CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES
Hebrews 11:21. Leaning upon the top of his staff.—Probably meaning “upon the head of the bed”; only this assumes more of a bedstead than was usual among tribal Eastern people. The LXX. rendered mitteh, staff, instead of mittah, bed. The idea is that aged Jacob, rising from his bed, and unable to support himself, leaned on the staff associated with his pilgrimage, and bowed over the staff in an act of worship. The Vulgate renders, “he adored the top of Joseph’s staff”; and Cornelius à Lapide quotes the sentence in defence of image-worship.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Hebrews 11:21-22
Faith in the Hour of Death.—The illustrations of the practical power of faith would have been manifestly incomplete if no instances had been given to show how it was retained, and made to bring strength and cheer to men, in the closing and sternest experience of life. Two illustrations may suffice.
I. Faith for the family maintained in the death-hour.—This is illustrated in the dying acts and words of the patriarch Jacob. He had held through a chequered life a firm faith in God’s promise concerning his family. Could the bodily weariness and weakness and pain of the death-time cloud that faith? Could the solemnity and mystery of the death-time overstrain the faith? Must a man lose that which has brightened and ennobled his whole life when his feet touch the waters of the river of death? Will he then despair concerning those who are dear to him, as if with his going all their hopes were going? From Jacob’s example we learn that faith may even grow brighter and stronger in the hour and article of death.
1. Jacob was so positive about the future of his sons that he could even anticipate their locations and characteristics and history, when they reached Canaan, in his prophetic song concerning them.
2. Jacob could even see the future for Joseph’s sons with such certainty that he could discriminate between them, and point out which would prove the greater. That grip of God for him, and God for his family, which faith gave Jacob, he held fast right up to and right through his death-hour. His God was the God of the generations to come.
II. Faith for the nation maintained in the death-hour.—This is illustrated in Joseph, who “gave commandment concerning his bones.” The associations of Jacob’s life made him think along family lines. The associations of Joseph made him think along national lines. The faith that saw the people of Israel a settled and independent nation was an advanced faith. Did it stand the strain of the death-hour? Very possibly Joseph, as a statesman, anticipated the troubles that were coming, but he died in absolute assurance that God would fulfil His word, make Israel a nation, and settle it in Canaan.
SUGGESTIVE NOTES AND SERMON SKETCHES
Hebrews 11:21. Reminiscences of Jacob’s Staff.—“Leaning upon the top of his staff.” It would seem that one particular staff had been Jacob’s companion through many years, possibly during his whole life of manhood. Indeed, that staff was as characteristic of Jacob as the rod was of Moses, and the mantle of Elijah. It was only an ordinary shepherd’s staff. Sometimes such a staff is bent into a crook, but more commonly it is a long, stout, straight, oak stick, often cased at its lower end in iron, to beat off the thief or wild beast. This staff to help, and the club to protect, are the staff and the rod with which God comforts His people (Psalms 23:4). (David, when advancing towards Goliath, carried with him his shepherd’s staff. Indeed, the staff was inseparable from the shepherd; it was with him night and day.) Associate Jacob’s staff with the main incidents of Jacob’s chequered and changeful life: e.g.
1. The staff in the simple home-life.
2. The staff in his eventful journeying.
3. The staff in his hard-working and perilous life with Laban.
4. The staff laid aside for the great struggle at Peniel.
5. The staff shown to the reconciled brother.
6. The staff taken down into Egypt.
7. The staff steadying trembling and aged limbs. (An address to children might be constructed by making the “staff” tell the story of Jacob’s life.)
Hebrews 11:22. The Witness of a Dead Man’s Bones.—Joseph’s body was embalmed. But a good point may be made by contrasting the idea which an Egyptian had when he arranged that his body should be embalmed, with the idea that Joseph had in arranging for the preservation of his bones. The Egyptian tried to secure some sort of immortality. Joseph had no merely personal aim. He wanted the presence of his mummy to be a constant reminder of God’s promises, a constant testimony to God’s faithfulness, and a constant inspiration to loyalty and trust and hope.
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 11
Hebrews 11:21. Jacob’s Blessing of his Grandsons.—A few days previous to his death, the late Rev. Dr. Belfrage, of Falkirk, hearing his infant son’s voice in an adjoining room, desired that he should be brought to him. When the child was lifted into the bed, the dying father placed his hands upon his head, and said, in the language of Jacob, “The God before whom my fathers did walk, the God who fed me all my life long to this day, the Angel who redeemed me from all evil, bless the lad!” When the boy was removed, he added, “Remember and tell John Henry of this; tell him of these prayers, and how earnest I was that he might become early acquainted with his father’s God.”—Whitecross.