I like to look at that New Testament picture—Jesus, the good Shepherd, carrying a bleating sheep or lamb back on His shoulder to the fold. That poor wanderer had gone astray on the dark mountains; but the great and gracious Shepherd had gone after it “until He found it; and when He had found it, He laid it on His SHOULDERS, rejoicing.”[30]
Young reader, what perfect security and safety you have in Jesus, and in His Gospel City! Far, far more so than the manslayer had of old in his. I daresay, even although he was delivered from the Avenger, the Hebrew refugee could not help at times dreading lest the other might come upon him secretly. I daresay, at night, on his lonely couch, he would sometimes dream of the Goel stealing beside his pillow, and he would start from his unquiet sleep at the scaring vision. Not so in the case of those who have fled to the “Gospel Refuge.” They can say in sweet confidence, “I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep; because thou, Lord, only makest me to dwell in safety.”[31] He who is their “Keeper” says of them, “They shall never perish; neither shall any pluck them out of my hand.”[32]
Hebron
Third City—Hebron.
Hebron is the most ancient of all the cities of Canaan. It was as old, if not older, than Damascus, and was built seven years before Zoar in Egypt. After wandering about from place to place in the land of promise, pitching their tents and altars, it was here the patriarchs had, for the first time, a settled home. We need not wonder at their selection of the old Canaanite city, on the peaceful slope of the southern hills, nestling amid olive-groves and terebinths, and looking down on one of the most fertile valleys in Palestine, with its orchards and corn-fields. On its eastern height is the spot which gives it to this day perhaps its most sacred interest—the cave of Machpelah, where the dust of the patriarchs has reposed for four thousand years. It must have been outside its walls that the angels appeared to Abraham, when he was seated at his tent door. The adjoining height is pointed out as the place from which the patriarch saw the smoke of burning Sodom rising from its own deep valley. It was in Hebron David was anointed king over Israel. It was amid its vineyards and mountain-slopes that John the Baptist grew up as a little boy, before he appeared in the wilderness of Judea, to tell of One mightier than he, “whose shoe-latchet” he was “not worthy to unloose.”[33]
What does the name Hebron tell of Christ?
In Hebrew it means “fellowship,” “society,” “friendship.” Jesus has brought guilty man into fellowship with God. On account of sin we had forfeited this fellowship. We had made God not our friend, but our enemy. We were cut off from communion with all that is holy and happy. Angels, in their errands of mercy through the universe, passed by our world; they could hold no intercourse with those who had rebelled against their Creator. Can none bridge this wide gulf which separates between earth and heaven? Can no ladder be let down by which happy angels can descend once more on their visits of love, and fallen man once more be raised up to hold “fellowship” with God and holy creatures?