto all that I command thee, and wilt walk in My ways, and do that is right in My sight, to keep My statutes and My commandments, as David My servant did; that I will be with thee, and build thee a sure house, as I built for David, and will give Israel unto thee. And I will for this afflict the seed of David, but not forever." It was a solemn word, to which Jeroboam ought to have given earnest heed. Had he done so, he would never have come to his own melancholy end, nor would his dynasty have been so suddenly and violently terminated — ere the second generation had barely begun.

Whether intelligence of Ahijah's prophecy reached the ears of Solomon, or the elated Jeroboam betrayed the secret by some overt act of rashness or insubordination, we are not told; but we read, "Solomon sought therefore to kill Jeroboam. And Jeroboam arose, and fled into Egypt, unto Shishak king of Egypt, and was in Egypt until the death of Solomon." "He lifted up his hand against the king," it says. Some abortive attempt on his part to raise rebellion, it may have been, to hasten the fulfilment of the prophecy concerning him. Comp. 2 Sam. 20: 21. How unlike David, the man after God's own heart, who, though even anointed and chosen by the prophet Samuel to supercede Saul, would not injure a hair of the condemned king's head, or raise a finger to bring the kingdom to himself! David was a man of faith; and faith — that precious "gift of God"! — ever waits on God — waits for His time and way to fulfil His promises.

But Jeroboam knew nothing of faith. He had aspired secretly after power over his brethren (as the expression, "according to all that thy soul desireth," clearly shows), and probably sought the accomplishment of Ahijah's prophecy with pride's feverish haste, for which he was compelled to seek an asylum in Egypt, under the protection of Shishak, who had but recently overthrown the late dynasty with which Solomon had unlawfully allied himself by marriage. Ahijah had distinctly said that Solomon should be "prince all the days of his life," and it was only out of his son's hand that the kingdom should be taken and transferred to Jeroboam. But, like a wilful, impatient child, he could not wait, and must needs take the case out of God's hand and undertake for himself.

How long Jeroboam remained in Egypt is not known; but we read that on the death of Solomon he returned, and was present at Rehoboam's coronation; when the rebellion was consummated. "And Rehoboam went to Shechem: for all Israel were come to Shechem to make him king. And it came to pass; when Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who was yet in Egypt, heard of it, . . . that they sent and called him. And Jeroboam and all the congregation of Israel came, and spake unto Rehoboam, saying," etc. The time was ripe. Solomon's incompetent son and successor, instead of heeding his father's wholesome proverb, "A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger," displayed his lack of wisdom and fitness to govern a liberty-loving people; and, as a consequence, he precipitated the separation of the already alienated northern tribes, to the weakening and almost ruin of a kingdom that had but recently extended from the Nile to the Euphrates, a distance of more than four hundred and fifty miles, and acknowledged by the surrounding nations as one of the most powerful empires of the earth.

The details of that memorable schism need not be entered into here, having been already gone over in the "Kings of Judah." (See REHOBOAM.) We have dwelt on the cause from the human, or circumstantial, side chiefly; the divine side is also given: "Wherefore the king (Rehoboam) harkened not unto the people; for the cause was from the Lord, that He might perform His saying, which the Lord spake by Ahijah the Shilonite unto Jeroboam the son of Nebat."

Jeroboam now becomes the spokesman of the disaffected tribes in the presentation of their petition, whose rejection snapped the already overstrained link that bound the tribes together. Though only presenting the people's petition, it is nevertheless probable that Jeroboam was not idle, but, like an artful politician, busy behind the scenes, till the coveted crown became his: "And it came to pass, when all Israel heard that Jeroboam was come again, that they sent and called him unto the congregation, and made him king over all Israel." He made historic Shechem his capital, and fortified it. He also made Penuel (the face of God — which should have reminded him of God's past dealings with the scheming Jacob) an important strategic point. Of Shechem one writes: "The situation is lovely; the valley runs west, with a soil of rich, black vegetable mould, watered by fountains, sending forth numerous streams, flowing west: orchards of fruit, olive groves, gardens of vegetables, and verdure on all sides, delight the eye" — the very spot for a man bent on self-pleasing, and aspiring to a life of luxury.

But the newly-crowned king quickly manifested that he did not hold his kingdom in faith as a trust from God. "And Jeroboam said in his heart, Now shall the kingdom return to the house of David" (the all-seeing Eye tells us what was going on in his heart, mark, which had never been anything but "an evil heart of unbelief"): and, he continues, "if this people go up to do sacrifice in the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, then shall the heart of this people turn again unto their lord, even unto Rehoboam king of Judah, and they shall kill me, and go again to Rehoboam king of Judah." "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." This man has neither trust in God, nor confidence in his fellows. He was like a former king (Saul), who, departing from God, began to be suspicious of everybody about him. Jeroboam evidently felt that he had no real hold upon the people's affections, and that his tenure of the crown was very precarious. He therefore wickedly devised a plan (which, alas, proved all too successful) to prevent a return of the tribes to their former allegiance to the house of David. "Whereupon the king took counsel, and made two calves of gold, and said unto them, It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem: behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. And he set the one in Bethel, and the other put he in Dan." The old limits of the land were "from Dan to Beersheba." Bethel lay near the southern border of Jeroboam's kingdom, and about twelve miles north of Jerusalem; while Dan was in the far north, at the sources of the Jordan. Thus by placing the calves at these extreme limits of his dominion, with the pretext of giving to all an easy access to a place of worship, the uneasy king hoped to prevent their return to Judah's God and kingdom. His kingdom, unlike Judah, with its temple at Jerusalem, had no divine centre. It was, in fact, a circumference without a centre, and its worship a matter of convenience and expediency.

"And this thing became a sin: for the people went to worship before the one, even unto Dan" (Bethel was taken from Jeroboam by Abijah. See 2 Chron. 13: 19). "And he made a house of high places, and made priests of the lowest of the people, which were not of the sons of Levi." This was a direct violation of the law of God in reference to the priesthood. See Num. 18: 1-7. And he did not stop there; regarding the legitimate priests and the Levites with special suspicion evidently, and rejected their services. "For Jeroboam and his sons," we read, "had cast them off from executing the priest's office unto the Lord: and he ordained him priests for the high places, and for the devils, and for the calves which he had made" (2 Chron. 11: 14, 15). Abijah, in his speech before the battle with Jeroboam, says to him and his followers, "Have ye not cast out the priests of the Lord, the sons of Aaron, and the Levites, and have made you priests after the manner of the nations of other lands? so that whosoever cometh to consecrate himself with a young bullock and seven rams, the same may be a priest of them that are no gods." Rome, since the Reformation, has been fond of comparing that glorious and undoubted work of God to Israel's secession under Jeroboam, and likening this voluntary consecration of unauthorized persons to the ordination of Protestant ministers. While the utter falsity of the application of the former illustration is at once apparent, there is doubtless some truth in the latter. But the force of the figure recoils upon themselves, for the ranks of their own priesthood are recruited entirely by volunteer candidates from all classes and conditions of men. The mistake of Protestantism is the confounding of priesthood with ministry (two entirely different things in Scripture); Rome's error is the assumption of all priestly functions by a humanly-consecrated few, to the exclusion of every member of the Church, every one of which is a priest, according to the testimony of Scripture. See 1 Peter 2: 5, 9, etc. This is not a continuation, nor yet an amplification, of the Jewish priesthood, but one of an entirely different order — "a royal priesthood." Christ is the "great High Priest," of whom Aaron was the type; and every true believer a priest of the same spiritual family, typified by Aaron's sons. Heb. 5: 4 has its direct application to the high priesthood only, though the principle may be applied to ministry; but to Christian priesthood proper the verse has no application whatever, for a believer is a priest, not by special call, but solely in virtue of his link with Christ by faith.

Lessons from Jeroboam's act as to the priesthood can surely be learned by both Romanism and Protestantism, but the right of a class among God's people to the exclusive exercise of priestly functions is certainly not one of them. On the contrary, his action illustrates just what they themselves have done — shutting out the body of those who are truly the children of God, and therefore truly priests, and consecrating to the office men who have never been born of God, and have no right or qualification whatever therefore to the privilege.

Viewed even as a stroke of policy, this ejection of the Lord's priests and the Levites was a blunder. They went over in a body, almost, to Jeroboam's rival, and thereby "strengthened the kingdom of Judah." By being over-anxious to preserve his power, he lost what was, no doubt, the choice part of his kingdom. Similar to this was the banishment of the Huguenots from France — the most intelligent, enterprising and God-fearing portion of its citizens — an act from which that country has never yet fully recovered, and, perhaps, never will. So, too, of the persecution of the Reformed in the Netherlands, and elsewhere on the Continent. And England, of all her "stalwart sons," possessed none more stanch and true than those who, for conscience' sake, forsook the land they loved, and sought an asylum among the desolate wildernesses of America.

Other unlawful innovations were introduced by Jeroboam. "And Jeroboam ordained a feast in the eighth month, on the fifteenth day of the month, like unto the feast that is in Judah, and he offered upon the altar [in imitation of Solomon]. So did he in Bethel, sacrificing unto the calves that he had made: and he placed in Bethel the priests of the high places which he had made. So he offered upon the altar which he had made in Bethel the fifteenth day of the eighth month, even in the month which he had devised of his own heart; and ordained a feast unto the children of Israel: and he offered upon the altar, and burnt incense." This "feast," of Jeroboam's, was in imitation of the feast of tabernacles, which God had commanded to be observed in the seventh month: the eighth was the month which Jeroboam "had devised of his own heart" — always "deceitful" and "desperately wicked." And how many practices and customs in Christendom have been "devised" of men's own hearts which have no foundation in Scripture! For many seem to imagine that it is quite permissible in spiritual things to do "every man that which is right in his own eyes," instead of "Thus saith the Lord." God condemned Israel for doing that which, He says, "I commanded them not, neither came it into My heart" (Jer. 7: 31; also, 19: 5; 32: 35). It is the thoughts of God's heart, not mine, that I am to heed and put into practice. These He has revealed in His Word, and it is our happiness and wisdom to heed that, and not "commandments" and "doctrines of men."

"And, behold, there came a man of God out of Judah by the word of the Lord unto Bethel: and Jeroboam stood by the altar to burn incense." If Jeroboam would not have Jehovah's priests, God sends His prophet into his land. "And he cried against the altar in the word of the Lord, and said, O altar, altar, thus saith the Lord: Behold, a child shall be born unto the house of David, Josiah by name; and upon thee shall he offer the priests of the high places that burn incense upon thee, and men's bones shall be burnt upon thee. And he gave a sign the same day, saying, This is the sign which the Lord hath spoken; Behold, the altar shall be rent, and the ashes that are upon it shall be poured out." It was a bold message, but delivered in faithfulness. It was directed, not against the king, but the priests, though the king seemed to feel the force of its application to himself. "And it came to pass, when king Jeroboam heard the saying of the man of God, which had cried against the altar in Bethel, that he put forth his hand from the altar, saying, Lay hold on him. And his hand, which he put forth against him, dried up, so that he could not pull it in again to him. The altar also was rent, and the ashes poured out from the altar, according to the sign which the man of God had given by the word of the Lord." Jeroboam had forgotten, or ignored, the reproof administered by God to kings almost a thousand years before; "Touch not Mine anointed, and do My prophets no harm" (Ps. 105: 14, 15). He was quickly reminded of his error, and entreated pardon. "And the king answered and said unto the man of God, Entreat now the face of the Lord thy God, and pray for me, that my hand may be restored me again." But it was his heart that had need of healing, rather than his hand. In this he was like the mass of men today, who look more to the hand and its deeds than the heart of sin that prompted the evil acts. The penitent publican smote upon his breast, as if to express that there, from within, came all the transgression, iniquity, and sin.

Jeroboam, however, is in a measure humbled, and his appeal for the prophet's intercession is regarded: "And the man of God besought the Lord, and the king's hand was restored him again, and became as it was before." Then he who would have persecuted a while ago, now would entertain and give a reward for his healing. "And the king said unto the man of God, Come home with me, and refresh thyself, and I will give thee a reward." But, like Daniel, who nobly answered king Belshazzar, "Let thy gifts be to thyself, and give thy rewards to another "(Dan. 5: 17), so also "the man of God" refuses here to be patronized (oh, mark it, all ye servants of the living God), saying, "If thou wilt give me half thy house, I will not go in with thee, neither will I eat bread nor drink water in this place: for so it was charged me by the word of the Lord, saying, Eat no bread, nor drink water, nor turn again by the same way that thou camest. So he went another way, and returned not by the way that he came to Bethel."

It is not our purpose to follow the history of "the man of God," who was seduced to his death by the lie of the apostate old prophet of Bethel, but the narrative is full of wholesome instruction for us all, to adhere strictly to the word of God, and not be seduced from the simple path of obedience by the sophistries of men, professed "prophets" though they be; yea, be it an angel from heaven even, "let him be accursed" that perverts or contradicts the word of God. Reader, ponder well 1 Kings 13: 11-32; for, like all things "written aforetime," it was "written for our instruction," "upon whom the ends of the ages are come," with all their attendant difficulties and dangers.

Jeroboam derived no lasting profit from the prophet's faithful testimony, or the mercy shown him in the restoration of his withered hand, for we read, "After this thing [the prophet's death?] Jeroboam returned not from his evil way, but made again of the lowest of the people priests of the high places: whosoever would, he consecrated him, and he became one of the priests of the high places. And this thing became sin unto the house of Jeroboam, even to cut it off, and to destroy it from off the face of the earth" (1 Kings 13: 33, 34).

The threatened destruction of Jeroboam's house now begins. "At that time Abijah the son of Jeroboam fell sick. And Jeroboam said to his wife, Arise, I pray thee, and disguise thyself, that thou be not known to be the wife of Jeroboam; and get thee to Shiloh: behold, there is Ahijah the prophet, which told me that I should be king over this people. And take with thee ten loaves, and cracknels, and a cruse of honey, and go to him: he shall tell thee what shall become of the child." Jeroboam's troubled spirit does not turn to the old prophet of Bethel, or to others like him in Israel, but turns, in his distress, to Jehovah's prophet — a not uncommon thing with sinners, and a striking witness of the power of conscience, as well as a testimony to the influence of a righteous man in the midst of abounding evil. Ashamed, probably, to have it known among his subjects that he preferred to consult a prophet of Jehovah before those of his own idolatrous system, he sends his wife in disguise; or, as Shiloh, with Bethel, and other neighboring towns, had been taken by Abijah king of Judah (see 2 Chron. 13: 19), it would then be in the realm of his enemy. Or, could it be that, conscious of guilt, and afraid of bad news, he hoped to deceive the prophet?

"And Jeroboam's wife did so, and went to Shiloh, and came to the house of Ahijah. But Ahijah could not see; for his eyes were set by reason of his age. And the Lord said unto Ahijah, Behold, the wife of Jeroboam cometh to ask a thing of thee for her son; for he is sick: thus and thus shalt thou say unto her: for it shall be, when she cometh in, that she shall feign herself to be another woman. And it was so, when Ahijah heard the sound of her feet, as she came in at the door, that he said, Come in, thou wife of Jeroboam; why feignest thou thyself to be another? for I am sent to thee with heavy tidings" — alas, poor mother! — "Go, tell Jeroboam, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Forasmuch as I exalted thee from among the people, and made thee prince over My people Israel, and rent the kingdom away, from the house of David, and gave it thee: and yet thou hast not been as My servant David, who kept My commandments, and who followed Me with all his heart, to do that only which was right in Mine eyes; but thou hast done evil above all that were before thee: for thou hast gone and made thee other gods, and molten images, to provoke Me to anger, and hast cast Me behind thy back" — fearful indictment! — "therefore, behold, I will bring evil upon the house of Jeroboam, and will cut off from Jeroboam every male, and him that is shut up and left in Israel, and will take away the remnant of the house of Jeroboam, as a man taketh away dung, till it be all gone. Him that dieth of Jeroboam in the city shall the dogs eat; and him that dieth in the field shall the fowls of the air eat: for the Lord hath spoken it. Arise thou therefore, get thee to thine own house: and when thy feet enter into the city, the child shall die. And all Israel shall mourn for him, and bury him: for he only of Jeroboam shall come to the grave, because in him there is found some good thing toward the Lord God of Israel in the house of Jeroboam."

"Heavy tidings" these were indeed to a mother's heart! She was possibly a good woman, to have a son in whom God saw "some good thing toward the Lord." Sad indeed must have been her journey back to the city, and her dwelling, on entering which her son would die! "And Jeroboam's wife arose, and departed, and came to Tirzah: and when she came to the threshold of the door, the child died; and they buried him; and all Israel mourned for him, according to the word of the Lord, which He spake by the hand of His servant Ahijah the prophet." Dear child, Abijah (Jehovah is my Father) was his name; and his heavenly Father called him home. It was an instance of "the righteous" being "taken away from the evil to come." And, it is written, "He shall enter into peace: they shall rest in their beds, each one walking in his uprightness" (Isa. 57: 1, 2). We shall expect to meet and greet thee, Jehovah's little child, in that bright morning when for those who "have part in the first resurrection" there shall be no more "evil to come."

Jeroboam's battle with king Abijah, and his crushing defeat, have been entered into elsewhere (see ABIJAH), so need not be repeated here. Both the battle and his child's death must have occurred toward the close of his reign. See 2 Chron. 13: 1. Thus disaster and sorrow would combine to help hasten his end; and we read, "Neither did Jeroboam recover strength again in the days of Abijah: and the Lord struck him, and he died," God chastened him through two Abijahs; one, of his own house; and the other, of the house of David — terribly significant to him who had cast that same Jehovah "behind his back."

"And the rest of the acts of Jeroboam, how he warred, and how he reigned, behold, they are written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel." This is that Jeroboam who "drave Israel from following the Lord, and made them sin a great sin" (2 Kings 17: 21). God has placed the stamp of eternal infamy on his name.

NADAB (Willing.)

1 Kings 15: 25-31.

"The house of the wicked shall be overthrown: but the tabernacle of the upright shall flourish." — Proverbs 14: 11.

"And Nadab the son of Jeroboam began to reign over Israel in the second year of Asa king of Judah, and reigned over Israel two years. And he did evil in the sight of the Lord, and walked in the way of his father, and in his sin wherewith he made Israel to sin."

The sons of Jeroboam, together with their father, had ejected God's ordained priesthood, and had "cast them off from executing the priest's office unto the Lord" (2 Chron. 11: 14). So Nadab followed in his father's ways; but God did not permit him to continue long in his wickedness. "And Baasha the son of Ahijah, of the house of Issachar, conspired against him; and Baasha smote him at Gibbethon, which belonged to the Philistines; for Nadab and all Israel laid siege to Gibbethon." Gibbethon was a town in Dan, allotted to the Levites of the family of Korah (Joshua 19: 44; 21: 23). It bordered on the land of the Philistines, and was probably seized by them on the emigration of the Levites to Judah. It means, lofty place; and it was while seeking to recover it to the crown, that Nadab was treacherously slain. But it was in fulfilment of the prophecy of Ahijah, "The Lord shall raise Him up a king over Israel, who shall cut off the house of Jeroboam that day: but what? even now."

"In the third year of Asa king of Judah did Baasha slay him, and reigned in his stead." Once on the throne, he began to execute the judgment of Jehovah against the remaining members of the house of Jeroboam, according to the aged Ahijah's word. "And it came to pass, when he reigned, that he smote all the house of Jeroboam; he left not to Jeroboam any that breathed, until he had destroyed him, according unto the saying of the Lord, which He spake by His servant Ahijah the Shilonite: because of the sins of Jeroboam which he sinned, and which he made Israel sin, by his provocation wherewith he provoked the Lord God of Israel to anger."

So ended the first of the nine dynasties that for two hundred and fifty years ruled (or misruled) the kingdom of Israel. Nadab's name means willing; and he appears to have been too willing to continue in, and perpetuate, the sin of his iniquitous father. He is not once mentioned in the book of Chronicles, nor is there any record in that book of his father's lifting up his hand against king Solomon, as in the Kings. See Author's Introduction. The inspired record of his uninteresting reign ends with the usual formula used in Kings: "Now the rest of the acts of Nadab, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel?"

BAASHA ("He who seeks," or "lays waste.")

1 Kings 15: 27 — 16: 7; 2 Chron. 16: 1-6.

Contemporary Prophet: JEHU son of HANANI.

"The Lord hath made all things for Himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil." — Proverbs 16: 4.

"In the third year of Asa king of Judah began Baasha the son of Ahijah to reign over all Israel in Tirzah, twenty and four years." With the beginning of a new dynasty, and the sad history of that which had been before him, one might hope that Baasha would have taken a different course, and turned to Jehovah. Alas, we read: "And he did evil in the sight of the Lord, and walked in the way of Jeroboam, and in his sin wherewith he made Israel to sin."

He was of Issachar, and had the tribal characteristic — an eye for what appeared "pleasant" (Gen. 49: 15). So he made beautiful Tirzah (which some derive from ratzah, "pleasant"; see Song of Sol. 6: 4) the royal residence during his reign. Whatever he may have known of God's purpose in the cutting off of Jeroboam's house, his motive was not one of righteousness (like Jehu's, later), for he was no better than those he murdered, and continued to walk in their sin.

"Then the word of the Lord came to Jehu the son of Hanani against Baasha, saying, Forasmuch as I exalted thee out of the dust, and made thee prince over My people Israel; and thou hast walked in the way of Jeroboam, and hast made My people Israel to sin, to provoke Me to anger with their sins; behold, I will take away the posterity of Baasha, and the posterity of his house" — a terrible thought to an Israelite! — "and will make thy house like the house of Jeroboam the son of Nebat. Him that dieth of Baasha in the city shall the dogs eat; and him that dieth of his in the fields shall the fowls of the air eat." His doom, and that of all his house, is here solemnly pronounced. "Out of the dust" implies his lowly origin. How often do revolutionists imagine that because the obnoxious ruler is of noble birth, or royal lineage, the remedy is to put in the place of power one of their own class and rank! And how soon are they made to learn that "a servant when he ruleth" is the very worst type of tyrant known! No, it is not a question of natural birth, whether high or low, but of new birth and "ruling in the fear of God" which gives to any favored land such sovereigns as "Victoria the Good." Baasha was of plebeian stock, yet his name, he who lays waste, tells only too accurately what kind of a ruler he proved himself to be.

There was war between Baasha and Asa king of Judah all their days. He made a league with Benhadad king of Syria, and built, or fortified, Ramah on his southern border, to prevent, if possible, the influx of his subjects to Judah, whither they were attracted by the prosperity enjoyed under Asa. (See ASA.)

"Now the rest of the acts of Baasha, and what he did, and his might, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel? So Baasha slept with his fathers, and was buried in Tirzah: and Elah his son reigned in his stead." And then a supplementary verse is added, to emphasize the fact that it was because of his idolatries and murder of the house of Jeroboam that God judged him and his family: "And also by the hand of the prophet Jehu the son of Hanani came the word of the Lord against Baasha, and against his house, even for all the evil that he did in the sight of the Lord, in provoking Him to anger with the work of his hands [his idols], in being like the house of Jeroboam; and because he killed him." God, who looks upon the heart, sees him but as an assassin for the accomplishment of his ambitious designs, slaying king Nadab and the entire house of Jeroboam.

ELAH (An oak.)

1 Kings 16: 8-14.

"Behold, the righteous shall be recompensed in the earth: much more the wicked and the sinner." — Proverbs 11: 31.

"In the twenty and sixth year of Asa king of Judah began Elah the son of Baasha to reign over Israel in Tirzah, two years. And his servant Zimri, captain of half his chariots, conspired against him, as he was in Tirzah, drinking himself drunk in the house of Arza, steward of his house in Tirzah. And Zimri went in and smote him, and killed him, in the twenty and seventh year of Asa king of Judah, and reigned in his stead."

Of the house of Jeroboam God had said: "I will take away the remnant of the house of Jeroboam as a man taketh away dung, till it all be gone" — so would it be with Baasha who had removed the remnant of Jeroboam's house by murder. "Drinking himself drunk" was Elah's occupation at the time of his assassination. Dissipation does not appear to have been the special sin of the kings of Israel and Judah generally (nor has it ever been characteristic of the Jewish race), as was the case with so many of their Gentile neighbors — witness Benhadad with his thirty-two confederate kings "drinking himself drunk in the pavilions"; (1 Kings 20: 16).

Of Elah, Josephus (viii. 12, § 4) says he was slain while his army was away at the siege of Gibbethon, begun in his father Baasha's day. His murder was perpetrated in the house of his steward Arza (earthliness), who was probably as given to self-indulgence as his master. Contrast the steward Obadiah, 1 Kings 18: 3.

His murderer Zimri at once began to massacre "all the house of Baasha," sparing none, "neither of his kinsfolks, nor of his friends." It was complete extermination, even as God had ordained it should be. "Thus did Zimri destroy all the house of Baasha, according to the word of the Lord, which He spake against Baasha by Jehu the prophet, for all the sins of Baasha, and the sins of Elah his son, by which they . . . made Israel to sin, in provoking the Lord God of Israel to anger with their vanities" (idolatries).

Thus the house of Baasha, like that of Jeroboam before him, became extinct — the greatest calamity, to Jewish minds, that could overtake a man.

In less than fifty years the first two dynasties of Israel's kings had come to an end and every member of their families been exterminated. God meant to make their doom an example to those who should thereafter live ungodly. They stand as beacons, in these records, to warn all rulers and subjects off the rocks on which they struck to their everlasting ruin. "Who is wise, and he shall understand these things? prudent, and he shall know them? for the ways of the Lord are right, and the just shall walk in them: but the transgressors shall fall therein" (Hosea 14: 9). The usual formula ends the record of Elah's worthless life (1 Kings 16: 14).

ZIMRI (Musical.)

(1 Kings 16: 9-20.)

"Whoso walketh uprightly shall be saved: but be that is perverse in his ways shall fall at once." — Proverbs 28: 18.

"In the twenty and seventh year of Asa king of Judah did Zimri reign seven days in Tirzah. And the people were encamped against Gibbethon, which belonged to the Philistines. And the people that were encamped heard say, Zimri hath conspired, and hath also slain the king: wherefore all Israel made Omri, the captain of the host, king over Israel that day in the camp."

"The triumphing of the wicked is short." It was sharply exemplified in the case of Zimri — just one week. He appears to have had no support from the people, who knew his character and desired not his rule. News of his assumption of the crown had no sooner reached the army at Gibbethon than they rejected his claims by proclaiming their commander-in-chief, Omri, king.

"And Omri went up from Gibbethon, and all Israel with him, and they besieged Tirzah. And it came to pass, when Zimri saw that the city was taken, that he went into the palace of the king's house, and burnt the king's house over him with fire, and died, for his sins which he sinned in doing evil in the sight of the Lord, in walking in the way of Jeroboam, and in his sin which he did, to make Israel to sin." Murderers are generally desperate characters; and when it is beyond their power any more to destroy the lives of others, they, like wretched Zimri, frequently destroy their own. Satan "was a murderer from the beginning," and he knows how to goad them on to their destruction — body and soul. He knows the suicide's destiny after death. Judas, the traitor-suicide, we read, went "to his own place" — where "the unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers," etc., have their place — in "the lake of fire."

Zimri's perfidy became a byword in Israel. The infamous Jezebel could refer to him and say, "Had Zimri peace, who slew his master?" "Treason is punished by treason," one has said, "and the slayer is slain." In Zimri was fulfilled the true proverb, "A man that doeth violence to the blood of any person shall flee to the pit; let no man stay him" (Prov. 28: 7). Let Zimri's end warn intentional regicides and traitors.

OMRI (Heaping.)

1 Kings 16: 15-28.

Contemporary Prophet: ELIJAH (?)

"The curse of the Lord is in the house of the wicked: but He blesseth the habitation of the just." — Proverbs 3: 33.

Civil war, that most deplorable of all forms of armed conflict, followed Omri's assumption of the throne of Israel. "Then were the people of Israel divided into two parts: half of the people followed Tibni the son of Ginath, to make him king; and half followed Omri. But the people that followed Omri prevailed against the people that followed Tibni the son of Ginath: so Tibni died, and Omri reigned." "All Israel made Omri, the captain of the host, king over Israel that day in the camp," it says — that is, the army that was encamped against Gibbethon; but a part of the tribes championed the cause of Tibni. Omri would be thus, during the four years' contest, in the position of military dictator. And with the soldiery at his back, he could hardly fail to prevail in the end against his adversary, whose death probably put an end to the conflict. Then Omri as king begins a new dynasty.

"In the thirty and first year of Asa king of Judah began Omri to reign over Israel, twelve years: six years reigned he in Tirzah. And he bought the hill Samaria of Shemer for two talents of silver, and built on the hill, and called the name of the city which he built, after the name of Shemer, owner of the hill, Samaria" ("Shomeron," Heb.). In the siege of Tirzah, Omri may have seen its undesirableness as a capital, from a military standpoint; or the pride of founding a new capital may have led him to choose the hill of Shemer. It lay about six miles to the northwest of Shechem, the old capital; and the situation, according to Josephus, combined strength, fertility, and beauty. The hill was six hundred feet above the surrounding country, and "the view," one writes, "is charming." But more attractive to the Christian heart, is the site of the old capital, Shechem, where our Lord, "wearied with His journey, sat thus on the well." And there, in the ears of "Jacob's erring daughter," He told of the free-giving God, and of that living water, of which, if a man drink, he shall never more thirst.

"But Omri wrought evil in the eyes of the Lord, and did worse than all that were before him. For he walked in all the way of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, and in his sin wherewith he made Israel to sin, to provoke the Lord God of Israel to anger with their vanities" (idolatries). He seems to have formulated laws, making Jeroboam's calf-worship, or other forms of idolatry, obligatory throughout his realm, which remained in force till the end of the kingdom, more than two hundred years later. "For the statutes [a firmly-established system. — Fausset] of Omri are kept, and all the works of the house of Ahab" [Baal-worship] (Micah 6: 16). Such yokes men willingly bear, and even cling to, so prone is the human heart to idolatry. Omri was founder of the fourth and most powerful of the Israelitish dynasties — combining ability with the establishment of the basest idolatry. He formed an alliance with Benhadad I. king of Syria, who had streets made for, or assigned to, him in Samaria. See 1 Kings 20: 34. Samaria is called on the Assyrian monuments "Beth Omri" (house of Omri), in agreement with 1 Kings 16: 24. On the black obelisk, however, Jehu is mistakenly called "son of Omri." His name appears on the Dibon stone, on which Mesha states that Omri subjected and oppressed Moab till he, Mesha, delivered them out of his hand.

"Now the rest of the acts of Omri which he did, and his might that he showed, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel?" He used this "might" of his, not to Israel's deliverance, but for the furtherance and establishment of idolatry, to Israel's ruin. His name was common to three tribes, Benjamin, Judah, and Issachar (see 1 Chron. 7: 8; 9: 4; 27: 18); so it is not certain out of which Omri came — though probably from Issachar (like Baasha). The murderous Athaliah, his granddaughter, is usually linked with his name in Scripture. See 2 Kings 8: 26; 2 Chron. 22: 2, etc.

"So Omri slept with his fathers, and was buried in Samaria. And Ahab his son reigned in his stead." His name means heaping; and by his iniquity he helped to heap up wrath against his dynasty, executed finally, thirty-six years later, on his great-grandson Joram, to the total extinction of the guilty house.

AHAB (Brother of [his] father.)

1 Kings 16: 29 — 17: 1; 18: 1 — 22: 40; 2 Chron. 18.

Contemporary Prophets: ELIJAH; Micah son of Imlah.

"When the wicked are multiplied, transgression increaseth; but the righteous shall see their fall." — Proverbs 29: 16.

And in the thirty and eighth year of Asa king of Judah began Ahab the son of Omri to reign over Israel: and Ahab the son of Omri reigned over Israel in Samaria twenty and two years. And Ahab the son of Omri did evil in the sight of the Lord above all that were before him. And it came to pass, as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, that he took to wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Zidonians, and went and served Baal, and worshiped him. And he reared up an altar for Baal in the house of Baal, which he had built in Samaria." Ahab was not the first to introduce Baal-worship in Israel: it had been known among them since their entrance into the land, but under his rule and the powerful influence of Jezebel, his wife, it became the established form of idolatry, as calf-worship was made under Jeroboam. Baal was the sun-god of the ancient inhabitants of the land (as of the Phenicians), and his worship was accompanied by the most obscene rites and impurities.

Dius and Menander, Tyrian historians, mention an Eithobalus of Ahab's time, who was priest of Ashtoreth (female consort of Baal), who having murdered Pheles, became king of Tyre. See Josephus, c. apion, i. 18. This was, in all probability, Jezebel's father. Her zeal for the spread and maintenance of the worship of Baal and Ashtoreth, or Astarte, is therefore easily accounted for; hence, also, her inveterate hatred of the holy worship of Jehovah, and her murderous designs against His prophets. Her name means chaste — Satan's counterfeit or ridicule, as it were, of purity. Was it the hope of strengthening his kingdom, or her seductions, with the attractions of her painted face, that led Ahab into this alliance? Behind it all, we may be sure, Satan was seeking by this new move to utterly corrupt and destroy God's people and His truth from the earth. "And Ahab made a grove" — Asherah — an image, or pavilion, to Astarte" and Ahab did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel that were before him.

"In his days did Hiel the Bethelite build Jericho: he laid the foundation thereof in Abiram (father of height) his first-born, and set up the gates thereof in his youngest son Segub (aloft), according to the word of the Lord, which he spake by Joshua the son of Nun." Jericho properly belonged to Judah, and Hiel, instead of remaining at Bethel, within his sovereign's realm, presumed to fortify (for this is what "build" means here) the city for his master Ahab, that he might, it would seem, command the ford of Jordan; for which trespass and disregard of God's word (see Joshua 6: 16) the threatened judgment fell upon his first- and last-born sons. His name Hiel means, God liveth; and he, presumptuous man! discovered to his sorrow that Jehovah was the living God, whose word will stand, and none can transgress it with impunity. Every transgressor, and all "the sons of disobedience," will find that He is always true to His word. "Hath He said, and shall He not do it? or hath He spoken, and shall He not make it good?" (Num. 23: 19). His word concerning Jericho, "spoken" to Joshua five hundred years before, was made good upon the house of Hiel.

But God, who did not wink at Ahab's or the nation's wickedness, would yet seek to turn them back from their folly by sore discipline, and sent to them His servant Elijah. "And Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the inhabitants of Gilead, said unto Ahab, As the Lord God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word." Jehovah, not Baal, was Israel's God, in spite of Jezebel's seemingly successful attempt to foist her Canaanitish gods upon them; and Ahab should be made to know it. God uses a millennial form of discipline to teach him this. See Zech. 14: 17. And for three and one half years the land lay under the divine interdict of drought and famine. This drought appears to have extended even to Gentile lands; for it is mentioned in the annals of the Greek historian Menander. See Josephus, Ant. viii. 13, § 2.

"And it came to pass after many days, that the word of the Lord came to Elijah in the third year, saying, Go, show thyself unto Ahab; and I will send rain upon the earth. And Elijah went to show himself unto Ahab. And there was a sore famine in Samaria. And Ahab called Obadiah, which was the governor (steward, N.Tr.) of his house. (Now Obadiah feared the Lord greatly; for it was so, when Jezebel cut off the prophets of the Lord, that Obadiah took a hundred prophets, and hid them by fifty in a cave, and fed them with bread and water.) And Ahab said unto Obadiah, Go into the land, unto all fountains of water, and unto all brooks: peradventure we may find grass to save the horses and mules alive, that we lose not all the beasts. So they divided the land between them to pass throughout it: Ahab went one way by himself, and Obadiah went another way by himself." Ahab, as some one has said, cared more for the beasts of his stables than for his poor, starving subjects.

One wonders how a man like Obadiah (worshiper of Jehovah) came to hold office under such an abandoned idolater as Ahab. But there were "saints" in Nero's palace, whose salutations were considered worthy of apostolic mention; and godliness, as has been quaintly said, "is a hardy plant, that can live amidst the frosts of persecution and the relaxing warmth of a corrupt court, and not merely in the conservatory of a pious family."

Elijah, "as Obadiah was in the way," suddenly appeared before him, and gave him a terse message for his master: "Go, tell thy lord," he says, "Behold, Elijah is here." The poor lord-high-chamberlain, knowing well, no doubt, the murderous character of his master, trembles for his life. "What have I sinned," he says, "that thou wouldest deliver thy servant into the hand of Ahab, to slay me? As the Lord thy God liveth, there is no nation or kingdom, whither my lord hath not sent to seek thee: and when they said, He is not there; he took an oath of the kingdom and nation, that they found thee not. And now thou sayest, Go, tell thy lord, Behold, Elijah is here. And it shall come to pass, as soon as I am gone from thee, that the Spirit of the Lord shall carry thee whither I know not; and so when I come and tell Ahab, and he cannot find thee, he shall slay me." He evidently knew, dear man, that the husband of Jezebel set but slight value on any of his subjects' lives, and in his present temper would not hesitate, on the least provocation or suspicion, to slay him without mercy.

Assured by the prophet that Ahab should find him, as he said, Obadiah delivered his message. "And Ahab went to meet Elijah. And it came to pass, when Ahab saw Elijah, that Ahab said unto him, Art thou he that troubleth Israel?" What impudence! "And he answered, I have not troubled Israel; but thou, and thy father's house, in that ye have forsaken the commandments of the Lord, and thou hast followed Baalim" (or, the Baals).

The prophet then proposed to test publicly on mount Carmel whether Jehovah or Baal were God. To this the king accedes. "So Ahab sent unto all the children of Israel, and gathered the prophets together unto mount Carmel." The test was accordingly made, to the utter discomfiture of the Baal prophets. "Jehovah, He is God! Jehovah, He is God!" all the people cried; and at Elijah's command the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal are led down to the brook Kishon, and slain there. See 1 Kings 18.

The people again acknowledging Jehovah as God, and the prophets of Baal destroyed, the purpose of the drought was accomplished. "And Elijah said unto Ahab, Get thee up, eat and drink; for there is a sound of abundance of rain."

Here the prophet's intercessory prayer is given us, to which James calls our attention: "Elijah was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth . . and he prayed again, and the heavens gave rain." (James 5: 17, 18). A cloud, "like a man's hand" at first, soon fills the whole sky: the prayer is answered, and in the power of the Spirit of faith Elijah sends the word by his servant, "Go up, say unto Ahab, Prepare thy chariot, and get thee down, that the rain stop thee not. And it came to pass in the mean while, that the heaven was black with clouds and wind, and there was a great rain. And Ahab rode, and went to Jezreel."

Jezebel's indomitable will is now stirred to passion. Enraged, she threatens with an oath to make Elijah's life like that of her slaughtered favorites, and he in fear flees from the kingdom. She was evidently the real ruler in Israel, for Ahab, so far as Scripture informs us, did not make even the mildest kind of protest against her murderous threat.

Ahab's weakness is further made manifest by his servile answer to the besieging king of Syria: "And Ben-hadad the king of Syria gathered all his host together: and there were thirty and two kings with him, and horses, and chariots: and he went up and besieged Samaria, and warred against it. And he sent messengers to Ahab king of Israel into the city, and said unto him, Thus saith Ben-hadad, Thy silver and thy gold is mine; thy wives also and thy children, even the goodliest, are mine. And the king of Israel answered and said, My lord, O king, according to thy saying, I am thine, and all that I have." And when the messengers returned with more insolent demands, the king would probably have submitted to the humiliating conditions proposed, had not his more spirited and patriotic subjects advised otherwise, saying, "Harken not unto him, nor consent." A wicked man is never really anything but a weak man. It is only "the righteous" who is, as saith the proverb, "bold as a lion." When Ahab does refuse the king of Syria his unsoldierly demand, he says, half apologetically, "This thing I may not do." He does not use the bold, intensive "will not" of the three Hebrew children under more helpless circumstances, and to a more powerful king (Dan. 3: 18). Angered at even this meekly-put refusal, "Ben-hadad sent unto him, and said, The gods do so unto me, and more also, if the dust of Samaria shall suffice for handfuls for all the people that follow me." Then, more nobly, poor Ahab answers: "Tell him, Let not him that girdeth on his harness boast himself as he that putteth it off." Provoked at this reply, Ben-hadad, under the influence of drink, gave the mad order for instant attack upon the city.

But God's time for the humiliation of insolent Benhadad had come: "And, behold, there came a prophet unto Ahab king of Israel, saying, Thus saith the Lord, Hast thou seen all this great multitude? behold, I will deliver it into thy hand this day; and thou shalt know that I am the Lord. And Ahab said, By whom? And he said, Thus saith the Lord, Even by the young men (servants, Heb.) of the princes of the provinces. Then he said, Who shall order the battle? And he answered, Thou." God would humiliate Benhadad, not by any show of strength, as by the seven thousand soldiers left to Ahab, but by the servants of the princes of the provinces, who numbered two hundred and thirty-two. "And they went out at noon. But Benhadad was drinking himself drunk in the pavilions, he and the kings" — the thirty and two kings that helped him.

"And the young men of the princes of the provinces went out first; and Benhadad sent out, and they told him, saying, There are men come out of Samaria. And he said, Whether they be come out for peace, take them alive; or whether they be come out for war, take them alive. So these young men of the princes of the provinces came out of the city, and the army which followed them. And they slew every one his man: and the Syrians fled; and Israel pursued them: and Benhadad the king of Syria escaped on a horse with the horsemen. And the king of Israel went out, and smote the horses and chariots, and slew the Syrians with a great slaughter."

The expression "The king of Israel went out," coming, as it does, after the account of the going forth and victory of the young men and the small army, seems to imply that though, according to the prophet's word, he should order (or command) the battle, he remained cautiously behind, until the rout of the besiegers had begun: then, when danger is past, he comes forth from his place of security within the city walls, and assists in slaughtering an already defeated foe. God gave his army victory, that he might have another proof, in addition to that already offered on mount Carmel — so condescending and gracious is He — that He was Jehovah, the unchanging One. He would in this way too encourage and foster any little faith that might, as a result of the recent demonstration on mount Carmel, have sprung up in the hearts of the nearly apostate nation. Trust in Him He calls "precious faith" (2 Peter 1: 1), so highly does He value it. In how many ways does God seek to gain and hold the confidence of men, for their everlasting good and glory! Reader, "hast thou faith?"

"And the prophet came to the king of Israel, and said unto him, Go, strengthen thyself, and mark, and see what thou doest: for at the return of the year the king of Syria will come up against thee." What patient, marvelous grace is God's! His goodness would lead men to repentance. So He sends His prophet, even to Ahab, to warn him of what the Syrians will do. "And it came to pass at the return of the year, that Benhadad numbered the Syrians, and went up to Aphek, to fight against Israel." This Aphek lay about six miles east of the sea of Galilee, on the direct road between the land of Israel and Damascus, and was a common battlefield of the Syrian kings. See 2 Kings 13: 17. "And the children of Israel were numbered, and were all present, and went against them: and the children of Israel pitched before them like two little flocks of kids; but the Syrians filled the country. And there came a man of God, and spake unto the king of Israel, and said, Thus saith the Lord, Because the Syrians have said, The Lord is God of the hills, but He is not God of the valleys, therefore will I deliver all this great multitude into thy hand, and ye shall know that I am Jehovah" — another demonstration that Jehovah was the God of Israel.

For a whole week the two hostile armies lay encamped one over against the other — Israel's poor little army "like two little flocks of kids," but with God on its side — and when they join battle on the seventh day, the "two little flocks of kids" destroy a host of a hundred thousand men. And the remnant of the defeated army, numbering twenty-seven thousand, that escaped being slaughtered by those whose land they had without provocation invaded, fled into the city of Aphek, where a wall fell upon them. Means were nothing with Israel's God, Jehovah, who is called "the God of battles"; He can save by many or by few; and what a mere handful (a few thousand) does not destroy of a vast army, He can shake down a wall upon the rest, and thus complete its deserved destruction.

This was the third occasion, within a short space of time, on which God would convince the king of Israel, and his people, that He was what His prophets proclaimed Him to be — Jehovah, the God of Israel. He insists that, among men, "in the mouth of two or three witnesses," every word shall be established; and He will not Himself use an easier rule in His dealings with the sons of men. Ahab had this threefold testimony given him, but, alas, he entirely failed to profit by it. He is ensnared by Ben-hadad's guile, after God had placed him in his power; he not only let him live, but said, "He is my brother." It was the beginning of his final downfall.

A prophet now, by skilful artifice, brings before Ahab what he had done. Having induced a fellow-prophet to smite him, so that in smiting he wounded him, he then disguised himself, and hailed the king as he was passing by. "And he said, Thy servant went out into the midst of the battle; and, behold, a man turned aside, and brought a man unto me, and said Keep this man: if by any means he be missing, then shall thy life be for his life, or else thou shalt pay a talent of silver. And as thy servant was busy here and there, he was gone." Ahab probably thought he had appealed to him as a suppliant, in reference to his forfeited life, or the ruinous fine; and he, like David before, pronounces his own sentence: "And the king of Israel said unto him, So shall thy judgment be; thyself hast decided it. And he (the prophet) hasted, and took the ashes away from his face; and the king of Israel discerned him that he was of the prophets. And he said unto him, Thus saith the Lord, Because thou hast let go out of thy hand a man whom I appointed to utter destruction, therefore thy life shall go for his life, and thy people for his people. And the king of Israel went to his house heavy and displeased [sullen and vexed, N.Tr.], and came to Samaria." He made the same fatal mistake that king Saul made when he spared Agag. His calling the enemy of Israel "my brother," and taking him up into his chariot, may have sounded well and looked liberal to men like himself, who would applaud his conduct as magnanimous; but in God's eyes it was unpardonable disobedience, for which he and the nation would be made to suffer. Men might praise him, but of what worth are human plaudits to the man whose conduct God condemns? Ahab was not the last of that generation who love "the praise of men more than the praise of God" (John 12: 43).

From that time Ahab appears to be given up of God: first, to covetousness and murder, and then to make war with and be slain by that nation whose blaspheming king he had called "my brother," and permitted to escape.

The first, his coveting of Naboth's vineyard, and the false accusation and murder of that righteous man, form one of the most painful and soul-stirring chapters in human history, whether secular or inspired. "And it came to pass after these things, that Naboth the Jezreelite had a vineyard, which was in Jezreel, hard by the palace of Ahab king of Samaria. And Ahab spake unto Naboth, saying, Give me thy vineyard, that I may have it for a garden of herbs, because it is near unto my house: and I will give thee for it a better vineyard than it; or, if it seem good to thee, I will give thee the worth of it in money." This Ahab, who could "brother" and spare a wicked Gentile king whom divine justice had doomed to destruction, can now, for the sake of gardening and enlarging the grounds about his palace, set about to murder a true brother. Though king, his offer to his neighbor Naboth is fearlessly refused. "And Naboth said to Ahab, The Lord forbid it me, that I should give the inheritance of my fathers unto thee." This was not obstinacy on Naboth's part, as some have supposed; nor yet a stubborn refusal to surrender his legal rights to do his king a favor. He was contending, not for his own rights (which scarcely becomes one who owes his all to God's free grace), but for God's, and those of his successors. "The land shall not be sold forever," God had said. Merciful provision was made in the law for a man who might have become reduced to extreme poverty. He was permitted to sell the land, but only to the year of jubilee, when it was to revert back to the original owner, or his heirs. Naboth could not plead poverty, so had no excuse to sell his vineyard, even to the king. There was also a law relating to property within a city's walls, which, if sold, must be redeemed within a year, or remain the possession of the purchaser forever. See Lev. 25. If Naboth's vineyard, adjoining Ahab's palace, lay within the city walls, it would, if sold, pass for all time out of the hands of Naboth's heirs.* Be that as it may, his firm refusal to sell out to his royal neighbor was a matter of conscience. Araunah's sale of his threshing-floor to David, and Omri's purchase of the hill of Samaria, cannot be called parallel cases. In the first instance Araunah, though a Jebusite (a Gentile), seemed fully to enter into David's purpose, and have fellowship with it. It was therefore surrendering and offering his property to the Lord Himself. In the second, the moral condition of the nation was such that Shemer, an Israelite; was probably unconcerned as to what God had said concerning the disposal of His land. Naboth was right, both toward God and toward his family ties, whatever his critics may be disposed to say to the contrary; but his resolute adherence to the right cost him both his good name and his life.

{*Dwelling houses only were subject to this law (see Lev. 25: 29), and a vineyard could hardly be within city walls. 2 Kings 9: 21 and 31 indicate it was without the city. [Ed.}

"And Ahab came into his house heavy and displeased because of the word which Naboth the Jezreelite had spoken to him: for he had said, I will not give thee the inheritance of my fathers. And he laid him down upon his bed, and turned away his face, and would eat no bread." His petulant conduct ill became a man — much less a king; it was rather that of a spoiled child, peevish and in ill humor, because crossed in his desire by one of his subjects. "But Jezebel his wife came to him, and said unto him, Why is thy spirit so sad, that thou eatest no bread?" Informed as to the cause of his dejection, her daring spirit finds a ready way out of Ahab's difficulty. "And Jezebel his wife said unto him, Dost thou now govern the kingdom of Israel?" Alas, was it not she that governed it really, with more daring ungodliness than Ahab, her puppet husband? "Arise," says she, "and eat bread, and let thy heart be merry. I will give thee the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite." Herself the daughter of a Gentile king, she was thoroughly schooled in court methods of disposing of refractory subjects. She had not learned, as David, in God's school, that kings should be the shepherds of the people. Might made right in the kingdoms of the nations, and she should, show to her Hebrew husband how quickly Naboth's objections to the king's demands could be overcome, in spite of anything, or everything, written in the Mosaic code. "So she wrote letters in Ahab's name, and sealed them with his seal, and sent the letters unto the elders and to the nobles that were in his city, dwelling with Naboth. And she wrote in the letters, saying, Proclaim a fast, and set Naboth on high among the people: and set two men, sons of Belial, before him, to bear witness against him, saying, Thou didst blaspheme God and the king. And then carry him out, and stone him, that he may die." How base could such men be, to lend themselves as willing tools to her perfidious designs, and carry out her instructions to the letter! Yet, public conscience might rebel at open murder; and some appearance of justice had to be given her act therefore. The moral effect on the nation of what had happened on mount Carmel had, besides, probably not passed away; and this nefarious patron of Baal had to proceed with a measure of caution, in her wickedness. "And the men of his city, even the elders and the nobles who were the inhabitants in his city, did as Jezebel had sent unto them, and as it was written in the letters which she had sent unto them." Naboth was accordingly accused, taken out of the city, and there stoned to death. "Then they sent to Jezebel, saying, Naboth is stoned, and is dead." All had succeeded but too well. "And it came to pass, when Jezebel heard that Naboth was stoned, and was dead, that Jezebel said to Ahab, Arise, take possession of the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, which he refused to give thee for money: for Naboth is not alive, but dead. And it came to pass, when Ahab heard that Naboth was dead, that Ahab rose up to go down to the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, to take possession of it."

Jezebel had had her will, but oh, the dreadfulness of using God's institution to carry out the will of the flesh! She knew the penalty for blasphemy against Jehovah was death (Lev. 24: 16). She would find associates to prove Naboth guilty of this, and thus avenge herself upon the man who had dared to say No to the desire of power. But, according to Jewish doctors, if found guilty of blasphemy alone, his property would fall to his heirs the same as if he had died under ordinary, or natural, circumstances. To secure the vineyard, a further charge, of treason, therefore must be trumped up against him; as in such a case the estate of the condemned man went to the royal exchequer. So Naboth was accused of blasphemy both against "God and the king." See Ex. 22: 28. And when the dark deed was done, the instigator of it could coolly send to her husband, saying, "Naboth is not alive, but dead."

But Naboth's God was not dead; He was still the God "that liveth and seeth," as Ahab was soon to know. "And the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying, Arise, go down to meet Ahab king of Israel, which is in Samaria: behold, he is in the vineyard of Naboth, whither he is gone down to possess it. And thou shalt speak unto him, saying, Thus saith the Lord, Hast thou killed, and also taken possession? And thou shalt speak unto him, saying, Thus saith the Lord, In the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth shall dogs lick thy blood, even thine."

Like most wicked men when reproved, Ahab looked upon the fearless messenger of God as an enemy. "Hast thou found me, O mine enemy?" he asks. "Is it thou, the troubler of Israel?" he had asked the faithful prophet on a former occasion (1 Kings 18: 17, N. Tr.). Here, when he can no longer link the nation with himself in his guilt, he acknowledges the personal character of the prophet's ministry, and calls him his (not the nation's) enemy. "And he answered, I have found thee: because thou hast sold thyself to work evil in the sight of the Lord. Behold, I will bring evil upon thee, and will take away thy posterity, and will cut off from Ahab every male, and him that is shut up and left in Israel, and will make thy house like the house of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, and like the house of Baasha the son of Ahijah, for the provocation wherewith thou hast provoked Me to anger, and made Israel to sin." Judgment upon Jezebel also is then pronounced. "And it came to pass, when Ahab heard those words, that he rent his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his flesh, and fasted, and lay in sackcloth, and went softly." Ahab is really affected, though superficially, no doubt, by the prophet's declaration; and God, who ever approves even the slightest indication of repentance in transgressors, says to Elijah, "Seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself before Me? because he humbleth himself before Me, I will not bring the evil in his days: but in his son's days will I bring the evil upon his house."

We have now the closing incident in the life of this king of Israel, who "did sell himself to work wickedness in the sight of the Lord, whom Jezebel his wife stirred up."

"And they continued three years without war between Syria and Israel." In the third year, Jehoshaphat king of Judah (now linked to the house of Ahab by the marriage of his son and heir-apparent to the throne, to Athaliah, Ahab's daughter) came down on a friendly visit to the Israelitish capital. Ahab saw in the presence of so powerful an ally a splendid opportunity to use him to the extension of his kingdom. So he says to his servants, "Know ye not that Ramoth in Gilead is ours, and we be still, and take it not out of the hand of the king of Syria?" Ramoth-gilead was an important fortress, directly east of Samaria, and about twenty miles back from the Jordan. It was occupied during Solomon's magnificent reign by Ben-Geber, one of his twelve commissariat officers (1 Kings 4: 13). Ben-hadad I. had taken it from Omri, according to Josephus (Ant. viii., 15 § 4). On Ahab's proposing to jointly recover this place to their family (now one, alas), Jehoshaphat at once acceded, saying, "I am as thou art," etc. (See JEHOSHAPHAT.) The four hundred court prophets all declared the success of the expedition a foregone conclusion. "Go up," they said, unanimously; "for the Lord shall deliver it into the hand of the king." (2 Chron. 18: 5 has "God," instead of "the Lord," as here: see Author's Introduction.) Ahab's ally did not appear entirely satisfied with such offhand, emphatic prophecies of good fortune; he had evidently some misgivings of conscience, and was suspicious of this crowd of state-paid "peace-and-safety" preachers. So he cautiously asked if there was not another of Jehovah's prophets within call, of whom they might further inquire. "There is yet one man," answered Ahab, "Micaiah the son of Imlah, by whom we may inquire of the Lord: but I hate him; for he doth not prophesy good concerning me, but evil." And the good-natured king of Judah, ever willing to put the best construction possible on others' deeds, or words, replied, "Let not the king say so." "Hasten hither Micaiah the son of Imlah," Ahab commanded his officer; and the unpopular prophet was unceremoniously brought into the presence of the consulting kings. The two ill-matched kings sat each on his throne, arrayed in his robes of state, in an open space at the entrance of the gate of Samaria. Before them were gathered all the pseudo-prophets, prophesying their lies before their royal master and his uneasy confederate. One of the deceivers, striving after dramatic effect, had made iron horns, saying, "Thus saith the Lord, With these shalt thou push the Syrians, until thou have consumed them." "Go up to Ramoth-gilead, and prosper," they all with one voice said: "for the Lord shall deliver it into the king's hand."

Now Jehovah's prophet is brought, and in ironical agreement with what the time-serving four hundred had been saying, he also says, "Go, and prosper!" Ahab was quick to understand his irony, and adjured him (put him under oath) in Jehovah's name, to tell him nothing but that which was true. "And he said, I saw all Israel scattered upon the hills, as sheep that have not a shepherd: and the Lord said, These have no master let them return every man to his house in peace." "Did I not tell thee that he would prophesy no good concerning me, but evil?" said Ahab to Jehoshaphat, on hearing this solemn announcement. Jehovah's prophet now sets before them his vision of a scene in heaven: the lying spirit in the mouth of Ahab's prophets to allure him to his death. But this is more than Ahab can bear, and he orders at once that Micaiah be thrust into prison, and to be fed with the bread and water of affliction, till he returned from his expedition in peace. "And Micaiah said, If thou return at all in peace, the Lord hath not spoken by me. And he said, Harken, O people, every one of you."

Could all this take place in the presence of Jehoshaphat, and he not protest? We know not. Scripture is silent here. But, alas, what may not even a child of God stoop to, away from God, in evil company!

The two kings now proceed to Ramoth-gilead, and Ahab's treachery and cowardice again appear. He artfully disguises himself, while inducing the unsuspecting Jehoshaphat to appear in battle in his royal robes. Base and contemptible trickery!

He protects his own person at the probable sacrifice of his generous friend. But "the unjust knoweth no shame," and living for self destroys all nobleness of character. The unhappy monarch had also been under Jezebel's influence too long to have any uprightness remaining in him. Besides, he probably feared Micaiah's prophecy more than he believed his own prophets. Alas, his merited end had come. The Syrians crowded close upon poor Jehoshaphat for a time; but God delivered him, and they perceived their mistake. "And a certain man drew a bow at a venture, and smote the king of Israel between the joints of the harness [or, armor]: wherefore he said unto the driver of his chariot, Turn thy hand, and carry me out of the host: for I am wounded." And at even, at the time of the going down of the sun, he died; "and the blood ran out of the wound into the midst of the chariot." The day was lost to Israel, and the humiliated army returned leaderless from the ill-fated campaign.

"So the king died, and was brought to Samaria: and they buried the king in Samaria. And one washed the chariot in the pool of Samaria; and the dogs licked up his blood; and they washed his armour; according to the word of the Lord which He spake." God's arrow found him, in spite of his disguise; and his colleague, though for a time a conspicuous target for every archer in the Syrian army, escaped. How true the couplet,

"Not a single shaft can hit,

Till our all-wise God sees fit."

None who make God their trust need ever fear "the arrow that flieth by day" (Ps. 91: 5).

"Now the rest of the acts of Ahab, and all that he did, and the ivory house which he made, and all the cities that he built, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel?" He was evidently a man of luxurious tastes, which appears to have been also characteristic of his successors. (See Amos. 3: 15). His moral character, as given in the parenthetic passage of 1 Kings 21: 25, 26, is a fearfully black one. "But (or surely) there was none like unto Ahab, which did sell himself to work wickedness in the sight of the Lord, whom Jezebel his wife stirred up (urged on, Heb.) And he did very abominably in following idols, according to all things as did the Amorites, whom the Lord cast out before the children of Israel." He was a true brother (or friend) of his father Omri, in his excessive wickedness.

The Moabite stone mentions Omri's son; his name also appears on the Assyrian Black Obelisk as "Ahab of Jezreel."

"So Ahab slept with his fathers; and Ahaziah his son reigned in his stead."

AHAZIAH (Whom Jehovah holds.)

1 Kings 22: 40, 49, 51; 2 Kings 1.

Contemporary Prophet, ELIJAH.

"The fear of the Lord prolongeth days: but the years of the wicked shall be shortened." — Proverbs 10: 27.

"AHAZIAH the son of Ahab began to reign over Israel in Samaria the seventeenth year of Jehoshaphat king of Judah, and reigned two years over Israel. And he did evil in the sight of the Lord, and walked in the way of his father, and in the way of his mother, and in the way of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin. For he served Baal, and worshiped him, and provoked to anger the Lord God of Israel, according to all that his father had done." It is a dark catalogue of iniquity, yet only what might be expected of the offspring of such a couple as Ahab and Jezebel. So matched in wickedness were his parents that nothing short of a miracle of grace could have made him anything better than the description given of him here.

"And Ahaziah fell down through a lattice in his upper chamber, that was in Samaria, and was sick: and he sent messengers, and said unto them, Go, enquire of Baal-zebub [lord of flies] the god of Ekron, whether I shall recover of this disease." Ekron was the northernmost of the five chief Philistine cities, and contained the shrine and oracle of the vile abomination called Baal-zebub (the Beelzebub of the New Testament). Men love the gods that are most like unto themselves, so it is not surprising to see Ahaziah sending to this miserable Philistine god. But the sick king's messengers never reached the oracle. The God of Israel Himself, sending His prophet to intercept the king's messengers, answered His question. "But the angel of the Lord said to Elijah the Tishbite, Arise, go up to meet the messengers of the king of Samaria, and say unto them: Is it not because there is not a God in Israel, that ye go to enquire of Baalzebub the god of Ekron? Now, therefore, thus saith the Lord, Thou shalt not come down from that bed on which thou art gone up, but shalt surely die."

The messengers returned to their royal master, and related what had taken place. "There came a man to meet us," they say, "and said unto us," etc. "What manner of man was he which came up to meet you, and told you these words?" the king enquired. "And they answered him, He was a hairy man, and girt with a girdle of leather about his loins. And he said, It is Elijah the Tishbite." In his perverse folly, Ahaziah orders him at once to be apprehended. But now the strong hand of Jehovah must be felt by the perverse king and his haughty captains: twice over the captains with their fifties are consumed by fire from heaven. But, as the third captain humbly pleads for his own life and of his fifty men sent forth to arrest Jehovah's prophet, the angel of the Lord bids Elijah, "Go down with him: be not afraid of him. And he arose, and went down with him unto the king." There, in the presence of the king, Jehovah's judgment is unflinchingly repeated to himself.

"So he died according to the word, of the Lord which Elijah had spoken. And Jehoram reigned in his stead in the second year of Jehoram the son of Jehoshaphat king of Judah; because he had no son." This Jehoram was another son of Ahab (2 Kings 3: 1) and therefore brother of Ahaziah.

"Now the rest of the acts of Ahaziah which he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel?" Yes, and they, with the wicked acts recorded here, are written in God's books above; not "of the chronicles of the kings of Israel" merely, but of the deeds and doings of every man's life, whether it be good or evil. Solemn facts for us all!

JORAM (or JEHORAM) (Exalted by Jehovah.)

2 Kings 1: 17; 3: 1-27; 6: 8 —7: 20; 9: 1-26.

Contemporary Prophet, ELISHA.

"The wicked are overthrown, and are not: but the house of the righteous shall stand." — Proverbs 12: 7.

"Now Jehoram the son of Ahab began to reign over Israel in Samaria the eighteenth year of Jehoshaphat king of Judah, and reigned twelve years. And he wrought evil in the sight of the Lord; but not like his father, and like his mother" — in contrast with his late brother Ahaziah, see 1 Kings 22: 52 — "for he put away the image of Baal that his father had made. Nevertheless he cleaved unto the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, which made Israel to sin; he departed not therefrom." There is no discrepancy between "the eighteenth year of Jehoshaphat," here, and "the second year of Jehoram the son of Jehoshaphat," as in 2 Kings 1: 17. Jehoshaphat made his son joint-king a number of years before his death, (see 2 Kings 8: 16, marg.) which readily accounts for the seeming contradictions in the above noted passages.

"Then Moab rebelled against Israel after the death of Ahab." "And Mesha king of Moab was a sheep master, and rendered unto the king of Israel a hundred thousand lambs, and a hundred thousand rams, with the wool. But it came to pass, when Ahab was dead, that the king of Moab rebelled against the king of Israel" (2 Kings 3: 4, 5). The defeat of the allied forces of Israel and Judah at Ramoth-Gilead, probably, emboldened him to take this step. Moab had been tributary to Israel ever since their subjugation by David, more than two hundred years before (see 2 Sam. 8: 2). On the division of the kingdom, they appear to have paid their accustomed tribute to Jeroboam, as his kingdom embraced the two and a half tribes east of Jordan, whose territory extended to the kingdom of Moab. This revolt of Mesha is mentioned on the Moabite, or Dibon, stone. (See also Isa. 16: 1.) The loss of this enormous annual income must have been keenly felt by Israel, and the attempt to secure its resumption occasioned this unhappy war in which Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, again guiltily allied himself to Jehoram.

"And king Jehoram went out of Samaria the same time [of Mesha's rebellion — see AHAZIAH], and numbered all Israel. And he went and sent to Jehoshaphat the king of Judah, saying, The king of Moab hath rebelled against me: wilt thou go with me against Moab to battle? And he said, I will go up: I am as thou art, my people as thy people, and my horses as thy horses." It is a sadly compromising declaration to come from the lips of a king of the house and lineage of David. But it was the result of his joining affinity with the house of Ahab by his son Jehoram's marriage to the infamous Athaliah. So not only do "evil communications corrupt good manners," but that delicate sense of truthful consistency, so evidently lacking in Jehoshaphat here.

"And he said, Which way shall we go up? And he answered, The way through the wilderness of Edom. So the king of Israel went, and the king of Judah, and the king of Edom." This "king of Edom" was not a native Edomite, but a deputy (1 Kings 22: 47) appointed, probably, by Jehoshaphat (2 Kings 8: 20), and formed a party to the expedition in the capacity of a vassal, rather than as an independent prince. "And they fetched a compass of seven days' journey: and there was no water for the host and for the cattle that followed them. And the king of Israel said, Alas! that the Lord hath called these three kings together to deliver them into the hand of Moab." When such a man of God as Jehoshaphat identifies himself with such a man as the king of Israel, distress must needs come upon them, that victory may be recognized as an act of God's sovereign grace, and not a spark of honor left to the follower of Jeroboam's calves.

"But Jehoshaphat said, Is there not here a prophet of the Lord, that we may enquire of the Lord by him?" Elisha is here, said one of the king of Israel's servants. "And Jehoshaphat said, The word of the Lord is with him. So the king of Israel, and Jehoshaphat, and the king of Edom went down to him." Even wicked men will cry to God in the hour of their calamity, yet without change of heart. But Elisha had as little respect for or fear of Jehoram, as Elijah his master had had for his idolatrous predecessors. "And Elisha said unto the king of Israel, What have I to do with thee? get thee to the prophets of thy father, and to the prophets of thy mother. And the king of Israel said unto him, Nay: for the Lord hath called these three kings together, to deliver them into the hand of Moab. And Elisha said, As the Lord of hosts liveth, before whom I stand, surely, were it not that I regard the presence of Jehoshaphat the king of Judah, I would not look toward thee, nor see thee."

Then, as the minstrel played, "the hand of the Lord came upon him," and he ordered the valley to be filled with ditches, saying, "Thus saith the Lord, Ye shall not see wind, neither shall ye see rain: yet that valley shall be filled with water, that ye may drink, both ye, and your cattle, and your beasts. And this is but a light thing in the sight of the Lord: He will deliver the Moabites also into your hand." And so, "It came to pass, in the morning, when the meat-offering was offered, that, behold, there came water by the way of Edom, and the country was filled with water."

This sudden and abundant water supply was, probably, as has been suggested, caused by heavy rains on the eastern mountains of Edom, so far away that no signs of the storm were visible to the invaders. In any case it was God's doing, whatever the physical forces used by Him to bring it about. Faith never gives itself concern about the scientific explanation of such occurrences. God could have created the water, had He so ordained. And "He giveth not account of any of His matters," either to adoring, wondering faith, or caviling, questioning unbelief. A starving man need not concern himself as to how, or where, the food set before him was obtained by his benefactor. It is his to eat, and be thankful. And any to whose ears the report of this benevolence comes, should, also, not be occupied with questions concerning the manner or means by which the philanthropist was enabled to do the beggar this kindness. Their business should be to admire and laud the spirit of disinterested love and mercy that prompted the deed of generosity.

"And when all the Moabites heard that the kings were come up to fight against them, they gathered all that were able to put on armour, and upward, and stood in the border." When the morning dawned they saw the water, as the sun shone upon it, in the ditches, and it appeared to their eyes red as blood. "And they said, This is blood: the kings are surely slain, and they have smitten one another; now therefore, Moab, to the spoil." They probably supposed that the Edomites had turned mutinous at the last, and in their effort to free themselves of Hebrew domination, had caused the mutual destruction of the confederate armies. But alas, for them and their over-sanguine conclusion. When they approached the Israelitish camp, "The Israelites rose up and smote the Moabites so that they fled before them." Their defeat was thorough and crushing, as it was unexpected. Israel seems now to have exceeded in unmerciful pursuit and pressure upon the king of Moab, who, in desperation, "took his eldest son that should have reigned in his stead, and offered him for a burnt offering upon the wall. And there was great indignation against Israel: and they departed from him, and returned to their own land."

This was Jehoshaphat's second act of affinity with the ungodly, and like the first, it ended in failure, or was entirely barren of results. If even sinners wish success in their undertakings they should be careful not to admit into their partnership God's children, for God's hand may be upon His own for discipline, and ill fortune will attend them. Neither Ahab, nor Jehoram gained anything by having the godly Jehoshaphat as their ally — so jealous is God of His people's associations.

How strange, yet sadly true it is, that the history of a country is largely the history of its wars. The maxim holds good, not only of the land of Israel, but of its kings especially. Omit the records of their warfare, and there would be little to say of any of them. How it all tells of man's fall and ruin, and of God's righteous government.

The second important incident recorded of Jehoram's life is in connection with the invasion of his territory by the king of Syria. "Then the king of Syria warred against Israel, and took counsel with his servants, saying, In such and such a place shall be my camp. And the man of God sent unto the king of Israel, saying, Beware that thou pass not such a place; for thither the Syrians are come down. And the king of Israel sent to the place which the man of God told him and warned him of, and saved himself there, not once nor twice." The prophet seems to look upon Jehoram here with somewhat less disfavor than when on the expedition against the Moabites. (See also 2 Kings 3: 13.) He seems to have been pursued by the king of Syria, and there may have been some change in his conduct too, which Elisha would be quick to take note of, and encourage in every possible way — so gracious is God in His governmental dealings with the sons of men.

On learning how Jehoram obtained the information by which he was enabled to repeatedly escape the ambushments set for him, the king of Syria sent to apprehend the revealer of his military secrets. In answer to His servant's prayer, the Lord smote the Syrians with blindness, and the man they were bent on arresting led them into the very midst of their enemy's capital. "And the king of Israel said unto Elisha, when he saw them, My father, shall I smite them? shall I smite them?" But, in New Testament spirit, he answers," Thou shalt not smite them; wouldest thou smite those whom thou hast taken captive with thy sword and with thy bow? Set bread and water before them, that they may eat and drink, and go to their master. And he prepared great provision for them: and when they had eaten and drunk, he sent them away, and they went to their master." The Syrians had heard before that "the kings of the house of Israel" were "merciful kings" (1 Kings 20: 31); they were now given a demonstration of the mercy of Israel's God through His prophet's intervention. And it was not without some effect, nor at once forgotten, for we read, "So the bands of Syria came no more into the land of Israel." Such is the power of grace, over hardened, heathen soldiers, even.

"And it came to pass after this, that Benhadad king of Syria gathered all his host, and went up, and besieged Samaria." This does not in any way contradict what is stated in the preceding verse (2 Kings 6: 23, 24). Josephus says, "So he [Ben-hadad] determined to make no more secret attempts upon the king of Israel" (Ant. ix. 4, § 4). He afterwards made open war upon him, by legitimate methods; no more by marauding bodies and ambushments.

Alas, Israel's heart was hardened, so that, in the famine accompanying the siege, instead of turning to Jehovah, some of the inhabitants in their terrible extremity turned to the horrible deed of eating even their own offspring! See Lev. 26: 26-29; Deut. 28: 52, 53; which was finally fulfilled under the Romans.

"And as the king of Israel was passing by upon the wall, there cried a woman unto him, saying, Help, my lord, O king. And he said, If the Lord do not help thee, whence shall I help thee? out of the barn-floor, or out of the winepress? And the king said unto her, What aileth thee?" And then he has told into his ears the terrible tale of women deliberately agreeing to boil and eat their own children! "And it came to pass, when the king heard the words of the woman, that he rent his clothes; and he passed by upon the wall, and the people looked, and, behold, he had sackcloth within upon his flesh. Then he said, God do so and more also to me, if the head of Elisha the son of Shaphat shall stand on him this day." He had sackcloth on his flesh, but murder in his heart. Alas, what power of Satan over man's heart and mind is manifested in this! The heart of the king rises in bitter passion against God, and His prophet will serve to vent the rage of his unrepentant, unsubdued heart. It is not the only occasion in history where rulers have put the blame of national calamities upon God; and how often men's hearts rise against God, rather than humble themselves in repentance, under the pains of what they cannot change or overcome. (See Rev. 16: 10, 11.)

The king therefore sent an executioner to make good his hasty threat. His motive in following after his executioner is not clear. Was it to see the accomplishment of his murderous design, or regret at his reckless order?

"But Elisha sat in his house, and the elders sat with him; and the king sent a man from before him: but ere the messenger came to him, he said to the elders, See ye how this son of a murderer hath sent to take away my head? Look, when the messenger cometh, shut the door, and hold him fast at the door: is not the sound of his master's feet behind him? And while he yet talked with them, behold, the messenger came down unto him: and he (the king) said, Behold, this evil is of the Lord, what [why, N.Tr.] should I wait for the Lord any longer?" He had professedly been waiting upon the God of Elisha, and now when deliverance seems as far off as ever, throws it all up, as much as saying, It is useless to look to the Lord for deliverance; and the unbelief and passion of his heart break out.

But human extremity is the divine opportunity; and when the unbelieving king breaks out in fretful despair, the faith of God's prophet shines out, proclaiming full relief and abundance on the morrow. "Then Elisha said, Hear ye the word of the Lord; Thus saith the Lord, To-morrow about this time shall a measure of fine flour be sold for a shekel, and two measures of barley for a shekel, in the gate of Samaria." And as the man of God foretold, so it came to pass. A miraculous noise from the Lord frightened the besieging army, supposing it to be a mighty host's arrival. "For the Lord had made the host of the Syrians to hear a noise of chariots, and a noise of horses, even the noise of a great host: and they said one to another, Lo, the king of Israel hath hired against us the kings of the Hittites, and the kings of the Egyptians, to come upon us. Wherefore they arose and fled in the twilight, and left their tents, and their horses, and their asses, even the camp as it was, and fled for their life." Lepers, in the night, bring the welcome news to the king, who delays the deliverance by his unbelief, sending even to the Jordan, a score of miles away, for proofs of the report. Thus was Samaria relieved.

As for Syria, the dynasty of the first two Benhadads was soon after ended with the strangling of the king on his sick-bed by his prime minister Hazael, who reigned in his stead. News of this revolution, probably, encouraged Jehoram to attempt the recovery of Ramoth-Gilead, which his father, fourteen years before, had attacked in vain, with fatal consequences to himself. "And he [Jehoram, king of Judah] went with Joram the son of Ahab to the war against Hazael king of Syria in Ramoth-Gilead; and the Syrians wounded Joram. And king Joram went back to be healed in Jezreel of the wounds which the Syrians had given him at Ramah [or Ramoth], when he fought against Hazael king of Syria."

How he was shortly after slain by Jehu his commander-in-chief, will be dwelt upon in the review of that king's life. (See Jehu; also JEHORAM king of Judah.) The dynasty of Omri (the most powerful of the nine that ruled over Israel) ended with his life. His character was neither strong, nor very marked in anything. He appears to have had leanings toward the worship of Jehovah; but as a patron, rather than in heart-subjection to Him as the one true God of heaven and earth. He evidently looked upon Elisha's miracles as matters of speculation, in idle curiosity inquiring of the prophet's disgraced servant Gehazi. "And the king talked with Gehazi the servant of the man of God, saying, Tell me, I pray thee, all the great things that Elisha hath done." These marvellous signs of Jehovah were to him material for entertainment, merely, as the miracles of Elisha's great Antitype were to Herod. (See Mark 6: 14, 20; Luke 9: 9; 23: 8.) He was the counselor of Jehoram king of Judah, to his destruction (2 Chron. 22: 4, 5); and such was his unpopularity with his subjects that Jehu had but little difficulty in effecting a revolution, and supplanting him upon the throne after his murder.

He appears to have been, in spiritual matters, one of those undecided, neutral characters, who puzzle most observers, and who never seem to know themselves just where they stand, or belong. He put away the Baal statue, made by his father Ahab, but never become a real believer in Jehovah. The reading of the inspired record of his life leaves the impression on one's mind that he was, in all matters of faith, both skeptical and superstitious. God, who knew him and his ways perfectly, has caused it to be recorded of him, "He wrought evil in the sight of the Lord." As such, we and all posterity know him. And as such he shall be manifested in the coming day, when "great," as well as "small," shall stand before the throne to be judged, "every man, according to his works."

JEHU (Jehovah is He.)

2 Kings 9 and 10.

Contemporary Prophet: ELISHA.

"The great God that formed all things both rewardeth the fool, and rewardeth transgressors." — Proverbs 26: 10.

"And Elisha the prophet called one of the children of the prophets, and said unto him, Gird up thy loins, and take this box of oil in thy hand, and go to Ramoth-gilead: and when thou comest thither, look out there Jehu the son of Jehoshaphat the son of Nimshi, and go in, and make him arise up from among his brethren, and carry him to an inner chamber; then take the box of oil, and pour it on his head, and say, Thus saith the Lord, I have anointed thee king over Israel. Then open the door, and flee, and tarry not."

Twenty years before, he had (probably) been anointed by Elijah* (1 Kings 19: 16), as David was anointed by Samuel long before his anointing by the people (2 Sam. 2: 4).

{*Both the announcement to Hazael that he would be king over Syria, and the anointing of Jehu to Israel's kingdom, seem rather to have been left by Elijah to his successor Elisha, to be done at God's appointed time. In both Hazael and Jehu Elisha's appointment take immediate effect, as Elijah's mantle thrown upon Elisha had also taken immediate effect. See 1 Kings 19: 19-21; 2 Kings 8: 10-15; 9: 1-3 and 11-14. — [.Ed.}

The anointing of the king over Israel was not an established custom, or rule. It was done when the circumstances were out of the ordinary, or when there might be some question as to his title to the crown. Saul and David were both anointed by Samuel; the one as first king, the other as head of a new line (1 Sam. 9: 16; 16: 12). Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet jointly anointed Solomon, because of the faction under Adonijah (1 Kings 1: 34). The rebel son Absalom was also anointed (2 Sam. 19: 10). So was the boy-king Joash (2 Kings 11: 12); so, too, was the wicked and ill-fated Jehoahaz (2 Kings 23: 30). See also Judges 9: 8, 15. "In the case of Jehu, in whom the succession of the kingdom of Israel was to be translated out of the right line of the family of Ahab, into another family, which had no [legal] right to the kingdom, but merely the appointment of God, there was a necessity for his unction, both to convey to him a title, and to invest him in the actual possession of the kingdom" (Burder).

Joram's army still lay siege to Ramoth-gilead, where his general Jehu commanded the forces. "So the young man, even the young man the prophet, went to Ramoth-gilead. And when he came, behold, the captains of the host were sitting; and he said, I have an errand unto thee, O captain. And Jehu said, Unto which of all us? And he said, To thee, O captain. And he arose, and went into the house; and he poured the oil on his head, and said unto him, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, I have anointed thee king over the people of the Lord, even over Israel. And thou shalt smite the house of Ahab thy master, that I may avenge the blood of My servants the prophets, and the blood of all the servants of the Lord, at the hand of Jezebel. For the whole house of Ahab shall perish: and I will cut off from Ahab every male, and him that is shut up and left in Israel: and I will make the house of Ahab like the house of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, and like the house of Baasha the son of Ahijah: and the dogs shall eat Jezebel in the portion of Jezreel, and there shall be none to bury her. And he opened the door, and fled." At last, after more than fifteen years' delay, the blood of Naboth, crying, like Abel's, for vengeance from the ground, was about to be requited. God, when judging men, is never in haste. He allowed Jezebel to outlive, not only her husband, but his two successors. She was powerless, evidently, to continue her former high-handed practices after Ahab's death; and it was a part of her punishment to live to see his dynasty overthrown and the extinction of his and her house begun.

"Then Jehu came forth to the servants of his Lord: and one said unto him, Is all well? wherefore came this mad fellow to thee? And he said unto them, Ye know the man, and his communication.* And they said, It is false: tell us now. And he said, Thus and thus spake he to me, saying, Thus saith the Lord, I have anointed thee king over Israel. Then they hasted, and took every man his garment, and put it under him on the top of the stairs (an ancient custom, see Matt. 21: 7), and blew with trumpets, saying, Jehu is king . . . And Jehu said, If it be your minds, then let none go forth nor escape out of the city to go to tell it in Jezreel."

{*Translated "babbling" in Prov. 23: 29.}

Impatient to be in actual and acknowledged possession of the kingdom, and without a thought of waiting, even for the briefest season, upon God, Jehu is off with Bidkar his captain on his thirty-five mile journey to Jezreel. "So Jehu rode in a chariot, and went to Jezreel; for Joram lay there. And Ahaziah king of Judah was come down to see Joram. And there stood a Watchman on the tower of Jezreel, and he spied the company of Jehu as he came, and said, I see a company. And Joram said, Take a horseman, and send to meet them, and let him say, Is it peace? So there went one on horseback to meet him, and said, Thus saith the king, Is it peace? And Jehu said, What hast thou to do with peace? turn thee behind me. And the watchman told, saying, The messenger came to them, but he cometh not again." Another messenger is despatched to meet the advancing cavalcade. And with like result, only the watchman this time adds, in his report, "The driving is like the driving of Jehu the son of Nimshi; for he driveth furiously." Eager to be at his work of extirpation, the newly-anointed executioner-king makes all speed, as if the solemn, fearful work of destruction to which he had been commissioned was to him an exciting pleasure, instead of a painful task of stern necessity, as it must have been had he been in true fellowship with God in his work of overthrow and retributive judgment upon the house of Ahab. God has no pleasure in the death of the sinner. The taking of human life, whether done by divine appointment or otherwise, should be, and is, one of the saddest and most solemn acts that it is possible for man to perform. Jehu's ready willingness betrayed how little his soul really entered into the awful nature of his charge; and, what is more lamentable, the gravity of the guilt that had occasioned it.

