Then notice in Ahab a childish servility to circumstances.
The Prophet Amos.From the Painting by Gustave Dore.
The Prophet Amos.
From the Painting by Gustave Dore.
The Despair of Judas.From a Photograph of the Character in the Passion Play.
The Despair of Judas.
From a Photograph of the Character in the Passion Play.
“Ahab came into his house heavy and displeased… and he laid him down upon his bed, and turned away his face, and would eat no bread.”
Yet he was the king of Israel in Samaria! He actually had subjects under him. He was in reality a man who could give law, whose very look was a commandment, and the uplifting of his hand could move an army. Now we see him surely at his least. So we do, but not at his worst.
All this must have an explanation. We can not imagine that the man is so simply childish and foolish as this incident alone would describe him. Behind all this childishness there is an explanation. What is it?
We find it in the twenty-fifth verse:
“But there was none like unto Ahab, which did sell himself to work wickedness in the sight of the Lord, whom Jezebel, his wife, stirred up.”
That explains the whole mystery. The man had sold himself to the devil. And men are doing that self-same thing every day.
If it were a transaction in the market place—if the auctioneer were visibly interested in this affair, if he could call out in audible tones “So much is the price, and the man is about to take it,” people would shrink from the villainous transaction.
But this is an affair which does not take place in the open market or in the open daylight. It is not conducted in words. If the men involved in such transactions could speak the words, the very speech of the words might break the spell and destroy the horrible infatuation. But the compact is made in darkness, in silence, in out-of-the-way places. It is an understanding unwritten,rather than an agreement in detail signed in the presence of witnesses. It is a mystery which the heart alone can understand, which even the preacher can not explain in terms, but he can only throw himself upon his own consciousness, and throw others upon their consciousness, and call for a united testimony to the fact that it is possible to sell one’s very soul to evil.
Now we understand King Ahab better. We thought him but little, frivolous of mind, childish and petty, without a man’s worthy ambition; but now we see that all this was only symptomatic, an outward sign, pointing, when rightly followed, to an inward and mortal corruption.
Now, let us look at the case of Naboth and the position which he occupied in this matter.
Naboth possessed the vineyard which Ahab is said to have coveted. Naboth said: “The Lord forbid.” He made a religious question of it. Why did he invoke the Eternal Name and stand back, as if an offense had been offered to his faith? The terms were commercial; the terms were not unreasonable; the approach was courteous, and the ground given for the approach was not an unnatural ground. Why did Naboth stand back as if his religion had been shocked?
The answer is in the Book of Numbers, thirty-sixth chapter and seventh verse:
“So shall not the inheritance of the children of Israel remove from tribe to tribe; for every one of the children of Israel shall keep himself to the inheritance of the tribe of his fathers.”
So Naboth stood upon the law.
In Ezekiel we read:
“Moreover, the prince shall not take of the people’s inheritance by oppression, to thrust them out of their possession; but he shall give his sons inheritance out of his own possession, that My people be not scattered every man from his possession.”
So Naboth was not answering haughtily or resentfully. He was answering both solemnly and religiously. When money was offered for his fathers’ inheritance, he spurned the offer. There are some things, blessed be God, we can not pay for.
When Ahab said “I will give thee for it a better vineyard than it” he knew not of what he was speaking. There can be no better vineyard than the vineyard of the fathers; there can be no vineyard equal to the vineyard that is sown with history, planted with associations, solemnized and endeared by a thousand precious memories. There ought to be some things which we can not barter. Surely there ought to be some things which we should never try to sell.
Verily, when we hear propositions made to us that money shall be given in exchange for certain things, our whole soul should rise in horror and indignation, and repel the approach of a barter which itself expresses an infinite, because a most spiritual, injustice. So Naboth’s position was strong, and he had the courage to answer the king in these terms.
Kings must submit to law. Kings ought to be the subjects of their own people. Ahab was taught that there was a man in Samaria who valued the inheritance which had been handed down to him. Have we no inheritancehanded down to us—no book of revelation, no day of rest, no flag of liberty, no password of common trust? Do we inherit nothing? Did we make the age as it is, and is civilization a creature of our own fashioning? And are we not bound to hand on to others what was handed to us intact and unpolluted?
Let us live in a sacred past, and regard ourselves as trustees of many possessions, and only trustees, and as bound to vindicate our trust and have an ample acquittal at the last.
So Ahab lay down upon his bed, turned away his face, and would eat no bread. But there is a way of accomplishing mean desires. There is a way of obtaining what we want. Take heart! There is a way of possessing oneself of almost whatever one desires. There is always some Merlin who will bring every Uther-Pendragon what he longs to have; there is always some Lady Macbeth who will show the thane how to become king. There is always a way to be bad. The gate of hell stands wide open; or, if apparently half closed, a touch will make it fly back, and the road is broad that leads to destruction.
Jezebel said she would find the garden or vineyard for her husband. She taunted him. “Dost thou now govern the kingdom of Israel? Arise and eat bread, and let thine heart be merry. I will give thee the vineyard of Naboth, the Jezreelite.” Jezebel threw into the word “govern” a subtle and significant emphasis.
How will she proceed? She will be ceremoniously religious; she will proclaim a fast. O thou sweet, white, pure religion, thou hast been forced into strange uses!“Proclaim a fast;” lengthen your faces; mimic solemnity; promise your hunger an early satisfaction, but look as if you were fasting.
It is a sure sign of mischief when certain men become serious. The moment they appear to be religious the devil is just adding the last touch to the building which he has been putting up within their souls. When they talk long words—when they speak about responsibility, obligation, duty, conscience, compulsion of conviction—they are walking over tesselated pavement into the very jaws of hell.
They do not mean their words; they do but use them. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.”
First of all, then, be ceremoniously religious, Jezebel; then trample down truth. “Set two men, sons of Belial, before him, to bear witness against him, saying: ‘Thou didst blaspheme God and the king.’” Falsehood is always ready. A great black lie is always willing to be loosed and to be set going in the minds of men to pervert them and mislead them. It is always open to the bad heart to speak the untrue word. Nor is the untrue word always frankly and broadly spoken. If so, it could be answered in some cases.
The false word is hardly spoken at all; it is uttered in a whisper. Falsehood is made to use signs and gestures; even silence is made to bear witness to falsehood. Truly, again we may say: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.” Tell a lie big enough about any man, and it will be difficult, if not impossible, to do away with the consequences of the false accusation.People will always be found to say: “There must be something in it; it may not be just as rumor has it, but surely a statement of that kind never could have been invented. Allowing a good deal for exaggeration, there must be something in it.”
Nor is it always possible to get even righteous men to purge their minds of that damnable sophism. Men who ought to stand up and say “There is nothing in it” hang down their heads, and with a coward’s gesture let the lie pass on.
