Part 21
So Balaam was the greatest mystery that Balak had to deal with. It is just the same with the Bible--God’s supernatural Book. It will not lie where we want it to lie. It has a way of getting up through the dust that gathers upon it and shaking itself, and making its pages felt. It will open at the wrong place. Would it open at some catalogue of names it might be tolerated, but it opens at hot places, where white thrones are and severe judgments, and where scales are tried and measuring wands tested. It will speak to the soul about the wrong doing that never came to any thing, and the wicked thought that would have burned the heavens and scattered dishonor upon the throne of God.
Balak said, in effect: “Would to Heaven I could get rid of this man.” He took Balaam to another point of view, and Balaam “set his face toward the wilderness, and took up his parable.” He sang a sweet and noble song: “How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob! And thy tabernacles, O Israel! As the valleys are they spread forth, as gardens by the river’s side, as the trees of lign aloes which the Lord hath planted, and as cedar trees beside the waters. He shall pour the water out of his buckets, and his seed shall be in many waters, and his king shall be higher than Agag, and his kingdom shall be exalted. God brought him forth out of Egypt; he hath, as it were, the strength of an unicorn; he shall eat up the nations his enemies, and shall break their bones and pierce them through with his arrows. He couched, he lay down as a lion, and as a great lion; who shall stir him up? Blessed is he that blesseth thee, and cursed is he that curseth thee.”
Balak made a bad bargain that day. He added unto his troubles, instead of diminishing them.
Balak would gladly have parted with Balaam, but he could not get rid of him; and Balak was wroth. It became a king to become angry. And Balak’s anger was kindled against Balaam, and he smote his hands together and said unto Balaam: “I called thee to curse mine enemies, and, behold, thou hast altogether blessed them these three times. Therefore, now flee thou to thy place. I thought to promote thee unto great honor, but lo, the Lord hath kept thee back from honor.”
Balaam then made a great speech to Balak. He said: “Is this not precisely what I said to the king’s messengers? Did I not say: ‘If Balak would give me his house full of silver and gold, I can not go beyond the commandment of the Lord, to do either good or bad of mine own mind; but what the Lord saith, that will I speak’? Now, I will tell that which I see.”
And then came the parable of the man whose eyes are open:
And he took up his parable, and said: “Balaam, the son of Beor, hath said, and the man whose eyes are open hath said, he hath said which heard the words of God, and knew the knowledge of the Most High, which saw the vision of the Almighty, falling into a trance, but having his eyes open; I shall see him, but not now; I shall behold him, but not nigh; there shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Scepter shall rise out of Israel, and shall smite the corners of Moab, and destroy all the children of Sheth. And Edom shall be a possession, Seir also shall be a possession for his enemies; and Israel shall do valiantly. Out of Jacob shall come he that shall have dominion, and shall destroy him that remaineth of the city.”
Then the parable is continued, Balaam looking Balak full in the face; and last of all “Balaam rose up, and went and returned to his place, and Balak also went his way.”
You can not carve your God into any shape that will please your fancy. You can not send for any true faith and bribe it to speak your blessings or your cursings. Balaam was a man of noble sentiments. Look at some of his words: “Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his.” And again: “God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent.” And again: “I shall see him, but not now; I shall behold him, but not nigh.”
Then take the grand words which he spoke to Balak, as reported in the prophecies of Micah. Never did man preach a nobler sermon than this: “He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.”
Who can amend that speech? Who can refine that gold? Who dares touch that lily with his mean paint? Who taught Balaam that great speech?
We sometimes say we find, scattered up and down in ancient literature, morals as beautiful as any we find in the Bible. Possibly so. Who wrote them? Whence did they come? Is God the God of one corner of the creation? Is God a parochial Deity?
Is there not a spirit in man--universal man--and does not the Spirit of the Most High give him understanding? Wherever there is a line of beauty, God wrote it; wherever there is a sentiment which is charged with the spirit of beneficence, that may be claimed as a good gift of God.
Apostle Paul never uttered a nobler sentiment than is uttered by Balaam, as reported in the prophecies of Micah. This is the Sermon upon the Mount in anticipation. That is the vicious Church, built on the wrong foundation, aiming at the wrong Heaven, which does not recognize in every literature and in every nation all that is good, noble, wise, prophetic.
Balaam’s convictions and wishes disagreed sometimes. Therein he was most human. He knew he ought not to go to Balak, and yet he wished to go. He would ask the second time; he would doubt his own convictions, or he would adjust them according to the shape and temper of circumstances. Wherever he came from, he claims herein to be quite a near neighbor of ours. Doubt may exist as to the exact relation of Pethor to the river upon which it was built, but there can be no doubt whatever of the blood relationship between Balaam and our own age. Speaking impulsively from the center of his convictions, he said: “No. Nothing shall tempt me to go. You speak of gold and silver. Were Balak to give me his house full of gold and silver, I would not go. I am the Lord’s servant, and the Lord’s work alone will I do.”
