[10] It is true that the word means any large reptile, as when "God

created great _whales_"; but doubtless our English version is correct.

It was certainly a serpent which he had recently fled from, and then

taken by the tail (iv. 4). And unless we suppose the magicians to have

wrought a genuine miracle, no other creature can be suggested, equally

convenient for their sleight of hand.

[11] To this day, amid squalid surroundings for which nominal Christians

are responsible, the immunity of the Jewish race from such suffering is

conspicuous, and at least a remarkable coincidence.

[12] But indeed this notion is not yet dead. "A high wind left the

shallow sea so low that it became possible to ford it. Moses eagerly

accepted the suggestion, and made the venture with success,"

etc.--_Wellhausen_, "Israel," in _Encyc. Brit._

[13] x. 22. The accurate Kalisch is therefore wrong in speaking of "The

duration of the first plague, a statement not made with regard to any of

the subsequent inflictions."--Commentary _in loco_.

[14] _Speaker's Commentary_, i., p. 242; Kalisch on viii. 18; Kiel, i.

484.

CHAPTER VIII.

_THE SECOND PLAGUE._

viii. 1-15.

Although Pharaoh had warning of the first plague, no appeal was made to

him to avert it by submission. But before the plague of frogs he was

distinctly commanded, "Let My people go." It is an advancing lesson. He

has felt the power of Jehovah: now he is to connect, even more closely,

his suffering with his disobedience; and when this is accomplished, the

third plague will break upon him unannounced--a loud challenge to his

conscience to become itself his judge.

The plague of frogs was far greater than our experience helps us to

imagine. At least two cases are on record of a people being driven to

abandon their settlements because they had become intolerable; "as even

the vessels were full of them, the water infested and the food

uneatable, as they could scarcely set their feet on the ground without

treading on heaps of them, and as they were vexed by the smell of the

great multitude that died, they fled from that region."

The Egyptian species known to science as the Rana Mosaica, and still

called by the uncommon epithet here employed, is peculiarly repulsive,

and peculiarly noisy too. The superstition which adored a frog as the

"Queen of the two Worlds," and placed it upon the sacred lotus-leaf,

would make it impossible for an Egyptian to adopt even such forlorn

measures of self-defence as might suggest themselves. It was an unclean

pest against which he was entirely helpless, and it extended the power

of his enemy from the river to the land. The range of the grievance is

dwelt upon in the warning: "they shall come up and enter into thine

house, and into thy bedchamber, and upon thy bed ... and into thine

ovens, and into thy kneading-troughs" (viii. 3). The most sequestered

and the dryest spots alike would swarm with them, thrust forward into

the most unsuitable places by the multitude behind.

Thus Pharaoh himself had to share, far more than in the first plague,

the misery of his humblest subjects; and, although again his magicians

imitated Aaron upon some small prepared plot, and amid circumstances

which made it easier to exhibit frogs than to exclude them, yet there

was no comfort in such puerile emulation, and they offered no hope of

relieving him. From the gods that were only vanities, he turned to

Jehovah, and abased himself to ask the intercession of Moses: "Intreat

Jehovah that He take away the frogs from me and from my people; and I

will let the people go."

The assurance would have been a hopeful one, if only the sense of

inconvenience were the same as the sense of sin. But when we wonder at

the relapses of men who were penitent upon sick-beds or in adversity, as

soon as their trouble is at an end, we are blind to this distinction.

Pain is sometimes obviously due to ourselves, and it is natural to blame

the conduct which led to it. But if we blame it only for being

disastrous, we cannot hope that the fruits of the Spirit will result

from a sensation of the flesh. It was so with Pharaoh, as doubtless

Moses expected, since God had not yet exhausted His predicted works of

retribution. This anticipated fraud is much the simplest explanation of

the difficult phrase, "Have thou this glory over me."

It is sometimes explained as an expression of courtesy--"I obey thee as

a superior"; which does not occur elsewhere, because it is not Hebrew

but Egyptian. But this suavity is quite alien to the spirit of the

narrative, in which Moses, however courteous, represents an offended

God. It is more natural to take it as an open declaration that he was

being imposed upon, yet would grant to the king whatever advantage the

fraud implied. And to make the coming relief more clearly the action of

the Lord, to shut out every possibility that magician or priest should

claim the honour, he bade the king name an hour at which the plague

should cease.

If the frogs passed away at once, the relief might chance to be a

natural one; and Pharaoh doubtless conceived that elaborate and long

protracted intercessions were necessary for his deliverance. Accordingly

he fixed a future period, yet as near as he perhaps thought possible;

and Moses, without any express authority, promised him that it should be

so. Therefore he "cried unto the Lord," and the frogs did not retreat

into the river, but suddenly died where they were, and filled the

unhappy land with a new horror in their decay.

But "when Pharaoh saw that there was respite, he made his heart heavy

and hearkened not unto them." It is a graphic sentence: it implies

rather than affirms their indignant remonstrances, and the sullen, dull,

spiritless obstinacy with which he held his base and unkingly purpose.

_THE THIRD PLAGUE._

viii. 16-19.

There is no sufficient reason for discarding the ordinary opinion of

this plague. Gnats have been suggested (with beetles instead of flies

for the fourth, since gnats and flies would scarcely make two several

judgments), but these, which spring from marshy ground, would unfitly be

connected with the dust whence Aaron was to evoke the pest. Sir Samuel

Baker, on the other hand, has said of modern Egypt that "it seemed as if

the very dust were turned into lice" (quoted in Speaker's Commentary _in

loco_).

Two features in this plague deserve attention. It came without any

warning whatever. The faithless king who gave his word and broke it

found himself involved in fresh miseries without an opportunity of

humbling himself again. He was flung back into deep waters, because he

refused to fulfil the terms upon which he had been extricated.

It must be understood that the act of Aaron was a public one, performed

in the sight of Pharaoh, and instantly followed by the plague. There was

no doubt about the origin of the pest, and the new and alarming prospect

was opened up of calamities yet to come, without a chance to avert them

by submission.

Again, it will be observed that the magicians are utterly baffled just

when there is no warning given, and therefore no opportunity for

pre-arranged sleight of hand. And this surely favours the opinion that

they had not hitherto succeeded by supernatural assistance, for there is

no such evident reason why infernal aid should cease at this exact

point.

It is a mistake to suppose that thereupon they confessed the mission of

the brothers. In their agitation they admitted that, on their part at

least, no divinity had been at work before. But they rather ascribed

what they saw to the action of some vaguely indicated deity, than

confessed it to be the work of Jehovah. Again it has to be asked whether

this resembles more the vainglorious structure of a myth, or the course

of a truthful history.

Nevertheless, their grudging and insufficient avowal was meant to induce

a surrender. But "Pharaoh's heart was strong, and he hearkened not unto

them." To this statement it is not added, "because the Lord had hardened

him," for this had not even yet taken place; but only, "as the Lord had

spoken."

_THE FOURTH PLAGUE._

viii. 20-32.

When the third plague had died away, when the sense of reaction and

exhaustion had replaced agitation and distress, and when perhaps the

fear grew strong that at any moment a new calamity might befal the land

as abruptly as the last, God orders a solemn and urgent appeal to be

made to the oppressor. And the same occurs three times: after each

plague which arrives unexpectedly the next is introduced by a special

warning. On each of these occasions, moreover, the appeal is made in the

morning, at the hour when reason ought to be clearest and the passions

least agitating; and this circumstance is perhaps alluded to in the

favourite phrase of Jeremiah when he would speak of condescending

earnestness--"I sent my prophets, rising up early and sending them"

(Jer. xxv. 4, xxvi. 5, xxix. 19, and many more; cf. also vii. 13, and 2

Chron. xxxvi. 15). So far is the Scripture from regarding Pharaoh as

propelled by destiny, as by a machine, down iron grooves to ruin.

We have now come to the group of plagues which inflict actual bodily

damage, and not inconvenience and humiliation only: the dogfly (or

beetle); the murrain among beasts, which was a precursor of the crowning

evil that struck at human life; and the boils. Of the fourth plague the

precise nature is uncertain. There is a beetle which gnaws both man and

beast, destroys clothes, furniture, and plants, and even now they "are

often seen in millions" (Munk, _Palestine_, p. 120). "In a few minutes

they filled the whole house.... Only after the most laborious exertions,

and covering the floor of the house with hot coals, they succeeded in

mastering them. If they make such attacks during the night, the inmates

are compelled to give up the houses, and little children or sick

persons, who are unable to rise alone, are then exposed to the greatest

danger of life" (Pratte, _Abyssinia_, p. 143, in Kalisch).

Now, this explanation has one advantage over that of dogflies--that

special mention is made of their afflicting "the ground whereon they

are" (ver. 21), which is less suitable to a plague of flies. But it may

be that no one creature is meant. The Hebrew word means "a mixture."

Jewish interpreters have gone so far as to make it mean "all kinds of

noxious animals and serpents and scorpions mixed together," and although

it is palpably absurd to believe that Pharaoh should have survived if

these had been upon him and upon his servants, yet the expression "a

mixture," following after one kind of vermin had tormented the land,

need not be narrowed too exactly. With deliberate particularity the

king was warned that they should come "upon thee, and upon thy servants,

and upon thy people, and into thine houses, and the houses of the

Egyptians shall be full of [them[15]], and also the ground whereon they

are."

It has been supposed, from the special mention of the exemption of the

land of Goshen, that this was a new thing. We have seen reason, however,

to think otherwise, and the emphatic assertion now made is easy to

understand. The plague was especially to be expected in low flat ground:

the king may not even have been aware of the previous freedom of Israel;

and in any case its importance as an evidence had not been pressed upon

him. The spirit of the seventy-eighth Psalm, though not perhaps any one

specific phrase, contrasts the earlier as well as the later plagues with

the protection of His own people, whom He led like sheep (vers. 42-52).

After the appointed interval (the same which Pharaoh had indicated for

the removal of the frogs) the plague came. We are told that the land was

corrupted, but it is significant that more stress is laid upon the

suffering of Pharaoh and his court in the event than in the menace. It

came home to himself more cruelly than any former plague, and he at once

attempted to make terms: "Go ye, sacrifice to your God in the land." It

is a natural speech, at first not asking to be trusted as before by

getting relief before the Hebrews actually enjoy their liberty; and yet

conceding as little as possible, and in hot haste to have that little

done and the relief obtained. They may even serve their God on the

sacred soil, so completely has He already defeated all His rivals. But

this was not what was demanded; and Moses repeated the claim of a three

days' journey, basing it upon the ground, still more insulting to the

national religion, that "We will sacrifice to Jehovah our God the

abomination of the Egyptians," that is to say, sacred animals, which it

is horror in their eyes to sacrifice. Any faith in his own creed which

Pharaoh ever had is surrendered when this argument, instead of making

their cause hopeless, forces him to yield--adding, however, like a

thoroughly weak man who wishes to refuse but dares not, "only ye shall

not go very far away: intreat for me." And again Moses concedes the

point, with only the courteous remonstrance, "But let not Pharaoh deal

deceitfully any more."