This is how men insult the Son of God, and crucify the Man of truth. They will not be thorough, bold and fearless, and make the enemy ashamed of himself for either having invented or repeated a falsehood. Nor may the man escape because he says he heard the lie. Tell him he may have heard it, but he is yet responsible for repeating it. He may have no control over the hearing, but the moment he repeats it he adopts it, and renders himself amenable to the Eternal Righteousness.
Make the very law an instrument of injustice! First charge this man with blasphemy and treason, and then take him out and stone him, that he may die! Do not give him time to speak; do not ask for his defense; do not give him an opportunity of interrogating the witnesses. But who would cross-examine two “sons of Belial?” Better almost to die than to taint the hands and eyes with the touch and look of such children of blackness!
“Then they carried him [Naboth] forth out of the city, and stoned him with stones, that he died.” It is all over! Jezebel did this. Jezebel—a woman, a king’swife—did this. High position goes for nothing when the heart is wrong. Great influence means great mischief when the soul is not in harmony with the spirit of righteousness.
Is Naboth quite dead? Yes, he is dead. Take the vineyard—take possession of it instantly. Now grow herbs, and grow them plentifully. The vineyard is now at liberty—take it. “Ahab rose up to go down to the vineyard of Naboth, the Jezreelite, to take possession of it.” But who is that looms in the distance? Is it Naboth? No.
How comes this man to be here just now—aye, just now? How the end is marked off into points, and how does providence reveal itself at unexpected times and in ways unforeseen! Who is this? He looks stern. He has an eye of fire. His lips are shut as if they could never be opened. He does but look.
Who is he? “Elijah, the Tishbite.” He has a message:
“Thus saith the Lord: ‘Hast thou killed, and also taken possession?’ … Thus saith the Lord: ‘In the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth shall dogs lick thy blood, even thine.’”
A sad walk!
Ahab went down to take possession of a vineyard, and a death warrant was read to him! After all, it is safe to live in this universe; there is law in it, there is a genius of righteousness, there is a Force that moves on toward noble issues.
“And Ahab said to Elijah: ‘Hast thou found me, O mine enemy?’ And he answered: ‘I have foundthee; because thou hast sold thyself to work evil in the sight of the Lord.’” Ahab went out to take possession of a garden of herbs, and there he stands face to face with righteousness—face to face with honor—face to face with judgment.
Now take the vineyard. He can not! An hour since the Sun shone upon it, and now it is black as if it were part of the midnight which has gathered in judgment.
There is a success which is failure. We can not take some prizes. Elijah will not allow us. When we see him we would that a way might open under our feet that we might flee and escape the judgment of his silent look.
In the Septuagint version the twentieth chapter of the first Book of Kings immediately precedes the twenty-second. The three years without war is a period which is reckoned from the peace which was so rashly made by Ahab with Ben-hadad.
It is clear that Ben-hadad has recovered his independence, and is probably in a position of superiority. It is certain that he has not restored Ramoth-gilead, as he had promised to do, and his reconstructed army now seems to him to be sufficient to encounter successfully the united hosts of Israel and Judah. In the forty-second verse of the same chapter we have seen how Ahab was rebuked for allowing the enemy to escape.
It has been supposed that this conduct on the part of Ahab may have been due partly to compassion and partly to weakness. The judgment of the Lord was, however, expressed in the severest terms:
“Because thou hast let go out of thy hand a manwhom I appointed to utter destruction, therefore thy life shall go for his life, and thy people for his people.”
In the third verse we see these words signally fulfilled. The king of Israel seems to have a good cause when he said to his servants: “Know ye that Ramoth, in Gilead, is ours, and we be still, and take it not out of the hand of the king of Syria?” On this occasion Ahab entered into an alliance with Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, for the purpose of taking back the city which belonged to Israel. Jehoshaphat made a deferential as well as a friendly reply, but insisted upon the fulfillment of a religious condition. Jehoshaphat would make inquiry at the word of the Lord.
Thereupon four hundred prophets were gathered together, and with one consent they advised that the attack should be made upon Ramoth-gilead. Surely this was enough to satisfy the judgment and the conscience of the most religious man, yet Jehoshaphat was not content with the unanimous reply which four hundred prophets had returned.
“There is a spirit in man, and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding.”
All external unanimity goes for nothing when the conscience itself dissents from the judgment which has been pronounced. There is a verifying faculty which operates upon its own responsibility, and which can not be overpowered by the clamor of multitudes who eagerly rush down paths that are forbidden. Even when imagination assents to the voice of the majority, and when ambition is delighted with the verdict of the prophets, there yet remains the terrible but gracious authority of conscience.Through all the clamor that authority makes its way, and calmly distinguishes between right and wrong, and solemnly insists that right shall be done at all hazards and in view of all consequences.
A vital lesson rises here to all who are anxious to know the right way under difficult circumstances. It is not enough to have great numbers of authorities on our side; so long as the conscience remains unsatisfied all other authorities are “trifles light as air.”
Jehoshaphat was uneasy, therefore, notwithstanding the prophets had said: “Go up; for the Lord shall deliver it into the hand of the king.” He inquired: “Is there not here a prophet of the Lord besides, that we might inquire of him?” The word which Jehoshaphat used was the great word, Jehovah. It was not enough for him to use a religious or sacred term. He must have the prophecy identified with the awful name, Jehovah; then it would come with final authority.
The king of Israel knew that there was another man whose very name signified “Who is like Jehovah?” Ahab frankly admitted that he hated Micaiah because he never prophesied good concerning him, but always evil.
Observe the madness of Ahab’s policy, and note how often it is the policy which we ourselves are tempted to pursue. We suppose that if we do not consult the Bible we may take license to do what seems good in our own eyes, and we imagine that by ignoring the Bible we have divested it of authority. We flatter ourselves that if we do not listen to an exposition of the divine word we shall be judged according to the light we have, forgetting the solemn law that it is not according to the light wehave that we are to be judged, but according to the light we might have if we put ourselves in right relations to the opportunities created for us by divine providence.
We know that if we go to hear a certain preacher he will insist upon “righteousness, temperance and judgment to come;” and, supposing that we already know every thing that he will say, we turn away from him and listen to men who do not profoundly treat vital subjects, or press home upon the conscience the terrible judgments of God.
What is this but closing our eyes to light, and supposing that darkness is safety? What is this ostrich policy but one that ought to be condemned by our sense as well as shrunk from by our piety?
Our duty under all critical circumstances is to go to the truth-teller, and to get at the reality of things at all costs. Where the truth-teller disturbs our peace and disappoints our ambition, we ought surely to learn that it is precisely at that point that we have to become self-rectifying. The truth-teller is only powerful in proportion as he tells the truth. Officially, he is nothing; his power is simply the measure of his righteousness.