Then the thought occurred to him--a second message coming, borne by more honorable princes: “Perhaps I might go and obtain this wealth and honor, and still do my duty.”
He is on the downward road now. A man who thinks to do forbidden things and spend the bounty for the advantage of the Church is lost; there is no power in him that can overcome the gravitation that sucks him downward. He says: “I will bring back all Balak’s gold and silver, and add a transept to the church or another course of marble to the altar.”
He will never return. God will not have His house so patched and bungled; nor does He want Balak’s gold for the finishing of His sanctuary. A nobler spirit was Abram, who said no to the king of Sodom, “lest thou shouldest say: ‘I have made Abram rich.’”
The whole story of Balaam is intensely Oriental and primeval. The first deputation is dismissed in obedience to a divine warning; but, so far as we know, “the wages of unrighteousness,” which Balaam loved, are carefully retained. A second embassy of nobler messengers, carrying richer gifts, succeeds. He does not at once dismiss them, as God had required, but presses for permission to go with them, which at last is granted.
Balaam would earn the fame and honor apparently within his grasp, yet he knows that when the prophetic afflatus comes on him he can only utter what it prompts. With a feigned religiousness, he protests that if Balak were to give him his house full of silver and gold he could not go beyond the word of Jehovah, his God, to do less or more; but he also bids them wait overnight to see if he may not, after all, be allowed to go with them. If his ignoble wish to be allowed to curse an unoffending nation be gratified, he has the wealth he craves; if it be refused, he can appeal to his words as proof of his being only the mouth-piece of God.
That Balaam should have been allowed to go with Balak’s messengers was only the permission given every man to act as a free agent, and in no way altered the divine command, that he should bless, and not curse. Yet he goes as if at liberty to do either, and lets Balak deceive himself by false hopes, when the will of God has been already decisively made known.
Balaam’s was a maneuvering life--very truthful, and yet very false; very godly, and yet very worldly--a most composite and self-contradictory life, and still a most human life. Balaam never breaks away from the brotherhood of the race in any of his inconsistencies. When he is very good, there are men living today who are just as good as Balaam was; when he is very bad, it would not be difficult to confront him with men who are quite his equals in wrong doing. When he is both good and bad almost at the same moment, he does not separate himself from the common experience of the race. He was always arranging, adjusting, endeavoring to meet one thing by another, and to set off one thing over against another. It was a kind of gamester life--full of subtle calculation, touched with a sort of wonder which becomes almost religious, and steeped in a superstition which reduces many of the actions of life to a state of moral mystery wholly beyond ordinary comprehension.
ELAH.
There was once a king in Israel named Elah. He reigned over Israel, in Tirzah, two years. He had a servant called Zimri, who was a captain of his chariots.
Zimri was a born traitor. Treachery was in his very blood. In the case of Elah, Zimri had a marked advantage, for Elah was a drunken fool. He was in the habit of visiting the house of another of his servants, a steward called Arza. There he had what drink he asked for, and he asked for a great deal--so much that he was often drunk in his servant’s house. On one of these occasions Zimri went in and killed him, and reigned in his stead.
These are the facts with which we have to deal. Are they very ancient, or are they happening about us every day? Is Elah dead? Is Zimri clean gone for ever? And is the house of the servant Arza closed, so that the master can drink no more with the steward?
Elah lives in every man who has great chances or opportunities in life, but allows them to slip away from him through one leak in the character. Elah was a king and was the son of a king, so his openings in life were wide and splendid; but he loved strong drink, and thus through that leak in his character all that might have made him a man oozed away, and left him a king in nothing but the barren name.
Strong drink will ruin any man. It is the supreme curse of England. I will say nothing now of the old, but to the young I may speak a word. I care not, young man, how many and how brilliant in life your chances are, if you drink wine in the morning, as many young men in London do, you are as good as damned already. You think not, but that only shows the infinite deceitfulness of the enemy. He tells you:
“Nothing of the kind. This is parson’s twaddle. Take your wine when you want it, and let it alone when you do not care for it.”
There is suppressed mockery in that high challenge. There is no soundness of health in it. Every drink but leaves you weaker. Every emptied glass is another link added to the strong chain thrown upon your limbs.
Zimri still lives in all persons who take advantage of the weaknesses of others. Zimri knew that Elah was a drunkard, and he further knew through Elah’s habit of drunkenness alone could he be reached. On every other side of his character Elah may have been a strong man--acute, shrewd and far-sighted--but when in drink he was, of course, weak and foolish. Zimri played his game accordingly. He said:
“Elah goes to Arza’s house after sundown. In half an hour after going, he will begin to fall under the effects of wine; then the worst wine will be brought out, and he will go mad under its poison and become drowsy. I must get Arza out of the way. The fool will go on any errand I name, on promise of another horse; that is it.”
