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Expositor's Bible Commentary Deuteronomy 3:1 Then we turned, and went up the way to Bashan: and Og the king of Bashan came out against us, he and all his people, to battle at Edrei. THE DIVINE GOVERNMENT Deuteronomy 1:1-46 ; Deuteronomy 2:1-37 ; Deuteronomy 3:1-29 AFTER these preliminary discussions we now enter upon the exposition. With the exception of the first two verses of chapter 1, concerning which there is a doubt whether they do not belong to Numbers, these three chapters stand out as the first section of our book. Examination shows that they form a separate and distinct whole, not continued in chapter 4; but there has been a great diversity of opinion as to their authorship and the intention with which they have been placed here. The vocabulary and the style so resemble those of the main parts of the book that they cannot be entirely separated from them; yet, at the same time, it seems unlikely that the original author of the main trunk of Deuteronomy can have begun his book with this introductory speech from Moses, followed it up with another Mosaic speech, still introductory, in chapter 4, and in chapter 5 begun yet another introductory speech running through seven chapters, before he comes to the statutes and judgments which are announced at the very beginning. The current supposition about these chapters, therefore, is that they are the work of a Deuteronomist, a man formed under the influence of Deuteronomy and filled with its spirit, but not the author of the book. This seems to account for the resemblances, and would also explain to some extent the existence of such a superfluous prologue. But the hypothesis is, nevertheless, not entirely satisfactory. The resemblances are closer than we should expect in the work of different authors; and one feels that the supposed Deuteronomist must have been less sensitive in a literary sense than we have any right to suppose him if he did not feel the incongruity of such a speech in this place. Professor Dillmann has made a very acute suggestion, which meets the whole difficulty in a more natural way. Feeling that the style and language were in all essentials one with those of the central Deuteronomy, he seeks for some explanation which would permit him to assign this section to the author of the book himself. He suggests that as originally written this was a historical introduction leading up to the central code of laws; a historical preface, in fact, which the author of Deuteronomy naturally prefixed to his book. Ex hypothesi he had not the previous books, Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, before him as we have them. These now form a historical introduction to Deuteronomy of a very minute and elaborate kind; but he had to embody in his own book all of the past history of his people that he wished to emphasize, But when the editor who arranged the Pentateuch as we now have it inserted Deuteronomy in its present place, he found that he had a double historical preface, that in the previous books and this in Deuteronomy itself. As reverence forbade the rejection of these chapters, he took refuge in the expedient of turning the originally impersonal narrative into a speech of Moses; which he could all the more blamelessly do as the probability is that the whole book was regarded in his time as the work of Moses. This hypothesis, if it can be accepted, certainly accounts for all the phenomena presented by these chapters-the similarity of language, the archaeological notes in the speech, and the historic color in the statements regarding Edom, for example, which corresponds to early feeling, not to post-exilic thought at all. It has besides the merit of reducing the number of anonymous writers to be taken account of in the Pentateuch, a most desirable thing in itself. Lastly, it gives us in Deuteronomy a compact whole more complete in all its parts than almost any other portion of the Old Testament, certainly more so than any of the books containing legislation. Moreover, that the Deuteronomic reinforcement and expansion of the Mosaic legislation, as contained in the Book of the Covenant, should begin with such a history of Yahweh’s dealings with His people, is entirely characteristic of Old Testament Revelation. In the main and primarily, what the Old Testament writers give us is a history of how God wrought, how He dealt with the people He had chosen. In the view of the Hebrew writers, God’s first and main revelation of Himself is always in conduct. He showed Himself good and merciful and gentle to His people, and then, having so shown Himself, He has an acknowledged right to claim their obedience. As St. Paul has so powerfully pointed out, the law was secondary, not primary. Grace, the free love and choice of God, was always the beginning of true relations with Him, and only after that had been known and accepted does He look for the true life which His law is to regulate. Naturally, therefore, when the author of Deuteronomy is about to press upon Israel the law in its expanded form, to call them back from many aberrations, to summon them to a reformation and new establishment of the whole framework of their lives, he turns back to remind them of what their past had been. Law, therefore, is only a secondary deposit of Revelation. If we are true to the Biblical point of view we shall not look for the Divine voice only, or even chiefly, in the legal portions of the Scripture. God’s full revelation of Himself will be seen in the process and the completion of that age-long movement, which was begun when Israel first became a nation by receiving Yahweh as their God, and which ended with the life and death of Him who summed up in Himself all that Israel was called, but failed, to be. That is the ruling thought in Scripture about Revelation. God reveals Himself in history; and by the persistent thoroughness with which the Scriptural writers grasp this thought, the unique and effective character of the Biblical Revelation is largely accounted for. Other nations, no doubt, looked back at times upon what their gods had done for them, and those who spoke for these gods may often have claimed obedience and service from their people on the ground of past favor and under threats of its withdrawal. But earlier than any other people which has affected the higher races of mankind, Israel conceived of God as a moral power with a will and purpose which embraced mankind. Further, in the belief which appears in their earliest records, that through them the nations were to be blessed, and that in the future One was coming who would in Himself bring about the realization of Israel’s destiny, they were provided with a philosophy of history, with a conception which was fitted to draw into organic connection with itself all the various fortunes of Israel and of the nations. Of course, at first much that was involved in their view was not present to any mind. It was the very merit of the germinal revelation made through Moses that it had in it powers of growth and expansion. In no other way could it be a true revelation of God, a revelation which should have in it the fullness, the flexibility, the aloofness from mere local