But do not men love to be flattered, even in courses of evil? Is it not pleasant to go to forbidden war amid the huzzas of thoughtless and irresponsible multitudes?
Jehoshaphat, however, was a just man, and as such he protested against the sin of the king of Israel, saying: “Let not the king say so.” Jehoshaphat being so bent upon a complete judgment of the case, Micaiah was sent for. The king of Israel wished to overawe the despised prophet by the pomp and circumstance under which hewas introduced to the royal presence. “The king of Israel and Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, sat each on his throne, having put on their robes, in a void place in the entrance of the gate of Samaria,” and, to increase the impressiveness of the occasion, all the prophets prophesied before the kings.
A singular addition was made to the surroundings of the occasion which was intended to impress the imagination and stagger the courage of the despised Micaiah. A man bearing the name of Zedekiah (“righteousness of Jehovah”) made him horns of iron. The use of symbolical acts is quite common in biblical history. We have already seen Abijah engaged in acts of this kind. He “caught the new garment that was on him and rent it in twelve pieces, and said to Jeroboam: ‘Take thee ten pieces.’”
The enthusiasm of Zedekiah inflamed all the other prophets to the highest point of excitement, and they shouted as with one voice:
“Go up to Ramoth-gilead, and prosper; for the Lord shall deliver it into the king’s hand.”
In this instance the prophets, overborne by the enthusiasm of Zedekiah, actually ventured to use the name of Jehovah, which had not been used in the first instance. The excitement had passed the point of worship and had become more nearly resembling the frantic cry that was heard on Mount Carmel: “O Baal, hear us.”
Is it possible that there can be found any solitary man who dare oppose such unanimous testimony and complete enthusiasm?
The messenger who was sent to call Micaiah was evidentlya man of considerate feeling and who wished the prophet well. Seeing that the words of the prophets had all declared good unto the king with one mouth, the messenger wished that Micaiah should for once agree with the other prophets, and please the king by leaving undisturbed their emphatic and unanimous counsel.
Thus the voice of persuasion was brought to bear on Micaiah, and that voice is always the most difficult to resist. The temptation thus addressed to Micaiah was thus double in force. On the one hand, there were the pomp and the terror of the king who had sold himself to do evil, and who would shrink from the infliction of no cruelty that would express his unreasoning and unlimited anger; on the other hand, there was the good will of the messenger, who wished Micaiah to escape all danger and penalty, and for once to take the popular side. Micaiah’s reply is simply sublime: “As the Lord liveth, what the Lord saith unto me, that will I speak.”
The humility of this answer is as conspicuous as its firmness. Its profound religiousness saves it from the charge of being defiant. Micaiah recognizes himself merely in the position of a servant or medium, who has nothing of his own to say; who is not called upon to invent an answer or to play the clever man in the presence of the kings. He was simply as a trumpet through which God could blow His own blast, or a pillar on which God would inscribe his own message, or a voice which God would use for the declaration of His own will. It is unjust to attribute obstinacy or any form of self-will or self-worship to Micaiah. If he had consulted his natural inclination alone, he would have sought favor with theking, and the logical effect of his subsequent position would have been that Ahab would have endeavored for ever to silence him by constituting him the prince and leader of the four hundred prophets. Micaiah said, in effect, what was said centuries afterward: “We have this treasure in earthen vessels.”
Micaiah lived in God, for God, and had nothing of his own to calculate or consider. Until preachers realize this same spiritual independence, they will be attempting to accommodate themselves to the spirit of the times, and even the strongest of them may be betrayed into connivances and compromises fatal to personal integrity and to the claims of truth.
Now came the critical moment. Now it was to be seen whether Micaiah was to be promoted to honor, or thrust away in contempt and wrath. It is easy to read of the recurrence of such moments, but difficult to realize them in their agony. Yet these are the moments which make history in its sublimest lines.
It is not too much to say that there have been points of time at which if certain men had given way the whole economy of the world have been wrecked.
The king addressed himself to the prophet, saying: “Shall we go against Ramoth-gilead to battle, or shall we forbear?” The answer of Micaiah must have been a surprise to all who heard it, for he said: “Go, and prosper; for the Lord shall deliver it into the hand of the king.”
This is an answer which can not be understood in print. It was evident, however, that Ahab was in no doubt as to its meaning, for the tone of the prophet wasa tone of almost contemptuous irony. If King Ahab had taken Micaiah’s literal answer, he would have gone forth to the battle comforting himself with the thought that he was carrying out the will of Heaven; but he knew in his own soul that Micaiah was not uttering that which expressed the reality of the case. With anger the king said unto him: “How many times shall I adjure thee that thou tell me nothing but that which is true in the name of the Lord?”
Then Micaiah replied in symbolic language, the full meaning of which was vividly clear to the mind of Ahab; for, turning to Jehoshaphat, he said: “Did I not tell thee that he would prophesy no good concerning me, but evil?”
Thereupon Micaiah charged the whole band of prophets with being under the inspiration of a lying spirit, and thus he put a stigma upon their judgment and extracted from it every particle of dignity and authority.
But this was not to be borne, for Zedekiah went near and smote Micaiah on the cheek and taunted him as being the only prophet in Israel. Micaiah had to bear the sarcasm conveyed in the inquiry: “Which way went the Spirit of the Lord from me to speak unto thee?”
Micaiah, like a true prophet, leaves his judgment to the decision of time. He will not stoop to argue, or to exchange words either of anger or of controversy; he simply says that Zedekiah will one day see the meaning of the whole prophecy, and until that day controversy would be useless.
Micaiah had to pay for his intrepidity. He was carried unto Amon, the governor of the city, and to Joash,the king’s son, and was to be put in prison and fed with the bread of affliction and with the water of affliction until Ahab returned in peace.
Micaiah thus disappears from history. Of his fate we know nothing; but there can be no difficulty in forecasting it a cruel death. Micaiah knew well the meaning of the king’s message. It may be difficult for the commentator to explain the expression, “bread of affliction and water of affliction,” but Micaiah knew the full meaning of the terms, and yet, while their cruel sound was in his ears, he looked at the king and said: “If thou return at all in peace, the Lord hath not spoken by me.”
Micaiah also made his appeal to the people, and thus committed himself to the verdict of history, saying: “Hearken, O people, every one of you.”
See whether it is not a moment to be proud of when Micaiah turns away in the custody of his persecutors, having delivered his soul with a fearlessness that did not cower or blanche, even at the sight of death in its most ghastly form. Surely, it is due to history to recognize the fact that there have been men who have not counted their lives dear unto themselves when they were called upon to testify for truth and goodness.
