LXVII.] THE SETTLEMENTS EAST OF JORDAN.

167

And he shall stand before Eleazar the priest, who shall ask counsel for him after the judgment of Urim before the LORD: at his word shall they go out, and at his word they shall come in, both he, and all the children of Israel with him, even all the congregation.

And Moses did as the LORD commanded him: and he took Joshua, and set him before Eleazar the priest, and before all the congregation:

And he laid his hands upon him, and gave him a charge, as the LORD commanded by the hand of Moses.

LESSON LXVII.

THE SETTLEMENTS ON THE EAST OF JORDAN.

B.C. 1452.—NUM. xxxii. (abridged).

Now the children of Reuben and the children of Gad had a very great multitude of cattle: and when they saw the land of Jazer, and the land of Gilead, that, behold, the place was a place for cattle;

The children of Gad and the children of Reuben came and spake unto Moses, and to Eleazar the priest, and unto the princes of the congregation, saying,

The country which the LORD Smote before the congregation of Israel is a land for cattle, and thy servants have cattle:

Wherefore, said they, if we have found grace in thy sight, let this land be given unto thy servants for a possession, and bring us not over Jordan. And Moses said unto the children of Gad and to the children of Reuben, Shall your brethren go to war, and shall ye sit here?

And wherefore discourage ye the heart of the children of Israel from going over into the land which the LORD hath given them?

Thus did your fathers, when I sent them from Kadesh-barnea to see the land.

And the LORD's anger was kindled against Israel, and he made them wander in the wilderness forty years, until all the generation, that had done evil in the sight of the LORD, was consumed.

And, behold, ye are risen up in your fathers' stead, an increase of sinful men, to augment yet the fierce anger of the LORD toward Israel.

For if ye turn away from after him, he will yet again leave them in the wilderness; and ye shall destroy all this people.

And they came near unto him, and said, We will build sheepfolds here for our cattle, and cities for our little ones :

But we ourselves will go ready armed before the children of Israel, until we have brought them unto their place and our little ones shall dwell in the fenced cities because of the inhabitants of the land.

We will not return unto our houses, until the children of Israel have inherited every man his inheritance.

*

For we will not inherit with them on yonder side of Jordan, or forward; because our inheritance is fallen to us on this side Jordan eastward. And Moses said unto them, If ye will do this thing, if ye will go armed before the LORD to war,

And will go all of you armed over Jordan before the LORD, until he hath driven out his enemies from before him,

And the land be subdued before the LORD: then afterward ye shall return, and be guiltless before the LORD, and before Israel; and this land shall be your possession before the LORD.

But if ye will not do so, behold, ye have sinned against the LORD: and be sure your sin will find you out.

Build you cities for your little ones, and folds for your sheep; and do that which hath proceeded out of your mouth.

And the children of Gad and the children of Reuben spake unto Moses, saying, Thy servants will do as my lord commandeth.

And Moses gave unto them, even to the children of Gad, and to the children of Reuben, and unto half the tribe of Manasseh the son of Joseph, the kingdom of Sihon king of the Amorites, and the kingdom of Og king of Bashan, the land, with the cities thereof in the coasts, even the cities of the country round about.

LESSON LXVIII.

THE EXHORTATION OF MOSES.

DEUT. iv. 23-40.

B.C. 1451.-The name of the last book of Moses is made up of two Greek words "Deuteros” (second) and "Nomos” (law)—because it contains the second repetition of the Law given on Mount Sinai.

Before Moses was taken away, he assembled the elders and heads of the tribes around him, as the host lay encamped below Mount Pisgah, and rehearsed the great works that God had done for them, and the laws that He had given them.

Most of those who heard him must have been born since these things happened. To many, the divided sea and the flaming mount, with the Voice speaking out of the thick darkness, must have been a recollection of their early childhood; to all the rest, of their first youth; and only two were there who, as full-grown men, had heard those solemn commands, and themselves sealed the covenant by which they were to receive the lot of their inheritance.

Therefore there was good reason that Moses should again rehearse to them the "mighty and marvellous acts of the Lord, His wonders

and the judgments of His mouth;" and if it was well for them, it was also well for their descendants and for us after them to have the great lawgiver's summary of the Law, and comment on it, with his last additions.

Deuteronomy consists in the first place of three discourses. First comes the description of the circumstances under which they were spoken, the borders of the land attained, and the people standing before their great leader, as he appeals to them to say whether God has not indeed fulfilled His promise made to their fathers.

He then recurs to the time when the camp of Israel broke up from Mount Horeb; and shortly sums up their career, God's mercy and their sin, with the victories already won as pledges of the future; and then makes a most heart-stirring speech, showing how intense would be the shame and ingratitude of forsaking the Lord, who had treated them as He had treated no other nation on the face of the earth.