and temporary peculiarities, which would secure its fitness for universal mankind. Any revelation that consists only of words, of ideas even, must, to be received, have some kind of relation to the minds that are to receive it. If the words and ideas are revealed, as they must be, at a given place and a given time, they must be in such a relation to that place and time that at some period of the world’s history they will be found inadequate, needing expansion, which does not come naturally, and then they have to be laid aside as insufficient. But a revelation which consists in acts, which reveals God in intimate, age-long, constant dealings with mankind, is so many-sided, so varied, so closely molded to the actual and universal needs of man, that it embraces all the fundamental exigencies of human life, and must always continue to cover human experience. From it men may draw off systems of doctrines, which may concentrate the revelation for a particular generation, or for a series of generations, and make it more potently active in these circumstances. But unless the system be kept constantly in touch with the revelation as given in the history, it must become inadequate, false in part, and must one day vanish away. The revelation then in life is the only possible form for a real revelation of God; and that the writers of the Old Testament in their circumstances and in their time felt and asserted this, is in itself so very great a merit that it is almost of itself sufficient to justify any claims they may make to special inspiration. The greatest of them saw God at work in the world, and had experience of His influence in themselves, so that they had their eyes opened to His actions as other men had not. The least of them, again, had been placed at the true point of view for estimating aright the significance of the ordinary action of the Divine Providence, and for tracing the lines of Divine action where they were to other men invisible, or at least obscure. And in the records they have left us they have been entirely true to that supremely important point of view. All they deal with in the history is the moral and spiritual effects of God’s dealing; and the great interests, as the world reckons them, of war and conquest, of commerce and art, are referred to only briefly and often only in the way of allusion. To many moderns this is an offence, which they avenge by speaking contemptuously of the mental endowment of the Biblical writers as historians. On the contrary, that these should have kept their eyes fixed only upon that which concerned the religious life of their people, that they should have kept firm hold of the truth that it was there the central importance of the people lay, and that they have given us the material for the formation of that great conception of supernatural revelation by history in which God Himself moves as a factor, is a merit so great that even if it were only a brilliant fancy they might surely be pardoned for ignoring other things. But if, as is the truth, they were tracing the central stream of God’s redemptive action in the world, were laying open to our view the steps by which the unapproachably lofty conception of God was built up, which their nation alone has won for the human race, then it can hardly seem a fault that nothing else appealed to them. They have given God to those who were blindly groping for Him, and they have established the standard by which all historic estimates of even modern life are ultimately to be measured. For though there were in the history of that particular nation, and in the line of preparation for Christ, special miraculous manifestations of God’s power and love, which do not now occur, yet no judgment of the course of history is worth anything, even today, which does not occupy essentially the Biblical position. Ultimately the thing to be considered is, what hath God wrought? If that be ignored, then the stable and instructive element in history has been kept out of sight, and the mind loses itself hopelessly amid the weltering chaos of second causes. Froude, in his "History of England," has noted this, and declares that in the period he deals with it was the religious men who alone had any true insight into the tendency of things. They measured all things, almost too crudely, by the Biblical standard; but so essentially true and fundamental does that show itself to be, that their judgment so formed has proved to be the only sound one. This is what we should expect if God’s power and righteousness are the great factors in the drama which the history of man and of the world unfolds to us. That being so, the suicidal folly of the policy of any Church or party which shuts the Bible away from popular use is manifest. It is nothing short of a blinding of the people’s eyes, and a shutting of their ears to warning voices which the providential government of the world, when viewed on a large scale, never fails to utter. It renders sound political judgment the prerogative only of the few, and sets them among a people who will turn to any charlatans rather than believe their voice. It was natural and it was inevitable, therefore, that the author of Deuteronomy, standing, as he did, on the threshold of a great crisis in the history of Israel, should turn the thoughts of his people back to the history of the past. To him the great figure in the history of Israel in those trying and eventful years during which they wandered between Horeb, Kadesh-Barnea, and the country of the Arnon, is Yahweh their God. He is behind all their movements, impelling and inciting them to go on and enjoy the good land He had promised to their fathers. He went before them and fought for them. He bare them in the wilderness, as a man doth bear his son. He watched over them and guided their footsteps in cloud and fire by day and night. Moreover all the nations by whom they passed had been led by Him and assigned their places, and only those nations whom Yahweh chose had been given into Israel’s hand. In the internal affairs of the community, too, He had asserted Himself. They were Yahweh’s people, and all their national action was to be according to His righteous character. Especially was the administration of justice to be pure and impartial, yielding to neither fear nor favor because the "judgment is God’s." And how had they responded to all this loving favor on the part of God? At the first hint of serious conflict they shrank back in fear. Notwithstanding that the land which God had given them was a good and fruitful country, and notwithstanding the promises of Divine help, they refused to incur the necessary toils and risks of the conquest. Every difficulty they might encounter was exaggerated by them; their very deliverance from Egypt, which they had been wont to consider "their crowning mercy," became to their faithless cowardice an evidence of hatred for them on the part of God. To men in such a state of mind conquest was impossible; and though, in a spasmodic revulsion from their abject cowardice, they made an attack upon the people they were to dispossess, it ended, as it could not but end, in their defeat and rout. They were condemned to forty years of wandering, and it was only