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attested. The very idea of a theocracy was essentially an idea of uniformity. The personal and almost immediate rule of God, to whose actual presence with the people mighty works were continually bearing witness, necessarily supposed a universal and uniform obedience. The Gospel comes to men with all the old responsibilities touching obedience, but with a vastly enlarged measure of liberty. Christianity is emphatically a choice, not a compulsion.

Christ stands by even His twelve apostles, and, while others are actually departing, says to them too, "Will ye also go away?" They could if they would. The sharply defined commands of the law of Moses stand out in strange contrast to the tender pleadings and tears of Jesus, and the very pathos of the Saviour's entreaties supposes the misused liberty of those who so long rejected them. Under the Old Testament, and to the extent of those limits covered by the theocracy, the Church was the world; under the Gospel, the Church is in the world. In a word, under the Old Testament system, which regarded every Israelite as bound under severe penalties to serve God, the tithing of all Israel was logical and natural; under the Gospel, which appeals to men for voluntary discipleship, the compulsory and indiscriminate tithing of men, irrespective of the fact that many of them may reject the Gospel, carries an untruth upon its very face. It is, virtually, making Christ to say, "I give you liberty to accept the Gospel, or not; I give you no liberty whatever in the matter of paying for its support; a position which would degrade the Saviour by the suggestion that His mercenary concern about human gifts was so much in excess of His spiritual concern for the souls for which He died.

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While, however, the method of supporting those who minister in religious service essentially differs under the two dispensations, the principle laid down here is not lost sight of in the New Testament. "Even so hath the Lord ordained that they which preach the Gospel should live of the Gospel." Those who devote their lives to the spiritual welfare of their fellows are, no less than the Levites of old, to be set

as free as possible from the anxieties of procuring the necessaries of life.

II. Men with special religious necessities and peculiar spiritual privileges. 1. The Lord God is the inheritance of all who serve God. Every true Israelite had a portion in the Lord. (a) Men may participate in this inheritance irrespective of family. Judah, Simeon, Ephraim, Levi, or either of the other tribes-it mattered not which— all might seek and find a possession in God. This most glorious of all estates came through no particular parentage, as such. (b) Men may participate in this inheritance, notwithstanding past history. history. The degradation of Egypt. The sins of the wilderness. Grace hides the past, blotting out even the worst transgressions. (c) Men cannot participate in this inheritance without regard to the present. Only a godly heart and a godly life can inherit God. When Israel forsook the Lord, the fact that they were known as God's people did not secure them an inheritance in Him. This estate cannot be " conveyed" to a heart without love, or to a life devoid of holiness. 2. This Divine inheritance is ever adapted to the variety and stress of human want. The Levites were called to serve their brethren in a most responsible work, and God promised Himself to them for a peculiar possession. With God for an inheri tance, and a heart right towards Him, great spiritual wants do but make way for a large measure of Divine mercy and help. 3. Thus he who has God for his inheritance may well feel satisfied, though all else seems to fail him. It was out of the cave, when hunted by Saul, that David cried unto the Lord: "Thou art my refuge and my portion in the land of the living." (Cf. also Ps. xvi. 5, 6; lxxiii. 26.) Still more remarkable is the similar expression of faith by Jeremiah in Lam. iii. 24. In his case we see an aged man with nothing else left, after forty years of apparently fruitless labour, and as many of pious experience, with no strength or opportunity to begin his work over again, still rejoicing in God. Sitting in the streets of desolate Jerusalem, when all her inhabitants had been carried away captive, the aged prophet,

with a sorrow beautiful in its humanness and a faith magnificent in its trust, cries out in one and the same song of grief: "Mine eye runneth down with rivers of water for the destruction of the daughter of my people;""The Lord is my portion saith my soul, therefore will I hope in Him." Thus, like stars on the dark face of the night, does God shew us the jewels of His people's faith shining forth from the setting of broken earthly hopes and utter destitution. So good Ruther

ford speaks to us from one of his letters: "I know not what you have if you want Christ; I know not what you want if you have Christ." The Levites were at once the poorest and the richest tribe of Israel. They had no earthly estate in the land; they had a peculiar portion in God, who provided for their temporal wants, and who stood ready to give Himself to them specially in those necessities created by their religious service for their brethren.

CHAPTER XIV.

DIVISION OF THE LAND WEST OF JORDAN.-THE INHERITANCE

OF CALEB.

