as he marched to the banks of the Arnon, on his way to invade the territory of Sihon, recently Moabite, but, at the time of his invasion, Amorite. Moab had seen his advance with displeasure; and the king of Moab at the time, Balak the son of Zippor, had sent into Mesopotamia, and hired a soothsayer, on whom he placed great reliance, hoping to induce him to lay the people of Israel under a curse, and intending in that case to attack them and "drive them out of the land" (Numb. xxii. 5, 6). But the soothsayer, Balaam the son of Beor, proved intractable. He was a man of that strangely mixed character, which from time to time passes across the stage of history, "combining the purest form of religious belief with a standard of action immeasurably below it;" anxious for worldly advancement, but unable to bring himself to overstep manifestly the restraints of law and conscience; always repining and seeking to reconcile his private interest with the rule of right; self-deceived, and gradually led on to the commission of grievous sins, from which his better nature would have shrunk, had he viewed them in their true light. Solicited by two embassies, he consents after a time to draw near to the temptation, and then he proceeds to coquet with it, to dally with it, to endeavour as it were to circumvent the Deity, and to find a way of doing what the monarch who has sent for him desires without directly giving the lie tc his internal spiritual impulses and Divine enlightenment. In this he fails. The irresistible force of the prophetic impulse overpowers the baser spirit of the individual man." The Divine message forces its way, and is delivered whether he will or no. Hired to curse Israel, he is compelled to bless them altogether-to "lift up his voice" and cry-"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, as cedars beside the waters. Water shall flow from 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 a wild bull: he shall eat up the nations that are his enemies; he shall break their bones in pieces; and pierce them through with his He couched, he lay down as a lion; (he lay down) as Stanley "Lectures on the Jewish Church," vol, i. p. 191. • Ibid., p. 196.

arrows.

a lioness; who shall stir him up? Blessed be he that blesseth thee, and cursed be he that curseth thee!" (Numb. xxiv. 5-9).

Reluctantly, Balak gave up the idea of himself attacking the host of Israel with his army, and descended to a lower and baser form of hostility. By the advice of Balaam (Numb. xxxi. 16) he drew the Israelites into sin, tempted them to join in the Moabite and Midianite idolatries, and then to engage in those licentious orgies, with which the idolatries of the East were always so intimately connected. Israel fell into the snare; and the result was that terrible plague which cost the lives of twenty-four thousand of the people, whereto the zeal of Phineas put a stop.1 It was to avenge this successful plot that the last war of Moses was undertaken. The Divine command still protected Moab; but Midian, which had been Moab's tool, received the chastisement that both had deserved, and suffered a fearful retribution. The war had the character of a sacred war. Of every tribe throughout all the tribes of Israel one thousand warriors were taken, perhaps by lot, and to this small representative army was committed the task of chastising the myriads of Midian. Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the high priest, who had already shown his zeal against licentiousness, was appointed to accompany, and probably to direct, the expedition; the ark and "vessels of the sanctuary" (Numb. xxi. 6), went with him; and the sacred trumpets were blown. The Midianite army was commanded by five chiefs, Evi, and Rekem, and Zur, and Hur, and Reba, who are all of them given the title of "king," but who were probably heads of tribes, like Oreb, and Zeb, and Zebah, and Zalmunna (Judges viii. 3-5). Moab perhaps sent a contingent under Balaam. At any rate, that arch-plotter was present, and took part in the fight, which terminated in Midian's entire discomfiture, in the complete destruction of the army, and in the slaughter of the five chiefs. The great prophet of the East was involved in their fate. "Balaam, the son of Beor, the soothsayer, did the children of Israel slay with the sword among the rest of their slain" (Joshua xiii. 22). An enormous quantity of spoil was taken-675,000 sheep, 72,000 cows and oxen, 61,000 asses, and female captives to the number of 32,000besides a great store of gold in the shape of ankle-chains and bracelets, of signet rings, earrings, and armlets (vers. 32-35, ■ See above, page 171.

and 50). exterminated. The active work of Moses was now accomplished. Eastern Palestine was conquered, except the Moabite and Ammonite portions, which were reserved for the children of "just Lot;" and the time had come for the victorious nation to pass from the eastern to the western region, and claim the whole wide sweep of its inheritance. But Moses was not to go over Jordan, and knew that he was not to go over. He was conscious that his end approached; and having brought the people to the very banks of Jordan, and disposed them along its course, in the rich valley under the eastern hills, from Beth-Jeshimoth near the shore of the Dead Sea to Abel-Shittim, "the acacia meadow," several miles higher up the stream, he prepared to bring his life to a close with calmness, courage, and dignity, and to commit the task of completing his work to another.

