He does not bid
them not try to be rich. He takes for granted that they will grow
rich; that the national fruit of their good government will be that
they will increase in cattle and in crops and in money, and in all
which makes an agricultural people rich.
He takes for granted, I say, that these Jews will grow very rich;
but he warns them that their riches, like all other earthly things,
may be a curse or a blessing to them. Nay, that they are not good
in themselves, but mere tools which may be used for good or for
evil. He warns them of a very great danger that riches will bring
on them. And herein he shows his knowledge of the human heart; for
it is a certain fact that whenever any nation has prospered, and
their flocks and herds, and silver and gold, all that they had, have
multiplied, then they have, as Moses warned the Jews, forgotten the
Lord their God, and said, 'My power and the might of my hand hath
gotten me this wealth.'
And it is true, also, that whenever any nation has begun to say
that, they have fallen into confusion and misery, and sometimes into
utter ruin, till they repented, and turned and remembered the Lord
their God, and found out that the strength of a nation did not
consist in riches, but in VIRTUE.
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