Sunset on the Mountains of Gilead
“This world is all a fleeting show,
For man’s illusion given;
The smiles of joy, the tears of woe,
Deceitful shine, deceitful flow —
There ’s nothing true but heaven.
And false the light on glory’s plume
As fading hues of even;
And love, and hope, and beauty’s bloom.
Are blossoms gather’d for the tomb — There’s nothing bright but heaven.
“Poor wanderers of a stormy day.
From wave to wave we ‘re driven;
And fancy’s flash, and reason’s ray,
Serve but to light the troubled way — There’s nothing calm but heaven.”
—MOOBB.
“And Barzillai the Gileadite came down from Rogelim, and went over Jordan with the king, to conduct him over Jordan. Now Barzillai was a very aged man, even fourscore years old: and he had provided the king of sustenance while he lay at Mahanaim; for he was a very great man. And the king said unto Barzillai, Come thou over with me, and I will feed thee with me in Jerusalem. And Barzillai said unto the king. How long have I to live, that I should go up with the king unto Jerusalem? I am this day fourscore years old; and can I discern between good and evil? can thy servant taste what I eat or what I drink? can I hear any more the voice of singing-men and singing-women? wherefore then should thy servant be yet a bui-den unto my lord the king? Thy servant will go a little way over Jordan with the king? and why should the king recompense it me with such a reward? Let thy servant, I pray thee, turn back again, that I may die in mine own city, and be buried by the grave of my father, and of my mother. And all the people went over Jordan. And when the king was come over, the king kissed Barzillai, and blessed him.” — 2 Sahl six. 31-37, 39.
Heee is a noble sunset on the border hills of Palestine.
We do not, indeed, see the sun vanishing behind the mountain-tops; it is rather the flush of crimson before the setting. We are not called around the death-couch of Baezillai; but his words all speak of approaching departure. He knows that the sand-glass is hastening to its last grain; and, in the prospect of a speedy exodus from the house of his earthly pilgrimage, he summons us to hear his simple but significant discourse on the philosophy of life.
We have only this brief glimpse in his biography. He comes before us, — the Melchisedek of his age, — to meet David, as Melchisedek had met his great ancestor, with the spoils of victory. He gives him his blessing, and then vanishes from the scene. But enough is recorded, to make us admire and love him; and though living in an age of lesser light and fewer privileges than ours, there is much in his character which we shall do well to imitate.
We shall endeavour, with God’s blessing, to draw one or two lessons from the character of Barzillai suggested in the interesting Bible narrative.
Let us first observe, his pity for the fallen.
It is a beautiful picture to see this old chieftain, when he hears of David’s sudden humiliation, hastening to the place of exile, to offer him his generous sympathy, along with substantial gifts for his exhausted followers. In concert with other two chiefs of the Trans- Jordan ic region, hearing that “the people is hungry, and lueary, and thiysty, in the wilderness,’’ they bring with them, as presents, the fruits of their pastoral domains — “wheat, barley, and flour, and parched corn; honey, and butter, and sheep, and cheese of Jane.” * Barzillai seems to have been a wealthy proprietor or chief in Gilead — a petty prince among the mountaineers of Palestine, animated with a true clansman’s spirit, and capable of noble and generous deeds. Even though the gifts had been less valuable and needed, they would still have evinced a spirit of generous sympathy and commiseration for the fallen. The scene in these highlands of Gilead, where the interest centres on a dethroned monarch, forcibly reminds us of the same generous impulse which, more than a hundred years ago, in our own Scotland, stirred many a Highland heart: when one, in whose veins the blood of kings flowed, was a homeless wanderer among her moors and mountains. Many who had no sympathy for his cause commiserated his fate. They forgot the crimes of his house in his personal misfortunes; they knew that he had seen better times — that he had once walked in royal halls; and cave, and cottage, and turf-sheiling, were freely tendered to shelter his defenceless head.
This pity for the unfortunate is one of the finest traits in our human nature. Would that it were a universal one! But the world is not always so lavish of its yity. It finds it easier and more profitable to fawn on the prosperous, — to flatter the great, — to give to those from whom it may hope * 2 Sam. xvii. 29.
again to receive. How many, (so long as you are in affluent circumstances,) will be seen in your company; visitors at your house, guests at your table. But if the gifts of capricious fortune take wings and flee away — if (with no stain on your honour, or blot on your character,) the bleak winds of misfortune have scattered your hopes in the bud, and made havoc and ruin of your capital; — then such friends as these can afford to forget you; no time, as formerly, for a talk on the street, or a friendly call in passing; — a forced, galvanic smile takes the place of the old familiar one. These are summer friends; out, like the butterfly, on the day of sunshine; away, we know not where, when the sky is cloudy and lowering. Ah! there is nothing — (I speak in the case of reverses for which you are not morally responsible) — there is nothing so mean and dastardly as this. Unkindness and i-esentment, under any circumstances, are indefensible; but to trample on 2i fallen foe — to crush the powerless — to visit them with coldness and unkindness at the very moment when they most need their aching wounds bound up — this is cruel indeed!
