A BIRD IN THE HAND WORTH TWO IN THE BUSH
This common proverb, so limited in the scope of its application, and so liable to be misused by timid and selfish people, is clearly illustrated in the conduct of these two tribes. Doubtless it is a sound principle to hold a small certainty rather than run the bare chance of a large possibility. But principles are nothing unless we rightly apply them, and the children of Reuben and Gad were forsaking the most certain and enduring of all precious things, and leaning to their own frail understanding. It is a poor exchange to leave the path of Divine providence for that of purblind human prudence.
CONSIDER HERE THE MISTAKEN PRACTICAL NOTIONS BY WHICH REUBEN AND GAD WERE LED INTO THIS REQUEST.
1. An exaggerated estimate of the importance of temporal possessions. Reuben and Gad had a great multitude of cattle; the lands of Jazer and Gilead were places for cattle; and so the way is straight to the conclusion that these lands were the proper habitation of these tribes. It is the man of the world's view that the place which is good for one's property must be good for oneself, seeing that a man's abundance is in the things he possesses. The thought of the cattle so filled the minds of the two tribes that they could give no weight whatever to any other consideration. How hardly shall they that have riches enter the kingdom of heaven! That faith which is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen finds no room to grow in a heart choked up with the care of this world and the deceitfulness of riches. At this time, indeed, Reuben and Gad had many cattle, but it by no means followed that they would always have cattle. Job had many cattle, but in a few hours Sabeans and Chaldeans swept them all away. Consider well the thoughts that filled the mind of Lot (Genesis 13:10), as illustrating the foolish, partial, and short-sighted views of the children of Reuben and Gad. The Dead Sea was no great distance from these very lands of Jazer and Gilead.
2. They acted on the presumption that a man is himself the best judge of his own interests. They did not stop to consider that if God had meant this territory for them, he would have indicated his meaning in unmistakable fashion. He had made no sign, and this was in itself a proof that he judged their true home to be on the Canaan side of Jordan. It is the highest wisdom of man to wait, in simplicity and humility, on the indispensable directions of the All-Wise; even as the mariner finds his position by looking heavenward, and by the aid of the compass confidently finds his path across pathless waters. In an unfamiliar place you can gain no knowledge of the points of the compass by the minutest consideration of terrestrial circumstances, but get a glimpse of the sun and know the time of day, and the information is yours at once. The heavens declare the glory of God in this, that they never mislead us; and the God who made them is like them in ministering to the needs of our spirits. We cannot do without him. Instinct, so kind, so all-helpful to the brute, does little or nothing for us. God made us so that he might guide us with his eye. The great bulk of men act as these children of Reuben and Gad acted. The way of God, with all its real advantages, is yet so unpromising to the carnal eye that few there be who find it.
3. Especially they had forgotten that the purposes of God were to be the great rule of life to them. The great multitude of cattle was not theirs, but his. If they had made this proposition with a sense of stewardship in their minds, the proposition might have been not only excusable, but laudable. But the sense of stewardship was the very furthest of all feelings from their hearts. It is a late, a hard, and perhaps always an imperfect discovery, that a man only gains his right position when he manifests the glory of God. The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. These people had not risen to the thought of Canaan as being the very best land simply because it was God's choice. Their minds were not full of Canaan, but of their own cattle. A great deal depends on our conception of heaven. If we think of it as the place and state where God is all in all, where law and life exactly correspond, and Christ is glorified in the perfection of all his people, then heaven is begun already. Caleb and Joshua had been waiting forty years for the promised land, yet in a certain sense it had been theirs all the time. It was not simple habitation that made Canaan a promised land, else the Canaanites would have been as blessed as the true Israel. Rightful possession, honest spiritual inheritance, these constituted the full and abiding enjoyment of Canaan.—Y.