THE BLESSING OF THE TRIBES; OR, HOW MOSES, THE MAN OF GOD, BLESSED THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL BEFORE HE DIED.

BY THE REV. T. G. ROOKE, B.A., PRESIDENT OF RAWDON COLLEGE.

NO. I. INTRODUCTORY.

THE many successive " blessings" of Israel were a necessary consequence of his Divine election. God had raised up this people to a peculiar office and place among the nations. The seed of Abraham was chosen to be a perpetual witness to men of God's government in a rebellious world, and of God's purpose to establish a kingdom, before which all rebellion should be extinguished or transformed into loving submission. In that seed all families of the earth were to be blessed. Therefore it was fitting that formal and repeated blessings should be pronounced upon the bearer of such high destinies, that none of the issues of his history might seem to be by chance, and that he and all men might know what was "the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance among the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of God's power towards us who believe." For we who have believed in Christ have a direct interest in all these blessings of the ancient covenant, and are required to study them "for our admonition" with a fearless and intelligent appropriation of their burden.

The notion of a distinct continuity in calling and in privilege between Israel and the Christian Church is no fancy of an antiquated theology. It springs out of the very root idea of the Bible, the principle which rightly leads us to speak of so many Scriptures, written at sundry times and in divers manners, as one book and one revelation. Not that the calling and privilege of the Church reproduce literally all or any of the features of the old economy. We concede no argument to the Ritualist, who would order Christian worship, and who would administer the Christian congregation, on the strict model of Divine ordinances to the Hebrews. Continuity is not a stereotyped repetition of the same elementary forms. The word itself, in its most frequent use, implies development; and when the fact thus outlined is clearly and correctly grasped both in science and in theology, the day of cordial reconciliation between these imagined rivals will have fully dawned.

The first utterance of blessing upon the chosen people proceeded from the lips of God Himself, and was renewed in nearly the same form of language to each of the three great patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It can hardly be by an accident that the record in Genesis of this initial benediction is sevenfold. Seven times

VOL. XXI, N.S. III.

exactly did God declare His purpose to bless the seed of Abraham in the line of Isaac and of Jacob; and having thus established His covenant as by an oath, He spake no more by a like direct communication, but He used the lips of inspired men to enlarge the scope of His blessing, and to give definiteness to its first and necessarily somewhat vague generalities. Even a heathen soothsayer, Balaam, was thus constrained to bless Israel, sorely against his will; and the words which proceeded through such a medium would certainly have wider fame than if a Hebrew tongue had been its instrument; and nations the most remote might hear some distant echo of it, as indeed we believe was actually the case.

But the employment of a heathen voice was by exception to the rule in God's repetition and expansion of His blessing upon Israel. The successive heads of the chosen people were the appointed channel for this communication of the Divine will; and it is noticeable that in every instance the impulse to bless was made the last signal proof of Divine power working in the man through whom the destiny of Israel had been advanced another clearly marked stage. Moses was not alone in blessing the children of Israel" before his death." Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph before him, and David after him, were moved by the same inspiration to utter their swan-like song, and so to die. And this fact is not to be treated merely as an instance of exalted feeling and extended vision, which other men of high moral or mental powers have sometimes experienced at the approach of death. Ancient Greeks and modern Englishmen may have uttered strangely prophetic words concerning their country or their kindred in the mysterious gloaming of life's fast setting day, and we are not required to regard them as inspired by God; but when we hear patriarch, prophet, and king pronouncing these historic sentences concerning Israel, we are bound to bear them witness in the language of one of their own number: "The Spirit of the Lord speaketh in me, and His word is in my tongue" (2 Sam. xxiii. 1, 2). There is something very touching in the half regretful, half triumphant suggestion which another of these worthies has conveyed in the manner of his blessing, "I die, and God will surely visit you (Gen. 1. 24). The sufficient reason for inspiration in all these cases leaps forth into evidence there. God would confirm His own promise-in view of unexpected delay in its fulfilment by means of the faith of Israel's most venerated elders. The men who had hoped to be the instruments of accomplishing their people's highest mission, but who saw that hope cut short by death, were yet to have a share in the preparation of the people to fulfil its calling. Their dying words were to strengthen, encourage, and enlighten those who, perhaps, like themselves, would have to watch the promises receding into evermore distant vistas. "By faith," and for the awakening of faith, they "blessed. concerning things to come," " and worshipped" (Heb. xi. 20-22).