The Bible says: “And Zimri went in and smote him and killed him.” He took advantage of his master’s weakness, and his progeny is numerous on the Earth.
Some people trade on the weaknesses of others. They study them. They adapt themselves to them. They watch for striking time, and seldom miss the mark. How else could the net be always ready for the bird? How else could the pit be always prepared for the unsuspecting and bewildered traveler? There is an infernal science in these things--a devil’s black art!
And does not Arza still live in those who find the means whereby men may conceal their evil habits and indulge their unholy desires? They seem to say: “In my house you may do what you please. I shall not look at you. Come when you please; go when you like; I am nobody, if you like to call me so.”
Tirzah, whose name means pleasantness and which was Elah’s capital, was an ancient royal city of the Canaanites, captured by Joshua. After its conquest it is not again mentioned in history till the time of Jeroboam, who appears to have chosen it as his principal residence. The geographical position of Tirzah has not been given by any ancient geographer. Zimri reigned only seven days in Tirzah. Omri, captain of the host, was made king over Israel in the camp. He besieged Tirzah and took it. Zimri, seeing that the city was taken, went into the king’s palace, set it on fire and perished in it. The last mention of Tirzah in Scripture history is in connection with Menahem, who went from Tirzah to Samaria, “and smote Shallum, and reigned in his stead.” Solomon made the comparison: “Thou art beautiful, O my love, as Tirzah.”
ELIJAH.
Elijah means “Jehovah is my God.” There is often much in a name. It is a history, sometimes--the summing up of generations; it is sometimes an inspiration, recalling memories that stir the soul to high daring.
There are two places called Tishbi--one in Gilead and the other in Galilee. Elijah belonged to the former. Sometimes character is mysteriously and very deeply affected by country. Gilead was a wild and mountainous district, bordering on Arabia, and consequently half Arab in its customs. There was a wonderful similarity between the man and the region; stern, bleak, grand, majestic and awful were they both. John the Baptist seemed to bring the wilderness with him when he came into the city. Children born in luxury are apt to be themselves luxurious. Children born in slavery will hardly ever be free, though slavery has been abolished. To the end of life we carry the color which first impressed itself on our vision.
All revelations seem to us to be sudden. Look at the suddenness of the appearance of Ahijah to Jeroboam, and look at the instance before us: “Elijah, the Tishbite, said unto Ahab.” The total apostasy of the Ten Tribes (Israel) was now almost accomplished, and yet a faithful prophet of the Lord stands up in the degenerate land and declares that Jehovah is his God, and in sacred solitariness protests against the abominations of Israel and her king.
No mild man would have been equal to the occasion. God adapts His ministry to circumstances. He sends a nurse to the sick room and a soldier to the battle field. The son of consolation and the son of thunder can not change places. You are right when you say that the dew and the light and the soft breeze are God’s; but you may not, therefore, suppose that the thunder and the hurricane and the flood belong to a meaner lord.
Imagine the two men standing face to face--Ahab, the dissolute king, and Elijah, the faithful prophet. Probably there is no finer picture in ancient history. Terrible indeed is the national crisis when king and prophet come into collision. There is not a combat between two men. Mark that very closely. It is Right against Wrong, Faithfulness against Treachery, Purity against Corruption. Look at them--Ahab and Elijah--as they face one another! Consider the boldness of the prophet. Religion is never to be ashamed of its own testimony.
As we look at the scene, not wanting in the elements of the highest tragedy, we see the value of one noble witness in the midst of public corruption and decay, and the grandeur as well as necessity of a distinct personal profession of godliness. It is not enough to be godly; we must avow it in open conduct and articulate confession.
Let us now observe how Elijah proceeds to deal with Ahab. “There shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word.” Here is physical punishment for moral transgression. So it is; and that is just what a parent does when he uses the rod upon his child for falsehood. You can only punish people according to their nature. The garroter can submit to any number of censures and lectures, but he dreads the cat-o’-nine-tails.
Physical punishment for moral transgression is the law of society. So the liar is thrown out of his situation; the ill-tempered child is whipped; the dishonorable man is expelled from social confidence.
With regard to the particular punishment denounced against Ahab, it is to be remembered that drought is one of the punishments threatened by the law if Israel forsook Jehovah and turned after other gods.
This, then, was the brief communication which the prophet addressed to the king. God’s threatenings are terrible in their conciseness. He leaves no room in a multitude of works for ambiguity and verbal wriggling. The soul that sinneth shall die. “The wages of sin is death.” “There is no peace, saith the Lord, unto the wicked.”
