THE QUAILS. THE MANNA. THE SABBATH.
The learned critic, searching the Pentateuch for flaws with his microscopic mind—much as a midge might study a mountain—is as grateful for the quails as the Israelites themselves were. Ex. 16 and Num. 11 record the giving of quails in different ways: in Numbers a heavy punishment falls on the people whilst they eat them; in Exodus there is nothing said of this, besides other differences. That is enough for the learned critic: the quails are no longer a preliminary dish of mere game; they become evermore a piece de resistance and are served up with every kind of variety, rechauffee again and again. In his calmly dogmatic way the L. C. announces that the whole Bible is now finally proved—by means of the quails—to be a mere human composition. Numbers and Exodus differ, because Exodus is “Elohistic” and the other “Jehovistic.” (These are his two cabalistic words, the open sesame to the esoteric recesses of the dark unwholesome caves of his philosophy.) It is true that Ex. 16 has more “Jehovah's” in it than Num. 11, but that is of no consequence to the learned critic: he has said it, and that settles it—Exodus is Elohistic and Numbers Jehovistic.
If the L. C. will examine a bank-note with the same sharp scrutiny, he will find some “flaws” in that (e.g. the tail of the letter f, in the last “of” but one, is forked—a most defective letter—and generally on the edge of one of the vowels of the word indicating the note's valve there is a white speck, and so forth). But he will be a poor man if he rejects as spurious all the notes thus “flawed,” because these are the very signs which at once convince the man of business that the note is genuine: these “flaws” are secret signs, designedly placed there, and the note would be worthless without them. In like manner the L. C.'s “flaws” in the Scripture, when examined, are found to be striking evidences of its divine inspiration and accuracy. “The accounts are not identical.” Why, if they were, we should not need more than one of them: it is because they are different and relate to two different events that we have two of them. The events, too, are more than a year apart as Num. 9:11And the Lord spake unto Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, in the first month of the second year after they were come out of the land of Egypt, saying, (Numbers 9:1), &c., proves. In the first case God did not punish the Israelites when giving the quails, because they were as yet being dealt with entirely on the ground of grace; whereas between that and the second case they had voluntarily put themselves under the law and its penalties, and were dealt with entirely on a new ground. Besides, a special decree of forbearance is naturally shown by the Lord to His people in their transitional stage which could not be allowed later on, just as a mother has a special patience with her child when it is being weaned which she could not exercise toward it a year later. But we will leave the quails with the learned critic. To him they are congenial diet: we have something better.
In both accounts, they are contrasted with the manna, which is food supplied from heaven, with no carnal or mortal element in it. It is a type of Christ, as the divine Man come down to the earth, as we have Him presented in the Gospels. “That glorious form, that light insufferable, And that far-beaming blaze of majesty, Wherewith He wont at heaven's high council-table To sit the midst of trinal unity He laid aside." It is a strange mystery. The people say one to another Man-hu? “What is it?” And the question remained to designate it, for no one ever found out really what it was—nor ever will. But something we know: it is the sustenance and strength of the redeemed soul. It is the Son of God come down in humiliation; it comes from heaven and rests on the earth, but separated from the defiling ground by the dew (Num. 11:99And when the dew fell upon the camp in the night, the manna fell upon it. (Numbers 11:9))=sanctified by the Spirit and the word. It is “small “=despised, contemned, neglected; but “round” (spherical), it retains its heavenly and perfect character. It is “white “=pure, holy; and it is “sweet.”
What that means no mortal tongue can tell. It tasted like honey, but no one ever yet defined what that is like. From despised things We often get the most valued, the gold from the dust, the pearl from the oyster-shell; from the common coal tar come the most exquisite scents, the beautiful aniline dyes, and, above all, the saccharin, three hundred times sweeter than sugar. We can neither understand nor define, yet we use the term and think we know something of what it suggests. For from the time when Peter wrote of “Him Whom not having seen, ye love...... in Whom ye rejoice with joy unspeakable” till now, the records of the church abound with evidences of the sweetness of this holy and delightful ambrosia.
What an anthologia of rapturous expressions of personal delight in our blessed Savior and personal affection to Him, of the sense of His sweetness and loveliness, could be culled from even the musty tomes of “the Fathers” or the driest volumes of the school-theology of their children! It is worth while wading through the long pages of their puerilities to come to such words as these, for instance, from Augustine, “O Lord, I love Thee, Thou hast transfixed my heart. I could not be satiated with Thy wondrous sweetness.” The iron fetters of the somber theology of the dark centuries could not prevent St. Bernard from singing that beautiful hymn, “Jesus, the very thought of Thee With sweetness fills the breast “; nor prevent those outpourings of devout ecstasy from Thos. a Kempis and St. Francis de Sales. “The sacred humanity of our Lord,” says old Baxter, “is the most proportionable, delightful, sweet” and sings of “the flowers that grow in Christ's sweet meadows.” “O Christ, He is the fountain, The deep, sweet well of love,” says S. Rutherford. “When I say ‘Sweet Jesus' the third time,” said the Earl of Derwentwater to the executioner, “Then strike:” and he knelt down and put his neck on the block, saying, “Sweet Jesus, sweet Jesus, sweet......,” but the ax fell all too soon.
Nor is it alone the cultured or intelligent that taste this sweetness. The poor Scotch idiot boy will babble about “you lovely Man “: and the poor dying Irishwoman cries, “Ma sheached mile gra,” “My seven thousand times beloved.” And with these expressions there is always a sense of heart-rest which shows us what a mysterious connection there is, as in this chapter, between the manna and the sabbath; as if one should hear the peaceful humming of the bees whilst he tastes the sweetness of the honey. “Thou hast made the heart for Thyself,” says the converted prodigal of old, “And it is restless until it finds its rest in Thee.” The converted captain of the slave-ship sings, “How sweet the name of Jesus sounds 'Tis manna to the hungry soul, And to the weary, rest.”