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Ammon. And once again Israel is commanded, "distress them not, nor meddle with
them". Explanations follow in each case, which are parallel.
"The Emims dwelt therein in times past, a people great, and many, and tall, as the
Anakims, which also were accounted giants, as the Anakims: but the Moabites call them
Emims" (Deut. 2: 10, 11).
This is Moab's inheritance.
"The Horims also dwelt in Seir beforetime: but the children of Esau succeeded them
(margin Heb. 'inherited them'), when they had destroyed them from before them, and
dwelt in their stead, as Israel did unto the land of his possession which the Lord gave
unto them" (Deut. 2: 12).
So that Esau, he too, entered into the inheritance that originally belonged to another.
The attention of the reader is also drawn to the parallel case of Israel. So with Ammon:--
"Giants . . . . . the Lord destroyed them before them; and they succeeded them, and
dwelt in their stead" (Deut. 2: 20, 21).
A further case, still parallel, is cited of the Caphtorims who destroyed the Avims and
dwelt in their stead (Deut. 2: 23). All this is introductory to the case of Israel and the
Amorites:--
"Behold, I have given into thine hand Sihon the Amorite, king of Heshbon, and his
land. Begin! possess! and contend with him in battle" (Deut. 2: 24).
Surely this carefully repeated fact has a meaning and a lesson. It illuminates not only
the bondage of Israel, but the whole course of human history. The Horims, the Avims,
the Anakims, all giants, monsters, more than human, these are in their turn types of
unseen principalities and powers in the superheavenlies, fallen angels and demons in the
terrestrial heavens or "the air" (cf. Eph. 2: 2 and I Thess. 4: 17 and Rev. 16: 17).
With the case of the Amorites before us we can see more clearly the lesson of Eph. 1: 3-
14. The inheritance, secured by redemption in the heavenlies, to be occupied by the
church of the One Body is at present held by those who are yet to be dispossessed. The
Lord's dealings with Israel set forth His dealings with man, and with the church.
From hints scattered through Scripture, about which we do not care to dogmatize, we
gather that Satan had, long before Adam, some close connection with this earth, and that
one reason for his antagonism to man is that he sees in him one destined to dispossess
him. For the purpose of redemption Christ did not take the nature of angels,
principalities or powers, but the nature and likeness of men. Man too is made in the
image of God, and though we may not be able to present a fully elaborated scheme before
the reader, we feel that Scripture says sufficient to shew that the great conflict of the ages
is not between man and God, but between Satan and God. Satan disputes each step in the
purpose, the creation and the dominion of man, the choice of Jerusalem, the choice of
Israel, the super-heavenly blessing of the Church, right through till the end when he is
cast out unto the earth and knows his time is short. Satan, the angels that sinned, the
principalities and powers that were made a show of openly, these are parallel with and