It is necessary to repeat that we have not a shred of evidence that

Moses would have violated his compact and failed to return: it would

have sufficed as a first step to have asserted the nationality of his

people and their right to worship their own God: all the rest would

speedily have followed. But the terms which were rejected again and

again did not continue for ever to bind the victorious party: the story

of their actual departure makes it plain that both sides understood it

to be a final exodus; and thence came the murderous pursuit of Pharaoh

(cf. xv. 9), which in itself would have cancelled any compact which had

existed until then.

FOOTNOTES:

[15] The Revised Version has "swarms of flies," which is clearly an

attempt to meet the case. But it is worth notice that in the Psalms the

expression was twice rendered "divers kinds of flies" (lxxviii. 45, cv.

31, A.V.) The word occurs only of this plague.

CHAPTER IX.

_THE FIFTH PLAGUE._

ix. 1-7.

Our Lord when on earth came not to destroy men's lives. And yet it was

necessary, for our highest instruction, that we should not think of Him

as revealing a Divinity wholly devoid of sternness. Twice, therefore, a

gleam of the fires of justice fell on the eyes which followed

Him--through the destruction once of a barren tree, and once of a herd

of swine, which property no Jew should have possessed. So now, when half

the gloomy round of the plagues was being completed, it was necessary to

prove that life itself was staked on this desperate hazard; and this was

done first by the very same expedient--the destruction of life which was

not human. There is something pathetic, if one thinks of it, in the

extent to which domestic animals share our fortunes, and suffer through

the brutality or the recklessness of their proprietors. If all men were

humane, self-controlled, and (as a natural result) prosperous, what a

weight would be uplifted from the lower levels also of created life, all

of which groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now! The dumb

animal world is partner with humanity, and shares its fate, as each

animal is dependent on its individual owner.

We have already seen the whole life of Egypt stricken, but now the lower

creatures are to perish, unless Pharaoh will repent. He is once more

summoned in the name of "Jehovah, God of the Hebrews," and warned that

the hand of Jehovah, even a very grievous murrain (for so the verse

appears to say), is "upon thy cattle which is in the field, upon the

horses, upon the asses, upon the camels, upon the herds and upon the

flocks." Here some particulars need observation. Herds and flocks were

everywhere; but horses were a comparatively late introduction into

Egypt, where they were as yet chiefly employed for war. Asses, still so

familiar to the traveller, were the usual beasts of burden, and were

owned in great numbers by the rich, although rash controversialists have

pretended that, as being unclean, they were not tolerated in the land.

Camels, it is said, are not to be found on the monuments, but yet they

were certainly known and possessed by Egypt, though there were many

reasons why they should be held chiefly on the frontiers, and perhaps in

connection with the Arabian mines and settlements. Upon all these "in

the field" the plague should come.

The murrain still works havoc in the Delta, chiefly at the period,

beginning with December, when the floods are down and the cattle are

turned out into the pastures, which would this year have been signally

unwholesome. It was not, then, the fact of a cattle plague which was

miraculous, but its severity, its coming at an appointed time, its

assailing beasts of every kind, and its exempting those of Israel. We

are told that "all the cattle of Egypt died," and yet that afterwards

"the hail ... smote both man and beast" (ix. 6, 25). It is an

inconsistency very serious in the eyes of people who are too stupid or

too uncandid to observe that, just before, the mischief was limited to

those cattle which were "in the field" (ver. 3). There were great stalls

in suitable places, to give them shelter during the inundations; and all

that had not yet been driven out to graze are expressly exempted from

the plague.

Much of Pharaoh's own property perished, but he was the last man in the

country who would feel personal inconvenience by the loss, and therefore

nothing was more natural than that his selfish "heart was heavy, and he

did not let the people go." Not even such an effort was needed as in the

previous plague, when we read that he made his heart heavy, by a

deliberate act.

There was nothing to indicate that he had now reached a crisis--that God

Himself in His judgment would henceforth make bold and resolute against

crushing adversities the heart which had been obdurate against humanity,

against evidence, against honour and plighted faith. Nothing is easier

than to step over the frontier between great nations. And in the moral

world also the Rubicon is passed, the destiny of a soul is fixed,

sometimes without a struggle, unawares.

Instead of spiritual conflict, there was intellectual curiosity.

"Pharaoh sent, and behold there was not so much as one of the cattle of

the Israelites dead. But the heart of Pharaoh was heavy, and he did not

let the people go." This inquiry into a phenomenon which was surprising

indeed, but yet quite unable to affect his action, recalls the spiritual

condition of Herod, who was conscience-stricken when first he heard of

Christ, and said, "It is John whom I beheaded" (Mark vi. 16), but

afterwards felt merely vulgar curiosity and desire to behold a sign of

Him. In the case of Pharaoh it was the next step to judicial

infatuation. When Christ confronted Herod, He, Who had explained Himself

to Pilate, was absolutely silent. And this warns us not to think that an

interest in religious problems is itself of necessity religious. One may

understand all mysteries, and yet it may profit him nothing. And many a

reprobate soul is controversial, acute, and keenly orthodox.

_THE SIXTH PLAGUE._

ix. 8-12.

At the close of the second triplet, as of the first, stands a plague

without a warning, but not without the clearest connection between the

blow and Him who deals it.

To the Jews Egypt was a furnace in which they were being

consumed--whether literally in human sacrifice, or metaphorically in the

hard labour which wasted them (Deut. iv. 20). And now the brothers were

commanded to fill both hands with ashes of the furnace and throw them

upon the wind,[16] either to symbolise the suffering which was to be

spread wide over the land, or because the ashes of human sacrifices were

thus presented to their evil genius, Typhon. If this were its meaning,

the irony was keen, when at the same action a feverish inflammation

breaking out in blains spread over all the nation.

But, apart from any such reference to their cruel idolatry, it was right

that they should suffer in the flesh. When the higher nature is dead,

there is no appeal so sharp and certain as to the physical sensibility.

And moreover, there are other sins which have their root in the flesh

besides sloth and bodily indulgence. Wrath and cruelty and pride are

strangely stimulated and excited by self-indulgence. Not in vain does

St. Paul describe a "mind of the flesh," and reckon among the fruits of

the flesh not only uncleanness and drunkenness, but, just as truly,

strife, jealousies, wraths, factions, divisions, heresies (Col. ii. 18;

Gal. v. 19, 20). From such evil tempers, stimulated by evil appetites,

the slaves of Egypt had suffered bitterly; and now the avenging rod fell

upon the bodies of their tyrants.

And we may perhaps detect especial suffering, certainly an especial

triumph to be commemorated, in the failure of the magicians even to

stand before the king. It is implied that they had done so until now,

and this confirms the belief that after the third plague they had not

acknowledged Jehovah, but merely said in their defeat, "This is the

finger of a god." Until now Jannes and Jambres (two, to rival the two

brothers) had withstood Moses, but now the contrast between the prophet

and his victims writhing in their pain was too sharp for prejudice

itself to overlook: their folly was "evident unto all men" (2 Tim. iii.

8, 9). But it was not destined that Pharaoh should yield even to so

tremendous a coercion what he refused to moral influences; and as Jesus

after His resurrection appeared not unto all the people (hiding this

crowning evidence from the eyes which had in vain beheld so much), so

"the Lord made strong the heart of Pharaoh, and he hearkened not unto

them, as the Lord had spoken unto Moses." In this last expression is the

explicit statement that it was now that the prediction attained

fulfilment, in the manner which we have discussed already.

But even this strength of heart did not reach the height of attempting

any reprisals upon the torturers. The sense of the supernatural was

their defence: Moses was as a god unto Pharaoh, and Aaron was his

prophet.

In the narrative of this plague there is an expression which deserves

attention for another reason. The ashes, it says, "shall become dust."

Is there no controversy, turning upon the too rigid and prosaic

straining of a New Testament construction, which might be simplified by

considering the Hebrew use of language, exemplified in such an assertion

as "It shall become dust," and soon after, "It is the Lord's passover"?

Do these announce transubstantiations? Did two handfuls of ashes

literally become the blains upon the bodies of all the Egyptians?

_THE SEVENTH PLAGUE._

ix. 13-35.

The hardening of Pharaoh's heart, we have argued, was not the debauching

of his spirit, but only the strengthening of his will. "Wait on the Lord

and _be of good courage_"; "_Be strong_, O Zerubbabel, saith the Lord;

and _be strong_, O Joshua, son of Josadak the high priest; and _be

strong_, all ye people" (Ps. xxvii. 14; Hag. ii. 4), are clear proofs

that what was implied in this word was not wickedness, but only that

iron determination which his choice directed in a wicked channel. And

therefore it was no mockery, no insincere appeal by one who had provided

against the mischance of its succeeding, when God again addressed

Himself to the reason, and even to the rational fears of Pharaoh. He

had only provided against a terror-stricken submission, as wholly

immoral and valueless, as the ceasing to resist of one who has swooned

through fright. Now, to give such an one a stimulant and thus to enable

him to exercise his volition, would be different from inciting him to

rebel.

The seventh plague, then, is ushered in by an expostulation more

earnest, resolute and minatory than attended any of the previous ones.

And this is the more necessary because human life is now for the first

time at stake. First the king is solemnly reminded that Jehovah, Whom he

no longer can refuse to know, is the God of the Hebrews, has a claim

upon their services, and demands them. In oppressing the nation,

therefore, Pharaoh usurped what belonged to the Lord. Now, this is the

eternal charter of the rights of all humanity. Whoever encroaches on the

just sphere of the free action of his neighbour deprives him, to exactly

the same extent, of the power to glorify God by a free obedience. The

heart glorifies God by submission to so hard a lot, but the co-operation

of the "whole body and soul and spirit" does not visibly bear testimony

to the regulating power of grace. The oppressor may contend (like some

slave-owners) that he guides his human property better than it would

guide itself. But one assertion he cannot make: namely, that God is

receiving the loyal homage of a life spontaneously devoted; that a man

and not a machine is glorifying God in this body and spirit which are

God's. For the body is but a chattel. This is why the Christian doctrine

of the religious equality of all men in Christ carries with it the

political assertion of the equal secular rights of the whole human race.

I must not transfer to myself the solemn duty of my neighbour to offer

up to God the sacrifice not only of his chastened spirit but also of his

obedient life.

And these words were also a lifelong admonition to every Israelite. He

held his liberties from God. He was not free to be violent and wanton,

and to say "I am delivered to commit all these abominations." The

dignities of life were bound up with its responsibilities.

Well, it is not otherwise to-day. As truly as Moses, the champions of

our British liberties were earnest and God-fearing men. Not for leave to

revel, to accumulate enormous fortunes, and to excite by their luxuries

the envy and rage of neglected brothers, while possessing more enormous

powers to bless them than ever were entrusted to a class,--not for this

our heroes bled on the field and on the scaffold. Tyrants rarely deny to

rich men leave to be self-indulgent. And self-indulgence rarely nerves

men to heroic effort. It is for the freedom of the soul that men dare

all things. And liberty is doomed wherever men forget that the true

freeman is the servant of Jehovah. On these terms the first demand for a

national emancipation was enforced.

