Shechemites, an accident happened which caused him a great deal of
sorrow. Dinah being gone abroad to see the daughters of the land,
their king took her by force, and ravished her; but desired to get
her to wife. Jacob was grieved at his daughter’s defilement; and
his sons, dissembling their rage, requested the Shechemites to be
circumcised, that the mutual intercourse they proposed should take
place. They consented; and on the third day, when their pain was
most sensible, Simeon and Levi took their swords, and came upon
them, and slew all the males, without sparing the king himself or
his son, whose unlawful lust caused this bloodshed. The rest of
Jacob’s sons pillaged the city, and carried all the spoil along
with them, taking all their little ones and their wives captives.
Jacob was extremely troubled at this, their revenge.
AN ACCOUNT OF JONAH’S MISSION
TO THE
NINEVITES.
Jonah was the son of Amittai, a prophet of Gath-hepher in Galilee.
Some Jews would have him to be the son of the widow of Sarepta,
raised to life by Elijah, but the distance of time renders it
almost impossible; nor is it a whit more certain that he was the
son of the Shunamite restored to life by Elisha, or the young
prophet who anointed Jehu.
It is certain, that he predicted that God would restore to the
Hebrews, the cities which the Syrians had taken from them during
the reigns of Ahab, Jehoram, Jehu, and Jehoahaz, 2 Kings, xiv. 25.
He restored the coast of Israel from the entering of Hamath unto
the sea of the plain, according to the word of the Lord God of
Israel, which he spake by the hand of his servant Jonah, the son
of Amittai the prophet which was of Gath-hepher. We have also the
book of Jonah, where God ordered him to go to Nineveh and warn the
inhabitants of their approaching destruction.
Nineveh was the capital of Assyria, and built by Asshur the son
of Shem; Genesis, x. 11, “Out of that land went forth Asshur, and
builded Nineveh.” It was one of the largest cities in the world. In
Jonah’s time it was a city of three day’s journey, or would require
him three days to go through it, proclaiming its overthrow. It then
had about one hundred and twenty thousand infants in it, whom we
cannot suppose above the eighth or tenth part of its inhabitants:
one learned writer says it was sixty miles in circumference; and
another writer says it was larger than Babylon. It was surrounded
by a wall about two hundred feet high, and so thick, that three
chariots abreast might have been driven along the top: on the wall
were built one thousand five hundred towers, each two hundred feet
higher than the wall; this city was very early noted for wealth,
idolatry, and whoredom.
Fearing that the Lord might forbear punishing them if they
repented, and so seemingly tarnish his honour, Jonah shipped
himself at Joppa for Tarshish, when a storm quickly pursued the
ship wherein he was. The heathen mariners awaked him, and required
him to call on his God for deliverance. Lots being cast to discern
for whose sake the storm arose, the lot fell on Jonah, who with
shame confessed his guilt to the mariners, and desired them to
cast him into the sea, that the storm might be stayed, which with
reluctance, they were at last obliged to do; whereon the storm
immediately ceased. A large fish swallowed up Jonah, and retained
him safe in her belly for three days. There he earnestly prayed to
the Lord, at whose command the fish vomited him alive on dry land.
His orders to warn the Ninevites of their approaching destruction
were immediately renewed, and all obedient, he hasted to that
vast city, and travelled in it above a day’s journey denouncing
their ruin if they did not repent within forty days. When the
inhabitants heard this, they were greatly afflicted; a fast of
three days both for man and beast was appointed, and they cried
mightily to God for the preventing of this stroke; he heard their
prayers, and long delayed their ruin. Displeased with the divine
mercy, Jonah angrily wished to die, rather than live and see his
prediction unfulfilled. While he sat without the city, waiting for
his desired view of Nineveh’s ruin, God caused a gourd quickly to
spring up to overshadow him from the scorching heat of the sun, but
next day, a worm having bitten its root, it suddenly withered. The
scorching sun and blasting wind vehemently beating on Jonah, he
fainted and angrily wished to die, and averred to God himself that
he was right in doing so. The Lord bid him think, if he had pity on
the short-lived gourd, was there not far more reason for his and
their maker to pity the penitent inhabitants of Nineveh?
