Page images
PDF
EPUB

The case of the

view; for David

will, out of a fallen and already cursed earth, to bear the stroke of wrath in sight of all men. fields of Gilboa is not against this spoke by the Spirit of the Lord. How awful the truth contained! "What will you do in the day of visitation? To whom will ye flee for help ?" O Agag! it is too late to speak of mercy; the Lord has pronounced thy doom. There is no reversion—no redemption—no alteration-no change-no possibility of paying a commutation-price now. You are devoted! All is over for

ever.

"None doomed shall be redeemed!" You provoked the Lord to anger, and this is your latter end. See Matt. xvi. 26. "What shall a man give in exchange

for his soul?"

Vers. 30, 31, 32, 33. "And all the tithe of the land, whether of the seed* of the land, or of the fruit of the tree, is the Lord's: it is holy unto the Lord. And if a man will at all redeem aught of his tithes, he shall add thereto the fifth part thereof. And concerning the tithe of the herd, or of the flock, even of whatsoever passeth under the rod, the tenth shall be holy unto the Lord. He shall not search whether it be good or bad, neither shall he change it: and if he change it at all, then both it and the change thereof shall be holy; it shall not be redeemed."

What Abraham gave to Melchizedec, and Jacob vowed at Bethel, has ever appeared most natural for men to set aside for the Lord regularly-the tenth of all. Among the Israelites, there were several kinds of tithe, and yet all cheerfully paid; the tenth for the Lord, paid to the Levites (Num. xviii. 21), and the next tenth, consecrated and feasted on at Jerusalem, or given away to the poor. (Deut. xii. 6, and xxviii. 29.)

*Such as corn-whatever is used in the shape of seed; unlike the juicy pomegranate, and fig, and grape.

Seed or fruit might be redeemed; and there might be good reasons for a man wishing to redeem this part of the tithe. He might require to sow his field, and be in need of the seed of dates or pomegranates to replenish his orchard. Therefore, permission is given to redeem these, though still with the addition of a fifth, in order to show that the Lord is jealous, and marks anything that might be a retraction, on the man's part, of what was due to the Lord. He may redeem this tithe, but it is done cum nota. As to the tithe of herd and flock, this is not allowed. The owner, or the Levite whose office it was to tithe, held a rod in his hand and touched every tenth animal as it happened to come forward. (Jer. xxxiii. 13.) Whatever passes under the rod, good or bad, was tithed and taken, inalienably. The Lord does not seek a good animal, where the rod, in numbering, lighted on a bad as the tenth passed by; neither does he admit of the substitution of an inferior animal, if the rod has lighted on the best in the whole flock. He seeks just what is his due, teaching us strict and holy disregard of bye-ends and selfish interests.

And thus this book-this Pictorial Gospel of the Old Testament ends with stating God's claims on us, and his expectation of our service and willing devotedness. As the first believers at Pentecost, rejoicing in pardon and the love of God, counted nothing dear to them, nor said that aught they possessed was their own, so ought we to live. We must sit loose from earth; and true love to our Redeemer will set us loose. This giving up of our possessions at God's call, teaches us to live a pilgrim life, and that is an Abrahamic life-nay, it is the life of faith in opposition to sight.

The whole of this concluding chapter has been leading

us to the idea of giving to the Lord all we have. It has been making us familiar with the idea, and by example inculcating the practice of like devotedness. God should be all in all to us; he is, "God all-sufficient." Let us part even with common, lawful comforts, and try if He alone be not better than all. Like the child with the stalk of grapes, who picked one grape after another from the cluster, and held it out to her father, till, as affection waxed warm and self faded, she gaily flung the whole into her father's bosom, and smiled in his face. with triumphant delight; so let us do, until, loosening from every comfort, and independent of the help of broken cisterns, we can say, "I am not my own! Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth whom I desire besides. Thou art to me, as thou wert to David at the gates of death, 'All my salvation and all my desire." After so much love on God's part to us, displayed in rich variety of type and shadow, shall we count any sacrifice hard? Could not even a Heathen say of his ideal virtue

"Serpens, sitis, ardor, arenæ,

Dulcia virtuti." (Lucan, B. ix.)

Ver. 34. "These are the commandments, which the Lord commanded Moses, for the children of Israel in Mount Sinai."

At, or near Sinai. The sultry heat of that day when the fiery law was given, prepared the people to welcome these showers of grace that soon after fell. Lord, make us enjoy these showers, even if there be need of such a day of heat and fear ere it come. Let every drop from these blessed clouds wet the soil of our hearts. Thou who art known in Israel as the giver of plenteous showers to refresh thy weary heritage, cause these that fell around

Sinai, as we have seen in all this book-these that showed so much of the variety of thy love-these that brought such tidings of thy Son-oh, cause these to water our weary, parched souls, until we see Him who is "rivers of water."

Thus have we come to the close of our pleasant undertaking. We have traversed the tabernacle courts, inquiring into "its meats and drinks, and divers washings and carnal ordinances, imposed on them until the time of reformation." (Heb. ix. 10.) Had we looked on them apart from what they signified, we must have grown weary ere we had well begun. But searching into their meaning, we have found that these "carnal ordinances," i. e., those ceremonies that consisted in the use of earthly and material things, are all fragrant with Gospel truth. And we plainly see why the Lord should have "imposed them," i. e., enjoined them, and made it incumbent on Israel to observe them. He saw in each of them some picture or foreshadowing of the coming Redeemer. The "time of reformation" has come; i. e., the time when a better mode of teaching the same truth has been brought in, types being now displaced by the antitypes, shadows by the substance. But while this "reformation," or better mode of teaching truth, has come, we still look back and study, with profit and delight, the symbols of the old economy that pictured forth the coming of "better things." I still retain a vivid re

*Not, however, altogether as Jerome would have had us do, when he says, “Leviticus liber, a quo singula sacrificia, immo singulæ pæne syllabæ, et vestes Aaron, et totus ordo Leviticus, spirant cælestia sacramenta." (Epist. ad Paulinum.)

membrance of the impression made on me many years ago, in the divinity class of Dr. Chalmers, when that illustrious man of God referred to this subject. He was remarking how oftentimes Christians, advancing in years, feel a growing relish for the types, and prophecies, and sketches of character, and pieces of picturesque history in which the Old Testament abounds. They see them. pervaded with New Testament principle and truth. "There is," he said, "in this employment, somewhat even of the charm and delight of poetry. It is a regaling, as well as satisfactory exercise." Very pleasant as were the songs of Zion to good Bishop Horne, as every morning roused him to his task, and the silence of evening invited him to pursue it; very pleasant to many a humble Christian are the things which God hath spoken at sundry times, and in divers manners, to the fathers by the prophet. It is as if the delights of imagination were superadded to the delights of piety, when the doctrines of the New are expressed in the drapery of the Old economy. And if there be any aged Christian who has leisure to pursue the employment, we promise him not a different, but the same Gospel, seen through a veil of ever-brightening transparency, and heightened by time and youthful remembrances. Thus the decaying lights of age have often been revived again; and, in the solace of the perusal, such men have experienced that these things were written not alone for the generations that then lived, but for "our admonition, on whom the ends of the world have come."

« PreviousContinue »