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of their own descendants, so favoured by God as they had been; for to each of them had God been pleased to reveal himself several times, and that not by visions or inspiration only, but by personal appearance, in a peculiar manner which was never afterwards granted to any mortal, Moses, the friend of God, and type of Christ, alone excepted.

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CHAPTER III.

From the Prophecy of Jacob, to the Death of Moses.

AND now, the promise of the Messiah, having been repeated thus openly, to all the family of Jacob, limited to the descendants of Judah, and the time fixed before which he should appear, it seemed fit to God, to give no more revelations concerning him for many years. For though the priesthood, and most, if not all, of the positive ordinances, and covenants of the law of Moses, have a reference to Christ, and must be understood as typical of him*, yet as the meaning of

them

* We have the authority of Christ himself for asserting, that events under the old dispensation, were typical of him. As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so

must

them, could not be comprehended till he appeared, they cannot properly, be considered as prophecies or revelations of him. Nor were they ever well explained till the "Epistle to the Hebrews" was written; in which it is shewn, with great strength of language, and as much clearness as the subject will permit, how they applied to Christ, and how even in that sense also, he fulfilled the Law*.

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However, about 240 years after the death of Jacob, it pleased God again to remind his chosen people, of that Redeemer, who was to come into the world, many ages after. Part of the promise to Abraham was now completed. His seed were indeed become numerous, as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore. Their wanderings in the desart were nearly concluded, and they

must the son of man be lifted up. John iii. 14. No sign shall be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas. For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly: so shall the son of man be three days and three nights, in the heart of the earth. Matt. xii. 39, 40.

See Matt. v. 17, 18.

were

were about to enter the promised land of Canaan. At this time Balaam the king of Moab, a country on the south-eastern borders of Canaan, inhabited by the descendants of Lot, seeing the approach of so great a multitude, who had conquered several of the neighbouring nations, was distrustful of his own arms, and hoped to overcome them by supernatural means. He had recourse therefore to Balaam, a celebrated prophet or seer, who resided in Mesopotamia, to the eastward of Moab, near the river Euphrates. Who or what Balaam was, is not precisely known, and there are various opinions upon the subject. Most of the Jewish and some Christian writers*, suppose that he was only a soothsayer, conjurer, or astrologer; but St. Peter, expressly calls him a prophet. 2 Pet. ii. 16. Indeed the whole account of him and his predictions, as delivered to us by Moses, seems to make it clear that he was in reality inspired by the spirit of God, though a covetous, profligate, and

*See Bishop Patrick on the place,

ambitious

ambitious man. us, for there are other examples in scripture of God's revealing his will by bad men; as, for instance, in the case of the two Prophets, in 1 Kings xiii, of whom one disobeyed a positive command of God, and the other brought sure destruction on his fellow-prophet, by a falsehood*. Witness also the disobedience of Jonah, at first, and afterwards his cruel and inhuman wish, that the Ninevites should be de

Nor should this surprize

* Lightfoot thinks, that the old prophet was one of those who were perverted to idolatry, and therefore wished to destroy the true prophet. But the revelation made to him by God, verse 20 and 32, makes this improbable; and his intention was not likely to be evil, when he so bewailed the other, and wished to be buried in the same grave with him; Perhaps he told him in a jocular manner only, that he had received such a commandment concerning him, in order to induce him to return and eat with him; for it was not usual at that time, for God to reveal his will to prophets by the ministry of angels; and that circumstance should have put the man of God from Judah upon his guard. He had received a prohibition from God himself, and therefore ought not to have regarded the word of a man: but the fact seems to be, that he eagerly embraced what he chose to think was a reasonable excuse for satisfying his appetite.

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