"And Joram said, Make ready! And his chariot was made ready. And Joram king of Israel and Ahaziah king of Judah went out, each in his chariot, and they went out against (to meet, N.Tr.) Jehu, and met him in the portion of Naboth the Jezreelite. And it came to pass, when Joram saw Jehu, that he said, Is it peace, Jehu? And he answered, What peace, so long as the whoredoms of thy mother Jezebel and her witchcrafts are so many? And Joram turned his hands, and fled, and said to Ahaziah, There is treachery, O Ahaziah. And Jehu drew a bow with his full strength, and smote Jehoram between his arms, and the arrow went out at his heart, and he sunk down in his chariot." It was but the sudden beginning of a speedy end; for it is but "a short work" that God makes with men when He makes inquisition for apostasy and blood. "Then said Jehu to Bidkar his captain, Take up and cast him in the portion of the field of Naboth the Jezreelite: for remember how that, when I and thou rode together after Ahab his father, the Lord laid this burden upon him; surely I have seen yesterday the blood of Naboth, and the blood of his sons (see Joshua 7: 24), saith the Lord; and I will requite thee in this plot, saith the Lord. Now therefore take and cast him into the plot of ground, according to the word of the Lord." They slew Ahaziah king of Judah also (see AHAZIAH), as he was seeking to escape. "And Jehu followed after him, and said, Smite him also in the chariot."

Jezebel's turn comes next "And when Jehu was come to Jezreel, Jezebel heard of it; and she painted her face, and tired her head, and looked out at a window. And as Jehu entered in at the gate, she said, Had Zimri peace, who slew his master?" Her innate vanity manifested itself up till the last. She probably knew her end had come; but instead of preparing her soul, she adorned her body (soon to be eaten by dogs), darkening, according to Eastern custom, her brows and eyelashes with antimony, that she might appear queenly and beautiful even in death. Her daring spirit, even with her last breath, taunts her slayer by reminding him of Zimri's end, who, like Jehu (as she would make it appear), "slew his master."* "And he lifted up his face to the window, and said, Who is on my side? who? And there looked out to him two or three eunuchs. And he said, Throw her down. So they threw her down: and some of her blood was sprinkled on the wall, and on the horses: and he trode her under foot. And when he was come in, he did eat and drink, and said, Go, see now this cursed woman, and bury her: for she is a king's daughter. And they went to bury her: but they found no more of her than the skull, and the feet, and the palms of her hands. Wherefore they came again, and told him. And he said, This is the word of the Lord, which He spake by His servant Elijah the Tishbite, saying, In the portion of Jezreel shall dogs eat the flesh of Jezebel: and the carcase of Jezebel shall be as dung upon the face of the field in the portion of Jezreel; so that they shall not say, This is Jezebel" — i.e., there should be no tomb to mark the resting-place of her remains.

{*The New Translation makes her say, "Is it peace, Zimri, murderer of his master?"}

Thus miserably perished this wretched woman, a foreigner in Israel, who did her utmost to make her Tyrian Baal-worship the established religion of her husband's kingdom, and hesitated not to slay any who dared oppose her propaganda, or interfere with her desires or designs in any way. She is made (as we believe) a type of papal Rome in Rev. 3; and a more suitable character to represent that system of idolatry, corruption and murder, the history of the ages does not supply. And her tragic death is as the shadow cast before of that coming event foretold in Rev. 17: 17 — Babylon's end, "the judgment of the great whore," whose idolatries and crimes have stained the earth.

And Ahab had seventy sons in Samaria. And Jehu wrote letters, and sent to Samaria, unto the rulers of Jezreel, to the elders, and to them that brought up Ahab's children, saying, Now as soon as this letter cometh to you, seeing your master's sons are with you, and there are with you chariots and horses, a fenced (fortified) city also, and armor; look even out the best and meetest of your master's sons, and set him on his father's throne, and fight for your master's house." It was seemingly a bold challenge, though in reality only his manner of frightening them into subjection. He knew well the character of those with whom he had to deal; besides, there does not appear to have been much love or loyalty to the reigning dynasty. So the fervid reformer knew he had little to fear from them. "But they were exceedingly afraid, and said, Behold, the two kings stood not before him: how then shall we stand? And he that was over the house, and he that was over the city, the elders also, and the bringers up of the children, sent to Jehu, saying, We are thy servants, and will do all that thou shalt bid us; we will not make any king: do thou that which is good in thine eyes." Thus these spiritless elders and rulers of Jezreel tamely surrender everything to Jehu. When Jezebel sent her imperious letter to them, commanding them to falsely accuse and then murder Naboth, they abjectly complied without the slightest show of resistance or conscience, putting to death their righteous fellow-townsman. A cringing obedience might well have been expected by Jehu from such men.

"Then he wrote a letter the second time to them, saying, If ye be mine, and if ye will harken unto my voice, take ye the heads of the men your master's sons, and come to me to Jezreel by to-morrow this time. Now the king's sons, being seventy persons, were with the great men of the city, which brought them up. And it came to pass, when the letter came to them, that they took the king's sons, and slew seventy persons, and put their heads in baskets, and sent him them in Jezreel. And there came a messenger, and told him, saying, They have brought the heads of the king's sons. And he said, Lay ye them in two heaps at the entering in of the gate until the morning. And it come to pass in the morning, that he went out, and stood, and said to all the people, Ye be righteous: behold, I conspired against my master, and slew him: but who slew all these?" It was a crafty stroke of policy on Jehu's part to have the principal men of the capital slay the residue of Ahab's posterity. Their act, he shrewdly divined, would create a breach between themselves and any sympathizers with the extinct dynasty, or their royal relatives across the border; thus effectually destroying the last remaining opposition to his course, and settlement upon the throne. True, though his motives were purely political, he gives his wholesale executions a religious coloring, making capital of God's word and principle of retribution in regard to Ahab and his house: "Know now that there shall fall unto the earth nothing of the word of the Lord, which the Lord spake concerning the house of Ahab: for the Lord hath done that which He spake by His servant Elijah. So Jehu slew all that remained of the house of Ahab in Jezreel, and all his great men, and his kinsfolks, and his priests, until he left him none remaining."

The sword of judgment, so far as the expressed purpose of Jehovah was concerned, should have been confined to the house of Ahab. But a reckless and ambitious hand was wielding it, and it devoured beyond the allotted limits:

"And he arose and departed, and came to Samaria. And as he was at the shearing house (shepherd's meeting-place, N.Tr.) in the way, Jehu met with the brethren of Ahaziah king of Judah, and said, Who are ye? And they answered, We are the brethren of Ahaziah; and we go down to salute the children of the king and the children of the queen. And he said, Take them alive. And they took them alive, and slew them at the pit (well, N.Tr.) of the shearing house, even two and forty men; neither left he any of them." It was not any part of Jehovah's commission to Jehu to slay these, or any of the descendants of king Jehoshaphat. God had not required this at his hands; and in his unwarranted slaughter of these brethren of Ahaziah he all but exterminated the house of David, leaving the rule of the kingdom to the infamous Athaliah. Jehu probably cared little for this. His thought, probably, was to prevent any uprising against himself from the royal family of Judah. The possible consequences of his ruthless act in reference to the continuance of David's line (until Messiah) gave him no concern. As to the butchered princes, they reaped the melancholy consequences of their intimacy with a family doomed by God to destruction for their apostasy and wickedness. Let Christians take warning, and obey the call of God to His own, so unmistakably imperative and plain, "Come out from among them, and be ye separate" (2 Cor. 6: 17).

Jehu's self-complacency is manifested on his meeting with Jehonadab the son of Rechab. He patronizingly took him into his chariot, giving him his hand (signifying a pledge, in the East; see Ezra 10: 19), and saying, "Come with me, and see my zeal for the Lord." His ostentatious display of his reforming zeal revealed how little he had God's glory in mind in the midst of all his feverish activity and abolition — in sad contrast to Him who always hid Himself and sought His Father's glory only. He too had a zeal; but, oh, of what a different character from that of Jehu! "The zeal of Thy house consumes Me," He could say. But Jehu's zeal, on the contrary, consumed and destroyed everybody and everything that stood in the way of his own advantage or aggrandizement, but never touched himself. He appears to have been a total stranger to real exercise of soul. God ordained him as His executioner, and, as has been aptly said, "Never was a more fitted instrument for the work whereunto he was appointed than Jehu." And he had his reward. It was for this world alone; and the fourth generation of his children saw its end.

"And when he was come to Samaria, he slew all that remained unto Ahab in Samaria, till he had destroyed him, according to the saying of the Lord, which He spake by Elijah." He then turned his attention to the priests of Baal. A monk, at the dawn of the Reformation, remarked, "We must root printing out, or it will root us out." Jehu felt the same toward the Baal-worship in his newly-acquired kingdom; hence it must be rooted out. Baal had formed a powerful link between Ahab's family and his worshipers, and might be a menace to his tenure of the throne; his priests must therefore share the fate of that family under whose powerful patronage they had flourished in established security the past thirty-six years. "And Jehu gathered all the people together, and said unto them, Ahab served Baal a little; but Jehu shall serve him much." He then gathers, by subtilty, all the priests and followers of Baal into their place of worship. There is a measure of righteousness in his doings, however, for he takes pains to have none of the servants of Jehovah mixed up with the devoted worshipers of Baal. "And it came to pass, as soon as he (they, N.Tr.) had made an end of offering the burnt-offering, that Jehu said to the guard and to the captains, Go in, and slay them; let none come forth. And they smote them with the edge of the sword; and the guard and the captains cast them out, and went to the city (some read buildings, or citadel) of the house of Baal. And they brought forth the images out of the house of Baal, and burned them. And they brake down the image of Baal, and brake down the house of Baal, and made it a draught house unto this day."

"Thus Jehu extirpated Baal out of Israel. Only, the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin, from them Jehu departed not, [from] the golden calves that were in Bethel, and that were in Dan. And Jehovah said to Jehu, Because thou hast executed well that which is right in My sight, and hast done unto the house of Ahab according to all that was in My heart, thy children of the fourth generation shall sit on the throne of Israel. But Jehu took no heed to walk in the law of Jehovah the God of Israel with all his heart; he departed not from the sins of Jeroboam, who made Israel to sin" (2 Kings 10: 28-31, N.Tr.).

While he is God's faithful, and, as we have seen, over-zealous instrument, there is nothing lovely, and little that is commendable, in the character of Jehu. He served God's purpose as an executioner, but with that he stopped. He could slay "with all his heart," but took no heed to walk in the law of the Lord with earnestness. He could break down the gross and vile worship of Baal, yet go on in the calf-worship of Jeroboam. It is easier to serve God in outward things than to acquire the character which He loves, enthroning Him in the heart, and giving the spiritual intelligence of His mind. How different was David from Jehu! He too was God's instrument for judgment, but how different was his way of carrying it out! God did not, nor did He let Israel, forget his heartless slaughter, saying to the prophet Hosea, a hundred years later, "Call his name Jezreel; for yet a little while, and I will avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu" (Hosea 1: 4).

The great lesson to be drawn from this remarkable man's life is that of being constantly on our guard, as servants of God, lest we be found doing His work — whether it be in the exercise of discipline, or the accomplishment of reformation — in a spirit of unbrokenness and without due exercise of heart and conscience before Him who is "a God of judgment," and by whom "actions are weighed."

"Now the rest of the acts of Jehu, and all that he did, and all his might, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel? And Jehu slept with his fathers: and they buried him in Samaria. And Jehoahaz his son reigned in his stead. And the time that Jehu reigned over Israel in Samaria was twenty and eight years."*

{*For further and excellent reflections on the character of Jehu, see a pamphlet called "The Zeal of Jehu," published by R. T. Grant, Los Angeles, Cal.}

JEHOAHAZ (Jehovah-seized.)

2 Kings 13: 1-9.

Contemporary Prophets: ELISHA, JONAH.

"When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice: but when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn." — Proverbs 29: 2.

"In the three and twentieth year of Joash the son of Ahaziah king of Judah, Jehoahaz the son of Jehu began to reign over Israel in Samaria, and reigned seventeen years. And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, and followed the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, which made Israel to sin; he departed not therefrom." There is no variation from the same sorrowful formula usually used in describing the moral conduct of these Israelitish kings: "He did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord." His ways may not have appeared sinful in the sight of his fellows; but God, who "seeth not as man seeth," pronounced it "evil," and sent upon him and his subjects the chastisement their wicked idolatry deserved.

"And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and He delivered them into the hand of Hazael king of Syria, and into the hand of Benhadad the son of Hazael, all their days." Hazael's conquest of the kingdom had begun in the days of Jehu, Jehoahaz' father: "In those days the Lord began to cut Israel short: and Hazael smote them in all the coasts of Israel; from Jordan eastward, all the land of Gilead, the Gadites, and the Reubenites, and the Manassites, from Aroer, which is by the river Arnon, even Gilead and Bashan" (2 Kings 10: 32, 33). Jehu, though so "swift to shed blood" in the beginning of his reign, was more slow to take the sword in defence of the land and people of God toward its close. Men of this class are seldom really "good soldiers." They may be exceedingly active in obtaining the position they love and covet, while very careless about the true interests of the people of God. There is no hint of his having made the slightest attempt to resist these inroads of the king of Syria in his dominion. He probably remained timorously passive at Samaria while the encroachments on God's territory were being made. The Black Obelisk records that he ("Jahua") sent gold and silver to Shalmaneser I. at this time, probably to invoke the Assyrian's aid against Hazael. Certainly valor was not characteristic of Jehu. Impetuosity is not courage, nor must we mistake enthusiasm for the earnestness of conviction. To boast when putting on the harness is an easy matter; the wise will wait until the time to put it off (1 Kings 20: 11); and then the truly wise will glory only in the Lord.

"And Jehoahaz besought the Lord, and the Lord harkened unto him: for He saw the oppression of Israel, because the king of Syria oppressed them. And the Lord gave Israel a saviour, so that they went out from under the hand of the Syrians: and the children of Israel dwelt in their tents, as beforetime. Nevertheless they departed not from the sins of the house of Jeroboam, who made Israel to sin, but walked therein: and there remained the grove (Asherah, N.Tr.) also in Samaria." In this parenthetic paragraph we see how Elisha's prophecy of Hazael's pitiless oppression of the children of Israel was fulfilled (2 Kings 8: 12). Well might the man of God, who so dearly loved Israel, weep as before him stood the destined perpetrator of these cruelties against his people — God even thus seeking to turn them back to repentance from their idolatries. This bitter chastisement appears to have had a salutary effect upon Jehoahaz, for he "besought Jehovah." When the "goodness" of God fails to bring men to repentance, His "severity" is required, and used. See Ps. 78: 34; Hosea 5: 15. "Accordingly God accepted of his repentance," Josephus says; "and being desirous rather to admonish those that might repent, than to determine that they should be utterly destroyed, He granted them deliverance from war and dangers. So the country having obtained peace, returned to its former condition, and flourished as before" (Ant. ix. 8, § 5). This restoration to prosperity began under Joash son of Jehoahaz, and culminated during the reign of his grandson Jeroboam II.* So prayer is frequently answered after the petitioner has passed away. Let none say, then, like the wicked of old, in reference to God, "What profit should we have, if we pray unto Him?" (Job 21: 15)** What profit? Ah, true prayer is always heard at the Throne: "Whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of Him" (1 John 5: 15).

{*A temporary deliverance may have been granted as 2 Kings 13: 4, 5, seems to imply; and the reason of being only temporary given in the 6th verse: "Nevertheless they departed not from the sins of the house of Jeroboam" etc. — [Ed.}

**The very need of the creature, even though unintelligent, is like a prayer — an appeal to God: "Who provideth for the raven his food? when his young ones cry unto God" (Job. 38: 41). — [Ed.}

"Hazael king of Syria oppressed Israel all the days of Jehoahaz" (2 Kings 13: 22). There was no respite until Joash's day. This must have been a test to Jehoahaz' faith, if his repentance was really the result of "godly sorrow" for his and the nation's sins. But when has faith, untried, ever flourished? Stagger not, then, nor stumble, beloved fellow-believer, at "the trial of your faith." God "harkened" to Jehoahaz, though he died with Hazael busy at his work of devastation in his realm. "Neither did he leave of the people to Jehoahaz but fifty horsemen, and ten chariots, and ten thousand footmen; for the king of Syria had destroyed them, and had made them like the dust by threshing." See Amos 1: 3.

"Now the rest of the acts of Jehoahaz, and all that he did, and his might, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel? And Jehoahaz slept with his fathers; and they buried him in Samaria: and Joash his son reigned in his stead."

JOASH (or, JEHOASH) (Jehovah-gifted.)

2 Kings 13: 10-25; 14: 8-16.

Contemporary Prophet: JONAH (?)

"A man shall not be established by wickedness; but the root of the righteous shall not be moved." — Proverbs 12: 3.

"In the thirty and seventh year of Joash king of Judah began Jehoash the son of Jehoahaz to reign over Israel in Samaria, and reigned sixteen years" (2 Kings 13: 10). It is evident from a comparison of the figures of this verse with those given in verse one of same chapter, and first verse of the chapter following, that Joash (Jehoash, abbreviated) reigned jointly with his father (a thing not uncommon in ancient times) during the last two years of the latter's life. This readily explains an otherwise inexplicable chronological difficulty, and it is quite likely that the seeming discrepancies of chronology in Scripture (those most difficult of solution) could — excepting a few which undoubtedly owe their origin to errors of transcription — be as simply and as satisfactorily explained.

"And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord; he departed not from all the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin: but he walked therein." Josephus calls him a "good man" (Ant. ix. 8, § 6). This misjudgment of the character of Joash is probably based on the incident of his visit to the dying prophet Elisha. A little manifestation of religious, or even semi-religious, sentiment goes a long way, with some persons, in accounting people "good." It has been supposed by some that Joash reformed, or repented, toward the end of his life (founded partly, perhaps, on his mild treatment, toward the close of his reign, of Amaziah, when he had it in his power to take that combative meddler's life — see AMAZIAH), and that Josephus refers to this latter period of his reign. But the words, "He departed not from the sins of Jeroboam," forbid all thought of any real, or lasting repentance at any period of his life. God is more anxious to record, than any of His people are to read, any good in any of these monarchs' lives. He has noted none in Joash's; and where He is silent, who will dare to speak?

The episode of Joash's visit to the dying prophet has been alluded to; we quote it here in full: "Now Elisha was fallen sick of his sickness whereof he died. And Joash the king of Israel came down unto him, and wept over his face, and said, O my father, my father! the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof. And Elisha said unto him, Take bow and arrows. And he took unto him bow and arrows. And he said to the king of Israel, Put thy hand upon the bow. And he put his hand upon it: and Elisha put his hands upon the king's hands. And he said, Open the window eastward. And he opened it. Then Elisha said, Shoot. And he shot. And he said, The arrow of the Lord's deliverance, and (even, N.Tr.) the arrow of deliverance from Syria: for thou shalt smite the Syrians in Aphek, till thou have consumed them. And he said, Take the arrows. And he took them. And he said unto the king of Israel, Smite upon the ground. And he smote thrice, and stayed. And the man of God was wroth with him, and said, Thou shouldest have smitten five or six times; then hadst thou smitten Syria till thou hadst consumed it: whereas now thou shalt smite Syria but thrice."

The application of all this is simple. Joash could not but realize that the prophet's departure from them would be a serious loss to the nation. And in calling him "the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof," he meant that the prophet's presence in their midst was to them what chariots and horsemen were to other nations — their main defence.* And by putting his dying hands upon those of the king, Elisha meant him to understand the truth of what God said more than three hundred years later, through the prophet Zechariah, "Not by might [or forces, or army], nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts" (Zech. 4: 6). "Without Me, ye can do nothing," this would be in New Testament phraseology. The shooting of the arrow eastward, toward the territory conquered by Syria, signified Joash's victory over Ben-hadad's forces at Aphek ("on the road from Syria to Israel in the level plain east of Jordan; a common field of battles with Syria." — Fausset). See 1 Kings 20: 26. Only Joash's lack of faith, manifested in his half-hearted smiting the ground with arrows but thrice, prevented his destroying the Syrians utterly. And it was unto him according to his faith. "And Jehoash the son of Jehoahaz took again out of the hand of Benhadad the son of Hazael the cities which he had taken out of the hand of Jehoahaz his father by war. Three times did Joash beat him, and recovered the cities of Israel."

{*The whole narrative here brings vividly to mind the departure of Elijah, when the chariot and horses of fire bore him away as by a whirlwind to heaven, and Elisha exclaimed, "My father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof!" King Joash (fully acquainted, no doubt, with the circumstances of Elijah's carrying away to heaven) repeats Elisha's very words at the taking away of his master, Jehovah's faithful and honored servant. Like many another disobedient heart unreconciled to God, king Joash has a sense of the loss that Elisha's death would be to the kingdom — Jehovah's defence, as well as His reproofs, was departing. Yet Elisha (like Elijah dropping his mantle) would leave a blessing and help for poor Israel, limited only by Israel's and their king's unbelief. — Ed.}

Like Asa [see], he had the opportunity 'given him to end the power of Syria (2 Chron. 16: 7), which from its beginning had been such a plague to both Judah and Israel. But, like Asa, he let it pass, and the work was left to the Assyrian, who destroyed both it (Syria) and them (Israel and Judah).

"And the rest of the acts of Joash, and all that he did, and his might wherewith he fought against Amaziah king of Judah, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel? And Joash slept with his fathers; and Jeroboam sat upon his throne: and Joash was buried in Samaria with the kings of Israel."

JEROBOAM II. (Whose people is many.)

(2 Kings 14: 23-29.)

Contemporary Prophets: HOSEA; AMOS.

"The froward is abomination to the Lord: but His secret is with the righteous." — Proverbs 3: 32.

"In the fifteenth year of Amaziah the son of Joash king of Judah, Jeroboam the son of Joash king of Israel began to reign in Samaria, and reigned forty and one years. And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord: he departed not from all the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin." His was the longest and most prosperous of any of the reigns of the kings of Israel. "He restored the coast of Israel from the entering of Hamath unto the sea of the plain, according to the word of the Lord God of Israel, which He spake by the hand of His servant Jonah, the son of Amittai, the prophet, which was of Gath-hepher." This was the beginning of the ministry of the sixteen prophets whose writings have been preserved to us. Jonah was the earliest of these probably, and appears to have been Elisha's immediate successor. His prophecy referred to here, of the enlargement of Israel's coast (border), must have been a very pleasant one to him — a much more welcome work than his commission toward the Ninevites. But God's servants have no choice. They know "the love of Christ," and, constrained by that same love, it is their joy to tell it; but they also know "the terror of the Lord"; and knowing this, they do their utmost to "persuade" and warn men of "the wrath to come." It is not grace only that came by Jesus Christ, but "grace and truth." And the truth must be made known to men, however unpleasant or unthankful the task. But if done as unto God, it can never be a disagreeable or unwelcome undertaking to the spirit, however painful or unpleasant to the flesh. See 1 Cor. 9: 16, 17.

The increase of Israel's territory under Jeroboam II. was considerable; his prosperity in this way corresponding with his name — whose people is many. " 'The entering in of Hamath' indicates that the long valley between Lebanon and Anti-lebanon was the point of entrance into the land of Israel for an invading army" (Fausset). "The sea of the plain" was the Dead Sea (Joshua 3: 16), making the total distance of his kingdom, north and south, almost two hundred miles. He was, no doubt, the "savior" promised under the unfortunate reign of Jehoahaz (2 Kings 13: 5). "For the Lord saw the affliction of Israel, that it was very bitter: for there was not any shut up, nor any left, nor any helper for Israel. And the Lord said not that He would blot out the name of Israel from under heaven: but He saved them by the hand of Jeroboam the son of Joash." This was not for any goodness that He saw in them or Jeroboam their king, but "because of His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob" (2 Kings 13: 23).

"Now the rest of the acts of Jeroboam, and all that he did, and his might, how he warred, and how he recovered Damascus, and Hamath, which belonged to Judah, for Israel, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel?" Damascus and Hamath were both capitals of two once powerful kingdoms, and though once subjugated by David (1 Chron. 18: 3-6), their recovery to Israel under Jeroboam, more than one hundred and fifty years after their revolt from Judah, speaks eloquently for the success and power of his arms against those hostile nations on his northern border. Hamath, called "the great" in Amos 6: 2, was the principal city of upper Syria, and an important strategic point, commanding the whole valley of the Orontes leading to the countries on the south.

Israel was blessed, with the ministries of both Hosea and Amos during Jeroboam's reign. From their writings it will readily be seen that though there was political revival under his rule, there was no real moral or spiritual awakening among the people. Amos was looked upon as a troubler to the peace of the kingdom, and admonished by Amaziah the priest of Bethel to flee away to the land of Judah, "and there eat bread, and prophesy there," as if God's prophet were nothing more than a mere mercenary like himself. He also accused the prophet before the king of having conspired against his life. Jeroboam appears to have paid little or no attention to this charge, being, perhaps, too sensible a man to believe the accusation, knowing the jealous, self-seeking spirit of the arch-priest of the nation. See Amos 7: 7–17.

"And Jeroboam slept with his fathers, even with the kings of Israel; and Zachariah his son reigned in his stead."

ZACHARIAH (Jah has remembered.)

2 Kings 15: 8-12.

Contemporary Prophet: AMOS.

"Righteousness keepeth him that is upright in the way: but wickedness overthroweth the sinner." — Proverbs 13: 6.

"In the thirty and eighth year of Azariah king of Judah did Zachariah the son of Jeroboam reign over Israel in Samaria six months." There appears to be (from a comparison of dates) a period unaccounted for, of about eleven years, between Jeroboam's death and the beginning of his son Zachariah's reign. This is not surprising when we see what quickly followed his accession to the throne. "And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, as his fathers had done: he departed not from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin. And Shallum the son of Jabesh conspired against him, and smote him before the people, and slew him, and reigned in his stead."

Anarchy probably prevailed during the above-noted interregnum. Hosea, whose prophecy dates about this time (as regards Israel, see Hosea 1: 1), seems to allude frequently to this season of lawlessness and revolution. See his prophecy, chaps. 7: 7; 10: 3, 7; 13: 10 — the last of these reads in the New Translation, "Where then is thy king?" etc. The people were probably unwilling to have Zachariah succeed his father to the throne. He appears to have been quite unpopular with the mass of the nation, for Shallum slew him without fear "before the people." But God has said next to nothing as to this parenthetic period, and we dare not say more. To speculate here would be worse than folly, since God's wisdom has chosen to give us no record of it; and where no useful end is gained, He always hides from the gaze of the curious the sins and errors of His people. Contemporary Scripture-dates, however, show that such an interval must have elapsed between the close of Jeroboam's and the beginning of his son's reign, though God has passed over the interregnum in silence.*

{*"The English laws of to-day do not recognize the validity of Charles the First's deposition and execution, nor that of any laws in Parliament or decisions delivered by judges between 1641 and 1660. That whole period of nineteen years is treated as a legal blank, and Charles the Second's reign is counted in the statute-book from his father's death — no reckoning being made of Oliver Cromwell's sovereignty."}

The assassination of Zachariah ended the dynasty of Jehu, five generations in all, and extending over a period of more than a hundred years. But at last God avenged "the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu" (Hosea 1: 4). God's eyes were upon "the sinful kingdom" (Amos 9: 8), and its sinful kings; and from the time of Jeroboam's death, declension set in, ending, less than seventy years later, in its final overthrow and dissolution. Prophetic ministry was from this time greatly increased. "Such is the way of our gracious God," an unknown writer says, "that when judgment is near to approach, then testimony is multiplied." How much it was needed in Israel the prophecies of Hosea and Amos abundantly testify.

"And the rest of the acts of Zachariah, behold, they are written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel. This was the word of the Lord, which He spake unto Jehu, saying, Thy sons shall sit upon the throne of Israel unto the fourth generation. And so it came to pass." And thus was it written by the prophet, "At daybreak shall the king of Israel utterly be cut off" (Hosea 10: 15, N.Tr.).

Zachariah's name — Jah has remembered — was strikingly significant. God did not forget the wholesale slaughter of men — many of them, perhaps, better than their executioner. Though a century had passed, Jah remembered, and made the inevitable "inquisition for blood," upon the fifth and final member of the murderer's succession.

SHALLUM (Requital.)

2 Kings 15: 13-15.

Contemporary Prophet: AMOS (?).

"An evil man seeketh only rebellion: therefore a cruel messenger shall be sent against him." — Proverbs 17: 11.

"SHALLUM the son of Jabesh began to reign in the nine and thirtieth year of Uzziah king of Judah; and he reigned a full month in Samaria. For Menahem the son of Gadi went up from Tirzah, and came to Samaria, and smote Shallum the son of Jabesh in Samaria, and slew him, and reigned in his stead." This assassin was not allowed to live long in his ill-gotten power — only for a brief four weeks — and then met the just reward of his crime. His name (a very common one in Israel) means recompense, or retribution; and as he requited his predecessor, so did Menahem his successor recompense him. It is the old principle of governmental just retribution in kind exemplified. This assassination of two rulers, Zachariah and Shallum, within the space of half a year, speaks loudly of the state of anarchy prevailing in the kingdom at the time. It was, as the prophet testified, "blood toucheth blood," (Hosea 4: 2). The great prosperity and expansion under Jeroboam II. appears to have corrupted the people and caused them to give free rein to their evil desires and violence. See Hosea 4: 7. Those in authority, instead of checking this spirit of lawlessness, found pleasure in it. "They make the king glad with their wickedness, and the princes with their lies" (Hosea 7: 3). Dissipation to surfeit marked the conduct of these princes, under this monarchy: "In the day of our king, the princes made themselves sick with the heat of wine" (Hosea 7: 5, N. Tr.). The demoralized condition of public affairs can scarcely be wondered at, when the king himself encouraged the disdain of the lawless: "He stretched out his hand to scorners" (Ibid.). Disintegration and bloodshed followed, as a natural consequence. Out of the political chaos and disorder following the death of this, Israel's most powerful king, came forth the undesired Zachariah, and his murderer, Shallum. So wickedness brings its own reward, whether it be in a nation, a family, or an individual.

"And the rest of the acts of Shallum, and his conspiracy which he made, behold, they are written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel."

MENAHEM (Comforter.)

2 Kings 15: 16-22.

"By the blessing of the upright the city is exalted: but it is overthrown by the mouth of the wicked." — Proverbs 11: 11.

MENAHEM, Josephus asserts, and not without reason, was general of the Israelitish forces. His coming up from Tirzah to slay Shallum, and afterwards starting "from Tirzah" (where the main army was posted, probably) on his expedition of slaughter against Tiphsah, implies as much. "Then Menahem smote Tiphsah, and all that were therein, and the coasts thereof from Tirzah: because they opened not to him, therefore he smote it; and all the women therein that were with child he ripped up." Tiphsah was originally one of Solomon's northeastern border cities, on the Euphrates (1 Kings 4: 24). It was doubtless recovered to Israel under Jeroboam II., and was probably in revolt when so cruelly attacked by the war-king Menahem. "Situated on the western bank of the Euphrates, on the great trade road from Egypt, Syria and Phenicia to Mesopotamia, it was important for Menahem to rescue it" (Fausset). He, in all likelihood, expected by his brutal treatment of the Tiphsahites to strike terror to all who were likely to oppose his tenure of the crown.

"In the nine and thirtieth year of Azariah king of Judah began Menahem the son of Gadi to reign over Israel, and reigned ten years in Samaria. And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord: he departed not all his days from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin. And Pul the king of Assyria came against the land: and Menahem gave Pul a thousand talents of silver, that his hand might be with him to confirm the kingdom in his hand. And Menahem exacted the money of Israel, even of all the mighty men of wealth, of each man fifty shekels of silver, to give to the king of Assyria. So the king of Assyria turned back, and stayed not there in the land." This is the first mention of the dreaded "Assyrian" in scripture. Assyriologists are not perfectly agreed as to just who this "Pul" of Scripture was. The name (that form of it, at least) is not found on any of the Assyrian monuments. A "Phulukh" is mentioned in the Nimrud inscription, with whom some would identify him. Berosus mentions a Chaldean king named Pul, who reigned at just this time, and where the wise cannot among themselves agree we must not venture even to put forth an opinion, but pass on to that concerning which there can be no doubt — his invasion of the land, and the enormous price paid by Menahem for peace. Some suppose that Pul regarded Menahem's reduction of Tiphsah as an attack upon his territory; hence his march against his kingdom.; but it is more probable that it was a mere plundering incursion, as most of these ancient military expeditions were, especially those of Assyria. The burden of the levy fell upon the rich, which needs not excite much sympathy when we learn from the prophets Amos and Micah how their riches were obtained. See Amos 4: 1; 5: 11, 12; 8: 4-6; Micah 2: 2; 6: 10-12.

"And the rest of the acts of Menahem, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel? And Menahem slept with his fathers; and Pekahiah his son reigned in his stead." Though he probably reigned as a military dictator merely, he evidently died in peace, as the expression "slept with his fathers" implies. The expression "his fathers" implies too that he was an Israelite, though his name Menahem does not sound like Hebrew. It is found nowhere else in Scripture, nor is that of his father (Gadi, fortunate) — a peculiar and somewhat remarkable, if not significant, circumstance. A competent and spiritually-minded Semitic philologist would, we believe, find an ample and productive field for original research here, as well as in many other portions of Old Testament Scripture, especially the opening chapters of 1 Chronicles.

Menahem's name appears on the monuments of Tiglath-pileser, though it is thought by some, for various reasons, that the Assyrian chroniclers confused the name of Menahem with that of Pekah — his son's slayer. But this, like everything of merely human origin, is uncertain. Only in divinely-inspired Scripture have we absolute exactitude and certainty; for He who was "the Truth" declared, "the Scripture cannot be broken." Hence they "are most surely believed among us" (Luke 1: 1).

PEKAHIAH (Jah has observed.)

2 Kings 15: 23-26.

"The righteousness of the upright shall deliver them: but transgressors shall be taken in their own naughtiness." — Proverbs 11: 5.

"In the fiftieth year of Azariah king of Judah, Pekahiah the son of Menahem began to reign over Israel in Samaria, and reigned two years. And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord: he departed not from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin. But Pekah the son of Remaliah, a captain of his, conspired against him, and smote him in Samaria, in the palace of the king's house, with Argob and Arieh, and with him fifty men of the Gileadites: and he killed him, and reigned in his room." Azariah (Uzziah), during his long reign of more than half a century, saw the death of five of Israel's kings, three of whom were assassinated, besides an interregnum of anarchy lasting at least eleven years. This marked contrast is what the prophet referred to, probably, when he wrote, "Ephraim encompasseth Me about with lies, and the house of Israel with deceit, but Judah yet walketh with God [El ], and with the holy things of truth" (Hosea 11: 13, N. Tr.). This does not mean that all Judah's ways pleased the Lord, but that, unlike apostate Israel, they still, as a State, maintained the truth of Jehovah, as revealed in the law and symbolized in the temple's worship and service.

Pekahiah's slayer was his captain (shalish, aide-de-camp, probably; "the general of his house," Josephus says), Pekah, with two of his followers, and a company of fifty Gileadites. These Gileadites ("fugitives of Ephraim," Judges 12: 4*) appear to have been a rough, wild class, a kind of Hebrew highlanders, and ready in Pekahiah's day for any and all manner of villainy. See Hosea 6: 8. They slew the king in his very palace ("with his friends at a feast;" Josephus' Ant. ix. 11, § 1), so bold were they. His name, Jah has observed, implies that God had looked upon the murder of Shallum by his father Menahem, and in the death of Pekahiah his son requited it (2 Chron. 24: 22). His name, like his father's and grandfather's, does not occur anywhere else in Scripture.

{*"Fugitives of Ephraim," however, was an unrighteous taunt of the proud Ephraimites to their Manassite brethren. Gilead was a direct descendant of Manasseh, eldest son of Joseph, and head of a large, powerful family, to whom Moses gave the conquered territory east of Jordan called Gilead. See Num. 32: 39-41; Deut. 3:13.}

"And the rest of the acts of Pekahiah, and all that he did, behold, they are written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel." His death ended the seventh dynasty of the Israelitish kings.

PEKAH (Watch.)

2 Kings 15: 27-31.

Contemporary Prophets: ODED.

"Righteousness tendeth to life: so he that pursueth evil pursueth it to his own death." — Proverbs 11: 19.

In the two and fiftieth year of Azariah (Uzziah) king of Judah, Pekah the son of Remaliah began to reign over Israel in Samaria, and reigned twenty years. And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord: he departed not from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin." How painfully this oft-recurring testimony, like a sad refrain, falls upon the ear! But this is the last time. Under Hoshea, Pekah's slayer and successor, God made "to cease the kingdom of the house of Israel" (Hosea 1: 4). And he, though he wrought iniquity, did it "not as the kings of Israel that were before him" (2 Kings 17: 2).

"In the days of Pekah king of Israel came Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria, and took Ijon, and Abel-beth-maachah, and Janoah, and Kedesh, and Hazor, and Gilead, and Galilee, all the land of Naphtali, and carried them captive to Assyria." This occurred after Pekah's unprovoked and dastardly attack on Jerusalem, in concert with Rezin king of Damascus. See AHAZ. And the king of Assyria's invasion and devastation of his land was his just reward for his "fierce anger" and "evil counsel" against the house of David, which he sought to overthrow by conspiracy and revolution. See Isa. 7: 4-6.

He slew in his "fierce anger" one hundred thousand Jews in one day (2 Chron. 28: 6); and God requited him in kind; for as he had so treacherously shed man's blood, by man was his blood also treacherously shed. "And Hoshea the son of Elah made a conspiracy against Pekah the son of Remaliah, and smote him, and slew him, and reigned in his stead, in the twentieth year of Jotham the son of Uzziah."

Josephus says Hoshea was "a friend" of Pekah's (Ant. ix. 13). In his death the prophecy of Isaiah (Isa. 7: 16) was fulfilled. His name, meaning watch, is from a root, "to open" (as the eyes); figuratively, to be observant (Strong). But watch as he might, his very friend in whom he trusted became, in the ordering of God, his slayer; so impossible is it for the wicked to escape their merited retribution from the hand of Him who has said, "Vengeance is Mine; I will repay." Read Amos 9: 1-5.

"And the rest of the acts of Pekah, and all that he did, behold, they are written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel."

HOSHEA (Deliverer.)

2 Kings 15: 30; 17: 1-6.

"Scornful men bring a city into a snare: but wise men turn away wrath." — Proverbs 29: 8.

"In the twelfth year of Ahaz king of Judah began Hoshea the son of Elah to reign in Samaria over Israel nine years." He was the last of the nineteen kings who ruled (or, rather, misruled) Israel. An interregnum of at least eight years (see HEZEKIAH) occurred between the murder of Pekah, his predecessor, and his actual assumption of the throne. Why this kingless interval, we have no means of knowing, nor how the time was occupied. Josephus, even if we could always trust him, gives us no help here (the usual way of re-writers, or would-be improvers, of Scripture history), for he passes the subject over in silence. But God's word has chronicled Hoshea's wickedness thus: "And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, but not as the kings of Israel that were before him." There is nothing in the last clause of the above that could be construed to Hoshea's credit, for the Assyrian plunderers had in all probability removed and carried away the golden calves of Dan and Bethel. See Hosea 10: 5-8. If he did not worship them, or other abominations, it was not because he "abhorred idols" (Rom. 2: 22).

But his evil doings, whatever their character, speedily brought the Assyrian, "the rod of God's anger," upon him and his iniquitous subjects. "Against him came up Shalmaneser king of Assyria; and Hoshea became his servant, and gave him presents." He who conspired against his weaker Israelitish master attempted the same (to his sorrow) with his powerful Gentile lord. "And the king of Assyria, found conspiracy in Hoshea: for he had sent messengers to So king of Egypt, and brought no present to the king of Assyria, as he had done year by year: therefore the king of Assyria shut him up, and bound him in prison."

What follows, in reference to the siege of Samaria, occurred, in point of time, before Hoshea's imprisonment, though recorded after. "Hoshea's imprisonment was not before the capture of Samaria, but the sacred writer first records the eventual fate of Hoshea himself, then details the invasion as it affected Samaria and Israel" (Fausset). "Then the king of Assyria came up throughout all the land, and went up to Samaria, and besieged it three years. In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away into Assyria, and placed them in Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes." This siege and capture of Samaria are recorded on the monuments of Assyria just as they are narrated here in 2 Kings 17. What finally became of Hoshea is not revealed, unless he is the king meant in the prophet's poetic allusion, "As for Samaria, her king is cut off as the foam upon the water" (Hosea 10: 7). His name means deliverer, and may have a prophetic significance, as a gracious reminder to the now long scattered nation, of that, great "Deliverer" who shall "come out of Zion" (God's grace) "and turn away ungodliness from Jacob." And then, and so," all Israel shall be saved "(Rom. 11: 26).

A brief review of Israel's course and its consequences is now given us: as in 2 Chron. 36: 15-23 the end of Judah's kingdom is given us, with a glimpse, there, of coming mercy to a remnant.

So instructive and touching is the inspired review given of Israel's downward course, in the passage following what has been already quoted (in reference to the siege and capture of Samaria), that we cannot forbear repeating it here in full:

"And it was so, because the children of Israel had sinned against Jehovah their God, who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt, from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had feared other gods; and they walked in the statutes of the nations that Jehovah had dispossessed from before the children of Israel, and of the kings of Israel, which they had made. And the children of Israel did secretly against their God things that were not right; and they built them high places in all their cities, from the watchmen's tower to the fortified city. And they set them up columns [or statutes] and Asherahs on every high hill and under every green tree; and there they burned incense on all the high places, as did the nations that Jehovah had carried away from before them, and they wrought wicked things to provoke Jehovah to anger; and they served idols, as to which Jehovah had said to them, Ye shall not do this thing. And Jehovah testified against Israel and against Judah, by all the prophets, all the seers, saying, Turn from your evil ways, and keep my commandments, my statutes, according to all the law which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you through My servants the prophets. But they would not hear, and hardened their necks, like to the neck of their fathers, who did not believe in Jehovah their God. And they rejected His statutes, and His covenant which He had made with their fathers, and His testimonies which He had testified unto them; and they followed vanity and became vain, and [went) after the nations that were round about them, concerning whom Jehovah had charged them that they should not do like them. And they forsook all the commandments of Jehovah their God, and made them molten images, two calves, and made an Asherah, and worshiped all the host of the heavens, and served Baal; and they caused their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire, and used divination and enchantments, and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of Jehovah, to provoke Him to anger. Therefore Jehovah was very angry with Israel, and removed them out of His sight. There remained but the tribe of Judah only. Also Judah kept not the commandments of Jehovah their God, but walked in the statutes of Israel which they had made. And Jehovah rejected all the seed of Israel, and afflicted them, and delivered them into the hands of spoilers, until He had cast them out of His sight. For Israel had rent [the kingdom] from the house of David; and they had made Jeroboam the son of Nebat king; and Jeroboam violently turned Israel from following Jehovah, and made them sin a great sin. And the children of Israel walked in all the sins of Jeroboam which he did; they did not depart from them: until Jehovah had removed Israel out of His sight, as He had said through all His servants the prophets, and Israel was carried away out of their own land to Assyria, unto this day" (2 Kings 17: 7-23, N.Tr.).

It has been truly observed that "the most dismal picture of Old Testament history is that of the kingdom of Israel." Of the nine distinct dynasties that successively ruled the dissevered tribes, three ended with the total extirpation of the reigning family. The kingdom continued for a period of about two hundred and fifty years, and the inspired records of those eventful two-and-a-half centuries of Israel's kings and people furnish us with little more than repeated and fearful exhibitions of lawlessness and evil. Out of the nineteen kings that reigned from the great schism to the deportation to the land of Assyria, only seven died natural deaths (Baasha, Omri, Jehu, Jehoahaz, Jehoash, Jeroboam II., and Menahem); seven were assassinated (Nadab, Elah, Joram, Zachariah, Shallum, Pekaiah, and Pekah); one committed suicide (Zimri); one died of wounds received in battle (Ahab); one was "struck" by the judgment of God (Jeroboam); one died of injuries received from a fall (Ahaziah); and the other, and last (Hoshea), apparently was "cut off as foam upon the water." To this not unmeaning array of facts must be added two prolonged periods of anarchy, when "there was no king in Israel," every man doing, in all likelihood, "that which was right in his own eyes."

The kingdom of Judah continued for more than a century and a quarter after the kingdom of Israel had ceased to exist, making its history fully one-third longer than that of the ten tribes. Then it too, like its sister-kingdom, fell into disintegration and decay, and was given up to the first universal empire, under the renowned Nebuchadnezzar. This world-monarchy began the "times of the Gentiles," during which "the Most High ruleth over [not 'in,' as in A.V.] the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever He will" (Dan. 4: 25) — setting up over it, at times, even "the basest of men" (as Belshazzar, the last Darius, Alexander, Nero, etc.). Since that day empire has superseded empire, dynasty has supplanted dynasty, and king succeeded king, as God has said, "I will overturn, overturn, overturn it! This also shall be no [more], until He come whose right it is; and I will give it [to Him]" (Ezek. 21: 27, N.Tr.). It is "till He come," which, we hope, will be very soon; and then the eye of weeping, waiting Israel "shall see the King in His beauty."

But before this, one, "the wilful king," the "profane, wicked prince of Israel" (the Antichrist), must come. And from his unworthy head shall be removed the mitre-crown (see Ezek. 21: 23, 26, N.Tr.), to be placed, with many others, on the once thorn-crowned brow of Him who is the King of kings and Lord of lords. That, Christian reader, will be our highest joy and glory, to see Him, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, honored and owned by all, as God's "First-born, higher than the kings of the earth."

"The Ruler over men shall be just,

Ruling in the fear of God;

And He shall be as the light of the morning,

Like the rising of the sun,

A morning without clouds,

When, from the sunshine after rain,

The green grass springeth from the earth.

*  *  *  *  *

For this is all my salvation,

And every desire" (2 Sam. 23: 3-5, N.Tr.).

"Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus."

Samuel the Prophet

Life and Times of Samuel the Prophet

C. Knapp.

Contents

Chapter 1. — His Parentage.

Chapter 2. — His Birth

Chapter 3. — His Mother's song

Chapter 4. — His Childhood

Chapter 5. — His Predecessor

Chapter 6. — His Call

Chapter 7. — His Early Ministry

Chapter 8. — His Twenty Years' Silence

Chapter 9. — His Ministry Resumed

Chapter 10. — His Rejection

Chapter 11. — His Successor

Chapter 12. — His Resignation

Chapter 13. — His Farewell Address

Chapter 14. — His Last Activities

Chapter 15. — His Crowning Act

Chapter 16. — His Death and After

Introduction

Samuel! What memories rise up at the mention of this name — redolent with all that is lovely and dear to the Christian's heart — a name honored of God, and coupled in His Word with that of Moses and Aaron, and David (Ps. 99: 6; Jer. 15: 1; Heb. 11: 32). We love Samuel because he loved and honored God. Jehovah had said by the man of God immediately preceding Samuel, "Them that honor Me I will honor" (1 Sam. 2: 30), and this word was fulfilled to a marked degree in the career of Samuel, into whose instructive life we are about to look. This will appear in detail as we proceed in our study.

Suffice it to remark here, that through all the changes of times and government in Israel during his long life, from the rule of the Judges, including his own, to that of the kingdom under the unhappy Saul, he was held constantly in honor, even in his retirement from public life in Ramah; and at his death he was universally mourned, and honored with a national burial (1 Sam. 25: 1).

Samuel has been called "The Israelitish Aristides," but the comparison reflects honor on the Athenian rather than on the Hebrew. He was the first of the "successional prophets" (Acts 13: 20; 3: 24) though Moses, and even Abraham, were prophets before him (Ps. 105: 15; Deut. 18: 18).

His name, heard, or asked, of God, is strikingly indicative of one of the chief characteristics of his godly life of intercessory prayer, in which he sometimes, like his great Antitype, continued all night (1 Sam. 15: 11; Luke 6: 12). He ever stood inflexibly firm for the word of God, as witness his prompt execution of Agag; and from his lips have come down to us the words spoken on that occasion, which have meant so much to the people of God ever since: "Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams" (1 Sam. 15: 22). Yet we find that he was not devoid of tenderness; his mourning for the rejected Saul betokens a heart of more than ordinary sensitiveness (1 Sam. 16: 1).

Samuel is one of the very few blameless characters of Biblical history; for we must not conclude from the complaint of the people (ever ready to exaggerate, when seeking an excuse for a course in which their conscience is uneasy), that Samuel had really failed in reference to his sons, or refused to remove them, had it been in his power to do so. It is possible that he was not as exacting of them in connection with the exercise of their judgeship as he should have been, though there is no certain evidence of this. They were his natural and legitimate successors, and were perhaps the be that could be had at the time. No, we love to think of him as Samuel the Blameless, and honor him, not only for the exalted position he occupied, and for his work's sake, but for his personal excellencies as well

With these few words of introduction, we proceed to the happy task of a more minute examination of his life, his character and his times.

Zephyrhills, Fla., 1919.

Chapter 1. — His Parentage (1 Samuel 1: 1-8.)

The life and times of Samuel are replete with wholesome lessons for the people of God in all ages, but especially instructive for us in these days of ever-increasing declension and departure from God. Such were the days in which Samuel was born, when the judges ruled, and "there was no king in Israel;" when there was scarcely a "magistrate in the land that might put them to shame in anything" that they did; "every man did that which was right in his own eyes" — much as the times in which our lot is cast, when lawlessness prevails even in the circle of the professing church. It is no more with most, "What saith the Scriptures?" "What does God say in His Word? "but" What saith science?" "What saith the world's leaders?" or "What saith the great men of renown in the church, the "higher critics," the "professors of theology in the seminaries?" or, lower still, "What saith my own natural intelligence, my own heart?" which God says is "deceitful . . . and desperately wicked" (Jer. 17: 9). Every man would be a law unto himself, and the "law of the Lord" is either treated with utter neglect, or audaciously set aside as out of date, applying only to a bygone age, having no authority whatever over the conscience in these days of twentieth century enlightenment and advance along all lines, particularly in the denial of the rights of God and His Word over the conscience and conduct of man.

Such too were the days of Samuel's infancy and early life. Yet, in the midst of all the decline and spiritual darkness, how beautiful and refreshing it is to see here and there a family in which godliness prevailed and the claims of the God of Israel were recognized. Such was the family in which Samuel was born. His father, a Levite, though disengaged from active service, manifested his piety by regularly attending the yearly feasts at the tabernacle in Shiloh. Let us read the beautiful account.

"Now there was a certain man of Ramathaim-zophim, of mount Ephraim, and his name was Elkanah, the son of Jeroham, the son of Elihu, the son of Tohu, the son of Zuph,* an Ephrathite: and he had two wives; the name of the one was Hannah, and the name of the other was Peninnah: and Peninnah had children, but Hannah had no children. And this man went up out of his city yearly to worship and to sacrifice unto the Lord of hosts in Shiloh. And the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, the priests of the Lord, were there" (1 Sam. 1: 1-8).

{*The author is aware that some expositors make Zuph to be the "Ephrathite," but in C. H. M.'s Introduction to "The Life and Times of David," he applies the designation to Elkanah, which application we prefer.}

This godly Israelite was a descendant of the rebellious Korah. (See 1 Chron. 6: 27, 34, 37). It is that Korah who, for his "gainsaying" in the wilderness, was destroyed with all his company. "Notwithstanding," we read, "the children of Korah died not" (Num. 26: 11). "A debtor to mercy alone," he had good cause to worship. Others might go up to sacrifice, merely, but Elkanah both worshiped and sacrificed. It was no formal or meaningless ceremony with him, for he knew that to Jehovah's distinguishing grace he owed not only the blessings of his life, but his very existence as a descendant of one of the spared children of Korah. It is the knowledge, and acknowledgment of grace, that produces worship and obedience in the believer's life. The law of commandments never produces a loving, willing obedience in the soul; it is the salvation-bringing grace of God that teaches us to "deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, and to live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world" (Titus 2: 11, 12). Elkanah's dwelling was at Ramathaim-zophim* of mount Ephraim, but was originally of Ephratah (as "Ephrathite" signifies), near to Bethlehem-judah. The times were troublous and unsettled; famine, too, at times prevailed. But if it was under the pressure of circumstances that he left the home of his ancestors, he did not, like the family of Elimelech (who were also Ephrathites, see Ruth 1: 1, 2), seek relief in the idolatrous land of Moab, but ascended toward Shiloh, nearer to the tabernacle of his God. He seems to have acted on the principle enunciated in that well-known, though little heeded, saying of our Lord, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness;" and, according to promise, "all things" were added unto him. Thus, instead of suffering loss and affliction under God's displeasure, as did Elimelech and his sons, he prospered both in his soul and in his circumstances, as is indicated by his generous offering of three bullocks at the presentation of Samuel to the service of the Lord. John, the beloved apostle wished the hospitable Gaius health and prosperity, even as his soul prospered (3 John 2). The first is of little value without the last; and under the Mosaic economy, they were generally inseparable from a godly walk. It was a dispensation of blessings in "basket and store," associated with "the good will of Him that dwelt in the bush" (the burning bush, see Acts 7: 30); they were "the precious fruits brought forth by the sun, and the precious things put forth by the moon, and the chief things of the ancient mountains, and the precious things of the lasting hills, and the precious things of the earth and fulness thereof" (Deut. 33: 14-16). Not always was this the case, however, as the 73rd psalm shows. And in this dispensation we know that the Christian's blessings are "in the heavenly places" — not here upon earth (Eph. 1: 3).

{*Ramathaiam means the double Bonds (as upper and lower, or old and new); and the LXX reads the name, Aramathaim, which would identify it with the Arimathea of the New Testament, and the "rich" and "honorable counsellor," Joseph (Matt. 27: 57). There is a subtle association in names, not always easily accounted for:

"For mind is apt and quick to wed ideas and names together,

Nor stoppeth its perception to be curious of priorities;

And there is little in the sound, as some have vainly fancied."

Yet the diligent inquirer will find blessing, if not a direct answer to his inquiry, in some way that is sure to be of value to his soul. The appended "Zophim" distinguishes it from another Ramah (of Benjamin), further to the south. Ramah means the elevated spot; and Zophim, the watchers — a combination of ideas forcibly suggestive of the attitude of soul becoming the children of God everywhere and at all times. While walking on our "high places" of privilege we need to be ever on our guard against the enemy, and "watch unto prayer." (See Eph. 2: 6; 6: 18; and Hab. 2: 1; 3: 19.)}

Elkanah had two wives, Hannah and Peninnah. It was a divided family, and to quote the quaint observation of Matthew Henry, "the divisions of it carried with it both guilt and grief." So we read:

"When the time was that Elkanah offered, he gave to Peninnah his wife, and to all her sons and her daughters, portions: but unto Hannah he gave a worthy portion; for he loved Hannah: but the Lord had shut up her womb. And her adversary also provoked her sore, for to make her fret, because the Lord had shut up her womb. And as he did so year by year, when she went up to the house of the Lord, so she provoked her; therefore she wept, and did not eat. Then said Elkanah her husband to her, Hannah, why weepest thou? and why eatest thou not? and why is thy heart grieved? Am not I better to thee than ten sons?" (vers. 4-8).

The custom among the Israelites of sometimes taking a second wife was not always based on motives of the lower nature; in many cases it was the desire for children, denied to the first wife. This was the probable reason for Elkanah's double marriage. But "from the beginning it was not so" (Matt. 19: 5-8). The institution of marriage originally contemplated but a single companion for man; and plural marriages. appear never to have worked well in practice, as witness the humiliating discord in Abraham's family over the inferior Hagar; in Jacob's, the bitter jealousies between the two' sisters, Rachel and Leah. Here, too, it breeds strife and vexation of spirit shameful to behold. What otherwise might have presented an ideal Hebrew home is marred by the bitter provokings of the elated Peninnah, and the consequent sorrow of her barren rival.

But it is ever thus; departure from God's order as revealed either in creation, or in His house, brings its sure and painful results. Therefore it behooves the children of God to walk closely by His Word, and so save themselves sorrow and disappointment.

This unwarranted provocation of Hannah by her unworthy associate must have continued for years, according to verse seven. What the poor, childless wife suffered from the tongue of her adversary during those years of "hope deferred," only one in a like position could understand; and it is beautiful to see her unresentful submission to the persecution of Peninnah, the proud, if not happy mother of children. There is no hint of anger on the part of Hannah; she did not "render railing for railing," but poured out the tale of her grief in the ears of the God of Israel. He heard her complaint, and answered, after her weary years of waiting, beyond all her probable expectation, as we shall see.

Before passing on to this, we must not neglect to notice another praiseworthy trait in the character of Hannah — she refused to eat of the sacrificial feast. "She wept and did not eat." In this abstinence she displays her knowledge of and obedience to the law of the Lord, which, it appears, did not permit of the sacrifices being eaten in mourning. (See Lev. 10: 19; Deut. 26: 14.; Hosea 9: 4.) How lovely this subjection of soul! and what vessel more fit could be found in all Israel to give to the nation its long-needed deliverer? Like the godly Mary, of whom she was the figure, she was truly "the handmaid of the Lord," in all things obedient to His word, and submissive to His will. She conformed to the meaning of her name, to bend, both under the continued reproaches of her cruel adversary, and to Jehovah's will.

"So Hannah rose up after they had eaten in Shiloh, and after they had drunk. Now Eli the priest sat upon a seat by a post of the temple of the Lord. And she was in bitterness of soul, and prayed unto the Lord, and wept sore. And she vowed a vow, and said, O Lord of hosts, if Thou wilt indeed look on the affliction of thy handmaid, and remember me, and forget not thy handmaid, but wilt give unto thy handmaid a man child, then will I give him unto the Lord all the days of his life, and there shall no razor come upon his head.

And it came to pass, as she continued praying before the Lord, that Eli marked her mouth. Now Hannah, she spake in her heart; only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard; therefore Eli thought she had been drunken. And Eli said unto her, How long wilt thou be drunken? put away thy wine from thee. And Hannah answered and said, No, my lord, I am a woman of a sorrowful spirit: I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but have poured out my soul before the Lord. Count not thy handmaid for a daughter of Belial: for out of the abundance of my complaint and grief have I spoken hitherto. Then Eli answered and said, Go in peace: and the God of Israel grant thee thy petition that thou hast asked of Him. And she said, Let thy handmaid find grace in thy sight. So the woman went her way, and did eat, and her countenance was no more sad" (vers. 9-18).

It was a tender word from Elkanah to his weeping wife, when he said, "Am not I better to thee than ten sons?" intending to console her in her sorrow; and Hannah, doubtless, appreciated fully the love and sympathy that prompted them, but would not be put off by this from still desiring earnestly from the Lord the only gift that could satisfy the longings of her aching heart — a man child. He evidently did not share her yearnings for a son; he seemed satisfied with children by Peninnah, and Hannah prayed and bore her grief alone. Hers was not a natural longing, merely; she did not cry impatiently like Rachel, "Give me children, or else I die!" (Gen. 30: 1). It was not offsprings simply that she desired, nor did she, like the "beautiful and well-favored" Rachel, reproach her husband for her lack of fruitfulness; she poured out her complaint to God, and asked, not for a child, merely, but "a man child."

And why a man child? Was it merely a partiality for boys? No; a higher motive moved her — God's glory and the good of His erring people she seems to have had in view. She knew well the condition of Israel; and the doings of the sons of Eli, in highest position, told the sad and undeniable tale of "Fallen! fallen!" and her earnest desire goes up to God for a son who might grow up under the blessing of Jehovah to be a deliverer in Israel.

This, too, seems to be the probable reason why she felt specially moved in prayer while at Shiloh. The sights about the tabernacle doors stirred her devoted heart mightily — the debauchery of the daughters of Belial, the shameless licentiousness and rapacity of Hophni and Phinehas, told a repulsive tale of wickedness, and that before the sanctuary! Sin was flaunted in the very face of Israel's God; "men abhorred the offering of the Lord," and by their transgressions the people were encouraged to lawlessness! Eli himself, who should above all others have understood, and been low in the dust before God for this shameful condition of things, seemed little exercised, and as a "good and easy man," sat tranquilly at the temple entrance not to watch and correct his corrupt sons, but to observe, misinterpret, and rebuke the conduct of a saintly woman at prayer! Oh, where was the nation? Where their highest priest and judge when such a condition could prevail, and none, seemingly, but "a woman of sorrowful spirit" to lay it to heart, and sigh and weep and pray for better things? "She spake in her heart," but Eli only marked her mouth; he judged after the "outward appearance," and adjudged she had been drunken!

It is not the only occasion that those moved by the Spirit have been adjudged as drunken with wine; it was repeated at Pentecost twelve hundred years later. The "spiritual man" is ever accounted "mad" by those who know nothing of the power of God moving the soul. "How long wilt thou be drunken? Put away thy wine from thee," the old man harshly calls to her. Observe her meek reply: "No, my lord," she says, "I am a woman of a sorrowful spirit . . . I have poured out my soul before the Lord . . . out of the abundance of my complaint and grief have I spoken hitherto." She addresses him with all the respect due to his age and office; she does not retort by reminding him of the delinquencies of his sons, and telling him that he had better look to his own house before hastily accusing and condemning others. No, nothing of this; true to her name, she bends again, and tells in the ears of the aged priest the tale of her grief, if not its cause. Her deserved reward is an answer of peace; and she does not despise the blessing of one who had but a moment before charged her falsely. He was at the time God's highest representative on earth, and she took his benediction as the voice of God to her soul (little as he may have understood it himself (see John11: 5 1), and went on her way rejoicing. "So the woman went on her way, and did eat, and her countenance was no more sad." Blessed conclusion to a day of sorrow, and presage of brighter days to come.

Chapter 2. — His Birth.

(1 Samuel 1: 19-28.)

The night of Hannah's mourning is ended, the word had gone forth, "The God of Israel grant thee thy petition that thou hast asked of Him," and though as yet without sign or token, she rested in the spoken word. It could be said of her, as was said of her New Testament antitype: "Blessed is she that believeth: for there shall be a performance of those things which were told her from the Lord" (Luke 1: 45). So we read:

"And they rose up in the morning early, and worshiped before the Lord, and returned, and came to their house, to Ramah: and Elkanah knew Hannah his wife, and the Lord remembered her. Wherefore it came to pass, when the time was come about after Hannah ha conceived, that she bare a son, and called his name Samuel, saying, Because I have asked him of the Lord.

"And the man Elkanah and all his house went up to offer unto the Lord the yearly sacrifice, and his vow. But Hannah went not up; for she said unto her husband, I will not go up until the child be weaned, and then will I bring him, that he may appear before the Lord, and there abide forever. And Elkanah her husband said unto her, Do what seemeth thee good — tarry until thou have weaned him; only the Lord establish his word. So the woman abode and gave her son suck until she weaned him.

"And when she had weaned him she took him up with her; with three bullocks, and one ephah of flour, and a bottle of wine, and brought him unto the house of the Lord in Shiloh; and the child was young. And they slew a bullock, and brought the child to Eli. And she said, O my lord, as thy soul liveth, my lord, I am the woman that stood by thee here, praying unto the Lord. For this child I prayed, and the Lord hath given me my petition which I asked of Him: therefore also have I lent him to the Lord; as long as he liveth he shall be lent to the Lord. And he worshiped the Lord there."

Like Sarah, the wife of Elkanah "through faith received strength to conceive seed," and the happy mother at last held in her arms "the son of her vows." Elkanah himself, though of less energy of faith than his wife, says, "The Lord establish His word;" it would indicate that he shared with his wife, in some measure, at least, an expectation of blessing coming to Israel through the child of Hannah's prevailing prayer. The words imply the hope of some special mission to be committed to Samuel, and in common with his noble wife, some expectation that better days would come to God's people through the birth of this son.

The glad and grateful mother embodies in her son's name God's great goodness to her in answer to her petition for a son. She calls him Samuel — heard, or asked, of God. And the name was not only intended to be commemorative of the fact that God hears and answers the earnest prayer of the righteous, but seems as a prophecy of the place that prayer was to have in the afterlife of this God-given child. (See 1 Sam. 7: 5; 8: 6; 12: 19, 23; 15: 1). And, dear fellow-believer, shall not these examples of prayer, both of this mother and her son, stir us up in the same? We excuse ourselves by lack of time, a busy age, so many things requiring attention, so many duties and obligations resting upon us; how shall we find the time to pray as Scripture exhorts us to do? If we were people of leisure, or dwelling in solitude, we might be men and women of prayer, too. So we think, and so most suppose. But it is not so; we can pray best right in the circumstances where God has placed us; there we see and feel and realize the world's, and the church's, and our own individual need, as we could not know them in some secluded monastery or hermitage. It is the sense of need and what we have to meet with in daily life that drives us to the Lord, or draws us to the mercy-seat. As for the necessary time to pray, what time is better employed than in prayer? And it does not always mean to be on our knees, or in our closets, or in the prayer-meeting. Hannah prayed, though "only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard;" yet what saint prayed more earnestly or really? "I have poured out my soul before the Lord," she says. It is prayer such as this that brings down blessing from above, rather than the stated, formal prayers, read or said on regular occasions. May God give us more Hannahs for supplication, and more Samuels for intercession!

Some of God's servants, like Elijah the Tishbite, come into view suddenly and unannounced, and like stars of first magnitude continue in our field of vision for a considerable time; others, like Samson and John the Baptist, have their coming fore-announced, like those heavenly luminaries whose appearance have been foretold; they come into view gradually, by easy stages, as it were. So with Samuel; we may say, his birth and infancy augur something more than common. He is in some things a type of that great Deliverer, our Lord Jesus Christ, whose early life was in quiet retirement until presented to Israel.

Hannah's words to Eli on the presentation of her child are in marked keeping with her lovely disposition of meekness and unresentment. She does not say, I am the woman you so rashly misjudged at the tabernacle entrance, and this is the child for which I was praying when you charged me with drunkenness. No, there is nothing of this. Her triumph is in God, as one that knows Him as the bountiful Giver of all good. "I am the woman," she says, "that stood by thee here, praying unto the Lord. For this child I prayed, and the Lord hath given me my petition which I asked of Him."

Christian reader, how much like Hannah are we in forgetting wrongs received at the hands of others? How prone we all are to resent and remember an insult or a misinterpretation of our actions by others — we who offend so much, and have need to be ourselves forgiven wrongs done to others, which we have forgotten, perhaps. May we earnestly seek and cultivate a like spirit of non-resentment, and forget injuries, even when the insult was unmerited, as it was with her. Alas, how often we do wrong, and then indignantly resent and hardly forgive those whose duty it may be to rebuke or correct us. May we learn more of Him who was "meek and lowly in heart," and then shall we indeed "find rest unto our souls."

"Therefore also I have lent him to the Lord," she adds: "as long as he liveth he shall be lent to the Lord." "Lent," should be, rather, "given." She did not selfishly cling to him, nor make a scene at her parting with the loved and lovable "son of her vows" (Prov. 31: 2). She gives him up freely, gladly, for was it not for this very purpose that she waited long and prayed earnestly? She was not of those who vow and afterwards repent (Ecc. 5: 4, 5). Like David, of the following generation, she vowed "unto the mighty God of Jacob," and would perform it promptly.

Three years of age is said to have been the time of weaning with Hebrews; if this was Samuel's age when left with Eli, it exhibits to a marked degree the devotion of Hannah to the interests of Jehovah and His worship, to leave her child at the 'tabernacle so young. But "all things are possible to him that believeth," and faith rises above nature; she gave him gladly, and doubtless with assurance that the Lord had need of him, and would use him to the honor of His great and glorious name in Israel.

"And he worshiped the Lord there," we read. If this refers to Samuel, it would argue that he was considerably more than three years old. The Revised Version says in a foot-note, that several ancient authorities read they for he, which, if correct, would present the beautiful picture of the company — Eli, Hannah, her husband, and others — all together in worshipful praise of the God of Israel for this gift of His love to the nation.

It takes us in thought to that lovely scene in the temple more than a thousand years later, when another group of godly souls, who also "looked for redemption in Israel," gathered round an Infant, to hold in their arms the Redeemer Himself, when aged Simeon adoringly said, "Lord, now lettest Thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word; for mine eyes have seen thy salvation" (Luke 2: 29).

Chapter 3. Mother's Song. (1 Samuel 2: 1-10).

"And Hannah prayed;" so begins our chapter. She prayed; but it was not the prayer of petition now, but of praise, of thanksgiving — a celebration of the divine perfections and glorious attributes of Jehovah the God of Israel. The petition had been, in the mercy of God, granted, and now it is worship welling up in her happy heart. She has, for the time being, nothing more to desire: to see her child installed in the Tabernacle, started in his life-time service to the Lord, was the very culmination of joy to her, and the fulfilment of her fondest aspirations. Again she pours out her soul before the Lord, not as a suppliant now, but fully satisfied, her desire fully met.

"In that day ye shall ask Me nothing," Christ said on one occasion to His disciples. When with Him, our blessed and glorious Redeemer above, we shall be fully and forever satisfied, and have need of nothing. We shall have no need, as now to "watch and pray," nor ask for anything; neither shall we cry as now, "Come, Lord Jesus." Faith shall give place to sight. Hope's desire will then be fulfilled. Love alone shall abide, calling forth our adoring praises, world without end! Amen. That which is in part shall be done away when that which is perfect is come. The 72d psalm ends with this (to some) singular expression, "The prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended." He had been celebrating in song the glories of Messiah's millennial reign upon earth and its blessedness. He has sung of the might, the majesty and riches of Him whom "Solomon in all his glory" was the type; and when the paean is ended, with his harp's last note he exclaims, "The prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended" — his hopes are fully realized, and the happy Israelite asks no more. But the Christian's anticipations are higher, and beyond anything of earth; he has the "better hope" of Hebrews 7: 19; and only in "that day" of heavenly bliss and immediate association with Christ will his desires be fully realized and his prayers forever ended.

But we return to Hannah and her song. When she poured out her petition in sorrow, "only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard." She prayed "in secret" to Him who "heareth in secret," and He had rewarded her "openly;" but this prayer becomes a song of joyful praise, for she has indeed glorious things to tell of Him who is "fearful in praises." Her song begins with the celebration of the glorious perfections of Jehovah. Only a brief word, by way of introduction, does she speak of herself at all. "My heart rejoiceth in the Lord," she says. Out of her heart's abundance of gratitude to God her mouth speaks His praise. "Out of the heart are the issues of life" (Prov. 4: 23). "Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight," prayed the Psalmist when celebrating the power and perfections of God as displayed in creation and in His Word (Ps. 19: 14). He did not merely wish that his words might be acceptable in his Redeemer's sight, but that the thoughts of his heart might be pleasing to Him as well. And if our heart be not right, surely all else is wrong. It is the source whence flows either bitter or sweet water, bearing blessing or a curse in the world.

"My heart rejoiceth in the Lord," she sings. Her joy was not so much in the gift (Samuel) as in God the Giver. Her's was not a merely natural joy, but the joy of the Lord, a joy of the Spirit. How often we are more occupied with the thing given than with Him who graciously gave it. Not so with Hannah here; much as she might and did rejoice over the child of her vows and prayers, she rises above the level of nature to Jehovah Himself. All else is, for the time being, forgotten, and like the disciples on the holy mount, when "they saw no man save Jesus only," she speaks only of Him, not once mentioning the child whose birth gave occasion to it all. Jehovah filled her enraptured soul.

"My horn is exalted in the Lord," is her second word. In 1 Chron. 25: 5 we read, "All these were the sons of Heman the king's seer in the words of God, to lift up the horn." They were, together with the sons of Asaph and Jeduthun, the temple-court musicians; and the part of the sons of Heman was to lift up the horn, to sound aloud the praises of the God of Israel. So here Hannah declares her horn exalted in the Lord; she sounds not the trumpet to her own praise, as did the Pharisees of a more favored day, but lifts it in celebration of the infinite perfections of Him who alone is worthy.

And then she says, "My mouth is enlarged over mine enemies." It is Israel's and God's enemies she has in view, not Peninnah. Speaking for all Israel, she looks on in faith to the time when the enemies of her people, the Philistines in particular, probably, would be subdued and become subject, as under the rule of David. Filled with the spirit of prophecy, she sees beyond "the long, dark night" of Israel's departure from God and consequent humiliation, even to the day of "great David's greater Son," as the close of her song makes manifest. This deliverance of Israel from her enemies was yet for many days to come, but faith sees it as done already, and Hannah fore-rejoices in its accomplishment. She speaks something after the manner of Paul in Romans 8: 3o, "Whom He justified, them He also glorified." So sure of accomplishment is the purpose of God that he can speak of the believer as already glorified. Yet some would have it that the believer may still fall away and be lost. But those whom God justifies (by faith) them He "also glorifies!"

Having spoken of her joy and triumph, her song proper now begins. She makes no more mention of herself; it is all Jehovah, in His character and wondrous. ways. She speaks His name nine times in her song of ten verses. She seems wholly lost in Him, and scarcely alludes to herself or circumstances, or that particular mercy (the gift of Samuel) that had prompted her anthem of praise. In their praises and thanksgivings to God, believers may be too much occupied with what concerns themselves — their necessities and circumstances. This is not the highest form of worship; it is not what occupies Hannah here; she rises above her own blessings; she is absorbed in the varied and majestic attributes of the Divine Being. She alludes to His holiness, His omniscience, His sovereignty, His omnipotence, His faithfulness, and His justice.

His holiness is first: "There is none holy as the Lord," she says. Holiness has first place in this cluster of glories. It is, we may say, one of the essential attributes of Deity; and without it, who could adore or even reverence Him? Yet it is the very trait of His nature to which men are most averse, and which they are most likely to overlook. He has therefore reminded us over and over again in His Word that He is holy. In this attribute of His being He is incomparable. The seraphim veil themselves as they cry one to another, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts" (Isa. 6: 3)." There is none beside Thee; neither is there any rock like our God," she sings. "Who is like unto Thee, O Lord, among the gods? who is like Thee, glorious in holiness?" sang Moses at the Red Sea (Ex. 15: 11). "Sing unto the Lord, O ye saints of His, and give thanks at the remembrance of His holiness," said the "sweet psalmist of Israel" (Ps. 30: 4). Yes, this very unpopular doctrine of the perfect holiness of God is the very truth that the Spirit of Christ in David calls upon His saints to give thanks for. Thirty times in the Old Testament is Jehovah called "the Holy One of Israel."

Hannah next alludes to God's omniscience; "Talk no more exceeding proudly; let not arrogancy come out of your mouth; for Jehovah is a God of knowledge, and by Him actions are weighed." Being omniscient He is unerring in His estimate of men; and not merely does He take knowledge of their doings, but weighs their thoughts in the balances of the sanctuary. He reads the heart and weighs motives, rather than outward acts. "Judge not according to appearance," says our Lord, the appointed Judge of all (John 7: 24). And in 1 Cor. 4: 5, His servant Paul forcibly reminds us that He will in "that day," the day of the revelation of the thoughts of many hearts, make manifest motives — He will weigh purposes as well as actions. O reader, let this solemnize our hearts and make us less careful of what men may think or judge, and cause us to be anxious only to please but One. There is no more beautiful description anywhere of God's omniscience (and His omnipresence, too) than that given by David in the 139th psalm. It is little wonder that he, a man like unto ourselves, should in deepest humility say, "Such knowledge is too wonderful for me."

Hannah dilates on God's sovereignty, and then she enumerates the sudden changes, the felicities and vicissitudes of life: the seemingly invincible mighty suffer defeat, and those that stumble in weakness as if about to fall, rise suddenly to strength and victory. "The bows of the mighty men are broken, and they that stumbled are girded with strength." The men of the world, in their self-sufficiency, say with Napoleon, that "God is on the side of the heaviest battalions;" but no; when it is agreeable to His purpose, "the lame take the prey" (Isa. 33: 23). In men's circumstances of life also the sovereignty of God is seen; "They that were full have hired themselves out for bread; and they that were hungry ceased [to be so]" — not always because they are improvident or wasteful; nor do others, once hungry, cease to lack merely because of their superior industry or frugality. These are often but secondary causes, and behind all is the purpose of the supreme Ruler of the universe, without whom not one insignificant sparrow falls dead to the ground. It is not "luck," or "fortune," good or ill, nor are these mutations in the circumstances of men to be ascribed solely to themselves, their wisdom or their folly, or chance or opportunity. "I went out full and the Lord hath brought me home empty," said the sorrowful Naomi. She acknowledged the sovereignty of God in her altered circumstances; and Scripture abounds with illustrations of this bed-rock truth. God is sovereign, controlling the ups and downs of life.

This is further enlarged upon in what immediately follows: "So that the barren hath borne seven; and she that hath many children is waxed feeble." Once flourishing and influential families become minished, even to extinction sometimes, while others increase to a multitude. It is He, the Lord, that "maketh the barren woman to keep house, and to be a joyful mother of children" (Ps. 113: 9). This will be demonstrated in Israel in the coming day of her promised increase. (See Isa. 54: 1-6). "Lo, children are a heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is His reward" (Ps. 127: 3). Would that this word were pondered more in this age of increasingly small families.

This thought is closely connected with the question of life and death: "The Lord killeth, and maketh alive: He bringeth down to the grave, and bringeth up." Not only is our coming into the world completely under God's control, but when born, our life is in His hand; death, too, is amenable to His will. This is the sobering declaration of the prophet Daniel before the impious king Belshazzar: "The God in whose hand thy breath is." He is "the sovereign Lord of life and death." He killeth; death is His black-winged messenger. It is He who "turneth man to destruction, and says, Return, ye children of men" (Ps. 90: 3), and who in "the last day" will cause His voice to be heard by all that sleep in the grave. He "maketh alive," and "bringeth up" from the grave. Resurrection is the sovereign act of His power.

Riches, too, and poverty, are alike at His disposal: "The Lord maketh poor, and maketh rich; He bringeth low, and lifteth up." He gives the one or the other as suits His purpose. The knowledge of this should keep the rich humble, and make the poor content. Beloved fellow-believer, let us, as Scripture admonishes us, "be content with such things as we have," for our God, who has revealed Himself to us in grace, has said, "I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee" (Heb. 13: 5).

"He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth up the beggar from the dunghill," again says Hannah, "to set them among princes, and to make them inherit the throne of glory." We have illustrations of this in Scripture all the way from Joseph to Lazarus. The former was raised up from the condition of a slave to rule over Egypt; and the latter, a beggar on earth, was taken to "Abraham's bosom" in paradise.

Hannah next ascribes to God almighty power: "For the pillars of the earth are the Lord's, and He hath set the world upon them." This is a poetic figure of speech, though none the less forceful for that. Who but He whose "strength is infinite" could suspend and sustain this globe in its circuits as if it had no more weight than "the small dust of the balance?" as it is beautifully expressed in Job 26: 27, "He hangeth the earth upon nothing." In His wisdom, grace, and power, He is able to keep us without falling: "He will keep the feet of His saints," she confidently says O child of God, weak, failing, and needing much mercy, rejoice in this which our Saviour has said: "They shall never perish, neither shall any one pluck them out of my hand" (John 10: 28). And may the certainty of this make you, not more careless in your walk, but the more careful not to grieve such love; for if He keep the feet of His saints, His eye is upon them to see every misstep they make, and observes when they wander into forbidden paths.

His justice is the next attribute noticed: "The wicked shall be silent in darkness, for by strength shall no man prevail." The judgment of the sinner is sure, though God bear long with him in his rebellion and unbelief. "Where is the God of judgment?" men ask to-day, as they unbelievingly asked of old (Mal. 2: 17). We answer, He is bearing long with man's impenitence, but His Word declares He "will by no means clear the guilty!" His righteousness is one of His many glories; even the gospel of His grace declares it (Rom. 1: 17). "It is," as another has aptly expressed it, "the rectitude of His nature His infinite agreement with Himself, and the equity of His government and judgment in the administration of both." Puny man would thwart the execution of His judgments; but though they join hands to resist the purposes of God, though they bind themselves with an oath, as it were, to keep the earth for themselves in their pride, at the exclusion of God's Christ, its rightful Heir, "by strength shall no man prevail." "Though hand join in hand, the wicked shall not be unpunished" (Prov. 11: 21). "The adversaries of the Lord shall be broken in pieces; out of heaven shall He thunder upon them."

This is the grand finale of Hannah's oratorio: "The Lord shall judge the ends of the earth; and He shall give strength unto His King, and exalt the horn of His anointed." This is not Saul, nor even David, but He whom David in Spirit called "LORD." This "King" to whom Jehovah gives "strength" is He who "was crucified through weakness." Now, all power on earth and in heaven is in His hand, and in the coming day of His kingdom and power, the horn of His royalty will be exalted above the kings of the earth, as it is written in the 2d psalm.

So the song closes with that one only Name, which strikes an answering chord in every loyal heart, both Jewish and Christian — "His Anointed!" It is Hannah's, as it is God's last word to man. "What think ye of Christ?" This is the test. Reader, what is He to you?

It is remarkable that both the expressions, "The Lord of hosts," and the "Anointed" (Christ's title) frequently found further on in Scripture, are used first by Hannah, the once barren and sorrowful woman (see 1 Sam. 1: 11; 2: 10). Such are God's ways. He uses the things that are weak, and the things that are despised, to proclaim His praise, that no flesh may glory in His presence.

Hannah's song, though a true magnificat, and perfectly suited to the age and circumstances in which it was uttered, does not rise to the height of Mary's. Hannah begins: "My heart rejoiceth in the Lord," Mary says; "My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour." The heart is connected more with earth and the body; the soul and spirit have closer links with heaven and eternity. But this makes the song of Hannah none the less perfect or profitable to us; this very difference proves to our minds how very perfect it is, and wholly in keeping with its time and place.

We shall now pass on from poetry to history, none the less profitable for being more prosaic.

Chapter 4. — His Childhood. (1 Samuel 2: 12-26.)

