DECEMBER, 1878. 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. X.-ASHER. Deut. xxxiii. 24, 25. 24. "And of Asher he said : Let Asher be blessed with children, Let him be the favoured one of his brethren; 25. Iron and brass be thy bars, And as thy days be thy strength." SUCH is perhaps the rendering of the original Hebrew which can be most confidently laid before the English reader; who should, however, be warned that four out of the five lines composing this blessing have been translated in many different ways, so that a great variety of senses would result from the successive combinations of these versions. For example, the first line might be fairly rendered thus: "Let Asher be blessed above the sons (of Jacob);" and the last line might read either thus: "As thy youth so let thine age be," or, "According to thy days shall be thy rest; "whilst the English version of the Bible will supply alternative translations for the second and fourth lines respectively. The rendering given above is only one of many equally good that might be offered in its place; its chief merit being that it is most in harmony with what seems to be the prevailing feature of nearly every other blessing in the chapter, namely, the geographical position in Canaan of the tribe on which it is pronounced. The name "Asher" signifies "happiness," or " prosperity," and it was given by Leah to the son of her handmaid Zilpah, in token of the joy which this new gift of God had brought to her wounded heart. "Leah said, Happy am I, for the daughters will call me happy; and she called his name Asher" (i.e., Happiness). (Gen. xxx. 13.) In this blessing of Moses there is manifestly a play upon the name thus given. It is treated as a good and true omen concerning Asher's temporal lot; nor would it be difficult to preserve the verbal conceit in English, especially if a rendering noticed above be given to the first line of the stanza: "Happy above the sons be the 'happy' one, Let him be the favoured one among his brethren." The next line: "Let him dip his foot in oil," is a prediction of the VOL. XXI. N.S. XII. exceeding richness and fertility of Asher's territory in the Promised Land. Jacob had already foretold the same thing in his dying prophecy: "Out of Asher his bread shall be fat; he shall yield royal dainties" (Gen. xlix. 20). Fatness is to an Oriental the quality which chiefly recommends any viand.· Olive oil, "butter of kine," and the animal fat which is lodged in the curiously overgrown tail of a Syrian sheep, are to this day the peculiar dainties of Eastern cookery, and all of these were produced in abundance on the land which fell by lot to this favoured tribe. It was, and is, “a good land ... of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig-trees, and pomegranates; a land of olive oil and honey; a land wherein bread is to be eaten without scarceness; nothing is lacked in it" (Deut. viii. 7-9). The figure by which Asher is here said to "dip his foot in oil" is a familiar Eastern idiom to describe the overflowing abundance of all these natural productions of the soil. Job uses it in precisely the same way when he recalls his days of material prosperity," When," says he, “I washed my steps with butter, and the rock poured me out rivers of oil" (Job xxix. 6.) The fourth line of the blessing is certainly meant to be parallel with the third line in its reference to some natural feature of the territory reserved for Asher in Canaan; but the exact force of the reference is still a matter of dispute amongst the learned. Some would read the line as it stands in the margin of our ordinary English Bibles: "Under thy shoes shall be iron and brass (i.e., copper)"; and this would be a perfectly true description of the mineral wealth of a part of the mountain range which Asher ought to have occupied, but which he abandoned to the Zidonians, who very diligently dug out the metals above named from their subterranean veins. Moses had noted this feature of the soil of Canaan in an earlier passage of Deuteronomy already partly quoted, saying, “It is a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills thou mayest dig copper " (Deut. viii. 9). But in all likelihood the notion of "shoes" is quite foreign to the true interpretation of this part of the blessing; and the Hebrew word which suggested it alike to the Septuagint and English translators should properly be rendered "thy bars," or, "thy bolts." Here, again, we find a very graphic poetical description of Asher's lot in the Promised Land. His boundary is traced on its landward side by strongly-marked mountain ridges; and on the west these barriers run out into the sea in successive capes, that resemble the traverses of some titanic fortification, and which are as rugged and ironbound in aspect as the inland