after all that generation was dead that Israel was again permitted to approach the land of promise. But Yahweh had been faithful to them, and when the time was come He opened the way for their advance and gave them the victory and the land. For His love was patient, and always made a way to bless them, even through their sins. That was the picture the Deuteronomist spread out before the eyes of his countrymen, to the intent that they might know the love of God, and might see that safety lay for them in a willing yielding of themselves to that love. The disastrous results of their wayward and faint-hearted shrinking from this Divine calling is the only direct threat he uses, but in the passage there is another warning, all the more impressive that it is vague and shadowy, God is to the Deuteronomist the universal ruler of the world. The nations are raised up and cast down according to His will, and until He wills it they cannot be dispossessed. But He had willed that fate for many, and at every step of Israel’s progress they come upon traces of vanished peoples whom for their sins He had suffered others to destroy. The Emim in Moab, the Zamzummim in Ammon, the Horites in Self, and the Avvims in Philistia, had all been destroyed before the people who now occupied these lands, and the whole background of the narrative is one of judgment, where mercy had been of no avail. The sword of the Lord is dimly seen in the archaeological notes which are so frequent in this section of our book and thus the final touch is given to the picture of the past which is here drawn to be an impulse for the future. While all the foreground represents only God’s love and patience overcoming man’s rebellion, the background is, like the path of the great pilgrim caravans which year by year make their slow and toilsome way to Mohammedan holy places, strewn with the remains of predecessors in the same path. With stern, menacing finger this great teacher of Israel points to these evidences that the Divine love and patience may be, and have been, outworn, and seems to re-echo in an even more impressive way the language of Isaiah: "The anger of Yahweh was kindled (against these peoples), and He stretched forth His hand (against them) and smote (them); and the hills did tremble, and (their) carcasses were as refuse in the midst of the streets. For all this His anger is not turned away, but His hand is stretched out still." Without a word of direct rebuke he opens his people’s eyes to see that shadowy outstretched hand. Behind all the turmoil of the world there is a presence and a power which supports all who seek good, but which is sternly set against all evil, ready, when the moment comes, "to strike once and strike no more." Yet another glimpse is given us in these chapters of God’s manner of dealing with men. We have seen how He guides and rules His chosen ones. We have seen how He punishes those who have set themselves against the Divine law. And in Deuteronomy 2:30 we are told how men become hardened in their sin, so as to render destruction inevitable. Of Sihon, king of Hesh-bon, who would not let the Israelites pass by him, the writer says: "Yahweh thy God hardened his spirit, and made his heart obstinate, that He might deliver him into thy hand, as appeareth this day." But he does not mean by these expressions to lay upon God the causation of Sihon’s obstinacy, so as to make the man a mere helpless victim. His thought rather is, that as God rules all, so to Him must be ultimately traced all that happens in the world. In some sense all acts, whether good or bad, all agencies, whether beneficent or destructive, have their source in and their power from Him. But nevertheless men have moral responsibility for their acts, and are fully and justly conscious of ill desert. Consequently that hardening of spirit or of heart, which at one moment may be attributed solely to God, may at another be ascribed solely to the evil determination of man. The most instructive instance of this is to be found in the history of Pharaoh, when he was commanded to let Israel go. In that narrative, from Exodus 4:1-31 ; Exodus 5:1-23 ; Exodus 6:1-30 ; Exodus 7:1-25 ; Exodus 8:1-32 ; Exodus 9:1-35 ; Exodus 10:1-29 ; Exodus 11:1-10 , there is repeated interchange of expression. Now it is Yahweh hardened Pharaoh’s heart; now, as in Exodus 8:15 and Exodus 8:32 , Pharaoh hardened his own heart; and, again, Pharaoh’s heart was hardened. In each case the same thing is meant, and the varying expressions correspond only to a difference of standpoint. When Yahweh foretells that the signs He authorizes Moses to show will fail of their effect, it is always "Yahweh will harden Pharaoh’s heart," since the main point in contemplation is His government of the world. If, on the other hand, it is the sinful obstinacy of Pharaoh which is prominent in the passage, we have the self-determination of Pharaoh alone set before us. But it is to be noted, and this is indeed the cardinal fact, that Yahweh never is said to harden the heart of a good man, or a man set mainly upon righteousness. It is always those who are guilty of palpable wrongs and acts of evildoing upon whom God thus works. Now we know that the author of Deuteronomy had two at least of the ancient historical narratives before him which are combined in Exodus 4:1-31 ; Exodus 5:1-23 ; Exodus 6:1-30 ; Exodus 7:1-25 ; Exodus 8:1-32 ; Exodus 9:1-35 ; Exodus 10:1-29 ; Exodus 11:1-10 , and he takes up their thinking. Expressed in modern language, the thought is this. When men are found following their own will in defiance of all law and all the restraints of righteousness, that is manifestly not the first stage in their moral declension. This obstinacy in evil is the result and the wages of former evil deeds, beginning perhaps only with careless laxity, but gathering strength and virulence with every willful sin. Until near the end of a completed growth in wickedness no man deliberately says, "Evil, be thou my good." Nevertheless each act of sin involves a step towards that, and the sinner in this manner hardens himself against all warning. Like the sins which work this obduracy, this hardening is the sinner’s own act. The ruin which falls upon his moral nature is his own work. That is the inexorable result of the moral order of the universe, and from it no exception is possible. But if so, God too has been active in all such catastrophes. He has so framed and ordered the world that indulgence in evil must harden in evil. This it was which the Israelite religious mind saw and dwelt upon, as well as upon man’s share in the dread process of moral decay. We also do well to take heed to this aspect of the truth. When we do, we have solved the Scriptural difficulty regarding the Divine hardening of man’s heart. It is simply the ancient formula for what every mind that is ethically trained recognizes in the world today. Those who recognize themselves as children of God, and acknowledge the obligations of His law, are dealt with in the way of discipline with infinite love and patience. Those who definitely set themselves against the moral order of the world which God has established are broken in pieces and destroyed. Between these two classes there