She  who  had  been  exalting  herself  among  the  people  of  the  Lord  is  now  excluded
from  them,  and  from  approach  to  Him  the  organ  of  whose  communications  to
the  people  she  had  vaunted  herself  to  be.  Israel  is  even  thus  fulfilling  her  seven
days,  shut  out,  yet  to  be  restored.  For  Babylon,  the  false  church,  unrepentant
to  the  last,  there  will  be  utter  exclusion.  The  principle  is  always  true  :  while
for  those  humbled  there  is  grace  when  they  accept  the  humiliation.
4.  We  now  come  to  the  decisive  point  in  the  history  of  the  wilderness,  the
refusal  of  the  people  to  enter  the  land,  when  brought  to  its  very  borders,  by
which  they  incur  the  penalty  of  forty  years  of  wandering,  and  the  death  of  the
whole  generation  (except  two  pei-sons)  in  the  wilderness.     For  these,  therefore,


434


NUMBERS.
2.  4.  1.
I  c/.Ezra  10.
20-44.