region which they protect is smiling and soft. The prophet Jonah was cast up upon this coast after his strange experiences in the belly of a fish: and he has described its appearance as revealed to him beneath the waves in terms that recall the language here: "I went down to the bottoms of the mountains, The earth with her bars was about me for ever." (Jonah ii. 6.) If this allusion be recognised in Moses' blessing, the intention will plainly be to suggest the security of Asher in the portion which God was about to bestow upon him. There he should be fenced in, as it were, by bolts of iron and bars of brass, which no envious foe should be able to break through with hostile or thievish intent. And this idea concerning the single tribe of Asher corresponds with a sentiment expressed in a later verse of the poem concerning Israel as a whole: "He shall dwell in safety alone" (ver. 28); or, as Isaiah has expanded the thought, "He shall dwell on high, his place of defence shall be the munitions of rocks: bread shall be given him, his waters shall be sure" (Isa. xxxiii. 16). This interpretation of the fourth line in the blessing would almost lead us to prefer the following amongst the many renderings that have been given of the fifth line: "According to thy life shall be thy rest;" that is, Asher's repose from warlike labours and alarms should continue as long as his tribal existence. But the associations which long acceptance and usage have attached to the rendering as given in the English Bible will probably make most readers reluctant to give up the thought which many a sermon and hymn will have endeared and familiarised; and as the original words will well bear this meaning, it has been retained in the present paper: "As thy days shall be thy strength "that is, the strength of him whom God favours shall always be in proportion to his need. God will not suffer him to be tempted or burdened above his ability to bear. His Divine Redeemer's strength shall ever be sufficient for him (1 Cor. x. 13; 2 Cor. xii. 9). One could wish that the actual history of Asher furnished a happy comment upon, and illustration of, his blessing as thus interpreted; but in truth the comparison of prophetic poetry and prosaic fact in this particular instance is full of suggestive disappointment. Asher did dwell securely for a certain period within his mountain barriers, and his sons seem to have enjoyed a long season of material prosperity; but this was not through their trust in Divine protection, but through their own subtle worldly policy, which involved, alas, the faithless surrender of their highest duty to God. The men of Asher deemed it too hard a task to drive out the Phoenicians and Canaanites whom they found in possession of the strong cities and fat valleys of their portion. God would indeed have helped them utterly to exterminate their heathen rivals; but they preferred to make a cowardly truce and compromise, by virtue of which they dwelt peaceably "among the Canaanites, the inhabitants of the land" (Judges i. 31, 32). Nor did Asher from that time forward ever redeem the shame of his dishonourable compact with foes whom he ought to have destroyed. No hero or champion of Israel ever came forth from this northern region to show the mighty power of faith in "the eternal God." The very name of the tribe almost vanishes from the page of Hebrew history, and it had better have been absent altogether than conspicuous as it is in the bitterly scornful allusion of Deborah, in her well-known song concerning the war of Jehovah against the kings of the Canaanites : "Asher rested on the sea-shore And abode in his havens." Shame that he should have done so, when his brethren to the south and east were "jeoparding their lives unto the death on the high places of the field" (Judges v. 17, 18). Yet the name of Asher is not like that of Dan, blotted with hopeless ignominy from the list of God's redeemed. A woman of this tribe, Anna, the centenarian prophetess of Jerusalem, was among the first to hail the infant Saviour, and to give thanks for His salvation unto the Lord (Luke ii. 36-38). Though the majority of the tribe perished through worldly conformity and ease-loving apostasy from the covenant of God, yet the blessing of Moses upon Asher was not wholly forfeited nor unfulfilled. Let the lesson of this story be for our instruction in the dangers of temporal prosperity, even for the Lord's elect, and no less in the meaning of those reverses of earthly fortune by which the backslidings of the chosen people are continually chastised. When Asher forgets the covenant of his Redeemer, "the Lord, the Lord of hosts, will send among his fat ones leanness, and under his glory he will kindle a burning like the burning of a fire;" but even in those experiences of