Verse 27
He shall divide the spoil
The division of spoils:
There is nothing more fascinating than the life of a hunter.
On a certain day in all England you can hear the crack of the sportsman’s gun, because, grouse hunting has begun; and every man who can afford the time and ammunition, and can draw a bead, starts for the fields. On the 20th of October our woods and forests will resound with the shock of fire-arms, and will be tracked of pointers and setters, because the quail will then be a lawful prize for the sportsman. Xenophon grew eloquent in regard to the art of hunting. In the far East people, elephant-mounted, chase the tiger. The American Indian darts his arrow at the buffalo until the frightened herd tumble over the rocks. European nobles are often found in the fox-chase and at the stag-hunt. Francis L was called the father of hunting. Moses declares of Nimrod: “He was a mighty hunter before the Lord.” Therefore, in all ages of the world, the imagery of my text ought to be suggestive, whether it means a wolf after a fox, or a man after a lion. “In the morning he shall devour the prey, and at night he shall divide the spoils.” I take my text, in the first place, as descriptive of those people who, in the morning of their life, give themselves up to hunting the world, but afterwards, by the grace of God, in the evening of their life divide among themselves the spoils of Christian character. There are aged Christian men and women in this house who, if they gave testimony, would tell you that in the morning of their life they were after the world as intent as a hound after a hare, or as a falcon swoops upon a gazelle. They wanted the world’s plaudits and the world’s gains. They felt that if they could get this world they would have everything. Some of them started out for the pleasures of the world. They thought that the man who laughed loudest was happiest. They tried repartee, and conundrum, and burlesque, and madrigal. After awhile misfortune struck them hard on the back. They found there was something they could not laugh at. Under their late hours their health gave way, or there was a death in the house. They awoke to their sinfulness and their immortality, and here they sit to-night, at sixty or seventy years of age, as appreciative of all innocent mirth as they ever were, but they are bent on a style of satisfaction which in early life they never hunted: the evening of their days brighter than the morning. In the morning they devoured the prey, but at night they are dividing the spoils. Then there are others who started out for financial success. Wherever a dollar was expected to be, they were. They chased it across the ocean. They chased it across the land. They stopped not for the night. Hearing that dollar, even in the darkness, thrilled them as an Adirondack sportsman is thrilled at midnight by a loon’s laugh. They chased that dollar to the money-vault. All the hounds were out--all the pointers and the setters. They leaped the hedges for that dollar, and they cried: “Hark away! a dollar! a dollar!” And when at last they came upon it and had actually captured it, their excitement was like that of a falconer who has successfully flung his first hawk. In the morning of their life, oh, how they devoured the prey! But there came a better time to their soul. From that time they did not care whether they walked or rode, if Christ walked with them; nor whether they lived in a mansion or in a hut, if they dwelt under the shadow of the Almighty; nor whether they were robed in French broadcloth or in homespun, if they had the robe of the Saviour’s righteousness; nor whether they were sandalled with morocco or calf skin, if they were shod with the preparation of the gospel. Now you see peace on their countenance. Now that man says: “What a fool I was to be enchanted with this world.” This world is a poor thing to hunt. It is healthful to go out in the woods and hunt. It rekindles the lustre of the eye. It strikes the brown of the autumnal leaf into the cheek. It gives to the rheumatic limbs a strength to leap like the roe. Christopher North’s pet gun, the muckle-mounted-Meg, going off in the summer in the forests, had its echo in the winter-time in the eloquence that rang through the university halls of Edinburgh. It is healthy to go hunting in the fields; but I tell you that it is belittling and bedwarfing and belaming for a man to hunt this world. So it was with Lord Byron. So it was with Coleridge. So it was with Catherine of Russia. Henry II. went out hunting for this world, and its lances struck through his heart. Francis I. aimed at the world, but the assassin’s dagger put an end to his ambition and his life with one stroke. Mary Queen of Scots wrote on the window of her castle:--
“From the top of all my trust Mishap hath laid me in the dust.”
The Queen Dowager of Navarre was offered for her wedding-day a costly and beautiful pair of gloves, and she put them on; but they were poisoned gloves, and they took net life. Better a bare hand of cold privation than a warm and poisoned glove of ruinous success. Again, my subject is descriptive of those who come to a sudden and a radical change. You have noticed how short a time it is from morning to night--only seven or eight hours. You know that the day has a very brief life. Its heart beats twenty-four times, and then it is dead. How quick this transition in the character of these Benjamites! “In the morning they shall devour the prey, and at night they shall divide the spoils.” Is it possible that there shall be such a transformation in any of our characters? (Dr. Talmage.)
The blessing of Benjamin:
In Benjamin, the youngest and last of the sons of Jacob, there is expressed the culmination of all blessing for all the tribes of Israel. In this tribe is summed up, in a climax, all spiritual blessing for every child of God. Morning and evening together suggests the idea of incessant and victorious capture of booty. The warlike character manifested by this tribe was shown on many occasions in their history, and exhibited marked features of a fierce and wolfish character. Israel, as represented in Benjamin, shall devour the prey, and at night divide the spoil. The prophecies of Balaam, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, as well as the minor prophets, are full of announcements that the Lord will again take in hand His ancient people, and they shall go forth, in mighty power, under the leadership of Christ as their Messiah, and shall destroy their foes on the right hand and on the left, and shall carry off “the spoil.” This is the emphatic declaration in the blessing on Benjamin. “At night,” at the close of this dispensation of darkness and sin and sorrow, it will receive its decisive fulfilment, and a morning shall be ushered in such as the world has never yet seen--the morning of resurrection, when the Church of the living God shall exchange her weeds of widowhood for her garments of glory and beauty, and shall rise to meet her Lord in the air, and for ever reign with Him over a regenerated world. Blessed morning, long expected! Well may every true and loyal-hearted servant of Christ exclaim with the beloved disciple in his closing word of prophecy, “Even so; come, Lord Jesus.” (F. Whitfield, M. A.)
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