MOUNTAIN: PALACE: SANCTUARY: TREE.
Directly Israel reaches the wilderness, they naturally meet with a group of important and beautiful types of the Messiah, and even in their song at the Red Sea there is a triple presentation of Him as the goal toward which the redeemed travel: (1) “the mountain of thine inheritance, (2) the place, O Lord, which Thou hast made for Thee to dwell in, (3) the sanctuary, O Lord, which Thy hands have established.”
Stasicrates proposed that he should shape Mount Athos into a vast statue of Alexander. This, he said, would be a monument worthy of such a king” with a river running to the sea in its right hand and a city of ten thousand inhabitants in its left.” But the idea—which is probably the most stupendous that history records—was anticipated by this first type, which was after wards developed by Daniel, and was, very likely, taken by Stasicrates from him; for Josephus says that when Alexander and his party came to Syria, Jaddua met them and read to them parts of Daniel's prophecy.
That prophet says that the Stone which falls on the image becomes a great mountain. Therefore all the features which we have seen in the type of the stone and rock become projected and magnified in the mountain. Besides which there are the obvious characteristics of Security and Dignity. Gianavello and seven men defended themselves successfully in mountain passes against four-hundred troopers, and with seventeen against a thousand. “As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, [Zion and Acra on the south and west, Moriah and Bezetha on the east and north], so the Lord is round about His people from henceforth and forever.” “They that trust in the Lord shall be as Mount Zion which cannot be moved.” Resting broad-based upon the earth, rising into the sky crowned with celestial light: though clouds may for a time hide from as those soft and verdant vales that nestle in its bosom, we know they are there still. Lightning and flood beat against it in vain. “He is our everlasting strength.” “Trembling, I survey the mountain head of eternity; dazzling summit! from whose height my dimly-perceiving spirit floats into the everlasting!”
Further (2), this is God's dwelling place. Monarchs select the most beautiful and glorious abodes in their realms for themselves: so the King of kings has selected from the whole universe the person of the Messiah. Shall a Hadrian have so magnificent a villa, or a Nero build for himself an Auren Dornus, and shall the Ruler of the Solar systems not have one too? yes, verily a true Golden House, a palace of delights.—(3), Here also is the Sanctuary, that is, a place of meeting for God and the worshipper. “And HE shall be for a sanctuary.”
Yet, strange to say, when the redeemed people go forward, they are allowed to suffer for want of so cheap and vulgar a thing as water; and straightway their songs of triumphant worship are changed to murmurs of discontent. It would be difficult to believe it, unless we look within ourselves and see also the same gross inconsistency, the same swift forgetfulness and heartless ingratitude; we who have trusted God for our everlasting destinies will often fail to trust Him for to-morrow's bread. But it is easier for us to be astonished at their failures than to avoid imitating them. After all, this test to which Jehovah in perfect wisdom submitted them— “to prove what was in their hearts” —was more severe than many of us have been put to, or can understand. Gadsby, who passed through this wilderness, says, it is a “burning sandy sea...it was dreadful. The stirrups were so hot that I could not bear my feet to touch them, as they burnt through my slippers. Being parched with thirst, I took up my water bottle, but found the sun had cracked it and let all the water out. You cannot walk to burn your feet on the sand. You can hardly ride, for to do so is to add the heat of the camel to that of the air You cannot rest under your tent, for that is to add suffocation to heat. The eyes grow inflamed, the tongue and lips swell...the brain seems on fire...and all this from the want of a little water!”
And when at last they arrived at Marah, the water was too brackish to drink: this was a terrible disappointment. “Then God showed them a tree which when [Moses] had cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet.” Once more the outward form changes—a mountain, a palace, a sanctuary, now a tree—yet it is the same Christ, but now slain, for the tree must be cut down and cast in. We must all travel by the way of Marah some time. Well it is if we can so connect with those bitter waters of suffering the remembrance of that patient and blameless Sufferer, Who has consecrated affliction and shown us how to bear it. If suffering brings to us a nearer revelation of the Man of Sorrows Who was cut down in death for us, “then pain Were sweet, and life or death were gain.”
Near every poisonous plant there grows the antidote. On the edge of the grave we may pluck the amaranth; and hard by Marah's bitter waters is hidden that noble Tree which when wounded yields its healing balm, and when stricken showers down its golden fruit; sheltering the wandering birds and scenting the air, as it lifts towards heaven its pyramid of foliage in God-like magnanimity, yet withal powerful enough to stretch out its great arms and grapple with the hurricane. It is cut off from the earth and cast into the bitter waters; it must be steeped in that which we shudder to taste, and must take its customary noble revenge by imparting its own sweetness to the waters. Lord, help us, and lead us in all our afflictions to this thrice-blessed Tree: how blindly do we grope about for everything but that!