Take heed unto yourselves, lest ye forget the covenant of the LORD your God, which he made with you, and make you a graven image, or the likeness of any thing, which the LORD thy God hath forbidden thee.

For the LORD thy God is a consuming fire, even a jealous God.

When thou shalt beget children, and children's children, and ye shall have remained long in the land, and shall corrupt yourselves, and make a graven image, or the likeness of any thing, and shall do evil in the sight of the LORD thy God, to provoke him to anger:

I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that ye shall soon utterly perish from off the land whereunto ye go over Jordan to possess it; ye shall not prolong your days upon it, but shall utterly be destroyed.

And the LORD shall scatter you among the nations, and ye shall be left few in number among the heathen, whither the LORD shall lead you.

And there ye shall serve gods, the work of men's hands, wood and stone, which neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.

But if from thence thou shalt seek the LORD thy God, thou shalt find him, if thou seek him with all thy heart and with all thy soul.

When thou art in tribulation, and all these things are come upon thee, even in the latter days, if thou turn to the LORD thy God, and shalt be obedient unto his voice;

(For the LORD thy God is a merciful God ;) he will not forsake thee, neither destroy thee, nor forget the covenant of thy fathers which he sware unto them.

For ask now of the days that are past, which were before thee, since the day that God created man upon the earth, and ask from the one side of heaven unto the other, whether there hath been any such thing as this great thing is, or hath been heard like it?

Did ever people hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as thou hast heard, and live?

Or hath God assayed to go and take him a nation from the midst of

*Undertaken.

another nation, by temptations,* by signs, and by wonders, and by war, and by a mighty hand, and by a stretched out arm,† and by great terrors, according to all that the LORD your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?

Unto thee it was shewed, that thou mightest know that the LORD he is God; there is none else beside him.

Out of heaven he made thee to hear his voice, that he might instruct thee: and upon earth he shewed thee his great fire; and thou heardest his words out of the midst of the fire.

And because he loved thy fathers, therefore he chose their seed after them, and brought thee out in his sight with his mighty power out of Egypt; To drive out nations from before thee greater and mightier than thou art, to bring thee in, to give thee their land for an inheritance, as it is this day.

Know therefore this day, and consider it in thine heart, that the LORD he is God in heaven above, and upon the earth beneath there is none else.

Thou shalt keep therefore his statutes, and his commandments, which I command thee this day, that it may go well with thee, and with thy children after thee, and that thou mayest prolong thy days upon the earth, which the LORD thy God giveth thee, for ever.

LESSON LXIX.

THE KING AND THE PROPHET.

DEUT. xvii. 14—20; xviii. 15-22.

B.C. 1451.-In the fifth chapter a second discourse is begun, chiefly consisting of the renewal of the laws given at Mount Horeb, with the adaptation some of them would need to suit a people settled among fields and houses, rather than wanderers living in tents. We may suppose it was all delivered at once to the heads of the people standing around Moses.

When thou art come unto the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, and shalt possess it, and shalt dwell therein, and shalt say, I will set a king over me, like as all the nations that are about me;

Thou shalt in any wise set him king over thee, whom the LORD thy God shall choose one from among thy brethren shalt thou set king over thee: thou mayest not set a stranger over thee, which is not thy brother.

But he shall not multiply horses to himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt, to the end that he should multiply horses: forasmuch as the LORD hath said unto you, Ye shall henceforth return no more that way.

* Trials.

+ Power.

Laws.

Neither shall he multiply wives to himself, that his heart turn not away : neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold.

And it shall be, when he sitteth upon the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write him a copy of this law in a book out of that which is before the priests the Levites:

And it shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life: that he may learn to fear the LORD his God, to keep all the words of this law and these statutes, to do them :

That his heart be not lifted up above his brethren, and that he turn not aside from the commandment, to the right hand, or to the left to the end that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he, and his chilaren, in the midst of Israel.

The LORD thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken;

According to all that thou desiredst of the LORD thy God in Horeb in the day of the assembly, saying, Let me not hear again the voice of the LORD my God, neither let me see this great fire any more, that I die not.

And the LORD said unto me, They have well spoken that which they have spoken.

I will raise them up a Prophet, from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him.

And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him.

But the prophet, which shall presume to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other gods, even that prophet shall die.

And if thou say in thine heart, How shall we know the word which the LORD hath not spoken?

When a prophet speaketh in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him.

LESSON LXX.

THE RECORD ON MOUNT EBAL.

B.C. 1451.-DEUT. xxvii. 1— -13.

And Moses with the elders of Israel commanded the people, saying, Keep all the commandments which I command you this day.

And it shall be on the day when ye shall pass over Jordan unto the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, that thou shalt set thee up great stones, and plaister them with plaister:

*