And next, Pharaoh is warned that God, who at first threatened to destroy

his firstborn, but had hitherto come short of such a deadly stroke, had

not, as he might flatter himself, exhausted His power to avenge. Pharaoh

should yet experience "_all_ My plagues." And there is a dreadful

significance in the phrase which threatens to put these plagues, with

regard to others "upon thy servants and upon thy people," but with

regard to Pharaoh himself "upon thine heart."

There it was that the true scourge smote. Thence came ruin and defeat.

His infatuation was more dreadful than hail in the cloud and locusts on

the blast, than the darkness at noon and the midnight wail of a

bereaved nation. For his infatuation involved all these.

The next assertion is not what the Authorised Version made it, and what

never was fulfilled. It is not, "Now I will stretch out My hand to smite

thee and thy people with pestilence, and thou shalt be cut off from the

earth." It says, "Now I had done this, as far as any restraint for thy

sake is concerned, but in very deed for this cause have I made thee to

stand" (unsmitten), "for to show thee My power, and that My name may be

declared throughout all the earth" (vers. 15, 16). The course actually

taken was more for the glory of God, and a better warning to others,

than a sudden stroke, however crushing.

And so we find, many years after all this generation has passed away,

that a strangely distorted version of these events is current among the

Philistines in Palestine. In the days of Eli, when the ark was brought

into the camp, they said, "Woe unto us! who shall deliver us out of the

hand of these mighty gods? These are the gods that smote the Egyptians

with all manner of plagues in the wilderness" (1 Sam. iv. 8). And this,

along with the impression which Rahab declared that the Exodus and what

followed it had made, may help us to understand what a mighty influence

upon the wars of Palestine the scourging of Egypt had, how terror fell

upon all the inhabitants of the land, and they melted away (Josh. ii. 9,

10).

And perhaps it may save us from the unconscious egoism which always

deems that I myself shall not be treated quite as severely as I deserve,

to mark how the punishment of one affects the interests of all.

Added to all this is a kind of half-ironical clemency, an opportunity

of escape if he would humble himself so far as to take warning even to a

small extent. The plague was to be of a kind especially rare in Egypt,

and of utterly unknown severity--such hail as had not been in Egypt

since the day it was founded until now. But he and his people might, if

they would, hasten to bring in their cattle and all that they had in the

field. Pharaoh, after his sore experience of the threats of Moses, would

find it a hard trial in any case, whether to withdraw his property or to

brave the stroke. To him it was a kind of challenge. To those of his

subjects who had any proper feeling it was a merciful deliverance, and a

profoundly skilful education of their faith, which began by an obedience

probably hesitating, but had few doubts upon the morrow. We read that he

who feared the Lord among the servants of Pharaoh made his servants and

his cattle flee into the houses; and this is the first hint that the

plagues, viewed as discipline, were not utterly vain. The existence of

others who feared Jehovah beside the Jews prepares us for the "mixed

multitude" who came up along with them (xii. 38), and whose

ill-instructed and probably very selfish adhesion was quite consistent

with such sensual discontent as led the whole congregation into sin

(Num. xi. 4).

To make the connection between Jehovah and the impending storm more

obvious still, Moses stretched his rod toward heaven, and there was

hail, and fire mingled with the hail, such as slew man and beast, and

smote the trees, and destroyed all the vegetation which had yet grown

up. The heavens, the atmosphere, were now enrolled in the conspiracy

against Pharaoh: they too served Jehovah.

In such a storm, the terror was even greater than the peril. When a

great writer of our own time called attention to the elaborate machinery

by which God in nature impresses man with the sense of a formidable

power above, he chose a thunderstorm as the most striking example of his

meaning.

"Nothing appears to me more remarkable than the array of scenic

magnificence by which the imagination is appalled, in myriads of

instances when the actual danger is comparatively small; so that the

utmost possible impression of awe shall be produced upon the minds of

all, though direct suffering is inflicted upon few. Consider, for

instance, the moral effect of a single thunderstorm. Perhaps two or

three persons may be struck dead within a space of a hundred square

miles; and their death, unaccompanied by the scenery of the storm, would

produce little more than a momentary sadness in the busy hearts of

living men. But the preparation for the judgment, by all that mighty

gathering of the clouds; by the questioning of the forest leaves, in

their terrified stillness, which way the winds shall go forth; by the

murmuring to each other, deep in the distance, of the destroying angels

before they draw their swords of fire; by the march of the funeral

darkness in the midst of the noonday, and the rattling of the dome of

heaven beneath the chariot wheels of death;--on how many minds do not

these produce an impression almost as great as the actual witnessing of

the fatal issue! and how strangely are the expressions of the

threatening elements fitted to the apprehensions of the human soul! The

lurid colour, the long, irregular, convulsive sound, the ghastly shapes

of flaming and heaving cloud, are all true and faithful in their appeal

to our instinct of danger."--Ruskin, _Stones of Venice_, III. 197-8.

Such a tempest, dreadful anywhere, would be most appalling of all in the

serene atmosphere of Egypt, to unaccustomed spectators, and minds

troubled by their guilt. Accordingly we find that Pharaoh was less

terrified by the absolute mischief done than by the "voices of God,"

when, unnerved for the moment, he confessed at least that he had sinned

"this time" (a singularly weak repentance for his long and daring

resistance, even if we explain it, "this time I confess that I have

sinned"), and went on in his terror to pour out orthodox phrases and

professions with suspicious fluency. The main point was the bargain

which he proposed: "Intreat the Lord, for there hath been enough of

mighty thunderings and hail; and I will let you go, and ye shall stay no

longer."

Looking attentively at all this, we discern in it a sad resemblance to

some confessions of these latter days. Men are driven by affliction to

acknowledge God: they confess the offence which is palpable, and even

add that God is righteous and that they are not. If possible, they

shelter themselves from lonely condemnation by general phrases, such as

that all are wicked; just as Pharaoh, although he would have scoffed at

the notion of any national volition except his own, said, "I and my

people are sinners." Above all, they are much more anxious for the

removal of the rod than for the cleansing of the guilt; and if this can

be accomplished through the mediation of another, they have as little

desire as Pharaoh had for any personal approach to God, Whom they fear,

and if possible repel.

And by these signs, every experienced observer expects that if they are

delivered out of trouble they will forget their vows.

Moses was exceedingly meek. And therefore, or else because the message

of God implied that other plagues were to succeed this, he consented to

intercede, yet adding the simple and dignified protest, "As for thee and

thy people, I know that ye will not yet fear Jehovah God."[17] And so it

came to pass. The heart of Pharaoh was made heavy, and he would not let

Israel go.

Looking back upon this miracle, we are reminded of the mighty part which

atmospheric changes have played in the history of the world. Snowstorms

saved Europe from the Turk and from Napoleon: the wind played almost as

important a part in our liberation from James, and again in the defeat

of the plans of the French Revolution to invade us, as in the

destruction of the Armada. And so we read, "Hast thou entered the

treasuries of the snow? or hast thou seen the treasuries of the hail,

which I have reserved against the time of trouble, against the day of

battle and war?" (Job xxxviii. 22-3).

FOOTNOTES:

[16] The passage in Deuteronomy had not this event specially in mind, or

it would have used the same term for a furnace. The word for ashes

implies what can be blown upon the wind.

[17] Except in one passage (Gen. ii. 4 to iii. 23) these titles of Deity

are nowhere else combined in the books of Moses.

CHAPTER X.

_THE EIGHTH PLAGUE._

x. 1-20.

The Lord would not command His servant again to enter the dangerous

presence of the sullen prince, without a reason which would sustain his

faith: "For I have made heavy his heart." The pronoun is emphatic: it

means to say, 'His foolhardiness is My doing and cannot go beyond My

will: thou art safe.' And the same encouragement belongs to all who do

the sacred will: not a hair of their head shall truly perish, since life

and death are the servants of their God. Thus, in the storm of human

passion, as of the winds, He says, "It is I, be not afraid"; making the

wrath of man to praise Him, stilling alike the tumult of the waves and

the madness of the people.

It is possible that even the merciful mitigations of the last plague

were used by infatuated hearts to justify their wilfulness: the most

valuable crops of all had escaped; so that these judgments, however

dire, were not quite beyond endurance. Just such a course of reasoning

deludes all who forget that the goodness of God leadeth to repentance.

Besides the reasons already given for lengthening out the train of

judgments, it is added that Israel should teach the story to posterity,

and both fathers and children should "know that I am Jehovah."

Accordingly it became a favourite title--"The Lord which brought thee up

out of the land of Egypt." Even the apostates under Sinai would not

reject so illustrious a memory: their feast was nominally to Jehovah;

and their idol was an image of "the gods which brought thee up out of

the land of Egypt" (xxxii. 4, 5).

Has _our_ land no deliverances for which to be thankful? Instead of

boastful self-assertion, should we not say, "We have heard with our

ears, O God, and our fathers have declared unto us, the noble works that

Thou didst in their days and in the old time before them?" Have we

forgotten that national mercies call aloud for national thanksgiving?

And in the family, and in the secret life of each, are there no rescues,

no emancipations, no enemies overcome by a hand not our own, which call

for reverent acknowledgment? "These things were our examples, and are

written for our admonition."

The reproof now spoken to Pharaoh is sterner than any previous one.

There is no reasoning in it. The demand is peremptory: "How long wilt

thou refuse to humble thyself?" With it is a sharp and short command:

"Let My people go, that they may serve Me." And with this is a detailed

and tremendous threat. It is strange, in the face of the knowledge

accumulated since the objection called for it, to remember that once

this narrative was challenged, because locusts, it was said, are unknown

in Egypt. They are mentioned in the inscriptions. Great misery was

caused by them in 1463, and just three hundred years later Niebuhr was

himself at Cairo during a plague of them. Equally arbitrary is the

objection that Joel predicted locusts "such as there hath not been ever

the like, neither shall be any more after them, even to the years of

many generations" (ii. 2), whereas we read of these that "before them

there were no such locusts as they, neither after them shall be such"

(x. 14). The objection is whimsical in its absurdity, when we remember

that Joel spoke distinctly of Zion and the holy mountain (ii. 1), and

Exodus of "the borders of Egypt" (x. 14).

But it is true that locusts are comparatively rare in Egypt; so that

while the meaning of the threat would be appreciated, familiarity would

not have steeled them against it. The ravages of the locust are terrible

indeed, and coming just in time to ruin the crops which had escaped the

hail, would complete the misery of the land.

One speaks of the sudden change of colour by the disappearance of

verdure where they alight as being like the rolling up of a carpet; and

here we read "they shall cover the eye of the earth,"--a phrase peculiar

to the Pentateuch (ver. 15; Num. xxii. 5, 11); "and they shall eat the

residue of that which has escaped, ... and they shall fill thy houses,

and the ... houses of all the Egyptians, which neither thy fathers nor

thy fathers' fathers have seen."

After uttering the appointed warning, Moses abruptly left, awaiting no

negociations, plainly regarding them as vain.

But now, for the first time, the servants of Pharaoh interfered,

declared the country to be ruined, and pressed him to surrender. And yet

it was now first that we read (ver. 1) that their hearts were hardened

as well as his. For that is a hard heart that does not remonstrate

against wrong, however plainly God reveals His displeasure, until new

troubles are at hand, and which even then has no regard for the wrongs

of Israel, but only for the woes of Egypt. It is a hard heart,

therefore, which intends to repent upon its deathbed; for its motives

are identical with these.