The martyrs must never be forgotten.
Joseph Interpreting Pharaoh’s Dream.Genesis, xli.
Joseph Interpreting Pharaoh’s Dream.Genesis, xli.
St. Paul.From the Painting by Raphael.
St. Paul.
From the Painting by Raphael.
Dark will be the day in the history of any nation when the men who shed their blood that truth might be told and honor might be vindicated are no longer held in remembrance. In vain do we bring forth from our hidden treasure the coins of ancient times, the robes worn in high antiquity by kings and priests, the rusty armor of warriors, if there is no longer in our heart the most tenderrecollection of the men who wandered about clad in sheep-skins and goat-skins—being destitute, afflicted and tormented—that they might save the torch of truth from extinction and the standard of honor from overthrow.
Away the kings have gone, and instead of relying upon the word of the Lord, or taking refuge in the sanctuary of great principles, they invent little tricks for the surprise and dismay of the enemy.
The king of Israel disguised himself, and Jehoshaphat made himself as the king of Israel; but all their inventions came to nothing. A certain man drew a bow at a venture, and smote the king of Israel between the joints of the harness. The poor king was fatally struck. He “was stayed up his chariot against the Syrians, and died at even; and the blood ran out of the wound into the midst of the chariot.… And one washed the chariot in the pool of Samaria; and the dogs licked up his blood; and they washed his armor; according unto the word of the Lord which He spake.”
So will perish all the enemies of the Lord.
Differences of merely accidental detail there will ever be, but no honor can mark the death of those who have gone contrary to the will of Heaven, and taken counsel of their own imagination. How long shall the lessons of history be wasted upon us? How long will men delude themselves with the mad infatuation that they can fight against God and prosper? Horsemen and chariots are nothing; gold and silver are valueless; all the resources of civilization are but an elaborate display of cobwebs. Nothing can stand in the final conflict but truth, right and purity. These are the eternal bulwarks, and untothese are assured complete and unchangeable victory. If God be for us, who can be against us? And if God be against us, it will matter not what kings are for us; they shall be blown away by the wind as if contemptuously, and cast out as refuse which is of no value.
My soul, be thou faithful to the voice of history, nor tell lies to thyself, nor operate merely through imagination, ambition or selfish calculation; for the end of this course is death—not heroic death, not death over which coming men and women will weep, but death that shall be associated with dishonor, a thing to be forgotten, an event never to be named without bitterness and shame.
The first and second Book of Kings constitute a section of Jewish history, and originally formed only one book in the sacred writings. It was customary with the Jews to name the sacred books from the word or words with which they commenced; and, while this practice may have given rise to the designation, “Kings,” it is right to observe that the title is well fitted to indicate the character of these historic compositions.
The annals given in these sacred registers are necessarily brief; but they extend from the close of David’s reign till the commonwealth was dissolved, a period of 427 years. Succinct as is the history contained in these books, there are some peculiarities in them which should not be overlooked, and from which not a little may be learned. There is not here a simple biography of the various kings that occupied the thrones of Judah and Israel, nor is there a mere detail of national movements and events, nor even a tabular register of ecclesiastical affairs. The throne, the state and the church are all exhibitedin their mutual relations and bearings upon each other. Kings and people are held up to view as existing and acting under the immediate government of God; and hence the character of the ruler is always tested by the mode in which he adheres to the laws of the Most High and develops the moral excellences of the people. The notice of his accession to royal office is generally accompanied with an estimate of his conduct, and the standard to which he is likened or with which he is contrasted is either the character of David, of his own father or of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, “who made Israel to sin.”
All the political events which are recorded have been brought forward chiefly to exhibit the influence of religion on national prosperity, and in this way to show how the divine King of Israel observed the conduct of his subjects, and rewarded their fidelity or avenged their wickedness with expressions of righteous indignation. And the affairs of the Church are all portrayed with the evident design of giving prominence to the same important truth.
Idolatry in Israel was treason against their King; religious defection was open revolt, and every act of overt wickedness was an act of rebellion. Hence there is a constant comparing or contrasting of religious state and feeling with those of former times, and especially are the oracles of truth continually elevated as the perfect standard to which the thoughts and actions of all should be conformed.
The Mosaic promises and warnings are strikingly verified in the Books of Kings. For this object theywere written, and to the manifestation of this the author has made his whole narrative conduce.
Much variety of opinion exists with reference to the author of these records and the period of their composition. Jewish tradition ascribes the authorship of the treatise to Jeremiah, the prophet—a supposition which is greatly strengthened by the similarity of style and idiom which is traceable between the language of the Books of Kings and that of Jeremiah.
Ahaziah was the son of Ahab and Jezebel. He was badly born. Some allowance must be made for this fact in estimating his character.
Again and again we have had occasion, and shall indeed often have, to remark upon the disadvantages of children born of wicked parents. It is not for us to lay down any final doctrine of responsibility; we must leave that in the hands of a just and gracious God.
A terrible spectacle, however, it is to see a man whose father sold himself to work wickedness in the sight of the Lord, who bound himself as for a price to show rebellion on the very floor of Heaven.
Ahaziah was a prince of evil—a man who said he would defile the sanctuary and commit his supreme sin within the shadow of the altar, and whose mother laid the plans for the murder of Naboth, and who all but personally superintended their execution. What can weexpect from such a child of darkness? Who can gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Was he responsible for his own actions? Society is often hard on such men—not unreasonably or unnaturally. Yet society is often very gracious to such men, saying with an instinctive piety and sense of justice: “After all, such men are not to be personally blamed for their antecedents; they may indeed be open to some measure of suspicion, but even they must have their opportunity in life.”
Let us consider the case of Ahaziah and see how matters stand for our own instruction.
To understand the matter thoroughly, we must go to the twenty-second chapter of the first Book of Kings: “Then said Ahaziah, the son of Ahab, unto Jehoshaphat: ‘Let my servants go with thy servants in the ships.’ But Jehoshaphat would not.”
Jehoshaphat was right when he acted upon his instinct. By-and-by he came to act upon a basis of calculation, and then a compact was entered into. But who dare set aside the voice of instinct—the very first voice that rises in the soul to make judgment and to give direction?
Jehoshaphat, on hearing the proposal of the son of Ahab, said: “No. I have known thy father too well. I am too familiarly acquainted with thy family history. Thou shalt not send thy servants with mine.”
It would be well for us if we could sometimes act more promptly upon our instincts. It would have been well for Jehoshaphat if he had acted upon his instinct.
Ahaziah fell through the lattice, and in his helplessness he became religious. Man must have some God.Even Atheism is a kind of religion. When a man recoils openly from what may be termed the public faith of his country, he seeks to apologize for his recoil, and to make up for his church absence by creating high obligations of another class. He plays the patriot; he plays the disciplinarian; he will be a Spartan in personal training and drill—in some way he will try to make up for or defend the recoil of his soul from the old altar of his country.
