1. Joshua
We now come to a new Leader and a new command to arise and go in to possess a new land. Moses was not able to bring the Children of Israel into the Land of Promise. Moses was the embodiment of the Law. The Law cannot bring us into the fulness of the blessing of the Gospel of Christ. That Jesus Christ alone can do, and through this book Joshua is a type of Him. The very name has the same meaning. Joshua means “Jehovah is Salvation.” “And thou shalt call His name Jesus—Saviour; for He shall save His people from their sins.”
God gave His people a threefold encouragement to go forward and possess the land:—
First—The Gift of the land. “Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given unto you.”
Second—The Command. “Arise and go. Have not I commanded thee?”
Third—The Promise of His presence. “As I was with Moses so will I be with thee.”
And the Lord commanded them to observe to do according to all the law which Moses commanded, and to meditate therein day and night.
The Land. The entrance of the Children of Israel into the Land of Canaan is full of teaching for the Christian. It is true that in one sense it is a picture of the Better Country to which we look forward as our eternal Home. But in many respects it is far more truly a picture of our present inheritance in Christ Jesus, a good land we are called upon to enter here in this life.
It is a land of Best from the wanderings of the wilderness life. A land with “great and goodly cities, which thou buildedst not, and houses full of all good things, which thou filledst not” (Deut. 6:10, 11).
It is a land of Plenty. “A land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig-trees, and pomegranates; a land of oil-olive and honey; a land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness, thou shalt not lack anything in it; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass” (Deut. 8:8, 9).
It is a land of Living Water. “A land of brooks of water, of fountains, and depths that spring out of valleys and hills” (Deut. 8:7).
It is a land of Promised Victory. “There shall no man be able to stand before you” (Deut. 11:25).
Surely this is a picture of our present inheritance in Christ Jesus; it is He who can give such rest to our souls that we are able to say, “We which have believed do enter into rest.” He who did not spare His own Son has promised with Him to “freely give us all things.” Christ has promised to give the Living Water, the Holy Spirit, to those who come to Him and drink. And He has promised continual victory to those who commit themselves to His leadership. A victorious life, full of the Holy Ghost and of power, is God’s purpose for every Christian, and is experienced through continual abiding in Christ. He promises us—not absence of tribulation, but in Him peace; not freedom from temptation and conflict, but through Him victory; not immunity from toil, but in Him rest. “Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into His rest, any of you should seem to come short of it” (Heb. 4:1).
In the purpose of God, those who have been redeemed by the precious blood of Christ are already not only “accepted in the Beloved,” but also “complete in Him”; but it is necessary for us by faith to enter into possession of what is already ours in Christ.
Warfare. The Epistle to the Ephesians is the New Testament counterpart of the Book of Joshua. It tells of the Christian’s inheritance in Christ, the good land, the “heavenly places,” to which He has already raised up by His grace those who trust in Him. It is the epistle most full of deep spiritual experience, yet nowhere have we a fuller description of the armour the Christian needs. It is the highest kind of warfare, “against principalities, against powers … against spiritual wickedness in heavenly places” (Eph. 6:12, margin).
Israel’s enemies are a type of ours. Egypt was a type of the world. In the Amalekites in the wilderness—those descendants of Esau who sold his birthright for a mess of pottage, a people near of kin to Israel—we have a picture of the flesh, or self. But in the Canaanites we have a picture of a still more deadly foe. From contemporary records as well as from Scripture, these nations seem to have been the very personification of evil. Highly civilised, versed in arts and full of intellectual culture, they were nevertheless hopelessly corrupt. In God’s command to Israel to destroy them utterly (Deut. 20:16-18) we recognise at once His plan of dealing in judgment with nations after having given them full time to repent (see Gen. 15:16), and we have also His care for the moral well-being of His people. “God has a right to choose, without being questioned, the best method of chastening a guilty people, whether by flood, fire, brimstone, earthquake, famine, pestilence, or war. Study carefully these ‘Acts of God’ in the Bible and in our own time” (H. S. Richardson).
The Wiles of the Devil. Israel’s warfare with the Canaanites is a picture of our conflict with Satan. “Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the Devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood.” The word “wrestle” implies a hand-to-hand conflict, and it is just this that the Church is experiencing in our own time. From all lands today we hear the same testimony—those who know most of the power of the Holy Spirit are experiencing most of personal conflict with the Devil. It would seem that he knows that “his time is short,” and that he is therefore putting forth all his power, and they alone can overcome who have learnt the threefold secret of Rev. 12:11: “They overcame him (the Devil) (1) by the blood of the Lamb, (2) by the word of their testimony, (3) by not loving their lives unto the death,” i.e. taking their place on the Cross as crucified with Christ.
The verse before us speaks of “the wiles of the Devil.” He comes not only as a roaring lion, but as a serpent, as an angel of light, and the climax of his wiliness is the invention of the lie of his non-existence. He is willing to deny his own personality even, if by so doing he can blind men and women to his power.
The Red Sea and Jordan. In “The Faith Chapter”— Heb. 11—there is a gap of forty years between the crossing of the Red Sea and the taking of Jericho. The interval is filled with unbelief and disobedience, and even the act of faith—the Crossing of Jordan—which brought the Children of Israel into the land is omitted; for had there been no wandering there had been no Jordan: they would have marched straight up from Kadesh-Barnea without having to cross the river.
The two crossings are coupled together in Psalm 114:5: “What ailed thee, O thou sea, that thou fleddest thou Jordan, that thou wast driven back?” There is a close connection between them. Going down into the bed of the sea and into the bed of the river alike signified death. Both show our participation in the death of Christ. The Red Sea crossing includes it all in God’s purpose, though not always so in our experience. There are some Christians who, like Paul, enter into the deep meaning of Christ’s death and receive the baptism of the Spirit almost immediately after their conversion. It was Israel’s wandering that made the second crossing necessary.
And so it often is with Christians now. Through want of clear teaching, it may be, about God’s purpose of blessing, or through personal unfaithfulness, how many wander in a wilderness experience for years after their conversion, and need some definite act like the crossing of Jordan to bring them into “the Lord’s delightsome land” of peace and rest and victory? They have seen Christ crucified for them as the ground of their salvation, but they need to see themselves crucified with Christ. The history of the Israelites crossing Jordan makes this so beautifully simple that it cannot fail to be a help to any soul seeking to know the fuller meaning of Christ’s death.
The channel of the river has several sets of banks, cut out by the stream in its varying fulness, and at this time it was overflowing all its banks. For a great multitude—including women and children and cattle—to have crossed it at such a time was an absolute impossibility. But as soon as the feet of the Priests, bearing the Ark of the Covenant, touched the brimming flood, the waters divided, and the priests stood firm on dry ground in the midst of Jordan until all the people were clean passed over. And Joshua set up twelve stones in the midst of Jordan, where the feet of the priests stood, and he commanded a man from each tribe to take a stone out of the midst of Jordan, twelve stones, and he set them up in Gilgal on the other side of Jordan as a memorial, “that all the people of the earth might know the hand of the Lord, that it is mighty; that ye might fear the Lord our God for ever” (Josh. 4:24).
Buried and Risen with Christ. The Ark was a type of Christ: He has gone down into death for us. “Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.” The twelve stones buried for ever under the waters of death show us our place as crucified with Christ. The twelve stones set up on the other side show us our place as risen with Him. “Likewise reckon ye also your- selves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom. 6:11). God’s word to us is: “Ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.” To believe this is as great an impossibility as for Israel to cross Jordan; but as we take Him at His word, and reckon the self-life to be dead with Christ, He makes it true in our experience, and enables us to live the risen life in Christ Jesus.
This is only the beginning of a new life of victory, the acceptance of our position, as risen with Christ, which makes victory possible. It is what Paul meant when he said: “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me” (Gal. 2:20).
The next step for the Children of Israel was the renewing at Gilgal of the Covenant with God by the neglected rite of circumcision, separating themselves unto the Lord. God’s separated people were then immediately called to keep the neglected Feast of the Passover. And they ate of the old corn of the land, the manna ceasing from that time. In the slain Lamb and the Bread of Life we have another picture of Christ.
The Captain of the Lord’s Host. Not only in type do we see Christ in the Book of Joshua. There came a day when the Lord Himself shone through in all His glory. “And it came to pass, when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked, and, behold, there stood a man over against him, with his sword drawn in his hand: and Joshua said, Art Thou for us, or for our adversaries? He queried whether his mysterious Guest had come as an ally or as an enemy; but the Lord said: “Nay, but as Captain of the Host of the Lord am I now come. And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and did worship, and said unto Him, What saith my Lord unto His servant? And the Captain of the Lord’s Host said unto Joshua, Loose thy shoe from off thy foot; for the place whereon thou standest is holy. And Joshua did so…And the Lord said unto Joshua, See, I have given into thy hand Jericho.”
The Burning Bush was a picture of the Incarnation, but how much more vivid was this foreshadowing in the form of a man. God says, “I have given Him for a Leader and Commander to the people.” Oft times today some servant of the Lord is hard pressed with responsibility at the thought of some great undertaking, when if he would but lift up his eyes and look he would see One mighty to save, who has come to take entire control.
Victory. “By faith the walls of Jericho fell down.” That is the simple record in the New Testament of the taking of the city. “The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds.” Those who are living in the Spirit have ceased to fight with carnal weapons; they have learned to wield the sword of the Spirit which is the “Word of God, and quench the fiery darts of the wicked by the shield of faith. The saint wins his victories beforehand on his knees, and then stands still and sees the salvation of the Lord. “Shout; for the Lord hath given you the city.” This book may also be compared to the Book of Acts, where, through the Spirit, Christ leads His Church to victory, and heathen strongholds yield to the preaching of the Gospel and to prayer.
“By faith Rahab perished not with them that believed not, when she had received the spies in peace.” The token for her salvation was the scarlet cord with which she had let down the spies, tied in her window. It was like the token of the blood on the door-posts in the Passover. In former days in the Royal Navy every rope and cord was marked with a scarlet thread running right through its entire length, so that wherever you cut the rope you found the scarlet cord. The scarlet line of redemption through the precious blood of Christ runs through the Bible from Genesis to Revelation.
Independent Evidence. Each step in the record of the conquest of Canaan is the vivid story of an eye-witness, if only there were space to dwell upon all the details. The points of vantage, the configuration of the land, the fertility dependent on laborious cultivation, the picture given of a densely populated country, with walled and garrisoned cities and chariots of iron, of its occupation by various independent nations,—all is exactly the Canaan of Joshua’s day as given in the contemporaneous records of the Egyptian hieroglyphics and the Tel-el-Amarna tablets, and therefore proves that the Book of Joshua is—as it claims to be (Deut. 6:25)—a contemporary document and not of late date. “No mark of late date is discoverable in the names of the cities” (Col. Conder). Jerusalem is mentioned in this book, and it has been objected that this city was not called Jerusalem until the reign of David. “But letters were found at Tel-el-Amarna in Egypt, from the king of Jerusalem, which were written about the very time when Joshua was invading Canaan. In these letters the name Jerusalem appears as it does in the Scripture” (Urquhart). These tablets also constantly refer to the Habiri, who have been identified with the Hebrews. There are frequent appeals from all parts of Canaan to Egypt for help against this powerful foe. One letter says, “The hostility of the Hebrews waxes mighty against the land, and against the gods”; proving their monotheism.
The victory at Jericho was followed by the defeat before Ai. The way to Ai led up a steep rocky defile, so it was natural that the spies who were sent to view the country said, “Let about two or three thousand men go up and smite Ai; make not all the people to labour thither, for they are but few.” The result of this attack was defeat and ignominious retreat. The thought of God’s honour was uppermost in Joshua’s mind. “What wilt Thou do unto Thy great Name? And the Lord said, Get thee up; wherefore liest thou thus upon thy face? Israel hath sinned … therefore they could not stand before their enemies.” All the spoil of Jericho was to be devoted to the Lord (chap. 6:19; Deut. 7:25, 26), but some one had taken of the “devoted thing” (R.V.). Early in the morning all Israel had to appear before the Lord, tribe by tribe, and family by family, and man by man, till the guilt was brought home to Achan, and he confessed his sin. “I have sinned … I saw … I coveted … I took … I hid.” And the stolen treasure was found, and judgment was executed on Achan and all his house.
The defeat before Ai was caused by hidden sin. There is a very solemn lesson here—that sin always means defeat. All may look right outwardly, but God is not deceived. Absolute obedience is the condition of victory in the land. “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.” After the sin of Achan had been judged the Lord said, “Fear not; take all the people of war with thee, and arise, go up to Ai.” After sin has been confessed and put away God gives victory. We may have had some great victory, like Jericho, and then fail in some little Ai of daily life. He will give victory in the very place where we have been shamefully defeated. But we need all the power of God for every battle, and our position is one of absolute dependence on Him.
Ebal and Gerizim. Next, we have the carrying out of God’s command, through Moses, that the tribes should stand on Ebal and Gerizim, six on one mount and six on the other, and pronounce the blessings and the curses of the Law. It has been objected that people could not hear each other at such a distance; but the acoustic properties of the valley are remarkable, and Canon Tristram tested it on the spot, two of his party stationing themselves on opposite sides of the valley and reciting the Ten Commandments in turn with perfect ease. Ebal is to the north of the valley, Gerizim to the south. The priests standing with the Ark would no doubt be facing the east. The Ark did so wherever the Tabernacle was pitched. Thus Mount Ebal would be on the left hand northwards, Gerizim on the right hand southwards—the same position as regards blessing and cursing as in the parable of the Sheep and the Goats. In the Tabernacle the sacrifices were slain “on the north side of the altar before the Lord.” The altar of sacrifice was likewise on Mount Ebal to the north, the atonement was made in the place over which the cloud of Divine wrath was resting. We cannot but see Divine plan in the perfect harmony of all these details.
Then follows the stratagem of the Gibeonites, who with their mouldy loaves and ragged garments led the Children of Israel to believe they had come from a far country, and therefore entered into a covenant with them. It was because Israel asked not counsel of the Lord, but took of their victuals, that they fell into the snare. Here again we are taught the need of absolute dependence upon the Lord in the life of faith. He is willing to guide us in every detail of our lives, but we must seek to know His will, and not judge by the sight of our eyes or lean upon our own understanding.