are the morally undetermined, who ultimately turn either to the right hand or to the left. The process by which these pass on to be numbered among the rebellious is pictured in Scripture with extraordinary moral insight. The only difference from a present-day description of it is, that here God is kept constantly present to the mind as the chief factor in the development of the soul. Today, even those who believe in God are apt to forget Him in tracing His laws of action. But that is an error of the first magnitude. It darkens the hope of man; for without a sure promise of Divine help there is no certainty of moral victory either for the race or the individual. It narrows our view of the awful sweep of sin; for unless we see that sin affects even the Ruler of the universe, and defies His unchanging law, its results are limited to the evil that we do our fellowmen, which, as we see it, is of little importance. Further, it degrades moral law to a mere arbitrary dictum of power, or to an opinion founded upon man’s purblind experience. The acknowledgment of God, on the contrary, makes morality the very essence of the Divine nature, and the unchangeable rule for the life of man. The Expositor's Bible Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com . Used by Permission.

So the Lord our God delivered into our hands Og also, king of Bashan. Deuteronomy 3:1-11 Mastery of formidable enemies See — 1. How they got the mastery of Og, a very formidable prince.(1) Very strong, for he was of the remnant of the giants (ver. 11). His personal strength was extraordinary; a monument of which was preserved by the Ammonites in his bedstead, which was shown as a rarity in their chief city. You might guess at his weight by the materials of his bedstead; it was iron, as if a bedstead of wood were too weak for him to trust to, And you might guess at his stature by the dimensions of it: it was nine cubits long, and four cubits broad; which, supposing a cubic to be but half a yard, was four yards and a half long, and two yards broad; and if we allow his bed to be two cubits longer than himself, and that is as much as we need allow, he was three yards and a half high, double the stature of an ordinary man, and every way proportionable; yet they smote him (ver. 3). When God pleads His people's cause He can deal with giants as with grasshoppers. No man's might can secure him against the Almighty. His army likewise was very powerful, for he had the command of sixty fortified cities, besides unwalled towns (ver. 5); yet all this was nothing against God's Israel, when they came with commission to destroy him. 2. He was very stout and daring; he came out against Israel to battle (ver. 1). It was wonder he did not take warning by the ruin of Sihon, and send to desire conditions of peace: but he trusted to his own strength and so was hardened to his own destruction. Those that are not awakened by the judgments of God upon others, but persist in their defiance of heaven, are ripening apace for the like judgments upon themselves ( Jeremiah 3:8 ). God bid Moses not fear him (ver. 2). If Moses himself was so strong in faith as not to need the caution, yet it is probable the people needed it; and for them these fresh assurances are designed, "I will deliver him into thine hand." Not only deliver thee out of his hand, that he shall not be thy ruin; but deliver him into thy band, that thou shalt be his ruin, and make him pay dear for his attempt. He adds, "Thou shalt do unto him as thou didst unto Sihon"; intimating that they ought to be encouraged by their former victory to trust in God for another victory; for He is God, and changeth not. 2. How they got possession of Bashan, a very desirable country. They took all the cities (ver. 4), and all the spoil of them (ver. 7); they made them all their own (ver. 10), so that now they had in their hands all that fruitful country which lay east of Jordan, from the river Arnon unto Hermon (ver. 8). Their conquering and possessing of these countries was intended not only for the encouragement of Israel in the wars of Canaan, but for the satisfaction of Moses before his death; because he must not live to see the completing of their victory and settlement, God thus gives him a specimen of it. Thus the Spirit is given to them that believe, as the earnest of their inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession. ( Matthew Henry, D. D. . ) Review and prospect J. Parker, D. D. Is it not remarkable that good causes and good men should meet with constant opposition? We are now perusing the history of a journey which was undertaken by Divine direction, and again and again we come upon the fact that the journey was from end to end bitterly opposed. Were this matter of ancient history we might, in a happier condition of civilisation and in a happier mood of mind, dispute the theory that Israel travelled under Divine direction and guidance; but this very thing is done today in our country, in all countries, in our own heart and life. Never man, surely, went to church without some enemy in the form of temptation, suggestion, or welcome in other directions, seeking to prevent his accomplishing the sacred purpose. He who would be good must fight a battle; he who would pray well must first resist the devil. This makes life very hard; the burden is sometimes too heavy; but the voice of history so concurs with the testimony of conscience, and the whole is so corroborated by the spirit of prophecy, that we must accept the discipline, and await with what patience God Himself can work within us the issue of the tragic miracle. Is there no compensatory consideration or circumstance? The Lord Himself must speak very distinctly in some conditions and relations of life. "And the Lord said unto me." That is how the balance is adjusted. In the one verse, Og, king of Bashan; in the next verse — Jehovah. Thus the story of our life alternates — now an enemy, now a friend; now the fight is going to be too severe for us and we shall certainly fall, and now the Lord of hosts is in the van, and kings are burned by His presence as stubble is burned by the fire. What was the Divine message? It was a message adapted to the sensitiveness of the circumstances: "Fear him not; for I will deliver him, and all his people, and his land, into thy hand:" Get rid of fear, and you increase power. He who is strong in spirit is strong all through and through his nature; he who is only muscularly strong will fail in the fight. The brave heart, the soul alive with God — that will always conquer. Let us live and move and have our being in God. What was the consequence? We read the story in the fourth verse: "And we took all his cities at that time, there was not a city which we took not from them, threescore cities, all the region of Argob, the kingdom of Og in Bashan." Opposition to God always means loss. There is no bad man who is successful. Do not let us interpret the word "successful" narrowly and partially, as if it were a term descriptive of mere appearances or momentary relationships. In the partial acceptation of the term the proposition will not bear examination; but in discussing great spiritual realities we must take in the full view; and, fixing