On the other hand, how noble is the example of Barzillai, and such as he, who love to come with words and deeds of kindness in the hour of bitter reverse and altered fortune. He had often, doubtless, admired David in his greatness; alike as the warrior, the king, and the saint; and being, like himself, “an old man, and full of years,” ho would all tljc more commiserate him when sent forth to buffet this pitiless storm. If he can do no more, he will hasten across the mountain-passes, to off’er the tribute of his sympathy to the crownless king; and, in accordance with oriental wont and munificence, take with iiini the produce ot his rich meadows.
Be it ours to imitate the spirit of this Gilead chief, and never to be guilty of the dastard act of trampling on an humbled foe. In commercial communities csjDecially, where money is the standard of everything, and where the man in the ceiled house to-day, may be in the humble lodging in a few months, there is a greater temptation to treat misfortune with unkind severity; to be all familiarity and courtesy to king David in the Jerusalem palace, but to bo all superciliousness and distance to the exile at Mahanaim!
“When thou thinkest thou standest, take heed lest thou falV How does our blessed Lord rebuke, in us all, this cold, hardened, heartless behaviour to the fallen; ay, too, even when there was more than misfortune. You remember that withered flower that tried, in the presence of the Infinitely Pure One, to lift its drooping head? The Pharisees (in the spirit of the world) would have crushed it in a moment. The disciples, in an equally cruel syirit, would have cast it among the wrack and weeds as outcast and polluted. But what says He whose great errand from heaven to earth was to lift the fallen, and commiserate a world of” the lost? “” Neither do I condemn thee; go, and sin no moreT^
As a second lesson, mark his disinterested loyalty.
Expediency! expediency! with how many is that the regulating, governing principle of their lives! — not what is right — but what is prudent. Such are they who sail with wind and tide — in politics, in religion, in commerce, in daily society and friendship. They vill take the winning side.
They are what the world call far-seeing men. They look before them. They make a careful calculation of consequences; and are not very scrupulous as to principle.
How did right and might — principle and expediency — stand to one another at this juncture of Hebrew history? Absalom had stolen the hearts of Israel. By consummate art, or rather by unprincipled princecraf t, he had undermined his father’s throne, sown disaffection among the people; and, in short, with everything to favour him, in youth, attractiveness, pomp, and display, (all powerful qualities with the oriental mind,) he had seized the Hebrew sceptre. Accordinoj to human calculations, his aoed father’s case midit be deemed desperate. He had crossed Jordan, in all probability, to his grave: and the risk old Barzillai incurred, in fraternising with the outlawed king, was a serious one. What if Absalom and his army, in the flash of triumjDh, cross Jordan, and cut to pieces David’s panic-stricken force? Woe to the aged clansman of Gilead who has dared to shew him kindness. His hoar head will be hung a trophy on the gate of Mahanaim! And Barzillai must have weighed all these consequences. By becoming confederate with David — sending these camel-loads of butter and honey and cheese, and these bushels of corn, — he made himself a marked man. His fertile fields at Eogelim, will be swept by the army of the usurper. He and his, will be the first to feel Absalom’s revenge.
But how does he act? He will do what is right, and leave the results in a Higher hand. Though with fearful odds noainst him, he will cling- to injured goodness, and assert the majesty of truth over baseness and wrong. What cared he for those hollow acclaims that rose on the other side of Jordan, welcoming a villain to a throne to which he had climbed over the grey hairs of an hononred father. No; thouoh he should stand alone, he will execrate the deed. Though it should cost him his lands, his flocks, his patrimonial inheritance, he will cast in his lot with dishonoured and deeply-injured virtue, rather than with a successful but unprincipled traitor.
Had Barzillai made it a question of expediency, he would either have preserved his neutrality, not mixing himself up with the quarrel at all, but remaining in quiet possession of his flocks and inheritance in the south; or else he might have lent the weight of his influence to the popular side, “for the conspiracy’’ we read,” luas strong; for the people increased continually tuith Absalom.’’ * Had he been a mercenary adventurer, by becoming confederate with the victorious army, and cutting off* the supplies from the camp of David, he would have decided the fortunes of the day.
How differently does he act I He never hesitates. Whatever might be the result, he knows who has the right; and hastens to the expatriated king with acceptable supplies of the best he has; ay, and with what to a wounded spirit was better than all the balm of Gilead or the flocks of its mountains, he carries his own sympathy and manifested pity for fallen greatness.
