'Behold,' which introduces something important and strange, and
calls for close attention; the majestic '_I_ send you,' which
moves to obedience whatever the issues, and pledges Him to defend
the poor men who are going on His errands and the pathetic picture
of the little flock huddled together, while the gleaming teeth of
the wolves gnash all round them. A strange theme to drape in a
metaphor! but does not the very metaphor help to lighten the
darkness of the picture, as well as speak of His calmness, while He
contemplates it? If the Shepherd sends His sheep into the midst of
wolves, surely He will come to their help, and surely any peril is
more courageously faced when they can say to themselves, 'He put us
here.' The sheep has no claws to wound with nor teeth to tear with,
but the defenceless Christian has a defence, and in his very
weaponlessness wields the sharpest two-edged sword. 'Force from
force must ever flow.' Resistance is a mistake. The victorious
antagonist of savage enmity is patient meekness. 'Sufferance is the
badge of all' true servants of Jesus. Wherever they have been
misguided enough to depart from Christ's law of endurance and to
give blow for blow, they have lost their cause in the long run, and
have hurt their own Christian life more than their enemies' bodies.
Guilelessness and harmlessness are their weapons. But 'be ye wise as
serpents' is equally imperative with 'guileless as doves.' Mark the
fine sanity of that injunction, which not only permits but enjoins
prudent self-preservation, so long as it does not stoop to crooked
policy, and is saved from that by dove-like guilelessness. A
difficult combination, but a possible one, and when realised, a
beautiful one!

The following verses (17-22) expand the preceding, and mingle in a
very remarkable way plain predictions of persecution to the death