The expression, "And Elkanah went to Ramah to his house," following immediately on the conclusion of Hannah's song, would indicate that it was uttered in the presence of the priest Eli and others at Shiloh. This pious couple having returned to their home, we then read, "And the child did minister unto the Lord before Eli the priest. Now the sons of Eli were sons of Belial; they knew not the Lord;" and the rest of the chapter is a continuation of the beautiful conduct of Samuel set side by side with the wilful wickedness of the sons of Eli. It is like a mosaic set in white and black, with the black largely predominating — a black of deepest dye, with here and there a tiny patch of pure white. It is largely the human history, alas, and the history of Israel in particular. The evil of men in the mass is everywhere seen, while only here and there shines some noted exceptions; but the exceptions, as here in the child Samuel, shine only the brighter in contrast. And it is only the distinguishing grace of God that makes any to differ, for, by nature, "there is no difference." So the record given here is not that we should glorify Samuel, but his God, and the grace that provided and set apart for Himself this chosen vessel of His testimony, and His instrument for the accomplishment of His designs towards His people.

So we have in the passage before us the record of the dark doings of Hophni and Phinehas, with here and there a word as to the lovely behavior of the child of Hannah.

Let us examine the account in detail. "The child did minister unto the Lord before Eli." Note the expression: it is not said that he ministered unto Eli before the Lord, but the reverse — he ministered unto the Lord in the presence of Eli. Though himself but a child, he ministered to the Lord — a little Levite indeed, serving Jehovah as best his infant years permitted, caring for the things about "the tent of testimony," the holy vessels and utensils, all of which were intended to express God's glory under various figures. (See Ps. 29: 9, marg.) Little Samuel was not there merely in the capacity of servitor to Eli, but in training for his life-work; and while in training, he was serving diligently; his young mind developing, and his intelligence in holy things enlarging, under the Spirit's influence, for he was, according to his mother's vow, a Nazarite from his birth, and for life. No razor came upon his head, no wine or strong drink touched his lips, nor was he even to eat any fruit of the vine. The symbols of natural joys and dignity were denied him, that his heart might be the more occupied with Him to whom he had been dedicated. He must learn that "with Him is the fountain of life," and the wellspring of joys that neither cloy in life nor end with death. Happy child! and happy all who have found in Christ the fount of all their satisfaction and the sweet solace of their every sorrow.

"But the sons of Eli," we read, "were sons of Belial." What a reflection on the name of him who at that time was both high priest and supreme judge in Israel! His sons, the "sons of Belial!" Could anything be worse — children of "worthlessness and corruption!" Truly we see here emphasized the truth of the adage, "The corruption of the best is the worst of corruption." Though priests of the Lord, they descended to depths of evil. Instead of magnifying their office, they degraded it, till "men abhorred the offering of the Lord."

Their sin was of a three-fold character: sacrilege, greed, and uncleanness; for,

"The priest's custom with the people was that, when any man offered sacrifice, the priest's servant came, while the flesh was in seething, with a flesh-hook of three teeth in his hands; and he struck it into the pan, or kettle, or caldron, or pot; all that the flesh-hook brought up the priest took for himself. So they did in Shiloh, unto all the Israelites that came thither. Also before they burnt the fat, the priest's servant came, and said to the man that sacrificed, Give flesh to roast for the priest; for he will not have sodden flesh of thee, but raw. And if any man said unto him, Let them not fail to burn the fat presently, and then take as much as thy soul desireth; then he would answer him, Nay; but thou shalt give it me now; and if not, I will take it by force. Wherefore the sin of the young men was very great before the Lord: for men abhorred the offering of the Lord."

How great was their sin! For with their profanation of the sacrifices of the people, they added shameless gluttony, though God had made ample provision for their maintenance: "For the wave breast and the heave shoulder have I taken of the children of Israel from off the sacrifices of their peace offerings, and have given them unto Aaron the priest and unto his sons by a statute forever from among the children of Israel" (Lev. 7: 34). But no, this was not enough; they must have more; and if not given willingly by the poor, brow-beaten people of God, they would take it by force. They lived luxuriously among a people of primitive habits; they kept servants, and "made themselves fat with the chiefest of all the offerings of God's people." They became "as fed horses," and the crime of unbridled lust laid at their door, in ver. 22, is but the natural consequence of such sensuous living. Stopping at nothing to gratify their carnal appetites, they robbed both God and His people in their shameless greed. And the people, to their honor be it said, though they submitted to being themselves deprived of that which was theirs of the sacrifices by right, objected when the priest's servant took the fat, which, according to Lev. 3: 3-5, 16, was to be wholly burnt upon the altar, "an offering made by fire, a sweet savor unto the Lord." "Is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will ye weary my God also?" (Isa. 7: 13) might have been asked of the house of Aaron here, as it was asked of the house of David centuries later.

It is a dark, humiliating picture. "They knew not the Lord" is written of these profane men, who occupied the office of priests, but whose hearts were far from God. It was said of Samuel, later, that he "did not yet know the Lord" (chap. 3: 7). But that was a very different thing. He was in the way of knowing Him "whom to know is life eternal;" but these sons of Eli had hardened themselves past remedy, and there remained for them but the just judgment of God. Alas for them, and for all like them today, who make a gain of godliness and profane their office to fill their bellies and indulge their lusts.

Following the account of the shameful practices of Eli's sons, we have recorded, in refreshing relief, the lovely conduct of the child of Hannah: "But Samuel ministered before the Lord, being a child, girded with a linen ephod." It shows by contrast the difference between the rejected priests and the child chosen to be the prophet of the Lord. That "but" comes in at this juncture as a star shining out of the night of Shiloh's low estate, and the degradation of its priesthood.

Young as he was, the linen ephod marked this child for service about the holy things of God. Had the sons of Eli ordinary discernment, they might have read in this garment the displacement of themselves by the more worthy successor in training before them. The "little coat," too, brought him year by year by his devout mother was not the ordinary garment worn by children of his age and station, but rather a robe, a garment also worn by the high priest with the ephod. All this bore its own testimony to the gracious purpose of God, to all who had eyes to see and hearts to understand. Yes, better days were coming for the nation, though the time was not yet, and further chastenings were to be experienced before a time of recovery and revival came, some twenty years later.

"And Eli blessed Elkanah and his wife, and said, The Lord give thee seed of this woman for the loan which is lent to the Lord. And they went unto their own home. And the Lord visited Hannah, so that she conceived, and bare three sons and two daughters. And the child Samuel grew before the Lord."

Here we see the grateful Eli pronouncing blessing on the parents of his young assistant. His heart was no doubt touched with the constancy and devotion of the child to the interests of Jehovah, and as a token of his appreciation he would give his parents an old man's blessing — a favor never to be despised. The benediction was medially through the lips of Eli, but behind it was the Lord Himself. Hannah lost nothing by offering her firstborn on the altar of service to Jehovah; He repaid her in kind fivefold. It was after Abraham offered Isaac his son, his "only son," upon the altar on the heights of Moriah that God promised him children as the stars of heaven and as the sand upon the seashore for multitude (Gen. 22: 16-18). He will be no man's debtor, for He who commands His saints to "owe no man anything," will certainly Himself give the example.

"And the child Samuel grew before the Lord." The devoted Hannah might have feared the acquaintance and the corrupting influence of Hophni and Phinehas about the tabernacle at Shiloh, but God preserved Samuel to be an holy vessel, "sanctified and meet for the Master's use." He is able to keep His own, and guard the interests of His cause, whether His instruments live banished and alone, as John in Patmos, or among the evil influences of the court of Nero. (See Phil. 4: 22.) Circumstances are nothing to God, and it is not our surroundings that should give color to our testimony or affect our condition of soul. His sustaining grace and power are able to keep us in holy triumph over evil.

Our chapter on Samuel's childhood ends with Eli's mild chiding of his ungodly sons.

"Now Eli was very old, and heard all that his sons did unto all Israel; and how they lay with the women that assembled at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, and he said unto them, Why do ye such things? for I hear of your evil dealings by all this people. Nay, my sons; for it is no good report that I hear: ye make the Lord's people to transgress. If one man sin against another, the judge shall judge him: but if a man sin against the Lord, who shall entreat for him? Notwithstanding they hearkened not unto the voice of their father, because the Lord would slay them."

The outraged people had probably brought their complaints to Eli, and the too indulgent father mildly reproves them for their scandalous conduct, calling it simply "evil dealings," and referring to the scandal of their disgraceful doings as "no good report." Oh, how easy and natural it is to be lenient with ourselves and our own children — who are, after all, but our second selves — while all too ready to censure others severely, as Eli, who rudely rebuked poor, praying Hannah, and softly admonished his profligate sons! True, he warns them of the danger of incurring the just displeasure of an insulted God, but in such an indirect and forceless way as to carry with it no conviction, and consequently no reformation. "They hearkened not to the voice of their father."

But "the child Samuel grew on, and was in favor both with the Lord, and also with men." How delightful it is to observe the development of this lovely flower of the Lord's planting! May we, too, grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

Chapter 5. — His Predecessor. (1 Samuel 2: 27-36.)

"And there came a man of God unto Eli, and said unto him, Thus saith the Lord, Did I plainly appear unto the house of thy father, when they were in Egypt in Pharaoh's house? — and did I choose him out of all the tribes of Israel to be my priest to offer upon mine altar, to burn incense, to wear an ephod before me? — and did I give unto the house of thy father all the offerings made by fire of the children of Israel? Wherefore kick ye at my sacrifice, and at mine offering which I have commanded in my habitation; and honorest thy sons above Me, to make yourselves fat with the chiefest of all the offerings of Israel my people?"

We have before remarked that Samuel has been called the first of the successional prophets which the grace of God raised up and maintained throughout the monarchies and among the remnant after their return from the captivity in Babylon. The priesthood was ordained to maintain the nation in direct communication with God. Having broken down completely in the days of Eli, men of God, called seers, or prophets, were raised up to bring God's messages to the people and plead with them on God's behalf. This was pre-eminently the mission of Samuel. Previous to his call, "there was no open vision" — no public manifestation of God's presence in their midst.

That there were men of God, or occasional prophets, previously, we cannot doubt. "The angel of the Lord" who came from Gilgal to Bochim, and reproved the nation for their disobedience, may have been a prophet, for in the marginal reading the word "angel" is messenger (Judges 2: 1). The messenger here sent to Eli is called "a man of God." This honorable title is not bestowed indiscriminately on all the servants of God. Moses is called "the man of God" five times; David, three times. Samuel, Elijah, and Elisha, with a few other prophets, are thus designated; and in the New Testament it is applied to Timothy, showing that we also may covet this title, or the character that merits it. There never was a greater need than now for such men, and we can say, as Moses said to Joshua, concerning the prophesying of Eldad and Medad in the camp, "Would God all the Lord's people were men of God!"

This man of God comes to Eli unannounced. Of his name and origin we know nothing. Three others like him were sent, each with God's message, to a king: the "man of God out of Judah" was sent to apostate Jeroboam; another was sent to the weak and wicked Ahab; and still another, to the militarist Amaziah. Their words only have come down to us. God would not have us occupied with His messengers, but with their message. They shall be known in due time, and receive the due reward of their service. Let us be satisfied, beloved fellow-servants of Christ, to labor unnoticed and unknown, content to deliver our message, bear our testimony, and leave the rest to Him and to "that day." There are many in the sacred chronicles whose record we might envy, but whose names we do not know. In Hebrews 11 what a wonderful catalogue of unnamed worthies is given, whose deeds are inscribed in God's "Hall of Fame Enduring." The secret name on the white stone of Christ's approval is the thing to be desired above all else. "To him that overcometh . . . will I give a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it" (Rev. 2: 17).

The man of God comes to Eli with the message: "Thus saith Jehovah," he begins. He needs no apology for the message he bears. He is relieved of all responsibility in the matter; it was his to deliver the communication regardless of any consequences to himself. Men might call him brutally abrupt, lacking in tact and consideration of the effects of the terrible words on the venerable priest. But he was to deliver God's word, "not in words which man's wisdom teacheth," but in the words which God had given him to say. And those to-day whose business it is to reason with sinful and lost men "of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come," must not tone down God's truth, nor shun to declare to a sinful world what lies before it. The sweet tale of the gospel of our precious Saviour dying for ruined and guilty man, of pardon for rebels and salvation for the lost, this is indeed the burden of their testimony, and is to be always duly emphasized; but they have also to bring God's warnings to the wicked, and tell of judgment for the impenitent, of hell for the Christ-rejector, and of the fire that never shall be quenched. To declare the whole counsel of God is the solemn responsibility laid upon the man of God. Let the example of these men of God of old embolden every servant of Christ to bear faithful testimony to a dreaming world that more and more demands of the ministers of Christ that they prophesy "smooth things" to them.

The terse message of the man of God to Eli has three distinct parts. He first reverts to the past, dwells for a moment on the present, and then foretells the future. The past sets forth the privileges of Eli's priestly ancestry; the present establishes the fact of the utter failure of his branch of this favored house; and the future proclaims the sure and sweeping judgment about to fall upon it.

He first reviews the origin of the priestly family. Speaking as the mouthpiece of Jehovah, he says:

"Did I plainly appear to the house of thy father, when they were in Egypt in Pharaoh's house? and did I choose him out of all the tribes of Israel to be my priest, to offer upon mine altar, to burn incense, to wear an ephod before Me? and did I give unto the house of thy father all the offerings made by fire of the children of Israel? Wherefore kick ye at my sacrifice and at mine offering?"

Eli is reminded of the high honor put upon the house of his fathers: the great I AM appeared to Aaron while in the land of bondage, and without any revealed reason, but His sovereign choice, selected him for the honorable post of high priest to Israel. It was for no distinguishing merit on Aaron's part, but of God's freest grace, and this privilege was entailed on his posterity for ever. He gave them ample and generous provision also for their maintenance — "all the offerings made by fire of the children of Israel." These distinguishing favors should have incited them to faithfulness in the discharge of their official obligations, and prompted them to hearty obedience to all His will. This is ever God's way with His own, and often with sinners too. He reminds them of His past dealings in grace and favor towards them. The review of His "goodness" is designed to "lead them to repentance;" if this fails of its desired effect, the goodness bestowed becomes but an aggravation of the guilt, and cannot but bring down heavier judgment. It is a most solemn and serious thing to trifle with, or abuse, the grace of God, as many have learned to their sorrow and eternal loss.

Having prepared the way by recalling to Eli's mind the high and holy privileges conferred on him and his house, the prophet proceeds to charge home on his conscience his failure and sin: "Wherefore kick ye at my sacrifice and at mine offering . . . and honorest thy sons above Me, to make yourselves fat with the chiefest of all the offerings of Israel my people?"

There are three points in the indictment: they "kicked," or rebelled, as if God's sacrifices were a thing of contempt, or the regulations concerning it onerous; he honored his worthless sons above the great and glorious Jehovah, God of Israel; and they "made themselves fat" with the very best brought by Israel to His altar. It is a grave and awful charge to bring against such a man as Eli! Oh, how it must have cut him to the heart as he stood dumb before the accuser, in mute acknowledgment of the charge! Think of it, he honored his wicked sons above Jehovah! Could sin be greater or guilt more grave? Those that allow and countenance their children in any evil way, and do not use their authority to restrain and punish them, do in effect honor them more than God, being more tender of their reputation than of His glory, and more desirous to honor them than to honor Him.

This was the deep fault of the too indulgent father, though himself innocent of the disorders about the Tabernacle. Being both high priest and chief magistrate over the land, he was invested with full powers both to depose and punish them, but failed utterly to do it. How much failure there is of this, alas, amongst Christian parents to-day. There are good men, who are fathers, who seem to have neither eyes nor ears for the shortcomings of their children, and disastrous results follow. Some grow up unbelievers, if not profligates; and instead of becoming an honor and ornament to God and their parents, they bring down their gray hairs with sorrow to the grave. God said of Abraham, "I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him." He did not, like Eli, weakly expostulate, or in easy tone admonish, but he commanded. We like the word; it has the ring of discipline, and savors of authority and order; and this is the very thing Eli failed most to do, and had, consequently, to hear from the lips of the man of God the doom pronounced against his family: "Wherefore the Lord God of Israel saith, I said indeed that thy house, and the house of thy father, should walk before Me forever: but now Jehovah saith, Be it far from Me; for them that honor Me I will honor, and they that despise Me shall be lightly esteemed."

The priesthood was promised to the house of Aaron forever (Ex. 29: 9). "The priest's office shall be theirs for a perpetual statute;" but it was in a way conditional, that they "walk before" Jehovah; this they ceased to do, and were consequently "put as polluted from the priesthood." This eventually became true of the whole house of Aaron (see Mal. 2: 1-9), and it became displaced by that Priest "after the order of Melchizedek, who abides continually." He could say in faithfulness, as no descendant of Levi ever could say, "As for Me, Thou upholdest Me in mine integrity, and settest Me before thy face forever" (Ps. 41 12). Our willing hearts delight to have it so. Our God has laid help upon One that is mighty: "the government shall be upon His shoulder," "and He shall bear the glory, and shall sit and rule upon his throne; and He shall be a priest upon his throne" (Zech. 6: 13). God speed the day of His appearing!

"Them that honor Me, I will honor, and they that despise Me shall be lightly esteemed." Here is a most weighty principle, seen in all God's governmental ways; and it was to be illustrated in a solemn way upon the house of Eli. They had daringly despised Him of whom it is written, that "He is mighty, and despiseth not any" (Job 36: 5); and for their insolence flaunting itself in the face of the Almighty, they must suffer the severest punishment which the Jewish mind can conceive: "Behold, the days come, that I will cut off thine arm, and the arm of thy father's house, that there shall not be an old man in thy house; and thou shalt see an enemy in my habitation . . . and all the increase of thy house shall die in the flower of their age." This came to pass in the very beginning of the glorious reign of Solomon. Abiathar, the last official representative of the house of Eli, and his son Jonathan, took part with the ambitious Adonijah, in collusion with the veteran warrior Joab, in conspiracy against Solomon, for which he was deposed and disgraced (see 1 Kings 2: 26, 27), and from that day the priestly office returned to the house of Eleazar, in the person of. Zadok. After sharing the afflictions of David in his rejection, and bearing with him the burdens of a not untroubled reign, he slipped at the last, and lost the place of honor just as Solomon's reign was about to begin.

"And this shall be a sign unto thee, that shall come upon thy two sons, on Hophni and Phinehas; in one day shall they die both of them. And I will raise me up a faithful priest, that shall do according to that which is in my heart and in my mind: and I will build him a sure house; and he shall walk before mine anointed for ever. And it shall come to pass that every one that is left in thy house shall come and crouch to him for a piece of silver and a morsel of bread, and shall say, Put me, I pray thee, in one of the priests' offices, that I may eat a piece of bread" (vers. 34-36).

Abject poverty and humiliating beggary was to be the lot of Eli's descendants. It is a picture fearful to contemplate, and it must have struck Eli with horror. But his sons had reveled in luxury and power, and it was meet that their offspring should grovel in disgrace and penury. They had lived luxuriously at Jehovah's expense, robbing Him of that which was His due, and their children should come to beg a piece of silver (the word is said to signify the smallest coin), and a morsel of bread.

How painful all this is! Had Eli honored God above his sons, and dealt with them accordingly, he would have escaped this sorrow and humiliation. But thus it is in the equitable government of God. He "is a consuming fire," and a jealous God, and woe to those that set aside His word.

Now, here again, a bright light is shining out of the gathering gloom: God was to raise up for Himself a "faithful priest," His "Anointed." This evidently looks beyond either David or Zadok; it is God's glorious King-Priest, who on earth ever did that which was according to God's heart and mind. So, in wrath, God ever remembers mercy; but it is mercy which can only be ministered through the merits and mediation of His "merciful and faithful High Priest." Blessed surety and pledge of eternal blessing for all who by grace believe.

Chapter 6. — His Call. (1 Samuel 3.)

We have here, at the commencement of our present chapter, another lovely note on Samuel's childhood — a fleck of gold in the dark picture — the lovely conduct of Hannah's child set over against the evil of the sons of Levi. "And the child Samuel ministered unto the Lord before Eli." While others lose their place, and their functions cease, this little candle of the Lord's own kindling brightens and shines in the otherwise gloomy night of Israel's condition. God never has, and never will, leave Himself without a witness in the world. He who could even of the very stones raise up children to Abraham, never fails to keep a lamp of testimony to His faithfulness and truth.

"And the word of the Lord was precious in those days; there was no open vision." A spiritual famine prevailed; not a famine of bread, as in the days of the Ephrathite Elimelech, but of the word of God. "Man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live; "so spake Jehovah to His people in the days of His servant Moses, and again to us in a latter day through His Son, the "Teacher come from God." And in the days that came between He spake in a similar strain by His holy prophet: "Behold the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord: and they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, and shall not find it" (Amos 8: 11, 12).

"No open vision" means there was no public revelation of God's will concerning His people; no open manifestation of His mind, either by dreams or prophet, or by Urim and Thummim. To quote the sober words of Matthew Henry: "There were none that were publicly known to have visions. Perhaps the impiety and impurity that prevailed in the Tabernacle, and no doubt corrupted the whole nation, so provoked God that as a token of His displeasure He withdrew the Spirit of prophecy, till the decree had gone forth for the raising up of a more faithful priest; and then, as an earnest of that, this faithful prophet was raised up." Yes, the raising up of the faithful prophet was the pledge of the "faithful priest," even of Him who was to combine in Himself the office of Prophet, Priest and King — the "Anointed One," the "Faithful and the True."

"And it came to pass at that time, when Eli was laid down in his place, and his eyes began to wax dim, that he could not see; and ere the lamp of God went out in the temple of the Lord, where the ark of God was, and Samuel was laid down to sleep, that the Lord called Samuel."

In this night scene we have a picture of the moral condition of the nation at the time of the calling of Samuel. Eli the priest was "laid down in his place" — a symbol of spiritual sloth; and his eyes, that should have watched vigilantly for the interests of his God and the welfare of His people Israel, were "waxed dim, that he could not see." His dimness of vision was but a figure of that lack of moral discernment that characterized him at the time. The lamp of God still burned, but its light was waning, as if about to go out and leave the place in darkness, as the wording of the passage would imply. "All in dead supineness slept" — sad picture of the times in Samuel's early days.

The Tabernacle is called Temple here, or house of the Lord, in token of the coming establishment in truth, with "better promises," and under a "better covenant," of "the sure mercies of David," made good in Christ, in whom all the promises of God are "yea and amen!" The Tabernacle was intended chiefly for the wilderness, while the temple was a permanent structure, designed for the nation when settled and at rest in the land of promise.*

{*The Tabernacle answers especially to the Church's present circumstances as pilgrims and strangers in the world; the Temple answers to Israel established upon earth with glory under the reign of Christ, as son of David — the true Solomon. [ED.}

It was full two hundred years since the last scripture reference to the ark was made. It was on the sad and humiliating occasion of Israel's civil war, when all Israel went against offending Benjamin, because of the horrible crime of the men of Gibeah against the Levite's concubine (Judges 20). It was a time memorable in the annals of the nation — a "black-letter day," recalled for its lesson of man's deep moral depravity by the prophet Hosea 600 years after: "They have deeply corrupted themselves, as in the days of Gibeah!" (Hosea 9: 9; 10: 9). From that dark day of lust, and terrible vengeance and slaughter, to the time of Samuel here, the "ark of God's testimony" is not once mentioned. It is as if God hid Himself after that deed of darkness done by the people called after His name, until His people might return to Himself. Now, under Samuel, it comes once more into prominence, for the light of God's testimony was about to revive, and His presence once more acknowledged in their midst.

"And Samuel was laid down;" to sleep is supplied, and would perhaps better be left out. Is it that, instead of sleeping as a healthy boy naturally would, he may have been in prayer, or watching lest the sacred lamp, which should never cease to burn, should go out, and leave all in darkness?

It was a night long to be remembered by young Samuel. If, as we read in Esther 6: 1," On that night the king could not sleep" (because the watchful God of Israel withheld slumber from the monarch in order that His people might be preserved), it is likely that, in the interests in His people's welfare, the Holy Spirit acting in the child's heart kept him awake and ready to hear and respond to that call which he was so faithfully to fulfil in the coming years. May we too watch unto prayer, standing as it were on our watchtower, to hear what God the Lord will say to us (see Hab. 2: 1).

Three times the Lord calls Samuel. If he did not at first recognize the Voice, he was at least prompt in answering, and ran to Eli, whom he supposed had summoned him. Willing child! He was faithful in that which was least, and God would entrust him with greater things — a needed lesson for us all, especially to those newly come to the faith of Christ. Be content, dear young Christian, to serve in little things; then, if He sees fit, and needs require, thy God can promote thee to more important ministry.

Though three times mistaken, Jehovah did not lose patience with His little servant. Oh that we might learn of Him in this, as in all things else, and "have patience one with another," and especially with those whom we may consider slow of apprehension.

At Samuel's third coming, Eli "perceived that the Lord had called the child." What an indirect, yet forceful rebuke to the privileged high priest through whom God had promised to reveal Him self in behalf of His people. What thoughts would fill his mind, in that God had passed him by, the ancient, the elder (to whom years should have "taught wisdom, and length of days knowledge"), and address Himself to a mere child. "Go, lie down," he says;" "and it shall be, if He call thee, that thou shalt say, Speak Lord, for thy servant heareth." "If He call thee;" was it that the rejected priest almost hoped that it was not really the voice of God? or that He might not call again? for Eli, no doubt, feared the worst. Obediently Samuel lays himself down once more, to listen, doubtless with beating heart, to hear the Voice yet once again.

"So Samuel went and lay down in his place. And the Lord came, and stood, and called as at other times, Samuel, Samuel. Then Samuel answered, Speak; for thy servant heareth."

Again the Lord speaks to His chosen messenger, and the fourth time calls, "Samuel, Samuel!" This time repeating the name twice.

For some reason Samuel does not answer exactly according to Eli's instructions; he omits the name "Jehovah." He may have felt unfit to take upon his lips that sacred, awful Name. Whatever the cause, we may be sure it was not disobedience to Eli.

Reverence is a trait lamentably lacking in this day of shallow smartness. There is plenty of polish and politeness, such as it is, but the ancient and estimable quality of veneration is sadly lacking. It is in keeping with the times, the "last days," spoken of in 2 Tim. 3: 1-7.

Reverence is everywhere enjoined in Scripture. Children are commanded to honor, their parents (Eph. 6: 1-3). Wives are charged that they reverence their husbands (Eph. 5: 33); and as to old age, it is commanded, "Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head, and honor the face of the old man, and fear thy God: I am Jehovah" (Lev. 19: 32). Reverence to rulers is also required, as it is written, "Render therefore to all their dues . . . fear to whom fear; honor to whom honor" (Rom. 13: 7).

Reverence towards God and the holy things connected with His name is especially to be observed. "God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of His saints, and to be had in reverence of all them that are about Him" (Ps. 89: 7). "Holy and reverend is His name," it is written again (Ps. 111: 9). "Thou shalt reverence my sanctuary" is twice commanded in His Holy Word (Lev. 19: 30; 26: 2). The growing disregard of reverence for things sacred is lamentable, and is an indication of the last days in which our lot is cast. Even professing Christians speak of God as if He were such an one as themselves (Ps. 50: 21). It is a common occurrence in the big modern evangelistic campaigns to hear God addressed in prayer as if the person praying were on very intimate terms with God, the Most High, and could approach Him as familiarly as if He were little more than themselves — in a way they would not presume to address the chief magistrate of their land. This is a very grave symptom indeed, and instead of conveying to our minds the impression that they are very intimately acquainted with God, it causes us to fear that they may not know Him at all, or that they are praying to a god of their own imagination — a sort of mental deity. It is noticeable that such persons almost invariably speak of, and address, the Son of God as "Jesus" — His personal name. His title, "Christ," is little used, and "Lord Jesus Christ" still less.

But, some one may say, Is He not called Jesus in the Bible, and is not this His proper name? True, but it no more warrants us to speak to Him thus than to address the king of England as "George," or our president as "Woodrow," though intimate friends may thus address them in private. What we contend for is reverence toward our adorable Lord — not to lay down a rule, but exhort to due reverence. We are not aware of a single instance in Scripture where His disciples, or any one else, ever addressed the Lord as "Jesus." He is spoken of as "Jesus," but that is quite another thing. "The high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity" has ordained that "at. the name of Jesus every knee should bow . . . and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father" (Phil. 2: 10, 11). This is the lesson we would draw from the omission of Jehovah's sacred name in the response of Samuel at His midnight call — the most important lesson of reverence toward God and His holy name.

But let us go on to the message received by him on that memorable night:

"And the Lord said to Samuel, Behold, I will do a thing in Israel at which both the ears of every one that heareth it shall tingle. In that day I will perform against Eli all things that I have spoken concerning his house: when I begin, I will also make an end. For I have told him that I will judge his house forever for the iniquity which he knoweth; because his sons made themselves vile, and he restrained them not. And therefore I have sworn unto the house of Eli, that the iniquity of Eli's house shall not be purged with sacrifice nor offering for ever" (ver. 11-14).

The Lord had probably a twofold purpose in speaking to Samuel here. One was to reveal Himself to the chosen instrument of His communications to His people in future — an introductory lesson as a prophet of Jehovah. The time had come for God to break silence with the nation. How long that silence had continued we know not; for how many years there had been "no open vision," we cannot tell; it had been long; perhaps for a generation, or more. But God now will visit His people in mercy, and His voice is once more heard. His "miracles and His signs" are about to be seen again in the land, and His mighty acts of power put forth in their behalf as in the days of old. It is the dawn of brighter and better days for the nation of His choice, the "people of His pasture," through whom "the Seed of the woman," the promised Redeemer was destined to come.

The second reason in communicating His word to Samuel was that God might confirm His word to Eli, in reference to his guilt concerning his sons, as it had been told him through the man of God. "In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established," it was written in the law; and Jehovah would establish His word with the delinquent priest, and assure him that what He had before spoken should surely come to pass. Eli might wish to think as little of it as possible, but God would thus remind him of His word. God makes us to reap the fruit of our doings by the smitings of conscience, as well as by the afflictions brought upon the body. God knows when and how to "visit for these things," done against His name or people.

Reader, let us lay well to heart this solemn lesson, and fear before Him — fear to sin, fear to dishonor His name, or bring reproach on His cause. Let us not trifle with His grace, for it is written, "The Lord shall judge His people" (Heb. 10: 30). As children of God, "we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world" (1 Cor. 11: 30-32).

And now as to the message. God spoke of the judgment of Eli's house for the iniquity of which he was not ignorant — the villainy of his sons, and his own failure to restrain them: "the iniquity which he knoweth," and which caused the people to "abhor the offering of the Lord;" his sons had "made themselves vile, and he restrained them not!"

It was for devotedness to the Lord's honor, and their faithfulness in avenging it, even upon their brethren, that the priesthood was confirmed to the house of Levi, as recorded in Ex. 32: 25-29 and Deut. 33: 8-10, and Eli surely must have known this well. Alas, are there not many Elis among the people of God to-day? — failing to command their households, indulgent and weak toward offending children, to their sorrow and loss in the end.

The message closes with one of the most solemn sentences against a man or his posterity: "I have therefore sworn unto the house of Eli that the iniquity of Eli's house shall not be purged with sacrifice or offering for ever." For there were offences which could not be purged with sacrifice. "He that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses," says Heb. 10: 28; and these priests did in a way despise God's holy ordinances, which they knew.

It is to be noted that God does not command Samuel to make known to Eli what had been told him. Ever thoughtful of our limitations, our God does not lay upon us greater burdens than are necessary. It would have been a heavy burden if the sensitive child had been compelled to communicate to the aged priest the "heavy tidings" told him during the night. An easier way is open to him; Eli himself asks him under oath to tell him all. "And Samuel told him every whit, and hid nothing from him. And he said, It is the Lord; let Him do what seemeth Him good." Poor Eli! We cannot but feel deeply for the aged man under such a stroke; yet how much better it would have been to fall on his face in repentance, crying day and night with prayer to God, or at once take measures to have his sons put from the priesthood, than say, almost as a fatalist, "Let Him do what seemeth Him good."

The remaining portion of the chapter tells of Samuel being recognized as a prophet raised up of the Lord, by all Israel, from Dan to Beersheba. God caused His voice of prophecy again to be heard, and He "appeared again in Shiloh." He allowed none of Samuel's words "to fall to the ground," which would be another testimony to Eli that what God had spoken through him concerning the coming judgment of his house was sure, though for reasons of His own He might for a few years delay the stroke. "Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil" (Eccl. 8: 11); and this was doubtless true of the sons of Eli.

Chapter 7. — His Early Ministry. (1 Samuel 4.)

The expression with which our chapter opens, "And the word of Samuel came to all Israel," seems to indicate that it was not so much the prophetic word as the more ordinary ministry of the Levite, in exhortation and instruction, "teaching Jacob Jehovah's judgments, and Israel His law" (Deut. 33: 10). It is called "the word of Samuel," probably to distinguish between it and that ministry which was peculiar to him as a prophet of the Lord. In the days of the kings, Jehoshaphat sent out Levites to teach in all Judah: "And they taught in Judah, and had the book of the law of the Lord with them, and went about throughout all the cities of Judah, and taught the people" (2 Chron. 17: 9). So also in the days of king Hezekiah, the Levites "taught the good knowledge of the Lord" (2 Chron. 30: 22). And here the word ministered by this devoted young Levite comes to all Israel. He probably went about in circuit, from place to place, exhorting the people to obedience to Jehovah's law, seeking to encourage and win them back in allegiance to Him. He could not be expected to come into prominence about the Tabernacle as yet, owing to his youth and the presence there of Eli and his sons. God's punishment had not yet been meted out to them, while they were, doubtless, filling up the full measure of their iniquity; and Samuel would not be idle, but going about among the people, ministering to them in the humble capacity of an itinerant Levite.

We can well understand how Samuel's presence at Shiloh, about the Tabernacle, might become unwelcome to Hophni and Phinehas as he approached years of maturity; and God may have used it to send His servant out among the tribes, and thus "make the wrath of man to praise Him." This would give Samuel a thorough acquaintance with the people, and win their confidence, and so obtain that influence with them that in later years God turned to such good account. From a child, opening the doors and serving in various ways about the Tabernacle, his occupation as a teaching Levite would, in turn, prepare him and give him the necessary experience to serve his God and His people in the higher position of chief magistrate and prophet — at times even as a sacrificing priest.

It is a beautiful example of the New Testament principle of a steward in the temporal affairs of the assembly, "using the office of a deacon well, and thereby purchasing to himself a good degree, and great boldness in the faith which is in Christ Jesus" (1 Tim. 3: 13). In the New Testament itself we see it illustrated in the case of both Philip and Stephen, who were at first chosen to "serve tables," and later developed into men of gift and greater usefulness; the former becoming known as "Philip the evangelist," and the other an able teacher and the first Christian martyr (see Acts 6: 5; Acts 7: 59; Acts 21: 8). And if it be true that we must learn to obey before we are qualified to rule, it is equally true that we must have been willing to serve in little things before we can be expected to be called to serve in greater. For example, if we have never been interested in the care of the meeting-room, we can never expect to be given any important place in the government of God's house, the Church of God. If, while young, we disdain, or are too indolent or indifferent, to teach in the Sunday-school, how shall we ever, when older, become useful in teaching the assembly?

"Now Israel went out against the Philistines to battle, and pitched beside Ebenezer: and the Philistines pitched in Aphek. And the Philistines put themselves in array against Israel: and when they joined battle, Israel was smitten before the Philistines: and they slew of the army in the field about four thousand men" (1 Sam. 4: 1, 2).

This is the first mention made of the Philistines since the capture and death of Samson some twenty years before, if the ordinary chronology given in our Bibles be accepted as correct (Judges 16: 30). The sudden destruction of so many of their number on that occasion, including, as it doubtless did, many of their leading lords and chiefs, would have a subduing effect upon their spirits, and we hear no more of them until their mention in the chapter before us.

It would appear that it was Israel who provoked the battle; there was likely a sort of armed truce between them, and here, without one word of command from God, and no apparent provocation on the part of the Philistines, they go forth against them to battle. They took the offensive without either divine direction or support, and were made to smart for it.

The Philistines were not of the nations of Canaan devoted to destruction. Away back in the book of Genesis we see both Abraham and Isaac on friendly terms with them (Gen. 20 and 26).

We learn from Ex. 13: 17 that God "led them not through the way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near; for God said, Lest peradventure the people repent when they see war, and they return to Egypt." It was only the "borders" of their land that they were commanded under Joshua to conquer (Joshua 13: 3). Shamgar, later, slew six hundred of them with an ox goad, "and he also delivered Israel" (Judges 3: 31). Then, further on, we read of Israel worshiping the gods of the Philistines, for which Jehovah sold them into their hands (Judges 10: 6, 7). Their last end is utter destruction, and their pride cut off (Amos 1: 7, 8; Zeph. 2: 5; Zech. 9: 5). Typically, to quote from the "New and Concise Dictionary" of Morrish,

"They represent the pretension and intrusion of man in the flesh into that which belongs to God. Nazariteship in Samson is God's way of deliverance, but the Nazarite utterly failed, and in the days of Eli the Israelites were conquered by them, and they were enabled to enter into his dominions; and in a battle Saul and his sons lost their lives. It was by David, God's king, that the Philistines were really conquered, and under Solomon we find they were tributary."

Here we see Israel worsted in their self-chosen battle with them. Israel was smitten before the Philistines. No power but that of God can stand before them. He is not with Israel here, and they consequently suffer defeat. Like Samson, they are powerless in contending with them. We read nothing of their seeking God's direction or assistance before the battle; they did not have Samuel with them to pray for and encourage them, and their reliance was wholly in the arm of flesh, which, with the people of God, always fails. "Woe unto them, for, they have fled from Me . . . they have transgressed against Me." "Yea, woe also to them when I depart from them" (Hosea 7: 13; 9: 12). This is ever true; it was true of Samson; "the Lord was departed from him," and his strength was gone. He now fell into the hands of the Philistines, whom he had never before feared, and died in bondage to them. So here Israel, without the Lord, are easily defeated by them; they are punished severely for their temerity. But instead of turning to God, as did Joshua after the defeat before Ai (Joshua 7: 6-8), they bethink themselves of the ark, hoping it would save them, and they could thereby retrieve their loss and wipe out the disgrace.

"So the people sent to Shiloh. that they might bring from thence the ark of the covenant of the Lord of hosts, which dwelleth between the cherubim: and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were there with the ark of the covenant of God" (ver. 4).

Leaderless and repulsed, they turn to that which was but a symbol to save them. True, it was the symbol of God's presence: "The ark was, by institution, the visible token of God's presence;" but of what worth was this when not accompanied by the actual presence of God Himself? Alas, they had grievously offended Him by their sins; and what help could be expected from "it" when brought out under the charge of the already condemned sons of the rejected Eli?

The Israelites evidently placed their confidence in the ark through a misunderstanding, or a wrong application, of Moses' words at the going forth of the children of Israel in their wilderness journeys: "And it came to pass, when the ark set forward, that Moses said, Rise up, Lord, and let thine enemies be scattered; and let them that hate Thee flee before Thee. And when it rested, he said, Return, O Lord, unto the many thousands of Israel" (Num. 10: 35, 36). It is easy for man's depraved heart to appeal to scripture examples to justify unauthorized practices, when those scriptures are taken out of their connection, and thus misapplied. After they had been established in the land, there was no authority whatever to remove the ark from its settled resting-place; it was in fact forbidden (see Deut. 12: 5, 11, etc.). God's presence, symbolized by the ark, was not to come to them, but they were to go to it!

"And the Philistines were afraid; for they said, God is come into the camp. And they said, Woe unto us! for there hath not been such a thing heretofore. Woe unto us! Who shall deliver us out of the hand of these mighty gods . . . that smote the Egyptians with all the plagues in the wilderness . . . And the Philistines fought, and Israel was smitten, and they fled every man into his tent: and there was a very great slaughter for there fell of Israel thirty thousand footmen. And the ark of God was taken, and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were slain" (vers. 7-11).

"The Philistines fought," we read. Israel's defeat appears to have been sudden, and they seem to have succumbed before their enemies without scarcely striking a blow. Oh, how shameful their defeat; and, when apprized of it, the godly in Israel must have felt like crying like Joshua before Ai, "O Lord, what shall I say, when Israel turneth their backs before their enemies!" And had the elders after the first smiting of the four thousand, become exercised before the Lord, as was the warrior Joshua, and cried to God earnestly to know the cause, they might have been spared the second and worse, defeat. But no, they only say, after the preliminary skirmish has ended disastrously, "Wherefore hath the Lord smitten us to-day before the Philistines?" It was little more than a pious expression, and was not followed by searching of heart, else they might have discovered the cause, as did Joshua; and having learned the reason of their defeat, with true penitence and prayer they might have retrieved the defeat with complete and glorious victory. "Ye shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword. And five of you shall chase a hundred, and an hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight! was the promise given them by God at the outset of their history as a nation. Later the same promise is repeated with greatly augmented force: "How should one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight!" Joshua, in his farewell address, recalls the animating promise, "One man of you shall chase a thousand" (Lev. 26: 8; Deut. 32: 30; Joshua 23: 10).

But, be it noted, all these promises were conditional; they were dependent upon the faithful discharge of Israel's responsibilities. The first was, "If ye walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and do them." The second was like unto it "Oh that they were wise, that they understood this!" (the keeping of the commandments of God); and the third is of like import, "But cleave unto the Lord your God" (see context of above scripture references). But Israel had sadly failed in all this; they were therefore shorn of their strength and smitten before their enemies. The only remedy left them was the confession of their backslidings and a wholehearted return to God. But no, this would have required "great searchings of heart." It was humiliating, and would have taken too much time, they probably would have reasoned. They were anxious to make good their initial losses, and it was much easier to say, "Let us fetch the ark of the covenant of the Lord out of Shiloh, that it may save us out of the hand of the Philistines." The result, as we already know, was a far worse and irretrievable defeat.

There is no true power for the believer apart from obedience to God's word, just as there is no true joy or peace apart from subjection, nor abiding rest without submission to the Divine will as revealed in Scripture. There were great shoutings in the camp when the ark arrived, just as in a later day, when Israel was again in conflict with the Philistines, and David came in, "They shouted for the battle" (1 Sam. 17: 20). But in neither case was it "the voice of them that shout for Mastery," nor "the shout of a king" in their midst but the expression of a vain and fatal confidence; in both cases there was more shouting than real or effective fighting. It was much easier to shout than it was to fight; just as to-day, it is easier to grow enthusiastic under the influence of big meetings and stirring addresses with exhilarating music, than it is to live devotedly to God, in separation from the world, crucifying the flesh, and courageously overcoming the devil.

The Philistines (like unbelieving Israel) look at the symbol of Jehovah's presence instead of to Jehovah Himself — whom they did not know. It was only the fear of superstition, and they soon rally from it, saying, "Be strong, and quit yourselves like men, O ye Philistines . . . quit yourselves like men, and fight." The margin reads, "Be men."

"Be strong! Be men" is all the men of the world can say for each other's encouragement; but, relying on the Lord, the man of faith says with the apostle, "When I am weak, then am I strong." "Ye walk as men," was the same apostle's rebuke to the worldly Corinthians who gloried of prominence in the world. "Every inch a man" is the complimentary commendation of the world as to one it approves. Men of "blue blood" (or men of "red blood," as it is now) are the pride and confidence of the natural man; but God has said, Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord" (Jer. 17: 5).

Thus, poor misguided Israel, having departed from their God, fly before the victorious Philistines, and return "every man to his tent" in humiliation and sorrow, for there was a very great slaughter, and there fell of Israel thirty thousand footmen."

"And there ran a man of Benjamin out of the army, and came to Shiloh the same day with his clothes rent, and with earth upon his head. And when he came, lo, Eli sat upon a seat by the wayside watching; for his heart trembled for the ark of God. And when the man came into the city, and told it, all the city cried out. And when Eli heard the noise of the crying, he said, What meaneth the noise of this tumult? And the man came in hastily, and told Eli. Now Eli was ninety and eight years old; and his eyes were dim that he could not see. And the man said unto Eli, I am he that came out of the army, and I fled to-day out of the army.

And he said, What is there done, my son? And the messenger answered and said, Israel is fled before the Philistines, and there hath been also a great slaughter among the people, and thy two sons also, Hophni and Phinehas, are dead, and the ark of God is taken. And it came to pass, when he made mention of the ark of God, that he fell from off the seat backward by the side of the gate, and his neck brake, and he died: for he was an old man, and heavy. And he had judged Israel forty years" (vers. 12-18).

Poor Eli! Be it said to his praise, however, that he "trembled for the ark of God;" and it was when he heard that it was taken that his heart ceased to beat, and he fell, to rise no more, while the messenger seemed least concerned about the fate of the ark, as his mentioning it last would indicate; but to the aged priest it was the most tragic event of this dark and fatal day. "Precious in Jehovah's eyes is the death of His saints;" and, however weak, Eli was one of them, surely. The report of the ark being taken was too much for him. This eclipsed all the other sorrows of that terrible day for him.

God, who loves to keep the remembrance of all that is good, has put on record the few significant words of the wife of Phinehas who, when she heard that the ark of God was taken," calls the child to which she then gives birth, "Ichabod, saying, The glory is departed from Israel." First in her thoughts is the ark of God; then her father-in-law, the aged Eli; and last, her unworthy husband, slain by the Philistines. The shock of that evil day was too great for her also who, with her dying breath gives utterance to what was rending her heart, "The glory is departed from Israel," for the ark, Israel's glory, was now in the enemy's hands. 's Ichabod," the glory gone, would be a solemn reminder of that unhappy break in the priestly family, and that insults to Israel's God justly entail terrible consequences.

Eli was of the line of Ithamar, the youngest son of Aaron, and in consequence came is last in the order of priestly privilege. Their responsibilities in connection with the tabernacle were almost wholly of the Levite character (see Ex. 28: 1; Ex. 38: 21). On the death of Nadab and Abihu because of their offering strange fire before the Lord, the high-priesthood fell to Eleazar, the third in order of age. How the office came to be transferred to the house of Ithamar, the fourth son of Aaron, Scripture does not inform us. God has reasons in all things, some of them being hidden from us for the present, as those unexplained transposings of the earth's crust, sometimes met with, which have proved so puzzling to geologists. How, or when the strata became superimposed, they are unable to say; they only know that they were. In some upheaval of the dim past they became inverted out of their regular order, but in what manner, or in what geologic age the cataclysm occurred is a mystery to man.

The house of Eli continued its priestly functions through the reigns of Saul and David, up to the accession of Solomon. The terrible slaughter of the Lord's priests, eighty-five in number, by Doeg the Edomite, at the command of Saul, was a part of the judgment pronounced upon Eli's family (1 Sam. 22). Only one, Abiathar, escaped and fled to David, with whom he ministered as priest during the time of his rejection. He followed him in his wanderings, and was continued in office through David's reign; but, for his part in the conspiracy of Adonijah, he was banished by Solomon to the priestly town of Anathoth, where he presumably died in disgrace. "So Solomon thrust out Abiathar from being priest unto the Lord; that he might fulfil the word of the Lord, which he spake concerning the house of Eli in Shiloh" (1 Kings 2: 27). He was the fourth high priest from Eli, and the last of the line of Ithamar to fill this office of dignity and honor. It was nearly a century after God's judgment upon the family was pronounced; but though not executed speedily, it was nevertheless accomplished as God had said.

Chapter 8. — His Twenty Years' Silence. (1 Samuel 5 and 6).

"And the ark of God was taken." Four times over do we read these momentous words in the chapter preceding, so important was the event in the mind of the Spirit of God, by whom every word of Scripture is inspired. Nor are we left in any doubt as to why this dire catastrophe was permitted to happen in Israel: "For they provoked Him to anger with their high places, and moved Him to jealousy with their graven images. When God heard this, He was wroth, and greatly abhorred Israel: so that He forsook the tabernacle of Shiloh, the tent which He placed among men: and delivered his strength into captivity, and his glory into the enemy's hands" (Ps. 78: 58-61). The moral condition of Israel at the time of the taking of the ark is thus revealed to us. We might suppose, from the account given in Samuel, that it was for the sins of Eli alone that the loss of the ark occurred; but not so, there was a national cause as well. It was not the prowess or valor of the Philistines, as they might vainly suppose, but God Himself who deliberately and intentionally "delivered His strength into captivity." The inspired penman in the 1st book of Samuel tells us nothing of "high places" and "graven images," but God, by the hand of the psalmist, has it recorded that it was for their idolatry that "He was wroth and greatly abhorred Israel" —  not only because of the wickedness of their priests. "Like people, like priest," is almost invariably true. In His just government, God usually allows people to have what they persistently seek after, which does not in any degree lessen their guilt.

What a calamity to Israel was the loss of the ark from their midst! In the verses immediately following those quoted above, from the 78th psalm, we hear of the calamitous consequences of its departure from the land: "He gave his people also unto the sword; and was wroth with his inheritance. The fire consumed their young men, and their maidens were not given to marriage. Their priests fell by the sword, and their widows made no lamentation" (ver. 62-64). So must it ever be: what we sow, we reap, whether as a nation, or as individuals, for "God is not mocked!" Solemn, yet blessed thought; for what would soon become of the world if God withdrew from it His moral government, or ceased to discipline His people?

From that hour Shiloh lost the prestige among the tribes which it had enjoyed since the days of Joshua — a period of more than three hundred years (see Joshua 18: 1; Joshua 19: 51). "He refused the tabernacle of Joseph, and chose not the tribe of Ephraim; but chose the tribe of Judah, the mount Zion which He loved" (Ps. 78: 67, 68). Shiloh then became the standing memorial of the nation's sin at that time, and was so referred to by the prophet Jeremiah five hundred years after: "But go ye now unto my place which was in Shiloh, where I set my name at the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel . . . and I will cast you out of my sight, as I, have cast out all your brethren, even the whole seed of Ephraim" (Jer. 7: 12, 15). Ephraim was given the place of firstborn by Jacob over his brother Manasseh — the place of privilege; but the failure of the tribe caused the place of God's sanctuary to be removed from the territory of Ephraim where it had been, and it became finally settled in the inheritance of Judah, at Jerusalem. "Our Lord sprang out of Judah," and we have here illustrated the truth found everywhere in Scripture, namely, that when the first man fails, and everything entrusted to him falls into ruin, God comes in and introduces Christ, "the second Man," under whose headship and in whose hands everything is unalterably secured: "For all the promises of God in Him are Yea, and in Him Amen, unto the glory of God by us" (2 Cor. 1: 20).

"And the Philistines took the ark of God, and brought it from Ebenezer unto Ashdod. When the Philistines took the ark of God, they brought it into the house of Dagon, and set it by Dagon" (1 Sam. 5: 1, 2).

The holy ark of the covenant of Jehovah is dragged from the "stone of help" (Ebenezer) to the shrine of the unclean Dagon! They would probably show it some superstitious reverence; for, though the nations never changed their gods, as did foolish Israel, they were not averse to multiplying them. They may have looked upon the two cherubim, with their extended wings overshadowing the mercy-seat of the ark, as dual deities, for they say in the previous chapter, "Who shall deliver us out of the hand of these mighty gods? These are the gods that smote the Egyptians with all the plagues in the wilderness." They seem to mix the mighty acts which God had done in Egypt with those in the wilderness.

To us who have New Testament light, "an idol is nothing in the world;" but to these worshipers of Dagon, all idols represented a divinity — good or evil. But the God of heaven and earth will brook no rival, "nor is there any beside Him;" and He has decreed that "to Him every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall confess that He is Lord." This important truth is illustrated here among the Philistines; they set the ark by their Dagon, apparently in token of his triumph over "these mighty gods of the Hebrews." In the morning they find "Dagon was fallen upon his face to the earth before the ark of the Lord." There lay Dagon, the mute witness of his impotence. His devoted worshipers set him up again, only to find him in the morning fallen again upon his face before the ark, with the loss of both his head (which speaks of intelligence) and his hands (which speak of action and of deeds) — there he lay helpless, a dumb idol as he was, that can neither see nor hear, nor know.

Head and hands gone, what will he do now? Strange indeed that his devotees should after this regard or respect him any more; but, as Bishop Hall long ago remarked, "It is just with God that those who lack grace shall lack wit too; and it is the work of superstition to turn men into the stocks and stones they worship."

Having thus executed judgment on the dumb god of the Philistines, as He had before done on those of Egypt, God smites the men of Ashdod, as He also smote the Egyptians with all manner of plagues.

"But the hand of the Lord was heavy upon them of Ashdod, and He destroyed them, and smote them with emerods, even Ashdod and the coasts thereof. And when the men of Ashdod saw that it was so, they said, The ark of the God of Israel shall not abide with us: for His hand is sore upon us and upon Dagon our god" (vers. 6, 7).

Knowledge brings responsibility, and light entails the obligation to walk by the light, the truth known, and not followed, will but the more increase the weight of judgment to be meted to those that refuse it — awful consideration for those living in a land of Bibles, like our own;, and especially for those of our young people who grow up where the truth is so clearly taught, yet fail to receive the love of it that they might be saved. "Many stripes" must surely be their portion who thus know their Lord's will, but do it not — so well acquainted with the letter of truth, yet fail or refuse to receive it and subject themselves to it!

Seeing these tokens of God's wrath and power with them, the men of Ashdod resolve to rid themselves of the presence of that which distressed them. A conference of their lords is then called, and they decide to transfer its place of abode to Gath. But here too God's hand is heavy upon them. They were smitten "with a very great destruction: and he smote the men of the city, both small and great, and they had emerods in their secret parts." God "is no respecter of persons;" and at the great white throne both "small and great" must stand before Him to be judged every man according to his works.

"They carried it about," it is said; in procession, probably, making a display and sport of it, as they had formerly done with poor Samson when a captive and blind. But here they have to do with Samson's God, and pay dearly for the insult offered Him who is able to vindicate Him self. "Then the Lord awaked as one out of sleep, and like a mighty man that shouteth by reason of wine. And He smote His enemies in the hinder parts: He put them to a perpetual reproach" (Ps. 78: 65, 66).

From Gath the ark is sent to Ekron, but the Ekronites, warned by the experience of their neighbors, protest loudly against its residence with them; and there, too, God's wrath was felt and His power manifested against them; "for there was a deadly destruction throughout all the city; the hand of God was very heavy there . . . and the cry of the city went up to heaven." Another general assembly was called, and it was resolved to send the ark away, and back to the place whence it came. They were as eager now to rid themselves of it as they were anxious before to obtain possession of it.

"And the ark of the Lord was in the country of the Philistines seven months. And the Philistines called for the priests and the diviners, saying, What shall we do to the ark of the Lord? tell us wherewith we shall send it to his place" (1 Sam. 6: 1, 2).

It was their "lords," before; now it is the "priests and the diviners," "church and state," as men say. So it was with Christ, of whom the ark was a striking and instructive type; the world's politics and its religion were combined against Him, to rid the earth of His presence. "Get Thee out, and depart hence, for Herod will kill Thee," was the officious Pharisees' advice to Him on one occasion (Luke 13: 31). At another time the Gadarenes "began to pray Him to depart out of their coasts" (Mark 5: 17). Lords and priests, in combination, as here among the Philistine; want to get rid of Him; want Him out of the world His very hands had made! "For of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom Thou hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together" (Acts 4: 27); and it was "the chief priests and elders" who "persuaded the multitude that they should ask Barabbas, and destroy Jesus" (Matt. 27: 20). Yes, the world, political and religious, cast their vote against Him, though He had done naught but good in their midst: and He is no more wanted now than at that time. Let those redeemed by His precious blood remember this, and "come out from among them, and be separate."

It being finally settled that the ark should not remain with them, the next question was, how to rid themselves of it; and what method of its deportation and the means of its conveyance:

"And they said, If ye send away the ark of the God of Israel, send it not empty; but in any wise return Him a trespass offering: then ye shall be healed, and it shall be known to you why his hand is not removed from you. Then said they, What shall be the trespass offering which we shall return to Him? They answered, Five golden emerods, and five golden mice, according to the number of the lords of the Philistines: for one plague was on you all, and on your lords. Wherefore ye shall make images of your emerods, and images of your mice that mar the land; and ye shall give glory unto the God of Israel: peradventure He will lighten his hand from off you, and from off your gods, and from off your land" (1 Sam. 6: 8-5).

"Ye shall make images," they say. Oh, how the idolatrous heart of man does love an image, something to see, some tangible object, something to be sensed! This has ever been the sin to which man is most prone, and it is therefore strongly prohibited in the very first commandment (see also 1 John 5: 21).

So they make to themselves images, five golden emerods and five golden mice — both things unclean — the emerods, unclean in themselves, like a running sore; and the mice, unclean ceremonially (see Lev. 11: 29; Isa. 66: 17). Thus, in their blindness, instead of propitiating, they were offering insult to the Holy One of Israel with their unclean offering. Therefore it is, "peradventure He will lighten his hand from off you."

It was near the time of harvest, and the mice had evidently wrought havoc with the ripening grain. Some translate "field" instead of "country" of the Philistines, as if they had, out of fear of its too near presence, allowed the ark to remain in the open fields. "Then shall ye be healed," they say, smarting under their chastisement, and were taught to entertain a wholesome respect for the captive "ark of the God of Israel." "The botch of Egypt, and emerods, and the scab, and the itch, whereof thou canst not be healed," were, according to Deut. 28: 27, marks of the curse of an offended God. And it was healing that the Philistines were most concerned about. —  a remedy, not for their diseased souls, but or their suffering bodies. And how many to-day are all eagerness to obtain healing for the body, while utterly indifferent to God's remedy for the sin-sick soul. How greedily men and women swallow the lie of Christian Science, because it promises healing for their bodily ills, altogether regardless of its deadly anti-Christian doctrines for the soul. There is, thank God, no limit His power to heal the body; but Christ's great commandment to us is, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." That is the only scriptural way to seek healing for the body, and all things else of a temporal nature. "First things first" should mean to every one, the soul's interests before all else; for He who came from heaven, and died upon the cross to save us, said: For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul"

To induce this "mighty God of the Hebrews" to relieve them of their plagues, they think to appease Him with a present, a trespass offering, as Jacob thought to appease the wrath of his brother Esau. But it is "the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul;" "And without shedding of blood is no remission;" "Ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold," writes Peter, "but with the precious blood of Christ." "The heathen, in his blindness," however, does not, or will not know this. And he is not alone in this blindness, for is not "enlightened" Christendom largely involved in the same blindness? — trusting in gifts of gold and bloodless sacrifices to appease offended Justice, instead of the atonement by the precious blood once shed on Calvary?

The Philistine priests and diviners had good knowledge of what Jehovah had done in Egypt some 330 years before, for they say to their people, "Wherefore then do ye harden your hearts, as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts, when He (Jehovah) had wrought wonderfully among them — did they not let the people go?" Then they give advice how to proceed:

"Now therefore make a new cart, and take two milch kine, on which there hath come no yoke, and tie the kine to the cart, and bring their calves home from them: and take the ark of the Lord, and lay it upon the cart; and put the jewels of gold, which ye return him for a trespass offering, in a coffer by the side thereof; and send it away, that it may go. And see, if it goeth up by the way of his own coast to Beth-shemesh, then He hath done us this great evil: but if not, then we shall know that it is not his hand that smote us: it was a chance that happened to us" (1 Sam. 6: 7-9).

It was a most severe test; nothing but the power of God could cause the cows, contrary to nature, to go as they did straight on to Beth-shemesh, the nearest Israelitish town, some nine or ten miles distant. Everything was against the ark's getting safely out of the land; the cattle were unaccustomed to the yoke; they knew not the road to Beth-shemesh; no driver nor overseer had they to guide them; they had the strongest instinct of animals — love for offspring — to turn them back; and what is common to domestic animals, an inclination for home. Yet they "took the straight way to the way of Beth-shemesh, lowing as they went," showing thus that they were impelled by the unseen, irresistible power of their Creator. "And the lords of the Philistines went after them unto the border of Beth-shemesh." Thus, "those that thought to triumph over the ark, were made to go like menial servants after it," as Matthew Henry remarks. Yes; "in the thing wherein they dealt proudly, He was above them!"

How like this was to the departure of Israel out of Egypt. The Egyptians, at first so eager to retain them, were at last, after their chastisement, as anxious to get rid of them. "When he shall let you go, he shall surely thrust you out hence altogether." "They were thrust out of Egypt, and could not tarry" (Ex. 11: 1; Ex. 12: 39). And, like the ark here, they came not out of the land of their bondage empty, but loaded with gifts of gold and jewels from their erstwhile captors. They came out with a high hand, too, with Pharaoh and all his host as a retinue of honor (though they meant it not so); and like the Philistines, they, too, stopped at the border of their land, the Red Sea, where they met their righteous doom (see also Ps. 105: 37, 38). The several references in the text to God's dealings with the Egyptians lead us to look for some analogy with the events recorded here.

"And they of Beth-shemesh were reaping their wheat harvest in the valley: and they lifted up their eyes, and saw the ark, and rejoiced to see it."

Did they rejoice as Abraham rejoiced to see Christ's day," and was glad?" (John 8: 56). How few souls in Israel seem to have lamented the absence of the ark from the land, yet it should have been, and was to every devout Israelite, the object most sacred and cherished in the tabernacle; for it was, compared with all the rest, as the kernel to the shell, and as the heart to the body. It was that around which all the other parts were grouped. Within it were kept the two tables of the law, beautiful figure of Christ who could say as none other could: "Thy law is within my heart." See with what affection David speaks or sings of this emblem of Jehovah's presence among them. He was not indifferent to it, as the former generation of his people appear to have been, for he says, "Surely I will not come into the tabernacle of my house, nor go up into my bed; I will not give sleep to mine eyes, or slumber to mine eyelids, until I find out a place for the Lord, a habitation for the mighty God of Jacob" (Ps. 132: 3-5). Oh, that the ark's blest antitype, our Lord Jesus Christ, might have a like place in our thoughts and heart's affections, and that we might say with the "sweet psalmist of Israel," "I will love Thee, O Lord, my strength" (Ps. 18: 1).

"And the cart came into the field of Joshua, a Bethshemite, and stood there, where there was a great stone and they clave the wood of the cart, and offered the kine a burnt offering unto the Lord. And the Levites took down the ark of the Lord, and the coffer that was with it, wherein the jewels of gold were, and put them on the great stone: and the men of Beth-shemesh offered burnt offerings and sacrificed sacrifices the same day unto the Lord" (vers. 14, 15).

Beth-shemesh was a priestly city (Joshua 21: 16), and though they who offered the sacrifices here are called Levites, they were probably priests of the Levites, either of the waning line of Ithamar or the ascendant branch of Eleazar. According to the strict letter of the law, the animal offered in sacrifice for the burnt offering was to be a male, but here the rule is waived; the circumstances were unusual, as in the days of Hezekiah, when "many of Ephraim and Manasseh, Issachar, and Zebulon, had not cleansed themselves, yet did they eat the passover otherwise than it was written. But Hezekiah prayed for them, saying, The good Lord pardon everyone." He is a discerner of the heart, and even in the stern days of the law He had compassion.

The men of Beth-shemesh were busily, and worthily, occupied in harvesting their grain when the ark appeared, just as the shepherds of Bethlehem were faithfully guarding their flocks by night when apprised by the rejoicing angels of the birth of the infant Saviour. "The devil visits idle men with his temptations; God visits industrious men with His favors," we quote again from Matthew Henry. Gideon was busy threshing wheat when the angel of the Lord appeared to him. "I being in the way, the Lord led me," says the trusty servant of Abraham. And when the Lord shall come again, it matters little whether we are found on our knees in prayer, or studying our Bibles, or at meeting, preaching, or at our ordinary employments, harvesting wheat or threshing it, tending sheep or minding children; if we are "in the way" of His commandments, honestly and industriously occupied in the work given us by Him to do, we may at His appearing, like the Beth-shemites when they I saw the ark, rejoice to see it.

Three times "the great stone" on which the ark rested is mentioned (vers. 14, 15, 18). In the final reference it is called "the great stone of Abel." This has no allusion to Abel the first martyr; the word "Abel," as used here, means a meadow. To quote from the Biblical and Theological Dictionary, "This word signifies mourning, and hence wet, moisture;" and wherever Christ is received in the heart there Is bound to be freshness of soul; the dew of heaven will rest upon us — "there shall be showers of blessing," and our souls will have pasture. The stone of "Abel" was a "great stone," like the foundation of God which standeth sure. His purposes of grace, through Christ, are founded on "a rock that stands forever," and all the powers of hell shall not prevail against it.

But God "smote the men of Beth-shemesh, because they had looked into the ark of the Lord, even He smote of the people fifty thousand and threescore and ten men:* and the people lamented, because the Lord had smitten many of the people with a great slaughter" (ver. 19).

{*There is some confusion in the Hebrew MS. here. The Numerical Bible has "seventy men."}

How like poor, foolish, meddlesome man! He must pry into most holy things with unholy hands; while the things he is encouraged to investigate and inquire into, he neglects. "Search the Scriptures" is the command of God to him; but in this, alas, he has no interest. God says to him, "Have not I written to thee excellent things in counsels and knowledge, that I might make thee know the certainty of the words of truth?" (Prov. 22: 20); but for this "certainty" man cares but little, while for the uncertainties of "occult science" and curious profitless speculations, he displays great taste. The desire for a forbidden thing was a large element in our first parents' transgression. There are "secret things" which belong unto the Lord our God (Deut. 29: 29), but there is abundance that He has revealed, and of this, alas, we all know too little. The divinely appointed place of the ark was within the holy of holies, behind the veil, where none but God's high priest might enter, and he once a year, and "not without blood" and a cloud of incense. God intended to teach them the most profound reverence for this symbol of His holy presence. The sin of the men of Beth-shemesh, therefore, was indeed very great — all the more inexcusable as, being priests or Levites, they should have known the veneration with which the ark should have been regarded: "For the priest's lips should keep knowledge" (Mal. 2: 7). Above all others they should have known the sacredness of that into which they irreverently pried. How easily God's best gifts may become a curse, if abused! He who had so wonderfully, of His unmerited grace, blessed Israel, smote them because "they rebelled, and vexed his Holy Spirit" (Isa. 63: 10).

"And the people lamented, because the Lord had smitten many of the people with a great slaughter." They lamented their punishment rather than their sin which made the punishment necessary. So the murderer Cain complained that his punishment was greater than could be borne — without one word of regret or sorrow expressed concerning the greatness of his unnatural crime. The Beth-shemites, like the Philistines before them, are now desirous to be quit of that very object they had a short while before welcomed with such gladness. "Who is able to stand before this holy Lord God?" they exclaim in consternation. He was too holy" for them; and instead of rejoicing and profiting by such a check on evil in their priestly town, they are only concerned to have the ark removed. Sinful man chafes under God's restraints upon evil. The day is fast approaching when he will throw off all restraints, and say, "Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us."

"And they sent messengers to the inhabitants of Kirjath-jearim, saying, The Philistines have brought again the ark of the Lord; come ye down, and fetch it up to you" (ver. 21).

Kirjath-jearim was a strong city belonging to Judah, and lay in the direct route to Shiloh; but God, for the sins of the priests and the people there, had rejected it forever as the "place of His rest." In Judah His ark was to remain, until brought with "circumstances of pomp and splendor" by David to its settled resting-place in Jerusalem, "the mount Zion which He loved."

Chapter 9. — His Ministry Resumed. (1 Samuel 7.)

We left the ark, in our last chapter, in "the field of Joshua the Beth-shemite," with the men of Beth-shemesh calling upon the inhabitants of Kirjath-jearim to come down and fetch the ark up to them. Having suffered for their temerity, they fly off now to an opposite extreme; they will not so much as touch it, but beseech the men of Kirjath-jearim to come and relieve them of it.

"And the men of Kirjath-jearim came, and fetched up the ark of the Lord, and brought it into the house of Abinadab in the hill, and sanctified Eleazar his son to keep the ark of the Lord" (v. 1).

Why they called on this particular city to come and take the ark off their hands, we are not told. Perhaps they were their nearest neighbors on the way to Shiloh, or those whom they supposed would be most willing to take the burden off their hands. Being all of them Levites, or of the house of Aaron, they were quite the proper persons to bear the ark; but they are afraid, and seem unwilling to do even this. Man is prone to extremes, and especially is this seen in the religious side of his nature. The children of Israel in the wilderness at first refused, in unbelieving fear, to go up to possess the land; and then, when commanded by God to turn back and renew their desert wanderings, they presumptuously insist on going up, even in the face of the stern warnings of Moses, and were smitten before the Amalekites (Num. 14). Peter at first refused emphatically to permit the Lord to wash his feet; then, on a word from the Master, turns round and says, "Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head." Elijah, at one hour on mount Carmel, was fearless before a multitude of the prophets of Baal; the next, he lies discouraged beneath a juniper bush, fleeing from the woman Jezebel. One only has been perfect, perfectly balanced in all things; He was typified in the smooth, fine flour of the meal offering — the "fairest among ten thousand," and the "altogether lovely."

They "fetched up the ark." It is always "up" when we walk with God; it is "down to Jericho," "down to Egypt," but always "up to Jerusalem," the city of the great King, "up to Shiloh," up to glory, always; and always "down to hell!"

In Kirjath-jearim the ark finds shelter in the house of Abinadab — probably a godly man, and glad of the opportunity to care for the only remaining token of Jehovah's presence in the land; and his son Eleazar was sanctified, i.e., set apart, to keep it. This is the last we hear of the ark, excepting once, incidentally (1 Sam. 14: 18), until it was removed by David to its more abiding home at Jerusalem, full forty years later,

The men of Kirjath-jearim must have known full well of the chastisement that had been inflicted on the Beth-shemites for their presumption, but this does not deter them from responding promptly to the call to remove the ark to their own city, further up the road toward "Mount Zion which Jehovah loved." Thus too the truth of Christ is to some "a savor of death unto death," while to others, under the blessing of God, it becomes "a savor of life unto life." If some will not have Christ, others, thank God, make room for Him, as it was with the ark. The inhabitants of Kirjath-jearim probably reasoned, and rightly, that because it had brought judgment on the Philistines and the. Beth-shemites, it was no reason why under circumspect guardianship, the ark should not become a blessing to them, as it doubtless was. Some, we know, hesitate to partake of the Lord's supper because of the solemn penalty if eaten "unworthily;" but if really the Lord's, they should not fear to partake of the holy emblems, but have a care not to partake of them unworthily — in an unworthy manner, as it really means. "Provoke Me not . . . and I will do you no hurt," God said to His fearful, foolish people, by the mouth of the prophet Jeremiah (Jer. 25: 6).

And now, after so long a time, we meet with Samuel again:

"And it came to pass, while the ark abode in Kirjath-jearim, that the time was long; for it was twenty years: and all the house of Israel lamented after the Lord. And Samuel spake unto all the house of Israel, saying, If ye do return unto the Lord with all your hearts, then put away the strange gods and Ashtaroth from among you, and prepare your hearts unto the Lord, and serve Him only: and He will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines" (vers. 2, 3).

For twenty years we hear nothing of Samuel. "The time was long," for it was a time of departure from God and oppression by the Philistines. Yet we may be sure that Samuel was not idle all that time. It is not God's purpose to write biographies of men, but rather to record the working out of His purposes towards mankind in general, and His people in particular. This He can do without any particular creature's co-operation. He could maintain the honor of His name during the decades of Samuel's silence, both among the Philistines and with Israel, as we have seen. It is only when it accords with His purpose that His servant is again brought upon the scene; so independent is our God of the services of even the best of men.

But while this is true, we may be perfectly sure that Samuel was not spending his time in idleness or in mournful, sullen silence towards poor fallen Israel. We cannot doubt that he was fully and faithfully occupied, praying for them, and laboring industriously with them, instructing and exhorting them to better things at suited opportunities, or when occasion offered. He felt deeply, no doubt, the backslidden condition of the nation, and would mourn over it, while watching for the symptoms of repentance on their part, or a call from God to more public ministry with them as His spokesman and prophet. These seasons of apparent inactivity are not by any means lost time with God's servants, but frequently in His ordering are a preparation for further and more effective service. So it seems to have been with Samuel. God now brings him again to our view.

"And Samuel spake unto all the house of Israel;" he calls them to repentance; he feels the time for action has come; he does not fail to bring home upon their consciences their wicked idolatry. "Put away the strange gods and Ashtaroth from among you," he says. And the faithful ministry is blessed. "Then the children of Israel did put away Baalim and Ashtaroth, and served the Lord only." Their reformation is now begun, and after the weary twenty years' drought, there is "sound of abundance of rain." "The strange gods and Ashtaroth," Samuel says. Ashtaroth was the principal deity worshiped by the Phenicians and Sidonians. She is frequently mentioned in connection with Baal (see Judges 2: 13; 10: 6; 2 Sam. 12: 10), and was probably considered his consort. She is supposed to be identical with the Venus of the Greeks. "Her worship," The Biblical and Theological Dictionary says, "became at length the most impure and revolting that can be imagined, and was celebrated in shady groves, proverbial for scenes of debauchery." She was a "strange god" to Israel, as all the others, but is singled out by Samuel as being, most likely, the divinity with which they were specially infatuated. This shows Israel's condition at this time, when they could take. as the object of their special worship a deity of such a character. After the disastrous defeat of Saul and his armies on Mount Gilboa, the Philistines hung the armor of Saul as a trophy in the temple of this very goddess (1 Sam. 31 10). Thus does God visit upon His people punishment of a kind most suited to remind them of the very cause of their departure from Him.

And do we not see to-day among the children of God the selfsame thing? Individuals have some sin, or forbidden object, for which they have a special weakness; some "idol" to which they are particularly prone. Special attention must to given to this. It must be put away, or it will eventually bring to grief and shame; for the punishment is frequently in kind with the form of transgression that occasioned it. Scripture affords many illustrations of this. Jacob, who deceived his father, when the old man could not see, was in turn deceived in the darkness by the crafty father of Leak. His sons sold their brother Joseph into Egypt, and into Egypt they themselves had to come, and there their own hearts were made to feel anguish before Joseph, as they had seen him in anguish when being sold by them to the Midianite slave-traders. Abimelech slew his seventy brethren on one stone, and was himself slain by having a piece of a millstone cast upon his head. Saul spared Agag, the Amalekite, and an Amalekite struck the final blow that took away: his life; David wrongs the wife of Uriah, and slays her husband with the sword, and he lives to see his son Amnon violate his sister Tamar, and Amnon killed in revenge by her brother Absalom. In the place where the dogs licked the blood of the murdered Naboth, the dogs licked the blood of Ahab, his murderer. As we sow we reaps and this general principle of God's government we see exemplified in the case of Israel with Ashtaroth.

"All the house of Israel lamented after the Lord," we read, but this was not enough; action is required, and to this the prophet calls them. He commands that they put away the strange gods and Ashtaroth. Repentance strikes at the darling sin always, and spares it not. Oh, that the children of God to-day might put away their Ashtaroths — these darling indulgences that bring them to shame, as this goddess of beauty did with infatuated Israel.

"Serve the Lord only," is Samuel's command. They had not, in the days of their declension, wholly abandoned the worship of Jehovah, but divided honors with Him and the gods of the nations about them — in insult to Jehovah's honor, than which there could scarcely be a greater. He will not accept of a divided heart from them that worship Him, or call themselves by His name. In longsuffering mercy He bears patiently with it, while calling them to repentance, that He might spare, them the merited stroke the sin demands. The people now being brought to a better mind and heart toward God, Samuel convokes a national assembly at Mizpeh.

"And Samuel said, Gather all Israel to Mizpeh, and I will pray for you. And they gathered together to Mizpeh, and drew water, and poured it out before the Lord, and fasted on that day, and said there, We have sinned against the Lord. And Samuel judged the children of Israel in Mizpeh" (vers. 5, 6).

Here with fasting and confession of sin, they put themselves in the way of thorough restoration and blessing. Their act of pouring water on the ground was an acknowledgment of their utter weakness and unworthiness (see 2 Sam. 14: 14). It is when the people of God so demean themselves in His presence that He is able to do for them exceeding abundantly above all that they ask or think. But while one shred of self-confidence remains, they are unprepared to receive the fulness of blessing He has ever in readiness to bestow upon them. It is a very humbling lesson, but it is one of the very first that needs to be learned if we expect recovery and consequent victory, such as Israel here received from God. "For we must needs die, and are as water spilt on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again; neither doth God respect any person." "We had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead." "When I am weak, then am "strong." He listens to hear the penitential confession of sin, and looks for contrition of heart; this He will accept, and grant His manifested presence, as He did here at historic Mizpeh.

Samuel both prayed for and judged Israel there; he made earnest intercession to God for them, and at the same time instructed them in the statutes and judgments of Jehovah. Prayer is put before ministry; this is the divine order: "We will give ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the Word" (Acts 6: 4). And if prayer have not preponderance over ministry, the latter cannot be expected to produce lasting results. May we all who in any way serve the Lord Christ, learn from both Samuel and the apostles this most important lesson.

It is a lovely sight, this scene at Mizpeh. Samuel opens the meeting with prayer, and closes it with ministering God's word — as judging here implies (see Ezek. 20: 4-22), while the people fast, with confession of sin, and symbolically pour out water before the Lord — no mere ceremony, but they "poured it out before the Lord."

This very thing (Israel assembled in confession to God) which must have made glad the heart of God, rouses and stirs to action the enemy. So we read:

"And when the Philistines heard that the children of Israel were gathered together to Mizpeh, the lords of the Philistines went up against Israel. And when the children of Israel heard it, they were afraid of the Philistines" (ver. 7),

While Israel served "strange gods and Ashtaroth," the Philistines left them unmolested; but as soon as their reformation begins, all is changed, and led by their lords they come up against them. Satan could not look quietly on a scene like this, nor would he stand idly by and permit such a condition of things to continue without a determined effort to break it up. It is only "when the strong man armed keepeth his palace that his goods are in peace;" but let his domain be invaded, or his house broken into, and the peace of his goods, disturbed by the action of the truth on hearts, immediately his roar will be heard and his hand will be felt — war will follow. But better far have war than peace in such conditions of soul as Israel's, serving strange gods and Ashtaroth, for twenty years.

Israel fears the Philistines; their faith as yet was weak, and they ask Samuel to pray for them, saying, "Cease not to cry unto the Lord our God for us, that He will save us out of the hand of the Philistines." They appear to realize the truth of what the apostle James writes to the, remnant of their nation more than a thousand years later, "The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." Samuel does not upbraid them for their fears, nor chide them for their lack of faith. He knows their weakness, and acts the noble part of a nursing father with them.

"And Samuel took a sucking lamb, and offered it for a burnt offering wholly unto the Lord: and Samuel cried unto the Lord for Israel; and the Lord heard him" (ver. 9).

The sucking lamb is beautifully typical of Christ, the innocent, tender Lamb of God; and Samuel was heard, not for his piety merely — as was Christ when here on earth (see Heb. 5: 7, marg.), but in virtue of the sacrifice he offered. It was a burnt offering — Christ, wholly acceptable to God. The burnt offering, when not specifically prescribed, was brought for a man's acceptance. The expression, "of his own voluntary will" in Lev. 1: 3, is better translated, "He shall offer it for his acceptance." Samuel offers it on behalf of "all Israel." A sucking lamb was in keeping with their state. God did not despise their feebleness of faith, but graciously and tenderly stoops to their level.

"And as Samuel was offering up the burnt offering, the Philistines drew near to battle against Israel; but the Lord thundered with a great thunder on that day upon the Philistines, and discomfited them; and they were smitten before Israel. And the men of Israel went out of Mizpeh, and pursued the Philistines, and smote them, until they came under Beth-car" (vers. 10, 11).

God heard His prophet from "the secret place of thunder," and gave an overwhelming victory to His people. Israel had but to "stand still and see the salvation of the Lord." When they enter the scene of action, it is but to pursue an already beaten foe; after which, in security and peace, they enjoy the fruits of victory. The Philistines might think themselves assured of an easy conquest, as they had found it in this very place twenty years before; they might have thought the prophet engaged in prayer and offering sacrifice was but a repetition of the sons of Eli bringing the ark into the camp; but no, a better day has come. Samuel is not Hophni and Phinehas, nor is Israel's superstitious dependence on the ark for safety now. The faith of the man of God is in the sacrifice presented to Jehovah for the acceptance of His people and their deliverance from their enemies. The Philistines, thoroughly subdued, came no more into the coasts of Israel in all the days of Samuel. It is a delightful picture of holy triumph.

We see a flaw, however, just here at the close of this record of Israel's recovery: "There was peace between Israel and the Amorites." Eight hundred years before this God had said to Abraham, "The iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full" (Gen. 15: 16); but now they had filled up the measure of their iniquity, and God had devoted them to destruction. God had given this land to Israel, and Israel was to make no league nor seek peace with them (see Ex. 23: 34; Ex. 34: 12; Deut. 7: 2; Judges 2: 2). Peace between Israel and the Amorites could only be effected and maintained by compromise and disobedience to God's express command. This was Israel's mistake. They might seek to excuse themselves by saying the lapse of time had made a difference, and the Amorites were no longer what they used to be; but the excuse could not stand before God's plain command: "They shall not dwell in thy land;" "Thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor show mercy unto them." There was no mistaking this. His order to Saul to utterly slay the Amalekites (against whom He had sworn that He would have war "from generation to generation") proved that time could not alter the word that had gone from His mouth. No, Israel's works were "not found perfect before God," hence their rejection of Samuel in later years, and their desire for a king like to the nations about them. There is no surer road to learn the way of the wicked than to contract leagues with them. "Be not deceived; evil communications corrupt good manners" (1 Cor. 15: 33).

Israel's victory was an event well worth. commemorating, and Samuel wisely raised his "Ebenezer" at the spot. The monument became doubly significant from the fact that it "was beside Ebenezer" that they had met such a crushing defeat twenty years before. Samuel, in erecting his memorial stone (the stone of help), was like Paul before Agrippa, where he says in boldest confidence, "Having therefore obtained help from God, I continue unto this day." He is our rock, our "stone of help," our EBENEZER!

"And Samuel judged Israel all the days of his life. And he went from year to year in circuit to Bethel, and Gilgal, and Mizpeh, and judged Israel in all those places. And his return was to Ramah; for there was his house; and there he judged Israel; and there he built an altar unto the Lord" (vers. 15-17).