Pharaoh's behaviour is that of a spoiled child, who is indeed the tyrant

most familiar to us. He feels that he must yield, or else why should the

brothers be recalled? And yet, when it comes to the point, he tries to

play the master still, by dictating the terms for his own surrender; and

breaks off the negociation rather than do frankly what he must feel that

it is necessary to do. Moses laid his finger accurately upon the disease

when he reproached him for refusing to humble himself. And if his

behaviour seem unnatural, it is worth observation that Napoleon, the

greatest modern example of proud, intellectual, godless infatuation,

allowed himself to be crushed at Leipsic through just the same

reluctance to do thoroughly and without self-deception what he found it

necessary to consent to do. "Napoleon," says his apologist, Thiers, "at

length determined to retreat--a resolution humbling to his pride.

Unfortunately, instead of a retreat frankly admitted ... he determined

on one which from its imposing character should not be a real retreat at

all, and should be accomplished in open day." And this perversity, which

ruined him, is traced back to "the illusions of pride."

Well, it was quite as hard for the Pharaoh to surrender at discretion,

as for the Corsican to stoop to a nocturnal retreat. Accordingly, he

asks, "Who are ye that shall go?" and when Moses very explicitly and

resolutely declares that they will all go, with all their property, his

passion overcomes him, he feels that to consent is to lose them for

ever, and he exclaims, "So be Jehovah with you as I will let you go and

your little ones: look to it, for evil is before you"--that is to say,

Your intentions are bad. "Go ye that are men, and serve the Lord, for

that is what ye desire,"--no more than that is implied in your demand,

unless it is a mere pretence, under which more lurks than it avows.

But he and they have long been in a state of war: menaces, submissions,

and treacheries have followed each other fast, and he has no reason to

complain if their demands are raised. Moreover, his own nation

celebrated religious festivals in company with their wives and children,

so that his rejoinder is an empty outburst of rage. And of a Jewish

feast it was said, a little later, "Thou shalt rejoice before the Lord

thy God, thou and thy son and thy daughter, and thy manservant and thy

maidservant ... and the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow"

(Deut. xvi. 11). There was no insincerity in the demand; and although

the suspicions of the king were naturally excited by the exultant and

ever-rising hopes of the Hebrews, and the defiant attitude of Moses, yet

even now there is as little reason to suspect bad faith as to suppose

that Israel, once released, could ever have resumed the same abject

attitude toward Egypt as before. They would have come back victorious,

and therefore ready to formulate new demands; already half emancipated,

and therefore prepared for the perfecting of the work.

And now, at a second command as explicit as that which bade him utter

the warning, Moses, anxiously watched by many, stretched out his hand

over the devoted realm. At the gesture, the spectators felt that a fiat

had gone forth. But the result was strangely different from that which

followed his invocation, both of the previous and the following plague,

when we may believe that as he raised his hand, the hail-storm burst in

thunder, and the curtain fell upon the sky. Now there only arose a

gentle east wind (unlike the "exceeding strong west wind" that

followed), but it blew steadily all that day and all the following

night. The forebodings of Egypt would understand it well: the prolonged

period during which the curse was being steadily wafted toward them was

an awful measure of the wide regions over which the power of Jehovah

reached; and when it was morning, the east wind brought the locusts,

that dreadful curse which Joel has compared to a disciplined and

devastating invader, "the army of the Lord," and the first woe that

heralds the Day of the Lord in the Apocalypse (Joel ii. 1-11; Rev. ix.

1-11).

The completeness of the ruin brought a swift surrender, but it has been

well said that folly is the wisdom which is only wise too late, and, let

us add, too fitfully. If Pharaoh had only submitted before the plague

instead of after it![18] If he had only respected himself enough to be

faithful, instead of being too vain really to yield!

It is an interesting coincidence that, since he had this time defied the

remonstrances of his advisers, his confession of sin is entirely

personal: it is no longer, "I and my people are sinners," but "I have

sinned against the Lord your God, and against you." This last clause was

bitter to his lips, but the need for their intercession was urgent:

life and death were at stake upon the removal of this dense cloud of

creatures which penetrated everywhere, leaving everywhere an evil odour,

and of which a later sufferer complains, "We could not eat, but we bit a

locust; nor open our mouths, but locusts filled them."

Therefore he went on to entreat volubly, "Forgive, I pray thee, my sin

only this once, and intreat Jehovah your God that He may take away from

me this death only."

And at the prayer of Moses, the Lord caused the breeze to veer and rise

into a hurricane: "The Lord turned an exceeding strong west wind." Now,

the locust can float very well upon an easy breeze, and so it had been

wafted over the Red Sea; but it is at once beaten down by a storm, and

when it touches the water it is destroyed. Thus simply was the plague

removed.

"But the Lord made strong Pharaoh's heart," and so, his fears being

conquered, his own rebellious will went on upon its evil way. He would

not let Israel go.

This narrative throws light upon a thousand vows made upon sick beds,

but broken when the sufferer recovers; and a thousand prayers for

amendment, breathed in all the sincerity of panic, and forgotten with

all the levity of security. It shows also, in the hesitating and

abortive half-submission of the tyrant, the greater folly of many

professing Christians, who will, for Christ's sake, surrender all their

sins except one or two, and make any confession except that which really

brings low their pride.

Thoroughness, decision, depth, and self-surrender, needed by Pharaoh,

are needed by every soul of man.

THE NINTH PLAGUE.

x. 21-29.

We have taken it as settled that the Pharaoh of the Exodus was

Menephtah, the Beloved of the God Ptah. If so, his devotion to the gods

throws a curious light upon his first scorn of Jehovah, and his long

continued resistance; and also upon the threat of vengeance to be

executed upon the gods of Egypt, as if they were a resisting power. But

there is a special significance in the ninth plague, when we connect it

with Menephtah.

In the Tombs of the Kings at Thebes there is to be seen, fresh and

lifelike, the admirably sculptured effigy of this king--a weak and cruel

face, with the receding forehead of his race, but also their nose like a

beak, and their sharp chin. Over his head is the inscription--

"Lord of the Two Lands, Beloved of the God Amen;

Lord of Diadems, Beloved of the God Ptah:

Crowned by Amen with dominion of the world:

Cherished by the Sun in the great abode."

This formidable personage is delineated by the court sculptor with his

hand stretched out in worship, and under it is written "He adores the

Sun: he worships Hor of the solar horizons."

The worship, thus chosen as the most characteristic of this king, either

by himself or by some consummate artist, was to be tested now.

Could the sun help him? or was it, like so many minor forces of earth

and air, at the mercy of the God of Israel?

There is a terrible abruptness about the coming of the ninth plague.

Like the third and sixth, it is inflicted unannounced; and the

parleying, the driving of a bargain and then breaking it, by which the

eighth was attended, is quite enough to account for this. Moreover, the

experience of every man teaches him that each method has its own

impressiveness: the announcement of punishment awes, and a surprise

alarms, and when they are alternated, every possible door of access to

the conscience is approached. If the heart of Pharaoh was now beyond

hope, it does not follow that all his people were equally hardened. What

an effect was produced upon those courtiers who so earnestly supported

the recent demand of Moses, when this new plague fell upon them

unawares!

But not only is there no announcement: the narrative is so concentrated

and brief as to give a graphic rendering of the surprise and terror of

the time. Not a word is wasted:--

"The Lord said unto Moses, Stretch out thine hand toward heaven, that

there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, even darkness that may be

felt. And Moses stretched forth his hand toward heaven; and there was a

thick darkness in all the land of Egypt three days: they saw not one

another, neither rose any from his place three days; but all the

children of Israel had light in their dwellings" (vers. 21-3). We are

not told anything of the emotions of the king, as the prophet strides

into his presence, and before the cowering court, silently raises his

hand and quenches the day. We may infer his temper, if we please, from

the frantic outbreak of menace and rage in which he presently warns the

man whose coming is the same thing as calamity to see his face no more.

Nothing is said, again, about the evil angels by which, according to

later narratives, that long night was haunted.[19] And after all it is

more impressive to think of the blank, utter paralysis of dread in which

a nation held its breath, benumbed and motionless, until vitality was

almost exhausted, and even Pharaoh chose rather to surrender than to

die.

As the people lay cowering in their fear, there was plenty to occupy

their minds. They would remember the first dreadful threat, not yet

accomplished, to slay their firstborn; and the later assertion that if

pestilence had not destroyed them, it was because God would plague them

with all His plagues. They would reflect upon all their defeated duties,

and how the sun himself was now withdrawn at the waving of the prophet's

hand. And then a ghastly foreboding would complete their dread. What was

it that darkness typified, in every Oriental nation--nay, in all the

world? Death! Job speaks of

"The land of darkness and of the shadow of death;

A land of thick darkness, as darkness itself;

A land of the shadow of death without any order,

And where the light is as darkness" (x. 21, 22).

With us, a mortal sentence is given in a black cap; in the East, far

more expressively, the head of the culprit was covered, and the darkness

which thus came upon him expressed his doom. Thus "they covered Haman's

face" (Esther vii. 8). Thus to destroy "the face of the covering that is

cast over all peoples and the veil that is spread over all nations," is

the same thing as to "swallow up death," being the visible destruction

of the embodied death-sentence (Isa. xxv. 7, 8). And now this veil was

spread over all the radiant land of Egypt. Chill, and hungry, and afraid

to move, the worst horror of all that prolonged midnight was the mental

agony of dire anticipation.

In other respects there had been far worse calamities, but through its

effect upon the imagination this dreadful plague was a fit prelude to

the tenth, which it hinted and premonished.

In the Apocryphal Book of Wisdom there is a remarkable study of this

plague, regarded as retribution in kind. It avenges the oppression of

Israel. "For when unrighteous men thought to oppress the holy nation,

they being shut up in their houses, the prisoners of darkness, and

fettered with the bonds of a long night, lay exiled from the eternal

Providence" (xvii. 2). It expresses in the physical realm their

spiritual misery: "For while they supposed to lie hid in their secret

sins, they were scattered under a thick veil of forgetfulness" (ver. 3).

It retorted on them the illusions of their sorcerers: "as for the

illusions of art magick, they were put down.... For they, that promised

to drive away terrors and troubles from a sick soul, were sick

themselves of fear, worthy to be laughed at" (vers. 7, 8). In another

place the Egyptians are declared to be worse than the men of Sodom,

because they brought into bondage friends and not strangers, and

grievously afflicted those whom they had received with feasting;

"therefore even with blindness were these stricken, as those were at the

doors of the righteous man." (xix. 14-17). And we may well believe that

the long night was haunted with special terrors, if we add this wise

explanation: "For wickedness, condemned by her own witness, is very

timorous, and being pressed by conscience, always forecasteth grievous

things. For"--and this is a sentence of transcendent merit--"fear is

nothing else than a betrayal of the succours that reason offereth"

(xvii. 11, 12). Therefore it is concluded that their own hearts were

their worst tormentors, alarmed by whistling winds, or melodious song of

birds, or pleasing fall of waters, "for the whole world shined with

clear light, and none were hindered in their labour: over them only was

spread a heavy night, an image of that darkness which should afterward

receive them: yet were they unto themselves more grievous than the

darkness" (vers. 20, 21).