Having entered into league with the Gibeonites, Israel was bound to respond to their appeal for help when five other nations rose up against them. God overruled this circumstance to deliver the five kings into the hands of His people. As these nations worshipped the sun and moon, there was a special reason for the miracle which God wrought on that day in showing them His power in controlling the hosts of heaven. We do not know how that miracle was wrought, it is enough for us to believe that He who made the universe could control its action. The ancient annals of Greece, Egypt, and China each confirm the record of a certain “long day” such as God’s Book tells us of.12
Possession. The first half of Joshua is mainly occupied with the Key-note of Victory, the second half with the Key-note of Possession. Though “all things are ours” in Christ, it remains for us to take possession of them experimentally by faith. The promise was that every place that the sole of their foot should tread should be theirs. And in the thirteenth chapter of this book the Lord said unto Joshua, “There remaineth yet very much land to be possessed.” There was a slackness on the part of Israel to possess the land which the Lord had given them (18:3).
Then follows an account of the division of the land. The inheritance of the two-and-a-half tribes beyond Jordan, and the inheritance of Caleb. That old warrior claimed the mountain of the Anakims, with its cities great and fenced, which God had promised him forty years before. He said: “As my strength was then, even so is my strength now, for war … if so be that the Lord will be with me, then I shall be able to drive them out, as the Lord said.” Caleb promised his daughter Achsah to whomsoever would take the city of Kirjath-sepher. Othniel his nephew took it and won the prize. Achsah said to her father, “Give me a blessing: for thou hast given me a South land; give me also springs of water. And he gave her the upper springs and the nether springs.” Our Heavenly Father waits to bless us in like manner, and “to give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him.”
Failure. Next we read of the inheritance of Judah, and then of Ephraim and Manasseh. We read that the children of Manasseh could not drive out the Canaanites, but put them under tribute and let them dwell in the land (Josh. 17:12, 13; see also 13:13 and 15:63). “When we come to study the Book of Judges we shall see what trouble came through Israel not obeying God in driving out the Canaanites. The process of degeneration had begun even in the time of Joshua. Though the children of Joseph failed they were also ambitious, and came to Joshua with the plea that they were a great people and their lot was not enough for them. Then Joshua bade them go up into the wood country and take the land of the giants. But the children of Joseph feared to go because the inhabitants had chariots of iron. Joshua’s answer was a wise one: he bade them prove their greatness by driving out the Canaanites, which they were well able to do “though they have iron chariots, and though they be strong.”
Then we read of the Tabernacle being set up at Shiloh, and the congregation of Israel were assembled there, as the central place of sacrifice. Then the seven remaining tribes received their portion, and Joshua his own special portion, and the six Cities of Refuge were fixed. The Levites held their cities upon a different tenure from the other tribes, for the Lord Himself was the portion of their inheritance.
Conclusion. The book closes with Joshua’s exhortation to the people. He reminds them that it is God who has fought for them. He exhorts them to keep all that is written in the Law of Moses, and to serve the Lord with all their heart. He invites them to choose this day whom they will serve, but adds his own resolution, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” Joshua’s last act was to write these words in the book of the Law of God, and to set up a great stone as a witness to the renewal of the Covenant. He died at the age of a hundred and ten years, leaving a character without blemish. After the account of his death we have the ominous words: “And Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that outlived Joshua, and which had known all the works of the Lord, that He had done for Israel.”
Our Joshua never dies. It is He who brings us into the good land, and it is only as we abide under His leadership that we shall possess it and overcome all our enemies.
2. Judges
We now come to one of the darkest periods in the history of God’s people. “There is something startling in the swiftness with which the Israelites degenerated. Caleb’s nephew, Othniel, was raised up for their deliverance” (Moorehead). This teaches the great lesson that no position of spiritual blessing is sufficient to ensure a life of holiness without a close walk of faith and obedience.
The book opens with a note of victory. Judah went up against the Canaanites and overcame them in various places. But even this record of victory has an exception—they “could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron.” This surely was a want of faith; for the promise by Joshua had been, “Thou shalt drive out the Canaanites, though they have iron chariots, and though they be strong” (Joshua 17:18).
We have in the words of one of the kings—Adoni-bezek—an incidental testimony to the justice of God’s judgment upon the Canaanites; even this heathen king acknowledged it. The remainder of the first chapter is a record of failure. We read of one tribe after another that “ they did not wholly drive out the Canaanites, they would dwell in the land.” “When Israel was strong, they put them under tribute, and did not utterly drive them out.”
Summary. Judges 2:11-23 gives us a summary of the whole book. “The Children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and served Baal and Ashtaroth, and forsook the Lord God of their fathers. And the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel, and He delivered them into the hand of the spoilers, and sold them into the hands of their enemies round about. Nevertheless the Lord raised up judges, which delivered them out of the hand of their enemies; for it repented the Lord because of their groanings. And it came to pass, when the judge was dead, that they corrupted themselves more than their fathers, in following other gods to serve them, and ceased not from their own doings and from their stubborn way. And the Lord said that because they had broken His covenant, and failed to obey Him in driving out the Canaanites, that henceforth He would cease to drive them out before them, and would leave them in the land to prove Israel, whether they would keep His way or not.”
Israel’s Sevenfold Declension. In the history that follows (chap. 3 to 16) we have this record of failure and deliverance seven times repeated. Israel fell into idolatry, and God raised up some one of the surrounding nations to carry out His punishment. Israel repented under the chastening, and cried to the Lord, and the Lord sent a deliverer. God allowed the very sins His people indulged in to be their punishment. He allowed the Canaanites and other surrounding nations to oppress them and bring them into bondage. “He that committeth sin is the servant of sin.” If we give quarter to any known sin, and allow it to dwell with us, it is likely to become our master.
Jabin, King of Canaan, and Sisera, his captain, “mightily oppressed the Children of Israel twenty years” (chap. 4:2, 3). “Midian prevailed against Israel.” They were so utterly broken under this oppression that they took refuge in the dens and caves of the mountains (chap. 6:2). When they cried to the Lord, He did not at once send a deliverer, but sent a prophet to deepen their sense of conviction. “The anger of the Lord was hot against Israel, and He sold them into the hands of the Philistines, and into the hands of the children of Ammon, and they vexed and oppressed the Children of Israel eighteen years “ (chap. 10:7, 8). Again when they cried unto the Lord He reminded them that they had turned to serve other gods, and He said, “Go and cry unto the gods which ye have chosen, and let them deliver you in the time of your tribulation.” This rebuke once more deepened the sense of sin, and humbled Israel to cry, “We have sinned: do Thou unto us whatsoever seemeth good to Thee; deliver us only, we pray Thee, this day. And they put away the strange gods from among them, and served the Lord: and His soul was grieved for the misery of Israel” (chap. 10:10-16).
A Saviour. What a picture of man’s continued sin and failure, and God’s continued patience and grace! We read of seven distinct departures from God, and of seven distinct deliverances by the hands of Othniel, Ehud, Shamgar, Deborah and Barak, Gideon, Jephthah, Samson. In these deliverers or saviours of Israel we can see a foreshadowing of the Great Deliverer who was to come. The Lord’s promise in Isaiah is: “He shall send them a Saviour and a Great One” (Isa. 19:20). God had mercy upon man in his sin and hard bondage, and sent the Lord Jesus to be our Saviour.
A Saviour. Luke 2:11: “Unto you is born … a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.”
The Saviour. John 4:42: “This is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world.”
My Saviour. Luke 1:47: “My spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.”
It is not enough to know Him as a Saviour, or even as the Saviour of the world. We need each one for ourselves to be able to say, “He is my Saviour.”
Downward Steps. Israel sinned in not driving out the Canaanites, but allowing them to dwell amongst them. Compromise instead of obedience. The next step was that they intermarried with them (3:6), and the next that they were drawn into their idolatries (ver. 7). The result was that all the land became corrupt. The Book of Judges contains the blackest picture of the condition of God’s people. Chapters 17 to 21 do not follow the rest of the book in chronological order, but give us an illustration of the gross wickedness of the people during this period. In the Song of Deborah we have another glimpse of the lawless state of the country: “The highways were unoccupied, and the travellers walked through by- ways. The inhabitants of the villages ceased” (chap. 5:6, 7), Later in the book, four times the statement is repeated, “In those days there was no king in Israel”; and twice the words, “Every man did that which was right in his own eyes.” The Key-note of the book is Anarchy,
God’s Law. All this terrible state of things came about through disregard of God’s Law. That they possessed the Law as given by Moses is evident from frequent allusions to things contained in those books. God Himself referred to them in a manner that implied that they were known to Israel. He reminded them of the conditions of His Covenant (chap. 2:1-3). He told Gideon to order the fearful and faint-hearted to depart from the army of Israel, according to the command in Deut. 20:8. It was a wise provision, for faint-heartedness was terribly infectious, then as now. He told the parents of Samson to carry out in his case the vow of the Nazarite. The reference to the offerings, the trumpet by which Ehud summoned the Children of Israel to battle, and the trumpets of Gideon,—Jotham’s reference to the oil of consecration, and the oil of the lamp, and to the wine of the drink-offering,—are all evidences that Israel possessed the Law of God as given by Moses, and that in times of revival that Law was honoured. But the tendency during the whole period was to disregard the Law, and the result was idolatry, wickedness, and utter lawlessness in the land. This is always the result where the people of any country are deprived of God’s Word. It accounts for the gross darkness of the Middle Ages, and of those countries in which Roman Catholicism is shutting up the Bible today.
The Bible our Chart. In these days we sometimes hear it said that if we have Christ we do not need the Bible. But what do we know of Christ apart from the revelation God has given us in the Bible? Other writings establish the bare fact of His historical identity, but they reveal nothing of His person, teaching, and work. If we had not learned of Christ through the written Word, what should we know of Him revealed within? That the conscience and reason of man are not a sufficient guide we have abundant evidence in the Book of Judges, for we are twice told, not that every man violated his conscience, but that every man did that which was right in his own eyes; and we see to what awful excesses of sin such a course led.
The writer of the book was in all probability Samuel, for it is written after the establishment of the monarchy (ch. 19:1, 21:25), and prior to the capture of Jerusalem (ch. 1:21), which was captured by David (2 Sam. 5:6-8), and therefore written during the reign of Saul; and the most probable author during that reign was Samuel. In the words “In those days there was no king in Israel,” the writer was referring to the outward kingship, with its reign of law and order.
But the words have a deeper meaning for us: they give us a picture of the lawless state of the heart where the Lord Jesus is not reigning as King, and when we are doing what is right in our own eyes. The Bible contains the laws of the Kingdom, and where this is disregarded, disloyalty is sure to follow. “Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed thereto according to Thy Word.” The neglect of God’s Law accounted for the uncleanness of the land in the days of the Judges. “Whatsoever any man says or does which is contrary to the Scriptures, though under profession of the immediate guidance of the Spirit, must be reckoned and accounted a mere delusion… . There can be no appeal from them to any other authority whatsoever” (Book of Discipline of the Society of Friends).
For the safe guiding of our barque on the sea of life we need to have on board the Chart of the Scriptures, the Compass of the Holy Spirit, and the Captain of our Salvation, the Lord Jesus Christ. It would be folly for the seaman to reason: “I do not need a chart because I have a compass,” or vice versa. As invariably as the compass points to the North, so does the Holy Spirit glorify Christ. The Scriptures also testify of Him. These two witnesses agree together, for the Holy Spirit takes of the things of Christ, as revealed in the written Word, and makes them life to our souls.
Idolatry, The sin of Israel was idolatry. Idolatry is the worship of a false god, a god of man’s imagination and creation. When people imagine a god for themselves which is not the God revealed to us in the Bible—or a Christ who is not the Christ of the New Testament, but of their own imagination—they are guilty of idolatry.
Again, an idol is anything which usurps God’s place in our hearts. It may be in itself a sinful thing, or a questionable thing, or an innocent thing, or even a sacred thing, but if it takes the first place in our hearts it is an idol. When Gideon made the ephod of gold, very likely his first intention was good. He had refused to be made a king, saying, “The Lord shall rule over you”; and by the ephod, which was evidently not intended to be worn, he may have wished to indicate that the victory was from the Lord. But Israel worshipped it, and it became a snare to Gideon and his house.
The desire to be rich was probably one of the reasons why the Israelites made friends with the Canaanites, and God tells us that “covetousness is idolatry.”
God’s Witnesses. Even in this dark period, as in every age, God did not leave Himself without a witness, and we may see in the deliverers whom He raised up, not only a general type of Christ, but much teaching for the Christian, showing us that through the power of Christ we also may become witnesses for Him. Judges is a practical commentary on the truth that “God has chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things that are mighty … that no flesh should glory in His presence.”
Deborah. God used Ehud, the left-handed man, to deliver Israel, and Shamgar with his ox-goad. He used a woman to inspire the failing courage of Barak, and to censure the men who did not help in the hour of need. Deborah said to Barak: “Hath not the Lord God of Israel commanded, Go and draw to Mount Tabor, and I will deliver Sisera into thine hand?” (chap. 4:6, 7). When Barak made his obedience conditioned by her going with him, she told him that the journey would not be to his honour, “for the Lord shall sell Sisera into the hand of a woman.”
Gideon. The account of Gideon is specially encouraging. He was a man conscious of his own nothingness. “Oh, my Lord, wherewith shall I save Israel? behold, my family is poor in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.” “I have sent thee, I will be with thee. Go in this thy might, thou mighty man of valour.” The “Lord looked upon him” and encouraged his faith by various signs of His mighty power. That look and that command made a hero of Gideon. He began at home, and at the bidding of the Lord threw down the altar of Baal in his father’s house. “His natural shrinking came out in the fact that he did it by night; his God-given courage in the fact that, though shrinking, he got it done.”
Then the Lord had to reduce Gideon’s army so that it might be clearly seen that the victory was His; and with the three hundred eager men, who would not stop to quench their thirst by a long draught, He delivered Israel.
Every detail of Gideon’s life is full of teaching. He was allowed to overhear the dream of one of the enemy, and the enemy’s own interpretation of it, to strengthen his faith. A cake of barley bread falls into the camp of Midian and overthrows a tent. Barley bread was the poorest of all foods, thus carrying out the lesson that it was man’s weakness cast upon God’s almightiness that gained the victory that day.
