'Let me pass through thy land: I will go along by the high way, I will

neither turn unto the right hand nor to the left.  Thou shalt sell me

meat for money, that I may eat; and give me water for money, that I may

drink: only I will pass through on my feet' (Deut. 2:27,28).

In these passages is summed up the pilgrim attitude of the believer

today.  He simply desires 'to pass through', and the Hebrew word abar which

is translated 'he who passed over from beyond' (i.e. beyond the Euphrates,

Josh. 24:2) is suggestive.  When the apostle wrote his epistle to the Hebrews

he was really urging them to act in character: 'Be Hebrews in heart as well

as in name', for Abram the Hebrew, the one who passed over, thereby became

Abraham the pilgrim and the tent dweller.  We must not forget, however, that

there was a positive as well as a negative side of this pilgrim character; it

involved a positive 'seeking' of a country, as well as a negative attitude

toward the world.  All such 'desire a better, that is a heavenly'.  They like

Moses 'refuse', 'choose', 'esteem' and have 'respect' to the consequences and

the goal before them (Heb. 11:2-26).  The example of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob

illustrates a lesson that is written large over the whole of the Scriptures,

Old and New.  'Ye are strangers and sojourners with Me', we have quoted

earlier.  These words awaken strange and wondrous thoughts.  Shall we put it

like this, to speak after the manner of men.  In days of old, when a nation

was at war, it was the custom for the king himself to move from his palace,

and to share the discomforts and limitations of tent and campaign, with his

humblest followers.

'I will keep my state;

Be like a king, and show my sail of greatness,

When I do rouse me in my throne of France:

For that, I have laid by my majesty

And plodded like a man of working days'

(King Henry Vth).

The reader may remember, as Shakespeare most certainly would, that 'a

man of working days' was a 'journey man' one hired for the day, and allied to

the word 'sojourner' already considered.  To continue the parallel, Hebrews

11 adds, when speaking of the pilgrim character of those who thus act,

'Wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God' (Heb. 11:16), which

Shakespeare, consciously or unconsciously echoes, when he makes Henry say:

'We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.

For he today that sheds his blood with me,

Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,

This day shall gentle his condition'

(King Henry Vth).

Henry the Fifth is represented as 'laying by his majesty' or 'plodding

like a man of working days' because a war was on, and do we not read of One

Who, though being in the form of God, and not counting equality with God as a

thing to be grasped at or retained, voluntarily laid aside His majesty, and

took upon Him 'the form of a slave', descending lower than Henry's plodding

man of working days could ever reach?  And shall we remind ourselves just

here that it is written:

'And the Word was made flesh and became a tent dweller (eskenosen, from

skene a tent or tabernacle) among us' (John 1:14).