CRITICAL NOTES.-The section of the history which is introduced in the first five verses of this chapter terminates with chap. xix., and deals with the division of the land lying between the Jordan and the Mediterranean, among the nine and a half tribes. 1. Eleazar the priest] He was solemnly set apart to this office in Mount Hor, just before the death of his father. As the distribution of the land was to be by lot, Eleazar the priest is named before Joshua. This, too, is the order in which the names occur in Numb. xxxiv. 17. As Keil points out: "In every other respect, even in the distribution of the land, Joshua was at the head of the commission appointed for that purpose, as we may clearly see from ver. 6, chap. xvii. 14, xviii. 3." The high priest only had precedence in things purely sacred. To consult God was the first step in dividing the land, and this was to be done by God's high priest. Heads of the fathers of the tribes] Called "princes" in Numb. xxxiv. 18, following which the ten names of the representatives are given. 4. The children of Joseph were two tribes] Levi not being counted. This is stated to show how the number of twelve tribes was nevertheless preserved in the territorial division. Cities... with their suburbs] The extent of these suburbs was to be one thousand cubits beyond the city wall, in each direction (Numb. xxxv. 4, 5). The difficulty of the verses in Numbers is well explained by Keil. Therefore they gave] Heb.= "And they gave." It is not said that this was the reason why the Levites had no portion of territory. 6. Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenezite] "A very interesting question arises as to the birth and parentage of Caleb. He is, as we have seen, styled the son of Jephunreh the Kenezite,' and his younger brother Othniel, afterwards the first Judge, is also called 'the son of Kenaz' (Josh. xv. 17; Judges i. 13, iii. 9, 11). On the other hand, the genealogy in 1 Chron. ii. makes no mention whatever of either Jephunneh or Kenaz, but represents Caleb, though obscurely, as being a descendant of Hezron and a son of Hur (see, too, chap. iv.). Again, in Josh. xv. 13, we have this singular expression, Unto Caleb the son of Jephunneh he gave a part among the children of Judah;' and in xiv. 14, the no less significant one, 'Hebron became the inheritance of Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenezite, because that he wholly followed Jehovah God of Israel.' It becomes therefore quite possible that Caleb was a foreigner by birth, a proselyte incorporated into the tribe of Judah." [Smith's Bib. Dict.] See also Crosby's remarks, in loc., on the similar conjecture of Lord Hervey. The thing that the Lord said unto Moses] Comparing Numb. xiii. 22, xiv. 24; Deut. i. 36, with this plea offered by Caleb, it seems sufficiently clear that God had promised Hebron to Caleb for a possession. 7. As it was in mine heart] "The expression evidently denotes sincerity, the heart being thus opposed to deceitful words. He acted honestly according to the command given him, without gloss or dissimulation." [Calvin.] 9. Surely the land, etc.] Although Hebron is not named in any of the verses in the Pentateuch which refer to the mission of the spies, it seems to have been mentioned to Caleb in the promise of Moses, the written history being only an epitome of that which actually took place. 10. These forty and five years] Thirty-eight of these were spent in the wilderness, and the remaining seven had been occupied in the conquest of the land. This is the most important of the chronological data afforded by the book. 12. This mountain, whereof the Lord spake in that day] Shewing, as suggested under verses, 6, 9, that Hebron and its neighbourhood had been mentioned by name in the Divine promise. 14. Unto this day] "The book of Joshua was therefore written while Caleb still lived." [Crosby.] This, however, is by no means certain; for there is, at least, the possibility

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of correctness in Keil's remark: "In verses 14, 15, the author appends to some observations of his own, the narrative, which he has copied verbatim from the original documents." 15. The name of Hebron before was Kirjath Arba] "City of Arba." Hengstenberg contends that the original name was Hebron, that Arba, with the Anakim, did not found the city, but conquered it, and that not till after the time of Abraham's residence there (cf. Gen. xxiii. 2; Numb. xiii. 22). The land had rest from war] This is repeated from chap. xi. 23, shewing that the further division of the land was unaccompanied with any general conflict with the Canaanites who remained unsubdued.

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.-Verses 1-5.

GOD'S CHOICE OF HIS PEOPLE'S INHERITANCE.