Samson. In Samson we have the greatest contrast to Gideon. He was too weak to rule himself. A man of splendid possibilities, who squandered them through tampering with the world and breaking his Nazarite vow. When the Christian tries to make the best of both worlds, his testimony for God loses its power.
The Angel of the Covenant. In this dark period of the Judges, the Angel of the Covenant, the Son of God Himself, appeared three times to His people. In the first instance (Judges 2:1) He came up from Gilgal—where He had appeared to Joshua as Captain of the Lord’s Host—to Bochim, and there He spoke as none but Jehovah could speak, reminding them of His power and goodness, and reproving them for their disobedience. At His words “the Children of Israel lifted up their voices and wept. And they sacrificed there unto the Lord.”
About a hundred and fifty years later, He appeared to Gideon to call him to his great work of delivering Israel. Gideon brought a burnt offering and a meat offering, and the Angel of the Lord commanded him to lay them upon the rock—the rock itself a type of Christ as well as the offering—and He touched the offering with His staff, and fire rose up out of the rock and consumed the offering as a token that it was accepted.
About thirty years after this event the Lord appeared in like manner to the wife of Manoah, and again to her and her husband together. Manoah likewise brought a burnt offering and a meat offering, and offered it upon a rock, “and the Angel of the Lord did wondrously”; for the fire went up to heaven from off the altar, and the Angel of the Lord ascended in the flame of the altar. When Manoah had asked His name, the Angel of the Lord said, “Why askest thou after My Name, seeing it is secret?” or “Wonderful,” R.V.; the very Name given later on through Isaiah to the Messiah that was to be born. Thus we are brought face to face with the Babe of Bethlehem in the Person of the Angel of Jehovah.
3. Ruth
Out from the darkness we have been studying, “in the days when the judges ruled,” there shines forth the sweet story of Ruth. In the midst of war and lawlessness and idolatry there were still those, both rich and poor, who feared God and lived virtuous and simple lives to His praise.
The family of Elimelech were evidently among these, though they took the backsliding step of going down into the Land of Moab for succour. The name Elimelech means “My God is King”; and if his faith had been strong enough to depend upon his King, much trouble might have been spared. “There was a famine in the land,” even in Bethlehem, “the House of Bread,” and they went to Moab in search of food, and, as often happens, “they continued there.” Trouble upon trouble followed this downward step. Elimelech died, his two sons married Moabitish women, and then the sons died also.
After about ten years Naomi heard “that the Lord had visited His people in giving them bread,” and she arose to return to her own land. And then follows the memorable choice of Ruth to cleave unto her mother-in-law in following her to an unknown land, and to what seemed a life of privation and toil. When Naomi saw that she was “steadfastly minded” to go with her, she left speaking to her.
There must have been something very beautiful in Naomi’s life thus to win the devotion and love of Ruth, first to herself and then to her God; and it has been well to keep her name, which means “Pleasant,” instead of substituting her suggestion of Mara.
They arrived at Bethlehem at the beginning of barley harvest, and proved it to be the House of Bread once more. The calm poetry of those harvest fields of Bethlehem, the eager gleaner among the maidens, the reapers, the lord of the harvest,—have all lived in golden sunshine in our imagination from our childhood.
“Her hap was to light on a part of the field belonging to Boaz.” Behind our lives there is a guiding Hand which causes even insignificant things to be fraught with mighty issues.
In Boaz, the kinsman of Elimelech, “a mighty man of wealth,” we have another beautiful character. The simplicity of his life, the courtesy of his behaviour to all with whom he came in contact, his generosity, his regard for the Law, above all his constant reference of every event to God, stand out in striking contrast against the dark background of his time.
The Goel. It was to this man that Naomi bade Ruth appeal to fulfil the kinsman’s part. The word used is Goel, the redeemer, the one whose right and duty it was according to the Law to redeem the inheritance of the deceased relative, and marry his widow (see Lev. 25:25-31, 47-55; Deut. 25:5-10). As these rights belonged to the next of kin, Goel came to mean the nearest kinsman. To fulfil these rights was his bounden duty according to the Law of God, and it was the fulfilment of this law that Naomi sought to bring about.
The reply of Boaz was: “It is true that I am a goel (redeemer), but there is also a goel nearer of kin than I. If he will redeem thee, well, let him redeem thee; but if he is not willing to redeem thee, then will I redeem thee, as the Lord liveth.”
Then follows the quiet rest of faith on the part of Naomi and her daughter, and the dignified carrying out of the Law in the presence of the elders in the gate of the city, on the part of Boaz.
The next of kin was willing to purchase the land that belonged to Naomi, but he was not willing for what that purchase involved, to take Ruth to be his wife, lest he should mar his own inheritance. This left Boaz free to carry out his gracious purpose; and he bought the inheritance of Elimelech, and he purchased Ruth the Moabitess to be his wife, “to raise up the name of the dead upon his inheritance.”
The Royal Line. “So Boaz took Ruth, and she became his wife; and she bare a son. And Naomi took the child, and laid it in her bosom, and became nurse unto it. And the women her neighbours gave it a name, Baying, There is a son born to Naomi; and they called his name Obed: he is the father of Jesse, the father of David.”
This story shows how unselfish devotion to God and to duty is rewarded. Orpah, who was content with the outward profession of affection, and returned to her people and her gods, forfeited her place in Israel. The kinsman who failed to fulfil his duty because of his own interests has not even his name recorded in God’s Book. Ruth, on the other hand, who gave up all to follow Naomi and Naomi’s God, and Boaz, who unhesitatingly fulfilled the kinsman’s part, have their names handed down to all time as worthy of praise, and as the ancestors, not only of David, but of David’s greater Son.
The Precision of Prophecy. One of the most marvellous proofs of the truth of the Bible is to be found in the prophecies concerning the birth of the Messiah. Every time prophecy predicts a fresh branch of the family as being the chosen one, a fresh risk, humanly speaking, is involved. But because God inspired the prophecies, the choice is made with unerring precision. Of Noah’s sons, Shem is chosen; of Abraham’s sons, Isaac; of Jacob’s twelve sons, Judah is selected; and the promise is renewed to David. Again, Messiah must have a birthplace. Of three known continents Asia is chosen, and of its many countries the Land of Promise. Of its three districts, Judaea; and of its thousands of villages, Bethlehem is selected. “The prophet puts his finger on one obscure village on the map of the world; but he speaks infallibly, for the Omniscient God was behind his utterance” (Dr. Pierson).
The Kinsman Redeemer. But the Key-note of the book of Ruth is The Kinsman Bedeemer. In him we see Christ, who has purchased the Church to be His Bride. “Thirty times in this short book the word ‘kinsman’ is found, or ‘redeemer,’ ‘near kinsman,’ ‘next of kin,’ ‘kindred,’—like words, all having reference to like things…How plainly this book is intended to teach the doctrine concerning Redemption will be seen by examining chapter 4:4-10. Here the word ‘redemption’ occurs five times in three verses; and in the tenth verse, Boaz declares that in redeeming the property he also purchases the widow of Mahlon to be his own wife. Nothing can explain the extreme minuteness of detail here except a typical design on the part of the inspiring Spirit…Our Lord Jesus had to become one with man in order to have the right to redeem. He is therefore our fellow-man; but if He had been involved in man’s fall and identified with man’s sin, He could not have acted as Redeemer. No sinner can redeem himself, much less can he redeem his brother (Ps. 49:7). He is therefore, as the God-man, our Boaz (‘Ability’); by that kinship and strength or ability, He is able to save to the uttermost all that come unto God by Him” (Pierson). “The Church which He hath purchased with His own blood” (Acts 20:28). “Christ also loved the Church, and gave Himself for it; that He might present it to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing.”
The Christian Life. For the individual believer the book is full of teaching. First, the definite choice has to be made, the trust placed under the wings of the Lord God of Israel. Then the diligent gleaning in the field, the beating out of the corn and the feeding upon it, which represents the diligent feeding of our souls upon the Word. The soul thus fed has food to pass on to others (Ruth 2:18). The work in the harvest field is also a picture of the wider service of the ingathering of souls in God’s great harvest field of the world, and we may-well ask ourselves evening by evening, “Where hast thou gleaned today?”
Union with Christ. Though the union of Ruth with Boaz is typical of the Church as a whole, yet there is for the individual believer the blessed experience of union with Christ set forth under so many figures, such as the abiding of the branch in the Vine. If there has been in our lives any of the failure Israel experienced in Judges, a turning unto our own way, the remedy for us is to seek a closer union with Christ. Lest we be discouraged, God has placed the Book of Joshua and the Book of Ruth on each side of the Book of Judges, as if to show us that the Victory of Faith and the Rest of Faith is the experience we are to look for as followers of an Almighty Saviour.
4. The Six Books of Kings
In the Hebrew these six books are only three, each pair forming but one book.
Samuel and Kings form a consecutive history and the Keynote of both is Kingdom.
Chronicles is the story of 2 Samuel and 1 and 2 Kings told over again from a different standpoint. Its Key-note is Theocracy. It deals only with the Kingdom of Judah, and relates the history as it touches the Temple and the worship of God. It was possibly written by Ezra.
The special privilege of the Children of Israel was to have God for their King, and to be chosen by Him to be a peculiar people unto Himself, to show forth His praise in the world.
During the period of the Judges Israel had rejected God from being their King. This rejection reached a climax in Samuel’s day, when “they asked for a King like all the nations.” When God’s children are afraid of being different from the world around them they lose their power of testimony for Him. God gave them Saul—a King after their own heart. When Saul broke God’s covenant through disobedience, God gave them David—“a King after His own heart.” David was a type of the one perfect King. Solomon likewise was a type of Him. But after Solomon God’s power departed from the kings and became vested in the prophets. Elijah sent word to Ahab, “Behold, Elijah is here! And Ahab went to meet Elijah.” As Moody said, “Who was king now?” Moses was a prophet. Samuel was a prophet, as well as being the last of the Judges, and also priest. But the great line of prophets began with Elijah, and they represented God to His people through all the years of the decline and fall of the monarchy.
5. 1 Samuel
The lawless state of God’s people, described in the Book of Judges, is continued in the early part of 1 Samuel, and seems to reach its height when the Ark of the Lord was in the hands of the Philistines, and the priests were given over to wickedness. We have a solemn lesson of the result of failure in parental discipline, even on the part of good parents. Of the sons of Eli we read: “The sin of the young men was very great before the Lord,” and “Eli restrained them not.” In the same way the sons of even the righteous Samuel “walked not in his ways, but turned aside after lucre, and took bribes, and perverted judgment,” until the people of Israel made their behaviour the excuse to demand a king. David also seems to have shown an inability to rule his own house, as is evident in the rebellion of both Absalom and Adonijah. Of Adonijah we read: “And his father had not displeased him at any time in saying, Why hast thou done so?” David, evidently, had not acted the father’s part in chastening his son.
Samuel, Saul, and David stand out as the three central figures of 1 and 2 Samuel.
Samuel’s Name. Samuel himself was a picture of our Saviour. The meaning of his name was one of the perplexities of Hebrew scholarship till the year 1899, when the Twelfth Congress of Orientalists held its meeting at Rome, and Professor Jastrow, of Philadelphia, showed that, in the Assyrian, which is closely allied to the Hebrew tongue, the word sumu means son, and he translated Samuel as “son (or offspring) of God.” Hannah, in the depth and sincerity of her surrender, gave up her first-born son to God utterly.
He was “God’s son” from the moment of his birth.” Therefore I have given him to the Lord” (not “lent” as in A.V.). The word, common to the Babylonian and Hebrew tongues before their separation, becomes a witness to the antiquity of the book. It disappeared from the language of the Israelites so completely that no Jewish student of the Bible, ancient or modern, was able to explain it. But it is evident that it was in common use in Hannah’s day; for she wanted every one to know that he was altogether the Lord’s own, and she must have chosen a word, therefore, which every one could understand.
The name “God’s son” takes us a step further. The resemblance between Hannah’s Song and that of Mary, the mother of Jesus, has always been marked. Mary’s Song is not a repetition of Hannah’s, yet both see the same vision. It is a vision of the earth’s full salvation, and of the Lord’s Christ. “The adversaries of the Lord,” sings Hannah, “shall be broken to pieces; out of heaven shall He thunder upon them: the Lord shall judge the ends of the earth; and He shall give strength unto His King, and exalt the horn of His anointed”—that is of His Messiah (1 Sam. 2:10). “He hath showed strength with His arm,” responds Mary: “He hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts…He hath holpen His servant Israel, in remembrance of His mercy; as He spake to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his seed for ever” (Luke 1:51-55).13
Hannah’s Song, and the name she gave her child, are alike a prophecy of Christ. She has the honour of being the first to use the name “Messiah.”
“The Lord of Hosts.” Another and most majestic Divine title occurs for the first time in the first chapter of this book, and that is “The Lord of Hosts.” The Rev. A. Craig Robinson bases upon this fact the following argument: “The Divine title ‘Lord of Hosts’ never occurs in the Pentateuch; it occurs for the first time in 1 Samuel 1:3. After this it occurs very frequently, especially in the prophets—281 times in all. If the Pentateuch was written by a multitude of writers in the later age, when this title for Jehovah was so much in vogue, how is it that not one of them has in the Pentateuch used this expression even once!”14
That Jehovah of Hosts was a title of Christ we see from comparing Isa. 6:1-3 with John 12:41, and Isa. 8:13, 14 with 1 Peter 2:5-8.
Samuel was a type of Christ in combining the offices of prophet, priest, and ruler. The Schools of the Prophets founded by him are a foreshadowing of the Lord’s service in pouring out His Spirit upon apostles, evangelists, and teachers.
Above all, Samuel was a picture of Christ in his life of prayer and intercession. From the time that God “called Samuel”—the story we have loved from our childhood—his life was one of continual communion. Samuel had access to the ear of God, and his own ear was open to God’s voice. He and Moses are God’s chosen examples of intercessors. “Though Moses and Samuel stood before Me, yet My mind could not be toward this people” (Jer. 15:1). Samuel said to the rebellious nation, “God forbid that I should sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you.” “Jesus … ever liveth to make intercession for them.”
A Friend. In Jonathan we have another picture of Christ, showing the love and friendship of our Heavenly Friend. “There is a Friend that sticketh closer than a brother.” He, the King’s Son, was not ashamed to own the shepherd lad his friend, and Jesus is not ashamed to call us brethren. “The soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and he loved him as his own soul.” Jesus, “having loved His own which were in the world, loved them to the uttermost” (John 13:1, R.V. margin).
