Divine judgments in precise adaptations.
The point which arrests attention here is that Moab, being so largely a sheep-feeding country, was dependent on its pastures, and these were dependent on the dews, and rains, and fountains, and streams. To a grazing country no greater calamity, no more precisely adapted calamity, could come than is described in this verse: "The waters of Nimrim shall be desolate: for the hay is withered away, the grass faileth, there is no green thing." Possibly the mischief was wrought in part by the malicious act of the invaders in stopping the wells and defiling the streams. If one thing more than another is impressed on devout minds by a review of life, it is the marvelous way in which Divine wisdom has found the best, most adapted forms for judgment and chastisement to take. Chastisement sent by the Divine Father is always precisely corrective of the evil which has called for it, and always precisely corrective to the individual and to the particular nation. This general subject may be opened out thus—
I. DIVINE JUDGMENTS HAVE PRECISE AIMS. The aim expressed in general terms is—humiliation with a view to exaltation.
II. DIVINE JUDGMENTS ARE DIRECTED TO SECURE THOSE AIMS. And this decides the form and the degree of the humiliation that is found to be necessary.
III. DIVINE JUDGMENTS ARE ADAPTED IN WAYS THAT MAY ESCAPE PRESENT NOTICE. And this occasions some of the gravest perplexities, and sternest struggles of life.
IV. THE ADAPTATION OF ALL DIVINE JUDGMENTS, TO THE SECURING OF THEIR PRECISE AIMS, WILL BE THE DELIGHTFUL DISCOVERY OF THE FUTURE. It will be our reading of our own history, and. of the world's history, when we have learned how to read aright.—R.T.