And as He can be concise in threatening, so He can be concise in promise: “I will give you rest.” “I will give you living water.” “He that believeth shall be saved.” “Ask, and it shall be given you.”
Thus great things can be said in few words: “God is light.” “God is love.” “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” “Ye must be born again.”
At the bidding of the word of the Lord, Elijah turned eastward and hid himself by the brook Cherith, a place nowhere else mentioned in the Bible, and “no place like it has as yet been discovered in Palestine.” It was a torrent-course facing the Jordan, “but whether it was one of those which seam Mount Ephraim or of those on the opposite side of Jordan, in the prophet’s own country, is uncertain.”
But what is the meaning of the extraordinary expression: “I have commanded the ravens to feed thee”? By omitting the points, which are generally allowed to have no authority, the Hebrew letters may signify Arabians. Then the passage would read: “I have commanded the Arabians to feed thee.” Or, if we retain the present pointing, the word may be translated “merchants,” according to “The Speaker’s Commentary.” But it is better to allow the word “ravens” to stand. It implies a miracle; but the whole Bible is a miracle, and so is our own daily life, could we but see the inner movement and look beyond all symbols to the spiritual reality.
But Elijah’s brook dried up. Prophets may be overtaken by the operation of their own prophecies. The great laws are impartial, yet wonderful is the scope within which exceptions may be established. This incident gives an instance in point.
“Arise, get thee to Zarephath, which belongeth to Zidon, and dwell there. Behold, I have commanded a widow woman there to sustain thee.” This place is called Sarepta in the New Testament. It lay upon the great public road which connected the two towns. A little village called Sarafend now occupies the situation.
But how did it come about that Elijah was sent to a place so near the city of Jezebel’s father? It has been suggested that it would be the last place that he would be suspected of having chosen as a retreat. When Elijah came to the gate of the city the widow woman was there gathering sticks, and he asked her for a little water in a vessel, that he might drink. And as she was going to fetch it, he asked her to bring also a morsel of bread in her hand. But she had no bread--not so much as a cake--only a handful of meal in a barrel and a little oil in a cruse.
She was just going to dress this little food for herself and her son, “that we may eat it and die.” But Elijah claimed it in the name of the Lord, and gave to her in return the gracious promise: “The barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail, until the day that the Lord sendeth rain upon the Earth.”
We may here admire and imitate one of the finest instances of ancient faith. The woman was asked for all she had, and she gave it. But mark, she was put in possession of a promise. This is God’s law. He gives the promise first, and then asks for the faith of man. It was so in the ease of Abraham. It is so with ourselves today.
“And the barrel of meal wasted not, neither did the cruse of oil fail.” This is the continual miracle of nature; this is the security of life. We are puzzled by it, but what of that? Are possibilities to be determined by our weakness or by God’s strength? We could have increased the flour had we sown the seed, reaped the grain and called in the aid of the miller. Now let us venture on the supposition that Almighty God is able to do just a little more than we can do, and the whole difficulty is gone. The air wastes not, nor the light, nor the force of nature; what if God can touch points which happen to lie beyond the range of our short fingers? We must allow something for Deity.
And now sorrow fell upon the poor woman’s house. Her only child died, and her heart was lacerated even to torment and agony. But the Lord was merciful. Elijah took the dead child away into a loft--the upper chamber, which was often the best part of an Eastern house--and cried unto the Lord, and stretched himself upon the child three times, and cried again and again unto the Lord, and the child’s life returned. Then the glad mother hailed Elijah as a man, and one in whose mouth was the word of the Lord.
Elijah had put himself beyond the reach of Ahab--not because he feared him or distrusted the power of God in critical circumstances--but because God’s providence or government is a great scheme with innumerable sides, and requires time for its full disclosure and accomplishment. We are not to hasten the march of God. To every thing there is a season. Everywhere we see this idea of time observed and honored. Though there is famine in the land, we can not urge the seasons forward. The child, too, must have years of growth, though his father be disabled and there be none to earn the household bread but himself.
So in the case before us. Ahab must be wearied out with searching for Elijah. He must be made to see how fruitless may be the efforts even of a king. And at last, when success does come, it must come not from his side at all.
We have said that Ahab was a speculative idolater rather than a cruel persecutor. Jezebel acted the part of cruelty; Ahab acted the part of unbeliever and spiritual rebel generally. A proof of the probable correctness of this view is found in the incident before us, for when Ahab met Elijah he did not show a spirit of cruelty. He said unto the prophet: “Art thou he that troubleth Israel?” He did not threaten Elijah with the sword; he did not demand his immediate surrender and arrest. He seems rather to have looked upon Elijah with wonder--perhaps not unmixed with admiration of a figure so independent and audacious.