27. I will send my fear before thee. It is very clear from these words that God’s fatherly love towards the people is magnified, to prepare their minds to submit themselves to the yoke of the Law. Therefore their reward, if they should keep the Law, is not so much set before them here, as shame is denounced upon them if they should be ungrateful to God their deliverer, who was soon after about to give them the enjoyment of the promised land. Moreover, God is said to sent forth His fear, when by His secret inspiration He depresses men’s hearts. Whence we gather that fear, as well as courage, is in His hand. Of this no doubtful examples exist in every history, if only God obtained His due rights amongst men. It will often happen that the courage of brave men gives way to alarm, and on the other hand, that the timid and cowardly awake to sudden bravery. Where the cause is not discovered, the profane have recourse to the hidden dominion of fortune to account for it, or imagine that men’s minds have been stupified by Pan or the Satyrs. (269) Let us however learn, that it is in God’s power to bend men’s hearts either way, so as both to cast down the courageous with terror, as well as to animate the timid. From this passage what we read in Psalms 44:2, is taken, —
“Thou didst drive out the heathen with thine hand, and plantedst them, (our fathers.) For they got not the land in possession by their own sword, neither did their own arm save them,” etc.
Moreover, Rahab, who was both a harlot and belonged to an unbelieving nation, still acknowledged this, when she said to the spies,
“our hearts did melt; for the Lord your God is God in heaven above, and in the earth beneath.” (Joshua 2:11.)
She does not, indeed, express what we have here, that they were smitten from heaven with internal fear, but only says that their terror came from a sense of God’s power; still she admits that it is no human cause which makes them thus to tremble. Moses ascends higher, that God puts to flight or routs their enemies not only by setting before them external objects of terror, but that He works also inwardly in their hearts, that they may fly in confusion and alarm; as it follows in the end of the verse, “I will make them turn their backs,” as much as to say, that He would cause them immediately to retreat, and not even to sustain the sight of the people.
(269) “Les phantomes ou tritons.” — Fr. “De Panicis terroribus prudentissima doctrina proponitur: Natura enim rerum omnibus viventibus indidit metum, ac formidinem, vitro atque essentim suae conservatricem, ac mala ingruentia vitantem, et depellentem: veruntamen eadem natura modum tenere nescia est; sed timoribus salutaribus semper vanos, et inanes admiscet, adeo ut omnia (si intus conspici darentur) Panicis terroribus plenissima sint; praesertim humana, quae superstitione (quae vere nihil aliud, quam Panicus terror est) in immensum laborant: maxime temporibus duris, et trepidis, et adversis.” — Bacon, de Sapientia Veterum.