It is in their helplessness that we really know what men are. Do not listen to the frivolous and irresponsible chatter of men who, being in robust health, really know nothing about the aching, the sorrow, the pain, the need and the agony of this awful human life.
What does our helplessness suggest? Instantly we go out of ourselves to seek friendship, assistance and sympathy. “Oh, would some gentle hand but touch my weariness!” Thus cries the helpless one. All that, being fairly and duly interpreted, has a religious signification. The cry for friendship is but a subdued cry for God.
Sometimes men will invent Gods of their own. This is what was done, practically, by Ahaziah. Men will go out after novel deities. This is what is being done every day—not under that name, but the mere name makes no difference in the purpose of the spirit. Say new enjoyments, new entertainments, new programs, new customs—these, being interpreted as to the heart of them, mean new altars, new helpers, new gods.
It is said of Shakespeare that he first exhausted worlds, and then invented new. That was right. Itwas but of the liberty of a poet to do so. But it is no part of the liberty of the soul. Necessity forbids it, because the true God cannot be exhausted. He is like His own nature, so far as we know it in the great creation; He is all things in one, gleaming and dazzling as noon-tide, soft and gentle as the balmy wind, strong as the great mountains and rocks, beauteous as the tiny fragrant flowers, musical as the birds that make the air melodious, awful as the gathered thunder which hovers above the Earth as if in threatening.
Who can exhaust nature?
Who can exhaust nature’s God?
Still, the imagination of man is evil continually. He will invent new ways of enjoying himself. He will degrade religion into a mere form of interrogation. This is what Ahaziah did in this instance: “Go, inquire of Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron, whether I shall recover of this disease.” All that we sometimes want of God is that He should be the great fortune teller.
How true it is that Ahaziah represents us all in making his religion into a mere form of question asking—in other words, into a form of selfishness!
The messengers have now come. They have taken their speech from their king, and they are on the road to consult Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron. But who is this who meets them, and who asks:
“Is it not because there is not a God in Israel that ye go to inquire of Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron?”
The men had said nothing about their errand. Who is it that reads the heart night and day, to whom the darkness and the light are both alike, and from the fireof whose eye nothing is hid? How do we get the impression that when we have perfected our lie it is in some sense public property? We are sure the man whom we meet knows it. He looks as if he did.
Elijah is an abrupt speaker. The “hairy man” and “girt with a girdle of leather” did not study the scanning of his sentences. He struck with a battering ram; his interrogations were spears that quivered in the heart; his looks were judgments. What an effect he produced upon these men! Why did they not go past him and say: “Keep thy speeches to thyself, thou hairy man, nor interfere with the king’s messengers”?
We can not do that. We know that some men are not to be turned away so. We may attempt to deceive, evade or disappoint them, but they have a magnetic and most marvelous influence upon us. Though they do not speak in the imperative mood, they speak with imperative force.
The men turned back like whipped children to tell the king what they had heard, and Ahaziah was surprised at their early return. He can not sleep. He asks that the book of the chronicles may be brought, that he may look up events and see where the loop slipped, where the wrong entry was made, or where the minutes were not carried out in detail.
All this means that Elijah lives in some form or other and will meet us and confront us and have it out with us.
Look at the conflict between Ahaziah and Elijah, the Tishbite. Ahaziah is the king and Elijah is only the prophet, and the king ought to have every thing his own way ex-officio. Now we shall see what metal Elijah ismade of. He handled kings as if they were little children. He took them up and set them down behind him and said: “Wait there until I return, and stir at your peril.”
The prophet should always be the uppermost man. Kings are nothing compared to teachers and seers—men who hold the judgments of God on commission. The great men of the nation are the prophets, the teachers, the educators of thought, the inspirers of noble sacrificial enthusiasm. See how Elijah tramps among the kings. He has no favor to ask. If he were driven to ask for one morsel of bread, he would be Elijah no more.
Ahaziah sends to Elijah and says: “Come down.” These words sound very commanding and imperative. Elijah answered: “If I be a man of God, then let fire come down from Heaven and consume thee and thy fifty. And there came down fire from Heaven and consumed him and his fifty.”
Look at the conflict and its parties. On the one hand, petulance; on the other, dignity. On the one side, anger—fretful, fuming, petty; on the other, judgment—calm, sublime, comprehensive, final.
Ekron was one of the royal cities of the Philistines. Its situation is pointed out with considerable minuteness in Scripture. It is described as lying on the northern border of Philistia and of the territory allotted to Judah. It stood on the plain between Bethshemesh and Jabneel. Jerome locates it on the east of the road leading from Azotus (Ashdod) to Jamnia (Jabneel). From these notices we have no difficulty in identifying it with the modern village of Akir. Akir stands on the southern slopeof a low and bleak ridge or swell which separates the Plain of Philistia from Sharon. It contains about fifty mud houses, and has not a vestige of antiquity except two large and deep wells and some stone water troughs. Ekron means “wasteness.” The houses are built on the accumulated rubbish of past ages, and, like their predecessors, if left desolate for a few years they would crumble to dust. The most interesting event in its history was the sending of the ark to Bethshemesh. A new cart was made and two milch kine yoked to it, and then left to choose their own path; “and they took the straight way to the way of Bethshemesh,” the position of which can be seen in a gorge of the distant mountains eastward. The deity worshiped at Ekron was called Baal-zebub, and we may conclude from the story of Ahaziah that this oracle had a great reputation, even among the degenerate Israelites. Ekron was a large village in the days of Jerome, and also in the age of the crusades.
Asa was a good king of Judah. He “did that which was good and right in the eyes of the Lord, his God.” Not only “good and right,” because these might be variable terms. There are persons who set themselves to the presumptuous and impious task of settling for themselves what is “right” and what is “good.”
In the case of Asa, he did not invent a righteousness, nor did he invent a goodness which he could adapt to hisown tempers, ambitions and conveniences. He was right and good and “did that which was good and right in the eyes of the Lord, his God.”
While the land had peace, Asa set to work and built walls, towers and fences, and did all that he could for the good of his country.
Zerah, an Ethiopian warrior, did not understand silence. He mistook quietness for languor. He made the vulgar mistake of supposing that quietness was indifference. He did not know that repose is the very highest expression of power.
Zerah brought against Asa, king of Judah, no fewer than a million soldiers—to us a large number, but to the Orientals quite a common array. Zerah’s host was the largest collected army of which we read in Scripture, but it does not exceed the known numbers of other Oriental armies in ancient times. Darius Codomannus brought into the field at Arbela a force of 1,040,000. Xerxes crossed into Greece with certainly above a million combatants. Artaxerxes Mnemon collected 1,260,000 men to meet the attack of the younger Cyrus.