The chapter ends here, but not the story. Well had it been for Israel and the peace of Samuel's closing days if his life's history had ended as here — a loving pastor among a happy, contented people, visiting and "judging" them industriously, while jealously watching for their souls' welfare and the glory of Jehovah their God.

It is a scene lovely to behold. Samuel as a father with his children, chiding and correcting them when necessary, guiding, encouraging and instructing them, and holy peace and harmony reigning throughout the land, "from Dan to Beersheba." But such pleasant pictures are always more or less ideal, and their full reality rarely, if aver, seen; the hateful flesh is present in all, and always ready at a moment's notice to assert itself. Satan, too, is always and everywhere active, and on the alert to take advantage of the very first opportunity to come in and mar and spoil the fairest scene in the garden of God. And here Israel, "foolish people and unwise," are not content, alas; and in the chapter following we shall see them "given to change," and a dark, threatening cloud begins to cover the pleasant landscape. Fain would we bid farewell to Samuel at this point; but it is not to be, for God has further lessons for us in the life of this choice, servant of God.

Before passing on, let us note that at Ramah, Samuel's dwelling, "there he built an altar unto the Lord." He was not so much absorbed in service, as so many appear to be to-day, as to neglect personal fellowship with God and worship. Service surely has its important place, but unless it be the outcome of communion with God, it soon becomes an activity of the flesh — restless, easily peeved, unduly elated by success, or discouraged for a lack of it. May every servant of Christ have his "altar" connected with his labor and service to God and His people.

Chapter 10. — His Rejection. (1 Samuel 8.)

We have now to review the deeply affecting story of the rejection of Samuel by the people who, under God, were so greatly indebted to him. To him they owed their present political independence and deliverance from the yoke of the uncircumcised — we might almost say, the very continuance of their existence as a nation. Samuel has been called "the second founder of the nation," and he was indeed a very father to his country. He had served them many years, and well, and under his wise, paternal administration, Israel had come to be, if not a powerful people, at least, an orderly and peaceable one. They were well governed, and no doubt, prosperous. It was when "Jeshurun waxed fat" that he "kicked," and when "grown thick," he "rebelled against Jehovah" (Deut. 32: 15). Samuel was not as one who, by some unexpected turn of fortune, had come suddenly into power; he was not the favored creature of some revolution; he had been with them from a child, and "all Israel, from Dan even to Beersheba knew that Samuel was established to be a prophet of the Lord," for their guidance and blessing (1 Sam. 3: 20). He had grown up before them, and his integrity and worth were known to all. On the death of Eli and his sons, we do not read of Samuel hurriedly seating himself in the saddle, as if eager to assume authority; no, he came into power slowly, and by no effort of his own, but by the exigencies of the hour. For twenty whole years after the fall of Eli's house he is content to remain in comparative obscurity, at the age when men are naturally most ambitious. Their rejection therefore of this one of the best of men, and most just administrator, was the more inexcusable. But such was Israel, and such is man in general everywhere, for the nation was but an example in miniature of the human race from Adam down to the last great day of Gog and Magog. The moral of the event is deeply instructive and humiliating, and we are led, in reviewing it, to exclaim with the psalmist, "Lord, what is man!"

"And it came to pass, when Samuel was old, that he made his sons judges over Israel. Now the name of his firstborn was Joel; and the name of his second, Abiah: they were judges in Beersheba. And his sons walked not in his ways, but turned aside after lucre, and took bribes, and perverted judgment. Then all the elders of Israel gathered themselves together, and came to Samuel unto Ramah, and said unto him, Behold, thou art old, and thy sons walk not in thy ways: now make us a king to judge us like all the nations" (vers. 1-5).

Samuel was old, they say; they could not say that he was too old to any longer serve them, or to correct the abuses of which they complained. It is computed that he was not above sixty at the time — a really ripe age for the position he occupied, with all the varied and valuable experience his threescore years had brought him. He manifests ability to serve and act with vigor years after this — as witness his fearless reproof of Saul for his folly, and his hewing Agag to pieces. There is no sign of senility or decay even to the very end of his eventful life.

No, it was but a poor, miserable excuse, and instead of agreeing with the saying that "a poor excuse is better than none," we are inclined to declare that a poor excuse is really worse than none — especially such as Israel's elders here make before their honored Chief Justice. It were better to declare frankly that it was not with the administration itself that they were dissatisfied, but with the form of it. It would have been better to confess that they preferred being under a monarchy, as were the heathen nations around them, than have all their national matters referred to God through His prophet. Had they honestly done so at once, they would not have "added insult to injury" against Samuel. They might have spared their aged benefactor the humiliation of being compelled to vindicate himself before them, as he was forced later to do. They made his sons the ostensible cause of their discontent, while they must have known that bribery of courts was as common as could be in the Gentile kingdoms about them. Samuel's sons, Joel and Abiah, must have been as mere novices in the practice of "graft." A kingly form of government was no remedy or safeguard against judicial bribery! Beersheba, too, lay at the extreme south of the land, in a quarter but thinly populated, where but the smallest proportion of the inhabitants could be affected by their bribery. Men are not so solicitous for the welfare of their neighbors as to concern themselves very deeply about the miscarriage of justice in some remote corner of the state. Yet we read, "All the elders gathered themselves together" — "elders," note, the "fathers of the nation" — form themselves into a delegation to present to their chief magistrate the nation's supposed grievances; it tells a sad tale of disaffection and rebellion against the rule of God! Truly, the word is faithful: "Great men are not always wise: neither do the aged understand judgment!" (Job 32: 9). Not only are "childhood and youth" vanity, with young manhood, but old age and gray hairs too. God must teach wisdom to all; and apart from this, "Man at his best estate is altogether vanity."

"But the thing displeased Samuel, when they said, Give us a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed unto the Lord." It displeased him; not so much that he had been insulted personally (for a man of his spirit and piety could well bear with that), but because he saw in it rebellion against God, and knew the certain consequences that must come of it. He had, however, a sure resource — a refuge with which he was long familiar, and which had never failed him — "he prayed." This was his comfort and consolation. His prayer is not given us, but the record of God's answer is:

"And the Lord said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee: for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected Me, that I should not reign over them. According to all the works that they have done since the day that I brought them up out of Egypt even unto this day, wherewith they have forsaken Me, and served other gods, so do they also unto thee" (vers. 7, 8).

He first of all sets the mind of Samuel at rest with the assurance that it was not for anything remiss in him that the people clamored for a change, but it was He, Jehovah Himself, that they were dissatisfied with. Samuel's God has a gracious consideration for the sensitive, righteous soul of His servant. The most upright of men will often suspect themselves; the most upright in heart are the more likely to question their own conduct and motives, and Samuel would be assured by this word from God that it was for no misconduct of his that the people were determined on the overthrow of his administration. "They have not rejected thee but Me," He says. Doubtless they felt the restraints of God's holy law irksome, and as they had before gone after the gods of the nations because of the licence allowed in their worship, so now they desire a king "like the nations," that they might have "larger freedom," as they thought — not for the practice of holiness, but for the gratification of their national vanity and political glory — "a place in the sun," as it would be expressed to-day.

God rehearses before Samuel their conduct since their departure from Egypt. Rebellion was no new thing with them, nor was it the first time that they had manifested impudence before their superiors, as witness their behavior before Moses and Aaron on more than one occasion.

It is a real pleasure to note that Samuel makes no complaint against the people, either to themselves, or before God. He stands, in this, in greater elevation of soul than his later successor, Elijah, who "made intercession against Israel," saying, "Lord, they have killed thy prophets, and digged down thine altars; and I am left alone, and they seek my life. Samuel's conduct in this is very beautiful, and well worthy of our imitation. The comparison does not make us think the less of Elijah, God forbid! but more of Samuel. No, it was not the spirit of Samuel to lodge complaints, or prefer charges against the people he so greatly loved, whose welfare he had so ardently desired, and for whom he had so patiently labored. No, it is God who lays bare Israel's evil ways; it is the "Judge of all" who makes the indictment; and He says to Samuel, "Now, therefore, hearken unto their voice: howbeit yet protest solemnly unto them, and show them the manner of the king that shall reign over them."

This word from God would surely be a relief to His distressed servant Samuel, for the responsibility of replying to the demand of the insistent elders was thus lifted from his shoulders. His position was a trying one; for if he flatly refused to grant them their request for a king, it might appear to them that he was unwilling to resign his authority, or he wished for his sons to succeed him in office; and if he had acceded to their demand, he might become an accessory to their sin, as did Aaron with this stiff-necked people, when they said, "Up, make us gods, which shall go before us," and like him, bring wrath upon himself and them for yielding to their sinful desire. "The voice of the people" is the expression used by God; it has a familiar sound to our ears in these days of world-democracy. It is the "voice of the people" to-day that must be heard, and heeded. It is the "People's Party" in politics and in religion; it is the "People's Church;" yes, and "The voice of the people is the voice of God" we are confidently told. God does not tell us so, however, but rather the contrary; and where is His voice heard amidst all the clamor and babel-confusion caused "by the voice of the people?" To-day it is one thing, and tomorrow something else. Faith says, "Thou that dwellest in the gardens, the companions hearken to thy voice: cause me to hear it" (Cant. 8: 13). All around is confusion, as at Ephesus, where "some cried one thing, and some another, for the assembly was confused; and the more part knew not wherefore they were come together" (Acts 19: 32). And again, "They mere instant with loud voices, requiring that He might be crucified. And the voices of them and of the chief priests prevailed" (Luke 23: 23). So much for the much-lauded "voice of the people!" How very opposite to "the voice of God!"

Samuel, however, is told to hearken to their voice. They were thoroughly set in their determination to have a king in spite of anything God might have to say about it, so He let them have their way. It was as with the quails in the wilderness, "He gave them their request; but sent leanness into their soul" (Ps. 106: z5; 78: 29), "As sometimes He crosses us in love, so at the other time He gratifies us in wrath," Matthew Henry remarks.

"And Samuel told all the words of the Lord unto the people that asked of him a king. And he said, This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you," etc. (vers. 10-18).

Samuel gives them in detail a description of the king that should rule them. It was not God's ideal of what a king should be, but the manner of the king of their choice that would be given them as a punishment for their wilful rejection of God's rule through Samuel. He would be a despot, fierce, cruel, a "raiser of taxes," a binder of burdens heavy and "grievous to be borne" upon the backs of the oppressed people. Without faith in God, he would be a pronounced "militarist," taking the choicest of their young men to fill the ranks of his standing army, and require a tenth of all they produced for the support of all this pomp and empty show; for instead of using his hosts in defeating and driving out of the land the invading Philistines, they were occupied more in hunting David, the man of God's choice, "as one doth hunt a partridge in the mountains," or as David himself sarcastically puts it, "The king of Israel is come out to seek a flea!" (1 Sam. 26: 20). Dignified and important occupation, indeed, for "the king of Israel!" "He will take, he will take," Samuel says repeatedly — six times in seven verses. And what did he give them in return? "He will give," Samuel says, not to them, but "to his officers and to his servants." To them it was given to pay and to yield up to his kingly requirements their "goodliest young men" and their "daughters;" the boys to be slaughtered by the uncircumcised Philistines through Saul's mismanagement, and "Zion's fair daughters" to slave it in his kitchens as "confectionaries, and cooks, and bakers."

Yes, self-willed and misguided people, they should find their king's yoke galling, and onerous in the extreme. "And," he concludes, "ye shall cry out in that day because of your king which ye shall have chosen you; and the Lord will not hear you in that day." But all this has no effect upon the infatuated people, the warning is lost upon them, and they remain obdurate to the end:

"Nevertheless the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel; and they said, Nay; but we will have a king over us; that we also may be like all the nations; and that our king may judge us, and go out before us, and fight our battles" (vers. 19, 20).

They began with a request: "Make us a king;" and they finish by expressing their determination: "Nay, but we will have a king!" "That our king may fight our battles!" — as if a king with his crown in their midst would guarantee them victory! "O foolish people, and unwise;" — had they forgotten their great triumph over the Philistine, hosts, when "the Lord thundered with a great thunder upon them and discomfited them, and they were smitten before Israel?" Was "the Lord of Hosts" no longer sufficient for them? Ah, Him they could not see, but a king, decked in purple and gold lace and riding in a chariot, would be to them "a great sight to see to."

In the preceding chapter we are told "the hand of the Lord was against the Philistines all the days of Samuel" — "His prophet among them. Did they think a king could do better for them? They later get their king, and it could then be said of them, as it was said to Ass, for his unbelief in God, "From henceforth thou shalt have wars" (2 Chron. 16: 9). "I will be thy king," God said to Israel, centuries later: "where is any other that may save thee in all thy cities? and thy judges of whom thou saidst, Give me a king and princes? I gave thee a king in mine anger, and took him away in my wrath" (Hosea 13: 10, 11).

It has been remarked that no judge of Israel was ever slain in battle; but the first king, king of their choice, died in ignominious defeat at the hands of the Philistines, who in the days of Samuel's administration dared not invade the land. Alas for Israel — "an increase of sinful men!" — to choose a man before God; and alas for the world, that they prefer the devil as their "prince" and "god," to Him who is both "Son of God" and "King, of nations."

God, in the law, had made provision for a king with Israel (see Deut. 17: 14-20). Had they waited in faith, on the decease of Samuel God might have raised them up a king of His own providing, "a man after His own heart," David, a pattern prince, and type of Him who is both "King of Israel," and "Prince of peace." But no, they could not wait, they would not be advised, and so God gave them their desire. But "sudden resolves and hasty desires make work for sore and leisurely repentance."

"And Samuel heard all the words of the people, and he rehearsed them in the ears of the Lord. And the Lord said to Samuel, Hearken unto their voice, and make them a, king" (vers. 21, 22).

He listens to their defiant words, and then, like the man of prayer that he was, he tells them into the ears of God. Like the good king Hezekiah, who, when he had received from the messenger the written words of the Assyrian, went into the house of God, and there spread the letter before Him, so Samuel here pours out before Jehovah all the words of the obstinate people. He does not, like Moses, call them "rebels" (Num. 20: 10), but meekly holds his peace. And when Jehovah tells him for the third time to hearken to their voice, he, without a word of reproach, quietly dismisses the assembly.

New Israel's days of peace and tranquility are over, for many a long and sorrowful time, twenty years at least — some say forty. Well would it have been for them had they continued content with their simple, almost patriarchal, form of government. Their sudden swing-off into absolutism must have been a severe shock to them, no doubt, and greatly upset their mistaken notions of the advantages of monarchial rule. God "gave them up to their own hearts' lust," and for many sad and weary years they were made to smart for their obstinate folly and rebellion. They had to learn by bitter and painful experience the difference between God's beneficent rule and the service to a king. (See 2 Chron. 12: 8.) The nation's brief experience of kingship under Abimelech should have taught them wisdom in the matter; so, too, Jotham's parable (Judges 9); but it is the same old, sad story — the incurable perversity of man's heart and averseness to God, until renewed by grace. Even then we hear a grieved apostle exclaim, "O foolish Galatians!" And again, "O ye Corinthians . . . ye are straitened in your own bowels!" Yes, "Lord, what is man!" To us who know the blessed Saviour, let there be but One, "the Man Christ Jesus." Amen and amen!

Chapter 11. — His Successor. (1 Samuel 9.)

We have in the chapter before us the person chosen to succeed Samuel as first magistrate in the land and ruler of God's people Israel. Naturally we should be eager to see what kind of man he was in order to be able to judge what sort of bargain they had made by their exchange.

We notice, first, his natural or external advantages, or those that could be readily discerned by those who judged after the flesh, by the "outward appearance." These were not inconsiderable; he was "of the tribe of Benjamin;" the apostle Paul speaks of it twice, as a thing to his natural advantage, that he was a descendant of this tribe (Rom. 11: 1; Phil. 3: 5). "Little Benjamin" (the diminutive of endearment rather than of numbers), in the blessing of Psalm 68: 27, is mentioned first, before the three important tribes of Judah, Zebulon and Naphtali, and in Psalm 80: 2, Benjamin is mentioned with Ephraim and Manasseh as those that followed the "Shepherd of Israel," as symbolized in the ark. They were descended from Rachel, Jacob's beloved wife. Benjamin (son of my right hand) was a type of Christ exalted to the right hand of God in glory; and his place, in the blessing of Moses, is one of special nearness and protection. He is there called "the beloved of the Lord" (Deut. 33: 12). They were a tribe not lacking in valor, as witness their determined and heroic, though mistaken, defence of their brethren in guilty Gibeah (Judges 20: 15-21). Their inheritance was small — only about 14 miles in breadth by 28 in length, in its widest parts; but what it lacked in size it made up in dignity, for it contained not only "the city of the Great King," Jerusalem, but also such notable places as Bethel, Mizpeh, and Ramah, the dwelling-place of Samuel.

Then his father was a "mighty man of power," or wealth, as Boaz (Ruth 2: 1). The tribe, having been reduced (Judges 20: 47), each remaining individual would have much more land to his share than those of other tribes. So Kish, his father, was probably a large landed-proprietor. This added wealth to his distinction, a valuable asset before the eyes of men.

Another advantage he had in the eyes of his countrymen was his great stature; he stood head and shoulders above his fellows. The world is apt to look for "big" things, and found it in Saul. He had youth also to his advantage — he was "a young man." The complaint of the people against Samuel (the only one they made, really) was his, age. "Behold, thou art old," they say. They shall have no ground for complaint here in Saul, for he was young and carried with him all the vigor and sprightliness of youth. They could with admiring eyes behold in their chosen king all the energy and dash of young manhood.

His person too was one of every excellence after the flesh; he was "a choice young man . . . there was not among the children of Israel a goodlier person than he: from his shoulders and upward he was higher than any of the people" — "Every inch a king!" the enthusiastic multitudes would admiringly exclaim, as they beheld him. They thought, no doubt, that they could be justly proud of him.

When God was about to choose "a man after His own heart" to be king over Israel, He said to Samuel, "Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature . . . for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart;" for, as He said long centuries after, "My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways." No, indeed, else Saul would never have been rejected, or David chosen; neither would He have selected a nation of slaves to become the depositary of His truth on the earth, or the tribe of Judah, with its four Gentile women in the genealogy, to bring forth Messiah; nor unlettered fishermen to herald Him among His own and to the nations.

Coupled with the advantages enumerated above, Saul was possessed with commendable traits of character, as witness his hiding "among the stuff" (if it was not a feigned humility). He was magnanimous, too, for in the day of his initial triumph, when some were crying for the blood of those that had at first refused him, he said, "There shall not a man be put to death this day: for to-day the Lord hath wrought salvation in Israel."

The above-mentioned advantages and distinctions caused short-sighted Israel probably to look upon Saul as qualified for kingship. But let us look beneath the surface, and with the hints afforded us at the very outset of his career, let us seek to analyse his moral character. It is not so easily read, perhaps, but the lineaments of the portrait are sketched by a master hand; and though the lines may be finer, they present the true character of the man in a manner unmistakable, if we but have eyes anointed to read what is given.

Saul is first introduced to us as the seeker of his father's asses, which, after all, he finds not. It seems to associate him with the unclean — with the natural man, which God's word puts alongside with the ass. (See Job 11: 10, with Exodus 13: 13.) For stalwart Saul, the son of Kish, a wealthy Benjamite, his hunt after the asses seems an unworthy occupation, as well as fruitless. In contrast, we see David, a youth of humble demeanor, yet a mighty defender of his father's sheep committed to his care, rescuing them from the lion's mouth and the paw of the bear.

Even in this seemingly unbecoming employment, Saul has, no success; he labors in vain, for others found the objects of his pursuit. It was the same with his perverse hunt after David, though he pursued him "as when one doth hunt a partridge in the mountains," and had an army, and spies, and the nation's resources at his command. Saul seems to have lacked in fortitude and the persevering qualities required in a leader. Wearied with his tramping, and apparently with little zeal for his father's interests, he proposes to his servant that they retrace their steps and wend their way homeward.

In initiative, too, Saul is deficient; for it is his servant, not he, who suggests that they apply to the man of God for information concerning the whereabouts of the lost animals. "And he (the servant) said unto him, Behold now, there is in this city a man of God, and he is an honorable man; all that he saith cometh surely to pass: now let us go thither; peradventure he can show us our way that we should go." Incidentally, we notice here how Samuel was "had in reputation," even by the "farm-hands," as we call them now. "A man of God and honorable," is a very good character to be given to any servant of the Lord. They, above all others, should give "none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully," but rather so to conduct themselves as to be in a preeminent sense, "epistles of Christ, known and read of all men."

That Saul was wanting in the quality of leadership is evident, else his father's servant would not have taken upon himself to say to his master's son, "Now let us go thither" — thus leading rather than being led by Saul. He lacked dignity, too, otherwise a mere servant would never have tendered his advice unasked. Contrast this with the respect and reverence with which David's band of followers always treated him; and the higher reverence with which the Lord was ever held by His disciples (2 Sam. 12: 18, 19; Luke 9: 45, etc.) Neither was Saul possessed with generosity — without which no one becomes a successful leader of men. "There is not a present to bring to the man of God: what have we?" he says. Was the son of opulent Kish without money on a journey? It is his servant again who comes to the front, and says, "Behold, I have here at hand the fourth part of a shekel of silver: that will I give to the man of God, to tell us our way:" Saul was not even acquainted with the man of God, for soon after, when face to face with Samuel himself, he does not know him, as we read:

"Then Saul drew near to Samuel in the gate, and said, Tell me, I pray thee, where the seer's house is. And Samuel answered Saul, and said, I am the seer."

This is all the more remarkable when it is remembered that Gibeah of Saul was not above twenty miles from Samuel's headquarters at Ramah. It argues how very little interest Saul took at that time in public affairs, or in the welfare of Israel, in which every godly Hebrew would be profoundly interested. Saul seems devoid of patriotism, without which no man is fit to govern. But most serious of all, Saul was not possessed of piety. This may be gathered from his unacquaintance with the prophet. Had he been concerned in spiritual matters, surely he would have known something of the man of God who went about in circuit, who was well known even among the servant-class. The prophet had never been entertained in the house of Kish, as he traveled his rounds about the country, judging and instructing the children of Israel in the knowledge of Jehovah. He did not keep open house, nor have a "prophet's chamber," where he might lodge the man of God in his itinerations. Disregard for sacred things seems to have been a family trait. "Is Saul among the prophets!" indicates that his want of interest in matters spiritual was notorious.

This lack of piety was the fatal defect in Saul's character, and accounts in large measure for what follows in his melancholy history as king of Israel. He had little or no concern for God and His people; he minded earthly things, and not those which pertain to eternity. Even the maid-servants of the city, the common "drawers of water," shame him in this, for they are able to give him minute and explicit directions where and how to find the prophet.

"And as they went up the hill to the city, they found young maidens going out to draw water, and said unto them, Is the seer here? And they answered them, and said, He is. Behold, he is before you: make haste now, for he came to-day to the city; for there is a sacrifice of the people to-day in the high place As soon as ye be come into the city, ye shall straightway find him, before he go up to the high place to eat: for the people will not eat until he come, because he doth bless the sacrifice: and afterwards they eat that be bidden. Now therefore get you up; for about this time ye shall find him" (vers. 11-13).

Let us pause a little here. What a lesson can these maidens teach us all. They, though in humble and laborious employment, are well acquainted with God's servant. They know all about the coming sacrificial feast; the time of its commencement; the customs in connection with its celebration; when the prophet was expected to arrive, etc. Yes, ye lowly children of toil, ye know the ways of Jehovah better than those given to sensual leisure, gaiety, frivolity, and fashion. The holy things of God are subjects that occupy your thoughts and hearts; therefore your mouth speaks of your happy hearts' abundance. So these maidens, in their lowly service, can show the way to Samuel and the house of God. Oh that, like them, we may be occupied in "drawing water" from the wells of salvation, filled with the things of the Spirit, ready and able to point others to the Saviour, to show the way to heaven as readily and clearly as did these Hebrew maidens the way to Samuel and the sacrifice.

Having looked at the under-side of the tapestry and portrait of Saul, we know better what manner of man he was. Knowing this, we can better understand him, while we see him secretly chosen and anointed by Samuel before his public manifestation to Israel.

"Now the Lord had told Samuel in his ear a day before Saul came," etc. Samuel had before this rehearsed all the words of the people "in the ears of the Lord," and now the Lord speaks in the ear of this man of prayer, His servant Samuel. "The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him," and He "will show them," not only "His covenant," but also His purposes, His plans, His will in that which concerns us, or in that which is necessary or good for us to know. It is the men of prayer that He makes His partners in the working out of His purposes of grace on earth; they rehearse. in His ears their thoughts and feelings, their hopes and fears, and He will in turn make them His confidants, so to speak, as here with Samuel. Oh, that we, all of us, believers in Christ, might imitate Samuel in his communings with his God, and so be favored as he was with the revelation of His mind concerning ourselves and His people.

God now says to Samuel:

"To-morrow about this time I will send thee a man out of the land of Benjamin, and thou shalt anoint him to be captain over my people Israel, that he may save My people out of the hand of the Philistines for I have looked upon my people, because their cry is come unto Me" (ver. 16).

God still calls them "My people," though the mass of them were "stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart." And though He had told them in the plainest terms, through Samuel, that when groaning under the oppression of their self-chosen king they would cry out in their distress, He would not hear them (8: 18), yet here He says, "Their cry is come unto Me." The first was in government, and they most bitterly reap what they had wilfully sown: this is in grace, and He looks upon His people's misery, and purposes to deliver them. Their sufferings under His government were caused by a scourge from within — from Saul their king; their groanings that called forth the compassion of His grace came from without — from the uncircumcised Philistines, and He is quick to hear and ready to relieve. Behold, Christian reader, in this an example of the working out of His grace and government, "the goodness and severity of God," always evenly balanced in Scripture. Let us take heart, and be encouraged by the grace, and be warned and put on our guard by the government.

When Saul and Samuel meet, God says to Samuel, "Behold the man whom I spake to thee of! This same shall reign over my people!" "Behold the man!" Pilate said of Christ, long after this — not of a man of failure and a disappointment to His people, but of Him that "was born King of the Jews," to whom no failure could attach, and of whose "kingdom there shall be no end." The Roman governor spoke the words in derision, but God in His Word everywhere points Him out with infinite delight and satisfaction. But Saul, the picture of man in his best estate, stands in contrast to Jehovah's true Servant, of whom it is written, "Behold my Servant, whom I uphold; mine Elect, in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my Spirit upon Him (was He not put upon Saul too?): He shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles . . . a bruised reed shall He not break, and the smoking flax shall He not quench: He shall bring forth judgment unto truth. He shall not fail or be discouraged (margin, broken, as was Saul), till He have set judgment in the earth: and the isles shall wait for His law" (Isa. 42: 1-4). And again: "Behold the Man whose name is The Branch . . . even He shall build the temple of the Lord; and He shall bear the glory (as Saul through his self-will and pride could not do), and shall sit and rule upon his throne; and He shall be a priest upon his throne and the counsel of peace shall be between them both" — the Branch and Jehovah (Zech. 6: 12, 13). And yet again: "Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: He is just, and having salvation, lowly and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt, the foal of an ass" (Zech. 9: 9) And to the sinner, the weary and the heavy laden, be he Jew or Gentile, His gracious gospel call is: "Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest" (Matt. 11: 28). Well indeed and meet it is that God should thus introduce to us His beloved Son in the glorious character He bore in His humiliation, with this exclamation, BEHOLD!

From an expression used by Samuel to Saul, it seems intimated that the people had been casting about in their minds (as they very naturally would do), for some suitable candidate for the coming regal honor. They may have had this same "goodly and choice young man" of Benjamin in their eye, for Samuel says, "And on whom is all the desire of Israel? Is it not on thee, and on thy father's house? 's For Him who came in lowly guise and loving grace they were not ready when He came; nor even for His type and figure, David. Many a weary year and centuries of anguish and wandering have passed over Israel's head since they cried out, "Away with Him! Let Him be crucified! We have no king but Caesar!" and Caesar they have had ever since. How many times, alas, it has been Caesar at his worst, and with a. vengeance. But their day is coming; their repentance not far off; we can see the "fig tree" putting forth her leaves, and we know that Israel, and earth's, summertime is near, and we cry in gladness for them and the nations, "Alleluia, for the Lord cometh, and He cometh to reign"!

There is a hint that Saul was not without some knowledge of this, and that there were the kindlings of ambition already in his breast; for Samuel says to him, "I will tell thee all that is in thy heart." Was it aspirations for the crown and kingdom? While it was God's choice in the setting apart of Saul (for He could read Saul's and the nation's thoughts), He gave them a "king in His anger," whom He afterwards "took away in His wrath." So He who makes "the wrath of man to praise Him," uses the folly and sin of Israel to further His purposes and plans to bring in at the last that other and abiding King, of whom David was but the imperfect shadow. "This also cometh forth from the Lord of hosts, which is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working!" (Isa. 28: 29). "Who is like unto Thee, O Lord, among the mighty ones? Who is like Thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders?" (Ex. 15: 11).

It is beside our purpose to review all that transpired between Saul and Samuel at the feast. Everything went on according to custom. Saul, as the guest of honor, was seated "in the chiefest place among them that were bidden." The special portion, set aside for him by Samuel from the day before (when God had spoken in his ear concerning Saul) was put before him; it was the shoulder, which speaks of power, not the breast, which speaks of the affections. Saul wielded power, but love for God and affection for His people was lacking. Saul could but disappoint and distress them. For what is power without love but tyranny and despotism? After the feast Samuel holds long and secret converse with Saul. What passed between them we are not told; but wise counsel is given and admonition imparted at their parting the next day, when Samuel tells Saul to bid the servant pass on, and says, "But stand thou still a while, that I may show thee the word of God." In the chapter following we shall see the prophet formally and publicly installing Saul in power over the people, power which most men covet, but which Samuel (if consulting his own comfort) would doubtless be but too glad to resign.

Chapter 12. — His Resignation. (1 Samuel 10 and 11.)

"Then Samuel took a vial of oil, and poured it upon his head, and kissed him, and said, Is it not because the Lord hath anointed thee to be captain over his inheritance?" (ver. 1).

It is beautiful to see here how fully and freely Samuel resigns his authority to Saul. There is no restraint, but heartily and ungrudgingly he pours the anointing oil upon his head. Without reserve he performs the rite that marks Saul out as supreme head of the nation. This is very lovely, and exhibits the prophet as a man of remarkably generous spirit, devoid of jealousy, without ambition for himself or his sons, desiring only that Jehovah's will might be done in him and the nation. Would that we all did imitate him in this, as the apostle exhorts, "In honor preferring one another; ",and again, "Let no man seek his own, but every man another's [profit]" (Rom. 12: 10; 1 Cor. 10: 24). How we lack in that love, that "seeketh not her own." "Jealousy is cruel as the grave," and "envy is as rottenness to the bones," but joy in another's profit, the promotion of our neighbor, this is a spirit all too rare in this selfish world. May it be cultivated diligently by the believer who desires to be more like his blessed Master, who was "meek and lowly in heart," or even as His forerunner John, who unregretfully said, "He must increase, but I must decrease."

Samuel anoints Saul, "and kissed him." This was another lovely act of Samuel's. It was not done before the multitude, as if for effect, or as a mere conventional ceremony. No; being done in privacy, it shows what spirit he was of, that he should thus be the first, and without show, to confess his allegiance to the king — his king thenceforth. It was the pledge to Saul, and before God, of his fealty and whole good pleasure in Jehovah's choice, in the exaltation of this man of Benjamin, his neighbor. There was no real necessity for it here, as there might be later at his public coronation at Mizpeh. (See Ps. 2: 12.) Very beautiful indeed is this trait of self-renunciation in Samuel — seen constantly throughout his lifetime, from his earliest infancy, when he forfeited a mother's tender care and the sweet companionships of home, for the care and awesome solitude of the tabernacle at Shiloh; and later, when for twenty years he is hidden from the public eye though demonstrated as a prophet of Jehovah. Here, and further on in his devoted life, he does the same, as we shall see. It is a characteristic of his which we cannot cease to admire; yet it is not he but the grace of God that was in him, to whom be glory for evermore! Amen.

Three things are pointed out to Saul by Samuel, in explanation of the meaning of the ceremony just performed. He reminds him of the nature of the government to which he is called. He was anointed to be "captain," a commander, which bespeaks honor and power; but a commander in war, which bespeaks care and toil and danger. As to the origin, he says, "The Lord hath anointed thee." By Him he was to rule, and therefore must rule for Him, in dependence on Him, and with an eye to His glory. As to the end of it, it was over God's inheritance, to take care of that, protect it, and order its affairs, as a steward, set over His estate, to manage it for His service, and give an account of it to Him.

This done, Samuel tells Saul what should befall him ere reaching his home in Gibeah. All coming out true, just as the man of God had said, would convince the newly appointed captain that Samuel was indeed a prophet of the Lord — Which, because of his previous utter ignorance, he might have doubted — and his appointment therefore valid. Consequently, Saul must have felt that his responsibility was great, not to be lightly thought of, nor negligently discharged. We quote from another, "The first place Samuel directed him to was a sepulchre, the sepulchre of one of his ancestors, for there Rachel had died in travail with Benjamin; there he must read a lecture of his own mortality, and now that he had the crown in his eye, must think of his grave, in which all his honor would be laid in the dust."

Other details of the happenings on the journey home we pass over in silence, as our purpose is to write of Samuel rather than Saul — which others have done in detail and to fullest profit.

Samuel's closing word to Saul is one of utmost importance, and for failing to heed it he was rejected by the Lord, who had chosen him at the outset of his career:

"And thou shalt go down before me to Gilgal; and behold, I will come down unto thee, to offer burnt offerings, and to sacrifice sacrifices of peace offerings: seven days shalt thou tarry, till I come to thee, and show thee what thou shalt do" (1 Sam. 10: 8).

This was not at his final installation into power (see 1 Sam. 11: 14), but later, at the gathering together of the Philistines against him, as we shall presently see. Samuel next convokes an assembly of the tribes at Mizpeh:

"And Samuel called the people together unto the Lord to Mizpeh, and said unto the children of Israel, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, I brought up Israel out of Egypt, and delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians and out of the hand of all kingdoms, and of them that oppressed you: and ye have this day rejected your God, who Himself saved you out of all your adversities and your tribulations; and ye have said unto Him, Nay, but set a king over us. Now therefore present yourselves before the Lord by your tribes, and by your thousands" (1 Sam. 10: 17-19).

Samuel here reminds them of God's gracious dealings with them in the past (when they were without a king), from the time of their going forth out of Egypt to the present. "Who Himself saved you," he says, so emphasizing the fact that it was God alone, without the aid of any arm of flesh, who had so far delivered them from the power of their enemies; and he vigorously charges home upon their consciences their sin in now refusing the rule of the mighty Jehovah, of whose power and wisdom there was no limit, and whose ear had been ever open to their cry. He had never failed them; but they were determined on the change, and God will let them have it even as they wished.

Then lots are cast, and Saul is taken: "And when they sought him he could not be found." They inquired of the Lord if the man should yet come thither, and the Lord answers, "He has hid himself among the stuff." Why this inquiry, "If the man should yet come thither?" Are the people beginning to have some misgivings? Is it beginning to dawn upon them that the change would not be for the better but for the worse? Were the recently uttered words of Samuel disturbing their consciences? But it is too late. They have deliberately, in the face of protest and warning from Samuel. made their choice, and must abide the issue. Israel would not go up to possess the land, when encouraged, aye, commanded by God to do so; and when they repented their decision, He told them; No; they must turn back to wander forty weary years in the wilderness, until the carcases of the guilty had fallen in the desert (Num. 14) Esau changed his mind, after having sold his birthright, but "afterwards, when he would have inherited the blessing, he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears" (Heb. 10). Judas, too, after his betrayal of the Lord, "repented himself,' but only to go to his own place," in hopeless and everlasting misery. And here, with foolish Israel, the die is cast, the irrevocable choice is made.

"He hath hid himself among the stuff," was the undignified position of the man upon whom the prophet had poured the anointing oil. It be trays the smallness of Saul's soul; the act savors more of mock humility, or childish affectation, than real heart-felt lowliness before God. But they bring him forth, and as he stands before the people, a splendid specimen of humanity, "higher than any of the people from his shoulders and upward," Samuel says to the assembled multitude, "See ye him whom the Lord hath chosen, that there is none like him among all the people? And all the people shouted, and said, GOD SAVE THE KING! "He towers like a giant above them, and as they behold with admiring eyes his great stature, they are content. The misgivings they might for the moment have entertained, vanish immediately on sight of him, and they shout aloud their approbation and delight, "Let the king live."

Poor mistaken people, without faith, they judged by the sight of their eyes. They are satisfied with the "height of his stature," without another qualification to recommend him for the position they expected him to fill. He had never subdued a single Philistine, a lion, or a bear, like David. His stature was all they asked, while God the Invisible, and Samuel His modest prophet, they rejected. Alas, this is man! "Not this Man but Barabbas — now Barabbas was a robber." "No king but Caesar," they cry. Tiberius, who then reigned, was a most profligate man, and his government was despotic and cruel. "I am come in my Father's name, and ye receive Me not: if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive" (John 5: 43). They would not have the "Man of Sorrows," "the Man of Calvary, and God will in a day not far distant, let them have "the man of sin," the Antichrist.

"Then Samuel told the people the manner of the kingdom, and wrote it in a book, and laid it up before the Lord. And Samuel sent all the people away, every man to his house" (1 Sam. 10: 25).

Here we can do no better than quote the comment of Matthew Henry: "Samuel settles the original contract between them, and leaves it upon record. He had before told them the manner of the king, how he would abuse his power (1 Sam. 8: 11); now he tells them the manner of the kingdom, or rather the law or constitution of it; what power the prince might challenge and the utmost of the property he might claim. Let them rightly understand one another at first, and let the agreement remain in black and white, which will tend to preserve a good understanding between them ever after. The learned bishop Patrick thinks he now repeated and registered what he had told them (chap. 8: 11) of the arbitrary power their kings would assume, that it might be hereafter a witness against them that they had drawn the calamity upon themselves, for they were warned what it would come to, yet they would have a king."

Samuel then dissolves the convention, and Saul returns to Gibeah. Why he did not at once take the reins of government into his hands is not clear. There were dissentients to the choice, men who "despised him," and "brought him no presents." "How shall this man save us?" they asked, in derision. They probably knew him better than his more distant people, and had little confidence in his qualities of leadership, or of his abilities to save them from the hand of their oppressors; and their numbers may have been considerable. But Saul hides any resentment he may have felt at this non-recognition of him as their king and captain, and the siege of Jabesh-gilead by Nahash the Ammonite furnished him the opportunity to ingratiate himself fully into the confidence of the nation. "Nothing succeeds like success," is a popular saying, and Saul was given this in full measure. The invading Ammonites are defeated and put to utter rout, and Jabesh-gilead is saved.

"And the people said unto Samuel, Who is he that said, Shall Saul reign over us? Bring the men that we may put them to death. And Saul said, There shall not a man be put to death this day: for to-day the Lord hath wrought salvation in Israel" (1 Sam. 11: 12, 18).

This word of clemency from Saul sounds fair, and augured well for the future mildness of his reign. Yet we note that the people addressed themselves to Samuel, not to Saul; they still recognized him as their lawful judge, doubtless, and Samuel proposes that they go to Gilgal, "and renew the kingdom there." This expression, "and renew the kingdom," suggests, as we have before intimated, that there had been some hitch, or halt in the establishment of Saul in power.

The fitting opportunity had arrived to formally and finally install Saul in his office.

"And all the people went to Gilgal; and there they made Saul king before the Lord in Gilgal; and there they sacrificed sacrifices of peace offerings before the Lord; and there Saul and all the men of Israel rejoiced greatly" (1 Sam. 11: 15).

Peace offerings were the sacrifices offered here. "This is distinct from both the burnt offering and the meat offering, though founded upon them. Its object was not to show how a sinner might get peace, nor to make atonement; it was rather the outcome of having been blessed — the response of the heart to that blessing." It typified communion, and the offerer and his friends could eat of it together. It was the offering most used by the nation, especially on occasions of joy or thanksgiving, as here

So Saul is, at last, enthroned in authority; the sceptre has been placed in his hands by the people, which was to be used so soon and heavily upon them. Now he is king indeed, and Samuel hands over to him the government that had for so many years rested on his own willing shoulders. The "bloodless revolution" is effected. What follows we shall shortly see.

Chapter 13. — His Farewell Address. (1 Samuel 12.)

We have now, in this chapter, Samuel's farewell address to the people to whom he had so long and so honestly administered justice. It is deeply interesting, and withal touching, as well as richly instructive, and will amply repay a detailed study.

"And Samuel said unto all Israel, Behold, I have hearkened unto your voice in all that ye said unto me, and have made a king over you. And now, behold, the king walketh before you; and I am old and gray-headed; and behold, my sons are with you: and I have walked before you from my childhood unto this day" (vers. 1, 2).

He first of all reminds them that it was they, not he, who were responsible for the change of government. He well knew, having been a judge for so many years, the propensity of men in general to shift the blame of their troubles off onto the shoulders of somebody else. This insincere trait of human nature is as old as the race itself: "The woman Thou gavest to be with me;" "The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat," said the first transgressors to the Lord God in the garden. "The people took of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the chief things which should have been utterly destroyed," Saul says to Samuel, shortly after here, when accused of having disobeyed the Lord's commandment. So Samuel plainly reminds them that it was their choice, not his; for how apt, in after years, they would be, when in distress over the actings of their king, to put the blame on Samuel to have made Saul king over them. But he will cut off all occasion for this, and therefore says, "I have hearkened unto your voice in all that ye said unto me." He had, as the divinely appointed instrument, made Saul king, but it was at their instigation entirely, and only after he had earnestly and solemnly protested against their action. Now, they had their heart's desire, and he says, "Behold, the king walketh before you;" then he adds, "I have walked before you from my childhood unto this day." Oh, how different were these two walks of which he speaks! What a contrast between them! Samuel walked in all meekness and lowliness, in obedience to God, and always sought their good. Saul, on the contrary, walked in self-will and brought ruin on the nation. He "walked in pride," and God abased him, even as it is written (Dan. 4: 37).

And his sons, whom they had made the ostensible occasion for their disaffection, were yet in their midst, "still with you," as he says. If their crimes had been so great, here they were, to be dealt with in impartial justice by their newly-appointed king. If he, Samuel, had in any wise winked at their misdoings, here they were to be proceeded against according to due process of law. They had not fled the country because of the revolution, or gone into voluntary exile on their father's retirement from power. Thus another excuse in asking for a king is laid bare, as having no foundation, and would not serve them in after years when crying out under the oppression of their king.

Samuel then refers to his own conduct in his capacity as judge with them. "Behold, here I am," he says, "witness against me before the Lord, and before his anointed . . . whom have I defrauded? whom have I oppressed? or of whose hand have I received any bribe to blind mine eyes therewith? and I will restore it you." He had taken nothing at their hands, either by arbitrary oppression (as was common with rulers in those days), or to pervert the ends of justice His successor, as he had told them (chap. 8: 11-17), would not only take their cattle and their goods, but their sons and their daughters, their menservants and their maidservants, with their "goodliest young men," to put them to his work for his own personal profit and aggrandizement, and be sacrificed in battle in his unsuccessful wars.

The people bear witness to the full truth of his statements: "And they said, Thou hast not defrauded us, nor oppressed us, neither hast thou taken ought of any man's hand." Covetousness is a sin to which administrators are in a special degree exposed. The prophet Amos describes the crookedness of those in whose hands was the judicial authority in his day, and he tells them what they might expect from the bands of the just Judge, Jehovah, for "their manifold transgressions and their mighty sins" (Amos 5: 7-12). Isaiah, on the other hand, tells of the blessedness of him "that despiseth the gain of oppressions, that shaketh his hands from holding of bribes" (Isa. 33: 15). Jethro, Moses' father-in-law, describes the character of the men to be selected "to judge the people at all times:" "Able men," he says, "such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness" (Ex. 18: 21). Samuel fulfilled all these conditions, and possessed the additional virtues of gentleness and loving sympathy. He was indeed the ideal judge, and the nation little realized what they were losing when he stepped down and out to make way for the ruler of their choice.

The people not only acknowledged that Samuel had neither defrauded nor oppressed them, but confess that he had taken naught from any man's hand for any purpose whatever. He had adhered closely to the law of Moses, "Thou shalt take no gift; for the gift blindeth the wise and perverteth the words of the righteous" (Ex. 23: 8). He well knew the blinding power of presents (even if not given directly to corrupt the court), and how easily judges may be influenced, almost unconsciously to themselves, by gifts, however small, received from the hands of litigants. Nehemiah followed a similar line of conduct, "because of the fear of God," he says (Neh. 5: 15). Paul, too, in his farewell word to the elders of the assembly at Ephesus, says, "I have coveted no man's silver, or gold, or apparel." Yea, his own hands had ministered to his own need and of those that accompanied him (Acts 20: 33, 34).

This collective declaration of Samuel's guiltlessness is made under the witness of their God and King, "The Lord is witness against you, and His anointed is witness this day," he says. This being settled, he gives them a short resumé of their past history, noting only those events that would have a bearing on the subject in hand, viz., their great wickedness, and the vindication of God's anger at the setting up of a kingly form of government in preference to His own.

"And Samuel said unto the people, It is the Lord that advanced Moses and Aaron, and that brought your fathers up out of the land of Egypt. Now therefore stand still, that I may reason with you before the Lord of all the righteous acts of the Lord, which He did to you and to your fathers. When Jacob was come into Egypt, and your fathers cried unto the Lord, then the Lord sent Moses and Aaron, which brought forth your fathers out of Egypt, and made them dwell in this place. And when they forgat the Lord their God, He sold them into the hand of Sisera, captain of the host of Hazor, and into the hand of the Philistines, and into the hand of the king of Moab, and they fought against them. And they cried unto the Lord, and said, We have sinned, because we have forsaken the Lord, and have served Baalim and Ashtaroth: but now deliver us out of the hand of our enemies, and we will serve Thee. And the Lord sent Jerubbaal, and Bedan, and Jephthah, and Samuel, and delivered you out of the hand of your enemies on every side, and ye dwelled safe" (vers. 6-11).

It is to be noted that, after securing from their very mouths a most complete vindication of his magisterial character with them, Samuel does not proceed to upbraid them for their base ingratitude towards him in his life-long service for their good, as he might very justly have done. It is God's honor he has in view — not his own. He shows them that God is sovereign; He is able to care for His interests on earth, as vested in His people, and can save by any, and by whom He will, by many or with few.

"It is the Lord that advanced Moses and Aaron;" it was He that brought them safely out of Egypt, through the Red Sea, and preserved them forty years in "that great and terrible wilderness," in the midst of dangers and enemies innumerable. Samuel bids them "stand still," as Moses told the people, when hedged in at Pi-hahiroth, between the hosts of Pharaoh and the sea: "Stand still," he said, "and see the salvation of the Lord, which He will show to you today" (Ex. 14: 13). This is never an agreeable attitude to the flesh, but a very necessary one to the spirit, if we are to hear to profit what God the Lord would say to us. "Be still, and know that I am GOD," is His word to the restless creature (Ps. 46: 10). This attitude of quiet waiting becomes the soul that would know the power and resources of the Almighty, "Swift to hear and strong to save." (See Isa. 30: 7.) "That I may reason with you of all the righteous acts of the Lord," says Samuel. (Benefits, the margin reads.) "He reasons," Matthew Henry says, "of the righteous acts of the Lord, that is, both the benefits He hath bestowed upon you, in performance of His promises, and the punishments He has inflicted on you for your sins. His favors are called His righteous acts, because in them He is just to His own honor."

Samuel does not allow them to overlook the fact that it was for their sins that Jehovah allowed them to be sold captive into the hands of their enemies. "When they forgat the Lord their God, He sold them into the hand of Sisera," etc. And whenever they cried to God in sincerity, confessing their backslidings, and the special sin which had thus brought them into straits, He always heard them, and sent for their deliverance men like Jerubbael, and Bedan,* and Jephthah, and Samuel.

{*Jerubbaal is Gideon, we know, but of Bedan we have no record. The LXX reads Baruch, for Bedan; others suppose Samson is meant, who was a son of Dan Ben Dan. "The Spirit of the Lord began to move him at times be-Dan" (Judges 13: 25).}

If Samuel speaks of himself, it is not in egotism at all, but to add conviction to their consciences; for the judge they were now rejecting was as truly raised up of God for their deliverance as were Moses and Aaron, Gideon, Jephthah and Bedan.

"And ye dwelled safe," he says. Even then, or up to then, they dwelt safely; for we are told, back in 1 Sam. 7: 13, that "the hand of the Lord was against the Philistines all the days of Samuel" — which means the days of his official, not his natural life. It was only after the people had cast him aside, that the Philistines lifted up their heads and dare again to invade the land. What a comment on the folly of the change they desired!

Now we are for the first time made wise as to the underlying reason for their desiring a king like the nations. "And when ye saw that Nahash, the king of the children of Ammon, came against you, ye said unto me, Nay; but a king shall reign over us: when the Lord your God was your King." Yes, the Ammonites had a king, and the people, in their unbelief, seeing the Ammonitish king invest Jabesh-gilead, want a king too — one they could see, and lead their army. God was their king, true, but He was out of sight, and made their conduct the condition of His delivering them. This was not at all to their liking. They wanted a protector that their eyes could see; faith they did not possess, so they could only look at "the things that are seen," an object of sight — and this they had in Saul. "Now therefore behold the king whom ye have chosen, and whom ye have desired! and, behold, the Lord hath set a king over you," he says.

Then Samuel sets before them, for their choice, a promise and a threat:

"If ye will fear the Lord, and serve Him, and obey His voice, and not rebel against the commandment of the Lord, then shall both ye and also the king that reigneth over you continue following the Lord your God: but if ye will not obey the voice of the Lord, but rebel against the commandment of the Lord, then shall the hand of the Lord be against you, as it was against your fathers" (vers. 14, 15).

While they had Samuel, representative of the living God, as their guide and protector, "the hand of the Lord was against the Philistines;" here he tells them that if they rebelled against the commandment of the Lord, His hand would be against them. It is the old alternative of Gerizim and Ebal, the blessing, or the curse — the blessing for obedience, and the curse if they rebelled (Deut. 27). We know the melancholy outcome — it was disobedience and rebellion all the days of Saul; and not till David's reign (who was a figure of the King that is to come) was the nation blessed and the Philistines finally subdued.

And as with Israel here, so with mankind at large — man in the flesh, man not "born again," man unrenewed by grace; he can only sin and bring down the judgment of God upon his guilty soul. Only in Christ, Son of David and Son of God, is his eternal blessing secured. "The flesh profiteth nothing." "It is the Spirit that quickeneth" (John 6: 63). In Christ alone are all the promises of God secured; in Him is the Yea and the Amen of all the blessing that God has ever pledged to man. Apart from Him there is only Ebal, the cursing for man.

In the above passage cited from Deuteronomy, there is no blessing pronounced from Gerizim — only the curses from mount Ebal are enumerated. When the blessings are pronounced later, under Joshua (Saviour, as his name means), it is only after he had built an altar in mount Ebal unto the Lord God of Israel, emblematic of the sacrifice of Christ on Calvary (Joshua 8: 30, 33; see also Deut. 11: 29).

To clinch and to confirm what he had told them, Samuel gives them a sign — "a sign from heaven:"

"Is it not wheat harvest to-day?" he says: "I will call unto the Lord, and He shall send thunder and rain; that ye may perceive and see that your wickedness is great, which ye have done in the sight of the Lord, in asking you a king. So Samuel called unto the Lord; and the Lord sent thunder and rain that day: and all the people greatly feared the Lord and Samuel" (vers. 17, 18).

Wheat harvest was at Pentecost, about the beginning of our June, when rain was most unusual — extraordinary, really (Prov. 26: 1). This would make the coming of thunder and rain at the call of Samuel all the more convincing to the assembled multitudes. Unbelief could not say it was but a coincidence, or that Samuel could discern the thunderstorm coming, or that he had merely given a clever guess. No; God gave them such a demonstration of His approval of Samuel as could not be gainsaid, so that if they did not lay his words to heart, they were left altogether without excuse. But they are convinced, and beseech Samuel for his prayers; "And all the people said unto Samuel, Pray for thy servants unto the Lord thy God, that we die not: for we have added unto all our sins this evil, to ask us a king." They never asked their king to pray for them; no, for when conscience is at work, it is the godly whose prayers are sought. Saul could do anything but pray. David and Solomon, and Hezekiah, and other kings of the nation prayed for their subjects; but we do not read, even once, of Saul praying, either for himself or for the people over whom he had been set to rule.

Samuel, father still to the beloved though erring people, and faithful shepherd of the flock, answers them, not with words of wrath and condemnation, but in words of hope and exhortation, and encouragement:

"And Samuel said unto the people, Fear not: ye have done all this wickedness yet turn not aside from following the Lord, but serve the Lord with all your heart; and turn ye not aside: for then should ye go after vain things, which cannot profit nor deliver; for they are vain. For the Lord will not forsake his people for his great name's sake: because it hath pleased the Lord to make you his people" (vers. 20-22).

What is most beautiful and wholly characteristic of this beloved and loving man of God is added here. He says, "God forbid that I should sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you: but I will teach you the good and the right way;" and this he at once proceeds to do: "Only fear the Lord, and serve Him in truth with all your heart; for consider how great things He hath done for you." He places their obedience not on the ground of obligation merely, but on the higher plane of gratitude; "For consider," he says, "how great things He hath done for you." There is only one higher reason seen in the creature: the holy angels in heaven obey God for what He is in Himself, in the infinite perfections and glories of His Being. This motive is not absent in the worship and obedience of the redeemed; in them it is coupled and augmented with the sense of gratitude and obligation; and we would not have it otherwise. The "great things He has done for us," shall be our wonder and delight to sing in the coming ages of that glad eternity that awaits us, through the grace of God, on the alone ground of "the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." Alleluia!

"Only fear the Lord," Samuel says encouragingly. "Fear not," he had said assuringly to them before. We need both exhortations. Our Lord, in Luke 1 a, also speaks to the multitude in a similar manner: "Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear Him, which after He hath killed, hath power to cast into hell." And then to give it effective emphasis, He adds, "Yea, I say unto you, Fear HIM!" Oh, that we all might have His holy fear before us. He had said, "Fear not," i.e., with a slavish fear; but here, "Fear the Lord," with a filial fear. "Only fear the Lord," he says, after the manifestation of God's power and presence in the giving of rain and thunder: "All the people greatly feared the Lord, and Samuel," we read. But Samuel is jealous for the glory of his God, so he calls upon the people to fear Jehovah only.

Samuel closes, not with a benediction (which at such a time would have been most unsuited), but leaves with them this solemn warning: "But if ye shall still do wickedly, ye shall be consumed, both ye and your king!"

Chapter 14. — His Last Activities. (1 Samuel 13-15.)

Just how long after Saul's installation into power the events recorded in the 13th chapter occurred is uncertain. The wording of the first verse is obscure. One valued commentator says, in reference to it: "One number is wanting here, and cannot be supplied from any known source; the other is questionable. The Septuagint omits the verse altogether, which on more accounts than this, commends itself to me. But I have bracketed and left it. It seems an interruption in the course of the history, the second verse naturally connecting with the end of the last chapter."*

{*F. W. Grant, in Num. Bible, Joshua — Samuel, Page 326.}

Verse 2 probably continues the narrative without interruption from the end of the previous chapter, and records events that immediately follow Saul's coronation and the accompanying address of farewell from Samuel. If this be so (and we can hardly doubt it), what a comment it presents on the character of Saul. How quickly he fell; and it is not only Saul that God would have us look to in this sudden collapse in accountability before God, but ourselves, and all mankind. It is the old, humiliating story of human frailty; or to put it in truer words, of man's utter inability to stand before God for even the shortest time on the ground of his responsibility.

This is seen at the very dawn of human history — at the first beginning of the race. Adam fell almost immediately, it would seem, on his settlement in Eden, and dragged creation down with him. Noah, in the renovated earth, in the next recorded act after his building an altar and sacrificing thereon burnt offerings, "planted a vineyard: and he drank of the wine, and was drunken;" and the result was a bitter curse upon a portion of his posterity. It is the same with Israel; the triumphant song of victory at the Red Sea is followed by the wicked murmurings for bread in the wilderness of Sin a short month later (Ex. 16: 1). The confident promises made by all the people before Moses, "All that the Lord hath said will we do, and be obedient" (Ex. 24: 7), are very soon followed by, "Up, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him" (Ex. 32: 1). God's comment on their conduct is just what might be said of Saul's in this chapter: "They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them."

Such is man. Such are you and I, dear reader, and beloved fellow-believer. Well spake the prophet Isaiah, when he said, "Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils: for wherein is he to be accounted of?" (Isa. 2: 22). This is the needful though humbling lesson to be learned from this initial failure, and all the succeeding ones of this, according to the flesh, fairest of the kings of Israel.

But our object in this little volume is, not so much to trace the perverse workings of the flesh in Saul and Israel, but the happier employ of following the gracious activities of the Holy Spirit in Samuel.

Jonathan smites a garrison of the Philistines, and as a consequence, Saul finds himself in straits.

"And all Israel heard say that Saul had smitten a garrison of the Philistines, and that Israel also was had in abomination with the Philistines. And the people were called together after Saul to Gilgal.

"And the Philistines gathered themselves together to fight with Israel, thirty thousand chariots, and six thousand horsemen, and people as the sand which is on the sea shore in multitude . . .

"And when the men of Israel saw that they were in a strait (for the people were distressed), then the people did hide themselves in caves, and in thickets, and in rocks, and in high places, and in pits. And some of the Hebrews went over Jordan to the land of Gad and Gilead. As for Saul he was yet in Gilgal, and all the people followed him trembling" (1 Sam. 13: 3-7).

But Saul finds himself well-nigh deserted of his followers.

After the great and easy victory over the army of the Ammonites, Saul dismissed the bulk of his forces, and retained but 3000 men, 2000 of whom he retained with himself, and the remaining 1000 were placed under the command of Jonathan. This, as has been pointed out, was an error, whichever way we look at it. "If he intended these only for a guard of his person and honorary attendants, it was impolitic to have so many; if, for a standing army, in apprehension of danger from the Philistines, it was no less impolitic to have so few." There was probably a truce, or perhaps a treaty of peace, between Israel and the Philistines at this time. (See 1 Sam. 7: 13.) This, under God, was due to Samuel. This smiting of the Philistine garrison by Jonathan, probably by order of Saul, was violating the truce (see ver. 4), as the words, "Israel also was had in abomination with the Philistines," imply.

"And he tarried seven days, according to the set time that Samuel had appointed; but Samuel came not to Gilgal; and the people were scattered from him. And Saul said, Bring hither a burnt offering to me, and peace offerings. And he offered the burnt offering" (vers. 8, 9).

This is the time, we cannot doubt, to which Samuel referred when he said to Saul at his anointing, "And thou shalt go down before me to Gilgal; and, behold, I will come down unto thee . . . and show thee what thou shalt do" (1 Sam. 10: 8). This could not have been on the occasion of his induction into office as king, at Gilgal, for there is no mention whatever of burnt offerings — only peace offerings were sacrificed. "Behold, I will come down unto thee, to offer burnt offerings," etc., he says. As a prophet of Jehovah, he could foresee this time of straitness with Saul, and had promised to come to his relief. Saul so understood it, too; but he thinks he cannot wait, and so proceeds without the prophet. "He is now in the position of which Samuel had forewarned him before, at his anointing, and in obedience to his injunction he waits till near the close of the seventh day — till it has advanced so far, indeed, that it seemed as if there was now no hope of Samuel's coming . . . In open disobedience he offers (or causes to be offered) the burnt offering; and he has hardly done this before Samuel comes."*

{* F. W. Grant, in Numerical Bible, Joshua — 2 Samuel, page 328.}

The deed is done, the transgression accomplished, and there remains for the prophet but to appear and pronounce the discontinuance of his kingdom. He could say to Saul, as another prophet centuries later declared to the Gentile king, Belshazzar, "MENE; God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it" (Dan. 5: 26).

"And it came to pass, that as soon as he had made an end of offering the burnt offering, behold, Samuel came; and Saul went out to meet him, that he might salute him. And Samuel said, What hast thou done? And Saul said, Because I saw that the people were scattered from me, and that thou tamest not within the days appointed, and that the Philistines gathered themselves together at Michmash" (vers. 10, 11).

"What hast thou done?" demands Samuel of the impatient, unbelieving, disobedient king. That is the startling, conscience-searching question. It was put to the woman, fallen, in the Garden; "What is this that thou hast done?" the Lord God asks her. It was put to her son Cain the fratricide, "What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto Me from the ground." Well it would have been if they had answered, "I have played the fool, I have transgressed the commandment, I have sinned before heaven, and in thy sight, O God of righteousness, of holiness and truth." This indeed should be the answer of every one, "for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." This same question Pilate asked of Christ; and what answers He could have given to the interrogation of His unjust judge! He had kept the commandment of His Father irreproachable and without spot; He had "magnified the law and made it honorable;" He ever did the things that pleased the Father; and having done this, He could do another thing, He could suffer for the sins of others, "the Just for the unjust," and so make atonement for their transgressions. He has thus opened the way by which a holy God can righteously pardon the sinner — can be "just and the Justifier of him which believeth in Jesus." Glory and praise be to Him forever and forever! Amen.

Saul offers, as man has ever done, a vain excuse: "The people were scattered from me," he says; and then he wickedly attempts to saddle the blame of his transgression onto Samuel: "Thou earnest not within the days appointed." This was false; all the worse for being uttered under the guise of truth. Samuel did appear before the seventh day had closed. Saul, in his unfaithfulness would not wait for this, but in the course of the day, perhaps towards its close, took his case out of the hands of God, and undertook for himself. Hypocritically, he tries to inject an appearance of piety into his daring act of disobedience, saying, he feared the Philistines would come down upon him before he had "made supplication unto the Lord." Under this cover he says, "I forced myself." But faith never has to "force" itself; it can always trust God's word, depend upon His promise, and await patiently its sure performance. But to this Saul is an utter stranger, and has to hear, from the very lips that had made the promise and given the command, the consequences of his disobedience.

"And Samuel said to Saul, Thou hast done foolishly: thou hast not kept the commandment of the Lord thy God which He commanded thee: for now would the Lord have established thy kingdom upon Israel forever. But now thy kingdom shall not continue the Lord hath sought Him a man after his own heart, and the Lord hath commanded him to be captain over his people, because thou hast not kept that which the Lord commanded thee" (vers. 13, 14).

Then we read the ominous words: "And Samuel arose, and gat him up from Gilgal unto Gibeah of Benjamin." He leaves Saul, condemned in the very place of his coronation but a short time before. God had another man in view, "a man after His own heart," who should perform all His will, and under whose reign and by whose faithfulness the kingdom should be established to his seed forever.

It is like the scene in Eden enacted over again, only in a different setting. There, no sooner had the first man failed and his judgment been pronounced, than God has his successor named, "the woman's Seed," who should do all His will, victoriously overcome the evil one, and "bring in everlasting righteousness," with blessing for the race under Adam fallen.

We shall shortly meet Samuel and Saul together again, and in this very Gilgal too.

In 1 Samuel 14, Jonathan with his armor-bearer, by his faith and daring, "put to flight the armies of the aliens." God honored his faith, and caused the earth to quake "with a very great trembling" — first fright and confusion, then panic pervaded the camp of the Philistines, and God turned "every man's sword against his fellow, and there was a very great discomfiture," while Israel pursued, and "the people returned only to spoil." (See also Judges 7: 22 and 2 Chron. 20: 23.)

"So the Lord saved Israel that day: and the battle passed over unto Beth-aven." The rout was complete, but the nation was robbed in large measure of the fruits of God's miraculous intervention in their behalf by the unreasonable and foolish prohibition of Saul.

"And the men of Israel were distressed that day: for Saul had adjured the people, saying, Cursed be the man that eateth any food until evening, that I may be avenged on mine enemies. So none of the people tasted any food" (1 Sam. 14: 24).

What ought to have been a day of rejoicing and gladness to the people, was turned by this "troubler of Israel" into a day of distress and disappointment. He had had no part whatever in the starting of the victorious "drive," but "tarried in the uttermost part of Gibeah under a pomegranate tree which is in Migron" — hiding from the foe, some think. But when the Philistines are already defeated and in full flight he intrudes himself upon the scene, to pettishly interfere with the pursuit with his senseless and illegally penalized inhibition. It was, as Jonathan says, "My father hath troubled the land . . . How much more if haply the people had eaten freely to-day of the spoil of their enemies which they found, for had there not been now a much greater slaughter among the Philistines?" Like his "exceedingly mad" namesake, Saul of Tarsus, at a later date, this Saul says, "That I may be avenged of mine enemies." He does not say "Israel's enemies," or "the enemies of the Lord;" it is "I," and "mine," as if he were everything — the State and all — and Jehovah and His people nothing. His egotism is extreme, and it is little wonder that his browbeaten subjects appear to have lost all respect for him.

To this he adds the sin of envy, and in his mad jealousy would, but for the people's firm interference, have sacrificed the noble Jonathan to his malicious rage. This outrageous scene halts the pursuit, and the fleeing enemy is allowed to escape: "Then Saul went up from following the Philistines, and the Philistines went to their own place."

After this he gives himself to the ignoble and comparatively easy task of "vexing" his enemies roundabout (1 Sam. 14: 47). It seems to have been a defensive rather than an aggressive warfare; there was no invasion of enemy territory or offensive campaigning against the foe, as under David later on, for which that true warrior distinguished himself. (See 2 Sam. 10.) "There was sore war against the Philistines all the days of Saul: and when Saul saw any strong man, or any valiant man, he took him unto him." Yes, that was all that it amounted to — "sore war;" and, doubtless, sorer often for poor Israel than for the Philistines.

Saul, having given further evidence of his unfitness to guide God's people or lead them on to victory against their enemies, is now to be given a final and decisive test — a more public one than that of waiting seven days for Samuel.

"Samuel also said unto Saul, The Lord sent me to anoint thee to be king over his people, over Israel: now therefore hearken thou unto the voice of the words of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way, when he came up out of Egypt. Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass" (1 Sam. 15: 1, 2).

We are told here of Amalek's unprovoked attack on Israel, just as they had escaped from the power of Pharaoh. Through Samuel here we learn what Moses did not tell us in Ex. 17, that "he laid wait for him," like a lurking serpent in the way. For this cowardly attempt at His people's destruction, Jehovah swore that He would have war with Amalek "from generation to generation." And, not subdued nor disheartened from his malicious designs on Israel by the chastisement received at the hands of Joshua, Amalek aggravated his guilt by basely attacking Israel's rear, and smiting "the hindmost" of the redeemed host, "even all that were feeble," when they were "faint and weary; and he feared not God." For this perfidious wickedness, a solemn charge was laid upon Israel to forget it not, but to blot out their name from under heaven. (See Deut. 25: 17-19.) Balaam, in his prophecy, calls them, "The first of the nations" (which probably means that they were the first of the desert tribes to attack the people of God as they pursued their journey to the land of promise), "but his latter end shall be that he perish forever" (Num. 24: 20). Now the time has come for their threatened extermination, and Saul is the man appointed for the work.

He seems to respond readily enough to the command. He was an apt and willing man for this. He gathers his forces, "and laid wait in the valley." Thus does God do to Amalek as he had done to Israel. The Kenites are recompensed for their kindness shown to Israel in the way, and are warned to remove themselves from the midst of the ancient enemies of God and His people, now devoted to complete destruction.

"And Saul smote the Amalekites . . . And he took Agag the king of the Amalekites alive, and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword. But Saul and the people spared Agag, and the best of the sheep, and of the oxen, and of the fatlings, and the lambs, and all that was good, and would not utterly destroy them: but everything that was vile and refuse, that they destroyed utterly" (vers. 7-9).

"Cursed be he that doeth the work of the Lord deceitfully (negligently, marg.), and cursed be he that keepeth back his sword from blood," God said to Israel, centuries later, when commanding the destruction of the Moabites (Jer. 48: 10). And here He has a serious controversy with Saul for his delinquency in sparing the king, along with the best of the flocks and of the herds. He had been a herdsman himself, once, and had an eye for the stock that was choice or above the common. Why he spared Agag is not clear. He may have intended to bring him in chains in the triumphal procession he appears to have made through the land on his return from the expedition, for the display of his prowess and success in the undertaking (see ver. 12). So God says to Samuel, "It repenteth Me that I have set up Saul to be king, for he is turned back from following Me, and hath not performed my commandments. And it grieved Samuel; and he cried unto the Lord all night." True again to his character, Samuel cried the whole night through in intercessory prayer for the now-rejected monarch. He does not triumph in the downfall of the man preferred before him by the Israel that he loved. No; his whole life was spent for the good of, and intercession for, others; and here we see him still unchanged, even after his "resignation by request" from the highest post in the land. Instead of entertaining even a secret satisfaction in the fall of his successor, he cries all night to God in his grief at the occurrence.

We fain would linger over a man thus praying for one whom he had good reason to regard as an enemy, not only of himself, but of the public welfare, and an oppressor of the people, to say nothing of God's glory in the matter.

But let us pass on to the dénouement:

"And when Samuel rose early to meet Saul in the morning, it was told Samuel, saying, Saul came to Carmel, and, behold, he set him up a place (monument), and is gone about, and passed on, and gone down to Gilgal."

This seems to confirm what we have said about the probable triumphal march that Saul in his egotistical pride made about the country for the glorification of himself as a warrior. In this the people had in very deed "a king like unto the nations" about them, who gloried thus in their victories and made them the occasion for their own self-exaltation.

"And Samuel came to Saul; and Saul said unto him, Blessed be thou of the Lord: I have performed the commandment of the Lord." He is forward to speak, instead of waiting humbly as became him before the man of God to hear what he might have to say, or to learn his pleasure. He hastens to vindicate himself, and says, without waiting to be asked, "I have performed the commandment of the Lord." His very eagerness to proclaim his obedience sounds suspicious, and betrays the uneasiness of the conscience of the unhappy man. But Samuel very soon informs him that he is not to be so easily deceived — the very bleating of the sheep and the lowing of the cattle were so many voices in testimony of the untruthfulness of his boast. "Blessed be thou of the Lord," he says. What cant! How hateful his hypocrisy! How hardened in sin he has be come thus to approach the holy prophet of God with a blessing in his mouth, while the lie was on his lips. And when Samuel sternly demands of him the meaning of the sounds coming to his ears from the flocks and herds about him, he falsely says, "They have brought them from the Amalekites: for the people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen, to sacrifice unto the Lord thy God, and the rest we have utterly destroyed." Note the dissembling: when the act is to be condemned he says, "they," and "the people;" but when it is the part that God had commanded should be done, he says, "we." How contemptible! Hard it is to understand how Samuel could find it in his heart to spend a whole night in prayer for such an one. But the man who had prayed for his unworthy prince so fervently, now that the occasion demands, and God requires, does not hesitate to tell him the guilt of his conduct, and the punishment he has brought upon himself by it.

"And Samuel said unto Saul, Stay, and I will tell thee what the Lord hath said to me this night. And he said unto him, Say on. And Samuel said, When thou wast little in thine own sight, wast thou not made the head of the tribes of Israel, and the Lord anointed thee king over Israel? And the Lord sent thee on a journey, and said, Go and utterly destroy the sinners the Amalekites, and fight against them until they be consumed. Wherefore then didst thou not obey the voice of the Lord, but didst fly upon the spoil, and didst evil in the sight of the Lord?" (vers. 16-19).

Then Saul attempts the justification of his sin:

"And Saul said to Samuel, Yea, I have obeyed the voice of the Lord, and have gone the way which the Lord sent me, and have brought Agag the king of Amalek, and have utterly destroyed the Amalekites. But the people took of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the chief of the things which should have been utterly destroyed, to sacrifice unto the Lord thy God in Gilgal" (vers. 20, 21).

"To sacrifice unto the Lord thy God," he says. He extenuates his sin by saying it was to sacrifice that they spared the animals. Giving the act a religious motive he thought to evade the guiltiness of his conduct, and to escape its penalty. He says to Samuel, "The Lord thy God." But the man of God cannot be patronized thus. Again Saul tries to shift the responsibility of his act to the shoulders of the people: "The people took of the spoil," he says. How different from David, when he saw the sword of the destroying angel lifted up over the people: "And David spake unto the Lord when he saw the angel that smote the people, and said, Lo, I have sinned, and I have done wickedly: but these sheep, what have they done? Let thy hand, I pray Thee, be against me, and against my father's house" (2 Sam. 24: 17). How David's conduct here stands out in marked and beautiful contrast to his unlovely predecessor! A man after God's own heart, indeed, was David. A man too of candor, generosity, self-abnegation, and willingness to suffer, especially when those to be spared were the beloved people of God. Moses, too, was of a like spirit when he made intercession for guilty Israel, saying, "Yet now, if Thou wilt forgive their sin —; and if not, blot me, I pray Thee, out of thy book which Thou hast written" (Ex. 32: 32). We see this trait in perfection in Him who said to His enemies in Gethsemane's garden, "If ye seek Me, let these (His beloved disciples ) go their way." Here is self-. abnegation in its highest form: "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." Precious Saviour, we would indeed

"All our joy and blessing find

In learning, Lord, of Thee!"

Saul is then made to hear the soul-searching words of the prophet, in answer to his plea that it was for sacrifice he had spared the best of the sheep and oxen:

"And Samuel said, Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry" (vers. 22, 23).

Memorable words! May they be laid to heart and treasured in the minds of all that call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Obedience is the test of loyalty and all true worship, without which all that is represented by sacrifice and fat of rams is worse than nought. "To this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and that trembleth at my word," said Jehovah when they were busily engaged in "building a house to Him," a service which He had not required at their hands, whilst in rebellion against His authority and disobedient to His plain commands ( Isa. 66). There is much of this spirit of Saul in evidence in the professing church to-day, and the Christian reader needs to be warned and kept on his guard against it.

When Saul can no longer deny his disobedience, he says, in a perfunctory kind of way: "I have sinned: for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord, and thy words." But of what worth is such a confession when he, in the same breath, would palliate his sin by saying, "Because I feared the people, and obeyed their voice?" What a king was this to fear the people, and to obey their voice, rather than the voice of God! It is still "the people" that he would make the scapegoat of his transgression. But hear him further: "Now, therefore, I pray thee, pardon my sin, and turn again with me, that I may worship the Lord." How could Samuel do otherwise than say to him, "I will not return with thee: for thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, and the Lord hath rejected thee from being king over Israel," and indignantly turn away from him, as one from whom no good could be expected.

As Samuel turns to leave him, the desperate king lays hold upon the skirt of his mantle to detain him; its rending gives the prophet occasion to tell him that so had God rent the kingdom from him and given it to a neighbor of his, or one better than he. This touches him in a tender spot — the loss of his kingdom, and again he tries the subterfuge of a heartless confession: "I have sinned!" He is on the rack, so to speak, and shows the unreality of his extorted confession, by the preposterous request, "Yet honor me now, I pray thee, before the elders of my people, and before Israel, and turn again with me; that I may worship the Lord thy God." He cares little for what Samuel, or even God, may think of him, so long as he may be honored before the elders and the people, and thus continue with a semblance of authority and approbation from their former judge and leader, the prophet, whom he seems to have feared above God himself. He still would be accounted before the multitude as a religious man, and reckoned among the worshipers of Jehovah.

Samuel, in grace and condescension, yields to the king's entreaty, but demands that the person of Agag be brought before him. "And Agag came unto him delicately. And Agag said, Surely the bitterness of death is past." He came delicately, "in a stately manner to show that he was a king, and therefore to be treated with respect, or in a soft effeminate manner, as one never used to hardship . . . to move compassion," says old Matthew Henry; or, as the LXX reads, "he came trembling," as well he might before such a champion for the execution of God's word. If it was the former, he was like the Jezebel who painted her face, to bewitch, or to move to compassion Jehu, Jehovah's executioner of the house of Ahab. But both Agag the Amalekite, and Jezebel the Zidonian may, in their pride, have determined to die as kings and queens to proclaim their royal dignity. Thus do the ungodly, sometimes, even to the end, cling to their supposed distinction, and deceive themselves up to the very hour of going into the presence of Him who "is no respecter of persons." "Surely the bitterness of death is past," he says. Does he yet hope for mercy from the meek and gentle Samuel? Vain hope! for he who can turn in grace with poor Saul, can also smite in judgment the enemy of God and Israel.

"And Samuel said, As thy sword hath made women childless, so shall thy mother be childless among women. And Samuel hewed Agag in pieces before the Lord in Gilgal" (ver. 38).

Samuel the prophet does what Saul the king had failed to do. To unbelief, and minds unsubject to the Word of God, Saul's leniency with Agag was to his credit rather than to his condemnation; and the action of Samuel, to such, seems harsh and unfeeling. But faith does not so judge, nor does the believer question the justice or fittingness of the execution of this murderer of others and representative of that race against which Jehovah had sworn that He would have war forever.

It was not for any tenderness of feeling surely, that Saul spared Agag; for the man that could for an unwitting trespass demand the death of the noble Jonathan, his son, and later have eighty-five innocent priests massacred by his command before his eyes (1 Sam. 22: 18), was not one in whose breast pity had much place. No, it was not for compassion that Saul spared the Amalekite king (little as this would have excused his disobedience), but pride, self-will, and rebellion against the express command of God. Here we leave the wretched man, disowned, rejected of God for his disobedience. We shall meet him again, after many years, and then on the eve of his death, and after the decease of Samuel.

"Then Samuel went to Ramah; and Saul went up to his house to Gibeah of Saul. And Samuel came no more to see Saul until the day of his death: nevertheless Samuel mourned for Saul: and the Lord repented that He had made Saul king over Israel" (vers. 84, 85).

Saul lost in Samuel not only a true and influential friend, but a valuable counsellor as well. He came no more to see him, either to advise or to consult with him over the affairs of the kingdom of privileged Israel. But we see him genuinely mourn over the fall of this once so promising prince. In this he was like that gracious One of whom he was the passing shadow, Messiah, who, when He beheld the city that had refused Him, knowing not the day of her visitation, and that was soon to clamor for His death, wept over it, saying in the sorrow of His heart: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!" Saul, who would not be admonished or persuaded, is now left to his doom; a doom fearful for any man, but especially so for this once privileged and favored king of Israel.

We shall now briefly look at the man of God's choice, David, "the beloved," faithful to the trust committed to him, and foreshadowing Him in whom God found His perfect and eternal delight — "the Man Christ Jesus."

Chapter 15. — His Crowning Act. (1 Samuel 16.)

The anointing of David was the last important and crowning act of Samuel's life; and it was this that God had in mind, since the deposition of the house of Eli (1 Sam. 2: 35).

David is twice alluded to in Samuel's addresses to Saul when declaring to him his sin and consequent rejection by the Lord. He says to him, on the first occasion, "Thy kingdom shall not continue: the Lord hath sought Him a man after his own heart, and the Lord hath commanded him to be captain over his people, because thou hast not kept that which the Lord commanded thee" (1 Sam. 13: 14). The expression, "A man after mine own heart," to which the ungodly have ever taken such exception, and which to them appears so obnoxious — even as Nathan prophesied they would, saying to the guilty though penitent king, "By this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme" (2 Sam. 12: 14); it was nevertheless God's own pronouncement as to David. He is twice so described by Him in the sacred Word. See Acts 13: 22. This is what he was to God, as measured up by Him alone, without reference or allusion to others. In the mention of him the second time by Samuel he is described as in contrast with Saul: "The Lord hath rent the kingdom of Israel from thee this day, and hath given it to a neighbor of thine, that is better than thou" (1 Sam. 15: 28).

"And the Lord said to Samuel, How long wilt thou mourn for Saul, seeing I have rejected him from reigning over Israel? Fill thine horn with oil, and go, I will send thee to Jesse the Bethlehemite; for I have provided Me a king among his sons" (1 Sam. 16: 1.)

Samuel was loth to give up Saul as lost to the nation, and dead to all good and blessing to himself. In this, his grief over the fallen monarch, Samuel was something like the apostle Paul, who said, "I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart . . . for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh" (Rom. 9: 2, 3). God's choicest servants have been men of tenderest feelings, especially in anything that touched the welfare of His people. We do not read of Samuel mourning for his sons' retirement from office, or grieving over his own setting aside by the ungrateful people he had so long and so faithfully served. No; but he mourns for Saul as for one on whom the nation's fondest hopes were set, and whose downfall meant, as would seem, the diminution or downfall of Israel. For Saul's rejection by Jehovah would mean for the nation both shame and sorrow and loss of prestige with the nations about them.

Samuel mourned for Saul, but we do not read that Saul ever mourned for the loss of Samuel's presence and counsel — perhaps he was glad to be rid of the presence of so faithful a reprover of his wrongdoings. Given over by God to hardness of heart, he would be satisfied with the perfunctory ministrations of the priests of the rejected house of Eli. "Ichabod" was written on both by the finger of God.

Noble as it may have been for the prophet to mourn over the fall of this the first of Israel's kings, he nevertheless receives this mild rebuke of Jehovah: "How long wilt thou mourn for Saul, seeing I have rejected him from reigning over Israel? Fill thy horn with oil, and go, I will send thee to Jesse the Bethlehemite: for I have provided Me a king among his sons" (1 Sam. 16: 1). This is the first inkling Samuel has as to the identity of Saul's successor. He now knows both the tribe and the family of which he was to come. The tribe of Judah seems never to have been very enthusiastic over the elevation of Saul to the throne; for in the expedition against the Ammonites for the relief of Jabesh-gilead, they furnished but 30,000 troops, while the forces sent from the other tribes numbered 300,000 — a very marked disproportion when it is remembered how numerous Judah was compared with the other tribes of Israel. (See Num. 1.) They, perhaps, remembered the dying prophecy of their father Jacob, how he spoke of the sceptre not departing from Judah, and so would not have much confidence in the permanency of the power of this Saul of Benjamin. A knowledge of Scripture, and especially of prophetic Scripture (man's thoughts to the contrary), is often of very great service even in things pertaining to this life, as many since Samuel's day have abundantly proved.

