Israel, a Prince with God

“One adequate support
For the calamities of mortal life
Exists — one only: an assured belief
That the procession of our fate, howe’er
Sad or disturbed, is ordered by a Being
Of Infinite benevolence and power;
Whose everlasting purposes embrace
All accidents, converting them to good.”

WORDSWORTH,

N old-world story this! In its strange Eastern dress, it appears to be as remote from us as the garb of an Arab, or the barter of an Oriental bazaar. And yet human life is much the same, whether lived eighteen hundred years on this side or eighteen hundred years on that side of the Cross; whether hidden beneath our broadcloth, or the flowing robes of an Arab Sheikh; whether spent in modern towns, or on the Iree, open pasture-lands of Southern Palestine.

Our critics complain of our poring over these time-worn pages of ancient biography; but, with all deference to them, we feel bound to say that we learn better how to live, we inhale more spiritual ozone, we see further into the reasons of God’s dealings with men, when doing so, than when scanning the pages of yesterday’s newspaper, or of a society journal.

With human life and discipline, one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. Souls grasp hands across the intervening centuries. Thousands of miles can not part us from our kin across the seas; and thousands of years cannot part us from our kin across the ages, or sever the readers of these words — who daily weep over an oftendropt ideal — from that son of Isaac, who, nearly drowned in the seas of his own craft and cunning, at length emerged a new man, and a prince with God.

There are many reasons which invest this story with absorbing interest: —

I. JACOB WAS THE FATHER OF THE JEWISH RACE, AND
A TYPICAL JEW.

The Jews called themselves by the name of Jacob; and surnamed themselves by the name of Israel (Isa. xliv. 5). God calls them children of Israel. We call them Israelites. We speak of Jacob, rather than Abraham, as the founder of the people to which he gave his name; because, though Abraham was their ancestor, yet he was not so exclusively. He is the founder of a yet richer, mightier line. The wild son of the desert claims him as father equally with the bargain-loving Jew. Nor is that all. We Gentiles have reason to be proud to trace back our lineage to the first great Hebrew, the man who crossed over* and whom God designated as His friend. He is the father

* The word “Hebrew,” according to the generally-accepted interpretation, signifies the man -who had crossed the river-flood- -the man who c?me from beyond the Euphrates. (See Stanley’s/™™* Church,.

of all who believe: not of the circumcision only; but of those who walk in the steps of the faith which he had, even before he was circumcised (Rom. iv. 12). We go to make’ up the sands on the shore and the stars of the heavens, which he saw in the visions of God (Gen. xxii. 17).

But Jacob is the typical Jew. His life is the epitome of that wonderful people, who are found in every country and belong to none; who supply us with our loftiest religious literature, and are yet a by-word for their craft, their scheming, and their love of money; who have supplied us with our highest ideals of nobility, and our lowest types of villainy; who have played so great a part in the history of the past, and are only waiting now for the final catastrophe which is to replace them in the van of the world’s progress.

No thoughtful man can ignore this wonderful people. Their history is, without doubt, the key to the complications of modern politics; and it may be that their redemption is to be the fruit of that mighty travail, which is beginning to convulse all peoples, announced as it is, by throes of earthquake and the rumours of war.

If we can understand the life of Jacob, we can understand the history of his people. The extremes which startle us in them are all in him. Like them, he is the most successful schemer of his times; and, like them, he has that deep spirituality, that far-seeing faith, which are the grandest of all qualities, and make a man capable of the highest culture that a human spirit can receive. Like them, he spends the greatest part of his life in exile, and amid trying conditions of toil and sorrow; and, like them, he is inalienably attached to that dear land, his only hold on which was by the promise of God and the graves of the heroic dead.

But Jacob’s character was purified by tremendous discipline. The furnace into which he was cast was heated one seven times more than it is wont to be heated for ordinary men. He stands among the peers in the kingdom of sorrow; and through it all he passed into a peerage of moral and spiritual power, which made the mightiest monarch of his times bend eagerly for a blessing from his trembling hand. Through such discipline his people have been passing for centuries; and surely, before its searching fires, the baser elements of their natures will be expelled, until they recognize the true Joseph of their seed — who has sent them many generous gifts; whom yet they have not known; but towards whom they are certainly being brought. Then shall they share His glory (Gen. xlv. 13, 1 8); and they shall be amongst many people, “as a dew from the Lord” (Micah v. 7); yea, in them shall be fulfilled the ancient promise, “I will bless thee; and thou shalt be a blessing” (Gen. xii. 2).

II. JACOB ALSO HAS so MANY POINTS OF CONTACT
WITH OURSELVES.

Newman has said truly, “Abraham was a hero; Jacob was a plain man dwelling in tents. Abraham we feel to be above ourselves; Jacob like ourselves. Ve no longer stand in the unclouded golden dawn of the patriarchal age; it is overcast with clouds, and is more like our own chequered life.”

His failings speak to us. He takes advantage of his brother when hard pressed with hunger. He deceives his father. He meets Laban’s guile with guile. He thinks to buy himself out of his trouble with Esau. He mixes, in a terrible mingle-mangle, religion and worldly policy. His children grow up to hatred, violence, and murder. He cringes before the distant Egyptian governor, and sends him a present. Mean, crafty and weak, are the least terms we can apply to him. But, alas! who is there that does not feel the germs of this harvest to be within his own breast, hidden there as seed-germs in a mummy-case, and only waiting for favourable conditions to ripen them to the same disastrous growth. “There goes myself, but for the grace of God.”

His aspirations speak to us. We too, have our angel-haunted dreams, and make our vows, when we leave home. ‘We, too, count hard work a trifle, when inspired by all-mastering love. We, too, cling in a paroxysm of yearning to the departing angels, that they should bless us ere they go. We, too, get back to our Bethels, and bury our idols We, too, confess ourselves pilgrims and strangers on the earth. We, too, recognize the shepherd care of God (Gen. xlviii. 15). We, too, wait for God’s salvation (Gen. xlix. 18).

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