I may venture, without being unduly fanciful, to take these words as a type of the injunctions which are given to us Christian people, and to see in them a striking and picturesque representation of the duties that devolve upon us in the course of our journey across the desert to the temple home above.
I. Notice, first, what the precious treasure is which is thus entrusted to our keeping and care. The metaphor is capable of two applications. The first is to the rich treasure and solemn trust of our own nature, of our own, souls, the faculties and capacities precious beyond all count, rich beyond all else that a man has ever received. The treasure is, first, our own selves, with all that we are and may be under the stimulating and quickening influence of God's grace and Spirit. The treasure is, next, His great word of salvation, once delivered unto the saints, and to be handed on, without diminution or alteration in its fair perspective and manifold harmonies, to the generations that are to come.
II. A word next as to the command,the guardianship that is here set forth. "Watch ye, and keep them." The treasure which is given into our hands requires for its safe preservation unceasing vigilance. Guardianship is (1) vigilance;(2) trust,like the trust which is glorified in the context, depending only on "the good hand of our God upon us;" (3) purity,because, as Ezra said, "ye are holy unto the Lord. The vessels are holy also," and therefore ye are the fit persons to guard them. (4) And besides that, there is in our keeping, our trust, a method which does not apply to the incident before us, namely, use,in order to their preservation.
A. Maclaren, Weekday Evening Addresses,p. 45.
Reference: Ezra 9:9. R. D. B. Rawnsley, Sermons in Country Churches,1st series, p. 240. Ezra 9:13; Ezra 9:14. J. Budgen, Parochial Sermons,vol. ii., p. 168.