Isaiah, too, who is full of allusions to the early history of his

people, finds in this plague of darkness an image of all mental distress

and spiritual gloom. "We look for light, but behold darkness; for

brightness, but we walk in obscurity: we grope for the wall like the

blind, yea, we grope as those that have no eyes: we stumble at noonday

as in the twilight" (lix. 10). Here the sinful nation is reduced to the

misery of Egypt. But if she were obedient she would enjoy all the

immunities of her forefathers amid Egyptian gloom: "Then shall thy light

rise in darkness and thy obscurity as the noonday" (lviii. 10);

"Darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people, but the

Lord shall arise upon thee, and His glory shall be seen upon thee" (lx.

2).

And, indeed, in the spiritual light which is sown for the righteous, and

the obscuration of the judgment of the impure, this miracle is ever

reproduced.

The history of Menephtah is that of a mean and cowardly prince. Dreams

forbade him to share the perils of his army; a prophecy induced him to

submit to exile, until his firstborn was of age to recover his dominions

for him; and all we know of him is admirably suited to the character

represented in this narrative. He will now submit once more, and this

time every one shall go; yet he cannot make a frank concession: the

flocks and herds (most valuable after the ravages of the murrain and the

hail) must remain as a hostage for their return. But Moses is

inflexible: not a hoof shall be left behind; and then the frenzy of a

baffled autocrat breaks out into wild menaces; "Get thee from me; take

heed to thyself; see my face no more; for in the day thou seest my face

thou shalt die." The assent of Moses was grim: the rupture was complete.

And when they once more met, it was the king that had changed his

purpose, and on his face, not that of Moses, was the pallor of impending

death.

In the conduct of the prophet, all through these stormy scenes, we see

the difference between a meek spirit and a craven one. He was always

ready to intercede; he never "reviles the ruler," nor transgresses the

limits of courtesy toward his superior in rank; and yet he never

falters, nor compromises, nor fails to represent worthily the awful

Power he represents.

In the series of sharp contrasts, all the true dignity is with the

servant of God, all the meanness and the shame with the proud king, who

begins by insulting him, goes on to impose on him, and ends by the most

ignominious of surrenders, crowned with the most abortive of treacheries

and the most abject of defeats.

FOOTNOTES:

[18] Oddly enough, the same historian already quoted, relating the story

of the same day at Leipsic, says of Napoleon's dialogue with M. de

Merfeld, that he "used an expression which, if uttered at the Congress

of Prague, would have changed his lot and ours. Unfortunately, it was

now too late."

[19] Such is probably not the meaning in Ps. lxxviii. 49 (see R.V.),

though from it the tradition may have sprung.

CHAPTER XI.

_THE LAST PLAGUE ANNOUNCED._

xi. 1-10.

The eleventh chapter is, strictly speaking, a supplement to the tenth:

the first verses speak, as if in parenthesis, of a revelation made

before the ninth plague, but held over to be mentioned in connection

with the last, which it now announces; and the conversation with Pharaoh

is a continuation of the same in which they mutually resolved to see

each other's face no more. To account for the confidence of Moses, we

are now told that God had revealed to him the close approach of the

final blow, so long foreseen. In spite of seeming delays, the hour of

the promise had arrived; in spite of his long reluctance, the king

should even thrust them out; and then the order and discipline of their

retreat would exhibit the advantages gained by expectation, by promises

ofttimes disappointed, but always, like a false alarm which tries the

readiness of a garrison, exhibiting the weak points in their

organisation, and carrying their preparations farther.

The command given already to the women (iii. 22) is now extended to them

all--that they should ask of the terror-stricken people such portable

things as, however precious, poorly requited their generations of unpaid

and cruel toil. (It has been already shown that the word absurdly

rendered "borrow" means to ask; and is the same as when Sisera _asked_

water and Jael gave him milk, and when Solomon _asked_ wisdom, and did

not _ask_ long life, neither _asked_ riches, neither _asked_ the life of

his enemies.) They were now to claim such wages as they could carry off,

and thus the pride of Egypt was presently dedicated to construct and

beautify the tabernacle of Jehovah. We read that the people found favour

with the Egyptians, who were doubtless overjoyed to come to any sort of

terms with them; "moreover the man Moses was very great in the land of

Egypt, in the sight of Pharaoh's servants, and in the sight of the

people." This is no unbecoming vaunt: it speaks only of the high place

he held, as God's deputy and herald; and this tone of keen appreciation

of the rank conceded him, compared with the utter absence of any

insistence upon any action of his own, is evidence much rather of the

authenticity of the work than the reverse.

By these demands expectation and faith were intensified; while the

tidings of such confidence on one side, and such tame submission on the

other, goes far to explain the suspicions and the rage of Pharaoh.

With this the narrative is resumed. Moses had said, "Thou shalt see my

face no more." Now he adds, "Thus saith Jehovah, About midnight" (but

not on that same night, since four days of preparation for the passover

were yet to come) "I will go out into the midst of Egypt." This, then,

was the meaning of his ready consent to be seen no more: Jehovah

Himself, Who had dealt so dreadfully with them through other hands, was

now Himself to come. "And all the firstborn of Egypt shall die," from

the firstborn and viceroy of the king to the firstborn of the meanest of

women, and even of the cattle in their stalls. (It is surely a

remarkable coincidence that Menephtah's heroic son did actually sit

upon his throne, that inscriptions engraven during his life exhibit his

name in the royal cartouche, but that he perished early, and long before

his father.) And the wail of demonstrative Oriental agony should be such

as never was heard before. But the children of Israel should be

distinguished and protected by their God. And all these courtiers should

come and bow down before Moses (who even then has the good feeling not

to include the king himself in this abasement), and instead of Pharaoh's

insulting "Get thee from me--see my face no more," they should pray him

saying, "Go hence, thou and thy people that follow thee." And

remembering the abject entreaties, the infatuated treacheries, and now

this crowning insult, he went out from Pharaoh in hot anger. He was

angry and sinned not.

The ninth and tenth verses are a kind of summary: the appeals to Pharaoh

are all over, and henceforth we shall find Moses preparing his own

followers for their exodus. "And the Lord (had) said unto Moses, Pharaoh

will not hearken unto you, that My wonders may be multiplied in the land

of Egypt. And Moses and Aaron did all these wonders before Pharaoh; and

the Lord made strong Pharaoh's heart, and he did not let the children of

Israel go out of his land."

In the Gospel of St. John there comes just such a period. The record of

miracle and controversy is at an end, and Jesus withdraws into the bosom

of His intimate circle. It is scarcely possible that the evangelist was

unconscious of the influence of this passage when he wrote: "But though

He had done so many signs before them, yet they believed not on Him,

that the word of Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled which he spoke,

Lord, who hath believed our report?... For this cause they could not

believe, because that Isaiah said again, He hath blinded their eyes and

hardened their heart, lest they should see with their eyes and perceive

with their heart, and should turn, and I should heal them" (John xii.

37-40).

This is the tragedy of Egypt repeated in Israel; and the fact that the

chosen seed is now the reprobate suffices, if any doubt remain, to prove

that reprobation itself was not caprice, but retribution.

CHAPTER XII.

_THE PASSOVER._

xii. 1-28.

We have now reached the birthday of the great Hebrew nation, and with it

the first national institution, the feast of passover, which is also the

first sacrifice of directly Divine institution, the earliest precept of

the Hebrew legislation, and the only one given in Egypt.

The Jews had by this time learned to feel that they were a nation, if it

were only through the struggle between their champion and the head of

the greatest nation in the world. And the first aspect in which the

feast of passover presents itself is that of a national commemoration.

This day was to be unto them the beginning of months; and in the change

of their calendar to celebrate their emancipation, the device was

anticipated by which France endeavoured to glorify the Revolution. All

their reckoning was to look back to this signal event. "And this day

shall be unto you for a memorial, and ye shall keep it for a feast unto

the Lord; throughout your generations ye shall keep it a feast by an

ordinance for ever" (xii. 14). "It shall be for a sign unto thee upon

thine hand, and for a memorial between thine eyes, that the law of the

Lord may be in thy mouth, for with a strong hand hath the Lord brought

thee out of Egypt. Thou shalt therefore keep this ordinance in its

season from year to year" (xiii. 9, 10).

Now for the first time we read of "the congregation of Israel" (xii. 3,

6), which was an assembly of the people represented by their elders (as

may be seen by comparing the third verse with the twenty-first); and

thus we discover that the "heads of houses" have been drawn into a

larger unity. The clans are knit together into a nation.

Accordingly, the feast might not be celebrated by any solitary man.

Companionship was vital to it. At every table one animal, complete and

undissevered, should give to the feast a unity of sentiment; and as many

should gather around as were likely to leave none of it uneaten. Neither

might any of it be reserved to supply a hasty ration amid the confusion

of the predicted march. The feast was to be one complete event, whole

and perfect as the unity which it expressed. The very notion of a people

is that of "community" in responsibilities, joys, and labours; and the

solemn law by virtue of which, at this same hour, one blow will fall

upon all Egypt, must now be accepted by Israel. Therefore loneliness at

the feast of Passover is by the law, as well as in idea, impossible to

any Jew. Every one can see the connection between this festival of unity

and another, of which it is written, "We, being many, are one body, one

loaf, for we are all partakers of that one loaf."

Now, the sentiment of nationality may so assert itself, like all

exaggerated sentiments, as to assail others equally precious. In this

century we have seen a revival of the Spartan theories which sacrificed

the family to the state. Socialism and the _phalanstère_ have proposed

to do by public organisation, with the force of law, what natural

instinct teaches us to leave to domestic influences. It is therefore

worthy of notice that, as the chosen nation is carefully traced by

revelation back to a holy family, so the national festival did not

ignore the family tie, but consecrated it. The feast was to be eaten

"according to their fathers' houses"; if a family were too small, it was

to the "neighbour next unto his house" that each should turn for

co-operation; and the patriotic celebration was to live on from age to

age by the instruction which parents should carefully give their

children (xii. 3, 26, xiii. 8).

The first ordinance of the Jewish religion was a domestic service. And

this arrangement is divinely wise. Never was a nation truly prosperous

or permanently strong which did not cherish the sanctities of home.

Ancient Rome failed to resist the barbarians, not because her discipline

had degenerated, but because evil habits in the home had ruined her

population. The same is notoriously true of at least one great nation

to-day. History is the sieve of God, in which He continually severs the

chaff from the grain of nations, preserving what is temperate and pure

and calm, and therefore valorous and wise.

In studying the institution of the Passover, with its profound typical

analogies, we must not overlook the simple and obvious fact that God

built His nation upon families, and bade their great national

institution draw the members of each home together.