The tribe of Judah, the family of Jesse, and the town of Bethlehem are designated to Samuel as whence this man chosen of God, by God alone, was to come, who was to rule His people Israel and accomplish all His will So to Bethlehem he is sent. But he fears the wrath of Saul, and says, "How can I go? If Saul hear it, he will kill me." And Jehovah, in His tenderness and consideration for His servant's but too well-founded fears, says to him:

"Take an heifer with thee, and say, I am come to sacrifice to the Lord. And call Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will show thee what thou shalt do; and thou shalt anoint unto Me him whom I name unto thee" (1 Sam. 16: 2, 3).

The prophet knew the murderous heart of Saul, and reposed no confidence in him, especially in anything that touched his tenure of the kingdom. Smarting from the rebuke passed upon him in the matter of the Amalekites, he probably would neither forget nor forgive the pronouncement of the prophet concerning God's rejection of him as king and captain of His people. Yet such was Samuel that he could mourn, even to excess, for the man whom he knew would not hesitate to kill him if the occasion offered. God instructs His servant therefore how to go about the business without exciting the suspicion either of Saul or his officers. This is not deception, as some have imagined, for Jehovah is a God of truth, and would never resort to deceit in any form or for any purpose whatsoever; and though for man, who would so quickly sit in judgment on God's acts, it is easy and natural enough to lie, with God this is "impossible." "God orders him to protect himself with a sacrifice; Say, 'I am come to sacrifice,' which was true, and proper that he should when he came to anoint a king (1 Sam. 11: 15). As a prophet, he might sacrifice when and where God appointed. In truth he came to sacrifice, though having also a further end, which he saw fit to conceal."*

{*Matthew Henry.}

Samuel obediently does as the Lord directs, and on his approach to Bethlehem the elders of the town ask anxiously, "Comest thou peaceably?" "They trembled at his coming," we read. There was little security for either life or property under the rule of Saul, and the fearsome elders know not what this coming of the prophet to their town might bode or signify. But while it is true that "there is no peace to the wicked," Samuel has no controversy either of his own or for the king, and in answer to their anxious inquiry returns them an answer of peace. "Peaceably," he says: "I am come to sacrifice unto the Lord: sanctify yourselves, and come with me to the sacrifice. And he sanctified Jesse and his sons, and called them to the sacrifice." After this, in the privacy of Jesse's home, as it seems, or in the presence of the elders only (for it surely would not be publicly), he has all the sons of Jesse to pass in review before him.

Eliab, the eldest, comes first; and Samuel, off his guard for the moment, or forgetting his former disappointment in the splendid appearance of Saul, says, "Surely the Lord's anointed is before Him." How quickly we forget the lessons of former experiences; and how prone we are to look "on the outward appearance," and so be repeatedly deceived. Paul "in presence" was "base" among his children in the faith at Corinth, and for this they were foolishly inclined to discount his power and worth, and be carried away with men who gloried in appearance. It was these very men who wickedly sought to undermine Paul's influence with the saints, insinuating that his "bodily presence" was "weak and his speech contemptible" (2 Cor. 10). Thus it has ever been and will be till the coming of the Antichrist, who "shall come in his own name,'"' and of whom the handsome Absalom was a fitting type. Of that meek and lowly One who came in His Father's name, it was written, "He hath no form nor comeliness, and when we shall see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him." So Jehovah says to the mistaken prophet,

"Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature . . . for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart" (1 Sam. 16: 7).

When all the sons of Jesse have been made to pass before him, Samuel says to Jesse, "The Lord hath not chosen these." And then he asks,

"Are here all thy children? And he said, There remaineth yet the youngest, and, behold, he keepeth the sheep. And Samuel said unto Jesse, Send and fetch him: for we will not sit down till he come hither. And he sent and brought him in. Now he was ruddy, and withal of a beautiful countenance, and goodly to look to. And the Lord said, Arise, anoint him; for this is he" (chap. 16: 11,12).

Here, for the first time, we behold the "man after God's own heart," this "neighbor" of Saul's who was "better than he." And the introduction occurs at a most fitting time, at a family sacrificial feast. These feasts were evidently popularized, if not introduced, by Samuel, and their establishment was not the least of the blessings this good man's influence brought to Israel.

So little thought of was David by other members of the family, that he was not called to the banquet at which such a distinguished personage as Samuel was to preside — a rare opportunity indeed to hear his wisdom and profit by his holy conversation. But, "a prophet is not without honor save in his own country, and in his own house." It was thus with David's Antitype — "great David's Greater Son," "for neither did His brethren believe in Him" (John 7: 5). David seems to have been discounted in his family not only for his younger years, but for his appearance, for he did not appear as suitable material for warriors (1 Sam. 17: 28), who were at a premium in those troublous times of frequent Philistine invasions. Jesse himself seems to have been somewhat of a militarist, as witness his present of "ten cheeses" to the colonel under whom his sons were serving (1 Sam. 17: 18); so minding the sheep was considered fit service for the youngest of the family. Nor was it a large flock, but being "faithful in that which is least," God would entrust him with greater matters. "He chose David also his servant, and took him from the sheepfolds: from following the ewes great with young, He brought him to feed Jacob his people, and Israel his inheritance" (Ps. 78: 70, 71). Behold this tender youth following his father's flock with watchful, gentle eye on them. This marked him out as a man specially suited to be the "shepherd of Israel," a fitting type of Him who was to be "the Shepherd of the sheep."

What high honor God put upon Samuel in sending him to anoint the man "after God's own heart," of whom God spake, saying, "I have laid help upon one who is mighty; I have exalted one chosen out of the people. I have found David my servant; with my holy oil I have anointed him" (Ps. 89: 19, 20). God had in vision spoken to His holy prophet Samuel, and it was indeed the crowning event of his life to be permitted to pour the holy anointing oil upon the head of David the beloved.

Then "Samuel rose up, and went to Ramah." Our chapter leaves him retiring to the home of his childhood, in the seclusion of his house in Ramah, whence he might wait patiently and in faith for the better days to be ushered in through David.

Chapter 16. — His Death and After. (1 Samuel 19: 18-24; 25: 1; 28: 7-20.)

After the anointing of David we hear no more of Samuel, except incidentally, till the day of his death, some sixteen years later. David, driven out from the court of Saul, and forced to flee from his very wife and home, turns for refuge, not to his kindred in Bethlehem, nor to the many thousands in Israel who had lauded him so loudly for his exploits, but to his aged and trusted friend Samuel. Even his wife Michal (though she really loved him and braved her royal father's wrath to screen him) unthinkingly adds to the odium his enemies heaped upon him by saying, "He said unto me, Let me go; why should I kill thee?" As another has said, "David suffered both from friends and foes," as did his Lord after him.

"So David fled, and escaped, and came to Samuel to Ramah and told him all that Saul had done to him. And he and Samuel went and dwelt in Naioth."

He felt that the man of God was one in whom he could implicitly trust, and would prove himself to be indeed "a friend in need." Samuel is not like the priest Ahimelech in chapter 21, who "was afraid at the meeting of David, and said unto him, Why art thou alone, and no man with thee?" No; he was in the current of God's thoughts and well understood how matters were between Saul the rejected of God, and David His anointed. Unhesitatingly Samuel received David and identified himself with him, "not fearing the wrath of the king." He changed his quarters from Ramah to Naioth — a suburb of Ramah, probably, and a school of the prophets, some think.

"And it was told Saul, saying, Behold, David is at Naioth in Ramah. And Saul sent messengers to take David." But when the messengers arrive and see Samuel standing in the midst of the prophets, overcome by the power of the Spirit they all begin to prophesy. Saul sends yet other messengers and it happens to them as to the first; when he sends the third time it is the same with these.

"Then went he also to Ramah . . . and he asked and said, Where are Samuel and David? And one said, Behold, they be at Naioth in Ramah. And he went thither to Naioth in Ramah: and the Spirit of God was upon him also, and he went on, and prophesied, until he came in to Naioth in Ramah. And he stripped off his clothes also, and prophesied before Samuel in like manner, and lay down naked all that day, and all that night. Wherefore they say, Is Saul also among the prophets?" (1 Sam. 19: 22-24).

"Where are Samuel and David" the king demands in his wrath. He links their names together as joint traitors to the crown, and it is to the prophet's everlasting honor that he was classed with David's enemies as being one with him — identified with the man-rejected one in his life's darkest hour. It had been the crowning act of his life to anoint him, and it is now the closing act of his life to protect him from the rage of Saul, whom he was soon to supersede.

The next notice of Samuel is his death.

"And Samuel died; and all the Israelites were gathered together, and lamented him, and buried him in his house at Ramah. And David arose, and went down to the wilderness of Paran" (1 Sam. 25:1).

In the wise ordering of God, Samuel's decease just at the time of Saul's partial or pretended reconciliation to David, is recorded in the previous chapter. This lull in the storm of persecution against his friend was a suited time for the prophet's demise. Matters in the kingdom were quiet for the moment, and would not only give the prophet opportunity to say his farewell words of advice and affection to David, and other of his friends, but it permitted also his having a national burial at which all Israel might attend. David was evidently present, as may be gathered from the final clause of the verse, "And David arose and went down to the wilderness of Paran."

How gracious of God thus to let His aged and faithful servant end his days in peace and quietness, and be buried in a manner befitting one worthy of the highest honors the nation could bestow. So in him we see fulfilled the faithful word, "Them that honor Me I will honor, and they that despise Me shall be lightly esteemed."

Would that we might leave this friend of God, and ours, resting in honor and peace in the sepulchre of his fathers. But once more he is to appear in the sad circumstances of Saul's apostasy and utter rejection by God, when in his desperation he once more inquired of him whose godly counsels he had refused.

In the gruesomeness of the story of "the witch of Endor" we find Saul in extremity desirous of communicating with the dead, and he asks, "Bring me up Samuel." To her surprise and consternation, Samuel appears, and she cries to Saul, in her terror, "Why hast thou deceived me? — for thou art Saul."

"And the king said unto her, Be not afraid; for what sawest thou? And the woman said unto Saul, I saw gods ascending out of the earth. And he said unto her, What form is he of? And she said, An old man cometh up; and he is covered with a mantle. And Saul perceived that it was Samuel, and he stooped with his face to the ground, and bowed himself" (1 Sam. 28: 13, 14).

Yes, he bows himself now before the spirit of the prophet; but too late. He had refused his admonitions in life, and now from the grave he is to hear his final doom pronounced.

"And Samuel said to Saul, Why hast thou disquieted me, to bring me up? And Saul answered, I am sore distressed; for the Philistines make war against me, and God is departed from me, and answereth me no more, neither by prophets, nor by dreams: therefore I have called thee, that thou mayest make known unto me what I shall do" (1 Sam. 28: 15).

Poor wretched man! He asks advice now of him whose counsels he had hitherto refused to obey, but like Esau who had despised the blessing," he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears." "Wherefore then dost thou ask of me, seeing the Lord is departed from thee, and is become thine enemy?" Samuel asks the God-abandoned man. He then reminds him of the words he had told in his unwilling ears many years before:

"The Lord hath done for himself (margin) as He spake by me: for the Lord hath rent the kingdom out of thy hand, and given it to thy neighbor, even to David: because thou obeyedst not the voice of the Lord, nor executedst His fierce wrath upon Amalek, therefore hath the Lord done this thing unto thee this day" (1 Sam. 28: 17, 18).

He then tells him of the overthrow of the host of Israel on the morrow, and the death of himself and his sons. Poor Saul! He feels the pangs and bitterness of death before-hand. He reaps already something of his sowing. "Moreover," the prophet says, "the Lord will also deliver Israel with thee into the hand of the Philistines: and to-morrow shalt thou and thy sons be with me." Saul is made to know, not only of his approaching end, but that of his sons also, that he might know for a surety that his house should not continue.

Twice he is told of the coming defeat of his army and the triumph of the Philistines. Thus he is to carry with him to the grave the knowledge of the utter ruin into which his departure from God had plunged the nation.

"Then Saul fell straightway all along on the earth, and was sore afraid, because of the words of Samuel." Alas! for many weary years he had despised the counsel of the Lord through His holy prophet; now his end is near. He is made to know it, and terror lays hold upon him, prostrating him to the ground like one dead. The pangs awaiting him in the future have begun, as a glimpse of the life to come.

Our tracings of the life of Samuel end here. His holy, blameless life, replete with wholesome lessons of fidelity, devotedness and trust in God was not an uneventful, quiet one. He rests from his labors, but it is ours to continue the conflict against the powers of darkness, and like him, may we stand in the breach, do what in us lies to serve God, and love and intercede for His beloved though oft straying people.

Staff and Sceptre

Staff and Sceptre

Six Addresses on Some of the principal scenes in the life of David.

by Christopher Knapp.

Preface

The addresses contained in this little volume have been delivered at various times and in different places. They are published in the hope that in a permanent form they may prove helpful to many.

While essentially fundamental in their character, the Addresses cover a wide range of simple truth, and they are intended for the instruction of believers as well as for the awakening of the unconverted.

May the great "Lord of the Harvest" set His approving seal upon them, and bless their publication to the help and joy of many souls.

C. Knapp, 44 Central Avenue, January, 1899. Albany, N. Y.

Contents

David and Goliath. (1 Samuel 17: 1-29)

David and Jonathan (1 Samuel 17: 38 — 18: 4; 19: 1-7; 20: 41 42.)

David and His Four Hundred Men. (1 Samuel 22.)

David and the Young Man of Egypt. (2 Samuel 30: 1-25).

David and Mephibosheth. (2 Samuel 9.)

David, Ziba, and Mephibosheth. (2 Samuel 16: 2-4; 19: 24-30.)

1. David and Goliath.

1 Samuel 17: 1-28.

As I go about I meet with many professing Christians who scarcely ever look into the Old Testament. They call it "the Old Bible," and seem to look upon it as they look upon a thing of the past. This is a great mistake. There is but one Bible, made up of two Testaments, the Old and the New. And we must not set up one against the other. The Old Testament is inspired as fully as the New. It is "Scripture" equally with the New Testament. And the apostle Paul writes that all Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine," etc. (2 Tim. 3: 16). The Old Testament Scriptures were written for our profit, and Christians suffer loss if they neglect them.

The Old Testament is like a great picture-book. And in the New Testament we have the living realities of all those pictures. It is a book of types and shadows. The New Testament contains the antitypes and substance of these types and shadows. Thus what is enfolded in the Old Testament is unfolded in the New.

Now the life of David abounds with typical incidents, and may God, by His Spirit, open them up to our souls as we glance at them one by cam. This seventeenth chapter of 1st Samuel contains a series of animated scenes.

First of all, we have two companies or classes of people. "And the Philistines stood on a mountain on the one side, and Israel stood on a mountain on the other side: and there was a valley between them (ver. 3). The Israelites were the people of God; the Philistines were not His people. And so it is to-day. There are, before God, but two classes: the saved and the lost. One class have been converted; the other class still tread the downward road. One class have become "the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus"; the other class are still, as by nature, "the children of wrath" (Gal. 3: 26; Eph. 2: 3).

There is no middle class. Scripture makes that plain. Listen: "He that believeth on Him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already." And again: "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him" (John 3: 18, 36). You are a believer or an unbeliever; you are free from condemnation or condemned already; you have everlasting life or the wrath of God abides upon you. Which is it? Some say, "I'm on the fence." That cannot be, because there is no fence. A valley lay between the Israelites and the uncircumcised. And a distance that no line can measure God has put between His people and the world.

In this hand I hold a counterfeit dollar. In the other is a genuine one. I have no third hand, and I do not need one, for there is no coin between the two. True, some counterfeits may have more silver in them than some others, but if they lack the stamp of the government mint they are no true coins. And you are saved or lost to-night. Don't begin to tell me of your goodness, your character, etc. New birth puts the stamp of heaven upon God's saints. And if this is lacking in your case, you are lost as much as any thief or murderer. In a certain sense your character and goodness have some value. I do not mean a saving value. Every bit of silver is of some worth in the counterfeit. But the "one thing lacking" is not a certain amount of silver in the make-up of the coin, but the stamp of the government of the United States. And so it is with you, if unconverted. You are no real child of God at all. It is not a question of your goodness or your badness. Whether you are of the very cream of society or help make up the scum of civilization, "ye must be born again" (John 3: 7).

Quaint John Berridge had this legend chiseled on his tombstone:

"Reader, art thou born again?

Remember, no salvation without a new birth."

We notice next that each of these companies had a leader. King Saul was leader of the Israelites; Goliath of Gath seems to have been captain of the Philistines. And as there are two companies only in this world, so each of these two companies has its leader. The Lord Jesus is the Leader of His own redeemed. He is called "the Captain of their salvation" (Heb. 2: 10). And the devil is the "god" and "prince of this world" (2 Cor. 4: 4; John 14: 30). "No man can serve two masters." There are but two, Christ and Satan. If you are unsaved, Satan is your master. If converted, you give Christ that place. The human race has been divided in two companies. These companies each stand ranged beneath the leadership of either the Son of God or the devil. One party stands beneath the black flag of hell; over the other floats the golden "banner of love." And you, my friend, are standing under one of these two banners. Don't deny it.

We remark again that there was war between the Israelites and the Philistines. There can be no honorable alliance between the Christian and the unbeliever. There is not exactly enmity between them, but there must be no fellowship or concord. In the very beginning we have a hint of this. "God divided the light from the darkness" (Gen. 1: 4). And the apostle Paul, writing to the Ephesians, says: "Ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord" (Eph. 5: 8). The Lord God said to the serpent in the garden; "I will put enmity between thee and the woman and between thy seed and her seed" (Gen. 3: 5). The Church and the world are not to walk together. "Can two walk together except they be agreed?" asks the herdsman-prophet of Tekoa. "No," answers the apostle of the Gentiles; "for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? and what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel?" [or unbeliever] (2 Cor. 6: 14, 15.) The world agrees to reject the Son of God. Can the Church agree to this? The Church has agreed to own the lordship of Christ. The world refuses to do this. How, then, can there be fellowship or agreement? There can be none. As daylight and dark, as heat and cold, as fire and water, so are "the children of God" and "the children of this world." This important subject will come up again before us as we go along, and so I leave it here.

Next we notice the champion, the terrified and the conqueror. Goliath is the champion, the Israelites are the terrified, and David the shepherd-boy, becomes the conqueror.

First we have the champion. He was a mighty giant, more than nine feet tall. He wore "an helmet of brass upon his head," and was armored with "a coat of mail," like a monster turtle. He was thoroughly prepared to fight, and "the staff of his spear was like a weaver's beam." His legs and shoulders were thoroughly protected, and the weight of his armor and his spear's head were something enormous. In all his pride and power he stands and cries defiantly for a man to fight with him. None dare accept his challenge. "When Saul and all Israel heard those words of the Philistine they were dismayed and greatly afraid" (ver. 11).

I take Goliath here to be a sort of representative of Satan wielding "the power of death." A massive sword is in his hands, with which he terrifies the Israelites. Though terrified, they were Jehovah's people as a nation, and they stood in outward nearness and relationship to Him. Now, in Heb. 2: 14, 15, we are told that Satan, before the cross, had "the power of death," and that God's saints, "through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage." That passage throws a flood of light upon this chapter. Unconverted men and even unestablished Christians fear to die. Now, why is this? One verse from the New Testament supplies the answer. "The sting of death is sin" (1 Cor. 15: 56). Conscience accuses. Men fear to die because they know that they are sinners, and that God must punish sin. Their conscience tells them this, however indistinctly, and the Bible tells them plainly when they read it, because of which, therefore, they seldom do read it. Newspapers and novels are crowding out the word of God. But Scripture says, "The wages of sin is death," and "after death the judgment."

But it is saints that we have pictured by the terrified here — children of God who do not know redemption. Unconverted men may tremble at the thought of death, but this is not the devil's work. He wants to keep them unconcerned. He hates to see them get alarmed about the "King of terrors." He blinds their minds and tells them not to be afraid. He would fain persuade them that they are "all right," or that there is no God, no judgment and no hell. And if you are unconverted and have no fear of death, it is just because you are deceived and kept asleep by Satan. May God arouse your conscience ere it be too late!

Before Christ died and sins were put away, God's people were afraid of death, even the best of them. See good king Hezekiah. The prophet Isaiah announced his death, and he turned his face to the wall and "wept sore" (Isa. 38). All of them feared death more or less. They longed to reach a good old age, and wished to ward off death as long as possible. Jacob complained to Pharaoh of the shortness of his life. None of them had that confidence that we may have since Christ has come and vanquished death and Satan. In the presence of death they were like "Saul and all Israel" before Goliath "dismayed and greatly afraid."

Now the conqueror comes upon the scene. It is David, and he slays the giant. Throughout this section of the word of God he is a striking type of Christ.

We now consider, first, the retirement that David enjoyed; second, the refreshment that he brought; third, the reproach that he suffered; then the reward that he was promised.

First, we have the retirement that David enjoyed. Where was David all the time that the champion of the Philistines was frightening Israel? At his father's house in Bethlehem (ver. 5). Afar from the scene of strife and battle he was enjoying the calm and quiet of his father's house. And tell me, where was Jesus all the time before He came to earth to be the "Man of sorrows"? In His "Father's house" on high, above the sun. Let me quote a verse or two from the first chapter of John's gospel. It begins, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him and without Him was not anything made that was made" (vers. 1-3). There you have the answer. He was "with God." There He had the homage of all heaven. Archangel and angels, cherubim and seraphim, all bowed low in adoration at the feet of God, the Son! Do you know the blackest blasphemer God lets live? It is the man who denies deliberately the eternal deity of Jesus. I say, and say with joy and triumph in the language of the Holy Ghost, "the Word was GOD." Isaiah "saw His glory," and he "spake of Him." He says: "I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and His train filled the temple." And the seraphim cover their faces and their feet, and cry, "Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts." This is their Creator, even the eternal Son of God (Isa. 6).

There is a magnificent passage in the eighth chapter of the book of Proverbs. I will read it. It is wisdom personified that speaks, and Christ is "the wisdom of God." "The Lord possessed me in the beginning of His way, before His works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was. When there were no depths, I was brought forth; when there were no fountains abounding with water. Before the mountains were settled, before the hills was I brought forth. While as yet He had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor, the highest part of the dust of the world. When He prepared the heavens, I was there: when He set a compass upon the face of the depth: when He established the clouds above: when He strengthened the fountains of the deep: when He gave to the sea His decree, that the waters should not pass His commandment: when He appointed the foundations of the earth: then I was by Him as one brought up with Him: and I was daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him: rejoicing in the habitable part of the earth; and my delights were with the sons of men" (Prov. 8: 22-31). Christ was in His Father's bosom as the shepherd-boy was in his father's house.

But David leaves this place. His father sends him to his brethren. And Jesus left His place of bliss on high and came to earth. He was the sent One of the Father. "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son." Again: "The Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world." The world was lost and ruined, yet God loved the guilty sons of men. And He evidenced His love by giving Jesus. "In this was manifested the love of God toward us," John writes, "because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins" (1 John 4: 9, 10). And notice, too, that though David's father sends him to his brethren, he went willingly. "David rose up early in the morning" (ver. 20). He did not hesitate or start with lagging footsteps. He was not driven, but went gladly. And Jesus, though sent of God, came willingly. He says Himself, "the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost" (Luke 19: 10). Paul writes, "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners" (1 Tim. 1: 15). It was His mighty love that brought Him down. It was His love that, like a mighty magnet, drew Him to the cross. Love made Him willing.

What is that love to you, my hearers? How many here have opened their hearts to that love? How many have believed and been wooed and won by such well-proved love? "The love of Christ which passeth knowledge:" It passes knowing fully, and it passes rightly telling, too. The tongue fails and lips prove all too feeble to tell out such love. Perhaps some of you have never known Christ's love. Let me tell you how a man once learned that love. The late lamented Spurgeon was once preaching to a vast audience in Exeter Hall, I think. When the audience had left the building a solitary man of advanced years was found weeping in a seat in the rear of the hall. The floor at his feet was wet with his tears. Some one asked him what part of the sermon it was that had so affected him. "Ah," he sobbed, "I am partially deaf, and did not hear the sermon. But when they sang that hymn, 'Jesus, lover of my soul,' it was too much. I said, 'If He so loves me, why should I live any longer at enmity with Him?' It's such love that makes me weep." Oh, sinner, may that love touch you! Live no longer as an enemy of Jesus. He has never been your enemy. He loved thee, even unto death. May thy poor cold heart be opened to that love, —

"As the rose to the golden sunshine"

Christ came from heaven to win rebel hearts. No man ever loved like Him.

"Son of God, Thy Father's bosom

Ever was Thy dwelling-places

His delight, in Him rejoicing,

One with Him in pow'r and grace.

Oh, what wondrous love and mercy!

Thou didst lay Thy glory by,

And for us didst come from heaven,

As the Lamb of God to die."

Notice, too, the time that David left the retirement of his father's house. Verse 1 6 says that the Philistine "presented himself forty days." Immediately, in the following verse, David's father sends him. Now, the number forty in the word of God denotes the time of trial or testing — man's testing. I will give a few examples. Moses was forty years in the court of Pharaoh; forty years in Midian, and forty years the leader of God's people, Israel. He was forty days and forty nights in the "mount of God." The Israelites were tested forty years in the wilderness. And the Lord Jesus, the second Man, was tested and tried for forty days in the wilderness. And all the time before Christ's advent man was on his trial. This lasted forty centuries — four thousand years. He was first tried in Paradise, and failed. He believed the devil's lie in preference to the truth of God, and was driven from the garden. Outside of Eden he was under conscience, left to himself without God or the Scriptures. The flood, the confusion of tongues and the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah all witness man's utter failure under conscience. This lasted more than twenty centuries. Then for fifteen hundred years God had a people under law. He took them, a nation of slaves in Egypt, and brought them unto Himself. He established them in the garden-spot of all the world. There they had a temple, priests, a ritual, and, best of all, the Holy Scriptures. But they utterly failed to keep the law, and when Jesus, their Messiah, came into their midst, their hearts were full of murder and hypocrisy. The trial of the human race ended with the presence of Jesus in the world. He only came when man had failed and done his worst.

The apostle Paul refers to this. He says: "When the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman," etc. (Gal. 4: 4). The "fulness of the time" was the end of man's probation. Now he is no longer on his trial. His trial is over. Heb. 9: 26 refers to this same time: "But now, once in the end of the ages hath He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself." It is not the end of the world, but the end of the age or ages, i.e., of man's trial and testing. Then Jesus came.

And how did Jesus come into this world? Just as David came unto his brethren — loaded down with blessings.

Next we have therefore the refreshment David brought. His father did not send him empty-handed. "And Jesse said unto David, his son, Take now for thy brethren an ephah of this parched corn, and these ten loaves, and run to the camp to thy brethren. And carry these ten cheeses," etc. (ver. 17). Now, the good things David carried to the camp are like the temporal blessings Jesus brought to Israel. He raised the dead; He made the blind to see and the deaf to hear; He made the tongue of the dumb to sing and the lame man leap as an hart; He satisfied the poor with bread. He came freighted with grace and blessing, and right and left with lavish hand He freely gave these good things to the poor and needy.

And why do you think it speaks of "ten loaves" and "ten cheeses"? I will tell you what I think. Israel had ten commandments. If they kept them they were promised earthly blessings. If they broke them they were cursed. And they always broke them every one, and only earned a curse. But Jesus came to them in grace and brought, as it were, a double blessing, of which they were utterly unworthy, while so deserving of the curse of the insulted and broken law. How precious are these pictures! Oh, for more appreciation of the One of whom they so loudly and so sweetly speak!

But did men care for Jesus when He came? No! He was reproached and refused.

This is pictured in the reproach David suffered. When he came into the camp he met with reproach. "And Eliab his eldest brother, heard when he spake unto the men; and Eliab's anger was kindled against David, and he said, Why comest thou down hither? and with whom hast thou left those few sheep in the wilderness? I know the pride and the naughtiness of thine heart, for thou art come down that thou mightest see the battle" (ver. 28). He is suspected and misunderstood. He was not wanted there. They were glad to get his loaves and cheeses. I am sure of that. They cared for them, but not for David. And when Jesus came men took His temporal blessings. They were glad to get the "loaves and fishes." They were willing to have their sick and dead raised up. But they did not want Himself "He came unto His own and His own received Him not." "He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not." He was rejected from the very first. When He was born "there was no room for Him in the inn." "All Jerusalem" was "troubled" at the tidings of His birth. Herod "sought the young child's life." In the very beginning of His ministry, at "Nazareth, where He had been brought up," He was refused. They "were filled with wrath" "and thrust Him out of the city," and would have cast Him headlong over the precipice. He was refused everywhere and at every turn.

"He came, the heavenly stranger,

A Man of humble birth;

Born in a lowly manger,

Few cared to know His worth."

How it must have grieved and wounded David to be reproached as he was. Eliab's cruel taunt must have stung his sensitive heart to the very quick. And it was His rejection and reproach that made the blessed Son of God "a Man of sorrows" here. Israel would not have Him. He knew He was not wanted. We have all been, at some time or other in our lives, in places where we knew we were not wanted. And it is one of the keenest of all sorrows. The Lord Jesus felt this sorrow everywhere. Some places people did not even care to take Him in. "The foxes have holes," He said on one occasion, "and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man hath not where to lay His head." Isaiah had foretold "His lonely life of sorrow here below." "He hath no form nor comeliness;" he says in behalf of the remnant who refused Him, "and when we shall see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him. He is despised and rejected of men, a Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from Him; He was despised, and we esteemed Him not. Surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted" (Isa. 53: 2-4). "He went about doing good," and never spoke an unkind word. "Never man spake like this Man," the officers said who had been sent to take Him.

But He said, "They hated Me without a cause." They were His "enemies wrongfully." He said again, "I am become a stranger unto My brethren." "They that sit in the gate speak against Me; and I was the song of the drunkards." "Thou hast known My reproach and My shame, and My dishonor." And last and saddest of all, "Reproach hath broken My heart" (Ps. 69).

David's reproach is a faint foreshadow of all this. Twice Eliab speaks of David's coming "down." He did not know that David came to seek his welfare. And so with Jesus. Men did not know what brought Him down from glory. They did not know He came for their eternal welfare. They did not know He came to die. David came to slay the giant and deliver Israel. And Jesus came to vanquish Satan and deliver men from his power and from the "lake of fire."

Ah, friend, don't refuse this Saviour I He came, and, blessed be His name, He bled and died for your eternal welfare. Receive Him now. Just say, "If He so loved me, a sinner, and suffered so for me, I will put my trust in Him. I will no longer shut my heart against Him. Lord Jesus, be my Saviour now!"

"Lamb of God, when we behold Thee

Lowly in the manger laid;

Wand'ring as a homeless stranger

In, the world Thy hands had made;

When we see Thee bruised at Calvary,

In Thine agony and blood;

At Thy grace we are confounded,

Holy, spotless Lamb of God!"

But now we come to the reward that David was promised.

"And the men of Israel said, Have ye seen this man that is come up? Surely to defy Israel is he come up: and it shall be that the man who killeth him, the king will enrich him with great riches, and will give him his daughter, and make his father's house free in Israel. And David spake to the men that stood by him, saying, What shall be done to the man that killeth this Philistine and taketh away the reproach from Israel? for who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God? And the people answered him after this manner, saying, So shall it be done to the man that killeth him" (vers. 25-27). The reward promised to the man who killed the Philistine was a threefold one — great riches, freedom for his father's house, and a bride. And David slew the giant, so he was entitled to this great reward. And Jesus at Calvary triumphed over sin and death and Satan, and must be rewarded for His victory.

The first thing is "great riches." Paul speaks of the "unsearchable riches of Christ." These He won by the conquest of the cross. He was ever rich, as God, of course. Nothing can be added to His riches or His glory in this view of Him. But as Man, He has been here on earth and won high honors — laurels that shall rest upon His blessed brow throughout eternity.

This illustration has been given. There is a mighty prince who, by his birth, has come into possession of vast treasures and estates. These he has by natural inheritance. They are his because of who he is. But he goes forth as a warrior, and, conquering everywhere, wins additional wealth and glory such as he would never have possessed had he remained at home. What he has done secures him these. Now he has a two-fold glory — one essential and the other acquired. And thus it is with Jesus. As the eternal Son of the Father, He has a glory all His own. It is His essential Godhead glory in which no creature can have part. But as Man in this world He has won honors, glories and riches such as He can and does share with His own redeemed and loved ones. Such are the riches He has won. And with these "great riches" He enriches all who trust Him as their Saviour. "All things are yours," the apostle says. Again he says, "For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that ye through His poverty might be rich" (2 Cor. 8: 9). "He was rich," it says, yet for our sakes "He became poor." Now, how, it may be asked, did Jesus become poor? He became poor in several ways. He was poor in this world's goods. His parents were poor. At His circumcision they took advantage of the special provision made "in the law of the Lord" for the poor. Too poor to afford a lamb, they offered in its stead "a pair of turtle doves or two young pigeons" (Luke 2: 24; Lev. 12: 8). He was a carpenter's son, without an education (John 7: 15). And on one occasion He did not possess a penny, even. He had to say, "Show Me a penny" (Luke 20: 24). As He went about fulfilling His ministry, "certain women" "ministered to Him of their substance" (Luke 8: 2, 3). And His poverty continued to the very end. His coat, for which the soldiers gambled, was such as only the poorest wore. "It was without seam, woven from the top throughout" (John 19: 23). So literally He was poor. And He became poor in another sense, too. He was the rightful heir to the throne of Israel, yet (for a time) He gave it up, that we poor Gentiles, through His poverty, might be made forever rich. The wealthiest of men are wretchedly poor without Christ. And the saint, possessing Christ (and with Him everything), is immensely rich, even though compelled to toil for daily bread.

I remember a friend telling me once of a wealthy nobleman. He possessed extensive estates which nearly all lay in a vale. His own residence was also there. In this vale there lived a poor, though happy and consistent old Christian. He supported himself by breaking stones on this nobleman's estates. A serious sickness one day seized upon the nobleman, and he was soon sinking rapidly. One night he was very low. The physicians shook their heads and held out little hope. That night the nobleman dreamed an angel came to him and told him that the richest man in all the vale would die that night. This terrified him. "My time is come," thought he, "for I am by far the richest man in all the vale." His conscience was aroused, and he passed a terrible night of mental agony. Every moment he expected the summons that would usher him into eternity. But the night passed and morning came. He was still alive and the fever had taken a turn for the better. All day long he lay wondering at his dream. Could it be, after all, but the product of a fevered and disordered brain, and not a message from God at all? He began to think so when word was brought to him that the old Christian stone-breaker had died the previous night. "Ah," said he at once, "now I understand it. My dream was true. The richest man in all the vale did die last night. But it was not I, with all my worldly wealth, but that godly stone-breaker, 'rich in faith,' and 'rich toward God'" (James 2: 5; Luke 12: 21). Hast thou these riches, friend? If thou hast Christ, then thou possessest untold treasure.

"In Christ" the believer has everything. His apprehension of it is another thing. Suppose I am a poor beggar, and, by a relative heretofore unknown to me, I am left a fortune. I receive it thankfully. It is mine the moment I receive it, though I am utterly ignorant of its value. But it is all mine, I know, so I proceed to a quiet corner and there open the papers and, step by step, learn what is mine. I count and add, and as I do so I am amazed at the wealth my benefactor has left me. Now, the moment a sinner receives Christ by faith, He has everything. "All things are yours" is as true of him then as it was of the apostle Paul, when He wrote at the gate of heaven, "I have finished my course, I have kept the faith." And searching the Scriptures and learning the blessedness of all who believe is like the beggar counting out the riches of his inheritance. Christians who do this enjoy their heavenly riches.

So never mind how poor you are in this world's goods, dear fellow-believer. The apostle says: "As poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things" (2 Cor. 6: 10). And the Lord Jesus says to His suffering saints in Smyrna, "I know thy poverty, but thou art rich" (Rev. 2: 9). He, as we sing, "shares all He possesses with His loved co-heirs." Believers are said to be "heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ" (Rom. 8: 17). May some poor sinner be made rich to-night.

Next there was freedom for the conqueror's father's house. Henceforth it was to be a house under special honors. They may represent the elect of God. All who come to Christ are given Him of the Father. They have been "predestinated unto the adoption of children." They were by nature and by practice slaves of Satan and of sin, but have been set at liberty. Christ died that they might be free. By His glorious victory over death He obtained freedom for every member of His "Father's house."

The unconverted are slaves of Satan. The Lord Jesus says to Paul, when He commissions him for his work, that the Gentiles were to be turned "from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God" (Acts 26: 18). The Colossians were delivered "from the power of darkness and translated into the Kingdom of God's dear. Son" (Col. 1: 13). Satan rules outside the Kingdom mentioned here. All outside this Kingdom are beneath the power of Satan. Baptism will not put you in this Kingdom; the human rite of confirmation does not do it; taking the sacrament cannot effect it. To "enter into" or even "see" this Kingdom, "ye must be born again" (John 3). If unconverted, you are Satan's servant. He holds you in the iron bonds of lust and sin. And he pays his subjects bitter wages. "The wages of sin is death" (Rom. 6: 23).

Hear an oft-told parable. There was once a certain tyrant. Among his wretched subjects was a blacksmith. One day this poor blacksmith was ordered into the tyrant's presence. "Go to your forge," said the tyrant, "and make a chain link. Make it strong, and bring it to me. I will give you wages for your work." So the blacksmith went to his forge and made the link. He brought it to the tyrant, who ordered him to make another like it and to fasten them together. He returned to his forge and did as he was bidden. He was ordered by his master to continue making links until a chain was made. Every day he hoped to get his wages. At last the chain was finished. "Now," said the cruel tyrant, "you shall have your wages." He ordered his guards to bind the miserable blacksmith with the chain his hands had fashioned, and had him cast into a dungeon. The parable is this: That tyrant is the devil. The blacksmith is yourself, if unconverted. Every sin you commit in the service of Satan is like a link to the chain that is to be fastened about your soul as you are cast into the darkness of hell forever. "Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness," knells the sinner's final doom. May God save any present from a fate so awful I Christ alone can set the sinner free.

"He breaks the power of reigning sin,

And sets the sinner free."

"If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed" (John 8: 36).

I read some time ago a newspaper account of a skeleton found in a cave in the Indian Territory. On the bleached wristbones of the skeleton were a pair of rusty handcuffs. They told a tale: the man had died in bondage. And I thought of men dying with the devil's manacles of sin upon their souls. Oh, poor soul, there is deliverance for you. Jesus by His death acquired the right and power to set the captives of the devil free. "Only believe." Paul once groaned out in agony, "O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" Then he looked to Christ, the great Deliverer, and exclaimed: "I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Rom. 7: 24, 25). "Thou shalt call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins" (Matt. 1: 21). "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved" Acts 16: 31).

Last of all, the man who killed the Philistine was to have a princess for a bride. Saul's daughter was to be given in marriage to the happy man. And Christ, by His victorious death, has obtained for Himself a bride — the Church. The apostle says, speaking of the Church under the figure of a wife: "Christ also loved the Church and gave Himself for it" (Eph. 5: 25). Christ's bride is "the Church of God, which He hath purchased with the blood of His Own" (Acts 20: 28, N.T.). This is the Church I believe in, and of this blood-bought Church I am a member. People sometimes say, "What Church are you a member of?" I say, "The only Church there is." "That sounds like bigotry," you say. I reply that it is not bigotry; it is the Bible. "What is the name of this Church?" perhaps you ask." I answer, "It has four names." "Four names?" you say. "Indeed! What are they, pray?" It is called in the first epistle to Timothy, third chapter and fifteenth verse, "the house of God." It is called in the first epistle to the Corinthians, third chapter and seventeenth verse, "the temple of God." It is called, in the same epistle, twelfth chapter and twenty-seventh verse, "the body of Christ." And in the Revelation, twenty-first chapter and ninth verse, it is called "the bride, the Lamb's wife." It is richly endowed, and firmly established; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. This is the only Church of which we read in Scripture.

I am done. To-morrow evening we will see how David meets and slays the Philistine, if God permit.

2. David and Jonathan. 1 Samuel 17: 38 — 18: 4; 1 Samuel 19: 1-7; 1 Samuel 20: 41, 42.

David is one of the most interesting characters in all the Old Testament. We can view him in a twofold way — personally and typically. Now I wish you to view him with me only in a typical way to-night. Viewed personally, he is an instructive example of holy courage and confidence in God. But I think it best to look at him only in a typical way throughout these addresses. Viewing him personally, we admire the man; looking at him as a type, we adore the One he typifies, or represents.

I remember speaking once in Canada on David, in this section of the Scriptures, as a type of Christ. At the close an aged Scotch lady said as she grasped my hand, "Aye, wee David were a bonny brave lad when he killet the Philistine." I was disappointed. She had missed the whole drift of my discourse, thinking only of David personally, and ignoring him in his typical character entirely. Too many read the Old Testament only in this way, to their serious loss.

In the closing section of the seventeenth chapter which I have read, David meets and slays the mighty champion of the Philistines. For forty days, morning and evening, he had been presenting himself, frightening Israel and defying "the armies of the living God." None dared accept his challenge; all feared to meet him. Then David appears in the nick of time and saves Jehovah's cause.

Now, as we saw last night, David slaying the Philistine in the valley of Elah is a type of Jesus triumphing over all the powers of sin and death and Satan by the cross.

Let us notice how he conquers. He does not meet the adversary as a warrior but in the simple character of a shepherd, which he really was. He puts Saul's armor off and lays aside his sword. He takes his "staff" and his "five smooth stones" in "a shepherd's bag." Then with a stone from his sling, he smites the Philistine with death. And as a shepherd Jesus met our mighty foe at Calvary. I am the good Shepherd," He says, "The good Shepherd giveth His life for the sheep" (John 10: 11). As feeble sheep we had no power against our wolfish adversary. Our blessed Saviour meets him and by death defeats him. And the sheep go free. Thank God for everyone in this room to-night who can say, "The Lord is my Shepherd." Oh, that you, my unsaved friend, might say it ere you leave your seat. Jesus would receive thee as a frightened sheep. He would rejoice and say, "I have found My sheep which was lost."

David takes five smooth stones from the brook and with one of these he slays Goliath. There have been many speculations as to the meaning of these "five smooth stones." I will give you what I learn from them. Notice where he gets them, — in the brook. Now water in Scripture often symbolizes death. For instance, the Red Sea is a type of Christ's death. Jordan also symbolizes death. The waters of baptism strikingly signify death. Believers are baptized unto Christ's death. They are viewed as dead with Christ and confess it by baptism.

"We are buried! with Him, by baptism unto death" (Rom. 6: 4). The water there is death. The Lord Jesus went down into death as David went down into the brook. And there He received five wounds as David got five stones. His hands, His feet, and side were pierced. All this, of course, is only a suggestion. I do not ask you if you understand it so. I have a more important question. Can you say, "He was wounded for my transgressions"?

When all is ready, David, with his simple weapon, advances towards the Philistine. But Goliath of Gath disdains him. "And when the Philistine looked about, and saw David, he disdained him; for he was but a youth, and ruddy, and of a fair countenance. And the Philistine said unto David, Am I a dog, that thou comest to me with staves? And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. And the Philistine said to David, Come to me, and I will give thy flesh to the fowls of the air, and to the beasts of the field" (vers. 42-44). But he never boasts again. A well directed stone from David's sling sinks into his forehead and his huge form lies stretched in death upon the ground.

And notice, David did not hesitate. Verse 48 says, "And it came to pass, when the Philistine arose, and came and drew nigh to meet David, that David hasted, and ran toward the army to meet the Philistine." He "hasted" and "ran." This is like the blessed Lord. "He set His face like a flint to go toward Jerusalem." He knew the awful conflict He would pass through there. But nothing could turn Him back. God's glory and the safety of the sheep necessitate His death and He will go.

"Oh, sing of the Shepherd that died,

That died for the sake of the flock;

His love to the utmost was tried,

But firmly endured as a rock.

When blood from a victim must flow,

This Shepherd by pity was led

To stand between us and the foe,

And willingly died in our stead."

Now, let us look at Jonathan as one who reaps real benefit from David's victory. He aptly represents the Christian who has reaped eternal benefit from Christ's victory over death.

Jonathan must have passed through at least three different states of mind on this occasion. He was at first terrified, then satisfied, and lastly, captivated. Let us take them one by one, because they illustrate three different states of soul in Christians.

He was terrified. We are sure of this. It says, "And all the men of Israel, when they saw the man, fled from him, and were sore afraid" (ver. 24). "All the men of Israel," took in Jonathan. He was terrified like all the rest. Now death has frightened every one who has been born again. The best of men fear death, without the knowledge of redemption. Conscience of sins makes men afraid to die. Few care to think of death. Some years ago a Chicago undertaker placed a coffin on the sidewalk before his shop. He meant is as an advertisement and it was, but not as he expected, or desired. Those who were compelled to pass his place were angry and requested him to take the coffin in and out of sight. This he refused to do. Then the residents of the street petitioned the mayor, who compelled the unthinking undertaker to remove the casket. That tells a story. The coffin made the people think of death. The covetous merchant, hurrying to his place of business, and hoping to become a millionaire, perhaps, and reaching a ripe old age, was shocked to see that grim reminder of "the wages of sin." The gay young men and women, passing down the street towards the theatre or the ball-room did not like to see it. Drunkards and libertines, with any conscience left, were troubled at the sight. And so the unconscious preacher must be silenced by being hastened out of sight. I remember once, when a mere lad I spent a large part of one day in a cemetery. That night I slept but little. My conscience was aroused. Awake, or in my troubled dreams, I thought I saw those ghost-like tombstones. I thought of the time when I must die, and I knew at the time I was not fit to dwell with God.

Sinner, death is on your track. Die you must! And after death comes judgment. Death is man's great enemy. He is after you, my unconverted friend. May you get terrified before it is too late. If you die in your sins, your soul, the moment it leaves the body, will descend, like a flash of light, to hell. Be awakened now. Don't be like the silly ostrich, which, when pursued, they say, sticks its head in the sand, and thinks itself safe because it cannot see its enemy. What folly to shut your eyes and go dreaming, in carnal security, on your way to perdition.

Death is a fearful thing. It is the judgment of God upon man, because of sin. Death came in by sin. "Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men," etc. (Rom. 5: 12). There was no such thing in all the world till Adam sinned. Now we see the stamp of death on everything. Every child born into the world is born under the sentence of death. Men live all their lives beneath its sentence. I know they try to think of death as a sort of accident. Often the innocent physician gets the blame. It is a troublesome intruder, of course, but they must make the best of it. So they summon the florist to their aid. They strew flowers on the coffin and the tomb is decked with roses. And the preacher must not breathe one word about death being the wages of sin." And I notice, too, that now, instead of solid black, they mingle violet with the crape. Ah, if only some wonderful man of science could devise means to do away with death entirely, but they cannot. They boast of progress, but I notice men are dying just as fast as ever, and if not a little faster. Wonderful strides have been made in surgery and medicine, but men and women die younger, on an average, than they did one hundred years ago, when they were not so smart. Oh, that men, instead of painting death in colors, false and gay, would submit to the truth and prepare for what awaits them!

At the breaking out of the late Cuban war a great many Spanish soldiers were attacked with yellow fever. Scores were dying on every hand, and, being Roman Catholics, who believe that the priest is a mediator between God and them, they sent for the priests. In one regiment was a great, strapping infidel. At first, he enjoyed perfect health, and made sport of his comrades' fear of death. But at last he himself was seized with the dread disease, and in a very short time was on his death-bed. Then all his bravado was gone. Just before his soul departed from his body he raised himself in his bed with his little remaining strength, and shrieked in the agony of despair: "O my God, I cannot die! I cannot die!" So he died, like multitudes of others who in health appear to scorn all fear of death. Your time is coming, sinner. Oh, prepare prepare!

After being terrified, Jonathan was satisfied. Everything seems dark till David comes upon the scene. How his eyes follow every movement of the shepherd-boy of Bethlehem as he sees him prepare for the conflict. His weapon seems inadequate — a simple sling. David himself seems like a mere sapling by some mighty oak, in the presence of Goliath. But the giant falls, and with his own massive sword David severs his head from his body. Then he holds it up triumphantly to view, and Jonathan's terror is gone forever — he is satisfied. The giant is dead, and his headless body lies mingled with the clods of the valley. Jonathan is sure, and satisfied.

And the believer by faith looks back to the cross, and sees the Saviour robbing death of all its terrors. "He death by dying slew." The death of Jesus satisfies the troubled conscience. There is no other remedy. Men have manufactured opiates. These are mostly various forms of religious observances' and morals. They may deceive, but they cannot effectually relieve. God's perfect answer to the demands of a troubled conscience is the cross. All who by simple faith rest in what Christ accomplished there have what the apostle calls "no more conscience of sins" (Heb. 10: 2). And they are not afraid of death. I do not mean a physical fear of death. Many who enjoy peace with God about their sins have a kind of dread of the hour of dissolution, when the soul departs the body. But this is purely physical. An Mir believer may be entirely free from all such fear, yet tremble at the thought of meeting God. I read some time ago of a child in New York city that was bitten by its father's valuable dog. He spared the dog, but put a muzzle on him. He could still bark, but he could not bite. But the child was still afraid of him. "You need not fear him," said the nurse one day. "He is muzzled, so he cannot bite you." "Yes," replied the child, "but the bark is in him yet." And the bark of the muzzled dog is like the physical fear of death among believers. It may annoy, but it cannot harm. But I speak of freedom from all moral fear of death. If you fear death as that which will usher you into the presence of God, there is something wrong. You are either unconverted, or a Christian lacking settled peace. There are many just such Christians. They believe in Christ, but know little of His finished work. They are not satisfied. Jonathan was satisfied when he beheld the finished work of David with the giant. And it is only when you see by faith what Christ has done for you at Calvary that you ever can have settled peace.

There is a passage in the second of Hebrews that ought always to be read in connection with this subject. It says: "Forasmuch, then, as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same; that through death He might destroy [annul] him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage" (vers. 14, 15). There you have the work of Christ, and Satan's utter overthrow. He "destroyed" the devil, or annulled him, as it is in Greek. His power is gone, as far as Christians are concerned. And now, by this accomplished work, they are entitled to deliverance from all fear of death. It was all accomplished for us at the cross. With joy we sing:

"His be 'the Victor's name,'

Who fought the fight alone;

Triumphant saints no honor claim,

His conquest was their own."

If you have faith in Christ, you ought to have this satisfaction. "But," you say, "I am such a stumbling professor. I lose my temper easily. I tell stories if I am not careful, and sometimes forget myself and say harsh words when tempted." I am sorry that all this is so; but I am also glad that you are not satisfied with yourself; you would be deceived if you were. "But," you say again, "my experience has not been very clear. I have never felt very pungent convictions, and when I closed with Christ I did not feel much joy." This may all be true. I would not have you satisfied with your experience any more than with yourself. I have never been fully satisfied with myself. I have never been at all satisfied with my experience. It has never seemed to me a very clear one. But I will tell you who and what I am satisfied with. I am satisfied with Jesus and His atoning death at Calvary for my sins. God would have you satisfied with His beloved Son. And Christ desires to have you satisfied with Himself and His finished work for sinners such as you. I have read somewhere of a young man who really believed in Christ, but had no settled peace. One night he dreamed he saw large crowds of people hurrying excitedly towards a hill. He followed from curiosity, and, to his surprise, he saw upon the hill a cross. And on the cross he thought he saw the Saviour. "Why," said he, "I thought you did die once upon the cross. Why are you dying again?" And he thought he heard the Saviour say reproachfully: "I did die eighteen hundred years ago, but you are not satisfied, so I am dying for you again." He saw his unbelief. He awoke and confessed it; and he never doubted his salvation after that. He saw it hung entirely on the death of Christ.

Jonathan would have been the laughing-stock of the camp had he remained in dread of the headless giant. And had he sought to excuse his fears by saying, "I am not satisfied with my appreciation of what David has accomplished," or "I fear, because my view of David, as he slew the Philistine, was rather indistinct," they would have laughed still louder. It was David's work, and not Jonathan's appreciation or distinct views that slew the Philistine and saved the army. And it is Christ's work alone that saves.

Christians who pass all their days in doubt and dread of death are like the man who wished to cross the Mississippi river on the ice. Supposing it to be dangerously thin, he crawled across on his hands and knees, with his heart in his throat, as they say. Just as he reached the opposite bank, a man overtook him with a team of horses and a load of iron. The ice was strong enough to bear an army, and his fears were groundless. The man's security depended on the thickness of the ice. And your security, fellow-believer, depends entirely on the work of Christ. Can that break down? Will it give way? Thank God, NEVER! Then doubt no more. Go on your way rejoicing, and live for the One who died for you.

"There was no sword in the hand of David" when he won the victory. A sling and stone are not the weapons of a mighty warrior. David himself appeared weak in the eyes of men; "he was but a youth." And the apostle Paul says of the Lord Jesus: "He was crucified through weakness" (2 Cor. 13: 4). "Christ crucified" was unto the religious Jew "a stumbling-block," and unto the learned Greek "foolishness." Through death, by apparent weakness and defeat Christ conquered Satan.

"By weakness and defeat

He won the meed and crown,

Trod all our foes beneath His feet

By being trodden down."

We next see Jonathan captivated. "And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking unto Saul, that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul" (ver. 1). David's work satisfies him, and David's worth captivates him. It is a blessed thing to know Christ's work; for it prepares our hearts to learn His worth. By His work our souls are saved; by His worth our hearts are won. Every Christian loves Christ in some measure. Scripture says, "If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema," etc.; i.e., accursed (1 Cor. 16: 22), We cannot but love Him if we know His dying love to us. A child once helped to deepen that truth in my soul. It was in Chicago. I asked her if she loved Jesus. "Oh, yes," she answered quickly. "Why do you love Him?" I asked. "Oh," she replied, with sweet childish transparency, "because He died for me." But Jonathan's love to David was no common love. He loved him as his own soul. David himself speaks of that love in his touching lament for Jonathan. "Thy love to me was wonderful," he says, "passing the love of women" (2 Sam. 1: 26). David, in Jonathan's eyes, eclipsed all others. To him there was not another like him in all the earth. And his love to David leads to action. "And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was upon him, and gave it to David, and his garments, even to his sword, and to his bow, and to his girdle" (ver. 4). He strips himself of everything. He lays all at David's feet. Everything that might distinguish him as a warrior or as a man among men, he gives to David, as if he alone were worthy of such arms and garments. This action becomes more lovely in our eyes as we remember that Jonathan was a distinguished prince. He had also proved himself a mighty warrior. In the fourteenth chapter of this book he and his armor-bearer display uncommon bravery. As a result, the Philistines are routed, and Saul's armies are victorious. He seems to have been a special favorite with the people, too. In defiance of the headstrong king, they rescued him from death. "And the people said unto Saul, Shall Jonathan die, who hath wrought so great salvation in Israel? God forbid: as the Lord liveth, there shall not one hair of his head fall to the ground; for he hath wrought with God this day. So the people rescued Jonathan that he died not" (1 Sam. 14: 45). But, though so great a man, he seems to say of David, as John the Baptist said of Christ, "He must increase, but I must decrease."

Paul strips himself in Philippians 3. He, too, was a great man in his place. He advanced beyond many of his contemporaries in the Jews' religion, he tells us (Gal. 1: 14). Here in Philippians 3 he tells us in detail something of what he was. He says: "Though I might also have confidence in the flesh. If any other man thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more: Circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee. Concerning zeal, persecuting the Church; touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless" vers. 4-6). He was a distinguished man in the religious world, as his ancestor, Jonathan, was a distinguished man in the military and the social world. But ah! observe him strip himself. "But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ: yea, doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord; for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, and be found in Him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God, by faith; that I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death" (vers. 7–10). Oh, it is a blessed sight, too seldom seen. Everything must go; the circumcised, the Israelite, the Benjamite, the Pharisee, the zealot, the blameless, everything he reckons dross and dung, that Christ may be his only gain. "All for Christ," he seems to say. Christ is his only gain; all other things are loss.

Everything goes when Christ captivates the heart. We begin to strip as we learn His worth. Suppose, for instance, I am a man of wealth and position in the world. God saves me, and I learn Christ's love. Now "Christ is all." I no longer glory in my wealth, and step down from my exalted place to seek the fellowship of the poor and lowly followers of Jesus. I "rejoice," as James says, to be "made low." Or suppose I am a very religious man, as people say. I am a popular preacher, or I occupy a high seat in the so-called church. Everybody speaks well of me. But my eyes are opened, and I see it is not popular religion and religious work, but Christ. I come out and esteem reproach for Him and His praise above the praise of men." Or I may be a young man who excels in athletic sports, or something of that kind. Christ becomes my Saviour and my all. I begin to say: —

"My old companions, all, farewell;

I will not go with you to hell."

Baseball, football, boxing, all are given up. "Everything," I say, "for Christ." Or I may be an accomplished young lady, a graceful dancer, a splendid musician, a charming conversationalist, and all that. I become converted, and begin to taste "the love of Christ which passeth knowledge." Now I say, "To me to live is Christ! The world has admired me long enough; I am weary of its smiles. I will begin to admire Christ and seek His smile." So I give up my place in the merry social world, and say "Farewell."

"Farewell to this world's fleeting joys,

My home is not below;

There was no room' for Jesus here,

And 'tis to Him I go.

"The accursed tree was the reward

Which this sad world did give

To Him who gave His precious life

That I through Him might live.

"And has this world a charm for me,

Where Jesus suffered thus?

No; I have died to all its charms

Through Jesus' wondrous cross."

All this is something like Jonathan stripping before David. It is the sure result of affection for Christ and occupation with Him". May God give every Christian here to be like Jonathan in this.

Jonathan's love to David was "wonderful, passing the love of women." Strength is the distinguishing characteristic of the man. Affection is that of the woman. Husbands, in the epistles, are often admonished to love their wives, but the chief admonition to wives is not that, for love is more natural to the woman. She generally exceeds in love. Jonathan's love for David exceeded even that. Oh, for more ardent devotion to our David!

Paul says, "That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith." The heart is the seat of the affections. Christ died to win these rebel hearts to Himself.

"Himself He gave, our poor hearts to win;

Was ever love, Lord, like Thine!"

He went down into death to secure a place in the heart of His ruined creature, man. Paul's heart was won. He adoringly exclaims, "The Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me!" These lines were once found written on the fly-leaf of a departed nun's prayer-book: "I am nothing; I can do nothing; Jesus, I adore Thee." Precious confession! May it be written in our hearts, and become the language of our lives.

The earnest missionary, Judson, refers in his journal to the devoted life and final martyrdom of a wealthy Burman who was converted to Christ through some Portuguese Roman Catholic missionaries. Judson gleaned the particulars bit by bit, as they were related to him by the natives. Though he only knew Christ veiled and half-hidden by the drapery of superstitious forms and ceremonies, his heart was captivated. He confessed and preached the Lord Jesus boldly, and his goods were at once confiscated, and, like the apostles of old, he was commanded "not to speak at all, or teach in the name of Jesus." But he could not be silenced, and was banished from his native place. He continued preaching from place to place, and was at last imprisoned. He was there put under an instrument of torture called the "iron maul," and ordered to recant, He refused, and every time the cruel hammer descended on his bruised and bleeding body his lips uttered that glorious name that moves all heaven, "Christ." Soon his spirit left its shattered prison to be forever with that Saviour he had confessed and loved so well. May every Christian here to-night be stirred by such devotion. Our light and privileges are great compared with this rich Burman's. Light is good, but it is not heat. John the Baptist was "a burning and a shining light," not "'a bright and shining light," as people often quote it. He did shine, but not like an electric light. There was heat, as well as light. I know our warmest love is scarcely worth speaking of. But the feeblest spark of real affection has its value in the eyes of Christ. Our love to Him, compared to His own measureless love to us, may be like the sputtering candle in the presence of the mighty, glorious sun at midday, but the sunlight does not quench the candle flame. Let this question of the Son of God, our Saviour, search your heart: "Lovest thou Me?"

Before I speak of the verses read from chapters 19 and 20, I want to say a little on Saul's taking David to himself. It says, in verse 2: "And Saul took him that day, and would let him go no more home to his father's house." David accomplished a wonderful work, and Saul, in his admiration, took him into his house. He did with David just what Christendom has done with Christ. They have taken him under their patronage, so to speak. They have made of Him a kind of religious hero, just as the Turks have done with Mohammed and the Asiatic pagans with. Confucius and Bramah. And they propose disgraceful "parliaments of religions" with these Turks and pagans, to compare the various merits of these heroes of their national adoption. And these so-called Christians profess a sort of love and admiration for Jesus, just as Saul professed love and admiration for David. But he had no real love for David. When David's glory eclipsed his own he hated him and hurled javelins at his head. He was his enemy, and sought his life on more than one occasion. And many of those who profess the name of Christ to-day show their hatred of Him when His real claims are pressed. Under their religious face the deadliest hatred towards the Son of God is rankling in their hearts. Under their robes of religion are hidden deadly javelins. He is receiving "wounds," as in days of old, in the house of His professed "friends." Some who profess His name deny His eternal deity, others His spotless humanity, and others still deny the authority of His words.

In chapter 19, verse 1, Saul speaks to Jonathan, his son, and to all his servants, that they should kill David. And in the next verse we read that "Jonathan, Saul's son, delighted much in David." How precious! Saul hates him, but Jonathan delights much in him. And he seeks to save his life. In verse 4 we read that "Jonathan spake good of David unto Saul, his father," etc. He vainly seeks to turn the heart of Saul towards David. It is useless. Saul's hatred increases, and David becomes an outcast and a fugitive. And here is just where Jonathan, with all his love and delight in David, fails. He does not follow David, but remains in the house of Saul, where "David's place was empty." David becomes a wanderer among the mountains of Israel, and Jonathan remains in Jerusalem to enjoy his own position and his father's palace. After the touching meeting of Jonathan and David recorded in chapter 20. David "arose and departed, and Jonathan went into the city" (ver. 42). He went right back among the enemies of the one he loved so well. And what was the end? Jonathan lost his life on the mountains of Gilboa. He was slain with the enemies of David, and his body, with theirs, was nailed in dishonor to the walls of Bethshan. He refused to share the rejection of David, and suffered loss in consequence.

All this has its lessons. Christ is the rejected One. Christians are called to share His rejection. To you, beloved fellow-believer, the house of Saul may be a circle of worldly friends, or it may be one of the various fraternal orders or societies. It may be a religious organization where Christ's name is professed, but His authority denied. You need to withdraw yourself from these unscriptural associations, as Jonathan needed to leave the house of Saul to be in David's company. "Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers." "Let us go forth, therefore, unto Him, without the camp, bearing His reproach" (2 Cor. 6: 14; Heb. 13: 13). Jonathan ought to have gone forth unto David. In doing so he would have suffered loss and reproach from Saul, but he would have had the company of David, then high honor in David's kingdom. He did well in delighting much in David. He was right in speaking of David to his father Saul. But he lacked one thing. He shrunk from the path of separation with David. He was not with David in the mountains and the woods of his rejection. Perhaps he thought he could "do more good," as people say, by remaining in the house of Saul. He might put in a good word for David now and then and use his influence in behalf of the rejected one at Jerusalem. Christians often argue in this way when seeking to excuse themselves from the path to which truth points. But God's Word is plain: "Come out from among them and be ye separate, saith the Lord" (2 Cor. 6: 17).

Christians must not remain in fellowship with those who refuse and reject the Lord Jesus. The social world rejects Him. Go to its balls and parties and attempt to "speak good" of our David, and see if they want Him. They do not even wish to hear of Him. The political world refuses Him. He was God's candidate over eighteen hundred years ago, and they cast their vote against Him. Instead of the throne they gave Him a cross, and wrote in derision over His head, "THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS." And the religious world does not want Him. They want "earthly things" and the things which gratify the senses — they want to be entertained. They shut out the men who would preach only Christ, and prefer such as suit their "itching ears." O Christians, come forth! "Come out of her, my people" (Rev. 18: 4).

Where Christ is not wanted the Christian may not remain.

There is just one thought more I wish to notice ere we close. In verses 41 and 42 of chapter 20, David and Jonathan weep one with another and kiss one another, until "David exceeded." Jonathan's love "was wonderful," but in affection, as in all things else, "David exceeded." It is written of Christ that "in all things He must have the pre-eminence" (Col. 1: 18). However great our love to Him, His love exceeds our own as an age exceeds an hour. In love, as in everything, "He must have the pre-eminence." All that love of His rests upon I. us, beloved brethren. As for you, dear friends who may yet be unsaved, it is all spread out before you, that your hearts also may be won to Him. Early in the seventh century the good king Oswald of Northumbria requested the Scots to send a missionary to his people. The brethren of Iona sent them an austere, though well-meaning man named Cormac. He soon returned dispirited, saying the people were too obstinate to be converted. "Ah," said Aidan, standing by, "had Thy love been offered to this people, O my Saviour, many hearts would surely have been touched. I will go and make Thee known — Thee, who breakest not the bruised reed!" He went and told the Anglo-Saxons of the Saviour's love. Wondering multitudes listened, wept and were won. May that unfathomable love win you to-night. God grant it for Christ's sake. Amen.

3. David and His Four Hundred Men

1 Samuel 22.

David in the cave Adullam is a striking type of Christ in His present rejection. Christ has been here and has been refused. He came in perfect love and grace, testing men as to where they stood toward God. But they hated and crucified Him. Adullam, in Hebrew, means "the justice of the people." The multitude in David's day were following Saul, the people's choice. David, the man after God's heart, was forced to become a wanderer and an outcast. Such was "the justice of the people." Saul reigned in a palace, while David suffered in a cave. It is a well-known saying, that "the voice of the people is the voice of God." Facts do not bear this out. What was the voice of the people eighteen hundred years ago? It was "Crucify Him! crucify Him!" Jews and Gentiles mingled their voices as they clamored for His death. "For of a truth against Thy Holy Child Jesus, whom Thou hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel were gathered together" (Acts 4: 27). Was that the voice of God? Nay, it was the voice of Satan, venting his heart's hatred, through his willing subjects, against the Son of God. "'The whole world lieth in the wicked one," John writes. That same world still continues in that state. It is still joined hand in hand against the One God sent to be its Saviour. What is commonly called "the Christian world," is only such in name. Even the Church has become corrupted by mingling with the world. One need but read the Scriptures to see that "Christendom" has little left in it of true Christianity save the name. The people of Israel who persecuted and killed the prophets sent them, afterward built fine sepulchres to their honor. So the world has cast out Christ, and now would pay Him a sort of honor by calling itself by His name.

David is not alone in the cave Adullam. He has companions. "David therefore departed thence and escaped to the cave Adullam: and when his brethren and all his father's house heard it they went down thither to him" (ver. 1). His following was partially made up of his kindred "after the flesh." "His brethren and all his father's house" are like the Jewish believers of the early Christian Church. They were Christ's kindred after the flesh, as the apostle says, "Of whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ came." They were the true "Israel of God." They were the first to come to Christ and hang their hopes and everything on the rejected One. David's kindred are the first referred to. But there were others — refugees from Saul's dominions. "And every one that was in distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented, gathered themselves unto him; and he became a captain over them: and there were with him about four hundred men" (ver. 2). They represent the Gentiles who are being saved to-day.

Let us look a little at their character. Three things especially mark them, notice: They were "in distress," "in debt," and "discontented." They seemed a sorry lot, but they picture just the kind of people Christ receives and welcomes. "This man receiveth sinners."

"Every one that was in distress" came to David, and he received them, and relieved them, too. So for the last eighteen centuries distressed souls have been coming to Christ. And, blessed be His Name, He has received them, every one. Not one has ever been turned away. His word to such is this: "Him that cometh to Me, I will in no wise cast out." And He relieves them, too. "Come unto Me," He says, "all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest." He can righteously invite them to come, and He loves to have them enjoy the rest He gives. He has died for their sins. He was made sin for them at the cross, and has put away their guilt forever.

Have you ever been "in distress," my friend? I do not mean in trouble merely. All have trouble of some sort. The natural heritage of the human race is trouble since the fall of Adam. "Man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward" (Job 5: 7). But I mean distress of soul. Everywhere I go I meet with people in distress. Some are distressed about their health. Others are in distress about their wealth. Some are distressed about this, and some about that; but few, alas, are distressed about their souls. The mass of men are sleeping in their sins. They will never awake till they find themselves in the dreadful realization of eternal woe. They will then be distressed too late. The rich man of the sixteenth of Luke got distressed too late. He dressed "in purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day." He lived and died (like thousands all around us) in forgetfulness of God, "and in hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torments." At last his eyes were opened, but it was too late.

You may think I am trying to excite and frighten you. No, my friends, I speak the words of truth and soberness. And your wisdom is to hear and heed. Several years ago I discovered a farmhouse on fire in eastern Michigan. The family were all away at the time, so I cried at the top of my voice, "Fire! fire!" The neighbors heard me half a mile or more away, and came rushing to the fire. No one told me I had called too long or loudly. No one accused me of trying to excite people and making unnecessary noise. Yet it was only a farmhouse.

There is little or nothing to awaken sinners in the popular preaching of to-day. Sentimentalism and sensationalism is the order instead of repentance and the awful judgment drawing near. Men were pricked in their hearts at the preaching of Peter, and they gnashed on Stephen with their teeth. Felix trembled as Paul "reasoned of righteousness, temperance and judgment to come." Those who succeed in amusing or entertaining their audiences, to-day are applauded. "They are of the world: therefore speak they of the world and the world heareth them" (1 John 4: 5). Paul and Barnabas "so spake" at Iconium that "a great multitude both of the Jews and also of the Greeks believed." It does not say they applauded, but believed.

Those "in debt" came to David. They had often tried to pay their debts, no doubt, and always failed. They could not extricate themselves, so in despair they fled to David in the cave.

It is only such who ever care to come to Jesus. All have debts enough, no doubt, but only such as feel the burden of them flee to Him who only can release them. The psalmist was no worse than others. And he confessed that his iniquities were "more in number than the hairs of his head." Those competent to speak say that a healthy head contains about one hundred thousand hairs. But if one sin would shut us out of heaven forever, what can we do with such an awful load of debt? Where are we to flee? Who can release us from the awful burden? "Therefore my heart faileth me," adds the psalmist at the end of his confession.

Thank God, there is forgiveness and justification through the atoning work of Christ. "Be it known unto you, therefore . . . that through this Man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins; and by Him all that believe are justified from all things" (Acts 13: 38, 39). It is Christ who "was wounded for our transgressions" — who thus paid our mighty dues, and is able to release us. We cannot help ourselves. A lifetime of prayer and good works could never expiate one sin. "Without shedding of blood is no remission" (Heb. 9: 22). Thank God, the blood of Christ cleanses from all' sin. All has been done. We trust the Saviour, and our sins are pardoned. "To Him give all the prophets witness, that through His name, whosoever believeth in Him shall receive remission of sins" (Acts 10: 43). All was atoned for on the cross. "Grace reigns through righteousness" (Rom. 5: 21). The Lord Jesus Christ, by His sufferings and death, made infinite satisfaction to God for His people's sins. "Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God" (1 Peter 3: 18). And now, because of that accomplished work of redemption, God can be "just and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus" (Rom. 3: 26).

"Christ knew how guilty man had been;

He knew that God must punish sin;

So out of pity Jesus said,

'I'll bear the punishment instead.'"

Then "every one that was discontented gathered themselves unto David." And this world is filled with discontented people. Go where you will, you will find dissatisfaction. The rich and the poor are alike dissatisfied. The young sigh with unsatisfied ambition, and the old complain of disappointed hopes. Princes and paupers, millionaires and mendicants, philosophers and fools, the whole world echoes and re-echoes with sounds of discontent. Some seem happy and contented with their lot. These, if unconverted, live in a sort of "fools' paradise." And sooner or later their sorrows come.

The poor imagine if they were only wealthy they would be contented. But riches only change their discontent. Some years ago a very wealthy man committed suicide. He seemed to have everything the human heart could wish. And he left a note in which he said: "I take my life because I am tired of living to eat and drink and sleep." He was an envied man, no doubt, but a stranger to contentment. Scripture says, "The heart knoweth his own bitterness." I met a wealthy merchant once in South Bend, Ind., who said, "If I could be sure the Bible was true and that there was salvation for me, I would gladly dump all my goods into the St. Jo river." His riches failed to bring him satisfaction. There is no real contentment out of Christ. I read of a Christian Quaker once who often spoke to his neighbors about their souls. But they all thought they were well enough off away from God, and imagined they were quite contented. One day this Quaker had the following sign set up in a fine ten-acre lot along the road: "I will give this field to any one who is really contented." Soon one of his most prosperous neighbors came along. "Hello! what's this?" he said, as he stopped and read the sign. "I'll claim that field," he continued. "If there is a contented man in all the country, I'm that man. I have one of the finest farms in all the county. It has been paid for years ago, and I have a fine nest-egg in the bank. My children are all in excellent circumstances and doing well. I enjoy the best of health. I am surely a contented man." So he went to the Quaker's door and demanded the field. "Ah, friend," said the Quaker, "if thee is contented, what does thee want of my field?" The man saw his mistake and acknowledged that, after all, he was not really contented. He had to relinquish all claim to the field.

Only (I do not even say all) Christians know what real contentment is. They can truthfully say, —

"Jesus, Thou art enough

The mind and heart to fill."

Solomon says, "All the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is not full" (Ecc. 1: 7). The sea is the human heart. If you could direct into those discontented hearts every river of earthly pleasure, they would still remain unfilled, unsatisfied. Men hunt for satisfaction where it never can be found. An iceberg yields no heat, salt no sweetness, and wine cannot be pressed from turnips. Man's heart was made for God, and only God, in Christ, can fill and satisfy it. Riches, fame, pleasure, all fail to bring contentment to the heart.

Religion, even, cannot satisfy the heart. The gloomiest people in the world are religious people. I do not mean converted people. They do not know Christ as their Saviour, so they lack the very soul of what the apostle James calls "true religion." They eat the bitter orange-peel, but have never tasted of the rich, delicious meat within. No wonder, then, that people in their minds associate gloom and sadness with religion. Christ brings joy to every heart that is opened to receive Him. Open to Him, discontented soul, and let Him satisfy your aching heart. He longs to satisfy you with Himself. He knows your bitterness of soul. Come to Him, then, as the discontented came to David. Come now, and ever after sing:

I came to Jesus as I was,

Weary and worn and sad;

I found in Him a resting-place,

And He has made me glad."

In Him, for distress you will find comfort; for debt you will get clearance, and for the discontented there is contentment. The comfort is by the word of Christ. He says to every distressed sinner that comes to Him, as He did to the poor distressed woman, "Be of good comfort: thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace" (Luke 8: 48). The clearance is by the work of Christ "Who was delivered for our offenses and was raised again for our justification" (Rom. 4: 25). And the contentment is in the worth of Christ. All His redeemed can contentedly say of Him, "He is altogether lovely. This is my Beloved, and this is my Friend" (Cant. 5: 16).

So much for the character of those who came to David's standard in the cave. They were anything but the cream of the kingdom. And Paul, in writing to the Corinthians, says: "For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; and base things of the world and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: That no flesh should glory in His presence" (1 Cor. 1: 26-29). Such is the character of those the Father designs to draw to Christ. Few, if any, of the wise, the mighty, or the noble, were with David. Saul monopolized the great ones of the country. All such preferred Jerusalem to the cave Adullam. The lodestone will not draw the precious metals; it has little or no attraction over gold or silver. But the common metals are attracted by it, such as iron and steel. Comparatively few of the great ones of earth ever cared for Christ. "The common people heard Him gladly." And high ecclesiastics asked significantly, "Have any of the rulers or the Pharisees believed on Him?"

David's companions, surrounding him in the cave Adullam, are like the companions given to Christ in this present time of His rejection. He says: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die it bringeth forth much fruit" (John 12: 24). He Himself was the corn of wheat that died. He would not abide alone. And the blessed result of His death is much fruit — all the company of the redeemed. Isaiah says, "He shall see of the travail of His soul and shall be satisfied." This company are called to share His rejection now and will reign with Him in the Kingdom and glory by and by, just as David's companions shared his rejection and were not forgotten when he sat on Israel's throne.

David is the leader of this little band. "He became a captain over them." Christ is Lord to every Christian. He is "the Captain of their salvation." They know no other lord; no other captain may command them. May we be true to our great Captain. May grace be given us to conduct ourselves as "good soldiers of Jesus Christ." We belong to Him, and though we may be the weakest among His own and have little influence, we can stand beneath His banner and say in the face of a hostile world, "My Beloved is mine and I am His." Napoleon's soldiers were once marching through the streets of Paris when their general's cause hung in the balance. A working-woman named Jeanette seized a broom as they were passing, and, putting it to her shoulder, she fell in line with the troops. The bystanders laughed and asked her if she expected to fight with a broom. "No," said Jeanette, "but I can show which side I'm on." She was loyal, and gave evidence of her loyalty. Oh, let us be loyal, at all times and in all circumstances — not offensively, as if we thought ourselves above our fellows, but as from hearts which cannot be untrue to such a Lord as ours.

In verses 3 to 5 of this chapter, David leaves the cave Adullam and comes to the "forests of Hareth." From verse 6 down we have an account of Saul's cruel slaughter of Jehovah's priests. One named Abiathar escapes and flees to David. David says to him, in verse 23, "Abide thou with me, fear not: for he that seeketh my life seeketh thy life; but with me thou shalt be in safeguard."

Three things may be said of this Abiathar. He was safe, secure, and separated. Let us view him as a picture of the sinner who has fled to Christ for refuge.

The first thing is salvation. In danger of his life, Abiathar fled to David. There he found salvation from the sword of Saul. And sinner you must flee to Christ. Your sins expose you to the eternal wrath of God. Being holy, God must punish sin. Some day He will lift the sword of justice. Then alas for you, if still away from Christ. Oh, flee to Him now! No one and nothing else can save you. "Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved" (Acts 4: 12).

"None but Jesus can do helpless sinners good."

We never read in the Gospels of needy sinners coming to the mother of our Lord, or Peter. They came right to Christ Himself, and none were ever turned away. "Come unto Me," He said. "Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out." Peter never invited sinners to himself or to Mary, but always to Christ, and only to Christ, for in Him alone is there salvation. Peter could not die an atoning death for sinners, nor could the mother of our Lord. Christ only could do and has done that, and Christ only can save the sinner.

Abiathar fled to David, and you must flee to David's Lord.

Next Abiathar was secure with David. David therefore says to him: "Fear not; for he that seeketh my life seeketh thy life: but with me thou shalt be in safeguard." So Christ says of all that believe on Him: "I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish; neither shall any pluck them out of My hand. My Father, which gave them Me, is greater than all; and none is able to pluck them out of My Father's hand. I and My Father are one" (John 10: 28-30). He calls His own redeemed ones sheep, and He likens Himself to a shepherd. And surely the responsibility of the security of a flock of sheep rests wholly with their shepherd. If a sheep is lost the shepherd is blamed. Suppose a sheep-rancher entrusts one hundred sheep to a shepherd. This shepherd takes them forth to the green pastures and by the still waters. At noon he eats his dinner beneath the shade of a tree, and after dinner goes to sleep. While he is asleep a sheep strays off and a hungry wolf devours it. The shepherd discovers it only when too late. At evening time he returns with the sheep, and the owner counts the flock. "Shepherd," he says, "what's this? There is a sheep missing." "Oh, don't blame me," the shepherd says. "The sheep strayed away and a wolf killed it. It had no business to leave the flock and wander off. It was its own fault. I am not to blame." "Indeed you are," the owner says. "You are responsible for every sheep committed to your care, and I shall retain the price of the sheep from your wages." You see it is the shepherd, not the sheep, that is responsible. And Christ, the believers' shepherd, speaks of His sheep as having been given Him of His Father. "My Father which gave them Me." "All that the Father giveth Me." They have been entrusted to His care, and none shall ever perish.

O sheep of Christ, rejoice! Your faithful Shepherd's word is pledged that you shall never perish, and that without an "if" or "but." Opposers of this precious truth may add, "if they continue." Scripture warns all such, "Add thou not unto His words, lest He reprove thee, and thou be found a liar" (Prov. 30: 6). Warnings and conditions there are, but not in this connection. Without the slightest qualification Christ has said, "And they shall never perish." I place my Saviour's words above John Wesley's, or the words of any other man, or all the men of all the world combined.

In the fifteenth chapter of Luke's Gospel the shepherd has the once lost sheep upon his shoulders. It is his "shoulders," mark, not his shoulder only. Christ is that shepherd, and the Christian is the sheep. The future government of the world is going to rest upon "His shoulder." "His shoulders" are beneath the helpless sheep (Isa. 9: 6; Luke 15: 5). The shoulder is the symbol of strength. "All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth," Christ says. "His shoulder" is like His power "in earth"; "His shoulders" is His two-fold power, "in heaven and in earth." And all that mighty power secures the feeblest child of God against the powers of earth and darkness. Hallelujah

Of course there must be "holding on." But the Shepherd must be the One who does the "holding on." I have often talked with those characters they call backsliders. You know they are the very people who talk the most about "holding on." And you will generally find them as ignorant as heathen about the grace of God. Salvation with them is a certain amount of happy feeling. And unable to hold on to that, they have lost their sham salvation.

Hear the persuasion of Paul. It is a blessed persuasion. Oh, that I could assemble the whole army of opposers of this precious truth and read it in their ears! It is in the eighth of Romans. He says: "I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (vers. 38, 39). Paul knows no sheep of Christ's can ever fall away and perish.

"But," some one asks, "what about St. Peter's teaching on the dog and sow?" Well, let us look at what he says. "For if after they [not we, mark,] have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled, therein and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning. For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them. But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb: The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire" (2 Peter 2: 20-22). He does not say these persons were converted, notice. They had the knowledge of the Saviour, but the Saviour Himself and salvation they never possessed. I may know a certain train will take me to New York, yet never step aboard.