Nineveh at last was destroyed about one hundred years after
Jonah. The Medes and Persians had several times laid siege to it,
but were diverted by various accidents; but after the massacre
of the Tartars in Media, they repeated the siege, Cyaxares and
Nebuchadnezzar being the commanders: after they had lain before it
three years, the river Tigrus or Sycus, being exceedingly swollen,
washed away two and a half miles of the wall; when the waters
assuaging the besiegers rushed into the city, and murdered the
inhabitants, who lay buried in their drunkeness, occasioned by an
advantage which they had just before gained over the enemy. When
the king, whose name we suppose was Sardanapalus, heard the city
was taken, it is said, he shut up himself, family, and wealth to
the value of about twenty-five thousand millions sterling, in the
palace, and then set fire to it, and destroyed all that was in it,
and it was fifteen days before the flames were quenched.
It is hard to say what was the gourd that covered Jonah’s head at
Nineveh: Jerome says, it was a small shrub, which, in the sandy
places of Canaan, grows up in a few days to a considerable height,
and with its large leaves forms an agreeable shade. It is now
generally thought to be the _Palma Christi_, which is somewhat like
a lily, with large smooth and black spotted leaves; one kind of it
grows to the height of a fig-tree, and whose branches and trunk are
hollow as a reed; there is also the wild gourd, which creeps along
the surface of the earth, as those of cucumbers; its fruit is of
the size and form of an orange, containing a light substance, but
so excessively bitter that it has been called the gall of the earth.
I have now given you a short account of the History of Jonah,
which could be greatly enlarged if space would permit--also the
command given by God to preach at Nineveh--Jonah’s disobedience to
that command--the pursuit and arrest of him for that disobedience
by a storm, in which he was asleep--the discovery of him and
his disobedience to be the cause of the storm--the casting of
him into the sea, for the stilling of the storm--the miraculous
preservation of his life there in the belly of a fish, which
was his preservation for further services. We have also Jonah’s
praying unto God: in his prayer we have, the great distress and
danger he was in--the despair he was thereby almost reduced
to--the encouragement he took to himself in this deplorable
condition--the assurance he had of God’s favour to him--the warning
and instruction he gives to others--the praise and glory of all
given to God--his deliverance out of the belly of the fish--and
his coming safe and sound upon dry land again--his mission
renewed--and the command a second time given him to go preach at
Nineveh--his message to Nineveh faithfully delivered, by which its
speedy overthrow was threatened--the repentance, humiliatian, and
reformation of the Ninevites hereupon--God’s gracious revocation
of the sentence passed upon them, and the preventing of the ruin
threatened. We have also Jonah’s repining at God’s mercy to
Nineveh, and the fret he was in about it--the gentle reproof God
gave him for it, Jonah’s discontent at the withering of the gourd,
and justifying of himself in that discontent--God’s improving of it
for his conviction, that he ought not to be angry at the sparing of
Nineveh. Man’s badness and God’s goodness serve here for a foil to
each other, that the former may appear the more exceeding sinful,
and the latter the more exceeding gracious.
From all this we may learn, _First_, that though God may suffer his
people to fall into sin, yet he will not suffer them to lie still
in it, but will take a course effectually to show them their error,
and to bring them to themselves, and to their right mind again. We
have reason to hope that Jonah, after this, was well reconciled to
the sparing of Nineveh, and was as well pleased with it, as ever he
had been displeased.
_Second_, that God will justify himself in the methods of his grace
toward repenting returning sinners, as well as in the course his
justice takes with them that persist in their rebellion, though
there are those that murmur at the mercy of God, because they
do not understand it, (for his thoughts and ways therein are as
far above ours as heaven is above the earth) yet he will make it
evident that therein he acts like himself, and will be justified
when he speaks. See what pains he takes with Jonah, to convince him
that it was very fit that Nineveh should be spared. Jonah had said,
I do well to be angry, but he could not prove it; God says, I do
well to be merciful, and proves it; and it is a great encouragement
to poor sinners to hope that they shall find mercy with him, that
he is so ready to justify himself in showing mercy, and to triumph
in those whom he makes the monuments of it, against those who is
evil because he is good; such murmurers shall be made to understand
this doctrine, that how narrow soever their souls and their
principles are, and how willing soever they are to engross divine
grace to themselves, and those of their own way, their is one Lord
over all, that is rich in mercy to all that call on him, and in
every nation, Nineveh as well as in Israel, he that fears God, and
works righteousness, is accepted of him, and he that repents and
turns from his evil way shall find mercy with him.
