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This instruction of God through His prophet is directed to a special group of people: “All ye meek of the earth.” We should explore the meaning of meek to ensure that it can apply for us.

Meekness, many say is to be humble, but if we follow the scriptures, we will find that meekness follows on from humbleness and lowliness, as in Eph. 4:2 “With all lowliness and meekness, with long suffering forebearing one another in love.”

We have already learned that it can only come after humbleness, so that is the first step. Meekness is the translation of the Hebrew word ‘anah’, which means to be bowed down to God’s ways, and from the Greek word ‘praotis’ which means ‘gentleness’. If we link these together in a spiritual sense, we begin to see that meekness is an inwrought grace of the soul; and the exercises of it are first and chiefly towards God in which we accept His dealings with us without disputing and resisting. This meekness which is first a meekness with respect to God, must then flow on to those around us, even those who may be against us, out of the thought that they are only used by God as an example to make us look to ourselves. It is when a meek person does this, that we realise that we are also a sinner amongst sinners and as such bear a sinner’s doom and this draws us to the instruction to “Seek ye the Lord”.

This is summed up in Gal. 6:1 “Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.” We can read in Numbers 12:3 “Now the man Moses was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth.” and because of this, God spoke from the cloud to Moses. Aaron and his sister Miriam, who was going around criticizing Moses, heard God’s message very clearly, that if He wished to speak to the people, he would use a Prophet, or Vision, or Dream, but with Moses, because of his meekness, He spoke with him mouth to mouth. Because Miriam was speaking against Moses. God struck her with leprosy, and she became as white as snow. Moses showed how a meek man must react, and in verse 13 we read his plea to the Lord. “And Moses cried unto the Lord, saying Heal her now, O God, I beseech thee.”

Christ while on earth, certainly took the place of Moses as the most meek man to ever walk this earth, and He taught of this in Matt. 11:29 “Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me: for I am meek and lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls.” Truly Christ’s life is a living testimony of the meaning of meekness to be bowed down to ‘God’s will’ and to do all this in ‘gentleness’. If we search the scriptures, we will see many more promises given to the meek, and that great promise of the Lord Himself in Matt. 5:5 “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” We know this will be the 1,000 years of peace on the earth, with Christ as the King, after the first resurrection, and so we see the great promise in the last part of our text, “it may be ye shall be hid in the day of the Lord’s anger.”

We can see now how very important it is for us all, to seek this meekness in our lives to gain all those blessings. To us, it must begin in humbleness, in confessing our Lord Jesus as Lord, in taking His yoke upon us, to be bowed down to God’s will and to do all this in gentleness one to another. Recognise we are dependent on a higher power. With the help of God’s Spirit, we can all achieve this.