03. INTRODUCTORY

concerning Ahithophel; but they were the words "which the Holy Ghost spake concerning Judas."

David was "a prophet": and, being a prophet, he "spake as he was moved by the Holy Ghost" (2 Pet. i. 21). Hence, in Psalm xvi., he spake concerning the resurrection of the Lord Jesus (Acts ii. 30, 31). In the same way he "spake before concerning Judas." In like manner, in the Book of Exodus Moses wrote about the Tabernacle, but he himself did not and could not know what "the Holy Ghost signified" (Heb. ix. 8).

Here, then, we have all that God condescends to tell us about the phenomena of inspiration.

This is the Divine explanation of it; and this is all that can be known about it.

It is not for us to explain this explanation, but to receive it and believe it; and there leave it. It is enough for us that God speaks to us; and that He says "Thus saith Jehovah." We do not question the fact; we believe it; and only seek to understand it. We desire to be in the position of those Thessalonian saints who, in this, "were ensamples to all that believe," and to whom it was written: "For this cause thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the Word of God, which effectually worketh in you that believe" (1 Thess. ii. 13). The Word of God is thus for those "that believe." The "Word" as a whole; and the "words" of which it is made up. They cannot be separated.

It is Jeremiah who says (Jer. xv. 16):

"THY WORDS were found,¹ and I did eat them;

And THY WORD was unto me the joy and rejoicing of my heart:

For I am called by Thy name, O Jehovah Elohim of hosts."

Here again, it is those who are called by Jehovah's name who feed upon His "words," and rejoice in His "Word."

¹ NYD (mātza), to discover. Gen. ii. 20. Here referring to the historic fact (2 Kings xxii. 8. 2 Chron. xxxiv. 14, 15) of the finding the book of the Law by Hilkiah in the reign of Josiah. A 2

HOW TO ENJOY THE BIBLE

The same distinction is made in the New Testament by the Lord Jesus in John xvii.:

"I have given unto them the WORDS which thou gavest me" (v. 8).

"I have given them thy WORD" (v. 14).

Those who are referred to in the word "them" are described seven times over, as having been "given" to Christ by the Father.¹

These had "received" the words; these had "known surely"; these had "believed" (v. 8).

It is for such as these we now write, who receive, believe, read, and desire to feed upon the "words" of God; that the "word" of God may become "a joy, and the rejoicing" of the heart (Jer. xv. 16, R.V.). True, this joy within will be tempered by trouble without. Jeremiah prefaces the statement, quoted above, with the words immediately preceding it in verse 15:

"For Thy sake I have suffered rebuke.'²

And the Lord Jesus after saying (John xvii. 11):

"I have given them Thy WORD"

immediately adds,

"And the world hath hated them."

Those who thus feed upon and rejoice in God's Word will soon realize their isolated position; but, in spite of the "reproach" and "hatred" of the world, there will always be the "joy and rejoicing" of the heart. It was so on another occasion when the neglected Word of God was brought forth,

"AND EZRA OPENED THE BOOK,"

the people were assured that "the joy of the LORD was their strength" (Neh. viii. 5, 10, 12, 17). And we are told:

"So they read in the book in the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading" (v. 8).

¹ See verses 2, 6, 6, 9, 11, 12, 21.

² דְּרָקָה (cherpāh), reproach; and so nearly always rendered.