Did not the fate of this prophet typify our Saviour’s being cast
into the raging sea of divine wrath; his lying a part of three days
in the grave; his glorious resurrection from the dead; and the
publication of his gospel to multitudes of perishing sinners that
followed.
We cannot close more fitly, perhaps than by extracting a few lines
from the powerful summing up by the poet Young.
“What am I? and from whence?--I nothing know,
But what I am: and since I am, conclude
Something eternal: had there e’er been nought,
Nought still had been: eternal there must be.
But what eternal?--Why not human race?
And Adam’s ancestors without an end?
That’s hard to be conceiv’d. Yet grant it true,
Whence earth and these bright orbs?--Eternal too?
Grant matter was eternal, still these orbs
Would want some other father;--much design
Is seen in all their motions, all their makes:
Design implies intelligence, and art;
That can’t be from themselves, or man; that art
Man scarce can comprehend, could man bestow?
Who motion, foreign to the smallest grain,
Shot through vast masses of enormous weight?
Who bade brute matter’s restive lump assume
Such various forms, and gave it wings to fly?
Has matter innate motion? then each atom,
Asserting its indisputable right
To dance, would form an universe of dust:
Has matter none? Then whence these glorious forms
And boundless flights, from shapeless, and repos’d?
Has matter more than motion?--has it thought,
Judgment, and genius?--is it deeply learn’d
In mathematics? Has it fram’d such laws,
Which but to guess a Newton made immortal?--
If so, how each sage atom laughs at me,
Who thinks a clod inferior to a man!
If art to form, and counsel to conduct,
And that with greater far than human skill,
Resides not in each block--a Godhead reigns--
And if a God there is, that God how great!”
THE
HISTORY OF MOSES;
GIVING AN
Account of his birth, his being found by Pharaoh’s daughter in
the ark of bulrushes, and the miracles wrought by him for the
deliverance of the children of Israel.
EMBELLISHED WITH CUTS.
[Illustration]
GLASGOW:
PRINTED FOR THE BOOKSELLERS.
The finding of Moses.
[Illustration]
Exodus ii. 1.
Moses was the son of Amram and Jochebed, of the tribe of Levi,
and was born in Egypt. In consequence of the decree of Pharaoh
for putting the male children of the Hebrews to death, his mother
seeing that he was a goodly child, hid him three months. At length
when she could no longer hide him, she made for him with her own
hands a little cradle of bulrushes, which she daubed with slime
and pitch to keep out the water, and having put the child into
it, she laid it among the flags by the edge of the river Nile.
She then left his sister at a little distance from the spot to
watch the cradle. A short time after Jochebed had left her child,
the daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe herself in the river,
and when she saw the little ark, she sent her maid to fetch it.
And when she opened it, she saw the child, and behold the child
wept. And she had compassion on him, and said, “This is one of the
Hebrew’s children.” And the sister of the child, who had seen all
that had passed, came to the princess, and said to her, “Shall I
go and call thee a nurse of the Hebrew women, that she may nurse
the child for thee?” And Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Go:” and
the maid went and called the child’s mother. And the woman took
the child and nursed it. And we read that the child grew under the
tender care of his mother, and that she took him when he was old
enough unto Pharaoh’s daughter, who brought him up as her own son.
And she called his name Moses, which, in the Egyptian tongue, means
one saved out of the water.
As the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, Moses was educated in a
magnificent and princely manner, yet Moses did not forget his own
people, or his father’s house. In his visits to his own people,
Moses saw and pitied the miseries which they had to bear from the
cruelty of King Pharaoh. He saw their sufferings, and could no
longer be happy in the court of Egypt, among the enemies of his
people and of their religion. His faith made him more proud of the
name of Israelite then he had ever been of being called the adopted
son of King Pharaoh’s daughter. Once more among his own people, he
found it very difficult to see with patience all that they had to
bear; and on one occasion we read that he saved a Hebrew from the
hand of an Egyptian who was smiting him, and slew the Egyptian.
When Pharaoh heard this thing, he sought to slay Moses. And Moses
fled from the face of Pharaoh, and dwelt in the land of Midian, and
lived several years with Jethro, who gave him one of his daughters
for his wife.