They escaped the "pollutions of the world," but not the world itself. Christ gave Himself for the sins of true believers that He might deliver them "from this present evil world" (Gal. 1: 4). A man may escape the pollutions of the world by reformation. New birth alone avails to turn us from the world itself. Conversion turns us into sheep. The nature of a sheep is clean. That of a sow is unclean. A farmer told me once that sheep will rarely venture in a swamp; they love the pasture that is high and dry. But a sow delights in mud and filth. You may wash its skin, but its nature will remained unchanged. So you may reform and religionize the sinner by an external application of the word of God. But if he is not "born again," he will return, in nearly every instance, to his former habits, like the sow to its "wallowing in the mire." His last state is worse than the first, because sham converts often plunge in open infidelity in the end, and sink lower in the mire of the world's corruption than they ever were before.

Christ says of His sheep, "They follow Me." This is characteristic of them. Some, like Peter, follow "afar off," and they come to grief. See how Peter sinned. But he did not cease to be a sheep of Christ. He proved he was a true sheep by his sorrow and repentance. The Lord had said, "Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: But I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not" (Luke 22: 31, 32). He remained a believer, despite his grievous sin. His faith remained, through his Saviour's intercession, and he was restored in soul. He was like a poor sheep that stumbles in a ditch and scrambles out. A sow, no matter how well washed before, would remain in the ditch quite satisfied, like many, alas, of the unconverted converts of the present day. David's words to Abiathar are the spirit of Christ's words to all who flee to Him for refuge. "Fear not; for he that seeketh my life seeketh thy life: but with me thou shalt be in safeguard." That is security. Can you say, "The Lord is my Shepherd "? Then He says to you, "Fear not."

For nine years Security Square has been my happy home. The apostle says, "But of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption" (1 Cor. 1: 30). Think of it. Christ made to us of God "wisdom," "righteousness," "sanctification," "redemption." What four mighty walls!

What a place of security

"Safe in Christ! safe in Christ!

He's their glory ever;

None can pluck them from His hand.

They shall perish never."

Lastly, we have separation. And this security which bound Abiathar to David, equally parted him from Saul. So in the measure in which Christians realize their security in Christ, their hearts are bound to Christ and separated from the world. Abiathar could have nothing in common now with Saul. Saul was David's enemy; Abiathar was his friend. To have had fellowship now with the one who sought the life of David would be treason and disloyalty to God's anointed, though yet rejected, king. Remember, Christian, that the world has put our Lord to death. The language of the world, in fact, if not in words, is, "We will not have this man to reign over us." Can you mix lightly with it, then, and be true to Christ?

I remember a young Christian woman asking a servant of Christ if he thought there was "any harm" in believers going to parties and mixing with the unconverted in their amusements. Said he, "I will answer your question by asking you one. Suppose you are engaged to a noble, upright man. He is everything to you, and is in every way worthy of your love and confidence. One night he is murdered in cold blood by a cruel assassin. Though for the time being he escapes justice, you know well he is the murderer, and the awful secret lies locked within your breast. Time goes on, and one day this very assassin drives up to your door in a fine equipage. Having gained entrance, to your horror and indignation he coolly invites you to attend a ball with him that evening. Now, in such a case, what would you do?" "What would I do?" said she. "I would bid him begone and never again make such advances towards me." "Very well," said the servant of Christ. "That assassin is the world. Its hands are stained red with the blood of the Bridegroom of the Church. How can you then ask if there is any harm in mingling with its pleasures? "It was enough. Her eyes were opened. She had answered her own question.

Understand me. I do not mean that we must not be kind and friendly, even, to the "unjust" and the "evil." I mean we must not fellowship with them, or be under any kind of yoke with them. We should love men — all men — but not the world. we should seek the good of all, but keep aloof from everything that savors of the world. We may work, eat, and live with the unconverted, but it is quite another thing to join with them in their pleasures and amusements. Christ constantly mixed with publicans and sinners, not to "enjoy Himself," as people say, but to tell them of God's love and reach their consciences. And we will find no harm among the unconverted, with that end in view, or to fulfil whatever may be our appointed task in the duties of life. If to seek enjoyment, Christians mix with the unconverted, they will surely contract defilement. And they never do the unbeliever any good. In my pocket is a gold coin and a piece of lead. They have been together — in each other's company, if you will. Now see them. The gold, alas, is tarnished. In the language of Scripture, "How is the fine gold become dim?" There is lead upon it that has dimmed its lustre. But the lead has not changed by being in contact with the gold. The golden coin alone has been affected, and that for evil.

Reviewing, then, this little journey into Scripture, we see that our salvation is by Christ, our security in Christ, and our separation with Christ.

In closing, let me read a verse in Acts. It is the thirty-sixth verse of chapter 5. They are the words of Gamaliel in the council. He says: "For before these days rose up Theudas, boasting himself to be somebody: to whom a number of men, about four hundred, joined themselves; who was slain: and all, as many as obeyed him, were scattered and brought to naught." Contrast Theudas' end with David's. Theudas was slain; David lived to reign, though he did once say in his heart, when faith was low, "I shall now perish one day by the hand of Saul." Theudas' followers were "scattered and brought to naught"; David's men were honored for their faithfulness.

Our Leader is "alive forevermore." He is become "the Author of eternal salvation to all them that obey Him." And they shall reign with Him. Amen.

4. David and the Young Man of Egypt. 1 Samuel 30: 1-25.

Some of these incidents in the life of David are like the "puzzle pictures" most of us have seen. When you first glance at them you only see a tree or an animal or something of the kind. But as you examine it more closely, you begin to see a great variety of pictures in it. You see men and birds and beasts and fishes and trees and many other things. And the more you look the more distinctly they appear. And you wonder that you did not see them all at first. A casual glance would not detect them.

Now, that is something like these verses I have read. A careless reader would see nothing in them but an interesting historical incident. But there is more. There is a wealth of gospel illustration in them, and I think no very lively imagination is required to see it, either. Just keep the eyes of your heart open, and your ears, too. As Peter preached in the house of Cornelius "the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the Word." Some present may have been gazing about the room at Cornelius' splendid furniture and the magnificent pictures on the wall, or studying the fashion of some lady's latest bonnet, or absorbed in thought about their business or their pleasures. Only those who heard the Word were blessed. May you hear in your hearts to-night the "Gospel of Christ" foreshadowed in this narrative. "Hear and your soul shall live."

David and his men had been away from Ziklag for a time. When they return, to their surprise and dismay they find their city burned, their property stolen, and, worst of all, their wives and children carried off. After recovering somewhat from the shock, they start in pursuit of the Amalekite invaders. Some of the band become exhausted on the road and are left in charge of the stuff by the brook Besor, while David and four hundred of his men continue the pursuit. They find a half-starved abandoned slave — an Egyptian — in the field, who, after being fed and somewhat revived, promises to guide them to the marauders' camp. But he first exacts an oath from David that he will neither take his life nor deliver him up to his old master. They set forward again and surprise their enemies in the midst of their festivities. Most of them are slain, and David recovers all — the wives, the little ones, and all the stolen property.

This young Egyptian represents the sinner. They find him in the field, just where Jesus finds poor sinners. "The field is the world." By nature we belong to Satan's world. Christ must seek and find us, as the shepherd sought and found the poor lost sheep.

Notice three things in connection with this "young man of Egypt." They are his citizenship, his condition, and his captivity.

First, his citizenship. In verse 13 David says to him: "Whence art thou?" He replies at once, "I am a young man of Egypt." He frankly acknowledges his citizenship; Egypt was his native land. Now, Egypt is a striking and instructive type of the world. I do not mean this physical world or earth on which we exist, but this moral scene in which men live and seek for satisfaction. It is that moral order of things which had its beginning in Cain's day, when he "went out from the presence of the Lord," and he and his descendants builded cities, sought out witty inventions of brass and iron, manufactured musical instruments, and went in for a good time generally, in forgetfulness of God. And that continues to the present day. The land of Egypt figures this. There Pharaoh, type of Satan, ruled and tyrannized. There, too, the elect nation of Jehovah were groaning in bondage beneath the cruel lash of their taskmasters. It was a place where the true God was unknown, and the inhabitants worshiped and served the creature instead of the Creator.

Then, too, they were, in a way, independent of God. They had their river Nile with which to irrigate the country, and were not at all dependent on the dews and rains of heaven. Twice a year the river overflowed its banks. They built dykes along the riverside, and here and there canals were cut in them. When the river was high they opened these canals. This overflowed the fields and meadows all along the Nile for miles and miles. Then when the river commenced to fall they closed the canals, which prevented the water escaping from the inland. After a while the sun evaporated what water the soil did not absorb, and they reaped abundant harvests of grain and hay without a drop of rain or dew. This is like the world. They have no need of God. Their springs are all down here. Christians can say, "All my springs are in Thee." God is the source of all their joys. All their hopes are centered in Christ above. They look to heaven for everything. "The ungodly are not so." Their resource is some "river." It is gold and stocks and houses and lands with some. Give others the ballroom, the theatre, the cards and the novels, and they are satisfied. What care they for Christ? Egypt had its river, and the world, which spiritually is called Egypt, has its river, too.

Christians are not of the world. The Lord Jesus says so. "They are not of the world even as I am not of the world" (John 17: 14). Paul says, "Our conversation (or citizenship) is in heaven" (Phil. 3: 20). They are "citizens of no mean city," even "Jerusalem which is above," where gold is trodden under foot and where are "pleasures forevermore." "The Lamb is the light thereof," who, the apostle says, "gave Himself for our sins that He might deliver us from this present evil world" (Gal. 1: 4). If you are unconverted, you belong down here where Satan is "god" and "prince." As "god" men worship him (unwittingly); as "prince" they serve him. Christians, Thomas-like, say of Jesus, "My Lord and my God."

Where is your citizenship, my friend? "Whence art thou?" Must you answer, "I am a young man of Egypt"? Would you, in truthfulness, be compelled to say, "I am a young lady of this moral Egypt; I am a woman of the world "? Come, be honest, now. You belong to one place or the other. I was born in the state of New York. This, I suppose, in a legal sense, makes me a citizen of the United States. Now, I cannot retain my citizenship here in the United States and obtain a Canadian citizenship, too. It is utterly impossible to be a legal citizen of two different countries at one and the same time. And it is morally impossible to belong to earth and heaven, too. Some professing Christians do not seem to know this. They say, "We're going to make the best of both worlds." They remind one of the fable of the bats. The birds and the beasts were at war, and the bats determined to remain neutral. To the birds they declared themselves to be birds, and to the beasts they confessed themselves beasts. Once they were birds of the air, and once again they were beasts of the field. God will not have such shifting and neutrality. The Red Sea rolled between the land of Egypt and the land of Canaan. Canaan represents the heavenlies, where the saints of God belong. There they had no Nile to overflow its banks. They were entirely dependent on "the early and the latter rains." These have ceased for centuries, and the land of Palestine is not much better than a desert.

The Red Sea typifies the death of Christ. It is Christ's death that separates Christians from the world. The cross divides the human race. It was by the cross of Christ the world was crucified to Paul and he unto the world (Gal. 6: 14). It stands like a mighty barrier between the justified and the condemned. It is like a wall of fire between the servants of Christ and the subjects of Satan. Remember this, beloved fellow-Christian. Act upon it. Be like the colored man. God saved him, and he came clean out. His break with the world was complete. When enticed to return to the world and his old companions, he used to say: "No; when I left de rebel ranks I burned de bridge behind me." He had in his mind the old generals who, to make sure of success, used to burn the bridges behind them, so as to cut off all opportunity for retreat. This is the practical side. The doctrinal side is that God is taking "out of the world a people for His name" (Acts 15: 14). The man or woman who dies a citizen of this world must go to hell. Let this question search your heart to-night: "Whence art thou?"

The next is his condition. This was deplorable. Three things may be said of him: he was sick, starving, and abandoned.

First, he was sick. He says, "Three days agone I fell sick" (ver. 13). He was just like you, my unsaved friend. You are sick with an awful disease. It is sin. And it ends in eternal death. "The wages of sin is death." The poison of sin is in your soul and doing its deadly work. You are like the people in the desert, dying of the serpent-bite. You commit sin. "And sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death" (James 1: 15). This is more than the death of the body. It is eternal death in the lake of fire.

But, thank God, there is a remedy for sin. It is the Gospel. The apostle says, "I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth" (Rom. 1: 16). You may be cured of your disease to-night, my friend. "The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin" (1 John 1: 7). Do you want salvation? If so, get healing for your soul to-night. There are three ways of treating God's remedy for sin. You may reject it, neglect it, or accept it. Let me illustrate it. Suppose a fearful plague is raging in this city. Thousands die on every hand. No physician's art can help the stricken ones. It produces fatal results in every instance. Remedies seem of no avail. I myself am smitten with the plague. A stranger calls just as I am at the point of death, and leaves me three bottles of medicine, saying it will cure me if I take it immediately. I take a bottle and am cured completely. I am overjoyed. I have two bottles left and think of others dying without hope. There are Mr. Black and Mr. Brown. I will hurry off to tell them of my remedy, and give them each a bottle. So I hasten down to Mr. Black, who is almost gone. I go to his bedside, and say: "I have good news for you." "What is it?" he faintly asks. I tell him of the remedy and of my own remarkable recovery. To my surprise, he rises in his bed and cries angrily: "Begone with your quack remedies. It is all a humbug. You are a medical fanatic. Talk no more nonsense to me. I will not have it." He rejects it deliberately, and I sadly turn away. In a few hours he is in the throes of death. He is like the infidel, who would take Christ's servants by the shoulder and thrust them out of his house, and the Bible after them. He rejects the Gospel, and insures his soul's damnation.

But all are not infidels. There is another class. Brown represents them. I hasten to his house. Time is precious, and he may soon be gone. I say to him, "Brown, rejoice! You need not die. I was once as low as you. I have a remedy. It cured me. Here it is. Take it immediately, as you value your life." He politely thanks me, and tells me I may leave a bottle on the stand. I do not wait to see him take the medicine. I have one bottle left, and hurry off to a Mr. White, whom I know to be perishing. Brown intends to take the remedy, but it is nearly teatime, so he puts it off till after tea. After tea he takes a quiet smoke. Then he glances over the evening paper, dozes, falls asleep, and never awakes. He has died with a remedy within easy reach, but neglects it. Scripture says, "How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?" Some one has said that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Men and women intend to have the question of their souls' salvation settled some day. And it will be, but with most, alas, too late. It will be settled contrary to their expectations, with heaven closed against them, and hell, with all its horrors, open to them as neglecters of God's great salvation. "The soul of the sluggard desireth and hath nothing" (Prov. 13: 4). Desiring the salvation of your soul is not enough; you must lay hold of it at once. "Behold now is the accepted time." Do you think lost souls in hell expected ever to be there? Few of them. Could we descend to those woeful regions of remorse, and question those who heard the Gospel as you hear it now, the most of them would say they never thought they would be lost. Nearly all expected to be saved before they died. But death suddenly overtook them, or their hearts grew hard and callous as the years slipped by, and ere they knew it, almost, they were past all hope. "I am lost, lost, lost; yet I always meant to be saved!" a young girl cried, as she lay in the agonies of death. O man, woman, child, delay not! Now is the golden moment.

Well, I leave the neglecter, and turn towards the house of Mr. White. I enter his room and say: "Thank God, you need not die, my man! Here is a remedy. It has cured me, and it will cure you." "Thank you," he gasps, as he takes a long, deep draught and is saved. He accepts the remedy.

Sin-sick soul, accept God's remedy to-night. It is within your reach. "Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into heaven (that is, to bring Christ down from above)? Or, Who shall descend into the deep (that is, to bring Christ up again from the dead)? But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even 'in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach; That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved" (Rom. 10: 6-9).

Paul at Athens had three kinds of hearers. "Some mocked." They were the rejectors. "And others said, We will hear thee again of this matter." They were neglecters. "Howbeit, certain men clave unto him and believed." They accepted and were saved (Acts 17).

Which class are you like, my friend? Oh, be wise in time. "Why will ye die?"

The young man of Egypt was starving. For "three days and three nights" he had eaten nothing. How like the prodigal of the fifteenth of Luke this is. "I perish with hunger." Hunger makes a man dependent. He is thus made willing to be ministered unto. For a season souls in this state are likely to seek to satisfy the cravings of their hearts with "husks." And the devil helps them. He wants to keep them somewhat satisfied, if possible, short of the Bread of God. He fears to have them turn towards God for satisfaction, for he knows they will find it there. So he entertains them to the best of his ability with everything the world affords. And he has plenty of ministers to do this kind of work. They can do it beneath the cloak of Christianity, too. Such are "transformed as the ministers of righteousness" (2 Cor. 11: 15). They appear as ministers of Christ, but they preach not Christ. The world seeks entertainment So these men apply themselves to the art of entertaining, so that even starving souls are caught for a time. They are like Nero, who, when Rome was starving, sent to Egypt for shiploads of sand for the arena, instead of corn for the famishing inhabitants. He would amuse a starving people. What the poor world needs is Christ — the Gospel. Would to God there were faithful men in every corner of Christendom who would preach only Christ as the bread of life to perishing souls. There are actors, lecturers and clowns enough in the world to tickle the ears of perishing men and women, without the professed servants of Christ attempting to do the same.

Turn from the chaff and the straw of a mock Christianity, with its ceaseless round of entertainment. Christ alone can meet the deep and desperate need of your perishing soul. He not only saves, but, glory to His name, "He satisfieth the longing soul."

Then, the young man of Egypt was abandoned. He says, "My master left me, because three days agone I fell sick" (ver. 13). His heartless master left him in the field to perish when he could not use him any longer. And that's the way the devil treats his servants. He uses them as his tools as long as he can. Then, when he cannot use them any more, he leaves them to their fate. Thus he treated Judas and hosts of others before and since.

But it is not so with Christ, He never turns away from any. He saved a Mary Magdalene. He revealed Himself as a Saviour to the Samaritan woman. He assured a dying robber of a home in paradise with Him. He saved a mad inquisitor called Saul — the very "chief of sinners." His call to the very worst of Adam's race is this: "Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out." George Whitefield used often to cry out in his preaching: "Christ will even receive the devil's castaways." A poor wreck of a woman was once passing the door of the tabernacle just as the great soul-winner uttered this startling declaration. They struck her; hope revived in her breast, and the next day she called on the earnest evangelist to ask him if it was really so that Christ would receive such castaways as she. He assured her from Scripture that He would, and she became "a brand plucked out of the fire." Thank God, I say, for such a Saviour to proclaim and such a Master to obey and serve. Is He Saviour and Lord to you, my friend, or are you yet lost and Satan's slave? You belong to Christ or Satan, as we shall see directly.

The last is his captivity. The young man of Egypt confessed himself to be a servant to an Amalekite. "And David said unto him, To whom belongest thou? and whence art thou? And he said, I am a young man of Egypt, servant to an Amalekite" (ver. 13). He was a bond slave. He belonged to this Amalekite. Now, Amalek is a type of the flesh that is in us, and by which Satan enslaves the sons of men. By "the flesh" I mean man's evil nature — that which in us produces the various lusts and passions. Amalek was Israel's most bitter and implacable enemy, and the Lord had sworn that He would have war with Amalek forever (Ex. 17: 8-16). So also now "The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary the one to the other (Gal. 5: 17). Now Christ came not only to deliver us from the terrors of death, as we have already seen, but also from the enslaving power of sin — from serving that indwelling sin, that we may live unto God.

When David's men discovered this young man of Egypt they brought him to David. Thus true servants of the Lord ever aim to bring both sinners and saints to the Lord Himself, knowing well that none but He is able to meet their various needs. Andrew found his brother Simon. "And he brought him to Jesus" (John 1: 42). To make the Church a sort of Noah's ark for safety is a huge delusion. Christ is the ark and the sinner's only refuge. You must be brought to Christ, my friends, or perish. You must ever be in contact with Christ, my brethren, or starve and grow worldly.

The Egyptian brought to David is assured by him of his safety. Then he enters David's service. He begins to serve him. "And David said to him, Canst thou bring me down to this company? And he said, Swear unto me by God, that thou wilt neither kill me, nor deliver me into the hands of my master, and I will bring thee down to this company" (ver. 13).

Now note the order. Assurance of salvation first, and service afterwards. It is not first service, and then security. The young man will not make a move in David's service till he has the assurance of his own security. He was wise in this. Are you as wise, my friend? Have you the assurance of your own salvation? If not, you have no business doing so-called "Christian work." Security is not gained by service, though hosts of men have that idea. "By grace are ye saved, through faith. . . . Not of works lest any man should boast" (Eph. 2: 8, 9). If man were saved by works, heaven would be a wretched place. I'll tell you why. Heaven would be filled with boasters. One hears boasting and bragging enough down here, until it almost makes him sick. How blessed to be in a place some day where there is no boasting! Why, if sinners were saved as some men preach and as the majority of people suppose, we might hear conversations like this in heaven:

"Who are you?"

"Oh, I lived in the days when Noah built his ark."

"And how did you succeed in getting here?"

"Well, I'll tell you. I had a good deal of sympathy with Noah, and took an interest in his work. I worked a number of weeks for nothing on the ark, and I donated several thousand feet of lumber and a good many kegs of spikes and nails. That's how I got here."

Such boasting would be heard on every hand; every man praising himself and outdoing his neighbor. Thank God, there will be no boasting there. "Where is boasting, then? It is excluded. By what law (or principle)? Of works? Nay; but by the law of faith. Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law" (Rom. 3: 27, 28). We are saved by the grace of God on the justifying principle of that faith which clings to Jesus and the blood of His cross, and not of works or anything of us, lest any man should boast.

Christ has done the work that saves. Behold Him on the cross between two mocking thieves, though His rightful place is on the throne of God, the centre of adoring hosts of angels. Though "King of kings," He wears a crown of thorns. The Creator of heaven and earth, He hangs in shame between the two, as if unfit for either place. He cries, "I thirst," though He made the gushing springs and cooling brooks and all the mighty rivers. The cup of the wrath of God is pressed to His stainless lips, and He drains it. The sword of divine justice is uplifted, and He bares His spotless bosom to receive the stroke. The storm of God's anger against sin is bursting upon Him, and He bows His blessed, sinless head beneath the blast. Hear that cry that comes from the very depths of His suffering spirit: "My God! My God! why hast Thou forsaken Me?" God makes Him sin for us — He who knew no sin. He is made a curse for us, that He may become the eternal source and fountain of all blessing. The heavens become black and the earth is quaking. The very rocks are rent as Jesus, the Saviour, makes atonement. Three awful hours have passed, and in triumph He exclaims: "It is finished!" Then He bows His head, yields up the spirit, and the mighty work is done. All praise be His! The anthem of the redeemed is this: "Unto Him that loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, . . . to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever" (Rev. 1: 5-6). To the Son of God belongs all glory and all blessing. And to the sons of men is offered free salvation.

Works follow faith. The Egyptian serves when he is assured of his security. We believe and are saved apart from works. Then we begin to serve. A little verse expresses it:

"I need not work my soul to save,

For that my Lord, hath done;

But I would work like any slave,

From love to God's dear Son."

Scripture says, "We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus, unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them" (Eph. 2: 10). But many there are who try to serve the Lord before they have salvation. There must be the tree before you can look for fruits. Who ever saw a crop of apples growing on a telegraph-pole? Unconverted souls are just as dead as any telegraph-pole. Scripture describes them as being "dead in trespass and sins."

"No works, no penance can suffice,

'Tis life dead sinners need."

The young man of Egypt enjoyed assurance of his safety. David's oath assured him. He trusted David.

Have you assurance, friend? Do you know for certain you are saved? You say, "I hope so," or "I think so." Indeed! And are you satisfied with uncertainty on a subject such as this? Were you starting on a long journey and one asked you, "Have you your ticket?" Would you answer, "I hope so"? Could you rest short of being sure?

God's word alone can make us sure, as David's word assured the young Egyptian. It says to them that believe, "By grace ye are saved" (Eph. 2: 5). And again, "Who hath saved us, . . . not according to our works, but according to. His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began" (2 Tim. 1: 9). And again, "Not by words of righteousness which we have done, but according to His own mercy He saved us" (Titus 3: 5). I am not left to my feelings. I know it from the Scriptures. If I am in a dark cellar, I must feel my way. A man in the dark must be guided by feeling. But if I have a light to go by I do not have to trust to feelings. God's word is the lamp that gives us light and makes us certain. I dare not trust my feelings. Isaac trusted his feelings and was deceived. "And Isaac said unto Jacob, Come near, I pray thee, that I may feel thee, my son, whether thou be my very son Esau or not. And Jacob went near unto Isaac his father; and he felt him, and said, The voice is Jacob's voice but the hands are the hands of Esau" (Gen. 27: 21, 22). He made a disastrous mistake. He went by feelings, instead of being guided by the voice. The voice of God alone can give us certainty. And the Scriptures are the voice of God. Listen. "These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God that ye may know that ye have eternal life" (1 John 5: 13). "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life" (John 3: 36).

The Egyptian felt much different after eating the "bread," and the "piece of a cake of figs," and the "two clusters of raisins," and drinking the "water." No doubt of that. But I am sure he did not say, "I know my life is going to be spared, and that I am not going to be given up to my old master, because I feel so refreshed and strong." No, he had the word of David, aye, David's oath, to make him certain. God's word is as good as His oath. And that Word assures all true believers that their souls are saved, and that forever. "But," says some one, "I have seen converts go back and fall again beneath the power of Satan." And I have seen skyrockets in the sky at night that looked like falling stars. But they were not. God's almighty power suspends the stars in empty space. They never fall. Sky-rockets are not stars. They are from beneath — earth-born. They are man-made. Stars are heavenly and the work of God's creative hand. Man-made Christians will go back. They may look like Christians, and, like rockets, they may even make a brilliant show. But sky-rocket converts never hold out. God's converts always do. They are said to be "kept by the power of God through faith." Peter's light grew dim. He stumbled, but his faith continued. There was a work of God in his soul, and he did not fall away and perish. Thank God, we are saved with an "eternal salvation" (Heb. 5: 9).

I notice briefly two words, and then I've done. They are the Amalekites' enjoyment and their judgment. They were making merry in fancied security when David swooped down upon them like an eagle on its prey. "Behold, they were spread abroad upon all the earth; eating and drinking and dancing. . . . And David smote them from the twilight even unto the evening of the next day: and there escaped not a man of them, save four hundred young men, who rode upon camels and fled" (vers. 16, 17).

They were having a "merry time," as people say, when the vengeance of David was threatening to destroy them. Those Amalekites are like this God-hating, Christ-rejecting, Spirit-resisting, grace-abusing world. The awful judgment of God is threatening them, but they eat and drink and dance and sing as if it were not so. The apostle says, "When they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape" (2 Thess. 5: 3). He describes this impending judgment. "The Lord Jesus," he says, "shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ; who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His power" (2 Thess. 1: 7-9). Jude says, "Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousand of His saints, to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him" (Jude 14, 15).

Christ is coming, sinner. Are you prepared to meet Him? If not, what madness to be making merry Many years ago a servant of Christ named Samuel Whiting was itinerating about the states of New England. One night he stopped at a tavern where a company of young men and women were spending a merry evening. As Mr. Whiting passed them on his way to his room, he said to them, with deep solemnity: "Friends, if you are sure that your sins are forgiven, you may be wisely merry." His words dropped like a thunderbolt in their midst. They soon dispersed to their homes to think about the danger of their unsaved souls. Are your sins forgiven? If not, beware. You are not "wisely merry." Think, I beseech you, of the awful danger to which you are exposed. No man knows when Christ may come. I solemnly believe the hour of the world's impending judgment is about to strike. "The end of all things is at hand," the apostle Peter writes. "The time is short," Paul says. Soon, ah, soon, will the long-delayed and threatened stroke descend. Woe to you then, poor sinner.

The indifference of men is appalling. Thirty-five or forty years ago this country was shaken from Maine to California, and from the Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. Now all seems still as death. Is it the calm before the storm? the hush anterior to the tempest? In the days of Noah and Lot they were living in easy unconcern, as they are to-day. But the flood came and the fire descended. "Sudden destruction" came upon them in the midst of their festivities. "Flee," my unconverted hearers, "from the wrath to come." The Amalekites perished without warning. But God has warned the world. And it stands without excuse.

The young man of Egypt was with David when he came upon the Amalekites. He once belonged to their company and was one of them. Had he not been separated from them he would have surely shared their fate. If unconverted, you are of that world of sinners "whose judgment now for a long time lingereth not, and whose damnation slumbereth not." Turn from it now, ere the vengeance of God destroys you with it. God has borne with it long. The sins of Christendom reach up to Heaven and cry for vengeance. Christ is your only refuge. Come to Him now, and, like Noah in the ark and Lot in the mountain, you will be safe from the sweeping storm. Like the young man of Egypt, you will be taken out of the world and away from this scene before the stroke descends. You will appear with Christ, along with those ten thousand holy ones who accompany Him when He comes to earth to war and judge.

"Kiss the Son; lest He be angry, and ye perish from the way, when His wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in Him" (Ps. 2: 1 2).

One question ere I close. It is the first clause of the thirty-eighth verse, of the twenty-first chapter of Acts: "Art not thou that Egyptian?"

5. David and Mephibosheth. 2 Samuel 9.

David here is on the throne. He began with the staff of a shepherd, and ends with the sceptre of a sovereign. Saul and all his enemies are destroyed or overthrown. His wandering in the woods and among the mountains are ended. God has turned the tables, and the one who was once pursued "as when one doth hunt a partridge in the mountains" is enthroned in power. And he represents, here in this chapter, not so much Christ in His future millennial reign as now crowned in heaven and showing grace to a guilty world.

"And David said, Is there yet any left of the house of Saul, that I may show him kindness for Jonathan's sake?" (ver. 1.) David's conduct on the throne of Israel is a marked foreshadowing of God's actions since the death of Christ. His throne became then, and has been ever since, a "throne of grace." David, with power to cast into prison or to put to death, inquires for the descendants of his inveterate enemy, Saul. Saul had never shown him anything but hatred. In return, he desires to show kindness to any of his house who may be yet alive. He shows grace; and this is just how God is acting now. He is sending the precious gospel of His grace the wide world round, and in that gospel He inquires among the guilty sons of men for any who have conscious need of His great kindness.

The love and grace of God's heart is told out in the gospel. Since the fall, six thousand years ago, the world has been at enmity with God. And nearly nineteen hundred years ago they crucified His well-beloved Son. They mocked Him, and with wicked hands they nailed Him to a tree, between two thieves. But by that very death, in which man's awful enmity to God was manifested to the full, God now would reconcile men to Himself. "When we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son." Christ did not die, as men suppose, and many teach, to reconcile an angry God to sinners. God never was man's enemy. "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son." It was man who needed to be reconciled to God. "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself." God loves man, but He hates his sin. Reconciliation must be wrought in man. Christ came to do this by His death. In it He proves to than God's love, and destroys enmity in those who believe. Now, on the basis of that atoning death of Jesus, God can righteously offer salvation to a world of guilty sinners. It was "for Jonathan's sake" that David offered to show kindness to the house of Saul. He had in his mind a covenant he had made with Jonathan long ago, and of Jonathan's love and friendship to him. This moved him to inquire about the house of Saul. Jonathan was a son of Saul.

It is for Christ's sake God forgives our sins. "I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for His name's sake" (1 John 2: 12). "God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you" (Eph. 4: 32). It is only because of the work of Christ that God proposes to show mercy to the sinner. He does not show us kindness because of anything He sees in us. In us there dwelleth "no good thing." We are not saved because of our pious endeavors, our earnest prayers or our sincere repentance. "We are all as an unclean thing and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags" (Isa. 64: 6). God's salvation is for sinners through the finished work of Christ. God looks to the cross where His beloved Son atoned for sin, and is satisfied. Then He turns to a perishing world, whose sins deserved eternal wrath, and preaches peace. "Preaching peace by Jesus Christ" (Acts 10: 36).

David did not inquire for any who were worthy of his kindness. Their character was nothing. It was for Jonathan's sake alone that he was showing kindness. There is a story I have heard of a wealthy merchant's only son who enlisted in the Civil War. He was wounded in an engagement, and was taken to the hospital. Here he met and became attached to a somewhat dissipated young soldier. This soldier was discharged with only a few cents in his pockets. His home was in Chicago. Before he left, the merchant's son gave him a note to his father, through whose city he would pass on his tramp towards home. One day the merchant was very busy at his books, when a ragged soldier stepped up to his desk and presented a soiled and crumpled bit of paper. Begging soldiers on the tramp were very common in those days, and the merchant at first refused to receive or look into the paper thrust into his face. Said he, "I cannot bother with you. I am very busy, and I'm tired of all this begging." "The note is from Charley," said the soldier. A change came over the merchant in an instant. He took the note, opened it, and read something like this: "Dear Father — This man is without means, and wishes to reach his home and friends in Chicago. He was kind to me in the hospital. Help him, for Charley's sake." He rose, trembling, from his seat, and shook the soldier warmly by the hand He had plenty of time now. He took him to his mansion and seated him at a well-spread table. He gave him one of the best beds in the house that night, and the next morning fitted him out in a new suit of clothes. Then he bought him a ticket to Chicago and slipped a few dollars into his hand as he bade him good-by. Now, why did he do all this? It was for Charley's sake. The soldier had no claim upon his kindness. And he was not thinking of the soldier's merits, but of Charley. The soldier may have been unworthy of  his kindness, but it was Charley he was thinking of; he had Charley in his mind. And this is why God saves the sinner. It is for Jesus' sake. We are not accepted for any goodness in ourselves, but God hath made us "accepted in the Beloved, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace" (Eph. 1: 6-7).

All illustrations fail. Some one has said, "No parable has four legs." The point of the story is the merchant's esteem for his son and his kindness to the soldier just for Charley's sake. You could not say the merchant loved the soldier. But God loves men, even though they be sinners. But His righteousness would compel Him to condemn those very men for their sins if it were not for the atoning death of Christ.

"God is light" (1 John 1: 5). This is His character, which made the death of His Son a necessity. "God is love" (1 John 4: 8). This is His nature, which led Him to give His Son that His death might become an accomplished fact. Grace reigns "through righteousness." God is showing grace, and the death of Christ at Calvary proclaims Him "a just God and a Saviour."

Unconverted friend, God is "not willing that any should perish." He would have "all men to be saved." May He make thee willing to be saved to-night. May "the goodness of God" lead thee to repentance.

God is for men — not against them, and we have an illustration of this precious truth in David's showing grace and proffering kindness to the unworthy members of the house of Saul.

And let me warn you here. God will not show grace forever. "Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation" (2 Cor. 6: 2).

Every "day" must close at last, and every "time" must end. The "accepted time" has lasted almost twenty centuries; the "day of salvation" has been lengthened out to more than eighteen hundred years. But another "day" is coming. The sun of salvation's day will suddenly set at the coming of the Lord, and with His advent will be ushered in the awful "day of vengeance of our God" (Isa. 61: 2).

Solomon's reign, — a type of Christ's, succeeded that of David. David's reign is characterized by grace, Solomon's by judgment. Turn with me to 1 Kings, second chapter. David is dying here. Solomon, his son, is to succeed him on the throne. Notice his charge to Israel's future sovereign in verses 5 and 6: "Moreover, thou knowest also what Joab the son of Zeruiah did to me, and what he did to the two captains of the hosts of Israel, unto Abner the son of Ner, and unto Amasa the son of Jether, whom he slew, and shed the blood of war in peace, and put the blood of war upon the girdle that was about his loins, and in his shoes that were on his feet. Do therefore according to thy wisdom, and let not his hoar head go down to the grave in peace." Also verses 8 and 9: "And, behold, thou hast with thee Shimei the son of Gera, a Benjamite of Bahurim, who cursed me with a grievous curse in the day when I went to Mahanaim; but he came down to meet me at Jordan, and I sware to him by the Lord, saying, I will not put thee to death with the sword. Now therefore hold him not guiltless: for thou art a wise man, and knowest what thou oughtest to do unto him; but his hoar head bring thou down to the grave with blood." All through David's reign these men were tolerated. Grace was shown them. But Solomon is charged to slay them. No mercy must be shown them after David's reign of grace is over. This is solemn, sinner. David's throne, like God's at present, is a "throne of grace" (Heb. 4: 16). His enemies were allowed to live. Judgment was executed on these enemies at the inauguration of Solomon's glorious reign, which typifies the millennial reign of Christ. If you refuse God's grace and remain unreconciled, you must have judgment. In grace God lets you live, as David his enemies. But remember, you will certainly be damned if you continue unconverted till the time for showing grace is passed. The Lord will suddenly come, and then farewell all hope to those who spurned the grace of God. Grace refused now insures damnation then. Then that bitter, hopeless wail will issue from your lips, "The harvest is passed, the summer is ended, and I am not saved." You will be forever past all mercy then.

In verses 2 and 3 of our chapter, Ziba, a servant of Saul, is summoned to appear before the king. David repeats his inquiry concerning the descendants of Saul to him. Only here he says "the kindness of God." In Ephesians, second chapter and seventh verse, we read of "the exceeding riches of God's grace in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus." That is a wonderful verse to me. The amazing magnitude of God's kindness is unspeakable. It is higher than the heights, deeper than the depths, and broader than all breadths. It is measureless, fathomless, infinite! There is nothing so powerfully overwhelming as God's kindness. It should bow all unconverted hearts in real repentance. It should bow yours. God would have that heart, so hard, so cold, and so deformed by sin, affected by His truth — reformed. The condemning law of God cannot accomplish this. "The law worketh wrath." Neither can the "terrors of the Lord" alone. Felix "trembled" at them, but his heart remained untouched. Thy heart must needs be fused and melted in the furnace of God's pardoning love and kindness. Every truth of Scripture has its use and value, but it is only the love of God displayed in redemption and perceived by faith that can melt and soften hearts estranged from God. May God's love touch some heart to-night. May His kindness, sinner, touch your heart and turn it towards Himself.

Now Mephibosheth comes before us. "And Ziba said unto the king, Jonathan hath yet a son which is lame on his feet. And the king said unto him, Where is he? And Ziba said unto the king, Behold, he is in the house of Machir, the son of Ammiel, in Lo-debar. Then king David sent, and fetched him out of the house of Machir, the son of Ammiel, from Lo-debar" (vers. 3-5). Mephibosheth represents the sinner here. Three things may be said of him: He was a cripple, he was in a "place of no pasture," and he was hiding from the presence of the king.

These three things, in a spiritual sense, are true of every one of you, my unconverted hearers. Give heed as I enlarge upon them, then. I have a friend who has only one sound ear; the other is entirely deaf. When people wish to tell him something which he does not care to hear, he turns his deaf ear towards them. Now turn your soul's deaf ear, if you have one, to the devil's lies to-night. Keep your sound ear open to the truth of God. If you want to hear the Scriptures with your left ear and the devil's comments on those Scriptures with your right ear, may the "sword of the Spirit" cut that right ear off as the sword of Peter cut off Malchus'. "If any man hath an ear, let him hear."

First, then, Mephibosheth was a cripple; he was "lame on both his feet" (ver. 13). He seems to have been a perfectly helpless cripple. A man with one lame leg is badly off. He cannot walk straight, and must make a crooked path. But a man with two lame legs is worse off still; he cannot walk at all. Mephibosheth was "lame on both his feet," and so are you, if unconverted, You are a moral cripple — spiritually lame, and unable to walk the straight and narrow way that leads to life and God. You are "without strength," as Scripture says, to tread the "paths of righteousness" (Rom. 5: 6). You are morally deformed and unable to help yourself. May God show you this. I am sure you do not like to hear me say these things about you. Some years ago I was preaching in Canada, and a very self-righteous Sunday-school superintendent came in one night to hear what the stranger had to say. It happened that he had a good deal to say that night about the utter ruin of man. I suppose this religious man had had his ears tickled many a time before by sermons on the moral dignity and superiority of man, but that night they were not tickled. He went away in a rage. "I'll never go to hear that man again," said he. "He makes nobodies of us." Nobodies Indeed, far worse than that. Men, before God, are guilty criminals and slaves of sin. Their natural heart is a sink of sin. Isaiah says, "We are all as an unclean thing." I want to be plain about this, and I beg of you to be honest with yourself. Just say, "Preacher, tell me what God says; show me up by Scripture. I want to see myself as God describes me in His word."

The mass of preachers to-day are like the photographers who make all their homely patrons handsome. They make beauties of the plainest of them. They have a way of "touching up" their pictures that makes every man and woman handsome. And the more skilful they are at this, the larger their business, just as the most popular preachers are those who can lay the whitewash of flattery thickest on their unconverted audiences. I was once shown a photograph of an elderly lady who must have been an honest soul. The lines and wrinkles and "crow's feet" were all retained in the picture just as they were on her living, features. Her nieces, who showed me the picture, said the artist had wished to take them out of the negative, but the dear old aunty would not have it. She said she wished to appear in her picture just as she really was. Imitate her honesty, my friends, in this great question of your true condition as a sinner. "Let God be true, but every man a liar." Accept His own description of you. It is given life-size in the third of Romans. There you are described from head to foot. "Throat," "tongue," "lips," "feet" and all are pictured. The servant of Christ's business is to show you to yourself by Scripture as you truly are. All "touching up" is Satan's work.

Much of the preaching of the day is like the wonderful man of the circus bills. He dexterously throws knives about a man who stands with his fingers and arms outstretched against a wall some distance off. The skilful performer sends the knives whizzing past his ears and between his fingers and over the top of his head and past his throat. The wall is bristling with knives all around him. Some of them may graze his skin, but the art, you see, is not to hit him. I have said enough. I think you understand. Villains and cutthroats and sneak-thieves may be publicly exposed as transgressors in danger of damnation, annihilation, purgatory, or perhaps some lighter punishment, but the whitewashed hypocrite and the unconverted novel-readers and ballroom butterflies — ah, be careful, or you will drive them from the Church.

I knew a preacher in the West like this. When some one reproached him for not proclaiming the truth, he exclaimed indignantly: "I do! I give the Sunday baseball players fits, and lift up my voice against the sin of drunkenness." He knew the miserable drunkard and the Sunday baseball player were well out of range in the beer-saloon and on the diamond. Fearless preaching, that!

But "they be blind leaders of the blind; let them alone." Man is a moral wreck and ruin, though "the preaching of the cross," which proves it, "is to them that perish foolishness." If we deny man's utter ruin by preaching circumcision, reformation or anything else for man's improvement, "then is the offense of the cross ceased," and we cease to "suffer persecution" (Gal. 5: 11). The truth of the incurable moral lameness of man offends, and always did, and always will. Mephibosheth was lame and could not walk. And unconverted sinners cannot follow Christ. I know religious people think the way to be saved is by trying to follow Christ. But how can a man with both legs lame follow anybody? No: salvation comes by trusting in Christ's death, and not by attempting to imitate His life.

Let us see now how Mephibosheth became a cripple. Turn back to the fourth chapter and fourth verse: "And Jonathan, Saul's son, had a son that was lame on his feet. He was five years old when the tidings came of Saul and Jonathan out of Jezreel. And his nurse took him up, and fled: and it came to pass as she made haste to flee, that he fell, and became lame. And his name was Mephibosheth." He had a fall, and by his fall he became a cripple. Six thousand years ago man had a fall. He fell in Eden's garden. He sinned, and by his sin became a fallen creature. And all of us are born of fallen parents. "Like begets like." The psalmist says, "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me" (Ps. 51: 5). Let me illustrate this truth. Suppose a man and wife — a noble couple living in Russia — are banished for some offense, as they often are, to the wilds of Siberia. Children are born to them there, and, though innocent of the crime with which their parents were charged, they are compelled to share their parent's dreary exile. They suffer the rigors of that awful climate and lead lives of misery and sorrow in that land of desolation and distress through their parents' crime. Our first parents, Adam and Eve, were exiled from Eden because of their sin. All their children were born outside the garden. All of us were born in exile and of exiled parents. All are born away from God. And sinner, if God does not interpose in grace and save you, you must be forever exiled from His blissful presence and banished to the outer darkness and distance of an eternal hell. You are a fallen creature, born of fallen parents. You must be "born again" and brought to God. May this take place to-night.

The next point is, Mephibosheth was living in Lo-debar. He was in a "place of no pasture." All Hebrew proper names have some significance. Lo-debar signifies "a place of no pasture." And this is like the world where sinners live away from God. It contains no pasture. It has "husks" — food only fit for swine — but no real pasture. The prodigal was starving in the "distant land of famine." "I perish with hunger," was his bitter cry. It is the cry of multitudes. I do not say they hunger after Christ. Alas, they turn away from Him, the bread of God sent down from heaven. But men and women seek and sigh for satisfaction where it can never be found — in the world, away from God. Many seek it at the playhouse and the ballroom. "Lo-debar" is written over the entrances of these haunts of mirth and folly. Others seek it in secular literature, good, bad, and indifferent. But "Lo-debar" could be stamped upon the covers of it all, from the learned classics to the five-cent novel. There is no satisfying pasture there. Others, with a show of wisdom, hope to find it in religious forms and ceremonies. But over every arching temple door where Christ is not held up, faith's eyes, anointed with heavenly eye-salve, can see written in letters black as night, "Lo-debar" — no pasture.

The persecutors of the martyrs sometimes fed their victims sawdust bread to mock them. And that's the kind of food the world is feeding on. I have a friend who told me of a dog that used to chase the thunder. How like the sinner seeking satisfaction where it has never yet been found.

I know the world has pleasures. Scripture speaks of "the pleasures of sin for a season." But pleasure is not satisfaction. King Solomon enjoyed the world, but he found no satisfaction. Hear what he says: "I said in mine heart, Go to now, I will prove thee with mirth, therefore enjoy pleasure: and behold, this also is vanity. I said of laughter, It is mad: and of mirth, What doeth it? I sought in mine heart to give myself unto wine, yet acquainting mine heart with wisdom; and to lay hold on folly, till I might see what was that good for the sons of men, which they should do under heaven all the days of their life. I made me great works; I builded me houses; I planted me vineyards: I made me gardens and orchards, and I planted trees in them of all kinds of fruits: I made me pools of water, to water therewith the wood that bringeth forth trees: I got me servants and maidens, and had servants born in my house; also I had great possessions of great and small cattle above all that were in Jerusalem before me: I gathered me also silver and gold and the peculiar treasure of kings and of the provinces: I gat me men singers and women singers, and the delights of the Wits of men, as musical instruments, and that of all sorts. So I was great, and increased more than all that were before me in Jerusalem: also my wisdom remained with me. And whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from them, I withheld not my heart from any joy; for my heart rejoiced in all my labor: and this was my portion of all my labor. Then I looked on all the works my hands had wrought, and on the labor that I had labored to do: and behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun" (Ecc. 2: 1-11). He tried everything, and turned away in disappointment. And he asks immediately after, "What can the man do that cometh after the king?" If he, with every advantage in his favor, could not find the satisfaction he was seeking for, how can poor and common people like ourselves expect to find it? Ah, "Lo-debar" is written everywhere. Solomon is the very man who said in a proverb, "Wisdom is before him that hath understanding; but the eyes of a fool are in the ends of the earth" (Prov. 17: 24). The eyes of a fool, like yours, my unsaved friend, are looking here and there and everywhere the wide world over for some satisfaction. But the eyes of those of understanding are set on wisdom. Christians are the understanding ones, and Christ is the "wisdom of God" (1 Cor. 1: 24). Their eyes are fixed on Him. He makes Himself their satisfying object.

The missionary, William Carey, tells of a native convert who was asked if he had happiness. "Yes," he answered, "I am thrice happy." He was asked for an explanation. Said he, laying his hand upon his heart, "I have Christ here" (Eph. 3: 17). Then he said, laying his hand on his Bengalee Bible, "I have Christ here" (Luke 24: 27). "And," he said, pointing towards heaven, "I have Christ up there" (Col. 3: 1). Happy man! He had Christ in his heart, and Christ in his Bible, and Christ in heaven. How could he be unhappy? Christians who make everything of Christ are always happy. The psalmist says, "He maketh me to lie down in green pastures." The sheep of Christ are in a place of pasture which is always green and fresh. They can there find perfect satisfaction. Sheep, they say, lie down when they are satisfied. So David said, "He maketh me to lie down." Where are you, my friend? In Lo-debar, or satisfied amid the ever fresh and fragrant pastures of communion with the Lord?

The third thing is, he was hiding from the presence of the king. He thought, I suppose, that David was against him. He very likely thought if David found him he would hang him to the nearest tree, or slay him with the sword, or have him cast into prison. Was not Saul, his grandfather, the almost life-long enemy of David? Had he not for years wronged David of the throne of Israel? So he hid himself away in Machir's house, in Lo-debar.

And sinners try to hide away from God. Adam hid among the trees of Paradise. He had sinned against his good Creator, and he feared to meet Him. But the Lord God sought His erring creature. "Adam, where art thou?" showed His interest in the welfare of the fallen man. Adam says, "I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself." And sinner, God is for thee. He gave His Son that He might never be compelled to damn thee for thy sins. "God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3: 16). You need not hide away in fear, if you have any real concern about your soul. Men seek to hide away from God because they do not know His love. Mephibosheth did not know that David's mind was set upon his welfare. He did not know the grace of David's heart towards such as he. And so he hid himself. Why hide from God, poor soul? His blessed heart is full of love for sinners such as you. His love was manifested to the full by giving Jesus up to die a death of shame, "that we might live through Him" (1 John 4: 9). He forsook His Son upon the cross that we might bask forever in the blissful sunshine of His favor, though in ourselves unworthy. Oh, God's love is well-proved love! You could not ask for better proof. Why, then, believe the lie of Satan, who would have you think God's heart is filled with wrath against you? "There is wrath." But it is against sin. Christ has atoned for sin. He has made Himself a Mediator, so a holy God can spare the guilty sinner. Why, oh, why, poor sinner, hide and flee from God? I once sought to hide from God. I'll tell you why. God had been misrepresented to me. And it was the work of Satan. He pictured God in this way to me: There crouched the sinner, trembling from head to foot. Over him stood the Almighty, with the glittering sword of divine wrath raised above his head, ready to strike him down without a moment's notice. He represented "the God of all grace" as anxious to rid Himself of a wretch so vile by hurling him down to hell without the least compassionate regret. But it is false, my unconverted hearers. God is not against you. His very warnings evidence His love. Why warn if He is careless or indifferent to your fate? Do not, I beg of you, take the caricature of Satan as a representation of the God who emptied heaven of its chiefest treasure, that a world of rebel sinners might be saved.

At the time when Luther was first giving the Bible to the German nation in their native language, a scrap of the third of John and the sixteenth verse was blown or thrown into the street from the shop where the precious Bible was being printed. It was picked up by a little child and carried home. Eight words only were on the bit of paper: "God so loved the world that He gave . . ." The rest of the verse was torn away. The family read it, and they wondered what God "gave." They had never seen a Bible. And they never knew God loved them. The priests had always told them God was angry with them, and must be appeased by penance, alms and masses. They had been taught to believe that God was demanding something from them. But here they saw that God had given something. They soon procured a Bible, and behold, in glad surprise they saw what God had given in His love, even "His only begotten Son." They believed the glad tidings and were saved. They had learned God's love, and "there is no fear in love." Their dread of God was gone forever, even as the mists of the morning disappear before the noonday sunshine. Believe that love to-night, my unsaved hearer. May it draw thee from thy hiding place. For remember, if you die away from God, the trump of the last great day will call you from your distance and darkness to stand in the full-blazed light of the judgment-throne. There you will stand in the searching brightness of the Judge's awful presence. There thou shalt hear those soul-crushing words, — the most awful mortal ears have ever heard, "Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." May God bring thee to the light by His Spirit now. "Acquaint now thyself with Him and be at peace: thereby good shall come unto thee."

Notice now, king David sent and fetched Mephibosheth from his hiding place. "Then king David sent and fetched him from the house of Machir, the son of Ammiel, from Lo-debar" (v. 5). And God, in His absolute sovereignty, brings the sinner to Himself. "So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy" (Rom. 9: 16). God, by His Spirit, does for or in us, what we never would, or could do, for, or of ourselves. The work from first to last is God's. If left to ourselves we never would be saved. None are saved but by the free and sovereign grace of God. It is God who makes us willing to be saved. We have an illustration of this in Luke 14. There the feast is spread, the invitations are sent out, and all refuse to come. "They all with one consent began to make excuse." But the servant is sent out and charged to "compel them to come in." And again, "Bring in hither." Every guest at that feast was either compelled to come in or brought in. If left to themselves, not a single one of all those invited would have been there. What Christian would or could refuse to sing, —

"'Twas the same hand that spread the feast

That gently forced me in;

Else I lied still refused to taste,

And perished in my sin."

A man said to me once, "Do you mean to say that God takes men by the coat collar and forces them to come against their wills?" "No," I replied," He compels them to come by persuasion. He makes them hungry by His Spirit. It is an easy thing to make a hungry man sit down before a well-spread table." May He make some sinner hungry here to-night, is my prayer.

One thing David did; two things he did not do.

"David sent and fetched him." He did not send him a bottle of medicine to try on his crippled feet. A mass of professing Christians seem to think that God has provided religion to act as a sort of medicine on our souls, and which, if taken in liberal doses, will prepare us to be saved when we come to die. But religion cannot save. The Hottentots, and the Mohammedans, and the Brahmans are all religious people. You may be saturated to your very soul's centre with religion and sink into hell at last. How many sing, —

"'Tis religion that can give

Satisfaction while we live;

'Tis religion can supply

Peace and comfort when we die."

Cain was a religious man; he brought an offering to the Lord. The persecutors of the prophets were religious. An intensely religious nation crucified the "Lord of glory." Fanatical religionists tortured and burned the martyrs. Christening, confirmation, sacrament taking, prayer reading, psalm singing, mass hearing, penance, all are vain and cannot save, or even he to save the sinner. It is God, by His Spirit, working in our souls and producing repentance towards Himself and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ. This He does apart altogether from the above named forms and ceremonies of religion. The only necessary instrumentality is the written word of God, — the holy Scriptures. "Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God" (Rom. 10: 17).

"None but Jesus

Can do helpless sinners good."

"Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved" (Acts 4: 12). The woman with the issue of blood in the 8th. of Luke, spent all her living upon physicians. They experimented, but they could not heal her. She only grew worse on their hands. Were it not for Christ she would have died in spite of all her doctors. Distrust and turn from all who preach not Christ. Only the interposing grace of God can save a helpless sinner.

Nor did David send a pair of crutches to Mephibosheth, telling him to try and do the best he could, hobbling his way towards Jerusalem. But there is a class of people who imagine the ten commandments were sent from heaven to help the sinner back to God. Two great commandments, — love to God and love to man, — are the essence of the ten.

"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbor as thyself" (Luke 10: 27). They look upon these two commandments as a pair of crutches. You try to keep them, "do the best you can," and hope for heaven at last. Love God, that is one crutch; love your neighbor, that's the other. Make a start, keep up courage, and work out your soul's salvation.

But no one keeps these two commandments. And it is written, "Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them" (Gal. 3: 10). Trying to keep them is not enough. It says, "This do and thou shalt live." It does not say, "This try to do and thou shalt live." So the holy law of God can only curse the sinner, for he fails to keep, it. "Therefore, by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in His sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin" (Rom. 3: 20). Do you love God with all your heart, and all your soul, and all your strength, and all your mind? None but the most hardened hypocrites dare say they do. And do you love your neighbor as yourself I know some people think they do. I met a lady out in Indiana who thought or said she did. I thought I'd test her, so I said, "Look here, Mrs. —, suppose your own house was on fire and your neighbor's house was on fire, and someone came rushing into this hall crying, 'Mrs. —, your house is on fire and your neighbor's, too!' You rush out, and there, alas, is your house just commencing to burn, and your neighbor's right next door, the same. Now, whose house would you run to first?" "Why, I'd run to my own, of course," she said. "Then," said I, "you do not love your neighbor as yourself, because if you did it would not matter to you which house was saved and which was burned." Well, she looked, I tell you, and I hope she saw how short she came of doing what she claimed she did. Law cannot help the sinner, for the sinner has no strength to keep it.

No, David did not send Mephibosheth crutches or medicine; he "sent and fetched him." I can almost imagine Mephibosheth's feelings as he was being brought to David. The officers come to the door of Machir's house and knock. Machir sees them through the window and turns deadly pale. They both expect arrest or execution. To Mephibosheth's surprise they lift him tenderly as a child and carry him to the waiting chariot. Then they start off towards Jerusalem. Mephibosheth sits and trembles like an aspen. They enter the city, and he fully expects to be driven towards the prison quarters. But they drive right to the royal palace. Mephibosheth is bewildered. He sees a man with a golden crown upon his head, and a purple robe upon his shoulders, hurrying down the marble steps. It is the king. He hastens to the chariot and asks so tenderly, "Art thou Mephibosheth?" "Behold thy servant," Mephibosheth falters. In an instant the arms of the king encircle the crippled son of Jonathan, and he weeps upon his neck. Still Mephibosheth trembles. David tenderly kisses him on the cheek, and says assuringly, "Fear not; for I will surely show thee kindness for Jonathan, thy father's sake, and I will restore thee all the land of Saul, thy father; and thou shalt eat bread at my table continually" (v. 7). Such kindness overcomes Mephibosheth. "And he bowed himself and said, What is thy servant, that thou shouldst look upon such a dead dog as I am?" (v. 8). They carry him into the palace, and he is given a place and portion "as one of the king's sons." "Fear not," David said to Mephibosheth. "Fear not," God says to every trembling sinner trusting in the death of Christ. He wants them at rest in His presence. They have nothing to fear, for Christ has suffered for their sins. He "made peace through the blood of His cross." All the claims of justice have been met. Their Substitute has died and lives forever now upon the throne of God. There He sits in heaven, their righteousness and representative. Fear not, then, fellow-believer.

If an unbeliever, you have good cause to fear, "He that believeth not shall be damned." Well may you tremble on your seat as you think of your awful condition as a sinner in arms against the almighty God. Felix trembled, and the demons tremble too. God does not say to you, "Fear not." His word to such as you is this, "Behold ye despisers, and wonder, and perish."

Mephibosheth calls himself a "dead dog" in David's presence. It is in the presence of God that we learn ourselves. There Job learned himself. "Behold I am vile; what shall I answer Thee? I will lay mine hand upon my mouth," he says. And again, "I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth Thee. Wherefore I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes" (Job 40: 4; Job 42: 5, 6). This is repentance. A repentant man has no good thing to say about himself. A living dog is bad enough, but Mephibosheth calls himself a dead one. God, in His grace, grant some one repentance to-night. May He, by the action of His Spirit, through the living and powerful Word, bring sinners into the light of His presence, that there they may abhor themselves as vile and only fit and ready fuel for the flames of hell. Sinners, once there, receive with joy the grand and glorious message of the Gospel of God's grace, — "Christ died for the ungodly" (Rom. 5: 6).

I notice one thing more ere closing. Mephibosheth gets two things, — a portion and a place. "Then the king called to Ziba, Saul's servant, and said unto. him, I have given unto thy master's son all that pertained to Saul and to all his house" (v. 9). That is his portion. But there was more. He was brought into the royal palace "as one of the king's sons." "As for Mephibosheth, said the king, he shall eat at my table, as one of the king's sons" (5: 11). There you have his place.

Christians have a portion. They have forgiveness of sins, justification from all things, and spiritual blessings innumerable. But they also have a place. And oh, what a place it is! It is a place in the Father's house as sons. "Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God" (1 John 3: 1). The place is even better than the portion, blessed as the Christian's portion is. All believers stand accepted as sons in God's everlasting favor. "For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus" (Gal. 3: 26). Too many rest with being saved, and but feebly, if ever, enter into the enjoyment of their place as "sons of God." They know their portion, but scarcely apprehend their place. When the Danish missionaries at Malabar wished to get out a catechism for the natives, they set a bright young convert to the work. When he came to the part where believers in Christ are said to be "sons of God," he stopped. "It is too much," he exclaimed, "let me rather render it, They shall be permitted to kiss His feet.'" Fellow-Christians, it is not too much. If we look only at our poor, unworthy selves it is far, far too much, but if we look at God it is just what suits His heart.

Oh, what joy to sing, —

"How blest a place! The Father's house;

There love divine doth rest;

What else could satisfy the hearts

Of those in Jesus blest?

His home made ours — His Father's love

Our heart's full portion given,

The portion of the First-born Son,

The full delight of heaven."

One word more in closing.

Sinner, will you have this place and portion? Or will you choose to have a place and portion with the devil and his angels in the lake of fire? Oh, choose life! Yield to the strivings of God's Spirit. Resist Him not. May God in His grace constrain you to turn to Him now.

Through Christ, and Christ alone you can be brought to God. "For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God" (1 Peter 3: 18).

God bless His word to many souls. Amen.

6. David, Ziba and Mephibosheth. (2 Samuel 16: 1-4; 2 Samuel 19: 24-30.)

I am going to speak specially to Christians to-night. Preaching the gospel to sinners is important work. God forbid that I, or any servant of the Lord, should ever slight such work. The responsibility of making the gospel known to a perishing world rests upon. all the saints of God. Every Christian is a debtor to those within his reach in this respect. The apostle Paul says, "I am a debtor both to the Greeks, and to the Barbarians; both to the wise, and to the unwise" (Rom. 1: 14). But the methods of certain popular evangelists going about the country are to be deplored. They remain but a few weeks in a place, and then are off, perhaps a thousand miles away. The converts, when real, are left to starve, and seldom advance much beyond the knowledge of the fundamentals of the gospel, if they are even clear on these.

Now Paul was a model evangelist, and he never left the converts of his preaching like freshly hatched partridges, half out of their shells, or new born babes unable to feed themselves. He stayed by them and taught them, and sought to build them up. We are apt to forget, in reading the inspired account of his labors, that it is the merest outline, — a bare synopsis of a life of devotedness, covering a period of thirty years or more. He appears to be flitting about from place to place and always on the go, but he was not. He seems to have spent three years in Arabia (Gal. 1: 17, 18), one year in Antioch (Acts 11: 26), a long time in Iconium (Acts 14: 3), a year and six months, at least, at Corinth (Acts 18: 11), two years, about, in Ephesus (Acts 19: 10), besides a good many years in prison. At some places his stays were short because of persecution. But his travels were not as extensive by any means as most suppose. Many a much lesser preacher to-day travels more in a year than the apostle did during the whole course of his eventful life.

And what should we learn from this? Just this, that the greatest evangelist that ever lived always endeavored to establish converts in the faith before he left them.

In view of this, I have decided to speak a little to believers to-night, though I shall not by any means forget that some of my audience are unconverted. The trend of every address should be like the roads about Rome that used to converge and meet at the golden milestone in the Forum, as the spokes of a wheel all come together at the hub. Christ is the golden centre, — the focus of all truth. And though saints are specially addressed tonight, may God bless the very mention of the Saviour's precious name to sinners' hearts.

There is a verse I often think of in the epistle to the Romans. It is the 4th verse of the 15th chapter. "For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we, through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope." There we Christians have what is called our charter for reading the Old Testament in the expectation of receiving something for our souls' instruction. I call it the Magna Charta. It covers so much, you know. Let us look then at the flight of David and his return, recorded in the verses read, as among the "whatsoever things" that have been "written for our learning."

In the preceding chapters the inspired historian gives us an account of the commencement of Absalom's rebellion. I cannot dwell upon it, as our time is limited. He first stole the people's hearts, and then has himself set up as king. David is forced to flee, and "Ziba, the servant of Mephibosheth," pretends to show him kindness. He meets him when he "was a little past the top of the hill" with "a couple of asses saddled, and upon them two hundred loaves of bread, and one hundred bunches of raisins, and one hundred of summer fruits, and a bottle of wine." He makes a fine display of zeal and sympathy for the rejected king, but it is only show. He wickedly slanders his master Mephibosheth to David and obtains Mephibosheth's estate. "And the king said, And where is thy master's son? And Ziba said unto the king, Behold, he abideth at Jerusalem: for he said, To-day shall the house of Israel restore me the kingdom of my father. Then said the king to Ziba, Behold, thine are all that pertained unto Mephibosheth. And Ziba said, I humbly beseech thee that I may find grace in thy sight, my lord, O king" (16: 3, 4).

But by and by the king returns, as we see in the 19th chapter, and everything comes out. Ziba's hypocrisy is exposed and the devotion of Mephibosheth is manifested. He goes to meet the king on his return, and during the whole time of David's absence he "had neither dressed his feet, nor trimmed his beard, nor washed his clothes." David says, "Wherefore wentest thou not with me, Mephibosheth?" And Mephibosheth tells him all. Ziba had deceived him. He wished to follow the king, but could not, as his feet were lame. It seems that Ziba had purposely taken away the ass Mephibosheth had expected to saddle and ride upon among the weeping followers of the outraged king. He recounts David's kindness towards him in the past and owns the nothingness of all his father's house before his lord, the king. "And the king said unto him, Why speakest thou any more of thy matters? I have said, Thou and Ziba divide the land. And Mephibosheth said unto the king, Yea, let him take all, forasmuch as my lord the king is come again in peace unto his own house" (19: 29, 30). What cares he for lands? He is content to see his lord, the king, upon his rightful throne, and in his proper place in peace.

Now all this story is deeply instructive. David, Ziba and Mephibosheth here are representative characters. David, I need scarcely say, is a type of Christ in the present hour of His rejection. Ziba represents a self-righteous child of nature and Mephibosheth a helpless child of grace. You remember on a former occasion we saw how Mephibosheth, a hiding, helpless cripple, was brought into a place of blessing "as, one of the king's sons." Ziba never became anything more than a "servant." He is repeatedly called a servant. Mephibosheth is like real Christians, who are "sons of God." Ziba represents the mass of whitewashed professors who expect, by serving God, to get to heaven at last. And these always slander genuine Christians who ascribe all their salvation to the grace of God. They make loud professions and display great zeal. It has sometimes been a burning zeal. Many times has Ziba burned Mephibosheth at the stake. And they boast great things of what they are doing for the Lord. They point with swelling pride to their magnificent temples with steeples shooting to the skies. They bid us behold the hospitals, asylums, and homes of shelter they are erecting every year. They remind us of the scores and scores of schools and seminaries they maintain. They tell with intense satisfaction of their hundreds of foreign mission stations, and the thousands of converts they make to their religion every year. They proudly unfold their list of chief ecclesiastics who are reckoned among the great ones of the earth. They make what the apostle calls "a fair show in the flesh" (Gal. 6: 12).

And they will not hesitate to slander the unpretentious Mephibosheths. "What do they do for the Lord?" they ask disdainfully. Well, if they do as Mephibosheth did they shall do well. He acted the part of a loyal subject to the king. He felt the absence of his lord and showed his feelings by his ways and his appearance. He "neither dressed his feet, nor trimmed his beard, nor washed his clothes," until the king returned. He did not act as if everything was right while a rebel sat on Israel's throne. Remember, fellow-Christian, that —

"Our Lord is now rejected,

And by the world disowned."

We live in Satan's world. He is its "prince" and "god" (John 12: 31; 2 Cor. 4: 5). Christ is the rejected King. He was "born King of the Jews" (Matt. 2: 2). He is also "King of nations" (Rev. 15: 3, marg.). People sing, —

"Let earth receive her King."

But earth has long ago refused Him and continues its refusal. The Jews refused Him. When Pilate asked them, "Shall I crucify your King?" they cried, "We have no king but Caesar" (John 19: 15). The Gentiles would not have Him. They are first in the list of His rejectors. "The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord, and against His Christ. For of a truth against Thy holy child Jesus, whom Thou hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered together" (Acts 4: 26, 27).

Now, how ought you and I to act in the midst of a world where our Lord and Master is rejected and disowned? Ought we to mingle in politics? No, God's only candidate has been refused. The name of the Man of our choice has been stricken from their lists. The political world has cast its vote against Him. Our party is out of power down here. What about society? Is Jesus wanted there? No. If you doubt it, go to the very next progressive euchre party, or evening social, and ask the gay assemblage what they think of Christ. You will very soon discover that they are against Him. They cannot even bear to hear His precious name outside of church. His name, to the real believer, "is as ointment poured forth," in "church," or anywhere else. Well, what about the popular religion of this enlightened nineteenth century? Do not its adherents "crown Him Lord of all?" Few of them seem to have any Christ to crown, the way they deny or question His eternal deity and make Him a liar in reference to eternal punishment, and the Mosaic authorship and inspiration of the Pentateuch (Matt. 25: 46; John 5: 46, 47). If they keep on modernizing Christianity they will, by and by, have none to modernize. If they continue to keep clipping at the holy Scriptures with the shears of Higher Criticism they will soon have nothing left to criticize. Ah, I fear Christ is not wanted there. He is being basely wounded in the house of His professed friends. The "form of godliness" alone is there, without the "power." "From such turn away" (2 Tim. 3: 1-5).

Christ is rejected everywhere down here. May we act as those who feel His absence and rejection. I know a young woman whose intended husband went to the Western States three years before their marriage. When he returned it was to take her back to the West as his bride. Her heart was true to him all those years of his absence. She showed it by remaining modestly and becomingly at home, and went out very little in what is called "society." Her fidelity and devotion to her absent lover was remarked by all. Hers was the love of a loyal heart. Oh, may our hearts beat loyal and true to our absent Lord. Soon He will come, and then His rejection will be ended forever. With a shout He will descend from heaven to catch away His beloved and blood-bought bride, the church. Her waiting and her watching will be over then (See 1 Thess. 4: 16, 17).

Everything is going to be manifested then. All Zibas will be exposed and shown up, and every true Mephibosheth will be rewarded. The Lord says in Revelation 22: 12, "Behold I come quickly, and My reward is with Me, to give every man according as his work shall be." In the parables of the pounds and talents it is when the lord of the servants and stewards returns that they are commended or condemned. There is a verse I often think of in connection with this story of Mephibosheth and Ziba. It is in 1st Corinthians, 4th chapter and 5th verse. "Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts: and then shall every man have praise of God." Now this, to me, is very solemn. The Lord is coming to put things right among His servants ere He draws His "whet" and "glittering sword" against His enemies. He appears as a judge in the midst of His own before He manifests Himself as a mighty warrior against the world. Peter speaks of this. He says, "For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?" (1 Peter 4: 17).

And right here I want to say a little about the judgments. I say judgments because a "general" judgment is only found among the human traditions of the professing church, not in Scripture. Believers in Christ will never be judged for their sins. The One to whom all judgment has been committed by the Father has declared this blessed fact. He says, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth My word, and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come unto condemnation [judgment]; but is passed from death unto life" (John 5: 24). The word rendered "condemnation" here is judgment. In the original Greek it is exactly the same word as that properly rendered "judgment" in verse 22 of the chapter and that wrongly rendered "damnation" in the 29th verse. It, is rendered "judgment" in the German Bibles, and in the Douay Bibles too. The Revised Version also gives it "judgment." Just look it up when you get home, — "Look and see." The translators of our Authorized King James' Version rendered the word differently in three different verses when they knew perfectly well it was not a different word in Greek. "Why did they do this?" some one asks. Well, I'll tell you. They aimed more at literary polish and smartness than literal exactness. They wanted to make the Bible a literary gem and thought the frequent repetition of a word would mar its beauty. But the Holy Ghost knows best, and our wisdom is to leave the word of God as He has given it. Who ever dreamed of varnishing a diamond!

But to return to our subject. There is a difference, you will notice, between condemnation and judgment. A man may come into judgment in a law court, yet not be condemned. For instance, suppose I am charged with some crime and my case is tried. I come into judgment; I am judged. But the witnesses are all examined; their testimony is taken. At last the evidence is all in and the jury acquits me. I have come into judgment, you see, though not into condemnation. I have not been condemned, though judged. But the Christian will not even come into judgment. The Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, has said so. And I believe His words in preference to all the creeds, catechisms, and confessions of faith that were ever written. I take my stand upon His word, though councils, fathers, popes, cardinals, bishops, priests, and all the doctors of the so-called church teach otherwise.

Now, why won't believers come into judgment? Come, turn aside with me and gaze by faith at Calvary's hill and there, behold, not hear, the answer. Who hangs upon that central cross? Jesus! And who is Jesus? The Son of God eternal. And was He a sinner? Hush, nay Do not breathe so awful a suggestion. Scripture says, He "knew no sin," "He did no sin," and "in Him is no sin" (2 Cor. 5: 21; 1 Peter 2: 22; 1 John 3: 5). But why hangs He on that cursed tree, since He is sinless? Why does He utter that cry of anguish, "My God! My God! why hast Thou forsaken Me?" Ah, He is being "made sin" by God. He is bearing the sins of others, — your sins and my sins, beloved fellow-believer, and His holy soul is overwhelmed in the surging waters of divine judgment against sin. Hear Him cry, "All Thy waves and Thy billows are gone over Me!" It is not the nails and spikes that pierce His hands and feet that hold Him to the cross. It is love. Yes, love, "stronger than death" binds and holds Him to that tree as with a chain of everlasting strength. His intense devotion to His God and His matchless love to you and me has made Him willing to be "made a curse for us." Many waters cannot quench such love and He exhausts the judgment that was due to us. Then He cries in triumph, "It is finished!" and bows His blessed head and dies. Now the atoning work is done and by faith we see Him on the throne of God, the subsisting righteousness of "all that believe." And God can say of them, "Their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more" (Heb. 8: 12). And we can say, —

"Payment God will not twice demand,

First at my bleeding Surety's hand,

And then, at mine again."

So there is now no judgment for the sinner who believes. Christ has borne the judgment.

But while all this is blessedly and divinely true, we must not forget the fact that there is a judgment at which all believers must appear. For we must all appear [be manifested] before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad" (2 Cor. 5: 10). This is when He comes. It is "the time" referred to by the apostle in a verse already quoted. It is a manifestation. "We must all be manifested." The examining judge "both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts." It is for Christians only. No sinner will be there. And persons are not judged, but works. Christ will sit in His judgment-seat, but not as a judge in a criminal court. It will be more like a judge at a fair, or in a contest, or over a school examination where prizes and rewards are given. The eternal destiny of those whose works are being examined is not determined by or at this judgment, but their worthiness or unworthiness to receive crowns of "righteousness," "glory," or "life," is decided.

Let me give an illustration I have often used. Suppose a widowed mother living in the country goes to town to do some shopping. She leaves her four loved children behind, and tells them if they behave themselves during her absence she will bring them each some present, or reward, when she returns. She distinctly tells them what to do and what they must not do. In the evening she returns with the presents and gathers her children about her for the examination. Mary, the eldest, is first questioned, and, as usual, she has been obedient. She gets a handsome present. Next comes Charley. He has been naughty nearly all day long, as he himself confesses and the others testify. He loses his reward and only gets an orange. The others have behaved only moderately well and get rewards accordingly. And this is like "the judgment-seat of Christ." He has gone away to heaven and left us here to shine for Him in this dark scene of His sorrow and rejection. "Occupy till I come," were His parting words of admonition. When He comes again He will gather His own redeemed around His judgment-seat and reward them for their faithfulness. Nothing will be forgotten and nothing covered over. He will say, "Well done," of any little act of service done from love to Him and for His glory. Nothing will lose its reward, not even "a cup of cold water" given in His name. Hidden things will be uncovered. Naughty Christians sometimes cover over things, but the judgment-seat of Christ is going to "bring to light the hidden things of darkness." How this should solemnize and make us careful in our walk as Christians.

But this has its bright side too, or perhaps to put it better, its encouraging as well as its warning side. How many little acts of service Christians sometimes do for Christ of which their fellow-Christians and the world know nothing. They are like little secrets kept between their Saviour and themselves until the time of manifestation at His coming. Nothing, however small, will go unrewarded or is going to be overlooked. The closet prayers for straying saints, and unconverted relatives, and friends; the trifle given in secret to the poor, or in practical fellowship to some needy servant of the Lord; the tracts quietly distributed, — all is coming out for public commendation.

May this encourage us. How many seeming trifles are referred to in the Epistles. Epaphras' prayers for the saints at Colosse, Laodicea and Hierapolis, for instance; or Onesiphorus' diligence in seeking out the apostle Paul in his Roman prison (Col. 4: 12, 13; 2 Tim. 1: 16, 18). God would have us learn from this that He "is not unrighteous to forget your work and labor of love" (Heb. 6: 10). Not that crowns of reward are to be our object. Christ should be our only object. But the Lord would encourage our hearts to true devotion to Himself, as a wise teacher or fond parent might endeavor to encourage diligence in a child by a prize or present as a reward for industry or good behavior. Moses "had respect unto the recompense of the reward," and the Spirit of God commends him for it (Heb. 11: 26).

And there is something else. Motives are going to count. The Lord is going to "make manifest the counsels of the hearts." Many have real desire but little opportunity for service to the Lord. He knows our hearts and is going to manifest their "counsels." He knows each longing of devoted hearts, however little their possessors may accomplish. And we fail and sometimes stumble too. But if the "counsels" of our hearts are for His glory He will not condemn us as unworthy or unfit to serve Him. David was deceived by Ziba and he even misunderstood Mephibosheth, but our Lord knows all. There is no deceiving Him and He perfectly understands us. The Psalmist says, "Thou knowest my thoughts afar off." Paul said, "He that judgeth me is the Lord." I have read of a colony of honey-bees working in full view under a hive of glass. That is like the workings of our hearts. Our Lord knows all, sees all, understands all, remembers all, and is going to manifest all. And I am glad it is so. What saint would have it otherwise?

"He is coming — oh, how solemn,

When the Judge's voice is heard,

And in His own light He shows us

Every thought, and act. and word!

Deeds of merit as we thought them,

He will show us were but sin,

Little acts we had forgotten

He will tell us were for Him."

Now turn for a little to 1 Cor. 3. Read from verse 11: "For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; every man's work shall be made manifest; for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire." Here we have a reference to "the time" the apostle speaks of in the following chapter (v. 5). Christ is the firm foundation on which every believers' feet are planted. They can sing with joyful confidence, —

"On Christ the solid rock I stand;

All other ground is sinking sand."

But the building is our works from the time of our conversion. Faithfulness to Christ is like the gold, silver and precious stones. Trifling with the world and carelessness of walk is building wood, hay, and stubble. The fire is going to try what we have builded. The light manifests, as we have been seeing; here the fire tests. It is all according to the faithful judgment of the Lord.

The works of some abide and they receive a reward direct from the hand of the Lord once pierced for their sins at Calvary. Others are going to have their works burned up. They "suffer loss," which means they lose the promised crown. They themselves are saved so as by fire. They just get into heaven and that is all. They have no abundant entrance (2 Peter 1: 11). It was the rock beneath their feet that saved them. Thank God for that place of eternal security! None once on that rock shall ever fall away and perish.

Sinner, where are your feet to-night? If they are not resting on the rock Christ Jesus there is nothing between your soul and hell but empty space! You may think yourself secure upon the devil's sand foundation of morality and religiousness, but sooner or later it will give way and land you where no hope can ever come. Be warned! The sure foundation has been laid at Calvary. Step upon it. Just rest your soul on Christ once crucified, and you are saved forever. God give you to do it now.

Christians everywhere confound what are in Scripture two entirely different things, — salvation and reward. Now, salvation is God's gift. "The gift of God is eternal life" (Rom. 6: 23). The reward held out to Christians must be won, and earned by faithful service. "So run that ye may obtain" (1 Cor. 9: 24). But you cannot earn a gift. Here I have my watch. I did not pay a penny for that watch. It was a gift to me. I had no watch and needed one, A Christian friend said to me one day, "Here, brother Knapp, is a watch. Please accept it as a gift." And like a sensible man I took the watch from his hand and thanked him for it. It cost me nothing. It cost him something, but he gave it to me freely. Now that is like God's free salvation. Nine years ago I felt my need. I knew that I was lost and "ready to perish." God in His gospel offered me eternal life. By faith I embraced His offer and received His gift. It cost Him something. "He spared not His own Son." That was the mighty cost. But it cost me nothing. I did not say a prayer to get it. I did not make one promise or turn over one new leaf to get it. I just received it as God's gift and thanked Him for it. But if I ever get a crown I must endure and do for it. For salvation everything has been forever done.

I will illustrate, if I can, the difference between salvation as God's gift possessed by faith in Christ, and the crowns of "righteousness," "life", and "glory" promised to those who, by works of faith, are reckoned worthy of them. Suppose a father has a son named Jamie. It is Jamie's birthday and his father gives him a ten dollar bill as a birthday present. Jamie thanks him, pockets the money, and is going away. "Stop a moment," says his father, "there is something more," and he holds up a silver dollar. Jamie comes back to get this too, but his father says, "No, you must earn this, I gave you the ten dollar bill as a birthday gift; you did not work for it; you were not even worthy of it, for your mother says you have been rather naughty of late. But I love you and wish to see you happy so I have given you the ten dollar bill. But you must work for and deserve this silver dollar if you ever get it. I am going to lay it by until next Thanksgiving Day. If between now and then you are obedient to your parents, and get your lessons well at school, and keep out of evil company, I will give you this silver dollar. I do this to encourage you. The bill is yours already. Be careful now and get the dollar by your industry and faithfulness. Run off to school now." Now the ten dollar bill is like eternal life. It is a gift. "I give unto them eternal life" (John 10: 28). It is a birthday gift. There are two things for which I shall forever bless God. One is that I was ever born; the other is that I was ever born again. And I received eternal life on the day of my second birth. If you have been "born again" you have eternal life. They always go together. To put it in the words of a dear departed servant of Christ, "you cannot separate eternal life and new birth." Every believer has eternal life. "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life" (John 3: 36). It is not promised but possessed. When the apostle John says, "This is the promise that He hath promised us, even eternal life," he refers to what was promised previous to this present Christian dispensation. It was a promise then; now it is a real possession. "God hath given to us eternal life" (1 John 2: 25; 5: 11). But reward for service is entirely different. We must earn that, just as Jamie earns the dollar. And the decision of his father on the appointed day is like the day when the Lord shall come and "then shall every man have praise of God." God give us to always walk and work in view of that coming day.

Two other judgments follow the judgment of believers' works. One is the judgment of the "quick," or living; the other is the judgment of the "dead,". The judgment of the living is pre-millenial; the judgment of the dead is post-millenial. The first occurs on earth, in time. The second takes place in eternity, after the earth and the heaven have fled away. At the one in time the Lord is seated as King on the "throne of His glory;" at the one in eternity He sits as Judge upon the "great white throne" (See Matt. 25: 31-46; Rev. 20: 11-15). Lack of time forbids my adding more. May what has been said help saints, and stir the consciences of sinners hurrying on towards judgment.