The blessing of Moses was evidently founded upon the earlier utter

atice of the dying Jacob concerning the future of his twelve sons. But the differences between the two blessings are far more suggestive than their resemblances. There are parts of Jacob's discourse to which the notion of "blessing" is altogether foreign. Simeon and Levi are stricken in it with an absolute curse; the prediction concerning Issachar is at least equivocal in its reference to willing servitade; and for Reuben there is nothing but a mournful foreclosure of his natural birthright (Gen. xlix. 8-7, 14, 15). But the prophecy of Moses is really a benediction upon every tribe that is named therein. It is couched throughout in the language of unfeigned affection, intercession, and giving of thanks for what is or for what may be unequivocally good. And this spirit of its contents has caused its form and style of words to contrast strongly with the other and earlier poem. Jacob's eloquence rushes impetuously in a torrent that is turbid through its mingling of many conflicting feelings, so that controversies as to its meaning have been well-nigh endless amongst the learned. But the poetry of Moses flows in a bright, expansive flood, as when the Nile overspreads the level plains of Egypt, bearing nothing but prosperity upon its bosom; and the voyage of the interpreter upon this strange sea is smooth and easy, even if the waters beneath him are not always transparent as glass.

The

Careful readers will observe that the tribes of Israel are arranged in different order in the two blessings by Jacob and by Moses. natural order of age and of maternal parentage is followed by Jacob; bat Moses at first sight seems to adopt an altogether arbitrary arrangement, three times putting a younger before an elder son, separating children of the same mother, and omitting one name altogether. This fact, however, is itself one of our clues to the right understanding of the blessing as a whole, for its only possible explanation depends upon the typical character of Israel's national history. The place which Divine Providence assigned to each tribe in the temporal commonwealth of Israel at different stages of its development was meant to illustrate some permanent principle of God's spiritual kingdom which Moses foresaw in its continuance to our own day. We shall find no difficulty, as we dwell in detail upon these separate blessings, in recognising how aptly the several tribes are "types for us (1 Cor. x. 6), in their promotions, and degradations, and changed relations towards one another and towards their father's God.

This introductory paper will be the proper place for pointing out other clues to the correct interpretation of this blessing as a whole, and in its detailed parts. History and geography will furnish the most trustworthy illustrations of the separate predictions for each tribe. In some cases the blessing is simply an exposition of the name borne by the tribe concerning which Moses speaks, or of the character which that tribe had inherited from its founder, to whom Jacob gave that name. The deeds of the tribe between the days of Jacob and of Moses account sometimes for the terms of its blessing; in some cases