the attention upon that view, the proposition remains an indestructible truth — that no bad man is really prosperous. He has no comfort. He eats like a glutton, but he has no true enjoyment; out of his bread he draws no poetry, no thought, no fire; it is lost upon him, for he is an evil eater. In his apparent wealth he is miserably poor. If it could be proved that a man can oppose God and be truly happy, the whole Christian kingdom would be destroyed by that proof, the word of the Lord, as written in the Book, is against the possibility. But what became of Og, the king of Bashan? We read in the eleventh verse, "Behold his bedstead," etc. What an ending! How appropriate! How bitter the satire! Og, king of Bashan, came out to fight the people of God; a few verses are written in which battles are fought and cities taken, and at the end the bedstead of Og is nearly all that remains of the mighty king of Bashan! This is worthless fame; this is the renown that is pitiable. But there is no other renown for wicked men: they will leave a name in history, but a name the children will laugh at; they will leave behind them a memorial, but the memorial itself shall be an abiding sarcasm. The Lord turneth the counsel of the wicked upside down; the Lord will laugh at the wicked man and have all his devices in derision. His bedstead will be remembered when he himself is forgotten; he will be spoken of in the bulk and not in the quality; he will be measured like a log; he will be forgotten like an evil dream. The righteous shall be had in everlasting remembrance. Who would be wicked? Who would oppose God? Who would not rather coalesce with the heavens, and pray that the Spirit of God would work in the human heart the miracle of reconciliation with things eternal and celestial? ( J. Parker, D. D. ) King Og's bedstead T. De Witt Talmage. Why did not the Bible give us the size of the giant instead of the size of the bedstead? Why did it not indicate that the man was eleven feet high, instead of telling us that his couch was thirteen and a half feet long? No doubt among other things it was to teach us that you can judge of a man by his surroundings. Show me a man's associates, show me a man's books, show me a man's home, and I will tell you what he is without your telling me one word about him. Moral giants and moral pigmies, intellectual giants and intellectual pigmies, like physical giants or physical pigmies, may be judged by their surroundings. That man has been thirty years faithful in attendance upon churches and prayer meetings and Sunday schools, and putting himself among intense religious associations. He may have his imperfections, but he is a very good man. Great is his religious stature. That other man has been for thirty years among influences intensely worldly, and he has shut himself out from all other influences, and his religious stature is that of a dwarf. But let no one by this thought be induced to surrender to unfavourable environments. A man can make his own bedstead. Chantrey and Hugh Miller were born stonemasons, but the one became an immortal sculptor, and the other a Christian scientist whose name will never die. The late Judge Bradley worked his way up from a charcoal burner to the bench of the supreme court of the United States. Yes, a man can decide the size of his own bedstead. Notice furthermore, that even giants must rest. Such enormous physical endowment on the part of king Og might suggest the capacity to stride across all fatigue and omit slumber. No. He required an iron bedstead. Giants must rest. Not appreciating the fact, how many of the giants yearly break down! Giants in business, giants in art, giants in eloquence, giants in usefulness. Let no one think, because he has great strength of body or mind, that be can afford to trifle with his unusual gifts. King Og, no doubt, had a sceptre, but the Bible does not mention his sceptre. Yet one of the largest verses of the Bible is taken up in describing his bedstead. So God all up and down the Bible honours sleep. Adam, with his head on a pillow of Edenic roses, has his slumber blest by a Divine gift of beautiful companionship. Jacob, with his head on a pillow of rock, has his sleep glorified with a ladder filled with descending and ascending angels. Christ, with a pillow made out of the folded up coat of a fisherman, honours slumber in the back part of the storm-tossed boat. One of our national sins is robbery of sleep. Walter Scott was so urgent about this duty of slumber that, when arriving at a hotel where there was no room to sleep in, except that in which there was a corpse, inquired if the deceased had died of a contagious disease, and, when assured he had not, took the other bed in the room and fell into profoundest slumber. Those of small endurance must certainly require rest if even the giant needs an iron bedstead. Notice furthermore, that God's people on the way to Canaan need not be surprised if they confront some sort of a giant. Had not the Israelitish host had trouble enough already? No! Red Sea not enough. Water famine not enough. Long marches not enough. Opposition by enemies of ordinary stature not enough. They must meet Og, the giant of the iron bedstead. Do you know the name of the biggest giant that you can possibly meet — and you will meet him? He is not eleven feet high, but one hundred feet high. His bedstead is as long as a continent. His name is Doubt. His common food is infidel books and sceptical lectures, and ministers who do not know whether the Bible is inspired at all or inspired in spots, and Christians who are more infidel than Christian. You will never reach the promised land unless you slay that giant. Kill doubt, or doubt will kill you. Another impression from my subject. The march of the Church cannot be impeded by gigantic opposition. That Israelitish host led on by Moses was the Church, and when Og, the giant, he of the iron bedstead, came out against him with another host — things must have looked bad for Israel. Moses of ordinary size against Og of extraordinary dimensions. Besides that, Og was backed up by sixty fortified cities. Moses was backed up seemingly by nothing but the desert that had worn him and his army into a group of undisciplined and exhausted stragglers. But the Israelites triumphed. The day is coming. Hear it, all ye who are doing something for the conquest of the world for God and the truth, the time will come when, as there was nothing left of Og, the giant, but the iron bedstead, kept at Rabbath as a curiosity, there will be nothing left of the giants of iniquity except something for the relic hunters to examine. ( T. De Witt Talmage. ) The last of the giants S. B. James, M. A. We, in our warfare, have many giants to contend against. As we go through our wanderings there are many places waste and wild as the tangled brakes and rugged rocks of Argob, in the land of Bashan. We have our wildernesses of temptation to pass over. In those wildernesses are many giants bigger than Og, more terrible than Anak, vaunting with greater insolence than Goliath of Gath. Perhaps you have conquered many of them. Is it so? Do they lie smitten and vanquished at your feet? Envious man, have you bound envy hand and