And then, see the sequel of the history. When all was over; — when a Greater than any earthly might had scattered the alien armies and laid low the usurper, and the venerable monarch was on his triumphal march back to his throne, the
* 2 Sam. XV. 12.
old Gileadite chief came down once more from his fastnesses with a body of retainers, to do homage to the King and give him his patriot welcome and blessing. Nor was David forgetful of the disinterested loyalty so lately manifested. In a spirit of equally noble generosity and gratitude, he urged Barzillai to join the triumphal cavalcade, to come and have a home in his palace in Jerusalem, and a place and seat at his royal table.
But he will take no reward or recompence, although what millions are spending a lifetime to achieve was within the grasp of this border Sheik, Up the steep hill of fame, few reach more than half-wlay; fewer still ever gain the summit. But here was one to whom was oft’ered the hand of friendship by the greatest king of the age, and apartments in the palace of Zion. Thousands would have coveted the honour. His name would have been on every tongue as a favoured old man, the envy of all his brother chieftains.
“But no,” says he. “It was for no such base, paltry, selfish motive I acted a patriot’s part to a patriot king. I brought not of my produce in hopes of getting in return some princely recompence. In giving in my adhesion to the cause of David, it was with no mean hope of bettering my position or aggrandising my family. Let me give and receive a blessino-: that is all I want. Let me bend homeward these aged steps. My best reward — my onhj accepted reward — will be the feeling, ‘/ have done my duti/.’”
Mark, once more, as a third lesson, his estimate of life. A flattering proposal had just been made to him. In the brilliant pageant that was sweeping past, he had a place of royal and conspicuous honour in his offer. Few would have resisted the golden bribe. But he remembered that fourscore years had whitened his head. A brief time, at the best, he could still have in the world. He had outlived the age when he coidd enjoy its pageantries and honours. “And Barzillai said unto the king, How long have I to live, that I should go up with the king unto Jerusalem? I am this day fourscore years old; and can I discern between good and evil? can thy servant taste what I eat or what I drink? can I hear any more the voice of singing-men and singing-women? wherefore then should thy servant be yet a burden unto my lord the king? Thy servant will go a little way over Jordan with the king. and luhy should the king recompense it me with such a reward? Let thy servant, I pray thee, turn back again, that I may die in mine own city, and be buined by the grave of my father and of my mother.” As if he had said, “Tempt me not. The day was when I might have grasped at the munificent honour. The day was when this heart would have beat with pride at the thought of being a lordly retainer of the Hebrew king — a guest at his table. But these things have lost their relish for me now. The whirl and excitement, the glitter and pageantry of a courtier’s life have no charm. The festive rejoicings on the return of the king would be too much for this aged frame. ‘I am this day fourscore years old’ This head, once covered with raven locks, is now white with the snows of winter. These hands, that once dealt and parried the warrior’s blow, have now tremblingly to grasp the pilgrim’s staff These limbs, that once could nimbly chase the gazelle up the craggy heights of
Giletacl, now totter underneath me. These eye 5, ’ the windows of the house, are beginning to be darkened; they look out on a dimmed and murky landscape; I could not see the glories of the king’s palace at Jerusalem even were 1 there. These ears, once the inlets of enjoyment, which once loved to hear the dulcet tones of my own mountain-pipe, would listen with unavailing effort to the choristers of Zion, or to tabret and lute and harp of sweetest Hel)rew minstrelsy. I should be but a poor accession to the royal table — a poor guest in the palace of Judah. Bid me not go thither! Suffer me rather to say farewell on the banks of the frontier river. Return I thou monarch, beloved of thy Lord! return to thy capital, and may the acclamations of a grateful people greet thy restoration. For myself, permit me quietly to abide in my own highland-home — these my native rugged mountains. Their sepulchres hold dust that is sacred to me. This is now my only unfulfilled wish, that ’ / may die in mine own city, and he buried by the grave of my father and my mother I ‘”
We cannot positively pronounce on Barzillai’s piety. The very respect and personal kindness manifested for David, “the man after God’s own heart,” combined with his loyalty, disinterestedness, unselfishness, and filial devotion, would lead us to draw favourable conclusions reoardino- his reliirious character. At all events, we cannot think of him as a mere sated voluptuary, his bones full of the sin of his youth; — with debilitated frame and shattered nerve, breathing out the fretful soliloquy of a peevish old age. We would accept these words of his, rather as the apostrophe of a good and venerable old man, who takes the grand view of life as a prelude to another, and who wishes to be tempted by nothing that would dissipate his thoughts, and unfit him for solemn preparation for his great change. “Tempt me not,” he says, “witk what might divert my thoughts from more solemn and urgent verities. Let me enjoy a quiet eventide before the great night-journey! Let me go and set my house in order before I die!”
And it is to this we must all come!