Jonathan made an everlasting covenant with David (18:3, 20:15, 16, 23:18): “He stripped himself of the robe that was on him, and gave it to David, and his garments, even to his sword, and to his bow, and to his girdle.” So Christ stripped Himself of His glory, and He has covered us with the robe of His righteousness, and has armed and girded us for the fight. Jonathan strengthened David’s hands in God (23:16), and the Lord says to us, “My strength is made perfect in weakness.” The picture falls short, as all pictures do, of the glorious reality. Jonathan, at the risk of his own life (20:33), sought to reconcile his father to David. Christ laid down His life as “the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 2:2). He is our Mediator, our Advocate with the Father, and has made us sharers of His throne in glory.
The Shepherd King. Both as Shepherd and as King, David is a type of our Saviour. In 1 Samuel we have the account of David’s long season of preparation for the Kingdom.
The little town of Bethlehem is the birthplace alike of David and of his greater Son. The quiet years of toil with his father’s flock remind us of the years spent at Nazareth and in the carpenter’s shop. Many of the Psalms recall David’s watch over the flock: “When I consider Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which Thou hast ordained; What is man, that Thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that Thou visitest him?” (Ps. 8:3, 4). “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth His handy work” (Ps. 19:1). On the same plains round Bethlehem the shepherds kept watch over their flocks by night, while the star which guided the wise men shone over their heads, when, lo, the angel of the Lord brought them the good tidings of great joy, of the birth, in the city of David, of a Saviour which is Christ the Lord. “And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the Highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.” Those who have watched the sunrise from those plains where David must often have watched it, tell us that no words can describe its magnificence. “In them hath He set a tabernacle for the sun; which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race” (Ps. 19:4, 5).
Psalm 23. In the Shepherd Psalm, David surely describes his own care of the sheep. How often he had led them by still waters, and caused them to lie down in green pastures, and many a time he must have had to lead them down one of the gorges of the wilderness of Judaea.15 This wilderness is fifty miles long, and ten miles broad, with many valleys just such as are described by the word gay in this Psalm. There are eight different words for valley in Hebrew, but gay signifies a deep, rocky gorge, some of them only two or three feet wide at the bottom, almost as dark as night even in the daytime, because of the steep, rocky sides rising 800 feet high on each side. Here the hyenas stalk the sheep if they get separated from the shepherd. But with his club the shepherd does battle both with wild beast and with wilder Bedaween, and reassures the sheep with the touch of his staff in the dark valley. More than once David had risked his life, and left the rest of the flock, to rescue one lamb from the mouth of the lion or the bear. The good shepherd has always to take his life in his hand and be ready to lay it down. With what confidence David says, “Jehovah is my Shepherd, I shall not want.” And the Son of David responds, “I am the Good Shepherd: the Good Shepherd giveth His life for the sheep.” He leaves the ninety and nine in the wilderness and goes after the one that was lost until He finds it.
The Eastern sheepfold is an enclosure, open to heaven, with a small place of shelter at the back, and enclosed with a rough, stone wall. At one corner there is a tiny doorway, but every shepherd is himself the door. He sleeps in the doorway to guard the sheep at night. He stands in the doorway as they come home in the evening, and examines every sheep before it goes in. He has a bowl of water for the thirsty sheep, and a bowl of oil for the wounded ones; he anoints with oil those whose heads have been bruised against the rocks. The imagery of the twenty-third Psalm does not change in the middle, as some have thought, to that of an indoor banquet; the imagery of the shepherd’s care is sustained throughout.16
The Shepherd and the King were blended in David and in David’s Son. A true king must always have the heart of a shepherd. When David saw the Angel of the Lord about to destroy Jerusalem, he cried: “I it is that have sinned, and done evil indeed; but as for these sheep, what have they done? Let Thine hand be on me … but not on Thy people” (1 Chron. 21:17).
“I will set up one Shepherd over them, and He shall feed them, even My Servant David; and He shall be their Shepherd” (Ezek. 34:23). He is:—
The Good Shepherd in death. John 10:11. See Ps. 22.
The Great Shepherd in resurrection. Heb. 13:20; Ps. 23.
The Chief Shepherd in glory. 1 Peter 5:4; Ps. 24.
6. 2 Samuel
David was three times anointed: first in his father’s house, then over Judah, and lastly over all Israel. God has anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the oil of gladness. He is King of kings and Lord of lords, but as David—though anointed king—was in exile while Saul reigned over the people, so Christ is rejected by the world, and the “Prince of this world” is reigning in the hearts of men.
A day came when the men of Judah gathered to David and anointed him king in Hebron. “The Spirit clothed Amasai and he said, Thine are we, David, and on thy side” (2 Sam. 2:4; 1 Chron. 12:18). It is a joyful day in the experience of the believer when he yields the full allegiance of his heart to the Lord Jesus Christ, and says, “Thine am I, and on Thy side”; when he can look up into His face and say, “Thou art my King” (Ps. 44:4).
“Now there was long war between the house of Saul and the house of David: but David waxed stronger and stronger, and the house of Saul waxed weaker and weaker” (2 Sam. 3:1), until at last Abner said to the elders of Israel: “Ye sought for David in times past to be king over you. Now then do it: for the Lord hath spoken of David, saying, By the hand of My servant David I will save My people Israel out of the hand of the Philistines, and out of the hand of all their enemies.” “Then came all the tribes of Israel to David unto Hebron, and spake, saying, Behold, we are thy bone and thy flesh… . And they anointed David king over Israel” (5:1-3). “One from among thy brethren shalt thou set king over thee: thou mayest not set a stranger over thee, which is not thy brother” (Deut. 17:15). “The king is near of kin to us” (2 Sam. 19:42). “In all things made like unto His brethren” (Heb. 2:17). Here we see all Israel united under their rightful king. A picture of a heart which is wholly true in its allegiance to the King of kings.
God’s promise to Israel was that He would save them from all their enemies by the hand of David. And this was literally fulfilled from the day that he slew Goliath all through his reign. We never read of his being defeated. So Christ has vanquished our great enemy, Satan. He has come “that we, being delivered out of the hand of our enemies, might serve Him without fear.” “He must reign till He hath put all enemies under His feet.” “Of the increase of His government and peace there shall be no end” (Isa. 9:7).
“And David took the stronghold of Zion.” This is like the central citadel of our will. When that is surrendered to the Lord His reign is established.
In the story of Mephibosheth we have a beautiful picture of the grace of our King, in bringing us nigh and making us “as one of the King’s sons,” “to eat bread at His table continually.” He brings us into His banqueting-house and bids us partake, saying, “Eat, O friends; drink, yea, drink abundantly, O beloved.” He Himself is the heavenly food, for He says, “The bread that I give is My flesh,” and “My flesh is meat indeed.”
David’s Sin. But any type of our blessed Saviour falls short somewhere. And David, as a type, is no exception. We come next to the record of David’s awful sin. How can such a sinner be described as “a man after God’s own heart”? All through the life of David there is one characteristic which marks him out from other men, and in special contrast to Saul, and that is his continual trust and confidence in God, his acknowledgment of God’s rule, his surrender to God’s will. The great desire of his heart was to build God’s House, yet when God sets him aside because he has been a man of war, he acquiesces with perfect grace in the Divine will. When Nathan brings home to his conscience the great sin of his life—absolute monarch that he is—he acknowledges it at once, and the depth of his penitence is such as only a heart that knows God can feel. For all time the fifty-first Psalm stands out as the expression of the deepest contrition of a repentant soul. In that Psalm, David speaks of a broken heart as the only sacrifice he has to offer, a sacrifice which God will not despise. And the high and Holy One that inhabiteth eternity goes further in His wondrous condescension and says, by the mouth of Isaiah, “I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones” (Isa. 57:15).
The Bible does not cloak sin, least of all in God’s own children. It does not spare God’s saints. There were steps leading up to David’s sin—his multiplying wives, his tarrying still at Jerusalem when he should have been at the war. It is always the case that there is backsliding of heart, before it is seen in outward act. David sinned grievously, but his repentance was immediate, deep, and sincere. God, indeed, blotted out his transgressions, according to the multitude of His tender mercies, but he did not remove the consequences of the sin: He chastened David through sore trials in his own family.
A Rebel. In the flight of Absalom after the murder of his brother we have a picture of a rebel soul far off from God. In David we have a picture of God’s sorrow over sinners. “The King wept very sore…And David mourned for his son every day…And the soul of David longed to go forth unto Absalom.” In the word of the wise woman of Tekoa, “God deviseth means, that he that is banished be not an outcast from Him” (2 Sam. 14:14, R.V.), we have an echo of God’s words: “Deliver him from going down to the pit, I have found a ransom,” or “atonement” (Job. 33:24, margin).
Even when Absalom was in rebellion the King commanded, “Deal gently, for my sake, with the young man, even with Absalom.” In this we see the forbearance of God with sinners. And when he heard of his death he cried: “O my son Absalom! my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!” David would fain have died for the rebel, but he could not. How this carries our thoughts on to One who was not only willing but able to lay down His life, the Just for the unjust, to bring us to God.
Love’s Allegiance. In David’s exile we have again a picture of the rejected Saviour. The eastern walls of Jerusalem are bounded by a deep ravine—the torrent-bed of the Kidron. When the rebellion of Absalom drove David from his own city, we can imagine him coming forth by an eastern gate—probably what answered to the modern gate of St. Stephen—and following the winding path down the rocky side of the valley. The King did not go alone. A band of faithful servants went with him; and a little in advance, six hundred Philistines from the city of Gath, under their leader, Ittai, the Gittite. David had probably won the hearts of these men during his tarriance in the Philistine city of Ziklag, some thirty years before, and now they were ready to stand by him in time of trouble. When David came up with this band at the bottom of the ravine, he tried to dissuade Ittai from following him. He besought him as a stranger, and as one who had but recently joined his service, not to attach himself to a doubtful cause, and he bade him return with his blessing. But Ittai was firm, his place, whether in life or in death, was by the master he loved. Touched by such devoted allegiance, David allowed Ittai to pass over the torrent-bed with all his men, and with the little ones that were with him—no doubt the families of the band. With the voice of weeping all the exiles passed over, and climbed the grassy slopes of the Mount of Olives on the other side. David set captains of thousands over the people that were with him—a third part under the hand of Ittai the Gittite. The devotion of his followers comes out at every turn. When they found that their King intended to go forth with them into the battle, they would on no account allow it, but restrained him with the words: “Thou shalt not go forth; for if the half of us die they will not care for us; but thou art worth ten thousand of us!”
A thousand years have passed. Again a rejected King goes forth from the Jerusalem gate, and down the pathway into the dark valley, and up the slopes of Olivet. Instead of the strong band that went with David, there are but eleven men to go with David’s Son, and of the chosen three not one remains awake to share His agony. “I have trodden the wine-press alone, and of the people there was none with Me.” The enthusiasm of David’s followers led them to restrain him from going into the battle. But when the soldiers came to take the Lord of Glory, His little body-guard all forsook Him and fled, and He who is the chiefest among ten thousand, and altogether lovely, laid down His life for rebels and deserters.
Nearly two thousand years have passed since then. “Our Lord is still rejected and by the world disowned.” There is still the golden opportunity today of making His heart glad by such a devotion as Ittai’s. We are His blood-bought possession. It is His purpose that we should share His glory throughout eternity. And He claims our heart’s love now.
Hushai the Archite and Zadok and Abiathar were to represent the King at the very centre of rebellion—“in the world, but not of it”; ambassadors in an enemy’s country. In Shimei, who cursed David in his rejection, we have a picture of those who reviled Jesus, wagging their heads and mocking Him.
“I will smite the King only,” was Ahithophel’s advice to Absalom, “and I will bring back all the people unto thee.” “Smite the Shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered.” Jesus, our Shepherd, was “stricken, smitten of God” for us. And the King passed over Jordan, that river of death.
The Return or the King. We have a vivid picture of the return of David to the city of Zion. The people clamoured for the return of the King. “Now, therefore, why speak ye not a word of bringing the King back?” The King heard of this and sent an encouraging message to the elders. “And the heart of all the men of Judah was bowed to the King, even as the heart of one man; so that they sent this word unto the King, Return thou, and all thy servants.”
“Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.” According to Eastern custom, the men of Judah went right over Jordan to meet their King, and bring him back, and the crowd of rejoicing subjects increased as they drew near the city. One day the cry will go forth, “Behold, the Bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet Him.” Then “the dead in Christ shall rise first,” and the saints that are alive on the earth shall be caught up to meet Him in the air. Our King has set this certainty of hope before us, and calls us to live in the joyful expectation of it. This should lead to faithfulness in service—“Behold, I come quickly; and My reward is with Me, to give every man according as his work shall be” (Rev. 22:12)—and to holiness of life (Titus 2:11-14).
A Gospel for the Hopeless. The “Mighty Men” of David’s kingdom were those who came to him in the time of his exile, when he was fleeing from Saul. They were escaped outlaws and criminals, but under David’s leadership they became brave, self-controlled, magnanimous men, like their captain. “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 was with him about four hundred men” (1 Sam. 22:2). “This Man receiveth sinners.” It is a glorious Gospel that is committed to our trust! It is the Gospel for the outcast, for the refuse of society. It is the gospel of hope for the worst and the lowest. The transforming power of the Cross of Christ is seen in changed lives wherever the Gospel is preached.
7. 1 Kings
We need the magnificent reign of Solomon, the Prince of Peace, to complete the picture of Christ as King. The Lord said to David: “Behold, a son shall be born to thee, who shall be a man of rest; and I will give him rest from all his enemies round about; for his name shall be Peaceable, and I will give peace and quietness in Israel in his days.” Solomon’s peaceable kingdom was the result of the victories David had obtained. It is because Christ has fought and conquered our enemies that we can enjoy the peace of His glorious reign in our hearts. The Kingdom of God is “righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost” (1 Chron. 22:9, margin; Rom. 14:17).
