1 Kings 11:22

PATRIOTISM

‘Then Pharaoh said unto him, But what hast thou lacked with me, that, behold, thou seekest to go to thine own country? And he answered, Nothing: howbeit let me go in anywise.’

1 Kings 11:22

We can scarcely doubt that love of country was the ruling feeling in Hadad’s wish to return to Edom. Had it been revenge or ambition he could have named it to Pharaoh, and he would have been understood; but it was a feeling he could not explain. It is an old Edomite anticipation of the saying of the Latin poet, ‘I know not what charm it is which leads us captive in the love of native land; it will not let us forget.’

I. The love of country is a feeling not only deep in our nature, as we do not need to show, but acknowledged and approved in the Bible.—(1) It is one of the ways by which God secures that the earth should be inhabited. The world must have an anchor as well as a sail. Rocky Edom is dear as fertile Egypt, and bleak, storm-struck islands more than southern Edens. (2) This love of the native soil has been one of the great springs of the poetry of the race. Apart from the region of the spirit itself, imagination is never more pure and purifying than when it takes for its subject the things of native land and home.

II. Another thought suggested by this feeling is that it leads to acts of great self-sacrifice and endeavour.—Next to religion there is probably nothing in human nature which has called out such a heroic spirit of martyrdom, or such long, persistent labour, as the love of native land.

III. This feeling should enable us to understand the hearts and work for the rights of all men.—Augustine has said that we may make a ladder of the dead things within us to climb to the highest; but there is another ladder of living things by which we can rise as high, and by which our sympathies can be travelling to and fro like the angels in the dream of Bethel. The vision begins in the dreamer’s own breast, and then it passes up into the skies.

IV. This feeling may help the conception of another and a higher country.—It is one of the ways by which God keeps the heart above sensualism and bitter selfishness, a kind of salt that saves nations from entire corruption. He takes hold of this, as of other natural affections, to lift men to the ‘fatherland of souls.’ We should purify our affection for the lower, that it may lead us on and lift us to the higher.

Illustrations

(1) ‘The fate of Hadad is recounted to us not so much on his account as on our own, in order that we may learn to regard the ways of God with man, and order our own ways by Him Who is ever mercy and wisdom (Psalms 25:10). If God brought back the heathen Hadad by mysterious ways to his native land, how much more will He lead those who keep His covenant and testimony to the true native land and to the eternal rest, how dark and inscrutable soever may be the ways by which He leads them? “Let me go into mine own country.” The power of love of country. Not ubi bene, ibi patria, but ubi patria, ibi bene. Yet must we not in the earthly country forget the heavenly “Fatherland.” ’

(2) ‘When Hadad reached riper years, the keen remembrance of his native land, his lost kingdom, and the slaughter of all his house, gathered strength within him; and all the ease and princely honour which he enjoyed in Egypt, availed not against the claims of ambition, vengeance, and patriotism. He dreamed of recovering the throne of his fathers; he dreamed of exacting stern vengeance for the blood of his kin and country; he dreamed of making to himself a name like unto the names of the great ones that were upon the earth. These things he dreamed, and

Dreams grow realities to earnest men.

And he was earnest. It was not without difficulty that he obtained leave of the Egyptian king, by whom he had been so generously entertained, to take his departure. It does not appear that he ventured fully to disclose his real objects, for which a reason may be found in the fact that this king was in amicable relations with Solomon, and the same, apparently, whose daughter had been espoused to the Hebrew king.’