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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadGreater Men and Women of the Bible by James Hastings: 191. The Song of the Well
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The Song of the Well
Vaheb in Suphah
And the valleys of Arnon,
And the slope of the valleys
That inclineth toward the dwelling of Ar,
And leaneth upon the border of Moab” (Num_21:15).
(4) Beer (a well), so called because here water was obtained by the labour of the people, in which their chiefs heartily joined. A short poem commemorates the event.
Spring up, O well; sing ye unto it:
The well, which the princes digged,
Which the nobles of the people delved,
With the sceptre, and with their staves.
1. In Eastern life there is no drudgery worse than that of drawing water. “Hewers of wood and drawers of water” is the Bible's description of slaves of the lowest class. You read the proof on the lips of the well itself, where the soft ropes dragged daily through the centuries have cut deep into the stone; and again on the lined faces of the daughters of the people, as they gather to their task. Eliezer of Damascus found a bride at the well, but that was in the morning of the world. She whom Christ encountered was a drudge, whose first prayer to Him was: “Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come all the way hither to draw.” The tramp to the well, the frequent quarrel for one's turn, the strain to lift the bucket from the deep pool, the climb home again with the high, full jar on the head-it is all a constant weariness and almost unrelieved. For in the East, women while at work seldom or never sing.
Where men address themselves to the task, as shepherds have to do, they often sing; and their singing is sometimes of the kind which glorifies their labour with memory and with hope. Such an effort we find in the song before us. It is one of the most ancient pieces of Scripture; but long before it became Scripture it had descended, perhaps through many generations, on the lips of labour, in the open air and sunshine, where the gravel rattles under the feet of the shepherds, in the places of drawing water. Wherever the well may have been at whose starting this song was first sung, the verses were probably handed down through the daily routine of many wells. In Palestine there are watering-places which are at once fountains and cisterns. A deep shaft has been sunk near some dry torrent bed to release the underground waters: and though the water lives and leaps below, a long pull is required to bring it to the surface. The drawers who sang this song knew that their well was alive. They called to each other to sing back to it: the verb means to sing in antiphon, to answer the music of the waters with their own. That spirit in the dark hollow was not the only well-spring; the men's hearts gushed back to it, fountain called to fountain,
Spring up, O well! Sing ye back to it.
And the human music is worthy of the other. It recalls that condition of life which is ideal, to which nations look back as their golden age, to which a living Church looks forward as part of the coming Kingdom of the Father, men of all ranks as brothers and sharing the work which is indispensable to the common weal.
2. One day, ten or twelve years ago, Professor Budde of Strassburg was bending over his Hebrew Bible; and he made a discovery. He was reading the “Song of the Well” in the Book of Numbers, a song which is among the oldest in the world. Suddenly God showed him that He had more truth and light yet to break forth out of His Holy Word for those who come to it with teachable and eager hearts.
“From the wilderness they went to Mattanah”-these were the words over which Professor Budde halted. This term which is translated “the wilderness,” he said to himself, might with equal accuracy be regarded as a proper name-“Midbar”: From Midbar to Mattanah. But, he argued, if, instead of inserting in the narrative the geographical name Midbar, you prefer the phrase which gives you the name's significance, why should you not deal in the same manner with the next geographical name-“Mattanah”? Mattanah, too, has its meaning. It means “a gift.” Let these words displace the topographical title, and you will read, “From the wilderness a gift.” But that is rippling and musical poetry instead of the bald and work-a-day prose which describes the route chosen by the caravan of wayfarers. So our scholar comes to the conclusion that here we have really the last line of the “Song of the Well.” To complete the parallelism the Song ought to have six lines instead of five. As it stands at present, the first two and the second two run well together, but the fifth swings in the air alone. Let a sixth be added, and all will go happily:
Spring up, O Well!
Sing ye to it,
Thou Well dug by princes,
Sunk by the nobles of the people,
With the sceptre, with their staves:
Out of the desert a gift.
“Out of the desert a gift”: it is a beautiful ending to the little psalm; it is sweeter, nobler, more memorable than “From Midbar to Mattanah.” And it is a message to us even to-day-a message from the Arabian sand-plains to our Western civilization, and from that old pre-Christian age to our modern time. It is a remembrancer of cool waters and leaping fountains which will assuage our need.