The burning Bush.
[Illustration]
Exodus iii. 1.
One day, when Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, the
angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire, out of the
midst of a bush. And Moses said, “I will now turn aside, and see
this great sight, why the bush is not burnt.” Then God called unto
him out of the midst of the bush, and said, draw not nigh hither;
put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou
standest is holy ground. And the Lord commissioned him to deliver
his people Israel. But Moses was afraid when he heard what God
commanded him to do; because he thought himself unworthy of such an
office, and unfit for it. But it pleased God to assure him, that he
would be with him, to guide and protect him.
The Plagues of Egypt.
[Illustration]
Exodus viii. 1.
Now Moses and Aaron went as the Lord commanded them, and told the
people all that the Lord had spoken unto Moses, and did wonders
before them. And Moses and Aaron went in and said to King Pharaoh,
“Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, ‘Let my people go, that they
may hold a feast unto me in the wilderness.’” And Pharaoh said,
“Who is the Lord that I should obey his voice to let Israel go? I
know not the Lord, neither will I let Israel go.” And from that day
Pharaoh made the children of Israel work harder than they had ever
done before, desiring that they might no longer have straw given
them to make their bricks of, but that they should from that time
be obliged to find their own straw, and at the same time get done
as much work as they did when they had straw given them. Then when
God saw the hardness of Pharaoh’s heart, he commanded Moses to go
to Pharaoh in the morning, when he took his walk by the river, and
to take his rod in his hand, and to smite the waters of the river
before him, which should all be turned into blood. And the fish
that were in the river died, and the river stank, and the Egyptians
could not drink of the water of the river; and there was blood
throughout all the land of Egypt. Seven days did this sad change in
the waters last; but still Pharaoh would not listen to the voice
of Moses and Aaron. Then God told Moses to stretch forth his hand
over the river, and over all the waters, and to bring frogs over
all his people: and Moses did so; and frogs came over all the land
of Egypt, as the Lord said. Then Pharaoh sent for Moses and Aaron,
and said, “Entreat the Lord, that he may take away the frogs from
me, and from my people; and I will let the people go, that they
may so sacrifice unto the Lord.” But no sooner did the Lord hear
the voice of Moses, and take away this evil from Pharaoh and his
people, than the king forgot what he had suffered, and would not
let the Israelites go. Great and dreadful were the plagues that
the Lord brought upon the land of Egypt before the King would let
the children of Israel go. At one time, he covered the whole land,
both man and beast, with the most disgusting kind of insects--at
another, he sent grievous swarms of flies to torment them--now, he
sent mighty hails, and thunderings, and rains upon the land, which
were exceeding terrible, filling the hearts of the people with
fear--then, he destroyed all the first-born of the land, both man
and beast.
The Passover.
[Illustration]
Exodus xii. 3.
On the evening before the Passover God commanded that every family
of Israel should slay a lamb, and sprinkle the door-posts before
the houses with the blood of the lamb; that so, when the angel of
the Lord came down to destroy the first-born of Egypt, he might
know the houses of Israel from those of Egypt, and pass over them,
and save those that dwelt in them from death. This lamb was to be
called the Passover, because God should pass over those houses
whose doors were sprinkled with its blood. This was the last supper
which the children of Israel were ever to eat in Egypt, even the
feast of the Passover. They kept up this feast every year, in
order that they might remember the night when the Lord smote the
Egyptians.
The passage of Israel through the Red Sea.
[Illustration]
Exodus xiv. 15.
We now see the children of Israel, delivered by the almighty power
of God from Egypt and from Pharaoh, travelling towards the land
that God had promised to their fathers. The Lord went before them
by day in a pillar of a cloud, to lead them the way, and by night
in a pillar of fire, to give them light. When they had thus got
as far as Pi-hahiroth, which borders on the Red Sea, they lifted
up their eyes, and behold the Egyptians marched after them. So
hardened was king Pharaoh’s heart, that scarcely had the Israelites
gone out of Egypt before he was sorry that he had let them go. And
he took six hundred chosen chariots, and all the chariots of Egypt
and captains over every one of them, and passed after the children
of Israel, and overtook them by the sea, beside Pi-hahiroth. Then
the children of Israel were sore afraid, and cried unto the Lord.