foot and put him without your house and home? He is not dead, only chained. Beware lest in some unguarded moment he should be freed, and lead you captive with the accumulated power of long repose and the increased caution brought about by his former defeat. Is the evil spirit of anger vanquished which was formerly of such gigantic proportions? Or does it still rise at will from its bedstead to which, in prosperous sunshine, when nothing crosses us or thwarts us, it voluntarily retires? Is it bound there, or does it merely lie there in hiding, with no cords of religion to compel its slumbering inactivity? There are also Bunyan's giants, some dead, some living — giants Pope and Pagan sadly disabled, giants Maul and Slaygood also disabled — giant Despair, still living in his dark dungeon with Mrs. Doubting his terrible wife. Giant Despair tells men and women to kill themselves, tells them God will never forgive them, shuts them up in his grim castle, and how can they escape? Those pilgrims found a key called "Hope." With Hope in the breast adversity may be borne. The giant of Lust is a mighty giant also. And of all other giants the most dangerous to some natures. Many a sinner and some saints have found this the Og which has been last vanquished. God says, "Fear not." Will you fear when your Maker tells you not to fear? Shall we not rather go and do our best against the sin that still struggles in our souls and would fain bring us to destruction? ( S. B. James, M. A. ) Thou hast begun to show. Deuteronomy 3:23-26 Revelation always new J. Parker, D. D. "Thou hast begun." That is all He can do. Always beginning, never ending that is the mystery and that is the glory of the Divine revelation. When we come to see that all things are but in the bud, and can never get out of it, we shall begin to see the greatness of God. How pitiable is the condition of the man who has worn out anything that has in it real life, poetry, meaning, and application to the affairs and destinies of life! We must not take our life line from such vagrants. We must be made to see and feel that everything has eternity in it. We shall be real students and worshippers when we say about the moors so desolate, and the sea so melancholy, and the forest even in December, "Lo! God is here, and I knew it not; this is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven." We should be wiser if we were not so clever. If we could consider that all things are yet in plasm and beginning and outline and suggestion, we should remit to a longer day the discussion and the settlement of questions which now constitute the mystery and torment of our intellectual life. A beautiful period of life is that in which a man begins to see the shaping of a Divine purpose in his own existence. Some can remember the time when the meaning of words first came really to the mind. What a light it was, how content was the brain; the whole mind rose up and said, "This is something really gained, and can never be lost." A similar sensation comes to men who live wisely. In their childhood they did not know what God meant them to be, so they proposed many things to their own imagination; then early life came, and things began to settle into some kind of hazy outline; then manhood came, with all its experiences and with all its conflicts, and at last there was, as it were, a man's hand building the life, putting it into square and shape and proportion, and flushing it with colour. Then we began to see what God meant to be the issue of our life. He made us great, small, strong, weak, rich, poor; but if we have lain in His hands quietly, gently, obediently, and lovingly, we see that poverty is wealth and weakness is strength. A holy thought of this kind has sanctified the whole purview and issue of life, so that men can now say, "That is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes." When the Lord undertakes the outbuilding and shaping of a life, none can hinder it. "O Lord God, Thou hast begun to show Thy servant Thy greatness." Throughout the Bible God is never represented as a dwindling quantity. God, in other words, does not grow less and less, but more and more. When our imagination is exhausted God's light has already begun to shine. Age after age has come and has written upon its record these words, "He is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think." God has always reserved to Himself the use of the instrument of education which we call surprise. We have never anticipated God. When we have gone out early in the day it has been by the assistance of His light. If He had not kindled the lamp we could not have taken a step upon our journey. God surprises us with goodness. We think we have partaken of the very best He can give us, and, lo! when we have drunk again of the goblet of Divine love we say, "Thou hast kept the good wine until now. It is in that spirit of hopefulness, in that everlasting genesis, we must live; then we shall be young for ever. ( J. Parker, D. D. ) I pray Thee, let me go over and see the good land that is beyond Jordan...But the Lord...would not hear me. Man's sin and God's will J. Denney, D. D. When we read the history of a nation as we do in the Old Testament, we cannot but be struck by the extent to which a nation depends upon its representative men. Its ambitions, virtues, and hopes may be what you please, but they must find visible embodiment and capable instruction in some great and commanding personality. One lesson of the opening chapter of Deuteronomy is that nations, as a rule, are not very sympathetic with those on whom the burden of their affairs is laid. They heap responsibilities upon their leaders, and leave them to carry weights beyond human strength. They hardly think of their limitations as men like themselves, who, besides the public duties which they discharge, have a spiritual life of their own to care for, a conscience of their own to keep right with Goal a spiritual ladder to climb, individual convictions, and a soul to save. They do not consider that God is looking on at the trial of a strong but weary spirit, while men may be doing their best to make the trial to turn out to his hurt. This passage shows us this great man in the last year of his life. The dying of Moses had been extended beyond the common measure of humanity, and his experience had been as various as his life had been prolonged. He had seen the courts of Pharaoh; he had dwelt in the tents of Midian for forty years, and for forty years more he had never escaped from the pressure of the tens of thousands of Israel. He knew the worry of his public position, and he knew also the awful message of God. The greatest figure in the Old Testament, as far as we can judge greatness, his heart was most deeply pledged to his people, and the promise God made to them. The day was long passed when he had identified himself with Israel for weal or woe. At the close of his long life — with the wonderful experience of what God had done lying behind him — what was the thought that rises to Moses' lips? It is that all this has only been enough to awaken hope — "O Lord God, Thou hast begun to show Thy servant Thy greatness and Thy mighty hand." The mysterious name of God, which