"Now Hebron was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt.'

In Num. 13:21-25, we have an account of the searching out of the land of Canaan by the spies. At the command of the Lord, Moses had sent them. He gave them very explicit directions with regard to their mission, and here we read of the actual carrying out of the work which they were sent to do. Right in the middle of this account of their fulfilment of the mission on which they had been sent, there is a parenthetical statement. The narration tells us of their going to Hebron and of the sons of Anak they saw there; then there is a break in the account-a sort of an interruption. It is stated parenthetically, "Now Hebron was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt." This statement is not properly a part of the description of the work of the spies. It is something incidentally added. It is a statement put in. After the parenthesis the description proper is resumed and continued until completed. But there must be some reason for putting in the parenthetical statement. If we look for the reason we will find it in the account of the effect of the report which the spies gave the people. There was manifestly in the spies, save Caleb and Joshua, a spirit of unbelief. This spirit was plainly shown in the report they gave, and the effect of it is seen in the murmuring against Moses and Aaron and in their saying,'' Let us make a captain and let us return unto Egypt." The spirit of unbelief in the spies developed the spirit of rebellion in the people; and the intensity and energy of this spirit of rebellion is seen in the cry of the people to stone Joshua and Caleb for their efforts to stem the tide of disaffection and rally them to faith and confidence in God. Now this resolution of the people to return to Egypt, as being the result of the unbelieving spirit shown by the spies in their account of their searching out of the land, explains why this parenthetical statement is put in just where it is. Hebron was a more ancient city than Zoan. It thus had a glory outshining the glory of Zoan-the chief city of Egypt at. that time. As regards age it had the greater renown-its origin was earlier. Israel in setting their face towards Egypt were turning from what had been built before Zoan, though at that time it was Egypt's pride.

I think now we have before us the features essential to a correct application and an unfolding of the spiritual lesson which this parenthetic statement contains for us. Through grace God has made its spies of the things in heaven where Christ is. The meaning of Hebron is "association" or "communion."We have been given to know the purpose of God as to Christ-that it is the good pleasure of His will that Christ should be Head over all things, both heavenly and earthly, and that we should be associated with Him in this glorious supremacy, not only as being individually identified with Him, but as being collectively His fulness-the one new man, Christ and His Church, jointly occupying the place of authority over all. What a revelation this is! How it gives us to be in communion with God-to enjoy, by the power of the Spirit through the Word, this revelation of the thoughts of God. This is Hebron indeed!

But when were these thoughts of God formed? When was this purpose of God concerning Christ established? When did God determine on joining us to Christ and on giving Him an inheritance which we also are to possess, but possess as being united to Him ? Lofty thoughts these! They have been revealed to us. We know and enjoy them. But when were they formed? Does not, "Now Hebron was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt" suggest the answer ?

God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, had their Hebron when nothing existed but themselves. In mutual counsel a purpose was formed. What was it? It was that there should be a Man at the head of everything, whether things in heaven or on earth. A determination was established to put a Man in the place of absolute supremacy over everything. It was fixed and settled that He should be '' high above every principality, and authority, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in that which is to come." What a position! But it was also determined that He should have companions to share with Him this position of supremacy-that from among fallen, sinful men there should be those who should be identified with Him in the place of exaltation to which He was to be exalted-to inherit, under Him, and yet as associated with Him, the inheritance that had been fixed upon as to be given Him.

But, wondrous and great as all this is, it is not the fulness of the Hebron of God. We must take in yet another thought in order to realize the fulness of the divine purpose. One might well say:Can there possibly be anything more than this? Can divine grace exceed making us the companions of
Christ in this position of immeasurable glory? With God mere grace is not enough. There are the riches of His grace. But even this does not satisfy Him. Such is the joy He has in Christ that in order to give expression to the fulness of what His own heart deems Him worthy of, He must take up in exceeding riches of grace some of the fallen, sinful sons of men and make them to be the fulness or completion of Him whose glory fills the whole universe of God, joining them to Him as the woman was joined to Adam. Even this was embraced in the purpose to God-that purpose which was determined upon in the time of divine counsel. What must have been the communion of the divine Persons as with one mind they established this grand purpose! How impossible to describe the joy with which they were filled. What a Hebron it was!