The Temple. The glory of Solomon’s reign was the building of the Temple. He seems to have been raised up specially for this purpose, for David says: “He hath chosen Solomon my son to sit upon the throne of the kingdom of the Lord over Israel. And He said unto me, Solomon thy son, he shall build My house and My courts…Take heed now, for the Lord hath chosen thee to build an house for the sanctuary: be strong, and do it” (1 Chron. 28:5-10). But for the account of the Temple we will wait till we come to the Book of Chronicles.
“Solomon in all his Glory.” The wisdom of Solomon is a foreshadowing of the wisdom of Christ, in “whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”
Psalm 72 is “a Psalm for Solomon.” It describes the glory of his kingdom, but it finds its perfect fulfilment only in the reign of One greater than Solomon, who shall indeed one day “have dominion from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth.” But though the millennial fulfilment of this Psalm is yet to come, it has a fulfilment already in those hearts where the King is reigning in righteousness. Solomon said to Hiram, King of Tyre, “The Lord my God hath given me rest on every side, so that there is neither adversary nor evil occurrent” (1 Kings 5:4). The magnificence of his kingdom is described in 1 Kings 4:21-34: “And Solomon reigned over all the kingdoms, from the river unto the land of the Philistines, and unto the border of Egypt: they brought presents, and served Solomon all the days of his life…And he had peace on all sides round about him. And Judah and Israel dwelt safely, every man under his vine and under his fig-tree.”
The Queen of Sheba. Our Lord Himself draws the contrast between the Queen of Sheba, who “came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon,” and the men of His generation, who were so indifferent though “a Greater than Solomon” was among them. Following the same line of thought, the visit of this Queen is a beautiful picture of a soul coming to the Saviour and finding full satisfaction in Him. She came from afar off, and we “who sometimes were afar off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.” She brought all her hard questions to Solomon, and communed with him of all that was in her heart. We may bring all our difficulties to the Lord, and we shall find, as she did, that “there is not anything hid from the King” which He cannot solve for us. We too shall find that He is “made unto us wisdom.” And when she had seen all his wisdom, and riches, and the appointments of his kingdom, and his marvellous buildings, there was no more spirit in her. And she said: “It was a true report that I heard in mine own land of thy acts, and of thy wisdom. Howbeit I believed not the words, until I came, and mine eyes had seen it; and, behold, the half was not told me: thy wisdom and prosperity exceedeth the fame that I heard. Happy are thy men, happy are these thy servants, which stand continually before thee, and that hear thy wisdom. Blessed be the Lord thy God, which delighted in thee, to set thee on the throne of Israel: because the Lord loved Israel for ever, therefore made He thee king, to do judgment and justice” (ch. 10).
“A True Report.” The Gospel message is the “report” which drew us from the far country of alienation to seek the King. And when we have really come near, and our eyes have seen Him in His beauty, we too can say the half “was not told me.” We find that His service is, indeed, a happy service, and that God has indeed proved His love in giving us such a King, not as the Queen of Sheba knew Solomon, in a passing visit, but to be our King for ever. “And King Solomon gave unto the Queen of Sheba all her desire, whatsoever she asked, beside that which Solomon gave her of his royal bounty.” And so our King gives to us “according to His riches in glory.”
Failure. Again we see failure written over every human life. Solomon failed in exactly those things against which the Law of God has warned the future kings of His people (Deut. 17:16, 17): “He shall not multiply horses to himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt, to the end that he should multiply horses…Neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold.” “Neither shall he multiply wives to himself, that his heart turn not away.” Solomon did all three. And, moreover, the multitude of his wives were taken from the heathen nations, whom God had expressly commanded them not to marry, lest they should turn away the heart of His people to other gods. This is exactly what came to pass. “When Solomon was old, his wives turned away his heart after other gods: and his heart was not perfect with the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father-” (1 Kings 11:4).
Disaster. On this account God stirred up enemies to Solomon, and his reign ended in disaster, and at his death his kingdom was rent asunder, and only Judah and Benjamin were left to his son Rehoboam, while all Israel made Jeroboam, his servant, king. “And to his (Solomon’s) son will I give one tribe (that is the tribe of Benjamin, which remained steadfast to the kingdom of Judah), that David My servant may have a light alway before Me in Jerusalem, the city which I have chosen for Myself to put My name there” (1 Kings 11:36). “To give any one a lamp in a place came to mean to establish his house and line in that place. It must be borne in mind that the city of Jerusalem, and all its northern suburbs, stood in the territory of Benjamin. Had this tribe joined the ten in their revolt against the throne of Solomon, the royal city could not have remained, as God had promised it should, the dwelling-place of the kings of David’s line; that is, in the highly figurative language of Bible lands, their lamp in the Holy City would have been put out.”17
The Kingdom divided. Then follows the history of the divided kingdom—a picture of the divided heart and of the impossibility of serving two masters. The kings of Israel followed the example of “Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin,” by setting up the worship of the golden calves, and all their kings were given to idolatry. The history of the Kingdom of Israel is an almost unbroken story of wickedness, king after king coming to the throne through the murder of his predecessor.
2 Kings 17 gives us the account of the Captivity of Israel, and goes fully into the reason of this punishment. They had descended to the very level of the nations whom God had bade His people drive out of the land—exactly what He had predicted as the result of their disobedience had come to pass. They forsook the Lord, and served the gods of the heathen, and walked in their ways, and wrought according to their wickedness, and therefore God permitted the King of Assyria to carry Israel away captive into Assyria, according to His warning, given by Moses in Deut. 29:24-28. “And the Lord rejected all the seed of Israel, and afflicted them, and delivered them into the hand of spoilers, until He had cast them out of His sight” (2 Kings 17:20).
The Prophets. Long before the outward semblance of royalty had disappeared, God had transferred the power from the kings to the prophets. Out of the darkness of this evil time two figures stand forth as His witnesses, showing us that through all the failure God was quietly working onwards towards His eternal Kingdom of Righteousness.
Elijah and Elisha, in the contrast of their characters and of their mission, remind us of John the Baptist and of our Saviour. Our Lord Himself referred to John the Baptist as fulfilling the prophecy that Elijah must first come before the coming of the Son of Man. “Elias verily has come,” He said. Elijah, the rugged prophet of the wilderness, clad in his mantle and leathern girdle—the ordinary dress of the Fellaheen, which every prophet wore—suddenly bursts upon the scene in the court of Ahab, and pronounces the judgment of the Lord. “As the Lord liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be night-mist,18 nor rain these years, but according to my word.” The secret of his power lay in those few words “before whom I stand.” He knew what it was to have power with God, and therefore he had power with man. He reminds us of John, clad in the same manner, at the court of Herod, denouncing as fearlessly the sins of that king.
On Mount Carmel it was “at the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice” that God sent the fire from heaven. We have several instances of deliverance coming at the time of the morning or evening sacrifice, reminding us of the power of the Cross which those sacrifices foreshadowed.
The Forerunner. When God was about to send the rain in answer to Elijah’s prayer, Elijah sent Ahab the message, “Prepare thy chariot, and get thee down, that the rain stop thee not.” And then it appears that Elijah acted the part of sais to Ahab. The modern sais of Egypt is the “runner” attached to the household of kings and nobles. The same custom was in vogue in Israel, for Samuel warned the people that the king they so eagerly desired would exact this oppressive custom of his subjects: “He will take your sons, and appoint them for himself, for his chariots, and to be his horsemen; and some shall run before his chariots.” “These facts lend great force to the act of Elijah, who, in an ecstasy of joy and zeal at the triumph of Jehovah, and desirous to ‘honour the King’ who for a brief moment had honoured God, when the hand of the Lord came upon him, girded up his loins, and ran before Ahab to the entrance of Jezreel—that is, for a distance of some twenty miles or more across the great plain of Esdraelon the man of God acted as the sais or runner of the King, clearing the way for his chariot and announcing his arrival!”19 Does not this office of outrunner explain the figure of Hebrews 6:20: “whither Jesus entered for us as a forerunner”? He who, in His condescension, has said that in heaven “He will gird Himself and make (His people) sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them,” is pictured here as having entered in only a brief moment earlier to announce their arrival and to be prepared to receive them there.
Elisha. Elisha’s was a ministry of blessing and healing. In this he was a type of Christ. We have, moreover, in the life and miracles of Elisha a series of most beautiful lessons on Christian life and service. “Ploughing one day with his father’s oxen and servants, in the open country, he saw the outlawed prophet of Gilead coming towards him. Passing by, he cast his mantle upon him. Elisha knew what the sign meant. He was a wealthy man. The call was to follow Elijah as a servant, pour water on his hands, perhaps to die with him. There was no time to think, the decision had to be made in a moment. The call of God in his heart was at once responded to. Obtaining leave to say farewell to his parents, he kills the oxen, smashes up the implements, and shows to all his companions that he has no more to do with his former life. God is calling each one of us, let us follow at whatever cost” (W. H. Wilson).
8. 2 Kings
Power for Service. The blessing that Elisha craved in asking for a double portion of the spirit of his master, when Elijah was about to be taken from him, was not to be twice as great, but to have the portion of the first-born son. The firstborn son inherited a double portion of his father’s property, twice as much as each of the other sons. Elisha asked to have the prophetic office, and with it the power of the Spirit to enable him to fulfil it. In this last scene we sometimes almost wonder whether we are in the Old Testament or the New. We have an ascending master, a waiting disciple, a descending power. “Ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto Me.” No Christian is exempt from the call to be a witness. Christ wants witnesses everywhere, and we cannot do it without His power. “Thou hast asked a hard thing.”
There are two conditions: (1) Absolute surrender. In his first call Elisha showed this thoroughness. He shows it now. Unhindered by the discouragement of others, and even by the seeming discouragement of his master, he pressed on from point to point, having counted the cost. It is a serious thing to follow Christ; He always bids us count the cost. At last it meant Jordan itself, death to the self-life. The baptism of the Spirit always means a baptism into the death of Christ. (2) The second condition was faith. “If thou see me when I shall be taken from thee, it shall be so.” He kept his eye fixed on his master. “And Elisha saw it.” The result was, he rent his own clothes—no more dependence on self—and took up the mantle of Elijah, for that was to be his only power now. He put it to the test at once, and was able to do the same works as Elijah had done. “The works that I do shall ye do also.” And the prophets found it out, and a life of blessing and service to others was the outcome (Rev. E. W. Moore).
Salt. The healing of the waters of Jericho at their source, by casting in salt from a new dish, touched the people of Elisha’s day, and is full of significance for us. It shows the power of the Gospel to change men’s lives at their source. Christ brought this life-giving power in His perfect manhood. But we may recognise the “new vessel” also in every renewed heart which brings the power of the Gospel to other lives. Christians are to be “the salt of the earth.” Dr. Thomson tells us there seems no reason to doubt the identity of the fountain which tradition points out as the scene of the miracle. The water is abundant, transparent, sweet and cool, and abounds in fish, and on the margin of this delightful brook grow a great number of bushes.
Ditches. The miracle by which water was brought to relieve the need of the hosts of Israel, Judah, and Edom, who had combined to put down the rebellion of Moab, also contains a lesson on the manner of the Spirit’s coming. When the hand of the Lord came upon Elisha, he said: “Make this valley full of ditches.” It was a valley to begin with, a low place, a place of humility. God’s rivers choose the valleys to flow in. Water always seeks the lowest level. But ditches had to be cut, the humbling work carried still further. If we would be the means of blessing to others, we must allow the Lord to cut His channels deep in our hearts. “For 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, and your beasts.” No sound, but the waters came. So it is with the Spirit:—
He came sweet influence to impart,
A gracious, willing Guest,
While He can find one humble heart
Wherein to rest.
“And 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.” Again we are reminded that it was Calvary that procured the blessing of Pentecost.
A Pot of Oil. In the multiplication of the widow’s pot of oil we have another illustration of the work of the Spirit. Again, it is a lesson of emptying. The poor widow had nothing in the house wherewith to discharge her debt, save a pot of oil. We also owe a debt we cannot pay. We are debtors to live after the Spirit, we are debtors to love one another, we are debtors to carry the Gospel both to the Greek and to the Barbarian, both to the wise and to the unwise. Nothing of our carnal nature can avail to discharge the debt. The oil—the Holy Spirit—will alone avail. But as in faith we begin, at God’s bidding, to pour it out into the empty vessels around us, we shall find that His supply is an inexhaustible one, and that the only limit is the measure of our expectation. “Go and pay thy debt, and live of the rest.” The power of the Spirit is enough both for life and for service.
Soul Winning. In the raising of the Shunammite’s son we have a lesson for the messenger of the Gospel. Gehazi had the outward symbol of office without the power. When he laid the prophet’s staff upon the dead child nothing happened. But with Elisha was the secret of the Lord. “He went in, and shut the door upon them twain, and prayed unto the Lord. And he went up, and lay upon the child, and put his mouth upon his mouth, and his eyes upon his eyes, and his hands upon his hands; and he stretched himself upon the child, and the flesh of the child waxed warm.” We see in the action of Elisha the secret of dependence upon God, of power in prayer, of personal influence. It gives us a picture of how much it costs to win souls; he seemed to give his very life, as Paul was ready to do when he said, “We were willing to have imparted unto you, not the Gospel of God only, but also our own souls, because ye were dear unto us” (1 Thess. 2:8).
Influence. In the healing of the deadly pottage we have a picture of how a Christian may cleanse the moral atmosphere around him, or purify the conversation, by the introduction of an element that is positively good.
In the multiplying of the barley loaves we have a foreshadowing of a greater miracle by the shores of the Sea of Galilee.
Naaman. And now we come to the healing of Naaman the Syrian, and in it we see the whole Gospel in miniature. Naaman, a great man, honourable, gracious, exalted, a victorious captain, a mighty man of valour—but he was a leper. There is that “but” in every life that has not come to Jesus Christ for cleansing. “If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with Me.” The leprosy of sin, be the outward show of it ever so slight, incurs God’s declaration “utterly unclean.” “If any man keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.” God says, “There is no difference: for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” Nine steps of humbling brought Naaman low enough to receive the blessing. He accepted the testimony of a little captive maid. He found it was not the great King of Israel who was to cleanse him. He found that the cleansing could not be bought, even with £7500. He had to go to the house of a poor prophet. The prophet did not even come out to work the miracle, but sent a message. He was to wash in the despised little river of Jordan. He had to be guided by the good advice of his servants. He had to obey. He had to become as a little child. “And he was clean!”