What was to be done? Asa did not shrink from war, though he never courted it. He must meet the foe in battle. Before doing so he must pray.
“Lord, it is nothing with Thee to help, whether with many or with them that have no power. Help us, O Lord, our God, for we rest on Thee; and in Thy name we go against this multitude. O Lord, thou art our God; let not man prevail against Thee.”
Having risen from their knees, they launched themselves against the Ethiopians, and were mighty as menwho answer straw with steel. They fought in God’s name and for God’s cause, and the thousand thousand of the Ethiopians were as nothing before the precise and terrific stroke of men who had studied war in the school of God.
The defeat of Zerah is one of the most remarkable events in the history of the Jews. On no other occasion did they meet in the field and overcome the forces of either of the two great monarchies between which they were placed. It was seldom that they ventured to resist, unless behind walls. Shishak, Sennacherib, Esarhaddon, Nebuchadnezzar, Alexander and Ptolemy I. were either unopposed or only opposed in this way. On the other occasion on which they took the field—which was under Josiah against Necho—their boldness issued in a most disastrous defeat.
Asa, then, began upon a good foundation; he established himself upon a great principle. That is what all, young people especially, should take to heart right seriously. Do not make an accident of your lives—a thing without center, purpose, certitude or holiness. Be right in your great foundation lines, and you will build up a superstructure strong, after the nature and quality of the foundation upon which you build. Do not snatch at life. Do not take out an odd motto here and there and say: “This will do for the occasion.” Life should be deeply laid in its bases, strongly cemented together in its principles, noble in its convictions; then it can be charitable in its concessions and recognitions.
“And Asa took courage, and put away the abominable idols out of all the land of Judah and Benjamin, andout of the cities which he had taken from Mount Ephraim, and renewed the altar of the Lord.”
Let us not trifle with the occasion by suggesting that we have no idolatries to uproot, no heathen groves to examine, to purify or to destroy. That would indeed be making light of history and ignoring the broadest and saddest facts of our present circumstances. The world is full of little gods, man-made idols, groves planted by human hands, oppositions and antagonisms to the tried Theism of the universe.
We are apt to think that the idols are a long way off—far beyond seas; or that they existed long centuries ago and spoke languages now obsolete or forgotten.
Nothing of the kind. They live here; they build today. Our gods are a million strong. We do not call them gods, but we worship them none the less. Luck, Accident, Fortune, Fashion, Popularity, Self-Indulgence—these are the base progeny of idols that did once represent some ideal thought and even some transcendental religion. Idolatry has retrograded; polytheism has gone quickly backward.
Asa said, in effect: “We must be right about our gods before we can be right with one another.” That is true teaching. With a wrong theology we never can have a thoroughly sound and healthy economic system.
This was the corner-stone upon which Asa built his great and gracious policy. What was the effect of it upon other people? We find that the effect then was what it must always be:
“They fell to him out of Israel in abundance when they saw that the Lord, his God, was with him.”
Such is the influence of a great leadership. If Asa had been halting, the people would have halted, too. Asa was positive; and positiveness, sustained by such beneficence, begets courage in other people. “They fell to him out of Israel in abundance”—that is, they came over to him and were on his side. They ranked themselves with Asa; they looked for his banner and called it theirs, “when they saw that the Lord, his God, was with him.”
Nations perish for want of great leaders. Social reforms are dependent to a large extent upon the spirit of the leadership which has adopted them. The Church is always looking around for some bolder man, some more heroic and dauntless spirit, who will utter the new truth, if any truth can be new—say, rather, the next truth; for truth has always a next self, a larger and immediately impending self, and the hero, who is also martyr, must reveal that next phase of truth and die on Golgotha for his pains.
Can we not, in some small sense, be leaders in our little circles—in our business relations, in our family life, in our institutional existence? Many people can follow a tune who can not begin one. That is the philosophy we would unfold and enforce.
Regard all leaders with prayerful hopefulness in so far as they want to do good and to be good. Sympathize with them; say to Asa, even the king: “What thou hast done thou hast well done; in God’s name we bless thee for the purification of the land and for the encouragement of all noble things.”
Asa showed the limits of human forbearance and humanphilosophy. He broke down in the very act of doing that which was right because he went too far. He made a covenant, and the people made it along with him.
Solemn renewals of the original covenant which God made with their fathers in the wilderness occur from time to time in the history of the Jews, following upon intervals of apostacy. This renewal in the reign of Asa is the first on record. The next falls three hundred years later, in the reign of Josiah. There is a third in the time of Nehemiah. On such occasions the people bound themselves by a solemn oath to observe all the directions of the Law, and called down God’s curse upon them if they forsook it.
“And they entered into a covenant to seek the Lord God of their fathers with all their heart and all their soul; that whosoever would not seek the Lord God of Israel should be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman.”
That is the danger. You can not make men religious by killing them, by threatening them, by inflicting upon them any degree of penalty. Do not force a child to church. Lead it; lure it; make the church so bright and homelike and beautiful that the child will eagerly long for the time to come when the door will be opened.
Asa was impartial. There was a touch of real grandeur about the man. He would not even allow his mother to keep an idol. The queen had an idol of her own “in a grove.”
“And also concerning Maachah, the mother of Asa, the king, he removed her from being queen, because shehad made an idol in a grove; and Asa cut down her idol, and stamped it and burnt it at the brook Kidron.”
Thus ruthlessly Asa disestablished that little royal church. See how burningly in earnest the man was, and what a man will do when his earnestness is fervent! He knows nothing about fathers, mothers, partialities or concessions. He says: “Light is the foe of darkness, and you can not have any little dark corner of your own. This light must find you out, chase away every shadow and purify every secret place in human life and thought.”
Some have supposed that Maachah, the mother of Abijah, and Maachah, the “mother” of Asa, were different persons, the former being the daughter of Absalom, the latter the daughter of Uriel of Gibeah. There are really no grounds for this. Maachah, the mother of Abijah, enjoyed the rank of queen mother not only during his short reign of three years, but also during that of her grandson, Asa, until deposed by him on account of her idolatry.
The original word for “idol” appears to signify a “horrible abomination” of some monstrous kind; and instead of “in a grove” we should read “for an asherah,” the wooden emblem of the Canaanitish deity.
There seems little doubt that some obscene emblem is meant, of the kind so often connected with worship of the productive powers of nature in ancient religions—substituted, as a still greater abomination, for the ordinary asherah. Clearly, the act of Maachah was one of so flagrant a kind that Asa took the unusual step, on which the historian here lays great stress, of degrading her in her old age from her high dignity, besides hewingdown her idol and burning it publicly under the walls of Jerusalem.