But this is the Hebron to which, through grace, we have been brought. The eternity to come will be but the realization of the purpose established in the eternity of the past. There will be no element of joy in the divine communion of the eternity that is before us but what was present to the mind of the divine persons at the time the divine counsels were established, and the purpose of God settled. That purpose has now been revealed. The revelation of it enables us to have communion with God-to be with Him in His Hebron. We are put in possession of what was in the mind and heart of God before the worlds were made. How stable then is our portion! Oh! that we were more stable and constant in our enjoyment of it!

But I must turn now to "Zoan in Egypt." Egypt speaks of the world, and Zoan, meaning '' a place of
departure," of what the world has become through the coming in of sin. Men enter the world, pass through and out of it. We are born into it, are travelers in it. It is not our fixed abiding home. We are here on a journey, under the necessity of passing on. We die and go out of the world into another country. The world is, as to the character which sin has stamped upon it, a place of departure. If, then, Hebron speaks of the communion of the divine Persons in the establishment of the purpose of God concerning Christ, the Second Man, Zoan speaks of what has come in since that purpose was formed. The world has been made since. Man, the first man, has been set up at the head of it. He has failed. He has brought sin into the world; and, through sin, has changed the world from an abiding home into a scene of death, where there is no abiding.

But which was God's first thought, Hebron or Zoan? The Second Man or the first? The scene of eternal blessedness, every part of which is filled with the glory of the man Christ Jesus, or the temporary scene in which men, however successful in the pursuit of worldly emoluments, have to leave their gains and pass on into another world? The answer is easy to give. Hebron was first. But more. Which of the two is stable? Which endures, Hebron or Zoan? Which is settled on everlasting foundations? It is plainly Hebron. Zoan endures for a while, and then passes away; but Hebron will abide forever.

But what a sin-after having the privilege of spying out Hebron, after entering there by faith and realizing its blessedness-to bring back an unbelieving report!-to say, our thought was that the goodly land was a land of quiet and rest, but we find it to be a land of war. If we are going to claim Hebron as a present possession, there are towering giants there to resist our claim. Is it not folly to think of facing such foes ? Ah, this is the language of unbelief.

But, alas! in how many of us this unbelief has been the root of rebellion. When God has said, Pass on into Hebron now, take possession of it now, claim it now as a present reality, enter on the present enjoyment of it, we have said, No, those giants are too much for us, we are not equal to the struggle with them. We prefer to enjoy the world; we can get more satisfaction in Zoan; it will be less trouble and easier work. Oh, how easy it is to turn away from Hebron to Zoan-from God's eternal purpose to man's world-from what was in God's mind before the world began, to what is in the world as man has made it.

But it is rebellion. It is disobedience. God's thought for us is that we should by faith possesses a present thing, the purpose of the eternity past. He has secured our future possession of it, but He bids us claim it all as a present portion. He gives us the right to dispute the claim of the giants. Whatever the character they take-whether it be the pride of religiousness, the various forms in which the flesh assumes the right to claim the things of God, the unholy dealing in divine things of unspiritual and mere natural men, or the arrogant and blasphemous defamers of the holy name of Jesus-the cross of Christ is our title to all the fulness of God's Hebron whether now or in the future, and all other claims to it are illegitimate. No matter how bold or how arrogant, no mere usurper can make good his claim to what can be possessed solely on the ground of the cross of Christ.

Let us, then, still the voice of unbelief. Let us urge going up boldly into the land of our blessing. Let us lay claim to the Hebron of God as a possession we are entitled to hold as our own now. Let us go in and take our own. But one thing is needful in order to do it. We need to realize that the cross of Christ is our title to it. It is truly as good a title for present enjoyment as future. May we ever have the sense of it. C. Crain.