Chapter IV

_WAR WITH THE MIDIANITES――DEATH OF MOSES._
NUMB. XXV.–XXXII. DEUT. XXXII. B.C. 1451.

BUT though his tongue had pronounced eloquent blessings upon the people he found he could not curse, Balaam’s heart was filled with malice against them. Dismissed by the king of Moab without the promised honours and rewards, he lingered amongst the neighbouring Midianites, and with the keen hatred of his now hardened heart counselled them to join the children of Moab in seducing the Israelites from their allegiance to Jehovah. The festival of Baal-Peor was at hand, and was celebrated with all the unbridled licentiousness of a heathen orgy. If the Israelites could be persuaded to join in it, they might, he suggested, become “as other men,” and the Invisible protection now vouchsafed would be withdrawn (Num. xxxi. 16). His artful suggestion was adopted. The festival was celebrated, and the Israelites fell into the snare. They joined themselves to Baal-Peor, took part in the hideous rites, and defiled themselves before the Lord. Thus they brought upon themselves a curse far more real than any that the divinations of Balaam could have effected. Had such apostasy gone unpunished, the Strength of Israel would indeed have ceased, and the counsels of the wily Prophet would have been successful. The crisis required severe and exemplary visitation. A plague broke out which swept off upwards of 24,000, and the princes of the tribes, at the command of Moses, slew the guilty with unsparing vigour, and hanged them up before the Lord. On this occasion PHINEHAS, the son of Eleazar, and grandson of Aaron, particularly distinguished himself by his righteous zeal, which was accepted as an atonement for the people, and rewarded not only by the cessation of the pestilence, but with a promise that the priesthood should remain in his family for ever.

But a terrible vengeance was denounced against the crafty Midianites, and after a second numbering of the people by Moses and Eleazar, a Sacred War was proclaimed. A thousand warriors from each tribe, led not by Joshua, but by Phinehas, and accompanied by the Ark, went forth to execute the task of righteous retribution. The silver trumpets sounded the signal for the onset, and the Midianites were utterly routed. Five of their chiefs, Evi and Rekem, Zur and Hur and Reba, as also all their males, were put to death; their cities were burnt; their goodly castles fired; their women and children taken captive; nor did the crafty prophet escape; _he received the wages of his unrighteousness_, and perished by the sword (Num. xxxi. 8; 2 Pet. ii. 15).

The country east of the Jordan, which the Israelites had now wrested from Sihon and Og, was to a great extent a long table-land of undulating downs famed for its rich pasturage[136], and clothed with luxuriant vegetation. It was the forest-land, the pasture-land of Palestine, _a place for cattle_ (Num. xxxii. 1). Of the tribes of Israel, as we have already noticed[137], Reuben and Gad were eminently pastoral, _they had a very great multitude of cattle_ (Num. xxxii. 1). On the conclusion, therefore, of the Sacred War against the Midianites, they approached Moses and the elders of Israel with the petition that they might be allowed to settle down in a region so peculiarly suited to their requirements. This request seemed to the Israelitish leader to savour of a desire to shrink from the arduous work which lay before the nation, and as likely to discourage the people from crossing over and attempting the conquest of the rugged western country, and he reproached them for their apparent selfishness and indifference to the welfare of their brethren. But the two tribes protested their perfect sympathy with the great national cause; they were ready to send the flower of their troops across the river, and only wished for the present _to build sheepfolds for their cattle, and cities for their little ones_, whither they might return on the conquest of the western country. This promise was deemed sufficient, and Moses distributed between them the lately conquered territory, assigning to Reuben and Gad the kingdom of Sihon from the Arnon to the Jabbok[138], and intrusting to the half of the warlike tribe of Manasseh, whose warriors had taken so prominent a part in the conquest of the east of Jordan (Num. xxxii. 39; Deut. iii. 13–15), the inaccessible heights and impassible ravines of Bashan, and the almost impregnable tract of Argob[139], the chief stronghold of the giant Og.

Meanwhile it had been once and again intimated to the Israelitish leader that the day drew near, when he must be gathered unto his fathers. Under the special direction, therefore, of Jehovah, he now occupied himself with giving final and specific instructions respecting the future government of the nation. Joshua “his minister” was solemnly appointed to be his successor; the boundaries of the Promised Land were definitely marked out (Num. xxxiv.); its cities with their suburbs, including six “cities of refuge” for the unwitting manslayer, were assigned to the tribe of Levi (Num. xxxv.), and other necessary regulations were made.

For an ordinary leader this would have been enough. But the recent sad occurrences in the matter of Baal-Peor had only too surely reminded Moses of the fickle tendencies of the nation, and none knew better than himself the awful consequences of national apostasy. For the last time, therefore, he assembled the people together and delivered to them his final counsels. Commencing with a retrospect of the past forty years, he reminded them of the _goodness and faithfulness_ which had always followed them, in spite of their murmurings and discontent, and the victories they had been enabled to achieve (Deut. i–iv. 43). He recapitulated the Law given on Mount Sinai, with such additions or modifications as his own enlarged experience suggested (Deut. v. 1–xxvi. 19), and appointed a day, on which, at the conclusion of the conquest, its blessings and curses were to be ratified by the nation with the most imposing and solemn ceremonies (Deut. xxvii.). He then, for the last time, enlarged on the exalted vocation of the nation, and the blessings which would assuredly accompany obedience to the Divine laws, _in the city and the field, in their basket and their store, in their going out and their coming in_, and dwelt with no less earnestness on the terrible punishments which would follow apostasy and transgression, “in furnishing images for which the whole realm of nature was exhausted, and which nothing excepting the real horrors of the Jewish history, the misery of their sieges, the cruelty, the contempt, the oppressions, which for ages this scattered, despised, and detested nation have endured, can approach[140]” (Deut. xxviii.–xxx.).

