Numbers 31:1-12 And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying,… What a death was this to die for one who had been a prophet of the Lord — one who had been privileged to hold converse with Deity, and to foretell the purposes of the supreme mind! How little could he ever have imagined that he should come to this! What I he, with his great gifts and high official position — he stoop down from the eminence on which he stood to take up the sword of a rebel against Jehovah — to identify himself with a nation of debased idolators, and then end his life amid the wild tumult of battle in a vain effort to defend their cause! He degrade himself to such an extent as that? Impossible; yet so it happened. How this death contrasts with that which be had so ardently desired! Death in sanguinary conflict, surrounded by dying thousands of the enemies of God, with the din of arms and the fierce war-cry of opposing forces sounding in his ears; how different from "the death of the righteous," calmly commending his soul into the hands of a faithful Creator, antedating heavenly joys, catching a smile from the Divine countenance, and then peacefully "dropping into eternity"! A death in a state of apostasy from God, in open rebellion against His will, in impious defiance of His power, the death of Balaam was a death without hope. Not a ray of light is there to irradiate or relieve the gloom that gathers in thick and portentous blackness over the spot where he fell. (C. Merry.) Parallel Verses KJV: And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, |
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