II. THE WOMAN CHOSEN FOR THE DELIVERANCE OF ISRAEL WAS A MOTHER. The peculiar virtue of celibacy is a late invention which finds no basis in the Bible. There marriage is honourable (Hebrews 13:4), and to mothers a peculiar honour is given (1 Timothy 2:15). The joys and cares of maternity deepen the nature of women and develop the noblest and most Divine of all affections—a mother's strong, tender, devoted love. A true mother will not have the less affection for others because her first duty is to her own children. She is no perfect mother, even, whose whole affection and care is confined to her family. With her maternal affection is little more than a form of selfishness, the offspring being regarded as an enlargement of the personality of the parent. The true mother is motherly in her nature, and shows her motherliness in all relations of life; so that to her friends, her nation, and the needy, her thought and care partake of the mother's fond, self-sacrificing devotion. Therefore patriotism is notantagonistic to maternal affection, but offers a field for its noblest efforts.
III. THOUGH A MOTHER IS CHOSEN FOR THE WORK OF DELIVERING ISRAEL, SHE IS NOT CALLED TO SACRIFICE ANY WOMANLY GRACE IN PERFORMING THE TASK. Deborah was no Amazon. Hers was not the fierce fighting of Barak. She was a prophetess. 1, Her mission was to inspire and encourage. This is one of woman's noblest works. Women are unfaithful when they check their sons or husbands in the performance of dangerous duties.
2. Her mission was also to utter God's praises after victory had been secured. Women, more sensitive than men, should be able to arouse songs of thanksgiving, while men may be slower to awake to the full feeling of gratitude. In leading the praises of the Church women have a truly womanly mission.—A.
5:9
Self-dedication.
Deborah's heart turns in motherly affection to those rulers of Israel who have willingly offered themselves to the service of their God and their country. It should be the aim of the Christian to emulate such self-devotion in the cause of Christ and of humanity.
I. THE OFFERING WAS TO GOD AND THE COUNTRY.
1. It was to God. Though this fact is not expressly named here, as in the case of Jehoshaphat's captain, Amasiah (2 Chronicles 17:16), it is plainly implied, inasmuch as the people had been incited by a Divine messenger and were living under a theocracy. God was the King, and the soldier's fidelity to his king was fidelity to God. Men devote themselves to business, pleasure, art, literature, science. The highest object of devotion is to live to God. This may be pursued through the necessary earthly occupations, elevating and consecrating them by making them part of God's service.
2. The devotion was also to the country. Patriotism is a Christian duty. But the Christian is called to care for the large human world. We are called upon to live for the good of others, to aim at increasing their happiness and spiritual welfare. This aim is not divergent from that of serving God. We render him service by working for the good of others according to his will, and so as to render him honour.
II. THE OFFERING OF THE GOVERNORS WAS OF THEMSELVES. God is not satisfied with our gifts; he asks for our hearts (Proverbs 23:26). The true preachers of God's will will say, "We seek not yours, but you" (2 Corinthians 12:14). No gifts will be acceptable to God until we have first given our own selves to him (2 Corinthians 8:5). The sacrifice of self-dedication, which was symbolised to the Jew in the whole burnt offering, is a sacrifice still looked for under the Christian dispensation, not as a propitiation for sin, but as a thank offering. This, and no less, constitutes our reasonable service (Romans 12:1). We offer ourselves to God when we render him the homage of our hearts in love, when we sacrifice our wills to his will in submission and obedience, when we make it the object of our life to please and serve and honour him. We cannot compensate for lack of personal devotion by payment, as in some countries the conscript can do in regard to military service. Our gifts will not take the place of our work. We cannot serve God by proxy. The work of the missionary or of any professional agent of the Church must not be regarded as a substitute for the work of the private Christian. God claims the personal service of all of us.
III. THE OFFERING WAS VOLUNTARY. Deborah rejoices in the fact that the governors offered themselves willingly.
1. The only acceptable service of God must be willing service. God leaves us free to accept or reject his service, he uses no violent compulsion to drive us into it. There is no conscription for recruiting the regiments of the kingdom of heaven; all soldiers in that glorious army are volunteers. This is important, because
2. We have every motive to render this willing service. We are free from compulsion, but we are not free from obligation. We are to blame if we do not freely offer ourselves, and if we persist in refusing it will go ill with us at the last.
In application of these truths it may be noticed that some are waiting to be called into the Church or for service. Such waiting is a mistake. Christ is waiting for us. He has called us; he expects our free self-dedication. Let us not wait to be sought or asked, but freely offer ourselves to his service.—A.
5:14
Literary occupations.
Whether these men of Zebulun were poets, chroniclers, or only merchants' clerks, their occupation was distinctly different from that of their brethren, and the peculiar duties attaching to it may serve to illustrate those which belong to a corresponding class of men in our own day.
