“Zebulun shall dwell at the haven of the sea.” That is, he traffics with the Gentile world, which in that dispensation indicated a condition of compromise of divine order. Yet strange to say when great crises came, and the people of God were in imminent danger, Zebulun was one of those who took a leading and valorous part in defense of divine principle. They struggled with Sisera's host “unto the death in the high places of the field “; they rallied round Gideon when that mighty man of valor sounded the God-inspired blast in the valley of Jezreel; and to David there gathered to battle fifty thousand of them, “expert in war,......... which could keep rank, not of a double heart.
However much we may be surprised at the inconsistency, the fact remains that there are many Christians who have far too much traffic with the world, yet who, if foundational principles be attacked, will throw off their worldly spirit and come forward vigorously, even to death straggle and martyrdom, in defense of ùthe word of God and the honor of Christ. The middle ages afford us very many examples. That rough sturdy warrior, Crillon, when hearing of the sufferings of the Lord Whom he professed to follow, could not restrain his emotion, but cried out in the church, “Où étais tu, Crillon?” His thought was that, if he had been there, he and his valiant troops would have fought to the death to deliver their Master. But in a peculiar way the present time affords us an example of this strange and—so far—gratifying sight.
For when the enemy is not a raging lion, he is a specious minister of light. “New lamps for old” is his cry, like that ancient magician who was said to have deceived the prince's servant. He has at present an attractive variety of new lamps to select from: there are sober looking ones, almost fit for a philosopher's study, of German-silver, manufactured by Strauss & Company; there are elegant, aerial “fairy lights,” French-polished and marked with such names as Renan; then there are others of transalpine and trans-atlantic design (the former stately and antique, the latter with every possible convenience of adaptability); and there are not a few of Britannia metal. All are warranted to look bright and do everything (except to continue a light when the time of darkness comes). And there is such a determined effort to get the old lamp away from us that one might suspect that the magician knew full well that, if we give it up, we shall lose with it everything worth possessing. Nay, if we will not give it up, he will refurbish and rectify the old lamp itself for us, only let him have the opportunity. Now there are many of the children of Zebulun as well as the children of Joseph and Judah who say, “No, we shall not let him. So long as, by the grace of God, we have the faculties of life and thought, we shall not let him. We shall cling to the old lamp; for, dull and battered as it looks, it throws a light over all eternity.” Many modern designs are good, but we object to a modern gospel. “This lamp, from off the everlasting throne, Mercy took down and in the night of time, Stood, casting on the dark her gracious bow."
Yet there are those who are busy exchanging; who know not that, when the old lamp is given up, with it will vanish “the cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples. . . And like the baseless fabric of a vision, Leave not a rack behind.”
Prominent among the exchangers will be always Dan, ever enterprising, erratic, and seeking a new departure. He is “religious” too, and this is what makes him dangerous— “a serpent in the way, an adder in the path, that biteth the horse's heels so that his rider shall fall backward.” It was the sons of Dan who robbed that religious young man, Micah, of his idol and priest, and then set it up at Laish; thus being the first to formally institute the treasonable wickedness of idolatry.
“Little children, keep yourselves from idols,” for this sin is the specious snare that lies like a serpent— “earthly, sensual, devilish” —in the path, to bite the horse's heels, and cause the very catastrophe of apostacy. Such an innocent looking adder too, like that frozen snake which the man in Esop took home for his children to play with. The warmth restored the snake and then—! So we find that, when the tribes are recorded in Rev. 7 in the character of servants of God (ver. 3), Dan is omitted; for idolatry is the sin that broods the eggs of all other sins in its nest. It cannot be “regarded as mental error merely,” nor “the Jews regarded as an ordinary community. In a theocracy it was civil treason; and the great purpose, moreover, of the whole institution [of Judaism] was to redeem our race from the depraved and wretched condition which that sin involved."
Nevertheless such is the grace of God that in Ezekiel's prophecy of the restoration of the tribes (where it is a question not of service but of mercy) Dan is the first mentioned and provided for—the worst sinner of all (though very appropriately he is the least near to the sanctuary); then at last is fulfilled Jacob's assurance which even their wickedness could not cancel, “Dan shall judge his people as one of the tribes of Israel.” We see in other ways the blending of mercy and judgment. Moses said, “Dan is a lion's whelp: he shall leap from Bashan.” He has some of the same characteristics as Judah; and so (while we never get a leader from such a tribe as Reuben's) we find that Dan with all its faults is honored by having a deliverer called from his sons, when from that tribe strode forth the heroic and stalwart form of Samson, disastrous to the enemies of God in his life, more so in his death: a curious personification of the blended natures of a snake and a lion's whelp.
There is thus seen a steady decline from Reuben. Beginning with infirmity of purpose, it proceeds through craft and cruelty (Simeon and Levi), through worldliness and sensuality to idolatry, in Dan who is the seventh. As usual the seven is divided at the fourth stage, where God (in Judah) intervenes with the name of Shiloh. From thence the virus and the antidote work side by side, until the evil gets to its worst. This causes the prophet to ejaculate, “I have waited for Thy salvation, O Lord!” When that seventh and worst stage of evil is reached, then comes God's salvation; just as, when the leper was quite covered with his disease, the priest could pronounce him clean; so when the wickedness of the race culminated in the murder of the Son of God, “The very spear that pierced His side, Drew forth the blood to save.” From that moment all is changed to blessing and victory, culminating in Benjamin, who is man's twelfth, but God's ninth—Son of my Right Hand,” though it had been said, “Son of my sorrow.”
So that in the principles relating to this plain Syrian family, and the order of their progress, we see in a microcosm the course of the history of the whole human race: as in the falling of an apple, the swinging of a chandelier, or the quivering of a frog's leg, were discovered the course of those vast sidereal laws that hold the solar systems in their courses.