There are three classes I want a parting word with, Christians, pretenders like Ziba, and non-professors.

Our Lord is coming back, beloved fellow-believer. As "King of kings, and Lord of lords," He shall descend from heaven to take His rightful throne and place down here. We shall see Him reign with many crowns upon His blessed brow. "Behold, a king shall reign in righteousness." That king is Jesus. "His enemies shall lick the dust." Every knee shall bow to Him and every tongue confess that He is Lord to God the Father's glory. That will be more to us than all the white-robed angels, and the street of gold, and the pearly gates. It was enough for Mephibosheth that David was enthroned in power once more. "Let him take all," he says of Ziba and the lands. He saw David on his throne and that was enough for him. And we will see David's Lord enthroned in power, when He comes to earth again and that will make our hearts rejoice.

Is there a Ziba here to-night? If so, I want to tell him that all such as he are going to be exposed. The Lord is coming soon to manifest all sham professors. Christendom is something like the masquerade balls I used to attend before God saved my soul. Men and women were masquerading in all sorts of costumes. Some were dressed as kings and princes: Others were strutting about as plumed knights or noble ladies. But by and by the disrobing time came and all appeared just as they really were. Remember, religious masquerader, the disrobing time is coming. Your "cloak of hypocrisy" will be taken away some day, and the mask will be torn from your face. Ziba was exposed when the king returned, as you are going to be at Christ's return. God make you real before that day. Scripture says, "The hypocrites' hope shall perish."

Now I turn to you, my non-professing hearer. It is high time you stirred yourself to action. "The coming of the Lord draweth nigh" (James 5: 8). When once He comes there will be no longer hope for such as you. "The bridegroom came; and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage: and the door was shut" (Matt. 25: 10). Every living Christian will be changed like a flash and caught away. You and every other unconverted sinner who has heard the gospel will be left behind. The door of mercy will be forever closed against you. You will be left absolutely without hope. At South Bend, Ind., are the largest wagon works in the world. A very large force of men are employed, and the manufacturers are compelled to be strict about getting the workmen promptly in their places at the appointed hour. A warning whistle is blown before the outer gates are closed. The moment the whistle ceases to blow the gates are closed. All outside then are forced to return home until a later hour, and thus lose time and pay. I remember passing these works one morning at their hour of commencing work. The warning whistle was being blown and many were passing in. I noticed a few some distance away from the gate who were leisurely walking along as if they had plenty of time. One man was a little behind the rest, enjoying his pipe, as if he wanted to get a few more whiffs before he would have to lay it aside at the entrance of the works. Suddenly the whistle ceased to blow, the straggler made a leap for the gate, but he was too late. The gates were closed in his very face and he was shut out.

That straggler, sinner, is thyself; you have no time to lose. I sound God's warning in your ear to-night. "How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?" Haste thee! Mercy's door stands open wide. Thousands are passing in. Why not you? Perhaps you have some darling sin that makes you linger, like the man his pipe. Don't miss an entrance into heaven for a straw. "What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?"

Soon, ah soon, the door will close and then farewell all hope to you.

"O sinner, ere it be too late,

Flee thou to mercy's open gate

And join Christ's waiting band."

May God hasten your footsteps, is my prayer.

C. Knapp.

A Fruitful Bough

A Fruitful Bough

Genesis 49: 22.

Five Addresses on Joseph as a Type of Christ.

Introductory Address

Gen. 37:

The Scriptures testify of Christ. This is the declaration of the Lord Himself: "They are they which testify of Me," He says, referring to the Scriptures. And He does not here refer to the Gospels, as some might suppose, for they had not yet been written. He is speaking of the Old Testament Scriptures. So throughout the whole of the Old Testament canon we may expect to find allusions, direct and indirect, to Christ. This is what makes it all so interesting. God has chosen a double method of bringing Christ before us in these ancient writings. He speaks of Him by direct reference, as in the 53rd of Isaiah, Deut. 18: 15, and in many other places. Then He shows us Christ in type and figure. In doing this, He uses inanimate things, such as the ark, the tabernacle, the manna, etc. He uses animals also, as the firstling of Abel's flock, the passover lamb, the scapegoat, sacrificial bullocks, and doves. But His most striking and effective method of manifesting beforehand the character of the coming One was in the use of persons.

It is not my purpose now to point out to you all these persons. They are many. Some are named, and others are unnamed. A few are in a very manifest and full way typical of Christ; others are only so in a somewhat shadowy and mystical way. Seven stand out prominently from the general background of the less apparent. These are Adam, Melchizedek, Isaac, Joseph, Moses, David, and Solomon. There we have the perfect number, seven, giving us a perfect sweep of the sky of prophecy ("for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy," Rev. 19: 10) from the dawn of human history to the end of time. Adam ("figure of Him that was to come" — "the last Adam," Rom. 5: 14; 1 Cor. 15: 45) heads the list; and Solomon, beautiful figure of Christ in His millennial reign, completes it. And in the five that come between we are given a good general outline of all the leading truths of Christ's person, character, offices, and work.

And if we take the book of Genesis alone, we have in it also just seven men who picture Christ. This is only what we might expect, since the book has been called the "seed-plot" of the whole Bible, which means that all the leading truths of Scripture are found in Genesis in the germ. The seven are Adam, Abel, Melchizedek, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, and Benjamin. Of course, three of this number do not stand out so strikingly as types as do the others, but they are nevertheless types unmistakably, if not so manifestly. For even the tricky Jacob, when "he served for a wife, and for a wife kept sheep," in this toil of his for his beloved Rachel, typifies our Lord in His life of toil for the "bride of His heart's deep longing," His loved and ransomed Church.

But of all these typical characters, Joseph is, without doubt, the chief. He eclipses even David, who, though "a man after God's own heart," failed grievously, and in his sin could not in any sense be taken as a type of our holy, spotless Lord. But in Joseph's life there is no recorded failure. He rises on the horizon of his time like a beautiful star, that shines on and sets without a single cloud to dim its brightness. He is the Sirius of the shining host of Old Testament typical men.

Joseph's very name is suggestive of Christ. It means "adding." At his birth his mother "called his name Joseph, and said, The Lord shall add to me another son" (Genesis 30: 24). Let us see how this name "adding" suits our Lord.

He has been adding in a threefold way:

1st. He adds to the creature's knowledge of God. Until the incarnation and death of Jesus Christ, God's heart of love was never fully known, even by the angels who stand in His presence and behold His face. They by their very creation knew His power. They saw His glory too, and beheld His awful majesty. Other of His divine attributes were known to them. When He "spared not the angels that sinned," they fully understood His holiness. But His love and grace were never fully known by either men or angels until Jesus came, telling out the Father's heart. He it was who first said, "God so loved the world." God's love was manifested toward us through His Son and Fellow, Jesus Christ. His death upon the cross manifested to the full, to all the universe, what depths of love and kindness towards guilty man were in the heart of God. So in this way Christ adds; He increases our knowledge of God by showing forth His love as none but He could do.

2d. He adds to heaven's inhabitants. He says, in John 12: 24, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." He refers here to His death. "Much fruit" is the result. And it is all to be gathered at last into the heavenly garner. In addition to the "innumerable company of angels" already there, there shall be, through the death and resurrection of Christ, "a great company, that no man can number," composed of men redeemed from the earth. Angels that sinned were cast out; and in their place, in proportion ten to one, perhaps, God will place men who, though they have sinned, have believed in the name of His Son Jesus Christ.

"But will you be there, and I?"

That's the question. I shall be there, by His grace, thank God. My presence shall help to swell the ranks of the redeemed on high; my glad voice shall mingle with that of the many myriads whose song shall swell in volume until it becomes like the sound of the many waters of a mighty sea. Hallelujah! But again I ask, Will you, dear friend, be there? Listen:

"If you trust the risen Saviour now,

Who for sinners once did die,

When He gathers His own in that bright home,

Then you'll be there, and I."

3rd. Christ adds to the Church. I mean by "the Church" all true believers of the present dispensation, of course. "The Church, which is His body," Scripture says. And we read in Acts 2: 47, "And the Lord added to the Church daily such as should be saved." No one can "join" this Church. No pastor, however successful, can "add to the membership." It is Christ who does the adding. All mere voluntary "joining," or human "adding," is like waxwork apples fastened to a living tree, or an artificial limb attached to a live body. He it is who "builds" His Church (Matt. 16: 18). It is His body, and every true believer is a member. Now here is my little finger; it is a member of my body. But how did it get to be a member? or, when did it ever "join?" Not by any voluntary act of its own, certainly; nor by the manipulation of some clever surgeon. God, my Maker, joined it to my human body; it was an act of creation. And just so Christ, by an act of new creation, makes the sinner who believes on Him a member of His body, which is the Church. So He now, as of old, adds to the Church daily. May He add some few from among this company to-night. May He make you a "member" now, poor sinner, by saving your precious soul.

We have seen how the name of Joseph — "adding" — suits our Lord. Let us now see how Joseph, in his character and doings, pictures Him. He is first of all presented to us like David — in the character of a shepherd. "Joseph," we read in verse 2, "being seventeen years old, was feeding the flock with his brethren." I notice this because no figure of Christ can be more beautiful than that of a shepherd. It seems to come nearest our hearts. The earliest conceptions of Christ among children are as a gentle shepherd. One lovely infant prayer is,

"Jesus, tender Shepherd, hear me,

Bless Thy little lamb to-night."

No figure could be more full, suggesting, as it does, His tender love, His watchful care, His devoted tenderness, His faithfulness, His meekness, His patience, and His gentle sympathy. Scripture presents Him as the "good," "great," and "chief Shepherd." He is also called "the Shepherd and Bishop of our souls." It is only what we might expect, then, in this fullest and most perfect type of Christ, to have a shepherd shown us first of all.

Next we have a contrast. "Joseph brought unto his father their evil report." We learn as much from contrasts as we do from parallels, and sometimes more (as, for example, in the great epistle to the Hebrews). A snowball never appears so white as when laid beside a lump of coal. Now Jesus says to the unbelieving Jews, in John 5: 45, "Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father: there is one that accuseth you, even Moses, in whom ye trust." These Jews are pictured by the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, who were not wives of Jacob really, but only concubines. They were sons of the bondwomen, not of the free. It is remarkable that there is no mention of the sons of Leah, the free woman, here. And the apostle Paul, at the close of Gal. 4, speaking of those who were "Israelites indeed," says, "So, then, brethren, we are not the children of the bondwoman, but of the free." They were Jews "outwardly only," children of the bondwoman, whom Christ said He would not accuse to the Father. And we see in Joseph's brethren their early representatives. Joseph might accuse his brethren, but "God," we read, "sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world." And again, "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them." What wonderful grace! Christ did not come to accuse, nor condemn. He said to the poor trespasser in the temple, "Neither do I condemn thee." Moses accused her, and his law condemned her, but Jesus came to save; all glory to His name!

We have Jacob's love for Joseph next. We read in verse 3, "Now Jacob loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age." This suggests to us the love of God the Father to His Son Jesus Christ. Twice God opened heaven over His head, and said, "This is My beloved Son." Twice our Lord Himself said, when here on earth, "The Father loveth the Son" (John 3: 35; John 5: 20); and He is called by the Spirit, "the Son of His love" (Col. 1: 13, margin). Precious as this is, we cannot dwell upon it, as there are other points to notice and take up our time.

Israel, we read, made his son "a coat of many colors." This has, evidently, some typical significance. The question is, what does it signify? Scripture itself, I think, supplies the answer. I shall ask you to turn to two passages, Judges 5: 30, and 2 Sam. 13: 18. In Judges 5 you will see it is "the mother of Sisera" who speaks in the 30th verse. She was awaiting the return of her son from his war with the Israelites. She had not yet been apprised of the fact that he had been slain by the hand of a woman, Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite. So, we read, "She looked out at a window, and cried through the lattice, Why is his chariot so long in coming? why tarry the wheels of his chariots?" Her "wise ladies" volunteer to explain the cause of the delay; which, however, she heeds not, but repeats to herself, "Have they not sped? have they not divided the prey; to every man a damsel or two; to Sisera a prey of divers colors, a prey of divers colors of needlework, of divers colors of needlework on both sides, meet for the necks of them that take the spoil?" Here we have a hint as to the use in Old Testament times of these garments of divers colors. They were worn as marks of distinction, "meet for the necks of them that take the spoil," Sisera's mother says. He should wear this "prey of divers colors" as a distinctive honor becoming such a mighty conqueror as he, she thought. The verse in 2 Samuel reads, "And she had a garment of divers colors upon her: for with such robes were the king's daughters that were virgins appareled." Here we have the many-colored garments again referred to as a mark of honorable distinction, as the attire of unmarried princesses. Such a garment would mark one as a person of noble birth, or of very high standing. And this is what Jacob, doubtless, had in view when he gave to Joseph the coat of many colors. He would have a mark of honor placed upon him to distinguish him from his other sons. Such a mark would attract attention. Everybody would understand the meaning of his many-colored coat.

Now, see how this applies to Christ. From the beginning, at His very birth, God gave evidence to all, that this was not a mere Galilean carpenter's son that had been brought into the world. Angels, in glad acclaim, announce to wondering shepherds of the plains of Bethlehem the advent of "that holy thing" that should be called the Son of God. Wise men, truly wise (like all who seek the Saviour), come from the east to find and worship Him that was born "King of the Jews." God gave a special star to be their guide; and when they find Him, though He lay in a "manger rude," they offer Him their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Gold is emblematic of the display of the glory of God; and so their gifts of gold bore witness to the deity of the infant "wrapped in swaddling clothes." The frankincense foretold the holy, blameless life that He should lead on earth; every act of which should ascend as a sweet perfume of burning incense up to God, His Father. In the meal offering, as described in Lev. 2 (type of the spotless life of "the man Christ Jesus"), all the frankincense was placed upon it; and as it burned upon the altar, it ascended up, "a sweet savor unto the Lord." And myrrh was prophetic of "the sufferings of the Christ." How precious, and how wonderful! The virgin's infant is distinguished unmistakably from any other child that ever had been born, from Seth to John the Baptist. For even this "more than a prophet," while yet unborn, leaped in his mother's womb for very joy at the sound of the salutation of "she that believed," who was soon to bring forth Him who should be called "the Son of the Highest."

At His baptism, too, He was marked off from all others. Jerusalem and all Judea, stirred by the preaching of the fiery Baptist, were being baptized of him in Jordan, confessing their sins. How natural it would be for the bystanders to think that this man, too, had sins to be confessed. To prevent any such mistake, God, at just that critical moment, parts the heavens, and says, as the dove-like Spirit descends and abides upon Him, "This is My beloved Son, in whom is all My delight." All might know from this that He was no mere man who was that day baptized of John in Jordan. He was markedly distinguished from all around.

He has been born, baptized; and now, His life-work finished, He is dying. Shall He die undistinguished from the malefactors at His side? Shall He be allowed to die as any mortal man might die? No! no! the heavens grow black; and though it is high noon, a midnight darkness settles over all the land. Rocks are rent as a mighty earthquake's throes convulse the land; graves are opened and the dead arise, not to ascend silently to heaven, but to appear in Jerusalem as witnesses to the fact that the crucified Jesus of Nazareth was not only Israel's smitten Shepherd but Jehovah's Fellow too. There could be no mistake as to the meaning of such signs. God took care that even in death there must be marks that men might see. And men did see. The centurion saw when he exclaimed, "Truly this was the Son of God!"

On three important occasions, then, we see our Lord "declared to be the Son of God," and not a mere man. They are, we might say, the three great epochs in His life: His birth, when He became "God manifest in the flesh"; His baptism, when He entered upon His public ministry; and in death, when He finished the work given Him to do, and "died for our sins according to the Scriptures."

Who, or what, is Jesus Christ to you, my hearer? What say you to these things? Do you in your heart and life honor Him whom God has taken so much care to honor? Not if you do not love Him. And you do not love Him, if you have not yet received Him as your Saviour. Nobody does. There is positive enmity to Christ in every human heart until renewed by grace. Joseph's brethren, we read in verse 4 of our chapter, "hated him, and could not speak peaceably to him." So it was with Jesus here on earth. He was hated without a cause, and had to endure "the contradiction of sinners against Himself." And this is every sinner's attitude toward Christ until he comes to Him by faith and learns His love. "The carnal mind is enmity against God," Scripture says. You may not wish to believe this of yourself, but it is true nevertheless. You may not know this enmity to Christ is in your heart, hut it is there just the same. I may not know nor believe that there is deadly arsenic in the clear-looking glass of water, but it might be there just the same, and only the introduction of another chemical element would be needed to discover it and turn the water black as ink. So in every human heart there is this awful and deadly enmity to the Son of God, and it only requires the proper circumstances, testings, or temptations, to draw it out so as to manifest itself. Better believe it to-night, friends, just because God says it, and seek reconciliation at the Cross, than wait until the great Judge says, "Those Mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before Me." This brings us to another subject, Joseph's sovereignty, as predicted in his dreams.

He dreams two dreams. The first is an earthly scene. He and his brethren were binding sheaves in the field, when, lo, his sheaf arose, and stood upright; while the sheaves of his brethren stood round about, and made obeisance to Joseph's sheaf. In the second dream the scene is heavenly. Joseph there sees the sun and the moon and the eleven stars making obeisance to him. In the dream of the sheaves in the field, only Joseph's brethren are concerned; in the dream of the sun, moon and stars, his father and mother also figure. There is a possible reason for this. For why are there two dreams? And why is the first scene earthly, and the second heavenly? Both foretell Joseph's supremacy. But they forecast more, I believe. They have a sort of double significance. Primarily and literally, they are predictive of Joseph's exaltation over his brethren and all his father's house. This they themselves appeared to understand. When Joseph tells to his brethren his first dream, they say, "Shalt thou indeed reign over us? or shalt thou indeed have dominion over us?" And when he tells to his father his second dream, Jacob says, "What is this dream that thou hast dreamed? Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed come to bow down ourselves to thee to the earth?"

But I am persuaded that they have a much more deep and full significance. Turn, please, to Eph. 1: 10. There we read, "That in the dispensation of the fulness of times He might gather together in one (head up) all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in Him." Here things in heaven and things on earth are mentioned. And Christ is to be the supreme head of all. The heavens (or heavenlies) are at this present time in revolt against the Lord. By "heavens," of course I do not mean God's dwelling-place, or that blest abode of holy angels and the spirits of the righteous dead, but a sphere beyond and above this earth, in which are "invisible" principalities and powers, rulers of the darkness of this world, or "wicked spirits in the heavenlies." (See Eph. 6: 12.) These, in the coming day of Christ's power, are all to be in complete and manifest subjection to Him. We see not yet all things put under Him. But God has foretold it; and here it is foreshadowed in Joseph's second dream. And it has not to do with the forces of evil in the heavenly places only; it has a good side also, if this expresses it. Paul speaks of being preserved unto Christ's "heavenly kingdom." Saints and angels will compose this heavenly kingdom of our Lord's. All this will be headed up in Him. This we have foreshadowed in the obeisance of the heavenly bodies to Joseph, type of the "Star" that should arise out of Jacob. This, I think, is confirmed by the fact that Joseph's mother is mentioned as making obeisance with the rest, when she had been dead years before. This gives the dream an air of mystery, and seems designed of God to teach us that there is in it something beyond the personal Joseph and the present life. Symbolically it is a post-resurrection scene.

The scene of the other dream is laid in the harvest-field. It is Christ's kingdom on earth. The field out of which the tares are gathered, in the parable of the 13th of Matthew, is called "His kingdom." All the earth shall own His sway. "All power is given unto Me in heaven and upon earth," He says. He does not now publicly take "upon Himself His great power, and reign." But He shall, when the harvest of this earth is reaped. Nov is the day of "His kingdom and patience." He bears long with evil-doers. He has borne long with you, unsaved hearer. He waits in long-suffering grace to see if you will submit to His authority of your own volition, If you refuse in the time of His patience, you will, by sheer force, be compelled to own His righteous rule in the period of His power. Down, then, in your heart now, and cry, like Thomas of old, "My Lord and my God!" In John 3: 36 we read, in our common version, "He that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him." Literally, it is, "He that is not subject to the Son." Submit to Him, then. Do not say, like poor, hardened Pharaoh, "Who is the Lord, that I should serve (or obey) Him? "You know who He is, even "Lord of all" You know, too, that you must submit to Him in the end. But if you wait till then to render submission to His authority, it will only be to make your obeisance before the throne of His judgment, and then depart to the eternal miseries of hell, where damned souls and powerless demons gnash their teeth in baffled rage and hate. Oh, it is a fearful thing to contemplate I And what will it be to be there! Submit to Christ now, and you will never know it by awful and endless experience. Oh, do it! do it Now!

But the obeisance of the eleven sheaves had a direct reference to Joseph's brethren, who hated him, and who, in their groundless hatred of their brother, vividly picture the mass of the Jewish nation in the days of our Lord, and, indeed, up to this very day. And when Joseph told his dream, we read, "They hated him yet the more for his dreams, and for his words." They could not bear to hear of his supremacy and future glory. It aroused all the cruel anger of their wicked hearts. The same thing happened with our Lord when standing before Caiaphas. He says, "Hereafter ye shall see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven." He tells them of His future exaltation and His coming glory. And with what result? "Then," we read, "the high priest rent his clothes (a thing forbidden by the law, Lev. 21: 10; so much for his consistency), saying, He hath spoken blasphemy; what further need have we of witnesses? behold, now ye have heard His blasphemy. What think ye? They answered and said, He is guilty of death. Then did they spit in His face, and buffeted Him; and others smote Him with the palms of their hands, saying, Prophesy unto us, Thou Christ, who is he that smote Thee?" (Matt. 26: 64-68.) It is Joseph and his brethren reproduced — the original of the picture, the type fulfilled to the very letter almost.

And see what happens further: when Joseph tells his second dream, we read, "His brethren envied him." It was the same in the case of the great Antitype. It is written of Pilate, "He knew that for envy they had delivered Him" (Matt. 27: 18). And "Who can stand before envy?" the proverb says. The rulers and the Pharisees were jealous of His prestige. "Behold, the world is gone after Him," they said, in alarm. They felt that because of Him, their own popularity and influence were on the wane. This is why they took the lead in clamoring for His blood. How different the spirit manifested by John the Baptist, who said, "He must increase, but I must decrease." It was his joy to be retired to the shades of obscurity, that Christ his Lord might, as God intends He shall, "in all things have the preeminence." That "Christ might be magnified," whether it were by his life or his death, was Paul's consuming desire. God give all us Christians more of the spirit of these mighty men. We should spell Christian, CHRIST,-I-Am-Nothing — Christ all, and I nothing at all. The centre of sIn is I.

Before I close this introductory address, I want to ask you, sinner, if you will submit to Christ to-night. God has exalted Him above all might and dominion. The true Joseph is seated now upon the highest pinnacle of celestial glory. Here, in the sphere of the terrestrial, "we see not yet all things put under Him." But we shall. He is coming again, not as once He came, the lowly Nazarene, to meekly suffer, but in His glory. But if you wait till that time, you will find, alas, that it is then too late. The time to own a king's authority in a land that has risen up in rebellion against him is not when he comes with his armies to put the rebellion down, for then it will be "not to your honor." It is during the rebellion, in the very midst of it, that loyalty is demanded. Now is your opportunity. I have heard it said that when "The Messiah" was being sung before Queen Victoria, and the part was reached where it says, "The Lord God omnipotent reigneth," when all but herself were supposed to rise from their seats, she too arose and stood upon her feet. It was contrary to all custom for crowned heads to rise during any part of the oratorio; but, happy woman, she had yielded her heart's submission to Him who is King of kings, and would confess it in this way. She had anticipated the second Psalm, where, when God sets His Son upon His holy hill of Zion, all earthly potentates are called to yield instant and absolute submission. "Kiss the Son," the last verse says, "lest He be angry, and ye perish from the way. . . . Blessed are all they that put their trust in Him." Do it, unsaved one; do it here, and Now!

Joseph's Betrayal

Gen. 37: 12-36.

A new chapter in Joseph's history is opened to us in the passage read to-night. We have already had before us what might be called the prologue to the great drama of the life of Joseph. The chief actors have been introduced. But, so far, we have only seen them, as it were, in tableaux. To-night we find ourselves in the midst of a scene of stirring activity, and each actor begins to play his part in the dark tragedy of Joseph's betrayal.

Joseph's brethren had gone to feed their father's flock in Shechem, and Israel sends him to them to inquire for their welfare, and the welfare of the flocks. Joseph yields willing and hearty obedience. "Here am I," he answers to his father's command. "So," we read, "he sent him out of the vale of Hebron, and he came to Shechem." How beautifully we see pictured here the coming of the Son of God into the world! It is, in type, the advent in their midst of Israel's Messiah. He was "sent" of his father; and in the New Testament we read that "the Father sent the Son." And Christ said to the Jews that God's work was to "believe on Him whom He hath sent." And He said again, "Him whom He hath sent ye believe not." The blind man is directed to wash in the pool of Siloam, which, the Spirit of God is careful to tell us, means "sent," reminding us in this way of Him who was "sent for the recovering of sight to the blind" (John 9; Luke 4).

And "he sent him out of the vale of Hebron." Hebron means fellowship, or communion. The vale suggests quiet peacefulness and rest. It was intended, I believe, to point them forward (and point us back) to the fellowship of the Son of God with the Father in heaven's eternal calm and peace previous to His entrance, at His incarnation, into this scene of sin and toil and sorrow. God has told us something of this in the mystical language of the 8th of Proverbs; the only language, it seems to me, in which mysteries of such a profound nature could be told to human ears. His pre-incarnation existence is declared to us directly in the opening verses of the Gospel of John. He was ever the "fellow" of Jehovah, and His equal. The unitarian denies this. And I do not spell the designation with a capital, for unitarianism to-day is fearfully prevalent, even in the theoretically orthodox bodies of Christendom. It has spread, and continues to spread, like a deadly gangrene, in Protestantism. All have not the honesty, like poor B. Fay Mills, to commit themselves, and declare openly for the awful blasphemy. It is anti-christian, a damnable doctrine, and will shut out of heaven forever all who die in the belief of its hellish lie. The denial of Christ's eternal deity is taught in one of its most subtle forms in the series of books called "Millennial Dawn." No Christian should suffer one of these books to enter into his house. It is Satanic, I do not hesitate to declare. Every true Christian's heart must find its echo in the lines of Newton:

"Some take Him a creature to be —

A man, or an angel, at most,

But they have not feelings like me,

Nor know themselves wretched and lost.

So guilty, so helpless am I,

I durst not confide in His blood,

Nor on His protection rely,

Unless I were sure He is GOD."

"And he came to Shechem," we read. Shechem was the place where Joseph's brethren had dealt so treacherously with the unsuspecting people of Hamor. In their "fierce anger" and "cruel wrath" they had committed wholesale murder. So black was their crime, and so base their treachery, that their father says, "Ye have troubled me, to make me to stink among the inhabitants of the land." It just illustrates the condition of affairs among the Jews when Jesus came into their midst. Such was their hypocrisy and deceit, that they had made themselves to become a stench among their Gentile neighbors. They were "contrary to all men," as the apostle afterward wrote. And through them, because of their wickedness, the name of God was blasphemed among the Gentiles, the same apostle says. (See 1 Thess. 2: 15; Rom. 2: 24). And it was into such a scene, and among such a people, that the antitype of Joseph came. Oh, what grace was this! what "matchless kindness" and disinterested love! And He came willingly, like Joseph. Joseph would have had good cause to draw back from such an errand. He knew his brethren's wickedness and hatred. He knew the envy of their hearts against him. He could with reason have asked his father to excuse him from this undertaking. But no; "Here am I," he says, ready always to obey, and glad to seek his brethren's welfare. And Jesus, ere "He came unto His own," knew perfectly the "hatred" they should give Him for His "love," He knew well their wickedness, "He knew all men," John writes, "and needed not that any should testify of man, for He knew what was in man." He knew He was coming into the midst of a "generation of vipers." He knew well that He was being sent to "an evil and an adulterous generation," to be among them as God's "lamb" in the midst of "wolves." And yet He came, willingly, obediently. "Lo, I come to do Thy will," He says, when being sent into the world by God, His Father. Old King George III. once visited a poor, sick Gipsy woman in Windsor Forest, and the world thought it a wonderful act of condescending kindness. But heaven's King came down in deepest tenderness to guilty Israel (and in them to the whole world, for they are but a sample of the entire human race), yet not many think it very wonderful, alas! The few who know Him do, however. They sing —

"What wonderful love, that Jesus should come

To man's hostile earth from heaven's bright home,

To suffer, and seek all who far from God roam,

In love — such wonderful love!"

Joseph does not find his brethren when he comes to Shechem. They have departed. Now is his chance to return to Hebron if his heart is not wholly in his mission. Here he has given him a good excuse for turning back and giving up the undertaking. But no; he has no thought of turning back, or giving up the work given him of his father to do. We read, "A certain man found him, and, behold, he was wandering in the field: and the man asked him, saying, What seekest thou? And he said, I seek my brethren: tell me, I pray thee, where they feed their flocks. And the man said, They are departed hence; for I heard them say, Let us go to Dothan, And Joseph went after his brethren, and found them in Dothan." How like the blessed Son of God! He, too, "found in fashion as a man," was here,

"Wandering as a homeless stranger."

Joseph wandering in the field, in utter loneliness, is but a shadow of Him who here on earth had "not where to lay His head." Though often in the midst of crowds, His life was one of loneliness and sorrow. He was like "a sparrow alone upon the housetop." Few could, or even cared to, share His thoughts. Sometimes, as in the case of Joseph, "a man found" Him, and to such He told His errand. To these, His disciples, He could unburden the intents of His burdened heart; but the world knew Him not! But, oh! how He persisted in His search for those "lost sheep of the house of Israel" to whom He was "sent." Nothing could turn Him back. He set His face like a flint. No seeming lack of success in His mission could cause Him to relinquish it. He presses on like Joseph, who, if he cannot find his brethren in the place of their former wickedness, Shechem, will follow them to Dothan. "Dothan" means "two wells," or, perhaps better, "cisterns." This at once recalls what God says of Israel in Jer. 2: 13. He says, "They have forsaken Me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water." This was Israel's condition exactly when He with whom was "the fountain of life" was in their midst. And when, because of their self-righteousness and pride, they would not be convinced by Him of their wickedness, He appealed to their unsatisfied hearts, and cried, on "the last day, that great day of the feast, If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink." It is just Joseph going from Shechem — the scene of their wickedness — to Dothan (heart thirst). And sinner, this is Christ's way still with souls. It seems impossible for some to think that they are great and grievous sinners. And so they have no crushing sense of guilt to drive them to the Saviour of lost sinners. But empty, unfilled hearts they have; and when they see how broken are earth's cisterns, they will come to Him who is Himself the satisfying fountain of true joy and blessedness. It was so with me. I knew, of course, I was a sinner; but it was more as to "the fountain of life" than as to the "fountain opened for sin and uncleanness" that

"I came to Jesus as I was,

Weary, and worn, and sad."

Men have not only consciences, but hearts. And Christ appeals to both. And He appeals to you who are unsatisfied and thirsty. He can meet those strange, mysterious longings of your soul. He has met mine, and those of men of the very highest intellectual capacity; and He can meet yours, surely. Only let Him. Begin to let Him now.

Let us follow Joseph now to Dothan, and see how He is treated by his brethren. The narrative reads, "And when they saw him afar off, even before he came near unto them, they conspired against him to slay him. And they said one to another, Behold, this dreamer cometh. Come now therefore, and let us slay him, and cast him into some pit, and we will say, Some evil beast hath devoured him; and we will see what will become of his dreams." His reception was like Christ's. He was no sooner born than men began to plot against His life. When Joseph was yet "afar off, even before he came near," his brethren conspired against him, and determined to have his life. And so it was with Jesus. At His birth, Herod, and all Jerusalem with him, "was troubled," we read. And Herod sought the young Child's life. This was when He was "afar off," for He was yet too young to reign in Herod's place; and it was not till thirty years after that He was to enter upon His public ministry among the Jews. But He was "the heir," and the counsel of the nation was, "Come, let us kill Him." They ever thirsted for His life's blood. Even the prophets who had shown before His coming were slain by them. "Even before He came near unto them," they had marked Him out for death. "Crucify Him! crucify Him!" they cried, when at last they thought they had Him in their power. And what the Jew did nineteen hundred years ago, you and I, and every man, would do to-day if unrenewed by grace and placed in similar circumstances.

Murder, in the germ, lies buried in the natural heart of every man born in the world. And we read, "The carnal mind is enmity against God." God permitted all this manifestation of enmity and murder in the Jewish heart that you and I might see just what is in our own. For our hearts are, by nature, all alike. Scripture says so. Harken! "As in water face answereth to face, so the heart of man to man" (Prov. 27: 19). Notice the perfection of the figure used. It is not "As in a mirror," but "As in water." It is well-nigh impossible, as most here may know, to obtain an absolutely plane surface on either glass or metal. And to see a perfect image of yourself, you must look upon a surface that is perfectly plane. An ordinary mirror only reflects a resemblance. There is always more or less distortion. But look into a pail or pool of water perfectly at rest, and you see an exact image of yourself in the reflection. Because water at rest presents an absolutely plane surface. I know then, from this verse in Proverbs, that when I see the Jewish heart displaying itself in the presence of Jesus here on earth, I see, not a resemblance of my Gentile heart, but an exact image. And yet, oh wonder of wonders! He loved, and loves, me still! And when He came to earth He knew just what treatment He should receive at the hand of man. Joseph did not, could not, know how his brethren would seek to destroy his life. Had he known, he would never have gone, perhaps. But Jesus knew; and, knowing, came!

Let me adapt an illustration: A widow has an only son. She loves him dearly; and wishing to inculcate in him a spirit of unselfishness and care for others, she says one day, "James, I wish you to carry this basket of eatables to the Smith family over the mountain. I hear they are in very hard circumstances, and perhaps are starving. It is a long journey, but if you start now, while it is yet early morning, you will have time to get back before dark. Please ask them to accept this food as an expression of my neighborly care and love." James, always in hearty sympathy with his mother's plans, gladly undertakes the journey over the rough, steep mountain, and just after noon arrives at the dilapidated hut in which the squatters to whom he is sent are living. As he is seen approaching, the rough, rude elder sons come out, and begin to ill-treat the widow's son. Though he meets them with a kindly, gentle smile, they first mock and then begin to beat him, until, all covered with blood, he lies insensible and still upon the ground. Supposing him to be dead, they cast him into the bushes, and begin to eat, with the rest of the family, the basket of victuals. After a time poor James recovers consciousness, and succeeds, by a terrible effort, in reaching his mother's house about midnight. As he staggers, all bruised and bleeding, into his mother's arms, he groans, "O mother, had I known they were such cruel people, I never should have gone!" And this would be but human. But the love of Christ was more than human love; it was divine. He knew beforehand just how men would treat Him, yet He came. He knew the heartless mockery and the cruel crown of thorns that they would place upon His brow. He knew that they would nail Him to the shameful tree — yes, He knew it all; yet, blessed be His name, He came. My heart cannot withstand such love as this. It is a love "which passeth knowledge." It will melt the stoutest heart that, by God's grace, believes it. May you, poor Christ-rejector, get to know and believe that love to-night.

Many are like Reuben — they try to occupy a neutral place. He seeks, in a timid, half-hearted way to save the life of Joseph. If he knew Joseph to be unworthy of such treatment, why did he not step out boldly and say, "No; lay no hand on this defenseless lad. Why do you seek to kill the child? I shall stand by him; and if you kill him, you must do it over my dead body." "Well said, Reuben!" we would all exclaim. But no; he is too cowardly. He tries in a weak kind of way to save the life of Joseph, but he is careful that it is at no risk to himself; and he suffers with his wicked brethren just as if he had, like Judah, taken the leading part. Is there a Reuben here to-night? Be warned. You cannot occupy a neutral place between this Christ-rejecting world and an open confession of His name. You may think in your heart that you have a kind of respect or regard for Jesus; but let me tell you, this will not avail you in the coming day. Hear what He says about this matter: "Whosoever shall confess Me before men, him shall the Son of man also confess before the angels of God. But he that denieth Me before men shall be denied before the angels of God" (Luke 12: 8, 9). You must make your choice, and openly abide by it. Remember what He said to the daughters of Jerusalem, who, out of the tenderness of their womanly hearts, wept as they beheld Him being led to death and bearing His cross. "Weep for yourselves," He says, "and for your children," as He saw what would come upon them. They were not really believers, and had not confessed Him, like His true disciples. And He can only say to them, "Weep for yourselves." You too may weep as you hear preachers pathetically describe the sufferings of Christ upon the cross of Calvary; or you may be moved to tears as you gaze upon some life-like picture of the thorn-crowned and bleeding Saviour. But I say, Weep not for Him, but for those miseries that are coming upon your soul if you do not from your heart believe on Him, and with your mouth confess Him in the face of this World's scorn and hatred.

More than two hundred years ago the city of Limerick was besieged by King William, and at last surrendered, conditionally. An open space was prepared outside the city, and one grey October morning the soldiers of the surrendered garrison were marched towards this spot. The two flags of the rival French and English nations were planted at opposite points, and the Irish regiments were allowed to choose, each man for himself, which flag he preferred to live under and fight for. The first to decide was the foot-guard regiment, fourteen hundred strong. All but seven chose the tricolor of France. Next came Lord Iveagh's regiment, a splendid body of men. Will they, too, decide against the flag of England? The inhabitants of the city and country-side stand almost breathless as they advance with measured tread, and in perfect order, toward the spot where the decisive choice of each man must be made. One by one they stopped before the flag of England, until they stood a solid body, and as one man declared for England's king. Not one denied allegiance to the British crown. As the last man of this loyal regiment halted beneath the ensign of Britain, the silence of the spectators was broken by a mighty shout. Cheer after cheer rent the morning air. And men and angels look to you to see if you will make the Christ of God your public choice to-day, my unsaved hearer. You must decide as did each soldier on that morning of long ago outside the gates of Limerick. No man that day could take neutral ground. It must be the one flag or the other. And you must choose between the world and Christ. "Choose ye this day," is the word of command. It is impossible to continue long a Reuben. May God show you this, and "for the divisions of Reuben" may there be "great searchings of heart" to-night.

Now let us come back to the narrative. Reuben's expedient to deliver him out of his brethren's hand fails. True, they do not kill him. They strip him of his coat of many colors, and cast him into a pit of the wilderness. And in Reuben's absence (evidently) they sell him to the Ishmaelites. Like the Jews with Jesus, they deliver him up to the Gentiles. Twenty pieces of silver is the price they get for him. This was just two-thirds the price of an average adult slave (see Ex. 21: 32). Judas asked the chief priests what they would give for Jesus. Thirty pieces of silver is their offer. The price of a slave is their estimate of His worth who was ever God's delight, the object of the adoration of all angels, the fear of demons, and the "all" and "altogether lovely" of the hosts of the redeemed. "Every man has his price" is a vulgar saying of the world, and it is frequently untrue. But every soul whom Satan cheats of Jesus has its price. Some accept gold, others position or power. With some it is paltry pleasure, or lust, or some darling secret sin rolled like a sweet morsel under their tongue. What is he giving you, poor sinner? you are accepting something, be assured. And whatever it may be, you are being fooled a thousand times more really than the stupid savage who sells an exhaustless gold mine for a few brass buttons. Well might the sold and slighted Saviour say in seeming irony, as He beholds it all, "A goodly price that I was prized at of them" (Zech. 11: 13).

I know this may not give you much concern just now. It did not trouble Joseph's brethren very much that they had basely betrayed and sold him. But the time came, after many years, that they were forced to feel it. And you will some day realize the sin of all your sins — the rejection of the Son of God. It is the crown-crime of human guilt, and shuts heaven in your face. There is no place but hell for men who choose the world and sin, and leave the patient, pleading Saviour standing unanswered at their door.

Will you not have Him to-night, unsaved man, woman, child? He stands ready to-night to receive and save you. He will gladly forgive the years of neglect and rejection you have shown Him, just as Joseph, when exalted in Egypt, forgave his brethren freely when, in their need and sorrow, they were brought before him. You need a Saviour. You need one now. You need a Saviour from sin, and you need a Saviour from hell. Jesus waits to be all this to you right here and now. Love led Him to Calvary to die for your sins, and it is love, long-suffering love, love for the lost, that causes Him to delay His coming, and to call, and call you, though you do not yet respond. Oh, say to Him,

"Just as I am, Thy love, I own,

Has broken every barrier down.

Now to be Thine, yea, Thine alone,

O Lamb of God, I come."

God help you to say it! Amen and Amen.

Joseph in Prison

Genesis 40.

We have Joseph in the hands of the Gentiles to-night. The Ishmaelites, after buying him of his brethren, bring him down to Egypt, where he is sold to Potiphar, captain of the guard. Then, for many years, there is nothing heard or seen of Joseph's brethren, excepting what we have in chapter 38, concerning Judah. They typify, as we have seen, the Jewish nation, who, since their rejection of Christ, have had "Lo-ammi" (not My people) written upon them. They are like what is called in railroading, a "dead" train — sidetracked somewhere, and removed, for the time being, from the schedule.

In Judah's course, as recorded in Genesis 38, we have the Jews' present moral condition shown us. As he was the responsible leader in the betrayal of Joseph, he becomes the representative of them all. So we find him wandering among and mixing with the Gentiles, just like Israel at the present day. He marries a Gentile woman named Shuah, which means "riches." She bears him three sons, whose names are strikingly significant. Er means "enmity"; Onan, "iniquity"; and Shelah, "a sprout."

Shuah, riches, is what we see everywhere among the Jews. They appear to be remarkably successful in the accumulation of wealth, and can make money where a Gentile would starve, or speedily become bankrupt. It is perhaps true what is said, that the Jews hold the purse-strings of Europe, and no power on that continent can undertake a war without obtaining the necessary cash from the Jewish money-kings and bankers.

Er is said to mean enmity, and the old-time enmity of the race against the Christ of God seems as much alive to-day as it was on the day when they cried in their hearts' hatred "Crucify Him! crucify Him!" The mere mention of the name of "Jesus of Nazareth" to many of them is sufficient to make their eyes flash or cause them to hiss some awful malediction from between their gnashing teeth.

Onan is iniquity, and the dishonesty of the average Jewish merchant is proverbial. They seem, in their business, to be given up to lying and cheating; though, strange to say, outside their shops, in their private life, they seem as morally upright, if not more so, than the ordinary Gentile.

Shelah is the last son born, and his name is said to mean "a sprout." The now outcast people shall yet know a national revival. Israel is the fig tree that putteth forth her leaves. Their long, dark winter will soon be past, and their spring time of sprouting will have come; (see Matt. 24: 32-35; Song 2: 11-13). And the inspired chronicler is careful to tell us Shelah's birthplace. "He was at Chezib when she bare him." Chezib means "false." And the sprouting of the nation will take place at a time when false prophets and false Christs shall abound, the culmination of which will be the arch false Christ — the Antichrist. And the nation will have falsehood imposed upon them then as has never yet been done.

So much, then, for the Jew since his rejection of Messiah. They betrayed Him into Gentile hands, and in the chapter read to-night we have Christ's sufferings under the power of the Gentiles pictured. Joseph in the pit and Joseph in prison present to us two sides of the picture. Cast into the pit, Joseph typifies Christ's sufferings at the hands of the Jews; immured in the dungeon, he shows us Christ mocked and crucified by Gentiles. Both are necessary to complete the picture; for we see, from Acts 4: 27, that both Jew and Gentile had their part in doing "whatsoever they listed" to God's holy servant Jesus.

The pit into which Joseph was cast by his brethren was empty; "there was no water in it," we read. But oh, the awful pit into which his Antitype descended was no empty pit. It was full, full to overflowing with the dark, cold waters of death. "All Thy waves and Thy billows are gone over Me," He cried from the depths of that whelming flood. And it was for sin He suffered thus, for your sin and my sin, fellow-man. And faith can say, "He died for me; it was for me that Jesus Christ was crucified." It is then, and then only, that the mighty truth of it all strikes home to the heart. I know a nervy surgeon, a Christian, who one Lord's-day morning was reading the 19th chapter of John. He read down to the 16th verse — "Then delivered he Him therefore unto them to be crucified" — and stopped. He could read no further. Tears blinded his eyes, and he could but sit and sob. I tell you, sinner, this is no "woman's weakness." It is the mighty power of the measureless love of Christ bowing the hearts of the strongest of men, who know it was for them that Jesus was "led as a lamb to the slaughter." Spurgeon said, just before his death, "There are four golden words I have lived by, and by which I am now content to die — 'Jesus — died — for — me.'" He died for sinners, all glory to His name, and so I know it was for me. Who of those here to-night can say, "It was for me"? Oh, claim it for yourself by faith! Appropriate it to yourself, and shout,

"'Tis done, the great transaction's done!"

You will recollect that Joseph's brethren stripped him of his coat of many colors ere they hurled him into the pit. The many-colored coat, we saw in the introductory address, was a mark of renown, or superior dignity or excellence. And Jesus not only died, but died "the death of the cross" — a death of shame and ignominy. It was like our modern hanging. And you know, if one of your ancestors, however remote, was known to have been hanged, how ashamed and humiliated you would be made to feel by it. The Jews might have killed our Lord by stoning (I speak as a man), or in some other way; but this would not have pleased them as well as to see Him "numbered with the transgressors." "Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree," Scripture had said. And the persecutors of the Son of God were not content until they had stripped Him, so far as it lay in their power, of everything suggested by the many-colored coat of Joseph — His dignity, His moral excellence, His honor; everything, in fact, on which they could lay their guilty hands.

"Every mark of dark dishonor

Heaped upon His thorn-crowned brow,"

we often sing. Yes, they stripped Him; but like a sheep dumb before her shearers, He opened not His mouth. He meekly submitted to the mockery and humiliation, and God has in consequence "highly exalted Him, and given Him the name which is above every name," Hallelujah!

Before entering upon the chapter before us tonight, I wish to say a word on Joseph's temptation in the house of Potiphar. 1 am not sure about its having any typical import, though it is certainly in marked contrast with what we have in the chapter just before.* It seems as if there might be some sort of connection between the disgraceful conduct of Judah in chap. 38, and the chaste behavior of Joseph in chap. 39. Both chapters are wholesome reading, though I might not care to read either in public. But this is no reason why we should taboo them. Matters may be discussed in private, concerning which we preserve a studied silence in public, as, for example, the more private affairs of the family, or subjects relating to certain departments of medical science. A thing is not necessarily evil because it cannot be discussed or mentioned in public conversation. So with certain portions of God's word. "Every word of God is pure," we read, though it might not be wise in this age or land to read it all before a promiscuous audience — I say," in this age or land." I have a note in the margin of my Bible just at these 38th and 39th chapters of Genesis, showing why I thus qualify my statement. You will pardon me if I read it. It is taken from Neil's "Palestine Explored." He says, "They (Easterns) still, as in ancient times, use the greatest plainness of speech throughout the Holy Land. At first, a Western sense of delicacy is greatly shocked. Things, the very mention of which decency forbids amongst us, are there spoken of freely before women and children by people of the highest class, and of the greatest respectability and refinement. . . . Seeing that the Bible purports to be an Eastern book, written in the East, and first and for long ages only addressed to Easterns, it could not possibly be genuine if these very matters which have given rise to such blasphemous cavils were absent from its pages." A man went into a book store not long since, and asked for a Bible "with all the nasty things left out." Poor man; he will some day know that the "nasty things" were in his mind and heart, not in God's pure and holy Word. "Unto the pure," Paul writes, "all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled" (Titus 1: 15). How long-suffering and gracious is God, to endure all these hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him," and against His Word, which He says He has magnified above (or, according to) all His name. Repent, ye cavillers, ere you discover too late the uncleanness and immorality to be in your own depraved heart, and not in God's holy Book. It was holy men of God who spoke these things, as they were moved to do so by the Holy Ghost. "Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way?" one asked long ago, who knew by personal and painful experience what a terrible thing moral defilement really is. Hear his answer: "By taking heed thereto according to Thy Word." And it takes clean water to wash a dirty pair of hands, as everybody knows. But the Bible can take care of itself; it needs no vindication from me, or from any man. I only speak these things that you may be saved from judging that which God has decreed shall in the coming day judge you.

{*In Isa. 43: 24 Jehovah's word to Israel is, "Then hast brought Me no sweet cane with money (for incense) . . . but thou hast made Me to serve with thy sins." And have we not all made our blessed Lord Jesus to "serve with our sins"? — putting our iniquities upon Him as it were, who "was wounded for our transgressions" and upon whom "the chastisement that brings as peace was laid" Isa. 53: 5, 8. [Ed.]}

Now for our chapter. Joseph, because he continued steadfastly to resist temptation, is falsely and foully accused by his temptress, and is cast into prison. It is just like the world; they will first do all in their power to entice a Christian from faithfulness to Christ; and if he resists, and stands firm, they will turn about and begin to persecute and slanderously report him. Peter speaks of this. Writing of the sins of the unsaved, he says, "Wherein they think it strange that ye run not with them to the same excess of riot, speaking evil of you" (1 Peter 4: 4). And I have sometimes thought that in Joseph's resistance of temptation, and his consequent accusation and suffering, we might see a faint foreshadowing of our Lord's temptation, and the outcome of it. You know they would have made Him a king on one occasion, and sought in other ways to flatter Him and turn Him from the path of duty and obedience to His Father's will. After His first temptation by the devil directly, we read that Satan left Him "for a season." So far as we know, he never attempted to attack our Lord in that immediate way again. But we are sure that he must have returned to tempt Him again (as he had only left Him for a season), and it must have been through the instrumentality of men. The offer of the crown of Israel without the cross, and the desire of the multitude to have Him consent to make common cause with them, was, I have little doubt, of Satan. But, like Joseph, He refuses all these blandishments, and, as a result, His flatterers and professed admirers become His accusers, and He is made to suffer for His faithfulness.

So in Joseph in prison we see the suffering Christ. And we see two others suffering with him — Pharaoh's two officers, his chief butler and his chief baker. But they do not suffer like Joseph; he suffered innocently, but they, in all probability, were receiving the "due reward of their deeds," like the two thieves crucified with Christ. Joseph was ruler in the dungeon, and the verdict of the conscience of his co-prisoners must have been, "This man hath done nothing amiss." The base woman's husband evidently did not really believe his wife's foul lie. It was perhaps only to save appearances that he made a show of punishing Joseph. If he really believed her story, it is inconceivable why he should not have had this Hebrew slave immediately put to death. He probably knew her character pretty well. This is the only manner in which his great leniency towards Joseph can be accounted for, it seems to me. And this is just why Pilate was so slow in giving his consent to have "the Lord of glory" crucified. He knew the character of His accusers well; and he did not really believe Him guilty of death. And only as a matter of policy (alas for him!) did he at last pronounce the death-sentence upon the Holy One.

Here I wish to note a contrast in the conduct of two women in connection with the sufferings of the innocent type and Antitype of which we have been speaking. Both are wives of high officers of two of the most powerful empires the world has ever known — Egypt and Rome. The tendency of the record of the shameful wickedness of Potiphar's wife is to leave her sex under a cloud; the episode of Pilate's wife retrieves it fully. We read, "When he (Pilate) was set down on the judgment-seat, his wife sent unto him, saying, Have thou nothing to do with that just man; for 1 have suffered many things this day in a dream because of Him" (Matt. 27:19). Who knows but what it was a pious Jewess Pilate had married? or, if a Gentile, that a spark of faith had not been kindled in her bosom by our ever-merciful and wonder-working God, who "is not the God of the Jews only, but of the Gentiles also." Anyway, she braved her husband's displeasure in order to persuade him to withhold his consent to Christ's crucifixion, without which they could not lawfully have put Him to death. (See John 18: 31.) The wife of the Roman pleads for the Just; the Egyptian's wife persecutes. Hebrew historians have given us the record of this contrast; and a poet (one of our own) has penned the spirit of it:

"First in the transgression, and

First at the Saviour's tomb."

Let us look now at the dreams of the chief butler and the chief baker in prison. They dream them both in one night; and when Joseph comes in to them in the morning, he notices that they look sad. And they are sad because they do not understand their dreams. They seem to have felt that in some way or other there was a connection between their dreams and their destiny; and because they are not sure of what that destiny is to be, they are "sad." And well they might be. And some of you are sad to-night for the self-same reason — you do not know your destiny. Yea, how many more ought to be sad, but are not. You do not know that you are saved, and therefore you do not know where you will spend eternity. And while that question remains unsettled, 'tis folly to be otherwise than sad. For what if hell should be your everlasting portion? And it must be heaven or hell, remember. The old Welsh preachers used to picture heaven and hell as a stopped clock. The believer's eternity, they said, was like a clock that had stopped at high noon, in endless day and brightness; the Christ-rejector's was like a clock stopped at midnight, in "the blackness of darkness forever." Where shall yours stop, sinner? Stop somewhere it must; and what if it should be at midnight, and the outer darkness be your everlasting portion?

"Eternity, where? oh, eternity, where?

With redeemed ones in glory, or fiends in despair?

With one or the other — Eternity, where?

Friend, sleep not, nor take in the world any share,

Till you answer the question — Eternity, where?"

"I'm going — I don't know where!" a poor dying sinner once cried, as he felt himself like a man being carried over a dam. You too may soon slip over, sinner. May God awaken you! There is such a place as hell, just as the Bible tells us. Somebody has said, "If there isn't, there ought to be." But there is no "ought to be" about it. God has told us of it in His Word. I am not here to prove it; God does not send His servants to prove His Word to sinners; He commands them to preach it. And man's conscience bears witness to the truth of it, as Scripture says: "The expectation of the wicked is wrath." That is every Christ-rejector's expected end — "wrath," "wrath to come," "wrath from heaven," "the wrath of God." Oh, how can you be gay when, for aught you know, you may be standing at hell's very door! May God make you serious. The very thought of eternity — that man must live forever somewhere — is enough to sober any person who will give the subject half a minute's time.

"But," you say, "who but God knows where we shall each go when we die?" God knows, to be sure. Joseph says to the downcast butler and baker, "Do not interpretations belong to God?" And all that any of us can possibly know about these things must be revealed to us by God. And He has revealed to us how any man may know where he shall spend eternity. His Word, the Bible, gives us a perfect delineation of our destiny. You may know yours if you just listen attentively to how the chief butler and the chief baker learned theirs.

When Pharaoh's officers confess to Joseph the cause of their sadness, he encourages them to repeat to him their dreams. This they do. The chief butler tells how he saw in his dream a vine of three branches. This vine buds, blossoms, and bears fruit — ripe grapes. Pharaoh's cup is in his hand, and he presses the ruby juice of the grapes into the cup and gives the cup into the hand of Pharaoh. Joseph interprets the dream, and promises him deliverance.

Then the chief baker, when he saw that the interpretation of the butler's dream was good, ventured to tell his. He says, "I also was in my dream, and, behold, I had three white baskets on my head: and in the uppermost basket there was of all manner of bakemeats for Pharaoh; and the birds did eat them out of the basket upon my head." And Joseph tells him plainly that the gallows is his doom.

Now what does all this mean? For it must mean something — there must be some symbolical meaning to be attached to the narrative of these dreams, and their interpretation. If not, they are of little more service to us than idle tales. I make this assertion as a challenge to those literalists who deny that there is anything symbolical or figurative in Scripture narratives of this description, and call this method of ministry fanciful. If we are mistaken, let them tell us why such stories occupy so large a place in Scripture, or what profit they propose to get for themselves or others from the study a them?

We see the gospel pictured in these dreams. The chief butler sees that in his dream which speaks of the blood (the juice of the grape). And he was delivered. The chief baker, on the other hand, dreams of that which at once reminds us of human righteousness, the white baskets. He saw only what he had labored to produce, the bakemeats. And he is hanged. The chief butler sees something ready to his hand, the grape-clusters; and these he takes advantage of and presents to Pharaoh as the blood of the grape. The fowls of the air devour the offering of the baker. Here we have "the only two religions" symbolized — that which makes everything to depend upon the blood of Jesus, and that which ignores the blood and trusts to human righteousness.

Each had its origin at the very beginning of human history. Abel brought to God a bleeding sacrifice, and was accepted. Cain brought of the fruits of the ground, and was, with his offering, rejected. His present, no doubt, looked beautiful to the eye of man, made up, probably, of beautiful flowers, luscious fruits, and ripened vegetables. He had toiled patiently to obtain them; but it would not do for God. It was not acceptable. The blood was wanting. From his whole offering not one drop of blood could have been extracted. Abel brought of the firstlings of his flock. See it, all dripping with crimson-gore! It is not a sight to draw forth admiration, naturally. The sight of blood will turn many people sick. Most have an aversion to it. Oh, how these pictures speak!

Let me apply these types. Take some characters we know: what fruits and flowers are cultivated in their lives! Some are known to fame as painters, poets, philosophers, and even philanthropists. Some, alas, are preachers. They ignore, reject, and even scorn, the Scripture doctrine of atonement by the blood of Christ. "Natural religion" — just what the heathen know and believe in — is their trust. Their creed is but a system of ethics, borrowed largely from the Bible, the central core of whose teaching (the blood) they deny. "I'm not going to make a slaughter-house of my pulpit," said a popular "divine," when reproached for leaving the blood out of his preaching. Some contemptuously speak of the doctrine of salvation by the blood as "the butchery theory of the atonement." "Woe to them! for they are gone in the way of Cain," God says. They presume to draw nigh to God on the ground of what they are in themselves and what they have done, and scorn to trust to the work and merits of another, even Jesus Christ and His atoning sacrifice. They deny, or ignore with silent contempt, the teaching of the Bible as to the Fall of man. Human depravity has no place in their belief. They speak much about the universal fatherhood of God and brotherhood of man. Their hymns are being taught and sung largely in our public schools. It is all mawkish sentiment, and the frown of God is on it all, let me assure you. They may call Him "the all-Father," but He will have none of it. He has decreed and determined "that all men should honor the Son even as they honor the Father"; but this these Unitarian infidels refuse to do. "The all-Father" I Why, the "Almighty God" of the open sinner is a hundred times less blasphemous than this Cainite slogan; for I know not what else to call it. All men are "by nature the children of wrath," Scripture says; and none are God's children but through "faith in Christ Jesus" (Eph. 2: 3; Gal. 3: 26).

Cain's character had nothing whatever to do with his rejection by God. Abel and he were both born of fallen parents, outside the garden of Eden. God made a difference between the brothers because of the difference in their offerings; and their offerings were the expression of the doctrine of their hearts. Heb. 11: 4 makes this plain beyond the possibility of contradiction. We read there, "By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts: and by it he being dead yet speaketh." Let him speak to you, my friend, and learn from his example that there is no approach to God by sinful man but by the precious blood of Christ. Why, the blood is everywhere in Scripture I Why did Noah take seven pairs of clean animals into the ark, but to have them to offer in sacrifice after the flood, until others should be born and grown? A ram was slain upon the altar in substitution for Isaac on mount Moriah. The blood of a lamb secured the first-born of Israel in Egypt on the night of the passover. The book of Leviticus is full of blood. And it is in this book that we have the way of man's approach to God minutely set forth. And so all through the Bible. The token of Rahab's scarlet line runs through the very heart of the Book from Genesis to Revelation. For even in that last of the sixty-six books of the inspired collection the blood is repeatedly mentioned. God does not want us to forget the blood. All men have need of it. Popular preachers may affect contempt for it, but God-sent evangelists are like the bride of Solomon's Song. The king says of her, "Thy lips are like a thread of scarlet." Then he? immediately adds, "and thy speech is comely" (Song 4: 3). Yes, God delights to have His servants testifying constantly of the blood. Such speech is comely in His ears. He wants me to proclaim it in your ears to-night. "Without shedding of blood is no remission." "It is the blood that maketh atonement for the soul."

And we know it is the only remedy for sin. A brother tells how, when traveling in India some time ago, he was brought in contact, on the train, with a cultivated Brahmin. After some little discussion concerning Christianity and the religions of India, the Brahmin offered the brother a few pages of his sacred books, the Vedas, to read. He read them, and was surprised at the exalted and beautiful poetry they contained. When he returned them, he was asked his opinion of them. He confessed frankly that he was surprised at finding them to contain such very fine poetry and sentiment. "But," said he, "it lacks what all your sacred books, and all your religions, outside the Bible and Christianity, lack." "What is that?" the native asked. "They contain no remedy for sin," was the reply. Yes, that's the lack with culture, godless education, rationalism, ritualism, and all the makeshifts and substitutes for the gospel in the land to-day — they provide no remedy for sin. And the sin-question is the burning question for a guilty race to stand up to and have settled. And nothing can settle it but the blood. "And the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanseth us from all sin." So in his dream the butler sees what stands for the blood, and gets his liberty and reinstatement into Pharaoh's favor.

Let us have a look at the chief baker now. He beheld in his dream, as we have said, what stands for human righteousness — white baskets and bakemeats prepared by his own skilful hand. And oh, what baskets of good things, as they suppose, are self-righteous sinners all around preparing for God's acceptance! One will

"In his innocence glory,

Another in works he has done."

It is something they have done, are doing, or what they promise or expect to do. It is anything and everything but what Christ has done upon the cross. And this is not confined to Rome or paganism, as you might suppose, but is common to all communities, even where the Bible is read and preached from. It is well-nigh universal. But God's word says salvation is "not of works, lest any man should boast"; it is "to him that worketh not," in fact. "By grace are ye saved through faith." "Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace." "And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace." These are all, word for word, quotations from the word of God, and I might go on multiplying them. God has spoken fully and plainly on this subject; and if men miss heaven at last by "trusting (like the Pharisee) in themselves that they are righteous," it will be because they have closed their ears to the truth, that they might hear and believe only their own heart's lie.

What, after all, is creature goodness? God has told us; hear His verdict as to it: "All our righteousnesses are as filthy rags." You had better read that for yourself. It is found in Isa. 64: 6. Not very flattering, is it? He calls your very best nothing but "filthy rags;" not rags merely, which may sometimes be excused, but filthy rags, all stained with sin. Think of a man seeking an entrance into Buckingham Palace clothed in filthy rags! But it is ten thousand times more futile to expect to be admitted into the palace of the "Great King." It would be considered a marked insult to the king of England to attempt to approach his throne in filthy rags. Yet men vainly imagine they can stand before the throne of God as they would not dare to appear before an earthly potentate. Alas for their low, mean thoughts of the holiness of God, and the exalted ideas they entertain about their own!" Woe is me, for I am undone!" cried the prophet Isaiah, when he in vision saw the Lord upon His throne, and heard the seraphs crying, "Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts." Job was the best man on earth in his day; yet, when he finds himself in the presence of the Divine majesty, he exclaims, "Behold, I am vile. I abhor myself" Ah, Pharisee, your boasted uprightness, your works of charity, your morality, and all that you trust to and glory in, is but like so many rags reeking with filth, and fit only for the fire. Repent! Own yourself to be what God says you are, an undone, lost sinner, and trust the cleansing, precious blood of Jesus Christ alone for salvation and acceptance before God. Do not even trust to your contrition of heart or your penitence; trust only in the blood.

"It is not thy tears of repentance, or prayers,

But the blood that atones for the soul."

It is a common idea among men that the diamond is the rarest and costliest of gems; but it is a mistake. The precious ruby has six or seven times the value of the diamond. The diamond was known to the ancients; but Scripture always puts the ruby first. "Her price is far above rubies"; "the price of wisdom is above rubies," it says. The old Book is right in gem knowledge, you see, as in everything it touches on. And a sinner's tears of penitence are esteemed by God. There is joy in heaven over his repentance. But you must, by faith, see the ruby blood of Jesus through your diamond tears. Trust only the blood, I repeat, and you shall be saved.

What became of the bakemeats in the baker's basket? Why, the fowls of the air (Scripture symbols of evil spirits) devoured them. Pharaoh never tasted one of them. And so with every sinner's fancied righteousness. God will not have it. It is all defiled by sin; and when trusted in for heaven, it furnishes satisfaction to the devil and his evil angels. They may find pleasure in it (for it crowds out Christ), but God will not accept of it, make sure of that. The baker was hanged, and the very birds that devoured his bakemeats ate his flesh. Joseph says to him, "Yet within three days shall Pharaoh lift up thy head from off thee, and shall hang thee on a tree; and the birds shall eat thy flesh from off thee." Awful end! fearful doom! And, self-righteous sinner, it is a sure forewarning of thine own. "Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree," Scripture says. And the curse of God's broken law is resting on your soul to-night; for it is written, "Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them." And if you die in this condition, you die a prey to demons who have helped by their lies to deceive and destroy your soul.

So we may know, you see, where we shall spend eternity, just as Pharaoh's officers got to know how their affairs should end. Joseph told them. And the true Joseph, our Lord Jesus Christ, has told men where they are to go when they die. He says, "If ye die in your sins, whither I go ye cannot come." This is plain enough. And He says, too, "If ye believe not that I am He, ye shall die in your sins." This is solemn for all who deny our Lord's eternal deity. They shall die in their sins. They may pride themselves on their ancestry, their Bostonian culture, their benevolence, their external rectitude of life; they may even speak piously of one they call "Jesus," and hold him up as an example for all to imitate; but it is "another Jesus," and not "the Christ of God." But if they refuse to believe on Him as the eternal and uncreated Son of God, they shall die in their sins, and where He has gone they cannot come. But to all who believe in His name, and trust His sacrifice for sin, He says, "Where I am, there ye shall be also." And it will turn out just as He has said, you may depend upon it. It happened to the butler and the baker just "as Joseph had interpreted to them."

Now just a word to Christians ere I close. Joseph says to the chief butler, after telling him the good news of his deliverance, "But think on me when it shall be well with thee." And has not our Joseph said to us concerning the Lord's Supper, "This do in remembrance of Me"? It was one of His last requests. Shame be upon us, then, if, like the chief butler, after hearing and believing the good news of our salvation, we forget Him. For we read, "Yet did not the chief butler remember Joseph, but forgat him." In the broken bread we see His body bruised for us, and in the cup we see the blood by which our souls have been redeemed. O brethren, may we not neglect or grow careless as to this! And if any have, may you be moved to say, like the ungrateful butler, after years of neglect of Joseph's request, "I do remember my faults this day." Thank God, "it is well" with the believer — blessedly, gloriously well — for time and all eternity. Well, then, may we sing,

"O let Thy love constrain

Our souls to cleave to Thee;

And ever in our hearts remain

That word, 'Remember Me!'"

Joseph's Exaltation

Genesis 41.

Dreams play an important part in Joseph's history previous to his exaltation. God frequently took this way to communicate His mind, or to reveal beforehand coming events, in the ages before Moses, when there was no written revelation of His will. So in the book of Job, where we have history antedating Moses (as we believe), we read of God speaking "in a dream, in a vision of the night," to men. Now we have His written revelation, the completed Bible, and it is only in extremely rare and exceptional cases that we can recognize a dream as having come from God. "A dream cometh through the multitude of business," that is, from purely natural causes, Scripture says (Ecc. 5: 3). This may be said of the mass of dreams. but there are dreams on record which are undoubtedly of divine origin, and can be accounted for in no other way. For instance, I know a lady well, who said one morning to one of the members of her family, "I fear something is going to happen, for I saw in my dream last night a pool of blood." And before that day closed her husband was carried into the house with his face covered with blood, which was flowing from a gash in his forehead. "There is my pool of blood," she exclaimed, as she opened the door and saw it. He had been thrown from his wagon, and struck his forehead against a sharp stone. Now this may appear trifling to some, but how many individuals (and even nations) have been saved from the grossest materialism by such and similar means, none of us can tell. Anyway, history records what an important place dreams held in the cults of ancient Egypt and Assyria, and the divinely inspired story of Joseph confirms it.

Pharaoh is the dreamer in the chapter before us to-night. He dreams two dreams of exactly the same import. He stands in his dream by the river Nile, and sees seven well-favored and fat-fleshed kine feeding in a meadow. Then he sees seven ill-favored and lean-fleshed kine come up out of the river and eat up the well-favored and fat-fleshed. He dreams again, and sees seven ears of corn, rank and good, come up on one stalk. Then he sees seven thin ears, blasted with the east wind, spring up after them, and they devour the rank and full ears. Pharaoh then awakes, and is troubled. He tells the magicians and wise men his dreams. "But," we read, "there was none that could interpret them unto Pharaoh." Then the chief butler speaks up, and tells of his and the chief baker's experience in prison years before, and how Joseph had correctly interpreted their dreams. "And it came to pass." he says, "as he interpreted to us, so it was; me he restored unto mine office, and him he hanged." "Then," we read, "Pharaoh sent and called Joseph, and they brought him hastily out of the dungeon: and he shaved himself, and changed his raiment, and came in unto Pharaoh." Pharaoh tells Joseph his dreams, and Joseph at once explains to Pharaoh what they mean. He interprets the seven well-favored and fat-fleshed kine and the seven rank and good ears of corn to signify "seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt." And the seven lean kine and thin ears he interprets as seven years of famine. "And there shall arise after them" (the seven years of plenty), he says, "seven years of famine; and all the plenty shall be forgotten in the land of Egypt; and the famine shall consume the land; and the plenty shall not be known in the land by reason of that famine following; for it shall be very grievous. And," he adds, "for that the dream was doubled unto Pharaoh twice, it is because the thing is established by God, and God will shortly bring it to pass." Then, unasked, and with the dignity becoming a messenger of God, the Hebrew slave advises the king just what to do in view of what was about to come to pass — reminding us of his great Antitype, whose name is "Counsellor."

The thing that he counsels is good in the eyes of Pharaoh and his officers of state. They are struck with the wisdom of it, and from court interpreter and counselor in this emergency Joseph is promoted to the office of grand vizier of the king. "And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, Forasmuch as God hath showed thee all this, there is none so discreet and wise as thou art: thou shalt be over my house, and according unto thy word shall all my people be ruled: only in the throne will I be greater than thou. And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, See, I have set thee over all the land of Egypt. And Pharaoh took off his ring from his hand, and put it upon Joseph's hand, and arrayed him in vestures of fine linen, and put a gold chain about his neck; and he made him to ride in the second chariot which he had; and they cried before him, Bow the knee: and he made him ruler over all the land of Egypt. And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, I am Pharaoh and without thee shall no man lift up his hand or foot in all the land of Egypt."

All this is typical of the present exaltation of Christ Jesus the Lord. He who was once the Crucified is now the Glorified. He whom men once put upon a gibbet, has been placed by God upon His throne. Joseph was given his place of exaltation in Egypt purely on the ground of his personal worth and actual service rendered by him to the country and kingdom of Egypt. And we see from Phil. 2 that God has exalted Jesus (as a man) solely because of personal worthiness and obedience unto death. "Wherefore," we read, "God also hath highly exalted Him, and given Him a (or, the) name which is above every name: that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." And Peter on the day of Pentecost says to the very Jews who had condemned and crucified Him, "Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ" (Acts 2: 36). And what God by the Spirit, through Peter, wished those Jews nineteen hundred years ago to know, He wants you to-day to know. God has made Him Lord and Christ, remember. And your wisdom (and salvation) is to recognize this fact and act accordingly. Sinners, especially religious sinners, almost invariably speak of Him as "Jesus." They use the name given Him in His humiliation, His personal name when dwelling here on earth. But God hath made this same "Jesus" Lord and Christ.

These are not mere names, but titles of honor and dignity. And the unconverted, influenced more or less by Satan, seem not to wish to give Him what belongs to Him by right. What would be thought of the man who always spoke of the king of England as Albert Edward, and even addressed him directly by his personal name? You know he would at once be accused (and quite properly) of familiarity and lack of respect, and his loyalty would be seriously questioned. "His Majesty," "His Royal Highness," "The King," and the like, are all titles belonging to his position as sovereign of the empire-kingdom, though there might be occasions when it would be considered quite proper to say "Albert Edward" only. And there are times when it is perfectly in place to speak of the Lord as Jesus. He is sometimes (though rarely) spoken of in this way in Scripture after His resurrection and ascension to glory. But there is always a discernible needs-be for it. It is never used in the loose, haphazard, irreverent way in which so many professing Christians use it nowadays. Every tongue must confess Him "Lord."

You will notice demons, in the New Testament, never called Him "Lord." They, like the mass of men to-day, called Him "Jesus." They addressed Him as the "Holy One of God." But they never in one single instance spoke of or to Him as Lord. But they, like all who only call Him "Jesus" now, will one day be compelled, to their everlasting shame and sorrow, to confess that He is Lord. The three great spheres of created intelligences, the celestial, the terrestrial, and the infernal — heaven, earth, and hell — will own Him Lord. O sinner, do it now. You must do it some day. Do it now, of your own voluntary will: "with the mouth confession is made unto salvation," Scripture says. If you refuse you will be compelled to do it when too late, and damnation will be your fearful, everlasting doom. Don't be like the young man who said he never would submit to Christ. But God made a terrible example of him. He was taken sick; and when at last he realized that he was dying, he cried out, "O my proud knees, must you bow I must you bow!" Yes, his proud knees bent, but it was that compulsory submission that demons and all lost men will be compelled to yield. "Bow the knee!" the herald cried, as Joseph, arrayed in his robes of state and official regalia, was driven in the royal chariot through the land of Egypt. And woe to that man or woman who refused to bow to the former Hebrew slave. Potiphar's wife would have to bow with the rest before that one whom she had so wickedly sought to ruin.

And how will those proud knees bow to Jesus Christ, the Son of God, that now "take Him a creature to be," and do their best to make the world believe that He is not what He said He was, though the Holy Spirit proclaims Him "God manifest in the flesh"! Oh, how will it fare in that day with these lying traducers of His holy person, these deniers of His deity, these shameless" higher critics" who pretend that they know more than He, when they come to bow themselves before Him! How will they cringe before His presence when He sits upon His judgment-throne, and it is made manifest what hard speeches they have ungodlily spoken against Him! They will confess Him then to be all that He claimed to be when here on earth; they will acknowledge there that everything the Bible said of Him was true. But it will only be to their shame and everlasting contempt. And then, silenced and subdued forever, they must "go away" to that abode of woe and darkness to share the fate of demons whose lies they greedily swallowed and so industriously sought to promulgate.

Hear ye, all of you that think ye have in Jesus altogether such a one as yourselves: "By Him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by Him and for Him" (Col. 1: 16). This is what God has caused to be written of Him whose name some of you are not afraid to blaspheme. How terrible your sin! Oh, may God grant you repentance, and give you to own with us that Jesus Christ is Lord; and not only Lord, but a loving, living Saviour, whose

"Love is as great as His power."

After Joseph's exaltation came the seven years of plenty. And these seven years of great abundance picture, if they do not typify, the present dispensation of grace in which it is our happy lot to live. "Now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation," 2 Cor. 6: 2 says. And it will last till the coming of the Lord. Then the door will shut for all who have heard and rejected the gospel; and God will send them strong delusion. He will give them up to believe a lie, "that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness" (2 Thess. 2: 12). This we see prefigured in the seven years of famine following the seven years of plenty. Seven is the number of spiritual perfection (whether of good or evil), and we see in these twice seven years two complete periods of time: the present, "the acceptable year of the Lord," and what is to follow, "the day of vengeance of our God."

There were seven years, not of plenty merely, but of "great plenty." And during those years, we read, "the earth brought forth by handfuls." It was a time of extraordinary abundance. And there never was a day like the one in which we live. Never before the present dispensation did God send His messengers out into all the world to proclaim to every sinner a free and a full salvation through faith in the name of His own exalted Son. There never was a time of such "abundance," such "great plenty," at any former period of God's dealings with the earth. And it is a remarkable fact, which I have not seen previously noted, that of all the distinct dispensations of time referred to in Scripture the present is by far the longest. And oh, what a tale of grace this tells! God is indeed "longsuffering to usward, not willing that any should perish." I do not wish to advert here to the various dispensations marked out in the word of God. But I must remark, and emphasize the fact, that never in the history of the human race has God permitted men to sin so long, so persistently, and so high-handedly, without apparently interfering with them, as in this day of grace. He is sending out His servants to all the nations of the earth with the ministry of reconciliation, to wit, "that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them." His great harvest of grace is being reaped. May you be found among the wheat. Have a care that you do not find your portion with the chaff and tares "whose end is to be burned." Be reconciled to God, I beseech you, to-day, lest the years of plenteousness pass before you are aware of it, and you find yourself on the brink of a lost eternity, there to lament in bitter and hopeless despair, "The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and I am not saved!"

Joseph was called by Pharaoh "Zaphnath-paaneah," which is said to mean in the Egyptian language "The saviour of the world," and in its Hebrew form, according to Josephus, "A revealer of secrets." Both would suit the new grand vizier very well. And both these offices are fulfilled in Christ. He is the true Zaphnath-paaneah. He revealed to men the secrets of their hearts when here on earth. He knew the sinful history of Samaria's daughter perfectly. "Come, see a man which told me all things that ever I did," she said to the people of her city, when He had exposed to herself her sin. You have noticed in the Gospels, perhaps, how many times the expression is found, "Jesus answered and said unto them;" or, "Jesus answered him," when no one has asked anything. Many have wondered at this, why it is said He answered when no question had been asked. I will tell you what it means: Christ could read men's hearts, and He saw questions there that their lips never expressed. And God's way is to strike at the root — man's heart; and so, often, what men said to Christ was seemingly ignored (as in the case of Nicodemus, John 3: 2, 3), and He answered them in accordance with the condition of their hearts. And in the coming day, we read, God will "judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ." In Him, then, we see the great "Revealer of secrets." But He is more than this; He is the "Saviour of the world." The Samaritans call Him this, who had come to believe on Him because of the saying of the very woman who had announced Him as the One who had laid bare her life's dark secrets. In that chapter, then (the 4th of John), we see Him in both characters — Revealer of secrets, and Saviour of the world. In the one we see that "God is light;" in the other, "God is love;" light exposing the sin, and love providing for its removal and forgiveness.

But Pharaoh not only gave to Joseph a full and glorious name — he gave him a wife as well, "Asenath, the daughter of Poti-pherah, priest (or prince) of On." And this Gentile wife, given to Joseph during the time of his separation from his brethren, is a most beautiful and unmistakable type of the Church given to Christ, to be His bride, during this the time that He is lost to His brethren after the flesh — the Jewish nation. There are seven such types of the Church (if we include Rachel) in the Old Testament Scriptures: Eve, Rebekah, Rachel, Asenath, Zipporah, Abigail, and Solomon's queen, the daughter of Pharaoh. They form a most interesting group, and would, I believe, amply repay a detailed study. Let us take the briefest glance at them:

Eve is the first and archetype of them all. She was taken out of the man during the time that a deep sleep had fallen upon him. Adam asleep is Christ in death. And when the Lord God brings her to him, he says, "This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh." And with what a pure, intense, unselfish love he must have loved her! How deep and tender must have been this man's first love for woman! It is a mystical picture thrown upon the screen of earliest human history to give us some conception of the love of Christ for His Church. "This is a great mystery," writes Paul in Eph. 5, speaking of the husband and wife as being one flesh; "but," he adds, "I speak concerning Christ and the Church." "Christ loved the Church, and gave Himself for it." He went down into death to obtain such a bride as only beautiful, unfallen Eve could properly (in this connection) represent. She has been purchased with the blood of God's own [Son]. And she is viewed as a part of Himself: "We are members of His body," it is said. And just as Adam, after waking from his "deep sleep," had this wondrously obtained and wondrously beautiful companion presented to him, so Christ, we read, will present to Himself "a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing."

Rebekah comes next. She was brought as a bride for Isaac, who typifies our risen Lord. "She was very fair to look upon," we read; and when the crucial question, "Wilt thou go with this man?" is put to her, she unhesitatingly answers, "I will go." And leaving her country, her kindred, and her father's house, like Abraham before her, she starts across the desert, under the guidance of Eliezer — the servant sent to bring her — foreshadow of the Holy Ghost. And so we sometimes sing,

"The Holy Ghost is leading

Home to the Lamb His bride."

And there, in Isaac's home and heart, she takes the place of Sarah, type of Israel, now dead. "And Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah's tent, and took Rebekah, and she became his wife; and he loved her: and Isaac was comforted after his mother's death" (Gen. 24: 67).

Then comes Rachel, "beautiful and well-favored." And only after years of toil could Jacob claim her as his own. In the day, the drought consumed him, and the frost by night; and his sleep departed from his eyes. But love lightened the burdens and sweetened all the bitterness of those long years. "And Jacob served seven years for Rachel; and they seemed unto him but a few days, for the love he had to her" (Gen. 29: 20). And this is the only phase of his life in which the patriarch Jacob appears to typify our Lord, "who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and (His toil ended) is set down at the right hand of the throne of God."

Asenath here comes next; and after her, we have Zipporah, the Gentile wife of Moses. He, like Joseph, dwells an exile from his brethren, after having been rejected by them. And like Joseph, he has two sons born to him during his sojourn among the Gentiles. These two sons, with his wife, he leaves behind him when he again presents himself to Israel, to be accepted of them, and to lead them out of bondage to "the mount of God." There Jethro, his father-in-law, comes out to meet him with his wife and two sons, Gershon and Eliezer. It is the Millennium in type. We see, as has been said, "the Jew, the Gentile, and the Church of God." The emancipated nation is Israel redeemed from the power of the beast. Jethro represents the Gentiles who, saved during the great tribulation, will come to enjoy millennial blessing with the Jews. These are not the nations of Christendom, who have only judgment awaiting them at the hands of Christ whom they reject. Jethro was in obscurity at the back side of the desert during the terrible judgments of Egypt; and it is the nations whom we now call heathen, and whose dwelling is in comparative obscurity, that will be blessed when long-lost Israel is gathered. Zipporah, with her sons, has a place of nearness to Israel's deliverer such as none other in the "mount of God" might know. This is the Church. (See Ex. 18.)