Before his cleansing Naaman said “I thought.” Now he could say “I know.” In some such manner God has to remove, one by one, all our preconceived notions of how we will be saved, and bring us to Calvary. We may hear the message of salvation from a very humble source. No good deeds or fancied merits of our own can purchase it. No earthly rivers of reformation or culture can remove the guilt of sin. There is only one thing in all the universe that can do it: “The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.”
The Lost Axe-Head. John M. Neil of Australia20 has drawn a lesson for us from the lost axe-head. We may lose that sharp axe-head, the power of the Spirit for service, by disobedience, by want of separation, by neglect of the Bible, by neglect of communion, by lack of faith. If you have lost it, go back and look for it. You will find it where you lost it: just there and nowhere else. Have you found the spot where obedience failed? Yield, and obey just there. Do not continue at work chopping with the axe-handle. Many do this; there is much effort but no results—no chips fly off at the stroke. If we have enjoyed and have lost the fulness of the Spirit, let us confess, betake ourselves to the open fountain, and obey, and He will put away our sin, and give us afresh of His fulness. For His sake, for the sake of souls, for our own sake, we must not try to live and labour without being filled.
Chariots of Fire. Elisha lived in the calm sense of God’s immediate presence. This was the secret of his power. When he and his servant were surrounded in the city of Dothan with the army of Syria, “a great host,” and the servant said, “Alas, Master! how shall we do?” Elisha said, “Fear not; for they that be with us are more than they that be with them. And Elisha prayed, and said, Lord I pray Thee, open his eyes, that he may see And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.” If we lived continually in the sense of God’s protecting presence what calm power there would be in our lives!
Witnessing. The four lepers who carried the good tidings of the plentiful supply in the deserted camp of the Syrians to the starving people of Samaria, are an example for us as Christians. If we have discovered the riches of Christ for ourselves, “we do not well to hold our peace.” We should make the same resolve they did: “Now therefore come, that we may go and tell the King’s household.”
Loyalty. “Is thine heart right?” said Jehu to Jehonadab the son of Rechab, “Is thine heart right, as my heart is with thy heart?” And Jehonadab answered, “It is.” “If it be, give me thine hand. And he gave him his hand; and he took him up with him into his chariot.” Our King sees us toiling along life’s journey, and He puts to us this question: “Is thy heart right towards Me? Lovest thou Me more than these?” If we can reply, “It is. Thou knowest that I love Thee,” our King, as it were, stretches out His hand and draws us up and seats us with Himself in heavenly places, and makes us to ride in His chariot of power. We have the same thought in the Book of Chronicles: “The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong on the behalf of those whose heart is perfect toward Him.”
The history of Judah is so bound up with the history of the Temple that it will be better for us to study it as a whole, in the Book of Chronicles. Those books, as we have already seen, are written from the Temple standpoint.
9. 1 Chronicles
These books cover the same period as 1 and 2 Kings, but they deal exclusively with the Kingdom of Judah and with the House of David. They impress the importance of the worship of God upon the people, and the interest centres round the Temple.
Genealogies. The first nine chapters of the book are taken up with genealogies. Unpromising as these chapters appear, much may be learnt from them. Perhaps the chief lesson is that of God’s selection.
Chapter 10 gives an account of Saul’s miserable end, and chapter 11 opens with the anointing of David king over Judah in Hebron.
Bringing the Ark to Zion. One of the first acts of David was to fetch the Ark of the Lord from the house of Abinadab, at Jabesh Gilead, to bring it to Zion. For twenty years the Ark with its mercy-seat, God’s appointed meeting-place with His people, was neglected and almost forgotten—a true picture of a heart out of communion with God. God ordained that the Ark should always be carried on the shoulders of the Levites, but they seem to have thought they could improve on God’s plan, and the result of disobedience was death. God blessed the house of Obed-edom during the three months the Ark remained there, and David was encouraged to bring it to Mount Zion, to the tent he had prepared for it.
David had now learnt the lesson of obedience, for he says: “None ought to carry the Ark of God but the Levites, for them hath the Lord chosen to carry the Ark of God and to minister unto Him for ever. And David gathered all Israel together to Jerusalem, to bring up the Ark of the Lord unto his place.” For he desired to impress the whole nation with the importance of the event. The priests and Levites and singers, with their instruments of music, were each appointed to their several places. And David was clothed with a robe of fine linen and “danced before the Lord with all his might” (2 Sam. 6:14). It is a common sight today, in “the changeless East,” in any procession, to see a man dancing with strange attitudes to do honour to the bridegroom, or other hero of the day, and the more grotesque his attitudes the more honour is done. The man dances backwards, and with his dress girded to give free play to his limbs, as the common peasants gird themselves for active work. Thus, no doubt, David danced to do honour to God’s Ark.21 Michal, the daughter of Saul, looked out at a window and saw him dancing and playing, and she despised him in her heart. The enthusiasm of God’s people is still a matter of ridicule with the world, but would there were a little more of it in these days when people are more readily enthusiastic about anything else than His service! The Son of David showed such enthusiasm in the cleansing of the Temple that His disciples applied to Him the words, “The zeal of Thine House hath eaten Me up.”
Sacrifices were offered as the Ark left the house of Obed-edom; and, again, when it was set in the tent on Mount Zion, they offered burnt sacrifices and peace offerings. The bringing of the Ark to Zion was typical of restored communion. In the presence of the Ark, with its blood-stained mercy-seat, the peace offerings could be offered. The peace offering included a meal of which the offerer partook before God. Reconciled and accepted, he was now God’s guest and was privileged to eat bread in His presence. The joy which accompanied the bringing back of the Ark, and the feeding of the people with bread and meat and wine, are symbolic of the joy of restored communion and feeding upon Christ.
God’s Promise to David. The great desire of David’s heart was to build a temple for the Lord. God set this on one side because David had “shed much blood upon the earth,” but He promised that a son should be born unto him, who should be “a man of rest,” and should build Him a house, and God would establish his throne for ever.
David accepted God’s decision without a murmur, and poured forth a song of praise for the condescension of His promise. In the promised Son we see “a Greater than Solomon.” “Thou shalt call His name Jesus. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God shall give unto Him the throne of His father David: and He shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of His kingdom there shall be no end” (Luke 1:31-33).
The preservation of Israel as a nation is guaranteed till the end of time, “as long as the sun and the moon endure” (Jer. 31:35-37). David’s throne is secured as permanently, with the added sign, “and as the faithful witness in the sky” the rainbow (Ps. 89:3, 4, 27-37). David’s Son shall sit upon David’s throne in Jerusalem. Christ Jesus “is the only Person alive now as known to be of David’s seed, and as possessing a right to David’s throne.”22
Mount Moriah. The next event in the history of the Temple was brought about through David’s sin in numbering the people. His sin in this was no doubt twofold. First, pride at the greatness of his kingdom; second, no mention is made of the tribute money having been paid, as commanded by the Law of Moses, at the time of the census. “When thou takest the sum of the Children of Israel after their number, then shall they give every man a ransom for his soul unto the Lord, when thou numberest them; that there be no plague among them, when thou numberest them” (Exod. 30:12). The half shekel of silver, given by every man when he was numbered, was the token that the people belonged to the Lord: it was an acknowledgment of His right to their lives. This was evidently omitted in David’s reign, and the plague came upon the people. The plague was stayed at the threshing-floor of Oman the Jebusite, on Mount Moriah, and David bought the threshing-floor from Oman for fifty shekels of silver “and built there an altar unto the Lord, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings, and called upon the Lord; and He answered him from heaven by fire upon the altar of burnt offering” (1 Chron. 21:26). Thus the Temple, as well as the Tabernacle, rested upon the foundation of the silver of redemption money. Mount Moriah was also the place of Abraham’s sacrifice. All these circumstances are more than coincidences; they fall into their place in God’s great plan of redemption.
David also bought the makoam (translated “place”) of the threshing-floor from Oman for six hundred shekels of gold. These mahoams were sacred places, the “places” of the Canaanites (Deut. 12:2, 3), similar to the bamoth or “high places” so frequently mentioned in Scripture. They abound in Palestine today, and are called by the same word in the Arabic, mukam, “place,” and are very valuable, often bringing in great gain to their owners through those who come to worship there. This might account for David having to pay such a high price for the makoam as recorded in Chronicles, though he only paid fifty shekels of silver for the threshing-floor as recorded in Kings. They appear to have been two separate transactions. Oman the Jebusite was one of the Canaanitish inhabitants of the land. The place was evidently a makoam as long back as the time when Abraham was told to offer Isaac on what was probably the same spot, for the word occurs four times in the brief narrative, applied to the summit of Moriah, afterwards to be Jehovah’s great makoam, where He would “record His Name” and place His temple. For Jehovah also would have His makoam. “Offer not thy burnt offering in every makoam thou seest: but in the malcoam that Jehovah shall choose in one of thy tribes, there thou shalt offer thy burnt offerings” (Deut. 12:13, 14).23
“In 2 Sam. 24:24 we read that David bought the oxen and threshing-floor of Araunah for fifty shekels of silver. From 1 Chron. 21:25 we learn that David gave six hundred shekels of gold for the place. It is extraordinary that any honest and intelligent mind could find a difficulty here. Fifty shekels of silver were presumably a fair price, though to us it seems very little, for the oxen and for the temporary use of the threshing-floor, for the purpose of the sacrifice. And this was all that the king had in view at the moment. The English reader must not base anything on the force of the English words ‘buy’ and ‘bought’ in 2 Sam. 24:24. The narrative in Chronicles suggests that it was the Lord’s ‘answering by fire’ that led the king to go on to the purchase of the ‘place.’ But does any one imagine that the fee simple of ‘the place’—the entire site of the Temple—was worth only fifty shekels? David went on to purchase the entire homestead out and out; and the price he paid for it was six hundred shekels of gold. And this is what the ‘Chronicler’ records.”24
David’s Preparation. “Solomon my son is young and tender,” said David, “and the house that is to be builded for the Lord must be exceeding magnifical, of fame and of glory throughout all countries.”
“So David prepared abundantly before his death,” and the princes and the people brought their offerings. “Then the people rejoiced, for that they offered willingly, because with perfect heart they offered willingly to the Lord: and David the king also rejoiced with great joy.” It is a marvellous thought that it brings joy to the heart of our King when we offer willingly to His service, whether it be ourselves or our dear ones, or our substance that we give. David’s thanksgiving shows the right attitude of heart, the recognition that all indeed belongs to God. “Who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly after this sort? for all things come of Thee, and of Thine own have we given Thee” (1 Chron. 29:14).
10. 2 Chronicles
The Building of the Temple. Solomon sent to Hiram, King of Tyre, for his help in building the Temple, in supplying both materials and workmen skilled in all manner of cunning work.
To raise the surrounding ground to a level with the threshing-floor on the summit, Solomon constructed a stupendous foundation platform—raised high above the valley beneath— of great hewed stones of white marble, polished and costly. When our Lord said that there should not be left one stone upon another that should not be thrown down, He was not speaking of the foundations underneath, but of the stones composing the Temple of Herod, built upon it. The foundation was built into the solid rock, a picture of the Rock of Ages, the foundation of God which standeth sure and which nothing can shake. That the whole of the Temple—like the Tabernacle—in its ministry, its furniture, and its services, is typical of Christ and His great work of man’s redemption, must be admitted by all who accept the inspiration of the Epistle to the Hebrews, which so clearly links together the Old and New Covenants, and shows them to be essentially one in their teaching.
We read of the heavenly City: “I saw no Temple therein: for the Lord Cod Almighty and the Lamb are the Temple of it.” And because it represents His work in redemption, His redeemed people also are included in the type. It is the consummation of God’s work through all the ages, Himself and all His people united in glory. Some of the foundation stones are from twenty to thirty feet in length, and fitted so closely together that even a pen-knife cannot be inserted between them. On some of these the Palestine Exploration Society found the quarry-marks in vermilion, to show where the stones were to be placed, for we read that “the house, when it was in building, was built of stone made ready before it was brought thither: so that there was neither hammer, nor axe, nor any tool of iron, heard in the house while it was in building” (1 Kings 6:7). All true believers in all ages are the living stones of that heavenly Temple, and God is preparing them in His quarry down here, amid the noise and tumult of earth, each for its place in His Temple above. Rugged and shapeless are the stones to begin with, no wonder that the blows of the hammer fall heavily, that the chisel is sharp, and the polishing severe before the stones are ready. But “oh for more mouldings of the Hand that works a change so vast!”
Every part of the Temple must be full of spiritual teaching, for David told Solomon that God had given him the pattern of it by the Spirit. It was a building of surpassing magnificence, and shone a mass of burnished gold beneath the splendour of that Eastern sky.
The Temple filled with Glory. When the work of the house of the Lord was finished, Solomon assembled all the elders of Israel to bring up the Ark of the Lord out of Zion the city of David. Then “the house was filled with a cloud, even the house of the Lord; so that the priests could not stand to minister by reason of the cloud: for the glory of the Lord had filled the house of the Lord.”
What a picture is here of the Holy Spirit coming to fill the heart which has been prepared for His coming, the heart cleansed by the precious blood of Christ and surrendered to him, and thus made fit to become a temple of the Holy Ghost (1 Cor. 6:19).
Solomon’s Prayer. Then follows Solomon’s prayer at the dedication of the Temple—a prayer which well repays careful study. It is based on the promises of God, as all prayer should be. He speaks of every man knowing the plague of his own heart, and then goes on to the deeper thought that only God knows the hearts of all the children of men (1 Kings 8:38, 39). In confessing our sin to God, what a rest it is to know that He knows all the worst about us, better even than we know it ourselves. “If our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things.” He can discriminate when we cannot, whether the condemnation we feel is the conviction of His Spirit, or only the false accusation of the enemy. And as we wait upon Him, if all is well He will give us His peace. “Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God” (1 John 3:20, 21).
In his prayer Solomon mentions six varied vicissitudes of human life, and asks that if the people repent and pray, looking towards that house which he had built, that God would hear in His dwelling-place and give His answer. This Solomon proposed to Jehovah as a covenant, and God replied with fire as the seal of His sanction. To understand this it must be remembered that, throughout the East to this day, all worshippers pray looking towards their sanctuary, whether it be the Mohammedans towards Mecca, or those who pray to the saints at the various makoams. Solomon desires from God that that which was falsely believed of all the idol temples around might be true in the case of Jehovah’s Temple. But more than this,—the Temple in every part of it was a type of the person and work of the Lord Christ and of His relations with His people; everywhere it sets forth Christ—in the sacrifices, in the Passover, in the High Priest, in everything. Therefore, though Solomon could not have known it, in the spirit of prophecy he is asking that those who look to Jesus, in drawing near to the Father, may be answered. It was only to say in symbol what the Master says in set words, “Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in My name He will give it you.”