The national character of the feast is shown further because no Egyptian

family escaped the blow. Opportunities had been given to them to evade

some of the previous plagues. When the hail was announced, "he that

feared the word of the Lord among the servants of Pharaoh made his

servants and his cattle flee into the house"; and this renders the

national solidarity, the partnership even of the innocent in the

penalties of a people's guilt, the 'community' of a nation, more

apparent now. There was not a house where there was not one dead. The

mixed multitude which came up with Israel came not because they had

shared his exemptions, but because they dared not stay. It was an

object-lesson given to Israel, which might have warned all his

generations.

And if there is hideous vice in our own land to-day, or if the contrasts

of poverty and wealth are so extreme that humanity is shocked by so much

luxury insulting so much squalor,--if in any respect we feel that our

own land, considering its supreme advantages, merits the wrath of God

for its unworthiness,--then we have to fear and strive, not through

public spirit alone, but as knowing that the chastisement of nations

falls upon the corporate whole, upon us and upon our children.

But if the feast of the Passover was a commemoration, it also claims to

be a sacrifice, and the first sacrifice which was Divinely founded and

directed.

This brings us face to face with the great question, What is the

doctrine which lies at the heart of the great institution of sacrifice?

We are not free to confine its meaning altogether to that which was

visible at the time. This would contradict the whole doctrine of

development, the intention of God that Christianity should blossom from

the bud of Judaism, and the explicit assertion that the prophets were

made aware that the full meaning and the date of what they uttered was

reserved for the instruction of a later period (1 Peter i. 12).

But neither may we overlook the first palpable significance of any

institution. Sacrifices never could have been devised to be a blind and

empty pantomime to whole generations, for the benefit of their

successors. Still less can one who believes in a genuine revelation to

Moses suppose that their primary meaning was a false one, given in order

that some truth might afterwards develop out of it.

What, then, might a pious and well-instructed Israelite discern beneath

the surface of this institution?

To this question there have been many discordant answers, and the

variance is by no means confined to unbelieving critics. Thus, a

distinguished living expositor says in connection with the Paschal

institution, "We speak not of blood as it is commonly understood, but of

blood as the life, the love, the heart,--the whole quality of Deity."

But it must be answered that Deity is the last suggestion which blood

would convey to a Jewish mind: distinctly it is creature-life that it

expresses; and the New Testament commentators make it plain that no

other notion had even then evolved itself: they think of the offering of

the Body of Jesus Christ, not of His Deity.[20] Neither of this feast,

nor of that which the gospel of Jesus has evolved from it, can we find

the solution by forgetting that the elements of the problem are, not

deity, but a Body and Blood.

But when we approach the theories of rationalistic thinkers, we find a

perfect chaos of rival speculations.

We are told that the Hebrew feasts were really agricultural--"Harvest

festivals," and that the epithet Passover had its origin in the passage

of the sun into Aries. But this great festival had a very secondary and

subordinate connection with harvest (only the waving of a sheaf upon the

second day) while the older calendar which was displaced to do it honour

was truly agricultural, as may still be seen by the phrase, "The feast

of ingathering _at the end of the year_, when thou gatherest in thy

labours out of the field" (Exod. xxiii. 16).

In dealing with unbelief we must look at things from the unbelieving

angle of vision. No sceptical theory has any right to invoke for its

help a special and differentiating quality in Hebrew thought. Reject the

supernatural, and the Jewish religion is only one among a number of

similar creations of the mind of man "moving about in worlds

unrecognised." And therefore we must ask, What notions of sacrifice were

entertained, all around, when the Hebrew creed was forming itself?

Now, we read that "in the early days ... a sacrifice was a meal.... Year

after year, the return of vintage, corn-harvest, and sheep-shearing

brought together the members of the household to eat and drink in the

presence of Jehovah.... When an honoured guest arrives there is

slaughtered for him a calf, not without an offering of the blood and fat

to the Deity" (Wellhausen, _Israel_, p. 76). Of the sense of sin and

propitiation "the ancient sacrifices present few traces.... An

underlying reference of sacrifice to sin, speaking generally, was

entirely absent. The ancient sacrifices were wholly of a joyous

nature--a merry-making before Jehovah with music" (_ibid._, p. 81).

We are at once confronted by the question, Where did the Jewish nation

come by such a friendly conception of their deity? They had come out of

Egypt, where human sacrifices were not rare. They had settled in

Palestine, where such idyllic notions must have been as strange as in

modern Ashantee. And we are told that human sacrifices (such as that of

Isaac and of Jephthah's daughter) belong to this older period (p. 69).

Are _they_ joyous and festive? are they not an endeavour, by the

offering up of something precious, to reconcile a Being Who is

estranged? With our knowledge of what existed in Israel in the period

confessed to be historical, and of the meaning of sacrifices all around

in the period supposed to be mythical, and with the admission that human

sacrifices must be taken into account, it is startling to be asked to

believe that Hebrew sacrifices, with all their solemn import and all

their freight of Christian symbolism, were originally no more than a

gift to the Deity of a part of some happy banquet.

It is quite plain that no such theory can be reconciled with the story

of the first passover. And accordingly this is declared to be

non-historical, and to have originated in the time of the later kings.

The offering of the firstborn is only "the expression of thankfulness to

the Deity for fruitful flocks and herds. If claim is also laid to the

human firstborn, this is merely a later generalisation" (Wellhausen, p.

88).[21]

But this claim is by no means the only stumbling-block in the way of the

theory, serious a stumbling-block though it be. How came the bright

festival to be spoiled by bitter herbs and "bread of affliction"? Is it

natural that a merry feast should grow more austere as time elapses? Do

we not find it hard enough to prevent the most sacred festivals from

reversing the supposed process, and degenerating into revels? And is not

this the universal experience, from San Francisco to Bombay? Why was the

mandate given to sprinkle the door of every house with blood, if the

story originated after the feast had been centralised in Jerusalem,

when, in fact, this precept had to be set aside as impracticable, their

homes being at a distance? Why, again, were they bidden to slaughter the

lamb "between the two evenings" (Exod. xii. 6)--that is to say, between

sunset and the fading out of the light--unless the story was written

long before such numbers had to be dealt with that the priests began to

slaughter early in the afternoon, and continued until night? Why did the

narrative set forth that every man might slaughter for his own house (a

custom which still existed in the time of Hezekiah, when the Levites

only slaughtered "the passovers" for those who were not ceremonially

clean, 2 Chron. xxx. 17), if there were no stout and strong historical

foundation for the older method?

Stranger still, why was the original command invented, that the lamb

should be chosen and separated four days before the feast? There is no

trace of any intention that this precept should apply to the first

passover alone. It is somewhat unexpected there, interrupting the hurry

and movement of the narrative with an interval of quiet expectation, not

otherwise hinted at, which we comprehend and value when discovered,

rather than anticipate in advance. It is the very last circumstance

which the Priestly Code would have invented, when the time which could

be conveniently spent upon a pilgrimage was too brief to suffer the

custom to be perpetuated. The selection of the lamb upon the tenth day,

the slaying of it at home, the striking of the blood upon the door, and

the use of hyssop, as in other sacrifices, with which to sprinkle it,

whether upon door or altar; the eating of the feast standing, with staff

in hand and girded loins; the application only to one day of the precept

to eat no leavened bread, and the sharing in the feast by all, without

regard to ceremonial defilement,--all these are cardinal differences

between the first passover and later ones. Can we be blind to their

significance? Even a drastic revision of the story, such as some have

fancied, would certainly have expunged every divergence upon points so

capital as these. Nor could any evidence of the antiquity of the

institution be clearer than its existence in a form, the details of

which have had to be so boldly modified under the pressure of the

exigencies of the later time.

Taking, then, the narrative as it stands, we place ourselves by an

effort of the historical imagination among those to whom Moses gave his

instructions, and ask what emotions are excited as we listen.

Certainly no light and joyous feeling that we are going to celebrate a

feast, and share our good things with our deity. Nay, but an alarmed

surprise. Hitherto, among the admonitory and preliminary plagues of

Egypt, Israel had enjoyed a painless and unbought exemption. The murrain

had not slain their cattle, nor the locusts devoured their land, nor the

darkness obscured their dwellings. Such admonitions they needed not. But

now the judgment itself is impending, and they learn that they, like

the Egyptians whom they have begun to despise, are in danger from the

destroying angel. The first paschal feast was eaten by no man with a

light heart. Each listened for the rustling of awful wings, and grew

cold, as under the eyes of the death which was, even then, scrutinising

his lintels and his doorposts.

And this would set him thinking that even a gracious God, Who had "come

down" to save him from his tyrants, discerned in him grave reasons for

displeasure, since his acceptance, while others died, was not of course.

His own conscience would then quickly tell him what some at least of

those reasons were.

But he would also learn that the exemption which he did not possess by

right (although a son of Abraham) he might obtain through grace. The

goodness of God did not pronounce him safe, but it pointed out to him a

way of salvation. He would scarcely observe, so entirely was it a matter

of course, that this way must be of God's appointment and not of his own

invention--that if he devised much more costly, elaborate and imposing

ceremonies to replace those which Moses taught him, he would perish like

any Egyptian who devised nothing, but simply cowered under the shadow of

the impending doom.

Nor was the salvation without price. It was not a prayer nor a fast

which bought it, but a life. The conviction that a redemption was

necessary if God should be at once just and a justifier of the ungodly

sprang neither from a later hairsplitting logic, nor from a methodising

theological science; it really lay upon the very surface of this and

every offering for sin, as distinguished from those offerings which

expressed the gratitude of the accepted.

We have not far to search for evidence that the lamb was really regarded

as a substitute and ransom. The assertion is part and parcel of the

narrative itself. For, in commemoration of this deliverance, every

firstborn of Israel, whether of man or beast, was set apart unto the

Lord. The words are, "Thou shall cause to PASS OVER unto the Lord all

that openeth the womb, and every firstling which thou hast that cometh

of a beast; the males shall be the Lord's" (xiii. 12). What, then,

should be done with the firstborn of a creature unfit for sacrifice? It

should be replaced by a clean offering, and then it was said to be

redeemed. Substitution or death was the inexorable rule. "Every

firstborn of an ass thou shalt redeem with a lamb, and if thou wilt not

redeem it, then thou shalt break its neck." The meaning of this

injunction is unmistakable. But it applies also to man: "All thy

firstborn of man among thy sons thou shalt redeem." And when their sons

should ask "What meaneth this?" they were to explain that when Pharaoh

hardened himself against letting them go from Egypt, "the Lord slew all

the firstborn in the land; ... therefore I sacrifice to the Lord all

that openeth the womb being males; but all the firstborn of my sons I

redeem" (xiii. 12-15).

Words could not more plainly assert that the lives of the firstborn of

Israel were forfeited, that they were bought back by the substitution of

another creature, which died instead, and that the transaction answered

to the Passover ("thou shalt cause to pass over unto the Lord").

Presently the tribe of Levi was taken "instead of all the firstborn of

the children of Israel." But since there were two hundred and

seventy-three of such firstborn children over and above the number of

the Levites, it became necessary to "redeem" these; and this was

actually done by a cash payment of five shekels apiece. Of this payment

the same phrase is used: it is "redemption-money"--the money wherewith

the odd number of them is redeemed (Num. iii. 44-51).