I. LITERATURE IS A FIELD OF HONOURABLE INDUSTRY. Iris a foolish misnomer which characterises handicraftsmen as the only "working men." Men can and do work at least as hard with their brains as with their hands; and such work is not the most unworthy of honourable effort. We cannot make a greater mistake than to confine the epithet "manly" to the exercise of brute force, an exercise in which a Hercules would be out-matched by a gorilla. True manliness is the right development of all the noblest powers of a man, among which the intellectual must take a high place.
II. LITERATURE MAY BE MADE A SOURCE OF THE HIGHEST GOOD TO MANKIND. Writing is a means of expressing, preserving, and disseminating ideas. This means has been chosen by God for the promotion of religion, viz; in the Bible. Therefore it is foolish to despise literature as unpractical; it may be the most useful instrument for benefiting mankind. This should be remembered by those who have literary power, and should prevent them from wasting their talents on the selfish enjoyment of intellectual luxury. Literary ability is, like the gift of tongues, a Divine gift bestowed on men for the good of the whole world.
III. IN ORDER THAT LITERATURE MAY EFFECT THE GREATEST GOOD, IT MUST BE ENLISTED IN THE SERVICE OF GOD. They who "handle the pen of the writer" must be among those who "willingly offer themselves" to the service of the Lord. God claims our best for his work. Men who have literary gifts should understand that they are not at liberty to write simply for occupation, for amusement, for money, or for fame, but for the honour of God and the good of men. Such considerations should secure more conscientiousness in writing; the observance of the great literary duties of truthfulness, fairness, purity, and charity; and the pursuit of elevating themes.
IV. THEY WHO ARE CALLED TO LITERARY DUTIES MUST NOT FEEL THEMSELVES EXONERATED FROM MORE GENERAL OBLIGATIONS. The literary man must some times lay down the pen and draw the sword. The danger of sedentary and literary occupations is that they should lead to indolence and an unpractical habit of life. It will not do for any of us to live in the delicious seclusion of dream-land. There are stern tasks and serious burdens which all true men will have to encounter if the terrible realities of the world's wickedness and misery are to be faced as the claims of God and humanity demand of us. While the trumpet sounds to war it is treason for the men of Zebulun to linger behind in learned leisure; and while God calls his people to do battle for him against the ignorance and sin of the world, there is no excuse for the most gifted, the most fastidious, or the most occupied to shirk their share of the dangers and toils of hard warfare.—A.
5:16
Indolent indecision.
The men of Reuben who refused to obey the call to arms appear to have indulged at once in questioning criticism and in selfish inactivity, and thus they illustrate the close association of indolence and indecision. Indolence encourages indecision by checking the energy requisite for choice, and indecision encourages indolence by closing all doors of action. The situation of indolent indecision may be considered from the point of view of indolence and from that of indecision.
I. THE SITUATION REGARDED ON THE SIDE OF INDOLENCE.
1. Private business was one excuse for negligence of public duty. People often make their business an excuse for not undertaking the work Christ calls them to (Matthew 22:5). But this results either
2. Love of ease led to negligence of public duty. It was less arduous to tend the flocks than to assemble for war.
3. Love of peace may have had the same effect. The Reubenites may have been peculiarly men of peace, while the Ephraimites were men of war. There are times, however, when the peaceful habit is sinful, and when we are only hiding our indolence under the cloak of peace, and when it is our duty to take up the cross, which is involved in facing the confusion and harshness of conflict. It is wrong to refuse to maintain the right and to rebuke falsehood and wickedness out of the love of peace.
4. Pleasure may have inclined to indolence. That was no time for dreaming pastoral idyls when the nation was in jeopardy and a Deborah was sounding the war-trumpet. Music and poetry, and the love of nature and art have their place among the innocent amenities of life; but when aestheticism becomes a religion, and the graces of life take the places of its duties, the harmless pleasures which allure us from stern tasks become positive sins. The wretchedness, the vice, the crime which darken the very atmosphere of Christendom leave none of us free to luxuriate in soft dreams of imaginary bliss, instead of doing our utmost to conquer these hideous monsters.
II. THE SITUATION REGARDED ON THE SIDE OF INDECISION.
1. Indecision is often the effect of directing intellectual energy to negative criticism rather than to practical contrivance. Criticism is most valuable in its place; but when it is carried to the point of fastidiousness it becomes nothing less than a fatal, paralysing influence. Reuben was divided in counsel, uncertain as to the best course to pursue, and therefore did nothing. So there are people who waste their energies in exposing the defects of all plans of action, and yet have not the inventiveness and strength to discover and pursue better plans. But it is better to work in an imperfect method than not to work at all.