“Now,” said Asa, in effect, “what is good for the public is good for the individual; what is good for the subject is good for the queen.”
Athaliah was a king’s daughter and a king’s wife. She had a son whose name was Ahaziah, but, as he was an invalid, he did not occupy the throne longer than about twelve months.
As soon as his mother saw that he was dead a fierce and most murderous passion seized her heart. She then resolved to be queen herself.
In order to carry out this nefarious purpose, she slew all the seed royal, so that, there being no successor to the throne, she ascended it and reigned as queen.
It is very wonderful that some of the most cruel and startling things in the world have been done by women. One called Laodice poisoned her six sons one by one, that she might be empress of Constantinople. Another, ironically named Irene, took the eyes out of her own boy, that he might be incapable of empire, and that she might reign alone.
These things were done in the ancient time. Is any of the cruelty of heart left still? The accident may be changed—what about the passion and purpose of the heart? Let every one answer the question individually.
Athaliah made her heap of corpses and laughed in her mad heart, saying that now she was queen. But always some Fleance escapes the murderer’s clutch. In that heap of corpses there was an infant boy, hardly twelve months old; he was spared. The sword had not taken his little life, but the queen knew not that the child Joash had escaped. He was taken and with his nurse was hidden in the Temple, and there he was trained by the good priest, Jehoiada, for some six years. All the while the queen was reigning and doing evil.
The little boy was saved by his aunt, Jehosheba, and when six years had passed and the boy was seven years of age, being twelve months old when he was snatched from impending ruin, Jehoiada called the rulers together and all the chief and mighty men of Israel. He then revealed the secret to them.
Having disposed these dignitaries in military order and with military precision around the person of the young king, Jehoiada brought the crown and put it upon his head, and he gave him the testimony or Book of Leviticus; and, having gone through all this ceremonial process, the young king stood upright by the pillar of inauguration in the Temple, and all that great throng then clapped their hands and shouted: “God save the king!” Louder the shout rang till the queen heard it in her own house, which was not far off.
“The nearer the church, the farther from God,” has been wittily said.
Athaliah hastened to the sacred place to know the reason of this hilarious tumult, and when the case was made clear to her she shrieked and cried:
“Treason! Treason!”
But her voice found no echo in the hearts of men. Not a soul fluttered—not a heart started up in the royal defense. The woman—the evil daughter of an evil mother—was taken out by the way along which the horses came into the king’s house, and the sword which she had thrust into the throats of others drank her own blood.
In an event of this kind there must be some great lessons for all time. These are not merely momentary ebullitions of wrath or malice. They have history in them; they are red with the common blood of the whole race.
Very few men stand out in ancient history with so fair and honorable a fame as good Jehoshaphat. It is like a tonic, intellectual and spiritual, to read his vivid history. He was a grand king—long-headed, good-hearted, honest and healthy in purpose of doing wondrous things for his kingdom and for the chosen of God.
But is there not a weak point in every man? Does not the strongest man stoop? Does not great Homer sometimes nod?
Jehoshaphat had this weakness, that he hankered after some kind of connection with the wicked house of Ahab. He had a son, whose name was Jehoram (or Joram), and he wanted his son married. He must look around for royal blood. Explain it as we may—no man has explained it fully yet—Jehoshaphat wanted to be connected with the evil house of Ahab. To that house he looked for a wife for his son, Jehoram. His son married Athaliah, and she brought into the kingdom all theidolatry of Ahab and the fierce blood-thirstiness of Jezebel. That was the root of the mischief. Some roots lie a long time before they begin to germinate. There may be roots in our lives which will take ten years or forty years to develop, but the root will bring forth according to its kind. Let us take care what roots we plant in our lives—what connections we form.
Jehoram, the son of good Jehoshaphat, walked in the evil ways of the kings of Israel, and he wrought that which was evil in the sight of the Lord. Mark the reason given by the inspired historian: “He had the daughter of Ahab to wife.”
What secrets were indicated by that one reason! What a whole volume of tragedy is wrapped up in that brief sentence!
The responsibility seems to a large extent transferred from Jehoram and placed upon his wife, who was a more subtle thinker, a more desperate character, with a larger brain and a firmer will, with more accent and force of personality. Jehoram played the evil trick, repeated the foul habit, went in the wrong direction, bowed down to forbidden altars, for—“he had the daughter of Ahab to wife.” She lured him; the seduction was hers; she won the conquest. When he would have bowed the knee to the God of Heaven, she laughed at him and mocked him into Baal worship. He fell as a victim into her industrious and cruel hands.
“Be not unequally yoked together.” Do not look upon marriage lightly; do not suppose that it is a game for the passing day, a flash and gone, a hilarious excitement, a wine-bibbing, a passing around of kind salutations,then dying away like a trembling echo. Beware what connections you form, and do not suppose that the laws of God can be set aside with impunity. Get out of your heads the infinite mistake that you can do as you like and escape the operation of divine law. Deliver yourselves from the cruel delusion that you can sow tares and reap wheat. Be not deceived. God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows that shall he also reap.
Our family life explains our public attitude and influence. What we are at home we are really abroad.
Wives, do not destroy your husbands. When they would do good, help them. When they propose to give to the cause of charity, suggest that the donation be doubled, not divided. When they would help in any good and noble work, give them sympathy, prayer and blessing. We never knew a man yet of any enduring public power that was not made by his wife, and we never knew a public man yet that fully appreciated the value of that ministry. It is secret; it is at home; it does not show. It is chalked on a black-board, and not gilded on a high ceiling; it is silent, but vital.
We have seen a man go down in his church life, and we have wondered why. It was his wife—the daughter of Ahab—who was degrading him, narrowing him and dwarfing him in his thinking and sympathy.
We have seen a man go up in his public influence, and we have found that it was his wife who was encouraging him, helping him, telling him that he was on the right way, and wishing him good luck in the name of the Lord.
See to it that your home is right. Have a beautifulhome—morally and religiously; a sacred house, a sanctuary where joy is the singing angel. And then, when you come abroad into the market-place, into the pulpit, into parliament, into trade and commerce or into any of the social relations of life, you will bring with you all the inspiration which comes from a home that blooms like a garden or glows like a Summer sun.
Do not suppose that the divine purpose can be set aside by Athaliahs, Irenes, Laodices or any false, furious or desperate characters of any kind.
The Lord promised David that he should always have a candle in Jerusalem. The light was very low sometimes—it was reduced to a spark in young Joash; but it was God’s candle, and Athaliah’s wild breath could not blow out that light. The word of the Lord abideth for ever.