3. The Israelites were now at length in a territory comparatively well-watered and fertile; but their advance was threatened by the hostility of the Amorite chief Sihon, who had apparently made an incursion into the territories of Moab and Ammon, and established a powerful kingdom with Heshbon as its centre. At this point therefore the Israelites were once more engaged in fierce warfare. Sihon not only refused them a passage through his territory, but resisted their further advance by force of arms. A decisive campaign ensued. Sihon was slain in battle, and his land from Arnon unto Jabbok fell into the hands of the Israelites. The capture of Heshbon, Sihon's stronghold, was celebrated in another ancient war-song, of which we perhaps possess a fragment in Num_21:27 ff. This success was followed by the overthrow of Og, the king of Bashan, an Amorite chief who had seized on a tract of territory north of the Jabbok, and had fixed his capital at Edrei. By this conquest the Israelites gained possession of the greater part of Gilead. The tribes of Reuben and Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, were allowed to occupy the conquered district (which was luxuriantly fertile, and well-suited for the grazing of cattle), on condition of their duly assisting the other tribes to subdue the territory west of Jordan. A firm footing had now been secured by the invaders on the eastern side of the Jordan valley. In the plains of Moab opposite to the city of Jericho the main body of the Israelites was securely encamped. Their rapid and decisive conquests had naturally struck terror into the Moabites, who apparently abstained from any hostile action, and allowed the invaders a free right of passage through their territory. In his alarm and perplexity Balak, the king of Moab, sent an embassy to Balaam, a famous eastern soothsayer who dwelt at Pethor on the Euphrates, imploring him to come and pronounce a curse (i.e. cast some malignant spell) upon the Israelites. The account of this episode is very remarkable though somewhat obscure and contradictory in minor details. The mention of the elders of Midian seems to imply that Moab was at this time partially occupied, as in later times, by hordes of Midianites. We are told that the Israelites were seduced from their allegiance to Jehovah not only by the attractions of the licentious worship offered to the Moabitish deity Baal-peor, but by the wiles of the Midianites (Num_25:18). The wrath of Jehovah fell heavily on the camp of the Israelites, and it was only the righteous zeal of Phinehas the priest that saved them from utter destruction. A speedy and overwhelming vengeance overtook the Midianites. Twelve thousand men of Israel led by Phinehas, and accompanied by the vessels of the sanctuary (i.e. the ark), fell upon the host of Midian; the five chieftains were slain, and Balaam himself, who had counselled the Midianites to ensnare Israel into idolatry, perished in battle. The encampments and villages of the tribe were destroyed and the remnant which escaped the sword driven back into the desert.
Phinehas was one of the most prominent of those typical personages whose character and mission presented features of resemblance to the expected Messiah. He did the work of his own day faithfully, and without any ulterior purpose; but he was at the same time unconsciously representing, in his own degree, Him who was to come in the fulness of time and the fulness of blessing. Faint and weak, indeed, in him are the lineaments which in the Messiah shine forth in surpassing glory; but they are as faithful a likeness as a type can ever bear to its archetype. His functions and offices distinctly anticipated those of the Saviour. As the high-priest of Israel, he silently testified of the great High-priest of mankind. As the warrior, conquering the enemies and preserving the unity of his people, he witnessed for that Warrior who was to gird His sword upon His thigh, and to ride prosperously because of meekness and truth and righteousness, and who, moreover, was to gather the dispersed of Israel into one, and to bring Jew and Gentile, bond and free, to one Lord, one faith, one baptism. Nor was the personal character of Phinehas unlike that of Him whom he typified. The warrior-priest of Israel had that warmth and tenderness of heart which, like the summer-cloud hiding in its woolly folds the fierce destructive lightning, is often combined with an unsparing hatred of what is evil. All the recorded incidents of his life show touches of pitying gentleness gilding the wild gloom of their vengeance. And in this respect he represented Him who wept with the sorrowing sisters of Bethany, and launched the most withering invectives against the vile hypocrisies of the Scribes and Pharisees; who reconciled the extremes of universal excellence, and whose pity for the miserable never mitigated His abhorrence of sin.1 [Note: H. Macmillan, The Garden and the City, 131.]