The principal topic of these verses is the division by lot of the inheritance of the nine and a half tribes. The lot was of the Lord; the details of the method in which it was obtained are not stated. Probably the process was carried on at the door of the tabernacle, and presided over by Eleazar, the high priest. Further than this we know little. The Rabbins think that two urns were used, one containing the names of the districts to be chosen, and the other the names of the tribes, a simultaneous selection being made from each urn. The employment of two urns, however, is a mere speculation. The operation would have been equally definite had the representative of each tribe drawn for his people the name of the district from one urn. However the process may have been conducted, the issue was directed by Jehovah. "The lot was cast into the lap" (lit., "bosom," perhaps meaning that of the vessel or garment employed); "but the whole disposing thereof was of the Lord."

Looking in a general way at the subject of the verses, the following thoughts are suggested:

I. An insignificant lot, feeble creatures to occupy it, and the lot, nevertheless, chosen by God. The Jews fully believed in the Divine guidance in this form. In the solemn judgment of Achan, the question, to them, must have been placed altogether beyond doubt. Scripture continually teaches that God directly affords His guidance to men, and that in other matters than on occasions like this. "In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths." 1. God's choice of our lots in this life is no fiction, but an evident reality. It is not manifest and visible; it is nevertheless placed beyond doubt. No eye could see the hand of God within the urn from which the princes made their selection; that hand was there notwithstanding. It is thus always. We can never pronounce upon this as we look at the process; we can often speak confidently as we mark the results. Taking this case, for instance, of the dividing of the land, compare the prophetic blessings of Jacob and Moses with the issues of the lot. "The portion, says Masius," as reported by Dr. Clarke, "fell to each tribe just as Jacob had declared two hundred and fifty years before, in the last moments of his life, and Moses immediately before his death; for to the tribe of Judah fell a country abounding in vineyards and pastures; to Zebulon and Issachar, sea coasts; in that of Asher was plenty of oil, wheat, and metals; that of Benjamin, near to the temple, was, in a manner, between the shoulders of the Deity; Ephraim and Manasseh were distinguished with a territory blessed in a peculiar manner by heaven; the land of Naphtali extended from the west to the south of the tribe of Judah" (cf. chap. xix. 34). While there is some difficulty as to the case of Naphtali, the general correctness of this description of agreement is unquestionable. In the same way who can fail to see God's guidance and choice in the lot of Abraham, of Joseph, of Moses, or of Cyrus. Similarly Christ marked out the future of some of His apostles. He said of John words which seemed to intimate a long life; to Peter, "Thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird

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thee;" and, not least noteworthy, of Paul, "I will shew him how great things he must suffer for my name's sake." No less does God choose the lot of His servants now. The unseen process. The reality of the fact. 2. This concern of God in the lot which men shall occupy in life is very wonderful in its condescension. How glorious is the universe over which Jehovah rules! How insignificant must any one of these little divisions of Canaan have appeared to Him! How frail, physically and religiously, were the creatures who were to occupy these little lots! For what a mere point of time, to Him who is the Eternal, could they hold them! How very wonderful does Divine condescension appear as we see the Divine attention seemingly concentrated for century after century on these few lots of land in Palestine, which pas successively towards, into, and through the hands of so many occupants! What a mere morsel of a lot each individual life is concerned with, and for what a mere moment of time is the lot held by any particular life! Yet all this is but a picture, taken from the gallery of Providence by the hand of Revelation, and held out to the gaze of men. It is only a section, and that given but in outlines, of a long panoramic view of God's care of human lives, which began with Adam, which has never ceased with any one of his descendants, which is being extended to-day, and in which, it may be, the redeemed shall presently, through the ages of eternity, examine with wonder, awe, and admiration, the wisdom, patience, and love displayed in God's marvellous care for His creatures. II. Many lots, and many would-be choosers, but the choice of the Lord the only choice worth following. Men see about them in life an endless variety of conditions, and not a few think the lot of their neighbour better than their own. Men and women cry out not only for a changed cross," but for a changed lot. Contrary to what they feel to be the leadings of Providence, not a few try to force their way through life in some other direction. They have no care to study the will of God, and not unfrequently try to avoid it. Either here or hereafter, the sorrowful issues of a course like this cannot but disclose its folly. The following things should be borne in mind touching the choice of God:-1. It is the choice of one who knows us perfectly. We know little of ourselves. Every day's experience proves this. The very proverbs which have obtained an abiding place in our literature prove it: "Man, know thyself;" "The greatest study of mankind is man," etc. God knows how much we can bear; how much prosperity, how much adversity, how much change, how much monotony. He knows us altogether. 2. It is the choice of one who sees our lot as perfectly as He knows ourselves. We can see no distance before us. We cannot take into the account what our great poet calls the "millioned accidents" which intervene between our plans and their results, and "blunt the sharpest intents." All these, even as we ourselves, are "naked and open to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do." 3. It is the choice of one who prepares our lot beforehand. The lot of our lives is no haphazard thing. God had been four hundred and thirty years preparing these lots for the Israelites. From the call of Abraham onward, a hundred events shew the careful preparation of the Lord. 4. It is the choice of one who ever holds our lot well within His own control. Nothing surprises Him. Nothing defeats His purpose. Nothing escapes without the boundless circle of His management. Nothing changes His benevolent designs. "He is in one mind, who can turn Him?" Only we ourselves, by persistent sin, can break away from His gracious intentions. 5. It is the choice of one who equally controls all surrounding lots. All the lots which lie around our own, all events of others which touch upon the events of our own lives, are also at His bidding. And "All things work together for good to them," etc.