In our study of 1 and 2 Kings we saw the disaster in which Solomon’s reign closed, and the division of the kingdom.
Even as early as in the reign of his son Rehoboam, “Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem, and took away the treasures of the house of the Lord” (2 Chron. 12:9). How soon was this beautiful Temple desolated! Later, even some of the kings robbed it to ward off an enemy.
Bright Spots. During the long time of departure from God which followed, we find here and there a king who stood forth for God and for His worship.
To Asa God sent a message by Azariah the prophet, the son of Obed, and when Asa heard his words “he took courage, and put away all the abominable idols out of all the land of Judah and Benjamin.” And he removed his mother from being queen because she had made an idol in a grove, and he made a covenant with the Lord, and enriched the house of God with gold and silver.
Jehoshaphat, his son, sent Levites throughout all the cities of Judah to teach the book of the Law of the Lord—a proof that Israel possessed the Law at this time. The account of Jehoshaphat’s victory over the Ammonites and Moabites is one of the greatest encouragements to a simple reliance on God in the face of insurmountable difficulties. “Be not afraid … the battle is not yours, but God’s…Ye shall not need to fight in this battle: set yourselves, stand ye still, and see the salvation of the Lord.” “And when they began to sing and to praise, the Lord set ambushments,” and their enemies were scattered.
Failure. Then followed the evil reigns of Jehoshaphat’s son, Jehoram, and his grandson, Ahaziah. After Ahaziah had been slain by Jehu, his wicked mother, Athaliah, “destroyed all the seed royal of the house of Judah.” But Joash, the little son of Ahaziah, was saved, and he was hidden in the Temple six years. Then Jehoiada the priest brought him out and made him king, and Athaliah was slain. Under the influence of Jehoiada, Joash repaired the Temple which Athaliah had broken up to bestow the dedicated things upon Baalim. But after the death of Jehoiada Joash lapsed into idolatry, and, at the instigation of the princes of Judah he slew Zechariah, the son of Jehoiada, who was sent to rebuke him.
His grandson, Uzziah, sinned against the Lord in burning incense in the Temple, and in punishment for this he became a leper till the day of his death.
Uzziah’s great-grandson, Hezekiah, “opened the doors of the house of the Lord and repaired them.” And he cleansed the Temple, and commanded the priests and Levites to sanctify themselves, and he offered sacrifices and kept the Passover, “so there was great joy in Jerusalem: for since the time of Solomon, son of David, king of Israel, there was not like it in Jerusalem.”
Hezekiah’s great-grandson, Josiah, carried out similar reforms. He purged Jerusalem from its idolatries, and repaired the house of the Lord. It was during this work of repair that Hilkiah, the priest, found in the Temple the book of the Law of the Lord given by Moses, and sent it by Shaphan the scribe to the king, and Shaphan read it before the king. When Josiah heard the words of the Law he rent his clothes in grief over this neglected Law which they had failed to keep. He sent to inquire of the Lord; and Huldah, the prophetess, told him of the evil that should come on Jerusalem and the inhabitants; but because Josiah had humbled himself the evil should not come in his day.
The young king stood by a pillar in the Temple and made a covenant with the Lord, and he kept the Passover. “And 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” (2 Chron. 35:18).
Captivity. But troublous times followed this good reign. God sent His messengers to the people, but they mocked and despised them, “until the wrath of the Lord rose against His people, till there was no remedy. Therefore He brought upon them the king of the Chaldees, who slew their young men with the sword in the house of the sanctuary, and carried the vessels of the house of the Lord to Babylon, and burnt the house of the Lord, and brake down the walls of Jerusalem, and burnt all the palaces. And them that had escaped the sword carried he away to Babylon; where they were servants to him and to his sons until the reign of the kingdom of Persia.”
11. Ezra
The decree of Cyrus is one of the most remarkable proofs that God’s Spirit speaks to those outside the covenant of His grace. Seventy years before, Jeremiah had prophesied the return of the Children of Israel from Babylon at this time. Isaiah, a hundred and seventy years before, foretold that one who did not know God, but whom He called by name—Cyrus—was to perform all God’s will in the restoration of His people. The Hebrew text reads Koresh for this name, instead of Kuresh, which latter would be the exact form for Cyrus. But the Hebrew points (vowel signs) were not inspired—not occurring in the ancient MSS.; the word, therefore, could be read either way, and no doubt is to be read Kuresh, when it exactly represents Cyrus. A marvellous prophecy, naming him long before he was born. It may well be that Daniel drew the attention of the great Persian conqueror to these prophecies, and that Cyrus learned much from him about the religion of the one true God.
God’s Spirit was at work also among His people, stirring many of them up to take this opportunity to return to Jerusalem and build the Temple. It was only the bitter persecution they had met with in Egypt that led them to come out from that land, leaving not a soul behind. In Babylon, on the other hand, they had prospered, and it was only those “whose spirit God had raised” who were willing to go back under the leadership of Zerubbabel and Joshua the priest. They numbered in all nearly 50,000; a very small remnant compared to the numbers in the old days of Israel’s prosperity, and also compared to the number who remained behind in Babylon.
Restoration. The Key-note of this book is Restoration; for in this faithful remnant we have a picture of restoration from backsliding, of individual faithfulness, and of a true effort after a closer walk with God. The worldliness and unbelief that we see all around us in the Church today need be no hindrance to a faithful walk, on our part, with the God who is still calling us to come out and be separate unto Himself.
The restored remnant seem to have begun at the core, and to have worked from within outwards. They did not begin with building up the walls, nor even with building the Temple, but “they builded the altar of the God of Israel, to offer burnt offerings thereon, as it is written in the Law of Moses, the man of God, and they kept the feast of Tabernacles.” At the very heart of this book we see Christ and His great atoning work in these burnt offerings. The restored people are pointed forwards to Him that was to come. And every soul that returns from its backsliding today must begin afresh at the foot of the Cross.
The next step was laying the foundation of the Temple amidst praise and thanksgiving. But some of the old men who remembered the glory of the former house wept with a loud voice, so that the people could not distinguish between the shouts of joy and of weeping. As the restored soul rests back upon the one foundation—Christ Jesus—there is mingled the sadness over wasted days with the joy of restored communion.
Separation. “We next come to a very practical lesson for the Church of Christ today, on the need of separation for (Service. The adversaries of the Jews were the semi-heathen Samaritans (chap. 4:1, 9, 10) whom Shalmaneser, King of Assyria, had transplanted to the cities of Samaria, in the place of the captives whom he had carried into Assyria at the time of the captivity of the ten tribes. We have a full account of this in 2 Kings 17. There we read, also, that the King of Assyria sent back one of the captive priests to teach these people what he called “the manner of the God of the land.” The result was that these people “feared the Lord and served their own gods”; and this mixed worship was perpetuated among their children.
These adversaries showed their hostility first by offering to help build the Temple. That is how the world often begins it.« hostility to the Church today; and we need to take the firm stand these restored Israelites took, and not compromise God’s work by accepting such offers of help, or placing unbelievers in prominent positions in our Churches and Sunday Schools. There is a growing tendency in these days to seek to bring about union with the Church of Rome, and meanwhile to join with them in work, through blindness in recognising that they are as truly “adversaries” as were those to whom Zerubbabel refused any share of the building.
The true nature of these men soon came out. They harassed the people of Judah in their work, and at last succeeded in stopping them. But the Lord sent the prophets Haggai and Zechariah, who so encouraged the leaders, that they began to build again in spite of the opposition. Then Tatnai the Governor asked them, “Who gave you a decree to build this house?” Not believing their answer he sent to Darius the king to inquire. The decree of Cyrus was found at Achmetha, or Ecbatana, the summer palace of the king; and, encouraged in every way by Darius, the building went forward to its completion.
The Samaritan Pentateuch. The Samaritans were fiercely hostile to the Jews at this time, as we have seen, and their hostility was no less during the days of Ezra and Nehemiah, eighty years, and a hundred years, later. In view of this hostility it is certain that the Samaritans would not have accepted any additions or alterations in the Pentateuch made by Ezra, for, as we have already seen, they had been taught by a Jewish teacher, sent by the King of Assyria, “the way of the God of the land,” which they could only have learnt from the writings of Moses as they then were. They had had these writings—or the teaching drawn from them—in their possession a hundred and seventy years before Ezra’s day, and would never have allowed any additions to be made to them by this their great enemy, or, indeed, by any of the Jews, whom they so scorned and hated. The enmity, we know, was continued down to the time of our Lord, and yet the Samaritans, to this day, possess the whole Pentateuch, which is virtually the same as the Pentateuch of our Hebrew Bible. We seem, then, driven to the conclusion that they must have received their Pentateuch before their enmity with the Jews commenced, which it did eighty years before Ezra’s arrival at Jerusalem. The existence of the Samaritan Pentateuch—written as it is in the ancient Phoenician style of writing—is a very substantial witness to its antiquity (Dr. Rouse). We have also abundant evidence in this book that the Israelites likewise possessed the Law of Moses, the man of God, before the days of Ezra. The altar and burnt offerings and feast of Tabernacles of Zerubbabel’s day add their testimony to the fact.
As soon as the Temple was finished the people kept the dedication of it with joy, and among their offerings were “twelve he goats according to the number of the twelve tribes of Israel” (Ezra 6:16). This is one of the proofs that among the remnant which returned were some of the ten tribes of Israel, as well as of the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin; as also in the next remnant, which returned under Ezra, when “twelve bullocks for all Israel” were offered (8:35). Besides this, before the captivity of Israel, large numbers of those ten tribes “fell away to Judah” on account of the idolatry of Israel (see 2 Chron. 11:14-17 and 31:6). The returned captives were properly representative of the entire nation, and so are the Jewish people throughout the world today, though a number of the ten tribes are no doubt to be found in the Nestorians of Persia.25 “The sharp contrast between Judah and Israel was given up in a strange land. To the ten tribes in the penitent sorrow of the exile the name of Jerusalem was again a dearly loved and cherished one.”26
After the dedication of the Temple the returned exiles kept the Passover. We do not often read of the keeping of this feast. In times of backsliding Israel neglected to keep the feasts of the Lord; the joy went out of their lives. But whenever we do read of the keeping of the Passover it carries our thoughts back to the Redemption in Egypt and forward to the Redemption wrought out for us on Calvary.
Ezra. Between the dedication of the Temple and the return of the next remnant under Ezra there is a gap of sixty years in the history of this book. Then God raised up a great reformer in Ezra. He was by birth a priest. But in Babylon there was no temple and no altar, so Ezra gave himself instead to the study of God’s Law. He was a ready scribe in the Law of Moses, because he had “prepared his heart to seek the Law of the Lord, and to do it, and to teach in Israel statutes and judgments.” God’s Law was burnt in upon his own soul, and lived out in his life, before he taught it to others. This enabled him to speak with the intensity of conviction.
It was a high tribute to Ezra’s character and ability that Artaxerxes the king gave him a letter authorising all the people of Israel, who were willing, to go with him, and commanding that he should be supplied with all that was needful for the house of God, and authorising him to set magistrates and judges to judge the people, and instructing him to teach them the Law of God.
Ezra attributes all his success, the favour of the king, the preparation of the people, the safety of the journey, to the good hand of his God upon him. He was in all things under the hand of the Lord. Only a few thousand gathered with him at the river Ahava, and there, with fasting and prayer, they committed their way unto the Lord, for Ezra was “ashamed” to ask for a guard of soldiers. No doubt the remembrance of God’s deliverance of His people under Esther, which had occurred during the interval of the sixty years, made Ezra doubly sure of His protection now.
A Man in dead Earnest. This interval had been once more a period of backsliding among the Jews at Jerusalem. They had again intermarried with the idolatrous nations around. The only reason for Israel’s existence as a nation was to be a holy people, separated unto the Lord; and when Ezra heard how utterly Israel had failed he was overcome with grief and “sat down astonied until the evening sacrifice.” Again, at that sacred hour relief came. He poured out his soul in a deep agony of prayer to God, associating himself with his people in confession of sin. His prayer, coming from his very heart, touched the hearts of the people, and, assembling in great numbers, men, women, and children, they caught the fire of his spirit and “wept very sore.” But this contrition did not end with weeping. They took sides with God against themselves, and promised to stand by Ezra in his work of reformation. It needed all Ezra’s courage to carry it through, and no doubt the authority of the king’s letter was part of God’s provision for His servant. Out of the whole population there were a hundred and twelve cases of these mixed marriages, and the Law of Moses was applied to them all.
12. Nehemiah
An interval of about twelve years had passed since the reforms of Ezra, when Nehemiah obtained leave of King Artaxerxes, to whom he bore the office of cup-bearer, to go up to Jerusalem. His spirit had been stirred by the news of the desolate condition of the city with its broken walls. Nehemiah found it even as he had heard, and he gathered the elders together and told them of the good hand of his God upon him, and they said, “Let us rise up and build. So they strengthened their hands for this good work.”
The Key-note of this book again is Restoration. It is practically a continuation of the Book of Ezra. In that we saw the Temple rebuilt; in this the walls. The restoration began at the heart of things and spread outwards. When the heart is right with God, and established as His dwelling-place, the outward work of His service in the world can go forward. This whole book is full of lessons for the servant of Christ. It begins with Nehemiah’s confession to God, in which he humbles himself on account of the condition of his people. Both beforehand in Shushan, and on the spot in Jerusalem, he makes himself acquainted with the details of the need. Throughout we find him a man of prayer. But he is not only that, he is a born statesman, and brings his natural powers into God’s service. He sees the power of co-operation, and he inspires a feeble people to accomplish a great work.