Observe a very strong peculiarity in human nature, as shown in the conduct of Athaliah. She went into the Temple and saw the young Joash with a crown upon his head, and she shrieked out: “Treason! Treason!”
Poor innocent Athaliah! Who would not pity so gentle a dove, with a breast of feathers and a cruel dart rankling in it? Sweet woman—gentle and loving creature—injured queen! Her hands were perfectly clean; she was the victim of a cruel stratagem. She was outwitted by heads longer than hers. She, poor unsuspecting soul, had been brought into this condition, and all she could do was to cry in injured helplessness:
“Treason! Treason!”
How moral we become under some circumstances! How very righteous we may stand up to be under certainprovocations! Who could but pity poor Athaliah, who had nursed her grandchildren with a wolf’s care? We do this very self-same thing very often in our own lives. Where is the man who does not suppose that he has a right to do wrong? But let other people do wrong, and then hear him!
Given a religious sect of any name whatsoever, that has the domination of any neighborhood, and the probability is that that religious sect will use its supremacy somewhat mischievously in certain circumstances. It will not let anybody who opposes its tenets have an acre of ground in that neighborhood, nor will it allow any sect that opposes its principles to build a church there. No! It takes a righteous view of the circumstances; it will not trifle with its responsibilities; it can allow no encroachment. It is charged with the spirit of stewardship, and must be faithful to its sacred obligations.
So it cants and whines, whatever its name be. If it be the name we bear religiously, so much the worse. We speak of no particular sect, but of any sect that may be placed in such peculiar circumstances as to claim the domination and supremacy in any neighborhood.
Now, let any member of that sect leave that particular locality and go to live under a wholly different set of circumstances, and apply for a furlong of ground, or for a house that he may occupy as tenant. Then let it be found that his religious convictions are a bar to his enjoyment of local properties and liberties. He will cry out: “Persecution! Persecution!” How well it befits his lips! The very man who in one district persecuted to the death those who opposed him removes to anotherlocality, where a screw is applied to his own joints, and he raises the cry of persecution. It is Athaliah’s old trick, and will have Athaliah’s poor reward.
See how the cry of the wicked is unheeded. Athaliah was a woman, and by so much had a claim upon the sympathy of the strong. Yet no man’s heart went out to her in loyal reverence.
Jehoash (or Joash, as the name was shortened) was trained in the Temple, under the good Jehoiada. He was blessed in his aunt—for it was his aunt who took him, the daughter of Ahab, but not by the mother of Athaliah—and Joash did good all the days of Jehoiada, the priest. See the influence of a noble life. See how religion may help royalty, and how that which is morally true lifts up patriotism to a higher level. No country is sound at heart—through and through good and likely to endure—that draws not the inspiration of its patriotism from the loftiness and purity of its religion.
All these tragedies are making the Earth reek with abomination today. Athaliah lives in a vigorous progeny.
Balaam comes into the narrative most suddenly—but he will never go out of it again. Other men have come into the Bible story quite as suddenly, but they have only remained for a time. Balaam will never disappear; we shall read of him when we come to the Book of the Revelation of John the Divine.
There are some historical presences that you can never get rid of. It is useless to quibble and question. The same mystery occurs in our own life. Some persons, having been once seen, are seen for ever. You can not get away from the image or the influence, or forget the magical touch of hand or mind or ear; they turn up in the last chapter of your life Bible. You can not tell whence they come. Their origin is as great a mystery as is the origin of Melchisedek; they come into your lifelines as quickly and abruptly as came Elijah, the Tishbite; and they take up their residence with you—subtly coloring every thought, secretly and mightily turning speech into new accents and unsuspected expressions full of significance and revealing that significance in ever-surprising ways and tones.
Why sit down and look at the story of Balaam as though it were something that occurred once for all? It occurs every day. God teaches by surprise. He sets the stranger in our life, and while we are wondering He turns our wonder into a mystery more sublime.
Who would have a life four-square, in the sense of limitation, visible boundary, tangible beginning and ending? Who would not rather be in the world as if he had been in some other world, and as if he were moving on to some larger world? We lose power when we lose mystery. Let us not chaffer about words. If the spirit of mystery is in a man, the spirit of worship is in him; and if the spirit of worship is in him, it may detail itself into beliefs, actions and services which are accounted right, and whose rightness will be proved by their beneficence. Balaam comes as suddenly as Melchisedek, asunexpectedly as Elijah; but we shall find him at the very last an instructive historical character.
He is called Balaam, the son of Beor, and he is domiciled at Pethor, on the River Euphrates. At that time the king of Moab was called Balak, and when Balak saw how Israel had destroyed the Amorites he said:
“Fighting is out of the question. If we have to come to battle, we may as well surrender before we begin; the numbers are overwhelming. Now shall this company lick up all that are round about us, as the ox licketh up the grass of the field.”
You can hear the lick and the crunch, and be present at the destruction. It was a day of fear and much sorrow in Moab.
What, then, was to be done?
Herein came the wisdom of Balak. He also lives to the end of life’s chapter, for to the end of that chapter we shall find the touch of superstition in the human mind. Balak would have recourse to supernatural help. He had heard of Balaam, the soothsayer of Pethor—a man of divination, a person who had power to bless and to curse—the Simon Magus of his day. So he took advantage of his superstition, and thought to sow the air with curses which would work where his little sword could not reach.
That is not a mean thought. Call it perversion or superstition—you do not touch the inner and vital mystery of the case. The great agonies of life are not to be explained by calling them perversions, or labeling them superstitions, or denouncing them as nightmares or dreams; they are there. Man must obey voices whichare not always articulate and reportable as to words and tones. It may be more superstitious to deny the supernatural than to affirm it. Never forget the cant that is talked against cant.
Do not believe that they are the heavenly, pure and brilliant souls who have no church, no religion, no altar; who live under the dome of their own hats and walk on the marble of their own boots. Whose prophets, pray, are they? They must be accounted for, as well as the Melchisedeks, the Balaams and Elijahs of old time. What is their history? Where have they made their mark? What marvels of beneficence have they performed? Or do they only live in the very doubtful region of sneering at other people’s piety?
Balak’s was a great thought. We do not adopt its form, but we should perhaps do unwisely to reject its spirit and intent. Balak said: “Numbers are against us. If it is to be a mere contention of army against army, Moab will be destroyed at once. The thing to be done—if it can be done—is to enlist the service and the action of the supernatural.” Quite right. We say so now. If that can be done, any other thing that can be done is contemptible in comparison.
So Balak sent for Balaam, who made answer that he would not come. By-and-by Balak sent other princes more honorable still, with offers of promotion and honor and abundant wages. Balaam said he would ask God. He asked God, and angered Him by so doing. Some second prayers are worse than superstitions.