Numbers 21:18
The princes digged the well, the nobles of the people digged it, by the direction of the lawgiver, with their staves. And from the wilderness they went to Mattanah: The princes digged the well, the nobles of the people digged it, by the direction of the lawgiver, with their staves. And from the wilderness they went to Mattanah:
At Beer in the wilderness, after the promise that water would be given when the people were gathered together, the princes and the nobles of the people dug the well with scepter and staves as the gift of water from God. Israel cheered their wilderness way by celebrating that well in a song of praise, calling for the water to spring up. The singing itself brought great blessing, showing that blessings come in response to songs of praise, and its few words hold a lesson worthy of thought.
Holy song unsealed the well, and that history is repeated in spiritual experience when holy song unseals in the soul the springs of penitence and faith, of hope and love and joy.
God bids His people today to gladden their pilgrim life in the same way, since repeating His words in song is one of the most effective means of fixing them in the memory and impressing the heart with spiritual truth. Such song has wonderful power to subdue rude and uncultivated natures, to quicken thought and awaken sympathy, to promote harmony of action, and to banish the gloom and foreboding that destroy courage and weaken effort. When a soul hard pressed and ready to despair recalls some word of God in a long-forgotten childhood song, temptation loses its power, life takes on new meaning and purpose, and courage and gladness are imparted to other souls.