The question at present is not whether modern taste approves of all

this, or resents it: we are simply inquiring whether an ancient Jew was

taught to think of the lamb as offered in his stead.

And now let it be observed that this idea has sunk deep into all the

literature of Palestine. The Jews are not so much the beloved of Jehovah

as His redeemed--"Thy people whom Thou hast redeemed" (1 Chron. xvii.

21). In fresh troubles the prayer is, "Redeem Israel, O Lord" (Ps. xxv.

22), and the same word is often used where we have ignored the allusion

and rendered it "_Deliver_ me because of mine enemies ... _deliver_ me

from the oppression of men" (Ps. lxix. 18, cxix. 134). And the future

troubles are to end in a deliverance of the same kind: "The _ransomed_

of the Lord shall return and come with singing unto Zion" (Isa. xxxv.

10, li. 11); and at the last "I will _ransom_ them from the power of the

grave" (Hos. xiii. 14). In all these places, the word is the same as in

this narrative.

It is not too much to say that if modern theology were not affected by

this ancient problem, if we regarded the creed of the Hebrews simply as

we look at the mythologies of other peoples, there would be no more

doubt that the early Jews believed in propitiatory sacrifice than that

Phoenicians did. We should simply admire the purity, the absence of

cruel and degrading accessories, with which this most perilous and yet

humbling and admonitory doctrine was held in Israel.

The Christian applications of this doctrine must be considered along

with the whole question of the typical character of the history. But it

is not now premature to add, that even in the Old Testament there is

abundant evidence that the types were semi-transparent, and behind them

something greater was discerned, so that after it was written "Bring no

more vain oblations," Isaiah could exclaim, "The Lord hath laid on Him

the iniquity of us all. He was led as a lamb to the slaughter. When Thou

shalt make His soul a trespass-offering He shall see His seed" (Isa. i.

13, liii. 6, 7, 10). And the full power of this last verse will only be

felt when we remember the statement made elsewhere of the principle

which underlay the sacrifices: "the life (_or_ soul) of the flesh is in

the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement

for your souls; for it is the blood that maketh atonement by reason of

the life" (_or_ "soul"--Lev. xvii. 11, R.V.) It is even startling to

read the two verses together: "Thou shalt make His soul a

trespass-offering;" "The blood maketh atonement by reason of the soul

... the soul of the flesh is in the blood."[22]

It is still more impressive to remember that a Servant of Jehovah has

actually arisen in Whom this doctrine has assumed a form acceptable to

the best and holiest intellects and consciences of ages and

civilisations widely remote from that in which it was conceived.

Another doctrine preached by the passover to every Jew was that he must

be a worker together with God, must himself use what the Lord pointed

out, and his own lintels and doorposts must openly exhibit the fact that

he laid claim to the benefit of the institution of the Lord Jehovah's

passover. With what strange feelings, upon the morrow, did the orphaned

people of Egypt discover the stain of blood on the forsaken houses of

all their emancipated slaves!

The lamb having been offered up to God, a new stage in the symbolism is

entered upon. The body of the sacrifice, as well as the blood, is His:

"Ye shall eat it in haste, it is the Lord's passover" (ver. 11). Instead

of being a feast of theirs, which they share with Him, it is an offering

of which, when the blood has been sprinkled on the doors, He permits His

people, now accepted and favoured, to partake. They are His guests; and

therefore He prescribes all the manner of their eating, the attitude so

expressive of haste, and the unleavened "bread of affliction" and bitter

herbs, which told that the object of this feast was not the indulgence

of the flesh but the edification of the spirit, "a feast unto the Lord."

And in the strength of this meat they are launched upon their new

career, freemen, pilgrims of God, from Egyptian bondage to a Promised

Land.

It is now time to examine the chapter in more detail, and gather up such

points as the preceding discussion has not reached.

(Ver. 1.) The opening words, "Jehovah spake unto Moses and Aaron in the

land of Egypt," have all the appearance of opening a separate document,

and suggest, with certain other evidence, the notion of a fragment

written very shortly after the event, and afterwards incorporated into

the present narrative. And they are, in the same degree, favourable to

the authenticity of the book.

(Ver. 2.) The commandment to link their emancipation with a festival,

and with the calendar, is the earliest example and the sufficient

vindication of sacred festivals, which, even yet, some persons consider

to be superstitious and judaical. But it is a strange doctrine that the

Passover deserved honour better than Easter does, or that there is

anything more servile and unchristian in celebrating the birth of all

the hopes of all mankind than in commemorating one's own birth.

(Ver. 5.) The selection of a lamb for a sacrifice so quickly became

universal, that there is no trace anywhere of the use of a kid in place

of it. The alternative is therefore an indication of antiquity, while

the qualities required--innocent youth and the absence of blemish, were

sure to suggest a typical significance. For, if they were merely to

enhance its value, why not choose a costlier animal?

Various meanings have been discovered in the four days during which it

was reserved; but perhaps the true object was to give time for

deliberation, for the solemnity and import of the institution to fill

the minds of the people; time also for preparation, since the night

itself was one of extreme haste, and prompt action can only be obtained

by leisurely anticipation. We have Scriptural authority for applying it

to the Antitype, Who also was foredoomed, "the Lamb slain from the

foundation of the world" (Rev. xiii. 8).

But now it has to be observed that throughout the poetic literature the

people is taught to think of itself as a flock of sheep. "Thou leddest

Thy people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron" (Ps. lxxvii.

20); "We are Thy people and the sheep of Thy pasture" (Ps. lxxix. 13);

"All we like sheep have gone astray" (Isa. liii. 6); "Ye, O My sheep,

the sheep of My pasture, are men" (Ezek. xxxiv. 31); "The Lord of hosts

hath visited His flock" (Zech. x. 3). All such language would make more

easy the conception that what replaced the forfeited life was in some

sense, figuratively, in the religious idea, a kindred victim. One who

offered a lamb as his substitute sang "The Lord is my shepherd." "I have

gone astray like a lost sheep" (Ps. xxiii. 1, cxix. 176).

(Ver. 3, 6.) Very instructive it is that this first sacrifice of Judaism

could be offered by all the heads of houses. We have seen that the

Levites were presently put into the place of the eldest son, but also

that this function was exercised down to the time of Hezekiah by all who

were ceremonially clean, whereas the opposite holds good, immediately

afterwards, in the great passover of Josiah (2 Chron. xxx. 17, xxxv.

11).

It is impossible that this incongruity could be devised, for the sake of

plausibility, in a narrative which rested on no solid basis. It goes far

to establish what has been so anxiously denied--the reality of the

centralised worship in the time of Hezekiah. And it also establishes the

great doctrine that priesthood was held not by a superior caste, but on

behalf of the whole nation, in whom it was theoretically vested, and for

whom the priest acted, so that they were "a nation of priests."

(Ver. 8.) The use of unleavened bread is distinctly said to be in

commemoration of their haste--"for thou camest out of Egypt in haste"

(Deut. xvi. 3)--but it does not follow that they were forced by haste to

eat their bread unleavened at the first. It was quite as easy to prepare

leavened bread as to provide the paschal lamb four days previously.

We may therefore seek for some further explanation, and this we find in

the same verse in Deuteronomy, in the expression "bread of affliction."

They were to receive the meat of passover with a reproachful sense of

their unworthiness: humbly, with bread of affliction and with bitter

herbs.

Moreover, we learn from St. Paul that unleavened bread represents

simplicity and truth; and our Lord spoke of the leaven of the Pharisees

and of Herod (Mark viii. 15). And this is not only because leaven was

supposed to be of the same nature as corruption. We ourselves always

mean something unworthy when we speak of _mixed_ motives, possible

though it be to act from two motives, both of them high-minded. Now,

leaven represents mixture in its most subtle and penetrating form.

The paschal feast did not express any such luxurious and sentimental

religionism as finds in the story of the cross an easy joy, or even a

delicate and pleasing stimulus for the softer emotions, "a very lovely

song of one that hath a pleasant voice, and playeth well on an

instrument." No, it has vigour and nourishment for those who truly

hunger, but its bread is unfermented, and it must be eaten with bitter

herbs.

(Ver. 9.) Many Jewish sacrifices were "sodden," but this had to be roast

with fire. It may have been to represent suffering that this was

enjoined. But it comes to us along with a command to consume all the

flesh, reserving none and rejecting none. Now, though boiling does not

mutilate, it dissipates; a certain amount of tissue is lost, more is

relaxed, and its cohesion rendered feeble; and so the duty of its

complete reception is accentuated by the words "not sodden at all with

water." Nor should it be a barbarous feast, such as many idolatries

encouraged: true religion civilises; "eat not of it at all raw."

(Ver. 10.) Nor should any of it be left until the morning. At the first

celebration, with a hasty exodus impending, this would have involved

exposure to profanation. In later times it might have involved

superstitious abuses. And therefore the same rule is laid down which the

Church of England has carried on for the same reasons into the Communion

feast--that all must be consumed. Nor can we fail to see an ideal

fitness in the precept. Of the gift of God we may not select what

gratifies our taste or commends itself to our desires; all is good; all

must be accepted; a partial reception of His grace is no valid reception

at all.

(Ver. 12.) In describing the coming wrath, we understand the inclusion

equally of innocent and guilty men, because it is thus that all national

vengeance operates; and we receive the benefits of corporate life at the

cost, often heavy, of its penalties. The animal world also has to suffer

with us; the whole creation groaneth together now, and all expects

together the benefit of our adoption hereafter. But what were the

judgments against the idols of Egypt, which this verse predicts, and

another (Num. xxxiii. 4) declares to be accomplished? They doubtless

consisted chiefly in the destruction of sacred animals, from the beetle

and the frog to the holy ox of Apis--from the cat, the monkey, and the

dog, to the lion, the hippopotamus, and the crocodile. In their

overthrow a blow was dealt which shook the whole system to its

foundation; for how could the same confidence be felt in sacred images

when all the sacred beasts had once been slain by a rival invisible

Spiritual Being! And more is implied than that they should share the

common desolation: the text says plainly, of men and beasts the

firstborn must die, but all of these. The difference in the phrase is

obvious and indisputable; and in its fulfilment all Egypt saw the act of

a hostile and victorious deity.

(Ver. 13.) "And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses

where ye are." That it was a token to the destroying angel we see

plainly; but why _to them?_ Is it enough to explain the assertion, with

some, as meaning, upon their behalf? Rather let us say that the

publicity, the exhibition upon their doorposts of the sacrifice offered

within, was not to inform and guide the angel, but to edify the people.

They should perform an open act of faith. Their houses should be visibly

set apart. "With the mouth confession" (of faith) "is made unto

salvation," unto that deliverance from a hundred evasions and

equivocations, and as many inward doubts and hesitations, which comes

when any decisive act is done, when the die is cast and the Rubicon

crossed. A similar effect upon the mind, calming and steadying it, was

produced when the Israelite carried out the blood of the lamb, and by

sprinkling it upon the doorpost formally claimed his exemption, and

returned with the consciousness that between him and the imminent death

a visible barrier interposed itself.

Will any one deny that a similar help is offered to us of the later

Church in our many opportunities of avowing a fixed and personal belief?

