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A GREATER contrast could scarcely be found than that presented to view between the last object of our contemplation and this. The golden ephod is gorgeous and fair; here we look on an unsightly bone, a relic of the despised animal that crops the thistle, bears the burden and the blow. The jackals might reject it, the passenger's foot kick it aside. It has in itself no beauty, no dignity, no value; and but for finding it carefully preserved in Scripture, we would not pause to give it a thought.
The practical lesson suggested by this bone contrasts well with that drawn from the ephod: if the latter showed us the weakness of human nature even in the noblest of men, the former teaches us what God can make of the most common-most humble instrument. Through Him, the jawbone of an ass became a more terrible weapon than the keenest steel had ever been in the hand of the strongest man. Samson, after the victory which he had won single-handed, exclaimed: "With the jawbone of an ass, heaps upon heaps, with the jaw of an ass have I slain a thousand men! " And then, as if even he despised the instrument which he had used, when he had made an end of speaking, he cast the jawbone away.