These are but items in the list which, could we read it fully, would tell us of His infinite fitness to undertake for us. Let the song of the after ages, from the lips of the descendants of Israel, bear its witness to the blessedness of the choice of the Lord (cf. Ps. xlvii. 1—4). The children of these very people, centuries later, learned to cry out in a great and irrepressible joy: "O clap your hands all

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He shall choose our

ye people; shout unto God with the voice of triumph. inheritance for us, the excellency of Jacob whom He loved." III. The Divine choice of human lots acquiesced in by men, or resisted by men, and God's will alike prevalent in either case. 1. Think of God's choice in its interworking with the willing efforts of His own people. The land was to be divided by lot, but the lot could only point out the district; the extent of its boundaries had to be decided by the leaders of the people. A large tribe was to have much territory; a small tribe was to have little. That was the general rule for the distribution (Numb. xxvi. 51-56; xxxiii. 54). "The lot," says Clericus, " appears to have determined only the situation, but not the size of the fields." So Calvin, Masius, and Keil also expound. God determined the situation, and, saving regulations to guide them, He left men to determine the extent. It is much the same in our lives now. God interworks with the man who follows His will, and while He shapes the life in its main features, He leaves very much to ourselves. He leaves much to our faithfulness in conflicts which yet remain. He leaves much to our energy and industry in daily toil. He leaves much to our judgment, asking us in all difficulties to refer back to Him for further guidance. Thus, Providence is no mere machine which forces us into life, through life, and then presently forces us out of life. We are purposely left to determine much ourselves, thus forming and cultivating and proving our own character. "We are workers together with God." 2. Consider God's choice in its triumph over those who oppose His will and oppose His people. Ultimately, as many instances bear testimony, His way prevails. It was thus with Joseph's brethren, with Pharaoh, with Haman, and with others of those who set themselves against the Lord, and against the people whom He called His own. (a) It is useless to resist God in His plans for our personal life.

"There's a Divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them how we will."-Hamlet.

He who wants his own way in life without hindrance, must begin by choosing submission to the way of the Lord.

"Our wills are ours, we know not how;

Our wills are ours to make them Thine."-In Memoriam.

(b) It is equally useless to resist God in His plans for others. One of the greatest instances of this has recently entered upon the pages of history. In order to prevent the escape of their slaves, the American Senate enacted the Fugitive Slave Law, which required, under severe penalties, that no one should harbour the fugitive who was fleeing from bondage, or in any way assist his escape. But God's time for the end of American slavery had come, and the effort to retain it in greater strength did but hasten its overthrow. The operation of the Act is thus described by the late Wm. Arnott: "The stroke which was intended to rivet the fetters of the slave more firmly, guided in its descent by an unseen hand, fell upon a brittle link, and broke it through. The newspapers announced that the cruel device had been enacted into a law. The intelligence fell like a spark on the deep compassion that lay pent up in a woman's heart, and kindled it into a flame. The outburst took the form of a book, the instrument of power usually employed in these later ages of the world. It is certainly true, and is widely known, that the enactment of the Fugitive Slave Law produced the book, and that the book caused a panorama of slavery to pass before the eyes of millions in America and Europe, inexpressibly augmenting the public opinion of the civilised world against the whole system, root and branch. Let no one imagine that we are elevating little things into an undue importance; we speak of Jehovah's counsel, and how it stands erect and triumphant over all the devices of men. He is wont to employ weak things to confound the mighty. Long ago He employed the tears of a helpless child and the strong compassion of a woman (Exod. ii. 6) as essential instruments in the

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