Here is another allusion to a wine country. Moab knew well what it was to drink to excess. The drunkard with his silly talk and behavior is a common object of ridicule everywhere. And Moab shall become to other nations abject and degraded as the drunkard. This is the end of its wrong excitement over the fall of Israel Moab has seen Israel in its days of power and glory and pride, and, cooing, has feared. Could the days of Balak and the prophecies of Balaam be forgotten? Nor is it likely that Israel would be without unseemly exultations and reciprocal jealousies. And now at last Israel falls. And all that Moab can take knowledge of is the fact of the fall. That it has been caused by disobedience and rebellion, that Jehovah is the real Author of it and not the King of Babylon, who is but as Jehovah's sword, Moab cannot well have means for knowing. All it can see is a rival fallen, and. as it seems permanently fallen. Therefore Moab must be taught a lesson. In exulting over Israel it is exulting against Jehovah. Indeed, there is no reason why we should reject the notion of some open and bold comparison between the weakness of Jehovah, God of Israel, and the strength of Chemosh, god of Moab. As if the people said, "See how strong Chemosh is; for we are still here, though Babylonian armies have not been far from us! and see how weak Jehovah is; for the nation to whom he was God is gone into a distant captivity!" To exult over the fall of those who have been avowedly the servants of God is a dangerous thing to do. The man who is tempted and falls should be an object of pity, one to be helped up and reinstated, even though the work needed for this be one with some loss and risk to ourselves. And surely we should be especially careful not to rejoice over the calamities of those whose calamity seems to give us a better chance. Moab had now to drink to the dregs a cup of shame, because it had failed to comprehend the duty of rejoicing with those who rejoiced and weeping with those who wept. - Y.

The first charge brought against Moab is self-confidence, self-trust, self-sufficiency (ver. 7). This makes us contemporaries of the Moabites. We thought they were an ancient people, but behold how human they are, how English, how like ourselves and our children! They were so pleased with the stone wall they had put up; they measured it, and admired it, and said that it would save them from the high wind and the mighty storm. It was enough — high enough, broad enough, impenetrable, invincible. Now that is the kind of reasoning which God will not allow in human life. He demands that human life be lived in Himself, and not in things that our own hands have made. We are to be taught distinctly that we do not live in ourselves; that in ourselves we have actually no life; that we have nothing that we have not received, and in that spirit alone we are to hold life and to live. It would seem to be easy to put our whole trust in the living God, and yet it is the most difficult of all lessons. We will persist, even in opposition to many theories of our own to the contrary, that we are self-contained, self-consisting, and self-managing; and herein arises God's perpetual controversy with mankind. There is, too, so much to favour the temptation. It looks as if we could do most things; that as we have so much we might easily have more. God says to us in every day's providence, You are here for a purpose; you are here for a little time; you now but begin to be; every lesson you must learn, and every commandment you must keep. It is against that arrangement that we chafe, just as the little child chafes against parental authority and loving restraint. From the history of Moab we see that even blessings may be perverted, and sacred privileges may be turned into occasions of self-destruction (ver. 11). Too much ease, too little upset, too little anxiety, too little trouble will kill any soul. To come into a business made to your hands, to have a fortune left you, and to have everything prearranged, is to be exposed to very peculiar and urgent temptation. Thank God for the rough places in your lives. They are unpleasant, but they are disciplinary. They are like steep hills, but remember that great temples and blessed sanctuaries stand at the top of them. When discipline is not endured gradually it is brought to bear upon the life as an overwhelming judgment. This is the burden of the text. Two classes of persons should consider this. First, those who have daily discipline; they should say, Better have discipline a little at, a time, as we are able to bear it. "Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth." "No chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby." These daily chafings and frettings are nard to bear, these daily disappointments are sharp thorns thrust into the very eyes; yet who knows what the judgment would be were it all to come at once? I will rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him: no temptation has happened unto me but such as is common to men; by and by the explanation will come, and then I shall be able to say, He hath done all things well. Then the lesson should be well considered by those who seem to escape discipline of God. The volcano is a long time in gathering all its fiery energy, but the outburst is momentary, and who can measure the destruction which follows? Christ may well say, "What I say unto one, I say unto all, Watch," — even those who have apparently least necessity to watch, should not relax their vigils for a moment. "Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall See how frightful m the humiliation to which God can bring a man or a people. Look at the picture of Moab — horn cut off, the arm broken, the man drunk but not with wine, and reeling in helplessness, the proud one wallowing in his vomit and laughed to derision! We cannot, however, rest here: for the mercy of the Lord endureth for ever. Mercy triumphs over judgment. The destruction, therefore, was not arbitrary, but moral, being based upon an assigned reason. "Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall." We should say, therefore, that this verse was the concluding verse in the whole history of Moab. What can there be after destruction? With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible. The chapter does not end with the forty-second verse, but with the forty-seventh, and this is how it reads, "Yet will I bring again," &c. One would fain construe these words into a hopeful omen. Out of what extremities cannot God deliver mankind? Let the most desponding rekindle their hope, and the most distant prodigal hear his father's voice. Who can set bounds to the mercy of God? Yet must there be no trifling, even with a Gospel of hope.

(J. Parker, D. D.)