Deuteronomy 22:6-7 If a bird's nest chance to be before you in the way in any tree, or on the ground, whether they be young ones, or eggs… We are very much struck with this law, not because it has to do with a matter apparently trifling, but because there is annexed to it the same promise as to commandments of the highest requirement. The commandment may have to do with a trivial thing: but it is evident enough that it cannot be a trivial commandment; indeed, no commandment can be which proceeds from God. Let us endeavour to ascertain on what principles the precept before us is founded, what dispositions it inculcates, and we shall find that there is no cause for surprise in the annexment of a promise of long life to obedience to the direction, "If a bird's nest chance to be," etc. Now, you will see at once that, had the precept been of a more stringent character, it might, in some sense, have been more easily vindicated and explained. Had it forbidden altogether the meddling with the nest, had it required that not only should the mother bird be let go, but that neither the young birds nor the eggs should be taken, it would at once have been said that God was graciously protecting the inferior creation, and forbidding man to act towards them with any kind of cruelty. But the precept permits the taking the nest; it does not even hint that it might be better to let the nest alone; it simply confines itself to protecting the parent bird, and thus allows, if it does not actually direct, what may be thought an inhuman thing, the carrying off the young to the manifest disappointment and pain of the mother. It should not, however, be unobserved that the precept does not touch the case in which there is an actual looking for the nest. It is not a direction as to what should be done if a nest were found after diligent search, but only as to what should be done if a nest were found by mere chance or accident. Without pretending to argue that God would have forbidden the searching for the nest, it is highly probable that there was something significant in this direction as to taking the nest, in the particular case when that nest had been unwisely placed. We are sure, from various testimonies of Scripture, that God has designed to instruct us in and through the inferior creation, the birds of the air and the beasts of the field being often appealed to when men have to be taught and admonished. And we know not, therefore, that there can be anything far fetched in supposing that, by sanctioning a sort of injury to the bird, which had built its nest in an insecure place, God meant to teach us that, if we will not take due precautions for our own safety we are not to expect the shield of His protection. But now as to the permission itself. Were not the Israelites here taught to be moderate in their desires? It was like giving a lesson against covetousness, a lesson so constructed as to be capable of being reproduced in great variety of circumstances, when the finder of a prize, who might fancy himself at liberty to appropriate the whole, was required to content himself with a part. There was also in the precept a lesson against recklessness or waste. It required man, whilst supplying his present wants, to have due regard to his future; yea, and to the wants of others as well as to his own. You may apply the principle to a hundred cases. Whenever men live upon the capital, when the interest would suffice; whenever they recklessly consume all their earnings, though those earnings might enable them to lay something by; when, so long as, by eager grasping, they can secure what they like for themselves, they are utterly indifferent as to interfering with the supplies and enjoyments of others — in every such case they are violating the precept before us; they are taking the old bird with the young: as, on the other hand, by treating as a sin anything like wastefulness, by a prudent management of the gifts and mercies of God, by such a wise husbandry of resources as shall prove a consciousness that the Divine liberality, in place of sanctioning extravagance, should be a motive to economy, they may be said to be virtually obeying the precept; they are taking the young, but letting the dam go. But now let us look more narrowly into the reasons of the precept: we shall probably find, if we examine the peculiarities of the case, that the commandment before us has a yet more direct and extensive application. It could only be, you will observe, the attachment of the mother bird to its young which, for the most part, would put it in the power of the finder of the nest to take both together. And when you bring this circumstance into the account you can hardly doubt that one great reason why God protected the mother bird by an express commandment was, that He might point out the excellence of parental affection, and teach us that we were not to take advantage of such an affection, in order to any injury to the parties who displayed it. You must be all quite aware that the affection which one party bears to another may be taken advantage of, and that, too, to his manifest detriment. For example, circumstances place the child of another in your power; you are about to oppress or ill-use that child; the parent entreats; you agree to release the child, but only on conditions with which the parent would never have complied had it not been for the strong pleadings of natural affection — what do you do in such a case but make use of a power, derived solely from the parent's love, to effect the parent's injury? you seize, so to speak, the mother bird, when it is only her being the mother bird which has given you the opportunity of seizure. But evidently the involved principle is of very wide application. A parent may take improper advantage of a child's love, a child of a parent's. A parent may work on the affections of a child, urging the child, by the love which he bears to a father or mother, to do something wrong, something against which conscience remonstrates; this is a case in which improper advantage is taken of affection, or injurious use is made of a power which, as in the case of the bird and her young, nothing but strong affection has originated. But our text has yet to be considered under another point of view. We have hitherto contended that, though it be apparently an insignificant matter with which the commandment before us is concerned, principles are involved of a high order and a wide application, so that there is no reason for surprise at finding long life promised as the reward of obedience. But we will now assume the Jews' opinion to have been correct; they were wont to say of this commandment, that it was the least amongst the commandments of Moses. Admit it to have been so; yet is there any cause for wonder that such a blessing as long life should be promised by way of recompense to obedience? God enjoins a certain thing; but we can hardly bring ourselves to obey, simply because He has enjoined it. We have our inquiries to urge — why has He enjoined it? if it be an indifferent thing, we want to know why He should have made it the subject of a law; why not have let it alone? Why not? Because, we may venture to reply, He wishes to test the principle of obedience; He wishes to see whether His will and His word are sufficient for us. In order to this, He must legislate upon things which in themselves are indifferent, neither morally good nor bad; He must not confine laws to such matters as robbing a neighbour's house, on which conscience is urgent: He must extend them to such matters as taking a bird's nest, on which conscience is silent. It is the same as with a child. He is walking in a stranger's garden, and you forbid his picking fruit; he knows that the fruit is not his, and therefore feels a reason for prohibition. But he is walking on a common, and you forbid his picking wild flowers; he knows that no one has property in these flowers, and therefore he cannot see any reason for your prohibition. Suppose him, however, to obey in both cases, abstaining alike from the flowers and the fruit, in which case does he show most of the principle of obedience, most of respect for your authority and of submission to your will? Surely, when he does not touch the flowers, which he sees no reason for not touching, rather than when he does not gather the fruit, which he feels that he can have no right to gather. It is exactly the same with God and ourselves. He may forbid things which we should have felt to be wrong, even had they not been forbidden; He may forbid things which we should not have felt wrong, nay, which would not have been wrong unless He had forbidden them. But in which case is our obedience most put to the proof? Not, surely, as to the thing criminal even without a commandment; but as to the thing indifferent till there was a commandment. (H. Melvill, B. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: If a bird's nest chance to be before thee in the way in any tree, or on the ground, whether they be young ones, or eggs, and the dam sitting upon the young, or upon the eggs, thou shalt not take the dam with the young: |
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