2. Indecision can only be conquered by cultivating strength of will and convictions of duty It is the will that decides. When the intellect is cultivated at the expense of the will, moral paralysis is the result. Strength of will can be best attained in its right form by the exercise of what will we already have under convictions of duty. We should remember that our chief mission in the world is not criticism, but work. God calls us to action, and even if we work imperfectly and often fail, he will be better pleased at our well-meant, though perhaps mistaken, efforts to do what we believe to be right than at the inactivity which refuses to do anything from fear of committing the smallest error.—A.
5:23
The curse of Meroz.
I. THE CURSE WAS FOR INACTIVITY. Meroz had committed no offence, but is solely to blame for failing in action. Innocence of positive guilt is not enough to secure us from condemnation in the judgment of God. We shall be judged by what we have left undone as well as by what we have done. In Christ's vision of judgment, those who are made to stand on the left of the throne and are then condemned to outer darkness are not offenders against the moral law, but simply persons who have neglected the active duties of charity (Matthew 25:45). It is a very common error for people to suppose that they are blameless so long as they keep themselves unspotted from the world, forgetting that the first duty of religion is the energetic exercise of charity (James 1:27). Better to have some faults and much useful service than to be faultless and useless. The soldier who returns from war with scarred face and stained garments is nobler than he who fears to enter the battle lest he shall soil his raiment or mar his countenance.
II. THE CURSE WAS FOR INACTIVITY IS REGARD TO PUBLIC DUTY. Meroz was unpatriotic. Possibly the men on whom the curse fell were diligent farmers and kind and careful parents. But they neglected their duty to their country. We must beware of the narrowness of the parochial mind. The congregation which studies its own edification alone, and has no care for the evangelising of the nation and for mission work among the heathen, brings itself under the curse of Meroz. In the faithful payment of taxes, in the conscientious use of the franchise, in the right use of influence in public matters men have a constant call to patriotic duty. But we have all larger duties to men as men, and so long as misery, ignorance, and wickedness prevail none of us can escape condemnation until we have done our part to remove those evils.
III. TEE CURSE WAS FOR INACTIVITY IN A TIME OF WAR.
1. It-was the time of the nation's greatest need and danger when Meroz was discovered to be indolently unpatriotic. Great emergencies reveal the evil which has existed unobserved in quieter times. If we are not faithful in that which is least we shall be proved unfaithful in that which is greatest. The evil which may be fatal to our nation in times of danger may be lurking among us unseen in these more quiet times. Therefore the shameful failings of those who are held up to the reprobation of history may be no worse than the mean selfishness which pervades the lives of multitudes who meet with no blame, simply because the day of trial has not yet made their character apparent to the world.
2. The danger in which the unfaithfulness of Meroz was revealed brought a call to aggressive action. Meroz was found wanting in a time of war. We are called to resist evil. If we permit others to be oppressed by injustice and cruelty when we might deliver them by any sacrifice and toil of our own, we bring ourselves under the curse of Meroz. Christianity is aggressive. It is the duty of Christians not merely to promote purity, and charity, and truth, etc; but to expose and attack the vices and wrongs of the world.—A.
5:31
The triumph of the Church.
The triumph of Israel after the overthrow of the Canaanites is an illustration of the ultimate triumph of the Church.
I. THE FACT OF THIS TRIUMPH. We have encouragements to think that the Church will not only be saved, but will be saved with honour—will triumph.
1. This implies the destruction of her enemies. We need not look for that in violence, after the manners of the Crusades or of the Inquisition.
2. It implies the bestowal of honour on the Church. She shall shine like the sun, no longer despised.
3. It implies the enjoyment of great happiness. Darkness represents sorrow; sunlight represents joy.
4. It implies the gift of power. No influence on earth is so powerful as that of the sun. The people of God will have opportunity for noble service and for the exercise of large faculties.
5. It implies the exercise of benevolence. The sun scatters light, warmth, life. He brings new life out of the death of winter, and spreads beauty and glory over the face of the earth. The triumph of the Church will not be like that of old tyrannies, marked by bloodshed and misery, but a source of life and joy and glory to all within its reach. There is healing in the wings of the Sun of righteousness.
II. THE SOURCE OF THIS TRIUMPH.
1. It is accorded by God. Deborah speaks of it in prayer. It was not the courage of the warrior, but the unseen help of God that secured the victory to Israel. We grow fearful as we see the raging might of evil, and compare this with the trembling weakness of our own hearts. But God is with us; he makes the cause of the Church his own. Christ has already conquered, and now he calls us only to meet defeated foes.
2. It is secured through devotion to God. The enemies of God perish. These are not men whom God treats as enemies, but such as set themselves in enmity against him. They who triumph are the lovers of God. The essence of religion is love to God, and this is here the ground of the assurance of victory given by him.
3. It is attained by silent and gradual means. The sun does not burst out suddenly, he makes no noise to announce the coming day. So the triumph of the Church is gradual as the growing dawn, silent as the spreading light. Yet, like the light, it wall be recognised by its visible presence and its bountiful fruits.—A.
Judges
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