Numbers 9:15-23 And on the day that the tabernacle was reared up the cloud covered the tabernacle, namely, the tent of the testimony… We must look to have our portion of the cloud so long as we remain below the skies. It will be the lot of the believer, in the somewhat analogous image of St. Paul, to "see through a glass darkly" so long as he remains in this tabernacle. Possibly a clearer light to our imperfect organs of spiritual vision would only tend to dazzle and obscure. Enough for us to know there is light enough, and that what there is is light from Heaven that cannot lead astray. In following the cloud Israel followed God. In our obedience to the will of God, as expressed in His providence or revealed in His Word, we obey Him too; and the true believer's attachment to and connection with God, is like that which is expressed in the touching and holy plighted troth of marriage — "for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health." I. If the cloud be taken up by day — THAT IS, IF GOD BLESSES A MAN WITH PROSPERITY — it is, in the first place, to make him an eleemosynary ordinance, or MEANS OF USEFULNESS TO OTHERS. It is entrusting him with the "five talents," as compared with the two or the one talent. II. We have to learn, in the second place, THAT DIFFICULTY IS NO GROUND FOR DISPENSING WITH DUTY: "whether it was by day or by night the cloud was taken up, they journeyed." To obey under embarrassment is the more characteristic obedience of a Christian. There are many forms of the night-journey of the pilgrim of Christ. We have considered the day-journey under the illustration of wealth and easy circumstances, or in any other shape of general prosperity; let us meditate upon the night-journey in the shape of poverty, sickness, bereavement, or domestic opposition to the Christian life. (J. B. Owen, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: And on the day that the tabernacle was reared up the cloud covered the tabernacle, namely, the tent of the testimony: and at even there was upon the tabernacle as it were the appearance of fire, until the morning. |
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