Exemptions.
Three classes were exempted from service in war, and one class was forbidden to take part in it. The exempted classes were:
1. He who had built a house, but had not dedicated it.
2. He who had planted a vineyard, but had not eaten of its fruit.
3. He who had betrothed a wife, but had not married her.
The class forbidden to engage in the war was the class of cowards (Deuteronomy 20:8). These regulations—
I. HAD AN IMPORTANT BEARING ON THE STABILITY OF SOCIETY. War has naturally a disturbing effect on industry and commerce. It unsettles the public mind. It creates a feeling of insecurity. It prevents enterprise. These evils would be intensified in a state of society where, besides the danger of the country being overrun by hostile armies, each adult male was liable for service in the field. In such a condition of society there would obviously be a disinclination, when war was imminent, to acquire property, to institute improvements, or to enter into any new engagements. The man who built a house would not be sure that he would live to dedicate it; the man who planted a vineyard, that he would live to eat of it; the man who betrothed a wife, that he would be spared to take her. This provision of the Law was therefore calculated to have a reassuring and tranquillizing effect, and would so far counteract the tendency of warlike rumors to paralyze industry and the arrangements of domestic life.
II. WERE AN IMPORTANT ALLEVIATION OF THE EVILS OF WAR. They aimed at exempting those who, from their circumstances and prospects, would feel most keenly the hardship of a call to service. Deuteronomy 20:7 connects itself with the importance attached in ancient nations to the perpetuation of the house. "According to modern notions, a forlorn hope would naturally be composed of men who had not given hostages to fortune. Such, however, was not the light in which the matter presented itself to the Greek mind. The human plant had flowered. The continuance of the house was secure. It was therefore comparatively of little moment what befell the man whose duty to his ancestors had been fulfilled" (Renouf). The sentiment here expressed was that of ancient nations generally.
III. WERE OF GREAT IMPORTANCE IN SECURING EFFICIENCY IN THE ARMY. The army was plainly better without the cowards than with them. One coward may do harm to a whole company. But, besides these, it was likely that persons serving by compulsion, in a spirit of discontent at disappointed prospects, and for the sake of their prospects unwilling to part with their lives, would prove but inferior soldiers. At any rate, there was policy in recruiting the army only from those who had a fixed stake in the welfare of the nation. The man with house, wife, and vineyard was more likely to be ready to shed the last drop of his blood in defense of his treasures than one wholly unattached, or attached only in hope.
LESSONS.
1. Those entering the Christian warfare need to count the cost (Luke 14:25-34).
2. In Christ's service there are no exemptions.
3. Nevertheless, consideration should be shown in the work of the Church for those who are peculiarly situated.
4. The danger of being entangled in spirit in Christ's service (2 Timothy 2:4).
5. The faint-hearted are no strength to a cause ( 7:3).
6. Numbers are not the only thing to be considered in reckoning the efficiency of a Church or of any body of spiritual warriors.—J.O.