our Bible translates, "I am," has been rendered by some scholars, "I will be; I will do what I will do. It is My very nature to be a God of unimaginable promise, doing for those who look to Me far more than they can ask or think." I believe that rendering is as legitimate as the more metaphorical one. At any rate, this is the conception of the Divine nature which experience has enforced upon Moses. At the end of his long life he can only feel that God has begun to show His greatness. If he is sure of anything, it is that God can do more and will do more than He has done yet. His very name is a name of promise. Now, that is a worthy spirit with which to come to the close of one's life. Death is a decisive end for us — the close of all our work on this scene. But if we have been in the company of God and learned to know Him, we will not measure His work by anything we have seen. Though our strength is spent, He has no more than indicated His purpose and excited His people's interest and hopes. When St. Paul was ready to die he wrote to Timothy, I have finished my course. But if he had been able to see what we see now, would he not have exclaimed, as Moses did, "O Lord, Thou hast begun"? There is a famous passage in Latin poetry in which the founder of the Roman race is taken to the end of the world and shown the fortunes of posterity. The grand figures of later history pass in magnificent procession before his eyes. But what Moses felt was far better than any such vision. He had faith that the work which had been so much to him was in God's hands, and that though his part in it was all but over, God's was only beginning. It is easier to apply this consideration to New Testament times. When the last of the Apostles died, what had God done in the world? He had kindled His little sparks of light here and there in the darkness of heathendom. But the whole framework, the whole spirit of society were pagan. A society like that in which we live, in which there is an instinctive recognition of Christ as final moral authority, in which children are baptized in His name — such a society was beyond the Apostles' vision, and perhaps beyond their conception. The Lord had more to do for the world than they had seen. It is the same now. Generation after generation passes, men grow old and grey and die in the work of the Lord, yet that work is ever beginning. We see the authority of Christ extending even in Christendom. We see the application of His will becoming more constant and thorough. They grow old, not to be pessimists, not to lose hope in the world because their own eyes are dim or their natural force abated, but with their hearts young within them; eager and interested in what God is doing; sure that the best is yet to be. Moses, with this noble faith in God's purpose, offered passionate prayer to God — "I pray Thee let me go over and see the good land." We can hardly imagine the interest of Moses in Canaan. It was the land of the fathers — Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It was the land God had chosen as the inheritance of Israel. It was the goal of forty years' wanderings. It was at length, for the second time, and after a faithless generation had perished in the wilderness, within their sight. It was not God's will that Moses should live to see the conquest of Canaan. There are people so deeply interested in the evolution of things — as to what practical applications electricity will be put, what Socialism will do in the way of reconstructing society, what will be the position of Christianity and the Church, what will become of the Chinese and Turkish empires — that they can pray to be kept alive to see the end. And if they are not they may leave the world with a keen sense of disappointment. What was the sin of Moses? At first sight it seems very strange. Moses has this testimony given him in the Bible — that he was meek above all men. Yet he was not always meek. He was hot and hasty in his youth when he slew an Egyptian, and the sin of his youth flared up one fatal moment as he struck the rock. At last his sin found him out, and excluded him from the Holy Land. I can imagine someone feeling that in this matter Moses was hardly dealt with, and that the inexorableness of God is painful to contemplate. No doubt it is meant to impress us that way. Believe it in time, all young men and women. There are good things, the best things, the only things you will one day care for, that sin makes impossible; a single bad action can forfeit hopes that you will never be able to redeem. It can draw an invisible line round about you — a line invisible to everyone except God and you — that you cannot cross. Moses is presented here to us learning one of the hardest of all lessons — the acceptance of God's will as it is determined by our own sins. Often our repentance is no better than a desire to escape the penalty of our faults. But our hope lies in accepting, not in rebelling and struggling against, the consequences which God has attached to our sins. To learn humility, to learn that God knows the discipline which is best for us, to learn to walk softly and accept as His will restrictions and losses which our sins have brought with them — that is the secret for restoring the soul. Rebellion does no good. Unbelieving despondency does no good. What is required is that the punishment of our sin be recognised as what it is, and taken as God's will for our good. It is never pleasant, how could it be? The most awful thing in the world, it has been said, is the unpardoned sin, and the next is sin which has been pardoned. To accept the punishment of our iniquity is to have experience of both of these, and we need it to make us hate sin as we should. For remember, though Moses' prayer was not granted, we are not to Suppose that his sin was not forgiven. It is striking that in the New Testament Moses appeared in glory and talked with Jesus of the death He should accomplish in Jerusalem. Thus all the limits which sin had imposed upon his life had vanished; thus he saw how far the grand work of God had progressed. Thus his mind still looked forward to the great event in which that great work should be consummated in the death of Jesus on the Cross. Moses talked of that, for that was his hope as it is ours. It is not true that the consequences of sin are immutable. If that were so there would be no Gospel. By God's will they abide for a time, but there is a world in which curse shall be no more. It is not true that the limitations of sin and its deformities are seen even in heaven. But God's answer to Moses' prayer did not end with His refusal. "Charge Joshua, and encourage him, and strengthen him, for he shall go over before this people, and he shall cause them to inherit the land which thou shalt see." The natural effect of despair is that we lose heart. We lose interest in our work when the accomplishment of it is a thing in which we have no interest. We are not going to be there, why spend ourselves as though we were? To speak like that is to forget that the work is not ours. It is God's. Our interest is not to be limited as if it were a private concern of our own. It is a mark of true goodness when a man can admire and encourage his