Whoever refuses to comply with an unholy custom because he belongs to

Christ, whoever joins heartily in worship at the cost of making himself

remarkable, whoever nerves himself to kneel at the Holy Table although

he feels himself unworthy, that man has broken through many snares; he

has gained assurance that his choice of God is a reality: he has shown

his flag; and this public avowal is not only a sign to others, but also

a token to himself.

But this is only half the doctrine of this action. What he should thus

openly avow was his trust (as we have shown) in atoning blood.

And in the day of our peril what shall be our reliance? That our doors

are trodden by orthodox visitants only? that the lintels are clean, and

the inhabitants temperate and pure? or that the Blood of Christ has

cleansed our conscience?

Therefore (ver. 22) the blood was sprinkled with hyssop, of which the

light and elastic sprays were admirably suited for such use, but which

was reserved in the Law for those sacrifices which expiated sin (Lev.

xiv. 49; Num. xix. 18, 19). And therefore also none should go forth out

of his house until the morning, for we are not to content ourselves with

having once invoked the shelter of God: we are to abide under its

protection while danger lasts.

And (ver. 23) upon the condition of this marking of their doorposts the

Lord should _pass over_ their houses. The phrase is noteworthy, because

it recurs throughout the narrative, being employed nine times in this

chapter; and because the same word is found in Isaiah, again in contrast

with the ruin of others, and with an interesting and beautiful

expansion of the hovering poised notion which belongs to the word.[23]

Repeated commandments are given to parents to teach the meaning of this

institution to their children, (xii. 26, xiii. 8). And there is

something almost cynical in the notion of a later mythologist devising

this appeal to a tradition which had no existence at all; enrolling, in

support of his new institutions, the testimony (which had never been

borne) of fathers who had never taught any story of the kind.

On the other hand, there is something idyllic and beautiful in the

minute instruction given to the heads of families to teach their

children, and in the simple words put into their mouths, "It is because

of that which the Lord did for me when I came forth out of Egypt." It

carries us forward to these weary days when children scarcely see the

face of one who goes out to labour before they are awake, and returns

exhausted when their day is over, and who himself too often needs the

most elementary instruction, these heartless days when the teaching of

religion devolves, in thousands of families, upon the stranger who

instructs, for one hour in the week, a class in Sunday-school. The

contrast is not reassuring.

When all these instructions were given to Israel, the people bowed their

heads and worshipped. The bones of most of them were doomed to whiten in

the wilderness. They perished by serpents and by "the destroyer"; they

fell in one day three-and-twenty thousand, because they were

discontented and rebellious and unholy. And yet they could adore the

gracious Giver of promises and Slayer of foes. They would not obey, but

they were quite ready to accept benefits, to experience deliverance, to

become the favourites of heaven, to march to Palestine. So are too many

fain to be made happy, to find peace, to taste the good word of God and

the powers of the age to come, to go to heaven. But they will not take

up a cross. They will murmur if the well is bitter, if they have no

flesh but only angels' food, if the goodly land is defended by powerful

enemies.

On these terms, they cannot be Christ's disciples.

It is apparently the mention of a mixed multitude, who came with Israel

out of Egypt, which suggests the insertion, in a separate and dislocated

paragraph, of the law of the passover concerning strangers (vers. 38,

43-49).

An alien was not to eat thereof: it belonged especially to the covenant

people. But who was a stranger? A slave should be circumcised and eat

thereof; for it was one of the benignant provisions of the law that

there should not be added, to the many severities of his condition, any

religious disabilities. The time would come when all nations should be

blessed in the seed of Abraham. In that day the poor would receive a

special beatitude; and in the meantime, as the first indication of

catholicity beneath the surface of an exclusive ritual, it was

announced, foremost among those who should be welcomed within the fold,

that a slave should be circumcised and eat the passover.

And if a sojourner desired to eat thereof, he should be mindful of his

domestic obligations: all his males should be circumcised along with

him, and then his disabilities were at an end. Surely we can see in

these provisions the germ of the broader and more generous welcome which

Christ offers to the world. Let it be added that this admission of

strangers had been already implied at verse 19; while every form of

coercion was prohibited by the words "a sojourner and a hired servant

shall not eat of it," in verse 45.

_THE TENTH PLAGUE._

xii. 29-36.

And now the blow fell. Infants grew cold in their mothers' arms; ripe

statesmen and crafty priests lost breath as they reposed: the wisest,

the strongest and the most hopeful of the nation were blotted out at

once, for the firstborn of a population is its flower.

Pharaoh Menephtah had only reached the throne by the death of two elder

brethren, and therefore history confirms the assertion that he "rose

up," when the firstborn were dead; but it also justifies the statement

that his firstborn died, for the gallant and promising youth who had

reconquered for him his lost territories, and who actually shared his

rule and "sat upon the throne," Menephtah Seti, is now shown to have

died early, and never to have held an independent sceptre.

We can imagine the scene. Suspense and terror must have been wide

spread; for the former plagues had given authority to the more dreadful

threat, the fulfilment of which was now to be expected, since all

negotiations between Moses and Pharaoh had been formally broken off.

Strange and confident movements and doubtless menacing expressions

among the Hebrews would also make this night a fearful one, and there

was little rest for "those who feared the Lord among the servants of

Pharaoh." These, knowing where the danger lay, would watch their

firstborn well, and when the ashy change came suddenly upon a blooming

face, and they raised the wild cry of Eastern bereavement, then others

awoke to the same misery. From remote villages and lonely hamlets the

clamour of great populations was echoed back; and when, under midnight

skies in which the strong wind of the morrow was already moaning, the

awestruck people rushed into their temples, there the corpses of their

animal deities glared at them with glassy eyes.

Thus the cup which they had made their slaves to drink was put in larger

measure to their own lips at last, and not infants only were snatched

away, but sons around whom years of tenderness had woven stronger ties;

and the loss of their bondsmen, from which they feared so much national

weakness, had to be endured along with a far deadlier drain of their own

life-blood. The universal wail was bitter, and hopeless, and full of

terror even more than woe; for they said, "We be all dead men." Without

the consolation of ministering by sick beds, or the romance and gallant

excitement of war, "there was not a house where there was not one dead,"

and this is said to give sharpness to the statement that there was a

great cry in Egypt.

Then came such a moment as the Hebrew temperament keenly enjoyed, when

"the sons of them that oppressed them came bending unto them, and all

they that despised them bowed themselves down at the soles of their

feet." Pharaoh sent at midnight to surrender everything that could

possibly be demanded, and in his abject fear added, "and bless me

also"; and the Egyptians were urgent on them to begone, and when they

demanded the portable wealth of the land,--a poor ransom from a

vanquished enemy, and a still poorer payment for generations of forced

labour,--"the Lord gave them favour" (is there not a saturnine irony in

the phrase?) "in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they let them have

what they asked. And they spoiled the Egyptians."

By this analogy St. Augustine defended the use of heathen learning in

defence of Christian truth. Clogged by superstitions, he said, it

contained also liberal instruction, and truths even concerning

God--"gold and silver which they did not themselves create, but dug out

of the mines of God's providence, and misapplied. These we should

reclaim, and apply to Christian use" (_De Doct. Chr._, 60, 61).

And the main lesson of the story lies so plainly upon the surface that

one scarcely needs to state it. What God requires _must_ ultimately be

done; and human resistance, however stubborn and protracted, will only

make the result more painful and more signal at the last.

Now, every concern of our obscure daily lives comes under this law as

surely as the actions of a Pharaoh.

_THE EXODUS._

xii. 37-42.

The children of Israel journeyed from Rameses to Succoth. Already, at

the outset of their journey, controversy has had much to say about their

route. Much ingenuity has been expended upon the theory which brought

their early journey along the Mediterranean coast, and made the

overthrow of the Egyptians take place in "that Serbonian bog where

armies whole have sunk." But it may fairly be assumed that this view was

refuted even before the recent identification of the sites of Rameses

and Pi-hahiroth rendered it untenable.

How came these trampled slaves, who could not call their lives their

own, to possess the cattle which we read of as having escaped the

murrain, and the number of which is here said to have been very great?

Just before Moses returned, and when the Pharaoh of the Exodus appears

upon the scene, we are told that "their cry came up unto God, ... and

God heard their groaning, and God remembered His covenant ... and God

saw the children of Israel, and God took knowledge of them" (ii. 23).

May not this verse point to something unrecorded, some event before

their final deliverance? The conjecture is a happy one that it refers to

their share in the revolt of subject races which drove Menephtah for

twelve years out of his northern territories. If so, there was time for

a considerable return of prosperity; and the retention or forfeiture of

their chattels when they were reconquered would depend very greatly upon

circumstances unknown to us. At all events, this revolt is evidence,

which is amply corroborated by history and the inscriptions, of the

existence of just such a discontented and servile element in the

population as the "mixed multitude" which came out with them repeatedly

proved itself to be.

But here we come upon a problem of another kind. How long was Israel in

the house of bondage? Can we rely upon the present Hebrew text, which

says that "their sojourning which they sojourned in Egypt, was four

hundred and thirty years. And it came to pass at the end of the four

hundred and thirty years, even the selfsame day it came to pass, that

all the hosts of the Lord came out of the land of Egypt" (xii. 40, 41).

Certain ancient versions have departed from this text. The Septuagint

reads, "The sojourning of the children of Israel which they sojourned in

Egypt and _in the land of Canaan_, was four hundred and thirty years";

and the Samaritan agrees with this, except that it has "the sojourning

of the children of Israel and _of their fathers_." The question is,

which reading is correct? Must we date the four hundred and thirty years

from Abraham's arrival in Canaan, or from Jacob's descent into Egypt?

For the shorter period there are two strong arguments. The genealogies

in the Pentateuch range from four persons to six between Jacob and the

Exodus, which number is quite unable to reach over four centuries. And

St. Paul says of the covenant with Abraham that "the law which came four

hundred and thirty years after" (_i.e._ after the time of Abraham)

"could not disannul it" (Gal. iii. 17).

This reference by St. Paul is not so decisive as it may appear, because

he habitually quotes the Septuagint, even where he must have known that

it deviates from the Hebrew, provided that the deviation does not

compromise the matter in hand. Here, he was in nowise concerned with the

chronology, and had no reason to perplex a Gentile church by correcting

it. But it was a different matter with St. Stephen, arguing his case

before the Hebrew council. And he quotes plainly and confidently the

prediction that the seed of Abraham should be four hundred years in

bondage, and that one nation should entreat them evil four hundred

years (Acts vii. 6). Again, this is the clear intention of the words in

Genesis (xv. 13). And as to the genealogies, we know them to have been

cut down, so that seven names are omitted from that of Ezra, and three

at least from that of our Lord Himself. Certainly when we consider the

great population implied in an army of six hundred thousand adult men,

we must admit that the longer period is inherently the more probable of

the two. But we can only assert with confidence that just when their

deliverance was due it was accomplished, and they who had come down a

handful, and whom cruel oppression had striven to decimate, came forth,

no undisciplined mob, but armies moving in organised and regulated

detachments: "the Lord did bring the children of Israel forth by their

hosts" (ver. 51). "And the children of Israel went up armed out of the

land of Egypt" (xiii. 18).