By Divine command the male population was

His first care was to give injunctions to the people, and to impress upon them, in the strongest possible way, the importance of their cleaving to God, and observing all the ordinances of the law delivered to them through him, if they would hope to obtain the Divine blessing, and to avoid the terrible punishments in store for the disobedient. This he did by the series of discourses which are recorded in the first thirty chapters of Deuteronomy, wherein appeal is made to every motive that commonly exercises a constraining force upon men ; and by an alternation of threats and promises, of appeals to gratitude, and to reason, and to self-interest, and to the innate sense of right and wrong, the nation is urged, persuaded, exhorted, wrought upon, to refuse the evil and choose the good, to renounce idolatry, impurity, and wickedness of all kinds, and to walk in the way of the Lord, to fear Him, and to keep His commandments. The sum is this-" See, I have set before thee this day life and good, death and evil; in that I command thee this day to love the Lord thy God, to walk in His ways, and to keep His commandments, and His statutes, and His judgments, that thou mayest live and multiply, and that the Lord thy God may bless thee in the land whither thou goest in to possess it. But if thine heart turn away, and if thou wilt not hear, but shalt be drawn away, and worship other gods, and serve them; I denounce unto you this day that ye shall surely perish; ye shall not prolong your days upon the land, whither thou passest over

Jordan to go in and possess it. I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have set before thee life and death, the blessing and the curse; therefore choose life, that thou mayest live, thou and thy seed: to love the Lord thy God, and to obey His voice, and to cleave unto Him; for He is thy life, and the length of thy days: that thou mayest dwell in the land which the Lord sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them" (Deut. xxx. 15-20).

The next care of Moses was with respect to his successor. Joshua had been previously, not obscurely, designated for the post. Moses had put up a request to God, saying: "Let the Lord, the God of the spirits of all flesh, appoint a man over the congregation, which may go out before them, and which may come in before them: that the congregation of the Lord be not as sheep which have no shepherd (Numb. xxviii. 16, 17); and God had replied: "Take thee Joshua, the son of Nun, a man in whom is the spirit: and set him before Eleazar the priest, and before all the congregation, and give him a charge in their sight. And thou shalt put of thine honour upon him, that all the congregation of the children of Israel may obey. And he shall stand before Eleazar the priest, who shalt enquire for him by the judgment of the Urim before the Lord at his word shall they go out, and at his word shall they come in, both he and all the children of Israel with him" (vers. 18-21). And Moses had done according to the commandment of God: he had taken Joshua and set him before Eleazar the priest, and before all the congregation; and had laid his hands on him, and given him a charge, as the Lord had said (vers. 22, 23).

It would seem, however, that now, in the immediate prospect of death, he gave Joshua a second charge. "Moses called unto Joshua, and said unto him in the sight of all Israel, Be strong and of a good courage: for thou shalt go with this people into the land which the Lord hath sworn unto their fathers to give them; and thou shalt cause them to inherit it. And the Lord, He it is that doth go before thee; He will be with thee, He will not fail thee, neither forsake thee; fear not, neither be dismayed" (Deut. xxxi. 7, 8). This was the formal delivery into the hands of Joshua of the office of leader of the people. It was immediately followed by a solemn confirmation of the act by God Himself, who summoned both Moses and Joshua to present themselves before Him in the Tabernacle of the Con

gregation, and there ratified what Moses had done by Himself giving Joshua his commission in the words: "Be strong and of a good courage: for thou shalt bring the children of Israel into the land which I sware unto them and I will be with thee"

(vers. 23).

Moses' third care was concerning the Book of the Law. Moses had written the Book of the Law at various intervals in the course of the wanderings. Either on parchment, which the Hebrew artificers may have had the skill to prepare from the skins of slain beasts, or on papyrus, which he may have brought with him out of Egypt, he had noted down the several laws delivered to him by God during the forty years of his ministry, and had collected them into a "book" (sepher), which was thenceforth to be the rule of their life to the people. Of this “Book” he had hitherto been the custodian; but, now that he was on the point of departing, some other custodian, or custodians, must be found for it. It might have been expected that he would transfer the charge, with the other duties of his office, to Joshua; but either this course did not approve itself to him, or he was Divinely admonished to act otherwise. Joshua was a soldier, not a prophet or a priest. It was fitting that the Law, the rule of life for all, the directory for the entire ritual and service which it was the office of the priests to perform, should be deposited with the priestly class, but with some security that they should not tamper with it, nor alter it, in their own interest, or to suit their own ideas of what was right and proper. To this end Moses provided a double security. He made the priests the custodians of the Book in conjunction with "the elders of Israel" (ver. 9); and he required that his autograph should be "put by the side of the Ark of the Covenant" (ver. 26); and that from it should be read in the ears of the whole people, once every seven years, in the Feast of the Tabernacles, either the whole Law, or at any rate the main precepts of it (vers. 10-13). No better precautions could have been taken for preserving the text in its integrity, and ensuring the transmission of the rules of conduct, which he had been commissioned to lay down, unaltered and unimpaired, from generation to generation.

Still, when all this was done, there seemed to be some "last words" needed. The pastor does not readily quit his flock without prolonged exhortation. The founder of a people or a state, if he has notice of his approaching end, still more