But oral delivery was not deemed sufficient. He, therefore, wrote out the Law, with its blessings and its curses, and gave it to the priests, charging them to place it beside the Ark in the Holy of Holies, and to read it, in the hearing of all the people, once every seven years, at the Feast of Tabernacles (Deut. xxxi. 9, 26). Then turning to Joshua, whom he had already nominated as his successor, he bade him _Be strong and of a good courage_, assuring him that Jehovah would be with him, and would make all he did to prosper. But as if to deepen the gloomy forebodings past experience must have suggested, the Lord Himself not only announced in the clearest terms the future apostasy of the people (Deut. xxxi. 16–18), but directed Moses to compose a Song, which the people were to learn and teach their children, as a testimony against themselves in the days to come, when they should have turned unto other gods, and served them, and provoked the Lord, and broken His covenant (Deut. xxxi. 18, 21; xxxii. 1–43). Having composed this Song of Witness[141], and pronounced his last solemn blessing, not like Jacob upon twelve men gathered round his deathbed, but on a mighty nation, on _the ten thousands of Ephraim, and the thousands of Manasseh_, the aged Prophet, _whose eye was not dim nor his natural force abated_, was warned that his hour was come. From the plains of Moab he went up the mountain of Nebo, to the highest point in the long eastern range over against Jericho, and there He who called him to his high mission at the Burning Bush showed him that land, which had been so long sworn to the sons of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Eastward and westward, southward and northward, he surveyed that goodly Land; he saw it all with his eyes though he was not to set his foot thereon. “Beneath him lay the tents of Israel ready for the march; and ‘over against’ them, distinctly visible in its grove of palm-trees, the stately Jericho, key of the Land of Promise. Beyond was spread out the whole range of the mountains of Palestine, in its fourfold masses; ‘all Gilead’ with Hermon and Lebanon in the east and north; the hills of Galilee, overhanging the lake of Gennesareth; the wide opening where lay the plain of Esdraelon, the future battle-field of the nations; the rounded summits of Ebal and Gerizim; immediately in front of him the hills of Judæa, and, amidst them, seen distinctly through the rents in their rocky walls, Bethlehem on its narrow ridge, and the invincible fortress of Jebus[142].” Such was his Pisgah-view, and then all was over. The great Prophet had served his day and his generation, he had reached his 120th year, and his work was ended. There, _in the land of Moab_, he died, and He whom he had served faithfully in all His house, buried him in a valley or ravine in the land of Moab, over against the idol-sanctuary of Beth-Peor (Deut. xxxiv. 6), but _no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day_.

NOTE.

Three points in reference to Moses deserve attention: (i) His
work, (ii) His character, (iii) His office. (i) _His work._
“The Hebrew lawgiver was a man who, considered merely in
an historical light, without any reference to his Divine
inspiration, has exercised a more extensive and permanent
influence over the destinies of his own nation and mankind
at large, than any other individual recorded in the annals of
the world.... To his own nation he was chieftain, historian,
poet, lawgiver. He was more than all these, he was the founder
of their civil existence. Other founders of republics and
distinguished legislators have been, like Numa, already at
the head of a settled and organized community; or have been
voluntarily invested with authority, like Lycurgus and Solon,
by a people suffering the inconvenience of anarchy. Moses had
first to form his own people, to lead them out of captivity, to
train them for forty years in the desert, and bestow on them a
country of their own, before he could create his commonwealth.”
(ii) _His character._ “The word _meekness_ (Num. xii. 3)
which is used in Scripture in reference to his personal
character ‘represents what we should now designate by the word
_disinterested_.’ All that is told of him indicates a withdrawal
of himself, a preference of the cause of his own nation to his
own interests, which makes him the most complete example of
Jewish patriotism.” He joins his countrymen in their degrading
servitude (Ex. ii. 11; v. 4); he forgets himself to avenge their
wrongs (Ex. iv. 13). He wishes that not he only, but all the
nation were gifted alike: _Enviest thou for my sake?_ (Num. xi.
29.) When the offer is made that the people should be destroyed,
and that he should be made a great nation (Ex. xxxii. 10),
he prays that they may be forgiven――_if not, blot me, I pray
thee, out of Thy book which Thou hast written_ (Ex. xxxii. 32).
Even when excluded from realizing the hopes of a lifetime, his
zeal for his people suffers no diminution. (iii) _His office._
While other prophets saw Jehovah only in visions and dreams,
Moses spake with Him _mouth to mouth_, and was entrusted _with
the whole household of God_ (Heb. iii. 2, 5). He was at once
Deliverer, Lawgiver, Priest, Teacher, Leader, and Judge. His
prophetic gift controlled, pervaded, inspired, and regulated
all these functions, and he was thus an eminent type of a still
greater PROPHET (Deut. xviii. 15, 18) to be raised up to Israel
_from among their brethren_, (i) as a Redeemer of his people;
(ii) as a Mediator between them and God; (iii) as a Teacher and
Lawgiver; (iv) as receiving the fullest communications from God;
(v) as the Revealer of a new name of God; (vi) as the founder
of a new religious society. See Milman’s _History of the Jews_,
I. 214; Article _Moses_, in Smith’s _Bib. Dict._; Kurtz’s
_History of the Old Covenant_, III. 478; Davison _On Prophecy_,
pp. 110–112.