Life is now before most of us, with its bright plans and phantom-visions; — its rainbow-hues and air-castles. Many have no eyes to see the end of that glowing perspective — the close of the avenue, which at present is overarched with the green boughs of hope. But as we go on, the distance sensibly diminishes; our consciousness becomes more and more vivid that the end is nearing; and we feel that we are passing, like the millions that have preceded us, to the “long home.”
“How long,’’ said Barzillai, ‘-’ have I to live?” “How long have I to live?” — what a solemn question for us all, amid the daily-occurring proofs of our frailty and mortality. Oh, what a motto to bear about with us continually amid the tear and wear of life!
Young man! with the flash of young hope in thine eye; existence extending in interminable vista before thee; — pause ever and anon on the enchanted highway, and put the solemn question, “Hoiu long have 1 to live?”
Man of business! in availing yourself of new openings in trade, accepting new responsibilities and anxieties, involving yourself in new entanglements, have you stojiped at the threshold and probed yourself with the question, “How long have I to live?”
Child of pleasine! plunging into the midst of dissipating excitement, — the whirl of intoxicating gaiety; — have you ever, in returning, jaded, and weary, and worn, from the heated ball-room, flung yourself prayerless on your pillow, and sunk into a feverish dream, with the question haunting you, “How long have I to live I”
Fruitless 2^Tofessor I who, with the form of godliness, art yet destitute of every practical active Christian virtue; who hast never known what it is to relieve the needy, or succour the poor, or whisper the word of unselfish kindness, or help the languishing mission-cause. Thou who hast lived a useless life; — who in the retrospect can point to no one good, or generous, or self-sacrificing deed. Amid abounding opportunities, perhaps with full coS’ers at thy side, and the bar of God before thine eyes, hast thou ever seriously pondered the question — how soon the opportunity may be past and gone! — “How long have I to live .?”
How long have I? A short time, almost all of us. And those who are past life’s mid-day, on whom the glow of simsefc is stealing; those who have crossed the grand climacteric, — passed over the mountain-top, and are beginning to descend the shady side to the grave in the valley, — let them, especially, listen to the warning. Let them imitate the example of the aged chief — seek leisure from over-much and over-many cares, to prepare for death. It is strange that old age is as disinclined as youth to listen to the voice of wisdom in this. You imagine that you can take on new worldly burdens, and reach heaven safe enough notwithstanding! Ah! these burdens too often weigh hopelessly down. Like the bee that has wandered from its garden-hive, or its hole in the rock, in search of honeyed treasure, hut which, in winging its way back, drops exhausted, and neve:- reaches home. Old Barzillai was a noble exception to this. With courtier’s grace, and a sublime moral fortitude, he declined the regal request, *’ Gome thou over with me!’’ — a question which does not always get a negative from old age, when Pleasure, shaking in her hands her chaplets of variegated flowers, cries, “Come over tvith me!” — and Mammon, clinking his bags of gold, cries, “Come over with me!” — and Ambition, pointing to the hazy mountain-top, and her coveted temple gleaming in the sun, cries, “Come over toith me!”
Be it ours to reply: “I have a nobler heritage now to care for, a nobler temple for which to prepare. The day will come when these things will yield me no pleasure, — when they shall be seen in their true light, as the empty baubles of an hour.” Oh, what though you may have all that now ministers to the pride of life, — affluence, prosperity, success in business — ‘’ (jaining the whole tuorld,” if you imperil or impoverish your innnortal soul? What though life’s morning and mid-day be bright and sunny, if you have made no provision for the wet drizzling rain of its afternoon, and find creeping upon you the joylessness of a godless old age. You imagine it will be easy enough to seek God, and find Him amid the dregs of existence, at the close of its weary day. But it will be with you as with the child who imagines, in the bright morning, that it will be safe to syend the sunny hours in play, and put off learning the morrow’s task till night. When night comes, the little procrastinator is nodding over the book. Through fatigue and sleep, the unlearnt lesson is abandoned,
and it -wakes on the morrow with its pillow bedewed with tears, under the consciousness that its work is undone.
On the other hand, how beautiful is that close of life which is ended with God! “Mark thou the perfect man, and behold the upright, for the end of that man is peace!’ * “And even to your old age I am he; and even to hoar hairs xuill I carry you: I have made, and I luill hear; even I li’ill carry, and vjill deliver you.” -)* What though the sun may have waded through clouds in the early morn? — It has a couch of amber and gold now. The beginning and close of many a Christian’s life is like that glorious Alp of which we have previously spoken. Its base and furrowed sides are in mist and cloud; but its white, hoary summit of everlasting snow, is bathed in the crinipon hues of fading day.
Be it ours, to live the life of the righteous, that we may come at last to die their death; and standing, like Barzillai, by the brink of Jordan, hear the voice and invitation of a Greater and Mightier than earthly monarch calling us to a seat at His table in the Heavenly Jerusalem.
Pa. xxxvii, 37. f Ps. xxi 4