Hearty Service. In building the wall of Jerusalem, Nehemiah began at the Sheep Gate, and portioned out a complete circuit of the city. Frequently we read that “every man built over against his own house” (see 3:10, 23, 28, 29). Priests and rulers, goldsmiths and apothecaries, and merchants, worked side by side, brothers working together, and Shullum, the ruler of half Jerusalem, helped by his daughters. Several of the builders seem, cautiously, first to have undertaken one bit, and then having accomplished that, as their enthusiasm grew, to have volunteered for another. Such was Meremoth, the son of Urijah (ver. 4, 21), and Meshullam, the son of Berechiah, who repaired a piece of the wall, besides that over against his own chamber (ver. 4, 30), and Nehemiah, the son of Azbuk, whose work is described in three pieces (ver. 16). “Baruch, the 3on of Zabbai, earnestly repaired the other piece, from the turning of the wall unto the door of the house of Eliashib the high priest” (ver. 20). “We are told who set up the various gates, with the locks and the bars thereof. No detail of work done for His glory is overlooked by God, and He delights to place on record the humblest service.
Adversaries. But the descendants of the Samaritans, who had harassed Zerubbabel, were indefatigable in their efforts to hinder Nehemiah. First they mocked them: “What do these feeble Jews? that which they build, if a fox go up, he shall even break down their stone wall.” “Hear, O our God; for we are despised,” was Nehemiah’s prayer. “So built we the wall; and all the wall was joined together unto the half thereof: for the people had a mind to work” (4:1-6).
Mockery having failed, the enemy conspired to fight against Jerusalem. But Nehemiah says: “We made our prayer unto our God, and set a watch day and night.”
Watch, as if on that alone
Hung the issue of the day;
Pray, that grace may be sent down:
Watch and pray.
Nehemiah armed the builders, and gave orders that in what place they heard the sound of the trumpet they were to resort thither to defend the city.
Then the enemy tried stratagem, and four times sent a message to Nehemiah, asking him to meet them in the plain of Ono. Four times he sent the same reply, “I am doing a great work: why should the work cease, whilst I leave it, and come down to you?” If we have a good answer there is no need to vary it. Then they accused them of rebellion, and sought to weaken their hands and make them afraid, but Nehemiah replied to Tobiah: “There are no such things done as thou sayest, but thou feignest them out of thine own heart.” And as a last resort, one bade him take refuge in the Temple, “for they will come to slay thee.” “Should such a man as I flee?” was Nehemiah’s steadfast reply. “So the wall was finished in fifty and two days” (6:15).
Our soul’s enemies still use wiles and threats and plots, similar to all of these, if by any means they can hinder or discourage us from doing God’s work; and we need, like Nehemiah, to remember Who has commissioned us, and making our prayer unto Him, to disregard all suggestions that would weaken our hands.
Our Great High Priest. The register of those who first came from Babylon under Zerubbabel is again repeated here. And there were some of the priests who sought their register in the genealogy, but it could not be found, “therefore were they, as polluted, put from the priesthood. And the Tirshatha (Governor) said unto them, that they should not eat of the most holy things, till there stood up a priest with Urim and Thummim” (7:63-65).27 We have here one of those instances in the Old Testament when the Face of Christ suddenly shines upon us in the most unexpected and unlikely places. Merely a register and a few priests who could not find their place in it. But it makes our hearts thrill with the consciousness that we have a great High Priest—even Jesus—who has the Urim and Thummim, who is the “Perfect Light,” to whom all hearts are open, who can settle the question unhesitatingly as to our right to communion with God, answering to the eating of the most holy things, and as to our worthiness to act as His priests in blessing to others. Unclean, unworthy, polluted as we know we are, He has, by His own blood, entered in once for all into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us (Heb. 9:12, R.V.). And if we trust in His one sacrifice for sins for ever, we also may draw nigh and have communion with. Him, not once a year, or once a month, or once a week, merely, but day by day.
Christ is a great High Priest—not by genealogy from Aaron, but “after the order of Melchizedek,” who was “without genealogy” (Heb. 7:3, R.V.). Melchizedek’s genealogy was, no doubt, omitted to fit him all the more to be a type of Him who had no earthly father. God has called all believers in Christ to be Priests unto Him, and our right of priesthood depends upon whether we have been born again and have our names written, not in an earthly register, but in the Lamb’s Book of Life. He has, moreover, provided for our fitness in the present tenses of John’s Epistle. First, “The blood cleanseth,” so that there need never be any cloud between our souls and God. Second, “The anointing abideth,” so that there need never be any lack of the supply of His Spirit for service.
Ezra’s Preaching. The immediate result of the work of restoration was a great hunger for God’s Word. The people gathered themselves together as one man unto Ezra before the Water Gate, and begged him to bring forth the Book of the Law of Moses. Here Ezra, perhaps an old man now, comes forward again, and we see him and Nehemiah uniting in God’s service. We are given a striking picture of Ezra’s preaching. Already we have seen him as a reformer, and as a man of prayer, and now all his skill in the Law of the Lord comes out as he stands on that pulpit of wood—“made for the purpose”—with thirteen of the leaders of the people standing beside him, and all the people thronging round. He opened the roll of the book, and having prayed, read the Law distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused the people to understand it. Hour after hour, and subsequently day after day, they listened, men and women and children, “all that could understand.”
Such preaching stirred Jerusalem as Savonarola’s preaching stirred Florence. The people wept as they found how far short they had come of God’s will. But Ezra and Nehemiah and the Levites stilled the people, and told them not to weep, and from the context and what follows we gather that their weeping was turned into joy through yielding to God’s will and accepting its claim upon their lives. “And the people went their way … to make great mirth, because they had understood the words that were declared unto them” (8:12). “Great peace have they that love Thy Law.”
The Children of Israel sealed themselves under a solemn covenant to keep the Law, specially with regard to marriages with the heathen, to keeping the Sabbath, and to maintaining the worship of God.
The dedication of the walls was a joyful occasion, for “God had made them rejoice with great joy: the wives also and the children rejoiced; so that the joy of Jerusalem was heard even afar off” (12:43).
Backsliding once more. Once more twelve years have rolled away, and Nehemiah, who had been back at the Court of Shushan for a time, returned to Jerusalem, to find all the terms of the covenant broken and the Law disregarded. With a firm hand he dealt with all these abuses. Again the Law of Moses was brought out, and it was found written that the Ammonite and the Moabite should not come into the congregation of God for ever. Yet Eliashib, the priest, because he was allied unto Tobiah the Ammonite, had actually given over a chamber in the Temple to this enemy of the Lord. Nehemiah turned him out immediately. We need in these days to be careful that we do not let the ties of relationship weaken the straightforwardness of our testimony for the Lord.
Again Nehemiah contended with the rulers because he found that the service of the House of the Lord was neglected. Next he found a wholesale disregard of the Sabbath. The utter disregard of God’s Day is one of the evidences of the backslidden condition of the Church in our own time. It is rapidly growing upon our land, and, together with disobedience to parents, is a sign of the perilous times of these last days, when “Men shall be lovers of their own selves … lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God “ (2 Tim. 3:1-4).
“The Speech of Ashdod.” Lastly, Nehemiah found that, again, the Jews had married among the heathen, with the result that their children spoke half in the speech of Ashdod, and half in the Jews’ language. God has distinctly commanded that Christians shall marry “only in the Lord,” and that they shall “not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers.” When they disobey God’s distinct command in this, and marry those who are not Christians, it always brings sorrow. How often the argument is used that the Christian husband or wife will be able to win the loved one to the Lord’s side, but it is not to be expected that God will grant His blessing upon an act of disobedience, and the result that usually follows is that the Christian is drawn, it may be almost imperceptibly, to love the things of the world, and is found—together with the children of such a marriage—speaking “half in the speech of Ashdod,” and unable to speak as a citizen of the heavenly city. The spirit of compromise with the world mars the testimony for Christ of many a home which ought to be a witness for Him.
In all these breaches of the Law Nehemiah “contended with the Jews”; whether they were nobles or rulers or the common people, he dealt with them in the most summary manner, and did not rest till all was put right. This was no want of love on his part, for he was willing to spend and be spent for his people. It is an evidence of true love to deal faithfully with false teaching and wrong-doing of any kind. The Church of Christ would be in a purer state today if her leaders had had the courage to deal with disregard of God’s Law in the same spirit as Nehemiah dealt with it.
13. Esther
The Book of Esther is designed to show God’s providential care of His people. Though the name of God is not mentioned, the hand of God, ruling and over-ruling the events for the preservation of His people, can be seen throughout.28 In the Talmud the question is asked: “Where do we get Esther from the Law?” The answer is Deuteronomy 31:18, “And I will surely hide My face, or presence.” God was hiding His face from His people on account of their sins; they had deliberately chosen to continue in the land of their captivity among the heathen, instead of availing themselves of the opportunity of returning to Jerusalem with Zerubbabel. The events in this book occur during the sixty years between the return of that first remnant and of the second under Ezra.
Prayer. Though there is also no actual mention of prayer to God, it is distinctly implied in the mourning and fasting among the Jews when they heard the royal decree for their destruction (4:1-3); and again, when Esther ordered a three days’ fast among her people before she ventured to go before the king (4:16). The Feast of Purim, instituted by Esther and Mordecai, witnesses still, not only to the truth of the narrative, but to a nation’s gratitude and a memorial throughout all generations of their deliverance. “Their fastings and their cry” are also mentioned, and to whom could they cry but unto God? (9:17-32).
The Golden Sceptre. The king holding out the golden sceptre has been an encouragement to many a saint of God in bringing their petitions to the King of kings.
Thou art coming to a King;
Large petitions with thee bring;
For His grace and power are such,
None can ever ask too much.
We need never fear that our King will refuse us an audience, or that we shall incur His anger by drawing nigh; but there are seasons when He seems in a special manner to hold out the golden sceptre, and to give us more abundant access to Him in prayer.
Satan. Behind the personal enmity of Haman was the deeper malignity of Satan, seeking to make void the promises of God through the destruction of the whole Jewish race; for Xerxes was king over all the Jews in Palestine as well as over those in Persia and Babylon. Satan knew that the great Deliverer who was to arise of the House of David was to destroy his power, and we may trace his hand behind such events of history as Saul throwing his javelin at the youthful David, and Queen Athaliah’s attempt to destroy all the seed royal. But God turned aside the blow in the one case, and nourished the infant Joash in the Temple courts in the other. The same enmity of the devil prompted Herod to slay the babes of Bethlehem, but God delivered His Son by sending Him into Egypt. The great enemy succeeded in bruising His heel when he gathered together Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, against the Holy Child Jesus; but God raised Him from the dead.
Historic Accuracy. There is hardly a book in the Bible upon the trustworthiness of which there has been made so determined an attack as the Book of Esther. But the writings of Herodotus and the discoveries at Xerxes’ palace of Shushan by the Frenchman Dieulafoy, together bring out the truthfulness of every detail of the story.29 The relative position of the different parts of the palace and gardens fit in exactly with the account in this book. The vain and capricious character of Ahasuerus—the Xerxes of history—his extravagant feast, the Persian names of the courtiers, the golden couches, the sceptre, the seal, the scribes, the posts, are all matters of history, if space permitted to examine them in detail. In the account of the king’s feast (chap. 1:6) the hangings of the court are described as “white, green, and blue.” The word translated “green” is really an old Persian word meaning “fine cotton.” So it should read “hangings of fine purple and white cotton.” These, Xenophon tells us, were the royal colours of Persia. The pillars of marble have been found in the court of the garden, and it is clear that the pavement was a mosaic, as described in verse 6.
Salvation. There have been various attempts to trace elaborate types in the Book of Esther, but the simple fact stands out that here was one who was willing to lay down her life for her people. It is here that we find Christ in the Book of Esther. A picture of Him who was not only willing, but who actually did lay down His life for us, and through whose intercession salvation is assured to us.
Opportunity. But the great practical lesson for us in this book is the all-importance of using God-given opportunities. The power of life and death lies in these opportunities both to ourselves and to others. Mordecai was so sure of God’s working that he sent Esther this message: “If thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then shall there enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place; but thou and thy father’s house shall be destroyed: and who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” (4:14). We may be tempted to think that our opportunities are so insignificant, our circle of influence so small, that they are of little importance; if we were a great queen, like Esther, it would be a different matter. But “who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” Thou, whoever thou art, and whatever thy circumstances, thou art called to “reign in life by One, Jesus Christ.” See to it that thou dost not miss thy opportunity. God has a purpose for each one of our lives. He has placed us where He can best use us for His glory. If we fail just there, it may be that He will work out His purpose in some other way; but we shall suffer untold loss. Like Esther, we must be ready to take our life in our hand and risk everything in His service.
12 For authorities see The Scripture of Truth, by Sidney Collett, p, 287.
13 See The Biblical Guide, by Rev. John Urquhart, vol. 6. p. 140 et seq.
14 The Divine Title “Lord of Hosts”: a Problem for the Critics. Marshall
Bros., 10 Paternoster Row. Price 4d.
15 See Palestine Explored. Rev, Jas. Neil, M.A.
16 The Song of our Syrian Guest.
17 Palestine Explored. Rev. Jas. Neil, Nisbet and Co.
18 “The matar or ‘rain’ falls at all hours during winter, while the tal or ‘night Hoist’ falls in the night in summer and autumn” (Neil).
19 Palestine Explored, p. 28. Rev. J. Neil.
20 The Spirit-filed Life. Marshall Brothers.
21 Pictured Palestine, pp. 166 and 228. Rev. James Neil.
22 Israel, My Glory, p. 82. Rev. John Wilkinson.
23 Pictured Palestine, chap. v. Rev. James Neil.
24 The Bible and Modern Criticism, p. 161. Sir Robt. Anderson.
25 Israel My Glory, p. 101. Rev. John Wilkinson.
26 Commentary on Esther, p. 50. Dr. Cassel.
27 Urim and Thummim, “Lights and Perfections.” In Hebrew, when two nouns occur together in this form, one is to be understood as an adjective, making it especially emphatic. Thus, this should be translated “perfect light,” for the plural form here is the Hebrew “plural of majesty.” See also page 41.
28 Dr. Bullinger points out that some Hebrew scholars have found the name Jehovah four times repeated in acrostic form in the Book of Esther.
29 M. Dieulafoy has set up the bithan (apadana, the great banqueting-hall or throne-room) in the museum of the Louvre, where one can now see the remains of the marble pillars, and of the marble pavement, of the hall of the feast” (New Biblical Guide, vol. 7. p. 359. Rev. John Urquhart).