Deuteronomy 33:6 - Moses' Blessing.

The blessing of Reuben; or, life impoverished through ancestral sins.

For a blessing, there seems something unusually weak in that pronounced on Reuben. Continuance—a preservation from being blotted out of existence—is all that the man of God seems to hope or expect from him. The English reader may wonder to see that the word "not" is in italics, as not being in the Hebrew, but supplied by the translators. It is, however, wisely done in this case, as will be seen if the reader will put stress sufficient on the word " not " in the following rendering to carry the force of the negative on to the end of the sentence:—"Let Reuben live; and not die and his men be few;" i . e . if his men became a mere handful, the tribe would be virtually extinct; and Moses desires that this may not be the case; so that, according to English idiom, the insertion of the italic not is required to preserve the meaning of the original. The gist of the blessing then is, let not the tribe have such a paucity of men as to sink out of sight altogether. Bare continuance;—this is all that is prophesied concerning that tribe. This is, as far as we can follow its history, in strict correspondence with its after experience. There may be noted again and again a decrease in its numbers; cf. Numbers 1:21 ; Numbers 26:7 ; 1 Chronicles 5:18 , from which it appears "that the tribe had decreased since the Exodus, and also that in later times its numbers, even when counted with the Gadites and the half of Manasseh, were fewer than that of the Reubenites alone at the census of Numbers 1:1-54 . They took possession of a large and fertile district east of Jordan. Occupied with their flocks and herds, they appear soon after the days of Joshua to have lost their early energy: they could not be roused to take part in the national rising against Jabin ( 5:15 , 5:16 ). They do not seem to have cared to complete the conquest of their own territory; and even the cities assigned them were wrested from them by the Moabites. While from this tribe no judge, prophet, or national hero arose" to redeem it from insignificance (see 'Speaker's Commentary,' in loc ; to which we are indebted for the above details). We are not at a loss to account for this. The gross wickedness of the head of this tribe left a stain upon its name which not generation after generation could wipe out, and "destroyed at once the prestige of birth, and the spirit of leadership" (J.L. Porter £ ). Hence our topic for homiletic treatment—a topic which no teacher who desires to declare the "whole counsel of God" can forbear to touch upon in due season. It is this— Life impoverished through ancestral sins (see Genesis 35:22 ; Genesis 49:4 ).

I. THERE ARE CERTAIN SINS — SINS OF THE FLESH — TO WHICH MEN GENERALLY ARE LIABLE ; WHICH TO SOME CONSTITUTIONS PRESENT THEMSELVES AS TEMPTATIONS SPECIALLY STRONG . In every one there is some weak point, at which seductive influences may easily enter: "Every one is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust ( ὑπὸ τής ἰδίας ἐπιθυμίας ) and enticed."

II. THERE ARE NO SINS WHICH WORK GREATER HAVOC IN A MAN THAN THOSE TO WHICH REUBEN GAVE WAY . The desperately wicked act recorded of him indicates with too much certainty a previously formed habit of self-indulgence, in which he had suffered the reins of self-control and self-respect to fall from his hands. The effect of such habits in a physiological point of view is disastrous. But more grievous still are their moral issues. They lower the man himself in his own eyes. They lower his view of mankind at large. They lead inevitably to the association of thought with what is lowest in human nature, rather than with what is highest and best. And, unless renounced, these sins will drag the whole man after them, and make of him a wreck and a ruin. Hence the terrific warning of our Savior in Matthew 5:29 . Nothing will sooner becloud and deaden the moral sense than indulgence in sensual sins.

III. THE EVIL EFFECT OF SUCH SINS STOPS NOT WITH THE MAN HIMSELF . With regard to those whose good opinion and respect are most worth having, it is impossible for them to look on one who indulges in such sins otherwise than with profoundest pity and shame, and even with disgust! They see that one who by his sex is meant to be the guardian of woman's purity, honor, and joy, is basely tampering with them all! Not even Jacob, though the tenderness of the old patriarch under such circumstances must have been at its height, could bring himself to pronounce a rich blessing even on his firstborn, whose life had been thus disfigured and disgraced. Reuben's whole family and tribe shared in the stigma of their father's sin; not as being guilty in like manner, but because the name of their sire could not henceforth be dissociated from the thought of base and treacherous lust.

IV. NOR DOES THE ILL EFFECT OF SUCH SINS EXPIRE WITH THE GENERATION IN WHICH THEY WERE COMMITTED . The foul odor of Reuben's crime rises up before Moses. 'Tis not named indeed. But he has no blessing for his tribe of any richness or depth. "May he not become so weak as to be lost sight of altogether!" Such is the gist of it. The descendants of Jacob's firstborn were long, long under the gloomy shadow cast on them by the sins of their sire! There is nothing in this record of the Word of God which does not frequently find its counterpart in the generations of men now. Many, many there are who inherit some physical ill, some mental weakness, or some moral incapacity or obliquity, through a constitutional taint from sins long gone by!

Learn—

1. We know not whence, on the physical and moral side of cur constitution, a mightier argument can be drawn for purity of life and manners, than from such a theme as that suggested by the text. If men have little care for themselves, let them at least guard against shading with sadness or marring with weakness the lives of those who may hereafter owe their existence to them.

2. Maybe some who may read these words may be disposed to say, "If I may possibly be the possessor of an enfeebled constitution on account of some sins which preceded me, then how can I or any one judge of my measure of responsibility before God as to how far it is affected thereby?" We reply: