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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadGreater Men and Women of the Bible by James Hastings: 144. In Midian
Subjects in this Topic:
III
In Midian
Literature
Brown, James, Sermons with Memoir (1892), 159.
Campbell, R. J., Sermons addressed to Individuals (1904), 205.
Carpenter, W. B., The Burning Bush (1893), 1.
Cumming, J. E., Scripture Photographs, 131.
Davies, D., Talks with Men, Women and Children, iv. (1892) 31.
Hull, E. L., Sermons, iii. (1874) 81.
Maclaren, A., Leaves from the Tree of Life (1899), 84.
Matheson, G., The Representative Men of the Bible, i. (1902) 206.
Maurice, F. D., The Patriarchs and Lawgivers of the Old Testament (1892), 154.
Morgan, E., The Calls of God (1899), 61.
Parkhurst, C. H., A Little Lower than the Angels (1908), 230.
Pattison, T. H., The South Wind (1905), 23.
Pearse, M. G., Moses: His Life and its Lessons (1894), 33.
Selby, T. G., The God of the Patriarchs (1904), 163.
Simpson, J. G., Great Ideals of Religion (1912), 243.
Smith, John, The Permanent Message of the Exodus (1895), 46.
Westphal, A., The Law and the Prophets (1910), 157.
Young, D. T., The Unveiled Evangel (1912), 205.
British Congregationalist, July 30, 1908 (J. H. Jowett).
Christian World Pulpit, lviii. (1900) 246 (P. M‘Adam Muir); lxxxii. (1912) 237 (G. K. Grice).
When we come to consider the sojourn of Moses in Midian the impression we receive is one of disappointment. The youth has become a middle-aged man; the courtier of Egypt has become a shepherd in Midian. The ardour of his choice has not been supplemented by ardour of deed. Its only result has been asceticism. He has fled from the scene where his people were oppressed, but he has done nothing to relieve the oppression. He has seemingly been wasting his time.
But it is not so. He has been preparing for the call of God and the work which God has prepared for him to do.
I am struck by the fact that between the age of moral choice and the period of outward action the Bible loves to interpose a time of rest. The child-Jesus sees His mission at the age of twelve, but enters upon it only at the age of thirty. The man of Tarsus beholds a light from heaven and is eager at once to follow it; but he is sent for three years to ponder in the solitudes of Arabia. There is a time in moral history when a voice says to every one, “Come up into this desert place, and rest a while!” It would seem as if the morning were not the test of a man, as if the hour of excitement were not the hour of surest promise. The Divine Voice says: “Go, and think over it. Do not yield at once to the impulse of the morning. Try how long it will survive. Test it by the circling of the hours. See if it will outlast the season of excitement. You can march to battle at the sound of trumpet and the beat of drum; can you be resolute for the struggle when there are no accompaniments of glory? Only then can you say that you have received your call.”1 [Note: G. Matheson, The Representative Men of the Bible, i. 208.]