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Israel The Beloved  
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Deut. 33:12

Benjamin was his father's favorite child, and the imagery of this promise is throughout drawn from the relations between such a child and its father. So far as the future history of the tribes is shadowed in these blessings' of this great ode, the reference of the text may be to the tribe of Benjamin, as specially distinguished by Saul having been a member of it, and by the Temple having been built on its soil. But we find that each of the promises of the text is repeated elsewhere, with distinct reference to the whole nation. For example, the first one, of safe dwelling, reappears in Deut. 33:28 in reference to Israel; the second one, of God's protecting covering, is extended to the nation in many places; and the third, of dwelling between His shoulders, is in substance found again in Deut. 1:31, the Lord thy God bare thee, as a man doth bear his son.' So that we may give the text a wider extension, and take it as setting forth under a lovely metaphor, and with a restricted reference, what is true of all God's children everywhere and always.

 I. Who Are The Beloved Of The Lord'?
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The first answer to that question must be--all men. But these great blessings, so beautifully shadowed in this text, do not belong to all men; nor does the designation, the beloved of the Lord,' belong to all men, but to those who have entered into a special relation to Him. In these words of the Hebrew singer there sound the first faint tones of a music that was to swell into clear notes, when Jesus said: If a man love Me, he will keep My Word, and My Father will love him, and We will come unto him, and make Our abode with him.' They who are knit by faith and love to God's only-begotten and beloved Son, by that union receive power to become the sons of God,' and share in the love which is ever pouring out from the Father's heart on the Son of His love.'

 II. What Are Their Blessed Privileges?
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The three clauses of the text express substantially the same idea, but with a striking variety of metaphors.



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