The Red Sea before them, the Egyptians behind, they saw no hope
of safety; and they were full of anger against Moses, for having
brought them out of Egypt. But the Lord said unto Moses, “Lift up
thy rod, and stretch out thine hand over the sea, and divide it;
and the children of Israel shall go on dry ground through the midst
of the sea.” And the angel of the Lord, which went before the camp
of Israel, removed and went behind them, and came between the camp
of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel; so that the one came not
near the other all the night. And Moses stretched out his hand over
the sea, and the Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east
wind all that night, and made the sea dry land, and the waters were
divided. But that foolish and wicked man Pharaoh, still set himself
against God, and madly pursued the Israelites into the midst of the
sea. But so soon as the Israelites had passed over on dry land, and
safely reached the shore, the Lord said unto Moses, “Stretch out
thine hand over the sea, that the waters may come again upon the
Egyptians, upon their chariots, and upon their horsemen.” And Moses
stretched forth his hand over the sea, and the sea returned to his
strength when the morning appeared, and the Egyptians fled against
it; but the Lord overthrew them in the midst of the sea, and the
waters returned, and covered the chariots and the horsemen, and
all the host of Pharaoh that came into the sea after them; there
remained not so much as one of them: and Israel saw their dead
bodies upon the sea shore. Thus the Lord saved Israel that day out
of the hand of the Egyptians.
Israel fed from Heaven.
[Illustration]
Exodus xvi. 1.
We read in the Bible, that after they had crossed the Red Sea, they
came into the wilderness of Chur. While travelling onwards through
the wilderness of Sin they suffered from hunger, and murmered
against Moses and Aaron. But again God heard their cries, and sent
them bread from heaven to eat. The Lord said unto Moses, “Behold I
will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out
and gather a certain rate every day--at even ye shall eat flesh,
and in the morning ye shall be filled with bread.” And in the
morning there lay a small round thing, as small as the hoar-frost,
on the ground. And when the children of Israel saw it, they said
one to another, “It is manna.” And Moses said, “This is the bread
which the Lord hath given you to eat.”
Moses Smiting the Rock.
[Illustration]
Exodus xvii. 1.
We now find the children of Israel travelling from the wilderness
of Sin, and, according to the commandment of the Lord, pitching
their camp at Rephidim. There being no water here, we find those
stubborn and rebellious people, saying unto Moses, “Give us water
that we may drink; wherefore is this that thou hast brought us up
out of Egypt, to kill us, and our children, and our cattle, with
thirst?” The Lord had shewed them signs and mighty wonders in the
land of Egypt--he had delivered their children from the sword
of the destroying angel, when all around them was anguish and
dismay--he heard them when they cried and groaned under the lash of
the oppressor, amid the brick-kilns of Egypt, and emancipated them
from the same--he opened a passage for them in the mighty waters
at the Red Sea, when about to fall a prey to the rage and fury of
Pharaoh king of Egypt--moreover, he had given them bread to eat in
the wilderness when they hungered for the same; and was still able
to give them what they now desired. But they, instead of praying
to the Lord that he would once more condescend to look down with
compassion upon them, and grant them their request, reproached, and
murmured against Moses, the servant of the Lord. And Moses said
unto them, “Why chide ye with me? wherefore do ye tempt the Lord?”
Moses tired of their complaints and discontent, felt that he could
do nothing with the people under his care; but knew that the Lord
could either quench there thirst, or put a stop to their rage. He,
therefore, cried unto the Lord, and said, “What shall I do unto
this people? they be almost ready to stone me.” Nor did he cry in
vain, for the Lord said unto him, “Go on before the people, and
take with thee of the elders of Israel; and thy rod wherewith thou
smotest the river, take in thine hand and go. Behold, I will stand
before thee there upon the rock in Horeb, and thou shalt smite the
rock, and there shall come water out of it, that the people may
drink.” And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel. Thus
did God open streams in the desert--he clave the hard rocks in the
wilderness, and gave them drink thereof, as it had been out of the
great depth--he brought waters out of the strong rock, so that it
gushed out like rivers: and this he did although his people had
sinned against him, and provoked the Most High in the wilderness.
The Law given from Mount Sinai.
[Illustration]
Exodus xix. 10.