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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadGreater Men and Women of the Bible by James Hastings: 204. Miriam
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Literature
Cook, S. A., in Encyclopœdia Biblica, iii. (1902), col. 3152.
Dods, M., How to become like Christ (1897), 85.
Farningham, M., Women and their Work (1906), 35.
Gray, G. B., Numbers (International Critical Commentary) (1903), 120.
Horne, C. S., The Rock of Ages (1901), 41.
Jerdan, C., For the Lambs of the Flock (1901), 160.
Lauterbach, J. Z., in The Jewish Encyclopedia, viii. (1904) 608.
Lewis, H. E., in Women of the Bible: Rebekah to Priscilla (1904), 33.
Lorimer, P., in The Imperial Bible Dictionary, iv. (1888) 257.
Mackay, W. M., Bible Types of Modern Women (1912), 148.
Matheson, G., The Representative Women of the Bible (1907), 129.
Miller, T. E., Portraits of Women of the Bible (1910), 55.
Peck, G. C., Old Sins in New Clothes (1904), 277.
Simeon, J., Some Women of the Old Testament (1905), 121.
Stanley, A. P., in Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, ii. (1863) 383 f.
Talmage, T. de W., Sermons, vii. (1899) 155.
Vickery, J., Ideals of Life, 271.
Whyte, A., Bible Characters: Adam to Achan (1896), 217.
Williams, I., Female Characters of Holy Scripture (1890), 57.
Christian World Pulpit, lxvii. (1905) 38 (J. G. Stevenson).
Dictionary of the Bible, iii. (1900) 396 (H. A. Redpath).
The history of the children of Israel, as described in the Hexateuch, is the history of the making of a nation. To make a nation, something more than common blood and language is necessary. The rabble of fugitive slaves that fled with Moses from Egyptian bondage had common blood, and at bottom, perhaps, a common tradition of faith. But it would be impossible to describe that undisciplined multitude as in any true sense a nation. Before they could be a nation, and play a nation's part, certain influences must be brought to bear upon them; common beliefs and hopes, sentiments and habits had to be developed. The Israelites furnished no more than the raw material which sympathy and skill might work to, or towards, a product of stable, resolute and enthusiastic national life. For so great and difficult a work certain forces were necessary.
1. The function of the prophet we see in Moses. Moses, indeed, was something more than a prophet. He was what many prophets were not-eminently practical-minded. He had not only a grasp of high principles, but an equally eminent skill in their application. He was, in short, a great lawyer and a great statesman as well as a great prophet. It was to his genius, and to his genius alone, that that extraordinary Church-State which existed so long an absolutely singular and unique feature of the world's life was due. But he had the prophet instinct and capacity as well. He was one of the elect who are habitually aware of the near reality of a personal God, and who enter into communion and awful familiarity with that unseen presence. The people that is truly inspired by some prophet voice with thoughts like these will grow in dignity and power, and develop elements of strength which will go far to make it a nation.
2. The priest, as Aaron represented him, was the organizer of the religious life; and this organization was of the highest importance and value in dealing with a people which had been thoroughly disorganized and demoralized by long years of servitude to an idolatrous nation.
The Priest, as I understand it, is a kind of Prophet, in him too there is required to be a light of inspiration, as we must name it. He presides over the worship of the people; is the Uniter of them with the Unseen Holy. He is the spiritual Captain of the people; as the Prophet is their spiritual King with many captains: he guides them heavenward, by wise guidance through this Earth and its work. The ideal of him is, that he too be what we can call a voice from the unseen Heaven; interpreting, even as the Prophet did, and in a more familiar manner unfolding the same to men. The unseen Heaven,-the “open secret of the Universe,”-which so few have an eye for! He is the Prophet shorn of his more awful splendour; burning with mild, equable radiance, as the enlightener of daily life. This, I say, is the ideal of a Priest. So in old times; so in these, and in all times. One knows very well that, in reducing ideals to practice, great latitude of tolerance is needful; very great. But a Priest who is not this at all, who does not any longer aim or try to be this, is a character-of whom we had rather not speak in this place.1 [Note: Carlyle, On Heroes and Hero-Worship, Lect. iv.]
3. But there is a third whose gifts are from God for the cultivation of a deep and noble national spirit. “I sent before thee Moses, Aaron, and Miriam.” To the prophet and the priest there is added the poet, the inspired singer, the lyrist and melodist, whose office and function it is to take the national hopes and aspirations and wed them to music,
Bequeathing honeyed words to Time,
Embalmed in amber of eternal rhyme.
This was Miriam's gift. It was not the gift of the prophet: it was the gift of the poet. The prophet was above his audience; he moved for the most part in regions of thought and feeling inaccessible to the common people, and they stood in awe of him, admired and wondered from afar. Miriam's was a far inferior soul to that of Moses. But Miriam was far nearer to this people; she was more kith and kin with them than he. Her outbursts of song ring with human triumph and exultation. She sang as if the very life-blood of Israel were in her veins: and by her consciousness of that life, she made all Israel feel and know that they had a national unity, a national destiny, and a national mission. No one did more than she in the making of this nation.
Poet and Prophet differ greatly in our loose modern notions of them. In some old languages, again, the titles are synonymous; Vates means both Prophet and Poet: and indeed at all times, Prophet and Poet, well understood, have much kindred of meaning. Fundamentally indeed they are still the same: in this most important respect especially, That they have penetrated both of them into the sacred mystery of the Universe; what Goethe calls “the open secret.” “Which is the great secret?” asks one,-“The open secret”-open to all, seen by almost none! That Divine mystery which lies everywhere in all Beings, “the Divine Idea of the World, that which lies at the bottom of Appearance,” as Fichte styles it; of which all Appearance, from the starry sky to the grass of the field, but especially the Appearance of Man and his work, is but the vesture, the embodiment that renders it visible. This Divine mystery is in all times and in all places; veritably is.
Whoever may forget this Divine mystery, the Vates, whether Prophet or Poet, has penetrated into it: is a man sent hither to make it more impressively known to us. That always is his message; he is to reveal that to us-that sacred mystery which he more than others lives ever present with. While others forget it, he knows it;-I might say, he has been driven to know it; without consent asked of him, he finds himself living in it, bound to I live in it. Once more, here is no Hearsay, but a direct Insight and Belief; this man too could not help being a sincere man! Whosoever may live in the shows of things, it is for him a necessity of nature to live in the very fact of things. A man once more, in earnest with the Universe, though all others were but toying with it. He is a Vates, first of all, in virtue of being sincere. So far Poet and Prophet, participators in the “open secret,” are one. With respect to their distinction again: The Vates Prophet, we might say, has seized that sacred mystery rather on the moral side, as Good and Evil, Duty and Prohibition; the Vates Poet on what the Germans call the aesthetic side, as Beautiful, and the like. The one we may call a revealer of what we are to do, the other of what we are to love. But indeed these two provinces run into one another, and cannot be disjoined.1 [Note: Carlyle, On Heroes and Hero-Worship, Lect. ii.]