successor, and keep up his interest and hope in the common cause, though active participation in its affairs has become impossible for him. We sometimes see men who have been great leaders retire with a bad grace. They looked askance at those carrying on their work. They are more ready to be critical and sulky than to cry, "Well done." They are under no obligation to encourage their successors! Over against this set these words of God to Moses, "Charge Joshua." Possibly there are some whose own sins have inflicted losses which are very hard to bear. We might have entered the land of promise. We might have been men and women infinitely different from what we are — brighter, happier, richer in our souls. Well, what does God say after our disappointments? He says what He said to Moses: Do not be selfish, do not sulk; do not let your disappointments, bitter as they are, cast a shadow over your family or over the church. Digest it in solitude. But beyond everything, get above Pisgah and see the goodly mountain of Lebanon, and then, with the glory of that prospect on your face, turn to those whose hearts are cold within them, whose spirits are broken, and cherish and encourage and strengthen them. Tell them what God has prepared for those who love Him, and rejoice with them that they will inherit the land which you have only seen from afar. ( J. Denney, D. D. ) Moses unanswered Homiletic Review. 1. Our first consideration is that the case before us does not disprove God's willingness to hear and answer prayer. 2. Our second consideration is that God does not always answer in just our way. The two things which Noses wanted were these —(1) To enter the Promised Land. He did not, indeed, cross the Jordan into the earthly Canaan; but, closing his eyes, he opened them on a vision of heavenly beauty such as he had never dreamed of.(2) He wanted to see "the work of his hands established upon him" ( Psalm 90:16, 17 ). This also was given in manifold measure. The influence of Moses was, under God, the controlling factor in the theocracy. His name has always been revered among the Jews. 3. Our third consideration is that no prayer is true prayer unless it is offered in the filial spirit. Some supplications are unfilial in their presumptuous boldness. Other supplications are unfilial in their servility. ( Homiletic Review. ) The prayer which God denied Bp. Cheney. I. OBSERVE THAT MOSES HERE CALLS HIS OWN SIN TO REMEMBRANCE. The plank which broke beneath one's weight is not apt to be kept as a sacred relic or treasured with fond affection. The place associated with some sin whose memory makes us blush, or some blunder so foolish as to be worthy only of an idiot, is not a place which we delight to revisit. Therefore it is the more remarkable that when Moses, in life's latest hour, reviews God's mercy to His people, he should not pass over the one great blunder and sin of his own career. But with the finger of transparent honesty he touches the sorest spot in his memory. II. OBSERVE WHY GOD DENIED MOSES' APPEAL. 1. We must not forget that what Moses sought from God was a temporal, not a spiritual blessing. 2. Perhaps, too, God may have refused the appeal of Moses because it humbled him and made him feel his complete dependence on God's grace to save him. 3. It may be, too, that the Divine refusal was only a part of the process by which God was fitting Moses for a better inheritance than Canaan. When the denial of his prayer was first made there were yet two years before him ere his earthly pilgrimage should end. Into those two years God was crowding the final work of preparation of His servant. Said Beethoven once of some famous musical composer, "He would have been a great musician if he had only been terribly and mercilessly criticised." ( Bp. Cheney. ) The petition of Moses to God H. Smith. Here Moses teacheth us how to pray. He beginneth first and telleth God that He hath begun to show him favour; and well might Moses so say, for he was no sooner born but the Lord began to show him His greatness, in saving him when he was cast into the river, etc. If all that the Lord hath done for him till this time be considered he had great cause to say, "O Lord, Thou hast begun to show Thy servant Thy greatness." Herein Moses in some part showeth himself thankful for that he had received, trusting thereby to entreat God to continue His benefits and loving kindness towards him, which is a thing which pleaseth God. He is not like one who sitteth in his door and sooth one day by day come by him and salute him, and yet taketh no acquaintance, so that if he stand in need of him, either he knoweth not where he dwelleth; or else, because he is not acquainted with him, he is abashed to ask anything of him. Moses is not such a one, but he is acquainted with the Lord, who so often passed by him; and therefore lie now saith, "Thou hast begun," etc. Next, Moses challengeth all the idol gods, and telleth them, that amongst them all there is not one of them that can do like his God

3:1-11 Og was very powerful, but he did not take warning by the ruin of Sihon, and desire conditions of peace. He trusted his own strength, and so was hardened to his destruction. Those not awakened by the judgments of God on others, ripen for the like judgments on themselves.br> 3:12-20 This country was settled on the Reubenites, Gadites, and half the tribe of Manasseh: see Nu 32. Moses repeats the condition of the grant to which they agreed. When at rest, we should desire to see our brethren at rest too, and should be ready to do what we can towards it; for we are not born for ourselves, but are members one of another. 3:21-29 Moses encouraged Joshua, who was to succeed him. Thus the aged and experienced in the service of God, should do all they can to strengthen the hands of those who are young, and setting out in religion. Consider what God has done, what God has promised. If God be for us, who can be against us, so as to prevail? We reproach our Leader if we follow him trembling. Moses prayed, that, if it were God's will, he might go before Israel, over Jordan into Canaan. We should never allow any desires in our hearts, which we cannot in faith offer up to God by prayer. God's answer to this prayer had a mixture of mercy and judgment. God sees it good to deny many things we desire. He may accept our prayers, yet not grant us the very things we pray for. It God does not by his providence give us what we desire, yet if by his grace he makes us content without, it comes to much the same. Let it suffice thee to have God for thy Father, and heaven for thy portion, though thou hast not every thing thou wouldst have in the world. God promised Moses a sight of Canaan from the top of Pisgah. Though he should not have the possession of it, he should have the prospect of it. Even great believers, in this present state, see heaven but at a distance. God provided him a successor. It is a comfort to the friends of the church of Christ, to see God's work likely to be carried on by others, when they are silent in the dust. And if we have the earnest and prospect of heaven, let these suffice us; let us submit to the Lord's will, and speak no more to Him of matters which he sees good to refuse us.