there are shadowed forth future exploits and sufferings which Moses could behold only dimly by some vision of prophecy, but which history has made very definite for us; and in the great majority of cases the blessing has some reference to the future local position of the tribe in the Land of Promise, and therefore finds its clearest illustration from comparatively recent geographical and topographical facts, for which we are indebted to travellers like Robinson and Wetzstein, and especially to the Palestine Exploration Fund. It is not improbable that, when Moses pronounced this blessing, he was standing upon some height near Heshbon, from which the whole region of Palestine west of the Jordan can be surveyed with ease, not only in its general range, but in its particular localities. Modern travellers, standing where Moses may thus have stood, have seen in one panorama the downs of Bashan and the forests of Gilead, Lebanon and the hills where Naphtali was to be "satisfied with favour," the Great Sea and the Sea of Galilee, between which Zebulun, Issachar, and Asher were to have their lot, and the long mountain ridges which Joseph and Judah were to share between them. It seems certain that some maplike arrangement of the tribes upon this territory was displayed to the eye of Moses, and that he has described the same in this blessing. Yet notwithstanding a general fidelity to the broader outlines of subsequent fact in this arrangement, there are not a few discrepancies with historical geography; and by this sign we have really a most suggestive guarantee for the truly prophetic character of the writing which has come down to us from the pen of Moses. Modern rationalism would persuade us that this blessing is altogether a forgery of the days when Josiah was king of Judah; but if this were so, the geographical difficulties which we can explain with ease in a genuine vision of prophecy become inexplicable and unpardonable blunders on the part of men who would be branded, not only as deceivers, but also as clumsy in deception.

The thirty-third chapter of Deuteronomy has a prologue and an epilogue, which may not be passed over in silence. The blessings of the children of Israel are embraced between them intentionally, for the inspired author wished to set forth the unalterable conditions of blessing in God's kingdom, and the inseparable connection which subsists between obedience, happiness, and faith towards God. No grander description of the Divine covenant with Israel was ever given than is contained in the opening verses of this chapter, nor has the Law from Sinai been anywhere else depicted so awfully and yet so attractively in its character of "the inheritance" of Jehovah's " congregation." That law, in its outward form, has no doubt passed away for Christians, but the obligation of its spirit is perpetual, and the blessing of each citizen of God's new covenant kingdom depends upon a loving acceptance of that obligation. Not Moses, but Christ, has "commanded us a law." He is our "king," and we are "not without law to God, but under the law to Christ."

God's covenant with Israel was the foundation of Israel's blessing, and Israel's trust in God was both the pledge of his happiness and the means of his obedience to law, on which alone the blessing was conditioned. The name "Jeshurun," which is given to Israel only in Deuteronomy and in one passage of Isaiah, sets forth this doctrine, which is the symbol (that is, the comprehensive creed) of the Church to-day. The learned are not quite agreed as to the derivation of the name. It may mean "the prosperous or" the happy;" it may mean "the upright one who is dearly beloved," "the darling honest one," ," "the beloved little pious one." Perhaps the ambiguity was designed. We at least may adopt the name as reminding us, if we hope that we are God's beloved, to keep ourselves in the love of God by our life of holiness and faith. Thus only can the God of Jeshurun be our God, and there is none like Him, "who rideth upon the heaven for thy help, and in His excellency on the sky. The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms." "Happy art thou, O Israel! Who is like unto thee, O people saved by the Lord ?"

THAT CLERK!

"I wonder she didn't try for some better position, then. She is surely capable of being something better than a shopgirl.'

"ONLY think of it! A clerk! A does seem as if she foresaw her saleswoman! father's failure." "It seems to me I'd have worked my fingers to the bone in some other way before I would have come to that," said Lizzie Doyle, going to the mirror and re-adjusting her hat.

'Papa always did like those Stanleys," said Lizzie Doyle, petulantly.

"Yes, we all liked them well enough until Mr. Stanley failed, didn't we?"

"Oh, I believe papa intends to promote her when Mr. Jobley leaves. She will then take Mr. Jobley's place as junior bookkeeper. Think of that for a woman!

"That would be better than selling goods. I don't see how she can do that with her refined tastes. Why doesn't she give lessons, I wonder? It might not bring her in quite so much money, but it would be a great deal nicer."

"Yes; and then we could recognise her," said Lizzie Doyle.

"That's what I was coming to," was the quick reply of her companion, a small, sallow-faced girl, elaborately trimmed and flounced. "How are we to treat her now?

"No, not I, for one. Laura was We have been great friends, you always too independent in her know-that is, when she was in notions. Don't you remember how our set," she added, seeing Lizzie's hard she studied at school? It brow darken,