well-deserved correction and adversity, the soul that God has favoured and pronounced "blessed" shall not be abandoned to utter ruin. As his days, so his strength shall be. "And it shall come to pass in that day that the remnant of Israel, and such as are escaped of the house of Jacob, shall no more again stay upon him that smote them, but shall stay upon the Lord, the Holy One of Israel in truth. The remnant shall return, even the remnant of Jacob, unto the mighty God" (Isa. x. 16-21). THE MINISTER'S WIFE AT CLAYTON. IT was quite a long time ago that good sister Keziah Speedwell recorded something of the ups and downs of Clayton Parish. Through those well-remembered letters of hers I came to feel an interest in the church and the people, if not the steeple, and have, ever since, hailed with delight any intelligence from that locality. So, the other day, chancing to meet the said worthy woman, I immediately organised myself into a committee of one to investigate and report. This is the story, even as it was told to me: "Well, there is our minister's new wife! To begin with, though, you must know about the minister. It is a year since the Rev. Philip Holly first lifted up his shepherd's crook before our wandering flock. We expected a great deal of him when he came, and we were not disappointed. I will say it for him that if ever a man walked blameless and lived without reproach and gave general satisfaction he did. He was like Paul-'all things to all men,' 'fought a good fight, and kept the faith.' He was like Paul in another thing, too; he was a bachelor. None the worse for that, in our estimation. It would have done you good to have seen how the young ladies did take hold of the church work, and how sweet and devoted and saintly they all grew. Not that I'm blaming them; it's human nature. Mr. Holly is an uncommon man; and if I'd been forty-odd years younger, and it had not been for Joel, I don't mind saying, confidentially to you, that I should have tried my luck a bit. She is young before he started. "That was all he said; and inasmuch as she lived so far away we could learn nothing more. I did think, afterwards, that it would have been better if he had told us more, and prepared us for what we might expect. But perhaps not. 66 They reached Clayton on & Friday night-Mr. Holly and his wife did. Saturday it rained all day, and nobody except the widow Brown, with whom Mr. Holly boarded, set eyes on the bride till "To be sure Mr. Holly did say she entered the church on Sunday something to the committee, when morning. But she was a pretty he was invited, about not being in creature. A short, slight figure, the matrimonial market; but no- robed in trailing silk and velvet. body took any notice of it. The Roses in her cheeks and roses in elder sisters began telling him, in a her hat. Great brown eyes, out of tender, motherly way, that a bishop which the young wistfulness and should be the husband of one wife, wonder had not died. The sweetest he needed a helpmeet in his labours, little mouth, wavering betwixt a and at thirty a man ought to be smile and a pout. A dainty whitelooking around for a companion. kid-gloved hand,scarcely bigger than He wouldn't answer much, only a child's. Mr. Holly ushered her laugh with his eyes. Yet all the up the broad aisle, looking as proud as if Victoria Regina herself was following him, and then went into the pulpit and prayed for humility. "After the sermon he introduced while he was just as pleasant and polite as could be with the girls-a hand shake here, a kind word there, a smile yonder; but nothing that the giddiest among them could me to her; and the child straighttake a particle of encouragement way won my foolish old heart by from. Finally it came out, all at clinging to my arm a moment, and once, that he was engaged to a girl murmuring, with her beautiful eyes in his native town. He didn't deny full of tears, You are so like my the report, and two months later grandma!' From that time forth confirmed it by asking for a vacation I was her champion; and almost to go to be married. immediately came the chance to show my colours, for no sooner had we got our places in Sunday-school than sister Hopson, who sat next to me, began, in a muffled whisper: Now, don't it beat the Dutch? A chit of a girl, only nineteen (Miss Brown said she wasn't) to be a minister's wife and take the lead of 'You must bear with things! And to see her tricked out my little girl,' he said to somebody, in so much finery! Miss Brown "Is she pretty?' inquired Nellie Maynard of Mr. Holly, referring to the coming parsoness. Nellie, being herself engaged, felt free to talk, you see. Mr. Holly laughed a low, contented kind of laugh at her question, and replied, 'Well, really, Miss Nellie, I never thought whether she was or not.' |