Abigail comes next. She was a woman of good understanding, and of a beautiful countenance." She sees in David God's anointed king, and, set free by death from the churl Nabal, becomes the wife of David's wilderness wanderings. And believers are set free from sin and the law, by death, to be married to another, even to Christ, whose rejection they for the present share, and who, when they have suffered awhile, shall also "reign with Him."

This is the final destiny of the Church, and we catch a gleam of the glory that awaits her in the few brief notices given us of the Egyptian bride of Solomon. She shared his glory, and he had built for her a special house. She is the last of the seven; and the conclusion, glory, is most fitting. Time forbids my saying more. Now, back to Joseph.

I have alluded incidentally to Joseph's two sons. They evidently typify the individuals who compose the Church of God to-day, just as Asenath their mother represents the Church collectively. Their names are strikingly significant. Joseph calls the first-born Manasseh, forgetting. "For God," said he, "hath made me forget all my toil, and all my father's house." And Christ, for the joy of His heart over sinners begotten again by the word of His gospel, forgets (may we say) the toil of the days of His flesh, and the sorrow of His rejection at the hands of Israel's sons. The second son he names Ephraim, fruitful. "For God," he says, "hath caused me to be fruitful in the land of my affliction." And though our Lord, according to the prophecies that had gone before, was as Messiah "cut off and had nothing," as pertaining to the kingdom He is fruitful in the salvation of multitudes of "sinners of the Gentiles." These answer to the sons of Joseph. "Behold," says Christ, referring to these Ephraims, "I and the children which God hath given Me." He is, blessed be His name, bringing "many sons to glory," in this the day of His rejection.

And right here I want to say a word of warning to the unsaved present. Verse 50 of our chapter says distinctly that these sons were born to Joseph "before the years of famine came." Now this is solemn. If you wish to be among the number of the happy people typified by Joseph's sons, you must be saved before the coming of the Lord. If types teach anything, this type of Joseph's sons makes plain the truth that for Christendom the day of grace will close before the tribulation comes. We do not base this truth upon a type, however; the type but illustrates it. It is taught directly in the New Testament Scriptures. I am going to cite several as proof. I think this necessary, for some are teaching that there is hope after the Lord has come, for those who have known and refused the truth. Only recently I was told of a well known Bible-class teacher who held and taught that some who had opportunity to be saved now, and have not received the gospel, might be given a chance after the Lord has taken away the Church. This was so grave that I called upon this teacher to ask him for myself. To my sorrow he told me that was his belief. He referred to Rev. 7, and said, "Why, after the Lord has come, there is to be a great revival." And he did not merely say that some in Christendom who had never heard the gospel might be saved then, but referred to the unsaved husband of a Christian wife being brought to repentance after his wife's translation to heaven. He is telling mothers, too, I am told, who have godless sons, not to fret, for their prayers for them may be answered after the Church is caught away. This may account for his classes being composed almost wholly of women. It is high time this error should be exposed. It may be considered by some a very comforting doctrine, but it is no good comforting oneself with a lie. In Matthew, chap. 25, where we see Christendom pictured in the parable of the ten virgins, the door is shut in the face of those unprepared at the coming of the bridegroom. They knock for admission in vain. "I know you not" is the only answer from within. They are left absolutely without hope. And it would be a mere waste of time to discuss the matter with any one who denied it. Nothing would convince them if this did not. Their only loophole of escape from the evident import of this passage would be to limit the class of persons typified by the foolish virgins to certain individuals of special character in the professing Church. But if the wise virgins represent all true Christians (which they surely do), the foolish virgins picture, on the other hand, all mere nominal Christians.

"But that is only a parable," I fancy some objector saying, "and you cannot build a doctrine on a parable." Very well; we will leave the realm of type and parable, and show this teaching to be false by the direct statements of Scripture. One passage will suffice. Turn to 2 Thess. 2. There we have the coming apostasy foretold. What now restrains and prevents the full development of lawlessness, will be removed at Christ's coming for His own. And then shall the man of sin be manifested, "whose coming is after the working of Satan, with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish." Now who are they that perish here, and why is this allowed to come upon them? The answer is found in what immediately follows: "Because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved." This makes it clear beyond all doubt that "them that perish" are all who had the truth presented to them, but cared not for it. And in the Bible, to which all in Christendom have access, may be found the truth of God. If men neglect to read or search, or refuse to hear it preached, they are, as Peter says, "willingly ignorant." "And for this cause," we read, "God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness." Could words be plainer? To whom will God send strong delusion? To those "who believed not the truth." There is no second chance, then, for any who, if they would, might know and believe the truth. God knew how the enemy of souls would seek to take away from the unsaved the effect that the truth of Christ's coming for His saints is calculated to produce. And when he can no longer prevent the truth of the Lord's imminent coming going out, he cunningly tries to nullify its effect upon the conscience of the sinner by deceiving them into the belief (if they really can believe it, which I very much doubt) that there will be another chance for them. This passage here forbids the thought. If "received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved," and "believed not the truth," does not describe just what every unconverted adult in the land is doing to-day, words have lost their meaning, and the Bible's statements have lost their power with us. We can only say, then, like the agnostic, "We cannot tell;" or, "We do not know."

Rev. 7: 9 is the only text I have ever known the teachers of this dangerous error to refer to. But that verse does not prove their contention in the least. No one can say just how long a time will elapse between Christ's coming for and His coming with the saints. Scripture is silent as to the exact length of the interval. It will doubtless be long enough for some to believe and be saved from the nations of Christendom, who were unborn at the coming of the Lord for His Church. Seven years would be a sufficient length of time for this; and I believe the interval will be longer, possibly very much longer. Those born at that time would not necessarily share the fate of their parents. Why should not they wash their robes and make them white in the blood of the Lamb? And there will be "a great revival" then, but it will be first and chiefly in the nation of Israel, and, from them, extend to the various heathen tribes and races who have not yet been evangelized. If this verse is all the teachers of this error have to build upon, it certainly furnishes a most flimsy hope. Beware, my unsaved hearer, of being deceived by it. Make haste to believe now; for I solemnly say to you, in the presence of God, that if you are an unbeliever at the coming of the Lord, you will find the door of mercy shut forever in your face. There will be nothing left for you but the being given up to believe the lie of Satan; to witness and share in the most awful upheavals, calamities and sorrows the world has ever known, and in the end to perish — "BE DAMNED," in the strong but honest language of our English Bible.

And you who know your sins forgiven, do not you be carried away with sentimentalism. Do not reason about how you can say from your heart, "Come, Lord Jesus!" while some of your loved ones are unprepared. Do you love them more than you love Christ? You know what He has said concerning our loving any relative, however near, more than Him. And instead of trying to make yourself think that there may be some hope for these lost relatives after the day of grace has ended, go to work and agonize in prayer for them; plead with them, weep over them, live Christ before them, and may God give you to see them all brought into the ark of safety before the door is shut and the floods of judgment overflow the land and overwhelm the long-guilty nations of boasting and rebellious Christendom.

I cannot close without one last appeal to you, my unsaved hearer. Will you not be saved by Christ to-night? He waits to save you. Peter tells us why He does not come to take His people home. He says: "Account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation." He is not willing that any should perish." If there is a chance for you after His coming, why should His desire for your salvation prevent His immediate advent? Do you not see how utterly false it is? Oh, take no risks. "It shall be very grievous," said Joseph, of the famine that was coming on the land. And Christ has told us that the tribulation soon to come upon this unbelieving world shall be the most awful calamity, or series of calamities, that has ever been. Would you escape it? Fly to Christ. He will receive you; He will save you. Come to Him, then, without delay. Do it here, and do it now. God help you to this. Amen.

Joseph Made Known to His Brethren

Genesis 45.

We have Joseph made known to his brethren to-night. It is not my purpose to enter into the story of their exercises as recorded in the three preceding chapters. The famine foretold by Joseph was not confined to the land of Egypt. "The famine," we read, "was over all the face of the earth." "And," it says, "all countries came into Egypt to Joseph for to buy corn; because that the famine was so sore in all lands." This famine, we have seen, is typical of "the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth" (Rev. 3: 10). It is called in Rev. 7: 14 "the great tribulation" (see R. V.). In the nations flocking to Joseph to buy corn we see pictured the great evangelical movement among the nations of heathendom after the removal of the Church. Joseph opened all the storehouses to these starving peoples, just as Christ will open to the nations outside of Christendom the rich, full stores of the grace of God. And all those painful exercises and experiences through which Joseph's brethren passed before Joseph became known to them foreshadow the sorrows and repentance of the Jewish remnant previous to their acceptance of Christ in the last days. There are frequent allusions to this time of tribulation in the Psalms and Prophets; and in Matt. 24 it is described in detail.

In the chapter read to-night we have the thrilling story of how Joseph made himself known to his guilty but humbled brethren. Truth is not only "stranger than fiction," but it is infinitely more touching. Where within the realm of fiction can there be found anything to equal this account of Joseph and his brethren? In pathetic interest and dramatic power it stands without a peer or parallel. And how intensely interesting it becomes to the heart when seen to be a prophetic picture of the repentance of the future Jewish remnant and their once despised and rejected Messiah. This would be the primary application of the narrative. But, I believe, a secondary application may be made of it. It is not merely typical; it is illustrative as well, or parabolic, if you will. In this light, then, let us look at it to-night.

First of all we have Joseph making himself known to his brethren. And ere doing so, he cried, "Cause every man to go out from me. And," we read, "there stood no man with him, while Joseph made himself known unto his brethren." And when Jesus would reveal Himself to sinners, He too says, as it were, "Cause every man to go out from Me!" He is the one Mediator, and before Him all pretenders must retire. Away, then, ye priests who would intrude yourselves between the sinner and the Saviour! They need you not. "This Man receiveth sinners." "Come unto Me," He says to them. And more: He says, "Him that cometh to Me, I will in no wise cast out." No human (nor yet angelic) intervention is required. He always invited sinners to Himself. The only persons He ever sent to the priests were the ten lepers whom He had already cleansed. And they were not sent to obtain blessing, but because they had been blessed, and were sent "for a testimony." And when one of the number turned back, as if he would cling to the One who had cleansed him, he was commended for it. It is "Jesus only," thank God! No man stood with Joseph when he revealed himself to his guilty brethren; and when the Son of God manifests Himself as Saviour to the guilty sons of men, no mediators are required. No priest on earth or "saint" in heaven is necessary. No creature dare intrude himself in that supreme hour when Jesus makes Himself known as an all-sufficient Saviour for even the chief of sinners. "No man" stands with Him or between Him and the trembling sinner.

And notice, too, Joseph's brethren do not recognize him. He has to say to them, "I am Joseph," ere they knew that it was he. And no man can by searching find out God and Christ. No man, by nature's light or human intelligence, ever gets to know the one "true God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent." It is wholly a matter of divine revelation and sovereignty. Take three illustrations: the woman at the well; the man born blind; and Saul of Tarsus (John 4 and 9; Acts 9).

The woman of Samaria failed to recognize the Lord, though she had Him in her mind, and stood speaking with Him face to face. She knew Him not until He said, "I that speak unto thee am He." So with the blind man; though the Lord had given him sight, and afterwards talked with him, he knew not that it was Jesus. When asked, "Dost thou believe on the Son of God?" he says, "Who is He, Lord, that I might believe on Him?" "And Jesus said unto him, Thou hast both seen Him, and it is He that talketh with thee." And then he knew Him. This non-recognition of the Lord is not the result of natural stupidity or lack of culture or education. Saul of Tarsus was a man of great natural intelligence, and highly educated; but when the Lord speaks to him out of heaven, this same cultured Saul has to inquire, "Who art Thou, Lord?" And only when he hears the answer, "I am Jesus," does he know whose voice it was that spoke.

In these three illustrations we see three effects produced in souls by the knowledge of Christ. They are, testimony, worship, and service. "Come, see a man which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?" was the testimony of the woman of Samaria to the men of her city. And we read that when the Lord had made Himself known to the blind man, "he worshiped Him." And Saul of Tarsus says, "Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?" when he knows it is Jesus of Nazareth who had spoken to him. That is service. May these three things abound in all our lives, if Christ has given to us the blessed knowledge of Himself: faithful, fervent testimony to Christ, adoring worship of Christ, and untiring, constant, service for Christ. Amen!

Too many converts are like Joseph's brethren here. They are full of doubts and misgivings. When he says to them, "I am Joseph," his brethren could not answer him, we read, "for they were troubled at his presence." Their consciences were not at rest; just like many a truly converted soul to-day. "Fear hath torment," John writes; and oh. how many of the redeemed of Christ are haunted and harried with the tormenting fear that they are not really accepted of God or perfectly justified before Him, or that they may yet be cast away and perish! Such need to know the perfect love of God in Christ to all who believe. And it is this love that casts out fear. And "he that feareth is not made perfect in love," we read (1 John 4: 18). This is not our poor, cold love to Him, but His great and perfect love believed and enjoyed by us. And it is the knowledge of this that puts us at rest in His presence. Joseph, when he sees his brethren's fears, says, "Come near to me, I pray you." Publicans and sinners drew near our precious Lord to hear Him. And what words of grace to sinners He spoke to them! So Joseph here invites his conscience-smitten brethren to draw nigh. And he tells them words that should have banished all their fears and given them peace. He does not excuse or make light of their sin, but tells them how God overruled it for blessing. "And God sent me before you," he says, "to preserve you a posterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance." And by the rejection and death of Christ, God, who can always make the "eater" to yield "meat," and the "strong," "sweetness," has brought blessing to a lost world even to save the souls of sinners with a "great salvation."

It is a great salvation, mark. It is not the limited, partial, mean salvation that some men would make it out to be — saving only those who help to save themselves, or saving them for a time and allowing them to lapse and be lost again. Oh no, thank God, it is a salvation worthy of Himself, and such a salvation as only could result from that finished, faultless work of Christ upon the cross. And what but a great salvation could avail for sinners such as we? We are all of us great sinners; our guilt was great, our need was great, and nothing but a great salvation could be of any use to us. I hope you have it, friend. Don't neglect it. "How shall we escape," the Spirit asks, "if we neglect so great salvation?" (Heb. 2: 3.)

Joseph says much more to them. And then, we reads "he kissed all his brethren, and wept upon them: and after that his brethren talked with him." The kiss, in the East, is a token of forgiveness; and when these sons of Jacob felt the impress of the kiss of Joseph on their cheeks, they knew, each one in his heart, that they were forgiven. And the result is communion. "After that his brethren talked with him." How beautiful! And do you, forgiven soul, talk much with Jesus? See how the disciple Ananias, in the 9th of Acts, talks to the Lord He speaks as a man to his friend. There is neither stiffness nor familiarity, but a freedom born of perfect assurance and a constant habit of communion with the Lord. You have heard, perhaps, of the old preacher who did not make his appearance at the meeting at the appointed hour. A lad was despatched to his house to remind him that the hour had come, and the people were waiting. But the lad came back saying the preacher was talking to a friend in his study. He had listened at the door; and so free was the old man of God in his prayers to the Lord, that, to the boy's ears, it sounded just like the familiar converse of one friend with another. How different from the stilted, high-sounding address that is so often offered as prayer: "Almighty and ever-merciful God our heavenly Father, maker of heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, be pleased to hear us creatures of the dust, we humbly beseech Thee, as we approach Thy throne," etc. How much stiffness and unbrokenness of spirit can go along with such an address — "the invocation," men call it nowadays. Oh, let us talk to the Lord when we pray, and not be like the Pharisee, who stood and prayed "with himself."

Well, Joseph's brethren now are reconciled; what follows? "And the fame thereof was heard in Pharaoh's house, saying, Joseph's brethren are come: and it pleased Pharaoh well, and his servants." This is the Old Testament 15th of Luke. Sinners are received and reconciled; the lost is found; it is, as it were, "life from the dead" with souls. "And there is joy in the presence of God." God and the angels, like Pharaoh and his servants, rejoice when sinners are brought to repentance. There is joy all around. Joseph rejoices; his brethren rejoice; Pharaoh rejoices; his servants rejoice. God would have all men to be saved. And when one repents, all heaven is moved with joy and gladness. But time is short, and there are other things that we must notice in this chapter.

Joseph not only freely and fully forgives his brethren; he commissions them as well. He says, "Haste ye, and go up to my father, and say unto him, Thus saith thy son Joseph: God hath made me lord of all Egypt: come down unto me, tarry not." And we, if reconciled to God, have been commissioned. We have a mission towards this famine-stricken world. We are to make Christ known to men. We are to testify as to His exaltation and glory, just as the burden of the message of the sons of Israel was the lordship of Joseph over all the land. And Joseph says in the 13th verse, "And ye shall tell my father of all my glory in Egypt, and of all that ye have seen." This is just what I have sought to set before you in these addresses — the glories of Christ, the "despised and rejected of men," His exaltation and place of highest honor at the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens. The sons of Jacob were sent back into the country whence they came, to persuade others to "go to Joseph." And this is our chief business in this world, to speak of the fame of Christ, and to persuade starving sinners to come to Him.

Are you doing this, Christian? Some are waiting till they have more leisure. Others are going to do a little gospel work when they have made themselves a competence for this life. Oh, miserable subterfuge to escape doing now what their hand finds to do! It will be "a little" work, you may be sure. It will be little, like the soul of the man who promises to do it. God will not have such service. It is selfishness of the most pronounced type. Look out for No. 1, soul and body, first; and then, when a nice feathered nest is secured for this world, begin to speak to men of the world to come! Away with such hypocrisy. Begin with what you have. "The time is short." Twice Joseph charges his brethren to make haste (vers. 9, 13). May God stir us up to action in this matter. "Christ is coming, call them in."

And see what they could put before the people they were sent to! "Thou shalt dwell in the land of Goshen, and thou shalt be near unto me." The land of Goshen (the garden spot of Egypt), and near to Joseph! And sinner, we are here to tell you that not only is there full forgiveness for you in the gospel, but a special place of nearness to Christ, and abundance of blessing for your starving soul: "Blessed with all spiritual blessings in the heavenly places in Christ" is the answer, for the Christian, to Goshen and nearness to Joseph. Will you not have this portion? Let me persuade you to receive it now.

"And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, Say unto thy brethren, This do ye; lade your beasts, and go, get you unto the land of Canaan; and take your father and your households, and come unto me: and I will give you the good of the land of Egypt, and ye shall eat the fat of the land. Now thou art commanded, this do ye: take you wagons out of the land of Egypt for your little ones, and for your wives, and bring your father, and come." What an inducement! "The good of the land of Egypt" and "the fat of the land." This is what God has to offer souls that come to Him. And the happiest work in all the world is to act as agent for this immigration bureau. No such terms were ever offered by any government to encourage settlers. Transportation is provided too. "Wagons" were sent to convey the weak and helpless. And what answers to the wagons in this allegory is the Holy Spirit sent of the Father to bring helpless sinners to Christ.

And Pharaoh says more: "Also regard not your stuff; for the good of all the land of Egypt is yours," he says. How much regarding of "stuff" there is among the people of God today! How much anxiety and unnecessary concern is manifested among the heirs of glory over the possession or accumulation of a little of this world's goods! At best it is but "stuff." It is not unlawful to possess it; it is the regarding of it that works the mischief, and produces the leanness of soul so common among the saints of God in this day of unparalleled material prosperity. Pharaoh, to give weight to his exhortation as to their "stuff," adds, "For the good of all the land of Egypt is yours." What an offset to anxiety! John Newton once called to see a Christian lady who had just lost her comfortable home and all its furnishings by fire. "I have called to congratulate you, madam," he said, as he took her hand. . . . She was about to resent what she considered his utter lack of sympathy and consideration, when he added, "because you have so much treasure in heaven that fire can never touch." Suppose, dear child of God, you were to suffer the loss of all your earthly possessions, whether inherited, or acquired by economy and thrift; what would it matter? Is not heaven and all its treasures yours? Why, even Job, in his dark day, when stripped of everything, could say, "The Lord hath given, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord"! And shall the Christian, in his day, say less? "Let not your eye regret your stuff," the New Translation reads. Let the man of the world blow out his brains or lose his reason when earthly riches make themselves wings and fly away. It was all the poor man had. But you have treasure in heaven; your riches are, or should be, invested in a place of absolute security. Let the banks burst by the wholesale; let panic and financial ruin come when it will; let money-kings combine and do their worst and wickedest, we Gentile believers, like the Hebrew Christians of old, may "take joyfully the spoiling of our goods, knowing in ourselves that we have in heaven a better and an enduring substance." Halleluiah! We have a song ready to our hand to sing in our darkest hour of temporal need. God our Father had one of His dear children compose it for His family long ago. Any in the circle of relationship may use it. Listen:

"Although the fig tree shall not blossom,

Neither shall fruit be in the vines;

The labor of the olive shall fail,

And the fields shall yield no meat;

The flock shall be cut off from the fold,

And there shall be no herd in the stalls;

Yet I will (not trust, merely, but) rejoice in the Lord,

I will joy in the God of my salvation.

The Lord God is my strength,

And He will make my feet like hinds' feet,

And He will make me to walk upon my high places" (Hab. 3: 17-19).

Pharaoh gave these travelers "provision for the way," we read. And what provision has been made for us! "all things" ours; the hairs of our head all numbered; an Advocate with the Father should we sin; a great High Priest to sympathize with us in our sorrows; the Comforter sustaining us — everything we need, in fact, along our pilgrim way and for our service to the Lord. That dear old Christian man was right in his reply to the scoffer, who, on seeing him reading his Bible, asked, "What's that your reading, old man?" "Why, I am reading my Father's will," he answered. "Your Father's will! and what has He willed to you?" "He has promised me in this world a hundred-fold, and in the world to come everlasting life!" We are "heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Jesus Christ," He has told us in His Word (Rom. 8: 17). Yes, the "provision for the way" is the "hundredfold" in this life; and the "good of all the land of Egypt" is the "everlasting life" possessed now by faith, and to be entered in and enjoyed to the full in the eternity to come.

And then Joseph, on sending them away, gives them a final word of exhortation. "See that ye fall not out by the way," he says. And, brethren, how we need this caution — and sisters, too. "Do not quarrel on the way," it is, literally. We need to exercise a spirit of forbearance one with another. Otherwise we will never get on together. See how even such eminent servants of Christ as Barnabas and Paul fell out by the way. "There arose," it says, "very warm feeling, so that they separated from one another" (Acts 15: 39, New Trans.). How sad; and how humiliating! May the Lord keep us! We have it in us. The hateful flesh is there, ever ready to assert itself on the slightest easing of the restraint placed upon it by the Spirit, whose symbol is the gentle, harmless dove. A traveler once saw two mountain goats meet on a narrow ledge of rock high up on the perpendicular face of the mountain side. He expected to see a butting contest at once. There they stood face to face in the pathway just wide enough for one. He watched them eagerly through his glass; and knowing the great combativeness of the goat, he fully expected to see one of them hurled to its death into the depths below. But, to his utter surprise, he saw one of the goats quietly lay itself down while the other stepped over it. And then each went on its sensible way. Even the beasts may teach us, children of God — and shame us, sometimes, too. If, when difficulty arises, or matters come to a deadlock among us, we could give way — lie down, as it were — and be walked over, there would be fewer quarrels in our midst. "Let people walk over me? Never!" you say. Then you are not very much like your Master. And you little heed His precepts. He who was ever "meek and lowly in heart" exhorted to non-resistance constantly. It is the only way in which "falling out" by the way can be avoided. The world is watching us like the tourist the goats. And how many of them enjoy seeing the saints of God at loggerheads! How delighted they are to see "how these Christians love (!) one another." May the Lord help us to "be at peace among ourselves." Brethren, "see (and see to it well) that ye fall not out by the way."

So, fully provided for and cautioned of their danger, the sons of Israel make the start. "And they went up out of Egypt, and came into the land of Canaan unto Jacob their father, and told him, saying, Joseph is yet alive, and he is governor over all the land of Egypt." True to their commission, they testify of Joseph. His name is the first word of their message. They bear witness to the fact of his being alive, and tell, also, of his exaltation. And the gospel tells of Christ — "The gospel of God, concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord," we read in Rom. 1. And His resurrection has a place of special prominence in the glad tidings. "Joseph is yet alive," the sons of Jacob say. "Christ liveth," we proclaim. He who died is risen a victor from the tomb. And He is set by God the Father high above all principalities and powers, thrones and dominions. All things have been put under His feet. Well is it called "the gospel of the glory of Christ."

But what is the effect of this on Jacob? Why, it seems at first incredible. "And Jacob's heart fainted," we read, "for he believed them not." It seemed too wonderful — too good to be true. And the gospel of Christ will often stagger men. But they stagger through unbelief. It is most wonderful, I know; but it is true nevertheless. Believe it then. Hear Paul as to it: "Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you. . . . For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received; how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; and that He was buried, and that He rose again on the third day, according to the Scriptures." Will you believe it? — in your heart, I mean, of course. Head belief, like "almost persuaded," cannot avail. Heart belief results in action. When Jacob at last believes, he moves; his faith is operative.

And what convinced him? what was it that decided him? It was the wagons. "And they told him all the words of Joseph, which he had said unto them: and when he saw the wagons which Joseph had sent to carry him, the spirit of Jacob their father revived. And Israel said, It is enough; Joseph my son is yet alive: I will go and see him before I die." It was the word and the wagons. And, as we take the wagons as a figure of the Holy Spirit, the meaning is unquestionable. Sinners are convinced, not by the word of the gospel alone, but by the Word and the Spirit. And the Spirit on earth is the evidence to men that Christ has been received up into glory, that He is alive and at the Father's right hand in the heavens. (See John 16: 8-11.) And I refer, not to His work, but His presence. He is at work, and without His work no sinner will believe; but His very presence in this world in answer to man's rejection of Christ is the convicting evidence to men that He, whom they unrighteously adjudged a malefactor, has been raised from the dead and exalted by the Father in righteousness. This is the real meaning of the expression," of righteousness, because I go to My Father." This testimony may be, and is, no doubt, lost upon the mass of men. So is the testimony of creation to the heathen. But it is a testimony just the same. And "let God be true, but every man a liar."

But no matter if the picture is ideal, it was the sight of the wagons that convinced the aged Jacob, "the supplanter." And rising above his natural unbelief, Israel (note the change in the name) says, "It is enough." And will you not say the same, my unsaved hearer?

"What more can He say than to you He hath said?"

And I would add, in prose, What more can He do than for you He hath done? The work that saves is done. God's testimony to that work is perfect and complete. And we, like Israel's sons, testify concerning it to you. We are sent for that very purpose. We want to persuade you to come with us to heaven. Oh, will you go, will you go? Hear Jacob's final word: "I will go and see him before I die." The die is cast; his choice is made. Make yours to-night. It must be before you die, remember. "After death the judgment," Scripture says. The Bible knows no such thing as probation after death. It is a falsehood — twin lie to the teaching of another chance for Christ-rejecters after Jesus comes. "Before I die," says Jacob. "Before you die" you must be saved, if saved at all, the Scriptures testify. Our Lord tells of one who died without salvation; and He says, "In hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torments." Oh, awful end! Oh, fearful doom! Escape it while you may, dear soul. Do not deceive yourself to hell by thinking you will have another offer of salvation after death. Do not act like the drunken man: In his intoxication he thought he saw two candles burning, so he blew out one and was left in darkness! And men intoxicate themselves to-day with thoughts and doctrines of probation after death. But like the drunkard, they see double. "Now is the accepted time." "The redemption of their soul is precious," Scripture says, "and it ceaseth forever." This takes place at death.

"There are no pardons in the tomb."

And there is no grace beyond the grave; and there is no hope in hell. Let your one chance slip — die in your sins, and you are damned FOREVER!

Who here will say like Jacob, It is enough? Who among the unsaved here to-night will rise from their indifference and unbelief and say, I will see Jesus now before I die and am forever lost? "Every eye shall see Him." Some see Him now, as a Saviour, by faith. And the sight has saved their souls and gladdened their hearts forever. Some (as poor Balaam lamented he should) are going to see Him, but not now; they shall behold Him, but not nigh. They will see Him as a Judge in eternity, upon the great white throne. They will behold Him then, not near, as His redeemed ones, but at such a distance as must forever exist between a holy, righteous Judge, and a sin-loving and sin-laden sinner who has refused, or neglected until too late, the only and all-sufficient remedy for sin — Christ and His precious blood.

May all here see Him "now" and "nigh." Amen!

The Time of Harvest

The “Time of Harvest”

Three Addresses on the Book of Ruth

Ruth 1

The book of Ruth, has ever been accounted a literary gem, and of purest water. In this it is only like many other portions of the grand old book we call the Bible. The great Benjamin Franklin, though not a professing Christian, recognised this literary excellence of the Holy Scriptures. It is related that when representing the new-born Republic at the French capital, he was, indignant at hearing learned and polished men there ridiculing the Bible, and expressing surprise that any one of proper and cultivated taste should ever spend time reading it. He one day announced to them that he had in his possession, a copy of a very ancient manuscript, and invited them to his apartments on a certain evening to hear this treasure read. At the time appointed his literary friends were all present, and he had an accomplished elocutionist read to them his copy of the manuscript. They were loud in their praise of it, and the most critical of them pronounced it to be superior to anything they had ever read or listened to, and asked if they might have copies of it. Imagine their astonishment when the ingenious Yankee informed them, with a twinkle in his eye, that they had been listening to one of the sixty-six books of that collection called the Bible and for which they had shown such contempt. It was our book of Ruth, with the name of God omitted, and a few other very slight alterations so that the infidel Frenchmen might not suspect that it was the Bible that was being read to them. This is the book I wish to spend a few evenings over with you. There is a vast deal more than its literary merit that gives it value in our estimation. Being inspired of God, like all Scripture, it is “profitable for doctrine (or teaching), for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness,” (2 Tim. 3: 16) and very much more. I suppose, to view the book in its typical character, we should see in it the chequered history of God’s people Israel, past, present, and future — for prophecy is only history in advance. This would be its primary interpretation as a type (for I do not think you have the Church typified at all in Ruth). But one great beauty of Scripture is what may be called its extreme flexibility of application; so, without attempting to interpret it, I wish to apply this lovely Judean tale to the individual soul throughout these addresses.

Names are very often in themselves illustrative. They are remarkably so here. Elimelech means, “My God, is King.” This is a name of lofty dignity. Naomi signifies “pleasantness.” The combination reminds us of what is true of every saint of God when in a right or normal state of soul. Their Saviour-God, is the mighty “King of the nations” of the earth, and supreme Lord and Ruler of the universe. What dignity this gives to the Christian, and how it elevates him above the strivings of the potsherds of the earth in their ambitious aims of whatever nature. Then there is “the joy of the Lord” and His known salvation — the “pleasantness.” They enjoy “the blessing of the Lord that makes rich and adds no sorrow to there.” The happy believer has every reason to rejoice, and he is the only person in the world who has any real or good reason for being happy. He “joys in God,” the God of his salvation, and is even commanded to “rejoice in the Lord always.” He proves by blessed experience that wisdom’s ways are “ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.” This couple dwelt in Bethlehem-Judah. Bethlehem means “house of bread,” and Judah is “Praise.” A Christian in communion with God enjoys a continual feast. Christ, as revealed in the Scriptures, is made the food of their souls. There is no sighing, “My leanness! my leanness!” The husks, sought after and fed upon by so many, will be eschewed by him, for “the full soul loathes a honey-comb” (Prov. 27: 7). Nature’s sweetest things will lose their charm. “As the living Father,” Christ says, “has sent Me, and I live by the Father, so he that eats Me, even he shall live by Me” (John 6: 57). Then there is “praise.” The soul feeding on Christ is a praiseful soul. They “in everything give thanks” and their praises are mingled with those of their brethren in the assembly of the saints. Peter speaks of the dual character of the Christian priesthood. It is both “holy” and “royal.” We offer up the “spiritual sacrifice” of praise to God continually. This is as “holy” priests — it is Godward. Then there is service and testimony towards those around us. We “show forth the praises” of our God and Saviour. This we do as “royal” priests — it is manward. See 1 Peter 2.

And then, they were “Ephrathites.” Ephratah means “fruitful.” A Christian with his soul well fed and full of joyful praise is sure to be fruitful in his life. His testimony will be blessed, and his work for God owned. He will not be a vain talker, or a useless cumberer, like the potatoes of the fable, all tops and no fruit at the bottom. He will not live unto himself but unto Christ who died for him and rose again. There will be seen in his life the fruit of the ungrieved Spirit — “love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, self-control.” So Elimelech (my God is King) and Naomi (pleasantness), Ephrathites (fruitful), dwell in Bethlehem (house of bread) Judah (praise). Happy combination! “What’s in a name?” men ask. Everything often, we reply, when it is in Scripture. They are worth more as evidences of the inspiration of Scripture than all of Egypt’s or Babylon’s monuments, bricks, and tablets put together, though we do not by any means despise the value of these latter.

Well, there they dwelt till the famine came; and then they went down to the country of Moab. They begin to picture the course of the backslider now. It is the self-starved soul, always, that backslides. A neglected Bible means a withered soul. It is the famine of hearing or reading the word of God that leads souls to Moab. And what condition of soul does Moab signify. This family did not go either to Egypt or Babylon, take note. Egypt typifies the world, out-and-out; and Israel, once delivered, could never again be captives there. They went to Egypt in the days of Jeremiah, but it was of their own accord. They were voluntary sojourners there. “I will carry you away beyond Babylon,” was God’s sentence upon the nation for their idolatry. They were captives in Babylon, but never again in Egypt after their wonderful deliverance and passage through the Red Sea. Now Christ died that He might deliver the Christian from “this present evil world” (Gal. 1), and the word of God assures him that he can never “be condemned with the world” (1 Cor. 11). He is not of it, but given to Jesus out of the world. He may, and alas! sometimes does, go back to the world for a time, but he never can be of it again, after his conversion. He has been redeemed by Christ and is “free indeed,” and can never again be Satan’s slave. Babylon is the religious world-profession, where so many of the Lord’s own are in captivity today, like Israel of old. Egypt’s final end is blessing, as Isaiah tells us (Isa. 19: 22-24).

Babylon’s end is utter destruction as we know from the same prophecy (Isa. 14: 22-23). This poor world will, one day, when Jesus reigns, be blessed and its curse removed; but spiritual Babylon, earth’s great corruptress, is beyond all healing. “And a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, “Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all” (Rev.18: 21). God’s call to all His own in Babylon is, “Come out of her, My people.”

But Moab, is neither Babylon nor Egypt. We have what Moab suggests in Jeremiah 48: 11; “Moab has been at case from his youth, and he has settled on his lees, and has not been emptied from vessel to vessel, neither has he gone into captivity: therefore his taste remained in him, and his scent is not changed.” This is Moab. It is not the Christian turning back to this world’s husks, or joining affinity to a pleasure-loving and lifeless mass of profession, but “at ease” and “settled on his lees.” He is not profiting by the disciplinary dealings of God, so is not “emptied from vessel to vessel.” There is no purging of the branch, for it has, for the time being, become fruitless (John 15). His conscience has ceased to be exercised “his taste remained in him and his scent is not changed.” The old fleshly appetites are still strong within him from being indulged, and his scent, or discernment, has become dulled. It is just a Christian leading perhaps an outwardly respectable life, but out of communion with God. He may even maintain a position of separation, but it is that separation of a Pharisee who says, “Stand by thyself, for I am holier than thou.” Growth in grace has ceased, and for all the use he is, either in the Church or in the world, he might just as well die and go to heaven and be out of the way. I have met them, settled on their lees, like a waterlogged vessel stranded on a mud bank. If they go to meeting at all, it is only on rare occasions when the whim takes them, or their favourite preacher or teacher comes along. They are at ease, alas! in a world where Jesus, God’s untiring Servant said, “My Father works hitherto, and I work.” They will sometimes tell you how once they did work for God, visiting the sick on Sunday afternoons, distributing tracts or teaching in the Sunday-school, but they never saw any fruit, or somebody criticised their methods, or they had got to see things differently, and now suspected the efforts put forth by others as being “fleshly zeal.” They conceitedly compare themselves to Mary, sitting at Jesus’ feet, and coldly look upon those who seek to really work for God and souls, as being Marthas who need reproving rather than encouragement. They are very fond of a text (which they little understand) reading, “Their strength is to sit still.”

Their scent, too, is defective. Scent, in Scripture, is discernment: and a soul away from God has none. He no longer has any capacity to “try the things which differ,” or power to “try the spirits,” and so falls an easy prey to any new form of false doctrine that may be brought into his neighbourhood, or spring up in the Church of God. His judgment is worthless, so he is useless when questions of discipline arise in the assembly (if he has not already taken himself away). Under the Levitical law no priest could officiate who had a flat nose.” There would be the impaired scent, defective discernment. In contrast with the flat-nosed disqualified priest, the bride of the Canticles is described by her Beloved as having a nose “as the tower of Lebanon which looks toward Damascus” (S. of Sol. 7: 4). It was prominent, denoting keen spiritual discernment. The “tower” (watch-tower) would speak of vigilance. It “looked toward Damascus.” Damascus was the city where dwelt Israel’s enemy, the Syrians; and the Christian should ever be on the alert for those spiritual enemies who invade the land of our possession, and spoil, or bring in bondage, the soul, and destroy our testimony for Christ. But the soul pictured by the dual type of Elimelech and Naomi in Moab, has no discernment, and very naturally falls a prey to “imaginations and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of Christ.”

But “the backslider in heart shall be filled with his own ways,” and these wanderers from the land of promise are made to feel the rod of chastisement. Elimelech dies and Naomi is left a widow — the standing Scripture type of desolation. The two sons, dragged down to Moab with their parents, marry Moabitish women and Jehovah slays them according to His word (Deut.7: 3-4). If Christian parents depart from God in heart, the effect upon their children is disastrous. We never fall but we drag down others with us. Mahlon means “sick,” and Chilion is “pining,” like the weak, sickly Christianity of children (when converted at all) whose parents have lost the vigour of their spiritual youth, or left their “first love.”

So Naomi is left childless and a widow in a stranger’s land, with two other widows, not to share, but to add to, her sorrows. It is a solemn, thing, I tell you, to drift away from God; and some day the rod of discipline most surely must descend. Unequal yokes, too, bring their just reward, as poor Mahlon and Chilion found to their destruction. Worldly fathers and mothers, take warning! You may make good matches, so called, for your converted children, but God will speak in judgment to both you and them if you link them up with unbelievers. I will relate an incident. At N — I was told of a young Christian girl there to whom an ungodly young man paid attention. The mother, instead of discouraging it, helped it on. The girl was willing, and engaged herself to this unbelieving Christ-rejecter, who dragged her out to all kinds of parties and worldly amusements. Both mother and daughter should have known better, for they were both in the fellowship of Christians walking in separation from the world, and where the truth was clearly taught. This poor young Christian girl soon sickened and died. On her death-bed she confessed to all that her departure from God was the cause of her being taken away. “And you, Mother,” she said, “are to blame for this, for you should have stopped me, and shown me my sin.” So she died for her transgression.

I could add testimony to testimony, and the half was never told. God says, “Them that honour Me I will honour, and them that despise Me shall be lightly esteemed.” And He will make all His saints to know that He is as good as His word.

Sometimes a whole assembly will allow itself to drift into a state of spiritual famine, and then the weaker ones drop out. This would be like this quartet of Ephrathites going to Moab. For I have sometimes thought that while Elimelech and Naomi represented what Christians should be, their sons might illustrate the state of soul to which the famine had brought them sick and pining. Faith declines and the soul seeks relief in Moab, throws up its responsibilities, and begins a course of spiritual loafing, as we might say. But the family of Elimelech found a hundred-fold more trouble in Moab than they would have found in Bethlehem-judah, even with its bitter hunger. It is as the prophet says, “As if a man should flee from a lion and a bear met him; or went into the house, and eaned his hand on the wall and a serpent bit him” (Amos 5: 19). I know of some brethren who, when things got low and trouble came into the assembly, removed to a distant city to save themselves exercise and conflict, as they thought. But there they only found worse troubles, and were glad to get back and face the difficulties. And then God commenced to revive them, and, in two weeks’ meetings with them, I had the joy of seeing nearly thirty converted, and baptised twenty-one in one night in the sea. And the assembly was increased to double its former size. It was God visiting His people in giving them bread, just as in our story.

There is at last, after more than ten years, a plentiful harvest in Bethlehem, and Naomi hears of it. “Then she arose with her daughters-in-law, that she might return from the country of Moab.” “Wherefore she went forth out of the place where she was.” She was like the starving prodigal, who, when he thought of the “bread enough and to spare” in his father’s house, said, “I will arise and go to my father.”

Naomi came out of “the place where she was.” She, with the others, came to sojourn in the land of Moab, but the end of verse 2, (margin) says they “were there” — settled, stuck fast, so to speak. But Naomi rises up out of the place of her backslidings and sorrow to return to the land of Judah. It is the beginning of barley harvest when she reaches Bethlehem, and they say, as they behold the long- lost wanderer, “Is this Naomi?” And she, poor woman, says, “Call me not Naomi call me Mara: for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me … why then call ye me Naomi seeing the Lord hath testified against me, and the Almighty hath afflicted me?” Ah yes, she had reaped the bitter fruit of her unbelief and departure from God and His people. It is ever thus with the backslider. Poor sightless Samson grinds in the prison-house, and makes sport for the Philistines, bound in fetters of brass. David tells us what he suffered for his sin, in the thirty-second psalm. He says, “My bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long. For day and night Thy hand was heavy upon me; my moisture is turned into the drought of summer.” He says, too, in Psalm 51, “My sin is ever before me.” And again he speaks of the bones which God had broken. “Restore unto me,” he cries, “the joy of Thy salvation.” Fallen Peter goes out and “weeps bitterly.” The author of that hymn,

“Come, Thou Fount of every blessing,

Tune my heart to sing Thy praise.”

(whose name was Robinson, I think) became a backslider from his God after the composition of those verses. One day in a stage-coach he met a lady who, without knowing his identity, told him how much she loved the hymn, and what a source of comfort it had been to her. “Ah, madam,” he sighed, “I wrote those verses, and I would give worlds now, if I possessed them, if I could have the joy I experienced at that time.”

Many a child of God has lost the joy of his salvation through worldliness and sin, though, thank God, the salvation itself can never be lost, if once possessed. But just because I am His child, God will visit me here on earth with chastisement, if I depart from Him. Old Bishop Fuller tells of seeing two boys fighting. A man came out of a house near by and seizing one of the boys, who was least to blame, gave him a sound trouncing. The Bishop asked him why he did not beat the boy who was most in fault. “Oh,” he said, “this is my son, and I chastise him. I have nothing to do with the other.” “You only have I known of all the families of the earth,” God says to Israel, “therefore will I punish you for all your iniquities.” And in the New Testament, though grace is the prominent and leading thing, there is also government as in the Old. “If we would judge ourselves,” the apostle says, “we should not be judged. But when we are judged we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world” (1 Cor. 11: 31-32). It pays to walk straight, you may depend upon it, children of God. Naomi found this out. “The hand of the Lord is gone out against me,” she says. “The face of the Lord is against them which do evil,” Scripture says, whether they be His own or not.

“I went out full,” Naomi says to her fellow townsmen, “and the Lord hath brought me home again empty.” Yes, she went out, but it was the Lord who brought her home. His watchful eye had never been off her during the long years of her wandering, and His care and love for her had never ceased, even if in chastisement He had been compelled to deal “very bitterly” with her. He will never cast off or disown His child, blessed be His name! and of Jesus, John says, “Having loved His own which were in the world He loved them unto the end” — yes, right to the very end. And if you are His own, His sheep, His word declares you shall never perish. Some people think that preaching the final perseverance of the Saviour with His own will make them careless as to their walk; but I know from blessed experience that it will not. I never hated sin more, or longed more to please my Lord, than after I knew He had saved me with an eternal salvation and would never let me go. It is the fixed stars that tremble most, and it is those who know that they are fixed forever in the family of God, who fear and tremble most lest they should sin against such love and grace.

“The Lord hath brought me home,” Naomi says. Yes, it was still home sweet home. She had wandered far and long, but her heart was never at home in the land of the uncircumcised. Many a time, no doubt, she thought of the “pleasant land” she had left for the country of Moab. The yearly feasts would come often to her mind as the months rolled on in the land of her sorrow. Bethlehem was home to her still. And no matter how far a child of God may wander, or how long a sheep of Christ may stray, the Father’s house and the fold of the Shepherd are sweet home to that wanderer. The first explorers to Greenland took with them ravens, (being without the magnetic needle) and when they wished to know in what direction the nearest land lay, they loosed one of the birds and it flew straight for the nearest shore, regardless of distance. The saved soul is like the carrier pigeon. Release it never so far from its cot, it will, as soon as it gets its bearings, fly straight as an arrow for home. Oh wanderer, if you are here tonight, get your bearings now. Own your sin, judge yourself unsparingly for your folly, and seek the face of God. You have not to be re-converted but restored. This, God has made possible for you. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1: 9). He is faithful, notice, because He has pledged Himself to do this very thing. And He is just, for His own Son has borne our sins in His own body on the tree, and the Father can now righteously forgive His wandering child.

Naomi was brought home empty. Some there are who will be “saved so as by fire,” and all their worldly works burnt up — a lifetime lost, but the soul saved, thanks be to God and His grace! (See 1 Cor. 3). Oh, for an “abundant entrance” into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ! God grant it to us all.

If you are not God’s child, and wish to be, hear the way: “As many as received Him, (Christ) to them gave He power (or right) to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name. “Believe on His name tonight, poor child of wrath, and you will become one of the holy, happy children of God. Amen.

Ruth 2

We come to Ruth tonight. Naomi the wanderer has been restored, and Ruth the sinner goes to Bethlehem with her. Orpah, too, pictures a sinner: only she never reaches Bethlehem, or Bethlehem’s Boaz. She seems to start well, just like Ruth, but she turns back to her people and to her gods. She had said to Naomi “Surely we will return with thee unto thy people” (chap. 1: 10). She only thinks of Naomi’s people, take note. Ruth has Naomi’s God before her. She says, “Thy God shall be my God” (chap. 1: 16). Orpah is like many a so-called “convert” of the present day. They make a start, apparently, but soon go back to their former idols and associates. They never, in their thoughts, get beyond joining some religious body of “people,” like poor Orpah. The real convert, like Ruth, has had to do with God Himself, and such abide.

Both were now tested, as everyone must be. Naomi urges them to go back. Our Lord said to His disciples, “Will ye also go away?” When great crowds of nominal followers “went back and walked no more with Him.” “What seek ye?” He asks of the two disciples of John who started to follow Him, as if to turn them back. So here Naomi seeks to dissuade them from coming further. “And Orpah kissed her mother-in-law; but Ruth clave unto her.” There was no turning back of Ruth. She clings to Naomi and says, “Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me.” Her mind is wholly made up, fully persuaded. Unlike her, Orpah is “almost persuaded,” and returns to her people and her gods. Ruth has deliberately made her happy choice, and will not allow herself to be moved by her sister’s declension, or turned aside by Naomi. So “when she saw that she was steadfastly minded to go with her, then she left speaking unto her.”

So they go on together to Bethlehem. And when they arrive “all the city was moved about them.” There was a great stir in the place, just as when a sinner repents, all heaven is moved over the event. “There is joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth.” It delights God’s heart to see a sinner turn to Him, and heaven rings with music over every case of real conversion. Oh, unsaved one! Make Christ your choice tonight and let all heaven rejoice over your repentance. In the chapter read tonight we have Ruth, the young convert, as we might call her. She desires almost the first thing to become a gleaner. “And Ruth the Moabitess said unto Naomi, Let me now go to the field, and glean ears of corn after him in whose sight I shall find grace. And she said unto her, Go, my daughter.” The new convert instinctively turns to the word of God. I remember when God first saved me how I read the whole twenty-eight chapters of the book of Acts at one sitting. I had never read the Bible before. It had had no interest for me and I had looked upon it as the dullest of all dull books. I became like the new-born babe which, it is said, instinctively turns to its mother’s breast. So Peter says, “As new-born babes desire the sincere milk of the Word that ye may grow thereby.”

Ruth says, “In whose sight I shall find grace.” These pictures are all more or less imperfect and fall far short of the reality. The believer now has already found grace or favour with God. He is “graced in the Beloved One” (Eph. 1: 6, literal). “By grace ye are saved,” Paul writes. So she goes out to glean and she happens into the field of Boaz. This “mighty man of wealth,” whose name means “strength,” is a striking and beautiful type of Christ. What wealth of honour and majesty and glory and love and grace are His. And oh, His “strength”! He is “the Almighty” (Rev. 1: 8). “All power is given unto Me in heaven and on earth,” He says. Isaiah calls Him, “The mighty God, the Father of eternity.” We, His own, may be poor and weak, but we rejoice to know that riches and power are His. And we have Him, just as Ruth, at last, got Boaz.

As Ruth is gleaning, Boaz comes from Bethlehem to see how his harvest is progressing. As he enters the field he says to his reapers, “The Lord be with you.” “The Lord bless thee,” they reply. What beautiful greetings between master and servants. Boaz was a good master. There were no strikes among his workmen; no getting of heads together and grumbling about long hours, hard work, or low wages. He greets his servants kindly and they answer him with blessing. There is nothing but good feeling and accord between them. Oh, Christ is a blessed Master! “My yoke is easy,” He says, “and My burden is light.” Would that He were your Master, sinner. You will find the  devil’s service bitter enough in the end and the yoke of sin will some day prove to be intolerable. Let the Lord Jesus Himself break that yoke from off your neck tonight and give you His own “easy” one instead.

“Then said Boaz unto his servant that was set over the reapers, Whose damsel is this?” Who is this servant set over the reapers? He is mentioned twice (vv. 5-6), but his name is not once given. He is like the servant of Abraham sent after a bride for Isaac in Genesis 24. We should never know his name from that chapter. He is doubtless a type of the Holy Spirit as this servant here appears to be. He was “set over the reapers,” directing them in their work, saying to one, Go there; and to another, Come here; and to still another, Do this — all under his orders and obedient to him. Now the Lord Jesus is having His great harvest of grace reaped, and the person set over the reapers is the Holy Spirit. Take, for example, the sixteenth of Acts. There in verse 6, Paul and his fellow-reapers “were forbidden of the Holy Spirit to preach the Word in Asia.” In the next verse we read, “They assayed to go into Bithynia: but the Spirit suffered them not.” It was not some archbishop, or missionary board, or self-styled “general” directing their movements, but THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST. In the same book of Acts, thirteenth chapter, when Paul and his companions start out on a tour of evangelisation, we read, “So they, being sent forth BY THE HOLY SPIRIT, departed,” etc. Evangelists, pastors, and teachers are the Lord’s servants and only He has any right to direct or command them. True “holy orders” come from Him, through His Spirit. The Holy Spirit Himself is called “Lord” in 2 Corinthians 3: 18, (“The Spirit of the Lord” there should read, “The Lord, the Spirit.”)

Well, this servant set over the reapers tells Boaz who this Moabitish damsel is. And Boaz, though “a mighty man of wealth,” deigns to speak to the poor Gentile widow. “Then said Boaz unto Ruth, Hearest thou not, my daughter? Go not to glean in another field, neither go from hence, but abide here fast by my maidens.” He graciously encourages her to continue gleaning in his field. And has not our Boaz encouraged us all to glean in His fields? “Search the Scriptures,” He says, “for they are they which testify of Me.” How different this from the Romish priest who says, “You must not search or read the Scriptures, but listen to us and implicitly believe all that we tell you.” “Go not to glean in another field,” Boaz says. And the word of God is sufficient for the Christian. There are the fields of philosophy, Higher Criticism, and evolutionary science, and what not. Let us cleave to our Bible as God has given it to us. Never mind the taunt of not being abreast of the times. The Bible was, is, and always will be strictly “up-to-date.” David says, “I have more understanding than all my teachers: for Thy testimonies are my meditation” (Ps. 119: 99). He says, “I understand more than the ancients.” That is the way to be truly wise, to stick to God’s testimonies and “search the Scriptures daily” like God’s nobility at Berea. All this world’s boasted wisdom is foolishness with God and to faith.

And there is separation, too, or fellowship, rather. Boaz says, “Abide here fast by my maidens.” Young Christian, seek the fellowship of the Lord’s disciples, and shun all others. Beware of ungodly associations. “Come out from among them, and be ye separate, says the Lord.” You will find the friendship of this world a snare to your soul. Be like David. Do you know that he tells us, what sort of company he kept? He says, “I am a companion of all them that fear Thee, and of them that keep Thy precepts” (Ps. 119: 63). You may put up the old plea of hoping to do the ungodly good by mixing with them, but it will end like the lady and her canary bird. Her bird was a very fine singer, and one day she hung his cage in one of the trees of the garden. This she repeated for a number of days until she noticed that he hardly sang at all any more but simply chirped, something like a sparrow. He had been in the company of the sparrows in the garden — in their society, if you will — and, by listening to and imitating their unmusical chirp he had lost his lovely song. And when the lady went into the garden did she see sparrows sitting about on the branches, singing like canary birds? You may be sure not. They had not gained anything by the canary’s company, but the canary had lost, for the time being, its melodious song. Be not deceived! “Evil communications corrupt good, manners.”

It is not good manners correcting corrupt communications. It always works the very reverse. You can never bring the ungodly up to your level; you will only lose that new song of salvation that the Lord has put into your mouth. Go after souls, anywhere, like your Lord and Master who ate with publicans and sinners, but make sure that is your object, and not companionship.

But Boaz says more. “When you art thirsty,” he says, “go unto the vessels, and drink of that which the young men have drawn.” The young men here, or reapers, of Boaz, may well represent the “gifts” or specially called servants of Christ, as the maidens with whom Ruth was to abide closely, picture the saints in general. The maidens were gleaning or gathering for their own eating, while the young men were reaping the harvest for Boaz. These young men drew water out of the depth of the well, and of this Ruth was to avail herself when thirsty. This is, like the ministry of God’s servants. With joy they draw water out of “the wells of salvation,’’ and a sweet, refreshing ministry of the Word is the result. And any Christian who refuses or neglects to profit by this ministry is sure to suffer for it in his soul. We cannot, of course, always have this ministry as orally spoken; but there is abundance of it in printed form, and thus accessible to all. I remember how when first converted I used to revel in this ministry. My pastor (as I called him then) a Presbyterian, loaned me the C.H.M. “Notes,” and I may say that I fairly devoured them. I would read tracts and pamphlets on the way from the post-office where I had received them, and sometimes stumbled over the curbings, so intently was I occupied with the precious things I was getting for my soul. My heart was full of joy, and my spirit like a watered garden then — whatever it may or may not be now. It is an excellent plan to have some good book or pamphlet always on hand and, if you have any time to spare after reading the Word itself, take it up and “drink of that which the young men have drawn.” So shall your “profiting,” like Timothy’s, “appear unto all.” Spiritual progress will be the result; for the Lord who gave these gifts intended them “for the perfecting of the saints for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.” The “vessels” are the publications which contain this ministry. The servants of the greater than Boaz have “drawn” it, sometimes with no little labour to themselves, and you, young gleaner, have but to “drink.”

“Then she fell on her face, and bowed herself to the ground, and said unto him, Why have I found grace in thine eyes, that thou shouldest take knowledge of me, seeing I am a stranger?” Grace always humbles us. Mephibosheth in the presence of the grace of David, says, “What is thy servant that thou shouldst look upon, such a dead dog as I am?” Ruth confesses she was but “a stranger.” But there was a vast deal more than this, though she herself may not have known it. The law of Moses said, “An Ammonite or a Moabite shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord, even to their tenth generation shall they not enter into the congregation of the Lord forever.” It said further, “Thou shalt not seek their peace nor their prosperity all thy days forever” (Deut. 23: 3,6). What then could she have expected from Boaz but to be rebuked and driven from his field? And that same stern law, that cursed and shut out the Moabites from blessing, curses and shuts up heaven against us all. “Cursed,” it thunders, “is every one that continues not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.” But, thank God, if the law “given by Moses” condemns the sinner, “grace and truth” which “came by Jesus Christ” saves him when he trusts that gracious Saviour. The same saving faith which wrought in Rahab the harlot, was found in Ruth. Boaz says, “The Lord God of Israel, under whose wings thou art come to trust.” Though by nature a cursed Moabite, her faith had saved her; though condemned by the law, she was justified by faith. And you, my unconverted hearer, though by nature a child of wrath and cursed by the law you have broken, may put your trust in Christ tonight, and thus be saved. “By grace are ye saved through faith,” is the testimony of Scripture (Eph. 2: 8).

“And Boaz said unto her, At meal-time come thou hither, and eat of the bread, and dip thy morsel in the vinegar. And she sat beside the reapers: and he reached her parched corn, and she did eat, and was sufficed and left.” He mentions “meal-time.” Have you spiritual meal-times, Christian? Do you make it a rule to read the Word at least once a day? Do not say you have no time. You find, make, or take the time to eat three meals a day of bodily food. But Job says, “I have esteemed the words of His mouth more than my necessary food.” He esteemed them more, take note. And it does not take so much time after all. If we have our Bibles handy, at odd moments, it is surprising how much one can gather up in a short time. Then there are the regular assembly meetings. These are often precious meal-times for the soul. If you willingly absent yourself from them, you will miss many a bit of choice ministry, such as you could not get at home, — important as private reading of the Word may be. Then there are the general meetings, or conferences, too, which none should miss who can attend them. They are like Ruth’s meal-times. It was at such times Boaz reached her parched corn. At such times she received from his hand direct, as she sat besides the reapers. Being near the reapers she was close to Boaz. “Lo, I am with you always,” our Boaz said to His reapers, as he sent them forth. They are not the sole custodians of the treasures, of truth, but they are channels, and the Christian who haughtily affects independence of the gifts of Christ to the Church is invariably found to be cold, hard, and heady. Ruth sits beside the reapers, but it is not they who reach her those rich portions of parched corn; it is Boaz himself. Oh, to receive from Himself direct, whatever or whoever may be the vessel He may use to convey it to us. If we get it otherwise, our intellect only will be ministered to; and it will be mere knowledge which “puffs up.” “And when she was risen up to glean, Boaz commanded his young men, saying, Let her glean even among the sheaves, and reproach her not. And let fall also some of the handfuls of purpose for her, and leave them, that she may glean them, and rebuke her not.”

“Let her glean even among the sheaves,” says Boaz. She has the right of range to all his field. There are no limits or restrictions to be placed upon her. And the Christian has the range of all the word of God given him, from Genesis to Revelation. “Search the Scriptures.” “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God.” Whatsoever things were written aforetime, were written for our learning.” Some read only the New Testament and look upon the equally inspired Old Testament as they do a last year’s almanac. They even speak of it as the “old Bible.” All Scripture testifies, of Christ, and therefore must be profitable. “In all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself,” Luke says. “Moses wrote of Me,” Christ said. Philip says to Nathanael, “We have found Him, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write, Jesus of Nazareth.” I have by me here a fifty centimes coin of Spain. On the reverse side are two columns, or pillars, representing the Pillars of Hercules, or the promontories on either side of the Strait of Gibraltar. Beyond these points the ancients believed there was nothing more to be discovered, and previous to the discovery of America all Spanish coins had the legend “Ne plus ultra” (no more beyond) inscribed across these pillars. But since the voyage of Columbus and his discovery of the American continent, they have omitted the “Ne;” and the inscription, on my coin reads “Plus ultra” — more beyond. The old Spaniards were like those who turn backwards in their Bibles to the “family record” between the Testaments and there they stop. “No more beyond,” they say. No, brother, change your motto — there is more beyond. Go back from Malachi to Genesis, and you will find “profitable” Scripture all along the way. Some professing Christians seem to have about as much use for the Old Testament as a Jew has for the New.

Then there are others who have their favourite chapters which they read and re-read over and over again to the utter neglect of other equally important chapters. Others again read so much of it as they find in the Prayer Book. But “all the word of God for all the people of God” is a first-rate motto. “Let her glean even among the sheaves, and reproach her not,” was Boaz’ charge to his reapers. “Forbid the children not their lawful heritage and bread,” we say to Rome. Child of God, it is all yours, its sixty-six books; and the Spirit who inspired it can make every portion of it profitable to your soul.

And, let me tell you something about the reading of the Bible. You may not feel at the time of reading that you are getting very much out of that particular portion of the Word. You may not understand it, and nothing in it may seem to strike you particularly. But never mind, read on. It is bound to leave its impress on your soul. Being the word of God it is, sure to affect you for good, and you will he unconsciously moulded and your thoughts formed by it. It has this effect even on unconverted children. How much more, then, will it affect and form those who have been born again and have the indwelling Spirit. We are sure to be affected by the company we keep, and when we read the Bible we are in the company of those holy men of God who spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit — patriarchs, prophets, and apostles, “the excellent of the earth.” And when we read the Gospels we are in the company of the blessed Lord Himself. And men, beholding our transformed lives, will “take knowledge” of us that we “have been with Jesus.” Boaz further instructs his young men, saying, “Let fall also some of the handfuls of purpose for her.” This is something different from Boaz reaching her parched corn. Did you ever feel when somebody was preaching that they could read your thoughts, or that somebody had told them all about you? The word seemed to suit you so perfectly. That was a handful “let fall of purpose” for you. God’s servants are not “mind readers,” but the Spirit in them is, and it is He who directs them, at such times, in their speaking. Sometimes it is a word of warning, or exhortation, or instruction, or comfort, as the case may be.

I remember once in Minnesota speaking of the believer’s eternal security. I was trying to show how the exhortation of Barnabas to the young converts to cleave to the Lord with purpose of heart (Acts 11) was perfectly compatible with our security depending entirely on Christ’s hold on us (John 10). I related how, when visiting at my brother’s a short time before, I had amused his little boy of two years, one stormy day, by taking him on my back at the top of the stairs and carrying him to the bottom. Before starting I would say, “Now, Clayton, hold on tight,” and I could feel his little arms tighten round my neck and his little legs twist themselves around my body. And, I said, I suppose that when I told him to hold on tight he really thought his safety depended on his grip of me. But it was another grip that kept him safe. I was holding on, and it was my strong arm that kept him from falling. I was responsible for that boy’s safety. But it was nice, I tell you, to feel his warm little arms and legs clinging so confidingly to me; and our blessed Lord Jesus, too, loves to have His own cling to Him in faith, but it is His own almighty grip that keeps us safe upon His shoulders. He says, “Neither shall any (man or demon) pluck them out of My hand.” I cannot even pluck myself out, any more than my little nephew could cast himself from my shoulders and break his back or neck upon the stairs — which, of course, he was careful not to do: nor would a child of God ever turn wilfully from Christ.

A few days later a lady who was present said to me, “Mr. Knapp, your illustration and remarks, on our holding on, and Christ’s holding on, cleared the matter up perfectly for me. It was just the thing that was bothering me, and you seemed to read my doubts and difficulties. I understand now how it is Christ’s holding on that keeps us safe, though we too are exhorted to cleave or cling to Him.” It was just a handful let fall of purpose for her. She is a writer, and I sometimes now see her name in some of the semi-religious papers for children. I hope she may keep Christ before her, and sometimes tell the little ones of Him who once held children in His arms and laid His blessed hands upon their heads.

I could relate many such incidents showing how the reapers of the Greater than Boaz have, instructed by their Master, let fall some handfuls of purpose for the favoured Ruths. So she gleaned in the field until even.” She does not cease her toil until the day has ended. She had continued from the morning (see v. 7). She made a good beginning, as many do. But, like few, she made an equally good ending. It is comparatively easy to start, but most difficult to continue on. “Let not him that girds on his harness boast himself as he that puts it off.” That was a very good proverb, though spoken by a very bad king (1 Kings 20: 11). And Ruth “beats out what she had gleaned.” “The slothful man roasts not that which he took in hunting,” another proverb says (Prov. 12: 27). Many read the Bible, buy expository books and run to meetings, and really “hunt” for something. But it does them little good because what is learned is lodged merely in the region of the intellect and is not meditated on and prayed over in the spirit of self-judgment. This, I apprehend, would be like “beating out” what was gleaned, or “roasting” what was taken in hunting.

I hope that we have all been gleaners here tonight. I trust, too, that there has been something in the vessel for thirsty souls to drink. And perhaps, too, some “handfuls of purpose” have been let fall for any who may have needed a special word of exhortation or comfort. May the Lord Himself add His own rich blessing to it all. Amen.

Ruth 3 and 4

We left Ruth, in our last address, in the field of Boaz. She gleaned all day and in the evening beat out, or threshed, what she had gleaned. The result was “about an ephah of barley.” We see from the sixteenth of Exodus, last verse, that an omer was the tenth part of an ephah. We see, too, from the same chapter, that an omer of manna per day was each person’s allowance; so that, if barley was as nutritious as manna, Ruth by her diligence had gleaned enough in one day to feed ten persons. In the eighteenth verse we read, “And she took it up, and went into the city.” The city may be called the place of need. And how good and fitting for Christians when they have gleaned, and had parched corn reached them, and handfuls of purpose let fall for them to go to the places of need and carry the precious truth of Christ to souls. So shall our profiting appear to all (1 Tim. 4: 15). “And her mother-in-law saw what she had gleaned.” Our spiritual progress and growth in grace should be manifest to our brethren, and to all. “And Ruth brought forth and gave to her.” Our Lord says, “Therefore every scribe which is instructed unto the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is a householder, which brings forth out of his treasure things new and old” (Matt. 13: 52). We will have something to impart to others if we are like Ruth, and our ministry will neither be barren nor unfruitful. Many a brother sits dumb in the meetings from one year’s end to another just because he has not been gleaning and threshing out like Ruth. Some try to preach but never have anything to impart because they have not been diligently digging into the Word for themselves; their speaking is just so much noise and they would do better to be silent. The mass of Christians never speak of Christ to others because they neglect their Bibles and feed on the newspaper and the secular magazines. They have nothing to “bring forth” to help souls with and, like Ephraim, they “feed on wind,” or worse. Peter has a word on this line. He says, “As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God” (1 Peter 4: 10). As “faithful stewards” we hold fast the Word committed to us; as “good stewards” we minister it to others; and as “wise stewards” we give it out discriminately, ministering it in due season, not taking the children’s bread and casting it to dogs, or putting pearls before swine.

In the chapters read tonight, we have Ruth’s marriage to Boaz and what led up to it. Ruth and Naomi her mother-in-law, were in serious difficulty. Naomi had, as she says, been brought back from the country of Moab “empty,” i.e., a childless widow and in the depths of poverty. Pressed by need, it would seem, she was about to sell the family inheritance, “a parcel of land” which had belonged to Elimelech (chap. 4: 3).

Now there was a law in Israel to this effect. If an estate was sold or taken for debt it was to revert back to the original owner or to his heirs every fiftieth year, which was called “the year of jubilee.” “The land shall not be sold forever,” or to perpetuity, God had said. It was a most wise and gracious provision to put a check to land grabbing, and prevent just that lamentable condition of things which obtains in many of the European states today, notably, poor, downtrodden Ireland, where a few “gentlemen” possess the land and the tenants are reduced almost to the condition of serfs. The average working man looks upon the Bible as a book in which the rich stand in especial favour, and he has become either antagonistic or indifferent to it. He does not know that in God’s model government of Israel there was every provision that could be justly made in favour of the poor; and it was utterly impossible for the rich to monopolise the land which is after all, the important thing in any country given to agriculture. Ignorant infidels have tried to make out that the Bible is the work of a cunning priestcraft, and Moses was just looking out for soft berths for himself and relatives when he gave the people the law. If this is so why did he prohibit any of the priestly family from becoming freeholders? They were not allowed to possess as their own an acre of the soil, which does not look very much as if they had all got their heads together and agreed to hoodwink a semi-barbarous nation of emancipated slaves, and give themselves positions of monetary influence and power over them. See Numbers 18: 20-24.

But this is a digression. Though all land was to revert every fiftieth year to the family to which it had belonged, it could be bought back, or redeemed by any of the family or their relatives, before that time. See Leviticus 25: 23-28. Naomi therefore, as it would seem, being compelled to sell, hoped that one of her kinsmen would buy or redeem it. Boaz, the mighty man of wealth, was one of her nearest kinsmen, and she evidently looked upon him as one likely to redeem it for her. And there was another question involved: the law laid it down that if a man died childless his nearest relative or “brother” was expected to marry his widow, and the first-born of the union was to be called after the deceased, so that his name should not perish, or be cut off, in Israel. See Deuteronomy 25: 5-10. So the near kinsman would have a double duty to perform; he would not only be expected, if able, to redeem the land, but also to marry Mahlon’s widow. So, instructed by her mother-in-law, Ruth, anointed and adorned, goes to the threshing-floor of Boaz where he was winnowing barley. If he continued his work well on into the night it was to take advantage of the wind, probably. And when he lays himself down to rest at the end of the heap of grain, Ruth draws trustfully near and lays herself meekly and modestly at his feet. “And it came to pass: at midnight, that the man was afraid, and turned himself; and, behold, a woman lay at his feet. And he said, Who art thou? And she answered, I am Ruth thy handmaid: spread therefore thy skirt over thy handmaid ; for thou art a near kinsman.” It is an Oriental courtship, and strange and unbecoming as Ruth’s conduct might appear in the eyes of Westerns, it was considered perfectly proper in the “days when the judges ruled,” and would be considered so still in the East, we suppose. Her asking Boaz to spread his skirt over her indicated to him that she was willing to become his wife (see Ezek. 16: 8). And though she is but a poor widow of Gentile origin, Boaz expresses himself as quite agreeable to the proposal. He says, “Blessed be thou of the Lord, my daughter: for thou hast showed more kindness in the latter end than at the beginning, inasmuch as thou followedst not young men, whether poor or rich. And now, my daughter, fear not; I will do to thee all that thou requirest: for all the city of my people doth know that thou art a virtuous woman.” He means by this last (“all the city of my people doth know that thou art a virtuous woman”) that he understood her motives perfectly. He had not the slightest question as to the purity of her design in coming to the floor thus at night, and he graciously promises to perform for her all that she desires. He says, “Thou followedst not young men, whether poor or rich.” How is it with you, believer in Christ? What are you following, or with whom do you have fellowship? Ruth, (as it became a widow) lived a life of retiring modesty and separation. And Christians are called to walk in separation from this world’s principles and pleasures. “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world,” writes the beloved John. “For all that is in the world,” he says, “is not of the Father but is of the world.” The young men, poor and rich, from whom Ruth kept herself, are like the things of the world of which John speaks. The poor young men would be like those coarser and gross pleasures from which it is comparatively easy to keep oneself, if saved. “The lust of the flesh,” John calls them. But he speaks, too, of “the pride of life” which would answer more to the rich young men. These would be of special temptation to a poor young woman like Ruth, and it is of the more refined and subtle forms of worldliness that Christians have most to beware. Almost any Christian would shrink from attending a public ball, or witnessing a sensational play or reading a French novel, but Satan is cunning and he has ready for our enticement that which awakens the “desires of the mind,” if he cannot allure through “the lusts of the flesh.” Both forms of depravity are mentioned in Ephesians 2: 3. They are equally destructive of holiness, and the devil does not care one whit which he uses to hinder our communion with God or mar our testimony for Christ. Oh saint of God, shun, avoid, eschew whatever is not of Christ or the Father! Follow not these “young men whether poor or rich.” Boaz says to Ruth, “Thou shalt keep fast by my young men, until they have ended all my harvest” (chap. 2: 21). And the apostle exhorts by the Spirit, “Follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart” (2 Tim. 2: 22). “And Naomi said unto Ruth her daughter-in-law, It is good, my daughter, that thou go out with his maidens, that they meet thee not in any other field. So she kept fast by the maidens of Boaz to glean unto the end of barley harvest and of wheat harvest” (chap. 2: 22-23). Oh, for grace to persevere in the path of separation to the end. Some, once in it, are giving it up. Oh, they say, we made mistakes in the past, and were too severe and rigid. Possibly; it is easy to become severe and to get rigid, saying to others, like the icy Pharisee, “Stand by thyself; come not near, for I am holier than thou.” And it is possible, too, to occupy a position of outward separation from the world and all the while have the world in our hearts, like the monks and nuns or the grasping, hard, and unspiritual brother, who sits with us around the table of the Lord, and flatters himself that he is no Jonathan, like some other men he knows. He has “come out,” he says. Yes; but do not forget, separated brother, that the passage that teaches separation most distinctly ends with the exhortation to “cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit.” And what is pride of ecclesiastical position, or covetousness, but hateful “filthiness of spirit?”

But in spite of mistakes made as to the spirit in which the truth of separation has been held, it is the truth taught in Scripture, if Scripture teaches anything. And what was the character of the men whom some now accuse of having been too rigid in this separation? They were devoted men of God who gave up all for Christ, and whose lives might well put to shame the soft, ease-loving conduct of those who now so freely criticise them. And there was power and blessing in the assemblies then, but where is the power and blessing now? Departed, alas! and “Ichabod” written upon the testimony. Yet we have learned better how not to go too far in separation now, and we are pushing our children out more in the world, and going ourselves to places where we once would have felt self-condemned in being. No, brethren, our guides and separated fathers of the past generations were right, and God was with them. It is we, and not they, who have “gone too far.” We have got in too close touch with the world. We have become so like it they can tolerate us now. The hope of the coming of Christ is in large measure given up (I mean as a living reality in our souls, not the doctrine), and to excuse ourselves for our compromise and unfaithfulness, we pretend that those that went before us were too narrow, and we are in measure correcting their mistakes. Dear young Christian, do not, I beseech you, give ear to these suggestions that the path we are called upon to tread is one whit broader than our Lord says it is — a “narrow way.” So let us never mind if sinners or unspiritual Christians call us narrow. See what Moses said to God in, Exodus 33: 16. He says, “Wherein shall it be known here that I and Thy people have found grace in Thy sight? Is it not in that Thou goest with us? So shall we be separated, I and Thy people, from all the people that are upon the face of the earth.” Their separation was to mark them off from other nations, as a people who had been blessed and saved by God. He says to them in Leviticus 20: 24, “I am Jehovah your God, which have separated you from other people.” They were first saved and then separated from the godless nations about them, just as the saved soul now is called to walk in separation from the ungodly, whether they be the “lewd fellows of the baser sort,” or “the ungodly who prosper in the world.” Let us seek the approval of Christ as Ruth had that of Boaz. Let us keep fast by the people of God as we glean, as Ruth kept fast by the maidens of Boaz. Let us, by God’s grace, keep it up also, like Ruth until the end of the harvest of Him who is greater than Boaz. His “well done” at the end will be better than to have all our acquaintances as one man pat us on the back now, and tell us we do well not to be so narrow and exclusive. Let us be kind and courteous to all. Let us be gentle, though firm, in our refusal to compromise our position of separation to Christ. Let us, as we have opportunity, do good to all men, but let us never, never allow ourselves to be pressed, coaxed, or laughed into a position which our conscience does not tell us is one of distinctive and unqualified separation from the world. It is the happiest and only safe path, you may rest assured. “It is good,” Naomi says to Ruth, “that they meet thee not in any other field.” And it is good, disciple of Christ, that He find you, when He comes, in just that place into which His grace and truth have called you.

But to return to Ruth and Boaz. Boaz says, “And now it is true that I am thy near kinsman: howbeit there is a kinsman nearer than I.” Boaz is perfectly willing to do the kinsman-redeemer’s part, but the nearer kinsman has a prior claim, and Boaz, in righteousness, respects it. Now this is like the law given by Moses and the grace and truth which came by Jesus Christ. Boaz is the undoubted type of Christ, and the nearest kinsman, with his prior claim, personifies the law. Jesus came to save and bless the sinner, but the law with its righteous claims was standing in the way. His blessed heart of love went out to publicans and sinners, and the outcasts of society. Ruth sought after Boaz; but Christ, the Son of God, came seeking the lost. But how could He in righteousness bless those concerning whom the law thundered, CURSED! “Cursed is every one,” it says, “that continues not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them” (Gal. 3: 10). Given by God, it is declared to be “holy, and just, and good.” But men are unholy, unjust, and not good, but utterly bad. How then can they be spared and blessed of God? or how can the holy Christ of God befriend them? The sabbath-breaker was stoned under law. He only gathered a few sticks, to cook his sabbath dinner perhaps, and yet the law condemned him to a violent death (Num. 15). Shelomith’s son was condemned to death for blasphemy and cursing, under law (Lev. 24). The law condemned the disobedient and dissipated son to death. His own parents were to testify against him, and the men of his city were to stone him with stones until he died (Deut. 21). This was law, just and righteous, however severe it may seem to us now under grace. It was graven on tables of stone, showing that though it might be broken, it could not bend. It was hard, inflexible, and cold. How was it possible then, we repeat, for Christ to befriend and bless transgressors? Could He ignore the law’s demands, or hush its thunders with a word as He silenced the roar of the storm on the sea of Galilee? Could He sweep it aside as an obsolete code and having no present claim on man’s conscience? “Think not,” He says, “that I am come to destroy the law.” But, though He came not to destroy or nullify or set aside the law, neither came He “to destroy men’s lives,” He says, “but to save them.” How was it possible for Him to neither destroy men’s lives nor the law, since that law demands the transgressor’s destruction? The Pharisees had some such question in their minds when they brought the adulteress to Him. She was guilty. There was no question as to that, for she had been taken in the very act. “Now,” they said, “Moses in the law commanded us that such should be stoned: but what sayest Thou?” Moses had spoken; shall Christ contradict him? The law had pronounced its sentence of death; will grace reverse it and grant life? Is the Saviour powerless to save in the presence of these would-be champions and executors of the law? Is the grace of God to be like Darius, intently desirous of delivering Daniel out of the lions’ den, but prevented by the inexorable law of the Medes and Persians “which alters not?” Let us wait and see. Boaz says to Ruth, “Tarry this night, and it shall be in the morning, that if he will perform unto thee the part of a kinsman, well; let him do the kinsman’s part: but if he will not do the part of a kinsman to thee, then will I do the part of a kinsman to thee, as the Lord liveth: lie down until the morning.” It is night and dark when Ruth hears of the nearer kinsman’s claim; and if law is to have its way it is dark, dark, DARK for the sinner. But morning comes and with it the full settlement of the difficulty. “Then went Boaz up to the gate, and sat him down there: and, behold, the kinsman of whom Boazspake came by; unto whom he said, Ho, such an one! turn aside, sit down here. And he turned aside... and he took ten men of the elders of the city, and said, Sit ye down here. And they sat down.” And there, in the gate, the matter was gone into and settled to the satisfaction of all. Boaz went to the gate, mark. Now the gate was the Hebrew court-house — the place of judgment. And Calvary was the place where Jesus, the Saviour, met all the claims of law and justice. It was written of Him that He should “magnify the law and make it honourable.” This He did, not only by keeping it perfectly during His life, but by fully meeting its every claim in His death upon the cross. There was no other way by which He could become the sinner’s kinsman-redeemer. So He “stooped down,” we read, “and with His finger wrote on the ground,,” when urged by the Pharisees as to whether He would have the poor, guilty woman condemned, or her sin remain unjudged and pass unpunished. In His humiliation He “stooped down” to a malefactor’s death on Calvary. There for the sinner’s sin He went down into the dust of death. The law written on stone declared the transgressor must die. Jesus writing on the ground as much as says, “I will die, and bear the sentence of the law upon the transgressor.” He is therefore not compelled to condemn to death the transgressor, but says, “Go, and sin no more.” Grace reigns through righteousness. The nearer kinsman has perfect justice accorded him.

The nearer kinsman at first says, “I will redeem it;” but when Boaz puts before him all that was involved in the transaction, he relinquishes all claim, saying, “I cannot redeem it for myself, lest I mar mine own inheritance: redeem thou my right to thyself; for I cannot redeem it.” This was like the law. It first proposed to give man life. “This do, and thou shalt live.” It held before him the promise of blessing on condition of his obedience. But, this obedience man never rendered; and so as a means of blessing to man the law failed utterly. In the twenty-seventh chapter of Deuteronomy two mountains are mentioned, Gerizim, the mount of blessing; and Ebal, the mount of cursing. From these two mountains the Levites, who represented the law, were to pronounce either blessing or cursing on Israel as the case might be — of obedience or disobedience. They were instructed fully as to the curses. Twelve times they were to cry, “Cursed!” and it was to be “with a loud voice.” But they did not once say, “Blessed,” for law can only bless the good; and “there is none good, no not one.” No Levite voice was ever heard on mount Gerizim pronouncing blessings on the head of Israel, for none but the righteous, under law, can inherit blessing; and “there is none righteous, no not one.” Must sinners, then, remain unblest? Must justice effectually and forever withstand God’s purpose of love? No! Listen: “For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin (or, as a sacrifice for sin), condemned sin in the flesh” (Rom. 8: 3). Sin, not the law, has met its condemnation in the cross of Christ. The law was weak through the flesh. It promised life and blessing on condition of obedience, but the flesh in man prevented his yielding that obedience; so, as a means of blessing, it was “weak.” It demanded, but gave with its demand no power to fulfil. The nearer kinsman said to Boaz that he could not act the part of a redeemer without marring his own inheritance. And how marred would be the majestic dignity of God’s holy law if it could let sin pass unpunished, and bless transgressors whom it was, in its very nature, bound to condemn and curse. So it must step aside, like the nearer kinsman, and say, not, I have no right to curse, but, I cannot bless.

So the great Redeemer does what the law could never do. He is the One who “speaks in righteousness, mighty to save.” Hallelujah!

Boaz does the kinsman-redeemer’s part and claims Ruth as his bride. She becomes his wife, and fruit — a son, is the result of the union.

In Romans 7, we have the believer’s deliverance from the law. We are delivered from law’s every claim “that we should be married to another, even to Him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.” God in His grace grant that each one of us who has been made one with Christ may be “fruitful in every good word and work.” Amen.

Oh soul, if unsaved, Christ stands ready to be your blessed Redeemer tonight. You have not to seek a redeemer to befriend you, like Ruth. The Redeemer and Friend of sinners is Himself seeking the lost. You may be blessed right now and here. “Blessed are all they that put their trust in Him.” In this “writing Upon the ground” the Lord seems also to bring to the accusers’ remembrance that the sentence of death had been pronounced against every sinner, as death is appointed to all. Compare Genesis 2: 17 with Romans 5: 12. So, conscience convicted, they go out “one by one, beginning at the eldest.”

C. Knapp